Pocket, Jane. A little daughter of Mr. Pocket's; a mere mite, who has prematurely taken upon herself some charge of the others. Her desire to be matrimonially established is so strong, that she might be supposed to have passed her short existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss. (Ch. xxii, xxiii.) Pocket, Joe. Another child. (Ch. xxiii.)

Pocket, Fanny. Another child. (Ch. xxiii.)

Pocket, Mr. Matthew. A relative of Miss Havisham's, living at Hammersmith, with whom Pip studies for a time. He is a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and with his hair disordered on his head, as if he did n't quite see his way to putting any thing straight. (Ch. xxii-xxiv, xxxiii, xxxix.)

By degrees I learned, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself; but that, when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had impaired his prospects, and taken up the calling of a grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades (of whom it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the grindstone), he had wearied of that poor work, and come to London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had "read" with divers who had lacked opportunities, or neglected them, and had refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction, and on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still maintained the house I saw.

Pocket, Mrs. Belinda. His wife.

(Ch. xxii, xxiii, xxxiii.)

Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased father would have been made a baronet, but for somebody's determined opposition, arising out of entirely personal motives (I forget whose, if I ever knew, the sovereign's, the prime-minister's, the lord-chancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's), and had tacked himself on the nobles of the earth in right of this quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming the English grammar at the point of a pen in a desperate address, engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of some building or other, and handing some royal personage either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one, who, in the nature of things, must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge. So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket, who was also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount to the woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the one or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had taken time by the forelock (at a season when,

to judge from its length, it would seem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was "a treasure for a prince." Mr. Pocket had invested the prince's treasure in the ways of the world ever since; and it was supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was, in general, the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of respectful reproach, because he had never got one.

Pocket, Sarah.

A relative of Miss Havisham; a little, dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a blandly-vicious manner, a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells, and a large mouth like a cat's, without the whiskers. (Ch. xi, xv, xix, xxix.) Potkins, William. A waiter at the Blue Boar. (Ch. lviii.) Provis. See Magwitch, Abel.

Pumblechook, Uncle. A well-to-do corn-chandler and seedsman; uncle to Joe Gargery, but appropriated by Mrs. Joe. He is a large, hard-breathing, middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull, staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head; so that he looks as if he had been choked, and had just come to. Pumblechook is the torment of Pip's life. While a mere boy, the bullying old fellow is in the habit of coming to Mrs. Gargery's house, where Pip lives, and discussing his character and prospects; but this he can never do without having the child before him to operate on.

He would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) when I was quiet in a corner, and putting me before the fire, as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, "Now, mum, here is this boy, here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for ever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, mum, with respections to this boy." And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way (which, from my earliest remembrance, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do), and would hold me before him by the sleeve, a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself.

...

When Pip comes, most unexpectedly, into property and "great expectations," and is about departing for London, the obsequiousness of Pumblechook is equal to his former assumption of authority.

...

66 I

"My dear friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, give you joy of your good fortune. Well deserved. well deserved!" This was coming to the point; and I thought it a sensible way of expressing himself.

"To think," said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for some

moments, "that I should have been the humble instrument of leading up to this, is a proud reward."

I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or hinted on that point.

"My dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, "if you will allow me to call you so "

I murmured, "Certainly;" and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, that had an emotional appearance, though it was rather low down. "My dear young friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph. Joseph!" said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a compassionate adjuration. "Joseph, Joseph!" Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.

"But my dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, "you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar; here is a tongue had round from the Boar; here's one or two little things that I hope you may not despise. But do I," said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down, "see afore me him as I ever sported within his times of happy infancy? And may I, may I?" —

This "may I" meant, might he shake hands? I consented; and he was fervent, and then sat down again.

"Here is wine," said Mr. Pumblechook. "Let us drink, 'Thanks to Fortune; and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment!' And yet I can. not," said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, "see afore me one, and likeways drink to one, without again expressing - May I, may I?"

I said he might; and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and turned it upside down.

When Pip is reduced to poverty by the death of his patron, Mr. Pumblechook again changes his manner and conduct, becoming as ostentatiously compassionate and forgiving as he had been meanly servile in the time of Pip's new prosperity.

"Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low; but what else could be expected? What else could be expected?

"This is him ... as I have rode in my shay-cart; this is him as I have seen brought up by hand; this is him untoe the sister of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria, from her own mother. Let him deny it if he can!...

66

Young man," said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old fashion, 66 you air a-going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you ask me, where you air a-going? I say to you, sir, you air a-going to Joseph. .. Now I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Says you, Joseph, I have this day seen my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no names, Joseph; but so they are pleased to call him up town: and I have seen that man.""

"I swear I don't see him here," said I.

Say that, likewise," retorted Pumblechook. "Say you said that; and even Joseph will probably betray surprise."

There you quite mistake him," said I. "I know better."

"Says you," Pumblechook went on, "Joseph, I have seen that man; and that man bears you no malice, and bears me no malice. He knows your character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and ignorance; and he