“Set the door open, Mark!” said Mr. Chuzzlewit.

The last appointed footstep sounded now upon the stairs.  They all knew it.  It was Mr. Pecksniff’s; and Mr. Pecksniff was in a hurry, too, for he came bounding up with such uncommon expedition that he stumbled once or twice.

“Where is my venerable friend?” he cried upon the upper landing.  And then, darting in and catching sight of old Martin, “My venerable friend is well?”

Mr. Pecksniff looked round upon the assembled group, and shook his head reproachfully.

“Oh, vermin!” said Mr. Pecksniff.  “Oh bloodsuckers!  Horde of unnatural plunderers and robbers!  Leave him!  Leave him, I say!  Begone!  Abscond!  You had better be off!  Wander over the face of the earth, young sirs, and do not presume to remain in a spot which is hallowed by the grey hairs of the patriarchal gentleman to whose tottering limbs I have the honour to act as an unworthy, but I hope an unassuming, prop and staff.”

He advanced, with outstretched arms, to take the old man’s hand; but he had not seen how the hand clasped and clutched the stick within its grasp.  As he came smiling on, and got within his reach, old Martin, burning with indignation, rose up and struck him to the ground.

“Drag him away!  Take him out of my reach!” said Martin.  And Mr. Tapley actually did drag him away, and struck him upon the floor with his back against the opposite wall.

“Hear me, rascal!” said Mr. Chuzzlewit.  “I have summoned you here to witness your own work.  Come hither, my dear Martin!  Why did we ever part?  How could we ever part?  How could you fly from me to him?  The fault was mine no less than yours.  Mark has told me so, and I have known it long.  Mary, my love, come here.”

She trembled, and was very pale; but he sat her in his own chair, and stood beside it holding her hand, Martin standing by him.

“The curse of our house,” said the old man, looking kindly down upon her, “has been the love of self—­has ever been the love of self.”  He drew one hand through Martin’s arm, and standing so, between them, proceeded, “What’s this?  Her hand is trembling strangely.  See if you can hold it.”

Hold it!  If he clasped it half as tightly as he did her waist—­well, well!

But it was good in him that even then, in high fortune and happiness, he had still a hand left to stretch out to Tom Pinch.

* * * * *

Nicholas Nickleby

      Writing in 1848, Charles Dickens declared that when “Nicholas
     Nickleby” was begun in 1838 “there were then a good many-cheap
     Yorkshire schools in existence.  There are very few now.”  In
     the preface to the completed book the author mentioned that
     more than one Yorkshire schoolmaster laid claim to be the
     original of Squeers, and he had reason to believe “one worthy