"You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you."

     "If there is bad blood between you and them," said I, to soften it off a little.

     "O! I don't know about bad blood," returned Mr. Wemmick; "there's not much bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by it."

     "That makes it worse."

     "You think so?" returned Mr. Wemmick. "Much about the same, I should say."

     He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him: walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling at all.

     "Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?" I asked Mr. Wemmick.

     "Yes," said he, nodding in the direction. "At Hammersmith, west of London."

     "Is that far?"