I then rejoined Mr.Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer.
We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail.

At that time jails were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrongdoing--and which is always its heaviest and longest punishment--was still far off.

So felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers, (to say nothing of paupers,) and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup.
It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was.
It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might walk among his plants.

This was first put into my head by his seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, "What, Captain Tom?
Are you there?
Ah, indeed!" and also, "Is that Black Bill behind the cistern?
Why I didn't look for you these two months; how do you find yourself ?" Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to anxious whisperers,--always singly,--Wemmick with his post-office in an immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were taking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last observed, towards coming out in full blow at their trial.
He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department of Mr.Jaggers's business; though something of the state of Mr.Jaggers hung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits.

His personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod, and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both hands, and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his pockets.