treatment, and for all who practise it," said
Tom. " Why, how can you, as an honest gen-
tleman, profess displeasure or surprise, at your
daughter telling my sister she is something beg-
garly and humble, when you are for ever telling
her the same thing yourself in fifty plain, out-
speaking ways, though not in words ; and when
your veiy porter and footman make the same
delicate announcement to all comers ? As to
your suspicion and distrust of her : even of her
word : if she is not above their reach, you have
no right to employ her."

" $0 right ! " cried the brass-and-copper
founder.

" Distinctly not," Tom answered. " If you
imagine that the payment of an annual sum of
money gives it to you, you immensely exag-
gerate its power and value. Your money is the
least part of your bargain in such a case. You
may be punctual in that to half a second on the
clock, and yet be Bankrupt. I have nothing
more to say," said Tom, much flushed and flus-
tered, now that it was over, " except to crave
permission to stand in your garden until my
sister is ready."

Not waiting to obtain it, Tom walked out.

Before he had well begun to cool, his sister
joined him. She was crying; and Tom could



MAR TIN CHUZZLE J J 'IT



not bear that any one about the house should
see her doing that.

" They will think you are sorry to go," said
Tom. " You are not sorry to go?"

" No, Tom, no. I have been anxious to go
for a very long time."

" Very well, then ! Don't cry !" said Tom.

" I am so sorry for you, dear," sobbed Tom's
sister.

" But you ought to be glad on my account,"
said Tom. " I shall be twice as ha th you

for a companion. Hold up your head. There !
Nov,- we go out as we ought. Not blustering,
you know, but firm and confident in ourselves."

The idea of Tom and his sister blustering,
under any circumstances, was a splendid ab-
surdity. But Tom was very far from feeling
it to be so, in his excitement ; and passed out
at the gate with such severe determination
written in his face that the porter hardly knew
him again.

It was not until they had walked some short
distance, and Tom found himself getting cooler
and more collected, that he was quite restored
to himself by an inquiry from his sister, who
said in her pleasant little voice :

" Where are we going, Tom ? "

" Dear me ! " said Tom, stopping, " I don't
know."

" Don't you— don't you live anywhere, dear ? "
asked Tom's sister, looking wistfully in his face.

" No," said Tom. " Not at present. Not
exactly. I only arrived this morning. We must
have some lodgings."

He didn't tell her that he had been going to
stay with his friend John, and could on no ac-
count think of billeting two inmates upon him,
of whom one was a young lady ; for he knew
that would make her uncomfortable, and would
cause her to regard herself as being an inconve-
nience to him. Neither did he like to leave her
anywhere while he called on John and told him
of this change in his arrangements ; for he
was delicate of seeming to encroach upon the
generous and hospitable nature of his friend.
Therefore he said again, "We must have some
lodgings, of course ; " and said it as stoutly as if
he had been a perfect Directory and Guide-
Book to all the lodgings in London.

" Where shall we go and look for 'em ?" said
Tom. " What do you think ? "

Tom's sister was not much wiser on such a
topic than he was. So she squeezed her little
purse into his coat-pocket, and folding the little
hand with which she did so on the other little
hand with which she clasped his arm, said
nothing.



" It ought to be a cheap neighbourhood,''
said Tom, " and not too far from London. Let
me see. Should you think Islington a good
place?"

'• I should think it was an excellent place,
Tom."

" It used to be called Merry Islington, once
upon a time," said Tom. " Perhaps it's merry
now; if so, it's all the better. Eh?"

" If it's not too dear," said Tom's sister.

" Of course, if it's not too dear," assented
Tom. " Well, where is Islington ? We can't do
better than go there, I should think. Let's go."

Tom's sister would have gone anywhere with
him ; so they walked off, arm in arm, as com-
fortably as possible. Finding, presently, that
Islington was not in that neighbourhood, Tom
made inquiries respecting a public conveyance
thither : which they soon obtained. As they
rode along they were very full of conversation
indeed, Tom relating what had happened to
him, and Tom's sister relating what had hap-
pened to her, and both finding a great deal
more to say than time to say it in : for they had
only just begun to talk, in comparison with what
they had to tell each other, when they reached
their journey's end.

" Now," said Tom, " we must first look out
for some very unpretending streets, and then
look out for bills in the windows."

So they walked off again, quite as happily as
if they had just stepped out of a snug little
house of their own, to look for lodgings' on
account of somebody else. Tom's simplicity was
unabated, Heaven knows ; but now that he had
somebody to rely upon him, he was stimulated
to rely a little more upon himself, and was, in
his own opinion, quite a desperate fellow.

After roaming up and down for hours, looking
at some scores of lodgings, they began to find
it rather fatiguing, especially as they saw none
which were at all adapted to their purpose. At
length, however, in a singular little old-fashioned
house, up a blind street, they discovered two
small bed-rooms and a triangular parlour, which
promised to suit them well enough. Their de-
siring to take possession immediately was a sus-
picious circumstance, but even this was sur-
mounted by the payment of their first week's
rent, and a reference to John Westlock, Esquire,
Furnival's Inn, High Holborn.

Ah ! It was a goodly sight, when this im-
portant point was settled, to behold Tom and
his sister trotting round to the baker's, and the
butcher's, and the grocer's, with a kind of dread-
ful delight in the unaccustomed cares of house-
keeping; taking secret counsel together as they



AND THEY SET UP HOUSEKEEPING.



293



gave their small orders, and distracted by the
least suggestion on the part of the shopkeeper !
When they got back to the triangular parlour,
and Tom's sister bustling to and fro, busy about
a thousand pleasant nothings, stopped every now
ami then to give old Tom a kiss, or smile \i\ on
him, Tom rubbed his hands, as if all Islington
were his.

It was late in the afternoon now, though, and
high time for Tom to keep his appointment.
So, after agreeing with his sister that in consi-
deration of not having dined, they would venture
on the extravagance of chops for supper, at nine,
he walked out again to narrate these marvellous
occurrences to John.

" I am quite a family man all at once,"
thought Tom. " If I can only get something
to do, how comfortable Ruth and I may be !
Ah, that if! But it's of no use to despond. I
can but do that, when I have tried everything
and failed ; and even then it won't serve me
much. Upon my word," thought Tom, quick-
ening his pace, " I don't know what John will
think has become of me. He'll begin to be
afraid I have strayed into one of those streets
where the countrymen are murdered ; and that
I have been made meat pies of, or some such
horrible thine:."




CHAPTER XXXVII.

TOM PINCH, GOING ASTRAY, FINDS THAT HE IS NOT
THE ONLY PERSON IN THAT PREDICAMENT. HE
RETALIATES UPON A FALLEN FOE.

OM'S evil genius did not lead him
into the dens of any of those pre-
parers of cannibalic pastry, who
are represented in many standard
country legends, as doing a lively
retail business in the Metropolis ; nor
did it mark him out as the prey of ring-
droppers, pea and thimble-riggers, duffers,
touters, or any of those bloodless sharpers,
who are, perhaps, a little better known to the
police. He fell into conversation with no
gentleman, who took him into a public house,
where there happened to be another gentleman,
who swore he had more money than any gentle-
man, and very soon proved he had more money
than one gentleman, by taking his away from
him : neither did he fall into any other of the
numerous man-traps which are set up, without
notice, in the public grounds of this city. But
he lost his way. He very soon did that ; and



in trying to find it again, he lost it more and
more.

Now, Tom, in his guileless distrust of London,
thought himself very knowing in coming to the
determination that he would not ask to be
directed to Furnival's Inn, if he could help it;
unless, indeed, he should happen to find himself
near the Mint, or the Bank of England ; in which
case, he would step in, and ask a civil question
or two, confiding in the perfect respectability of
the concern. So, on he went, looking up all the
streets he came near, and going up half of them ;
and thus, by dint of not being true to Goswell
Street, and filing off into Aldermanbury, and
bewildering himself in Barbican, and being con-
stant to the wrong point of the compass in
London Wall, and then getting himself crosswise
into Thames Street, by an instinct that would
have been marvellous if he had had the least
desire or reason to go there, he found himself,
at last, hard by the Monument

The Man in the Monument was quite as
mysterious a being to Tom as the Man in the
Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the
lonely creature who held himself aloof from all
mankind in that pillar like some old hermit, was
the very man of whom to ask his way. Cold he
might be ; little sympathy he had, perhaps, with
human passion — the column seemed too tall for
that; but if truth didn't live in the base of
the Monument, notwithstanding Pope's couplet
about the outside of it, where in London (Tom
thought) was she likely to be found !

