第64章

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 the 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 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 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 three 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?'