'
'To be sure,' said Mr Pinch. 'Very proper.'
'Well, sir,' resumed Martin, stirring the fire once more, and drawing
his chair still closer to it, 'his selfishness makes him exacting,
you see; and his obstinacy makes him resolute in his exactions. The
consequence is that he has always exacted a great deal from me in the
way of respect, and submission, and self-denial when his wishes were in
question, and so forth. I have borne a great deal from him, because I
have been under obligations to him (if one can ever be said to be under
obligations to one's own grandfather), and because I have been really
attached to him; but we have had a great many quarrels for all that, for
I could not accommodate myself to his ways very often--not out of the
least reference to myself, you understand, but because--' he stammered
here, and was rather at a loss.
Mr Pinch being about the worst man in the world to help anybody out of a
difficulty of this sort, said nothing.
'Well! as you understand me,' resumed Martin, quickly, 'I needn't hunt
for the precise expression I want. Now I come to the cream of my story,
and the occasion of my being here.
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