Chapter Seventeen

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

MARTIN ENLARGES HIS CIRCLE OF AQUAINTANCE; INCREASES HIS STOCK OF
WISDOM; AND HAS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY OF COMPARING HIS OWN
EXPERIENCES WITH THOSE OF LUMMY NED OF THE LIGHT SALISBURY, AS
RELATED BY HIS FRIEND MR WILLIAM SIMMONS

It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had
either forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no
such person in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that
gentleman rose before his mental vision, had dismissed it as
something by no means of a pressing nature, which might be attended
to by-and-bye, and could wait his perfect leisure. But, being now in
the streets again, it occurred to him as just coming within the bare
limits of possibility that Mr Tapley might, in course of time, grow
tired of waiting on the threshold of the Rowdy Journal Office, so he
intimated to his new friend, that if they could conveniently walk in
that direction, he would be glad to get this piece of business off
his mind.

'And speaking of business,' said Martin, 'may I ask, in order
that I may not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your
occupation holds you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor
here?'

'A visitor,' replied his friend. 'I was "raised" in the State
of Massachusetts, and reside there still. My home is in a quiet
country town. I am not often in these busy places; and my
inclination to visit them does not increase with our better
acquaintance, I assure you.'

'You have been abroad?' asked Martin,

'Oh yes.'

'And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever
attached to your home and native country,' said Martin, eyeing him
curiously.

'To my home--yes,' rejoined his friend. 'To my native country
as my home--yes, also.'

'You imply some reservation,' said Martin.

'Well,' returned his new friend, 'if you ask me whether I came
back here with a greater relish for my country's faults; with a
greater fondness for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars
a day) to be her friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of
principles among us in respect of public matters and of private
dealings between man and man, the advocacy of which, beyond the foul
atmosphere of a criminal trial, would disgrace your own old Bailey
lawyers; why, then I answer plainly, No.'

'Oh!' said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend's
No, that it sounded like an echo.

'If you ask me,' his companion pursued, 'whether I came back
here better satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides
society into two classes--whereof one, the great mass, asserts a
spurious independence, most miserably dependent for its mean
existence on the disregard of humanizing conventionalities of manner
and social custom, so that the coarser a man is, the more distinctly
it shall appeal to his taste; while the other, disgusted with the low
standard thus set up and made adaptable to everything, takes refuge
among the graces and refinements it can bring to bear on private
life, and leaves the public weal to such fortune as may betide it in
the press and uproar of a general scramble--then again I answer,
No.'

And again Martin said 'Oh!' in the same odd way as before, being
anxious and disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public
grounds, as with reference to the fading prospects of domestic
architecture.

'In a word,' resumed the other, 'I do not find and cannot
believe and therefore will not allow, that we are a model of wisdom,
and an example to the world, and the perfection of human reason, and
a great deal more to the same purpose, which you may hear any hour in
the day; simply because we began our political life with two
inestimable advantages.'

'What were they?' asked Martin.

'One, that our history commenced at so late a period as to
escape the ages of bloodshed and cruelty through which other nations
have passed; and so had all the light of their probation, and none of
its darkness. The other, that we have a vast territory, and not--as
yet--too many people on it. These facts considered, we have done
little enough, I think.'

'Education?' suggested Martin, faintly.

'Pretty well on that head,' said the other, shrugging his
shoulders, 'still no mighty matter to boast of; for old countries,
and despotic countries too, have done as much, if not more, and made
less noise about it. We shine out brightly in comparison with
England, certainly; but hers is a very extreme case. You
complimented me on my frankness, you know,' he added, laughing.

'Oh! I am not at all astonished at your speaking thus openly
when my country is in question,' returned Martin. 'It is your plain-
speaking in reference to your own that surprises me.'

'You will not find it a scarce quality here, I assure you,
saving among the Colonel Divers, and Jefferson Bricks, and Major
Pawkinses; though the best of us are something like the man in
Goldsmith's comedy, who wouldn't suffer anybody but himself to abuse
his master. Come!' he added. 'Let us talk of something else. You
have come here on some design of improving your fortune, I dare say;
and I should grieve to put you out of heart. I am some years older
than you, besides; and may, on a few trivial points, advise you,
perhaps.'

There was not the least curiosity or impertinence in the manner
of this offer, which was open-hearted, unaffected, and good-natured.
As it was next to impossible that he should not have his confidence
awakened by a deportment so prepossessing and kind, Martin plainly
stated what had brought him into those parts, and even made the very
difficult avowal that he was poor. He did not say how poor, it must
be admitted, rather throwing off the declaration with an air which
might have implied that he had money enough for six months, instead
of as many weeks; but poor he said he was, and grateful he said he
would be, for any counsel that his friend would give him.

