CHAPTER XXXV.
A DINNER IN THE ROW.
Upon the appointed day our two friends made their appearance at Mr. Bungay's door in Paternoster Row; not the public entrance through which booksellers' boys issued with their sacks full of Bungay's volumes, and around which timid aspirants lingered with their virgin manuscripts ready for sale to Sultan Bungay, but at the private door of the house, whence the splendid Mrs. Bungay would come forth to step into her chaise and take her drive, settling herself on the cushions, and casting looks of defiance, at Mrs. Bacon's opposite windows—at Mrs. Bacon, who was as yet a chaiseless woman.
On such occasions, when very much wroth at her sister-in-law's splendor, Mrs. Bacon would fling up the sash of her drawing-room window, and look out with her four children at the chaise, as much as to say, "Look at these four darlings, Flora Bungay! This is why I can't drive in my carriage; you would give a coach and four to have the same reason." And it was with these arrows out of her quiver that Emma Bacon shot Flora Bungay as she sate in her chariot, envious and childless.
As Pen and Warrington came to Bungay's door, a carriage and a cab drove up to Bacon's. Old Dr. Slocum descended heavily from the first; the doctor's equipage was as ponderous as his style, but both had a fine sonorous effect upon the publishers in the Row. A couple of dazzling white waistcoats stepped out of the cab.
Warrington laughed. "You see Bacon has his dinner party too. That is Dr. Slocum, author of 'Memoirs of the Poisoners.' You would hardly have recognized our friend Hoolan in that gallant white waistcoat. Doolan is one of Bungay's men, and, faith, here he comes." Indeed Messrs. Hoolan and Doolan had come from the Strand in the same cab, tossing up by the way which should pay the shilling; and Mr. D. stepped from the other side of the way, arrayed in black, with a large pair of white gloves which were spread out on his hands, and which the owner could not help regarding with pleasure.