 friend, be very careful, if you please.«
    Tom was in some need of this injunction, for he felt so nervous, and
trembled to such a degree, that he found it difficult to hold the lantern. How
much more difficult when, at the old man's bidding, she drew her hand through
his, Tom Pinch's, arm!
    »And so, Mr. Pinch,« said Martin, on the way, »you are very comfortably
situated here; are you?«
    Tom answered, with even more than his usual enthusiasm, that he was under
obligations to Mr. Pecksniff which the devotion of a lifetime would but
imperfectly repay.
    »How long have you known my nephew?« asked Martin.
    »Your nephew, sir?« faltered Tom.
    »Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit,« said Mary.
    »Oh dear, yes,« cried Tom, greatly relieved, for his mind was running upon
Martin. »Certainly. I never spoke to him before to-night, sir?«
    »Perhaps half a lifetime will suffice for the acknowledgment of his
kindness,« observed the old man.
    Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it as
a left-handed hit at his employer. So he was silent. Mary felt that Mr. Pinch
was not remarkable for presence of mind, and that he could not say too little
under existing circumstances. So she was silent. The old man, disgusted by what
in his suspicious nature he considered a shameless and fulsome puff of Mr.
Pecksniff, which was a part of Tom's hired service and in which he was
determined to persevere, set him down at once for a deceitful, servile,
miserable, fawner. So he was silent. And though they were all sufficiently
uncomfortable, it is fair to say that Martin was perhaps the most so; for he had
felt kindly towards Tom at first, and had been interested by his seeming
simplicity.
    »You're like the rest,« he thought, glancing at the face of the unconscious
Tom. »You had nearly imposed upon me, but you have lost your labour. You are too
zealous a toad-eater, and betray yourself, Mr. Pinch.«
    During the whole remainder of the walk, not another word was spoken. First
among the meetings to which Tom had long looked forward with a beating heart, it
was memorable for nothing but embarrassment and confusion. They parted at the
Dragon door; and sighing as he extinguished the candle in the lantern, Tom
turned back again
