with me; while the pair of coarse,
fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a
corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of
a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And,
as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have
thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much
as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no
objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it
was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised
them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were
twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one.

"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?" Mr.
Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

"No, sir," returned Wemmick; "it was going by post, when you brought Mr.
Pip into the office. Here it is." He handed it to his principal instead
of to me.

"It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, "sent
up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your
address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of
business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?"

"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those
terms.

"When do you think of going down?"

"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was
putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather uncertain of
my time. At once, I think."

"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr.
Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know."

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled
that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine,
and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me.

"So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played his
cards. He has won the pool."

It was as much as I could do to assent.

"Hah! He is a promising fellow--in his way--but he may not have it all
his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to
be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--"

"Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do not
seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?"

"I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and
beat h