Mrs.Peggotty with the white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire.

Peggotty at her needlework was as much at home with St.Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any other roof.

Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned.

Mr.Peggotty was smoking his pipe.
I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence.
'Mr.Peggotty!' says I.
'Sir,' says he.
'Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of ark ?' Mr.Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: 'No, sir.

I never giv him no name.' 'Who gave him that name, then ?' said I, putting question number two of the catechism to Mr.Peggotty.
'Why, sir, his father giv it him,' said Mr.Peggotty.
'I thought you were his father!' 'My brother Joe was his father,' said Mr.Peggotty.
'Dead, Mr.Peggotty ?' I hinted, after a respectful pause.
'Drowndead,' said Mr.Peggotty.
I was very much surprised that Mr.Peggotty was not Ham's father, and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there.