Chapter 33 - Page 2

to-day, of the Fancy--so still to call her
who bruised thy heart when it was green and thy head brown--and
whether it be better or worse, more painful or less, to believe in
the Fancy to this hour, than to know her for a greedy armour-
plated crocodile, with no more capacity of imagining the delicate
and sensitive and tender spot behind thy waistcoat, than of going
straight at it with a knitting-needle. Say likewise, my Twemlow,
whether it be the happier lot to be a poor relation of the great, or
to stand in the wintry slush giving the hack horses to drink out of
the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into which thou has so nearly
set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and goes on.

As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horse
carriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down the
window, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in
waiting there to hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as
much polite gravity as if she were anything real, and they proceed
upstairs. Tippins all abroad about the legs, and seeking to express
that those unsteady articles are only skipping in their native
buoyancy.

And dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and
when are you going down to what's-its-name place--Guy, Earl of
Warwick, you know--what is it?--Dun Cow--to claim the flitch of
bacon? And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted out from
my list of lovers, by reason first of fickleness and then of base
desertion, how do YOU do, wretch? And Mr Wrayburn, YOU
here! What can YOU come for, because we are all very sure
before-hand that you are not going to talk! And Veneering, M.P.,
how are things going on down at the house, and when will you
turn out those terrible people for us? And Mrs Veneering, my
dear, can it positively be true that you go down to that stifling
place night after night, to hear those men prose? Talking of
which, Veneering, why don't you prose, for you haven't opened
your lips there yet, and we are dying to hear what you have got to
say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see you. Pa, here? No!
Ma, neither? Oh! Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer! This IS a
gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby and
outsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and
about, in her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I
think not. Nobody there. Nobody THERE. Nobody anywhere!

Mr Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying
for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby
presented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of
going to say nothing, has an air successively of meditation, of
resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of
Boots, and