.«
    »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 office of his nature; and faithfully he did his work!«
    »I am not angry,« observed Mr. Pecksniff. »I am hurt, Mr. Chuzzlewit:
wounded in my feelings: but I am not angry, my good sir.«
    Mr. Chuzzlewit resumed.
    »Once resolved to try him, I was resolute to pursue the trial to the end;
but while I was bent on fathoming the depth of his duplicity, I made a sacred
compact with myself that I would give him credit on the other side for any
latent spark of goodness, honour, forbearance - any virtue - that might glimmer
in him. From first to last, there has been no such thing. Not once. He cannot
say I have not given him opportunity. He cannot say I have ever led him on. He
cannot say I have not left him freely to himself in all things; or that I have
not been a passive instrument in his hands, which he might have used for good as
easily as evil. Or if he can, he Lies! And that's his nature too.«
    »Mr. Chuzzlewit,« interrupted Pecksniff, shedding tears. »I am not angry,
sir. I cannot be angry with you. But did you never, my dear sir, express a
desire that the unnatural young man who by his wicked arts has estranged your
good opinion from me, for the time being: only for the time being: that your
grandson,
