Mr Pinch

“ Pinch," pursued the landlady, "if ever there was a dear, good, pleasant, worthy, soul alive, Pinch, and no other, is his name. But how do we know that old Mr. Chuzzlewit himself was not the cause of difference arising between him and Mr. Pecksniff? No one but themselves can tell: for Mr. Pinch has a proud spirit, though he has such a quiet way; and when he left us, and was so sorry to go, he scorned to make his story good, even to me."
"Poor old Tom!" said Martin, in a tone that sounded like remorse. ”

“ Good-bye for the present.’
‘Good-bye, sir! Good-bye, Mr Pinch!’ he added by way of soliloquy, as he stood looking after him. ‘Although you are a damper to a honourable ambition. You little think it, but you was the first to dash my hopes. Pecksniff would have built me up for life, but your sweet temper pulled me down. Good-bye, Mr Pinch!’
While these confidences were interchanged between Tom Pinch and Mark, Martin and John Westlock were very differently engaged. ”

“ To let you into a secret, Mr Pinch, I never was so much in want of something warm and cheering in my life; but I didn’t like to run the chance of being found drinking it, without knowing what kind of person you were; for first impressions, you know, often go a long way, and last a long time.’
Mr Pinch assented, and the punch was ordered. In due course it came; hot and strong. After drinking to each other in the steaming mixture, they became quite confidential.
‘I’m a sort of relation of Pecksniff’s, you know,’ said the young man. ”

“ Chuzzlewit is my name.’
‘Dear me!’ cried Mr Pinch, with an involuntary start.
‘You’re not surprised at my having two names, I suppose?’ returned the other, setting his glass to his lips. ‘Most people have.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘not at all. Oh dear no! Well!’ And then remembering that Mr Pecksniff had privately cautioned him to say nothing in reference to the old gentleman of the same name who had lodged at the Dragon, but to reserve all mention of that person for him, he had no better means of hiding his confusion than by raising his own glass to his mouth. ”

“ And now so abject and so pitiful was he—at once so maudlin, insolent, beggarly, and proud—that even his friend and parasite, standing erect beside him, swelled into a Man by contrast.
‘Chiv,’ said Mr Tigg, clapping him on the back, ‘my friend Pecksniff not being at home, I have arranged our trifling piece of business with Mr Pinch and friend. Mr Pinch and friend, Mr Chevy Slyme! Chiv, Mr Pinch and friend!’
‘These are agreeable circumstances in which to be introduced to strangers,’ said Chevy Slyme, turning his bloodshot eyes towards Tom Pinch. ”

“ Pinch.
"Well, sir," said Mark, "I don't know as there's much to answer further than that. Him and his friend goes and stops at the Moon and Stars till they 've run a bill there; and then comes and stops with us and does the same. The running of bills is common enough, Mr. Pinch; it an't that as we object to; it's the ways of this chap. Nothing's good enough for him; all the women is dying for him he thinks, and is overpaid if he winks at 'em; and all the men was made to be ordered about by him. ”

“ Pinch will come by me. Let us drink to our new inmate, and may we be happy together! Martin, my dear friend, my love to you! Mr. Pinch, if you spare the bottle we shall quarrel."
And trying (in his regard for the feelings of the rest) to look as if the wine were not acid and didn't make him wink, Mr. Pecksniff did honour to his own toast.
"This," he said, in allusion to the party, not the wine, "is a mingling that repays one for much disappointment and vexation. Let us be merry." Here he took a captain's biscuit. "It is a poor heart that never rejoices; and our hearts are not poor? No!" ”

“ The business lies entirely between yourself and me, Mr. Pinch. With reference to your duties, I can set you going; and with reference to your salary, I can pay it. Weekly," said Mr. Fips, putting down the wafer-stamp, and looking at John Westlock and Tom Pinch by turns, "weekly; in this office; at any time between the hours of four and five o'clock in the afternoon." As Mr. Fips said this, he made up his face as if he were going to whistle. But he didn't.
"You are very good," said Tom, whose countenance was now suffused with pleasure: "and nothing can be more satisfactory or straight-forward. ”

