churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious
pair you'd be without me!"

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me
over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and
calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the
grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his
right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about
with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread-and-butter for
us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the
loaf hard and fast against her bib - where it sometimes got a pin
into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our
mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and
spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were
making a plaister - using both sides of the knife with a slapping
dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the
crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of
the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which
she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two
halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my
slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful
acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I
knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that
my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe.
Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down the
leg of my trousers.