“Don’t seem to do so, if you please, and don’t think it inconsistent if my manner should be more careless than my words. I may be watched.”

Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs. Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies go upstairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted the interval to taking an observation of Boots’s whiskers, Brewer’s whiskers, and Lammle’s whiskers, and considering which pattern of whisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if the Genie of the cheek would only answer to his rubbing.