“Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,” said Traddles, “I was romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn’t look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And they are now⁠—listening, I have no doubt,” said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room.

“I am sorry,” said I, laughing afresh, “to have occasioned such a dispersion.”

“Upon my word,” rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, “if you had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch the girls?”

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter.