t, I
thought I had. I knew them--her, I mean--directly. The gentleman who
was ill at the Dragon, sir, last winter; and the young lady who attended
him.'

Tom's teeth chattered in his head, and he positively staggered with
amazement, at witnessing the extraordinary effect produced on Mr
Pecksniff by these simple words. The dread of losing the old man's
favour almost as soon as they were reconciled, through the mere fact
of having Jonas in the house; the impossibility of dismissing Jonas,
or shutting him up, or tying him hand and foot and putting him in
the coal-cellar, without offending him beyond recall; the horrible
discordance prevailing in the establishment, and the impossibility of
reducing it to decent harmony with Charity in loud hysterics, Mercy in
the utmost disorder, Jonas in the parlour, and Martin Chuzzlewit and his
young charge upon the very doorsteps; the total hopelessness of being
able to disguise or feasibly explain this state of rampant confusion;
the sudden accumulation over his devoted head of every complicated
perplexity and entanglement for his extrication from which he had
trusted to time, good fortune, chance, and his own plotting, so filled
the entrapped architect with dismay, that if Tom could have been a
Gorgon staring at Mr Pecksniff, and Mr Pecksniff could have been a
Gorgon staring at Tom, they could not have horrified each other half so
much as in their own bewildered persons.

'Dear, dear!' cried Tom, 'what have I done? I hoped it would be a
pleasant surprise, sir. I thought you would like to know.'

But at that moment a loud knocking was heard at the hall door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MORE AMERICAN EXPERIENCES, MARTIN TAKES A PARTNER, AND MAKES A PURCHASE.
SOME ACCOUNT OF EDEN, AS IT APPEARED ON PAPER. ALSO OF THE BRITISH LION.
ALSO OF THE KIND OF SYMPATHY PROFESSED AND ENTERTAINED BY THE WATERTOAST
ASSOCIATION OF UNITED SYMPATHISERS

The knocking at Mr Pecksniff's door, though loud enough, bore no
resemblance whatever to the noise of an American railway train at full
speed. It may be well to begin the present chapter with this frank
admission, lest the reader should imagine that the sounds now deafening
this history's ears have any connection with the knocker on Mr
Pecksniff's door, or with the great amount of agitation pretty equally
divided between that worthy man and Mr Pinch, of which its strong
performance was the cause.

Mr Pecksniff's house is more than a thousand leag