Chapter 37

Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle.  On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most pacific manner by the Aged.

“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, “rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk.  He is very regular in his walks, is my son.  Very regular in everything, is my son.”

I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and we went in and sat down by the fireside.

“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I expect?” I nodded.  “Hah!  I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir?” I nodded hard.  “Yes; so they tell me.  His business is the Law?” I nodded harder.  “Which makes it more surprising in my son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law, but to the Wine-Coopering.”

Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him.  He threw me into the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner, “No, to be sure; you’re right.”  And to this hour I have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I had made.

As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own calling in life had been “the Wine-Coopering.”  By dint of straining that term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning understood.

“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the warehousing.  First, over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool; “and then in the City of London here.  However, having an infirmity — for I am hard of hearing, sir—­”

I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.

" — Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little made out this elegant and beautiful property.  But returning to what you said, you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, “what I say is, No to be sure; you’re right.”

I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little wooden flap with “John” upon it.  The old man, following my eyes, cried with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we both went out to the drawbridge.