'I shall take it as being very friendly of you,' 'I'm not in your way, am I ?' inquired Martin, glancing down at Mr Pinch, who was by this time looking at the fire over his leg.
'Not at all!' cried Tom.
'You must know then, to make short of a long story,' said Martin, beginning with a kind of effort, as if the revelation were not agreeable to him; 'that I have been bred up from childhood with great expectations, and have always been taught to believe that I should be, one day, very rich.

So I should have been, but for certain brief reasons which I am going to tell you, and which have led to my being disinherited.' 'By your father ?' inquired Mr Pinch, with open eyes.
'By my grandfather.

I have had no parents these many years.

Scarcely within my remembrance.' 'Neither have I,' said Tom, touching the young man's hand with his own and timidly withdrawing it again.

'Dear me!' 'Why, as to that, you know, Pinch,' pursued the other, stirring the fire again, and speaking in his rapid, off-hand way; 'it's all very right and proper to be fond of parents when we have them, and to bear them in remembrance after they're dead, if you have ever known anything of them.
But as I never did know anything about mine personally, you know, why, I can't be expected to be very sentimental about 'em.