Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-sixth chapter of Great Expectations.

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Today we'll be continuing Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Chapter 26 It fell out as Wimick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk.

My guardian was in his room washing his hands with the scented soap when I went into the office from Walworth, and he called me to him and gave me the invitation for myself and my friends, which Wimick had prepared me to receive.

No ceremony, he stipulated, and no dinner dress, and say tomorrow.

I asked him where we should come to, for I had no idea where he lived, and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission that he replied Come here and I'll take you home with me.

I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off as if he were a surgeon or a dentist.

He had a closet in his room fitted up for the purpose which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop.

It had an unusually large jack towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands and wipe them and dry them all over this towel whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room.

When I and my friends repaired to him at 06:00 next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands but laving his face and gargling his throat.

And even when he had done all that and had gone all round to the jack towel, he took out his penk and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on.

There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into the street who were evidently anxious to speak with him.

But there was something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence that they gave it up for that day.

As we walked along westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and whenever that happened, he talked louder to me.

But he never otherwise recognized anybody or took notice that anybody recognized him.

He conducted us to Gerard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of that street, rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting and with dirty windows.

He took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy and little used, so up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms.

On the first floor there were carved garlands on the paneled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome I know what kind of loops I thought they looked like.

Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms.

The second was his dressing room, the third his bedroom.

He told us that he held the whole house but rarely used more of it than we saw.

The table was comfortably laid, no silver in the service, of course, and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb waiter with a variety of bottles and decanters on it and four dishes of fruit for dessert.

I noticed throughout that he kept everything under his own hand and distributed everything himself.

There was a bookcase in the room.

I saw from the backs of the books that they were about evidence criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of Parliament and such things.

The furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch chain.

It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen.

In a corner was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp, so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work, as he had scarcely seen my three companions until now, for he and I had walked together.

He stood on the hearthrug after ringing the bell and took a searching look at them.

To my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally, if not solely, interested in drummel.

Pip, said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to the window.

I don't know one from the other.

Who's the spider?

The spider?

Said I.

The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.

That's Bentley drummel.

I replied.

The one with the delicate face, a star top.

Not making the least account of the one with the delicate face, he returned.

Bentley Drummel is his name, is it?

I like the look of that fellow.

He immediately began to talk to Drummel, not at all deterred by his replying in his heavy, reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him.

I was looking at the two when there came between me and them the housekeeper with the first dish for the table.

She was a woman of about 40, I supposed, but I may have thought her younger than she was, rather tall, of a live nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes and a quantity of streaming hair.

I cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were panting and her face to bear curious expression of suddenness and flutter.

But I know that I had been to see Macbeth as a theater a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the witch's cauldron.

She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished.

We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummel on one side of him while StarTOP sat on the other.

It was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on the table.

And we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards and then an equally choice bird sauces wines.

All the accessories we wanted and all of the best were given out by our host from his dumb waiter.

And when they had made the circuit of the table, he always put them back again.

Similarly, he dealt us clean plates and knives and forks for each course and dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair.

No other attendant than the housekeeper appeared.

She sat on every dish, and I always saw in her face a face rising out of the cauldron.

Years afterwards, I made a dreadful likeness of that woman by causing a face that had no other natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair, to pass behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room induced to take a particular notice of the housekeeper both by her own striking appearance and by wimc's preparation.

I observed that whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my guardian and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put before him.

Hesitatingly as if she dreaded his calling her back and wanted him to speak when she was nigh.

If he had anything to say I fancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this and a purpose of always holding her in suspense.

Dinner went off gaily, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions out of us.

For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish expenditure and to patronize Herbert and to boast of my great prospects before I quite knew that I had opened my lips.

It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummel the development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious way at the rest was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off.

It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our conversation turned upon our rowing feats and that Drummel was rallied for coming up behind of a knight in that slow, amphibious way of his.

Drummel upon this informed our host that he much preferred our room to our company, and that as to skill, he was more than our master, and that as to strength, he could scatter us like chaff by some invisible agency.

My guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this trifle, and he felt bearing and spanning his arm to show how muscular it was, and we all felt bearing and spanning our arms in a ridiculous manner.

Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table.

My guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, was leaning back in his chair, biting the side of his forefinger and showing an interest in Drummel that to me was quite inexplicable.

Suddenly he clapped his large hand on the housekeepers like a trap as she stretched it across the table.

So suddenly and smartly did he do this that we all stopped in our foolish contention.

If you talk of strength, said Mr.

Jaggers, I'll show you a wrist.

Molly, let them see your wrist.

Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other hand behind her waist.

Master, she said in a low voice, with her eyes attentively and treatingly fixed upon him, don't.

