He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little

to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid

but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar

purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an

admirable manner; and I may state at once that he was always so

zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he

made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he

had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have

returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and

each of us did the other justice. Nor, did I ever regard him as

having anything ludicrous about him - or anything but what was

serious, honest, and good - in his tutor communication with me.

When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I

had begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could

retain my bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably

varied, while my manners would be none the worse for Herbert's

society. Mr. Pocket did not object to this arrangement, but urged

that before any step could possibly be taken in it, it must be

submitted to my guardian. I felt that this delicacy arose out of

the consideration that the plan would save Herbert some expense, so

I went off to Little Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers.

"If I could buy the furniture now hired for me," said I, "and one

or two other little things, I should be quite at home there."

"Go it!" said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. "I told you you'd get

on. Well! How much do you want?"

I said I didn't know how much.

"Come!" retorted Mr. Jaggers. "How much? Fifty pounds?"

"Oh, not nearly so much."

"Five pounds?" said Mr. Jaggers.

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, "Oh! more

than that."

"More than that, eh!" retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me,

with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes

on the wall behind me; "how much more?"

"It is so difficult to fix a sum," said I, hesitating.

"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let's get at it. Twice five; will that

do? Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?"

I said I thought that would do handsomely.

"Four times five will do handsomely, will it?" said Mr. Jaggers,

knitting his brows. "Now, what do you make of four times five?"

"What do I make of it?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Jaggers; "how much?"

"I suppose you make it twenty pounds," said I, smiling.

"Never mind what I make it, my friend," observed Mr. Jaggers, with a

knowing and contradictory toss of his head. "I want to know what

you make it."

"Twenty pounds, of course."

"Wemmick!" said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. "Take Mr. Pip's

written order, and pay him twenty pounds."

This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked

impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers

never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in

poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and

his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes

caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and

suspicious way. As he happened to go out now, and as Wemmick was

brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to

make of Mr. Jaggers's manner.

"Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment," answered

Wemmick; "he don't mean that you should know what to make of it. -

Oh!" for I looked surprised, "it's not personal; it's professional:

only professional."

Wemmick was at his desk, lunching - and crunching - on a dry hard

biscuit; pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit

of a mouth, as if he were posting them.

"Always seems to me," said Wemmick, "as if he had set a mantrap and

was watching it. Suddenly - click - you're caught!"

Without remarking that mantraps were not among the amenities of

life, I said I supposed he was very skilful?

"Deep," said Wemmick, "as Australia." Pointing with his pen at the

office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the

purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of

the globe.