‘That’s possible, sir. If I could get into a wicked family, I might do myself justice; but the difficulty is to make sure of one’s ground, because a young man can’t very well advertise that he wants a place, and wages an’t so much an object as a wicked sitivation; can he, sir?’
‘Why, no,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘I don’t think he can.’
‘An envious family,’ pursued Mark, with a thoughtful face; ‘or a quarrelsome family, or a malicious family, or even a good out-and-out mean family, would open a field of action as I might do something in. The man as would have suited me of all other men was that old gentleman as was took ill here, for he really was a trying customer. Howsever, I must wait and see what turns up, sir; and hope for the worst.’
‘You are determined to go then?’ said Mr Pinch.
‘My box is gone already, sir, by the waggon, and I’m going to walk on to-morrow morning, and get a lift by the day coach when it overtakes me. So I wish you good-bye, Mr Pinch—and you too, sir—and all good luck and happiness!’
They both returned his greeting laughingly, and walked home arm-in-arm. Mr Pinch imparting to his new friend, as they went, such further particulars of Mark Tapley’s whimsical restlessness as the reader is already acquainted with.
In the meantime Mark, having a shrewd notion that his mistress was in very low spirits, and that he could not exactly answer for the consequences of any lengthened tete-a-tete in the bar, kept himself obstinately out of her way all the afternoon and evening. In this piece of generalship he was very much assisted by the great influx of company into the taproom; for the news of his intention having gone abroad, there was a perfect throng there all the evening, and much drinking of healths and clinking of mugs. At length the house was closed for the night; and there being now no help for it, Mark put the best face he could upon the matter, and walked doggedly to the bar-door.
‘If I look at her,’ said Mark to himself, ‘I’m done. I feel that I’m a-going fast.’
‘You have come at last,’ said Mrs Lupin.
Aye, Mark said: There he was.