"Seems you have been out after such?" asked the stranger.
"Once," returned Joe. "Not that we wanted to take them, you
understand; we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip.
Didn't us, Pip?"
"Yes, Joe."
The stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he
were expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,--and said,
"He's a likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call
him?"
"Pip," said Joe.
"Christened Pip?"
"No, not christened Pip."
"Surname Pip?"
"No," said Joe, "it's a kind of family name what he gave himself
when a infant, and is called by."
"Son of yours?"
"Well," said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be
in anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the
way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about
everything that was discussed over pipes,--"well--no. No, he
ain't."
"Nevvy?" said the strange man.
"Well," said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation,
"he is not--no, not to deceive you, he is not--my nevvy."
"What the Blue Blazes is he?" asked the stranger. Which appeared to
me to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.
Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about
relationships, having professional occasion to bear in mind what
female relations a man might not marry; and expounded the ties
between me and Joe.
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