Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.
"I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations."
Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still
could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and even now
he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he
spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my
disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. "We come next, to mere
details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used
the term 'expectations' more than once, you are not endowed with
expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money
amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will
please consider me your guardian. Oh!" for I was going to thank him, "I
tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn't render them.
It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with
your altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance and
necessity of at once entering on that advantage."
I said I had always longed for it.
"Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip," he retorted;
"keep to the record. If you long for it now, that's enough. Am I
answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper
tutor? Is that it?"
I stammered yes, that was it.
"Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don't think that
wise, mind, but it's my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom you
would prefer to another?"
I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt;
so, I replied in the negative.
"There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think
might suit the purpose," said Mr. Jaggers. "I don't recommend him,
observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is
one Mr. Matthew Pocket."
Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's relation. The Matthew
whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to
be at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's dress on
the bride's table.
"You know the name?" said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then
shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.
My answer was, that I had heard of the name.