I sat down in the cliental chair placed over
against Mr. Jaggers's chair, and became fascinated
by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I called
to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing
something to everybody else's disadvantage,
as his master had. I wondered how many other
clerks there were up-stairs, and whether they all
claimed to have the same detrimental mastery
of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what
was the history of all the odd litter about the
room, and how it came there. I wondered
whether the two swollen faces were of Mr.
Jaggers's family, and, if he were so unfortunate
as to have had a pair of such ill-looking relations,
why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the
blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving
them a place at home. Of course I had no experience
of a London summer day, and my spirits
may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted
air, and by the dust and grit that lay thick on
everything. But I sat wondering and waiting
in Mr. Jaggers's close room, until I really could
not bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr.
Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out.

When I told the clerk that I would take a
turn in the air while I waited, he advised me to
go round the corner and I should come into
Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield, and
the shameful place, being all asmear with filth
and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick
to me. So I rubbed it off with all possible
speed by turning into a street where I saw
the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at
me from behind a grim stone building which a
bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following
the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered
with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles;
and from this, and from the quantity of
people standing about, smelling strongly of
spirits and beer, I inferred that the trials were
on.

While I looked about me here, an exceedingly
dirty and partially drunk minister of justice
asked me if I would like to step in and hear a
trial or so: informing me that he could give me
a front place for half-a-crown, whence I should
command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice
in his wig and robes—mentioning that awful
personage like waxwork, and presently offering
him at the reduced price of eighteenpence. As
I declined the proposal on tlie plea of an
appointment, he was so good as to take me into a
yard and show me where the gallows was kept,
and also where people were publicly whipped,
and then he showed me the Debtors' Door, out
of which culprits came to be hanged: heightening
the interest of that dreadful portal by giving
me to understand that " four on 'em " would
come out at that door the day after to-morrow
at eight in the morning, to be killed in a
row. This was horrible, and gave me a
sickening idea of London.: the more so as the
Lord Chief Justice's proprietor wore (from his
hat down to his boots and up again to his
pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes,
which had evidently not belonged to him originally,
and which, I took it into my head, he had
bought cheap of the executioner. Under these
circumstances I thought myself well rid of him
for a shilling.

I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers
had come in yet, and I found he had not, and I
strolled out again. This time I made the tour
of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew
Close; and now I became aware that other
people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as
well as I. There were two men of secret
appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and
thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of
the pavement as they talked together, one
of whom said to the other when they first
passed me, that " Jaggers would do it if it was
to be done." There was a knot of three
men and two women standing at a corner,
and one of the women was crying on her
dirty shawl, and the other comforted her by
saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her
shoulders, " Jaggers is for him, 'Melia, and what
more could you have?" There was a red-eyed
little Jew who came into the Close while I was
loitering there, in company with a second little
Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and while the
messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who
was of a highly excitable temperament, performing
a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post, and
accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with
the words, " Oh Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth!
all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!"
These testimonies to the popularity
of my guardian made a deep impression on me,
and I admired and wondered more than ever.

At length, as I was looking out at the iron
gate of Bartholomew Close into Little Britain,
I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road
towards me. All the others who were waiting
saw him at the same time, and there was quite a
rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on
my shoulder and walking me on at his side
without saying anything to me, addressed himself
to his followers.

First, he took the two secret men.

"Now, I have nothing to say to you," said
Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at them. " I
want to know no more than I know. As to
the result, it's a toss-up. I told you from the
first it was a toss-up. Have you paid Wemmick?"

"We made the money up this morning, sir,"
said one of the men, submissively, while the
other perused Mr. Jaggers's face.

"I don't ask you when you made it up, or
where, or whether you made it up at all. Has
Wemmick got it?"

"Yes, sir," said both the men together.

"Very well; then you may go. Now, I won't
have it!" said Mr. Jaggers, waving his hand at
them to put them behind him. " If you say a
word to me, I'll throw up the case."

"We thought, Mr. Jaggers—" one of the
men began, pulling off his hat.

"That's what I told you not to do," said
Mr. Jaggers. "You thought! I think for
you; that's enough for you. If I want you, I
know where to find you; I don't want you to