It would not have been very difficult for any one to see; but it
was particularly easy for Martin, whose perceptions were sharpened by
his circumstances, to discern; that the stranger's face grew
infinitely longer as the domestic-architecture project was developed.
Nor, although he made a great effort to be as encouraging as
possible, could he prevent his head from shaking once involuntarily,
as if it said in the vulgar tongue, upon its own account, 'No go!'
But he spoke in a cheerful tone, and said, that although there was no
such opening as Martin wished, in that city, he would make it matter
of immediate consideration and inquiry where one was most likely to
exist; and then he made Martin acquainted with his name, which was
Bevan; and with his profession, which was physic, though he seldom or
never practiced; and with other circumstances connected with himself
and family, which fully occupied the time, until they reached the
Rowdy Journal Office.

Mr Tapley appeared to be taking his ease on the landing of the
first floor; for sounds as of some gentleman established in that
region whistling 'Rule Britannia' with all his might and main,
greeted their ears before they reached the house. On ascending to
the spot from whence this music proceeded, they found him recumbent
in the midst of a fortification of luggage, apparently performing his
national anthem for the gratification of a grey-haired black man, who
sat on one of the outworks (a portmanteau), staring intently at Mark,
while Mark, with his head reclining on his hand, returned the
compliment in a thoughtful manner, and whistled all the time. He
seemed to have recently dined, for his knife, a casebottle, and
certain broken meats in a handkerchief, lay near at hand. He had
employed a portion of his leisure in the decoration of the Rowdy
Journal door, whereon his own initials now appeared in letters nearly
half a foot long, together with the day of the month in smaller type;
the whole surrounded by an ornamental border, and looking very fresh
and bold.

'I was a'most afraid you was lost, sir!' cried Mark, rising, and
stopping the tune at that point where Britons generally are supposed
to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never--

'Nothing gone wrong, I hope, sir?'

'No, Mark. Where's your friend?'

'The mad woman, sir?' said Mr Tapley. 'Oh! she's all right,
sir.'

'Did she find her husband?'

'Yes, sir. Leastways she's found his remains,' said Mark,
correcting himself.

'The man's not dead, I hope?'

'Not altogether dead, sir,' returned Mark; 'but he's had more
fevers and agues than is quite reconcilable with being alive. When
she didn't see him a-waiting for her, I thought she'd have died
herself, I did!'

'Was he not here, then?'

'He wasn't here. There was a feeble old shadow come a-creeping
down at last, as much like his substance when she know'd him, as your
shadow when it's drawn out to its very finest and longest by the sun,
is like you. But it was his remains, there's no doubt about that.
She took on with joy, poor thing, as much as if it had been all of
him!'

'Had he bought land?' asked Mr Bevan.

'Ah! He'd bought land,' said Mark, shaking his head, 'and paid
for it too. Every sort of nateral advantage was connected with it,
the agents said; and there certainly was one, quite unlimited. No
end to the water!'

'It's a thing he couldn't have done without, I suppose,'
observed Martin, peevishly.

'Certainly not, sir. There it was, any way; always turned on,
and no water-rate. Independent of three or four slimy old rivers
close by, it varied on the farm from four to six foot deep in the dry
season. He couldn't say how deep it was in the rainy time, for he
never had anything long enough to sound it with.'

'Is this true?' asked Martin of his companion.

'Extremely probable,' he answered. 'Some Mississippi or
Missouri lot, I dare say.'

'However,' pursued Mark, 'he came from
I-don't-know-where-and-all, down to New York here, to meet his wife
and children; and they started off again in a steamboat this blessed
afternoon, as happy to be along with each other as if they were going
to Heaven. I should think they was, pretty straight, if I may judge
from the poor man's looks.'

'And may I ask,' said Martin, glancing, but not with any
displeasure, from Mark to the negro, 'who this gentleman is? Another
friend of yours?'

'Why sir,' returned Mark, taking him aside, and speaking
confidentially in his ear, 'he's a man of colour, sir!'

'Do you take me for a blind man,' asked Martin, somewhat
impatiently, 'that you think it necessary to tell me that, when his
face is the blackest that ever was seen?'

'No, no; when I say a man of colour,' returned Mark, 'I mean
that he's been one of them as there's picters of in the shops. A man
and a brother, you know, sir,' said Mr Tapley, favouring his master
with a significant indication of the figure so often represented in
tracts and cheap prints.

'A slave!' cried Martin, in a whisper.

'Ah!' said Mark in the same tone. 'Nothing else. A slave.
Why, when that there man was young--don't look at him while I'm
a-telling it--he was shot in the leg; gashed in the arm; scored in
his live limbs, like crimped fish; beaten out of shape; had his neck
galled with an iron collar, and wore iron rings upon his wrists and
ankles. The marks are on him to this day. When I was having my
dinner just now, he stripped off his coat, and took away my
appetite.'