Coming close below the pillar, it was a great
encouragement to Tom to find that the Man in
the Monument had simple tastes ; that stony
and artificial as his residence was, he still pre-
served some rustic recollections ; that he liked
plants, hung up bird-cages, was not wholly cut
oil from fresh groundsel, and kept young trees in
tubs. The Man in the Monument himself was
sitting outside the door — his own door : the
Monument door ; what a grand idea ! — and was
actually yawning, as if there were no Monument
to stop his mouth, and give him a perpetual
interest in his own existence.

Tom was advancing towards this remarkable
creature, to inquire the way to Furnival's Inn,
when two people came to see the Monument.
They were a gentleman and a lady; and the
gentleman said, "How much a-piece?"

The Man in the Monument replied, " A
Tanner."

It seemed a low expression, compared with
the Monument.

The gentleman put a shilling into his hand,
and the Man in the Monument opened a dark



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.



door. When the gentleman and lad]
passed out of view, he shut it again, and came
slowly back to his chair.

He sat down and laughed.

" They don't know what a many steps there
is," he said. " It's worth twice the money to
stop here. Oh, m;

The Man in the Monument was a Cynic ; a
worldly man ! Tom couldn't ask his way of
He was prepared to put no confidence in
hing he said.

Gracious!" cried a well-known voice
behind Mr. Pinch. " Why, to be sure it is !"

At the same time he was poked in the back
; larasol. Turning round to inquire into this
salute, he beheld the eldest daughter of his late
patron.

" Miss Pecksniff!" said Tom.

" Why, my goodness, Mr. Pinch ! " cried
Cherry. " What are you doing here?"

" I have rather wandered from my way," said
Tom. " I "

" I hope you have run away," said Charity.
" It would be quite spirited and proper if you
had, when my Papa so far forgets himself."

" I have left him," returned Tom. " But it
was perfectly understood on both sides. It was
not done clandestinely."

" Is' he married?" asked Cherry with a spas-
modic shake of her chin.

" No, not yet," said Tom, colouring : " to
tell you the truth, I don't think he is likely to
be, if — if Miss Graham is the object of his
passion."

"Tcha, Mr. Pinch!" cried Charity, with
sharp impatience, " you're very easily deceived.
You don't knOw the arts of which such a creature
is capable. Oh ! it's a wicked world."

"You are not married?" Tom hinted, to
divert the conversation.

"N — no!" said Cherry, tracing out one par-
ticular paving stone in Monument Yard with the
end of her parasol. " I — but really it's quite
impossible to explain. Won't you walk in?"

'â–  You live here, then?" said Tom.

" Yes," returned Miss Pecksniff, pointing with
her parasol to Todgers's: "I reside with this
lad}-, at present."

The great stress on the two last words sug-
gested to Tom that he was expected to say
something in reference to them. So he said :

" Only at present ! Are you going home
again, soon?"

'â–  No, Mr. Pinch," returned Charity. " No
thank you. No ! A mother-in-law who is
younger than — I mean to say, who is as nearly
as possible about the same age as one's self,



would not quite suit my spirit. Not qui
said Cherry, with a spiteful si

" I thought from your saying at present '* —
Tom i

" Really upon my word ! I had no idea you
would press me so very closely on the subject,
Mr. Pinch," said Charity, blushing, " or I should
not have been so foolish as to allude to — Oh
really ! — won't you walk in ?"

Tom mentioned, to excuse himself, that he
had an appointment in Furnival's Inn, and
that coming from Islington he had taken a {e\v
wrong turnings, and arrived at the Monument
instead. Miss Pecksniff simpered very much
when he asked her if she knew the way to Fur-
nival's Inn, and at length found courage to
reply :

" A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at
least who is not exactly a friend so much as
a sort of acquaintance — Oh, upon my word, I
hardly know what I say, Mr. Pinch ; you
mustn't suppose there is any engagement be-
tween us ; or at least if there is, that it is at
all a settled thing as yet — is going to Furnival's
Inn immediately, I believe upon a little business,
and I am sure he would be very glad to accom-
pany you, so as to prevent your going wrong
again. You had better walk in. You will very
likely find my sister Merry here," she said, with
a curious toss of her head, and anything but an
agreeable smile.

" Then, I think/I'll endeavour to find my way
alone," said Tom ; " for I fear she would not be
very glad to see me. That unfortunate occur-
rence, in relation to which you and I had some
amicable words together, in private, is not likely
to have impressed her with any friendly feeling
towards me. Though it really was not my
fault."

