uldn't have you starve to
death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature, would we, Pip?"

Something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat, and he
turned his back. The boat was ready for him, and we saw him rowed off by a
crew of convicts like himself.

We saw the boat go alongside of the Hulks, and we saw the prisoner taken
up the side and disappear, and then the excitement was all over. I was so
tired and sleepy by that time that Joe took me on his back and carried me
home, and when we arrived there I was fast asleep. When at last I was
roused by the heat and noise and lights, Joe was relating the story of our
expedition and of the convict's confession of his theft from our pantry.
This was all I heard that night, for my sister clutched me, as a slumbrous
offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me very forcefully up to
bed, and after that the subject of the convict and the robbery was only
mentioned on a few occasions when something brought it to mind. In regard
to my part of it, I do not recall any tenderness of conscience in
reference to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me.
But I dearly loved Joe, and it was on my mind that I ought to tell him the
whole truth. And yet I did not, fearing that I might lose his love and
confidence, and that he would think me worse than I really was. And so he
never heard the truth of the matter. At this time I was only odd-boy about
the forge, or errand boy for any neighbour who wanted a job done, and in
the evenings I went to a school kept by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who used
to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth
who paid twopence per week each for the improving opportunity of seeing
her do it. With her assistance, and the help of her granddaughter, Biddy,
I struggled through the alphabet, as if it had been a bramble bush,
getting considerably worried and scratched by each letter. After that, the
nine figures began to add to my misery, but at last I began to read,
write, and cipher on the smallest scale.

One night, about a year after our hunt for the convicts, Joe and I sat
together in the chimney corner while I struggled with a letter which I was
writing on my slate to Joe, for practice. As we sat there, Joe made the
fire and swept the hearth, for we were momentarily expecting Mrs. Joe. It
was market day, and she had gone to market with Uncle Pumblechook to
assist him in buying such household stuffs a