Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 6 Page 2

sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue.

I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker, without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's meat or pudding when it came on to-day's table, without thinking that he was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, would bring a rush of blood to my face.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too