“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so
many partings welded together, as I may say, and one
man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith,
and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith.
Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as
they come. If there’s been any fault at
all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not
two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres
else but what is private, and beknown, and understood
among friends. It ain’t that I am proud,
but that I want to be right, as you shall never see
me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong
in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the
forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes.
You won’t find half so much fault in me if you
think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my
hand, or even my pipe. You won’t find
half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should
ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in
at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there,
at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking
to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I
hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights
of this at last. And so god bless you,
dear old Pip, old chap, god bless you!”
I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was
a simple dignity in him. The fashion of his
dress could no more come in its way when he spoke
these words, than it could come in its way in Heaven.
He touched me gently on the forehead, and went out.
As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I
hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighbouring
streets; but he was gone.
It was clear that I must repair to our town next day,
and in the first flow of my repentance it was equally
clear that I must stay at Joe’s. But,
when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow’s
coach and had been down to Mr. Pocket’s and
back, I was not by any means convinced on the last
point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses
for putting up at the Blue Boar. I should be
an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not expected,
and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far
from Miss Havisham’s, and she was exacting and
mightn’t like it. All other swindlers upon
earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with
such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a
curious thing. That I should innocently take
a bad half-crown of somebody else’s manufacture,
is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly
reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!
An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly
folding up my bank-notes for security’s sake,
abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells; but what
is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my
own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!
