“First,” I resumed, half groaning, “what precautions can be taken against your being recognized and seized?”

“No, dear boy,” he said, in the same tone as before, “that don't go first.

Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy.”

Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I replied, “I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!”

“Yes, but look'ee here,” he persisted. “Dear boy, I ain't come so fur, not fur to be low.

Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying — ”