'I am to come to London the day after to-morrow, by the mid-
day coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me? At all
events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedi-
ence to it. She sends you her regard.-- Yours, Estella.'

If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several
suits of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain
to be content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly,
and I knew no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its
arrival brought me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and
began haunting the coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before
the coach had left the Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew
this perfectly well, I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-
office be out of my sight longer than five minutes at a time;
and in this condition of unreason I performed the first half-hour
of a watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against
me.

'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 com-
ing 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 neigh-
bourhood shouldn't complain, and that cannon of mine should
prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk.
Where do you think I 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 there-
upon 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.

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