tandard Young Person to have anything to do with
such matters save to take as directed, and with worldly goods as per
settlement to be endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this
man? I, Podsnap. Perish the daring thought that any smaller creation
should come between!

It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits or his
usual temperature of nose until the afternoon. Walking into the City in
the holiday afternoon, he walked against a living stream setting out of
it; and thus, when he turned into the precincts of St Mary Axe, he found
a prevalent repose and quiet there. A yellow overhanging plaster-fronted
house at which he stopped was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn down,
and the inscription Pubsey and Co. seemed to doze in the counting-house
window on the ground-floor giving on the sleepy street.

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no
one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up at the
house-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper,
crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the housebell as if it were
the house's nose, and he were taking a hint from his late experience.
His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, to give him assurance that
something stirred within. His eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm his
ear, for he angrily pulled the house's nose again, and pulled and pulled
and continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway.

'Now you sir!' cried Fledgeby. 'These are nice games!'

He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, and
wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top of his
head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and mingling
with his beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern action of homage bent
his head, and stretched out his hands with the palms downward, as if to
deprecate the wrath of a superior.

'What have you been up to?' said Fledgeby, storming at him.

'Generous Christian master,' urged the Jewish man, 'it being holiday, I
looked for no one.'

'Holiday he blowed!' said Fledgeby, entering. 'What have YOU got to do
with holidays? Shut the door.'

With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his rusty
large-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as his coat; in the
corner near it stood his staff--no walking-stick but a veritable staff.
Fledgeby turned into the counting-house, perched himself on a