'Is this true?' asked Martin of his friend, who stood beside
them.

'I have no reason to doubt it,' he answered, shaking his head
'It very often is.'

'Bless you,' said Mark, 'I know it is, from hearing his whole
story. That master died; so did his second master from having his
head cut open with a hatchet by another slave, who, when he'd done
it, went and drowned himself; then he got a better one; in years and
years he saved up a little money, and bought his freedom, which he
got pretty cheap at last, on account of his strength being nearly
gone, and he being ill. Then he come here. And now he's a-saving up
to treat himself, afore he dies, to one small purchase--it's nothing
to speak of. Only his own daughter; that's all!' cried Mr Tapley,
becoming excited. 'Liberty for ever! Hurrah! Hail, Columbia!'

'Hush!' cried Martin, clapping his hand upon his mouth; 'and
don't be an idiot. What is he doing here?'

'Waiting to take our luggage off upon a truck,' said Mark.
'He'd have come for it by-and-bye, but I engaged him for a very
reasonable charge (out of my own pocket) to sit along with me and
make me jolly; and I am jolly; and if I was rich enough to contract
with him to wait upon me once a day, to be looked at, I'd never be
anything else.'

The fact may cause a solemn impeachment of Mark's veracity, but
it must be admitted nevertheless, that there was that in his face and
manner at the moment, which militated strongly against this emphatic
declaration of his state of mind.

'Lord love you, sir,' he added, 'they're so fond of Liberty in
this part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her
to market with 'em. They've such a passion for Liberty, that they
can't help taking liberties with her. That's what it's owing to.'

'Very well,' said Martin, wishing to change the theme. 'Having
come to that conclusion, Mark, perhaps you'll attend to me. The
place to which the luggage is to go is printed on this card. Mrs
Pawkins's Boarding House.'

'Mrs Pawkins's boarding-house,' repeated Mark. 'Now,
Cicero.'

'Is that his name?' asked Martin

'That's his name, sir,' rejoined Mark. And the negro grinning
assent from under a leathern portmanteau, than which his own face was
many shades deeper, hobbled downstairs with his portion of their
worldly goods; Mark Tapley having already gone before with his
share.

Martin and his friend followed them to the door below, and were
about to pursue their walk, when the latter stopped, and asked, with
some hesitation, whether that young man was to be trusted?

'Mark! oh certainly! with anything.'

'You don't understand me--I think he had better go with us. He
is an honest fellow, and speaks his mind so very plainly.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Martin, smiling, 'that being
unaccustomed to a free republic, he is used to do so.'

'I think he had better go with us,' returned the other. 'He may
get into some trouble otherwise. This is not a slave State; but I am
ashamed to say that a spirit of Tolerance is not so common anywhere
in these latitudes as the form. We are not remarkable for behaving
very temperately to each other when we differ; but to strangers! no,
I really think he had better go with us.'

Martin called to him immediately to be of their party; so Cicero
and the truck went one way, and they three went another.

They walked about the city for two or three hours; seeing it
from the best points of view, and pausing in the principal streets,
and before such public buildings as Mr Bevan pointed out. Night then
coming on apace, Martin proposed that they should adjourn to Mrs
Pawkins's establishment for coffee; but in this he was overruled by
his new acquaintance, who seemed to have set his heart on carrying
him, though it were only for an hour, to the house of a friend of his
who lived hard by. Feeling (however disinclined he was, being weary)
that it would be in bad taste, and not very gracious, to object that
he was unintroduced, when this open-hearted gentleman was so ready to
be his sponsor, Martin--for once in his life, at all
events--sacrificed his own will and pleasure to the wishes of
another, and consented with a fair grace. So travelling had done him
that much good, already.

Mr Bevan knocked at the door of a very neat house of moderate
size, from the parlour windows of which, lights were shining brightly
into the now dark street. It was quickly opened by a man with such a
thoroughly Irish face, that it seemed as if he ought, as a matter of
right and principle, to be in rags, and could have no sort of
business to be looking cheerfully at anybody out of a whole suit of
clothes.

Commending Mark to the care of this phenomenon--for such he may
be said to have been in Martin's eyes--Mr Bevan led the way into the
room which had shed its cheerfulness upon the street, to whose
occupants he introduced Mr Chuzzlewit as a gentleman from England,
whose acquaintance he had recently had the pleasure to make. They
gave him welcome in all courtesy and politeness; and in less than
five minutes' time he found himself sitting very much at his ease by
the fireside, and becoming vastly well acquainted with the whole
family.

