The stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he were
expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,--and said, "He's a
likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?"
"Pip," said Joe.
"Christened Pip?"
"No, not christened Pip."
"Surname Pip?"
"No," said Joe, "it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a
infant, and is called by."
"Son of yours?"
"Well," said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in
anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at
the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was
discussed over pipes,--"well--no. No, he ain't."
"Nevvy?" said the strange man.
"Well," said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, "he
is not--no, not to deceive you, he is not--my nevvy."
"What the Blue Blazes is he?" asked the stranger. Which appeared to me
to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.
Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships,
having professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man
might not marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having
his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling
passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite
enough to account for it when he added, "--as the poet says."
And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered
it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into
my eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited
at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory
process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I
was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family
circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to
patronize me.
All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at
me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me
down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation,
until the glasses of rum and water were brought; and then he made his
shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was.
It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was
pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me,
and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and
he tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file.