ic; the last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a note
of admiration. And Twemlow replying, 'Not engaged, and more than
delighted,' goes, and this takes place:

'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, 'your ready response to Anastatia's
unceremonious invitation is truly kind, and like an old, old friend. You
know our dear friend Podsnap?'

Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with so
much confusion, and he says he does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates.
Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as to
believe that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years.
In the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with his
back to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes.
Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering
guests become infected with the Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he
has the least notion of its being his own case.

'Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,' pursues Veneering the veiled
prophet: 'our friends Alfred and Sophronia, you will be glad to hear, my
dear fellows, are going to be married. As my wife and I make it a family
affair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of course
our first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends.'

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, 'then there are only
two of us, and he's the other.')

'I did hope,' Veneering goes on, 'to have had Lady Tippins to meet you;
but she is always in request, and is unfortunately engaged.'

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, 'then there are three of
us, and SHE'S the other.')

'Mortimer Lightwood,' resumes Veneering, 'whom you both know, is out of
town; but he writes, in his whimsical manner, that as we ask him to be
bridegroom's best man when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse,
though he doesn't see what he has to do with it.'

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, 'then there are four of
us, and HE'S the other.')

'Boots and Brewer,' observes Veneering, 'whom you also know, I have not
asked to-day; but I reserve them for the occasion.'

('Then,' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, 'there are si--' But here
collapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and the
Analytical has been requested to withdraw.)

'We now come,' says Veneering, 'to the point, the real point, of our
little family consultation. Sophronia, having lost both fath