There were two young ladies--one eighteen; the other
twenty--both very slender, but very pretty; their mother, who looked,
as Martin thought much older and more faded than she ought to have
looked; and their grandmother, a little sharp-eyed, quick old woman,
who seemed to have got past that stage, and to have come all right
again. Besides these, there were the young ladies' father, and the
young ladies' brother; the first engaged in mercantile affairs; the
second, a student at college; both, in a certain cordiality of
manner, like his own friend, and not unlike him in face. Which was
no great wonder, for it soon appeared that he was their near
relation. Martin could not help tracing the family pedigree from the
two young ladies, because they were foremost in his thoughts; not
only from being, as aforesaid, very pretty, but by reason of their
wearing miraculously small shoes, and the thinnest possible silk
stockings; the which their rocking-chairs developed to a distracting
extent.

There is no doubt that it was a monstrous comfortable
circumstance to be sitting in a snug, well-furnished room, warmed by
a cheerful fire, and full of various pleasant decorations, including
four small shoes, and the like amount of silk stockings, and--yes,
why not?--the feet and legs therein enshrined. And there is no doubt
that Martin was monstrous well-disposed to regard his position in
that light, after his recent experience of the Screw, and of Mrs
Pawkins's boarding-house. The consequence was that he made himself
very agreeable indeed; and by the time the tea and coffee arrived
(with sweet preserves, and cunning tea-cakes in its train), was in a
highly genial state, and much esteemed by the whole family.

Another delightful circumstance turned up before the first cup
of tea was drunk. The whole family had been in England. There was a
pleasant thing! But Martin was not quite so glad of this, when he
found that they knew all the great dukes, lords, viscounts,
marquesses, duchesses, knights, and baronets, quite affectionately,
and were beyond everything interested in the least particular
concerning them. However, when they asked, after the wearer of this
or that coronet, and said, 'Was he quite well?' Martin answered,
'Yes, oh yes. Never better;' and when they said, 'his lordship's
mother, the duchess, was she much changed?' Martin said, 'Oh dear no,
they would know her anywhere, if they saw her to-morrow;' and so got
on pretty well. In like manner when the young ladies questioned him
touching the Gold Fish in that Grecian fountain in such and such a
nobleman's conservatory, and whether there were as many as there used
to be, he gravely reported, after mature consideration, that there
must be at least twice as many; and as to the exotics, 'Oh! well! it
was of no use talking about them; they must be seen to be believed;'
which improved state of circumstances reminded the family of the
splendour of that brilliant festival (comprehending the whole British
Peerage and Court Calendar) to which they were specially invited, and
which indeed had been partly given in their honour; and recollections
of what Mr Norris the father had said to the marquess, and of what
Mrs Norris the mother had said to the marchioness, and of what the
marquess and marchioness had both said, when they said that upon
their words and honours they wished Mr Norris the father and Mrs
Norris the mother, and the Misses Norris the daughters, and Mr Norris
Junior, the son, would only take up their permanent residence in
England, and give them the pleasure of their everlasting friendship,
occupied a very considerable time.

Martin thought it rather stange, and in some sort inconsistent,
that during the whole of these narrations, and in the very meridian
of their enjoyment thereof, both Mr Norris the father, and Mr Norris
Junior, the son (who corresponded, every post, with four members of
the English Peerage), enlarged upon the inestimable advantage of
having no such arbitrary distinctions in that enlightened land, where
there were no noblemen but nature's noblemen, and where all society
was based on one broad level of brotherly love and natural equality.
Indeed, Mr Norris the father gradually expanding into an oration on
this swelling theme, was becoming tedious, when Mr Bevan diverted his
thoughts by happening to make some causal inquiry relative to the
occupier of the next house; in reply to which, this same Mr Norris
the father observed, that 'that person entertained religious opinions
of which he couldn't approve; and therefore he hadn't the honour of
knowing the gentleman.' Mrs Norris the mother added another reason
of her own, the same in effect, but varying in words; to wit, that
she believed the people were well enough in their way, but they were
not genteel.

Another little trait came out, which impressed itself on Martin
forcibly. Mr Bevan told them about Mark and the negro, and then it
appeared that all the Norrises were abolitionists. It was a great
relief to hear this, and Martin was so much encouraged on finding
himself in such company, that he expressed his sympathy with the
oppressed and wretched blacks. Now, one of the young ladies--the
prettiest and most delicate--was mightily amused at the earnestness
with which he spoke; and on his craving leave to ask her why, was
quite unable for a time to speak for laughing. As soon however as
she could, she told him that the negroes were such a funny people, so
excessively ludicrous in their manners and appearance, that it was
wholly impossible for those who knew them well, to associate any
serious ideas with such a very absurd part of the creation. Mr
Norris the father, and Mrs Norris the mother, and Miss Norris the
sister, and Mr Norris Junior the brother, and even Mrs Norris Senior
the grandmother, were all of this opinion, and laid it down as an
absolute matter of fact--as if there were nothing in suffering and
slavery, grim enough to cast a solemn air on any human animal; though
it were as ridiculous, physically, as the most grotesque of apes, or
morally, as the mildest Nimrod among tuft-hunting republicans!

