The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred
about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf
below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and,
undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was
strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy
concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one
overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my
arm.

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where
are you bound for?"

"For the Temple, I think," said I.

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind."

"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You don't mind admitting
that, I suppose?"

"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that."

"And are not engaged?"

"I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged."

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me."

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming." So
I changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered,
serving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside
and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up
brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely
finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the
afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out,
opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at
the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.