could; and the
Pecksniff who could do that could do anything, and no doubt had been
doing anything and everything except the right thing, all through his
career. From the lofty height on which poor Tom had placed his idol it
was tumbled down headlong, and

Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men,
Could have set Mr Pecksniff up again.

Legions of Titans couldn't have got him out of the mud; and serve him
right! But it was not he who suffered; it was Tom. His compass was
broken, his chart destroyed, his chronometer had stopped, his masts were
gone by the board; his anchor was adrift, ten thousand leagues away.

Mr Pecksniff watched him with a lively interest, for he divined the
purpose of Tom's ruminations, and was curious to see how he conducted
himself. For some time, Tom wandered up and down the aisle like a man
demented, stopping occasionally to lean against a pew and think it over;
then he stood staring at a blank old monument bordered tastefully with
skulls and cross-bones, as if it were the finest work of Art he had ever
seen, although at other times he held it in unspeakable contempt; then
he sat down; then walked to and fro again; then went wandering up into
the organ-loft, and touched the keys. But their minstrelsy was changed,
their music gone; and sounding one long melancholy chord, Tom drooped
his head upon his hands and gave it up as hopeless.

'I wouldn't have cared,' said Tom Pinch, rising from his stool and
looking down into the church as if he had been the Clergyman, 'I
wouldn't have cared for anything he might have done to Me, for I have
tried his patience often, and have lived upon his sufferance and have
never been the help to him that others could have been. I wouldn't have
minded, Pecksniff,' Tom continued, little thinking who heard him, 'if
you had done Me any wrong; I could have found plenty of excuses for
that; and though you might have hurt me, could have still gone on
respecting you. But why did you ever fall so low as this in my esteem!
Oh Pecksniff, Pecksniff, there is nothing I would not have given, to
have had you deserve my old opinion of you; nothing!'

Mr Pecksniff sat upon the hassock pulling up his shirt-collar, while
Tom, touched to the quick, delivered this apostrophe. After a pause he
heard Tom coming down the stairs, jingling the church keys; and bringing
his eye to the top of the pew again, saw him go slowly out and lock the
door.

Mr Pecksniff durst no