'In short,' said Mr Norris the father, settling the question
comfortably, 'there is a natural antipathy between the races.'

'Extending,' said Martin's friend, in a low voice, 'to the
cruellest of tortures, and the bargain and sale of unborn
generations.'

Mr Norris the son said nothing, but he made a wry face, and
dusted his fingers as Hamlet might after getting rid of Yorick's
skull; just as though he had that moment touched a negro, and some of
the black had come off upon his hands.

In order that their talk might fall again into its former
pleasant channel, Martin dropped the subject, with a shrewd suspicion
that it would be a dangerous theme to revive under the best of
circumstances; and again addressed himself to the young ladies, who
were very gorgeously attired in very beautiful colours, and had every
article of dress on the same extensive scale as the little shoes and
the thin silk stockings. This suggested to him that they were great
proficients in the French fashions, which soon turned out to be the
case, for though their information appeared to be none of the newest,
it was very extensive; and the eldest sister in particular, who was
distinguished by a talent for metaphysics, the laws of hydraulic
pressure, and the rights of human kind, had a novel way of combining
these acquirements and bringing them to bear on any subject from
Millinery to the Millennium, both inclusive, which was at once
improving and remarkable; so much so, in short, that it was usually
observed to reduce foreigners to a state of temporary insanity in
five minutes.

Martin felt his reason going; and as a means of saving himself,
besought the other sister (seeing a piano in the room) to sing. With
this request she willingly complied; and a bravura concert, solely
sustained by the Misses Noriss, presently began. They sang in all
languages--except their own. German, French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Swiss; but nothing native; nothing so low as native.
For, in this respect, languages are like many other
travellers--ordinary and commonplace enough at home, but 'specially
genteel abroad.

There is little doubt that in course of time the Misses Norris
would have come to Hebrew, if they had not been interrupted by an
announcement from the Irishman, who, flinging open the door, cried in
a loud voice--

'Jiniral Fladdock!'

'My!' cried the sisters, desisting suddenly. 'The general come
back!'

As they made the exclamation, the general, attired in full
uniform for a ball, came darting in with such precipitancy that,
hitching his boot in the carpet, and getting his sword between his
legs, he came down headlong, and presented a curious little bald
place on the crown of his head to the eyes of the astonished company.
Nor was this the worst of it; for being rather corpulent and very
tight, the general being down, could not get up again, but lay there
writing and doing such things with his boots, as there is no other
instance of in military history.

Of course there was an immediate rush to his assistance; and the
general was promptly raised. But his uniform was so fearfully and
wonderfully made, that he came up stiff and without a bend in him
like a dead Clown, and had no command whatever of himself until he
was put quite flat upon the soles of his feet, when he became
animated as by a miracle, and moving edgewise that he might go in a
narrower compass and be in less danger of fraying the gold lace on
his epaulettes by brushing them against anything, advanced with a
smiling visage to salute the lady of the house.

To be sure, it would have been impossible for the family to
testify purer delight and joy than at this unlooked-for appearance of
General Fladdock! The general was as warmly received as if New York
had been in a state of siege and no other general was to be got for
love or money. He shook hands with the Norrises three times all
round, and then reviewed them from a little distance as a brave
commander might, with his ample cloak drawn forward over the right
shoulder and thrown back upon the left side to reveal his manly
breast.

'And do I then,' cried the general, 'once again behold the
choicest spirits of my country!'

'Yes,' said Mr Norris the father. 'Here we are, general.'

Then all the Norrises pressed round the general, inquiring how
and where he had been since the date of his letter, and how he had
enjoyed himself in foreign parts, and particularly and above all, to
what extent he had become acquainted with the great dukes, lords,
viscounts, marquesses, duchesses, knights, and baronets, in whom the
people of those benighted countries had delight.

'Well, then, don't ask me,' said the general, holding up his
hand. 'I was among 'em all the time, and have got public journals in
my trunk with my name printed'--he lowered his voice and was very
impressive here--'among the fashionable news. But, oh, the
conventionalities of that a-mazing Europe!'

'Ah!' cried Mr Norris the father, giving his head a melancholy
shake, and looking towards Martin as though he would say, 'I can't
deny it, sir. I would if I could.'

'The limited diffusion of a moral sense in that country!'
exclaimed the general. 'The absence of a moral dignity in man!'

'Ah!' sighed all the Norrises, quite overwhelmed with
despondency.

'I couldn't have realised it,' pursued the general, 'without
being located on the spot. Norris, your imagination is the
imagination of a strong man, but you couldn't have realised it,
without being located on the spot!'

'Never,' said Mr Norris.

'The ex-clusiveness, the pride, the form, the ceremony,'
exclaimed the general, emphasizing the article more vigorously at
every repetition. 'The artificial barriers set up between man and
man; the division of the human race into court cards and plain cards,
of every denomination--into clubs, diamonds, spades--anything but
heart!'

