'
Mr Pecksniff looked about the room, and said, 'A home, my child!'
'Another home, papa,' said Cherry, with increasing stateliness 'Place me
at Mrs Todgers's or somewhere, on an independent footing; but I will not
live here, if such is to be the case.'
It is possible that Miss Pecksniff saw in Mrs Todgers's a vision
of enthusiastic men, pining to fall in adoration at her feet. It is
possible that Mr Pecksniff, in his new-born juvenility, saw, in the
suggestion of that same establishment, an easy means of relieving
himself from an irksome charge in the way of temper and watchfulness.
It is undoubtedly a fact that in the attentive ears of Mr Pecksniff, the
proposition did not sound quite like the dismal knell of all his hopes.
But he was a man of great feeling and acute sensibility; and he squeezed
his pocket-handkerchief against his eyes with both hands--as such men
always do, especially when they are observed. 'One of my birds,' Mr
Pecksniff said, 'has left me for the stranger's breast; the other would
take wing to Todgers's! Well, well, what am I? I don't know what I am,
exactly.
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