"I was," said Mr. Pecksniff, mildly.
"Oh! you were? What was it?"
"That I never," said Mr. Pecksniff, previously rising to see that the door was shut, and arranging his chair when he came back, so that it could not be opened in the least without his immediately becoming aware of the circumstance: "that I never in my life was so astonished as by the receipt of your letter yesterday. That you should do me the honor to wish to take counsel with me on any matter, amazed me; but that you should desire to do so to the exclusion even of Mr. Jonas, showed an amount of confidence in one to whom you had done a verbal injury—merely a verbal injury, you were anxious to repair—which gratified, which moved, which overcame me."
He was always a glib speaker, but he delivered this short address very glibly; having been at some pains to compose it outside the coach.
Although he paused for a reply, and truly said that he was there at Anthony's request, the old man sat gazing at him in profound silence and with a perfectly blank face. Nor did he seem to have the least desire or impulse to pursue the conversation, though Mr. Pecksniff looked towards the door, and pulled out his watch, and gave him many other hints that their time was short, and Jonas, if he kept his word, would soon return. But the strangest incident in all this strange behaviour was, that of a sudden—in a moment—so swiftly that it was impossible to trace how, or to observe any process of change—his features fell into their old expression, and he cried, striking his hand passionately upon the table as if no interval at all had taken place:
"Will you hold your tongue, Sir, and let me speak? "
Mr. Pecksniff deferred to him with a submissive bow; and said within himself, "I knew his hand was changed, and that his writing staggered. I said so yesterday. Ahem! Dear me!"
"Jonas is sweet upon your daughter, Pecksniff," said the old man, in his usual tone.
"We spoke of that, if you remember, Sir, at Mrs. Todgers's," replied the courteous architect.
"You needn't speak so loud," retorted Anthony. "I'm not so deaf as that."
Mr. Pecksniff had certainly raised his voice pretty high: not so much because he thought Anthony was deaf, as because he felt convinced that his perceptive faculties were waxing dim: but this quick resentment of his considerate behaviour greatly disconcerted him, and, not knowing what tack to shape his course upon, he made another inclination of the head, yet more submissive than the last.
"I have said," repeated the old man, "that Jonas is sweet upon your daughter."
"A charming girl, sir," murmured Mr. Pecksniff, seeing that he waited for an answer. "A dear girl, Mr. Chuzzlewit, though I say it who should not."
"You know better," cried the old man, advancing his weazen face at least a yard, and starting forward in his chair to do it. "You lie? What, you will be a hypocrite, will you?"