'Ah!' cried the whole family. 'Too true, general!'

'But stay!' cried Mr Norris the father, taking him by the arm.
'Surely you crossed in the Screw, general?'

'Well! so I did,' was the reply.

'Possible!' cried the young ladies. 'Only think!'

The general seemed at a loss to understand why his having come
home in the Screw should occasion such a sensation, nor did he seem
at all clearer on the subject when Mr Norris, introducing him to
Martin, said:

'A fellow-passenger of yours, I think?'

'Of mine?' exclaimed the general; 'No!'

He had never seen Martin, but Martin had seen him, and
recognized him, now that they stood face to face, as the gentleman
who had stuck his hands in his pockets towards the end of the voyage,
and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated.

Everybody looked at Martin. There was no help for it. The
truth must out.

'I came over in the same ship as the general,' said Martin, 'but
not in the same cabin. It being necessary for me to observe strict
economy, I took my passage in the steerage.'

If the general had been carried up bodily to a loaded cannon,
and required to let it off that moment, he could not have been in a
state of greater consternation than when he heard these words. He,
Fladdock--Fladdock in full militia uniform, Fladdock the General,
Fladdock, the caressed of foreign noblemen--expected to know a fellow
who had come over in the steerage of line-of-packet ship, at the cost
of four pound ten! And meeting that fellow in the very sanctuary of
New York fashion, and nestling in the bosom of the New York
aristocracy! He almost laid his hand upon his sword.

A death-like stillness fell upon the Norisses. If this story
should get wind, their country relation had, by his imprudence, for
ever disgraced them. They were the bright particular stars of an
exalted New York sphere. There were other fashionable spheres above
them, and other fashionable spheres below, and none of the stars in
any one of these spheres had anything to say to the stars in any
other of these spheres. But, through all the spheres it would go
forth that the Norrises, deceived by gentlemanly manners and
appearances, had, falling from their high estate, 'received' a
dollarless and unknown man. O guardian eagle of the pure Republic,
had they lived for this!

'You will allow me,' said Martin, after a terrible silence, 'to
take my leave. I feel that I am the cause of at least as much
embarrassment here, as I have brought upon myself. But I am bound,
before I go, to exonerate this gentleman, who, in introducing me to
such society, was quite ignorant of my unworthiness, I assure
you.'

With that he made his bow to the Norrises, and walked out like a
man of snow; very cool externally, but pretty hot within.

'Come, come,' said Mr Norris the father, looking with a pale
face on the assembled circle as Martin closed the door, 'the young
man has this night beheld a refinement of social manner, and an easy
magnificence of social decoration, to which he is a stranger in his
own country. Let us hope it may awake a moral sense within him.'

If that peculiarly transatlantic article, a moral sense--for, if
native statesmen, orators, and pamphleteers, are to be believed,
America quite monopolises the commodity--if that peculiarly
transatlantic article be supposed to include a benevolent love of all
mankind, certainly Martin's would have borne, just then, a deal of
waking. As he strode along the street, with Mark at his heels, his
immoral sense was in active operation; prompting him to the utterance
of some rather sanguinary remarks, which it was well for his own
credit that nobody overheard. He had so far cooled down, however,
that he had begun to laugh at the recollection of these incidents,
when he heard another step behind him, and turning round encountered
his friend Bevan, quite out of breath.

He drew his arm through Martin's, and entreating him to walk
slowly, was silent for some minutes. At length he said:

'I hope you exonerate me in another sense?'

'How do you mean?' asked Martin.

'I hope you acquit me of intending or foreseeing the termination
of our visit. But I scarcely need ask you that.'

'Scarcely indeed,' said Martin. 'I am the more beholden to you
for your kindness, when I find what kind of stuff the good citizens
here are made of.'

'I reckon,' his friend returned, 'that they are made of pretty
much the same stuff as other folks, if they would but own it, and not
set up on false pretences.'

'In good faith, that's true,' said Martin.

'I dare say,' resumed his friend, 'you might have such a scene
as that in an English comedy, and not detect any gross improbability
or anomaly in the matter of it?'

'Yes, indeed!'

'Doubtless it is more ridiculous here than anywhere else,' said
his companion; 'but our professions are to blame for that. So far as
I myself am concerned, I may add that I was perfectly aware from the
first that you came over in the steerage, for I had seen the list of
passengers, and knew it did not comprise your name.'

'I feel more obliged to you than before,' said Martin.

'Norris is a very good fellow in his way,' observed Mr Bevan.

'Is he?' said Martin drily.

'Oh yes! there are a hundred good points about him. If you or
anybody else addressed him as another order of being, and sued to him
in forma pauperis, he would be all kindness and consideration.'

