"Will you do so now "
"Can you ask me," returned Mr. Pecksniff, slipping into a chair immediately, "whether I will do anything that you desire?"
"You talk confidently," said Martin, "and you mean well; but I fear you don't know what an old man's humours are. You don't know what it is to be required to court his likings and dislikings; adapt yourself to his prejudices; do his bidding, be it what it may; bear with his distrusts and jealousies; and always still be zealous in his service. When I remember how numerous these failings are in me, and judge of their occasional enormity by the injurious thoughts I lately entertained of you, I hardly dare to claim you for my friend."
"My worthy sir," returned his relative, "how can you talk in such a painful strain! What was more natural than that you should make one slight mistake, when in all other respects you were so very correct, and have had such reason—such very sad and undeniable reason—to judge of every one about you in the worst light!"
"True," replied the other. "You are very lenient with me."
"We always said—my girls and I," cried Mr. Pecksniff with increasing obsequiousness, " that while we mourned the heaviness of our misfortune in being confounded with the base and mercenary, still we could not wonder at it. My dears, you remember?"
Oh vividly! A thousand times!
"We uttered no complaint," said Mr. Pecksniff. "Occasionally we had the presumption to console ourselves with the remark that Truth would in the end prevail, and Virtue be triumphant; but not often. My loves, you recollect?"
Recollect? Could he doubt it? Dearest pa, what strange, unnecessary questions!
"And when I saw you," resumed Mr. Pecksniff, with still greater deference, "in the little, unassuming village where we take the liberty of dwelling, I said you were mistaken in me, my dear sir: that was all, I think?"
"No—not all," said Martin, who had been sitting with his hand upon his brow for some time past, and now looked up again: "you said much more, which, added to other circumstances that have come to my knowledge, opened my eyes. You spoke to me, disinterestedly, on behalf of—I needn't name him. You know whom I mean."
Trouble was expressed in Mr. Pecksniffs visage, as he pressed his hot hands together, and replied, with humility, "Quite disinterestedly, sir, I assure you."
"I know it," said old Martin, in his quiet way. "I am sure of it. I said so. It was disinterested too, in you, to draw that herd of harpies off from me, and be their victim yourself; most other men would have suffered them to display themselves in all their rapacity, and would have striven to rise, by contrast, in my estimation. You felt for me, and drew them off, for which I owe you many thanks. Although I left the place, I know what passed behind my back, you see!"
"You amaze me, sir!" cried Mr. Pecksniff: which was true enough.
"My knowledge of your proceedings," said the old man, "does not stop at this. You have a new inmate in your house—"
