Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence.

“Mr. Peggotty!” says L

“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. I was so curious to know that I made up my mind to have it out with Mr. Peggotty.

“Little Em‘ly,” I said, glancing at her. “She is your daughter, isn’t she, Mr. Peggotty?”

“No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father.”

I couldn’t help it. “Dead, Mr. Peggotty?” I hinted, after another respectful silence.

“Drowndead,” said Mr. Peggotty.

I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said:

“Haven’t you any children, Mr. Peggotty?”

“No, master,” he answered, with a short laugh. “I’m a bacheldore.”

“A bachelor!” I said astonished. “Why, who’s that, Mr. Peggotty?” pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting.

“That’s Missis Gummidge,” said Mr. Peggotty.

“Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?”

But at this point, Peggotty—I mean my own peculiar Peggotty—made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions that I could only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that Ham and Em‘ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left destitute, and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel—those were her similes.