[Literature] Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend #5/413

Is appealed to, at the fish stage of the banquet, by
Veneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworth is
in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. ‘At
Snigsworthy Park?’ Veneering inquires. ‘At Snigsworthy,’ Twemlow rejoins.
Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; and Veneering is
clear that he is a remunerative article. Meantime the retainer goes round,
like a gloomy Analytical Chemist: always seeming to say, after ‘Chablis,
sir?’—‘You wouldn’t if you knew what it’s made of.’

The great looking-glass above the sideboard, reflects the table and the
company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver,
frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds’ College found
out a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield (or
might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels take
charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down be loaded
with the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to
corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy—a kind of sufficiently
well-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering;
fair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might
have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory,
conscious that a corner of her husband’s veil is over herself. Reflects
Podsnap; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, one
on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as
his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance of
crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine woman for
Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a rocking-horse,
hard features, majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has hung golden
offerings. Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind,
First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if he had
made a great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so
far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady; raven
locks, and complexion that lights up well when well powdered—as it
is—carrying on considerably in the captivation of mature young
gentleman; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his
whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs,
his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects charming old Lady
Tippins on Veneering’s right; with an immense obtuse drab oblong face,
like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk up the top of her head,
as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased
to patronize Mrs Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be patronized.
Reflects a certain ‘Mortimer’, another of Veneering’s oldest friends; who
never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again, who
sits disconsolate on Mrs Veneering’s left, and who was inveigled by Lady
Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to these people’s and talk, and
who won’t talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the
back of his chair, behind a shoulder—with a powder-epaulette on it—of
the mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice
whenever proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass
reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed
between the rest of the company and possible accidents.

The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners—or new people wouldn’t
come—and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series of
experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and
daring, that if they could be published with their results it might
benefit the human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of the
world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, as
the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her:

‘I assure you, my dear Veneering—’

(Poor Twemlow’s hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now, that
Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend.)

‘I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Like the
advertising people, I don’t ask you to trust me, without offering a
respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows all
about it.’

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. But a
faint smile, expressive of ‘What’s the use!’ passes over his face, and he
drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth.