'What ?' 'Why, your fortune.' 'No!' said Tom Pinch, quite as much delighted as if the thing were done.
'Would you though?
How kind of you to say so.' 'I'd build it up, Tom,' returned Martin, 'on such a strong foundation, that it should last your life--aye, and your children's lives too, and their children's after them.

I'd be your patron, Tom.

I'd take you under my protection.

Let me see the man who should give the cold shoulder to anybody I chose to protect and patronise, if I were at the top of the tree, Tom!' 'Now, I don't think,' said Mr Pinch, 'upon my word, that I was ever more gratified than by this.

I really don't.' 'Oh! I mean what I say,' retorted Martin, with a manner as free and easy in its condescension to, not to say in its compassion for, the other, as if he were already First Architect in ordinary to all the Crowned Heads in Europe.