"It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on,
"sent up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure
of your address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little
matter of business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?"
"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in
those terms.
"When do you think of going down?"
"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who
was putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather
uncertain of my time. At once, I think."
"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr.
Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know."
Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I
settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a
glass of wine, and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers,
but not at me.
"So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played his
cards. He has won the pool."
It was as much as I could do to assent.
"Hah! He is a promising fellow--in his way--but he may not have
it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the
stronger has to be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat
her--"
"Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do not
seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr.
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