“One of his dodges,” said Mr. Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuous shrug. “He’s made of dodges. He said to me, ‘Come up to the top of the house, sir, and I’ll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call you the master.’ So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me the handsome girl (very well worth looking at she was), and I was called the master. I don’t know why. I dare say he don’t. He loves a dodge for its own sake; being,” added Mr. Fledgeby, after casting about for an expressive phrase, “the dodgerest of all the dodgers.”

“Oh my head!” cried the dolls’ dressmaker, holding it with both her hands, as if it were cracking. “You can’t mean what you say.”

“I can, my little woman,” retorted Fledgeby, “and I do, I assure you.”