Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) 📕

come out at that door the day after tomorrow 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.

At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew

Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road

towards me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same

time, and there was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand

on my shoulder and walking me on at his side without saying

anything to me, addressed himself to his followers.

First, he took the two secret men.

“Now, I have nothing to say to you,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his

finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know. As to the

result, it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up.

Have you paid Wemmick?”

“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the men,

submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers’s face.

“I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made

it up at all. Has Wemmick got it?”

“Yes, sir,” said both the men together.

“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!” said Mr

Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If you

say a word to me, I’ll throw up the case.”

“We thought, Mr. Jaggers—” one of the men began, pulling off his

hat.

“That’s what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers. “You thought!

I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want you, I know where

to find you; I don’t want you to find me. Now I won’t have it. I

won’t hear a word.”

The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind

again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more.

“And now you!” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on

the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly

separated,—“Oh! Amelia, is it?”

“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.”

“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for me you

wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?”

“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless you, sir,

well we knows that!”

“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?”

“My Bill, sir!” the crying woman pleaded.

“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If you

don’t know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it. And if you

come here bothering about your Bill, I’ll make an example of both

your Bill and you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you

paid Wemmick?”

“O yes, sir! Every farden.”

“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another

word—one single word—and Wemmick shall give you your money

back.”

This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately.

No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised

the skirts of Mr. Jaggers’s coat to his lips several times.

“I don’t know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating

strain: “What does this fellow want?”

“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?”

“Who’s he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my coat.”

The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before

relinquishing it, replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of

plate.”

“You’re too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the way.”

“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquaintance,

turning white, “don’t thay you’re again Habraham Latharuth!”

“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there’s an end of it. Get out of the

way.”

“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th gone to Mithter

Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth.

Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you’d have the

condethenthun to be bought off from the t’other thide—at hany

thuperior prithe!—money no object!—Mithter Jaggerth—Mithter -

!”

My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and

left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without

further interruption, we reached the front office, where we found

the clerk and the man in velveteen with the fur cap.

“Here’s Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and

approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.

“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock

of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin

pulling at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?”

“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer

from a constitutional cold; “arter a deal o’ trouble, I’ve found

one, sir, as might do.”

“What is he prepared to swear?”

“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap

this time; “in a general way, anythink.”

Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you before,”

said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, “that if

you ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d make an example of

you. You infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?”

The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were

unconscious what he had done.

“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with

his elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?”

“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian, very

sternly, “once more and for the last time, what the man you have

brought here is prepared to swear?”

Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a

lesson from his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to character, or

to having been in his company and never left him all the night in

question.”

“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?”

Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the

ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before

beginning to reply in a nervous manner, “We’ve dressed him up

like—” when my guardian blustered out,—

“What? You WILL, will you?”

(“Spooney!” added the clerk again, with another stir.)

After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:—

“He is dressed like a ‘spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook.”

“Is he here?” asked my guardian.

“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round the

corner.”

“Take him past that window, and let me see him.”

The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to

it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an

accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a

short suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless

confectioner was not by any means sober, and had a black eye in the

green stage of recovery, which was painted over.

“Tell him to take his witness away directly,” said my guardian to

the clerk, in extreme disgust, “and ask him what he means by

bringing such a fellow as that.”

My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched,

standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he

seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what

arrangements he had made for me. I was to go to “Barnard’s Inn,” to

young Mr. Pocket’s rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my

accommodation; I was to remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday;

on Monday I was to go with him to his father’s house on a visit,

that I might try how I liked it. Also, I was told what my allowance

was to be,—it was a very liberal one,—and had handed to me from

one of my guardian’s drawers, the cards of certain tradesmen with

whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, and such other things

as I could in reason want. “You will find your credit good, Mr.

Pip,” said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt like a whole

caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, “but I shall by this

means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you

outrunning the constable. Of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but

that’s no fault of mine.”

After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I

asked Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not

worth while, I was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk

round with me, if I pleased.

I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another

clerk was rung down from up stairs to take his place while he was

out, and I accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands

with my guardian. We found a new set of people lingering outside,

but Wemmick made a way among them by saying coolly yet decisively,

“I tell you it’s no use; he won’t have a word to say to one of

you;” and we soon got clear of them, and went on side by side.