'I needn't have travelled three thousand miles from home to find
such a character as that,' said Martin. Neither he nor his friend
said anything more on the way back; each appearing to find sufficient
occupation in his own thoughts.

The tea, or the supper, or whatever else they called the evening
meal, was over when they reached the Major's; but the cloth,
ornamented with a few additional smears and stains, was still upon
the table. At one end of the board Mrs Jefferson Brick and two other
ladies were drinking tea; out of the ordinary course, evidently, for
they were bonneted and shawled, and seemed to have just come home.
By the light of three flaring candles of different lengths, in as
many candlesticks of different patterns, the room showed to almost as
little advantage as in broad day.

These ladies were all three talking together in a very loud tone
when Martin and his friend entered; but seeing those gentlemen, they
stopped directly, and became excessively genteel, not to say frosty.
As they went on to exchange some few remarks in whispers, the very
water in the teapot might have fallen twenty degrees in temperature
beneath their chilling coldness.

'Have you been to meeting, Mrs Brick?' asked Martin's friend,
with something of a roguish twinkle in his eye.

'To lecture, sir.'

'I beg your pardon. I forgot. You don't go to meeting, I
think?'

Here the lady on the right of Mrs Brick gave a pious cough as
much as to say 'I do!'--as, indeed, she did nearly every night in the
week.

'A good discourse, ma'am?' asked Mr Bevan, addressing this
lady.

The lady raised her eyes in a pious manner, and answered 'Yes.'
She had been much comforted by some good, strong, peppery doctrine,
which satisfactorily disposed of all her friends and acquaintances,
and quite settled their business. Her bonnet, too, had far outshone
every bonnet in the congregation; so she was tranquil on all
accounts.

'What course of lectures are you attending now, ma'am?' said
Martin's friend, turning again to Mrs Brick.

'The Philosophy of the Soul, on Wednesdays.'

'On Mondays?'

'The Philosophy of Crime.'

'On Fridays?'

'The Philosophy of Vegetables.'

'You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy of Government, my
dear,' observed the third lady.

'No,' said Mrs Brick. 'That's Tuesdays.'

'So it is!' cried the lady. 'The Philosophy of Matter on
Thursdays, of course.'

'You see, Mr Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed,' said
Bevan.

'Indeed you have reason to say so,' answered Martin. 'Between
these very grave pursuits abroad, and family duties at home, their
time must be pretty well engrossed.'

Martin stopped here, for he saw that the ladies regarded him
with no very great favour, though what he had done to deserve the
disdainful expression which appeared in their faces he was at a loss
to divine. But on their going upstairs to their bedrooms--which they
very soon did--Mr Bevan informed him that domestic drudgery was far
beneath the exalted range of these Philosophers, and that the chances
were a hundred to one that not one of the three could perform the
easiest woman's work for herself, or make the simplest article of
dress for any of her children.

'Though whether they might not be better employed with such
blunt instruments as knitting-needles than with these edge-tools,' he
said, 'is another question; but I can answer for one thing--they
don't often cut themselves. Devotions and lectures are our balls and
concerts. They go to these places of resort, as an escape from
monotony; look at each other's clothes; and come home again.'

'When you say "home," do you mean a house like this?'

'Very often. But I see you are tired to death, and will wish
you good night. We will discuss your projects in the morning. You
cannot but feel already that it is useless staying here, with any
hope of advancing them. You will have to go further.'

'And to fare worse?' said Martin, pursuing the old adage.

'Well, I hope not. But sufficient for the day, you know--good
night'

They shook hands heartily and separated. As soon as Martin was
left alone, the excitement of novelty and change which had sustained
him through all the fatigues of the day, departed; and he felt so
thoroughly dejected and worn out, that he even lacked the energy to
crawl upstairs to bed.

In twelve or fifteen hours, how great a change had fallen on his
hopes and sanguine plans! New and strange as he was to the ground on
which he stood, and to the air he breathed, he could not-- recalling
all that he had crowded into that one day--but entertain a strong
misgiving that his enterprise was doomed. Rash and ill- considered
as it had often looked on shipboard, but had never seemed on shore,
it wore a dismal aspect, now, that frightened him. Whatever thoughts
he called up to his aid, they came upon him in depressing and
discouraging shapes, and gave him no relief. Even the diamonds on
his finger sparkled with the brightness of tears, and had no ray of
hope in all their brilliant lustre.

He continued to sit in gloomy rumination by the stove, unmindful
of the boarders who dropped in one by one from their stores and
counting-houses, or the neighbouring bar-rooms, and, after taking
long pulls from a great white waterjug upon the sideboard, and
lingering with a kind of hideous fascination near the brass
spittoons, lounged heavily to bed; until at length Mark Tapley came
and shook him by the arm, supposing him asleep.

'Mark!' he cried, starting.

