He was very dirty and very jaunty; very bold and very mean; very swaggering and very slinking; very much like a man who might have been something better, and unspeakably like a man who deserved to be something worse.
'You were eaves-dropping at that door, you vagabond!' said this gentleman.
Mr Pecksniff cast him off, as Saint George might have repudiated the Dragon in that animal's last moments, and said: 'Where is Mrs Lupin, I wonder! can the good woman possibly be aware that there is a person here who--' 'Stay!' said the gentleman.

'Wait a bit.

She DOES know.

What then ?' 'What then, sir ?' cried Mr Pecksniff.

'What then?
Do you know, sir, that I am the friend and relative of that sick gentleman?
That I am his protector, his guardian, his--' 'Not his niece's husband,' interposed the stranger, 'I'll be sworn; for he was there before you.' 'What do you mean ?' said Mr Pecksniff, with indignant surprise.