Mrs. Joe came in almost directly, and after having given Pip a taste of Tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and cutting a huge slice of bread and butter, she gave half of it to Joe and half to Pip. Pip managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and Joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged him not to bolt his food like that. "Pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief,--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, Pip. You know, Pip, you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you at any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that." [Illustration: PIP AND THE CONVICT. HALF DEAD WITH COLD AND HUNGER.] "Been bolting his food, has he?" cried Mrs. Joe. "You know, old chap," said Joe, "I bolted myself when I was your age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among many bolters; but I never see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted dead." Poor Pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up and crept downstairs. As quickly as he could he took some bread, some cheese, about half a jar of mince-meat he tied up in a handkerchief, with the slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat bone with very little on it, and a pork pie, which he found on an upper shelf. Then he got a file from among Joe's tools, and ran for the marshes. Pip found the man waiting for him, half dead with cold and hunger, and he ate the food in such a ravenous way that Pip, in spite of his terror, was quite pitiful over him, and said, "I am glad you enjoy it." "Thankee, my boy, I do." Pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then, being afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off. Pip passed a wretched morning expecting every moment that the disappearance of the pie would be found out. But Mrs. Joe was too much taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors. Just at the end of the dinner Pip thought his time had come to be found out, for his sister said graciously to her guests-- "You must taste a most delightful and delicious present I have had. It's a pie, a savory pork pie." Pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to him saying--"Here you are, look sharp, come on." But they had not come for him, they only wanted Joe to mend the handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped and were somewhere hid in the marshes. This turned the attention of Mrs. Joe from the disappearance of the pie without which she had come back, in great astonishment. When the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went off, accompanied by Joe and one of the visitors, and Joe took Pip and carried him on his back.