Great Expectations

Great Expectations 29 "Especially, " said Mr. Pumblechook, "be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand. " Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, "Why is it that the young are never grateful? " This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally wicious. " Everybody then murmured "True! " and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner. Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company, than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint. A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some severity, and intimated - in the usual hypothetical case of the Church being "thrown open" - what kind of sermon he would have given them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill-chosen; which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects "going about. " "True again, " said Uncle Pumblechook. "You've hit it, sir! Plenty of subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject, if he's ready with his salt-box. " Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short interval of reflection, "Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork! " "True, sir. Many a moral for the young, " returned Mr. Wopsle; and I knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; "might be deduced from that text. " ("You listen to this, " said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.) Joe gave me some more gravy. "Swine, " pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and poin...