What I was chained to, and how heavily, became

intelligible to me, as I heard his hoarse voice, and sat looking up

at his furrowed bald head with its iron grey hair at the sides.

"I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the

streets; there mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must

have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses

for his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have

their horses (and blood 'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my

London gentleman? No, no. We'll show 'em another pair of shoes than

that, Pip; won't us?"

He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with

papers, and tossed it on the table.

"There's something worth spending in that there book, dear boy.

It's yourn. All I've got ain't mine; it's yourn. Don't you be

afeerd on it. There's more where that come from. I've come to the

old country fur to see my gentleman spend his money like a

gentleman. That'll be my pleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur to see

him do it. And blast you all!" he wound up, looking round the room

and snapping his fingers once with a loud snap, "blast you every

one, from the judge in his wig, to the colonist a stirring up the

dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the whole kit on you put

together!"

"Stop!" said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, "I want to

speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how

you are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay,

what projects you have."

"Look'ee here, Pip," said he, laying his hand on my arm in a

suddenly altered and subdued manner; "first of all, look'ee here. I

forgot myself half a minute ago. What I said was low; that's what

it was; low. Look'ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a-going to be

low."

"First," I resumed, half-groaning, "what precautions can be taken

against your being recognized and seized?"

"No, dear boy," he said, in the same tone as before, "that don't go

first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many years to make a

gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here,

Pip. I was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy."

Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as

I replied, "I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp

upon it!"

"Yes, but look'ee here," he persisted. "Dear boy, I ain't come so

fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a-saying--"

"How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?"

"Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed

agen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and

there's Wemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform?"

"Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?"

said I.

"Well," he returned, "there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to

advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A. M. come back

from Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by

it? Still, look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as

great, I should ha' come to see you, mind you, just the same."

"And how long do you remain?"

"How long?" said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and

dropping his jaw as he stared at me. "I'm not a-going back. I've

come for good."

"Where are you to live?" said I. "What is to be done with you?

Where will you be safe?"

"Dear boy," he returned, "there's disguising wigs can be bought for

money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black clothes -

shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what others

has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of

living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it."

"You take it smoothly now," said I, "but you were very serious last

night, when you swore it was Death."

"And so I swear it is Death," said he, putting his pipe back in his

mouth, "and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from

this, and it's serious that you should fully understand it to be

so.