“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing
the guests with her best grace, “You must taste,
to finish with, such a delightful and delicious present
of Uncle Pumblechook’s!”
Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!
“You must know,” said my sister, rising,
“it’s a pie; a savoury pork pie.”
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle
Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his
fellow-creatures, said — quite vivaciously,
all things considered — “Well, Mrs. Joe,
we’ll do our best endeavours; let us have a
cut at this same pie.”
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps
proceed to the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook
balance his knife. I saw re-awakening appetite
in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard
Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit of savoury pork
pie would lay atop of anything you could mention,
and do no harm,” and I heard Joe say, “You
shall have some, Pip.” I have never been
absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell
of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing
of the company. I felt that I could bear no more,
and that I must run away. I released the leg
of the table, and ran for my life.
But, I ran no further than the house door, for there
I ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with
their muskets: one of whom held out a pair of
handcuffs to me, saying, “Here you are, look
sharp, come on!”
The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down
the butt-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step,
caused the dinner-party to rise from table in confusion,
and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed,
to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of
“Gracious goodness gracious me, what’s
gone — with the — pie!”
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe
stood staring; at which crisis I partially recovered
the use of my senses. It was the sergeant who
had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at
the company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended
towards them in his right hand, and his left on my
shoulder.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said
the sergeant, “but as I have mentioned at the
door to this smart young shaver” (which he hadn’t),
“I am on a chase in the name of the king, and
I want the blacksmith.”
“And pray what might you want with him?”
retorted my sister, quick to resent his being wanted
at all.
“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant,
“speaking for myself, I should reply, the honour
and pleasure of his fine wife’s acquaintance;
speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.”
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant;
insomuch that Mr Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good
again!”
“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant,
who had by this time picked out Joe with his eye,
“we have had an accident with these, and I find
the lock of one of ’em goes wrong, and the coupling
don’t act pretty. As they are wanted for
immediate service, will you throw your eye over them?”
