our quiet home to pursue the giddy round of pleasures that revolves abroad. But we think of doing so to-day."
"Indeed, sir!" cried the new pupil.
"Yes," said Mr. Pecksniff, tapping his left hand with a letter which he held in his right. "I have a summons here to repair to London; on professional business, my dear Martin; strictly on professional business; and I promised my girls, long ago, that whenever that happened again, they should accompany me. We shall go forth to-night by the heavy coach—like the dove of old, my dear Martin—and it will be a week before we again deposit our olive-branches in the passage. When I say olive-branches," observed Mr. Pecksniff, in explanation, "I mean, our unpretending luggage."
"I hope the young ladies will enjoy their trip," said Martin.
"Oh! that I'm sure we shall!" cried Mercy, clapping her hands. "Good gracious, Cherry, my darling, the idea of London!"
"Ardent child!" said Mr. Pecksniff, gazing on her in a dreamy way. "And yet there is a melancholy sweetness in these youthful hopes! It is pleasant to know that they never can be realised. I remember thinking once myself, in the days of my childhood, that pickled onions grew on trees, and that every elephant was born with an impregnable castle on his back. I have not found the fact to be so; far from it; and yet those visions have comforted me under circumstances of trial. Even when I have had the anguish of discovering that I have nourished in my breast an ostrich, and not a human pupil—even in that hour of agony, they have soothed me."
At this dread allusion to John Westlock, Mr. Pinch precipitately choked in his tea; for he had that very morning received a letter from him, as Mr. Pecksniff very well knew.
"You will take care, my dear Martin," said Mr. Pecksniff, resuming his former cheerfulness, "that the house does not run away in our absence. We leave you in charge of everything. There is no mystery; all is free and open. Unlike the young man in the Eastern tale—who is described as a one-eyed almanack, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Pinch?"—
"A one-eyed calender, I think, sir," faultered Tom.
"They are pretty nearly the same thing, I believe," said Mr. Pecksniff, smiling compassionately; "or they used to be in my time. Unlike that young man, my dear Martin, you are forbidden to enter no corner of this house; but are requested to make yourself perfectly at home in every part of it. You will be jovial, my dear Martin, and will kill the fatted calf if you please!"
There was not the least objection, doubtless, to the young man's slaughtering and appropriating to his own use any calf, fat or lean, that he might happen to find upon the premises; but as no such animal chanced at that time to be grazing on Mr. Pecksniff's estate, this request must be considered rather as a polite compliment than a substantial hospitality. It was the finishing ornament of the conversation; for when he had delivered it, Mr. Pecksniff rose, and led the way to that hotbed of architectural genius, the two-pair front.
"Let me see," he said, searching among the papers, "how you can
