res himself highly
flattered, but requires breathing time to ascertain 'whether his friends
will rally round him.' Above all things, he says, it behoves him to be
clear, at a crisis of this importance, 'whether his friends will rally
round him.' The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client cannot
allow much time for this purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knows
somebody prepared to put down six thousand pounds; but he says he will
give Veneering four hours.

Veneering then says to Mrs Veneering, 'We must work,' and throws himself
into a Hansom cab. Mrs Veneering in the same moment relinquishes baby
to Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange the
throbbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in
a distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and any
self-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 'We must work.'

Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public in the
streets, like the Life-Guards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to Duke
Street, Saint James's. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh
from the hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to his
hair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, for
two hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and dry
gradually, he is in an appropriate state for the receipt of startling
intelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and
King Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat
point from the classics.

'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, grasping both his hands, as the
dearest and oldest of my friends--'

('Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,' thinks Twemlow,
'and I AM!')

'--Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give his
name as a Member of my Committee? I don't go so far as to ask for his
lordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give me his
name?'

In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, 'I don't think he would.'

'My political opinions,' says Veneering, not previously aware of having
any, 'are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as a
matter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth would
give me his name.'

'It might be so,' says Twemlow; 'but--' And perplexedly scratching his
head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more discomfited by being
reminded how stickey he is.

'Between such old and int