1 "True again," said Uncle Pumblechook.
2 "Have a little brandy, uncle," said my sister.
3 I was not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.
4 I should certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis.
5 There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you.
6 "Well, boy," Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the chair of honor by the fire.
7 If you want information regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time.
8 Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy, fell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell.
9 Not to get up a mystery with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle had unexpectedly come from the country.
10 To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in the night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were to be modified accordingly.
11 But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water.
12 Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.
13 Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant.
14 There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of my windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis.
15 For you do not know that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's to-morrow morning.
16 At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character.