"'To judge from appearances, you're out of
luck,' says Compeyson to me.

"' Yes, master, and I've never been in it
much.' (I come out of Kingston Jail last on a
vagrancy committal. Not but wot it might have
been for something else; but it warn't.)

"'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps
yours is going to change.'

"I says, ' I hope it may be so. There's
room.'

"'What can you do?' says Compeyson.

"' Eat and drink,' I says; ' if you'll find the
materials.'

"Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very
noticing, giv me five shillings, and appointed
me for next night. Same place.

"I went to Compeyson, next night, same
place, and Compeyson took me on to be his
man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's
business in which we was to go pardners?
Compeyson's business was the swindling,
handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, and
such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson
could set with his head, and keep his own legs
out of and get the profits from and let another
man in for, was Compeyson's business. He'd
no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold
as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore
mentioned.

"There was another in with Compeyson, as
was called Arthur—not as being so chrisen'd,
but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and
was a shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson
had been in a bad thing with a rich lady
some years afore, and they'd made a pot of
money by it; but Compeyson betted and gamed,
and he'd have run through the king's taxes.
So Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and
with the horrors on him, and Compeyson's
wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was
a having pity on him when she could, and
Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and
nobody.

"I might a took warning by Arthur, but I
didn't; and I won't pretend I wos partick'ler—
for where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and
comrade? So I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor
tool I was in his hands. Arthur lived at the
top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it
was), and Compeysou kept a careful account agen
him for board and lodging, in case he should
ever get better to work it out. But Arthur
soon settled the account. The second or third
time as ever I see him, he come a tearing down
into Compeyson's parlour late at night, in only a
flannel gown, with his hair all in a sweat, and
he says to Compeyson's wife, ' Sally, she really
is up-stairs alonger me now, and I can't get
rid of her. She's all in white,' he says, ' wi'
white flowers in her hair, and she's awful mad,
and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm,
and she says she'll put it on me at five in the
morning.'

"Says Compeyson: ' Why, you fool, don't you
know she's got a living body? And how should
she be up there, without coming through the
door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?'

"' I don't know how she's there,' says
Arthur, shivering dreadful with the horrors,
'but she's standing in the corner at the foot
of the bed, awful mad. And over where her
heart's broke — you broke it!—there's drops of
blood.'

"Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a
coward. 'Go up alonger this drivelling sick
man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend
her a hand, will you?' But he never come nigh
himself.

"Compeyson's wife and me took him up to bed
agen, and he raved most dreadful. ' Why look
at her!' he cries out. 'She's a shaking the
shroud at me! Don't you see her? Look at
her eyes! Ain't it awful to see her so mad?'
Next, he cries, ' She'll put it on me, and then
I'm done for! Take it away from her, take it
away!' And then he catched hold of us, and
kep on a talking to her, and answering of her,
till I half believed I see her myself.

"Compeyson's wife, being used to him, giv
him some liquor to get the horrors off, and
by-and-by he quieted. ' Oh, she's gone! Has
her keeper been for her?' he says. 'Yes,'
says Compeyson's wife. ' Did you tell him to
lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to
take that ugly thing away from her?' ' Yes,
yes, all right,' 'You're a good creetur,' he
says, ' don't leave me, whatever you do, and
thank you!'

"He rested pretty quiet till it might want a
few minutes of five, and then he starts up with
a scream, and screams out, ' Here she is! She's
got the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's
coming out of the corner. She's coming to the
bed. Hold me both on you—one of each side
—don't let her touch me with it. Hah! she
missed me that time. Don't let her throw it
over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to
get it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep
me down!' Then he lifted himself up hard, and
was dead.

"Compeyson took it easy as a good
riddance for both sides. Him and me was soon
busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on
my own book—this here little black book, dear
boy, what I swore your comrade on.

"Not to go into the things that Compeyson
planned, and I done—which 'ud take a week—
I'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's
comrade, that that man got me into such nets as made
me his black slave. I was always in debt to
him, always under his thumb, always a working,
always a getting into danger. He was younger
than me, but he'd got craft, and he'd got learning,
and he overmatched me five hundred times
told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the
hard time wi'—- Stop though! I ain't brought
her in—-"

He looked about him in a confused way, as if
he had lost his place in the book of his
remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and
spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted
them off and put them on again.

"There ain't no need to go into it," he said,
looking round once more. "The time wi'