“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to a public boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too.”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 42. Beware of first impressions, because appearances sometimes lie. Magwitch recounts to Pip how he met Compeyson at Epsom Races and was taken in by his outward appearance as an educated and smooth-talking gentleman. A skilled forger and schemer, Compeyson exploited Magwitch’s lack of education and social position and made him his partner in time. He eventually betrays him and turns him in.