Said Mr. Podsnap to Mrs. Podsnap, “Georgiana is almost eighteen.”
Said Mrs. Podsnap to Mr. Podsnap, assenting, “Almost eighteen.”
Said Mr. Podsnap then to Mrs. Podsnap, “Really I think we should have some people on Georgiana’s birthday.”
Said Mrs. Podsnap then to Mr. Podsnap, “Which will enable us to clear off all those people who are due.”
So it came to pass that Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap requested the honour of the company of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner; and that they substituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeen original friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a prior engagement prevented their having the honour of dining with Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs. Podsnap said of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them off with a pencil in her list, “Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;” and that they successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in this way, and felt their consciences much lightened.
There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled to be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take a haunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing off of these worthies, Mrs. Podsnap added a small and early evening to the dinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conducted automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance.
Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, and Mr. and Mrs. Veneering’s bran-new bride and bridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishment had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr. Podsnap could tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as heavy