'All right, sir,' said that cheerful follower, snuffing with his
fingers the candle he bore. 'It ain't a very large bed, your'n, sir;
and a man as wasn't thirsty might drink, afore breakfast, all the
water you've got to wash in, and afterwards eat the towel. But
you'll sleep without rocking to-night, sir.'

'I feel as if the house were on the sea' said Martin, staggering
when he rose; 'and am utterly wretched.'

'I'm as jolly as a sandboy, myself, sir,' said Mark. 'But,
Lord, I have reason to be! I ought to have been born here; that's my
opinion. Take care how you go'--for they were now ascending the
stairs. 'You recollect the gentleman aboard the Screw as had the
very small trunk, sir?'

'The valise? Yes.'

'Well, sir, there's been a delivery of clean clothes from the
wash to-night, and they're put outside the bedroom doors here. If
you take notice as we go up, what a very few shirts there are, and
what a many fronts, you'll penetrate the mystery of his packing.'

But Martin was too weary and despondent to take heed of
anything, so had no interest in this discovery. Mr Tapley, nothing
dashed by his indifference, conducted him to the top of the house,
and into the bed-chamber prepared for his reception; which was a very
little narrow room, with half a window in it; a bedstead like a chest
without a lid; two chairs; a piece of carpet, such as shoes are
commonly tried upon at a ready-made establishment in England; a
little looking-glass nailed against the wall; and a washing-table,
with a jug and ewer, that might have been mistaken for a milk-pot and
slop-basin.

'I suppose they polish themselves with a dry cloth in this
country,' said Mark. 'They've certainly got a touch of the 'phoby,
sir.'

'I wish you would pull off my boots for me,' said Martin,
dropping into one of the chairs 'I am quite knocked up--dead beat,
Mark.'

'You won't say that to-morrow morning, sir,' returned Mr Tapley;
'nor even to-night, sir, when you've made a trial of this.' With
which he produced a very large tumbler, piled up to the brim with
little blocks of clear transparent ice, through which one or two thin
slices of lemon, and a golden liquid of delicious appearance,
appealed from the still depths below, to the loving eye of the
spectator.

'What do you call this?' said Martin.

But Mr Tapley made no answer; merely plunging a reed into the
mixture--which caused a pleasant commotion among the pieces of ice--
and signifying by an expressive gesture that it was to be pumped up
through that agency by the enraptured drinker.

Martin took the glass with an astonished look; applied his lips
to the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more
until the goblet was drained to the last drop.

'There, sir!' said Mark, taking it from him with a triumphant
face; 'if ever you should happen to be dead beat again, when I ain't
in the way, all you've got to do is to ask the nearest man to go and
fetch a cobbler.'

'To go and fetch a cobbler?' repeated Martin.

'This wonderful invention, sir,' said Mark, tenderly patting the
empty glass, 'is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler when you name it
long; cobbler, when you name it short. Now you're equal to having
your boots took off, and are, in every particular worth mentioning,
another man.'

Having delivered himself of this solemn preface, he brought the
bootjack.

'Mind! I am not going to relapse, Mark,' said Martin; 'but,
good Heaven, if we should be left in some wild part of this country
without goods or money!'

'Well, sir!' replied the imperturbable Tapley; 'from what we've
seen already, I don't know whether, under those circumstances, we
shouldn't do better in the wild parts than in the tame ones.'

'Oh, Tom Pinch, Tom Pinch!' said Martin, in a thoughtful tone;
'what would I give to be again beside you, and able to hear your
voice, though it were even in the old bedroom at Pecksniff's!'

'Oh, Dragon, Dragon!' echoed Mark, cheerfully, 'if there warn't
any water between you and me, and nothing faint-hearted-like in going
back, I don't know that I mightn't say the same. But here am I,
Dragon, in New York, America; and there are you in Wiltshire, Europe;
and there's a fortune to make, Dragon, and a beautiful young lady to
make it for; and whenever you go to see the Monument, Dragon, you
mustn't give in on the doorsteps, or you'll never get up to the
top!'

'Wisely said, Mark,' cried Martin. 'We must look forward.'

'In all the story-books as ever I read, sir, the people as
looked backward was turned into stones,' replied Mark; 'and my
opinion always was, that they brought it on themselves, and it served
'em right. I wish you good night, sir, and pleasant dreams!'

'They must be of home, then,' said Martin, as he lay down in
bed.

'So I say, too,' whispered Mark Tapley, when he was out of
hearing and in his own room; 'for if there don't come a time afore
we're well out of this, when there'll be a little more credit in
keeping up one's jollity, I'm a United Statesman!'

Leaving them to blend and mingle in their sleep the shadows of
objects afar off, as they take fantastic shapes upon the wall in the
dim light of thought without control, be it the part of this slight
chronicle--a dream within a dream--as rapidly to change the scene,
and cross the ocean to the English shore.