| 343 | 344 | 345 | 346 | 347 |
| 1 | 198 | 396 | 594 | 792 |
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family connections; how I have urged and entreated him to take some
decisive step! I am quite certain nobody would believe it - quite.'
'
'
'
But, my dear,' said Mr Nupkins.
Don't talk to me, you aggravating thing, don't!' said Mrs. Nupkins.
My love,' said Mr Nupkins, 'you professed yourself very fond of
Captain Fitz-Marshall. You have constantly asked him here, my dear,
and you have lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere.'
'
Didn't I say so, Henrietta?' cried Mrs. Nupkins, appealing to her
daughter with the air of a much-injured female. 'Didn't I say that your
papa would turn round and lay all this at my door? Didn't I say so?'
Here Mrs. Nupkins sobbed.
'Oh, pa!' remonstrated Miss Nupkins. And here she sobbed too.
'Isn't it too much, when he has brought all this disgrace and ridicule
upon us, to taunt me with being the cause of it?' exclaimed Mrs.
Nupkins.
'
'
'
How can we ever show ourselves in society!' said Miss Nupkins.
How can we face the Porkenhams?' cried Mrs. Nupkins.
Or the Griggs!' cried Miss Nupkins. 'Or the Slummintowkens!' cried
Mrs. Nupkins. 'But what does your papa care! What is it to HIM!' At
this dreadful reflection, Mrs. Nupkins wept mental anguish, and Miss
Nupkins followed on the same side.
Mrs. Nupkins's tears continued to gush forth, with great velocity, until
she had gained a little time to think the matter over; when she
decided, in her own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask
Mr Pickwick and his friends to remain until the captain's arrival, and
then to give Mr Pickwick the opportunity he sought. If it appeared that
he had spoken truly, the captain could be turned out of the house
without noising the matter abroad, and they could easily account to
the Porkenhams for his disappearance, by saying that he had been
appointed, through the Court influence of his family, to the governor-
generalship of Sierra Leone, of Saugur Point, or any other of those
salubrious climates which enchant Europeans so much, that when
they once get there, they can hardly ever prevail upon themselves to
come back again.
When Mrs. Nupkins dried up her tears, Miss Nupkins dried up hers,
and Mr Nupkins was very glad to settle the matter as Mrs. Nupkins
had proposed. So Mr Pickwick and his friends, having washed off all
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