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Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

July, 1997  [Etext #968]


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This Etext prepared for Project Gutenberg by Donald Lainson





Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens



PREFACE

What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions,
is plain truth to another.  That which is commonly called a long-sight,
perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings
non-existent to a short-sighted person.  I sometimes ask myself
whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between
some writers and some readers; whether it is ALWAYS the writer
who colours highly, or whether it is now and then the reader
whose eye for colour is a little dull?

On this head of exaggeration I have a positive experience, more
curious than the speculation I have just set down.  It is this:
I have never touched a character precisely from the life, but some
counterpart of that character has incredulously asked me: "Now
really, did I ever really, see one like it?"

All the Pecksniff family upon earth are quite agreed, I believe,
that Mr. Pecksniff is an exaggeration, and that no such character
ever existed.  I will not offer any plea on his behalf to so
powerful and genteel a body, but will make a remark on the
character of Jonas Chuzzlewit.

I conceive that the sordid coarseness and brutality of Jonas
would be unnatural, if there had been nothing in his early
education, and in the precept and example always before him,
to engender and develop the vices that make him odious.  But,
so born and so bred, admired for that which made him hateful,
and justified from his cradle in cunning, treachery, and avarice;
I claim him as the legitimate issue of the father upon whom those
vices are seen to recoil.  And I submit that their recoil upon
that old man, in his unhonoured age, is not a mere piece of
poetical justice, but is the extreme exposition of a direct truth.

I make this comment, and solicit the reader's attention to it in
his or her consideration of this tale, because nothing is more
common in real life than a want of profitable reflection on the
causes of many vices and crimes that awaken the general horror.
What is substantially true of families in this respect, is true
of a whole commonwealth.  As we sow, we reap.  Let the reader go
into the children's side of any prison in England, or, I grieve
to add, of many workhouses, and judge whether those are monsters
who disgrace our streets, people our hulks and penitentiaries, and
overcrowd our penal colonies, or are creatures whom we have
deliberately suffered to be bred for misery and ruin.

The American portion of this story is in no other respect a
caricature than as it is an exhibition, for the most part (Mr.
Bevan expected), of a ludicrous side, ONLY, of the American
character--of that side which was, four-and-twenty years ago,
from its nature, the most obtrusive, and the most likely to be
seen by such travellers as Young Martin and Mark Tapley.  As I
had never, in writing fiction, had any disposition to soften what
is ridiculous or wrong at home, so I then hoped that the
good-humored people of the United States would not be generally
disposed to quarrel with me for carrying the same usage abroad.
I am happy to believe that my confidence in that great nation was
not misplaced.

When this book was first published, I was given to understand, by
some authorities, that the Watertoast Association and eloquence
were beyond all bounds of belief.  Therefore I record the fact
that all that portion of Martin Chuzzlewit's experiences is a
literal paraphrase of some reports of public proceedings in the
United States (especially of the proceedings of a certain Brandywine
Association), which were printed in the Times Newspaper in June
and July, 1843--at about the time when I was engaged in writing
those parts of the book; and which remain on the file of the Times
Newspaper, of course.

In all my writings, I hope I have taken every available opportunity
of showing the want of sanitary improvements in the neglected
dwellings of the poor.  Mrs. Sarah Gamp was, four-and-twenty years
ago, a fair representation of the hired attendant on the poor in
sickness.  The hospitals of London were, in many respects, noble
Institutions; in others, very defective.  I think it not the least
among the instances of their mismanagement, that Mrs. Betsey Prig
was a fair specimen of a Hospital Nurse; and that the Hospitals,
with their means and funds, should have left it to private humanity
and enterprise, to enter on an attempt to improve that class of
persons--since, greatly improved through the agency of good women.



POSTSCRIPT

At a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868,
in the city of New York, by two hundred representatives of the Press
of the United States of America, I made the following observations,
among others:--

"So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I
might have been contented with troubling you no further from my
present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth
charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion,
whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense
of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony
to the national generosity and magnanimity.  Also, to declare how
astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me
on every side--changes moral, changes physical, changes in the
amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast
new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of
recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take
place anywhere.  Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose
that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me,
and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to
correct when I was here first.  And this brings me to a point on
which I have, ever since I landed in the United States last November,
observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it,
but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you
into my confidence now.  Even the Press, being human, may be
sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have
in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not
strictly accurate with reference to myself.  Indeed, I have, now
and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of
myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present
state of existence.  Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which
I have for some months past been collecting materials for, and
hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished me;
seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly well
known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no
consideration on earth would induce me to write one.  But what
I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
confidence I seek to place in you), is, on my return to England,
in my own person, in my own Journal, to bear, for the behoof of my
countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country
as I have hinted at to-night.  Also, to record that wherever I have
been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been
received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper,
hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for
the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation
here and the state of my health.  This testimony, so long as I live,
and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books,
I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of
those two books of mine in which I have referred to America.
And this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and
thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of plain justice
and honour."

I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay
upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness.
So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part
of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences
and impressions of America.

CHARLES DICKENS.

May, 1868.





CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTORY, CONCERNING THE PEDIGREE OF THE CHUZZLEWIT FAMILY


As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can
possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first
assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great
satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line
from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely
connected with the agricultural interest.  If it should ever be
urged by grudging and malicious persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any
period of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of
family pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only
pardonable but laudable, when the immense superiority of the house
to the rest of mankind, in respect of this its ancient origin, is
taken into account.

It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we
have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to
meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable
repetitions of the same phase of character.  Indeed, it may be laid
down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry,
the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient
days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a
promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the
ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of
this land.

Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and happiness
to find, that in various periods of our history, the Chuzzlewits
were actively connected with divers slaughterous conspiracies and
bloody frays.  It is further recorded of them, that being clad from
head to heel in steel of proof, they did on many occasions lead
their leather-jerkined soldiers to the death with invincible
courage, and afterwards return home gracefully to their relations
and friends.

There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with
William the Conqueror.  It does not appear that this illustrious
ancestor 'came over' that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at
any subsequent period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have
been ever greatly distinguished by the possession of landed estate.
And it is well known that for the bestowal of that kind of property
upon his favourites, the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were
as remarkable as those virtues are usually found to be in great men
when they give away what belongs to other people.

Perhaps in this place the history may pause to congratulate itself
upon the enormous amount of bravery, wisdom, eloquence, virtue,
gentle birth, and true nobility, that appears to have come into
England with the Norman Invasion: an amount which the genealogy of
every ancient family lends its aid to swell, and which would beyond
all question have been found to be just as great, and to the full as
prolific in giving birth to long lines of chivalrous descendants,
boastful of their origin, even though William the Conqueror had been
William the Conquered; a change of circumstances which, it is quite
certain, would have made no manner of difference in this respect.

There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if
indeed the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this
remarkable stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another
Chuzzlewit to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation,
and there intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue,
one olive-complexioned son.  This probable conjecture is
strengthened, if not absolutely confirmed, by a fact which cannot
fail to be interesting to those who are curious in tracing the
progress of hereditary tastes through the lives of their unconscious
inheritors.  It is a notable circumstance that in these later times,
many Chuzzlewits, being unsuccessful in other pursuits, have,
without the smallest rational hope of enriching themselves, or any
conceivable reason, set up as coal-merchants; and have, month after
month, continued gloomily to watch a small stock of coals, without
in any one instance negotiating with a purchaser.  The remarkable
similarity between this course of proceeding and that adopted by
their Great Ancestor beneath the vaults of the Parliament House at
Westminster, is too obvious and too full of interest, to stand in
need of comment.

It is also clearly proved by the oral traditions of the Family, that
there existed, at some one period of its history which is not
distinctly stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so
familiarized to the use and composition of inflammatory and
combustible engines, that she was called 'The Match Maker;' by which
nickname and byword she is recognized in the Family legends to this
day.  Surely there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the
Spanish lady, the mother of Chuzzlewit Fawkes.

But there is one other piece of evidence, bearing immediate
reference to their close connection with this memorable event in
English History, which must carry conviction, even to a mind (if
such a mind there be) remaining unconvinced by these presumptive
proofs.

There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly
respectable and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of
the Chuzzlewit Family (for his bitterest enemy never dared to hint
at his being otherwise than a wealthy man), a dark lantern of
undoubted antiquity; rendered still more interesting by being, in
shape and pattern, extremely like such as are in use at the present
day.  Now this gentleman, since deceased, was at all times ready to
make oath, and did again and again set forth upon his solemn
asseveration, that he had frequently heard his grandmother say, when
contemplating this venerable relic, 'Aye, aye!  This was carried by
my fourth son on the fifth of November, when he was a Guy Fawkes.'
These remarkable words wrought (as well they might) a strong
impression on his mind, and he was in the habit of repeating them
very often.  The just interpretation which they bear, and the
conclusion to which they lead, are triumphant and irresistible.  The
old lady, naturally strong-minded, was nevertheless frail and
fading; she was notoriously subject to that confusion of ideas, or,
to say the least, of speech, to which age and garrulity are liable.
The slight, the very slight, confusion apparent in these expressions
is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction.  'Aye, aye,'
quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is
necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye!
This lantern was carried by my forefather'--not fourth son, which is
preposterous--'on the fifth of November.  And HE was Guy Fawkes.'
Here we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in
strict accordance with the character of the speaker.  Indeed the
anecdote is so plainly susceptible of this meaning and no other,
that it would be hardly worth recording in its original state, were
it not a proof of what may be (and very often is) affected not only
in historical prose but in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a
little ingenious labour on the part of a commentator.

It has been said that there is no instance, in modern times, of a
Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great.
But here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable
figments from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence.
For letters are yet in the possession of various branches of the
family, from which it distinctly appears, being stated in so many
words, that one Diggory Chuzzlewit was in the habit of perpetually
dining with Duke Humphrey.  So constantly was he a guest at that
nobleman's table, indeed; and so unceasingly were His Grace's
hospitality and companionship forced, as it were, upon him; that we
find him uneasy, and full of constraint and reluctance; writing his
friends to the effect that if they fail to do so and so by bearer,
he will have no choice but to dine again with Duke Humphrey; and
expressing himself in a very marked and extraordinary manner as one
surfeited of High Life and Gracious Company.

It has been rumoured, and it is needless to say the rumour
originated in the same base quarters, that a certain male
Chuzzlewit, whose birth must be admitted to be involved in some
obscurity, was of very mean and low descent.  How stands the proof?
When the son of that individual, to whom the secret of his father's
birth was supposed to have been communicated by his father in his
lifetime, lay upon his deathbed, this question was put to him in a
distinct, solemn, and formal way: 'Toby Chuzzlewit, who was your
grandfather?'  To which he, with his last breath, no less distinctly,
solemnly, and formally replied: and his words were taken down at the
time, and signed by six witnesses, each with his name and address in
full: 'The Lord No Zoo.'  It may be said--it HAS been said, for human
wickedness has no limits--that there is no Lord of that name, and
that among the titles which have become extinct, none at all
resembling this, in sound even, is to be discovered.  But what is
the irresistible inference?  Rejecting a theory broached by some
well-meaning but mistaken persons, that this Mr Toby Chuzzlewit's
grandfather, to judge from his name, must surely have been a
Mandarin (which is wholly insupportable, for there is no pretence of
his grandmother ever having been out of this country, or of any
Mandarin having been in it within some years of his father's birth;
except those in the tea-shops, which cannot for a moment be regarded
as having any bearing on the question, one way or other), rejecting
this hypothesis, is it not manifest that Mr Toby Chuzzlewit had
either received the name imperfectly from his father, or that he had
forgotten it, or that he had mispronounced it? and that even at the
recent period in question, the Chuzzlewits were connected by a bend
sinister, or kind of heraldic over-the-left, with some unknown noble
and illustrious House?

From documentary evidence, yet preserved in the family, the fact is
clearly established that in the comparatively modern days of the
Diggory Chuzzlewit before mentioned, one of its members had attained
to very great wealth and influence.  Throughout such fragments of
his correspondence as have escaped the ravages of the moths (who, in
right of their extensive absorption of the contents of deeds and
papers, may be called the general registers of the Insect World), we
find him making constant reference to an uncle, in respect of whom
he would seem to have entertained great expectations, as he was in
the habit of seeking to propitiate his favour by presents of plate,
jewels, books, watches, and other valuable articles.  Thus, he
writes on one occasion to his brother in reference to a gravy-spoon,
the brother's property, which he (Diggory) would appear to have
borrowed or otherwise possessed himself of: 'Do not be angry, I have
parted with it--to my uncle.'  On another occasion he expresses
himself in a similar manner with regard to a child's mug which had
been entrusted to him to get repaired.  On another occasion he says,
'I have bestowed upon that irresistible uncle of mine everything I
ever possessed.'  And that he was in the habit of paying long and
constant visits to this gentleman at his mansion, if, indeed, he did
not wholly reside there, is manifest from the following sentence:
'With the exception of the suit of clothes I carry about with me,
the whole of my wearing apparel is at present at my uncle's.'  This
gentleman's patronage and influence must have been very extensive,
for his nephew writes, 'His interest is too high'--'It is too much'
--'It is tremendous'--and the like.  Still it does not appear (which
is strange) to have procured for him any lucrative post at court or
elsewhere, or to have conferred upon him any other distinction than
that which was necessarily included in the countenance of so great a
man, and the being invited by him to certain entertainment's, so
splendid and costly in their nature, that he calls them 'Golden
Balls.'

It is needless to multiply instances of the high and lofty station,
and the vast importance of the Chuzzlewits, at different periods.
If it came within the scope of reasonable probability that further
proofs were required, they might be heaped upon each other until
they formed an Alps of testimony, beneath which the boldest
scepticism should be crushed and beaten flat.  As a goodly tumulus
is already collected, and decently battened up above the Family
grave, the present chapter is content to leave it as it is: merely
adding, by way of a final spadeful, that many Chuzzlewits, both male
and female, are proved to demonstration, on the faith of letters
written by their own mothers, to have had chiselled noses,
undeniable chins, forms that might have served the sculptor for a
model, exquisitely-turned limbs and polished foreheads of so
transparent a texture that the blue veins might be seen branching
off in various directions, like so many roads on an ethereal map.
This fact in itself, though it had been a solitary one, would have
utterly settled and clenched the business in hand; for it is well
known, on the authority of all the books which treat of such
matters, that every one of these phenomena, but especially that of
the chiselling, are invariably peculiar to, and only make themselves
apparent in, persons of the very best condition.

This history having, to its own perfect satisfaction, (and,
consequently, to the full contentment of all its readers,) proved
the Chuzzlewits to have had an origin, and to have been at one time
or other of an importance which cannot fail to render them highly
improving and acceptable acquaintance to all right-minded
individuals, may now proceed in earnest with its task.  And having
shown that they must have had, by reason of their ancient birth, a
pretty large share in the foundation and increase of the human
family, it will one day become its province to submit, that such of
its members as shall be introduced in these pages, have still many
counterparts and prototypes in the Great World about us.  At present
it contents itself with remarking, in a general way, on this head:
Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying
any direct participation in the Manboddo doctrine touching the
probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do
play very strange and extraordinary tricks.  Secondly, and yet
without trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of
Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more
particularly to swine than to any other class of animals in the
creation, that some men certainly are remarkable for taking uncommon
good care of themselves.



CHAPTER TWO

WHEREIN CERTAIN PERSONS ARE PRESENTED TO THE READER, WITH WHOM HE
MAY, IF HE PLEASE, BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED


It was pretty late in the autumn of the year, when the declining sun
struggling through the mist which had obscured it all day, looked
brightly down upon a little Wiltshire village, within an easy
journey of the fair old town of Salisbury.

Like a sudden flash of memory or spirit kindling up the mind of an
old man, it shed a glory upon the scene, in which its departed youth
and freshness seemed to live again.  The wet grass sparkled in the
light; the scanty patches of verdure in the hedges--where a few
green twigs yet stood together bravely, resisting to the last the
tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts--took heart and brightened
up; the stream which had been dull and sullen all day long, broke
out into a cheerful smile; the birds began to chirp and twitter on
the naked boughs, as though the hopeful creatures half believed that
winter had gone by, and spring had come already.  The vane upon the
tapering spire of the old church glistened from its lofty station in
sympathy with the general gladness; and from the ivy-shaded windows
such gleams of light shone back upon the glowing sky, that it seemed
as if the quiet buildings were the hoarding-place of twenty summers,
and all their ruddiness and warmth were stored within.

Even those tokens of the season which emphatically whispered of the
coming winter, graced the landscape, and, for the moment, tinged its
livelier features with no oppressive air of sadness.  The fallen
leaves, with which the ground was strewn, gave forth a pleasant
fragrance, and subduing all harsh sounds of distant feet and wheels
created a repose in gentle unison with the light scattering of seed
hither and thither by the distant husbandman, and with the
noiseless passage of the plough as it turned up the rich brown
earth, and wrought a graceful pattern in the stubbled fields.  On
the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like
clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the
fruits were jewels; others stripped of all their garniture, stood,
each the centre of its little heap of bright red leaves, watching
their slow decay; others again, still wearing theirs, had them all
crunched and crackled up, as though they had been burnt; about the
stems of some were piled, in ruddy mounds, the apples they had borne
that year; while others (hardy evergreens this class) showed
somewhat stern and gloomy in their vigour, as charged by nature with
the admonition that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous
favourites she grants the longest term of life.  Still athwart their
darker boughs, the sunbeams struck out paths of deeper gold; and the
red light, mantling in among their swarthy branches, used them as
foils to set its brightness off, and aid the lustre of the dying
day.

A moment, and its glory was no more.  The sun went down beneath the
long dark lines of hill and cloud which piled up in the west an airy
city, wall heaped on wall, and battlement on battlement; the light
was all withdrawn; the shining church turned cold and dark; the
stream forgot to smile; the birds were silent; and the gloom of
winter dwelt on everything.

An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and
rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music.
The withering leaves no longer quiet, hurried to and fro in search
of shelter from its chill pursuit; the labourer unyoked his horses,
and with head bent down, trudged briskly home beside them; and from
the cottage windows lights began to glance and wink upon the
darkening fields.

Then the village forge came out in all its bright importance.  The
lusty bellows roared Ha ha! to the clear fire, which roared in turn,
and bade the shining sparks dance gayly to the merry clinking of the
hammers on the anvil.  The gleaming iron, in its emulation, sparkled
too, and shed its red-hot gems around profusely.  The strong smith
and his men dealt such strokes upon their work, as made even the
melancholy night rejoice, and brought a glow into its dark face as
it hovered about the door and windows, peeping curiously in above
the shoulders of a dozen loungers.  As to this idle company, there
they stood, spellbound by the place, and, casting now and then a
glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled their lazy elbows
more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little further in: no more
disposed to tear themselves away than if they had been born to
cluster round the blazing hearth like so many crickets.

Out upon the angry wind! how from sighing, it began to bluster round
the merry forge, banging at the wicket, and grumbling in the
chimney, as if it bullied the jolly bellows for doing anything to
order.  And what an impotent swaggerer it was too, for all its
noise; for if it had any influence on that hoarse companion, it was
but to make him roar his cheerful song the louder, and by
consequence to make the fire burn the brighter, and the sparks to
dance more gayly yet; at length, they whizzed so madly round and
round, that it was too much for such a surly wind to bear; so off it
flew with a howl giving the old sign before the ale-house door such
a cuff as it went, that the Blue Dragon was more rampant than usual
ever afterwards, and indeed, before Christmas, reared clean out of
its crazy frame.

It was small tyranny for a respectable wind to go wreaking its
vengeance on such poor creatures as the fallen leaves, but this wind
happening to come up with a great heap of them just after venting
its humour on the insulted Dragon, did so disperse and scatter them
that they fled away, pell-mell, some here, some there, rolling over
each other, whirling round and round upon their thin edges, taking
frantic flights into the air, and playing all manner of
extraordinary gambols in the extremity of their distress.  Nor was
this enough for its malicious fury; for not content with driving
them abroad, it charged small parties of them and hunted them into
the wheel wright's saw-pit, and below the planks and timbers in the
yard, and, scattering the sawdust in the air, it looked for them
underneath, and when it did meet with any, whew! how it drove them
on and followed at their heels!

The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, and a giddy
chase it was; for they got into unfrequented places, where there was
no outlet, and where their pursuer kept them eddying round and round
at his pleasure; and they crept under the eaves of houses, and clung
tightly to the sides of hay-ricks, like bats; and tore in at open
chamber windows, and cowered close to hedges; and, in short, went
anywhere for safety.  But the oddest feat they achieved was, to take
advantage of the sudden opening of Mr Pecksniff's front-door, to
dash wildly into his passage; whither the wind following close upon
them, and finding the back-door open, incontinently blew out the
lighted candle held by Miss Pecksniff, and slammed the front-door
against Mr Pecksniff who was at that moment entering, with such
violence, that in the twinkling of an eye he lay on his back at the
bottom of the steps.  Being by this time weary of such trifling
performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoicing, roaring
over moor and meadow, hill and flat, until it got out to sea, where
it met with other winds similarly disposed, and made a night of it.

In the meantime Mr Pecksniff, having received from a sharp angle in
the bottom step but one, that sort of knock on the head which lights
up, for the patient's entertainment, an imaginary general
illumination of very bright short-sixes, lay placidly staring at his
own street door.  And it would seem to have been more suggestive in
its aspect than street doors usually are; for he continued to lie
there, rather a lengthy and unreasonable time, without so much as
wondering whether he was hurt or no; neither, when Miss Pecksniff
inquired through the key-hole in a shrill voice, which might have
belonged to a wind in its teens, 'Who's there' did he make any
reply; nor, when Miss Pecksniff opened the door again, and shading
the candle with her hand, peered out, and looked provokingly round
him, and about him, and over him, and everywhere but at him, did he
offer any remark, or indicate in any manner the least hint of a
desire to be picked up.

'I see you,' cried Miss Pecksniff, to the ideal inflicter of a
runaway knock.  'You'll catch it, sir!'

Still Mr Pecksniff, perhaps from having caught it already, said
nothing.

'You're round the corner now,' cried Miss Pecksniff.  She said it at
a venture, but there was appropriate matter in it too; for Mr
Pecksniff, being in the act of extinguishing the candles before
mentioned pretty rapidly, and of reducing the number of brass knobs
on his street door from four or five hundred (which had previously
been juggling of their own accord before his eyes in a very novel
manner) to a dozen or so, might in one sense have been said to be
coming round the corner, and just turning it.

With a sharply delivered warning relative to the cage and the
constable, and the stocks and the gallows, Miss Pecksniff was about
to close the door again, when Mr Pecksniff (being still at the
bottom of the steps) raised himself on one elbow, and sneezed.

'That voice!' cried Miss Pecksniff.  'My parent!'

At this exclamation, another Miss Pecksniff bounced out of the
parlour; and the two Miss Pecksniffs, with many incoherent
expressions, dragged Mr Pecksniff into an upright posture.

'Pa!' they cried in concert.  'Pa! Speak, Pa!  Do not look so wild my
dearest Pa!'

But as a gentleman's looks, in such a case of all others, are by no
means under his own control, Mr Pecksniff continued to keep his
mouth and his eyes very wide open, and to drop his lower jaw,
somewhat after the manner of a toy nut-cracker; and as his hat had
fallen off, and his face was pale, and his hair erect, and his coat
muddy, the spectacle he presented was so very doleful, that neither
of the Miss Pecksniffs could repress an involuntary screech.

'That'll do,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'I'm better.'

'He's come to himself!' cried the youngest Miss Pecksniff.

'He speaks again!' exclaimed the eldest.

With these joyful words they kissed Mr Pecksniff on either cheek;
and bore him into the house.  Presently, the youngest Miss Pecksniff
ran out again to pick up his hat, his brown paper parcel, his
umbrella, his gloves, and other small articles; and that done, and
the door closed, both young ladies applied themselves to tending Mr
Pecksniff's wounds in the back parlour.

They were not very serious in their nature; being limited to
abrasions on what the eldest Miss Pecksniff called 'the knobby
parts' of her parent's anatomy, such as his knees and elbows, and to
the development of an entirely new organ, unknown to phrenologists,
on the back of his head.  These injuries having been comforted
externally, with patches of pickled brown paper, and Mr Pecksniff
having been comforted internally, with some stiff brandy-and-water,
the eldest Miss Pecksniff sat down to make the tea, which was all
ready.  In the meantime the youngest Miss Pecksniff brought from the
kitchen a smoking dish of ham and eggs, and, setting the same before
her father, took up her station on a low stool at his feet; thereby
bringing her eyes on a level with the teaboard.

It must not be inferred from this position of humility, that the
youngest Miss Pecksniff was so young as to be, as one may say,
forced to sit upon a stool, by reason of the shortness of her legs.
Miss Pecksniff sat upon a stool because of her simplicity and
innocence, which were very great, very great.  Miss Pecksniff sat
upon a stool because she was all girlishness, and playfulness, and
wildness, and kittenish buoyancy.  She was the most arch and at the
same time the most artless creature, was the youngest Miss
Pecksniff, that you can possibly imagine.  It was her great charm.
She was too fresh and guileless, and too full of child-like
vivacity, was the youngest Miss Pecksniff, to wear combs in her
hair, or to turn it up, or to frizzle it, or braid it.  She wore it
in a crop, a loosely flowing crop, which had so many rows of curls
in it, that the top row was only one curl.  Moderately buxom was her
shape, and quite womanly too; but sometimes--yes, sometimes--she
even wore a pinafore; and how charming THAT was!  Oh! she was indeed
'a gushing thing' (as a young gentleman had observed in verse, in
the Poet's Corner of a provincial newspaper), was the youngest Miss
Pecksniff!

Mr Pecksniff was a moral man--a grave man, a man of noble sentiments
and speech--and he had had her christened Mercy.  Mercy! oh, what a
charming name for such a pure-souled Being as the youngest Miss
Pecksniff!  Her sister's name was Charity.  There was a good thing!
Mercy and Charity!  And Charity, with her fine strong sense and her
mild, yet not reproachful gravity, was so well named, and did so
well set off and illustrate her sister!  What a pleasant sight was
that the contrast they presented; to see each loved and loving one
sympathizing with, and devoted to, and leaning on, and yet
correcting and counter-checking, and, as it were, antidoting, the
other!  To behold each damsel in her very admiration of her sister,
setting up in business for herself on an entirely different
principle, and announcing no connection with over-the-way, and if the
quality of goods at that establishment don't please you, you are
respectfully invited to favour ME with a call!  And the crowning
circumstance of the whole delightful catalogue was, that both the
fair creatures were so utterly unconscious of all this!  They had no
idea of it.  They no more thought or dreamed of it than Mr Pecksniff
did.  Nature played them off against each other; THEY had no hand in
it, the two Miss Pecksniffs.

It has been remarked that Mr Pecksniff was a moral man.  So he was.
Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr Pecksniff,
especially in his conversation and correspondence.  It was once said
of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's purse of good
sentiments in his inside.  In this particular he was like the girl
in the fairy tale, except that if they were not actual diamonds
which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste, and
shone prodigiously.  He was a most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous
precept than a copy book.  Some people likened him to a direction-
post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes
there; but these were his enemies, the shadows cast by his
brightness; that was all.  His very throat was moral.  You saw a
good deal of it.  You looked over a very low fence of white cravat
(whereof no man had ever beheld the tie for he fastened it behind),
and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar,
serene and whiskerless before you.  It seemed to say, on the part of
Mr Pecksniff, 'There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is
peace, a holy calm pervades me.'  So did his hair, just grizzled with
an iron-grey which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt
upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy
eyelids.  So did his person, which was sleek though free from
corpulency.  So did his manner, which was soft and oily.  In a word,
even his plain black suit, and state of widower and dangling double
eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, 'Behold
the moral Pecksniff!'

The brazen plate upon the door (which being Mr Pecksniff's, could
not lie) bore this inscription, 'PECKSNIFF, ARCHITECT,' to which Mr
Pecksniff, on his cards of business, added, AND LAND SURVEYOR.'  In
one sense, and only one, he may be said to have been a Land Surveyor
on a pretty large scale, as an extensive prospect lay stretched out
before the windows of his house.  Of his architectural doings,
nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or
built anything; but it was generally understood that his knowledge
of the science was almost awful in its profundity.

Mr Pecksniff's professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not
entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of
rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his
graver toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural
employment.  His genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and
pocketing premiums.  A young gentleman's premium being paid, and the
young gentleman come to Mr Pecksniff's house, Mr Pecksniff borrowed
his case of mathematical instruments (if silver-mounted or otherwise
valuable); entreated him, from that moment, to consider himself one
of the family; complimented him highly on his parents or guardians,
as the case might be; and turned him loose in a spacious room on the
two-pair front; where, in the company of certain drawing-boards,
parallel rulers, very stiff-legged compasses, and two, or perhaps
three, other young gentlemen, he improved himself, for three or five
years, according to his articles, in making elevations of Salisbury
Cathedral from every possible point of sight; and in constructing in
the air a vast quantity of Castles, Houses of Parliament, and other
Public Buildings.  Perhaps in no place in the world were so many
gorgeous edifices of this class erected as under Mr Pecksniff's
auspices; and if but one-twentieth part of the churches which were
built in that front room, with one or other of the Miss Pecksniffs
at the altar in the act of marrying the architect, could only be
made available by the parliamentary commissioners, no more churches
would be wanted for at least five centuries.

'Even the worldly goods of which we have just disposed,' said Mr
Pecksniff, glancing round the table when he had finished, 'even
cream, sugar, tea, toast, ham--'

'And eggs,' suggested Charity in a low voice.

'And eggs,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'even they have their moral.  See how
they come and go!  Every pleasure is transitory.  We can't even eat,
long.  If we indulge in harmless fluids, we get the dropsy; if in
exciting liquids, we get drunk.  What a soothing reflection is
that!'

'Don't say WE get drunk, Pa,' urged the eldest Miss Pecksniff.

'When I say we, my dear,' returned her father, 'I mean mankind in
general; the human race, considered as a body, and not as
individuals.  There is nothing personal in morality, my love.  Even
such a thing as this,' said Mr Pecksniff, laying the fore-finger of
his left hand upon the brown paper patch on the top of his head,
'slight casual baldness though it be, reminds us that we are but'--
he was going to say 'worms,' but recollecting that worms were not
remarkable for heads of hair, he substituted 'flesh and blood.'

'Which,' cried Mr Pecksniff after a pause, during which he seemed to
have been casting about for a new moral, and not quite successfully,
'which is also very soothing.  Mercy, my dear, stir the fire and
throw up the cinders.'

The young lady obeyed, and having done so, resumed her stool,
reposed one arm upon her father's knee, and laid her blooming cheek
upon it.  Miss Charity drew her chair nearer the fire, as one
prepared for conversation, and looked towards her father.

'Yes,' said Mr Pecksniff, after a short pause, during which he had
been silently smiling, and shaking his head at the fire--'I have
again been fortunate in the attainment of my object.  A new inmate
will very shortly come among us.'

'A youth, papa?' asked Charity.

'Ye-es, a youth,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'He will avail himself of the
eligible opportunity which now offers, for uniting the advantages of
the best practical architectural education with the comforts of a
home, and the constant association with some who (however humble
their sphere, and limited their capacity) are not unmindful of their
moral responsibilities.'

'Oh Pa!' cried Mercy, holding up her finger archly.  'See
advertisement!'

'Playful--playful warbler,' said Mr Pecksniff.  It may be observed
in connection with his calling his daughter a 'warbler,' that she was
not at all vocal, but that Mr Pecksniff was in the frequent habit of
using any word that occurred to him as having a good sound, and
rounding a sentence well without much care for its meaning.  And he
did this so boldly, and in such an imposing manner, that he would
sometimes stagger the wisest people with his eloquence, and make
them gasp again.

His enemies asserted, by the way, that a strong trustfulness in
sounds and forms was the master-key to Mr Pecksniff's character.

'Is he handsome, Pa?' inquired the younger daughter.

'Silly Merry!' said the eldest: Merry being fond for Mercy.  'What
is the premium, Pa? tell us that.'

'Oh, good gracious, Cherry!' cried Miss Mercy, holding up her hands
with the most winning giggle in the world, 'what a mercenary girl
you are! oh you naughty, thoughtful, prudent thing!'

It was perfectly charming, and worthy of the Pastoral age, to see
how the two Miss Pecksniffs slapped each other after this, and then
subsided into an embrace expressive of their different dispositions.

'He is well looking,' said Mr Pecksniff, slowly and distinctly;
'well looking enough.  I do not positively expect any immediate
premium with him.'

Notwithstanding their different natures, both Charity and Mercy
concurred in opening their eyes uncommonly wide at this
announcement, and in looking for the moment as blank as if their
thoughts had actually had a direct bearing on the main chance.

'But what of that!' said Mr Pecksniff, still smiling at the fire.
'There is disinterestedness in the world, I hope?  We are not all
arrayed in two opposite ranks; the OFfensive and the DEfensive.
Some few there are who walk between; who help the needy as they go;
and take no part with either side.  Umph!'

There was something in these morsels of philanthropy which reassured
the sisters.  They exchanged glances, and brightened very much.

'Oh! let us not be for ever calculating, devising, and plotting for
the future,' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling more and more, and looking
at the fire as a man might, who was cracking a joke with it: 'I am
weary of such arts.  If our inclinations are but good and open-
hearted, let us gratify them boldly, though they bring upon us Loss
instead of Profit.  Eh, Charity?'

Glancing towards his daughters for the first time since he had begun
these reflections, and seeing that they both smiled, Mr Pecksniff
eyed them for an instant so jocosely (though still with a kind of
saintly waggishness) that the younger one was moved to sit upon his
knee forthwith, put her fair arms round his neck, and kiss him
twenty times.  During the whole of this affectionate display she
laughed to a most immoderate extent: in which hilarious indulgence
even the prudent Cherry joined.

'Tut, tut,' said Mr Pecksniff, pushing his latest-born away and
running his fingers through his hair, as he resumed his tranquil
face.  'What folly is this!  Let us take heed how we laugh without
reason lest we cry with it.  What is the domestic news since
yesterday?  John Westlock is gone, I hope?'

'Indeed, no,' said Charity.

'And why not?' returned her father.  'His term expired yesterday.
And his box was packed, I know; for I saw it, in the morning,
standing in the hall.'

'He slept last night at the Dragon,' returned the young lady, 'and
had Mr Pinch to dine with him.  They spent the evening together, and
Mr Pinch was not home till very late.'

'And when I saw him on the stairs this morning, Pa,' said Mercy with
her usual sprightliness, 'he looked, oh goodness, SUCH a monster!
with his face all manner of colours, and his eyes as dull as if they
had been boiled, and his head aching dreadfully, I am sure from the
look of it, and his clothes smelling, oh it's impossible to say how
strong, oh'--here the young lady shuddered--'of smoke and punch.'

'Now I think,' said Mr Pecksniff with his accustomed gentleness,
though still with the air of one who suffered under injury without
complaint, 'I think Mr Pinch might have done better than choose for
his companion one who, at the close of a long intercourse, had
endeavoured, as he knew, to wound my feelings.  I am not quite sure
that this was delicate in Mr Pinch.  I am not quite sure that this
was kind in Mr Pinch.  I will go further and say, I am not quite
sure that this was even ordinarily grateful in Mr Pinch.'

'But what can anyone expect from Mr Pinch!' cried Charity, with as
strong and scornful an emphasis on the name as if it would have
given her unspeakable pleasure to express it, in an acted charade,
on the calf of that gentleman's leg.

'Aye, aye,' returned her father, raising his hand mildly: 'it is
very well to say what can we expect from Mr Pinch, but Mr Pinch is a
fellow-creature, my dear; Mr Pinch is an item in the vast total of
humanity, my love; and we have a right, it is our duty, to expect in
Mr Pinch some development of those better qualities, the possession
of which in our own persons inspires our humble self-respect.  No,'
continued Mr Pecksniff.  'No! Heaven forbid that I should say,
nothing can be expected from Mr Pinch; or that I should say, nothing
can be expected from any man alive (even the most degraded, which Mr
Pinch is not, no, really); but Mr Pinch has disappointed me; he has
hurt me; I think a little the worse of him on this account, but not
if human nature.  Oh, no, no!'

'Hark!' said Miss Charity, holding up her finger, as a gentle rap
was heard at the street door.  'There is the creature!  Now mark my
words, he has come back with John Westlock for his box, and is going
to help him to take it to the mail.  Only mark my words, if that
isn't his intention!'

Even as she spoke, the box appeared to be in progress of conveyance
from the house, but after a brief murmuring of question and answer,
it was put down again, and somebody knocked at the parlour door.

'Come in!' cried Mr Pecksniff--not severely; only virtuously.  'Come
in!'

An ungainly, awkward-looking man, extremely short-sighted, and
prematurely bald, availed himself of this permission; and seeing
that Mr Pecksniff sat with his back towards him, gazing at the fire,
stood hesitating, with the door in his hand.  He was far from
handsome certainly; and was drest in a snuff-coloured suit, of an
uncouth make at the best, which, being shrunk with long wear, was
twisted and tortured into all kinds of odd shapes; but
notwithstanding his attire, and his clumsy figure, which a great
stoop in his shoulders, and a ludicrous habit he had of thrusting
his head forward, by no means redeemed, one would not have been
disposed (unless Mr Pecksniff said so) to consider him a bad fellow
by any means.  He was perhaps about thirty, but he might have been
almost any age between sixteen and sixty; being one of those strange
creatures who never decline into an ancient appearance, but look
their oldest when they are very young, and get it over at once.

Keeping his hand upon the lock of the door, he glanced from Mr
Pecksniff to Mercy, from Mercy to Charity, and from Charity to Mr
Pecksniff again, several times; but the young ladies being as intent
upon the fire as their father was, and neither of the three taking
any notice of him, he was fain to say, at last,

'Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Pecksniff: I beg your pardon for
intruding; but--'

'No intrusion, Mr Pinch,' said that gentleman very sweetly, but
without looking round.  'Pray be seated, Mr Pinch.  Have the
goodness to shut the door, Mr Pinch, if you please.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Pinch; not doing so, however, but holding it
rather wider open than before, and beckoning nervously to somebody
without: 'Mr Westlock, sir, hearing that you were come home--'

'Mr Pinch, Mr Pinch!' said Pecksniff, wheeling his chair about, and
looking at him with an aspect of the deepest melancholy, 'I did not
expect this from you.  I have not deserved this from you!'

'No, but upon my word, sir--' urged Pinch.

'The less you say, Mr Pinch,' interposed the other, 'the better.  I
utter no complaint.  Make no defence.'

'No, but do have the goodness, sir,' cried Pinch, with great
earnestness, 'if you please.  Mr Westlock, sir, going away for good
and all, wishes to leave none but friends behind him.  Mr Westlock
and you, sir, had a little difference the other day; you have had
many little differences.'

'Little differences!' cried Charity.

'Little differences!' echoed Mercy.

'My loves!' said Mr Pecksniff, with the same serene upraising of his
hand; 'My dears!'  After a solemn pause he meekly bowed to Mr Pinch,
as who should say, 'Proceed;' but Mr Pinch was so very much at a
loss how to resume, and looked so helplessly at the two Miss
Pecksniffs, that the conversation would most probably have
terminated there, if a good-looking youth, newly arrived at man's
estate, had not stepped forward from the doorway and taken up the
thread of the discourse.

'Come, Mr Pecksniff,' he said, with a smile, 'don't let there be any
ill-blood between us, pray.  I am sorry we have ever differed, and
extremely sorry I have ever given you offence.  Bear me no ill-will
at parting, sir.'

'I bear,' answered Mr Pecksniff, mildly, 'no ill-will to any man on
earth.'

'I told you he didn't,' said Pinch, in an undertone; 'I knew he
didn't! He always says he don't.'

'Then you will shake hands, sir?' cried Westlock, advancing a step
or two, and bespeaking Mr Pinch's close attention by a glance.

'Umph!' said Mr Pecksniff, in his most winning tone.

'You will shake hands, sir.'

'No, John,' said Mr Pecksniff, with a calmness quite ethereal; 'no,
I will not shake hands, John.  I have forgiven you.  I had already
forgiven you, even before you ceased to reproach and taunt me.  I
have embraced you in the spirit, John, which is better than shaking
hands.'

'Pinch,' said the youth, turning towards him, with a hearty disgust
of his late master, 'what did I tell you?'

Poor Pinch looked down uneasily at Mr Pecksniff, whose eye was fixed
upon him as it had been from the first; and looking up at the
ceiling again, made no reply.

'As to your forgiveness, Mr Pecksniff,' said the youth, 'I'll not
have it upon such terms.  I won't be forgiven.'

'Won't you, John?' retorted Mr Pecksniff, with a smile.  'You must.
You can't help it.  Forgiveness is a high quality; an exalted
virtue; far above YOUR control or influence, John.  I WILL forgive
you.  You cannot move me to remember any wrong you have ever done
me, John.'

'Wrong!' cried the other, with all the heat and impetuosity of his
age.  'Here's a pretty fellow!  Wrong!  Wrong I have done him!  He'll
not even remember the five hundred pounds he had with me under false
pretences; or the seventy pounds a year for board and lodging that
would have been dear at seventeen!  Here's a martyr!'

'Money, John,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'is the root of all evil.  I
grieve to see that it is already bearing evil fruit in you.  But I
will not remember its existence.  I will not even remember the
conduct of that misguided person'--and here, although he spoke like
one at peace with all the world, he used an emphasis that plainly
said "I have my eye upon the rascal now"--'that misguided person who
has brought you here to-night, seeking to disturb (it is a happiness
to say, in vain) the heart's repose and peace of one who would have
shed his dearest blood to serve him.'

The voice of Mr Pecksniff trembled as he spoke, and sobs were heard
from his daughters.  Sounds floated on the air, moreover, as if two
spirit voices had exclaimed: one, 'Beast!' the other, 'Savage!'

'Forgiveness,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'entire and pure forgiveness is
not incompatible with a wounded heart; perchance when the heart is
wounded, it becomes a greater virtue.  With my breast still wrung
and grieved to its inmost core by the ingratitude of that person, I
am proud and glad to say that I forgive him.  Nay! I beg,' cried Mr
Pecksniff, raising his voice, as Pinch appeared about to speak, 'I
beg that individual not to offer a remark; he will truly oblige me
by not uttering one word, just now.  I am not sure that I am equal
to the trial.  In a very short space of time, I shall have
sufficient fortitude, I trust to converse with him as if these
events had never happened.  But not,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning
round again towards the fire, and waving his hand in the direction
of the door, 'not now.'

'Bah!' cried John Westlock, with the utmost disgust and disdain the
monosyllable is capable of expressing.  'Ladies, good evening.
Come, Pinch, it's not worth thinking of.  I was right and you were
wrong.  That's small matter; you'll be wiser another time.'

So saying, he clapped that dejected companion on the shoulder,
turned upon his heel, and walked out into the passage, whither poor
Mr Pinch, after lingering irresolutely in the parlour for a few
seconds, expressing in his countenance the deepest mental misery and
gloom followed him.  Then they took up the box between them, and
sallied out to meet the mail.

That fleet conveyance passed, every night, the corner of a lane at
some distance; towards which point they bent their steps.  For some
minutes they walked along in silence, until at length young Westlock
burst into a loud laugh, and at intervals into another, and another.
Still there was no response from his companion.

'I'll tell you what, Pinch!' he said abruptly, after another
lengthened silence--'You haven't half enough of the devil in you.
Half enough!  You haven't any.'

'Well!' said Pinch with a sigh, 'I don't know, I'm sure.  It's
compliment to say so.  If I haven't, I suppose, I'm all the better
for it.'

'All the better!' repeated his companion tartly: 'All the worse, you
mean to say.'

'And yet,' said Pinch, pursuing his own thoughts and not this last
remark on the part of his friend, 'I must have a good deal of what
you call the devil in me, too, or how could I make Pecksniff so
uncomfortable?  I wouldn't have occasioned him so much distress--
don't laugh, please--for a mine of money; and Heaven knows I could
find good use for it too, John.  How grieved he was!'

'HE grieved!' returned the other.

'Why didn't you observe that the tears were almost starting out of
his eyes!' cried Pinch.  'Bless my soul, John, is it nothing to see
a man moved to that extent and know one's self to be the cause!  And
did you hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?'

'Do you WANT any blood shed for you?' returned his friend, with
considerable irritation.  'Does he shed anything for you that you DO
want?  Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you, pocket
money for you?  Does he shed even legs of mutton for you in any
decent proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?'

'I am afraid,' said Pinch, sighing again, 'that I am a great eater;
I can't disguise from myself that I'm a great eater.  Now, you know
that, John.'

'You a great eater!' retorted his companion, with no less
indignation than before.  'How do you know you are?'

There appeared to be forcible matter in this inquiry, for Mr Pinch
only repeated in an undertone that he had a strong misgiving on the
subject, and that he greatly feared he was.

'Besides, whether I am or no,' he added, 'that has little or nothing
to do with his thinking me ungrateful.  John, there is scarcely a
sin in the world that is in my eyes such a crying one as
ingratitude; and when he taxes me with that, and believes me to be
guilty of it, he makes me miserable and wretched.'

'Do you think he don't know that?' returned the other scornfully.
'But come, Pinch, before I say anything more to you, just run over
the reasons you have for being grateful to him at all, will you?
Change hands first, for the box is heavy.  That'll do.  Now, go on.'

'In the first place,' said Pinch, 'he took me as his pupil for much
less than he asked.'

'Well,' rejoined his friend, perfectly unmoved by this instance of
generosity.  'What in the second place?'

'What in the second place?' cried Pinch, in a sort of desperation,
'why, everything in the second place.  My poor old grandmother died
happy to think that she had put me with such an excellent man.  I
have grown up in his house, I am in his confidence, I am his
assistant, he allows me a salary; when his business improves, my
prospects are to improve too.  All this, and a great deal more, is
in the second place.  And in the very prologue and preface to the
first place, John, you must consider this, which nobody knows better
than I: that I was born for much plainer and poorer things, that I
am not a good hand for his kind of business, and have no talent for
it, or indeed for anything else but odds and ends that are of no use
or service to anybody.'

He said this with so much earnestness, and in a tone so full of
feeling, that his companion instinctively changed his manner as he
sat down on the box (they had by this time reached the finger-post
at the end of the lane); motioned him to sit down beside him; and
laid his hand upon his shoulder.

'I believe you are one of the best fellows in the world,' he said,
'Tom Pinch.'

'Not at all,' rejoined Tom.  'If you only knew Pecksniff as well as
I do, you might say it of him, indeed, and say it truly.'

'I'll say anything of him, you like,' returned the other, 'and not
another word to his disparagement.'

'It's for my sake, then; not his, I am afraid,' said Pinch, shaking
his head gravely.

'For whose you please, Tom, so that it does please you.  Oh!  He's a
famous fellow!  HE never scraped and clawed into his pouch all your
poor grandmother's hard savings--she was a housekeeper, wasn't she,
Tom?'

'Yes,' said Mr Pinch, nursing one of his large knees, and nodding
his head; 'a gentleman's housekeeper.'

'HE never scraped and clawed into his pouch all her hard savings;
dazzling her with prospects of your happiness and advancement, which
he knew (and no man better) never would be realised!  HE never
speculated and traded on her pride in you, and her having educated
you, and on her desire that you at least should live to be a
gentleman.  Not he, Tom!'

'No,' said Tom, looking into his friend's face, as if he were a
little doubtful of his meaning.  'Of course not.'

'So I say,' returned the youth, 'of course he never did.  HE didn't
take less than he had asked, because that less was all she had, and
more than he expected; not he, Tom!  He doesn't keep you as his
assistant because you are of any use to him; because your wonderful
faith in his pretensions is of inestimable service in all his mean
disputes; because your honesty reflects honesty on him; because your
wandering about this little place all your spare hours, reading in
ancient books and foreign tongues, gets noised abroad, even as far
as Salisbury, making of him, Pecksniff the master, a man of learning
and of vast importance.  HE gets no credit from you, Tom, not he.'

'Why, of course he don't,' said Pinch, gazing at his friend with a
more troubled aspect than before.  'Pecksniff get credit from me!
Well!'

'Don't I say that it's ridiculous,' rejoined the other, 'even to
think of such a thing?'

'Why, it's madness,' said Tom.

'Madness!' returned young Westlock.  'Certainly it's madness.  Who
but a madman would suppose he cares to hear it said on Sundays, that
the volunteer who plays the organ in the church, and practises on
summer evenings in the dark, is Mr Pecksniff's young man, eh, Tom?
Who but a madman would suppose it is the game of such a man as he,
to have his name in everybody's mouth, connected with the thousand
useless odds and ends you do (and which, of course, he taught you),
eh, Tom?  Who but a madman would suppose you advertised him
hereabouts, much cheaper and much better than a chalker on the walls
could, eh, Tom?  As well might one suppose that he doesn't on all
occasions pour out his whole heart and soul to you; that he doesn't
make you a very liberal and indeed rather an extravagant allowance;
or, to be more wild and monstrous still, if that be possible, as
well might one suppose,' and here, at every word, he struck him
lightly on the breast, 'that Pecksniff traded in your nature, and
that your nature was to be timid and distrustful of yourself, and
trustful of all other men, but most of all, of him who least
deserves it.  There would be madness, Tom!'

Mr Pinch had listened to all this with looks of bewilderment, which
seemed to be in part occasioned by the matter of his companion's
speech, and in part by his rapid and vehement manner.  Now that he
had come to a close, he drew a very long breath; and gazing
wistfully in his face as if he were unable to settle in his own mind
what expression it wore, and were desirous to draw from it as good a
clue to his real meaning as it was possible to obtain in the dark,
was about to answer, when the sound of the mail guard's horn came
cheerily upon their ears, putting an immediate end to the
conference; greatly as it seemed to the satisfaction of the younger
man, who jumped up briskly, and gave his hand to his companion.

'Both hands, Tom.  I shall write to you from London, mind!'

'Yes,' said Pinch.  'Yes.  Do, please.  Good-bye.  Good-bye.  I can
hardly believe you're going.  It seems, now, but yesterday that you
came.  Good-bye! my dear old fellow!'

John Westlock returned his parting words with no less heartiness of
manner, and sprung up to his seat upon the roof.  Off went the mail
at a canter down the dark road; the lamps gleaming brightly, and the
horn awakening all the echoes, far and wide.

'Go your ways,' said Pinch, apostrophizing the coach; 'I can hardly
persuade myself but you're alive, and are some great monster who
visits this place at certain intervals, to bear my friends away into
the world.  You're more exulting and rampant than usual tonight, I
think; and you may well crow over your prize; for he is a fine lad,
an ingenuous lad, and has but one fault that I know of; he don't
mean it, but he is most cruelly unjust to Pecksniff!'



CHAPTER THREE

IN WHICH CERTAIN OTHER PERSONS ARE INTRODUCED; ON THE SAME TERMS AS
IN THE LAST CHAPTER


Mention has been already made more than once, of a certain Dragon
who swung and creaked complainingly before the village alehouse
door.  A faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm
of rain, snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy
blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of grey.  But there he hung;
rearing, in a state of monstrous imbecility, on his hind legs;
waxing, with every month that passed, so much more dim and
shapeless, that as you gazed at him on one side of the sign-board it
seemed as if he must be gradually melting through it, and coming out
upon the other.

He was a courteous and considerate dragon, too; or had been in his
distincter days; for in the midst of his rampant feebleness, he kept
one of his forepaws near his nose, as though he would say, 'Don't
mind me--it's only my fun;' while he held out the other in polite
and hospitable entreaty.  Indeed it must be conceded to the whole
brood of dragons of modern times, that they have made a great
advance in civilisation and refinement.  They no longer demand a
beautiful virgin for breakfast every morning, with as much
regularity as any tame single gentleman expects his hot roll, but
rest content with the society of idle bachelors and roving married
men; and they are now remarkable rather for holding aloof from the
softer sex and discouraging their visits (especially on Saturday
nights), than for rudely insisting on their company without any
reference to their inclinations, as they are known to have done in
days of yore.

Nor is this tribute to the reclaimed animals in question so wide a
digression into the realms of Natural History as it may, at first
sight, appear to be; for the present business of these pages in with
the dragon who had his retreat in Mr Pecksniff's neighbourhood, and
that courteous animal being already on the carpet, there is nothing
in the way of its immediate transaction.

For many years, then, he had swung and creaked, and flapped himself
about, before the two windows of the best bedroom of that house of
entertainment to which he lent his name; but never in all his
swinging, creaking, and flapping, had there been such a stir within
its dingy precincts, as on the evening next after that upon which
the incidents, detailed in the last chapter occurred; when there was
such a hurrying up and down stairs of feet, such a glancing of
lights, such a whispering of voices, such a smoking and sputtering
of wood newly lighted in a damp chimney, such an airing of linen,
such a scorching smell of hot warming-pans, such a domestic bustle
and to-do, in short, as never dragon, griffin, unicorn, or other
animal of that species presided over, since they first began to
interest themselves in household affairs.

An old gentleman and a young lady, travelling, unattended, in a
rusty old chariot with post-horses; coming nobody knew whence and
going nobody knew whither; had turned out of the high road, and
driven unexpectedly to the Blue Dragon; and here was the old
gentleman, who had taken this step by reason of his sudden illness
in the carriage, suffering the most horrible cramps and spasms, yet
protesting and vowing in the very midst of his pain, that he
wouldn't have a doctor sent for, and wouldn't take any remedies but
those which the young lady administered from a small medicine-chest,
and wouldn't, in a word, do anything but terrify the landlady out of
her five wits, and obstinately refuse compliance with every
suggestion that was made to him.

Of all the five hundred proposals for his relief which the good
woman poured out in less than half an hour, he would entertain but
one.  That was that he should go to bed.  And it was in the
preparation of his bed and the arrangement of his chamber, that all
the stir was made in the room behind the Dragon.

He was, beyond all question, very ill, and suffered exceedingly; not
the less, perhaps, because he was a strong and vigorous old man,
with a will of iron, and a voice of brass.  But neither the
apprehensions which he plainly entertained, at times, for his life,
nor the great pain he underwent, influenced his resolution in the
least degree.  He would have no person sent for.  The worse he grew,
the more rigid and inflexible he became in his determination.  If
they sent for any person to attend him, man, woman, or child, he
would leave the house directly (so he told them), though he quitted
it on foot, and died upon the threshold of the door.

Now, there being no medical practitioner actually resident in the
village, but a poor apothecary who was also a grocer and general
dealer, the landlady had, upon her own responsibility, sent for him,
in the very first burst and outset of the disaster.  Of course it
followed, as a necessary result of his being wanted, that he was not
at home.  He had gone some miles away, and was not expected home
until late at night; so the landlady, being by this time pretty well
beside herself, dispatched the same messenger in all haste for Mr
Pecksniff, as a learned man who could bear a deal of responsibility,
and a moral man who could administer a world of comfort to a
troubled mind.  That her guest had need of some efficient services
under the latter head was obvious enough from the restless
expressions, importing, however, rather a worldly than a spiritual
anxiety, to which he gave frequent utterance.

From this last-mentioned secret errand, the messenger returned with
no better news than from the first; Mr Pecksniff was not at home.
However, they got the patient into bed without him; and in the
course of two hours, he gradually became so far better that there
were much longer intervals than at first between his terms of
suffering.  By degrees, he ceased to suffer at all; though his
exhaustion was occasionally so great that it suggested hardly less
alarm than his actual endurance had done.

It was in one of his intervals of repose, when, looking round with
great caution, and reaching uneasily out of his nest of pillows, he
endeavoured, with a strange air of secrecy and distrust, to make use
of the writing materials which he had ordered to be placed on a
table beside him, that the young lady and the mistress of the Blue
Dragon found themselves sitting side by side before the fire in the
sick chamber.

The mistress of the Blue Dragon was in outward appearance just what
a landlady should be: broad, buxom, comfortable, and good looking,
with a face of clear red and white, which, by its jovial aspect, at
once bore testimony to her hearty participation in the good things
of the larder and cellar, and to their thriving and healthful
influences.  She was a widow, but years ago had passed through her
state of weeds, and burst into flower again; and in full bloom she
had continued ever since; and in full bloom she was now; with roses
on her ample skirts, and roses on her bodice, roses in her cap,
roses in her cheeks,--aye, and roses, worth the gathering too, on
her lips, for that matter.  She had still a bright black eye, and
jet black hair; was comely, dimpled, plump, and tight as a
gooseberry; and though she was not exactly what the world calls
young, you may make an affidavit, on trust, before any mayor or
magistrate in Christendom, that there are a great many young ladies
in the world (blessings on them one and all!) whom you wouldn't like
half as well, or admire half as much, as the beaming hostess of the
Blue Dragon.

As this fair matron sat beside the fire, she glanced occasionally
with all the pride of ownership, about the room; which was a large
apartment, such as one may see in country places, with a low roof
and a sunken flooring, all downhill from the door, and a descent of
two steps on the inside so exquisitely unexpected, that strangers,
despite the most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in head first,
as into a plunging-bath.  It was none of your frivolous and
preposterously bright bedrooms, where nobody can close an eye with
any kind of propriety or decent regard to the association of ideas;
but it was a good, dull, leaden, drowsy place, where every article
of furniture reminded you that you came there to sleep, and that you
were expected to go to sleep.  There was no wakeful reflection of
the fire there, as in your modern chambers, which upon the darkest
nights have a watchful consciousness of French polish; the old
Spanish mahogany winked at it now and then, as a dozing cat or dog
might, nothing more.  The very size and shape, and hopeless
immovability of the bedstead, and wardrobe, and in a minor degree of
even the chairs and tables, provoked sleep; they were plainly
apoplectic and disposed to snore.  There were no staring portraits
to remonstrate with you for being lazy; no round-eyed birds upon the
curtains, disgustingly wide awake, and insufferably prying.  The
thick neutral hangings, and the dark blinds, and the heavy heap of
bed-clothes, were all designed to hold in sleep, and act as
nonconductors to the day and getting up.  Even the old stuffed
fox upon the top of the wardrobe was devoid of any spark of
vigilance, for his glass eye had fallen out, and he slumbered
as he stood.

The wandering attention of the mistress of the Blue Dragon roved to
these things but twice or thrice, and then for but an instant at a
time.  It soon deserted them, and even the distant bed with its
strange burden, for the young creature immediately before her, who,
with her downcast eyes intently fixed upon the fire, sat wrapped in
silent meditation.

She was very young; apparently no more than seventeen; timid and
shrinking in her manner, and yet with a greater share of self
possession and control over her emotions than usually belongs to a
far more advanced period of female life.  This she had abundantly
shown, but now, in her tending of the sick gentleman.  She was short
in stature; and her figure was slight, as became her years; but all
the charms of youth and maidenhood set it off, and clustered on her
gentle brow.  Her face was very pale, in part no doubt from recent
agitation.  Her dark brown hair, disordered from the same cause, had
fallen negligently from its bonds, and hung upon her neck; for which
instance of its waywardness no male observer would have had the
heart to blame it.

Her attire was that of a lady, but extremely plain; and in her
manner, even when she sat as still as she did then, there was an
indefinable something which appeared to be in kindred with her
scrupulously unpretending dress.  She had sat, at first looking
anxiously towards the bed; but seeing that the patient remained
quiet, and was busy with his writing, she had softly moved her chair
into its present place; partly, as it seemed, from an instinctive
consciousness that he desired to avoid observation; and partly that
she might, unseen by him, give some vent to the natural feelings she
had hitherto suppressed.

Of all this, and much more, the rosy landlady of the Blue Dragon
took as accurate note and observation as only woman can take of
woman.  And at length she said, in a voice too low, she knew, to
reach the bed:

'You have seen the gentleman in this way before, miss?  Is he used
to these attacks?'

'I have seen him very ill before, but not so ill as he has been
tonight.'

'What a Providence!' said the landlady of the Dragon, 'that you had
the prescriptions and the medicines with you, miss!'

'They are intended for such an emergency.  We never travel without
them.'

'Oh!' thought the hostess, 'then we are in the habit of travelling,
and of travelling together.'

She was so conscious of expressing this in her face, that meeting
the young lady's eyes immediately afterwards, and being a very
honest hostess, she was rather confused.

'The gentleman--your grandpapa'--she resumed, after a short pause,
'being so bent on having no assistance, must terrify you very much,
miss?'

'I have been very much alarmed to-night.  He--he is not my
grandfather.'

'Father, I should have said,' returned the hostess, sensible of
having made an awkward mistake.

'Nor my father' said the young lady.  'Nor,' she added, slightly
smiling with a quick perception of what the landlady was going to
add, 'Nor my uncle.  We are not related.'

'Oh dear me!' returned the landlady, still more embarrassed than
before; 'how could I be so very much mistaken; knowing, as anybody
in their proper senses might that when a gentleman is ill, he looks
so much older than he really is?  That I should have called you
"Miss," too, ma'am!'  But when she had proceeded thus far, she
glanced involuntarily at the third finger of the young lady's left
hand, and faltered again; for there was no ring upon it.

'When I told you we were not related,' said the other mildly, but
not without confusion on her own part, 'I meant not in any way.  Not
even by marriage.  Did you call me, Martin?'

'Call you?' cried the old man, looking quickly up, and hurriedly
drawing beneath the coverlet the paper on which he had been writing.
'No.'

She had moved a pace or two towards the bed, but stopped
immediately, and went no farther.

'No,' he repeated, with a petulant emphasis.  'Why do you ask me?
If I had called you, what need for such a question?'

'It was the creaking of the sign outside, sir, I dare say,' observed
the landlady; a suggestion by the way (as she felt a moment after
she had made it), not at all complimentary to the voice of the old
gentleman.

'No matter what, ma'am,' he rejoined: 'it wasn't I.  Why how you
stand there, Mary, as if I had the plague!  But they're all afraid of
me,' he added, leaning helplessly backward on his pillow; 'even she!
There is a curse upon me.  What else have I to look for?'

'Oh dear, no.  Oh no, I'm sure,' said the good-tempered landlady,
rising, and going towards him.  'Be of better cheer, sir.  These are
only sick fancies.'

'What are only sick fancies?' he retorted.  'What do you know about
fancies?  Who told you about fancies?  The old story!  Fancies!'

'Only see again there, how you take one up!' said the mistress of
the Blue Dragon, with unimpaired good humour.  'Dear heart alive,
there is no harm in the word, sir, if it is an old one.  Folks in
good health have their fancies, too, and strange ones, every day.'

Harmless as this speech appeared to be, it acted on the traveller's
distrust, like oil on fire.  He raised his head up in the bed, and,
fixing on her two dark eyes whose brightness was exaggerated by the
paleness of his hollow cheeks, as they in turn, together with his
straggling locks of long grey hair, were rendered whiter by the
tight black velvet skullcap which he wore, he searched her face
intently.

'Ah! you begin too soon,' he said, in so low a voice that he seemed
to be thinking it, rather than addressing her.  'But you lose no
time.  You do your errand, and you earn your fee.  Now, who may be
your client?'

The landlady looked in great astonishment at her whom he called
Mary, and finding no rejoinder in the drooping face, looked back
again at him.  At first she had recoiled involuntarily, supposing
him disordered in his mind; but the slow composure of his manner,
and the settled purpose announced in his strong features, and
gathering, most of all, about his puckered mouth, forbade the
supposition.

'Come,' he said, 'tell me who is it?  Being here, it is not very
hard for me to guess, you may suppose.'

'Martin,' interposed the young lady, laying her hand upon his arm;
'reflect how short a time we have been in this house, and that even
your name is unknown here.'

'Unless,' he said, 'you--'  He was evidently tempted to express a
suspicion of her having broken his confidence in favour of the
landlady, but either remembering her tender nursing, or being moved
in some sort by her face, he checked himself, and changing his
uneasy posture in the bed, was silent.

'There!' said Mrs Lupin; for in that name the Blue Dragon was
licensed to furnish entertainment, both to man and beast.  'Now, you
will be well again, sir.  You forgot, for the moment, that there
were none but friends here.'

'Oh!' cried the old man, moaning impatiently, as he tossed one
restless arm upon the coverlet; 'why do you talk to me of friends!
Can you or anybody teach me to know who are my friends, and who my
enemies?'

'At least,' urged Mrs Lupin, gently, 'this young lady is your
friend, I am sure.'

'She has no temptation to be otherwise,' cried the old man, like one
whose hope and confidence were utterly exhausted.  'I suppose she
is.  Heaven knows.  There, let me try to sleep.  Leave the candle
where it is.'

As they retired from the bed, he drew forth the writing which had
occupied him so long, and holding it in the flame of the taper burnt
it to ashes.  That done, he extinguished the light, and turning his
face away with a heavy sigh, drew the coverlet about his head, and
lay quite still.

This destruction of the paper, both as being strangely inconsistent
with the labour he had devoted to it, and as involving considerable
danger of fire to the Dragon, occasioned Mrs Lupin not a little
consternation.  But the young lady evincing no surprise, curiosity,
or alarm, whispered her, with many thanks for her solicitude and
company, that she would remain there some time longer; and that she
begged her not to share her watch, as she was well used to being
alone, and would pass the time in reading.

Mrs Lupin had her full share and dividend of that large capital of
curiosity which is inherited by her sex, and at another time it
might have been difficult so to impress this hint upon her as to
induce her to take it.  But now, in sheer wonder and amazement at
these mysteries, she withdrew at once, and repairing straightway to
her own little parlour below stairs, sat down in her easy-chair with
unnatural composure.  At this very crisis, a step was heard in the
entry, and Mr Pecksniff, looking sweetly over the half-door of the
bar, and into the vista of snug privacy beyond, murmured:

'Good evening, Mrs Lupin!'

'Oh dear me, sir!' she cried, advancing to receive him, 'I am so
very glad you have come.'

'And I am very glad I have come,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'if I can be of
service.  I am very glad I have come.  What is the matter, Mrs
Lupin?'

'A gentleman taken ill upon the road, has been so very bad upstairs,
sir,' said the tearful hostess.

'A gentleman taken ill upon the road, has been so very bad upstairs,
has he?' repeated Mr Pecksniff.  'Well, well!'

Now there was nothing that one may call decidedly original in this
remark, nor can it be exactly said to have contained any wise
precept theretofore unknown to mankind, or to have opened any
hidden source of consolation; but Mr Pecksniff's manner was so
bland, and he nodded his head so soothingly, and showed in
everything such an affable sense of his own excellence, that anybody
would have been, as Mrs Lupin was, comforted by the mere voice and
presence of such a man; and, though he had merely said 'a verb must
agree with its nominative case in number and person, my good
friend,' or 'eight times eight are sixty-four, my worthy soul,' must
have felt deeply grateful to him for his humanity and wisdom.

'And how,' asked Mr Pecksniff, drawing off his gloves and warming
his hands before the fire, as benevolently as if they were somebody
else's, not his; 'and how is he now?'

'He is better, and quite tranquil,' answered Mrs Lupin.

'He is better, and quite tranquil,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Very well!
Ve-ry well!'

Here again, though the statement was Mrs Lupin's and not Mr
Pecksniff's, Mr Pecksniff made it his own and consoled her with it.
It was not much when Mrs Lupin said it, but it was a whole book when
Mr Pecksniff said it.  'I observe,' he seemed to say, 'and through
me, morality in general remarks, that he is better and quite
tranquil.'

'There must be weighty matters on his mind, though,' said the
hostess, shaking her head, 'for he talks, sir, in the strangest way
you ever heard.  He is far from easy in his thoughts, and wants some
proper advice from those whose goodness makes it worth his having.'

'Then,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'he is the sort of customer for me.'  But
though he said this in the plainest language, he didn't speak a
word.  He only shook his head; disparagingly of himself too.

'I am afraid, sir,' continued the landlady, first looking round to
assure herself that there was nobody within hearing, and then
looking down upon the floor.  'I am very much afraid, sir, that his
conscience is troubled by his not being related to--or--or even
married to--a very young lady--'

'Mrs Lupin!' said Mr Pecksniff, holding up his hand with something
in his manner as nearly approaching to severity as any expression of
his, mild being that he was, could ever do.  'Person! young person?'

'A very young person,' said Mrs Lupin, curtseying and blushing; '--I
beg your pardon, sir, but I have been so hurried to-night, that I
don't know what I say--who is with him now.'

'Who is with him now,' ruminated Mr Pecksniff, warming his back (as
he had warmed his hands) as if it were a widow's back, or an
orphan's back, or an enemy's back, or a back that any less excellent
man would have suffered to be cold.  'Oh dear me, dear me!'

'At the same time I am bound to say, and I do say with all my
heart,' observed the hostess, earnestly, 'that her looks and manner
almost disarm suspicion.'

'Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,' said Mr Pecksniff gravely, 'is very
natural.'

Touching which remark, let it be written down to their confusion,
that the enemies of this worthy man unblushingly maintained that he
always said of what was very bad, that it was very natural; and that
he unconsciously betrayed his own nature in doing so.

'Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,' he repeated, 'is very natural, and I
have no doubt correct.  I will wait upon these travellers.'

With that he took off his great-coat, and having run his fingers
through his hair, thrust one hand gently in the bosom of his waist-
coat and meekly signed to her to lead the way.

'Shall I knock?' asked Mrs Lupin, when they reached the chamber
door.

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'enter if you please.'

They went in on tiptoe; or rather the hostess took that precaution
for Mr Pecksniff always walked softly.  The old gentleman was still
asleep, and his young companion still sat reading by the fire.

'I am afraid,' said Mr Pecksniff, pausing at the door, and giving
his head a melancholy roll, 'I am afraid that this looks artful.  I
am afraid, Mrs Lupin, do you know, that this looks very artful!'

As he finished this whisper, he advanced before the hostess; and at
the same time the young lady, hearing footsteps, rose.  Mr Pecksniff
glanced at the volume she held, and whispered Mrs Lupin again; if
possible, with increased despondency.

'Yes, ma'am,' he said, 'it is a good book.  I was fearful of that
beforehand.  I am apprehensive that this is a very deep thing
indeed!'

'What gentleman is this?' inquired the object of his virtuous
doubts.

'Hush! don't trouble yourself, ma'am,' said Mr Pecksniff, as the
landlady was about to answer.  'This young'--in spite of himself he
hesitated when "person" rose to his lips, and substituted another
word: 'this young stranger, Mrs Lupin, will excuse me for replying
briefly, that I reside in this village; it may be in an influential
manner, however, undeserved; and that I have been summoned here by
you.  I am here, as I am everywhere, I hope, in sympathy for the
sick and sorry.'

With these impressive words, Mr Pecksniff passed over to the
bedside, where, after patting the counterpane once or twice in a
very solemn manner, as if by that means he gained a clear insight
into the patient's disorder, he took his seat in a large arm-chair,
and in an attitude of some thoughtfulness and much comfort, waited
for his waking.  Whatever objection the young lady urged to Mrs
Lupin went no further, for nothing more was said to Mr Pecksniff,
and Mr Pecksniff said nothing more to anybody else.

Full half an hour elapsed before the old man stirred, but at length
he turned himself in bed, and, though not yet awake, gave tokens
that his sleep was drawing to an end.  By little and little he
removed the bed-clothes from about his head, and turned still more
towards the side where Mr Pecksniff sat.  In course of time his eyes
opened; and he lay for a few moments as people newly roused
sometimes will, gazing indolently at his visitor, without any
distinct consciousness of his presence.

There was nothing remarkable in these proceedings, except the
influence they worked on Mr Pecksniff, which could hardly have been
surpassed by the most marvellous of natural phenomena.  Gradually
his hands became tightly clasped upon the elbows of the chair, his
eyes dilated with surprise, his mouth opened, his hair stood more
erect upon his forehead than its custom was, until, at length, when
the old man rose in bed, and stared at him with scarcely less
emotion than he showed himself, the Pecksniff doubts were all
resolved, and he exclaimed aloud:

'You ARE Martin Chuzzlewit!'

His consternation of surprise was so genuine, that the old man, with
all the disposition that he clearly entertained to believe it
assumed, was convinced of its reality.

'I am Martin Chuzzlewit,' he said, bitterly: 'and Martin Chuzzlewit
wishes you had been hanged, before you had come here to disturb him
in his sleep.  Why, I dreamed of this fellow!' he said, lying down
again, and turning away his face, 'before I knew that he was near
me!'

'My good cousin--' said Mr Pecksniff.

'There!  His very first words!' cried the old man, shaking his grey
head to and fro upon the pillow, and throwing up his hands.  'In his
very first words he asserts his relationship!  I knew he would; they
all do it!  Near or distant, blood or water, it's all one.  Ugh!  What
a calendar of deceit, and lying, and false-witnessing, the sound of
any word of kindred opens before me!'

'Pray do not be hasty, Mr Chuzzlewit,' said Pecksniff, in a tone
that was at once in the sublimest degree compassionate and
dispassionate; for he had by this time recovered from his surprise,
and was in full possession of his virtuous self.  'You will regret
being hasty, I know you will.'

'You know!' said Martin, contemptuously.

'Yes,' retorted Mr Pecksniff.  'Aye, aye, Mr Chuzzlewit; and don't
imagine that I mean to court or flatter you; for nothing is further
from my intention.  Neither, sir, need you entertain the least
misgiving that I shall repeat that obnoxious word which has given
you so much offence already.  Why should I?  What do I expect or
want from you?  There is nothing in your possession that I know of,
Mr Chuzzlewit, which is much to be coveted for the happiness it
brings you.'

'That's true enough,' muttered the old man.

'Apart from that consideration,' said Mr Pecksniff, watchful of the
effect he made, 'it must be plain to you (I am sure) by this time,
that if I had wished to insinuate myself into your good opinion, I
should have been, of all things, careful not to address you as a
relative; knowing your humour, and being quite certain beforehand
that I could not have a worse letter of recommendation.'

Martin made not any verbal answer; but he as clearly implied though
only by a motion of his legs beneath the bed-clothes, that there was
reason in this, and that he could not dispute it, as if he had said
as much in good set terms.

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, keeping his hand in his waistcoat as though
he were ready, on the shortest notice, to produce his heart for
Martin Chuzzlewit's inspection, 'I came here to offer my services to
a stranger.  I make no offer of them to you, because I know you
would distrust me if I did.  But lying on that bed, sir, I regard
you as a stranger, and I have just that amount of interest in you
which I hope I should feel in any stranger, circumstanced as you
are.  Beyond that, I am quite as indifferent to you, Mr Chuzzlewit,
as you are to me.'

Having said which, Mr Pecksniff threw himself back in the easy-chair;
so radiant with ingenuous honesty, that Mrs Lupin almost wondered
not to see a stained-glass Glory, such as the Saint wore in the
church, shining about his head.

A long pause succeeded.  The old man, with increased restlessness,
changed his posture several times.  Mrs Lupin and the young lady
gazed in silence at the counterpane.  Mr Pecksniff toyed
abstractedly with his eye-glass, and kept his eyes shut, that he
might ruminate the better.

'Eh?' he said at last, opening them suddenly, and looking towards
the bed.  'I beg your pardon.  I thought you spoke.  Mrs Lupin,' he
continued, slowly rising 'I am not aware that I can be of any
service to you here.  The gentleman is better, and you are as good a
nurse as he can have.  Eh?'

This last note of interrogation bore reference to another change of
posture on the old man's part, which brought his face towards Mr
Pecksniff for the first time since he had turned away from him.

'If you desire to speak to me before I go, sir,' continued that
gentleman, after another pause, 'you may command my leisure; but I
must stipulate, in justice to myself, that you do so as to a
stranger, strictly as to a stranger.'

Now if Mr Pecksniff knew, from anything Martin Chuzzlewit had
expressed in gestures, that he wanted to speak to him, he could only
have found it out on some such principle as prevails in melodramas,
and in virtue of which the elderly farmer with the comic son always
knows what the dumb girl means when she takes refuge in his garden,
and relates her personal memoirs in incomprehensible pantomime.  But
without stopping to make any inquiry on this point, Martin
Chuzzlewit signed to his young companion to withdraw, which she
immediately did, along with the landlady leaving him and Mr
Pecksniff alone together.  For some time they looked at each other
in silence; or rather the old man looked at Mr Pecksniff, and Mr
Pecksniff again closing his eyes on all outward objects, took an
inward survey of his own breast.  That it amply repaid him for his
trouble, and afforded a delicious and enchanting prospect, was clear
from the expression of his face.

'You wish me to speak to you as to a total stranger,' said the old
man, 'do you?'

Mr Pecksniff replied, by a shrug of his shoulders and an apparent
turning round of his eyes in their sockets before he opened them,
that he was still reduced to the necessity of entertaining that
desire.

'You shall be gratified,' said Martin.  'Sir, I am a rich man.  Not
so rich as some suppose, perhaps, but yet wealthy.  I am not a miser
sir, though even that charge is made against me, as I hear, and
currently believed.  I have no pleasure in hoarding.  I have no
pleasure in the possession of money, The devil that we call by that
name can give me nothing but unhappiness.'

It would be no description of Mr Pecksniff's gentleness of manner to
adopt the common parlance, and say that he looked at this moment as
if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.  He rather looked as if any
quantity of butter might have been made out of him, by churning the
milk of human kindness, as it spouted upwards from his heart.

'For the same reason that I am not a hoarder of money,' said the old
man, 'I am not lavish of it.  Some people find their gratification
in storing it up; and others theirs in parting with it; but I have
no gratification connected with the thing.  Pain and bitterness are
the only goods it ever could procure for me.  I hate it.  It is a
spectre walking before me through the world, and making every social
pleasure hideous.'

A thought arose in Pecksniff's mind, which must have instantly
mounted to his face, or Martin Chuzzlewit would not have resumed as
quickly and as sternly as he did:

'You would advise me for my peace of mind, to get rid of this source
of misery, and transfer it to some one who could bear it better.
Even you, perhaps, would rid me of a burden under which I suffer so
grievously.  But, kind stranger,' said the old man, whose every
feature darkened as he spoke, 'good Christian stranger, that is a
main part of my trouble.  In other hands, I have known money do
good; in other hands I have known it triumphed in, and boasted of
with reason, as the master-key to all the brazen gates that close
upon the paths to worldly honour, fortune, and enjoyment.  To what
man or woman; to what worthy, honest, incorruptible creature; shall
I confide such a talisman, either now or when I die?  Do you know
any such person?  YOUR virtues are of course inestimable, but can
you tell me of any other living creature who will bear the test of
contact with myself?'

'Of contact with yourself, sir?' echoed Mr Pecksniff.

'Aye,' returned the old man, 'the test of contact with me--with me.
You have heard of him whose misery (the gratification of his own
foolish wish) was, that he turned every thing he touched into gold.
The curse of my existence, and the realisation of my own mad desire
is that by the golden standard which I bear about me, I am doomed to
try the metal of all other men, and find it false and hollow.'

Mr Pecksniff shook his head, and said, 'You think so.'

'Oh yes,' cried the old man, 'I think so! and in your telling me "I
think so," I recognize the true unworldly ring of YOUR metal.  I
tell you, man,' he added, with increasing bitterness, 'that I have
gone, a rich man, among people of all grades and kinds; relatives,
friends, and strangers; among people in whom, when I was poor, I had
confidence, and justly, for they never once deceived me then, or, to
me, wronged each other.  But I have never found one nature, no, not
one, in which, being wealthy and alone, I was not forced to detect
the latent corruption that lay hid within it waiting for such as I
to bring it forth.  Treachery, deceit, and low design; hatred of
competitors, real or fancied, for my favour; meanness, falsehood,
baseness, and servility; or,' and here he looked closely in his
cousin's eyes, 'or an assumption of honest independence, almost
worse than all; these are the beauties which my wealth has brought
to light.  Brother against brother, child against parent, friends
treading on the faces of friends, this is the social company by whom
my way has been attended.  There are stories told--they may be true
or false--of rich men who, in the garb of poverty, have found out
virtue and rewarded it.  They were dolts and idiots for their pains.
They should have made the search in their own characters.  They
should have shown themselves fit objects to be robbed and preyed
upon and plotted against and adulated by any knaves, who, but for
joy, would have spat upon their coffins when they died their dupes;
and then their search would have ended as mine has done, and they
would be what I am.'

Mr Pecksniff, not at all knowing what it might be best to say in the
momentary pause which ensued upon these remarks, made an elaborate
demonstration of intending to deliver something very oracular
indeed; trusting to the certainty of the old man interrupting him,
before he should utter a word.  Nor was he mistaken, for Martin
Chuzzlewit having taken breath, went on to say:

'Hear me to an end; judge what profit you are like to gain from any
repetition of this visit; and leave me.  I have so corrupted and
changed the nature of all those who have ever attended on me, by
breeding avaricious plots and hopes within them; I have engendered
such domestic strife and discord, by tarrying even with members of
my own family; I have been such a lighted torch in peaceful homes,
kindling up all the inflammable gases and vapours in their moral
atmosphere, which, but for me, might have proved harmless to the
end, that I have, I may say, fled from all who knew me, and taking
refuge in secret places have lived, of late, the life of one who is
hunted.  The young girl whom you just now saw--what! your eye
lightens when I talk of her!  You hate her already, do you?'

'Upon my word, sir!' said Mr Pecksniff, laying his hand upon his
breast, and dropping his eyelids.

'I forgot,' cried the old man, looking at him with a keenness which
the other seemed to feel, although he did not raise his eyes so as
to see it.  'I ask your pardon.  I forgot you were a stranger.  For
the moment you reminded me of one Pecksniff, a cousin of mine.  As I
was saying--the young girl whom you just now saw, is an orphan
child, whom, with one steady purpose, I have bred and educated, or,
if you prefer the word, adopted.  For a year or more she has been my
constant companion, and she is my only one.  I have taken, as she
knows, a solemn oath never to leave her sixpence when I die, but
while I live I make her an annual allowance; not extravagant in its
amount and yet not stinted.  There is a compact between us that no
term of affectionate cajolery shall ever be addressed by either to
the other, but that she shall call me always by my Christian name; I
her, by hers.  She is bound to me in life by ties of interest, and
losing by my death, and having no expectation disappointed, will
mourn it, perhaps; though for that I care little.  This is the only
kind of friend I have or will have.  Judge from such premises what a
profitable hour you have spent in coming here, and leave me, to
return no more.'

With these words, the old man fell slowly back upon his pillow.  Mr
Pecksniff as slowly rose, and, with a prefatory hem, began as
follows:

'Mr Chuzzlewit.'

'There.  Go!' interposed the other.  'Enough of this.  I am weary of
you.'

'I am sorry for that, sir,' rejoined Mr Pecksniff, 'because I have a
duty to discharge, from which, depend upon it, I shall not shrink.
No, sir, I shall not shrink.'

It is a lamentable fact, that as Mr Pecksniff stood erect beside the
bed, in all the dignity of Goodness, and addressed him thus, the old
man cast an angry glance towards the candlestick, as if he were
possessed by a strong inclination to launch it at his cousin's head.
But he constrained himself, and pointing with his finger to the
door, informed him that his road lay there.

'Thank you,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'I am aware of that.  I am going.
But before I go, I crave your leave to speak, and more than that, Mr
Chuzzlewit, I must and will--yes indeed, I repeat it, must and will
--be heard.  I am not surprised, sir, at anything you have told me
tonight.  It is natural, very natural, and the greater part of it
was known to me before.  I will not say,' continued Mr Pecksniff,
drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, and winking with both eyes at
once, as it were, against his will, 'I will not say that you are
mistaken in me.  While you are in your present mood I would not say
so for the world.  I almost wish, indeed, that I had a different
nature, that I might repress even this slight confession of
weakness; which I cannot disguise from you; which I feel is
humiliating; but which you will have the goodness to excuse.  We
will say, if you please,' added Mr Pecksniff, with great tenderness
of manner, 'that it arises from a cold in the head, or is
attributable to snuff, or smelling-salts, or onions, or anything but
the real cause.'

Here he paused for an instant, and concealed his face behind his
pocket-handkerchief.  Then, smiling faintly, and holding the bed
furniture with one hand, he resumed:

'But, Mr Chuzzlewit, while I am forgetful of myself, I owe it to
myself, and to my character--aye, sir, and I HAVE a character which
is very dear to me, and will be the best inheritance of my two
daughters--to tell you, on behalf of another, that your conduct is
wrong, unnatural, indefensible, monstrous.  And I tell you, sir,'
said Mr Pecksniff, towering on tiptoe among the curtains, as if he
were literally rising above all worldly considerations, and were
fain to hold on tight, to keep himself from darting skyward like a
rocket, 'I tell you without fear or favour, that it will not do for
you to be unmindful of your grandson, young Martin, who has the
strongest natural claim upon you.  It will not do, sir,' repeated Mr
Pecksniff, shaking his head.  'You may think it will do, but it
won't.  You must provide for that young man; you shall provide for
him; you WILL provide for him.  I believe,' said Mr Pecksniff,
glancing at the pen-and-ink, 'that in secret you have already done
so.  Bless you for doing so.  Bless you for doing right, sir.  Bless
you for hating me.  And good night!'

So saying, Mr Pecksniff waved his right hand with much solemnity,
and once more inserting it in his waistcoat, departed.  There was
emotion in his manner, but his step was firm.  Subject to human
weaknesses, he was upheld by conscience.

Martin lay for some time, with an expression on his face of silent
wonder, not unmixed with rage; at length he muttered in a whisper:

'What does this mean?  Can the false-hearted boy have chosen such a
tool as yonder fellow who has just gone out?  Why not!  He has
conspired against me, like the rest, and they are but birds of one
feather.  A new plot; a new plot!  Oh self, self, self!  At every
turn nothing but self!'

He fell to trifling, as he ceased to speak, with the ashes of the
burnt paper in the candlestick.  He did so, at first, in pure
abstraction, but they presently became the subject of his thoughts.

'Another will made and destroyed,' he said, 'nothing determined on,
nothing done, and I might have died to-night!  I plainly see to what
foul uses all this money will be put at last,' he cried, almost
writhing in the bed; 'after filling me with cares and miseries all
my life, it will perpetuate discord and bad passions when I am dead.
So it always is.  What lawsuits grow out of the graves of rich men,
every day; sowing perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred,
where there should be nothing but love!  Heaven help us, we have much
to answer for!  Oh self, self, self!  Every man for himself, and no
creature for me!'

Universal self!  Was there nothing of its shadow in these
reflections, and in the history of Martin Chuzzlewit, on his own
showing?



CHAPTER FOUR

FROM WHICH IT WILL APPEAR THAT IF UNION BE STRENGTH, AND FAMILY
AFFECTION BE PLEASANT TO CONTEMPLATE, THE CHUZZLEWITS WERE THE
STRONGEST AND MOST AGREEABLE FAMILY IN THE WORLD


That worthy man Mr Pecksniff having taken leave of his cousin in
the solemn terms recited in the last chapter, withdrew to his own
home, and remained there three whole days; not so much as going out
for a walk beyond the boundaries of his own garden, lest he should
be hastily summoned to the bedside of his penitent and remorseful
relative, whom, in his ample benevolence, he had made up his mind to
forgive unconditionally, and to love on any terms.  But such was the
obstinacy and such the bitter nature of that stern old man, that no
repentant summons came; and the fourth day found Mr Pecksniff
apparently much farther from his Christian object than the first.

During the whole of this interval, he haunted the Dragon at all
times and seasons in the day and night, and, returning good for evil
evinced the deepest solicitude in the progress of the obdurate
invalid, in so much that Mrs Lupin was fairly melted by his
disinterested anxiety (for he often particularly required her to
take notice that he would do the same by any stranger or pauper in
the like condition), and shed many tears of admiration and delight.

Meantime, old Martin Chuzzlewit remained shut up in his own chamber,
and saw no person but his young companion, saving the hostess of the
Blue Dragon, who was, at certain times, admitted to his presence.
So surely as she came into the room, however, Martin feigned to fall
asleep.  It was only when he and the young lady were alone, that he
would utter a word, even in answer to the simplest inquiry; though
Mr Pecksniff could make out, by hard listening at the door, that
they two being left together, he was talkative enough.

It happened on the fourth evening, that Mr Pecksniff walking, as
usual, into the bar of the Dragon and finding no Mrs Lupin there,
went straight upstairs; purposing, in the fervour of his
affectionate zeal, to apply his ear once more to the keyhole, and
quiet his mind by assuring himself that the hard-hearted patient was
going on well.  It happened that Mr Pecksniff, coming softly upon
the dark passage into which a spiral ray of light usually darted
through the same keyhole, was astonished to find no such ray
visible; and it happened that Mr Pecksniff, when he had felt his way
to the chamber-door, stooping hurriedly down to ascertain by
personal inspection whether the jealousy of the old man had caused
this keyhole to be stopped on the inside, brought his head into such
violent contact with another head that he could not help uttering in
an audible voice the monosyllable 'Oh!' which was, as it were,
sharply unscrewed and jerked out of him by very anguish.  It
happened then, and lastly, that Mr Pecksniff found himself
immediately collared by something which smelt like several damp
umbrellas, a barrel of beer, a cask of warm brandy-and-water, and a
small parlour-full of stale tobacco smoke, mixed; and was
straightway led downstairs into the bar from which he had lately
come, where he found himself standing opposite to, and in the grasp
of, a perfectly strange gentleman of still stranger appearance who,
with his disengaged hand, rubbed his own head very hard, and looked
at him, Pecksniff, with an evil countenance.

The gentleman was of that order of appearance which is currently
termed shabby-genteel, though in respect of his dress he can hardly
be said to have been in any extremities, as his fingers were a long
way out of his gloves, and the soles of his feet were at an
inconvenient distance from the upper leather of his boots.  His
nether garments were of a bluish grey--violent in its colours once,
but sobered now by age and dinginess--and were so stretched and
strained in a tough conflict between his braces and his straps, that
they appeared every moment in danger of flying asunder at the knees.
His coat, in colour blue and of a military cut, was buttoned and
frogged up to his chin.  His cravat was, in hue and pattern, like
one of those mantles which hairdressers are accustomed to wrap about
their clients, during the progress of the professional mysteries.
His hat had arrived at such a pass that it would have been hard to
determine whether it was originally white or black.  But he wore a
moustache--a shaggy moustache too; nothing in the meek and merciful
way, but quite in the fierce and scornful style; the regular Satanic
sort of thing--and he wore, besides, a vast quantity of unbrushed
hair.  He was very dirty and very jaunty; very bold and very mean;
very swaggering and very slinking; very much like a man who might
have been something better, and unspeakably like a man who deserved
to be something worse.

'You were eaves-dropping at that door, you vagabond!' said this
gentleman.

Mr Pecksniff cast him off, as Saint George might have repudiated the
Dragon in that animal's last moments, and said:

'Where is Mrs Lupin, I wonder! can the good woman possibly be aware
that there is a person here who--'

'Stay!' said the gentleman.  'Wait a bit.  She DOES know.  What
then?'

'What then, sir?' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'What then?  Do you know,
sir, that I am the friend and relative of that sick gentleman?  That
I am his protector, his guardian, his--'

'Not his niece's husband,' interposed the stranger, 'I'll be sworn;
for he was there before you.'

'What do you mean?' said Mr Pecksniff, with indignant surprise.
'What do you tell me, sir?'

'Wait a bit!' cried the other, 'Perhaps you are a cousin--the cousin
who lives in this place?'

'I AM the cousin who lives in this place,' replied the man of worth.

'Your name is Pecksniff?' said the gentleman.

'It is.'

'I am proud to know you, and I ask your pardon,' said the gentleman,
touching his hat, and subsequently diving behind his cravat for a
shirt-collar, which however he did not succeed in bringing to the
surface.  'You behold in me, sir, one who has also an interest in
that gentleman upstairs.  Wait a bit.'

As he said this, he touched the tip of his high nose, by way of
intimation that he would let Mr Pecksniff into a secret presently;
and pulling off his hat, began to search inside the crown among a
mass of crumpled documents and small pieces of what may be called
the bark of broken cigars; whence he presently selected the cover of
an old letter, begrimed with dirt and redolent of tobacco.

'Read that,' he cried, giving it to Mr Pecksniff.

'This is addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire,' said that gentleman.

'You know Chevy Slyme, Esquire, I believe?' returned the stranger.

Mr Pecksniff shrugged his shoulders as though he would say 'I know
there is such a person, and I am sorry for it.'

'Very good,' remarked the gentleman.  'That is my interest and
business here.'  With that he made another dive for his shirt-collar
and brought up a string.

'Now, this is very distressing, my friend,' said Mr Pecksniff,
shaking his head and smiling composedly.  'It is very distressing to
me, to be compelled to say that you are not the person you claim to
be.  I know Mr Slyme, my friend; this will not do; honesty is the
best policy you had better not; you had indeed.'

'Stop' cried the gentleman, stretching forth his right arm, which
was so tightly wedged into his threadbare sleeve that it looked like
a cloth sausage.  'Wait a bit!'

He paused to establish himself immediately in front of the fire with
his back towards it.  Then gathering the skirts of his coat under
his left arm, and smoothing his moustache with his right thumb and
forefinger, he resumed:

'I understand your mistake, and I am not offended.  Why?  Because
it's complimentary.  You suppose I would set myself up for Chevy
Slyme.  Sir, if there is a man on earth whom a gentleman would feel
proud and honoured to be mistaken for, that man is my friend Slyme.
For he is, without an exception, the highest-minded, the most
independent-spirited, most original, spiritual, classical, talented,
the most thoroughly Shakspearian, if not Miltonic, and at the same
time the most disgustingly-unappreciated dog I know.  But, sir, I
have not the vanity to attempt to pass for Slyme.  Any other man in
the wide world, I am equal to; but Slyme is, I frankly confess, a
great many cuts above me.  Therefore you are wrong.'

'I judged from this,' said Mr Pecksniff, holding out the cover of
the letter.

'No doubt you did,' returned the gentleman.  'But, Mr Pecksniff, the
whole thing resolves itself into an instance of the peculiarities of
genius.  Every man of true genius has his peculiarity.  Sir, the
peculiarity of my friend Slyme is, that he is always waiting round
the corner.  He is perpetually round the corner, sir.  He is round
the corner at this instant.  Now,' said the gentleman, shaking his
forefinger before his nose, and planting his legs wider apart as he
looked attentively in Mr Pecksniff's face, 'that is a remarkably
curious and interesting trait in Mr Slyme's character; and whenever
Slyme's life comes to be written, that trait must be thoroughly
worked out by his biographer or society will not be satisfied.
Observe me, society will not be satisfied!'

Mr Pecksniff coughed.

'Slyme's biographer, sir, whoever he may be,' resumed the gentleman,
'must apply to me; or, if I am gone to that what's-his-name from
which no thingumbob comes back, he must apply to my executors for
leave to search among my papers.  I have taken a few notes in my
poor way, of some of that man's proceedings--my adopted brother,
sir,--which would amaze you.  He made use of an expression, sir,
only on the fifteenth of last month when he couldn't meet a little
bill and the other party wouldn't renew, which would have done
honour to Napoleon Bonaparte in addressing the French army.'

'And pray,' asked Mr Pecksniff, obviously not quite at his ease,
'what may be Mr Slyme's business here, if I may be permitted to
inquire, who am compelled by a regard for my own character to
disavow all interest in his proceedings?'

'In the first place,' returned the gentleman, 'you will permit me to
say, that I object to that remark, and that I strongly and
indignantly protest against it on behalf of my friend Slyme.  In the
next place, you will give me leave to introduce myself.  My name,
sir, is Tigg.  The name of Montague Tigg will perhaps be familiar to
you, in connection with the most remarkable events of the Peninsular
War?'

Mr Pecksniff gently shook his head.

'No matter,' said the gentleman.  'That man was my father, and I
bear his name.  I am consequently proud--proud as Lucifer.  Excuse
me one moment.  I desire my friend Slyme to be present at the
remainder of this conference.'

With this announcement he hurried away to the outer door of the Blue
Dragon, and almost immediately returned with a companion shorter
than himself, who was wrapped in an old blue camlet cloak with a
lining of faded scarlet.  His sharp features being much pinched and
nipped by long waiting in the cold, and his straggling red whiskers
and frowzy hair being more than usually dishevelled from the same
cause, he certainly looked rather unwholesome and uncomfortable than
Shakspearian or Miltonic.

'Now,' said Mr Tigg, clapping one hand on the shoulder of his
prepossessing friend, and calling Mr Pecksniff's attention to him
with the other, 'you two are related; and relations never did agree,
and never will; which is a wise dispensation and an inevitable
thing, or there would be none but family parties, and everybody in
the world would bore everybody else to death.  If you were on good
terms, I should consider you a most confoundedly unnatural pair; but
standing towards each other as you do, I took upon you as a couple
of devilish deep-thoughted fellows, who may be reasoned with to any
extent.'

Here Mr Chevy Slyme, whose great abilities seemed one and all to
point towards the sneaking quarter of the moral compass, nudged his
friend stealthily with his elbow, and whispered in his ear.

'Chiv,' said Mr Tigg aloud, in the high tone of one who was not to
be tampered with.  'I shall come to that presently.  I act upon my
own responsibility, or not at all.  To the extent of such a trifling
loan as a crownpiece to a man of your talents, I look upon Mr
Pecksniff as certain;' and seeing at this juncture that the
expression of Mr Pecksniff's face by no means betokened that he
shared this certainty, Mr Tigg laid his finger on his nose again for
that gentleman's private and especial behoof; calling upon him
thereby to take notice that the requisition of small loans was
another instance of the peculiarities of genius as developed in his
friend Slyme; that he, Tigg, winked at the same, because of the
strong metaphysical interest which these weaknesses possessed; and
that in reference to his own personal advocacy of such small
advances, he merely consulted the humour of his friend, without the
least regard to his own advantage or necessities.

'Oh, Chiv, Chiv!' added Mr Tigg, surveying his adopted brother with
an air of profound contemplation after dismissing this piece of
pantomime.  'You are, upon my life, a strange instance of the little
frailties that beset a mighty mind.  If there had never been a
telescope in the world, I should have been quite certain from my
observation of you, Chiv, that there were spots on the sun!  I wish I
may die, if this isn't the queerest state of existence that we find
ourselves forced into without knowing why or wherefore, Mr
Pecksniff!  Well, never mind!  Moralise as we will, the world goes on.
As Hamlet says, Hercules may lay about him with his club in every
possible direction, but he can't prevent the cats from making a most
intolerable row on the roofs of the houses, or the dogs from being
shot in the hot weather if they run about the streets unmuzzled.
Life's a riddle; a most infernally hard riddle to guess, Mr
Pecksniff.  My own opinions, that like that celebrated conundrum,
"Why's a man in jail like a man out of jail?" there's no answer to
it.  Upon my soul and body, it's the queerest sort of thing
altogether--but there's no use in talking about it.  Ha! Ha!'

With which consolatory deduction from the gloomy premises recited,
Mr Tigg roused himself by a great effort, and proceeded in his
former strain.

'Now I'll tell you what it is.  I'm a most confoundedly soft-hearted
kind of fellow in my way, and I cannot stand by, and see you two
blades cutting each other's throats when there's nothing to be got
by it.  Mr Pecksniff, you're the cousin of the testator upstairs
and we're the nephew--I say we, meaning Chiv.  Perhaps in all
essential points you are more nearly related to him than we are.
Very good.  If so, so be it.  But you can't get at him, neither can
we.  I give you my brightest word of honour, sir, that I've been
looking through that keyhole with short intervals of rest, ever
since nine o'clock this morning, in expectation of receiving an
answer to one of the most moderate and gentlemanly applications for
a little temporary assistance--only fifteen pounds, and MY security
--that the mind of man can conceive.  In the meantime, sir, he is
perpetually closeted with, and pouring his whole confidence into the
bosom of, a stranger.  Now I say decisively with regard to this
state of circumstances, that it won't do; that it won't act; that it
can't be; and that it must not be suffered to continue.'

'Every man,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'has a right, an undoubted right,
(which I, for one, would not call in question for any earthly
consideration; oh no!) to regulate his own proceedings by his own
likings and dislikings, supposing they are not immoral and not
irreligious.  I may feel in my own breast, that Mr Chuzzlewit does
not regard--me, for instance; say me--with exactly that amount of
Christian love which should subsist between us.  I may feel grieved
and hurt at the circumstance; still I may not rush to the conclusion
that Mr Chuzzlewit is wholly without a justification in all his
coldnesses.  Heaven forbid!  Besides; how, Mr Tigg,' continued
Pecksniff even more gravely and impressively than he had spoken yet,
'how could Mr Chuzzlewit be prevented from having these peculiar and
most extraordinary confidences of which you speak; the existence of
which I must admit; and which I cannot but deplore--for his sake?
Consider, my good sir--' and here Mr Pecksniff eyed him wistfully--
'how very much at random you are talking.'

'Why, as to that,' rejoined Tigg, 'it certainly is a difficult
question.'

'Undoubtedly it is a difficult question,' Mr Pecksniff answered.  As
he spoke he drew himself aloft, and seemed to grow more mindful,
suddenly, of the moral gulf between himself and the creature he
addressed.  'Undoubtedly it is a very difficult question.  And I am
far from feeling sure that it is a question any one is authorized to
discuss.  Good evening to you.'

'You don't know that the Spottletoes are here, I suppose?' said Mr
Tigg.

'What do you mean, sir? what Spottletoes?' asked Pecksniff,
stopping abruptly on his way to the door.

'Mr and Mrs Spottletoe,' said Chevy Slyme, Esquire, speaking aloud
for the first time, and speaking very sulkily; shambling with his
legs the while.  'Spottletoe married my father's brother's child,
didn't he?  And Mrs Spottletoe is Chuzzlewit's own niece, isn't she?
She was his favourite once.  You may well ask what Spottletoes.'

'Now upon my sacred word!' cried Mr Pecksniff, looking upwards.
'This is dreadful.  The rapacity of these people is absolutely
frightful!'

'It's not only the Spottletoes either, Tigg,' said Slyme, looking at
that gentleman and speaking at Mr Pecksniff.  'Anthony Chuzzlewit
and his son have got wind of it, and have come down this afternoon.
I saw 'em not five minutes ago, when I was waiting round the
corner.'

'Oh, Mammon, Mammon!' cried Mr Pecksniff, smiting his forehead.

'So there,' said Slyme, regardless of the interruption, 'are his
brother and another nephew for you, already.'

'This is the whole thing, sir,' said Mr Tigg; 'this is the point and
purpose at which I was gradually arriving when my friend Slyme here,
with six words, hit it full.  Mr Pecksniff, now that your cousin
(and Chiv's uncle) has turned up, some steps must be taken to
prevent his disappearing again; and, if possible, to counteract the
influence which is exercised over him now, by this designing
favourite.  Everybody who is interested feels it, sir.  The whole
family is pouring down to this place.  The time has come when
individual jealousies and interests must be forgotten for a time,
sir, and union must be made against the common enemy.  When the
common enemy is routed, you will all set up for yourselves again;
every lady and gentleman who has a part in the game, will go in on
their own account and bowl away, to the best of their ability, at
the testator's wicket, and nobody will be in a worse position than
before.  Think of it.  Don't commit yourself now.  You'll find us at
the Half Moon and Seven Stars in this village, at any time, and open
to any reasonable proposition.  Hem! Chiv, my dear fellow, go out
and see what sort of a night it is.'

Mr Slyme lost no time in disappearing, and it is to be presumed in
going round the corner.  Mr Tigg, planting his legs as wide apart as
he could be reasonably expected by the most sanguine man to keep
them, shook his head at Mr Pecksniff and smiled.

'We must not be too hard,' he said, 'upon the little eccentricities
of our friend Slyme.  You saw him whisper me?'

Mr Pecksniff had seen him.

'You heard my answer, I think?'

Mr Pecksniff had heard it.

'Five shillings, eh?' said Mr Tigg, thoughtfully.  'Ah! what an
extraordinary fellow!  Very moderate too!'

Mr Pecksniff made no answer.

'Five shillings!' pursued Mr Tigg, musing; 'and to be punctually
repaid next week; that's the best of it.  You heard that?'

Mr Pecksniff had not heard that.

'No!  You surprise me!' cried Tigg.  'That's the cream of the thing
sir.  I never knew that man fail to redeem a promise, in my life.
You're not in want of change, are you?'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'thank you.  Not at all.'

'Just so,' returned Mr Tigg.  'If you had been, I'd have got it for
you.'  With that he began to whistle; but a dozen seconds had not
elapsed when he stopped short, and looking earnestly at Mr
Pecksniff, said:

'Perhaps you'd rather not lend Slyme five shillings?'

'I would much rather not,' Mr Pecksniff rejoined.

'Egad!' cried Tigg, gravely nodding his head as if some ground of
objection occurred to him at that moment for the first time, 'it's
very possible you may be right.  Would you entertain the same sort
of objection to lending me five shillings now?'

'Yes, I couldn't do it, indeed,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'Not even half-a-crown, perhaps?' urged Mr Tigg.

'Not even half-a-crown.'

'Why, then we come,' said Mr Tigg, 'to the ridiculously small amount
of eighteen pence.  Ha! ha!'

'And that,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'would be equally objectionable.'

On receipt of this assurance, Mr Tigg shook him heartily by both
hands, protesting with much earnestness, that he was one of the most
consistent and remarkable men he had ever met, and that he desired
the honour of his better acquaintance.  He moreover observed that
there were many little characteristics about his friend Slyme, of
which he could by no means, as a man of strict honour, approve; but
that he was prepared to forgive him all these slight drawbacks, and
much more, in consideration of the great pleasure he himself had
that day enjoyed in his social intercourse with Mr Pecksniff, which
had given him a far higher and more enduring delight than the
successful negotiation of any small loan on the part of his friend
could possibly have imparted.  With which remarks he would beg
leave, he said, to wish Mr Pecksniff a very good evening.  And so he
took himself off; as little abashed by his recent failure as any
gentleman would desire to be.

The meditations of Mr Pecksniff that evening at the bar of the
Dragon, and that night in his own house, were very serious and grave
indeed; the more especially as the intelligence he had received from
Messrs Tigg and Slyme touching the arrival of other members of the
family, were fully confirmed on more particular inquiry.  For the
Spottletoes had actually gone straight to the Dragon, where they
were at that moment housed and mounting guard, and where their
appearance had occasioned such a vast sensation that Mrs Lupin,
scenting their errand before they had been under her roof half an
hour, carried the news herself with all possible secrecy straight to
Mr Pecksniff's house; indeed it was her great caution in doing so
which occasioned her to miss that gentleman, who entered at the
front door of the Dragon just as she emerged from the back one.
Moreover, Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son Jonas were economically
quartered at the Half Moon and Seven Stars, which was an obscure
ale-house; and by the very next coach there came posting to the
scene of action, so many other affectionate members of the family
(who quarrelled with each other, inside and out, all the way down,
to the utter distraction of the coachman), that in less than four-
and-twenty hours the scanty tavern accommodation was at a premium,
and all the private lodgings in the place, amounting to full four
beds and sofa, rose cent per cent in the market.

In a word, things came to that pass that nearly the whole family sat
down before the Blue Dragon, and formally invested it; and Martin
Chuzzlewit was in a state of siege.  But he resisted bravely;
refusing to receive all letters, messages, and parcels; obstinately
declining to treat with anybody; and holding out no hope or promise
of capitulation.  Meantime the family forces were perpetually
encountering each other in divers parts of the neighbourhood; and,
as no one branch of the Chuzzlewit tree had ever been known to agree
with another within the memory of man, there was such a skirmishing,
and flouting, and snapping off of heads, in the metaphorical sense
of that expression; such a bandying of words and calling of names;
such an upturning of noses and wrinkling of brows; such a formal
interment of good feelings and violent resurrection of ancient
grievances; as had never been known in those quiet parts since the
earliest record of their civilized existence.

At length, in utter despair and hopelessness, some few of the
belligerents began to speak to each other in only moderate terms of
mutual aggravation; and nearly all addressed themselves with a show
of tolerable decency to Mr Pecksniff, in recognition of his high
character and influential position.  Thus, by little and little, they
made common cause of Martin Chuzzlewit's obduracy, until it was
agreed (if such a word can be used in connection with the
Chuzzlewits) that there should be a general council and conference
held at Mr Pecksniff's house upon a certain day at noon; which all
members of the family who had brought themselves within reach of the
summons, were forthwith bidden and invited, solemnly, to attend.

If ever Mr Pecksniff wore an apostolic look, he wore it on this
memorable day.  If ever his unruffled smile proclaimed the words, 'I
am a messenger of peace!' that was its mission now.  If ever man
combined within himself all the mild qualities of the lamb with a
considerable touch of the dove, and not a dash of the crocodile, or
the least possible suggestion of the very mildest seasoning of the
serpent, that man was he.  And, oh, the two Miss Pecksniffs!  Oh, the
serene expression on the face of Charity, which seemed to say, 'I
know that all my family have injured me beyond the possibility of
reparation, but I forgive them, for it is my duty so to do!'  And,
oh, the gay simplicity of Mercy; so charming, innocent, and infant-
like, that if she had gone out walking by herself, and it had been a
little earlier in the season, the robin-redbreasts might have
covered her with leaves against her will, believing her to be one of
the sweet children in the wood, come out of it, and issuing forth
once more to look for blackberries in the young freshness of her
heart!  What words can paint the Pecksniffs in that trying hour?  Oh,
none; for words have naughty company among them, and the Pecksniffs
were all goodness.

But when the company arrived!  That was the time.  When Mr Pecksniff,
rising from his seat at the table's head, with a daughter on either
hand, received his guests in the best parlour and motioned them to
chairs, with eyes so overflowing and countenance so damp with
gracious perspiration, that he may be said to have been in a kind of
moist meekness!  And the company; the jealous stony-hearted
distrustful company, who were all shut up in themselves, and had no
faith in anybody, and wouldn't believe anything, and would no more
allow themselves to be softened or lulled asleep by the Pecksniffs
than if they had been so many hedgehogs or porcupines!

First, there was Mr Spottletoe, who was so bald and had such big
whiskers, that he seemed to have stopped his hair, by the sudden
application of some powerful remedy, in the very act of falling off
his head, and to have fastened it irrevocably on his face.  Then
there was Mrs Spottletoe, who being much too slim for her years, and
of a poetical constitution, was accustomed to inform her more
intimate friends that the said whiskers were 'the lodestar of her
existence;' and who could now, by reason of her strong affection for
her uncle Chuzzlewit, and the shock it gave her to be suspected of
testamentary designs upon him, do nothing but cry--except moan.
Then there were Anthony Chuzzlewit, and his son Jonas; the face of
the old man so sharpened by the wariness and cunning of his life,
that it seemed to cut him a passage through the crowded room, as he
edged away behind the remotest chairs; while the son had so well
profited by the precept and example of the father, that he looked a
year or two the elder of the twain, as they stood winking their red
eyes, side by side, and whispering to each other softly.  Then there
was the widow of a deceased brother of Mr Martin Chuzzlewit, who
being almost supernaturally disagreeable, and having a dreary face
and a bony figure and a masculine voice, was, in right of these
qualities, what is commonly called a strong-minded woman; and who,
if she could, would have established her claim to the title, and
have shown herself, mentally speaking, a perfect Samson, by shutting
up her brother-in-law in a private madhouse, until he proved his
complete sanity by loving her very much.  Beside her sat her
spinster daughters, three in number, and of gentlemanly deportment,
who had so mortified themselves with tight stays, that their tempers
were reduced to something less than their waists, and sharp lacing
was expressed in their very noses.  Then there was a young
gentleman, grandnephew of Mr Martin Chuzzlewit, very dark and very
hairy, and apparently born for no particular purpose but to save
looking-glasses the trouble of reflecting more than just the first
idea and sketchy notion of a face, which had never been carried out.
Then there was a solitary female cousin who was remarkable for
nothing but being very deaf, and living by herself, and always
having the toothache.  Then there was George Chuzzlewit, a gay
bachelor cousin, who claimed to be young but had been younger, and
was inclined to corpulency, and rather overfed himself; to that
extent, indeed, that his eyes were strained in their sockets, as if
with constant surprise; and he had such an obvious disposition to
pimples, that the bright spots on his cravat, the rich pattern on
his waistcoat, and even his glittering trinkets, seemed to have
broken out upon him, and not to have come into existence
comfortably.  Last of all there were present Mr Chevy Slyme and his
friend Tigg.  And it is worthy of remark, that although each person
present disliked the other, mainly because he or she DID belong to
the family, they one and all concurred in hating Mr Tigg because he
didn't.

Such was the pleasant little family circle now assembled in Mr
Pecksniff's best parlour, agreeably prepared to fall foul of Mr
Pecksniff or anybody else who might venture to say anything whatever
upon any subject.

'This,' said Mr Pecksniff, rising and looking round upon them with
folded hands, 'does me good.  It does my daughters good.  We thank
you for assembling here.  We are grateful to you with our whole
hearts.  It is a blessed distinction that you have conferred upon
us, and believe me'-- it is impossible to conceive how he smiled
here--'we shall not easily forget it.'

'I am sorry to interrupt you, Pecksniff,' remarked Mr Spottletoe,
with his whiskers in a very portentous state; 'but you are assuming
too much to yourself, sir.  Who do you imagine has it in
contemplation to confer a distinction upon YOU, sir?'

A general murmur echoed this inquiry, and applauded it.

'If you are about to pursue the course with which you have begun,
sir,' pursued Mr Spottletoe in a great heat, and giving a violent
rap on the table with his knuckles, 'the sooner you desist, and this
assembly separates, the better.  I am no stranger, sir, to your
preposterous desire to be regarded as the head of this family, but I
can tell YOU, sir--'

Oh yes, indeed!  HE tell.  HE!  What?  He was the head, was he?  From
the strong-minded woman downwards everybody fell, that instant, upon
Mr Spottletoe, who after vainly attempting to be heard in silence
was fain to sit down again, folding his arms and shaking his head
most wrathfully, and giving Mrs Spottletoe to understand in dumb
show, that that scoundrel Pecksniff might go on for the present, but
he would cut in presently, and annihilate him.

'I am not sorry,' said Mr Pecksniff in resumption of his address, 'I
am really not sorry that this little incident has happened.  It is
good to feel that we are met here without disguise.  It is good to
know that we have no reserve before each other, but are appearing
freely in our own characters.'

Here, the eldest daughter of the strong-minded woman rose a little
way from her seat, and trembling violently from head to foot, more
as it seemed with passion than timidity, expressed a general hope
that some people WOULD appear in their own characters, if it were
only for such a proceeding having the attraction of novelty to
recommend it; and that when they (meaning the some people before
mentioned) talked about their relations, they would be careful to
observe who was present in company at the time; otherwise it might
come round to those relations' ears, in a way they little expected;
and as to red noses (she observed) she had yet to learn that a red
nose was any disgrace, inasmuch as people neither made nor coloured
their own noses, but had that feature provided for them without
being first consulted; though even upon that branch of the subject
she had great doubts whether certain noses were redder than other
noses, or indeed half as red as some.  This remark being received
with a shrill titter by the two sisters of the speaker, Miss Charity
Pecksniff begged with much politeness to be informed whether any of
those very low observations were levelled at her; and receiving no
more explanatory answer than was conveyed in the adage 'Those the
cap fits, let them wear it,' immediately commenced a somewhat
acrimonious and personal retort, wherein she was much comforted and
abetted by her sister Mercy, who laughed at the same with great
heartiness; indeed far more naturally than life.  And it being quite
impossible that any difference of opinion can take place among women
without every woman who is within hearing taking active part in it,
the strong-minded lady and her two daughters, and Mrs Spottletoe,
and the deaf cousin (who was not at all disqualified from joining in
the dispute by reason of being perfectly unacquainted with its
merits), one and all plunged into the quarrel directly.

The two Miss Pecksniffs being a pretty good match for the three Miss
Chuzzlewits, and all five young ladies having, in the figurative
language of the day, a great amount of steam to dispose of, the
altercation would no doubt have been a long one but for the high
valour and prowess of the strong-minded woman, who, in right of her
reputation for powers of sarcasm, did so belabour and pummel Mrs
Spottletoe with taunting words that the poor lady, before the
engagement was two minutes old, had no refuge but in tears.  These
she shed so plentifully, and so much to the agitation and grief of
Mr Spottletoe, that that gentleman, after holding his clenched fist
close to Mr Pecksniff's eyes, as if it were some natural curiosity
from the near inspection whereof he was likely to derive high
gratification and improvement, and after offering (for no particular
reason that anybody could discover) to kick Mr George Chuzzlewit
for, and in consideration of, the trifling sum of sixpence, took his
wife under his arm and indignantly withdrew.  This diversion, by
distracting the attention of the combatants, put an end to the
strife, which, after breaking out afresh some twice or thrice in
certain inconsiderable spurts and dashes, died away in silence.

It was then that Mr Pecksniff once more rose from his chair.  It was
then that the two Miss Pecksniffs composed themselves to look as if
there were no such beings--not to say present, but in the whole
compass of the world--as the three Miss Chuzzlewits; while the three
Miss Chuzzlewits became equally unconscious of the existence of the
two Miss Pecksniffs.

'It is to be lamented,' said Mr Pecksniff, with a forgiving
recollection of Mr Spottletoe's fist, 'that our friend should have
withdrawn himself so very hastily, though we have cause for mutual
congratulation even in that, since we are assured that he is not
distrustful of us in regard to anything we may say or do while he is
absent.  Now, that is very soothing, is it not?'

'Pecksniff,' said Anthony, who had been watching the whole party
with peculiar keenness from the first--'don't you be a hypocrite.'

'A what, my good sir?' demanded Mr Pecksniff.

'A hypocrite.'

'Charity, my dear,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'when I take my chamber
candlestick to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular
in praying for Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit; who has done me an injustice.'

This was said in a very bland voice, and aside, as being addressed
to his daughter's private ear.  With a cheerfulness of conscience,
prompting almost a sprightly demeanour, he then resumed:

'All our thoughts centring in our very dear but unkind relative, and
he being as it were beyond our reach, we are met to-day, really as
if we were a funeral party, except--a blessed exception--that there
is no body in the house.'

The strong-minded lady was not at all sure that this was a blessed
exception.  Quite the contrary.

'Well, my dear madam!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Be that as it may, here
we are; and being here, we are to consider whether it is possible by
any justifiable means--'

'Why, you know as well as I,' said the strong-minded lady, 'that any
means are justifiable in such a case, don't you?'

'Very good, my dear madam, very good; whether it is possible by ANY
means, we will say by ANY means, to open the eyes of our valued
relative to his present infatuation.  Whether it is possible to make
him acquainted by any means with the real character and purpose of
that young female whose strange, whose very strange position, in
reference to himself'--here Mr Pecksniff sunk his voice to an
impressive whisper--'really casts a shadow of disgrace and shame
upon this family; and who, we know'--here he raised his voice again
--'else why is she his companion? harbours the very basest designs
upon his weakness and his property.'

In their strong feeling on this point, they, who agreed in nothing
else, all concurred as one mind.  Good Heaven, that she should
harbour designs upon his property!  The strong-minded lady was for
poison, her three daughters were for Bridewell and bread-and-water,
the cousin with the toothache advocated Botany Bay, the two Miss
Pecksniffs suggested flogging.  Nobody but Mr Tigg, who,
notwithstanding his extreme shabbiness, was still understood to be
in some sort a lady's man, in right of his upper lip and his frogs,
indicated a doubt of the justifiable nature of these measures; and
he only ogled the three Miss Chuzzlewits with the least admixture of
banter in his admiration, as though he would observe, 'You are
positively down upon her to too great an extent, my sweet creatures,
upon my soul you are!'

'Now,' said Mr Pecksniff, crossing his two forefingers in a manner
which was at once conciliatory and argumentative; 'I will not, upon
the one hand, go so far as to say that she deserves all the
inflictions which have been so very forcibly and hilariously
suggested;' one of his ornamental sentences; 'nor will I, upon the
other, on any account compromise my common understanding as a man,
by making the assertion that she does not.  What I would observe is,
that I think some practical means might be devised of inducing our
respected, shall I say our revered--?'

'No!' interposed the strong-minded woman in a loud voice.

'Then I will not,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'You are quite right, my dear
madam, and I appreciate and thank you for your discriminating
objection--our respected relative, to dispose himself to listen to
the promptings of nature, and not to the--'

'Go on, Pa!' cried Mercy.

'Why, the truth is, my dear,' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling upon his
assembled kindred, 'that I am at a loss for a word.  The name of
those fabulous animals (pagan, I regret to say) who used to sing in
the water, has quite escaped me.'

Mr George Chuzzlewit suggested 'swans.'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Not swans.  Very like swans, too.  Thank
you.'

The nephew with the outline of a countenance, speaking for the first
and last time on that occasion, propounded 'Oysters.'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, with his own peculiar urbanity, 'nor
oysters.  But by no means unlike oysters; a very excellent idea;
thank you, my dear sir, very much.  Wait!  Sirens.  Dear me! sirens,
of course.  I think, I say, that means might be devised of disposing
our respected relative to listen to the promptings of nature, and
not to the siren-like delusions of art.  Now we must not lose sight
of the fact that our esteemed friend has a grandson, to whom he was,
until lately, very much attached, and whom I could have wished to
see here to-day, for I have a real and deep regard for him.  A fine
young man.  a very fine young man!  I would submit to you, whether we
might not remove Mr Chuzzlewit's distrust of us, and vindicate our
own disinterestedness by--'

'If Mr George Chuzzlewit has anything to say to ME,' interposed the
strong-minded woman, sternly, 'I beg him to speak out like a man;
and not to look at me and my daughters as if he could eat us.'

'As to looking, I have heard it said, Mrs Ned,' returned Mr George,
angrily, 'that a cat is free to contemplate a monarch; and therefore
I hope I have some right, having been born a member of this family,
to look at a person who only came into it by marriage.  As to
eating, I beg to say, whatever bitterness your jealousies and
disappointed expectations may suggest to you, that I am not a
cannibal, ma'am.'

'I don't know that!' cried the strong-minded woman.

'At all events, if I was a cannibal,' said Mr George Chuzzlewit,
greatly stimulated by this retort, 'I think it would occur to me
that a lady who had outlived three husbands, and suffered so very
little from their loss, must be most uncommonly tough.'

The strong-minded woman immediately rose.

'And I will further add,' said Mr George, nodding his head violently
at every second syllable; 'naming no names, and therefore hurting
nobody but those whose consciences tell them they are alluded to,
that I think it would be much more decent and becoming, if those who
hooked and crooked themselves into this family by getting on the
blind side of some of its members before marriage, and
manslaughtering them afterwards by crowing over them to that strong
pitch that they were glad to die, would refrain from acting the part
of vultures in regard to other members of this family who are
living.  I think it would be full as well, if not better, if those
individuals would keep at home, contenting themselves with what they
have got (luckily for them) already; instead of hovering about, and
thrusting their fingers into, a family pie, which they flavour much
more than enough, I can tell them, when they are fifty miles away.'

'I might have been prepared for this!' cried the strong-minded
woman, looking about her with a disdainful smile as she moved
towards the door, followed by her three daughters.  'Indeed I was
fully prepared for it from the first.  What else could I expect in
such an atmosphere as this!'

'Don't direct your halfpay-officers' gaze at me, ma'am, if you
please,' interposed Miss Charity; 'for I won't bear it.'

This was a smart stab at a pension enjoyed by the strong-minded
woman, during her second widowhood and before her last coverture.
It told immensely.

'I passed from the memory of a grateful country, you very miserable
minx,' said Mrs Ned, 'when I entered this family; and I feel now,
though I did not feel then, that it served me right, and that I lost
my claim upon the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when I
so degraded myself.  Now, my dears, if you're quite ready, and have
sufficiently improved yourselves by taking to heart the genteel
example of these two young ladies, I think we'll go.  Mr Pecksniff,
we are very much obliged to you, really.  We came to be entertained,
and you have far surpassed our utmost expectations, in the amusement
you have provided for us.  Thank you.  Good-bye!'

With such departing words, did this strong-minded female paralyse
the Pecksniffian energies; and so she swept out of the room, and out
of the house, attended by her daughters, who, as with one accord,
elevated their three noses in the air, and joined in a contemptuous
titter.  As they passed the parlour window on the outside, they were
seen to counterfeit a perfect transport of delight among themselves;
and with this final blow and great discouragement for those within,
they vanished.

Before Mr Pecksniff or any of his remaining visitors could offer a
remark, another figure passed this window, coming, at a great rate
in the opposite direction; and immediately afterwards, Mr Spottletoe
burst into the chamber.  Compared with his present state of heat, he
had gone out a man of snow or ice.  His head distilled such oil upon
his whiskers, that they were rich and clogged with unctuous drops;
his face was violently inflamed, his limbs trembled; and he gasped
and strove for breath.

'My good sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff.

'Oh yes!' returned the other; 'oh yes, certainly!  Oh to be sure!  Oh,
of course!  You hear him?  You hear him? all of you!'

'What's the matter?' cried several voices.

'Oh nothing!' cried Spottletoe, still gasping.  'Nothing at all!
It's of no consequence!  Ask him!  HE'll tell you!'

'I do not understand our friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, looking about
him in utter amazement.  'I assure you that he is quite
unintelligible to me.'

'Unintelligible, sir!' cried the other.  'Unintelligible!  Do you
mean to say, sir, that you don't know what has happened!  That you
haven't decoyed us here, and laid a plot and a plan against us!  Will
you venture to say that you didn't know Mr Chuzzlewit was going,
sir, and that you don't know he's gone, sir?'

'Gone!' was the general cry.

'Gone,' echoed Mr Spottletoe.  'Gone while we were sitting here.
Gone.  Nobody knows where he's gone.  Oh, of course not!  Nobody knew
he was going.  Oh, of course not!  The landlady thought up to the
very last moment that they were merely going for a ride; she had no
other suspicion.  Oh, of course not!  She's not this fellow's
creature.  Oh, of course not!'

Adding to these exclamations a kind of ironical howl, and gazing
upon the company for one brief instant afterwards, in a sudden
silence, the irritated gentleman started off again at the same
tremendous pace, and was seen no more.

It was in vain for Mr Pecksniff to assure them that this new and
opportune evasion of the family was at least as great a shock and
surprise to him as to anybody else.  Of all the bullyings and
denunciations that were ever heaped on one unlucky head, none can
ever have exceeded in energy and heartiness those with which he was
complimented by each of his remaining relatives, singly, upon
bidding him farewell.

The moral position taken by Mr Tigg was something quite tremendous;
and the deaf cousin, who had the complicated aggravation of seeing
all the proceedings and hearing nothing but the catastrophe,
actually scraped her shoes upon the scraper, and afterwards
distributed impressions of them all over the top step, in token that
she shook the dust from her feet before quitting that dissembling
and perfidious mansion.

Mr Pecksniff had, in short, but one comfort, and that was the
knowledge that all these his relations and friends had hated him to
the very utmost extent before; and that he, for his part, had not
distributed among them any more love than, with his ample capital in
that respect, he could comfortably afford to part with.  This view
of his affairs yielded him great consolation; and the fact deserves
to be noted, as showing with what ease a good man may be consoled
under circumstances of failure and disappointment.



CHAPTER FIVE

CONTAINING A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR PECKSNIFF'S
NEW PUPIL INTO THE BOSOM OF MR PECKSNIFF'S FAMILY.  WITH ALL THE
FESTIVITIES HELD ON THAT OCCASION, AND THE GREAT ENJOYMENT OF
MR PINCH


The best of architects and land surveyors kept a horse, in whom the
enemies already mentioned more than once in these pages pretended to
detect a fanciful resemblance to his master.  Not in his outward
person, for he was a raw-boned, haggard horse, always on a much
shorter allowance of corn than Mr Pecksniff; but in his moral
character, wherein, said they, he was full of promise, but of no
performance.  He was always in a manner, going to go, and never
going.  When at his slowest rate of travelling he would sometimes
lift up his legs so high, and display such mighty action, that it
was difficult to believe he was doing less than fourteen miles an
hour; and he was for ever so perfectly satisfied with his own speed,
and so little disconcerted by opportunities of comparing himself
with the fastest trotters, that the illusion was the more difficult
of resistance.  He was a kind of animal who infused into the breasts
of strangers a lively sense of hope, and possessed all those who
knew him better with a grim despair.  In what respect, having these
points of character, he might be fairly likened to his master, that
good man's slanderers only can explain.  But it is a melancholy
truth, and a deplorable instance of the uncharitableness of the
world, that they made the comparison.

In this horse, and the hooded vehicle, whatever its proper name
might be, to which he was usually harnessed--it was more like a gig
with a tumour than anything else--all Mr Pinch's thoughts and
wishes centred, one bright frosty morning; for with this gallant
equipage he was about to drive to Salisbury alone, there to meet
with the new pupil, and thence to bring him home in triumph.

Blessings on thy simple heart, Tom Pinch, how proudly dost thou
button up that scanty coat, called by a sad misnomer, for these many
years, a 'great' one; and how thoroughly, as with thy cheerful voice
thou pleasantly adjurest Sam the hostler 'not to let him go yet,'
dost thou believe that quadruped desires to go, and would go if he
might!  Who could repress a smile--of love for thee, Tom Pinch, and
not in jest at thy expense, for thou art poor enough already, Heaven
knows--to think that such a holiday as lies before thee should
awaken that quick flow and hurry of the spirits, in which thou
settest down again, almost untasted, on the kitchen window-sill,
that great white mug (put by, by thy own hands, last night, that
breakfast might not hold thee late), and layest yonder crust upon
the seat beside thee, to be eaten on the road, when thou art calmer
in thy high rejoicing!  Who, as thou drivest off, a happy, man, and
noddest with a grateful lovingness to Pecksniff in his nightcap at
his chamber-window, would not cry, 'Heaven speed thee, Tom, and send
that thou wert going off for ever to some quiet home where thou
mightst live at peace, and sorrow should not touch thee!'

What better time for driving, riding, walking, moving through the
air by any means, than a fresh, frosty morning, when hope runs
cheerily through the veins with the brisk blood, and tingles in the
frame from head to foot!  This was the glad commencement of a bracing
day in early winter, such as may put the languid summer season
(speaking of it when it can't be had) to the blush, and shame the
spring for being sometimes cold by halves.  The sheep-bells rang as
clearly in the vigorous air, as if they felt its wholesome influence
like living creatures; the trees, in lieu of leaves or blossoms,
shed upon the ground a frosty rime that sparkled as it fell, and
might have been the dust of diamonds.  So it was to Tom.  From
cottage chimneys, smoke went streaming up high, high, as if the
earth had lost its grossness, being so fair, and must not be
oppressed by heavy vapour.  The crust of ice on the else rippling
brook was so transparent, and so thin in texture, that the lively
water might of its own free will have stopped--in Tom's glad mind it
had--to look upon the lovely morning.  And lest the sun should break
this charm too eagerly, there moved between him and the ground, a
mist like that which waits upon the moon on summer nights--the very
same to Tom--and wooed him to dissolve it gently.

Tom Pinch went on; not fast, but with a sense of rapid motion, which
did just as well; and as he went, all kinds of things occurred to
keep him happy.  Thus when he came within sight of the turnpike, and
was--oh a long way off!--he saw the tollman's wife, who had that
moment checked a waggon, run back into the little house again like
mad, to say (she knew) that Mr Pinch was coming up.  And she was
right, for when he drew within hail of the gate, forth rushed the
tollman's children, shrieking in tiny chorus, 'Mr Pinch!' to Tom's
intense delight.  The very tollman, though an ugly chap in general,
and one whom folks were rather shy of handling, came out himself to
take the toll, and give him rough good morning; and that with all
this, and a glimpse of the family breakfast on a little round table
before the fire, the crust Tom Pinch had brought away with him
acquired as rich a flavour as though it had been cut from a fairy
loaf.

But there was more than this.  It was not only the married people
and the children who gave Tom Pinch a welcome as he passed.  No, no.
Sparkling eyes and snowy breasts came hurriedly to many an upper
casement as he clattered by, and gave him back his greeting: not
stinted either, but sevenfold, good measure.  They were all merry.
They all laughed.  And some of the wickedest among them even kissed
their hands as Tom looked back.  For who minded poor Mr Pinch?
There was no harm in HIM.

And now the morning grew so fair, and all things were so wide awake
and gay, that the sun seeming to say--Tom had no doubt he said--'I
can't stand it any longer; I must have a look,' streamed out in
radiant majesty.  The mist, too shy and gentle for such lusty
company, fled off, quite scared, before it; and as it swept away,
the hills and mounds and distant pasture lands, teeming with placid
sheep and noisy crows, came out as bright as though they were
unrolled bran new for the occasion.  In compliment to which
discovery, the brook stood still no longer, but ran briskly off to
bear the tidings to the water-mill, three miles away.

Mr Pinch was jogging along, full of pleasant thoughts and cheerful
influences, when he saw, upon the path before him, going in the same
direction with himself, a traveller on foot, who walked with a light
quick step, and sang as he went--for certain in a very loud voice,
but not unmusically.  He was a young fellow, of some five or six-
and-twenty perhaps, and was dressed in such a free and fly-away
fashion, that the long ends of his loose red neckcloth were
streaming out behind him quite as often as before; and the bunch of
bright winter berries in the buttonhole of his velveteen coat was as
visible to Mr Pinch's rearward observation, as if he had worn that
garment wrong side foremost.  He continued to sing with so much
energy, that he did not hear the sound of wheels until it was close
behind him; when he turned a whimsical face and a very merry pair of
blue eyes on Mr Pinch, and checked himself directly.

'Why, Mark?' said Tom Pinch, stopping.  'Who'd have thought of
seeing you here?  Well! this is surprising!'

Mark touched his hat, and said, with a very sudden decrease of
vivacity, that he was going to Salisbury.

'And how spruce you are, too!' said Mr Pinch, surveying him with
great pleasure.  'Really, I didn't think you were half such a tight-
made fellow, Mark!'

'Thankee, Mr Pinch.  Pretty well for that, I believe.  It's not my
fault, you know.  With regard to being spruce, sir, that's where it
is, you see.'  And here he looked particularly gloomy.

'Where what is?' Mr Pinch demanded.

'Where the aggravation of it is.  Any man may be in good spirits and
good temper when he's well dressed.  There an't much credit in that.
If I was very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I
had gained a point, Mr Pinch.'

'So you were singing just now, to bear up, as it were, against being
well dressed, eh, Mark?' said Pinch.

'Your conversation's always equal to print, sir,' rejoined Mark,
with a broad grin.  'That was it.'

'Well!' cried Pinch, 'you are the strangest young man, Mark, I ever
knew in my life.  I always thought so; but now I am quite certain of
it.  I am going to Salisbury, too.  Will you get in?  I shall be
very glad of your company.'

The young fellow made his acknowledgments and accepted the offer;
stepping into the carriage directly, and seating himself on the very
edge of the seat with his body half out of it, to express his being
there on sufferance, and by the politeness of Mr Pinch.  As they
went along, the conversation proceeded after this manner.

'I more than half believed, just now, seeing you so very smart,'
said Pinch, 'that you must be going to be married, Mark.'

'Well, sir, I've thought of that, too,' he replied.  'There might be
some credit in being jolly with a wife, 'specially if the children
had the measles and that, and was very fractious indeed.  But I'm
a'most afraid to try it.  I don't see my way clear.'

'You're not very fond of anybody, perhaps?' said Pinch.

'Not particular, sir, I think.'

'But the way would be, you know, Mark, according to your views of
things,' said Mr Pinch, 'to marry somebody you didn't like, and who
was very disagreeable.'

'So it would, sir; but that might be carrying out a principle a
little too far, mightn't it?'

'Perhaps it might,' said Mr Pinch.  At which they both laughed
gayly.

'Lord bless you, sir,' said Mark, 'you don't half know me, though.
I don't believe there ever was a man as could come out so strong
under circumstances that would make other men miserable, as I could,
if I could only get a chance.  But I can't get a chance.  It's my
opinion that nobody never will know half of what's in me, unless
something very unexpected turns up.  And I don't see any prospect of
that.  I'm a-going to leave the Dragon, sir.'

'Going to leave the Dragon!' cried Mr Pinch, looking at him with
great astonishment.  'Why, Mark, you take my breath away!'

'Yes, sir,' he rejoined, looking straight before him and a long way
off, as men do sometimes when they cogitate profoundly.  'What's the
use of my stopping at the Dragon?  It an't at all the sort of place
for ME.  When I left London (I'm a Kentish man by birth, though),
and took that situation here, I quite made up my mind that it was
the dullest little out-of-the-way corner in England, and that there
would be some credit in being jolly under such circumstances.  But,
Lord, there's no dullness at the Dragon!  Skittles, cricket, quoits,
nine-pins, comic songs, choruses, company round the chimney corner
every winter's evening.  Any man could be jolly at the Dragon.
There's no credit in THAT.'

'But if common report be true for once, Mark, as I think it is,
being able to confirm it by what I know myself,' said Mr Pinch, 'you
are the cause of half this merriment, and set it going.'

'There may be something in that, too, sir,' answered Mark.  'But
that's no consolation.'

'Well!' said Mr Pinch, after a short silence, his usually subdued
tone being even now more subdued than ever.  'I can hardly think
enough of what you tell me.  Why, what will become of Mrs Lupin,
Mark?'

Mark looked more fixedly before him, and further off still, as he
answered that he didn't suppose it would be much of an object to
her.  There were plenty of smart young fellows as would be glad of
the place.  He knew a dozen himself.

'That's probable enough,' said Mr Pinch, 'but I am not at all sure
that Mrs Lupin would be glad of them.  Why, I always supposed that
Mrs Lupin and you would make a match of it, Mark; and so did every
one, as far as I know.'

'I never,' Mark replied, in some confusion, 'said nothing as was in
a direct way courting-like to her, nor she to me, but I don't know
what I mightn't do one of these odd times, and what she mightn't say
in answer.  Well, sir, THAT wouldn't suit.'

'Not to be landlord of the Dragon, Mark?' cried Mr Pinch.

'No, sir, certainly not,' returned the other, withdrawing his gaze
from the horizon, and looking at his fellow-traveller.  'Why that
would be the ruin of a man like me.  I go and sit down comfortably
for life, and no man never finds me out.  What would be the credit
of the landlord of the Dragon's being jolly?  Why, he couldn't help
it, if he tried.'

'Does Mrs Lupin know you are going to leave her?' Mr Pinch inquired.

'I haven't broke it to her yet, sir, but I must.  I'm looking out
this morning for something new and suitable,' he said, nodding
towards the city.

'What kind of thing now?' Mr Pinch demanded.

'I was thinking,' Mark replied, 'of something in the grave-digging.
way.'

'Good gracious, Mark?' cried Mr Pinch.

'It's a good damp, wormy sort of business, sir,' said Mark, shaking
his head argumentatively, 'and there might be some credit in being
jolly, with one's mind in that pursuit, unless grave-diggers is
usually given that way; which would be a drawback.  You don't happen
to know how that is in general, do you, sir?'

'No,' said Mr Pinch, 'I don't indeed.  I never thought upon the
subject.'

'In case of that not turning out as well as one could wish, you
know,' said Mark, musing again, 'there's other businesses.
Undertaking now.  That's gloomy.  There might be credit to be gained
there.  A broker's man in a poor neighbourhood wouldn't be bad
perhaps.  A jailor sees a deal of misery.  A doctor's man is in the
very midst of murder.  A bailiff's an't a lively office nat'rally.
Even a tax-gatherer must find his feelings rather worked upon, at
times.  There's lots of trades in which I should have an
opportunity, I think.'

Mr Pinch was so perfectly overwhelmed by these remarks that he could
do nothing but occasionally exchange a word or two on some
indifferent subject, and cast sidelong glances at the bright face of
his odd friend (who seemed quite unconscious of his observation),
until they reached a certain corner of the road, close upon the
outskirts of the city, when Mark said he would jump down there, if
he pleased.

'But bless my soul, Mark,' said Mr Pinch, who in the progress of his
observation just then made the discovery that the bosom of his
companion's shirt was as much exposed as if it was Midsummer, and
was ruffled by every breath of air, 'why don't you wear a
waistcoat?'

'What's the good of one, sir?' asked Mark.

'Good of one?' said Mr Pinch.  'Why, to keep your chest warm.'

'Lord love you, sir!' cried Mark, 'you don't know me.  My chest
don't want no warming.  Even if it did, what would no waistcoat
bring it to?  Inflammation of the lungs, perhaps?  Well, there'd be
some credit in being jolly, with a inflammation of the lungs.'

As Mr Pinch returned no other answer than such as was conveyed in
his breathing very hard, and opening his eyes very wide, and nodding
his head very much, Mark thanked him for his ride, and without
troubling him to stop, jumped lightly down.  And away he fluttered,
with his red neckerchief, and his open coat, down a cross-lane;
turning back from time to time to nod to Mr Pinch, and looking one
of the most careless, good-humoured comical fellows in life.  His
late companion, with a thoughtful face pursued his way to Salisbury.

Mr Pinch had a shrewd notion that Salisbury was a very desperate
sort of place; an exceeding wild and dissipated city; and when he
had put up the horse, and given the hostler to understand that he
would look in again in the course of an hour or two to see him take
his corn, he set forth on a stroll about the streets with a vague
and not unpleasant idea that they teemed with all kinds of mystery
and bedevilment.  To one of his quiet habits this little delusion
was greatly assisted by the circumstance of its being market-day,
and the thoroughfares about the market-place being filled with
carts, horses, donkeys, baskets, waggons, garden-stuff, meat, tripe,
pies, poultry and huckster's wares of every opposite description and
possible variety of character.  Then there were young farmers and
old farmers with smock-frocks, brown great-coats, drab great-coats,
red worsted comforters, leather-leggings, wonderful shaped hats,
hunting-whips, and rough sticks, standing about in groups, or
talking noisily together on the tavern steps, or paying and
receiving huge amounts of greasy wealth, with the assistance of such
bulky pocket-books that when they were in their pockets it was
apoplexy to get them out, and when they were out it was spasms to
get them in again.  Also there were farmers' wives in beaver bonnets
and red cloaks, riding shaggy horses purged of all earthly passions,
who went soberly into all manner of places without desiring to know
why, and who, if required, would have stood stock still in a china
shop, with a complete dinner-service at each hoof.  Also a great
many dogs, who were strongly interested in the state of the market
and the bargains of their masters; and a great confusion of tongues,
both brute and human.

Mr Pinch regarded everything exposed for sale with great delight, and
was particularly struck by the itinerant cutlery, which he
considered of the very keenest kind, insomuch that he purchased a
pocket knife with seven blades in it, and not a cut (as he
afterwards found out) among them.  When he had exhausted the market-
place, and watched the farmers safe into the market dinner, he went
back to look after the horse.  Having seen him eat unto his heart's
content he issued forth again, to wander round the town and regale
himself with the shop windows; previously taking a long stare at the
bank, and wondering in what direction underground the caverns might
be where they kept the money; and turning to look back at one or two
young men who passed him, whom he knew to be articled to solicitors
in the town; and who had a sort of fearful interest in his eyes, as
jolly dogs who knew a thing or two, and kept it up tremendously.

But the shops.  First of all there were the jewellers' shops, with
all the treasures of the earth displayed therein, and such large
silver watches hanging up in every pane of glass, that if they were
anything but first-rate goers it certainly was not because the works
could decently complain of want of room.  In good sooth they were
big enough, and perhaps, as the saying is, ugly enough, to be the
most correct of all mechanical performers; in Mr Pinch's eyes,
however they were smaller than Geneva ware; and when he saw one very
bloated watch announced as a repeater, gifted with the uncommon
power of striking every quarter of an hour inside the pocket of its
happy owner, he almost wished that he were rich enough to buy it.

But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork,
to the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed
came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new
grammar had at school, long time ago, with 'Master Pinch, Grove
House Academy,' inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf!  That
whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes
neatly ranged within--what happiness did they suggest!  And in the
window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the
title-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter,
laid wide open; tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and
then, in the impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and
buy it!  Here too were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette,
pointing like handposts on the outskirts of great cities, to the
rich stock of incident beyond; and store of books, with many a grave
portrait and time-honoured name, whose matter he knew well, and
would have given mines to have, in any form, upon the narrow shell
beside his bed at Mr Pecksniff's.  What a heart-breaking shop it
was!

There was another; not quite so bad at first, but still a trying
shop; where children's books were sold, and where poor Robinson
Crusoe stood alone in his might, with dog and hatchet, goat-skin cap
and fowling-pieces; calmly surveying Philip Quarn and the host of
imitators round him, and calling Mr Pinch to witness that he, of all
the crowd, impressed one solitary footprint on the shore of boyish
memory, whereof the tread of generations should not stir the
lightest grain of sand.  And there too were the Persian tales, with
flying chests and students of enchanted books shut up for years in
caverns; and there too was Abudah, the merchant, with the terrible
little old woman hobbling out of the box in his bedroom; and there
the mighty talisman, the rare Arabian Nights, with Cassim Baba,
divided by four, like the ghost of a dreadful sum, hanging up, all
gory, in the robbers' cave.  Which matchless wonders, coming fast on
Mr Pinch's mind, did so rub up and chafe that wonderful lamp within
him, that when he turned his face towards the busy street, a crowd
of phantoms waited on his pleasure, and he lived again, with new
delight, the happy days before the Pecksniff era.

He had less interest now in the chemists' shops, with their great
glowing bottles (with smaller repositories of brightness in their
very stoppers); and in their agreeable compromises between medicine
and perfumery, in the shape of toothsome lozenges and virgin honey.
Neither had he the least regard (but he never had much) for the
tailors', where the newest metropolitan waistcoat patterns were
hanging up, which by some strange transformation always looked
amazing there, and never appeared at all like the same thing
anywhere else.  But he stopped to read the playbill at the theatre
and surveyed the doorway with a kind of awe, which was not
diminished when a sallow gentleman with long dark hair came out, and
told a boy to run home to his lodgings and bring down his
broadsword.  Mr Pinch stood rooted to the spot on hearing this, and
might have stood there until dark, but that the old cathedral bell
began to ring for vesper service, on which he tore himself away.

Now, the organist's assistant was a friend of Mr Pinch's, which was
a good thing, for he too was a very quiet gentle soul, and had been,
like Tom, a kind of old-fashioned boy at school, though well liked
by the noisy fellow too.  As good luck would have it (Tom always
said he had great good luck) the assistant chanced that very
afternoon to be on duty by himself, with no one in the dusty organ
loft but Tom; so while he played, Tom helped him with the stops; and
finally, the service being just over, Tom took the organ himself.
It was then turning dark, and the yellow light that streamed in
through the ancient windows in the choir was mingled with a murky
red.  As the grand tones resounded through the church, they seemed,
to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less
than in the deep mystery of his own heart.  Great thoughts and hopes
came crowding on his mind as the rich music rolled upon the air and
yet among them--something more grave and solemn in their purpose,
but the same--were all the images of that day, down to its very
lightest recollection of childhood.  The feeling that the sounds
awakened, in the moment of their existence, seemed to include his
whole life and being; and as the surrounding realities of stone and
wood and glass grew dimmer in the darkness, these visions grew so
much the brighter that Tom might have forgotten the new pupil and
the expectant master, and have sat there pouring out his grateful
heart till midnight, but for a very earthy old verger insisting on
locking up the cathedral forthwith.  So he took leave of his friend,
with many thanks, groped his way out, as well as he could, into the
now lamp-lighted streets, and hurried off to get his dinner.

All the farmers being by this time jogging homewards, there was
nobody in the sanded parlour of the tavern where he had left the
horse; so he had his little table drawn out close before the fire,
and fell to work upon a well-cooked steak and smoking hot potatoes,
with a strong appreciation of their excellence, and a very keen
sense of enjoyment.  Beside him, too, there stood a jug of most
stupendous Wiltshire beer; and the effect of the whole was so
transcendent, that he was obliged every now and then to lay down his
knife and fork, rub his hands, and think about it.  By the time the
cheese and celery came, Mr Pinch had taken a book out of his pocket,
and could afford to trifle with the viands; now eating a little, now
drinking a little, now reading a little, and now stopping to wonder
what sort of a young man the new pupil would turn out to be.  He had
passed from this latter theme and was deep in his book again, when
the door opened, and another guest came in, bringing with him such a
quantity of cold air, that he positively seemed at first to put the
fire out.

'Very hard frost to-night, sir,' said the newcomer, courteously
acknowledging Mr Pinch's withdrawal of the little table, that he
might have place: 'Don't disturb yourself, I beg.'

Though he said this with a vast amount of consideration for Mr
Pinch's comfort, he dragged one of the great leather-bottomed chairs
to the very centre of the hearth, notwithstanding; and sat down in
front of the fire, with a foot on each hob.

'My feet are quite numbed.  Ah!  Bitter cold to be sure.'

'You have been in the air some considerable time, I dare say?' said
Mr Pinch.

'All day.  Outside a coach, too.'

'That accounts for his making the room so cool,' thought Mr Pinch.
'Poor fellow!  How thoroughly chilled he must be!'

The stranger became thoughtful likewise, and sat for five or ten
minutes looking at the fire in silence.  At length he rose and
divested himself of his shawl and great-coat, which (far different
from Mr Pinch's) was a very warm and thick one; but he was not a
whit more conversational out of his great-coat than in it, for he
sat down again in the same place and attitude, and leaning back in
his chair, began to bite his nails.  He was young--one-and-twenty,
perhaps--and handsome; with a keen dark eye, and a quickness of look
and manner which made Tom sensible of a great contrast in his own
bearing, and caused him to feel even more shy than usual.

There was a clock in the room, which the stranger often turned to
look at.  Tom made frequent reference to it also; partly from a
nervous sympathy with its taciturn companion; and partly because the
new pupil was to inquire for him at half after six, and the hands
were getting on towards that hour.  Whenever the stranger caught him
looking at this clock, a kind of confusion came upon Tom as if he
had been found out in something; and it was a perception of his
uneasiness which caused the younger man to say, perhaps, with a
smile:

'We both appear to be rather particular about the time.  The fact
is, I have an engagement to meet a gentleman here.'

'So have I,' said Mr Pinch.

'At half-past six,' said the stranger.

'At half-past six,' said Tom in the very same breath; whereupon the
other looked at him with some surprise.

'The young gentleman, I expect,' remarked Tom, timidly, 'was to
inquire at that time for a person by the name of Pinch.'

'Dear me!' cried the other, jumping up.  'And I have been keeping
the fire from you all this while!  I had no idea you were Mr Pinch.
I am the Mr Martin for whom you were to inquire.  Pray excuse me.
How do you do?  Oh, do draw nearer, pray!'

'Thank you,' said Tom, 'thank you.  I am not at all cold, and you
are; and we have a cold ride before us.  Well, if you wish it, I
will.  I--I am very glad,' said Tom, smiling with an embarrassed
frankness peculiarly his, and which was as plainly a confession of
his own imperfections, and an appeal to the kindness of the person
he addressed, as if he had drawn one up in simple language and
committed it to paper: 'I am very glad indeed that you turn out to
be the party I expected.  I was thinking, but a minute ago, that I
could wish him to be like you.'

'I am very glad to hear it,' returned Martin, shaking hands with him
again; 'for I assure you, I was thinking there could be no such luck
as Mr Pinch's turning out like you.'

'No, really!' said Tom, with great pleasure.  'Are you serious?'

'Upon my word I am,' replied his new acquaintance.  'You and I will
get on excellently well, I know; which it's no small relief to me to
feel, for to tell you the truth, I am not at all the sort of fellow
who could get on with everybody, and that's the point on which I had
the greatest doubts.  But they're quite relieved now.--Do me the
favour to ring the bell, will you?'

Mr Pinch rose, and complied with great alacrity--the handle hung
just over Martin's head, as he warmed himself--and listened with a
smiling face to what his friend went on to say.  It was:

'If you like punch, you'll allow me to order a glass apiece, as hot
as it can be made, that we may usher in our friendship in a becoming
manner.  To let you into a secret, Mr Pinch, I never was so much in
want of something warm and cheering in my life; but I didn't like to
run the chance of being found drinking it, without knowing what kind
of person you were; for first impressions, you know, often go a long
way, and last a long time.'

Mr Pinch assented, and the punch was ordered.  In due course it
came; hot and strong.  After drinking to each other in the steaming
mixture, they became quite confidential.

'I'm a sort of relation of Pecksniff's, you know,' said the young
man.

'Indeed!' cried Mr Pinch.

'Yes.  My grandfather is his cousin, so he's kith and kin to me,
somehow, if you can make that out.  I can't.'

'Then Martin is your Christian name?' said Mr Pinch, thoughtfully.
'Oh!'

'Of course it is,' returned his friend: 'I wish it was my surname
for my own is not a very pretty one, and it takes a long time to
sign Chuzzlewit is my name.'

'Dear me!' cried Mr Pinch, with an involuntary start.

'You're not surprised at my having two names, I suppose?' returned
the other, setting his glass to his lips.  'Most people have.'

'Oh, no,' said Mr Pinch, 'not at all.  Oh dear no!  Well!'  And then
remembering that Mr Pecksniff had privately cautioned him to say
nothing in reference to the old gentleman of the same name who had
lodged at the Dragon, but to reserve all mention of that person for
him, he had no better means of hiding his confusion than by raising
his own glass to his mouth.  They looked at each other out of their
respective tumblers for a few seconds, and then put them down empty.

'I told them in the stable to be ready for us ten minutes ago,' said
Mr Pinch, glancing at the clock again.  'Shall we go?'

'If you please,' returned the other.

'Would you like to drive?' said Mr Pinch; his whole face beaming
with a consciousness of the splendour of his offer.  'You shall, if
you wish.'

'Why, that depends, Mr Pinch,' said Martin, laughing, 'upon what
sort of a horse you have.  Because if he's a bad one, I would rather
keep my hands warm by holding them comfortably in my greatcoat
pockets.'

He appeared to think this such a good joke, that Mr Pinch was quite
sure it must be a capital one.  Accordingly, he laughed too, and was
fully persuaded that he enjoyed it very much.  Then he settled his
bill, and Mr Chuzzlewit paid for the punch; and having wrapped
themselves up, to the extent of their respective means, they went
out together to the front door, where Mr Pecksniff's property
stopped the way.

'I won't drive, thank you, Mr Pinch,' said Martin, getting into the
sitter's place.  'By the bye, there's a box of mine.  Can we manage
to take it?'

'Oh, certainly,' said Tom.  'Put it in, Dick, anywhere!'

It was not precisely of that convenient size which would admit of
its being squeezed into any odd corner, but Dick the hostler got it
in somehow, and Mr Chuzzlewit helped him.  It was all on Mr Pinch's
side, and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would
encumber him; to which Tom said, 'Not at all;' though it forced him
into such an awkward position, that he had much ado to see anything
but his own knees.  But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any
good; and the wisdom of the saying was verified in this instance;
for the cold air came from Mr Pinch's side of the carriage, and by
interposing a perfect wall of box and man between it and the new
pupil, he shielded that young gentleman effectually; which was a
great comfort.

It was a clear evening, with a bright moon.  The whole landscape was
silvered by its light and by the hoar-frost; and everything looked
exquisitely beautiful.  At first, the great serenity and peace
through which they travelled, disposed them both to silence; but in
a very short time the punch within them and the healthful air
without, made them loquacious, and they talked incessantly.  When
they were halfway home, and stopped to give the horse some water,
Martin (who was very generous with his money) ordered another glass
of punch, which they drank between them, and which had not the
effect of making them less conversational than before.  Their
principal topic of discourse was naturally Mr Pecksniff and his
family; of whom, and of the great obligations they had heaped upon
him, Tom Pinch, with the tears standing in his eyes, drew such a
picture as would have inclined any one of common feeling almost to
revere them; and of which Mr Pecksniff had not the slightest
foresight or preconceived idea, or he certainly (being very humble)
would not have sent Tom Pinch to bring the pupil home.

In this way they went on, and on, and on--in the language of the
story-books--until at last the village lights appeared before them,
and the church spire cast a long reflection on the graveyard grass;
as if it were a dial (alas, the truest in the world!) marking,
whatever light shone out of Heaven, the flight of days and weeks and
years, by some new shadow on that solemn ground.

'A pretty church!' said Martin, observing that his companion
slackened the slack pace of the horse, as they approached.

'Is it not?' cried Tom, with great pride.  'There's the sweetest
little organ there you ever heard.  I play it for them.'

'Indeed?' said Martin.  'It is hardly worth the trouble, I should
think.  What do you get for that, now?'

'Nothing,' answered Tom.

'Well,' returned his friend, 'you ARE a very strange fellow!'

To which remark there succeeded a brief silence.

'When I say nothing,' observed Mr Pinch, cheerfully, 'I am wrong,
and don't say what I mean, because I get a great deal of pleasure
from it, and the means of passing some of the happiest hours I know.
It led to something else the other day; but you will not care to
hear about that I dare say?'

'Oh yes I shall.  What?'

'It led to my seeing,' said Tom, in a lower voice, 'one of the
loveliest and most beautiful faces you can possibly picture to
yourself.'

'And yet I am able to picture a beautiful one,' said his friend,
thoughtfully, 'or should be, if I have any memory.'

'She came' said Tom, laying his hand upon the other's arm, 'for the
first time very early in the morning, when it was hardly light; and
when I saw her, over my shoulder, standing just within the porch, I
turned quite cold, almost believing her to be a spirit.  A moment's
reflection got the better of that, of course, and fortunately it
came to my relief so soon, that I didn't leave off playing.'

'Why fortunately?'

'Why?  Because she stood there, listening.  I had my spectacles on,
and saw her through the chinks in the curtains as plainly as I see
you; and she was beautiful.  After a while she glided off, and I
continued to play until she was out of hearing.'

'Why did you do that?'

'Don't you see?' responded Tom.  'Because she might suppose I hadn't
seen her; and might return.'

'And did she?'

'Certainly she did.  Next morning, and next evening too; but always
when there were no people about, and always alone.  I rose earlier
and sat there later, that when she came, she might find the church
door open, and the organ playing, and might not be disappointed.
She strolled that way for some days, and always stayed to listen.
But she is gone now, and of all unlikely things in this wide world,
it is perhaps the most improbable that I shall ever look upon her
face again.'

'You don't know anything more about her?'

'No.'

'And you never followed her when she went away?'

'Why should I distress her by doing that?' said Tom Pinch.  'Is it
likely that she wanted my company?  She came to hear the organ, not
to see me; and would you have had me scare her from a place she
seemed to grow quite fond of?  Now, Heaven bless her!' cried Tom,
'to have given her but a minute's pleasure every day, I would have
gone on playing the organ at those times until I was an old man;
quite contented if she sometimes thought of a poor fellow like me,
as a part of the music; and more than recompensed if she ever mixed
me up with anything she liked as well as she liked that!'

The new pupil was clearly very much amazed by Mr Pinch's weakness,
and would probably have told him so, and given him some good advice,
but for their opportune arrival at Mr Pecksniff's door; the front
door this time, on account of the occasion being one of ceremony and
rejoicing.  The same man was in waiting for the horse who had been
adjured by Mr Pinch in the morning not to yield to his rabid desire
to start; and after delivering the animal into his charge, and
beseeching Mr Chuzzlewit in a whisper never to reveal a syllable of
what he had just told him in the fullness of his heart, Tom led the
pupil in, for instant presentation.

Mr Pecksniff had clearly not expected them for hours to come; for he
was surrounded by open books, and was glancing from volume to
volume, with a black lead-pencil in his mouth, and a pair of
compasses in his hand, at a vast number of mathematical diagrams, of
such extraordinary shapes that they looked like designs for
fireworks.  Neither had Miss Charity expected them, for she was
busied, with a capacious wicker basket before her, in making
impracticable nightcaps for the poor.  Neither had Miss Mercy
expected them, for she was sitting upon her stool, tying on the--oh
good gracious!--the petticoat of a large doll that she was dressing
for a neighbour's child--really, quite a grown-up doll, which made
it more confusing--and had its little bonnet dangling by the ribbon
from one of her fair curls, to which she had fastened it lest it
should be lost or sat upon.  It would be difficult, if not
impossible, to conceive a family so thoroughly taken by surprise as
the Pecksniffs were, on this occasion.

Bless my life!' said Mr Pecksniff, looking up, and gradually
exchanging his abstracted face for one of joyful recognition.  'Here
already!  Martin, my dear boy, I am delighted to welcome you to my
poor house!'

With this kind greeting, Mr Pecksniff fairly took him to his arms,
and patted him several times upon the back with his right hand the
while, as if to express that his feelings during the embrace were
too much for utterance.

'But here,' he said, recovering, 'are my daughters, Martin; my two
only children, whom (if you ever saw them) you have not beheld--ah,
these sad family divisions!--since you were infants together.  Nay,
my dears, why blush at being detected in your everyday pursuits?  We
had prepared to give you the reception of a visitor, Martin, in our
little room of state,' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling, 'but I like this
better, I like this better!'

Oh blessed star of Innocence, wherever you may be, how did you
glitter in your home of ether, when the two Miss Pecksniffs put
forth each her lily hand, and gave the same, with mantling cheeks,
to Martin!  How did you twinkle, as if fluttering with sympathy, when
Mercy, reminded of the bonnet in her hair, hid her fair face and
turned her head aside; the while her gentle sister plucked it out,
and smote her with a sister's soft reproof, upon her buxom shoulder!

'And how,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning round after the contemplation
of these passages, and taking Mr Pinch in a friendly manner by the
elbow, 'how has our friend used you, Martin?'

'Very well indeed, sir.  We are on the best terms, I assure you.'

'Old Tom Pinch!' said Mr Pecksniff, looking on him with affectionate
sadness.  'Ah!  It seems but yesterday that Thomas was a boy fresh
from a scholastic course.  Yet years have passed, I think, since
Thomas Pinch and I first walked the world together!'

Mr Pinch could say nothing.  He was too much moved.  But he pressed
his master's hand, and tried to thank him.

'And Thomas Pinch and I,' said Mr Pecksniff, in a deeper voice,
'will walk it yet, in mutual faithfulness and friendship!  And if it
comes to pass that either of us be run over in any of those busy
crossings which divide the streets of life, the other will convey
him to the hospital in Hope, and sit beside his bed in Bounty!'

'Well, well, well!' he added in a happier tone, as he shook Mr
Pinch's elbow hard.  'No more of this!  Martin, my dear friend, that
you may be at home within these walls, let me show you how we live,
and where.  Come!'

With that he took up a lighted candle, and, attended by his young
relative, prepared to leave the room.  At the door, he stopped.

'You'll bear us company, Tom Pinch?'

Aye, cheerfully, though it had been to death, would Tom have
followed him; glad to lay down his life for such a man!

'This,' said Mr Pecksniff, opening the door of an opposite parlour,
'is the little room of state, I mentioned to you.  My girls have
pride in it, Martin!  This,' opening another door, 'is the little
chamber in which my works (slight things at best) have been
concocted.  Portrait of myself by Spiller.  Bust by Spoker.  The
latter is considered a good likeness.  I seem to recognize something
about the left-hand corner of the nose, myself.'

Martin thought it was very like, but scarcely intellectual enough.
Mr Pecksniff observed that the same fault had been found with it
before.  It was remarkable it should have struck his young relation
too.  He was glad to see he had an eye for art.

'Various books you observe,' said Mr Pecksniff, waving his hand
towards the wall, 'connected with our pursuit.  I have scribbled
myself, but have not yet published.  Be careful how you come
upstairs.  This,' opening another door, 'is my chamber.  I read here
when the family suppose I have retired to rest.  Sometimes I injure
my health rather more than I can quite justify to myself, by doing
so; but art is long and time is short.  Every facility you see for
jotting down crude notions, even here.'

These latter words were explained by his pointing to a small round
table on which were a lamp, divers sheets of paper, a piece of India
rubber, and a case of instruments; all put ready, in case an
architectural idea should come into Mr Pecksniff's head in the
night; in which event he would instantly leap out of bed, and fix it
for ever.

Mr Pecksniff opened another door on the same floor, and shut it
again, all at once, as if it were a Blue Chamber.  But before he had
well done so, he looked smilingly round, and said, 'Why not?'

Martin couldn't say why not, because he didn't know anything at all
about it.  So Mr Pecksniff answered himself, by throwing open the
door, and saying:

'My daughters' room.  A poor first-floor to us, but a bower to them.
Very neat.  Very airy.  Plants you observe; hyacinths; books again;
birds.'  These birds, by the bye, comprised, in all, one staggering
old sparrow without a tail, which had been borrowed expressly from
the kitchen.  'Such trifles as girls love are here.  Nothing more.
Those who seek heartless splendour, would seek here in vain.'

With that he led them to the floor above.

'This,' said Mr Pecksniff, throwing wide the door of the memorable
two-pair front; 'is a room where some talent has been developed I
believe.  This is a room in which an idea for a steeple occurred to
me that I may one day give to the world.  We work here, my dear
Martin.  Some architects have been bred in this room; a few, I
think, Mr Pinch?'

Tom fully assented; and, what is more, fully believed it.

'You see,' said Mr Pecksniff, passing the candle rapidly from roll
to roll of paper, 'some traces of our doings here.  Salisbury
Cathedral from the north.  From the south.  From the east.  From the
west.  From the south-east.  From the nor'west.  A bridge.  An
almshouse.  A jail.  A church.  A powder-magazine.  A wine-cellar.
A portico.  A summer-house.  An ice-house.  Plans, elevations,
sections, every kind of thing.  And this,' he added, having by this
time reached another large chamber on the same story, with four
little beds in it, 'this is your room, of which Mr Pinch here is the
quiet sharer.  A southern aspect; a charming prospect; Mr Pinch's
little library, you perceive; everything agreeable and appropriate.
If there is any additional comfort you would desire to have here at
anytime, pray mention it.  Even to strangers, far less to you, my
dear Martin, there is no restriction on that point.'

It was undoubtedly true, and may be stated in corroboration of Mr
Pecksniff, that any pupil had the most liberal permission to mention
anything in this way that suggested itself to his fancy.  Some young
gentlemen had gone on mentioning the very same thing for five years
without ever being stopped.

'The domestic assistants,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'sleep above; and that
is all.'  After which, and listening complacently as he went, to the
encomiums passed by his young friend on the arrangements generally,
he led the way to the parlour again.

Here a great change had taken place; for festive preparations on a
rather extensive scale were already completed, and the two Miss
Pecksniffs were awaiting their return with hospitable looks.  There
were two bottles of currant wine, white and red; a dish of
sandwiches (very long and very slim); another of apples; another of
captain's biscuits (which are always a moist and jovial sort of
viand); a plate of oranges cut up small and gritty; with powdered
sugar, and a highly geological home-made cake.  The magnitude of
these preparations quite took away Tom Pinch's breath; for though
the new pupils were usually let down softly, as one may say,
particularly in the wine department, which had so many stages of
declension, that sometimes a young gentleman was a whole fortnight
in getting to the pump; still this was a banquet; a sort of Lord
Mayor's feast in private life; a something to think of, and hold on
by, afterwards.

To this entertainment, which apart from its own intrinsic merits,
had the additional choice quality, that it was in strict keeping
with the night, being both light and cool, Mr Pecksniff besought the
company to do full justice.

'Martin,' he said, 'will seat himself between you two, my dears, and
Mr Pinch will come by me.  Let us drink to our new inmate, and may
we be happy together!  Martin, my dear friend, my love to you!  Mr
Pinch, if you spare the bottle we shall quarrel.'

And trying (in his regard for the feelings of the rest) to look as
if the wine were not acid and didn't make him wink, Mr Pecksniff did
honour to his own toast.

'This,' he said, in allusion to the party, not the wine, 'is a
mingling that repays one for much disappointment and vexation.  Let
us be merry.'  Here he took a captain's biscuit.  'It is a poor heart
that never rejoices; and our hearts are not poor.  No!'

With such stimulants to merriment did he beguile the time, and do
the honours of the table; while Mr Pinch, perhaps to assure himself
that what he saw and heard was holiday reality, and not a charming
dream, ate of everything, and in particular disposed of the slim
sandwiches to a surprising extent.  Nor was he stinted in his
draughts of wine; but on the contrary, remembering Mr Pecksniff's
speech, attacked the bottle with such vigour, that every time he
filled his glass anew, Miss Charity, despite her amiable resolves,
could not repress a fixed and stony glare, as if her eyes had rested
on a ghost.  Mr Pecksniff also became thoughtful at those moments,
not to say dejected; but as he knew the vintage, it is very likely
he may have been speculating on the probable condition of Mr Pinch
upon the morrow, and discussing within himself the best remedies for
colic.

Martin and the young ladies were excellent friends already, and
compared recollections of their childish days, to their mutual
liveliness and entertainment.  Miss Mercy laughed immensely at
everything that was said; and sometimes, after glancing at the happy
face of Mr Pinch, was seized with such fits of mirth as brought her
to the very confines of hysterics.  But for these bursts of gaiety,
her sister, in her better sense, reproved her; observing, in an
angry whisper, that it was far from being a theme for jest; and that
she had no patience with the creature; though it generally ended in
her laughing too--but much more moderately--and saying that indeed
it was a little too ridiculous and intolerable to be serious about.

At length it became high time to remember the first clause of that
great discovery made by the ancient philosopher, for securing
health, riches, and wisdom; the infallibility of which has been for
generations verified by the enormous fortunes constantly amassed by
chimney-sweepers and other persons who get up early and go to bed
betimes.  The young ladies accordingly rose, and having taken leave
of Mr Chuzzlewit with much sweetness, and of their father with much
duty and of Mr Pinch with much condescension, retired to their
bower.  Mr Pecksniff insisted on accompanying his young friend
upstairs for personal superintendence of his comforts; and taking
him by the arm, conducted him once more to his bedroom, followed by
Mr Pinch, who bore the light.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, seating himself with folded arms on one
of the spare beds.  'I don't see any snuffers in that candlestick.
Will you oblige me by going down, and asking for a pair?'

Mr Pinch, only too happy to be useful, went off directly.

'You will excuse Thomas Pinch's want of polish, Martin,' said Mr
Pecksniff, with a smile of patronage and pity, as soon as he had
left the room.  'He means well.'

'He is a very good fellow, sir.'

'Oh, yes,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Yes.  Thomas Pinch means well.  He
is very grateful.  I have never regretted having befriended Thomas
Pinch.'

'I should think you never would, sir.'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'No.  I hope not.  Poor fellow, he is
always disposed to do his best; but he is not gifted.  You will make
him useful to you, Martin, if you please.  If Thomas has a fault, it
is that he is sometimes a little apt to forget his position.  But
that is soon checked.  Worthy soul!  You will find him easy to
manage.  Good night!'

'Good night, sir.'

By this time Mr Pinch had returned with the snuffers.

'And good night to YOU, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff.  'And sound sleep
to you both.  Bless you!  Bless you!'

Invoking this benediction on the heads of his young friends with
great fervour, he withdrew to his own room; while they, being tired,
soon fell asleep.  If Martin dreamed at all, some clue to the matter
of his visions may possibly be gathered from the after-pages of this
history.  Those of Thomas Pinch were all of holidays, church organs,
and seraphic Pecksniffs.  It was some time before Mr Pecksniff
dreamed at all, or even sought his pillow, as he sat for full two
hours before the fire in his own chamber, looking at the coals and
thinking deeply.  But he, too, slept and dreamed at last.  Thus in
the quiet hours of the night, one house shuts in as many incoherent
and incongruous fancies as a madman's head.



CHAPTER SIX

COMPRISES, AMONG OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS, PECKSNIFFIAN AND
ARCHITECTURAL, AND EXACT RELATION OF THE PROGRESS MADE BY MR PINCH
IN THE CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE NEW PUPIL


It was morning; and the beautiful Aurora, of whom so much hath been
written, said, and sung, did, with her rosy fingers, nip and tweak
Miss Pecksniff's nose.  It was the frolicsome custom of the Goddess,
in her intercourse with the fair Cherry, so to do; or in more
prosaic phrase, the tip of that feature in the sweet girl's
countenance was always very red at breakfast-time.  For the most
part, indeed, it wore, at that season of the day, a scraped and
frosty look, as if it had been rasped; while a similar phenomenon
developed itself in her humour, which was then observed to be of a
sharp and acid quality, as though an extra lemon (figuratively
speaking) had been squeezed into the nectar of her disposition, and
had rather damaged its flavour.

This additional pungency on the part of the fair young creature led,
on ordinary occasions, to such slight consequences as the copious
dilution of Mr Pinch's tea, or to his coming off uncommonly short in
respect of butter, or to other the like results.  But on the morning
after the Installation Banquet, she suffered him to wander to and
fro among the eatables and drinkables, a perfectly free and
unchecked man; so utterly to Mr Pinch's wonder and confusion, that
like the wretched captive who recovered his liberty in his old age,
he could make but little use of his enlargement, and fell into a
strange kind of flutter for want of some kind hand to scrape his
bread, and cut him off in the article of sugar with a lump, and pay
him those other little attentions to which he was accustomed.  There
was something almost awful, too, about the self-possession of the
new pupil; who 'troubled' Mr Pecksniff for the loaf, and helped
himself to a rasher of that gentleman's own particular and private
bacon, with all the coolness in life.  He even seemed to think that
he was doing quite a regular thing, and to expect that Mr Pinch
would follow his example, since he took occasion to observe of that
young man 'that he didn't get on'; a speech of so tremendous a
character, that Tom cast down his eyes involuntarily, and felt as if
he himself had committed some horrible deed and heinous breach of Mr
Pecksniff's confidence.  Indeed, the agony of having such an
indiscreet remark addressed to him before the assembled family, was
breakfast enough in itself, and would, without any other matter of
reflection, have settled Mr Pinch's business and quenched his
appetite, for one meal, though he had been never so hungry.

The young ladies, however, and Mr Pecksniff likewise, remained in
the very best of spirits in spite of these severe trials, though
with something of a mysterious understanding among themselves.  When
the meal was nearly over, Mr Pecksniff smilingly explained the cause
of their common satisfaction.

'It is not often,' he said, 'Martin, that my daughters and I desert
our quiet home to pursue the giddy round of pleasures that revolves
abroad.  But we think of doing so to-day.'

'Indeed, sir!' cried the new pupil.

'Yes,' said Mr Pecksniff, tapping his left hand with a letter which
he held in his right.  'I have a summons here to repair to London;
on professional business, my dear Martin; strictly on professional
business; and I promised my girls, long ago, that whenever that
happened again, they should accompany me.  We shall go forth to-
night by the heavy coach--like the dove of old, my dear Martin--and
it will be a week before we again deposit our olive-branches in the
passage.  When I say olive-branches,' observed Mr Pecksniff, in
explanation, 'I mean, our unpretending luggage.'

'I hope the young ladies will enjoy their trip,' said Martin.

'Oh! that I'm sure we shall!' cried Mercy, clapping her hands.
'Good gracious, Cherry, my darling, the idea of London!'

'Ardent child!' said Mr Pecksniff, gazing on her in a dreamy way.
'And yet there is a melancholy sweetness in these youthful hopes!
It is pleasant to know that they never can be realised.  I remember
thinking once myself, in the days of my childhood, that pickled
onions grew on trees, and that every elephant was born with an
impregnable castle on his back.  I have not found the fact to be so;
far from it; and yet those visions have comforted me under
circumstances of trial.  Even when I have had the anguish of
discovering that I have nourished in my breast on ostrich, and not a
human pupil--even in that hour of agony, they have soothed me.'

At this dread allusion to John Westlock, Mr Pinch precipitately
choked in his tea; for he had that very morning received a letter
from him, as Mr Pecksniff very well knew.

'You will take care, my dear Martin,' said Mr Pecksniff, resuming
his former cheerfulness, 'that the house does not run away in our
absence.  We leave you in charge of everything.  There is no
mystery; all is free and open.  Unlike the young man in the Eastern
tale--who is described as a one-eyed almanac, if I am not mistaken,
Mr Pinch?--'

'A one-eyed calender, I think, sir,' faltered Tom.

'They are pretty nearly the same thing, I believe,' said Mr
Pecksniff, smiling compassionately; 'or they used to be in my time.
Unlike that young man, my dear Martin, you are forbidden to enter no
corner of this house; but are requested to make yourself perfectly
at home in every part of it.  You will be jovial, my dear Martin,
and will kill the fatted calf if you please!'

There was not the least objection, doubtless, to the young man's
slaughtering and appropriating to his own use any calf, fat or lean,
that he might happen to find upon the premises; but as no such
animal chanced at that time to be grazing on Mr Pecksniff's estate,
this request must be considered rather as a polite compliment that a
substantial hospitality.  It was the finishing ornament of the
conversation; for when he had delivered it, Mr Pecksniff rose and
led the way to that hotbed of architectural genius, the two-pair
front.

'Let me see,' he said, searching among the papers, 'how you can best
employ yourself, Martin, while I am absent.  Suppose you were to
give me your idea of a monument to a Lord Mayor of London; or a tomb
for a sheriff; or your notion of a cow-house to be erected in a
nobleman's park.  Do you know, now,' said Mr Pecksniff, folding his
hands, and looking at his young relation with an air of pensive
interest, 'that I should very much like to see your notion of a
cow-house?'

But Martin by no means appeared to relish this suggestion.

'A pump,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'is very chaste practice.  I have found
that a lamp post is calculated to refine the mind and give it a
classical tendency.  An ornamental turnpike has a remarkable effect
upon the imagination.  What do you say to beginning with an
ornamental turnpike?'

'Whatever Mr Pecksniff pleased,' said Martin, doubtfully.

'Stay,' said that gentleman.  'Come! as you're ambitious, and are a
very neat draughtsman, you shall--ha ha!--you shall try your hand on
these proposals for a grammar-school; regulating your plan, of
course, by the printed particulars.  Upon my word, now,' said Mr
Pecksniff, merrily, 'I shall be very curious to see what you make of
the grammar-school.  Who knows but a young man of your taste might
hit upon something, impracticable and unlikely in itself, but which
I could put into shape?  For it really is, my dear Martin, it really
is in the finishing touches alone, that great experience and long
study in these matters tell.  Ha, ha, ha!  Now it really will be,'
continued Mr Pecksniff, clapping his young friend on the back in his
droll humour, 'an amusement to me, to see what you make of the
grammar-school.'

Martin readily undertook this task, and Mr Pecksniff forthwith
proceeded to entrust him with the materials necessary for its
execution; dwelling meanwhile on the magical effect of a few
finishing touches from the hand of a master; which, indeed, as some
people said (and these were the old enemies again!) was
unquestionably very surprising, and almost miraculous; as there were
cases on record in which the masterly introduction of an additional
back window, or a kitchen door, or half-a-dozen steps, or even a
water spout, had made the design of a pupil Mr Pecksniff's own work,
and had brought substantial rewards into that gentleman's pocket.
But such is the magic of genius, which changes all it handles into
gold!

'When your mind requires to be refreshed by change of occupation,'
said Mr Pecksniff, 'Thomas Pinch will instruct you in the art of
surveying the back garden, or in ascertaining the dead level of the
road between this house and the finger-post, or in any other
practical and pleasing pursuit.  There are a cart-load of loose
bricks, and a score or two of old flower-pots, in the back yard.  If
you could pile them up my dear Martin, into any form which would
remind me on my return say of St. Peter's at Rome, or the Mosque of
St. Sophia at Constantinople, it would be at once improving to you
and agreeable to my feelings.  And now,' said Mr Pecksniff, in
conclusion, 'to drop, for the present, our professional relations
and advert to private matters, I shall be glad to talk with you in
my own room, while I pack up my portmanteau.'

Martin attended him; and they remained in secret conference
together for an hour or more; leaving Tom Pinch alone.  When the
young man returned, he was very taciturn and dull, in which state he
remained all day; so that Tom, after trying him once or twice with
indifferent conversation, felt a delicacy in obtruding himself upon
his thoughts, and said no more.

He would not have had leisure to say much, had his new friend been
ever so loquacious; for first of all Mr Pecksniff called him down to
stand upon the top of his portmanteau and represent ancient statues
there, until such time as it would consent to be locked; and then
Miss Charity called him to come and cord her trunk; and then Miss
Mercy sent for him to come and mend her box; and then he wrote the
fullest possible cards for all the luggage; and then he volunteered
to carry it all downstairs; and after that to see it safely carried
on a couple of barrows to the old finger-post at the end of the
lane; and then to mind it till the coach came up.  In short, his
day's work would have been a pretty heavy one for a porter, but his
thorough good-will made nothing of it; and as he sat upon the
luggage at last, waiting for the Pecksniffs, escorted by the new
pupil, to come down the lane, his heart was light with the hope of
having pleased his benefactor.

'I was almost afraid,' said Tom, taking a letter from his pocket and
wiping his face, for he was hot with bustling about though it was a
cold day, 'that I shouldn't have had time to write it, and that
would have been a thousand pities; postage from such a distance
being a serious consideration, when one's not rich.  She will be
glad to see my hand, poor girl, and to hear that Pecksniff is as
kind as ever.  I would have asked John Westlock to call and see her,
and tell her all about me by word of mouth, but I was afraid he
might speak against Pecksniff to her, and make her uneasy.  Besides,
they are particular people where she is, and it might have rendered
her situation uncomfortable if she had had a visit from a young man
like John.  Poor Ruth!'

Tom Pinch seemed a little disposed to be melancholy for half a
minute or so, but he found comfort very soon, and pursued his
ruminations thus:

'I'm a nice man, I don't think, as John used to say (John was a
kind, merry-hearted fellow; I wish he had liked Pecksniff better),
to be feeling low, on account of the distance between us, when I
ought to be thinking, instead, of my extraordinary good luck in
having ever got here.  I must have been born with a silver spoon in
my mouth, I am sure, to have ever come across Pecksniff.  And here
have I fallen again into my usual good luck with the new pupil!  Such
an affable, generous, free fellow, as he is, I never saw.  Why, we
were companions directly! and he a relation of Pecksniff's too, and
a clever, dashing youth who might cut his way through the world as
if it were a cheese!  Here he comes while the words are on my lips'
said Tom; 'walking down the lane as if the lane belonged to him.'

In truth, the new pupil, not at all disconcerted by the honour of
having Miss Mercy Pecksniff on his arm, or by the affectionate
adieux of that young lady, approached as Mr Pinch spoke, followed by
Miss Charity and Mr Pecksniff.  As the coach appeared at the same
moment, Tom lost no time in entreating the gentleman last mentioned,
to undertake the delivery of his letter.

'Oh!' said Mr Pecksniff, glancing at the superscription.  'For your
sister, Thomas.  Yes, oh yes, it shall be delivered, Mr Pinch.  Make
your mind easy upon that score.  She shall certainly have it, Mr
Pinch.'

He made the promise with so much condescension and patronage, that
Tom felt he had asked a great deal (this had not occurred to his
mind before), and thanked him earnestly.  The Miss Pecksniffs,
according to a custom they had, were amused beyond description at
the mention of Mr Pinch's sister.  Oh the fright!  The bare idea
of a Miss Pinch!  Good heavens!

Tom was greatly pleased to see them so merry, for he took it as a
token of their favour, and good-humoured regard.  Therefore he
laughed too and rubbed his hands and wished them a pleasant journey
and safe return, and was quite brisk.  Even when the coach had
rolled away with the olive-branches in the boot and the family of
doves inside, he stood waving his hand and bowing; so much gratified
by the unusually courteous demeanour of the young ladies, that he
was quite regardless, for the moment, of Martin Chuzzlewit, who
stood leaning thoughtfully against the finger-post, and who after
disposing of his fair charge had hardly lifted his eyes from the
ground.

The perfect silence which ensued upon the bustle and departure of
the coach, together with the sharp air of the wintry afternoon,
roused them both at the same time.  They turned, as by mutual
consent, and moved off arm-in-arm.

'How melancholy you are!' said Tom; 'what is the matter?'

'Nothing worth speaking of,' said Martin.  'Very little more than
was the matter yesterday, and much more, I hope, than will be the
matter to-morrow.  I'm out of spirits, Pinch.'

'Well,' cried Tom, 'now do you know I am in capital spirits today,
and scarcely ever felt more disposed to be good company.  It was a
very kind thing in your predecessor, John, to write to me, was it
not?'

'Why, yes,' said Martin carelessly; 'I should have thought he would
have had enough to do to enjoy himself, without thinking of you,
Pinch.'

'Just what I felt to be so very likely,' Tom rejoined; 'but no, he
keeps his word, and says, "My dear Pinch, I often think of you," and
all sorts of kind and considerate things of that description.'

'He must be a devilish good-natured fellow,' said Martin, somewhat
peevishly: 'because he can't mean that, you know.'

'I don't suppose he can, eh?' said Tom, looking wistfully in his
companion's face.  'He says so to please me, you think?'

'Why, is it likely,' rejoined Martin, with greater earnestness,
'that a young man newly escaped from this kennel of a place, and
fresh to all the delights of being his own master in London, can
have much leisure or inclination to think favourably of anything or
anybody he has left behind him here?  I put it to you, Pinch, is it
natural?'

After a short reflection, Mr Pinch replied, in a more subdued tone,
that to be sure it was unreasonable to expect any such thing, and
that he had no doubt Martin knew best.

'Of course I know best,' Martin observed.

'Yes, I feel that,' said Mr Pinch mildly.  'I said so.'  And when he
had made this rejoinder, they fell into a blank silence again, which
lasted until they reached home; by which time it was dark.

Now, Miss Charity Pecksniff, in consideration of the inconvenience
of carrying them with her in the coach, and the impossibility of
preserving them by artificial means until the family's return, had
set forth, in a couple of plates, the fragments of yesterday's
feast.  In virtue of which liberal arrangement, they had the
happiness to find awaiting them in the parlour two chaotic heaps of
the remains of last night's pleasure, consisting of certain filmy
bits of oranges, some mummied sandwiches, various disrupted masses
of the geological cake, and several entire captain's biscuits.  That
choice liquor in which to steep these dainties might not be wanting,
the remains of the two bottles of currant wine had been poured
together and corked with a curl-paper; so that every material was at
hand for making quite a heavy night of it.

Martin Chuzzlewit beheld these roystering preparations with infinite
contempt, and stirring the fire into a blaze (to the great
destruction of Mr Pecksniff's coals), sat moodily down before it, in
the most comfortable chair he could find.  That he might the better
squeeze himself into the small corner that was left for him, Mr
Pinch took up his position on Miss Mercy Pecksniff's stool, and
setting his glass down upon the hearthrug and putting his plate
upon his knees, began to enjoy himself.

If Diogenes coming to life again could have rolled himself, tub and
all, into Mr Pecksniff's parlour and could have seen Tom Pinch as he
sat on Mercy Pecksniff's stool with his plate and glass before him
he could not have faced it out, though in his surliest mood, but
must have smiled good-temperedly.  The perfect and entire
satisfaction of Tom; his surpassing appreciation of the husky
sandwiches, which crumbled in his mouth like saw-dust; the
unspeakable relish with which he swallowed the thin wine by drops,
and smacked his lips, as though it were so rich and generous that to
lose an atom of its fruity flavour were a sin; the look with which
he paused sometimes, with his glass in his hand, proposing silent
toasts to himself; and the anxious shade that came upon his
contented face when, after wandering round the room, exulting in its
uninvaded snugness, his glance encountered the dull brow of his
companion; no cynic in the world, though in his hatred of its men a
very griffin, could have withstood these things in Thomas Pinch.

Some men would have slapped him on the back, and pledged him in a
bumper of the currant wine, though it had been the sharpest vinegar
--aye, and liked its flavour too; some would have seized him by his
honest hand, and thanked him for the lesson that his simple nature
taught them.  Some would have laughed with, and others would have
laughed at him; of which last class was Martin Chuzzlewit, who,
unable to restrain himself, at last laughed loud and long.

'That's right,' said Tom, nodding approvingly.  'Cheer up!  That's
capital!'

At which encouragement young Martin laughed again; and said, as soon
as he had breath and gravity enough:

'I never saw such a fellow as you are, Pinch.'

'Didn't you though?' said Tom.  'Well, it's very likely you do find
me strange, because I have hardly seen anything of the world, and
you have seen a good deal I dare say?'

'Pretty well for my time of life,' rejoined Martin, drawing his
chair still nearer to the fire, and spreading his feet out on the
fender.  'Deuce take it, I must talk openly to somebody.  I'll talk
openly to you, Pinch.'

'Do!' said Tom.  'I shall take it as being very friendly of you,'

'I'm not in your way, am I?' inquired Martin, glancing down at Mr
Pinch, who was by this time looking at the fire over his leg.

'Not at all!' cried Tom.

'You must know then, to make short of a long story,' said Martin,
beginning with a kind of effort, as if the revelation were not
agreeable to him; 'that I have been bred up from childhood with
great expectations, and have always been taught to believe that I
should be, one day, very rich.  So I should have been, but for
certain brief reasons which I am going to tell you, and which have
led to my being disinherited.'

'By your father?' inquired Mr Pinch, with open eyes.

'By my grandfather.  I have had no parents these many years.
Scarcely within my remembrance.'

'Neither have I,' said Tom, touching the young man's hand with his
own and timidly withdrawing it again.  'Dear me!'

'Why, as to that, you know, Pinch,' pursued the other, stirring the
fire again, and speaking in his rapid, off-hand way; 'it's all very
right and proper to be fond of parents when we have them, and to
bear them in remembrance after they're dead, if you have ever known
anything of them.  But as I never did know anything about mine
personally, you know, why, I can't be expected to be very
sentimental about 'em.  And I am not; that's the truth.'

Mr Pinch was just then looking thoughtfully at the bars.  But on his
companion pausing in this place, he started, and said 'Oh! of
course'--and composed himself to listen again.

'In a word,' said Martin, 'I have been bred and reared all my life
by this grandfather of whom I have just spoken.  Now, he has a great
many good points--there is no doubt about that; I'll not disguise
the fact from you--but he has two very great faults, which are the
staple of his bad side.  In the first place, he has the most
confirmed obstinacy of character you ever met with in any human
creature.  In the second, he is most abominably selfish.'

'Is he indeed?' cried Tom.

'In those two respects,' returned the other, 'there never was such a
man.  I have often heard from those who know, that they have been,
time out of mind, the failings of our family; and I believe there's
some truth in it.  But I can't say of my own knowledge.  All I have
to do, you know, is to be very thankful that they haven't descended
to me, and, to be very careful that I don't contract 'em.'

'To be sure,' said Mr Pinch.  'Very proper.'

'Well, sir,' resumed Martin, stirring the fire once more, and
drawing his chair still closer to it, 'his selfishness makes him
exacting, you see; and his obstinacy makes him resolute in his
exactions.  The consequence is that he has always exacted a great
deal from me in the way of respect, and submission, and self-denial
when his wishes were in question, and so forth.  I have borne a
great deal from him, because I have been under obligations to him
(if one can ever be said to be under obligations to one's own
grandfather), and because I have been really attached to him; but we
have had a great many quarrels for all that, for I could not
accommodate myself to his ways very often--not out of the least
reference to myself, you understand, but because--' he stammered
here, and was rather at a loss.

Mr Pinch being about the worst man in the world to help anybody out
of a difficulty of this sort, said nothing.

'Well! as you understand me,' resumed Martin, quickly, 'I needn't
hunt for the precise expression I want.  Now I come to the cream of
my story, and the occasion of my being here.  I am in love, Pinch.'

Mr Pinch looked up into his face with increased interest.

'I say I am in love.  I am in love with one of the most beautiful
girls the sun ever shone upon.  But she is wholly and entirely
dependent upon the pleasure of my grandfather; and if he were to
know that she favoured my passion, she would lose her home and
everything she possesses in the world.  There is nothing very
selfish in THAT love, I think?'

'Selfish!' cried Tom.  'You have acted nobly.  To love her as I am
sure you do, and yet in consideration for her state of dependence,
not even to disclose--'

'What are you talking about, Pinch?' said Martin pettishly: 'don't
make yourself ridiculous, my good fellow!  What do you mean by not
disclosing?'

'I beg your pardon,' answered Tom.  'I thought you meant that, or I
wouldn't have said it.'

'If I didn't tell her I loved her, where would be the use of my
being in love?' said Martin: 'unless to keep myself in a perpetual
state of worry and vexation?'

'That's true,' Tom answered.  'Well!  I can guess what SHE said when
you told her,' he added, glancing at Martin's handsome face.

'Why, not exactly, Pinch,' he rejoined, with a slight frown;
'because she has some girlish notions about duty and gratitude, and
all the rest of it, which are rather hard to fathom; but in the main
you are right.  Her heart was mine, I found.'

'Just what I supposed,' said Tom.  'Quite natural!' and, in his
great satisfaction, he took a long sip out of his wine-glass.

'Although I had conducted myself from the first with the utmost
circumspection,' pursued Martin, 'I had not managed matters so well
but that my grandfather, who is full of jealousy and distrust,
suspected me of loving her.  He said nothing to her, but straightway
attacked me in private, and charged me with designing to corrupt the
fidelity to himself (there you observe his selfishness), of a young
creature whom he had trained and educated to be his only
disinterested and faithful companion, when he should have disposed
of me in marriage to his heart's content.  Upon that, I took fire
immediately, and told him that with his good leave I would dispose
of myself in marriage, and would rather not be knocked down by him
or any other auctioneer to any bidder whomsoever.'

Mr Pinch opened his eyes wider, and looked at the fire harder than
he had done yet.

'You may be sure,' said Martin, 'that this nettled him, and that he
began to be the very reverse of complimentary to myself.  Interview
succeeded interview; words engendered words, as they always do; and
the upshot of it was, that I was to renounce her, or be renounced by
him.  Now you must bear in mind, Pinch, that I am not only
desperately fond of her (for though she is poor, her beauty and
intellect would reflect great credit on anybody, I don't care of
what pretensions who might become her husband), but that a chief
ingredient in my composition is a most determined--'

'Obstinacy,' suggested Tom in perfect good faith.  But the
suggestion was not so well received as he had expected; for the
young man immediately rejoined, with some irritation,

'What a fellow you are, Pinch!'

'I beg your pardon,' said Tom, 'I thought you wanted a word.'

'I didn't want that word,' he rejoined.  'I told you obstinacy was
no part of my character, did I not?  I was going to say, if you had
given me leave, that a chief ingredient in my composition is a most
determined firmness.'

'Oh!' cried Tom, screwing up his mouth, and nodding.  'Yes, yes; I
see!'

'And being firm,' pursued Martin, 'of course I was not going to
yield to him, or give way by so much as the thousandth part of an
inch.'

'No, no,' said Tom.

'On the contrary, the more he urged, the more I was determined to
oppose him.'

'To be sure!' said Tom.

'Very well,' rejoined Martin, throwing himself back in his chair,
with a careless wave of both hands, as if the subject were quite
settled, and nothing more could be said about it--'There is an end
of the matter, and here am I!'

Mr Pinch sat staring at the fire for some minutes with a puzzled
look, such as he might have assumed if some uncommonly difficult
conundrum had been proposed, which he found it impossible to guess.
At length he said:

'Pecksniff, of course, you had known before?'

'Only by name.  No, I had never seen him, for my grandfather kept
not only himself but me, aloof from all his relations.  But our
separation took place in a town in the adjoining country.  From that
place I came to Salisbury, and there I saw Pecksniff's
advertisement, which I answered, having always had some natural
taste, I believe, in the matters to which it referred, and thinking
it might suit me.  As soon as I found it to be his, I was doubly
bent on coming to him if possible, on account of his being--'

'Such an excellent man,' interposed Tom, rubbing his hands: 'so he
is.  You were quite right.'

'Why, not so much on that account, if the truth must be spoken,'
returned Martin, 'as because my grandfather has an inveterate
dislike to him, and after the old man's arbitrary treatment of me, I
had a natural desire to run as directly counter to all his opinions
as I could.  Well!  As I said before, here I am.  My engagement with
the young lady I have been telling you about is likely to be a
tolerably long one; for neither her prospects nor mine are very
bright; and of course I shall not think of marrying until I am well
able to do so.  It would never do, you know, for me to be plunging
myself into poverty and shabbiness and love in one room up three
pair of stairs, and all that sort of thing.'

'To say nothing of her,' remarked Tom Pinch, in a low voice.

'Exactly so,' rejoined Martin, rising to warm his back, and leaning
against the chimney-piece.  'To say nothing of her.  At the same
time, of course it's not very hard upon her to be obliged to yield
to the necessity of the case; first, because she loves me very much;
and secondly, because I have sacrificed a great deal on her account,
and might have done much better, you know.'

It was a very long time before Tom said 'Certainly;' so long, that
he might have taken a nap in the interval, but he did say it at
last.

'Now, there is one odd coincidence connected with this love-story,'
said Martin, 'which brings it to an end.  You remember what you told
me last night as we were coming here, about your pretty visitor in
the church?'

'Surely I do,' said Tom, rising from his stool, and seating himself
in the chair from which the other had lately risen, that he might
see his face.  'Undoubtedly.'

'That was she.'

'I knew what you were going to say,' cried Tom, looking fixedly at
him, and speaking very softly.  'You don't tell me so?'

'That was she,' repeated the young man.  'After what I have heard
from Pecksniff, I have no doubt that she came and went with my
grandfather.--Don't you drink too much of that sour wine, or you'll
have a fit of some sort, Pinch, I see.'

'It is not very wholesome, I am afraid,' said Tom, setting down the
empty glass he had for some time held.  'So that was she, was it?'

Martin nodded assent; and adding, with a restless impatience, that
if he had been a few days earlier he would have seen her; and that
now she might be, for anything he knew, hundreds of miles away;
threw himself, after a few turns across the room, into a chair, and
chafed like a spoilt child.

Tom Pinch's heart was very tender, and he could not bear to see the
most indifferent person in distress; still less one who had awakened
an interest in him, and who regarded him (either in fact, or as he
supposed) with kindness, and in a spirit of lenient construction.
Whatever his own thoughts had been a few moments before--and to
judge from his face they must have been pretty serious--he dismissed
them instantly, and gave his young friend the best counsel and
comfort that occurred to him.

'All will be well in time,' said Tom, 'I have no doubt; and some
trial and adversity just now will only serve to make you more
attached to each other in better days.  I have always read that the
truth is so, and I have a feeling within me, which tells me how
natural and right it is that it should be.  That never ran smooth
yet,' said Tom, with a smile which, despite the homeliness of his
face, was pleasanter to see than many a proud beauty's brightest
glance; 'what never ran smooth yet, can hardly be expected to change
its character for us; so we must take it as we find it, and fashion
it into the very best shape we can, by patience and good-humour.  I
have no power at all; I needn't tell you that; but I have an
excellent will; and if I could ever be of use to you, in any way
whatever, how very glad I should be!'

'Thank you,' said Martin, shaking his hand.  'You're a good fellow,
upon my word, and speak very kindly.  Of course you know,' he added,
after a moment's pause, as he drew his chair towards the fire again,
'I should not hesitate to avail myself of your services if you could
help me at all; but mercy on us!'--Here he rumpled his hair
impatiently with his hand, and looked at Tom as if he took it rather
ill that he was not somebody else--'you might as well be a toasting-
fork or a frying-pan, Pinch, for any help you can render me.'

'Except in the inclination,' said Tom, gently.

'Oh! to be sure.  I meant that, of course.  If inclination went for
anything, I shouldn't want help.  I tell you what you may do,
though, if you will, and at the present moment too.'

'What is that?' demanded Tom.

'Read to me.'

'I shall be delighted,' cried Tom, catching up the candle with
enthusiasm.  'Excuse my leaving you in the dark a moment, and I'll
fetch a book directly.  What will you like?  Shakespeare?'

'Aye!' replied his friend, yawning and stretching himself.  'He'll
do.  I am tired with the bustle of to-day, and the novelty of
everything about me; and in such a case, there's no greater
luxury in the world, I think, than being read to sleep.  You
won't mind my going to sleep, if I can?'

'Not at all!' cried Tom.

'Then begin as soon as you like.  You needn't leave off when you see
me getting drowsy (unless you feel tired), for it's pleasant to wake
gradually to the sounds again.  Did you ever try that?'

'No, I never tried that,' said Tom

'Well!  You can, you know, one of these days when we're both in the
right humour.  Don't mind leaving me in the dark.  Look sharp!'

Mr Pinch lost no time in moving away; and in a minute or two
returned with one of the precious volumes from the shelf beside his
bed.  Martin had in the meantime made himself as comfortable as
circumstances would permit, by constructing before the fire a
temporary sofa of three chairs with Mercy's stool for a pillow, and
lying down at full-length upon it.

'Don't be too loud, please,' he said to Pinch.

'No, no,' said Tom.

'You're sure you're not cold'

'Not at all!' cried Tom.

'I am quite ready, then.'

Mr Pinch accordingly, after turning over the leaves of his book with
as much care as if they were living and highly cherished creatures,
made his own selection, and began to read.  Before he had completed
fifty lines his friend was snoring.

'Poor fellow!' said Tom, softly, as he stretched out his head to
peep at him over the backs of the chairs.  'He is very young to have
so much trouble.  How trustful and generous in him to bestow all
this confidence in me.  And that was she, was it?'

But suddenly remembering their compact, he took up the poem at the
place where he had left off, and went on reading; always forgetting
to snuff the candle, until its wick looked like a mushroom.  He
gradually became so much interested, that he quite forgot to
replenish the fire; and was only reminded of his neglect by Martin
Chuzzlewit starting up after the lapse of an hour or so, and crying
with a shiver.

'Why, it's nearly out, I declare!  No wonder I dreamed of being
frozen.  Do call for some coals.  What a fellow you are, Pinch!'



CHAPTER SEVEN

IN WHICH MR CHEVY SLYME ASSERTS THE INDEPENDENCE OF HIS SPIRIT, AND
THE BLUE DRAGON LOSES A LIMB


Martin began to work at the grammar-school next morning, with so
much vigour and expedition, that Mr Pinch had new reason to do
homage to the natural endowments of that young gentleman, and to
acknowledge his infinite superiority to himself.  The new pupil
received Tom's compliments very graciously; and having by this time
conceived a real regard for him, in his own peculiar way, predicted
that they would always be the very best of friends, and that neither
of them, he was certain (but particularly Tom), would ever have
reason to regret the day on which they became acquainted.  Mr Pinch
was delighted to hear him say this, and felt so much flattered by
his kind assurances of friendship and protection, that he was at a
loss how to express the pleasure they afforded him.  And indeed it
may be observed of this friendship, such as it was, that it had
within it more likely materials of endurance than many a sworn
brotherhood that has been rich in promise; for so long as the one
party found a pleasure in patronizing, and the other in being
patronised (which was in the very essence of their respective
characters), it was of all possible events among the least probable,
that the twin demons, Envy and Pride, would ever arise between them.
So in very many cases of friendship, or what passes for it, the old
axiom is reversed, and like clings to unlike more than to like.

