As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took
me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome
journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad
temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have
excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In
his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such
an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the
kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have
hanged him, if it had been a capital offence.

By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little
drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having
been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of
tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the
shoulders, and the restorative exclamation "Yah! Was there ever such
a boy as this!" from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the
convict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways
by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after
carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of
the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let
himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut
into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his
own chaise-cart--over Everybody--it was agreed that it must be so. Mr.
Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, "No!" with the feeble malice of a
tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously
set at naught,--not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood
with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not
calculated to inspire confidence.