“Will you permit me to have the pleasure, sir?” said Mr. Trundle to Mr. Winkle.
“With great pleasure,” replied Mr. Winkle to Mr. Trundle, and then the two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round, ladies and all.
“How dear Emily is flirting with the strange gentleman,” whispered the spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, to her brother Mr. Wardle.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said the jolly old gentleman; “all very natural, I dare say—nothing unusual. Mr. Pickwick, some wine, sir?” Mr. Pickwick, who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon-pie, readily assented.
“Emily, my dear,” said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air, “don’t talk so loud, love.”
“Lor, aunt!”
“Aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, I think,” whispered Miss Isabella Wardle to her sister Emily. The young ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable, but couldn’t manage it.
“Young girls have such spirits,” said Miss Wardle to Mr. Tupman, with an air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband, and their possession without a permit, a high crime and misdemeanour.
“Oh, they have,” replied Mr. Tupman, not exactly making the sort of reply that was expected from him. “It’s quite delightful.”
“Hem!” said Miss Wardle, rather dubiously.