Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on — which jostled us out at the doorway — to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home to supper?  Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard’s with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat until two o’clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing his plans.  I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and without a chance or hope.

Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty words of it.

Chapter 32

One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand it was.  It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus: 

“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the mid-day coach.  I believe it was settled you should meet me?  At all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it.  She sends you her regard.

Yours, Estella.”

If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be content with those I had.  My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew no peace or rest until the day arrived.  Not that its arrival brought me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the coach-office in wood-street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the Blue Boar in our town.  For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against me.

“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do?  I should hardly have thought this was your beat.”

I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.

“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly the Aged.  He’s in wonderful feather.  He’ll be eighty-two next birthday.  I have a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighbourhood shouldn’t complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure.  However, this is not London talk.  Where do you think I am going to?”