Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

Private and confidential; relating to Family Matters. Showing how
Mr Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and how Mrs Kenwigs was as
well as could be expected

It might have been seven o'clock in the evening, and it was growing
dark in the narrow streets near Golden Square, when Mr Kenwigs sent
out for a pair of the cheapest white kid gloves--those at fourteen-
pence--and selecting the strongest, which happened to be the right-
hand one, walked downstairs with an air of pomp and much excitement,
and proceeded to muffle the knob of the street-door knocker therein.
Having executed this task with great nicety, Mr Kenwigs pulled the
door to, after him, and just stepped across the road to try the
effect from the opposite side of the street. Satisfied that nothing
could possibly look better in its way, Mr Kenwigs then stepped back
again, and calling through the keyhole to Morleena to open the door,
vanished into the house, and was seen no longer.

Now, considered as an abstract circumstance, there was no more
obvious cause or reason why Mr Kenwigs should take the trouble of
muffling this particular knocker, than there would have been for his
muffling the knocker of any nobleman or gentleman resident ten miles
off; because, for the greater convenience of the numerous lodgers,
the street-door always stood wide open, and the knocker was never
used at all. The first floor, the second floor, and the third
floor, had each a bell of its own. As to the attics, no one ever
called on them; if anybody wanted the parlours, they were close at
hand, and all he had to do was to walk straight into them; while the
kitchen had a separate entrance down the area steps. As a question
of mere necessity and usefulness, therefore, this muffling of the
knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible.

But knockers may be muffled for other purposes than those of mere
utilitarianism, as, in the present instance, was clearly shown.
There are certain polite forms and ceremonies which must be observed
in civilised life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism.
No genteel lady was ever yet confined--indeed, no genteel
confinement can possibly take place--without the accompanying symbol
of a muffled knocker. Mrs Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to
gentility; Mrs Kenwigs was confined. And, therefore, Mr Kenwigs
tied up the silent knocker on the premises in a white kid glove.

'I'm not quite certain neither,' said Mr Kenwigs, arranging his
shirt-collar, and walking slowly upstairs, 'whether, as it's a boy,
I won't have it in the papers.'

Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it
was likely to create in the neighbourhood, Mr Kenwigs betook himself
to the