‘I had better not meet him on the stairs, perhaps,’ said Tom, drawing his sister’s arm through his, and coming back a step or two. ‘I’ll wait for him here, a moment.’
He had scarcely said it when the door opened, and Jonas entered. His wife came forward to receive him; but he put her aside with his hand, and said in a surly tone:
‘I didn’t know you’d got a party.’
As he looked, at the same time, either by accident or design, towards Miss Pecksniff; and as Miss Pecksniff was only too delighted to quarrel with him, she instantly resented it.
‘Oh dear!’ she said, rising. ‘Pray don’t let us intrude upon your domestic happiness! That would be a pity. We have taken tea here, sir, in your absence; but if you will have the goodness to send us a note of the expense, receipted, we shall be happy to pay it. Augustus, my love, we will go, if you please. Mrs Todgers, unless you wish to remain here, we shall be happy to take you with us. It would be a pity, indeed, to spoil the bliss which this gentleman always brings with him, especially into his own home.’
‘Charity! Charity!’ remonstrated her sister, in such a heartfelt tone that she might have been imploring her to show the cardinal virtue whose name she bore.
‘Merry, my dear, I am much obliged to you for your advice,’ returned Miss Pecksniff, with a stately scorn—by the way, she had not been offered any—‘but I am not his slave—’
‘No, nor wouldn’t have been if you could,’ interrupted Jonas. ‘We know all about it.’
‘What did you say, sir?’ cried Miss Pecksniff, sharply.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ retorted Jonas, lounging down upon a chair. ‘I am not a-going to say it again. If you like to stay, you may stay. If you like to go, you may go. But if you stay, please to be civil.’