 among them, my repugnance towards the man who had done so much for me.
    What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there had
been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his
troublesome sense of having been low on one occasion since his return - on which
point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished -
he had no perception of the possibility of my finding any fault with my good
fortune. His boast that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see
me support the character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much
as for himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that
we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own
mind.
    »Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade,« he said to Herbert, after having
discoursed for some time, »I know very well that once since I come back - for
half a minute - I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But
don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a gentleman, and Pip
ain't a-goin' to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to ye
both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a
genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was
betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will
be.«
    Herbert said, »Certainly,« but looked as if there were no specific
consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were anxious for
the time when he would go to his lodging, and leave us together, but he was
evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight before I
took him round to Essex-street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door. When
it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since
the night of his arrival.
    Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had
always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him
back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large city to avoid the
suspicion of being watched when the mind is conscious of danger in that
