nt, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint
is!"

Something clicked in his throat, as if he had works in him like a clock,
and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged, rough sleeve over
his eyes.

Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down
upon the pie, Pip made bold to say, "I am glad you enjoy it."

"Did you speak?"

"I said I was glad you enjoyed it."

"Thankee, my boy--. I do."

Pip had often watched a large dog eating his food; and he now noticed a
decided similarity between the dog's way of eating and the man's. The
man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed,
or rather snapped up, every mouthful too soon and too fast; and he
looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was
danger of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too
unsettled in his mind over it to enjoy it comfortably, Pip thought, or
to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at
the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.

Pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then being
afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off.

Pip passed a wretched morning, expecting every moment that the
disappearance of the pie would be found out. But Mrs. Joe was too much
taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors,
and were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork
and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a mince-pie, and a
pudding.

Just at the end of the dinner Pip thought his time had come to be found
out, for his sister said graciously to her guests--

"You must taste a most delightful and delicious present I have had. It's
a pie, a savory pork-pie."

Pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head
foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held
out a pair of handcuffs to him, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come
on." But they had not come for him, they only wanted Joe to mend the
handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped
and were somewhere hid in the marshes. This turned the attention of Mrs.
Joe from the disappearance of the pie, without which she had come back,
in great astonishment. When the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went
off, accompanied by Joe and one of the visitors, and Joe took Pip and
carried him on his back.

P