Chuffey boggled over his plate so long, that Mr. Jonas, losing patience, took it from him. at last with his own hands, and requested his father to signify to that venerable person that he had better "peg away at his bread:" which Anthony did.
"Aye, aye!" cried the old man, brightening up as before, when this was communicated to him in the same voice; "quite right, quite right. He's your own son, Mr. Chuzzlewit! Bless him for a sharp lad! Bless him, bless him!"
Mr. Jonas considered this so particularly childish,—perhaps with some reason—that he only laughed the more, and told his cousins that he was afraid one of these fine days, Chuffey would be the death of him. The cloth was then removed, and the bottle of wine set upon the table, from which Mr. Jonas filled the young ladies' glasses, calling on them not to spare it, as they might be certain there was plenty more where that came from. But, he added with some haste after this sally, that it was only his joke, and they wouldn't suppose him to be in earnest, he was sure.
"I shall drink," said Anthony, "to Pecksniff. Your father, my dears. A clever man, Pecksniff. A wary man! A hypocrite, though, eh? A hypocrite, girls, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Well, so he is. Now, among friends—he is. I don't think the worse of him for that, unless it is that he overdoes it. You may overdo anything, my darlings. You may overdo even hypocrisy. Ask Jonas!"
"You can't overdo taking care of yourself," observed that hopeful gentleman with his mouth full.
"Do you hear that, my dears?" cried Anthony, quite enraptured. "Wisdom, wisdom! A good exception, Jonas. No. It's not easy to overdo that."
"Except," whispered Mr. Jonas to his favourite cousin, "except when one lives too long. Ha, ha! Tell the other one that—I say!"
"Good gracious me!" said Cherry, in a petulant manner. "You can tell her yourself, if you wish, can't you?"
"She seems to make such game of one," replied Mr. Jonas.
"Then why need you trouble yourself about her?" said Charity, "I am sure she doesn't trouble herself much about you."
"Don't she though?" asked Jonas.
"Good gracious me, need I tell you that she don't?" returned the young lady.
Mr. Jonas made no verbal rejoinder, but he glanced at Mercy with an odd expression in his face; and said that wouldn't break his heart, she might depend upon it. Then he looked on Charity with even greater favour than before, and besought her, as his polite manner was, to "come a little closer."
"There's another thing that's not easily overdone, father," remarked Jonas, after a short silence.
"What's that?" asked the father; grinning already in anticipation.
"A bargain," said the son. "Here's the rule for bargains—'Do other men, for they would do you.' That's the true business precept. All others are counterfeits."
The delighted father applauded this sentiment to the echo; and was so much tickled by it, that he was at the pains of imparting the same to his
