Comic Classics: Great Expectations. Jack Noel

then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.

      “Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister.

      She made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more than the awful words,

      The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs Joe almost drove me out of my mind.

      Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg, declaring that he must be fed NOW.

      It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the clock.

      “Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed.

      “There was a convict escaped last night,” said Joe. “And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re firing warning of another.”

      interposed my sister, frowning at me, “what a questioner he is.

       Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.”

      Joe opened his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like ‘SULKS’.

      Therefore, I pointed to my sister, and mouthed, “her?”

      “From the HULKS!” exclaimed my sister.

      “Oh-H!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”

      Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you so.”

      “And please, what’s Hulks?” said I.

      “That’s the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister. “Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right across the marshes.”

“Who’s put into prison-ships, and why are they put there?” said I, with quiet desperation. It was too much for Mrs Joe, who immediately rose. “I didn’t bring you up BY HAND to badger people’s lives out.
People are put in the Hulks because they MURDER,
	and because they ROB,
and FORGE,

      and do all sorts of BAD; and they always begin by ASKING QUESTIONS.

      I went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling from Mrs Joe’s last words. I was clearly on my way to the hulks. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs Joe . . .

      I was afraid to sleep for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry.

      I got up and went downstairs; every floorboard upon the way, and every crack in every board calling after me.

      In the pantry, I had no time to spare.

      There was a door in the kitchen to the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.