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. 'What do
you tell me, sir?'
'Wait a bit!' cried the other, 'Perhaps you are a cousin--the cousin who
lives in this place?'
'I AM the cousin who lives in this place,' replied the man of worth.
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