eft him this morning?'

'Come straight from him now, sir.'

'For what does he suppose?'

'He don't know what to suppose, sir, no more than myself. I told him
jest wot passed yesterday, sir, and that you had said to me, "Can you be
here by seven in the morning?" and that you had said to him, through me,
"Can you be here by ten in the morning?" and that I had said "Yes" to
both. That's all, sir.'

His frankness was so genuine that it plainly WAS all.

'Perhaps,' said Martin, 'he may think you are going to desert him, and
to serve me?'

'I have served him in that sort of way, sir,' replied Mark, without the
loss of any atom of his self-possession; 'and we have been that sort of
companions in misfortune, that my opinion is, he don't believe a word on
it. No more than you do, sir.'

'Will you help me to dress, and get me some breakfast from the hotel?'
asked Martin.

'With pleasure, sir,' said Mark.

'And by-and-bye,' said Martin, 'remaining in the room, as I wish you to
do, will you attend to the door yonder--give admission to visitors, I
mean, when they knock?'

'Certainly, sir,' said Mr Tapley.

'You will not find it necessary to express surprise at their
appearance,' Martin suggested.

'Oh dear no, sir!' said Mr Tapley, 'not at all.'

Although he pledged himself to this with perfect confidence, he was in a
state of unbounded astonishment even now. Martin appeared to observe it,
and to have some sense of the ludicrous bearing of Mr Tapley under these
perplexing circumstances; for, in spite of the composure of his voice
and the gravity of his face, the same indistinct light flickered on the
latter several times. Mark bestirred himself, however, to execute the
offices with which he was entrusted; and soon lost all tendency to any
outward expression of his surprise, in the occupation of being brisk and
busy.

But when he had put Mr Chuzzlewit's clothes in good order for dressing,
and when that gentleman was dressed and sitting at his breakfast,
Mr Tapley's feelings of wonder began to return upon him with great
violence; and, standing beside the old man with a napkin under his
arm (it was as natural and easy to joke to Mark to be a butler in the
Temple, as it had been to volunteer as cook on board the Screw), he
found it difficult to resist the temptation of casting sidelong glances
at him very often. Nay, he found it impossible; and accordingly yielded
to this impulse so often, that Martin caught him in th