They were both very busy on the afternoon succeeding the family's
departure--Martin with the grammar-school, and Tom in balancing
certain receipts of rents, and deducting Mr Pecksniff's commission
from the same; in which abstruse employment he was much distracted
by a habit his new friend had of whistling aloud while he was
drawing--when they were not a little startled by the unexpected
obtrusion into that sanctuary of genius, of a human head which,
although a shaggy and somewhat alarming head in appearance, smiled
affably upon them from the doorway, in a manner that was at once
waggish, conciliatory, and expressive of approbation.

'I am not industrious myself, gents both,' said the head, 'but I
know how to appreciate that quality in others.  I wish I may turn
grey and ugly, if it isn't in my opinion, next to genius, one of the
very charmingest qualities of the human mind.  Upon my soul, I am
grateful to my friend Pecksniff for helping me to the contemplation
of such a delicious picture as you present.  You remind me of
Whittington, afterwards thrice Lord Mayor of London.  I give you my
unsullied word of honour, that you very strongly remind me of that
historical character.  You are a pair of Whittingtons, gents,
without the cat; which is a most agreeable and blessed exception to
me, for I am not attached to the feline species.  My name is Tigg;
how do you do?'

Martin looked to Mr Pinch for an explanation; and Tom, who had never
in his life set eyes on Mr Tigg before, looked to that gentleman
himself.

'Chevy Slyme?' said Mr Tigg, interrogatively, and kissing his left
hand in token of friendship.  'You will understand me when I say
that I am the accredited agent of Chevy Slyme; that I am the
ambassador from the court of Chiv?  Ha ha!'

'Heyday!' asked Martin, starting at the mention of a name he knew.
'Pray, what does he want with me?'

'If your name is Pinch'--Mr Tigg began.

'It is not' said Martin, checking himself.  'That is Mr Pinch.'

'If that is Mr Pinch,' cried Tigg, kissing his hand again, and
beginning to follow his head into the room, 'he will permit me to
say that I greatly esteem and respect his character, which has been
most highly commended to me by my friend Pecksniff; and that I
deeply appreciate his talent for the organ, notwithstanding that I
do not, if I may use the expression, grind myself.  If that is Mr
Pinch, I will venture to express a hope that I see him well, and
that he is suffering no inconvenience from the easterly wind?'

'Thank you,' said Tom.  'I am very well.'

'That is a comfort,' Mr Tigg rejoined.  'Then,' he added, shielding
his lips with the palm of his hand, and applying them close to Mr
Pinch's ear, 'I have come for the letter.'

'For the letter,' said Tom, aloud.  'What letter?'

'The letter,' whispered Tigg in the same cautious manner as before,
'which my friend Pecksniff addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire, and
left with you.'

'He didn't leave any letter with me,' said Tom.

'Hush!' cried the other.  'It's all the same thing, though not so
delicately done by my friend Pecksniff as I could have wished.  The
money.'

'The money!' cried Tom quite scared.

'Exactly so,' said Mr Tigg.  With which he rapped Tom twice or
thrice upon the breast and nodded several times, as though he would
say that he saw they understood each other; that it was unnecessary
to mention the circumstance before a third person; and that he would
take it as a particular favour if Tom would slip the amount into his
hand, as quietly as possible.

Mr Pinch, however, was so very much astounded by this (to him)
inexplicable deportment, that he at once openly declared there must
be some mistake, and that he had been entrusted with no commission
whatever having any reference to Mr Tigg or to his friend, either.
Mr Tigg received this declaration with a grave request that Mr Pinch
would have the goodness to make it again; and on Tom's repeating it
in a still more emphatic and unmistakable manner, checked it off,
sentence for sentence, by nodding his head solemnly at the end of
each.  When it had come to a close for the second time, Mr Tigg sat
himself down in a chair and addressed the young men as follows:

'Then I tell you what it is, gents both.  There is at this present
moment in this very place, a perfect constellation of talent and
genius, who is involved, through what I cannot but designate as the
culpable negligence of my friend Pecksniff, in a situation as
tremendous, perhaps, as the social intercourse of the nineteenth
century will readily admit of.  There is actually at this instant,
at the Blue Dragon in this village--an ale-house, observe; a common,
paltry, low-minded, clodhopping, pipe-smoking ale-house--an
individual, of whom it may be said, in the language of the Poet,
that nobody but himself can in any way come up to him; who is
detained there for his bill.  Ha! ha!  For his bill.  I repeat it--
for his bill.  Now,' said Mr Tigg, 'we have heard of Fox's Book of
Martyrs, I believe, and we have heard of the Court of Requests, and
the Star Chamber; but I fear the contradiction of no man alive or
dead, when I assert that my friend Chevy Slyme being held in pawn
for a bill, beats any amount of cockfighting with which I am
acquainted.'

Martin and Mr Pinch looked, first at each other, and afterwards at
Mr Tigg, who with his arms folded on his breast surveyed them, half
in despondency and half in bitterness.

'Don't mistake me, gents both,' he said, stretching forth his right
hand.  'If it had been for anything but a bill, I could have borne
it, and could still have looked upon mankind with some feeling of
respect; but when such a man as my friend Slyme is detained for a
score--a thing in itself essentially mean; a low performance on a
slate, or possibly chalked upon the back of a door--I do feel that
there is a screw of such magnitude loose somewhere, that the whole
framework of society is shaken, and the very first principles of
things can no longer be trusted.  In short, gents both,' said Mr
Tigg with a passionate flourish of his hands and head, 'when a man
like Slyme is detained for such a thing as a bill, I reject the
superstitions of ages, and believe nothing.  I don't even believe
that I DON'T believe, curse me if I do!'

'I am very sorry, I am sure,' said Tom after a pause, 'but Mr
Pecksniff said nothing to me about it, and I couldn't act without
his instructions.  Wouldn't it be better, sir, if you were to go to
--to wherever you came from--yourself, and remit the money to your
friend?'

'How can that be done, when I am detained also?' said Mr Tigg; 'and
when moreover, owing to the astounding, and I must add, guilty
negligence of my friend Pecksniff, I have no money for coach-hire?'

Tom thought of reminding the gentleman (who, no doubt, in his
agitation had forgotten it) that there was a post-office in the
land; and that possibly if he wrote to some friend or agent for a
remittance it might not be lost upon the road; or at all events that
the chance, however desperate, was worth trusting to.  But, as his
good-nature presently suggested to him certain reasons for
abstaining from this hint, he paused again, and then asked:

'Did you say, sir, that you were detained also?'

'Come here,' said Mr Tigg, rising.  'You have no objection to my
opening this window for a moment?'

'Certainly not,' said Tom.

'Very good,' said Mr Tigg, lifting the sash.  'You see a fellow down
there in a red neckcloth and no waistcoat?'

'Of course I do,' cried Tom.  'That's Mark Tapley.'

'Mark Tapley is it?' said the gentleman.  'Then Mark Tapley had not
only the great politeness to follow me to this house, but is waiting
now, to see me home again.  And for that attention, sir,' added Mr
Tigg, stroking his moustache, 'I can tell you, that Mark Tapley had
better in his infancy have been fed to suffocation by Mrs Tapley,
than preserved to this time.'

Mr Pinch was not so dismayed by this terrible threat, but that he
had voice enough to call to Mark to come in, and upstairs; a
summons which he so speedily obeyed, that almost as soon as Tom and
Mr Tigg had drawn in their heads and closed the window again, he,
the denounced, appeared before them.

'Come here, Mark!' said Mr Pinch.  'Good gracious me! what's the
matter between Mrs Lupin and this gentleman?'

'What gentleman, sir?' said Mark.  'I don't see no gentleman here
sir, excepting you and the new gentleman,' to whom he made a rough
kind of bow--'and there's nothing wrong between Mrs Lupin and either
of you, Mr Pinch, I am sure.'

'Nonsense, Mark!' cried Tom.  'You see Mr--'

'Tigg,' interposed that gentleman.  'Wait a bit.  I shall crush him
soon.  All in good time!'

'Oh HIM!' rejoined Mark, with an air of careless defiance.  'Yes, I
see HIM.  I could see him a little better, if he'd shave himself,
and get his hair cut.'

Mr Tigg shook his head with a ferocious look, and smote himself once
upon the breast.

'It's no use,' said Mark.  'If you knock ever so much in that
quarter, you'll get no answer.  I know better.  There's nothing
there but padding; and a greasy sort it is.'

'Nay, Mark,' urged Mr Pinch, interposing to prevent hostilities,
'tell me what I ask you.  You're not out of temper, I hope?'

'Out of temper, sir!' cried Mark, with a grin; 'why no, sir.
There's a little credit--not much--in being jolly, when such fellows
as him is a-going about like roaring lions; if there is any breed of
lions, at least, as is all roar and mane.  What is there between him
and Mrs Lupin, sir?  Why, there's a score between him and Mrs Lupin.
And I think Mrs Lupin lets him and his friend off very easy in not
charging 'em double prices for being a disgrace to the Dragon.
That's my opinion.  I wouldn't have any such Peter the Wild Boy as
him in my house, sir, not if I was paid race-week prices for it.
He's enough to turn the very beer in the casks sour with his looks;
he is! So he would, if it had judgment enough.'

'You're not answering my question, you know, Mark,' observed Mr
Pinch.

'Well, sir,' said Mark, 'I don't know as there's much to answer
further than that.  Him and his friend goes and stops at the Moon
and Stars till they've run a bill there; and then comes and stops
with us and does the same.  The running of bills is common enough Mr
Pinch; it an't that as we object to; it's the ways of this chap.
Nothing's good enough for him; all the women is dying for him he
thinks, and is overpaid if he winks at 'em; and all the men was made
to be ordered about by him.  This not being aggravation enough, he
says this morning to me, in his usual captivating way, "We're going
to-night, my man."  "Are you, sir?" says I.  "Perhaps you'd like the
bill got ready, sir?"  "Oh no, my man," he says; "you needn't mind
that.  I'll give Pecksniff orders to see to that."  In reply to
which, the Dragon makes answer, "Thankee, sir, you're very kind to
honour us so far, but as we don't know any particular good of you,
and you don't travel with luggage, and Mr Pecksniff an't at home
(which perhaps you mayn't happen to be aware of, sir), we should
prefer something more satisfactory;" and that's where the matter
stands.  And I ask,' said Mr Tapley, pointing, in conclusion, to Mr
Tigg, with his hat, 'any lady or gentleman, possessing ordinary
strength of mind, to say whether he's a disagreeable-looking chap or
not!'

'Let me inquire,' said Martin, interposing between this candid
speech and the delivery of some blighting anathema by Mr Tigg, 'what
the amount of this debt may be?'

'In point of money, sir, very little,' answered Mark.  'Only just
turned of three pounds.  But it an't that; it's the--'

'Yes, yes, you told us so before,' said Martin.  'Pinch, a word with
you.'

'What is it?' asked Tom, retiring with him to a corner of the room.

'Why, simply--I am ashamed to say--that this Mr Slyme is a relation
of mine, of whom I never heard anything pleasant; and that I don't
want him here just now, and think he would be cheaply got rid of,
perhaps, for three or four pounds.  You haven't enough money to pay
this bill, I suppose?'

Tom shook his head to an extent that left no doubt of his entire
sincerity.

'That's unfortunate, for I am poor too; and in case you had had it,
I'd have borrowed it of you.  But if we told this landlady we would
see her paid, I suppose that would answer the same purpose?'

'Oh dear, yes!' said Tom.  'She knows me, bless you!'

'Then let us go down at once and tell her so; for the sooner we are
rid of their company the better.  As you have conducted the
conversation with this gentleman hitherto, perhaps you'll tell him
what we purpose doing; will you?'

Mr Pinch, complying, at once imparted the intelligence to Mr Tigg,
who shook him warmly by the hand in return, assuring him that his
faith in anything and everything was again restored.  It was not so
much, he said, for the temporary relief of this assistance that he
prized it, as for its vindication of the high principle that
Nature's Nobs felt with Nature's Nobs, and that true greatness of
soul sympathized with true greatness of soul, all the world over.
It proved to him, he said, that like him they admired genius, even
when it was coupled with the alloy occasionally visible in the metal
of his friend Slyme; and on behalf of that friend, he thanked them;
as warmly and heartily as if the cause were his own.  Being cut
short in these speeches by a general move towards the stairs, he
took possession at the street door of the lapel of Mr Pinch's coat,
as a security against further interruption; and entertained that
gentleman with some highly improving discourse until they reached
the Dragon, whither they were closely followed by Mark and the new
pupil.

The rosy hostess scarcely needed Mr Pinch's word as a preliminary to
the release of her two visitors, of whom she was glad to be rid on
any terms; indeed, their brief detention had originated mainly with
Mr Tapley, who entertained a constitutional dislike to gentleman
out-at-elbows who flourished on false pretences; and had conceived a
particular aversion to Mr Tigg and his friend, as choice specimens
of the species.  The business in hand thus easily settled, Mr Pinch
and Martin would have withdrawn immediately, but for the urgent
entreaties of Mr Tigg that they would allow him the honour of
presenting them to his friend Slyme, which were so very difficult of
resistance that, yielding partly to these persuasions and partly to
their own curiosity, they suffered themselves to be ushered into the
presence of that distinguished gentleman.

He was brooding over the remains of yesterday's decanter of brandy,
and was engaged in the thoughtful occupation of making a chain of
rings on the top of the table with the wet foot of his drinking-
glass.  Wretched and forlorn as he looked, Mr Slyme had once been in
his way, the choicest of swaggerers; putting forth his pretensions
boldly, as a man of infinite taste and most undoubted promise.  The
stock-in-trade requisite to set up an amateur in this department of
business is very slight, and easily got together; a trick of the
nose and a curl of the lip sufficient to compound a tolerable sneer,
being ample provision for any exigency.  But, in an evil hour, this
off-shoot of the Chuzzlewit trunk, being lazy, and ill qualified for
any regular pursuit and having dissipated such means as he ever
possessed, had formally established himself as a professor of Taste
for a livelihood; and finding, too late, that something more than
his old amount of qualifications was necessary to sustain him in
this calling, had quickly fallen to his present level, where he
retained nothing of his old self but his boastfulness and his bile,
and seemed to have no existence separate or apart from his friend
Tigg.  And now so abject and so pitiful was he--at once so maudlin,
insolent, beggarly, and proud--that even his friend and parasite,
standing erect beside him, swelled into a Man by contrast.

'Chiv,' said Mr Tigg, clapping him on the back, 'my friend Pecksniff
not being at home, I have arranged our trifling piece of business
with Mr Pinch and friend.  Mr Pinch and friend, Mr Chevy Slyme!
Chiv, Mr Pinch and friend!'

'These are agreeable circumstances in which to be introduced to
strangers,' said Chevy Slyme, turning his bloodshot eyes towards Tom
Pinch.  'I am the most miserable man in the world, I believe!'

Tom begged he wouldn't mention it; and finding him in this
condition, retired, after an awkward pause, followed by Martin.  But
Mr Tigg so urgently conjured them, by coughs and signs, to remain in
the shadow of the door, that they stopped there.

'I swear,' cried Mr Slyme, giving the table an imbecile blow with
his fist, and then feebly leaning his head upon his hand, while some
drunken drops oozed from his eyes, 'that I am the wretchedest
creature on record.  Society is in a conspiracy against me.  I'm the
most literary man alive.  I'm full of scholarship.  I'm full of
genius; I'm full of information; I'm full of novel views on every
subject; yet look at my condition!  I'm at this moment obliged to two
strangers for a tavern bill!'

Mr Tigg replenished his friend's glass, pressed it into his hand,
and nodded an intimation to the visitors that they would see him in
a better aspect immediately.

'Obliged to two strangers for a tavern bill, eh!' repeated Mr Slyme,
after a sulky application to his glass.  'Very pretty!  And crowds of
impostors, the while, becoming famous; men who are no more on a
level with me than--Tigg, I take you to witness that I am the most
persecuted hound on the face of the earth.'

With a whine, not unlike the cry of the animal he named, in its
lowest state of humiliation, he raised his glass to his mouth again.
He found some encouragement in it; for when he set it down he
laughed scornfully.  Upon that Mr Tigg gesticulated to the visitors
once more, and with great expression, implying that now the time was
come when they would see Chiv in his greatness.

'Ha, ha, ha,' laughed Mr Slyme.  'Obliged to two strangers for a
tavern bill!  Yet I think I've a rich uncle, Tigg, who could buy up
the uncles of fifty strangers!  Have I, or have I not?  I come of a
good family, I believe!  Do I, or do I not?  I'm not a man of common
capacity or accomplishments, I think!  Am I, or am I not?'

'You are the American aloe of the human race, my dear Chiv,' said Mr
Tigg, 'which only blooms once in a hundred years!'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Slyme again.  'Obliged to two strangers for
a tavern bill!  I obliged to two architect's apprentices.  Fellows
who measure earth with iron chains, and build houses like
bricklayers.  Give me the names of those two apprentices.  How dare
they oblige me!'

Mr Tigg was quite lost in admiration of this noble trait in his
friend's character; as he made known to Mr Pinch in a neat little
ballet of action, spontaneously invented for the purpose.

'I'll let 'em know, and I'll let all men know,' cried Chevy Slyme,
'that I'm none of the mean, grovelling, tame characters they meet
with commonly.  I have an independent spirit.  I have a heart that
swells in my bosom.  I have a soul that rises superior to base
considerations.'

'Oh Chiv, Chiv,' murmured Mr Tigg, 'you have a nobly independent
nature, Chiv!'

'You go and do your duty, sir,' said Mr Slyme, angrily, 'and borrow
money for travelling expenses; and whoever you borrow it of, let 'em
know that I possess a haughty spirit, and a proud spirit, and have
infernally finely-touched chords in my nature, which won't brook
patronage.  Do you hear?  Tell 'em I hate 'em, and that that's the
way I preserve my self-respect; and tell 'em that no man ever
respected himself more than I do!'

He might have added that he hated two sorts of men; all those who
did him favours, and all those who were better off than himself; as
in either case their position was an insult to a man of his
stupendous merits.  But he did not; for with the apt closing words
above recited, Mr Slyme; of too haughty a stomach to work, to beg,
to borrow, or to steal; yet mean enough to be worked or borrowed,
begged or stolen for, by any catspaw that would serve his turn; too
insolent to lick the hand that fed him in his need, yet cur enough
to bite and tear it in the dark; with these apt closing words Mr
Slyme fell forward with his head upon the table, and so declined
into a sodden sleep.

'Was there ever,' cried Mr Tigg, joining the young men at the door,
and shutting it carefully behind him, 'such an independent spirit as
is possessed by that extraordinary creature?  Was there ever such a
Roman as our friend Chiv?  Was there ever a man of such a purely
classical turn of thought, and of such a toga-like simplicity of
nature?  Was there ever a man with such a flow of eloquence?  Might
he not, gents both, I ask, have sat upon a tripod in the ancient
times, and prophesied to a perfectly unlimited extent, if previously
supplied with gin-and-water at the public cost?'

Mr Pinch was about to contest this latter position with his usual
mildness, when, observing that his companion had already gone
downstairs, he prepared to follow him.

'You are not going, Mr Pinch?' said Tigg.

'Thank you,' answered Tom.  'Yes.  Don't come down.'

'Do you know that I should like one little word in private with you
Mr Pinch?' said Tigg, following him.  'One minute of your company in
the skittle-ground would very much relieve my mind.  Might I beseech
that favour?'

'Oh, certainly,' replied Tom, 'if you really wish it.'  So he
accompanied Mr Tigg to the retreat in question; on arriving at which
place that gentleman took from his hat what seemed to be the fossil
remains of an antediluvian pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes
therewith.

'You have not beheld me this day,' said Mr Tigg, 'in a favourable
light.'

'Don't mention that,' said Tom, 'I beg.'

'But you have NOT,' cried Tigg.  'I must persist in that opinion.
If you could have seen me, Mr Pinch, at the head of my regiment on
the coast of Africa, charging in the form of a hollow square, with
the women and children and the regimental plate-chest in the centre,
you would not have known me for the same man.  You would have
respected me, sir.'

Tom had certain ideas of his own upon the subject of glory; and
consequently he was not quite so much excited by this picture as Mr
Tigg could have desired.

'But no matter!' said that gentleman.  'The school-boy writing home
to his parents and describing the milk-and-water, said "This is
indeed weakness."  I repeat that assertion in reference to myself at
the present moment; and I ask your pardon.  Sir, you have seen my
friend Slyme?'

'No doubt,' said Mr Pinch.

'Sir, you have been impressed by my friend Slyme?'

'Not very pleasantly, I must say,' answered Tom, after a little
hesitation.

'I am grieved but not surprised,' cried Mr Tigg, detaining him with
both hands, 'to hear that you have come to that conclusion; for it
is my own.  But, Mr Pinch, though I am a rough and thoughtless man,
I can honour Mind.  I honour Mind in following my friend.  To you of
all men, Mr Pinch, I have a right to make appeal on Mind's behalf,
when it has not the art to push its fortune in the world.  And so,
sir--not for myself, who have no claim upon you, but for my crushed,
my sensitive and independent friend, who has--I ask the loan of
three half-crowns.  I ask you for the loan of three half-crowns,
distinctly, and without a blush.  I ask it, almost as a right.  And
when I add that they will be returned by post, this week, I feel
that you will blame me for that sordid stipulation.'

Mr Pinch took from his pocket an old-fashioned red-leather purse
with a steel clasp, which had probably once belonged to his deceased
grandmother.  It held one half-sovereign and no more.  All Tom's
worldly wealth until next quarter-day.

'Stay!' cried Mr Tigg, who had watched this proceeding keenly.  'I
was just about to say, that for the convenience of posting you had
better make it gold.  Thank you.  A general direction, I suppose, to
Mr Pinch at Mr Pecksniff's--will that find you?'

'That'll find me,' said Tom.  'You had better put Esquire to Mr
Pecksniff's name, if you please.  Direct to me, you know, at Seth
Pecksniff's, Esquire.'

'At Seth Pecksniff's, Esquire,' repeated Mr Tigg, taking an exact
note of it with a stump of pencil.  'We said this week, I believe?'

'Yes; or Monday will do,' observed Tom.

'No, no, I beg your pardon.  Monday will NOT do,' said Mr Tigg.  'If
we stipulated for this week, Saturday is the latest day.  Did we
stipulate for this week?'

'Since you are so particular about it,' said Tom, 'I think we did.'

Mr Tigg added this condition to his memorandum; read the entry over
to himself with a severe frown; and that the transaction might be
the more correct and business-like, appended his initials to the
whole.  That done, he assured Mr Pinch that everything was now
perfectly regular; and, after squeezing his hand with great fervour,
departed.

Tom entertained enough suspicion that Martin might possibly turn
this interview into a jest, to render him desirous to avoid the
company of that young gentleman for the present.  With this view he
took a few turns up and down the skittle-ground, and did not re-
enter the house until Mr Tigg and his friend had quitted it, and the
new pupil and Mark were watching their departure from one of the
windows.

'I was just a-saying, sir, that if one could live by it,' observed
Mark, pointing after their late guests, 'that would be the sort of
service for me.  Waiting on such individuals as them would be better
than grave-digging, sir.'

'And staying here would be better than either, Mark,' replied Tom.
'So take my advice, and continue to swim easily in smooth water.'

'It's too late to take it now, sir,' said Mark.  'I have broke it to
her, sir.  I am off to-morrow morning.'

'Off!' cried Mr Pinch, 'where to?'

'I shall go up to London, sir.'

'What to be?' asked Mr Pinch.

'Well! I don't know yet, sir.  Nothing turned up that day I opened
my mind to you, as was at all likely to suit me.  All them trades I
thought of was a deal too jolly; there was no credit at all to be
got in any of 'em.  I must look for a private service, I suppose,
sir.  I might be brought out strong, perhaps, in a serious family,
Mr Pinch.'

'Perhaps you might come out rather too strong for a serious family's
taste, Mark.'

'That's possible, sir.  If I could get into a wicked family, I might
do myself justice; but the difficulty is to make sure of one's
ground, because a young man can't very well advertise that he wants
a place, and wages an't so much an object as a wicked sitivation; can
he, sir?'

'Why, no,' said Mr Pinch, 'I don't think he can.'

'An envious family,' pursued Mark, with a thoughtful face; 'or a
quarrelsome family, or a malicious family, or even a good out-and-
out mean family, would open a field of action as I might do
something in.  The man as would have suited me of all other men was
that old gentleman as was took ill here, for he really was a trying
customer.  Howsever, I must wait and see what turns up, sir; and
hope for the worst.'

'You are determined to go then?' said Mr Pinch.

'My box is gone already, sir, by the waggon, and I'm going to walk
on to-morrow morning, and get a lift by the day coach when it
overtakes me.  So I wish you good-bye, Mr Pinch--and you too, sir--
and all good luck and happiness!'

They both returned his greeting laughingly, and walked home arm-in-
arm.  Mr Pinch imparting to his new friend, as they went, such
further particulars of Mark Tapley's whimsical restlessness as the
reader is already acquainted with.

In the meantime Mark, having a shrewd notion that his mistress was
in very low spirits, and that he could not exactly answer for the
consequences of any lengthened TETE-A-TETE in the bar, kept himself
obstinately out of her way all the afternoon and evening.  In this
piece of generalship he was very much assisted by the great influx
of company into the taproom; for the news of his intention having
gone abroad, there was a perfect throng there all the evening, and
much drinking of healths and clinking of mugs.  At length the house
was closed for the night; and there being now no help for it, Mark
put the best face he could upon the matter, and walked doggedly to
the bar-door.

'If I look at her,' said Mark to himself, 'I'm done.  I feel that
I'm a-going fast.'

'You have come at last,' said Mrs Lupin.

Aye, Mark said: There he was.

'And you are determined to leave us, Mark?' cried Mrs Lupin.

'Why, yes; I am,' said Mark; keeping his eyes hard upon the floor.

'I thought,' pursued the landlady, with a most engaging hesitation,
'that you had been--fond--of the Dragon?'

'So I am,' said Mark.

'Then,' pursued the hostess--and it really was not an unnatural
inquiry--'why do you desert it?'

But as he gave no manner of answer to this question; not even on its
being repeated; Mrs Lupin put his money into his hand, and asked
him--not unkindly, quite the contrary--what he would take?

It is proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood
cannot bear.  Such a question as this, propounded in such a manner,
at such a time, and by such a person, proved (at least, as far as,
Mark's flesh and blood were concerned) to be one of them.  He looked
up in spite of himself directly; and having once looked up, there
was no looking down again; for of all the tight, plump, buxom,
bright-eyed, dimple-faced landladies that ever shone on earth, there
stood before him then, bodily in that bar, the very pink and
pineapple.

'Why, I tell you what,' said Mark, throwing off all his constraint
in an instant and seizing the hostess round the waist--at which she
was not at all alarmed, for she knew what a good young man he was--
'if I took what I liked most, I should take you.  If I only thought
what was best for me, I should take you.  If I took what nineteen
young fellows in twenty would be glad to take, and would take at any
price, I should take you.  Yes, I should,' cried Mr Tapley, shaking
his head expressively enough, and looking (in a momentary state of
forgetfulness) rather hard at the hostess's ripe lips.  'And no man
wouldn't wonder if I did!'

Mrs Lupin said he amazed her.  She was astonished how he could say
such things.  She had never thought it of him.

'Why, I never thought if of myself till now!' said Mark, raising his
eyebrows with a look of the merriest possible surprise.  'I always
expected we should part, and never have no explanation; I meant to
do it when I come in here just now; but there's something about you,
as makes a man sensible.  Then let us have a word or two together;
letting it be understood beforehand,' he added this in a grave tone,
to prevent the possibility of any mistake, 'that I'm not a-going to
make no love, you know.'

There was for just one second a shade, though not by any means a
dark one, on the landlady's open brow.  But it passed off instantly,
in a laugh that came from her very heart.

'Oh, very good!' she said; 'if there is to be no love-making, you
had better take your arm away.'

'Lord, why should I!' cried Mark.  'It's quite innocent.'

'Of course it's innocent,' returned the hostess, 'or I shouldn't
allow it.'

'Very well!' said Mark.  'Then let it be.'

There was so much reason in this that the landlady laughed again,
suffered it to remain, and bade him say what he had to say, and be
quick about it.  But he was an impudent fellow, she added.

'Ha ha!  I almost think I am!' cried Mark, 'though I never thought so
before.  Why, I can say anything to-night!'

'Say what you're going to say if you please, and be quick,' returned
the landlady, 'for I want to get to bed.'

'Why, then, my dear good soul,' said Mark, 'and a kinder woman than
you are never drawed breath--let me see the man as says she did!--
what would be the likely consequence of us two being--'

'Oh nonsense!' cried Mrs Lupin.  'Don't talk about that any more.'

'No, no, but it an't nonsense,' said Mark; 'and I wish you'd attend.
What would be the likely consequence of us two being married?  If I
can't be content and comfortable in this here lively Dragon now, is
it to be looked for as I should be then?  By no means.  Very good.
Then you, even with your good humour, would be always on the fret
and worrit, always uncomfortable in your own mind, always a-thinking
as you was getting too old for my taste, always a-picturing me to
yourself as being chained up to the Dragon door, and wanting to
break away.  I don't know that it would be so,' said Mark, 'but I
don't know that it mightn't be.  I am a roving sort of chap, I know.
I'm fond of change.  I'm always a-thinking that with my good health
and spirits it would be more creditable in me to be jolly where
there's things a-going on to make one dismal.  It may be a mistake
of mine you see, but nothing short of trying how it acts will set it
right.  Then an't it best that I should go; particular when your
free way has helped me out to say all this, and we can part as good
friends as we have ever been since first I entered this here noble
Dragon, which,' said Mr Tapley in conclusion, 'has my good word and
my good wish to the day of my death!'

The hostess sat quite silent for a little time, but she very soon
put both her hands in Mark's and shook them heartily.

'For you are a good man,' she said; looking into his face with a
smile, which was rather serious for her.  'And I do believe have
been a better friend to me to-night than ever I have had in all my
life.'

'Oh! as to that, you know,' said Mark, 'that's nonsense.  But love
my heart alive!' he added, looking at her in a sort of rapture, 'if
you ARE that way disposed, what a lot of suitable husbands there is
as you may drive distracted!'

She laughed again at this compliment; and, once more shaking him by
both hands, and bidding him, if he should ever want a friend, to
remember her, turned gayly from the little bar and up the Dragon
staircase.

'Humming a tune as she goes,' said Mark, listening, 'in case I
should think she's at all put out, and should be made down-hearted.
Come, here's some credit in being jolly, at last!'

With that piece of comfort, very ruefully uttered, he went, in
anything but a jolly manner, to bed.

He rose early next morning, and was a-foot soon after sunrise.  But
it was of no use; the whole place was up to see Mark Tapley off; the
boys, the dogs, the children, the old men, the busy people and the
idlers; there they were, all calling out 'Good-b'ye, Mark,' after
their own manner, and all sorry he was going.  Somehow he had a kind
of sense that his old mistress was peeping from her chamber-window,
but he couldn't make up his mind to look back.

'Good-b'ye one, good-b'ye all!' cried Mark, waving his hat on the
top of his walking-stick, as he strode at a quick pace up the little
street.  'Hearty chaps them wheelwrights--hurrah!  Here's the
butcher's dog a-coming out of the garden--down, old fellow!  And Mr
Pinch a-going to his organ--good-b'ye, sir!  And the terrier-bitch
from over the way--hie, then, lass!  And children enough to hand down
human natur to the latest posterity--good-b'ye, boys and girls!
There's some credit in it now.  I'm a-coming out strong at last.
These are the circumstances that would try a ordinary mind; but I'm
uncommon jolly.  Not quite as jolly as I could wish to be, but very
near.  Good-b'ye! good-b'ye!'



CHAPTER EIGHT

ACCOMPANIES MR PECKSNIFF AND HIS CHARMING DAUGHTERS TO THE CITY OF
LONDON; AND RELATES WHAT FELL OUT UPON THEIR WAY THITHER


When Mr Pecksniff and the two young ladies got into the heavy
coach at the end of the lane, they found it empty, which was a great
comfort; particularly as the outside was quite full and the
passengers looked very frosty.  For as Mr Pecksniff justly observed
--when he and his daughters had burrowed their feet deep in the
straw, wrapped themselves to the chin, and pulled up both windows--
it is always satisfactory to feel, in keen weather, that many other
people are not as warm as you are.  And this, he said, was quite
natural, and a very beautiful arrangement; not confined to coaches,
but extending itself into many social ramifications.  'For' (he
observed), 'if every one were warm and well-fed, we should lose the
satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions
of men bear cold and hunger.  And if we were no better off than
anybody else, what would become of our sense of gratitude; which,'
said Mr Pecksniff with tears in his eyes, as he shook his fist at a
beggar who wanted to get up behind, 'is one of the holiest feelings
of our common nature.'

His children heard with becoming reverence these moral precepts from
the lips of their father, and signified their acquiescence in the
same, by smiles.  That he might the better feed and cherish that
sacred flame of gratitude in his breast, Mr Pecksniff remarked that
he would trouble his eldest daughter, even in this early stage of
their journey, for the brandy-bottle.  And from the narrow neck of
that stone vessel he imbibed a copious refreshment.

'What are we?' said Mr Pecksniff, 'but coaches?  Some of us are slow
coaches'--

'Goodness, Pa!' cried Charity.

'Some of us, I say,' resumed her parent with increased emphasis,
'are slow coaches; some of us are fast coaches.  Our passions are
the horses; and rampant animals too--!'

'Really, Pa,' cried both the daughters at once.  'How very
unpleasant.'

'And rampant animals too' repeated Mr Pecksniff with so much
determination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment
a sort of moral rampancy himself;'--and Virtue is the drag.  We start
from The Mother's Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel.'

When he had said this, Mr Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some
further refreshment.  When he had done that, he corked the bottle
tight, with the air of a man who had effectually corked the subject
also; and went to sleep for three stages.

The tendency of mankind when it falls asleep in coaches, is to wake
up cross; to find its legs in its way; and its corns an aggravation.
Mr Pecksniff not being exempt from the common lot of humanity found
himself, at the end of his nap, so decidedly the victim of these
infirmities, that he had an irresistible inclination to visit them
upon his daughters; which he had already begun to do in the shape of
divers random kicks, and other unexpected motions of his shoes, when
the coach stopped, and after a short delay the door was opened.

'Now mind,' said a thin sharp voice in the dark.  'I and my son go
inside, because the roof is full, but you agree only to charge us
outside prices.  It's quite understood that we won't pay more.  Is
it?'

'All right, sir,' replied the guard.

'Is there anybody inside now?' inquired the voice.

'Three passengers,' returned the guard.

'Then I ask the three passengers to witness this bargain, if they
will be so good,' said the voice.  'My boy, I think we may safely
get in.'

In pursuance of which opinion, two people took their seats in the
vehicle, which was solemnly licensed by Act of Parliament to carry
any six persons who could be got in at the door.

'That was lucky!' whispered the old man, when they moved on again.
'And a great stroke of policy in you to observe it.  He, he, he!  We
couldn't have gone outside.  I should have died of the rheumatism!'

Whether it occurred to the dutiful son that he had in some degree
over-reached himself by contributing to the prolongation of his
father's days; or whether the cold had effected his temper; is
doubtful.  But he gave his father such a nudge in reply, that that
good old gentleman was taken with a cough which lasted for full five
minutes without intermission, and goaded Mr Pecksniff to that pitch
of irritation, that he said at last--and very suddenly:

'There is no room!  There is really no room in this coach for any
gentleman with a cold in his head!'

'Mine,' said the old man, after a moment's pause, 'is upon my chest,
Pecksniff.'

The voice and manner, together, now that he spoke out; the composure
of the speaker; the presence of his son; and his knowledge of Mr
Pecksniff; afforded a clue to his identity which it was impossible
to mistake.

'Hem! I thought,' said Mr Pecksniff, returning to his usual
mildness, 'that I addressed a stranger.  I find that I address a
relative, Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son Mr Jonas--for they, my
dear children, are our travelling companions--will excuse me for an
apparently harsh remark.  It is not MY desire to wound the feelings
of any person with whom I am connected in family bonds.  I may be a
Hypocrite,' said Mr Pecksniff, cuttingly; 'but I am not a Brute.'

'Pooh, pooh!' said the old man.  'What signifies that word,
Pecksniff?  Hypocrite! why, we are all hypocrites.  We were all
hypocrites t'other day.  I am sure I felt that to be agreed upon
among us, or I shouldn't have called you one.  We should not have
been there at all, if we had not been hypocrites.  The only
difference between you and the rest was--shall I tell you the
difference between you and the rest now, Pecksniff?'

'If you please, my good sir; if you please.'

'Why, the annoying quality in YOU, is,' said the old man, 'that you
never have a confederate or partner in YOUR juggling; you would
deceive everybody, even those who practise the same art; and have a
way with you, as if you--he, he, he!--as if you really believed
yourself.  I'd lay a handsome wager now,' said the old man, 'if I
laid wagers, which I don't and never did, that you keep up
appearances by a tacit understanding, even before your own daughters
here.  Now I, when I have a business scheme in hand, tell Jonas what
it is, and we discuss it openly.  You're not offended, Pecksniff?'

'Offended, my good sir!' cried that gentleman, as if he had received
the highest compliments that language could convey.

'Are you travelling to London, Mr Pecksniff?' asked the son.

'Yes, Mr Jonas, we are travelling to London.  We shall have the
pleasure of your company all the way, I trust?'

'Oh! ecod, you had better ask father that,' said Jonas.  'I am not
a-going to commit myself.'

Mr Pecksniff was, as a matter of course, greatly entertained by this
retort.  His mirth having subsided, Mr Jonas gave him to understand
that himself and parent were in fact travelling to their home in the
metropolis; and that, since the memorable day of the great family
gathering, they had been tarrying in that part of the country,
watching the sale of certain eligible investments, which they had
had in their copartnership eye when they came down; for it was their
custom, Mr Jonas said, whenever such a thing was practicable, to
kill two birds with one stone, and never to throw away sprats, but
as bait for whales.  When he had communicated to Mr Pecksniff these
pithy scraps of intelligence, he said, 'That if it was all the same
to him, he would turn him over to father, and have a chat with the
gals;' and in furtherance of this polite scheme, he vacated his seat
adjoining that gentleman, and established himself in the opposite
corner, next to the fair Miss Mercy.

The education of Mr Jonas had been conducted from his cradle on the
strictest principles of the main chance.  The very first word he
learnt to spell was 'gain,' and the second (when he got into two
syllables), 'money.'  But for two results, which were not clearly
foreseen perhaps by his watchful parent in the beginning, his
training may be said to have been unexceptionable.  One of these
flaws was, that having been long taught by his father to over-reach
everybody, he had imperceptibly acquired a love of over-reaching that
venerable monitor himself.  The other, that from his early habits of
considering everything as a question of property, he had gradually
come to look, with impatience, on his parent as a certain amount of
personal estate, which had no right whatever to be going at large,
but ought to be secured in that particular description of iron safe
which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave.

'Well, cousin!' said Mr Jonas--'Because we ARE cousins, you know, a
few times removed--so you're going to London?'

Miss Mercy replied in the affirmative, pinching her sister's arm at
the same time, and giggling excessively.

'Lots of beaux in London, cousin!' said Mr Jonas, slightly advancing
his elbow.

'Indeed, sir!' cried the young lady.  'They won't hurt us, sir, I
dare say.'  And having given him this answer with great demureness
she was so overcome by her own humour, that she was fain to stifle
her merriment in her sister's shawl.

'Merry,' cried that more prudent damsel, 'really I am ashamed of
you.  How can you go on so?  You wild thing!'  At which Miss Merry
only laughed the more, of course.

'I saw a wildness in her eye, t'other day,' said Mr Jonas,
addressing Charity.  'But you're the one to sit solemn!  I say--You
were regularly prim, cousin!'

"Oh!  The old-fashioned fright!' cried Merry, in a whisper.  'Cherry
my dear, upon my word you must sit next him.  I shall die outright
if he talks to me any more; I shall, positively!'  To prevent which
fatal consequence, the buoyant creature skipped out of her seat as
she spoke, and squeezed her sister into the place from which she had
risen.

'Don't mind crowding me,' cried Mr Jonas.  'I like to be crowded by
gals.  Come a little closer, cousin.'

'No, thank you, sir,' said Charity.

'There's that other one a-laughing again,' said Mr Jonas; 'she's a-
laughing at my father, I shouldn't wonder.  If he puts on that old
flannel nightcap of his, I don't know what she'll do!  Is that my
father a-snoring, Pecksniff?'

'Yes, Mr Jonas.'

'Tread upon his foot, will you be so good?' said the young
gentleman.  'The foot next you's the gouty one.'

Mr Pecksniff hesitating to perform this friendly office, Mr Jonas
did it himself; at the same time crying:

'Come, wake up, father, or you'll be having the nightmare, and
screeching out, I know.--Do you ever have the nightmare, cousin?' he
asked his neighbour, with characteristic gallantry, as he dropped
his voice again.

'Sometimes,' answered Charity.  'Not often.'

'The other one,' said Mr Jonas, after a pause.  'Does SHE ever have
the nightmare?'

'I don't know,' replied Charity.  'You had better ask her.'

'She laughs so,' said Jonas; 'there's no talking to her.  Only hark
how she's a-going on now!  You're the sensible one, cousin!'

'Tut, tut!' cried Charity.

'Oh!  But you are!  You know you are!'

'Mercy is a little giddy,' said Miss Charity.  But she'll sober down
in time.'

'It'll be a very long time, then, if she does at all,' rejoined her
cousin.  'Take a little more room.'

'I am afraid of crowding you,' said Charity.  But she took it
notwithstanding; and after one or two remarks on the extreme
heaviness of the coach, and the number of places it stopped at, they
fell into a silence which remained unbroken by any member of the
party until supper-time.

Although Mr Jonas conducted Charity to the hotel and sat himself
beside her at the board, it was pretty clear that he had an eye to
'the other one' also, for he often glanced across at Mercy, and
seemed to draw comparisons between the personal appearance of the
two, which were not unfavourable to the superior plumpness of the
younger sister.  He allowed himself no great leisure for this kind
of observation, however, being busily engaged with the supper,
which, as he whispered in his fair companion's ear, was a contract
business, and therefore the more she ate, the better the bargain
was.  His father and Mr Pecksniff, probably acting on the same wise
principle, demolished everything that came within their reach, and
by that means acquired a greasy expression of countenance,
indicating contentment, if not repletion, which it was very pleasant
to contemplate.

When they could eat no more, Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jonas subscribed
for two sixpenny-worths of hot brandy-and-water, which the latter
gentleman considered a more politic order than one shillingsworth;
there being a chance of their getting more spirit out of the
innkeeper under this arrangement than if it were all in one glass.
Having swallowed his share of the enlivening fluid, Mr Pecksniff,
under pretence of going to see if the coach were ready, went
secretly to the bar, and had his own little bottle filled, in order
that he might refresh himself at leisure in the dark coach without
being observed.

These arrangements concluded, and the coach being ready, they got
into their old places and jogged on again.  But before he composed
himself for a nap, Mr Pecksniff delivered a kind of grace after
meat, in these words:

'The process of digestion, as I have been informed by anatomical
friends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature.  I do not
know how it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me
to know, when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in
motion the most beautiful machinery with which we have any
acquaintance.  I really feel at such times as if I was doing a
public service.  When I have wound myself up, if I may employ such a
term,' said Mr Pecksniff with exquisite tenderness, 'and know that I
am Going, I feel that in the lesson afforded by the works within me,
I am a Benefactor to my Kind!'

As nothing could be added to this, nothing was said; and Mr
Pecksniff, exulting, it may be presumed, in his moral utility, went
to sleep again.

The rest of the night wore away in the usual manner.  Mr Pecksniff
and Old Anthony kept tumbling against each other and waking up much
terrified, or crushed their heads in opposite corners of the coach
and strangely tattooed the surface of their faces--Heaven knows how
--in their sleep.  The coach stopped and went on, and went on and
stopped, times out of number.  Passengers got up and passengers got
down, and fresh horses came and went and came again, with scarcely
any interval between each team as it seemed to those who were
dozing, and with a gap of a whole night between every one as it
seemed to those who were broad awake.  At length they began to jolt
and rumble over horribly uneven stones, and Mr Pecksniff looking out
of window said it was to-morrow morning, and they were there.

Very soon afterwards the coach stopped at the office in the city;
and the street in which it was situated was already in a bustle,
that fully bore out Mr Pecksniff's words about its being morning,
though for any signs of day yet appearing in the sky it might have
been midnight.  There was a dense fog too; as if it were a city in
the clouds, which they had been travelling to all night up a magic
beanstalk; and there was a thick crust upon the pavement like
oilcake; which, one of the outsides (mad, no doubt) said to another
(his keeper, of course), was Snow.

Taking a confused leave of Anthony and his son, and leaving the
luggage of himself and daughters at the office to be called for
afterwards, Mr Pecksniff, with one of the young ladies under each
arm, dived across the street, and then across other streets, and so
up the queerest courts, and down the strangest alleys and under the
blindest archways, in a kind of frenzy; now skipping over a kennel,
now running for his life from a coach and horses; now thinking he
had lost his way, now thinking he had found it; now in a state of
the highest confidence, now despondent to the last degree, but
always in a great perspiration and flurry; until at length they
stopped in a kind of paved yard near the Monument.  That is to say,
Mr Pecksniff told them so; for as to anything they could see of the
Monument, or anything else but the buildings close at hand, they
might as well have been playing blindman's buff at Salisbury.

Mr Pecksniff looked about him for a moment, and then knocked at the
door of a very dingy edifice, even among the choice collection of
dingy edifices at hand; on the front of which was a little oval
board like a tea-tray, with this inscription--'Commercial Boarding-
House: M. Todgers.'

It seemed that M. Todgers was not up yet, for Mr Pecksniff knocked
twice and rang thrice, without making any impression on anything but
a dog over the way.  At last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn
with a rusty noise, as if the weather had made the very fastenings
hoarse, and a small boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak
of, and a very dirty Wellington boot on his left arm, appeared; who
(being surprised) rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a
shoe-brush, and said nothing.

'Still a-bed my man?' asked Mr Pecksniff.

'Still a-bed!' replied the boy.  'I wish they wos still a-bed.
They're very noisy a-bed; all calling for their boots at once.  I
thought you was the Paper, and wondered why you didn't shove
yourself through the grating as usual.  What do you want?'

Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to
have preferred this question sternly, and in something of a defiant
manner.  But Mr Pecksniff, without taking umbrage at his bearing put
a card in his hand, and bade him take that upstairs, and show them
in the meanwhile into a room where there was a fire.

'Or if there's one in the eating parlour,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I can
find it myself.'  So he led his daughters, without waiting for any
further introduction, into a room on the ground-floor, where a
table-cloth (rather a tight and scanty fit in reference to the table
it covered) was already spread for breakfast; displaying a mighty
dish of pink boiled beef; an instance of that particular style of
loaf which is known to housekeepers as a slack-baked, crummy
quartern; a liberal provision of cups and saucers; and the usual
appendages.

Inside the fender were some half-dozen pairs of shoes and boots, of
various sizes, just cleaned and turned with the soles upwards to
dry; and a pair of short black gaiters, on one of which was chalked
--in sport, it would appear, by some gentleman who had slipped down
for the purpose, pending his toilet, and gone up again--'Jinkins's
Particular,' while the other exhibited a sketch in profile, claiming
to be the portrait of Jinkins himself.

M. Todgers's Commercial Boarding-House was a house of that sort
which is likely to be dark at any time; but that morning it was
especially dark.  There was an odd smell in the passage, as if the
concentrated essence of all the dinners that had been cooked in the
kitchen since the house was built, lingered at the top of the
kitchen stairs to that hour, and like the Black Friar in Don Juan,
'wouldn't be driven away.'  In particular, there was a sensation of
cabbage; as if all the greens that had ever been boiled there, were
evergreens, and flourished in immortal strength.  The parlour was
wainscoted, and communicated to strangers a magnetic and instinctive
consciousness of rats and mice.  The staircase was very gloomy and
very broad, with balustrades so thick and heavy that they would have
served for a bridge.  In a sombre corner on the first landing, stood
a gruff old giant of a clock, with a preposterous coronet of three
brass balls on his head; whom few had ever seen--none ever looked in
the face--and who seemed to continue his heavy tick for no other
reason than to warn heedless people from running into him
accidentally.  It had not been papered or painted, hadn't Todgers's,
within the memory of man.  It was very black, begrimed, and mouldy.
And, at the top of the staircase, was an old, disjointed, rickety,
ill-favoured skylight, patched and mended in all kinds of ways,
which looked distrustfully down at everything that passed below, and
covered Todgers's up as if it were a sort of human cucumber-frame,
and only people of a peculiar growth were reared there.

Mr Pecksniff and his fair daughters had not stood warming themselves
at the fire ten minutes, when the sound of feet was heard upon the
stairs, and the presiding deity of the establishment came hurrying
in.

M. Todgers was a lady, rather a bony and hard-featured lady, with a
row of curls in front of her head, shaped like little barrels of
beer; and on the top of it something made of net--you couldn't call
it a cap exactly--which looked like a black cobweb.  She had a
little basket on her arm, and in it a bunch of keys that jingled as
she came.  In her other hand she bore a flaming tallow candle,
which, after surveying Mr Pecksniff for one instant by its light,
she put down upon the table, to the end that she might receive him
with the greater cordiality.

'Mr Pecksniff!' cried Mrs Todgers.  'Welcome to London!  Who would
have thought of such a visit as this, after so--dear, dear!--so many
years!  How do you DO, Mr Pecksniff?'

'As well as ever; and as glad to see you, as ever;' Mr Pecksniff
made response.  'Why, you are younger than you used to be!'

'YOU are, I am sure!' said Mrs Todgers.  'You're not a bit changed.'

'What do you say to this?' cried Mr Pecksniff, stretching out his
hand towards the young ladies.  'Does this make me no older?'

'Not your daughters!' exclaimed the lady, raising her hands and
clasping them.  'Oh, no, Mr Pecksniff!  Your second, and her
bridesmaid!'

Mr Pecksniff smiled complacently; shook his head; and said, 'My
daughters, Mrs Todgers.  Merely my daughters.'

'Ah!' sighed the good lady, 'I must believe you, for now I look at
'em I think I should have known 'em anywhere.  My dear Miss
Pecksniffs, how happy your Pa has made me!'

She hugged them both; and being by this time overpowered by her
feelings or the inclemency of the morning, jerked a little pocket
handkerchief out of the little basket, and applied the same to her
face.

'Now, my good madam,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I know the rules of your
establishment, and that you only receive gentlemen boarders.  But it
occurred to me, when I left home, that perhaps you would give my
daughters house room, and make an exception in their favour.'

'Perhaps?' cried Mrs Todgers ecstatically.  'Perhaps?'

'I may say then, that I was sure you would,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'I
know that you have a little room of your own, and that they can be
comfortable there, without appearing at the general table.'

'Dear girls!' said Mrs Todgers.  'I must take that liberty once
more.'

Mrs Todgers meant by this that she must embrace them once more,
which she accordingly did with great ardour.  But the truth was that
the house being full with the exception of one bed, which would now
be occupied by Mr Pecksniff, she wanted time for consideration; and
so much time too (for it was a knotty point how to dispose of them),
that even when this second embrace was over, she stood for some
moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye,
and calculation shining out of the other.

'I think I know how to arrange it,' said Mrs Todgers, at length.  'A
sofa bedstead in the little third room which opens from my own
parlour.--Oh, you dear girls!'

Thereupon she embraced them once more, observing that she could not
decide which was most like their poor mother (which was highly
probable, seeing that she had never beheld that lady), but that she
rather thought the youngest was; and then she said that as the
gentlemen would be down directly, and the ladies were fatigued with
travelling, would they step into her room at once?

It was on the same floor; being, in fact, the back parlour; and had,
as Mrs Todgers said, the great advantage (in London) of not being
overlooked; as they would see when the fog cleared off.  Nor was
this a vainglorious boast, for it commanded at a perspective of two
feet, a brown wall with a black cistern on the top.  The sleeping
apartment designed for the young ladies was approached from this
chamber by a mightily convenient little door, which would only open
when fallen against by a strong person.  It commanded from a similar
point of sight another angle of the wall, and another side of the
cistern.  'Not the damp side,' said Mrs Todgers.  'THAT is Mr
Jinkins's.'

In the first of these sanctuaries a fire was speedily kindled by the
youthful porter, who, whistling at his work in the absence of Mrs
Todgers (not to mention his sketching figures on his corduroys with
burnt firewood), and being afterwards taken by that lady in the
fact, was dismissed with a box on his ears.  Having prepared
breakfast for the young ladies with her own hands, she withdrew to
preside in the other room; where the joke at Mr Jinkins's expense
seemed to be proceeding rather noisily.

'I won't ask you yet, my dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, looking in at
the door, 'how you like London.  Shall I?'

'We haven't seen much of it, Pa!' cried Merry.

'Nothing, I hope,' said Cherry.  (Both very miserably.)

'Indeed,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'that's true.  We have our pleasure,
and our business too, before us.  All in good time.  All in good
time!'

Whether Mr Pecksniff's business in London was as strictly
professional as he had given his new pupil to understand, we shall
see, to adopt that worthy man's phraseology, 'all in good time.'



CHAPTER NINE

TOWN AND TODGER'S


Surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet in the
world, such a singular sort of a place as Todgers's.  And surely
London, to judge from that part of it which hemmed Todgers's round
and hustled it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar
elbows into it, and kept the air from it, and stood perpetually
between it and the light, was worthy of Todgers's, and qualified to
be on terms of close relationship and alliance with hundreds and
thousands of the odd family to which Todgers's belonged.

You couldn't walk about Todgers's neighbourhood, as you could in any
other neighbourhood.  You groped your way for an hour through lanes
and byways, and court-yards, and passages; and you never once
emerged upon anything that might be reasonably called a street.  A
kind of resigned distraction came over the stranger as he trod those
devious mazes, and, giving himself up for lost, went in and out and
round about and quietly turned back again when he came to a dead
wall or was stopped by an iron railing, and felt that the means of
escape might possibly present themselves in their own good time, but
that to anticipate them was hopeless.  Instances were known of
people who, being asked to dine at Todgers's, had travelled round
and round for a weary time, with its very chimney-pots in view; and
finding it, at last, impossible of attainment, had gone home again
with a gentle melancholy on their spirits, tranquil and
uncomplaining.  Nobody had ever found Todgers's on a verbal
direction, though given within a few minutes' walk of it.  Cautious
emigrants from Scotland or the North of England had been known to
reach it safely, by impressing a charity-boy, town-bred, and
bringing him along with them; or by clinging tenaciously to the
postman; but these were rare exceptions, and only went to prove the
rule that Todgers's was in a labyrinth, whereof the mystery was
known but to a chosen few.

Several fruit-brokers had their marts near Todgers's; and one of the
first impressions wrought upon the stranger's senses was of oranges
--of damaged oranges--with blue and green bruises on them, festering
in boxes, or mouldering away in cellars.  All day long, a stream of
porters from the wharves beside the river, each bearing on his back
a bursting chest of oranges, poured slowly through the narrow
passages; while underneath the archway by the public-house, the
knots of those who rested and regaled within, were piled from
morning until night.  Strange solitary pumps were found near
Todgers's hiding themselves for the most part in blind alleys, and
keeping company with fire-ladders.  There were churches also by
dozens, with many a ghostly little churchyard, all overgrown with
such straggling vegetation as springs up spontaneously from damp,
and graves, and rubbish.  In some of these dingy resting-places
which bore much the same analogy to green churchyards, as the pots
of earth for mignonette and wall-flower in the windows overlooking
them did to rustic gardens, there were trees; tall trees; still
putting forth their leaves in each succeeding year, with such a
languishing remembrance of their kind (so one might fancy, looking
on their sickly boughs) as birds in cages have of theirs.  Here,
paralysed old watchmen guarded the bodies of the dead at night, year
after year, until at last they joined that solemn brotherhood; and,
saving that they slept below the ground a sounder sleep than even
they had ever known above it, and were shut up in another kind of
box, their condition can hardly be said to have undergone any
material change when they, in turn, were watched themselves.

Among the narrow thoroughfares at hand, there lingered, here and
there, an ancient doorway of carved oak, from which, of old, the
sounds of revelry and feasting often came; but now these mansions,
only used for storehouses, were dark and dull, and, being filled
with wool, and cotton, and the like--such heavy merchandise as
stifles sound and stops the throat of echo--had an air of palpable
deadness about them which, added to their silence and desertion,
made them very grim.  In like manner, there were gloomy courtyards
in these parts, into which few but belated wayfarers ever strayed,
and where vast bags and packs of goods, upward or downward bound,
were for ever dangling between heaven and earth from lofty cranes
There were more trucks near Todgers's than you would suppose whole
city could ever need; not active trucks, but a vagabond race, for
ever lounging in the narrow lanes before their masters' doors and
stopping up the pass; so that when a stray hackney-coach or
lumbering waggon came that way, they were the cause of such an
uproar as enlivened the whole neighbourhood, and made the bells in
the next churchtower vibrate again.  In the throats and maws of dark
no-thoroughfares near Todgers's, individual wine-merchants and
wholesale dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their
own; and, deep among the foundations of these buildings, the ground
was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses,
troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their
halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to
clank their chains.

To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret
existence near Todgers's, would fill a goodly book; while a second
volume no less capacious might be devoted to an account of the
quaint old guests who frequented their dimly lighted parlours.
These were, in general, ancient inhabitants of that region; born,
and bred there from boyhood.  who had long since become wheezy and
asthmatical, and short of breath, except in the article of story-
telling; in which respect they were still marvellously long-winded.
These gentry were much opposed to steam and all new-fangled ways,
and held ballooning to be sinful, and deplored the degeneracy of the
times; which that particular member of each little club who kept the
keys of the nearest church, professionally, always attributed to the
prevalence of dissent and irreligion; though the major part of the
company inclined to the belief that virtue went out with hair-
powder, and that Old England's greatness had decayed amain with
barbers.

As to Todgers's itself--speaking of it only as a house in that
neighbourhood, and making no reference to its merits as a commercial
boarding establishment--it was worthy to stand where it did.  There
was one staircase-window in it, at the side of the house, on the
ground floor; which tradition said had not been opened for a hundred
years at least, and which, abutting on an always dirty lane, was so
begrimed and coated with a century's mud, that no one pane of glass
could possibly fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty
times.  But the grand mystery of Todgers's was the cellarage,
approachable only by a little back door and a rusty grating; which
cellarage within the memory of man had had no connection with the
house, but had always been the freehold property of somebody else,
and was reported to be full of wealth; though in what shape--whether
in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine, or casks of gun-powder--
was matter of profound uncertainty and supreme indifference to
Todgers's and all its inmates.

The top of the house was worthy of notice.  There was a sort of
terrace on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once
intended to dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests
out there, full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old
walking-sticks.  Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at
first from having knocked his head against the little door in coming
out; and after that, was for the moment choked from having looked
perforce, straight down the kitchen chimney; but these two stages
over, there were things to gaze at from the top of Todgers's, well
worth your seeing too.  For first and foremost, if the day were
bright, you observed upon the house-tops, stretching far away, a
long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and turning round, the
tall original was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his
golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him.  Then
there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of
ships; a very forest.  Gables, housetops, garret-windows, wilderness
upon wilderness.  Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once.

After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of
this crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any
reason, as it were, and took hold of the attention whether the
spectator would or no.  Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one
great stack of buildings seemed to be turning gravely to each other
every now and then, and whispering the result of their separate
observation of what was going on below.  Others, of a crook-backed
shape, appeared to be maliciously holding themselves askew, that
they might shut the prospect out and baffle Todgers's.  The man who
was mending a pen at an upper window over the way, became of
paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank in it,
ridiculously disproportionate in its extent, when he retired.  The
gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer's pole had far more
interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd.
Yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and
wondered how it was, the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of
objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold, and after gazing
round him, quite scared, he turned into Todgers's again, much more
rapidly than he came out; and ten to one he told M. Todgers
afterwards that if he hadn't done so, he would certainly have come
into the street by the shortest cut; that is to say, head-foremost.

So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they retired with Mrs Todgers
from this place of espial, leaving the youthful porter to close the
door and follow them downstairs; who, being of a playful temperament,
and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of
life, any chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered
behind to walk upon the parapet.

It being the second day of their stay in London, the Miss Pecksniffs
and Mrs Todgers were by this time highly confidential, insomuch that
the last-named lady had already communicated the particulars of
three early disappointments of a tender nature; and had furthermore
possessed her young friends with a general summary of the life,
conduct, and character of Mr Todgers.  Who, it seemed, had cut his
matrimonial career rather short, by unlawfully running away from his
happiness, and establishing himself in foreign countries as a
bachelor.

'Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears,'
said Mrs Todgers, 'but to be your ma was too much happiness denied
me.  You'd hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?'

She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little
blister, which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which
there was a dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage.

'It's a speaking likeness!' cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

'It was considered so once,' said Mrs Todgers, warming herself in a
gentlemanly manner at the fire; 'but I hardly thought you would have
known it, my loves.'

They would have known it anywhere.  If they could have met with it
in the street, or seen it in a shop window, they would have cried
'Good gracious!  Mrs Todgers!'

'Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the
features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,' said Mrs Todgers.  'The gravy
alone, is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you.'

'Lor'!' cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

'The anxiety of that one item, my dears,' said Mrs Todgers, 'keeps
the mind continually upon the stretch.  There is no such passion in
human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen.
It's nothing to say a joint won't yield--a whole animal wouldn't
yield--the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner.  And what
I have undergone in consequence,' cried Mrs Todgers, raising her
eyes and shaking her head, 'no one would believe!'

'Just like Mr Pinch, Merry!' said Charity.  'We have always noticed
it in him, you remember?'

'Yes, my dear,' giggled Merry, 'but we have never given it him, you
know.'

'You, my dears, having to deal with your pa's pupils who can't help
themselves, are able to take your own way,' said Mrs Todgers; 'but in
a commercial establishment, where any gentleman may say any Saturday
evening, "Mrs Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the
cheese," it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding.
Your pa was kind enough,' added the good lady, 'to invite me to take
a ride with you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going
to call upon Miss Pinch.  Any relation to the gentleman you were
speaking of just now, Miss Pecksniff?'

'For goodness sake, Mrs Todgers,' interposed the lively Merry,
'don't call him a gentleman.  My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman!
The idea!'

'What a wicked girl you are!' cried Mrs Todgers, embracing her with
great affection.  'You are quite a quiz, I do declare!  My dear Miss
Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister's spirits must be to your pa
and self!'

'He's the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs Todgers, in
existence,' resumed Merry: 'quite an ogre.  The ugliest, awkwardest
frightfullest being, you can imagine.  This is his sister, so I
leave you to suppose what SHE is.  I shall be obliged to laugh
outright, I know I shall!' cried the charming girl, 'I never shall
be able to keep my countenance.  The notion of a Miss Pinch
presuming to exist at all is sufficient to kill one, but to see her
--oh my stars!'

Mrs Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love's humour, and
declared she was quite afraid of her, that she was.  She was so very
severe.

'Who is severe?' cried a voice at the door.  'There is no such thing
as severity in our family, I hope!'  And then Mr Pecksniff peeped
smilingly into the room, and said, 'May I come in, Mrs Todgers?'

Mrs Todgers almost screamed, for the little door of communication
between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a
full disclosure of the sofa bedstead in all its monstrous
impropriety.  But she had the presence of mind to close this portal
in the twinkling of an eye; and having done so, said, though not
without confusion, 'Oh yes, Mr Pecksniff, you can come in, if you
please.'

'How are we to-day,' said Mr Pecksniff, jocosely.  'and what are our
plans?  Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch's sister?  Ha, ha, ha!
Poor Thomas Pinch!'

'Are we ready,' returned Mrs Todgers, nodding her head with
mysterious intelligence, 'to send a favourable reply to Mr Jinkins's
round-robin?  That's the first question, Mr Pecksniff.'

'Why Mr Jinkins's robin, my dear madam?' asked Mr Pecksniff, putting
one arm round Mercy, and the other round Mrs Todgers, whom he
seemed, in the abstraction of the moment, to mistake for Charity.
'Why Mr Jinkins's?'

'Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in
the house,' said Mrs Todgers, playfully.  'That's why, sir.'

'Jinkins is a man of superior talents,' observed Mr Pecksniff.  'I
have conceived a great regard for Jinkins.  I take Jinkins's desire
to pay polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of
the friendly feeling of Jinkins, Mrs Todgers.'

'Well now,' returned that lady, 'having said so much, you must say
the rest, Mr Pecksniff; so tell the dear young ladies all about it.'

With these words she gently eluded Mr Pecksniff's grasp, and took
Miss Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was impelled
to this proceeding solely by the irrepressible affection she had
conceived for that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a
lowering, not to say distinctly spiteful expression which had been
visible in her face for some moments, has never been exactly
ascertained.  Be this as it may, Mr Pecksniff went on to inform his
daughters of the purport and history of the round-robin aforesaid,
which was in brief, that the commercial gentlemen who helped to make
up the sum and substance of that noun of multitude signifying
many, called Todgers's, desired the honour of their presence at the
general table, so long as they remained in the house, and besought
that they would grace the board at dinner-time next day, the same
being Sunday.  He further said, that Mrs Todgers being a consenting
party to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to accept
it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the
while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter
defeat and overthrow of Miss Pinch.

Tom Pinch's sister was governess in a family, a lofty family;
perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founders' family known to
mankind.  They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce,
that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck
terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail.  There was a
great front gate; with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a
note of admiration; and a great lodge; which being close to the
house, rather spoilt the look-out certainly but made the look-in
tremendous.  At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and
ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a
second great bell, responsive to whose note a great footman appeared
in due time at the great halldoor, with such great tags upon his
liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and hooking
himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment which
could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a blue-bottle in
a world of cobwebs.

To this mansion Mr Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs
Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly.  The foregoing
ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the
house; and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with
books in it, where Mr Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing
her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years
old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and
education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source
of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.

'Visitors for Miss Pinch!' said the footman.  He must have been an
ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice
discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have
announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest
with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.

'Visitors for Miss Pinch!'

Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly
declared that her list of callers was not numerous.  At the same
time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared
herself to take mental notes of all that might be said and done.
For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history
and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her
daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in
reference to all parties concerned, very laudable, improving, and
pleasant.

It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch's
sister was not at all ugly.  On the contrary, she had a good face; a
very mild and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure--slight
and short, but remarkable for its neatness.  There was something of
her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner,
and in her look of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being
a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by
the two Miss Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded
her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what
they had come to see.

Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best
against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at
least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her
disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks.  As to Mrs
Todgers, she leaned on Mr Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of
genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any
shade of opinion.

'Don't be alarmed, Miss Pinch,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand
condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other.  'I
have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your
brother, Thomas Pinch.  My name--compose yourself, Miss Pinch--is
Pecksniff.'

The good man emphasised these words as though he would have said,
'You see in me, young person, the benefactor of your race; the
patron of your house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with
manna daily from my table; and in right of whom there is a
considerable balance in my favour at present standing in the books
beyond the sky.  But I have no pride, for I can afford to do without
it!'

The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel truth.  Her
brother writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told
her so, and how much more!  As Mr Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung
her head, and dropped a tear upon his hand.

'Oh very well, Miss Pinch!' thought the sharp pupil, 'crying before
strangers, as if you didn't like the situation!'

'Thomas is well,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'and sends his love and this
letter.  I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever be
distinguished in our profession; but he has the will to do well,
which is the next thing to having the power; and, therefore, we must
bear with him.  Eh?'

'I know he has the will, sir,' said Tom Pinch's sister, 'and I know
how kindly and considerately you cherish it, for which neither he
nor I can ever be grateful enough, as we very often say in writing
to each other.  The young ladies too,' she added, glancing
gratefully at his two daughters, 'I know how much we owe to them.'

'My dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile:
'Thomas's sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I
think.'

'We can't take any merit to ourselves, papa!' cried Cherry, as they
both apprised Tom Pinch's sister, with a curtsey, that they would
feel obliged if she would keep her distance.  'Mr Pinch's being so
well provided for is owing to you alone, and we can only say how
glad we are to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be.'

'Oh very well, Miss Pinch!' thought the pupil again.  'Got a
grateful brother, living on other people's kindness!'

'It was very kind of you,' said Tom Pinch's sister, with Tom's own
simplicity and Tom's own smile, 'to come here; very kind indeed;
though how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish
to see you, and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so
light of benefits conferred, can scarcely think.'

'Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper,' murmured Mr Pecksniff.

'It makes me happy too,' said Ruth Pinch, who now that her first
surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a
single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything,
which was the very moral and image of Tom; 'very happy to think that
you will be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated
here, and how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret
on my being cast upon my own resources.  Dear me!  So long as I heard
that he was happy, and he heard that I was,' said Tom's sister, 'we
could both bear, without one impatient or complaining thought, a
great deal more than ever we have had to endure, I am very certain.'
And if ever the plain truth were spoken on this occasionally false
earth, Tom's sister spoke it when she said that.

'Ah!' cried Mr Pecksniff whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to
the pupil; 'certainly.  And how do YOU do, my very interesting
child?'

'Quite well, I thank you, sir,' replied that frosty innocent.

'A sweet face this, my dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning to his
daughters.  'A charming manner!'

Both young ladies had been in ecstasies with the scion of a wealthy
house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents
might be supposed to lie) from the first.  Mrs Todgers vowed that
anything one quarter so angelic she had never seen.  'She wanted but
a pair of wings, a dear,' said that good woman, 'to be a young
syrup'--meaning, possibly, young sylph, or seraph.

'If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable
little friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, producing one of his professional
cards, 'and will say that I and my daughters--'

'And Mrs Todgers, pa,' said Merry.

'And Mrs Todgers, of London,' added Mr Pecksniff; 'that I, and my
daughters, and Mrs Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as
our object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose
brother is a young man in my employment; but that I could not leave
this very chaste mansion, without adding my humble tribute, as an
Architect, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and
to his just appreciation of that beautiful art to the cultivation of
which I have devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and
advancement I have sacrified a--a fortune--I shall be very much
obliged to you.'

'Missis's compliments to Miss Pinch,' said the footman, suddenly
appearing, and speaking in exactly the same key as before, 'and begs
to know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now.'

'Oh!' said Mr Pecksniff, 'Here is the young man.  HE will take the
card.  With my compliments, if you please, young man.  My dears, we
are interrupting the studies.  Let us go.'

Some confusion was occasioned for an instant by Mrs Todgers's
unstrapping her little flat hand-basket, and hurriedly entrusting
the 'young man' with one of her own cards, which, in addition to
certain detailed information relative to the terms of the commercial
establishment, bore a foot-note to the effect that M. T. took that
opportunity of thanking those gentlemen who had honoured her with
their favours, and begged they would have the goodness, if satisfied
with the table, to recommend her to their friends.  But Mr
Pecksniff, with admirable presence of mind, recovered this document,
and buttoned it up in his own pocket.

Then he said to Miss Pinch--with more condescension and kindness
than ever, for it was desirable the footman should expressly
understand that they were not friends of hers, but patrons:

'Good morning.  Good-bye.  God bless you!  You may depend upon my
continued protection of your brother Thomas.  Keep your mind quite
at ease, Miss Pinch!'

'Thank you,' said Tom's sister heartily; 'a thousand times.'

'Not at all,' he retorted, patting her gently on the head.  'Don't
mention it.  You will make me angry if you do.  My sweet child'--to
the pupil--'farewell!  That fairy creature,' said Mr Pecksniff,
looking in his pensive mood hard at the footman, as if he meant him,
'has shed a vision on my path, refulgent in its nature, and not
easily to be obliterated.  My dears, are you ready?'

They were not quite ready yet, for they were still caressing the
pupil.  But they tore themselves away at length; and sweeping past
Miss Pinch with each a haughty inclination of the head and a curtsey
strangled in its birth, flounced into the passage.

The young man had rather a long job in showing them out; for Mr
Pecksniff's delight in the tastefulness of the house was such that
he could not help often stopping (particularly when they were near
the parlour door) and giving it expression, in a loud voice and very
learned terms.  Indeed, he delivered, between the study and the
hall, a familiar exposition of the whole science of architecture as
applied to dwelling-houses, and was yet in the freshness of his
eloquence when they reached the garden.

'If you look,' said Mr Pecksniff, backing from the steps, with his
head on one side and his eyes half-shut that he might the better
take in the proportions of the exterior: 'If you look, my dears, at
the cornice which supports the roof, and observe the airiness of its
construction, especially where it sweeps the southern angle of the
building, you will feel with me--How do you do, sir?  I hope you're
well?'

Interrupting himself with these words, he very politely bowed to a
middle-aged gentleman at an upper window, to whom he spoke--not
because the gentleman could hear him (for he certainly could not),
but as an appropriate accompaniment to his salutation.

'I have no doubt, my dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, feigning to point
out other beauties with his hand, 'that this is the proprietor.  I
should be glad to know him.  It might lead to something.  Is he
looking this way, Charity?'

'He is opening the window pa!'

'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Pecksniff softly.  'All right!  He has found I'm
professional.  He heard me inside just now, I have no doubt.  Don't
look!  With regard to the fluted pillars in the portico, my dears--'

'Hallo!' cried the gentleman.

'Sir, your servant!' said Mr Pecksniff, taking off his hat.  'I am
proud to make your acquaintance.'

'Come off the grass, will you!' roared the gentleman.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, doubtful of his having
heard aright.  'Did you--?'

'Come off the grass!' repeated the gentleman, warmly.

'We are unwilling to intrude, sir,' Mr Pecksniff smilingly began.

'But you ARE intruding,' returned the other, 'unwarrantably
intruding.  Trespassing.  You see a gravel walk, don't you?  What
do you think it's meant for?  Open the gate there!  Show that party
out!'

With that he clapped down the window again, and disappeared.

Mr Pecksniff put on his hat, and walked with great deliberation and
in profound silence to the fly, gazing at the clouds as he went,
with great interest.  After helping his daughters and Mrs Todgers
into that conveyance, he stood looking at it for some moments, as if
he were not quite certain whether it was a carriage or a temple; but
having settled this point in his mind, he got into his place, spread
his hands out on his knees, and smiled upon the three beholders.

But his daughters, less tranquil-minded, burst into a torrent of
indignation.  This came, they said, of cherishing such creatures as
the Pinches.  This came of lowering themselves to their level.  This
came of putting themselves in the humiliating position of seeming to
know such bold, audacious, cunning, dreadful girls as that.  They
had expected this.  They had predicted it to Mrs Todgers, as she
(Todgers) could depone, that very morning.  To this, they added,
that the owner of the house, supposing them to be Miss Pinch's
friends, had acted, in their opinion, quite correctly, and had done
no more than, under such circumstances, might reasonably have been
expected.  To that they added (with a trifling inconsistency), that
he was a brute and a bear; and then they merged into a flood of
tears, which swept away all wandering epithets before it.

Perhaps Miss Pinch was scarcely so much to blame in the matter as
the Seraph, who, immediately on the withdrawal of the visitors, had
hastened to report them at head-quarters, with a full account of
their having presumptuously charged her with the delivery of a
message afterwards consigned to the footman; which outrage, taken in
conjunction with Mr Pecksniff's unobtrusive remarks on the
establishment, might possibly have had some share in their
dismissal.  Poor Miss Pinch, however, had to bear the brunt of it
with both parties; being so severely taken to task by the Seraph's
mother for having such vulgar acquaintances, that she was fain to
retire to her own room in tears, which her natural cheerfulness and
submission, and the delight of having seen Mr Pecksniff, and having
received a letter from her brother, were at first insufficient to
repress.

As to Mr Pecksniff, he told them in the fly, that a good action was
its own reward; and rather gave them to understand, that if he could
have been kicked in such a cause, he would have liked it all the
better.  But this was no comfort to the young ladies, who scolded
violently the whole way back, and even exhibited, more than once, a
keen desire to attack the devoted Mrs Todgers; on whose personal
appearance, but particularly on whose offending card and hand-
basket, they were secretly inclined to lay the blame of half their
failure.

Todgers's was in a great bustle that evening, partly owing to some
additional domestic preparations for the morrow, and partly to the
excitement always inseparable in that house from Saturday night,
when every gentleman's linen arrived at a different hour in its own
little bundle, with his private account pinned on the outside.
There was always a great clinking of pattens downstairs, too, until
midnight or so, on Saturdays; together with a frequent gleaming of
mysterious lights in the area; much working at the pump; and a
constant jangling of the iron handle of the pail.  Shrill
altercations from time to time arose between Mrs Todgers and unknown
females in remote back kitchens; and sounds were occasionally heard,
indicative of small articles of iron mongery and hardware being
thrown at the boy.  It was the custom of that youth on Saturdays, to
roll up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade all parts of
the house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he was more
strongly tempted on Saturdays than on other days (it being a busy
time), to make excursive bolts into the neighbouring alleys when he
answered the door, and there to play at leap-frog and other sports
with vagrant lads, until pursued and brought back by the hair of his
head or the lobe of his ear; thus he was quite a conspicuous feature
among the peculiar incidents of the last day in the week at Todgers's.

He was especially so on this particular Saturday evening, and
honoured the Miss Pecksniffs with a deal of notice; seldom passing
the door of Mrs Todgers's private room, where they sat alone before
the fire, working by the light of a solitary candle, without putting
in his head and greeting them with some such compliments as, 'There
you are agin!'  'An't it nice?'--and similar humorous attentions.

'I say,' he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro,
'young ladies, there's soup to-morrow.  She's a-making it now.  An't
she a-putting in the water?  Oh! not at all neither!'

In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head
again.

'I say!  There's fowls to-morrow.  Not skinny ones.  Oh no!'

Presently he called through the key-hole:

'There's a fish to-morrow.  Just come.  Don't eat none of him!'  And,
with this special warning, vanished again.

By-and-bye, he returned to lay the cloth for supper; it having been
arranged between Mrs Todgers and the young ladies, that they should
partake of an exclusive veal-cutlet together in the privacy of that
apartment.  He entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the
lighted candle into his mouth, and exhibiting his face in a state of
transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with
his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on
the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the
same on the apron already mentioned.  When he had completed his
preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief
that the approaching collation would be of 'rather a spicy sort.'

'Will it be long, before it's ready, Bailey?' asked Mercy.

 'No,' said Bailey, 'it IS cooked.  When I come up, she was dodging
among the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of 'em.'

But he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he
received a manual compliment on the head, which sent him staggering
against the wall; and Mrs Todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly
before him.

'Oh you little villain!' said that lady.  'Oh you bad, false boy!'

'No worse than yerself,' retorted Bailey, guarding his head, on a
principle invented by Mr Thomas Cribb.  'Ah!  Come now!  Do that
again, will yer?'

'He's the most dreadful child,' said Mrs Todgers, setting down the
dish, 'I ever had to deal with.  The gentlemen spoil him to that
extent, and teach him such things, that I'm afraid nothing but
hanging will ever do him any good.'

'Won't it!' cried Bailey.  'Oh!  Yes!  Wot do you go a-lowerin the
table-beer for then, and destroying my constitooshun?'

'Go downstairs, you vicious boy,' said Mrs Todgers, holding the
door open.  'Do you hear me?  Go along!'

After two or three dexterous feints, he went, and was seen no more
that night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot
water, and much disturbed the two Miss Pecksniffs by squinting
hideously behind the back of the unconscious Mrs Todgers.  Having
done this justice to his wounded feelings, he retired underground;
where, in company with a swarm of black beetles and a kitchen
candle, he employed his faculties in cleaning boots and brushing
clothes until the night was far advanced.

Benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young retainer but
he was known by a great variety of names.  Benjamin, for instance,
had been converted into Uncle Ben, and that again had been corrupted
into Uncle; which, by an easy transition, had again passed into
Barnwell, in memory of the celebrated relative in that degree who
was shot by his nephew George, while meditating in his garden at
Camberwell.  The gentlemen at Todgers's had a merry habit, too, of
bestowing upon him, for the time being, the name of any notorious
malefactor or minister; and sometimes when current events were flat
they even sought the pages of history for these distinctions; as Mr
Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the like.  At the period of which we
write, he was generally known among the gentlemen as Bailey junior;
a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction, perhaps, to Old
Bailey; and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate
lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life,
and has been immortalised in a ballad.

The usual Sunday dinner-hour at Todgers's was two o'clock--a
suitable time, it was considered for all parties; convenient to Mrs
Todgers, on account of the bakers; and convenient to the gentlemen
with reference to their afternoon engagements.  But on the Sunday
which was to introduce the two Miss Pecksniffs to a full knowledge
of Todgers's and its society, the dinner was postponed until five,
in order that everything might be as genteel as the occasion
demanded.

When the hour drew nigh, Bailey junior, testifying great excitement,
appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too
large for him, and in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such
extraordinary magnitude, that one of the gentlemen (remarkable for
his ready wit) called him 'collars' on the spot.  At about a quarter
before five, a deputation, consisting of Mr Jinkins, and another
gentleman, whose name was Gander, knocked at the door of Mrs
Todgers's room, and, being formally introduced to the two Miss
Pecksniffs by their parent who was in waiting, besought the honour
of conducting them upstairs.

The drawing-room at Todgers's was out of the common style; so much
so indeed, that you would hardly have taken it to be a drawingroom,
unless you were told so by somebody who was in the secret.  It was
floor-clothed all over; and the ceiling, including a great beam in
the middle, was papered.  Besides the three little windows, with
seats in them, commanding the opposite archway, there was another
window looking point blank, without any compromise at all about it
into Jinkins's bedroom; and high up, all along one side of the wall
was a strip of panes of glass, two-deep, giving light to the
staircase.  There were the oddest closets possible, with little
casements in them like eight-day clocks, lurking in the wainscot and
taking the shape of the stairs; and the very door itself (which was
painted black) had two great glass eyes in its forehead, with an
inquisitive green pupil in the middle of each.

Here the gentlemen were all assembled.  There was a general cry of
'Hear, hear!' and 'Bravo Jink!' when Mr Jinkins appeared with
Charity on his arm; which became quite rapturous as Mr Gander
followed, escorting Mercy, and Mr Pecksniff brought up the rear with
Mrs Todgers.

Then the presentations took place.  They included a gentleman of a
sporting turn, who propounded questions on jockey subjects to the
editors of Sunday papers, which were regarded by his friends as
rather stiff things to answer; and they included a gentleman of a
theatrical turn, who had once entertained serious thoughts of
'coming out,' but had been kept in by the wickedness of human
nature; and they included a gentleman of a debating turn, who was
strong at speech-making; and a gentleman of a literary turn, who
wrote squibs upon the rest, and knew the weak side of everybody's
character but his own.  There was a gentleman of a vocal turn, and a
gentleman of a smoking turn, and a gentleman of a convivial turn;
some of the gentlemen had a turn for whist, and a large proportion
of the gentlemen had a strong turn for billiards and betting.  They
had all, it may be presumed, a turn for business; being all
commercially employed in one way or other; and had, every one in his
own way, a decided turn for pleasure to boot.  Mr Jinkins was of a
fashionable turn; being a regular frequenter of the Parks on
Sundays, and knowing a great many carriages by sight.  He spoke
mysteriously, too, of splendid women, and was suspected of having
once committed himself with a Countess.  Mr Gander was of a witty
turn being indeed the gentleman who had originated the sally about
'collars;' which sparkling pleasantry was now retailed from mouth to
mouth, under the title of Gander's Last, and was received in all
parts of the room with great applause.  Mr Jinkins it may be added,
was much the oldest of the party; being a fish-salesman's book-
keeper, aged forty.  He was the oldest boarder also; and in right of
his double seniority, took the lead in the house, as Mrs Todgers had
already said.

There was considerable delay in the production of dinner, and poor
Mrs Todgers, being reproached in confidence by Jinkins, slipped in
and out, at least twenty times to see about it; always coming back
as though she had no such thing upon her mind, and hadn't been out
at all.  But there was no hitch in the conversation nevertheless;
for one gentleman, who travelled in the perfumery line, exhibited an
interesting nick-nack, in the way of a remarkable cake of shaving
soap which he had lately met with in Germany; and the gentleman of a
literary turn repeated (by desire) some sarcastic stanzas he had
recently produced on the freezing of the tank at the back of the
house.  These amusements, with the miscellaneous conversation
arising out of them, passed the time splendidly, until dinner was
announced by Bailey junior in these terms:

'The wittles is up!'

On which notice they immediately descended to the banquet-hall; some
of the more facetious spirits in the rear taking down gentlemen as
if they were ladies, in imitation of the fortunate possessors of the
two Miss Pecksniffs.

Mr Pecksniff said grace--a short and pious grace, involving a
blessing on the appetites of those present, and committing all
persons who had nothing to eat, to the care of Providence; whose
business (so said the grace, in effect) it clearly was, to look
after them.  This done, they fell to with less ceremony than
appetite; the table groaning beneath the weight, not only of the
delicacies whereof the Miss Pecksniffs had been previously
forewarned, but of boiled beef, roast veal, bacon, pies and
abundance of such heavy vegetables as are favourably known to
housekeepers for their satisfying qualities.  Besides which, there
were bottles of stout, bottles of wine, bottles of ale, and divers
other strong drinks, native and foreign.

All this was highly agreeable to the two Miss Pecksniffs, who were
in immense request; sitting one on either hand of Mr Jinkins at the
bottom of the table; and who were called upon to take wine with some
new admirer every minute.  They had hardly ever felt so pleasant,
and so full of conversation, in their lives; Mercy, in particular,
was uncommonly brilliant, and said so many good things in the way of
lively repartee that she was looked upon as a prodigy.  'In short,'
as that young lady observed, 'they felt now, indeed, that they were
in London, and for the first time too.'

Their young friend Bailey sympathized in these feelings to the
fullest extent, and, abating nothing of his patronage, gave them
every encouragement in his power; favouring them, when the general
attention was diverted from his proceedings, with many nods and
winks and other tokens of recognition, and occasionally touching his
nose with a corkscrew, as if to express the Bacchanalian character
of the meeting.  In truth, perhaps even the spirits of the two Miss
Pecksniffs, and the hungry watchfulness of Mrs Todgers, were less
worthy of note than the proceedings of this remarkable boy, whom
nothing disconcerted or put out of his way.  If any piece of
crockery, a dish or otherwise, chanced to slip through his hands
(which happened once or twice), he let it go with perfect good
breeding, and never added to the painful emotions of the company by
exhibiting the least regret.  Nor did he, by hurrying to and fro,
disturb the repose of the assembly, as many well-trained servants
do; on the contrary, feeling the hopelessness of waiting upon so
large a party, he left the gentlemen to help themselves to what they
wanted, and seldom stirred from behind Mr Jinkins's chair, where,
with his hands in his pockets, and his legs planted pretty wide
apart, he led the laughter, and enjoyed the conversation.

The dessert was splendid.  No waiting either.  The pudding-plates
had been washed in a little tub outside the door while cheese was
on, and though they were moist and warm with friction, still there
they were again, up to the mark, and true to time.  Quarts of
almonds; dozens of oranges; pounds of raisins; stacks of biffins;
soup-plates full of nuts.--Oh, Todgers's could do it when it chose!
mind that.

Then more wine came on; red wines and white wines; and a large china
bowl of punch, brewed by the gentleman of a convivial turn, who
adjured the Miss Pecksniffs not to be despondent on account of its
dimensions, as there were materials in the house for the decoction
of half a dozen more of the same size.  Good gracious, how they
laughed!  How they coughed when they sipped it, because it was so
strong; and how they laughed again when somebody vowed that but for
its colour it might have been mistaken, in regard of its innocuous
qualities, for new milk!  What a shout of 'No!' burst from the
gentlemen when they pathetically implored Mr Jinkins to suffer them
to qualify it with hot water; and how blushingly, by little and
little, did each of them drink her whole glassful, down to its very
dregs!

Now comes the trying time.  The sun, as Mr Jinkins says (gentlemanly
creature, Jinkins--never at a loss!), is about to leave the
firmament.  'Miss Pecksniff!' says Mrs Todgers, softly, 'will
you--?'  'Oh dear, no more, Mrs Todgers.'  Mrs Todgers rises; the
two Miss Pecksniffs rise; all rise.  Miss Mercy Pecksniff looks
downward for her scarf.  Where is it?  Dear me, where CAN it be?
Sweet girl, she has it on; not on her fair neck, but loose upon
her flowing figure.  A dozen hands assist her.  She is all confusion.
The youngest gentleman in company thirsts to murder Jinkins.  She
skips and joins her sister at the door.  Her sister has her arm
about the waist of Mrs Todgers.  She winds her arm around her
sister.  Diana, what a picture!  The last things visible are a
shape and a skip.  'Gentlemen, let us drink the ladies!'

The enthusiasm is tremendous.  The gentleman of a debating turn
rises in the midst, and suddenly lets loose a tide of eloquence
which bears down everything before it.  He is reminded of a toast--a
toast to which they will respond.  There is an individual present;
he has him in his eye; to whom they owe a debt of gratitude.  He
repeats it--a debt of gratitude.  Their rugged natures have been
softened and ameliorated that day, by the society of lovely woman.
There is a gentleman in company whom two accomplished and delightful
females regard with veneration, as the fountain of their existence.
Yes, when yet the two Miss Pecksniffs lisped in language scarce
intelligible, they called that individual 'Father!'  There is great
applause.  He gives them 'Mr Pecksniff, and God bless him!'  They all
shake hands with Mr Pecksniff, as they drink the toast.  The
youngest gentleman in company does so with a thrill; for he feels
that a mysterious influence pervades the man who claims that being
in the pink scarf for his daughter.

What saith Mr Pecksniff in reply?  Or rather let the question be,
What leaves he unsaid?  Nothing.  More punch is called for, and
produced, and drunk.  Enthusiasm mounts still higher.  Every man
comes out freely in his own character.  The gentleman of a
theatrical turn recites.  The vocal gentleman regales them with a
song.  Gander leaves the Gander of all former feasts whole leagues
behind.  HE rises to propose a toast.  It is, The Father of
Todgers's.  It is their common friend Jink--it is old Jink, if he
may call him by that familiar and endearing appellation.  The
youngest gentleman in company utters a frantic negative.  He won't
have it--he can't bear it--it mustn't be.  But his depth of feeling
is misunderstood.  He is supposed to be a little elevated; and
nobody heeds him.

Mr Jinkins thanks them from his heart.  It is, by many degrees, the
proudest day in his humble career.  When he looks around him on the
present occasion, he feels that he wants words in which to express
his gratitude.  One thing he will say.  He hopes it has been shown
that Todgers's can be true to itself; and that, an opportunity
arising, it can come out quite as strong as its neighbours--perhaps
stronger.  He reminds them, amidst thunders of encouragement, that
they have heard of a somewhat similar establishment in Cannon
Street; and that they have heard it praised.  He wishes to draw no
invidious comparisons; he would be the last man to do it; but when
that Cannon Street establishment shall be able to produce such a
combination of wit and beauty as has graced that board that day, and
shall be able to serve up (all things considered) such a dinner as
that of which they have just partaken, he will be happy to talk to
it.  Until then, gentlemen, he will stick to Todgers's.

More punch, more enthusiasm, more speeches.  Everybody's health is
drunk, saving the youngest gentleman's in company.  He sits apart,
with his elbow on the back of a vacant chair, and glares
disdainfully at Jinkins.  Gander, in a convulsing speech, gives them
the health of Bailey junior; hiccups are heard; and a glass is
broken.  Mr Jinkins feels that it is time to join the ladies.  He
proposes, as a final sentiment, Mrs Todgers.  She is worthy to be
remembered separately.  Hear, hear.  So she is; no doubt of it.
They all find fault with her at other times; but every man feels
now, that he could die in her defence.

They go upstairs, where they are not expected so soon; for
Mrs Todgers is asleep, Miss Charity is adjusting her hair, and
Mercy, who has made a sofa of one of the window-seats is in a
gracefully recumbent attitude.  She is rising hastily, when Mr
Jinkins implores her, for all their sakes, not to stir; she looks
too graceful and too lovely, he remarks, to be disturbed.  She
laughs, and yields, and fans herself, and drops her fan, and there
is a rush to pick it up.  Being now installed, by one consent, as
the beauty of the party, she is cruel and capricious, and sends
gentlemen on messages to other gentlemen, and forgets all about them
before they can return with the answer, and invents a thousand
tortures, rending their hearts to pieces.  Bailey brings up the tea
and coffee.  There is a small cluster of admirers round Charity; but
they are only those who cannot get near her sister.  The youngest
gentleman in company is pale, but collected, and still sits apart;
for his spirit loves to hold communion with itself, and his soul
recoils from noisy revellers.  She has a consciousness of his
presence and adoration.  He sees it flashing sometimes in the corner
of her eye.  Have a care, Jinkins, ere you provoke a desperate man
to frenzy!

Mr Pecksniff had followed his younger friends upstairs, and taken a
chair at the side of Mrs Todgers.  He had also spilt a cup of coffee
over his legs without appearing to be aware of the circumstance; nor
did he seem to know that there was muffin on his knee.

'And how have they used you downstairs, sir?' asked the hostess.

'Their conduct has been such, my dear madam,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'as
I can never think of without emotion, or remember without a tear.
Oh, Mrs Todgers!'

'My goodness!' exclaimed that lady.  'How low you are in your
spirits, sir!'

'I am a man, my dear madam,' said Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears and
speaking with an imperfect articulation, 'but I am also a father.  I
am also a widower.  My feelings, Mrs Todgers, will not consent to be
entirely smothered, like the young children in the Tower.  They are
grown up, and the more I press the bolster on them, the more they
look round the corner of it.'

He suddenly became conscious of the bit of muffin, and stared at it
intently; shaking his head the while, in a forlorn and imbecile
manner, as if he regarded it as his evil genius, and mildly
reproached it.

'She was beautiful, Mrs Todgers,' he said, turning his glazed eye
again upon her, without the least preliminary notice.  'She had a
small property.'

'So I have heard,' cried Mrs Todgers with great sympathy.

'Those are her daughters,' said Mr Pecksniff, pointing out the young
ladies, with increased emotion.

Mrs Todgers had no doubt about it.

'Mercy and Charity,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'Charity and Mercy.  Not
unholy names, I hope?'

'Mr Pecksniff!' cried Mrs Todgers.  'What a ghastly smile!  Are you
ill, sir?'

He pressed his hand upon her arm, and answered in a solemn manner,
and a faint voice, 'Chronic.'

'Cholic?' cried the frightened Mrs Todgers.

'Chron-ic,' he repeated with some difficulty.  'Chron-ic.  A chronic
disorder.  I have been its victim from childhood.  It is carrying me
to my grave.'

'Heaven forbid!' cried Mrs Todgers.

'Yes, it is,' said Mr Pecksniff, reckless with despair.  'I am
rather glad of it, upon the whole.  You are like her, Mrs Todgers.'

'Don't squeeze me so tight, pray, Mr Pecksniff.  If any of the
gentlemen should notice us.'

'For her sake,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Permit me--in honour of her
memory.  For the sake of a voice from the tomb.  You are VERY like
her Mrs Todgers!  What a world this is!'

'Ah!  Indeed you may say that!' cried Mrs Todgers.

'I'm afraid it is a vain and thoughtless world,' said Mr Pecksniff,
overflowing with despondency.  'These young people about us.  Oh!
what sense have they of their responsibilities?  None.  Give me
your other hand, Mrs Todgers.'

The lady hesitated, and said 'she didn't like.'

'Has a voice from the grave no influence?' said Mr Pecksniff, with,
dismal tenderness.  'This is irreligious!  My dear creature.'

'Hush!' urged Mrs Todgers.  'Really you mustn't.'

'It's not me,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Don't suppose it's me; it's the
voice; it's her voice.'

Mrs Pecksniff deceased, must have had an unusually thick and husky
voice for a lady, and rather a stuttering voice, and to say the
truth somewhat of a drunken voice, if it had ever borne much
resemblance to that in which Mr Pecksniff spoke just then.  But
perhaps this was delusion on his part.

'It has been a day of enjoyment, Mrs Todgers, but still it has been
a day of torture.  It has reminded me of my loneliness.  What am I
in the world?'

'An excellent gentleman, Mr Pecksniff,' said Mrs Todgers.

'There is consolation in that too,' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Am I?'

'There is no better man living,' said Mrs Todgers, 'I am sure.'

Mr Pecksniff smiled through his tears, and slightly shook his head.
'You are very good,' he said, 'thank you.  It is a great happiness
to me, Mrs Todgers, to make young people happy.  The happiness of my
pupils is my chief object.  I dote upon 'em.  They dote upon me too--
sometimes.'

'Always,' said Mrs Todgers.

'When they say they haven't improved, ma'am,' whispered Mr
Pecksniff, looking at her with profound mystery, and motioning to
her to advance her ear a little closer to his mouth.  'When they say
they haven't improved, ma'am, and the premium was too high, they
lie!  I shouldn't wish it to be mentioned; you will understand me;
but I say to you as to an old friend, they lie.'

'Base wretches they must be!' said Mrs Todgers.

'Madam,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'you are right.  I respect you for that
observation.  A word in your ear.  To Parents and Guardians.  This
is in confidence, Mrs Todgers?'

'The strictest, of course!' cried that lady.

'To Parents and Guardians,' repeated Mr Pecksniff.  'An eligible
opportunity now offers, which unites the advantages of the best
practical architectural education with the comforts of a home, and
the constant association with some, who, however humble their sphere
and limited their capacity--observe!--are not unmindful of their
moral responsibilities.'

Mrs Todgers looked a little puzzled to know what this might mean, as
well she might; for it was, as the reader may perchance remember, Mr
Pecksniff's usual form of advertisement when he wanted a pupil; and
seemed to have no particular reference, at present, to anything.
But Mr Pecksniff held up his finger as a caution to her not to
interrupt him.

'Do you know any parent or guardian, Mrs Todgers,' said Mr
Pecksniff, 'who desires to avail himself of such an opportunity for
a young gentleman?  An orphan would be preferred.  Do you know of
any orphan with three or four hundred pound?'

Mrs Todgers reflected, and shook her head.

'When you hear of an orphan with three or four hundred pound,' said
Mr Pecksniff, 'let that dear orphan's friends apply, by letter post-
paid, to S. P., Post Office, Salisbury.  I don't know who he is
exactly.  Don't be alarmed, Mrs Todgers,' said Mr Pecksniff, falling
heavily against her; 'Chronic--chronic!  Let's have a little drop of
something to drink.'

'Bless my life, Miss Pecksniffs!' cried Mrs Todgers, aloud, 'your
dear pa's took very poorly!'

Mr Pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising effort, as every
one turned hastily towards him; and standing on his feet, regarded
the assembly with a look of ineffable wisdom.  Gradually it gave
place to a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland,
almost to sickliness.  'Do not repine, my friends,' said Mr
Pecksniff, tenderly.  'Do not weep for me.  It is chronic.'  And
with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his
shoes, he fell into the fireplace.

The youngest gentleman in company had him out in a second.  Yes,
before a hair upon his head was singed, he had him on the hearth-
rug--her father!

She was almost beside herself.  So was her sister.  Jinkins consoled
them both.  They all consoled them.  Everybody had something to say,
except the youngest gentleman in company, who with a noble self-
devotion did the heavy work, and held up Mr Pecksniff's head without
being taken notice of by anybody.  At last they gathered round, and
agreed to carry him upstairs to bed.  The youngest gentleman in
company was rebuked by Jinkins for tearing Mr Pecksniff's coat!
Ha, ha!  But no matter.

They carried him upstairs, and crushed the youngest gentleman at
every step.  His bedroom was at the top of the house, and it was a
long way; but they got him there in course of time.  He asked them
frequently on the road for a little drop of something to drink.  It
seemed an idiosyncrasy.  The youngest gentleman in company proposed
a draught of water.  Mr Pecksniff called him opprobious names for
the suggestion.

Jinkins and Gander took the rest upon themselves, and made him as
comfortable as they could, on the outside of his bed; and when he
seemed disposed to sleep, they left him.  But before they had all
gained the bottom of the staircase, a vision of Mr Pecksniff,
strangely attired, was seen to flutter on the top landing.  He
desired to collect their sentiments, it seemed, upon the nature of
human life.

'My friends,' cried Mr Pecksniff, looking over the banisters, 'let
us improve our minds by mutual inquiry and discussion.  Let us be
moral.  Let us contemplate existence.  Where is Jinkins?'

'Here,' cried that gentleman.  'Go to bed again'

'To bed!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Bed!  'Tis the voice of the sluggard,
I hear him complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber
again.  If any young orphan will repeat the remainder of that simple
piece from Doctor Watts's collection, an eligible opportunity now
offers.'

Nobody volunteered.

'This is very soothing,' said Mr Pecksniff, after a pause.
'Extremely so.  Cool and refreshing; particularly to the legs!  The
legs of the human subject, my friends, are a beautiful production.
Compare them with wooden legs, and observe the difference between
the anatomy of nature and the anatomy of art.  Do you know,' said Mr
Pecksniff, leaning over the banisters, with an odd recollection of
his familiar manner among new pupils at home, 'that I should very
much like to see Mrs Todgers's notion of a wooden leg, if perfectly
agreeable to herself!'

As it appeared impossible to entertain any reasonable hopes of him
after this speech, Mr Jinkins and Mr Gander went upstairs again,
and once more got him into bed.  But they had not descended to the
second floor before he was out again; nor, when they had repeated
the process, had they descended the first flight, before he was out
again.  In a word, as often as he was shut up in his own room, he
darted out afresh, charged with some new moral sentiment, which he
continually repeated over the banisters, with extraordinary relish,
and an irrepressible desire for the improvement of his fellow
creatures that nothing could subdue.

Under these circumstances, when they had got him into bed for the
thirtieth time or so, Mr Jinkins held him, while his companion went
downstairs in search of Bailey junior, with whom he presently
returned.  That youth having been apprised of the service required
of him, was in great spirits, and brought up a stool, a candle, and
his supper; to the end that he might keep watch outside the bedroom
door with tolerable comfort.

When he had completed his arrangements, they locked Mr Pecksniff in,
and left the key on the outside; charging the young page to listen
attentively for symptoms of an apoplectic nature, with which the
patient might be troubled, and, in case of any such presenting
themselves, to summon them without delay.  To which Mr Bailey
modestly replied that 'he hoped he knowed wot o'clock it wos in
gineral, and didn't date his letters to his friends from Todgers's
for nothing.'



CHAPTER TEN

CONTAINING STRANGE MATTER, ON WHICH MANY EVENTS IN THIS HISTORY MAY,
FOR THEIR GOOD OR EVIL INFLUENCE, CHIEFLY DEPEND


But Mr Pecksniff came to town on business.  Had he forgotten that?
Was he always taking his pleasure with Todgers's jovial brood,
unmindful of the serious demands, whatever they might be, upon his
calm consideration?  No.

Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage.  But all men
have to wait for time and tide.  That tide which, taken at the
flood, would lead Seth Pecksniff on to fortune, was marked down in
the table, and about to flow.  No idle Pecksniff lingered far
inland, unmindful of the changes of the stream; but there, upon the
water's edge, over his shoes already, stood the worthy creature,
prepared to wallow in the very mud, so that it slid towards the
quarter of his hope.

The trustfulness of his two fair daughters was beautiful indeed.
They had that firm reliance on their parent's nature, which taught
them to feel certain that in all he did he had his purpose straight
and full before him.  And that its noble end and object was himself,
which almost of necessity included them, they knew.  The devotion of
these maids was perfect.

Their filial confidence was rendered the more touching, by their
having no knowledge of their parent's real designs, in the present
instance.  All that they knew of his proceedings was, that every
morning, after the early breakfast, he repaired to the post office
and inquired for letters.  That task performed, his business for the
day was over; and he again relaxed, until the rising of another sun
proclaimed the advent of another post.

This went on for four or five days.  At length, one morning, Mr
Pecksniff returned with a breathless rapidity, strange to observe in
him, at other times so calm; and, seeking immediate speech with his
daughters, shut himself up with them in private conference for two
whole hours.  Of all that passed in this period, only the following
words of Mr Pecksniff's utterance are known:

'How he has come to change so very much (if it should turn out as I
expect, that he has), we needn't stop to inquire.  My dears, I have
my thoughts upon the subject, but I will not impart them.  It is
enough that we will not be proud, resentful, or unforgiving.  If he
wants our friendship he shall have it.  We know our duty, I hope!'

That same day at noon, an old gentleman alighted from a hackney-coach
at the post-office, and, giving his name, inquired for a letter
addressed to himself, and directed to be left till called for.  It
had been lying there some days.  The superscription was in Mr
Pecksniff's hand, and it was sealed with Mr Pecksniff's seal.

It was very short, containing indeed nothing more than an address
'with Mr Pecksniff's respectful, and (not withstanding what has
passed) sincerely affectionate regards.'  The old gentleman tore off
the direction--scattering the rest in fragments to the winds--and
giving it to the coachman, bade him drive as near that place as he
could.  In pursuance of these instructions he was driven to the
Monument; where he again alighted, and dismissed the vehicle, and
walked towards Todgers's.

Though the face, and form, and gait of this old man, and even his
grip of the stout stick on which he leaned, were all expressive of a
resolution not easily shaken, and a purpose (it matters little
whether right or wrong, just now) such as in other days might have
survived the rack, and had its strongest life in weakest death;
still there were grains of hesitation in his mind, which made him
now avoid the house he sought, and loiter to and fro in a gleam of
sunlight, that brightened the little churchyard hard by.  There may
have been, in the presence of those idle heaps of dust among the
busiest stir of life, something to increase his wavering; but there
he walked, awakening the echoes as he paced up and down, until the
church clock, striking the quarters for the second time since he had
been there, roused him from his meditation.  Shaking off his
incertitude as the air parted with the sound of the bells, he walked
rapidly to the house, and knocked at the door.

Mr Pecksniff was seated in the landlady's little room, and his
visitor found him reading--by an accident; he apologised for it--an
excellent theological work.  There were cake and wine upon a little
table--by another accident, for which he also apologised.  Indeed he
said, he had given his visitor up, and was about to partake of that
simple refreshment with his children, when he knocked at the door.

'Your daughters are well?' said old Martin, laying down his hat and
stick.

Mr Pecksniff endeavoured to conceal his agitation as a father when
he answered Yes, they were.  They were good girls, he said, very
good.  He would not venture to recommend Mr Chuzzlewit to take the
easy-chair, or to keep out of the draught from the door.  If he made
any such suggestion, he would expose himself, he feared, to most
unjust suspicion.  He would, therefore, content himself with
remarking that there was an easy-chair in the room, and that the
door was far from being air-tight.  This latter imperfection, he
might perhaps venture to add, was not uncommonly to be met with in
old houses.

The old man sat down in the easy-chair, and after a few moments'
silence, said:

'In the first place, let me thank you for coming to London so
promptly, at my almost unexplained request; I need scarcely add, at
my cost.'

'At YOUR cost, my good sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff, in a tone of great
surprise.

'It is not,' said Martin, waving his hand impatiently, 'my habit to
put my--well! my relatives--to any personal expense to gratify my
caprices.'

'Caprices, my good sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff

'That is scarcely the proper word either, in this instance,' said
the old man.  'No.  You are right.'

Mr Pecksniff was inwardly very much relieved to hear it, though he
didn't at all know why.

'You are right,' repeated Martin.  'It is not a caprice.  It is
built up on reason, proof, and cool comparison.  Caprices never are.
Moreover, I am not a capricious man.  I never was.'

'Most assuredly not,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'How do you know?' returned the other quickly.  'You are to begin to
know it now.  You are to test and prove it, in time to come.  You
and yours are to find that I can be constant, and am not to be
diverted from my end.  Do you hear?'

'Perfectly,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'I very much regret,' Martin resumed, looking steadily at him, and
speaking in a slow and measured tone; 'I very much regret that you
and I held such a conversation together, as that which passed
between us at our last meeting.  I very much regret that I laid open
to you what were then my thoughts of you, so freely as I did.  The
intentions that I bear towards you now are of another kind; deserted
by all in whom I have ever trusted; hoodwinked and beset by all who
should help and sustain me; I fly to you for refuge.  I confide in
you to be my ally; to attach yourself to me by ties of Interest and
Expectation'--he laid great stress upon these words, though Mr
Pecksniff particularly begged him not to mention it; 'and to help me
to visit the consequences of the very worst species of meanness,
dissimulation, and subtlety, on the right heads.'

'My noble sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff, catching at his outstretched
hand.  'And YOU regret the having harboured unjust thoughts of me!
YOU with those grey hairs!'

'Regrets,' said Martin, 'are the natural property of grey hairs; and
I enjoy, in common with all other men, at least my share of such
inheritance.  And so enough of that.  I regret having been severed
from you so long.  If I had known you sooner, and sooner used you as
you well deserve, I might have been a happier man.'

Mr Pecksniff looked up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands in
rapture.

'Your daughters,' said Martin, after a short silence.  'I don't know
them.  Are they like you?'

'In the nose of my eldest and the chin of my youngest, Mr
Chuzzlewit,' returned the widower, 'their sainted parent (not
myself, their mother) lives again.'

'I don't mean in person,' said the old man.  'Morally, morally.'

''Tis not for me to say,' retorted Mr Pecksniff with a gentle smile.
'I have done my best, sir.'

'I could wish to see them,' said Martin; 'are they near at hand?'

They were, very near; for they had in fact been listening at the
door from the beginning of this conversation until now, when they
precipitately retired.  Having wiped the signs of weakness from his
eyes, and so given them time to get upstairs, Mr Pecksniff opened
the door, and mildly cried in the passage,

'My own darlings, where are you?'

'Here, my dear pa!' replied the distant voice of Charity.

'Come down into the back parlour, if you please, my love,' said Mr
Pecksniff, 'and bring your sister with you.'

'Yes, my dear pa,' cried Merry; and down they came directly (being
all obedience), singing as they came.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the two Miss Pecksniffs
when they found a stranger with their dear papa.  Nothing could
surpass their mute amazement when he said, 'My children, Mr
Chuzzlewit!'  But when he told them that Mr Chuzzlewit and he were
friends, and that Mr Chuzzlewit had said such kind and tender words
as pierced his very heart, the two Miss Pecksniffs cried with one
accord, 'Thank Heaven for this!' and fell upon the old man's neck.
And when they had embraced him with such fervour of affection that
no words can describe it, they grouped themselves about his chair,
and hung over him, as figuring to themselves no earthly joy like
that of ministering to his wants, and crowding into the remainder
of his life, the love they would have diffused over their whole
existence, from infancy, if he--dear obdurate!--had but consented
to receive the precious offering.

The old man looked attentively from one to the other, and then at Mr
Pecksniff, several times.

'What,' he asked of Mr Pecksniff, happening to catch his eye in its
descent; for until now it had been piously upraised, with something
of that expression which the poetry of ages has attributed to a
domestic bird, when breathing its last amid the ravages of an
electric storm: 'What are their names?'

Mr Pecksniff told him, and added, rather hastily; his caluminators
would have said, with a view to any testamentary thoughts that might
be flitting through old Martin's mind; 'Perhaps, my dears, you had
better write them down.  Your humble autographs are of no value in
themselves, but affection may prize them.'

'Affection,' said the old man, 'will expend itself on the living
originals.  Do not trouble yourselves, my girls, I shall not so
easily forget you, Charity and Mercy, as to need such tokens of
remembrance.  Cousin!'

'Sir!' said Mr Pecksniff, with alacrity.

'Do you never sit down?'

'Why--yes--occasionally, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, who had been
standing all this time.

'Will you do so now?'

'Can you ask me,' returned Mr Pecksniff, slipping into a chair
immediately, 'whether I will do anything that you desire?'

'You talk confidently,' said Martin, 'and you mean well; but I fear
you don't know what an old man's humours are.  You don't know what
it is to be required to court his likings and dislikings; to adapt
yourself to his prejudices; to do his bidding, be it what it may; to
bear with his distrusts and jealousies; and always still be zealous
in his service.  When I remember how numerous these failings are in
me, and judge of their occasional enormity by the injurious thoughts
I lately entertained of you, I hardly dare to claim you for my
friend.'

'My worthy sir,' returned his relative, 'how CAN you talk in such a
painful strain!  What was more natural than that you should make one
slight mistake, when in all other respects you were so very correct,
and have had such reason--such very sad and undeniable reason--to
judge of every one about you in the worst light!'

'True,' replied the other.  'You are very lenient with me.'

'We always said, my girls and I,' cried Mr Pecksniff with increasing
obsequiousness, 'that while we mourned the heaviness of our
misfortune in being confounded with the base and mercenary, still we
could not wonder at it.  My dears, you remember?'

Oh vividly!  A thousand times!

'We uttered no complaint,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Occasionally we had
the presumption to console ourselves with the remark that Truth
would in the end prevail, and Virtue be triumphant; but not often.
My loves, you recollect?'

Recollect!  Could he doubt it!  Dearest pa, what strange unnecessary
questions!

'And when I saw you,' resumed Mr Pecksniff, with still greater
deference, 'in the little, unassuming village where we take the
liberty of dwelling, I said you were mistaken in me, my dear sir;
that was all, I think?'

'No--not all,' said Martin, who had been sitting with his hand upon
his brow for some time past, and now looked up again; 'you said much
more, which, added to other circumstances that have come to my
knowledge, opened my eyes.  You spoke to me, disinterestedly, on
behalf of--I needn't name him.  You know whom I mean.'

Trouble was expressed in Mr Pecksniff's visage, as he pressed his
hot hands together, and replied, with humility, 'Quite
disinterestedly, sir, I assure you.'

'I know it,' said old Martin, in his quiet way.  'I am sure of it.
I said so.  It was disinterested too, in you, to draw that herd of
harpies off from me, and be their victim yourself; most other men
would have suffered them to display themselves in all their
rapacity, and would have striven to rise, by contrast, in my
estimation.  You felt for me, and drew them off, for which I owe you
many thanks.  Although I left the place, I know what passed behind
my back, you see!'

'You amaze me, sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff; which was true enough.

'My knowledge of your proceedings,' said the old man, does not stop
at this.  You have a new inmate in your house.'

'Yes, sir,' rejoined the architect, 'I have.'

'He must quit it' said Martin.

'For--for yours?' asked Mr Pecksniff, with a quavering mildness.

'For any shelter he can find,' the old man answered.  'He has
deceived you.'

'I hope not' said Mr Pecksniff, eagerly.  'I trust not.  I have been
extremely well disposed towards that young man.  I hope it cannot be
shown that he has forfeited all claim to my protection.  Deceit--
deceit, my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, would be final.  I should hold myself
bound, on proof of deceit, to renounce him instantly.'

The old man glanced at both his fair supporters, but especially at
Miss Mercy, whom, indeed, he looked full in the face, with a greater
demonstration of interest than had yet appeared in his features.
His gaze again encountered Mr Pecksniff, as he said, composedly:

'Of course you know that he has made his matrimonial choice?'

'Oh dear!' cried Mr Pecksniff, rubbing his hair up very stiff upon
his head, and staring wildly at his daughters.  'This is becoming
tremendous!'

'You know the fact?' repeated Martin

'Surely not without his grandfather's consent and approbation my
dear sir!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Don't tell me that.  For the honour
of human nature, say you're not about to tell me that!'

'I thought he had suppressed it,' said the old man.

The indignation felt by Mr Pecksniff at this terrible disclosure,
was only to be equalled by the kindling anger of his daughters.
What!  Had they taken to their hearth and home a secretly contracted
serpent; a crocodile, who had made a furtive offer of his hand; an
imposition on society; a bankrupt bachelor with no effects, trading
with the spinster world on false pretences!  And oh, to think that he
should have disobeyed and practised on that sweet, that venerable
gentleman, whose name he bore; that kind and tender guardian; his
more than father--to say nothing at all of mother--horrible,
horrible!  To turn him out with ignominy would be treatment much too
good.  Was there nothing else that could be done to him?  Had he
incurred no legal pains and penalties?  Could it be that the
statutes of the land were so remiss as to have affixed no punishment
to such delinquency?  Monster; how basely had they been deceived!

'I am glad to find you second me so warmly,' said the old man
holding up his hand to stay the torrent of their wrath.  'I will not
deny that it is a pleasure to me to find you so full of zeal.  We
will consider that topic as disposed of.'

'No, my dear sir,' cried Mr Pecksniff, 'not as disposed of, until I
have purged my house of this pollution.'

'That will follow,' said the old man, 'in its own time.  I look upon
that as done.'

'You are very good, sir,' answered Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand.
'You do me honour.  You MAY look upon it as done, I assure you.'

'There is another topic,' said Martin, 'on which I hope you will
assist me.  You remember Mary, cousin?'

'The young lady that I mentioned to you, my dears, as having
interested me so very much,' remarked Mr Pecksniff.  'Excuse my
interrupting you, sir.'

'I told you her history?' said the old man.

'Which I also mentioned, you will recollect, my dears,' cried Mr
Pecksniff.  'Silly girls, Mr Chuzzlewit--quite moved by it, they
were!"

'Why, look now!' said Martin, evidently pleased; 'I feared I should
have had to urge her case upon you, and ask you to regard her
favourably for my sake.  But I find you have no jealousies!  Well!
You have no cause for any, to be sure.  She has nothing to gain from
me, my dears, and she knows it.'

The two Miss Pecksniffs murmured their approval of this wise
arrangement, and their cordial sympathy with its interesting object.

'If I could have anticipated what has come to pass between us four,'
said the old man thoughfully; 'but it is too late to think of that.
You would receive her courteously, young ladies, and be kind to her,
if need were?'

Where was the orphan whom the two Miss Pecksniffs would not have
cherished in their sisterly bosom!  But when that orphan was
commended to their care by one on whom the dammed-up love of years
was gushing forth, what exhaustless stores of pure affection yearned
to expend themselves upon her!

An interval ensued, during which Mr Chuzzlewit, in an absent frame
of mind, sat gazing at the ground, without uttering a word; and as
it was plain that he had no desire to be interrupted in his
meditations, Mr Pecksniff and his daughters were profoundly silent
also.  During the whole of the foregoing dialogue, he had borne his
part with a cold, passionless promptitude, as though he had learned
and painfully rehearsed it all a hundred times.  Even when his
expressions were warmest and his language most encouraging, he had
retained the same manner, without the least abatement.  But now
there was a keener brightness in his eye, and more expression in his
voice, as he said, awakening from his thoughtful mood:

'You know what will be said of this?  Have you reflected?'

'Said of what, my dear sir?' Mr Pecksniff asked.

'Of this new understanding between us.'

Mr Pecksniff looked benevolently sagacious, and at the same time far
above all earthly misconstruction, as he shook his head, and
observed that a great many things would be said of it, no doubt.

'A great many,' rejoined the old man.  'Some will say that I dote in
my old age; that illness has shaken me; that I have lost all
strength of mind, and have grown childish.  You can bear that?'

Mr Pecksniff answered that it would be dreadfully hard to bear, but
he thought he could, if he made a great effort.

'Others will say--I speak of disappointed, angry people only--that
you have lied and fawned, and wormed yourself through dirty ways
into my favour; by such concessions and such crooked deeds, such
meannesses and vile endurances, as nothing could repay; no, not the
legacy of half the world we live in.  You can bear that?'

Mr Pecksniff made reply that this would be also very hard to bear,
as reflecting, in some degree, on the discernment of Mr Chuzzlewit.
Still he had a modest confidence that he could sustain the calumny,
with the help of a good conscience, and that gentleman's friendship.

'With the great mass of slanderers,' said old Martin, leaning back
in his chair, 'the tale, as I clearly foresee, will run thus: That
to mark my contempt for the rabble whom I despised, I chose from
among them the very worst, and made him do my will, and pampered and
enriched him at the cost of all the rest.  That, after casting about
for the means of a punishment which should rankle in the bosoms of
these kites the most, and strike into their gall, I devised this
scheme at a time when the last link in the chain of grateful love
and duty, that held me to my race, was roughly snapped asunder;
roughly, for I loved him well; roughly, for I had ever put my trust
in his affection; roughly, for that he broke it when I loved him
most--God help me!--and he without a pang could throw me off, while I
clung about his heart!  Now,' said the old man, dismissing this
passionate outburst as suddenly as he had yielded to it, 'is your
mind made up to bear this likewise?  Lay your account with having it
to bear, and put no trust in being set right by me.'

'My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,' cried Pecksniff in an ecstasy, 'for such a
man as you have shown yourself to be this day; for a man so injured,
yet so very humane; for a man so--I am at a loss what precise term
to use--yet at the same time so remarkably--I don't know how to
express my meaning; for such a man as I have described, I hope it is
no presumption to say that I, and I am sure I may add my children
also (my dears, we perfectly agree in this, I think?), would bear
anything whatever!'

'Enough,' said Martin.  'You can charge no consequences on me.  When
do you retire home?'

'Whenever you please, my dear sir.  To-night if you desire it.'

'I desire nothing,' returned the old man, 'that is unreasonable.
Such a request would be.  Will you be ready to return at the end of
this week?'

The very time of all others that Mr Pecksniff would have suggested
if it had been left to him to make his own choice.  As to his
daughters--the words, 'Let us be at home on Saturday, dear pa,' were
actually upon their lips.

'Your expenses, cousin,' said Martin, taking a folded slip of paper
from his pocketbook, 'may possibly exceed that amount.  If so, let
me know the balance that I owe you, when we next meet.  It would be
useless if I told you where I live just now; indeed, I have no fixed
abode.  When I have, you shall know it.  You and your daughters may
expect to see me before long; in the meantime I need not tell you
that we keep our own confidence.  What you will do when you get home
is understood between us.  Give me no account of it at any time; and
never refer to it in any way.  I ask that as a favour.  I am
commonly a man of few words, cousin; and all that need be said just
now is said, I think.'

'One glass of wine--one morsel of this homely cake?' cried Mr
Pecksniff, venturing to detain him.  'My dears--!'

The sisters flew to wait upon him.

'Poor girls!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'You will excuse their agitation,
my dear sir.  They are made up of feeling.  A bad commodity to go
through the world with, Mr Chuzzlewit!  My youngest daughter is
almost as much of a woman as my eldest, is she not, sir?'

'Which IS the youngest?' asked the old man.

'Mercy, by five years,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'We sometimes venture to
consider her rather a fine figure, sir.  Speaking as an artist, I
may perhaps be permitted to suggest that its outline is graceful and
correct.  I am naturally,' said Mr Pecksniff, drying his hands upon
his handkerchief, and looking anxiously in his cousin's face at
almost every word, 'proud, if I may use the expression, to have a
daughter who is constructed on the best models.'

'She seems to have a lively disposition,' observed Martin.

'Dear me!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'That is quite remarkable.  You have
defined her character, my dear sir, as correctly as if you had known
her from her birth.  She HAS a lively disposition.  I assure you, my
dear sir, that in our unpretending home her gaiety is delightful.'

'No doubt,' returned the old man.

'Charity, upon the other hand,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'is remarkable
for strong sense, and for rather a deep tone of sentiment, if the
partiality of a father may be excused in saying so.  A wonderful
affection between them, my dear sir!  Allow me to drink your health.
Bless you!'

'I little thought,' retorted Martin, 'but a month ago, that I should
be breaking bread and pouring wine with you.  I drink to you.'

Not at all abashed by the extraordinary abruptness with which these
latter words were spoken, Mr Pecksniff thanked him devoutly.

'Now let me go,' said Martin, putting down the wine when he had
merely touched it with his lips.  'My dears, good morning!'

But this distant form of farewell was by no means tender enough for
the yearnings of the young ladies, who again embraced him with all
their hearts--with all their arms at any rate--to which parting
caresses their new-found friend submitted with a better grace than
might have been expected from one who, not a moment before, had
pledged their parent in such a very uncomfortable manner.  These
endearments terminated, he took a hasty leave of Mr Pecksniff and
withdrew, followed to the door by both father and daughters, who
stood there kissing their hands and beaming with affection until he
disappeared; though, by the way, he never once looked back, after he
had crossed the threshold.

When they returned into the house, and were again alone in Mrs
Todgers's room, the two young ladies exhibited an unusual amount of
gaiety; insomuch that they clapped their hands, and laughed, and
looked with roguish aspects and a bantering air upon their dear
papa.  This conduct was so very unaccountable, that Mr Pecksniff
(being singularly grave himself) could scarcely choose but ask them
what it meant; and took them to task, in his gentle manner, for
yielding to such light emotions.

'If it was possible to divine any cause for this merriment, even the
most remote,' he said, 'I should not reprove you.  But when you can
have none whatever--oh, really, really!'

This admonition had so little effect on Mercy, that she was obliged
to hold her handkerchief before her rosy lips, and to throw herself
back in her chair, with every demonstration of extreme amusement;
which want of duty so offended Mr Pecksniff that he reproved her in
set terms, and gave her his parental advice to correct herself in
solitude and contemplation.  But at that juncture they were
disturbed by the sound of voices in dispute; and as it proceeded
from the next room, the subject matter of the altercation quickly
reached their ears.

'I don't care that! Mrs Todgers,' said the young gentleman who had
been the youngest gentleman in company on the day of the festival;
'I don't care THAT, ma'am,' said he, snapping his fingers, 'for
Jinkins.  Don't suppose I do.'

'I am quite certain you don't, sir,' replied Mrs Todgers.  'You have
too independent a spirit, I know, to yield to anybody.  And quite
right.  There is no reason why you should give way to any gentleman.
Everybody must be well aware of that.'

'I should think no more of admitting daylight into the fellow,' said
the youngest gentleman, in a desperate voice, 'than if he was a
bulldog.'

Mrs Todgers did not stop to inquire whether, as a matter of
principle, there was any particular reason for admitting daylight
even into a bulldog, otherwise than by the natural channel of his
eyes, but she seemed to wring her hands, and she moaned.

'Let him be careful,' said the youngest gentleman.  'I give him
warning.  No man shall step between me and the current of my
vengeance.  I know a Cove--' he used that familiar epithet in his
agitation but corrected himself by adding, 'a gentleman of property,
I mean--who practices with a pair of pistols (fellows too) of his
own.  If I am driven to borrow 'em, and to send at friend to Jinkins,
a tragedy will get into the papers.  That's all.'

Again Mrs Todgers moaned.

'I have borne this long enough,' said the youngest gentleman but now
my soul rebels against it, and I won't stand it any longer.  I left
home originally, because I had that within me which wouldn't be
domineered over by a sister; and do you think I'm going to be put
down by HIM?  No.'

'It is very wrong in Mr Jinkins; I know it is perfectly inexcusable
in Mr Jinkins, if he intends it,' observed Mrs Todgers

'If he intends it!' cried the youngest gentleman.  'Don't he
interrupt and contradict me on every occasion?  Does he ever fail to
interpose himself between me and anything or anybody that he sees I
have set my mind upon?  Does he make a point of always pretending to
forget me, when he's pouring out the beer?  Does he make bragging
remarks about his razors, and insulting allusions to people who have
no necessity to shave more than once a week?  But let him look out!
He'll find himself shaved, pretty close, before long, and so I tell
him.'

The young gentleman was mistaken in this closing sentence, inasmuch
as he never told it to Jinkins, but always to Mrs Todgers.

'However,' he said, 'these are not proper subjects for ladies' ears.
All I've got to say to you, Mrs Todgers, is, a week's notice from
next Saturday.  The same house can't contain that miscreant and me
any longer.  If we get over the intermediate time without bloodshed,
you may think yourself pretty fortunate.  I don't myself expect we
shall.'

'Dear, dear!' cried Mrs Todgers, 'what would I have given to have
prevented this?  To lose you, sir, would be like losing the house's
right-hand.  So popular as you are among the gentlemen; so generally
looked up to; and so much liked!  I do hope you'll think better of
it; if on nobody else's account, on mine.'

'There's Jinkins,' said the youngest gentleman, moodily.  'Your
favourite.  He'll console you, and the gentlemen too, for the loss
of twenty such as me.  I'm not understood in this house.  I never
have been.'

'Don't run away with that opinion, sir!' cried Mrs Todgers, with a
show of honest indignation.  'Don't make such a charge as that
against the establishment, I must beg of you.  It is not so bad as
that comes to, sir.  Make any remark you please against the
gentlemen, or against me; but don't say you're not understood in
this house.'

'I'm not treated as if I was,' said the youngest gentleman.

'There you make a great mistake, sir,' returned Mrs Todgers, in the
same strain.  'As many of the gentlemen and I have often said, you
are too sensitive.  That's where it is.  You are of too susceptible
a nature; it's in your spirit.'

The young gentleman coughed.

'And as,' said Mrs Todgers, 'as to Mr Jinkins, I must beg of you, if
we ARE to part, to understand that I don't abet Mr Jinkins by any
means.  Far from it.  I could wish that Mr Jinkins would take a
lower tone in this establishment, and would not be the means of
raising differences between me and gentlemen that I can much less
bear to part with than I could with Mr Jinkins.  Mr Jinkins is not
such a boarder, sir,' added Mrs Todgers, 'that all considerations of
private feeling and respect give way before him.  Quite the
contrary, I assure you.'

The young gentleman was so much mollified by these and similar
speeches on the part of Mrs Todgers, that he and that lady gradually
changed positions; so that she became the injured party, and he was
understood to be the injurer; but in a complimentary, not in an
offensive sense; his cruel conduct being attributable to his exalted
nature, and to that alone.  So, in the end, the young gentleman
withdrew his notice, and assured Mrs Todgers of his unalterable
regard; and having done so, went back to business.

'Goodness me, Miss Pecksniffs!' cried that lady, as she came into
the back room, and sat wearily down, with her basket on her knees,
and her hands folded upon it, 'what a trial of temper it is to keep
a house like this!  You must have heard most of what has just passed.
Now did you ever hear the like?'

'Never!' said the two Miss Pecksniffs.

'Of all the ridiculous young fellows that ever I had to deal with,'
resumed Mrs Todgers, 'that is the most ridiculous and unreasonable.
Mr Jinkins is hard upon him sometimes, but not half as hard as he
deserves.  To mention such a gentleman as Mr Jinkins in the same
breath with HIM--you know it's too much!  And yet he's as jealous
of him, bless you, as if he was his equal.'

The young ladies were greatly entertained by Mrs Todgers's account,
no less than with certain anecdotes illustrative of the youngest
gentleman's character, which she went on to tell them.  But Mr
Pecksniff looked quite stern and angry; and when she had concluded,
said in a solemn voice:

'Pray, Mrs Todgers, if I may inquire, what does that young gentleman
contribute towards the support of these premises?'

'Why, sir, for what HE has, he pays about eighteen shillings a
week!' said Mrs Todgers.

'Eighteen shillings a week!' repeated Mr Pecksniff.

'Taking one week with another; as near that as possible,' said Mrs
Todgers.

Mr Pecksniff rose from his chair, folded his arms, looked at her,
and shook his head.

'And do you mean to say, ma'am--is it possible, Mrs Todgers--that
for such a miserable consideration as eighteen shillings a week, a
female of your understanding can so far demean herself as to wear a
double face, even for an instant?'

'I am forced to keep things on the square if I can, sir,' faltered
Mrs Todgers.  'I must preserve peace among them, and keep my
connection together, if possible, Mr Pecksniff.  The profit is very
small.'

'The profit!' cried that gentleman, laying great stress upon the
word.  'The profit, Mrs Todgers!  You amaze me!'

He was so severe, that Mrs Todgers shed tears.

'The profit!' repeated Mr pecksniff.  'The profit of dissimulation!
To worship the golden calf of Baal, for eighteen shillings a week!'

'Don't in your own goodness be too hard upon me, Mr Pecksniff,'
cried Mrs Todgers, taking out her handkerchief.

'Oh Calf, Calf!' cried Mr Pecksniff mournfully.  'Oh, Baal, Baal! oh
my friend, Mrs Todgers!  To barter away that precious jewel, self-
esteem, and cringe to any mortal creature--for eighteen shillings a
week!'

He was so subdued and overcome by the reflection, that he
immediately took down his hat from its peg in the passage, and went
out for a walk, to compose his feelings.  Anybody passing him in the
street might have known him for a good man at first sight; for his
whole figure teemed with a consciousness of the moral homily he had
read to Mrs Todgers.

Eighteen shillings a week!  Just, most just, thy censure, upright
Pecksniff!  Had it been for the sake of a ribbon, star, or garter;
sleeves of lawn, a great man's smile, a seat in parliament, a tap
upon the shoulder from a courtly sword; a place, a party, or a
thriving lie, or eighteen thousand pounds, or even eighteen
hundred;--but to worship the golden calf for eighteen shillings a
week! oh pitiful, pitiful!



CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHEREIN A CERTAIN GENTLEMAN BECOMES PARTICULAR IN HIS ATTENTIONS TO
A CERTAIN LADY; AND MORE COMING EVENTS THAN ONE, CAST THEIR SHADOWS
BEFORE


The family were within two or three days of their departure from Mrs
Todgers's, and the commercial gentlemen were to a man despondent and
not to be comforted, because of the approaching separation, when
Bailey junior, at the jocund time of noon, presented himself before
Miss Charity Pecksniff, then sitting with her sister in the banquet
chamber, hemming six new pocket-handkerchiefs for Mr Jinkins; and
having expressed a hope, preliminary and pious, that he might be
blest, gave her in his pleasant way to understand that a visitor
attended to pay his respects to her, and was at that moment waiting
in the drawing-room.  Perhaps this last announcement showed in a
more striking point of view than many lengthened speeches could have
done, the trustfulness and faith of Bailey's nature; since he had,
in fact, last seen the visitor on the door-mat, where, after
signifying to him that he would do well to go upstairs, he had left
him to the guidance of his own sagacity.  Hence it was at least an
even chance that the visitor was then wandering on the roof of the
house, or vainly seeking to extricate himself from the maze of
bedrooms; Todgers's being precisely that kind of establishment in
which an unpiloted stranger is pretty sure to find himself in some
place where he least expects and least desires to be.

'A gentleman for me!' cried Charity, pausing in her work; 'my
gracious, Bailey!'

'Ah!' said Bailey.  'It IS my gracious, an't it?  Wouldn't I be
gracious neither, not if I wos him!'

The remark was rendered somewhat obscure in itself, by reason (as
the reader may have observed) of a redundancy of negatives; but
accompanied by action expressive of a faithful couple walking arm-
in-arm towards a parochial church, mutually exchanging looks of
love, it clearly signified this youth's conviction that the caller's
purpose was of an amorous tendency.  Miss Charity affected to
reprove so great a liberty; but she could not help smiling.  He was
a strange boy, to be sure.  There was always some ground of
probability and likelihood mingled with his absurd behaviour.  That
was the best of it!

'But I don't know any gentlemen, Bailey,' said Miss Pecksniff.  'I
think you must have made a mistake.'

Mr Bailey smiled at the extreme wildness of such a supposition, and
regarded the young ladies with unimpaired affability.

'My dear Merry,' said Charity, 'who CAN it be?  Isn't it odd?  I
have a great mind not to go to him really.  So very strange, you
know!'

The younger sister plainly considered that this appeal had its
origin in the pride of being called upon and asked for; and that it
was intended as an assertion of superiority, and a retaliation upon
her for having captured the commercial gentlemen.  Therefore, she
replied, with great affection and politeness, that it was, no doubt,
very strange indeed; and that she was totally at a loss to conceive
what the ridiculous person unknown could mean by it.

'Quite impossible to divine!' said Charity, with some sharpness,
'though still, at the same time, you needn't be angry, my dear.'

'Thank you,' retorted Merry, singing at her needle.  'I am quite
aware of that, my love.'

'I am afraid your head is turned, you silly thing,' said Cherry.

'Do you know, my dear,' said Merry, with engaging candour, 'that I
have been afraid of that, myself, all along!  So much incense and
nonsense, and all the rest of it, is enough to turn a stronger head
than mine.  What a relief it must be to you, my dear, to be so very
comfortable in that respect, and not to be worried by those odious
men!  How do you do it, Cherry?'

This artless inquiry might have led to turbulent results, but for
the strong emotions of delight evinced by Bailey junior, whose
relish in the turn the conversation had lately taken was so acute,
that it impelled and forced him to the instantaneous performance of
a dancing step, extremely difficult in its nature, and only to be
achieved in a moment of ecstasy, which is commonly called The Frog's
Hornpipe.  A manifestation so lively, brought to their immediate
recollection the great virtuous precept, 'Keep up appearances
whatever you do,' in which they had been educated.  They forbore at
once, and jointly signified to Mr Bailey that if he should presume
to practice that figure any more in their presence, they would
instantly acquaint Mrs Todgers with the fact, and would demand his
condign punishment, at the hands of that lady.  The young gentleman
having expressed the bitterness of his contrition by affecting to
wipe away scalding tears with his apron, and afterwards feigning to
wring a vast amount of water from that garment, held the door open
while Miss Charity passed out; and so that damsel went in state
upstairs to receive her mysterious adorer.

By some strange occurrence of favourable circumstances he had found
out the drawing-room, and was sitting there alone.

'Ah, cousin!' he said.  'Here I am, you see.  You thought I was
lost, I'll be bound.  Well! how do you find yourself by this time?'

Miss Charity replied that she was quite well, and gave Mr Jonas
Chuzzlewit her hand.

'That's right,' said Mr Jonas, 'and you've got over the fatigues of
the journey have you?  I say.  How's the other one?'

'My sister is very well, I believe,' returned the young lady.  'I
have not heard her complain of any indisposition, sir.  Perhaps you
would like to see her, and ask her yourself?'

'No, no cousin!' said Mr Jonas, sitting down beside her on the
window-seat.  'Don't be in a hurry.  There's no occasion for that,
you know.  What a cruel girl you are!'

'It's impossible for YOU to know,' said Cherry, 'whether I am or
not.'

'Well, perhaps it is,' said Mr Jonas.  'I say--Did you think I was
lost?  You haven't told me that.'

'I didn't think at all about it,' answered Cherry.

'Didn't you though?' said Jonas, pondering upon this strange reply.
'Did the other one?'

'I am sure it's impossible for me to say what my sister may, or may
not have thought on such a subject,' cried Cherry.  'She never said
anything to me about it, one way or other.'

'Didn't she laugh about it?' inquired Jonas.

'No.  She didn't even laugh about it,' answered Charity.

'She's a terrible one to laugh, an't she?' said Jonas, lowering his
voice.

'She is very lively,' said Cherry.

'Liveliness is a pleasant thing--when it don't lead to spending
money.  An't it?' asked Mr Jonas.

'Very much so, indeed,' said Cherry, with a demureness of manner
that gave a very disinterested character to her assent.

'Such liveliness as yours I mean, you know,' observed Mr Jonas, as
he nudged her with his elbow.  'I should have come to see you
before, but I didn't know where you was.  How quick you hurried off,
that morning!'

'I was amenable to my papa's directions,' said Miss Charity.

'I wish he had given me his direction,' returned her cousin, 'and
then I should have found you out before.  Why, I shouldn't have
found you even now, if I hadn't met him in the street this morning.
What a sleek, sly chap he is!  Just like a tomcat, an't he?'

'I must trouble you to have the goodness to speak more respectfully
of my papa, Mr Jonas,' said Charity.  'I can't allow such a tone as
that, even in jest.'

'Ecod, you may say what you like of MY father, then, and so I give
you leave,' said Jonas.  'I think it's liquid aggravation that
circulates through his veins, and not regular blood.  How old should
you think my father was, cousin?'

'Old, no doubt,' replied Miss Charity; 'but a fine old gentleman.'

'A fine old gentleman!' repeated Jonas, giving the crown of his hat
an angry knock.  'Ah!  It's time he was thinking of being drawn out a
little finer too.  Why, he's eighty!'

'Is he, indeed?' said the young lady.

'And ecod,' cried Jonas, 'now he's gone so far without giving in, I
don't see much to prevent his being ninety; no, nor even a hundred.
Why, a man with any feeling ought to be ashamed of being eighty, let
alone more.  Where's his religion, I should like to know, when he
goes flying in the face of the Bible like that?  Threescore-and-
ten's the mark, and no man with a conscience, and a proper sense of
what's expected of him, has any business to live longer.'

Is any one surprised at Mr Jonas making such a reference to such a
book for such a purpose?  Does any one doubt the old saw, that the
Devil (being a layman) quotes Scripture for his own ends?  If he
will take the trouble to look about him, he may find a greater
number of confirmations of the fact in the occurrences of any single
day, than the steam-gun can discharge balls in a minute.

'But there's enough of my father,' said Jonas; 'it's of no use to go
putting one's self out of the way by talking about HIM.  I called to
ask you to come and take a walk, cousin, and see some of the sights;
and to come to our house afterwards, and have a bit of something.
Pecksniff will most likely look in in the evening, he says, and
bring you home.  See, here's his writing; I made him put it down
this morning when he told me he shouldn't be back before I came
here; in case you wouldn't believe me.  There's nothing like proof,
is there?  Ha, ha!  I say--you'll bring the other one, you know!'

Miss Charity cast her eyes upon her father's autograph, which merely
said--'Go, my children, with your cousin.  Let there be union among
us when it is possible;' and after enough of hesitation to impart a
proper value to her consent, withdrew to prepare her sister and
herself for the excursion.  She soon returned, accompanied by Miss
Mercy, who was by no means pleased to leave the brilliant triumphs
of Todgers's for the society of Mr Jonas and his respected father.

'Aha!' cried Jonas.  'There you are, are you?'

'Yes, fright,' said Mercy, 'here I am; and I would much rather be
anywhere else, I assure you.'

'You don't mean that,' cried Mr Jonas.  'You can't, you know.  It
isn't possible.'

'You can have what opinion you like, fright,' retorted Mercy.  'I am
content to keep mine; and mine is that you are a very unpleasant,
odious, disagreeable person.'  Here she laughed heartily, and seemed
to enjoy herself very much.

'Oh, you're a sharp gal!' said Mr Jonas.  'She's a regular teaser,
an't she, cousin?'

Miss Charity replied in effect, that she was unable to say what the
habits and propensities of a regular teaser might be; and that even
if she possessed such information, it would ill become her to admit
the existence of any creature with such an unceremonious name in her
family; far less in the person of a beloved sister; 'whatever,'
added Cherry with an angry glance, 'whatever her real nature may
be.'

'Well, my dear,' said Merry, 'the only observation I have to make
is, that if we don't go out at once, I shall certainly take my
bonnet off again, and stay at home.'

This threat had the desired effect of preventing any farther
altercation, for Mr Jonas immediately proposed an adjournment, and
the same being carried unanimously, they departed from the house
straightway.  On the doorstep, Mr Jonas gave an arm to each cousin;
which act of gallantry being observed by Bailey junior, from the
garret window, was by him saluted with a loud and violent fit of
coughing, to which paroxysm he was still the victim when they turned
the corner.

Mr Jonas inquired in the first instance if they were good walkers
and being answered, 'Yes,' submitted their pedestrian powers to a
pretty severe test; for he showed them as many sights, in the way of
bridges, churches, streets, outsides of theatres, and other free
spectacles, in that one forenoon, as most people see in a
twelvemonth.  It was observable in this gentleman, that he had an
insurmountable distaste to the insides of buildings, and that he was
perfectly acquainted with the merits of all shows, in respect of
which there was any charge for admission, which it seemed were every
one detestable, and of the very lowest grade of merit.  He was so
thoroughly possessed with this opinion, that when Miss Charity
happened to mention the circumstance of their having been twice or
thrice to the theatre with Mr Jinkins and party, he inquired, as a
matter of course, 'where the orders came from?' and being told that
Mr Jinkins and party paid, was beyond description entertained,
observing that 'they must be nice flats, certainly;' and often in
the course of the walk, bursting out again into a perfect convulsion
of laughter at the surpassing silliness of those gentlemen, and
(doubtless) at his own superior wisdom.

When they had been out for some hours and were thoroughly fatigued,
it being by that time twilight, Mr Jonas intimated that he would
show them one of the best pieces of fun with which he was
acquainted.  This joke was of a practical kind, and its humour lay
in taking a hackney-coach to the extreme limits of possibility for a
shilling.  Happily it brought them to the place where Mr Jonas
dwelt, or the young ladies might have rather missed the point and
cream of the jest.

The old-established firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son, Manchester
Warehousemen, and so forth, had its place of business in a very
narrow street somewhere behind the Post Office; where every house
was in the brightest summer morning very gloomy; and where light
porters watered the pavement, each before his own employer's
premises, in fantastic patterns, in the dog-days; and where spruce
gentlemen with their hands in the pockets of symmetrical trousers,
were always to be seen in warm weather, contemplating their
undeniable boots in dusty warehouse doorways; which appeared to be
the hardest work they did, except now and then carrying pens behind
their ears.  A dim, dirty, smoky, tumble-down, rotten old house it
was, as anybody would desire to see; but there the firm of Anthony
Chuzzlewit and Son transacted all their business and their pleasure
too, such as it was; for neither the young man nor the old had any
other residence, or any care or thought beyond its narrow limits.

Business, as may be readily supposed, was the main thing in this
establishment; insomuch indeed that it shouldered comfort out of
doors, and jostled the domestic arrangements at every turn.  Thus in
the miserable bedrooms there were files of moth-eaten letters
hanging up against the walls; and linen rollers, and fragments of
old patterns, and odds and ends of spoiled goods, strewed upon the
ground; while the meagre bedsteads, washing-stands, and scraps of
carpet, were huddled away into corners as objects of secondary
consideration, not to be thought of but as disagreeable necessities,
furnishing no profit, and intruding on the one affair of life.  The
single sitting-room was on the same principle, a chaos of boxes and
old papers, and had more counting-house stools in it than chairs;
not to mention a great monster of a desk straddling over the middle
of the floor, and an iron safe sunk into the wall above the fireplace.
The solitary little table for purposes of refection and social
enjoyment, bore as fair a proportion to the desk and other business
furniture, as the graces and harmless relaxations of life had ever
done, in the persons of the old man and his son, to their pursuit
of wealth.  It was meanly laid out now for dinner; and in a chair
before the fire sat Anthony himself, who rose to greet his son
and his fair cousins as they entered.

An ancient proverb warns us that we should not expect to find old
heads upon young shoulders; to which it may be added that we seldom
meet with that unnatural combination, but we feel a strong desire to
knock them off; merely from an inherent love we have of seeing
things in their right places.  It is not improbable that many men,
in no wise choleric by nature, felt this impulse rising up within
them, when they first made the acquaintance of Mr Jonas; but if
they had known him more intimately in his own house, and had sat
with him at his own board, it would assuredly have been paramount to
all other considerations.

'Well, ghost!' said Mr Jonas, dutifully addressing his parent by
that title.  'Is dinner nearly ready?'

'I should think it was,' rejoined the old man.

'What's the good of that?' rejoined the son.  'I should think it
was.  I want to know.'

'Ah! I don't know for certain,' said Anthony.

'You don't know for certain,' rejoined his son in a lower tone.
'No.  You don't know anything for certain, YOU don't.  Give me your
candle here.  I want it for the gals.'

Anthony handed him a battered old office candlestick, with which Mr
Jonas preceded the young ladies to the nearest bedroom, where he
left them to take off their shawls and bonnets; and returning,
occupied himself in opening a bottle of wine, sharpening the
carving-knife, and muttering compliments to his father, until they
and the dinner appeared together.  The repast consisted of a hot leg
of mutton with greens and potatoes; and the dishes having been set
upon the table by a slipshod old woman, they were left to enjoy it
after their own manner.

'Bachelor's Hall, you know, cousin,' said Mr Jonas to Charity.  'I
say--the other one will be having a laugh at this when she gets
home, won't she?  Here; you sit on the right side of me, and I'll
have her upon the left.  Other one, will you come here?'

'You're such a fright,' replied Mercy, 'that I know I shall have no
appetite if I sit so near you; but I suppose I must.'

'An't she lively?' whispered Mr Jonas to the elder sister, with his
favourite elbow emphasis.

'Oh I really don't know!' replied Miss Pecksniff, tartly.  'I am
tired of being asked such ridiculous questions.'

'What's that precious old father of mine about now?' said Mr Jonas,
seeing that his parent was travelling up and down the room instead
of taking his seat at table.  'What are you looking for?'

'I've lost my glasses, Jonas,' said old Anthony.

'Sit down without your glasses, can't you?' returned his son.  'You
don't eat or drink out of 'em, I think; and where's that sleepy-
headed old Chuffey got to!  Now, stupid.  Oh! you know your name, do
you?'

It would seem that he didn't, for he didn't come until the father
called.  As he spoke, the door of a small glass office, which was
partitioned off from the rest of the room, was slowly opened, and a
little blear-eyed, weazen-faced, ancient man came creeping out.  He
was of a remote fashion, and dusty, like the rest of the furniture;
he was dressed in a decayed suit of black; with breeches garnished
at the knees with rusty wisps of ribbon, the very paupers of
shoestrings; on the lower portion of his spindle legs were dingy
worsted stockings of the same colour.  He looked as if he had
been put away and forgotten half a century before, and somebody
had just found him in a lumber-closet.

Such as he was, he came slowly creeping on towards the table, until
at last he crept into the vacant chair, from which, as his dim
faculties became conscious of the presence of strangers, and those
strangers ladies, he rose again, apparently intending to make a bow.
But he sat down once more without having made it, and breathing on
his shrivelled hands to warm them, remained with his poor blue nose
immovable above his plate, looking at nothing, with eyes that saw
nothing, and a face that meant nothing.  Take him in that state, and
he was an embodiment of nothing.  Nothing else.

'Our clerk,' said Mr Jonas, as host and master of the ceremonies:
'Old Chuffey.'

'Is he deaf?' inquired one of the young ladies.

'No, I don't know that he is.  He an't deaf, is he, father?'

'I never heard him say he was,' replied the old man.

'Blind?' inquired the young ladies.

'N--no.  I never understood that he was at all blind,' said Jonas,
carelessly.  'You don't consider him so, do you, father?'

'Certainly not,' replied Anthony.

'What is he, then?'

'Why, I'll tell you what he is,' said Mr Jonas, apart to the young
ladies, 'he's precious old, for one thing; and I an't best pleased
with him for that, for I think my father must have caught it of him.
He's a strange old chap, for another,' he added in a louder voice,
'and don't understand any one hardly, but HIM!'  He pointed to his
honoured parent with the carving-fork, in order that they might know
whom he meant.

'How very strange!' cried the sisters.

'Why, you see,' said Mr Jonas, 'he's been addling his old brains
with figures and book-keeping all his life; and twenty years ago or
so he went and took a fever.  All the time he was out of his head
(which was three weeks) he never left off casting up; and he got to
so many million at last that I don't believe he's ever been quite
right since.  We don't do much business now though, and he an't a
bad clerk.'

'A very good one,' said Anthony.

'Well!  He an't a dear one at all events,' observed Jonas; 'and he
earns his salt, which is enough for our look-out.  I was telling you
that he hardly understands any one except my father; he always
understands him, though, and wakes up quite wonderful.  He's been
used to his ways so long, you see!  Why, I've seen him play whist,
with my father for a partner; and a good rubber too; when he had no
more notion what sort of people he was playing against, than you
have.'

'Has he no appetite?' asked Merry.

'Oh, yes,' said Jonas, plying his own knife and fork very fast.  'He
eats--when he's helped.  But he don't care whether he waits a minute
or an hour, as long as father's here; so when I'm at all sharp set,
as I am to-day, I come to him after I've taken the edge off my own
hunger, you know.  Now, Chuffey, stupid, are you ready?'

Chuffey remained immovable.

'Always a perverse old file, he was,' said Mr Jonas, coolly helping
himself to another slice.  'Ask him, father.'

'Are you ready for your dinner, Chuffey?' asked the old man

'Yes, yes,' said Chuffey, lighting up into a sentient human creature
at the first sound of the voice, so that it was at once a curious
and quite a moving sight to see him.  'Yes, yes.  Quite ready, Mr
Chuzzlewit.  Quite ready, sir.  All ready, all ready, all ready.'
With that he stopped, smilingly, and listened for some further
address; but being spoken to no more, the light forsook his face by
little and little, until he was nothing again.

'He'll be very disagreeable, mind,' said Jonas, addressing his
cousins as he handed the old man's portion to his father.  'He
always chokes himself when it an't broth.  Look at him, now!  Did
you ever see a horse with such a wall-eyed expression as he's got?
If it hadn't been for the joke of it I wouldn't have let him come
in to-day; but I thought he'd amuse you.'

The poor old subject of this humane speech was, happily for himself,
as unconscious of its purport as of most other remarks that were
made in his presence.  But the mutton being tough, and his gums
weak, he quickly verified the statement relative to his choking
propensities, and underwent so much in his attempts to dine, that Mr
Jonas was infinitely amused; protesting that he had seldom seen him
better company in all his life, and that he was enough to make a man
split his sides with laughing.  Indeed, he went so far as to assure
the sisters, that in this point of view he considered Chuffey
superior to his own father; which, as he significantly added, was
saying a great deal.

It was strange enough that Anthony Chuzzlewit, himself so old a man,
should take a pleasure in these gibings of his estimable son at the
expense of the poor shadow at their table.  But he did,
unquestionably; though not so much--to do him justice--with
reference to their ancient clerk, as in exultation at the sharpness
of Jonas.  For the same reason that young man's coarse allusions,
even to himself, filled him with a stealthy glee; causing him to rub
his hands and chuckle covertly, as if he said in his sleeve, 'I
taught him.  I trained him.  This is the heir of my bringing-up.
Sly, cunning, and covetous, he'll not squander my money.  I worked
for this; I hoped for this; it has been the great end and aim of my
life.'

What a noble end and aim it was to contemplate in the attainment
truly!  But there be some who manufacture idols after the fashion of
themselves, and fail to worship them when they are made; charging
their deformity on outraged nature.  Anthony was better than these
at any rate.

Chuffey boggled over his plate so long, that Mr Jones, losing
patience, took it from him at last with his own hands, and requested
his father to signify to that venerable person that he had better
'peg away at his bread;' which Anthony did.

'Aye, aye!' cried the old man, brightening up as before, when this
was communicated to him in the same voice, 'quite right, quite
right.  He's your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit!  Bless him for a sharp
lad!  Bless him, bless him!'

Mr Jonas considered this so particularly childish (perhaps with some
reason), that he only laughed the more, and told his cousins that he
was afraid one of these fine days, Chuffey would be the death of
him.  The cloth was then removed, and the bottle of wine set upon
the table, from which Mr Jonas filled the young ladies' glasses,
calling on them not to spare it, as they might be certain there was
plenty more where that came from.  But he added with some haste
after this sally that it was only his joke, and they wouldn't
suppose him to be in earnest, he was sure.

'I shall drink,' said Anthony, 'to Pecksniff.  Your father, my
dears.  A clever man, Pecksniff.  A wary man!  A hypocrite, though,
eh?  A hypocrite, girls, eh?  Ha, ha, ha!  Well, so he is.  Now,
among friends, he is.  I don't think the worse of him for that,
unless it is that he overdoes it.  You may overdo anything, my
darlings.  You may overdo even hypocrisy.  Ask Jonas!'

'You can't overdo taking care of yourself,' observed that hopeful
gentleman with his mouth full.

'Do you hear that, my dears?' cried Anthony, quite enraptured.
'Wisdom, wisdom!  A good exception, Jonas.  No.  It's not easy to
overdo that.'

'Except,' whispered Mr Jonas to his favourite cousin, 'except when
one lives too long.  Ha, ha!  Tell the other one that--I say!'

'Good gracious me!' said Cherry, in a petulant manner.  'You can
tell her yourself, if you wish, can't you?'

'She seems to make such game of one,' replied Mr Jonas.

'Then why need you trouble yourself about her?' said Charity.  'I am
sure she doesn't trouble herself much about you.'

'Don't she though?' asked Jonas.

'Good gracious me, need I tell you that she don't?' returned the
young lady.

Mr Jonas made no verbal rejoinder, but he glanced at Mercy with an
odd expression in his face; and said THAT wouldn't break his heart,
she might depend upon it.  Then he looked on Charity with even
greater favour than before, and besought her, as his polite manner
was, to 'come a little closer.'

'There's another thing that's not easily overdone, father,' remarked
Jonas, after a short silence.

'What's that?' asked the father; grinning already in anticipation.

'A bargain,' said the son.  'Here's the rule for bargains--"Do
other men, for they would do you."  That's the true business precept.
All others are counterfeits.'

The delighted father applauded this sentiment to the echo; and was
so much tickled by it, that he was at the pains of imparting the
same to his ancient clerk, who rubbed his hands, nodded his palsied
head, winked his watery eyes, and cried in his whistling tones,
'Good! good!  Your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit' with every feeble
demonstration of delight that he was capable of making.  But this
old man's enthusiasm had the redeeming quality of being felt in
sympathy with the only creature to whom he was linked by ties of
long association, and by his present helplessness.  And if there had
been anybody there, who cared to think about it, some dregs of a
better nature unawakened, might perhaps have been descried through
that very medium, melancholy though it was, yet lingering at the
bottom of the worn-out cask called Chuffey.

As matters stood, nobody thought or said anything upon the subject;
so Chuffey fell back into a dark corner on one side of the
fireplace, where he always spent his evenings, and was neither seen
nor heard again that night; save once, when a cup of tea was given
him, in which he was seen to soak his bread mechanically.  There was
no reason to suppose that he went to sleep at these seasons, or that
he heard, or saw, or felt, or thought.  He remained, as it were,
frozen up--if any term expressive of such a vigorous process can be
applied to him--until he was again thawed for the moment by a word
or touch from Anthony.

Miss Charity made tea by desire of Mr Jonas, and felt and looked so
like the lady of the house that she was in the prettiest confusion
imaginable; the more so from Mr Jonas sitting close beside her, and
whispering a variety of admiring expressions in her ear.  Miss
Mercy, for her part, felt the entertainment of the evening to be so
distinctly and exclusively theirs, that she silently deplored the
commercial gentlemen--at that moment, no doubt, wearying for her
return--and yawned over yesterday's newspaper.  As to Anthony, he
went to sleep outright, so Jonas and Cherry had a clear stage to
themselves as long as they chose to keep possession of it.

When the tea-tray was taken away, as it was at last, Mr Jonas
produced a dirty pack of cards, and entertained the sisters with
divers small feats of dexterity: whereof the main purpose of every
one was, that you were to decoy somebody into laying a wager with
you that you couldn't do it; and were then immediately to win and
pocket his money.  Mr Jonas informed them that these accomplishments
were in high vogue in the most intellectual circles, and that large
amounts were constantly changing hands on such hazards.  And it may
be remarked that he fully believed this; for there is a simplicity
of cunning no less than a simplicity of innocence; and in all
matters where a lively faith in knavery and meanness was required as
the ground-work of belief, Mr Jonas was one of the most credulous of
men.  His ignorance, which was stupendous, may be taken into
account, if the reader pleases, separately.

This fine young man had all the inclination to be a profligate of
the first water, and only lacked the one good trait in the common
catalogue of debauched vices--open-handedness--to be a notable
vagabond.  But there his griping and penurious habits stepped in;
and as one poison will sometimes neutralise another, when wholesome
remedies would not avail, so he was restrained by a bad passion from
quaffing his full measure of evil, when virtue might have sought to
hold him back in vain.

By the time he had unfolded all the peddling schemes he knew upon
the cards, it was growing late in the evening; and Mr Pecksniff not
making his appearance, the young ladies expressed a wish to return
home.  But this, Mr Jonas, in his gallantry, would by no means
allow, until they had partaken of some bread and cheese and porter;
and even then he was excessively unwilling to allow them to depart;
often beseeching Miss Charity to come a little closer, or to stop a
little longer, and preferring many other complimentary petitions of
that nature in his own hospitable and earnest way.  When all his
efforts to detain them were fruitless, he put on his hat and
greatcoat preparatory to escorting them to Todgers's; remarking that
he knew they would rather walk thither than ride; and that for his
part he was quite of their opinion.

'Good night,' said Anthony.  'Good night; remember me to--ha, ha,
ha!--to Pecksniff.  Take care of your cousin, my dears; beware of
Jonas; he's a dangerous fellow.  Don't quarrel for him, in any
case!'

'Oh, the creature!' cried Mercy.  'The idea of quarrelling for HIM!
You may take him, Cherry, my love, all to yourself.  I make you a
present of my share.'

'What!  I'm a sour grape, am I, cousin?' said Jonas.

Miss Charity was more entertained by this repartee than one would
have supposed likely, considering its advanced age and simple
character.  But in her sisterly affection she took Mr Jonas to task
for leaning so very hard upon a broken reed, and said that he must
not be so cruel to poor Merry any more, or she (Charity) would
positively be obliged to hate him.  Mercy, who really had her share
of good humour, only retorted with a laugh; and they walked home in
consequence without any angry passages of words upon the way.  Mr
Jonas being in the middle, and having a cousin on each arm,
sometimes squeezed the wrong one; so tightly too, as to cause her
not a little inconvenience; but as he talked to Charity in whispers
the whole time, and paid her great attention, no doubt this was an
accidental circumstance.  When they arrived at Todgers's, and the
door was opened, Mercy broke hastily from them, and ran upstairs;
but Charity and Jonas lingered on the steps talking together for
more than five minutes; so, as Mrs Todgers observed next morning, to
a third party, 'It was pretty clear what was going on THERE, and she
was glad of it, for it really was high time that Miss Pecksniff
thought of settling.'

And now the day was coming on, when that bright vision which had
burst on Todgers's so suddenly, and made a sunshine in the shady
breast of Jinkins, was to be seen no more; when it was to be packed,
like a brown paper parcel, or a fish-basket, or an oyster barrel or a
fat gentleman, or any other dull reality of life, in a stagecoach
and carried down into the country.

'Never, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,' said Mrs Todgers, when they
retired to rest on the last night of their stay, 'never have I seen
an establishment so perfectly broken-hearted as mine is at this
present moment of time.  I don't believe the gentlemen will be the
gentlemen they were, or anything like it--no, not for weeks to come.
You have a great deal to answer for, both of you.'

They modestly disclaimed any wilful agency in this disastrous state
of things, and regretted it very much.

'Your pious pa, too,' said Mrs Todgers.  'There's a loss!  My dear
Miss Pecksniffs, your pa is a perfect missionary of peace and love.'

Entertaining an uncertainty as to the particular kind of love
supposed to be comprised in Mr Pecksniff's mission, the young ladies
received the compliment rather coldly.

'If I dared,' said Mrs Todgers, perceiving this, 'to violate a
confidence which has been reposed in me, and to tell you why I must
beg of you to leave the little door between your room and mine open
tonight, I think you would be interested.  But I mustn't do it, for I
promised Mr Jinkins faithfully, that I would be as silent as the
tomb.'

'Dear Mrs Todgers!  What can you mean?'

'Why, then, my sweet Miss Pecksniffs,' said the lady of the house;
'my own loves, if you will allow me the privilege of taking that
freedom on the eve of our separation, Mr Jinkins and the gentlemen
have made up a little musical party among themselves, and DO intend,
in the dead of this night, to perform a serenade upon the stairs
outside the door.  I could have wished, I own,' said Mrs Todgers,
with her usual foresight, 'that it had been fixed to take place an
hour or two earlier; because when gentlemen sit up late they drink,
and when they drink they're not so musical, perhaps, as when they
don't.  But this is the arrangement; and I know you will be
gratified, my dear Miss Pecksniffs, by such a mark of their
attention.'

The young ladies were at first so much excited by the news, that
they vowed they couldn't think of going to bed until the serenade
was over.  But half an hour of cool waiting so altered their opinion
that they not only went to bed, but fell asleep; and were, moreover,
not ecstatically charmed to be awakened some time afterwards by
certain dulcet strains breaking in upon the silent watches of the
night.

It was very affecting--very.  Nothing more dismal could have been
desired by the most fastidious taste.  The gentleman of a vocal turn
was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest
took anything they could get.  The youngest gentleman blew his
melancholy into a flute.  He didn't blow much out of it, but that
was all the better.  If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had
perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in
honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpass the
unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus, 'Go where glory
waits thee!'  It was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a
lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful and hideous in
sound.  The flute of the youngest gentleman was wild and fitful.  It
came and went in gusts, like the wind.  For a long time together he
seemed to have left off, and when it was quite settled by Mrs
Todgers and the young ladies that, overcome by his feelings, he had
retired in tears, he unexpectedly turned up again at the very top of
the tune, gasping for breath.  He was a tremendous performer.  There
was no knowing where to have him; and exactly when you thought he
was doing nothing at all, then was he doing the very thing that
ought to astonish you most.

There were several of these concerted pieces; perhaps two or three
too many, though that, as Mrs Todgers said, was a fault on the right
side.  But even then, even at that solemn moment, when the thrilling
sounds may be presumed to have penetrated into the very depths of
his nature, if he had any depths, Jinkins couldn't leave the
youngest gentleman alone.  He asked him distinctly, before the
second song began--as a personal favour too, mark the villain in
that--not to play.  Yes; he said so; not to play.  The breathing of
the youngest gentleman was heard through the key-hole of the door.
He DIDN'T play.  What vent was a flute for the passions swelling up
within his breast?  A trombone would have been a world too mild.

The serenade approached its close.  Its crowning interest was at
hand.  The gentleman of a literary turn had written a song on the
departure of the ladies, and adapted it to an old tune.  They all
joined, except the youngest gentleman in company, who, for the
reasons aforesaid, maintained a fearful silence.  The song (which
was of a classical nature) invoked the oracle of Apollo, and
demanded to know what would become of Todgers's when CHARITY and
MERCY were banished from its walls.  The oracle delivered no opinion
particularly worth remembering, according to the not infrequent
practice of oracles from the earliest ages down to the present time.
In the absence of enlightenment on that subject, the strain deserted
it, and went on to show that the Miss Pecksniffs were nearly related
to Rule Britannia, and that if Great Britain hadn't been an island,
there could have been no Miss Pecksniffs.  And being now on a
nautical tack, it closed with this verse:

    'All hail to the vessel of Pecksniff the sire!
       And favouring breezes to fan;
     While Tritons flock round it, and proudly admire
       The architect, artist, and man!'

As they presented this beautiful picture to the imagination, the
gentlemen gradually withdrew to bed to give the music the effect of
distance; and so it died away, and Todgers's was left to its
repose.

Mr Bailey reserved his vocal offering until the morning, when he put
his head into the room as the young ladies were kneeling before
their trunks, packing up, and treated them to an imitation of the
voice of a young dog in trying circumstances; when that animal is
supposed by persons of a lively fancy, to relieve his feelings by
calling for pen and ink.

'Well, young ladies,' said the youth, 'so you're a-going home, are
you, worse luck?'

'Yes, Bailey, we're going home,' returned Mercy.

'An't you a-going to leave none of 'em a lock of your hair?'
inquired the youth.  'It's real, an't it?'

They laughed at this, and told him of course it was.

'Oh, is it of course, though?' said Bailey.  'I know better than
that.  Hers an't.  Why, I see it hanging up once, on that nail by
the winder.  Besides, I have gone behind her at dinner-time and
pulled it; and she never know'd.  I say, young ladies, I'm a-going
to leave.  I an't a-going to stand being called names by her, no
longer.'

Miss Mercy inquired what his plans for the future might be; in reply
to whom Mr Bailey intimated that he thought of going either into
top-boots, or into the army.

'Into the army!' cried the young ladies, with a laugh.

'Ah!' said Bailey, 'why not?  There's a many drummers in the Tower.
I'm acquainted with 'em.  Don't their country set a valley on 'em,
mind you!  Not at all!'

'You'll be shot, I see,' observed Mercy.

'Well!' cried Mr Bailey, 'wot if I am?  There's something gamey in
it, young ladies, an't there?  I'd sooner be hit with a cannon-ball
than a rolling-pin, and she's always a-catching up something of that
sort, and throwing it at me, when the gentlemans' appetites is good.
Wot,' said Mr Bailey, stung by the recollection of his wrongs, 'wot,
if they DO consume the per-vishuns.  It an't MY fault, is it?'

'Surely no one says it is,' said Mercy.

'Don't they though?' retorted the youth.  'No.  Yes.  Ah! oh!  No one
mayn't say it is! but some one knows it is.  But I an't a-going to
have every rise in prices wisited on me.  I an't a-going to be
killed because the markets is dear.  I won't stop.  And therefore,'
added Mr Bailey, relenting into a smile, 'wotever you mean to give
me, you'd better give me all at once, becos if ever you come back
agin, I shan't be here; and as to the other boy, HE won't deserve
nothing, I know.'

The young ladies, on behalf of Mr Pecksniff and themselves, acted on
this thoughtful advice; and in consideration of their private
friendship, presented Mr Bailey with a gratuity so liberal that he
could hardly do enough to show his gratitude; which found but an
imperfect vent, during the remainder of the day, in divers secret
slaps upon his pocket, and other such facetious pantomime.  Nor was
it confined to these ebullitions; for besides crushing a bandbox,
with a bonnet in it, he seriously damaged Mr Pecksniff's luggage, by
ardently hauling it down from the top of the house; and in short
evinced, by every means in his power, a lively sense of the favours
he had received from that gentleman and his family.

Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jinkins came home to dinner arm-in-arm; for the
latter gentleman had made half-holiday on purpose; thus gaining an
immense advantage over the youngest gentleman and the rest, whose
time, as it perversely chanced, was all bespoke, until the evening.
The bottle of wine was Mr Pecksniff's treat, and they were very
sociable indeed; though full of lamentations on the necessity of
parting.  While they were in the midst of their enjoyment, old
Anthony and his son were announced; much to the surprise of Mr
Pecksniff, and greatly to the discomfiture of Jinkins.

'Come to say good-bye, you see,' said Anthony, in a low voice, to Mr
Pecksniff, as they took their seats apart at the table, while the
rest conversed among themselves.  'Where's the use of a division
between you and me?  We are the two halves of a pair of scissors,
when apart, Pecksniff; but together we are something.  Eh?'

'Unanimity, my good sir,' rejoined Mr Pecksniff, 'is always
delightful.'

'I don't know about that,' said the old man, 'for there are some
people I would rather differ from than agree with.  But you know my
opinion of you.'

Mr Pecksniff, still having 'hypocrite' in his mind, only replied by
a motion of his head, which was something between an affirmative
bow, and a negative shake.

'Complimentary,' said Anthony.  'Complimentary, upon my word.  It
was an involuntary tribute to your abilities, even at the time; and
it was not a time to suggest compliments either.  But we agreed in
the coach, you know, that we quite understood each other.'

'Oh, quite!' assented Mr Pecksniff, in a manner which implied that
he himself was misunderstood most cruelly, but would not complain.

Anthony glanced at his son as he sat beside Miss Charity, and then
at Mr Pecksniff, and then at his son again, very many times.  It
happened that Mr Pecksniff's glances took a similar direction; but
when he became aware of it, he first cast down his eyes, and then
closed them; as if he were determined that the old man should read
nothing there.

'Jonas is a shrewd lad,' said the old man.

'He appears,' rejoined Mr Pecksniff in his most candid manner, 'to
be very shrewd.'

'And careful,' said the old man.

'And careful, I have no doubt,' returned Mr Pecksniff.

'Look ye!' said Anthony in his ear.  'I think he is sweet upon you
daughter.'

'Tut, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, with his eyes still closed;
'young people--young people--a kind of cousins, too--no more
sweetness than is in that, sir.'

'Why, there is very little sweetness in that, according to our
experience,' returned Anthony.  'Isn't there a trifle more here?'

'Impossible to say,' rejoined Mr Pecksniff.  'Quite impossible!  You
surprise me.'

'Yes, I know that,' said the old man, drily.  'It may last; I mean
the sweetness, not the surprise; and it may die off.  Supposing it
should last, perhaps (you having feathered your nest pretty well,
and I having done the same), we might have a mutual interest in the
matter.'

Mr Pecksniff, smiling gently, was about to speak, but Anthony
stopped him.

'I know what you are going to say.  It's quite unnecessary.  You
have never thought of this for a moment; and in a point so nearly
affecting the happiness of your dear child, you couldn't, as a
tender father, express an opinion; and so forth.  Yes, quite right.
And like you!  But it seems to me, my dear Pecksniff,' added Anthony,
laying his hand upon his sleeve, 'that if you and I kept up the joke
of pretending not to see this, one of us might possibly be placed in
a position of disadvantage; and as I am very unwilling to be that
party myself, you will excuse my taking the liberty of putting the
matter beyond a doubt thus early; and having it distinctly
understood, as it is now, that we do see it, and do know it.  Thank
you for your attention.  We are now upon an equal footing; which is
agreeable to us both, I am sure.'

He rose as he spoke; and giving Mr Pecksniff a nod of intelligence,
moved away from him to where the young people were sitting; leaving
that good man somewhat puzzled and discomfited by such very plain
dealing, and not quite free from a sense of having been foiled in
the exercise of his familiar weapons.

But the night-coach had a punctual character, and it was time to
join it at the office; which was so near at hand that they had
already sent their luggage and arranged to walk.  Thither the whole
party repaired, therefore, after no more delay than sufficed for the
equipment of the Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers.  They found the
coach already at its starting-place, and the horses in; there, too,
were a large majority of the commercial gentlemen, including the
youngest, who was visibly agitated, and in a state of deep mental
dejection.

Nothing could equal the distress of Mrs Todgers in parting from the
young ladies, except the strong emotions with which she bade adieu
to Mr Pecksniff.  Never surely was a pocket-handkerchief taken in
and out of a flat reticule so often as Mrs Todgers's was, as she
stood upon the pavement by the coach-door supported on either side
by a commercial gentleman; and by the sight of the coach-lamps
caught such brief snatches and glimpses of the good man's face, as
the constant interposition of Mr Jinkins allowed.  For Jinkins, to
the last the youngest gentleman's rock a-head in life, stood upon the
coachstep talking to the ladies.  Upon the other step was Mr Jonas,
who maintained that position in right of his cousinship; whereas the
youngest gentleman, who had been first upon the ground, was deep in
the booking-office among the black and red placards, and the
portraits of fast coaches, where he was ignominiously harassed by
porters, and had to contend and strive perpetually with heavy
baggage.  This false position, combined with his nervous excitement,
brought about the very consummation and catastrophe of his miseries;
for when in the moment of parting he aimed a flower, a hothouse
flower that had cost money, at the fair hand of Mercy, it reached,
instead, the coachman on the box, who thanked him kindly, and stuck
it in his buttonhole.

They were off now; and Todgers's was alone again.  The two young
ladies, leaning back in their separate corners, resigned themselves
to their own regretful thoughts.  But Mr Pecksniff, dismissing all
ephemeral considerations of social pleasure and enjoyment,
concentrated his meditations on the one great virtuous purpose
before him, of casting out that ingrate and deceiver, whose presence
yet troubled his domestic hearth, and was a sacrilege upon the
altars of his household gods.



CHAPTER TWELVE

WILL BE SEEN IN THE LONG RUN, IF NOT IN THE SHORT ONE, TO CONCERN
MR PINCH AND OTHERS, NEARLY.  MR PECKSNIFF ASSERTS THE DIGNITY OF
OUTRAGED VIRTUE.  YOUNG MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT FORMS A DESPERATE
RESOLUTION


Mr Pinch and Martin, little dreaming of the stormy weather that
impended, made themselves very comfortable in the Pecksniffian
halls, and improved their friendship daily.  Martin's facility, both
of invention and execution, being remarkable, the grammar-school
proceeded with great vigour; and Tom repeatedly declared, that if
there were anything like certainty in human affairs, or impartiality
in human judges, a design so new and full of merit could not fail to
carry off the first prize when the time of competition arrived.
Without being quite so sanguine himself, Martin had his hopeful
anticipations too; and they served to make him brisk and eager at
his task.

'If I should turn out a great architect, Tom,' said the new pupil
one day, as he stood at a little distance from his drawing, and eyed
it with much complacency, 'I'll tell you what should be one of the
things I'd build.'

'Aye!' cried Tom.  'What?'

'Why, your fortune.'

'No!' said Tom Pinch, quite as much delighted as if the thing were
done.  'Would you though?  How kind of you to say so.'

'I'd build it up, Tom,' returned Martin, 'on such a strong
foundation, that it should last your life--aye, and your children's
lives too, and their children's after them.  I'd be your patron,
Tom.  I'd take you under my protection.  Let me see the man who
should give the cold shoulder to anybody I chose to protect and
patronise, if I were at the top of the tree, Tom!'

'Now, I don't think,' said Mr Pinch, 'upon my word, that I was ever
more gratified than by this.  I really don't.'

'Oh! I mean what I say,' retorted Martin, with a manner as free and
easy in its condescension to, not to say in its compassion for, the
other, as if he were already First Architect in ordinary to all the
Crowned Heads in Europe.  'I'd do it.  I'd provide for you.'

'I am afraid,' said Tom, shaking his head, 'that I should be a
mighty awkward person to provide for.'

'Pooh, pooh!' rejoined Martin.  'Never mind that.  If I took it in
my head to say, "Pinch is a clever fellow; I approve of Pinch;" I
should like to know the man who would venture to put himself in
opposition to me.  Besides, confound it, Tom, you could be useful to
me in a hundred ways.'

'If I were not useful in one or two, it shouldn't be for want of
trying,' said Tom.

'For instance,' pursued Martin, after a short reflection, 'you'd be
a capital fellow, now, to see that my ideas were properly carried
out; and to overlook the works in their progress before they were
sufficiently advanced to be very interesting to ME; and to take all
that sort of plain sailing.  Then you'd be a splendid fellow to show
people over my studio, and to talk about Art to 'em, when I couldn't
be bored myself, and all that kind of thing.  For it would be
devilish creditable, Tom (I'm quite in earnest, I give you my word),
to have a man of your information about one, instead of some
ordinary blockhead.  Oh, I'd take care of you.  You'd be useful,
rely upon it!'

To say that Tom had no idea of playing first fiddle in any social
orchestra, but was always quite satisfied to be set down for the
hundred and fiftieth violin in the band, or thereabouts, is to
express his modesty in very inadequate terms.  He was much
delighted, therefore, by these observations.

'I should be married to her then, Tom, of course,' said Martin.

What was that which checked Tom Pinch so suddenly, in the high flow
of his gladness; bringing the blood into his honest cheeks, and a
remorseful feeling to his honest heart, as if he were unworthy of
his friend's regard?

'I should be married to her then,' said Martin, looking with a smile
towards the light; 'and we should have, I hope, children about us.
They'd be very fond of you, Tom.'

But not a word said Mr Pinch.  The words he would have uttered died
upon his lips, and found a life more spiritual in self-denying
thoughts.

'All the children hereabouts are fond of you, Tom, and mine would
be, of course,' pursued Martin.  'Perhaps I might name one of 'em
after you.  Tom, eh?  Well, I don't know.  Tom's not a bad name.
Thomas Pinch Chuzzlewit.  T. P. C. on his pinafores--no objection
to that, I should say?'

Tom cleared his throat, and smiled.

'SHE would like you, Tom, I know,' said Martin.

'Aye!' cried Tom Pinch, faintly.

'I can tell exactly what she would think of you,' said Martin
leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking through the window-glass
as if he read there what he said; 'I know her so well.  She would
smile, Tom, often at first when you spoke to her, or when she looked
at you--merrily too--but you wouldn't mind that.  A brighter smile
you never saw.'

'No, no,' said Tom.  'I wouldn't mind that.'

'She would be as tender with you, Tom,' said Martin, 'as if you were
a child yourself.  So you are almost, in some things, an't you,
Tom?'

Mr Pinch nodded his entire assent.

'She would always be kind and good-humoured, and glad to see you,'
said Martin; 'and when she found out exactly what sort of fellow you
were (which she'd do very soon), she would pretend to give you
little commissions to execute, and to ask little services of you,
which she knew you were burning to render; so that when she really
pleased you most, she would try to make you think you most pleased
her.  She would take to you uncommonly, Tom; and would understand
you far more delicately than I ever shall; and would often say, I
know, that you were a harmless, gentle, well-intentioned, good
fellow.'

How silent Tom Pinch was!

'In honour of old time,' said Martin, 'and of her having heard you
play the organ in this damp little church down here--for nothing
too--we will have one in the house.  I shall build an architectural
music-room on a plan of my own, and it'll look rather knowing in a
recess at one end.  There you shall play away, Tom, till you tire
yourself; and, as you like to do so in the dark, it shall BE dark;
and many's the summer evening she and I will sit and listen to you,
Tom; be sure of that!'

It may have required a stronger effort on Tom Pinch's part to leave
the seat on which he sat, and shake his friend by both hands, with
nothing but serenity and grateful feeling painted on his face; it
may have required a stronger effort to perform this simple act with
a pure heart, than to achieve many and many a deed to which the
doubtful trumpet blown by Fame has lustily resounded.  Doubtful,
because from its long hovering over scenes of violence, the smoke
and steam of death have clogged the keys of that brave instrument;
and it is not always that its notes are either true or tuneful.

'It's a proof of the kindness of human nature,' said Tom,
characteristically putting himself quite out of sight in the matter,
'that everybody who comes here, as you have done, is more
considerate and affectionate to me than I should have any right to
hope, if I were the most sanguine creature in the world; or should
have any power to express, if I were the most eloquent.  It really
overpowers me.  But trust me,' said Tom, 'that I am not ungrateful--
that I never forget--and that if I can ever prove the truth of my
words to you, I will.'

'That's all right,' observed Martin, leaning back in his chair with
a hand in each pocket, and yawning drearily.  'Very fine talking,
Tom; but I'm at Pecksniff's, I remember, and perhaps a mile or so
out of the high-road to fortune just at this minute.  So you've
heard again this morning from what's his name, eh?'

'Who may that be?' asked Tom, seeming to enter a mild protest on
behalf of the dignity of an absent person.

'YOU know.  What is it?  Northkey.'

'Westlock,' rejoined Tom, in rather a louder tone than usual.

'Ah! to be sure,' said Martin, 'Westlock.  I knew it was something
connected with a point of the compass and a door.  Well! and what
says Westlock?'

'Oh! he has come into his property,' answered Tom, nodding his head,
and smiling.

'He's a lucky dog,' said Martin.  'I wish it were mine instead.  Is
that all the mystery you were to tell me?'

'No,' said Tom; 'not all.'

'What's the rest?' asked Martin.

'For the matter of that,' said Tom, 'it's no mystery, and you won't
think much of it; but it's very pleasant to me.  John always used to
say when he was here, "Mark my words, Pinch.  When my father's
executors cash up"--he used strange expressions now and then, but
that was his way.'

'Cash-up's a very good expression,' observed Martin, 'when other
people don't apply it to you.  Well!--What a slow fellow you are,
Pinch!'

'Yes, I am I know,' said Tom; 'but you'll make me nervous if you
tell me so.  I'm afraid you have put me out a little now, for I
forget what I was going to say.'

'When John's father's executors cashed up,' said Martin impatiently.

'Oh yes, to be sure,' cried Tom; 'yes.  "Then," says John, "I'll
give you a dinner, Pinch, and come down to Salisbury on purpose."
Now, when John wrote the other day--the morning Pecksniff left, you
know--he said his business was on the point of being immediately
settled, and as he was to receive his money directly, when could I
meet him at Salisbury?  I wrote and said, any day this week; and I
told him besides, that there was a new pupil here, and what a fine
fellow you were, and what friends we had become.  Upon which John
writes back this letter'--Tom produced it--'fixes to-morrow; sends
his compliments to you; and begs that we three may have the pleasure
of dining together; not at the house where you and I were, either;
but at the very first hotel in the town.  Read what he says.'

'Very well,' said Martin, glancing over it with his customary
coolness; 'much obliged to him.  I'm agreeable.'

Tom could have wished him to be a little more astonished, a little
more pleased, or in some form or other a little more interested in
such a great event.  But he was perfectly self-possessed; and falling
into his favourite solace of whistling, took another turn at the
grammar-school, as if nothing at all had happened.

Mr Pecksniff's horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal,
only to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by
some person distinctly nominated for the time being to that high
office by himself, the two young men agreed to walk to Salisbury;
and so, when the time came, they set off on foot; which was, after
all, a better mode of travelling than in the gig, as the weather was
very cold and very dry.

Better!  A rare strong, hearty, healthy walk--four statute miles an
hour--preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking,
scraping, creaking, villanous old gig?  Why, the two things will not
admit of comparison.  It is an insult to the walk, to set them side
by side.  Where is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a
man's blood, unless when, putting him in danger of his neck, it
awakened in his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a
tingling heat, much more peculiar than agreeable?  When did a gig
ever sharpen anybody's wits and energies, unless it was when the
horse bolted, and, crashing madly down a steep hill with a stone
wall at the bottom, his desperate circumstances suggested to the
only gentleman left inside, some novel and unheard-of mode of
dropping out behind?  Better than the gig!

The air was cold, Tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would
it have been more genial in the gig?  The blacksmith's fire burned
very bright, and leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm;
but would it have been less tempting, looked at from the clammy
cushions of a gig?  The wind blew keenly, nipping the features of
the hardy wight who fought his way along; blinding him with his own
hair if he had enough to it, and wintry dust if he hadn't; stopping
his breath as though he had been soused in a cold bath; tearing
aside his wrappings-up, and whistling in the very marrow of his
bones; but it would have done all this a hundred times more fiercely
to a man in a gig, wouldn't it?  A fig for gigs!

Better than the gig!  When were travellers by wheels and hoofs seen
with such red-hot cheeks as those? when were they so good-
humouredly and merrily bloused? when did their laughter ring upon
the air, as they turned them round, what time the stronger gusts
came sweeping up; and, facing round again as they passed by, dashed
on, in such a glow of ruddy health as nothing could keep pace with,
but the high spirits it engendered?  Better than the gig!  Why, here
is a man in a gig coming the same way now.  Look at him as he passes
his whip into his left hand, chafes his numbed right fingers on his
granite leg, and beats those marble toes of his upon the foot-board.
Ha, ha, ha!  Who would exchange this rapid hurry of the blood for
yonder stagnant misery, though its pace were twenty miles for one?

Better than the gig!  No man in a gig could have such interest in the
milestones.  No man in a gig could see, or feel, or think, like
merry users of their legs.  How, as the wind sweeps on, upon these
breezy downs, it tracks its flight in darkening ripples on the
grass, and smoothest shadows on the hills!  Look round and round upon
this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how
beautiful the shadows are!  Alas! it is the nature of their kind to
be so.  The loveliest things in life, Tom, are but shadows; and they
come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these!

Another mile, and then begins a fall of snow, making the crow, who
skims away so close above the ground to shirk the wind, a blot of
ink upon the landscape.  But though it drives and drifts against
them as they walk, stiffening on their skirts, and freezing in the
lashes of their eyes, they wouldn't have it fall more sparingly, no,
not so much as by a single flake, although they had to go a score of
miles.  And, lo! the towers of the Old Cathedral rise before them,
even now! and by-and-bye they come into the sheltered streets, made
strangely silent by their white carpet; and so to the Inn for which
they are bound; where they present such flushed and burning faces to
the cold waiter, and are so brimful of vigour, that he almost feels
assaulted by their presence; and, having nothing to oppose to the
attack (being fresh, or rather stale, from the blazing fire in the
coffee-room), is quite put out of his pale countenance.

A famous Inn! the hall a very grove of dead game, and dangling
joints of mutton; and in one corner an illustrious larder, with
glass doors, developing cold fowls and noble joints, and tarts
wherein the raspberry jam coyly withdrew itself, as such a precious
creature should, behind a lattice work of pastry.  And behold, on
the first floor, at the court-end of the house, in a room with all
the window-curtains drawn, a fire piled half-way up the chimney,
plates warming before it, wax candles gleaming everywhere, and a
table spread for three, with silver and glass enough for thirty--
John Westlock; not the old John of Pecksniff's, but a proper
gentleman; looking another and a grander person, with the
consciousness of being his own master and having money in the bank;
and yet in some respects the old John too, for he seized Tom Pinch
by both his hands the instant he appeared, and fairly hugged him, in
his cordial welcome.

'And this,' said John, 'is Mr Chuzzlewit.  I am very glad to see
him!'--John had an off-hand manner of his own; so they shook hands
warmly, and were friends in no time.

'Stand off a moment, Tom,' cried the old pupil, laying one hand on
each of Mr Pinch's shoulders, and holding him out at arm's length.
'Let me look at you!  Just the same!  Not a bit changed!'

'Why, it's not so very long ago, you know,' said Tom Pinch, 'after
all.'

'It seems an age to me,' cried John.  'and so it ought to seem to
you, you dog.'  And then he pushed Tom down into the easiest chair,
and clapped him on the back so heartily, and so like his old self in
their old bedroom at old Pecksniff's that it was a toss-up with Tom
Pinch whether he should laugh or cry.  Laughter won it; and they all
three laughed together.

'I have ordered everything for dinner, that we used to say we'd
have, Tom,' observed John Westlock.

'No!' said Tom Pinch.  'Have you?'

'Everything.  Don't laugh, if you can help it, before the waiters.
I couldn't when I was ordering it.  It's like a dream.'

John was wrong there, because nobody ever dreamed such soup as was
put upon the table directly afterwards; or such fish; or such
side-dishes; or such a top and bottom; or such a course of birds and
sweets; or in short anything approaching the reality of that
entertainment at ten-and-sixpence a head, exclusive of wines.  As to
THEM, the man who can dream such iced champagne, such claret, port,
or sherry, had better go to bed and stop there.

But perhaps the finest feature of the banquet was, that nobody was
half so much amazed by everything as John himself, who in his high
delight was constantly bursting into fits of laughter, and then
endeavouring to appear preternaturally solemn, lest the waiters
should conceive he wasn't used to it.  Some of the things they
brought him to carve, were such outrageous practical jokes, though,
that it was impossible to stand it; and when Tom Pinch insisted, in
spite of the deferential advice of an attendant, not only on
breaking down the outer wall of a raised pie with a tablespoon, but
on trying to eat it afterwards, John lost all dignity, and sat
behind the gorgeous dish-cover at the head of the table, roaring to
that extent that he was audible in the kitchen.  Nor had he the
least objection to laugh at himself, as he demonstrated when they
had all three gathered round the fire and the dessert was on the
table; at which period the head waiter inquired with respectful
solicitude whether that port, being a light and tawny wine, was
suited to his taste, or whether he would wish to try a fruity port
with greater body.  To this John gravely answered that he was well
satisfied with what he had, which he esteemed, as one might say, a
pretty tidy vintage; for which the waiter thanked him and withdrew.
And then John told his friends, with a broad grin, that he supposed
it was all right, but he didn't know; and went off into a perfect
shout.

They were very merry and full of enjoyment the whole time, but not
the least pleasant part of the festival was when they all three sat
about the fire, cracking nuts, drinking wine and talking cheerfully.
It happened that Tom Pinch had a word to say to his friend the
organist's assistant, and so deserted his warm corner for a few
minutes at this season, lest it should grow too late; leaving the
other two young men together.

They drank his health in his absence, of course; and John Westlock
took that opportunity of saying, that he had never had even a
peevish word with Tom during the whole term of their residence in Mr
Pecksniff's house.  This naturally led him to dwell upon Tom's
character, and to hint that Mr Pecksniff understood it pretty well.
He only hinted this, and very distantly; knowing that it pained Tom
Pinch to have that gentleman disparaged, and thinking it would be as
well to leave the new pupil to his own discoveries.

'Yes,' said Martin.  'It's impossible to like Pinch better than I
do, or to do greater justice to his good qualities.  He is the most
willing fellow I ever saw.'

'He's rather too willing,' observed John, who was quick in
observation.  'It's quite a fault in him.'

'So it is,' said Martin.  'Very true.  There was a fellow only a
week or so ago--a Mr Tigg--who borrowed all the money he had, on a
promise to repay it in a few days.  It was but half a sovereign, to
be sure; but it's well it was no more, for he'll never see it
again.'

'Poor fellow!' said John, who had been very attentive to these few
words.  'Perhaps you have not had an opportunity of observing that,
in his own pecuniary transactions, Tom's proud.'

'You don't say so!  No, I haven't.  What do you mean?  Won't he
borrow?'

John Westlock shook his head.

'That's very odd,' said Martin, setting down his empty glass.  'He's
a strange compound, to be sure.'

'As to receiving money as a gift,' resumed John Westlock; 'I think
he'd die first.'

'He's made up of simplicity,' said Martin.  'Help yourself.'

'You, however,' pursued John, filling his own glass, and looking at
his companion with some curiosity, 'who are older than the majority
of Mr Pecksniff's assistants, and have evidently had much more
experience, understand him, I have no doubt, and see how liable he
is to be imposed upon.'

'Certainly,' said Martin, stretching out his legs, and holding his
wine between his eye and the light.  'Mr Pecksniff knows that too.
So do his daughters.  Eh?'

John Westlock smiled, but made no answer.

'By the bye,' said Martin, 'that reminds me.  What's your opinion of
Pecksniff?  How did he use you?  What do you think of him now?--
Coolly, you know, when it's all over?'

'Ask Pinch,' returned the old pupil.  'He knows what my sentiments
used to be upon the subject.  They are not changed, I assure you.'

'No, no,' said Martin, 'I'd rather have them from you.'

'But Pinch says they are unjust,' urged John with a smile.

'Oh! well!  Then I know what course they take beforehand,' said
Martin; 'and, therefore, you can have no delicacy in speaking
plainly.  Don't mind me, I beg.  I don't like him I tell you
frankly.  I am with him because it happens from particular
circumstances to suit my convenience.  I have some ability, I
believe, in that way; and the obligation, if any, will most likely
be on his side and not mine.  At the lowest mark, the balance will
be even, and there'll be no obligation at all.  So you may talk to
me, as if I had no connection with him.'

'If you press me to give my opinion--' returned John Westlock.

'Yes, I do,' said Martin.  'You'll oblige me.'

'--I should say,' resumed the other, 'that he is the most consummate
scoundrel on the face of the earth.'

'Oh!' said Martin, as coolly as ever.  'That's rather strong.'

'Not stronger than he deserves,' said John; 'and if he called upon
me to express my opinion of him to his face, I would do so in the
very same terms, without the least qualification.  His treatment of
Pinch is in itself enough to justify them; but when I look back upon
the five years I passed in that house, and remember the hyprocrisy,
the knavery, the meannesses, the false pretences, the lip service of
that fellow, and his trading in saintly semblances for the very
worst realities; when I remember how often I was the witness of all
this and how often I was made a kind of party to it, by the fact of
being there, with him for my teacher; I swear to you that I almost
despise myself.'

Martin drained his glass, and looked at the fire.

'I don't mean to say that is a right feeling,' pursued John Westlock
'because it was no fault of mine; and I can quite understand--you
for instance, fully appreciating him, and yet being forced by
circumstances to remain there.  I tell you simply what my feeling
is; and even now, when, as you say, it's all over; and when I have
the satisfaction of knowing that he always hated me, and we always
quarrelled, and I always told him my mind; even now, I feel sorry
that I didn't yield to an impulse I often had, as a boy, of running
away from him and going abroad.'

'Why abroad?' asked Martin, turning his eyes upon the speaker.

'In search,' replied John Westlock, shrugging his shoulders, 'of the
livelihood I couldn't have earned at home.  There would have been
something spirited in that.  But, come!  Fill your glass, and let us
forget him.'

'As soon as you please,' said Martin.  'In reference to myself and
my connection with him, I have only to repeat what I said before.  I
have taken my own way with him so far, and shall continue to do so,
even more than ever; for the fact is, to tell you the truth, that I
believe he looks to me to supply his defects, and couldn't afford to
lose me.  I had a notion of that in first going there.  Your
health!'

'Thank you,' returned young Westlock.  'Yours.  And may the new
pupil turn out as well as you can desire!'

'What new pupil?'

'The fortunate youth, born under an auspicious star,' returned John
Westlock, laughing; 'whose parents, or guardians, are destined to be
hooked by the advertisement.  What!  Don't you know that he has
advertised again?'

'No.'

'Oh, yes.  I read it just before dinner in the old newspaper.  I
know it to be his; having some reason to remember the style.  Hush!
Here's Pinch.  Strange, is it not, that the more he likes Pecksniff
(if he can like him better than he does), the greater reason one has
to like HIM?  Not a word more, or we shall spoil his whole
enjoyment.'

Tom entered as the words were spoken, with a radiant smile upon his
face; and rubbing his hands, more from a sense of delight than
because he was cold (for he had been running fast), sat down in his
warm corner again, and was as happy as only Tom Pinch could be.
There is no other simile that will express his state of mind.

'And so,' he said, when he had gazed at his friend for some time in
silent pleasure, 'so you really are a gentleman at last, John.
Well, to be sure!'

'Trying to be, Tom; trying to be,' he rejoined good-humouredly.
'There is no saying what I may turn out, in time.'

'I suppose you wouldn't carry your own box to the mail now?' said
Tom Pinch, smiling; 'although you lost it altogether by not taking
it.'

'Wouldn't I?' retorted John.  'That's all you know about it, Pinch.
It must be a very heavy box that I wouldn't carry to get away from
Pecksniff's, Tom.'

'There!' cried Pinch, turning to Martin, 'I told you so.  The great
fault in his character is his injustice to Pecksniff.  You mustn't
mind a word he says on that subject.  His prejudice is most
extraordinary.'

'The absence of anything like prejudice on Tom's part, you know,'
said John Westlock, laughing heartily, as he laid his hand on Mr
Pinch's shoulder, 'is perfectly wonderful.  If one man ever had a
profound knowledge of another, and saw him in a true light, and in
his own proper colours, Tom has that knowledge of Mr Pecksniff.'

'Why, of course I have,' cried Tom.  'That's exactly what I have so
often said to you.  If you knew him as well as I do--John, I'd give
almost any money to bring that about--you'd admire, respect, and
reverence him.  You couldn't help it.  Oh, how you wounded his
feelings when you went away!'

'If I had known whereabout his feelings lay,' retorted young
Westlock, 'I'd have done my best, Tom, with that end in view, you
may depend upon it.  But as I couldn't wound him in what he has not,
and in what he knows nothing of, except in his ability to probe them
to the quick in other people, I am afraid I can lay no claim to your
compliment.'

Mr Pinch, being unwilling to protract a discussion which might
possibly corrupt Martin, forbore to say anything in reply to this
speech; but John Westlock, whom nothing short of an iron gag would
have silenced when Mr Pecksniff's merits were once in question,
continued notwithstanding.

'HIS feelings!  Oh, he's a tender-hearted man.  HIS feelings!  Oh,
he's a considerate, conscientious, self-examining, moral vagabond,
he is!  HIS feelings!  Oh!--what's the matter, Tom?'

Mr Pinch was by this time erect upon the hearth-rug, buttoning his
coat with great energy.

'I can't bear it,' said Tom, shaking his head.  'No.  I really
cannot.  You must excuse me, John.  I have a great esteem and
friendship for you; I love you very much; and have been perfectly
charmed and overjoyed to-day, to find you just the same as ever; but
I cannot listen to this.'

'Why, it's my old way, Tom; and you say yourself that you are glad
to find me unchanged.'

'Not in this respect,' said Tom Pinch.  'You must excuse me, John.
I cannot, really; I will not.  It's very wrong; you should be more
guarded in your expressions.  It was bad enough when you and I used
to be alone together, but under existing circumstances, I can't
endure it, really.  No.  I cannot, indeed.'

'You are quite right!' exclaimed the other, exchanging looks with
Martin.  'and I am quite wrong, Tom.  I don't know how the deuce we
fell on this unlucky theme.  I beg your pardon with all my heart.'

'You have a free and manly temper, I know,' said Pinch; 'and
therefore, your being so ungenerous in this one solitary instance,
only grieves me the more.  It's not my pardon you have to ask, John.
You have done ME nothing but kindnesses.'

'Well!  Pecksniff's pardon then,' said young Westlock.  'Anything
Tom, or anybody.  Pecksniff's pardon--will that do?  Here! let us
drink Pecksniff's health!'

'Thank you,' cried Tom, shaking hands with him eagerly, and filling
a bumper.  'Thank you; I'll drink it with all my heart, John.  Mr
Pecksniff's health, and prosperity to him!'

John Westlock echoed the sentiment, or nearly so; for he drank Mr
Pecksniff's health, and Something to him--but what, was not quite
audible.  The general unanimity being then completely restored, they
drew their chairs closer round the fire, and conversed in perfect
harmony and enjoyment until bed-time.

No slight circumstance, perhaps, could have better illustrated the
difference of character between John Westlock and Martin Chuzzlewit,
than the manner in which each of the young men contemplated Tom
Pinch, after the little rupture just described.  There was a certain
amount of jocularity in the looks of both, no doubt, but there all
resemblance ceased.  The old pupil could not do enough to show Tom
how cordially he felt towards him, and his friendly regard seemed of
a graver and more thoughtful kind than before.  The new one, on the
other hand, had no impulse but to laugh at the recollection of Tom's
extreme absurdity; and mingled with his amusement there was
something slighting and contemptuous, indicative, as it appeared, of
his opinion that Mr Pinch was much too far gone in simplicity to be
admitted as the friend, on serious and equal terms, of any rational
man.

John Westlock, who did nothing by halves, if he could help it, had
provided beds for his two guests in the hotel; and after a very
happy evening, they retired.  Mr Pinch was sitting on the side of
his bed with his cravat and shoes off, ruminating on the manifold
good qualities of his old friend, when he was interrupted by a knock
at his chamber door, and the voice of John himself.

'You're not asleep yet, are you, Tom?'

'Bless you, no! not I.  I was thinking of you,' replied Tom, opening
the door.  'Come in.'

'I am not going to detail you,' said John; 'but I have forgotten all
the evening a little commission I took upon myself; and I am afraid
I may forget it again, if I fail to discharge it at once.  You know
a Mr Tigg, Tom, I believe?'

'Tigg!' cried Tom.  'Tigg!  The gentleman who borrowed some money of
me?'

'Exactly,' said John Westlock.  'He begged me to present his
compliments, and to return it with many thanks.  Here it is.  I
suppose it's a good one, but he is rather a doubtful kind of
customer, Tom.'

Mr Pinch received the little piece of gold with a face whose
brightness might have shamed the metal; and said he had no fear
about that.  He was glad, he added, to find Mr Tigg so prompt and
honourable in his dealings; very glad.

