When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I

waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into

Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all

asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So,

I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where

I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at me from behind a

grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following

the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden

the noise of passing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of

people standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred

that the trials were on.

While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk

minister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a

trial or so: informing me that he could give me a front place for half a

crown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in

his wig and robes,--mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and

presently offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I

declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as

to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also

where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors'

Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the interest

of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that "four on 'em"

would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the

morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a

sickening idea of London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's

proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his

pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently

not belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had

bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought

myself well rid of him for a shilling.

I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I

found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour

of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became

aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well

as I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew

Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the

pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when

they first passed me, that "Jaggers would do it if it was to be done."

There was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and

one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted

her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, "Jaggers

is for him, 'Melia, and what more could you have?" There was a red-eyed

little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in

company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and

while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly

excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and

accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, "O Jaggerth,

Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!"

These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep

impression on me, and I admired and wondered more than ever.




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