"When I go to business to-morrow,I will just have a look at Mr.
Fitz's account,"Mr.Rowdy thought;"and if it is overdrawn,as it usually is,why ..."The announcement of Mrs.Rowdy's brougham here put an end to this agreeable train of thought;and the banker and his lady stepped into it to join a snug little family-party of two-and-twenty,given by Mr.and Mrs.Secondchop at their great house on the other side of the Park.
"Rowdys 2,Bungays 3,ourselves and mamma 3,2Sawyers,"calculated little Rosa.
"General Gulpin,"Rosa continued,"eats a great deal,and is very stupid,but he looks well at table with his star and ribbon.Let us put HIM down!"and she noted down "Sir Thomas and Lady Gulpin,2.Lord Castlemouldy,1.""You will make your party abominably genteel and stupid,"groaned Timmins."Why don't you ask some of our old friends?Old Mrs.
Portman has asked us twenty times,I am sure,within the last two years.""And the last time we went there,there was pea-soup for dinner!"Mrs.Timmins said,with a look of ineffable scorn.
"Nobody can have been kinder than the Hodges have always been to us;and some sort of return we might make,I think.""Return,indeed!A pretty sound it is on the staircase to hear 'Mr.and Mrs.'Odge and Miss 'Odges'pronounced by Billiter,who always leaves his h's out.No,no:see attorneys at your chambers,my dear--but what could the poor creatures do in OUR society?"And so,one by one,Timmins's old friends were tried and eliminated by Mrs.Timmins,just as if she had been an Irish Attorney-General,and they so many Catholics on Mr.Mitchel's jury.
Mrs.Fitzroy insisted that the party should be of her very best company.Funnyman,the great wit,was asked,because of his jokes;and Mrs.Butt,on whom he practises;and Potter,who is asked because everybody else asks him;and Mr.Ranville Ranville of the Foreign Office,who might give some news of the Spanish squabble;and Botherby,who has suddenly sprung up into note because he is intimate with the French Revolution,and visits Ledru-Rollin and Lamartine.And these,with a couple more who are amis de la maison,made up the twenty,whom Mrs.Timmins thought she might safely invite to her little dinner.