Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the ninth chapter of Great Expectations.

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Today we'll be continuing great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter Nine When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham's and asked a number of questions, and I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignomiously shoved against the kitchen wall because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.

If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people, to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine, which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity, it is the key to many reservations.

I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham's as my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood.

Not only that, but I felt convinced that Miss Havisham, too, would not be understood, and although she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as she really was.

To say nothing of Mrs.

Stella, before the contemplation of Mrs.

Jo.

Consequently, I said as little as I could and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall.

The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechuk, preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his shay's card at tea time to have the details divulged to him.

And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence.

Well, boy, Uncle Pumblechuk began as soon as he was seated in the chair of honor by the fire, how did you get on uptown?

I answered, pretty well, sir, and my sister shook her fist at me.

Pretty well?

Mr.

Pumblechuk repeated.

Pretty well is no answer.

Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy.

Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy.

Perhaps.

Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine.

I reflected for some time and then answered as if I had discovered a new idea.

I mean, pretty well.

My sister, with an exclamation of impatience, was going to fly at me.

I had no shadow of defense, for Joe was busy in the forge when Mr.

Pumblechuk interposed with no, don't lose your temper.

Leave this lad to me.

Ma'am, leave this lad to me.

Mr.

Pumblechuk then turned me towards him as if he were going to cut my hair, and said first, to get our thoughts in order, 43 pence.

I calculated the consequences of replying 400 pound, and, finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could, which was somewhere about eightpence off.

Mr.

Pumbletruck then put me through my pence table.

From twelve pence make one shilling up to fortypence, make three and fourpence, and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, now, how much is 43 pence?

To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, I don't know.

And I was so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know.

Mr.

Pumblechuk worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me and said, is 43 pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for instance?

Yes, said I, and although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoiled his joke and brought him to a dead stop.

Boy, what like is, Miss Havisham?

Mr.

Pumblechuk began again when he had recovered, folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the screw.

Very tall and dark, I told him.

Is she, Uncle?

Asked my sister.

Mr.

Pumblechuk winked ascent from which I at once inferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.

Good, said Mr.

Pumblechuk conceitedly.

This is the way to have him.

We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mom.

I am sure, uncle, returned Mrs.

Joe.

I wish you had him always.

You know so well how to deal with him now, boy.

What was she doing of when you went in today?

Asked Mr.

Pumblechuck.

She was sitting, I answered, in a black velvet coach.

Mr.

Pumblechuck and Mrs.

Jo stared at one another as they well might, and both repeated in a black velvet coach.

Yes, said I, and Mrs.

Stella, that's her niece, I think, handed her in cake and wine at the coach window on a gold plate, and we all had cake and wine on gold plates, and I got up behind the coach to eat mine because she told me to.

Was anybody else there?

Asked Mr.

Pumblechuk.

Four dogs, said I.

Large or small?

Immense, said I, and they fought for veal cutlets out of her silver basket.

Mr.

Pumblechuk and Mrs.

Jo stared at one another again in utter amazement.

I was perfectly frantic, a reckless witness under the torture, and would have told them anything.

Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?

Asked my sister.

In Miss Havisham's room.

I stared again, but there weren't any horses to it.

I added the saving clause in the moment of rejecting four richly comparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

Can this be possible, Uncle?

Asked Mrs.

Joe.

What can the boy mean?

I'll tell you, Mum, said Mr.

Pumblechuk.

My opinion is it's a sedan chair.

She's flighty, you know.

Very flighty.

Quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan chair.

Did you ever see her in it, Uncle?

Asked Mrs.

Jo.

How could I?

He returned, forced to the admission, when I never see her in my life.

Never clapped eyes upon her.

Goodness, Uncle.

And yet you've spoken to her.

Why, don't you know, said Mr.

Pumblechuk testily, that when I've been there I've been took up to the outside of her door, and the door stood a jar.

And she's spoken to me that way.

Don't say you don't know that, Mum.

Howsoever the boy went there to play.

What did you play at, boy?

We played with flags, I said.

I beg to observe that I think of myself with amazement when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.

Flags echoed my sister.

Yes, said I.

Estella waved a blue flag and I waved a red one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars out at the coach window.

And then we all waved our swords and Harad.

Swords?

Repeated my sister.

Where did you get swords from?

Out of a cupboard, said I.

And I saw pistols in it, and jam and pills.

There was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles.

That's true, Mum, said Mr.

Pumblechuk with a grave nod.

That's the state of the case for that much I've seen myself.

And then they both stared at me and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them and plated the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.

If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard and should have hazarded the statement, but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery.

