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 neighbourhood

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 as 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 with him, I went into the office, and

ascertained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to

the trying of his temper, the earliest moment at which the coach

could be expected - which I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I

then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch and to

be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer.

We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the

lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among

the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time,

jails were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction

consequent on all public wrong-doing - and which is always its

heaviest and longest punishment - was still far off. So, felons

were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of

paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable

object of improving the flavour of their soup. It was visiting time

when Wemmick took me in; and a potman was going his rounds with

beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer,

and talking to friends; and a frouzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing

scene it was.

It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners, much as a

gardener might walk among his plants. This was first put into my

head by his seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and

saying, "What, Captain Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed!" and also,

"Is that Black Bill behind the cistern? Why I didn't look for you

these two months; how do you find yourself?" Equally in his

stopping at the bars and attending to anxious whisperers - always

singly - Wemmick with his post-office in an immovable state, looked

at them while in conference, as if he were taking particular notice

of the advance they had made, since last observed, towards coming

out in full blow at their trial.

He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar

department of Mr.