discreet automaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took a walk among79
the furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus was pleasantly conspicuous; for, that complacent monster, believing that he was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost stretch of possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while his victim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled about, like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to steal a glance at Mrs Lammle, expressive of intense despair.
At length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of a nutmeg, before which the drawing-room door bounced open as if it were a cannon-ball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed through several glasses of coloured warm water, was going the round of society, Miss Podsnap returned to her seat by her new friend.
'Oh my goodness,' said Miss Podsnap. 'THAT'S over! I hope you didn't look at me.'
'My dear, why not?'
'Oh I know all about myself,' said Miss Podsnap.
'I'll tell you something I know about you, my dear,' returned Mrs Lammle in her winning way, 'and that is, you are most unnecessarily shy.'
'Ma ain't,' said Miss Podsnap. '--I detest you! Go along!' This shot was levelled under her breath at the gallant Grompus for bestowing an insinuating smile upon her in passing.
'Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap,' Mrs Lammle was beginning when the young lady interposed.
'If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you are the only person who ever proposed it) don't let us be awful. It's awful enough to BE Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call me Georgiana.'
'Dearest Georgiana,' Mrs Lammle began again.
'Thank you,' said Miss Podsnap.
'Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why your mamma's not being shy, is a reason why you should be.'
'Don't you really see that?' asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at her fingers in a troubled manner, and furtively casting her eyes now on
Mrs Lammle, now on the ground. 'Then perhaps it isn't?'
'My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor opinion. Indeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for it is only a confession of my dullness.'
'Oh YOU are not dull,' returned Miss Podsnap. 'I am dull, but you couldn't have made me talk if you were.'
Some little touch of conscience answering this perception of her having gained a purpose, called bloom enough into Mrs Lammle's face to make it look brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on her dear Georgiana, and shaking her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meant anything, but that Georgiana seemed to like it.
'What I mean is,' pursued Georgiana, 'that Ma being so endowed with awfulness, and Pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there being so much awfulness everywhere--I mean, at least, everywhere where I am--perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened at it--I say it very badly--I don't know whether you can understand what I mean?'
'Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!' Mrs Lammle was proceeding with every reassuring wile, when the head of that young lady suddenly
went back against the wall again and her eyes closed.
'Oh there's Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh I know she's going to bring him here! Oh don't bring him, don't bring him! Oh he'll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!' This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feet upon the floor, and was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But, there was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap's production of an ambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other framed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as if he descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft, brought her to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at the piano played another 'set,' expressive of his mournful aspirations after freedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy motions, and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture
80
walk, as if he had struck out an entirely original conception.
In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered to the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adapted to the cheek of the young person. It was not in good taste.
'I don't believe it,' said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him.
The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were the Inquests and the Registrar's returns.
'Then it was their own fault,' said Mr Podsnap.
Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. At once a short cut and a broad road.
The man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem from the facts, as if starvation had been forced upon the culprits in question--as if, in their wretched manner, they had made their weak protests against it--as if they would have taken the liberty of staving it off if they could--as if they would rather not have been starved upon the whole, if perfectly agreeable to all parties.
'There is not,' said Mr Podsnap, flushing angrily, 'there is not a country in the world, sir, where so noble a provision is made for the
poor as in this country.'
The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps it rendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be
something appallingly wrong somewhere.
'Where?' said Mr Podsnap.
The meek man hinted Wouldn't it be well to try, very seriously, to find out where?
'Ah!' said Mr Podsnap. 'Easy to say somewhere; not so easy to say where! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it from the first. Centralization. No. Never with my consent. Not English.'
An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as saying, 'There you have him! Hold him!'
He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he was driving at any ization. He had no favourite ization that he knew of. But he certainly was more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he was by names, of howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying of destitution and neglect necessarily English?
'You know what the population of London is, I suppose,' said Mr Podsnap.
The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely nothing to do with it, if its laws were well administered.
'And you know; at least I hope you know;' said Mr Podsnap, with severity, 'that Providence has declared that you shall have the poor
always with you?'
The meek man also hoped he knew that.
'I am glad to hear it,' said Mr Podsnap with a portentous air. 'I am glad to hear it. It will render you cautious how you fly in the face
