Page 448 - GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Great Expectations

looking at me and then laughing heartily, Herbert for the
time recovered his usual lively manner.
‘Don’t you expect to see him?’ said I.
‘Oh yes, I constantly expect to see him,’ returned

Herbert, ‘because I never hear him, without expecting
him to come tumbling through the ceiling. But I don’t
know how long the rafters may hold.’
When he had once more laughed heartily, he became
meek again, and told me that the moment he began to
realize Capital, it was his intention to marry this young
lady. He added as a self-evident proposition, engendering
low spirits, ‘But you can’t marry, you know, while you’re
looking about you.’
As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a
difficult vision to realize this same Capital sometimes was,
I put my hands in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in
one of them attracting my attention, I opened it and found
it to be the playbill I had received from Joe, relative to the
celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. ‘And
bless my heart,’ I involuntarily added aloud, ‘it’s to-night!’
This changed the subject in an instant, and made us
hurriedly resolve to go to the play. So, when I had
pledged myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the affair of
his heart by all practicable and impracticable means, and

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