The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five

hours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by

which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about

the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London.

We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable

to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise,

while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had

some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and

dirty.

Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and he

had written after it on his card, "just out of Smithfield, and close by

the coach-office." Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have

as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me

up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of

steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his

box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weather-stained

pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time.

It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged

things behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and

a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the

temptation.

I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a

straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why

the horses' nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman

beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop

we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open

door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS.

"How much?" I asked the coachman.

The coachman answered, "A shilling--unless you wish to make it more."

I naturally said I had no wish to make it more.

"Then it must be a shilling," observed the coachman. "I don't want to

get into trouble. I know him!" He darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's

name, and shook his head.

When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the

ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his

mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my

hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home?

"He is not," returned the clerk. "He is in Court at present. Am I

addressing Mr. Pip?"




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