I won't be forgiven.'
'Won't you, John?' retorted Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. 'You must. You
can't help it. Forgiveness is a high quality; an exalted virtue; far
above YOUR control or influence, John. I WILL forgive you. You cannot
move me to remember any wrong you have ever done me, John.'
'Wrong!' cried the other, with all the heat and impetuosity of his age.
'Here's a pretty fellow! Wrong! Wrong I have done him! He'll not even
remember the five hundred pounds he had with me under false pretences;
or the seventy pounds a year for board and lodging that would have been
dear at seventeen! Here's a martyr!'
'Money, John,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'is the root of all evil. I grieve
to see that it is already bearing evil fruit in you. But I will not
remember its existence. I will not even remember the conduct of that
misguided person'--and here, although he spoke like one at peace with
all the world, he used an emphasis that plainly said "I have my eye
upon the rascal now"--'that misguided person who has brought you here
to-night, seeking to disturb (it is a happiness to say, in vain) the
heart's repose and peace of one who would have shed his dearest blood to
serve him.
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