acious!'

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

FURTHER PROCEEDINGS IN EDEN, AND A PROCEEDING OUT OF IT. MARTIN MAKES A
DISCOVERY OF SOME IMPORTANCE

From Mr Moddle to Eden is an easy and natural transition. Mr Moddle,
living in the atmosphere of Miss Pecksniff's love, dwelt (if he had but
known it) in a terrestrial Paradise. The thriving city of Eden was
also a terrestrial Paradise, upon the showing of its proprietors. The
beautiful Miss Pecksniff might have been poetically described as a
something too good for man in his fallen and degraded state. That
was exactly the character of the thriving city of Eden, as poetically
heightened by Zephaniah Scadder, General Choke, and other worthies; part
and parcel of the talons of that great American Eagle, which is always
airing itself sky-high in purest aether, and never, no never, never,
tumbles down with draggled wings into the mud.

When Mark Tapley, leaving Martin in the architectural and surveying
offices, had effectually strengthened and encouraged his own spirits
by the contemplation of their joint misfortunes, he proceeded, with
new cheerfulness, in search of help; congratulating himself, as he went
along, on the enviable position to which he had at last attained.

'I used to think, sometimes,' said Mr Tapley, 'as a desolate island
would suit me, but I should only have had myself to provide for there,
and being naturally a easy man to manage, there wouldn't have been much
credit in THAT. Now here I've got my partner to take care on, and he's
something like the sort of man for the purpose. I want a man as is
always a-sliding off his legs when he ought to be on 'em. I want a
man as is so low down in the school of life that he's always a-making
figures of one in his copy-book, and can't get no further. I want a man
as is his own great coat and cloak, and is always a-wrapping himself up
in himself. And I have got him too,' said Mr Tapley, after a moment's
silence. 'What a happiness!'

He paused to look round, uncertain to which of the log-houses he should
repair.

'I don't know which to take,' he observed; 'that's the truth. They're
equally prepossessing outside, and equally commodious, no doubt, within;
being fitted up with every convenience that a Alligator, in a state of
natur', could possibly require. Let me see! The citizen as turned out
last night, lives under water, in the right hand dog-kennel at the
corner. I don't want to trouble him if I can help it, poor man, for