'Why, to tell you the truth, Tom,' replied his friend, 'he is not
always so.  If you'll take my advice, you'll avoid him as much as
you can, in the event of your encountering him again.  And by no
means, Tom--pray bear this in mind, for I am very serious--by no
means lend him money any more.'

'Aye, aye!' said Tom, with his eyes wide open.

'He is very far from being a reputable acquaintance,' returned young
Westlock; 'and the more you let him know you think so, the better
for you, Tom.'

'I say, John,' quoth Mr Pinch, as his countenance fell, and he shook
his head in a dejected manner.  'I hope you are not getting into bad
company.'

'No, no,' he replied laughing.  'Don't be uneasy on that score.'

'Oh, but I AM uneasy,' said Tom Pinch; 'I can't help it, when I hear
you talking in that way.  If Mr Tigg is what you describe him to be,
you have no business to know him, John.  You may laugh, but I don't
consider it by any means a laughing matter, I assure you.'

'No, no,' returned his friend, composing his features.  'Quite
right.  It is not, certainly.'

'You know, John,' said Mr Pinch, 'your very good nature and kindness
of heart make you thoughtless, and you can't be too careful on such
a point as this.  Upon my word, if I thought you were falling among
bad companions, I should be quite wretched, for I know how difficult
you would find it to shake them off.  I would much rather have lost
this money, John, than I would have had it back again on such
terms.'

'I tell you, my dear good old fellow,' cried his friend, shaking him
to and fro with both hands, and smiling at him with a cheerful, open
countenance, that would have carried conviction to a mind much more
suspicious than Tom's; 'I tell you there is no danger.'

'Well!' cried Tom, 'I am glad to hear it; I am overjoyed to hear it.
I am sure there is not, when you say so in that manner.  You won't
take it ill, John, that I said what I did just now!'

'Ill!' said the other, giving his hand a hearty squeeze; 'why what
do you think I am made of?  Mr Tigg and I are not on such an
intimate footing that you need be at all uneasy, I give you my
solemn assurance of that, Tom.  You are quite comfortable now?'

'Quite,' said Tom.

'Then once more, good night!'

'Good night!' cried Tom; 'and such pleasant dreams to you as should
attend the sleep of the best fellow in the world!'

'--Except Pecksniff,' said his friend, stopping at the door for a
moment, and looking gayly back.

'Except Pecksniff,' answered Tom, with great gravity; 'of course.'

And thus they parted for the night; John Westlock full of light-
heartedness and good humour, and poor Tom Pinch quite satisfied;
though still, as he turned over on his side in bed, he muttered to
himself, 'I really do wish, for all that, though, that he wasn't
acquainted with Mr Tigg.'

They breakfasted together very early next morning, for the two young
men desired to get back again in good season; and John Westlock was
to return to London by the coach that day.  As he had some hours to
spare, he bore them company for three or four miles on their walk,
and only parted from them at last in sheer necessity.  The parting
was an unusually hearty one, not only as between him and Tom Pinch,
but on the side of Martin also, who had found in the old pupil a
very different sort of person from the milksop he had prepared
himself to expect.

Young Westlock stopped upon a rising ground, when he had gone a
little distance, and looked back.  They were walking at a brisk
pace, and Tom appeared to be talking earnestly.  Martin had taken
off his greatcoat, the wind being now behind them, and carried it
upon his arm.  As he looked, he saw Tom relieve him of it, after a
faint resistance, and, throwing it upon his own, encumber himself
with the weight of both.  This trivial incident impressed the old
pupil mightily, for he stood there, gazing after them, until they
were hidden from his view; when he shook his head, as if he were
troubled by some uneasy reflection, and thoughtfully retraced his
steps to Salisbury.

In the meantime, Martin and Tom pursued their way, until they
halted, safe and sound, at Mr Pecksniff's house, where a brief
epistle from that good gentleman to Mr Pinch announced the family's
return by that night's coach.  As it would pass the corner of the
lane at about six o'clock in the morning, Mr Pecksniff requested
that the gig might be in waiting at the finger-post about that time,
together with a cart for the luggage.  And to the end that he might
be received with the greater honour, the young men agreed to rise
early, and be upon the spot themselves.

It was the least cheerful day they had yet passed together.  Martin
was out of spirits and out of humour, and took every opportunity of
comparing his condition and prospects with those of young Westlock;
much to his own disadvantage always.  This mood of his depressed
Tom; and neither that morning's parting, nor yesterday's dinner,
helped to mend the matter.  So the hours dragged on heavily enough;
and they were glad to go to bed early.

They were not quite so glad to get up again at half-past four
o'clock, in all the shivering discomfort of a dark winter's morning;
but they turned out punctually, and were at the finger-post full
half-an-hour before the appointed time.  It was not by any means a
lively morning, for the sky was black and cloudy, and it rained
hard; but Martin said there was some satisfaction in seeing that
brute of a horse (by this, he meant Mr Pecksniff's Arab steed)
getting very wet; and that he rejoiced, on his account, that it
rained so fast.  From this it may be inferred that Martin's spirits
had not improved, as indeed they had not; for while he and Mr Pinch
stood waiting under a hedge, looking at the rain, the gig, the cart,
and its reeking driver, he did nothing but grumble; and, but that it
is indispensable to any dispute that there should be two parties to
it, he would certainly have picked a quarrel with Tom.

At length the noise of wheels was faintly audible in the distance
and presently the coach came splashing through the mud and mire with
one miserable outside passenger crouching down among wet straw,
under a saturated umbrella; and the coachman, guard, and horses, in
a fellowship of dripping wretchedness.  Immediately on its stopping,
Mr Pecksniff let down the window-glass and hailed Tom Pinch.

'Dear me, Mr Pinch!  Is it possible that you are out upon this very
inclement morning?'

'Yes, sir,' cried Tom, advancing eagerly, 'Mr Chuzzlewit and I,
sir.'

'Oh!' said Mr Pecksniff, looking not so much at Martin as at the
spot on which he stood.  'Oh!  Indeed.  Do me the favour to see to
the trunks, if you please, Mr Pinch.'

Then Mr Pecksniff descended, and helped his daughters to alight; but
neighter he nor the young ladies took the slightest notice of Martin,
who had advanced to offer his assistance, but was repulsed by Mr
Pecksniff's standing immediately before his person, with his back
towards him.  In the same manner, and in profound silence, Mr
Pecksniff handed his daughters into the gig; and following himself
and taking the reins, drove off home.

Lost in astonishment, Martin stood staring at the coach, and when
the coach had driven away, at Mr Pinch, and the luggage, until the
cart moved off too; when he said to Tom:

'Now will you have the goodness to tell me what THIS portends?'

'What?' asked Tom.

'This fellow's behaviour.  Mr Pecksniff's, I mean.  You saw it?'

'No.  Indeed I did not,' cried Tom.  'I was busy with the trunks.'

'It is no matter,' said Martin.  'Come!  Let us make haste back!'
And without another word started off at such a pace, that Tom
had some difficulty in keeping up with him.

He had no care where he went, but walked through little heaps of mud
and little pools of water with the utmost indifference; looking
straight before him, and sometimes laughing in a strange manner
within himself.  Tom felt that anything he could say would only
render him the more obstinate, and therefore trusted to Mr
Pecksniff's manner when they reached the house, to remove the
mistaken impression under which he felt convinced so great a
favourite as the new pupil must unquestionably be labouring.  But he
was not a little amazed himself, when they did reach it, and entered
the parlour where Mr Pecksniff was sitting alone before the fire,
drinking some hot tea, to find that instead of taking favourable
notice of his relative and keeping him, Mr Pinch, in the background,
he did exactly the reverse, and was so lavish in his attentions to
Tom, that Tom was thoroughly confounded.

'Take some tea, Mr Pinch--take some tea,' said Pecksniff, stirring
the fire.  'You must be very cold and damp.  Pray take some tea, and
come into a warm place, Mr Pinch.'

Tom saw that Martin looked at Mr Pecksniff as though he could have
easily found it in his heart to give HIM an invitation to a very
warm place; but he was quite silent, and standing opposite that
gentleman at the table, regarded him attentively.

'Take a chair, Pinch,' said Pecksniff.  'Take a chair, if you
please.  How have things gone on in our absence, Mr Pinch?'

'You--you will be very much pleased with the grammar-school, sir,'
said Tom.  'It's nearly finished.'

'If you will have the goodness, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, waving
his hand and smiling, 'we will not discuss anything connected with
that question at present.  What have YOU been doing, Thomas, humph?'

Mr Pinch looked from master to pupil, and from pupil to master, and
was so perplexed and dismayed that he wanted presence of mind to
answer the question.  In this awkward interval, Mr Pecksniff (who
was perfectly conscious of Martin's gaze, though he had never once
glanced towards him) poked the fire very much, and when he couldn't
do that any more, drank tea assiduously.

'Now, Mr Pecksniff,' said Martin at last, in a very quiet voice, 'if
you have sufficiently refreshed and recovered yourself, I shall be
glad to hear what you mean by this treatment of me.'

'And what,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning his eyes on Tom Pinch, even
more placidly and gently than before, 'what have YOU been doing,
Thomas, humph?'

When he had repeated this inquiry, he looked round the walls of the
room as if he were curious to see whether any nails had been left
there by accident in former times.

Tom was almost at his wit's end what to say between the two, and had
already made a gesture as if he would call Mr Pecksniff's attention
to the gentleman who had last addressed him, when Martin saved him
further trouble, by doing so himself.

'Mr Pecksniff,' he said, softly rapping the table twice or thrice,
and moving a step or two nearer, so that he could have touched him
with his hand; 'you heard what I said just now.  Do me the favour to
reply, if you please.  I ask you'--he raised his voice a little
here--'what you mean by this?'

'I will talk to you, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff in a severe voice, as
he looked at him for the first time, 'presently.'

'You are very obliging,' returned Martin; 'presently will not do.  I
must trouble you to talk to me at once.'

Mr Pecksniff made a feint of being deeply interested in his
pocketbook, but it shook in his hands; he trembled so.

'Now,' retorted Martin, rapping the table again.  'Now.  Presently
will not do.  Now!'

'Do you threaten me, sir?' cried Mr Pecksniff.

Martin looked at him, and made no answer; but a curious observer
might have detected an ominous twitching at his mouth, and perhaps
an involuntary attraction of his right hand in the direction of Mr
Pecksniff's cravat.

'I lament to be obliged to say, sir,' resumed Mr Pecksniff, 'that it
would be quite in keeping with your character if you did threaten
me.  You have deceived me.  You have imposed upon a nature which you
knew to be confiding and unsuspicious.  You have obtained admission,
sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, rising, 'to this house, on perverted
statements and on false pretences.'

'Go on,' said Martin, with a scornful smile.  'I understand you now.
What more?'

'Thus much more, sir,' cried Mr Pecksniff, trembling from head to
foot, and trying to rub his hands, as though he were only cold.
'Thus much more, if you force me to publish your shame before a
third party, which I was unwilling and indisposed to do.  This lowly
roof, sir, must not be contaminated by the presence of one who has
deceived, and cruelly deceived, an honourable, beloved, venerated,
and venerable gentleman; and who wisely suppressed that deceit from
me when he sought my protection and favour, knowing that, humble as
I am, I am an honest man, seeking to do my duty in this carnal
universe, and setting my face against all vice and treachery.  I
weep for your depravity, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'I mourn over your
corruption, I pity your voluntary withdrawal of yourself from the
flowery paths of purity and peace;' here he struck himself upon his
breast, or moral garden; 'but I cannot have a leper and a serpent
for an inmate.  Go forth,' said Mr Pecksniff, stretching out his
hand: 'go forth, young man!  Like all who know you, I renounce you!'

With what intention Martin made a stride forward at these words, it
is impossible to say.  It is enough to know that Tom Pinch caught
him in his arms, and that, at the same moment, Mr Pecksniff stepped
back so hastily, that he missed his footing, tumbled over a chair,
and fell in a sitting posture on the ground; where he remained
without an effort to get up again, with his head in a corner,
perhaps considering it the safest place.

'Let me go, Pinch!' cried Martin, shaking him away.  'Why do you
hold me?  Do you think a blow could make him a more abject creature
than he is?  Do you think that if I spat upon him, I could degrade
him to a lower level than his own?  Look at him.  Look at him,
Pinch!'

Mr Pinch involuntarily did so.  Mr Pecksniff sitting, as has been
already mentioned, on the carpet, with his head in an acute angle of
the wainscot, and all the damage and detriment of an uncomfortable
journey about him, was not exactly a model of all that is
prepossessing and dignified in man, certainly.  Still he WAS
Pecksniff; it was impossible to deprive him of that unique and
paramount appeal to Tom.  And he returned Tom's glance, as if he
would have said, 'Aye, Mr Pinch, look at me!  Here I am!  You know
what the Poet says about an honest man; and an honest man is one of
the few great works that can be seen for nothing!  Look at me!'

'I tell you,' said Martin, 'that as he lies there, disgraced,
bought, used; a cloth for dirty hands, a mat for dirty feet, a
lying, fawning, servile hound, he is the very last and worst among
the vermin of the world.  And mark me, Pinch!  The day will come--he
knows it; see it written on his face, while I speak!--when even you
will find him out, and will know him as I do, and as he knows I do.
HE renounce ME!  Cast your eyes on the Renouncer, Pinch, and be the
wiser for the recollection!'

He pointed at him as he spoke, with unutterable contempt, and
flinging his hat upon his head, walked from the room and from the
house.  He went so rapidly that he was already clear of the village,
when he heard Tom Pinch calling breathlessly after him in the
distance.

'Well! what now?' he said, when Tom came up.

'Dear, dear!' cried Tom, 'are you going?'

'Going!' he echoed.  'Going!'

'I didn't so much mean that, as were you going now at once--in this
bad weather--on foot--without your clothes--with no money?' cried
Tom.

'Yes,' he answered sternly, 'I am.'

'And where?' cried Tom.  'Oh where will you go?'

'I don't know,' he said.  'Yes, I do.  I'll go to America!'

'No, no,' cried Tom, in a kind of agony.  'Don't go there.  Pray
don't.  Think better of it.  Don't be so dreadfully regardless of
yourself.  Don't go to America!'

'My mind is made up,' he said.  'Your friend was right.  I'll go to
America.  God bless you, Pinch!'

'Take this!' cried Tom, pressing a book upon him in great agitation.
'I must make haste back, and can't say anything I would.  Heaven be
with you.  Look at the leaf I have turned down.  Good-bye, good-bye!'

The simple fellow wrung him by the hand, with tears stealing down
his cheeks; and they parted hurriedly upon their separate ways.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHOWING WHAT BECAME OF MARTIN AND HIS DESPARATE RESOLVE, AFTER HE
LEFT MR PECKSNIFF'S HOUSE; WHAT PERSONS HE ENCOUNTERED; WHAT
ANXIETIES HE SUFFERED; AND WHAT NEWS HE HEARD


Carrying Tom Pinch's book quite unconsciously under his arm, and not
even buttoning his coat as a protection against the heavy rain,
Martin went doggedly forward at the same quick pace, until he had
passed the finger-post, and was on the high road to London.  He
slackened very little in his speed even then, but he began to think,
and look about him, and to disengage his senses from the coil of
angry passions which hitherto had held them prisoner.

It must be confessed that, at that moment, he had no very agreeable
employment either for his moral or his physical perceptions.  The
day was dawning from a patch of watery light in the east, and sullen
clouds came driving up before it, from which the rain descended in a
thick, wet mist.  It streamed from every twig and bramble in the
hedge; made little gullies in the path; ran down a hundred channels
in the road; and punched innumerable holes into the face of every
pond and gutter.  It fell with an oozy, slushy sound among the
grass; and made a muddy kennel of every furrow in the ploughed
fields.  No living creature was anywhere to be seen.  The prospect
could hardly have been more desolate if animated nature had been
dissolved in water, and poured down upon the earth again in that
form.

The range of view within the solitary traveller was quite as
cheerless as the scene without.  Friendless and penniless; incensed
to the last degree; deeply wounded in his pride and self-love; full
of independent schemes, and perfectly destitute of any means of
realizing them; his most vindictive enemy might have been satisfied
with the extent of his troubles.  To add to his other miseries, he
was by this time sensible of being wet to the skin, and cold at his
very heart.

In this deplorable condition he remembered Mr Pinch's book; more
because it was rather troublesome to carry, than from any hope of
being comforted by that parting gift.  He looked at the dingy
lettering on the back, and finding it to be an odd volume of the
'Bachelor of Salamanca,' in the French tongue, cursed Tom Pinch's
folly twenty times.  He was on the point of throwing it away, in his
ill-humour and vexation, when he bethought himself that Tom had
referred him to a leaf, turned down; and opening it at that place,
that he might have additional cause of complaint against him for
supposing that any cold scrap of the Bachelor's wisdom could cheer
him in such circumstances, found!--

Well, well! not much, but Tom's all.  The half-sovereign.  He had
wrapped it hastily in a piece of paper, and pinned it to the leaf.
These words were scrawled in pencil on the inside: 'I don't want it
indeed.  I should not know what to do with it if I had it.'

There are some falsehoods, Tom, on which men mount, as on bright
wings, towards Heaven.  There are some truths, cold bitter taunting
truths, wherein your worldly scholars are very apt and punctual,
which bind men down to earth with leaden chains.  Who would not
rather have to fan him, in his dying hour, the lightest feather of a
falsehood such as thine, than all the quills that have been plucked
from the sharp porcupine, reproachful truth, since time began!

Martin felt keenly for himself, and he felt this good deed of Tom's
keenly.  After a few minutes it had the effect of raising his
spirits, and reminding him that he was not altogether destitute, as
he had left a fair stock of clothes behind him, and wore a gold
hunting-watch in his pocket.  He found a curious gratification, too,
in thinking what a winning fellow he must be to have made such an
impression on Tom; and in reflecting how superior he was to Tom; and
how much more likely to make his way in the world.  Animated by
these thoughts, and strengthened in his design of endeavouring to
push his fortune in another country, he resolved to get to London as
a rallying-point, in the best way he could; and to lose no time
about it.

He was ten good miles from the village made illustrious by being the
abiding-place of Mr Pecksniff, when he stopped to breakfast at a
little roadside alehouse; and resting upon a high-backed settle
before the fire, pulled off his coat, and hung it before the
cheerful blaze to dry.  It was a very different place from the last
tavern in which he had regaled; boasting no greater extent of
accommodation than the brick-floored kitchen yielded; but the mind
so soon accommodates itself to the necessities of the body, that
this poor waggoner's house-of-call, which he would have despised
yesterday, became now quite a choice hotel; while his dish of eggs
and bacon, and his mug of beer, were not by any means the coarse
fare he had supposed, but fully bore out the inscription on the
window-shutter, which proclaimed those viands to be 'Good
entertainment for Travellers.'

He pushed away his empty plate; and with a second mug upon the
hearth before him, looked thoughtfully at the fire until his eyes
ached.  Then he looked at the highly-coloured scripture pieces on
the walls, in little black frames like common shaving-glasses, and
saw how the Wise Men (with a strong family likeness among them)
worshipped in a pink manger; and how the Prodigal Son came home in
red rags to a purple father, and already feasted his imagination on
a sea-green calf.  Then he glanced through the window at the falling
rain, coming down aslant upon the sign-post over against the house,
and overflowing the horse-trough; and then he looked at the fire
again, and seemed to descry a double distant London, retreating
among the fragments of the burning wood.

He had repeated this process in just the same order, many times, as
if it were a matter of necessity, when the sound of wheels called
his attention to the window out of its regular turn; and there he
beheld a kind of light van drawn by four horses, and laden, as well
as he could see (for it was covered in), with corn and straw.  The
driver, who was alone, stopped at the door to water his team, and
presently came stamping and shaking the wet off his hat and coat,
into the room where Martin sat.

He was a red-faced burly young fellow; smart in his way, and with a
good-humoured countenance.  As he advanced towards the fire he
touched his shining forehead with the forefinger of his stiff
leather glove, by way of salutation; and said (rather unnecessarily)
that it was an uncommon wet day.

'Very wet,' said Martin.

'I don't know as ever I see a wetter.'

'I never felt one,' said Martin.

The driver glanced at Martin's soiled dress, and his damp shirt-
sleeves, and his coat hung up to dry; and said, after a pause, as he
warmed his hands:

'You have been caught in it, sir?'

'Yes,' was the short reply.

'Out riding, maybe?' said the driver

'I should have been, if I owned a horse; but I don't,' returned
Martin.

'That's bad,' said the driver.

'And may be worse,' said Martin.

Now the driver said 'That's bad,' not so much because Martin didn't
own a horse, as because he said he didn't with all the reckless
desperation of his mood and circumstances, and so left a great deal
to be inferred.  Martin put his hands in his pockets and whistled
when he had retorted on the driver; thus giving him to understand
that he didn't care a pin for Fortune; that he was above pretending
to be her favourite when he was not; and that he snapped his fingers
at her, the driver, and everybody else.

The driver looked at him stealthily for a minute or so; and in the
pauses of his warming whistled too.  At length he asked, as he
pointed his thumb towards the road.

'Up or down?'

'Which IS up?' said Martin.

'London, of course,' said the driver.

'Up then,' said Martin.  He tossed his head in a careless manner
afterwards, as if he would have added, 'Now you know all about it.'
put his hands deeper into his pockets; changed his tune, and
whistled a little louder.

'I'm going up,' observed the driver; 'Hounslow, ten miles this side
London.'

'Are you?' cried Martin, stopping short and looking at him.

The driver sprinkled the fire with his wet hat until it hissed again
and answered, 'Aye, to be sure he was.'

'Why, then,' said Martin, 'I'll be plain with you.  You may suppose
from my dress that I have money to spare.  I have not.  All I can
afford for coach-hire is a crown, for I have but two.  If you can
take me for that, and my waistcoat, or this silk handkerchief, do.
If you can't, leave it alone.'

'Short and sweet,' remarked the driver.

'You want more?' said Martin.  'Then I haven't got more, and I can't
get it, so there's an end of that.'  Whereupon he began to whistle
again.

'I didn't say I wanted more, did I?' asked the driver, with
something like indignation.

'You didn't say my offer was enough,' rejoined Martin.

'Why, how could I, when you wouldn't let me?  In regard to the
waistcoat, I wouldn't have a man's waistcoat, much less a
gentleman's waistcoat, on my mind, for no consideration; but the
silk handkerchief's another thing; and if you was satisfied when we
got to Hounslow, I shouldn't object to that as a gift.'

'Is it a bargain, then?' said Martin.

'Yes, it is,' returned the other.

'Then finish this beer,' said Martin, handing him the mug, and
pulling on his coat with great alacrity; 'and let us be off as soon
as you like.'

In two minutes more he had paid his bill, which amounted to a
shilling; was lying at full length on a truss of straw, high and dry
at the top of the van, with the tilt a little open in front for the
convenience of talking to his new friend; and was moving along in
the right direction with a most satisfactory and encouraging
briskness.

The driver's name, as he soon informed Martin, was William Simmons,
better known as Bill; and his spruce appearance was sufficiently
explained by his connection with a large stage-coaching establishment
at Hounslow, whither he was conveying his load from a farm belonging
to the concern in Wiltshire.  He was frequently up and down the road
on such errands, he said, and to look after the sick and rest
horses, of which animals he had much to relate that occupied a long
time in the telling.  He aspired to the dignity of the regular box,
and expected an appointment on the first vacancy.  He was musical
besides, and had a little key-bugle in his pocket, on which,
whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a
great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second.

'Ah!' said Bill, with a sigh, as he drew the back of his hand across
his lips, and put this instrument in his pocket, after screwing off
the mouth-piece to drain it; 'Lummy Ned of the Light Salisbury, HE
was the one for musical talents.  He WAS a guard.  What you may call
a Guard'an Angel, was Ned.'

'Is he dead?' asked Martin.

'Dead!' replied the other, with a contemptuous emphasis.  'Not he.
You won't catch Ned a-dying easy.  No, no.  He knows better than
that.'

'You spoke of him in the past tense,' observed Martin, 'so I
supposed he was no more.

'He's no more in England,' said Bill, 'if that's what you mean.  He
went to the U-nited States.'

'Did he?' asked Martin, with sudden interest.  'When?'

'Five year ago, or then about,' said Bill.  'He had set up in the
public line here, and couldn't meet his engagements, so he cut off
to Liverpool one day, without saying anything about it, and went and
shipped himself for the U-nited States.'

'Well?' said Martin.

'Well! as he landed there without a penny to bless himself with, of
course they wos very glad to see him in the U-nited States.'

'What do you mean?' asked Martin, with some scorn.

'What do I mean?' said Bill.  'Why, THAT.  All men are alike in the
U-nited States, an't they?  It makes no odds whether a man has a
thousand pound, or nothing, there.  Particular in New York, I'm
told, where Ned landed.'

'New York, was it?' asked Martin, thoughtfully.

'Yes,' said Bill.  'New York.  I know that, because he sent word
home that it brought Old York to his mind, quite vivid, in
consequence of being so exactly unlike it in every respect.  I don't
understand what particular business Ned turned his mind to, when he
got there; but he wrote home that him and his friends was always a-
singing, Ale Columbia, and blowing up the President, so I suppose it
was something in the public line; or free-and-easy way again.
Anyhow, he made his fortune.'

'No!' cried Martin.

'Yes, he did,' said Bill.  'I know that, because he lost it all the
day after, in six-and-twenty banks as broke.  He settled a lot of
the notes on his father, when it was ascertained that they was
really stopped and sent 'em over with a dutiful letter.  I know
that, because they was shown down our yard for the old gentleman's
benefit, that he might treat himself with tobacco in the workus.'

'He was a foolish fellow not to take care of his money when he had
it,' said Martin, indignantly.

'There you're right,' said Bill, 'especially as it was all in paper,
and he might have took care of it so very easy, by folding it up in a
small parcel.'

Martin said nothing in reply, but soon afterwards fell asleep, and
remained so for an hour or more.  When he awoke, finding it had
ceased to rain, he took his seat beside the driver, and asked him
several questions; as how long had the fortunate guard of the Light
Salisbury been in crossing the Atlantic; at what time of the year
had he sailed; what was the name of the ship in which he made the
voyage; how much had he paid for passage-money; did he suffer
greatly from sea-sickness? and so forth.  But on these points of
detail his friend was possessed of little or no information; either
answering obviously at random or acknowledging that he had never
heard, or had forgotten; nor, although he returned to the charge
very often, could he obtain any useful intelligence on these
essential particulars.

They jogged on all day, and stopped so often--now to refresh, now to
change their team of horses, now to exchange or bring away a set of
harness, now on one point of business, and now upon another,
connected with the coaching on that line of road--that it was
midnight when they reached Hounslow.  A little short of the stables
for which the van was bound, Martin got down, paid his crown, and
forced his silk handkerchief upon his honest friend, notwithstanding
the many protestations that he didn't wish to deprive him of it,
with which he tried to give the lie to his longing looks.  That
done, they parted company; and when the van had driven into its own
yard and the gates were closed, Martin stood in the dark street,
with a pretty strong sense of being shut out, alone, upon the dreary
world, without the key of it.

But in this moment of despondency, and often afterwards, the
recollection of Mr Pecksniff operated as a cordial to him; awakening
in his breast an indignation that was very wholesome in nerving him
to obstinate endurance.  Under the influence of this fiery dram he
started off for London without more ado.  Arriving there in the
middle of the night, and not knowing where to find a tavern open, he
was fain to stroll about the streets and market-places until
morning.

He found himself, about an hour before dawn, in the humbler regions
of the Adelphi; and addressing himself to a man in a fur-cap, who was
taking down the shutters of an obscure public-house, informed him
that he was a stranger, and inquired if he could have a bed there.
It happened by good luck that he could.  Though none of the
gaudiest, it was tolerably clean, and Martin felt very glad and
grateful when he crept into it, for warmth, rest, and forgetfulness.

It was quite late in the afternoon when he awoke; and by the time he
had washed and dressed, and broken his fast, it was growing dusk
again.  This was all the better, for it was now a matter of absolute
necessity that he should part with his watch to some obliging pawn-
broker.  He would have waited until after dark for this purpose,
though it had been the longest day in the year, and he had begun it
without a breakfast.

He passed more Golden Balls than all the jugglers in Europe have
juggled with, in the course of their united performances, before he
could determine in favour of any particular shop where those symbols
were displayed.  In the end he came back to one of the first he had
seen, and entering by a side-door in a court, where the three balls,
with the legend 'Money Lent,' were repeated in a ghastly
transparency, passed into one of a series of little closets, or
private boxes, erected for the accommodation of the more bashful and
uninitiated customers.  He bolted himself in; pulled out his watch;
and laid it on the counter.

'Upon my life and soul!' said a low voice in the next box to the
shopman who was in treaty with him, 'you must make it more; you must
make it a trifle more, you must indeed!  You must dispense with one
half-quarter of an ounce in weighing out your pound of flesh, my
best of friends, and make it two-and-six.'

Martin drew back involuntarily, for he knew the voice at once.

'You're always full of your chaff,' said the shopman, rolling up the
article (which looked like a shirt) quite as a matter of course, and
nibbing his pen upon the counter.

'I shall never be full of my wheat,' said Mr Tigg, 'as long as I
come here.  Ha, ha!  Not bad!  Make it two-and-six, my dear friend,
positively for this occasion only.  Half-a-crown is a delightful
coin.  Two-and-six.  Going at two-and-six!  For the last time at
two-and-six!'

'It'll never be the last time till it's quite worn out,' rejoined
the shopman.  'It's grown yellow in the service as it is.'

'Its master has grown yellow in the service, if you mean that, my
friend,' said Mr Tigg; 'in the patriotic service of an ungrateful
country.  You are making it two-and-six, I think?'

'I'm making it,' returned the shopman, 'what it always has been--two
shillings.  Same name as usual, I suppose?'

'Still the same name,' said Mr Tigg; 'my claim to the dormant
peerage not being yet established by the House of Lords.'

'The old address?'

'Not at all,' said Mr Tigg; 'I have removed my town establishment
from thirty-eight, Mayfair, to number fifteen-hundred-and-forty-two,
Park Lane.'

'Come, I'm not going to put down that, you know,' said the shopman
with a grin.

'You may put down what you please, my friend,' quoth Mr Tigg.  'The
fact is still the same.  The apartments for the under-butler and the
fifth footman being of a most confounded low and vulgar kind at
thirty-eight, Mayfair, I have been compelled, in my regard for the
feelings which do them so much honour, to take on lease for seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one years, renewable at the option of the
tenant, the elegant and commodious family mansion, number fifteen-
hundred-and-forty-two Park Lane.  Make it two-and-six, and come and
see me!'

The shopman was so highly entertained by this piece of humour that
Mr Tigg himself could not repress some little show of exultation.
It vented itself, in part, in a desire to see how the occupant of
the next box received his pleasantry; to ascertain which he glanced
round the partition, and immediately, by the gaslight, recognized
Martin.

'I wish I may die,' said Mr Tigg, stretching out his body so far
that his head was as much in Martin's little cell as Martin's own
head was, 'but this is one of the most tremendous meetings in
Ancient or Modern History!  How are you?  What is the news from the
agricultural districts?  How are our friends the P.'s?  Ha, ha!
David, pay particular attention to this gentleman immediately, as a
friend of mine, I beg.'

'Here!  Please to give me the most you can for this,' said Martin,
handing the watch to the shopman.  'I want money sorely.'

'He wants money, sorely!' cried Mr Tigg with excessive sympathy.
'David, will you have the goodness to do your very utmost for my
friend, who wants money sorely.  You will deal with my friend as if
he were myself.  A gold hunting-watch, David, engine-turned, capped
and jewelled in four holes, escape movement, horizontal lever, and
warranted to perform correctly, upon my personal reputation, who
have observed it narrowly for many years, under the most trying
circumstances'--here he winked at Martin, that he might understand
this recommendation would have an immense effect upon the shopman;
'what do you say, David, to my friend?  Be very particular to
deserve my custom and recommendation, David.'

'I can lend you three pounds on this, if you like' said the shopman
to Martin, confidentially.  'It is very old-fashioned.  I couldn't
say more.'

'And devilish handsome, too,' cried Mr Tigg.  'Two-twelve-six for
the watch, and seven-and-six for personal regard.  I am gratified;
it may be weakness, but I am.  Three pounds will do.  We take it.
The name of my friend is Smivey: Chicken Smivey, of Holborn, twenty-
six-and-a-half B: lodger.'  Here he winked at Martin again, to
apprise him that all the forms and ceremonies prescribed by law were
now complied with, and nothing remained but the receipt for the
money.

In point of fact, this proved to be the case, for Martin, who had no
resource but to take what was offered him, signified his
acquiescence by a nod of his head, and presently came out with the
cash in his pocket.  He was joined in the entry by Mr Tigg, who
warmly congratulated him, as he took his arm and accompanied him
into the street, on the successful issue of the negotiation.

'As for my part in the same,' said Mr Tigg, 'don't mention it.
Don't compliment me, for I can't bear it!'

'I have no such intention, I assure you,' retorted Martin, releasing
his arm and stopping.

'You oblige me very much' said Mr Tigg.  'Thank you.'

'Now, sir,' observed Martin, biting his lip, 'this is a large town,
and we can easily find different ways in it.  If you will show me
which is your way, I will take another.'

Mr Tigg was about to speak, but Martin interposed:

'I need scarcely tell you, after what you have just seen, that I
have nothing to bestow upon your friend Mr Slyme.  And it is quite
as unnecessary for me to tell you that I don't desire the honour of
your company.'

'Stop' cried Mr Tigg, holding out his hand.  'Hold!  There is a most
remarkably long-headed, flowing-bearded, and patriarchal proverb,
which observes that it is the duty of a man to be just before he is
generous.  Be just now, and you can be generous presently.  Do not
confuse me with the man Slyme.  Do not distinguish the man Slyme as
a friend of mine, for he is no such thing.  I have been compelled,
sir, to abandon the party whom you call Slyme.  I have no knowledge
of the party whom you call Slyme.  I am, sir,' said Mr Tigg,
striking himself upon the breast, 'a premium tulip, of a very
different growth and cultivation from the cabbage Slyme, sir.'

'It matters very little to me,' said Martin coolly, 'whether you
have set up as a vagabond on your own account, or are still trading
on behalf of Mr Slyme.  I wish to hold no correspondence with you.
In the devil's name, man' said Martin, scarcely able, despite his
vexation, to repress a smile as Mr Tigg stood leaning his back
against the shutters of a shop window, adjusting his hair with great
composure, 'will you go one way or other?'

'You will allow me to remind you, sir,' said Mr Tigg, with sudden
dignity, 'that you--not I--that you--I say emphatically, YOU--have
reduced the proceedings of this evening to a cold and distant matter
of business, when I was disposed to place them on a friendly
footing.  It being made a matter of business, sir, I beg to say that
I expect a trifle (which I shall bestow in charity) as commission
upon the pecuniary advance, in which I have rendered you my humble
services.  After the terms in which you have addressed me, sir,'
concluded Mr Tigg, 'you will not insult me, if you please, by
offering more than half-a-crown.'

Martin drew that piece of money from his pocket, and tossed it
towards him.  Mr Tigg caught it, looked at it to assure himself of
its goodness, spun it in the air after the manner of a pieman, and
buttoned it up.  Finally, he raised his hat an inch or two from his
head with a military air, and, after pausing a moment with deep
gravity, as to decide in which direction he should go, and to what
Earl or Marquis among his friends he should give the preference in
his next call, stuck his hands in his skirt-pockets and swaggered
round the corner.  Martin took the directly opposite course; and so,
to his great content, they parted company.

It was with a bitter sense of humiliation that he cursed, again and
again, the mischance of having encountered this man in the pawnbroker's
shop.  The only comfort he had in the recollection was, Mr
Tigg's voluntary avowal of a separation between himself and Slyme,
that would at least prevent his circumstances (so Martin argued)
from being known to any member of his family, the bare possibility
of which filled him with shame and wounded pride.  Abstractedly
there was greater reason, perhaps, for supposing any declaration of
Mr Tigg's to be false, than for attaching the least credence to it;
but remembering the terms on which the intimacy between that
gentleman and his bosom friend had subsisted, and the strong
probability of Mr Tigg's having established an independent business
of his own on Mr Slyme's connection, it had a reasonable appearance
of probability; at all events, Martin hoped so; and that went a long
way.

His first step, now that he had a supply of ready money for his
present necessities, was, to retain his bed at the public-house
until further notice, and to write a formal note to Tom Pinch (for
he knew Pecksniff would see it) requesting to have his clothes
forwarded to London by coach, with a direction to be left at the
office until called for.  These measures taken, he passed the
interval before the box arrived--three days--in making inquiries
relative to American vessels, at the offices of various shipping-
agents in the city; and in lingering about the docks and wharves,
with the faint hope of stumbling upon some engagement for the
voyage, as clerk or supercargo, or custodian of something or
somebody, which would enable him to procure a free passage.  But
finding, soon, that no such means of employment were likely to
present themselves, and dreading the consequences of delay, he drew
up a short advertisement, stating what he wanted, and inserted it in
the leading newspapers.  Pending the receipt of the twenty or thirty
answers which he vaguely expected, he reduced his wardrobe to the
narrowest limits consistent with decent respectability, and carried
the overplus at different times to the pawnbroker's shop, for
conversion into money.

And it was strange, very strange, even to himself, to find how, by
quick though almost imperceptible degrees, he lost his delicacy and
self-respect, and gradually came to do that as a matter of course,
without the least compunction, which but a few short days before had
galled him to the quick.  The first time he visited the
pawnbroker's, he felt on his way there as if every person whom he
passed suspected whither he was going; and on his way back again, as
if the whole human tide he stemmed, knew well where he had come
from.  When did he care to think of their discernment now!  In his
first wanderings up and down the weary streets, he counterfeited the
walk of one who had an object in his view; but soon there came upon
him the sauntering, slipshod gait of listless idleness, and the
lounging at street-corners, and plucking and biting of stray bits of
straw, and strolling up and down the same place, and looking into
the same shop-windows, with a miserable indifference, fifty times a
day.  At first, he came out from his lodging with an uneasy sense of
being observed--even by those chance passers-by, on whom he had
never looked before, and hundreds to one would never see again--
issuing in the morning from a public-house; but now, in his comings-
out and goings-in he did not mind to lounge about the door, or to
stand sunning himself in careless thought beside the wooden stem,
studded from head to heel with pegs, on which the beer-pots dangled
like so many boughs upon a pewter-tree.  And yet it took but five
weeks to reach the lowest round of this tall ladder!

Oh, moralists, who treat of happiness and self-respect, innate in
every sphere of life, and shedding light on every grain of dust in
God's highway, so smooth below your carriage-wheels, so rough
beneath the tread of naked feet, bethink yourselves in looking on
the swift descent of men who HAVE lived in their own esteem, that
there are scores of thousands breathing now, and breathing thick
with painful toil, who in that high respect have never lived at all,
nor had a chance of life!  Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the
sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old,
and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their
bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the
mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and
uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant
spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright
torch as fast as it is kindled!  And, oh! ye Pharisees of the
nineteen hundredth year of Christian Knowledge, who soundingly
appeal to human nature, see that it be human first.  Take heed it
has not been transformed, during your slumber and the sleep of
generations, into the nature of the Beasts!

Five weeks!  Of all the twenty or thirty answers, not one had come.
His money--even the additional stock he had raised from the disposal
of his spare clothes (and that was not much, for clothes, though
dear to buy, are cheap to pawn)--was fast diminishing.  Yet what
could he do?  At times an agony came over him in which he darted
forth again, though he was but newly home, and, returning to some
place where he had been already twenty times, made some new attempt
to gain his end, but always unsuccessfully.  He was years and years
too old for a cabin-boy, and years upon years too inexperienced to
be accepted as a common seaman.  His dress and manner, too,
militated fatally against any such proposal as the latter; and yet
he was reduced to making it; for even if he could have contemplated
the being set down in America totally without money, he had not
enough left now for a steerage passage and the poorest provisions
upon the voyage.

It is an illustration of a very common tendency in the mind of man,
that all this time he never once doubted, one may almost say the
certainty of doing great things in the New World, if he could only
get there.  In proportion as he became more and more dejected by his
present circumstances, and the means of gaining America receded from
his grasp, the more he fretted himself with the conviction that that
was the only place in which he could hope to achieve any high end,
and worried his brain with the thought that men going there in the
meanwhile might anticipate him in the attainment of those objects
which were dearest to his heart.  He often thought of John Westlock,
and besides looking out for him on all occasions, actually walked
about London for three days together for the express purpose of
meeting with him.  But although he failed in this; and although he
would not have scrupled to borrow money of him; and although he
believed that John would have lent it; yet still he could not bring
his mind to write to Pinch and inquire where he was to be found.
For although, as we have seen, he was fond of Tom after his own
fashion, he could not endure the thought (feeling so superior to
Tom) of making him the stepping-stone to his fortune, or being
anything to him but a patron; and his pride so revolted from the
idea that it restrained him even now.

It might have yielded, however; and no doubt must have yielded soon,
but for a very strange and unlooked-for occurrence.

The five weeks had quite run out, and he was in a truly desperate
plight, when one evening, having just returned to his lodging, and
being in the act of lighting his candle at the gas jet in the bar
before stalking moodily upstairs to his own room, his landlord
called him by his name.  Now as he had never told it to the man, but
had scrupulously kept it to himself, he was not a little startled by
this; and so plainly showed his agitation that the landlord, to
reassure him, said 'it was only a letter.'

'A letter!' cried Martin.

'For Mr Martin Chuzzlewit,' said the landlord, reading the
superscription of one he held in his hand.  'Noon.  Chief office.
Paid.'

Martin took it from him, thanked him, and walked upstairs.  It was
not sealed, but pasted close; the handwriting was quite unknown to
him.  He opened it and found enclosed, without any name, address, or
other inscription or explanation of any kind whatever, a Bank of
England note for Twenty Pounds.

To say that he was perfectly stunned with astonishment and delight;
that he looked again and again at the note and the wrapper; that he
hurried below stairs to make quite certain that the note was a good
note; and then hurried up again to satisfy himself for the fiftieth
time that he had not overlooked some scrap of writing on the
wrapper; that he exhausted and bewildered himself with conjectures;
and could make nothing of it but that there the note was, and he was
suddenly enriched; would be only to relate so many matters of course
to no purpose.  The final upshot of the business at that time was,
that he resolved to treat himself to a comfortable but frugal meal
in his own chamber; and having ordered a fire to be kindled, went
out to purchase it forthwith.

He bought some cold beef, and ham, and French bread, and butter, and
came back with his pockets pretty heavily laden.  It was somewhat of
a damping circumstance to find the room full of smoke, which was
attributable to two causes; firstly, to the flue being naturally
vicious and a smoker; and secondly, to their having forgotten, in
lighting the fire, an odd sack or two and some trifles, which had
been put up the chimney to keep the rain out.  They had already
remedied this oversight, however; and propped up the window-sash
with a bundle of firewood to keep it open; so that except in being
rather inflammatory to the eyes and choking to the lungs, the
apartment was quite comfortable.

Martin was in no vein to quarrel with it, if it had been in less
tolerable order, especially when a gleaming pint of porter was set
upon the table, and the servant-girl withdrew, bearing with her
particular instructions relative to the production of something hot
when he should ring the bell.  The cold meat being wrapped in a
playbill, Martin laid the cloth by spreading that document on the
little round table with the print downwards, and arranging the
collation upon it.  The foot of the bed, which was very close to the
fire, answered for a sideboard; and when he had completed these
preparations, he squeezed an old arm-chair into the warmest corner,
and sat down to enjoy himself.

He had begun to eat with great appetite, glancing round the room
meanwhile with a triumphant anticipation of quitting it for ever on
the morrow, when his attention was arrested by a stealthy footstep
on the stairs, and presently by a knock at his chamber door, which,
although it was a gentle knock enough, communicated such a start to
the bundle of firewood, that it instantly leaped out of window, and
plunged into the street.

'More coals, I suppose,' said Martin.  'Come in!'

'It an't a liberty, sir, though it seems so,' rejoined a man's
voice.  'Your servant, sir.  Hope you're pretty well, sir.'

Martin stared at the face that was bowing in the doorway, perfectly
remembering the features and expression, but quite forgetting to
whom they belonged.

'Tapley, sir,' said his visitor.  'Him as formerly lived at the
Dragon, sir, and was forced to leave in consequence of a want of
jollity, sir.'

'To be sure!' cried Martin.  'Why, how did you come here?'

'Right through the passage, and up the stairs, sir,' said Mark.

'How did you find me out, I mean?' asked Martin.

'Why, sir,' said Mark, 'I've passed you once or twice in the street,
if I'm not mistaken; and when I was a-looking in at the beef-and-ham
shop just now, along with a hungry sweep, as was very much
calculated to make a man jolly, sir--I see you a-buying that.'

Martin reddened as he pointed to the table, and said, somewhat
hastily:

'Well!  What then?'

'Why, then, sir,' said Mark, 'I made bold to foller; and as I told
'em downstairs that you expected me, I was let up.'

'Are you charged with any message, that you told them you were
expected?' inquired Martin.

'No, sir, I an't,' said Mark.  'That was what you may call a pious
fraud, sir, that was.'

Martin cast an angry look at him; but there was something in the
fellow's merry face, and in his manner--which with all its
cheerfulness was far from being obtrusive or familiar--that quite
disarmed him.  He had lived a solitary life too, for many weeks, and
the voice was pleasant in his ear.

'Tapley,' he said, 'I'll deal openly with you.  From all I can judge
and from all I have heard of you through Pinch, you are not a likely
kind of fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or
any other offensive motive.  Sit down.  I'm glad to see you.'

'Thankee, sir,' said Mark.  'I'd as lieve stand.'

"If you don't sit down,' retorted Martin, 'I'll not talk to you.'

'Very good, sir,' observed Mark.  'Your will's a law, sir.  Down it
is;' and he sat down accordingly upon the bedstead.

'Help yourself,' said Martin, handing him the only knife.

'Thankee, sir,' rejoined Mark.  'After you've done.'

'If you don't take it now, you'll not have any,' said Martin.

'Very good, sir,' rejoined Mark.  'That being your desire--now it
is.'  With which reply he gravely helped himself and went on eating.
Martin having done the like for a short time in silence, said
abruptly:

'What are you doing in London?'

'Nothing at all, sir,' rejoined Mark.

'How's that?' asked Martin.

'I want a place,' said Mark.

'I'm sorry for you,' said Martin.

'--To attend upon a single gentleman,' resumed Mark.  'If from the
country the more desirable.  Makeshifts would be preferred.  Wages
no object.'

He said this so pointedly, that Martin stopped in his eating, and
said:

'If you mean me--'

'Yes, I do, sir,' interposed Mark.

'Then you may judge from my style of living here, of my means of
keeping a man-servant.  Besides, I am going to America immediately.'

'Well, sir,' returned Mark, quite unmoved by this intelligence 'from
all that ever I heard about it, I should say America is a very
likely sort of place for me to be jolly in!'

Again Martin looked at him angrily; and again his anger melted away
in spite of himself.

'Lord bless you, sir,' said Mark, 'what is the use of us a-going
round and round, and hiding behind the corner, and dodging up and
down, when we can come straight to the point in six words?  I've had
my eye upon you any time this fortnight.  I see well enough there's
a screw loose in your affairs.  I know'd well enough the first time
I see you down at the Dragon that it must be so, sooner or later.
Now, sir here am I, without a sitiwation; without any want of wages
for a year to come; for I saved up (I didn't mean to do it, but I
couldn't help it) at the Dragon--here am I with a liking for what's
wentersome, and a liking for you, and a wish to come out strong
under circumstances as would keep other men down; and will you take
me, or will you leave me?'

'How can I take you?' cried Martin.

'When I say take,' rejoined Mark, 'I mean will you let me go? and
when I say will you let me go, I mean will you let me go along with
you? for go I will, somehow or another.  Now that you've said
America, I see clear at once, that that's the place for me to be
jolly in.  Therefore, if I don't pay my own passage in the ship you
go in, sir, I'll pay my own passage in another.  And mark my words,
if I go alone it shall be, to carry out the principle, in the
rottenest, craziest, leakingest tub of a wessel that a place can be
got in for love or money.  So if I'm lost upon the way, sir,
there'll be a drowned man at your door--and always a-knocking double
knocks at it, too, or never trust me!'

'This is mere folly,' said Martin.

'Very good, sir,' returned Mark.  'I'm glad to hear it, because if
you don't mean to let me go, you'll be more comfortable, perhaps, on
account of thinking so.  Therefore I contradict no gentleman.  But
all I say is, that if I don't emigrate to America in that case, in
the beastliest old cockle-shell as goes out of port, I'm--'

'You don't mean what you say, I'm sure,' said Martin.

'Yes I do,' cried Mark.

'I tell you I know better,' rejoined Martin.

'Very good, sir,' said Mark, with the same air of perfect
satisfaction.  'Let it stand that way at present, sir, and wait and
see how it turns out.  Why, love my heart alive! the only doubt I
have is, whether there's any credit in going with a gentleman like
you, that's as certain to make his way there as a gimlet is to go
through soft deal.'

This was touching Martin on his weak point, and having him at a
great advantage.  He could not help thinking, either, what a brisk
fellow this Mark was, and how great a change he had wrought in the
atmosphere of the dismal little room already.

'Why, certainly, Mark,' he said, 'I have hopes of doing well there,
or I shouldn't go.  I may have the qualifications for doing well,
perhaps.'

'Of course you have, sir,' returned Mark Tapley.  'Everybody knows
that.'

'You see,' said Martin, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking
at the fire, 'ornamental architecture applied to domestic purposes,
can hardly fail to be in great request in that country; for men are
constantly changing their residences there, and moving further off;
and it's clear they must have houses to live in.'

'I should say, sir,' observed Mark, 'that that's a state of things
as opens one of the jolliest look-outs for domestic architecture
that ever I heerd tell on.'

Martin glanced at him hastily, not feeling quite free from a
suspicion that this remark implied a doubt of the successful issue
of his plans.  But Mr Tapley was eating the boiled beef and bread
with such entire good faith and singleness of purpose expressed in
his visage that he could not but be satisfied.  Another doubt arose
in his mind however, as this one disappeared.  He produced the blank
cover in which the note had been enclosed, and fixing his eyes on
Mark as he put it in his hands, said:

'Now tell me the truth.  Do you know anything about that?'

Mark turned it over and over; held it near his eyes; held it away
from him at arm's length; held it with the superscription upwards
and with the superscription downwards; and shook his head with such
a genuine expression of astonishment at being asked the question,
that Martin said, as he took it from him again:

'No, I see you don't.  How should you!  Though, indeed, your knowing
about it would not be more extraordinary than its being here.  Come,
Tapley,' he added, after a moment's thought, 'I'll trust you with my
history, such as it is, and then you'll see more clearly what sort
of fortunes you would link yourself to, if you followed me.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Mark; 'but afore you enter upon it
will you take me if I choose to go?  Will you turn off me--Mark
Tapley--formerly of the Blue Dragon, as can be well recommended by Mr
Pinch, and as wants a gentleman of your strength of mind to look up
to; or will you, in climbing the ladder as you're certain to get to
the top of, take me along with you at a respectful dutance?  Now,
sir,' said Mark, 'it's of very little importance to you, I know.
there's the difficulty; but it's of very great importance to me, and
will you be so good as to consider of it?'

If this were meant as a second appeal to Martin's weak side, founded
on his observation of the effect of the first, Mr Tapley was a
skillful and shrewd observer.  Whether an intentional or an
accidental shot, it hit the mark fully for Martin, relenting more
and more, said with a condescension which was inexpressibly
delicious to him, after his recent humiliation:

'We'll see about it, Tapley.  You shall tell me in what disposition
you find yourself to-morrow.'

'Then, sir,' said Mark, rubbing his hands, 'the job's done.  Go on,
sir, if you please.  I'm all attention.'

Throwing himself back in his arm-chair, and looking at the fire, with
now and then a glance at Mark, who at such times nodded his head
sagely, to express his profound interest and attention.  Martin ran
over the chief points in his history, to the same effect as he had
related them, weeks before, to Mr Pinch.  But he adapted them,
according to the best of his judgment, to Mr Tapley's comprehension;
and with that view made as light of his love affair as he could, and
referred to it in very few words.  But here he reckoned without his
host; for Mark's interest was keenest in this part of the business,
and prompted him to ask sundry questions in relation to it; for
which he apologised as one in some measure privileged to do so, from
having seen (as Martin explained to him) the young lady at the Blue
Dragon.

'And a young lady as any gentleman ought to feel more proud of being
in love with,' said Mark, energetically, 'don't draw breath.'

'Aye!  You saw her when she was not happy,' said Martin, gazing at
the fire again.  'If you had seen her in the old times, indeed--'

'Why, she certainly was a little down-hearted, sir, and something
paler in her colour than I could have wished,' said Mark, 'but none
the worse in her looks for that.  I think she seemed better, sir,
after she come to London.'

Martin withdrew his eyes from the fire; stared at Mark as if he
thought he had suddenly gone mad; and asked him what he meant.

'No offence intended, sir,' urged Mark.  'I don't mean to say she
was any the happier without you; but I thought she was a-looking
better, sir.'

'Do you mean to tell me she has been in London?' asked Martin,
rising hurriedly, and pushing back his chair.

'Of course I do,' said Mark, rising too, in great amazement from the
bedstead.

'Do you mean to tell me she is in London now?'

'Most likely, sir.  I mean to say she was a week ago.'

'And you know where?'

'Yes!' cried Mark.  'What!  Don't you?'

'My good fellow!' exclaimed Martin, clutching him by both arms, 'I
have never seen her since I left my grandfather's house.'

'Why, then!' cried Mark, giving the little table such a blow with
his clenched fist that the slices of beef and ham danced upon it,
while all his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his
forehead, and never coming back again any more, 'if I an't your
nat'ral born servant, hired by Fate, there an't such a thing in
natur' as a Blue Dragon.  What! when I was a-rambling up and down a
old churchyard in the City, getting myself into a jolly state,
didn't I see your grandfather a-toddling to and fro for pretty nigh
a mortal hour!  Didn't I watch him into Todgers's commercial
boarding-house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his hotel,
and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I had
said so, afore I left the Dragon!  Wasn't the young lady a-sitting
with him then, and didn't she fall a-laughing in a manner as was
beautiful to see!  Didn't your grandfather say, "Come back again next
week," and didn't I go next week; and didn't he say that he
couldn't make up his mind to trust nobody no more; and therefore
wouldn't engage me, but at the same time stood something to drink as
was handsome!  Why,' cried Mr Tapley, with a comical mixture of
delight and chagrin, 'where's the credit of a man's being jolly
under such circumstances!  Who could help it, when things come about
like this!'

For some moments Martin stood gazing at him, as if he really doubted
the evidence of his senses, and could not believe that Mark stood
there, in the body, before him.  At length he asked him whether, if
the young lady were still in London, he thought he could contrive to
deliver a letter to her secretly.

'Do I think I can?' cried Mark.  'THINK I can?  Here, sit down, sir.
Write it out, sir!'

With that he cleared the table by the summary process of tilting
everything upon it into the fireplace; snatched some writing
materials from the mantel-shelf; set Martin's chair before them;
forced him down into it; dipped a pen into the ink; and put it in
his hand.

'Cut away, sir!' cried Mark.  'Make it strong, sir.  Let it be wery
pinted, sir.  Do I think so?  I should think so.  Go to work, sir!'

Martin required no further adjuration, but went to work at a great
rate; while Mr Tapley, installing himself without any more
formalities into the functions of his valet and general attendant,
divested himself of his coat, and went on to clear the fireplace
and arrange the room; talking to himself in a low voice the whole
time.

'Jolly sort of lodgings,' said Mark, rubbing his nose with the knob
at the end of the fire-shovel, and looking round the poor chamber;
'that's a comfort.  The rain's come through the roof too.  That an't
bad.  A lively old bedstead, I'll be bound; popilated by lots of
wampires, no doubt.  Come! my spirits is a-getting up again.  An
uncommon ragged nightcap this.  A very good sign.  We shall do yet!
Here, Jane, my dear,' calling down the stairs, 'bring up that there
hot tumbler for my master as was a-mixing when I come in.  That's
right, sir,' to Martin.  'Go at it as if you meant it, sir.  Be very
tender, sir, if you please.  You can't make it too strong, sir!'



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IN WHICH MARTIN BIDS ADIEU TO THE LADY OF HIS LOVE; AND HONOURS AN
OBSCURE INDIVIDUAL WHOSE FORTUNE HE INTENDS TO MAKE BY COMMENDING
HER TO HIS PROTECTION


The letter being duly signed, sealed, and delivered, was handed to
Mark Tapley, for immediate conveyance if possible.  And he succeeded
so well in his embassy as to be enabled to return that same night,
just as the house was closing, with the welcome intelligence that he
had sent it upstairs to the young lady, enclosed in a small
manuscript of his own, purporting to contain his further petition to
be engaged in Mr Chuzzlewit's service; and that she had herself come
down and told him, in great haste and agitation, that she would meet
the gentleman at eight o'clock to-morrow morning in St. James's
Park.  It was then agreed between the new master and the new man,
that Mark should be in waiting near the hotel in good time, to
escort the young lady to the place of appointment; and when they had
parted for the night with this understanding, Martin took up his pen
again; and before he went to bed wrote another letter, whereof more
will be seen presently.

He was up before daybreak, and came upon the Park with the morning,
which was clad in the least engaging of the three hundred and sixty-
five dresses in the wardrobe of the year.  It was raw, damp, dark,
and dismal; the clouds were as muddy as the ground; and the short
perspective of every street and avenue was closed up by the mist as
by a filthy curtain.

'Fine weather indeed,' Martin bitterly soliloquised, 'to be
wandering up and down here in, like a thief!  Fine weather indeed,
for a meeting of lovers in the open air, and in a public walk!  I
need be departing, with all speed, for another country; for I have
come to a pretty pass in this!'

He might perhaps have gone on to reflect that of all mornings in the
year, it was not the best calculated for a young lady's coming forth
on such an errand, either.  But he was stopped on the road to this
reflection, if his thoughts tended that way, by her appearance at a
short distance, on which he hurried forward to meet her.  Her
squire, Mr Tapley, at the same time fell discreetly back, and
surveyed the fog above him with an appearance of attentive interest.

'My dear Martin,' said Mary.

'My dear Mary,' said Martin; and lovers are such a singular kind of
people that this is all they did say just then, though Martin took
her arm, and her hand too, and they paced up and down a short walk
that was least exposed to observation, half-a-dozen times.

'If you have changed at all, my love, since we parted,' said Martin
at length, as he looked upon her with a proud delight, 'it is only
to be more beautiful than ever!'

Had she been of the common metal of love-worn young ladies, she
would have denied this in her most interesting manner; and would
have told him that she knew she had become a perfect fright; or that
she had wasted away with weeping and anxiety; or that she was
dwindling gently into an early grave; or that her mental sufferings
were unspeakable; or would, either by tears or words, or a mixture
of both, have furnished him with some other information to that
effect, and made him as miserable as possible.  But she had been
reared up in a sterner school than the minds of most young girls are
formed in; she had had her nature strengthened by the hands of hard
endurance and necessity; had come out from her young trials
constant, self-denying, earnest, and devoted; had acquired in her
maidenhood--whether happily in the end, for herself or him, is
foreign to our present purpose to inquire--something of that nobler
quality of gentle hearts which is developed often by the sorrows and
struggles of matronly years, but often by their lessons only.
Unspoiled, unpampered in her joys or griefs; with frank and full,
and deep affection for the object of her early love; she saw in him
one who for her sake was an outcast from his home and fortune, and
she had no more idea of bestowing that love upon him in other than
cheerful and sustaining words, full of high hope and grateful
trustfulness, than she had of being unworthy of it, in her lightest
thought or deed, for any base temptation that the world could offer.

'What change is there in YOU, Martin,' she replied; 'for that
concerns me nearest?  You look more anxious and more thoughtful than
you used.'

'Why, as to that, my love,' said Martin as he drew her waist within
his arm, first looking round to see that there were no observers
near, and beholding Mr Tapley more intent than ever on the fog; 'it
would be strange if I did not; for my life--especially of late--has
been a hard one.'

'I know it must have been,' she answered.  'When have I forgotten to
think of it and you?'

'Not often, I hope,' said Martin.  'Not often, I am sure.  Not
often, I have some right to expect, Mary; for I have undergone a
great deal of vexation and privation, and I naturally look for that
return, you know.'

'A very, very poor return,' she answered with a fainter smile.  'But
you have it, and will have it always.  You have paid a dear price
for a poor heart, Martin; but it is at least your own, and a true
one.'

'Of course I feel quite certain of that,' said Martin, 'or I
shouldn't have put myself in my present position.  And don't say a
poor heart, Mary, for I say a rich one.  Now, I am about to break a
design to you, dearest, which will startle you at first, but which is
undertaken for your sake.  I am going,' he added slowly, looking far
into the deep wonder of her bright dark eyes, 'abroad.'

'Abroad, Martin!'

'Only to America.  See now.  How you droop directly!'

'If I do, or, I hope I may say, if I did,' she answered, raising her
head after a short silence, and looking once more into his face, 'it
was for grief to think of what you are resolved to undergo for me.
I would not venture to dissuade you, Martin; but it is a long, long
distance; there is a wide ocean to be crossed; illness and want are
sad calamities in any place, but in a foreign country dreadful to
endure.  Have you thought of all this?'

'Thought of it!' cried Martin, abating, in his fondness--and he WAS
very fond of her--hardly an iota of his usual impetuosity.  'What am
I to do?  It's very well to say, "Have I thought of it?" my love; but
you should ask me in the same breath, have I thought of starving at
home; have I thought of doing porter's work for a living; have I
thought of holding horses in the streets to earn my roll of bread
from day to day?  Come, come,' he added, in a gentler tone, 'do not
hang down your head, my dear, for I need the encouragement that your
sweet face alone can give me.  Why, that's well!  Now you are brave
again.'

'I am endeavouring to be,' she answered, smiling through her tears.

'Endeavouring to be anything that's good, and being it, is, with
you, all one.  Don't I know that of old?' cried Martin, gayly.
'So!  That's famous!  Now I can tell you all my plans as cheerfully
as if you were my little wife already, Mary.'

She hung more closely on his arm, and looking upwards in his face,
bade him speak on.

'You see,' said Martin, playing with the little hand upon his wrist,
'that my attempts to advance myself at home have been baffled and
rendered abortive.  I will not say by whom, Mary, for that would
give pain to us both.  But so it is.  Have you heard him speak of
late of any relative of mine or his, called Pecksniff?  Only tell me
what I ask you, no more.'

'I have heard, to my surprise, that he is a better man than was
supposed.'

'I thought so,' interrupted Martin.

'And that it is likely we may come to know him, if not to visit and
reside with him and--I think--his daughters.  He HAS daughters, has
he, love?'

'A pair of them,' Martin answered.  'A precious pair!  Gems of the
first water!'

'Ah!  You are jesting!'

'There is a sort of jesting which is very much in earnest, and
includes some pretty serious disgust,' said Martin.  'I jest in
reference to Mr Pecksniff (at whose house I have been living as his
assistant, and at whose hands I have received insult and injury), in
that vein.  Whatever betides, or however closely you may be brought
into communication with this family, never forget that, Mary; and
never for an instant, whatever appearances may seem to contradict
me, lose sight of this assurance--Pecksniff is a scoundrel.'

'Indeed!'

'In thought, and in deed, and in everything else.  A scoundrel from
the topmost hair of his head, to the nethermost atom of his heel.
Of his daughters I will only say that, to the best of my knowledge
and belief, they are dutiful young ladies, and take after their
father closely.  This is a digression from the main point, and yet
it brings me to what I was going to say.'

He stopped to look into her eyes again, and seeing, in a hasty
glance over his shoulder, that there was no one near, and that Mark
was still intent upon the fog, not only looked at her lips, too, but
kissed them into the bargain.

'Now I am going to America, with great prospects of doing well, and
of returning home myself very soon; it may be to take you there for
a few years, but, at all events, to claim you for my wife; which,
after such trials, I should do with no fear of your still thinking
it a duty to cleave to him who will not suffer me to live (for this
is true), if he can help it, in my own land.  How long I may be
absent is, of course, uncertain; but it shall not be very long.
Trust me for that.'

'In the meantime, dear Martin--'

'That's the very thing I am coming to.  In the meantime you shall
hear, constantly, of all my goings-on.  Thus.'

He paused to take from his pocket the letter he had written
overnight, and then resumed:

'In this fellow's employment, and living in this fellow's house (by
fellow, I mean Mr Pecksniff, of course), there is a certain person
of the name of Pinch.  Don't forget; a poor, strange, simple oddity,
Mary; but thoroughly honest and sincere; full of zeal; and with a
cordial regard for me.  Which I mean to return one of these days, by
setting him up in life in some way or other.'

'Your old kind nature, Martin!'

'Oh!' said Martin, 'that's not worth speaking of, my love.  He's
very grateful and desirous to serve me; and I am more than repaid.
Now one night I told this Pinch my history, and all about myself and
you; in which he was not a little interested, I can tell you, for he
knows you!  Aye, you may look surprised--and the longer the better for
it becomes you--but you have heard him play the organ in the church
of that village before now; and he has seen you listening to his
music; and has caught his inspiration from you, too!'

'Was HE the organist?' cried Mary.  'I thank him from my heart!'

'Yes, he was,' said Martin, 'and is, and gets nothing for it either.
There never was such a simple fellow!  Quite an infant!  But a very
good sort of creature, I assure you.'

'I am sure of that,' she said with great earnestness.  'He must be!'

'Oh, yes, no doubt at all about it,' rejoined Martin, in his usual
careless way.  'He is.  Well!  It has occurred to me--but stay.  If I
read you what I have written and intend sending to him by post to-
night it will explain itself.  "My dear Tom Pinch."  That's rather
familiar perhaps,' said Martin, suddenly remembering that he was
proud when they had last met, 'but I call him my dear Tom Pinch
because he likes it, and it pleases him.'

'Very right, and very kind,' said Mary.

'Exactly so!' cried Martin.  'It's as well to be kind whenever one
can; and, as I said before, he really is an excellent fellow.  "My
dear Tom Pinch--I address this under cover to Mrs Lupin, at the
Blue Dragon, and have begged her in a short note to deliver it to
you without saying anything about it elsewhere; and to do the same
with all future letters she may receive from me.  My reason for so
doing will be at once apparent to you"--I don't know that it will
be, by the bye,' said Martin, breaking off, 'for he's slow of
comprehension, poor fellow; but he'll find it out in time.  My
reason simply is, that I don't want my letters to be read by other
people; and particularly by the scoundrel whom he thinks an angel.'

'Mr Pecksniff again?' asked Mary.

'The same,' said Martin '--will be at once apparent to you.  I have
completed my arrangements for going to America; and you will be
surprised to hear that I am to be accompanied by Mark Tapley, upon
whom I have stumbled strangely in London, and who insists on putting
himself under my protection'--meaning, my love,' said Martin,
breaking off again, 'our friend in the rear, of course.'

She was delighted to hear this, and bestowed a kind glance upon
Mark, which he brought his eyes down from the fog to encounter and
received with immense satisfaction.  She said in his hearing, too,
that he was a good soul and a merry creature, and would be faithful,
she was certain; commendations which Mr Tapley inwardly resolved to
deserve, from such lips, if he died for it.

'"Now, my dear Pinch,"' resumed Martin, proceeding with his letter;
'"I am going to repose great trust in you, knowing that I may do so
with perfect reliance on your honour and secrecy, and having nobody
else just now to trust in."'

'I don't think I would say that, Martin.'

'Wouldn't you?  Well!  I'll take that out.  It's perfectly true,
though.'

'But it might seem ungracious, perhaps.'

'Oh, I don't mind Pinch,' said Martin.  'There's no occasion to
stand on any ceremony with HIM.  However, I'll take it out, as you
wish it, and make the full stop at "secrecy."  Very well!  "I shall
not only"--this is the letter again, you know.'

'I understand.'

'"I shall not only enclose my letters to the young lady of whom I
have told you, to your charge, to be forwarded as she may request;
but I most earnestly commit her, the young lady herself, to your
care and regard, in the event of your meeting in my absence.  I have
reason to think that the probabilities of your encountering each
other--perhaps very frequently--are now neither remote nor few; and
although in our position you can do very little to lessen the
uneasiness of hers, I trust to you implicitly to do that much, and
so deserve the confidence I have reposed in you."  You see, my dear
Mary,' said Martin, 'it will be a great consolation to you to have
anybody, no matter how simple, with whom you can speak about ME; and
the very first time you talk to Pinch, you'll feel at once that
there is no more occasion for any embarrassment or hesitation in
talking to him, than if he were an old woman.'

'However that may be,' she returned, smiling, 'he is your friend,
and that is enough.'

'Oh, yes, he's my friend,' said Martin, 'certainly.  In fact, I have
told him in so many words that we'll always take notice of him, and
protect him; and it's a good trait in his character that he's
grateful--very grateful indeed.  You'll like him of all things, my
love, I know.  You'll observe very much that's comical and old-
fashioned about Pinch, but you needn't mind laughing at him; for
he'll not care about it.  He'll rather like it indeed!'

'I don't think I shall put that to the test, Martin.'

'You won't if you can help it, of course,' he said, 'but I think
you'll find him a little too much for your gravity.  However, that's
neither here nor there, and it certainly is not the letter; which
ends thus: "Knowing that I need not impress the nature and extent of
that confidence upon you at any greater length, as it is already
sufficiently established in your mind, I will only say, in bidding
you farewell and looking forward to our next meeting, that I shall
charge myself from this time, through all changes for the better,
with your advancement and happiness, as if they were my own.  You
may rely upon that.  And always believe me, my dear Tom Pinch,
faithfully your friend, Martin Chuzzlewit.  P.S.--I enclose the
amount which you so kindly"--Oh,' said Martin, checking himself, and
folding up the letter, 'that's nothing!'

At this crisis Mark Tapley interposed, with an apology for remarking
that the clock at the Horse Guards was striking.

'Which I shouldn't have said nothing about, sir,' added Mark, 'if
the young lady hadn't begged me to be particular in mentioning it.'

'I did,' said Mary.  'Thank you.  You are quite right.  In another
minute I shall be ready to return.  We have time for a very few
words more, dear Martin, and although I had much to say, it must
remain unsaid until the happy time of our next meeting.  Heaven send
it may come speedily and prosperously!  But I have no fear of that.'

'Fear!' cried Martin.  'Why, who has?  What are a few months?  What
is a whole year?  When I come gayly back, with a road through life
hewn out before me, then indeed, looking back upon this parting, it
may seem a dismal one.  But now! I swear I wouldn't have it happen
under more favourable auspices, if I could; for then I should be
less inclined to go, and less impressed with the necessity.'

'Yes, yes.  I feel that too.  When do you go?'

'To-night.  We leave for Liverpool to-night.  A vessel sails from
that port, as I hear, in three days.  In a month, or less, we shall
be there.  Why, what's a month!  How many months have flown by, since
our last parting!'

'Long to look back upon,' said Mary, echoing his cheerful tone, 'but
nothing in their course!'

'Nothing at all!' cried Martin.  'I shall have change of scene and
change of place; change of people, change of manners, change of
cares and hopes!  Time will wear wings indeed!  I can bear anything,
so that I have swift action, Mary.'

Was he thinking solely of her care for him, when he took so little
heed of her share in the separation; of her quiet monotonous
endurance, and her slow anxiety from day to day?  Was there nothing
jarring and discordant even in his tone of courage, with this one
note 'self' for ever audible, however high the strain?  Not in her
ears.  It had been better otherwise, perhaps, but so it was.  She
heard the same bold spirit which had flung away as dross all gain
and profit for her sake, making light of peril and privation that
she might be calm and happy; and she heard no more.  That heart
where self has found no place and raised no throne, is slow to
recognize its ugly presence when it looks upon it.  As one possessed
of an evil spirit was held in old time to be alone conscious of the
lurking demon in the breasts of other men, so kindred vices know
each other in their hiding-places every day, when Virtue is
incredulous and blind.

'The quarter's gone!' cried Mr Tapley, in a voice of admonition.

'I shall be ready to return immediately,' she said.  'One thing,
dear Martin, I am bound to tell you.  You entreated me a few minutes
since only to answer what you asked me in reference to one theme,
but you should and must know (otherwise I could not be at ease) that
since that separation of which I was the unhappy occasion, he has
never once uttered your name; has never coupled it, or any faint
allusion to it, with passion or reproach; and has never abated in
his kindness to me.'

'I thank him for that last act,' said Martin, 'and for nothing else.
Though on consideration I may thank him for his other forbearance
also, inasmuch as I neither expect nor desire that he will mention
my name again.  He may once, perhaps--to couple it with reproach--in
his will.  Let him, if he please!  By the time it reaches me, he will
be in his grave; a satire on his own anger, God help him!'

'Martin!  If you would but sometimes, in some quiet hour; beside the
winter fire; in the summer air; when you hear gentle music, or think
of Death, or Home, or Childhood; if you would at such a season
resolve to think, but once a month, or even once a year, of him, or
any one who ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I
know!'

'If I believed that to be true, Mary,' he replied, 'I would resolve
at no such time to bear him in my mind; wishing to spare myself the
shame of such a weakness.  I was not born to be the toy and puppet
of any man, far less his; to whose pleasure and caprice, in return
for any good he did me, my whole youth was sacrificed.  It became
between us two a fair exchange--a barter--and no more; and there is
no such balance against me that I need throw in a mawkish
forgiveness to poise the scale.  He has forbidden all mention of me
to you, I know,' he added hastily.  'Come!  Has he not?'

'That was long ago,' she returned; 'immediately after your parting;
before you had left the house.  He has never done so since.'

'He has never done so since because he has seen no occasion,' said
Martin; 'but that is of little consequence, one way or other.  Let
all allusion to him between you and me be interdicted from this time
forth.  And therefore, love'--he drew her quickly to him, for the
time of parting had now come--'in the first letter that you write to
me through the Post Office, addressed to New York; and in all the
others that you send through Pinch; remember he has no existence,
but has become to us as one who is dead.  Now, God bless you!  This
is a strange place for such a meeting and such a parting; but our
next meeting shall be in a better, and our next and last parting in
a worse.'

'One other question, Martin, I must ask.  Have you provided money
for this journey?'

'Have I?' cried Martin; it might have been in his pride; it might
have been in his desire to set her mind at ease: 'Have I provided
money?  Why, there's a question for an emigrant's wife!  How could I
move on land or sea without it, love?'

'I mean, enough.'

'Enough!  More than enough.  Twenty times more than enough.  A
pocket-full.  Mark and I, for all essential ends, are quite as rich
as if we had the purse of Fortunatus in our baggage.'

'The half-hour's a-going!' cried Mr Tapley.

'Good-bye a hundred times!' cried Mary, in a trembling voice.

But how cold the comfort in Good-bye!  Mark Tapley knew it perfectly.
Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience,
perhaps from intuition.  It is impossible to say; but however he
knew it, his knowledge instinctively suggested to him the wisest
course of proceeding that any man could have adopted under the
circumstances.  He was taken with a violent fit of sneezing, and was
obliged to turn his head another way.  In doing which, he, in a
manner fenced and screened the lovers into a corner by themselves.

There was a short pause, but Mark had an undefined sensation that it
was a satisfactory one in its way.  Then Mary, with her veil
lowered, passed him with a quick step, and beckoned him to follow.
She stopped once more before they lost that corner; looked back; and
waved her hand to Martin.  He made a start towards them at the
moment as if he had some other farewell words to say; but she only
hurried off the faster, and Mr Tapley followed as in duty bound.

When he rejoined Martin again in his own chamber, he found that
gentleman seated moodily before the dusty grate, with his two feet
on the fender, his two elbows on his knees, and his chin supported,
in a not very ornamental manner, on the palms of his hands.

'Well, Mark!'

'Well, sir,' said Mark, taking a long breath, 'I see the young lady
safe home, and I feel pretty comfortable after it.  She sent a lot
of kind words, sir, and this,' handing him a ring, 'for a parting
keepsake.'

'Diamonds!' said Martin, kissing it--let us do him justice, it was
for her sake; not for theirs--and putting it on his little finger.
'Splendid diamonds!  My grandfather is a singular character, Mark.
He must have given her this now.'

Mark Tapley knew as well that she had bought it, to the end that
that unconscious speaker might carry some article of sterling value
with him in his necessity; as he knew that it was day, and not
night.  Though he had no more acquaintance of his own knowledge with
the history of the glittering trinket on Martin's outspread finger,
than Martin himself had, he was as certain that in its purchase she
had expended her whole stock of hoarded money, as if he had seen it
paid down coin by coin.  Her lover's strange obtuseness in relation
to this little incident, promptly suggested to Mark's mind its real
cause and root; and from that moment he had a clear and perfect
insight into the one absorbing principle of Martin's character.

'She is worthy of the sacrifices I have made,' said Martin, folding
his arms, and looking at the ashes in the stove, as if in resumption
of some former thoughts.  'Well worthy of them.  No riches'--here he
stroked his chin and mused--'could have compensated for the loss of
such a nature.  Not to mention that in gaining her affection I have
followed the bent of my own wishes, and baulked the selfish schemes
of others who had no right to form them.  She is quite worthy--more
than worthy--of the sacrifices I have made.  Yes, she is.  No doubt
of it.'

These ruminations might or might not have reached Mark Tapley; for
though they were by no means addressed to him, yet they were softly
uttered.  In any case, he stood there, watching Martin with an
indescribable and most involved expression on his visage, until that
young man roused himself and looked towards him; when he turned
away, as being suddenly intent upon certain preparations for the
journey, and, without giving vent to any articulate sound, smiled
with surpassing ghastliness, and seemed by a twist of his features
and a motion of his lips, to release himself of this word:

'Jolly!'



CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE BURDEN WHEREOF, IS HAIL COLUMBIA!


A dark and dreary night; people nestling in their beds or circling
late about the fire; Want, colder than Charity, shivering at the
street corners; church-towers humming with the faint vibration of
their own tongues, but newly resting from the ghostly preachment
'One!'  The earth covered with a sable pall as for the burial of
yesterday; the clumps of dark trees, its giant plumes of funeral
feathers, waving sadly to and fro: all hushed, all noiseless, and in
deep repose, save the swift clouds that skim across the moon, and
the cautious wind, as, creeping after them upon the ground, it stops
to listen, and goes rustling on, and stops again, and follows, like
a savage on the trail.

Whither go the clouds and wind so eagerly?  If, like guilty spirits,
they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in
what wild regions do the elements hold council, or where unbend in
terrible disport?

Here!  Free from that cramped prison called the earth, and out upon
the waste of waters.  Here, roaring, raging, shrieking, howling, all
night long.  Hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the
coast of that small island, sleeping, a thousand miles away, so
quietly in the midst of angry waves; and hither, to meet them, rush
the blasts from unknown desert places of the world.  Here, in the
fury of their unchecked liberty, they storm and buffet with each
other, until the sea, lashed into passion like their own, leaps up,
in ravings mightier than theirs, and the whole scene is madness.

On, on, on, over the countless miles of angry space roll the long
heaving billows.  Mountains and caves are here, and yet are not; for
what is now the one, is now the other; then all is but a boiling
heap of rushing water.  Pursuit, and flight, and mad return of wave
on wave, and savage struggle, ending in a spouting-up of foam that
whitens the black night; incessant change of place, and form, and
hue; constancy in nothing, but eternal strife; on, on, on, they
roll, and darker grows the night, and louder howls the wind, and
more clamorous and fierce become the million voices in the sea, when
the wild cry goes forth upon the storm 'A ship!'

Onward she comes, in gallant combat with the elements, her tall
masts trembling, and her timbers starting on the strain; onward she
comes, now high upon the curling billows, now low down in the
hollows of the sea, as hiding for the moment from its fury; and
every storm-voice in the air and water cries more loudly yet, 'A
ship!'

Still she comes striving on; and at her boldness and the spreading
cry, the angry waves rise up above each other's hoary heads to look;
and round about the vessel, far as the mariners on the decks can
pierce into the gloom, they press upon her, forcing each other down
and starting up, and rushing forward from afar, in dreadful
curiosity.  High over her they break; and round her surge and roar;
and giving place to others, moaningly depart, and dash themselves to
fragments in their baffled anger.  Still she comes onward bravely.
And though the eager multitude crowd thick and fast upon her all the
night, and dawn of day discovers the untiring train yet bearing down
upon the ship in an eternity of troubled water, onward she comes,
with dim lights burning in her hull, and people there, asleep; as if
no deadly element were peering in at every seam and chink, and no
drowned seaman's grave, with but a plank to cover it, were yawning
in the unfathomable depths below.

Among these sleeping voyagers were Martin and Mark Tapley, who,
rocked into a heavy drowsiness by the unaccustomed motion, were
as insensible to the foul air in which they lay, as to the uproar
without.  It was broad day when the latter awoke with a dim idea
that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead
which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night.  There
was more reason in this too, than in the roasting of eggs; for the
first objects Mr Tapley recognized when he opened his eyes were his
own heels--looking down to him, as he afterwards observed, from
a nearly perpendicular elevation.

'Well!' said Mark, getting himself into a sitting posture, after
various ineffectual struggles with the rolling of the ship.  'This
is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night.'

'You shouldn't go to sleep upon the ground with your head to leeward
then,' growled a man in one of the berths.

'With my head to WHERE?' asked Mark.

The man repeated his previous sentiment.

'No, I won't another time,' said Mark, 'when I know whereabouts on
the map that country is.  In the meanwhile I can give you a better
piece of advice.  Don't you nor any other friend of mine never go to
sleep with his head in a ship any more.'

The man gave a grunt of discontented acquiescence, turned over in
his berth, and drew his blanket over his head.

'--For,' said Mr Tapley, pursuing the theme by way of soliloquy in
a low tone of voice; 'the sea is as nonsensical a thing as any
going.  It never knows what to do with itself.  It hasn't got no
employment for its mind, and is always in a state of vacancy.  Like
them Polar bears in the wild-beast shows as is constantly a-nodding
their heads from side to side, it never CAN be quiet.  Which is
entirely owing to its uncommon stupidity.'

'Is that you, Mark?' asked a faint voice from another berth.

'It's as much of me as is left, sir, after a fortnight of this
work,' Mr Tapley replied, 'What with leading the life of a fly, ever
since I've been aboard--for I've been perpetually holding-on to
something or other in a upside-down position--what with that, sir,
and putting a very little into myself, and taking a good deal out of
myself, there an't too much of me to swear by.  How do you find
yourself this morning, sir?'

'Very miserable,' said Martin, with a peevish groan.  'Ugh.  This is
wretched, indeed!'

'Creditable,' muttered Mark, pressing one hand upon his aching head
and looking round him with a rueful grin.  'That's the great
comfort.  It IS creditable to keep up one's spirits here.  Virtue's
its own reward.  So's jollity.'

Mark was so far right that unquestionably any man who retained his
cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and
fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, 'THE SCREW,' was solely indebted
to his own resources, and shipped his good humour, like his
provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners.
A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths all filled to
overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of
sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any
time; but when it is so crowded (as the steerage cabin of the
Screw was, every passage out), that mattresses and beds are heaped
upon the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort,
cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a
pretty strong banner against amiability of temper, but as a positive
encourager of selfish and rough humours.  Mark felt this, as he sat
looking about him; and his spirits rose proportionately.

There were English people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch
people there; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby
clothes; and nearly all with their families of children.  There were
children of all ages; from the baby at the breast, to the slattern-
girl who was as much a grown woman as her mother.  Every kind of
domestic suffering that is bred in poverty, illness, banishment,
sorrow, and long travel in bad weather, was crammed into the little
space; and yet was there infinitely less of complaint and
querulousness, and infinitely more of mutual assistance and general
kindness to be found in that unwholesome ark, than in many brilliant
ballrooms.

Mark looked about him wistfully, and his face brightened as he
looked.  Here an old grandmother was crooning over a sick child, and
rocking it to and fro, in arms hardly more wasted than its own young
limbs; here a poor woman with an infant in her lap, mended another
little creature's clothes, and quieted another who was creeping up
about her from their scanty bed upon the floor.  Here were old men
awkwardly engaged in little household offices, wherein they would
have been ridiculous but for their good-will and kind purpose; and
here were swarthy fellows--giants in their way--doing such little
acts of tenderness for those about them, as might have belonged to
gentlest-hearted dwarfs.  The very idiot in the corner who sat
mowing there, all day, had his faculty of imitation roused by what
he saw about him; and snapped his fingers to amuse a crying child.

'Now, then,' said Mark, nodding to a woman who was dressing her
three children at no great distance from him--and the grin upon his
face had by this time spread from ear to ear--'Hand over one of them
young 'uns according to custom.'

'I wish you'd get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people
who don't belong to you,' observed Martin, petulantly.

'All right,' said Mark.  'SHE'll do that.  It's a fair division of
labour, sir.  I wash her boys, and she makes our tea.  I never COULD
make tea, but any one can wash a boy.'

The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his
kindness, as well she might, for she had been covered every night
with his greatcoat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards
and a rug.  But Martin, who seldom got up or looked about him, was
quite incensed by the folly of this speech, and expressed his
dissatisfaction by an impatient groan.

'So it is, certainly,' said Mark, brushing the child's hair as
coolly as if he had been born and bred a barber.

'What are you talking about, now?' asked Martin.

'What you said,' replied Mark; 'or what you meant, when you gave
that there dismal vent to your feelings.  I quite go along with it,
sir.  It IS very hard upon her.'

'What is?'

'Making the voyage by herself along with these young impediments
here, and going such a way at such a time of the year to join her
husband.  If you don't want to be driven mad with yellow soap in
your eye, young man,' said Mr Tapley to the second urchin, who was
by this time under his hands at the basin, 'you'd better shut it.'

'Where does she join her husband?' asked Martin, yawning.

'Why, I'm very much afraid,' said Mr Tapley, in a low voice, 'that
she don't know.  I hope she mayn't miss him.  But she sent her last
letter by hand, and it don't seem to have been very clearly
understood between 'em without it, and if she don't see him a-waving
his pocket-handkerchief on the shore, like a pictur out of a song-
book, my opinion is, she'll break her heart.'

'Why, how, in Folly's name, does the woman come to be on board ship
on such a wild-goose venture!' cried Martin.

Mr Tapley glanced at him for a moment as he lay prostrate in his
berth, and then said, very quietly:

'Ah!  How indeed!  I can't think!  He's been away from her for two
year; she's been very poor and lonely in her own country; and has
always been a-looking forward to meeting him.  It's very strange she
should be here.  Quite amazing!  A little mad perhaps!  There can't
be no other way of accounting for it.'

Martin was too far gone in the lassitude of sea-sickness to make any
reply to these words, or even to attend to them as they were spoken.
And the subject of their discourse returning at this crisis with
some hot tea, effectually put a stop to any resumption of the theme
by Mr Tapley; who, when the meal was over and he had adjusted
Martin's bed, went up on deck to wash the breakfast service, which
consisted of two half-pint tin mugs, and a shaving-pot of the same
metal.

It is due to Mark Tapley to state that he suffered at least as much
from sea-sickness as any man, woman, or child, on board; and that he
had a peculiar faculty of knocking himself about on the smallest
provocation, and losing his legs at every lurch of the ship.  But
resolved, in his usual phrase, to 'come out strong' under
disadvantageous circumstances, he was the life and soul of the
steerage, and made no more of stopping in the middle of a facetious
conversation to go away and be excessively ill by himself, and
afterwards come back in the very best and gayest of tempers to
resume it, than if such a course of proceeding had been the
commonest in the world.

It cannot be said that as his illness wore off, his cheerfulness and
good nature increased, because they would hardly admit of
augmentation; but his usefulness among the weaker members of the
party was much enlarged; and at all times and seasons there he was
exerting it.  If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky, down Mark
tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman
in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a
saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate, that he
thought would be the better for the air.  If an hour or two of fine
weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never
came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down
upon the spare spars, and try to eat, there, in the centre of the
group, was Mr Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or
dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children's provisions
with his pocketknife, for their greater ease and comfort, or reading
aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song
to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their
friends at home for people who couldn't write, or cracking jokes
with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging,
half-drowned, from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or
other; but always doing something for the general entertainment.  At
night, when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, and the
driving sparks that flew among the rigging, and the clouds of sails,
seemed to menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire, in case
the elements of air and water failed to compass her destruction;
there, again, was Mr Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves
turned up to his elbows, doing all kinds of culinary offices;
compounding the strangest dishes; recognized by every one as an
established authority; and helping all parties to achieve something
which, left to themselves, they never could have done, and never
would have dreamed of.  In short, there never was a more popular
character than Mark Tapley became, on board that noble and fast-
sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw; and he attained at last to
such a pitch of universal admiration, that he began to have grave
doubts within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any
credit for being jolly under such exciting circumstances.

'If this was going to last,' said Tapley, 'there'd be no great
difference as I can perceive, between the Screw and the Dragon.  I
never am to get credit, I think.  I begin to be afraid that the
Fates is determined to make the world easy to me.'

'Well, Mark,' said Martin, near whose berth he had ruminated to this
effect.  'When will this be over?'

'Another week, they say, sir,' returned Mark, 'will most likely
bring us into port.  The ship's a-going along at present, as
sensible as a ship can, sir; though I don't mean to say as that's
any very high praise.'

'I don't think it is, indeed,' groaned Martin.

'You'd feel all the better for it, sir, if you was to turn out,'
observed Mark.

'And be seen by the ladies and gentlemen on the after-deck,'
returned Martin, with a scronful emphasis upon the words, 'mingling
with the beggarly crowd that are stowed away in this vile hole.  I
should be greatly the better for that, no doubt.'

'I'm thankful that I can't say from my own experience what the
feelings of a gentleman may be,' said Mark, 'but I should have
thought, sir, as a gentleman would feel a deal more uncomfortable
down here than up in the fresh air, especially when the ladies and
gentlemen in the after-cabin know just as much about him as he does
about them, and are likely to trouble their heads about him in the
same proportion.  I should have thought that, certainly.'

'I tell you, then,' rejoined Martin, 'you would have thought wrong,
and do think wrong.'

'Very likely, sir,' said Mark, with imperturbable good temper.  'I
often do.'

'As to lying here,' cried Martin, raising himself on his elbow, and
looking angrily at his follower.  'Do you suppose it's a pleasure to
lie here?'

'All the madhouses in the world,' said Mr Tapley, 'couldn't produce
such a maniac as the man must be who could think that.'

'Then why are you forever goading and urging me to get up?' asked
Martin, 'I lie here because I don't wish to be recognized, in the
better days to which I aspire, by any purse-proud citizen, as the
man who came over with him among the steerage passengers.  I lie
here because I wish to conceal my circumstances and myself, and not
to arrive in a new world badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-
stricken man.  If I could have afforded a passage in the after-cabin
I should have held up my head with the rest.  As I couldn't I hide
it.  Do you understand that?'

'I am very sorry, sir,' said Mark.  'I didn't know you took it so
much to heart as this comes to.'

'Of course you didn't know,' returned his master.  'How should you
know, unless I told you?  It's no trial to you, Mark, to make
yourself comfortable and to bustle about.  It's as natural for you
to do so under the circumstances as it is for me not to do so.  Why,
you don't suppose there is a living creature in this ship who can by
possibility have half so much to undergo on board of her as I have?
Do you?' he asked, sitting upright in his berth and looking at Mark,
with an expression of great earnestness not unmixed with wonder.

Mark twisted his face into a tight knot, and with his head very much
on one side, pondered upon this question as if he felt it an
extremely difficult one to answer.  He was relieved from his
embarrassment by Martin himself, who said, as he stretched himself
upon his back again and resumed the book he had been reading:

'But what is the use of my putting such a case to you, when the very
essence of what I have been saying is, that you cannot by
possibility understand it!  Make me a little brandy-and-water--cold
and very weak--and give me a biscuit, and tell your friend, who is a
nearer neighbour of ours than I could wish, to try and keep her
children a little quieter to-night than she did last night; that's a
good fellow.'

Mr Tapley set himself to obey these orders with great alacrity, and
pending their execution, it may be presumed his flagging spirits
revived; inasmuch as he several times observed, below his breath,
that in respect of its power of imparting a credit to jollity, the
Screw unquestionably had some decided advantages over the Dragon.
He also remarked that it was a high gratification to him to reflect
that he would carry its main excellence ashore with him, and have it
constantly beside him wherever he went; but what he meant by these
consolatory thoughts he did not explain.

And now a general excitement began to prevail on board; and various
predictions relative to the precise day, and even the precise hour
at which they would reach New York, were freely broached.  There was
infinitely more crowding on deck and looking over the ship's side
than there had been before; and an epidemic broke out for packing up
things every morning, which required unpacking again every night.
Those who had any letters to deliver, or any friends to meet, or any
settled plans of going anywhere or doing anything, discussed their
prospects a hundred times a day; and as this class of passengers was
very small, and the number of those who had no prospects whatever
was very large, there were plenty of listeners and few talkers.
Those who had been ill all along, got well now, and those who had
been well, got better.  An American gentleman in the after-cabin,
who had been wrapped up in fur and oilskin the whole passage,
unexpectedly appeared in a very shiny, tall, black hat, and
constantly overhauled a very little valise of pale leather, which
contained his clothes, linen, brushes, shaving apparatus, books,
trinkets, and other baggage.  He likewise stuck his hands deep into
his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as
already inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all
tyrants, and can never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be
breathed by slaves.  An English gentleman who was strongly suspected
of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession
belonging to its strong box besides the key, grew eloquent upon the
subject of the rights of man, and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn
constantly.  In a word, one great sensation pervaded the whole ship,
and the soil of America lay close before them; so close at last,
that, upon a certain starlight night they took a pilot on board, and
within a few hours afterwards lay to until the morning, awaiting the
arrival of a steamboat in which the passengers were to be conveyed
ashore.

Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying
alongside an hour or more--during which period her very firemen were
objects of hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been
so many angels, good or bad--took all her living freight aboard.
Among them Mark, who still had his friend and her three children
under his close protection; and Martin, who had once more dressed
himself in his usual attire, but wore a soiled, old cloak above his
ordinary clothes, until such time as he should separate for ever
from his late companions.

The steamer--which, with its machinery on deck, looked, as it worked
its long slim legs, like some enormously magnified insect or
antediluvian monster--dashed at great speed up a beautiful bay; and
presently they saw some heights, and islands, and a long, flat,
straggling city.

'And this,' said Mr Tapley, looking far ahead, 'is the Land of
Liberty, is it?  Very well.  I'm agreeable.  Any land will do for
me, after so much water!'



CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MARTIN DISEMBARKS FROM THAT NOBLE AND FAST-SAILING LINE-OF-PACKET
SHIP, 'THE SCREW', AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK, IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA.  HE MAKES SOME ACQUAINTANCES, AND DINES AT A BOARDING-
HOUSE.  THE PARTICULARS OF THOSE TRANSACTIONS


Some trifling excitement prevailed upon the very brink and margin of
the land of liberty; for an alderman had been elected the day
before; and Party Feeling naturally running rather high on such an
exciting occasion, the friends of the disappointed candidate had
found it necessary to assert the great principles of Purity of
Election and Freedom of opinion by breaking a few legs and arms, and
furthermore pursuing one obnoxious gentleman through the streets
with the design of hitting his nose.  These good-humoured little
outbursts of the popular fancy were not in themselves sufficiently
remarkable to create any great stir, after the lapse of a whole
night; but they found fresh life and notoriety in the breath of the
newsboys, who not only proclaimed them with shrill yells in all the
highways and byways of the town, upon the wharves and among the
shipping, but on the deck and down in the cabins of the steamboat;
which, before she touched the shore, was boarded and overrun by a
legion of those young citizens.

'Here's this morning's New York Sewer!' cried one.  'Here's this
morning's New York Stabber!  Here's the New York Family Spy!  Here's
the New York Private Listener!  Here's the New York Peeper!  Here's
the New York Plunderer!  Here's the New York Keyhole Reporter!  Here's
the New York Rowdy Journal!  Here's all the New York papers!  Here's
full particulars of the patriotic locofoco movement yesterday, in
which the whigs was so chawed up; and the last Alabama gouging case;
and the interesting Arkansas dooel with Bowie knives; and all the
Political, Commercial, and Fashionable News.  Here they are!  Here
they are!  Here's the papers, here's the papers!'

'Here's the Sewer!' cried another.  'Here's the New York Sewer!
Here's some of the twelfth thousand of to-day's Sewer, with the best
accounts of the markets, and all the shipping news, and four whole
columns of country correspondence, and a full account of the Ball at
Mrs White's last night, where all the beauty and fashion of New York
was assembled; with the Sewer's own particulars of the private lives
of all the ladies that was there!  Here's the Sewer!  Here's some of
the twelfth thousand of the New York Sewer!  Here's the Sewer's
exposure of the Wall Street Gang, and the Sewer's exposure of the
Washington Gang, and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant act
of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight
years old; now communicated, at a great expense, by his own nurse.
Here's the Sewer!  Here's the New York Sewer, in its twelfth
thousand, with a whole column of New Yorkers to be shown up, and all
their names printed!  Here's the Sewer's article upon the Judge that
tried him, day afore yesterday, for libel, and the Sewer's tribute
to the independent Jury that didn't convict him, and the Sewer's
account of what they might have expected if they had!  Here's the
Sewer, here's the Sewer!  Here's the wide-awake Sewer; always on the
lookout; the leading Journal of the United States, now in its
twelfth thousand, and still a-printing off:--Here's the New York
Sewer!'

'It is in such enlightened means,' said a voice almost in Martin's
ear, 'that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.'

Martin turned involuntarily, and saw, standing close at his side, a
sallow gentleman, with sunken cheeks, black hair, small twinkling
eyes, and a singular expression hovering about that region of his
face, which was not a frown, nor a leer, and yet might have been
mistaken at the first glance for either.  Indeed it would have been
difficult, on a much closer acquaintance, to describe it in any more
satisfactory terms than as a mixed expression of vulgar cunning and
conceit.  This gentleman wore a rather broad-brimmed hat for the
greater wisdom of his appearance; and had his arms folded for the
greater impressiveness of his attitude.  He was somewhat shabbily
dressed in a blue surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short loose
trousers of the same colour, and a faded buff waistcoat, through
which a discoloured shirt-frill struggled to force itself into
notice, as asserting an equality of civil rights with the other
portions of his dress, and maintaining a declaration of Independence
on its own account.  His feet, which were of unusually large
proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned
against, half sat upon, the steamboat's bulwark; and his thick cane,
shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal
knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist.
Thus attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity,
the gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his
right eye simultaneously, and said, once more:

'It is in such enlightened means that the bubbling passions of my
country find a vent.'

As he looked at Martin, and nobody else was by, Martin inclined his
head, and said:

'You allude to--?'

'To the Palladium of rational Liberty at home, sir, and the dread of
Foreign oppression abroad,' returned the gentleman, as he pointed
with his cane to an uncommonly dirty newsboy with one eye.  'To the
Envy of the world, sir, and the leaders of Human Civilization.  Let
me ask you sir,' he added, bringing the ferule of his stick heavily
upon the deck with the air of a man who must not be equivocated
with, 'how do you like my Country?'

'I am hardly prepared to answer that question yet,' said Martin
'seeing that I have not been ashore.'

'Well, I should expect you were not prepared, sir,' said the
gentleman, 'to behold such signs of National Prosperity as those?'

He pointed to the vessels lying at the wharves; and then gave a
vague flourish with his stick, as if he would include the air and
water, generally, in this remark.

'Really,' said Martin, 'I don't know.  Yes.  I think I was.'

The gentleman glanced at him with a knowing look, and said he liked
his policy.  It was natural, he said, and it pleased him as a
philosopher to observe the prejudices of human nature.

'You have brought, I see, sir,' he said, turning round towards
Martin, and resting his chin on the top of his stick, 'the usual
amount of misery and poverty and ignorance and crime, to be located
in the bosom of the great Republic.  Well, sir! let 'em come on in
shiploads from the old country.  When vessels are about to founder,
the rats are said to leave 'em.  There is considerable of truth, I
find, in that remark.'

'The old ship will keep afloat a year or two longer yet, perhaps,'
said Martin with a smile, partly occasioned by what the gentleman
said, and partly by his manner of saying it, which was odd enough
for he emphasised all the small words and syllables in his
discourse, and left the others to take care of themselves; as if he
thought the larger parts of speech could be trusted alone, but the
little ones required to be constantly looked after.

'Hope is said by the poet, sir,' observed the gentleman, 'to be the
nurse of young Desire.'

Martin signified that he had heard of the cardinal virtue in
question serving occasionally in that domestic capacity.

'She will not rear her infant in the present instance, sir, you'll
find,' observed the gentleman.

'Time will show,' said Martin.

The gentleman nodded his head gravely; and said, 'What is your name,
sir?'

Martin told him.

'How old are you, sir?'

Martin told him.

'What is your profession, sir?'

Martin told him that also.

'What is your destination, sir?' inquired the gentleman.

'Really,' said Martin laughing, 'I can't satisfy you in that
particular, for I don't know it myself.'

'Yes?' said the gentleman.

'No,' said Martin.

The gentleman adjusted his cane under his left arm, and took a more
deliberate and complete survey of Martin than he had yet had leisure
to make.  When he had completed his inspection, he put out his right
hand, shook Martin's hand, and said:

'My name is Colonel Diver, sir.  I am the Editor of the New York
Rowdy Journal.'

Martin received the communication with that degree of respect which
an announcement so distinguished appeared to demand.

'The New York Rowdy Journal, sir,' resumed the colonel, 'is, as I
expect you know, the organ of our aristocracy in this city.'

'Oh! there IS an aristocracy here, then?' said Martin.  'Of what is
it composed?'

'Of intelligence, sir,' replied the colonel; 'of intelligence and
virtue.  And of their necessary consequence in this republic--
dollars, sir.'

Martin was very glad to hear this, feeling well assured that if
intelligence and virtue led, as a matter of course, to the
acquisition of dollars, he would speedily become a great capitalist.
He was about to express the gratification such news afforded him,
when he was interrupted by the captain of the ship, who came up at
the moment to shake hands with the colonel; and who, seeing a
well-dressed stranger on the deck (for Martin had thrown aside his
cloak), shook hands with him also.  This was an unspeakable relief
to Martin, who, in spite of the acknowledged supremacy of
Intelligence and virtue in that happy country, would have been
deeply mortified to appear before Colonel Diver in the poor
character of a steerage passenger.

'Well cap'en!' said the colonel.

'Well colonel,' cried the captain.  'You're looking most uncommon
bright, sir.  I can hardly realise its being you, and that's a
fact.'

'A good passage, cap'en?' inquired the colonel, taking him aside,

'Well now!  It was a pretty spanking run, sir,' said, or rather sung,
the captain, who was a genuine New Englander; 'con-siderin' the
weather.'

'Yes?' said the colonel.

'Well!  It was, sir,' said the captain.  'I've just now sent a boy up
to your office with the passenger-list, colonel.'

'You haven't got another boy to spare, p'raps, cap'en?' said the
colonel, in a tone almost amounting to severity.

'I guess there air a dozen if you want 'em, colonel,' said the
captain.

'One moderate big 'un could convey a dozen champagne, perhaps,'
observed the colonel, musing, 'to my office.  You said a spanking
run, I think?'

'Well, so I did,' was the reply.

'It's very nigh, you know,' observed the colonel.  'I'm glad it was
a spanking run, cap'en.  Don't mind about quarts if you're short of
'em.  The boy can as well bring four-and-twenty pints, and travel
twice as once.--A first-rate spanker, cap'en, was it?  Yes?'

'A most e--tarnal spanker,' said the skipper.

'I admire at your good fortun, cap'en.  You might loan me a
corkscrew at the same time, and half-a-dozen glasses if you liked.
However bad the elements combine against my country's noble
packet-ship, the Screw, sir,' said the colonel, turning to Martin,
and drawing a flourish on the surface of the deck with his cane,
'her passage either way is almost certain to eventuate a spanker!'

The captain, who had the Sewer below at that moment, lunching
expensively in one cabin, while the amiable Stabber was drinking
himself into a state of blind madness in another, took a cordial
leave of his friend the colonel, and hurried away to dispatch the
champagne; well knowing (as it afterwards appeared) that if he
failed to conciliate the editor of the Rowdy Journal, that potentate
would denounce him and his ship in large capitals before he was a
day older; and would probably assault the memory of his mother also,
who had not been dead more than twenty years.  The colonel being
again left alone with Martin, checked him as he was moving away, and
offered in consideration of his being an Englishman, to show him the
town and to introduce him, if such were his desire, to a genteel
boarding-house.  But before they entered on these proceedings (he
said), he would beseech the honour of his company at the office of
the Rowdy Journal, to partake of a bottle of champagne of his own
importation.

All this was so extremely kind and hospitable, that Martin, though
it was quite early in the morning, readily acquiesced.  So,
instructing Mark, who was deeply engaged with his friend and her
three children, that when he had done assisting them, and had cleared
the baggage, he was to wait for further orders at the Rowdy Journal
Office, Martin accompanied his new friend on shore.

They made their way as they best could through the melancholy crowd
of emigrants upon the wharf, who, grouped about their beds and
boxes, with the bare ground below them and the bare sky above, might
have fallen from another planet, for anything they knew of the
country; and walked for some short distance along a busy street,
bounded on one side by the quays and shipping; and on the other by a
long row of staring red-brick storehouses and offices, ornamented
with more black boards and white letters, and more white boards and
black letters, than Martin had ever seen before, in fifty times the
space.  Presently they turned up a narrow street, and presently into
other narrow streets, until at last they stopped before a house
whereon was painted in great characters, 'ROWDY JOURNAL.'

The colonel, who had walked the whole way with one hand in his
breast, his head occasionally wagging from side to side, and his hat
thrown back upon his ears, like a man who was oppressed to
inconvenience by a sense of his own greatness, led the way up a dark
and dirty flight of stairs into a room of similar character, all
littered and bestrewn with odds and ends of newspapers and other
crumpled fragments, both in proof and manuscript.  Behind a mangy
old writing-table in this apartment sat a figure with a stump of a
pen in its mouth and a great pair of scissors in its right hand,
clipping and slicing at a file of Rowdy Journals; and it was such a
laughable figure that Martin had some difficulty in preserving his
gravity, though conscious of the close observation of Colonel Diver.

The individual who sat clipping and slicing as aforesaid at the
Rowdy Journals, was a small young gentleman of very juvenile
appearance, and unwholesomely pale in the face; partly, perhaps,
from intense thought, but partly, there is no doubt, from the
excessive use of tobacco, which he was at that moment chewing
vigorously.  He wore his shirt-collar turned down over a black
ribbon; and his lank hair, a fragile crop, was not only smoothed and
parted back from his brow, that none of the Poetry of his aspect
might be lost, but had, here and there, been grubbed up by the
roots; which accounted for his loftiest developments being somewhat
pimply.  He had that order of nose on which the envy of mankind has
bestowed the appellation 'snub,' and it was very much turned up at
the end, as with a lofty scorn.  Upon the upper lip of this young
gentleman were tokens of a sandy down; so very, very smooth and
scant, that, though encouraged to the utmost, it looked more like a
recent trace of gingerbread than the fair promise of a moustache;
and this conjecture, his apparently tender age went far to
strengthen.  He was intent upon his work.  Every time he snapped the
great pair of scissors, he made a corresponding motion with his
jaws, which gave him a very terrible appearance.

Martin was not long in determining within himself that this must be
Colonel Diver's son; the hope of the family, and future mainspring
of the Rowdy Journal.  Indeed he had begun to say that he presumed
this was the colonel's little boy, and that it was very pleasant to
see him playing at Editor in all the guilelessness of childhood,
when the colonel proudly interposed and said:

'My War Correspondent, sir--Mr Jefferson Brick!'

Martin could not help starting at this unexpected announcement, and
the consciousness of the irretrievable mistake he had nearly made.

Mr Brick seemed pleased with the sensation he produced upon the
stranger, and shook hands with him, with an air of patronage
designed to reassure him, and to let him blow that there was no
occasion to be frightened, for he (Brick) wouldn't hurt him.

'You have heard of Jefferson Brick, I see, sir,' quoth the colonel,
with a smile.  'England has heard of Jefferson Brick.  Europe has
heard of Jefferson Brick.  Let me see.  When did you leave England,
sir?'

'Five weeks ago,' said Martin.

'Five weeks ago,' repeated the colonel, thoughtfully; as he took his
seat upon the table, and swung his legs.  'Now let me ask you, sir
which of Mr Brick's articles had become at that time the most
obnoxious to the British Parliament and the Court of Saint James's?'

'Upon my word,' said Martin, 'I--'

'I have reason to know, sir,' interrupted the colonel, 'that the
aristocratic circles of your country quail before the name of
Jefferson Brick.  I should like to be informed, sir, from your lips,
which of his sentiments has struck the deadliest blow--'

'At the hundred heads of the Hydra of Corruption now grovelling in
the dust beneath the lance of Reason, and spouting up to the
universal arch above us, its sanguinary gore,' said Mr Brick,
putting on a little blue cloth cap with a glazed front, and quoting
his last article.

'The libation of freedom, Brick'--hinted the colonel.

'--Must sometimes be quaffed in blood, colonel,' cried Brick.  And
when he said 'blood,' he gave the great pair of scissors a sharp
snap, as if THEY said blood too, and were quite of his opinion.

This done, they both looked at Martin, pausing for a reply.

'Upon my life,' said Martin, who had by this time quite recovered
his usual coolness, 'I can't give you any satisfactory information
about it; for the truth is that I--'

'Stop!' cried the colonel, glancing sternly at his war correspondent
and giving his head one shake after every sentence.  'That you never
heard of Jefferson Brick, sir.  That you never read Jefferson Brick,
sir.  That you never saw the Rowdy Journal, sir.  That you never
knew, sir, of its mighty influence upon the cabinets of Europe.
Yes?'

'That's what I was about to observe, certainly,' said Martin.

'Keep cool, Jefferson,' said the colonel gravely.  'Don't bust! oh
you Europeans!  After that, let's have a glass of wine!'  So saying,
he got down from the table, and produced, from a basket outside the
door, a bottle of champagne, and three glasses.

'Mr Jefferson Brick, sir,' said the colonel, filling Martin's glass
and his own, and pushing the bottle to that gentleman, 'will give us
a sentiment.'

'Well, sir!' cried the war correspondent, 'Since you have concluded
to call upon me, I will respond.  I will give you, sir, The Rowdy
Journal and its brethren; the well of Truth, whose waters are black
from being composed of printers' ink, but are quite clear enough for
my country to behold the shadow of her Destiny reflected in.'

'Hear, hear!' cried the colonel, with great complacency.  'There are
flowery components, sir, in the language of my friend?'

'Very much so, indeed,' said Martin.

'There is to-day's Rowdy, sir,' observed the colonel, handing him a
paper.  'You'll find Jefferson Brick at his usual post in the van of
human civilization and moral purity.'

The colonel was by this time seated on the table again.  Mr Brick
also took up a position on that same piece of furniture; and they
fell to drinking pretty hard.  They often looked at Martin as he
read the paper, and then at each other.  When he laid it down, which
was not until they had finished a second bottle, the colonel asked
him what he thought of it.

'Why, it's horribly personal,' said Martin.

The colonel seemed much flattered by this remark; and said he hoped
it was.

'We are independent here, sir,' said Mr Jefferson Brick.  'We do as
we like.'

'If I may judge from this specimen,' returned Martin, 'there must be
a few thousands here, rather the reverse of independent, who do as
they don't like.'

'Well!  They yield to the popular mind of the Popular Instructor,
sir,' said the colonel.  'They rile up, sometimes; but in general we
have a hold upon our citizens, both in public and in private life,
which is as much one of the ennobling institutions of our happy
country as--'

'As nigger slavery itself,' suggested Mr Brick.

'En--tirely so,' remarked the colonel.

'Pray,' said Martin, after some hesitation, 'may I venture to ask,
with reference to a case I observe in this paper of yours, whether
the Popular Instructor often deals in--I am at a loss to express it
without giving you offence--in forgery?  In forged letters, for
instance,' he pursued, for the colonel was perfectly calm and quite
at his ease, 'solemnly purporting to have been written at recent
periods by living men?'

'Well, sir!' replied the colonel.  'It does, now and then.'

'And the popular instructed--what do they do?' asked Martin.

'Buy 'em:' said the colonel.

Mr Jefferson Brick expectorated and laughed; the former copiously,
the latter approvingly.

'Buy 'em by hundreds of thousands,' resumed the colonel.  'We are a
smart people here, and can appreciate smartness.'

'Is smartness American for forgery?' asked Martin.

'Well!' said the colonel, 'I expect it's American for a good many
things that you call by other names.  But you can't help yourself in
Europe.  We can.'

'And do, sometimes,' thought Martin.  'You help yourselves with very
little ceremony, too!'

'At all events, whatever name we choose to employ,' said the
colonel, stooping down to roll the third empty bottle into a corner
after the other two, 'I suppose the art of forgery was not invented
here sir?'

'I suppose not,' replied Martin.

'Nor any other kind of smartness I reckon?'

'Invented!  No, I presume not.'

'Well!' said the colonel; 'then we got it all from the old country,
and the old country's to blame for it, and not the new 'un.  There's
an end of THAT.  Now, if Mr Jefferson Brick and you will be so good
as to clear, I'll come out last, and lock the door.'

Rightly interpreting this as the signal for their departure, Martin
walked downstairs after the war correspondent, who preceded him
with great majesty.  The colonel following, they left the Rowdy
Journal Office and walked forth into the streets; Martin feeling
doubtful whether he ought to kick the colonel for having presumed to
speak to him, or whether it came within the bounds of possibility
that he and his establishment could be among the boasted usages of
that regenerated land.

It was clear that Colonel Diver, in the security of his strong
position, and in his perfect understanding of the public sentiment,
cared very little what Martin or anybody else thought about him.
His high-spiced wares were made to sell, and they sold; and his
thousands of readers could as rationally charge their delight in
filth upon him, as a glutton can shift upon his cook the
responsibility of his beastly excess.  Nothing would have delighted
the colonel more than to be told that no such man as he could walk
in high success the streets of any other country in the world; for
that would only have been a logical assurance to him of the correct
adaptation of his labours to the prevailing taste, and of his being
strictly and peculiarly a national feature of America.

They walked a mile or more along a handsome street which the colonel
said was called Broadway, and which Mr Jefferson Brick said 'whipped
the universe.'  Turning, at length, into one of the numerous streets
which branched from this main thoroughfare, they stopped before a
rather mean-looking house with jalousie blinds to every window; a
flight of steps before the green street-door; a shining white
ornament on the rails on either side like a petrified pineapple,
polished; a little oblong plate of the same material over the
knocker whereon the name of 'Pawkins' was engraved; and four
accidental pigs looking down the area.

The colonel knocked at this house with the air of a man who lived
there; and an Irish girl popped her head out of one of the top
windows to see who it was.  Pending her journey downstairs, the
pigs were joined by two or three friends from the next street, in
company with whom they lay down sociably in the gutter.

'Is the major indoors?' inquired the colonel, as he entered.

'Is it the master, sir?' returned the girl, with a hesitation which
seemed to imply that they were rather flush of majors in that
establishment.

'The master!' said Colonel Diver, stopping short and looking round
at his war correspondent.

'Oh!  The depressing institutions of that British empire, colonel!'
said Jefferson Brick.  'Master!'

'What's the matter with the word?' asked Martin.

'I should hope it was never heard in our country, sir; that's all,'
said Jefferson Brick; 'except when it is used by some degraded Help,
as new to the blessings of our form of government, as this Help is.
There are no masters here.'

'All "owners," are they?' said Martin.

Mr Jefferson Brick followed in the Rowdy Journal's footsteps without
returning any answer.  Martin took the same course, thinking as he
went, that perhaps the free and independent citizens, who in their
moral elevation, owned the colonel for their master, might render
better homage to the goddess, Liberty, in nightly dreams upon the
oven of a Russian Serf.

The colonel led the way into a room at the back of the house upon
the ground-floor, light, and of fair dimensions, but exquisitely
uncomfortable; having nothing in it but the four cold white walls
and ceiling, a mean carpet, a dreary waste of dining-table reaching
from end to end, and a bewildering collection of cane-bottomed
chairs.  In the further region of this banqueting-hall was a stove,
garnished on either side with a great brass spittoon, and shaped in
itself like three little iron barrels set up on end in a fender, and
joined together on the principle of the Siamese Twins.  Before it,
swinging himself in a rocking-chair, lounged a large gentleman with
his hat on, who amused himself by spitting alternately into the
spittoon on the right hand of the stove, and the spittoon on the
left, and then working his way back again in the same order.  A
negro lad in a soiled white jacket was busily engaged in placing on
the table two long rows of knives and forks, relieved at intervals
by jugs of water; and as he travelled down one side of this festive
board, he straightened with his dirty hands the dirtier cloth, which
was all askew, and had not been removed since breakfast.  The
atmosphere of this room was rendered intensely hot and stifling by
the stove; but being further flavoured by a sickly gush of soup from
the kitchen, and by such remote suggestions of tobacco as lingered
within the brazen receptacles already mentioned, it became, to a
stranger's senses, almost insupportable.

The gentleman in the rocking-chair having his back towards them, and
being much engaged in his intellectual pastime, was not aware of
their approach until the colonel, walking up to the stove,
contributed his mite towards the support of the left-hand spittoon,
just as the major--for it was the major--bore down upon it.  Major
Pawkins then reserved his fire, and looking upward, said, with a
peculiar air of quiet weariness, like a man who had been up all
night--an air which Martin had already observed both in the colonel
and Mr Jefferson Brick--

'Well, colonel!'

'Here is a gentleman from England, major,' the colonel replied, 'who
has concluded to locate himself here if the amount of compensation
suits him.'

'I am glad to see you, sir,' observed the major, shaking hands with
Martin, and not moving a muscle of his face.  'You are pretty
bright, I hope?'

'Never better,' said Martin.

'You are never likely to be,' returned the major.  'You will see the
sun shine HERE.'

'I think I remember to have seen it shine at home sometimes,' said
Martin, smiling.

'I think not,' replied the major.  He said so with a stoical
indifference certainly, but still in a tone of firmness which
admitted of no further dispute on that point.  When he had thus
settled the question, he put his hat a little on one side for the
greater convenience of scratching his head, and saluted Mr Jefferson
Brick with a lazy nod.

Major Pawkins (a gentleman of Pennsylvanian origin) was
distinguished by a very large skull, and a great mass of yellow
forehead; in deference to which commodities it was currently held in
bar-rooms and other such places of resort that the major was a man
of huge sagacity.  He was further to be known by a heavy eye and a
dull slow manner; and for being a man of that kind who--mentally
speaking--requires a deal of room to turn himself in.  But, in
trading on his stock of wisdom, he invariably proceeded on the
principle of putting all the goods he had (and more) into his
window; and that went a great way with his constituency of admirers.
It went a great way, perhaps, with Mr Jefferson Brick, who took
occasion to whisper in Martin's ear:

'One of the most remarkable men in our country, sir!'

It must not be supposed, however, that the perpetual exhibition in
the market-place of all his stock-in-trade for sale or hire, was the
major's sole claim to a very large share of sympathy and support.
He was a great politician; and the one article of his creed, in
reference to all public obligations involving the good faith and
integrity of his country, was, 'run a moist pen slick through
everything, and start fresh.'  This made him a patriot.  In
commercial affairs he was a bold speculator.  In plainer words he
had a most distinguished genius for swindling, and could start a
bank, or negotiate a loan, or form a land-jobbing company (entailing
ruin, pestilence, and death, on hundreds of families), with any
gifted creature in the Union.  This made him an admirable man of
business.  He could hang about a bar-room, discussing the affairs of
the nation, for twelve hours together; and in that time could hold
forth with more intolerable dulness, chew more tobacco, smoke more
tobacco, drink more rum-toddy, mint-julep, gin-sling, and cocktail,
than any private gentleman of his acquaintance.  This made him an
orator and a man of the people.  In a word, the major was a rising
character, and a popular character, and was in a fair way to be sent
by the popular party to the State House of New York, if not in the
end to Washington itself.  But as a man's private prosperity does
not always keep pace with his patriotic devotion to public affairs;
and as fraudulent transactions have their downs as well as ups, the
major was occasionally under a cloud.  Hence, just now Mrs Pawkins
kept a boarding-house, and Major Pawkins rather 'loafed' his time
away than otherwise.

'You have come to visit our country, sir, at a season of great
commercial depression,' said the major.

'At an alarming crisis,' said the colonel.

'At a period of unprecedented stagnation,' said Mr Jefferson Brick.

'I am sorry to hear that,' returned Martin.  'It's not likely to
last, I hope?'

Martin knew nothing about America, or he would have known perfectly
well that if its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed,
it always IS depressed, and always IS stagnated, and always IS at an
alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body they are
ready to make oath upon the Evangelists at any hour of the day or
night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries
on the habitable globe.

'It's not likely to last, I hope?' said Martin.

'Well!' returned the major, 'I expect we shall get along somehow,
and come right in the end.'

'We are an elastic country,' said the Rowdy Journal.

'We are a young lion,' said Mr Jefferson Brick.

'We have revivifying and vigorous principles within ourselves,'
observed the major.  'Shall we drink a bitter afore dinner,
colonel?'

The colonel assenting to this proposal with great alacrity, Major
Pawkins proposed an adjournment to a neighbouring bar-room, which,
as he observed, was 'only in the next block.'  He then referred
Martin to Mrs Pawkins for all particulars connected with the rate of
board and lodging, and informed him that he would have the pleasure
of seeing that lady at dinner, which would soon be ready, as the
dinner hour was two o'clock, and it only wanted a quarter now.  This
reminded him that if the bitter were to be taken at all, there was
no time to lose; so he walked off without more ado, and left them to
follow if they thought proper.

When the major rose from his rocking-chair before the stove, and so
disturbed the hot air and balmy whiff of soup which fanned their
brows, the odour of stale tobacco became so decidedly prevalent as
to leave no doubt of its proceeding mainly from that gentleman's
attire.  Indeed, as Martin walked behind him to the bar-room, he
could not help thinking that the great square major, in his
listlessness and langour, looked very much like a stale weed himself;
such as might be hoed out of the public garden, with great advantage
to the decent growth of that preserve, and tossed on some congenial
dunghill.

They encountered more weeds in the bar-room, some of whom (being
thirsty souls as well as dirty) were pretty stale in one sense, and
pretty fresh in another.  Among them was a gentleman who, as Martin
gathered from the conversation that took place over the bitter,
started that afternoon for the Far West on a six months' business
tour, and who, as his outfit and equipment for this journey, had
just such another shiny hat and just such another little pale valise
as had composed the luggage of the gentleman who came from England
in the Screw.

They were walking back very leisurely; Martin arm-in-arm with Mr
Jefferson Brick, and the major and the colonel side-by-side before
them; when, as they came within a house or two of the major's
residence, they heard a bell ringing violently.  The instant this
sound struck upon their ears, the colonel and the major darted off,
dashed up the steps and in at the street-door (which stood ajar)
like lunatics; while Mr Jefferson Brick, detaching his arm from
Martin's, made a precipitate dive in the same direction, and
vanished also.

'Good Heaven!' thought Martin.  'The premises are on fire!  It was an
alarm bell!'

But there was no smoke to be seen, nor any flame, nor was there any
smell of fire.  As Martin faltered on the pavement, three more
gentlemen, with horror and agitation depicted in their faces, came
plunging wildly round the street corner; jostled each other on the
steps; struggled for an instant; and rushed into the house, a
confused heap of arms and legs.  Unable to bear it any longer,
Martin followed.  Even in his rapid progress he was run down, thrust
aside, and passed, by two more gentlemen, stark mad, as it appeared,
with fierce excitement.

'Where is it?' cried Martin, breathlessly, to a negro whom he
encountered in the passage.

'In a eatin room, sa.  Kernell, sa, him kep a seat 'side himself,
sa.'

'A seat!' cried Martin.

'For a dinnar, sa.'

Martin started at him for a moment, and burst into a hearty laugh;
to which the negro, out of his natural good humour and desire to
please, so heartily responded, that his teeth shone like a gleam of
light.  'You're the pleasantest fellow I have seen yet,' said Martin
clapping him on the back, 'and give me a better appetite than
bitters.'

With this sentiment he walked into the dining-room and slipped into
a chair next the colonel, which that gentleman (by this time nearly
through his dinner) had turned down in reserve for him, with its
back against the table.

It was a numerous company--eighteen or twenty perhaps.  Of these
some five or six were ladies, who sat wedged together in a little
phalanx by themselves.  All the knives and forks were working away
at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and
everybody seemed to eat his utmost in self-defence, as if a famine
were expected to set in before breakfast time to-morrow morning, and
it had become high time to assert the first law of nature.  The
poultry, which may perhaps be considered to have formed the staple
of the entertainment--for there was a turkey at the top, a pair of
ducks at the bottom, and two fowls in the middle--disappeared as
rapidly as if every bird had had the use of its wings, and had flown
in desperation down a human throat.  The oysters, stewed and
pickled, leaped from their capacious reservoirs, and slid by scores
into the mouths of the assembly.  The sharpest pickles vanished,
whole cucumbers at once, like sugar-plums, and no man winked his
eye.  Great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before
the sun.  It was a solemn and an awful thing to see.  Dyspeptic
individuals bolted their food in wedges; feeding, not themselves,
but broods of nightmares, who were continually standing at livery
within them.  Spare men, with lank and rigid cheeks, came out
unsatisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, and glared with
watchful eyes upon the pastry.  What Mrs Pawkins felt each day at
dinner-time is hidden from all human knowledge.  But she had one
comfort.  It was very soon over.

When the colonel had finished his dinner, which event took place
while Martin, who had sent his plate for some turkey, was waiting to
begin, he asked him what he thought of the boarders, who were from
all parts of the Union, and whether he would like to know any
particulars concerning them.

'Pray,' said Martin, 'who is that sickly little girl opposite, with
the tight round eyes?  I don't see anybody here, who looks like her
mother, or who seems to have charge of her.'

'Do you mean the matron in blue, sir?' asked the colonel, with
emphasis.  'That is Mrs Jefferson Brick, sir.'

'No, no,' said Martin, 'I mean the little girl, like a doll;
directly opposite.'

'Well, sir!' cried the colonel.  'THAT is Mrs Jefferson Brick.'

Martin glanced at the colonel's face, but he was quite serious.

'Bless my soul!  I suppose there will be a young Brick then, one of
these days?' said Martin.

'There are two young Bricks already, sir,' returned the colonel.

The matron looked so uncommonly like a child herself, that Martin
could not help saying as much.  'Yes, sir,' returned the colonel,
'but some institutions develop human natur; others re--tard it.'

'Jefferson Brick,' he observed after a short silence, in
commendation of his correspondent, 'is one of the most remarkable
men in our country, sir!'

This had passed almost in a whisper, for the distinguished gentleman
alluded to sat on Martin's other hand.

'Pray, Mr Brick,' said Martin, turning to him, and asking a question
more for conversation's sake than from any feeling of interest in
its subject, 'who is that;' he was going to say 'young' but thought
it prudent to eschew the word--'that very short gentleman yonder,
with the red nose?'

'That is Pro--fessor Mullit, sir,' replied Jefferson.

'May I ask what he is professor of?' asked Martin.

'Of education, sir,' said Jefferson Brick.

'A sort of schoolmaster, possibly?' Martin ventured to observe.

'He is a man of fine moral elements, sir, and not commonly endowed,'
said the war correspondent.  'He felt it necessary, at the last
election for President, to repudiate and denounce his father, who
voted on the wrong interest.  He has since written some powerful
pamphlets, under the signature of "Suturb," or Brutus reversed.  He
is one of the most remarkable men in our country, sir.'

'There seem to be plenty of 'em,' thought Martin, 'at any rate.'

Pursuing his inquiries Martin found that there were no fewer than
four majors present, two colonels, one general, and a captain, so
that he could not help thinking how strongly officered the American
militia must be; and wondering very much whether the officers
commanded each other; or if they did not, where on earth the
privates came from.  There seemed to be no man there without a
title; for those who had not attained to military honours were
either doctors, professors, or reverends.  Three very hard and
disagreeable gentlemen were on missions from neighbouring States;
one on monetary affairs, one on political, one on sectarian.  Among
the ladies, there were Mrs Pawkins, who was very straight, bony, and
silent; and a wiry-faced old damsel, who held strong sentiments
touching the rights of women, and had diffused the same in lectures;
but the rest were strangely devoid of individual traits of
character, insomuch that any one of them might have changed minds
with the other, and nobody would have found it out.  These, by the
way, were the only members of the party who did not appear to be
among the most remarkable people in the country.

Several of the gentlemen got up, one by one, and walked off as they
swallowed their last morsel; pausing generally by the stove for a
minute or so to refresh themselves at the brass spittoons.  A few
sedentary characters, however, remained at table full a quarter of
an hour, and did not rise until the ladies rose, when all stood up.

'Where are they going?' asked Martin, in the ear of Mr Jefferson
Brick.

'To their bedrooms, sir.'

'Is there no dessert, or other interval of conversation?' asked
Martin, who was disposed to enjoy himself after his long voyage.

'We are a busy people here, sir, and have no time for that,' was the
reply.

So the ladies passed out in single file; Mr Jefferson Brick and such
other married gentlemen as were left, acknowledging the departure of
their other halves by a nod; and there was an end of THEM.  Martin
thought this an uncomfortable custom, but he kept his opinion to
himself for the present, being anxious to hear, and inform himself
by, the conversation of the busy gentlemen, who now lounged about the
stove as if a great weight had been taken off their minds by the
withdrawal of the other sex; and who made a plentiful use of the
spittoons and their toothpicks.

It was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater
part of it may be summed up in one word.  Dollars.  All their cares,
hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be
melted down into dollars.  Whatever the chance contributions that
fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick
and slab with dollars.  Men were weighed by their dollars, measures
gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up,
and knocked down for its dollars.  The next respectable thing to
dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end.  The
more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any
man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent,
the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars.  Make commerce one
huge lie and mighty theft.  Deface the banner of the nation for an
idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as
from the arm of a degraded soldier.  Do anything for dollars!  What
is a flag to THEM!

One who rides at all hazards of limb and life in the chase of a fox,
will prefer to ride recklessly at most times.  So it was with these
gentlemen.  He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled
the loudest, and who cared the least for decency.  He was their
champion who, in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no
stigma upon them for the hot knavery of theirs.  Thus, Martin learned
in the five minutes' straggling talk about the stove, that to carry
pistols into legislative assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other
such peaceful toys; to seize opponents by the throat, as dogs or
rats might do; to bluster, bully, and overbear by personal
assailment; were glowing deeds.  Not thrusts and stabs at Freedom,
striking far deeper into her House of Life than any sultan's
scimitar could reach; but rare incense on her altars, having a
grateful scent in patriotic nostrils, and curling upward to the
seventh heaven of Fame.

Once or twice, when there was a pause, Martin asked such questions
as naturally occurred to him, being a stranger, about the national
poets, the theatre, literature, and the arts.  But the information
which these gentlemen were in a condition to give him on such
topics, did not extend beyond the effusions of such master-spirits
of the time as Colonel Diver, Mr Jefferson Brick, and others;
renowned, as it appeared, for excellence in the achievement of a
peculiar style of broadside essay called 'a screamer.'

'We are a busy people, sir,' said one of the captains, who was from
the West, 'and have no time for reading mere notions.  We don't mind
'em if they come to us in newspapers along with almighty strong
stuff of another sort, but darn your books.'

Here the general, who appeared to grow quite faint at the bare
thought of reading anything which was neither mercantile nor
political, and was not in a newspaper, inquired 'if any gentleman
would drink some?'  Most of the company, considering this a very
choice and seasonable idea, lounged out, one by one, to the bar-room
in the next block.  Thence they probably went to their stores and
counting-houses; thence to the bar-room again, to talk once more of
dollars, and enlarge their minds with the perusal and discussion of
screamers; and thence each man to snore in the bosom of his own
family.

'Which would seem,' said Martin, pursuing the current of his own
thoughts, 'to be the principal recreation they enjoy in common.'
With that, he fell a-musing again on dollars, demagogues, and bar-
rooms; debating within himself whether busy people of this class
were really as busy as they claimed to be, or only had an inaptitude
for social and domestic pleasure.

It was a difficult question to solve; and the mere fact of its being
strongly presented to his mind by all that he had seen and heard,
was not encouraging.  He sat down at the deserted board, and
becoming more and more despondent, as he thought of all the
uncertainties and difficulties of his precarious situation, sighed
heavily.

Now, there had been at the dinner-table a middle-aged man with a
dark eye and a sunburnt face, who had attracted Martin's attention
by having something very engaging and honest in the expression of
his features; but of whom he could learn nothing from either of his
neighbours, who seemed to consider him quite beneath their notice.
He had taken no part in the conversation round the stove, nor had he
gone forth with the rest; and now, when he heard Martin sigh for the
third or fourth time, he interposed with some casual remark, as if
he desired, without obtruding himself upon a stranger's notice, to
engage him in cheerful conversation if he could.  His motive was so
obvious, and yet so delicately expressed, that Martin felt really
grateful to him, and showed him so in the manner of his reply.

'I will not ask you,' said this gentleman with a smile, as he rose
and moved towards him, 'how you like my country, for I can quite
anticipate your feeling on that point.  But, as I am an American,
and consequently bound to begin with a question, I'll ask you how
you like the colonel?'

'You are so very frank,' returned Martin, 'that I have no hesitation
in saying I don't like him at all.  Though I must add that I am
beholden to him for his civility in bringing me here--and arranging
for my stay, on pretty reasonable terms, by the way,' he added,
remembering that the colonel had whispered him to that effect,
before going out.

'Not much beholden,' said the stranger drily.  'The colonel
occasionally boards packet-ships, I have heard, to glean the latest
information for his journal; and he occasionally brings strangers to
board here, I believe, with a view to the little percentage which
attaches to those good offices; and which the hostess deducts from
his weekly bill.  I don't offend you, I hope?' he added, seeing that
Martin reddened.

'My dear sir,' returned Martin, as they shook hands, 'how is that
possible! to tell you the truth, I--am--'

'Yes?' said the gentleman, sitting down beside him.

'I am rather at a loss, since I must speak plainly,' said Martin,
getting the better of his hesitation, 'to know how this colonel
escapes being beaten.'

'Well!  He has been beaten once or twice,' remarked the gentleman
quietly.  'He is one of a class of men, in whom our own Franklin, so
long ago as ten years before the close of the last century, foresaw
our danger and disgrace.  Perhaps you don't know that Franklin, in
very severe terms, published his opinion that those who were
slandered by such fellows as this colonel, having no sufficient
remedy in the administration of this country's laws or in the decent
and right-minded feeling of its people, were justified in retorting
on such public nuisances by means of a stout cudgel?'

'I was not aware of that,' said Martin, 'but I am very glad to know
it, and I think it worthy of his memory; especially'--here he
hesitated again.

'Go on,' said the other, smiling as if he knew what stuck in
Martin's throat.

'Especially,' pursued Martin, 'as I can already understand that it
may have required great courage, even in his time, to write freely
on any question which was not a party one in this very free
country.'

'Some courage, no doubt,' returned his new friend.  'Do you think it
would require any to do so, now?'

'Indeed I think it would; and not a little,' said Martin.

'You are right.  So very right, that I believe no satirist could
breathe this air.  If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among
us to-morrow, he would be hunted down.  If you have any knowledge of
our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born
and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, and not as
this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal
slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will
be a strange name in my ears, believe me.  In some cases I could
name to you, where a native writer has ventured on the most harmless
and good-humoured illustrations of our vices or defects, it has been
found necessary to announce, that in a second edition the passage
has been expunged, or altered, or explained away, or patched into
praise.'

'And how has this been brought about?' asked Martin, in dismay.

'Think of what you have seen and heard to-day, beginning with the
colonel,' said his friend, 'and ask yourself.  How THEY came about,
is another question.  Heaven forbid that they should be samples of
the intelligence and virtue of America, but they come uppermost, and
in great numbers, and too often represent it.  Will you walk?'

There was a cordial candour in his manner, and an engaging
confidence that it would not be abused; a manly bearing on his own
part, and a simple reliance on the manly faith of a stranger; which
Martin had never seen before.  He linked his arm readily in that of
the American gentleman, and they walked out together.

It was perhaps to men like this, his new companion, that a traveller
of honoured name, who trod those shores now nearly forty years ago,
and woke upon that soil, as many have done since, to blots and
stains upon its high pretensions, which in the brightness of his
distant dreams were lost to view, appealed in these words--


    'Oh, but for such, Columbia's days were done;
     Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
     Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
     Her fruits would fall before her spring were o'er!'



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MARTIN ENLARGES HIS CIRCLE OF AQUAINTANCE; INCREASES HIS STOCK OF
WISDOM; AND HAS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY OF COMPARING HIS OWN
EXPERIENCES WITH THOSE OF LUMMY NED OF THE LIGHT SALISBURY, AS
RELATED BY HIS FRIEND MR WILLIAM SIMMONS


It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had either
forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no such
person in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that
gentleman rose before his mental vision, had dismissed it as
something by no means of a pressing nature, which might be attended
to by-and-bye, and could wait his perfect leisure.  But, being now
in the streets again, it occurred to him as just coming within the
bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley might, in course of time,
grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the Rowdy Journal Office,
so he intimated to his new friend, that if they could conveniently
walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this piece of
business off his mind.

'And speaking of business,' said Martin, 'may I ask, in order that I
may not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your
occupation holds you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor
here?'

'A visitor,' replied his friend.  'I was "raised" in the State of
Massachusetts, and reside there still.  My home is in a quiet
country town.  I am not often in these busy places; and my
inclination to visit them does not increase with our better
acquaintance, I assure you.'

'You have been abroad?' asked Martin,

'Oh yes.'

'And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever
attached to your home and native country,' said Martin, eyeing him
curiously.

'To my home--yes,' rejoined his friend.  'To my native country AS my
home--yes, also.'

'You imply some reservation,' said Martin.

'Well,' returned his new friend, 'if you ask me whether I came back
here with a greater relish for my country's faults; with a greater
fondness for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars a day)
to be her friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of
principles among us in respect of public matters and of private
dealings between man and man, the advocacy of which, beyond the foul
atmosphere of a criminal trial, would disgrace your own old Bailey
lawyers; why, then I answer plainly, No.'

'Oh!' said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend's No,
that it sounded like an echo.

'If you ask me,' his companion pursued, 'whether I came back here
better satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides
society into two classes--whereof one, the great mass, asserts a
spurious independence, most miserably dependent for its mean
existence on the disregard of humanizing conventionalities of manner
and social custom, so that the coarser a man is, the more distinctly
it shall appeal to his taste; while the other, disgusted with the
low standard thus set up and made adaptable to everything, takes
refuge among the graces and refinements it can bring to bear on
private life, and leaves the public weal to such fortune as may
betide it in the press and uproar of a general scramble--then again
I answer, No.'

And again Martin said 'Oh!' in the same odd way as before, being
anxious and disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public
grounds, as with reference to the fading prospects of domestic
architecture.

'In a word,' resumed the other, 'I do not find and cannot believe
and therefore will not allow, that we are a model of wisdom, and an
example to the world, and the perfection of human reason, and a
great deal more to the same purpose, which you may hear any hour in
the day; simply because we began our political life with two
inestimable advantages.'

'What were they?' asked Martin.

'One, that our history commenced at so late a period as to escape
the ages of bloodshed and cruelty through which other nations have
passed; and so had all the light of their probation, and none of its
darkness.  The other, that we have a vast territory, and not--as
yet--too many people on it.  These facts considered, we have done
little enough, I think.'

'Education?' suggested Martin, faintly.

'Pretty well on that head,' said the other, shrugging his shoulders,
'still no mighty matter to boast of; for old countries, and despotic
countries too, have done as much, if not more, and made less noise
about it.  We shine out brightly in comparison with England,
certainly; but hers is a very extreme case.  You complimented me on
my frankness, you know,' he added, laughing.

'Oh! I am not at all astonished at your speaking thus openly when my
country is in question,' returned Martin.  'It is your plain-
speaking in reference to your own that surprises me.'

'You will not find it a scarce quality here, I assure you, saving
among the Colonel Divers, and Jefferson Bricks, and Major Pawkinses;
though the best of us are something like the man in Goldsmith's
comedy, who wouldn't suffer anybody but himself to abuse his master.
Come!' he added.  'Let us talk of something else.  You have come
here on some design of improving your fortune, I dare say; and I
should grieve to put you out of heart.  I am some years older than
you, besides; and may, on a few trivial points, advise you, perhaps.'

There was not the least curiosity or impertinence in the manner of
this offer, which was open-hearted, unaffected, and good-natured.
As it was next to impossible that he should not have his confidence
awakened by a deportment so prepossessing and kind, Martin plainly
stated what had brought him into those parts, and even made the very
difficult avowal that he was poor.  He did not say how poor, it must
be admitted, rather throwing off the declaration with an air which
might have implied that he had money enough for six months, instead
of as many weeks; but poor he said he was, and grateful he said he
would be, for any counsel that his friend would give him.

It would not have been very difficult for any one to see; but it was
particularly easy for Martin, whose perceptions were sharpened by
his circumstances, to discern; that the stranger's face grew
infinitely longer as the domestic-architecture project was
developed.  Nor, although he made a great effort to be as
encouraging as possible, could he prevent his head from shaking once
involuntarily, as if it said in the vulgar tongue, upon its own
account, 'No go!'  But he spoke in a cheerful tone, and said, that
although there was no such opening as Martin wished, in that city,
he would make it matter of immediate consideration and inquiry where
one was most likely to exist; and then he made Martin acquainted
with his name, which was Bevan; and with his profession, which was
physic, though he seldom or never practiced; and with other
circumstances connected with himself and family, which fully
occupied the time, until they reached the Rowdy Journal Office.

Mr Tapley appeared to be taking his ease on the landing of the first
floor; for sounds as of some gentleman established in that region
whistling 'Rule Britannia' with all his might and main, greeted
their ears before they reached the house.  On ascending to the spot
from whence this music proceeded, they found him recumbent in the
midst of a fortification of luggage, apparently performing his
national anthem for the gratification of a grey-haired black man,
who sat on one of the outworks (a portmanteau), staring intently at
Mark, while Mark, with his head reclining on his hand, returned the
compliment in a thoughtful manner, and whistled all the time.  He
seemed to have recently dined, for his knife, a casebottle, and
certain broken meats in a handkerchief, lay near at hand.  He had
employed a portion of his leisure in the decoration of the Rowdy
Journal door, whereon his own initials now appeared in letters
nearly half a foot long, together with the day of the month in
smaller type; the whole surrounded by an ornamental border, and
looking very fresh and bold.

'I was a'most afraid you was lost, sir!' cried Mark, rising, and
stopping the tune at that point where Britons generally are supposed
to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never--

'Nothing gone wrong, I hope, sir?'

'No, Mark.  Where's your friend?'

'The mad woman, sir?' said Mr Tapley.  'Oh! she's all right, sir.'

'Did she find her husband?'

'Yes, sir.  Leastways she's found his remains,' said Mark,
correcting himself.

'The man's not dead, I hope?'

'Not altogether dead, sir,' returned Mark; 'but he's had more fevers
and agues than is quite reconcilable with being alive.  When she
didn't see him a-waiting for her, I thought she'd have died herself,
I did!'

'Was he not here, then?'

'HE wasn't here.  There was a feeble old shadow come a-creeping down
at last, as much like his substance when she know'd him, as your
shadow when it's drawn out to its very finest and longest by the
sun, is like you.  But it was his remains, there's no doubt about
that.  She took on with joy, poor thing, as much as if it had been
all of him!'

'Had he bought land?' asked Mr Bevan.

'Ah!  He'd bought land,' said Mark, shaking his head, 'and paid for
it too.  Every sort of nateral advantage was connected with it, the
agents said; and there certainly was ONE, quite unlimited.  No end
to the water!'

'It's a thing he couldn't have done without, I suppose,' observed
Martin, peevishly.

'Certainly not, sir.  There it was, any way; always turned on, and
no water-rate.  Independent of three or four slimy old rivers close
by, it varied on the farm from four to six foot deep in the dry
season.  He couldn't say how deep it was in the rainy time, for he
never had anything long enough to sound it with.'

'Is this true?' asked Martin of his companion.

'Extremely probable,' he answered.  'Some Mississippi or Missouri
lot, I dare say.'

'However,' pursued Mark, 'he came from I-don't-know-where-and-all,
down to New York here, to meet his wife and children; and they
started off again in a steamboat this blessed afternoon, as happy
to be along with each other as if they were going to Heaven.  I
should think they was, pretty straight, if I may judge from the poor
man's looks.'

'And may I ask,' said Martin, glancing, but not with any
displeasure, from Mark to the negro, 'who this gentleman is?
Another friend of yours?'

'Why sir,' returned Mark, taking him aside, and speaking
confidentially in his ear, 'he's a man of colour, sir!'

'Do you take me for a blind man,' asked Martin, somewhat
impatiently, 'that you think it necessary to tell me that, when his
face is the blackest that ever was seen?'

'No, no; when I say a man of colour,' returned Mark, 'I mean that
he's been one of them as there's picters of in the shops.  A man and
a brother, you know, sir,' said Mr Tapley, favouring his master with
a significant indication of the figure so often represented in
tracts and cheap prints.

'A slave!' cried Martin, in a whisper.

'Ah!' said Mark in the same tone.  'Nothing else.  A slave.  Why,
when that there man was young--don't look at him while I'm a-telling
it--he was shot in the leg; gashed in the arm; scored in his live
limbs, like crimped fish; beaten out of shape; had his neck galled
with an iron collar, and wore iron rings upon his wrists and ankles.
The marks are on him to this day.  When I was having my dinner just
now, he stripped off his coat, and took away my appetite.'

'Is THIS true?' asked Martin of his friend, who stood beside them.

'I have no reason to doubt it,' he answered, shaking his head 'It
very often is.'

'Bless you,' said Mark, 'I know it is, from hearing his whole story.
That master died; so did his second master from having his head cut
open with a hatchet by another slave, who, when he'd done it, went
and drowned himself; then he got a better one; in years and years
he saved up a little money, and bought his freedom, which he got
pretty cheap at last, on account of his strength being nearly gone,
and he being ill.  Then he come here.  And now he's a-saving up to
treat himself, afore he dies, to one small purchase--it's nothing to
speak of.  Only his own daughter; that's all!' cried Mr Tapley,
becoming excited.  'Liberty for ever!  Hurrah!  Hail, Columbia!'

'Hush!' cried Martin, clapping his hand upon his mouth; 'and don't
be an idiot.  What is he doing here?'

'Waiting to take our luggage off upon a truck,' said Mark.  'He'd
have come for it by-and-bye, but I engaged him for a very reasonable
charge (out of my own pocket) to sit along with me and make me
jolly; and I am jolly; and if I was rich enough to contract with him
to wait upon me once a day, to be looked at, I'd never be anything
else.'

The fact may cause a solemn impeachment of Mark's veracity, but it
must be admitted nevertheless, that there was that in his face and
manner at the moment, which militated strongly against this emphatic
declaration of his state of mind.

'Lord love you, sir,' he added, 'they're so fond of Liberty in this
part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to
market with 'em.  They've such a passion for Liberty, that they
can't help taking liberties with her.  That's what it's owing to.'

'Very well,' said Martin, wishing to change the theme.  'Having come
to that conclusion, Mark, perhaps you'll attend to me.  The place to
which the luggage is to go is printed on this card.  Mrs Pawkins's
Boarding House.'

'Mrs Pawkins's boarding-house,' repeated Mark.  'Now, Cicero.'

'Is that his name?' asked Martin

'That's his name, sir,' rejoined Mark.  And the negro grinning
assent from under a leathern portmanteau, than which his own face
was many shades deeper, hobbled downstairs with his portion of
their worldly goods; Mark Tapley having already gone before with his
share.

Martin and his friend followed them to the door below, and were
about to pursue their walk, when the latter stopped, and asked, with
some hesitation, whether that young man was to be trusted?

'Mark! oh certainly! with anything.'

'You don't understand me--I think he had better go with us.  He is
an honest fellow, and speaks his mind so very plainly.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Martin, smiling, 'that being unaccustomed
to a free republic, he is used to do so.'

'I think he had better go with us,' returned the other.  'He may get
into some trouble otherwise.  This is not a slave State; but I am
ashamed to say that a spirit of Tolerance is not so common anywhere
in these latitudes as the form.  We are not remarkable for behaving
very temperately to each other when we differ; but to strangers!
no, I really think he had better go with us.'

Martin called to him immediately to be of their party; so Cicero and
the truck went one way, and they three went another.

They walked about the city for two or three hours; seeing it from
the best points of view, and pausing in the principal streets, and
before such public buildings as Mr Bevan pointed out.  Night then
coming on apace, Martin proposed that they should adjourn to Mrs
Pawkins's establishment for coffee; but in this he was overruled by
his new acquaintance, who seemed to have set his heart on carrying
him, though it were only for an hour, to the house of a friend of
his who lived hard by.  Feeling (however disinclined he was, being
weary) that it would be in bad taste, and not very gracious, to
object that he was unintroduced, when this open-hearted gentleman
was so ready to be his sponsor, Martin--for once in his life, at all
events--sacrificed his own will and pleasure to the wishes of
another, and consented with a fair grace.  So travelling had done
him that much good, already.

Mr Bevan knocked at the door of a very neat house of moderate size,
from the parlour windows of which, lights were shining brightly into
the now dark street.  It was quickly opened by a man with such a
thoroughly Irish face, that it seemed as if he ought, as a matter of
right and principle, to be in rags, and could have no sort of
business to be looking cheerfully at anybody out of a whole suit of
clothes.

Commending Mark to the care of this phenomenon--for such he may be
said to have been in Martin's eyes--Mr Bevan led the way into the
room which had shed its cheerfulness upon the street, to whose
occupants he introduced Mr Chuzzlewit as a gentleman from England,
whose acquaintance he had recently had the pleasure to make.  They
gave him welcome in all courtesy and politeness; and in less than
five minutes' time he found himself sitting very much at his ease by
the fireside, and becoming vastly well acquainted with the whole
family.

There were two young ladies--one eighteen; the other twenty--both
very slender, but very pretty; their mother, who looked, as Martin
thought much older and more faded than she ought to have looked; and
their grandmother, a little sharp-eyed, quick old woman, who seemed
to have got past that stage, and to have come all right again.
Besides these, there were the young ladies' father, and the young
ladies' brother; the first engaged in mercantile affairs; the
second, a student at college; both, in a certain cordiality of
manner, like his own friend, and not unlike him in face.  Which was
no great wonder, for it soon appeared that he was their near
relation.  Martin could not help tracing the family pedigree from
the two young ladies, because they were foremost in his thoughts;
not only from being, as aforesaid, very pretty, but by reason of
their wearing miraculously small shoes, and the thinnest possible
silk stockings; the which their rocking-chairs developed to a
distracting extent.

There is no doubt that it was a monstrous comfortable circumstance
to be sitting in a snug, well-furnished room, warmed by a cheerful
fire, and full of various pleasant decorations, including four small
shoes, and the like amount of silk stockings, and--yes, why not?--the
feet and legs therein enshrined.  And there is no doubt that Martin
was monstrous well-disposed to regard his position in that light,
after his recent experience of the Screw, and of Mrs Pawkins's
boarding-house.  The consequence was that he made himself very
agreeable indeed; and by the time the tea and coffee arrived (with
sweet preserves, and cunning tea-cakes in its train), was in a
highly genial state, and much esteemed by the whole family.

Another delightful circumstance turned up before the first cup of
tea was drunk.  The whole family had been in England.  There was a
pleasant thing!  But Martin was not quite so glad of this, when he
found that they knew all the great dukes, lords, viscounts,
marquesses, duchesses, knights, and baronets, quite affectionately,
and were beyond everything interested in the least particular
concerning them.  However, when they asked, after the wearer of this
or that coronet, and said, 'Was he quite well?' Martin answered,
'Yes, oh yes.  Never better;' and when they said, 'his lordship's
mother, the duchess, was she much changed?' Martin said, 'Oh dear
no, they would know her anywhere, if they saw her to-morrow;' and
so got on pretty well.  In like manner when the young ladies
questioned him touching the Gold Fish in that Grecian fountain in
such and such a nobleman's conservatory, and whether there were as
many as there used to be, he gravely reported, after mature
consideration, that there must be at least twice as many; and as to
the exotics, 'Oh! well! it was of no use talking about THEM; they
must be seen to be believed;' which improved state of circumstances
reminded the family of the splendour of that brilliant festival
(comprehending the whole British Peerage and Court Calendar) to
which they were specially invited, and which indeed had been partly
given in their honour; and recollections of what Mr Norris the
father had said to the marquess, and of what Mrs Norris the mother
had said to the marchioness, and of what the marquess and
marchioness had both said, when they said that upon their words and
honours they wished Mr Norris the father and Mrs Norris the mother,
and the Misses Norris the daughters, and Mr Norris Junior, the son,
would only take up their permanent residence in England, and give
them the pleasure of their everlasting friendship, occupied a very
considerable time.

Martin thought it rather stange, and in some sort inconsistent, that
during the whole of these narrations, and in the very meridian of
their enjoyment thereof, both Mr Norris the father, and Mr Norris
Junior, the son (who corresponded, every post, with four members of
the English Peerage), enlarged upon the inestimable advantage of
having no such arbitrary distinctions in that enlightened land,
where there were no noblemen but nature's noblemen, and where all
society was based on one broad level of brotherly love and natural
equality.  Indeed, Mr Norris the father gradually expanding into an
oration on this swelling theme, was becoming tedious, when Mr Bevan
diverted his thoughts by happening to make some causal inquiry
relative to the occupier of the next house; in reply to which, this
same Mr Norris the father observed, that 'that person entertained
religious opinions of which he couldn't approve; and therefore he
hadn't the honour of knowing the gentleman.'  Mrs Norris the mother
added another reason of her own, the same in effect, but varying in
words; to wit, that she believed the people were well enough in
their way, but they were not genteel.

Another little trait came out, which impressed itself on Martin
forcibly.  Mr Bevan told them about Mark and the negro, and then it
appeared that all the Norrises were abolitionists.  It was a great
relief to hear this, and Martin was so much encouraged on finding
himself in such company, that he expressed his sympathy with the
oppressed and wretched blacks.  Now, one of the young ladies--the
prettiest and most delicate--was mightily amused at the earnestness
with which he spoke; and on his craving leave to ask her why, was
quite unable for a time to speak for laughing.  As soon however as
she could, she told him that the negroes were such a funny people,
so excessively ludicrous in their manners and appearance, that it
was wholly impossible for those who knew them well, to associate any
serious ideas with such a very absurd part of the creation.  Mr
Norris the father, and Mrs Norris the mother, and Miss Norris the
sister, and Mr Norris Junior the brother, and even Mrs Norris Senior
the grandmother, were all of this opinion, and laid it down as an
absolute matter of fact--as if there were nothing in suffering and
slavery, grim enough to cast a solemn air on any human animal;
though it were as ridiculous, physically, as the most grotesque of
apes, or morally, as the mildest Nimrod among tuft-hunting
republicans!

'In short,' said Mr Norris the father, settling the question
comfortably, 'there is a natural antipathy between the races.'

'Extending,' said Martin's friend, in a low voice, 'to the cruellest
of tortures, and the bargain and sale of unborn generations.'

Mr Norris the son said nothing, but he made a wry face, and dusted
his fingers as Hamlet might after getting rid of Yorick's skull;
just as though he had that moment touched a negro, and some of the
black had come off upon his hands.

In order that their talk might fall again into its former pleasant
channel, Martin dropped the subject, with a shrewd suspicion that it
would be a dangerous theme to revive under the best of
circumstances; and again addressed himself to the young ladies, who
were very gorgeously attired in very beautiful colours, and had
every article of dress on the same extensive scale as the little
shoes and the thin silk stockings.  This suggested to him that they
were great proficients in the French fashions, which soon turned out
to be the case, for though their information appeared to be none of
the newest, it was very extensive; and the eldest sister in
particular, who was distinguished by a talent for metaphysics, the
laws of hydraulic pressure, and the rights of human kind, had a
novel way of combining these acquirements and bringing them to bear
on any subject from Millinery to the Millennium, both inclusive,
which was at once improving and remarkable; so much so, in short,
that it was usually observed to reduce foreigners to a state of
temporary insanity in five minutes.

Martin felt his reason going; and as a means of saving himself,
besought the other sister (seeing a piano in the room) to sing.
With this request she willingly complied; and a bravura concert,
solely sustained by the Misses Noriss, presently began.  They sang
in all languages--except their own.  German, French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss; but nothing native; nothing so low as
native.  For, in this respect, languages are like many other
travellers--ordinary and commonplace enough at home, but 'specially
genteel abroad.

There is little doubt that in course of time the Misses Norris would
have come to Hebrew, if they had not been interrupted by an
announcement from the Irishman, who, flinging open the door, cried in
a loud voice--

'Jiniral Fladdock!'

'My!' cried the sisters, desisting suddenly.  'The general come
back!'

As they made the exclamation, the general, attired in full uniform
for a ball, came darting in with such precipitancy that, hitching
his boot in the carpet, and getting his sword between his legs, he
came down headlong, and presented a curious little bald place on the
crown of his head to the eyes of the astonished company.  Nor was
this the worst of it; for being rather corpulent and very tight, the
general being down, could not get up again, but lay there writing
and doing such things with his boots, as there is no other instance
of in military history.

Of course there was an immediate rush to his assistance; and the
general was promptly raised.  But his uniform was so fearfully and
wonderfully made, that he came up stiff and without a bend in him
like a dead Clown, and had no command whatever of himself until he
was put quite flat upon the soles of his feet, when he became
animated as by a miracle, and moving edgewise that he might go in a
narrower compass and be in less danger of fraying the gold lace on
his epaulettes by brushing them against anything, advanced with a
smiling visage to salute the lady of the house.

To be sure, it would have been impossible for the family to testify
purer delight and joy than at this unlooked-for appearance of
General Fladdock!  The general was as warmly received as if New York
had been in a state of siege and no other general was to be got for
love or money.  He shook hands with the Norrises three times all
round, and then reviewed them from a little distance as a brave
commander might, with his ample cloak drawn forward over the right
shoulder and thrown back upon the left side to reveal his manly
breast.

'And do I then,' cried the general, 'once again behold the choicest
spirits of my country!'

'Yes,' said Mr Norris the father.  'Here we are, general.'

Then all the Norrises pressed round the general, inquiring how and
where he had been since the date of his letter, and how he had
enjoyed himself in foreign parts, and particularly and above all, to
what extent he had become acquainted with the great dukes, lords,
viscounts, marquesses, duchesses, knights, and baronets, in whom the
people of those benighted countries had delight.

'Well, then, don't ask me,' said the general, holding up his hand.
'I was among 'em all the time, and have got public journals in my
trunk with my name printed'--he lowered his voice and was very
impressive here--'among the fashionable news.  But, oh, the
conventionalities of that a-mazing Europe!'

'Ah!' cried Mr Norris the father, giving his head a melancholy
shake, and looking towards Martin as though he would say, 'I can't
deny it, sir.  I would if I could.'

'The limited diffusion of a moral sense in that country!' exclaimed
the general.  'The absence of a moral dignity in man!'

'Ah!' sighed all the Norrises, quite overwhelmed with despondency.

'I couldn't have realised it,' pursued the general, 'without being
located on the spot.  Norris, your imagination is the imagination of
a strong man, but YOU couldn't have realised it, without being
located on the spot!'

'Never,' said Mr Norris.

'The ex-clusiveness, the pride, the form, the ceremony,' exclaimed
the general, emphasizing the article more vigorously at every
repetition.  'The artificial barriers set up between man and man;
the division of the human race into court cards and plain cards, of
every denomination--into clubs, diamonds, spades--anything but
heart!'

'Ah!' cried the whole family.  'Too true, general!'

'But stay!' cried Mr Norris the father, taking him by the arm.
'Surely you crossed in the Screw, general?'

'Well! so I did,' was the reply.

'Possible!' cried the young ladies.  'Only think!'

The general seemed at a loss to understand why his having come home
in the Screw should occasion such a sensation, nor did he seem at
all clearer on the subject when Mr Norris, introducing him to
Martin, said:

'A fellow-passenger of yours, I think?'

'Of mine?' exclaimed the general; 'No!'

He had never seen Martin, but Martin had seen him, and recognized
him, now that they stood face to face, as the gentleman who had
stuck his hands in his pockets towards the end of the voyage, and
walked the deck with his nostrils dilated.

Everybody looked at Martin.  There was no help for it.  The truth
must out.

'I came over in the same ship as the general,' said Martin, 'but not
in the same cabin.  It being necessary for me to observe strict
economy, I took my passage in the steerage.'

If the general had been carried up bodily to a loaded cannon, and
required to let it off that moment, he could not have been in a
state of greater consternation than when he heard these words.  He,
Fladdock--Fladdock in full militia uniform, Fladdock the General,
Fladdock, the caressed of foreign noblemen--expected to know a
fellow who had come over in the steerage of line-of-packet ship, at
the cost of four pound ten!  And meeting that fellow in the very
sanctuary of New York fashion, and nestling in the bosom of the New
York aristocracy!  He almost laid his hand upon his sword.

A death-like stillness fell upon the Norisses.  If this story should
get wind, their country relation had, by his imprudence, for ever
disgraced them.  They were the bright particular stars of an exalted
New York sphere.  There were other fashionable spheres above them,
and other fashionable spheres below, and none of the stars in any
one of these spheres had anything to say to the stars in any other
of these spheres.  But, through all the spheres it would go forth
that the Norrises, deceived by gentlemanly manners and appearances,
had, falling from their high estate, 'received' a dollarless and
unknown man.  O guardian eagle of the pure Republic, had they lived
for this!

'You will allow me,' said Martin, after a terrible silence, 'to take
my leave.  I feel that I am the cause of at least as much
embarrassment here, as I have brought upon myself.  But I am bound,
before I go, to exonerate this gentleman, who, in introducing me to
such society, was quite ignorant of my unworthiness, I assure you.'

With that he made his bow to the Norrises, and walked out like a man
of snow; very cool externally, but pretty hot within.

'Come, come,' said Mr Norris the father, looking with a pale face on
the assembled circle as Martin closed the door, 'the young man has
this night beheld a refinement of social manner, and an easy
magnificence of social decoration, to which he is a stranger in his
own country.  Let us hope it may awake a moral sense within him.'

If that peculiarly transatlantic article, a moral sense--for, if
native statesmen, orators, and pamphleteers, are to be believed,
America quite monopolises the commodity--if that peculiarly
transatlantic article be supposed to include a benevolent love of
all mankind, certainly Martin's would have borne, just then, a deal
of waking.  As he strode along the street, with Mark at his heels,
his immoral sense was in active operation; prompting him to the
utterance of some rather sanguinary remarks, which it was well for
his own credit that nobody overheard.  He had so far cooled down,
however, that he had begun to laugh at the recollection of these
incidents, when he heard another step behind him, and turning round
encountered his friend Bevan, quite out of breath.

He drew his arm through Martin's, and entreating him to walk slowly,
was silent for some minutes.  At length he said:

'I hope you exonerate me in another sense?'

'How do you mean?' asked Martin.

'I hope you acquit me of intending or foreseeing the termination of
our visit.  But I scarcely need ask you that.'

'Scarcely indeed,' said Martin.  'I am the more beholden to you for
your kindness, when I find what kind of stuff the good citizens here
are made of.'

'I reckon,' his friend returned, 'that they are made of pretty much
the same stuff as other folks, if they would but own it, and not set
up on false pretences.'

'In good faith, that's true,' said Martin.

'I dare say,' resumed his friend, 'you might have such a scene as
that in an English comedy, and not detect any gross improbability or
anomaly in the matter of it?'

'Yes, indeed!'

'Doubtless it is more ridiculous here than anywhere else,' said his
companion; 'but our professions are to blame for that.  So far as I
myself am concerned, I may add that I was perfectly aware from the
first that you came over in the steerage, for I had seen the list of
passengers, and knew it did not comprise your name.'

'I feel more obliged to you than before,' said Martin.

'Norris is a very good fellow in his way,' observed Mr Bevan.

'Is he?' said Martin drily.

'Oh yes! there are a hundred good points about him.  If you or
anybody else addressed him as another order of being, and sued to
him IN FORMA PAUPERIS, he would be all kindness and consideration.'

'I needn't have travelled three thousand miles from home to find
such a character as THAT,' said Martin.  Neither he nor his friend
said anything more on the way back; each appearing to find
sufficient occupation in his own thoughts.

The tea, or the supper, or whatever else they called the evening
meal, was over when they reached the Major's; but the cloth,
ornamented with a few additional smears and stains, was still upon
the table.  At one end of the board Mrs Jefferson Brick and two
other ladies were drinking tea; out of the ordinary course,
evidently, for they were bonneted and shawled, and seemed to have
just come home.  By the light of three flaring candles of different
lengths, in as many candlesticks of different patterns, the room
showed to almost as little advantage as in broad day.

These ladies were all three talking together in a very loud tone
when Martin and his friend entered; but seeing those gentlemen, they
stopped directly, and became excessively genteel, not to say frosty.
As they went on to exchange some few remarks in whispers, the very
water in the teapot might have fallen twenty degrees in temperature
beneath their chilling coldness.

'Have you been to meeting, Mrs Brick?' asked Martin's friend, with
something of a roguish twinkle in his eye.

'To lecture, sir.'

'I beg your pardon.  I forgot.  You don't go to meeting, I think?'

Here the lady on the right of Mrs Brick gave a pious cough as much
as to say 'I do!'--as, indeed, she did nearly every night in the
week.

'A good discourse, ma'am?' asked Mr Bevan, addressing this lady.

The lady raised her eyes in a pious manner, and answered 'Yes.'  She
had been much comforted by some good, strong, peppery doctrine,
which satisfactorily disposed of all her friends and acquaintances,
and quite settled their business.  Her bonnet, too, had far outshone
every bonnet in the congregation; so she was tranquil on all
accounts.

'What course of lectures are you attending now, ma'am?' said
Martin's friend, turning again to Mrs Brick.

'The Philosophy of the Soul, on Wednesdays.'

'On Mondays?'

'The Philosophy of Crime.'

'On Fridays?'

'The Philosophy of Vegetables.'

'You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy of Government, my
dear,' observed the third lady.

'No,' said Mrs Brick.  'That's Tuesdays.'

'So it is!' cried the lady.  'The Philosophy of Matter on Thursdays,
of course.'

'You see, Mr Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed,' said Bevan.

'Indeed you have reason to say so,' answered Martin.  'Between these
very grave pursuits abroad, and family duties at home, their time
must be pretty well engrossed.'

Martin stopped here, for he saw that the ladies regarded him with no
very great favour, though what he had done to deserve the disdainful
expression which appeared in their faces he was at a loss to divine.
But on their going upstairs to their bedrooms--which they very
soon did--Mr Bevan informed him that domestic drudgery was far
beneath the exalted range of these Philosophers, and that the
chances were a hundred to one that not one of the three could
perform the easiest woman's work for herself, or make the simplest
article of dress for any of her children.

'Though whether they might not be better employed with such blunt
instruments as knitting-needles than with these edge-tools,' he
said, 'is another question; but I can answer for one thing--they
don't often cut themselves.  Devotions and lectures are our balls
and concerts.  They go to these places of resort, as an escape from
monotony; look at each other's clothes; and come home again.'

'When you say "home," do you mean a house like this?'

'Very often.  But I see you are tired to death, and will wish you
good night.  We will discuss your projects in the morning.  You
cannot but feel already that it is useless staying here, with any
hope of advancing them.  You will have to go further.'

'And to fare worse?' said Martin, pursuing the old adage.

'Well, I hope not.  But sufficient for the day, you know--good
night'

They shook hands heartily and separated.  As soon as Martin was left
alone, the excitement of novelty and change which had sustained him
through all the fatigues of the day, departed; and he felt so
thoroughly dejected and worn out, that he even lacked the energy to
crawl upstairs to bed.

In twelve or fifteen hours, how great a change had fallen on his
hopes and sanguine plans!  New and strange as he was to the ground
on which he stood, and to the air he breathed, he could not--
recalling all that he had crowded into that one day--but entertain a
strong misgiving that his enterprise was doomed.  Rash and ill-
considered as it had often looked on shipboard, but had never seemed
on shore, it wore a dismal aspect, now, that frightened him.
Whatever thoughts he called up to his aid, they came upon him in
depressing and discouraging shapes, and gave him no relief.  Even
the diamonds on his finger sparkled with the brightness of tears,
and had no ray of hope in all their brilliant lustre.

He continued to sit in gloomy rumination by the stove, unmindful of
the boarders who dropped in one by one from their stores and
counting-houses, or the neighbouring bar-rooms, and, after taking
long pulls from a great white waterjug upon the sideboard, and
lingering with a kind of hideous fascination near the brass
spittoons, lounged heavily to bed; until at length Mark Tapley came
and shook him by the arm, supposing him asleep.

'Mark!' he cried, starting.

'All right, sir,' said that cheerful follower, snuffing with his
fingers the candle he bore.  'It ain't a very large bed, your'n,
sir; and a man as wasn't thirsty might drink, afore breakfast, all
the water you've got to wash in, and afterwards eat the towel.  But
you'll sleep without rocking to-night, sir.'

'I feel as if the house were on the sea' said Martin, staggering
when he rose; 'and am utterly wretched.'

'I'm as jolly as a sandboy, myself, sir,' said Mark.  'But, Lord, I
have reason to be!  I ought to have been born here; that's my
opinion.  Take care how you go'--for they were now ascending the
stairs.  'You recollect the gentleman aboard the Screw as had the
very small trunk, sir?'

'The valise?  Yes.'

'Well, sir, there's been a delivery of clean clothes from the wash
to-night, and they're put outside the bedroom doors here.  If you
take notice as we go up, what a very few shirts there are, and what
a many fronts, you'll penetrate the mystery of his packing.'

But Martin was too weary and despondent to take heed of anything, so
had no interest in this discovery.  Mr Tapley, nothing dashed by his
indifference, conducted him to the top of the house, and into the
bed-chamber prepared for his reception; which was a very little
narrow room, with half a window in it; a bedstead like a chest
without a lid; two chairs; a piece of carpet, such as shoes are
commonly tried upon at a ready-made establishment in England; a
little looking-glass nailed against the wall; and a washing-table,
with a jug and ewer, that might have been mistaken for a milk-pot and
slop-basin.

'I suppose they polish themselves with a dry cloth in this country,'
said Mark.  'They've certainly got a touch of the 'phoby, sir.'

'I wish you would pull off my boots for me,' said Martin, dropping
into one of the chairs 'I am quite knocked up--dead beat, Mark.'

'You won't say that to-morrow morning, sir,' returned Mr Tapley;
'nor even to-night, sir, when you've made a trial of this.'  With
which he produced a very large tumbler, piled up to the brim with
little blocks of clear transparent ice, through which one or two
thin slices of lemon, and a golden liquid of delicious appearance,
appealed from the still depths below, to the loving eye of the
spectator.

'What do you call this?' said Martin.

But Mr Tapley made no answer; merely plunging a reed into the
mixture--which caused a pleasant commotion among the pieces of ice--
and signifying by an expressive gesture that it was to be pumped up
through that agency by the enraptured drinker.

Martin took the glass with an astonished look; applied his lips to
the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy.  He paused no more
until the goblet was drained to the last drop.

'There, sir!' said Mark, taking it from him with a triumphant face;
'if ever you should happen to be dead beat again, when I ain't in
the way, all you've got to do is to ask the nearest man to go and
fetch a cobbler.'

'To go and fetch a cobbler?' repeated Martin.

'This wonderful invention, sir,' said Mark, tenderly patting the
empty glass, 'is called a cobbler.  Sherry cobbler when you name it
long; cobbler, when you name it short.  Now you're equal to having
your boots took off, and are, in every particular worth mentioning,
another man.'

Having delivered himself of this solemn preface, he brought the
bootjack.

'Mind!  I am not going to relapse, Mark,' said Martin; 'but, good
Heaven, if we should be left in some wild part of this country
without goods or money!'

'Well, sir!' replied the imperturbable Tapley; 'from what we've seen
already, I don't know whether, under those circumstances, we
shouldn't do better in the wild parts than in the tame ones.'

'Oh, Tom Pinch, Tom Pinch!' said Martin, in a thoughtful tone; 'what
would I give to be again beside you, and able to hear your voice,
though it were even in the old bedroom at Pecksniff's!'

'Oh, Dragon, Dragon!' echoed Mark, cheerfully, 'if there warn't any
water between you and me, and nothing faint-hearted-like in going
back, I don't know that I mightn't say the same.  But here am I,
Dragon, in New York, America; and there are you in Wiltshire,
Europe; and there's a fortune to make, Dragon, and a beautiful young
lady to make it for; and whenever you go to see the Monument,
Dragon, you mustn't give in on the doorsteps, or you'll never get
up to the top!'

'Wisely said, Mark,' cried Martin.  'We must look forward.'

'In all the story-books as ever I read, sir, the people as looked
backward was turned into stones,' replied Mark; 'and my opinion
always was, that they brought it on themselves, and it served 'em
right.  I wish you good night, sir, and pleasant dreams!'

'They must be of home, then,' said Martin, as he lay down in bed.

'So I say, too,' whispered Mark Tapley, when he was out of hearing
and in his own room; 'for if there don't come a time afore we're
well out of this, when there'll be a little more credit in keeping
up one's jollity, I'm a United Statesman!'

Leaving them to blend and mingle in their sleep the shadows of
objects afar off, as they take fantastic shapes upon the wall in the
dim light of thought without control, be it the part of this slight
chronicle--a dream within a dream--as rapidly to change the scene,
and cross the ocean to the English shore.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DOES BUSINESS WITH THE HOUSE OF ANTHONY CHUZZLEWIT AND SON, FROM
WHICH ONE OF THE PARTNERS RETIRES UNEXPECTEDLY


Change begets change.  Nothing propagates so fast.  If a man
habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which
he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a
space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been
an actor of importance, would seem to be the signal for instant
confusion.  As if, in the gap he had left, the wedge of change were
driven to the head, rending what was a solid mass to fragments,
things cemented and held together by the usages of years, burst
asunder in as many weeks.  The mine which Time has slowly dug
beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock
before, becomes but sand and dust.

Most men, at one time or other, have proved this in some degree.  The
extent to which the natural laws of change asserted their supremacy
in that limited sphere of action which Martin had deserted, shall be
faithfully set down in these pages.

'What a cold spring it is!' whimpered old Anthony, drawing near the
evening fire, 'It was a warmer season, sure, when I was young!'

'You needn't go scorching your clothes into holes, whether it was or
not,' observed the amiable Jonas, raising his eyes from yesterday's
newspaper, 'Broadcloth ain't so cheap as that comes to.'

'A good lad!' cried the father, breathing on his cold hands, and
feebly chafing them against each other.  'A prudent lad!  He never
delivered himself up to the vanities of dress.  No, no!'

'I don't know but I would, though, mind you, if I could do it for
nothing,' said his son, as he resumed the paper.

'Ah!' chuckled the old man.  'IF, indeed!--But it's very cold.'

'Let the fire be!' cried Mr Jonas, stopping his honoured parent's
hand in the use of the poker.  'Do you mean to come to want in your
old age, that you take to wasting now?'

'There's not time for that, Jonas,' said the old man.

'Not time for what?' bawled his heir.

'For me to come to want.  I wish there was!'

'You always were as selfish an old blade as need be,' said Jonas in
a voice too low for him to hear, and looking at him with an angry
frown.  'You act up to your character.  You wouldn't mind coming to
want, wouldn't you!  I dare say you wouldn't.  And your own flesh and
blood might come to want too, might they, for anything you cared?
Oh you precious old flint!'

After this dutiful address he took his tea-cup in his hand--for that
meal was in progress, and the father and son and Chuffey were
partakers of it.  Then, looking steadfastly at his father, and
stopping now and then to carry a spoonful of tea to his lips, he
proceeded in the same tone, thus:

'Want, indeed!  You're a nice old man to be talking of want at this
time of day.  Beginning to talk of want, are you?  Well, I declare!
There isn't time?  No, I should hope not.  But you'd live to be a
couple of hundred if you could; and after all be discontented.  I
know you!'

The old man sighed, and still sat cowering before the fire.  Mr
Jonas shook his Britannia-metal teaspoon at him, and taking a
loftier position, went on to argue the point on high moral grounds.

'If you're in such a state of mind as that,' he grumbled, but in the
same subdued key, 'why don't you make over your property?  Buy an
annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and
everybody else that watches the speculation.  But no, that wouldn't
suit YOU.  That would be natural conduct to your own son, and you
like to be unnatural, and to keep him out of his rights.  Why, I
should be ashamed of myself if I was you, and glad to hide my head
in the what you may call it.'

Possibly this general phrase supplied the place of grave, or tomb,
or sepulchre, or cemetery, or mausoleum, or other such word which
the filial tenderness of Mr Jonas made him delicate of pronouncing.
He pursued the theme no further; for Chuffey, somehow discovering,
from his old corner by the fireside, that Anthony was in the
attitude of a listener, and that Jonas appeared to be speaking,
suddenly cried out, like one inspired:

'He is your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit.  Your own son, sir!'

Old Chuffey little suspected what depth of application these words
had, or that, in the bitter satire which they bore, they might have
sunk into the old man's very soul, could he have known what words
here hanging on his own son's lips, or what was passing in his
thoughts.  But the voice diverted the current of Anthony's
reflections, and roused him.

'Yes, yes, Chuffey, Jonas is a chip of the old block.  It is a very
old block, now, Chuffey,' said the old man, with a strange look of
discomposure.

'Precious old,' assented Jonas

'No, no, no,' said Chuffey.  'No, Mr Chuzzlewit.  Not old at all,
sir.'

'Oh!  He's worse than ever, you know!' cried Jonas, quite disgusted.
'Upon my soul, father, he's getting too bad.  Hold your tongue, will
you?'

'He says you're wrong!' cried Anthony to the old clerk.

'Tut, tut!' was Chuffey's answer.  'I know better.  I say HE'S
wrong.  I say HE'S wrong.  He's a boy.  That's what he is.  So are
you, Mr Chuzzlewit--a kind of boy.  Ha! ha! ha!  You're quite a boy
to many I have known; you're a boy to me; you're a boy to hundreds
of us.  Don't mind him!'

With which extraordinary speech--for in the case of Chuffey this was
a burst of eloquence without a parallel--the poor old shadow drew
through his palsied arm his master's hand, and held it there, with
his own folded upon it, as if he would defend him.

'I grow deafer every day, Chuff,' said Anthony, with as much
softness of manner, or, to describe it more correctly, with as
little hardness as he was capable of expressing.

'No, no,' cried Chuffey.  'No, you don't.  What if you did?  I've
been deaf this twenty year.'

'I grow blinder, too,' said the old man, shaking his head.

'That's a good sign!' cried Chuffey.  'Ha! ha!  The best sign in the
world!  You saw too well before.'

He patted Anthony upon the hand as one might comfort a child, and
drawing the old man's arm still further through his own, shook his
trembling fingers towards the spot where Jonas sat, as though he
would wave him off.  But, Anthony remaining quite still and silent,
he relaxed his hold by slow degrees and lapsed into his usual niche
in the corner; merely putting forth his hand at intervals and
touching his old employer gently on the coat, as with the design of
assuring himself that he was yet beside him.

Mr Jonas was so very much amazed by these proceedings that he could
do nothing but stare at the two old men, until Chuffey had fallen
into his usual state, and Anthony had sunk into a doze; when he gave
some vent to his emotions by going close up to the former personage,
and making as though he would, in vulgar parlance, 'punch his head.'

'They've been carrying on this game,' thought Jonas in a brown
study, 'for the last two or three weeks.  I never saw my father take
so much notice of him as he has in that time.  What!  You're legacy
hunting, are you, Mister Chuff?  Eh?'

But Chuffey was as little conscious of the thought as of the bodily
advance of Mr Jonas's clenched fist, which hovered fondly about his
ear.  When he had scowled at him to his heart's content, Jonas took
the candle from the table, and walking into the glass office,
produced a bunch of keys from his pocket.  With one of these he
opened a secret drawer in the desk; peeping stealthily out, as he
did so, to be certain that the two old men were still before the
fire.

'All as right as ever,' said Jonas, propping the lid of the desk
open with his forehead, and unfolding a paper.  'Here's the will,
Mister Chuff.  Thirty pound a year for your maintenance, old boy,
and all the rest to his only son, Jonas.  You needn't trouble
yourself to be too affectionate.  You won't get anything by it.
What's that?'

It WAS startling, certainly.  A face on the other side of the glass
partition looking curiously in; and not at him but at the paper in
his hand.  For the eyes were attentively cast down upon the writing,
and were swiftly raised when he cried out.  Then they met his own,
and were as the eyes of Mr Pecksniff.

Suffering the lid of the desk to fall with a loud noise, but not
forgetting even then to lock it, Jonas, pale and breathless, gazed
upon this phantom.  It moved, opened the door, and walked in.

'What's the matter?' cried Jonas, falling back.  'Who is it?  Where
do you come from?  What do you want?'

'Matter!' cried the voice of Mr Pecksniff, as Pecksniff in the flesh
smiled amiably upon him.  'The matter, Mr Jonas!'

'What are you prying and peering about here for?' said Jonas,
angrily.  'What do you mean by coming up to town in this way, and
taking one unawares?  It's precious odd a man can't read the--the
newspaper--in his own office without being startled out of his wits
by people coming in without notice.  Why didn't you knock at the
door?'

'So I did, Mr Jonas,' answered Pecksniff, 'but no one heard me.  I
was curious,' he added in his gentle way as he laid his hand upon
the young man's shoulder, 'to find out what part of the newspaper
interested you so much; but the glass was too dim and dirty.'

Jonas glanced in haste at the partition.  Well.  It wasn't very
clean.  So far he spoke the truth.

'Was it poetry now?' said Mr Pecksniff, shaking the forefinger of
his right hand with an air of cheerful banter.  'Or was it politics?
Or was it the price of stock?  The main chance, Mr Jonas, the main
chance, I suspect.'

'You ain't far from the truth,' answered Jonas, recovering himself
and snuffing the candle; 'but how the deuce do you come to be in
London again?  Ecod! it's enough to make a man stare, to see a
fellow looking at him all of a sudden, who he thought was sixty or
seventy mile away.'

'So it is,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'No doubt of it, my dear Mr Jonas.
For while the human mind is constituted as it is--'

'Oh, bother the human mind,' interrupted Jonas with impatience 'what
have you come up for?'

'A little matter of business,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'which has arisen
quite unexpectedly.'

'Oh!' cried Jonas, 'is that all?  Well.  Here's father in the next
room.  Hallo father, here's Pecksniff!  He gets more addle-pated
every day he lives, I do believe,' muttered Jonas, shaking his
honoured parent roundly.  'Don't I tell you Pecksniff's here,
stupid-head?'

The combined effects of the shaking and this loving remonstrance
soon awoke the old man, who gave Mr Pecksniff a chuckling welcome
which was attributable in part to his being glad to see that
gentleman, and in part to his unfading delight in the recollection
of having called him a hypocrite.  As Mr Pecksniff had not yet taken
tea (indeed he had, but an hour before, arrived in London) the
remains of the late collation, with a rasher of bacon, were served
up for his entertainment; and as Mr Jonas had a business appointment
in the next street, he stepped out to keep it; promising to return
before Mr Pecksniff could finish his repast.

'And now, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff to Anthony; 'now that we
are alone, pray tell me what I can do for you.  I say alone, because
I believe that our dear friend Mr Chuffey is, metaphysically
speaking, a--shall I say a dummy?' asked Mr Pecksniff with his
sweetest smile, and his head very much on one side.

'He neither hears us,' replied Anthony, 'nor sees us.'

'Why, then,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I will be bold to say, with the
utmost sympathy for his afflictions, and the greatest admiration of
those excellent qualities which do equal honour to his head and to
his heart, that he is what is playfully termed a dummy.  You were
going to observe, my dear sir--?'

'I was not going to make any observation that I know of,' replied
the old man.

'I was,' said Mr Pecksniff, mildly.

'Oh! YOU were?  What was it?'

'That I never,' said Mr Pecksniff, previously rising to see that the
door was shut, and arranging his chair when he came back, so that it
could not be opened in the least without his immediately becoming
aware of the circumstance; 'that I never in my life was so
astonished as by the receipt of your letter yesterday.  That you
should do me the honour to wish to take counsel with me on any
matter, amazed me; but that you should desire to do so, to the
exclusion even of Mr Jonas, showed an amount of confidence in one to
whom you had done a verbal injury--merely a verbal injury, you were
anxious to repair--which gratified, which moved, which overcame me.'

He was always a glib speaker, but he delivered this short address
very glibly; having been at some pains to compose it outside the
coach.

Although he paused for a reply, and truly said that he was there at
Anthony's request, the old man sat gazing at him in profound silence
and with a perfectly blank face.  Nor did he seem to have the least
desire or impulse to pursue the conversation, though Mr Pecksniff
looked towards the door, and pulled out his watch, and gave him many
other hints that their time was short, and Jonas, if he kept his
word, would soon return.  But the strangest incident in all this
strange behaviour was, that of a sudden, in a moment, so swiftly
that it was impossible to trace how, or to observe any process of
change, his features fell into their old expression, and he cried,
striking his hand passionately upon the table as if no interval at
all had taken place:

'Will you hold your tongue, sir, and let me speak?'

Mr Pecksniff deferred to him with a submissive bow; and said within
himself, 'I knew his hand was changed, and that his writing
staggered.  I said so yesterday.  Ahem!  Dear me!'

'Jonas is sweet upon your daughter, Pecksniff,' said the old man, in
his usual tone.

'We spoke of that, if you remember, sir, at Mrs Todgers's,' replied
the courteous architect.

'You needn't speak so loud,' retorted Anthony.  'I'm not so deaf as
that.'

Mr Pecksniff had certainly raised his voice pretty high; not so much
because he thought Anthony was deaf, as because he felt convinced
that his perceptive faculties were waxing dim; but this quick
resentment of his considerate behaviour greatly disconcerted him,
and, not knowing what tack to shape his course upon, he made another
inclination of the head, yet more submissive that the last.

'I have said,' repeated the old man, 'that Jonas is sweet upon your
daughter.'

'A charming girl, sir,' murmured Mr Pecksniff, seeing that he waited
for an answer.  'A dear girl, Mr Chuzzlewit, though I say it, who
should not.'

'You know better,' cried the old man, advancing his weazen face at
least a yard, and starting forward in his chair to do it.  'You
lie!  What, you WILL be a hypocrite, will you?'

'My good sir,' Mr Pecksniff began.

'Don't call me a good sir,' retorted Anthony, 'and don't claim to be
one yourself.  If your daughter was what you would have me believe,
she wouldn't do for Jonas.  Being what she is, I think she will.  He
might be deceived in a wife.  She might run riot, contract debts,
and waste his substance.  Now when I am dead--'

His face altered so horribly as he said the word, that Mr Pecksniff
really was fain to look another way.

'--It will be worse for me to know of such doings, than if I was
alive; for to be tormented for getting that together, which even
while I suffer for its acquisition, is flung into the very kennels of
the streets, would be insupportable torture.  No,' said the old man,
hoarsely, 'let that be saved at least; let there be something
gained, and kept fast hold of, when so much is lost.'

'My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,' said Pecksniff, 'these are unwholesome
fancies; quite unnecessary, sir, quite uncalled for, I am sure.  The
truth is, my dear sir, that you are not well!'

'Not dying though!' cried Anthony, with something like the snarl of
a wild animal.  'Not yet!  There are years of life in me.  Why, look
at him,' pointing to his feeble clerk.  'Death has no right to leave
him standing, and to mow me down!'

Mr Pecksniff was so much afraid of the old man, and so completely
taken aback by the state in which he found him, that he had not even
presence of mind enough to call up a scrap of morality from the
great storehouse within his own breast.  Therefore he stammered out
that no doubt it was, in fairness and decency, Mr Chuffey's turn to
expire; and that from all he had heard of Mr Chuffey, and the little
he had the pleasure of knowing of that gentleman, personally, he
felt convinced in his own mind that he would see the propriety of
expiring with as little delay as possible.

'Come here!' said the old man, beckoning him to draw nearer.  'Jonas
will be my heir, Jonas will be rich, and a great catch for you.  You
know that.  Jonas is sweet upon your daughter.'

'I know that too,' thought Mr Pecksniff, 'for you have said it often
enough.'

'He might get more money than with her,' said the old man, 'but she
will help him to take care of what they have.  She is not too young
or heedless, and comes of a good hard griping stock.  But don't you
play too fine a game.  She only holds him by a thread; and if you
draw it too tight (I know his temper) it'll snap.  Bind him when
he's in the mood, Pecksniff; bind him.  You're too deep.  In your
way of leading him on, you'll leave him miles behind.  Bah, you man
of oil, have I no eyes to see how you have angled with him from the
first?'

'Now I wonder,' thought Mr Pecksniff, looking at him with a wistful
face, 'whether this is all he has to say?'

Old Anthony rubbed his hands and muttered to himself; complained
again that he was cold; drew his chair before the fire; and, sitting
with his back to Mr Pecksniff, and his chin sunk down upon his
breast, was, in another minute, quite regardless or forgetful of his
presence.

Uncouth and unsatisfactory as this short interview had been, it had
furnished Mr Pecksniff with a hint which, supposing nothing further
were imparted to him, repaid the journey up and home again.  For the
good gentleman had never (for want of an opportunity) dived into the
depths of Mr Jonas's nature; and any recipe for catching such a son-
in-law (much more one written on a leaf out of his own father's
book) was worth the having.  In order that he might lose no chance
of improving so fair an opportunity by allowing Anthony to fall
asleep before he had finished all he had to say, Mr Pecksniff, in
the disposal of the refreshments on the table, a work to which he
now applied himself in earnest, resorted to many ingenious
contrivances for attracting his attention; such as coughing,
sneezing, clattering the teacups, sharpening the knives, dropping
the loaf, and so forth.  But all in vain, for Mr Jonas returned, and
Anthony had said no more.

'What!  My father asleep again?' he cried, as he hung up his hat, and
cast a look at him.  'Ah! and snoring.  Only hear!'

'He snores very deep,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'Snores deep?' repeated Jonas.  'Yes; let him alone for that.  He'll
snore for six, at any time.'

'Do you know, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff, 'that I think your father
is--don't let me alarm you--breaking?'

'Oh, is he though?' replied Jonas, with a shake of the head which
expressed the closeness of his dutiful observation.  'Ecod, you
don't know how tough he is.  He ain't upon the move yet.'

'It struck me that he was changed, both in his appearance and
manner,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'That's all you know about it,' returned Jonas, seating himself with
a melancholy air.  'He never was better than he is now.  How are
they all at home?  How's Charity?'

'Blooming, Mr Jonas, blooming.'

'And the other one; how's she?'

'Volatile trifler!' said Mr Pecksniff, fondly musing.  'She is well,
she is well.  Roving from parlour to bedroom, Mr Jonas, like a bee,
skimming from post to pillar, like the butterfly; dipping her young
beak into our currant wine, like the humming-bird!  Ah! were she a
little less giddy than she is; and had she but the sterling
qualities of Cherry, my young friend!'

'Is she so very giddy, then?' asked Jonas.

'Well, well!' said Mr Pecksniff, with great feeling; 'let me not be
hard upon my child.  Beside her sister Cherry she appears so.  A
strange noise that, Mr Jonas!'

'Something wrong in the clock, I suppose,' said Jonas, glancing
towards it.  'So the other one ain't your favourite, ain't she?'

The fond father was about to reply, and had already summoned into
his face a look of most intense sensibility, when the sound he had
already noticed was repeated.

'Upon my word, Mr Jonas, that is a very extraordinary clock,' said
Pecksniff.

It would have been, if it had made the noise which startled them;
but another kind of time-piece was fast running down, and from that
the sound proceeded.  A scream from Chuffey, rendered a hundred
times more loud and formidable by his silent habits, made the house
ring from roof to cellar; and, looking round, they saw Anthony
Chuzzlewit extended on the floor, with the old clerk upon his knees
beside him.

He had fallen from his chair in a fit, and lay there, battling for
each gasp of breath, with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting
in its place, as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age, and
sternly pleading with Nature against his recovery.  It was frightful
to see how the principle of life, shut up within his withered frame,
fought like a strong devil, mad to be released, and rent its ancient
prison-house.  A young man in the fullness of his vigour, struggling
with so much strength of desperation, would have been a dismal
sight; but an old, old, shrunken body, endowed with preternatural
might, and giving the lie in every motion of its every limb and
joint to its enfeebled aspect, was a hideous spectacle indeed.

They raised him up, and fetched a surgeon with all haste, who bled
the patient and applied some remedies; but the fits held him so long
that it was past midnight when they got him--quiet now, but quite
unconscious and exhausted--into bed.

'Don't go,' said Jonas, putting his ashy lips to Mr Pecksniff's ear
and whispered across the bed.  'It was a mercy you were present when
he was taken ill.  Some one might have said it was my doing.'

'YOUR doing!' cried Mr Pecksniff.

'I don't know but they might,' he replied, wiping the moisture from
his white face.  'People say such things.  How does he look now?'

Mr Pecksniff shook his head.

'I used to joke, you know,' said.  Jonas: 'but I--I never wished him
dead.  Do you think he's very bad?'

'The doctor said he was.  You heard,' was Mr Pecksniff's answer.

'Ah! but he might say that to charge us more, in case of his getting
well' said Jonas.  'You mustn't go away, Pecksniff.  Now it's come
to this, I wouldn't be without a witness for a thousand pound.'

Chuffey said not a word, and heard not a word.  He had sat himself
down in a chair at the bedside, and there he remained, motionless;
except that he sometimes bent his head over the pillow, and seemed
to listen.  He never changed in this.  Though once in the dreary
night Mr Pecksniff, having dozed, awoke with a confused impression
that he had heard him praying, and strangely mingling figures--not
of speech, but arithmetic--with his broken prayers.

Jonas sat there, too, all night; not where his father could have
seen him, had his consciousness returned, but hiding, as it were,
behind him, and only reading how he looked, in Mr Pecksniff's eyes.
HE, the coarse upstart, who had ruled the house so long--that
craven cur, who was afraid to move, and shook so, that his very
shadow fluttered on the wall!

It was broad, bright, stirring day when, leaving the old clerk to
watch him, they went down to breakfast.  People hurried up and down
the street; windows and doors were opened; thieves and beggars took
their usual posts; workmen bestirred themselves; tradesmen set forth
their shops; bailiffs and constables were on the watch; all kinds of
human creatures strove, in their several ways, as hard to live, as
the one sick old man who combated for every grain of sand in his
fast-emptying glass, as eagerly as if it were an empire.

'If anything happens Pecksniff,' said Jonas, 'you must promise me to
stop here till it's all over.  You shall see that I do what's
right.'

'I know that you will do what's right, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff.

'Yes, yes, but I won't be doubted.  No one shall have it in his
power to say a syllable against me,' he returned.  'I know how
people will talk.  Just as if he wasn't old, or I had the secret of
keeping him alive!'

Mr Pecksniff promised that he would remain, if circumstances should
render it, in his esteemed friend's opinion, desirable; they were
finishing their meal in silence, when suddenly an apparition stood
before them, so ghastly to the view that Jonas shrieked aloud, and
both recoiled in horror.

Old Anthony, dressed in his usual clothes, was in the room--beside
the table.  He leaned upon the shoulder of his solitary friend; and
on his livid face, and on his horny hands, and in his glassy eyes,
and traced by an eternal finger in the very drops of sweat upon his
brow, was one word--Death.

He spoke to them--in something of his own voice too, but sharpened
and made hollow, like a dead man's face.  What he would have said,
God knows.  He seemed to utter words, but they were such as man had
never heard.  And this was the most fearful circumstance of all, to
see him standing there, gabbling in an unearthly tongue.

'He's better now,' said Chuffey.  'Better now.  Let him sit in his
old chair, and he'll be well again.  I told him not to mind.  I said
so, yesterday.'

They put him in his easy-chair, and wheeled it near the window;
then, swinging open the door, exposed him to the free current of
morning air.  But not all the air that is, nor all the winds that
ever blew 'twixt Heaven and Earth, could have brought new life to
him.

Plunge him to the throat in golden pieces now, and his heavy fingers
shall not close on one!



CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE READER IS BROUGHT INTO COMMUNICATION WITH SOME PROFESSIONAL
PERSONS, AND SHEDS A TEAR OVER THE FILAIL PIETY OF GOOD MR JONAS


Mr Pecksniff was in a hackney cabriolet, for Jonas Chuzzlewit had
said 'Spare no expense.'  Mankind is evil in its thoughts and in its
base constructions, and Jonas was resolved it should not have an
inch to stretch into an ell against him.  It never should be charged
upon his father's son that he had grudged the money for his father's
funeral.  Hence, until the obsequies should be concluded, Jonas had
taken for his motto 'Spend, and spare not!'

Mr Pecksniff had been to the undertaker, and was now upon his way to
another officer in the train of mourning--a female functionary, a
nurse, and watcher, and performer of nameless offices about the
persons of the dead--whom he had recommended.  Her name, as Mr
Pecksniff gathered from a scrap of writing in his hand, was Gamp;
her residence in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn.  So Mr Pecksniff,
in a hackney cab, was rattling over Holborn stones, in quest of Mrs
Gamp.

This lady lodged at a bird-fancier's, next door but one to the
celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite to the original
cat's-meat warehouse; the renown of which establishments was duly
heralded on their respective fronts.  It was a little house, and
this was the more convenient; for Mrs Gamp being, in her highest
walk of art, a monthly nurse, or, as her sign-board boldly had it,
'Midwife,' and lodging in the first-floor front, was easily
assailable at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of
tobacco-pipe; all much more efficacious than the street-door
knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease,
and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, without making the
smallest impression on the premises to which it was addressed.

It chanced on this particular occasion, that Mrs Gamp had been up
all the previous night, in attendance upon a ceremony to which the
usage of gossips has given that name which expresses, in two
syllables, the curse pronounced on Adam.  It chanced that Mrs Gamp
had not been regularly engaged, but had been called in at a crisis,
in consequence of her great repute, to assist another professional
lady with her advice; and thus it happened that, all points of
interest in the case being over, Mrs Gamp had come home again to the
bird-fancier's and gone to bed.  So when Mr Pecksniff drove up in
the hackney cab, Mrs Gamp's curtains were drawn close, and Mrs Gamp
was fast asleep behind them.

If the bird-fancier had been at home, as he ought to have been,
there would have been no great harm in this; but he was out, and his
shop was closed.  The shutters were down certainly; and in every
pane of glass there was at least one tiny bird in a tiny bird-cage,
twittering and hopping his little ballet of despair, and knocking
his head against the roof; while one unhappy goldfinch who lived
outside a red villa with his name on the door, drew the water for
his own drinking, and mutely appealed to some good man to drop a
farthing's-worth of poison in it.  Still, the door was shut.  Mr
Pecksniff tried the latch, and shook it, causing a cracked bell
inside to ring most mournfully; but no one came.  The bird-fancier
was an easy shaver also, and a fashionable hair-dresser also, and
perhaps he had been sent for, express, from the court end of the
town, to trim a lord, or cut and curl a lady; but however that might
be, there, upon his own ground, he was not; nor was there any more
distinct trace of him to assist the imagination of an inquirer, than
a professional print or emblem of his calling (much favoured in the
trade), representing a hair-dresser of easy manners curling a lady
of distinguished fashion, in the presence of a patent upright grand
pianoforte.

Noting these circumstances, Mr Pecksniff, in the innocence of his
heart, applied himself to the knocker; but at the first double knock
every window in the street became alive with female heads; and
before he could repeat the performance whole troops of married
ladies (some about to trouble Mrs Gamp themselves very shortly) came
flocking round the steps, all crying out with one accord, and with
uncommon interest, 'Knock at the winder, sir, knock at the winder.
Lord bless you, don't lose no more time than you can help--knock at
the winder!'

Acting upon this suggestion, and borrowing the driver's whip for the
purpose, Mr Pecksniff soon made a commotion among the first floor
flower-pots, and roused Mrs Gamp, whose voice--to the great
satisfaction of the matrons--was heard to say, 'I'm coming.'

'He's as pale as a muffin,' said one lady, in allusion to Mr
Pecksniff.

'So he ought to be, if he's the feelings of a man,' observed
another.

A third lady (with her arms folded) said she wished he had chosen
any other time for fetching Mrs Gamp, but it always happened so with
HER.

It gave Mr Pecksniff much uneasiness to find, from these remarks,
that he was supposed to have come to Mrs Gamp upon an errand
touching--not the close of life, but the other end.  Mrs Gamp
herself was under the same impression, for, throwing open the
window, she cried behind the curtains, as she hastily attired
herself--

'Is it Mrs Perkins?'

'No!' returned Mr Pecksniff, sharply.  'Nothing of the sort.'

'What, Mr Whilks!' cried Mrs Gamp.  'Don't say it's you, Mr Whilks,
and that poor creetur Mrs Whilks with not even a pincushion ready.
Don't say it's you, Mr Whilks!'

'It isn't Mr Whilks,' said Pecksniff.  'I don't know the man.
Nothing of the kind.  A gentleman is dead; and some person being
wanted in the house, you have been recommended by Mr Mould the
undertaker.'

As she was by this time in a condition to appear, Mrs Gamp, who had
a face for all occasions, looked out of the window with her mourning
countenance, and said she would be down directly.  But the matrons
took it very ill that Mr Pecksniff's mission was of so unimportant a
kind; and the lady with her arms folded rated him in good round
terms, signifying that she would be glad to know what he meant by
terrifying delicate females 'with his corpses;' and giving it as her
opinion that he was quite ugly enough to know better.  The other
ladies were not at all behind-hand in expressing similar sentiments;
and the children, of whom some scores had now collected, hooted
and defied Mr Pecksniff quite savagely.  So when Mrs Gamp appeared,
the unoffending gentleman was glad to hustle her with very little
ceremony into the cabriolet, and drive off, overwhelmed with
popular execration.

