, you know. A
river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain.
That's real enough.«
    »It's very massive,« said I.
    »Massive?« repeated Wemmick. »I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater,
and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven
hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a
woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that
chain, and drop it as if it was red-hot, if inveigled into touching it.«
    At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more
general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he
gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth.
    It appeared to be a collection of black lanes, ditches, and little gardens,
and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a
little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut
out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.
    »My own doing,« said Wemmick. »Looks pretty; don't it?«
    I highly commended it. I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with
the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic
door, almost too small to get in at.
    »That's a real flagstaff, you see,« said Wemmick, »and on Sundays I run up a
real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up - so
- and cut off the communication.«
    The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two
deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up, and
made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish, and not merely mechanically.
    »At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time,« said Wemmick, »the gun fires.
There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a
Stinger.«
    The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress,
constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious
little tarpaulin