last receipt
in full of all demands. One really might have thought there was some
quality in Mr Pecksniff--an emanation from the brightness and purity
within him perhaps--which set off and adorned his foes; they looked so
gallant and so manly beside him.

'Not a word?' said Martin, for the second time.

'I remember that I have a word to say, Pecksniff,' observed the old man.
'But a word. You spoke of being indebted to the charitable help of some
stranger for the means of returning to England. Who is he? And what help
in money did he render you?'

Although he asked this question of Martin, he did not look towards him,
but kept his eyes on Mr Pecksniff as before. It appeared to have become
a habit with him, both in a literal and figurative sense, to look to Mr
Pecksniff alone.

Martin took out his pencil, tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and
hastily wrote down the particulars of his debt to Mr Bevan. The old man
stretched out his hand for the paper, and took it; but his eyes did not
wander from Mr Pecksniff's face.

'It would be a poor pride and a false humility,' said Martin, in a
low voice, 'to say, I do not wish that to be paid, or that I have any
present hope of being able to pay it. But I never felt my poverty so
deeply as I feel it now.'

'Read it to me, Pecksniff,' said the old man.

Mr Pecksniff, after approaching the perusal of the paper as if it were a
manuscript confession of a murder, complied.

'I think, Pecksniff,' said old Martin, 'I could wish that to be
discharged. I should not like the lender, who was abroad, who had
no opportunity of making inquiry, and who did (as he thought) a kind
action, to suffer.'

'An honourable sentiment, my dear sir. Your own entirely. But a
dangerous precedent,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'permit me to suggest.'

'It shall not be a precedent,' returned the old man. 'It is the only
recognition of him. But we will talk of it again. You shall advise me.
There is nothing else?'

'Nothing else,' said Mr Pecksniff buoyantly, 'but for you to recover
this intrusion--this cowardly and indefensible outrage on your
feelings--with all possible dispatch, and smile again.'

'You have nothing more to say?' inquired the old man, laying his hand
with unusual earnestness on Mr Pecksniff's sleeve.

Mr Pecksniff would not say what rose to his lips. For reproaches he
observed, were useless.

'You have nothing at all to urge? You are sure of that! If you have, no
matter what it is, spea