Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 2 Page 8

calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed.

After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib, — where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster, — using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust.