The things we do!

'No, no,' says I, 'Hobson; Louisa's engaged nursing number eight'
--that's our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me, sir, my
missis won't come any more at no price. She can't stand it; Mrs.
Newcome's dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody. 'Well,
Hobson, my boy,' says I, 'a good dinner's a good dinner; and I'll come
though Louisa won't, that is, can't.'"
While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was
discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr. Arthur
Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the
Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which Mrs.
Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued talking--"I'm an
old stager, I am. I don't mind the rows between the women. I believe Mrs.
Newcome and Lady Newcome's just as bad too; I know Maria is always
driving at her one way or the other, and calling her proud and
aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who pretends to be
such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and his lady.


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