"She has never heard of that, you may
depend," said Cherry, gathering up the corners
of her mouth, and nodding at Tom. " I am far
from sure that she would bear you any mighty
ill v ill for it, if she had."

"You don't say so?" cried Tom, who was
really concerned by this insinuation.

" I say nothing," said Charity. " If I had
not already known what shocking things treachery
and deceit are in themselves, Mr. Pinch, I .
perhaps have learnt it from the success they
meet with — from the success they meet with
Here she smiled as before. "Put I (.Ion I
anything. On the contrary, I should scorn it.
You had better walk in ! "

There was something hidden here which piqued
Tom's interest and troubled his tender heart.
When, in a moment's irresolution, he looked at



WORKS OF CHARITY AND MERCY.



295



Charity, lie could not but observe a strugj

â–¡ eof triumph and a sense

of shame ; nor could he but remark how, meeting

even 1 which she cared so little for, she

! away her own, for all the splenetic

dchancc in her manner.

An uneasy thought entered Tom's head; a
shadowy misgiving that the altered relations be-
i himself and Pecksniff, were somehow to
involve an altered knowledge on his part of
other people, and were to give him an insight
into much of which he had had no previous
ion. And yet he put no definite con-
struction upon Charity's proceedings. He cer-
tainly had no idea that as he had been the
audience and spectator of her mortification, she
grasped with eager delight at any opportunity of
reproaching her sister with his presence in her
far deeper misery ; for he knew nothing of it,
and only pictured that sister as the same giddy,
careless, trivial creature she always had been,
with the same slight estimation of himself which
she had never been at the least pains to conceal.
In short, he had merely a confused impression
that Miss Pecksniff was not quite sisterly or
kind ; and being curious to set it right, accom-
panied her as she desired.

The house-door being opened, . she went in
before Tom, requesting him to follow her ; and
led the way to the parlour door.

" Oh, Merry !" she said, looking in, " I am so
glad you have not gone home. Who do you
think I have met in the street, and brought -to
see you ! Mr. Pinch ! There. Now you arc sur-
prised, I am sure ! "

Not more surprised than Tom was, when he
looked upon her. Not so much. Not half so
much.

" Mr. Pinch has left Papa, my dear," said
Cherry, " and his prospects are quite flourishing.
I have promised that Augustus, who is going
that way, shall escort him to the place he wants.
Augustus, my child, where are you?"

With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed
her way out of the parlour, calling on Augustus
Moddle to appear j and left Tom Pinch alone
with her sister.

If she had always been his kindest friend; if
she had treated him through all his servitude
with such consideration as was never yet re-
ceived by struggling man ; if she had lightened
every moment of those many years, and had
ever spared and never wounded him ; his honest
heart could not have swelled before her with a
deeper pity, or a purer freedom from all base
remembrance than it did then.

" My gracious me! You are really the last



person in the world I should have thought of
seeing, I am sure !"

Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old
manner. He had not expected that. Yet he
did not feel it a contradiction that he should be
sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry
at the same time to hear her speaking in her old
manner. The two things seemed quite natural.

" I wonder you find any gratification in coming
to see me. I can't think what put it in your
head. I never had much in seeing you. There
was no love lost between us, Mr. Pinch, at any
time, I think."

Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and
she was very busy with the ribbons as she spoke.
Much too busy to be conscious of the work her
fingers did.

" We never quarrelled," said Tom. Tom was
right in that, for one person can no more quarrel
without an adversary, than one person can play
at chess, or fight a duel. " I hoped you would
be glad to shake hands with an old friend.
Don't let us rake up bygones," said Tom. " If
I ever offended you, forgive me."

She looked at him for a moment ; dropped
her bonnet from her hands ; spread them before
her altered face ; and burst into tears.

"Oh, Mr. Pinch!" she said, "although I
never used you well, I did believe your nature
was forgiving. I did not think you could be
cruel."

She spoke as Tittle like her old self now, for
certain, as Tom could possibly have wished.
But she seemed to be appealing to him reproach-
fully, and he did not understand her.

" I seldom showed it — never — I know that.
But I had that belief in you, that if I had been
asked to name the person in the -world least
likely to retort upon me, I would have named
you, confidently."

" Would have named me !" Tom repeated.

