ringing, and with
his assurance all gone, Pecksniff listened, as did they all, to the old
man's story.

He told the assembled company how the curse of selfishness had seemed to
him always to rest upon his family. How he had misunderstood Martin, his
best loved grandson, and how he had seen Pecksniff doing his best to add
to this bad feeling. He beckoned Martin to him and put Mary's hand in
his, as he told how he had tested them both and had at last resolved to
see to what a length the hypocrisy of Pecksniff would lead him. How to
this end he had pretended feebleness of mind and had planned and plotted
finally to expose Pecksniff and set all right.

When he had finished the door was opened and Pecksniff, looking all
shrunken and frowsy and yellow, passed out, never to enter again into
the lives of any of them.

There was a great and joyful gathering that night, when all these, so
strangely united, took dinner together. Martin sat beside Mary, while
Westlock walked home with Ruth, and before they reached there she had
promised to be his wife.

Martin and Mary were married soon, and old Chuzzlewit made Martin his
heir. He also gave a home to poor Mercy, the wife of the dead Jonas. Tom
Pinch lived a long and happy life in the home which Westlock made for
Ruth, where he had a fine organ on which he played every day. Mark
Tapley, of course, married the rosy landlady of The Blue Dragon, and
settled down at the inn, which he renamed The Jolly Tapley.

Charity Pecksniff succeeded in ensnaring her young man at last. The day
they were to be married, however, he did not come to the church, but ran
off to Van Diemen's Land, and she lived and died a vinegary, shrewish
old maid.

As for Pecksniff himself, having lost all his money in the
Anglo-Bengalee Company (which, of course, went to pieces on Tigg's
death), he sank lower and lower, till at last, a drunken, squalid old
man, he eked out a miserable existence writing whining begging letters
to the very people whom he had once labored so hard to make unhappy.

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

Published 1864-1865

_Scene_: London and Neighboring Towns

_Time_: 1860

CHARACTERS

Mr. Harmon A rich dust collector

Mr. Boffin Foreman of the dust business and
heir to the Harmon fortune
Known as "The Golden Dustman"

Mrs. Boffin