It was a trait in Mr. Podsnap’s character (and in one form or other it will be generally seen to pervade the depths and shallows of Podsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement of any friend or acquaintance of his. “How dare you?” he would seem to say, in such a case. “What do you mean? I have licensed this person. This person has taken out my certificate. Through this person you strike at me, Podsnap the Great. And it is not that I particularly care for the person’s dignity, but that I do most particularly care for Podsnap’s.” Hence, if anyone in his presence had presumed to doubt the responsibility of the Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Not that anyone did, for Veneering, M.P. , was always the authority for their being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he might, if he chose, for anything he knew of the matter.
Mr. and Mrs. Lammle’s house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, was but a temporary residence. It has done well enough, they informed their friends, for Mr. Lammle when a bachelor, but it would not do now. So, they were always looking at palatial residences in the best situations, and always very nearly taking or buying one, but never quite concluding the bargain. Hereby they made for themselves a shining little reputation apart. People said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, “The very thing for the Lammles!” and wrote to the Lammles about it, and the Lammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactly answered. In short, they suffered so many disappointments, that they began to think it would be necessary to build a palatial residence. And hereby they made another shining reputation; many persons of their acquaintance becoming by anticipation dissatisfied with their own houses, and envious of the nonexistent Lammle structure.
The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville Street were piled thick and high over the skeleton upstairs, and if it ever whispered from under its load of upholstery, “Here I am in the closet!” it was to very few ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap’s. What Miss