"Were you known in London, once?"

     "Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly."

     "Were you-tried--in London?"

     "Which time?" said he, with a sharp look.

     "The last time."

     He nodded. "First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me."

     It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, "And what I done is worked out and paid for!" fell to at his breakfast.

     He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat much as I did,--repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and gloomily looking at the cloth.