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
cask-full, 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.

CHAPTER XXI.

CASTING my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we
went along, to see what he was like in the light
of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather
short in stature, with a square wooden face,
whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly
chipped out with a dull-edged chisel.
There were some marks in it that might have
been dimples, if the material had been softer
and the instrument finer, but which, as it was,
were only dints. The chisel had made three or
four of these attempts at embellishment over
his nose, but had given them up without an
effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be
a bachelor from the frayed condition of his
linen, and he appeared to have sustained a
good many bereavements; for, he wore at
least four mourning rings, besides a brooch
representing a lady and a weeping willow at a
tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that
several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain,
as if he were quite laden with remembrances of
departed friends. He had glittering eyes—
small, keen, and black— and thin wide mottled
lips. He had had them, to the best of my
belief, from forty to fifty years.

"So you were never in London before?" said
Mr. Wemmick to me.

"No," said I.

"I was new here once," said Mr. Wemmick.
" Rum to think of now!"

"You are well acquainted with it now?"

"Why, yes," said Mr. Wemmick. "I know
the moves of it."

"Is it a very wicked place?" I asked, more
for the sake of saying something than for
information.

"You may get cheated, robbed, and
murdered, in London. But there are plenty of
people anywhere who'll do that for you."

"If there is bad blood between you and
them," said I, to soften it off a little.

"Oh! I don't know about bad blood,"
returned Mr. Wemmick; " there's not much bad
blood about. If there's anything to be got by
it."

"That makes it worse."

"You think so?" returned Mr. Wemmick.
" Much about the same, I should say."

He wore his hat on the back of his head, and
looked straight before him: walking in a self-
contained way as if there were nothing in the
streets to claim his attention. His mouth was
such a post-office of a mouth that he had a
mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got
to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that
it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that
he was not smiling at all.

"Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket
lives?" I asked Mr. Wemmick.

"Yes," said he, nodding in the direction. " At
Hammersmith, west of London."

"Is that far?"

"Well! Say five miles."

"Do you know him?"

"Why, you're a regular cross-examiner!" said
Mr. Wemmick, looking at me with an approving
air. " Yes, I know him. I know him!"

There was an air of toleration or depreciation
about his utterance of these words, that rather
depressed me; and I was still looking sideways
at his block of a face in search of any encouraging
note to the text when he said here we were at
Barnard's Inn. My depression was not alleviated
by the announcement, for I had supposed
that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr.
Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town
was a mere public-house. Whereas I now
found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or
a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of
shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a
rank corner as a club for Tom-cats.

We entered this haven through a wicket-
gate, and were disgorged by an introductory
passage into a melancholy little square that
looked to me like a flat burying-ground. I
thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and
the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal
cats, and the most dismal houses (in number
half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I
thought the windows of the sets of chambers