and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had
known all about it beforehand.

"And how much have you got?" asked my
sister, laughing. Positively, laughing!

"What would present company say to ten
pound?" demanded Joe.

"They'd say," returned my sister, curtly,
"pretty well. Not too much, but pretty well."

"It's more than that, then," said Joe.

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook,
immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms
of his chair: ''It's more than that, mum."

"Why you don't mean to say——" began my
sister.

"What would present company say,"
proceeded Joe, " to twenty pound?"

"Handsome would be the word," returned
my sister.

'"Well, then," said Joe, "it's more than
twenty pound."

That abject Hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded
again, and said, with a patronising laugh, " It's
more than that, mum. Good again! Follow
her up, Joseph!"

"Then to make an end of it," said Joe,
delightedly handing the bag to my sister; "it's
five-and-twenty pound."

"It's five-and-twenty pound, mum," echoed
that basest of swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to
shake hands with her; "and it's no more than
your merits (as I said when my opinion was
asked), and I wish you joy of the money!"

If the Villain had stopped here, his case would
have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened
his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody,
with a right of patronage that left all his former
criminality far behind.

"Now you see, Joseph and wife," said
Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the
elbow, " I am one of them that always go right
through with what they've begun. This boy
must be bound, out of hand. That's my way.
Bound out of hand."

"Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook," said
my sister (grasping the money), " we're deeply
beholden to you."

"Never mind me, mum," returned that
diabolical corn-chandler. " A pleasure's a pleasure,
all the world over. But this boy, you know;
we must have him bound. I said I'd see to it—
to tell you the truth."

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall
near at hand, and we at once went over to have
me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial
presence. I say, we went over, but I was
pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I
had at that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick;
indeed, it was the general impression in Court
that I had been taken red-handed, for, as
Pumblechook shoved me before him through the
crowd, I heard some people say, " What's he
done?" and others, " He's a young 'un too, but
looks bad, don't he?" One person of mild and
benevolent aspect even gave me a tract
ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young
man fitted up with a perfect sausage-shop of
fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY CELL.

The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with
higher pews in it than a church—and with
people hanging over the pews looking on— and
with mighty Justices (one with a powdered
head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms,
or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or
reading the newspapers—and with some shining
black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic
eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and
sticking-plaister. Here, in a corner, my indentures
were duly signed and attested, and I was
"bound;" Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the
while as if we had looked in on our way to the
scaffold, to have those little preliminaries
disposed of.

When we had come out again, and had got
rid of the boys who had been put into great
spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly
tortured, and who were much disappointed to
find that my friends were merely rallying round
me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there
my sister became so excited by the twenty-five
guineas, that nothing would serve her but we
must have a dinner out of that windfall, at the
Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go
over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles
and Mr. Wopsle.

It was agreed to be done; and a most
melancholy day I passed. For, it inscrutably appeared
to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole
company, that I was an excrescence on the
entertainment. And to make it worse, they all
asked me from time to time—in short, whenever
they had nothing else to do— why I didn't enjoy
myself. And what could I possibly do then,
but say I was enjoying myself— when I
wasn't?

However, they were grown up and had their
own way, and they made the most of it. That
swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the
benificent contriver of the whole occasion, actually
took the top of the table; and, when he
addressed them on the subject of my being bound,
and fiendishly congratulated them on my being
liable to imprisonment if I played at cards,
drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad
company, or indulged in other vagaries which
the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate
as next to inevitable, he placed me standing
on a chair beside him, to illustrate his
remarks.

My only other remembrances of the great
festival are, That they wouldn't let me go to
sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off,
woke me up and told me to enjoy myself. That,
rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us
Collins's ode, and threw his blood-stain'd sword
in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter
came in and said, " The Commercials underneath
sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the
Tumbler's Arms." That, they were all in excellent
spirits, on the road home, and sang  O Lady
Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting
with a tremendously strong voice (in reply