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

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Today we'll be continuing great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 13 it was a trial to my feelings on the next day, but one to see Joe arrang himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me, Miss Haveishams.

However, as he thought his court suit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his working dress, rather because I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirt collar so very high behind that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.

At breakfast time, my sister declared her intention of going to town with us and being left at Uncle Pumblechuk's and called for, when we had done with our fine ladies, a way of putting the case from which Joe appeared inclined to argue the worst.

The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in Chalk upon the door, as it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work, the monosyllable hout, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken.

We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England, and plated straw, a pair of patents, a spare shawl, and an umbrella.

Though it was a fine bright day, I'm not quite clear whether these articles were carried penitentially or ostentatiously, but I rather think they were displayed as articles of property, much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on the rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession.

When we came to Pumblechuks, my sister bounced in and left us.

As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house.

Estella opened the gate as usual, and the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands, as if he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce.

Stella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well.

I followed next to her, and Joe came last.

When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of his toes.

Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat cuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence.

She was seated at her dressing table and looked round at us immediately.

Oh, said Cheetah Joe, you are the husband of the sister of this boy?

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself, or so like some extraordinary bird, standing as he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.

You are the husband?

Repeated Miss Havisham, of the sister of this boy.

It was very aggravating, but throughout the interview Joe persisted in addressing me instead of Miss Havisham.

Which I mean to say, Pip, Joe.

Now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence and great politeness.

As I hop and married, your sister and I were at the time what you might call, if you was anyways inclined, a single man.

Well, said Miss Havisham.

And you have reared the boy with the intention of taking him for your apprentice.

Is that so, Mr.

Gardery?

You know, Pip, replied Joe, as you and me were ever friends, and it were looked forward to betwixt us as being calculated to lead to larks not.

But what, Pip?

If you had ever made objections to the business, such as its being open to black and sut, or such like not but what they would have been attended to.

Don't you see?

Has the boy, said Miss Havisham, ever made any objection?

Does he like the trade which it is?

Well beknown to yourself, Pip, returned Joe.

Strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confidence and politeness.

That it were the wish of your own heart.

I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion before he went on to say.

And there weren't no objection on your part.

And Pip, it were the great wish of your heart.

It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham.

The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative and polite he persisted in being to me.

Have you brought his indentures with you?

Asked Miss Havisham.

Well, Pip, you know, replied Joe, as.

If that were a little unreasonable.

You yourself see me put him in my aat, and therefore you know as.

They'Re here, with which he took them out and gave them not to Miss Havisham but to me.

I'm afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow.

I know I was ashamed of him when I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed mischievously, I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to Miss Havisham.

You expected, said Miss Havisham as she looked them over.

No premium with the boy, Joe, I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all.

Why don't you answer, Pip?

Returned Joe, cutting me short as if.

He were hurt, which I mean to say that were not a question requiring an answer betwixt yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full well.

No, you know it to be.

No, Pip.

And wherefore should I say it?

Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was, better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there, and took up a little bag from the table beside her.

Pip has earned a premium here, she said, and here it is.

There are five and 20 guineas in this bag.

Give it to your master, Pip, as if he were absolutely out of his mind, with the wonder awakened in him by her strange figure in the strange room.

Joe, even at this pass, persisted in addressing me.

This is very liberal on your part, Pip, said Joe, and it is as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked for far nor near nor nowheres.

And now, old chap, said Joe, conveying.

To me a sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham.

And now, old chap, may we do our duty.

May you and me do our duty both on us by one and another, and by them which your liberal present have conveyed to be for the satisfaction mind of them is never here.

Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties until he triumphantly rescued himself with the words.

And from myself, far be it, these.

Words had such a round and convincing sound for him that he had said them twice.

Goodbye, Pip, said Miss Havisham.

Let them out, Estella.

Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?

I asked.

No.

Gardrey is your master now.

Gardery one word thus calling him back.

As I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe in a distinct emphatic voice, the boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward.

Of course, as an honest man you will expect no other and no more.

How Joe got out of the room, I've never been able to determine.

But I know that when he did get out, he was steadily proceeding upstairs instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid hold of him.

In another minute we were outside the gate and it was locked and Estella was gone.

When we stood in the daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall.

And said to me, astonishing.

And there he remained so long, saying astonishing at intervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming back.

At length he prolonged his remark into Pip.

I do assure you this is astonishing.

And so by degrees became conversational and able to walk away.

I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechuk's, he invented a subtle and deep design.

My reason is to be found in what took place in Mr.

Pumblechuk's parlor, where, on our presenting ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.

Well.

Cried my sister, addressing us both at once.

And what's happened to you, I wonder?

You condescend to come back to such poor society as this.

I am sure I do, Miss Havisham.

Said Joe with a fixed look at me like an effort of remembrance.

