But after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the house with the yellow door, ‘making,’ as one of the vixenish ladies triumphantly said, ‘acterrally more noise than if one had come in one’s own carriage,’ and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies in getting out, the small round head of Master Thomas Bardell was thrust out of the one-pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers off.
‘Aggrawatin’ thing!’ said the vixenish lady last-mentioned, darting a withering glance at the heavy gentleman.
‘My dear, it’s not my fault,’ said the gentleman.
‘Don’t talk to me, you creetur, don’t,’ retorted the lady. ‘The house with the red door, cabmin. Oh! If ever a woman was troubled with a ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and a pleasure in disgracing his wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, I am that woman!’
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Raddle,’ said the other little woman, who was no other than Mrs. Cluppins.
‘What have I been a-doing of?’ asked Mr. Raddle.
‘Don’t talk to me, don’t, you brute, for fear I should be perwoked to forgit my sect and strike you!’ said Mrs. Raddle.
While this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door, which Master Bardell had already opened. Here was a mean and low way of arriving at a friend’s house! No dashing up, with all the fire and fury of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the door; no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment, for fear of the ladies sitting in a draught; and then the man handing the shawls out, afterwards, as if he were a private coachman! The whole edge of the thing had been taken off—it was flatter than walking.
‘Well, Tommy,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, ‘how’s your poor dear mother?’
‘Oh, she’s very well,’ replied Master Bardell. ‘She’s in the front parlour, all ready. I’m ready too, I am.’ Here Master Bardell put his hands in his pockets, and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door.