Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fifty-first chapter of Great Expectations.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts, please note, while we try to keep the text as close to the original as possible, some words have been changed to honor the marginalized communities who've identified the words as harmful and to stay in alignment with bite at a time book's brand values today we'll be continuing great expectations.

By Charles Dickens chapter 51 what purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving a Stella's parentage, I cannot say.

It will presently be seen that the.

Question was not before me in a.

Distinct shape until it was put before me by a wiser head than my own.

But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down, that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr.

Jaggers and come at the bare truth.

I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella's.

Sake, or whether I was glad to.

Transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me.

Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth anyway, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerard street that night, Herbert's representations that if I did, I should probably be laid up and stricken useless when our fugitive safety would depend upon me alone restrained my impatience on the understanding again and again reiterated that come what would I was to go to Mr.

Jagger's tomorrow.

I at length submitted to keep quiet and to have my hurts looked after and to stay at home.

Early next morning we went out together, and at the corner of Giltsburg street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into the city, and took.

My way to little Britain.

There were periodical occasions when Mr.

Jaggers and Wimick went over the office accounts and checked off the vouchers and put all things straight.

On these occasions, Wimick took his books and papers into Mr.

Jaggers'room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer office.

Finding such clerk on Wimick's post that morning, I knew what was going on, but I was not sorry to have Mr.

Jaggers and Wimick together, as Wimick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to compromise him.

My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders, favored my object, although I had sent Mr.

Jaggers a brief account of the accident as soon as I had arrived in.

Town, yet I had to give him.

All the details now, and the specialty of the occasion caused our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of evidence than it had been before.

While I described the disaster, Mr.

Jagger stood according to his want before the fire.

Wimick leaned back in his chair, staring at me with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post.

The two brutal casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at the present moment.

My narrative finished and their questions exhausted.

I then produced Miss Havisham's authority to receive the 900 pounds for Herbert.

Mr.

Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wimick, with instructions to draw the check for his signature.

While that was in the course of being done, I looked on at Wimick as he wrote, and Mr.

Jaggers, poisoning and swaying himself on his well polished boots, looked on at me.

I am sorry, Pip, said he, as.

I put the check in my pocket when he had signed it.

No, we do nothing for you.

Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me.

I returned whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her no.

Everybody should know his own business, said.

Mr.

Jaggers, and I saw Wimick's lips form the words portable property I should.

Not have told her no if I.

Had been you, said Mr.

Jaggers.

But every man ought to know his own business best.

Every man's business, said Wimick rather reproachfully.

Towards me, is portable property.

As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr.

Jaggers.

I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir.

I asked her to give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she possessed.

Did she?

Said Mr.

Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and then straightening himself.

I don't think I should have done so if I had been Miss Havisham.

But she ought to know her own business best.

I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss Havisham herself does, sir.

I know her mother.

Mr.

Jaggers looked at me inquiringly and repeated, Mother.

I've seen her mother within these three days.

Yes, said Mr.

Jaggers.

And so have you, sir.

And you have seen her still more recently?

Yes, said Mr.

Jaggers.

Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do, said I.

I know her father, too.

A certain stop that Mr.

Jaggers came to in his manner.

He was too self possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being brought to an indefinable, attentive.

Stop assured me that he did not.

Know who her father was.

This I had strongly suspected from Provost's account, as Herbert had repeated it, of his having kept himself dark, which I pieced onto the fact that he himself was not Mr.

Jagger's client until some four years later, and when he could have no reason for claiming his identity.

But I could not be sure of this unconsciousness on Mr.

Jagger's part before, though I was quite sure of it now.

So you know the young lady's father.

Pip, said Mr.

Jaggers.

Yes, I replied.

And his name is Provis from New South Wales.

Even Mr.

Jaggers started when I said those words.

It was the slightest start that could escape a man the most carefully repressed and the sooner checked.

But he did start, though.

He made it part of the action of taking out his pocket handkerchief.

How Wimick received the announcement, I'm unable to say, for I was afraid to.

Look at him just then, lest Mr.

Jaggers'sharpness should detect that there had been some communication unknown to him between us.

And on what evidence?

Pip?

Asked Mr.

Jaggers very coolly as he paused with his handkerchief halfway to his nose.

Does Provis make this claim he does not make it, said I, and has.

Never made it, and has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.

For once the powerful pocket handkerchief failed.

My reply was so unexpected that Mr.

Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked to a stern attention at me, though with an immovable face.

Then I told him all I knew and how I knew it, with the one reservation that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from Wimick.

I was very careful indeed as to that.

Nor did I look towards Wimick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for some time, silently meeting Mr.

Jaggers'look.

When I did at last turn my.

Eyes in Wimick's direction, I found that.

He had unposted his pen and was intent upon the table before him.

Ah, said Mr.

Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the table.

What item was it?

You were at Wimick when Mr.

Pipp came in.

But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way.

And I made a passionate, almost indignant appeal to him, to be more frank and manly with me.

I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had lapsed, the length.

Of time that had lasted, and the.

Discovery I had made.

And I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits.

I represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted.

I said that I did not blame.

Him or suspect him or mistrust him.

But I wanted assurance of the truth from him.

And if he asked me why I.

