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 Tragedy, delivered his opinion as a commentary on the proceedings.
"Grandfather!" said Martin, with great earnestness. "From a painful journey, from a hard life, from a sick bed, from privation and distress, from gloom and disappointment, from almost hopelessness and despair, I have come back to you."
"Rovers of this sort," observed Mr. Pecksniff as Chorus, "very commonly come back when they find they don't meet with the success they expected in their marauding ravages."
"But for this faithful man," said Martin, turning towards Mark, "whom I first knew in this place, and who went away with me voluntarily, as a servant, but has been, throughout, my zealous and devoted friend; but for him, I must have died abroad. Far from home, far from any help or consolation; far from the probability even of my wretched fate being ever known to any one who cared to hear it—oh that you would let me say, of being known to you!"
The old man looked at Mr. Pecksniff. Mr. Pecksniff looked at him. "Did you speak my worthy Sir?" said Mr. Pecksniff, with a smile. The old man answered in the negative. "I know what you thought," said Mr. Pecksniff, with another smile. "Let him go on, my friend. The development of self-interest in the human mind is always a curious study. Let him go on, Sir."
"Go on!" observed the old man; in a mechanical obedience, it appeared, to Mr. Pecksniff's suggestion.
"I have been so wretched and so poor," said Martin, "that I am indebted to the charitable help of a stranger in a land of strangers, for the means of returning here. All this tells against me in your mind, I know. I have given you cause to think I have been driven here wholly by want, and have not been led on, in any degree, by affection or regret. When I parted from you, Grandfather, I deserved that suspicion, but I do not now. I do not now."
The Chorus put its hand in its waistcoat, and smiled. "Let him go on, my worthy Sir," it said. "I know what you are thinking of, but don't express it prematurely."
