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Lady Tippins rises to go, and Mrs Veneering follows her leader. For the moment, Mrs Lammle does not turn to them, but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait through his eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length, rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makes that fragile nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start.
Yet had they witnessed scenes like those I have so faintly portrayed, they too, would have preached a war of extermination. You and I, reader, have an exceedingly thin veneering of civilization, and in the presence of such scenes of diabolical atrocity would slip it off as a snake sheds his skin.
Mrs Veneering in the same moment relinquishes baby to Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange the throbbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in a distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and any self-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 'We must work.
Mr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering's bran-new bride and bridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishment had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap could tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate.
For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.
A fifth retainer, proceeding up the staircase with a mournful air as who should say, 'Here is another wretched creature come to dinner; such is life! announces, 'Mis-ter Twemlow! Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes his dear Twemlow.
'Waiting? says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with the Analytical. 'Waiting, returns the Analytical in responsive confidence. Eugene looks 'Excuse me, towards Mrs Veneering, goes out, and finds Young Blight, Mortimer's clerk, at the hall-door.
Twemlow; blessed release for the dear man if she really was his daughter, nervous even under the pretence that she is, well he may be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thousand pounds as she stands, absolute jeweller's window, father must have been a pawnbroker, or how could these people do it? Attendant unknowns; pokey.
One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plate Mr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's company at dinner with the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards.
A mind polished so that the "rough" cannot manifest itself, a little veneering of knowledge and showy accomplishments, but a heart, alas! ignored and neglected; the source of all womanly perfection blocked up and destroyed that is the sacrifice that will alone appease the world in its most sensual phase of to-day, the sacrifice complete and universal of women's hearts.
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