Mrs Gamp had a large bundle with her, a pair of pattens, and a
species of gig umbrella; the latter article in colour like a faded
leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been
dexterously let in at the top.  She was much flurried by the haste
she had made, and laboured under the most erroneous views of
cabriolets, which she appeared to confound with mail-coaches or
stage-wagons, inasmuch as she was constantly endeavouring for the
first half mile to force her luggage through the little front
window, and clamouring to the driver to 'put it in the boot.'  When
she was disabused of this idea, her whole being resolved itself into
an absorbing anxiety about her pattens, with which she played
innumerable games at quoits on Mr Pecksniff's legs.  It was not
until they were close upon the house of mourning that she had enough
composure to observe--

'And so the gentleman's dead, sir!  Ah!  The more's the pity.'
She didn't even know his name.  'But it's what we must all come to.
It's as certain as being born, except that we can't make our
calculations as exact.  Ah!  Poor dear!'

She was a fat old woman, this Mrs Gamp, with a husky voice and a
moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only
showing the white of it.  Having very little neck, it cost her some
trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at those to whom
she talked.  She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for
snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond.  In these dilapidated
articles of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out
of mind, on such occasions as the present; for this at once
expressed a decent amount of veneration for the deceased, and
invited the next of kin to present her with a fresher suit of weeds;
an appeal so frequently successful, that the very fetch and ghost of
Mrs Gamp, bonnet and all, might be seen hanging up, any hour in the
day, in at least a dozen of the second-hand clothes shops about
Holborn.  The face of Mrs Gamp--the nose in particular--was somewhat
red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without
becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.  Like most persons who
have attained to great eminence in their profession, she took to
hers very kindly; insomuch that, setting aside her natural
predilections as a woman, she went to a lying-in or a laying-out
with equal zest and relish.

'Ah!' repeated Mrs Gamp; for it was always a safe sentiment in cases
of mourning.  'Ah dear!  When Gamp was summoned to his long home, and
I see him a-lying in Guy's Hospital with a penny-piece on each eye,
and his wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have
fainted away.  But I bore up.'

If certain whispers current in the Kingsgate Street circles had any
truth in them, she had indeed borne up surprisingly; and had exerted
such uncommon fortitude as to dispose of Mr Gamp's remains for the
benefit of science.  But it should be added, in fairness, that this
had happened twenty years before; and that Mr and Mrs Gamp had long
been separated on the ground of incompatibility of temper in their
drink.

'You have become indifferent since then, I suppose?' said Mr
Pecksniff.  'Use is second nature, Mrs Gamp.'

'You may well say second nater, sir,' returned that lady.  'One's
first ways is to find sich things a trial to the feelings, and so is
one's lasting custom.  If it wasn't for the nerve a little sip of
liquor gives me (I never was able to do more than taste it), I never
could go through with what I sometimes has to do.  "Mrs Harris," I
says, at the very last case as ever I acted in, which it was but a
young person, "Mrs Harris," I says, "leave the bottle on the
chimley-piece, and don't ask me to take none, but let me put my lips
to it when I am so dispoged, and then I will do what I'm engaged to
do, according to the best of my ability."  "Mrs Gamp," she says, in
answer, "if ever there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen
pence a day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks--
night watching,"' said Mrs Gamp with emphasis, '"being a extra
charge--you are that inwallable person."  "Mrs Harris," I says to
her, "don't name the charge, for if I could afford to lay all my
feller creeturs out for nothink, I would gladly do it, sich is the
love I bears 'em.  But what I always says to them as has the
management of matters, Mrs Harris"'--here she kept her eye on Mr
Pecksniff--'"be they gents or be they ladies, is, don't ask me
whether I won't take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle
on the chimley-piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so
dispoged."'

The conclusion of this affecting narrative brought them to the
house.  In the passage they encountered Mr Mould the undertaker; a
little elderly gentleman, bald, and in a suit of black; with a
notebook in his hand, a massive gold watch-chain dangling from his
fob, and a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds
with a smirk of satisfaction; so that he looked as a man might, who,
in the very act of smacking his lips over choice old wine, tried to
make believe it was physic.

'Well, Mrs Gamp, and how are YOU, Mrs Gamp?' said this gentleman, in
a voice as soft as his step.

'Pretty well, I thank you, sir,' dropping a curtsey.

'You'll be very particular here, Mrs Gamp.  This is not a common
case, Mrs Gamp.  Let everything be very nice and comfortable, Mrs
Gamp, if you please,' said the undertaker, shaking his head with a
solemn air.

'It shall be, sir,' she replied, curtseying again.  'You knows me of
old, sir, I hope.'

'I hope so, too, Mrs Gamp,' said the undertaker.  'and I think so
also.'  Mrs Gamp curtseyed again.  'This is one of the most
impressive cases, sir,' he continued, addressing Mr Pecksniff, 'that
I have seen in the whole course of my professional experience.'

'Indeed, Mr Mould!' cried that gentleman.

'Such affectionate regret, sir, I never saw.  There is no
limitation, there is positively NO limitation'--opening his eyes
wide, and standing on tiptoe--'in point of expense!  I have orders,
sir, to put on my whole establishment of mutes; and mutes come very
dear, Mr Pecksniff; not to mention their drink.  To provide silver-
plated handles of the very best description, ornamented with angels'
heads from the most expensive dies.  To be perfectly profuse in
feathers.  In short, sir, to turn out something absolutely gorgeous.'

'My friend Mr Jonas is an excellent man,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'I have seen a good deal of what is filial in my time, sir,'
retorted Mould, 'and what is unfilial too.  It is our lot.  We come
into the knowledge of those secrets.  But anything so filial as
this; anything so honourable to human nature; so calculated to
reconcile all of us to the world we live in; never yet came under my
observation.  It only proves, sir, what was so forcibly observed by
the lamented theatrical poet--buried at Stratford--that there is
good in everything.'

'It is very pleasant to hear you say so, Mr Mould,' observed
Pecksniff.

'You are very kind, sir.  And what a man Mr Chuzzlewit was, sir!  Ah!
what a man he was.  You may talk of your lord mayors,' said Mould,
waving his hand at the public in general, 'your sheriffs, your
common councilmen, your trumpery; but show me a man in this city who
is worthy to walk in the shoes of the departed Mr Chuzzlewit.  No,
no,' cried Mould, with bitter sarcasm.  'Hang 'em up, hang 'em up;
sole 'em and heel 'em, and have 'em ready for his son against he's
old enough to wear 'em; but don't try 'em on yourselves, for they
won't fit you.  We knew him,' said Mould, in the same biting vein,
as he pocketed his note-book; 'we knew him, and are not to be
caught with chaff.  Mr Pecksniff, sir, good morning.'

Mr Pecksniff returned the compliment; and Mould, sensible of having
distinguished himself, was going away with a brisk smile, when he
fortunately remembered the occasion.  Quickly becoming depressed
again, he sighed; looked into the crown of his hat, as if for
comfort; put it on without finding any; and slowly departed.

Mrs Gamp and Mr Pecksniff then ascended the staircase; and the
former, having been shown to the chamber in which all that remained
of Anthony Chuzzlewit lay covered up, with but one loving heart, and
that a halting one, to mourn it, left the latter free to enter the
darkened room below, and rejoin Mr Jonas, from whom he had now been
absent nearly two hours.

He found that example to bereaved sons, and pattern in the eyes of
all performers of funerals, musing over a fragment of writing-paper
on the desk, and scratching figures on it with a pen.  The old man's
chair, and hat, and walking-stick, were removed from their
accustomed places, and put out of sight; the window-blinds as yellow
as November fogs, were drawn down close; Jonas himself was so
subdued, that he could scarcely be heard to speak, and only seen to
walk across the room.

'Pecksniff,' he said, in a whisper, 'you shall have the regulation
of it all, mind!  You shall be able to tell anybody who talks about
it that everything was correctly and nicely done.  There isn't any
one you'd like to ask to the funeral, is there?'

'No, Mr Jonas, I think not.'

'Because if there is, you know,' said Jonas, 'ask him.  We don't
want to make a secret of it.'

'No,' repeated Mr Pecksniff, after a little reflection.  'I am not
the less obliged to you on that account, Mr Jonas, for your liberal
hospitality; but there really is no one.'

'Very well,' said Jonas; 'then you, and I, and Chuffey, and the
doctor, will be just a coachful.  We'll have the doctor, Pecksniff,
because he knows what was the matter with him, and that it couldn't
be helped.'

'Where is our dear friend, Mr Chuffey?' asked Pecksniff, looking
round the chamber, and winking both his eyes at once--for he was
overcome by his feelings.

But here he was interrupted by Mrs Gamp, who, divested of her bonnet
and shawl, came sidling and bridling into the room; and with some
sharpness demanded a conference outside the door with Mr Pecksniff.

'You may say whatever you wish to say here, Mrs Gamp,' said that
gentleman, shaking his head with a melancholy expression.

'It is not much as I have to say when people is a-mourning for the
dead and gone,' said Mrs Gamp; 'but what I have to say is TO the
pint and purpose, and no offence intended, must be so considered.  I
have been at a many places in my time, gentlemen, and I hope I knows
what my duties is, and how the same should be performed; in course,
if I did not, it would be very strange, and very wrong in sich a
gentleman as Mr Mould, which has undertook the highest families in
this land, and given every satisfaction, so to recommend me as he
does.  I have seen a deal of trouble my own self,' said Mrs Gamp,
laying greater and greater stress upon her words, 'and I can feel
for them as has their feelings tried, but I am not a Rooshan or a
Prooshan, and consequently cannot suffer Spies to be set over me.'

Before it was possible that an answer could be returned, Mrs Gamp,
growing redder in the face, went on to say:

'It is not a easy matter, gentlemen, to live when you are left a
widder woman; particular when your feelings works upon you to that
extent that you often find yourself a-going out on terms which is a
certain loss, and never can repay.  But in whatever way you earns
your bread, you may have rules and regulations of your own which
cannot be broke through.  Some people,' said Mrs Gamp, again
entrenching herself behind her strong point, as if it were not
assailable by human ingenuity, 'may be Rooshans, and others may be
Prooshans; they are born so, and will please themselves.  Them which
is of other naturs thinks different.'

'If I understand this good lady,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning to
Jonas, 'Mr Chuffey is troublesome to her.  Shall I fetch him down?'

'Do,' said Jonas.  'I was going to tell you he was up there, when
she came in.  I'd go myself and bring him down, only--only I'd
rather you went, if you don't mind.'

Mr Pecksniff promptly departed, followed by Mrs Gamp, who, seeing
that he took a bottle and glass from the cupboard, and carried it in
his hand, was much softened.

'I am sure,' she said, 'that if it wasn't for his own happiness, I
should no more mind him being there, poor dear, than if he was a
fly.  But them as isn't used to these things, thinks so much of 'em
afterwards, that it's a kindness to 'em not to let 'em have their
wish.  And even,' said Mrs Gamp, probably in reference to some
flowers of speech she had already strewn on Mr Chuffey, 'even if one
calls 'em names, it's only done to rouse 'em.'

Whatever epithets she had bestowed on the old clerk, they had not
roused HIM.  He sat beside the bed, in the chair he had occupied all
the previous night, with his hands folded before him, and his head
bowed down; and neither looked up, on their entrance, nor gave any
sign of consciousness, until Mr Pecksniff took him by the arm, when
he meekly rose.

'Three score and ten,' said Chuffey, 'ought and carry seven.  Some
men are so strong that they live to four score--four times ought's
an ought, four times two's an eight--eighty.  Oh! why--why--why
didn't he live to four times ought's an ought, and four times two's
an eight, eighty?'

'Ah! what a wale of grief!' cried Mrs Gamp, possessing herself of
the bottle and glass.

'Why did he die before his poor old crazy servant?' said Chuffey,
clasping his hands and looking up in anguish.  'Take him from me,
and what remains?'

'Mr Jonas,' returned Pecksniff, 'Mr Jonas, my good friend.'

'I loved him,' cried the old man, weeping.  'He was good to me.  We
learnt Tare and Tret together at school.  I took him down once, six
boys in the arithmetic class.  God forgive me!  Had I the heart to
take him down!'

'Come, Mr Chuffey,' said Pecksniff.  'Come with me.  Summon up your
fortitude, Mr Chuffey.'

'Yes, I will,' returned the old clerk.  'Yes.  I'll sum up my forty
--How many times forty--Oh, Chuzzlewit and Son--Your own son Mr
Chuzzlewit; your own son, sir!'

He yielded to the hand that guided him, as he lapsed into this
familiar expression, and submitted to be led away.  Mrs Gamp, with
the bottle on one knee, and the glass on the other, sat upon a
stool, shaking her head for a long time, until, in a moment of
abstraction, she poured out a dram of spirits, and raised it to her
lips.  It was succeeded by a second, and by a third, and then her
eyes--either in the sadness of her reflections upon life and death,
or in her admiration of the liquor--were so turned up, as to be
quite invisible.  But she shook her head still.

Poor Chuffey was conducted to his accustomed corner, and there he
remained, silent and quiet, save at long intervals, when he would
rise, and walk about the room, and wring his hands, or raise some
strange and sudden cry.  For a whole week they all three sat about
the hearth and never stirred abroad.  Mr Pecksniff would have walked
out in the evening time, but Mr Jonas was so averse to his being
absent for a minute, that he abandoned the idea, and so, from
morning until night, they brooded together in the dark room, without
relief or occupation.

The weight of that which was stretched out, stiff and stark, in the
awful chamber above-stairs, so crushed and bore down Jonas, that he
bent beneath the load.  During the whole long seven days and nights,
he was always oppressed and haunted by a dreadful sense of its
presence in the house.  Did the door move, he looked towards it with
a livid face and starting eye, as if he fully believed that ghostly
fingers clutched the handle.  Did the fire fiicker in a draught of
air, he glanced over his shoulder, as almost dreading to behold some
shrouded figure fanning and flapping at it with its fearful dress.
The lightest noise disturbed him; and once, in the night, at the
sound of a footstep overhead, he cried out that the dead man was
walking--tramp, tramp, tramp--about his coffin.

He lay at night upon a mattress on the floor of the sitting-room;
his own chamber having been assigned to Mrs Gamp; and Mr Pecksniff
was similarly accommodated.  The howling of a dog before the house,
filled him with a terror he could not disguise.  He avoided the
reflection in the opposite windows of the light that burned above,
as though it had been an angry eye.  He often, in every night, rose
up from his fitful sleep, and looked and longed for dawn; all
directions and arrangements, even to the ordering of their daily
meals, he abandoned to Mr Pecksniff.  That excellent gentleman,
deeming that the mourner wanted comfort, and that high feeding was
likely to do him infinite service, availed himself of these
opportunities to such good purpose, that they kept quite a dainty
table during this melancholy season; with sweetbreads, stewed
kidneys, oysters, and other such light viands for supper every
night; over which, and sundry jorums of hot punch, Mr Pecksniff
delivered such moral reflections and spiritual consolation as might
have converted a Heathen--especially if he had had but an imperfect
acquaintance with the English tongue.

Nor did Mr Pecksniff alone indulge in the creature comforts during
this sad time.  Mrs Gamp proved to be very choice in her eating, and
repudiated hashed mutton with scorn.  In her drinking too, she was
very punctual and particular, requiring a pint of mild porter at
lunch, a pint at dinner, half-a-pint as a species of stay or
holdfast between dinner and tea, and a pint of the celebrated
staggering ale, or Real Old Brighton Tipper, at supper; besides the
bottle on the chimney-piece, and such casual invitations to refresh
herself with wine as the good breeding of her employers might prompt
them to offer.  In like manner, Mr Mould's men found it necessary to
drown their grief, like a young kitten in the morning of its
existence, for which reason they generally fuddled themselves before
they began to do anything, lest it should make head and get the
better of them.  In short, the whole of that strange week was a
round of dismal joviality and grim enjoyment; and every one, except
poor Chuffey, who came within the shadow of Anthony Chuzzlewit's
grave, feasted like a Ghoul.

At length the day of the funeral, pious and truthful ceremony that
it was, arrived.  Mr Mould, with a glass of generous port between
his eye and the light, leaned against the desk in the little glass
office with his gold watch in his unoccupied hand, and conversed
with Mrs Gamp; two mutes were at the house-door, looking as mournful
as could be reasonably expected of men with such a thriving job in
hand; the whole of Mr Mould's establishment were on duty within the
house or without; feathers waved, horses snorted, silk and velvets
fluttered; in a word, as Mr Mould emphatically said, 'Everything
that money could do was done.'

'And what can do more, Mrs Gamp?' exclaimed the undertaker as he
emptied his glass and smacked his lips.

'Nothing in the world, sir.'

'Nothing in the world,' repeated Mr Mould.  'You are right,
Mrs.Gamp.  Why do people spend more money'--here he filled his glass
again--'upon a death, Mrs Gamp, than upon a birth?  Come, that's in
your way; you ought to know.  How do you account for that now?'

'Perhaps it is because an undertaker's charges comes dearer than a
nurse's charges, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, tittering, and smoothing down
her new black dress with her hands.

'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr Mould.  'You have been breakfasting at
somebody's expense this morning, Mrs Gamp.'  But seeing, by the aid
of a little shaving-glass which hung opposite, that he looked merry,
he composed his features and became sorrowful.

'Many's the time that I've not breakfasted at my own expense along
of your recommending, sir; and many's the time I hope to do the
same in time to come,' said Mrs Gamp, with an apologetic curtsey.

'So be it,' replied Mr Mould, 'please Providence.  No, Mrs Gamp;
I'll tell you why it is.  It's because the laying out of money with
a well-conducted establishment, where the thing is performed upon the
very best scale, binds the broken heart, and sheds balm upon the
wounded spirit.  Hearts want binding, and spirits want balming when
people die; not when people are born.  Look at this gentleman to-
day; look at him.'

'An open-handed gentleman?' cried Mrs Gamp, with enthusiasm.

'No, no,' said the undertaker; 'not an open-handed gentleman in
general, by any means.  There you mistake him; but an afflicted
gentleman, an affectionate gentleman, who knows what it is in the
power of money to do, in giving him relief, and in testifying his
love and veneration for the departed.  It can give him,' said Mr
Mould, waving his watch-chain slowly round and round, so that he
described one circle after every item; 'it can give him four horses
to each vehicle; it can give him velvet trappings; it can give him
drivers in cloth cloaks and top-boots; it can give him the plumage
of the ostrich, dyed black; it can give him any number of walking
attendants, dressed in the first style of funeral fashion, and
carrying batons tipped with brass; it can give him a handsome tomb;
it can give him a place in Westminster Abbey itself, if he choose to
invest it in such a purchase.  Oh! do not let us say that gold is
dross, when it can buy such things as these, Mrs Gamp.'

'But what a blessing, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, 'that there are such as
you, to sell or let 'em out on hire!'

'Aye, Mrs Gamp, you are right,' rejoined the undertaker.  'We should
be an honoured calling.  We do good by stealth, and blush to have it
mentioned in our little bills.  How much consolation may I--even I,'
cried Mr Mould, 'have diffused among my fellow-creatures by means of
my four long-tailed prancers, never harnessed under ten pund ten!'

Mrs Gamp had begun to make a suitable reply, when she was
interrupted by the appearance of one of Mr Mould's assistants--his
chief mourner in fact--an obese person, with his waistcoat in closer
connection with his legs than is quite reconcilable with the
established ideas of grace; with that cast of feature which is
figuratively called a bottle nose; and with a face covered all over
with pimples.  He had been a tender plant once upon a time, but from
constant blowing in the fat atmosphere of funerals, had run to seed.

'Well, Tacker,' said Mr Mould, 'is all ready below?'

'A beautiful show, sir,' rejoined Tacker.  'The horses are prouder
and fresher than ever I see 'em; and toss their heads, they do, as
if they knowed how much their plumes cost.  One, two, three, four,'
said Mr Tacker, heaping that number of black cloaks upon his left
arm.

'Is Tom there, with the cake and wine?' asked Mr Mould.

'Ready to come in at a moment's notice, sir,' said Tacker.

'Then,' rejoined Mr Mould, putting up his watch, and glancing at
himself in the little shaving-glass, that he might be sure his face
had the right expression on it; 'then I think we may proceed to
business.  Give me the paper of gloves, Tacker.  Ah, what a man he
was!  Ah, Tacker, Tacker, what a man he was!'

Mr Tacker, who from his great experience in the performance of
funerals, would have made an excellent pantomime actor, winked at
Mrs Gamp without at all disturbing the gravity of his countenance,
and followed his master into the next room.

It was a great point with Mr Mould, and a part of his professional
tact, not to seem to know the doctor; though in reality they were
near neighbours, and very often, as in the present instance, worked
together.  So he advanced to fit on his black kid gloves as if he
had never seen him in all his life; while the doctor, on his part,
looked as distant and unconscious as if he had heard and read of
undertakers, and had passed their shops, but had never before been
brought into communication with one.

'Gloves, eh?' said the doctor.  'Mr Pecksniff after you.'

'I couldn't think of it,' returned Mr Pecksniff.

'You are very good,' said the doctor, taking a pair.  'Well, sir, as
I was saying--I was called up to attend that case at about half-past
one o'clock.  Cake and wine, eh?  Which is port?  Thank you.'

Mr Pecksniff took some also.

'At about half-past one o'clock in the morning, sir,' resumed the
doctor, 'I was called up to attend that case.  At the first pull of
the night-bell I turned out, threw up the window, and put out my
head.  Cloak, eh?  Don't tie it too tight.  That'll do.'

Mr Pecksniff having been likewise inducted into a similar garment,
the doctor resumed.

'And put out my head--hat, eh?  My good friend, that is not mine.
Mr Pecksniff, I beg your pardon, but I think we have unintentionally
made an exchange.  Thank you.  Well, sir, I was going to tell you--'

'We are quite ready,' interrupted Mould in a low voice.

'Ready, eh?' said the doctor.  'Very good, Mr Pecksniff, I'll take
an opportunity of relating the rest in the coach.  It's rather
curious.  Ready, eh?  No rain, I hope?'

'Quite fair, sir,' returned Mould.

'I was afraid the ground would have been wet,' said the doctor, 'for
my glass fell yesterday.  We may congratulate ourselves upon our
good fortune.'  But seeing by this time that Mr Jonas and Chuffey
were going out at the door, he put a white pocket-handkerchief to
his face as if a violent burst of grief had suddenly come upon him,
and walked down side by side with Mr Pecksniff.

Mr Mould and his men had not exaggerated the grandeur of the
arrangements.  They were splendid.  The four hearse-horses,
especially, reared and pranced, and showed their highest action, as
if they knew a man was dead, and triumphed in it.  'They break us,
drive us, ride us; ill-treat, abuse, and maim us for their
pleasure--But they die; Hurrah, they die!'

So through the narrow streets and winding city ways, went Anthony
Chuzzlewit's funeral; Mr Jonas glancing stealthily out of the coach-
window now and then, to observe its effect upon the crowd; Mr Mould
as he walked along, listening with a sober pride to the exclamations
of the bystanders; the doctor whispering his story to Mr Pecksniff,
without appearing to come any nearer the end of it; and poor old
Chuffey sobbing unregarded in a corner.  But he had greatly
scandalized Mr Mould at an early stage of the ceremony by carrying
his handkerchief in his hat in a perfectly informal manner, and
wiping his eyes with his knuckles.  And as Mr Mould himself had said
already, his behaviour was indecent, and quite unworthy of such an
occasion; and he never ought to have been there.

There he was, however; and in the churchyard there he was, also,
conducting himself in a no less unbecoming manner, and leaning for
support on Tacker, who plainly told him that he was fit for nothing
better than a walking funeral.  But Chuffey, Heaven help him! heard
no sound but the echoes, lingering in his own heart, of a voice for
ever silent.

'I loved him,' cried the old man, sinking down upon the grave when
all was done.  'He was very good to me.  Oh, my dear old friend and
master!'

'Come, come, Mr Chuffey,' said the doctor, 'this won't do; it's a
clayey soil, Mr Chuffey.  You mustn't, really.'

'If it had been the commonest thing we do, and Mr Chuffey had been a
Bearer, gentlemen,' said Mould, casting an imploring glance upon
them, as he helped to raise him, 'he couldn't have gone on worse
than this.'

'Be a man, Mr Chuffey,' said Pecksniff.

'Be a gentleman, Mr Chuffey,' said Mould.

'Upon my word, my good friend,' murmured the doctor, in a tone of
stately reproof, as he stepped up to the old man's side, 'this is
worse than weakness.  This is bad, selfish, very wrong, Mr Chuffey.
You should take example from others, my good sir.  You forget that
you were not connected by ties of blood with our deceased friend;
and that he had a very near and very dear relation, Mr Chuffey.'

'Aye, his own son!' cried the old man, clasping his hands with
remarkable passion.  'His own, own, only son!'

'He's not right in his head, you know,' said Jonas, turning pale.
'You're not to mind anything he says.  I shouldn't wonder if he was
to talk some precious nonsense.  But don't you mind him, any of you.
I don't.  My father left him to my charge; and whatever he says or
does, that's enough.  I'll take care of him.'

A hum of admiration rose from the mourners (including Mr Mould and
his merry men) at this new instance of magnanimity and kind feeling
on the part of Jonas.  But Chuffey put it to the test no farther.
He said not a word more, and being left to himself for a little
while, crept back again to the coach.

It has been said that Mr Jonas turned pale when the behaviour of the
old clerk attracted general attention; his discomposure, however,
was but momentary, and he soon recovered.  But these were not the
only changes he had exhibited that day.  The curious eyes of Mr
Pecksniff had observed that as soon as they left the house upon
their mournful errand, he began to mend; that as the ceremonies
proceeded he gradually, by little and little, recovered his old
condition, his old looks, his old bearing, his old agreeable
characteristics of speech and manner, and became, in all respects,
his old pleasant self.  And now that they were seated in the coach
on their return home; and more when they got there, and found the
windows open, the light and air admitted, and all traces of the late
event removed; he felt so well convinced that Jonas was again the
Jonas he had known a week ago, and not the Jonas of the intervening
time, that he voluntarily gave up his recently-acquired power
without one faint attempt to exercise it, and at once fell back into
his former position of mild and deferential guest.

Mrs Gamp went home to the bird-fancier's, and was knocked up again
that very night for a birth of twins; Mr Mould dined gayly in the
bosom of his family, and passed the evening facetiously at his club;
the hearse, after standing for a long time at the door of a
roistering public-house, repaired to its stables with the feathers
inside and twelve red-nosed undertakers on the roof, each holding on
by a dingy peg, to which, in times of state, a waving plume was
fitted; the various trappings of sorrow were carefully laid by in
presses for the next hirer; the fiery steeds were quenched and quiet
in their stalls; the doctor got merry with wine at a wedding-dinner,
and forgot the middle of the story which had no end to it; the
pageant of a few short hours ago was written nowhere half so legibly
as in the undertaker's books.

Not in the churchyard?  Not even there.  The gates were closed; the
night was dark and wet; the rain fell silently, among the stagnant
weeds and nettles.  One new mound was there which had not been there
last night.  Time, burrowing like a mole below the ground, had
marked his track by throwing up another heap of earth.  And that was
all.



CHAPTER TWENTY

IS A CHAPTER OF LOVE


'Pecksniff,' said Jonas, taking off his hat, to see that the black
crape band was all right; and finding that it was, putting it on
again, complacently; 'what do you mean to give your daughters when
they marry?'

'My dear Mr Jonas,' cried the affectionate parent, with an ingenuous
smile, 'what a very singular inquiry!'

'Now, don't you mind whether it's a singular inquiry or a plural
one,' retorted Jonas, eyeing Mr Pecksniff with no great favour, 'but
answer it, or let it alone.  One or the other.'

'Hum!  The question, my dear friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, laying his
hand tenderly upon his kinsman's knee, 'is involved with many
considerations.  What would I give them?  Eh?'

'Ah! what would you give 'em?' repeated Jonas.

'Why, that, 'said Mr Pecksniff, 'would naturally depend in a great
measure upon the kind of husbands they might choose, my dear young
friend.'

Mr Jonas was evidently disconcerted, and at a loss how to proceed.
It was a good answer.  It seemed a deep one, but such is the wisdom
of simplicity!'

'My standard for the merits I would require in a son-in-law,' said
Mr Pecksniff, after a short silence, 'is a high one.  Forgive me, my
dear Mr Jonas,' he added, greatly moved, 'if I say that you have
spoiled me, and made it a fanciful one; an imaginative one; a
prismatically tinged one, if I may be permitted to call it so.'

'What do you mean by that?' growled Jonas, looking at him with
increased disfavour.

'Indeed, my dear friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'you may well inquire.
The heart is not always a royal mint, with patent machinery to work
its metal into current coin.  Sometimes it throws it out in strange
forms, not easily recognized as coin at all.  But it is sterling
gold.  It has at least that merit.  It is sterling gold.'

'Is it?' grumbled Jonas, with a doubtful shake of the head.

'Aye!' said Mr Pecksniff, warming with his subject 'it is.  To be
plain with you, Mr Jonas, if I could find two such sons-in-law as
you will one day make to some deserving man, capable of appreciating
a nature such as yours, I would--forgetful of myself--bestow upon my
daughters portions reaching to the very utmost limit of my means.'

This was strong language, and it was earnestly delivered.  But who
can wonder that such a man as Mr Pecksniff, after all he had seen
and heard of Mr Jonas, should be strong and earnest upon such a
theme; a theme that touched even the worldly lips of undertakers
with the honey of eloquence!

Mr Jonas was silent, and looked thoughtfully at the landscape.  For
they were seated on the outside of the coach, at the back, and were
travelling down into the country.  He accompanied Mr Pecksniff home
for a few days' change of air and scene after his recent trials.

'Well,' he said, at last, with captivating bluntness, 'suppose you
got one such son-in-law as me, what then?'

Mr Pecksniff regarded him at first with inexpressible surprise; then
gradually breaking into a sort of dejected vivacity, said:

'Then well I know whose husband he would be!'

'Whose?' asked Jonas, drily.

'My eldest girl's, Mr Jonas,' replied Pecksniff, with moistening
eyes.  'My dear Cherry's; my staff, my scrip, my treasure, Mr Jonas.
A hard struggle, but it is in the nature of things!  I must one day
part with her to a husband.  I know it, my dear friend.  I am
prepared for it.'

'Ecod! you've been prepared for that a pretty long time, I should
think,' said Jonas.

'Many have sought to bear her from me,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'All
have failed.  "I never will give my hand, papa"--those were her
words--"unless my heart is won."  She has not been quite so happy as
she used to be, of late.  I don't know why.'

Again Mr Jonas looked at the landscape; then at the coachman; then
at the luggage on the roof; finally at Mr Pecksniff.

'I suppose you'll have to part with the other one, some of these
days?' he observed, as he caught that gentleman's eye.

'Probably,' said the parent.  'Years will tame down the wildness of
my foolish bird, and then it will be caged.  But Cherry, Mr Jonas,
Cherry--'

'Oh, ah!' interrupted Jonas.  'Years have made her all right enough.
Nobody doubts that.  But you haven't answered what I asked you.  Of
course, you're not obliged to do it, you know, if you don't like.
You're the best judge.'

There was a warning sulkiness in the manner of this speech, which
admonished Mr Pecksniff that his dear friend was not to be trifled
with or fenced off, and that he must either return a straight-
forward reply to his question, or plainly give him to understand
that he declined to enlighten him upon the subject to which it
referred.  Mindful in this dilemma of the caution old Anthony had
given him almost with his latest breath, he resolved to speak to the
point, and so told Mr Jonas (enlarging upon the communication as a
proof of his great attachment and confidence), that in the case he
had put; to wit, in the event of such a man as he proposing for his
daughter's hand, he would endow her with a fortune of four thousand
pounds.

'I should sadly pinch and cramp myself to do so,' was his fatherly
remark; 'but that would be my duty, and my conscience would reward
me.  For myself, my conscience is my bank.  I have a trifle invested
there--a mere trifle, Mr Jonas--but I prize it as a store of value,
I assure you.'

The good man's enemies would have divided upon this question into
two parties.  One would have asserted without scruple that if Mr
Pecksniff's conscience were his bank, and he kept a running account
there, he must have overdrawn it beyond all mortal means of
computation.  The other would have contended that it was a mere
fictitious form; a perfectly blank book; or one in which entries
were only made with a peculiar kind of invisible ink to become
legible at some indefinite time; and that he never troubled it at
all.

'It would sadly pinch and cramp me, my dear friend,' repeated Mr
Pecksniff, 'but Providence--perhaps I may be permitted to say a
special Providence--has blessed my endeavours, and I could guarantee
to make the sacrifice.'

A question of philosophy arises here, whether Mr Pecksniff had or
had not good reason to say that he was specially patronized and
encouraged in his undertakings.  All his life long he had been
walking up and down the narrow ways and by-places, with a hook in
one hand and a crook in the other, scraping all sorts of valuable
odds and ends into his pouch.  Now, there being a special Providence
in the fall of a sparrow, it follows (so Mr Pecksniff, and only
such admirable men, would have reasoned), that there must also
be a special Providence in the alighting of the stone or stick,
or other substance which is aimed at the sparrow.  And Mr
Pecksniff's hook, or crook, having invariably knocked the sparrow
on the head and brought him down, that gentleman may have been
led to consider himself as specially licensed to bag sparrows,
and as being specially seized and possessed of all the birds he
had got together.  That many undertakings, national as well as
individual--but especially the former--are held to be specially
brought to a glorious and successful issue, which never could be
so regarded on any other process of reasoning, must be clear to
all men.  Therefore the precedents would seem to show that Mr
Pecksniff had (as things go) good argument for what he said and
might be permitted to say it, and did not say it presumptuously,
vainly, or arrogantly, but in a spirit of high faith and great
wisdom.

Mr Jonas, not being much accustomed to perplex his mind with
theories of this nature, expressed no opinion on the subject.  Nor
did he receive his companion's announcement with one solitary
syllable, good, bad, or indifferent.  He preserved this taciturnity
for a quarter of an hour at least, and during the whole of that time
appeared to be steadily engaged in subjecting some given amount to
the operation of every known rule in figures; adding to it, taking
from it, multiplying it, reducing it by long and short division;
working it by the rule-of-three direct and inversed; exchange or
barter; practice; simple interest; compound interest; and other
means of arithmetical calculation.  The result of these labours
appeared to be satisfactory, for when he did break silence, it
was as one who had arrived at some specific result, and freed
himself from a state of distressing uncertainty.

'Come, old Pecksniff!'--Such was his jocose address, as he slapped
that gentleman on the back, at the end of the stage--'let's have
something!'

'With all my heart,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'Let's treat the driver,' cried Jonas.

'If you think it won't hurt the man, or render him discontented with
his station--certainly,' faltered Mr Pecksniff.

Jonas only laughed at this, and getting down from the coach-top with
great alacrity, cut a cumbersome kind of caper in the road.  After
which, he went into the public-house, and there ordered spirituous
drink to such an extent, that Mr Pecksniff had some doubts of his
perfect sanity, until Jonas set them quite at rest by saying, when
the coach could wait no longer:

'I've been standing treat for a whole week and more, and letting you
have all the delicacies of the season.  YOU shall pay for this
Pecksniff.'  It was not a joke either, as Mr Pecksniff at first
supposed; for he went off to the coach without further ceremony, and
left his respected victim to settle the bill.

But Mr Pecksniff was a man of meek endurance, and Mr Jonas was his
friend.  Moreover, his regard for that gentleman was founded, as we
know, on pure esteem, and a knowledge of the excellence of his
character.  He came out from the tavern with a smiling face, and
even went so far as to repeat the performance, on a less expensive
scale, at the next ale-house.  There was a certain wildness in the
spirits of Mr Jonas (not usually a part of his character) which was
far from being subdued by these means, and, for the rest of the
journey, he was so very buoyant--it may be said, boisterous--that Mr
Pecksniff had some difficulty in keeping pace with him.

They were not expected--oh dear, no!  Mr Pecksniff had proposed in
London to give the girls a surprise, and had said he wouldn't write
a word to prepare them on any account, in order that he and Mr Jonas
might take them unawares, and just see what they were doing, when
they thought their dear papa was miles and miles away.  As a
consequence of this playful device, there was nobody to meet them at
the finger-post, but that was of small consequence, for they had
come down by the day coach, and Mr Pecksniff had only a carpetbag,
while Mr Jonas had only a portmanteau.  They took the portmanteau
between them, put the bag upon it, and walked off up the lane
without delay; Mr Pecksniff already going on tiptoe as if, without
this precaution, his fond children, being then at a distance of a
couple of miles or so, would have some filial sense of his approach.

It was a lovely evening in the spring-time of the year; and in the
soft stillness of the twilight, all nature was very calm and
beautiful.  The day had been fine and warm; but at the coming on of
night, the air grew cool, and in the mellowing distance smoke was
rising gently from the cottage chimneys.  There were a thousand
pleasant scents diffused around, from young leaves and fresh buds;
the cuckoo had been singing all day long, and was but just now
hushed; the smell of earth newly-upturned, first breath of hope to
the first labourer after his garden withered, was fragrant in the
evening breeze.  It was a time when most men cherish good resolves,
and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking on the
shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on
all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond.

'Precious dull,' said Mr Jonas, looking about.  'It's enough to make
a man go melancholy mad.'

'We shall have lights and a fire soon,' observed Mr Pecksniff.

'We shall need 'em by the time we get there,' said Jonas.  'Why the
devil don't you talk?  What are you thinking of?'

'To tell you the truth, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff with great
solemnity, 'my mind was running at that moment on our late dear
friend, your departed father.'

Mr Jonas immediately let his burden fall, and said, threatening him
with his hand:

'Drop that, Pecksniff!'

Mr Pecksniff not exactly knowing whether allusion was made to the
subject or the portmanteau, stared at his friend in unaffected
surprise.

'Drop it, I say!' cried Jonas, fiercely.  'Do you hear?  Drop it,
now and for ever.  You had better, I give you notice!'

'It was quite a mistake,' urged Mr Pecksniff, very much dismayed;
'though I admit it was foolish.  I might have known it was a tender
string.'

'Don't talk to me about tender strings,' said Jonas, wiping his
forehead with the cuff of his coat.  'I'm not going to be crowed
over by you, because I don't like dead company.'

Mr Pecksniff had got out the words 'Crowed over, Mr Jonas!' when
that young man, with a dark expression in his countenance, cut him
short once more:

'Mind!' he said.  'I won't have it.  I advise you not to revive the
subject, neither to me nor anybody else.  You can take a hint, if
you choose as well as another man.  There's enough said about it.
Come along!'

Taking up his part of the load again, when he had said these words,
he hurried on so fast that Mr Pecksniff, at the other end of the
portmanteau, found himself dragged forward, in a very inconvenient
and ungraceful manner, to the great detriment of what is called by
fancy gentlemen 'the bark' upon his shins, which were most
unmercifully bumped against the hard leather and the iron buckles.
In the course of a few minutes, however, Mr Jonas relaxed his speed,
and suffered his companion to come up with him, and to bring the
portmanteau into a tolerably straight position.

It was pretty clear that he regretted his late outbreak, and that he
mistrusted its effect on Mr Pecksniff; for as often as that
gentleman glanced towards Mr Jonas, he found Mr Jonas glancing at
him, which was a new source of embarrassment.  It was but a short-
lived one, though, for Mr Jonas soon began to whistle, whereupon Mr
Pecksniff, taking his cue from his friend, began to hum a tune
melodiously.

'Pretty nearly there, ain't we?' said Jonas, when this had lasted
some time.

'Close, my dear friend,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'What'll they be doing, do you suppose?' asked Jonas.

'Impossible to say,' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Giddy truants!  They may
be away from home, perhaps.  I was going to--he! he! he!--I was
going to propose,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'that we should enter by the
back way, and come upon them like a clap of thunder, Mr Jonas.'

It might not have been easy to decide in respect of which of their
manifold properties, Jonas, Mr Pecksniff, the carpet-bag, and the
portmanteau, could be likened to a clap of thunder.  But Mr Jonas
giving his assent to this proposal, they stole round into the back
yard, and softly advanced towards the kitchen window, through which
the mingled light of fire and candle shone upon the darkening night.

Truly Mr Pecksniff is blessed in his children--in one of them, at
any rate.  The prudent Cherry--staff and scrip, and treasure of her
doting father--there she sits, at a little table white as driven
snow, before the kitchen fire, making up accounts!  See the neat
maiden, as with pen in hand, and calculating look addressed towards
the ceiling and bunch of keys within a little basket at her side,
she checks the housekeeping expenditure!  From flat-iron, dish-cover,
and warming-pan; from pot and kettle, face of brass footman, and
black-leaded stove; bright glances of approbation wink and glow upon
her.  The very onions dangling from the beam, mantle and shine like
cherubs' cheeks.  Something of the influence of those vegetables
sinks into Mr Pecksniff's nature.  He weeps.

It is but for a moment, and he hides it from the observation of his
friend--very carefully--by a somewhat elaborate use of his pocket-
handkerchief, in fact; for he would not have his weakness known.

'Pleasant,' he murmured, 'pleasant to a father's feelings!  My dear
girl!  Shall we let her know we are here, Mr Jonas?'

'Why, I suppose you don't mean to spend the evening in the stable,
or the coach-house,' he returned.

'That, indeed, is not such hospitality as I would show to YOU, my
friend,' cried Mr Pecksniff, pressing his hand.  And then he took a
long breath, and tapping at the window, shouted with stentorian
blandness:

'Boh!'

Cherry dropped her pen and screamed.  But innocence is ever bold, or
should be.  As they opened the door, the valiant girl exclaimed in a
firm voice, and with a presence of mind which even in that trying
moment did not desert her, 'Who are you?  What do you want?  Speak!
or I will call my Pa.'

Mr Pecksniff held out his arms.  She knew him instantly, and rushed
into his fond embrace.

'It was thoughtless of us, Mr Jonas, it was very thoughtless,' said
Pecksniff, smoothing his daugther's hair.  'My darling, do you see
that I am not alone!'

Not she.  She had seen nothing but her father until now.  She saw Mr
Jonas now, though; and blushed, and hung her head down, as she gave
him welcome.

But where was Merry?  Mr Pecksniff didn't ask the question in
reproach, but in a vein of mildness touched with a gentle sorrow.
She was upstairs, reading on the parlour couch.  Ah!  Domestic
details had no charms for HER.  'But call her down,' said Mr
Pecksniff, with a placid resignation.  'Call her down, my love.'

She was called and came, all flushed and tumbled from reposing on
the sofa; but none the worse for that.  No, not at all.  Rather the
better, if anything.

'Oh my goodness me!' cried the arch girl, turning to her cousin when
she had kissed her father on both cheeks, and in her frolicsome
nature had bestowed a supernumerary salute upon the tip of his nose,
'YOU here, fright!  Well, I'm very thankful that you won't trouble ME
much!'

'What! you're as lively as ever, are you?' said Jonas.  'Oh!  You're
a wicked one!'

'There, go along!' retorted Merry, pushing him away.  'I'm sure I
don't know what I shall ever do, if I have to see much of you.  Go
along, for gracious' sake!'

Mr Pecksniff striking in here, with a request that Mr Jonas would
immediately walk upstairs, he so far complied with the young lady's
adjuration as to go at once.  But though he had the fair Cherry on
his arm, he could not help looking back at her sister, and
exchanging some further dialogue of the same bantering description,
as they all four ascended to the parlour; where--for the young
ladies happened, by good fortune, to be a little later than usual
that night--the tea-board was at that moment being set out.

Mr Pinch was not at home, so they had it all to themselves, and were
very snug and talkative, Jonas sitting between the two sisters, and
displaying his gallantry in that engaging manner which was peculiar
to him.  It was a hard thing, Mr Pecksniff said, when tea was done,
and cleared away, to leave so pleasant a little party, but having
some important papers to examine in his own apartment, he must beg
them to excuse him for half an hour.  With this apology he withdrew,
singing a careless strain as he went.  He had not been gone five
minutes, when Merry, who had been sitting in the window, apart from
Jonas and her sister, burst into a half-smothered laugh, and skipped
towards the door.

'Hallo!' cried Jonas.  'Don't go.'

'Oh, I dare say!' rejoined Merry, looking back.  'You're very
anxious I should stay, fright, ain't you?'

'Yes, I am,' said Jonas.  'Upon my word I am.  I want to speak to
you.'  But as she left the room notwithstanding, he ran out after
her, and brought her back, after a short struggle in the passage
which scandalized Miss Cherry very much.

'Upon my word, Merry,' urged that young lady, 'I wonder at you!
There are bounds even to absurdity, my dear.'

'Thank you, my sweet,' said Merry, pursing up her rosy Lips.  'Much
obliged to it for its advice.  Oh! do leave me alone, you monster,
do!'  This entreaty was wrung from her by a new proceeding on the
part of Mr Jonas, who pulled her down, all breathless as she was,
into a seat beside him on the sofa, having at the same time Miss
Cherry upon the other side.

'Now,' said Jonas, clasping the waist of each; 'I have got both arms
full, haven't I?'

'One of them will be black and blue to-morrow, if you don't let me
go,' cried the playful Merry.

'Ah!  I don't mind YOUR pinching,' grinned Jonas, 'a bit.'

'Pinch him for me, Cherry, pray,' said Mercy.  'I never did hate
anybody so much as I hate this creature, I declare!'

'No, no, don't say that,' urged Jonas, 'and don't pinch either,
because I want to be serious.  I say--Cousin Charity--'

'Well! what?' she answered sharply.

'I want to have some sober talk,' said Jonas; 'I want to prevent any
mistakes, you know, and to put everything upon a pleasant
understanding.  That's desirable and proper, ain't it?'

Neither of the sisters spoke a word.  Mr Jonas paused and cleared
his throat, which was very dry.

'She'll not believe what I am going to say, will she, cousin?' said
Jonas, timidly squeezing Miss Charity.

'Really, Mr Jonas, I don't know, until I hear what it is.  It's
quite impossible!'

'Why, you see,' said Jonas, 'her way always being to make game of
people, I know she'll laugh, or pretend to--I know that, beforehand.
But you can tell her I'm in earnest, cousin; can't you?  You'll
confess you know, won't you?  You'll be honourable, I'm sure,'
he added persuasively.

No answer.  His throat seemed to grow hotter and hotter, and to be
more and more difficult of control.

'You see, Cousin Charity,' said Jonas, 'nobody but you can tell her
what pains I took to get into her company when you were both at the
boarding-house in the city, because nobody's so well aware of it, you
know.  Nobody else can tell her how hard I tried to get to know you
better, in order that I might get to know her without seeming to
wish it; can they?  I always asked you about her, and said where
had she gone, and when would she come, and how lively she was, and
all that; didn't I, cousin?  I know you'll tell her so, if you
haven't told her so already, and--and--I dare say you have, because
I'm sure you're honourable, ain't you?'

Still not a word.  The right arm of Mr Jonas--the elder sister sat
upon his right--may have been sensible of some tumultuous throbbing
which was not within itself; but nothing else apprised him that his
words had had the least effect.

'Even if you kept it to yourself, and haven't told her,' resumed
Jonas, 'it don't much matter, because you'll bear honest witness
now; won't you?  We've been very good friends from the first;
haven't we? and of course we shall be quite friends in future, and
so I don't mind speaking before you a bit.  Cousin Mercy, you've
heard what I've been saying.  She'll confirm it, every word; she
must.  Will you have me for your husband?  Eh?'

As he released his hold of Charity, to put this question with better
effect, she started up and hurried away to her own room, marking her
progress as she went by such a train of passionate and incoherent
sound, as nothing but a slighted woman in her anger could produce.

'Let me go away.  Let me go after her,' said Merry, pushing him off,
and giving him--to tell the truth--more than one sounding slap upon
his outstretched face.

'Not till you say yes.  You haven't told me.  Will you have me for
your husband?'

'No, I won't.  I can't bear the sight of you.  I have told you so a
hundred times.  You are a fright.  Besides, I always thought you
liked my sister best.  We all thought so.'

'But that wasn't my fault,' said Jonas.

'Yes it was; you know it was.'

'Any trick is fair in love,' said Jonas.  'She may have thought I
liked her best, but you didn't.'

'I did!'

'No, you didn't.  You never could have thought I liked her best,
when you were by.'

'There's no accounting for tastes,' said Merry; 'at least I didn't
mean to say that.  I don't know what I mean.  Let me go to her.'

'Say "Yes," and then I will.'

'If I ever brought myself to say so, it should only be that I might
hate and tease you all my life.'

'That's as good,' cried Jonas, 'as saying it right out.  It's a
bargain, cousin.  We're a pair, if ever there was one.'

This gallant speech was succeeded by a confused noise of kissing and
slapping; and then the fair but much dishevelled Merry broke away,
and followed in the footsteps of her sister.

Now whether Mr Pecksniff had been listening--which in one of his
character appears impossible; or divined almost by inspiration what
the matter was--which, in a man of his sagacity is far more
probable; or happened by sheer good fortune to find himself in
exactly the right place, at precisely the right time--which, under
the special guardianship in which he lived might very reasonably
happen; it is quite certain that at the moment when the sisters came
together in their own room, he appeared at the chamber door.  And a
marvellous contrast it was--they so heated, noisy, and vehement; he
so calm, so self-possessed, so cool and full of peace, that not a
hair upon his head was stirred.

'Children!' said Mr Pecksniff, spreading out his hands in wonder,
but not before he had shut the door, and set his back against it.
'Girls!  Daughters!  What is this?'

'The wretch; the apostate; the false, mean, odious villain; has
before my very face proposed to Mercy!' was his eldest daughter's
answer.

'Who has proposed to Mercy!' asked Mr Pecksniff.

'HE has.  That thing, Jonas, downstairs.'

'Jonas proposed to Mercy?' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Aye, aye!  Indeed!'

'Have you nothing else to say?' cried Charity.  'Am I to be driven
mad, papa?  He has proposed to Mercy, not to me.'

'Oh, fie!  For shame!' said Mr Pecksniff, gravely.  'Oh, for shame!
Can the triumph of a sister move you to this terrible display, my
child?  Oh, really this is very sad!  I am sorry; I am surprised and
hurt to see you so.  Mercy, my girl, bless you!  See to her.  Ah,
envy, envy, what a passion you are!'

Uttering this apostrophe in a tone full of grief and lamentation, Mr
Pecksniff left the room (taking care to shut the door behind him),
and walked downstairs into the parlour.  There he found his
intended son-in-law, whom he seized by both hands.

'Jonas!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Jonas! the dearest wish of my heart
is now fulfilled!'

'Very well; I'm glad to hear it,' said Jonas.  'That'll do.  I say!
As it ain't the one you're so fond of, you must come down with
another thousand, Pecksniff.  You must make it up five.  It's worth
that, to keep your treasure to yourself, you know.  You get off very
cheap that way, and haven't a sacrifice to make.'

The grin with which he accompanied this, set off his other
attractions to such unspeakable advantage, that even Mr Pecksniff
lost his presence of mind for a moment, and looked at the young man
as if he were quite stupefied with wonder and admiration.  But he
quickly regained his composure, and was in the very act of changing
the subject, when a hasty step was heard without, and Tom Pinch, in
a state of great excitement, came darting into the room.

On seeing a stranger there, apparently engaged with Mr Pecksniff in
private conversation, Tom was very much abashed, though he still
looked as if he had something of great importance to communicate,
which would be a sufficient apology for his intrusion.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, 'this is hardly decent.  You will excuse
my saying that I think your conduct scarcely decent, Mr Pinch.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' replied Tom, 'for not knocking at the
door.'

'Rather beg this gentleman's pardon, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff.  'I
know you; he does not.--My young man, Mr Jonas.'

The son-in-law that was to be gave him a slight nod--not actively
disdainful or contemptuous, only passively; for he was in a good
humour.

'Could I speak a word with you, sir, if you please?' said Tom.
'It's rather pressing.'

'It should be very pressing to justify this strange behaviour, Mr
Pinch,' returned his master.  'Excuse me for one moment, my dear
friend.  Now, sir, what is the reason of this rough intrusion?'

'I am very sorry, sir, I am sure,' said Tom, standing, cap in hand,
before his patron in the passage; 'and I know it must have a very
rude appearance--'

'It HAS a very rude appearance, Mr Pinch.'

'Yes, I feel that, sir; but the truth is, I was so surprised to see
them, and knew you would be too, that I ran home very fast indeed,
and really hadn't enough command over myself to know what I was
doing very well.  I was in the church just now, sir, touching the
organ for my own amusement, when I happened to look round, and saw a
gentleman and lady standing in the aisle listening.  They seemed to
be strangers, sir, as well as I could make out in the dusk; and I
thought I didn't know them; so presently I left off, and said, would
they walk up into the organ-loft, or take a seat?  No, they said,
they wouldn't do that; but they thanked me for the music they had
heard.  In fact,' observed Tom, blushing, 'they said, "Delicious
music!" at least, SHE did; and I am sure that was a greater pleasure
and honour to me than any compliment I could have had.  I--I--beg
your pardon sir;' he was all in a tremble, and dropped his hat for
the second time 'but I--I'm rather flurried, and I fear I've
wandered from the point.'

'If you will come back to it, Thomas,' said Mr Pecksniff, with an
icy look, 'I shall feel obliged.'

'Yes, sir,' returned Tom, 'certainly.  They had a posting carriage
at the porch, sir, and had stopped to hear the organ, they said.
And then they said--SHE said, I mean, "I believe you live with Mr
Pecksniff, sir?"  I said I had that honour, and I took the liberty,
sir,' added Tom, raising his eyes to his benefactor's face, 'of
saying, as I always will and must, with your permission, that I was
under great obligations to you, and never could express my sense of
them sufficiently.'

'That,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'was very, very wrong.  Take your time,
Mr Pinch.'

'Thank you, sir,' cried Tom.  'On that they asked me--she asked, I
mean--"Wasn't there a bridle road to Mr Pecksniff's house?"'

Mr Pecksniff suddenly became full of interest.

'"Without going by the Dragon?"  When I said there was, and said how
happy I should be to show it 'em, they sent the carriage on by the
road, and came with me across the meadows.  I left 'em at the
turnstile to run forward and tell you they were coming, and they'll
be here, sir, in--in less than a minute's time, I should say,' added
Tom, fetching his breath with difficulty.

'Now, who,' said Mr Pecksniff, pondering, 'who may these people be?'

'Bless my soul, sir!' cried Tom, 'I meant to mention that at first,
I thought I had.  I knew them--her, I mean--directly.  The gentleman
who was ill at the Dragon, sir, last winter; and the young lady who
attended him.'

Tom's teeth chattered in his head, and he positively staggered with
amazement, at witnessing the extraordinary effect produced on Mr
Pecksniff by these simple words.  The dread of losing the old man's
favour almost as soon as they were reconciled, through the mere fact
of having Jonas in the house; the impossibility of dismissing Jonas,
or shutting him up, or tying him hand and foot and putting him in
the coal-cellar, without offending him beyond recall; the horrible
discordance prevailing in the establishment, and the impossibility
of reducing it to decent harmony with Charity in loud hysterics,
Mercy in the utmost disorder, Jonas in the parlour, and Martin
Chuzzlewit and his young charge upon the very doorsteps; the total
hopelessness of being able to disguise or feasibly explain this
state of rampant confusion; the sudden accumulation over his devoted
head of every complicated perplexity and entanglement for his
extrication from which he had trusted to time, good fortune, chance,
and his own plotting, so filled the entrapped architect with dismay,
that if Tom could have been a Gorgon staring at Mr Pecksniff, and Mr
Pecksniff could have been a Gorgon staring at Tom, they could not
have horrified each other half so much as in their own bewildered
persons.

'Dear, dear!' cried Tom, 'what have I done?  I hoped it would be a
pleasant surprise, sir.  I thought you would like to know.'

But at that moment a loud knocking was heard at the hall door.



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MORE AMERICAN EXPERIENCES, MARTIN TAKES A PARTNER, AND MAKES A
PURCHASE.  SOME ACCOUNT OF EDEN, AS IT APPEARED ON PAPER.  ALSO OF
THE BRITISH LION.  ALSO OF THE KIND OF SYMPATHY PROFESSED AND
ENTERTAINED BY THE WATERTOAST ASSOCIATION OF UNITED SYMPATHISERS


The knocking at Mr Pecksniff's door, though loud enough, bore no
resemblance whatever to the noise of an American railway train at
full speed.  It may be well to begin the present chapter with this
frank admission, lest the reader should imagine that the sounds now
deafening this history's ears have any connection with the knocker on
Mr Pecksniff's door, or with the great amount of agitation pretty
equally divided between that worthy man and Mr Pinch, of which its
strong performance was the cause.

Mr Pecksniff's house is more than a thousand leagues away; and again
this happy chronicle has Liberty and Moral Sensibility for its high
companions.  Again it breathes the blessed air of Independence;
again it contemplates with pious awe that moral sense which renders
unto Ceasar nothing that is his; again inhales that sacred
atmosphere which was the life of him--oh noble patriot, with many
followers!--who dreamed of Freedom in a slave's embrace, and waking
sold her offspring and his own in public markets.

How the wheels clank and rattle, and the tram-road shakes, as the
train rushes on!  And now the engine yells, as it were lashed and
tortured like a living labourer, and writhed in agony.  A poor
fancy; for steel and iron are of infinitely greater account, in this
commonwealth, than flesh and blood.  If the cunning work of man be
urged beyond its power of endurance, it has within it the elements
of its own revenge; whereas the wretched mechanism of the Divine
Hand is dangerous with no such property, but may be tampered with,
and crushed, and broken, at the driver's pleasure.  Look at that
engine!  It shall cost a man more dollars in the way of penalty and
fine, and satisfaction of the outraged law, to deface in wantonness
that senseless mass of metal, than to take the lives of twenty human
creatures!  Thus the stars wink upon the bloody stripes; and Liberty
pulls down her cap upon her eyes, and owns Oppression in its vilest
aspect, for her sister.

The engine-driver of the train whose noise awoke us to the present
chapter was certainly troubled with no such reflections as these;
nor is it very probable that his mind was disturbed by any
reflections at all.  He leaned with folded arms and crossed legs
against the side of the carriage, smoking; and, except when he
expressed, by a grunt as short as his pipe, his approval of some
particularly dexterous aim on the part of his colleague, the
fireman, who beguiled his leisure by throwing logs of wood from the
tender at the numerous stray cattle on the line, he preserved a
composure so immovable, and an indifference so complete, that if the
locomotive had been a sucking-pig, he could not have been more
perfectly indifferent to its doings.  Notwithstanding the tranquil
state of this officer, and his unbroken peace of mind, the train was
proceeding with tolerable rapidity; and the rails being but poorly
laid, the jolts and bumps it met with in its progress were neither
slight nor few.

There were three great caravans or cars attached.  The ladies' car,
the gentlemen's car, and the car for negroes; the latter painted
black, as an appropriate compliment to its company.  Martin and Mark
Tapley were in the first, as it was the most comfortable; and, being
far from full, received other gentlemen who, like them, were
unblessed by the society of ladies of their own.  They were seated
side by side, and were engaged in earnest conversation.

'And so, Mark,' said Martin, looking at him with an anxious
expression, 'and so you are glad we have left New York far behind
us, are you?'

'Yes, sir,' said Mark.  'I am.  Precious glad.'

'Were you not "jolly" there?' asked Martin.

'On the contrairy, sir,' returned Mark.  'The jolliest week as ever
I spent in my life, was that there week at Pawkins's.'

'What do you think of our prospects?' inquired Martin, with an air
that plainly said he had avoided the question for some time.

'Uncommon bright, sir,' returned Mark.  'Impossible for a place to
have a better name, sir, than the Walley of Eden.  No man couldn't
think of settling in a better place than the Walley of Eden.  And
I'm told,' added Mark, after a pause, 'as there's lots of serpents
there, so we shall come out, quite complete and reg'lar.'

So far from dwelling upon this agreeable piece of information with
the least dismay, Mark's face grew radiant as he called it to mind;
so very radiant, that a stranger might have supposed he had all his
life been yearning for the society of serpents, and now hailed with
delight the approaching consummation of his fondest wishes.

'Who told you that?' asked Martin, sternly.

'A military officer,' said Mark.

'Confound you for a ridiculous fellow!' cried Martin, laughing
heartily in spite of himself.  'What military officer?  You know
they spring up in every field.'

'As thick as scarecrows in England, sir,' interposed Mark, 'which is
a sort of milita themselves, being entirely coat and wescoat, with a
stick inside.  Ha, ha!--Don't mind me, sir; it's my way sometimes.  I
can't help being jolly.  Why it was one of them inwading conquerors
at Pawkins's, as told me.  "Am I rightly informed," he says--not
exactly through his nose, but as if he'd got a stoppage in it, very
high up--"that you're a-going to the Walley of Eden?"  "I heard some
talk on it," I told him.  "Oh!" says he, "if you should ever happen
to go to bed there--you MAY, you know," he says, "in course of time
as civilisation progresses--don't forget to take a axe with you."  I
looks at him tolerable hard.  "Fleas?" says I.  "And more," says he.
"Wampires?" says I.  "And more," says he.  "Musquitoes, perhaps?"
says I.  "And more," says he.  "What more?" says I.  "Snakes more,"
says he; "rattle-snakes.  You're right to a certain extent,
stranger.  There air some catawampous chawers in the small way too,
as graze upon a human pretty strong; but don't mind THEM--they're
company.  It's snakes," he says, "as you'll object to; and whenever
you wake and see one in a upright poster on your bed," he says,
"like a corkscrew with the handle off a-sittin' on its bottom ring,
cut him down, for he means wenom."'

'Why didn't you tell me this before!' cried Martin, with an
expression of face which set off the cheerfulness of Mark's visage
to great advantage.

'I never thought on it, sir,' said Mark.  'It come in at one ear,
and went out at the other.  But Lord love us, he was one of another
Company, I dare say, and only made up the story that we might go to
his Eden, and not the opposition one'

'There's some probability in that,' observed Martin.  'I can
honestly say that I hope so, with all my heart.'

'I've not a doubt about it, sir,' returned Mark, who, full of the
inspiriting influence of the anecodote upon himself, had for the
moment forgotten its probable effect upon his master; 'anyhow, we
must live, you know, sir.'

'Live!' cried Martin.  'Yes, it's easy to say live; but if we should
happen not to wake when rattlesnakes are making corkscrews of
themselves upon our beds, it may be not so easy to do it.'

'And that's a fact,' said a voice so close in his ear that it
tickled him.  'That's dreadful true.'

Martin looked round, and found that a gentleman, on the seat behind,
had thrust his head between himself and Mark, and sat with his chin
resting on the back rail of their little bench, entertaining himself
with their conversation.  He was as languid and listless in his
looks as most of the gentlemen they had seen; his cheeks were so
hollow that he seemed to be always sucking them in; and the sun had
burnt him, not a wholesome red or brown, but dirty yellow.  He had
bright dark eyes, which he kept half closed; only peeping out of the
corners, and even then with a glance that seemed to say, 'Now you
won't overreach me; you want to, but you won't.'  His arms rested
carelessly on his knees as he leant forward; in the palm of his left
hand, as English rustics have their slice of cheese, he had a cake
of tobacco; in his right a penknife.  He struck into the dialogue
with as little reserve as if he had been specially called in, days
before, to hear the arguments on both sides, and favour them with
his opinion; and he no more contemplated or cared for the
possibility of their not desiring the honour of his acquaintance or
interference in their private affairs than if he had been a bear or
a buffalo.

'That,' he repeated, nodding condescendingly to Martin, as to an
outer barbarian and foreigner, 'is dreadful true.  Darn all manner
of vermin.'

Martin could not help frowning for a moment, as if he were disposed
to insinuate that the gentleman had unconsciously 'darned' himself.
But remembering the wisdom of doing at Rome as Romans do, he smiled
with the pleasantest expression he could assume upon so short a
notice.

Their new friend said no more just then, being busily employed in
cutting a quid or plug from his cake of tobacco, and whistling
softly to himself the while.  When he had shaped it to his liking,
he took out his old plug, and deposited the same on the back of the
seat between Mark and Martin, while he thrust the new one into the
hollow of his cheek, where it looked like a large walnut, or
tolerable pippin.  Finding it quite satisfactory, he stuck the point
of his knife into the old plug, and holding it out for their
inspection, remarked with the air of a man who had not lived in
vain, that it was 'used up considerable.'  Then he tossed it away;
put his knife into one pocket and his tobacco into another; rested
his chin upon the rail as before; and approving of the pattern on
Martin's waistcoat, reached out his hand to feel the texture of that
garment.

'What do you call this now?' he asked.

'Upon my word' said Martin, 'I don't know what it's called.'

'It'll cost a dollar or more a yard, I reckon?'

'I really don't know.'

'In my country,' said the gentleman, 'we know the cost of our own
pro-duce.'

Martin not discussing the question, there was a pause.

'Well!' resumed their new friend, after staring at them intently
during the whole interval of silence; 'how's the unnat'ral old
parent by this time?'

Mr Tapley regarding this inquiry as only another version of the
impertinent English question, 'How's your mother?' would have
resented it instantly, but for Martin's prompt interposition.

'You mean the old country?' he said.

'Ah!' was the reply.  'How's she?  Progressing back'ards, I expect,
as usual?  Well!  How's Queen Victoria?'

'In good health, I believe,' said Martin.

'Queen Victoria won't shake in her royal shoes at all, when she
hears to-morrow named,' observed the stranger, 'No.'

'Not that I am aware of.  Why should she?'

'She won't be taken with a cold chill, when she realises what is
being done in these diggings,' said the stranger.  'No.'

'No,' said Martin.  'I think I could take my oath of that.'

The strange gentleman looked at him as if in pity for his ignorance
or prejudice, and said:

'Well, sir, I tell you this--there ain't a engine with its biler
bust, in God A'mighty's free U-nited States, so fixed, and nipped,
and frizzled to a most e-tarnal smash, as that young critter, in her
luxurious location in the Tower of London will be, when she reads
the next double-extra Watertoast Gazette.'

Several other gentlemen had left their seats and gathered round
during the foregoing dialogue.  They were highly delighted with this
speech.  One very lank gentleman, in a loose limp white cravat, long
white waistcoat, and a black great-coat, who seemed to be in
authority among them, felt called upon to acknowledge it.

'Hem! Mr La Fayette Kettle,' he said, taking off his hat.

There was a grave murmur of 'Hush!'

'Mr La Fayette Kettle!  Sir!'

Mr Kettle bowed.

'In the name of this company, sir, and in the name of our common
country, and in the name of that righteous cause of holy sympathy in
which we are engaged, I thank you.  I thank you, sir, in the name of
the Watertoast Sympathisers; and I thank you, sir, in the name of
the Watertoast Gazette; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the
star-spangled banner of the Great United States, for your eloquent
and categorical exposition.  And if, sir,' said the speaker, poking
Martin with the handle of his umbrella to bespeak his attention, for
he was listening to a whisper from Mark; 'if, sir, in such a place,
and at such a time, I might venture to con-clude with a sentiment,
glancing--however slantin'dicularly--at the subject in hand, I
would say, sir, may the British Lion have his talons eradicated by
the noble bill of the American Eagle, and be taught to play upon the
Irish Harp and the Scotch Fiddle that music which is breathed in
every empty shell that lies upon the shores of green Co-lumbia!'

Here the lank gentleman sat down again, amidst a great sensation;
and every one looked very grave.

'General Choke,' said Mr La Fayette Kettle, 'you warm my heart; sir,
you warm my heart.  But the British Lion is not unrepresented here,
sir; and I should be glad to hear his answer to those remarks.'

'Upon my word,' cried Martin, laughing, 'since you do me the honour
to consider me his representative, I have only to say that I never
heard of Queen Victoria reading the What's-his-name Gazette and that
I should scarcely think it probable.'

General Choke smiled upon the rest, and said, in patient and
benignant explanation:

'It is sent to her, sir.  It is sent to her.  Her mail.'

'But if it is addressed to the Tower of London, it would hardly come
to hand, I fear,' returned Martin; 'for she don't live there.'

'The Queen of England, gentlemen,' observed Mr Tapley, affecting the
greatest politeness, and regarding them with an immovable face,
'usually lives in the Mint to take care of the money.  She HAS
lodgings, in virtue of her office, with the Lord Mayor at the
Mansion House; but don't often occupy them, in consequence of the
parlour chimney smoking.'

'Mark,' said Martin, 'I shall be very much obliged to you if you'll
have the goodness not to interfere with preposterous statements,
however jocose they may appear to you.  I was merely remarking
gentlemen--though it's a point of very little import--that the
Queen of England does not happen to live in the Tower of London.'

'General!' cried Mr La Fayette Kettle.  'You hear?'

'General!' echoed several others.  'General!'

'Hush!  Pray, silence!' said General Choke, holding up his hand, and
speaking with a patient and complacent benevolence that was quite
touching.  'I have always remarked it as a very extraordinary
circumstance, which I impute to the natur' of British Institutions
and their tendency to suppress that popular inquiry and information
which air so widely diffused even in the trackless forests of this
vast Continent of the Western Ocean; that the knowledge of
Britishers themselves on such points is not to be compared with that
possessed by our intelligent and locomotive citizens.  This is
interesting, and confirms my observation.  When you say, sir,' he
continued, addressing Martin, 'that your Queen does not reside in
the Tower of London, you fall into an error, not uncommon to your
countrymen, even when their abilities and moral elements air such as
to command respect.  But, sir, you air wrong.  She DOES live there--'

'When she is at the Court of Saint James's,' interposed Kettle.

'When she is at the Court of Saint James's, of course,' returned the
General, in the same benignant way; 'for if her location was in
Windsor Pavilion it couldn't be in London at the same time.  Your
Tower of London, sir,' pursued the General, smiling with a mild
consciousness of his knowledge, 'is nat'rally your royal residence.
Being located in the immediate neighbourhood of your Parks, your
Drives, your Triumphant Arches, your Opera, and your Royal Almacks,
it nat'rally suggests itself as the place for holding a luxurious
and thoughtless court.  And, consequently,' said the General,
'consequently, the court is held there.'

'Have you been in England?' asked Martin.

'In print I have, sir,' said the General, 'not otherwise.  We air a
reading people here, sir.  You will meet with much information among
us that will surprise you, sir.'

'I have not the least doubt of it,' returned Martin.  But here he
was interrupted by Mr La Fayette Kettle, who whispered in his ear:

'You know General Choke?'

'No,' returned Martin, in the same tone.

'You know what he is considered?'

'One of the most remarkable men in the country?' said Martin, at a
venture.

'That's a fact,' rejoined Kettle.  'I was sure you must have heard
of him!'

'I think,' said Martin, addressing himself to the General again,
'that I have the pleasure of being the bearer of a letter of
introduction to you, sir.  From Mr Bevan, of Massachusetts,' he
added, giving it to him.

The General took it and read it attentively; now and then stopping
to glance at the two strangers.  When he had finished the note, he
came over to Martin, sat down by him, and shook hands.

'Well!' he said, 'and you think of settling in Eden?'

'Subject to your opinion, and the agent's advice,' replied Martin.
'I am told there is nothing to be done in the old towns.'

'I can introduce you to the agent, sir,' said the General.  'I know
him.  In fact, I am a member of the Eden Land Corporation myself.'

This was serious news to Martin, for his friend had laid great
stress upon the General's having no connection, as he thought, with
any land company, and therefore being likely to give him
disinterested advice.  The General explained that he had joined the
Corporation only a few weeks ago, and that no communication had
passed between himself and Mr Bevan since.

'We have very little to venture,' said Martin anxiously--'only a few
pounds--but it is our all.  Now, do you think that for one of my
profession, this would be a speculation with any hope or chance in
it?'

'Well,' observed the General, gravely, 'if there wasn't any hope or
chance in the speculation, it wouldn't have engaged my dollars, I
opinionate.'

'I don't mean for the sellers,' said Martin.  'For the buyers--for
the buyers!'

'For the buyers, sir?' observed the General, in a most impressive
manner.  'Well! you come from an old country; from a country, sir,
that has piled up golden calves as high as Babel, and worshipped 'em
for ages.  We are a new country, sir; man is in a more primeval
state here, sir; we have not the excuse of having lapsed in the
slow course of time into degenerate practices; we have no false
gods; man, sir, here, is man in all his dignity.  We fought for that
or nothing.  Here am I, sir,' said the General, setting up his
umbrella to represent himself, and a villanous-looking umbrella it
was; a very bad counter to stand for the sterling coin of his
benevolence, 'here am I with grey hairs sir, and a moral sense.
Would I, with my principles, invest capital in this speculation if I
didn't think it full of hopes and chances for my brother man?'

Martin tried to look convinced, but he thought of New York, and
found it difficult.

'What are the Great United States for, sir,' pursued the General 'if
not for the regeneration of man?  But it is nat'ral in you to make
such an enquerry, for you come from England, and you do not know my
country.'

'Then you think,' said Martin, 'that allowing for the hardships we
are prepared to undergo, there is a reasonable--Heaven knows we
don't expect much--a reasonable opening in this place?'

'A reasonable opening in Eden, sir!  But see the agent, see the
agent; see the maps and plans, sir; and conclude to go or stay,
according to the natur' of the settlement.  Eden hadn't need to go
a-begging yet, sir,' remarked the General.

'It is an awful lovely place, sure-ly.  And frightful wholesome,
likewise!' said Mr Kettle, who had made himself a party to this
conversation as a matter of course.

Martin felt that to dispute such testimony, for no better reason
than because he had his secret misgivings on the subject, would be
ungentlemanly and indecent.  So he thanked the General for his
promise to put him in personal communication with the agent; and
'concluded' to see that officer next morning.  He then begged the
General to inform him who the Watertoast Sympathisers were, of whom
he had spoken in addressing Mr La Fayette Kettle, and on what
grievances they bestowed their Sympathy.  To which the General,
looking very serious, made answer, that he might fully enlighten
himself on those points to-morrow by attending a Great Meeting of
the Body, which would then be held at the town to which they were
travelling; 'over which, sir,' said the General, 'my fellow-citizens
have called on me to preside.'

They came to their journey's end late in the evening.  Close to the
railway was an immense white edifice, like an ugly hospital, on
which was painted 'NATIONAL HOTEL.'  There was a wooden gallery or
verandah in front, in which it was rather startling, when the train
stopped, to behold a great many pairs of boots and shoes, and the
smoke of a great many cigars, but no other evidences of human
habitation.  By slow degrees, however, some heads and shoulders
appeared, and connecting themselves with the boots and shoes, led to
the discovery that certain gentlemen boarders, who had a fancy for
putting their heels where the gentlemen boarders in other countries
usually put their heads, were enjoying themselves after their own
manner in the cool of the evening.

There was a great bar-room in this hotel, and a great public room in
which the general table was being set out for supper.  There were
interminable whitewashed staircases, long whitewashed galleries
upstairs and downstairs, scores of little whitewashed bedrooms, and
a four-sided verandah to every story in the house, which formed a
large brick square with an uncomfortable courtyard in the centre,
where some clothes were drying.  Here and there, some yawning
gentlemen lounged up and down with their hands in their pockets; but
within the house and without, wherever half a dozen people were
collected together, there, in their looks, dress, morals, manners,
habits, intellect, and conversation, were Mr Jefferson Brick,
Colonel Diver, Major Pawkins, General Choke, and Mr La Fayette
Kettle, over, and over, and over again.  They did the same things;
said the same things; judged all subjects by, and reduced all
subjects to, the same standard.  Observing how they lived, and how
they were always in the enchanting company of each other, Martin
even began to comprehend their being the social, cheerful, winning,
airy men they were.

At the sounding of a dismal gong, this pleasant company went
trooping down from all parts of the house to the public room; while
from the neighbouring stores other guests came flocking in, in
shoals; for half the town, married folks as well as single, resided
at the National Hotel.  Tea, coffee, dried meats, tongue, ham,
pickles, cake, toast, preserves, and bread and butter, were
swallowed with the usual ravaging speed; and then, as before, the
company dropped off by degrees, and lounged away to the desk, the
counter, or the bar-room.  The ladies had a smaller ordinary of
their own, to which their husbands and brothers were admitted if
they chose; and in all other respects they enjoyed themselves as at
Pawkins's.

'Now, Mark, my good fellow, said Martin, closing the door of his
little chamber, 'we must hold a solemn council, for our fate is
decided to-morrow morning.  You are determined to invest these
savings of yours in the common stock, are you?'

'If I hadn't been determined to make that wentur, sir,' answered Mr
Tapley, 'I shouldn't have come.'

'How much is there here, did you say' asked Martin, holding up a
little bag.

'Thirty-seven pound ten and sixpence.  The Savings' Bank said so at
least.  I never counted it.  But THEY know, bless you!' said Mark,
with a shake of the head expressive of his unbounded confidence in
the wisdom and arithmetic of those Institutions.

'The money we brought with us,' said Martin, 'is reduced to a few
shillings less than eight pounds.'

Mr Tapley smiled, and looked all manner of ways, that he might not
be supposed to attach any importance to this fact.

'Upon the ring--HER ring, Mark,' said Martin, looking ruefully at
his empty finger--

'Ah!' sighed Mr Tapley.  'Beg your pardon, sir.'

'--We raised, in English money, fourteen pounds.  So, even with
that, your share of the stock is still very much the larger of the
two you see.  Now, Mark,' said Martin, in his old way, just as he
might have spoken to Tom Pinch, 'I have thought of a means of making
this up to you--more than making it up to you, I hope--and very
materially elevating your prospects in life.'

'Oh! don't talk of that, you know, sir,' returned Mark.  'I don't
want no elevating, sir.  I'm all right enough, sir, I am.'

'No, but hear me,' said Martin, 'because this is very important to
you, and a great satisfaction to me.  Mark, you shall be a partner
in the business; an equal partner with myself.  I will put in, as my
additional capital, my professional knowledge and ability; and half
the annual profits, as long as it is carried on, shall be yours.'

Poor Martin!  For ever building castles in the air.  For ever, in his
very selfishness, forgetful of all but his own teeming hopes and
sanguine plans.  Swelling, at that instant, with the consciousness
of patronizing and most munificently rewarding Mark!

'I don't know, sir,' Mark rejoined, much more sadly than his custom
was, though from a very different cause than Martin supposed, 'what
I can say to this, in the way of thanking you.  I'll stand by you,
sir, to the best of my ability, and to the last.  That's all.'

'We quite understand each other, my good fellow,' said Martin rising
in self-approval and condescension.  'We are no longer master and
servant, but friends and partners; and are mutually gratified.  If
we determine on Eden, the business shall be commenced as soon as we
get there.  Under the name,' said Martin, who never hammered upon an
idea that wasn't red hot, 'under the name of Chuzzlewit and Tapley.'

'Lord love you, sir,' cried Mark, 'don't have my name in it.  I
ain't acquainted with the business, sir.  I must be Co., I must.
I've often thought,' he added, in a low voice, 'as I should like to
know a Co.; but I little thought as ever I should live to be one.'

'You shall have your own way, Mark.'

'Thank'ee, sir.  If any country gentleman thereabouts, in the public
way, or otherwise, wanted such a thing as a skittle-ground made, I
could take that part of the bis'ness, sir.'

'Against any architect in the States,' said Martin.  'Get a couple
of sherry-cobblers, Mark, and we'll drink success to the firm.'

Either he forgot already (and often afterwards), that they were no
longer master and servant, or considered this kind of duty to be
among the legitimate functions of the Co.  But Mark obeyed with his
usual alacrity; and before they parted for the night, it was agreed
between them that they should go together to the agent's in the
morning, but that Martin should decide the Eden question, on his own
sound judgment.  And Mark made no merit, even to himself in his
jollity, of this concession; perfectly well knowing that the matter
would come to that in the end, any way.

The General was one of the party at the public table next day, and
after breakfast suggested that they should wait upon the agent
without loss of time.  They, desiring nothing more, agreed; so off
they all four started for the office of the Eden Settlement, which
was almost within rifle-shot of the National Hotel.

It was a small place--something like a turnpike.  But a great deal
of land may be got into a dice-box, and why may not a whole
territory be bargained for in a shed?  It was but a temporary office
too; for the Edeners were 'going' to build a superb establishment
for the transaction of their business, and had already got so far as
to mark out the site.  Which is a great way in America.  The office-
door was wide open, and in the doorway was the agent; no doubt a
tremendous fellow to get through his work, for he seemed to have no
arrears, but was swinging backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair,
with one of his legs planted high up against the door-post, and the
other doubled up under him, as if he were hatching his foot.

He was a gaunt man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff.
The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar
wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch
and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord
when the notes are struck.  Perhaps it was the Truth feebly
endeavouring to leap to his lips.  If so, it never reached them.

Two grey eyes lurked deep within this agent's head, but one of them
had no sight in it, and stood stock still.  With that side of his
face he seemed to listen to what the other side was doing.  Thus
each profile had a distinct expression; and when the movable side
was most in action, the rigid one was in its coldest state of
watchfulness.  It was like turning the man inside out, to pass to
that view of his features in his liveliest mood, and see how
calculating and intent they were.

Each long black hair upon his head hung down as straight as any
plummet line; but rumpled tufts were on the arches of his eyes, as
if the crow whose foot was deeply printed in the corners had pecked
and torn them in a savage recognition of his kindred nature as a
bird of prey.

Such was the man whom they now approached, and whom the General
saluted by the name of Scadder.

'Well, Gen'ral,' he returned, 'and how are you?'

'Ac-tive and spry, sir, in my country's service and the sympathetic
cause.  Two gentlemen on business, Mr Scadder.'

He shook hands with each of them--nothing is done in America without
shaking hands--then went on rocking.

'I think I know what bis'ness you have brought these strangers here
upon, then, Gen'ral?'

'Well, sir.  I expect you may.'

'You air a tongue-y person, Gen'ral.  For you talk too much, and
that's fact,' said Scadder.  'You speak a-larming well in public,
but you didn't ought to go ahead so fast in private.  Now!'

'If I can realise your meaning, ride me on a rail!' returned the
General, after pausing for consideration.

'You know we didn't wish to sell the lots off right away to any
loafer as might bid,' said Scadder; 'but had con-cluded to reserve
'em for Aristocrats of Natur'.  Yes!'

'And they are here, sir!' cried the General with warmth.  'They
are here, sir!'

'If they air here,' returned the agent, in reproachful accents,
'that's enough.  But you didn't ought to have your dander ris with
ME, Gen'ral.'

The General whispered Martin that Scadder was the honestest fellow
in the world, and that he wouldn't have given him offence
designedly, for ten thousand dollars.

'I do my duty; and I raise the dander of my feller critters, as I
wish to serve,' said Scadder in a low voice, looking down the road
and rocking still.  'They rile up rough, along of my objecting to
their selling Eden off too cheap.  That's human natur'!  Well!'

'Mr Scadder,' said the General, assuming his oratorical deportment.
'Sir!  Here is my hand, and here my heart.  I esteem you, sir, and
ask your pardon.  These gentlemen air friends of mine, or I would
not have brought 'em here, sir, being well aware, sir, that the lots
at present go entirely too cheap.  But these air friends, sir; these
air partick'ler friends.'

Mr Scadder was so satisfied by this explanation, that he shook the
General warmly by the hand, and got out of the rocking-chair to do
it.  He then invited the General's particular friends to accompany
him into the office.  As to the General, he observed, with his usual
benevolence, that being one of the company, he wouldn't interfere in
the transaction on any account; so he appropriated the rocking-chair
to himself, and looked at the prospect, like a good Samaritan
waiting for a traveller.

'Heyday!' cried Martin, as his eye rested on a great plan which
occupied one whole side of the office.  Indeed, the office had
little else in it, but some geological and botanical specimens, one
or two rusty ledgers, a homely desk, and a stool.  'Heyday! what's
that?'

'That's Eden,' said Scadder, picking his teeth with a sort of young
bayonet that flew out of his knife when he touched a spring.

'Why, I had no idea it was a city.'

'Hadn't you?  Oh, it's a city.'

A flourishing city, too!  An architectural city!  There were banks,
churches, cathedrals, market-places, factories, hotels, stores,
mansions, wharves; an exchange, a theatre; public buildings of all
kinds, down to the office of the Eden Stinger, a daily journal; all
faithfully depicted in the view before them.

'Dear me!  It's really a most important place!' cried Martin turning
round.

'Oh! it's very important,' observed the agent.

'But, I am afraid,' said Martin, glancing again at the Public
Buildings, 'that there's nothing left for me to do.'

'Well! it ain't all built,' replied the agent.  'Not quite.'

This was a great relief.

'The market-place, now,' said Martin.  'Is that built?'

'That?' said the agent, sticking his toothpick into the weathercock
on the top.  'Let me see.  No; that ain't built.'

'Rather a good job to begin with--eh, Mark?' whispered Martin
nudging him with his elbow.

Mark, who, with a very stolid countenance had been eyeing the plan
and the agent by turns, merely rejoined 'Uncommon!'

A dead silence ensued, Mr Scadder in some short recesses or
vacations of his toothpick, whistled a few bars of Yankee Doodle,
and blew the dust off the roof of the Theatre.

'I suppose,' said Martin, feigning to look more narrowly at the
plan, but showing by his tremulous voice how much depended, in his
mind, upon the answer; 'I suppose there are--several architects
there?'

'There ain't a single one,' said Scadder.

'Mark,' whispered Martin, pulling him by the sleeve, 'do you hear
that?  But whose work is all this before us, then?' he asked aloud.

'The soil being very fruitful, public buildings grows spontaneous,
perhaps,' said Mark.

He was on the agent's dark side as he said it; but Scadder instantly
changed his place, and brought his active eye to bear upon him.

'Feel of my hands, young man,' he said.

'What for?' asked Mark, declining.

'Air they dirty, or air they clean, sir?' said Scadder, holding them
out.

In a physical point of view they were decidedly dirty.  But it being
obvious that Mr Scadder offered them for examination in a figurative
sense, as emblems of his moral character, Martin hastened to
pronounce them pure as the driven snow.

'I entreat, Mark,' he said, with some irritation, 'that you will not
obtrude remarks of that nature, which, however harmless and
well-intentioned, are quite out of place, and cannot be expected to
be very agreeable to strangers.  I am quite surprised.'

'The Co.'s a-putting his foot in it already,' thought Mark.  'He
must be a sleeping partner--fast asleep and snoring--Co. must; I
see.'

Mr Scadder said nothing, but he set his back against the plan, and
thrust his toothpick into the desk some twenty times; looking at
Mark all the while as if he were stabbing him in effigy.

'You haven't said whose work it is,' Martin ventured to observe at
length, in a tone of mild propitiation.

'Well, never mind whose work it is, or isn't,' said the agent
sulkily.  'No matter how it did eventuate.  P'raps he cleared off,
handsome, with a heap of dollars; p'raps he wasn't worth a cent.
P'raps he was a loafin' rowdy; p'raps a ring-tailed roarer.  Now!'

'All your doing, Mark!' said Martin.

'P'raps,' pursued the agent, 'them ain't plants of Eden's raising.
No!  P'raps that desk and stool ain't made from Eden lumber.  No!
P'raps no end of squatters ain't gone out there.  No!  P'raps there
ain't no such location in the territoary of the Great U-nited
States.  Oh, no!'

'I hope you're satisfied with the success of your joke, Mark,' said
Martin.

But here, at a most opportune and happy time, the General
interposed, and called out to Scadder from the doorway to give his
friends the particulars of that little lot of fifty acres with the
house upon it; which, having belonged to the company formerly, had
lately lapsed again into their hands.

'You air a deal too open-handed, Gen'ral,' was the answer.  'It is a
lot as should be rose in price.  It is.'

He grumblingly opened his books notwithstanding, and always keeping
his bright side towards Mark, no matter at what amount of
inconvenience to himself, displayed a certain leaf for their
perusal.  Martin read it greedily, and then inquired:

'Now where upon the plan may this place be?'

'Upon the plan?' said Scadder.

'Yes.'

He turned towards it, and reflected for a short time, as if, having
been put upon his mettle, he was resolved to be particular to the
very minutest hair's breadth of a shade.  At length, after wheeling
his toothpick slowly round and round in the air, as if it were a
carrier pigeon just thrown up, he suddenly made a dart at the
drawing, and pierced the very centre of the main wharf, through and
through.

'There!' he said, leaving his knife quivering in the wall; 'that's
where it is!'

Martin glanced with sparkling eyes upon his Co., and his Co. saw
that the thing was done.

The bargain was not concluded as easily as might have been expected
though, for Scadder was caustic and ill-humoured, and cast much
unnecessary opposition in the way; at one time requesting them to
think of it, and call again in a week or a fortnight; at another,
predicting that they wouldn't like it; at another, offering to
retract and let them off, and muttering strong imprecations upon the
folly of the General.  But the whole of the astoundingly small sum
total of purchase-money--it was only one hundred and fifty dollars,
or something more than thirty pounds of the capital brought by Co.
into the architectural concern--was ultimately paid down; and
Martin's head was two inches nearer the roof of the little wooden
office, with the consciousness of being a landed proprietor in the
thriving city of Eden.

'If it shouldn't happen to fit,' said Scadder, as he gave Martin the
necessary credentials on recepit of his money, 'don't blame me.'

'No, no,' he replied merrily.  'We'll not blame you.  General, are
you going?'

'I am at your service, sir; and I wish you,' said the General,
giving him his hand with grave cordiality, 'joy of your po-ssession.
You air now, sir, a denizen of the most powerful and highly-
civilised dominion that has ever graced the world; a do-minion, sir,
where man is bound to man in one vast bond of equal love and truth.
May you, sir, be worthy of your a-dopted country!'

Martin thanked him, and took leave of Mr Scadder; who had resumed
his post in the rocking-chair, immediately on the General's rising
from it, and was once more swinging away as if he had never been
disturbed.  Mark looked back several times as they went down the
road towards the National Hotel, but now his blighted profile was
towards them, and nothing but attentive thoughtfulness was written
on it.  Strangely different to the other side!  He was not a man much
given to laughing, and never laughed outright; but every line in the
print of the crow's foot, and every little wiry vein in that
division of his head, was wrinkled up into a grin!  The compound
figure of Death and the Lady at the top of the old ballad was not
divided with a greater nicety, and hadn't halves more monstrously
unlike each other, than the two profiles of Zephaniah Scadder.

The General posted along at a great rate, for the clock was on the
stroke of twelve; and at that hour precisely, the Great Meeting of
the Watertoast Sympathisers was to be holden in the public room of
the National Hotel.  Being very curious to witness the
demonstration, and know what it was all about, Martin kept close to
the General; and, keeping closer than ever when they entered the
Hall, got by that means upon a little platform of tables at the
upper end; where an armchair was set for the General, and Mr La
Fayette Kettle, as secretary, was making a great display of some
foolscap documents.  Screamers, no doubt.

'Well, sir!' he said, as he shook hands with Martin, 'here is a
spectacle calc'lated to make the British Lion put his tail between
his legs, and howl with anguish, I expect!'

Martin certainly thought it possible that the British Lion might
have been rather out of his element in that Ark; but he kept the
idea to himself.  The General was then voted to the chair, on the
motion of a pallid lad of the Jefferson Brick school; who forthwith
set in for a high-spiced speech, with a good deal about hearths and
homes in it, and unriveting the chains of Tyranny.

Oh but it was a clincher for the British Lion, it was!  The
indignation of the glowing young Columbian knew no bounds.  If he
could only have been one of his own forefathers, he said, wouldn't
he have peppered that same Lion, and been to him as another Brute
Tamer with a wire whip, teaching him lessons not easily forgotten.
'Lion! (cried that young Columbian) where is he?  Who is he?  What
is he?  Show him to me.  Let me have him here.  Here!' said the
young Columbian, in a wrestling attitude, 'upon this sacred altar.
Here!' cried the young Columbian, idealising the dining-table, 'upon
ancestral ashes, cemented with the glorious blood poured out like
water on our native plains of Chickabiddy Lick!  Bring forth that
Lion!' said the young Columbian.  'Alone, I dare him!  I taunt that
Lion.  I tell that Lion, that Freedom's hand once twisted in his
mane, he rolls a corse before me, and the Eagles of the Great
Republic laugh ha, ha!'

When it was found that the Lion didn't come, but kept out of the
way; that the young Columbian stood there, with folded arms, alone
in his glory; and consequently that the Eagles were no doubt
laughing wildly on the mountain tops; such cheers arose as might
have shaken the hands upon the Horse-Guards' clock, and changed the
very mean time of the day in England's capital.

'Who is this?' Martin telegraphed to La Fayette.

The Secretary wrote something, very gravely, on a piece of paper,
twisted it up, and had it passed to him from hand to hand.  It was
an improvement on the old sentiment: 'Perhaps as remarkable a man as
any in our country.'

This young Columbian was succeeded by another, to the full as
eloquent as he, who drew down storms of cheers.  But both remarkable
youths, in their great excitement (for your true poetry can never
stoop to details), forgot to say with whom or what the Watertoasters
sympathized, and likewise why or wherefore they were sympathetic.
Thus Martin remained for a long time as completely in the dark as
ever; until at length a ray of light broke in upon him through the
medium of the Secretary, who, by reading the minutes of their past
proceedings, made the matter somewhat clearer.  He then learned that
the Watertoast Association sympathized with a certain Public Man in
Ireland, who held a contest upon certain points with England; and
that they did so, because they didn't love England at all--not by
any means because they loved Ireland much; being indeed horribly
jealous and distrustful of its people always, and only tolerating
them because of their working hard, which made them very useful;
labour being held in greater indignity in the simple republic than
in any other country upon earth.  This rendered Martin curious to
see what grounds of sympathy the Watertoast Association put forth;
nor was he long in suspense, for the General rose to read a letter
to the Public Man, which with his own hands he had written.

'Thus,' said the General, 'thus, my friends and fellow-citizens, it
runs:


'"SIR--I address you on behalf of the Watertoast Association of
United Sympathisers.  It is founded, sir, in the great republic
of America! and now holds its breath, and swells the blue veins
in its forehead nigh to bursting, as it watches, sir, with feverish
intensity and sympathetic ardour, your noble efforts in the cause
of Freedom."'


At the name of Freedom, and at every repetition of that name, all
the Sympathisers roared aloud; cheering with nine times nine, and
nine times over.


'"In Freedom's name, sir--holy Freedom--I address you.  In
Freedom's name, I send herewith a contribution to the funds of your
society.  In Freedom's name, sir, I advert with indignation and
disgust to that accursed animal, with gore-stained whiskers, whose
rampant cruelty and fiery lust have ever been a scourge, a torment
to the world.  The naked visitors to Crusoe's Island, sir; the
flying wives of Peter Wilkins; the fruit-smeared children of the
tangled bush; nay, even the men of large stature, anciently bred in
the mining districts of Cornwall; alike bear witness to its savage
nature.  Where, sir, are the Cormorans, the Blunderbores, the Great
Feefofums, named in History?  All, all, exterminated by its
destroying hand.

'"I allude, sir, to the British Lion.

'"Devoted, mind and body, heart and soul, to Freedom, sir--to
Freedom, blessed solace to the snail upon the cellar-door, the
oyster in his pearly bed, the still mite in his home of cheese, the
very winkle of your country in his shelly lair--in her unsullied
name, we offer you our sympathy.  Oh, sir, in this our cherished and
our happy land, her fires burn bright and clear and smokeless; once
lighted up in yours, the lion shall be roasted whole.

'"I am, sir, in Freedom's name,

'"Your affectionate friend and faithful Sympathiser,

'"CYRUS CHOKE,

'"General, U.S.M."'


It happened that just as the General began to read this letter, the
railroad train arrived, bringing a new mail from England; and a
packet had been handed in to the Secretary, which during its perusal
and the frequent cheerings in homage to freedom, he had opened.
Now, its contents disturbed him very much, and the moment the
General sat down, he hurried to his side, and placed in his hand a
letter and several printed extracts from English newspapers; to
which, in a state of infinite excitement, he called his immediate
attention.

The General, being greatly heated by his own composition, was in a
fit state to receive any inflammable influence; but he had no sooner
possessed himself of the contents of these documents, than a change
came over his face, involving such a huge amount of choler and
passion, that the noisy concourse were silent in a moment, in very
wonder at the sight of him.

'My friends!' cried the General, rising; 'my friends and fellow
citizens, we have been mistaken in this man.'

'In what man?' was the cry.

'In this,' panted the General, holding up the letter he had read
aloud a few minutes before.  'I find that he has been, and is, the
advocate--consistent in it always too--of Nigger emancipation!'

If anything beneath the sky be real, those Sons of Freedom would
have pistolled, stabbed--in some way slain--that man by coward hands
and murderous violence, if he had stood among them at that time.
The most confiding of their own countrymen would not have wagered
then--no, nor would they ever peril--one dunghill straw, upon the
life of any man in such a strait.  They tore the letter, cast the
fragments in the air, trod down the pieces as they fell; and yelled,
and groaned, and hissed, till they could cry no longer.

'I shall move,' said the General, when he could make himself heard,
'that the Watertoast Association of United Sympathisers be
immediately dissolved!'

Down with it!  Away with it!  Don't hear of it!  Burn its records!
Pull the room down!  Blot it out of human memory!

'But, my fellow-countrymen!' said the General, 'the contributions.
We have funds.  What is to be done with the funds?'

It was hastily resolved that a piece of plate should be presented to
a certain constitutional Judge, who had laid down from the Bench the
noble principle that it was lawful for any white mob to murder any
black man; and that another piece of plate, of similar value should
be presented to a certain Patriot, who had declared from his high
place in the Legislature, that he and his friends would hang without
trial, any Abolitionist who might pay them a visit.  For the
surplus, it was agreed that it should be devoted to aiding the
enforcement of those free and equal laws, which render it
incalculably more criminal and dangerous to teach a negro to read
and write than to roast him alive in a public city.  These points
adjusted, the meeting broke up in great disorder, and there was an
end of the Watertoast Sympathy.

As Martin ascended to his bedroom, his eye was attracted by the
Republican banner, which had been hoisted from the house-top in
honour of the occasion, and was fluttering before a window which he
passed.

'Tut!' said Martin.  'You're a gay flag in the distance.  But let a
man be near enough to get the light upon the other side and see
through you; and you are but sorry fustian!'



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

FROM WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT MARTIN BECAME A LION OF HIS OWN
ACCOUNT.  TOGETHER WITH THE REASON WHY


As soon as it was generally known in the National Hotel, that the
young Englishman, Mr Chuzzlewit, had purchased a 'lo-cation' in the
Valley of Eden, and intended to betake himself to that earthly
Paradise by the next steamboat, he became a popular character.  Why
this should be, or how it had come to pass, Martin no more knew than
Mrs Gamp, of Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, did; but that he was
for the time being the lion, by popular election, of the Watertoast
community, and that his society was in rather inconvenient request
there could be no kind of doubt.

The first notification he received of this change in his position,
was the following epistle, written in a thin running hand--with
here and there a fat letter or two, to make the general effect more
striking--on a sheet of paper, ruled with blue lines.


'NATIONAL HOTEL,

'MONDAY MORNING.

'Dear Sir--'When I had the privillidge of being your fellow-traveller
in the cars, the day before yesterday, you offered some remarks
upon the subject of the tower of London, which (in common with my
fellow-citizens generally) I could wish to hear repeated to a public
audience.

'As secretary to the Young Men's Watertoast Association of this
town, I am requested to inform you that the Society will be proud to
hear you deliver a lecture upon the Tower of London, at their Hall
to-morrow evening, at seven o'clock; and as a large issue of
quarter-dollar tickets may be expected, your answer and consent by
bearer will be considered obliging.

'Dear Sir,

'Yours truly,

'LA FAYETTE KETTLE.

'The Honourable M. Chuzzlewit.

'P.S.--The Society would not be particular in limiting you to the
Tower of London.  Permit me to suggest that any remarks upon the
Elements of Geology, or (if more convenient) upon the Writings of
your talented and witty countryman, the honourable Mr Miller, would
be well received.'


Very much aghast at this invitation, Martin wrote back, civilly
declining it; and had scarcely done so, when he received another
letter.


'No.  47, Bunker Hill Street,

'Monday Morning.

'(Private).

'Sir--I was raised in those interminable solitudes where our mighty
Mississippi (or Father of Waters) rolls his turbid flood.

'I am young, and ardent.  For there is a poetry in wildness, and
every alligator basking in the slime is in himself an Epic, self-
contained.  I aspirate for fame.  It is my yearning and my thirst.

'Are you, sir, aware of any member of Congress in England, who would
undertake to pay my expenses to that country, and for six months
after my arrival?

'There is something within me which gives me the assurance that this
enlightened patronage would not be thrown away.  In literature or
art; the bar, the pulpit, or the stage; in one or other, if not all,
I feel that I am certain to succeed.

'If too much engaged to write to any such yourself, please let me
have a list of three or four of those most likely to respond, and I
will address them through the Post Office.  May I also ask you to
favour me with any critical observations that have ever presented
themselves to your reflective faculties, on "Cain, a Mystery," by
the Right Honourable Lord Byron?

'I am, Sir,

'Yours (forgive me if I add, soaringly),

'PUTNAM SMIF

'P.S.--Address your answer to America Junior, Messrs. Hancock &
Floby, Dry Goods Store, as above.'


Both of which letters, together with Martin's reply to each, were,
according to a laudable custom, much tending to the promotion of
gentlemanly feeling and social confidence, published in the next
number of the Watertoast Gazette.

He had scarcely got through this correspondence when Captain
Kedgick, the landlord, kindly came upstairs to see how he was
getting on.  The Captain sat down upon the bed before he spoke; and
finding it rather hard, moved to the pillow.

'Well, sir!' said the Captain, putting his hat a little more on one
side, for it was rather tight in the crown: 'You're quite a public
man I calc'late.'

'So it seems,' retorted Martin, who was very tired.

'Our citizens, sir,' pursued the Captain, 'intend to pay their
respects to you.  You will have to hold a sort of le-vee, sir, while
you're here.'

'Powers above!' cried Martin, 'I couldn't do that, my good fellow!'

'I reckon you MUST then,' said the Captain.

'Must is not a pleasant word, Captain,' urged Martin.

'Well!  I didn't fix the mother language, and I can't unfix it,' said
the Captain coolly; 'else I'd make it pleasant.  You must re-ceive.
That's all.'

'But why should I receive people who care as much for me as I care
for them?' asked Martin.

'Well! because I have had a muniment put up in the bar,' returned
the Captain.

'A what?' cried Martin.

'A muniment,' rejoined the Captain.

Martin looked despairingly at Mark, who informed him that the
Captain meant a written notice that Mr Chuzzlewit would receive the
Watertoasters that day, at and after two o'clock which was in effect
then hanging in the bar, as Mark, from ocular inspection of the
same, could testify.

'You wouldn't be unpop'lar, I know,' said the Captain, paring his
nails.  'Our citizens an't long of riling up, I tell you; and our
Gazette could flay you like a wild cat.'

Martin was going to be very wroth, but he thought better of it, and
said:

'In Heaven's name let them come, then.'

'Oh, THEY'll come,' returned the Captain.  'I have seen the big room
fixed a'purpose, with my eyes.'

'But will you,' said Martin, seeing that the Captain was about to
go; 'will you at least tell me this?  What do they want to see me
for? what have I done? and how do they happen to have such a sudden
interest in me?'

Captain Kedgick put a thumb and three fingers to each side of the
brim of his hat; lifted it a little way off his head; put it on
again carefully; passed one hand all down his face, beginning at the
forehead and ending at the chin; looked at Martin; then at Mark;
then at Martin again; winked, and walked out.

'Upon my life, now!' said Martin, bringing his hand heavily upon the
table; 'such a perfectly unaccountable fellow as that, I never saw.
Mark, what do you say to this?'

'Why, sir,' returned his partner, 'my opinion is that we must have
got to the MOST remarkable man in the country at last.  So I hope
there's an end to the breed, sir.'

Although this made Martin laugh, it couldn't keep off two o'clock.
Punctually, as the hour struck, Captain Kedgick returned to hand him
to the room of state; and he had no sooner got him safe there, than
he bawled down the staircase to his fellow-citizens below, that Mr
Chuzzlewit was 'receiving.'

Up they came with a rush.  Up they came until the room was full,
and, through the open door, a dismal perspective of more to come,
was shown upon the stairs.  One after another, one after another,
dozen after dozen, score after score, more, more, more, up they
came; all shaking hands with Martin.  Such varieties of hands, the
thick, the thin, the short, the long, the fat, the lean, the coarse,
the fine; such differences of temperature, the hot, the cold, the
dry, the moist, the flabby; such diversities of grasp, the tight,
the loose, the short-lived, and the lingering!  Still up, up, up,
more, more, more; and ever and anon the Captain's voice was heard
above the crowd--'There's more below! there's more below.  Now,
gentlemen you that have been introduced to Mr Chuzzlewit, will you
clear gentlemen?  Will you clear?  Will you be so good as clear,
gentlemen, and make a little room for more?'

Regardless of the Captain's cries, they didn't clear at all, but
stood there, bolt upright and staring.  Two gentlemen connected with
the Watertoast Gazette had come express to get the matter for an
article on Martin.  They had agreed to divide the labour.  One of
them took him below the waistcoat.  One above.  Each stood directly
in front of his subject with his head a little on one side, intent
on his department.  If Martin put one boot before the other, the
lower gentleman was down upon him; he rubbed a pimple on his nose,
and the upper gentleman booked it.  He opened his mouth to speak,
and the same gentleman was on one knee before him, looking in at his
teeth, with the nice scrutiny of a dentist.  Amateurs in the
physiognomical and phrenological sciences roved about him with
watchful eyes and itching fingers, and sometimes one, more daring
than the rest, made a mad grasp at the back of his head, and
vanished in the crowd.  They had him in all points of view: in
front, in profile, three-quarter face, and behind.  Those who were
not professional or scientific, audibly exchanged opinions on his
looks.  New lights shone in upon him, in respect of his nose.
Contradictory rumours were abroad on the subject of his hair.  And
still the Captain's voice was heard--so stifled by the concourse,
that he seemed to speak from underneath a feather-bed--exclaiming--
'Gentlemen, you that have been introduced to Mr Chuzzlewit, WILL you
clear?'

Even when they began to clear it was no better; for then a stream of
gentlemen, every one with a lady on each arm (exactly like the
chorus to the National Anthem when Royalty goes in state to the
play), came gliding in--every new group fresher than the last, and
bent on staying to the latest moment.  If they spoke to him, which
was not often, they invariably asked the same questions, in the same
tone; with no more remorse, or delicacy, or consideration, than if
he had been a figure of stone, purchased, and paid for, and set up
there for their delight.  Even when, in the slow course of time,
these died off, it was as bad as ever, if not worse; for then the
boys grew bold, and came in as a class of themselves, and did
everything that the grown-up people had done.  Uncouth stragglers,
too, appeared; men of a ghostly kind, who being in, didn't know how
to get out again; insomuch that one silent gentleman with glazed and
fishy eyes and only one button on his waistcoat (which was a very
large metal one, and shone prodigiously), got behind the door, and
stood there, like a clock, long after everybody else was gone.

Martin felt, from pure fatigue, and heat, and worry, as if he could
have fallen on the ground and willingly remained there, if they
would but have had the mercy to leave him alone.  But as letters and
messages, threatening his public denouncement if he didn't see the
senders, poured in like hail; and as more visitors came while he
took his coffee by himself; and as Mark, with all his vigilance, was
unable to keep them from the door; he resolved to go to bed--not
that he felt at all sure of bed being any protection, but that he
might not leave a forlorn hope untried.

He had communicated this design to Mark, and was on the eve of
escaping, when the door was thrown open in a great hurry, and an
elderly gentleman entered; bringing with him a lady who certainly
could not be considered young--that was matter of fact; and probably
could not be considered handsome--but that was matter of opinion.
She was very straight, very tall, and not at all flexible in face or
figure.  On her head she wore a great straw bonnet, with trimmings
of the same, in which she looked as if she had been thatched by an
unskillful labourer; and in her hand she held a most enormous fan.

'Mr Chuzzlewit, I believe?' said the gentleman.

'That is my name.'

'Sir,' said the gentleman, 'I am pressed for time.'

'Thank God!' thought Martin.

'I go back Toe my home, sir,' pursued the gentleman, 'by the return
train, which starts immediate.  Start is not a word you use in your
country, sir.'

'Oh yes, it is,' said Martin.

'You air mistaken, sir,' returned the gentleman, with great
decision: 'but we will not pursue the subject, lest it should awake
your preju--dice.  Sir, Mrs Hominy.'

Martin bowed.

'Mrs Hominy, sir, is the lady of Major Hominy, one of our chicest
spirits; and belongs Toe one of our most aristocratic families.  You
air, p'raps, acquainted, sir, with Mrs Hominy's writings.'

Martin couldn't say he was.

'You have much Toe learn, and Toe enjoy, sir,' said the gentleman.
'Mrs Hominy is going Toe stay until the end of the Fall, sir, with
her married daughter at the settlement of New Thermopylae, three
days this side of Eden.  Any attention, sir, that you can show Toe
Mrs Hominy upon the journey, will be very grateful Toe the Major and
our fellow-citizens.  Mrs Hominy, I wish you good night, ma'am, and
a pleasant pro-gress on your route!'

Martin could scarcely believe it; but he had gone, and Mrs Hominy
was drinking the milk.

'A'most used-up I am, I do declare!' she observed.  'The jolting in
the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and
sawyers.'

'Snags and sawyers, ma'am?' said Martin.

'Well, then, I do suppose you'll hardly realise my meaning, sir,'
said Mrs Hominy.  'My!  Only think!  DO tell!'

It did not appear that these expressions, although they seemed to
conclude with an urgent entreaty, stood in need of any answer; for
Mrs Hominy, untying her bonnet-strings, observed that she would
withdraw to lay that article of dress aside, and would return
immediately.

'Mark!' said Martin.  'Touch me, will you.  Am I awake?'

'Hominy is, sir,' returned his partner--'Broad awake!  Just the sort
of woman, sir, as would be discovered with her eyes wide open, and
her mind a-working for her country's good, at any hour of the day or
night.'

They had no opportunity of saying more, for Mrs Hominy stalked in
again--very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood; and holding
in her clasped hands a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, perhaps a
parting gift from that choice spirit, the Major.  She had laid aside
her bonnet, and now appeared in a highly aristocratic and classical
cap, meeting beneath her chin: a style of headdress so admirably
adapted to her countenance, that if the late Mr Grimaldi had
appeared in the lappets of Mrs Siddons, a more complete effect could
not have been produced.

Martin handed her to a chair.  Her first words arrested him before
he could get back to his own seat.

'Pray, sir!' said Mrs Hominy, 'where do you hail from?'

'I am afraid I am dull of comprehension,' answered Martin, 'being
extremely tired; but upon my word I don't understand you.'

Mrs Hominy shook her head with a melancholy smile that said, not
inexpressively, 'They corrupt even the language in that old
country!' and added then, as coming down a step or two to meet his
low capacity, 'Where was you rose?'

'Oh!' said Martin 'I was born in Kent.'

'And how do you like our country, sir?' asked Mrs Hominy.

'Very much indeed,' said Martin, half asleep.  'At least--that is--
pretty well, ma'am.'

'Most strangers--and partick'larly Britishers--are much surprised by
what they see in the U-nited States,' remarked Mrs Hominy.

'They have excellent reason to be so, ma'am,' said Martin.  'I never
was so much surprised in all my life.'

'Our institutions make our people smart much, sir,' Mrs Hominy
remarked.

'The most short-sighted man could see that at a glance, with his
naked eye,' said Martin.

Mrs Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had
a pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase,
was almost too much for her.  For a gentleman sitting alone with a
lady--although the door WAS open--to talk about a naked eye!

A long interval elapsed before even she--woman of masculine and
towering intellect though she was--could call up fortitude enough to
resume the conversation.  But Mrs Hominy was a traveller.  Mrs
Hominy was a writer of reviews and analytical disquisitions.  Mrs
Hominy had had her letters from abroad, beginning 'My ever dearest
blank,' and signed 'The Mother of the Modern Gracchi' (meaning the
married Miss Hominy), regularly printed in a public journal, with
all the indignation in capitals, and all the sarcasm in italics.
Mrs Hominy had looked on foreign countries with the eye of a perfect
republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs Hominy could talk (or
write) about them by the hour together.  So Mrs Hominy at last came
down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep, she had it all
her own way, and bruised him to her heart's content.

It is no great matter what Mrs Hominy said, save that she had learnt
it from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow
countrymen, who in their every word, avow themselves to be as
senseless to the high principles on which America sprang, a nation,
into life, as any Orson in her legislative halls.  Who are no more
capable of feeling, or of caring if they did feel, that by reducing
their own country to the ebb of honest men's contempt, they put in
hazard the rights of nations yet unborn, and very progress of the
human race, than are the swine who wallow in their streets.  Who
think that crying out to other nations, old in their iniquity, 'We
are no worse than you!' (No worse!) is high defence and 'vantage-
ground enough for that Republic, but yesterday let loose upon her
noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full of sores
and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless to the sense, that
her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust.
Who, having by their ancestors declared and won their Independence,
because they would not bend the knee to certain Public vices and
corruptions, and would not abrogate the truth, run riot in the Bad,
and turn their backs upon the Good; and lying down contented with
the wretched boast that other Temples also are of glass, and stones
which batter theirs may be flung back; show themselves, in that
alone, as immeasurably behind the import of the trust they hold, and
as unworthy to possess it as if the sordid hucksterings of all their
little governments--each one a kingdom in its small depravity--were
brought into a heap for evidence against them.

Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a
terrible oppression on his mind; an imperfect dream that he had
murdered a particular friend, and couldn't get rid of the body.
When his eyes opened it was staring him full in the face.  There was
the horrible Hominy talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and
pouring forth her mental endowments to such an extent that the
Major's bitterest enemy, hearing her, would have forgiven him from
the bottom of his heart.  Martin might have done something desperate
if the gong had not sounded for supper; but sound it did most
opportunely; and having stationed Mrs Hominy at the upper end of the
table he took refuge at the lower end himself; whence, after a hasty
meal he stole away, while the lady was yet busied with dried beef
and a saucer-full of pickled fixings.

It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs Hominy's
freshness next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong
into moral philosophy at breakfast.  Some little additional degree
of asperity, perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than
the pickles would have naturally produced.  All that day she clung
to Martin.  She sat beside him while he received his friends (for
there was another Reception, yet more numerous than the former),
propounded theories, and answered imaginary objections, so that
Martin really began to think he must be dreaming, and speaking for
two; she quoted interminable passages from certain essays on
government, written by herself; used the Major's pocket-handkerchief
as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which she was
determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short, was
such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between
himself and his conscience, that in any new settlement it would be
absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for
the general peace of society.

In the meantime Mark was busy, from early in the morning until late
at night, in getting on board the steamboat such provisions, tools
and other necessaries, as they had been forewarned it would be wise
to take.  The purchase of these things, and the settlement of their
bill at the National, reduced their finances to so low an ebb, that
if the captain had delayed his departure any longer, they would have
been in almost as bad a plight as the unfortunate poorer emigrants,
who (seduced on board by solemn advertisement) had been living on
the lower deck a whole week, and exhausting their miserable stock of
provisions before the voyage commenced.  There they were, all
huddled together with the engine and the fires.  Farmers who had
never seen a plough; woodmen who had never used an axe; builders who
couldn't make a box; cast out of their own land, with not a hand to
aid them: newly come into an unknown world, children in
helplessness, but men in wants--with younger children at their
backs, to live or die as it might happen!

The morning came, and they would start at noon.  Noon came, and they
would start at night.  But nothing is eternal in this world; not
even the procrastination of an American skipper; and at night all
was ready.

Dispirited and weary to the last degree, but a greater lion than
ever (he had done nothing all the afternoon but answer letters from
strangers; half of them about nothing; half about borrowing money,
and all requiring an instantaneous reply), Martin walked down to the
wharf, through a concourse of people, with Mrs Hominy upon his arm;
and went on board.  But Mark was bent on solving the riddle of this
lionship, if he could; and so, not without the risk of being left
behind, ran back to the hotel.

Captain Kedgick was sitting in the colonnade, with a julep on his
knee, and a cigar in his mouth.  He caught Mark's eye, and said:

'Why, what the 'Tarnal brings you here?'

'I'll tell you plainly what it is, Captain,' said Mark.  'I want to
ask you a question.'

'A man may ASK a question, so he may,' returned Kedgick; strongly
implying that another man might not answer a question, so he
mightn't.

'What have they been making so much of him for, now?' said Mark,
slyly.  'Come!'

'Our people like ex-citement,' answered Kedgick, sucking his cigar.

'But how has he excited 'em?' asked Mark.

The Captain looked at him as if he were half inclined to unburden
his mind of a capital joke.

'You air a-going?' he said.

'Going!' cried Mark.  'Ain't every moment precious?'

'Our people like ex-citement,' said the Captain, whispering.  'He
ain't like emigrants in gin'ral; and he excited 'em along of this;'
he winked and burst into a smothered laugh; 'along of this.  Scadder
is a smart man, and--and--nobody as goes to Eden ever comes back
alive!'

The wharf was close at hand, and at that instant Mark could hear
them shouting out his name; could even hear Martin calling to him to
make haste, or they would be separated.  It was too late to mend the
matter, or put any face upon it but the best.  He gave the Captain a
parting benediction, and ran off like a race-horse.

'Mark! Mark!' cried Martin.

'Here am I, sir!' shouted Mark, suddenly replying from the edge of
the quay, and leaping at a bound on board.  'Never was half so
jolly, sir.  All right.  Haul in!  Go ahead!'

The sparks from the wood fire streamed upward from the two chimneys,
as if the vessel were a great firework just lighted; and they roared
away upon the dark water.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

MARTIN AND HIS PARTNER TAKE POSSESSION OF THEIR ESTATE.  THE JOYFUL
OCCASION INVOLVES SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF EDEN


There happened to be on board the steamboat several gentlemen
passengers, of the same stamp as Martin's New York friend Mr Bevan;
and in their society he was cheerful and happy.  They released him
as well as they could from the intellectual entanglements of Mrs
Hominy; and exhibited, in all they said and did, so much good sense
and high feeling, that he could not like them too well.  'If this
were a republic of Intellect and Worth,' he said, 'instead of
vapouring and jobbing, they would not want the levers to keep it in
motion.'

'Having good tools, and using bad ones,' returned Mr Tapley, 'would
look as if they was rather a poor sort of carpenters, sir, wouldn't
it?'

Martin nodded.  'As if their work were infinitely above their powers
and purpose, Mark; and they botched it in consequence.'

'The best on it is,' said Mark, 'that when they do happen to make a
decent stroke; such as better workmen, with no such opportunities,
make every day of their lives and think nothing of--they begin to
sing out so surprising loud.  Take notice of my words, sir.  If ever
the defaulting part of this here country pays its debts--along of
finding that not paying 'em won't do in a commercial point of view,
you see, and is inconvenient in its consequences--they'll take such a
shine out of it, and make such bragging speeches, that a man might
suppose no borrowed money had ever been paid afore, since the world
was first begun.  That's the way they gammon each other, sir.  Bless
you, I know 'em.  Take notice of my words, now!'

'You seem to be growing profoundly sagacious!' cried Martin,
laughing.

'Whether that is,' thought Mark, 'because I'm a day's journey nearer
Eden, and am brightening up afore I die, I can't say.  P'rhaps by
the time I get there I shall have growed into a prophet.'

He gave no utterance to these sentiments; but the excessive
joviality they inspired within him, and the merriment they brought
upon his shining face, were quite enough for Martin.  Although he
might sometimes profess to make light of his partner's inexhaustible
cheerfulness, and might sometimes, as in the case of Zephaniah
Scadder, find him too jocose a commentator, he was always sensible
of the effect of his example in rousing him to hopefulness and
courage.  Whether he were in the humour to profit by it, mattered
not a jot.  It was contagious, and he could not choose but be
affected.

At first they parted with some of their passengers once or twice a
day, and took in others to replace them.  But by degrees, the towns
upon their route became more thinly scattered; and for many hours
together they would see no other habitations than the huts of the
wood-cutters, where the vessel stopped for fuel.  Sky, wood, and
water all the livelong day; and heat that blistered everything it
touched.

On they toiled through great solitudes, where the trees upon the
banks grew thick and close; and floatad in the stream; and held up
shrivelled arms from out the river's depths; and slid down from the
margin of the land, half growing, half decaying, in the miry water.
On through the weary day and melancholy night; beneath the burning
sun, and in the mist and vapour of the evening; on, until return
appeared impossible, and restoration to their home a miserable
dream.

They had now but few people on board, and these few were as flat, as
dull, and stagnant, as the vegetation that oppressed their eyes.  No
sound of cheerfulness or hope was heard; no pleasant talk beguiled
the tardy time; no little group made common cause against the full
depression of the scene.  But that, at certain periods, they
swallowed food together from a common trough, it might have been old
Charon's boat, conveying melancholy shades to judgment.

At length they drew near New Thermopylae; where, that same evening,
Mrs Hominy would disembark.  A gleam of comfort sunk into Martin's
bosom when she told him this.  Mark needed none; but he was not
displeased.

It was almost night when they came alongside the landing-place.  A
steep bank with an hotel like a barn on the top of it; a wooden
store or two; and a few scattered sheds.

'You sleep here to-night, and go on in the morning, I suppose,
ma'am?' said Martin.

'Where should I go on to?' cried the mother of the modern Gracchi.

'To New Thermopylae.'

'My! ain't I there?' said Mrs Hominy.

Martin looked for it all round the darkening panorama; but he
couldn't see it, and was obliged to say so.

'Why that's it!' cried Mrs Hominy, pointing to the sheds just
mentioned.

'THAT!' exclaimed Martin.

'Ah! that; and work it which way you will, it whips Eden,' said Mrs
Hominy, nodding her head with great expression.

The married Miss Hominy, who had come on board with her husband,
gave to this statement her most unqualified support, as did that
gentleman also.  Martin gratefully declined their invitation to
regale himself at their house during the half hour of the vessel's
stay; and having escorted Mrs Hominy and the red pocket-handkerchief
(which was still on active service) safely across the gangway,
returned in a thoughtful mood to watch the emigrants as they removed
their goods ashore.

Mark, as he stood beside him, glanced in his face from time to time;
anxious to discover what effect this dialogue had had upon him, and
not unwilling that his hopes should be dashed before they reached
their destination, so that the blow he feared might be broken in its
fall.  But saving that he sometimes looked up quickly at the poor
erections on the hill, he gave him no clue to what was passing in
his mind, until they were again upon their way.

'Mark,' he said then, 'are there really none but ourselves on board
this boat who are bound for Eden?'

'None at all, sir.  Most of 'em, as you know, have stopped short;
and the few that are left are going further on.  What matters that!
More room there for us, sir.'

'Oh, to be sure!' said Martin.  'But I was thinking--' and there he
paused.

'Yes, sir?' observed Mark.

'How odd it was that the people should have arranged to try their
fortune at a wretched hole like that, for instance, when there is
such a much better, and such a very different kind of place, near at
hand, as one may say.'

He spoke in a tone so very different from his usual confidence, and
with such an obvious dread of Mark's reply, that the good-natured
fellow was full of pity.

'Why, you know, sir,' said Mark, as gently as he could by any means
insinuate the observation, 'we must guard against being too
sanguine.  There's no occasion for it, either, because we're
determined to make the best of everything, after we know the worst
of it.  Ain't we, sir?'

Martin looked at him, but answered not a word.

'Even Eden, you know, ain't all built,' said Mark.

'In the name of Heaven, man,' cried Martin angrily, 'don't talk of
Eden in the same breath with that place.  Are you mad?  There--God
forgive me!--don't think harshly of me for my temper!'

After that, he turned away, and walked to and fro upon the deck full
two hours.  Nor did he speak again, except to say 'Good night,'
until next day; nor even then upon this subject, but on other topics
quite foreign to the purpose.

As they proceeded further on their track, and came more and more
towards their journey's end, the monotonous desolation of the scene
increased to that degree, that for any redeeming feature it
presented to their eyes, they might have entered, in the body, on
the grim domains of Giant Despair.  A flat morass, bestrewn with
fallen timber; a marsh on which the good growth of the earth seemed
to have been wrecked and cast away, that from its decomposing ashes
vile and ugly things might rise; where the very trees took the
aspect of huge weeds, begotten of the slime from which they sprung,
by the hot sun that burnt them up; where fatal maladies, seeking
whom they might infect, came forth at night in misty shapes, and
creeping out upon the water, hunted them like spectres until day;
where even the blessed sun, shining down on festering elements of
corruption and disease, became a horror; this was the realm of Hope
through which they moved.

At last they stopped.  At Eden too.  The waters of the Deluge might
have left it but a week before; so choked with slime and matted
growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name.

There being no depth of water close in shore, they landed from the
vessel's boat, with all their goods beside them.  There were a few
log-houses visible among the dark trees; the best, a cow-shed or a
rude stable; but for the wharves, the market-place, the public
buildings--

'Here comes an Edener,' said Mark.  'He'll get us help to carry
these things up.  Keep a good heart, sir.  Hallo there!'

The man advanced toward them through the thickening gloom, very
slowly; leaning on a stick.  As he drew nearer, they observed that
he was pale and worn, and that his anxious eyes were deeply sunken
in his head.  His dress of homespun blue hung about him in rags; his
feet and head were bare.  He sat down on a stump half-way, and
beckoned them to come to him.  When they complied, he put his hand
upon his side as if in pain, and while he fetched his breath stared
at them, wondering.

'Strangers!' he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak.

'The very same,' said Mark.  'How are you, sir?'

'I've had the fever very bad,' he answered faintly.  'I haven't
stood upright these many weeks.  Those are your notions I see,'
pointing to their property.

'Yes, sir,' said Mark, 'they are.  You couldn't recommend us some
one as would lend a hand to help carry 'em up to the--to the town,
could you, sir?'

'My eldest son would do it if he could,' replied the man; 'but today
he has his chill upon him, and is lying wrapped up in the blankets.
My youngest died last week.'

'I'm sorry for it, governor, with all my heart,' said Mark, shaking
him by the hand.  'Don't mind us.  Come along with me, and I'll give
you an arm back.  The goods is safe enough, sir'--to Martin--'there
ain't many people about, to make away with 'em.  What a comfort that
is!'

'No,' cried the man.  'You must look for such folk here,' knocking
his stick upon the ground, 'or yonder in the bush, towards the
north.  We've buried most of 'em.  The rest have gone away.  Them
that we have here, don't come out at night.'

'The night air ain't quite wholesome, I suppose?' said Mark.

'It's deadly poison,' was the settler's answer.

Mark showed no more uneasiness than if it had been commended to him
as ambrosia; but he gave the man his arm, and as they went along
explained to him the nature of their purchase, and inquired where it
lay.  Close to his own log-house, he said; so close that he had used
their dwelling as a store-house for some corn; they must excuse it
that night, but he would endeavour to get it taken out upon the
morrow.  He then gave them to understand, as an additional scrap of
local chit-chat, that he had buried the last proprietor with his own
hands; a piece of information which Mark also received without the
least abatement of his equanimity.

In a word, he conducted them to a miserable cabin, rudely
constructed of the trunks of trees; the door of which had either
fallen down or been carried away long ago; and which was
consequently open to the wild landscape and the dark night.  Saving
for the little store he had mentioned, it was perfectly bare of all
furniture; but they had left a chest upon the landing-place, and he
gave them a rude torch in lieu of candle.  This latter acquisition
Mark planted in the earth, and then declaring that the mansion
'looked quite comfortable,' hurried Martin off again to help bring
up the chest.  And all the way to the landing-place and back, Mark
talked incessantly; as if he would infuse into his partner's breast
some faint belief that they had arrived under the most auspicious
and cheerful of all imaginable circumstances.

But many a man who would have stood within a home dismantled, strong
in his passion and design of vengeance, has had the firmness of his
nature conquered by the razing of an air-built castle.  When the
log-hut received them for the second time, Martin laid down upon the
ground, and wept aloud.

'Lord love you, sir!' cried Mr Tapley, in great terror; 'Don't do
that!  Don't do that, sir!  Anything but that!  It never helped man,
woman, or child, over the lowest fence yet, sir, and it never will.
Besides its being of no use to you, it's worse than of no use to me,
for the least sound of it will knock me flat down.  I can't stand up
agin it, sir.  Anything but that!'

There is no doubt he spoke the truth, for the extraordinary alarm
with which he looked at Martin as he paused upon his knees before
the chest, in the act of unlocking it, to say these words,
sufficiently confirmed him.

'I ask your forgiveness a thousand times, my dear fellow,' said
Martin.  'I couldn't have helped it, if death had been the penalty.'

'Ask my forgiveness!' said Mark, with his accustomed cheerfulness,
as he proceeded to unpack the chest.  'The head partner a-asking
forgiveness of Co., eh?  There must be something wrong in the firm
when that happens.  I must have the books inspected and the accounts
gone over immediate.  Here we are.  Everything in its proper place.
Here's the salt pork.  Here's the biscuit.  Here's the whiskey.
Uncommon good it smells too.  Here's the tin pot.  This tin pot's a
small fortun' in itself!  Here's the blankets.  Here's the axe.  Who
says we ain't got a first-rate fit out?  I feel as if I was a cadet
gone out to Indy, and my noble father was chairman of the Board of
Directors.  Now, when I've got some water from the stream afore the
door and mixed the grog,' cried Mark, running out to suit the action
to the word, 'there's a supper ready, comprising every delicacy of
the season.  Here we are, sir, all complete.  For what we are going
to receive, et cetrer.  Lord bless you, sir, it's very like a gipsy
party!'

It was impossible not to take heart, in the company of such a man as
this.  Martin sat upon the ground beside the box; took out his
knife; and ate and drank sturdily.

'Now you see,' said Mark, when they had made a hearty meal; 'with
your knife and mine, I sticks this blanket right afore the door.  Or
where, in a state of high civilization, the door would be.  And very
neat it looks.  Then I stops the aperture below, by putting the
chest agin it.  And very neat THAT looks.  Then there's your
blanket, sir.  Then here's mine.  And what's to hinder our passing a
good night?'

For all his light-hearted speaking, it was long before he slept
himself.  He wrapped his blanket round him, put the axe ready to his
hand, and lay across the threshold of the door; too anxious and too
watchful to close his eyes.  The novelty of their dreary situation,
the dread of some rapacious animal or human enemy, the terrible
uncertainty of their means of subsistence, the apprehension of
death, the immense distance and the hosts of obstacles between
themselves and England, were fruitful sources of disquiet in the
deep silence of the night.  Though Martin would have had him think
otherwise, Mark felt that he was waking also, and a prey to the same
reflections.  This was almost worse than all, for if he began to
brood over their miseries instead of trying to make head against
them there could be little doubt that such a state of mind would
powerfully assist the influence of the pestilent climate.  Never had
the light of day been half so welcome to his eyes, as when awaking
from a fitful doze, Mark saw it shining through the blanket in the
doorway.

He stole out gently, for his companion was sleeping now; and having
refreshed himself by washing in the river, where it snowed before
the door, took a rough survey of the settlement.  There were not
above a score of cabins in the whole; half of these appeared
untenanted; all were rotten and decayed.  The most tottering,
abject, and forlorn among them was called, with great propriety, the
Bank, and National Credit Office.  It had some feeble props about
it, but was settling deep down in the mud, past all recovery.

Here and there an effort had been made to clear the land, and
something like a field had been marked out, where, among the stumps
and ashes of burnt trees, a scanty crop of Indian corn was growing.
In some quarters, a snake or zigzag fence had been begun, but in no
instance had it been completed; and the felled logs, half hidden in
the soil, lay mouldering away.  Three or four meagre dogs, wasted
and vexed with hunger; some long-legged pigs, wandering away into
the woods in search of food; some children, nearly naked, gazing at
him from the huts; were all the living things he saw.  A fetid
vapour, hot and sickening as the breath of an oven, rose up from the
earth, and hung on everything around; and as his foot-prints sunk
into the marshy ground, a black ooze started forth to blot them out.

Their own land was mere forest.  The trees had grown so think and
close that they shouldered one another out of their places, and the
weakest, forced into shapes of strange distortion, languished like
cripples.  The best were stunted, from the pressure and the want of
room; and high about the stems of all grew long rank grass, dank
weeds, and frowsy underwood; not divisible into their separate
kinds, but tangled all together in a heap; a jungle deep and dark,
with neither earth nor water at its roots, but putrid matter, formed
of the pulpy offal of the two, and of their own corruption.

He went down to the landing-place where they had left their goods
last night; and there he found some half-dozen men--wan and forlorn
to look at, but ready enough to assist--who helped him to carry them
to the log-house.  They shook their heads in speaking of the
settlement, and had no comfort to give him.  Those who had the means
of going away had all deserted it.  They who were left had lost
their wives, their children, friends, or brothers there, and
suffered much themselves.  Most of them were ill then; none were the
men they had been once.  They frankly offered their assistance and
advice, and, leaving him for that time, went sadly off upon their
several tasks.

Martin was by this time stirring; but he had greatly changed, even
in one night.  He was very pale and languid; he spoke of pains and
weakness in his limbs, and complained that his sight was dim, and
his voice feeble.  Increasing in his own briskness as the prospect
grew more and more dismal, Mark brought away a door from one of the
deserted houses, and fitted it to their own habitation; then went
back again for a rude bench he had observed, with which he presently
returned in triumph; and having put this piece of furniture outside
the house, arranged the notable tin pot and other such movables upon
it, that it might represent a dresser or a sideboard.  Greatly
satisfied with this arrangement, he next rolled their cask of flour
into the house and set it up on end in one corner, where it served
for a side-table.  No better dining-table could be required than the
chest, which he solemnly devoted to that useful service thenceforth.
Their blankets, clothes, and the like, he hung on pegs and nails.
And lastly, he brought forth a great placard (which Martin in the
exultation of his heart had prepared with his own hands at the
National Hotel) bearing the inscription, CHUZZLEWIT & CO.,
ARCHITECTS AND SURVEYORS, which he displayed upon the most
conspicuous part of the premises, with as much gravity as if the
thriving city of Eden had a real existence, and they expected to be
overwhelmed with business.

'These here tools,' said Mark, bringing forward Martin's case of
instruments and sticking the compasses upright in a stump before the
door, 'shall be set out in the open air to show that we come
provided.  And now, if any gentleman wants a house built, he'd
better give his orders, afore we're other ways bespoke.'

Considering the intense heat of the weather, this was not a bad
morning's work; but without pausing for a moment, though he was
streaming at every pore, Mark vanished into the house again, and
presently reappeared with a hatchet; intent on performing some
impossibilities with that implement.

'Here's ugly old tree in the way, sir,' he observed, 'which'll be
all the better down.  We can build the oven in the afternoon.  There
never was such a handy spot for clay as Eden is.  That's convenient,
anyhow.'

But Martin gave him no answer.  He had sat the whole time with his
head upon his hands, gazing at the current as it rolled swiftly by;
thinking, perhaps, how fast it moved towards the open sea, the high
road to the home he never would behold again.

Not even the vigorous strokes which Mark dealt at the tree awoke him
from his mournful meditation.  Finding all his endeavours to rouse
him of no use, Mark stopped in his work and came towards him.

'Don't give in, sir,' said Mr Tapley.

'Oh, Mark,' returned his friend, 'what have I done in all my life
that has deserved this heavy fate?'

'Why, sir,' returned Mark, 'for the matter of that, everybody as is
here might say the same thing; many of 'em with better reason p'raps
than you or me.  Hold up, sir.  Do something.  Couldn't you ease
your mind, now, don't you think, by making some personal
obserwations in a letter to Scadder?'

'No,' said Martin, shaking his head sorrowfully: 'I am past that.'

'But if you're past that already,' returned Mark, 'you must be ill,
and ought to be attended to.'

'Don't mind me,' said Martin.  'Do the best you can for yourself.
You'll soon have only yourself to consider.  And then God speed you
home, and forgive me for bringing you here!  I am destined to die in
this place.  I felt it the instant I set foot upon the shore.
Sleeping or waking, Mark, I dreamed it all last night.'

'I said you must be ill,' returned Mark, tenderly, 'and now I'm sure
of it.  A touch of fever and ague caught on these rivers, I dare
say; but bless you, THAT'S nothing.  It's only a seasoning, and we
must all be seasoned, one way or another.  That's religion that is,
you know,' said Mark.

He only sighed and shook his head.

'Wait half a minute,' said Mark cheerily, 'till I run up to one of
our neighbours and ask what's best to be took, and borrow a little
of it to give you; and to-morrow you'll find yourself as strong as
ever again.  I won't be gone a minute.  Don't give in while I'm
away, whatever you do!'

Throwing down his hatchet, he sped away immediately, but stopped
when he had got a little distance, and looked back; then hurried on
again.

'Now, Mr Tapley,' said Mark, giving himself a tremendous blow in the
chest by way of reviver, 'just you attend to what I've got to say.
Things is looking about as bad as they CAN look, young man.  You'll
not have such another opportunity for showing your jolly
disposition, my fine fellow, as long as you live.  And therefore,
Tapley, Now's your time to come out strong; or Never!'



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

REPORTS PROGRESS IN CERTAIN HOMELY MATTERS OF LOVE, HATRED,
JEALOUSY, AND REVENGE


'Hallo, Pecksniff!' cried Mr Jonas from the parlour.  'Isn't
somebody a-going to open that precious old door of yours?'

'Immediately, Mr Jonas.  Immediately.'

'Ecod,' muttered the orphan, 'not before it's time neither.  Whoever
it is, has knocked three times, and each one loud enough to wake
the--' he had such a repugnance to the idea of waking the Dead, that
he stopped even then with the words upon his tongue, and said,
instead, 'the Seven Sleepers.'

'Immediately, Mr Jonas; immediately,' repeated Pecksniff.  'Thomas
Pinch'--he couldn't make up his mind, in his great agitation,
whether to call Tom his dear friend or a villain, so he shook his
fist at him PRO TEM--'go up to my daughters' room, and tell them
who is here.  Say, Silence.  Silence!  Do you hear me, sir?

'Directly, sir!" cried Tom, departing, in a state of much amazement,
on his errand.

'You'll--ha, ha, ha!--you'll excuse me, Mr Jonas, if I close this
door a moment, will you?' said Pecksniff.  'This may be a
professional call.  Indeed I am pretty sure it is.  Thank you.'  Then
Mr Pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat,
seized a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing on the
threshold, as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a
modest rap, but was not quite certain.

Seeing a gentleman and lady before him, he started back in as much
confusion as a good man with a crystal conscience might betray in
mere surprise.  Recognition came upon him the next moment, and he
cried:

'Mr Chuzzlewit!  Can I believe my eyes!  My dear sir; my good sir!  A
joyful hour, a happy hour indeed.  Pray, my dear sir, walk in.  You
find me in my garden-dress.  You will excuse it, I know.  It is an
ancient pursuit, gardening.  Primitive, my dear sir.  Or, if I am
not mistaken, Adam was the first of our calling.  MY Eve, I grieve
to say is no more, sir; but'--here he pointed to his spade, and
shook his head as if he were not cheerful without an effort--'but I
do a little bit of Adam still.'

He had by this time got them into the best parlour, where the
portrait by Spiller, and the bust by Spoker, were.

'My daughters,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'will be overjoyed.  If I could
feel weary upon such a theme, I should have been worn out long ago,
my dear sir, by their constant anticipation of this happiness and
their repeated allusions to our meeting at Mrs Todgers's.  Their
fair young friend, too,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'whom they so desire to
know and love--indeed to know her, is to love--I hope I see her
well.  I hope in saying, "Welcome to my humble roof!" I find some
echo in her own sentiments.  If features are an index to the heart,
I have no fears of that.  An extremely engaging expression of
countenance, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear sir--very much so!'

'Mary,' said the old man, 'Mr Pecksniff flatters you.  But flattery
from him is worth the having.  He is not a dealer in it, and it
comes from his heart.  We thought Mr--'

'Pinch,' said Mary.

'Mr Pinch would have arrived before us, Pecksniff.'

'He did arrive before you, my dear sir,' retorted Pecksniff, raising
his voice for the edification of Tom upon the stairs, 'and was
about, I dare say, to tell me of your coming, when I begged him
first to knock at my daughters' chamber, and inquire after Charity,
my dear child, who is not so well as I could wish.  No,' said Mr
Pecksniff, answering their looks, 'I am sorry to say, she is not.
It is merely an hysterical affection; nothing more, I am not uneasy.
Mr Pinch!  Thomas!' exclaimed Pecksniff, in his kindest accents.
'Pray come in.  I shall make no stranger of you.  Thomas is a friend
of mine, of rather long-standing, Mr Chuzzlewit, you must know.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Tom.  'You introduce me very kindly, and
speak of me in terms of which I am very proud'

'Old Thomas!' cried his master, pleasantly 'God bless you!'

Tom reported that the young ladies would appear directly, and that
the best refreshments which the house afforded were even then in
preparation, under their joint superintendence.  While he was
speaking, the old man looked at him intently, though with less
harshness than was common to him; nor did the mutual embarrassment
of Tom and the young lady, to whatever cause he attributed it, seem
to escape his observation.

'Pecksniff,' he said after a pause, rising and taking him aside
towards the window, 'I was much shocked on hearing of my brother's
death.  We had been strangers for many years.  My only comfort is
that he must have lived the happier and better man for having
associated no hopes or schemes with me.  Peace to his memory!  We
were play-fellows once; and it would have been better for us both if
we had died then.'

Finding him in this gentle mood, Mr Pecksniff began to see another
way out of his difficulties, besides the casting overboard of Jonas.

'That any man, my dear sir, could possibly be the happier for not
knowing you,' he returned, 'you will excuse my doubting.  But that
Mr Anthony, in the evening of his life, was happier in the affection
of his excellent son--a pattern, my dear sir, a pattern to all sons
--and in the care of a distant relation who, however lowly in his
means of serving him, had no bounds to his inclination; I can inform
you.'

'How's this?' said the old man.  'You are not a legatee?'

'You don't,' said Mr Pecksniff, with a melancholy pressure of his
hand, 'quite understand my nature yet, I find.  No, sir, I am not a
legatee.  I am proud to say I am not a legatee.  I am proud to say
that neither of my children is a legatee.  And yet, sir, I was with
him at his own request.  HE understood me somewhat better, sir.  He
wrote and said, "I am sick.  I am sinking.  Come to me!"  I went to
him.  I sat beside his bed, sir, and I stood beside his grave.  Yes,
at the risk of offending even you, I did it, sir.  Though the avowal
should lead to our instant separation, and to the severing of those
tender ties between us which have recently been formed, I make it.
But I am not a legatee,' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling dispassionately;
'and I never expected to be a legatee.  I knew better!'

'His son a pattern!' cried old Martin.  'How can you tell me that?
My brother had in his wealth the usual doom of wealth, and root of
misery.  He carried his corrupting influence with him, go where he
would; and shed it round him, even on his hearth.  It made of his
own child a greedy expectant, who measured every day and hour the
lessening distance between his father and the grave, and cursed his
tardy progress on that dismal road.'

'No!' cried Mr Pecksniff, boldly.  'Not at all, sir!'

'But I saw that shadow in his house,' said Martin Chuzzlewit, 'the
last time we met, and warned him of its presence.  I know it when I
see it, do I not?  I, who have lived within it all these years!'

'I deny it,' Mr Pecksniff answered, warmly.  'I deny it altogether.
That bereaved young man is now in this house, sir, seeking in change
of scene the peace of mind he has lost.  Shall I be backward in
doing justice to that young man, when even undertakers and
coffin-makers have been moved by the conduct he has exhibited; when
even mutes have spoken in his praise, and the medical man hasn't
known what to do with himself in the excitement of his feelings!
There is a person of the name of Gamp, sir--Mrs Gamp--ask her.  She
saw Mr Jonas in a trying time.  Ask HER, sir.  She is respectable,
but not sentimental, and will state the fact.  A line addressed to
Mrs Gamp, at the BirdShop, Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, London,
will meet with every attention, I have no doubt.  Let her be
examined, my good sir.  Strike, but hear!  Leap, Mr Chuzzlewit, but
look!  Forgive me, my dear sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking both his
hands, 'if I am warm; but I am honest, and must state the truth.'

In proof of the character he gave himself, Mr Pecksniff suffered
tears of honesty to ooze out of his eyes.

The old man gazed at him for a moment with a look of wonder,
repeating to himself, 'Here now!  In this house!'  But he mastered
his surprise, and said, after a pause:

'Let me see him.'

'In a friendly spirit, I hope?' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Forgive me, sir
but he is in the receipt of my humble hospitality.'

'I said,' replied the old man, 'let me see him.  If I were disposed
to regard him in any other than a friendly spirit, I should have
said keep us apart.'

'Certainly, my dear sir.  So you would.  You are frankness itself, I
know.  I will break this happiness to him,' said Mr Pecksniff, as he
left the room, 'if you will excuse me for a minute--gently.'

He paved the way to the disclosure so very gently, that a quarter of
an hour elapsed before he returned with Mr Jonas.  In the meantime
the young ladies had made their appearance, and the table had been
set out for the refreshment of the travellers.

Now, however well Mr Pecksniff, in his morality, had taught Jonas
the lesson of dutiful behaviour to his uncle, and however perfectly
Jonas, in the cunning of his nature, had learnt it, that young man's
bearing, when presented to his father's brother, was anything but
manly or engaging.  Perhaps, indeed, so singular a mixture of
defiance and obsequiousness, of fear and hardihood, of dogged
sullenness and an attempt at enraging and propitiation, never was
expressed in any one human figure as in that of Jonas, when, having
raised his downcast eyes to Martin's face, he let them fall again,
and uneasily closing and unclosing his hands without a moment's
intermission, stood swinging himself from side to side, waiting to
be addressed.

'Nephew,' said the old man.  'You have been a dutiful son, I hear.'

'As dutiful as sons in general, I suppose,' returned Jonas, looking
up and down once more.  'I don't brag to have been any better than
other sons; but I haven't been any worse, I dare say.'

'A pattern to all sons, I am told,' said the old man, glancing
towards Mr Pecksniff.

'Ecod!' said Jonas, looking up again for a moment, and shaking his
head, 'I've been as good a son as ever you were a brother.  It's the
pot and the kettle, if you come to that.'

'You speak bitterly, in the violence of your regret,' said Martin,
after a pause.  'Give me your hand.'

Jonas did so, and was almost at his ease.  'Pecksniff,' he
whispered, as they drew their chairs about the table; 'I gave him as
good as he brought, eh?  He had better look at home, before he looks
out of window, I think?'

Mr Pecksniff only answered by a nudge of the elbow, which might
either be construed into an indignant remonstrance or a cordial
assent; but which, in any case, was an emphatic admonition to his
chosen son-in-law to be silent.  He then proceeded to do the honours
of the house with his accustomed ease and amiability.

But not even Mr Pecksniff's guileless merriment could set such a
party at their ease, or reconcile materials so utterly discordant
and conflicting as those with which he had to deal.  The unspeakable
jealously and hatred which that night's explanation had sown in
Charity's breast, was not to be so easily kept down; and more than
once it showed itself in such intensity, as seemed to render a full
disclosure of all the circumstances then and there, impossible to be
avoided.  The beauteous Merry, too, with all the glory of her
conquest fresh upon her, so probed and lanced the rankling
disappointment of her sister by her capricious airs and thousand
little trials of Mr Jonas's obedience, that she almost goaded her
into a fit of madness, and obliged her to retire from table in a
burst of passion, hardly less vehement than that to which she had
abandoned herself in the first tumult of her wrath.  The constraint
imposed upon the family by the presence among them for the first
time of Mary Graham (for by that name old Martin Chuzzlewit had
introduced her) did not at all improve this state of things; gentle
and quiet though her manner was.  Mr Pecksniff's situation was
peculiarly trying; for, what with having constantly to keep the
peace between his daughters; to maintain a reasonable show of
affection and unity in his household; to curb the growing ease and
gaiety of Jonas, which vented itself in sundry insolences towards Mr
Pinch, and an indefinable coarseness of manner in reference to Mary
(they being the two dependants); to make no mention at all of his
having perpetually to conciliate his rich old relative, and to
smooth down, or explain away, some of the ten thousand bad
appearances and combinations of bad appearances, by which they were
surrounded on that unlucky evening--what with having to do this, and
it would be difficult to sum up how much more, without the least
relief or assistance from anybody, it may be easily imagined that Mr
Pecksniff had in his enjoyment something more than that usual
portion of alloy which is mixed up with the best of men's delights.
Perhaps he had never in his life felt such relief as when old
Martin, looking at his watch, announced that it was time to go.

'We have rooms,' he said, 'at the Dragon, for the present.  I have a
fancy for the evening walk.  The nights are dark just now; perhaps
Mr Pinch would not object to light us home?'

'My dear sir!' cried Pecksniff, 'I shall be delighted.  Merry, my
child, the lantern.'

'The lantern, if you please, my dear,' said Martin; 'but I couldn't
think of taking your father out of doors to-night; and, to be brief,
I won't.'

Mr Pecksniff already had his hat in his hand, but it was so
emphatically said that he paused.

'I take Mr Pinch, or go alone,' said Martin.  'Which shall it be?'

'It shall be Thomas, sir,' cried Pecksniff, 'since you are so
resolute upon it.  Thomas, my friend, be very careful, if you
please.'

Tom was in some need of this injunction, for he felt so nervous, and
trembled to such a degree, that he found it difficult to hold the
lantern.  How much more difficult when, at the old man's bidding she
drew her hand through his--Tom Pinch's--arm!

'And so, Mr Pinch,' said Martin, on the way, 'you are very
comfortably situated here; are you?'

Tom answered, with even more than his usual enthusiasm, that he was
under obligations to Mr Pecksniff which the devotion of a lifetime
would but imperfectly repay.

'How long have you known my nephew?' asked Martin.

'Your nephew, sir?' faltered Tom.

'Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit,' said Mary.

'Oh dear, yes,' cried Tom, greatly relieved, for his mind was
running upon Martin.  'Certainly.  I never spoke to him before to-
night, sir!'

'Perhaps half a lifetime will suffice for the acknowledgment of HIS
kindness,' observed the old man.

Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but
understand it as a left-handed hit at his employer.  So he was
silent.  Mary felt that Mr Pinch was not remarkable for presence of
mind, and that he could not say too little under existing
circumstances.  So SHE was silent.  The old man, disgusted by what
in his suspicious nature he considered a shameless and fulsome puff
of Mr Pecksniff, which was a part of Tom's hired service and in
which he was determined to persevere, set him down at once for a
deceitful, servile, miserable fawner.  So HE was silent.  And though
they were all sufficiently uncomfortable, it is fair to say that
Martin was perhaps the most so; for he had felt kindly towards Tom
at first, and had been interested by his seeming simplicity.

'You're like the rest,' he thought, glancing at the face of the
unconscious Tom.  'You had nearly imposed upon me, but you have lost
your labour.  You are too zealous a toad-eater, and betray yourself,
Mr Pinch.'

During the whole remainder of the walk, not another word was spoken.
First among the meetings to which Tom had long looked forward with a
beating heart, it was memorable for nothing but embarrassment and
confusion.  They parted at the Dragon door; and sighing as he
extinguished the candle in the lantern, Tom turned back again over
the gloomy fields.

As he approached the first stile, which was in a lonely part, made
very dark by a plantation of young firs, a man slipped past him and
went on before.  Coming to the stile he stopped, and took his seat
upon it.  Tom was rather startled, and for a moment stood still, but
he stepped forward again immediately, and went close up to him.

It was Jonas; swinging his legs to and fro, sucking the head of a
stick, and looking with a sneer at Tom.

'Good gracious me!' cried Tom, 'who would have thought of its being
you!  You followed us, then?'

'What's that to you?' said Jonas.  'Go to the devil!'

'You are not very civil, I think,' remarked Tom.

'Civil enough for YOU,' retorted Jonas.  'Who are you?'

'One who has as good a right to common consideration as another,'
said Tom mildly.

'You're a liar,' said Jonas.  'You haven't a right to any
consideration.  You haven't a right to anything.  You're a pretty
sort of fellow to talk about your rights, upon my soul!  Ha, ha!--
Rights, too!'

'If you proceed in this way,' returned Tom, reddening, 'you will
oblige me to talk about my wrongs.  But I hope your joke is over.'

'It's the way with you curs,' said Mr Jonas, 'that when you know a
man's in real earnest, you pretend to think he's joking, so that you
may turn it off.  But that won't do with me.  It's too stale.  Now
just attend to me for a bit, Mr Pitch, or Witch, or Stitch, or
whatever your name is.'

'My name is Pinch,' observed Tom.  'Have the goodness to call me by
it.'

'What!  You mustn't even be called out of your name, mustn't you!'
cried Jonas.  'Pauper' prentices are looking up, I think.  Ecod, we
manage 'em a little better in the city!'

'Never mind what you do in the city,' said Tom.  'What have you got
to say to me?'

'Just this, Mister Pinch,' retorted Jonas, thrusting his face so
close to Tom's that Tom was obliged to retreat a step.  'I advise
you to keep your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to
cut in where you're not wanted.  I've heard something of you, my
friend, and your meek ways; and I recommend you to forget 'em till I
am married to one of Pecksniff's gals, and not to curry favour among
my relations, but to leave the course clear.  You know, when curs
won't leave the course clear, they're whipped off; so this is kind
advice.  Do you understand?  Eh?  Damme, who are you,' cried Jonas,
with increased contempt, 'that you should walk home with THEM,
unless it was behind 'em, like any other servant out of livery?'

'Come!' cried Tom, 'I see that you had better get off the stile, and
let me pursue my way home.  Make room for me, if you please.'

'Don't think it!' said Jonas, spreading out his legs.  'Not till I
choose.  And I don't choose now.  What!  You're afraid of my making
you split upon some of your babbling just now, are you, Sneak?'

'I am not afraid of many things, I hope,' said Tom; 'and certainly
not of anything that you will do.  I am not a tale-bearer, and I
despise all meanness.  You quite mistake me.  Ah!' cried Tom,
indignantly.  'Is this manly from one in your position to one in
mine?  Please to make room for me to pass.  The less I say, the
better.'

'The less you say!' retorted Jonas, dangling his legs the more, and
taking no heed of this request.  'You say very little, don't you?
Ecod, I should like to know what goes on between you and a vagabond
member of my family.  There's very little in that too, I dare say!'

'I know no vagabond member of your family,' cried Tom, stoutly,

'You do!' said Jonas.

'I don't,' said Tom.  'Your uncle's namesake, if you mean him, is no
vagabond.  Any comparison between you and him'--Tom snapped his
fingers at him, for he was rising fast in wrath--'is immeasurably to
your disadvantage.'

'Oh indeed!' sneered Jonas.  'And what do you think of his deary--
his beggarly leavings, eh, Mister Pinch?'

'I don't mean to say another word, or stay here another instant,'
replied Tom.

'As I told you before, you're a liar,' said Jonas, coolly.  'You'll
stay here till I give you leave to go.  Now, keep where you are,
will you?'

He flourished his stick over Tom's head; but in a moment it was
spinning harmlessly in the air, and Jonas himself lay sprawling in
the ditch.  In the momentary struggle for the stick, Tom had brought
it into violent contact with his opponent's forehead; and the blood
welled out profusely from a deep cut on the temple.  Tom was first
apprised of this by seeing that he pressed his handkerchief to the
wounded part, and staggered as he rose, being stunned.

'Are you hurt?' said Tom.  'I am very sorry.  Lean on me for a
moment.  You can do that without forgiving me, if you still bear me
malice.  But I don't know why; for I never offended you before we
met on this spot.'

He made him no answer; not appearing at first to understand him, or
even to know that he was hurt, though he several times took his
handkerchief from the cut to look vacantly at the blood upon it.
After one of these examinations, he looked at Tom, and then there
was an expression in his features, which showed that he understood
what had taken place, and would remember it.

Nothing more passed between them as they went home.  Jonas kept a
little in advance, and Tom Pinch sadly followed, thinking of the
grief which the knowledge of this quarrel must occasion his
excellent benefactor.  When Jonas knocked at the door, Tom's heart
beat high; higher when Miss Mercy answered it, and seeing her
wounded lover, shireked aloud; higher, when he followed them into
the family parlour; higher than at any other time, when Jonas spoke.

'Don't make a noise about it,' he said.  'It's nothing worth
mentioning.  I didn't know the road; the night's very dark; and just
as I came up with Mr Pinch'--he turned his face towards Tom, but not
his eyes--'I ran against a tree.  It's only skin deep.'

'Cold water, Merry, my child!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Brown paper!
Scissors!  A piece of old linen!  Charity, my dear, make a bandage.
Bless me, Mr Jonas!'

'Oh, bother YOUR nonsense,' returned the gracious son-in-law elect.
'Be of some use if you can.  If you can't, get out!'

Miss Charity, though called upon to lend her aid, sat upright in one
corner, with a smile upon her face, and didn't move a finger.
Though Mercy laved the wound herself; and Mr Pecksniff held the
patient's head between his two hands, as if without that assistance
it must inevitably come in half; and Tom Pinch, in his guilty
agitation, shook a bottle of Dutch Drops until they were nothing but
English Froth, and in his other hand sustained a formidable carving-
knife, really intended to reduce the swelling, but apparently
designed for the ruthless infliction of another wound as soon as
that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least assistance, nor
uttered a word.  But when Mr Jonas's head was bound up, and he had
gone to bed, and everybody else had retired, and the house was
quiet, Mr Pinch, as he sat mournfully on his bedstead, ruminating,
heard a gentle tap at his door; and opening it, saw her, to his
great astonishment, standing before him with her finger on her lip.

'Mr Pinch,' she whispered.  'Dear Mr Pinch!  Tell me the truth!
You did that?  There was some quarrel between you, and you struck
him?  I am sure of it!'

It was the first time she had ever spoken kindly to Tom, in all
the many years they had passed together.  He was stupefied with
amazement.

'Was it so, or not?' she eagerly demanded.

'I was very much provoked,' said Tom.

'Then it was?' cried Charity, with sparkling eyes.

'Ye-yes.  We had a struggle for the path,' said Tom.  'But I didn't
mean to hurt him so much.'

'Not so much!' she repeated, clenching her hand and stamping her
foot, to Tom's great wonder.  'Don't say that.  It was brave of you.
I honour you for it.  If you should ever quarrel again, don't spare
him for the world, but beat him down and set your shoe upon him.
Not a word of this to anybody.  Dear Mr Pinch, I am your friend from
tonight.  I am always your friend from this time.'

She turned her flushed face upon Tom to confirm her words by its
kindling expression; and seizing his right hand, pressed it to her
breast, and kissed it.  And there was nothing personal in this to
render it at all embarrassing, for even Tom, whose power of
observation was by no means remarkable, knew from the energy with
which she did it that she would have fondled any hand, no matter how
bedaubed or dyed, that had broken the head of Jonas Chuzzlewit.

Tom went into his room, and went to bed, full of uncomfortable
thoughts.  That there should be any such tremendous division in the
family as he knew must have taken place to convert Charity Pecksniff
into his friend, for any reason, but, above all, for that which was
clearly the real one; that Jonas, who had assailed him with such
exceeding coarseness, should have been sufficiently magnanimous to
keep the secret of their quarrel; and that any train of
circumstances should have led to the commission of an assault and
battery by Thomas Pinch upon any man calling himself the friend of
Seth Pecksniff; were matters of such deep and painful cogitation
that he could not close his eyes.  His own violence, in particular,
so preyed upon the generous mind of Tom, that coupling it with the
many former occasions on which he had given Mr Pecksniff pain and
anxiety (occasions of which that gentleman often reminded him), he
really began to regard himself as destined by a mysterious fate to
be the evil genius and bad angel of his patron.  But he fell asleep
at last, and dreamed--new source of waking uneasiness--that he had
betrayed his trust, and run away with Mary Graham.

It must be acknowledged that, asleep or awake, Tom's position in
reference to this young lady was full of uneasiness.  The more he
saw of her, the more he admired her beauty, her intelligence, the
amiable qualities that even won on the divided house of Pecksniff,
and in a few days restored, at all events, the semblance of harmony
and kindness between the angry sisters.  When she spoke, Tom held
his breath, so eagerly he listened; when she sang, he sat like one
entranced.  She touched his organ, and from that bright epoch even
it, the old companion of his happiest hours, incapable as he had
thought of elevation, began a new and deified existence.

God's love upon thy patience, Tom!  Who, that had beheld thee, for
three summer weeks, poring through half the deadlong night over the
jingling anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back
parlour, could have missed the entrance to thy secret heart: albeit
it was dimly known to thee?  Who that had seen the glow upon thy
cheek when leaning down to listen, after hours of labour, for the
sound of one incorrigible note, thou foundest that it had a voice at
last, and wheezed out a flat something, distantly akin to what it
ought to be, would not have known that it was destined for no common
touch, but one that smote, though gently as an angel's hand, upon
the deepest chord within thee!  And if a friendly glance--aye, even
though it were as guileless as thine own, Dear Tom--could have but
pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in a voice well tempered
to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she first sang to the
altered instrument, and wondered at the change; and thou, sitting
apart at the open window, kept a glad silence and a swelling heart--
must not that glance have read perforce the dawning of a story, Tom,
that it were well for thee had never been begun!

Tom Pinch's situation was not made the less dangerous or difficult
by the fact of no one word passing between them in reference to
Martin.  Honourably mindful of his promise, Tom gave her
opportunities of all kinds.  Early and late he was in the church; in
her favourite walks; in the village, in the garden, in the meadows;
and in any or all of these places he might have spoken freely.  But
no; at all such times she carefully avoided him, or never came in
his way unaccompanied.  It could not be that she disliked or
distrusted him, for by a thousand little delicate means, too slight
for any notice but his own, she singled him out when others were
present, and showed herself the very soul of kindness.  Could it be
that she had broken with Martin, or had never returned his
affection, save in his own bold and heightened fancy?  Tom's cheek
grew red with self-reproach as he dismissed the thought.

All this time old Martin came and went in his own strange manner, or
sat among the rest absorbed within himself, and holding little
intercourse with any one.  Although he was unsocial, he was not
willful in other things, or troublesome, or morose; being never
better pleased than when they left him quite unnoticed at his book,
and pursued their own amusements in his presence, unreserved.  It
was impossible to discern in whom he took an interest, or whether he
had an interest in any of them.  Unless they spoke to him directly,
he never showed that he had ears or eyes for anything that passed.

One day the lively Merry, sitting with downcast eyes under a shady
tree in the churchyard, whither she had retired after fatiguing
herself by the imposition of sundry trials on the temper of Mr
Jonas, felt that a new shadow came between her and the sun.  Raising
her eyes in the expectation of seeing her betrothed, she was not a
little surprised to see old Martin instead.  Her surprise was not
diminished when he took his seat upon the turf beside her, and
opened a conversation thus:

'When are you to be married?'

'Oh! dear Mr Chuzzlewit, my goodness me!  I'm sure I don't know.  Not
yet awhile, I hope.'

'You hope?' said the old man.

It was very gravely said, but she took it for banter, and giggled
excessively.

'Come!' said the old man, with unusual kindness, 'you are young,
good-looking, and I think good-natured!  Frivolous you are, and love
to be, undoubtedly; but you must have some heart.'

'I have not given it all away, I can tell you,' said Merry, nodding
her head shrewdly, and plucking up the grass.

'Have you parted with any of it?'

She threw the grass about, and looked another way, but said nothing.

Martin repeated his question.

'Lor, my dear Mr Chuzzlewit! really you must excuse me!  How very odd
you are.'

'If it be odd in me to desire to know whether you love the young man
whom I understand you are to marry, I AM very odd,' said Martin.
'For that is certainly my wish.'

'He's such a monster, you know,' said Merry, pouting.

'Then you don't love him?' returned the old man.  'Is that your
meaning?'

'Why, my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, I'm sure I tell him a hundred times a
day that I hate him.  You must have heard me tell him that.'

'Often,' said Martin.

'And so I do,' cried Merry.  'I do positively.'

'Being at the same time engaged to marry him,' observed the old man.

'Oh yes,' said Merry.  'But I told the wretch--my dear Mr
Chuzzlewit, I told him when he asked me--that if I ever did marry
him, it should only be that I might hate and tease him all my life.'

She had a suspicion that the old man regarded Jonas with anything
but favour, and intended these remarks to be extremely captivating.
He did not appear, however, to regard them in that light by any
means; for when he spoke again, it was in a tone of severity.

'Look about you,' he said, pointing to the graves; 'and remember
that from your bridal hour to the day which sees you brought as low
as these, and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against
him.  Think, and speak, and act, for once, like an accountable
creature.  Is any control put upon your inclinations?  Are you
forced into this match?  Are you insidiously advised or tempted to
contract it, by any one?  I will not ask by whom; by any one?'

'No,' said Merry, shrugging her shoulders.  'I don't know that I
am.'

'Don't know that you are!  Are you?'

'No,' replied Merry.  'Nobody ever said anything to me about it.  If
any one had tried to make me have him, I wouldn't have had him at
all.'

'I am told that he was at first supposed to be your sister's
admirer,' said Martin.

'Oh, good gracious!  My dear Mr Chuzzlewit, it would be very hard to
make him, though he IS a monster, accountable for other people's
vanity,' said Merry.  'And poor dear Cherry is the vainest darling!'

'It was her mistake, then?'

'I hope it was,' cried Merry; 'but, all along, the dear child has
been so dreadfully jealous, and SO cross, that, upon my word and
honour, it's impossible to please her, and it's of no use trying.'

'Not forced, persuaded, or controlled,' said Martin, thoughtfully.
'And that's true, I see.  There is one chance yet.  You may have
lapsed into this engagement in very giddiness.  It may have been the
wanton act of a light head.  Is that so?'

'My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,' simpered Merry, 'as to light-headedness,
there never was such a feather of a head as mine.  It's perfect
balloon, I declare!  You never DID, you know!'

He waited quietly till she had finished, and then said, steadily and
slowly, and in a softened voice, as if he would still invite her
confidence:

'Have you any wish--or is there anything within your breast that
whispers you may form the wish, if you have time to think--to be
released from this engagement?'

Again Miss Merry pouted, and looked down, and plucked the grass, and
shrugged her shoulders.  No.  She didn't know that she had.  She was
pretty sure she hadn't.  Quite sure, she might say.  She 'didn't
mind it.'

'Has it ever occurred to you,' said Martin, 'that your married life
may perhaps be miserable, full of bitterness, and most unhappy?'

Merry looked down again; and now she tore the grass up by the roots.

'My dear Mr Chuzzlewit, what shocking words!  Of course, I shall
quarrel with him.  I should quarrel with any husband.  Married
people always quarrel, I believe.  But as to being miserable, and
bitter, and all those dreadful things, you know, why I couldn't be
absolutely that, unless he always had the best of it; and I mean to
have the best of it myself.  I always do now,' cried Merry, nodding
her head and giggling very much; 'for I make a perfect slave of the
creature.'

'Let it go on,' said Martin, rising.  'Let it go on!  I sought to
know your mind, my dear, and you have shown it me.  I wish you joy.
Joy!' he repeated, looking full upon her, and pointing to the
wicket-gate where Jonas entered at the moment.  And then, without
waiting for his nephew, he passed out at another gate, and went
away.

'Oh, you terrible old man!' cried the facetious Merry to herself.
'What a perfectly hideous monster to be wandering about churchyards
in the broad daylight, frightening people out of their wits!  Don't
come here, Griffin, or I'll go away directly.'

Mr Jonas was the Griffin.  He sat down upon the grass at her side,
in spite of this warning, and sulkily inquired:

'What's my uncle been a-talking about?'

'About you,' rejoined Merry.  'He says you're not half good enough
for me.'

'Oh, yes, I dare say!  We all know that.  He means to give you some
present worth having, I hope.  Did he say anything that looked like
it?'

'THAT he didn't!' cried Merry, most decisively.

'A stingy old dog he is,' said Jonas.  'Well?'

'Griffin!' cried Miss Mercy, in counterfeit amazement; 'what are you
doing, Griffin?'

'Only giving you a squeeze,' said the discomfited Jonas.  'There's
no harm in that, I suppose?'

'But there is great deal of harm in it, if I don't consider it
agreeable,' returned his cousin.  'Do go along, will you?  You make
me so hot!'

Mr Jonas withdrew his arm, and for a moment looked at her more like
a murderer than a lover.  But he cleared his brow by degrees, and
broke silence with:

'I say, Mel!'

'What do you say, you vulgar thing--you low savage?' cried his fair
betrothed.

'When is it to be?  I can't afford to go on dawdling about here half
my life, I needn't tell you, and Pecksniff says that father's being
so lately dead makes very little odds; for we can be married as
quiet as we please down here, and my being lonely is a good reason
to the neighbours for taking a wife home so soon, especially one
that he knew.  As to crossbones (my uncle, I mean), he's sure not to
put a spoke in the wheel, whatever we settle on, for he told
Pecksniff only this morning, that if YOU liked it he'd nothing at
all to say.  So, Mel,' said Jonas, venturing on another squeeze;
'when shall it be?'

'Upon my word!' cried Merry.

'Upon my soul, if you like,' said Jonas.  'What do you say to next
week, now?'

'To next week!  If you had said next quarter, I should have wondered
at your impudence.'

'But I didn't say next quarter,' retorted Jonas.  'I said next
week.'

'Then, Griffin,' cried Miss Merry, pushing him off, and rising.  'I
say no! not next week.  It shan't be till I choose, and I may not
choose it to be for months.  There!'

He glanced up at her from the ground, almost as darkly as he had
looked at Tom Pinch; but held his peace.

'No fright of a Griffin with a patch over his eye shall dictate to
me or have a voice in the matter,' said Merry.  'There!'

Still Mr Jonas held his peace.

'If it's next month, that shall be the very earliest; but I won't
say when it shall be till to-morrow; and if you don't like that, it
shall never be at all,' said Merry; 'and if you follow me about and
won't leave me alone, it shall never be at all.  There!v And if you
don't do everything I order you to do, it shall never be at all.  So
don't follow me.  There, Griffin!'

And with that, she skipped away, among the trees.

'Ecod, my lady!' said Jonas, looking after her, and biting a piece
of straw, almost to powder; 'you'll catch it for this, when you ARE
married.  It's all very well now--it keeps one on, somehow, and you
know it--but I'll pay you off scot and lot by-and-bye.  This is a
plaguey dull sort of a place for a man to be sitting by himself in.
I never could abide a mouldy old churchyard.'

As he turned into the avenue himself, Miss Merry, who was far ahead,
happened to look back.

'Ah!' said Jonas, with a sullen smile, and a nod that was not
addressed to her.  'Make the most of it while it lasts.  Get in your
hay while the sun shines.  Take your own way as long as it's in your
power, my lady!'



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

IS IN PART PROFESSIONAL, AND FURNISHES THE READER WITH SOME VALUABLE
HINTS IN RELATION TO THE MANAGEMENT OF A SICK CHAMBER


Mr Mould was surrounded by his household gods.  He was enjoying
the sweets of domestic repose, and gazing on them with a calm
delight.  The day being sultry, and the window open, the legs of Mr
Mould were on the window-seat, and his back reclined against the
shutter.  Over his shining head a handkerchief was drawn, to guard
his baldness from the flies.  The room was fragrant with the smell
of punch, a tumbler of which grateful compound stood upon a small
round table, convenient to the hand of Mr Mould; so deftly mixed
that as his eye looked down into the cool transparent drink, another
eye, peering brightly from behind the crisp lemon-peel, looked up at
him, and twinkled like a star.

Deep in the City, and within the ward of Cheap, stood Mr Mould's
establishment.  His Harem, or, in other words, the common sitting
room of Mrs Mould and family, was at the back, over the little
counting-house behind the shop; abutting on a churchyard small and
shady.  In this domestic chamber Mr Mould now sat; gazing, a placid
man, upon his punch and home.  If, for a moment at a time, he sought
a wider prospect, whence he might return with freshened zest to
these enjoyments, his moist glance wandered like a sunbeam through a
rural screen of scarlet runners, trained on strings before the
window, and he looked down, with an artist's eye, upon the graves.

The partner of his life, and daughters twain, were Mr Mould's
companions.  Plump as any partridge was each Miss Mould, and Mrs M.
was plumper than the two together.  So round and chubby were their
fair proportions, that they might have been the bodies once
belonging to the angels' faces in the shop below, grown up, with
other heads attached to make them mortal.  Even their peachy cheeks
were puffed out and distended, as though they ought of right to be
performing on celestial trumpets.  The bodiless cherubs in the shop,
who were depicted as constantly blowing those instruments for ever
and ever without any lungs, played, it is to be presumed, entirely
by ear.

Mr Mould looked lovingly at Mrs Mould, who sat hard by, and was a
helpmate to him in his punch as in all other things.  Each seraph
daughter, too, enjoyed her share of his regards, and smiled upon him
in return.  So bountiful were Mr Mould's possessions, and so large
his stock in trade, that even there, within his household sanctuary,
stood a cumbrous press, whose mahogany maw was filled with shrouds,
and winding-sheets, and other furniture of funerals.  But, though
the Misses Mould had been brought up, as one may say, beneath his
eye, it had cast no shadow on their timid infancy or blooming youth.
Sporting behind the scenes of death and burial from cradlehood, the
Misses Mould knew better.  Hat-bands, to them, were but so many yards
of silk or crape; the final robe but such a quantity of linen.  The
Misses Mould could idealise a player's habit, or a court-lady's
petticoat, or even an act of parliament.  But they were not to be
taken in by palls.  They made them sometimes.

The premises of Mr Mould were hard of hearing to the boisterous
noises in the great main streets, and nestled in a quiet corner,
where the City strife became a drowsy hum, that sometimes rose and
sometimes fell and sometimes altogether ceased; suggesting to a
thoughtful mind a stoppage in Cheapside.  The light came sparkling
in among the scarlet runners, as if the churchyard winked at Mr
Mould, and said, 'We understand each other;' and from the distant
shop a pleasant sound arose of coffin-making with a low melodious
hammer, rat, tat, tat, tat, alike promoting slumber and digestion.

'Quite the buzz of insects,' said Mr Mould, closing his eyes in a
perfect luxury.  'It puts one in mind of the sound of animated
nature in the agricultural districts.  It's exactly like the
woodpecker tapping.'

'The woodpecker tapping the hollow ELM tree,' observed Mrs Mould,
adapting the words of the popular melody to the description of wood
commonly used in the trade.

'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr Mould.  'Not at all bad, my dear.  We shall be
glad to hear from you again, Mrs M.  Hollow elm tree, eh!  Ha, ha!
Very good indeed.  I've seen worse than that in the Sunday papers,
my love.'

Mrs Mould, thus encouraged, took a little more of the punch, and
handed it to her daughters, who dutifully followed the example of
their mother.

'Hollow ELM tree, eh?' said Mr Mould, making a slight motion with
his legs in his enjoyment of the joke.  'It's beech in the song.
Elm, eh?  Yes, to be sure.  Ha, ha, ha!  Upon my soul, that's one of
the best things I know?'  He was so excessively tickled by the jest
that he couldn't forget it, but repeated twenty times, 'Elm, eh?
Yes, to be sure.  Elm, of course.  Ha, ha, ha!  Upon my life, you
know, that ought to be sent to somebody who could make use of it.
It's one of the smartest things that ever was said.  Hollow ELM
tree, eh? of course.  Very hollow.  Ha, ha, ha!'

Here a knock was heard at the room door.

'That's Tacker, I know,' said Mrs Mould, 'by the wheezing he makes.
Who that hears him now, would suppose he'd ever had wind enough to
carry the feathers on his head!  Come in, Tacker.'

'Beg your pardon, ma'am,' said Tacker, looking in a little way.  'I
thought our Governor was here.'

'Well! so he is,' cried Mould.

'Oh! I didn't see you, I'm sure,' said Tacker, looking in a little
farther.  'You wouldn't be inclined to take a walking one of two,
with the plain wood and a tin plate, I suppose?'

'Certainly not,' replied Mr Mould, 'much too common.  Nothing to say
to it.'

'I told 'em it was precious low,' observed Mr Tacker.

'Tell 'em to go somewhere else.  We don't do that style of business
here,' said Mr Mould.  'Like their impudence to propose it.  Who is
it?'

'Why,' returned Tacker, pausing, 'that's where it is, you see.  It's
the beadle's son-in-law.'

'The beadle's son-in-law, eh?' said Mould.  'Well!  I'll do it if the
beadle follows in his cocked hat; not else.  We carry it off that
way, by looking official, but it'll be low enough, then.  His cocked
hat, mind!'

'I'll take care, sir,' rejoined Tacker.  'Oh! Mrs Gamp's below, and
wants to speak to you.'

'Tell Mrs Gamp to come upstairs,' said Mould.  'Now Mrs Gamp,
what's YOUR news?'

The lady in question was by this time in the doorway, curtseying to
Mrs Mould.  At the same moment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon
the breeze, as if a passing fairy had hiccoughed, and had previously
been to a wine-vaults.

Mrs Gamp made no response to Mr Mould, but curtseyed to Mrs Mould
again, and held up her hands and eyes, as in a devout thanksgiving
that she looked so well.  She was neatly, but not gaudily attired,
in the weeds she had worn when Mr Pecksniff had the pleasure of
making her acquaintance; and was perhaps the turning of a scale more
snuffy.

'There are some happy creeturs,' Mrs Gamp observed, 'as time runs
back'ards with, and you are one, Mrs Mould; not that he need do
nothing except use you in his most owldacious way for years to come,
I'm sure; for young you are and will be.  I says to Mrs Harris,' Mrs
Gamp continued, 'only t'other day; the last Monday evening fortnight
as ever dawned upon this Piljian's Projiss of a mortal wale; I says
to Mrs Harris when she says to me, "Years and our trials, Mrs Gamp,
sets marks upon us all."--"Say not the words, Mrs Harris, if you and
me is to be continual friends, for sech is not the case.  Mrs
Mould," I says, making so free, I will confess, as use the name,'
(she curtseyed here), '"is one of them that goes agen the
obserwation straight; and never, Mrs Harris, whilst I've a drop of
breath to draw, will I set by, and not stand up, don't think it."--
"I ast your pardon, ma'am," says Mrs Harris, "and I humbly grant
your grace; for if ever a woman lived as would see her feller
creeturs into fits to serve her friends, well do I know that woman's
name is Sairey Gamp."'

At this point she was fain to stop for breath; and advantage may be
taken of the circumstance, to state that a fearful mystery
surrounded this lady of the name of Harris, whom no one in the
circle of Mrs Gamp's acquaintance had ever seen; neither did any
human being know her place of residence, though Mrs Gamp appeared on
her own showing to be in constant communication with her.  There
were conflicting rumours on the subject; but the prevalent opinion
was that she was a phantom of Mrs Gamp's brain--as Messrs. Doe and
Roe are fictions of the law--created for the express purpose of
holding visionary dialogues with her on all manner of subjects, and
invariably winding up with a compliment to the excellence of her
nature.

'And likeways what a pleasure,' said Mrs Gamp, turning with a
tearful smile towards the daughters, 'to see them two young ladies
as I know'd afore a tooth in their pretty heads was cut, and have
many a day seen--ah, the sweet creeturs!--playing at berryins down
in the shop, and follerin' the order-book to its long home in the
iron safe!  But that's all past and over, Mr Mould;' as she thus got
in a carefully regulated routine to that gentleman, she shook her
head waggishly; 'That's all past and over now, sir, an't it?'

'Changes, Mrs Gamp, changes!' returned the undertaker.

'More changes too, to come, afore we've done with changes, sir,'
said Mrs Gamp, nodding yet more waggishly than before.  'Young
ladies with such faces thinks of something else besides berryins,
don't they, sir?'

'I am sure I don't know, Mrs Gamp,' said Mould, with a chuckle--'Not
bad in Mrs Gamp, my dear?'

'Oh yes, you do know, sir!' said Mrs Gamp, 'and so does Mrs Mould,
your 'ansome pardner too, sir; and so do I, although the blessing of
a daughter was deniged me; which, if we had had one, Gamp would
certainly have drunk its little shoes right off its feet, as with
our precious boy he did, and arterward send the child a errand to
sell his wooden leg for any money it would fetch as matches in the
rough, and bring it home in liquor; which was truly done beyond his
years, for ev'ry individgle penny that child lost at toss or buy for
kidney ones; and come home arterwards quite bold, to break the news,
and offering to drown himself if sech would be a satisfaction to his
parents.--Oh yes, you do know, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, wiping her eye
with her shawl, and resuming the thread of her discourse.  'There's
something besides births and berryins in the newspapers, an't there,
Mr Mould?'

Mr Mould winked at Mrs Mould, whom he had by this time taken on his
knee, and said: 'No doubt.  A good deal more, Mrs Gamp.  Upon my
life, Mrs Gamp is very far from bad, my dear!'

'There's marryings, an't there, sir?' said Mrs Gamp, while both the
daughters blushed and tittered.  'Bless their precious hearts, and
well they knows it!  Well you know'd it too, and well did Mrs Mould,
when you was at their time of life!  But my opinion is, you're all of
one age now.  For as to you and Mrs Mould, sir, ever having
grandchildren--'

'Oh!  Fie, fie!  Nonsense, Mrs Gamp,' replied the undertaker.
'Devilish smart, though.  Ca-pi-tal!'--this was in a whisper.  'My
dear'--aloud again--'Mrs Gamp can drink a glass of rum, I dare say.
Sit down, Mrs Gamp, sit down.'

Mrs Gamp took the chair that was nearest the door, and casting up
her eyes towards the ceiling, feigned to be wholly insensible to the
fact of a glass of rum being in preparation, until it was placed in
her hand by one of the young ladies, when she exhibited the greatest
surprise.

'A thing,' she said, 'as hardly ever, Mrs Mould, occurs with me
unless it is when I am indispoged, and find my half a pint of porter
settling heavy on the chest.  Mrs Harris often and often says to me,
"Sairey Gamp," she says, "you raly do amaze me!"  "Mrs Harris," I
says to her, "why so?  Give it a name, I beg."  "Telling the truth
then, ma'am," says Mrs Harris, "and shaming him as shall be nameless
betwixt you and me, never did I think till I know'd you, as any
woman could sick-nurse and monthly likeways, on the little that you
takes to drink."   "Mrs Harris," I says to her, "none on us knows what
we can do till we tries; and wunst, when me and Gamp kept 'ouse, I
thought so too.  But now," I says, "my half a pint of porter fully
satisfies; perwisin', Mrs Harris, that it is brought reg'lar, and
draw'd mild.  Whether I sicks or monthlies, ma'am, I hope I does my
duty, but I am but a poor woman, and I earns my living hard;
therefore I DO require it, which I makes confession, to be brought
reg'lar and draw'd mild."'

The precise connection between these observations and the glass of
rum, did not appear; for Mrs Gamp proposing as a toast 'The best of
lucks to all!' took off the dram in quite a scientific manner,
without any further remarks.

'And what's your news, Mrs Gamp?' asked Mould again, as that lady
wiped her lips upon her shawl, and nibbled a corner off a soft
biscuit, which she appeared to carry in her pocket as a provision
against contingent drams.  'How's Mr Chuffey?'

'Mr Chuffey, sir,' she replied, 'is jest as usual; he an't no better
and he an't no worse.  I take it very kind in the gentleman to have
wrote up to you and said, "let Mrs Gamp take care of him till I come
home;" but ev'rythink he does is kind.  There an't a many like him.
If there was, we shouldn't want no churches.'

'What do you want to speak to me about, Mrs Gamp?' said Mould,
coming to the point.

'Jest this, sir,' Mrs Gamp returned, 'with thanks to you for asking.
There IS a gent, sir, at the Bull in Holborn, as has been took ill
there, and is bad abed.  They have a day nurse as was recommended
from Bartholomew's; and well I knows her, Mr Mould, her name bein'
Mrs Prig, the best of creeturs.  But she is otherways engaged at
night, and they are in wants of night-watching; consequent she says
to them, having reposed the greatest friendliness in me for twenty
year, "The soberest person going, and the best of blessings in a
sick room, is Mrs Gamp.  Send a boy to Kingsgate Street," she says,
"and snap her up at any price, for Mrs Gamp is worth her weight and
more in goldian guineas."  My landlord brings the message down to me,
and says, "bein' in a light place where you are, and this job
promising so well, why not unite the two?"  "No, sir," I says, "not
unbeknown to Mr Mould, and therefore do not think it.  But I will go
to Mr Mould," I says, "and ast him, if you like."'  Here she looked
sideways at the undertaker, and came to a stop.

'Night-watching, eh?' said Mould, rubbing his chin.

'From eight o'clock till eight, sir.  I will not deceive you,' Mrs
Gamp rejoined.

'And then go back, eh?' said would.

'Quite free, then, sir, to attend to Mr Chuffey.  His ways bein'
quiet, and his hours early, he'd be abed, sir, nearly all the time.
I will not deny,' said Mrs Gamp with meekness, 'that I am but a poor
woman, and that the money is a object; but do not let that act upon
you, Mr Mould.  Rich folks may ride on camels, but it an't so easy
for 'em to see out of a needle's eye.  That is my comfort, and I
hope I knows it.'

'Well, Mrs Gamp,' observed Mould, 'I don't see any particular
objection to your earning an honest penny under such circumstances.
I should keep it quiet, I think, Mrs Gamp.  I wouldn't mention it to
Mr Chuzzlewit on his return, for instance, unless it were necessary,
or he asked you pointblank.'

'The very words was on my lips, sir,' Mrs Gamp rejoined.  'Suppoging
that the gent should die, I hope I might take the liberty of saying
as I know'd some one in the undertaking line, and yet give no
offence to you, sir?'

'Certainly, Mrs Gamp,' said Mould, with much condescension.  'You
may casually remark, in such a case, that we do the thing pleasantly
and in a great variety of styles, and are generally considered to
make it as agreeable as possible to the feelings of the survivors.
But don't obtrude it, don't obtrude it.  Easy, easy!  My dear, you
may as well give Mrs Gamp a card or two, if you please.'

Mrs Gamp received them, and scenting no more rum in the wind (for
the bottle was locked up again) rose to take her departure.

'Wishing ev'ry happiness to this happy family,' said Mrs Gamp 'with
all my heart.  Good arternoon, Mrs Mould!  If I was Mr would I should
be jealous of you, ma'am; and I'm sure, if I was you, I should be
jealous of Mr Mould.'

'Tut, tut!  Bah, bah!  Go along, Mrs Gamp!' cried the delighted
undertaker.

'As to the young ladies,' said Mrs Gamp, dropping a curtsey, 'bless
their sweet looks--how they can ever reconsize it with their duties
to be so grown up with such young parents, it an't for sech as me to
give a guess at.'

'Nonsense, nonsense.  Be off, Mrs Gamp!' cried Mould.  But in the
height of his gratification he actually pinched Mrs Mould as he said
it.

'I'll tell you what, my dear,' he observed, when Mrs Gamp had at
last withdrawn and shut the door, 'that's a ve-ry shrewd woman.
That's a woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station
in life.  That's a woman who observes and reflects in an uncommon
manner.  She's the sort of woman now,' said Mould, drawing his silk
handkerchief over his head again, and composing himself for a nap
'one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing; and do it
neatly, too!'

Mrs Mould and her daughters fully concurred in these remarks; the
subject of which had by this time reached the street, where she
experienced so much inconvenience from the air, that she was obliged
to stand under an archway for a short time, to recover herself.
Even after this precaution, she walked so unsteadily as to attract
the compassionate regards of divers kind-hearted boys, who took the
liveliest interest in her disorder; and in their simple language
bade her be of good cheer, for she was 'only a little screwed.'

Whatever she was, or whatever name the vocabulary of medical science
would have bestowed upon her malady, Mrs Gamp was perfectly
acquainted with the way home again; and arriving at the house of
Anthony Chuzzlewit & Son, lay down to rest.  Remaining there until
seven o'clock in the evening, and then persuading poor old Chuffey
to betake himself to bed, she sallied forth upon her new engagement.
First, she went to her private lodgings in Kingsgate Street, for a
bundle of robes and wrappings comfortable in the night season; and
then repaired to the Bull in Holborn, which she reached as the
clocks were striking eight.

As she turned into the yard, she stopped; for the landlord,
landlady, and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together
talking earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just
come or to be just going away.  The first words that struck upon Mrs
Gamp's ear obviously bore reference to the patient; and it being
expedient that all good attendants should know as much as possible
about the case on which their skill is brought to bear, Mrs Gamp
listened as a matter of duty.

'No better, then?' observed the gentleman.

'Worse!' said the landlord.

'Much worse,' added the landlady.

'Oh! a deal badder,' cried the chambermaid from the background,
opening her eyes very wide, and shaking her head.

'Poor fellow!' said the gentleman, 'I am sorry to hear it.  The
worst of it is, that I have no idea what friends or relations he
has, or where they live, except that it certainly is not in London.'

The landlord looked at the landlady; the landlady looked at the
landlord; and the chambermaid remarked, hysterically, 'that of all
the many wague directions she had ever seen or heerd of (and they
wasn't few in an hotel), THAT was the waguest.'

'The fact is, you see,' pursued the gentleman, 'as I told you
yesterday when you sent to me, I really know very little about him.
We were school-fellows together; but since that time I have only met
him twice.  On both occasions I was in London for a boy's holiday
(having come up for a week or so from Wiltshire), and lost sight of
him again directly.  The letter bearing my name and address which
you found upon his table, and which led to your applying to me, is
in answer, you will observe, to one he wrote from this house the
very day he was taken ill, making an appointment with him at his own
request.  Here is his letter, if you wish to see it.'

The landlord read it; the landlady looked over him.  The
chambermaid, in the background, made out as much of it as she could,
and invented the rest; believing it all from that time forth as a
positive piece of evidence.

'He has very little luggage, you say?' observed the gentleman, who
was no other than our old friend, John Westlock.

'Nothing but a portmanteau,' said the landlord; 'and very little in
it.'

'A few pounds in his purse, though?'

'Yes.  It's sealed up, and in the cash-box.  I made a memorandum of
the amount, which you're welcome to see.'

'Well!' said John, 'as the medical gentleman says the fever must
take its course, and nothing can be done just now beyond giving him
his drinks regularly and having him carefully attended to, nothing
more can be said that I know of, until he is in a condition to give
us some information.  Can you suggest anything else?'

'N-no,' replied the landlord, 'except--'

'Except, who's to pay, I suppose?' said John.

'Why,' hesitated the landlord, 'it would be as well.'

'Quite as well,' said the landlady.

'Not forgetting to remember the servants,' said the chambermaid in a
bland whisper.

'It is but reasonable, I fully admit,' said John Westlock.  'At all
events, you have the stock in hand to go upon for the present; and I
will readily undertake to pay the doctor and the nurses.'

'Ah!' cried Mrs Gamp.  'A rayal gentleman!'

She groaned her admiration so audibly, that they all turned round.
Mrs Gamp felt the necessity of advancing, bundle in hand, and
introducing herself.

'The night-nurse,' she observed, 'from Kingsgate Street, well
beknown to Mrs Prig the day-nurse, and the best of creeturs.  How is
the poor dear gentleman to-night?  If he an't no better yet, still
that is what must be expected and prepared for.  It an't the fust
time by a many score, ma'am,' dropping a curtsey to the landlady,
'that Mrs Prig and me has nussed together, turn and turn about, one
off, one on.  We knows each other's ways, and often gives relief
when others fail.  Our charges is but low, sir'--Mrs Gamp
addressed herself to John on this head--'considerin' the nater of
our painful dooty.  If they wos made accordin' to our wishes, they
would be easy paid.'

Regarding herself as having now delivered her inauguration address,
Mrs Gamp curtseyed all round, and signified her wish to be conducted
to the scene of her official duties.  The chambermaid led her,
through a variety of intricate passages, to the top of the house;
and pointing at length to a solitary door at the end of a gallery,
informed her that yonder was the chamber where the patient lay.
That done, she hurried off with all the speed she could make.

Mrs Gamp traversed the gallery in a great heat from having carried
her large bundle up so many stairs, and tapped at the door which was
immediately opened by Mrs Prig, bonneted and shawled and all
impatience to be gone.  Mrs Prig was of the Gamp build, but not so
fat; and her voice was deeper and more like a man's.  She had also a
beard.

'I began to think you warn't a-coming!' Mrs Prig observed, in some
displeasure.

'It shall be made good to-morrow night,' said Mrs Gamp 'Honorable.
I had to go and fetch my things.'  She had begun to make signs of
inquiry in reference to the position of the patient and his
overhearing them--for there was a screen before the door--when
Mrs Prig settled that point easily.

'Oh!' she said aloud, 'he's quiet, but his wits is gone.  It an't no
matter wot you say.'

'Anythin' to tell afore you goes, my dear?' asked Mrs Gamp, setting
her bundle down inside the door, and looking affectionately at her
partner.

'The pickled salmon,' Mrs Prig replied, 'is quite delicious.  I can
partlck'ler recommend it.  Don't have nothink to say to the cold
meat, for it tastes of the stable.  The drinks is all good.'

Mrs Gamp expressed herself much gratified.

'The physic and them things is on the drawers and mankleshelf,' said
Mrs Prig, cursorily.  'He took his last slime draught at seven.  The
easy-chair an't soft enough.  You'll want his piller.'

Mrs Gamp thanked her for these hints, and giving her a friendly good
night, held the door open until she had disappeared at the other end
of the gallery.  Having thus performed the hospitable duty of seeing
her safely off, she shut it, locked it on the inside, took up her
bundle, walked round the screen, and entered on her occupation of
the sick chamber.

'A little dull, but not so bad as might be,' Mrs Gamp remarked.
'I'm glad to see a parapidge, in case of fire, and lots of roofs and
chimley-pots to walk upon.'

It will be seen from these remarks that Mrs Gamp was looking out of
window.  When she had exhausted the prospect, she tried the
easy-chair, which she indignantly declared was 'harder than a
brickbadge.'  Next she pursued her researches among the
physic-bottles, glasses, jugs, and tea-cups; and when she had
entirely satisfied her curiosity on all these subjects of
investigation, she untied her bonnet-strings and strolled up to the
bedside to take a look at the patient.

A young man--dark and not ill-looking--with long black hair, that
seemed the blacker for the whiteness of the bed-clothes.  His eyes
were partly open, and he never ceased to roll his head from side to
side upon the pillow, keeping his body almost quiet.  He did not
utter words; but every now and then gave vent to an expression of
impatience or fatigue, sometimes of surprise; and still his restless
head--oh, weary, weary hour!--went to and fro without a moment's
intermission.

Mrs Gamp solaced herself with a pinch of snuff, and stood looking at
him with her head inclined a little sideways, as a connoisseur might
gaze upon a doubtful work of art.  By degrees, a horrible
remembrance of one branch of her calling took possession of the
woman; and stooping down, she pinned his wandering arms against his
sides, to see how he would look if laid out as a dead man.  Her
fingers itched to compose his limbs in that last marble attitude.

'Ah!' said Mrs Gamp, walking away from the bed, 'he'd make a lovely
corpse.'

She now proceeded to unpack her bundle; lighted a candle with the
aid of a fire-box on the drawers; filled a small kettle, as a
preliminary to refreshing herself with a cup of tea in the course of
the night; laid what she called 'a little bit of fire,' for the same
philanthropic purpose; and also set forth a small tea-board, that
nothing might be wanting for her comfortable enjoyment.  These
preparations occupied so long, that when they were brought to a
conclusion it was high time to think about supper; so she rang the
bell and ordered it.

'I think, young woman,' said Mrs Gamp to the assistant chambermaid,
in a tone expressive of weakness, 'that I could pick a little bit of
pickled salmon, with a nice little sprig of fennel, and a sprinkling
of white pepper.  I takes new bread, my dear, with just a little pat
of fresh butter, and a mossel of cheese.  In case there should be
such a thing as a cowcumber in the 'ouse, will you be so kind as
bring it, for I'm rather partial to 'em, and they does a world of
good in a sick room.  If they draws the Brighton Old Tipper here, I
takes THAT ale at night, my love, it bein' considered wakeful by the
doctors.  And whatever you do, young woman, don't bring more than a
shilling's-worth of gin and water-warm when I rings the bell a
second time; for that is always my allowance, and I never takes a
drop beyond!'

Having preferred these moderate requests, Mrs Gamp observed that she
would stand at the door until the order was executed, to the end
that the patient might not be disturbed by her opening it a second
time; and therefore she would thank the young woman to 'look sharp.'

A tray was brought with everything upon it, even to the cucumber and
Mrs Gamp accordingly sat down to eat and drink in high good humour.
The extent to which she availed herself of the vinegar, and supped
up that refreshing fluid with the blade of her knife, can scarcely
be expressed in narrative.

'Ah!' sighed Mrs Gamp, as she meditated over the warm shilling's-
worth, 'what a blessed thing it is--living in a wale--to be
contented!  What a blessed thing it is to make sick people happy in
their beds, and never mind one's self as long as one can do a
service!  I don't believe a finer cowcumber was ever grow'd.  I'm sure
I never see one!'

She moralised in the same vein until her glass was empty, and then
admistered the patient's medicine, by the simple process of
clutching his windpipe to make him gasp, and immediately pouring it
down his throat.

'I a'most forgot the piller, I declare!' said Mrs Gamp, drawing it
away.  'There!  Now he's comfortable as he can be, I'm sure!  I must
try to make myself as much so as I can.'

With this view, she went about the construction of an extemporaneous
bed in the easy-chair, with the addition of the next easy one for
her feet.  Having formed the best couch that the circumstances
admitted of, she took out of her bundle a yellow night-cap, of
prodigious size, in shape resembling a cabbage; which article of
dress she fixed and tied on with the utmost care, previously
divesting herself of a row of bald old curls that could scarcely be
called false, they were so very innocent of anything approaching to
deception.  From the same repository she brought forth a night-jacket,
in which she also attired herself.  Finally, she produced a
watchman's coat which she tied round her neck by the sleeves, so
that she become two people; and looked, behind, as if she were in
the act of being embraced by one of the old patrol.

All these arrangements made, she lighted the rush-light, coiled
herself up on her couch, and went to sleep.  Ghostly and dark the
room became, and full of lowering shadows.  The distant noises in
the streets were gradually hushed; the house was quiet as a
sepulchre; the dead of might was coffined in the silent city.

Oh, weary, weary hour!  Oh, haggard mind, groping darkly through the
past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present;
dragging its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and
revels, and scenes of awful pomp; seeking but a moment's rest among
the long-forgotten haunts of childhood, and the resorts of
yesterday; and dimly finding fear and horror everywhere!  Oh, weary,
weary hour!  What were the wanderings of Cain, to these!

Still, without a moment's interval, the burning head tossed to and
fro.  Still, from time to time, fatigue, impatience, suffering, and
surprise, found utterance upon that rack, and plainly too, though
never once in words.  At length, in the solemn hour of midnight, he
began to talk; waiting awfully for answers sometimes; as though
invisible companions were about his bed; and so replying to their
speech and questioning again.

Mrs Gamp awoke, and sat up in her bed; presenting on the wall the
shadow of a gigantic night constable, struggling with a prisoner.

'Come!  Hold your tongue!' she cried, in sharp reproof.  'Don't make
none of that noise here.'

There was no alteration in the face, or in the incessant motion of
the head, but he talked on wildly.

'Ah!' said Mrs Gamp, coming out of the chair with an impatient
shiver; 'I thought I was a-sleepin' too pleasant to last!  The
devil's in the night, I think, it's turned so chilly!'

'Don't drink so much!' cried the sick man.  'You'll ruin us all.
Don't you see how the fountain sinks?  Look at the mark where the
sparkling water was just now!'

'Sparkling water, indeed!' said Mrs Gamp.  'I'll have a sparkling
cup o' tea, I think.  I wish you'd hold your noise!'

He burst into a laugh, which, being prolonged, fell off into a
dismal wail.  Checking himself, with fierce inconstancy he began
to count--fast.

'One--two--three--four--five--six.'

"One, two, buckle my shoe,"' said Mrs Gamp, who was now on her
knees, lighting the fire, "three, four, shut the door,"--I wish
you'd shut your mouth, young man--"five, six, picking up sticks."
If I'd got a few handy, I should have the kettle boiling all the
sooner.'

Awaiting this desirable consummation, she sat down so close to the
fender (which was a high one) that her nose rested upon it; and for
some time she drowsily amused herself by sliding that feature
backwards and forwards along the brass top, as far as she could,
without changing her position to do it.  She maintained, all the
while, a running commentary upon the wanderings of the man in bed.

'That makes five hundred and twenty-one men, all dressed alike, and
with the same distortion on their faces, that have passed in at the
window, and out at the door,' he cried, anxiously.  'Look there!
Five hundred and twenty-two--twenty-three--twenty-four.  Do you see
them?'

'Ah! I see 'em,' said Mrs Gamp; 'all the whole kit of 'em numbered
like hackney-coaches, an't they?'

'Touch me!  Let me be sure of this.  Touch me!'

'You'll take your next draught when I've made the kettle bile,'
retorted Mrs Gamp, composedly, 'and you'll be touched then.  You'll
be touched up, too, if you don't take it quiet.'

'Five hundred and twenty-eight, five hundred and twenty-nine, five
hundred and thirty.--Look here!'

'What's the matter now?' said Mrs Gamp.

'They're coming four abreast, each man with his arm entwined in the
next man's, and his hand upon his shoulder.  What's that upon the
arm of every man, and on the flag?'

'Spiders, p'raps,' said Mrs Gamp.

'Crape!  Black crape!  Good God! why do they wear it outside?'

'Would you have 'em carry black crape in their insides?' Mrs Gamp
retorted.  'Hold your noise, hold your noise.'

The fire beginning by this time to impart a grateful warmth, Mrs
Gamp became silent; gradually rubbed her nose more and more slowly
along the top of the fender; and fell into a heavy doze.  She was
awakened by the room ringing (as she fancied) with a name she knew:

'Chuzzlewit!'

