Page:Martin Chuzzlewit.djvu/189

Rh 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 -+