he day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I
believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham
has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her
regard.

"Yours, ESTELLA."

If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits
of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be
content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew
no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought
me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the
coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the
Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still
felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight
longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I
had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when
Wemmick ran against me.

"Halloa, Mr. Pip," said he; "how do you do? I should hardly have thought
this was your beat."

I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by
coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.

"Both flourishing thankye," said Wemmick, "and particularly the Aged.
He's in wonderful feather. He'll be eighty-two next birthday. I have
a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighborhood shouldn't
complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure.
However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?"

"To the office?" said I, for he was tending in that direction.

"Next thing to it," returned Wemmick, "I am going to Newgate. We are in
a banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road
taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word
or two with our client."

"Did your client commit the robbery?" I asked.

"Bless your soul and body, no," answered Wemmick, very drily. "But he
is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of
it, you know."

"Only neither of us is," I remarked.

"Yah!" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger;
"you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate?
Have you time to spare?"

I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,
notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my
eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether
I had time to walk