I tell you what I

should like. We are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith -

would you mind it?"

"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose," I answered, "but I

don't understand you."

"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming

piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith."

"I should like it very much."

"Then, my dear Handel," said he, turning round as the door opened,

"here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the

table, because the dinner is of your providing."

This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It

was a nice little dinner - seemed to me then, a very Lord Mayor's

Feast - and it acquired additional relish from being eaten under

those independent circumstances, with no old people by, and with

London all around us. This again was heightened by a certain gipsy

character that set the banquet off; for, while the table was, as Mr.

Pumblechook might have said, the lap of luxury - being entirely

furnished forth from the coffee-house - the circumjacent region of

sitting-room was of a comparatively pastureless and shifty

character: imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting

the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the melted

butter in the armchair, the bread on the bookshelves, the cheese in

the coalscuttle, and the boiled fowl into my bed in the next room -

where I found much of its parsley and butter in a state of

congelation when I retired for the night. All this made the feast

delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my

pleasure was without alloy.

We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of

his promise to tell me about Miss Havisham.

"True," he replied. "I'll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the

topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to

put the knife in the mouth - for fear of accidents - and that while

the fork is reserved for that use, it is not put further in than

necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do

as other people do. Also, the spoon is not generally used

over-hand, but under. This has two advantages. You get at your

mouth better (which after all is the object), and you save a good

deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on the part of the right

elbow."

He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we

both laughed and I scarcely blushed.

"Now," he pursued, "concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you

must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby,

and her father denied her nothing. Her father was a country

gentleman down in your part of the world, and was a brewer. I don't

know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is

indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake,

you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day."

"Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?" said I.

"Not on any account," returned Herbert; "but a public-house may

keep a gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud.

So was his daughter."

"Miss Havisham was an only child?" I hazarded.

"Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child;

she had a half-brother. Her father privately married again - his

cook, I rather think."

"I thought he was proud," said I.

"My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately,

because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was

dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and

then the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you

are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out

riotous, extravagant, undutiful - altogether bad. At last his

father disinherited him; but he softened when he was dying, and

left him well off, though not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.