Mrs Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, cries. ‘Oh yes! Do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House! So delicious!’ Veneering says, ‘As many as are of that opinion, say Aye,—contrary, No—the Ayes have it.’ But nobody takes the slightest notice of his joke.
‘Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees!’ cries Lady Tippins.
(‘What spirits she has!’ exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobody attends.)
‘And this,’ pursues the sprightly one, ‘is a Committee of the whole House to what-you-may-call-it—elicit, I suppose—the voice of Society. The question before the Committee is, whether a young man of very fair family, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of himself in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl.’
‘Hardly so, I think,’ the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. ‘I take the question to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady Tippins, does right or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty), who has saved his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom he knows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; whom he has long admired, and who is deeply attached to him.’
‘But, excuse me,’ says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt-collar about equally rumpled; ‘was this young woman ever a female waterman?’
‘Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her father, I believe.’
General sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his head. Boots shakes his head. Buffer shakes his head.
‘And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever,’ pursues Podsnap, with his indignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, ‘a factory girl?’
‘Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe.’