lanced 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 retur