“And now, Mr. Lightwood, was she ever,” pursues Podsnap, with his indignation rising high into those hairbrushes of his, “a factory girl?”

“Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe.”

General sensation repeated. Brewer says, “Oh dear!” Boots says, “Oh dear!” Buffer says, “Oh dear!” All, in a rumbling tone of protest.

“Then all I have to say is,” returns Podsnap, putting the thing away with his right arm, “that my gorge rises against such a marriage⁠—that it offends and disgusts me⁠—that it makes me sick⁠—and that I desire to know no more about it.”

(“Now I wonder,” thinks Mortimer, amused, “whether you are the Voice of Society!”)