'Sit down, and take your breakfast, Mark,' said Tom. 'Make him sit down
and take his breakfast, Martin.'
'Oh! I gave him up, long ago, as incorrigible,' Martin replied. 'He
takes his own way, Tom. You would excuse him, Miss Pinch, if you knew
his value.'
'She knows it, bless you!' said Tom. 'I have told her all about Mark
Tapley. Have I not, Ruth?'
'Yes, Tom.'
'Not all,' returned Martin, in a low voice. 'The best of Mark Tapley is
only known to one man, Tom; and but for Mark he would hardly be alive to
tell it!'
'Mark!' said Tom Pinch energetically; 'if you don't sit down this
minute, I'll swear at you!'
'Well, sir,' returned Mr Tapley, 'sooner than you should do that, I'll
com-ply. It's a considerable invasion of a man's jollity to be made so
partickler welcome, but a Werb is a word as signifies to be, to do,
or to suffer (which is all the grammar, and enough too, as ever I wos
taught); and if there's a Werb alive, I'm it. For I'm always a-bein',
sometimes a-doin', and continually a-sufferin'.'
'Not jolly yet?' asked Tom, with a smile.
'Why, I was rather so, over the water, sir,' returned Mr Tapley; 'and
not entirely without credit.
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