te, that what the man in question
should have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and a
small annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a question
of beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. Very good. You
buy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in
pounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and
so many pints of porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the boat.
On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many
pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to that
young woman's engine. She derives therefrom a certain amount of power to
row the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that to the
small annuity; and thus you get at the young woman's income. That (it
seems to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it.
The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during the
last exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, she comes
awake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. The
Wanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a
young woman as the young woman described, had saved his own life, he
would have been very much obliged to her, wouldn't have married her, and
would have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young
women answer very well.
What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five thousand
pounds, no shillings, and nopence, think? He can't say what he thinks,
without asking: Had the young woman any money?
'No,' says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice; 'no money.'
'Madness and moonshine,' is then the compressed verdict of the Genius.
'A man may do anything lawful, for money. But for no money!--Bosh!'
What does Boots say?
Boots says he wouldn't have done it under twenty thousand pound.
What does Brewer say?
Brewer says what Boots says.
What does Buffer say?
Buffer says he knows a man who married a bathing-woman, and bolted.
Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the whole
Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their opinion),
when, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives Mr
Twemlow with his hand to his forehead.
Good gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! My own! What is his
vote?
Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from his
forehead and replies.
'I am
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