“Is the lady anybody?” said I.

“No,” returned Wemmick.  “Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one — and she wasn’t of this slender ladylike sort, and you wouldn’t have caught her looking after this urn — unless there was something to drink in it.”  Wemmick’s attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.

“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked.  “He has the same look.”

“You’re right,” said Wemmick; “it’s the genuine look.  Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horsehair and a little fish-hook.  Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you.  He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed testators to sleep too.  You were a gentlemanly Cove, though” (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), “and you said you could write Greek.  Yah, Bounceable!  What a liar you were!  I never met such a liar as you!” Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, “Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before.”

While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewellery was derived from like sources.  As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands.

“Oh yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind.  One brings another, you see; that’s the way of it.  I always take ’em.  They’re curiosities.  And they’re property.  They may not be worth much, but, after all, they’re property and portable.  It don’t signify to you with your brilliant look-out, but as to myself, my guidingstar always is, “Get hold of portable property".”

When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a friendly manner: 

“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn’t mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honour.  I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got, you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house.”

I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.

“Thankee,” said he; “then we’ll consider that it’s to come off, when convenient to you.  Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “he’ll give you wine, and good wine.  I’ll give you punch, and not bad punch.  And now I’ll tell you something.  When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.”

“Shall I see something very uncommon?”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “you’ll see a wild beast tamed.  Not so very uncommon, you’ll tell me.  I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming.  It won’t lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers’s powers.  Keep your eye on it.”