"Yes," she said with energy, "and I have
often thought so."

After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself
upon a chair beside her.

" Do you believe," said Tom, " oh can you
think, that what I said just now, I said with any
but the true and plain intention which my words
professed.? I mean it in the spirit and the
letter. If I ever offended you, forgive me ; I
may have done so, many times. ' You never
injured or offended me. How, then, could I
possibly retort, if even I were stern and bad
enough to wish to do it !"

After a little while she thanked him through
her tears and sobs, and told him she had never
been at once so sorry and so comforted, since



2Q&



MARTIN CHUZZLEViTT.



she left home. Still she wept bitterly; and it
was the greater pain to Tom to see her wee]
from her standing in especial need, just then, of
sympathy and tenderness.

"Come, come!" said Tom, "you used to be
as cheerful as the day was long/'

"Ah! used!" she cried, in such a tone as
rent Tom's heart.

" And will be again," said Tom.

•• Xo, never more. No, never, never more.
If you should talk with okl Mr. Chuzzlewit, at
any time," she added, looking hurriedly into
his face — "I sometimes thought he liked you,
but suppressed it — will you promise me to tell
him that you saw me here, and that I said I bore
in mind the time we talked together in the
churchyard?"

Tom promised that he would.

'• Many times since then, when I have wished
I had been carried there before that day, I have
recalled his words. I wish that he should know
how true they were, although the least acknow-
ledgment to that effect has never passed my lips,
and never will."

Tom promised this, conditionally, too. He
di 1 not tell her how improbable it was that he
and the old man would ever meet again, be-
cause he thought it might disturb her more.

" If he should ever know this, through your
means, dear Mr. Pinch," said Mercy, " tell him
that I sent the message, not for myself, but that
he might be more forbearing and more patient,
and more trustful to some other person, in some
other time of need. Tell him that if he could
know how my heart trembled in the balance
that day, and what a very little would have
turned the scale, his own would bleed with pity
for me."

" Yes, yes," said Tom, " I will."

" When I appeared to him the most unworthy
of his help, I was — I know I was, for I have often,
often, thought about it since — the most inclined
to yield to what he showed me. Oh ! if he had
relented but a little more; if he had thrown
himself in my way for but one other quarter of
an hour ; if he had extended his compassion for
a vain, unthinking, miserable girl, in but the
least degree; he might, and I believe he would,
have saved her ! Tell him that I don't blame
him, but am grateful for the effort that he made ;
but ask him, for the love of God, and youth,
and in merciful consideration for the struggle
which an ill-advised and unawakened nature
makes to hide the strength it thinks its weakness
— ask him never, never, to forget this, when he
deals with one again !"

Although Tom did not hold the clue to her



full meaning, he could guess it pretty nearly.
Touched to the quick, he took her hand and
said, or meant to say, some words of consola-
tion. She felt and understood them, whether
they were spoken or no. He was not quite
certain, afterwards, but that she had tried to
kneel down at his feet, and bless him.

He found that he was not alone in the room
when she had left it. Mrs. Todgers was there,
shaking her head. Tom had never seen Mrs.
Todgers, it is needless to say, but he had a per-
ception of her being the lady of the house ; and
he saw some genuine compassion in her eves
that won his good opinion.

"Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see,"
said Mrs. Todgers.

"Yes," said Tom.

"And yet," quoth Mrs. Todgers, shutting the
door softly, " she hasn't told you what her
troubles are, I'm certain."

Tom was struck by these words, for they were
quite true. " Indeed," he said, "She has not."

" And never would," said Mrs. Todgers, " if
you saw her daily. She never makes the least
complaint to me, or utters a single word of ex-
planation or reproach. But I know," said Mrs.
Todgers, drawing in her breath, "/know !"

Tom nodded sorrowfully, " So do I."

'' I fully believe," said Mrs. Todgers, taking
her pocket-handkerchief from the fiat reticule,
" that nobody can tell one half of what that poor
young creature has to undergo. But though
she comes here, constantly, to ease her poor full
heart without his knowing it; and saying, 'Mrs.
Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think that I
shall soon be dead,' sits crying in my room until
the fit is past ; I know no more from her. And,
I believe," said Mrs. Todgers, putting back her
handkerchief again, "that she considers me a
good friend too."

Mrs. Todgers might have said her best friend.
Commercial gentlemen and gravy had tried