A day or two later, I woke up with a bright idea. The best way to make myself uncommon was to learn everything Biddy knew. I went to the evening school at Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s house. I told Biddy that I had a special reason for wanting to get on in life, and I asked her to teach me. Biddy was a very kind and helpful girl, so she immediately agreed.
The school was a terrible place. Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt usually fell asleep during the lessons, and the children just played, fought, or ate apples. Sometimes, Biddy tried to make us read aloud from old, torn Bibles. The classes were held in a small shop with very little light, so it was hard to study. However, Biddy began to help me that very evening by giving me some simple things to copy.
I knew it would take time to become uncommon this way, but I decided to try.
On Saturday evening, my sister told me to go to the village pub, the Three Jolly Bargemen. I had strict orders to find Joe and bring him home safely.
When I walked into the warm room at the back of the pub, there was a bright fire burning. Joe was smoking his pipe. He was sitting with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger.
"Hello, Pip, old chap!" Joe said.
As soon as he spoke, the stranger turned and looked at me. He was a secretive man. One of his eyes was half closed, as if he was taking aim at me with an invisible gun. He nodded, and I sat down in the empty space next to Joe.
The stranger offered to buy everyone a drink. Joe did not like drinking at other people's expense, but finally agreed to have some rum.
As the stranger looked at the fire, he asked, "I don't know this area. Do you find many tramps or runaway convicts out on the marshes?"
"No," said Joe. "Only a runaway convict sometimes. And we don't find them easily."
"It seems you have looked for them?" the stranger asked.
"Once," Joe answered. "We didn't want to catch them, you understand. We just went to watch. It was me, Mr. Wopsle, and Pip here."
The stranger looked at me again with his aiming eye. "Who is the boy?" he asked.
Mr. Wopsle stepped in and proudly explained that I was Joe’s wife’s brother.
All this time, the strange man looked only at me. He looked at me as if he was determined to finally shoot his invisible gun. When the glasses of rum arrived, he did something completely unexpected. He did not speak, but he looked right at me while he stirred his drink. He did not use a spoon. He stirred his rum, and then tasted it, with a metal file.
He did it secretly, so nobody else could see the file. Then he wiped it and put it in his pocket. I knew immediately that it was Joe’s file. I also knew that this man knew my convict. I sat there, completely frozen in fear.
After a while, Joe stood up to leave and took my hand.
"Wait half a moment, Mr. Gargery," said the strange man. "I think I have a bright new shilling in my pocket. I want to give it to the boy."
He took the coin from his pocket, folded it inside a piece of crumpled old paper, and handed it to me. "Yours!" he said. "Keep it."
I thanked him, holding tightly to Joe. We said goodnight to Mr. Wopsle and the stranger, and then we walked home.
My sister was in a good mood when we arrived. Joe was encouraged by this and told her about the new shilling.
"It is probably a fake one," Mrs. Joe said proudly. "Let’s look at it."
I took the coin out of the paper. It was a real shilling.
"But what is this?" asked Mrs. Joe. She threw down the shilling and picked up the crumpled piece of paper. "Two one-pound notes?"
Inside the paper were two thick bank notes. That was a lot of money! Joe quickly grabbed his hat and ran back to the pub to return the money to its owner.
While he was gone, I sat on my stool. I felt completely sure the man would not be there. Soon, Joe came back and said the man had left. My sister carefully sealed the money in a piece of paper. She put it inside a decorative teapot in the living room, to keep it safe.
That money became a nightmare for me. When I finally went to bed, I could not sleep well. I kept thinking about the strange man taking aim at me with his eye. I felt guilty and common because I shared a dark secret with a convict. The file haunted me, too. I was terrified that it would suddenly reappear when I least expected it. I tried to calm myself by thinking about going back to Miss Havisham’s house. But in my sleep, I dreamed of the file coming at me out of the dark, and I woke up screaming.