The sound was so distinct and real, and so full of agonised
entreaty, that Mrs Gamp jumped up in terror, and ran to the door.
She expected to find the passage filled with people, come to tell
her that the house in the city had taken fire.  But the place was
empty; not a soul was there.  She opened the window, and looked out.
Dark, dull, dingy, and desolate house-tops.  As she passed to her
seat again, she glanced at the patient.  Just the same; but silent.
Mrs Gamp was so warm now, that she threw off the watchman's coat,
and fanned herself.

'It seemed to make the wery bottles ring,' she said.  'What could I
have been a-dreaming of?  That dratted Chuffey, I'll be bound.'

The supposition was probable enough.  At any rate, a pinch of snuff,
and the song of the steaming kettle, quite restored the tone of Mrs
Gamp's nerves, which were none of the weakest.  She brewed her tea;
made some buttered toast; and sat down at the tea-board, with her
face to the fire.

When once again, in a tone more terrible than that which had
vibrated in her slumbering ear, these words were shrieked out:

'Chuzzlewit!  Jonas!  No!'

Mrs Gamp dropped the cup she was in the act of raising to her lips,
and turned round with a start that made the little tea-board leap.
The cry had come from the bed.


It was bright morning the next time Mrs Gamp looked out of the
window, and the sun was rising cheerfully.  Lighter and lighter grew
the sky, and noisier the streets; and high into the summer air
uprose the smoke of newly kindled fires, until the busy day was
broad awake.

Mrs Prig relieved punctually, having passed a good night at her
other patient's.  Mr Westlock came at the same time, but he was not
admitted, the disorder being infectious.  The doctor came too.  The
doctor shook his head.  It was all he could do, under the
circumstances, and he did it well.

'What sort of a night, nurse?'

'Restless, sir,' said Mrs Gamp.

'Talk much?'

'Middling, sir,' said Mrs Gamp.

'Nothing to the purpose, I suppose?'

'Oh bless you, no, sir.  Only jargon.'

'Well!' said the doctor, 'we must keep him quiet; keep the room
cool; give him his draughts regularly; and see that he's carefully
looked to.  That's all!'

'And as long as Mrs Prig and me waits upon him, sir, no fear of
that,' said Mrs Gamp.

'I suppose,' observed Mrs Prig, when they had curtseyed the doctor
out; 'there's nothin' new?'

'Nothin' at all, my dear,' said Mrs Gamp.  'He's rather wearin' in
his talk from making up a lot of names; elseways you needn't mind
him.'

'Oh, I shan't mind him,' Mrs Prig returned.  'I have somethin' else
to think of.'

'I pays my debts to-night, you know, my dear, and comes afore my
time,' said Mrs Gamp.  'But, Betsy Prig'--speaking with great
feeling, and laying her hand upon her arm--'try the cowcumbers, God
bless you!'



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING, AND A PROMISING PROSPECT


The laws of sympathy between beards and birds, and the secret source
of that attraction which frequently impels a shaver of the one to be
a dealer in the other, are questions for the subtle reasoning of
scientific bodies; not the less so, because their investigation
would seem calculated to lead to no particular result.  It is enough
to know that the artist who had the honour of entertaining Mrs Gamp
as his first-floor lodger, united the two pursuits of barbering and
bird-fancying; and that it was not an original idea of his, but one
in which he had, dispersed about the by-streets and suburbs of the
town, a host of rivals.

The name of the householder was Paul Sweedlepipe.  But he was
commonly called Poll Sweedlepipe; and was not uncommonly believed to
have been so christened, among his friends and neighbours.

With the exception of the staircase, and his lodger's private
apartment, Poll Sweedlepipe's house was one great bird's nest.
Gamecocks resided in the kitchen; pheasants wasted the brightness of
their golden plumage on the garret; bantams roosted in the cellar;
owls had possession of the bedroom; and specimens of all the smaller
fry of birds chirrupped and twittered in the shop.  The staircase
was sacred to rabbits.  There in hutches of all shapes and kinds,
made from old packing-cases, boxes, drawers, and tea-chests, they
increased in a prodigious degree, and contributed their share
towards that complicated whiff which, quite impartially, and without
distinction of persons, saluted every nose that was put into
Sweedlepipe's easy shaving-shop.

Many noses found their way there, for all that, especially on Sunday
morning, before church-time.  Even archbishops shave, or must be
shaved, on a Sunday, and beards WILL grow after twelve o'clock on
Saturday night, though it be upon the chins of base mechanics; who,
not being able to engage their valets by the quarter, hire them by
the job, and pay them--oh, the wickedness of copper coin!--in dirty
pence.  Poll Sweedlepipe, the sinner, shaved all comers at a penny
each, and cut the hair of any customer for twopence; and being a
lone unmarried man, and having some connection in the bird line, Poll
got on tolerably well.

He was a little elderly man, with a clammy cold right hand, from
which even rabbits and birds could not remove the smell of shaving-
soap.  Poll had something of the bird in his nature; not of the
hawk or eagle, but of the sparrow, that builds in chimney-stacks and
inclines to human company.  He was not quarrelsome, though, like the
sparrow; but peaceful, like the dove.  In his walk he strutted; and,
in this respect, he bore a faint resemblance to the pigeon, as well
as in a certain prosiness of speech, which might, in its monotony,
be likened to the cooing of that bird.  He was very inquisitive; and
when he stood at his shop-door in the evening-tide, watching the
neighbours, with his head on one side, and his eye cocked knowingly,
there was a dash of the raven in him.  Yet there was no more
wickedness in Poll than in a robin.  Happily, too, when any of his
ornithological properties were on the verge of going too far, they
were quenched, dissolved, melted down, and neutralised in the barber;
just as his bald head--otherwise, as the head of a shaved magpie--
lost itself in a wig of curly black ringlets, parted on one side,
and cut away almost to the crown, to indicate immense capacity of
intellect.

Poll had a very small, shrill treble voice, which might have led the
wags of Kingsgate Street to insist the more upon his feminine
designation.  He had a tender heart, too; for, when he had a good
commission to provide three or four score sparrows for a shooting-
match, he would observe, in a compassionate tone, how singular it
was that sparrows should have been made expressly for such purposes.
The question, whether men were made to shoot them, never entered
into Poll's philosophy.

Poll wore, in his sporting character, a velveteen coat, a great deal
of blue stocking, ankle boots, a neckerchief of some bright colour,
and a very tall hat.  Pursuing his more quiet occupation of barber,
he generally subsided into an apron not over-clean, a flannel
jacket, and corduroy knee-shorts.  It was in this latter costume,
but with his apron girded round his waist, as a token of his having
shut up shop for the night, that he closed the door one evening,
some weeks after the occurrences detailed in the last chapter, and
stood upon the steps in Kingsgate Street, listening until the little
cracked bell within should leave off ringing.  For until it did--
this was Mr Sweedlepipe's reflection--the place never seemed quiet
enough to be left to itself.

'It's the greediest little bell to ring,' said Poll, 'that ever was.
But it's quiet at last.'

He rolled his apron up a little tighter as he said these words, and
hastened down the street.  Just as he was turning into Holborn, he
ran against a young gentleman in a livery.  This youth was bold,
though small, and with several lively expressions of displeasure,
turned upon him instantly.

'Now, STOO-PID!' cried the young gentleman.  'Can't you look where
you're a-going to--eh?  Can't you mind where you're a-coming to--eh?
What do you think your eyes was made for--eh?  Ah!  Yes.  Oh!  Now
then!'

The young gentleman pronounced the two last words in a very loud
tone and with frightful emphasis, as though they contained within
themselves the essence of the direst aggravation.  But he had
scarcely done so, when his anger yielded to surprise, and he cried,
in a milder tone:

'What!  Polly!'

'Why, it an't you, sure!' cried Poll.  'It can't be you!'

'No.  It an't me,' returned the youth.  'It's my son, my oldest
one.  He's a credit to his father, an't he, Polly?'  With this
delicate little piece of banter, he halted on the pavement, and went
round and round in circles, for the better exhibition of his figure;
rather to the inconvenience of the passengers generally, who were
not in an equal state of spirits with himself.

'I wouldn't have believed it,' said Poll.  'What!  You've left your
old place, then?  Have you?'

'Have I!' returned his young friend, who had by this time stuck his
hands into the pockets of his white cord breeches, and was
swaggering along at the barber's side.  'D'ye know a pair of top-
boots when you see 'em, Polly?--look here!'

'Beau-ti-ful' cried Mr Sweedlepipe.

'D'ye know a slap-up sort of button, when you see it?' said the
youth.  'Don't look at mine, if you ain't a judge, because these
lions' heads was made for men of taste; not snobs.'

'Beau-ti-ful!' cried the barber again.  'A grass-green frock-coat,
too, bound with gold; and a cockade in your hat!'

'I should hope so,' replied the youth.  'Blow the cockade, though;
for, except that it don't turn round, it's like the wentilator that
used to be in the kitchen winder at Todgers's.  You ain't seen the
old lady's name in the Gazette, have you?'

'No,' returned the barber.  'Is she a bankrupt?'

'If she ain't, she will be,' retorted Bailey.  'That bis'ness never
can be carried on without ME.  Well!  How are you?'

'Oh! I'm pretty well,' said Poll.  'Are you living at this end of
the town, or were you coming to see me?  Was that the bis'ness that
brought you to Holborn?'

'I haven't got no bis'ness in Holborn,' returned Bailey, with some
displeasure.  'All my bis'ness lays at the West End.  I've got the
right sort of governor now.  You can't see his face for his
whiskers, and can't see his whiskers for the dye upon 'em.  That's a
gentleman ain't it?  You wouldn't like a ride in a cab, would you?
Why, it wouldn't be safe to offer it.  You'd faint away, only to see
me a-comin' at a mild trot round the corner.'

To convey a slight idea of the effect of this approach, Mr Bailey
counterfeited in his own person the action of a high-trotting horse
and threw up his head so high, in backing against a pump, that he
shook his hat off.

'Why, he's own uncle to Capricorn,' said Bailey, 'and brother to
Cauliflower.  He's been through the winders of two chaney shops
since we've had him, and was sold for killin' his missis.  That's a
horse, I hope?'

'Ah! you'll never want to buy any more red polls, now,' observed
Poll, looking on his young friend with an air of melancholy.
'You'll never want to buy any more red polls now, to hang up over
the sink, will you?'

'I should think not,' replied Bailey.  'Reether so.  I wouldn't have
nothin' to say to any bird below a Peacock; and HE'd be wulgar.
Well, how are you?'

'Oh! I'm pretty well,' said Poll.  He answered the question again
because Mr Bailey asked it again; Mr Bailey asked it again, because
--accompanied with a straddling action of the white cords, a bend of
the knees, and a striking forth of the top-boots--it was an easy
horse-fleshy, turfy sort of thing to do.

'Wot are you up to, old feller?' added Mr Bailey, with the same
graceful rakishness.  He was quite the man-about-town of the
conversation, while the easy-shaver was the child.

'Why, I am going to fetch my lodger home,' said Paul.

'A woman!' cried Mr Bailey, 'for a twenty-pun' note!'

The little barber hastened to explain that she was neither a young
woman, nor a handsome woman, but a nurse, who had been acting as a
kind of house-keeper to a gentleman for some weeks past, and left
her place that night, in consequence of being superseded by another
and a more legitimate house-keeper--to wit, the gentleman's bride.

'He's newly married, and he brings his young wife home to-night,'
said the barber.  'So I'm going to fetch my lodger away--Mr
Chuzzlewit's, close behind the Post Office--and carry her box for
her.'

'Jonas Chuzzlewit's?' said Bailey.

'Ah!' returned Paul: 'that's the name sure enough.  Do you know
him?'

'Oh, no!' cried Mr Bailey; 'not at all.  And I don't know her!  Not
neither!  Why, they first kept company through me, a'most.'

'Ah?' said Paul.

'Ah!' said Mr Bailey, with a wink; 'and she ain't bad looking mind
you.  But her sister was the best.  SHE was the merry one.  I often
used to have a bit of fun with her, in the hold times!'

Mr Bailey spoke as if he already had a leg and three-quarters in the
grave, and this had happened twenty or thirty years ago.  Paul
Sweedlepipe, the meek, was so perfectly confounded by his precocious
self-possession, and his patronizing manner, as well as by his
boots, cockade, and livery, that a mist swam before his eyes, and he
saw--not the Bailey of acknowledged juvenility from Todgers's
Commercial Boarding House, who had made his acquaintance within a
twelvemonth, by purchasing, at sundry times, small birds at twopence
each--but a highly-condensed embodiment of all the sporting grooms
in London; an abstract of all the stable-knowledge of the time; a
something at a high-pressure that must have had existence many
years, and was fraught with terrible experiences.  And truly, though
in the cloudy atmosphere of Todgers's, Mr Bailey's genius had ever
shone out brightly in this particular respect, it now eclipsed both
time and space, cheated beholders of their senses, and worked on
their belief in defiance of all natural laws.  He walked along the
tangible and real stones of Holborn Hill, an undersized boy; and
yet he winked the winks, and thought the thoughts, and did the
deeds, and said the sayings of an ancient man.  There was an old
principle within him, and a young surface without.  He became an
inexplicable creature; a breeched and booted Sphinx.  There was no
course open to the barber, but to go distracted himself, or to take
Bailey for granted; and he wisely chose the latter.

Mr Bailey was good enough to continue to bear him company, and to
entertain him, as they went, with easy conversation on various
sporting topics; especially on the comparative merits, as a general
principle, of horses with white stockings, and horses without.  In
regard to the style of tail to be preferred, Mr Bailey had opinions
of his own, which he explained, but begged they might by no means
influence his friend's, as here he knew he had the misfortune to
differ from some excellent authorities.  He treated Mr Sweedlepipe
to a dram, compounded agreeably to his own directions, which he
informed him had been invented by a member of the Jockey Club; and,
as they were by this time near the barber's destination, he observed
that, as he had an hour to spare, and knew the parties, he would, if
quite agreeable, be introduced to Mrs Gamp.

Paul knocked at Jonas Chuzzlewit's; and, on the door being opened by
that lady, made the two distinguished persons known to one another.
It was a happy feature in Mrs Gamp's twofold profession, that it
gave her an interest in everything that was young as well as in
everything that was old.  She received Mr Bailey with much kindness.

'It's very good, I'm sure, of you to come,' she said to her
landlord, 'as well as bring so nice a friend.  But I'm afraid
that I must trouble you so far as to step in, for the young couple
has not yet made appearance.'

'They're late, ain't they?' inquired her landlord, when she had
conducted them downstairs into the kitchen.

'Well, sir, considern' the Wings of Love, they are,' said Mrs Gamp.

Mr Bailey inquired whether the Wings of Love had ever won a plate,
or could be backed to do anything remarkable; and being informed
that it was not a horse, but merely a poetical or figurative
expression, evinced considerable disgust.  Mrs Gamp was so very much
astonished by his affable manners and great ease, that she was about
to propound to her landlord in a whisper the staggering inquiry,
whether he was a man or a boy, when Mr Sweedlepipe, anticipating her
design, made a timely diversion.

'He knows Mrs Chuzzlewit,' said Paul aloud.

'There's nothin' he don't know; that's my opinion,' observed Mrs
Gamp.  'All the wickedness of the world is Print to him.'

Mr Bailey received this as a compliment, and said, adjusting his
cravat, 'reether so.'

'As you knows Mrs Chuzzlewit, you knows, p'raps, what her chris'en
name is?' Mrs Gamp observed.

'Charity,' said Bailey.

'That it ain't!' cried Mrs Gamp.

'Cherry, then,' said Bailey.  'Cherry's short for it.  It's all the
same.'

'It don't begin with a C at all,' retorted Mrs Gamp, shaking her
head.  'It begins with a M.'

'Whew!' cried Mr Bailey, slapping a little cloud of pipe-clay out of
his left leg, 'then he's been and married the merry one!'

As these words were mysterious, Mrs Gamp called upon him to explain,
which Mr Bailey proceeded to do; that lady listening greedily to
everything he said.  He was yet in the fullness of his narrative when
the sound of wheels, and a double knock at the street door,
announced the arrival of the newly married couple.  Begging him to
reserve what more he had to say for her hearing on the way home,
Mrs Gamp took up the candle, and hurried away to receive and welcome
the young mistress of the house.

'Wishing you appiness and joy with all my art,' said Mrs Gamp,
dropping a curtsey as they entered the hall; 'and you, too, sir.
Your lady looks a little tired with the journey, Mr Chuzzlewit, a
pretty dear!'

'She has bothered enough about it,' grumbled Mr Jonas.  'Now, show a
light, will you?'

'This way, ma'am, if you please,' said Mrs Gamp, going upstairs
before them.  'Things has been made as comfortable as they could be,
but there's many things you'll have to alter your own self when you
gets time to look about you!  Ah! sweet thing!  But you don't,' added
Mrs Gamp, internally, 'you don't look much like a merry one, I must
say!'

It was true; she did not.  The death that had gone before the bridal
seemed to have left its shade upon the house.  The air was heavy and
oppressive; the rooms were dark; a deep gloom filled up every chink
and corner.  Upon the hearthstone, like a creature of ill omen, sat
the aged clerk, with his eyes fixed on some withered branches in the
stove.  He rose and looked at her.

'So there you are, Mr Chuff,' said Jonas carelessly, as he dusted
his boots; 'still in the land of the living, eh?'

'Still in the land of the living, sir,' retorted Mrs Gamp.  'And Mr
Chuffey may thank you for it, as many and many a time I've told
him.'

Mr Jonas was not in the best of humours, for he merely said, as he
looked round, 'We don't want you any more, you know, Mrs Gamp.'

'I'm a-going immediate, sir,' returned the nurse; 'unless there's
nothink I can do for you, ma'am.  Ain't there,' said Mrs Gamp, with
a look of great sweetness, and rummaging all the time in her pocket;
'ain't there nothink I can do for you, my little bird?'

'No,' said Merry, almost crying.  'You had better go away, please!'

With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the
future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly
spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar
to her art; Mrs Gamp rummaged in her pocket again, and took from it
a printed card, whereon was an inscription copied from her signboard.

'Would you be so good, my darling dovey of a dear young married
lady,' Mrs Gamp observed, in a low voice, 'as put that somewheres
where you can keep it in your mind?  I'm well beknown to many
ladies, and it's my card.  Gamp is my name, and Gamp my nater.
Livin' quite handy, I will make so bold as call in now and then, and
make inquiry how your health and spirits is, my precious chick!'

And with innumerable leers, winks, coughs, nods, smiles, and
curtseys, all leading to the establishment of a mysterious and
confidential understanding between herself and the bride, Mrs Gamp,
invoking a blessing upon the house, leered, winked, coughed, nodded,
smiled, and curtseyed herself out of the room.

'But I will say, and I would if I was led a Martha to the Stakes for
it,' Mrs Gamp remarked below stairs, in a whisper, 'that she don't
look much like a merry one at this present moment of time.'

'Ah! wait till you hear her laugh!' said Bailey.

'Hem!' cried Mrs Gamp, in a kind of groan.  'I will, child.'

They said no more in the house, for Mrs Gamp put on her bonnet, Mr
Sweedlepipe took up her box; and Mr Bailey accompanied them towards
Kingsgate Street; recounting to Mrs Gamp as they went along, the
origin and progress of his acquaintance with Mrs Chuzzlewit and her
sister.  It was a pleasant instance of this youth's precocity, that
he fancied Mrs Gamp had conceived a tenderness for him, and was much
tickled by her misplaced attachment.

As the door closed heavily behind them, Mrs Jonas sat down in a
chair, and felt a strange chill creep upon her, whilst she looked
about the room.  It was pretty much as she had known it, but
appeared more dreary.  She had thought to see it brightened to
receive her.

'It ain't good enough for you, I suppose?' said Jonas, watching her
looks.

'Why, it IS dull,' said Merry, trying to be more herself.

'It'll be duller before you're done with it,' retorted Jonas, 'if
you give me any of your airs.  You're a nice article, to turn sulky
on first coming home!  Ecod, you used to have life enough, when you
could plague me with it.  The gal's downstairs.  Ring the bell for
supper, while I take my boots off!'

She roused herself from looking after him as he left the room, to do
what he had desired; when the old man Chuffey laid his hand softly
on her arm.

'You are not married?' he said eagerly.  'Not married?'

'Yes.  A month ago.  Good Heaven, what is the matter?'

He answered nothing was the matter; and turned from her.  But in her
fear and wonder, turning also, she saw him raise his trembling hands
above his head, and heard him say:

'Oh! woe, woe, woe, upon this wicked house!'

It was her welcome--HOME.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

SHOWING THAT OLD FRIENDS MAY NOT ONLY APPEAR WITH NEW FACES, BUT IN
FALSE COLOURS.  THAT PEOPLE ARE PRONE TO BITE, AND THAT BITERS MAY
SOMETIMES BE BITTEN.


Mr Bailey, Junior--for the sporting character, whilom of general
utility at Todgers's, had now regularly set up in life under that
name, without troubling himself to obtain from the legislature a
direct licence in the form of a Private Bill, which of all kinds and
classes of bills is without exception the most unreasonable in its
charges--Mr Bailey, Junior, just tall enough to be seen by an
inquiring eye, gazing indolently at society from beneath the apron
of his master's cab, drove slowly up and down Pall Mall, about the
hour of noon, in waiting for his 'Governor.'  The horse of
distinguished family, who had Capricorn for his nephew, and
Cauliflower for his brother, showed himself worthy of his high
relations by champing at the bit until his chest was white with
foam, and rearing like a horse in heraldry; the plated harness and
the patent leather glittered in the sun; pedestrians admired; Mr
Bailey was complacent, but unmoved.  He seemed to say, 'A barrow,
good people, a mere barrow; nothing to what we could do, if we
chose!' and on he went, squaring his short green arms outside the
apron, as if he were hooked on to it by his armpits.

Mr Bailey had a great opinion of Brother to Cauliflower, and
estimated his powers highly.  But he never told him so.  On the
contrary, it was his practice, in driving that animal, to assail him
with disrespectful, if not injurious, expressions, as, 'Ah! would
you!' 'Did you think it, then?' 'Where are you going to now?' 'No,
you won't, my lad!' and similar fragmentary remarks.  These being
usually accompanied by a jerk of the rein, or a crack of the whip,
led to many trials of strength between them, and to many contentions
for the upper-hand, terminating, now and then, in china-shops, and
other unusual goals, as Mr Bailey had already hinted to his friend
Poll Sweedlepipe.

On the present occasion Mr Bailey, being in spirits, was more than
commonly hard upon his charge; in consequence of which that fiery
animal confined himself almost entirely to his hind legs in
displaying his paces, and constantly got himself into positions with
reference to the cabriolet that very much amazed the passengers in
the street.  But Mr Bailey, not at all disturbed, had still a shower
of pleasantries to bestow on any one who crossed his path; as,
calling to a full-grown coal-heaver in a wagon, who for a moment
blocked the way, 'Now, young 'un, who trusted YOU with a cart?'
inquiring of elderly ladies who wanted to cross, and ran back again,
'Why they didn't go to the workhouse and get an order to be buried?'
tempting boys, with friendly words, to get up behind, and
immediately afterwards cutting them down; and the like flashes of a
cheerful humour, which he would occasionally relieve by going round
St. James's Square at a hand gallop, and coming slowly into Pall
Mall by another entry, as if, in the interval, his pace had been a
perfect crawl.

It was not until these amusements had been very often repeated, and
the apple-stall at the corner had sustained so many miraculous
escapes as to appear impregnable, that Mr Bailey was summoned to the
door of a certain house in Pall Mall, and turning short, obeyed the
call and jumped out.  It was not until he had held the bridle for
some minutes longer, every jerk of Cauliflower's brother's head, and
every twitch of Cauliflower's brother's nostril, taking him off his
legs in the meanwhile, that two persons entered the vehicle, one of
whom took the reins and drove rapidly off.  Nor was it until Mr
Bailey had run after it some hundreds of yards in vain, that he
managed to lift his short leg into the iron step, and finally to get
his boots upon the little footboard behind.  Then, indeed, he became
a sight to see; and--standing now on one foot and now upon the other,
now trying to look round the cab on this side, now on that, and now
endeavouring to peep over the top of it, as it went dashing in among
the carts and coaches--was from head to heel Newmarket.

The appearance of Mr Bailey's governor as he drove along fully
justified that enthusiastic youth's description of him to the
wondering Poll.  He had a world of jet-black shining hair upon his
head, upon his cheeks, upon his chin, upon his upper lip.  His
clothes, symmetrically made, were of the newest fashion and the
costliest kind.  Flowers of gold and blue, and green and blushing
red, were on his waistcoat; precious chains and jewels sparkled on
his breast; his fingers, clogged with brilliant rings, were as
unwieldly as summer flies but newly rescued from a honey-pot.  The
daylight mantled in his gleaming hat and boots as in a polished
glass.  And yet, though changed his name, and changed his outward
surface, it was Tigg.  Though turned and twisted upside down, and
inside out, as great men have been sometimes known to be; though no
longer Montague Tigg, but Tigg Montague; still it was Tigg; the same
Satanic, gallant, military Tigg.  The brass was burnished,
lacquered, newly stamped; yet it was the true Tigg metal
notwithstanding.

Beside him sat a smiling gentleman, of less pretensions and of
business looks, whom he addressed as David.  Surely not the David of
the--how shall it be phrased?--the triumvirate of golden balls?  Not
David, tapster at the Lombards' Arms?  Yes.  The very man.

'The secretary's salary, David,' said Mr Montague, 'the office being
now established, is eight hundred pounds per annum, with his house-
rent, coals, and candles free.  His five-and-twenty shares he holds,
of course.  Is that enough?'

David smiled and nodded, and coughed behind a little locked
portfolio which he carried; with an air that proclaimed him to be
the secretary in question.

'If that's enough,' said Montague, 'I will propose it at the Board
to-day, in my capacity as chairman.'

The secretary smiled again; laughed, indeed, this time; and said,
rubbing his nose slily with one end of the portfolio:

'It was a capital thought, wasn't it?'

'What was a capital thought, David?' Mr Montague inquired.

'The Anglo-Bengalee,' tittered the secretary.

'The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company is
rather a capital concern, I hope, David,' said Montague.

'Capital indeed!' cried the secretary, with another laugh--' in one
sense.'

'In the only important one,' observed the chairman; 'which is number
one, David.'

'What,' asked the secretary, bursting into another laugh, 'what will
be the paid up capital, according to the next prospectus?'

'A figure of two, and as many oughts after it as the printer can get
into the same line,' replied his friend.  'Ha, ha!'

At this they both laughed; the secretary so vehemently, that in
kicking up his feet, he kicked the apron open, and nearly started
Cauliflower's brother into an oyster shop; not to mention Mr
Bailey's receiving such a sudden swing, that he held on for a
moment quite a young Fame, by one strap and no legs.

'What a chap you are!' exclaimed David admiringly, when this little
alarm had subsided.

'Say, genius, David, genius.'

'"Well, upon my soul, you ARE a genius then,' said David.  'I always
knew you had the gift of the gab, of course; but I never believed
you were half the man you are.  How could I?'

'I rise with circumstances, David.  That's a point of genius in
itself,' said Tigg.  'If you were to lose a hundred pound wager to
me at this minute David, and were to pay it (which is most
confoundedly improbable), I should rise, in a mental point of view,
directly.'

It is due to Mr Tigg to say that he had really risen with his
opportunities; and, peculating on a grander scale, he had become
a grander man altogether.

'Ha, ha,' cried the secretary, laying his hand, with growing
familiarity, upon the chairman's arm.  'When I look at you, and
think of your property in Bengal being--ha, ha, ha!--'

The half-expressed idea seemed no less ludicrous to Mr Tigg than to
his friend, for he laughed too, heartily.

'--Being,' resumed David, 'being amenable--your property in Bengal
being amenable--to all claims upon the company; when I look at you
and think of that, you might tickle me into fits by waving the
feather of a pen at me.  Upon my soul you might!'

'It a devilish fine property,' said Tigg Montague, 'to be amenable
to any claims.  The preserve of tigers alone is worth a mint of
money, David.'

David could only reply in the intervals of his laughter, 'Oh, what a
chap you are!' and so continued to laugh, and hold his sides, and
wipe his eyes, for some time, without offering any other
observation.

'A capital idea?' said Tigg, returning after a time to his
companion's first remark; 'no doubt it was a capital idea.  It was
my idea.'

'No, no.  It was my idea,' said David.  'Hang it, let a man have
some credit.  Didn't I say to you that I'd saved a few pounds?--'

'You said!  Didn't I say to you,' interposed Tigg, 'that I had come
into a few pounds?'

'Certainly you did,' returned David, warmly, 'but that's not the
idea.  Who said, that if we put the money together we could furnish
an office, and make a show?'

'And who said,' retorted Mr Tigg, 'that, provided we did it on a
sufficiently large scale, we could furnish an office and make a
show, without any money at all?  Be rational, and just, and calm,
and tell me whose idea was that.'

'Why, there,' David was obliged to confess, 'you had the advantage
of me, I admit.  But I don't put myself on a level with you.  I only
want a little credit in the business.'

'All the credit you deserve to have,' said Tigg.

'The plain work of the company, David--figures, books, circulars,
advertisements, pen, ink, and paper, sealing-wax and wafers--is
admirably done by you.  You are a first-rate groveller.  I don't
dispute it.  But the ornamental department, David; the inventive
and poetical department--'

'Is entirely yours,' said his friend.  'No question of it.  But with
such a swell turnout as this, and all the handsome things you've
got about you, and the life you lead, I mean to say it's a precious
comfortable department too.'

'Does it gain the purpose?  Is it Anglo-Bengalee?' asked Tigg.

'Yes,' said David.

'Could you undertake it yourself?' demanded Tigg.

'No,' said David.

'Ha, ha!' laughed Tigg.  'Then be contented with your station and
your profits, David, my fine fellow, and bless the day that made us
acquainted across the counter of our common uncle, for it was a
golden day to you.'

It will have been already gathered from the conversation of these
worthies, that they were embarked in an enterprise of some
magnitude, in which they addressed the public in general from the
strong position of having everything to gain and nothing at all to
lose; and which, based upon this great principle, was thriving
pretty comfortably.

The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company
started into existence one morning, not an Infant Institution, but a
Grown-up Company running alone at a great pace, and doing business
right and left: with a 'branch' in a first floor over a tailor's at
the west-end of the town, and main offices in a new street in the
City, comprising the upper part of a spacious house resplendent in
stucco and plate-glass, with wire-blinds in all the windows, and
'Anglo-Bengalee' worked into the pattern of every one of them.  On
the doorpost was painted again in large letters, 'offices of the
Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company,' and
on the door was a large brass plate with the same inscription;
always kept very bright, as courting inquiry; staring the City out
of countenance after office hours on working days, and all day long
on Sundays; and looking bolder than the Bank.  Within, the offices
were newly plastered, newly painted, newly papered, newly countered,
newly floor-clothed, newly tabled, newly chaired, newly fitted up in
every way, with goods that were substantial and expensive, and
designed (like the company) to last.  Business!  Look at the green
ledgers with red backs, like strong cricket-balls beaten flat; the
court-guides directories, day-books, almanacks, letter-boxes,
weighing-machines for letters, rows of fire-buckets for dashing out
a conflagration in its first spark, and saving the immense wealth in
notes and bonds belonging to the company; look at the iron safes,
the clock, the office seal--in its capacious self, security for
anything.  Solidity!  Look at the massive blocks of marble in the
chimney-pieces, and the gorgeous parapet on the top of the house!
Publicity!  Why, Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance
company is painted on the very coal-scuttles.  It is repeated at
every turn until the eyes are dazzled with it, and the head is
giddy.  It is engraved upon the top of all the letter paper, and it
makes a scroll-work round the seal, and it shines out of the
porter's buttons, and it is repeated twenty times in every circular
and public notice wherein one David Crimple, Esquire, Secretary and
resident Director, takes the liberty of inviting your attention to
the accompanying statement of the advantages offered by the Anglo-
Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company; and fully
proves to you that any connection on your part with that
establishment must result in a perpetual Christmas Box and
constantly increasing Bonus to yourself, and that nobody can run any
risk by the transaction except the office, which, in its great
liberality is pretty sure to lose.  And this, David Crimple,
Esquire, submits to you (and the odds are heavy you believe him), is
the best guarantee that can reasonably be suggested by the Board of
Management for its permanence and stability.

This gentleman's name, by the way, had been originally Crimp; but as
the word was susceptible of an awkward construction and might be
misrepresented, he had altered it to Crimple.

Lest with all these proofs and confirmations, any man should be
suspicious of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life
Assurance company; should doubt in tiger, cab, or person, Tigg
Montague, Esquire, (of Pall Mall and Bengal), or any other name in
the imaginative List of Directors; there was a porter on the
premises--a wonderful creature, in a vast red waistcoat and a short-
tailed pepper-and-salt coat--who carried more conviction to the
minds of sceptics than the whole establishment without him.  No
confidences existed between him and the Directorship; nobody knew
where he had served last; no character or explanation had been given
or required.  No questions had been asked on either side.  This
mysterious being, relying solely on his figure, had applied for the
situation, and had been instantly engaged on his own terms.  They
were high; but he knew, doubtless, that no man could carry such an
extent of waistcoat as himself, and felt the full value of his
capacity to such an institution.  When he sat upon a seat erected
for him in a corner of the office, with his glazed hat hanging on a
peg over his head, it was impossible to doubt the respectability of
the concern.  It went on doubling itself with every square inch of
his red waistcoat until, like the problem of the nails in the
horse's shoes, the total became enormous.  People had been known to
apply to effect an insurance on their lives for a thousand pounds,
and looking at him, to beg, before the form of proposal was filled
up, that it might be made two.  And yet he was not a giant.  His
coat was rather small than otherwise.  The whole charm was in his
waistcoat.  Respectability, competence, property in Bengal or
anywhere else, responsibility to any amount on the part of the
company that employed him, were all expressed in that one garment.

Rival offices had endeavoured to lure him away; Lombard Street
itself had beckoned to him; rich companies had whispered 'Be a
Beadle!' but he still continued faithful to the Anglo-Bengalee.
Whether he was a deep rogue, or a stately simpleton, it was
impossible to make out, but he appeared to believe in the Anglo-
Bengalee.  He was grave with imaginary cares of office; and having
nothing whatever to do, and something less to take care of, would
look as if the pressure of his numerous duties, and a sense of the
treasure in the company's strong-room, made him a solemn and a
thoughtful man.

As the cabriolet drove up to the door, this officer appeared
bare-headed on the pavement, crying aloud 'Room for the chairman,
room for the chairman, if you please!' much to the admiration of the
bystanders, who, it is needless to say, had their attention directed
to the Anglo-Bengalee Company thenceforth, by that means.  Mr Tigg
leaped gracefully out, followed by the Managing Director (who was by
this time very distant and respectful), and ascended the stairs,
still preceded by the porter, who cried as he went, 'By your leave
there! by your leave!  The Chairman of the Board, Gentle--MEN!  In
like manner, but in a still more stentorian voice, he ushered the
chairman through the public office, where some humble clients were
transacting business, into an awful chamber, labelled Board-room;
the door of which sanctuary immediately closed, and screened the
great capitalist from vulgar eyes.

The board-room had a Turkey carpet in it, a sideboard, a portrait of
Tigg Montague, Esquire, as chairman; a very imposing chair of
office, garnished with an ivory hammer and a little hand-bell; and a
long table, set out at intervals with sheets of blotting-paper,
foolscap, clean pens, and inkstands.  The chairman having taken his
seat with great solemnity, the secretary supported him on his right
hand, and the porter stood bolt upright behind them, forming a warm
background of waistcoat.  This was the board: everything else being
a light-hearted little fiction.

'Bullamy!' said Mr Tigg.

'Sir!' replied the porter.

'Let the Medical Officer know, with my compliments, that I wish to
see him.'

Bullamy cleared his throat, and bustled out into the office, crying
'The Chairman of the Board wishes to see the Medical Officer.  By
your leave there!  By your leave!'  He soon returned with the
gentleman in question; and at both openings of the board-room door--
at his coming in and at his going out--simple clients were seen to
stretch their necks and stand upon their toes, thirsting to catch
the slightest glimpse of that mysterious chamber.

'Jobling, my dear friend!' said Mr Tigg, 'how are you?  Bullamy,
wait outside.  Crimple, don't leave us.  Jobling, my good fellow, I
am glad to see you.'

'And how are you, Mr Montague, eh?' said the Medical Officer,
throwing himself luxuriously into an easy-chair (they were all easy-
chairs in the board-room), and taking a handsome gold snuff-box from
the pocket of his black satin waistcoat.  'How are you?  A little
worn with business, eh?  If so, rest.  A little feverish from wine,
humph?  If so, water.  Nothing at all the matter, and quite
comfortable?  Then take some lunch.  A very wholesome thing at this
time of day to strengthen the gastric juices with lunch, Mr
Montague.'

The Medical Officer (he was the same medical officer who had
followed poor old Anthony Chuzzlewit to the grave, and who had
attended Mrs Gamp's patient at the Bull) smiled in saying these
words; and casually added, as he brushed some grains of snuff from
his shirt-frill, 'I always take it myself about this time of day, do
you know!'

'Bullamy!' said the Chairman, ringing the little bell.

'Sir!'

'Lunch.'

'Not on my account, I hope?' said the doctor.  'You are very good.
Thank you.  I'm quite ashamed.  Ha, ha! if I had been a sharp
practitioner, Mr Montague, I shouldn't have mentioned it without a
fee; for you may depend upon it, my dear sir, that if you don't make
a point of taking lunch, you'll very soon come under my hands.
Allow me to illustrate this.  In Mr Crimple's leg--'

The resident Director gave an involuntary start, for the doctor, in
the heat of his demonstration, caught it up and laid it across his
own, as if he were going to take it off, then and there.

'In Mr Crimple's leg, you'll observe,' pursued the doctor, turning
back his cuffs and spanning the limb with both hands, 'where Mr
Crimple's knee fits into the socket, here, there is--that is to say,
between the bone and the socket--a certain quantity of animal oil.'

'What do you pick MY leg out for?' said Mr Crimple, looking with
something of an anxious expression at his limb.  'It's the same with
other legs, ain't it?'

'Never you mind, my good sir,' returned the doctor, shaking his
head, 'whether it is the same with other legs, or not the same.'

'But I do mind,' said David.

'I take a particular case, Mr Montague,' returned the doctor, 'as
illustrating my remark, you observe.  In this portion of Mr
Crimple's leg, sir, there is a certain amount of animal oil.  In
every one of Mr Crimple's joints, sir, there is more or less of the
same deposit.  Very good.  If Mr Crimple neglects his meals, or
fails to take his proper quantity of rest, that oil wanes, and
becomes exhausted.  What is the consequence?  Mr Crimple's bones
sink down into their sockets, sir, and Mr Crimple becomes a weazen,
puny, stunted, miserable man!'

The doctor let Mr Crimple's leg fall suddenly, as if he were already
in that agreeable condition; turned down his wristbands again, and
looked triumphantly at the chairman.

'We know a few secrets of nature in our profession, sir,' said the
doctor.  'Of course we do.  We study for that; we pass the Hall and
the College for that; and we take our station in society BY that.
It's extraordinary how little is known on these subjects generally.
Where do you suppose, now'--the doctor closed one eye, as he leaned
back smilingly in his chair, and formed a triangle with his hands,
of which his two thumbs composed the base--'where do you suppose Mr
Crimple's stomach is?'

Mr Crimple, more agitated than before, clapped his hand immediately
below his waistcoat.

'Not at all,' cried the doctor; 'not at all.  Quite a popular
mistake!  My good sir, you're altogether deceived.'

'I feel it there, when it's out of order; that's all I know,' said
Crimple.

'You think you do,' replied the doctor; 'but science knows better.
There was a patient of mine once,' touching one of the many mourning
rings upon his fingers, and slightly bowing his head, 'a gentleman
who did me the honour to make a very handsome mention of me in his
will--"in testimony," as he was pleased to say, "of the unremitting
zeal, talent, and attention of my friend and medical attendant, John
Jobling, Esquire, M.R.C.S.,"--who was so overcome by the idea of
having all his life laboured under an erroneous view of the locality
of this important organ, that when I assured him on my professional
reputation, he was mistaken, he burst into tears, put out his hand,
and said, "Jobling, God bless you!"  Immediately afterwards he became
speechless, and was ultimately buried at Brixton.'

'By your leave there!' cried Bullamy, without.  'By your leave!
Refreshment for the Board-room!'

'Ha!' said the doctor, jocularly, as he rubbed his hands, and drew
his chair nearer to the table.  'The true Life Assurance, Mr
Montague.  The best Policy in the world, my dear sir.  We should be
provident, and eat and drink whenever we can.  Eh, Mr Crimple?'

The resident Director acquiesced rather sulkily, as if the
gratification of replenishing his stomach had been impaired by the
unsettlement of his preconceived opinions in reference to its
situation.  But the appearance of the porter and under-porter with a
tray covered with a snow-white cloth, which, being thrown back,
displayed a pair of cold roast fowls, flanked by some potted meats
and a cool salad, quickly restored his good humour.  It was enhanced
still further by the arrival of a bottle of excellent madeira, and
another of champagne; and he soon attacked the repast with an
appetite scarcely inferior to that of the medical officer.

The lunch was handsomely served, with a profusion of rich glass
plate, and china; which seemed to denote that eating and drinking on
a showy scale formed no unimportant item in the business of the
Anglo-Bengalee Directorship.  As it proceeded, the Medical Officer
grew more and more joyous and red-faced, insomuch that every
mouthful he ate, and every drop of wine he swallowed, seemed to
impart new lustre to his eyes, and to light up new sparks in his
nose and forehead.

In certain quarters of the City and its neighbourhood, Mr Jobling
was, as we have already seen in some measure, a very popular
character.  He had a portentously sagacious chin, and a pompous
voice, with a rich huskiness in some of its tones that went directly
to the heart, like a ray of light shining through the ruddy medium
of choice old burgundy.  His neckerchief and shirt-frill were ever
of the whitest, his clothes of the blackest and sleekest, his gold
watch-chain of the heaviest, and his seals of the largest.  His
boots, which were always of the brightest, creaked as he walked.
Perhaps he could shake his head, rub his hands, or warm himself
before a fire, better than any man alive; and he had a peculiar way
of smacking his lips and saying, 'Ah!' at intervals while patients
detailed their symptoms, which inspired great confidence.  It seemed
to express, 'I know what you're going to say better than you do; but
go on, go on.'  As he talked on all occasions whether he had anything
to say or not, it was unanimously observed of him that he was 'full
of anecdote;' and his experience and profit from it were considered,
for the same reason, to be something much too extensive for
description.  His female patients could never praise him too highly;
and the coldest of his male admirers would always say this for him
to their friends, 'that whatever Jobling's professional skill might
be (and it could not be denied that he had a very high reputation),
he was one of the most comfortable fellows you ever saw in your
life!'

Jobling was for many reasons, and not last in the list because his
connection lay principally among tradesmen and their families,
exactly the sort of person whom the Anglo-Bengalee Company wanted
for a medical officer.  But Jobling was far too knowing to connect
himself with the company in any closer ties than as a paid (and well
paid) functionary, or to allow his connection to be misunderstood
abroad, if he could help it.  Hence he always stated the case to an
inquiring patient, after this manner:

'Why, my dear sir, with regard to the Anglo-Bengalee, my
information, you see, is limited; very limited.  I am the medical
officer, in consideration of a certain monthly payment.  The
labourer is worthy of his hire; BIS DAT QUI CITO DAT'--('classical
scholar, Jobling!' thinks the patient, 'well-read man!')--'and I
receive it regularly.  Therefore I am bound, so far as my own
knowledge goes, to speak well of the establishment.'  ('Nothing can
be fairer than Jobling's conduct,' thinks the patient, who has just
paid Jobling's bill himself.)  'If you put any question to me, my
dear friend,' says the doctor, 'touching the responsibility or
capital of the company, there I am at fault; for I have no head for
figures, and not being a shareholder, am delicate of showing any
curiosity whatever on the subject.  Delicacy--your amiable lady will
agree with me I am sure--should be one of the first characteristics
of a medical man.'  ('Nothing can be finer or more gentlemanly than
Jobling's feeling,' thinks the patient.)  'Very good, my dear sir, so
the matter stands.  You don't know Mr Montague?  I'm sorry for it.
A remarkably handsome man, and quite the gentleman in every respect.
Property, I am told, in India.  House and everything belonging to
him, beautiful.  Costly furniture on the most elegant and lavish
scale.  And pictures, which, even in an anatomical point of view,
are per-fection.  In case you should ever think of doing anything
with the company, I'll pass you, you may depend upon it.  I can
conscientiously report you a healthy subject.  If I understand any
man's constitution, it is yours; and this little indisposition has
done him more good, ma'am,' says the doctor, turning to the
patient's wife, 'than if he had swallowed the contents of half the
nonsensical bottles in my surgery.  For they ARE nonsense--to tell
the honest truth, one half of them are nonsense--compared with such
a constitution as his!'  ('Jobling is the most friendly creature I
ever met with in my life,' thinks the patient; 'and upon my word and
honour, I'll consider of it!')

'Commission to you, doctor, on four new policies, and a loan this
morning, eh?' said Crimple, looking, when they had finished lunch,
over some papers brought in by the porter.  'Well done!'

'Jobling, my dear friend,' said Tigg, 'long life to you.'

'No, no.  Nonsense.  Upon my word I've no right to draw the
commission,' said the doctor, 'I haven't really.  It's picking your
pocket.  I don't recommend anybody here.  I only say what I know.
My patients ask me what I know, and I tell 'em what I know.  Nothing
else.  Caution is my weak side, that's the truth; and always was
from a boy.  That is,' said the doctor, filling his glass, 'caution
in behalf of other people.  Whether I would repose confidence in
this company myself, if I had not been paying money elsewhere for
many years--that's quite another question.'

He tried to look as if there were no doubt about it; but feeling
that he did it but indifferently, changed the theme and praised the
wine.

'Talking of wine,' said the doctor, 'reminds me of one of the finest
glasses of light old port I ever drank in my life; and that was at a
funeral.  You have not seen anything of--of THAT party, Mr Montague,
have you?' handing him a card.

'He is not buried, I hope?' said Tigg, as he took it.  'The honour
of his company is not requested if he is.'

'Ha, ha!' laughed the doctor.  'No; not quite.  He was honourably
connected with that very occasion though.'

'Oh!' said Tigg, smoothing his moustache, as he cast his eyes upon
the name.  'I recollect.  No.  He has not been here.'

The words were on his lips, when Bullamy entered, and presented a
card to the Medical Officer.

'Talk of the what's his name--' observed the doctor rising.

'And he's sure to appear, eh?' said Tigg.

'Why, no, Mr Montague, no,' returned the doctor.  'We will not say
that in the present case, for this gentleman is very far from it.'

'So much the better,' retorted Tigg.  'So much the more adaptable to
the Anglo-Bengalee.  Bullamy, clear the table and take the things
out by the other door.  Mr Crimple, business.'

'Shall I introduce him?' asked Jobling.

'I shall be eternally delighted,' answered Tigg, kissing his hand
and smiling sweetly.

The doctor disappeared into the outer office, and immediately
returned with Jonas Chuzzlewit.

'Mr Montague,' said Jobling.  'Allow me.  My friend Mr Chuzzlewit.
My dear friend--our chairman.  Now do you know,' he added checking
himself with infinite policy, and looking round with a smile;
'that's a very singular instance of the force of example.  It really
is a very remarkable instance of the force of example.  I say OUR
chairman.  Why do I say our chairman?  Because he is not MY
chairman, you know.  I have no connection with the company, farther
than giving them, for a certain fee and reward, my poor opinion as a
medical man, precisely as I may give it any day to Jack Noakes or
Tom Styles.  Then why do I say our chairman?  Simply because I hear
the phrase constantly repeated about me.  Such is the involuntary
operation of the mental faculty in the imitative biped man.  Mr
Crimple, I believe you never take snuff?  Injudicious.  You should.'

Pending these remarks on the part of the doctor, and the lengthened
and sonorous pinch with which he followed them up, Jonas took a seat
at the board; as ungainly a man as ever he has been within the
reader's knowledge.  It is too common with all of us, but it is
especially in the nature of a mean mind, to be overawed by fine
clothes and fine furniture.  They had a very decided influence on
Jonas.

'Now you two gentlemen have business to discuss, I know,' said the
doctor, 'and your time is precious.  So is mine; for several lives
are waiting for me in the next room, and I have a round of visits to
make after--after I have taken 'em.  Having had the happiness to
introduce you to each other, I may go about my business.  Good-bye.
But allow me, Mr Montague, before I go, to say this of my friend who
sits beside you: That gentleman has done more, sir,' rapping his
snuff-box solemnly, 'to reconcile me to human nature, than any man
alive or dead.  Good-bye!'

With these words Jobling bolted abruptly out of the room, and
proceeded in his own official department, to impress the lives in
waiting with a sense of his keen conscientiousness in the discharge
of his duty, and the great difficulty of getting into the Anglo-
Bengalee; by feeling their pulses, looking at their tongues,
listening at their ribs, poking them in the chest, and so forth;
though, if he didn't well know beforehand that whatever kind of
lives they were, the Anglo-Bengalee would accept them readily, he
was far from being the Jobling that his friend considered him; and
was not the original Jobling, but a spurious imitation.

Mr Crimple also departed on the business of the morning; and Jonas
Chuzzlewit and Tigg were left alone.

'I learn from our friend,' said Tigg, drawing his chair towards
Jonas with a winning ease of manner, 'that you have been thinking--'

'Oh!  Ecod then he'd no right to say so,' cried Jonas, interrupting.
'I didn't tell HIM my thoughts.  If he took it into his head that I
was coming here for such or such a purpose, why, that's his
lookout.  I don't stand committed by that.'

Jonas said this offensively enough; for over and above the habitual
distrust of his character, it was in his nature to seek to revenge
himself on the fine clothes and the fine furniture, in exact
proportion as he had been unable to withstand their influence.

'If I come here to ask a question or two, and get a document or two
to consider of, I don't bind myself to anything.  Let's understand
that, you know,' said Jonas.

'My dear fellow!' cried Tigg, clapping him on the shoulder, 'I
applaud your frankness.  If men like you and I speak openly at
first, all possible misunderstanding is avoided.  Why should I
disguise what you know so well, but what the crowd never dream of?
We companies are all birds of prey; mere birds of prey.  The only
question is, whether in serving our own turn, we can serve yours
too; whether in double-lining our own nest, we can put a single
living into yours.  Oh, you're in our secret.  You're behind the
scenes.  We'll make a merit of dealing plainly with you, when we
know we can't help it.'

It was remarked, on the first introduction of Mr Jonas into these
pages, that there is a simplicity of cunning no less than a
simplicity of innocence, and that in all matters involving a faith
in knavery, he was the most credulous of men.  If Mr Tigg had
preferred any claim to high and honourable dealing, Jonas would have
suspected him though he had been a very model of probity; but when
he gave utterance to Jonas's own thoughts of everything and
everybody, Jonas began to feel that he was a pleasant fellow, and
one to be talked to freely.

He changed his position in the chair, not for a less awkward, but
for a more boastful attitude; and smiling in his miserable conceit
rejoined:

'You an't a bad man of business, Mr Montague.  You know how to
set about it, I WILL say.'

'Tut, tut,' said Tigg, nodding confidentially, and showing his white
teeth; 'we are not children, Mr Chuzzlewit; we are grown men, I
hope.'

Jonas assented, and said after a short silence, first spreading out
his legs, and sticking one arm akimbo to show how perfectly at home
he was,

'The truth is--'

'Don't say, the truth,' interposed Tigg, with another grin.  'It's
so like humbug.'

Greatly charmed by this, Jonas began again.

'The long and the short of it is--'

'Better,' muttered Tigg.  'Much better!'

'--That I didn't consider myself very well used by one or two of the
old companies in some negotiations I have had with 'em--once had, I
mean.  They started objections they had no right to start, and put
questions they had no right to put, and carried things much too high
for my taste.'

As he made these observations he cast down his eyes, and looked
curiously at the carpet.  Mr Tigg looked curiously at him.

He made so long a pause, that Tigg came to the rescue, and said, in
his pleasantest manner:

'Take a glass of wine.'

'No, no,' returned Jonas, with a cunning shake of the head; 'none of
that, thankee.  No wine over business.  All very well for you, but
it wouldn't do for me.'

'What an old hand you are, Mr Chuzzlewit!' said Tigg, leaning back in
his chair, and leering at him through his half-shut eyes.

Jonas shook his head again, as much as to say, 'You're right there;'
And then resumed, jocosely:

'Not such an old hand, either, but that I've been and got married.
That's rather green, you'll say.  Perhaps it is, especially as she's
young.  But one never knows what may happen to these women, so I'm
thinking of insuring her life.  It is but fair, you know, that a man
should secure some consolation in case of meeting with such a loss.'

'If anything can console him under such heart-breaking
circumstances,' murmured Tigg, with his eyes shut up as before.

'Exactly,' returned Jonas; 'if anything can.  Now, supposing I did
it here, I should do it cheap, I know, and easy, without bothering
her about it; which I'd much rather not do, for it's just in a
woman's way to take it into her head, if you talk to her about
such things, that she's going to die directly.'

'So it is,' cried Tigg, kissing his hand in honour of the sex.
'You're quite right.  Sweet, silly, fluttering little simpletons!'

'Well,' said Jonas, 'on that account, you know, and because offence
has been given me in other quarters, I wouldn't mind patronizing
this Company.  But I want to know what sort of security there is for
the Company's going on.  That's the--'

'Not the truth?' cried Tigg, holding up his jewelled hand.  'Don't
use that Sunday School expression, please!'

'The long and the short of it,' said Jonas.  'The long and the short
of it is, what's the security?'

'The paid-up capital, my dear sir,' said Tigg, referring to some
papers on the table, 'is, at this present moment--'

'Oh! I understand all about paid-up capitals, you know,' said Jonas.

'You do?' cried Tigg, stopping short.

'I should hope so.'

He turned the papers down again, and moving nearer to him, said in
his ear:

'I know you do.  I know you do.  Look at me!'

It was not much in Jonas's way to look straight at anybody; but thus
requested, he made shift to take a tolerable survey of the
chairman's features.  The chairman fell back a little, to give him
the better opportunity.

'You know me?' he inquired, elevating his eyebrows.  'You recollect?
You've seen me before?'

'Why, I thought I remembered your face when I first came in,' said
Jonas, gazing at it; 'but I couldn't call to mind where I had seen
it.  No.  I don't remember, even now.  Was it in the street?'

'Was it in Pecksniff's parlour?' said Tigg

'In Pecksniff's parlour!' echoed Jonas, fetching a long breath.
'You don't mean when--'

'Yes,' cried Tigg, 'when there was a very charming and delightful
little family party, at which yourself and your respected father
assisted.'

'Well, never mind HIM,' said Jonas.  'He's dead, and there's no help
for it.'

'Dead, is he!' cried Tigg, 'Venerable old gentleman, is he dead!
You're very like him.'

Jonas received this compliment with anything but a good grace,
perhaps because of his own private sentiments in reference to the
personal appearance of his deceased parent; perhaps because he was
not best pleased to find that Montague and Tigg were one.  That
gentleman perceived it, and tapping him familiarly on the sleeve,
beckoned him to the window.  From this moment, Mr Montague's
jocularity and flow of spirits were remarkable.

'Do you find me at all changed since that time?' he asked.  'Speak
plainly.'

Jonas looked hard at his waistcoat and jewels; and said 'Rather,
ecod!'

'Was I at all seedy in those days?' asked Montague.

'Precious seedy,' said Jonas.

Mr Montague pointed down into the street, where Bailey and the cab
were in attendance.

'Neat; perhaps dashing.  Do you know whose it is?'

'No.'

'Mine.  Do you like this room?'

'It must have cost a lot of money,' said Jonas.

'You're right.  Mine too.  Why don't you'--he whispered this, and
nudged him in the side with his elbow--'why don't you take premiums,
instead of paying 'em?  That's what a man like you should do.  Join
us!'

Jonas stared at him in amazement.

'Is that a crowded street?' asked Montague, calling his attention to
the multitude without.

'Very,' said Jonas, only glancing at it, and immediately afterwards
looking at him again.

'There are printed calculations,' said his companion, 'which will
tell you pretty nearly how many people will pass up and down that
thoroughfare in the course of a day.  I can tell you how many of 'em
will come in here, merely because they find this office here;
knowing no more about it than they do of the Pyramids.  Ha, ha!
Join us.  You shall come in cheap.'

Jonas looked at him harder and harder.

'I can tell you,' said Tigg in his ear, 'how many of 'em will buy
annuities, effect insurances, bring us their money in a hundred
shapes and ways, force it upon us, trust us as if we were the Mint;
yet know no more about us than you do of that crossing-sweeper at
the corner.  Not so much.  Ha, ha!'

Jonas gradually broke into a smile.

'Yah!' said Montague, giving him a pleasant thrust in the breast;
'you're too deep for us, you dog, or I wouldn't have told you.  Dine
with me to-morrow, in Pall Mall!'

'I will' said Jonas.

'Done!' cried Montague.  'Wait a bit.  Take these papers with you
and look 'em over.  See,' he said, snatching some printed forms from
the table.  'B is a little tradesman, clerk, parson, artist, author,
any common thing you like.'

'Yes,' said Jonas, looking greedily over his shoulder.  'Well!'

'B wants a loan.  Say fifty or a hundred pound; perhaps more; no
matter.  B proposes self and two securities.  B is accepted.  Two
securities give a bond.  B assures his own life for double the
amount, and brings two friends' lives also--just to patronize the
office.  Ha ha, ha!  Is that a good notion?'

'Ecod, that's a capital notion!' cried Jonas.  'But does he really
do it?'

'Do it!' repeated the chairman.  'B's hard up, my good fellow, and
will do anything.  Don't you see?  It's my idea.'

'It does you honour.  I'm blest if it don't,' said Jonas.

'I think it does,' replied the chairman, 'and I'm proud to hear you
say so.  B pays the highest lawful interest--'

'That an't much,' interrupted Jonas.

'Right! quite right!' retorted Tigg.  'And hard it is upon the part
of the law that it should be so confoundedly down upon us
unfortunate victims; when it takes such amazing good interest for
itself from all its clients.  But charity begins at home, and
justice begins next door.  Well!  The law being hard upon us, we're
not exactly soft upon B; for besides charging B the regular
interest, we get B's premium, and B's friends' premiums, and we
charge B for the bond, and, whether we accept him or not, we charge
B for "inquiries" (we keep a man, at a pound a week, to make 'em),
and we charge B a trifle for the secretary; and in short, my good
fellow, we stick it into B, up hill and down dale, and make a
devilish comfortable little property out of him.  Ha, ha, ha!  I
drive B, in point of fact,' said Tigg, pointing to the cabriolet,
'and a thoroughbred horse he is.  Ha, ha, ha!'

Jonas enjoyed this joke very much indeed.  It was quite in his
peculiar vein of humour.

'Then,' said Tigg Montague, 'we grant annuities on the very lowest
and most advantageous terms known in the money market; and the old
ladies and gentlemen down in the country buy 'em.  Ha, ha, ha!  And
we pay 'em too--perhaps.  Ha, ha, ha!'

'But there's responsibility in that,' said Jonas, looking doubtful.

'I take it all myself,' said Tigg Montague.  'Here I am responsible
for everything.  The only responsible person in the establishment!
Ha, ha, ha!  Then there are the Life Assurances without loans; the
common policies.  Very profitable, very comfortable.  Money down,
you know; repeated every year; capital fun!'

'But when they begin to fall in,' observed Jonas.  'It's all very
well, while the office is young, but when the policies begin to
die--that's what I am thinking of.'

'At the first start, my dear fellow,' said Montague, 'to show you
how correct your judgment is, we had a couple of unlucky deaths that
brought us down to a grand piano.'

'Brought you down where?' cried Jonas.

'I give you my sacred word of honour,' said Tigg Montague, 'that I
raised money on every other individual piece of property, and was
left alone in the world with a grand piano.  And it was an upright-
grand too, so that I couldn't even sit upon it.  But, my dear
fellow, we got over it.  We granted a great many new policies that
week (liberal allowance to solicitors, by the bye), and got over it
in no time.  Whenever they should chance to fall in heavily, as you
very justly observe they may, one of these days; then--' he finished
the sentence in so low a whisper, that only one disconnected word
was audible, and that imperfectly.  But it sounded like 'Bolt.'

'Why, you're as bold as brass!' said Jonas, in the utmost
admiration.

'A man can well afford to be as bold as brass, my good fellow, when
he gets gold in exchange!' cried the chairman, with a laugh that
shook him from head to foot.  'You'll dine with me to-morrow?'

'At what time?' asked Jonas.

'Seven.  Here's my card.  Take the documents.  I see you'll join
us!'

'I don't know about that,' said Jonas.  'There's a good deal to be
looked into first.'

'You shall look,' said Montague, slapping him on the back, 'into
anything and everything you please.  But you'll join us, I am
convinced.  You were made for it.  Bullamy!'

Obedient to the summons and the little bell, the waistcoat appeared.
Being charged to show Jonas out, it went before; and the voice
within it cried, as usual, 'By your leave there, by your leave!
Gentleman from the board-room, by your leave!'

Mr Montague being left alone, pondered for some moments, and then
said, raising his voice:

'Is Nadgett in the office there?'

'Here he is, sir.'  And he promptly entered; shutting the board-room
door after him, as carefully as if he were about to plot a murder.

He was the man at a pound a week who made the inquiries.  It was no
virtue or merit in Nadgett that he transacted all his Anglo-Bengalee
business secretly and in the closest confidence; for he was born to
be a secret.  He was a short, dried-up, withered old man, who seemed
to have secreted his very blood; for nobody would have given him
credit for the possession of six ounces of it in his whole body.
How he lived was a secret; where he lived was a secret; and even
what he was, was a secret.  In his musty old pocket-book he carried
contradictory cards, in some of which he called himself a coal-
merchant, in others a wine-merchant, in others a commission-agent,
in others a collector, in others an accountant; as if he really
didn't know the secret himself.  He was always keeping appointments
in the City, and the other man never seemed to come.  He would sit
on 'Change for hours, looking at everybody who walked in and out,
and would do the like at Garraway's, and in other business coffee-
rooms, in some of which he would be occasionally seen drying a very
damp pocket-handkerchief before the fire, and still looking over his
shoulder for the man who never appeared.  He was mildewed,
threadbare, shabby; always had flue upon his legs and back; and kept
his linen so secretly buttoning up and wrapping over, that he might
have had none--perhaps he hadn't.  He carried one stained beaver
glove, which he dangled before him by the forefinger as he walked or
sat; but even its fellow was a secret.  Some people said he had been
a bankrupt, others that he had gone an infant into an ancient
Chancery suit which was still depending, but it was all a secret.
He carried bits of sealing-wax and a hieroglyphical old copper seal
in his pocket, and often secretly indited letters in corner boxes of
the trysting-places before mentioned; but they never appeared to go
to anybody, for he would put them into a secret place in his coat,
and deliver them to himself weeks afterwards, very much to his own
surprise, quite yellow.  He was that sort of man that if he had died
worth a million of money, or had died worth twopence halfpenny,
everybody would have been perfectly satisfied, and would have said
it was just as they expected.  And yet he belonged to a class; a
race peculiar to the City; who are secrets as profound to one
another, as they are to the rest of mankind.

'Mr Nadgett,' said Montague, copying Jonas Chuzzlewit's address upon
a piece of paper, from the card which was still lying on the table,
'any information about this name, I shall be glad to have myself.
Don't you mind what it is.  Any you can scrape together, bring me.
Bring it to me, Mr Nadgett.'

Nadgett put on his spectacles, and read the name attentively; then
looked at the chairman over his glasses, and bowed; then took them
off, and put them in their case; and then put the case in his
pocket.  When he had done so, he looked, without his spectacles, at
the paper as it lay before him, and at the same time produced his
pocket-book from somewhere about the middle of his spine.  Large as
it was, it was very full of documents, but he found a place for this
one; and having clasped it carefully, passed it by a kind of solemn
legerdemain into the same region as before.

He withdrew with another bow and without a word; opening the door no
wider than was sufficient for his passage out; and shutting it as
carefully as before.  The chairman of the board employed the rest of
the morning in affixing his sign-manual of gracious acceptance to
various new proposals of annuity-purchase and assurance.  The
Company was looking up, for they flowed in gayly.



CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MR MONTAGUE AT HOME.  AND MR JONAS CHUZZLEWIT AT HOME


There were many powerful reasons for Jonas Chuzzlewit being strongly
prepossessed in favour of the scheme which its great originator had
so boldly laid open to him; but three among them stood prominently
forward.  Firstly, there was money to be made by it.  Secondly, the
money had the peculiar charm of being sagaciously obtained at other
people's cost.  Thirdly, it involved much outward show of homage and
distinction: a board being an awful institution in its own sphere,
and a director a mighty man.  'To make a swingeing profit, have a
lot of chaps to order about, and get into regular good society by
one and the same means, and them so easy to one's hand, ain't such a
bad look-out,' thought Jonas.  The latter considerations were only
second to his avarice; for, conscious that there was nothing in his
person, conduct, character, or accomplishments, to command respect,
he was greedy of power, and was, in his heart, as much a tyrant as
any laureled conqueror on record.

But he determined to proceed with cunning and caution, and to be
very keen on his observation of the gentility of Mr Montague's
private establishment.  For it no more occurred to this shallow
knave that Montague wanted him to be so, or he wouldn't have invited
him while his decision was yet in abeyance, than the possibility of
that genius being able to overreach him in any way, pierced through
his self-deceit by the inlet of a needle's point.  He had said, in
the outset, that Jonas was too sharp for him; and Jonas, who would
have been sharp enough to believe him in nothing else, though he had
solemnly sworn it, believed him in that, instantly.

It was with a faltering hand, and yet with an imbecile attempt at
a swagger, that he knocked at his new friend's door in Pall Mall
when the appointed hour arrived.  Mr Bailey quickly answered to
the summons.  He was not proud and was kindly disposed to take
notice of Jonas; but Jonas had forgotten him.

'Mr Montague at home?'

'I should hope he wos at home, and waiting dinner, too,' said
Bailey, with the ease of an old acquaintance.  'Will you take your
hat up along with you, or leave it here?'

Mr Jonas preferred leaving it there.

'The hold name, I suppose?' said Bailey, with a grin.

Mr Jonas stared at him in mute indignation.

'What, don't you remember hold mother Todgers's?' said Mr Bailey,
with his favourite action of the knees and boots.  'Don't you
remember my taking your name up to the young ladies, when you came
a-courting there?  A reg'lar scaly old shop, warn't it?  Times is
changed ain't they.  I say how you've growed!'

Without pausing for any acknowledgement of this compliment, he
ushered the visitor upstairs, and having announced him, retired
with a private wink.

The lower story of the house was occupied by a wealthy tradesman,
but Mr Montague had all the upper portion, and splendid lodging it
was.  The room in which he received Jonas was a spacious and elegant
apartment, furnished with extreme magnificence; decorated with
pictures, copies from the antique in alabaster and marble, china
vases, lofty mirrors, crimson hangings of the richest silk, gilded
carvings, luxurious couches, glistening cabinets inlaid with
precious woods; costly toys of every sort in negligent abundance.
The only guests besides Jonas were the doctor, the resident
Director, and two other gentlemen, whom Montague presented in due
form.

'My dear friend, I am delighted to see you.  Jobling you know, I
believe?'

'I think so,' said the doctor pleasantly, as he stepped out of the
circle to shake hands.  'I trust I have the honour.  I hope so.  My
dear sir, I see you well.  Quite well?  THAT'S well!'

'Mr Wolf,' said Montague, as soon as the doctor would allow him to
introduce the two others, 'Mr Chuzzlewit.  Mr Pip, Mr Chuzzlewit.'

Both gentlemen were exceedingly happy to have the honour of making
Mr Chuzzlewit's acquaintance.  The doctor drew Jonas a little apart,
and whispered behind his hand:

'Men of the world, my dear sir--men of the world.  Hem!  Mr Wolf
--literary character--you needn't mention it--remarkably clever
weekly paper--oh, remarkably clever!  Mr Pip--theatrical man--
capital man to know--oh, capital man!'

'Well!' said Wolf, folding his arms and resuming a conversation
which the arrival of Jonas had interrupted.  'And what did Lord
Nobley say to that?'

'Why,' returned Pip, with an oath.  'He didn't know what to say.
Same, sir, if he wasn't as mute as a poker.  But you know what a
good fellow Nobley is!'

'The best fellow in the world!' cried Wolf.  'It as only last week
that Nobley said to me, "By Gad, Wolf, I've got a living to bestow,
and if you had but been brought up at the University, strike me
blind if I wouldn't have made a parson of you!"'

'Just like him,' said Pip with another oath.  'And he'd have done
it!'

'Not a doubt of it,' said Wolf.  'But you were going to tell us--'

'Oh, yes!' cried Pip.  'To be sure.  So I was.  At first he was
dumb--sewn up, dead, sir--but after a minute he said to the Duke,
"Here's Pip.  Ask Pip.  Pip's our mutual friend.  Ask Pip.  He
knows."  "Damme!" said the Duke, "I appeal to Pip then.  Come, Pip.
Bandy or not bandy?  Speak out!"  "Bandy, your Grace, by the Lord
Harry!" said I.  "Ha, ha!" laughed the Duke.  "To be sure she is.
Bravo, Pip.  Well said Pip.  I wish I may die if you're not a trump,
Pip.  Pop me down among your fashionable visitors whenever I'm in
town, Pip."  And so I do, to this day.'

The conclusion of this story gave immense satisfaction, which was in
no degree lessened by the announcement of dinner.  Jonas repaired to
the dining room, along with his distinguished host, and took his
seat at the board between that individual and his friend the doctor.
The rest fell into their places like men who were well accustomed to
the house; and dinner was done full justice to, by all parties.

It was a good a one as money (or credit, no matter which) could
produce.  The dishes, wines, and fruits were of the choicest kind.
Everything was elegantly served.  The plate was gorgeous.  Mr Jonas
was in the midst of a calculation of the value of this item alone,
when his host disturbed him.

'A glass of wine?'

'Oh!' said Jonas, who had had several glasses already.  'As much of
that as you like!  It's too good to refuse.'

'Well said, Mr Chuzzlewit!' cried Wolf.

'Tom Gag, upon my soul!' said Pip.

'Positively, you know, that's--ha, ha, ha!' observed the doctor,
laying down his knife and fork for one instant, and then going to work
again, pell-mell--'that's epigrammatic; quite!'

'You're tolerably comfortable, I hope?' said Tigg, apart to Jonas.

'Oh!  You needn't trouble your head about ME,' he replied, 'Famous!'

'I thought it best not to have a party,' said Tigg.  'You feel
that?'

'Why, what do you call this?' retorted Jonas.  'You don't mean to
say you do this every day, do you?'

'My dear fellow,' said Montague, shrugging his shoulders, 'every day
of my life, when I dine at home.  This is my common style.  It was
of no use having anything uncommon for you.  You'd have seen through
it.  "You'll have a party?" said Crimple.  "No, I won't," I said.
"he shall take us in the rough!"

'And pretty smooth, too, ecod!' said Jonas, glancing round the
table.  'This don't cost a trifle.'

'Why, to be candid with you, it does not,' returned the other.  'But
I like this sort of thing.  It's the way I spend my money.'

Jonas thrust his tongue into his cheek, and said, 'Was it?'

'When you join us, you won't get rid of your share of the profits in
the same way?' said Tigg.

'Quite different,' retorted Jonas.

'Well, and you're right,' said Tigg, with friendly candour.  'You
needn't.  It's not necessary.  One of a Company must do it to hold the
connection together; but, as I take a pleasure in it, that's my
department.  You don't mind dining expensively at another man's
expense, I hope?'

'Not a bit,' said Jonas.

'Then I hope you'll often dine with me?'

'Ah!' said Jonas, 'I don't mind.  On the contrary.'

'And I'll never attempt to talk business to you over wine, I take my
oath,' said Tigg.  'Oh deep, deep, deep of you this morning!  I must
tell 'em that.  They're the very men to enjoy it.  Pip, my good
fellow, I've a splendid little trait to tell you of my friend
Chuzzlewit who is the deepest dog I know; I give you my sacred word
of honour he is the deepest dog I know, Pip!'

Pip swore a frightful oath that he was sure of it already; and the
anecdote, being told, was received with loud applause, as an
incontestable proof of Mr Jonas's greatness.  Pip, in a natural
spirit of emulation, then related some instances of his own depth;
and Wolf not to be left behind-hand, recited the leading points of
one or two vastly humorous articles he was then preparing.  These
lucubrations being of what he called 'a warm complexion,' were
highly approved; and all the company agreed that they were full of
point.

'Men of the world, my dear sir,' Jobling whispered to Jonas;
'thorough men of the world!  To a professional person like myself
it's quite refreshing to come into this kind of society.  It's not
only agreeable--and nothing CAN be more agreeable--but it's
philosophically improving.  It's character, my dear sir; character!'

It is so pleasant to find real merit appreciated, whatever its
particular walk in life may be, that the general harmony of the
company was doubtless much promoted by their knowing that the two
men of the world were held in great esteem by the upper classes of
society, and by the gallant defenders of their country in the army
and navy, but particularly the former.  The least of their stories
had a colonel in it; lords were as plentiful as oaths; and even the
Blood Royal ran in the muddy channel of their personal recollections.

'Mr Chuzzlewit didn't know him, I'm afraid,' said Wolf, in reference
to a certain personage of illustrious descent, who had previously
figured in a reminiscence.

'No,' said Tigg.  'But we must bring him into contact with this sort
of fellows.'

'He was very fond of literature,' observed Wolf.

'Was he?' said Tigg.

'Oh, yes; he took my paper regularly for many years.  Do you know he
said some good things now and then?  He asked a certain Viscount,
who's a friend of mine--Pip knows him--"What's the editor's name,
what's the editor's name?"  "Wolf."  "Wolf, eh?  Sharp biter, Wolf.
We must keep the Wolf from the door, as the proverb says.  It was
very well.  And being complimentary, I printed it.'

'But the Viscount's the boy!' cried Pip, who invented a new oath for
the introduction of everything he said.  'The Viscount's the boy!  He
came into our place one night to take Her home; rather slued, but
not much; and said, "Where's Pip?  I want to see Pip.  Produce
Pip!"--"What's the row, my lord?"--"Shakspeare's an infernal humbug,
Pip!  What's the good of Shakspeare, Pip?  I never read him.  What
the devil is it all about, Pip?  There's a lot of feet in
Shakspeare's verse, but there an't any legs worth mentioning in
Shakspeare's plays, are there, Pip?  Juliet, Desdemona, Lady
Macbeth, and all the rest of 'em, whatever their names are, might as
well have no legs at all, for anything the audience know about it,
Pip.  Why, in that respect they're all Miss Biffins to the audience,
Pip.  I'll tell you what it is.  What the people call dramatic
poetry is a collection of sermons.  Do I go to the theatre to be
lectured?  No, Pip.  If I wanted that, I'd go to church.  What's the
legitimate object of the drama, Pip?  Human nature.  What are legs?
Human nature.  Then let us have plenty of leg pieces, Pip, and I'll
stand by you, my buck!" and I am proud to say,' added Pip, 'that he
DID stand by me, handsomely.'

The conversation now becoming general, Mr Jonas's opinion was
requested on this subject; and as it was in full accordance with the
sentiments of Mr Pip, that gentleman was extremely gratified.
Indeed, both himself and Wolf had so much in common with Jonas, that
they became very amicable; and between their increasing friendship
and the fumes of wine, Jonas grew talkative.

It does not follow in the case of such a person that the more
talkative he becomes, the more agreeable he is; on the contrary, his
merits show to most advantage, perhaps, in silence.  Having no
means, as he thought, of putting himself on an equality with the
rest, but by the assertion of that depth and sharpness on which he
had been complimented, Jonas exhibited that faculty to the utmost;
and was so deep and sharp that he lost himself in his own
profundity, and cut his fingers with his own edge-tools.

It was especially in his way and character to exhibit his quality at
his entertainer's expense; and while he drank of his sparkling
wines, and partook of his monstrous profusion, to ridicule the
extravagance which had set such costly fare before him.  Even at
such a wanton board, and in such more than doubtful company, this
might have proved a disagreeable experiment, but that Tigg and
Crimple, studying to understand their man thoroughly, gave him what
license he chose: knowing that the more he took, the better for
their purpose.  And thus while the blundering cheat--gull that he
was, for all his cunning--thought himself rolled up hedgehog
fashion, with his sharpest points towards them, he was, in fact,
betraying all his vulnerable parts to their unwinking watchfulness.

Whether the two gentlemen who contributed so much to the doctor's
philosophical knowledge (by the way, the doctor slipped off quietly,
after swallowing his usual amount of wine) had had their cue
distinctly from the host, or took it from what they saw and heard,
they acted their parts very well.  They solicited the honour of
Jonas's better acquaintance; trusted that they would have the
pleasure of introducing him into that elevated society in which he
was so well qualified to shine; and informed him, in the most
friendly manner that the advantages of their respective
establishments were entirely at his control.  In a word, they said
'Be one of us!'  And Jonas said he was infinitely obliged to them,
and he would be; adding within himself, that so long as they 'stood
treat,' there was nothing he would like better.

After coffee, which was served in the drawing-room, there was a
short interval (mainly sustained by Pip and Wolf) of conversation;
rather highly spiced and strongly seasoned.  When it flagged, Jonas
took it up and showed considerable humour in appraising the
furniture; inquiring whether such an article was paid for; what it
had originally cost, and the like.  In all of this, he was, as he
considered, desperately hard on Montague, and very demonstrative of
his own brilliant parts.

Some Champagne Punch gave a new though temporary fillip to the
entertainments of the evening.  For after leading to some noisy
proceedings, which were not intelligible, it ended in the unsteady
departure of the two gentlemen of the world, and the slumber of Mr
Jonas upon one of the sofas.

As he could not be made to understand where he was, Mr Bailey
received orders to call a hackney-coach, and take him home; which
that young gentleman roused himself from an uneasy sleep in the
hall to do.  It being now almost three o'clock in the morning.

'Is he hooked, do you think?' whispered Crimple, as himself and
partner stood in a distant part of the room observing him as he lay.

'Aye!' said Tigg, in the same tone.  'With a strong iron, perhaps.
Has Nadgett been here to-night?'

'Yes.  I went out to him.  Hearing you had company, he went away.'

'Why did he do that?'

'He said he would come back early in the morning, before you were
out of bed.'

'Tell them to be sure and send him up to my bedside.  Hush!  Here's
the boy!  Now Mr Bailey, take this gentleman home, and see him safely
in.  Hallo, here!  Why Chuzzlewit, halloa!'

They got him upright with some difficulty, and assisted him
downstairs, where they put his hat upon his head, and tumbled him
into the coach.  Mr Bailey, having shut him in, mounted the box
beside the coachman, and smoked his cigar with an air of particular
satisfaction; the undertaking in which he was engaged having a free
and sporting character about it, which was quite congenial to his
taste.

Arriving in due time at the house in the City, Mr Bailey jumped
down, and expressed the lively nature of his feelings in a knock the
like of which had probably not been heard in that quarter since the
great fire of London.  Going out into the road to observe the effect
of this feat, he saw that a dim light, previously visible at an
upper window, had been already removed and was travelling
downstairs.  To obtain a foreknowledge of the bearer of this
taper, Mr Bailey skipped back to the door again, and put his eye
to the keyhole.

It was the merry one herself.  But sadly, strangely altered!  So
careworn and dejected, so faltering and full of fear; so fallen,
humbled, broken; that to have seen her quiet in her coffin would
have been a less surprise.

She set the light upon a bracket in the hall, and laid her hand upon
her heart; upon her eyes; upon her burning head.  Then she came on
towards the door with such a wild and hurried step that Mr Bailey
lost his self-possession, and still had his eye where the keyhole
had been, when she opened it.

'Aha!' said Mr Bailey, with an effort.  'There you are, are you?
What's the matter?  Ain't you well, though?'

In the midst of her astonishment as she recognized him in his
altered dress, so much of her old smile came back to her face that
Bailey was glad.  But next moment he was sorry again, for he saw
tears standing in her poor dim eyes.

'Don't be frightened,' said Bailey.  'There ain't nothing the matter.
I've brought home Mr Chuzzlewit.  He ain't ill.  He's only a little
swipey, you know.'  Mr Bailey reeled in his boots, to express
intoxication.

'Have you come from Mrs Todgers's?' asked Merry, trembling.

'Todgers's, bless you!  No!' cried Mr Bailey.  'I haven't got nothin,
to do with Todgers's.  I cut that connection long ago.  He's been a-
dining with my governor at the west-end.  Didn't you know he was a-
coming to see us?'

'No,' she said, faintly.

'Oh yes!  We're heavy swells too, and so I tell you.  Don't you come
out, a-catching cold in your head.  I'll wake him!'  Mr Bailey
expressing in his demeanour a perfect confidence that he could carry
him in with ease, if necessary, opened the coach door, let down the
steps, and giving Jonas a shake, cried 'We've got home, my flower!
Tumble up, then!'

He was so far recovered as to be able to respond to this appeal, and
to come stumbling out of the coach in a heap, to the great hazard of
Mr Bailey's person.  When he got upon the pavement, Mr Bailey first
butted at him in front, and then dexterously propped him up behind;
and having steadied him by these means, he assisted him into the
house.

'You go up first with the light,' said Bailey to Mr Jonas, 'and
we'll foller.  Don't tremble so.  He won't hurt you.  When I've had
a drop too much, I'm full of good natur myself.'

She went on before; and her husband and Bailey, by dint of tumbling
over each other, and knocking themselves about, got at last into the
sitting-room above stairs, where Jonas staggered into a seat.

'There!' said Mr Bailey.  'He's all right now.  You ain't got
nothing to cry for, bless you!  He's righter than a trivet!'

The ill-favoured brute, with dress awry, and sodden face, and
rumpled hair, sat blinking and drooping, and rolling his idiotic
eyes about, until, becoming conscious by degrees, he recognized his
wife, and shook his fist at her.

'Ah!' cried Mr Bailey, squaring his arms with a sudden emotion.
'What, you're wicious, are you?  Would you though!  You'd better
not!'

'Pray, go away!' said Merry.  'Bailey, my good boy, go home.
Jonas!' she said; timidly laying her hand upon his shoulder, and
bending her head down over him.  'Jonas!'

'Look at her!' cried Jonas, pushing her off with his extended arm.
'Look here!  Look at her!  Here's a bargain for a man!'

'Dear Jonas!'

'Dear Devil!' he replied, with a fierce gesture.  'You're a pretty
clog to be tied to a man for life, you mewling, white-faced cat!
Get out of my sight!'

'I know you don't mean it, Jonas.  You wouldn't say it if you were
sober.'

With affected gayety she gave Bailey a piece of money, and again
implored him to be gone.  Her entreaty was so earnest, that the boy
had not the heart to stay there.  But he stopped at the bottom of
the stairs, and listened.

'I wouldn't say it if I was sober!' retorted Jonas.  'You know
better.  Have I never said it when I was sober?'

'Often, indeed!' she answered through her tears.

'Hark ye!' cried Jonas, stamping his foot upon the ground.  'You
made me bear your pretty humours once, and ecod I'll make you bear
mine now.  I always promised myself I would.  I married you that I
might.  I'll know who's master, and who's slave!'

'Heaven knows I am obedient!' said the sobbing girl.  'Much more so
than I ever thought to be!'

Jonas laughed in his drunken exultation.  'What! you're finding it
out, are you!  Patience, and you will in time!  Griffins have claws,
my girl.  There's not a pretty slight you ever put upon me, nor a
pretty trick you ever played me, nor a pretty insolence you ever
showed me, that I won't pay back a hundred-fold.  What else did I
marry you for?  YOU, too!' he said, with coarse contempt.

It might have softened him--indeed it might--to hear her turn a
little fragment of a song he used to say he liked; trying, with
a heart so full, to win him back.

'Oho!' he said, 'you're deaf, are you?  You don't hear me, eh?  So
much the better for you.  I hate you.  I hate myself, for having,
been fool enough to strap a pack upon my back for the pleasure of
treading on it whenever I choose.  Why, things have opened to me,
now, so that I might marry almost where I liked.  But I wouldn't;
I'd keep single.  I ought to be single, among the friends I know.
Instead of that, here I am, tied like a log to you.  Pah!  Why do
you show your pale face when I come home?  Am I never to forget you?'

'How late it is!' she said cheerfully, opening the shutter after an
interval of silence.  'Broad day, Jonas!'

'Broad day or black night, what do I care!' was the kind rejoinder.

'The night passed quickly, too.  I don't mind sitting up, at all.'

'Sit up for me again, if you dare!' growled Jonas.

'I was reading,' she proceeded, 'all night long.  I began when you
went out, and read till you came home again.  The strangest story,
Jonas!  And true, the book says.  I'll tell it you to-morrow.'

'True, was it?' said Jonas, doggedly.

'So the book says.'

'Was there anything in it, about a man's being determined to conquer
his wife, break her spirit, bend her temper, crush all her humours
like so many nut-shells--kill her, for aught I know?' said Jonas.

'No.  Not a word,' she answered quickly.

'Oh!' he returned.  'That'll be a true story though, before long;
for all the book says nothing about it.  It's a lying book, I see.
A fit book for a lying reader.  But you're deaf.  I forgot that.'

There was another interval of silence; and the boy was stealing
away, when he heard her footstep on the floor, and stopped.  She
went up to him, as it seemed, and spoke lovingly; saying that she
would defer to him in everything and would consult his wishes and
obey them, and they might be very happy if he would be gentle with
her.  He answered with an imprecation, and--

Not with a blow?  Yes.  Stern truth against the base-souled villain;
with a blow.

No angry cries; no loud reproaches.  Even her weeping and her sobs
were stifled by her clinging round him.  She only said, repeating
it in agony of heart, how could he, could he, could he--and lost
utterance in tears.

Oh woman, God beloved in old Jerusalem!  The best among us need
deal lightly with thy faults, if only for the punishment thy nature
will endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us, on the Day of
Judgment!



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE ARE PRECOCIOUS, OTHERS PROFESSIONAL, AND OTHERS
MYSTERIOUS; ALL IN THEIR SEVERAL WAYS


It may have been the restless remembrance of what he had seen and
heard overnight, or it may have been no deeper mental operation than
the discovery that he had nothing to do, which caused Mr Bailey, on
the following afternoon, to feel particularly disposed for agreeable
society, and prompted him to pay a visit to his friend Poll
Sweedlepipe.

On the little bell giving clamorous notice of a visitor's approach
(for Mr Bailey came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much
sound out of the bell as possible), Poll Sweedlepipe desisted from
the contemplation of a favourite owl, and gave his young friend
hearty welcome.

'Why, you look smarter by day,' said Poll, 'than you do by candle-
light.  I never see such a tight young dasher.'

'Reether so, Polly.  How's our fair friend, Sairah?'

'Oh, she's pretty well,' said Poll.  'She's at home.'

'There's the remains of a fine woman about Sairah, Poll,' observed
Mr Bailey, with genteel indifference.

'Oh!' thought Poll, 'he's old.  He must be very old!'

'Too much crumb, you know,' said Mr Bailey; 'too fat, Poll.  But
there's many worse at her time of life'

'The very owl's a-opening his eyes!' thought Poll.  'I don't wonder
at it in a bird of his opinions.'

He happened to have been sharpening his razors, which were lying
open in a row, while a huge strop dangled from the wall.  Glancing
at these preparations, Mr Bailey stroked his chin, and a thought
appeared to occur to him.

'Poll,' he said, 'I ain't as neat as I could wish about the gills.
Being here, I may as well have a shave, and get trimmed close.'

The barber stood aghast; but Mr Bailey divested himself of his neck-
cloth, and sat down in the easy shaving chair with all the dignity
and confidence in life.  There was no resisting his manner.  The
evidence of sight and touch became as nothing.  His chin was as
smooth as a new-laid egg or a scraped Dutch cheese; but Poll
Sweedlepipe wouldn't have ventured to deny, on affidavit, that he
had the beard of a Jewish rabbi.

'Go WITH the grain, Poll, all round, please,' said Mr Bailey,
screwing up his face for the reception of the lather.  'You may do
wot you like with the bits of whisker.  I don't care for 'em.'

The meek little barber stood gazing at him with the brush and soap-
dish in his hand, stirring them round and round in a ludicrous
uncertainty, as if he were disabled by some fascination from
beginning.  At last he made a dash at Mr Bailey's cheek.  Then he
stopped again, as if the ghost of a beard had suddenly receded from
his touch; but receiving mild encouragement from Mr Bailey, in the
form of an adjuration to 'Go in and win,' he lathered him
bountifully.  Mr Bailey smiled through the suds in his satisfaction.
'Gently over the stones, Poll.  Go a tip-toe over the pimples!'

Poll Sweedlepipe obeyed, and scraped the lather off again with
particular care.  Mr Bailey squinted at every successive dab, as it
was deposited on a cloth on his left shoulder, and seemed, with a
microscopic eye, to detect some bristles in it; for he murmured more
than once 'Reether redder than I could wish, Poll.'  The operation
being concluded, Poll fell back and stared at him again, while Mr
Bailey, wiping his face on the jack-towel, remarked, 'that arter
late hours nothing freshened up a man so much as a easy shave.'

He was in the act of tying his cravat at the glass, without his
coat, and Poll had wiped his razor, ready for the next customer,
when Mrs Gamp, coming downstairs, looked in at the shop-door to
give the barber neighbourly good day.  Feeling for her unfortunate
situation, in having conceived a regard for himself which it was not
in the nature of things that he could return, Mr Bailey hastened to
soothe her with words of kindness.

'Hallo!' he said, 'Sairah!  I needn't ask you how you've been this
long time, for you're in full bloom.  All a-blowin and a-growin;
ain't she, Polly?'

'Why, drat the Bragian boldness of that boy!' cried Mrs Gamp, though
not displeased.  'What a imperent young sparrow it is!  I wouldn't be
that creetur's mother not for fifty pound!'

Mr Bailey regarded this as a delicate confession of her attachment,
and a hint that no pecuniary gain could recompense her for its being
rendered hopeless.  He felt flattered.  Disinterested affection is
always flattering.

'Ah, dear!' moaned Mrs Gamp, sinking into the shaving chair, 'that
there blessed Bull, Mr Sweedlepipe, has done his wery best to conker
me.  Of all the trying inwalieges in this walley of the shadder,
that one beats 'em black and blue.'

It was the practice of Mrs Gamp and her friends in the profession,
to say this of all the easy customers; as having at once the effect
of discouraging competitors for office, and accounting for the
necessity of high living on the part of the nurses.

'Talk of constitooshun!' Mrs Gamp observed.  'A person's
constitooshun need be made of bricks to stand it.  Mrs Harris jestly
says to me, but t'other day, "Oh! Sairey Gamp," she says, "how is it
done?"  "Mrs Harris, ma'am," I says to her, "we gives no trust
ourselves, and puts a deal o'trust elsevere; these is our religious
feelins, and we finds 'em answer."  "Sairey," says Mrs Harris, "sech
is life.  Vich likeways is the hend of all things!"'

The barber gave a soft murmur, as much as to say that Mrs Harris's
remark, though perhaps not quite so intelligible as could be desired
from such an authority, did equal honour to her head and to her
heart.

'And here,' continued Mrs Gamp, 'and here am I a-goin twenty mile in
distant, on as wentersome a chance as ever any one as monthlied ever
run, I do believe.  Says Mrs Harris, with a woman's and a mother's
art a-beatin in her human breast, she says to me, "You're not a-
goin, Sairey, Lord forgive you!"  "Why am I not a-goin, Mrs Harris?"
I replies.  "Mrs Gill," I says, "wos never wrong with six; and is it
likely, ma'am--I ast you as a mother--that she will begin to be
unreg'lar now?  Often and often have I heerd him say," I says to Mrs
Harris, meaning Mr Gill, "that he would back his wife agen Moore's
almanack, to name the very day and hour, for ninepence farden.  IS
it likely, ma'am," I says, "as she will fail this once?"  Says Mrs
Harris "No, ma'am, not in the course of natur.  But," she says, the
tears a-fillin in her eyes, "you knows much betterer than me, with
your experienge, how little puts us out.  A Punch's show," she says,
"a chimbley sweep, a newfundlan dog, or a drunkin man a-comin round
the corner sharp may do it."  So it may, Mr Sweedlepipes,' said Mrs
Gamp, 'there's no deniging of it; and though my books is clear for a
full week, I takes a anxious art along with me, I do assure you,
sir.'

'You're so full of zeal, you see!' said Poll.  'You worrit yourself
so.'

'Worrit myself!' cried Mrs Gamp, raising her hands and turning up
her eyes.  'You speak truth in that, sir, if you never speaks no
more 'twixt this and when two Sundays jines together.  I feels the
sufferins of other people more than I feels my own, though no one
mayn't suppoge it.  The families I've had,' said Mrs Gamp, 'if all
was knowd and credit done where credit's doo, would take a week to
chris'en at Saint Polge's fontin!'

'Where's the patient goin?' asked Sweedlepipe.

'Into Har'fordshire, which is his native air.  But native airs nor
native graces neither,' Mrs Gamp observed, 'won't bring HIM round.'

'So bad as that?' inquired the wistful barber.  'Indeed!'

Mrs Gamp shook her head mysteriously, and pursed up her lips.
'There's fevers of the mind,' she said, 'as well as body.  You may
take your slime drafts till you files into the air with
efferwescence; but you won't cure that.'

'Ah!' said the barber, opening his eyes, and putting on his raven
aspect; 'Lor!'

'No.  You may make yourself as light as any gash balloon,' said Mrs
Gamp.  'But talk, when you're wrong in your head and when you're in
your sleep, of certain things; and you'll be heavy in your mind.'

'Of what kind of things now?' inquired Poll, greedily biting his
nails in his great interest.  'Ghosts?'

Mrs Gamp, who perhaps had been already tempted further than she had
intended to go, by the barber's stimulating curiosity, gave a sniff
of uncommon significance, and said, it didn't signify.

'I'm a-goin down with my patient in the coach this arternoon,' she
proceeded.  'I'm a-goin to stop with him a day or so, till he gets a
country nuss (drat them country nusses, much the orkard hussies
knows about their bis'ness); and then I'm a-comin back; and that's
my trouble, Mr Sweedlepipes.  But I hope that everythink'll only go
on right and comfortable as long as I'm away; perwisin which, as Mrs
Harris says, Mrs Gill is welcome to choose her own time; all times
of the day and night bein' equally the same to me.'

During the progress of the foregoing remarks, which Mrs Gamp had
addressed exclusively to the barber, Mr Bailey had been tying his
cravat, getting on his coat, and making hideous faces at himself in
the glass.  Being now personally addressed by Mrs Gamp, he turned
round, and mingled in the conversation.

'You ain't been in the City, I suppose, sir, since we was all three
there together,' said Mrs Gamp, 'at Mr Chuzzlewit's?'

'Yes, I have, Sairah.  I was there last night.'

'Last night!' cried the barber.

'Yes, Poll, reether so.  You can call it this morning, if you like
to be particular.  He dined with us.'

'Who does that young Limb mean by "hus?"' said Mrs Gamp, with most
impatient emphasis.

'Me and my Governor, Sairah.  He dined at our house.  We wos very
merry, Sairah.  So much so, that I was obliged to see him home in a
hackney coach at three o'clock in the morning.'  It was on the tip of
the boy's tongue to relate what had followed; but remembering how
easily it might be carried to his master's ears, and the repeated
cautions he had had from Mr Crimple 'not to chatter,' he checked
himself; adding, only, 'She was sitting up, expecting him.'

'And all things considered,' said Mrs Gamp sharply, 'she might have
know'd better than to go a-tirin herself out, by doin' anythink of
the sort.  Did they seem pretty pleasant together, sir?'

'Oh, yes,' answered Bailey, 'pleasant enough.'

'I'm glad on it,' said Mrs Gamp, with a second sniff of significance.

'They haven't been married so long,' observed Poll, rubbing his
hands, 'that they need be anything but pleasant yet awhile.'

'No,' said Mrs Gamp, with a third significant signal.

'Especially,' pursued the barber, 'when the gentleman bears such a
character as you gave him.'

'I speak; as I find, Mr Sweedlepipes,' said Mrs Gamp.  'Forbid it
should be otherways!  But we never knows wot's hidden in each other's
hearts; and if we had glass winders there, we'd need keep the
shetters up, some on us, I do assure you!'

'But you don't mean to say--' Poll Sweedlepipe began.

'No,' said Mrs Gamp, cutting him very short, 'I don't.  Don't think
I do.  The torters of the Imposition shouldn't make me own I did.
All I says is,' added the good woman, rising and folding her shawl
about her, 'that the Bull's a-waitin, and the precious moments is
a-flyin' fast.'

The little barber having in his eager curiosity a great desire to
see Mrs Gamp's patient, proposed to Mr Bailey that they should
accompany her to the Bull, and witness the departure of the coach.
That young gentleman assenting, they all went out together.

Arriving at the tavern, Mrs Gamp (who was full-dressed for the
journey, in her latest suit of mourning) left her friends to
entertain themselves in the yard, while she ascended to the sick
room, where her fellow-labourer Mrs Prig was dressing the invalid.

He was so wasted, that it seemed as if his bones would rattle when
they moved him.  His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally
large.  He lay back in the easy-chair like one more dead than
living; and rolled his languid eyes towards the door when Mrs Gamp
appeared, as painfully as if their weight alone were burdensome to
move.

'And how are we by this time?' Mrs Gamp observed.  'We looks
charming.'

'We looks a deal charminger than we are, then,' returned Mrs Prig, a
little chafed in her temper.  'We got out of bed back'ards, I think,
for we're as cross as two sticks.  I never see sich a man.  He
wouldn't have been washed, if he'd had his own way.'

'She put the soap in my mouth,' said the unfortunate patient feebly.

'Couldn't you keep it shut then?' retorted Mrs Prig.  'Who do you
think's to wash one feater, and miss another, and wear one's eyes
out with all manner of fine work of that description, for half-a-
crown a day!  If you wants to be tittivated, you must pay accordin'.'

'Oh dear me!' cried the patient, 'oh dear, dear!'

'There!' said Mrs Prig, 'that's the way he's been a-conductin of
himself, Sarah, ever since I got him out of bed, if you'll believe
it.'

'Instead of being grateful,' Mrs Gamp observed, 'for all our little
ways.  Oh, fie for shame, sir, fie for shame!'

Here Mrs Prig seized the patient by the chin, and began to rasp his
unhappy head with a hair-brush.

'I suppose you don't like that, neither!' she observed, stopping to
look at him.

It was just possible that he didn't for the brush was a specimen of
the hardest kind of instrument producible by modern art; and his
very eyelids were red with the friction.  Mrs Prig was gratified to
observe the correctness of her supposition, and said triumphantly
'she know'd as much.'

When his hair was smoothed down comfortably into his eyes, Mrs Prig
and Mrs Gamp put on his neckerchief; adjusting his shirt collar with
great nicety, so that the starched points should also invade those
organs, and afflict them with an artificial ophthalmia.  His
waistcoat and coat were next arranged; and as every button was
wrenched into a wrong button-hole, and the order of his boots was
reversed, he presented on the whole rather a melancholy appearance.

'I don't think it's right,' said the poor weak invalid.  'I feel as
if I was in somebody else's clothes.  I'm all on one side; and
you've made one of my legs shorter than the other.  There's a bottle
in my pocket too.  What do you make me sit upon a bottle for?'

'Deuce take the man!' cried Mrs Gamp, drawing it forth.  'If he
ain't been and got my night-bottle here.  I made a little cupboard
of his coat when it hung behind the door, and quite forgot it,
Betsey.  You'll find a ingun or two, and a little tea and sugar in
his t'other pocket, my dear, if you'll just be good enough to take
'em out.'

Betsey produced the property in question, together with some other
articles of general chandlery; and Mrs Gamp transferred them to her
own pocket, which was a species of nankeen pannier.  Refreshment
then arrived in the form of chops and strong ale for the ladies, and
a basin of beef-tea for the patient; which refection was barely at
an end when John Westlock appeared.

'Up and dressed!' cried John, sitting down beside him.  'That's
brave.  How do you feel?'

'Much better.  But very weak.'

'No wonder.  You have had a hard bout of it.  But country air, and
change of scene,' said John, 'will make another man of you!  Why, Mrs
Gamp,' he added, laughing, as he kindly arranged the sick man's
garments, 'you have odd notions of a gentleman's dress!'

'Mr Lewsome an't a easy gent to get into his clothes, sir,' Mrs Gamp
replied with dignity; 'as me and Betsey Prig can certify afore the
Lord Mayor and Uncommon Counsellors, if needful!'

John at that moment was standing close in front of the sick man, in
the act of releasing him from the torture of the collars before
mentioned, when he said in a whisper:

'Mr Westlock!  I don't wish to be overheard.  I have something very
particular and strange to say to you; something that has been a
dreadful weight on my mind, through this long illness.'

Quick in all his motions, John was turning round to desire the women
to leave the room; when the sick man held him by the sleeve.

'Not now.  I've not the strength.  I've not the courage.  May I tell
it when I have?  May I write it, if I find that easier and better?'

'May you!' cried John.  'Why, Lewsome, what is this!'

'Don't ask me what it is.  It's unnatural and cruel.  Frightful to
think of.  Frightful to tell.  Frightful to know.  Frightful to have
helped in.  Let me kiss your hand for all your goodness to me.  Be
kinder still, and don't ask me what it is!'

At first, John gazed at him in great surprise; but remembering how
very much reduced he was, and how recently his brain had been on
fire with fever, believed that he was labouring under some imaginary
horror or despondent fancy.  For farther information on this point,
he took an opportunity of drawing Mrs Gamp aside, while Betsey Prig
was wrapping him in cloaks and shawls, and asked her whether he was
quite collected in his mind.

'Oh bless you, no!' said Mrs Gamp.  'He hates his nusses to this
hour.  They always does it, sir.  It's a certain sign.  If you could
have heerd the poor dear soul a-findin fault with me and Betsey
Prig, not half an hour ago, you would have wondered how it is we
don't get fretted to the tomb.'

This almost confirmed John in his suspicion; so, not taking what had
passed into any serious account, he resumed his former cheerful
manner, and assisted by Mrs Gamp and Betsey Prig, conducted Lewsome
downstairs to the coach; just then upon the point of starting.
Poll Sweedlepipe was at the door with his arms tight folded and his
eyes wide open, and looked on with absorbing interest, while the
sick man was slowly moved into the vehicle.  His bony hands and
haggard face impressed Poll wonderfully; and he informed Mr Bailey
in confidence, that he wouldn't have missed seeing him for a pound.
Mr Bailey, who was of a different constitution, remarked that he
would have stayed away for five shillings.

It was a troublesome matter to adjust Mrs Gamp's luggage to her
satisfaction; for every package belonging to that lady had the
inconvenient property of requiring to be put in a boot by itself,
and to have no other luggage near it, on pain of actions at law for
heavy damages against the proprietors of the coach.  The umbrella
with the circular patch was particularly hard to be got rid of, and
several times thrust out its battered brass nozzle from improper
crevices and chinks, to the great terror of the other passengers.
Indeed, in her intense anxiety to find a haven of refuge for this
chattel, Mrs Gamp so often moved it, in the course of five minutes,
that it seemed not one umbrella but fifty.  At length it was lost,
or said to be; and for the next five minutes she was face to face
with the coachman, go wherever he might, protesting that it should
be 'made good,' though she took the question to the House of
Commons.

At last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and
everything else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of
Poll and Mr Bailey, dropped a curtsey to John Westlock, and parted
as from a cherished member of the sisterhood with Betsey Prig.

'Wishin you lots of sickness, my darlin creetur,' Mrs Gamp observed,
'and good places.  It won't be long, I hope, afore we works
together, off and on, again, Betsey; and may our next meetin' be at
a large family's, where they all takes it reg'lar, one from another,
turn and turn about, and has it business-like.'

'I don't care how soon it is,' said Mrs Prig; 'nor how many weeks it
lasts.'

Mrs Gamp with a reply in a congenial spirit was backing to the
coach, when she came in contact with a lady and gentleman who were
passing along the footway.

'Take care, take care here!' cried the gentleman.  'Halloo!
My dear!  Why, it's Mrs Gamp!'

'What, Mr Mould!' exclaimed the nurse.  'And Mrs Mould! who would
have thought as we should ever have a meetin' here, I'm sure!'

'Going out of town, Mrs Gamp?' cried Mould.  'That's unusual, isn't
it?'

'It IS unusual, sir,' said Mrs Gamp.  'But only for a day or two at
most.  The gent,' she whispered, 'as I spoke about.'

'What, in the coach!' cried Mould.  'The one you thought of
recommending?  Very odd.  My dear, this will interest you.  The
gentleman that Mrs Gamp thought likely to suit us is in the coach,
my love.'

Mrs Mould was greatly interested.

'Here, my dear.  You can stand upon the door-step,' said Mould, 'and
take a look at him.  Ha!  There he is.  Where's my glass?  Oh! all
right.  I've got it.  Do you see him, my dear?'

'Quite plain,' said Mrs Mould.

'Upon my life, you know, this is a very singular circumstance,' said
Mould, quite delighted.  'This is the sort of thing, my dear, I
wouldn't have missed on any account.  It tickles one.  It's
interesting.  It's almost a little play, you know.  Ah!  There
he is!  To be sure.  Looks poorly, Mrs M., don't he?'

Mrs Mould assented.

'He's coming our way, perhaps, after all,' said Mould.  'Who knows!
I feel as if I ought to show him some little attention, really.  He
don't seem a stranger to me.  I'm very much inclined to move my hat,
my dear.'

'He's looking hard this way,' said Mrs Mould.

'Then I will!' cried Mould.  'How d'ye do, sir!  I wish you good day.
Ha!  He bows too.  Very gentlemanly.  Mrs Gamp has the cards in her
pocket, I have no doubt.  This is very singular, my dear--and very
pleasant.  I am not superstitious, but it really seems as if one was
destined to pay him those little melancholy civilities which belong
to our peculiar line of business.  There can be no kind of objection
to your kissing your hand to him, my dear.'

Mrs Mould did so.

'Ha!' said Mould.  'He's evidently gratified.  Poor fellow!  I am
quite glad you did it, my love.  Bye bye, Mrs Gamp!' waving his
hand.  'There he goes; there he goes!'

So he did; for the coach rolled off as the words were spoken.  Mr
and Mrs Mould, in high good humour, went their merry way.  Mr Bailey
retired with Poll Sweedlepipe as soon as possible; but some little
time elapsed before he could remove his friend from the ground,
owing to the impression wrought upon the barber's nerves by Mrs
Prig, whom he pronounced, in admiration of her beard, to be a woman
of transcendent charms.

When the light cloud of bustle hanging round the coach was thus
dispersed, Nadgett was seen in the darkest box of the Bull coffee-
room, looking wistfully up at the clock--as if the man who never
appeared were a little behind his time.



CHAPTER THIRTY

PROVES THAT CHANGES MAY BE RUNG IN THE BEST-REGULATED FAMILIES, AND
THAT MR PECKNIFF WAS A SPECIAL HAND AT A TRIPLE-BOB-MAJOR


As the surgeon's first care after amputating a limb, is to take up
the arteries the cruel knife has severed, so it is the duty of this
history, which in its remorseless course has cut from the
Pecksniffian trunk its right arm, Mercy, to look to the parent stem,
and see how in all its various ramifications it got on without her.

And first of Mr Pecksniff it may be observed, that having provided
for his youngest daughter that choicest of blessings, a tender and
indulgent husband; and having gratified the dearest wish of his
parental heart by establishing her in life so happily; he renewed
his youth, and spreading the plumage of his own bright conscience,
felt himself equal to all kinds of flights.  It is customary with
fathers in stage-plays, after giving their daughters to the men of
their hearts, to congratulate themselves on having no other business
on their hands but to die immediately; though it is rarely found
that they are in a hurry to do it.  Mr Pecksniff, being a father of
a more sage and practical class, appeared to think that his
immediate business was to live; and having deprived himself of one
comfort, to surround himself with others.

But however much inclined the good man was to be jocose and playful,
and in the garden of his fancy to disport himself (if one may say
so) like an architectural kitten, he had one impediment constantly
opposed to him.  The gentle Cherry, stung by a sense of slight and
injury, which far from softening down or wearing out, rankled and
festered in her heart--the gentle Cherry was in flat rebellion.
She waged fierce war against her dear papa, she led her parent
what is usually called, for want of a better figure of speech,
the life of a dog.  But never did that dog live, in kennel,
stable-yard, or house, whose life was half as hard as Mr Pecksniff's
with his gentle child.

The father and daughter were sitting at their breakfast.  Tom had
retired, and they were alone.  Mr Pecksniff frowned at first; but
having cleared his brow, looked stealthily at his child.  Her nose
was very red indeed, and screwed up tight, with hostile preparation.

'Cherry,' cried Mr Pecksniff, 'what is amiss between us?  My child,
why are we disunited?'

Miss Pecksniff's answer was scarcely a response to this gush of
affection, for it was simply, 'Bother, Pa!'

'Bother!' repeated Mr Pecksniff, in a tone of anguish.

'Oh! 'tis too late, Pa,' said his daughter, calmly 'to talk to me
like this.  I know what it means, and what its value is.'

'This is hard!' cried Mr Pecksniff, addressing his breakfast-cup.
'This is very hard!  She is my child.  I carried her in my arms when
she wore shapeless worsted shoes--I might say, mufflers--many years
ago!'

'You needn't taunt me with that, Pa,' retorted Cherry, with a
spiteful look.  'I am not so many years older than my sister,
either, though she IS married to your friend!'

'Ah, human nature, human nature!  Poor human nature!' said Mr
Pecksniff, shaking his head at human nature, as if he didn't belong
to it.  'To think that this discord should arise from such a cause!
oh dear, oh dear!'

'From such a cause indeed!' cried Cherry.  'State the real cause,
Pa, or I'll state it myself.  Mind!  I will!'

Perhaps the energy with which she said this was infectious.  However
that may be, Mr Pecksniff changed his tone and the expression of his
face for one of anger, if not downright violence, when he said:

'You will! you have.  You did yesterday.  You do always.  You have
no decency; you make no secret of your temper; you have exposed
yourself to Mr Chuzzlewit a hundred times.'

'Myself!' cried Cherry, with a bitter smile.  'Oh indeed!  I don't
mind that.'

'Me, too, then,' said Mr Pecksniff.

His daughter answered with a scornful laugh.

'And since we have come to an explanation, Charity,' said Mr
Pecksniff, rolling his head portentously, 'let me tell you that I
won't allow it.  None of your nonsense, Miss!  I won't permit it to
be done.'

'I shall do,' said Charity, rocking her chair backwards and
forwards, and raising her voice to a high pitch, 'I shall do, Pa,
what I please and what I have done.  I am not going to be crushed in
everything, depend upon it.  I've been more shamefully used than
anybody ever was in this world,' here she began to cry and sob, 'and
may expect the worse treatment from you, I know.  But I don't care
for that.  No, I don't!'

Mr Pecksniff was made so desperate by the loud tone in which she
spoke, that, after looking about him in frantic uncertainty for some
means of softening it, he rose and shook her until the ornamental
bow of hair upon her head nodded like a plume.  She was so very much
astonished by this assault, that it really had the desired effect.

'I'll do it again!' cried Mr Pecksniff, as he resumed his seat and
fetched his breath, 'if you dare to talk in that loud manner.  How
do you mean about being shamefully used?  If Mr Jonas chose your
sister in preference to you, who could help it, I should wish to
know?  What have I to do with it?'

'Wasn't I made a convenience of?  Weren't my feelings trifled with?
Didn't he address himself to me first?' sobbed Cherry, clasping her
hands; 'and oh, good gracious, that I should live to be shook!'

'You'll live to be shaken again,' returned her parent, 'if you drive
me to that means of maintaining the decorum of this humble roof.
You surprise me.  I wonder you have not more spirit.  If Mr Jonas
didn't care for you, how could you wish to have him?'

'I wish to have him!' exclaimed Cherry.  'I wish to have him, Pa!'

'Then what are you making all this piece of work for,' retorted her
father, 'if you didn't wish to have him?'

'Because I was treated with duplicity,' said Cherry; 'and because my
own sister and my own father conspired against me.  I am not angry
with HER,' said Cherry; looking much more angry than ever.  'I pity
her.  I'm sorry for her.  I know the fate that's in store for her,
with that Wretch.'

'Mr Jonas will survive your calling him a wretch, my child, I dare
say,' said Mr Pecksniff, with returning resignation; 'but call him
what you like and make an end of it.'

'Not an end, Pa,' said Charity.  'No, not an end.  That's not the
only point on which we're not agreed.  I won't submit to it.  It's
better you should know that at once.  No; I won't submit to it
indeed, Pa!  I am not quite a fool, and I am not blind.  All I have
got to say is, I won't submit to it.'

Whatever she meant, she shook Mr Pecksniff now; for his lame attempt
to seem composed was melancholy in the last degree.  His anger
changed to meekness, and his words were mild and fawning.

'My dear,' he said; 'if in the short excitement of an angry moment I
resorted to an unjustifiable means of suppressing a little outbreak
calculated to injure you as well as myself--it's possible I may have
done so; perhaps I did--I ask your pardon.  A father asking pardon
of his child,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'is, I believe, a spectacle to
soften the most rugged nature.'

But it didn't at all soften Miss Pecksniff; perhaps because her
nature was not rugged enough.  On the contrary, she persisted in
saying, over and over again, that she wasn't quite a fool, and
wasn't blind, and wouldn't submit to it.

'You labour under some mistake, my child!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'but
I will not ask you what it is; I don't desire to know.  No, pray!'
he added, holding out his hand and colouring again, 'let us avoid
the subject, my dear, whatever it is!'

'It's quite right that the subject should be avoided between us,
sir,' said Cherry.  'But I wish to be able to avoid it altogether,
and consequently must beg you to provide me with a home.'

Mr Pecksniff looked about the room, and said, 'A home, my child!'

'Another home, papa,' said Cherry, with increasing stateliness
'Place me at Mrs Todgers's or somewhere, on an independent footing;
but I will not live here, if such is to be the case.'

It is possible that Miss Pecksniff saw in Mrs Todgers's a vision of
enthusiastic men, pining to fall in adoration at her feet.  It is
possible that Mr Pecksniff, in his new-born juvenility, saw, in the
suggestion of that same establishment, an easy means of relieving
himself from an irksome charge in the way of temper and
watchfulness.  It is undoubtedly a fact that in the attentive ears
of Mr Pecksniff, the proposition did not sound quite like the dismal
knell of all his hopes.

But he was a man of great feeling and acute sensibility; and he
squeezed his pocket-handkerchief against his eyes with both hands--
as such men always do, especially when they are observed.  'One of
my birds,' Mr Pecksniff said, 'has left me for the stranger's
breast; the other would take wing to Todgers's!  Well, well, what am
I?  I don't know what I am, exactly.  Never mind!'

Even this remark, made more pathetic perhaps by his breaking down in
the middle of it, had no effect upon Charity.  She was grim, rigid,
and inflexible.

'But I have ever,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'sacrificed my children's
happiness to my own--I mean my own happiness to my children's--and I
will not begin to regulate my life by other rules of conduct now.
If you can be happier at Mrs Todgers's than in your father's house,
my dear, go to Mrs Todgers's!  Do not think of me, my girl!' said Mr
Pecksniff with emotion; 'I shall get on pretty well, no doubt.'

Miss Charity, who knew he had a secret pleasure in the contemplation
of the proposed change, suppressed her own, and went on to negotiate
the terms.  His views upon this subject were at first so very
limited that another difference, involving possibly another shaking,
threatened to ensue; but by degrees they came to something like an
understanding, and the storm blew over.  Indeed, Miss Charity's idea
was so agreeable to both, that it would have been strange if they
had not come to an amicable agreement.  It was soon arranged between
them that the project should be tried, and that immediately; and
that Cherry's not being well, and needing change of scene, and
wishing to be near her sister, should form the excuse for her
departure to Mr Chuzzlewit and Mary, to both of whom she had pleaded
indisposition for some time past.  These premises agreed on, Mr
Pecksniff gave her his blessing, with all the dignity of a self-
denying man who had made a hard sacrifice, but comforted himself
with the reflection that virtue is its own reward.  Thus they were
reconciled for the first time since that not easily forgiven night,
when Mr Jonas, repudiating the elder, had confessed his passion for
the younger sister, and Mr Pecksniff had abetted him on moral
grounds.

But how happened it--in the name of an unexpected addition to that
small family, the Seven Wonders of the World, whatever and wherever
they may be, how happened it--that Mr Pecksniff and his daughter
were about to part?  How happened it that their mutual relations
were so greatly altered?  Why was Miss Pecksniff so clamorous to
have it understood that she was neither blind nor foolish, and she
wouldn't bear it?  It is not possible that Mr Pecksniff had any
thoughts of marrying again; or that his daughter, with the sharp eye
of a single woman, fathomed his design!

Let us inquire into this.

Mr Pecksniff, as a man without reproach, from whom the breath of
slander passed like common breath from any other polished surface,
could afford to do what common men could not.  He knew the purity of
his own motives; and when he had a motive worked at it as only a
very good man (or a very bad one) can.  Did he set before himself
any strong and palpable motives for taking a second wife?  Yes; and
not one or two of them, but a combination of very many.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit had gradually undergone an important change.
Even upon the night when he made such an ill-timed arrival at Mr
Pecksniff's house, he was comparatively subdued and easy to deal
with.  This Mr Pecksniff attributed, at the time, to the effect his
brother's death had had upon him.  But from that hour his character
seemed to have modified by regular degrees, and to have softened
down into a dull indifference for almost every one but Mr Pecksniff.
His looks were much the same as ever, but his mind was singularly
altered.  It was not that this or that passion stood out in brighter
or in dimmer hues; but that the colour of the whole man was faded.
As one trait disappeared, no other trait sprung up to take its
place.  His senses dwindled too.  He was less keen of sight; was
deaf sometimes; took little notice of what passed before him; and
would be profoundly taciturn for days together.  The process of this
alteration was so easy that almost as soon as it began to be
observed it was complete.  But Mr Pecksniff saw it first, and having
Anthony Chuzzlewit fresh in his recollection, saw in his brother
Martin the same process of decay.

To a gentleman of Mr Pecksniff's tenderness, this was a very
mournful sight.  He could not but foresee the probability of his
respected relative being made the victim of designing persons, and
of his riches falling into worthless hands.  It gave him so much
pain that he resolved to secure the property to himself; to keep bad
testamentary suitors at a distance; to wall up the old gentleman, as
it were, for his own use.  By little and little, therefore, he began
to try whether Mr Chuzzlewit gave any promise of becoming an
instrument in his hands, and finding that he did, and indeed that he
was very supple in his plastic fingers, he made it the business of
his life--kind soul!--to establish an ascendancy over him; and every
little test he durst apply meeting with a success beyond his hopes,
he began to think he heard old Martin's cash already chinking in his
own unworldly pockets.

But when Mr Pecksniff pondered on this subject (as, in his zealous
way, he often did), and thought with an uplifted heart of the train
of circumstances which had delivered the old gentleman into his
hands for the confusion of evil-doers and the triumph of a righteous
nature, he always felt that Mary Graham was his stumbling-block.
Let the old man say what he would, Mr Pecksniff knew he had a strong
affection for her.  He knew that he showed it in a thousand little
ways; that he liked to have her near him, and was never quite at
ease when she was absent long.  That he had ever really sworn to
leave her nothing in his will, Mr Pecksniff greatly doubted.  That
even if he had, there were many ways by which he could evade the
oath and satisfy his conscience, Mr Pecksniff knew.  That her
unprotected state was no light burden on the old man's mind, he also
knew, for Mr Chuzzlewit had plainly told him so.  'Then,' said Mr
Pecksniff 'what if I married her!  What,' repeated Mr Pecksniff,
sticking up his hair and glancing at his bust by Spoker; 'what if,
making sure of his approval first--he is nearly imbecile, poor
gentleman--I married her!'

Mr Pecksniff had a lively sense of the Beautiful; especially in
women.  His manner towards the sex was remarkable for its
insinuating character.  It is recorded of him in another part of
these pages, that he embraced Mrs Todgers on the smallest
provocation; and it was a way he had; it was a part of the gentle
placidity of his disposition.  Before any thought of matrimony was
in his mind, he had bestowed on Mary many little tokens of his
spiritual admiration.  They had been indignantly received, but that
was nothing.  True, as the idea expanded within him, these had
become too ardent to escape the piercing eye of Cherry, who read his
scheme at once; but he had always felt the power of Mary's charms.
So Interest and Inclination made a pair, and drew the curricle of Mr
Pecksniff's plan.

As to any thought of revenging himself on young Martin for his
insolent expressions when they parted, and of shutting him out still
more effectually from any hope of reconciliation with his
grandfather, Mr Pecksniff was much too meek and forgiving to be
suspected of harbouring it.  As to being refused by Mary, Mr
Pecksniff was quite satisfied that in her position she could never
hold out if he and Mr Chuzzlewit were both against her.  As to
consulting the wishes of her heart in such a case, it formed no part
of Mr Pecksniff's moral code; for he knew what a good man he was,
and what a blessing he must be to anybody.  His daughter having
broken the ice, and the murder being out between them, Mr Pecksniff
had now only to pursue his design as cleverly as he could, and by
the craftiest approaches.

'Well, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, meeting old Martin in the
garden, for it was his habit to walk in and out by that way, as the
fancy took him; 'and how is my dear friend this delicious morning?'

'Do you mean me?' asked the old man.

'Ah!' said Mr Pecksniff, 'one of his deaf days, I see.  Could I mean
any one else, my dear sir?'

'You might have meant Mary,' said the old man.

'Indeed I might.  Quite true.  I might speak of her as a dear, dear
friend, I hope?' observed Mr Pecksniff.

'I hope so,' returned old Martin.  'I think she deserves it.'

'Think!' cried Pecksniff, 'think, Mr Chuzzlewit!'

'You are speaking, I know,' returned Martin, 'but I don't catch what
you say.  Speak up!'

'He's getting deafer than a flint,' said Pecksniff.  'I was saying,
my dear sir, that I am afraid I must make up my mind to part with
Cherry.'

'What has SHE been doing?' asked the old man.

'He puts the most ridiculous questions I ever heard!' muttered Mr
Pecksniff.  'He's a child to-day.'  After which he added, in a mild
roar: 'She hasn't been doing anything, my dear friend.'

'What are you going to part with her for?' demanded Martin.

'She hasn't her health by any means,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'She
misses her sister, my dear sir; they doted on each other from the
cradle.  And I think of giving her a run in London for a change.  A
good long run, sir, if I find she likes it.'

'Quite right,' cried Martin.  'It's judicious.'

'I am glad to hear you say so.  I hope you mean to bear me company
in this dull part, while she's away?' said Mr Pecksniff.

'I have no intention of removing from it,' was Martin's answer.

'Then why,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking the old man's arm in his, and
walking slowly on; 'Why, my good sir, can't you come and stay with
me?  I am sure I could surround you with more comforts--lowly as is
my Cot--than you can obtain at a village house of entertainment.
And pardon me, Mr Chuzzlewit, pardon me if I say that such a place
as the Dragon, however well-conducted (and, as far as I know, Mrs
Lupin is one of the worthiest creatures in this county), is hardly a
home for Miss Graham.'

Martin mused a moment; and then said, as he shook him by the hand:

'No.  You're quite right; it is not.'

'The very sight of skittles,' Mr Pecksniff eloquently pursued, 'is
far from being congenial to a delicate mind.'

'It's an amusement of the vulgar,' said old Martin, 'certainly.'

'Of the very vulgar,' Mr Pecksniff answered.  'Then why not bring
Miss Graham here, sir?  Here is the house.  Here am I alone in it,
for Thomas Pinch I do not count as any one.  Our lovely friend shall
occupy my daughter's chamber; you shall choose your own; we shall
not quarrel, I hope!'

'We are not likely to do that,' said Martin.

Mr Pecksniff pressed his hand.  'We understand each other, my dear
sir, I see!--I can wind him,' he thought, with exultation, 'round my
little finger.'

'You leave the recompense to me?' said the old man, after a minute's
silence.

'Oh! do not speak of recompense!' cried Pecksniff.

'I say,' repeated Martin, with a glimmer of his old obstinacy, 'you
leave the recompense to me.  Do you?'

'Since you desire it, my good sir.'

'I always desire it,' said the old man.  'You know I always desire
it.  I wish to pay as I go, even when I buy of you.  Not that I do
not leave a balance to be settled one day, Pecksniff.'

The architect was too much overcome to speak.  He tried to drop a
tear upon his patron's hand, but couldn't find one in his dry
distillery.

'May that day be very distant!' was his pious exclamation.  'Ah,
sir!  If I could say how deep an interest I have in you and yours!
I allude to our beautiful young friend.'

'True,' he answered.  'True.  She need have some one interested in
her.  I did her wrong to train her as I did.  Orphan though she was,
she would have found some one to protect her whom she might have
loved again.  When she was a child, I pleased myself with the
thought that in gratifying my whim of placing her between me and
false-hearted knaves, I had done her a kindness.  Now she is a
woman, I have no such comfort.  She has no protector but herself.  I
have put her at such odds with the world, that any dog may bark or
fawn upon her at his pleasure.  Indeed she stands in need of
delicate consideration.  Yes; indeed she does!'

'If her position could be altered and defined, sir?' Mr Pecksniff
hinted.

'How can that be done?  Should I make a seamstress of her, or a
governess?'

'Heaven forbid!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'My dear sir, there are other
ways.  There are indeed.  But I am much excited and embarrassed at
present, and would rather not pursue the subject.  I scarcely know
what I mean.  Permit me to resume it at another time.'

'You are not unwell?' asked Martin anxiously.

'No, no!' cried Pecksniff.  'No.  Permit me to resume it at another
time.  I'll walk a little.  Bless you!'

Old Martin blessed him in return, and squeezed his hand.  As he
turned away, and slowly walked towards the house, Mr Pecksniff stood
gazing after him; being pretty well recovered from his late emotion,
which, in any other man, one might have thought had been assumed as
a machinery for feeling Martin's pulse.  The change in the old man
found such a slight expression in his figure, that Mr Pecksniff,
looking after him, could not help saying to himself:

'And I can wind him round my little finger!  Only think!'

Old Martin happening to turn his head, saluted him affectionately.
Mr Pecksniff returned the gesture.

'Why, the time was,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'and not long ago, when he
wouldn't look at me!  How soothing is this change.  Such is the
delicate texture of the human heart; so complicated is the process
of its being softened!  Externally he looks the same, and I can wind
him round my little finger.  Only think!'

In sober truth, there did appear to be nothing on which Mr Pecksniff
might not have ventured with Martin Chuzzlewit; for whatever Mr
Pecksniff said or did was right, and whatever he advised was done.
Martin had escaped so many snares from needy fortune-hunters, and
had withered in the shell of his suspicion and distrust for so many
years, but to become the good man's tool and plaything.  With the
happiness of this conviction painted on his face, the architect went
forth upon his morning walk.

The summer weather in his bosom was reflected in the breast of
Nature.  Through deep green vistas where the boughs arched overhead,
and showed the sunlight flashing in the beautiful perspective;
through dewy fern from which the startled hares leaped up, and fled
at his approach; by mantled pools, and fallen trees, and down in
hollow places, rustling among last year's leaves whose scent woke
memory of the past; the placid Pecksniff strolled.  By meadow gates
and hedges fragrant with wild roses; and by thatched-roof cottages
whose inmates humbly bowed before him as a man both good and wise;
the worthy Pecksniff walked in tranquil meditation.  The bee passed
onward, humming of the work he had to do; the idle gnats for ever
going round and round in one contracting and expanding ring, yet
always going on as fast as he, danced merrily before him; the colour
of the long grass came and went, as if the light clouds made it
timid as they floated through the distant air.  The birds, so many
Pecksniff consciences, sang gayly upon every branch; and Mr
Pecksniff paid HIS homage to the day by ruminating on his projects
as he walked along.

Chancing to trip, in his abstraction, over the spreading root of an
old tree, he raised his pious eyes to take a survey of the ground
before him.  It startled him to see the embodied image of his
thoughts not far ahead.  Mary herself.  And alone.

At first Mr Pecksniff stopped as if with the intention of avoiding
her; but his next impulse was to advance, which he did at a brisk
pace; caroling as he went so sweetly and with so much innocence
that he only wanted feathers and wings to be a bird.

Hearing notes behind her, not belonging to the songsters of the
grove, she looked round.  Mr Pecksniff kissed his hand, and was at
her side immediately.

'Communing with nature?' said Mr Pecksniff.  'So am I.'

She said the morning was so beautiful that she had walked further
than she intended, and would return.  Mr Pecksniff said it was
exactly his case, and he would return with her.

'Take my arm, sweet girl,' said Mr Pecksniff.

Mary declined it, and walked so very fast that he remonstrated.
'You were loitering when I came upon you,' Mr Pecksniff said.  'Why
be so cruel as to hurry now?  You would not shun me, would you?'

'Yes, I would,' she answered, turning her glowing cheek indignantly
upon him, 'you know I would.  Release me, Mr Pecksniff.  Your touch
is disagreeable to me.'

His touch!  What?  That chaste patriarchal touch which Mrs Todgers--
surely a discreet lady--had endured, not only without complaint, but
with apparent satisfaction!  This was positively wrong.  Mr Pecksniff
was sorry to hear her say it.

'If you have not observed,' said Mary, 'that it is so, pray take
assurance from my lips, and do not, as you are a gentleman,
continue to offend me.'

'Well, well!' said Mr Pecksniff, mildly, 'I feel that I might
consider this becoming in a daughter of my own, and why should I
object to it in one so beautiful!  It's harsh.  It cuts me to the
soul,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'but I cannot quarrel with you, Mary.'

She tried to say she was sorry to hear it, but burst into tears.  Mr
Pecksniff now repeated the Todgers performance on a comfortable
scale, as if he intended it to last some time; and in his disengaged
hand, catching hers, employed himself in separating the fingers with
his own, and sometimes kissing them, as he pursued the conversation
thus:

'I am glad we met.  I am very glad we met.  I am able now to ease my
bosom of a heavy load, and speak to you in confidence.  Mary,' said
Mr Pecksniff in his tenderest tones, indeed they were so very
tender that he almost squeaked: 'My soul!  I love you!'

A fantastic thing, that maiden affectation!  She made believe to
shudder.

'I love you,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'my gentle life, with a devotion
which is quite surprising, even to myself.  I did suppose that the
sensation was buried in the silent tomb of a lady, only second to
you in qualities of the mind and form; but I find I am mistaken.'

She tried to disengage her hand, but might as well have tried to
free herself from the embrace of an affectionate boa-constrictor; if
anything so wily may be brought into comparison with Pecksniff.

'Although I am a widower,' said Mr Pecksniff, examining the rings
upon her fingers, and tracing the course of one delicate blue vein
with his fat thumb, 'a widower with two daughters, still I am not
encumbered, my love.  One of them, as you know, is married.  The
other, by her own desire, but with a view, I will confess--why not?
--to my altering my condition, is about to leave her father's house.
I have a character, I hope.  People are pleased to speak well of me,
I think.  My person and manner are not absolutely those of a
monster, I trust.  Ah! naughty Hand!' said Mr Pecksniff,
apostrophizing the reluctant prize, 'why did you take me prisoner?
Go, go!'

He slapped the hand to punish it; but relenting, folded it in his
waistcoat to comfort it again.

'Blessed in each other, and in the society of our venerable friend,
my darling,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'we shall be happy.  When he is
wafted to a haven of rest, we will console each other.  My pretty
primrose, what do you say?'

'It is possible,' Mary answered, in a hurried manner, 'that I ought
to feel grateful for this mark of your confidence.  I cannot say
that I do, but I am willing to suppose you may deserve my thanks.
Take them; and pray leave me, Mr Pecksniff.'

The good man smiled a greasy smile; and drew her closer to him.

'Pray, pray release me, Mr Pecksniff.  I cannot listen to your
proposal.  I cannot receive it.  There are many to whom it may be
acceptable, but it is not so to me.  As an act of kindness and an
act of pity, leave me!'

Mr Pecksniff walked on with his arm round her waist, and her hand in
his, as contentedly as if they had been all in all to each other,
and were joined in the bonds of truest love.

'If you force me by your superior strength,' said Mary, who finding
that good words had not the least effect upon him, made no further
effort to suppress her indignation; 'if you force me by your
superior strength to accompany you back, and to be the subject of
your insolence upon the way, you cannot constrain the expression of
my thoughts.  I hold you in the deepest abhorrence.  I know your
real nature and despise it.'

'No, no,' said Mr Pecksniff, sweetly.  'No, no, no!'

'By what arts or unhappy chances you have gained your influence over
Mr Chuzzlewit, I do not know,' said Mary; 'it may be strong enough
to soften even this, but he shall know of this, trust me, sir.'

Mr Pecksniff raised his heavy eyelids languidly, and let them fall
again.  It was saying with perfect coolness, 'Aye, aye!  Indeed!'

'Is it not enough,' said Mary, 'that you warp and change his nature,
adapt his every prejudice to your bad ends, and harden a heart
naturally kind by shutting out the truth and allowing none but false
and distorted views to reach it; is it not enough that you have the
power of doing this, and that you exercise it, but must you also be
so coarse, so cruel, and so cowardly to me?'

Still Mr Pecksniff led her calmly on, and looked as mild as any lamb
that ever pastured in the fields.

'Will nothing move you, sir?' cried Mary.

'My dear,' observed Mr Pecksniff, with a placid leer, 'a habit of
self-examination, and the practice of--shall I say of virtue?'

'Of hypocrisy,' said Mary.

'No, no,' resumed Mr Pecksniff, chafing the captive hand
reproachfully, 'of virtue--have enabled me to set such guards upon
myself, that it is really difficult to ruffle me.  It is a curious
fact, but it is difficult, do you know, for any one to ruffle me.
And did she think,' said Mr Pecksniff, with a playful tightening of
his grasp 'that SHE could!  How little did she know his heart!'

Little, indeed!  Her mind was so strangely constituted that she would
have preferred the caresses of a toad, an adder, or a serpent--nay,
the hug of a bear--to the endearments of Mr Pecksniff.

'Come, come,' said that good gentleman, 'a word or two will set this
matter right, and establish a pleasant understanding between us.  I
am not angry, my love.'

'YOU angry!'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I am not.  I say so.  Neither are you.'

There was a beating heart beneath his hand that told another story
though.

'I am sure you are not,' said Mr Pecksniff: 'and I will tell you
why.  There are two Martin Chuzzlewits, my dear; and your carrying
your anger to one might have a serious effect--who knows!--upon the
other.  You wouldn't wish to hurt him, would you?'

She trembled violently, and looked at him with such a proud disdain
that he turned his eyes away.  No doubt lest he should be offended
with her in spite of his better self.

'A passive quarrel, my love,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'may be changed
into an active one, remember.  It would be sad to blight even a
disinherited young man in his already blighted prospects; but how
easy to do it.  Ah, how easy!  HAVE I influence with our venerable
friend, do you think?  Well, perhaps I have.  Perhaps I have.'

He raised his eyes to hers; and nodded with an air of banter that
was charming.

'No,' he continued, thoughtfully.  'Upon the whole, my sweet, if I
were you I'd keep my secret to myself.  I am not at all sure--very
far from it--that it would surprise our friend in any way, for he
and I have had some conversation together only this morning, and he
is anxious, very anxious, to establish you in some more settled
manner.  But whether he was surprised or not surprised, the
consequence of your imparting it might be the same.  Martin junior
might suffer severely.  I'd have compassion on Martin junior, do you
know?' said Mr Pecksniff, with a persuasive smile.  'Yes.  He don't
deserve it, but I would.'

She wept so bitterly now, and was so much distressed, that he
thought it prudent to unclasp her waist, and hold her only by the
hand.

'As to our own share in the precious little mystery,' said Mr
Pecksniff, 'we will keep it to ourselves, and talk of it between
ourselves, and you shall think it over.  You will consent, my love;
you will consent, I know.  Whatever you may think; you will.  I seem
to remember to have heard--I really don't know where, or how'--he
added, with bewitching frankness, 'that you and Martin junior, when
you were children, had a sort of childish fondness for each other.
When we are married, you shall have the satisfaction of thinking
that it didn't last to ruin him, but passed away to do him good; for
we'll see then what we can do to put some trifling help in Martin
junior's way.  HAVE I any influence with our venerable friend?
Well!  Perhaps I have.  Perhaps I have.'

The outlet from the wood in which these tender passages occurred,
was close to Mr Pecksniff's house.  They were now so near it that he
stopped, and holding up her little finger, said in playful accents,
as a parting fancy:

'Shall I bite it?'

Receiving no reply he kissed it instead; and then stooping down,
inclined his flabby face to hers--he had a flabby face, although he
WAS a good man--and with a blessing, which from such a source was
quite enough to set her up in life, and prosper her from that time
forth permitted her to leave him.

Gallantry in its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a
man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons.  But Mr
Pecksniff--perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were
mere grossnesses--certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage,
now that he was left alone.  On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk
and reduced; to be trying to hide himself within himself; and to be
wretched at not having the power to do it.  His shoes looked too
large; his sleeve looked too long; his hair looked too limp; his
features looked too mean; his exposed throat looked as if a halter
would have done it good.  For a minute or two, in fact, he was hot,
and pale, and mean, and shy, and slinking, and consequently not at
all Pecksniffian.  But after that, he recovered himself, and went
home with as beneficent an air as if he had been the High Priest of
the summer weather.

'I have arranged to go, Papa,' said Charity, 'to-morrow.'

'So soon, my child!'

'I can't go too soon,' said Charity, 'under the circumstances.  I
have written to Mrs Todgers to propose an arrangement, and have
requested her to meet me at the coach, at all events.  You'll be
quite your own master now, Mr Pinch!'

Mr Pecksniff had just gone out of the room, and Tom had just come
into it.

'My own master!' repeated Tom.

'Yes, you'll have nobody to interfere with you,' said Charity.  'At
least I hope you won't.  Hem!  It's a changing world.'

'What! are YOU going to be married, Miss Pecksniff?' asked Tom in
great surprise.

'Not exactly,' faltered Cherry.  'I haven't made up my mind to be.
I believe I could be, if I chose, Mr Pinch.'

'Of course you could!' said Tom.  And he said it in perfect good
faith.  He believed it from the bottom of his heart.

'No,' said Cherry, 'I am not going to be married.  Nobody is, that I
know of.  Hem!  But I am not going to live with Papa.  I have my
reasons, but it's all a secret.  I shall always feel very kindly
towards you, I assure you, for the boldness you showed that night.
As to you and me, Mr Pinch, WE part the best friends possible!'

Tom thanked her for her confidence, and for her friendship, but
there was a mystery in the former which perfectly bewildered him.
In his extravagant devotion to the family, he had felt the loss of
Merry more than any one but those who knew that for all the slights
he underwent he thought his own demerits were to blame, could
possibly have understood.  He had scarcely reconciled himself to
that when here was Charity about to leave them.  She had grown up,
as it were, under Tom's eye.  The sisters were a part of Pecksniff,
and a part of Tom; items in Pecksniff's goodness, and in Tom's
service.  He couldn't bear it; not two hours' sleep had Tom that
night, through dwelling in his bed upon these dreadful changes.

When morning dawned he thought he must have dreamed this piece of
ambiguity; but no, on going downstairs he found them packing trunks
and cording boxes, and making other preparations for Miss Charity's
departure, which lasted all day long.  In good time for the evening
coach, Miss Charity deposited her housekeeping keys with much
ceremony upon the parlour table; took a gracious leave of all the
house; and quitted her paternal roof--a blessing for which the
Pecksniffian servant was observed by some profane persons to be
particularly active in the thanksgiving at church next Sunday.



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MR PINCH IS DISCHARGED OF A DUTY WHICH HE NEVER OWED TO ANYBODY, AND
MR PECKSNIFF DISCHARGES A DUTY WHICH HE OWES TO SOCIETY


The closing words of the last chapter lead naturally to the
commencement of this, its successor; for it has to do with a church.
With the church, so often mentioned heretofore, in which Tom Pinch
played the organ for nothing.

One sultry afternoon, about a week after Miss Charity's departure
for London, Mr Pecksniff being out walking by himself, took it into
his head to stray into the churchyard.  As he was lingering among
the tombstones, endeavouring to extract an available sentiment or
two from the epitaphs--for he never lost an opportunity of making up
a few moral crackers, to be let off as occasion served--Tom Pinch
began to practice.  Tom could run down to the church and do so
whenever he had time to spare; for it was a simple little organ,
provided with wind by the action of the musician's feet; and he was
independent, even of a bellows-blower.  Though if Tom had wanted one
at any time, there was not a man or boy in all the village, and away
to the turnpike (tollman included), but would have blown away for
him till he was black in the face.

Mr Pecksniff had no objection to music; not the least.  He was
tolerant of everything; he often said so.  He considered it a
vagabond kind of trifling, in general, just suited to Tom's
capacity.  But in regard to Tom's performance upon this same organ,
he was remarkably lenient, singularly amiable; for when Tom played
it on Sundays, Mr Pecksniff in his unbounded sympathy felt as if he
played it himself, and were a benefactor to the congregation.  So
whenever it was impossible to devise any other means of taking the
value of Tom's wages out of him, Mr Pecksniff gave him leave to
cultivate this instrument.  For which mark of his consideration Tom
was very grateful.

The afternoon was remarkably warm, and Mr Pecksniff had been
strolling a long way.  He had not what may be called a fine ear for
music, but he knew when it had a tranquilizing influence on his
soul; and that was the case now, for it sounded to him like a
melodious snore.  He approached the church, and looking through the
diamond lattice of a window near the porch, saw Tom, with the
curtains in the loft drawn back, playing away with great expression
and tenderness.

The church had an inviting air of coolness.  The old oak roof
supported by cross-beams, the hoary walls, the marble tablets, and
the cracked stone pavement, were refreshing to look at.  There were
leaves of ivy tapping gently at the opposite windows; and the sun
poured in through only one; leaving the body of the church in
tempting shade.  But the most tempting spot of all, was one red-
curtained and soft-cushioned pew, wherein the official dignitaries
of the place (of whom Mr Pecksniff was the head and chief) enshrined
themselves on Sundays.  Mr Pecksniff's seat was in the corner; a
remarkably comfortable corner; where his very large Prayer-Book was
at that minute making the most of its quarto self upon the desk.  He
determined to go in and rest.

He entered very softly; in part because it was a church; in part
because his tread was always soft; in part because Tom played a
solemn tune; in part because he thought he would surprise him when
he stopped.  Unbolting the door of the high pew of state, he glided
in and shut it after him; then sitting in his usual place, and
stretching out his legs upon the hassocks, he composed himself to
listen to the music.

It is an unaccountable circumstance that he should have felt drowsy
there, where the force of association might surely have been enough
to keep him wide awake; but he did.  He had not been in the snug
little corner five minutes before he began to nod.  He had not
recovered himself one minute before he began to nod again.  In the
very act of opening his eyes indolently, he nodded again.  In the
very act of shutting them, he nodded again.  So he fell out of one
nod into another until at last he ceased to nod at all, and was as
fast as the church itself.

He had a consciousness of the organ, long after he fell asleep,
though as to its being an organ he had no more idea of that than he
had of its being a bull.  After a while he began to have at
intervals the same dreamy impressions of voices; and awakening to an
indolent curiosity upon the subject, opened his eyes.

He was so indolent, that after glancing at the hassocks and the pew,
he was already half-way off to sleep again, when it occurred to him
that there really were voices in the church; low voices, talking
earnestly hard by; while the echoes seemed to mutter responses.  He
roused himself, and listened.

Before he had listened half a dozen seconds, he became as broad
awake as ever he had been in all his life.  With eyes, and ears, and
mouth, wide open, he moved himself a very little with the utmost
caution, and gathering the curtain in his hand, peeped out.

Tom Pinch and Mary.  Of course.  He had recognized their voices, and
already knew the topic they discussed.  Looking like the small end
of a guillotined man, with his chin on a level with the top of the
pew, so that he might duck down immediately in case of either of
them turning round, he listened.  Listened with such concentrated
eagerness, that his very hair and shirt-collar stood bristling up to
help him.

'No,' cried Tom.  'No letters have ever reached me, except that one
from New York.  But don't be uneasy on that account, for it's very
likely they have gone away to some far-off place, where the posts
are neither regular nor frequent.  He said in that very letter that
it might be so, even in that city to which they thought of
travelling--Eden, you know.'

'It is a great weight upon my mind,' said Mary.

'Oh, but you mustn't let it be,' said Tom.  'There's a true saying
that nothing travels so fast as ill news; and if the slightest harm
had happened to Martin, you may be sure you would have heard of it
long ago.  I have often wished to say this to you,' Tom continued
with an embarrassment that became him very well, 'but you have never
given me an opportunity.'

'I have sometimes been almost afraid,' said Mary, 'that you might
suppose I hesitated to confide in you, Mr Pinch.'

'No,' Tom stammered, 'I--I am not aware that I ever supposed that.
I am sure that if I have, I have checked the thought directly, as an
injustice to you.  I feel the delicacy of your situation in having
to confide in me at all,' said Tom, 'but I would risk my life to
save you from one day's uneasiness; indeed I would!'

Poor Tom!

'I have dreaded sometimes,' Tom continued, 'that I might have
displeased you by--by having the boldness to try and anticipate your
wishes now and then.  At other times I have fancied that your
kindness prompted you to keep aloof from me.'

'Indeed!'

'It was very foolish; very presumptuous and ridiculous, to think
so,' Tom pursued; 'but I feared you might suppose it possible that
I--I--should admire you too much for my own peace; and so denied
yourself the slight assistance you would otherwise have accepted
from me.  If such an idea has ever presented itself to you,'
faltered Tom, 'pray dismiss it.  I am easily made happy; and I shall
live contented here long after you and Martin have forgotten me.  I
am a poor, shy, awkward creature; not at all a man of the world; and
you should think no more of me, bless you, than if I were an old
friar!'

If friars bear such hearts as thine, Tom, let friars multiply;
though they have no such rule in all their stern arithmetic.

'Dear Mr Pinch!' said Mary, giving him her hand; 'I cannot tell you
how your kindness moves me.  I have never wronged you by the
lightest doubt, and have never for an instant ceased to feel that
you were all--much more than all--that Martin found you.  Without
the silent care and friendship I have experienced from you, my life
here would have been unhappy.  But you have been a good angel to me;
filling me with gratitude of heart, hope, and courage.'

'I am as little like an angel, I am afraid,' replied Tom, shaking
his head, 'as any stone cherubim among the grave-stones; and I don't
think there are many real angels of THAT pattern.  But I should like
to know (if you will tell me) why you have been so very silent about
Martin.'

'Because I have been afraid,' said Mary, 'of injuring you.'

'Of injuring me!' cried Tom.

'Of doing you an injury with your employer.'

The gentleman in question dived.

'With Pecksniff!' rejoined Tom, with cheerful confidence.  'Oh dear,
he'd never think of us!  He's the best of men.  The more at ease you
were, the happier he would be.  Oh dear, you needn't be afraid of
Pecksniff.  He is not a spy.'

Many a man in Mr Pecksniff's place, if he could have dived through
the floor of the pew of state and come out at Calcutta or any
inhabited region on the other side of the earth, would have done it
instantly.  Mr Pecksniff sat down upon a hassock, and listening more
attentively than ever, smiled.

Mary seemed to have expressed some dissent in the meanwhile, for Tom
went on to say, with honest energy:

'Well, I don't know how it is, but it always happens, whenever I
express myself in this way to anybody almost, that I find they won't
do justice to Pecksniff.  It is one of the most extraordinary
circumstances that ever came within my knowledge, but it is so.
There's John Westlock, who used to be a pupil here, one of the best-
hearted young men in the world, in all other matters--I really
believe John would have Pecksniff flogged at the cart's tail if he
could.  And John is not a solitary case, for every pupil we have had
in my time has gone away with the same inveterate hatred of him.
There was Mark Tapley, too, quite in another station of life,' said
Tom; 'the mockery he used to make of Pecksniff when he was at the
Dragon was shocking.  Martin too: Martin was worse than any of 'em.
But I forgot.  He prepared you to dislike Pecksniff, of course.  So
you came with a prejudice, you know, Miss Graham, and are not a fair
witness.'

Tom triumphed very much in this discovery, and rubbed his hands with
great satisfaction.

'Mr Pinch,' said Mary, 'you mistake him.'

'No, no!' cried Tom.  'YOU mistake him.  But,' he added, with a
rapid change in his tone, 'what is the matter?  Miss Graham, what is
the matter?'

Mr Pecksniff brought up to the top of the pew, by slow degrees, his
hair, his forehead, his eyebrow, his eye.  She was sitting on a
bench beside the door with her hands before her face; and Tom was
bending over her.

'What is the matter?' cried Tom.  'Have I said anything to hurt you?
Has any one said anything to hurt you?  Don't cry.  Pray tell me
what it is.  I cannot bear to see you so distressed.  Mercy on us, I
never was so surprised and grieved in all my life!'

Mr Pecksniff kept his eye in the same place.  He could have moved it
now for nothing short of a gimlet or a red-hot wire.

'I wouldn't have told you, Mr Pinch,' said Mary, 'if I could have
helped it; but your delusion is so absorbing, and it is so necessary
that we should be upon our guard; that you should not be
compromised; and to that end that you should know by whom I am
beset; that no alternative is left me.  I came here purposely to
tell you, but I think I should have wanted courage if you had not
chanced to lead me so directly to the object of my coming.'

Tom gazed at her steadfastly, and seemed to say, 'What else?'  But he
said not a word.

'That person whom you think the best of men,' said Mary, looking up,
and speaking with a quivering lip and flashing eye.

'Lord bless me!' muttered Tom, staggering back.  'Wait a moment.
That person whom I think the best of men!  You mean Pecksniff, of
course.  Yes, I see you mean Pecksniff.  Good gracious me, don't
speak without authority.  What has he done?  If he is not the best
of men, what is he?'

'The worst.  The falsest, craftiest, meanest, cruellest, most
sordid, most shameless,' said the trembling girl--trembling with her
indignation.

Tom sat down on a seat, and clasped his hands.

'What is he,' said Mary, 'who receiving me in his house as his
guest; his unwilling guest; knowing my history, and how defenceless
and alone I am, presumes before his daughters to affront me so, that
if I had a brother but a child, who saw it, he would instinctively
have helped me?'

'He is a scoundrel!' exclaimed Tom.  'Whoever he may be, he is a
scoundrel.'

Mr Pecksniff dived again.

'What is he,' said Mary, 'who, when my only friend--a dear and kind
one, too--was in full health of mind, humbled himself before him,
but was spurned away (for he knew him then) like a dog.  Who, in his
forgiving spirit, now that that friend is sunk into a failing state,
can crawl about him again, and use the influence he basely gains for
every base and wicked purpose, and not for one--not one--that's true
or good?'

'I say he is a scoundrel!' answered Tom.

'But what is he--oh, Mr Pinch, what IS he--who, thinking he could
compass these designs the better if I were his wife, assails me with
the coward's argument that if I marry him, Martin, on whom I have
brought so much misfortune, shall be restored to something of his
former hopes; and if I do not, shall be plunged in deeper ruin?
What is he who makes my very constancy to one I love with all my
heart a torture to myself and wrong to him; who makes me, do what I
will, the instrument to hurt a head I would heap blessings on!  What
is he who, winding all these cruel snares about me, explains their
purpose to me, with a smooth tongue and a smiling face, in the broad
light of day; dragging me on, the while, in his embrace, and holding
to his lips a hand,' pursued the agitated girl, extending it, 'which
I would have struck off, if with it I could lose the shame and
degradation of his touch?'

'I say,' cried Tom, in great excitement, 'he is a scoundrel and a
villain!  I don't care who he is, I say he is a double-dyed and most
intolerable villain!'

Covering her face with her hands again, as if the passion which
had sustained her through these disclosures lost itself in an
overwhelming sense of shame and grief, she abandoned herself to
tears.

Any sight of distress was sure to move the tenderness of Tom, but
this especially.  Tears and sobs from her were arrows in his heart.
He tried to comfort her; sat down beside her; expended all his store
of homely eloquence; and spoke in words of praise and hope of
Martin.  Aye, though he loved her from his soul with such a self-
denying love as woman seldom wins; he spoke from first to last of
Martin.  Not the wealth of the rich Indies would have tempted Tom to
shirk one mention of her lover's name.

When she was more composed, she impressed upon Tom that this man she
had described, was Pecksniff in his real colours; and word by word
and phrase by phrase, as well as she remembered it, related what had
passed between them in the wood: which was no doubt a source of high
gratification to that gentleman himself, who in his desire to see
and his dread of being seen, was constantly diving down into the
state pew, and coming up again like the intelligent householder in
Punch's Show, who avoids being knocked on the head with a cudgel.
When she had concluded her account, and had besought Tom to be very
distant and unconscious in his manner towards her after this
explanation, and had thanked him very much, they parted on the alarm
of footsteps in the burial-ground; and Tom was left alone in the
church again.

And now the full agitation and misery of the disclosure came rushing
upon Tom indeed.  The star of his whole life from boyhood had
become, in a moment, putrid vapour.  It was not that Pecksniff,
Tom's Pecksniff, had ceased to exist, but that he never had existed.
In his death Tom would have had the comfort of remembering what he
used to be, but in this discovery, he had the anguish of
recollecting what he never was.  For, as Tom's blindness in this
matter had been total and not partial, so was his restored sight.
HIS Pecksniff could never have worked the wickedness of which he had
just now heard, but any other Pecksniff could; and the Pecksniff who
could do that could do anything, and no doubt had been doing
anything and everything except the right thing, all through his
career.  From the lofty height on which poor Tom had placed his idol
it was tumbled down headlong, and


     Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men,
     Could have set Mr Pecksniff up again.


Legions of Titans couldn't have got him out of the mud; and serve
him right!  But it was not he who suffered; it was Tom.  His compass
was broken, his chart destroyed, his chronometer had stopped, his
masts were gone by the board; his anchor was adrift, ten thousand
leagues away.

Mr Pecksniff watched him with a lively interest, for he divined the
purpose of Tom's ruminations, and was curious to see how he
conducted himself.  For some time, Tom wandered up and down the
aisle like a man demented, stopping occasionally to lean against a
pew and think it over; then he stood staring at a blank old monument
bordered tastefully with skulls and cross-bones, as if it were the
finest work of Art he had ever seen, although at other times he held
it in unspeakable contempt; then he sat down; then walked to and fro
again; then went wandering up into the organ-loft, and touched the
keys.  But their minstrelsy was changed, their music gone; and
sounding one long melancholy chord, Tom drooped his head upon his
hands and gave it up as hopeless.

'I wouldn't have cared,' said Tom Pinch, rising from his stool and
looking down into the church as if he had been the Clergyman, 'I
wouldn't have cared for anything he might have done to Me, for I
have tried his patience often, and have lived upon his sufferance
and have never been the help to him that others could have been.  I
wouldn't have minded, Pecksniff,' Tom continued, little thinking who
heard him, 'if you had done Me any wrong; I could have found plenty
of excuses for that; and though you might have hurt me, could have
still gone on respecting you.  But why did you ever fall so low as
this in my esteem!  Oh Pecksniff, Pecksniff, there is nothing I would
not have given, to have had you deserve my old opinion of you;
nothing!'

Mr Pecksniff sat upon the hassock pulling up his shirt-collar, while
Tom, touched to the quick, delivered this apostrophe.  After a pause
he heard Tom coming down the stairs, jingling the church keys; and
bringing his eye to the top of the pew again, saw him go slowly out
and lock the door.

Mr Pecksniff durst not issue from his place of concealment; for
through the windows of the church he saw Tom passing on among the
graves, and sometimes stopping at a stone, and leaning there as if
he were a mourner who had lost a friend.  Even when he had left the
churchyard, Mr Pecksniff still remained shut up; not being at all
secure but that in his restless state of mind Tom might come
wandering back.  At length he issued forth, and walked with a
pleasant countenance into the vestry; where he knew there was a
window near the ground, by which he could release himself by merely
stepping out.

He was in a curious frame of mind, Mr Pecksniff; being in no hurry
to go, but rather inclining to a dilatory trifling with the time,
which prompted him to open the vestry cupboard, and look at himself
in the parson's little glass that hung within the door.  Seeing that
his hair was rumpled, he took the liberty of borrowing the canonical
brush and arranging it.  He also took the liberty of opening another
cupboard; but he shut it up again quickly, being rather startled by
the sight of a black and a white surplice dangling against the wall;
which had very much the appearance of two curates who had committed
suicide by hanging themselves.  Remembering that he had seen in the
first cupboard a port-wine bottle and some biscuits, he peeped into
it again, and helped himself with much deliberation; cogitating all
the time though, in a very deep and weighty manner, as if his
thoughts were otherwise employed.

He soon made up his mind, if it had ever been in doubt; and putting
back the bottle and biscuits, opened the casement.  He got out into
the churchyard without any difficulty; shut the window after him;
and walked straight home.

'Is Mr Pinch indoors?' asked Mr Pecksniff of his serving-maid.

'Just come in, sir.'

'Just come in, eh?' repeated Mr Pecksniff, cheerfully.  'And gone
upstairs, I suppose?'

'Yes sir.  Gone upstairs.  Shall I call him, sir?'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'no.  You needn't call him, Jane.  Thank
you, Jane.  How are your relations, Jane?'

'Pretty well, I thank you, sir.'

'I am glad to hear it.  Let them know I asked about them, Jane.  Is
Mr Chuzzlewit in the way, Jane?'

'Yes, sir.  He's in the parlour, reading.'

'He's in the parlour, reading, is he, Jane?' said Mr Pecksniff.
'Very well.  Then I think I'll go and see him, Jane.'

Never had Mr Pecksniff been beheld in a more pleasant humour!

But when he walked into the parlour where the old man was engaged as
Jane had said; with pen and ink and paper on a table close at hand
(for Mr Pecksniff was always very particular to have him well
supplied with writing materials), he became less cheerful.  He was
not angry, he was not vindictive, he was not cross, he was not
moody, but he was grieved; he was sorely grieved.  As he sat down by
the old man's side, two tears--not tears like those with which
recording angels blot their entries out, but drops so precious that
they use them for their ink--stole down his meritorious cheeks.

'What is the matter?' asked old Martin.  'Pecksniff, what ails you,
man?'

'I am sorry to interrupt you, my dear sir, and I am still more sorry
for the cause.  My good, my worthy friend, I am deceived.'

'You are deceived!'

'Ah!' cried Mr Pecksniff, in an agony, 'deceived in the tenderest
point.  Cruelly deceived in that quarter, sir, in which I placed the
most unbounded confidence.  Deceived, Mr Chuzzlewit, by Thomas
Pinch.'

'Oh! bad, bad, bad!' said Martin, laying down his book.  'Very bad!
I hope not.  Are you certain?'

'Certain, my good sir!  My eyes and ears are witnesses.  I wouldn't
have believed it otherwise.  I wouldn't have believed it, Mr
Chuzzlewit, if a Fiery Serpent had proclaimed it from the top of
Salisbury Cathedral.  I would have said,' cried Mr Pecksniff, 'that
the Serpent lied.  Such was my faith in Thomas Pinch, that I would
have cast the falsehood back into the Serpent's teeth, and would
have taken Thomas to my heart.  But I am not a Serpent, sir, myself,
I grieve to say, and no excuse or hope is left me.'

Martin was greatly disturbed to see him so much agitated, and to
hear such unexpected news.  He begged him to compose himself, and
asked upon what subject Mr Pinch's treachery had been developed.

'That is almost the worst of all, sir,' Mr Pecksniff answered.  'on
a subject nearly concerning YOU.  Oh! is it not enough,' said Mr
Pecksniff, looking upward, 'that these blows must fall on me, but
must they also hit my friends!'

'You alarm me,' cried the old man, changing colour.  'I am not so
strong as I was.  You terrify me, Pecksniff!'

'Cheer up, my noble sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking courage, 'and we
will do what is required of us.  You shall know all, sir, and shall
be righted.  But first excuse me, sir, excuse me.  I have a duty to
discharge, which I owe to society.'

He rang the bell, and Jane appeared.  'Send Mr Pinch here, if you
please, Jane.'

Tom came.  Constrained and altered in his manner, downcast and
dejected, visibly confused; not liking to look Pecksniff in the
face.

The honest man bestowed a glance on Mr Chuzzlewit, as who should say
'You see!' and addressed himself to Tom in these terms:

'Mr Pinch, I have left the vestry-window unfastened.  Will you do me
the favour to go and secure it; then bring the keys of the sacred
edifice to me!'

'The vestry-window, sir?' cried Tom.

'You understand me, Mr Pinch, I think,' returned his patron.  'Yes,
Mr Pinch, the vestry-window.  I grieve to say that sleeping in the
church after a fatiguing ramble, I overheard just now some
fragments,' he emphasised that word, 'of a dialogue between two
parties; and one of them locking the church when he went out, I was
obliged to leave it myself by the vestry-window.  Do me the favour
to secure that vestry-window, Mr Pinch, and then come back to me.'

No physiognomist that ever dwelt on earth could have construed Tom's
face when he heard these words.  Wonder was in it, and a mild look
of reproach, but certainly no fear or guilt, although a host of
strong emotions struggled to display themselves.  He bowed, and
without saying one word, good or bad, withdrew.

'Pecksniff,' cried Martin, in a tremble, 'what does all this mean?
You are not going to do anything in haste, you may regret!'

'No, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, firmly, 'No.  But I have a
duty to discharge which I owe to society; and it shall be
discharged, my friend, at any cost!'

Oh, late-remembered, much-forgotten, mouthing, braggart duty, always
owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and wrath,
when will mankind begin to know thee!  When will men acknowledge thee
in thy neglected cradle, and thy stunted youth, and not begin their
recognition in thy sinful manhood and thy desolate old age!  Oh,
ermined Judge whose duty to society is, now, to doom the ragged
criminal to punishment and death, hadst thou never, Man, a duty to
discharge in barring up the hundred open gates that wooed him to the
felon's dock, and throwing but ajar the portals to a decent life!  Oh,
prelate, prelate, whose duty to society it is to mourn in melancholy
phrase the sad degeneracy of these bad times in which thy lot of
honours has been cast, did nothing go before thy elevation to the
lofty seat, from which thou dealest out thy homilies to other
tarriers for dead men's shoes, whose duty to society has not begun!
Oh! magistrate, so rare a country gentleman and brave a squire, had
you no duty to society, before the ricks were blazing and the mob
were mad; or did it spring up, armed and booted from the earth, a
corps of yeomanry full-grown!

Mr Pecksniff's duty to society could not be paid till Tom came back.
The interval which preceded the return of that young man, he
occupied in a close conference with his friend; so that when Tom did
arrive, he found the two quite ready to receive him.  Mary was in
her own room above, whither Mr Pecksniff, always considerate, had
besought old Martin to entreat her to remain some half-hour longer,
that her feelings might be spared.

When Tom came back, he found old Martin sitting by the window, and
Mr Pecksniff in an imposing attitude at the table.  On one side of
him was his pocket-handkerchief; and on the other a little heap (a
very little heap) of gold and silver, and odd pence.  Tom saw, at a
glance, that it was his own salary for the current quarter.

'Have you fastened the vestry-window, Mr Pinch?' said Pecksniff.

'Yes, sir.'

'Thank you.  Put down the keys if you please, Mr Pinch.'

Tom placed them on the table.  He held the bunch by the key of the
organ-loft (though it was one of the smallest), and looked hard at
it as he laid it down.  It had been an old, old friend of Tom's; a
kind companion to him, many and many a day.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, shaking his head; 'oh, Mr Pinch!  I
wonder you can look me in the face!'

Tom did it though; and notwithstanding that he has been described as
stooping generally, he stood as upright then as man could stand.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, taking up his handkerchief, as if he
felt that he should want it soon, 'I will not dwell upon the past.
I will spare you, and I will spare myself, that pain at least.'

Tom's was not a very bright eye, but it was a very expressive one
when he looked at Mr Pecksniff, and said:

'Thank you, sir.  I am very glad you will not refer to the past.'

'The present is enough,' said Mr Pecksniff, dropping a penny, 'and
the sooner THAT is past, the better.  Mr Pinch, I will not dismiss
you without a word of explanation.  Even such a course would be
quite justifiable under the circumstances; but it might wear an
appearance of hurry, and I will not do it; for I am,' said Mr
Pecksniff, knocking down another penny, 'perfectly self-possessed.
Therefore I will say to you, what I have already said to Mr
Chuzzlewit.'

Tom glanced at the old gentleman, who nodded now and then as
approving of Mr Pecksniff's sentences and sentiments, but interposed
between them in no other way.

'From fragments of a conversation which I overheard in the church,
just now, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, 'between yourself and Miss
Graham--I say fragments, because I was slumbering at a considerable
distance from you, when I was roused by your voices--and from what I
saw, I ascertained (I would have given a great deal not to have
ascertained, Mr Pinch) that you, forgetful of all ties of duty and
of honour, sir; regardless of the sacred laws of hospitality, to
which you were pledged as an inmate of this house; have presumed to
address Miss Graham with unreturned professions of attachment and
proposals of love.'

Tom looked at him steadily.

'Do you deny it, sir?' asked Mr Pecksniff, dropping one pound two
and fourpence, and making a great business of picking it up again.

'No, sir,' replied Tom.  'I do not.'

'You do not,' said Mr Pecksniff, glancing at the old gentleman.
'Oblige me by counting this money, Mr Pinch, and putting your name
to this receipt.  You do not?'

No, Tom did not.  He scorned to deny it.  He saw that Mr Pecksniff
having overheard his own disgrace, cared not a jot for sinking lower
yet in his contempt.  He saw that he had devised this fiction as the
readiest means of getting rid of him at once, but that it must end
in that any way.  He saw that Mr Pecksniff reckoned on his not
denying it, because his doing so and explaining would incense the
old man more than ever against Martin and against Mary; while
Pecksniff himself would only have been mistaken in his 'fragments.'
Deny it!  No.

'You find the amount correct, do you, Mr Pinch?' said Pecksniff.

'Quite correct, sir,' answered Tom.

'A person is waiting in the kitchen,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'to carry
your luggage wherever you please.  We part, Mr Pinch, at once, and
are strangers from this time.'

Something without a name; compassion, sorrow, old tenderness,
mistaken gratitude, habit; none of these, and yet all of them; smote
upon Tom's gentle heart at parting.  There was no such soul as
Pecksniff's in that carcase; and yet, though his speaking out had
not involved the compromise of one he loved, he couldn't have
denounced the very shape and figure of the man.  Not even then.

'I will not say,' cried Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears, 'what a blow
this is.  I will not say how much it tries me; how it works upon my
nature; how it grates upon my feelings.  I do not care for that.  I
can endure as well as another man.  But what I have to hope, and
what you have to hope, Mr Pinch (otherwise a great responsibility
rests upon you), is, that this deception may not alter my ideas of
humanity; that it may not impair my freshness, or contract, if I may
use the expression, my Pinions.  I hope it will not; I don't think
it will.  It may be a comfort to you, if not now, at some future
time, to know that I shall endeavour not to think the worse of my
fellow-creatures in general, for what has passed between us.
Farewell!'

Tom had meant to spare him one little puncturation with a lancet,
which he had it in his power to administer, but he changed his mind
on hearing this, and said:

'I think you left something in the church, sir.'

'Thank you, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff.  'I am not aware that I did.'

'This is your double eye-glass, I believe?' said Tom.

'Oh!' cried Pecksniff, with some degree of confusion.  'I am obliged
to you.  Put it down, if you please.'

'I found it,' said Tom, slowly--'when I went to bolt the vestry-
window--in the pew.'

So he had.  Mr Pecksniff had taken it off when he was bobbing up and
down, lest it should strike against the panelling; and had forgotten
it.  Going back to the church with his mind full of having been
watched, and wondering very much from what part, Tom's attention was
caught by the door of the state pew standing open.  Looking into it
he found the glass.  And thus he knew, and by returning it gave Mr
Pecksniff the information that he knew, where the listener had been;
and that instead of overhearing fragments of the conversation, he
must have rejoiced in every word of it.

'I am glad he's gone,' said Martin, drawing a long breath when Tom
had left the room.

'It IS a relief,' assented Mr Pecksniff.  'It is a great relief.
But having discharged--I hope with tolerable firmness--the duty
which I owed to society, I will now, my dear sir, if you will give
me leave, retire to shed a few tears in the back garden, as an
humble individual.'

Tom went upstairs; cleared his shelf of books; packed them up with
his music and an old fiddle in his trunk; got out his clothes (they
were not so many that they made his head ache); put them on the top
of his books; and went into the workroom for his case of
instruments.  There was a ragged stool there, with the horsehair all
sticking out of the top like a wig: a very Beast of a stool in
itself; on which he had taken up his daily seat, year after year,
during the whole period of his service.  They had grown older and
shabbier in company.  Pupils had served their time; seasons had come
and gone.  Tom and the worn-out stool had held together through it
all.  That part of the room was traditionally called 'Tom's Corner.'
It had been assigned to him at first because of its being situated
in a strong draught, and a great way from the fire; and he had
occupied it ever since.  There were portraits of him on the walls,
with all his weak points monstrously portrayed.  Diabolical
sentiments, foreign to his character, were represented as issuing
from his mouth in fat balloons.  Every pupil had added something,
even unto fancy portraits of his father with one eye, and of his
mother with a disproportionate nose, and especially of his sister;
who always being presented as extremely beautiful, made full amends
to Tom for any other jokes.  Under less uncommon circumstances, it
would have cut Tom to the heart to leave these things and think that
he saw them for the last time; but it didn't now.  There was no
Pecksniff; there never had been a Pecksniff; and all his other
griefs were swallowed up in that.

So, when he returned into the bedroom, and, having fastened his box
and a carpet-bag, put on his walking gaiters, and his great-coat,
and his hat, and taken his stick in his hand, looked round it for
the last time.  Early on summer mornings, and by the light of
private candle-ends on winter nights, he had read himself half blind
in this same room.  He had tried in this same room to learn the
fiddle under the bedclothes, but yielding to objections from the
other pupils, had reluctantly abandoned the design.  At any other
time he would have parted from it with a pang, thinking of all he
had learned there, of the many hours he had passed there; for the
love of his very dreams.  But there was no Pecksniff; there never
had been a Pecksniff, and the unreality of Pecksniff extended itself
to the chamber, in which, sitting on one particular bed, the thing
supposed to be that Great Abstraction had often preached morality
with such effect that Tom had felt a moisture in his eyes, while
hanging breathless on the words.

The man engaged to bear his box--Tom knew him well: a Dragon man--
came stamping up the stairs, and made a roughish bow to Tom (to whom
in common times he would have nodded with a grin) as though he were
aware of what had happened, and wished him to perceive it made no
difference to HIM.  It was clumsily done; he was a mere waterer of
horses; but Tom liked the man for it, and felt it more than going
away.

Tom would have helped him with the box, but he made no more of it,
though it was a heavy one, than an elephant would have made of a
castle; just swinging it on his back and bowling downstairs as if,
being naturally a heavy sort of fellow, he could carry a box
infinitely better than he could go alone.  Tom took the carpet-bag,
and went downstairs along with him.  At the outer door stood Jane,
crying with all her might; and on the steps was Mrs Lupin, sobbing
bitterly, and putting out her hand for Tom to shake.

'You're coming to the Dragon, Mr Pinch?'

'No,' said Tom, 'no.  I shall walk to Salisbury to-night.  I
couldn't stay here.  For goodness' sake, don't make me so unhappy,
Mrs Lupin.'

'But you'll come to the Dragon, Mr Pinch.  If it's only for tonight.
To see me, you know; not as a traveller.'

'God bless my soul!' said Tom, wiping his eyes.  'The kindness of
people is enough to break one's heart!  I mean to go to Salisbury
to-night, my dear good creature.  If you'll take care of my box for
me till I write for it, I shall consider it the greatest kindness
you can do me.'

'I wish,' cried Mrs Lupin, 'there were twenty boxes, Mr Pinch, that
I might have 'em all.'

'Thank'ee,' said Tom.  'It's like you.  Good-bye.  Good-bye.'

There were several people, young and old, standing about the door,
some of whom cried with Mrs Lupin; while others tried to keep up a
stout heart, as Tom did; and others were absorbed in admiration of
Mr Pecksniff--a man who could build a church, as one may say, by
squinting at a sheet of paper; and others were divided between that
feeling and sympathy with Tom.  Mr Pecksniff had appeared on the top
of the steps, simultaneously with his old pupil, and while Tom was
talking with Mrs Lupin kept his hand stretched out, as though he
said 'Go forth!'  When Tom went forth, and had turned the corner Mr
Pecksniff shook his head, shut his eyes, and heaving a deep sigh,
shut the door.  On which, the best of Tom's supporters said he must
have done some dreadful deed, or such a man as Mr Pecksniff never
could have felt like that.  If it had been a common quarrel (they
observed), he would have said something, but when he didn't, Mr
Pinch must have shocked him dreadfully.

Tom was out of hearing of their shrewd opinions, and plodded on as
steadily as he could go, until he came within sight of the turnpike
where the tollman's family had cried out 'Mr Pinch!' that frosty
morning, when he went to meet young Martin.  He had got through the
village, and this toll-bar was his last trial; but when the infant
toll-takers came screeching out, he had half a mind to run for it,
and make a bolt across the country.

'Why, deary Mr Pinch! oh, deary sir!' cried the tollman's wife.  'What
an unlikely time for you to be a-going this way with a bag!'

'I am going to Salisbury,' said Tom.

'Why, goodness, where's the gig, then?' cried the tollman's wife,
looking down the road, as if she thought Tom might have been upset
without observing it.

'I haven't got it,' said Tom.  'I--' he couldn't evade it; he felt
she would have him in the next question, if he got over this one.
'I have left Mr Pecksniff.'

The tollman--a crusty customer, always smoking solitary pipes in a
Windsor chair, inside, set artfully between two little windows that
looked up and down the road, so that when he saw anything coming up
he might hug himself on having toll to take, and when he saw it
going down, might hug himself on having taken it--the tollman was
out in an instant.

'Left Mr Pecksniff!' cried the tollman.

'Yes,' said Tom, 'left him.'

The tollman looked at his wife, uncertain whether to ask her if she
had anything to suggest, or to order her to mind the children.
Astonishment making him surly, he preferred the latter, and sent her
into the toll-house with a flea in her ear.

'You left Mr Pecksniff!' cried the tollman, folding his arms, and
spreading his legs.  'I should as soon have thought of his head
leaving him.'

'Aye!' said Tom, 'so should I, yesterday.  Good night!'

If a heavy drove of oxen hadn't come by immediately, the tollman
would have gone down to the village straight, to inquire into it.
As things turned out, he smoked another pipe, and took his wife into
his confidence.  But their united sagacity could make nothing of it,
and they went to bed--metaphorically--in the dark.  But several
times that night, when a waggon or other vehicle came through, and
the driver asked the tollkeeper 'What news?' he looked at the man by
the light of his lantern, to assure himself that he had an interest
in the subject, and then said, wrapping his watch-coat round his
legs:

'You've heerd of Mr Pecksniff down yonder?'

'Ah! sure-ly!'

'And of his young man Mr Pinch, p'raps?'

'Ah!'

'They've parted.'

After every one of these disclosures, the tollman plunged into his
house again, and was seen no more, while the other side went on in
great amazement.

But this was long after Tom was abed, and Tom was now with his face
towards Salisbury, doing his best to get there.  The evening was
beautiful at first, but it became cloudy and dull at sunset, and the
rain fell heavily soon afterwards.  For ten long miles he plodded
on, wet through, until at last the lights appeared, and he came into
the welcome precincts of the city.

He went to the inn where he had waited for Martin, and briefly
answering their inquiries after Mr Pecksniff, ordered a bed.  He had
no heart for tea or supper, meat or drink of any kind, but sat by
himself before an empty table in the public room while the bed was
getting ready, revolving in his mind all that had happened that
eventful day, and wondering what he could or should do for the
future.  It was a great relief when the chambermaid came in, and
said the bed was ready.

It was a low four-poster, shelving downward in the centre like a
trough, and the room was crowded with impracticable tables and
exploded chests of drawers, full of damp linen.  A graphic
representation in oil of a remarkably fat ox hung over the
fireplace, and the portrait of some former landlord (who might have
been the ox's brother, he was so like him) stared roundly in, at the
foot of the bed.  A variety of queer smells were partially quenched
in the prevailing scent of very old lavender; and the window had not
been opened for such a long space of time that it pleaded immemorial
usage, and wouldn't come open now.

These were trifles in themselves, but they added to the strangeness
of the place, and did not induce Tom to forget his new position.
Pecksniff had gone out of the world--had never been in it--and it
was as much as Tom could do to say his prayers without him.  But he
felt happier afterwards, and went to sleep, and dreamed about him as
he Never Was.



CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TREATS OF TODGER'S AGAIN; AND OF ANOTHER BLIGHTED PLANT BESIDES THE
PLANTS UPON THE LEADS


Early on the day next after that on which she bade adieu to the
halls of her youth and the scenes of her childhood, Miss Pecksniff,
arriving safely at the coach-office in London, was there received,
and conducted to her peaceful home beneath the shadow of the
Monument, by Mrs Todgers.  M. Todgers looked a little worn by cares
of gravy and other such solicitudes arising out of her
establishment, but displayed her usual earnestness and warmth of
manner.

'And how, my sweet Miss Pecksniff,' said she, 'how is your princely
pa?'

Miss Pecksniff signified (in confidence) that he contemplated the
introduction of a princely ma; and repeated the sentiment that she
wasn't blind, and wasn't quite a fool, and wouldn't bear it.

Mrs Todgers was more shocked by the intelligence than any one could
have expected.  She was quite bitter.  She said there was no truth
in man and that the warmer he expressed himself, as a general
principle, the falser and more treacherous he was.  She foresaw with
astonishing clearness that the object of Mr Pecksniff's attachment
was designing, worthless, and wicked; and receiving from Charity the
fullest confirmation of these views, protested with tears in her
eyes that she loved Miss Pecksniff like a sister, and felt her
injuries as if they were her own.

'Your real darling sister, I have not seen her more than once since
her marriage,' said Mrs Todgers, 'and then I thought her looking
poorly.  My sweet Miss Pecksniff, I always thought that you was to
be the lady?'

'Oh dear no!' cried Cherry, shaking her head.  'Oh no, Mrs Todgers.
Thank you.  No! not for any consideration he could offer.'

'I dare say you are right,' said Mrs Todgers with a sigh.  'I feared
it all along.  But the misery we have had from that match, here
among ourselves, in this house, my dear Miss Pecksniff, nobody would
believe.'

'Lor, Mrs Todgers!'

'Awful, awful!' repeated Mrs Todgers, with strong emphasis.  'You
recollect our youngest gentleman, my dear?'

'Of course I do,' said Cherry.

'You might have observed,' said Mrs Todgers, 'how he used to watch
your sister; and that a kind of stony dumbness came over him
whenever she was in company?'

'I am sure I never saw anything of the sort,' said Cherry, in a
peevish manner.  'What nonsense, Mrs Todgers!'

'My dear,' returned that lady in a hollow voice, 'I have seen him
again and again, sitting over his pie at dinner, with his spoon a
perfect fixture in his mouth, looking at your sister.  I have seen
him standing in a corner of our drawing-room, gazing at her, in such
a lonely, melancholy state, that he was more like a Pump than a man,
and might have drawed tears.'

'I never saw it!' cried Cherry; 'that's all I can say.'

'But when the marriage took place,' said Mrs Todgers, proceeding
with her subject, 'when it was in the paper, and was read out here
at breakfast, I thought he had taken leave of his senses, I did
indeed.  The violence of that young man, my dear Miss Pecksniff; the
frightful opinions he expressed upon the subject of self-
destruction; the extraordinary actions he performed with his tea;
the clenching way in which he bit his bread and butter; the manner
in which he taunted Mr Jinkins; all combined to form a picture never
to be forgotten.'

'It's a pity he didn't destroy himself, I think,' observed Miss
Pecksniff.

'Himself!' said Mrs Todgers, 'it took another turn at night.  He was
for destroying other people then.  There was a little chaffing going
on--I hope you don't consider that a low expression, Miss Pecksniff;
it is always in our gentlemen's mouths--a little chaffing going on,
my dear, among 'em, all in good nature, when suddenly he rose up,
foaming with his fury, and but for being held by three would have
had Mr Jinkins's life with a bootjack.'

Miss Pecksniff's face expressed supreme indifference.

'And now,' said Mrs Todgers, 'now he is the meekest of men.  You can
almost bring the tears into his eyes by looking at him.  He sits
with me the whole day long on Sundays, talking in such a dismal way
that I find it next to impossible to keep my spirits up equal to the
accommodation of the boarders.  His only comfort is in female
society.  He takes me half-price to the play, to an extent which I
sometimes fear is beyond his means; and I see the tears a-standing
in his eyes during the whole performance--particularly if it is
anything of a comic nature.  The turn I experienced only yesterday,'
said Mrs Todgers putting her hand to her side, 'when the house-maid
threw his bedside carpet out of the window of his room, while I was
sitting here, no one can imagine.  I thought it was him, and that he
had done it at last!'

The contempt with which Miss Charity received this pathetic account
of the state to which the youngest gentleman in company was reduced,
did not say much for her power of sympathising with that unfortunate
character.  She treated it with great levity, and went on to inform
herself, then and afterwards, whether any other changes had occurred
in the commercial boarding-house.

Mr Bailey was gone, and had been succeeded (such is the decay of
human greatness!) by an old woman whose name was reported to be
Tamaroo--which seemed an impossibility.  Indeed it appeared in the
fullness of time that the jocular boarders had appropriated the word
from an English ballad, in which it is supposed to express the bold
and fiery nature of a certain hackney coachman; and that it was
bestowed upon Mr Bailey's successor by reason of her having nothing
fiery about her, except an occasional attack of that fire which is
called St. Anthony's.  This ancient female had been engaged, in
fulfillment of a vow, registered by Mrs Todgers, that no more boys
should darken the commercial doors; and she was chiefly remarkable
for a total absence of all comprehension upon every subject
whatever.  She was a perfect Tomb for messages and small parcels;
and when dispatched to the Post Office with letters, had been
frequently seen endeavouring to insinuate them into casual chinks in
private doors, under the delusion that any door with a hole in it
would answer the purpose.  She was a very little old woman, and
always wore a very coarse apron with a bib before and a loop behind,
together with bandages on her wrists, which appeared to be afflicted
with an everlasting sprain.  She was on all occasions chary of
opening the street door, and ardent to shut it again; and she waited
at table in a bonnet.

This was the only great change over and above the change which had
fallen on the youngest gentleman.  As for him, he more than
corroborated the account of Mrs Todgers; possessing greater
sensibility than even she had given him credit for.  He entertained
some terrible notions of Destiny, among other matters, and talked
much about people's 'Missions'; upon which he seemed to have some
private information not generally attainable, as he knew it had been
poor Merry's mission to crush him in the bud.  He was very frail and
tearful; for being aware that a shepherd's mission was to pipe to
his flocks, and that a boatswain's mission was to pipe all hands,
and that one man's mission was to be a paid piper, and another man's
mission was to pay the piper, so he had got it into his head that
his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye.  Which he did
perpetually.

He often informed Mrs Todgers that the sun had set upon him; that
the billows had rolled over him; that the car of Juggernaut had
crushed him, and also that the deadly Upas tree of Java had blighted
him.  His name was Moddle.

Towards this most unhappy Moddle, Miss Pecksniff conducted herself
at first with distant haughtiness, being in no humour to be
entertained with dirges in honour of her married sister.  The poor
young gentleman was additionally crushed by this, and remonstrated
with Mrs Todgers on the subject.

'Even she turns from me, Mrs Todgers,' said Moddle.

'Then why don't you try and be a little bit more cheerful, sir?'
retorted Mrs Todgers.

'Cheerful, Mrs Todgers! cheerful!' cried the youngest gentleman;
'when she reminds me of days for ever fled, Mrs Todgers!'

'Then you had better avoid her for a short time, if she does,' said
Mrs Todgers, 'and come to know her again, by degrees.  That's my
advice.'

'But I can't avoid her,' replied Moddle, 'I haven't strength of mind
to do it.  Oh, Mrs Todgers, if you knew what a comfort her nose is
to me!'

'Her nose, sir!' Mrs Todgers cried.

'Her profile, in general,' said the youngest gentleman, 'but
particularly her nose.  It's so like;' here he yielded to a burst of
grief.  'it's so like hers who is Another's, Mrs Todgers!'

The observant matron did not fail to report this conversation to
Charity, who laughed at the time, but treated Mr Moddle that very
evening with increased consideration, and presented her side face to
him as much as possible.  Mr Moddle was not less sentimental than
usual; was rather more so, if anything; but he sat and stared at her
with glistening eyes, and seemed grateful.

'Well, sir!' said the lady of the Boarding-House next day.  'You
held up your head last night.  You're coming round, I think.'

'Only because she's so like her who is Another's, Mrs Todgers,'
rejoined the youth.  'When she talks, and when she smiles, I think
I'm looking on HER brow again, Mrs Todgers.'

This was likewise carried to Charity, who talked and smiled next
evening in her most engaging manner, and rallying Mr Moddle on the
lowness of his spirits, challenged him to play a rubber at cribbage.
Mr Moddle taking up the gauntlet, they played several rubbers for
sixpences, and Charity won them all.  This may have been partially
attributable to the gallantry of the youngest gentleman, but it was
certainly referable to the state of his feelings also; for his eyes
being frequently dimmed by tears, he thought that aces were tens,
and knaves queens, which at times occasioned some confusion in his
play.

On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs Todgers, sitting by,
proposed that instead of gambling they should play for 'love,' Mr
Moddle was seen to change colour.  On the fourteenth night, he
kissed Miss Pecksniff's snuffers, in the passage, when she went
upstairs to bed; meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it.

In short, Mr Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss
Pecksniff's mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began to
speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become
ultimately Mrs Moddle.  He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was
not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and 'almost' enough to
live on.  Really it looked very well.

Besides--besides--he had been regarded as devoted to Merry.  Merry
had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a
conquest.  He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken,
better tempered, better mannered than Jonas.  He was easy to manage,
could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be
shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear.  There was the rub!

In the meantime the cribbage went on, and Mrs Todgers went off; for
the youngest gentleman, dropping her society, began to take Miss
Pecksniff to the play.  He also began, as Mrs Todgers said, to slip
home 'in his dinner-times,' and to get away from 'the office' at
unholy seasons; and twice, as he informed Mrs Todgers himself, he
received anonymous letters, enclosing cards from Furniture
Warehouses--clearly the act of that ungentlemanly ruffian Jinkins;
only he hadn't evidence enough to call him out upon.  All of which,
so Mrs Todgers told Miss Pecksniff, spoke as plain English as the
shining sun.

'My dear Miss Pecksniff, you may depend upon it,' said Mrs Todgers,
'that he is burning to propose.'

'My goodness me, why don't he then?' cried Cherry.

'Men are so much more timid than we think 'em, my dear,' returned
Mrs Todgers.  'They baulk themselves continually.  I saw the words
on Todgers's lips for months and months and months, before he said
'em.'

Miss Pecksniff submitted that Todgers might not have been a fair
specimen.

'Oh yes, he was.  Oh bless you, yes, my dear.  I was very particular
in those days, I assure you,' said Mrs Todgers, bridling.  'No, no.
You give Mr Moddle a little encouragement, Miss Pecksniff, if you
wish him to speak; and he'll speak fast enough, depend upon it.'

'I am sure I don't know what encouragement he would have, Mrs
Todgers,' returned Charity.  'He walks with me, and plays cards with
me, and he comes and sits alone with me.'

'Quite right,' said Mrs Todgers.  'That's indispensable, my dear.'

'And he sits very close to me.'

'Also quite correct,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And he looks at me.'

'To be sure he does,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And he has his arm upon the back of the chair or sofa, or whatever
it is--behind me, you know.'

'I should think so,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And then he begins to cry!'

Mrs Todgers admitted that he might do better than that; and might
undoubtedly profit by the recollection of the great Lord Nelson's
signal at the battle of Trafalgar.  Still, she said, he would come
round, or, not to mince the matter, would be brought round, if Miss
Pecksniff took up a decided position, and plainly showed him that it
must be done.

Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young lady
received Mr Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an air
of constraint; and gradually leading him to inquire, in a dejected
manner, why she was so changed, confessed to him that she felt it
necessary for their mutual peace and happiness to take a decided
step.  They had been much together lately, she observed, much
together, and had tasted the sweets of a genuine reciprocity of
sentiment.  She never could forget him, nor could she ever cease to
think of him with feelings of the liveliest friendship, but people
had begun to talk, the thing had been observed, and it was necessary
that they should be nothing more to each other, than any gentleman
and lady in society usually are.  She was glad she had had the
resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been tried too
far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though she
was weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped.

Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin, and
wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his
mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on
himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had
Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One.
Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was
goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted
heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be,
plighted his dismal troth, which was accepted and returned.

He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation.  Instead of
being triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to
shed before; and, sobbing, said:

'Oh! what a day this has been!  I can't go back to the office this
afternoon.  Oh, what a trying day this has been!  Good Gracious!'



CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

FURTHER PROCEEDINGS IN EDEN, AND A PROCEEDING OUT OF IT.  MARTIN
MAKES A DISCOVERY OF SOME IMPORTANCE


From Mr Moddle to Eden is an easy and natural transition.  Mr
Moddle, living in the atmosphere of Miss Pecksniff's love, dwelt (if
he had but known it) in a terrestrial Paradise.  The thriving city
of Eden was also a terrestrial Paradise, upon the showing of its
proprietors.  The beautiful Miss Pecksniff might have been
poetically described as a something too good for man in his fallen
and degraded state.  That was exactly the character of the thriving
city of Eden, as poetically heightened by Zephaniah Scadder, General
Choke, and other worthies; part and parcel of the talons of that
great American Eagle, which is always airing itself sky-high in
purest aether, and never, no never, never, tumbles down with
draggled wings into the mud.

When Mark Tapley, leaving Martin in the architectural and surveying
offices, had effectually strengthened and encouraged his own spirits
by the contemplation of their joint misfortunes, he proceeded, with
new cheerfulness, in search of help; congratulating himself, as he
went along, on the enviable position to which he had at last
attained.

'I used to think, sometimes,' said Mr Tapley, 'as a desolate island
would suit me, but I should only have had myself to provide for
there, and being naturally a easy man to manage, there wouldn't have
been much credit in THAT.  Now here I've got my partner to take care
on, and he's something like the sort of man for the purpose.  I want
a man as is always a-sliding off his legs when he ought to be on
'em.  I want a man as is so low down in the school of life that he's
always a-making figures of one in his copy-book, and can't get no
further.  I want a man as is his own great coat and cloak, and is
always a-wrapping himself up in himself.  And I have got him too,'
said Mr Tapley, after a moment's silence.  'What a happiness!'

He paused to look round, uncertain to which of the log-houses he
should repair.

'I don't know which to take,' he observed; 'that's the truth.
They're equally prepossessing outside, and equally commodious, no
doubt, within; being fitted up with every convenience that a
Alligator, in a state of natur', could possibly require.  Let me
see!  The citizen as turned out last night, lives under water, in the
right hand dog-kennel at the corner.  I don't want to trouble him
if I can help it, poor man, for he is a melancholy object; a reg'lar
Settler in every respect.  There's house with a winder, but I am
afraid of their being proud.  I don't know whether a door ain't too
aristocratic; but here goes for the first one!'

He went up to the nearest cabin, and knocked with his hand.  Being
desired to enter, he complied.

'Neighbour,' said Mark; 'for I AM a neighbour, though you don't know
me; I've come a-begging.  Hallo! hal--lo!  Am I a-bed, and dreaming!'

He made this exclamation on hearing his own name pronounced, and
finding himself clasped about the skirts by two little boys, whose
faces he had often washed, and whose suppers he had often cooked, on
board of that noble and fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw.

'My eyes is wrong!' said Mark.  'I don't believe 'em.  That ain't my
fellow-passenger younder, a-nursing her little girl, who, I am sorry
to see, is so delicate; and that ain't her husband as come to New
York to fetch her.  Nor these,' he added, looking down upon the
boys, 'ain't them two young shavers as was so familiar to me; though
they are uncommon like 'em.  That I must confess.'

The woman shed tears, in very joy to see him; the man shook both his
hands and would not let them go; the two boys hugged his legs; the
sick child in the mother's arms stretched out her burning little
fingers, and muttered, in her hoarse, dry throat, his well-
remembered name.

It was the same family, sure enough.  Altered by the salubrious air
of Eden.  But the same.

'This is a new sort of a morning call,' said Mark, drawing a long
breath.  'It strikes one all of a heap.  Wait a little bit!  I'm a-
coming round fast.  That'll do!  These gentlemen ain't my friends.
Are they on the visiting list of the house?'

The inquiry referred to certain gaunt pigs, who had walked in after
him, and were much interested in the heels of the family.  As they
did not belong to the mansion, they were expelled by the two little
boys.

'I ain't superstitious about toads,' said Mark, looking round the
room, 'but if you could prevail upon the two or three I see in
company, to step out at the same time, my young friends, I think
they'd find the open air refreshing.  Not that I at all object to
'em.  A very handsome animal is a toad,' said Mr Tapley, sitting
down upon a stool; 'very spotted; very like a partickler style of
old gentleman about the throat; very bright-eyed, very cool, and
very slippy.  But one sees 'em to the best advantage out of doors
perhaps.'

While pretending, with such talk as this, to be perfectly at his
ease, and to be the most indifferent and careless of men, Mark
Tapley had an eye on all around him.  The wan and meagre aspect of
the family, the changed looks of the poor mother, the fevered child
she held in her lap, the air of great despondency and little hope on
everything, were plain to him, and made a deep impression on his
mind.  He saw it all as clearly and as quickly, as with his bodily
eyes he saw the rough shelves supported by pegs driven between the
logs, of which the house was made; the flour-cask in the corner,
serving also for a table; the blankets, spades, and other articles
against the walls; the damp that blotched the ground; or the crop of
vegetable rottenness in every crevice of the hut.

'How is it that you have come here?' asked the man, when their first
expressions of surprise were over.

'Why, we come by the steamer last night,' replied Mark.  'Our
intention is to make our fortuns with punctuality and dispatch; and
to retire upon our property as soon as ever it's realised.  But how
are you all?  You're looking noble!'

'We are but sickly now,' said the poor woman, bending over her
child.  'But we shall do better when we are seasoned to the place.'

'There are some here,' thought Mark 'whose seasoning will last for
ever.'

But he said cheerfully, 'Do better!  To be sure you will.  We shall
all do better.  What we've got to do is, to keep up our spirits, and
be neighbourly.  We shall come all right in the end, never fear.
That reminds me, by the bye, that my partner's all wrong just at
present; and that I looked in to beg for him.  I wish you'd come and
give me your opinion of him, master.'

That must have been a very unreasonable request on the part of Mark
Tapley, with which, in their gratitude for his kind offices on board
the ship, they would not have complied instantly.  The man rose to
accompany him without a moment's delay.  Before they went, Mark took
the sick child in his arms, and tried to comfort the mother; but the
hand of death was on it then, he saw.

They found Martin in the house, lying wrapped up in his blanket on
the ground.  He was, to all appearance, very ill indeed, and shook
and shivered horribly; not as people do from cold, but in a
frightful kind of spasm or convulsion, that racked his whole body.
Mark's friend pronounced his disease an aggravated kind of fever,
accompanied with ague; which was very common in those parts, and
which he predicted would be worse to-morrow, and for many more
to-morrows.  He had had it himself off and on, he said, for a
couple of years or so; but he was thankful that, while so many
he had known had died about him, he had escaped with life.

'And with not too much of that,' thought Mark, surveying his
emaciated form.  'Eden for ever!'

They had some medicine in their chest; and this man of sad
experience showed Mark how and when to administer it, and how he
could best alleviate the sufferings of Martin.  His attentions did
not stop there; for he was backwards and forwards constantly, and
rendered Mark good service in all his brisk attempts to make their
situation more endurable.  Hope or comfort for the future he could
not bestow.  The season was a sickly one; the settlement a grave.
His child died that night; and Mark, keeping the secret from Martin,
helped to bury it, beneath a tree, next day.

With all his various duties of attendance upon Martin (who became
the more exacting in his claims, the worse he grew), Mark worked out
of doors, early and late; and with the assistance of his friend and
others, laboured to do something with their land.  Not that he had
the least strength of heart or hope, or steady purpose in so doing,
beyond the habitual cheerfulness of his disposition, and his amazing
power of self-sustainment; for within himself, he looked on their
condition as beyond all hope, and, in his own words, 'came out
strong' in consequence.

'As to coming out as strong as I could wish, sir,' he confided to
Martin in a leisure moment; that is to say, one evening, while he
was washing the linen of the establishment, after a hard day's work,
'that I give up.  It's a piece of good fortune as never is to happen
to me, I see!'

'Would you wish for circumstances stronger than these?' Martin
retorted with a groan, from underneath his blanket.

'Why, only see how easy they might have been stronger, sir,' said
Mark, 'if it wasn't for the envy of that uncommon fortun of mine,
which is always after me, and tripping me up.  The night we landed
here, I thought things did look pretty jolly.  I won't deny it.  I
thought they did look pretty jolly.'

'How do they look now?' groaned Martin.

'Ah!' said Mark, 'Ah, to be sure.  That's the question.  How do they
look now?  On the very first morning of my going out, what do I do?
Stumble on a family I know, who are constantly assisting of us in
all sorts of ways, from that time to this!  That won't do, you know;
that ain't what I'd a right to expect.  If I had stumbled on a
serpent and got bit; or stumbled on a first-rate patriot, and got
bowie-knifed, or stumbled on a lot of Sympathisers with inverted
shirt-collars, and got made a lion of; I might have distinguished
myself, and earned some credit.  As it is, the great object of my
voyage is knocked on the head.  So it would be, wherever I went.
How do you feel to-night, sir?'

'Worse than ever,' said poor Martin.

'That's something,' returned Mark, 'but not enough.  Nothing but
being very bad myself, and jolly to the last, will ever do me
justice.'

'In Heaven's name, don't talk of that,' said Martin with a thrill
of terror.  'What should I do, Mark, if you were taken ill!'

Mr Tapley's spirits appeared to be stimulated by this remark,
although it was not a very flattering one.  He proceeded with his
washing in a brighter mood; and observed 'that his glass was
arising.'

'There's one good thing in this place, sir,' said Mr Tapley,
scrubbing away at the linen, 'as disposes me to be jolly; and that
is that it's a reg'lar little United States in itself.  There's two
or three American settlers left; and they coolly comes over one,
even here, sir, as if it was the wholesomest and loveliest spot in
the world.  But they're like the cock that went and hid himself to
save his life, and was found out by the noise he made.  They can't
help crowing.  They was born to do it, and do it they must, whatever
comes of it.'

Glancing from his work out at the door as he said these words,
Mark's eyes encountered a lean person in a blue frock and a straw
hat, with a short black pipe in his mouth, and a great hickory stick
studded all over with knots, in his hand; who smoking and chewing as
he came along, and spitting frequently, recorded his progress by a
train of decomposed tobacco on the ground.

'Here's one on 'em,' cried Mark, 'Hannibal Chollop.'

'Don't let him in,' said Martin, feebly.

'He won't want any letting in,' replied Mark.  'He'll come in, sir.'
Which turned out to be quite true, for he did.  His face was almost
as hard and knobby as his stick; and so were his hands.  His head
was like an old black hearth-broom.  He sat down on the chest with
his hat on; and crossing his legs and looking up at Mark, said,
without removing his pipe:

'Well, Mr Co.! and how do you git along, sir?'

It may be necessary to observe that Mr Tapley had gravely introduced
himself to all strangers, by that name.

'Pretty well, sir; pretty well,' said Mark.

'If this ain't Mr Chuzzlewit, ain't it!' exclaimed the visitor 'How
do YOU git along, sir?'

Martin shook his head, and drew the blanket over it involuntarily;
for he felt that Hannibal was going to spit; and his eye, as the
song says, was upon him.

'You need not regard me, sir,' observed Mr Chollop, complacently.
'I am fever-proof, and likewise agur.'

'Mine was a more selfish motive,' said Martin, looking out again.
'I was afraid you were going to--'

'I can calc'late my distance, sir,' returned Mr Chollop, 'to an
inch.'

With a proof of which happy faculty he immediately favoured him.

'I re-quire, sir,' said Hannibal, 'two foot clear in a circ'lar di-
rection, and can engage my-self toe keep within it.  I HAVE gone ten
foot, in a circ'lar di-rection, but that was for a wager.'

'I hope you won it, sir,' said Mark.

'Well, sir, I realised the stakes,' said Chollop.  'Yes, sir.'

He was silent for a time, during which he was actively engaged in
the formation of a magic circle round the chest on which he sat.
When it was completed, he began to talk again.

'How do you like our country, sir?' he inquired, looking at Martin.

'Not at all,' was the invalid's reply.

Chollop continued to smoke without the least appearance of emotion,
until he felt disposed to speak again.  That time at length
arriving, he took his pipe from his mouth, and said:

'I am not surprised to hear you say so.  It re-quires An elevation,
and A preparation of the intellect.  The mind of man must be
prepared for Freedom, Mr Co.'

He addressed himself to Mark; because he saw that Martin, who wished
him to go, being already half-mad with feverish irritation, which
the droning voice of this new horror rendered almost insupportable,
had closed his eyes, and turned on his uneasy bed.

'A little bodily preparation wouldn't be amiss, either, would it,
sir,' said Mark, 'in the case of a blessed old swamp like this?'

'Do you con-sider this a swamp, sir?' inquired Chollop gravely.

'Why yes, sir,' returned Mark.  'I haven't a doubt about it myself.'

'The sentiment is quite Europian,' said the major, 'and does not
surprise me; what would your English millions say to such a swamp in
England, sir?'

'They'd say it was an uncommon nasty one, I should think, said Mark;
'and that they would rather be inoculated for fever in some other
way.'

