er and
mother, has no one to give her away.'

'Give her away yourself,' says Podsnap.

'My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn't
take so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to
remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look
the part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the
subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old
enough to be married.'

'What would happen if he did?' Podsnap inquires of Mrs Veneering.

'My dear Mr Podsnap, it's very foolish I know, but I have an instinctive
presentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else first, he would
never give away baby.' Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed
together, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like
her one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessary
for distinction's sake.

'But, my dear Podsnap,' quoth Veneering, 'there IS a tried friend of
our family who, I think and hope you will agree with me, Podsnap, is
the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves. That
friend,' saying the words as if the company were about a hundred and
fifty in number, 'is now among us. That friend is Twemlow.'

'Certainly!' From Podsnap.

'That friend,' Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 'is our dear
good Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently express to you, my dear Podsnap,
the pleasure I feel in having this opinion of mine and Anastatia's so
readily confirmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friend
who stands in the proud position--I mean who proudly stands in the
position--or I ought rather to say, who places Anastatia and myself in
the proud position of himself standing in the simple position--of baby's
godfather.' And, indeed, Veneering is much relieved in mind to find that
Podsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow's elevation.

So, it has come to pass that the spring-van is strewing flowers on
the rosy hours and on the staircase, and that Twemlow is surveying the
ground on which he is to play his distinguished part to-morrow. He has
already been to the church, and taken note of the various impediments in
the aisle, under the auspices of an extremely dreary widow who opens the
pews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism,
but is in fact voluntarily doubled up to act as a money-box.

And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accustomed,
when conte