“I don’t take to Philip,” said he, smiling, “for it sounds like a moral boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, or so fat that he couldn’t see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a bird’s-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the neighbourhood.  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.”