“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, “as I hup 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. Gargery?”

“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever friends, and it were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being calc’lated 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 hart.” (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 endeavour 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 ’em in my ’at, and therefore you know as they are here.”  With which he took them out, and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me.  I am 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 meantersay that were not a question requiring a 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-twenty 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 and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, persisted in addressing me.