his is the man,' he said, extending his hand towards Jonas. 'Is it?'

'You need do no more than look at him to be sure of that, or of the
truth of what I have said,' was the reply. 'He is my witness.'

'Oh, brother!' cried old Martin, clasping his hands and lifting up his
eyes. 'Oh, brother, brother! Were we strangers half our lives that you
might breed a wretch like this, and I make life a desert by withering
every flower that grew about me! Is it the natural end of your precepts
and mine, that this should be the creature of your rearing, training,
teaching, hoarding, striving for; and I the means of bringing him to
punishment, when nothing can repair the wasted past!'

He sat down upon a chair as he spoke, and turning away his face, was
silent for a few moments. Then with recovered energy he proceeded:

'But the accursed harvest of our mistaken lives shall be trodden down.
It is not too late for that. You are confronted with this man, you
monster there; not to be spared, but to be dealt with justly. Hear what
he says! Reply, be silent, contradict, repeat, defy, do what you please.
My course will be the same. Go on! And you,' he said to Chuffey, 'for
the love of your old friend, speak out, good fellow!'

'I have been silent for his love!' cried the old man. 'He urged me to
it. He made me promise it upon his dying bed. I never would have spoken,
but for your finding out so much. I have thought about it ever since;
I couldn't help that; and sometimes I have had it all before me in
a dream; but in the day-time, not in sleep. Is there such a kind of
dream?' said Chuffey, looking anxiously in old Martin's face.

As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to his
voice, and smiled.

'Ah, aye!' he cried. 'He often spoke to me like that. We were at school
together, he and I. I couldn't turn against his son, you know--his only
son, Mr Chuzzlewit!'

'I would to Heaven you had been his son!' said Martin.

'You speak so like my dear old master,' cried the old man with a
childish delight, 'that I almost think I hear him. I can hear you quite
as well as I used to hear him. It makes me young again. He never spoke
unkindly to me, and I always understood him. I could always see him too,
though my sight was dim. Well, well! He's dead, he's dead. He was very
good to me, my dear old master!'

He shook his head mournfully over the brother's hand. At this moment
Mark, who had been glancing out of the window, l