“Well!” said Pinch with a sigh, “I don’t know, I’m sure. It’s a compliment to say so. If I haven’t, I suppose I’m all the better for it.”
“All the better!” repeated his companion tartly: “All the worse, you mean to say.”
“And yet,” said Pinch, pursuing his own thoughts and not the last remark on the part of his friend, “I must have a good deal of what you call the devil in me, too, or how could I make Pecksniff so uncomfortable? I wouldn’t have occasioned him so much distress—don’t laugh, please—for a mine of money: and Heaven knows I could find good use for it, too, John. How grieved he was!”
“He grieved!” returned the other.
“Why didn’t you observe that the tears were almost starting out of his eyes!” cried Pinch. “Bless my soul, John, is it nothing to see a man moved to that extent and know one’s self to be the cause! And did you hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?”
“Do you want any blood shed for you?” returned his friend, with considerable irritation. “Does he shed any thing for you that you do want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you, pocket-money for you? Does he shed even legs of mutton for you in a decent proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?”
“I am afraid,” said Pinch, sighing again, “that I’m a great eater: I can’t disguise from myself that I’m a great eater. Now you know that, John.”
“You a great eater!” retorted his companion, with no less indignation than before. “How do you know you are?”
There appeared to be forcible matter in this inquiry, for Mr. Pinch only repeated in an under-tone that he had a strong misgiving on the subject, and that he greatly feared he was.
“Besides, whether I am or no,” he added “that has little or nothing to do with his thinking me ungrateful. John, there is scarcely a sin in the world that is in my eyes such a crying one as ingratitude; and when he taxes me with that, and believes me to be guilty of it, he makes me miserable and wretched.”