Mr. N.—Where?
Mrs. N.—To Lady Sowerby’s.
Mr. N.—I’d rather go to the black hole in Calcutta. Besides, this Sanitary Report is really the most interesting—[he begins to read.]
Mrs. N. (piqued)—Well; Mr. Titmarsh will go with us.
Mr. N.—Will he? I wish him joy!
At this puncture Miss Clarissa Newboy enters in a pink paletôt, trimmed with swansdown—looking like an angel—and we exchange glances of—what shall I say?—of sympathy on both parts, and consummate rapture on mine. But this is by-play.
Mrs. N.—Good night, Frederic. I think we shall be late.
Mr. N.—You won’t wake me, I daresay; and you don’t expect a public man to sit up.
Mrs. N.—It’s not you, it’s the servants. Cocker sleeps very heavily. The maids are best in bed, and are all ill with the influenza. I say, Frederic dear, don’t you think you had better give me YOUR CHUBB KEY?
This astonishing proposal, which violates every recognised law of society—this demand which alters all the existing state of things—this fact of a woman asking for a door-key, struck me with a terror which I cannot describe, and impressed me with the fact of the vast progress of Our Street. The door-key! What would our grandmother, who dwelt in this place when it was a rustic suburb, think of its condition now, when husbands stay at home, and wives go abroad with the latch-key?