'So I'll keep it to myself,' said Tom, with a sigh. 'I'll keep it to
myself.'
And to work he went again, more assiduously than ever, with the pens,
and the ruler, and the india-rubber, and the pencils, and the red ink,
that he might forget it.
He had laboured away another hour or more, when he heard a footstep in
the entry, down below.
'Ah!' said Tom, looking towards the door; 'time was, not long ago
either, when that would have set me wondering and expecting. But I have
left off now.'
The footstep came on, up the stairs.
'Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,' said Tom, counting. 'Now
you'll stop. Nobody ever comes past the thirty-eighth stair.'
The person did, certainly, but only to take breath; for up the footstep
came again. Forty, forty-one, forty-two, and so on.
The door stood open. As the tread advanced, Tom looked impatiently and
eagerly towards it. When a figure came upon the landing, and arriving
in the doorway, stopped and gazed at him, he rose up from his chair, and
half believed he saw a spirit.
Old Martin Chuzzlewit! The same whom he had left at Mr Pecksniff's, weak
and sinking!
The same? No, not the same, for this old man, though old, was strong,
and leaned upon his stick with a vigorous hand, while with the other
he signed to Tom to make no noise.
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