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"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 neighborhood shouldn't complain, and that cannon of mine
should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk.
Where do you thinkI 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 a 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