he Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a
resounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great
mystery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and having
over-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the
pure electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week that
Veneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman in
Britannia's confidence will again accept the Pocket-Breaches Thousands,
and that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs
Veneering's diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has from
time to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune and
others, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House
of Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven
dearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise come
to pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will
discover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering,
and that when it went to Veneering's to dinner it always had
misgivings--though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in a
perfectly private and confidential manner.

The next week's books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yet
opened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the people who go
to their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is Lady
Tippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow.
There are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, who
is Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman,
travelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius
who turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred
and seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence.

To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with a
reassumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and belonging to
the days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere.

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false
swain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; but the deserter,
predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap always
talks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchman
employed, in the British interests, against the rest of the world. 'We
know what Russia means, sir,' says Podsnap; 'we know what France wants;