Page:Martin Chuzzlewit.djvu/95

Rh 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 every-day 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 here 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?"

Ay, 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 recognise 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,