Martin Chuzzlewit eBook

Nothing could equal the distress of Mrs Todgers in parting from the young ladies, except the strong emotions with which she bade adieu to Mr Pecksniff.  Never surely was a pocket-handkerchief taken in and out of a flat reticule so often as Mrs Todgers’s was, as she stood upon the pavement by the coach-door supported on either side by a commercial gentleman; and by the sight of the coach-lamps caught such brief snatches and glimpses of the good man’s face, as the constant interposition of Mr Jinkins allowed.  For Jinkins, to the last the youngest gentleman’s rock a-head in life, stood upon the coachstep talking to the ladies.  Upon the other step was Mr Jonas, who maintained that position in right of his cousinship; whereas the youngest gentleman, who had been first upon the ground, was deep in the booking-office among the black and red placards, and the portraits of fast coaches, where he was ignominiously harassed by porters, and had to contend and strive perpetually with heavy baggage.  This false position, combined with his nervous excitement, brought about the very consummation and catastrophe of his miseries; for when in the moment of parting he aimed a flower, a hothouse flower that had cost money, at the fair hand of Mercy, it reached, instead, the coachman on the box, who thanked him kindly, and stuck it in his buttonhole.

They were off now; and Todgers’s was alone again.  The two young ladies, leaning back in their separate corners, resigned themselves to their own regretful thoughts.  But Mr Pecksniff, dismissing all ephemeral considerations of social pleasure and enjoyment, concentrated his meditations on the one great virtuous purpose before him, of casting out that ingrate and deceiver, whose presence yet troubled his domestic hearth, and was a sacrilege upon the altars of his household gods.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Will be seen in the long run, if not in the short one, to concern Mr pinch and others, nearly.  Mr pecksniff asserts the dignity of outraged virtue.  Young Martin Chuzzlewit forms A desperate resolution

Mr Pinch and Martin, little dreaming of the stormy weather that impended, made themselves very comfortable in the Pecksniffian halls, and improved their friendship daily.  Martin’s facility, both of invention and execution, being remarkable, the grammar-school proceeded with great vigour; and Tom repeatedly declared, that if there were anything like certainty in human affairs, or impartiality in human judges, a design so new and full of merit could not fail to carry off the first prize when the time of competition arrived.  Without being quite so sanguine himself, Martin had his hopeful anticipations too; and they served to make him brisk and eager at his task.