saw nothing but Tom. Tom was the first and last thing in the world.

As she sat opposite to Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom's pet tunes
upon the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never been so
happy in his life.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

SECRET SERVICE

In walking from the city with his sentimental friend, Tom Pinch had
looked into the face, and brushed against the threadbare sleeve, of Mr
Nadgett, man of mystery to the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and
Life Assurance Company. Mr Nadgett naturally passed away from Tom's
remembrance as he passed out of his view; for he didn't know him, and
had never heard his name.

As there are a vast number of people in the huge metropolis of England
who rise up every morning not knowing where their heads will rest at
night, so there are a multitude who shooting arrows over houses as their
daily business, never know on whom they fall. Mr Nadgett might have
passed Tom Pinch ten thousand times; might even have been quite familiar
with his face, his name, pursuits, and character; yet never once have
dreamed that Tom had any interest in any act or mystery of his. Tom
might have done the like by him of course. But the same private man out
of all the men alive, was in the mind of each at the same moment; was
prominently connected though in a different manner, with the day's
adventures of both; and formed, when they passed each other in the
street, the one absorbing topic of their thoughts.

Why Tom had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his mind requires no explanation. Why Mr
Nadgett should have had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his, is quite another thing.

But, somehow or other, that amiable and worthy orphan had become a part
of the mystery of Mr Nadgett's existence. Mr Nadgett took an interest
in his lightest proceedings; and it never flagged or wavered. He watched
him in and out of the Assurance Office, where he was now formally
installed as a Director; he dogged his footsteps in the streets; he
stood listening when he talked; he sat in coffee-rooms entering his
name in the great pocket-book, over and over again; he wrote letters to
himself about him constantly; and, when he found them in his pocket, put
them in the fire, with such distrust and caution that he would bend down
to watch the crumpled tinder while it floated upwards, as if his mind
misgave him, that the mystery it had contained might come out at the
chimney-pot.

And yet all this was quite a secret. Mr Nadgett kept