ow, or yonder fellow might be holding up
his head.'

Mr Pecksniff put his hand into his waistcoat, and slightly shook that
part of him to which allusion had been made; as if to signify that it
was still uppermost.

'There is a kind of selfishness,' said Martin--'I have learned it in my
own experience of my own breast--which is constantly upon the watch for
selfishness in others; and holding others at a distance, by suspicions
and distrusts, wonders why they don't approach, and don't confide, and
calls that selfishness in them. Thus I once doubted those about me--not
without reason in the beginning--and thus I once doubted you, Martin.'

'Not without reason,' Martin answered, 'either.'

'Listen, hypocrite! Listen, smooth-tongued, servile, crawling knave!'
said Martin. 'Listen, you shallow dog. What! When I was seeking him, you
had already spread your nets; you were already fishing for him, were ye?
When I lay ill in this good woman's house and your meek spirit pleaded
for my grandson, you had already caught him, had ye? Counting on the
restoration of the love you knew I bore him, you designed him for one
of your two daughters did ye? Or failing that, you traded in him as a
speculation which at any rate should blind me with the lustre of your
charity, and found a claim upon me! Why, even then I knew you, and I
told you so. Did I tell you that I knew you, even then?'

'I am not angry, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, softly. 'I can bear a great
deal from you. I will never contradict you, Mr Chuzzlewit.'

'Observe!' said Martin, looking round. 'I put myself in that man's
hands on terms as mean and base, and as degrading to himself, as I could
render them in words. I stated them at length to him, before his own
children, syllable by syllable, as coarsely as I could, and with as much
offence, and with as plain an exposition of my contempt, as words--not
looks and manner merely--could convey. If I had only called the angry
blood into his face, I would have wavered in my purpose. If I had only
stung him into being a man for a minute I would have abandoned it. If he
had offered me one word of remonstrance, in favour of the grandson whom
he supposed I had disinherited; if he had pleaded with me, though never
so faintly, against my appeal to him to abandon him to misery and
cast him from his house; I think I could have borne with him for ever
afterwards. But not a word, not a word. Pandering to the worst of human
passions was the of