'I have already told you. You show that you carry your business cares
an projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else
they belong to,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Or seeming to. Seeming would be quite
enough: I ask no more. Whereas you couldn't be more occupied with your
day's calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to
be, if you were a carpenter.'
'A carpenter!' repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan. 'I shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.' 'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark,
'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct
it, Mr Merdle.
If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund
Sparkler.' The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed
the head of her son through her glass.
'Edmund; we want you here.'
Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room
without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady
with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his
body, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his
capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.
The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it
were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he had heard
it noticed by fellers.' 'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with languid
triumph. 'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!' Which in truth
was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be
the last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an
impression from anything that passed in his presence.
'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, waving
her favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it noticed.'
'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before,
'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate
loose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well
educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded
to--' 'There! Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little
impatiently. 'What did the brother say?'
'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler. 'As silent a feller as
myself. Equally hard up for a remark.' 'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle. 'Never mind who it was.' ('Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.)