‘No other, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. ‘Permit me to introduce my friends—Mr. Tupman—Mr. Winkle—Mr. Snodgrass—to the authoress of “The Expiring Frog.”’
Very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult process it is to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and high-crowned hat; or in blue satin trunks and white silks, or knee-cords and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of himself and the suit. Never were such distortions as Mr. Tupman’s frame underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful—never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited.
‘Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, ‘I must make you promise not to stir from my side the whole day. There are hundreds of people here, that I must positively introduce you to.’
‘You are very kind, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘In the first place, here are my little girls; I had almost forgotten them,’ said Minerva, carelessly pointing towards a couple of full-grown young ladies, of whom one might be about twenty, and the other a year or two older, and who were dressed in very juvenile costumes—whether to make them look young, or their mamma younger, Mr. Pickwick does not distinctly inform us.
‘They are very beautiful,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as the juveniles turned away, after being presented.
‘They are very like their mamma, Sir,’ said Mr. Pott, majestically.
‘Oh, you naughty man,’ exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, playfully tapping the editor’s arm with her fan (Minerva with a fan!).
‘Why now, my dear Mrs. Hunter,’ said Mr. Pott, who was trumpeter in ordinary at the Den, ‘you know that when your picture was in the exhibition of the Royal Academy, last year, everybody inquired whether it was intended for you, or your youngest daughter; for you were so much alike that there was no telling the difference between you.’
‘Well, and if they did, why need you repeat it, before strangers?’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, bestowing another tap on the slumbering lion of the Eatanswill Gazette.