'I used to joke, you know,' said. Jonas: 'but I--I never wished him
dead. Do you think he's very bad?'
'The doctor said he was. You heard,' was Mr Pecksniff's answer.
'Ah! but he might say that to charge us more, in case of his getting
well' said Jonas. 'You mustn't go away, Pecksniff. Now it's come to
this, I wouldn't be without a witness for a thousand pound.'
Chuffey said not a word, and heard not a word. He had sat himself down
in a chair at the bedside, and there he remained, motionless; except
that he sometimes bent his head over the pillow, and seemed to listen.
He never changed in this. Though once in the dreary night Mr Pecksniff,
having dozed, awoke with a confused impression that he had heard
him praying, and strangely mingling figures--not of speech, but
arithmetic--with his broken prayers.
Jonas sat there, too, all night; not where his father could have seen
him, had his consciousness returned, but hiding, as it were, behind him,
and only reading how he looked, in Mr Pecksniff's eyes. HE, the coarse
upstart, who had ruled the house so long--that craven cur, who was
afraid to move, and shook so, that his very shadow fluttered on the
wall!
It was broad, bright, stirring day when, leaving the old clerk to watch
him, they went down to breakfast.
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