“ Pinch!" said Miss Pecksniff. "It all comes of this unfortunate marriage. If my sister had not been so precipitate, and had not united herself to a Wretch, there would have been no Mr. Chuffey in the house."
"Hush!" cried Tom. "She 'll hear you."
"I should be very sorry if she did hear me, Mr. Pinch," said Cherry, raising her voice a little: "for it is not in my nature to add to the uneasiness of any person: far less of my own sister. I know what a sister's duties are, Mr. Pinch, and I hope I always showed it in my practice. ”

“ Not even then.
‘I will not say,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears, ‘what a blow this is. I will not say how much it tries me; how it works upon my nature; how it grates upon my feelings. I do not care for that. I can endure as well as another man. But what I have to hope, and what you have to hope, Mr Pinch (otherwise a great responsibility rests upon you) , is, that this deception may not alter my ideas of humanity ”

“ Here Mr Pecksniff wiped his eyes again, and gave himself two or three little knocks upon the breast, as if he were answering two or three other little knocks from within, given by the tinkling hammer of his conscience, to express ‘Cheer up, my boy!’
‘I know the human mind, although I trust it. That is my weakness. Do I not know, sir’—here he became exceedingly plaintive and was observed to glance towards Tom Pinch—‘that my misfortunes bring this treatment on me? Do I not know, sir, that but for them I never should have heard what I have heard to-day? ”

“ It was all on Mr Pinch’s side, and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would encumber him; to which Tom said, ‘Not at all;’ though it forced him into such an awkward position, that he had much ado to see anything but his own knees. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the wisdom of the saying was verified in this instance; for the cold air came from Mr Pinch’s side of the carriage, and by interposing a perfect wall of box and man between it and the new pupil, he shielded that young gentleman effectually ”

“ Mr Pinch accordingly, after turning over the leaves of his book with as much care as if they were living and highly cherished creatures, made his own selection, and began to read. ”

“ This naturally led him to dwell upon Tom’s character, and to hint that Mr Pecksniff understood it pretty well. He only hinted this, and very distantly; knowing that it pained Tom Pinch to have that gentleman disparaged, and thinking it would be as well to leave the new pupil to his own discoveries.
‘Yes,’ said Martin. ‘It’s impossible to like Pinch better than I do, or to do greater justice to his good qualities. He is the most willing fellow I ever saw.’
‘He’s rather too willing,’ observed John, who was quick in observation. ”

“ Though Mercy laved the wound herself; and Mr Pecksniff held the patient’s head between his two hands, as if without that assistance it must inevitably come in half; and Tom Pinch, in his guilty agitation, shook a bottle of Dutch Drops until they were nothing but English Froth, and in his other hand sustained a formidable carving-knife, really intended to reduce the swelling, but apparently designed for the ruthless infliction of another wound as soon as that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least assistance, nor uttered a word. ”

“ It’s worth that, to keep your treasure to yourself, you know. You get off very cheap that way, and haven’t a sacrifice to make.’
The grin with which he accompanied this, set off his other attractions to such unspeakable advantage, that even Mr Pecksniff lost his presence of mind for a moment, and looked at the young man as if he were quite stupefied with wonder and admiration. But he quickly regained his composure, and was in the very act of changing the subject, when a hasty step was heard without, and Tom Pinch, in a state of great excitement, came darting into the room. ”

“ Pecksniff's unobtrusive remarks on the establishment, might possibly have had some share in their dismissal. Poor Miss Pinch, however, had to bear the brunt of it with both parties: being so severely taken to task by the Seraph's mother for having such vulgar acquaintances, that she was fain to retire to her own room in tears, which her natural cheerfulness and submission, and the delight of having seen Mr. Pecksniff, and having received a letter from her brother, were at first insufficient to repress. ”

“ But such is the magic of genius, which changes all it handles into gold!
"When your mind requires to be refreshed, by change of occupation," said Mr. Pecksniff, "Thomas Pinch will instruct you in the art of surveying the back garden, or in ascertaining the dead level of the road between this house and the finger-post, or in any other practical and pleasing pursuit. There are a cart-load of loose bricks, and a score or two of old flower-pots, in the back yard. If you could pile them up, my dear Martin, into any form which would remind me on my return—say of St. ”

