[Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link bookLife And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit CHAPTER TWO 4/30
'You'll catch it, sir!' Still Mr Pecksniff, perhaps from having caught it already, said nothing. 'You're round the corner now,' cried Miss Pecksniff.
She said it at a venture, but there was appropriate matter in it too; for Mr Pecksniff, being in the act of extinguishing the candles before mentioned pretty rapidly, and of reducing the number of brass knobs on his street door from four or five hundred (which had previously been juggling of their own accord before his eyes in a very novel manner) to a dozen or so, might in one sense have been said to be coming round the corner, and just turning it. With a sharply delivered warning relative to the cage and the constable, and the stocks and the gallows, Miss Pecksniff was about to close the door again, when Mr Pecksniff (being still at the bottom of the steps) raised himself on one elbow, and sneezed. 'That voice!' cried Miss Pecksniff.
'My parent!' At this exclamation, another Miss Pecksniff bounced out of the parlour; and the two Miss Pecksniffs, with many incoherent expressions, dragged Mr Pecksniff into an upright posture. 'Pa!' they cried in concert.
'Pa! Speak, Pa! Do not look so wild my dearest Pa!' But as a gentleman's looks, in such a case of all others, are by no means under his own control, Mr Pecksniff continued to keep his mouth and his eyes very wide open, and to drop his lower jaw, somewhat after the manner of a toy nut-cracker; and as his hat had fallen off, and his face was pale, and his hair erect, and his coat muddy, the spectacle he presented was so very doleful, that neither of the Miss Pecksniffs could repress an involuntary screech. 'That'll do,' said Mr Pecksniff.
'I'm better.' 'He's come to himself!' cried the youngest Miss Pecksniff. 'He speaks again!' exclaimed the eldest. With these joyful words they kissed Mr Pecksniff on either cheek; and bore him into the house.
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