Page:Martin Chuzzlewit.djvu/221

Rh "Why then, sir," said Mark, "I made bold to foller; and as I told 'em down stairs 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 a'nt," 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 am sorry for you," said Martin.

"—To attend upon a single gentleman," resumed Mark. "If from the country, the more desirable. Make-shifts 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's 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 that there's a screw loose in your affairs. I know'd well enough the first