find me. Now I won't have it. I won't hear
a word."

The two men looked at one another as Mr.
Jaggers waved them behind again, and humbly
fell back and were heard no more.

"And now you!" said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly
stopping, and turning on the two women with
the shawls, from whom the two men had meekly
separated.—"Oh! Amelia, is it?"

"Yes, Mr. Jaggers."

"And do you remember," retorted Mr. Jaggers,
"that but for me you wouldn't be here and
couldn't be here?"

"Oh yes, sir!" exclaimed both women
together. "Lord bless you, sir, well we knows
that!"

"Then why," said Mr. Jaggers, "do you come
here?"

"My Bill, sir!" the crying woman pleaded.

"Now, I tell you what!" said Mr. Jaggers.
"Once for all. If you don't know that your
Bill's in good hands, I know it. And if you
come here, bothering about your Bill, I'll make
an example of both your Bill and you, and let
him slip through my fingers. Have you paid
Wemmick?"

"Oh yes, sir! Every farden."

"Very well. Then you have done all you
have got to do. Say another word—one single
word—and Wemmick shall give you your money
back."

This terrible threat caused the two women
to fall off immediately. No one remained now
but the excitable Jew, who had already raised
the skirts of Mr. Jaggers's coat to his lips several
times.

"I don't know this man!" said Mr. Jaggers,
in the same devastating strain. "What does
this fellow want?"

"Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother
to Habraham Latharuth!"

"Who's he?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let go
of my coat."

The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment
before relinquishing it, replied, "Habraham
Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate."

"You're too late," said Mr. Jaggers. "I am
over the way."

"Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!" cried my
excitable acquaintance, turning white, "don't
thay you're again Habraham Latharuth!"

"I am," said Mr. Jaggers, "and there's an
end of it. Get out of the way."

"Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My
hown cuthen'th gone to Mithter Wemmick at
thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth.
Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment!
If you'd have the condethenthun to be
bought off from t'other thide—at hany
thuperior prithe!—money no object!—Mithter
Jaggerth—Mithter—!"

My guardian threw his supplicant off with
supreme indifference, and left him dancing on
the pavement as if it were red-hot. Without
further interruption, we reached the front office,
where we found the clerk and the man in
velveteen with the fur cap.

"Here's Mike," said the clerk, getting down
from his stool, and approaching Mr. Jaggers
confidentially.

"Oh!" said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man,
who was pulling a lock of hair in the middle of
his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling
at the bell-rope; "your man comes on this
afternoon. Well?"

"Well, Mas'r Jaggers," returned Mike, in
the voice of a sufferer from a constitutional
cold; "arter a deal o' trouble, I've found one,
sir, as might do."

"What is he prepared to swear?"

"Well, Mas'r Jaggers," said Mike, wiping
his nose on his fur cap this time; "in a general
way, anythink."

Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate.
"Now I warned you before," said he, throwing
his forefinger at the terrified client, "that if you
ever presumed to talk in that way here, I'd
make an example of you. You infernal scoundrel,
how dare you tell ME that?"

The client looked scared, but bewildered too,
as if he were unconscious what he had done.

"Spooney!" said the clerk, in a low voice,
giving him a stir with his elbow. "Soft Head!
Need you say it face to face?"

"Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,"
said my guardian, very sternly, "once more and
for the last time, what the man you have brought
here is prepared to swear?"

Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he
were trying to learn a lesson from his face, and
slowly replied, "Ayther to character, or to
having been in his company and never left him
all the night in question."

"Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?"

Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the
floor, and looked at the ceiling, and looked at
the clerk, and even looked at me, before
beginning to reply in a nervous manner, "We've
dressed him up like—" when my guardian
blustered out:

"What? You WILL, will you?"

("Spooney!" added the clerk again, with
another stir.)

Alter some helpless casting about, Mike
brightened and began again:

"He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A
sort of a pastrycook."

"Is he here?" asked my guardian.

"I left him," said Mike, "a settin on some
doorsteps round the corner."

"Take him past that window, and let me see
him."

The window indicated was the office window.
We all three went to it, behind the wire blind,
and presently saw the client go by in an accidental
manner, with a murderous-looking tall
individual, in a short suit of white linen and a
paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not
by any means sober, and had a black eye in the
green stage of recovery, which was painted over.

"Tell him to take his witness away directly,"
said my guardian to the clerk, in extreme