Point the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow is related to Lord Snigsworth, must be let off. Veneering supposes a state of public affairs that probably never could by any possibility exist (though this is not quite certain, in consequence of his picture being unintelligible to himself and everybody else), and thus proceeds. ‘Why, gentlemen, if I were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, I say it would be received with derision, would be pointed at by the finger of scorn. If I indicated such a programme to any worthy and intelligent tradesman of your town—nay, I will here be personal, and say Our town—what would he reply? He would reply, “Away with it!” That’s what he would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he would reply, “Away with it!” But suppose I mounted higher in the social scale. Suppose I drew my arm through the arm of my respected friend upon my left, and, walking with him through the ancestral woods of his family, and under the spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached the noble hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up the staircase, and, passing from room to room, found myself at last in the august presence of my friend’s near kinsman, Lord Snigsworth. And suppose I said to that venerable earl, “My Lord, I am here before your lordship, presented by your lordship’s near kinsman, my friend upon my left, to indicate that programme;” what would his lordship answer? Why, he would answer, “Away with it!” That’s what he would answer, gentlemen. “Away with it!” Unconsciously using, in his exalted sphere, the exact language of the worthy and intelligent tradesman of our town, the near and dear kinsman of my friend upon my left would answer in his wrath, “Away with it!”’
Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, ‘He’s down.’
Then, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and then there are in due succession, nomination, and declaration. Finally Mr Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, ‘We have brought him in.’
Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the Veneering halls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and Boots and Brewer await them. There is a modest assertion on everybody’s part that everybody single-handed ‘brought him in’; but in the main it is conceded by all, that that stroke of business on Brewer’s part, in going down to the house that night to see how things looked, was the master-stroke.
A touching little incident is related by Mrs Veneering, in the course of the evening. Mrs Veneering is habitually disposed to be tearful, and has an extra disposition that way after her late excitement. Previous to withdrawing from the dinner-table with Lady Tippins, she says, in a pathetic and physically weak manner:
‘You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention it. As I sat by Baby’s crib, on the night before the election, Baby was very uneasy in her sleep.’
The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diabolical impulses to suggest ‘Wind’ and throw up his situation; but represses them.
‘After an interval almost convulsive, Baby curled her little hands in one another and smiled.’
Mrs Veneering stopping here, Mr Podsnap deems it incumbent on him to say: ‘I wonder why!’
‘Could it be, I asked myself,’ says Mrs Veneering, looking about her for her pocket-handkerchief, ‘that the Fairies were telling Baby that her papa would shortly be an M. P.?’