' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling, 'but I like this better, I like this
better!'

Oh blessed star of Innocence, wherever you may be, how did you glitter
in your home of ether, when the two Miss Pecksniffs put forth each her
lily hand, and gave the same, with mantling cheeks, to Martin! How did
you twinkle, as if fluttering with sympathy, when Mercy, reminded of
the bonnet in her hair, hid her fair face and turned her head aside; the
while her gentle sister plucked it out, and smote her with a sister's
soft reproof, upon her buxom shoulder!

'And how,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning round after the contemplation of
these passages, and taking Mr Pinch in a friendly manner by the elbow,
'how has our friend used you, Martin?'

'Very well indeed, sir. We are on the best terms, I assure you.'

'Old Tom Pinch!' said Mr Pecksniff, looking on him with affectionate
sadness. 'Ah! It seems but yesterday that Thomas was a boy fresh from
a scholastic course. Yet years have passed, I think, since Thomas Pinch
and I first walked the world together!'

Mr Pinch could say nothing. He was too much moved. But he pressed his
master's hand, and tried to thank him.

'And Thomas Pinch and I,' said Mr Pecksniff, in a deeper voice, 'will
walk it yet, in mutual faithfulness and friendship! And if it comes to
pass that either of us be run over in any of those busy crossings which
divide the streets of life, the other will convey him to the hospital in
Hope, and sit beside his bed in Bounty!'

'Well, well, well!' he added in a happier tone, as he shook Mr Pinch's
elbow hard. 'No more of this! Martin, my dear friend, that you may be at
home within these walls, let me show you how we live, and where. Come!'

With that he took up a lighted candle, and, attended by his young
relative, prepared to leave the room. At the door, he stopped.

'You'll bear us company, Tom Pinch?'

Aye, cheerfully, though it had been to death, would Tom have followed
him; glad to lay down his life for such a man!

'This,' said Mr Pecksniff, opening the door of an opposite parlour, 'is
the little room of state, I mentioned to you. My girls have pride in it,
Martin! This,' opening another door, 'is the little chamber in which my
works (slight things at best) have been concocted. Portrait of myself
by Spiller. Bust by Spoker. The latter is considered a good likeness.
I seem to recognize something about the left-hand corner of the nose,
myself.'

Martin thought it was very li