'Let me go, Pinch!' cried Martin, shaking him away. 'Why do you hold me?
Do you think a blow could make him a more abject creature than he is? Do
you think that if I spat upon him, I could degrade him to a lower level
than his own? Look at him. Look at him, Pinch!'
Mr Pinch involuntarily did so. Mr Pecksniff sitting, as has been
already mentioned, on the carpet, with his head in an acute angle of the
wainscot, and all the damage and detriment of an uncomfortable journey
about him, was not exactly a model of all that is prepossessing and
dignified in man, certainly. Still he WAS Pecksniff; it was impossible
to deprive him of that unique and paramount appeal to Tom. And he
returned Tom's glance, as if he would have said, 'Aye, Mr Pinch, look at
me! Here I am! You know what the Poet says about an honest man; and an
honest man is one of the few great works that can be seen for nothing!
Look at me!'
'I tell you,' said Martin, 'that as he lies there, disgraced, bought,
used; a cloth for dirty hands, a mat for dirty feet, a lying, fawning,
servile hound, he is the very last and worst among the vermin of the
world.
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