Great Expectations

The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred

about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf

below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and,

undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was

strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy

concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one

overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my

arm.

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where

are you bound for?"

"For the Temple, I think," said I.

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in

cross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind."

"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You don't mind admitting

that, I suppose?"

"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that."

"And are not engaged?"

"I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged."

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me."

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming." So

I changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered,

serving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside

and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up

brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely

finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the

afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out,

opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at

the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,

hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the

business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising

and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were

playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse,

fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a

corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of

a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And,

as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have

thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much

as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no

objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it

was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised

them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were

twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one.