“ Off went the mail at a canter down the dark road: the lamps gleaming brightly, and the horn awakening all the echoes, far and wide.
"Go your ways," said Pinch, apostrophizing the coach: "I can hardly persuade myself but you're alive, and are some great monster who visits this place at certain intervals, to bear my friends away into the world. You're more exulting and rampant than usual to-night, I think: and you may well crow over your prize; for he is a fine lad, an ingenuous lad, and has but one fault that I know of: he don't mean it, but he is most cruelly unjust to Pecksniff!" ”

“ Pinch's thoughts and wishes centred, one bright frosty morning: for with this gallant equipage he was about to drive to Salisbury alone, there to meet with the new pupil, and thence to bring him home in triumph.
Blessings on thy simple heart, Tom Pinch, how proudly dost thou button up that scanty coat, called by a sad misnomer, for these many years, a "great" one; and how thoroughly as with thy cheerful voice thou pleasantly adjurest Sam the hostler "not to let him go yet," dost thou believe that quadruped desires to go, and would go if he might! ”

“ He does his work and he’s reached his limit. And away from work, he’s just a schoolboy from his task. He’s light hearted and ought to be happy; and if she is not, he’ll worry a great deal. But he won’t [Pg 22] know what’s the matter, any more than Medora herself.”
Mr. Pinhey’s conventional mind proceeded in its natural groove. ”

“ Roger Ascham, some years earlier, had written in the same strain. In many towns the office of schoolmaster was conferred on "an ancient citizen of no great learning." Sometimes a quack con [97] juring doctor had the position, like Pinch in the Comedy of Errors (v. 1. 237) , whom Antipholus of Ephesus describes thus:—
"Along with them
They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man. ”

“ Pincher. Ah, I've a good deal of influence in that line. Now, if there's anything Mrs. SCROOP might fancy—I know "perks" are not in your line, but the ladies, my boy, the ladies!
H. of D. (laughing) . You will have your joke, PINCHER. Well, oddly enough, the Missis was only saying last night she wanted a new piano—one of BROADWOOD's grands, for choice—and if you—
Pincher (mysteriously) . Leave it to me, my dear Sir, leave it to me. If Mrs. SCROOP isn't satisfied by this day week, why—never give me another line. Ha! ha! Good day, Mr. SCROOP! ”

“ The girl laughed. 'Thank you, Mister Billings,' she said; 'I am enjoying the best of health, and I hope you are the same.' She regarded Pincher out of the corner of her eye; and that youth, very ill at ease, shuffled nervously and began to get red in the face. He was always rather frightened of women.
'I'm quite fit, miss,' said Joshua. 'This 'ere's Mr Martin—Pincher Martin we calls 'im. Friend o' mine, 'e is. Brought 'im along o' me ter be interjooced.' He pushed the ordinary seaman forward by the arm. ”

“ Tom Pinch seemed a little disposed to be melancholy for half a minute or so, but he found comfort very soon, and pursued his ruminations thus:
"I'm a nice man, I don't think, as John used to say (John was a kind, merry-hearted fellow: I wish he had liked Pecksniff better) to be feeling Tom, on account of the distance between us, when I ought to be thinking, instead, of my extraordinary good-luck in having ever got here. I must have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I am sure, to have ever come across Pecksniff; And here have I fallen again into my usual good-luck with the new pupil! ”

“ Infinitely disgusted, Pinckney writes King that Gerry, "as I suspected, is resolved to remain here," notwithstanding Pinckney's "warm remonstrances with him on the bad consequences ... of such conduct and on the impropriety of" his secret "correspondence with Talleyrand under injunction not to communicate it to his colleagues." Pinckney says: "I have made great sacrifices of my feelings to preserve union; but in vain. I never met [Pg 334] with a man of less candour and so much duplicity as Mr. Gerry. General Marshall is a man of extensive ability, of manly candour, and an honest heart." ”