omething, 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