Wanted it and why I thought I.

Had any right to it, I would tell him little, as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that although I had lost her and must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything else in the world.

And seeing that Mr.

Jagger stood quite still and silent and apparently quite obdurate under this appeal, I turned to Wimick and said, wimick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart.

I've seen your pleasant home and your old father, and all the innocent, cheerful, playful ways with which you refresh your business life.

And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr.

Jaggers and to represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me.

I've never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr.

Jaggers and Wimick did after this apostrophe.

At first a misgiving crossed me that Wimick would be instantly dismissed from his employment, but I melted as I saw Mr.

Jaggers relax into something like a smile and Wimick become bolder.

What's all this?

Said Mr.

Jaggers.

You with an old father, and you with pleasant and playful ways.

Well, returned Wimick.

If I don't bring him here, what does it matter?

Pip?

Said Mr.

Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm and smiling openly.

This man must be the most cunning imposter in all London.

Not a bit of it, returned wimick.

Growing bolder and bolder.

I think you're another again they exchanged.

Their former OD looks, each apparently still distrustful that the other was taking him in.

You with a pleasant home, said Mr.

Jaggers.

Since it don't interfere with business, returned Wimick.

Let it be so.

Now I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of these days when you're tired of all this work.

Mr.

Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times and actually drew a sigh.

Pip, said he, we won't talk about poor dreams.

You know more about such things than I having much fresher experience of that kind.

But now, about this other matter.

I'll put a case to you.

Mind I admit nothing.

He waited for me to declare that.

I quite understood that.

He expressly said that.

He admitted nothing.

No, Pip, said Mr.

Jaggers, put this case.

Put the case that a woman under such circumstances, as you have mentioned, held her child concealed and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal advisor on is representing to her, that he must know, with an eye to the latitude of his defense, how the fact stood about that child.

Put the case that at the same time he held a trust to find.

A child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.

I follow you, sir.

Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil and that all he saw of children was they're being generated in great numbers for certain destruction.

Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar where they were held up to be seen.

Put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman and growing up to be hanged.

Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life.

He had reason to look up as so much spawn to develop into the fish that were come to his net to be prosecuted, defended for sworn made orphans bedeviled somehow.

I follow you, sir.

Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the heap who could be saved, whom the father believed dead and dared make no stir about as to whom over the mother, the legal advisor, had this power.

I know what you did and how you did it.

You came so and so.

You did such and such things to divert suspicion.

I've tracked you through it all and I tell it you all part with the child unless it should be necessary to produce it, to clear you, and then it shall be produced.

Give the child into my hands and I will do my best to bring you off.

If you are saved, your child is saved, too.

If you are lost, your child is still saved.

Put the case that this was done and that the woman was cleared.

I understand you perfectly.

But that I make no admissions.

That you make no admissions.

And Wimick repeated no admissions.

Put the case, Pip.

That passion and the terror of death had a little shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world and went to him to be sheltered.

Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out by asserting his power over her in the old way.

Do you comprehend the imaginary case?

Quite.

Put the case that the child grew up and was married for money.

That the mother was still living.

That the father was still living.

That the mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards, if you like, of one another.

That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind of it.

Put that last case to yourself very carefully.

I do.

I asked Wimick to put it to.

Himself very carefully, and Wimick said, I do.

For whose sake would you reveal the secret?

For the fathers.

I think you would not be much the better for the mother.

For the mothers.

I think if she had done such a deed, she would be safer where she was.

For the daughters.

I think it would hardly serve her to establish her parentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to disgrace after an escape of 20 years.

Pretty secure to last for life.

But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those poor dreams which have at one time or another been in the heads of more men than you think likely.

Then I tell you that you had better, and would much sooner, when you had thought well of it, chop off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wimick there to cut that off, too.

I looked at Wimick, whose face was very grave.

He gravely touched his lips with his forefinger.

I did the same.

Mr.

Jaggers did the same.

No, Wimick said the latter then resuming his usual manner, what item was that.

You were at when Mr.

Pip came in?

Standing by for a little while they were at work, I observed that the.

Od looks they had cast at one.

Another were repeated several times with this difference, now that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say conscious of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the other.

For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one another, Mr.

Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wimick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance.

For a moment.

I had never seen them on such ill terms, for generally they got on very well indeed together.

But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike, the client, with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within those walls.

This individual, who either in his own person or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble, which in that place meant Newgate called to announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting, and he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wimick.

Mr.

Jagger standing magisterially before the fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to twinkle with a tear.

What are you about?

Demanded Wimick with the utmost indignation.

What do you come sniveling here for?

I didn't go to do it, Mr.

Wimick.

You did, said Wimick.

How dare you?

You're not in a fit state to come here if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pin.

What do you mean by it?

A man can't help his feelings.

Mr.

Wimick pleaded.

Mike is what?

Demanded Wimick quite savagely.

Say that again.

Now look here, my man, said Mr.

Jaggers, advancing a step and pointing to the door.

Get out of this office.

I'll have no feelings here.

Get out.

Serves you right, said Wimick.

Get out.

So the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr.

Jaggers and Wimick appeared to have reestablished their good understanding and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them, as if they had just had lunch.

Thank you for joining Bite at a time books today while we read a.

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