Moddle, Mr. Augustus. The "youngest gentleman " at Mrs. Todgers's Commercial Boarding-House. He falls desperately in love with Miss Mercy Pecksniff, and, becoming very low-spirited after her marriage to Jonas Chuzzlewit, is entrapped into an engagement with her sister Charity, but loses his courage, and breaks his word at the last moment, sending the injured fair one a letter to inform her that he is on his way to Van Diemen's Land, and that it will be useless for her to send in pursuit, as he is determined never to be taken alive. (Ch. ix-xi, xxxii, xxxvii, xlvi, liv.) Montague, Tigg. See TIGG, MONTAGUE.

Mould, Mr. An undertaker; a little bald elderly man, with a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction. (Ch. xix, xxv, xxix, xxxviii.)

Mould, Mrs. His wife. (Ch. xxv, xxix.)

Mould, The two Misses. Their daughters; fair, round, and chubby damsels, with their peachy cheeks distended as though they ought of right to be performing on celestial trumpets. (Ch. xxv.) Mullit, Professor. A very short gentleman, with a red nose, whom Martin Chuzzlewit meets at Mrs. Pawkins's boarding-house in New York. He is a professor “of education,” a man of “fine moral elements," and author of some powerful pamphlets, written under the signature of Suturb, or Brutus reversed. (Ch. xvi.) Nadgett, Mr. Tom Pinch's landlord, employed by Montague Tigg as a detective.

He was a short, dried-up, withered old man, who seemed to have secreted his very blood; for nobody would have given him credit for the possession of six ounces of it in his whole body. How he lived was secret; where he lived was a secret; and even what he was was a secret. In his musty old pocketbook he carried contradictory cards, in some of which he called himself a coalmerchant, in others a wine-merchant, in others a commission-agent, in others a collector, in others an accountant; as if he really did n't know the secret himself. He was always keeping appointments in the city, and the other man never seemed to come.

(Ch. xxvii, xxviii, xxxviii, xl, xli, xlvii, li.)

Norris, Mr. A New-York gentleman, wealthy, aristocratic, and fashionable; a sentimental abolitionist, and "a very good fellow in his way," but inclined “to set up on false pretences,” and ridiculously afraid of being disgraced by moneyless acquaintances. (Ch. xvii.)

Norris, Mrs. His wife; much older and more faded than she ought to have looked. (Ch. xvii.)

Norris, The two Misses. Their daughters; one eighteen, the other twenty, both very slender, but very pretty. (Ch. xvii.) Pawkins, Major. A New-York politician; a bold speculator (or swindler), an orator and a man of the people, and a general loafer. (Ch. xvi.)

Pawkins, Mrs. His wife; keeper of a boarding-house. (Ch. xvi.)

Pecksniff, Seth. A resident of Salisbury; ostensibly an architect and land-surveyor, though he had never designed or built any thing, and his surveying was limited to the extensive prospect from the windows of his house.

...

Mr. Pecksniff was a moral man. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr. Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's purse of good sentiments in his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy-tale, except that, if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He was a most exemplary man, -fuller of virtuous precept than a copy-book. Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies, the shadows cast by his brightness: that was all. His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie, for he fastened it behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr. Pecksniff, "There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; all is peace; a holy calm pervades me." So did his hair, just grizzled with an irongray, which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek, though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, "Behold the moral Pecksniff!"

Mr. Pecksniff's professional engagements were almost, if not entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his graver toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural employment. His genius lay in insnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums. A young gentleman's premium being paid, and the young gentleman come to Mr. Pecksniff's house, Mr. Pecksniff borrowed his case of mathematical instruments (if silver-mounted, or otherwise valuable); entreated him from that moment to consider himself one of the family; complimented him highly on his parents or guardians, as the case might be; and turned him loose in a spacious room on the two-pair front; where, in the company of certain drawing-boards, parallel rulers, very stiff-legged compasses, and two, or, perhaps, three, other young gentlemen, he improved himself for three or five years, according to his articles, in making elevations of Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight, and in constructing in the air a vast quantity of castles, houses of parliament, and other public build. ings.

Mr. Pecksniff is a cousin of old Martin Chuzzlewit's, who being very ill, a general council and conference of his relatives is held at Mr. Pecksniff's house in order to devise means of inducing him to listen to the promptings of nature in the disposal of his large property. The meeting is far from being harmonious; and Mr. Pecksniff is compelled to listen to some very plain truths, Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit telling him bluntly not to be a hypocrite.

"A what, my good sir?" demanded Mr. Pecksniff.

"Charity, my dear," said Mr. Pecksniff, "when I take my chamber candle-stick to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular in praying for Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, who has done me an injustice."

Meeting Mr. Chuzzlewit in a stage-coach, some time afterwards, Mr. Pecksniff takes occasion to remark, incidentally, but cuttingly, "I may be a hypocrite; but I am not a brute."

"Pooh, pooh!" said the old man. "What signifies that word, Pecksniff? Hypocrite! Why, we are all hypocrites. We were all hypocrites t' other day. I am sure I felt that to be agreed upon among us, or I should n't have called you one. We should not have been there at all if we had not been hypocrites. The only difference between you and the rest was— Shall I tell you the difference between you and the rest now, Pecksniff?"

"If you please, my good sir; if you please."

"Why, the annoying quality in you is," said the old man, "that you never have a confederate or partner in your juggling. You would deceive everybody, even those who practise the same art; and have a way with you, as if you — he, he, he! as if you really believed yourself. I'd lay a handsome wager now," said the old man, “if I laid wagers (which I don't, and never did), that you keep up appearances by a tacit understanding, even before your own daughters here."

During the journey, Pecksniff imbibes copious refreshment from a brandy-bottle, and is thereafter moved to give utterance to various moral precepts and weighty sentiments.

"What are we," said Mr. Pecksniff, "but coaches? Some of us are slow coaches"

"Goodness, pa!" cried Charity.

"Some of us,

say," resumed her parent with increased emphasis, "are slow coaches; some of us are fast coaches. Our Passions are the horses, and rampant animals too!".

"Really, pa!" cried both the daughters at once. "How very unpleasant!"

"And rainpant animals, too!" repeated Mr. Pecksnif, with so much determination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment, a sort of moral rampancy himself; and Virtue is the drag. We start from The Mother's Arms,

and we run to The Dust Shovel."

When he had said this, Mr. Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some further refreshment. When he had done that, he corked the bottle tight, with the air of a man who had effectually corked the subject also, and went to sleep for three stages.