He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat ready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business.
`Mr Wemmick,' said I, `I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous to serve a friend.'
Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.
`This friend,' I pursued, `is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a beginning.
Now, I want somehow to help him to a beginning.'
`With money down?' said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.
`With some money down,' I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home; `with some money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.'
`Mr Pip,' said Wemmick, `I should like just to run over with you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let's see; there's London, one; Southwark, two; Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.' He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safe-key on the palm of his hand. `There's as many as six, you see, to choose from.'
`I don't understand you,' said I.
`Choose your bridge, Mr 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. `Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend - and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him.'
`And that,' said I, `is your deliberate opinion, Mr Wemmick?'
`That,' he returned, `is my deliberate opinion in this office.'
`Ah!' said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole here; `but would that be your opinion at Walworth?'
`Mr Pip,' he replied, with gravity, `Walworth is one place, and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr Jaggers is another.
They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office.'
`Very well,' said I, much relieved, `then I shall look you up at Walworth, you may depend upon it.'
`Mr Pip,' he returned, `you will be welcome there, in a private and personal capacity.'
We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian's ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway, towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his greatcoat and stood by to snuff out the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr Jaggers and I turned ours.
I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard-street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to dinner. And Mr Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.