'Europian!' remarked Chollop, with sardonic pity.  'Quite Europian!'

And there he sat.  Silent and cool, as if the house were his;
smoking away like a factory chimney.

Mr Chollop was, of course, one of the most remarkable men in the
country; but he really was a notorious person besides.  He was
usually described by his friends, in the South and West, as 'a
splendid sample of our na-tive raw material, sir,' and was much
esteemed for his devotion to rational Liberty; for the better
propagation whereof he usually carried a brace of revolving pistols
in his coat pocket, with seven barrels a-piece.  He also carried,
amongst other trinkets, a sword-stick, which he called his
'Tickler.' and a great knife, which (for he was a man of a pleasant
turn of humour) he called 'Ripper,' in allusion to its usefulness as
a means of ventilating the stomach of any adversary in a close
contest.  He had used these weapons with distinguished effect in
several instances, all duly chronicled in the newspapers; and was
greatly beloved for the gallant manner in which he had 'jobbed out'
the eye of one gentleman, as he was in the act of knocking at his
own street-door.

Mr Chollop was a man of a roving disposition; and, in any less
advanced community, might have been mistaken for a violent vagabond.
But his fine qualities being perfectly understood and appreciated in
those regions where his lot was cast, and where he had many kindred
spirits to consort with, he may be regarded as having been born
under a fortunate star, which is not always the case with a man so
much before the age in which he lives.  Preferring, with a view to
the gratification of his tickling and ripping fancies, to dwell upon
the outskirts of society, and in the more remote towns and cities,
he was in the habit of emigrating from place to place, and
establishing in each some business--usually a newspaper--which he
presently sold; for the most part closing the bargain by challenging,
stabbing, pistolling, or gouging the new editor, before he had quite
taken possession of the property.

He had come to Eden on a speculation of this kind, but had abandoned
it, and was about to leave.  He always introduced himself to
strangers as a worshipper of Freedom; was the consistent advocate of
Lynch law, and slavery; and invariably recommended, both in print
and speech, the 'tarring and feathering' of any unpopular person who
differed from himself.  He called this 'planting the standard of
civilization in the wilder gardens of My country.'

There is little doubt that Chollop would have planted this standard
in Eden at Mark's expense, in return for his plainness of speech
(for the genuine Freedom is dumb, save when she vaunts herself), but
for the utter desolation and decay prevailing in the settlement, and
his own approaching departure from it.  As it was, he contented
himself with showing Mark one of the revolving-pistols, and asking
him what he thought of that weapon.

'It ain't long since I shot a man down with that, sir, in the State
of IllinOY,' observed Chollop.

'Did you, indeed!' said Mark, without the smallest agitation.  'Very
free of you.  And very independent!'

'I shot him down, sir,' pursued Chollop, 'for asserting in the
Spartan Portico, a tri-weekly journal, that the ancient Athenians
went a-head of the present Locofoco Ticket.'

'And what's that?' asked Mark.

'Europian not to know,' said Chollop, smoking placidly.  'Europian
quite!'

After a short devotion to the interests of the magic circle, he
resumed the conversation by observing:

'You won't half feel yourself at home in Eden, now?'

'No,' said Mark, 'I don't.'

'You miss the imposts of your country.  You miss the house dues?'
observed Chollop.

'And the houses--rather,' said Mark.

'No window dues here, sir,' observed Chollop.

'And no windows to put 'em on,' said Mark.

'No stakes, no dungeons, no blocks, no racks, no scaffolds, no
thumbscrews, no pikes, no pillories,' said Chollop.

'Nothing but rewolwers and bowie-knives,' returned Mark.  'And what
are they?  Not worth mentioning!'

The man who had met them on the night of their arrival came crawling
up at this juncture, and looked in at the door.

'Well, sir,' said Chollop.  'How do YOU git along?'

He had considerable difficulty in getting along at all, and said as
much in reply.

'Mr Co. And me, sir,' observed Chollop, 'are disputating a piece.
He ought to be slicked up pretty smart to disputate between the Old
World and the New, I do expect?'

'Well!' returned the miserable shadow.  'So he had.'

'I was merely observing, sir,' said Mark, addressing this new
visitor, 'that I looked upon the city in which we have the honour to
live, as being swampy.  What's your sentiments?'

'I opinionate it's moist perhaps, at certain times,' returned the
man.

'But not as moist as England, sir?' cried Chollop, with a fierce
expression in his face.

'Oh!  Not as moist as England; let alone its Institutions,' said the
man.

'I should hope there ain't a swamp in all Americay, as don't whip
THAT small island into mush and molasses,' observed Chollop,
decisively.  'You bought slick, straight, and right away, of
Scadder, sir?' to Mark.

He answered in the affirmative.  Mr Chollop winked at the other
citizen.

'Scadder is a smart man, sir?  He is a rising man?  He is a man as
will come up'ards, right side up, sir?'  Mr Chollop winked again at
the other citizen.

'He should have his right side very high up, if I had my way,' said
Mark.  'As high up as the top of a good tall gallows, perhaps.'

Mr Chollop was so delighted at the smartness of his excellent
countryman having been too much for the Britisher, and at the
Britisher's resenting it, that he could contain himself no longer,
and broke forth in a shout of delight.  But the strangest exposition
of this ruling passion was in the other--the pestilence-stricken,
broken, miserable shadow of a man--who derived so much entertainment
from the circumstance that he seemed to forget his own ruin in
thinking of it, and laughed outright when he said 'that Scadder was
a smart man, and had draw'd a lot of British capital that way, as
sure as sun-up.'

After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr Hannibal Chollop sat smoking
and improving the circle, without making any attempts either to
converse or to take leave; apparently labouring under the not
uncommon delusion that for a free and enlightened citizen of the
United States to convert another man's house into a spittoon for two
or three hours together, was a delicate attention, full of interest
and politeness, of which nobody could ever tire.  At last he rose.

'I am a-going easy,' he observed.

Mark entreated him to take particular care of himself.

'Afore I go,' he said sternly, 'I have got a leetle word to say to
you.  You are darnation 'cute, you are.'

Mark thanked him for the compliment.

'But you are much too 'cute to last.  I can't con-ceive of any
spotted Painter in the bush, as ever was so riddled through and
through as you will be, I bet.'

'What for?' asked Mark.

'We must be cracked up, sir,' retorted Chollop, in a tone of menace.
'You are not now in A despotic land.  We are a model to the airth,
and must be jist cracked-up, I tell you.'

'What!  I speak too free, do I?' cried Mark.

'I have draw'd upon A man, and fired upon A man for less,' said
Chollop, frowning.  'I have know'd strong men obleeged to make
themselves uncommon skase for less.  I have know'd men Lynched for
less, and beaten into punkin'-sarse for less, by an enlightened
people.  We are the intellect and virtue of the airth, the cream of
human natur', and the flower Of moral force.  Our backs is easy ris.
We must be cracked-up, or they rises, and we snarls.  We shows our
teeth, I tell you, fierce.  You'd better crack us up, you had!'

After the delivery of this caution, Mr Chollop departed; with
Ripper, Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the
shortest notice.

'Come out from under the blanket, sir,' said Mark, 'he's gone.
What's this!' he added softly; kneeling down to look into his
partner's face, and taking his hot hand.  'What's come of all that
chattering and swaggering?  He's wandering in his mind to-night, and
don't know me!'

Martin indeed was dangerously ill; very near his death.  He lay in
that state many days, during which time Mark's poor friends,
regardless of themselves, attended him.  Mark, fatigued in mind and
body; working all the day and sitting up at night; worn with hard
living and the unaccustomed toil of his new life; surrounded by
dismal and discouraging circumstances of every kind; never
complained or yielded in the least degree.  If ever he had thought
Martin selfish or inconsiderate, or had deemed him energetic only by
fits and starts, and then too passive for their desperate fortunes,
he now forgot it all.  He remembered nothing but the better
qualities of his fellow-wanderer, and was devoted to him, heart and
hand.

Many weeks elapsed before Martin was strong enough to move about
with the help of a stick and Mark's arm; and even then his recovery,
for want of wholesome air and proper nourishment, was very slow.  He
was yet in a feeble and weak condition, when the misfourtune he had
so much dreaded fell upon them.  Mark was taken ill.

Mark fought against it; but the malady fought harder, and his
efforts were in vain.

'Floored for the present, sir,' he said one morning, sinking back
upon his bed; 'but jolly!'

Floored indeed, and by a heavy blow!  As any one but Martin might
have known beforehand.

If Mark's friends had been kind to Martin (and they had been very),
they were twenty times kinder to Mark.  And now it was Martin's turn
to work, and sit beside the bed and watch, and listen through the
long, long nights, to every sound in the gloomy wilderness; and hear
poor Mr Tapley, in his wandering fancy, playing at skittles in the
Dragon, making love-remonstrances to Mrs Lupin, getting his sea-legs
on board the Screw, travelling with old Tom Pinch on English roads,
and burning stumps of trees in Eden, all at once.

But whenever Martin gave him drink or medicine, or tended him in any
way, or came into the house returning from some drudgery without,
the patient Mr Tapley brightened up and cried: 'I'm jolly, sir; 'I'm
jolly!'

Now, when Martin began to think of this, and to look at Mark as he
lay there; never reproaching him by so much as an expression of
regret; never murmuring; always striving to be manful and staunch;
he began to think, how was it that this man who had had so few
advantages, was so much better than he who had had so many?  And
attendance upon a sick bed, but especially the sick bed of one whom
we have been accustomed to see in full activity and vigour, being a
great breeder of reflection, he began to ask himself in what they
differed.

He was assisted in coming to a conclusion on this head by the
frequent presence of Mark's friend, their fellow-passenger across
the ocean, which suggested to him that in regard to having aided
her, for example, they had differed very much.  Somehow he coupled
Tom Pinch with this train of reflection; and thinking that Tom would
be very likely to have struck up the same sort of acquaintance under
similar circumstances, began to think in what respects two people so
extremely different were like each other, and were unlike him.  At
first sight there was nothing very distressing in these meditations,
but they did undoubtedly distress him for all that.

Martin's nature was a frank and generous one; but he had been bred
up in his grandfather's house; and it will usually be found that the
meaner domestic vices propagate themselves to be their own
antagonists.  Selfishness does this especially; so do suspicion,
cunning, stealth, and covetous propensities.  Martin had
unconsciously reasoned as a child, 'My guardian takes so much
thought of himself, that unless I do the like by MYself, I shall be
forgotten.'  So he had grown selfish.

But he had never known it.  If any one had taxed him with the vice,
he would have indignantly repelled the accusation, and conceived
himself unworthily aspersed.  He never would have known it, but that
being newly risen from a bed of dangerous sickness, to watch by such
another couch, he felt how nearly Self had dropped into the grave,
and what a poor dependent, miserable thing it was.

It was natural for him to reflect--he had months to do it in--upon
his own escape, and Mark's extremity.  This led him to consider
which of them could be the better spared, and why?  Then the curtain
slowly rose a very little way; and Self, Self, Self, was shown
below.

He asked himself, besides, when dreading Mark's decease (as all men
do and must, at such a time), whether he had done his duty by him,
and had deserved and made a good response to his fidelity and zeal.
No.  Short as their companionship had been, he felt in many, many
instances, that there was blame against himself; and still inquiring
why, the curtain slowly rose a little more, and Self, Self, Self,
dilated on the scene.

It was long before he fixed the knowledge of himself so firmly in
his mind that he could thoroughly discern the truth; but in the
hideous solitude of that most hideous place, with Hope so far
removed, Ambition quenched, and Death beside him rattling at the
very door, reflection came, as in a plague-beleaguered town; and so
he felt and knew the failing of his life, and saw distinctly what an
ugly spot it was.

Eden was a hard school to learn so hard a lesson in; but there were
teachers in the swamp and thicket, and the pestilential air, who had
a searching method of their own.

He made a solemn resolution that when his strength returned he would
not dispute the point or resist the conviction, but would look upon
it as an established fact, that selfishness was in his breast, and
must be rooted out.  He was so doubtful (and with justice) of his
own character, that he determined not to say one word of vain regret
or good resolve to Mark, but steadily to keep his purpose before his
own eyes solely; and there was not a jot of pride in this; nothing
but humility and steadfastness; the best armour he could wear.  So
low had Eden brought him down.  So high had Eden raised him up.

After a long and lingering illness (in certain forlorn stages of
which, when too far gone to speak, he had feebly written 'jolly!' on
a slate), Mark showed some symptoms of returning health.  They came
and went, and flickered for a time; but he began to mend at last
decidedly; and after that continued to improve from day to day.

As soon as he was well enough to talk without fatigue, Martin
consulted him upon a project he had in his mind, and which a few
months back he would have carried into execution without troubling
anybody's head but his own.

'Ours is a desperate case,' said Martin.  'Plainly.  The place is
deserted; its failure must have become known; and selling what we
have bought to any one, for anything, is hopeless, even if it were
honest.  We left home on a mad enterprise, and have failed.  The
only hope left us, the only one end for which we have now to try, is
to quit this settlement for ever, and get back to England.  Anyhow!
by any means! only to get back there, Mark.'

'That's all, sir,' returned Mr Tapley, with a significant stress
upon the words; 'only that!'

'Now, upon this side of the water,' said Martin, 'we have but one
friend who can help us, and that is Mr Bevan.'

'I thought of him when you was ill,' said Mark.

'But for the time that would be lost, I would even write to my
grandfather,' Martin went on to say, 'and implore him for money to
free us from this trap into which we were so cruelly decoyed.  Shall
I try Mr Bevan first?'

'He's a very pleasant sort of a gentleman,' said Mark.  'I think
so.'

'The few goods we brought here, and in which we spent our money,
would produce something if sold,' resumed Martin; 'and whatever they
realise shall be paid him instantly.  But they can't be sold here.'

'There's nobody but corpses to buy 'em,' said Mr Tapley, shaking his
head with a rueful air, 'and pigs.'

'Shall I tell him so, and only ask him for money enough to enable us
by the cheapest means to reach New York, or any port from which we
may hope to get a passage home, by serving in any capacity?
Explaining to him at the same time how I am connected, and that I
will endeavour to repay him, even through my grandfather,
immediately on our arrival in England?'

'Why to be sure,' said Mark: 'he can only say no, and he may say
yes.  If you don't mind trying him, sir--'

'Mind!' exclaimed Martin.  'I am to blame for coming here, and I
would do anything to get away.  I grieve to think of the past.  If I
had taken your opinion sooner, Mark, we never should have been here,
I am certain.'

Mr Tapley was very much surprised at this admission, but protested,
with great vehemence, that they would have been there all the same;
and that he had set his heart upon coming to Eden, from the first
word he had ever heard of it.

Martin then read him a letter to Mr Bevan, which he had already
prepared.  It was frankly and ingenuously written, and described
their situation without the least concealment; plainly stated the
miseries they had undergone; and preferred their request in modest
but straightforward terms.  Mark highly commended it; and they
determined to dispatch it by the next steamboat going the right way,
that might call to take in wood at Eden--where there was plenty of
wood to spare.  Not knowing how to address Mr Bevan at his own place
of abode, Martin superscribed it to the care of the memorable Mr
Norris of New York, and wrote upon the cover an entreaty that it
might be forwarded without delay.

More than a week elapsed before a boat appeared; but at length they
were awakened very early one morning by the high-pressure snorting
of the 'Esau Slodge;' named after one of the most remarkable men in
the country, who had been very eminent somewhere.  Hurrying down to
the landing-place, they got it safe on board; and waiting anxiously
to see the boat depart, stopped up the gangway; an instance of
neglect which caused the 'Capting' of the Esau Slodge to 'wish he
might be sifted fine as flour, and whittled small as chips; that if
they didn't come off that there fixing right smart too, he'd spill
'em in the drink;' whereby the Capting metaphorically said he'd
throw them in the river.

They were not likely to receive an answer for eight or ten weeks at
the earliest.  In the meantime they devoted such strength as they
had to the attempted improvement of their land; to clearing some of
it, and preparing it for useful purposes.  Monstrously defective as
their farming was, still it was better than their neighbours'; for
Mark had some practical knowledge of such matters, and Martin
learned of him; whereas the other settlers who remained upon the
putrid swamp (a mere handful, and those withered by disease),
appeared to have wandered there with the idea that husbandry was the
natural gift of all mankind.  They helped each other after their own
manner in these struggles, and in all others; but they worked as
hopelessly and sadly as a gang of convicts in a penal settlement.

Often at night when Mark and Martin were alone, and lying down to
sleep, they spoke of home, familiar places, houses, roads, and
people whom they knew; sometimes in the lively hope of seeing them
again, and sometimes with a sorrowful tranquillity, as if that hope
were dead.  It was a source of great amazement to Mark Tapley to
find, pervading all these conversations, a singular alteration in
Martin.

'I don't know what to make of him,' he thought one night, 'he ain't
what I supposed.  He don't think of himself half as much.  I'll try
him again.  Asleep, sir?'

'No, Mark.'

'Thinking of home, sir?'

'Yes, Mark.'

'So was I, sir.  I was wondering how Mr Pinch and Mr Pecksniff gets
on now.'

'Poor Tom!' said Martin, thoughtfully.

'Weak-minded man, sir,' observed Mr Tapley.  'Plays the organ for
nothing, sir.  Takes no care of himself?'

'I wish he took a little more, indeed,' said Martin.  'Though I
don't know why I should.  We shouldn't like him half as well,
perhaps.'

'He gets put upon, sir,' hinted Mark.

'Yes!' said Martin, after a short silence.  'I know that, Mark.'

He spoke so regretfully that his partner abandoned the theme, and
was silent for a short time until he had thought of another.

'Ah, sir!' said Mark, with a sigh.  'Dear me!  You've ventured a good
deal for a young lady's love!'

'I tell you what.  I'm not so sure of that, Mark,' was the reply; so
hastily and energetically spoken, that Martin sat up in his bed to
give it.  'I begin to be far from clear upon it.  You may depend
upon it she is very unhappy.  She has sacrificed her peace of mind;
she has endangered her interests very much; she can't run away from
those who are jealous of her, and opposed to her, as I have done.
She has to endure, Mark; to endure without the possibility of
action, poor girl!  I begin to think that she has more to bear than
ever I had.  Upon my soul I do!'

Mr Tapley opened his eyes wide in the dark; but did not interrupt.

'And I'll tell you a secret, Mark,' said Martin, 'since we ARE upon
this subject.  That ring--'

'Which ring, sir?' Mark inquired, opening his eyes still wider.

'That ring she gave me when we parted, Mark.  She bought it; bought
it; knowing I was poor and proud (Heaven help me!  Proud!) and wanted
money.'

'Who says so, sir?' asked Mark.

'I say so.  I know it.  I thought of it, my good fellow, hundreds of
times, while you were lying ill.  And like a beast, I took it from
her hand, and wore it on my own, and never dreamed of this even at
the moment when I parted with it, when some faint glimmering of the
truth might surely have possessed me!  But it's late,' said Martin,
checking himself, 'and you are weak and tired, I know.  You only
talk to cheer me up.  Good night!  God bless you, Mark!'

'God bless you, sir!  But I'm reg'larly defrauded,' thought Mr
Tapley, turning round with a happy face.  'It's a swindle.  I never
entered for this sort of service.  There'll be no credit in being
jolly with HIM!'

The time wore on, and other steamboats coming from the point on
which their hopes were fixed, arrived to take in wood; but still no
answer to the letter.  Rain, heat, foul slime, and noxious vapour,
with all the ills and filthy things they bred, prevailed.  The
earth, the air, the vegetation, and the water that they drank, all
teemed with deadly properties.  Their fellow-passenger had lost two
children long before; and buried now her last.  Such things are much
too common to be widely known or cared for.  Smart citizens grow
rich, and friendless victims smart and die, and are forgotten.  That
is all.

At last a boat came panting up the ugly river, and stopped at Eden.
Mark was waiting at the wood hut when it came, and had a letter
handed to him from on board.  He bore it off to Martin.  They looked
at one another, trembling.

'It feels heavy,' faltered Martin.  And opening it a little roll of
dollar-notes fell out upon the ground.

What either of them said, or did, or felt, at first, neither of them
knew.  All Mark could ever tell was, that he was at the river's bank
again out of breath, before the boat had gone, inquiring when it
would retrace its track and put in there.

The answer was, in ten or twelve days; notwithstanding which they
began to get their goods together and to tie them up that very
night.  When this stage of excitement was passed, each of them
believed (they found this out, in talking of it afterwards) that he
would surely die before the boat returned.

They lived, however, and it came, after the lapse of three long
crawling weeks.  At sunrise, on an autumn day, they stood upon her
deck.

'Courage!  We shall meet again!' cried Martin, waving his hand to two
thin figures on the bank.  'In the Old World!'

'Or in the next one,' added Mark below his breath.  'To see them
standing side by side, so quiet, is a'most the worst of all!'

They looked at one another as the vessel moved away, and then looked
backward at the spot from which it hurried fast.  The log-house, with
the open door, and drooping trees about it; the stagnant morning
mist, and red sun, dimly seen beyond; the vapour rising up from land
and river; the quick stream making the loathsome banks it washed
more flat and dull; how often they returned in dreams!  How often it
was happiness to wake and find them Shadows that had vanished!



CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

IN WHICH THE TRAVELLERS MOVE HOMEWARD, AND ENCOUNTER SOME
DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS UPON THE WAY


Among the passengers on board the steamboat, there was a faint
gentleman sitting on a low camp-stool, with his legs on a high
barrel of flour, as if he were looking at the prospect with his
ankles, who attracted their attention speedily.

He had straight black hair, parted up the middle of his head and
hanging down upon his coat; a little fringe of hair upon his chin;
wore no neckcloth; a white hat; a suit of black, long in the sleeves
and short in the legs; soiled brown stockings and laced shoes.  His
complexion, naturally muddy, was rendered muddier by too strict an
economy of soap and water; and the same observation will apply to
the washable part of his attire, which he might have changed with
comfort to himself and gratification to his friends.  He was about
five and thirty; was crushed and jammed up in a heap, under the
shade of a large green cotton umbrella; and ruminated over his
tobacco-plug like a cow.

He was not singular, to be sure, in these respects; for every
gentleman on board appeared to have had a difference with his
laundress and to have left off washing himself in early youth.
Every gentleman, too, was perfectly stopped up with tight plugging,
and was dislocated in the greater part of his joints.  But about
this gentleman there was a peculiar air of sagacity and wisdom,
which convinced Martin that he was no common character; and this
turned out to be the case.

'How do you do sir?' said a voice in Martin's ear

'How do you do sir?' said Martin.

It was a tall thin gentleman who spoke to him, with a carpet-cap on,
and a long loose coat of green baize, ornamented about the pockets
with black velvet.

'You air from Europe, sir?'

'I am,' said Martin.

'You air fortunate, sir.'

Martin thought so too; but he soon discovered that the gentleman and
he attached different meanings to this remark.

'You air fortunate, sir, in having an opportunity of beholding our
Elijah Pogram, sir.'

'Your Elijahpogram!' said Martin, thinking it was all one word, and
a building of some sort.

'Yes sir.'

Martin tried to look as if he understood him, but he couldn't make
it out.

'Yes, sir,' repeated the gentleman.  'our Elijah Pogram, sir, is, at
this minute, identically settin' by the en-gine biler.'

The gentleman under the umbrella put his right forefinger to his
eyebrow, as if he were revolving schemes of state.

'That is Elijah Pogram, is it?' said Martin.

'Yes, sir,' replied the other.  'That is Elijah Pogram.'

'Dear me!' said Martin.  'I am astonished.'  But he had not the least
idea who this Elijah Pogram was; having never heard the name in all
his life.

'If the biler of this vessel was Toe bust, sir,' said his new
acquaintance, 'and Toe bust now, this would be a festival day in the
calendar of despotism; pretty nigh equallin', sir, in its effects
upon the human race, our Fourth of glorious July.  Yes, sir, that is
the Honourable Elijah Pogram, Member of Congress; one of the master-
minds of our country, sir.  There is a brow, sir, there!'

'Quite remarkable,' said Martin.

'Yes, sir.  Our own immortal Chiggle, sir, is said to have observed,
when he made the celebrated Pogram statter in marble, which rose so
much con-test and preju-dice in Europe, that the brow was more than
mortal.  This was before the Pogram Defiance, and was, therefore, a
pre-diction, cruel smart.'

'What is the Pogram Defiance?' asked Martin, thinking, perhaps, it
was the sign of a public-house.

'An o-ration, sir,' returned his friend.

'Oh! to be sure,' cried Martin.  'What am I thinking of!  It
defied--'

'It defied the world, sir,' said the other, gravely.  'Defied the
world in general to com-pete with our country upon any hook; and
devellop'd our internal resources for making war upon the universal
airth.  You would like to know Elijah Pogram, sir?'

'If you please,' said Martin.

'Mr Pogram,' said the stranger--Mr Pogram having overheard every
word of the dialogue--'this is a gentleman from Europe, sir; from
England, sir.  But gen'rous ene-mies may meet upon the neutral sile
of private life, I think.'

The languid Mr Pogram shook hands with Martin, like a clock-work
figure that was just running down.  But he made amends by chewing
like one that was just wound up.

'Mr Pogram,' said the introducer, 'is a public servant, sir.  When
Congress is recessed, he makes himself acquainted with those free
United States, of which he is the gifted son.'

It occurred to Martin that if the Honourable Elijah Pogram had
stayed at home, and sent his shoes upon a tour, they would have
answered the same purpose; for they were the only part of him in a
situation to see anything.

In course of time, however, Mr Pogram rose; and having ejected
certain plugging consequences which would have impeded his
articulation, took up a position where there was something to lean
against, and began to talk to Martin; shading himself with the green
umbrella all the time.

As he began with the words, 'How do you like--?'  Martin took him up
and said:

'The country, I presume?'

'Yes, sir,' said Elijah Pogram.  A knot of passengers gathered round
to hear what followed; and Martin heard his friend say, as he
whispered to another friend, and rubbed his hands, 'Pogram will
smash him into sky-blue fits, I know!'

'Why,' said Martin, after a moment's hesitation, 'I have learned by
experience, that you take an unfair advantage of a stranger, when
you ask that question.  You don't mean it to be answered, except in
one way.  Now, I don't choose to answer it in that way, for I cannot
honestly answer it in that way.  And therefore, I would rather not
answer it at all.'

But Mr Pogram was going to make a great speech in the next session
about foreign relations, and was going to write strong articles on
the subject; and as he greatly favoured the free and independent
custom (a very harmless and agreeable one) of procuring information
of any sort in any kind of confidence, and afterwards perverting it
publicly in any manner that happened to suit him, he had determined
to get at Martin's opinions somehow or other.  For if he could have
got nothing out of him, he would have had to invent it for him, and
that would have been laborious.  He made a mental note of his
answer, and went in again.

'You are from Eden, sir?  How did you like Eden?'

Martin said what he thought of that part of the country, in pretty
strong terms.

'It is strange,' said Pogram, looking round upon the group, 'this
hatred of our country, and her Institutions!  This national antipathy
is deeply rooted in the British mind!'

'Good Heaven, sir,' cried Martin.  'Is the Eden Land Corporation,
with Mr Scadder at its head, and all the misery it has worked, at
its door, an Institution of America?  A part of any form of
government that ever was known or heard of?'

'I con-sider the cause of this to be,' said Pogram, looking round
again and taking himself up where Martin had interrupted him,
'partly jealousy and pre-judice, and partly the nat'ral unfitness of
the British people to appreciate the ex-alted Institutions of our
native land.  I expect, sir,' turning to Martin again, 'that a
gentleman named Chollop happened in upon you during your lo-cation
in the town of Eden?'

'Yes,' answered Martin; 'but my friend can answer this better than I
can, for I was very ill at the time.  Mark!  The gentleman is
speaking of Mr Chollop.'

'Oh.  Yes, sir.  Yes.  I see him,' observed Mark.

'A splendid example of our na-tive raw material, sir?' said Pogram,
interrogatively.

'Indeed, sir!' cried Mark.

The Honourable Elijah Pogram glanced at his friends as though he
would have said, 'Observe this!  See what follows!' and they rendered
tribute to the Pogram genius by a gentle murmur.

'Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man, quite fresh from Natur's
mould!' said Pogram, with enthusiasm.  'He is a true-born child of
this free hemisphere!  Verdant as the mountains of our country;
bright and flowing as our mineral Licks; unspiled by withering
conventionalities as air our broad and boundless Perearers!  Rough he
may be.  So air our Barrs.  Wild he may be.  So air our Buffalers.
But he is a child of Natur', and a child of Freedom; and his
boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant is, that his bright
home is in the Settin Sun.'

Part of this referred to Chollop, and part to a Western postmaster,
who, being a public defaulter not very long before (a character not
at all uncommon in America), had been removed from office; and on
whose behalf Mr Pogram (he voted for Pogram) had thundered the last
sentence from his seat in Congress, at the head of an unpopular
President.  It told brilliantly; for the bystanders were delighted,
and one of them said to Martin, 'that he guessed he had now seen
something of the eloquential aspect of our country, and was chawed
up pritty small.'

Mr Pogram waited until his hearers were calm again, before he said
to Mark:

'You do not seem to coincide, sir?'

'Why,' said Mark, 'I didn't like him much; and that's the truth,
sir.  I thought he was a bully; and I didn't admire his carryin'
them murderous little persuaders, and being so ready to use 'em.'

'It's singler!' said Pogram, lifting his umbrella high enough to
look all round from under it.  'It's strange!  You observe the
settled opposition to our Institutions which pervades the British
mind!'

'What an extraordinary people you are!' cried Martin.  'Are Mr
Chollop and the class he represents, an Institution here?  Are
pistols with revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives, and such
things, Institutions on which you pride yourselves?  Are bloody
duels, brutal combats, savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing
in the streets, your Institutions!  Why, I shall hear next that
Dishonour and Fraud are among the Institutions of the great
republic!'

The moment the words passed his lips, the Honourable Elijah Pogram
looked round again.

'This morbid hatred of our Institutions,' he observed, 'is quite a
study for the psychological observer.  He's alludin' to Repudiation
now!'

'Oh! you may make anything an Institution if you like,' said Martin,
laughing, 'and I confess you had me there, for you certainly have
made that one.  But the greater part of these things are one
Institution with us, and we call it by the generic name of Old
Bailey!'

The bell being rung for dinner at this moment, everybody ran away
into the cabin, whither the Honourable Elijah Pogram fled with such
precipitation that he forgot his umbrella was up, and fixed it so
tightly in the cabin door that it could neither be let down nor got
out.  For a minute or so this accident created a perfect rebellion
among the hungry passengers behind, who, seeing the dishes, and
hearing the knives and forks at work, well knew what would happen
unless they got there instantly, and were nearly mad; while several
virtuous citizens at the table were in deadly peril of choking
themselves in their unnatural efforts to get rid of all the meat
before these others came.

They carried the umbrella by storm, however, and rushed in at the
breach.  The Honourable Elijah Pogram and Martin found themselves,
after a severe struggle, side by side, as they might have come
together in the pit of a London theatre; and for four whole minutes
afterwards, Pogram was snapping up great blocks of everything he
could get hold of, like a raven.  When he had taken this unusually
protracted dinner, he began to talk to Martin; and begged him not to
have the least delicacy in speaking with perfect freedom to him, for
he was a calm philosopher.  Which Martin was extremely glad to hear;
for he had begun to speculate on Elijah being a disciple of that
other school of republican philosophy, whose noble sentiments are
carved with knives upon a pupil's body, and written, not with pen
and ink, but tar and feathers.

'What do you think of my countrymen who are present, sir?' inquired
Elijah Pogram.

'Oh! very pleasant,' said Martin.

They were a very pleasant party.  No man had spoken a word; every
one had been intent, as usual, on his own private gorging; and the
greater part of the company were decidedly dirty feeders.

The Honourable Elijah Pogram looked at Martin as if he thought 'You
don't mean that, I know!' and he was soon confirmed in this opinion.

Sitting opposite to them was a gentleman in a high state of tobacco,
who wore quite a little beard, composed of the overflowing of that
weed, as they had dried about his mouth and chin; so common an
ornament that it would scarcely have attracted Martin's observation,
but that this good citizen, burning to assert his equality against
all comers, sucked his knife for some moments, and made a cut with
it at the butter, just as Martin was in the act of taking some.
There was a juiciness about the deed that might have sickened a
scavenger.

When Elijah Pogram (to whom this was an every-day incident) saw that
Martin put the plate away, and took no butter, he was quite
delighted, and said,

'Well!  The morbid hatred of you British to the Institutions of our
country is as-TONishing!'

'Upon my life!' cried Martin, in his turn.  'This is the most
wonderful community that ever existed.  A man deliberately makes a
hog of himself, and THAT'S an Institution!'

'We have no time to ac-quire forms, sir,' said Elijah Pogram.

'Acquire!' cried Martin.  'But it's not a question of acquiring
anything.  It's a question of losing the natural politeness of a
savage, and that instinctive good breeding which admonishes one man
not to offend and disgust another.  Don't you think that man over
the way, for instance, naturally knows better, but considers it a
very fine and independent thing to be a brute in small matters?'

'He is a na-tive of our country, and is nat'rally bright and spry,
of course,' said Mr Pogram.

'Now, observe what this comes to, Mr Pogram,' pursued Martin.  'The
mass of your countrymen begin by stubbornly neglecting little social
observances, which have nothing to do with gentility, custom, usage,
government, or country, but are acts of common, decent, natural,
human politeness.  You abet them in this, by resenting all attacks
upon their social offences as if they were a beautiful national
feature.  From disregarding small obligations they come in regular
course to disregard great ones; and so refuse to pay their debts.
What they may do, or what they may refuse to do next, I don't know;
but any man may see if he will, that it will be something following
in natural succession, and a part of one great growth, which is
rotten at the root.'

The mind of Mr Pogram was too philosophical to see this; so they
went on deck again, where, resuming his former post, he chewed until
he was in a lethargic state, amounting to insensibility.

After a weary voyage of several days, they came again to that same
wharf where Mark had been so nearly left behind, on the night of
starting for Eden.  Captain Kedgick, the landlord, was standing
there, and was greatly surprised to see them coming from the boat.

'Why, what the 'tarnal!' cried the Captain.  'Well!  I do admire at
this, I do!'

'We can stay at your house until to-morrow, Captain, I suppose?'
said Martin.

'I reckon you can stay there for a twelvemonth if you like,'
retorted Kedgick coolly.  'But our people won't best like your
coming back.'

'Won't like it, Captain Kedgick!' said Martin.

'They did ex-pect you was a-going to settle,' Kedgick answered, as
he shook his head.  'They've been took in, you can't deny!'

'What do you mean?' cried Martin.

'You didn't ought to have received 'em,' said the Captain.  'No you
didn't!'

'My good friend,' returned Martin, 'did I want to receive them?  Was
it any act of mine?  Didn't you tell me they would rile up, and that
I should be flayed like a wild cat--and threaten all kinds of
vengeance, if I didn't receive them?'

'I don't know about that,' returned the Captain.  'But when our
people's frills is out, they're starched up pretty stiff, I tell
you!'

With that, he fell into the rear to walk with Mark, while Martin and
Elijah Pogram went on to the National.

'We've come back alive, you see!' said Mark.

'It ain't the thing I did expect,' the Captain grumbled.  'A man
ain't got no right to be a public man, unless he meets the public
views.  Our fashionable people wouldn't have attended his le-vee, if
they had know'd it.'

Nothing mollified the Captain, who persisted in taking it very ill
that they had not both died in Eden.  The boarders at the National
felt strongly on the subject too; but it happened by good fortune
that they had not much time to think about this grievance, for it
was suddenly determined to pounce upon the Honourable Elijah Pogram,
and give HIM a le-vee forthwith.

As the general evening meal of the house was over before the arrival
of the boat, Martin, Mark, and Pogram were taking tea and fixings at
the public table by themselves, when the deputation entered to
announce this honour; consisting of six gentlemen boarders and a
very shrill boy.

'Sir!' said the spokesman.

'Mr Pogram!' cried the shrill boy.

The spokesman thus reminded of the shrill boy's presence, introduced
him.  'Doctor Ginery Dunkle, sir.  A gentleman of great poetical
elements.  He has recently jined us here, sir, and is an acquisition
to us, sir, I do assure you.  Yes, sir.  Mr Jodd, sir.  Mr Izzard,
sir.  Mr Julius Bib, sir.'

'Julius Washington Merryweather Bib,' said the gentleman himself TO
himself.

'I beg your pardon, sir.  Excuse me.  Mr Julius Washington
Merryweather Bib, sir; a gentleman in the lumber line, sir, and much
esteemed.  Colonel Groper, sir.  Pro-fessor Piper, sir.  My own name,
sir, is Oscar Buffum.'

Each man took one slide forward as he was named; butted at the
Honourable Elijah Pogram with his head; shook hands, and slid back
again.  The introductions being completed, the spokesman resumed.

'Sir!'

'Mr Pogram!' cried the shrill boy.

'Perhaps,' said the spokesman, with a hopeless look, 'you will be so
good, Dr. Ginery Dunkle, as to charge yourself with the execution
of our little office, sir?'

As there was nothing the shrill boy desired more, he immediately
stepped forward.

'Mr Pogram!  Sir!  A handful of your fellow-citizens, sir, hearing
of your arrival at the National Hotel, and feeling the patriotic
character of your public services, wish, sir, to have the
gratification of beholding you, and mixing with you, sir; and
unbending with you, sir, in those moments which--'

'Air,' suggested Buffum.

'Which air so peculiarly the lot, sir, of our great and happy
country.'

'Hear!' cried Colonel Grouper, in a loud voice.  'Good!  Hear him!
Good!'

'And therefore, sir,' pursued the Doctor, 'they request; as A mark
Of their respect; the honour of your company at a little le-Vee,
sir, in the ladies' ordinary, at eight o'clock.'

Mr Pogram bowed, and said:

'Fellow countrymen!'

'Good!' cried the Colonel.  'Hear, him!  Good!'

Mr Pogram bowed to the Colonel individually, and then resumed.

'Your approbation of My labours in the common cause goes to My
heart.  At all times and in all places; in the ladies' ordinary, My
friends, and in the Battle Field--'

'Good, very good!  Hear him!  Hear him!' said the Colonel.

'The name of Pogram will be proud to jine you.  And may it, My
friends, be written on My tomb, "He was a member of the Congress of
our common country, and was ac-Tive in his trust."'

'The Com-mittee, sir,' said the shrill boy, 'will wait upon you at
five minutes afore eight.  I take My leave, sir!'

Mr Pogram shook hands with him, and everybody else, once more; and
when they came back again at five minutes before eight, they said,
one by one, in a melancholy voice, 'How do you do, sir?' and shook
hands with Mr Pogram all over again, as if he had been abroad for a
twelvemonth in the meantime, and they met, now, at a funeral.

But by this time Mr Pogram had freshened himself up, and had
composed his hair and features after the Pogram statue, so that any
one with half an eye might cry out, 'There he is! as he delivered
the Defiance!'  The Committee were embellished also; and when they
entered the ladies' ordinary in a body, there was much clapping of
hands from ladies and gentlemen, accompanied by cries of 'Pogram!
Pogram!' and some standing up on chairs to see him.

The object of the popular caress looked round the room as he walked
up it, and smiled; at the same time observing to the shrill boy,
that he knew something of the beauty of the daughters of their
common country, but had never seen it in such lustre and perfection
as at that moment.  Which the shrill boy put in the paper next day;
to Elijah Pogram's great surprise.

'We will re-quest you, sir, if you please,' said Buffum, laying
hands on Mr Pogram as if he were taking his measure for a coat, 'to
stand up with your back agin the wall right in the furthest corner,
that there may be more room for our fellow cit-izens.  If you could
set your back right slap agin that curtain-peg, sir, keeping your
left leg everlastingly behind the stove, we should be fixed quite
slick.'

Mr Pogram did as he was told, and wedged himself into such a little
corner that the Pogram statue wouldn't have known him.

The entertainments of the evening then began.  Gentlemen brought
ladies up, and brought themselves up, and brought each other up; and
asked Elijah Pogram what he thought of this political question, and
what he thought of that; and looked at him, and looked at one
another, and seemed very unhappy indeed.  The ladies on the chairs
looked at Elijah Pogram through their glasses, and said audibly, 'I
wish he'd speak.  Why don't he speak?  Oh, do ask him to speak!'  And
Elijah Pogram looked sometimes at the ladies and sometimes
elsewhere, delivering senatorial opinions, as he was asked for them.
But the great end and object of the meeting seemed to be, not to let
Elijah Pogram out of the corner on any account; so there they kept
him, hard and fast.

A great bustle at the door, in the course of the evening, announced
the arrival of some remarkable person; and immediately afterwards an
elderly gentleman, much excited, was seen to precipitate himself
upon the crowd, and battle his way towards the Honourable Elijah
Pogram.  Martin, who had found a snug place of observation in a
distant corner, where he stood with Mark beside him (for he did not
so often forget him now as formerly, though he still did sometimes),
thought he knew this gentleman, but had no doubt of it, when he
cried as loud as he could, with his eyes starting out of his head:

'Sir, Mrs Hominy!'

'Lord bless that woman, Mark.  She has turned up again!'

'Here she comes, sir,' answered Mr Tapley.  'Pogram knows her.  A
public character!  Always got her eye upon her country, sir!  If that
there lady's husband is of my opinion, what a jolly old gentleman he
must be!'

A lane was made; and Mrs Hominy, with the aristocratic stalk, the
pocket handkerchief, the clasped hands, and the classical cap, came
slowly up it, in a procession of one.  Mr Pogram testified emotions
of delight on seeing her, and a general hush prevailed.  For it was
known that when a woman like Mrs Hominy encountered a man like
Pogram, something interesting must be said.

Their first salutations were exchanged in a voice too low to reach
the impatient ears of the throng; but they soon became audible, for
Mrs Hominy felt her position, and knew what was expected of her.

Mrs H. was hard upon him at first; and put him through a rigid
catechism in reference to a certain vote he had given, which she had
found it necessary, as the mother of the modern Gracchi, to
deprecate in a line by itself, set up expressly for the purpose in
German text.  But Mr Pogram evading it by a well-timed allusion to
the star-spangled banner, which, it appeared, had the remarkable
peculiarity of flouting the breeze whenever it was hoisted where the
wind blew, she forgave him.  They now enlarged on certain questions
of tariff, commercial treaty, boundary, importation and exportation
with great effect.  And Mrs Hominy not only talked, as the saying
is, like a book, but actually did talk her own books, word for word.

'My! what is this!' cried Mrs Hominy, opening a little note which
was handed her by her excited gentleman-usher.  'Do tell! oh, well,
now! on'y think!'

And then she read aloud, as follows:

'Two literary ladies present their compliments to the mother of the
modern Gracchi, and claim her kind introduction, as their talented
countrywoman, to the honourable (and distinguished) Elijah Pogram,
whom the two L. L.'s have often contemplated in the speaking marble
of the soul-subduing Chiggle.  On a verbal intimation from the
mother of the M. G., that she will comply with the request of the two
L. L.'s, they will have the immediate pleasure of joining the galaxy
assembled to do honour to the patriotic conduct of a Pogram.  It may
be another bond of union between the two L. L.'s and the mother of
the M. G. to observe, that the two L. L.'s are Transcendental.'

Mrs Hominy promptly rose, and proceeded to the door, whence she
returned, after a minute's interval, with the two L. L.'s, whom she
led, through the lane in the crowd, with all that stateliness of
deportment which was so remarkably her own, up to the great Elijah
Pogram.  It was (as the shrill boy cried out in an ecstasy) quite
the Last Scene from Coriolanus.    One of the L. L.'s wore a brown
wig of uncommon size.  Sticking on the forehead of the other,
by invisible means, was a massive cameo, in size and shape like
the raspberry tart which is ordinarily sold for a penny,
representing on its front the Capitol at Washington.

'Miss Toppit, and Miss Codger!' said Mrs Hominy.

'Codger's the lady so often mentioned in the English newspapers I
should think, sir,' whispered Mark.  'The oldest inhabitant as never
remembers anything.'

'To be presented to a Pogram,' said Miss Codger, 'by a Hominy,
indeed, a thrilling moment is it in its impressiveness on what we
call our feelings.  But why we call them so, or why impressed they
are, or if impressed they are at all, or if at all we are, or if
there really is, oh gasping one! a Pogram or a Hominy, or any active
principle to which we give those titles, is a topic, Spirit
searching, light abandoned, much too vast to enter on, at this
unlooked-for crisis.'

'Mind and matter,' said the lady in the wig, 'glide swift into the
vortex of immensity.  Howls the sublime, and softly sleeps the calm
Ideal, in the whispering chambers of Imagination.  To hear it, sweet
it is.  But then, outlaughs the stern philosopher, and saith to the
Grotesque, "What ho! arrest for me that Agency.  Go, bring it here!"
And so the vision fadeth.'

After this, they both took Mr Pogram by the hand, and pressed it to
their lips, as a patriotic palm.  That homage paid, the mother of
the modern Gracchi called for chairs, and the three literary ladies
went to work in earnest, to bring poor Pogram out, and make him show
himself in all his brilliant colours.

How Pogram got out of his depth instantly, and how the three L. L.'s
were never in theirs, is a piece of history not worth recording.
Suffice it, that being all four out of their depths, and all unable
to swim, they splashed up words in all directions, and floundered
about famously.  On the whole, it was considered to have been the
severest mental exercise ever heard in the National Hotel.  Tears
stood in the shrill boy's eyes several times; and the whole company
observed that their heads ached with the effort--as well they might.

When it at last became necessary to release Elijah Pogram from the
corner, and the Committee saw him safely back again to the next
room, they were fervent in their admiration.

'Which,' said Mr Buffum, 'must have vent, or it will bust.  Toe you,
Mr Pogram, I am grateful.  Toe-wards you, sir, I am inspired with
lofty veneration, and with deep e-mo-tion.  The sentiment Toe which
I would propose to give ex-pression, sir, is this: "May you ever be
as firm, sir, as your marble statter!  May it ever be as great a
terror Toe its ene-mies as you."'

There is some reason to suppose that it was rather terrible to its
friends; being a statue of the Elevated or Goblin School, in which
the Honourable Elijah Pogram was represented as in a very high wind,
with his hair all standing on end, and his nostrils blown wide open.
But Mr Pogram thanked his friend and countryman for the aspiration
to which he had given utterance, and the Committee, after another
solemn shaking of hands, retired to bed, except the Doctor; who
immediately repaired to the newspaper-office, and there wrote a
short poem suggested by the events of the evening, beginning with
fourteen stars, and headed, 'A Fragment.  Suggested by witnessing
the Honourable Elijah Pogram engaged in a philosophical disputation
with three of Columbia's fairest daughters.  By Doctor Ginery
Dunkle.  Of Troy.'

If Pogram was as glad to get to bed as Martin was, he must have been
well rewarded for his labours.  They started off again next day
(Martin and Mark previously disposing of their goods to the
storekeepers of whom they had purchased them, for anything they
would bring), and were fellow travellers to within a short distance
of New York.  When Pogram was about to leave them he grew
thoughtful, and after pondering for some time, took Martin aside.

'We air going to part, sir,' said Pogram.

'Pray don't distress yourself,' said Martin; 'we must bear it.'

'It ain't that, sir,' returned Pogram, 'not at all.  But I should
wish you to accept a copy of My oration.'

'Thank you,' said Martin, 'you are very good.  I shall be most
happy.'

'It ain't quite that, sir, neither,' resumed Pogram; 'air you bold
enough to introduce a copy into your country?'

'Certainly,' said Martin.  'Why not?'

'Its sentiments air strong, sir,' hinted Pogram, darkly.

'That makes no difference,' said Martin.  'I'll take a dozen if you
like.'

'No, sir,' retorted Pogram.  'Not A dozen.  That is more than I
require.  If you are content to run the hazard, sir, here is one for
your Lord Chancellor,' producing it, 'and one for Your principal
Secretary of State.  I should wish them to see it, sir, as
expressing what my opinions air.  That they may not plead ignorance
at a future time.  But don't get into danger, sir, on my account!'

'There is not the least danger, I assure you,' said Martin.  So he
put the pamphlets in his pocket, and they parted.

Mr Bevan had written in his letter that, at a certain time, which
fell out happily just then, he would be at a certain hotel in the
city, anxiously expecting to see them.  To this place they repaired
without a moment's delay.  They had the satisfaction of finding him
within; and of being received by their good friend, with his own
warmth and heartiness.

'I am truly sorry and ashamed,' said Martin, 'to have begged of you.
But look at us.  See what we are, and judge to what we are reduced!'

'So far from claiming to have done you any service,' returned the
other, 'I reproach myself with having been, unwittingly, the
original cause of your misfortunes.  I no more supposed you would go
to Eden on such representations as you received; or, indeed, that
you would do anything but be dispossessed, by the readiest means, of
your idea that fortunes were so easily made here; than I thought of
going to Eden myself.'

'The fact is, I closed with the thing in a mad and sanguine manner,'
said Martin, 'and the less said about it the better for me.  Mark,
here, hadn't a voice in the matter.'

'Well! but he hadn't a voice in any other matter, had he?' returned
Mr Bevan; laughing with an air that showed his understanding of Mark
and Martin too.

'Not a very powerful one, I am afraid,' said Martin with a blush.
'But live and learn, Mr Bevan!  Nearly die and learn; we learn the
quicker.'

'Now,' said their friend, 'about your plans.  You mean to return
home at once?'

'Oh, I think so,' returned Martin hastily, for he turned pale at the
thought of any other suggestion.  'That is your opinion too, I
hope?'

'Unquestionably.  For I don't know why you ever came here; though
it's not such an unusual case, I am sorry to say, that we need go
any farther into that.  You don't know that the ship in which you
came over with our friend General Fladdock, is in port, of course?'

'Indeed!' said Martin.

'Yes.  And is advertised to sail to-morrow.'

This was tempting news, but tantalising too; for Martin knew that
his getting any employment on board a ship of that class was
hopeless.  The money in his pocket would not pay one-fourth of the
sum he had already borrowed, and if it had been enough for their
passage-money, he could hardly have resolved to spend it.  He
explained this to Mr Bevan, and stated what their project was.

'Why, that's as wild as Eden every bit,' returned his friend.  'You
must take your passage like a Christian; at least, as like a
Christian as a fore-cabin passenger can; and owe me a few more
dollars than you intend.  If Mark will go down to the ship and see
what passengers there are, and finds that you can go in her without
being actually suffocated, my advice is, go!  You and I will look
about us in the meantime (we won't call at the Norris's unless you
like), and we will all three dine together in the afternoon.'

Martin had nothing to express but gratitude, and so it was arranged.
But he went out of the room after Mark, and advised him to take
their passage in the Screw, though they lay upon the bare deck;
which Mr Tapley, who needed no entreaty on the subject readily
promised to do.

When he and Martin met again, and were alone, he was in high
spirits, and evidently had something to communicate, in which he
gloried very much.

'I've done Mr Bevan, sir,' said Mark.

'Done Mr Bevan!' repeated Martin.

'The cook of the Screw went and got married yesterday, sir,' said Mr
Tapley.

Martin looked at him for farther explanation.

'And when I got on board, and the word was passed that it was me,'
said Mark, 'the mate he comes and asks me whether I'd engage to take
this said cook's place upon the passage home.  "For you're used to
it," he says; "you were always a-cooking for everybody on your
passage out."  And so I was,' said Mark, 'although I never cooked
before, I'll take my oath.'

'What did you say?' demanded Martin.

'Say!' cried Mark.  'That I'd take anything I could get.  "If that's
so," says the mate, "why, bring a glass of rum;" which they brought
according.  And my wages, sir,' said Mark in high glee, 'pays your
passage; and I've put the rolling-pin in your berth to take it (it's
the easy one up in the corner); and there we are, Rule Britannia,
and Britons strike home!'

'There never was such a good fellow as you are!' cried Martin
seizing him by the hand.  'But what do you mean by "doing" Mr Bevan,
Mark?'

'Why, don't you see?' said Mark.  'We don't tell him, you know.  We
take his money, but we don't spend it, and we don't keep it.  What
we do is, write him a little note, explaining this engagement, and
roll it up, and leave it at the bar, to be given to him after we are
gone.  Don't you see?'

Martin's delight in this idea was not inferior to Mark's.  It was
all done as he proposed.  They passed a cheerful evening; slept at
the hotel; left the letter as arranged; and went off to the ship
betimes next morning, with such light hearts as the weight of their
past miseries engendered.

'Good-bye! a hundred thousand times good-bye!' said Martin to their
friend.  'How shall I remember all your kindness!  How shall I ever
thank you!'

'If you ever become a rich man, or a powerful one,' returned his
friend, 'you shall try to make your Government more careful of its
subjects when they roam abroad to live.  Tell it what you know of
emigration in your own case, and impress upon it how much suffering
may be prevented with a little pains!'

Cheerily, lads, cheerily!  Anchor weighed.  Ship in full sail.  Her
sturdy bowsprit pointing true to England.  America a cloud upon the
sea behind them!

'Why, Cook! what are you thinking of so steadily?' said Martin.

'Why, I was a-thinking, sir,' returned Mark, 'that if I was a
painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should
I do it?'

'Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.'

'No,' said Mark.  'That wouldn't do for me, sir.  I should want to
draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for
its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for
its vanity; like a ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and
thinking nobody sees it--'

'And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of
its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!' said
Martin.  'Well, Mark.  Let us hope so.'



CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

ARRIVING IN ENGLAND, MARTIN WITNESSES A CEREMONY, FROM WHICH HE
DERIVES THE CHEERING INFORMATION THAT HE HAS NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN IN
HIS ABSENCE


It was mid-day, and high water in the English port for which the
Screw was bound, when, borne in gallantly upon the fullness of the
tide, she let go her anchor in the river.

Bright as the scene was; fresh, and full of motion; airy, free, and
sparkling; it was nothing to the life and exultation in the breasts
of the two travellers, at sight of the old churches, roofs, and
darkened chimney stacks of Home.  The distant roar that swelled up
hoarsely from the busy streets, was music in their ears; the lines
of people gazing from the wharves, were friends held dear; the
canopy of smoke that overhung the town was brighter and more
beautiful to them than if the richest silks of Persia had been
waving in the air.  And though the water going on its glistening
track, turned, ever and again, aside to dance and sparkle round
great ships, and heave them up; and leaped from off the blades of
oars, a shower of diving diamonds; and wantoned with the idle boats,
and swiftly passed, in many a sportive chase, through obdurate old
iron rings, set deep into the stone-work of the quays; not even it
was half so buoyant, and so restless, as their fluttering hearts,
when yearning to set foot, once more, on native ground.

A year had passed since those same spires and roofs had faded from
their eyes.  It seemed to them, a dozen years.  Some trifling
changes, here and there, they called to mind; and wondered that they
were so few and slight.  In health and fortune, prospect and
resource, they came back poorer men than they had gone away.  But it
was home.  And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one;
stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in
strongest conjuration.

Being set ashore, with very little money in their pockets, and no
definite plan of operation in their heads, they sought out a cheap
tavern, where they regaled upon a smoking steak, and certain flowing
mugs of beer, as only men just landed from the sea can revel in the
generous dainties of the earth.  When they had feasted, as two
grateful-tempered giants might have done, they stirred the fire,
drew back the glowing curtain from the window, and making each a
sofa for himself, by union of the great unwieldy chairs, gazed
blissfully into the street.

Even the street was made a fairy street, by being half hidden in an
atmosphere of steak, and strong, stout, stand-up English beer.  For
on the window-glass hung such a mist, that Mr Tapley was obliged to
rise and wipe it with his handkerchief, before the passengers
appeared like common mortals.  And even then, a spiral little cloud
went curling up from their two glasses of hot grog, which nearly hid
them from each other.

It was one of those unaccountable little rooms which are never seen
anywhere but in a tavern, and are supposed to have got into taverns
by reason of the facilities afforded to the architect for getting
drunk while engaged in their construction.  It had more corners in
it than the brain of an obstinate man; was full of mad closets, into
which nothing could be put that was not specially invented and made
for that purpose; had mysterious shelvings and bulkheads, and
indications of staircases in the ceiling; and was elaborately
provided with a bell that rung in the room itself, about two feet
from the handle, and had no connection whatever with any other part
of the establishment.  It was a little below the pavement, and
abutted close upon it; so that passengers grated against the window-
panes with their buttons, and scraped it with their baskets; and
fearful boys suddenly coming between a thoughtful guest and the
light, derided him, or put out their tongues as if he were a
physician; or made white knobs on the ends of their noses by
flattening the same against the glass, and vanished awfully, like
spectres.

Martin and Mark sat looking at the people as they passed, debating
every now and then what their first step should be.

'We want to see Miss Mary, of course,' said Mark.

'Of course,' said Martin.  'But I don't know where she is.  Not
having had the heart to write in our distress--you yourself thought
silence most advisable--and consequently, never having heard from
her since we left New York the first time, I don't know where she
is, my good fellow.'

'My opinion is, sir,' returned Mark, 'that what we've got to do is
to travel straight to the Dragon.  There's no need for you to go
there, where you're known, unless you like.  You may stop ten mile
short of it.  I'll go on.  Mrs Lupin will tell me all the news.  Mr
Pinch will give me every information that we want; and right glad Mr
Pinch will be to do it.  My proposal is: To set off walking this
afternoon.  To stop when we are tired.  To get a lift when we can.
To walk when we can't.  To do it at once, and do it cheap.'

'Unless we do it cheap, we shall have some difficulty in doing it at
all,' said Martin, pulling out the bank, and telling it over in his
hand.

'The greater reason for losing no time, sir,' replied Mark.
'Whereas, when you've seen the young lady; and know what state of
mind the old gentleman's in, and all about it; then you'll know what
to do next.'

'No doubt,' said Martin.  'You are quite right.'

They were raising their glasses to their lips, when their hands
stopped midway, and their gaze was arrested by a figure which
slowly, very slowly, and reflectively, passed the window at that
moment.

Mr Pecksniff.  Placid, calm, but proud.  Honestly proud.  Dressed
with peculiar care, smiling with even more than usual blandness,
pondering on the beauties of his art with a mild abstraction from
all sordid thoughts, and gently travelling across the disc, as if he
were a figure in a magic lantern.

As Mr Pecksniff passed, a person coming in the opposite direction
stopped to look after him with great interest and respect, almost
with veneration; and the landlord bouncing out of the house, as if
he had seen him too, joined this person, and spoke to him, and shook
his head gravely, and looked after Mr Pecksniff likewise.

Martin and Mark sat staring at each other, as if they could not
believe it; but there stood the landlord, and the other man still.
In spite of the indignation with which this glimpse of Mr Pecksniff
had inspired him, Martin could not help laughing heartily.  Neither
could Mark.

'We must inquire into this!' said Martin.  'Ask the landlord in,
Mark.'

Mr Tapley retired for that purpose, and immediately returned with
their large-headed host in safe convoy.

'Pray, landlord!' said Martin, 'who is that gentleman who passed
just now, and whom you were looking after?'

The landlord poked the fire as if, in his desire to make the most of
his answer, he had become indifferent even to the price of coals;
and putting his hands in his pockets, said, after inflating himself
to give still further effect to his reply:

'That, gentlemen, is the great Mr Pecksniff!  The celebrated
architect, gentlemen!'

He looked from one to the other while he said it, as if he were
ready to assist the first man who might be overcome by the
intelligence.

'The great Mr Pecksniff, the celebrated architect, gentlemen.' said
the landlord, 'has come down here, to help to lay the first stone of
a new and splendid public building.'

'Is it to be built from his designs?' asked Martin.

'The great Mr Pecksniff, the celebrated architect, gentlemen,'
returned the landlord, who seemed to have an unspeakable delight in
the repetition of these words, 'carried off the First Premium, and
will erect the building.'

'Who lays the stone?' asked Martin.

'Our member has come down express,' returned the landlord.  'No
scrubs would do for no such a purpose.  Nothing less would satisfy
our Directors than our member in the House of Commons, who is
returned upon the Gentlemanly Interest.'

'Which interest is that?' asked Martin.

'What, don't you know!' returned the landlord.

It was quite clear the landlord didn't.  They always told him at
election time, that it was the Gentlemanly side, and he immediately
put on his top-boots, and voted for it.

'When does the ceremony take place?' asked Martin.

'This day,' replied the landlord.  Then pulling out his watch, he
added, impressively, 'almost this minute.'

Martin hastily inquired whether there was any possibility of getting
in to witness it; and finding that there would be no objection to
the admittance of any decent person, unless indeed the ground were
full, hurried off with Mark, as hard as they could go.

They were fortunate enough to squeeze themselves into a famous
corner on the ground, where they could see all that passed, without
much dread of being beheld by Mr Pecksniff in return.  They were not
a minute too soon, for as they were in the act of congratulating
each other, a great noise was heard at some distance, and everybody
looked towards the gate.  Several ladies prepared their pocket
handkerchiefs for waving; and a stray teacher belonging to the
charity school being much cheered by mistake, was immensely groaned
at when detected.

'Perhaps he has Tom Pinch with him,' Martin whispered Mr Tapley.

'It would be rather too much of a treat for him, wouldn't it, sir?'
whispered Mr Tapley in return.

There was no time to discuss the probabilities either way, for the
charity school, in clean linen, came filing in two and two, so much
to the self-approval of all the people present who didn't subscribe
to it, that many of them shed tears.  A band of music followed, led
by a conscientious drummer who never left off.  Then came a great
many gentlemen with wands in their hands, and bows on their breasts,
whose share in the proceedings did not appear to be distinctly laid
down, and who trod upon each other, and blocked up the entry for a
considerable period.  These were followed by the Mayor and
Corporation, all clustering round the member for the Gentlemanly
Interest; who had the great Mr Pecksniff, the celebrated architect
on his right hand, and conversed with him familiarly as they came
along.  Then the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and the gentlemen
their hats, and the charity children shrieked, and the member for
the Gentlemanly Interest bowed.

Silence being restored, the member for the Gentlemanly Interest
rubbed his hands, and wagged his head, and looked about him
pleasantly; and there was nothing this member did, at which some
lady or other did not burst into an ecstatic waving of her pocket
handkerchief.  When he looked up at the stone, they said how
graceful! when he peeped into the hole, they said how condescending!
when he chatted with the Mayor, they said how easy! when he folded
his arms they cried with one accord, how statesman-like!

Mr Pecksniff was observed too, closely.  When he talked to the
Mayor, they said, Oh, really, what a courtly man he was!  When he
laid his hand upon the mason's shoulder, giving him directions, how
pleasant his demeanour to the working classes; just the sort of man
who made their toil a pleasure to them, poor dear souls!

But now a silver trowel was brought; and when the member for the
Gentlemanly Interest, tucking up his coat-sleeve, did a little
sleight of hand with the mortar, the air was rent, so loud was the
applause.  The workman-like manner in which he did it was amazing.
No one could conceive where such a gentlemanly creature could have
picked the knowledge up.

When he had made a kind of dirt-pie under the direction of the
mason, they brought a little vase containing coins, the which the
member for the Gentlemanly Interest jingled, as if he were going to
conjure.  Whereat they said how droll, how cheerful, what a flow of
spirits!  This put into its place, an ancient scholar read the
inscription, which was in Latin; not in English; that would never
do.  It gave great satisfaction; especially every time there was a
good long substantive in the third declension, ablative case, with
an adjective to match; at which periods the assembly became very
tender, and were much affected.

And now the stone was lowered down into its place, amidst the
shouting of the concourse.  When it was firmly fixed, the member for
the Gentlemanly Interest struck upon it thrice with the handle of
the trowel, as if inquiring, with a touch of humour, whether anybody
was at home.  Mr Pecksniff then unrolled his Plans (prodigious plans
they were), and people gathered round to look at and admire them.

Martin, who had been fretting himself--quite unnecessarily, as Mark
thought--during the whole of these proceedings, could no longer
restrain his impatience; but stepping forward among several others,
looked straight over the shoulder of the unconscious Mr Pecksniff,
at the designs and plans he had unrolled.  He returned to Mark,
boiling with rage.

'Why, what's the matter, sir?' cried Mark.

'Matter!  This is MY building.'

'Your building, sir!' said Mark.

'My grammar-school.  I invented it.  I did it all.  He has only put
four windows in, the villain, and spoilt it!'

Mark could hardly believe it at first, but being assured that it was
really so, actually held him to prevent his interference foolishly,
until his temporary heat was past.  In the meantime, the member
addressed the company on the gratifying deed which he had just
performed.

He said that since he had sat in Parliament to represent the
Gentlemanly Interest of that town; and he might add, the Lady
Interest, he hoped, besides (pocket handkerchiefs); it had been his
pleasant duty to come among them, and to raise his voice on their
behalf in Another Place (pocket handkerchiefs and laughter), often.
But he had never come among them, and had never raised his voice,
with half such pure, such deep, such unalloyed delight, as now.
'The present occasion,' he said, 'will ever be memorable to me; not
only for the reasons I have assigned, but because it has afforded me
an opportunity of becoming personally known to a gentleman--'

Here he pointed the trowel at Mr Pecksniff, who was greeted with
vociferous cheering, and laid his hand upon his heart.

'To a gentleman who, I am happy to believe, will reap both
distinction and profit from this field; whose fame had previously
penetrated to me--as to whose ears has it not!--but whose
intellectual countenance I never had the distinguished honour to
behold until this day, and whose intellectual conversation I had
never before the improving pleasure to enjoy.'

Everybody seemed very glad of this, and applauded more than ever.

'But I hope my Honourable Friend,' said the Gentlemanly member--of
course he added "if he will allow me to call him so," and of course
Mr Pecksniff bowed--'will give me many opportunities of cultivating
the knowledge of him; and that I may have the extraordinary
gratification of reflecting in after-time that I laid on this day
two first stones, both belonging to structures which shall last my
life!'

Great cheering again.  All this time, Martin was cursing Mr
Pecksniff up hill and down dale.

'My friends!' said Mr Pecksniff, in reply.  'My duty is to build,
not speak; to act, not talk; to deal with marble, stone, and brick;
not language.  I am very much affected.  God bless you!'

This address, pumped out apparently from Mr Pecksniff's very heart,
brought the enthusiasm to its highest pitch.  The pocket
handkerchiefs were waved again; the charity children were admonished
to grow up Pecksniffs, every boy among them; the Corporation,
gentlemen with wands, member for the Gentlemanly Interest, all
cheered for Mr Pecksniff.  Three cheers for Mr Pecksniff!  Three more
for Mr Pecksniff!  Three more for Mr Pecksniff, gentlemen, if you
please!  One more, gentlemen, for Mr Pecksniff, and let it be a good
one to finish with!

In short, Mr Pecksniff was supposed to have done a great work and
was very kindly, courteously, and generously rewarded.  When the
procession moved away, and Martin and Mark were left almost alone
upon the ground, his merits and a desire to acknowledge them formed
the common topic.  He was only second to the Gentlemanly member.

'Compare the fellow's situation to-day with ours!' said Martin
bitterly.

'Lord bless you, sir!' cried Mark, 'what's the use?  Some architects
are clever at making foundations, and some architects are clever at
building on 'em when they're made.  But it'll all come right in the
end, sir; it'll all come right!'

'And in the meantime--' began Martin.

'In the meantime, as you say, sir, we have a deal to do, and far to
go.  So sharp's the word, and Jolly!'

'You are the best master in the world, Mark,' said Martin, 'and I
will not be a bad scholar if I can help it, I am resolved!  So come!
Best foot foremost, old fellow!'



CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

TOM PINCH DEPARTS TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE.  WHAT HE FINDS AT STARTING


Oh!  What a different town Salisbury was in Tom Pinch's eyes to be
sure, when the substantial Pecksniff of his heart melted away into
an idle dream!  He possessed the same faith in the wonderful shops,
the same intensified appreciation of the mystery and wickedness of
the place; made the same exalted estimate of its wealth, population,
and resources; and yet it was not the old city nor anything like it.
He walked into the market while they were getting breakfast ready
for him at the Inn; and though it was the same market as of old,
crowded by the same buyers and sellers; brisk with the same
business; noisy with the same confusion of tongues and cluttering of
fowls in coops; fair with the same display of rolls of butter, newly
made, set forth in linen cloths of dazzling whiteness; green with
the same fresh show of dewy vegetables; dainty with the same array
in higglers' baskets of small shaving-glasses, laces, braces,
trouser-straps, and hardware; savoury with the same unstinted show
of delicate pigs' feet, and pies made precious by the pork that once
had walked upon them; still it was strangely changed to Tom.  For,
in the centre of the market-place, he missed a statue he had set up
there as in all other places of his personal resort; and it looked
cold and bare without that ornament.

The change lay no deeper than this, for Tom was far from being sage
enough to know, that, having been disappointed in one man, it would
have been a strictly rational and eminently wise proceeding to have
revenged himself upon mankind in general, by mistrusting them one
and all.  Indeed this piece of justice, though it is upheld by the
authority of divers profound poets and honourable men, bears a
nearer resemblance to the justice of that good Vizier in the
Thousand-and-one Nights, who issues orders for the destruction of
all the Porters in Bagdad because one of that unfortunate fraternity
is supposed to have misconducted himself, than to any logical, not
to say Christian, system of conduct, known to the world in later
times.

Tom had so long been used to steep the Pecksniff of his fancy in his
tea, and spread him out upon his toast, and take him as a relish
with his beer, that he made but a poor breakfast on the first
morning after his expulsion.  Nor did he much improve his appetite
for dinner by seriously considering his own affairs, and taking
counsel thereon with his friend the organist's assistant.

The organist's assistant gave it as his decided opinion that
whatever Tom did, he must go to London; for there was no place like
it.  Which may be true in the main, though hardly, perhaps, in
itself, a sufficient reason for Tom's going there.

But Tom had thought of London before, and had coupled with it
thoughts of his sister, and of his old friend John Westlock, whose
advice he naturally felt disposed to seek in this important crisis
of his fortunes.  To London, therefore, he resolved to go; and he
went away to the coach-office at once, to secure his place.  The
coach being already full, he was obliged to postpone his departure
until the next night; but even this circumstance had its bright side
as well as its dark one, for though it threatened to reduce his poor
purse with unexpected country charges, it afforded him an
opportunity of writing to Mrs Lupin and appointing his box to be
brought to the old finger-post at the old time; which would enable
him to take that treasure with him to the metropolis, and save the
expense of its carriage.  'So,' said Tom, comforting himself, 'it's
very nearly as broad as it's long.'

And it cannot be denied that, when he had made up his mind to even
this extent, he felt an unaccustomed sense of freedom--a vague and
indistinct impression of holiday-making--which was very luxurious.
He had his moments of depression and anxiety, and they were, with
good reason, pretty numerous; but still, it was wonderfully pleasant
to reflect that he was his own master, and could plan and scheme for
himself.  It was startling, thrilling, vast, difficult to
understand; it was a stupendous truth, teeming with responsibility
and self-distrust; but in spite of all his cares, it gave a curious
relish to the viands at the Inn, and interposed a dreamy haze
between him and his prospects, in which they sometimes showed to
magical advantage.

In this unsettled state of mind, Tom went once more to bed in the
low four-poster, to the same immovable surprise of the effigies of
the former landlord and the fat ox; and in this condition, passed
the whole of the succeeding day.  When the coach came round at last
with 'London' blazoned in letters of gold upon the boot, it gave Tom
such a turn, that he was half disposed to run away.  But he didn't
do it; for he took his seat upon the box instead, and looking down
upon the four greys, felt as if he were another grey himself, or, at
all events, a part of the turn-out; and was quite confused by the
novelty and splendour of his situation.

And really it might have confused a less modest man than Tom to find
himself sitting next that coachman; for of all the swells that ever
flourished a whip professionally, he might have been elected
emperor.  He didn't handle his gloves like another man, but put them
on--even when he was standing on the pavement, quite detached from
the coach--as if the four greys were, somehow or other, at the ends
of the fingers.  It was the same with his hat.  He did things with
his hat, which nothing but an unlimited knowledge of horses and the
wildest freedom of the road, could ever have made him perfect in.
Valuable little parcels were brought to him with particular
instructions, and he pitched them into this hat, and stuck it on
again; as if the laws of gravity did not admit of such an event as
its being knocked off or blown off, and nothing like an accident
could befall it.  The guard, too!  Seventy breezy miles a day were
written in his very whiskers.  His manners were a canter; his
conversation a round trot.  He was a fast coach upon a down-hill
turnpike road; he was all pace.  A waggon couldn't have moved
slowly, with that guard and his key-bugle on the top of it.

These were all foreshadowings of London, Tom thought, as he sat upon
the box, and looked about him.  Such a coachman, and such a guard,
never could have existed between Salisbury and any other place.  The
coach was none of your steady-going, yokel coaches, but a
swaggering, rakish, dissipated London coach; up all night, and lying
by all day, and leading a devil of a life.  It cared no more for
Salisbury than if it had been a hamlet.  It rattled noisily through
the best streets, defied the Cathedral, took the worst corners
sharpest, went cutting in everywhere, making everything get out of
its way; and spun along the open country-road, blowing a lively
defiance out of its key-bugle, as its last glad parting legacy.

It was a charming evening.  Mild and bright.  And even with the
weight upon his mind which arose out of the immensity and
uncertainty of London, Tom could not resist the captivating sense of
rapid motion through the pleasant air.  The four greys skimmed
along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was
in as high spirits as the greys; the coachman chimed in sometimes
with his voice; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass
work on the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus, as
they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole
concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling-reins to the
handle of the hind boot, was one great instrument of music.

Yoho, past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages and barns, and
people going home from work.  Yoho, past donkey-chaises, drawn aside
into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a
bound upon the little watercourse, and held by struggling carters
close to the five-barred gate, until the coach had passed the narrow
turning in the road.  Yoho, by churches dropped down by themselves
in quiet nooks, with rustic burial-grounds about them, where the
graves are green, and daisies sleep--for it is evening--on the
bosoms of the dead.  Yoho, past streams, in which the cattle cool
their feet, and where the rushes grow; past paddock-fences, farms,
and rick-yards; past last year's stacks, cut, slice by slice, away,
and showing, in the waning light, like ruined gables, old and brown.
Yoho, down the pebbly dip, and through the merry water-splash and up
at a canter to the level road again.  Yoho!  Yoho!

Was the box there, when they came up to the old finger-post?  The
box!  Was Mrs Lupin herself?  Had she turned out magnificently as a
hostess should, in her own chaise-cart, and was she sitting in a
mahogany chair, driving her own horse Dragon (who ought to have been
called Dumpling), and looking lovely?  Did the stage-coach pull up
beside her, shaving her very wheel, and even while the guard helped
her man up with the trunk, did he send the glad echoes of his bugle
careering down the chimneys of the distant Pecksniff, as if the
coach expressed its exultation in the rescue of Tom Pinch?

'This is kind indeed!' said Tom, bending down to shake hands with
her.  'I didn't mean to give you this trouble.'

'Trouble, Mr Pinch!' cried the hostess of the Dragon.

'Well!  It's a pleasure to you, I know,' said Tom, squeezing her hand
heartily.  'Is there any news?'

The hostess shook her head.

'Say you saw me,' said Tom, 'and that I was very bold and cheerful,
and not a bit down-hearted; and that I entreated her to be the same,
for all is certain to come right at last.  Good-bye!'

'You'll write when you get settled, Mr Pinch?' said Mrs Lupin.

'When I get settled!' cried Tom, with an involuntary opening of his
eyes.  'Oh, yes, I'll write when I get settled.  Perhaps I had
better write before, because I may find that it takes a little time
to settle myself; not having too much money, and having only one
friend.  I shall give your love to the friend, by the way.  You were
always great with Mr Westlock, you know.  Good-bye!'

'Good-bye!' said Mrs Lupin, hastily producing a basket with a long
bottle sticking out of it.  'Take this.  Good-bye!'

'Do you want me to carry it to London for you?' cried Tom.  She was
already turning the chaise-cart round.

'No, no,' said Mrs Lupin.  'It's only a little something for
refreshment on the road.  Sit fast, Jack.  Drive on, sir.  All
right!  Good-bye!'

She was a quarter of a mile off, before Tom collected himself; and
then he was waving his hand lustily; and so was she.

'And that's the last of the old finger-post,' thought Tom, straining
his eyes, 'where I have so often stood to see this very coach go by,
and where I have parted with so many companions!  I used to compare
this coach to some great monster that appeared at certain times to
bear my friends away into the world.  And now it's bearing me away,
to seek my fortune, Heaven knows where and how!'

It made Tom melancholy to picture himself walking up the lane and
back to Pecksniff's as of old; and being melancholy, he looked
downwards at the basket on his knee, which he had for the moment
forgotten.

'She is the kindest and most considerate creature in the world,'
thought Tom.  'Now I KNOW that she particularly told that man of
hers not to look at me, on purpose to prevent my throwing him a
shilling!  I had it ready for him all the time, and he never once
looked towards me; whereas that man naturally, (for I know him very
well,) would have done nothing but grin and stare.  Upon my word,
the kindness of people perfectly melts me.'

Here he caught the coachman's eye.  The coachman winked.
'Remarkable fine woman for her time of life,' said the coachman.

'I quite agree with you,' returned Tom.  'So she is.'

'Finer than many a young 'un, I mean to say,' observed the coachman.
'Eh?'

'Than many a young one,' Tom assented.

'I don't care for 'em myself when they're too young,' remarked the
coachman.

This was a matter of taste, which Tom did not feel himself called
upon to discuss.

'You'll seldom find 'em possessing correct opinions about
refreshment, for instance, when they're too young, you know,' said
the coachman; 'a woman must have arrived at maturity, before her
mind's equal to coming provided with a basket like that.'

'Perhaps you would like to know what it contains?' said Tom,
smiling.

As the coachman only laughed, and as Tom was curious himself, he
unpacked it, and put the articles, one by one, upon the footboard.
A cold roast fowl, a packet of ham in slices, a crusty loaf, a piece
of cheese, a paper of biscuits, half a dozen apples, a knife, some
butter, a screw of salt, and a bottle of old sherry.  There was a
letter besides, which Tom put in his pocket.

The coachman was so earnest in his approval of Mrs Lupin's provident
habits, and congratulated Torn so warmly on his good fortune, that
Tom felt it necessary, for the lady's sake, to explain that the
basket was a strictly Platonic basket, and had merely been presented
to him in the way of friendship.  When he had made the statement
with perfect gravity; for he felt it incumbent on him to disabuse
the mind of this lax rover of any incorrect impressions on the
subject; he signified that he would be happy to share the gifts with
him, and proposed that they should attack the basket in a spirit of
good fellowship at any time in the course of the night which the
coachman's experience and knowledge of the road might suggest, as
being best adapted to the purpose.  From this time they chatted so
pleasantly together, that although Tom knew infinitely more of
unicorns than horses, the coachman informed his friend the guard at
the end of the next stage, 'that rum as the box-seat looked, he was
as good a one to go, in pint of conversation, as ever he'd wish to
sit by.'

Yoho, among the gathering shades; making of no account the deep
reflections of the trees, but scampering on through light and
darkness, all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away,
were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare.  Yoho, beside the
village green, where cricket-players linger yet, and every little
indentation made in the fresh grass by bat or wicket, ball or
player's foot, sheds out its perfume on the night.  Away with four
fresh horses from the Bald-faced Stag, where topers congregate about
the door admiring; and the last team with traces hanging loose, go
roaming off towards the pond, until observed and shouted after by a
dozen throats, while volunteering boys pursue them.  Now, with a
clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery sparks, across the old
stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy road, and through the
open gate, and far away, away, into the wold.  Yoho!

Yoho, behind there, stop that bugle for a moment!  Come creeping over
to the front, along the coach-roof, guard, and make one at this
basket!  Not that we slacken in our pace the while, not we; we rather
put the bits of blood upon their metal, for the greater glory of the
snack.  Ah!  It is long since this bottle of old wine was brought
into contact with the mellow breath of night, you may depend, and
rare good stuff it is to wet a bugler's whistle with.  Only try it.
Don't be afraid of turning up your finger, Bill, another pull!  Now,
take your breath, and try the bugle, Bill.  There's music!  There's a
tone!' over the hills and far away,' indeed.  Yoho!  The skittish
mare is all alive to-night.  Yoho!  Yoho!

See the bright moon!  High up before we know it; making the earth
reflect the objects on its breast like water.  Hedges, trees, low
cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps and flourishing young
slips, have all grown vain upon the sudden, and mean to contemplate
their own fair images till morning.  The poplars yonder rustle that
their quivering leaves may see themselves upon the ground.  Not so
the oak; trembling does not become HIM; and he watches himself in
his stout old burly steadfastness, without the motion of a twig.
The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled
and decayed swings to and fro before its glass, like some fantastic
dowager; while our own ghostly likeness travels on, Yoho!  Yoho!
through ditch and brake, upon the ploughed land and the smooth,
along the steep hillside and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom-
Hunter.

Clouds too!  And a mist upon the Hollow!  Not a dull fog that hides
it, but a light airy gauze-like mist, which in our eyes of modest
admiration gives a new charm to the beauties it is spread before; as
real gauze has done ere now, and would again, so please you, though
we were the Pope.  Yoho!  Why now we travel like the Moon herself.
Hiding this minute in a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of
vapour; emerging now upon our broad clear course; withdrawing now,
but always dashing on, our journey is a counter-part of hers.  Yoho!
A match against the Moon!

The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when Day comes rushing up.
Yoho!  Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a
continuous street.  Yoho, past market-gardens, rows of houses,
villas, crescents, terraces, and squares; past waggons, coaches,
carts; past early workmen, late stragglers, drunken men, and sober
carriers of loads; past brick and mortar in its every shape; and in
among the rattling pavements, where a jaunty-seat upon a coach is
not so easy to preserve!  Yoho, down countless turnings, and through
countless mazy ways, until an old Innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch,
getting down quite stunned and giddy, is in London!

'Five minutes before the time, too!' said the driver, as he received
his fee of Tom.

'Upon my word,' said Tom, 'I should not have minded very much, if we
had been five hours after it; for at this early hour I don't know
where to go, or what to do with myself.'

'Don't they expect you then?' inquired the driver.

'Who?' said Tom.

'Why them,' returned the driver.

His mind was so clearly running on the assumption of Tom's having
come to town to see an extensive circle of anxious relations and
friends, that it would have been pretty hard work to undeceive him.
Tom did not try.  He cheerfully evaded the subject, and going into
the Inn, fell fast asleep before a fire in one of the public rooms
opening from the yard.  When he awoke, the people in the house were
all astir, so he washed and dressed himself; to his great
refreshment after the journey; and, it being by that time eight
o'clock, went forth at once to see his old friend John.

John Westlock lived in Furnival's Inn, High Holborn, which was
within a quarter of an hour's walk of Tom's starting-point, but
seemed a long way off, by reason of his going two or three miles out
of the straight road to make a short cut.  When at last he arrived
outside John's door, two stories up, he stood faltering with his
hand upon the knocker, and trembled from head to foot.  For he was
rendered very nervous by the thought of having to relate what had
fallen out between himself and Pecksniff; and he had a misgiving
that John would exult fearfully in the disclosure.

'But it must be made,' thought Tom, 'sooner or later; and I had
better get it over.'

Rat tat.

'I am afraid that's not a London knock,' thought Tom.  'It didn't
sound bold.  Perhaps that's the reason why nobody answers the door.'

It is quite certain that nobody came, and that Tom stood looking at
the knocker; wondering whereabouts in the neighbourhood a certain
gentleman resided, who was roaring out to somebody 'Come in!' with
all his might.

'Bless my soul!' thought Tom at last.  'Perhaps he lives here, and
is calling to me.  I never thought of that.  Can I open the door
from the outside, I wonder.  Yes, to be sure I can.'

To be sure he could, by turning the handle; and to be sure when he
did turn it the same voice came rushing out, crying 'Why don't you
come in?  Come in, do you hear?  What are you standing there for?'--
quite violently.

Tom stepped from the little passage into the room from which these
sounds proceeded, and had barely caught a glimpse of a gentleman in
a dressing-gown and slippers (with his boots beside him ready to put
on), sitting at his breakfast with a newspaper in his hand, when the
said gentleman, at the imminent hazard of oversetting his tea-table,
made a plunge at Tom, and hugged him.

'Why, Tom, my boy!' cried the gentleman.  'Tom!'

'How glad I am to see you, Mr Westlock!' said Tom Pinch, shaking
both his hands, and trembling more than ever.  'How kind you are!'

'Mr Westlock!' repeated John, 'what do you mean by that, Pinch?  You
have not forgotten my Christian name, I suppose?'

'No, John, no.  I have not forgotten,' said Thomas Pinch.  'Good
gracious me, how kind you are!'

'I never saw such a fellow in all my life!' cried John.  'What do
you mean by saying THAT over and over again?  What did you expect me
to be, I wonder!  Here, sit down, Tom, and be a reasonable creature.
How are you, my boy?  I am delighted to see you!'

'And I am delighted to see YOU,' said Tom.

'It's mutual, of course,' returned John.  'It always was, I hope.
If I had known you had been coming, Tom, I would have had something
for breakfast.  I would rather have such a surprise than the best
breakfast in the world, myself; but yours is another case, and I
have no doubt you are as hungry as a hunter.  You must make out as
well as you can, Tom, and we'll recompense ourselves at dinner-time.
You take sugar, I know; I recollect the sugar at Pecksniff's.  Ha,
ha, ha!  How IS Pecksniff?  When did you come to town?  DO begin at
something or other, Tom.  There are only scraps here, but they are
not at all bad.  Boar's Head potted.  Try it, Tom.  Make a beginning
whatever you do.  What an old Blade you are!  I am delighted to see
you.'

While he delivered himself of these words in a state of great
commotion, John was constantly running backwards and forwards to and
from the closet, bringing out all sorts of things in pots, scooping
extraordinary quantities of tea out of the caddy, dropping French
rolls into his boots, pouring hot water over the butter, and making
a variety of similar mistakes without disconcerting himself in the
least.

'There!' said John, sitting down for the fiftieth time, and
instantly starting up again to make some other addition to the
breakfast.  'Now we are as well off as we are likely to be till
dinner.  And now let us have the news, Tom.  Imprimis, how's
Pecksniff?'

'I don't know how he is,' was Tom's grave answer.

John Westlock put the teapot down, and looked at him, in
astonishment.

'I don't know how he is,' said Thomas Pinch; 'and, saving that I
wish him no ill, I don't care.  I have left him, John.  I have left
him for ever.'

'Voluntarily?'

'Why, no, for he dismissed me.  But I had first found out that I was
mistaken in him; and I could not have remained with him under any
circumstances.  I grieve to say that you were right in your estimate
of his character.  It may be a ridiculous weakness, John, but it has
been very painful and bitter to me to find this out, I do assure
you.'

Tom had no need to direct that appealing look towards his friend, in
mild and gentle deprecation of his answering with a laugh.  John
Westlock would as soon have thought of striking him down upon the
floor.

'It was all a dream of mine,' said Tom, 'and it is over.  I'll tell
you how it happened, at some other time.  Bear with my folly, John.
I do not, just now, like to think or speak about it.'

'I swear to you, Tom,' returned his friend, with great earnestness
of manner, after remaining silent for a few moments, 'that when I
see, as I do now, how deeply you feel this, I don't know whether to
be glad or sorry that you have made the discovery at last.  I
reproach myself with the thought that I ever jested on the subject;
I ought to have known better.'

'My dear friend,' said Tom, extending his hand, 'it is very generous
and gallant in you to receive me and my disclosure in this spirit;
it makes me blush to think that I should have felt a moment's
uneasiness as I came along.  You can't think what a weight is lifted
off my mind,' said Tom, taking up his knife and fork again, and
looking very cheerful.  'I shall punish the Boar's Head dreadfully.'

The host, thus reminded of his duties, instantly betook himself to
piling up all kinds of irreconcilable and contradictory viands in
Tom's plate, and a very capital breakfast Tom made, and very much
the better for it Tom felt.

'That's all right,' said John, after contemplating his visitor's
proceedings with infinite satisfaction.  'Now, about our plans.  You
are going to stay with me, of course.  Where's your box?'

'It's at the Inn,' said Tom.  'I didn't intend--'

'Never mind what you didn't intend,' John Westlock interposed.
'What you DID intend is more to the purpose.  You intended, in
coming here, to ask my advice, did you not, Tom?'

'Certainly.'

'And to take it when I gave it to you?'

'Yes,' rejoined Tom, smiling, 'if it were good advice, which, being
yours, I have no doubt it will be.'

'Very well.  Then don't be an obstinate old humbug in the outset,
Tom, or I shall shut up shop and dispense none of that invaluable
commodity.  You are on a visit to me.  I wish I had an organ for
you, Tom!'

'So do the gentlemen downstairs, and the gentlemen overhead I have
no doubt,' was Tom's reply.

'Let me see.  In the first place, you will wish to see your sister
this morning,' pursued his friend, 'and of course you will like to
go there alone.  I'll walk part of the way with you; and see about a
little business of my own, and meet you here again in the afternoon.
Put that in your pocket, Tom.  It's only the key of the door.  If
you come home first you'll want it.'

'Really,' said Tom, 'quartering one's self upon a friend in this
way--'

'Why, there are two keys,' interposed John Westlock.  'I can't open
the door with them both at once, can I?  What a ridiculous fellow
you are, Tom?  Nothing particular you'd like for dinner, is there?'

'Oh dear no,' said Tom.

'Very well, then you may as well leave it to me.  Have a glass of
cherry brandy, Tom?'

'Not a drop!  What remarkable chambers these are!' said Pinch
'there's everything in 'em!'

'Bless your soul, Tom, nothing but a few little bachelor
contrivances! the sort of impromptu arrangements that might have
suggested themselves to Philip Quarll or Robinson Crusoe, that's
all.  What do you say?  Shall we walk?'

'By all means,' cried Tom.  'As soon as you like.'

Accordingly John Westlock took the French rolls out of his boots,
and put his boots on, and dressed himself; giving Tom the paper to
read in the meanwhile.  When he returned, equipped for walking, he
found Tom in a brown study, with the paper in his hand.

'Dreaming, Tom?'

'No,' said Mr Pinch, 'No.  I have been looking over the advertising
sheet, thinking there might be something in it which would be likely
to suit me.  But, as I often think, the strange thing seems to be
that nobody is suited.  Here are all kinds of employers wanting all
sorts of servants, and all sorts of servants wanting all kinds of
employers, and they never seem to come together.  Here is a
gentleman in a public office in a position of temporary difficulty,
who wants to borrow five hundred pounds; and in the very next
advertisement here is another gentleman who has got exactly that sum
to lend.  But he'll never lend it to him, John, you'll find!  Here is
a lady possessing a moderate independence, who wants to board and
lodge with a quiet, cheerful family; and here is a family describing
themselves in those very words, "a quiet, cheerful family," who want
exactly such a lady to come and live with them.  But she'll never
go, John!  Neither do any of these single gentlemen who want an airy
bedroom, with the occasional use of a parlour, ever appear to come
to terms with these other people who live in a rural situation
remarkable for its bracing atmosphere, within five minutes' walk of
the Royal Exchange.  Even those letters of the alphabet who are
always running away from their friends and being entreated at the
tops of columns to come back, never DO come back, if we may judge
from the number of times they are asked to do it and don't.  It
really seems,' said Tom, relinquishing the paper with a thoughtful
sigh, 'as if people had the same gratification in printing their
complaints as in making them known by word of mouth; as if they
found it a comfort and consolation to proclaim "I want such and such
a thing, and I can't get it, and I don't expect I ever shall!"'

John Westlock laughed at the idea, and they went out together.  So
many years had passed since Tom was last in London, and he had known
so little of it then, that his interest in all he saw was very
great.  He was particularly anxious, among other notorious
localities, to have those streets pointed out to him which were
appropriated to the slaughter of countrymen; and was quite
disappointed to find, after half-an-hour's walking, that he hadn't
had his pocket picked.  But on John Westlock's inventing a
pickpocket for his gratification, and pointing out a highly
respectable stranger as one of that fraternity, he was much
delighted.

His friend accompanied him to within a short distance of Camberwell
and having put him beyond the possibility of mistaking the wealthy
brass-and-copper founder's, left him to make his visit.  Arriving
before the great bell-handle, Tom gave it a gentle pull.  The porter
appeared.

'Pray does Miss Pinch live here?' said Tom.

'Miss Pinch is governess here,' replied the porter.

At the same time he looked at Tom from head to foot, as if he would
have said, 'You are a nice man, YOU are; where did YOU come from?'

'It's the same young lady,' said Tom.  'It's quite right.  Is she at
home?'

'I don't know, I'm sure,' rejoined the porter.

'Do you think you could have the goodness to ascertain?' said Tom.
He had quite a delicacy in offering the suggestion, for the
possibility of such a step did not appear to present itself to the
porter's mind at all.

The fact was that the porter in answering the gate-bell had,
according to usage, rung the house-bell (for it is as well to do
these things in the Baronial style while you are about it), and that
there the functions of his office had ceased.  Being hired to open
and shut the gate, and not to explain himself to strangers, he left
this little incident to be developed by the footman with the tags,
who, at this juncture, called out from the door steps:

'Hollo, there! wot are you up to?  This way, young man!'

'Oh!' said Tom, hurrying towards him.  'I didn't observe that there
was anybody else.  Pray is Miss Pinch at home?'

'She's IN,' replied the footman.  As much as to say to Tom: 'But if
you think she has anything to do with the proprietorship of this
place you had better abandon that idea.'

'I wish to see her, if you please,' said Tom.

The footman, being a lively young man, happened to have his
attention caught at that moment by the flight of a pigeon, in which
he took so warm an interest that his gaze was rivetted on the bird
until it was quite out of sight.  He then invited Tom to come in,
and showed him into a parlour.

'Hany neem?' said the young man, pausing languidly at the door.

It was a good thought; because without providing the stranger, in
case he should happen to be of a warm temper, with a sufficient
excuse for knocking him down, it implied this young man's estimate
of his quality, and relieved his breast of the oppressive burden of
rating him in secret as a nameless and obscure individual.

'Say her brother, if you please,' said Tom.

'Mother?' drawled the footman.

'Brother,' repeated Tom, slightly raising his voice.  'And if you
will say, in the first instance, a gentleman, and then say her
brother, I shall be obliged to you, as she does not expect me or
know I am in London, and I do not wish to startle her.'

The young man's interest in Tom's observations had ceased long
before this time, but he kindly waited until now; when, shutting the
door, he withdrew.

'Dear me!' said Tom.  'This is very disrespectful and uncivil
behaviour.  I hope these are new servants here, and that Ruth is
very differently treated.'

His cogitations were interrupted by the sound of voices in the
adjoining room.  They seemed to be engaged in high dispute, or in
indignant reprimand of some offender; and gathering strength
occasionally, broke out into a perfect whirlwind.  It was in one of
these gusts, as it appeared to Tom, that the footman announced him;
for an abrupt and unnatural calm took place, and then a dead
silence.  He was standing before the window, wondering what domestic
quarrel might have caused these sounds, and hoping Ruth had nothing
to do with it, when the door opened, and his sister ran into his
arms.

'Why, bless my soul!' said Tom, looking at her with great pride,
when they had tenderly embraced each other, 'how altered you are
Ruth!  I should scarcely have known you, my love, if I had seen you
anywhere else, I declare!  You are so improved,' said Tom, with
inexpressible delight; 'you are so womanly; you are so--positively,
you know, you are so handsome!'

'If YOU think so Tom--'

'Oh, but everybody must think so, you know,' said Tom, gently
smoothing down her hair.  'It's matter of fact; not opinion.  But
what's the matter?' said Tom, looking at her more intently, 'how
flushed you are! and you have been crying.'

'No, I have not, Tom.'

'Nonsense,' said her brother stoutly.  'That's a story.  Don't tell
me!  I know better.  What is it, dear?  I'm not with Mr Pecksniff
now.  I am going to try and settle myself in London; and if you are
not happy here (as I very much fear you are not, for I begin to
think you have been deceiving me with the kindest and most
affectionate intention) you shall not remain here.'

Oh!  Tom's blood was rising; mind that!  Perhaps the Boar's Head had
something to do with it, but certainly the footman had.  So had the
sight of his pretty sister--a great deal to do with it.  Tom could
bear a good deal himself, but he was proud of her, and pride is a
sensitive thing.  He began to think, 'there are more Pecksniffs than
one, perhaps,' and by all the pins and needles that run up and down
in angry veins, Tom was in a most unusual tingle all at once!

'We will talk about it, Tom,' said Ruth, giving him another kiss to
pacify him.  'I am afraid I cannot stay here.'

'Cannot!' replied Tom.  'Why then, you shall not, my love.  Heyday!
You are not an object of charity!  Upon my word!'

Tom was stopped in these exclamations by the footman, who brought a
message from his master, importing that he wished to speak with him
before he went, and with Miss Pinch also.

'Show the way,' said Tom.  'I'll wait upon him at once.'

Accordingly they entered the adjoining room from which the noise of
altercation had proceeded; and there they found a middle-aged
gentleman, with a pompous voice and manner, and a middle-aged lady,
with what may be termed an excisable face, or one in which starch
and vinegar were decidedly employed.  There was likewise present
that eldest pupil of Miss Pinch, whom Mrs Todgers, on a previous
occasion, had called a syrup, and who was now weeping and sobbing
spitefully.

'My brother, sir,' said Ruth Pinch, timidly presenting Tom.

'Oh!' cried the gentleman, surveying Tom attentively.  'You really
are Miss Pinch's brother, I presume?  You will excuse my asking.  I
don't observe any resemblance.'

'Miss Pinch has a brother, I know,' observed the lady.

'Miss Pinch is always talking about her brother, when she ought to
be engaged upon my education,' sobbed the pupil.

'Sophia!  Hold your tongue!' observed the gentleman.  'Sit down, if
you please,' addressing Tom.

Tom sat down, looking from one face to another, in mute surprise.

'Remain here, if you please, Miss Pinch,' pursued the gentleman,
looking slightly over his shoulder.

Tom interrupted him here, by rising to place a chair for his sister.
Having done which he sat down again.

'I am glad you chance to have called to see your sister to-day,
sir,' resumed the brass-and-copper founder.  'For although I do not
approve, as a principle, of any young person engaged in my family in
the capacity of a governess, receiving visitors, it happens in this
case to be well timed.  I am sorry to inform you that we are not at
all satisfied with your sister.'

'We are very much DISsatisfied with her,' observed the lady.

'I'd never say another lesson to Miss Pinch if I was to be beat to
death for it!' sobbed the pupil.

'Sophia!' cried her father.  'Hold your tongue!'

'Will you allow me to inquire what your ground of dissatisfaction
is?' asked Tom.

'Yes,' said the gentleman, 'I will.  I don't recognize it as a
right; but I will.  Your sister has not the slightest innate power
of commanding respect.  It has been a constant source of difference
between us.  Although she has been in this family for some time, and
although the young lady who is now present has almost, as it were,
grown up under her tuition, that young lady has no respect for her.
Miss Pinch has been perfectly unable to command my daughter's
respect, or to win my daughter's confidence.  Now,' said the
gentleman, allowing the palm of his hand to fall gravely down upon
the table: 'I maintain that there is something radically wrong in
that!  You, as her brother, may be disposed to deny it--'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Tom.  'I am not at all disposed to
deny it.  I am sure that there is something radically wrong;
radically monstrous, in that.'

'Good Heavens!' cried the gentleman, looking round the room with
dignity, 'what do I find to be the case! what results obtrude
themselves upon me as flowing from this weakness of character on the
part of Miss Pinch!  What are my feelings as a father, when, after my
desire (repeatedly expressed to Miss Pinch, as I think she will not
venture to deny) that my daughter should be choice in her
expressions, genteel in her deportment, as becomes her station in
life, and politely distant to her inferiors in society, I find her,
only this very morning, addressing Miss Pinch herself as a beggar!'

'A beggarly thing,' observed the lady, in correction.

'Which is worse,' said the gentleman, triumphantly; 'which is worse.
A beggarly thing.  A low, coarse, despicable expression!'

'Most despicable,' cried Tom.  'I am glad to find that there is a
just appreciation of it here.'

'So just, sir,' said the gentleman, lowering his voice to be the
more impressive.  'So just, that, but for my knowing Miss Pinch to
be an unprotected young person, an orphan, and without friends, I
would, as I assured Miss Pinch, upon my veracity and personal
character, a few minutes ago, I would have severed the connection
between us at that moment and from that time.'

'Bless my soul, sir!' cried Tom, rising from his seat; for he was
now unable to contain himself any longer; 'don't allow such
considerations as those to influence you, pray.  They don't exist,
sir.  She is not unprotected.  She is ready to depart this instant.
Ruth, my dear, get your bonnet on!'

'Oh, a pretty family!' cried the lady.  'Oh, he's her brother!
There's no doubt about that!'

'As little doubt, madam,' said Tom, 'as that the young lady yonder
is the child of your teaching, and not my sister's.  Ruth, my dear,
get your bonnet on!'

'When you say, young man,' interposed the brass-and-copper founder,
haughtily, 'with that impertinence which is natural to you, and
which I therefore do not condescend to notice further, that the
young lady, my eldest daughter, has been educated by any one but
Miss Pinch, you--I needn't proceed.  You comprehend me fully.  I
have no doubt you are used to it.'

'Sir!' cried Tom, after regarding him in silence for some little
time.  'If you do not understand what I mean, I will tell you.  If
you do understand what I mean, I beg you not to repeat that mode of
expressing yourself in answer to it.  My meaning is, that no man can
expect his children to respect what he degrades.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the gentleman.  'Cant! cant!  The common cant!'

'The common story, sir!' said Tom; 'the story of a common mind.
Your governess cannot win the confidence and respect of your
children, forsooth!  Let her begin by winning yours, and see what
happens then.'

'Miss Pinch is getting her bonnet on, I trust, my dear?' said the
gentleman.

'I trust she is,' said Tom, forestalling the reply.  'I have no
doubt she is.  In the meantime I address myself to you, sir.  You
made your statement to me, sir; you required to see me for that
purpose; and I have a right to answer it.  I am not loud or
turbulent,' said Tom, which was quite true, 'though I can scarcely
say as much for you, in your manner of addressing yourself to me.
And I wish, on my sister's behalf, to state the simple truth.'

'You may state anything you like, young man,' returned the
gentleman, affecting to yawn.  'My dear, Miss Pinch's money.'

'When you tell me,' resumed Tom, who was not the less indignant for
keeping himself quiet, 'that my sister has no innate power of
commanding the respect of your children, I must tell you it is not
so; and that she has.  She is as well bred, as well taught, as well
qualified by nature to command respect, as any hirer of a governess
you know.  But when you place her at a disadvantage in reference to
every servant in your house, how can you suppose, if you have the
gift of common sense, that she is not in a tenfold worse position in
reference to your daughters?'

'Pretty well!  Upon my word,' exclaimed the gentleman, 'this is
pretty well!'

'It is very ill, sir,' said Tom.  'It is very bad and mean, and
wrong and cruel.  Respect!  I believe young people are quick enough
to observe and imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no
one else respects, and everybody slights?  And very partial they
must grow--oh, very partial!--to their studies, when they see to
what a pass proficiency in those same tasks has brought their
governess!  Respect!  Put anything the most deserving of respect
before your daughters in the light in which you place her, and you
will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!'

'You speak with extreme impertinence, young man,' observed the
gentleman.

'I speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt
for such a course of treatment, and for all who practice it,' said
Tom.  'Why, how can you, as an honest gentleman, profess displeasure
or surprise at your daughter telling my sister she is something
beggarly and humble, when you are for ever telling her the same
thing yourself in fifty plain, outspeaking ways, though not in
words; and when your very porter and footman make the same delicate
announcement to all comers?  As to your suspicion and distrust of
her; even of her word; if she is not above their reach, you have no
right to employ her.'

'No right!' cried the brass-and-copper founder.

'Distinctly not,' Tom answered.  'If you imagine that the payment of
an annual sum of money gives it to you, you immensely exaggerate its
power and value.  Your money is the least part of your bargain in
such a case.  You may be punctual in that to half a second on the
clock, and yet be Bankrupt.  I have nothing more to say,' said Tom,
much flushed and flustered, now that it was over, 'except to crave
permission to stand in your garden until my sister is ready.'

Not waiting to obtain it, Tom walked out.

Before he had well begun to cool, his sister joined him.  She was
crying; and Tom could not bear that any one about the house should
see her doing that.

'They will think you are sorry to go,' said Tom.  'You are not sorry
to go?'

'No, Tom, no.  I have been anxious to go for a very long time.'

'Very well, then!  Don't cry!' said Tom.

'I am so sorry for YOU, dear,' sobbed Tom's sister.

'But you ought to be glad on my account,' said Tom.  'I shall be
twice as happy with you for a companion.  Hold up your head.  There!
Now we go out as we ought.  Not blustering, you know, but firm and
confident in ourselves.'

The idea of Tom and his sister blustering, under any circumstances,
was a splendid absurdity.  But Tom was very far from feeling it to
be so, in his excitement; and passed out at the gate with such
severe determination written in his face that the porter hardly knew
him again.

It was not until they had walked some short distance, and Tom found
himself getting cooler and more collected, that he was quite
restored to himself by an inquiry from his sister, who said in her
pleasant little voice:

'Where are we going, Tom?'

'Dear me!' said Tom, stopping, 'I don't know.'

'Don't you--don't you live anywhere, dear?' asked Tom's sister
looking wistfully in his face.

'No,' said Tom.  'Not at present.  Not exactly.  I only arrived this
morning.  We must have some lodgings.'

He didn't tell her that he had been going to stay with his friend
John, and could on no account think of billeting two inmates upon
him, of whom one was a young lady; for he knew that would make her
uncomfortable, and would cause her to regard herself as being an
inconvenience to him.  Neither did he like to leave her anywhere
while he called on John, and told him of this change in his
arrangements; for he was delicate of seeming to encroach upon the
generous and hospitable nature of his friend.  Therefore he said
again, 'We must have some lodgings, of course;' and said it as
stoutly as if he had been a perfect Directory and Guide-Book to all
the lodgings in London.

'Where shall we go and look for 'em?' said Tom.  'What do you
think?'

Tom's sister was not much wiser on such a topic than he was.  So she
squeezed her little purse into his coat-pocket, and folding the
little hand with which she did so on the other little hand with
which she clasped his arm, said nothing.

'It ought to be a cheap neighbourhood,' said Tom, 'and not too far
from London.  Let me see.  Should you think Islington a good place?'

'I should think it was an excellent place, Tom.'

'It used to be called Merry Islington, once upon a time,' said Tom.
'Perhaps it's merry now; if so, it's all the better.  Eh?'

'If it's not too dear,' said Tom's sister.

'Of course, if it's not too dear,' assented Tom.  'Well, where IS
Islington?  We can't do better than go there, I should think.  Let's
go.'

Tom's sister would have gone anywhere with him; so they walked off,
arm in arm, as comfortably as possible.  Finding, presently, that
Islington was not in that neighbourhood, Tom made inquiries
respecting a public conveyance thither; which they soon obtained.
As they rode along they were very full of conversation indeed, Tom
relating what had happened to him, and Tom's sister relating what
had happened to her, and both finding a great deal more to say than
time to say it in; for they had only just begun to talk, in
comparison with what they had to tell each other, when they reached
their journey's end.

'Now,' said Tom, 'we must first look out for some very unpretending
streets, and then look out for bills in the windows.'

So they walked off again, quite as happily as if they had just
stepped out of a snug little house of their own, to look for
lodgings on account of somebody else.  Tom's simplicity was
unabated, Heaven knows; but now that he had somebody to rely upon
him, he was stimulated to rely a little more upon himself, and was,
in his own opinion, quite a desperate fellow.

After roaming up and down for hours, looking at some scores of
lodgings, they began to find it rather fatiguing, especially as they
saw none which were at all adapted to their purpose.  At length,
however, in a singular little old-fashioned house, up a blind
street, they discovered two small bedrooms and a triangular parlour,
which promised to suit them well enough.  Their desiring to take
possession immediately was a suspicious circumstance, but even this
was surmounted by the payment of their first week's rent, and a
reference to John Westlock, Esquire, Furnival's Inn, High Holborn.

Ah!  It was a goodly sight, when this important point was settled, to
behold Tom and his sister trotting round to the baker's, and the
butcher's, and the grocer's, with a kind of dreadful delight in the
unaccustomed cares of housekeeping; taking secret counsel together
as they gave their small orders, and distracted by the least
suggestion on the part of the shopkeeper!  When they got back to the
triangular parlour, and Tom's sister, bustling to and fro, busy
about a thousand pleasant nothings, stopped every now and then to
give old Tom a kiss or smile upon him, Tom rubbed his hands as if
all Islington were his.

It was late in the afternoon now, though, and high time for Tom to
keep his appointment.  So, after agreeing with his sister that in
consideration of not having dined, they would venture on the
extravagance of chops for supper at nine, he walked out again to
narrate these marvellous occurrences to John.

'I am quite a family man all at once,' thought Tom.  'If I can only
get something to do, how comfortable Ruth and I may be!  Ah, that if!
But it's of no use to despond.  I can but do that, when I have tried
everything and failed; and even then it won't serve me much.  Upon
my word,' thought Tom, quickening his pace, 'I don't know what John
will think has become of me.  He'll begin to be afraid I have
strayed into one of those streets where the countrymen are murdered;
and that I have been made meat pies of, or some such horrible
thing.'



CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

TOM PINCH, GOING ASTRAY, FINDS THAT HE IS NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN
THAT PREDICAMENT.  HE RETALIATES UPON A FALLEN FOE


Tom's evil genius did not lead him into the dens of any of those
preparers of cannibalic pastry, who are represented in many standard
country legends as doing a lively retail business in the Metropolis;
nor did it mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers, pea and
thimble-riggers, duffers, touters, or any of those bloodless
sharpers, who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police.  He
fell into conversation with no gentleman who took him into a public-
house, where there happened to be another gentleman who swore he had
more money than any gentleman, and very soon proved he had more
money than one gentleman by taking his away from him; neither did he
fall into any other of the numerous man-traps which are set up
without notice, in the public grounds of this city.  But he lost his
way.  He very soon did that; and in trying to find it again he lost
it more and more.

Now, Tom, in his guileless distrust of London, thought himself very
knowing in coming to the determination that he would not ask to be
directed to Furnival's Inn, if he could help it; unless, indeed, he
should happen to find himself near the Mint, or the Bank of England;
in which case he would step in, and ask a civil question or two,
confiding in the perfect respectability of the concern.  So on he
went, looking up all the streets he came near, and going up half of
them; and thus, by dint of not being true to Goswell Street, and
filing off into Aldermanbury, and bewildering himself in Barbican,
and being constant to the wrong point of the compass in London Wall,
and then getting himself crosswise into Thames Street, by an
instinct that would have been marvellous if he had had the least
desire or reason to go there, he found himself, at last, hard by the
Monument.

The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom as
the Man in the Moon.  It immediately occurred to him that the lonely
creature who held himself aloof from all mankind in that pillar like
some old hermit was the very man of whom to ask his way.  Cold, he
might be; little sympathy he had, perhaps, with human passion--the
column seemed too tall for that; but if Truth didn't live in the
base of the Monument, notwithstanding Pope's couplet about the
outside of it, where in London (thought Tom) was she likely to be
found!

Coming close below the pillar, it was a great encouragement to Tom
to find that the Man in the Monument had simple tastes; that stony
and artificial as his residence was, he still preserved some rustic
recollections; that he liked plants, hung up bird-cages, was not
wholly cut off from fresh groundsel, and kept young trees in tubs.
The Man in the Monument, himself, was sitting outside the door--his
own door: the Monument-door: what a grand idea!--and was actually
yawning, as if there were no Monument to stop his mouth, and give
him a perpetual interest in his own existence.

Tom was advancing towards this remarkable creature, to inquire the
way to Furnival's Inn, when two people came to see the Monument.
They were a gentleman and a lady; and the gentleman said, 'How much
a-piece?'

The Man in the Monument replied, 'A Tanner.'

It seemed a low expression, compared with the Monument.

The gentleman put a shilling into his hand, and the Man in the
Monument opened a dark little door.  When the gentleman and lady had
passed out of view, he shut it again, and came slowly back to his
chair.

He sat down and laughed.

'They don't know what a many steps there is!' he said.  'It's worth
twice the money to stop here.  Oh, my eye!'

The Man in the Monument was a Cynic; a worldly man!  Tom couldn't ask
his way of HIM.  He was prepared to put no confidence in anything he
said.

'My gracious!' cried a well-known voice behind Mr Pinch.  'Why, to
be sure it is!'

At the same time he was poked in the back by a parasol.  Turning
round to inquire into this salute, he beheld the eldest daughter of
his late patron.

'Miss Pecksniff!' said Tom.

'Why, my goodness, Mr Pinch!' cried Cherry.  'What are you doing
here?'

'I have rather wandered from my way,' said Tom.  'I--'

'I hope you have run away,' said Charity.  'It would be quite
spirited and proper if you had, when my Papa so far forgets
himself.'

'I have left him,' returned Tom.  'But it was perfectly understood
on both sides.  It was not done clandestinely.'

'Is he married?' asked Cherry, with a spasmodic shake of her chin.

'No, not yet,' said Tom, colouring; 'to tell you the truth, I don't
think he is likely to be, if--if Miss Graham is the object of his
passion.'

'Tcha, Mr Pinch!' cried Charity, with sharp impatience, 'you're very
easily deceived.  You don't know the arts of which such a creature
is capable.  Oh! it's a wicked world.'

'You are not married?' Tom hinted, to divert the conversation.

'N--no!' said Cherry, tracing out one particular paving-stone in
Monument Yard with the end of her parasol.  'I--but really it's
quite impossible to explain.  Won't you walk in?'

'You live here, then?' said Tom

'Yes,' returned Miss Pecksniff, pointing with her parasol to
Todgers's; 'I reside with this lady, AT PRESENT.'

The great stress on the two last words suggested to Tom that he was
expected to say something in reference to them.  So he said.

'Only at present!  Are you going home again soon?'

'No, Mr Pinch,' returned Charity.  'No, thank you.  No!  A mother-in-
law who is younger than--I mean to say, who is as nearly as possible
about the same age as one's self, would not quite suit my spirit.
Not quite!' said Cherry, with a spiteful shiver.

'I thought from your saying "at present"'--Tom observed.

'Really, upon my word!  I had no idea you would press me so very
closely on the subject, Mr Pinch,' said Charity, blushing, 'or I
should not have been so foolish as to allude to--oh really!--won't
you walk in?'

Tom mentioned, to excuse himself, that he had an appointment in
Furnival's Inn, and that coming from Islington he had taken a few
wrong turnings, and arrived at the Monument instead.  Miss Pecksniff
simpered very much when he asked her if she knew the way to
Furnival's Inn, and at length found courage to reply.

'A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at least who is not exactly
a friend so much as a sort of acquaintance--Oh upon my word, I
hardly know what I say, Mr Pinch; you mustn't suppose there is any
engagement between us; or at least if there is, that it is at all a
settled thing as yet--is going to Furnival's Inn immediately, I
believe upon a little business, and I am sure he would be very glad
to accompany you, so as to prevent your going wrong again.  You had
better walk in.  You will very likely find my sister Merry here,'
she said with a curious toss of her head, and anything but an
agreeable smile.

'Then, I think, I'll endeavour to find my way alone,' said Tom, 'for
I fear she would not be very glad to see me.  That unfortunate
occurrence, in relation to which you and I had some amicable words
together, in private, is not likely to have impressed her with any
friendly feeling towards me.  Though it really was not my fault.'

'She has never heard of that, you may depend,' said Cherry,
gathering up the corners of her mouth, and nodding at Tom.  'I am
far from sure that she would bear you any mighty ill will for it, if
she had.'

'You don't say so?' cried Tom, who was really concerned by this
insinuation.

'I say nothing,' said Charity.  'If I had not already known what
shocking things treachery and deceit are in themselves, Mr Pinch, I
might perhaps have learnt it from the success they meet with--from
the success they meet with.'  Here she smiled as before.  'But I
don't say anything.  On the contrary, I should scorn it.  You had
better walk in!'

There was something hidden here, which piqued Tom's interest and
troubled his tender heart.  When, in a moment's irresolution, he
looked at Charity, he could not but observe a struggle in her face
between a sense of triumph and a sense of shame; nor could he but
remark how, meeting even his eyes, which she cared so little for,
she turned away her own, for all the splenetic defiance in her
manner.

An uneasy thought entered Tom's head; a shadowy misgiving that the
altered relations between himself and Pecksniff were somehow to
involve an altered knowledge on his part of other people, and were
to give him an insight into much of which he had had no previous
suspicion.  And yet he put no definite construction upon Charity's
proceedings.  He certainly had no idea that as he had been the
audience and spectator of her mortification, she grasped with eager
delight at any opportunity of reproaching her sister with his
presence in HER far deeper misery; for he knew nothing of it, and
only pictured that sister as the same giddy, careless, trivial
creature she always had been, with the same slight estimation of
himself which she had never been at the least pains to conceal.  In
short, he had merely a confused impression that Miss Pecksniff was
not quite sisterly or kind; and being curious to set it right,
accompanied her as she desired.

The house-door being opened, she went in before Tom, requesting him
to follow her; and led the way to the parlour door.

'Oh, Merry!' she said, looking in, 'I am so glad you have not gone
home.  Who do you think I have met in the street, and brought to see
you!  Mr Pinch!  There.  Now you ARE surprised, I am sure!'

Not more surprised than Tom was, when he looked upon her.  Not so
much.  Not half so much.

'Mr Pinch has left Papa, my dear,' said Cherry, 'and his prospects
are quite flourishing.  I have promised that Augustus, who is going
that way, shall escort him to the place he wants.  Augustus, my
child, where are you?'

With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed her way out of the parlour,
calling on Augustus Moddle to appear; and left Tom Pinch alone with
her sister.

If she had always been his kindest friend; if she had treated him
through all his servitude with such consideration as was never yet
received by struggling man; if she had lightened every moment of
those many years, and had ever spared and never wounded him; his
honest heart could not have swelled before her with a deeper pity,
or a purer freedom from all base remembrance than it did then.

'My gracious me!  You are really the last person in the world I
should have thought of seeing, I am sure!'

Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner.  He had not
expected that.  Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he
should be sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the
same time to hear her speaking in her old manner.  The two things
seemed quite natural.

'I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me.  I can't
think what put it in your head.  I never had much in seeing you.
There was no love lost between us, Mr Pinch, at any time, I think.'

Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy with
the ribbons as she spoke.  Much too busy to be conscious of the work
her fingers did.

'We never quarrelled,' said Tom.--Tom was right in that, for one
person can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can
play at chess, or fight a duel.  'I hoped you would be glad to shake
hands with an old friend.  Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom.
'If I ever offended you, forgive me.'

She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her hands;
spread them before her altered face, and burst into tears.

'Oh, Mr Pinch!' she said, 'although I never used you well, I did
believe your nature was forgiving.  I did not think you could be
cruel.'

She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom could
possibly have wished.  But she seemed to be appealing to him
reproachfully, and he did not understand her.

'I seldom showed it--never--I know that.  But I had that belief in
you, that if I had been asked to name the person in the world least
likely to retort upon me, I would have named you, confidently.'

'Would have named me!' Tom repeated.

'Yes,' she said with energy, 'and I have often thought so.'

After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside
her.

'Do you believe,' said Tom, 'oh, can you think, that what I said
just now, I said with any but the true and plain intention which my
words professed?  I mean it, in the spirit and the letter.  If I
ever offended you, forgive me; I may have done so, many times.  You
never injured or offended me.  How, then, could I possibly retort,
if even I were stern and bad enough to wish to do it!'

After a little while she thanked him, through her tears and sobs,
and told him she had never been at once so sorry and so comforted,
since she left home.  Still she wept bitterly; and it was the
greater pain to Tom to see her weeping, from her standing in
especial need, just then, of sympathy and tenderness.

'Come, come!' said Tom, 'you used to be as cheerful as the day was
long.'

'Ah! used!' she cried, in such a tone as rent Tom's heart.

'And will be again,' said Tom.

'No, never more.  No, never, never more.  If you should talk with
old Mr Chuzzlewit, at any time,' she added, looking hurriedly into
his face--'I sometimes thought he liked you, but suppressed it--will
you promise me to tell him that you saw me here, and that I said I
bore in mind the time we talked together in the churchyard?'

Tom promised that he would.

'Many times since then, when I have wished I had been carried there
before that day, I have recalled his words.  I wish that he should
know how true they were, although the least acknowledgment to that
effect has never passed my lips and never will.'

Tom promised this, conditionally too.  He did not tell her how
improbable it was that he and the old man would ever meet again,
because he thought it might disturb her more.

'If he should ever know this, through your means, dear Mr Pinch,'
said Mercy, 'tell him that I sent the message, not for myself, but
that he might be more forbearing and more patient, and more trustful
to some other person, in some other time of need.  Tell him that if
he could know how my heart trembled in the balance that day, and
what a very little would have turned the scale, his own would bleed
with pity for me.'

'Yes, yes,' said Tom, 'I will.'

'When I appeared to him the most unworthy of his help, I was--I know
I was, for I have often, often, thought about it since--the most
inclined to yield to what he showed me.  Oh! if he had relented but
a little more; if he had thrown himself in my way for but one other
quarter of an hour; if he had extended his compassion for a vain,
unthinking, miserable girl, in but the least degree; he might, and I
believe he would, have saved her!  Tell him that I don't blame him,
but am grateful for the effort that he made; but ask him for the
love of God, and youth, and in merciful consideration for the
struggle which an ill-advised and unwakened nature makes to hide the
strength it thinks its weakness--ask him never, never, to forget
this, when he deals with one again!'

Although Tom did not hold the clue to her full meaning, he could
guess it pretty nearly.  Touched to the quick, he took her hand and
said, or meant to say, some words of consolation.  She felt and
understood them, whether they were spoken or no.  He was not quite
certain, afterwards, but that she had tried to kneel down at his
feet, and bless him.

He found that he was not alone in the room when she had left it.
Mrs Todgers was there, shaking her head.  Tom had never seen Mrs
Todgers, it is needless to say, but he had a perception of her being
the lady of the house; and he saw some genuine compassion in her
eyes, that won his good opinion.

'Ah, sir!  You are an old friend, I see,' said Mrs Todgers.

'Yes,' said Tom.

'And yet,' quoth Mrs Todgers, shutting the door softly, 'she hasn't
told you what her troubles are, I'm certain.'

Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true.  'Indeed,'
he said, 'she has not.'

'And never would,' said Mrs Todgers, 'if you saw her daily.  She
never makes the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of
explanation or reproach.  But I know,' said Mrs Todgers, drawing in
her breath, 'I know!'

Tom nodded sorrowfully, 'So do I.'

'I fully believe,' said Mrs Todgers, taking her pocket-handkerchief
from the flat reticule, 'that nobody can tell one half of what that
poor young creature has to undergo.  But though she comes here,
constantly, to ease her poor full heart without his knowing it; and
saying, "Mrs Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think that I shall
soon be dead," sits crying in my room until the fit is past; I know
no more from her.  And, I believe,' said Mrs Todgers, putting back
her handkerchief again, 'that she considers me a good friend too.'

Mrs Todgers might have said her best friend.  Commercial gentlemen
and gravy had tried Mrs Todgers's temper; the main chance--it was
such a very small one in her case, that she might have been excused
for looking sharp after it, lest it should entirely vanish from her
sight--had taken a firm hold on Mrs Todgers's attention.  But in
some odd nook in Mrs Todgers's breast, up a great many steps, and in
a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret door, with
'Woman' written on the spring, which, at a touch from Mercy's hand,
had flown wide open, and admitted her for shelter.

When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers,
and the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps
there may be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs Todgers, which
shall make thee beautiful!

She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw that
she was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the
sordid strivings of her life; that she might have been a very Venus
in a minute more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered with her friend.

'Mr Thomas Pinch!' said Charity, performing the ceremony of
introduction with evident pride.  'Mr Moddle.  Where's my sister?'

'Gone, Miss Pecksniff,' Mrs Todgers answered.  'She had appointed to
be home.'

'Ah!' said Charity, looking at Tom.  'Oh, dear me!'

'She's greatly altered since she's been Anoth--since she's been
married, Mrs Todgers!' observed Moddle.

'My dear Augustus!' said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice.  'I verily
believe you have said that fifty thousand times, in my hearing.
What a Prose you are!'

This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which appeared to
originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by Miss Pecksniff.
At any rate, Mr Moddle was much slower in his responses than is
customary with young lovers, and exhibited a lowness of spirits
which was quite oppressive.

He did not improve at all when Tom and he were in the streets, but
sighed so dismally that it was dreadful to hear him.  As a means of
cheering him up, Tom told him that he wished him joy.

'Joy!' cried Moddle.  'Ha, ha!'

'What an extraordinary young man!' thought Tom.

'The Scorner has not set his seal upon you.  YOU care what becomes
of you?' said Moddle.

Tom admitted that it was a subject in which he certainly felt some
interest.

'I don't,' said Mr Moddle.  'The Elements may have me when they
please.  I'm ready.'

Tom inferred from these, and other expressions of the same nature,
that he was jealous.  Therefore he allowed him to take his own
course; which was such a gloomy one, that he felt a load removed
from his mind when they parted company at the gate of Furnival's
Inn.

It was now a couple of hours past John Westlock's dinner-time; and
he was walking up and down the room, quite anxious for Tom's safety.
The table was spread; the wine was carefully decanted; and the
dinner smelt delicious.

'Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been?  Your box is here.
Get your boots off instantly, and sit down!'

'I am sorry to say I can't stay, John,' replied Tom Pinch, who was
breathless with the haste he had made in running up the stairs.

'Can't stay!'

'If you'll go on with your dinner,' said Tom, 'I'll tell you my
reason the while.  I mustn't eat myself, or I shall have no appetite
for the chops.'

'There are no chops here, my food fellow.'

'No.  But there are at Islington,' said Tom.

John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed he
would not touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully.  So
Tom sat down, and told him all; to which he listened with the
greatest interest.

He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to ask
him why he had taken these measures without communicating with him
first.  He quite concurred in the expediency of Tom's immediately
returning to his sister, as he knew so little of the place in
which he had left her, and good-humouredly proposed to ride back
with him in a cab, in which he might convey his box.  Tom's
proposition that he should sup with them that night, he flatly
rejected, but made an appointment with him for the morrow.  'And now
Tom,' he said, as they rode along, 'I have a question to ask you to
which I expect a manly and straightforward answer.  Do you want any
money?  I am pretty sure you do.'

'I don't indeed,' said Tom.

'I believe you are deceiving me.'

'No.  With many thanks to you, I am quite in earnest,' Tom replied.
'My sister has some money, and so have I.  If I had nothing else,
John, I have a five-pound note, which that good creature, Mrs Lupin,
of the Dragon, handed up to me outside the coach, in a letter
begging me to borrow it; and then drove off as hard as she could
go.'

'And a blessing on every dimple in her handsome face, say I!' cried
John, 'though why you should give her the preference over me, I
don't know.  Never mind.  I bide my time, Tom.'

'And I hope you'll continue to bide it,' returned Tom, gayly.  'For
I owe you more, already, in a hundred other ways, than I can ever
hope to pay.'

They parted at the door of Tom's new residence.  John Westlock,
sitting in the cab, and, catching a glimpse of a blooming little
busy creature darting out to kiss Tom and to help him with his box,
would not have had the least objection to change places with him.

Well! she WAS a cheerful little thing; and had a quaint, bright
quietness about her that was infinitely pleasant.  Surely she was
the best sauce for chops ever invented.  The potatoes seemed to take
a pleasure in sending up their grateful steam before her; the froth
upon the pint of porter pouted to attract her notice.  But it was
all in vain.  She saw nothing but Tom.  Tom was the first and last
thing in the world.

As she sat opposite to Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom's pet
tunes upon the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never
been so happy in his life.



CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

SECRET SERVICE


In walking from the city with his sentimental friend, Tom Pinch had
looked into the face, and brushed against the threadbare sleeve, of
Mr Nadgett, man of mystery to the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan
and Life Assurance Company.  Mr Nadgett naturally passed away from
Tom's remembrance as he passed out of his view; for he didn't know
him, and had never heard his name.

As there are a vast number of people in the huge metropolis of
England who rise up every morning not knowing where their heads will
rest at night, so there are a multitude who shooting arrows over
houses as their daily business, never know on whom they fall.  Mr
Nadgett might have passed Tom Pinch ten thousand times; might even
have been quite familiar with his face, his name, pursuits, and
character; yet never once have dreamed that Tom had any interest in
any act or mystery of his.  Tom might have done the like by him of
course.  But the same private man out of all the men alive, was in
the mind of each at the same moment; was prominently connected
though in a different manner, with the day's adventures of both; and
formed, when they passed each other in the street, the one absorbing
topic of their thoughts.

Why Tom had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his mind requires no explanation.
Why Mr Nadgett should have had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his, is quite
another thing.

But, somehow or other, that amiable and worthy orphan had become a
part of the mystery of Mr Nadgett's existence.  Mr Nadgett took an
interest in his lightest proceedings; and it never flagged or
wavered.  He watched him in and out of the Assurance Office, where
he was now formally installed as a Director; he dogged his footsteps
in the streets; he stood listening when he talked; he sat in coffee-
rooms entering his name in the great pocket-book, over and over
again; he wrote letters to himself about him constantly; and, when
he found them in his pocket, put them in the fire, with such
distrust and caution that he would bend down to watch the crumpled
tinder while it floated upwards, as if his mind misgave him, that
the mystery it had contained might come out at the chimney-pot.

And yet all this was quite a secret.  Mr Nadgett kept it to himself,
and kept it close.  Jonas had no more idea that Mr Nadgett's eyes
were fixed on him, than he had that he was living under the daily
inspection and report of a whole order of Jesuits.  Indeed Mr
Nadgett's eyes were seldom fixed on any other objects than the
ground, the clock, or the fire; but every button on his coat might
have been an eye, he saw so much.

The secret manner of the man disarmed suspicion in this wise;
suggesting, not that he was watching any one, but that he thought
some other man was watching him.  He went about so stealthily, and
kept himself so wrapped up in himself, that the whole object of his
life appeared to be, to avoid notice and preserve his own mystery.
Jonas sometimes saw him in the street, hovering in the outer office,
waiting at the door for the man who never came, or slinking off with
his immovable face and drooping head, and the one beaver glove
dangling before him; but he would as soon have thought of the cross
upon the top of St. Paul's Cathedral taking note of what he did, or
slowly winding a great net about his feet, as of Nadgett's being
engaged in such an occupation.

Mr Nadgett made a mysterious change about this time in his
mysterious life: for whereas he had, until now, been first seen
every morning coming down Cornhill, so exactly like the Nadgett of
the day before as to occasion a popular belief that he never went to
bed or took his clothes off, he was now first seen in Holborn,
coming out of Kingsgate Street; and it was soon discovered that he
actually went every morning to a barber's shop in that street to get
shaved; and that the barber's name was Sweedlepipe.  He seemed to
make appointments with the man who never came, to meet him at this
barber's; for he would frequently take long spells of waiting in the
shop, and would ask for pen and ink, and pull out his pocket-book,
and be very busy over it for an hour at a time.  Mrs Gamp and Mr
Sweedlepipe had many deep discoursings on the subject of this
mysterious customer; but they usually agreed that he had speculated
too much and was keeping out of the way.

He must have appointed the man who never kept his word, to meet him
at another new place too; for one day he was found, for the first
time, by the waiter at the Mourning Coach-Horse, the House-of-call
for Undertakers, down in the City there, making figures with a pipe-
stem in the sawdust of a clean spittoon; and declining to call for
anything, on the ground of expecting a gentleman presently.  As the
gentleman was not honourable enough to keep his engagement, he came
again next day, with his pocket-book in such a state of distention
that he was regarded in the bar as a man of large property.  After
that, he repeated his visits every day, and had so much writing to
do, that he made nothing of emptying a capacious leaden inkstand in
two sittings.  Although he never talked much, still, by being there
among the regular customers, he made their acquaintance.  and in
course of time became quite intimate with Mr Tacker, Mr Mould's
foreman; and even with Mr Mould himself, who openly said he was a
long-headed man, a dry one, a salt fish, a deep file, a rasper; and
made him the subject of many other flattering encomiums.

At the same time, too, he told the people at the Assurance Office,
in his own mysterious way, that there was something wrong (secretly
wrong, of course) in his liver, and that he feared he must put
himself under the doctor's hands.  He was delivered over to Jobling
upon this representation; and though Jobling could not find out
where his liver was wrong, wrong Mr Nadgett said it was; observing
that it was his own liver, and he hoped he ought to know.
Accordingly, he became Mr Jobling's patient; and detailing his
symptoms in his slow and secret way, was in and out of that
gentleman's room a dozen times a day.

As he pursued all these occupations at once; and all steadily; and
all secretly; and never slackened in his watchfulness of everything
that Mr Jonas said and did, and left unsaid and undone; it is not
improbable that they were, secretly, essential parts of some great
scheme which Mr Nadgett had on foot.

It was on the morning of this very day on which so much had happened
to Tom Pinch, that Nadgett suddenly appeared before Mr Montague's
house in Pall Mall--he always made his appearance as if he had that
moment come up a trap--when the clocks were striking nine.  He rang
the bell in a covert under-handed way, as though it were a
treasonable act; and passed in at the door, the moment it was opened
wide enough to receive his body.  That done, he shut it immediately
with his own hands.

Mr Bailey, taking up his name without delay, returned with a request
that he would follow him into his master's chamber.  The chairman of
the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Board was
dressing, and received him as a business person who was often
backwards and forwards, and was received at all times for his
business' sake.

'Well, Mr Nadgett?'

Mr Nadgett put his hat upon the ground and coughed.  The boy having
withdrawn and shut the door, he went to it softly, examined the
handle, and returned to within a pace or two of the chair in which
Mr Montague sat.

'Any news, Mr Nadgett?'

'I think we have some news at last, sir.'

'I am happy to hear it.  I began to fear you were off the scent, Mr
Nadgett.'

'No, sir.  It grows cold occasionally.  It will sometimes.  We can't
help that.'

'You are truth itself, Mr Nadgett.  Do you report a great success?'

'That depends upon your judgment and construction of it,' was his
answer, as he put on his spectacles.

'What do you think of it yourself?  Have you pleased yourself?'

Mr Nadgett rubbed his hands slowly, stroked his chin, looked round
the room, and said, 'Yes, yes, I think it's a good case.  I am
disposed to think it's a good case.  Will you go into it at once?'

'By all means.'

Mr Nadgett picked out a certain chair from among the rest, and
having planted it in a particular spot, as carefully as if he had
been going to vault over it, placed another chair in front of it;
leaving room for his own legs between them.  He then sat down in
chair number two, and laid his pocket-book, very carefully, on chair
number one.  He then untied the pocket-book, and hung the string
over the back of chair number one.  He then drew both the chairs a
little nearer Mr Montague, and opening the pocket-book spread out
its contents.  Finally he selected a certain memorandum from the
rest, and held it out to his employer, who, during the whole of
these preliminary ceremonies, had been making violent efforts to
conceal his impatience.

'I wish you wouldn't be so fond of making notes, my excellent
friend,' said Tigg Montague with a ghastly smile.  'I wish you would
consent to give me their purport by word of mouth.'

'I don't like word of mouth,' said Mr Nadgett gravely.  'We never
know who's listening.'

Mr Montague was going to retort, when Nadgett handed him the paper,
and said, with quiet exultation in his tone, 'We'll begin at the
beginning, and take that one first, if you please, sir.'

The chairman cast his eyes upon it, coldly, and with a smile which
did not render any great homage to the slow and methodical habits of
his spy.  But he had not read half-a-dozen lines when the expression
of his face began to change, and before he had finished the perusal
of the paper, it was full of grave and serious attention.

'Number Two,' said Mr Nadgett, handing him another, and receiving
back the first.  'Read Number Two, sir, if you please.  There is
more interest as you go on.'

Tigg Montague leaned backward in his chair, and cast upon his
emissary such a look of vacant wonder (not unmingled with alarm),
that Mr Nadgett considered it necessary to repeat the request he had
already twice preferred; with the view to recalling his attention to
the point in hand.  Profiting by the hint, Mr Montague went on with
Number Two, and afterwards with Numbers Three, and Four, and Five,
and so on.

These documents were all in Mr Nadgett's writing, and were
apparently a series of memoranda, jotted down from time to time upon
the backs of old letters, or any scrap of paper that came first to
hand.  Loose straggling scrawls they were, and of very uninviting
exterior; but they had weighty purpose in them, if the chairman's
face were any index to the character of their contents.

The progress of Mr Nadgett's secret satisfaction arising out of the
effect they made, kept pace with the emotions of the reader.  At
first, Mr Nadgett sat with his spectacles low down upon his nose,
looking over them at his employer, and nervously rubbing his hands.
After a little while, he changed his posture in his chair for one of
greater ease, and leisurely perused the next document he held ready
as if an occasional glance at his employer's face were now enough
and all occasion for anxiety or doubt were gone.  And finally he
rose and looked out of the window, where he stood with a triumphant
air until Tigg Montague had finished.

'And this is the last, Mr Nadgett!' said that gentleman, drawing a
long breath.

'That, sir, is the last.'

'You are a wonderful man, Mr Nadgett!'

'I think it is a pretty good case,' he returned as he gathered up
his papers.  'It cost some trouble, sir.'

'The trouble shall be well rewarded, Mr Nadgett.'  Nadgett bowed.
'There is a deeper impression of Somebody's Hoof here, than I had
expected, Mr Nadgett.  I may congratulate myself upon your being
such a good hand at a secret.'

'Oh! nothing has an interest to me that's not a secret,' replied
Nadgett, as he tied the string about his pocket-book, and put it up.
'It always takes away any pleasure I may have had in this inquiry
even to make it known to you.'

'A most invaluable constitution,' Tigg retorted.  'A great gift for
a gentleman employed as you are, Mr Nadgett.  Much better than
discretion; though you possess that quality also in an eminent
degree.  I think I heard a double knock.  Will you put your head out
of window, and tell me whether there is anybody at the door?'

Mr Nadgett softly raised the sash, and peered out from the very
corner, as a man might who was looking down into a street from
whence a brisk discharge of musketry might be expected at any
moment.  Drawing in his head with equal caution, he observed, not
altering his voice or manner:

'Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit!'

'I thought so,' Tigg retorted.

'Shall I go?'

'I think you had better.  Stay though!  No! remain here, Mr Nadgett,
if you please.'

It was remarkable how pale and flurried he had become in an instant.
There was nothing to account for it.  His eye had fallen on his
razors; but what of them!

Mr Chuzzlewit was announced.

'Show him up directly.  Nadgett! don't you leave us alone together.
Mind you don't, now!  By the Lord!' he added in a whisper to himself:
'We don't know what may happen.'

Saying this, he hurriedly took up a couple of hair-brushes, and
began to exercise them on his own head, as if his toilet had not
been interrupted.  Mr Nadgett withdrew to the stove, in which there
was a small fire for the convenience of heating curling-irons; and
taking advantage of so favourable an opportunity for drying his
pocket-handkerchief, produced it without loss of time.  There he
stood, during the whole interview, holding it before the bars, and
sometimes, but not often, glancing over his shoulder.

'My dear Chuzzlewit!' cried Montague, as Jonas entered.  'You rise
with the lark.  Though you go to bed with the nightingale, you rise
with the lark.  You have superhuman energy, my dear Chuzzlewit!'

'Ecod!' said Jonas, with an air of langour and ill-humour, as he
took a chair, 'I should be very glad not to get up with the lark, if
I could help it.  But I am a light sleeper; and it's better to be up
than lying awake, counting the dismal old church-clocks, in bed.'

'A light sleeper!' cried his friend.  'Now, what is a light sleeper?
I often hear the expression, but upon my life I have not the least
conception what a light sleeper is.'

'Hallo!' said Jonas, 'Who's that?  Oh, old what's-his-name: looking
(as usual) as if he wanted to skulk up the chimney.'

'Ha, ha!  I have no doubt he does.'

'Well!  He's not wanted here, I suppose,' said Jonas.  'He may go,
mayn't he?'

'Oh, let him stay, let him stay!' said Tigg.  'He's a mere piece of
furniture.  He has been making his report, and is waiting for
further orders.  He has been told,' said Tigg, raising his voice,
'not to lose sight of certain friends of ours, or to think that he
has done with them by any means.  He understands his business.'

'He need,' replied Jonas; 'for of all the precious old dummies in
appearance that I ever saw, he's about the worst.  He's afraid of
me, I think.'

'It's my belief,' said Tigg, 'that you are Poison to him.  Nadgett!
give me that towel!'

He had as little occasion for a towel as Jonas had for a start.  But
Nadgett brought it quickly; and, having lingered for a moment, fell
back upon his old post by the fire.

'You see, my dear fellow,' resumed Tigg, 'you are too--what's the
matter with your lips?  How white they are!'

'I took some vinegar just now,' said Jonas.  'I had oysters for my
breakfast.  Where are they white?' he added, muttering an oath, and
rubbing them upon his handkerchief.  'I don't believe they ARE
white.'

'Now I look again, they are not,' replied his friend.  'They are
coming right again.'

'Say what you were going to say,' cried Jonas angrily, 'and let my
face be!  As long as I can show my teeth when I want to (and I can do
that pretty well), the colour of my lips is not material.'

'Quite true,' said Tigg.  'I was only going to say that you are too
quick and active for our friend.  He is too shy to cope with such a
man as you, but does his duty well.  Oh, very well!  But what is a
light sleeper?'

'Hang a light sleeper!' exclaimed Jonas pettishly.

'No, no,' interrupted Tigg.  'No.  We'll not do that.'

'A light sleeper ain't a heavy one,' said Jonas in his sulky way;
'don't sleep much, and don't sleep well, and don't sleep sound.'

'And dreams,' said Tigg, 'and cries out in an ugly manner; and when
the candle burns down in the night, is in an agony; and all that
sort of thing.  I see!'

They were silent for a little time.  Then Jonas spoke:

'Now we've done with child's talk, I want to have a word with you.
I want to have a word with you before we meet up yonder to-day.
I am not satisfied with the state of affairs.'

'Not satisfied!' cried Tigg.  'The money comes in well.'

'The money comes in well enough,' retorted Jonas, 'but it don't come
out well enough.  It can't be got at easily enough.  I haven't
sufficient power; it is all in your hands.  Ecod! what with one of
your by-laws, and another of your by-laws, and your votes in this
capacity, and your votes in that capacity, and your official rights,
and your individual rights, and other people's rights who are only
you again, there are no rights left for me.  Everybody else's rights
are my wrongs.  What's the use of my having a voice if it's always
drowned?  I might as well be dumb, and it would be much less
aggravating.  I'm not a-going to stand that, you know.'

'No!' said Tigg in an insinuating tone.

'No!' returned Jonas, 'I'm not indeed.  I'll play old Gooseberry
with the office, and make you glad to buy me out at a good high
figure, if you try any of your tricks with me.'

'I give you my honour--' Montague began.

'Oh! confound your honour,' interrupted Jonas, who became more
coarse and quarrelsome as the other remonstrated, which may have
been a part of Mr Montague's intention; 'I want a little more
control over the money.  You may have all the honour, if you like;
I'll never bring you to book for that.  But I'm not a-going to stand
it, as it is now.  If you should take it into your honourable head
to go abroad with the bank, I don't see much to prevent you.  Well!
That won't do.  I've had some very good dinners here, but they'd
come too dear on such terms; and therefore, that won't do.'

'I am unfortunate to find you in this humour,' said Tigg, with a
remarkable kind of smile; 'for I was going to propose to you--for
your own advantage; solely for your own advantage--that you should
venture a little more with us.'

'Was you, by G--?' said Jonas, with a short laugh.

'Yes.  And to suggest,' pursued Montague, 'that surely you have
friends; indeed, I know you have; who would answer our purpose
admirably, and whom we should be delighted to receive.'

'How kind of you!  You'd be delighted to receive 'em, would you?'
said Jonas, bantering.

'I give you my sacred honour, quite transported.  As your friends,
observe!'

'Exactly,' said Jonas; 'as my friends, of course.  You'll be very
much delighted when you get 'em, I have no doubt.  And it'll be all
to my advantage, won't it?'

'It will be very much to your advantage,' answered Montague poising
a brush in each hand, and looking steadily upon him.  'It will be
very much to your advantage, I assure you.'

'And you can tell me how,' said Jonas, 'can't you?'

'SHALL I tell you how?' returned the other.

'I think you had better,' said Jonas.  'Strange things have been
done in the Assurance way before now, by strange sorts of men,
and I mean to take care of myself.'

'Chuzzlewit!' replied Montague, leaning forward, with his arms upon
his knees, and looking full into his face.  'Strange things have
been done, and are done every day; not only in our way, but in a
variety of other ways; and no one suspects them.  But ours, as you
say, my good friend, is a strange way; and we strangely happen,
sometimes, to come into the knowledge of very strange events.'

He beckoned to Jonas to bring his chair nearer; and looking slightly
round, as if to remind him of the presence of Nadgett, whispered in
his ear.

From red to white; from white to red again; from red to yellow; then
to a cold, dull, awful, sweat-bedabbled blue.  In that short
whisper, all these changes fell upon the face of Jonas Chuzzlewit;
and when at last he laid his hand upon the whisperer's mouth,
appalled, lest any syllable of what he said should reach the ears of
the third person present, it was as bloodless and as heavy as the
hand of Death.

He drew his chair away, and sat a spectacle of terror, misery, and
rage.  He was afraid to speak, or look, or move, or sit still.
Abject, crouching, and miserable, he was a greater degradation to
the form he bore, than if he had been a loathsome wound from head to
heel.

His companion leisurely resumed his dressing, and completed it,
glancing sometimes with a smile at the transformation he had
effected, but never speaking once.

'You'll not object,' he said, when he was quite equipped, 'to
venture further with us, Chuzzlewit, my friend?'

His pale lips faintly stammered out a 'No.'

'Well said!  That's like yourself.  Do you know I was thinking
yesterday that your father-in-law, relying on your advice as a man
of great sagacity in money matters, as no doubt you are, would join
us, if the thing were well presented to him.  He has money?'

'Yes, he has money.'

'Shall I leave Mr Pecksniff to you?  Will you undertake for Mr
Pecksniff.'

'I'll try.  I'll do my best.'

'A thousand thanks,' replied the other, clapping him upon the
shoulder.  'Shall we walk downstairs?  Mr Nadgett!  Follow us, if
you please.'

They went down in that order.  Whatever Jonas felt in reference to
Montague; whatever sense he had of being caged, and barred, and
trapped, and having fallen down into a pit of deepest ruin;
whatever thoughts came crowding on his mind even at that early time,
of one terrible chance of escape, of one red glimmer in a sky of
blackness; he no more thought that the slinking figure half-a-dozen
stairs behind him was his pursuing Fate, than that the other figure
at his side was his Good Angel.



CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CONTAINING SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE
PINCHES; WITH STRANGE NEWS FROM THE CITY, NARROWLY CONCERNING TOM


Pleasant little Ruth!  Cheerful, tidy, bustling, quiet little Ruth!
No doll's house ever yielded greater delight to its young mistress,
than little Ruth derived from her glorious dominion over the
triangular parlour and the two small bedrooms.

To be Tom's housekeeper.  What dignity!  Housekeeping, upon the
commonest terms, associated itself with elevated responsibilities of
all sorts and kinds; but housekeeping for Tom implied the utmost
complication of grave trusts and mighty charges.  Well might she
take the keys out of the little chiffonier which held the tea and
sugar; and out of the two little damp cupboards down by the
fireplace, where the very black beetles got mouldy, and had the
shine taken out of their backs by envious mildew; and jingle them
upon a ring before Tom's eyes when he came down to breakfast!  Well
might she, laughing musically, put them up in that blessed little
pocket of hers with a merry pride!  For it was such a grand novelty
to be mistress of anything, that if she had been the most relentless
and despotic of all little housekeepers, she might have pleaded just
that much for her excuse, and have been honourably acquitted.

So far from being despotic, however, there was a coyness about her
very way of pouring out the tea, which Tom quite revelled in.  And
when she asked him what he would like to have for dinner, and
faltered out 'chops' as a reasonably good suggestion after their
last night's successful supper, Tom grew quite facetious, and
rallied her desperately.

'I don't know, Tom,' said his sister, blushing, 'I am not quite
confident, but I think I could make a beef-steak pudding, if I
tried, Tom.'

'In the whole catalogue of cookery, there is nothing I should like
so much as a beef-steak pudding!' cried Tom, slapping his leg to
give the greater force to this reply.

'Yes, dear, that's excellent!  But if it should happen not to come
quite right the first time,' his sister faltered; 'if it should
happen not to be a pudding exactly, but should turn out a stew, or a
soup, or something of that sort, you'll not be vexed, Tom, will
you?'

The serious way in which she looked at Tom; the way in which Tom
looked at her; and the way in which she gradually broke into a merry
laugh at her own expense, would have enchanted you.

'Why,' said Tom 'this is capital.  It gives us a new, and quite an
uncommon interest in the dinner.  We put into a lottery for a
beefsteak pudding, and it is impossible to say what we may get.  We
may make some wonderful discovery, perhaps, and produce such a dish
as never was known before.'

'I shall not be at all surprised if we do, Tom,' returned his
sister, still laughing merrily, 'or if it should prove to be such a
dish as we shall not feel very anxious to produce again; but the
meat must come out of the saucepan at last, somehow or other, you
know.  We can't cook it into nothing at all; that's a great comfort.
So if you like to venture, I will.'

'I have not the least doubt,' rejoined Tom, 'that it will come out
an excellent pudding, or at all events, I am sure that I shall think
it so.  There is naturally something so handy and brisk about you,
Ruth, that if you said you could make a bowl of faultless turtle
soup, I should believe you.'

And Tom was right.  She was precisely that sort of person.  Nobody
ought to have been able to resist her coaxing manner; and nobody had
any business to try.  Yet she never seemed to know it was her manner
at all.  That was the best of it.

Well! she washed up the breakfast cups, chatting away the whole
time, and telling Tom all sorts of anecdotes about the brass-and-
copper founder; put everything in its place; made the room as neat
as herself;--you must not suppose its shape was half as neat as hers
though, or anything like it--and brushed Tom's old hat round and
round and round again, until it was as sleek as Mr Pecksniff.  Then
she discovered, all in a moment, that Tom's shirt-collar was frayed
at the edge; and flying upstairs for a needle and thread, came
flying down again with her thimble on, and set it right with
wonderful expertness; never once sticking the needle into his face,
although she was humming his pet tune from first to last, and
beating time with the fingers of her left hand upon his neckcloth.
She had no sooner done this, than off she was again; and there she
stood once more, as brisk and busy as a bee, tying that compact
little chin of hers into an equally compact little bonnet; intent
on bustling out to the butcher's, without a minute's loss of time;
and inviting Tom to come and see the steak cut, with his own eyes.
As to Tom, he was ready to go anywhere; so off they trotted, arm-in-
arm, as nimbly as you please; saying to each other what a quiet
street it was to lodge in, and how very cheap, and what an airy
situation.

To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block,
and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly.
It was agreeable, too--it really was--to see him cut it off, so
smooth and juicy.  There was nothing savage in the act, although the
knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was
delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skillful handling of the
subject, fine shading.  It was the triumph of mind over matter;
quite.

Perhaps the greenest cabbage-leaf ever grown in a garden was wrapped
about this steak, before it was delivered over to Tom.  But the
butcher had a sentiment for his business, and knew how to refine
upon it.  When he saw Tom putting the cabbage-leaf into his pocket
awkwardly, he begged to be allowed to do it for him; 'for meat,' he
said with some emotion, 'must be humoured, not drove.'

Back they went to the lodgings again, after they had bought some
eggs, and flour, and such small matters; and Tom sat gravely down to
write at one end of the parlour table, while Ruth prepared to make
the pudding at the other end; for there was nobody in the house but
an old woman (the landlord being a mysterious sort of man, who went
out early in the morning, and was scarcely ever seen); and saving in
mere household drudgery, they waited on themselves.

'What are you writing, Tom?' inquired his sister, laying her hand
upon his shoulder.

'Why, you see, my dear,' said Tom, leaning back in his chair, and
looking up in her face, 'I am very anxious, of course, to obtain
some suitable employment; and before Mr Westlock comes this
afternoon, I think I may as well prepare a little description of
myself and my qualifications; such as he could show to any friend of
his.'

'You had better do the same for me, Tom, also,' said his sister,
casting down her eyes.  'I should dearly like to keep house for you
and take care of you always, Tom; but we are not rich enough for
that.'

'We are not rich,' returned Tom, 'certainly; and we may be much
poorer.  But we will not part if we can help it.  No, no; we will
make up our minds Ruth, that unless we are so very unfortunate as to
render me quite sure that you would be better off away from me than
with me, we will battle it out together.  I am certain we shall be
happier if we can battle it out together.  Don't you think we
shall?'

'Think, Tom!'

'Oh, tut, tut!' interposed Tom, tenderly.  'You mustn't cry.'

'No, no; I won't, Tom.  But you can't afford it, dear.  You can't,
indeed.'

'We don't know that,' said Tom.  'How are we to know that, yet
awhile, and without trying?  Lord bless my soul!'--Tom's energy
became quite grand--'there is no knowing what may happen, if we try
hard.  And I am sure we can live contentedly upon a very little--if
we can only get it.'

'Yes; that I am sure we can, Tom.'

'Why, then,' said Tom, 'we must try for it.  My friend, John
Westlock, is a capital fellow, and very shrewd and intelligent.
I'll take his advice.  We'll talk it over with him--both of us
together.  You'll like John very much, when you come to know him, I
am certain.  Don't cry, don't cry.  YOU make a beef-steak pudding,
indeed!' said Tom, giving her a gentle push.  'Why, you haven't
boldness enough for a dumpling!'

'You WILL call it a pudding, Tom.  Mind!  I told you not!'

'I may as well call it that, till it proves to be something else,'
said Tom.  'Oh, you are going to work in earnest, are you?'

Aye, aye!  That she was.  And in such pleasant earnest, moreover,
that Tom's attention wandered from his writing every moment.  First,
she tripped downstairs into the kitchen for the flour, then for the
pie-board, then for the eggs, then for the butter, then for a jug of
water, then for the rolling-pin, then for a pudding-basin, then for
the pepper, then for the salt; making a separate journey for
everything, and laughing every time she started off afresh.  When
all the materials were collected she was horrified to find she had
no apron on, and so ran UPstairs by way of variety, to fetch it.
She didn't put it on upstairs, but came dancing down with it in her
hand; and being one of those little women to whom an apron is a most
becoming little vanity, it took an immense time to arrange; having
to be carefully smoothed down beneath--Oh, heaven, what a wicked
little stomacher!--and to be gathered up into little plaits by the
strings before it could be tied, and to be tapped, rebuked, and
wheedled, at the pockets, before it would set right, which at last
it did, and when it did--but never mind; this is a sober chronicle.
And then, there were her cuffs to be tucked up, for fear of flour;
and she had a little ring to pull off her finger, which wouldn't
come off (foolish little ring!); and during the whole of these
preparations she looked demurely every now and then at Tom, from
under her dark eyelashes, as if they were all a part of the pudding,
and indispensable to its composition.

For the life and soul of him, Tom could get no further in his writing
than, 'A respectable young man, aged thirty-five,' and this,
notwithstanding the show she made of being supernaturally quiet, and
going about on tiptoe, lest she should disturb him; which only
served as an additional means of distracting his attention, and
keeping it upon her.

'Tom,' she said at last, in high glee.  'Tom!'

'What now?' said Tom, repeating to himself, 'aged thirty-five!'

'Will you look here a moment, please?'

As if he hadn't been looking all the time!

'I am going to begin, Tom.  Don't you wonder why I butter the inside
of the basin?' said his busy little sister.

'Not more than you do, I dare say,' replied Tom, laughing.  'For I
believe you don't know anything about it.'

'What an infidel you are, Tom!  How else do you think it would turn
out easily when it was done!  For a civil-engineer and land-surveyor
not to know that!  My goodness, Tom!'

It was wholly out of the question to try to write.  Tom lined out
'respectable young man, aged thirty-five;' and sat looking on, pen
in hand, with one of the most loving smiles imaginable.

Such a busy little woman as she was!  So full of self-importance and
trying so hard not to smile, or seem uncertain about anything!  It
was a perfect treat to Tom to see her with her brows knit, and her
rosy lips pursed up, kneading away at the crust, rolling it out,
cutting it up into strips, lining the basin with it, shaving it off
fine round the rim, chopping up the steak into small pieces, raining
down pepper and salt upon them, packing them into the basin, pouring
in cold water for gravy, and never venturing to steal a look in his
direction, lest her gravity should be disturbed; until, at last, the
basin being quite full and only wanting the top crust, she clapped
her hands all covered with paste and flour, at Tom, and burst out
heartily into such a charming little laugh of triumph, that the
pudding need have had no other seasoning to commend it to the taste
of any reasonable man on earth.

'Where's the pudding?' said Tom.  For he was cutting his jokes, Tom
was.

'Where!' she answered, holding it up with both hands.  'Look at it!'

'THAT a pudding!' said Tom.

'It WILL be, you stupid fellow, when it's covered in,' returned his
sister.  Tom still pretending to look incredulous, she gave him a
tap on the head with the rolling-pin, and still laughing merrily,
had returned to the composition of the top crust, when she started
and turned very red.  Tom started, too, for following her eyes, he
saw John Westlock in the room.

'Why, my goodness, John!  How did YOU come in?'

'I beg pardon,' said John--' your sister's pardon especially--but I
met an old lady at the street door, who requested me to enter here;
and as you didn't hear me knock, and the door was open, I made bold
to do so.  I hardly know,' said John, with a smile, 'why any of us
should be disconcerted at my having accidentally intruded upon such
an agreeable domestic occupation, so very agreeably and skillfully
pursued; but I must confess that I am.  Tom, will you kindly come to
my relief?'

'Mr John Westlock,' said Tom.  'My sister.'

'I hope that, as the sister of so old a friend,' said John, laughing
'you will have the goodness to detach your first impressions of me
from my unfortunate entrance.'

'My sister is not indisposed perhaps to say the same to you on her
own behalf,' retorted Tom.

John said, of course, that this was quite unnecessary, for he had
been transfixed in silent admiration; and he held out his hand to
Miss Pinch; who couldn't take it, however, by reason of the flour
and paste upon her own.  This, which might seem calculated to
increase the general confusion and render matters worse, had in
reality the best effect in the world, for neither of them could help
laughing; and so they both found themselves on easy terms
immediately.

'I am delighted to see you,' said Tom.  'Sit down.'

'I can only think of sitting down on one condition,' returned his
friend; 'and that is, that your sister goes on with the pudding, as
if you were still alone.'

'That I am sure she will,' said Tom.  'On one other condition, and
that is, that you stay and help us to eat it.'

Poor little Ruth was seized with a palpitation of the heart when Tom
committed this appalling indiscretion, for she felt that if the dish
turned out a failure, she never would be able to hold up her head
before John Westlock again.  Quite unconscious of her state of mind,
John accepted the invitation with all imaginable heartiness; and
after a little more pleasantry concerning this same pudding, and the
tremendous expectations he made believe to entertain of it, she
blushingly resumed her occupation, and he took a chair.

'I am here much earlier than I intended, Tom; but I will tell you,
what brings me, and I think I can answer for your being glad to hear
it.  Is that anything you wish to show me?'

'Oh dear no!' cried Tom, who had forgotten the blotted scrap of
paper in his hand, until this inquiry brought it to his
recollection.  '"A respectable young man, aged thirty-five"--The
beginning of a description of myself.  That's all.'

'I don't think you will have occasion to finish it, Tom.  But how is
it you never told me you had friends in London?'

Tom looked at his sister with all his might; and certainly his
sister looked with all her might at him.

'Friends in London!' echoed Tom.

'Ah!' said Westlock, 'to be sure.'

'Have YOU any friends in London, Ruth, my dear!' asked Tom.

'No, Tom.'

'I am very happy to hear that I have,' said Tom, 'but it's news to
me.  I never knew it.  They must be capital people to keep a secret,
John.'

'You shall judge for yourself,' returned the other.  'Seriously,
Tom, here is the plain state of the case.  As I was sitting at
breakfast this morning, there comes a knock at my door.'

'On which you cried out, very loud, "Come in!"' suggested Tom.

'So I did.  And the person who knocked, not being a respectable
young man, aged thirty-five, from the country, came in when he was
invited, instead of standing gaping and staring about him on the
landing.  Well!  When he came in, I found he was a stranger; a grave,
business-like, sedate-looking, stranger.  "Mr Westlock?" said he.
"That is my name," said I.  "The favour of a few words with you?"
said he.  "Pray be seated, sir," said I.'

Here John stopped for an instant, to glance towards the table, where
Tom's sister, listening attentively, was still busy with the basin,
which by this time made a noble appearance.  Then he resumed:

'The pudding having taken a chair, Tom--'

'What!' cried Tom.

'Having taken a chair.'

'You said a pudding.'

'No, no,' replied John, colouring rather; 'a chair.  The idea of a
stranger coming into my rooms at half-past eight o'clock in the
morning, and taking a pudding!  Having taken a chair, Tom, a chair--
amazed me by opening the conversation thus: "I believe you are
acquainted, sir, with Mr Thomas Pinch?"

'No!' cried Tom.

'His very words, I assure you.  I told him I was.  Did I know where
you were at present residing?  Yes.  In London?  Yes.  He had
casually heard, in a roundabout way, that you had left your
situation with Mr Pecksniff.  Was that the fact?  Yes, it was.  Did
you want another?  Yes, you did.'

'Certainly,' said Tom, nodding his head.

'Just what I impressed upon him.  You may rest assured that I set
that point beyond the possibility of any mistake, and gave him
distinctly to understand that he might make up his mind about it.
Very well.'

"Then," said he, "I think I can accommodate him."'

Tom's sister stopped short.

'Lord bless me!' cried Tom.  'Ruth, my dear, "think I can
accommodate him."'

'Of course I begged him,' pursued John Westlock, glancing at Tom's
sister, who was not less eager in her interest than Tom himself, 'to
proceed, and said that I would undertake to see you immediately.  He
replied that he had very little to say, being a man of few words,
but such as it was, it was to the purpose--and so, indeed, it turned
out--for he immediately went on to tell me that a friend of his was
in want of a kind of secretary and librarian; and that although the
salary was small, being only a hundred pounds a year, with neither
board nor lodging, still the duties were not heavy, and there the
post was.  Vacant, and ready for your acceptance.'

'Good gracious me!' cried Tom; 'a hundred pounds a year!  My dear
John!  Ruth, my love!  A hundred pounds a year!'

'But the strangest part of the story,' resumed John Westlock, laying
his hand on Tom's wrist, to bespeak his attention, and repress his
ecstasies for the moment; 'the strangest part of the story, Miss
Pinch, is this.  I don't know this man from Adam; neither does this
man know Tom.'

'He can't,' said Tom, in great perplexity, 'if he's a Londoner.  I
don't know any one in London.'

'And on my observing,' John resumed, still keeping his hand upon
Tom's wrist, 'that I had no doubt he would excuse the freedom I took
in inquiring who directed him to me; how he came to know of the
change which had taken place in my friend's position; and how he
came to be acquainted with my friend's peculiar fitness for such an
office as he had described; he drily said that he was not at liberty
to enter into any explanations.'

'Not at liberty to enter into any explanations!' repeated Tom,
drawing a long breath.

'"I must be perfectly aware," he said,' John added, '"that to any
person who had ever been in Mr Pecksniff's neighbourhood, Mr Thomas
Pinch and his acquirements were as well known as the Church steeple,
or the Blue Dragon."'

'The Blue Dragon!' repeated Tom, staring alternately at his friend
and his sister.

'Aye, think of that!  He spoke as familiarly of the Blue Dragon, I
give you my word, as if he had been Mark Tapley.  I opened my eyes,
I can tell you, when he did so; but I could not fancy I had ever
seen the man before, although he said with a smile, "You know the
Blue Dragon, Mr Westlock; you kept it up there, once or twice,
yourself."  Kept it up there!  So I did.  You remember, Tom?'

Tom nodded with great significance, and, falling into a state of
deeper perplexity than before, observed that this was the most
unaccountable and extraordinary circumstance he had ever heard of
in his life.

'Unaccountable?' his friend repeated.  'I became afraid of the man.
Though it was broad day, and bright sunshine, I was positively
afraid of him.  I declare I half suspected him to be a supernatural
visitor, and not a mortal, until he took out a common-place
description of pocket-book, and handed me this card.'

'Mr Fips,' said Tom, reading it aloud.  'Austin Friars.  Austin
Friars sounds ghostly, John.'

'Fips don't, I think,' was John's reply.  'But there he lives, Tom,
and there he expects us to call this morning.  And now you know as
much of this strange incident as I do, upon my honour.'

Tom's face, between his exultation in the hundred pounds a year, and
his wonder at this narration, was only to be equalled by the face of
his sister, on which there sat the very best expression of blooming
surprise that any painter could have wished to see.  What the beef-
steak pudding would have come to, if it had not been by this time
finished, astrology itself could hardly determine.

'Tom,' said Ruth, after a little hesitation, 'perhaps Mr Westlock,
in his friendship for you, knows more of this than he chooses to
tell.'

'No, indeed!' cried John, eagerly.  'It is not so, I assure you.  I
wish it were.  I cannot take credit to myself, Miss Pinch, for any
such thing.  All that I know, or, so far as I can judge, am likely
to know, I have told you.'

'Couldn't you know more, if you thought proper?' said Ruth, scraping
the pie-board industriously.

'No,' retorted John.  'Indeed, no.  It is very ungenerous in you to
be so suspicious of me when I repose implicit faith in you.  I have
unbounded confidence in the pudding, Miss Pinch.'

She laughed at this, but they soon got back into a serious vein, and
discussed the subject with profound gravity.  Whatever else was
obscure in the business, it appeared to be quite plain that Tom was
offered a salary of one hundred pounds a year; and this being the
main point, the surrounding obscurity rather set it off than
otherwise.

Tom, being in a great flutter, wished to start for Austin Friars
instantly, but they waited nearly an hour, by John's advice, before
they departed.  Tom made himself as spruce as he could before
leaving home, and when John Westlock, through the half-opened
parlour door, had glimpses of that brave little sister brushing the
collar of his coat in the passage, taking up loose stitches in his
gloves and hovering lightly about and about him, touching him up
here and there in the height of her quaint, little, old-fashioned
tidiness, he called to mind the fancy-portraits of her on the wall
of the Pecksniffian workroom, and decided with uncommon indignation
that they were gross libels, and not half pretty enough; though, as
hath been mentioned in its place, the artists always made those
sketches beautiful, and he had drawn at least a score of them with
his own hands.

'Tom,' he said, as they were walking along, 'I begin to think you
must be somebody's son.'

'I suppose I am,' Tom answered in his quiet way.

'But I mean somebody's of consequence.'

'Bless your heart,' replied Tom, 'my poor father was of no
consequence, nor my mother either.'

'You remember them perfectly, then?'

'Remember them? oh dear yes.  My poor mother was the last.  She
died when Ruth was a mere baby, and then we both became a charge
upon the savings of that good old grandmother I used to tell you of.
You remember!  Oh!  There's nothing romantic in our history, John.'

'Very well,' said John in quiet despair.  'Then there is no way of
accounting for my visitor of this morning.  So we'll not try, Tom.'

They did try, notwithstanding, and never left off trying until they
got to Austin Friars, where, in a very dark passage on the first
floor, oddly situated at the back of a house, across some leads,
they found a little blear-eyed glass door up in one corner, with MR.
FIPS painted on it in characters which were meant to be transparent.
There was also a wicked old sideboard hiding in the gloom hard by,
meditating designs upon the ribs of visitors; and an old mat, worn
into lattice work, which, being useless as a mat (even if anybody
could have seen it, which was impossible), had for many years
directed its industry into another channel, and regularly tripped up
every one of Mr Fips's clients.

Mr Fips, hearing a violent concussion between a human hat and his
office door, was apprised, by the usual means of communication, that
somebody had come to call upon him, and giving that somebody
admission, observed that it was 'rather dark.'

'Dark indeed,' John whispered in Tom Pinch's ear.  'Not a bad place
to dispose of a countryman in, I should think, Tom.'

Tom had been already turning over in his mind the possibility of
their having been tempted into that region to furnish forth a pie;
but the sight of Mr Fips, who was small and spare, and looked
peaceable, and wore black shorts and powder, dispelled his doubts.

'Walk in,' said Mr Fips.

They walked in.  And a mighty yellow-jaundiced little office Mr Fips
had of it; with a great, black, sprawling splash upon the floor in
one corner, as if some old clerk had cut his throat there, years
ago, and had let out ink instead of blood.

'I have brought my friend Mr Pinch, sir,' said John Westlock.

'Be pleased to sit,' said Mr Fips.

They occupied the two chairs, and Mr Fips took the office stool from
the stuffing whereof he drew forth a piece of horse-hair of immense
length, which he put into his mouth with a great appearance of
appetite.

He looked at Tom Pinch curiously, but with an entire freedom from
any such expression as could be reasonably construed into an unusual
display of interest.  After a short silence, during which Mr Fips
was so perfectly unembarrassed as to render it manifest that he
could have broken it sooner without hesitation, if he had felt
inclined to do so, he asked if Mr Westlock had made his offer fully
known to Mr Pinch.

John answered in the affirmative.

'And you think it worth your while, sir, do you?' Mr Fips inquired
of Tom.

'I think it a piece of great good fortune, sir,' said Tom.  'I am
exceedingly obliged to you for the offer.'

'Not to me,' said Mr Fips.  'I act upon instructions.'

'To your friend, sir, then,' said Tom.  'To the gentleman with whom
I am to engage, and whose confidence I shall endeavour to deserve.
When he knows me better, sir, I hope he will not lose his good
opinion of me.  He will find me punctual and vigilant, and anxious
to do what is right.  That I think I can answer for, and so,'
looking towards him, 'can Mr Westlock.'

'Most assuredly,' said John.

Mr Fips appeared to have some little difficulty in resuming the
conversation.  To relieve himself, he took up the wafer-stamp, and
began stamping capital F's all over his legs.

'The fact is,' said Mr Fips, 'that my friend is not, at this present
moment, in town.'

Tom's countenance fell; for he thought this equivalent to telling
him that his appearance did not answer; and that Fips must look out
for somebody else.

'When do you think he will be in town, sir?' he asked.

'I can't say; it's impossible to tell.  I really have no idea.
But,' said Fips, taking off a very deep impression of the wafer-
stamp upon the calf of his left leg, and looking steadily at Tom, 'I
don't know that it's a matter of much consequence.'

Poor Tom inclined his head deferentially, but appeared to doubt
that.

'I say,' repeated Mr Fips, 'that I don't know it's a matter of much
consequence.  The business lies entirely between yourself and me, Mr
Pinch.  With reference to your duties, I can set you going; and with
reference to your salary, I can pay it.  Weekly,' said Mr Fips,
putting down the wafer-stamp, and looking at John Westlock and Tom
Pinch by turns, 'weekly; in this office; at any time between the
hours of four and five o'clock in the afternoon.'  As Mr Fips said
this, he made up his face as if he were going to whistle.  But he
didn't.

'You are very good,' said Tom, whose countenance was now suffused
with pleasure; 'and nothing can be more satisfactory or
straightforward.  My attendance will be required--'

'From half-past nine to four o'clock or so, I should say,'
interrupted Mr Fips.  'About that.'

'I did not mean the hours of attendance,' retorted Tom, 'which are
light and easy, I am sure; but the place.'

'Oh, the place!  The place is in the Temple.'

Tom was delighted.

'Perhaps,' said Mr Fips, 'you would like to see the place?'

'Oh, dear!' cried Tom.  'I shall only be too glad to consider myself
engaged, if you will allow me; without any further reference to the
place.'

'You may consider yourself engaged, by all means,' said Mr Fips;
'you couldn't meet me at the Temple Gate in Fleet Street, in an hour
from this time, I suppose, could you?'

Certainly Tom could.

'Good,' said Mr Fips, rising.  'Then I will show you the place; and
you can begin your attendance to-morrow morning.  In an hour,
therefore, I shall see you.  You too, Mr Westlock?  Very good.  Take
care how you go.  It's rather dark.'

With this remark, which seemed superfluous, he shut them out upon
the staircase, and they groped their way into the street again.
The interview had done so little to remove the mystery in which
Tom's new engagement was involved, and had done so much to thicken
it, that neither could help smiling at the puzzled looks of the
other.  They agreed, however, that the introduction of Tom to his
new office and office companions could hardly fail to throw a light
upon the subject; and therefore postponed its further consideration
until after the fulfillment of the appointment they had made with Mr
Fips.

After looking at John Westlock's chambers, and devoting a few spare
minutes to the Boar's Head, they issued forth again to the place of
meeting.  The time agreed upon had not quite come; but Mr Fips was
already at the Temple Gate, and expressed his satisfaction at their
punctuality.

He led the way through sundry lanes and courts, into one more quiet
and more gloomy than the rest, and, singling out a certain house,
ascended a common staircase; taking from his pocket, as he went, a
bunch of rusty keys.  Stopping before a door upon an upper story,
which had nothing but a yellow smear of paint where custom would
have placed the tenant's name, he began to beat the dust out of one
of these keys, very deliberately, upon the great broad handrail of
the balustrade.

'You had better have a little plug made,' he said, looking round at
Tom, after blowing a shrill whistle into the barrel of the key.
'It's the only way of preventing them from getting stopped up.
You'll find the lock go the better, too, I dare say, for a little
oil.'

Tom thanked him; but was too much occupied with his own
speculations, and John Westlock's looks, to be very talkative.  In
the meantime Mr Fips opened the door, which yielded to his hand very
unwillingly, and with a horribly discordant sound.  He took the key
out, when he had done so, and gave it to Tom.

'Aye, aye!' said Mr Fips.  'The dust lies rather thick here.'

Truly, it did.  Mr Fips might have gone so far as to say, very
thick.  It had accumulated everywhere; lay deep on everything, and
in one part, where a ray of sun shone through a crevice in the
shutter and struck upon the opposite wall, it went twirling round
and round, like a gigantic squirrel-cage.

Dust was the only thing in the place that had any motion about it.
When their conductor admitted the light freely, and lifting up the
heavy window-sash, let in the summer air, he showed the mouldering
furniture, discoloured wainscoting and ceiling, rusty stove, and
ashy hearth, in all their inert neglect.  Close to the door there
stood a candlestick, with an extinguisher upon it; as if the last
man who had been there had paused, after securing a retreat, to take
a parting look at the dreariness he left behind, and then had shut
out light and life together, and closed the place up like a tomb.

There were two rooms on that floor; and in the first or outer one a
narrow staircase, leading to two more above.  These last were fitted
up as bed-chambers.  Neither in them, nor in the rooms below, was
any scarcity of convenient furniture observable, although the
fittings were of a bygone fashion; but solitude and want of use
seemed to have rendered it unfit for any purposes of comfort, and to
have given it a grisly, haunted air.

Movables of every kind lay strewn about, without the least attempt
at order, and were intermixed with boxes, hampers, and all sorts of
lumber.  On all the floors were piles of books, to the amount,
perhaps, of some thousands of volumes: these, still in bales; those,
wrapped in paper, as they had been purchased; others scattered
singly or in heaps; not one upon the shelves which lined the walls.
To these Mr Fips called Tom's attention.

'Before anything else can be done, we must have them put in order,
catalogued, and ranged upon the book-shelves, Mr Pinch.  That will
do to begin with, I think, sir.'

Tom rubbed his hands in the pleasant anticipation of a task so
congenial to his taste, and said:

'An occupation full of interest for me, I assure you.  It will
occupy me, perhaps, until Mr.--'

'Until Mr.--' repeated Fips; as much as to ask Tom what he was
stopping for.

'I forgot that you had not mentioned the gentleman's name,' said
Tom.

'Oh!' cried Mr Fips, pulling on his glove, 'didn't I?  No, by-the-
bye, I don't think I did.  Ah!  I dare say he'll be here soon.  You
will get on very well together, I have no doubt.  I wish you success
I am sure.  You won't forget to shut the door?  It'll lock of itself
if you slam it.  Half-past nine, you know.  Let us say from half-
past nine to four, or half-past four, or thereabouts; one day,
perhaps, a little earlier, another day, perhaps, a little later,
according as you feel disposed, and as you arrange your work.  Mr
Fips, Austin Friars of course you'll remember?  And you won't forget
to slam the door, if you please!'

He said all this in such a comfortable, easy manner, that Tom could
only rub his hands, and nod his head, and smile in acquiescence
which he was still doing, when Mr Fips walked coolly out.

'Why, he's gone!' cried Tom.

'And what's more, Tom,' said John Westlock, seating himself upon a
pile of books, and looking up at his astonished friend, 'he is
evidently not coming back again; so here you are, installed.  Under
rather singular circumstances, Tom!'

It was such an odd affair throughout, and Tom standing there among
the books with his hat in one hand and the key in the other, looked
so prodigiously confounded, that his friend could not help laughing
heartily.  Tom himself was tickled; no less by the hilarity of his
friend than by the recollection of the sudden manner in which he had
been brought to a stop, in the very height of his urbane conference
with Mr Fips; so by degrees Tom burst out laughing too; and each
making the other laugh more, they fairly roared.

When they had had their laugh out, which did not happen very soon,
for give John an inch that way and he was sure to take several ells,
being a jovial, good-tempered fellow, they looked about them more
closely, groping among the lumber for any stray means of
enlightenment that might turn up.  But no scrap or shred of
information could they find.  The books were marked with a variety
of owner's names, having, no doubt, been bought at sales, and
collected here and there at different times; but whether any one of
these names belonged to Tom's employer, and, if so, which of them,
they had no means whatever of determining.  It occurred to John as a
very bright thought to make inquiry at the steward's office, to whom
the chambers belonged, or by whom they were held; but he came back
no wiser than he went, the answer being, 'Mr Fips, of Austin
Friars.'

'After all, Tom, I begin to think it lies no deeper than this.  Fips
is an eccentric man; has some knowledge of Pecksniff; despises him,
of course; has heard or seen enough of you to know that you are the
man he wants; and engages you in his own whimsical manner.'

'But why in his own whimsical manner?' asked Tom.

'Oh! why does any man entertain his own whimsical taste?  Why does
Mr Fips wear shorts and powder, and Mr Fips's next-door neighbour
boots and a wig?'

Tom, being in that state of mind in which any explanation is a great
relief, adopted this last one (which indeed was quite as feasible as
any other) readily, and said he had no doubt of it.  Nor was his
faith at all shaken by his having said exactly the same thing to
each suggestion of his friend's in turn, and being perfectly ready
to say it again if he had any new solution to propose.

As he had not, Tom drew down the window-sash, and folded the
shutter; and they left the rooms.  He closed the door heavily, as Mr
Fips had desired him; tried it, found it all safe, and put the key
in his pocket.

They made a pretty wide circuit in going back to Islington, as they
had time to spare, and Tom was never tired of looking about him.  It
was well he had John Westlock for his companion, for most people
would have been weary of his perpetual stoppages at shop-windows,
and his frequent dashes into the crowded carriage-way at the peril
of his life, to get the better view of church steeples, and other
public buildings.  But John was charmed to see him so much
interested, and every time Tom came back with a beaming face from
among the wheels of carts and hackney-coaches, wholly unconscious of
the personal congratulations addressed to him by the drivers, John
seemed to like him better than before.

There was no flour on Ruth's hands when she received them in the
triangular parlour, but there were pleasant smiles upon her face,
and a crowd of welcomes shining out of every smile, and gleaming in
her bright eyes.  By the bye, how bright they were!  Looking into
them for but a moment, when you took her hand, you saw, in each,
such a capital miniature of yourself, representing you as such a
restless, flashing, eager, brilliant little fellow--

Ah! if you could only have kept them for your own miniature!  But,
wicked, roving, restless, too impartial eyes, it was enough for any
one to stand before them, and, straightway, there he danced and
sparkled quite as merrily as you!

The table was already spread for dinner; and though it was spread
with nothing very choice in the way of glass or linen, and with
green-handled knives, and very mountebanks of two-pronged forks,
which seemed to be trying how far asunder they could possibly
stretch their legs without converting themselves into double the
number of iron toothpicks, it wanted neither damask, silver, gold,
nor china; no, nor any other garniture at all.  There it was; and,
being there, nothing else would have done as well.

The success of that initiative dish; that first experiment of hers
in cookery; was so entire, so unalloyed and perfect, that John
Westlock and Tom agreed she must have been studying the art in
secret for a long time past; and urged her to make a full confession
of the fact.  They were exceedingly merry over this jest, and many
smart things were said concerning it; but John was not as fair in
his behaviour as might have been expected, for, after luring Tom
Pinch on for a long time, he suddenly went over to the enemy, and
swore to everything his sister said.  However, as Tom observed the
same night before going to bed, it was only in joke, and John had
always been famous for being polite to ladies, even when he was
quite a boy.  Ruth said, 'Oh! indeed!'  She didn't say anything else.

It is astonishing how much three people may find to talk about.
They scarcely left off talking once.  And it was not all lively chat
which occupied them; for when Tom related how he had seen Mr
Pecksniff's daughters, and what a change had fallen on the younger,
they were very serious.

John Westlock became quite absorbed in her fortunes; asking many
questions of Tom Pinch about her marriage, inquiring whether her
husband was the gentleman whom Tom had brought to dine with him at
Salisbury; in what degree of relationship they stood towards each
other, being different persons; and taking, in short, the greatest
interest in the subject.  Tom then went into it, at full length; he
told how Martin had gone abroad, and had not been heard of for a
long time; how Dragon Mark had borne him company; how Mr Pecksniff
had got the poor old doting grandfather into his power; and how he
basely sought the hand of Mary Graham.  But not a word said Tom of
what lay hidden in his heart; his heart, so deep, and true, and full
of honour, and yet with so much room for every gentle and unselfish
thought; not a word.

Tom, Tom!  The man in all this world most confident in his sagacity
and shrewdness; the man in all this world most proud of his distrust
of other men, and having most to show in gold and silver as the
gains belonging to his creed; the meekest favourer of that wise
doctrine, Every man for himself, and God for us all (there being
high wisdom in the thought that the Eternal Majesty of Heaven ever
was, or can be, on the side of selfish lust and love!); shall never
find, oh, never find, be sure of that, the time come home to him,
when all his wisdom is an idiot's folly, weighed against a simple
heart!

Well, well, Tom, it was simple too, though simple in a different
way, to be so eager touching that same theatre, of which John said,
when tea was done, he had the absolute command, so far as taking
parties in without the payment of a sixpence was concerned; and
simpler yet, perhaps, never to suspect that when he went in first,
alone, he paid the money!  Simple in thee, dear Tom, to laugh and cry
so heartily at such a sorry show, so poorly shown; simple to be so
happy and loquacious trudging home with Ruth; simple to be so
surprised to find that merry present of a cookery-book awaiting her
in the parlour next morning, with the beef-steak-pudding-leaf turned
down and blotted out.  There!  Let the record stand!  Thy quality of
soul was simple, simple, quite contemptible, Tom Pinch!



CHAPTER FORTY

THE PINCHES MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, AND HAVE FRESH OCCASION FOR
SURPRISE AND WONDER


There was a ghostly air about these uninhabited chambers in the
Temple, and attending every circumstance of Tom's employment there,
which had a strange charm in it.  Every morning when he shut his
door at Islington, he turned his face towards an atmosphere of
unaccountable fascination, as surely as he turned it to the London
smoke; and from that moment it thickened round and round him all day
long, until the time arrived for going home again, and leaving it,
like a motionless cloud, behind.

It seemed to Tom, every morning, that he approached this ghostly
mist, and became enveloped in it, by the easiest succession of
degrees imaginable.  Passing from the roar and rattle of the streets
into the quiet court-yards of the Temple, was the first preparation.
Every echo of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old
walls and pavements, wanting language to relate the histories of the
dim, dismal rooms; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in
forgotten corners of the shut-up cellars, from whose lattices such
mouldy sighs came breathing forth as he went past; to whisper of
dark bins of rare old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old
foundations of the Halls; or mutter in a lower tone yet darker
legends of the cross-legged knights, whose marble effigies were in
the church.  With the first planting of his foot upon the staircase
of his dusty office, all these mysteries increased; until, ascending
step by step, as Tom ascended, they attained their full growth in
the solitary labours of the day.

Every day brought one recurring, never-failing source of
speculation.  This employer; would he come to-day, and what would he
be like?  For Tom could not stop short at Mr Fips; he quite believed
that Mr Fips had spoken truly, when he said he acted for another;
and what manner of man that other was, became a full-blown flower of
wonder in the garden of Tom's fancy, which never faded or got
trodden down.

At one time, he conceived that Mr Pecksniff, repenting of his
falsehood, might, by exertion of his influence with some third
person have devised these means of giving him employment.  He found
this idea so insupportable after what had taken place between that
good man and himself, that he confided it to John Westlock on the
very same day; informing John that he would rather ply for hire as a
porter, than fall so low in his own esteem as to accept the smallest
obligation from the hands of Mr Pecksniff.  But John assured him
that he (Tom Pinch) was far from doing justice to the character of
Mr Pecksniff yet, if he supposed that gentleman capable of
performing a generous action; and that he might make his mind quite
easy on that head until he saw the sun turn green and the moon
black, and at the same time distinctly perceived with the naked eye,
twelve first-rate comets careering round those planets.  In which
unusual state of things, he said (and not before), it might become
not absolutely lunatic to suspect Mr Pecksniff of anything so
monstrous.  In short he laughed the idea down completely; and Tom,
abandoning it, was thrown upon his beam-ends again, for some other
solution.

In the meantime Tom attended to his duties daily, and made
considerable progress with the books; which were already reduced to
some sort of order, and made a great appearance in his fairly-
written catalogue.  During his business hours, he indulged himself
occasionally with snatches of reading; which were often, indeed, a
necessary part of his pursuit; and as he usually made bold to carry
one of these goblin volumes home at night (always bringing it back
again next morning, in case his strange employer should appear and
ask what had become of it), he led a happy, quiet, studious kind of
life, after his own heart.

But though the books were never so interesting, and never so full of
novelty to Tom, they could not so enchain him, in those mysterious
chambers, as to render him unconscious, for a moment, of the
lightest sound.  Any footstep on the flags without set him listening
attentively and when it turned into that house, and came up, up, up
the stairs, he always thought with a beating heart, 'Now I am coming
face to face with him at last!'  But no footstep ever passed the
floor immediately below: except his own.

This mystery and loneliness engendered fancies in Tom's mind, the
folly of which his common sense could readily discover, but which
his common sense was quite unable to keep away, notwithstanding;
that quality being with most of us, in such a case, like the old
French Police--quick at detection, but very weak as a preventive
power.  Misgivings, undefined, absurd, inexplicable, that there was
some one hiding in the inner room--walking softly overhead, peeping
in through the door-chink, doing something stealthy, anywhere where
he was not--came over him a hundred times a day, making it pleasant
to throw up the sash, and hold communication even with the sparrows
who had built in the roof and water-spout, and were twittering about
the windows all day long.

He sat with the outer door wide open, at all times, that he might
hear the footsteps as they entered, and turned off into the chambers
on the lower floor.  He formed odd prepossessions too, regarding
strangers in the streets; and would say within himself of such or
such a man, who struck him as having anything uncommon in his dress
or aspect, 'I shouldn't wonder, now, if that were he!'  But it never
was.  And though he actually turned back and followed more than one
of these suspected individuals, in a singular belief that they were
going to the place he was then upon his way from, he never got any
other satisfaction by it, than the satisfaction of knowing it was
not the case.

Mr Fips, of Austin Friars, rather deepened than illumined the
obscurity of his position; for on the first occasion of Tom's
waiting on him to receive his weekly pay, he said:

'Oh! by the bye, Mr Pinch, you needn't mention it, if you please!'

Tom thought he was going to tell him a secret; so he said that he
wouldn't on any account, and that Mr Fips might entirely depend upon
him.  But as Mr Fips said 'Very good,' in reply, and nothing more,
Tom prompted him:

'Not on any account,' repeated Tom.

Mr Fips repeated: 'Very good.'

'You were going to say'--Tom hinted.

'Oh dear no!' cried Fips.  'Not at all.'  However, seeing Tom
confused, he added, 'I mean that you needn't mention any particulars
about your place of employment, to people generally.  You'll find it
better not.'

'I have not had the pleasure of seeing my employer yet, sir,'
observed Tom, putting his week's salary in his pocket.

'Haven't you?' said Fips.  'No, I don't suppose you have though.'

'I should like to thank him, and to know that what I have done so
far, is done to his satisfaction,' faltered Tom.

'Quite right,' said Mr Fips, with a yawn.  'Highly creditable.  Very
proper.'

Tom hastily resolved to try him on another tack.

'I shall soon have finished with the books,' he said.  'I hope that
will not terminate my engagement, sir, or render me useless?'

'Oh dear no!' retorted Fips.  'Plenty to do; plen-ty to do!  Be
careful how you go.  It's rather dark.'

This was the very utmost extent of information Tom could ever get
out of HIM.  So it was dark enough in all conscience; and if Mr Fips
expressed himself with a double meaning, he had good reason for
doing so.

But now a circumstance occurred, which helped to divert Tom's
thoughts from even this mystery, and to divide them between it and a
new channel, which was a very Nile in itself.

The way it came about was this.  Having always been an early riser
and having now no organ to engage him in sweet converse every
morning, it was his habit to take a long walk before going to the
Temple; and naturally inclining, as a stranger, towards those parts
of the town which were conspicuous for the life and animation
pervading them, he became a great frequenter of the market-places,
bridges, quays, and especially the steam-boat wharves; for it was
very lively and fresh to see the people hurrying away upon their
many schemes of business or pleasure, and it made Tom glad to think
that there was that much change and freedom in the monotonous
routine of city lives.

In most of these morning excursions Ruth accompanied him.  As their
landlord was always up and away at his business (whatever that might
be, no one seemed to know) at a very early hour, the habits of the
people of the house in which they lodged corresponded with their
own.  Thus they had often finished their breakfast, and were out in
the summer air, by seven o'clock.  After a two hours' stroll they
parted at some convenient point; Tom going to the Temple, and his
sister returning home, as methodically as you please.

Many and many a pleasant stroll they had in Covent Garden Market;
snuffing up the perfume of the fruits and flowers, wondering at the
magnificence of the pineapples and melons; catching glimpses down
side avenues, of rows and rows of old women, seated on inverted
baskets, shelling peas; looking unutterable things at the fat bundles
of asparagus with which the dainty shops were fortified as with a
breastwork; and, at the herbalist's doors, gratefully inhaling
scents as of veal-stuffing yet uncooked, dreamily mixed up with
capsicums, brown-paper, seeds, even with hints of lusty snails and
fine young curly leeches.  Many and many a pleasant stroll they had
among the poultry markets, where ducks and fowls, with necks
unnaturally long, lay stretched out in pairs, ready for cooking;
where there were speckled eggs in mossy baskets, white country
sausages beyond impeachment by surviving cat or dog, or horse or
donkey; new cheeses to any wild extent, live birds in coops and
cages, looking much too big to be natural, in consequence of those
receptacles being much too little; rabbits, alive and dead,
innumerable.  Many a pleasant stroll they had among the cool,
refreshing, silvery fish-stalls, with a kind of moonlight effect
about their stock-in-trade, excepting always for the ruddy lobsters.
Many a pleasant stroll among the waggon-loads of fragrant hay,
beneath which dogs and tired waggoners lay fast asleep, oblivious of
the pieman and the public-house.  But never half so good a stroll as
down among the steamboats on a bright morning.

There they lay, alongside of each other; hard and fast for ever, to
all appearance, but designing to get out somehow, and quite
confident of doing it; and in that faith shoals of passengers, and
heaps of luggage, were proceeding hurriedly on board.  Little steam-
boats dashed up and down the stream incessantly.  Tiers upon tiers
of vessels, scores of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails,
splashing oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken piles,
with ugly lodgings for the water-rat within their mud-discoloured
nooks; church steeples, warehouses, house-roofs, arches, bridges,
men and women, children, casks, cranes, boxes horses, coaches,
idlers, and hard-labourers; there they were, all jumbled up
together, any summer morning, far beyond Tom's power of separation.

In the midst of all this turmoil there was an incessant roar from
every packet's funnel, which quite expressed and carried out the
uppermost emotion of the scene.  They all appeared to be perspiring
and bothering themselves, exactly as their passengers did; they
never left off fretting and chafing, in their own hoarse manner,
once; but were always panting out, without any stops, 'Come along do
make haste I'm very nervous come along oh good gracious we shall
never get there how late you are do make haste I'm off directly come
along!'

Even when they had left off, and had got safely out into the
current, on the smallest provocation they began again; for the
bravest packet of them all, being stopped by some entanglement in
the river, would immediately begin to fume and pant afresh, 'oh
here's a stoppage what's the matter do go on there I'm in a hurry
it's done on purpose did you ever oh my goodness DO go on here!' and
so, in a state of mind bordering on distraction, would be last seen
drifting slowly through the mist into the summer light beyond, that
made it red.

Tom's ship, however; or, at least, the packet-boat in which Tom and
his sister took the greatest interest on one particular occasion;
was not off yet, by any means; but was at the height of its
disorder.  The press of passengers was very great; another steam-
boat lay on each side of her; the gangways were choked up;
distracted women, obviously bound for Gravesend, but turning a deaf
ear to all representations that this particular vessel was about to
sail for Antwerp, persisted in secreting baskets of refreshments
behind bulk-heads, and water-casks, and under seats; and very great
confusion prevailed.

It was so amusing, that Tom, with Ruth upon his arm, stood looking
down from the wharf, as nearly regardless as it was in the nature of
flesh and blood to be, of an elderly lady behind him, who had
brought a large umbrella with her, and didn't know what to do with
it.  This tremendous instrument had a hooked handle; and its
vicinity was first made known to him by a painful pressure on the
windpipe, consequent upon its having caught him round the throat.
Soon after disengaging himself with perfect good humour, he had a
sensation of the ferule in his back; immediately afterwards, of the
hook entangling his ankles; then of the umbrella generally,
wandering about his hat, and flapping at it like a great bird; and,
lastly, of a poke or thrust below the ribs, which give him such
exceeding anguish, that he could not refrain from turning round to
offer a mild remonstrance.

Upon his turning round, he found the owner of the umbrella
struggling on tip-toe, with a countenance expressive of violent
animosity, to look down upon the steam-boats; from which he inferred
that she had attacked him, standing in the front row, by design, and
as her natural enemy.

'What a very ill-natured person you must be!' said Tom.

The lady cried out fiercely, 'Where's the pelisse!'--meaning the
constabulary--and went on to say, shaking the handle of the umbrella
at Tom, that but for them fellers never being in the way when they
was wanted, she'd have given him in charge, she would.

'If they greased their whiskers less, and minded the duties which
they're paid so heavy for, a little more,' she observed, 'no one
needn't be drove mad by scrouding so!'

She had been grievously knocked about, no doubt, for her bonnet was
bent into the shape of a cocked hat.  Being a fat little woman, too,
she was in a state of great exhaustion and intense heat.  Instead of
pursuing the altercation, therefore, Tom civilly inquired what boat
she wanted to go on board of?

'I suppose,' returned the lady, 'as nobody but yourself can want to
look at a steam package, without wanting to go a-boarding of it, can
they!  Booby!'

'Which one do you want to look at then?' said Tom.  'We'll make room
for you if we can.  Don't be so ill-tempered.'

'No blessed creetur as ever I was with in trying times,' returned
the lady, somewhat softened, 'and they're a many in their numbers,
ever brought it as a charge again myself that I was anythin' but
mild and equal in my spirits.  Never mind a contradicting of me, if
you seem to feel it does you good, ma'am, I often says, for well you
know that Sairey may be trusted not to give it back again.  But I
will not denige that I am worrited and wexed this day, and with good
reagion, Lord forbid!'

By this time, Mrs Gamp (for it was no other than that experienced
practitioner) had, with Tom's assistance, squeezed and worked
herself into a small corner between Ruth and the rail; where, after
breathing very hard for some little time, and performing a short
series of dangerous evolutions with her umbrella, she managed to
establish herself pretty comfortably.

'And which of all them smoking monsters is the Ankworks boat, I
wonder.  Goodness me!' cried Mrs Gamp.

'What boat did you want?' asked Ruth.

'The Ankworks package,' Mrs Gamp replied.  'I will not deceive you,
my sweet.  Why should I?'

'That is the Antwerp packet in the middle,' said Ruth.

'And I wish it was in Jonadge's belly, I do,' cried Mrs Gamp;
appearing to confound the prophet with the whale in this miraculous
aspiration.

Ruth said nothing in reply; but, as Mrs Gamp, laying her chin
against the cool iron of the rail, continued to look intently at the
Antwerp boat, and every now and then to give a little groan, she
inquired whether any child of hers was going aboard that morning?
Or perhaps her husband, she said kindly.

'Which shows,' said Mrs Gamp, casting up her eyes, 'what a little
way you've travelled into this wale of life, my dear young creetur!
As a good friend of mine has frequent made remark to me, which her
name, my love, is Harris, Mrs Harris through the square and up the
steps a-turnin' round by the tobacker shop, "Oh Sairey, Sairey,
little do we know wot lays afore us!"  "Mrs Harris, ma'am," I says,
"not much, it's true, but more than you suppoge.  Our calcilations,
ma'am," I says, "respectin' wot the number of a family will be,
comes most times within one, and oftener than you would suppoge,
exact."  "Sairey," says Mrs Harris, in a awful way, "Tell me wot is
my indiwidgle number."  "No, Mrs Harris," I says to her, "ex-cuge me,
if you please.  My own," I says, "has fallen out of three-pair
backs, and had damp doorsteps settled on their lungs, and one was
turned up smilin' in a bedstead unbeknown.  Therefore, ma'am," I
says, "seek not to proticipate, but take 'em as they come and as
they go."  Mine,' says Mrs Gamp, 'mine is all gone, my dear young
chick.  And as to husbands, there's a wooden leg gone likeways home
to its account, which in its constancy of walkin' into wine vaults,
and never comin' out again 'till fetched by force, was quite as weak
as flesh, if not weaker.'

When she had delivered this oration, Mrs Gamp leaned her chin upon
the cool iron again; and looking intently at the Antwerp packet,
shook her head and groaned.

'I wouldn't,' said Mrs Gamp, 'I wouldn't be a man and have such a
think upon my mind!--but nobody as owned the name of man, could do
it!'

Tom and his sister glanced at each other; and Ruth, after a moment's
hesitation, asked Mrs Gamp what troubled her so much.

'My dear,' returned that lady, dropping her voice, 'you are single,
ain't you?'

Ruth laughed blushed, and said 'Yes.'

'Worse luck,' proceeded Mrs Gamp, 'for all parties!  But others is
married, and in the marriage state; and there is a dear young
creetur a-comin' down this mornin' to that very package, which is no
more fit to trust herself to sea, than nothin' is!'

She paused here to look over the deck of the packet in question, and
on the steps leading down to it, and on the gangways.  Seeming to
have thus assured herself that the object of her commiseration had
not yet arrived, she raised her eyes gradually up to the top of the
escape-pipe, and indignantly apostrophised the vessel:

'Oh, drat you!' said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella at it, 'you're a
nice spluttering nisy monster for a delicate young creetur to go and
be a passinger by; ain't you!  YOU never do no harm in that way, do
you?  With your hammering, and roaring, and hissing, and lamp-iling,
you brute!  Them Confugion steamers,' said Mrs Gamp, shaking her
umbrella again, 'has done more to throw us out of our reg'lar work
and bring ewents on at times when nobody counted on 'em (especially
them screeching railroad ones), than all the other frights that ever
was took.  I have heerd of one young man, a guard upon a railway,
only three years opened--well does Mrs Harris know him, which indeed
he is her own relation by her sister's marriage with a master
sawyer--as is godfather at this present time to six-and-twenty
blessed little strangers, equally unexpected, and all on 'um named
after the Ingeines as was the cause.  Ugh!' said Mrs Gamp, resuming
her apostrophe, 'one might easy know you was a man's inwention,
from your disregardlessness of the weakness of our naturs, so
one might, you brute!'

It would not have been unnatural to suppose, from the first part of
Mrs Gamp's lamentations, that she was connected with the
stage-coaching or post-horsing trade.  She had no means of judging of
the effect of her concluding remarks upon her young companion; for
she interrupted herself at this point, and exclaimed:

'There she identically goes!  Poor sweet young creetur, there she
goes, like a lamb to the sacrifige!  If there's any illness when that
wessel gets to sea,' said Mrs Gamp, prophetically, 'it's murder, and
I'm the witness for the persecution.'

She was so very earnest on the subject, that Tom's sister (being as
kind as Tom himself) could not help saying something to her in
reply.

'Pray, which is the lady,' she inquired, 'in whom you are so much
interested?'

'There!' groaned Mrs Gamp.  'There she goes!  A-crossin' the little
wooden bridge at this minute.  She's a-slippin' on a bit of
orangepeel!' tightly clutching her umbrella.  'What a turn it give
me.'

'Do you mean the lady who is with that man wrapped up from head to
foot in a large cloak, so that his face is almost hidden?'

'Well he may hide it!' Mrs Gamp replied.  'He's good call to be
ashamed of himself.  Did you see him a-jerking of her wrist, then?'

'He seems to be hasty with her, indeed.'

'Now he's a-taking of her down into the close cabin!' said Mrs Gamp,
impatiently.  'What's the man about!  The deuce is in him, I think.
Why can't he leave her in the open air?'

He did not, whatever his reason was, but led her quickly down and
disappeared himself, without loosening his cloak, or pausing on the
crowded deck one moment longer than was necessary to clear their way
to that part of the vessel.

Tom had not heard this little dialogue; for his attention had been
engaged in an unexpected manner.  A hand upon his sleeve had caused
him to look round, just when Mrs Gamp concluded her apostrophe to
the steam-engine; and on his right arm, Ruth being on his left, he
found their landlord, to his great surprise.

He was not so much surprised at the man's being there, as at his
having got close to him so quietly and swiftly; for another person
had been at his elbow one instant before; and he had not in the
meantime been conscious of any change or pressure in the knot of
people among whom he stood.  He and Ruth had frequently remarked how
noiselessly this landlord of theirs came into and went out of his
own house; but Tom was not the less amazed to see him at his elbow
now.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Pinch,' he said in his ear.  'I am rather
infirm, and out of breath, and my eyes are not very good.  I am not
as young as I was, sir.  You don't see a gentleman in a large cloak
down yonder, with a lady on his arm; a lady in a veil and a black
shawl; do you?'

If HE did not, it was curious that in speaking he should have
singled out from all the crowd the very people whom he described;
and should have glanced hastily from them to Tom, as if he were
burning to direct his wandering eyes.

'A gentleman in a large cloak!' said Tom, 'and a lady in a black
shawl!  Let me see!'

'Yes, yes!' replied the other, with keen impatience.  'A gentleman
muffled up from head to foot--strangely muffled up for such a
morning as this--like an invalid, with his hand to his face at this
minute, perhaps.  No, no, no! not there,' he added, following Tom's
gaze; 'the other way; in that direction; down yonder.'  Again he
indicated, but this time in his hurry, with his outstretched finger,
the very spot on which the progress of these persons was checked at
that moment.

'There are so many people, and so much motion, and so many objects,'
said Tom, 'that I find it difficult to--no, I really don't see
a gentleman in a large cloak, and a lady in a black shawl.
There's a lady in a red shawl over there!'

'No, no, no!' cried his landlord, pointing eagerly again, 'not
there.  The other way; the other way.  Look at the cabin steps.  To
the left.  They must be near the cabin steps.  Do you see the cabin
steps?  There's the bell ringing already!  DO you see the steps?'

'Stay!' said Tom, 'you're right.  Look! there they go now.  Is that
the gentleman you mean?  Descending at this minute, with the folds
of a great cloak trailing down after him?'

'The very man!' returned the other, not looking at what Tom pointed
out, however, but at Tom's own face.  'Will you do me a kindness,
sir, a great kindness?  Will you put that letter in his hand?  Only
give him that!  He expects it.  I am charged to do it by my
employers, but I am late in finding him, and, not being as young as
I have been, should never be able to make my way on board and off
the deck again in time.  Will you pardon my boldness, and do me that
great kindness?'

His hands shook, and his face bespoke the utmost interest and
agitation, as he pressed the letter upon Tom, and pointed to its
destination, like the Tempter in some grim old carving.

To hesitate in the performance of a good-natured or compassionate
office was not in Tom's way.  He took the letter; whispered Ruth to
wait till he returned, which would be immediately; and ran down the
steps with all the expedition he could make.  There were so many
people going down, so many others coming up, such heavy goods in
course of transit to and fro, such a ringing of bell, blowing-off of
steam, and shouting of men's voices, that he had much ado to force
his way, or keep in mind to which boat he was going.  But he reached
the right one with good speed, and going down the cabin-stairs
immediately, described the object of his search standing at the
upper end of the saloon, with his back towards him, reading some
notice which was hung against the wall.  As Tom advanced to give him
the letter, he started, hearing footsteps, and turned round.

What was Tom's astonishment to find in him the man with whom he had
had the conflict in the field--poor Mercy's husband.  Jonas!

Tom understood him to say, what the devil did he want; but it was
not easy to make out what he said; he spoke so indistinctly.

'I want nothing with you for myself,' said Tom; 'I was asked, a
moment since, to give you this letter.  You were pointed out to me,
but I didn't know you in your strange dress.  Take it!'

He did so, opened it, and read the writing on the inside.  The
contents were evidently very brief; not more perhaps than one line;
but they struck upon him like a stone from a sling.  He reeled back
as he read.

His emotion was so different from any Tom had ever seen before that
he stopped involuntarily.  Momentary as his state of indecision was,
the bell ceased while he stood there, and a hoarse voice calling
down the steps, inquired if there was any to go ashore?

'Yes,' cried Jonas, 'I--I am coming.  Give me time.  Where's that
woman!  Come back; come back here.'

He threw open another door as he spoke, and dragged, rather than
led, her forth.  She was pale and frightened, and amazed to see her
old acquaintance; but had no time to speak, for they were making a
great stir above; and Jonas drew her rapidly towards the deck.

'Where are we going?  What is the matter?'

'We are going back,' said Jonas.  'I have changed my mind.  I can't
go.  Don't question me, or I shall be the death of you, or some one
else.  Stop there!  Stop!  We're for the shore.  Do you hear?  We're
for the shore!'

He turned, even in the madness of his hurry, and scowling darkly
back at Tom, shook his clenched hand at him.  There are not many
human faces capable of the expression with which he accompanied that
gesture.

He dragged her up, and Tom followed them.  Across the deck, over the
side, along the crazy plank, and up the steps, he dragged her
fiercely; not bestowing any look on her, but gazing upwards all the
while among the faces on the wharf.  Suddenly he turned again, and
said to Tom with a tremendous oath:

'Where is he?'

Before Tom, in his indignation and amazement, could return an answer
to a question he so little understood, a gentleman approached Tom
behind, and saluted Jonas Chuzzlewit by name.  He has a gentleman of
foreign appearance, with a black moustache and whiskers; and
addressed him with a polite composure, strangely different from his
own distracted and desperate manner.

'Chuzzlewit, my good fellow!' said the gentleman, raising his hat in
compliment to Mrs Chuzzlewit, 'I ask your pardon twenty thousand
times.  I am most unwilling to interfere between you and a domestic
trip of this nature (always so very charming and refreshing, I know,
although I have not the happiness to be a domestic man myself, which
is the great infelicity of my existence); but the beehive, my dear
friend, the beehive--will you introduce me?'

'This is Mr Montague,' said Jonas, whom the words appeared to choke.

'The most unhappy and most penitent of men, Mrs Chuzzlewit,' pursued
that gentleman, 'for having been the means of spoiling this
excursion; but as I tell my friend, the beehive, the beehive.  You
projected a short little continental trip, my dear friend, of
course?'

Jonas maintained a dogged silence.

'May I die,' cried Montague, 'but I am shocked!  Upon my soul I am
shocked.  But that confounded beehive of ours in the city must be
paramount to every other consideration, when there is honey to be
made; and that is my best excuse.  Here is a very singular old
female dropping curtseys on my right,' said Montague, breaking off
in his discourse, and looking at Mrs Gamp, 'who is not a friend of
mine.  Does anybody know her?'

'Ah!  Well they knows me, bless their precious hearts!' said Mrs
Gamp, 'not forgettin' your own merry one, sir, and long may it be
so!  Wishin' as every one' (she delivered this in the form of a toast
or sentiment) 'was as merry, and as handsome-lookin', as a little
bird has whispered me a certain gent is, which I will not name for
fear I give offence where none is doo!  My precious lady,' here she
stopped short in her merriment, for she had until now affected to be
vastly entertained, 'you're too pale by half!'

'YOU are here too, are you?' muttered Jonas.  'Ecod, there are
enough of you.'

'I hope, sir,' returned Mrs Gamp, dropping an indignant curtsey, 'as
no bones is broke by me and Mrs Harris a-walkin' down upon a public
wharf.  Which was the very words she says to me (although they was
the last I ever had to speak) was these: "Sairey," she says, "is it
a public wharf?"  Mrs Harris," I makes answer, "can you doubt it?
You have know'd me now, ma'am, eight and thirty year; and did you
ever know me go, or wish to go, where I was not made welcome, say
the words."  "No, Sairey," Mrs Harris says, "contrairy quite."  And
well she knows it too.  I am but a poor woman, but I've been sought
after, sir, though you may not think it.  I've been knocked up at
all hours of the night, and warned out by a many landlords, in
consequence of being mistook for Fire.  I goes out workin' for my
bread, 'tis true, but I maintains my independency, with your kind
leave, and which I will till death.  I has my feelins as a woman,
sir, and I have been a mother likeways; but touch a pipkin as
belongs to me, or make the least remarks on what I eats or drinks,
and though you was the favouritest young for'ard hussy of a servant-
gal as ever come into a house, either you leaves the place, or me.
My earnins is not great, sir, but I will not be impoged upon.  Bless
the babe, and save the mother, is my mortar, sir; but I makes so
free as add to that, Don't try no impogician with the Nuss, for she
will not abear it!'

Mrs Gamp concluded by drawing her shawl tightly over herself with
both hands, and, as usual, referring to Mrs Harris for full
corroboration of these particulars.  She had that peculiar trembling
of the head which, in ladies of her excitable nature, may be taken
as a sure indication of their breaking out again very shortly; when
Jonas made a timely interposition.

'As you ARE here,' he said, 'you had better see to her, and take her
home.  I am otherwise engaged.'  He said nothing more; but looked at
Montague as if to give him notice that he was ready to attend him.

'I am sorry to take you away,' said Montague.

Jonas gave him a sinister look, which long lived in Tom's memory,
and which he often recalled afterwards.

'I am, upon my life,' said Montague.  'Why did you make it
necessary?'

With the same dark glance as before, Jonas replied, after a moment's
silence:

'The necessity is none of my making.  You have brought it about
yourself.'

He said nothing more.  He said even this as if he were bound, and in
the other's power, but had a sullen and suppressed devil within him,
which he could not quite resist.  His very gait, as they walked away
together, was like that of a fettered man; but, striving to work out
at his clenched hands, knitted brows, and fast-set lips, was the
same imprisoned devil still.

They got into a handsome cabriolet which was waiting for them and
drove away.

The whole of this extraordinary scene had passed so rapidly and the
tumult which prevailed around as so unconscious of any impression
from it, that, although Tom had been one of the chief actors, it was
like a dream.  No one had noticed him after they had left the
packet.  He had stood behind Jonas, and so near him, that he could
not help hearing all that passed.  He had stood there, with his
sister on his arm, expecting and hoping to have an opportunity of
explaining his strange share in this yet stranger business.  But
Jonas had not raised his eyes from the ground; no one else had even
looked towards him; and before he could resolve on any course of
action, they were all gone.

He gazed round for his landlord.  But he had done that more than
once already, and no such man was to be seen.  He was still pursuing
this search with his eyes, when he saw a hand beckoning to him from
a hackney-coach; and hurrying towards it, found it was Merry's.  She
addressed him hurriedly, but bent out of the window, that she might
not be overheard by her companion, Mrs Gamp.

'What is it?' she said.  'Good heaven, what is it?  Why did he tell
me last night to prepare for a long journey, and why have you
brought us back like criminals?  Dear Mr Pinch!' she clasped her
hands distractedly, 'be merciful to us.  Whatever this dreadful
secret is, be merciful, and God will bless you!'

'If any power of mercy lay with me,' cried Tom, 'trust me, you
shouldn't ask in vain.  But I am far more ignorant and weak than
you.'

She withdrew into the coach again, and he saw the hand waving
towards him for a moment; but whether in reproachfulness or
incredulity or misery, or grief, or sad adieu, or what else, he
could not, being so hurried, understand.  SHE was gone now; and Ruth
and he were left to walk away, and wonder.

Had Mr Nadgett appointed the man who never came, to meet him upon
London Bridge that morning?  He was certainly looking over the
parapet, and down upon the steamboat-wharf at that moment.  It could
not have been for pleasure; he never took pleasure.  No.  He must
have had some business there.



CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND, ARRIVING AT A PLEASANT UNDERSTANDING, SET
FORTH UPON AN ENTERPRISE


The office of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life
Assurance Company being near at hand, and Mr Montague driving Jonas
straight there, they had very little way to go.  But the journey
might have been one of several hours' duration, without provoking a
remark from either; for it was clear that Jonas did not mean to break
the silence which prevailed between them, and that it was not, as
yet, his dear friend's cue to tempt them into conversation.

He had thrown aside his cloak, as having now no motive for
concealment, and with that garment huddled on his knees, sat as far
removed from his companion as the limited space in such a carriage
would allow.  There was a striking difference in his manner,
compared with what it had been, within a few minutes, when Tom
encountered him so unexpectedly on board the packet, or when the
ugly change had fallen on him in Mr Montague's dressing-room.  He
had the aspect of a man found out and held at bay; of being baffled,
hunted, and beset; but there was now a dawning and increasing
purpose in his face, which changed it very much.  It was gloomy,
distrustful, lowering; pale with anger and defeat; it still was
humbled, abject, cowardly and mean; but, let the conflict go on
as it would, there was one strong purpose wrestling with every
emotion of his mind, and casting the whole series down as they arose.

Not prepossessing in appearance at the best of times, it may be
readily supposed that he was not so now.  He had left deep marks of
his front teeth in his nether lip; and those tokens of the agitation
he had lately undergone improved his looks as little as the heavy
corrugations in his forehead.  But he was self-possessed now;
unnaturally self-possessed, indeed, as men quite otherwise than
brave are known to be in desperate extremities; and when the carriage
stopped, he waited for no invitation, but leapt hardily out, and
went upstairs.

The chairman followed him; and closing the board-room door as soon
as they had entered, threw himself upon a sofa.  Jonas stood before
the window, looking down into the street; and leaned against the
sash, resting his head upon his arms.

'This is not handsome, Chuzzlewit!' said Montague at length.  'Not
handsome upon my soul!'

'What would you have me do?' he answered, looking round abruptly;
'What do you expect?'

'Confidence, my good fellow.  Some confidence!' said Montague in an
injured tone.

'Ecod!  You show great confidence in me,' retorted Jonas.  'Don't
you?'

'Do I not?' said his companion, raising his head, and looking at
him, but he had turned again.  'Do I not?  Have I not confided to
you the easy schemes I have formed for our advantage; OUR advantage,
mind; not mine alone; and what is my return?  Attempted flight!'

'How do you know that?  Who said I meant to fly?'

'Who said?  Come, come.  A foreign boat, my friend, an early hour, a
figure wrapped up for disguise!  Who said?  If you didn't mean to
jilt me, why were you there?  If you didn't mean to jilt me, why did
you come back?'

'I came back,' said Jonas, 'to avoid disturbance.'

'You were wise,' rejoined his friend.

Jonas stood quite silent; still looking down into the street, and
resting his head upon his arms.

'Now, Chuzzlewit,' said Montague, 'notwithstanding what has passed I
will be plain with you.  Are you attending to me there?  I only see
your back.'

'I hear you.  Go on!'

'I say that notwithstanding what has passed, I will be plain with
you.'

'You said that before.  And I have told you once I heard you say it.
Go on.'

'You are a little chafed, but I can make allowance for that, and am,
fortunately, myself in the very best of tempers.  Now, let us see
how circumstances stand.  A day or two ago, I mentioned to you, my
dear fellow, that I thought I had discovered--'

'Will you hold your tongue?' said Jonas, looking fiercely round, and
glancing at the door.

'Well, well!' said Montague.  'Judicious!  Quite correct!  My
discoveries being published, would be like many other men's
discoveries in this honest world; of no further use to me.  You see,
Chuzzlewit, how ingenuous and frank I am in showing you the weakness
of my own position!  To return.  I make, or think I make, a certain
discovery which I take an early opportunity of mentioning in your
ear, in that spirit of confidence which I really hoped did prevail
between us, and was reciprocated by you.  Perhaps there is something
in it; perhaps there is nothing.  I have my knowledge and opinion on
the subject.  You have yours.  We will not discuss the question.
But, my good fellow, you have been weak; what I wish to point out to
you is, that you have been weak.  I may desire to turn this little
incident to my account (indeed, I do--I'll not deny it), but my
account does not lie in probing it, or using it against you.'

'What do you call using it against me?' asked Jonas, who had not yet
changed his attitude.

'Oh!' said Montague, with a laugh.  'We'll not enter into that.'

'Using it to make a beggar of me.  Is that the use you mean?'

'No.'

'Ecod,' muttered Jonas, bitterly.  'That's the use in which your
account DOES lie.  You speak the truth there.'

'I wish you to venture (it's a very safe venture) a little more with
us, certainly, and to keep quiet,' said Montague.  'You promised me
you would; and you must.  I say it plainly, Chuzzlewit, you MUST.
Reason the matter.  If you don't, my secret is worthless to me: and
being so, it may as well become the public property as mine; better,
for I shall gain some credit, bringing it to light.  I want you,
besides, to act as a decoy in a case I have already told you of.
You don't mind that, I know.  You care nothing for the man (you care
nothing for any man; you are too sharp; so am I, I hope); and could
bear any loss of his with pious fortitude.  Ha, ha, ha!  You have
tried to escape from the first consequence.  You cannot escape it, I
assure you.  I have shown you that to-day.  Now, I am not a moral
man, you know.  I am not the least in the world affected by anything
you may have done; by any little indiscretion you may have
committed; but I wish to profit by it if I can; and to a man of your
intelligence I make that free confession.  I am not at all singular
in that infirmity.  Everybody profits by the indiscretion of his
neighbour; and the people in the best repute, the most.  Why do you
give me this trouble?  It must come to a friendly agreement, or an
unfriendly crash.  It must.  If the former, you are very little
hurt.  If the latter--well! you know best what is likely to happen
then.'

Jonas left the window, and walked up close to him.  He did not look
him in the face; it was not his habit to do that; but he kept his
eyes towards him--on his breast, or thereabouts--and was at great
pains to speak slowly and distinctly in reply.  Just as a man in a
state of conscious drunkenness might be.

'Lying is of no use now,' he said.  'I DID think of getting away
this morning, and making better terms with you from a distance.'

'To be sure! to be sure!' replied Montague.  'Nothing more natural.
I foresaw that, and provided against it.  But I am afraid I am
interrupting you.'

'How the devil,' pursued Jonas, with a still greater effort, 'you
made choice of your messenger, and where you found him, I'll not ask
you.  I owed him one good turn before to-day.  If you are so
careless of men in general, as you said you were just now, you are
quite indifferent to what becomes of such a crop-tailed cur as that,
and will leave me to settle my account with him in my own manner.'

If he had raised his eyes to his companion's face, he would have
seen that Montague was evidently unable to comprehend his meaning.
But continuing to stand before him, with his furtive gaze directed
as before, and pausing here only to moisten his dry lips with his
tongue, the fact was lost upon him.  It might have struck a close
observer that this fixed and steady glance of Jonas's was a part of
the alteration which had taken place in his demeanour.  He kept it
riveted on one spot, with which his thoughts had manifestly nothing
to do; like as a juggler walking on a cord or wire to any dangerous
end, holds some object in his sight to steady him, and never wanders
from it, lest he trip.

Montague was quick in his rejoinder, though he made it at a
venture.  There was no difference of opinion between him and his
friend on THAT point.  Not the least.

'Your great discovery,' Jonas proceeded, with a savage sneer that
got the better of him for the moment, 'may be true, and may be
false.  Whichever it is, I dare say I'm no worse than other men.'

'Not a bit,' said Tigg.  'Not a bit.  We're all alike--or nearly
so.'

'I want to know this,' Jonas went on to say; 'is it your own?
You'll not wonder at my asking the question.'

'My own!' repeated Montague.

'Aye!' returned the other, gruffly.  'Is it known to anybody else?
Come!  Don't waver about that.'

'No!' said Montague, without the smallest hesitation.  'What would
it be worth, do you think, unless I had the keeping of it?'

Now, for the first time, Jonas looked at him.  After a pause, he put
out his hand, and said, with a laugh:

'Come! make things easy to me, and I'm yours.  I don't know that I
may not be better off here, after all, than if I had gone away this
morning.  But here I am, and here I'll stay now.  Take your oath!'

He cleared his throat, for he was speaking hoarsely and said in a
lighter tone:

'Shall I go to Pecksniff?  When?  Say when!'

'Immediately!' cried Montague.  'He cannot be enticed too soon.'

'Ecod!' cried Jonas, with a wild laugh.  'There's some fun in
catching that old hypocrite.  I hate him.  Shall I go to-night?'

'Aye!  This,' said Montague, ecstatically, 'is like business!  We
understand each other now!  To-night, my good fellow, by all means.'

'Come with me,' cried Jonas.  'We must make a dash; go down in
state, and carry documents, for he's a deep file to deal with, and
must be drawn on with an artful hand, or he'll not follow.  I know
him.  As I can't take your lodgings or your dinners down, I must
take you.  Will you come to-night?'

His friend appeared to hesitate; and neither to have anticipated
this proposal, nor to relish it very much.

'We can concert our plans upon the road,' said Jonas.  'We must not
go direct to him, but cross over from some other place, and turn out
of our way to see him.  I may not want to introduce you, but I must
have you on the spot.  I know the man, I tell you.'

'But what if the man knows me?' said Montague, shrugging his
shoulders.

'He know!' cried Jonas.  'Don't you run that risk with fifty men a
day!  Would your father know you?  Did I know you?  Ecod!  You were
another figure when I saw you first.  Ha, ha, ha!  I see the rents
and patches now!  No false hair then, no black dye!  You were another
sort of joker in those days, you were!  You even spoke different
then.  You've acted the gentleman so seriously since, that you've
taken in yourself.  If he should know you, what does it matter?
Such a change is a proof of your success.  You know that, or you
would not have made yourself known to me.  Will you come?'

'My good fellow,' said Montague, still hesitating, 'I can trust you
alone.'

'Trust me!  Ecod, you may trust me now, far enough.  I'll try to go
away no more--no more!'  He stopped, and added in a more sober tone,
'I can't get on without you.  Will you come?'

'I will,' said Montague, 'if that's your opinion.'  And they shook
hands upon it.

The boisterous manner which Jonas had exhibited during the latter
part of this conversation, and which had gone on rapidly increasing
with almost every word he had spoken, from the time when he looked
his honourable friend in the face until now, did not now subside,
but, remaining at its height, abided by him.  Most unusual with him
at any period; most inconsistent with his temper and constitution;
especially unnatural it would appear in one so darkly circumstanced;
it abided by him.  It was not like the effect of wine, or any ardent
drink, for he was perfectly coherent.  It even made him proof
against the usual influence of such means of excitement; for,
although he drank deeply several times that day, with no reserve or
caution, he remained exactly the same man, and his spirits neither
rose nor fell in the least observable degree.

Deciding, after some discussion, to travel at night, in order that
the day's business might not be broken in upon, they took counsel
together in reference to the means.  Mr Montague being of opinion
that four horses were advisable, at all events for the first stage,
as throwing a great deal of dust into people's eyes, in more senses
than one, a travelling chariot and four lay under orders for nine
o'clock.  Jonas did not go home; observing, that his being obliged
to leave town on business in so great a hurry, would be a good
excuse for having turned back so unexpectedly in the morning.  So he
wrote a note for his portmanteau, and sent it by a messenger, who
duly brought his luggage back, with a short note from that other
piece of luggage, his wife, expressive of her wish to be allowed to
come and see him for a moment.  To this request he sent for answer,
'she had better;' and one such threatening affirmative being
sufficient, in defiance of the English grammar, to express a
negative, she kept away.

Mr Montague being much engaged in the course of the day, Jonas
bestowed his spirits chiefly on the doctor, with whom he lunched in
the medical officer's own room.  On his way thither, encountering Mr
Nadgett in the outer room, he bantered that stealthy gentleman on
always appearing anxious to avoid him, and inquired if he were
afraid of him.  Mr Nadgett slyly answered, 'No, but he believed it
must be his way as he had been charged with much the same kind of
thing before.'

Mr Montague was listening to, or, to speak with greater elegance, he
overheard, this dialogue.  As soon as Jonas was gone he beckoned
Nadgett to him with the feather of his pen, and whispered in his
ear.

'Who gave him my letter this morning?'

'My lodger, sir,' said Nadgett, behind the palm of his hand.

'How came that about?'

'I found him on the wharf, sir.  Being so much hurried, and you not
arrived, it was necessary to do something.  It fortunately occurred
to me, that if I gave it him myself I could be of no further use.  I
should have been blown upon immediately.'

'Mr Nadgett, you are a jewel,' said Montague, patting him on the
back.  'What's your lodger's name?'

'Pinch, sir.  Thomas Pinch.'

Montague reflected for a little while, and then asked:

'From the country, do you know?'

'From Wiltshire, sir, he told me.'

They parted without another word.  To see Mr Nadgett's bow when
Montague and he next met, and to see Mr Montague acknowledge it,
anybody might have undertaken to swear that they had never spoken to
each other confidentially in all their lives.

In the meanwhile, Mr Jonas and the doctor made themselves very
comfortable upstairs, over a bottle of the old Madeira and some
sandwiches; for the doctor having been already invited to dine below
at six o'clock, preferred a light repast for lunch.  It was
advisable, he said, in two points of view:  First, as being healthy
in itself.  Secondly as being the better preparation for dinner.

'And you are bound for all our sakes to take particular care of your
digestion, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear sir,' said the doctor smacking his
lips after a glass of wine; 'for depend upon it, it is worth
preserving.  It must be in admirable condition, sir; perfect
chronometer-work.  Otherwise your spirits could not be so
remarkable.  Your bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne, Mr
Chuzzlewit, as what's-his-name says in the play.  I wish he said it
in a play which did anything like common justice to our profession,
by the bye.  There is an apothecary in that drama, sir, which is a
low thing; vulgar, sir; out of nature altogether.'

Mr Jobling pulled out his shirt-frill of fine linen, as though he
would have said, 'This is what I call nature in a medical man, sir;'
and looked at Jonas for an observation.

Jonas not being in a condition to pursue the subject, took up a case
of lancets that was lying on the table, and opened it.

'Ah!' said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, 'I always take 'em
out of my pocket before I eat.  My pockets are rather tight.  Ha,
ha, ha!'

Jonas had opened one of the shining little instruments; and was
scrutinizing it with a look as sharp and eager as its own bright
edge.

'Good steel, doctor.  Good steel!  Eh!'

'Ye-es,' replied the doctor, with the faltering modesty of
ownership.  'One might open a vein pretty dexterously with that, Mr
Chuzzlewit.'

'It has opened a good many in its time, I suppose?' said Jonas
looking at it with a growing interest.

'Not a few, my dear sir, not a few.  It has been engaged in a--in a
pretty good practice, I believe I may say,' replied the doctor,
coughing as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that
he couldn't help it.  'In a pretty good practice,' repeated the
doctor, putting another glass of wine to his lips.

'Now, could you cut a man's throat with such a thing as this?'
demanded Jonas.

'Oh certainly, certainly, if you took him in the right place,'
returned the doctor.  'It all depends upon that.'

'Where you have your hand now, hey?' cried Jonas, bending forward
to look at it.

'Yes,' said the doctor; 'that's the jugular.'

Jonas, in his vivacity, made a sudden sawing in the air, so close
behind the doctor's jugular that he turned quite red.  Then Jonas
(in the same strange spirit of vivacity) burst into a loud
discordant laugh.

'No, no,' said the doctor, shaking his head; 'edge tools, edge
tools; never play with 'em.  A very remarkable instance of the
skillful use of edge-tools, by the way, occurs to me at this moment.
It was a case of murder.  I am afraid it was a case of murder,
committed by a member of our profession; it was so artistically
done.'

'Aye!' said Jonas.  'How was that?'

'Why, sir,' returned Jobling, 'the thing lies in a nutshell.  A
certain gentleman was found, one morning, in an obscure street,
lying in an angle of a doorway--I should rather say, leaning, in an
upright position, in the angle of a doorway, and supported
consequently by the doorway.  Upon his waistcoat there was one
solitary drop of blood.  He was dead and cold; and had been
murdered, sir.'

'Only one drop of blood!' said Jonas.

'Sir, that man,' replied the doctor, 'had been stabbed to the heart.
Had been stabbed to the heart with such dexterity, sir, that he had
died instantly, and had bled internally.  It was supposed that a
medical friend of his (to whom suspicion attached) had engaged him
in conversation on some pretence; had taken him, very likely, by the
button in a conversational manner; had examined his ground at
leisure with his other hand; had marked the exact spot; drawn out
the instrument, whatever it was, when he was quite prepared; and--'

'And done the trick,' suggested Jonas.

'Exactly so,' replied the doctor.  'It was quite an operation in its
way, and very neat.  The medical friend never turned up; and, as I
tell you, he had the credit of it.  Whether he did it or not I can't
say.  But, having had the honour to be called in with two or three
of my professional brethren on the occasion, and having assisted to
make a careful examination of the wound, I have no hesitation in
saying that it would have reflected credit on any medical man; and
that in an unprofessional person it could not but be considered,
either as an extraordinary work of art, or the result of a still
more extraordinary, happy, and favourable conjunction of
circumstances.'

His hearer was so much interested in this case, that the doctor went
on to elucidate it with the assistance of his own finger and thumb
and waistcoat; and at Jonas's request, he took the further trouble
of going into a corner of the room, and alternately representing the
murdered man and the murderer; which he did with great effect.  The
bottle being emptied and the story done, Jonas was in precisely the
same boisterous and unusual state as when they had sat down.  If, as
Jobling theorized, his good digestion were the cause, he must have
been a very ostrich.

At dinner it was just the same; and after dinner too; though wine
was drunk in abundance, and various rich meats eaten.  At nine
o'clock it was still the same.  There being a lamp in the carriage,
he swore they would take a pack of cards, and a bottle of wine; and
with these things under his cloak, went down to the door.

'Out of the way, Tom Thumb, and get to bed!'

This was the salutation he bestowed on Mr Bailey, who, booted and
wrapped up, stood at the carriage door to help him in.

'To bed, sir!  I'm a-going, too,' said Bailey.

He alighted quickly, and walked back into the hall, where Montague
was lighting a cigar; conducting Mr Bailey with him, by the collar.

'You are not a-going to take this monkey of a boy, are you?'

'Yes,' said Montague.

He gave the boy a shake, and threw him roughly aside.  There was
more of his familiar self in the action, than in anything he had
done that day; but he broke out laughing immediately afterwards, and
making a thrust at the doctor with his hand, in imitation of his
representation of the medical friend, went out to the carriage
again, and took his seat.  His companion followed immediately.  Mr
Bailey climbed into the rumble.  'It will be a stormy night!'
exclaimed the doctor, as they started.



CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CONTINUATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND


The doctor's prognostication in reference to the weather was
speedily verified.  Although the weather was not a patient of his,
and no third party had required him to give an opinion on the case,
the quick fulfilment of his prophecy may be taken as an instance of
his professional tact; for, unless the threatening aspect of the
night had been perfectly plain and unmistakable, Mr Jobling would
never have compromised his reputation by delivering any sentiments
on the subject.  He used this principle in Medicine with too much
success to be unmindful of it in his commonest transactions.

It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows
listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when
they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of
lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by
lightning.  Lightning flashed and quivered on the black horizon even
now; and hollow murmurings were in the wind, as though it had been
blowing where the thunder rolled, and still was charged with its
exhausted echoes.  But the storm, though gathering swiftly, had not
yet come up; and the prevailing stillness was the more solemn, from
the dull intelligence that seemed to hover in the air, of noise and
conflict afar off.

It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud
which shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that
had been heated in a furnace, and were growing cold.  These had been
advancing steadily and slowly, but they were now motionless, or
nearly so.  As the carriage clattered round the corners of the
streets, it passed at every one a knot of persons who had come
there--many from their houses close at hand, without hats--to look
up at that quarter of the sky.  And now a very few large drops of
rain began to fall, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Jonas sat in a corner of the carriage with his bottle resting on his
knee, and gripped as tightly in his hand as if he would have ground
its neck to powder if he could.  Instinctively attracted by the
night, he had laid aside the pack of cards upon the cushion; and
with the same involuntary impulse, so intelligible to both of them
as not to occasion a remark on either side, his companion had
extinguished the lamp.  The front glasses were down; and they sat
looking silently out upon the gloomy scene before them.

They were clear of London, or as clear of it as travellers can be
whose way lies on the Western Road, within a stage of that enormous
city.  Occasionally they encountered a foot-passenger, hurrying to
the nearest place of shelter; or some unwieldy cart proceeding
onward at a heavy trot, with the same end in view.  Little clusters
of such vehicles were gathered round the stable-yard or baiting-
place of every wayside tavern; while their drivers watched the
weather from the doors and open windows, or made merry within.
Everywhere the people were disposed to bear each other company
rather than sit alone; so that groups of watchful faces seemed to be
looking out upon the night AND THEM, from almost every house they
passed.

It may appear strange that this should have disturbed Jonas, or
rendered him uneasy; but it did.  After muttering to himself, and
often changing his position, he drew up the blind on his side of the
carriage, and turned his shoulder sulkily towards it.  But he
neither looked at his companion, nor broke the silence which
prevailed between them, and which had fallen so suddenly upon
himself, by addressing a word to him.

The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed; the rain poured down like
Heaven's wrath.  Surrounded at one moment by intolerable light, and
at the next by pitchy darkness, they still pressed forward on their
journey.  Even when they arrived at the end of the stage, and might
have tarried, they did not; but ordered horses out immediately.  Nor
had this any reference to some five minutes' lull, which at that
time seemed to promise a cessation of the storm.  They held their
course as if they were impelled and driven by its fury.  Although
they had not exchanged a dozen words, and might have tarried very
well, they seemed to feel, by joint consent, that onward they must
go.

Louder and louder the deep thunder rolled, as through the myriad
halls of some vast temple in the sky; fiercer and brighter became
the lightning, more and more heavily the rain poured down.  The
horses (they were travelling now with a single pair) plunged and
started from the rills of quivering fire that seemed to wind along
the ground before them; but there these two men sat, and forward
they went as if they were led on by an invisible attraction.

The eye, partaking of the quickness of the flashing light, saw in
its every gleam a multitude of objects which it could not see at
steady noon in fifty times that period.  Bells in steeples, with the
rope and wheel that moved them; ragged nests of birds in cornices
and nooks; faces full of consternation in the tilted waggons that
came tearing past; their frightened teams ringing out a warning
which the thunder drowned; harrows and ploughs left out in fields;
miles upon miles of hedge-divided country, with the distant fringe
of trees as obvious as the scarecrow in the bean-field close at hand;
in a trembling, vivid, flickering instant, everything was clear and
plain; then came a flush of red into the yellow light; a change to
blue; a brightness so intense that there was nothing else but light;
and then the deepest and profoundest darkness.

The lightning being very crooked and very dazzling may have
presented or assisted a curious optical illusion, which suddenly
rose before the startled eyes of Montague in the carriage, and as
rapidly disappeared.  He thought he saw Jonas with his hand lifted,
and the bottle clenched in it like a hammer, making as if he would
aim a blow at his head.  At the same time he observed (or so
believed) an expression in his face--a combination of the unnatural
excitement he had shown all day, with a wild hatred and fear--which
might have rendered a wolf a less terrible companion.

He uttered an involuntary exclamation, and called to the driver, who
brought his horses to a stop with all speed.

It could hardly have been as he supposed, for although he had not
taken his eyes off his companion, and had not seen him move, he sat
reclining in his corner as before.

'What's the matter?' said Jonas.  'Is that your general way of
waking out of your sleep?'

'I could swear,' returned the other, 'that I have not closed my
eyes!'

'When you have sworn it,' said Jonas, composedly, 'we had better go
on again, if you have only stopped for that.'

He uncorked the bottle with the help of his teeth; and putting it to
his lips, took a long draught.

'I wish we had never started on this journey.  This is not,' said
Montague, recoiling instinctively, and speaking in a voice that
betrayed his agitation; 'this is not a night to travel in.'

'Ecod! you're right there,' returned Jonas, 'and we shouldn't be out
in it but for you.  If you hadn't kept me waiting all day, we might
have been at Salisbury by this time; snug abed and fast asleep.
What are we stopping for?'

His companion put his head out of window for a moment, and drawing
it in again, observed (as if that were his cause of anxiety), that
the boy was drenched to the skin.

'Serve him right,' said Jonas.  'I'm glad of it.  What the devil are
we stopping for?  Are you going to spread him out to dry?'

'I have half a mind to take him inside,' observed the other with
some hesitation.

'Oh! thankee!' said Jonas.  'We don't want any damp boys here;
especially a young imp like him.  Let him be where he is.  He ain't
afraid of a little thunder and lightning, I dare say; whoever else
is.  Go on, driver.  We had better have HIM inside perhaps,' he
muttered with a laugh; 'and the horses!'

'Don't go too fast,' cried Montague to the postillion; 'and take
care how you go.  You were nearly in the ditch when I called to
you.'

This was not true; and Jonas bluntly said so, as they moved forward
again.  Montague took little or no heed of what he said, but
repeated that it was not a night for travelling, and showed himself,
both then and afterwards, unusually anxious.

From this time Jonas recovered his former spirits, if such a term
may be employed to express the state in which he had left the city.
He had his bottle often at his mouth; roared out snatches of songs,
without the least regard to time or tune or voice, or anything but
loud discordance; and urged his silent friend to be merry with him.

'You're the best company in the world, my good fellow,' said
Montague with an effort, 'and in general irresistible; but to-night
--do you hear it?'

'Ecod! I hear and see it too,' cried Jonas, shading his eyes, for
the moment, from the lightning which was flashing, not in any one
direction, but all around them.  'What of that?  It don't change
you, nor me, nor our affairs.  Chorus, chorus,


         It may lighten and storm,
         Till it hunt the red worm
     From the grass where the gibbet is driven;
         But it can't hurt the dead,
         And it won't save the head
     That is doom'd to be rifled and riven.


That must be a precious old song,' he added with an oath, as he
stopped short in a kind of wonder at himself.  'I haven't heard it
since I was a boy, and how it comes into my head now, unless the
lightning put it there, I don't know.  "Can't hurt the dead"!  No,
no.  "And won't save the head"!  No, no.  No!  Ha, ha, ha!'

His mirth was of such a savage and extraordinary character, and was,
in an inexplicable way, at once so suited to the night, and yet such
a coarse intrusion on its terrors, that his fellow-traveller, always
a coward, shrunk from him in positive fear.  Instead of Jonas being
his tool and instrument, their places seemed to be reversed.  But
there was reason for this too, Montague thought; since the sense of
his debasement might naturally inspire such a man with the wish to
assert a noisy independence, and in that licence to forget his real
condition.  Being quick enough, in reference to such subjects of
contemplation, he was not long in taking this argument into account
and giving it its full weight.  But still, he felt a vague sense of
alarm, and was depressed and uneasy.

He was certain he had not been asleep; but his eyes might have
deceived him; for, looking at Jonas now in any interval of darkness,
he could represent his figure to himself in any attitude his state
of mind suggested.  On the other hand, he knew full well that Jonas
had no reason to love him; and even taking the piece of pantomime
which had so impressed his mind to be a real gesture, and not the
working of his fancy, the most that could be said of it was, that it
was quite in keeping with the rest of his diabolical fun, and had
the same impotent expression of truth in it.  'If he could kill me
with a wish,' thought the swindler, 'I should not live long.'

He resolved that when he should have had his use of Jonas, he would
restrain him with an iron curb; in the meantime, that he could not
do better than leave him to take his own way, and preserve his own
peculiar description of good-humour, after his own uncommon manner.
It was no great sacrifice to bear with him; 'for when all is got
that can be got,' thought Montague, 'I shall decamp across the
water, and have the laugh on my side--and the gains.'

Such were his reflections from hour to hour; his state of mind being
one in which the same thoughts constantly present themselves over
and over again in wearisome repetition; while Jonas, who appeared to
have dismissed reflection altogether, entertained himself as before.
They agreed that they would go to Salisbury, and would cross to Mr
Pecksniff's in the morning; and at the prospect of deluding that
worthy gentleman, the spirits of his amiable son-in-law became more
boisterous than ever.

As the night wore on, the thunder died away, but still rolled
gloomily and mournfully in the distance.  The lightning too, though
now comparatively harmless, was yet bright and frequent.  The rain
was quite as violent as it had ever been.

It was their ill-fortune, at about the time of dawn and in the last
stage of their journey, to have a restive pair of horses.  These
animals had been greatly terrified in their stable by the tempest;
and coming out into the dreary interval between night and morning,
when the glare of the lightning was yet unsubdued by day, and the
various objects in their view were presented in indistinct and
exaggerated shapes which they would not have worn by night, they
gradually became less and less capable of control; until, taking a
sudden fright at something by the roadside, they dashed off wildly
down a steep hill, flung the driver from his saddle, drew the
carriage to the brink of a ditch, stumbled headlong down, and threw
it crashing over.

The travellers had opened the carriage door, and had either jumped
or fallen out.  Jonas was the first to stagger to his feet.  He felt
sick and weak, and very giddy, and reeling to a five-barred gate,
stood holding by it; looking drowsily about as the whole landscape
swam before his eyes.  But, by degrees, he grew more conscious, and
presently observed that Montague was lying senseless in the road,
within a few feet of the horses.

In an instant, as if his own faint body were suddenly animated by a
demon, he ran to the horses' heads; and pulling at their bridles
with all his force, set them struggling and plunging with such mad
violence as brought their hoofs at every effort nearer to the skull
of the prostrate man; and must have led in half a minute to his
brains being dashed out on the highway.

As he did this, he fought and contended with them like a man
possessed, making them wilder by his cries.

'Whoop!' cried Jonas.  'Whoop! again! another!  A little more, a
little more!  Up, ye devils!  Hillo!'

As he heard the driver, who had risen and was hurrying up, crying to
him to desist, his violence increased.

'Hiilo!  Hillo!' cried Jonas.

'For God's sake!' cried the driver.  'The gentleman--in the road--
he'll be killed!'

The same shouts and the same struggles were his only answer.  But
the man darting in at the peril of his own life, saved Montague's,
by dragging him through the mire and water out of the reach of
present harm.  That done, he ran to Jonas; and with the aid of his
knife they very shortly disengaged the horses from the broken
chariot, and got them, cut and bleeding, on their legs again.  The
postillion and Jonas had now leisure to look at each other, which
they had not had yet.

'Presence of mind, presence of mind!' cried Jonas, throwing up his
hands wildly.  'What would you have done without me?'

'The other gentleman would have done badly without ME,' returned the
man, shaking his head.  'You should have moved him first.  I gave
him up for dead.'

'Presence of mind, you croaker, presence of mind' cried Jonas with a
harsh loud laugh.  'Was he struck, do you think?'

They both turned to look at him.  Jonas muttered something to
himself, when he saw him sitting up beneath the hedge, looking
vacantly around.

'What's the matter?' asked Montague.  'Is anybody hurt?'

'Ecod!' said Jonas, 'it don't seem so.  There are no bones broken,
after all.'

They raised him, and he tried to walk.  He was a good deal shaken,
and trembled very much.  But with the exception of a few cuts and
bruises this was all the damage he had sustained.

'Cuts and bruises, eh?' said Jonas.  'We've all got them.  Only cuts
and bruises, eh?'

'I wouldn't have given sixpence for the gentleman's head in half-a-
dozen seconds more, for all he's only cut and bruised,' observed the
post-boy.  'If ever you're in an accident of this sort again, sir;
which I hope you won't be; never you pull at the bridle of a horse
that's down, when there's a man's head in the way.  That can't be
done twice without there being a dead man in the case; it would have
ended in that, this time, as sure as ever you were born, if I hadn't
come up just when I did.'

Jonas replied by advising him with a curse to hold his tongue, and
to go somewhere, whither he was not very likely to go of his own
accord.  But Montague, who had listened eagerly to every word,
himself diverted the subject, by exclaiming: 'Where's the boy?'

'Ecod! I forgot that monkey,' said Jonas.  'What's become of him?'  A
very brief search settled that question.  The unfortunate Mr Bailey
had been thrown sheer over the hedge or the five-barred gate; and
was lying in the neighbouring field, to all appearance dead.

'When I said to-night, that I wished I had never started on this
journey,' cried his master, 'I knew it was an ill-fated one.  Look
at this boy!'

'Is that all?' growled Jonas.  'If you call THAT a sign of it--'

'Why, what should I call a sign of it?' asked Montague, hurriedly.
'What do you mean?'

'I mean,' said Jonas, stooping down over the body, 'that I never
heard you were his father, or had any particular reason to care much
about him.  Halloa.  Hold up there!'

But the boy was past holding up, or being held up, or giving any
other sign of life than a faint and fitful beating of the heart.
After some discussion the driver mounted the horse which had been
least injured, and took the lad in his arms as well as he could;
while Montague and Jonas, leading the other horse, and carrying a
trunk between them, walked by his side towards Salisbury.

'You'd get there in a few minutes, and be able to send assistance to
meet us, if you went forward, post-boy,' said Jonas.  'Trot on!'

'No, no,' cried Montague; 'we'll keep together.'

'Why, what a chicken you are!  You are not afraid of being robbed;
are you?' said Jonas.

'I am not afraid of anything,' replied the other, whose looks and
manner were in flat contradiction to his words.  'But we'll keep
together.'

'You were mighty anxious about the boy, a minute ago,' said Jonas.
'I suppose you know that he may die in the meantime?'

'Aye, aye.  I know.  But we'll keep together.'

As it was clear that he was not to be moved from this determination,
Jonas made no other rejoinder than such as his face expressed; and
they proceeded in company.  They had three or four good miles to
travel; and the way was not made easier by the state of the road,
the burden by which they were embarrassed, or their own stiff and
sore condition.  After a sufficiently long and painful walk, they
arrived at the Inn; and having knocked the people up (it being yet
very early in the morning), sent out messengers to see to the
carriage and its contents, and roused a surgeon from his bed to tend
the chief sufferer.  All the service he could render, he rendered
promptly and skillfully.  But he gave it as his opinion that the boy
was labouring under a severe concussion of the brain, and that Mr
Bailey's mortal course was run.

If Montague's strong interest in the announcement could have been
considered as unselfish in any degree, it might have been a
redeeming trait in a character that had no such lineaments to spare.
But it was not difficult to see that, for some unexpressed reason
best appreciated by himself, he attached a strange value to the
company and presence of this mere child.  When, after receiving some
assistance from the surgeon himself, he retired to the bedroom
prepared for him, and it was broad day, his mind was still dwelling
on this theme,

'I would rather have lost,' he said, 'a thousand pounds than lost
the boy just now.  But I'll return home alone.  I am resolved upon
that.  Chuzzlewit shall go forward first, and I will follow in my
own time.  I'll have no more of this,' he added, wiping his damp
forehead.  'Twenty-four hours of this would turn my hair grey!'

After examining his chamber, and looking under the bed, and in the
cupboards, and even behind the curtains, with unusual caution
(although it was, as has been said, broad day), he double-locked the
door by which he had entered, and retired to rest.  There was
another door in the room, but it was locked on the outer side; and
with what place it communicated, he knew not.

His fears or evil conscience reproduced this door in all his dreams.
He dreamed that a dreadful secret was connected with it; a secret
which he knew, and yet did not know, for although he was heavily
responsible for it, and a party to it, he was harassed even in his
vision by a distracting uncertainty in reference to its import.
Incoherently entwined with this dream was another, which represented
it as the hiding-place of an enemy, a shadow, a phantom; and made it
the business of his life to keep the terrible creature closed up,
and prevent it from forcing its way in upon him.  With this view
Nadgett, and he, and a strange man with a bloody smear upon his head
(who told him that he had been his playfellow, and told him, too,
the real name of an old schoolmate, forgotten until then), worked
with iron plates and nails to make the door secure; but though they
worked never so hard, it was all in vain, for the nails broke, or
changed to soft twigs, or what was worse, to worms, between their
fingers; the wood of the door splintered and crumbled, so that even
nails would not remain in it; and the iron plates curled up like hot
paper.  All this time the creature on the other side--whether it was
in the shape of man, or beast, he neither knew nor sought to know--
was gaining on them.  But his greatest terror was when the man with
the bloody smear upon his head demanded of him if he knew this
creatures name, and said that he would whisper it.  At this the
dreamer fell upon his knees, his whole blood thrilling with
inexplicable fear, and held his ears.  But looking at the speaker's
lips, he saw that they formed the utterance of the letter 'J'; and
crying out aloud that the secret was discovered, and they were all
lost, he awoke.

Awoke to find Jonas standing at his bedside watching him.  And that
very door wide open.

As their eyes met, Jonas retreated a few paces, and Montague sprang
out of bed.

'Heyday!' said Jonas.  'You're all alive this morning.'

'Alive!' the other stammered, as he pulled the bell-rope violently.
'What are you doing here?'

'It's your room to be sure,' said Jonas; 'but I'm almost inclined to
ask you what YOU are doing here?  My room is on the other side of
that door.  No one told me last night not to open it.  I thought it
led into a passage, and was coming out to order breakfast.  There's
--there's no bell in my room.'

Montague had in the meantime admitted the man with his hot water and
boots, who hearing this, said, yes, there was; and passed into the
adjoining room to point it out, at the head of the bed.

'I couldn't find it, then,' said Jonas; 'it's all the same.  Shall I
order breakfast?'

Montague answered in the affirmative.  When Jonas had retired,
whistling, through his own room, he opened the door of
communication, to take out the key and fasten it on the inner side.
But it was taken out already.

He dragged a table against the door, and sat down to collect
himself, as if his dreams still had some influence upon his mind.

'An evil journey,' he repeated several times.  'An evil journey.
But I'll travel home alone.  I'll have no more of this.'

His presentiment, or superstition, that it was an evil journey, did
not at all deter him from doing the evil for which the journey was
undertaken.  With this in view, he dressed himself more carefully
than usual to make a favourable impression on Mr Pecksniff; and,
reassured by his own appearance, the beauty of the morning, and the
flashing of the wet boughs outside his window in the merry sunshine,
was soon sufficiently inspirited to swear a few round oaths, and hum
the fag-end of a song.

But he still muttered to himself at intervals, for all that: 'I'll
travel home alone!'



CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

HAS AN INFLUENCE ON THE FORTUNES OF SEVERAL PEOPLE.  MR PECKSNIFF IS
EXHIBITED IN THE PLENITUDE OF POWER; AND WIELDS THE SAME WITH
FORTITUDE AND MAGNANIMITY


On the night of the storm, Mrs Lupin, hostess of the Blue Dragon,
sat by herself in her little bar.  Her solitary condition, or the
bad weather, or both united, made Mrs Lupin thoughtful, not to say
sorrowful.  As she sat with her chin upon her hand, looking out
through a low back lattice, rendered dim in the brightest day-time
by clustering vine-leaves, she shook her head very often, and said,
'Dear me!  Oh, dear, dear me!'

It was a melancholy time, even in the snugness of the Dragon bar.
The rich expanse of corn-field, pasture-land, green slope, and
gentle undulation, with its sparkling brooks, its many hedgerows,
and its clumps of beautiful trees, was black and dreary, from the
diamond panes of the lattice away to the far horizon, where the
thunder seemed to roll along the hills.  The heavy rain beat down
the tender branches of vine and jessamine, and trampled on them in
its fury; and when the lightning gleamed it showed the tearful
leaves shivering and cowering together at the window, and tapping at
it urgently, as if beseeching to be sheltered from the dismal night.

As a mark of her respect for the lightning, Mrs Lupin had removed
her candle to the chimney-piece.  Her basket of needle-work stood
unheeded at her elbow; her supper, spread on a round table not far
off, was untasted; and the knives had been removed for fear of
attraction.  She had sat for a long time with her chin upon her
hand, saying to herself at intervals, 'Dear me!  Ah, dear, dear me!'

She was on the eve of saying so, once more, when the latch of the
house-door (closed to keep the rain out), rattled on its well-worn
catch, and a traveller came in, who, shutting it after him, and
walking straight up to the half-door of the bar, said, rather
gruffly:

'A pint of the best old beer here.'

He had some reason to be gruff, for if he had passed the day in a
waterfall, he could scarcely have been wetter than he was.  He was
wrapped up to the eyes in a rough blue sailor's coat, and had an
oil-skin hat on, from the capacious brim of which the rain fell
trickling down upon his breast, and back, and shoulders.  Judging
from a certain liveliness of chin--he had so pulled down his hat,
and pulled up his collar, to defend himself from the weather, that
she could only see his chin, and even across that he drew the wet
sleeve of his shaggy coat, as she looked at him--Mrs Lupin set him
down for a good-natured fellow, too.

'A bad night!' observed the hostess cheerfully.

The traveller shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and said it
was, rather.

'There's a fire in the kitchen,' said Mrs Lupin, 'and very good
company there.  Hadn't you better go and dry yourself?'

'No, thankee,' said the man, glancing towards the kitchen as he
spoke; he seemed to know the way.

'It's enough to give you your death of cold,' observed the hostess.

'I don't take my death easy,' returned the traveller; 'or I should
most likely have took it afore to-night.  Your health, ma'am!'

Mrs Lupin thanked him; but in the act of lifting the tankard to his
mouth, he changed his mind, and put it down again.  Throwing his
body back, and looking about him stiffly, as a man does who is
wrapped up, and has his hat low down over his eyes, he said:

'What do you call this house?  Not the Dragon, do you?'

Mrs Lupin complacently made answer, 'Yes, the Dragon.'

'Why, then, you've got a sort of a relation of mine here, ma'am,'
said the traveller; 'a young man of the name of Tapley.  What!  Mark,
my boy!' apostrophizing the premises, 'have I come upon you at last,
old buck!'

This was touching Mrs Lupin on a tender point.  She turned to trim
the candle on the chimney-piece, and said, with her back towards the
traveller:

'Nobody should be made more welcome at the Dragon, master, than any
one who brought me news of Mark.  But it's many and many a long day
and month since he left here and England.  And whether he's alive or
dead, poor fellow, Heaven above us only knows!'

She shook her head, and her voice trembled; her hand must have done
so too, for the light required a deal of trimming.

'Where did he go, ma'am?' asked the traveller, in a gentler voice.

'He went,' said Mrs Lupin, with increased distress, 'to America.  He
was always tender-hearted and kind, and perhaps at this moment may
be lying in prison under sentence of death, for taking pity on some
miserable black, and helping the poor runaway creetur to escape.
How could he ever go to America!  Why didn't he go to some of those
countries where the savages eat each other fairly, and give an equal
chance to every one!'

Quite subdued by this time, Mrs Lupin sobbed, and was retiring to a
chair to give her grief free vent, when the traveller caught her in
his arms, and she uttered a glad cry of recognition.

'Yes, I will!' cried Mark, 'another--one more--twenty more!  You
didn't know me in that hat and coat?  I thought you would have known
me anywheres!  Ten more!'

'So I should have known you, if I could have seen you; but I
couldn't, and you spoke so gruff.  I didn't think you could speak
gruff to me, Mark, at first coming back.'

'Fifteen more!' said Mr Tapley.  'How handsome and how young you
look!  Six more!  The last half-dozen warn't a fair one, and must be
done over again.  Lord bless you, what a treat it is to see you!  One
more!  Well, I never was so jolly.  Just a few more, on account of
there not being any credit in it!'

When Mr Tapley stopped in these calculations in simple addition, he
did it, not because he was at all tired of the exercise, but because
he was out of breath.  The pause reminded him of other duties.

'Mr Martin Chuzzlewit's outside,' he said.  'I left him under the
cartshed, while I came on to see if there was anybody here.  We
want to keep quiet to-night, till we know the news from you, and
what it's best for us to do.'

'There's not a soul in the house, except the kitchen company,'
returned the hostess.  'If they were to know you had come back,
Mark, they'd have a bonfire in the street, late as it is.'

'But they mustn't know it to-night, my precious soul,' said Mark;
'so have the house shut, and the kitchen fire made up; and when it's
all ready, put a light in the winder, and we'll come in.  One more!
I long to hear about old friends.  You'll tell me all about 'em,
won't you; Mr Pinch, and the butcher's dog down the street, and the
terrier over the way, and the wheelwright's, and every one of 'em.
When I first caught sight of the church to-night, I thought the
steeple would have choked me, I did.  One more!  Won't you?  Not a
very little one to finish off with?'

'You have had plenty, I am sure,' said the hostess.  'Go along with
your foreign manners!'

'That ain't foreign, bless you!' cried Mark.  'Native as oysters,
that is!  One more, because it's native!  As a mark of respect for the
land we live in!  This don't count as between you and me, you
understand,' said Mr Tapley.  'I ain't a-kissing you now, you'll
observe.  I have been among the patriots; I'm a-kissin' my country.'

It would have been very unreasonable to complain of the exhibition
of his patriotism with which he followed up this explanation, that
it was at all lukewarm or indifferent.  When he had given full
expression to his nationality, he hurried off to Martin; while Mrs
Lupin, in a state of great agitation and excitement, prepared for
their reception.

The company soon came tumbling out; insisting to each other that the
Dragon clock was half an hour too fast, and that the thunder must
have affected it.  Impatient, wet, and weary though they were,
Martin and Mark were overjoyed to see these old faces, and watched
them with delighted interest as they departed from the house, and
passed close by them.

'There's the old tailor, Mark!' whispered Martin.

'There he goes, sir!  A little bandier than he was, I think, sir,
ain't he?  His figure's so far altered, as it seems to me, that you
might wheel a rather larger barrow between his legs as he walks,
than you could have done conveniently when we know'd him.  There's
Sam a-coming out, sir.'

'Ah, to be sure!' cried Martin; 'Sam, the hostler.  I wonder whether
that horse of Pecksniff's is alive still?'

'Not a doubt on it, sir,' returned Mark.  'That's a description of
animal, sir, as will go on in a bony way peculiar to himself for a
long time, and get into the newspapers at last under the title of
"Sing'lar Tenacity of Life in a Quadruped."  As if he had ever been
alive in all his life, worth mentioning!  There's the clerk, sir--
wery drunk, as usual.'

'I see him!' said Martin, laughing.  'But, my life, how wet you are,
Mark!'

'I am!  What do you consider yourself, sir?'

'Oh, not half as bad,' said his fellow-traveller, with an air of
great vexation.  'I told you not to keep on the windy side, Mark,
but to let us change and change about.  The rain has been beating on
you ever since it began.'

'You don't know how it pleases me, sir,' said Mark, after a short
silence, 'if I may make so bold as say so, to hear you a-going on in
that there uncommon considerate way of yours; which I don't mean to
attend to, never, but which, ever since that time when I was floored
in Eden, you have showed.'

'Ah, Mark!' sighed Martin, 'the less we say of that the better.  Do
I see the light yonder?'

'That's the light!' cried Mark.  'Lord bless her, what briskness she
possesses!  Now for it, sir.  Neat wines, good beds, and first-rate
entertainment for man or beast.'

The kitchen fire burnt clear and red, the table was spread out, the
kettle boiled; the slippers were there, the boot-jack too, sheets of
ham were there, cooking on the gridiron; half-a-dozen eggs were
there, poaching in the frying-pan; a plethoric cherry-brandy bottle
was there, winking at a foaming jug of beer upon the table; rare
provisions were there, dangling from the rafters as if you had only
to open your mouth, and something exquisitely ripe and good would be
glad of the excuse for tumbling into it.  Mrs Lupin, who for their
sakes had dislodged the very cook, high priestess of the temple,
with her own genial hands was dressing their repast.

It was impossible to help it--a ghost must have hugged her.  The
Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea being, in that respect, all one,
Martin hugged her instantly.  Mr Tapley (as if the idea were quite
novel, and had never occurred to him before), followed, with much
gravity, on the same side.

'Little did I ever think,' said Mrs Lupin, adjusting her cap and
laughing heartily; yes, and blushing too; 'often as I have said that
Mr Pecksniff's young gentlemen were the life and soul of the Dragon,
and that without them it would be too dull to live in--little did I
ever think I am sure, that any one of them would ever make so free
as you, Mr Martin!  And still less that I shouldn't be angry with
him, but should be glad with all my heart to be the first to welcome
him home from America, with Mark Tapley for his--'

'For his friend, Mrs Lupin,' interposed Martin.

'For his friend,' said the hostess, evidently gratified by this
distinction, but at the same time admonishing Mr Tapley with a fork
to remain at a respectful distance.  'Little did I ever think that!
But still less, that I should ever have the changes to relate that I
shall have to tell you of, when you have done your supper!'

'Good Heaven!' cried Martin, changing colour, 'what changes?'

'SHE,' said the hostess, 'is quite well, and now at Mr Pecksniff's.
Don't be at all alarmed about her.  She is everything you could
wish.  It's of no use mincing matters, or making secrets, is it?'
added Mrs Lupin.  'I know all about it, you see!'

'My good creature,' returned Martin, 'you are exactly the person who
ought to know all about it.  I am delighted to think you DO know
about that!  But what changes do you hint at?  Has any death
occurred?'

'No, no!' said the hostess.  'Not as bad as that.  But I declare now
that I will not be drawn into saying another word till you have had
your supper.  If you ask me fifty questions in the meantime, I won't
answer one.'

She was so positive, that there was nothing for it but to get the
supper over as quickly as possible; and as they had been walking a
great many miles, and had fasted since the middle of the day, they
did no great violence to their own inclinations in falling on it
tooth and nail.  It took rather longer to get through than might
have been expected; for, half-a-dozen times, when they thought they
had finished, Mrs Lupin exposed the fallacy of that impression
triumphantly.  But at last, in the course of time and nature, they
gave in.  Then, sitting with their slippered feet stretched out upon
the kitchen hearth (which was wonderfully comforting, for the night
had grown by this time raw and chilly), and looking with involuntary
admiration at their dimpled, buxom, blooming hostess, as the
firelight sparkled in her eyes and glimmered in her raven hair, they
composed themselves to listen to her news.

Many were the exclamations of surprise which interrupted her, when
she told them of the separation between Mr Pecksniff and his
daughters, and between the same good gentleman and Mr Pinch.  But
these were nothing to the indignant demonstrations of Martin, when
she related, as the common talk of the neighbourhood, what entire
possession he had obtained over the mind and person of old Mr
Chuzzlewit, and what high honour he designed for Mary.  On receipt
of this intelligence, Martin's slippers flew off in a twinkling, and
he began pulling on his wet boots with that indefinite intention of
going somewhere instantly, and doing something to somebody, which is
the first safety-valve of a hot temper.

'He!' said Martin, 'smooth-tongued villain that he is!  He!  Give me
that other boot, Mark?'

'Where was you a-thinking of going to, sir?' inquired Mr Tapley
drying the sole at the fire, and looking coolly at it as he spoke,
as if it were a slice of toast.

'Where!' repeated Martin.  'You don't suppose I am going to remain
here, do you?'

The imperturbable Mark confessed that he did.

You do!' retorted Martin angrily.  'I am much obliged to you.  What
do you take me for?'

'I take you for what you are, sir,' said Mark; 'and, consequently,
am quite sure that whatever you do will be right and sensible.  The
boot, sir.'

Martin darted an impatient look at him, without taking it, and
walked rapidly up and down the kitchen several times, with one boot
and a stocking on.  But, mindful of his Eden resolution, he had
already gained many victories over himself when Mark was in the case,
and he resolved to conquer now.  So he came back to the book-jack,
laid his hand on Mark's shoulder to steady himself, pulled the boot
off, picked up his slippers, put them on, and sat down again.  He
could not help thrusting his hands to the very bottom of his
pockets, and muttering at intervals, 'Pecksniff too!  That fellow!
Upon my soul!  In-deed!  What next?' and so forth; nor could he help
occasionally shaking his fist at the chimney, with a very
threatening countenance; but this did not last long; and he heard
Mrs Lupin out, if not with composure, at all events in silence.

'As to Mr Pecksniff himself,' observed the hostess in conclusion,
spreading out the skirts of her gown with both hands, and nodding
her head a great many times as she did so, 'I don't know what to
say.  Somebody must have poisoned his mind, or influenced him in
some extraordinary way.  I cannot believe that such a noble-spoken
gentleman would go and do wrong of his own accord!'

A noble-spoken gentleman!  How many people are there in the world,
who, for no better reason, uphold their Pecksniffs to the last and
abandon virtuous men, when Pecksniffs breathe upon them!

'As to Mr Pinch,' pursued the landlady, 'if ever there was a dear,
good, pleasant, worthy soul alive, Pinch, and no other, is his name.
But how do we know that old Mr Chuzzlewit himself was not the cause
of difference arising between him and Mr Pecksniff?  No one but
themselves can tell; for Mr Pinch has a proud spirit, though he has
such a quiet way; and when he left us, and was so sorry to go, he
scorned to make his story good, even to me.'

'Poor old Tom!' said Martin, in a tone that sounded like remorse.

'It's a comfort to know,' resumed the landlady, 'that he has his
sister living with him, and is doing well.  Only yesterday he sent
me back, by post, a little'--here the colour came into her cheeks--
'a little trifle I was bold enough to lend him when he went away;
saying, with many thanks, that he had good employment, and didn't
want it.  It was the same note; he hadn't broken it.  I never
thought I could have been so little pleased to see a bank-note come
back to me as I was to see that.'

'Kindly said, and heartily!' said Martin.  'Is it not, Mark?'

'She can't say anything as does not possess them qualities,'
returned Mr Tapley; 'which as much belongs to the Dragon as its
licence.  And now that we have got quite cool and fresh, to the
subject again, sir; what will you do?  If you're not proud, and can
make up your mind to go through with what you spoke of, coming along,
that's the course for you to take.  If you started wrong with your
grandfather (which, you'll excuse my taking the liberty of saying,
appears to have been the case), up with you, sir, and tell him so,
and make an appeal to his affections.  Don't stand out.  He's a
great deal older than you, and if he was hasty, you was hasty too.
Give way, sir, give way.'

The eloquence of Mr Tapley was not without its effect on Martin but
he still hesitated, and expressed his reason thus:

'That's all very true, and perfectly correct, Mark; and if it were
a mere question of humbling myself before HIM, I would not consider
it twice.  But don't you see, that being wholly under this
hypocrite's government, and having (if what we hear be true) no mind
or will of his own, I throw myself, in fact, not at his feet, but at
the feet of Mr Pecksniff?  And when I am rejected and spurned away,'
said Martin, turning crimson at the thought, 'it is not by him; my
own blood stirred against me; but by Pecksniff--Pecksniff, Mark!'

'Well, but we know beforehand,' returned the politic Mr Tapley,
'that Pecksniff is a wagabond, a scoundrel, and a willain.'

'A most pernicious villain!' said Martin.

'A most pernicious willain.  We know that beforehand, sir; and,
consequently, it's no shame to be defeated by Pecksniff.  Blow
Pecksniff!' cried Mr Tapley, in the fervour of his eloquence.
'Who's he!  It's not in the natur of Pecksniff to shame US, unless he
agreed with us, or done us a service; and, in case he offered any
audacity of that description, we could express our sentiments in the
English language, I hope.  Pecksniff!' repeated Mr Tapley, with
ineffable disdain.  'What's Pecksniff, who's Pecksniff, where's
Pecksniff, that he's to be so much considered?  We're not a-
calculating for ourselves;' he laid uncommon emphasis on the last
syllable of that word, and looked full in Martin's face; 'we're
making a effort for a young lady likewise as has undergone her
share; and whatever little hope we have, this here Pecksniff is not
to stand in its way, I expect.  I never heard of any act of
Parliament, as was made by Pecksniff.  Pecksniff!  Why, I wouldn't
see the man myself; I wouldn't hear him; I wouldn't choose to know
he was in company.  I'd scrape my shoes on the scraper of the door,
and call that Pecksniff, if you liked; but I wouldn't condescend no
further.'

The amazement of Mrs Lupin, and indeed of Mr Tapley himself for that
matter, at this impassioned flow of language, was immense.  But
Martin, after looking thoughtfully at the fire for a short time,
said:

'You are right, Mark.  Right or wrong, it shall be done.  I'll do
it.'

'One word more, sir,' returned Mark.  'Only think of him so far as
not to give him a handle against you.  Don't you do anything secret
that he can report before you get there.  Don't you even see Miss
Mary in the morning, but let this here dear friend of ours'--Mr
Tapley bestowed a smile upon the hostess--'prepare her for what's a-
going to happen, and carry any little message as may be agreeable.
She knows how.  Don't you?'  Mrs Lupin laughed and tossed her head.
'Then you go in, bold and free as a gentleman should.  "I haven't
done nothing under-handed," says you.  "I haven't been skulking
about the premises, here I am, for-give me, I ask your pardon, God
Bless You!"'

Martin smiled, but felt that it was good advice notwithstanding, and
resolved to act upon it.  When they had ascertained from Mrs Lupin
that Pecksniff had already returned from the great ceremonial at
which they had beheld him in his glory; and when they had fully
arranged the order of their proceedings; they went to bed, intent
upon the morrow.

In pursuance of their project as agreed upon at this discussion, Mr
Tapley issued forth next morning, after breakfast, charged with a
letter from Martin to his grandfather, requesting leave to wait upon
him for a few minutes.  And postponing as he went along the
congratulations of his numerous friends until a more convenient
season, he soon arrived at Mr Pecksniff's house.  At that
gentleman's door; with a face so immovable that it would have been
next to an impossibility for the most acute physiognomist to
determine what he was thinking about, or whether he was thinking at
all; he straightway knocked.

A person of Mr Tapley's observation could not long remain insensible
to the fact that Mr Pecksniff was making the end of his nose very
blunt against the glass of the parlour window, in an angular attempt
to discover who had knocked at the door.  Nor was Mr Tapley slow to
baffle this movement on the part of the enemy, by perching himself
on the top step, and presenting the crown of his hat in that
direction.  But possibly Mr Pecksniff had already seen him, for Mark
soon heard his shoes creaking, as he advanced to open the door with
his own hands.

Mr Pecksniff was as cheerful as ever, and sang a little song in the
passage.

'How d'ye do, sir?' said Mark.

'Oh!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'Tapley, I believe?  The Prodigal
returned!  We don't want any beer, my friend.'

'Thankee, sir,' said Mark.  'I couldn't accommodate you if you did.
A letter, sir.  Wait for an answer.'

'For me?' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'And an answer, eh?'

'Not for you, I think, sir,' said Mark, pointing out the direction.
'Chuzzlewit, I believe the name is, sir.'

'Oh!' returned Mr Pecksniff.  'Thank you.  Yes.  Who's it from, my
good young man?'

'The gentleman it comes from wrote his name inside, sir,' returned
Mr Tapley with extreme politeness.  'I see him a-signing of it at
the end, while I was a-waitin'.'

'And he said he wanted an answer, did he?' asked Mr Pecksniff in his
most persuasive manner.

Mark replied in the affirmative.

'He shall have an answer.  Certainly,' said Mr Pecksniff, tearing
the letter into small pieces, as mildly as if that were the most
flattering attention a correspondent could receive.  'Have the
goodness to give him that, with my compliments, if you please.  Good
morning!'  Whereupon he handed Mark the scraps; retired, and shut the
door.

Mark thought it prudent to subdue his personal emotions, and return
to Martin at the Dragon.  They were not unprepared for such a
reception, and suffered an hour or so to elapse before making
another attempt.  When this interval had gone by, they returned to
Mr Pecksniff's house in company.  Martin knocked this time, while Mr
Tapley prepared himself to keep the door open with his foot and
shoulder, when anybody came, and by that means secure an enforced
parley.  But this precaution was needless, for the servant-girl
appeared almost immediately.  Brushing quickly past her as he had
resolved in such a case to do, Martin (closely followed by his
faithful ally) opened the door of that parlour in which he knew a
visitor was most likely to be found; passed at once into the room;
and stood, without a word of notice or announcement, in the presence
of his grandfather.

Mr Pecksniff also was in the room; and Mary.  In the swift instant
of their mutual recognition, Martin saw the old man droop his grey
head, and hide his face in his hands.

It smote him to the heart.  In his most selfish and most careless
day, this lingering remnant of the old man's ancient love, this
buttress of a ruined tower he had built up in the time gone by, with
so much pride and hope, would have caused a pang in Martin's heart.
But now, changed for the better in his worst respect; looking
through an altered medium on his former friend, the guardian of his
childhood, so broken and bowed down; resentment, sullenness,
self-confidence, and pride, were all swept away, before the starting
tears upon the withered cheeks.  He could not bear to see them.  He
could not bear to think they fell at sight of him.  He could not
bear to view reflected in them, the reproachful and irrevocable
Past.

He hurriedly advanced to seize the old man's hand in his, when Mr
Pecksniff interposed himself between them.

'No, young man!' said Mr Pecksniff, striking himself upon the
breast, and stretching out his other arm towards his guest as if it
were a wing to shelter him.  'No, sir.  None of that.  Strike here,
sir, here!  Launch your arrows at me, sir, if you'll have the
goodness; not at Him!'

'Grandfather!' cried Martin.  'Hear me!  I implore you, let me
speak!'

'Would you, sir?  Would you?' said Mr Pecksniff, dodging about, so
as to keep himself always between them.  'Is it not enough, sir,
that you come into my house like a thief in the night, or I should
rather say, for we can never be too particular on the subject of
Truth, like a thief in the day-time; bringing your dissolute
companions with you, to plant themselves with their backs against
the insides of parlour doors, and prevent the entrance or issuing
forth of any of my household'--Mark had taken up this position, and
held it quite unmoved--'but would you also strike at venerable
Virtue?  Would you?  Know that it is not defenceless.  I will be its
shield, young man.  Assail me.  Come on, sir.  Fire away!'

'Pecksniff,' said the old man, in a feeble voice.  'Calm yourself.
Be quiet.'

'I can't be calm,' cried Mr Pecksniff, 'and I won't be quiet.  My
benefactor and my friend!  Shall even my house be no refuge for your
hoary pillow!'

'Stand aside!' said the old man, stretching out his hand; 'and let
me see what it is I used to love so dearly.'

'It is right that you should see it, my friend,' said Mr Pecksniff.
'It is well that you should see it, my noble sir.  It is desirable
that you should contemplate it in its true proportions.  Behold it!
There it is, sir.  There it is!'

Martin could hardly be a mortal man, and not express in his face
something of the anger and disdain with which Mr Pecksniff inspired
him.  But beyond this he evinced no knowledge whatever of that
gentleman's presence or existence.  True, he had once, and that at
first, glanced at him involuntarily, and with supreme contempt; but
for any other heed he took of him, there might have been nothing in
his place save empty air.

As Mr Pecksniff withdrew from between them, agreeably to the wish
just now expressed (which he did during the delivery of the
observations last recorded), old Martin, who had taken Mary Graham's
hand in his, and whispered kindly to her, as telling her she had no
cause to be alarmed, gently pushed her from him, behind his chair;
and looked steadily at his grandson.

'And that,' he said, 'is he.  Ah! that is he!  Say what you wish to
say.  But come no nearer,'

'His sense of justice is so fine,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'that he will
hear even him, although he knows beforehand that nothing can come of
it.  Ingenuous mind!'  Mr Pecksniff did not address himself
immediately to any person in saying this, but assuming the position
of the Chorus in a Greek Tragedy, delivered his opinion as a
commentary on the proceedings.

'Grandfather!' said Martin, with great earnestness.  'From a painful
journey, from a hard life, from a sick-bed, from privation and
distress, from gloom and disappointment, from almost hopelessness
and despair, I have come back to you.'

'Rovers of this sort,' observed Mr Pecksniff, as Chorus, 'very
commonly come back when they find they don't meet with the success
they expected in their marauding ravages.'

'But for this faithful man,' said Martin, turning towards Mark,
'whom I first knew in this place, and who went away with me
voluntarily, as a servant, but has been, throughout, my zealous and
devoted friend; but for him, I must have died abroad.  Far from
home, far from any help or consolation; far from the probability
even of my wretched fate being ever known to any one who cared to
hear it--oh, that you would let me say, of being known to you!'

The old man looked at Mr Pecksniff.  Mr Pecksniff looked at him.
'Did you speak, my worthy sir?' said Mr Pecksniff, with a smile.
The old man answered in the negative.  'I know what you thought,'
said Mr Pecksniff, with another smile.  'Let him go on my friend.
The development of self-interest in the human mind is always a
curious study.  Let him go on, sir.'

'Go on!' observed the old man; in a mechanical obedience, it
appeared, to Mr Pecksniff's suggestion.

'I have been so wretched and so poor,' said Martin, 'that I am
indebted to the charitable help of a stranger, in a land of
strangers, for the means of returning here.  All this tells against
me in your mind, I know.  I have given you cause to think I have
been driven here wholly by want, and have not been led on, in any
degree, by affection or regret.  When I parted from you,
Grandfather, I deserved that suspicion, but I do not now.  I do not
now.'

The Chorus put its hand in its waistcoat, and smiled.  'Let him go
on, my worthy sir,' it said.  'I know what you are thinking of, but
don't express it prematurely.'

Old Martin raised his eyes to Mr Pecksniff's face, and appearing to
derive renewed instruction from his looks and words, said, once
again:

'Go on!'

'I have little more to say,' returned Martin.  'And as I say it now,
with little or no hope, Grandfather; whatever dawn of hope I had on
entering the room; believe it to be true.  At least, believe it to
be true.'

'Beautiful Truth!' exclaimed the Chorus, looking upward.  'How is
your name profaned by vicious persons!  You don't live in a well, my
holy principle, but on the lips of false mankind.  It is hard to
bear with mankind, dear sir'--addressing the elder Mr Chuzzlewit;
'but let us do so meekly.  It is our duty so to do.  Let us be among
the Few who do their duty.  If,' pursued the Chorus, soaring up into
a lofty flight, 'as the poet informs us, England expects Every man
to do his duty, England is the most sanguine country on the face of
the earth, and will find itself continually disappointed.'

'Upon that subject,' said Martin, looking calmly at the old man as
he spoke, but glancing once at Mary, whose face was now buried in
her hands, upon the back of his easy-chair; 'upon that subject which
first occasioned a division between us, my mind and heart are
incapable of change.  Whatever influence they have undergone, since
that unhappy time, has not been one to weaken but to strengthen me.
I cannot profess sorrow for that, nor irresolution in that, nor
shame in that.  Nor would you wish me, I know.  But that I might
have trusted to your love, if I had thrown myself manfully upon it;
that I might have won you over with ease, if I had been more
yielding and more considerate; that I should have best remembered
myself in forgetting myself, and recollecting you; reflection,
solitude, and misery, have taught me.  I came resolved to say this,
and to ask your forgiveness; not so much in hope for the future, as
in regret for the past; for all that I would ask of you is, that you
would aid me to live.  Help me to get honest work to do, and I would
do it.  My condition places me at the disadvantage of seeming to
have only my selfish ends to serve, but try if that be so or not.
Try if I be self-willed, obdurate, and haughty, as I was; or have
been disciplined in a rough school.  Let the voice of nature and
association plead between us, Grandfather; and do not, for one
fault, however thankless, quite reject me!'

As he ceased, the grey head of the old man drooped again; and he
concealed his face behind his outspread fingers.

'My dear sir,' cried Mr Pecksniff, bending over him, 'you must not
give way to this.  It is very natural, and very amiable, but you
must not allow the shameless conduct of one whom you long ago cast
off, to move you so far.  Rouse yourself.  Think,' said Pecksniff,
'think of Me, my friend.'

'I will,' returned old Martin, looking up into his face.  'You
recall me to myself.  I will.'

'Why, what,' said Mr Pecksniff, sitting down beside him in a chair
which he drew up for the purpose, and tapping him playfully on the
arm, 'what is the matter with my strong-minded compatriot, if I may
venture to take the liberty of calling him by that endearing
expression?  Shall I have to scold my coadjutor, or to reason with
an intellect like this?  I think not.'

'No, no.  There is no occasion,' said the old man.  'A momentary
feeling.  Nothing more.'

'Indignation,' observed Mr Pecksniff, 'WILL bring the scalding tear
into the honest eye, I know'--he wiped his own elaborately.  'But we
have highest duties to perform than that.  Rouse yourself, Mr
Chuzzlewit.  Shall I give expression to your thoughts, my friend?'

'Yes,' said old Martin, leaning back in his chair, and looking at
him, half in vacancy and half in admiration, as if he were
fascinated by the man.  'Speak for me, Pecksniff, Thank you.  You
are true to me.  Thank you!'

'Do not unman me, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand
vigorously, 'or I shall be unequal to the task.  It is not agreeable
to my feelings, my good sir, to address the person who is now before
us, for when I ejected him from this house, after hearing of his
unnatural conduct from your lips, I renounced communication with him
for ever.  But you desire it; and that is sufficient.  Young man!
The door is immediately behind the companion of your infamy.  Blush
if you can; begone without a blush, if you can't.'

Martin looked as steadily at his grandfather as if there had been a
dead silence all this time.  The old man looked no less steadily at
Mr Pecksniff.

'When I ordered you to leave this house upon the last occasion of
your being dismissed from it with disgrace,' said Mr Pecksniff;
'when, stung and stimulated beyond endurance by your shameless
conduct to this extraordinarily noble-minded individual, I exclaimed
"Go forth!" I told you that I wept for your depravity.  Do not
suppose that the tear which stands in my eye at this moment, is shed
for you.  It is shed for him, sir.  It is shed for him.'

Here Mr Pecksniff, accidentally dropping the tear in question on a
bald part of Mr Chuzzlewit's head, wiped the place with his pocket-
handkerchief, and begged pardon.

'It is shed for him, sir, whom you seek to make the victim of your
arts,' said Mr Pecksniff; 'whom you seek to plunder, to deceive, and
to mislead.  It is shed in sympathy with him, and admiration of him;
not in pity for him, for happily he knows what you are.  You shall
not wrong him further, sir, in any way,' said Mr Pecksniff, quite
transported with enthusiasm, 'while I have life.  You may bestride
my senseless corse, sir.  That is very likely.  I can imagine a mind
like yours deriving great satisfaction from any measure of that
kind.  But while I continue to be called upon to exist, sir, you
must strike at him through me.  Awe!' said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his
head at Martin with indignant jocularity; 'and in such a cause you
will find me, my young sir, an Ugly Customer!'

Still Martin looked steadily and mildly at his grandfather.  'Will
you give me no answer,' he said, at length, 'not a word?'

'You hear what has been said,' replied the old man, without averting
his eyes from the face of Mr Pecksniff; who nodded encouragingly.

'I have not heard your voice.  I have not heard your spirit,'
returned Martin.

'Tell him again,' said the old man, still gazing up in Mr
Pecksniff's face.

'I only hear,' replied Martin, strong in his purpose from the first,
and stronger in it as he felt how Pecksniff winced and shrunk
beneath his contempt; 'I only hear what you say to me, grandfather.'

Perhaps it was well for Mr Pecksniff that his venerable friend found
in his (Mr Pecksniff's) features an exclusive and engrossing object
of contemplation, for if his eyes had gone astray, and he had
compared young Martin's bearing with that of his zealous defender,
the latter disinterested gentleman would scarcely have shown to
greater advantage than on the memorable afternoon when he took Tom
Pinch's last receipt in full of all demands.  One really might have
thought there was some quality in Mr Pecksniff--an emanation from
the brightness and purity within him perhaps--which set off and
adorned his foes; they looked so gallant and so manly beside him.

'Not a word?' said Martin, for the second time.

'I remember that I have a word to say, Pecksniff,' observed the old
man.  'But a word.  You spoke of being indebted to the charitable
help of some stranger for the means of returning to England.  Who is
he?  And what help in money did he render you?'

Although he asked this question of Martin, he did not look towards
him, but kept his eyes on Mr Pecksniff as before.  It appeared to
have become a habit with him, both in a literal and figurative
sense, to look to Mr Pecksniff alone.

Martin took out his pencil, tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and
hastily wrote down the particulars of his debt to Mr Bevan.  The old
man stretched out his hand for the paper, and took it; but his eyes
did not wander from Mr Pecksniff's face.

'It would be a poor pride and a false humility,' said Martin, in a
low voice, 'to say, I do not wish that to be paid, or that I have
any present hope of being able to pay it.  But I never felt my
poverty so deeply as I feel it now.'

'Read it to me, Pecksniff,' said the old man.

Mr Pecksniff, after approaching the perusal of the paper as if it
were a manuscript confession of a murder, complied.

'I think, Pecksniff,' said old Martin, 'I could wish that to be
discharged.  I should not like the lender, who was abroad, who had
no opportunity of making inquiry, and who did (as he thought) a kind
action, to suffer.'

'An honourable sentiment, my dear sir.  Your own entirely.  But a
dangerous precedent,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'permit me to suggest.'

'It shall not be a precedent,' returned the old man.  'It is the
only recognition of him.  But we will talk of it again.  You shall
advise me.  There is nothing else?'

'Nothing else,' said Mr Pecksniff buoyantly, 'but for you to recover
this intrusion--this cowardly and indefensible outrage on your
feelings--with all possible dispatch, and smile again.'

'You have nothing more to say?' inquired the old man, laying his
hand with unusual earnestness on Mr Pecksniff's sleeve.

Mr Pecksniff would not say what rose to his lips.  For reproaches he
observed, were useless.

'You have nothing at all to urge?  You are sure of that!  If you have,
no matter what it is, speak freely.  I will oppose nothing that you
ask of me,' said the old man.

The tears rose in such abundance to Mr Pecksniff's eyes at this
proof of unlimited confidence on the part of his friend, that he was
fain to clasp the bridge of his nose convulsively before he could at
all compose himself.  When he had the power of utterance again, he
said with great emotion, that he hoped he should live to deserve
this; and added, that he had no other observation whatever to make.

For a few moments the old man sat looking at him, with that blank
and motionless expression which is not uncommon in the faces of
those whose faculties are on the wane, in age.  But he rose up
firmly too, and walked towards the door, from which Mark withdrew to
make way for him.

The obsequious Mr Pecksniff proffered his arm.  The old man took it.
Turning at the door, he said to Martin, waving him off with his
hand,

'You have heard him.  Go away.  It is all over.  Go!'

Mr Pecksniff murmured certain cheering expressions of sympathy and
encouragement as they retired; and Martin, awakening from the stupor
into which the closing portion of this scene had plunged him, to the
opportunity afforded by their departure, caught the innocent cause
of all in his embrace, and pressed her to his heart.

'Dear girl!' said Martin.  'He has not changed you.  Why, what an
impotent and harmless knave the fellow is!'

'You have restrained yourself so nobly!  You have borne so much!'

'Restrained myself!' cried Martin, cheerfully.  'You were by, and
were unchanged, I knew.  What more advantage did I want?  The sight
of me was such a bitterness to the dog, that I had my triumph in his
being forced to endure it.  But tell me, love--for the few hasty
words we can exchange now are precious--what is this which has been
rumoured to me?  Is it true that you are persecuted by this knave's
addresses?'

'I was, dear Martin, and to some extent am now; but my chief source
of unhappiness has been anxiety for you.  Why did you leave us in
such terrible suspense?'

'Sickness, distance; the dread of hinting at our real condition,
the impossibility of concealing it except in perfect silence; the
knowledge that the truth would have pained you infinitely more than
uncertainty and doubt,' said Martin, hurriedly; as indeed everything
else was done and said, in those few hurried moments, 'were the
causes of my writing only once.  But Pecksniff?  You needn't fear to
tell me the whole tale; for you saw me with him face to face,
hearing him speak, and not taking him by the throat; what is the
history of his pursuit of you?  Is it known to my grandfather?'

'Yes.'

'And he assists him in it?'

'No,' she answered eagerly.

'Thank Heaven!' cried Martin, 'that it leaves his mind unclouded in
that one respect!'

'I do not think,' said Mary, 'it was known to him at first.  When
this man had sufficiently prepared his mind, he revealed it to him
by degrees.  I think so, but I only know it from my own impression:
now from anything they told me.  Then he spoke to me alone.'

'My grandfather did?' said Martin.

'Yes--spoke to me alone, and told me--'

'What the hound had said,' cried Martin.  'Don't repeat it.'

'And said I knew well what qualities he possessed; that he was
moderately rich; in good repute; and high in his favour and
confidence.  But seeing me very much distressed, he said that he
would not control or force my inclinations, but would content
himself with telling me the fact.  He would not pain me by dwelling
on it, or reverting to it; nor has he ever done so since, but has
truly kept his word.'

'The man himself?--' asked Martin.

'He has had few opportunities of pursuing his suit.  I have never
walked out alone, or remained alone an instant in his presence.
Dear Martin, I must tell you,' she continued, 'that the kindness of
your grandfather to me remains unchanged.  I am his companion still.
An indescribable tenderness and compassion seem to have mingled
themselves with his old regard; and if I were his only child, I
could not have a gentler father.  What former fancy or old habit
survives in this, when his heart has turned so cold to you, is a
mystery I cannot penetrate; but it has been, and it is, a happiness
to me, that I remained true to him; that if he should wake from his
delusion, even at the point of death, I am here, love, to recall you
to his thoughts.'

Martin looked with admiration on her glowing face, and pressed his
lips to hers.

'I have sometimes heard, and read,' she said, 'that those whose
powers had been enfeebled long ago, and whose lives had faded, as it
were, into a dream, have been known to rouse themselves before
death, and inquire for familiar faces once very dear to them; but
forgotten, unrecognized, hated even, in the meantime.  Think, if
with his old impressions of this man, he should suddenly resume his
former self, and find in him his only friend!'

'I would not urge you to abandon him, dearest,' said Martin, 'though
I could count the years we are to wear out asunder.  But the
influence this fellow exercises over him has steadily increased, I
fear.'

She could not help admitting that.  Steadily, imperceptibly, and
surely, until it was paramount and supreme.  She herself had none;
and yet he treated her with more affection than at any previous
time.  Martin thought the inconsistency a part of his weakness and
decay.

'Does the influence extend to fear?' said Martin.  'Is he timid of
asserting his own opinion in the presence of this infatuation?  I
fancied so just now.'

'I have thought so, often.  Often when we are sitting alone, almost
as we used to do, and I have been reading a favourite book to him or
he has been talking quite cheerfully, I have observed that the
entrance of Mr Pecksniff has changed his whole demeanour.  He has
broken off immediately, and become what you have seen to-day.  When
we first came here he had his impetuous outbreaks, in which it was
not easy for Mr Pecksniff with his utmost plausibility to appease
him.  But these have long since dwindled away.  He defers to him in
everything, and has no opinion upon any question, but that which is
forced upon him by this treacherous man.'

Such was the account, rapidly furnished in whispers, and
interrupted, brief as it was, by many false alarms of Mr Pecksniff's
return; which Martin received of his grandfather's decline, and of
that good gentleman's ascendancy.  He heard of Tom Pinch too, and
Jonas too, with not a little about himself into the bargain; for
though lovers are remarkable for leaving a great deal unsaid on all
occasions, and very properly desiring to come back and say it, they
are remarkable also for a wonderful power of condensation, and can,
in one way or other, give utterance to more language--eloquent
language--in any given short space of time, than all the six hundred
and fifty-eight members in the Commons House of Parliament of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; who are strong lovers
no doubt, but of their country only, which makes all the difference;
for in a passion of that kind (which is not always returned), it is
the custom to use as many words as possible, and express nothing
whatever.

A caution from Mr Tapley; a hasty interchange of farewells, and of
something else which the proverb says must not be told of
afterwards; a white hand held out to Mr Tapley himself, which he
kissed with the devotion of a knight-errant; more farewells, more
something else's; a parting word from Martin that he would write
from London and would do great things there yet (Heaven knows what,
but he quite believed it); and Mark and he stood on the outside of
the Pecksniffian halls.

'A short interview after such an absence!' said Martin, sorrowfully.
'But we are well out of the house.  We might have placed ourselves
in a false position by remaining there, even so long, Mark.'

'I don't know about ourselves, sir,' he returned; 'but somebody else
would have got into a false position, if he had happened to come
back again, while we was there.  I had the door all ready, sir.  If
Pecksniff had showed his head, or had only so much as listened
behind it, I would have caught him like a walnut.  He's the sort of
man,' added Mr Tapley, musing, 'as would squeeze soft, I know.'

A person who was evidently going to Mr Pecksniff's house, passed
them at this moment.  He raised his eyes at the mention of the
architect's name; and when he had gone on a few yards, stopped and
gazed at them.  Mr Tapley, also, looked over his shoulder, and so
did Martin; for the stranger, as he passed, had looked very sharply
at them.

'Who may that be, I wonder!' said Martin.  'The face seems familiar
to me, but I don't know the man.'

'He seems to have a amiable desire that his face should be tolerable
familiar to us,' said Mr Tapley, 'for he's a-staring pretty hard.
He'd better not waste his beauty, for he ain't got much to spare.'

Coming in sight of the Dragon, they saw a travelling carriage at the
door.

'And a Salisbury carriage, eh?' said Mr Tapley.  'That's what he
came in depend upon it.  What's in the wind now?  A new pupil, I
shouldn't wonder.  P'raps it's a order for another grammar-school,
of the same pattern as the last.'

Before they could enter at the door, Mrs Lupin came running out; and
beckoning them to the carriage showed them a portmanteau with the
name of CHUZZLEWIT upon it.

'Miss Pecksniff's husband that was,' said the good woman to Martin.
'I didn't know what terms you might be on, and was quite in a worry
till you came back.'

'He and I have never interchanged a word yet,' observed Martin; 'and
as I have no wish to be better or worse acquainted with him, I will
not put myself in his way.  We passed him on the road, I have no
doubt.  I am glad he timed his coming as he did.  Upon my word!  Miss
Pecksniff's husband travels gayly!'

'A very fine-looking gentleman with him--in the best room now,'
whispered Mrs Lupin, glancing up at the window as they went into the
house.  'He has ordered everything that can be got for dinner; and
has the glossiest moustaches and whiskers ever you saw.'

'Has he?' cried Martin, 'why then we'll endeavour to avoid him too,
in the hope that our self-denial may be strong enough for the
sacrifice.  It is only for a few hours,' said Martin, dropping
wearily into a chair behind the little screen in the bar.  'Our
visit has met with no success, my dear Mrs Lupin, and I must go to
London.'

'Dear, dear!' cried the hostess.

'Yes, one foul wind no more makes a winter, than one swallow makes a
summer.  I'll try it again.  Tom Pinch has succeeded.  With his
advice to guide me, I may do the same.  I took Tom under my
protection once, God save the mark!' said Martin, with a melancholy
smile; 'and promised I would make his fortune.  Perhaps Tom will
take me under HIS protection now, and teach me how to earn my
bread.'



CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

FURTHER CONTINUATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND


It was a special quality, among the many admirable qualities
possessed by Mr Pecksniff, that the more he was found out, the more
hypocrisy he practised.  Let him be discomfited in one quarter, and
he refreshed and recompensed himself by carrying the war into
another.  If his workings and windings were detected by A, so much
the greater reason was there for practicing without loss of time on
B, if it were only to keep his hand in.  He had never been such a
saintly and improving spectacle to all about him, as after his
detection by Thomas Pinch.  He had scarcely ever been at once so
tender in his humanity, and so dignified and exalted in his virtue,
as when young Martin's scorn was fresh and hot upon him.

Having this large stock of superfluous sentiment and morality on
hand which must positively be cleared off at any sacrifice, Mr
Pecksniff no sooner heard his son-in-law announced, than he regarded
him as a kind of wholesale or general order, to be immediately
executed.  Descending, therefore, swiftly to the parlour, and
clasping the young man in his arms, he exclaimed, with looks and
gestures that denoted the perturbation of his spirit:

'Jonas.  My child--she is well!  There is nothing the matter?'

'What, you're at it again, are you?' replied his son-in-law.  'Even
with me?  Get away with you, will you?'

'Tell me she is well then,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Tell me she is well
my boy!'

'She's well enough,' retorted Jonas, disengaging himself.  'There's
nothing the matter with HER.'

'There is nothing the matter with her!' cried Mr Pecksniff, sitting
down in the nearest chair, and rubbing up his hair.  'Fie upon my
weakness!  I cannot help it, Jonas.  Thank you.  I am better now.
How is my other child; my eldest; my Cherrywerrychigo?' said Mr
Pecksniff, inventing a playful little name for her, in the restored
lightness of his heart.

'She's much about the same as usual,' returned Jonas.  'She sticks
pretty close to the vinegar-bottle.  You know she's got a
sweetheart, I suppose?'

'I have heard of it,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'from headquarters; from my
child herself I will not deny that it moved me to contemplate the
loss of my remaining daughter, Jonas--I am afraid we parents are
selfish, I am afraid we are--but it has ever been the study of my
life to qualify them for the domestic hearth; and it is a sphere
which Cherry will adorn.'

'She need adorn some sphere or other,' observed the son-in-law, for
she ain't very ornamental in general.'

'My girls are now provided for,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'They are now
happily provided for, and I have not laboured in vain!'

This is exactly what Mr Pecksniff would have said, if one of his
daughters had drawn a prize of thirty thousand pounds in the
lottery, or if the other had picked up a valuable purse in the
street, which nobody appeared to claim.  In either of these cases he
would have invoked a patriarchal blessing on the fortunate head,
with great solemnity, and would have taken immense credit to
himself, as having meant it from the infant's cradle.

'Suppose we talk about something else, now,' observed Jonas, drily.
'just for a change.  Are you quite agreeable?'

'Quite,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Ah, you wag, you naughty wag!  You
laugh at poor old fond papa.  Well!  He deserves it.  And he don't
mind it either, for his feelings are their own reward.  You have
come to stay with me, Jonas?'

'No.  I've got a friend with me,' said Jonas.

'Bring your friend!' cried Mr Pecksniff, in a gush of hospitality.
'Bring any number of your friends!'

'This ain't the sort of man to be brought,' said Jonas,
contemptuously.  'I think I see myself "bringing" him to your house,
for a treat!  Thank'ee all the same; but he's a little too near the
top of the tree for that, Pecksniff.'

The good man pricked up his ears; his interest was awakened.  A
position near the top of the tree was greatness, virtue, goodness,
sense, genius; or, it should rather be said, a dispensation from
all, and in itself something immeasurably better than all; with Mr
Pecksniff.  A man who was able to look down upon Mr Pecksniff could
not be looked up at, by that gentleman, with too great an amount of
deference, or from a position of too much humility.  So it always is
with great spirits.

'I'll tell you what you may do, if you like,' said Jonas; 'you may
come and dine with us at the Dragon.  We were forced to come down to
Salisbury last night, on some business, and I got him to bring me
over here this morning, in his carriage; at least, not his own
carriage, for we had a breakdown in the night, but one we hired
instead; it's all the same.  Mind what you're about, you know.  He's
not used to all sorts; he only mixes with the best!'

'Some young nobleman who has been borrowing money of you at good
interest, eh?' said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his forefinger facetiously.
'I shall be delighted to know the gay sprig.'

'Borrowing!' echoed Jonas.  'Borrowing!  When you're a twentieth part
as rich as he is, you may shut up shop!  We should be pretty well off
if we could buy his furniture, and plate, and pictures, by clubbing
together.  A likely man to borrow: Mr Montague!  Why since I was
lucky enough (come! and I'll say, sharp enough, too) to get a share
in the Assurance office that he's President of, I've made--never
mind what I've made,' said Jonas, seeming to recover all at once his
usual caution.  'You know me pretty well, and I don't blab about
such things.  But, Ecod, I've made a trifle.'

'Really, my dear Jonas,' cried Mr Pecksniff, with much warmth, 'a
gentleman like this should receive some attention.  Would he like to
see the church? or if he has a taste for the fine arts--which I
have no doubt he has, from the description you give of his
circumstances--I can send him down a few portfolios.  Salisbury
Cathedral, my dear Jonas,' said Mr Pecksniff; the mention of the
portfolios and his anxiety to display himself to advantage,
suggesting his usual phraseology in that regard, 'is an edifice
replete with venerable associations, and strikingly suggestive of
the loftiest emotions.  It is here we contemplate the work of bygone
ages.  It is here we listen to the swelling organ, as we stroll
through the reverberating aisles.  We have drawings of this
celebrated structure from the North, from the South, from the East,
from the West, from the South-East, from the Nor'West--'

During this digression, and indeed during the whole dialogue, Jonas
had been rocking on his chair, with his hands in his pockets and his
head thrown cunningly on one side.  He looked at Mr Pecksniff now
with such shrewd meaning twinkling in his eyes, that Mr Pecksniff
stopped, and asked him what he was going to say.

'Ecod!' he answered.  'Pecksniff if I knew how you meant to leave
your money, I could put you in the way of doubling it in no time.
It wouldn't be bad to keep a chance like this snug in the family.
But you're such a deep one!'

'Jonas!' cried Mr Pecksniff, much affected, 'I am not a
diplomatical character; my heart is in my hand.  By far the
greater part of the inconsiderable savings I have accumulated in the
course of--I hope--a not dishonourable or useless career, is already
given, devised, and bequeathed (correct me, my dear Jonas, if I am
technically wrong), with expressions of confidence, which I will not
repeat; and in securities which it is unnecessary to mention to a
person whom I cannot, whom I will not, whom I need not, name.'  Here
he gave the hand of his son-in-law a fervent squeeze, as if he would
have added, 'God bless you; be very careful of it when you get it!'

Mr Jonas only shook his head and laughed, and, seeming to think
better of what he had had in his mind, said, 'No.  He would keep his
own counsel.'  But as he observed that he would take a walk, Mr
Pecksniff insisted on accompanying him, remarking that he could
leave a card for Mr Montague, as they went along, by way of
gentleman-usher to himself at dinner-time.  Which he did.

In the course of their walk, Mr Jonas affected to maintain that
close reserve which had operated as a timely check upon him during
the foregoing dialogue.  And as he made no attempt to conciliate Mr
Pecksniff, but, on the contrary, was more boorish and rude to him
than usual, that gentleman, so far from suspecting his real design,
laid himself out to be attacked with advantage.  For it is in the
nature of a knave to think the tools with which he works
indispensable to knavery; and knowing what he would do himself in
such a case, Mr Pecksniff argued, 'if this young man wanted anything
of me for his own ends, he would be polite and deferential.'

The more Jonas repelled him in his hints and inquiries, the more
solicitous, therefore, Mr Pecksniff became to be initiated into the
golden mysteries at which he had obscurely glanced.  Why should
there be cold and worldly secrets, he observed, between relations?
What was life without confidence?  If the chosen husband of his
daughter, the man to whom he had delivered her with so much pride
and hope, such bounding and such beaming joy; if he were not a green
spot in the barren waste of life, where was that oasis to be bound?

Little did Mr Pecksniff think on what a very green spot he planted
one foot at that moment!  Little did he foresee when he said, 'All is
but dust!' how very shortly he would come down with his own!

Inch by inch, in his grudging and ill-conditioned way; sustained to
the life, for the hope of making Mr Pecksniff suffer in that tender
place, the pocket, where Jonas smarted so terribly himself, gave him
an additional and malicious interest in the wiles he was set on to
practise; inch by inch, and bit by bit, Jonas rather allowed the
dazzling prospects of the Anglo-Bengalee establishment to escape
him, than paraded them before his greedy listener.  And in the same
niggardly spirit, he left Mr Pecksniff to infer, if he chose (which
he DID choose, of course), that a consciousness of not having any
great natural gifts of speech and manner himself, rendered him
desirous to have the credit of introducing to Mr Montague some one
who was well endowed in those respects, and so atone for his own
deficiencies.  Otherwise, he muttered discontentedly, he would have
seen his beloved father-in-law 'far enough off,' before he would
have taken him into his confidence.

Primed in this artful manner, Mr Pecksniff presented himself at
dinner-time in such a state of suavity, benevolence, cheerfulness,
politeness, and cordiality, as even he had perhaps never attained
before.  The frankness of the country gentleman, the refinement of
the artist, the good-humoured allowance of the man of the world;
philanthropy, forbearance, piety, toleration, all blended together
in a flexible adaptability to anything and everything; were
expressed in Mr Pecksniff, as he shook hands with the great
speculator and capitalist.

'Welcome, respected sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'to our humble village!
We are a simple people; primitive clods, Mr Montague; but we can
appreciate the honour of your visit, as my dear son-in-law can
testify.  It is very strange,' said Mr Pecksniff, pressing his hand
almost reverentially, 'but I seem to know you.  That towering
forehead, my dear Jonas,' said Mr Pecksniff aside, 'and those
clustering masses of rich hair--I must have seen you, my dear sir,
in the sparkling throng.'

Nothing was more probable, they all agreed.

'I could have wished,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'to have had the honour of
introducing you to an elderly inmate of our house: to the uncle of
our friend.  Mr Chuzzlewit, sir, would have been proud indeed to
have taken you by the hand.'

'Is the gentleman here now?' asked Montague, turning deeply red.
'He is,' said Mr Pecksniff.

'You said nothing about that, Chuzzlewit.'

'I didn't suppose you'd care to hear of it,' returned Jonas.  'You
wouldn't care to know him, I can promise you.'

'Jonas! my dear Jonas!' remonstrated Mr Pecksniff.  'Really!'

'Oh! it's all very well for you to speak up for him,' said Jonas.
'You have nailed him.  You'll get a fortune by him.'

'Oho!  Is the wind in that quarter?' cried Montague.  'Ha, ha, ha!'
and here they all laughed--especially Mr Pecksniff.

'No, no!' said that gentleman, clapping his son-in-law playfully
upon the shoulder.  'You must not believe all that my young relative
says, Mr Montague.  You may believe him in official business, and
trust him in official business, but you must not attach importance
to his flights of fancy.'

'Upon my life, Mr Pecksniff,' cried Montague, 'I attach the greatest
importance to that last observation of his.  I trust and hope it's
true.  Money cannot be turned and turned again quickly enough in the
ordinary course, Mr Pecksniff.  There is nothing like building our
fortune on the weaknesses of mankind.'

'Oh fie! oh fie, for shame!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  But they all
laughed again--especially Mr Pecksniff.

'I give you my honour that WE do it,' said Montague.

'Oh fie, fie!' cried Mr Pecksniff.  'You are very pleasant.  That I
am sure you don't!  That I am sure you don't!  How CAN you, you know?'

Again they all laughed in concert; and again Mr Pecksniff laughed
especially.

This was very agreeable indeed.  It was confidential, easy,
straight-forward; and still left Mr Pecksniff in the position of
being in a gentle way the Mentor of the party.  The greatest
achievements in the article of cookery that the Dragon had ever
performed, were set before them; the oldest and best wines in the
Dragon's cellar saw the light on that occasion; a thousand bubbles,
indicative of the wealth and station of Mr Montague in the depths of
his pursuits, were constantly rising to the surface of the
conversation; and they were as frank and merry as three honest men
could be.  Mr Pecksniff thought it a pity (he said so) that Mr
Montague should think lightly of mankind and their weaknesses.  He
was anxious upon this subject; his mind ran upon it; in one way or
another he was constantly coming back to it; he must make a convert
of him, he said.  And as often as Mr Montague repeated his sentiment
about building fortunes on the weaknesses of mankind, and added
frankly, 'WE do it!' just as often Mr Pecksniff repeated 'Oh fie! oh
fie, for shame!  I am sure you don't.  How CAN you, you know?' laying
a greater stress each time on those last words.

The frequent repetition of this playful inquiry on the part of Mr
Pecksniff, led at last to playful answers on the part of Mr
Montague; but after some little sharp-shooting on both sides, Mr
Pecksniff became grave, almost to tears; observing that if Mr
Montague would give him leave, he would drink the health of his
young kinsman, Mr Jonas; congratulating him upon the valuable and
distinguished friendship he had formed, but envying him, he would
confess, his usefulness to his fellow-creatures.  For, if he
understood the objects of that Institution with which he was newly
and advantageously connected--knowing them but imperfectly--they
were calculated to do Good; and for his (Mr Pecksniff's) part, if he
could in any way promote them, he thought he would be able to lay
his head upon his pillow every night, with an absolute certainty of
going to sleep at once.

The transition from this accidental remark (for it was quite
accidental and had fallen from Mr Pecksniff in the openness of his
soul), to the discussion of the subject as a matter of business, was
easy.  Books, papers, statements, tables, calculations of various
kinds, were soon spread out before them; and as they were all framed
with one object, it is not surprising that they should all have
tended to one end.  But still, whenever Montague enlarged upon the
profits of the office, and said that as long as there were gulls
upon the wing it must succeed, Mr Pecksniff mildly said 'Oh fie!'--
and might indeed have remonstrated with him, but that he knew he was
joking.  Mr Pecksniff did know he was joking; because he said so.

There never had been before, and there never would be again, such an
opportunity for the investment of a considerable sum (the rate of
advantage increased in proportion to the amount invested), as at
that moment.  The only time that had at all approached it, was the
time when Jonas had come into the concern; which made him ill-natured
now, and inclined him to pick out a doubt in this place, and a flaw
in that, and grumbling to advise Mr Pecksniff to think better of it.
The sum which would complete the proprietorship in this snug
concern, was nearly equal to Mr Pecksniff's whole hoard; not
counting Mr Chuzzlewit, that is to say, whom he looked upon as money
in the Bank, the possession of which inclined him the more to make a
dash with his own private sprats for the capture of such a whale as
Mr Montague described.  The returns began almost immediately, and
were immense.  The end of it was, that Mr Pecksniff agreed to become
the last partner and proprietor in the Anglo-Bengalee, and made an
appointment to dine with Mr Montague, at Salisbury, on the next day
but one, then and there to complete the negotiation.

It took so long to bring the subject to this head, that it was
nearly midnight when they parted.  When Mr Pecksniff walked
downstairs to the door, he found Mrs Lupin standing there, looking
out.

'Ah, my good friend!' he said; 'not a-bed yet!  Contemplating the
stars, Mrs Lupin?'

'It's a beautiful starlight night, sir.'

'A beautiful starlight night,' said Mr Pecksniff, looking up.
'Behold the planets, how they shine!  Behold the--those two persons
who were here this morning have left your house, I hope, Mrs Lupin?'

'Yes, sir.  They are gone.'

'I am glad to hear it,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Behold the wonders of
the firmament, Mrs Lupin! how glorious is the scene!  When I look up
at those shining orbs, I think that each of them is winking to the
other to take notice of the vanity of men's pursuits.  My
fellowmen!' cried Mr Pecksniff, shaking his head in pity; 'you are
much mistaken; my wormy relatives, you are much deceived!  The stars
are perfectly contented (I suppose so) in their several spheres.
Why are not you?  Oh! do not strive and struggle to enrich
yourselves, or to get the better of each other, my deluded friends,
but look up there, with me!'

Mrs Lupin shook her head, and heaved a sigh.  It was very affecting.

'Look up there, with me!' repeated Mr Pecksniff, stretching out his
hand; 'With me, a humble individual who is also an insect like
yourselves.  Can silver, gold, or precious stones, sparkle like
those constellations!  I think not.  Then do not thirst for silver,
gold, or precious stones; but look up there, with me!'

With those words, the good man patted Mrs Lupin's hand between his
own, as if he would have added 'think of this, my good woman!' and
walked away in a sort of ecstasy or rapture, with his hat under his
arm.

Jonas sat in the attitude in which Mr Pecksniff had left him, gazing
moodily at his friend; who, surrounded by a heap of documents, was
writing something on an oblong slip of paper.

'You mean to wait at Salisbury over the day after to-morrow, do you,
then?' said Jonas.

'You heard our appointment,' returned Montague, without raising his
eyes.  'In any case I should have waited to see after the boy.'

They appeared to have changed places again; Montague being in high
spirits; Jonas gloomy and lowering.

'You don't want me, I suppose?' said Jonas.

'I want you to put your name here,' he returned, glancing at him
with a smile, 'as soon as I have filled up the stamp.  I may as well
have your note of hand for that extra capital.  That's all I want.
If you wish to go home, I can manage Mr Pecksniff now, alone.  There
is a perfect understanding between us.'

Jonas sat scowling at him as he wrote, in silence.  When he had
finished his writing, and had dried it on the blotting paper in his
travelling-desk; he looked up, and tossed the pen towards him.

'What, not a day's grace, not a day's trust, eh?' said Jonas
bitterly.  'Not after the pains I have taken with to-night's work?'

'To night's work was a part of our bargain,' replied Montague; 'and
so was this.'

'You drive a hard bargain,' said Jonas, advancing to the table.
'You know best.  Give it here!'

Montague gave him the paper.  After pausing as if he could not make
up his mind to put his name to it, Jonas dipped his pen hastily in
the nearest inkstand, and began to write.  But he had scarcely
marked the paper when he started back, in a panic.

'Why, what the devil's this?' he said.  'It's bloody!'

He had dipped the pen, as another moment showed, into red ink.  But
he attached a strange degree of importance to the mistake.  He asked
how it had come there, who had brought it, why it had been brought;
and looked at Montague, at first, as if he thought he had put a
trick upon him.  Even when he used a different pen, and the right
ink, he made some scratches on another paper first, as half
believing they would turn red also.

'Black enough, this time,' he said, handing the note to Montague.
'Good-bye.'

'Going now! how do you mean to get away from here?'

'I shall cross early in the morning to the high road, before you are
out of bed; and catch the day-coach, going up.  Good-bye!'

'You are in a hurry!'

'I have something to do,' said Jonas.  'Good-bye!'

His friend looked after him as he went out, in surprise, which
gradually gave place to an air of satisfaction and relief.

'It happens all the better.  It brings about what I wanted, without
any difficulty.  I shall travel home alone.'



CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

IN WHICH TOM PINCH AND HIS SISTER TAKE A LITTLE PLEASURE; BUT QUITE
IN A DOMESTIC WAY, AND WITH NO CEREMONY ABOUT IT


Tom Pinch and his sister having to part, for the dispatch of the
morning's business, immediately after the dispersion of the other
actors in the scene upon the wharf with which the reader has been
already made acquainted, had no opportunity of discussing the
subject at that time.  But Tom, in his solitary office, and Ruth, in
the triangular parlour, thought about nothing else all day; and,
when their hour of meeting in the afternoon approached, they were
very full of it, to be sure.

There was a little plot between them, that Tom should always come
out of the Temple by one way; and that was past the fountain.
Coming through Fountain Court, he was just to glance down the steps
leading into Garden Court, and to look once all round him; and if
Ruth had come to meet him, there he would see her; not sauntering,
you understand (on account of the clerks), but coming briskly up,
with the best little laugh upon her face that ever played in
opposition to the fountain, and beat it all to nothing.  For, fifty
to one, Tom had been looking for her in the wrong direction, and had
quite given her up, while she had been tripping towards him from the
first; jingling that little reticule of hers (with all the keys in
it) to attract his wandering observation.

Whether there was life enough left in the slow vegetation of
Fountain Court for the smoky shrubs to have any consciousness of the
brightest and purest-hearted little woman in the world, is a
question for gardeners, and those who are learned in the loves of
plants.  But, that it was a good thing for that same paved yard to
have such a delicate little figure flitting through it; that it
passed like a smile from the grimy old houses, and the worn
flagstones, and left them duller, darker, sterner than before; there
is no sort of doubt.  The Temple fountain might have leaped up
twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful maidenhood, that in her
person stole on, sparkling, through the dry and dusty channels of
the Law; the chirping sparrows, bred in Temple chinks and crannies,
might have held their peace to listen to imaginary skylarks, as so
fresh a little creature passed; the dingy boughs, unused to droop,
otherwise than in their puny growth, might have bent down in a
kindred gracefulness to shed their benedictions on her graceful
head; old love letters, shut up in iron boxes in the neighbouring
offices, and made of no account among the heaps of family papers
into which they had strayed, and of which, in their degeneracy, they
formed a part, might have stirred and fluttered with a moment's
recollection of their ancient tenderness, as she went lightly by.
Anything might have happened that did not happen, and never will,
for the love of Ruth.

Something happened, too, upon the afternoon of which the history
treats.  Not for her love.  Oh no! quite by accident, and without
the least reference to her at all.

Either she was a little too soon, or Tom was a little too late--she
was so precise in general, that she timed it to half a minute--but
no Tom was there.  Well!  But was anybody else there, that she
blushed so deeply, after looking round, and tripped off down the
steps with such unusual expedition?

Why, the fact is, that Mr Westlock was passing at that moment.  The
Temple is a public thoroughfare; they may write up on the gates that
it is not, but so long as the gates are left open it is, and will
be; and Mr Westlock had as good a right to be there as anybody else.
But why did she run away, then?  Not being ill dressed, for she was
much too neat for that, why did she run away?  The brown hair that
had fallen down beneath her bonnet, and had one impertinent imp of a
false flower clinging to it, boastful of its licence before all men,
THAT could not have been the cause, for it looked charming.  Oh!
foolish, panting, frightened little heart, why did she run away!

Merrily the tiny fountain played, and merrily the dimples sparkled
on its sunny face.  John Westlock hurried after her.  Softly the
whispering water broke and fell; as roguishly the dimples twinkled,
as he stole upon her footsteps.

Oh, foolish, panting, timid little heart, why did she feign to be
unconscious of his coming!  Why wish herself so far away, yet be so
flutteringly happy there!

'I felt sure it was you,' said John, when he overtook her in the
sanctuary of Garden Court.  'I knew I couldn't be mistaken.'

She was SO surprised.

'You are waiting for your brother,' said John.  'Let me bear you
company.'

So light was the touch of the coy little hand, that he glanced down
to assure himself he had it on his arm.  But his glance, stopping
for an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first design, and went
no farther.

They walked up and down three or four times, speaking about Tom and
his mysterious employment.  Now that was a very natural and innocent
subject, surely.  Then why, whenever Ruth lifted up her eyes, did
she let them fall again immediately, and seek the uncongenial
pavement of the court?  They were not such eyes as shun the light;
they were not such eyes as require to be hoarded to enhance their
value.  They were much too precious and too genuine to stand in need
of arts like those.  Somebody must have been looking at them!

They found out Tom, though, quickly enough.  This pair of eyes
descried him in the distance, the moment he appeared.  He was
staring about him, as usual, in all directions but the right one;
and was as obstinate in not looking towards them, as if he had
intended it.  As it was plain that, being left to himself, he would
walk away home, John Westlock darted off to stop him.

This made the approach of poor little Ruth, by herself, one of the
most embarrassing of circumstances.  There was Tom, manifesting
extreme surprise (he had no presence of mind, that Tom, on small
occasions); there was John, making as light of it as he could, but
explaining at the same time with most unnecessary elaboration; and
here was she, coming towards them, with both of them looking at her,
conscious of blushing to a terrible extent, but trying to throw up
her eyebrows carelessly, and pout her rosy lips, as if she were the
coolest and most unconcerned of little women.

Merrily the fountain plashed and plashed, until the dimples, merging
into one another, swelled into a general smile, that covered the
whole surface of the basin.

'What an extraordinary meeting!' said Tom.  'I should never have
dreamed of seeing you two together here.'

'Quite accidental,' John was heard to murmur.

'Exactly,' cried Tom; 'that's what I mean, you know.  If it wasn't
accidental, there would be nothing remarkable in it.'

'To be sure,' said John.

'Such an out-of-the-way place for you to have met in,' pursued Tom,
quite delighted.  'Such an unlikely spot!'

John rather disputed that.  On the contrary, he considered it a very
likely spot, indeed.  He was constantly passing to and fro there, he
said.  He shouldn't wonder if it were to happen again.  His only
wonder was, that it had never happened before.

By this time Ruth had got round on the farther side of her brother,
and had taken his arm.  She was squeezing it now, as much as to say
'Are you going to stop here all day, you dear, old, blundering Tom?'

Tom answered the squeeze as if it had been a speech.  'John,' he
said, 'if you'll give my sister your arm, we'll take her between us,
and walk on.  I have a curious circumstance to relate to you.  Our
meeting could not have happened better.'

Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling
dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a
laugh against the basin's rim, and vanished.

'Tom,' said his friend, as they turned into the noisy street, 'I
have a proposition to make.  It is, that you and your sister--if she
will so far honour a poor bachelor's dwelling--give me a great
pleasure, and come and dine with me.'

'What, to-day?' cried Tom.

'Yes, to-day.  It's close by, you know.  Pray, Miss Pinch, insist
upon it.  It will be very disinterested, for I have nothing to give
you.'

'Oh! you must not believe that, Ruth,' said Tom.  'He is the most
tremendous fellow, in his housekeeping, that I ever heard of, for a
single man.  He ought to be Lord Mayor.  Well! what do you say?
Shall we go?'

'If you please, Tom,' rejoined his dutiful little sister.

'But I mean,' said Tom, regarding her with smiling admiration; 'is
there anything you ought to wear, and haven't got?  I am sure I
don't know, John; she may not be able to take her bonnet off, for
anything I can tell.'

There was a great deal of laughing at this, and there were divers
compliments from John Westlock--not compliments HE said at least
(and really he was right), but good, plain, honest truths, which no
one could deny.  Ruth laughed, and all that, but she made no
objection; so it was an engagement.

'If I had known it a little sooner,' said John, 'I would have tried
another pudding.  Not in rivalry; but merely to exalt that famous
one.  I wouldn't on any account have had it made with suet.'

'Why not?' asked Tom.

'Because that cookery-book advises suet,' said John Westlock; 'and
ours was made with flour and eggs.'

'Oh good gracious!' cried Tom.  'Ours was made with flour and eggs,
was it?  Ha, ha, ha!  A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs!
Why anybody knows better than that.  I know better than that!  Ha,
ha, ha!'

It is unnecessary to say that Tom had been present at the making of
the pudding, and had been a devoted believer in it all through.  But
he was so delighted to have this joke against his busy little sister
and was tickled to that degree at having found her out, that he
stopped in Temple Bar to laugh; and it was no more to Tom, that he
was anathematized and knocked about by the surly passengers, than it
would have been to a post; for he continued to exclaim with unabated
good humour, 'flour and eggs!  A beefsteak pudding made with flour
and eggs!' until John Westlock and his sister fairly ran away from
him, and left him to have his laugh out by himself; which he had,
and then came dodging across the crowded street to them, with such
sweet temper and tenderness (it was quite a tender joke of Tom's)
beaming in his face, God bless it, that it might have purified the
air, though Temple Bar had been, as in the golden days gone by,
embellished with a row of rotting human heads.

There are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and,
for the desolate fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising
how well they get on.  John was very pathetic on the subject of his
dreary life, and the deplorable makeshifts and apologetic
contrivances it involved, but he really seemed to make himself
pretty comfortable.  His rooms were the perfection of neatness and
convenience at any rate; and if he were anything but comfortable,
the fault was certainly not theirs.

He had no sooner ushered Tom and his sister into his best room
(where there was a beautiful little vase of fresh flowers on the
table, all ready for Ruth.  Just as if he had expected her, Tom
said), than, seizing his hat, he bustled out again, in his most
energetically bustling, way; and presently came hurrying back, as
they saw through the half-opened door, attended by a fiery-faced
matron attired in a crunched bonnet, with particularly long strings
to it hanging down her back; in conjunction with whom he instantly
began to lay the cloth for dinner, polishing up the wine-glasses
with his own hands, brightening the silver top of the pepper-caster
on his coat-sleeve, drawing corks and filling decanters, with a
skill and expedition that were quite dazzling.  And as if, in the
course of this rubbing and polishing, he had rubbed an enchanted
lamp or a magic ring, obedient to which there were twenty thousand
supernatural slaves at least, suddenly there appeared a being in a
white waistcoat, carrying under his arm a napkin, and attended by
another being with an oblong box upon his head, from which a
banquet, piping hot, was taken out and set upon the table.

Salmon, lamb, peas, innocent young potatoes, a cool salad, sliced
cucumber, a tender duckling, and a tart--all there.  They all came at
the right time.  Where they came from, didn't appear; but the oblong
box was constantly going and coming, and making its arrival known to
the man in the white waistcoat by bumping modestly against the
outside of the door; for, after its first appearance, it entered the
room no more.  He was never surprised, this man; he never seemed to
wonder at the extraordinary things he found in the box, but took
them out with a face expressive of a steady purpose and impenetrable
character, and put them on the table.  He was a kind man; gentle in
his manners, and much interested in what they ate and drank.  He was
a learned man, and knew the flavour of John Westlock's private
sauces, which he softly and feelingly described, as he handed the
little bottles round.  He was a grave man, and a noiseless; for
dinner being done, and wine and fruit arranged upon the board, he
vanished, box and all, like something that had never been.

'Didn't I say he was a tremendous fellow in his housekeeping?' cried
Tom.  'Bless my soul!  It's wonderful.'

'Ah, Miss Pinch,' said John.  'This is the bright side of the life
we lead in such a place.  It would be a dismal life, indeed, if it
didn't brighten up to-day'

'Don't believe a word he says,' cried Tom.  'He lives here like a
monarch, and wouldn't change his mode of life for any consideration.
He only pretends to grumble.'

No, John really did not appear to pretend; for he was uncommonly
earnest in his desire to have it understood that he was as dull,
solitary, and uncomfortable on ordinary occasions as an unfortunate
young man could, in reason, be.  It was a wretched life, he said, a
miserable life.  He thought of getting rid of the chambers as soon
as possible; and meant, in fact, to put a bill up very shortly.

'Well' said Tom Pinch, 'I don't know where you can go, John, to be
more comfortable.  That's all I can say.  What do YOU say, Ruth?'

Ruth trifled with the cherries on her plate, and said that she
thought Mr Westlock ought to be quite happy, and that she had no
doubt he was.

Ah, foolish, panting, frightened little heart, how timidly she said
it!

'But you are forgetting what you had to tell, Tom; what occurred
this morning,' she added in the same breath.

'So I am,' said Tom.  'We have been so talkative on other topics that
I declare I have not had time to think of it.  I'll tell it you at
once, John, in case I should forget it altogether.'

On Tom's relating what had passed upon the wharf, his friend was
very much surprised, and took such a great interest in the narrative
as Tom could not quite understand.  He believed he knew the old lady
whose acquaintance they had made, he said; and that he might venture
to say, from their description of her, that her name was Gamp.  But
of what nature the communication could have been which Tom had borne
so unexpectedly; why its delivery had been entrusted to him; how it
happened that the parties were involved together; and what secret
lay at the bottom of the whole affair; perplexed him very much.  Tom
had been sure of his taking some interest in the matter; but was not
prepared for the strong interest he showed.  It held John Westlock
to the subject even after Ruth had left the room; and evidently made
him anxious to pursue it further than as a mere subject of
conversation.

'I shall remonstrate with my landlord, of course,' said Tom; 'though
he is a very singular secret sort of man, and not likely to afford
me much satisfaction; even if he knew what was in the letter.'

'Which you may swear he did,' John interposed.

'You think so?'

'I am certain of it.'

'Well!' said Tom, 'I shall remonstrate with him when I see him (he
goes in and out in a strange way, but I will try to catch him
tomorrow morning), on his having asked me to execute such an
unpleasant commission.  And I have been thinking, John, that if I
went down to Mrs What's-her-name's in the City, where I was before,
you know--Mrs Todgers's--to-morrow morning, I might find poor Mercy
Pecksniff there, perhaps, and be able to explain to her how I came
to have any hand in the business.'

'You are perfectly right, Tom,' returned his friend, after a short
interval of reflection.  'You cannot do better.  It is quite clear
to me that whatever the business is, there is little good in it; and
it is so desirable for you to disentangle yourself from any
appearance of willful connection with it, that I would counsel you to
see her husband, if you can, and wash your hands of it by a plain
statement of the facts.  I have a misgiving that there is something
dark at work here, Tom.  I will tell you why, at another time; when
I have made an inquiry or two myself.'

All this sounded very mysterious to Tom Pinch.  But as he knew he
could rely upon his friend, he resolved to follow this advice.

Ah, but it would have been a good thing to have had a coat of
invisibility, wherein to have watched little Ruth, when she was left
to herself in John Westlock's chambers, and John and her brother
were talking thus, over their wine!  The gentle way in which she
tried to get up a little conversation with the fiery-faced matron in
the crunched bonnet, who was waiting to attend her; after making a
desperate rally in regard of her dress, and attiring herself in a
washed-out yellow gown with sprigs of the same upon it, so that it
looked like a tesselated work of pats of butter.  That would have
been pleasant.  The grim and griffin-like inflexibility with which
the fiery-faced matron repelled these engaging advances, as
proceeding from a hostile and dangerous power, who could have no
business there, unless it were to deprive her of a customer, or
suggest what became of the self-consuming tea and sugar, and other
general trifles.  That would have been agreeable.  The bashful,
winning, glorious curiosity, with which little Ruth, when fiery-face
was gone, peeped into the books and nick-nacks that were lying
about, and had a particular interest in some delicate paper-matches
on the chimney-piece; wondering who could have made them.  That
would have been worth seeing.  The faltering hand with which she
tied those flowers together; with which, almost blushing at her own
fair self as imaged in the glass, she arranged them in her breast,
and looking at them with her head aside, now half resolved to take
them out again, now half resolved to leave them where they were.
That would have been delightful!

John seemed to think it all delightful; for coming in with Tom to
tea, he took his seat beside her like a man enchanted.  And when the
tea-service had been removed, and Tom, sitting down at the piano,
became absorbed in some of his old organ tunes, he was still beside
her at the open window, looking out upon the twilight.

There is little enough to see in Furnival's Inn.  It is a shady,
quiet place, echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers who have
business there; and rather monotonous and gloomy on summer
evenings.  What gave it such a charm to them, that they remained at
the window as unconscious of the flight of time as Tom himself, the
dreamer, while the melodies which had so often soothed his spirit
were hovering again about him!  What power infused into the fading
light, the gathering darkness; the stars that here and there
appeared; the evening air, the City's hum and stir, the very chiming
of the old church clocks; such exquisite enthrallment, that the
divinest regions of the earth spread out before their eyes could not
have held them captive in a stronger chain?

The shadows deepened, deepened, and the room became quite dark.
Still Tom's fingers wandered over the keys of the piano, and still
the window had its pair of tenants.  At length, her hand upon his
shoulder, and her breath upon his forehead, roused Tom from his
reverie.

'Dear me!' he cried, desisting with a start.  'I am afraid I have
been very inconsiderate and unpolite.'

Tom little thought how much consideration and politeness he had
shown!

'Sing something to us, my dear,' said Tom.  'let us hear your voice.
Come!'

John Westlock added his entreaties with such earnestness that a
flinty heart alone could have resisted them.  Hers was not a flinty
heart.  Oh, dear no!  Quite another thing.

So down she sat, and in a pleasant voice began to sing the ballads
Tom loved well.  Old rhyming stories, with here and there a pause
for a few simple chords, such as a harper might have sounded in the
ancient time while looking upward for the current of some half-
remembered legend; words of old poets, wedded to such measures that
the strain of music might have been the poet's breath, giving
utterance and expression to his thoughts; and now a melody so joyous
and light-hearted, that the singer seemed incapable of sadness,
until in her inconstancy (oh wicked little singer!) she relapsed,
and broke the listeners' hearts again; these were the simple means
she used to please them.  And that these simple means prevailed, and
she DID please them, let the still darkened chamber, and its long-
deferred illumination witness.

The candles came at last, and it was time for moving homeward.
Cutting paper carefully, and rolling it about the stalks of those
same flowers, occasioned some delay; but even this was done in time,
and Ruth was ready.

'Good night!' said Tom.  'A memorable and delightful visit, John!
Good night!'

John thought he would walk with them.

'No, no.  Don't!' said Tom.  'What nonsense!  We can get home very
well alone.  I couldn't think of taking you out.'

But John said he would rather.

'Are you sure you would rather?' said Tom.  'I am afraid you only
say so out of politeness.'

John being quite sure, gave his arm to Ruth, and led her out.
Fiery-face, who was again in attendance, acknowledged her departure
with so cold a curtsey that it was hardly visible; and cut Tom, dead.

Their host was bent on walking the whole distance, and would not
listen to Tom's dissuasions.  Happy time, happy walk, happy parting,
happy dreams!  But there are some sweet day-dreams, so there are that
put the visions of the night to shame.

Busily the Temple fountain murmured in the moonlight, while Ruth lay
sleeping, with her flowers beside her; and John Westlock sketched a
portrait--whose?--from memory.



CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

IN WHICH MISS PECKSNIFF MAKES LOVE, MR JONAS MAKES WRATH, MRS GAMP
MAKES TEA, AND MR CHUFFEY MAKES BUSINESS


On the next day's official duties coming to a close, Tom hurried
home without losing any time by the way; and after dinner and a
short rest sallied out again, accompanied by Ruth, to pay his
projected visit to Todgers's.  Tom took Ruth with him, not only
because it was a great pleasure to him to have her for his companion
whenever he could, but because he wished her to cherish and comfort
poor Merry; which she, for her own part (having heard the wretched
history of that young wife from Tom), was all eagerness to do.

'She was so glad to see me,' said Tom, 'that I am sure she will be
glad to see you.  Your sympathy is certain to be much more delicate
and acceptable than mine.'

'I am very far from being certain of that, Tom,' she replied; 'and
indeed you do yourself an injustice.  Indeed you do.  But I hope she
may like me, Tom.'

'Oh, she is sure to do that!' cried Tom, confidently.

'What a number of friends I should have, if everybody was of your
way of thinking.  Shouldn't I, Tom, dear?' said his little sister
pinching him upon the cheek.

Tom laughed, and said that with reference to this particular case he
had no doubt at all of finding a disciple in Merry.  'For you
women,' said Tom, 'you women, my dear, are so kind, and in your
kindness have such nice perception; you know so well how to be
affectionate and full of solicitude without appearing to be; your
gentleness of feeling is like your touch so light and easy, that the
one enables you to deal with wounds of the mind as tenderly as the
other enables you to deal with wounds of the body.  You are such--'

'My goodness, Tom!' his sister interposed.  'You ought to fall in
love immediately.'

Tom put this observation off good humouredly, but somewhat gravely
too; and they were soon very chatty again on some other subject.

As they were passing through a street in the City, not very far from
Mrs Todgers's place of residence, Ruth checked Tom before the window
of a large Upholstery and Furniture Warehouse, to call his attention
to something very magnificent and ingenious, displayed there to the
best advantage, for the admiration and temptation of the public.
Tom had hazarded some most erroneous and extravagantly wrong guess
in relation to the price of this article, and had joined his sister
in laughing heartily at his mistake, when he pressed her arm in his,
and pointed to two persons at a little distance, who were looking in
at the same window with a deep interest in the chests of drawers and
tables.

'Hush!' Tom whispered.  'Miss Pecksniff, and the young gentleman to
whom she is going to be married.'

'Why does he look as if he was going to be buried, Tom?' inquired
his little sister.

'Why, he is naturally a dismal young gentleman, I believe,' said Tom
'but he is very civil and inoffensive.'

'I suppose they are furnishing their house,' whispered Ruth.

'Yes, I suppose they are,' replied Tom.  'We had better avoid
speaking to them.'

They could not very well avoid looking at them, however, especially
as some obstruction on the pavement, at a little distance, happened
to detain them where they were for a few moments.  Miss Pecksniff
had quite the air of having taken the unhappy Moddle captive, and
brought him up to the contemplation of the furniture like a lamb to
the altar.  He offered no resistance, but was perfectly resigned and
quiet.  The melancholy depicted in the turn of his languishing head,
and in his dejected attitude, was extreme; and though there was a
full-sized four-post bedstead in the window, such a tear stood
trembling in his eye as seemed to blot it out.

'Augustus, my love,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'ask the price of the
eight rosewood chairs, and the loo table.'

'Perhaps they are ordered already,' said Augustus.  'Perhaps they
are Another's.'

'They can make more like them, if they are,' rejoined Miss
Pecksniff.

'No, no, they can't,' said Moddle.  'It's impossible!'

He appeared, for the moment, to be quite overwhelmed and stupefied
by the prospect of his approaching happiness; but recovering,
entered the shop.  He returned immediately, saying in a tone of
despair

'Twenty-four pound ten!'

Miss Pecksniff, turning to receive this announcement, became
conscious of the observation of Tom Pinch and his sister.

'Oh, really!' cried Miss Pecksniff, glancing about her, as if for
some convenient means of sinking into the earth.  'Upon my word, I--
there never was such a--to think that one should be so very--Mr
Augustus Moddle, Miss Pinch!'

Miss Pecksniff was quite gracious to Miss Pinch in this triumphant
introduction; exceedingly gracious.  She was more than gracious; she
was kind and cordial.  Whether the recollection of the old service
Tom had rendered her in knocking Mr Jonas on the head had wrought
this change in her opinions; or whether her separation from her
parent had reconciled her to all human-kind, or to all that
interesting portion of human-kind which was not friendly to him; or
whether the delight of having some new female acquaintance to whom
to communicate her interesting prospects was paramount to every
other consideration; cordial and kind Miss Pecksniff was.  And twice
Miss Pecksniff kissed Miss Pinch upon the cheek.

'Augustus--Mr Pinch, you know.  My dear girl!' said Miss Pecksniff,
aside.  'I never was so ashamed in my life.'

Ruth begged her not to think of it.

'I mind your brother less than anybody else,' simpered Miss
Pecksniff.  'But the indelicacy of meeting any gentleman under such
circumstances!  Augustus, my child, did you--'

Here Miss Pecksniff whispered in his ear.  The suffering Moddle
repeated:

'Twenty-four pound ten!'

'Oh, you silly man!  I don't mean them,' said Miss Pecksniff.  'I am
speaking of the--'

Here she whispered him again.

'If it's the same patterned chintz as that in the window; thirty-
two, twelve, six,' said Moddle, with a sigh.  'And very dear.'

Miss Pecksniff stopped him from giving any further explanation by
laying her hand upon his lips, and betraying a soft embarrassment.
She then asked Tom Pinch which way he was going.

'I was going to see if I could find your sister,' answered Tom, 'to
whom I wished to say a few words.  We were going to Mrs Todgers's,
where I had the pleasure of seeing her before.'

'It's of no use your going on, then,' said Cherry, 'for we have not
long left there; and I know she is not at home.  But I'll take you
to my sister's house, if you please.  Augustus--Mr Moddle, I mean--
and myself, are on our way to tea there, now.  You needn't think of
HIM,' she added, nodding her head as she observed some hesitation on
Tom's part.  'He is not at home.'

'Are you sure?' asked Tom.

'Oh, I am quite sure of that.  I don't want any MORE revenge,' said
Miss Pecksniff, expressively.  'But, really, I must beg you two
gentlemen to walk on, and allow me to follow with Miss Pinch.  My
dear, I never was so taken by surprise!'

In furtherance of this bashful arrangement, Moddle gave his arm to
Tom; and Miss Pecksniff linked her own in Ruth's.

'Of course, my love,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'it would be useless for
me to disguise, after what you have seen, that I am about to be
united to the gentleman who is walking with your brother.  It would
be in vain to conceal it.  What do you think of him?  Pray, let me
have your candid opinion.'

Ruth intimated that, as far as she could judge, he was a very
eligible swain.

'I am curious to know,' said Miss Pecksniff, with loquacious
frankness, 'whether you have observed, or fancied, in this very
short space of time, that he is of a rather melancholy turn?'

'So very short a time,' Ruth pleaded.

'No, no; but don't let that interfere with your answer,' returned
Miss Pecksniff.  'I am curious to hear what you say.'

Ruth acknowledged that he had impressed her at first sight as
looking 'rather low.'

'No, really?' said Miss Pecksniff.  'Well! that is quite remarkable!
Everybody says the same.  Mrs Todgers says the same; and Augustus
informs me that it is quite a joke among the gentlemen in the house.
Indeed, but for the positive commands I have laid upon him, I
believe it would have been the occasion of loaded fire-arms being
resorted to more than once.  What do you think is the cause of his
appearance of depression?'

Ruth thought of several things; such as his digestion, his tailor,
his mother, and the like.  But hesitating to give utterance to any
one of them, she refrained from expressing an opinion.

'My dear,' said Miss Pecksniff; 'I shouldn't wish it to be known,
but I don't mind mentioning it to you, having known your brother for
so many years--I refused Augustus three times.  He is of a most
amiable and sensitive nature, always ready to shed tears if you look
at him, which is extremely charming; and he has never recovered the
effect of that cruelty.  For it WAS cruel,' said Miss Pecksniff,
with a self-conviction candour that might have adorned the diadem of
her own papa.  'There is no doubt of it.  I look back upon my
conduct now with blushes.  I always liked him.  I felt that he was not
to me what the crowd of young men who had made proposals had been,
but something very different.  Then what right had I to refuse him
three times?'

'It was a severe trial of his fidelity, no doubt,' said Ruth.

'My dear,' returned Miss Pecksniff.  'It was wrong.  But such is the
caprice and thoughtlessness of our sex!  Let me be a warning to you.
Don't try the feelings of any one who makes you an offer, as I have
tried the feelings of Augustus; but if you ever feel towards a
person as I really felt towards him, at the very time when I was
driving him to distraction, let that feeling find expression, if
that person throws himself at your feet, as Augustus Moddle did at
mine.  Think,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'what my feelings would have
been, if I had goaded him to suicide, and it had got into the
papers!'

Ruth observed that she would have been full of remorse, no doubt.

'Remorse!' cried Miss Pecksniff, in a sort of snug and comfortable
penitence.  'What my remorse is at this moment, even after making
reparation by accepting him, it would be impossible to tell you!
Looking back upon my giddy self, my dear, now that I am sobered down
and made thoughtful, by treading on the very brink of matrimony; and
contemplating myself as I was when I was like what you are now; I
shudder.  I shudder.  What is the consequence of my past conduct?
Until Augustus leads me to the altar he is not sure of me.  I have
blighted and withered the affections of his heart to that extent
that he is not sure of me.  I see that preying on his mind and
feeding on his vitals.  What are the reproaches of my conscience,
when I see this in the man I love!'

Ruth endeavoured to express some sense of her unbounded and
flattering confidence; and presumed that she was going to be married
soon.

'Very soon indeed,' returned Miss Pecksniff.  'As soon as our house
is ready.  We are furnishing now as fast as we can.'

In the same vein of confidence Miss Pecksniff ran through a general
inventory of the articles that were already bought with the articles
that remained to be purchased; what garments she intended to be
married in, and where the ceremony was to be performed; and gave
Miss Pinch, in short (as she told her), early and exclusive
information on all points of interest connected with the event.

While this was going forward in the rear, Tom and Mr Moddle walked
on, arm in arm, in the front, in a state of profound silence, which
Tom at last broke; after thinking for a long time what he could say
that should refer to an indifferent topic, in respect of which he
might rely, with some degree of certainty, on Mr Moddle's bosom
being unruffled.

'I wonder,' said Tom, 'that in these crowded streets the foot-
passengers are not oftener run over.'

Mr Moddle, with a dark look, replied:

'The drivers won't do it.'

'Do you mean?' Tom began--

'That there are some men,' interrupted Moddle, with a hollow laugh,
'who can't get run over.  They live a charmed life.  Coal waggons
recoil from them, and even cabs refuse to run them down.  Ah!' said
Augustus, marking Tom's astonishment.  'There are such men.  One of
'em is a friend of mine.'

'Upon my word and honour,' thought Tom, 'this young gentleman is in
a state of mind which is very serious indeed!'  Abandoning all idea
of conversation, he did not venture to say another word, but he was
careful to keep a tight hold upon Augustus's arm, lest he should fly
into the road, and making another and a more successful attempt,
should get up a private little Juggernaut before the eyes of his
betrothed.  Tom was so afraid of his committing this rash act, that
he had scarcely ever experienced such mental relief as when they
arrived in safety at Mrs Jonas Chuzzlewit's house.

'Walk up, pray, Mr Pinch,' said Miss Pecksniff.  For Tom halted,
irresolutely, at the door.

'I am doubtful whether I should be welcome,' replied Tom, 'or, I
ought rather to say, I have no doubt about it.  I will send up a
message, I think.'

'But what nonsense that is!' returned Miss Pecksniff, speaking apart
to Tom.  'He is not at home, I am certain.  I know he is not; and
Merry hasn't the least idea that you ever--'

'No,' interrupted Tom.  'Nor would I have her know it, on any
account.  I am not so proud of that scuffle, I assure you.'

'Ah, but then you are so modest, you see,' returned Miss Pecksniff,
with a smile.  'But pray walk up.  If you don't wish her to know it,
and do wish to speak to her, pray walk up.  Pray walk up, Miss
Pinch.  Don't stand here.'

Tom still hesitated for he felt that he was in an awkward position.
But Cherry passing him at this juncture, and leading his sister
upstairs, and the house-door being at the same time shut behind
them, he followed without quite knowing whether it was well or ill-
judged so to do.

'Merry, my darling!' said the fair Miss Pecksniff, opening the door
of the usual sitting-room.  'Here are Mr Pinch and his sister come
to see you!  I thought we should find you here, Mrs Todgers!  How do
you do, Mrs Gamp?  And how do you do, Mr Chuffey, though it's of no
use asking you the question, I am well aware.'

Honouring each of these parties, as she severally addressed them,
with an acid smile, Miss Charity presented 'Mr Moddle.'

'I believe you have seen HIM before,' she pleasantly observed.
'Augustus, my sweet child, bring me a chair.'

The sweet child did as he was told; and was then about to retire
into a corner to mourn in secret, when Miss Charity, calling him in
an audible whisper a 'little pet,' gave him leave to come and sit
beside her.  It is to be hoped, for the general cheerfulness of
mankind, that such a doleful little pet was never seen as Mr Moddle
looked when he complied.  So despondent was his temper, that he
showed no outward thrill of ecstasy when Miss Pecksniff placed her
lily hand in his, and concealed this mark of her favour from the
vulgar gaze by covering it with a corner of her shawl.  Indeed, he
was infinitely more rueful then than he had been before; and,
sitting uncomfortably upright in his chair, surveyed the company
with watery eyes, which seemed to say, without the aid of language,
'Oh, good gracious! look here!  Won't some kind Christian help me!'

But the ecstasies of Mrs Gamp were sufficient to have furnished
forth a score of young lovers; and they were chiefly awakened by the
sight of Tom Pinch and his sister.  Mrs Gamp was a lady of that
happy temperament which can be ecstatic without any other
stimulating cause than a general desire to establish a large and
profitable connection.  She added daily so many strings to her bow,
that she made a perfect harp of it; and upon that instrument she now
began to perform an extemporaneous concerto.

'Why, goodness me!' she said, 'Mrs Chuzzlewit!  To think as I should
see beneath this blessed 'ouse, which well I know it, Miss Pecksniff,
my sweet young lady, to be a 'ouse as there is not a many like, worse
luck, and wishin' it were not so, which then this tearful walley
would be changed into a flowerin' guardian, Mr Chuffey; to think as
I should see beneath this indiwidgle roof, identically comin', Mr
Pinch (I take the liberty, though almost unbeknown), and do assure
you of it, sir, the smilinest and sweetest face as ever, Mrs
Chuzzlewit, I see exceptin' yourn, my dear good lady, and YOUR good
lady's too, sir, Mr Moddle, if I may make so bold as speak so plain
of what is plain enough to them as needn't look through millstones,
Mrs Todgers, to find out wot is wrote upon the wall behind.  Which
no offence is meant, ladies and gentlemen; none bein' took, I hope.
To think as I should see that smilinest and sweetest face which me
and another friend of mine, took notice of among the packages down
London Bridge, in this promiscous place, is a surprige in-deed!'

Having contrived, in this happy manner, to invest every member of
her audience with an individual share and immediate personal
interest in her address, Mrs Gamp dropped several curtseys to Ruth,
and smilingly shaking her head a great many times, pursued the
thread of her discourse:

'Now, ain't we rich in beauty this here joyful arternoon, I'm sure.
I knows a lady, which her name, I'll not deceive you, Mrs
Chuzzlewit, is Harris, her husband's brother bein' six foot three,
and marked with a mad bull in Wellington boots upon his left arm, on
account of his precious mother havin' been worrited by one into a
shoemaker's shop, when in a sitiwation which blessed is the man as
has his quiver full of sech, as many times I've said to Gamp when
words has roge betwixt us on account of the expense--and often have
I said to Mrs Harris, "Oh, Mrs Harris, ma'am! your countenance is
quite a angel's!"  Which, but for Pimples, it would be.  "No, Sairey
Gamp," says she, "you best of hard-working and industrious creeturs
as ever was underpaid at any price, which underpaid you are, quite
diff'rent.  Harris had it done afore marriage at ten and six," she
says, "and wore it faithful next his heart "till the colour run,
when the money was declined to be give back, and no arrangement
could be come to.  But he never said it was a angel's, Sairey,
wotever he might have thought."  If Mrs Harris's husband was here
now,' said Mrs Gamp, looking round, and chuckling as she dropped a
general curtsey, 'he'd speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife
would be the last to blame him!  For if ever a woman lived as know'd
not wot it was to form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and
had no reagion give her by the best of husbands, Mrs Harris is that
ev'nly dispogician!'

With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped in
to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have any
engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr
Chuffey, who was seated in the same corner as of old, and shook him
by the shoulder.

'Rouge yourself, and look up!  Come!' said Mrs Gamp.  'Here's
company, Mr Chuffey.'

'I am sorry for it,' cried the old man, looking humbly round the
room.  'I know I'm in the way.  I ask pardon, but I've nowhere else
to go to.  Where is she?'

Merry went to him.

'Ah!' said the old man, patting her on the check.  'Here she is.
Here she is!  She's never hard on poor old Chuffey.  Poor old Chuff!'

As she took her seat upon a low chair by the old man's side, and put
herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom.  It
was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint
smile trembling on her face.  It was a speaking look, and Tom knew
what it said.  'You see how misery has changed me.  I can feel for a
dependant NOW, and set some value on his attachment.'

'Aye, aye!' cried Chuffey in a soothing tone.  'Aye, aye, aye!  Never
mind him.  It's hard to hear, but never mind him.  He'll die one
day.  There are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year--three
hundred and sixty-six in leap year--and he may die on any one of
'em.'

'You're a wearing old soul, and that's the sacred truth,' said Mrs
Gamp, contemplating him from a little distance with anything but
favour, as he continued to mutter to himself.  'It's a pity that you
don't know wot you say, for you'd tire your own patience out if you
did, and fret yourself into a happy releage for all as knows you.'

'His son,' murmured the old man, lifting up his hand.  'His son!'

'Well, I'm sure!' said Mrs Gamp, 'you're a-settlin' of it, Mr
Chuffey.  To your satigefaction, sir, I hope.  But I wouldn't lay a
new pincushion on it myself, sir, though you ARE so well informed.
Drat the old creetur, he's a-layin' down the law tolerable
confident, too!  A deal he knows of sons! or darters either!  Suppose
you was to favour us with some remarks on twins, sir, WOULD you be
so good!'

The bitter and indignant sarcasm which Mrs Gamp conveyed into these
taunts was altogether lost on the unconscious Chuffey, who appeared
to be as little cognizant of their delivery as of his having given
Mrs Gamp offence.  But that high-minded woman being sensitively
alive to any invasion of her professional province, and imagining
that Mr Chuffey had given utterance to some prediction on the
subject of sons, which ought to have emanated in the first instance
from herself as the only lawful authority, or which should at least
have been on no account proclaimed without her sanction and
concurrence, was not so easily appeased.  She continued to sidle at
Mr Chuffey with looks of sharp hostility, and to defy him with many
other ironical remarks, uttered in that low key which commonly
denotes suppressed indignation; until the entrance of the teaboard,
and a request from Mrs Jonas that she would make tea at a side-table
for the party that had unexpectedly assembled, restored her to
herself.  She smiled again, and entered on her ministration with her
own particular urbanity.

'And quite a family it is to make tea for,' said Mrs Gamp; 'and wot
a happiness to do it!  My good young 'ooman'--to the servant-girl--
'p'raps somebody would like to try a new-laid egg or two, not biled
too hard.  Likeways, a few rounds o' buttered toast, first cuttin'
off the crust, in consequence of tender teeth, and not too many of
'em; which Gamp himself, Mrs Chuzzlewit, at one blow, being in
liquor, struck out four, two single, and two double, as was took by
Mrs Harris for a keepsake, and is carried in her pocket at this
present hour, along with two cramp-bones, a bit o' ginger, and a
grater like a blessed infant's shoe, in tin, with a little heel to
put the nutmeg in; as many times I've seen and said, and used for
candle when required, within the month.'

As the privileges of the side-table--besides including the small
prerogatives of sitting next the toast, and taking two cups of tea
to other people's one, and always taking them at a crisis, that is
to say, before putting fresh water into the tea-pot, and after it
had been standing for some time--also comprehended a full view of
the company, and an opportunity of addressing them as from a
rostrum, Mrs Gamp discharged the functions entrusted to her with
extreme good-humour and affability.  Sometimes resting her saucer on
the palm of her outspread hand, and supporting her elbow on the
table, she stopped between her sips of tea to favour the circle with
a smile, a wink, a roll of the head, or some other mark of notice;
and at those periods her countenance was lighted up with a degree of
intelligence and vivacity, which it was almost impossible to
separate from the benignant influence of distilled waters.

But for Mrs Gamp, it would have been a curiously silent party.  Miss
Pecksniff only spoke to her Augustus, and to him in whispers.
Augustus spoke to nobody, but sighed for every one, and occasionally
gave himself such a sounding slap upon the forehead as would make
Mrs Todgers, who was rather nervous, start in her chair with an
involuntary exclamation.  Mrs Todgers was occupied in knitting, and
seldom spoke.  Poor Merry held the hand of cheerful little Ruth
between her own, and listening with evident pleasure to all she
said, but rarely speaking herself, sometimes smiled, and sometimes
kissed her on the cheek, and sometimes turned aside to hide the
tears that trembled in her eyes.  Tom felt this change in her so
much, and was so glad to see how tenderly Ruth dealt with her, and
how she knew and answered to it, that he had not the heart to make
any movement towards their departure, although he had long since
given utterance to all he came to say.

The old clerk, subsiding into his usual state, remained profoundly
silent, while the rest of the little assembly were thus occupied,
intent upon the dreams, whatever they might be, which hardly seemed
to stir the surface of his sluggish thoughts.  The bent of these
dull fancies combining probably with the silent feasting that was
going on about him, and some struggling recollection of the last
approach to revelry he had witnessed, suggested a strange question
to his mind.  He looked round upon a sudden, and said:

'Who's lying dead upstairs?'

'No one,' said Merry, turning to him.  'What is the matter?  We are
all here.'

'All here!' cried the old man.  'All here!  Where is he then--my old
master, Mr Chuzzlewit, who had the only son?  Where is he?'

'Hush!  Hush!' said Merry, speaking kindly to him.  'That happened
long ago.  Don't you recollect?'

'Recollect!' rejoined the old man, with a cry of grief.  'As if I
could forget!  As if I ever could forget!'

He put his hand up to his face for a moment; and then repeated
turning round exactly as before:

'Who's lying dead upstairs?'

'No one!' said Merry.

At first he gazed angrily upon her, as upon a stranger who
endeavoured to deceive him; but peering into her face, and seeing
that it was indeed she, he shook his head in sorrowful compassion.

'You think not.  But they don't tell you.  No, no, poor thing!  They
don't tell you.  Who are these, and why are they merry-making here,
if there is no one dead?  Foul play!  Go see who it is!'

She made a sign to them not to speak to him, which indeed they had
little inclination to do; and remained silent herself.  So did he
for a short time; but then he repeated the same question with an
eagerness that had a peculiar terror in it.

'There's some one dead,' he said, 'or dying; and I want to knows who
it is.  Go see, go see!  Where's Jonas?'

'In the country,' she replied.

The old man gazed at her as if he doubted what she said, or had not
heard her; and, rising from his chair, walked across the room and
upstairs, whispering as he went, 'Foul play!'  They heard his
footsteps overhead, going up into that corner of the room in which
the bed stood (it was there old Anthony had died); and then they
heard him coming down again immediately.  His fancy was not so
strong or wild that it pictured to him anything in the deserted
bedchamber which was not there; for he returned much calmer, and
appeared to have satisfied himself.

'They don't tell you,' he said to Merry in his quavering voice, as
he sat down again, and patted her upon the head.  'They don't tell
me either; but I'll watch, I'll watch.  They shall not hurt you;
don't be frightened.  When you have sat up watching, I have sat up
watching too.  Aye, aye, I have!' he piped out, clenching his weak,
shrivelled hand.  'Many a night I have been ready!'

He said this with such trembling gaps and pauses in his want of
breath, and said it in his jealous secrecy so closely in her ear,
that little or nothing of it was understood by the visitors.  But
they had heard and seen enough of the old man to be disquieted, and
to have left their seats and gathered about him; thereby affording
Mrs Gamp, whose professional coolness was not so easily disturbed,
an eligible opportunity for concentrating the whole resources of her
powerful mind and appetite upon the toast and butter, tea and eggs.
She had brought them to bear upon those viands with such vigour that
her face was in the highest state of inflammation, when she now
(there being nothing left to eat or drink) saw fit to interpose.

'Why, highty tighty, sir!' cried Mrs Gamp, 'is these your manners?
You want a pitcher of cold water throw'd over you to bring you
round; that's my belief, and if you was under Betsey Prig you'd have
it, too, I do assure you, Mr Chuffey.  Spanish Flies is the only
thing to draw this nonsense out of you; and if anybody wanted to do
you a kindness, they'd clap a blister of 'em on your head, and put a
mustard poultige on your back.  'Who's dead, indeed!  It wouldn't be
no grievous loss if some one was, I think!'

'He's quiet now, Mrs Gamp,' said Merry.  'Don't disturb him.'

'Oh, bother the old wictim, Mrs Chuzzlewit,' replied that zealous
lady, 'I ain't no patience with him.  You give him his own way too
much by half.  A worritin' wexagious creetur!'

No doubt with the view of carrying out the precepts she enforced,
and 'bothering the old wictim' in practice as well as in theory, Mrs
Gamp took him by the collar of his coat, and gave him some dozen or
two of hearty shakes backward and forward in his chair; that
exercise being considered by the disciples of the Prig school of
nursing (who are very numerous among professional ladies) as
exceedingly conducive to repose, and highly beneficial to the
performance of the nervous functions.  Its effect in this instance
was to render the patient so giddy and addle-headed, that he could
say nothing more; which Mrs Gamp regarded as the triumph of her art.

'There!' she said, loosening the old man's cravat, in consequence of
his being rather black in the face, after this scientific treatment.
'Now, I hope, you're easy in your mind.  If you should turn at all
faint we can soon rewive you, sir, I promige you.  Bite a person's
thumbs, or turn their fingers the wrong way,' said Mrs Gamp, smiling
with the consciousness of at once imparting pleasure and instruction
to her auditors, 'and they comes to, wonderful, Lord bless you!'

As this excellent woman had been formerly entrusted with the care of
Mr Chuffey on a previous occasion, neither Mrs Jonas nor anybody
else had the resolution to interfere directly with her mode of
treatment; though all present (Tom Pinch and his sister especially)
appeared to be disposed to differ from her views.  For such is the
rash boldness of the uninitiated, that they will frequently set up
some monstrous abstract principle, such as humanity, or tenderness,
or the like idle folly, in obstinate defiance of all precedent and
usage; and will even venture to maintain the same against the
persons who have made the precedents and established the usage, and
who must therefore be the best and most impartial judges of the
subject.

'Ah, Mr Pinch!' said Miss Pecksniff.  'It all comes of this
unfortunate marriage.  If my sister had not been so precipitate, and
had not united herself to a Wretch, there would have been no Mr
Chuffey in the house.'

'Hush!' cried Tom.  'She'll hear you.'

'I should be very sorry if she did hear me, Mr Pinch,' said Cherry,
raising her voice a little; 'for it is not in my nature to add to
the uneasiness of any person; far less of my own sister.  I know
what a sister's duties are, Mr Pinch, and I hope I always showed it
in my practice.  Augustus, my dear child, find my pocket-
handkerchief, and give it to me.'

Augustus obeyed, and took Mrs Todgers aside to pour his griefs into
her friendly bosom.

'I am sure, Mr Pinch,' said Charity, looking after her betrothed and
glancing at her sister, 'that I ought to be very grateful for the
blessings I enjoy, and those which are yet in store for me.  When I
contrast Augustus'--here she was modest and embarrased--'who, I
don't mind saying to you, is all softness, mildness, and devotion,
with the detestable man who is my sister's husband; and when I
think, Mr Pinch, that in the dispensations of this world, our cases
might have been reversed; I have much to be thankful for, indeed,
and much to make me humble and contented.'

Contented she might have been, but humble she assuredly was not.
Her face and manner experienced something so widely different from
humility, that Tom could not help understanding and despising the
base motives that were working in her breast.  He turned away, and
said to Ruth, that it was time for them to go.

'I will write to your husband,' said Tom to Merry, 'and explain to
him, as I would have done if I had met him here, that if he has
sustained any inconvenience through my means, it is not my fault; a
postman not being more innocent of the news he brings, than I was
when I handed him that letter.'

'I thank you!' said Merry.  'It may do some good.'

She parted tenderly from Ruth, who with her brother was in the act
of leaving the room, when a key was heard in the lock of the door
below, and immediately afterwards a quick footstep in the passage.
Tom stopped, and looked at Merry.

It was Jonas, she said timidly.

'I had better not meet him on the stairs, perhaps,' said Tom,
drawing his sister's arm through his, and coming back a step or two.
'I'll wait for him here, a moment.'

He had scarcely said it when the door opened, and Jonas entered.
His wife came forward to receive him; but he put her aside with his
hand, and said in a surly tone:

'I didn't know you'd got a party.'

As he looked, at the same time, either by accident or design,
towards Miss Pecksniff; and as Miss Pecksniff was only too delighted
to quarrel with him, she instantly resented it.

'Oh dear!' she said, rising.  'Pray don't let us intrude upon your
domestic happiness!  That would be a pity.  We have taken tea here,
sir, in your absence; but if you will have the goodness to send us a
note of the expense, receipted, we shall be happy to pay it.
Augustus, my love, we will go, if you please.  Mrs Todgers, unless
you wish to remain here, we shall be happy to take you with us.  It
would be a pity, indeed, to spoil the bliss which this gentleman
always brings with him, especially into his own home.'

'Charity!  Charity!' remonstrated her sister, in such a heartfelt
tone that she might have been imploring her to show the cardinal
virtue whose name she bore.

'Merry, my dear, I am much obliged to you for your advice,' returned
Miss Pecksniff, with a stately scorn--by the way, she had not been
offered any--'but I am not his slave--'

'No, nor wouldn't have been if you could,' interrupted Jonas.  'We
know all about it.'

'WHAT did you say, sir?' cried Miss Pecksniff, sharply.

'Didn't you hear?' retorted Jonas, lounging down upon a chair.  'I
am not a-going to say it again.  If you like to stay, you may stay.
If you like to go, you may go.  But if you stay, please to be
civil.'

'Beast!' cried Miss Pecksniff, sweeping past him.  'Augustus!  He is
beneath your notice!'  Augustus had been making some faint and sickly
demonstration of shaking his fist.  'Come away, child,' screamed
Miss Pecksniff, 'I command you!'

The scream was elicited from her by Augustus manifesting an
intention to return and grapple with him.  But Miss Pecksniff giving
the fiery youth a pull, and Mrs Todgers giving him a push they all
three tumbled out of the room together, to the music of Miss
Pecksniff's shrill remonstrances.

All this time Jonas had seen nothing of Tom and his sister; for they
were almost behind the door when he opened it, and he had sat down
with his back towards them, and had purposely kept his eyes upon the
opposite side of the street during his altercation with Miss
Pecksniff, in order that his seeming carelessness might increase the
exasperation of that wronged young damsel.  His wife now faltered
out that Tom had been waiting to see him; and Tom advanced.

The instant he presented himself, Jonas got up from his chair, and
swearing a great oath, caught it in his grasp, as if he would have
felled Tom to the ground with it.  As he most unquestionably would
have done, but that his very passion and surprise made him
irresolute, and gave Tom, in his calmness, an opportunity of being
heard.

'You have no cause to be violent, sir,' said Tom.  'Though what I
wish to say relates to your own affairs, I know nothing of them, and
desire to know nothing of them.'

Jonas was too enraged to speak.  He held the door open; and stamping
his foot upon the ground, motioned Tom away.

'As you cannot suppose,' said Tom, 'that I am here with any view of
conciliating you or pleasing myself, I am quite indifferent to your
reception of me, or your dismissal of me.  Hear what I have to say,
if you are not a madman!  I gave you a letter the other day, when you
were about to go abroad.'

'You Thief, you did!' retorted Jonas.  'I'll pay you for the
carriage of it one day, and settle an old score besides.  I will!'

'Tut, tut,' said Tom, 'you needn't waste words or threats.  I wish
you to understand--plainly because I would rather keep clear of you
and everything that concerns you: not because I have the least
apprehension of your doing me any injury: which would be weak
indeed--that I am no party to the contents of that letter.  That I
know nothing of it.  That I was not even aware that it was to be
delivered to you; and that I had it from--'

'By the Lord!' cried Jonas, fiercely catching up the chair, 'I'll
knock your brains out, if you speak another word.'

Tom, nevertheless, persisting in his intention, and opening his lips
to speak again, Jonas set upon him like a savage; and in the
quickness and ferocity of his attack would have surely done him some
grievous injury, defenceless as he was, and embarrassed by having
his frightened sister clinging to his arm, if Merry had not run
between them, crying to Tom for the love of Heaven to leave the
house.  The agony of this poor creature, the terror of his sister,
the impossibility of making himself audible, and the equal
impossibility of bearing up against Mrs Gamp, who threw herself upon
him like a feather-bed, and forced him backwards down the stairs by
the mere oppression of her dead weight, prevailed.  Tom shook the
dust of that house off his feet, without having mentioned Nadgett's
name.

If the name could have passed his lips; if Jonas, in the insolence
of his vile nature, had never roused him to do that old act of
manliness, for which (and not for his last offence) he hated him
with such malignity; if Jonas could have learned, as then he could
and would have learned, through Tom's means, what unsuspected spy
there was upon him; he would have been saved from the commission of
a Guilty Deed, then drawing on towards its black accomplishment.
But the fatality was of his own working; the pit was of his own
digging; the gloom that gathered round him was the shadow of his own
life.

His wife had closed the door, and thrown herself before it, on the
ground, upon her knees.  She held up her hands to him now, and
besought him not to be harsh with her, for she had interposed in
fear of bloodshed.

'So, so!' said Jonas, looking down upon her, as he fetched his
breath.  'These are your friends, are they, when I am away?  You
plot and tamper with this sort of people, do you?'

'No, indeed!  I have no knowledge of these secrets, and no clue to
their meaning.  I have never seen him since I left home but once--
but twice--before to-day.'

'Oh!' sneered Jonas, catching at this correction.  'But once, but
twice, eh?  Which do you mean?  Twice and once, perhaps.  Three
times!  How many more, you lying jade?'

As he made an angry motion with his hand, she shrunk down hastily.
A suggestive action!  Full of a cruel truth!

'How many more times?' he repeated.

'No more.  The other morning, and to-day, and once besides.'

He was about to retort upon her, when the clock struck.  He started
stopped, and listened; appearing to revert to some engagement, or to
some other subject, a secret within his own breast, recalled to him
by this record of the progress of the hours.

'Don't lie there!  Get up!'

Having helped her to rise, or rather hauled her up by the arm, he
went on to say:

'Listen to me, young lady; and don't whine when you have no
occasion, or I may make some for you.  If I find him in my house
again, or find that you have seen him in anybody else's house,
you'll repent it.  If you are not deaf and dumb to everything that
concerns me, unless you have my leave to hear and speak, you'll
repent it.  If you don't obey exactly what I order, you'll repent
it.  Now, attend.  What's the time?'

'It struck eight a minute ago.'

He looked towards her intently; and said, with a laboured
distinctness, as if he had got the words off by heart:

'I have been travelling day and night, and am tired.  I have lost
some money, and that don't improve me.  Put my supper in the little
off-room below, and have the truckle-bed made.  I shall sleep there
to-night, and maybe to-morrow night; and if I can sleep all day to-
morrow, so much the better, for I've got trouble to sleep off, if I
can.  Keep the house quiet, and don't call me.  Mind!  Don't call me.
Don't let anybody call me.  Let me lie there.'

She said it should be done.  Was that all?

'All what?  You must be prying and questioning!' he angrily
retorted.  'What more do you want to know?'

'I want to know nothing, Jonas, but what you tell me.  All hope of
confidence between us has long deserted me!'

'Ecod, I should hope so!' he muttered.

'But if you will tell me what you wish, I will be obedient and will
try to please you.  I make no merit of that, for I have no friend in
my father or my sister, but am quite alone.  I am very humble and
submissive.  You told me you would break my spirit, and you have
done so.  Do not break my heart too!'

She ventured, as she said these words, to lay her hand upon his
shoulder.  He suffered it to rest there, in his exultation; and the
whole mean, abject, sordid, pitiful soul of the man, looked at her,
for the moment, through his wicked eyes.

For the moment only; for, with the same hurried return to something
within himself, he bade her, in a surly tone, show her obedience by
executing his commands without delay.  When she had withdrawn he
paced up and down the room several times; but always with his right
hand clenched, as if it held something; which it did not, being
empty.  When he was tired of this, he threw himself into a chair,
and thoughtfully turned up the sleeve of his right arm, as if he
were rather musing about its strength than examining it; but, even
then, he kept the hand clenched.

He was brooding in this chair, with his eyes cast down upon the
ground, when Mrs Gamp came in to tell him that the little room was
ready.  Not being quite sure of her reception after interfering in
the quarrel, Mrs Gamp, as a means of interesting and propitiating
her patron, affected a deep solicitude in Mr Chuffey.

'How is he now, sir?' she said.

'Who?' cried Jonas, raising his head, and staring at her.

'To be sure!' returned the matron with a smile and a curtsey.  'What
am I thinking of!  You wasn't here, sir, when he was took so strange.
I never see a poor dear creetur took so strange in all my life,
except a patient much about the same age, as I once nussed, which
his calling was the custom-'us, and his name was Mrs Harris's own
father, as pleasant a singer, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with
a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes, that it took six men to
hold at sech times, foaming frightful.'

'Chuffey, eh?' said Jonas carelessly, seeing that she went up to the
old, clerk, and looked at him.  'Ha!'

'The creetur's head's so hot,' said Mrs Gamp, 'that you might heat a
flat-iron at it.  And no wonder I am sure, considerin' the things he
said!'

'Said!' cried Jonas.  'What did he say?'

Mrs Gamp laid her hand upon her heart, to put some check upon its
palpitations, and turning up her eyes replied in a faint voice:

'The awfulest things, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever I heerd!  Which Mrs
Harris's father never spoke a word when took so, some does and some
don't, except sayin' when he come round, "Where is Sairey Gamp?"
But raly, sir, when Mr Chuffey comes to ask who's lyin' dead upstairs,
and--'

'Who's lying dead upstairs!' repeated Jonas, standing aghast.

Mrs Gamp nodded, made as if she were swallowing, and went on.

'Who's lying dead upstairs; sech was his Bible language; and where
was Mr Chuzzlewit as had the only son; and when he goes upstairs a-
looking in the beds and wandering about the rooms, and comes down
again a-whisperin' softly to his-self about foul play and that; it
gives me sech a turn, I don't deny it, Mr Chuzzlewit, that I never
could have kep myself up but for a little drain o' spirits, which I
seldom touches, but could always wish to know where to find, if so
dispoged, never knowin' wot may happen next, the world bein' so
uncertain.'

'Why, the old fool's mad!' cried Jonas, much disturbed.

'That's my opinion, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, 'and I will not deceive
you.  I believe as Mr Chuffey, sir, rekwires attention (if I may
make so bold), and should not have his liberty to wex and worrit
your sweet lady as he does.'

'Why, who minds what he says?' retorted Jonas.

'Still he is worritin' sir,' said Mrs Gamp.  'No one don't mind him,
but he IS a ill conwenience.'

'Ecod you're right,' said Jonas, looking doubtfully at the subject
of this conversation.  'I have half a mind to shut him up.'

Mrs Gamp rubbed her hands, and smiled, and shook her head, and
sniffed expressively, as scenting a job.

'Could you--could you take care of such an idiot, now, in some spare
room upstairs?' asked Jonas.

'Me and a friend of mine, one off, one on, could do it, Mr
Chuzzlewit,' replied the nurse; 'our charges not bein' high, but
wishin' they was lower, and allowance made considerin' not
strangers.  Me and Betsey Prig, sir, would undertake Mr Chuffey
reasonable,' said Mrs Gamp, looking at him with her head on one
side, as if he had been a piece of goods, for which she was driving
a bargain; 'and give every satigefaction.  Betsey Prig has nussed a
many lunacies, and well she knows their ways, which puttin' 'em
right close afore the fire, when fractious, is the certainest and
most compoging.'

While Mrs Gamp discoursed to this effect, Jonas was walking up and
down the room again, glancing covertly at the old clerk, as he did
so.  He now made a stop, and said:

'I must look after him, I suppose, or I may have him doing some
mischief.  What say you?'

'Nothin' more likely!' Mrs Gamp replied.  'As well I have
experienged, I do assure you, sir.'

'Well!  Look after him for the present, and--let me see--three days
from this time let the other woman come here, and we'll see if we
can make a bargain of it.  About nine or ten o'clock at night, say.
Keep your eye upon him in the meanwhile, and don't talk about it.
He's as mad as a March hare!'

'Madder!' cried Mrs Gamp.  'A deal madder!'

'See to him, then; take care that he does no harm; and recollect
what I have told you.'

Leaving Mrs Gamp in the act of repeating all she had been told, and
of producing in support of her memory and trustworthiness, many
commendations selected from among the most remarkable opinions of
the celebrated Mrs Harris, he descended to the little room prepared
for him, and pulling off his coat and his boots, put them outside
the door before he locked it.  In locking it, he was careful so to
adjust the key as to baffle any curious person who might try to peep
in through the key-hole; and when he had taken these precautions, he
sat down to his supper.

'Mr Chuff,' he muttered, 'it'll be pretty easy to be even with YOU.
It's of no use doing things by halves, and as long as I stop here,
I'll take good care of you.  When I'm off you may say what you
please.  But it's a d--d strange thing,' he added, pushing away his
untouched plate, and striding moodily to and fro, 'that his
drivellings should have taken this turn just now.'

After pacing the little room from end to end several times, he sat
down in another chair.

'I say just now, but for anything I know, he may have been carrying
on the same game all along.  Old dog!  He shall be gagged!'

He paced the room again in the same restless and unsteady way; and
then sat down upon the bedstead, leaning his chin upon his hand, and
looking at the table.  When he had looked at it for a long time, he
remembered his supper; and resuming the chair he had first occupied,
began to eat with great rapacity; not like a hungry man, but as if
he were determined to do it.  He drank too, roundly; sometimes
stopping in the middle of a draught to walk, and change his seat and
walk again, and dart back to the table and fall to, in a ravenous
hurry, as before.

It was now growing dark.  As the gloom of evening, deepening into
night, came on, another dark shade emerging from within him seemed
to overspread his face, and slowly change it.  Slowly, slowly;
darker and darker; more and more haggard; creeping over him by
little and little, until it was black night within him and without.

The room in which he had shut himself up, was on the ground floor,
at the back of the house.  It was lighted by a dirty skylight, and
had a door in the wall, opening into a narrow covered passage or
blind-alley, very little frequented after five or six o'clock in the
evening, and not in much use as a thoroughfare at any hour.  But it
had an outlet in a neighbouring street.

The ground on which this chamber stood had, at one time, not within
his recollection, been a yard; and had been converted to its present
purpose for use as an office.  But the occasion for it died with the
man who built it; and saving that it had sometimes served as an
apology for a spare bedroom, and that the old clerk had once held it
(but that was years ago) as his recognized apartment, it had been
little troubled by Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son.  It was a blotched,
stained, mouldering room, like a vault; and there were water-pipes
running through it, which at unexpected times in the night, when
other things were quiet, clicked and gurgled suddenly, as if they
were choking.

The door into the court had not been open for a long, long time; but
the key had always hung in one place, and there it hung now.  He was
prepared for its being rusty; for he had a little bottle of oil in
his pocket and the feather of a pen, with which he lubricated the
key and the lock too, carefully.  All this while he had been without
his coat, and had nothing on his feet but his stockings.  He now got
softly into bed in the same state, and tossed from side to side to
tumble it.  In his restless condition that was easily done.

When he arose, he took from his portmanteau, which he had caused to
be carried into that place when he came home, a pair of clumsy
shoes, and put them on his feet; also a pair of leather leggings,
such as countrymen are used to wear, with straps to fasten them to
the waistband.  In these he dressed himself at leisure.  Lastly, he
took out a common frock of coarse dark jean, which he drew over his
own under-clothing; and a felt hat--he had purposely left his own
upstairs.  He then sat himself down by the door, with the key in his
hand, waiting.

He had no light; the time was dreary, long, and awful.  The ringers
were practicing in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of the
bells was almost maddening.  Curse the clamouring bells, they seemed
to know that he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a
crowd of voices to all the town!  Would they never be still?

They ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and terrible
that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise.  Footsteps in the
court!  Two men.  He fell back from the door on tiptoe, as if they
could have seen him through its wooden panels.

They passed on, talking (he could make out) about a skeleton which
had been dug up yesterday, in some work of excavation near at hand,
and was supposed to be that of a murdered man.  'So murder is not
always found out, you see,' they said to one another as they turned
the corner.

Hush!

He put the key into the lock, and turned it.  The door resisted for
a while, but soon came stiffly open; mingling with the sense of
fever in his mouth, a taste of rust, and dust, and earth, and
rotting wood.  He looked out; passed out; locked it after him.

All was clear and quiet, as he fled away.



CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CONCLUSION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND


Did no men passing through the dim streets shrink without knowing
why, when he came stealing up behind them?  As he glided on, had no
child in its sleep an indistinct perception of a guilty shadow
falling on its bed, that troubled its innocent rest?  Did no dog
howl, and strive to break its rattling chain, that it might tear
him; no burrowing rat, scenting the work he had in hand, essay to
gnaw a passage after him, that it might hold a greedy revel at the
feast of his providing?  When he looked back, across his shoulder,
was it to see if his quick footsteps still fell dry upon the dusty
pavement, or were already moist and clogged with the red mire that
stained the naked feet of Cain!

He shaped his course for the main western road, and soon reached it;
riding a part of the way, then alighting and walking on again.  He
travelled for a considerable distance upon the roof of a stage-
coach, which came up while he was afoot; and when it turned out of
his road, bribed the driver of a return post-chaise to take him on
with him; and then made across the country at a run, and saved a
mile or two before he struck again into the road.  At last, as his
plan was, he came up with a certain lumbering, slow, night-coach,
which stopped wherever it could, and was stopping then at a public-
house, while the guard and coachman ate and drank within.

He bargained for a seat outside this coach, and took it.  And he
quitted it no more until it was within a few miles of its
destination, but occupied the same place all night.

All night!  It is a common fancy that nature seems to sleep by night.
It is a false fancy, as who should know better than he?

The fishes slumbered in the cold, bright, glistening streams and
rivers, perhaps; and the birds roosted on the branches of the trees;
and in their stalls and pastures beasts were quiet; and human
creatures slept.  But what of that, when the solemn night was
watching, when it never winked, when its darkness watched no less
than its light!  The stately trees, the moon and shining stars, the
softly stirring wind, the over-shadowed lane, the broad, bright
countryside, they all kept watch.  There was not a blade of growing
grass or corn, but watched; and the quieter it was, the more intent
and fixed its watch upon him seemed to be.

And yet he slept.  Riding on among those sentinels of God, he slept,
and did not change the purpose of his journey.  If he forgot it in
his troubled dreams, it came up steadily, and woke him.  But it
never woke him to remorse, or to abandonment of his design.

He dreamed at one time that he was lying calmly in his bed, thinking
of a moonlight night and the noise of wheels, when the old clerk put
his head in at the door, and beckoned him.  At this signal he arose
immediately--being already dressed in the clothes he actually wore
at that time--and accompanied him into a strange city, where the
names of the streets were written on the walls in characters quite
new to him; which gave him no surprise or uneasiness, for he
remembered in his dream to have been there before.  Although these
streets were very precipitous, insomuch that to get from one to
another it was necessary to descend great heights by ladders that
were too short, and ropes that moved deep bells, and swung and
swayed as they were clung to, the danger gave him little emotion
beyond the first thrill of terror; his anxieties being concentrated
on his dress which was quite unfitted for some festival that was
about to be holden there, and in which he had come to take a part.
Already, great crowds began to fill the streets, and in one
direction myriads of people came rushing down an interminable
perspective, strewing flowers and making way for others on white
horses, when a terrible figure started from the throng, and cried
out that it was the Last Day for all the world.  The cry being
spread, there was a wild hurrying on to Judgment; and the press
became so great that he and his companion (who was constantly
changing, and was never the same man two minutes together, though he
never saw one man come or another go), stood aside in a porch,
fearfully surveying the multitude; in which there were many faces
that he knew, and many that he did not know, but dreamed he did;
when all at once a struggling head rose up among the rest--livid and
deadly, but the same as he had known it--and denounced him as having
appointed that direful day to happen.  They closed together.  As he
strove to free the hand in which he held a club, and strike the blow
he had so often thought of, he started to the knowledge of his
waking purpose and the rising of the sun.

The sun was welcome to him.  There were life and motion, and a world
astir, to divide the attention of Day.  It was the eye of Night--of
wakeful, watchful, silent, and attentive Night, with so much leisure
for the observation of his wicked thoughts--that he dreaded most.
There is no glare in the night.  Even Glory shows to small advantage
in the night, upon a crowded battle-field.  How then shows Glory's
blood-relation, bastard Murder!

Aye!  He made no compromise, and held no secret with himself now.
Murder.  He had come to do it.

'Let me get down here' he said

'Short of the town, eh!' observed the coachman.

'I may get down where I please, I suppose?'

'You got up to please yourself, and may get down to please yourself.
It won't break our hearts to lose you, and it wouldn't have broken
'em if we'd never found you.  Be a little quicker.  That's all.'

The guard had alighted, and was waiting in the road to take his
money.  In the jealousy and distrust of what he contemplated, he
thought this man looked at him with more than common curiosity

'What are you staring at?' said Jonas.

'Not at a handsome man,' returned the guard.  'If you want your
fortune told, I'll tell you a bit of it.  You won't be drowned.
That's a consolation for you.'

Before he could retort or turn away, the coachman put an end to the
dialogue by giving him a cut with his whip, and biddig him get
out for a surly dog.  The guard jumped up to his seat at the same
moment, and they drove off, laughing; leaving him to stand in the
road and shake his fist at them.  He was not displeased though,
on second thoughts, to have been taken for an ill-conditioned
common country fellow; but rather congratulated himself upon it
as a proof that he was well disguised.

Wandering into a copse by the road-side--but not in that place; two
or three miles off--he tore out from a fence a thick, hard, knotted
stake; and, sitting down beneath a hayrick, spent some time in
shaping it, in peeling off the bark, and fashioning its jagged head
with his knife.

The day passed on.  Noon, afternoon, evening.  Sunset.

At that serene and peaceful time two men, riding in a gig, came out
of the city by a road not much frequented.  It was the day on which
Mr Pecksniff had agreed to dine with Montague.  He had kept his
appointment, and was now going home.  His host was riding with him
for a short distance; meaning to return by a pleasant track, which
Mr Pecksniff had engaged to show him, through some fields.  Jonas
knew their plans.  He had hung about the inn-yard while they were at
dinner and had heard their orders given.

They were loud and merry in their conversation, and might have been
heard at some distance; far above the sound of their carriage wheels
or horses' hoofs.  They came on noisily, to where a stile and
footpath indicated their point of separation.  Here they stopped.

'It's too soon.  Much too soon,' said Mr Pecksniff.  'But this is
the place, my dear sir.  Keep the path, and go straight through the
little wood you'll come to.  The path is narrower there, but you
can't miss it.  When shall I see you again?  Soon I hope?'

'I hope so,' replied Montague.

'Good night!'

'Good night.  And a pleasant ride!'

So long as Mr Pecksniff was in sight, and turned his head at
intervals to salute him, Montague stood in the road smiling, and
waving his hand.  But when his new partner had disappeared, and this
show was no longer necessary, he sat down on the stile with looks so
altered, that he might have grown ten years older in the meantime.

He was flushed with wine, but not gay.  His scheme had succeeded,
but he showed no triumph.  The effort of sustaining his difficult
part before his late companion had fatigued him, perhaps, or it may
be that the evening whispered to his conscience, or it may be (as it
HAS been) that a shadowy veil was dropping round him, closing out
all thoughts but the presentiment and vague foreknowledge of
impending doom.

If there be fluids, as we know there are, which, conscious of a
coming wind, or rain, or frost, will shrink and strive to hide
themselves in their glass arteries; may not that subtle liquor of
the blood perceive, by properties within itself, that hands are
raised to waste and spill it; and in the veins of men run cold and
dull as his did, in that hour!

So cold, although the air was warm; so dull, although the sky was
bright; that he rose up shivering from his seat, and hastily resumed
his walk.  He checked himself as hastily; undecided whether to
pursue the footpath, which was lonely and retired, or to go back by
the road.

He took the footpath.

The glory of the departing sun was on his face.  The music of the
birds was in his ears.  Sweet wild flowers bloomed about him.
Thatched roofs of poor men's homes were in the distance; and an old
grey spire, surmounted by a Cross, rose up between him and the
coming night.

He had never read the lesson which these things conveyed; he had
ever mocked and turned away from it; but, before going down into a
hollow place, he looked round, once, upon the evening prospect,
sorrowfully.  Then he went down, down, down, into the dell.

It brought him to the wood; a close, thick, shadowy wood, through
which the path went winding on, dwindling away into a slender sheep-
track.  He paused before entering; for the stillness of this spot
almost daunted him.

The last rays of the sun were shining in, aslant, making a path of
golden light along the stems and branches in its range, which, even
as he looked, began to die away, yielding gently to the twilight
that came creeping on.  It was so very quiet that the soft and
stealthy moss about the trunks of some old trees, seemed to have
grown out of the silence, and to be its proper offspring.  Those
other trees which were subdued by blasts of wind in winter time, had
not quite tumbled down, but being caught by others, lay all bare and
scathed across their leafy arms, as if unwilling to disturb the
general repose by the crash of their fall.  Vistas of silence opened
everywhere, into the heart and innermost recesses of the wood;
beginning with the likeness of an aisle, a cloister, or a ruin open
to the sky; then tangling off into a deep green rustling mystery,
through which gnarled trunks, and twisted boughs, and ivy-covered
stems, and trembling leaves, and bark-stripped bodies of old trees
stretched out at length, were faintly seen in beautiful confusion.

As the sunlight died away, and evening fell upon the wood, he
entered it.  Moving, here and there a bramble or a drooping bough
which stretched across his path, he slowly disappeared.  At
intervals a narrow opening showed him passing on, or the sharp
cracking of some tender branch denoted where he went; then, he was
seen or heard no more.

Never more beheld by mortal eye or heard by mortal ear; one man
excepted.  That man, parting the leaves and branches on the other
side, near where the path emerged again, came leaping out soon
afterwards.

What had he left within the wood, that he sprang out of it as if
it were a hell!

The body of a murdered man.  In one thick solitary spot, it lay
among the last year's leaves of oak and beech, just as it had fallen
headlong down.  Sopping and soaking in among the leaves that formed
its pillow; oozing down into the boggy ground, as if to cover itself
from human sight; forcing its way between and through the curling
leaves, as if those senseless things rejected and forswore it and
were coiled up in abhorrence; went a dark, dark stain that dyed the
whole summer night from earth to heaven.

The doer of this deed came leaping from the wood so fiercely, that
he cast into the air a shower of fragments of young boughs, torn
away in his passage, and fell with violence upon the grass.  But he
quickly gained his feet again, and keeping underneath a hedge with
his body bent, went running on towards the road.  The road once
reached, he fell into a rapid walk, and set on toward London.

And he was not sorry for what he had done.  He was frightened when
he thought of it--when did he not think of it!--but he was not
sorry.  He had had a terror and dread of the wood when he was in it;
but being out of it, and having committed the crime, his fears were
now diverted, strangely, to the dark room he had left shut up at
home.  He had a greater horror, infinitely greater, of that room
than of the wood.  Now that he was on his return to it, it seemed
beyond comparison more dismal and more dreadful than the wood.  His
hideous secret was shut up in the room, and all its terrors were
there; to his thinking it was not in the wood at all.

He walked on for ten miles; and then stopped at an ale-house for a
coach, which he knew would pass through, on its way to London,
before long; and which he also knew was not the coach he had
travelled down by, for it came from another place.  He sat down
outside the door here, on a bench, beside a man who was smoking his
pipe.  Having called for some beer, and drunk, he offered it to this
companion, who thanked him, and took a draught.  He could not help
thinking that, if the man had known all, he might scarcely have
relished drinking out of the same cup with him.

'A fine night, master!' said this person.  'And a rare sunset.'

'I didn't see it,' was his hasty answer.

'Didn't see it?' returned the man.

'How the devil could I see it, if I was asleep?'

'Asleep!  Aye, aye.'  The man appeared surprised by his unexpected
irritability, and saying no more, smoked his pipe in silence.  They
had not sat very long, when there was a knocking within.

'What's that?' cried Jonas.

'Can't say, I'm sure,' replied the man.

He made no further inquiry, for the last question had escaped him in
spite of himself.  But he was thinking, at the moment, of the
closed-up room; of the possibility of their knocking at the door on
some special occasion; of their being alarmed at receiving no
answer; of their bursting it open; of their finding the room empty;
of their fastening the door into the court, and rendering it
impossible for him to get into the house without showing himself in
the garb he wore, which would lead to rumour, rumour to detection,
detection to death.  At that instant, as if by some design and order
of circumstances, the knocking had come.

It still continued; like a warning echo of the dread reality he had
conjured up.  As he could not sit and hear it, he paid for his beer
and walked on again.  And having slunk about, in places unknown to
him all day; and being out at night, in a lonely road, in an unusual
dress and in that wandering and unsettled frame of mind; he stopped
more than once to look about him, hoping he might be in a dream.

Still he was not sorry.  No.  He had hated the man too much, and had
been bent, too desperately and too long, on setting himself free.
If the thing could have come over again, he would have done it
again.  His malignant and revengeful passions were not so easily
laid.  There was no more penitence or remorse within him now than
there had been while the deed was brewing.

Dread and fear were upon him, to an extent he had never counted on,
and could not manage in the least degree.  He was so horribly afraid
of that infernal room at home.  This made him, in a gloomy
murderous, mad way, not only fearful FOR himself, but OF himself;
for being, as it were, a part of the room: a something supposed to
be there, yet missing from it: he invested himself with its
mysterious terrors; and when he pictured in his mind the ugly
chamber, false and quiet, false and quiet, through the dark hours of
two nights; and the tumbled bed, and he not in it, though believed
to be; he became in a manner his own ghost and phantom, and was at
once the haunting spirit and the haunted man.

When the coach came up, which it soon did, he got a place outside
and was carried briskly onward towards home.  Now, in taking his
seat among the people behind, who were chiefly country people, he
conceived a fear that they knew of the murder, and would tell him
that the body had been found; which, considering the time and place
of the commission of the crime, were events almost impossible to
have happened yet, as he very well knew.  But although he did know
it, and had therefore no reason to regard their ignorance as
anything but the natural sequence to the facts, still this very
ignorance of theirs encouraged him.  So far encouraged him, that he
began to believe the body never would be found, and began to
speculate on that probability.  Setting off from this point, and
measuring time by the rapid hurry of his guilty thoughts, and what
had gone before the bloodshed, and the troops of incoherent and
disordered images of which he was the constant prey; he came by
daylight to regard the murder as an old murder, and to think himself
comparatively safe because it had not been discovered yet.  Yet!
When the sun which looked into the wood, and gilded with its rising
light a dead man's lace, had seen that man alive, and sought to win
him to a thought of Heaven, on its going down last night!

But here were London streets again.  Hush!

It was but five o'clock.  He had time enough to reach his own house
unobserved, and before there were many people in the streets, if
nothing had happened so far, tending to his discovery.  He slipped
down from the coach without troubling the driver to stop his horses;
and hurrying across the road, and in and out of every by-way that
lay near his course, at length approached his own dwelling.  He used
additional caution in his immediate neighbourhood; halting first to
look all down the street before him; then gliding swiftly through
that one, and stopping to survey the next, and so on.

The passage-way was empty when his murderer's face looked into it.
He stole on, to the door on tiptoe, as if he dreaded to disturb his
own imaginary rest.

He listened.  Not a sound.  As he turned the key with a trembling
hand, and pushed the door softly open with his knee, a monstrous
fear beset his mind.

What if the murdered man were there before him!

He cast a fearful glance all round.  But there was nothing there.

He went in, locked the door, drew the key through and through the
dust and damp in the fire-place to sully it again, and hung it up as
of old.  He took off his disguise, tied it up in a bundle ready for
carrying away and sinking in the river before night, and locked it
up in a cupboard.  These precautions taken, he undressed and went to
bed.

The raging thirst, the fire that burnt within him as he lay beneath
the clothes, the augmented horror of the room when they shut it out
from his view; the agony of listening, in which he paid enforced
regard to every sound, and thought the most unlikely one the prelude
to that knocking which should bring the news; the starts with which
he left his couch, and looking in the glass, imagined that his deed
was broadly written in his face, and lying down and burying himself
once more beneath the blankets, heard his own heart beating Murder,
Murder, Murder, in the bed; what words can paint tremendous truths
like these!

The morning advanced.  There were footsteps in the house.  He heard
the blinds drawn up, and shutters opened; and now and then a
stealthy tread outside his own door.  He tried to call out, more
than once, but his mouth was dry as if it had been filled with sand.
At last he sat up in his bed, and cried:

'Who's there?'

It was his wife.

He asked her what it was o'clock?  Nine.

'Did--did no one knock at my door yesterday?' he faltered.
'Something disturbed me; but unless you had knocked the door down,
you would have got no notice from me.'

'No one,' she replied.  That was well.  He had waited, almost
breathless, for her answer.  It was a relief to him, if anything
could be.

'Mr Nadgett wanted to see you,' she said, 'but I told him you were
tired, and had requested not to be disturbed.  He said it was of
little consequence, and went away.  As I was opening my window to
let in the cool air, I saw him passing through the street this
morning, very early; but he hasn't been again.'

Passing through the street that morning?  Very early!  Jonas trembled
at the thought of having had a narrow chance of seeing him himself;
even him, who had no object but to avoid people, and sneak on
unobserved, and keep his own secrets; and who saw nothing.

He called to her to get his breakfast ready, and prepared to go
upstairs; attiring himself in the clothes he had taken off when he
came into that room, which had been, ever since, outside the door.
In his secret dread of meeting the household for the first time,
after what he had done, he lingered at the door on slight pretexts
that they might see him without looking in his face; and left it
ajar while he dressed; and called out to have the windows opened,
and the pavement watered, that they might become accustomed to his
voice.  Even when he had put off the time, by one means or other, so
that he had seen or spoken to them all, he could not muster courage
for a long while to go in among them, but stood at his own door
listening to the murmur of their distant conversation.

He could not stop there for ever, and so joined them.  His last
glance at the glass had seen a tell-tale face, but that might have
been because of his anxious looking in it.  He dared not look at
them to see if they observed him, but he thought them very silent.

And whatsoever guard he kept upon himself, he could not help
listening, and showing that he listened.  Whether he attended to
their talk, or tried to think of other things, or talked himself, or
held his peace, or resolutely counted the dull tickings of a hoarse
clock at his back, he always lapsed, as if a spell were on him, into
eager listening.  For he knew it must come.  And his present
punishment, and torture and distraction, were, to listen for its
coming.

Hush!



CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

BEARS TIDINGS OF MARTIN AND OF MARK, AS WELL AS OF A THIRD PERSON
NOT QUITE UNKNOWN TO THE READER.  EXHIBITS FILIAL PIETY IN AN UGLY
ASPECT; AND CASTS A DOUBTFUL RAY OF LIGHT UPON A VERY DARK PLACE


Tom Pinch and Ruth were sitting at their early breakfast, with the
window open, and a row of the freshest little plants ranged before
it on the inside by Ruth's own hands; and Ruth had fastened a sprig
of geranium in Tom's button-hole, to make him very smart and summer-
like for the day (it was obliged to be fastened in, or that dear old
Tom was certain to lose it); and people were crying flowers up and
down the street; and a blundering bee, who had got himself in
between the two sashes of the window, was bruising his head against
the glass, endeavouring to force himself out into the fine morning,
and considering himself enchanted because he couldn't do it; and the
morning was as fine a morning as ever was seen; and the fragrant air
was kissing Ruth and rustling about Tom, as if it said, 'how are
you, my dears; I came all this way on purpose to salute you;' and it
was one of those glad times when we form, or ought to form, the wish
that every one on earth were able to be happy, and catching glimpses
of the summer of the heart, to feel the beauty of the summer of the
year.

It was even a pleasanter breakfast than usual; and it was always a
pleasant one.  For little Ruth had now two pupils to attend, each
three times a week; and each two hours at a time; and besides this,
she had painted some screens and card-racks, and, unknown to Tom
(was there ever anything so delightful!), had walked into a certain
shop which dealt in such articles, after often peeping through the
window; and had taken courage to ask the Mistress of that shop
whether she would buy them.  And the mistress had not only bought
them, but had ordered more, and that very morning Ruth had made
confession of these facts to Tom, and had handed him the money in a
little purse she had worked expressly for the purpose.  They had
been in a flutter about this, and perhaps had shed a happy tear or
two for anything the history knows to the contrary; but it was all
over now; and a brighter face than Tom's, or a brighter face than
Ruth's, the bright sun had not looked on since he went to bed last
night.

'My dear girl,' said Tom, coming so abruptly on the subject, that he
interrupted himself in the act of cutting a slice of bread, and left
the knife sticking in the loaf, 'what a queer fellow our landlord
is!  I don't believe he has been home once since he got me into that
unsatisfactory scrape.  I begin to think he will never come home
again.  What a mysterious life that man does lead, to be sure!'

'Very strange.  Is it not, Tom?'

'Really,' said Tom, 'I hope it is only strange.  I hope there may be
nothing wrong in it.  Sometimes I begin to be doubtful of that.  I
must have an explanation with him,' said Tom, shaking his head as if
this were a most tremendous threat, 'when I can catch him!'

A short double knock at the door put Tom's menacing looks to flight,
and awakened an expression of surprise instead.

'Heyday!' said Tom.  'An early hour for visitors!  It must be John, I
suppose.'

'I--I--don't think it was his knock, Tom,' observed his little
sister.

'No?' said Tom.  'It surely can't be my employer suddenly
arrived in town; directed here by Mr Fips; and come for the key of
the office.  It's somebody inquiring for me, I declare!  Come in, if
you please!'

But when the person came in, Tom Pinch, instead of saying, 'Did you
wish to speak with me, sir?' or, 'My name is Pinch, sir; what is
your business, may I ask?' or addressing him in any such distant
terms; cried out, 'Good gracious Heaven!' and seized him by both
hands, with the liveliest manifestations of astonishment and
pleasure.

The visitor was not less moved than Tom himself, and they shook
hands a great many times, without another word being spoken on
either side.  Tom was the first to find his voice.

'Mark Tapley, too!' said Tom, running towards the door, and shaking
hands with somebody else.  'My dear Mark, come in.  How are you,
Mark?  He don't look a day older than he used to do at the Dragon.
How ARE you, Mark?'

'Uncommonly jolly, sir, thank'ee,' returned Mr Tapley, all smiles
and bows.  'I hope I see you well, sir.'

'Good gracious me!' cried Tom, patting him tenderly on the back.
'How delightful it is to hear his old voice again!  My dear Martin,
sit down.  My sister, Martin.  Mr Chuzzlewit, my love.  Mark Tapley
from the Dragon, my dear.  Good gracious me, what a surprise this
is!  Sit down.  Lord, bless me!'

Tom was in such a state of excitement that he couldn't keep himself
still for a moment, but was constantly running between Mark and
Martin, shaking hands with them alternately, and presenting them
over and over again to his sister.

'I remember the day we parted, Martin, as well as if it were
yesterday,' said Tom.  'What a day it was! and what a passion you
were in!  And don't you remember my overtaking you in the road that
morning, Mark, when I was going to Salisbury in the gig to fetch him,
and you were looking out for a situation?  And don't you recollect
the dinner we had at Salisbury, Martin, with John Westlock, eh!  Good
gracious me!  Ruth, my dear, Mr Chuzzlewit.  Mark Tapley, my love,
from the Dragon.  More cups and saucers, if you please.  Bless my
soul, how glad I am to see you both!'

And then Tom (as John Westlock had done on his arrival) ran off to
the loaf to cut some bread and butter for them; and before he had
spread a single slice, remembered something else, and came running
back again to tell it; and then he shook hands with them again; and
then he introduced his sister again; and then he did everything he
had done already all over again; and nothing Tom could do, and
nothing Tom could say, was half sufficient to express his joy at
their safe return.

Mr Tapley was the first to resume his composure.  In a very short
space of time he was discovered to have somehow installed himself in
office as waiter, or attendant upon the party; a fact which was
first suggested to them by his temporary absence in the kitchen, and
speedy return with a kettle of boiling water, from which he
replenished the tea-pot with a self-possession that was quite his
own.

'Sit down, and take your breakfast, Mark,' said Tom.  'Make him sit
down and take his breakfast, Martin.'

'Oh! I gave him up, long ago, as incorrigible,' Martin replied.  'He
takes his own way, Tom.  You would excuse him, Miss Pinch, if you
knew his value.'

'She knows it, bless you!' said Tom.  'I have told her all about
Mark Tapley.  Have I not, Ruth?'

'Yes, Tom.'

'Not all,' returned Martin, in a low voice.  'The best of Mark
Tapley is only known to one man, Tom; and but for Mark he would
hardly be alive to tell it!'

'Mark!' said Tom Pinch energetically; 'if you don't sit down this
minute, I'll swear at you!'

'Well, sir,' returned Mr Tapley, 'sooner than you should do that,
I'll com-ply.  It's a considerable invasion of a man's jollity to be
made so partickler welcome, but a Werb is a word as signifies to be,
to do, or to suffer (which is all the grammar, and enough too, as
ever I wos taught); and if there's a Werb alive, I'm it.  For I'm
always a-bein', sometimes a-doin', and continually a-sufferin'.'

'Not jolly yet?' asked Tom, with a smile.

'Why, I was rather so, over the water, sir,' returned Mr Tapley;
'and not entirely without credit.  But Human Natur' is in a
conspiracy again' me; I can't get on.  I shall have to leave it in
my will, sir, to be wrote upon my tomb: "He was a man as might have
come out strong if he could have got a chance.  But it was denied
him."'

Mr Tapley took this occasion of looking about him with a grin, and
subsequently attacking the breakfast, with an appetite not at all
expressive of blighted hopes, or insurmountable despondency.

In the meanwhile, Martin drew his chair a little nearer to Tom and
his sister, and related to them what had passed at Mr Pecksniff's
house; adding in few words a general summary of the distresses and
disappointments he had undergone since he left England.

'For your faithful stewardship in the trust I left with you, Tom,'
he said, 'and for all your goodness and disinterestedness, I can
never thank you enough.  When I add Mary's thanks to mine--'

Ah, Tom!  The blood retreated from his cheeks, and came rushing back,
so violently, that it was pain to feel it; ease though, ease,
compared with the aching of his wounded heart.

'When I add Mary's thanks to mine,' said Martin, 'I have made the
only poor acknowledgment it is in our power to offer; but if you
knew how much we feel, Tom, you would set some store by it, I am
sure.'

And if they had known how much Tom felt--but that no human creature
ever knew--they would have set some store by him.  Indeed they
would.

Tom changed the topic of discourse.  He was sorry he could not
pursue it, as it gave Martin pleasure; but he was unable, at that
moment.  No drop of envy or bitterness was in his soul; but he could
not master the firm utterance of her name.

He inquired what Martin's projects were.

'No longer to make your fortune, Tom,' said Martin, 'but to try to
live.  I tried that once in London, Tom; and failed.  If you will
give me the benefit of your advice and friendly counsel, I may
succeed better under your guidance.  I will do anything Tom,
anything, to gain a livelihood by my own exertions.  My hopes do not
soar above that, now.'

High-hearted, noble Tom!  Sorry to find the pride of his old
companion humbled, and to hear him speaking in this altered strain
at once, at once, he drove from his breast the inability to contend
with its deep emotions, and spoke out bravely.

'Your hopes do not soar above that!' cried Tom.  'Yes they do.  How
can you talk so!  They soar up to the time when you will be happy
with her, Martin.  They soar up to the time when you will be able to
claim her, Martin.  They soar up to the time when you will not be
able to believe that you were ever cast down in spirit, or poor in
pocket, Martin.  Advice, and friendly counsel!  Why, of course.  But
you shall have better advice and counsel (though you cannot have
more friendly) than mine.  You shall consult John Westlock.  We'll
go there immediately.  It is yet so early that I shall have time to
take you to his chambers before I go to business; they are in my
way; and I can leave you there, to talk over your affairs with him.
So come along.  Come along.  I am a man of occupation now, you
know,' said Tom, with his pleasantest smile; 'and have no time to
lose.  Your hopes don't soar higher than that?  I dare say they
don't.  I know you, pretty well.  They'll be soaring out of sight
soon, Martin, and leaving all the rest of us leagues behind.'

'Aye!  But I may be a little changed,' said Martin, 'since you knew
me pretty well, Tom.'

'What nonsense!' exclaimed Tom.  'Why should you be changed?  You
talk as if you were an old man.  I never heard such a fellow!  Come
to John Westlock's, come.  Come along, Mark Tapley.  It's Mark's
doing, I have no doubt; and it serves you right for having such a
grumbler for your companion.'

'There's no credit to be got through being jolly with YOU, Mr Pinch,
anyways,' said Mark, with his face all wrinkled up with grins.  'A
parish doctor might be jolly with you.  There's nothing short of
goin' to the U-nited States for a second trip, as would make it at
all creditable to be jolly, arter seein' you again!'

Tom laughed, and taking leave of his sister, hurried Mark and Martin
out into the street, and away to John Westlock's by the nearest
road; for his hour of business was very near at hand, and he prided
himself on always being exact to his time.

John Westlock was at home, but, strange to say, was rather
embarrassed to see them; and when Tom was about to go into the room
where he was breakfasting, said he had a stranger there.  It
appeared to be a mysterious stranger, for John shut that door as he
said it, and led them into the next room.

He was very much delighted, though, to see Mark Tapley; and received
Martin with his own frank courtesy.  But Martin felt that he did not
inspire John Westlock with any unusual interest; and twice or thrice
observed that he looked at Tom Pinch doubtfully; not to say
compassionately.  He thought, and blushed to think, that he knew the
cause of this.

'I apprehend you are engaged,' said Martin, when Tom had announced
the purport of their visit.  'If you will allow me to come again at
your own time, I shall be glad to do so.'

'I AM engaged,' replied John, with some reluctance; 'but the matter
on which I am engaged is one, to say the truth, more immediately
demanding your knowledge than mine.'

'Indeed!' cried Martin.

'It relates to a member of your family, and is of a serious nature.
If you will have the kindness to remain here, it will be a
satisfaction to me to have it privately communicated to you, in
order that you may judge of its importance for yourself.'

'And in the meantime,' said Tom, 'I must really take myself off,
without any further ceremony.'

'Is your business so very particular,' asked Martin, 'that you
cannot remain with us for half an hour?  I wish you could.  What IS
your business, Tom?'

It was Tom's turn to be embarrassed now; but he plainly said, after
a little hesitation:

'Why, I am not at liberty to say what it is, Martin; though I hope
soon to be in a condition to do so, and am aware of no other reason
to prevent my doing so now, than the request of my employer.  It's
an awkward position to be placed in,' said Tom, with an uneasy sense
of seeming to doubt his friend, 'as I feel every day; but I really
cannot help it, can I, John?'

John Westlock replied in the negative; and Martin, expressing
himself perfectly satisfied, begged them not to say another word;
though he could not help wondering very much what curious office Tom
held, and why he was so secret, and embarrassed, and unlike himself,
in reference to it.  Nor could he help reverting to it, in his own
mind, several times after Tom went away, which he did as soon as
this conversation was ended, taking Mr Tapley with him, who, as he
laughingly said, might accompany him as far as Fleet Street without
injury.

'And what do you mean to do, Mark?' asked Tom, as they walked on
together.

'Mean to do, sir?' returned Mr Tapley.

'Aye.  What course of life do you mean to pursue?'

'Well, sir,' said Mr Tapley.  'The fact is, that I have been
a-thinking rather of the matrimonial line, sir.'

'You don't say so, Mark!' cried Tom.

'Yes, sir.  I've been a-turnin' of it over.'

'And who is the lady, Mark?'

'The which, sir?' said Mr Tapley.

'The lady.  Come!  You know what I said,' replied Tom, laughing, 'as
well as I do!'

Mr Tapley suppressed his own inclination to laugh; and with one of
his most whimsically-twisted looks, replied:

'You couldn't guess, I suppose, Mr Pinch?'

'How is it possible?' said Tom.  'I don't know any of your flames,
Mark.  Except Mrs Lupin, indeed.'

'Well, sir!' retorted Mr Tapley.  'And supposing it was her!'

Tom stopping in the street to look at him, Mr Tapley for a moment
presented to his view an utterly stolid and expressionless face; a
perfect dead wall of countenance.  But opening window after window
in it with astonishing rapidity, and lighting them all up as for a
general illumination, he repeated:

'Supposin', for the sake of argument, as it was her, sir!'

'Why I thought such a connection wouldn't suit you, Mark, on any
terms!' cried Tom.

'Well, sir!  I used to think so myself, once,' said Mark.  'But I
ain't so clear about it now.  A dear, sweet creetur, sir!'

'A dear, sweet creature?  To be sure she is,' cried Tom.  'But she
always was a dear, sweet creature, was she not?'

'WAS she not!' assented Mr Tapley.

'Then why on earth didn't you marry her at first, Mark, instead of
wandering abroad, and losing all this time, and leaving her alone by
herself, liable to be courted by other people?'

'Why, sir,' retorted Mr Tapley, in a spirit of unbounded confidence,
'I'll tell you how it come about.  You know me, Mr Pinch, sir; there
ain't a gentleman alive as knows me better.  You're acquainted with
my constitution, and you're acquainted with my weakness.  My
constitution is, to be jolly; and my weakness is, to wish to find a
credit in it.  Wery good, sir.  In this state of mind, I gets a
notion in my head that she looks on me with a eye of--with what you
may call a favourable sort of a eye in fact,' said Mr Tapley, with
modest hesitation.

'No doubt,' replied Tom.  'We knew that perfectly well when we spoke
on this subject long ago; before you left the Dragon.'

Mr Tapley nodded assent.  'Well, sir!  But bein' at that time full of
hopeful wisions, I arrives at the conclusion that no credit is to be
got out of such a way of life as that, where everything agreeable
would be ready to one's hand.  Lookin' on the bright side of human
life in short, one of my hopeful wisions is, that there's a deal of
misery awaitin' for me; in the midst of which I may come out
tolerable strong, and be jolly under circumstances as reflects some
credit.  I goes into the world, sir, wery boyant, and I tries this.
I goes aboard ship first, and wery soon discovers (by the ease with
which I'm jolly, mind you) as there's no credit to be got THERE.  I
might have took warning by this, and gave it up; but I didn't.  I
gets to the U-nited States; and then I DO begin, I won't deny it, to
feel some little credit in sustaining my spirits.  What follows?
Jest as I'm a-beginning to come out, and am a-treadin' on the werge,
my master deceives me.'

'Deceives you!' cried Tom.

'Swindles me,' retorted Mr Tapley with a beaming face.  'Turns his
back on everything as made his service a creditable one, and leaves
me high and dry, without a leg to stand upon.  In which state I
returns home.  Wery good.  Then all my hopeful wisions bein'
crushed; and findin' that there ain't no credit for me nowhere; I
abandons myself to despair, and says, "Let me do that as has the
least credit in it of all; marry a dear, sweet creetur, as is wery
fond of me; me bein', at the same time, wery fond of her; lead a
happy life, and struggle no more again' the blight which settles on
my prospects."'

'If your philosophy, Mark,' said Tom, who laughed heartily at this
speech, 'be the oddest I ever heard of, it is not the least wise.
Mrs Lupin has said "yes," of course?'

'Why, no, sir,' replied Mr Tapley; 'she hasn't gone so far as that
yet.  Which I attribute principally to my not havin' asked her.  But
we was wery agreeable together--comfortable, I may say--the night I
come home.  It's all right, sir.'

'Well!' said Tom, stopping at the Temple Gate.  'I wish you joy,
Mark, with all my heart.  I shall see you again to-day, I dare say.
Good-bye for the present.'

'Good-bye, sir!  Good-bye, Mr Pinch!' he added by way of soliloquy,
as he stood looking after him.  'Although you ARE a damper to a
honourable ambition.  You little think it, but you was the first to
dash my hopes.  Pecksniff would have built me up for life, but your
sweet temper pulled me down.  Good-bye, Mr Pinch!'

While these confidences were interchanged between Tom Pinch and
Mark, Martin and John Westlock were very differently engaged.  They
were no sooner left alone together than Martin said, with an effort
he could not disguise:

'Mr Westlock, we have met only once before, but you have known Tom a
long while, and that seems to render you familiar to me.  I cannot
talk freely with you on any subject unless I relieve my mind of what
oppresses it just now.  I see with pain that you so far mistrust me
that you think me likely to impose on Tom's regardlessness of
himself, or on his kind nature, or some of his good qualities.'

'I had no intention,' replied John, 'of conveying any such
impression to you, and am exceedingly sorry to have done so.'

'But you entertain it?' said Martin.

'You ask me so pointedly and directly,' returned the other, 'that I
cannot deny the having accustomed myself to regard you as one who,
not in wantonness but in mere thoughtlessness of character, did not
sufficiently consider his nature and did not quite treat it as it
deserves to be treated.  It is much easier to slight than to
appreciate Tom Pinch.'

This was not said warmly, but was energetically spoken too; for
there was no subject in the world (but one) on which the speaker
felt so strongly.

'I grew into the knowledge of Tom,' he pursued, 'as I grew towards
manhood; and I have learned to love him as something, infinitely
better than myself.  I did not think that you understood him when we
met before.  I did not think that you greatly cared to understand
him.  The instances of this which I observed in you were, like my
opportunities for observation, very trivial--and were very harmless,
I dare say.  But they were not agreeable to me, and they forced
themselves upon me; for I was not upon the watch for them, believe
me.  You will say,' added John, with a smile, as he subsided into
more of his accustomed manner, 'that I am not by any means agreeable
to you.  I can only assure you, in reply, that I would not have
originated this topic on any account.'

'I originated it,' said Martin; 'and so far from having any
complaint to make against you, highly esteem the friendship you
entertain for Tom, and the very many proofs you have given him of
it.  Why should I endeavour to conceal from you'--he coloured deeply
though--'that I neither understood him nor cared to understand him
when I was his companion; and that I am very truly sorry for it
now!'

It was so sincerely said, at once so modestly and manfully, that
John offered him his hand as if he had not done so before; and
Martin giving his in the same open spirit, all constraint between
the young men vanished.

'Now pray,' said John, 'when I tire your patience very much in what
I am going to say, recollect that it has an end to it, and that the
end is the point of the story.'

With this preface, he related all the circumstances connected with
his having presided over the illness and slow recovery of the
patient at the Bull; and tacked on to the skirts of that narrative
Tom's own account of the business on the wharf.  Martin was not a
little puzzled when he came to an end, for the two stories seemed to
have no connection with each other, and to leave him, as the phrase
is, all abroad.

'If you will excuse me for one moment,' said John, rising, 'I will
beg you almost immediately to come into the next room.'

Upon that, he left Martin to himself, in a state of considerable
astonishment; and soon came back again to fulfil his promise.
Accompanying him into the next room, Martin found there a third
person; no doubt the stranger of whom his host had spoken when Tom
Pinch introduced him.

He was a young man; with deep black hair and eyes.  He was gaunt and
pale; and evidently had not long recovered from a severe illness.
He stood as Martin entered, but sat again at John's desire.  His
eyes were cast downward; and but for one glance at them both, half
in humiliation and half in entreaty, he kept them so, and sat quite
still and silent.

'This person's name is Lewsome,' said John Westlock, 'whom I have
mentioned to you as having been seized with an illness at the inn
near here, and undergone so much.  He has had a very hard time of
it, ever since he began to recover; but, as you see, he is now doing
well.'

As he did not move or speak, and John Westlock made a pause, Martin,
not knowing what to say, said that he was glad to hear it.

'The short statement that I wish you to hear from his own lips, Mr
Chuzzlewit,' John pursued--looking attentively at him, and not at
Martin--'he made to me for the first time yesterday, and repeated to
me this morning, without the least variation of any essential
particular.  I have already told you that he informed me before he
was removed from the Inn, that he had a secret to disclose to me
which lay heavy on his mind.  But, fluctuating between sickness and
health and between his desire to relieve himself of it, and his
dread of involving himself by revealing it, he has, until yesterday,
avoided the disclosure.  I never pressed him for it (having no idea
of its weight or import, or of my right to do so), until within a
few days past; when, understanding from him, on his own voluntary
avowal, in a letter from the country, that it related to a person
whose name was Jonas Chuzzlewit; and thinking that it might throw
some light on that little mystery which made Tom anxious now and
then; I urged the point upon him, and heard his statement, as you
will now, from his own lips.  It is due to him to say, that in the
apprehension of death, he committed it to writing sometime since,
and folded it in a sealed paper, addressed to me; which he could not
resolve, however, to place of his own act in my hands.  He has the
paper in his breast, I believe, at this moment.'

The young man touched it hastily; in corroboration of the fact.

'It will be well to leave that in our charge, perhaps,' said John.
'But do not mind it now.'

As he said this, he held up his hand to bespeak Martin's attention.
It was already fixed upon the man before him, who, after a short
silence said, in a low, weak, hollow voice:

'What relation was Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit, who--'

'--Who died--to me?' said Martin.  'He was my grandfather's brother.'

'I fear he was made away with.  Murdered!'

'My God!' said Martin.  'By whom?'

The young man, Lewsome, looked up in his face, and casting down his
eyes again, replied:

'I fear, by me.'

'By you?' cried Martin.

'Not by my act, but I fear by my means.'

'Speak out!' said Martin, 'and speak the truth.'

'I fear this IS the truth.'

Martin was about to interrupt him again, but John Westlock saying
softly, 'Let him tell his story in his own way,' Lewsome went on
thus:

'I have been bred a surgeon, and for the last few years have served
a general practitioner in the City, as his assistant.  While I was
in his employment I became acquainted with Jonas Chuzzlewit.  He is
the principal in this deed.'

'What do you mean?' demanded Martin, sternly.  'Do you know he is
the son of the old man of whom you have spoken?'

'I do,' he answered.

He remained silent for some moments, when he resumed at the point
where he had left off.

'I have reason to know it; for I have often heard him wish his old
father dead, and complain of his being wearisome to him, and a drag
upon him.  He was in the habit of doing so, at a place of meeting we
had--three or four of us--at night.  There was no good in the place
you may suppose, when you hear that he was the chief of the party.
I wish I had died myself, and never seen it!'

He stopped again; and again resumed as before.

'We met to drink and game; not for large sums, but for sums that
were large to us.  He generally won.  Whether or no, he lent money
at interest to those who lost; and in this way, though I think we
all secretly hated him, he came to be the master of us.  To
propitiate him we made a jest of his father; it began with his
debtors; I was one; and we used to toast a quicker journey to the
old man, and a swift inheritance to the young one.'

He paused again.

'One night he came there in a very bad humour.  He had been greatly
tried, he said, by the old man that day.  He and I were alone
together; and he angrily told me, that the old man was in his second
childhood; that he was weak, imbecile, and drivelling; as unbearable
to himself as he was to other people; and that it would be a charity
to put him out of the way.  He swore that he had often thought of
mixing something with the stuff he took for his cough, which should
help him to die easily.  People were sometimes smothered who were
bitten by mad dogs, he said; and why not help these lingering old
men out of their troubles too?  He looked full at me as he said so,
and I looked full at him; but it went no farther that night.'

He stopped once more, and was silent for so long an interval that
John Westlock said 'Go on.'  Martin had never removed his eyes from
his face, but was so absorbed in horror and astonishment that he
could not speak.

'It may have been a week after that, or it may have been less or
more--the matter was in my mind all the time, but I cannot recollect
the time, as I should any other period--when he spoke to me again.
We were alone then, too; being there before the usual hour of
assembling.  There was no appointment between us; but I think I went
there to meet him, and I know he came there to meet me.  He was
there first.  He was reading a newspaper when I went in, and nodded
to me without looking up, or leaving off reading.  I sat down
opposite and close to him.  He said, immediately, that he wanted me
to get him some of two sorts of drugs.  One that was instantaneous
in its effect; of which he wanted very little.  One that was slow
and not suspicious in appearance; of which he wanted more.  While he
was speaking to me he still read the newspaper.  He said "Drugs,"
and never used any other word.  Neither did I.'

'This all agrees with what I have heard before,' observed John
Westlock.

'I asked him what he wanted the drugs for?  He said for no harm; to
physic cats; what did it matter to me?  I was going out to a distant
colony (I had recently got the appointment, which, as Mr Westlock
knows, I have since lost by my sickness, and which was my only hope
of salvation from ruin), and what did it matter to me?  He could get
them without my aid at half a hundred places, but not so easily as
he could get them of me.  This was true.  He might not want them at
all, he said, and he had no present idea of using them; but he
wished to have them by him.  All this time he still read the
newspaper.  We talked about the price.  He was to forgive me a small
debt--I was quite in his power--and to pay me five pounds; and there
the matter dropped, through others coming in.  But, next night,
under exactly similar circumstances, I gave him the drugs, on his
saying I was a fool to think that he should ever use them for any
harm; and he gave me the money.  We have never met since.  I only
know that the poor old father died soon afterwards, just as he would
have died from this cause; and that I have undergone, and suffer
now, intolerable misery.  Nothing' he added, stretching out his
hands, 'can paint my misery!  It is well deserved, but nothing can
paint it.'

With that he hung his head, and said no more, wasted and wretched,
he was not a creature upon whom to heap reproaches that were
unavailing.

'Let him remain at hand,' said Martin, turning from him; 'but out of
sight, in Heaven's name!'

'He will remain here,' John whispered.  'Come with me!'  Softly
turning the key upon him as they went out, he conducted Martin into
the adjoining room, in which they had been before.

Martin was so amazed, so shocked, and confounded by what he had
heard that it was some time before he could reduce it to any order
in his mind, or could sufficiently comprehend the bearing of one
part upon another, to take in all the details at one view.  When he,
at length, had the whole narrative clearly before him, John Westlock
went on to point out the great probability of the guilt of Jonas
being known to other people, who traded in it for their own benefit,
and who were, by such means, able to exert that control over him
which Tom Pinch had accidentally witnessed, and unconsciously
assisted.  This appeared so plain, that they agreed upon it without
difficulty; but instead of deriving the least assistance from this
source, they found that it embarrassed them the more.

They knew nothing of the real parties who possessed this power.  The
only person before them was Tom's landlord.  They had no right to
question Tom's landlord, even if they could find him, which,
according to Tom's account, it would not be easy to do.  And
granting that they did question him, and he answered (which was
taking a good deal for granted), he had only to say, with reference
to the adventure on the wharf, that he had been sent from such and
such a place to summon Jonas back on urgent business, and there was
an end of it.

Besides, there was the great difficulty and responsibility of moving
at all in the matter.  Lewsome's story might be false; in his
wretched state it might be greatly heightened by a diseased brain;
or admitting it to be entirely true, the old man might have died a
natural death.  Mr Pecksniff had been there at the time; as Tom
immediately remembered, when he came back in the afternoon, and
shared their counsels; and there had been no secrecy about it.
Martin's grandfather was of right the person to decide upon the
course that should be taken; but to get at his views would be
impossible, for Mr Pecksniff's views were certain to be his.
And the nature of Mr Pecksniff's views in reference to his own
son-in-law might be easily reckoned upon.

Apart from these considerations, Martin could not endure the thought
of seeming to grasp at this unnatural charge against his relative,
and using it as a stepping-stone to his grandfather's favour.  But
that he would seem to do so, if he presented himself before his
grandfather in Mr Pecksniff's house again, for the purpose of
declaring it; and that Mr Pecksniff, of all men, would represent his
conduct in that despicable light, he perfectly well knew.  On the
other hand to be in possession of such a statement, and take no
measures of further inquiry in reference to it, was tantamount to
being a partner in the guilt it professed to disclose.

In a word, they were wholly unable to discover any outlet from this
maze of difficulty, which did not lie through some perplexed and
entangled thicket.  And although Mr Tapley was promptly taken into
their confidence; and the fertile imagination of that gentleman
suggested many bold expedients, which, to do him justice, he was
quite ready to carry into instant operation on his own personal
responsibility; still 'bating the general zeal of Mr Tapley's
nature, nothing was made particularly clearer by these offers of
service.

It was in this position of affairs that Tom's account of the strange
behaviour of the decayed clerk, on the night of the tea-party,
became of great moment, and finally convinced them that to arrive at
a more accurate knowledge of the workings of that old man's mind and
memory, would be to take a most important stride in their pursuit of
the truth.  So, having first satisfied themselves that no
communication had ever taken place between Lewsome and Mr Chuffey
(which would have accounted at once for any suspicions the latter
might entertain), they unanimously resolved that the old clerk was
the man they wanted.

But, like the unanimous resolution of a public meeting, which will
oftentimes declare that this or that grievance is not to be borne a
moment longer, which is nevertheless borne for a century or two
afterwards, without any modification, they only reached in this the
conclusion that they were all of one mind.  For it was one thing to
want Mr Chuffey, and another thing to get at him; and to do that
without alarming him, or without alarming Jonas, or without being
discomfited by the difficulty of striking, in an instrument so out
of tune and so unused, the note they sought, was an end as far from
their reach as ever.

The question then became, who of those about the old clerk had had
most influence with him that night?  Tom said his young mistress
clearly.  But Tom and all of them shrunk from the thought of
entrapping her, and making her the innocent means of bringing
retribution on her cruel husband.  Was there nobody else?  Why yes.
In a very different way, Tom said, he was influenced by Mrs Gamp,
the nurse; who had once had the control of him, as he understood,
for some time.

They caught at this immediately.  Here was a new way out, developed
in a quarter until then overlooked.  John Westlock knew Mrs Gamp; he
had given her employment; he was acquainted with her place of
residence: for that good lady had obligingly furnished him, at
parting, with a pack of her professional cards for general
distribution.  It was decided that Mrs Gamp should be approached
with caution, but approached without delay; and that the depths of
that discreet matron's knowledge of Mr Chuffey, and means of
bringing them, or one of them, into communication with him, should
be carefully sounded.

On this service, Martin and John Westlock determined to proceed that
night; waiting on Mrs Gamp first, at her lodgings; and taking their
chance of finding her in the repose of private life, or of having to
seek her out, elsewhere, in the exercise of her professional duties.
Tom returned home, that he might lose no opportunity of having an
interview with Nadgett, by being absent in the event of his
reappearance.  And Mr Tapley remained (by his own particular desire)
for the time being in Furnival's Inn, to look after Lewsome; who
might safely have been left to himself, however, for any thought he
seemed to entertain of giving them the slip.

Before they parted on their several errands, they caused him to read
aloud, in the presence of them all, the paper which he had about
him, and the declaration he had attached to it, which was to the
effect that he had written it voluntarily, in the fear of death and
in the torture of his mind.  And when he had done so, they all
signed it, and taking it from him, of his free will, locked it in a
place of safety.

Martin also wrote, by John's advice, a letter to the trustees of the
famous Grammar School, boldly claiming the successful design as his,
and charging Mr Pecksniff with the fraud he had committed.  In this
proceeding also, John was hotly interested; observing, with his usual
irreverance, that Mr Pecksniff had been a successful rascal all his
life through, and that it would be a lasting source of happiness to
him (John) if he could help to do him justice in the smallest
particular.

A busy day!  But Martin had no lodgings yet; so when these matters
were disposed of, he excused himself from dining with John Westlock
and was fain to wander out alone, and look for some.  He succeeded,
after great trouble, in engaging two garrets for himself and Mark,
situated in a court in the Strand, not far from Temple Bar.  Their
luggage, which was waiting for them at a coach-office, he conveyed
to this new place of refuge; and it was with a glow of satisfaction,
which as a selfish man he never could have known and never had,
that, thinking how much pains and trouble he had saved Mark, and how
pleased and astonished Mark would be, he afterwards walked up and
down, in the Temple, eating a meat-pie for his dinner.



CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

IN WHICH MRS HARRIS ASSISTED BY A TEAPOT, IS THE CAUSE OF A
DIVISION BETWEEN FRIENDS


Mrs Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore,
metaphorically speaking, a robe of state.  It was swept and
garnished for the reception of a visitor.  That visitor was Betsey
Prig; Mrs Prig, of Bartlemy's; or as some said Barklemy's, or as
some said Bardlemy's; for by all these endearing and familiar
appellations, had the hospital of Saint Bartholomew become a
household word among the sisterhood which Betsey Prig adorned.

Mrs Gamp's apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented
mind, a closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr
Sweedlepipe's may have been, in the imagination of Mrs Gamp, a
stately pile.  If it were not exactly that, to restless intellects,
it at least comprised as much accommodation as any person, not
sanguine to insanity, could have looked for in a room of its
dimensions.  For only keep the bedstead always in your mind; and you
were safe.  That was the grand secret.  Remembering the bedstead,
you might even stoop to look under the little round table for
anything you had dropped, without hurting yourself much against the
chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint Bartholomew,
by falling into the fire.

Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an
unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture, by its size;
which was great.  It was not a turn-up bedstead, nor yet a French
bedstead, nor yet a four-post bedstead, but what is poetically called
a tent; the sacking whereof was low and bulgy, insomuch that Mrs
Gamp's box would not go under it, but stopped half-way, in a manner
which, while it did violence to the reason, likewise endangered the
legs of a stranger.  The frame too, which would have supported the
canopy and hangings if there had been any, was ornamented with
divers pippins carved in timber, which on the slightest provocation,
and frequently on none at all, came tumbling down; harassing the
peaceful guest with inexplicable terrors.

The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great
antiquity; and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door,
hung a scanty curtain of blue check, which prevented the Zephyrs
that were abroad in Kingsgate Street, from visiting Mrs Gamp's head
too roughly.  Some rusty gowns and other articles of that lady's
wardrobe depended from the posts; and these had so adapted
themselves by long usage to her figure, that more than one impatient
husband coming in precipitately, at about the time of twilight, had
been for an instant stricken dumb by the supposed discovery that Mrs
Gamp had hanged herself.  One gentleman, coming on the usual hasty
errand, had said indeed, that they looked like guardian angels
'watching of her in her sleep.'  But that, as Mrs Gamp said, 'was
his first;' and he never repeated the sentiment, though he often
repeated his visit.

The chairs in Mrs Gamp's apartment were extremely large and broad-
backed, which was more than a sufficient reason for there being but
two in number.  They were both elbow-chairs, of ancient mahogany;
and were chiefly valuable for the slippery nature of their seats,
which had been originally horsehair, but were now covered with a
shiny substance of a bluish tint, from which the visitor began to
slide away with a dismayed countenance, immediately after sitting
down.  What Mrs Gamp wanted in chairs she made up in bandboxes; of
which she had a great collection, devoted to the reception of
various miscellaneous valuables, which were not, however, as well
protected as the good woman, by a pleasant fiction, seemed to think;
for, though every bandbox had a carefully closed lid, not one among
them had a bottom; owing to which cause the property within was
merely, as it were, extinguished.  The chest of drawers having been
originally made to stand upon the top of another chest, had a
dwarfish, elfin look, alone; but in regard of its security it had a
great advantage over the bandboxes, for as all the handles had been
long ago pulled off, it was very difficult to get at its contents.
This indeed was only to be done by one or two devices; either by
tilting the whole structure forward until all the drawers fell out
together, or by opening them singly with knives, like oysters.

Mrs Gamp stored all her household matters in a little cupboard by
the fire-place; beginning below the surface (as in nature) with the
coals, and mounting gradually upwards to the spirits, which, from
motives of delicacy, she kept in a teapot.  The chimney-piece was
ornamented with a small almanack, marked here and there in Mrs
Gamp's own hand with a memorandum of the date at which some lady was
expected to fall due.  It was also embellished with three profiles:
one, in colours, of Mrs Gamp herself in early life; one, in bronze,
of a lady in feathers, supposed to be Mrs Harris, as she appeared
when dressed for a ball; and one, in black, of Mr Gamp, deceased.
The last was a full length, in order that the likeness might be
rendered more obvious and forcible by the introduction of the wooden
leg.

A pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a
pap-boat, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the
refractory, and lastly, Mrs Gamp's umbrella, which as something of
great price and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation,
completed the decorations of the chimney-piece and adjacent wall.
Towards these objects Mrs Gamp raised her eyes in satisfaction when
she had arranged the tea-board, and had concluded her arrangements
for the reception of Betsey Prig, even unto the setting forth of two
pounds of Newcastle salmon, intensely pickled.

'There!  Now drat you, Betsey, don't be long!' said Mrs Gamp,
apostrophizing her absent friend.  'For I can't abear to wait, I do
assure you.  To wotever place I goes, I sticks to this one mortar,
"I'm easy pleased; it is but little as I wants; but I must have that
little of the best, and to the minute when the clock strikes, else
we do not part as I could wish, but bearin' malice in our arts."'

Her own preparations were of the best, for they comprehended a
delicate new loaf, a plate of fresh butter, a basin of fine white
sugar, and other arrangements on the same scale.  Even the snuff
with which she now refreshed herself, was so choice in quality that
she took a second pinch.

'There's the little bell a-ringing now,' said Mrs Gamp, hurrying to
the stair-head and looking over.  'Betsey Prig, my--why it's that
there disapintin' Sweedlepipes, I do believe.'

'Yes, it's me,' said the barber in a faint voice; 'I've just come
in.'

'You're always a-comin' in, I think,' muttered Mrs Gamp to herself,
'except wen you're a-goin' out.  I ha'n't no patience with that
man!'

'Mrs Gamp,' said the barber.  'I say!  Mrs Gamp!'

'Well,' cried Mrs Gamp, impatiently, as she descended the stairs.
'What is it?  Is the Thames a-fire, and cooking its own fish, Mr
Sweedlepipes?  Why wot's the man gone and been a-doin' of to
himself?  He's as white as chalk!'

She added the latter clause of inquiry, when she got downstairs, and
found him seated in the shaving-chair, pale and disconsolate.

'You recollect,' said Poll.  'You recollect young--'

'Not young Wilkins!' cried Mrs Gamp.  'Don't say young Wilkins,
wotever you do.  If young Wilkins's wife is took--'

'It isn't anybody's wife,' exclaimed the little barber.  'Bailey,
young Bailey!'

'Why, wot do you mean to say that chit's been a-doin' of?' retorted
Mrs Gamp, sharply.  'Stuff and nonsense, Mrs Sweedlepipes!'

'He hasn't been a-doing anything!' exclaimed poor Poll, quite
desperate.  'What do you catch me up so short for, when you see me
put out to that extent that I can hardly speak?  He'll never do
anything again.  He's done for.  He's killed.  The first time I ever
see that boy,' said Poll, 'I charged him too much for a red-poll.  I
asked him three-halfpence for a penny one, because I was afraid he'd
beat me down.  But he didn't.  And now he's dead; and if you was to
crowd all the steam-engines and electric fluids that ever was, into
this shop, and set 'em every one to work their hardest, they
couldn't square the account, though it's only a ha'penny!'

Mr Sweedlepipe turned aside to the towel, and wiped his eyes with
it.

'And what a clever boy he was!' he said.  'What a surprising young
chap he was!  How he talked! and what a deal he know'd!  Shaved in
this very chair he was; only for fun; it was all his fun; he was
full of it.  Ah! to think that he'll never be shaved in earnest!  The
birds might every one have died, and welcome,' cried the little
barber, looking round him at the cages, and again applying to the
towel, 'sooner than I'd have heard this news!'

'How did you ever come to hear it?' said Mrs Gamp.  'who told you?'

'I went out,' returned the little barber, 'into the City, to meet a
sporting gent upon the Stock Exchange, that wanted a few slow
pigeons to practice at; and when I'd done with him, I went to get a
little drop of beer, and there I heard everybody a-talking about it.
It's in the papers.'

'You are in a nice state of confugion, Mr Sweedlepipes, you are!'
said Mrs Gamp, shaking her head; 'and my opinion is, as half-
a-dudgeon fresh young lively leeches on your temples, wouldn't be too
much to clear your mind, which so I tell you.  Wot were they a-
talkin' on, and wot was in the papers?'

'All about it!' cried the barber.  'What else do you suppose?  Him
and his master were upset on a journey, and he was carried to
Salisbury, and was breathing his last when the account came away.
He never spoke afterwards.  Not a single word.  That's the worst of
it to me; but that ain't all.  His master can't be found.  The other
manager of their office in the city, Crimple, David Crimple, has
gone off with the money, and is advertised for, with a reward, upon
the walls.  Mr Montague, poor young Bailey's master (what a boy he
was!) is advertised for, too.  Some say he's slipped off, to join
his friend abroad; some say he mayn't have got away yet; and they're
looking for him high and low.  Their office is a smash; a swindle
altogether.  But what's a Life Assurance office to a Life!  And what
a Life Young Bailey's was!'

'He was born into a wale,' said Mrs Gamp, with philosophical
coolness.  'and he lived in a wale; and he must take the
consequences of sech a sitiwation.  But don't you hear nothink of Mr
Chuzzlewit in all this?'

'No,' said Poll, 'nothing to speak of.  His name wasn't printed as
one of the board, though some people say it was just going to be.
Some believe he was took in, and some believe he was one of the
takers-in; but however that may be, they can't prove nothing against
him.  This morning he went up of his own accord afore the Lord Mayor
or some of them City big-wigs, and complained that he'd been
swindled, and that these two persons had gone off and cheated him,
and that he had just found out that Montague's name wasn't even
Montague, but something else.  And they do say that he looked like
Death, owing to his losses.  But, Lord forgive me,' cried the
barber, coming back again to the subject of his individual grief,
'what's his looks to me!  He might have died and welcome, fifty
times, and not been such a loss as Bailey!'

At this juncture the little bell rang, and the deep voice of Mrs
Prig struck into the conversation.

'Oh!  You're a-talkin' about it, are you!' observed that lady.
'Well, I hope you've got it over, for I ain't interested in it
myself.'

'My precious Betsey,' said Mrs Gamp, 'how late you are!'

The worthy Mrs Prig replied, with some asperity, 'that if perwerse
people went off dead, when they was least expected, it warn't no
fault of her'n.'  And further, 'that it was quite aggrawation enough
to be made late when one was dropping for one's tea, without hearing
on it again.'

Mrs Gamp, deriving from this exhibition of repartee some clue to the
state of Mrs Prig's feelings, instantly conducted her upstairs;
deeming that the sight of pickled salmon might work a softening
change.

But Betsey Prig expected pickled salmon.  It was obvious that she
did; for her first words, after glancing at the table, were:

'I know'd she wouldn't have a cowcumber!'

Mrs Gamp changed colour, and sat down upon the bedstead.

'Lord bless you, Betsey Prig, your words is true.  I quite forgot
it!'

Mrs Prig, looking steadfastly at her friend, put her hand in her
pocket, and with an air of surly triumph drew forth either the
oldest of lettuces or youngest of cabbages, but at any rate, a green
vegetable of an expansive nature, and of such magnificent
proportions that she was obliged to shut it up like an umbrella
before she could pull it out.  She also produced a handful of
mustard and cress, a trifle of the herb called dandelion, three
bunches of radishes, an onion rather larger than an average turnip,
three substantial slices of beetroot, and a short prong or antler of
celery; the whole of this garden-stuff having been publicly
exhibited, but a short time before, as a twopenny salad, and
purchased by Mrs Prig on condition that the vendor could get it all
into her pocket.  Which had been happily accomplished, in High
Holborn, to the breathless interest of a hackney-coach stand.  And
she laid so little stress on this surprising forethought, that she
did not even smile, but returning her pocket into its accustomed
sphere, merely recommended that these productions of nature should
be sliced up, for immediate consumption, in plenty of vinegar.

'And don't go a-droppin' none of your snuff in it,' said Mrs Prig.
'In gruel, barley-water, apple-tea, mutton-broth, and that, it don't
signify.  It stimulates a patient.  But I don't relish it myself.'

'Why, Betsey Prig!' cried Mrs Gamp, 'how CAN you talk so!'

'Why, ain't your patients, wotever their diseases is, always
asneezin' their wery heads off, along of your snuff?' said Mrs Prig.

'And wot if they are!' said Mrs Gamp

'Nothing if they are,' said Mrs Prig.  'But don't deny it, Sairah.'

'Who deniges of it?' Mrs Gamp inquired.

Mrs Prig returned no answer.

'WHO deniges of it, Betsey?' Mrs Gamp inquired again.  Then Mrs
Gamp, by reversing the question, imparted a deeper and more awful
character of solemnity to the same.  'Betsey, who deniges of it?'

It was the nearest possible approach to a very decided difference of
opinion between these ladies; but Mrs Prig's impatience for the meal
being greater at the moment than her impatience of contradiction,
she replied, for the present, 'Nobody, if you don't, Sairah,' and
prepared herself for tea.  For a quarrel can be taken up at any
time, but a limited quantity of salmon cannot.

Her toilet was simple.  She had merely to 'chuck' her bonnet and
shawl upon the bed; give her hair two pulls, one upon the right side
and one upon the left, as if she were ringing a couple of bells; and
all was done.  The tea was already made, Mrs Gamp was not long over
the salad, and they were soon at the height of their repast.

The temper of both parties was improved, for the time being, by the
enjoyments of the table.  When the meal came to a termination (which
it was pretty long in doing), and Mrs Gamp having cleared away,
produced the teapot from the top shelf, simultaneously with a couple
of wine-glasses, they were quite amiable.

'Betsey,' said Mrs Gamp, filling her own glass and passing the
teapot, 'I will now propoge a toast.  My frequent pardner, Betsey
Prig!'

'Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp; I drink,' said Mrs Prig,
'with love and tenderness.'

From this moment symptoms of inflammation began to lurk in the nose
of each lady; and perhaps, notwithstanding all appearances to the
contrary, in the temper also.

'Now, Sairah,' said Mrs Prig, 'joining business with pleasure, wot
is this case in which you wants me?'

Mrs Gamp betraying in her face some intention of returning an
evasive answer, Betsey added:

'IS it Mrs Harris?'

'No, Betsey Prig, it ain't,' was Mrs Gamp's reply.

'Well!' said Mrs Prig, with a short laugh.  'I'm glad of that, at
any rate.'

'Why should you be glad of that, Betsey?' Mrs Gamp retorted, warmly.
'She is unbeknown to you except by hearsay, why should you be glad?
If you have anythink to say contrairy to the character of Mrs
Harris, which well I knows behind her back, afore her face, or
anywheres, is not to be impeaged, out with it, Betsey.  I have
know'd that sweetest and best of women,' said Mrs Gamp, shaking her
head, and shedding tears, 'ever since afore her First, which Mr
Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped his ears in a empty
dog-kennel, and never took his hands away or come out once till he
was showed the baby, wen bein' took with fits, the doctor collared
him and laid him on his back upon the airy stones, and she was told
to ease her mind, his owls was organs.  And I have know'd her,
Betsey Prig, when he has hurt her feelin' art by sayin' of his Ninth
that it was one too many, if not two, while that dear innocent was
cooin' in his face, which thrive it did though bandy, but I have
never know'd as you had occagion to be glad, Betsey, on accounts of
Mrs Harris not requiring you.  Require she never will, depend upon
it, for her constant words in sickness is, and will be, "Send for
Sairey?"'

During this touching address, Mrs Prig adroitly feigning to be the
victim of that absence of mind which has its origin in excessive
attention to one topic, helped herself from the teapot without
appearing to observe it.  Mrs Gamp observed it, however, and came to
a premature close in consequence.

'Well, it ain't her, it seems,' said Mrs Prig, coldly; 'who is it
then?'

'You have heerd me mention, Betsey,' Mrs Gamp replied, after
glancing in an expressive and marked manner at the tea-pot, 'a
person as I took care on at the time as you and me was pardners off
and on, in that there fever at the Bull?'

'Old Snuffey,' Mrs Prig observed.

Sarah Gamp looked at her with an eye of fire, for she saw in this
mistake of Mrs Prig, another willful and malignant stab at that same
weakness or custom of hers, an ungenerous allusion to which, on the
part of Betsey, had first disturbed their harmony that evening.  And
she saw it still more clearly, when, politely but firmly correcting
that lady by the distinct enunciation of the word 'Chuffey,' Mrs
Prig received the correction with a diabolical laugh.

The best among us have their failings, and it must be conceded of
Mrs Prig, that if there were a blemish in the goodness of her
disposition, it was a habit she had of not bestowing all its sharp
and acid properties upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman
would have done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the
service of her friends.  Highly pickled salmon, and lettuces chopped
up in vinegar, may, as viands possessing some acidity of their own,
have encouraged and increased this failing in Mrs Prig; and every
application to the teapot certainly did; for it was often remarked
of her by her friends, that she was most contradictory when most
elevated.  It is certain that her countenance became about this time
derisive and defiant, and that she sat with her arms folded, and one
eye shut up, in a somewhat offensive, because obstrusively
intelligent, manner.

Mrs Gamp observing this, felt it the more necessary that Mrs Prig
should know her place, and be made sensible of her exact station in
society, as well as of her obligations to herself.  She therefore
assumed an air of greater patronage and importance, as she went on
to answer Mrs Prig a little more in detail.

'Mr Chuffey, Betsey,' said Mrs Gamp, 'is weak in his mind.  Excuge
me if I makes remark, that he may neither be so weak as people
thinks, nor people may not think he is so weak as they pretends, and
what I knows, I knows; and what you don't, you don't; so do not ask
me, Betsey.  But Mr Chuffey's friends has made propojals for his
bein' took care on, and has said to me, "Mrs Gamp, WILL you
undertake it?  We couldn't think," they says, "of trusting him to
nobody but you, for, Sairey, you are gold as has passed the furnage.
Will you undertake it, at your own price, day and night, and by your
own self?"  "No," I says, "I will not.  Do not reckon on it.  There
is," I says, but one creetur in the world as I would undertake on
sech terms, and her name is Harris.  But," I says, "I am acquainted
with a friend, whose name is Betsey Prig, that I can recommend, and
will assist me.  Betsey," I says, "is always to be trusted under
me, and will be guided as I could desire."'

Here Mrs Prig, without any abatement of her offensive manner again
counterfeited abstraction of mind, and stretched out her hand to the
teapot.  It was more than Mrs Gamp could bear.  She stopped the hand
of Mrs Prig with her own, and said, with great feeling:

'No, Betsey!  Drink fair, wotever you do!'

Mrs Prig, thus baffled, threw herself back in her chair, and closing
the same eye more emphatically, and folding her arms tighter,
suffered her head to roll slowly from side to side, while she
surveyed her friend with a contemptuous smile.

Mrs Gamp resumed:

'Mrs Harris, Betsey--'

'Bother Mrs Harris!' said Betsey Prig.

Mrs Gamp looked at her with amazement, incredulity, and indignation;
when Mrs Prig, shutting her eye still closer, and folding her arms
still tighter, uttered these memorable and tremendous words:

'I don't believe there's no sich a person!'

After the utterance of which expressions, she leaned forward, and
snapped her fingers once, twice, thrice; each time nearer to the
face of Mrs Gamp, and then rose to put on her bonnet, as one who
felt that there was now a gulf between them, which nothing could
ever bridge across.

The shock of this blow was so violent and sudden, that Mrs Gamp sat
staring at nothing with uplifted eyes, and her mouth open as if she
were gasping for breath, until Betsey Prig had put on her bonnet and
her shawl, and was gathering the latter about her throat.  Then Mrs
Gamp rose--morally and physically rose--and denounced her.

'What!' said Mrs Gamp, 'you bage creetur, have I know'd Mrs Harris
five and thirty year, to be told at last that there ain't no sech a
person livin'!  Have I stood her friend in all her troubles, great
and small, for it to come at last to sech a end as this, which her
own sweet picter hanging up afore you all the time, to shame your
Bragian words!  But well you mayn't believe there's no sech a
creetur, for she wouldn't demean herself to look at you, and often
has she said, when I have made mention of your name, which, to my
sinful sorrow, I have done, "What, Sairey Gamp! debage yourself to
HER!"  Go along with you!'

'I'm a-goin', ma'am, ain't I?' said Mrs Prig, stopping as she said
it.

'You had better, ma'am,' said Mrs Gamp.

'Do you know who you're talking to, ma'am?' inquired her visitor.

'Aperiently,' said Mrs Gamp, surveying her with scorn from head to
foot, 'to Betsey Prig.  Aperiently so.  I know her.  No one better.
Go along with you!'

'And YOU was a-goin' to take me under you!' cried Mrs Prig,
surveying Mrs Gamp from head to foot in her turn.  'YOU was, was
you?  Oh, how kind!  Why, deuce take your imperence,' said Mrs Prig,
with a rapid change from banter to ferocity, 'what do you mean?'

'Go along with you!' said Mrs Gamp.  'I blush for you.'

'You had better blush a little for yourself, while you ARE about
it!' said Mrs Prig.  'You and your Chuffeys!  What, the poor old
creetur isn't mad enough, isn't he?  Aha!'

'He'd very soon be mad enough, if you had anything to do with him,'
said Mrs Gamp.

'And that's what I was wanted for, is it?' cried Mrs Prig,
triumphantly.  'Yes.  But you'll find yourself deceived.  I won't go
near him.  We shall see how you get on without me.  I won't have
nothink to do with him.'

'You never spoke a truer word than that!' said Mrs Gamp.  'Go along
with you!'

She was prevented from witnessing the actual retirement of Mrs Prig
from the room, notwithstanding the great desire she had expressed to
behold it, by that lady, in her angry withdrawal, coming into
contact with the bedstead, and bringing down the previously
mentioned pippins; three or four of which came rattling on the head
of Mrs Gamp so smartly, that when she recovered from this wooden
shower-bath, Mrs Prig was gone.

She had the satisfaction, however, of hearing the deep voice of
Betsey, proclaiming her injuries and her determination to have
nothing to do with Mr Chuffey, down the stairs, and along the
passage, and even out in Kingsgate Street.  Likewise of seeing in
her own apartment, in the place of Mrs Prig, Mr Sweedlepipe and two
gentlemen.

'Why, bless my life!' exclaimed the little barber, 'what's amiss?
The noise you ladies have been making, Mrs Gamp!  Why, these two
gentlemen have been standing on the stairs, outside the door, nearly
all the time, trying to make you hear, while you were pelting away,
hammer and tongs!  It'll be the death of the little bullfinch in the
shop, that draws his own water.  In his fright, he's been a-
straining himself all to bits, drawing more water than he could
drink in a twelvemonth.  He must have thought it was Fire!'

Mrs Gamp had in the meanwhile sunk into her chair, from whence,
turning up her overflowing eyes, and clasping her hands, she
delivered the following lamentation:

'Oh, Mr Sweedlepipes, which Mr Westlock also, if my eyes do not
deceive, and a friend not havin' the pleasure of bein' beknown, wot
I have took from Betsey Prig this blessed night, no mortial creetur
knows!  If she had abuged me, bein' in liquor, which I thought I
smelt her wen she come, but could not so believe, not bein' used
myself'--Mrs Gamp, by the way, was pretty far gone, and the
fragrance of the teapot was strong in the room--'I could have bore
it with a thankful art.  But the words she spoke of Mrs Harris,
lambs could not forgive.  No, Betsey!' said Mrs Gamp, in a violent
burst of feeling, 'nor worms forget!'

The little barber scratched his head, and shook it, and looked at
the teapot, and gradually got out of the room.  John Westlock,
taking a chair, sat down on one side of Mrs Gamp.  Martin, taking
the foot of the bed, supported her on the other.

'You wonder what we want, I daresay,' observed John.  'I'll tell
you presently, when you have recovered.  It's not pressing, for a
few minutes or so.  How do you find yourself?  Better?'

Mrs Gamp shed more tears, shook her head and feebly pronounced Mrs
Harris's name.

'Have a little--' John was at a loss what to call it.

'Tea,' suggested Martin.

'It ain't tea,' said Mrs Gamp.

'Physic of some sort, I suppose,' cried John.  'Have a little.'

Mrs Gamp was prevailed upon to take a glassful.  'On condition,' she
passionately observed, 'as Betsey never has another stroke of work
from me.'

'Certainly not,' said John.  'She shall never help to nurse ME.'

'To think,' said Mrs Gamp, 'as she should ever have helped to nuss
that friend of yourn, and been so near of hearing things that--Ah!'

John looked at Martin.

'Yes,' he said.  'That was a narrow escape, Mrs Gamp.'

'Narrer, in-deed!' she returned.  'It was only my having the night,
and hearin' of him in his wanderins; and her the day, that saved it.
Wot would she have said and done, if she had know'd what I know;
that perfeejus wretch!  Yet, oh good gracious me!' cried Mrs Gamp,
trampling on the floor, in the absence of Mrs Prig, 'that I should
hear from that same woman's lips what I have heerd her speak of Mrs
Harris!'

'Never mind,' said John.  'You know it is not true.'

'Isn't true!' cried Mrs Gamp.  'True!  Don't I know as that dear
woman is expecting of me at this minnit, Mr Westlock, and is a-
lookin' out of window down the street, with little Tommy Harris in
her arms, as calls me his own Gammy, and truly calls, for bless the
mottled little legs of that there precious child (like Canterbury
Brawn his own dear father says, which so they are) his own I have
been, ever since I found him, Mr Westlock, with his small red
worsted shoe a-gurglin' in his throat, where he had put it in his
play, a chick, wile they was leavin' of him on the floor a-lookin'
for it through the ouse and him a-choakin' sweetly in the parlour!
Oh, Betsey Prig, what wickedness you've showed this night, but never
shall you darken Sairey's doors agen, you twining serpiant!'

'You were always so kind to her, too!' said John, consolingly.

'That's the cutting part.  That's where it hurts me, Mr Westlock,'
Mrs Gamp replied; holding out her glass unconsciously, while Martin
filled it.

'Chosen to help you with Mr Lewsome!' said John.  'Chosen to help
you with Mr Chuffey!'

'Chose once, but chose no more,' cried Mrs Gamp.  'No pardnership
with Betsey Prig agen, sir!'

'No, no,' said John.  'That would never do.'

'I don't know as it ever would have done, sir,' Mrs Gamp replied,
with a solemnity peculiar to a certain stage of intoxication.  'Now
that the marks,' by which Mrs Gamp is supposed to have meant mask,
'is off that creetur's face, I do not think it ever would have done.
There are reagions in families for keeping things a secret, Mr
Westlock, and havin' only them about you as you knows you can repoge
in.  Who could repoge in Betsey Prig, arter her words of Mrs Harris,
setting in that chair afore my eyes!'

'Quite true,' said John; 'quite.  I hope you have time to find
another assistant, Mrs Gamp?'

Between her indignation and the teapot, her powers of comprehending
what was said to her began to fail.  She looked at John with tearful
eyes, and murmuring the well-remembered name which Mrs Prig had
challenged--as if it were a talisman against all earthly sorrows--
seemed to wander in her mind.

'I hope,' repeated John, 'that you have time to find another
assistant?'

'Which short it is, indeed,' cried Mrs Gamp, turning up her languid
eyes, and clasping Mr Westlock's wrist with matronly affection.
'To-morrow evenin', sir, I waits upon his friends.  Mr Chuzzlewit
apinted it from nine to ten.'

'From nine to ten,' said John, with a significant glance at Martin.
'and then Mr Chuffey retires into safe keeping, does he?'

'He needs to be kep safe, I do assure you,' Mrs Gamp replied with a
mysterious air.  'Other people besides me has had a happy
deliverance from Betsey Prig.  I little know'd that woman.  She'd
have let it out!'

'Let HIM out, you mean,' said John.

'Do I!' retorted Mrs Gamp.  'Oh!'

The severely ironical character of this reply was strengthened by a
very slow nod, and a still slower drawing down of the corners of Mrs
Gamp's mouth.  She added with extreme stateliness of manner after
indulging in a short doze:

'But I am a-keepin' of you gentlemen, and time is precious.'

Mingling with that delusion of the teapot which inspired her with
the belief that they wanted her to go somewhere immediately, a shrewd
avoidance of any further reference to the topics into which she had
lately strayed, Mrs Gamp rose; and putting away the teapot in its
accustomed place, and locking the cupboard with much gravity
proceeded to attire herself for a professional visit.

This preparation was easily made, as it required nothing more than
the snuffy black bonnet, the snuffy black shawl, the pattens and the
indispensable umbrella, without which neither a lying-in nor a
laying-out could by any possibility be attempted.  When Mrs Gamp had
invested herself with these appendages she returned to her chair,
and sitting down again, declared herself quite ready.

'It's a 'appiness to know as one can benefit the poor sweet creetur,'
she observed, 'I'm sure.  It isn't all as can.  The torters Betsey
Prig inflicts is frightful!'

Closing her eyes as she made this remark, in the acuteness of her
commiseration for Betsey's patients, she forgot to open them again
until she dropped a patten.  Her nap was also broken at intervals
like the fabled slumbers of Friar Bacon, by the dropping of the
other patten, and of the umbrella.  But when she had got rid of
those incumbrances, her sleep was peaceful.

The two young men looked at each other, ludicrously enough; and
Martin, stifling his disposition to laugh, whispered in John
Westlock's ear,

'What shall we do now?'

'Stay here,' he replied.

Mrs Gamp was heard to murmur 'Mrs Harris' in her sleep.

'Rely upon it,' whispered John, looking cautiously towards her,
'that you shall question this old clerk, though you go as Mrs Harris
herself.  We know quite enough to carry her our own way now, at all
events; thanks to this quarrel, which confirms the old saying that
when rogues fall out, honest people get what they want.  Let Jonas
Chuzzlewit look to himself; and let her sleep as long as she likes.
We shall gain our end in good time.'



CHAPTER FIFTY

SURPRISES TOM PINCH VERY MUCH, AND SHOWS HOW CERTAIN CONFIDENCES
PASSED BETWEEN HIM AND HIS SISTER


It was the next evening; and Tom and his sister were sitting
together before tea, talking, in their usual quiet way, about a
great many things, but not at all about Lewsome's story or anything
connected with it; for John Westlock--really John, for so young a
man, was one of the most considerate fellows in the world--had
particularly advised Tom not to mention it to his sister just yet,
in case it should disquiet her.  'And I wouldn't, Tom,' he said,
with a little hesitation, 'I wouldn't have a shadow on her happy
face, or an uneasy thought in her gentle heart, for all the wealth
and honours of the universe!'  Really John was uncommonly kind;
extraordinarily kind.  If he had been her father, Tom said, he could
not have taken a greater interest in her.

But although Tom and his sister were extremely conversational, they
were less lively, and less cheerful, than usual.  Tom had no idea
that this originated with Ruth, but took it for granted that he was
rather dull himself.  In truth he was; for the lightest cloud upon
the Heaven of her quiet mind, cast its shadow upon Tom.

And there was a cloud on little Ruth that evening.  Yes, indeed.
When Tom was looking in another direction, her bright eyes, stealing
on towards his face, would sparkle still more brightly than their
custom was, and then grow dim.  When Tom was silent, looking out
upon the summer weather, she would sometimes make a hasty movement,
as if she were about to throw herself upon his neck; then check the
impulse, and when he looked round, show a laughing face, and speak
to him very merrily; when she had anything to give Tom, or had any
excuse for coming near him, she would flutter about him, and lay her
bashful hand upon his shoulder, and not be willing to withdraw it;
and would show by all such means that there was something on her
heart which in her great love she longed to say to him, but had not
the courage to utter.

So they were sitting, she with her work before her, but not working,
and Tom with his book beside him, but not reading, when Martin
knocked at the door.  Anticipating who it was, Tom went to open it;
and he and Martin came back into the room together.  Tom looked
surprised, for in answer to his cordial greeting Martin had hardly
spoken a word.

Ruth also saw that there was something strange in the manner of
their visitor, and raised her eyes inquiringly to Tom's face, as if
she were seeking an explanation there.  Tom shook his head, and made
the same mute appeal to Martin.

Martin did not sit down but walked up to the window, and stood there
looking out.  He turned round after a few moments to speak, but
hastily averted his head again, without doing so.

'What has happened, Martin?' Tom anxiously inquired.  'My dear
fellow, what bad news do you bring?'

'Oh, Tom!' replied Martin, in a tone of deep reproach.  'To hear you
feign that interest in anything that happens to me, hurts me even
more than your ungenerous dealing.'

'My ungenerous dealing!  Martin!  My--'  Tom could say no more.

'How could you, Tom, how could you suffer me to thank you so
fervently and sincerely for your friendship; and not tell me, like a
man, that you had deserted me!  Was it true, Tom!  Was it honest!  Was
it worthy of what you used to be--of what I am sure you used to be--
to tempt me, when you had turned against me, into pouring out my
heart!  Oh, Tom!'

His tone was one of such strong injury and yet of so much grief for
the loss of a friend he had trusted in--it expressed such high past
love for Tom, and so much sorrow and compassion for his supposed
unworthiness--that Tom, for a moment, put his hand before his face,
and had no more power of justifying himself, than if he had been a
monster of deceit and falsehood.

'I protest, as I must die,' said Martin, 'that I grieve over the
loss of what I thought you; and have no anger in the recollection of
my own injuries.  It is only at such a time, and after such a
discovery, that we know the full measure of our old regard for the
subject of it.  I swear, little as I showed it--little as I know I
showed it--that when I had the least consideration for you, Tom, I
loved you like a brother.'

Tom was composed by this time, and might have been the Spirit of
Truth, in a homely dress--it very often wears a homely dress, thank
God!--when he replied to him.

'Martin,' he said, 'I don't know what is in your mind, or who has
abused it, or by what extraordinary means.  But the means are false.
There is no truth whatever in the impression under which you labour.
It is a delusion from first to last; and I warn you that you will
deeply regret the wrong you do me.  I can honestly say that I have
been true to you, and to myself.  You will be very sorry for this.
Indeed, you will be very sorry for it, Martin.'

'I AM sorry,' returned Martin, shaking his head.  'I think I never
knew what it was to be sorry in my heart, until now.'

'At least,' said Tom, 'if I had always been what you charge me with
being now, and had never had a place in your regard, but had always
been despised by you, and had always deserved it, you should tell me
in what you have found me to be treacherous; and on what grounds you
proceed.  I do not intreat you, therefore, to give me that
satisfaction as a favour, Martin, but I ask it of you as a right.'

'My own eyes are my witnesses,' returned Martin.  'Am I to believe
them?'

'No,' said Tom, calmly.  'Not if they accuse me.'

'Your own words.  Your own manner,' pursued Martin.  'Am I to
believe THEM?'

'No,' replied Tom, calmly.  'Not if they accuse me.  But they never
have accused me.  Whoever has perverted them to such a purpose, has
wronged me almost as cruelly'--his calmness rather failed him here--
'as you have done.'

'I came here,' said Martin; 'and I appeal to your good sister to
hear me--'

'Not to her,' interrupted Tom.  'Pray, do not appeal to her.  She
will never believe you.'

He drew her arm through his own, as he said it.

'I believe it, Tom!'

'No, no,' cried Tom, 'of course not.  I said so.  Why, tut, tut,
tut.  What a silly little thing you are!'

'I never meant,' said Martin, hastily, 'to appeal to you against
your brother.  Do not think me so unmanly and unkind.  I merely
appealed to you to hear my declaration, that I came here for no
purpose of reproach--I have not one reproach to vent--but in deep
regret.  You could not know in what bitterness of regret, unless you
knew how often I have thought of Tom; how long in almost hopeless
circumstances, I have looked forward to the better estimation of his
friendship; and how steadfastly I have believed and trusted in him.'

'Tut, tut,' said Tom, stopping her as she was about to speak.  'He
is mistaken.  He is deceived.  Why should you mind?  He is sure to
be set right at last.'

'Heaven bless the day that sets me right!' cried Martin, 'if it
could ever come!'

'Amen!' said Tom.  'And it will!'

Martin paused, and then said in a still milder voice:

'You have chosen for yourself, Tom, and will be relieved by our
parting.  It is not an angry one.  There is no anger on my side--'

'There is none on mine,' said Tom.

'--It is merely what you have brought about, and worked to bring
about.  I say again, you have chosen for yourself.  You have made
the choice that might have been expected in most people situated as
you are, but which I did not expect in you.  For that, perhaps, I
should blame my own judgment more than you.  There is wealth and
favour worth having, on one side; and there is the worthless
friendship of an abandoned, struggling fellow, on the other.  You
were free to make your election, and you made it; and the choice was
not difficult.  But those who have not the courage to resist such
temptations, should have the courage to avow what they have yielded
to them; and I DO blame you for this, Tom: that you received me with
a show of warmth, encouraged me to be frank and plain-spoken,
tempted me to confide in you, and professed that you were able to be
mine; when you had sold yourself to others.  I do not believe,' said
Martin, with emotion--'hear me say it from my heart--I CANNOT
believe, Tom, now that I am standing face to face with you, that it
would have been in your nature to do me any serious harm, even
though I had not discovered, by chance, in whose employment you
were.  But I should have encumbered you; I should have led you into
more double-dealing; I should have hazarded your retaining the
favour for which you have paid so high a price, bartering away your
former self; and it is best for both of us that I have found out
what you so much desired to keep secret.'

'Be just,' said Tom; who, had not removed his mild gaze from
Martin's face since the commencement of this last address; 'be just
even in your injustice, Martin.  You forget.  You have not yet told
me what your accusation is!'

'Why should I?' returned Martin, waving his hand, and moving towards
the door.  'You could not know it the better for my dwelling on it,
and though it would be really none the worse, it might seem to me to
be.  No, Tom.  Bygones shall be bygones between us.  I can take
leave of you at this moment, and in this place--in which you are so
amiable and so good--as heartily, if not as cheerfully, as ever I
have done since we first met.  All good go with you, Tom!--I--'

'You leave me so?  You can leave me so, can you?' said Tom.

'I--you--you have chosen for yourself, Tom!  I--I hope it was a rash
choice,' Martin faltered.  'I think it was.  I am sure it was!  Good-
bye!'

And he was gone.

Tom led his little sister to her chair, and sat down in his own.  He
took his book, and read, or seemed to read.  Presently he said
aloud, turning a leaf as he spoke: 'He will be very sorry for this.'
And a tear stole down his face, and dropped upon the page.

Ruth nestled down beside him on her knees, and clasped her arms
about his neck.

'No, Tom!  No, no!  Be comforted!  Dear Tom!'

'I am quite--comforted,' said Tom.  'It will be set right.'

'Such a cruel, bad return!' cried Ruth.

'No, no,' said Tom.  'He believes it.  I cannot imagine why.  But it
will be set right.'

More closely yet, she nestled down about him; and wept as if her
heart would break.

'Don't.  Don't,' said Tom.  'Why do you hide your face, my dear!'

Then in a burst of tears, it all broke out at last.

'Oh Tom, dear Tom, I know your secret heart.  I have found it out;
you couldn't hide the truth from me.  Why didn't you tell me?  I am
sure I could have made you happier, if you had!  You love her, Tom,
so dearly!'

Tom made a motion with his hand as if he would have put his sister
hurriedly away; but it clasped upon hers, and all his little history
was written in the action.  All its pathetic eloquence was in the
silent touch.

'In spite of that,' said Ruth, 'you have been so faithful and so
good, dear; in spite of that, you have been so true and self-
denying, and have struggled with yourself; in spite of that, you
have been so gentle, and so kind, and even-tempered, that I have
never seen you give a hasty look, or heard you say one irritable
word.  In spite of all, you have been so cruelly mistaken.  Oh Tom,
dear Tom, will THIS be set right too!  Will it, Tom?  Will you always
have this sorrow in your breast; you who deserve to be so happy; or
is there any hope?'

And still she hid her face from Tom, and clasped him round the neck,
and wept for him, and poured out all her woman's heart and soul in
the relief and pain of this disclosure.

It was not very long before she and Tom were sitting side by side,
and she was looking with an earnest quietness in Tom's face.  Then
Tom spoke to her thus, cheerily, though gravely:

'I am very glad, my dear, that this has passed between us.  Not
because it assures me of your tender affection (for I was well
assured of that before), but because it relieves my mind of a great
weight.'

Tom's eyes glistened when he spoke of her affection; and he kissed
her on the cheek.

'My dear girl,' said Tom; 'with whatever feeling I regard her'--they
seemed to avoid the name by mutual consent--'I have long ago--I am
sure I may say from the very first--looked upon it as a dream.  As
something that might possibly have happened under very different
circumstances, but which can never be.  Now, tell me.  What would
you have set right?'

She gave Tom such a significant little look, that he was obliged to
take it for an answer whether he would or no; and to go on.

'By her own choice and free consent, my love, she is betrothed to
Martin; and was, long before either of them knew of my existence.
You would have her betrothed to me?'

'Yes,' she said directly.

'Yes,' rejoined Tom, 'but that might be setting it wrong, instead of
right.  Do you think,' said Tom, with a grave smile, 'that even if
she had never seen him, it is very likely she would have fallen in
love with Me?'

'Why not, dear Tom?'

Tom shook his head, and smiled again.

'You think of me, Ruth,' said Tom, 'and it is very natural that you
should, as if I were a character in a book; and you make it a sort
of poetical justice that I should, by some impossible means or
other, come, at last, to marry the person I love.  But there is a
much higher justice than poetical justice, my dear, and it does not
order events upon the same principle.  Accordingly, people who read
about heroes in books, and choose to make heroes of themselves out
of books, consider it a very fine thing to be discontented and
gloomy, and misanthropical, and perhaps a little blasphemous,
because they cannot have everything ordered for their individual
accommodation.  Would you like me to become one of that sort of
people?'

'No, Tom.  But still I know,' she added timidly, 'that this is a
sorrow to you in your own better way.'

Tom thought of disputing the position.  But it would have been mere
folly, and he gave it up.

'My dear,' said Tom, 'I will repay your affection with the Truth and
all the Truth.  It is a sorrow to me.  I have proved it to be so
sometimes, though I have always striven against it.  But somebody
who is precious to you may die, and you may dream that you are in
heaven with the departed spirit, and you may find it a sorrow to
wake to the life on earth, which is no harder to be borne than when
you fell asleep.  It is sorrowful to me to contemplate my dream
which I always knew was a dream, even when it first presented
itself; but the realities about me are not to blame.  They are the
same as they were.  My sister, my sweet companion, who makes this
place so dear, is she less devoted to me, Ruth, than she would have
been, if this vision had never troubled me?  My old friend John, who
might so easily have treated me with coldness and neglect, is he
less cordial to me?  The world about me, is there less good in that?
Are my words to be harsh and my looks to be sour, and is my heart to
grow cold, because there has fallen in my way a good and beautiful
creature, who but for the selfish regret that I cannot call her my
own, would, like all other good and beautiful creatures, make me
happier and better!  No, my dear sister.  No,' said Tom stoutly.
'Remembering all my means of happiness, I hardly dare to call this
lurking something a sorrow; but whatever name it may justly bear, I
thank Heaven that it renders me more sensible of affection and
attachment, and softens me in fifty ways.  Not less happy.  Not less
happy, Ruth!'

She could not speak to him, but she loved him, as he well deserved.
Even as he deserved, she loved him.

'She will open Martin's eyes,' said Tom, with a glow of pride, 'and
that (which is indeed wrong) will be set right.  Nothing will
persuade her, I know, that I have betrayed him.  It will be set
right through her, and he will be very sorry for it.  Our secret,
Ruth, is our own, and lives and dies with us.  I don't believe I
ever could have told it you,' said Tom, with a smile, 'but how glad
I am to think you have found it out!'

They had never taken such a pleasant walk as they took that night.
Tom told her all so freely and so simply, and was so desirous to
return her tenderness with his fullest confidence, that they
prolonged it far beyond their usual hour, and sat up late when they
came home.  And when they parted for the night there was such a
tranquil, beautiful expression in Tom's face, that she could not
bear to shut it out, but going back on tiptoe to his chamber-door,
looked in and stood there till he saw her, and then embracing him
again, withdrew.  And in her prayers and in her sleep--good times to
be remembered with such fervour, Tom!--his name was uppermost.

When he was left alone, Tom pondered very much on this discovery of
hers, and greatly wondered what had led her to it.  'Because,'
thought Tom, 'I have been so very careful.  It was foolish and
unnecessary in me, as I clearly see now, when I am so relieved by
her knowing it; but I have been so very careful to conceal it from
her.  Of course I knew that she was intelligent and quick, and for
that reason was more upon my guard; but I was not in the least
prepared for this.  I am sure her discovery has been sudden too.
Dear me!' said Tom.  'It's a most singular instance of penetration!'

Tom could not get it out of his head.  There it was, when his head
was on his pillow.

'How she trembled when she began to tell me she knew it!' thought
Tom, recalling all the little incidents and circumstances; 'and how
her face flushed!  But that was natural!  Oh, quite natural!  That
needs no accounting for.'

Tom little thought how natural it was.  Tom little knew that there
was that in Ruth's own heart, but newly set there, which had helped
her to the reading of his mystery.  Ah, Tom!  He didn't understand
the whispers of the Temple Fountain, though he passed it every day.

Who so lively and cheerful as busy Ruth next morning!  Her early tap
at Tom's door, and her light foot outside, would have been music to
him though she had not spoken.  But she said it was the brightest
morning ever seen; and so it was; and if it had been otherwise, she
would have made it so to Tom.

She was ready with his neat breakfast when he went downstairs, and
had her bonnet ready for the early walk, and was so full of news,
that Tom was lost in wonder.  She might have been up all night,
collecting it for his entertainment.  There was Mr Nadgett not come
home yet, and there was bread down a penny a loaf, and there was
twice as much strength in this tea as in the last, and the milk-
woman's husband had come out of the hospital cured, and the curly-
headed child over the way had been lost all yesterday, and she was
going to make all sorts of preserves in a desperate hurry, and there
happened to be a saucepan in the house which was the very saucepan
for the purpose; and she knew all about the last book Tom had
brought home, all through, though it was a teaser to read; and she
had so much to tell him that she had finished breakfast first.  Then
she had her little bonnet on, and the tea and sugar locked up, and
the keys in her reticule, and the flower, as usual, in Tom's coat,
and was in all respects quite ready to accompany him, before Tom
knew she had begun to prepare.  And in short, as Tom said, with a
confidence in his own assertion which amounted to a defiance of the
public in general, there never was such a little woman.

She made Tom talkative.  It was impossible to resist her.  She put
such enticing questions to him; about books, and about dates of
churches, and about organs and about the Temple, and about all kinds
of things.  Indeed, she lightened the way (and Tom's heart with it)
to that degree, that the Temple looked quite blank and solitary when
he parted from her at the gate.

'No Mr Fips's friend to-day, I suppose,' thought Tom, as he ascended
the stairs.

Not yet, at any rate, for the door was closed as usual, and Tom
opened it with his key.  He had got the books into perfect order
now, and had mended the torn leaves, and had pasted up the broken
backs, and substituted neat labels for the worn-out letterings.  It
looked a different place, it was so orderly and neat.  Tom felt some
pride in comtemplating the change he had wrought, though there was
no one to approve or disapprove of it.

He was at present occupied in making a fair copy of his draught of
the catalogue; on which, as there was no hurry, he was painfully
concentrating all the ingenious and laborious neatness he had ever
expended on map or plan in Mr Pecksniff's workroom.  It was a very
marvel of a catalogue; for Tom sometimes thought he was really
getting his money too easily, and he had determined within himself
that this document should take a little of his superfluous leisure
out of him.

So with pens and ruler, and compasses and india-rubber, and pencil,
and black ink, and red ink, Tom worked away all the morning.  He
thought a good deal about Martin, and their interview of yesterday,
and would have been far easier in his mind if he could have resolved
to confide it to his friend John, and to have taken his opinion on
the subject.  But besides that he knew what John's boiling
indignation would be, he bethought himself that he was helping
Martin now in a matter of great moment, and that to deprive the
latter of his assistance at such a crisis of affairs, would be to
inflict a serious injury upon him.

'So I'll keep it to myself,' said Tom, with a sigh.  'I'll keep it
to myself.'

And to work he went again, more assiduously than ever, with the
pens, and the ruler, and the india-rubber, and the pencils, and the
red ink, that he might forget it.

He had laboured away another hour or more, when he heard a footstep
in the entry, down below.

'Ah!' said Tom, looking towards the door; 'time was, not long ago
either, when that would have set me wondering and expecting.  But I
have left off now.'

The footstep came on, up the stairs.

'Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,' said Tom, counting.  'Now
you'll stop.  Nobody ever comes past the thirty-eighth stair.'

The person did, certainly, but only to take breath; for up the
footstep came again.  Forty, forty-one, forty-two, and so on.

The door stood open.  As the tread advanced, Tom looked impatiently
and eagerly towards it.  When a figure came upon the landing, and
arriving in the doorway, stopped and gazed at him, he rose up from
his chair, and half believed he saw a spirit.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit!  The same whom he had left at Mr Pecksniff's,
weak and sinking!

The same?  No, not the same, for this old man, though old, was
strong, and leaned upon his stick with a vigorous hand, while with
the other he signed to Tom to make no noise.  One glance at the
resolute face, the watchful eye, the vigorous hand upon the staff,
the triumphant purpose in the figure, and such a light broke in on
Tom as blinded him.

'You have expected me,' said Martin, 'a long time.'

'I was told that my employer would arrive soon,' said Tom; 'but--'

'I know.  You were ignorant who he was.  It was my desire.  I am
glad it has been so well observed.  I intended to have been with you
much sooner.  I thought the time had come.  I thought I could know
no more, and no worse, of him, than I did on that day when I saw you
last.  But I was wrong.'

He had by this time come up to Tom, and now he grasped his hand.

'I have lived in his house, Pinch, and had him fawning on me days
and weeks and months.  You know it.  I have suffered him to treat me
like his tool and instrument.  You know it; you have seen me there.
I have undergone ten thousand times as much as I could have endured
if I had been the miserable weak old man he took me for.  You know
it.  I have seen him offer love to Mary.  You know it; who better--
who better, my true heart!  I have had his base soul bare before me,
day by day, and have not betrayed myself once.  I never could have
undergone such torture but for looking forward to this time.'

He stopped, even in the passion of his speech--if that can be called
passion which was so resolute and steady--to press Tom's hand again.
Then he said, in great excitement:

'Close the door, close the door.  He will not be long after me, but
may come too soon.  The time now drawing on,' said the old man,
hurriedly--his eyes and whole face brightening as he spoke--'will
make amends for all.  I wouldn't have him die or hang himself, for
millions of golden pieces!  Close the door!'

Tom did so; hardly knowing yet whether he was awake or in a dream.



CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

SHEDS NEW AND BRIGHTER LIGHT UPON THE VERY DARK PLACE; AND CONTAINS
THE SEQUEL OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND


The night had now come, when the old clerk was to be delivered over
to his keepers.  In the midst of his guilty distractions, Jonas had
not forgotten it.

It was a part of his guilty state of mind to remember it; for on his
persistence in the scheme depended one of his precautions for his
own safety.  A hint, a word, from the old man, uttered at such a
moment in attentive ears, might fire the train of suspicion, and
destroy him.  His watchfulness of every avenue by which the
discovery of his guilt might be approached, sharpened with his sense
of the danger by which he was encompassed.  With murder on his soul,
and its innumerable alarms and terrors dragging at him night and
day, he would have repeated the crime, if he had seen a path of
safety stretching out beyond.  It was in his punishment; it was in
his guilty condition.  The very deed which his fears rendered
insupportable, his fears would have impelled him to commit again.

But keeping the old man close, according to his design, would serve
his turn.  His purpose was to escape, when the first alarm and
wonder had subsided; and when he could make the attempt without
awakening instant suspicion.  In the meanwhile these women would
keep him quiet; and if the talking humour came upon him, would not
be easily startled.  He knew their trade.

Nor had he spoken idly when he said the old man should be gagged.
He had resolved to ensure his silence; and he looked to the end, not
the means.  He had been rough and rude and cruel to the old man all
his life; and violence was natural to his mind in connection with
him.  'He shall be gagged if he speaks, and pinioned if he writes,'
said Jonas, looking at him; for they sat alone together.  'He is mad
enough for that; I'll go through with it!'

Hush!

Still listening!  To every sound.  He had listened ever since, and it
had not come yet.  The exposure of the Assurance office; the flight
of Crimple and Bullamy with the plunder, and among the rest, as he
feared, with his own bill, which he had not found in the pocket-book
of the murdered man, and which with Mr Pecksniff's money had
probably been remitted to one or other of those trusty friends for
safe deposit at the banker's; his immense losses, and peril of being
still called to account as a partner in the broken firm; all these
things rose in his mind at one time and always, but he could not
contemplate them.  He was aware of their presence, and of the rage,
discomfiture, and despair, they brought along with them; but he
thought--of his own controlling power and direction he thought--of
the one dread question only.  When they would find the body in the
wood.

He tried--he had never left off trying--not to forget it was there,
for that was impossible, but to forget to weary himself by drawing
vivid pictures of it in his fancy; by going softly about it and
about it among the leaves, approaching it nearer and nearer through
a gap in the boughs, and startling the very flies that were thickly
sprinkled all over it, like heaps of dried currants.  His mind was
fixed and fastened on the discovery, for intelligence of which he
listened intently to every cry and shout; listened when any one came
in or went out; watched from the window the people who passed up
and down the street; mistrusted his own looks and words.  And the
more his thoughts were set upon the discovery, the stronger was the
fascination which attracted them to the thing itself; lying alone in
the wood.  He was for ever showing and presenting it, as it were, to
every creature whom he saw.  'Look here!  Do you know of this?  Is it
found?  Do you suspect ME?'  If he had been condemned to bear the
body in his arms, and lay it down for recognition at the feet of
every one he met, it could not have been more constantly with him,
or a cause of more monotonous and dismal occupation than it was in
this state of his mind.

Still he was not sorry.  It was no contrition or remorse for what he
had done that moved him; it was nothing but alarm for his own
security.  The vague consciousness he possessed of having wrecked
his fortune in the murderous venture, intensified his hatred and
revenge, and made him set the greater store by what he had gained
The man was dead; nothing could undo that.  He felt a triumph yet,
in the reflection.

He had kept a jealous watch on Chuffey ever since the deed; seldom
leaving him but on compulsion, and then for as short intervals as
possible.  They were alone together now.  It was twilight, and the
appointed time drew near at hand.  Jonas walked up and down the
room.  The old man sat in his accustomed corner.

The slightest circumstance was matter of disquiet to the murderer,
and he was made uneasy at this time by the absence of his wife, who
had left home early in the afternoon, and had not returned yet.  No
tenderness for her was at the bottom of this; but he had a misgiving
that she might have been waylaid, and tempted into saying something
that would criminate him when the news came.  For anything he knew,
she might have knocked at the door of his room, while he was away,
and discovered his plot.  Confound her, it was like her pale face to
be wandering up and down the house!  Where was she now?

'She went to her good friend, Mrs Todgers,' said the old man, when
he asked the question with an angry oath.

Aye!  To be sure!  Always stealing away into the company of that
woman.  She was no friend of his.  Who could tell what devil's
mischief they might hatch together!  Let her be fetched home
directly.

The old man, muttering some words softly, rose as if he would have
gone himself, but Jonas thrust him back into his chair with an
impatient imprecation, and sent a servant-girl to fetch her.  When
he had charged her with her errand he walked to and fro again, and
never stopped till she came back, which she did pretty soon; the way
being short, and the woman having made good haste.

Well!  Where was she?  Had she come?

No.  She had left there, full three hours.

'Left there!  Alone?'

The messenger had not asked; taking that for granted.

'Curse you for a fool.  Bring candles!'

She had scarcely left the room when the old clerk, who had been
unusually observant of him ever since he had asked about his wife,
came suddenly upon him.

'Give her up!' cried the old man.  'Come!  Give her up to me!  Tell me
what you have done with her.  Quick!  I have made no promises on that
score.  Tell me what you have done with her.'

He laid his hands upon his collar as he spoke, and grasped it;
tightly too.

'You shall not leave me!' cried the old man.  'I am strong enough to
cry out to the neighbours, and I will, unless you give her up.  Give
her up to me!'

Jonas was so dismayed and conscience-stricken, that he had not even
hardihood enough to unclench the old man's hands with his own; but
stood looking at him as well as he could in the darkness, without
moving a finger.  It was as much as he could do to ask him what he
meant.

'I will know what you have done with her!' retorted Chuffey.  'If
you hurt a hair of her head, you shall answer it.  Poor thing!  Poor
thing!  Where is she?'

'Why, you old madman!' said Jonas, in a low voice, and with
trembling lips.  'What Bedlam fit has come upon you now?'

'It is enough to make me mad, seeing what I have seen in this
house!' cried Chuffey.  'Where is my dear old master!  Where is his
only son that I have nursed upon my knee, a child!  Where is she, she
who was the last; she that I've seen pining day by day, and heard
weeping in the dead of night!  She was the last, the last of all my
friends!  Heaven help me, she was the very last!'

Seeing that the tears were stealing down his face, Jonas mustered
courage to unclench his hands, and push him off before he answered:

'Did you hear me ask for her?  Did you hear me send for her?  How
can I give you up what I haven't got, idiot!  Ecod, I'd give her up
to you and welcome, if I could; and a precious pair you'd be!'

'If she has come to any harm,' cried Chuffey, 'mind!  I'm old and
silly; but I have my memory sometimes; and if she has come to any
harm--'

'Devil take you,' interrupted Jonas, but in a suppressed voice
still; 'what harm do you suppose she has come to?  I know no more
where she is than you do; I wish I did.  Wait till she comes home,
and see; she can't be long.  Will that content you?'

'Mind!' exclaimed the old man.  'Not a hair of her head! not a hair
of her head ill-used!  I won't bear it.  I--I--have borne it too long
Jonas.  I am silent, but I--I--I can speak.  I--I--I can speak--' he
stammered, as he crept back to his chair, and turned a threatening,
though a feeble, look upon him.

'You can speak, can you!' thought Jonas.  'So, so, we'll stop your
speaking.  It's well I knew of this in good time.  Prevention is
better than cure.'

He had made a poor show of playing the bully and evincing a desire
to conciliate at the same time, but was so afraid of the old man
that great drops had started out upon his brow; and they stood there
yet.  His unusual tone of voice and agitated manner had sufficiently
expressed his fear; but his face would have done so now, without
that aid, as he again walked to and fro, glancing at him by the
candelight.

He stopped at the window to think.  An opposite shop was lighted up;
and the tradesman and a customer were reading some printed bill
together across the counter.  The sight brought him back, instantly,
to the occupation he had forgotten.  'Look here!  Do you know of
this?  Is it found?  Do you suspect ME?'

A hand upon the door.  'What's that!'

'A pleasant evenin',' said the voice of Mrs Gamp, 'though warm,
which, bless you, Mr Chuzzlewit, we must expect when cowcumbers is
three for twopence.  How does Mr Chuffey find his self to-night,
sir?'

Mrs Gamp kept particularly close to the door in saying this, and
curtseyed more than usual.  She did not appear to be quite so much
at her ease as she generally was.

'Get him to his room,' said Jonas, walking up to her, and speaking
in her ear.  'He has been raving to-night--stark mad.  Don't talk
while he's here, but come down again.'

'Poor sweet dear!' cried Mrs Gamp, with uncommon tenderness.  'He's
all of a tremble.'

'Well he may be,' said Jonas, 'after the mad fit he has had.  Get
him upstairs.'

She was by this time assisting him to rise.

'There's my blessed old chick!' cried Mrs Gamp, in a tone that was
at once soothing and encouraging.  'There's my darlin' Mr Chuffey!
Now come up to your own room, sir, and lay down on your bed a bit;
for you're a-shakin' all over, as if your precious jints was hung
upon wires.  That's a good creetur!  Come with Sairey!'

'Is she come home?' inquired the old man.

'She'll be here directly minit,' returned Mrs Gamp.  'Come with
Sairey, Mr Chuffey.  Come with your own Sairey!'

The good woman had no reference to any female in the world in
promising this speedy advent of the person for whom Mr Chuffey
inquired, but merely threw it out as a means of pacifying the old
man.  It had its effect, for he permitted her to lead him away; and
they quitted the room together.

Jonas looked out of the window again.  They were still reading the
printed paper in the shop opposite, and a third man had joined in
the perusal.  What could it be, to interest them so?'

A dispute or discussion seemed to arise among them, for they all
looked up from their reading together, and one of the three, who had
been glancing over the shoulder of another, stepped back to explain
or illustrate some action by his gestures.

Horror!  How like the blow he had struck in the wood!

It beat him from the window as if it had lighted on himself.  As he
staggered into a chair, he thought of the change in Mrs Gamp
exhibited in her new-born tenderness to her charge.  Was that
because it was found?--because she knew of it?--because she
suspected him?

'Mr Chuffey is a-lyin' down,' said Mrs Gamp, returning, 'and much
good may it do him, Mr Chuzzlewit, which harm it can't and good it
may; be joyful!'

'Sit down,' said Jonas, hoarsely, 'and let us get this business
done.  Where is the other woman?'

'The other person's with him now,' she answered.

'That's right,' said Jonas.  'He is not fit to be left to himself.
Why, he fastened on me to-night; here, upon my coat; like a savage
dog.  Old as he is, and feeble as he is usually, I had some trouble
to shake him off.  You--Hush!--It's nothing.  You told me the other
woman's name.  I forget it.'

'I mentioned Betsey Prig,' said Mrs Gamp.

'She is to be trusted, is she?'

'That she ain't!' said Mrs Gamp; 'nor have I brought her, Mr
Chuzzlewit.  I've brought another, which engages to give every
satigefaction.'

'What is her name?' asked Jonas.

Mrs Gamp looked at him in an odd way without returning any answer,
but appeared to understand the question too.

'What is her name?' repeated Jonas.

'Her name,' said Mrs Gamp, 'is Harris.'

It was extraordinary how much effort it cost Mrs Gamp to pronounce
the name she was commonly so ready with.  She made some three or
four gasps before she could get it out; and, when she had uttered
it, pressed her hand upon her side, and turned up her eyes, as if
she were going to faint away.  But, knowing her to labour under a
complication of internal disorders, which rendered a few drops of
spirits indispensable at certain times to her existence, and which
came on very strong when that remedy was not at hand, Jonas merely
supposed her to be the victim of one of these attacks.

'Well!' he said, hastily, for he felt how incapable he was of
confining his wandering attention to the subject.  'You and she have
arranged to take care of him, have you?'

Mrs Gamp replied in the affirmative, and softly discharged herself
of her familiar phrase, 'Turn and turn about; one off, one on.'  But
she spoke so tremulously that she felt called upon to add, 'which
fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves this night!'

Jonas stopped to listen.  Then said, hurriedly:

'We shall not quarrel about terms.  Let them be the same as they
were before.  Keep him close, and keep him quiet.  He must be
restrained.  He has got it in his head to-night that my wife's dead,
and has been attacking me as if I had killed her.  It's--it's common
with mad people to take the worst fancies of those they like best.
Isn't it?'

Mrs Gamp assented with a short groan.

'Keep him close, then, or in one of his fits he'll be doing me a
mischief.  And don't trust him at any time; for when he seems most
rational, he's wildest in his talk.  But that you know already.  Let
me see the other.'

'The t'other person, sir?' said Mrs Gamp.

'Aye!  Go you to him and send the other.  Quick!  I'm busy.'

Mrs Gamp took two or three backward steps towards the door, and
stopped there.

'It is your wishes, Mr Chuzzlewit,' she said, in a sort of quavering
croak, 'to see the t'other person.  Is it?'

But the ghastly change in Jonas told her that the other person was
already seen.  Before she could look round towards the door, she was
put aside by old Martin's hand; and Chuffey and John Westlock
entered with him.

'Let no one leave the house,' said Martin.  'This man is my
brother's son.  Ill-met, ill-trained, ill-begotten.  If he moves
from the spot on which he stands, or speaks a word above his breath
to any person here, open the window, and call for help!'

'What right have you to give such directions in this house?' asked
Jonas faintly.

'The right of your wrong-doing.  Come in there!'

An irrepressible exclamation burst from the lips of Jonas, as
Lewsome entered at the door.  It was not a groan, or a shriek, or a
word, but was wholly unlike any sound that had ever fallen on the
ears of those who heard it, while at the same time it was the most
sharp and terrible expression of what was working in his guilty
breast, that nature could have invented.

He had done murder for this!  He had girdled himself about with
perils, agonies of mind, innumerable fears, for this!  He had hidden
his secret in the wood; pressed and stamped it down into the bloody
ground; and here it started up when least expected, miles upon miles
away; known to many; proclaiming itself from the lips of an old man
who had renewed his strength and vigour as by a miracle, to give it
voice against him!

He leaned his hand on the back of a chair, and looked at them.  It
was in vain to try to do so scornfully, or with his usual insolence.
He required the chair for his support.  But he made a struggle for
it.

'I know that fellow,' he said, fetching his breath at every word,
and pointing his trembling finger towards Lewsome.  'He's the
greatest liar alive.  What's his last tale?  Ha, ha!  You're rare
fellows, too!  Why, that uncle of mine is childish; he's even a
greater child than his brother, my father, was, in his old age; or
than Chuffey is.  What the devil do you mean,' he added, looking
fiercely at John Westlock and Mark Tapley (the latter had entered
with Lewsome), 'by coming here, and bringing two idiots and a knave
with you to take my house by storm?  Hallo, there!  Open the door!
Turn these strangers out!'

'I tell you what,' cried Mr Tapley, coming forward, 'if it wasn't
for your name, I'd drag you through the streets of my own accord,
and single-handed I would!  Ah, I would!  Don't try and look bold at
me.  You can't do it!  Now go on, sir,' this was to old Martin.
'Bring the murderin' wagabond upon his knees!  If he wants noise, he
shall have enough of it; for as sure as he's a shiverin' from head
to foot I'll raise a uproar at this winder that shall bring half
London in.  Go on, sir!  Let him try me once, and see whether I'm a
man of my word or not.'

With that, Mark folded his arms, and took his seat upon the window-
ledge, with an air of general preparation for anything, which seemed
to imply that he was equally ready to jump out himself, or to throw
Jonas out, upon receiving the slightest hint that it would be
agreeable to the company.

Old Martin turned to Lewsome:

'This is the man,' he said, extending his hand towards Jonas.  'Is
it?'

'You need do no more than look at him to be sure of that, or of the
truth of what I have said,' was the reply.  'He is my witness.'

'Oh, brother!' cried old Martin, clasping his hands and lifting up
his eyes.  'Oh, brother, brother!  Were we strangers half our lives
that you might breed a wretch like this, and I make life a desert by
withering every flower that grew about me!  Is it the natural end of
your precepts and mine, that this should be the creature of your
rearing, training, teaching, hoarding, striving for; and I the means
of bringing him to punishment, when nothing can repair the wasted
past!'

He sat down upon a chair as he spoke, and turning away his face, was
silent for a few moments.  Then with recovered energy he proceeded:

'But the accursed harvest of our mistaken lives shall be trodden
down.  It is not too late for that.  You are confronted with this
man, you monster there; not to be spared, but to be dealt with
justly.  Hear what he says!  Reply, be silent, contradict, repeat,
defy, do what you please.  My course will be the same.  Go on!  And
you,' he said to Chuffey, 'for the love of your old friend, speak
out, good fellow!'

'I have been silent for his love!' cried the old man.  'He urged me
to it.  He made me promise it upon his dying bed.  I never would
have spoken, but for your finding out so much.  I have thought about
it ever since; I couldn't help that; and sometimes I have had it all
before me in a dream; but in the day-time, not in sleep.  Is there
such a kind of dream?' said Chuffey, looking anxiously in old
Martin's face.

As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to
his voice, and smiled.

'Ah, aye!' he cried.  'He often spoke to me like that.  We were at
school together, he and I.  I couldn't turn against his son, you
know--his only son, Mr Chuzzlewit!'

'I would to Heaven you had been his son!' said Martin.

'You speak so like my dear old master,' cried the old man with a
childish delight, 'that I almost think I hear him.  I can hear you
quite as well as I used to hear him.  It makes me young again.  He
never spoke unkindly to me, and I always understood him.  I could
always see him too, though my sight was dim.  Well, well!  He's dead,
he's dead.  He was very good to me, my dear old master!'

He shook his head mournfully over the brother's hand.  At this
moment Mark, who had been glancing out of the window, left the room.

'I couldn't turn against his only son, you know,' said Chuffey.  'He
has nearly driven me to do it sometimes; he very nearly did tonight.
Ah!' cried the old man, with a sudden recollection of the cause.
'Where is she?  She's not come home!'

'Do you mean his wife?' said Mr Chuzzlewit.

'Yes.'

'I have removed her.  She is in my care, and will be spared the
present knowledge of what is passing here.  She has known misery
enough, without that addition.'

Jonas heard this with a sinking heart.  He knew that they were on
his heels, and felt that they were resolute to run him to
destruction.  Inch by inch the ground beneath him was sliding from
his feet; faster and faster the encircling ruin contracted and
contracted towards himself, its wicked centre, until it should close
in and crush him.

And now he heard the voice of his accomplice stating to his face,
with every circumstance of time and place and incident; and openly
proclaiming, with no reserve, suppression, passion, or concealment;
all the truth.  The truth, which nothing would keep down; which
blood would not smother, and earth would not hide; the truth, whose
terrible inspiration seemed to change dotards into strong men; and
on whose avenging wings, one whom he had supposed to be at the
extremest corner of the earth came swooping down upon him.

He tried to deny it, but his tongue would not move.  He conceived
some desperate thought of rushing away, and tearing through the
streets; but his limbs would as little answer to his will as his
stark, stiff staring face.  All this time the voice went slowly on,
denouncing him.  It was as if every drop of blood in the wood had
found a voice to jeer him with.

When it ceased, another voice took up the tale, but strangely; for
the old clerk, who had watched, and listened to the whole, and had
wrung his hands from time to time, as if he knew its truth and could
confirm it, broke in with these words:

'No, no, no! you're wrong; you're wrong--all wrong together!  Have
patience, for the truth is only known to me!'

'How can that be,' said his old master's brother, 'after what you
have heard?  Besides, you said just now, above-stairs, when I told
you of the accusation against him, that you knew he was his father's
murderer.'

'Aye, yes! and so he was!' cried Chuffey, wildly.  'But not as you
suppose--not as you suppose.  Stay!  Give me a moment's time.  I have
it all here--all here!  It was foul, foul, cruel, bad; but not as you
suppose.  Stay, stay!'

He put his hands up to his head, as if it throbbed or pained him.
After looking about him in a wandering and vacant manner for some
moments, his eyes rested upon Jonas, when they kindled up with
sudden recollection and intelligence.

'Yes!' cried old Chuffey, 'yes!  That's how it was.  It's all upon me
now.  He--he got up from his bed before he died, to be sure, to say
that he forgave him; and he came down with me into this room; and
when he saw him--his only son, the son he loved--his speech forsook
him; he had no speech for what he knew--and no one understood him
except me.  But I did--I did!'

Old Martin regarded him in amazement; so did his companions.  Mrs
Gamp, who had said nothing yet; but had kept two-thirds of herself
behind the door, ready for escape, and one-third in the room, ready
for siding with the strongest party; came a little further in and
remarked, with a sob, that Mr Chuffey was 'the sweetest old creetur
goin'.'

'He bought the stuff,' said Chuffey, stretching out his arm towards
Jonas while an unwonted fire shone in his eye, and lightened up his
face; 'he bought the stuff, no doubt, as you have heard, and brought
it home.  He mixed the stuff--look at him!--with some sweetmeat in a
jar, exactly as the medicine for his father's cough was mixed, and
put it in a drawer; in that drawer yonder in the desk; he knows
which drawer I mean!  He kept it there locked up.  But his courage
failed him or his heart was touched--my God!  I hope it was his
heart!  He was his only son!--and he did not put it in the usual
place, where my old master would have taken it twenty times a day.'

The trembling figure of the old man shook with the strong emotions
that possessed him.  But, with the same light in his eye, and with
his arm outstretched, and with his grey hair stirring on his head,
he seemed to grow in size, and was like a man inspired.  Jonas
shrunk from looking at him, and cowered down into the chair by which
he had held.  It seemed as if this tremendous Truth could make the
dumb speak.

'I know it every word now!' cried Chuffey.  'Every word!  He put it
in that drawer, as I have said.  He went so often there, and was so
secret, that his father took notice of it; and when he was out, had
it opened.  We were there together, and we found the mixture--Mr
Chuzzlewit and I.  He took it into his possession, and made light of
it at the time; but in the night he came to my bedside, weeping, and
told me that his own son had it in his mind to poison him.  "Oh,
Chuff," he said, "oh, dear old Chuff! a voice came into my room
to-night, and told me that this crime began with me.  It began when I
taught him to be too covetous of what I have to leave, and made the
expectation of it his great business!"  Those were his words; aye,
they are his very words!  If he was a hard man now and then, it was
for his only son.  He loved his only son, and he was always good to
me!'

Jonas listened with increased attention.  Hope was breaking in upon
him.

'"He shall not weary for my death, Chuff;" that was what he said
next,' pursued the old clerk, as he wiped his eyes; 'that was what
he said next, crying like a little child: "He shall not weary for my
death, Chuff.  He shall have it now; he shall marry where he has a
fancy, Chuff, although it don't please me; and you and I will go
away and live upon a little.  I always loved him; perhaps he'll love
me then.  It's a dreadful thing to have my own child thirsting for
my death.  But I might have known it.  I have sown, and I must reap.
He shall believe that I am taking this; and when I see that he is
sorry, and has all he wants, I'll tell him that I found it out, and
I'll forgive him.  He'll make a better man of his own son, and be a
better man himself, perhaps, Chuff!"'

Poor Chuffey paused to dry his eyes again.  Old Martin's face was
hidden in his hands.  Jonas listened still more keenly, and his
breast heaved like a swollen water, but with hope.  With growing
hope.

'My dear old master made believe next day,' said Chuffey, 'that he
had opened the drawer by mistake with a key from the bunch, which
happened to fit it (we had one made and hung upon it); and that he
had been surprised to find his fresh supply of cough medicine in
such a place, but supposed it had been put there in a hurry when the
drawer stood open.  We burnt it; but his son believed that he was
taking it--he knows he did.  Once Mr Chuzzlewit, to try him, took
heart to say it had a strange taste; and he got up directly, and
went out.'

Jonas gave a short, dry cough; and, changing his position for an
easier one, folded his arms without looking at them, though they
could now see his face.

'Mr Chuzzlewit wrote to her father; I mean the father of the poor
thing who's his wife,' said Chuffey; 'and got him to come up,
intending to hasten on the marriage.  But his mind, like mine, went
a little wrong through grief, and then his heart broke.  He sank and
altered from the time when he came to me in the night; and never
held up his head again.  It was only a few days, but he had never
changed so much in twice the years.  "Spare him, Chuff!" he said,
before he died.  They were the only words he could speak.  "Spare
him, Chuff!"  I promised him I would.  I've tried to do it.  He's
his only son.'

On his recollection of the last scene in his old friend's life, poor
Chuffey's voice, which had grown weaker and weaker, quite deserted
him.  Making a motion with his hand, as if he would have said that
Anthony had taken it, and had died with it in his, he retreated to
the corner where he usually concealed his sorrows; and was silent.

Jonas could look at his company now, and vauntingly too.  'Well!' he
said, after a pause.  'Are you satisfied? or have you any more of
your plots to broach?  Why that fellow, Lewsome, can invent 'em for
you by the score.  Is this all?  Have you nothing else?'

Old Martin looked at him steadily.

'Whether you are what you seemed to be at Pecksniff's, or are
something else and a mountebank, I don't know and I don't care,'
said Jonas, looking downward with a smile, 'but I don't want you
here.  You were here so often when your brother was alive, and were
always so fond of him (your dear, dear brother, and you would have
been cuffing one another before this, ecod!), that I am not
surprised at your being attached to the place; but the place is not
attached to you, and you can't leave it too soon, though you may
leave it too late.  And for my wife, old man, send her home
straight, or it will be the worse for her.  Ha, ha!  You carry it
with a high hand, too!  But it isn't hanging yet for a man to keep a
penn'orth of poison for his own purposes, and have it taken from him
by two old crazy jolter-heads who go and act a play about it.  Ha,
ha!  Do you see the door?'

His base triumph, struggling with his cowardice, and shame, and
guilt, was so detestable, that they turned away from him, as if he
were some obscene and filthy animal, repugnant to the sight.  And
here that last black crime was busy with him too; working within him
to his perdition.  But for that, the old clerk's story might have
touched him, though never so lightly; but for that, the sudden
removal of so great a load might have brought about some wholesome
change even in him.  With that deed done, however; with that
unnecessary wasteful danger haunting him; despair was in his very
triumph and relief; wild, ungovernable, raging despair, for the
uselessness of the peril into which he had plunged; despair that
hardened him and maddened him, and set his teeth a-grinding in a
moment of his exultation.

'My good friend!' said old Martin, laying his hand on Chuffey's
sleeve.  'This is no place for you to remain in.  Come with me.'

'Just his old way!' cried Chuffey, looking up into his face.  'I
almost believe it's Mr Chuzzlewit alive again.  Yes!  Take me with
you!  Stay, though, stay.'

'For what?' asked old Martin.

'I can't leave her, poor thing!' said Chuffey.  'She has been very
good to me.  I can't leave her, Mr Chuzzlewit.  Thank you kindly.
I'll remain here.  I haven't long to remain; it's no great matter.'

As he meekly shook his poor, grey head, and thanked old Martin in
these words, Mrs Gamp, now entirely in the room, was affected to
tears.

'The mercy as it is!' she said, 'as sech a dear, good, reverend
creetur never got into the clutches of Betsey Prig, which but for me
he would have done, undoubted; facts bein' stubborn and not easy
drove!'

'You heard me speak to you just now, old man,' said Jonas to his
uncle.  'I'll have no more tampering with my people, man or woman.
Do you see the door?'

'Do YOU see the door?' returned the voice of Mark, coming from that
direction.  'Look at it!'

He looked, and his gaze was nailed there.  Fatal, ill-omened
blighted threshold, cursed by his father's footsteps in his dying
hour, cursed by his young wife's sorrowing tread, cursed by the
daily shadow of the old clerk's figure, cursed by the crossing of
his murderer's feet--what men were standing in the door way!

Nadgett foremost.

Hark!  It came on, roaring like a sea!  Hawkers burst into the street,
crying it up and down; windows were thrown open that the inhabitants
might hear it; people stopped to listen in the road and on the
pavement; the bells, the same bells, began to ring; tumbling over
one another in a dance of boisterous joy at the discovery (that was
the sound they had in his distempered thoughts), and making their
airy play-ground rock.

'That is the man,' said Nadgett.  'By the window!'

Three others came in, laid hands upon him, and secured him.  It was
so quickly done, that he had not lost sight of the informer's face
for an instant when his wrists were manacled together.

'Murder,' said Nadgett, looking round on the astonished group.  'Let
no one interfere.'

The sounding street repeated Murder; barbarous and dreadful Murder.
Murder, Murder, Murder.  Rolling on from house to house, and echoing
from stone to stone, until the voices died away into the distant
hum, which seemed to mutter the same word!

They all stood silent: listening, and gazing in each other's faces,
as the noise passed on.

Old Martin was the first to speak.  'What terrible history is this?'
he demanded.

'Ask HIM,' said Nadgett.  'You're his friend, sir.  He can tell you,
if he will.  He knows more of it than I do, though I know much.'

'How do you know much?'

'I have not been watching him so long for nothing,' returned
Nadgett.  'I never watched a man so close as I have watched him.'

Another of the phantom forms of this terrific Truth!  Another of the
many shapes in which it started up about him, out of vacancy.  This
man, of all men in the world, a spy upon him; this man, changing his
identity; casting off his shrinking, purblind, unobservant
character, and springing up into a watchful enemy!  The dead man
might have come out of his grave, and not confounded and appalled
him more.

The game was up.  The race was at an end; the rope was woven for his
neck.  If, by a miracle, he could escape from this strait, he had
but to turn his face another way, no matter where, and there would
rise some new avenger front to front with him; some infant in an
hour grown old, or old man in an hour grown young, or blind man with
his sight restored, or deaf man with his hearing given him.  There
was no chance.  He sank down in a heap against the wall, and never
hoped again from that moment.

'I am not his friend, although I have the honour to be his
relative,' said Mr Chuzzlewit.  'You may speak to me.  Where have
you watched, and what have you seen?'

'I have watched in many places,' returned Nadgett, 'night and day.
I have watched him lately, almost without rest or relief;' his
anxious face and bloodshot eyes confirmed it.  'I little thought to
what my watching was to lead.  As little as he did when he slipped
out in the night, dressed in those clothes which he afterwards sunk
in a bundle at London Bridge!'

Jonas moved upon the ground like a man in bodily torture.  He
uttered a suppressed groan, as if he had been wounded by some cruel
weapon; and plucked at the iron band upon his wrists, as though (his
hands being free) he would have torn himself.

'Steady, kinsman!' said the chief officer of the party.  'Don't be
violent.'

'Whom do you call kinsman?' asked old Martin sternly.

'You,' said the man, 'among others.'

Martin turned his scrutinizing gaze upon him.  He was sitting lazily
across a chair with his arms resting on the back; eating nuts, and
throwing the shells out of window as he cracked them, which he still
continued to do while speaking.

'Aye,' he said, with a sulky nod.  'You may deny your nephews till
you die; but Chevy Slyme is Chevy Slyme still, all the world over.
Perhaps even you may feel it some disgrace to your own blood to be
employed in this way.  I'm to be bought off.'

'At every turn!' cried Martin.  'Self, self, self.  Every one among
them for himself!'

'You had better save one or two among them the trouble then and be
for them as well as YOURself,' replied his nephew.  'Look here at
me!  Can you see the man of your family who has more talent in his
little finger than all the rest in their united brains, dressed as a
police officer without being ashamed?  I took up with this trade on
purpose to shame you.  I didn't think I should have to make a
capture in the family, though.'

'If your debauchery, and that of your chosen friends, has really
brought you to this level,' returned the old man, 'keep it.  You are
living honestly, I hope, and that's something.'

'Don't be hard upon my chosen friends,' returned Slyme, 'for they
were sometimes your chosen friends too.  Don't say you never
employed my friend Tigg, for I know better.  We quarrelled upon it.'

'I hired the fellow,' retorted Mr Chuzzlewit, 'and I paid him.'

'It's well you paid him,' said his nephew, 'for it would be too late
to do so now.  He has given his receipt in full; or had it forced
from him rather.'

The old man looked at him as if he were curious to know what he
meant, but scorned to prolong the conversation.

'I have always expected that he and I would be brought together
again in the course of business,' said Slyme, taking a fresh handful
of nuts from his pocket; 'but I thought he would be wanted for some
swindling job; it never entered my head that I should hold a warrant
for the apprehension of his murderer.'

'HIS murderer!' cried Mr Chuzzlewit, looking from one to another.

'His or Mr Montague's,' said Nadgett.  'They are the same, I am
told.  I accuse him yonder of the murder of Mr Montague, who was
found last night, killed, in a wood.  You will ask me why I accuse
him as you have already asked me how I know so much.  I'll tell you.
It can't remain a secret long.'

The ruling passion of the man expressed itself even then, in the
tone of regret in which he deplored the approaching publicity of
what he knew.

'I told you I had watched him,' he proceeded.  'I was instructed to
do so by Mr Montague, in whose employment I have been for some time.
We had our suspicions of him; and you know what they pointed at, for
you have been discussing it since we have been waiting here, outside
the room.  If you care to hear, now it's all over, in what our
suspicions began, I'll tell you plainly: in a quarrel (it first came
to our ears through a hint of his own) between him and another
office in which his father's life was insured, and which had so much
doubt and distrust upon the subject, that he compounded with them,
and took half the money; and was glad to do it.  Bit by bit, I
ferreted out more circumstances against him, and not a few.  It
required a little patience, but it's my calling.  I found the nurse
--here she is to confirm me; I found the doctor, I found the
undertaker, I found the undertaker's man.  I found out how the old
gentleman there, Mr Chuffey, had behaved at the funeral; and I found
out what this man,' touching Lewsome on the arm, 'had talked about
in his fever.  I found out how he conducted himself before his
father's death, and how since and how at the time; and writing it
all down, and putting it carefully together, made case enough for Mr
Montague to tax him with the crime, which (as he himself believed
until to-night) he had committed.  I was by when this was done.  You
see him now.  He is only worse than he was then.'

Oh, miserable, miserable fool! oh, insupportable, excruciating
torture!  To find alive and active--a party to it all--the brain and
right-hand of the secret he had thought to crush!  In whom, though he
had walled the murdered man up, by enchantment in a rock, the story
would have lived and walked abroad!  He tried to stop his ears with
his fettered arms, that he might shut out the rest.

As he crouched upon the floor, they drew away from him as if a
pestilence were in his breath.  They fell off, one by one, from that
part of the room, leaving him alone upon the ground.  Even those who
had him in their keeping shunned him, and (with the exception of
Slyme, who was still occupied with his nuts) kept apart.

'From that garret-window opposite,' said Nadgett, pointing across
the narrow street, 'I have watched this house and him for days and
nights.  From that garret-window opposite I saw him return home,
alone, from a journey on which he had set out with Mr Montague.
That was my token that Mr Montague's end was gained; and I might
rest easy on my watch, though I was not to leave it until he
dismissed me.  But, standing at the door opposite, after dark that
same night, I saw a countryman steal out of this house, by a side-
door in the court, who had never entered it.  I knew his walk, and
that it was himself, disguised.  I followed him immediately.  I lost
him on the western road, still travelling westward.'

Jonas looked up at him for an instant, and muttered an oath.

'I could not comprehend what this meant,' said Nadgett; 'but, having
seen so much, I resolved to see it out, and through.  And I did.
Learning, on inquiry at his house from his wife, that he was
supposed to be sleeping in the room from which I had seen him go
out, and that he had given strict orders not to be disturbed, I knew
that he was coming back; and for his coming back I watched.  I kept
my watch in the street--in doorways, and such places--all that
night; at the same window, all next day; and when night came on
again, in the street once more.  For I knew he would come back, as
he had gone out, when this part of the town was empty.  He did.
Early in the morning, the same countryman came creeping, creeping,
creeping home.'

'Look sharp!' interposed Slyme, who had now finished his nuts.
'This is quite irregular, Mr Nadgett.'

'I kept at the window all day,' said Nadgett, without heeding him.
'I think I never closed my eyes.  At night, I saw him come out with
a bundle.  I followed him again.  He went down the steps at London
Bridge, and sunk it in the river.  I now began to entertain some
serious fears, and made a communication to the Police, which caused
that bundle to be--'

'To be fished up,' interrupted Slyme.  'Be alive, Mr Nadgett.'

'It contained the dress I had seen him wear,' said Nadgett;
'stained with clay, and spotted with blood.  Information of the
murder was received in town last night.  The wearer of that dress is
already known to have been seen near the place; to have been lurking
in that neighbourhood; and to have alighted from a coach coming from
that part of the country, at a time exactly tallying with the very
minute when I saw him returning home.  The warrant has been out, and
these officers have been with me, some hours.  We chose our time;
and seeing you come in, and seeing this person at the window--'

'Beckoned to him,' said Mark, taking up the thread of the narrative,
on hearing this allusion to himself, 'to open the door; which he did
with a deal of pleasure.'

'That's all at present,' said Nadgett, putting up his great
pocketbook, which from mere habit he had produced when he began his
revelation, and had kept in his hand all the time; 'but there is
plenty more to come.  You asked me for the facts, so far I have
related them, and need not detain these gentlemen any longer.  Are
you ready, Mr Slyme?'

'And something more,' replied that worthy, rising.  'If you walk
round to the office, we shall be there as soon as you.  Tom!  Get a
coach!'

The officer to whom he spoke departed for that purpose.  Old Martin
lingered for a few moments, as if he would have addressed some words
to Jonas; but looking round, and seeing him still seated on the
floor, rocking himself in a savage manner to and fro, took Chuffey's
arm, and slowly followed Nadgett out.  John Westlock and Mark Tapley
accompanied them.  Mrs Gamp had tottered out first, for the better
display of her feelings, in a kind of walking swoon; for Mrs Gamp
performed swoons of different sorts, upon a moderate notice, as Mr
Mould did Funerals.

'Ha!' muttered Slyme, looking after them.  'Upon my soul!  As
insensible of being disgraced by having such a nephew as myself, in
such a situation, as he was of my being an honour and a credit to
the family!  That's the return I get for having humbled my spirit--
such a spirit as mine--to earn a livelihood, is it?'

He got up from his chair, and kicked it away indignantly.

'And such a livelihood too!  When there are hundreds of men, not fit
to hold a candle to me, rolling in carriages and living on their
fortunes.  Upon my soul it's a nice world!'

His eyes encountered Jonas, who looked earnestly towards him, and
moved his lips as if he were whispering.

'Eh?' said Slyme.

Jonas glanced at the attendant whose back was towards him, and made
a clumsy motion with his bound hands towards the door.

'Humph!' said Slyme, thoughtfully.  'I couldn't hope to disgrace him
into anything when you have shot so far ahead of me though.  I
forgot that.'

Jonas repeated the same look and gesture.

'Jack!' said Slyme.

'Hallo!' returned his man.

'Go down to the door, ready for the coach.  Call out when it comes.
I'd rather have you there.  Now then,' he added, turning hastily to
Jonas, when the man was gone.  'What's the matter?'

Jonas essayed to rise.

'Stop a bit,' said Slyme.  'It's not so easy when your wrists are
tight together.  Now then!  Up!  What is it?'

'Put your hand in my pocket.  Here!  The breast pocket, on the left!'
said Jonas.

He did so; and drew out a purse.

'There's a hundred pound in it,' said Jonas, whose words were almost
unintelligible; as his face, in its pallor and agony, was scarcely
human.

Slyme looked at him; gave it into his hands; and shook his head.

'I can't.  I daren't.  I couldn't if I dared.  Those fellows below--'

'Escape's impossible,' said Jonas.  'I know it.  One hundred pound
for only five minutes in the next room!'

'What to do?' he asked.

The face of his prisoner as he advanced to whisper in his ear, made
him recoil involuntarily.  But he stopped and listened to him.  The
words were few, but his own face changed as he heard them.

'I have it about me,' said Jonas, putting his hands to his throat,
as though whatever he referred to were hidden in his neckerchief.
'How should you know of it?  How could you know?  A hundred pound
for only five minutes in the next room!  The time's passing.  Speak!'

'It would be more--more creditable to the family,' observed Slyme,
with trembling lips.  'I wish you hadn't told me half so much.  Less
would have served your purpose.  You might have kept it to yourself.'

'A hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room!  Speak!'
cried Jonas, desperately.

He took the purse.  Jonas, with a wild unsteady step, retreated to
the door in the glass partition.

'Stop!' cried Slyme, catching at his skirts.  'I don't know about
this.  Yet it must end so at last.  Are you guilty?'

'Yes!' said Jonas.

'Are the proofs as they were told just now?'

'Yes!' said Jonas.

'Will you--will you engage to say a--a Prayer, now, or something of
that sort?' faltered Slyme.

Jonas broke from him without replying, and closed the door between
them.

Slyme listened at the keyhole.  After that, he crept away on tiptoe,
as far off as he could; and looked awfully towards the place.  He
was roused by the arrival of the coach, and their letting down the
steps.

'He's getting a few things together,' he said, leaning out of
window, and speaking to the two men below, who stood in the full
light of a street-lamp.  'Keep your eye upon the back, one of you,
for form's sake.'

One of the men withdrew into the court.  The other, seating himself
self on the steps of the coach, remained in conversation with Slyme
at the window who perhaps had risen to be his superior, in virtue of
his old propensity (one so much lauded by the murdered man) of being
always round the corner.  A useful habit in his present calling.

'Where is he?' asked the man.

Slyme looked into the room for an instant and gave his head a jerk
as much as to say, 'Close at hand.  I see him.'

'He's booked,' observed the man.

'Through,' said Slyme.

They looked at each other, and up and down the street.  The man on
the coach-steps took his hat off, and put it on again, and whistled
a little.

'I say!  He's taking his time!' he remonstrated.

'I allowed him five minutes,' said Slyme.  'Time's more than up,
though.  I'll bring him down.'

He withdrew from the window accordingly, and walked on tiptoe to the
door in the partition.  He listened.  There was not a sound within.
He set the candles near it, that they might shine through the glass.

It was not easy, he found, to make up his mind to the opening of the
door.  But he flung it wide open suddenly, and with a noise; then
retreated.  After peeping in and listening again, he entered.

He started back as his eyes met those of Jonas, standing in an angle
of the wall, and staring at him.  His neckerchief was off; his face
was ashy pale.

'You're too soon,' said Jonas, with an abject whimper.  'I've not
had time.  I have not been able to do it.  I--five minutes more--two
minutes more!--only one!'

Slyme gave him no reply, but thrusting the purse upon him and
forcing it back into his pocket, called up his men.

He whined, and cried, and cursed, and entreated them, and struggled,
and submitted, in the same breath, and had no power to stand.  They
got him away and into the coach, where they put him on a seat; but
he soon fell moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and lay
there.

The two men were with him.  Slyme being on the box with the driver;
and they let him lie.  Happening to pass a fruiterer's on their way;
the door of which was open, though the shop was by this time shut;
one of them remarked how faint the peaches smelled.

The other assented at the moment, but presently stooped down in
quick alarm, and looked at the prisoner.

'Stop the coach!  He has poisoned himself!  The smell comes from this
bottle in his hand!'

The hand had shut upon it tight.  With that rigidity of grasp with
which no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can
clutch a prize he has won.

They dragged him out into the dark street; but jury, judge, and
hangman, could have done no more, and could do nothing now.  Dead,
dead, dead.



CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

IN WHICH THE TABLES ARE TURNED, COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN


Old Martin's cherished projects, so long hidden in his own breast,
so frequently in danger of abrupt disclosure through the bursting
forth of the indignation he had hoarded up during his residence with
Mr Pecksniff, were retarded, but not beyond a few hours, by the
occurrences just now related.  Stunned, as he had been at first by
the intelligence conveyed to him through Tom Pinch and John
Westlock, of the supposed manner of his brother's death; overwhelmed
as he was by the subsequent narratives of Chuffey and Nadgett, and
the forging of that chain of circumstances ending in the death of
Jonas, of which catastrophe he was immediately informed; scattered
as his purposes and hopes were for the moment, by the crowding in of
all these incidents between him and his end; still their very
intensity and the tumult of their assemblage nerved him to the rapid
and unyielding execution of his scheme.  In every single
circumstance, whether it were cruel, cowardly, or false, he saw the
flowering of the same pregnant seed.  Self; grasping, eager, narrow-
ranging, overreaching self; with its long train of suspicions,
lusts, deceits, and all their growing consequences; was the root of
the vile tree.  Mr Pecksniff had so presented his character before
the old man's eyes, that he--the good, the tolerant, enduring
Pecksniff--had become the incarnation of all selfishness and
treachery; and the more odious the shapes in which those vices
ranged themselves before him now, the sterner consolation he had in
his design of setting Mr Pecksniff right and Mr Pecksniff's victims
too.

To this work he brought, not only the energy and determination
natural to his character (which, as the reader may have observed in
the beginning of his or her acquaintance with this gentleman, was
remarkable for the strong development of those qualities), but all
the forced and unnaturally nurtured energy consequent upon their
long suppression.  And these two tides of resolution setting into
one and sweeping on, became so strong and vigorous, that, to prevent
themselves from being carried away before it, Heaven knows where,
was as much as John Westlock and Mark Tapley together (though they
were tolerably energetic too) could manage to effect.

He had sent for John Westlock immediately on his arrival; and John,
under the conduct of Tom Pinch, had waited on him.  Having a lively
recollection of Mr Tapley, he had caused that gentleman's attendance
to be secured, through John's means, without delay; and thus, as we
have seen, they had all repaired together to the City.  But his
grandson he had refused to see until to-morrow, when Mr Tapley was
instructed to summon him to the Temple at ten o'clock in the
forenoon.  Tom he would not allow to be employed in anything, lest
he should be wrongfully suspected; but he was a party to all their
proceedings, and was with them until late at night--until after they
knew of the death of Jonas; when he went home to tell all these
wonders to little Ruth, and to prepare her for accompanying him to
the Temple in the morning, agreeably to Mr Chuzzlewit's particular
injunction.

It was characteristic of old Martin, and his looking on to something
which he had distinctly before him, that he communicated to them
nothing of his intentions, beyond such hints of reprisal on Mr
Pecksniff as they gathered from the game he had played in that
gentleman's house, and the brightening of his eyes whenever his name
was mentioned.  Even to John Westlock, in whom he was evidently
disposed to place great confidence (which may indeed be said of
every one of them), he gave no explanation whatever.  He merely
requested him to return in the morning; and with this for their
utmost satisfaction, they left him, when the night was far advanced,
alone.

The events of such a day might have worn out the body and spirit of
a much younger man than he, but he sat in deep and painful
meditation until the morning was bright.  Nor did he even then seek
any prolonged repose, but merely slumbered in his chair, until seven
o'clock, when Mr Tapley had appointed to come to him by his desire;
and came--as fresh and clean and cheerful as the morning itself.

'You are punctual,' said Mr Chuzzlewit, opening the door to him in
reply to his light knock, which had roused him instantly.

'My wishes, sir,' replied Mr Tapley, whose mind would appear from
the context to have been running on the matrimonial service, 'is to
love, honour, and obey.  The clock's a-striking now, sir.'

'Come in!'

'Thank'ee, sir,' rejoined Mr Tapley, 'what could I do for you first,
sir?'

'You gave my message to Martin?' said the old man, bending his eyes
upon him.

'I did, sir,' returned Mark; 'and you never see a gentleman more
surprised in all your born days than he was.'

'What more did you tell him?' Mr Chuzzlewit inquired.

'Why, sir,' said Mr Tapley, smiling, 'I should have liked to tell
him a deal more, but not being able, sir, I didn't tell it him.'

'You told him all you knew?'

'But it was precious little, sir,' retorted Mr Tapley.  'There was
very little respectin' you that I was able to tell him, sir.  I only
mentioned my opinion that Mr Pecksniff would find himself deceived,
sir, and that you would find yourself deceived, and that he would
find himself deceived, sir.'

'In what?' asked Mr Chuzzlewit.

'Meaning him, sir?'

'Meaning both him and me.'

'Well, sir,' said Mr Tapley.  'In your old opinions of each other.
As to him, sir, and his opinions, I know he's a altered man.  I know
it.  I know'd it long afore he spoke to you t'other day, and I must
say it.  Nobody don't know half as much of him as I do.  Nobody
can't.  There was always a deal of good in him, but a little of it
got crusted over, somehow.  I can't say who rolled the paste of that
'ere crust myself, but--'

'Go on,' said Martin.  'Why do you stop?'

'But it--well!  I beg your pardon, but I think it may have been you,
sir.  Unintentional I think it may have been you.  I don't believe
that neither of you gave the other quite a fair chance.  There!  Now
I've got rid on it,' said Mr Tapley in a fit of desperation: 'I
can't go a-carryin' it about in my own mind, bustin' myself with it;
yesterday was quite long enough.  It's out now.  I can't help it.
I'm sorry for it.  Don't wisit on him, sir, that's all.'

It was clear that Mark expected to be ordered out immediately, and
was quite prepared to go.

'So you think,' said Martin, 'that his old faults are, in some
degree, of my creation, do you?'

'Well, sir,' retorted Mr Tapley, 'I'm werry sorry, but I can't unsay
it.  It's hardly fair of you, sir, to make a ignorant man conwict
himself in this way, but I DO think so.  I am as respectful disposed
to you, sir, as a man can be; but I DO think so.'

The light of a faint smile seemed to break through the dull
steadiness of Martin's face, as he looked attentively at him,
without replying.

'Yet you are an ignorant man, you say,' he observed after a long
pause.

'Werry much so,' Mr Tapley replied.

'And I a learned, well-instructed man, you think?'

'Likewise wery much so,' Mr Tapley answered.

The old man, with his chin resting on his hand, paced the room twice
or thrice before he added:

'You have left him this morning?'

'Come straight from him now, sir.'

'For what does he suppose?'

'He don't know what to suppose, sir, no more than myself.  I told him
jest wot passed yesterday, sir, and that you had said to me, "Can
you be here by seven in the morning?" and that you had said to him,
through me, "Can you be here by ten in the morning?" and that I had
said "Yes" to both.  That's all, sir.'

His frankness was so genuine that it plainly WAS all.

'Perhaps,' said Martin, 'he may think you are going to desert him,
and to serve me?'

'I have served him in that sort of way, sir,' replied Mark, without
the loss of any atom of his self-possession; 'and we have been that
sort of companions in misfortune, that my opinion is, he don't
believe a word on it.  No more than you do, sir.'

'Will you help me to dress, and get me some breakfast from the
hotel?' asked Martin.

'With pleasure, sir,' said Mark.

'And by-and-bye,' said Martin, 'remaining in the room, as I wish you
to do, will you attend to the door yonder--give admission to
visitors, I mean, when they knock?'

'Certainly, sir,' said Mr Tapley.

'You will not find it necessary to express surprise at their
appearance,' Martin suggested.

'Oh dear no, sir!' said Mr Tapley, 'not at all.'

Although he pledged himself to this with perfect confidence, he was
in a state of unbounded astonishment even now.  Martin appeared to
observe it, and to have some sense of the ludicrous bearing of Mr
Tapley under these perplexing circumstances; for, in spite of the
composure of his voice and the gravity of his face, the same
indistinct light flickered on the latter several times.  Mark
bestirred himself, however, to execute the offices with which he was
entrusted; and soon lost all tendency to any outward expression of
his surprise, in the occupation of being brisk and busy.

But when he had put Mr Chuzzlewit's clothes in good order for
dressing, and when that gentleman was dressed and sitting at his
breakfast, Mr Tapley's feelings of wonder began to return upon him
with great violence; and, standing beside the old man with a napkin
under his arm (it was as natural and easy to joke to Mark to be a
butler in the Temple, as it had been to volunteer as cook on board
the Screw), he found it difficult to resist the temptation of
casting sidelong glances at him very often.  Nay, he found it
impossible; and accordingly yielded to this impulse so often, that
Martin caught him in the fact some fifty times.  The extraordinary
things Mr Tapley did with his own face when any of these detections
occurred; the sudden occasions he had to rub his eyes or his nose or
his chin; the look of wisdom with which he immediately plunged into
the deepest thought, or became intensely interested in the habits
and customs of the flies upon the ceiling, or the sparrows out of
doors; or the overwhelming politeness with which he endeavoured to
hide his confusion by handing the muffin; may not unreasonably be
assumed to have exercised the utmost power of feature that even
Martin Chuzzlewit the elder possessed.

But he sat perfectly quiet and took his breakfast at his leisure, or
made a show of doing so, for he scarcely ate or drank, and
frequently lapsed into long intervals of musing.  When he had
finished, Mark sat down to his breakfast at the same table; and Mr
Chuzzlewit, quite silent still, walked up and down the room.

Mark cleared away in due course, and set a chair out for him, in
which, as the time drew on towards ten o'clock, he took his seat,
leaning his hands upon his stick, and clenching them upon the
handle, and resting his chin on them again.  All his impatience and
abstraction of manner had vanished now; and as he sat there,
looking, with his keen eyes, steadily towards the door, Mark could
not help thinking what a firm, square, powerful face it was; or
exulting in the thought that Mr Pecksniff, after playing a pretty
long game of bowls with its owner, seemed to be at last in a very
fair way of coming in for a rubber or two.

Mark's uncertainty in respect of what was going to be done or said,
and by whom to whom, would have excited him in itself.  But knowing
for a certainty besides, that young Martin was coming, and in a very
few minutes must arrive, he found it by no means easy to remain
quiet and silent.  But, excepting that he occasionally coughed in a
hollow and unnatural manner to relieve himself, he behaved with
great decorum through the longest ten minutes he had ever known.

A knock at the door.  Mr Westlock.  Mr Tapley, in admitting him,
raised his eyebrows to the highest possible pitch, implying thereby
that he considered himself in an unsatisfactory position.  Mr
Chuzzlewit received him very courteously.

Mark waited at the door for Tom Pinch and his sister, who were
coming up the stairs.  The old man went to meet them; took their
hands in his; and kissed her on the cheek.  As this looked
promising, Mr Tapley smiled benignantly.

Mr Chuzzlewit had resumed his chair before young Martin, who was
close behind them, entered.  The old man, scarcely looking at him,
pointed to a distant seat.  This was less encouraging; and Mr
Tapley's spirits fell again.

He was quickly summoned to the door by another knock.  He did not
start, or cry, or tumble down, at sight of Miss Graham and Mrs
Lupin, but he drew a very long breath, and came back perfectly
resigned, looking on them and on the rest with an expression which
seemed to say that nothing could surprise him any more; and that he
was rather glad to have done with that sensation for ever.

The old man received Mary no less tenderly than he had received Tom
Pinch's sister.  A look of friendly recognition passed between
himself and Mrs Lupin, which implied the existence of a perfect
understanding between them.  It engendered no astonishment in Mr
Tapley; for, as he afterwards observed, he had retired from the
business, and sold off the stock.

Not the least curious feature in this assemblage was, that everybody
present was so much surprised and embarrassed by the sight of
everybody else, that nobody ventured to speak.  Mr Chuzzlewit alone
broke silence.

'Set the door open, Mark!' he said; 'and come here.'

Mark obeyed.

The last appointed footstep sounded now upon the stairs.  They all
knew it.  It was Mr Pecksniff's; and Mr Pecksniff was in a hurry
too, for he came bounding up with such uncommon expedition that he
stumbled twice or thrice.

'Where is my venerable friend?' he cried upon the upper landing; and
then with open arms came darting in.

Old Martin merely looked at him; but Mr Pecksniff started back as if
he had received the charge from an electric battery.

'My venerable friend is well?' cried Mr Pecksniff.

'Quite well.'

It seemed to reassure the anxious inquirer.  He clasped his hands
and, looking upwards with a pious joy, silently expressed his
gratitude.  He then looked round on the assembled group, and shook
his head reproachfully.  For such a man severely, quite severely.

'Oh, vermin!' said Mr Pecksniff.  'Oh, bloodsuckers!  Is it not
enough that you have embittered the existence of an individual
wholly unparalleled in the biographical records of amiable persons,
but must you now, even now, when he has made his election, and
reposed his trust in a Numble, but at least sincere and
disinterested relative; must you now, vermin and swarmers (I regret
to make use of these strong expressions, my dear sir, but there are
times when honest indignation will not be controlled), must you now,
vermin and swarmers (for I WILL repeat it), take advantage of his
unprotected state, assemble round him from all quarters, as wolves
and vultures, and other animals of the feathered tribe assemble
round--I will not say round carrion or a carcass, for Mr Chuzzlewit
is quite the contrary--but round their prey; their prey; to rifle and
despoil; gorging their voracious maws, and staining their offensive
beaks, with every description of carnivorous enjoyment!'

As he stopped to fetch his breath, he waved them off, in a solemn
manner, with his hand.

'Horde of unnatural plunderers and robbers!' he continued; 'leave
him! leave him, I say!  Begone!  Abscond!  You had better be off!
Wander over the face of the earth, young sirs, like vagabonds as you
are, and do not presume to remain in a spot which is hallowed by the
grey hairs of the patriarchal gentleman to whose tottering limbs I
have the honour to act as an unworthy, but I hope an unassuming,
prop and staff.  And you, my tender sir,' said Mr Pecksniff,
addressing himself in a tone of gentle remonstrance to the old man,
'how could you ever leave me, though even for this short period!  You
have absented yourself, I do not doubt, upon some act of kindness to
me; bless you for it; but you must not do it; you must not be so
venturesome.  I should really be angry with you if I could, my
friend!'

He advanced with outstretched arms to take the old man's hand.  But
he had not seen how the hand clasped and clutched the stick within
its grasp.  As he came smiling on, and got within his reach, old
Martin, with his burning indignation crowded into one vehement
burst, and flashing out of every line and wrinkle in his face, rose
up, and struck him down upon the ground.

With such a well-directed nervous blow, that down he went, as
heavily and true as if the charge of a Life-Guardsman had tumbled
him out of a saddle.  And whether he was stunned by the shock, or
only confused by the wonder and novelty of this warm reception, he
did not offer to get up again; but lay there, looking about him with
a disconcerted meekness in his face so enormously ridiculous, that
neither Mark Tapley nor John Westlock could repress a smile, though
both were actively interposing to prevent a repetition of the blow;
which the old man's gleaming eyes and vigorous attitude seemed to
render one of the most probable events in the world.

'Drag him away!  Take him out of my reach!' said Martin; 'or I can't
help it.  The strong restraint I have put upon my hands has been
enough to palsy them.  I am not master of myself while he is within
their range.  Drag him away!'

Seeing that he still did not rise, Mr Tapley, without any compromise
about it, actually did drag him away, and stick him up on the floor,
with his back against the opposite wall.

'Hear me, rascal!' said Mr Chuzzlewit.  'I have summoned you here to
witness your own work.  I have summoned you here to witness it,
because I know it will be gall and wormwood to you!  I have summoned
you here to witness it, because I know the sight of everybody here
must be a dagger in your mean, false heart!  What! do you know me as
I am, at last!'

Mr Pecksniff had cause to stare at him, for the triumph in his face
and speech and figure was a sight to stare at.

'Look there!' said the old man, pointing at him, and appealing to
the rest.  'Look there!  And then--come hither, my dear Martin--look
here! here! here!'  At every repetition of the word he pressed his
grandson closer to his breast.

'The passion I felt, Martin, when I dared not do this,' he said,
'was in the blow I struck just now.  Why did we ever part!  How could
we ever part!  How could you ever fly from me to him!'

Martin was about to answer, but he stopped him, and went on.

'The fault was mine no less than yours.  Mark has told me so today,
and I have known it long; though not so long as I might have done.
Mary, my love, come here.'

As she trembled and was very pale, he sat her in his own chair, and
stood beside it with her hand in his; and Martin standing by him.

'The curse of our house,' said the old man, looking kindly down upon
her, 'has been the love of self; has ever been the love of self.
How often have I said so, when I never knew that I had wrought it
upon others.'

He drew one hand through Martin's arm, and standing so, between
them, proceeded thus:

'You all know how I bred this orphan up, to tend me.  None of you
can know by what degrees I have come to regard her as a daughter;
for she has won upon me, by her self-forgetfulness, her tenderness,
her patience, all the goodness of her nature, when Heaven is her
witness that I took but little pains to draw it forth.  It blossomed
without cultivation, and it ripened without heat.  I cannot find it
in my heart to say that I am sorry for it now, or yonder fellow
might be holding up his head.'

Mr Pecksniff put his hand into his waistcoat, and slightly shook
that part of him to which allusion had been made; as if to signify
that it was still uppermost.

'There is a kind of selfishness,' said Martin--'I have learned it in
my own experience of my own breast--which is constantly upon the
watch for selfishness in others; and holding others at a distance,
by suspicions and distrusts, wonders why they don't approach, and
don't confide, and calls that selfishness in them.  Thus I once
doubted those about me--not without reason in the beginning--and
thus I once doubted you, Martin.'

'Not without reason,' Martin answered, 'either.'

'Listen, hypocrite!  Listen, smooth-tongued, servile, crawling
knave!' said Martin.  'Listen, you shallow dog.  What!  When I was
seeking him, you had already spread your nets; you were already
fishing for him, were ye?  When I lay ill in this good woman's house
and your meek spirit pleaded for my grandson, you had already caught
him, had ye?  Counting on the restoration of the love you knew I
bore him, you designed him for one of your two daughters did ye?  Or
failing that, you traded in him as a speculation which at any rate
should blind me with the lustre of your charity, and found a claim
upon me!  Why, even then I knew you, and I told you so.  Did I tell
you that I knew you, even then?'

'I am not angry, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, softly.  'I can bear a
great deal from you.  I will never contradict you, Mr Chuzzlewit.'

'Observe!' said Martin, looking round.  'I put myself in that man's
hands on terms as mean and base, and as degrading to himself, as I
could render them in words.  I stated them at length to him, before
his own children, syllable by syllable, as coarsely as I could, and
with as much offence, and with as plain an exposition of my
contempt, as words--not looks and manner merely--could convey.  If I
had only called the angry blood into his face, I would have wavered
in my purpose.  If I had only stung him into being a man for a
minute I would have abandoned it.  If he had offered me one word of
remonstrance, in favour of the grandson whom he supposed I had
disinherited; if he had pleaded with me, though never so faintly,
against my appeal to him to abandon him to misery and cast him from
his house; I think I could have borne with him for ever afterwards.
But not a word, not a word.  Pandering to the worst of human
passions was the office of his nature; and faithfully he did his
work!'

'I am not angry,' observed Mr Pecksniff.  'I am hurt, Mr Chuzzlewit;
wounded in my feelings; but I am not angry, my good sir.'

Mr Chuzzlewit resumed.

'Once resolved to try him, I was resolute to pursue the trial to the
end; but while I was bent on fathoming the depth of his duplicity, I
made a sacred compact with myself that I would give him credit on
the other side for any latent spark of goodness, honour,
forbearance--any virtue--that might glimmer in him.  For first to
last there has been no such thing.  Not once.  He cannot say I have
not given him opportunity.  He cannot say I have ever led him on.
He cannot say I have not left him freely to himself in all things;
or that I have not been a passive instrument in his hands, which he
might have used for good as easily as evil.  Or if he can, he Lies!
And that's his nature, too.'

'Mr Chuzzlewit,' interrupted Pecksniff, shedding tears.  'I am not
angry, sir.  I cannot be angry with you.  But did you never, my dear
sir, express a desire that the unnatural young man who by his wicked
arts has estranged your good opinion from me, for the time being;
only for the time being; that your grandson, Mr Chuzzlewit, should
be dismissed my house?  Recollect yourself, my Christian friend.'

'I have said so, have I not?' retorted the old man, sternly.  'I
could not tell how far your specious hypocrisy had deceived him,
knave; and knew no better way of opening his eyes than by presenting
you before him in your own servile character.  Yes.  I did express
that desire.  And you leaped to meet it; and you met it; and turning
in an instant on the hand you had licked and beslavered, as only
such hounds can, you strengthened, and confirmed, and justified me
in my scheme.'

Mr Pecksniff made a bow; a submissive, not to say a grovelling and
an abject bow.  If he had been complimented on his practice of the
loftiest virtues, he never could have bowed as he bowed then.

'The wretched man who has been murdered,' Mr Chuzzlewit went on to
say; 'then passing by the name of--'

'Tigg,' suggested Mark.

'Of Tigg; brought begging messages to me on behalf of a friend of
his, and an unworthy relative of mine; and finding him a man well
enough suited to my purpose, I employed him to glean some news of
you, Martin, for me.  It was from him I learned that you had taken
up your abode with yonder fellow.  It was he, who meeting you here
in town, one evening--you remember where?'

'At the pawnbroker's shop,' said Martin.

'Yes; watched you to your lodging, and enabled me to send you a
bank-note.'

'I little thought,' said Martin, greatly moved, 'that it had come
from you; I little thought that you were interested in my fate.  If
I had--'

'If you had,' returned the old man, sorrowfully, 'you would have
shown less knowledge of me as I seemed to be, and as I really was.
I hoped to bring you back, Martin, penitent and humbled.  I hoped to
distress you into coming back to me.  Much as I loved you, I had
that to acknowledge which I could not reconcile it to myself to avow,
then, unless you made submission to me first.  Thus it was I lost
you.  If I have had, indirectly, any act or part in the fate of that
unhappy man, by putting means, however small, within his reach,
Heaven forgive me!  I might have known, perhaps, that he would misuse
money; that it was ill-bestowed upon him; and that sown by his hands
it could engender mischief only.  But I never thought of him at that
time as having the disposition or ability to be a serious impostor,
or otherwise than as a thoughtless, idle-humoured, dissipated
spendthrift, sinning more against himself than others, and
frequenting low haunts and indulging vicious tastes, to his own ruin
only.'

'Beggin' your pardon, sir,' said Mr Tapley, who had Mrs Lupin on his
arm by this time, quite agreeably; 'if I may make so bold as say so,
my opinion is, as you was quite correct, and that he turned out
perfectly nat'ral for all that.  There's surprisin' number of men
sir, who as long as they've only got their own shoes and stockings
to depend upon, will walk down hill, along the gutters quiet enough
and by themselves, and not do much harm.  But set any on 'em up with
a coach and horses, sir; and it's wonderful what a knowledge of
drivin' he'll show, and how he'll fill his wehicle with passengers,
and start off in the middle of the road, neck or nothing, to the
Devil!  Bless your heart, sir, there's ever so many Tiggs a-passin'
this here Temple-gate any hour in the day, that only want a chance
to turn out full-blown Montagues every one!'

'Your ignorance, as you call it, Mark,' said Mr Chuzzlewit, 'is
wiser than some men's enlightenment, and mine among them.  You are
right; not for the first time to-day.  Now hear me out, my dears.
And hear me, you, who, if what I have been told be accurately stated,
are Bankrupt in pocket no less than in good name!  And when you have
heard me, leave this place, and poison my sight no more!'

Mr Pecksniff laid his hand upon his breast, and bowed again.

'The penance I have done in this house,' said Mr Chuzzlewit, 'has
earned this reflection with it constantly, above all others.  That
if it had pleased Heaven to visit such infirmity on my old age as
really had reduced me to the state in which I feigned to be, I
should have brought its misery upon myself.  Oh, you whose wealth,
like mine, has been a source of continual unhappiness, leading you
to distrust the nearest and dearest, and to dig yourself a living
grave of suspicion and reserve; take heed that, having cast off all
whom you might have bound to you, and tenderly, you do not become in
your decay the instrument of such a man as this, and waken in
another world to the knowledge of such wrong as would embitter
Heaven itself, if wrong or you could ever reach it!'

And then he told them how he had sometimes thought, in the
beginning, that love might grow up between Mary and Martin; and how
he had pleased his fancy with the picture of observing it when it
was new, and taking them to task, apart, in counterfeited doubt, and
then confessing to them that it had been an object dear to his
heart; and by his sympathy with them, and generous provision for
their young fortunes, establishing a claim on their affection and
regard which nothing should wither, and which should surround his
old age with means of happiness.  How in the first dawn of this
design, and when the pleasure of such a scheme for the happiness of
others was new and indistinct within him, Martin had come to tell
him that he had already chosen for himself; knowing that he, the old
man, had some faint project on that head, but ignorant whom it
concerned.  How it was little comfort to him to know that Martin had
chosen Her, because the grace of his design was lost, and because
finding that she had returned his love, he tortured himself with the
reflection that they, so young, to whom he had been so kind a
benefactor, were already like the world, and bent on their own
selfish, stealthy ends.  How in the bitterness of this impression,
and of his past experience, he had reproached Martin so harshly
(forgetting that he had never invited his confidence on such a
point, and confounding what he had meant to do with what he had
done), that high words sprung up between them, and they separated in
wrath.  How he loved him still, and hoped he would return.  How on
the night of his illness at the Dragon, he had secretly written
tenderly of him, and made him his heir, and sanctioned his marriage
with Mary; and how, after his interview with Mr Pecksniff, he had
distrusted him again, and burnt the paper to ashes, and had lain
down in his bed distracted by suspicions, doubts, and regrets.

And then he told them how, resolved to probe this Pecksniff, and to
prove the constancy and truth of Mary (to himself no less than
Martin), he had conceived and entered on his plan; and how, beneath
her gentleness and patience, he had softened more and more; still
more and more beneath the goodness and simplicity, the honour and
the manly faith of Tom.  And when he spoke of Tom, he said God bless
him; and the tears were in his eyes; for he said that Tom,
mistrusted and disliked by him at first, had come like summer rain
upon his heart; and had disposed it to believe in better things.
And Martin took him by the hand, and Mary too, and John, his old
friend, stoutly too; and Mark, and Mrs Lupin, and his sister, little
Ruth.  And peace of mind, deep, tranquil peace of mind, was in Tom's
heart.

The old man then related how nobly Mr Pecksniff had performed the
duty in which he stood indebted to society, in the matter of Tom's
dismissal; and how, having often heard disparagement of Mr Westlock
from Pecksniffian lips, and knowing him to be a friend to Tom, he had
used, through his confidential agent and solicitor, that little
artifice which had kept him in readiness to receive his unknown
friend in London.  And he called on Mr Pecksniff (by the name of
Scoundrel) to remember that there again he had not trapped him to do
evil, but that he had done it of his own free will and agency; nay,
that he had cautioned him against it.  And once again he called on
Mr Pecksniff (by the name of Hang-dog) to remember that when Martin
coming home at last, an altered man, had sued for the forgiveness
which awaited him, he, Pecksniff, had rejected him in language of
his own, and had remorsely stepped in between him and the least
touch of natural tenderness.  'For which,' said the old man, 'if the
bending of my finger would remove a halter from your neck, I
wouldn't bend it!'

'Martin,' he added, 'your rival has not been a dangerous one, but
Mrs Lupin here has played duenna for some weeks; not so much to
watch your love as to watch her lover.  For that Ghoul'--his
fertility in finding names for Mr Pecksniff was astonishing--'would
have crawled into her daily walks otherwise, and polluted the fresh
air.  What's this?  Her hand is trembling strangely.  See if you can
hold it.'

Hold it!  If he clasped it half as tightly as he did her waist.
Well, well!

But it was good in him that even then, in his high fortune and
happiness, with her lips nearly printed on his own, and her proud
young beauty in his close embrace, he had a hand still left to
stretch out to Tom Pinch.

'Oh, Tom!  Dear Tom!  I saw you, accidentally, coming here.  Forgive
me!'

'Forgive!' cried Tom.  'I'll never forgive you as long as I live,
Martin, if you say another syllable about it.  Joy to you both!  Joy,
my dear fellow, fifty thousand times.'

Joy!  There is not a blessing on earth that Tom did not wish them.
There is not a blessing on earth that Tom would not have bestowed
upon them, if he could.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Mr Tapley, stepping forward, 'but yow
was mentionin', just now, a lady of the name of Lupin, sir.'

'I was,' returned old Martin

'Yes, sir.  It's a pretty name, sir?'

'A very good name,' said Martin.

'It seems a'most a pity to change such a name into Tapley.  Don't
it, sir?' said Mark.

'That depends upon the lady.  What is HER opinion?'

'Why, sir,' said Mr Tapley, retiring, with a bow, towards the buxom
hostess, 'her opinion is as the name ain't a change for the better,
but the indiwidual may be, and, therefore, if nobody ain't
acquainted with no jest cause or impediment, et cetrer, the Blue
Dragon will be con-werted into the Jolly Tapley.  A sign of my own
inwention, sir.  Wery new, conwivial, and expressive!'

The whole of these proceedings were so agreeable to Mr Pecksniff
that he stood with his eyes fixed upon the floor and his hands
clasping one another alternately, as if a host of penal sentences
were being passed upon him.  Not only did his figure appear to have
shrunk, but his discomfiture seemed to have extended itself even to
his dress.  His clothes seemed to have grown shabbier, his linen to
have turned yellow, his hair to have become lank and frowsy; his
very boots looked villanous and dim, as if their gloss had departed
with his own.

Feeling, rather than seeing, that the old man now pointed to the
door, he raised his eyes, picked up his hat, and thus addressed him:

'Mr Chuzzlewit, sir! you have partaken of my hospitality.'

'And paid for it,' he observed.

'Thank you.  That savours,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking out his
pocket-handkerchief, 'of your old familiar frankness.  You have paid
for it.  I was about to make the remark.  You have deceived me, sir.
Thank you again.  I am glad of it.  To see you in the possession of
your health and faculties on any terms, is, in itself, a sufficient
recompense.  To have been deceived implies a trusting nature.  Mine
is a trusting nature.  I am thankful for it.  I would rather have a
trusting nature, do you know, sir, than a doubting one!'

Here Mr Pecksniff, with a sad smile, bowed, and wiped his eyes.

'There is hardly any person present, Mr Chuzzlewit,' said Pecksniff,
'by whom I have not been deceived.  I have forgiven those persons on
the spot.  That was my duty; and, of course, I have done it.
Whether it was worthy of you to partake of my hospitality, and to
act the part you did act in my house, that, sir, is a question which
I leave to your own conscience.  And your conscience does not acquit
you.  No, sir, no!'

Pronouncing these last words in a loud and solemn voice, Mr
Pecksniff was not so absolutely lost in his own fervour as to be
unmindful of the expediency of getting a little nearer to the door.

'I have been struck this day,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'with a walking
stick (which I have every reason to believe has knobs upon it), on
that delicate and exquisite portion of the human anatomy--the brain.
Several blows have been inflicted, sir, without a walking-stick,
upon that tenderer portion of my frame--my heart.  You have
mentioned, sir, my being bankrupt in my purse.  Yes, sir, I am.  By
an unfortunate speculation, combined with treachery, I find myself
reduced to poverty; at a time, sir, when the child of my bosom is
widowed, and affliction and disgrace are in my family.'

Here Mr Pecksniff wiped his eyes again, and gave himself two or
three little knocks upon the breast, as if he were answering two or
three other little knocks from within, given by the tinkling hammer
of his conscience, to express 'Cheer up, my boy!'

'I know the human mind, although I trust it.  That is my weakness.
Do I not know, sir'--here he became exceedingly plaintive and was
observed to glance towards Tom Pinch--'that my misfortunes bring
this treatment on me?  Do I not know, sir, that but for them I never
should have heard what I have heard to-day?  Do I not know that in
the silence and the solitude of night, a little voice will whisper
in your ear, Mr Chuzzlewit, "This was not well.  This was not well,
sir!"  Think of this, sir (if you will have the goodness), remote
from the impulses of passion, and apart from the specialities, if I
may use that strong remark, of prejudice.  And if you ever
contemplate the silent tomb, sir, which you will excuse me for
entertaining some doubt of your doing, after the conduct into which
you have allowed yourself to be betrayed this day; if you ever
contemplate the silent tomb sir, think of me.  If you find yourself
approaching to the silent tomb, sir, think of me.  If you should wish
to have anything inscribed upon your silent tomb, sir, let it be,
that I--ah, my remorseful sir! that I--the humble individual who has
now the honour of reproaching you, forgave you.  That I forgave you
when my injuries were fresh, and when my bosom was newly wrung.  It
may be bitterness to you to hear it now, sir, but you will live to
seek a consolation in it.  May you find a consolation in it when you
want it, sir!  Good morning!'

With this sublime address, Mr Pecksniff departed.  But the effect of
his departure was much impaired by his being immediately afterwards
run against, and nearly knocked down, by a monstrously excited
little man in velveteen shorts and a very tall hat; who came
bursting up the stairs, and straight into the chambers of Mr
Chuzzlewit, as if he were deranged.

'Is there anybody here that knows him?' cried the little man.  'Is
there anybody here that knows him?  Oh, my stars, is there anybody
here that knows him?'

They looked at each other for an explanation; but nobody knew
anything more than that here was an excited little man with a very
tall hat on, running in and out of the room as hard as he could go;
making his single pair of bright blue stockings appear at least a
dozen; and constantly repeating in a shrill voice, 'IS there anybody
here that knows him?'

'If your brains is not turned topjy turjey, Mr Sweedlepipes!'
exclaimed another voice, 'hold that there nige of yourn, I beg you,
sir.'

At the same time Mrs Gamp was seen in the doorway; out of breath
from coming up so many stairs, and panting fearfully; but dropping
curtseys to the last.

'Excuge the weakness of the man,' said Mrs Gamp, eyeing Mr
Sweedlepipe with great indignation; 'and well I might expect it, as
I should have know'd, and wishin' he was drownded in the Thames
afore I had brought him here, which not a blessed hour ago he nearly
shaved the noge off from the father of as lovely a family as ever,
Mr Chuzzlewit, was born three sets of twins, and would have done it,
only he see it a-goin' in the glass, and dodged the rager.  And
never, Mr Sweedlepipes, I do assure you, sir, did I so well know
what a misfortun it was to be acquainted with you, as now I do,
which so I say, sir, and I don't deceive you!'

'I ask your pardon, ladies and gentlemen all,' cried the little
barber, taking off his hat, 'and yours too, Mrs Gamp.  But--but,' he
added this half laughing and half crying, 'IS there anybody here
that knows him?'

As the barber said these words, a something in top-boots, with its
head bandaged up, staggered into the room, and began going round and
round and round, apparently under the impression that it was walking
straight forward.

'Look at him!' cried the excited little barber.  'Here he is!
That'll soon wear off, and then he'll be all right again.  He's no
more dead than I am.  He's all alive and hearty.  Aint you, Bailey?'

'R--r--reether so, Poll!' replied that gentleman.

'Look here!' cried the little barber, laughing and crying in the
same breath.  'When I steady him he comes all right.  There!  He's
all right now.  Nothing's the matter with him now, except that he's
a little shook and rather giddy; is there, Bailey?'

'R--r--reether shook, Poll--reether so!' said Mr Bailey.  'What, my
lovely Sairey!  There you air!'

'What a boy he is!' cried the tender-hearted Poll, actually sobbing
over him.  'I never see sech a boy!  It's all his fun.  He's full of
it.  He shall go into the business along with me.  I am determined
he shall.  We'll make it Sweedlepipe and Bailey.  He shall have the
sporting branch (what a one he'll be for the matches!) and me the
shavin'.  I'll make over the birds to him as soon as ever he's well
enough.  He shall have the little bullfinch in the shop, and all.
He's sech a boy!  I ask your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, but I
thought there might be some one here that know'd him!'

Mrs Gamp had observed, not without jealousy and scorn, that a
favourable impression appeared to exist in behalf of Mr Sweedlepipe
and his young friend; and that she had fallen rather into the
background in consequence.  She now struggled to the front,
therefore, and stated her business.

'Which, Mr Chuzzlewit,' she said, 'is well beknown to Mrs Harris as
has one sweet infant (though she DO not wish it known) in her own
family by the mother's side, kep in spirits in a bottle; and that
sweet babe she see at Greenwich Fair, a-travelling in company with a
pink-eyed lady, Prooshan dwarf, and livin' skelinton, which judge
her feelings when the barrel organ played, and she was showed her own
dear sister's child, the same not bein' expected from the outside
picter, where it was painted quite contrairy in a livin' state, a
many sizes larger, and performing beautiful upon the Arp, which
never did that dear child know or do; since breathe it never did, to
speak on in this wale!  And Mrs Harris, Mr Chuzzlewit, has knowed me
many year, and can give you information that the lady which is
widdered can't do better and may do worse, than let me wait upon
her, which I hope to do.  Permittin' the sweet faces as I see afore
me.'

'Oh!' said Mr Chuzzlewit.  'Is that your business?  Was this good
person paid for the trouble we gave her?'

'I paid her, sir,' returned Mark Tapley; 'liberal.'

'The young man's words is true,' said Mrs Gamp, 'and thank you
kindly.'

'Then here we will close our acquaintance, Mrs Gamp,' retorted Mr
Chuzzlewit.  'And Mr Sweedlepipe--is that your name?'

'That is my name, sir,' replied Poll, accepting with a profusion of
gratitude, some chinking pieces which the old man slipped into his
hand.

'Mr Sweedlepipe, take as much care of your lady-lodger as you can,
and give her a word or two of good advice now and then.  Such,' said
old Martin, looking gravely at the astonished Mrs Gamp, 'as hinting
at the expediency of a little less liquor, and a little more
humanity, and a little less regard for herself, and a little more
regard for her patients, and perhaps a trifle of additional honesty.
Or when Mrs Gamp gets into trouble, Mr Sweedlepipe, it had better
not be at a time when I am near enough to the Old Bailey to
volunteer myself as a witness to her character.  Endeavour to
impress that upon her at your leisure, if you please.'

Mrs Gamp clasped her hands, turned up her eyes until they were quite
invisible, threw back her bonnet for the admission of fresh air to
her heated brow; and in the act of saying faintly--'Less liquor!--
Sairey Gamp--Bottle on the chimney-piece, and let me put my lips to
it, when I am so dispoged!'--fell into one of the walking swoons; in
which pitiable state she was conducted forth by Mr Sweedlepipe, who,
between his two patients, the swooning Mrs Gamp and the revolving
Bailey, had enough to do, poor fellow.

The old man looked about him, with a smile, until his eyes rested on
Tom Pinch's sister; when he smiled the more.

'We will all dine here together,' he said; 'and as you and Mary have
enough to talk of, Martin, you shall keep house for us until the
afternoon, with Mr and Mrs Tapley.  I must see your lodgings in the
meanwhile, Tom.'

Tom was quite delighted.  So was Ruth.  She would go with them.

'Thank you, my love,' said Mr Chuzzlewit.  'But I am afraid I must
take Tom a little out of the way, on business.  Suppose you go on
first, my dear?'

Pretty little Ruth was equally delighted to do that.

'But not alone,' said Martin, 'not alone.  Mr Westlock, I dare say,
will escort you.'

Why, of course he would: what else had Mr Westlock in his mind?  How
dull these old men are!

'You are sure you have no engagement?' he persisted.

Engagement!  As if he could have any engagement!

So they went off arm-in-arm.  When Tom and Mr Chuzzlewit went off
arm-in-arm a few minutes after them, the latter was still smiling;
and really, for a gentleman of his habits, in rather a knowing
manner.



CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

WHAT JOHN WESTLOCK SAID TO TOM PINCH'S SISTER; WHAT TOM PINCH'S
SISTER SAID TO JOHN WESTLOCK; WHAT TOM PINCH SAID TO BOTH OF THEM;
AND HOW THEY ALL PASSED THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY


Brilliantly the Temple Fountain sparkled in the sun, and laughingly
its liquid music played, and merrily the idle drops of water danced
and danced, and peeping out in sport among the trees, plunged
lightly down to hide themselves, as little Ruth and her companion
came toward it.

And why they came toward the Fountain at all is a mystery; for they
had no business there.  It was not in their way.  It was quite out
of their way.  They had no more to do with the Fountain, bless you,
than they had with--with Love, or any out-of-the-way thing of that
sort.

It was all very well for Tom and his sister to make appointments by
the Fountain, but that was quite another affair.  Because, of
course, when she had to wait a minute or two, it would have been
very awkward for her to have had to wait in any but a tolerably
quiet spot; but that was as quiet a spot, everything considered, as
they could choose.  But when she had John Westlock to take care of
her, and was going home with her arm in his (home being in a
different direction altogether), their coming anywhere near that
Fountain was quite extraordinary.

However, there they found themselves.  And another extraordinary
part of the matter was, that they seemed to have come there, by a
silent understanding.  Yet when they got there, they were a little
confused by being there, which was the strangest part of all;
because there is nothing naturally confusing in a Fountain.  We all
know that.

What a good old place it was! John said.  With quite an earnest
affection for it

'A pleasant place indeed,' said little Ruth.  'So shady!'

Oh wicked little Ruth!

They came to a stop when John began to praise it.  The day was
exquisite; and stopping at all, it was quite natural--nothing could
be more so--that they should glance down Garden Court; because
Garden Court ends in the Garden, and the Garden ends in the River,
and that glimpse is very bright and fresh and shining on a summer's
day.  Then, oh, little Ruth, why not look boldly at it!  Why fit that
tiny, precious, blessed little foot into the cracked corner of an
insensible old flagstone in the pavement; and be so very anxious to
adjust it to a nicety!

If the Fiery-faced matron in the crunched bonnet could have seen
them as they walked away, how many years' purchase might Fiery Face
have been disposed to take for her situation in Furnival's Inn as
laundress to Mr Westlock!

They went away, but not through London's streets!  Through some
enchanted city, where the pavements were of air; where all the rough
sounds of a stirring town were softened into gentle music; where
everything was happy; where there was no distance, and no time.
There were two good-tempered burly draymen letting down big butts of
beer into a cellar, somewhere; and when John helped her--almost
lifted her--the lightest, easiest, neatest thing you ever saw--
across the rope, they said he owed them a good turn for giving him
the chance.  Celestial draymen!

Green pastures in the summer tide, deep-littered straw yards in the
winter, no start of corn and clover, ever, to that noble horse who
WOULD dance on the pavement with a gig behind him, and who
frightened her, and made her clasp his arm with both hands (both
hands meeting one upon the another so endearingly!), and caused her
to implore him to take refuge in the pastry-cook's, and afterwards
to peep out at the door so shrinkingly; and then, looking at him
with those eyes, to ask him was he sure--now was he sure--they might
go safely on!  Oh for a string of rampant horses!  For a lion, for a
bear, for a mad bull, for anything to bring the little hands together
on his arm again!

They talked, of course.  They talked of Tom, and all these changes
and the attachment Mr Chuzzlewit had conceived for him, and the
bright prospects he had in such a friend, and a great deal more to
the same purpose.  The more they talked, the more afraid this
fluttering little Ruth became of any pause; and sooner than have a
pause she would say the same things over again; and if she hadn't
courage or presence of mind enough for that (to say the truth she
very seldom had), she was ten thousand times more charming and
irresistible than she had been before.

'Martin will be married very soon now, I suppose?' said John.

She supposed he would.  Never did a bewitching little woman suppose
anything in such a faint voice as Ruth supposed that.

But seeing that another of those alarming pauses was approaching,
she remarked that he would have a beautiful wife.  Didn't Mr
Westlock think so?

'Ye--yes,' said John, 'oh, yes.'

She feared he was rather hard to please, he spoke so coldly.

'Rather say already pleased,' said John.  'I have scarcely seen her.
I had no care to see her.  I had no eyes for HER, this morning.'

Oh, good gracious!

It was well they had reached their destination.  She never could
have gone any further.  It would have been impossible to walk in
such a tremble.

Tom had not come in.  They entered the triangular parlour together,
and alone.  Fiery Face, Fiery Face, how many years' purchase NOW!

She sat down on the little sofa, and untied her bonnet-strings.  He
sat down by her side, and very near her; very, very near her.  Oh
rapid, swelling, bursting little heart, you knew that it would come
to this, and hoped it would.  Why beat so wildly, heart!

'Dear Ruth!  Sweet Ruth!  If I had loved you less, I could have told
you that I loved you, long ago.  I have loved you from the first.
There never was a creature in the world more truly loved than you,
dear Ruth, by me!'

She clasped her little hands before her face.  The gushing tears of
joy, and pride, and hope, and innocent affection, would not be
restrained.  Fresh from her full young heart they came to answer
him.

'My dear love!  If this is--I almost dare to hope it is, now--not
painful or distressing to you, you make me happier than I can tell,
or you imagine.  Darling Ruth!  My own good, gentle, winning Ruth!  I
hope I know the value of your heart, I hope I know the worth of your
angel nature.  Let me try and show you that I do; and you will make
me happier, Ruth--'

'Not happier,' she sobbed, 'than you make me.  No one can be
happier, John, than you make me!'

Fiery Face, provide yourself!  The usual wages or the usual warning.
It's all over, Fiery Face.  We needn't trouble you any further.

The little hands could meet each other now, without a rampant horse
to urge them.  There was no occasion for lions, bears, or mad bulls.
It could all be done, and infinitely better, without their
assistance.  No burly drayman or big butts of beer, were wanted for
apologies.  No apology at all was wanted.  The soft light touch fell
coyly, but quite naturally, upon the lover's shoulder; the delicate
waist, the drooping head, the blushing cheek, the beautiful eyes,
the exquisite mouth itself, were all as natural as possible.  If all
the horses in Araby had run away at once, they couldn't have
improved upon it.

They soon began to talk of Tom again.

'I hope he will be glad to hear of it!' said John, with sparkling
eyes.

Ruth drew the little hands a little tighter when he said it, and
looked up seriously into his face.

'I am never to leave him, AM I, dear?  I could never leave Tom.  I
am sure you know that.'

'Do you think I would ask you?' he returned, with a--well!  Never
mind with what.

'I am sure you never would,' she answered, the bright tears standing
in her eyes.

'And I will swear it, Ruth, my darling, if you please.  Leave Tom!
That would be a strange beginning.  Leave Tom, dear!  If Tom and we
be not inseparable, and Tom (God bless him) have not all honour and
all love in our home, my little wife, may that home never be!  And
that's a strong oath, Ruth.'

Shall it be recorded how she thanked him?  Yes, it shall.  In all
simplicity and innocence and purity of heart, yet with a timid,
graceful, half-determined hesitation, she set a little rosy seal
upon the vow, whose colour was reflected in her face, and flashed up
to the braiding of her dark brown hair.

'Tom will be so happy, and so proud, and glad,' she said, clasping
her little hands.  'But so surprised!  I am sure he had never thought
of such a thing.'

Of course John asked her immediately--because you know they were in
that foolish state when great allowances must be made--when SHE had
begun to think of such a thing, and this made a little diversion in
their talk; a charming diversion to them, but not so interesting to
us; at the end of which, they came back to Tom again.

'Ah! dear Tom!' said Ruth.  'I suppose I ought to tell you
everything now.  I should have no secrets from you.  Should I, John,
love?'

It is of no use saying how that preposterous John answered her,
because he answered in a manner which is untranslatable on paper
though highly satisfactory in itself.  But what he conveyed was, No
no no, sweet Ruth; or something to that effect.

Then she told him Tom's great secret; not exactly saying how she had
found it out, but leaving him to understand it if he liked; and John
was sadly grieved to hear it, and was full of sympathy and sorrow.
But they would try, he said, only the more, on this account to make
him happy, and to beguile him with his favourite pursuits.  And
then, in all the confidence of such a time, he told her how he had a
capital opportunity of establishing himself in his old profession in
the country; and how he had been thinking, in the event of that
happiness coming upon him which had actually come--there was another
slight diversion here--how he had been thinking that it would afford
occupation to Tom, and enable them to live together in the easiest
manner, without any sense of dependence on Tom's part; and to be as
happy as the day was long.  And Ruth receiving this with joy, they
went on catering for Tom to that extent that they had already
purchased him a select library and built him an organ, on which he
was performing with the greatest satisfaction, when they heard him
knocking at the door.

Though she longed to tell him what had happened, poor little Ruth
was greatly agitated by his arrival; the more so because she knew
that Mr Chuzzlewit was with him.  So she said, all in a tremble:

'What shall I do, dear John!  I can't bear that he should hear it
from any one but me, and I could not tell him, unless we were
alone.'

'Do, my love,' said John, 'whatever is natural to you on the impulse
of the moment, and I am sure it will be right.'

He had hardly time to say thus much, and Ruth had hardly time to--
just to get a little farther off--upon the sofa, when Tom and Mr
Chuzzlewit came in.  Mr Chuzzlewit came first, and Tom was a few
seconds behind him.

Now Ruth had hastily resolved that she would beckon Tom upstairs
after a short time, and would tell him in his little bedroom.  But
when she saw his dear old face come in, her heart was so touched
that she ran into his arms, and laid her head down on his breast and
sobbed out, 'Bless me, Tom!  My dearest brother!'

Tom looked up, in surprise, and saw John Westlock close beside him,
holding out his hand.

'John!' cried Tom.  'John!'

'Dear Tom,' said his friend, 'give me your hand.  We are brothers,
Tom.'

Tom wrung it with all his force, embraced his sister fervently, and
put her in John Westlock's arms.

'Don't speak to me, John.  Heaven is very good to us.  I--'  Tom
could find no further utterance, but left the room; and Ruth went
after him.

And when they came back, which they did by-and-bye, she looked more
beautiful, and Tom more good and true (if that were possible) than
ever.  And though Tom could not speak upon the subject even now;
being yet too newly glad, he put both his hands in both of John's
with emphasis sufficient for the best speech ever spoken.

'I am glad you chose to-day,' said Mr Chuzzlewit to John; with the
same knowing smile as when they had left him.  'I thought you would.
I hoped Tom and I lingered behind a discreet time.  It's so long
since I had any practical knowledge of these subjects, that I have
been anxious, I assure you.'

'Your knowledge is still pretty accurate, sir,' returned John,
laughing, 'if it led you to foresee what would happen to-day.'

'Why, I am not sure, Mr Westlock,' said the old man, 'that any great
spirit of prophecy was needed, after seeing you and Ruth together.
Come hither, pretty one.  See what Tom and I purchased this morning,
while you were dealing in exchange with that young merchant there.'

The old man's way of seating her beside him, and humouring his voice
as if she were a child, was whimsical enough, but full of
tenderness, and not ill adapted, somehow, to little Ruth.

'See here!' he said, taking a case from his pocket, 'what a
beautiful necklace.  Ah!  How it glitters!  Earrings, too, and
bracelets, and a zone for your waist.  This set is yours, and Mary
has another like it.  Tom couldn't understand why I wanted two.
What a short-sighted Tom!  Earrings and bracelets, and a zone for
your waist!  Ah!  Beautiful!  Let us see how brave they look.
Ask Mr Westlock to clasp them on.'

It was the prettiest thing to see her holding out her round, white
arm; and John (oh deep, deep John!) pretending that the bracelet was
very hard to fasten; it was the prettiest thing to see her girding
on the precious little zone, and yet obliged to have assistance
because her fingers were in such terrible perplexity; it was the
prettiest thing to see her so confused and bashful, with the smiles
and blushes playing brightly on her face, like the sparkling light
upon the jewels; it was the prettiest thing that you would see, in
the common experiences of a twelvemonth, rely upon it.

'The set of jewels and the wearer are so well matched,' said the old
man, 'that I don't know which becomes the other most.  Mr Westlock
could tell me, I have no doubt, but I'll not ask him, for he is
bribed.  Health to wear them, my dear, and happiness to make you
forgetful of them, except as a remembrance from a loving friend!'

He patted her upon the cheek, and said to Tom:

'I must play the part of a father here, Tom, also.  There are not
many fathers who marry two such daughters on the same day; but we
will overlook the improbability for the gratification of an old
man's fancy.  I may claim that much indulgence,' he added, 'for I
have gratified few fancies enough in my life tending to the
happiness of others, Heaven knows!'

These various proceedings had occupied so much time, and they fell
into such a pleasant conversation now, that it was within a quarter
of an hour of the time appointed for dinner before any of them
thought about it.  A hackney-coach soon carried them to the Temple,
however; and there they found everything prepared for their
reception,

Mr Tapley having been furnished with unlimited credentials relative
to the ordering of dinner, had so exerted himself for the honour of
the party, that a prodigious banquet was served, under the joint
direction of himself and his Intended.  Mr Chuzzlewit would have had
them of the party, and Martin urgently seconded his wish, but Mark
could by no means be persuaded to sit down at table; observing, that
in having the honour of attending to their comforts, he felt
himself, indeed, the landlord of the Jolly Tapley, and could almost
delude himself into the belief that the entertainment was actually
being held under the Jolly Tapley's roof.

For the better encouragement of himself in this fable, Mr Tapley
took it upon him to issue divers general directions to the waiters
from the hotel, relative to the disposal of the dishes and so forth;
and as they were usually in direct opposition to all precedent, and
were always issued in his most facetious form of thought and speech,
they occasioned great merriment among those attendants; in which Mr
Tapley participated, with an infinite enjoyment of his own humour.
He likewise entertained them with short anecdotes of his travels
appropriate to the occasion; and now and then with some comic
passage or other between himself and Mrs Lupin; so that explosive
laughs were constantly issuing from the side-board, and from the
backs of chairs; and the head-waiter (who wore powder, and knee-
smalls, and was usually a grave man) got to be a bright scarlet in
the face, and broke his waistcoat-strings audibly.

Young Martin sat at the head of the table, and Tom Pinch at the
foot; and if there were a genial face at that board, it was Tom's.
They all took their tone from Tom.  Everybody drank to him,
everybody looked to him, everybody thought of him, everybody loved
him.  If he so much as laid down his knife and fork, somebody put
out a hand to shake with him.  Martin and Mary had taken him aside
before dinner, and spoken to him so heartily of the time to come,
laying such fervent stress upon the trust they had in his completion
of their felicity, by his society and closest friendship, that Tom
was positively moved to tears.  He couldn't bear it.  His heart was
full, he said, of happiness.  And so it was.  Tom spoke the honest
truth.  It was.  Large as thy heart was, dear Tom Pinch, it had no
room that day for anything but happiness and sympathy!

And there was Fips, old Fips of Austin Friars, present at the
dinner, and turning out to be the jolliest old dog that ever did
violence to his convivial sentiments by shutting himself up in a
dark office.  'Where is he?' said Fips, when he came in.  And then
he pounced on Tom, and told him that he wanted to relieve himself of
all his old constraint; and in the first place shook him by one
hand, and in the second place shook him by the other, and in the
third place nudged him in the waistcoat, and in the fourth place
said, 'How are you?' and in a great many other places did a great
many other things to show his friendliness and joy.  And he sang
songs, did Fips; and made speeches, did Fips; and knocked off his
wine pretty handsomely, did Fips; and in short, he showed himself a
perfect Trump, did Fips, in all respects.

But ah! the happiness of strolling home at night--obstinate little
Ruth, she wouldn't hear of riding!--as they had done on that dear
night, from Furnival's Inn!  The happiness of being able to talk
about it, and to confide their happiness to each other!  The
happiness of stating all their little plans to Tom, and seeing his
bright face grow brighter as they spoke!

When they reached home, Tom left John and his sister in the parlour,
and went upstairs into his own room, under pretence of seeking a
book.  And Tom actually winked to himself when he got upstairs; he
thought it such a deep thing to have done.

'They like to be by themselves, of course,' said Tom; 'and I came
away so naturally, that I have no doubt they are expecting me, every
moment, to return.  That's capital!'

But he had not sat reading very long, when he heard a tap at his
door.

'May I come in?' said John.

'Oh, surely!' Tom replied.

'Don't leave us, Tom.  Don't sit by yourself.  We want to make you
merry; not melancholy.'

'My dear friend,' said Tom, with a cheerful smile.

'Brother, Tom.  Brother.'

'My dear brother,' said Tom; 'there is no danger of my being
melancholy, how can I be melancholy, when I know that you and Ruth
are so blest in each other!  I think I can find my tongue tonight,
John,' he added, after a moment's pause.  'But I never can tell you
what unutterable joy this day has given me.  It would be unjust to
you to speak of your having chosen a portionless girl, for I feel
that you know her worth; I am sure you know her worth.  Nor will it
diminish in your estimation, John, which money might.'

'Which money would, Tom,' he returned.  'Her worth!  Oh, who could
see her here, and not love her!  Who could know her, Tom, and not
honour her!  Who could ever stand possessed of such a heart as hers,
and grow indifferent to the treasure!  Who could feel the rapture
that I feel to-day, and love as I love her, Tom, without knowing
something of her worth!  Your joy unutterable!  No, no, Tom.  It's
mine, it's mine.

'No, no, John,' said Tom.  'It's mine, it's mine.'

Their friendly contention was brought to a close by little Ruth
herself, who came peeping in at the door.  And oh, the look, the
glorious, half-proud, half-timid look she gave Tom, when her lover
drew her to his side!  As much as to say, 'Yes, indeed, Tom, he will
do it.  But then he has a right, you know.  Because I AM fond of
him, Tom.'

As to Tom, he was perfectly delighted.  He could have sat and looked
at them, just as they were, for hours.

'I have told Tom, love, as we agreed, that we are not going to
permit him to run away, and that we cannot possibly allow it.  The
loss of one person, and such a person as Tom, too, out of our small
household of three, is not to be endured; and so I have told him.
Whether he is considerate, or whether he is only selfish, I don't
know.  But he needn't be considerate, for he is not the least
restraint upon us.  Is he, dearest Ruth?'

Well!  He really did not seem to be any particular restraint upon
them.  Judging from what ensued.

Was it folly in Tom to be so pleased by their remembrance of him at
such a time?  Was their graceful love a folly, were their dear
caresses follies, was their lengthened parting folly?  Was it folly
in him to watch her window from the street, and rate its scantiest
gleam of light above all diamonds; folly in her to breathe his name
upon her knees, and pour out her pure heart before that Being from
whom such hearts and such affections come?

If these be follies, then Fiery Face go on and prosper!  If they be
not, then Fiery Face avaunt!  But set the crunched bonnet at some
other single gentleman, in any case, for one is lost to thee for
ever!



CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

GIVES THE AUTHOR GREAT CONCERN.  FOR IT IS THE LAST IN THE BOOK


Todger's was in high feather, and mighty preparations for a late
breakfast were astir in its commercial bowers.  The blissful morning
had arrived when Miss Pecksniff was to be united in holy matrimony,
to Augustus.

Miss Pecksniff was in a frame of mind equally becoming to herself
and the occasion.  She was full of clemency and conciliation.  She
had laid in several caldrons of live coals, and was prepared to
heap them on the heads of her enemies.  She bore no spite nor malice
in her heart.  Not the least.

Quarrels, Miss Pecksniff said, were dreadful things in families; and
though she never could forgive her dear papa, she was willing to
receive her other relations.  They had been separated, she observed,
too long.  It was enough to call down a judgment upon the family.
She believed the death of Jonas WAS a judgment on them for their
internal dissensions.  And Miss Pecksniff was confirmed in this
belief, by the lightness with which the visitation had fallen on
herself.

By way of doing sacrifice--not in triumph; not, of course, in
triumph, but in humiliation of spirit--this amiable young person
wrote, therefore, to her kinswoman of the strong mind, and informed
her that her nuptials would take place on such a day.  That she had
been much hurt by the unnatural conduct of herself and daughters,
and hoped they might not have suffered in their consciences.  That,
being desirous to forgive her enemies, and make her peace with the
world before entering into the most solemn of covenants with the
most devoted of men, she now held out the hand of friendship.  That
if the strong-minded women took that hand, in the temper in which it
was extended to her, she, Miss Pecksniff, did invite her to be
present at the ceremony of her marriage, and did furthermore invite
the three red-nosed spinsters, her daughters (but Miss Pecksniff did
not particularize their noses), to attend as bridesmaids.

The strong-minded women returned for answer, that herself and
daughters were, as regarded their consciences, in the enjoyment of
robust health, which she knew Miss Pecksniff would be glad to hear.
That she had received Miss Pecksniff's note with unalloyed delight,
because she never had attached the least importance to the paltry
and insignificant jealousies with which herself and circle had been
assailed; otherwise than as she had found them, in the
contemplation, a harmless source of innocent mirth.  That she would
joyfully attend Miss Pecksniff's bridal; and that her three dear
daughters would be happy to assist, on so interesting, and SO VERY
UNEXPECTED--which the strong-minded woman underlined--SO VERY
UNEXPECTED an occasion.

On the receipt of this gracious reply, Miss Pecksniff extended her
forgiveness and her invitations to Mr and Mrs Spottletoe; to Mr
George Chuzzlewit the bachelor cousin; to the solitary female who
usually had the toothache; and to the hairy young gentleman with
the outline of a face; surviving remnants of the party that had once
assembled in Mr Pecksniff's parlour.  After which Miss Pecksniff
remarked that there was a sweetness in doing our duty, which
neutralized the bitter in our cups.

The wedding guests had not yet assembled, and indeed it was so early
that Miss Pecksniff herself was in the act of dressing at her
leisure, when a carriage stopped near the Monument; and Mark,
dismounting from the rumble, assisted Mr Chuzzlewit to alight.  The
carriage remained in waiting; so did Mr Tapley.  Mr Chuzzlewit
betook himself to Todger's.

He was shown, by the degenerate successor of Mr Bailey, into the
dining-parlour; where--for his visit was expected--Mrs Todgers
immediately appeared.

'You are dressed, I see, for the wedding,' he said.

Mrs Todgers, who was greatly flurried by the preparations, replied
in the affirmative.

'It goes against my wishes to have it in progress just now, I assure
you, sir,' said Mrs Todgers; 'but Miss Pecksniff's mind was set upon
it, and it really is time that Miss Pecksniff was married.  That
cannot be denied, sir.'

'No,' said Mr Chuzzlewit, 'assuredly not.  Her sister takes no part
in the proceedings?'

'Oh, dear no, sir.  Poor thing!' said Mrs Todgers, shaking her
head, and dropping her voice.  'Since she has known the worst, she
has never left my room; the next room.'

'Is she prepared to see me?' he inquired.

'Quite prepared, sir.'

'Then let us lose no time.'

Mrs Todgers conducted him into the little back chamber commanding
the prospect of the cistern; and there, sadly different from when it
had first been her lodging, sat poor Merry, in mourning weeds.  The
room looked very dark and sorrowful; and so did she; but she had one
friend beside her, faithful to the last.  Old Chuffey.

When Mr Chuzzlewit sat down at her side, she took his hand and put
it to her lips.  She was in great grief.  He too was agitated; for
he had not seen her since their parting in the churchyard.

'I judged you hastily,' he said, in a low voice.  'I fear I judged
you cruelly.  Let me know that I have your forgiveness.'

She kissed his hand again; and retaining it in hers, thanked him in
a broken voice, for all his kindness to her since.

'Tom Pinch,' said Martin, 'has faithfully related to me all that you
desired him to convey; at a time when he deemed it very improbable
that he would ever have an opportunity of delivering your message.
Believe me, that if I ever deal again with an ill-advised and
unawakened nature, hiding the strength it thinks its weakness, I will
have long and merciful consideration for it.'

'You had for me; even for me,' she answered.  'I quite believe it.
I said the words you have repeated, when my distress was very sharp
and hard to bear; I say them now for others; but I cannot urge them
for myself.  You spoke to me after you had seen and watched me day
by day.  There was great consideration in that.  You might have
spoken, perhaps, more kindly; you might have tried to invite my
confidence by greater gentleness; but the end would have been the
same.'

He shook his head in doubt, and not without some inward self-
reproach.

'How can I hope,' she said, 'that your interposition would have
prevailed with me, when I know how obdurate I was!  I never thought
at all; dear Mr Chuzzlewit, I never thought at all; I had no
thought, no heart, no care to find one; at that time.  It has grown
out of my trouble.  I have felt it in my trouble.  I wouldn't recall
my trouble such as it is and has been--and it is light in comparison
with trials which hundreds of good people suffer every day, I know--
I wouldn't recall it to-morrow, if I could.  It has been my friend,
for without it no one could have changed me; nothing could have
changed me.  Do not mistrust me because of these tears; I cannot
help them.  I am grateful for it, in my soul.  Indeed I am!'

'Indeed she is!' said Mrs Todgers.  'I believe it, sir.'

'And so do I!' said Mr Chuzzlewit.  'Now, attend to me, my dear.
Your late husband's estate, if not wasted by the confession of a
large debt to the broken office (which document, being useless to
the runaways, has been sent over to England by them; not so much for
the sake of the creditors as for the gratification of their dislike
to him, whom they suppose to be still living), will be seized upon
by law; for it is not exempt, as I learn, from the claims of those
who have suffered by the fraud in which he was engaged.  Your
father's property was all, or nearly all, embarked in the same
transaction.  If there be any left, it will be seized on, in like
manner.  There is no home THERE.'

'I couldn't return to him,' she said, with an instinctive reference
to his having forced her marriage on.  'I could not return to him.'

'I know it,' Mr Chuzzlewit resumed; 'and I am here because I know
it.  Come with me!  From all who are about me, you are certain (I
have ascertained it) of a generous welcome.  But until your health
is re-established, and you are sufficiently composed to bear that
welcome, you shall have your abode in any quiet retreat of your own
choosing, near London; not so far removed but that this kind-hearted
lady may still visit you as often as she pleases.  You have suffered
much; but you are young, and have a brighter and a better future
stretching out before you.  Come with me.  Your sister is careless
of you, I know.  She hurries on and publishes her marriage, in a
spirit which (to say no more of it) is barely decent, is unsisterly,
and bad.  Leave the house before her guests arrive.  She means to
give you pain.  Spare her the offence, and come with me!'

Mrs Todgers, though most unwilling to part with her, added her
persuasions.  Even poor old Chuffey (of course included in the
project) added his.  She hurriedly attired herself, and was ready to
depart, when Miss Pecksniff dashed into the room.

Miss Pecksniff dashed in so suddenly, that she was placed in an
embarrassing position.  For though she had completed her bridal
toilette as to her head, on which she wore a bridal bonnet with
orange flowers, she had not completed it as to her skirts, which
displayed no choicer decoration than a dimity bedgown.  She had
dashed in, in fact, about half-way through, to console her sister,
in her affliction, with a sight of the aforesaid bonnet; and being
quite unconscious of the presence of a visitor, until she found Mr
Chuzzlewit standing face to face with her, her surprise was an
uncomfortable one.

'So, young lady!' said the old man, eyeing her with strong
disfavour.  'You are to be married to-day!'

'Yes, sir,' returned Miss Pecksniff, modestly.  'I am.  I--my dress
is rather--really, Mrs Todgers!'

'Your delicacy,' said old Martin, 'is troubled, I perceive.  I am
not surprised to find it so.  You have chosen the period of your
marriage unfortunately.'

'I beg your pardon, Mr Chuzzlewit,' retorted Cherry; very red and
angry in a moment; 'but if you have anything to say on that subject,
I must beg to refer you to Augustus.  You will scarcely think it
manly, I hope, to force an argument on me, when Augustus is at all
times ready to discuss it with you.  I have nothing to do with any
deceptions that may have been practiced on my parent,' said Miss
Pecksniff, pointedly; 'and as I wish to be on good terms with
everybody at such a time, I should have been glad if you would have
favoured us with your company at breakfast.  But I will not ask you
as it is; seeing that you have been prepossessed and set against me
in another quarter.  I hope I have my natural affections for another
quarter, and my natural pity for another quarter; but I cannot
always submit to be subservient to it, Mr Chuzzlewit.  That would be
a little too much.  I trust I have more respect for myself, as well
as for the man who claims me as his Bride.'

'Your sister, meeting--as I think; not as she says, for she has said
nothing about it--with little consideration from you, is going away
with me,' said Mr Chuzzlewit.

'I am very happy to find that she has some good fortune at last,'
returned Miss Pecksniff, tossing her head.  'I congratulate her, I
am sure.  I am not surprised that this event should be painful to
her--painful to her--but I can't help that, Mr Chuzzlewit.  It's
not my fault.'

'Come, Miss Pecksniff!' said the old man, quietly.  'I should like
to see a better parting between you.  I should like to see a better
parting on your side, in such circumstances.  It would make me your
friend.  You may want a friend one day or other.'

'Every relation of life, Mr Chuzzlewit, begging your pardon; and
every friend in life,' returned Miss Pecksniff, with dignity, 'is
now bound up and cemented in Augustus.  So long as Augustus is my
own, I cannot want a friend.  When you speak of friends, sir, I must
beg, once for all, to refer you to Augustus.  That is my impression
of the religious ceremony in which I am so soon to take a part at
that altar to which Augustus will conduct me.  I bear no malice at
any time, much less in a moment of triumph, towards any one; much
less towards my sister.  On the contrary, I congratulate her.  If
you didn't hear me say so, I am not to blame.  And as I owe it to
Augustus, to be punctual on an occasion when he may naturally be
supposed to be--to be impatient--really, Mrs Todgers!--I must beg
your leave, sir, to retire.'

 After these words the bridal bonnet disappeared; with as much state
as the dimity bedgown left in it.

Old Martin gave his arm to the younger sister without speaking; and
led her out.  Mrs Todgers, with her holiday garments fluttering in
the wind, accompanied them to the carriage, clung round Merry's neck
at parting, and ran back to her own dingy house, crying the whole
way.  She had a lean, lank body, Mrs Todgers, but a well-conditioned
soul within.  Perhaps the good Samaritan was lean and lank, and
found it hard to live.  Who knows!

Mr Chuzzlewit followed her so closely with his eyes, that, until she
had shut her own door, they did not encounter Mr Tapley's face.

'Why, Mark!' he said, as soon as he observed it, 'what's the
matter?'

'The wonderfulest ewent, sir!' returned Mark, pumping at his voice
in a most laborious manner, and hardly able to articulate with all
his efforts.  'A coincidence as never was equalled!  I'm blessed if
here ain't two old neighbours of ourn, sir!'

'What neighbours?' cried old Martin, looking out of window.
'Where?'

'I was a-walkin' up and down not five yards from this spot,' said Mr
Tapley, breathless, 'and they come upon me like their own ghosts, as
I thought they was!  It's the wonderfulest ewent that ever happened.
Bring a feather, somebody, and knock me down with it!'

'What do you mean!' exclaimed old Martin, quite as much excited by
the spectacle of Mark's excitement as that strange person was
himself.  'Neighbours, where?'

'Here, sir!' replied Mr Tapley.  'Here in the city of London!  Here
upon these very stones!  Here they are, sir!  Don't I know 'em?  Lord
love their welcome faces, don't I know 'em!'

With which ejaculations Mr Tapley not only pointed to a decent-
looking man and woman standing by, but commenced embracing them
alternately, over and over again, in Monument Yard.

'Neighbours, WHERE?  old Martin shouted; almost maddened by his
ineffectual efforts to get out at the coach-door.

'Neighbours in America!  Neighbours in Eden!' cried Mark.
'Neighbours in the swamp, neighbours in the bush, neighbours in the
fever.  Didn't she nurse us!  Didn't he help us!  Shouldn't we both
have died without 'em!  Haven't they come a-strugglin' back, without
a single child for their consolation!  And talk to me of neighbours!'

Away he went again, in a perfectly wild state, hugging them, and
skipping round them, and cutting in between them, as if he were
performing some frantic and outlandish dance.

Mr Chuzzlewit no sooner gathered who these people were, than he
burst open the coach-door somehow or other, and came tumbling out
among them; and as if the lunacy of Mr Tapley were contagious, he
immediately began to shake hands too, and exhibit every demonstration
of the liveliest joy.

'Get up, behind!' he said.  'Get up in the rumble.  Come along with
me!  Go you on the box, Mark.  Home!  Home!'

'Home!' cried Mr Tapley, seizing the old man's hand in a burst of
enthusiasm.  'Exactly my opinion, sir.  Home for ever!  Excuse the
liberty, sir, I can't help it.  Success to the Jolly Tapley!  There's
nothin' in the house they shan't have for the askin' for, except a
bill.  Home to be sure!  Hurrah!'

Home they rolled accordingly, when he had got the old man in again,
as fast as they could go; Mark abating nothing of his fervour by the
way, by allowing it to vent itself as unrestrainedly as if he had
been on Salisbury Plain.

And now the wedding party began to assemble at Todgers's.  Mr
Jinkins, the only boarder invited, was on the ground first.  He wore
a white favour in his button-hole, and a bran new extra super
double-milled blue saxony dress coat (that was its description in the
bill), with a variety of tortuous embellishments about the pockets,
invented by the artist to do honour to the day.  The miserable
Augustus no longer felt strongly even on the subject of Jinkins.  He
hadn't strength of mind enough to do it.  'Let him come!' he had
said, in answer to Miss Pecksniff, when she urged the point.  'Let
him come!  He has ever been my rock ahead through life.  'Tis meet he
should be there.  Ha, ha!  Oh, yes! let Jinkins come!'

Jinkins had come with all the pleasure in life, and there he was.
For some few minutes he had no companion but the breakfast, which
was set forth in the drawing-room, with unusual taste and ceremony.
But Mrs Todgers soon joined him; and the bachelor cousin, the hairy
young gentleman, and Mr and Mrs Spottletoe, arrived in quick
succession.

Mr Spottletoe honoured Jinkins with an encouraging bow.  'Glad to
know you, sir,' he said.  'Give you joy!'  Under the impression that
Jinkins was the happy man.

Mr Jinkins explained.  He was merely doing the honours for his
friend Moddle, who had ceased to reside in the house, and had not
yet arrived.

'Not arrived, sir!' exclaimed Spottletoe, in a great heat.

'Not yet,' said Mr Jinkins.

'Upon my soul!' cried Spottletoe.  'He begins well!  Upon my life and
honour this young man begins well!  But I should very much like to
know how it is that every one who comes into contact with this
family is guilty of some gross insult to it.  Death!  Not arrived
yet.  Not here to receive us!'

The nephew with the outline of a countenance, suggested that perhaps
he had ordered a new pair of boots, and they hadn't come home.

'Don't talk to me of Boots, sir!' retorted Spottletoe, with immense
indignation.  'He is bound to come here in his slippers then; he is
bound to come here barefoot.  Don't offer such a wretched and
evasive plea to me on behalf of your friend, as Boots, sir.'

'He is not MY friend,' said the nephew.  'I never saw him.'

'Very well, sir,' returned the fiery Spottletoe.  'Then don't talk
to me!'

The door was thrown open at this juncture, and Miss Pecksniff
entered, tottering, and supported by her three bridesmaids.  The
strong-minded woman brought up the rear; having waited outside until
now, for the purpose of spoiling the effect.

'How do you do, ma'am!' said Spottletoe to the strong-minded woman
in a tone of defiance.  'I believe you see Mrs Spottletoe, ma'am?'

The strong-minded woman with an air of great interest in Mrs
Spottletoe's health, regretted that she was not more easily seen.
Nature erring, in that lady's case, upon the slim side.

'Mrs Spottletoe is at least more easily seen than the bridegroom,
ma'am,' returned that lady's husband.  'That is, unless he has
confined his attentions to any particular part or branch of this
family, which would be quite in keeping with its usual proceedings.'

'If you allude to me, sir--' the strong-minded woman began.

'Pray,' interposed Miss Pecksniff, 'do not allow Augustus, at this
awful moment of his life and mine, to be the means of disturbing
that harmony which it is ever Augustus's and my wish to maintain.
Augustus has not been introduced to any of my relations now present.
He preferred not.'

'Why, then, I venture to assert,' cried Mr Spottletoe, 'that the man
who aspires to join this family, and "prefers not" to be introduced
to its members, is an impertinent Puppy.  That is my opinion of
HIM!'

The strong-minded woman remarked with great suavity, that she was
afraid he must be.  Her three daughters observed aloud that it was
'Shameful!'

'You do not know Augustus,' said Miss Pecksniff, tearfully, 'indeed
you do not know him.  Augustus is all mildness and humility.  Wait
till you see Augustus, and I am sure he will conciliate your
affections.'

'The question arises,' said Spottletoe, folding his arms: 'How long
we are to wait.  I am not accustomed to wait; that's the fact.  And
I want to know how long we are expected to wait.'

'Mrs Todgers!' said Charity, 'Mr Jinkins!  I am afraid there must be
some mistake.  I think Augustus must have gone straight to the
Altar!'

As such a thing was possible, and the church was close at hand, Mr
Jinkins ran off to see, accompanied by Mr George Chuzzlewit the
bachelor cousin, who preferred anything to the aggravation of
sitting near the breakfast, without being able to eat it.  But they
came back with no other tidings than a familiar message from the
clerk, importing that if they wanted to be married that morning they
had better look sharp, as the curate wasn't going to wait there all
day.

The bride was now alarmed; seriously alarmed.  Good Heavens, what
could have happened!  Augustus!  Dear Augustus!

Mr Jinkins volunteered to take a cab, and seek him at the newly-
furnished house.  The strong-minded woman administered comfort to
Miss Pecksniff.  'It was a specimen of what she had to expect.  It
would do her good.  It would dispel the romance of the affair.'  The
red-nosed daughters also administered the kindest comfort.  'Perhaps
he'd come,' they said.  The sketchy nephew hinted that he might have
fallen off a bridge.  The wrath of Mr Spottletoe resisted all the
entreaties of his wife.  Everybody spoke at once, and Miss
Pecksniff, with clasped hands, sought consolation everywhere and
found it nowhere, when Jinkins, having met the postman at the door,
came back with a letter, which he put into her hand.

Miss Pecksniff opened it, uttered a piercing shriek, threw it down
upon the ground, and fainted away.

They picked it up; and crowding round, and looking over one
another's shoulders, read, in the words and dashes following, this
communication:


'OFF GRAVESEND.

'CLIPPER SCHOONER, CUPID

'Wednesday night

'EVER INJURED MISS PECKSNIFF--Ere this reaches you, the undersigned
will be--if not a corpse--on the way to Van Dieman's Land.  Send
not in pursuit.  I never will be taken alive!

'The burden--300 tons per register--forgive, if in my distraction, I
allude to the ship--on my mind--has been truly dreadful.  Frequently
--when you have sought to soothe my brow with kisses--has self-
destruction flashed across me.  Frequently--incredible as it may
seem--have I abandoned the idea.

'I love another.  She is Another's.  Everything appears to be
somebody else's.  Nothing in the world is mine--not even my
Situation--which I have forfeited--by my rash conduct--in running
away.

'If you ever loved me, hear my last appeal!  The last appeal of a
miserable and blighted exile.  Forward the inclosed--it is the key
of my desk--to the office--by hand.  Please address to Bobbs and
Cholberry--I mean to Chobbs and Bolberry--but my mind is totally
unhinged.  I left a penknife--with a buckhorn handle--in your
work-box.  It will repay the messenger.  May it make him happier than
ever it did me!

'Oh, Miss Pecksniff, why didn't you leave me alone!  Was it not
cruel, CRUEL!  Oh, my goodness, have you not been a witness of my
feelings--have you not seen them flowing from my eyes--did you not,
yourself, reproach me with weeping more than usual on that dreadful
night when last we met--in that house--where I once was peaceful--
though blighted--in the society of Mrs Todgers!

'But it was written--in the Talmud--that you should involve yourself
in the inscrutable and gloomy Fate which it is my mission to
accomplish, and which wreathes itself--e'en now--about in temples.
I will not reproach, for I have wronged you.  May the Furniture make
some amends!

'Farewell!  Be the proud bride of a ducal coronet, and forget me!
Long may it be before you know the anguish with which I now
subscribe myself--amid the tempestuous howlings of the--sailors,

'Unalterably,

'Never yours,

'AUGUSTUS.'


They thought as little of Miss Pecksniff, while they greedily
perused this letter, as if she were the very last person on earth
whom it concerned.  But Miss Pecksniff really had fainted away.  The
bitterness of her mortification; the bitterness of having summoned
witnesses, and such witnesses, to behold it; the bitterness of
knowing that the strong-minded women and the red-nosed daughters
towered triumphant in this hour of their anticipated overthrow; was
too much to be borne.  Miss Pecksniff had fainted away in earnest.


What sounds are these that fall so grandly on the ear!  What
darkening room is this!

And that mild figure seated at an organ, who is he!  Ah Tom, dear
Tom, old friend!

Thy head is prematurely grey, though Time has passed thee and our
old association, Tom.  But, in those sounds with which it is thy
wont to bear the twilight company, the music of thy heart speaks
out--the story of thy life relates itself.

Thy life is tranquil, calm, and happy, Tom.  In the soft strain
which ever and again comes stealing back upon the ear, the memory of
thine old love may find a voice perhaps; but it is a pleasant,
softened, whispering memory, like that in which we sometimes hold
the dead, and does not pain or grieve thee, God be thanked.

Touch the notes lightly, Tom, as lightly as thou wilt, but never
will thine hand fall half so lightly on that Instrument as on the
head of thine old tyrant brought down very, very low; and never will
it make as hollow a response to any touch of thine, as he does
always.

For a drunken, begging, squalid, letter-writing man, called Pecksniff,
with a shrewish daughter, haunts thee, Tom; and when he makes
appeals to thee for cash, reminds thee that he built thy fortunes
better than his own; and when he spends it, entertains the alehouse
company with tales of thine ingratitude and his munificence towards
thee once upon a time; and then he shows his elbows worn in holes,
and puts his soleless shoes up on a bench, and begs his auditors
look there, while thou art comfortably housed and clothed.  All
known to thee, and yet all borne with, Tom!

So, with a smile upon thy face, thou passest gently to another
measure--to a quicker and more joyful one--and little feet are used
to dance about thee at the sound, and bright young eyes to glance up
into thine.  And there is one slight creature, Tom--her child; not
Ruth's--whom thine eyes follow in the romp and dance; who, wondering
sometimes to see thee look so thoughtful, runs to climb up on thy
knee, and put her cheek to thine; who loves thee, Tom, above the
rest, if that can be; and falling sick once, chose thee for her
nurse, and never knew impatience, Tom, when thou wert by her side.

Thou glidest, now, into a graver air; an air devoted to old friends
and bygone times; and in thy lingering touch upon the keys, and the
rich swelling of the mellow harmony, they rise before thee.  The
spirit of that old man dead, who delighted to anticipate thy wants,
and never ceased to honour thee, is there, among the rest;
repeating, with a face composed and calm, the words he said to thee
upon his bed, and blessing thee!

And coming from a garden, Tom, bestrewn with flowers by children's
hands, thy sister, little Ruth, as light of foot and heart as in old
days, sits down beside thee.  From the Present, and the Past, with
which she is so tenderly entwined in all thy thoughts, thy strain
soars onward to the Future.  As it resounds within thee and without,
the noble music, rolling round ye both, shuts out the grosser
prospect of an earthly parting, and uplifts ye both to Heaven!





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Martin Chuzzlewit by Dickens