Our Mutual Friend | Page 7

evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the Twemlow; fourteen in
company all told. Four pigeon-breasted retainers in plain clothes stand in line in the hall.
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. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in nature care much for
such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend must please to look at baby. 'Ah! You
will know the friend of your family better, Tootleums,' says Mr Veneering, nodding
emotionally at that new article, 'when you begin to take notice.' He then begs to make his
dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer--and clearly has no
distinct idea which is which.

But now a fearful circumstance occurs.
'Mis-ter and Mis-sus Podsnap!'
'My dear,' says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much friendly interest,
while the door stands open, 'the Podsnaps.'
A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing with his wife,
instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with:
'How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I hope we are not
late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'
When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in his neat little shoes
and his neat little silk stockings of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa
behind him; but the large man closed with him and proved too strong.
'Let me,' says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his wife in the distance,
'have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnap to her host. She will be,' in his fatal
freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, 'she will be
so glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'
In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own account,
because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does her best in the way of
handsomely supporting her husband's, by looking towards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive
countenance and remarking to Mrs Veneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears
he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very like him.
It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for any other man; but,
Mr Veneering having this very evening set up the shirt-front of the young Antinous in
new worked cambric just come home, is not at all complimented by being supposed to be
Twemlow, who is dry and weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally
resents the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is so sensible
of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the large man an
offensive ass.
In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with extended
hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him:
who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:
'Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall where we met, but I
am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!'
Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he is haling
him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests
unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken hands with Veneering as Veneering,
he re-shakes hands with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect
satisfaction by saying to the last-named, 'Ridiculous opportunity--but so glad of it, I am

sure!'
Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewise noted the
fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and having further observed that of the
remaining seven guests four discrete characters enter with wandering eyes and wholly
declined to commit themselves as to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his
grasp;--Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brain wholesomely
hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really is Veneering's oldest friend,
when his brain softens again and all is lost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and
the large man linked together as twin brothers in the back drawing-room near the
conservatory door, and through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs Veneering that
the same large man is to be baby's godfather.
'Dinner is on the table!'
Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, 'Come down and be poisoned, ye
unhappy children of men!'
Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in