Kitabı oku: «Martin Chuzzlewit», sayfa 13

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!’