“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. “Certainly he should not.Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,—and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him.”
“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?”
“That,” he returned,“is my deliberate opinion in this office.”
“Ah!” said I, pressing him,for I thought I saw him near a loophole here;“but would that be your opinion at Walworth?”
“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity,“Walworth is one place, and this office is another.Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr.Jaggers is another.They must not be confounded together.My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth;none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office. ”
“Very well,” said I, much relieved,“then I shall look you up at Walworth,you may depend upon it.”
“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there,in a private and personal capacity.”
We had held this conversation in a low voice,well knowing my guardian’s ears to be the sharpest of the sharp.As he now appeared in his doorway, towelling his hands,Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff out the candles.We all three went into the street together,and from the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr.Jaggers and I turned ours.
I could not help wishing more than once that evening,that Mr. Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard Street,or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody,to unbend his brows a little.It was an uncomfortable consideration on a twenty-first birthday,that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.
Chapter XXXVII.
Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr.Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments,I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle.On arriving before the battlements,I found the Union Jack flying and the drawbridge up;but undeterred by this show of defiance and resistance,I rang at the gate,and was admitted in a most pacific manner by the Aged.
“My son, sir,” said the old man,after securing the drawbridge,“rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in,and he left word that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk.He is very regular in his walks, is my son.Very regular in everything, is my son.”
I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded,and we went in and sat down by the fireside.
“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his chirping way,while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I expect?” I nodded. “Hah!I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir?” I nodded hard. “Yes; so they tell me.His business is the Law?” I nodded harder. “Which makes it more surprising in my son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law,but to the Wine-Coopering.”
Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner, “No, to be sure; you’re right.” And to this hour I have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I had made.
As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually,without making some other attempt to interest him,I shouted at inquiry whether his own calling in life had been “the Wine-Coopering.” By dint of straining that term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning understood.
“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing,the warehousing. First, over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney,but I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool;“and then in the City of London here. However,having an infirmity—for I am hard of hearing, sir—”
I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.
“—Yes, hard of hearing;having that infirmity coming upon me,my son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me,and he by little and little made out this elegant and beautiful property.But returning to what you said, you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily,“what I say is, No to be sure; you’re right.”
I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little wooden flap with “JOHN” upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we both went out to the drawbridge.
It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge, that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he was accompanied.
Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was,like her escort, in the post-office branch of the service.She might have been some two or three years younger than Wemmick,and I judged her to stand possessed of portable property.The cut of her dress from the waist upward,both before and behind,made her figure very like a boy’s kite;and I might have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange,and her gloves a little too intensely green.But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow,and showed a high regard for the Aged.I was not long in discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle;for, on our going in,and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another click came, and another little door tumbled open with “Miss Skiffins” on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up together. On Wemmick’s return from working these mechanical appliances, I expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said, “Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me!”
“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins,“with his own hands out of his own head.”
While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property, and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle.