Martin Chuzzlewit - The Original Classic Edition. Dickens Charles

in a grave

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       tone, to prevent the possibility of any mistake, 'that I'm not a-going to make no love, you know.'

       There was for just one second a shade, though not by any means a dark one, on the landlady's open brow. But it passed off instantly, in a laugh that came from her very heart.

       'Oh, very good!' she said; 'if there is to be no love-making, you had better take your arm away.'

       'Lord, why should I!' cried Mark. 'It's quite innocent.'

       'Of course it's innocent,' returned the hostess, 'or I shouldn't allow it.'

       'Very well!' said Mark. 'Then let it be.'

       There was so much reason in this that the landlady laughed again, suffered it to remain, and bade him say what he had to say, and be quick about it. But he was an impudent fellow, she added.

       'Ha ha! I almost think I am!' cried Mark, 'though I never thought so before. Why, I can say anything tonight!'

       'Say what you're going to say if you please, and be quick,' returned the landlady, 'for I want to get to bed.'

       'Why, then, my dear good soul,' said Mark, 'and a kinder woman than you are never drawed breath--let me see the man as says she did!--what would be the likely consequence of us two being--'

       'Oh nonsense!' cried Mrs Lupin. 'Don't talk about that any more.'

       'No, no, but it an't nonsense,' said Mark; 'and I wish you'd attend. What would be the likely consequence of us two being married? If I can't be content and comfortable in this here lively Dragon now, is it to be looked for as I should be then? By no means. Very good. Then you, even with your good humour, would be always on the fret and worrit, always uncomfortable in your own mind, always a-thinking as you was getting too old for my taste, always a-picturing me to yourself as being chained up to the Dragon door, and wanting to break away. I don't know that it would be so,' said Mark, 'but I don't know that it mightn't be. I am a roving sort of chap, I know. I'm fond of change. I'm always a-thinking that with my good health and spirits it would be more creditable in me to

       be jolly where there's things a-going on to make one dismal. It may be a mistake of mine you see, but nothing short of trying how it acts will set it right. Then an't it best that I should go; particular when your free way has helped me out to say all this, and we can part as good friends as we have ever been since first I entered this here noble Dragon, which,' said Mr Tapley in conclusion, 'has my good word and my good wish to the day of my death!'

       The hostess sat quite silent for a little time, but she very soon put both her hands in Mark's and shook them heartily.

       'For you are a good man,' she said; looking into his face with a smile, which was rather serious for her. 'And I do believe have been a better friend to me tonight than ever I have had in all my life.'

       'Oh! as to that, you know,' said Mark, 'that's nonsense. But love my heart alive!' he added, looking at her in a sort of rapture, 'if you

       ARE that way disposed, what a lot of suitable husbands there is as you may drive distracted!'

       She laughed again at this compliment; and, once more shaking him by both hands, and bidding him, if he should ever want a friend, to remember her, turned gayly from the little bar and up the Dragon staircase.

       'Humming a tune as she goes,' said Mark, listening, 'in case I should think she's at all put out, and should be made down-hearted. Come, here's some credit in being jolly, at last!'

       With that piece of comfort, very ruefully uttered, he went, in anything but a jolly manner, to bed.

       He rose early next morning, and was a-foot soon after sunrise. But it was of no use; the whole place was up to see Mark Tapley off; the boys, the dogs, the children, the old men, the busy people and the idlers; there they were, all calling out 'Good-b'ye, Mark,' after their own manner, and all sorry he was going. Somehow he had a kind of sense that his old mistress was peeping from her chamber-window, but he couldn't make up his mind to look back.

       'Good-b'ye one, good-b'ye all!' cried Mark, waving his hat on the top of his walking-stick, as he strode at a quick pace up the little

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       street. 'Hearty chaps them wheelwrights--hurrah! Here's the butcher's dog a-coming out of the garden--down, old fellow! And Mr Pinch a-going to his organ--good-b'ye, sir! And the terrier-bitch from over the way--hie, then, lass! And children enough to hand down human natur to the latest posterity--good-b'ye, boys and girls! There's some credit in it now. I'm a-coming out strong at last. These are the circumstances that would try a ordinary mind; but I'm uncommon jolly. Not quite as jolly as I could wish to be, but very near. Good-b'ye! good-b'ye!'

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       ACCOMPANIES MR PECKSNIFF AND HIS CHARMING DAUGHTERS TO THE CITY OF LONDON; AND RELATES WHAT FELL OUT UPON THEIR WAY THITHER

       When Mr Pecksniff and the two young ladies got into the heavy coach at the end of the lane, they found it empty, which was a great comfort; particularly as the outside was quite full and the passengers looked very frosty. For as Mr Pecksniff justly observed--when he and his daughters had burrowed their feet deep in the straw, wrapped themselves to the chin, and pulled up both windows--it is always satisfactory to feel, in keen weather, that many other people are not as warm as you are. And this, he said, was quite natural, and a very beautiful arrangement; not confined to coaches, but extending itself into many social ramifications. 'For' (he observed), 'if every one were warm and well-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger. And if we were no better off than anybody else, what would become of our sense of gratitude; which,' said

       Mr Pecksniff with tears in his eyes, as he shook his fist at a beggar who wanted to get up behind, 'is one of the holiest feelings of

       our common nature.'

       His children heard with becoming reverence these moral precepts from the lips of their father, and signified their acquiescence in the same, by smiles. That he might the better feed and cherish that sacred flame of gratitude in his breast, Mr Pecksniff remarked that he would trouble his eldest daughter, even in this early stage of their journey, for the brandy-bottle. And from the narrow neck of that stone vessel he imbibed a copious refreshment.

       'What are we?' said Mr Pecksniff, 'but coaches? Some of us are slow coaches'--

       'Goodness, Pa!' cried Charity.

       'Some of us, I say,' resumed her parent with increased emphasis, 'are slow coaches; some of us are fast coaches. Our passions are the horses; and rampant animals too--!'

       'Really, Pa,' cried both the daughters at once. 'How very unpleasant.'

       'And rampant animals too' repeated Mr Pecksniff with so much determination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment a sort of moral rampancy himself;'--and Virtue is the drag. We start from The Mother's Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel.'

       When he had said this, Mr Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some further refreshment. When he had done that, he corked the bottle tight, with the air of a man who had effectually corked the subject also; and went to sleep for three stages.

       The tendency of mankind when it falls asleep in coaches, is to wake up cross; to find its legs in its way; and its corns an aggravation. Mr Pecksniff not being exempt from the common lot of humanity found himself, at the end of his nap, so decidedly the victim of these infirmities, that he had an irresistible inclination to visit them upon his daughters; which he had already begun to do in the shape of divers random kicks, and other unexpected motions of his shoes, when the coach stopped, and after a short delay the door was opened.

       'Now mind,' said a thin sharp voice in the dark. 'I and my son go inside, because the roof is full, but you agree only to charge us outside prices. It's quite understood that we won't pay more. Is it?'

       'All right, sir,' replied the guard.

       'Is there anybody inside now?' inquired the voice.

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       'Three passengers,' returned the guard.

       'Then I ask the three passengers to witness this bargain,