Made it very particular that we should give her.

Were it compliments or respects, Pip?

Compliments, I said, which that were my own belief, answered Joe.

Her compliments to Mrs.

J.

Gardry.

Much good they'll do me, observed my sister, but rather gratified, too.

And wishing, pursued Joe with another fixed look at me, like another effort of remembrance.

Not the state of Miss Havisham's, else where stitches would have allowed, were it.

Pip, of her having the pleasure, I added.

Of Lady's company, said Joe, and drew a long breath.

Well, cried my sister with a mollified glance at Mr.

Pumblechuk, she might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but it's better late than never.

And what did she give young Rantipol here?

She give him?

Said Joe.

Nothing.

Mrs.

Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.

What'd she give?

Said Joe.

She give to his friends, and by his friends were her explanation, I mean, into the hands of his sister, Mrs.

Jake Argery.

Then were her words.

Mrs.

Jake Argery.

She mayn't have knowed, added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, whether it were Joe or George.

My sister looked at Pumblechuk, who smoothed the elbows of his wooden armchair and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand.

And how much have you got?

Asked my sister, laughing, positively laughing.

What would present company say to ten pound?

Demanded Joe.

They'd say, returned my sister curtly, pretty well.

Not too much pretty well.

It's more than that, then, said Joe.

That fearful imposter Pumblechuk immediately nodded and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair, it's more than that, Mum.

Why, you don't mean to say, began my sister.

Yes, I do, Mum, said Pumblechuk.

But wait a bit.

Go on, Joseph.

Good.

In you go on.

What would present company say?

Proceeded Joe, to 20 pound.

Handsome would be the word, returned my sister.

Well then, said Joe, it's more than 20 pound.

That abject hypocrite Pumblechuk nodded again, and said with a patronizing laugh, it's more than that, Mum.

Good, again.

Follow her up, Joseph, then, to make.

An end of it, said Joe delightedly, handing the bag to my sister, it's.

Five and 20 pound.

It's five and 20 pound, mom, echoed.

The basst of Swindler's Pumblechuk, rising to shake hands with her.

And it's no more than your merits.

As I said when my opinion was.

Asked, and I wish you joy of.

The money, if the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody with a right patronage that left all his former criminality far behind now, you see, Joseph and wife, said Pumblechuck as he took me by the arm above the elbow.

I am one of them that always.

Go right through with what they've begun.

This boy must be bound out of hand.

That's my way, bound out of hand.

Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechuck, said my sister, grasping the money, we're deeply beholden to you.

Never mind me, Mum, returned that diabolical cornchandler.

A pleasure's a pleasure all the world over.

But this boy, you know we must have him bound, I said I'd see to it.

To tell you the truth, the justices were sitting in the town hall near at hand, and we at once went over to have me bound, apprentice to Joe in the magisterial presence.

I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechuk, exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick.

Indeed, it was the general impression in court that I'd been taken red handed, for as Pumblechuk shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some people say, what's he done?

And others.

He's a youngin too, but looks bad, don't he?

One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tracked, ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man, fitted up with a perfect sausage shop of fetters and entitled to be read in my cell.

The hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church, and with people hanging over the pews looking on.

And with mighty justices, one with a powdered head leaning back in chairs with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspapers.

And with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hard bake and sticking plaster here in a corner.

My indentures were duly signed and attested.

And I was bound, Mr.

Pumblechuk, holding me all the while as if we had looked in our own way to the scaffold to have those little preliminaries disposed of.

When we had come out again and had got rid of the boys who'd been put into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechuk's, and there my sister became so excited by the 25 guineas that nothing would serve her.

But we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the blue boar, and that Pumblechuk must go over in his shay's cart and bring the hubbles and Mr.

Wapsel.

It was agreed to be done, and a most melancholy day I passed for it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason in the minds of the whole company that I was an excretion on the entertainment.

And to make it worse, they all asked me from time to time, in short, whenever they had nothing else to do, why I didn't enjoy myself, and what could I possibly do then but say I was enjoying myself when I wasn't?

However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of it.

That swindling Pumblechuk, exalted into the beneficient contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table, and when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I played it cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, or indulged in other vagaries, which the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable.

He placed me standing on a chair beside him to illustrate his remarks.

My only other remembrances of the great festival are that they wouldn't let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up and told me to enjoy myself.

That rather late in the evening Mr.

Wapsel gave us Collins'ode and threw his blood stained sword in, thundered down with such effect that a waiter came in and said, the commercials underneath sent their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumbler's arms that they were all in excellent spirits on the road home and saying, O Lady Fair, Mr.

Wapsel taking the bass and asserting with a tremendously strong voice in reply to the inquisitive boar who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs, that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was, upon the whole, the weakest pilgrim going.

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly wretched and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade.

I'd liked it once, but once was not now.

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