"Pray," said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them
caught my sight again, "whose likenesses are those?"
"These?" said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off
the horrible heads before bringing them down. "These are two celebrated
ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap
(why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the
inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered
his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence,
didn't plan it badly."
"Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat
upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.
"Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate,
directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for
me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this
affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady
and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying,
"Had it made for me, express!"
"Is the lady anybody?" said I.
"No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game,
didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except
one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't
have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to
drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he
put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.
"Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the
same look."
"You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one
nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes,
he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you.
He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed
testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr.
Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek.
Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!"
Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the
largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only
the day before."
While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair,
the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived
from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I
ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before
me, dusting his hands.