“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 daytime; 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
