patron, companion, and friend, was a highly-respected individual
not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed trade, and whose
eminently convenient and commodious business premises are situate
within a hundred miles of the High-street. It is not wholly
irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the
Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our
town produced the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the
thoughtcontracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of
local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys
was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB. SAP.

I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in
the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should
have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who
would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the
founder of my fortunes.


Chapter 29

Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go
to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss
Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side; I could go
there to-morrow - thinking about my patroness, and painting
brilliant pictures of her plans for me.

She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it
could not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She
reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the
sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going and the cold