Great Expectations Chapter 10: At the Three Jolly Bargemen...

The fear of growing up common so haunts Pip that he decides he needs to get serious about his education. This is no short order in Mr. Wopsle's great aunt's school, where the students spend most of the evening putting straws down each other's backs and messing around until the great aunt wakes from her coma-like sleep, then only to read a verse or two from a destroyed old Bible, full of words they neither understand, nor care to understand. Nevertheless, Pip asks Biddy for any extra attention she can give.

One Saturday night, Pip is sent by his sister to fetch Joe from The Three Jolly Bargemen, a bar in town. Pip finds Joe sitting with a strange and secret-looking man, who seems to be trying to catch Pip's attention. First, he rubs his leg in an odd manner, and then later, he stirs his drink with an object that Pip is shocked to see again: Joe's file, which Pip had stolen for the escaped convict. Pip is disturbed to think that somehow, this man knows his convict. The man also insists upon giving Pip a shilling when they leave the bar, and when Pip gets home and pulls it out of his pocket at Mrs. Joe's command, they're all shocked to see that wrapped around the shilling are two bills. Joe runs back to the bar, and has no luck finding the man to return his money, which everyone thinks has been mistakenly handed over to Pip. Mrs. Joe hides the money in a teapot, and Pip goes off to bed, where he's haunted by nightmares about the file.

Topic Tracking: Identity 3