any self-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, “We must work.”
Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the public in the streets, like the Lifeguards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to Duke Street, Saint James’s. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh from the hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to his hair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, for two hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and dry gradually, he is in an appropriate state for the receipt of startling intelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and King Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat point from the classics.
“My dear Twemlow,” says Veneering, grasping both his hands, “as the dearest and oldest of my friends—”
(“Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,” thinks Twemlow, “and I am !”)
“—Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give his name as a Member of my Committee? I don’t go so far as to ask for his lordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give me his name?”
In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, “I don’t think he would.”
“My political opinions,” says Veneering, not previously aware of having any, “are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as a matter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth would give me his name.”
“It might be so,” says Twemlow; “but—” And perplexedly scratching his head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more discomfited by being reminded how sticky he is.