"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more excited.
"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and saucer, and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot: 'What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil _my_ beauty. _I'm_ all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the head. _I_ don't mind! if they want a light weight, to be throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They won't hurt _me_. I have been throwed all sorts of styles all my life!"
It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless aspiring discontented me.
Dear, simple-hearted Joe Gargery! When every one else was abusing Pip at the great dinner party, he showed his sympathy for him by putting some more gravy on his plate.
In Our Mutual Friend Lizzie Hexam, sympathizing with her father so much that she would not learn to read because he was bitterly prejudiced against education, but sympathizing so much with her brother Charley that she had him educated secretly so that he might become a teacher, is an illustration of nearly perfect sympathy.