when she comes back, that she exerts herself too much.’
Miss Ledrook eked out this speech with so many mysterious nods and frowns before she shut the door again, that a profound silence came upon all the company, during which Miss Snevellicci’s papa looked very big indeed—several sizes larger than life—at everybody in turn, but particularly at Nicholas, and kept on perpetually emptying his tumbler and filling it again, until the ladies returned in a cluster, with Miss Snevellicci among them.
‘You needn’t alarm yourself a bit, Mr. Snevellicci,’ said Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘She is only a little weak and nervous; she has been so ever since the morning.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘that’s all, is it?’
‘Oh yes, that’s all. Don’t make a fuss about it,’ cried all the ladies together.
Now this was not exactly the kind of reply suited to Mr. Snevellicci’s importance as a man and a father, so he picked out the unfortunate Mrs Snevellicci, and asked her what the devil she meant by talking to him in that way.
‘Dear me, my dear!’ said Mrs. Snevellicci.
‘Don’t call me your dear, ma’am,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘if you please.’
‘Pray, pa, don’t,’ interposed Miss Snevellicci.
‘Don’t what, my child?’
‘Talk in that way.’
‘Why not?’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I hope you don’t suppose there’s anybody here who is to prevent my talking as I like?’
‘Nobody wants to, pa,’ rejoined his daughter.
‘Nobody would if they did want to,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I am not ashamed of myself, Snevellicci is my name; I’m to be found in Broad Court, Bow Street, when I’m in town. If I’m not at home, let any man ask for me at the stage-door. Damme, they know me at the stage-door I suppose. Most men have seen my portrait at the cigar shop round the corner. I’ve been mentioned in the newspapers before now, haven’t I? Talk! I’ll tell you what; if I found out that any man had been tampering with the affections of my daughter, I wouldn’t talk. I’d astonish him without talking; that’s my way.’
So saying, Mr. Snevellicci struck the palm of his left hand three smart blows with his clenched fist; pulled a phantom nose with his right thumb and forefinger, and swallowed another glassful at a draught. ‘That’s my way,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci.
Most public characters have their failings; and the truth is that Mr Snevellicci was a little addicted to drinking; or, if the whole truth must be told, that he was scarcely ever sober. He knew in his cups three distinct stages of intoxication,—the dignified—the quarrelsome—the amorous. When professionally engaged he never got beyond the dignified; in private circles he went through all three, passing from one to another with a rapidity of transition often rather perplexing to those who had not the honour of his acquaintance.
Thus Mr. Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed ‘The ladies! Bless their hearts!’ in a most vivacious manner.
‘I love ‘em,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, looking round the table, ‘I love ‘em, every one.’
‘Not every one,’ reasoned Mr. Lillyvick, mildly.
‘Yes, every one,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci.
‘That would include the married ladies, you know,’ said Mr. Lillyvick.
‘I love them too, sir,’ said Mr. Snevellicci.
The collector looked into the surrounding faces with an aspect of grave astonishment, seeming to say, ‘This is a nice man!’ and appeared a little surprised that Mrs. Lillyvick’s manner yielded no evidences of horror and indignation.
‘One good turn deserves another,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I love them and they love me.’ And as if this avowal were not made in sufficient disregard and defiance of all moral obligations, what did Mr. Snevellicci do? He winked—winked openly and undisguisedly; winked with his right eye—upon Henrietta Lillyvick!
The collector fell back in his chair in the intensity of his astonishment. If anybody had winked at her as Henrietta Petowker, it would have been indecorous in the last degree; but as Mrs. Lillyvick! While he thought of it in a cold perspiration, and wondered whether it was possible that he could be dreaming, Mr. Snevellicci repeated the wink, and drinking to Mrs Lillyvick in dumb show, actually blew her a kiss! Mr. Lillyvick left his chair, walked straight up to the other end of the table, and fell upon him—literally fell upon him—instantaneously. Mr. Lillyvick was no light weight, and consequently when he fell upon Mr. Snevellicci, Mr. Snevellicci fell under the table. Mr. Lillyvick followed him, and the ladies screamed.
‘What is the matter with the men! Are they mad?’ cried Nicholas, diving under the table, dragging up the collector by main force, and thrusting him, all doubled up, into a chair, as if he had been a stuffed figure. ‘What do you mean to do? What do you want to do? What is the matter with you?’
While Nicholas raised up the collector, Smike had performed the same office for Mr. Snevellicci, who now regarded his late adversary in tipsy amazement.
‘Look here, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, pointing to his astonished wife, ‘here is purity and elegance combined, whose feelings have been outraged—violated, sir!’
‘Lor, what nonsense he talks!’ exclaimed Mrs. Lillyvick in answer to the inquiring look of Nicholas. ‘Nobody has said anything to me.’
‘Said, Henrietta!’ cried the collector. ‘Didn’t I see him—’ Mr Lillyvick couldn’t bring himself to utter the word, but he counterfeited the motion of the eye.
‘Well!’ cried Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose nobody is ever to look at me? A pretty thing to be married indeed, if that was law!’
‘You didn’t mind it?’ cried the collector.
‘Mind it!’ repeated Mrs. Lillyvick contemptuously. ‘You ought to go down on your knees and beg everybody’s pardon, that you ought.’
‘Pardon, my dear?’ said the dismayed collector.
‘Yes, and mine first,’ replied Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose I ain’t the best judge of what’s proper and what’s improper?’
‘To be sure,’ cried all the ladies. ‘Do you suppose we shouldn’t be the first to speak, if there was anything that ought to be taken notice of?’
‘Do you suppose they don’t know, sir?’ said Miss Snevellicci’s papa, pulling up his collar, and muttering something about a punching of heads, and being only withheld by considerations of age. With which Miss Snevellicci’s papa looked steadily and sternly at Mr. Lillyvick for some seconds, and then rising deliberately from his chair, kissed the ladies all round, beginning with Mrs. Lillyvick.
The unhappy collector looked piteously at his wife, as if to see whether there was any one trait of Miss Petowker left in Mrs. Lillyvick, and finding too surely that there was not, begged pardon of all the company with great humility, and sat down such a crest-fallen, dispirited, disenchanted man, that despite all his selfishness and dotage, he was quite an object of compassion.
Miss Snevellicci’s papa being greatly exalted by this triumph, and incontestable proof of his popularity with the fair sex, quickly grew convivial, not to say uproarious; volunteering more than one song of no inconsiderable length, and regaling the social circle between-whiles with recollections of divers splendid women who had been supposed to entertain a passion for himself, several of whom he toasted by name, taking occasion to remark at the same time that if he had been a little more alive to his own interest, he might have been rolling at that moment in his chariot-and-four. These reminiscences appeared to awaken