I'll show you a wrist?

Repeated Mr.

Jaggers, with an immovable determination to show it.

Molly, let them see your wrist.

Master, she again murmured.

Please, Molly, said Mr.

Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking at the opposite side of the room, let them see both your wrists.

Show them.

Come.

He took his hand from hers and turned that wrist up on the table.

She brought her other hand from behind her and held the two out side by side.

The last wrist was much disfigured, deeply scarred and scarred across and across.

When she held her hands out, she took her eyes from Mr.

Jaggers and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession.

There's power here, said Mr Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews with his forefinger.

Very few men have the power of wrist that this woman has.

It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these hands.

I've had occasion to notice many hands, but I never saw stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these.

While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued to look at every one of us in regular succession.

As we sat.

The moment he ceased, she looked at him again.

It'll do, Molly, said Mr Jaggers, giving her a slight nod.

You have been admired and couldn't go.

She withdrew her hands and went out of the room.

And Mr Jaggers, putting the decanters on from his dumb waiter, filled his glass and passed round to the wine at 09:30.

Gentlemen, said he, we must break up.

Pray make the best use of your time.

I am glad to see you all.

Mr.

Drummel, I drink to you.

If his object in singling out Drummel were to bring him out still more, it perfectly succeeded.

In a sulky triumph, Drummel showed his morose depreciation of the rest of us in a more and more offensive degree until he became downright intolerable.

Through all his stages, Mr Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest.

He actually seemed to serve as a zest to Mr Jaggers'wine in our boyish want of discretion.

I dare say we took too much to drink, and I know we talked too much.

We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummels, to the effect that we were too free with our money.

It led to my remarking with more zeal than discretion, that it came with a bad grace from him to whom StarTOP had lent money in my presence but a week or so before.

Well, retorted Drummel, he'll be paid.

I don't mean to imply that he won't, said I, but it might make you hold your tongue about us and our money.

I should think.

You should think, retorted Drummel.

Oh, Lord.

I dare say, I went on, meaning to be very severe, that you wouldn't lend money to any of us if we wanted it.

You are right said drummel.

I wouldn't lend one of you a sixpence.

I wouldn't lend anybody a sixpence.

Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances.

I should say.

You should say repeated drummel.

Oh, Lord.

This was so very aggravating the more especially as I found myself making no way against his surly obtuseness, that I said disregarding Herbert's efforts to check me.

Come, Mr Drummel, since we're on the subject, I'll tell you what passed between Herbert here and me when you borrowed that money.

I don't want to know what passed between Herbert there and you, growled Drummel.

And I think, he added in a lower growl, that we might both go to the devil and shake ourselves.

I'll tell you, however, said I, whether you want to know or not.

We said that as you put it in your pocket.

Very glad to get it.

You seem to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.

Drummel laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces with his hands in his pockets and his round shoulders raised plainly signifying that it was quite true, and that he despised us as a**** all hereupon.

StarTOP took him in hand, though with a much better grace than I had shown, and extorted him to be a little more agreeable.

StarTOP, being a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummel being the exact opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront.

He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way and StarTOP tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made us all laugh.

Resenting this little success, more than anything, drummel, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass and would have flung it at his adversary's head but for our entertainers dexterously, seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that purpose.

Gentlemen, said Mr Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass and hauling out his golder peter by its massive chain, I'm exceedingly sorry to announce that it's 09:30.

On this hint.

We all rose to depart before we got to the street door.

StarTOP was cheerily calling, Drummel, old boy.

As if nothing had happened.

But the old boy was so far from responding that he would not even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way.

So Herbert and I, who remained in tow, saw them going down the street on opposite sides, StarTOP leading, and Drummel lagging behind in the shadow of the houses, much as he was want to follow in his boat.

As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for a moment and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian.

I found him in his dressing room, surrounded by a stock of boots, already hard at it, washing his hands of us.

I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame me much.

Who, said he sluicing his face and speaking through the water drops.

It's nothing, Pip.

I like that spider.

Though.

He had turned towards me now and was shaking his head and blowing and towing himself.

I'm glad you like him, sir, said I.

But I don't.

No, no, my guardian assented don't have too much to do with him.

Keep as clear of him as you can.

But I like the fellow, Pip.

He is one of the true sort.

Why, if I was a fortune teller looking out of the towel, he caught my eye.

But I'm not a fortune teller, he said, letting his head drop into a festoon of towel and tallying away at his two ears.

You know what I am, don't you?

Good night, Pip.

Good night, sir.

In about a month after that, the spider's time with Mr.

Pocket was up for good.

And to the great relief of all, the house but Mrs.

Pocket, he went home to the family hole.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Great Expectations.

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