I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house,where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,—to this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor’s dominions which is not geographical,—and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By and by, I roused myself, and went to the play.
There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty’s service,—a most excellent man,though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places,and not quite so loose in others,—who knocked all the little men’s hats over their eyes,though he was very generous and brave,and who wouldn’t hear of anybody’s paying taxes,though he was very patriotic.He had a bag of money in his pocket,like a pudding in the cloth,and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture,with great rejoicings;the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody else’s, and sing “Fill, fill!” A certain dark-complexioned Swab, however,who wouldn’t fill, or do anything else that was proposed to him,and whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn’t confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle’s (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot, and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with a discontented eye, became aware of me.
The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime,in the first scene of which,it pained me to suspect that I detected Mr.Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,—on account of the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice of his daughter’s heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,—summoned a sententious Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were lost in amazement.
There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr.Wopsle’s eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him waiting for me near the door.
“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the street together.“I saw that you saw me.”
“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you.But who else was there?”
“Who else?”
“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle,drifting into his lost look again;“and yet I could swear to him.”
Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr.Wopsle to explain his meaning.
“Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there,” said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way,“I can’t be positive; yet I think I should.”
Involuntarily I looked round me,as I was accustomed to look round me when I went home;for these mysterious words gave me a chill.
“Oh!He can’t be in sight,” said Mr. Wopsle.“He went out before I went off. I saw him go.”
Having the reason that I had for being suspicious,I even suspected this poor actor.I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission.Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing.
“I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr.Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious of him,sitting behind you there like a ghost.”
My former chill crept over me again,but I was resolved not to speak yet,for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there.
“I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed,I see you do. But it is so very strange!You’ll hardly believe what I am going to tell you.I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me.”
“Indeed?” said I.
“No, indeed. Mr. Pip,you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day,when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery’s,and some soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?”
“I remember it very well.”
“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts,and that we joined in it,and that Gargery took you on his back,and that I took the lead,and you kept up with me as well as you could?”
“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought,—except the last clause.
“And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch,and that there was a scuffle between them,and that one of them had been severely handled and much mauled about the face by the other?”
“I see it all before me.”
“And that the soldiers lighted torches,and put the two in the centre,and that we went on to see the last of them,over the black marshes,with the torchlight shining on their faces,—I am particular about that,—with the torchlight shining on their faces,when there was an outer ring of dark night all about us?”
“Yes,” said I. “I remember all that.”
“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight.I saw him over your shoulder.”
“Steady!” I thought. I asked him then,“Which of the two do you suppose you saw?”
“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily,“and I’ll swear I saw him!The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him.”
“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could put on of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious indeed!”