t friends behind him. Mr Westlock and you,
sir, had a little difference the other day; you have had many little
differences.'

'Little differences!' cried Charity.

'Little differences!' echoed Mercy.

'My loves!' said Mr Pecksniff, with the same serene upraising of his
hand; 'My dears!' After a solemn pause he meekly bowed to Mr Pinch, as
who should say, 'Proceed;' but Mr Pinch was so very much at a loss how
to resume, and looked so helplessly at the two Miss Pecksniffs, that
the conversation would most probably have terminated there, if a
good-looking youth, newly arrived at man's estate, had not stepped
forward from the doorway and taken up the thread of the discourse.

'Come, Mr Pecksniff,' he said, with a smile, 'don't let there be any
ill-blood between us, pray. I am sorry we have ever differed, and
extremely sorry I have ever given you offence. Bear me no ill-will at
parting, sir.'

'I bear,' answered Mr Pecksniff, mildly, 'no ill-will to any man on
earth.'

'I told you he didn't,' said Pinch, in an undertone; 'I knew he didn't!
He always says he don't.'

'Then you will shake hands, sir?' cried Westlock, advancing a step or
two, and bespeaking Mr Pinch's close attention by a glance.

'Umph!' said Mr Pecksniff, in his most winning tone.

'You will shake hands, sir.'

'No, John,' said Mr Pecksniff, with a calmness quite ethereal; 'no, I
will not shake hands, John. I have forgiven you. I had already forgiven
you, even before you ceased to reproach and taunt me. I have embraced
you in the spirit, John, which is better than shaking hands.'

'Pinch,' said the youth, turning towards him, with a hearty disgust of
his late master, 'what did I tell you?'

Poor Pinch looked down uneasily at Mr Pecksniff, whose eye was fixed
upon him as it had been from the first; and looking up at the ceiling
again, made no reply.

'As to your forgiveness, Mr Pecksniff,' said the youth, 'I'll not have
it upon such terms. I won't be forgiven.'

'Won't you, John?' retorted Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. 'You must. You
can't help it. Forgiveness is a high quality; an exalted virtue; far
above YOUR control or influence, John. I WILL forgive you. You cannot
move me to remember any wrong you have ever done me, John.'

'Wrong!' cried the other, with all the heat and impetuosity of his age.
'Here's a pretty fellow! Wrong! Wrong I have done him! He'll not even
remember the five hundred pounds he had with me under false pretences;
or