| 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit to
give him a word back, no, not a single word.'
Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all
the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
official communication was no sooner made than they all began to
talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility.
Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often
said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had
told her so twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta
Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own
ears, I never will believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony
and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories
recounted a successful course of treatment under which she had
placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after
marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means
become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her own
personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she had
found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to weep
incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the general
confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself upon a
young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst them, and
conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and happiness to
profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the weakness of
Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole thoughts to
taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise was at its
height, and half the company had elevated their voices into a perfect
shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when Mrs Jiniwin
was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger stealthily, as if
exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp
himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was observed to
be in the room, looking on and listening with profound attention.
'
Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to
stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and
palatable.'
'
I - I - didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. It's quite an
accident.' 'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are
always the pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard
that he seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which
they were encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going,
ladies, you are not going, surely!'
His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
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