They always went on agen me about the Devil.

But what the Devil was I to do?
I must put something into my stomach, mustn't I ?--Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due.

Dear boy and Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low.
"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man.

A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me to write.

I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.
"At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster, if I'd got it on this hob.