Wemmick

“ Wemmick. "Much about the same, I should say."
He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him: walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling at all.
"Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?" I asked Mr. Wemmick.
"Yes," said he, nodding in the direction. "At Hammersmith, west of London." ”

“ Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. "I won't offer an apology," said Wemmick, "for he isn't capable of many pleasures—are you, Aged P.?"
"All right, John, all right," returned the old man, seeing himself spoken to.
"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper," said Wemmick, "and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention, Aged One." ”

“ I told him.
"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the notes," said Wemmick; "it's a good rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put in. I'm going to take a liberty with you.—Would you mind toasting this sausage for the Aged P.?"
I said I should be delighted to do it.
"Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne," said Wemmick to the little servant; "which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?" ”

“ Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, and wished him joy.
"Thankee!" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. "She's such a manager of fowls you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!" calling me back, and speaking low. "This is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please."
"I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain," said I.
Wemmick nodded. "After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or something of the kind." ”

“ Don't look forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door or window be fastened at night."
"Is he never robbed?"
"That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, 'I want to see the man who'll rob me.' Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, 'You know where I live ”

“ Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while, I was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, if I pleased.
I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk was rung down from up-stairs to take his place while he was out, and I accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. We found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way among them by saying coolly yet decisively, "I tell you it's no use; he won't have a word to say to one of you;" ”

“ Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said, "Ca-pi-tal!" Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he replied:
"We don't run much into clerks, because there's only one Jaggers, and people won't have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would you like to see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say."
I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the post, and had paid me my money from a cashbox in a safe, the key of which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his coat-collar like an iron pigtail, we went up-stairs. ”

“ As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. ”

“ I was falling into meditation on my guardian’s greatness, when Wemmick remarked:—
“As to the absence of plate, that’s only his natural depth, you know. A river’s its natural depth, and he’s his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That’s real enough.”
“It’s very massive,” said I.
“Massive?” repeated Wemmick. “I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it’s worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch ”

“ Chapter XXI Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From my point of view, he was the wrong twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth.
We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down Gerrard-street in the Walworth direction before I found that I was walking arm-in-arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had evaporated into the evening air.
"Well!" said Wemmick, "that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his living likeness ”

“ Jaggers admires it?”
“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it’s not in any way disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I don’t wish it professionally spoken about.”
Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o’clock. ”

“ “Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of saying something than for information.
“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you.”
“If there is bad blood between you and them,” said I, to soften it off a little.
“O! I don't know about bad blood,” returned Mr. Wemmick; “there's not much bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by it.”
“That makes it worse.”
“You think so?” returned Mr. Wemmick. “Much about the same, I should say.” ”

“ Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.”
I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after saying this.
“This is very discouraging,” said I.
“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick.
“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indignation, “that a man should never—”
“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. ”

“ I’ll have no feelings here. Get out.”
“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.”
So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had just had lunch.
Chapter LII. From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s and bringing Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. ”

“ Every man's business," said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me, "is portable property."
As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:
"I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she possessed."
"Did she?" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and then straightening himself. "Hah! I don't think I should have done so, if I had been Miss Havishain. But she ought to know her own business best." ”

“ Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. ”

“ Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say, for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us. ”

“ Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never seen them on such ill terms; for generally they got on very well indeed together.
But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within those walls. ”

“ Jaggers's room, seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase for years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something between a publican and a rat-catcher—a large pale puffed swollen man—was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. "Getting evidence together," said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, "for the Bailey." ”

“ His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had very little fear of his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. "We are both good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no boatmen ”

“ Mr. Wemyss was most good-natured, and she was sure, and as she knew from experience, was most kind and thoughtful; but the things he said were so very unlike the things Jim said, and his way of looking at things was so very unlike Jim's way. Not that there wasn't room in the world for everybody, Miss Entwhistle reminded herself, sitting at her tea-table observing Wemyss, who looked particularly big and prosperous in her small frugal room, and no doubt one star differed from another in glory; still, she did wonder at Jim. ”

“ Their moccasins were hanging up before a fire to dry and, while Wemicus was not looking, the man changed the places of Wemicus’ moccasins and his own, and then went to sleep. Soon the man awoke and saw Wemicus get up and throw his own moccasins into the fire. Wemicus then said, “Say! something is burning; it is your moccasins.” Then the man answered, “No, not mine, but yours.” So Wemicus had no moccasins, and the ground was covered with snow. After this had happened the man slept with his moccasins on. ”

“ He, however, had succeeded in outwitting Wemicus in every scheme that he tried on him. Wemicus and this man hunted beaver in the spring of the year by driving them all day with dogs. The man’s wife warned him before they started out to hunt, saying, “Look out for my father; he might burn your moccasins in camp. That’s what he did to my other husbands.”22 That night in camp Wemicus said, “I didn’t tell you the name of this lake. It is called ‘burnt moccasins lake.’ ” When the man [45] heard this, he thought that Wemicus was up to some sort of mischief and was going to burn his moccasins. ”

“ They were all living in one wigwam.
One day Wemicus said to his wife, “We are all very hungry. I might go and see one of our sons-in-law; he might have some [40] food.” Next morning he started out. Wemicus always tried to imitate the actions of everybody he saw. When he reached the home of his son-in-law Ninicip (Black Duck) he saw that he also had a large family. Ninicip was inside of his wigwam, and when he saw Wemicus coming, he told his wife, “You had better begin to get ready for company and boil water in the stone pail.” ”