They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marbles I'd already presented for their consideration, that I escaped.

The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup of tea.

To whom?

My sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for the gratification of his related my pretended experiences.

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence, but only as regarded him not in the least as regarded the other two towards Joe.

And Joe only.

I considered myself a young monster.

While they sat debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and favor, they had no doubt that Miss Havisham would do something for me.

Their doubts related to the form that something would take.

My sister stood out for property.

Mr.

Pumblechuk was in favor of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade, say, the corn and seed trade, for instance.

Joe fell into the deepest disgrace with both for offering the bright suggestion that I might only be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal cutlets.

If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that, said my sister, and you've got any work to do, you had better go and do it.

So he went after Mr.

Pumblechuk had driven off.

And when my sister was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for the night.

Then I said, before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you something.

Should you, Pip?

Said Joe, drawing his shoeing stool near the forge.

Min tell us.

What is it, Pip?

Joe, said I, taking hold of his rolled up shirt sleeve and twisting it between my finger and thumb.

You remember all that about Miss Havisham's?

Remember, said Joe.

I believe you.

Wonderful.

It's a terrible thing, Joe.

It ain't true.

What are you telling of, PiP?

Cried Joe, falling back in the greatest amazement.

You don't mean to say it's yes, I do.

It's lies, Joe, but not all of it.

Why, sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was no black well wit, co eh?

For I stood shaking my head.

But at least there was dogs, Pip.

Come, Pip, said Joe persuasively.

If there weren't no wheel cutlets, at least there was dogs.

No, Joe.

A dog.

Said Joe.

A puppy come.

No, Joe.

There was nothing at all of the kind.

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.

Pip, old chap, this won't do.

Old fellow, I say, where do you expect to go to?

It's terrible, Joe, ain't it?

Terrible?

Cried Joe.

Awful.

What possessed you?

I don't know what possessed me, Joe, I replied, letting his shirt sleeve go and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head.

But I wish you hadn't taught me to call knaves at cards Jacks.

And I wish my boots weren't so thick, nor my hands so coarse.

And then I told Joe that I felt miserable, and that I hadn't been able to explain myself to Mrs.

Joe and Pumblechuk, who were so rude to me, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies had come of it somehow, though I didn't know how, this was a case of metaphysics.

At least it's difficult for Joe to deal with, as for me, but Joe took the case altogether out of the region of metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it.

There's one thing you may be sure.

Of, Pip, said Joe after some rumination.

Namely that lies is lies.

However they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies and work round to the same.

Don't you tell no more of them, Pip.

That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap.

And as to being common, I don't make it out at all clear you are uncommon in some things you're uncommon small.

Likewise, you're an uncommon scholar.

No, I'm ignorant and backward, Joe.

Why, see what a letter you wrote last night?

Wrote in print.

Even I've seen letters on from gentle folks that I'll swear weren't wrote in print, said Joe.

I've learned next to nothing, Joe.

You think much of me.

It's only that.

Well, Pip, said Joe, be it so, or be it sant, you must be a common scholar before you can be an uncommon one.

I should hope the king upon his throne when his crown upon his head can't sit and write his acts of Parliament and print without having begun when he were an unpromoted prince with the alphabet.

Ah, added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning.

And begun at a too, and worked.

His way to Z.

And I know what that is to do, though I can't say I've exactly done it.

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me.

Whether common ones as to callings and earnings, pursued Joe reflectively, mightn't be the better of continuing for to keep company with common ones instead of going out to play with uncommon ones.

Which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps.

No, Joe, I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip.

Whether that might be or mightn't be is a thing as can't be looked into now without putting your sister on the rampage.

And that's a thing not to be thought of as being done intentional.

Looky here, Pip, is what is said to you by a true friend with this to you, the true friends say, if you can't get to be uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked.

So don't tell no more on him, Pip, and leave well and die happy.

You're not angry with me, Joe?

No, old chap.

But bearing in mind that them were which I mean, or say, of a stunning and outdous sort, alluding to them which bordered on wheel cutlets and dog fighting, a sincere well wisher would advise Pip they're being dropped into your meditations when you go upstairs to bed.

That's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more.

When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget Joe's recommendation.

And yet my young mind was in that disturbed and unthinkful state that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe a mere blacksmith, how thick his boots and how coarse his hands.

I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen but were far above the level of such common doings.

I fell asleep recalling what I used to do when I was at Miss Havisham's, as though I'd been there weeks or months instead of hours, and as though it were quite an old subject of remembrance instead of one that had arisen only that day.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me.

But it is the same with any life.

Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been.

Pause, you who read this and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers that would never have bound you but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

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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