To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread-and-butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn′t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister′s observation.
"What′s the matter now?" said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.
"I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! You′ll do yourself a mischief. It′ll stick somewhere. You can′t have chawed it, Pip."
"What′s the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than before.
"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I′d recommend you to do it," said Joe, all aghast. "Manners is manners, but still your elth′s your elth."
By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.
"Now, perhaps you′ll mention what′s the matter," said my sister, out of breath, "you staring great stuck pig."
Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.
"You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, "you and me is always friends, and I′d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—" he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me - "such a most oncommon Bolt as that!"
"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister.
"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, "I Bolted, myself, when I was your age - frequent - and as a boy I′ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it′s a mercy you ain′t Bolted dead."
My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair: saying nothing more than the awful words, "You come along and be dosed."
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a boot-jack.
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