There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone.  But, I delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it as a miracle of erudition.

“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a scholar you are!  An’t you?”

“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it:  with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to anythink!  Here’s a J and a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right.  Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah!  But read the rest, Jo.”

“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye, “One, two, three.  Why, here’s three Js, and three Os, and three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!”

I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter.

“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished.  “You are a scholar.”

“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage.

“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.

“But supposing you did?”

“It can’t be supposed,” said Joe.  “Tho’ I’m oncommon fond of reading, too.”

“Are you, Joe?”

“On-common.  Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better.  Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, “Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,” how interesting reading is!”

I derived from this last, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy, Pursuing the subject, I inquired: 

“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between the lower bars:  “I’ll tell you.  My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful.  It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed, ’xcepting at myself.  And he hammered at me with a wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil. — You’re a-listening and understanding, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”