He was a stout bluff-looking gentleman, with no shirt-collar to speak of, and a beard that had been growing since yesterday morning; for Dr Lumbey was popular, and the neighbourhood was prolific; and there had been no less than three other knockers muffled, one after the other within the last forty-eight hours.
`Well, Mr Kenwigs,' said Dr Lumbey, `this makes six. You'll have a fine family in time, sir.'
`I think six is almost enough, sir,' returned Mr Kenwigs.
`Pooh! pooh!' said the doctor. `Nonsense! not half enough.'
With this, the doctor laughed; but he didn't laugh half as much as a married friend of Mrs Kenwigs's, who had just come in from the sick chamber to report progress, and take a small sip of brandy-and-water: and who seemed to consider it one of the best jokes ever launched upon society.
`They're not altogether dependent upon good fortune, neither,' said Mr Kenwigs, taking his second daughter on his knee; `they have expectations.'
`Oh, indeed!' said Mr Lumbey, the doctor.
`And very good ones too, I believe, haven't they?' asked the married lady.
`Why, ma'am,' said Mr Kenwigs, `it's not exactly for me to say what they may be, or what they may not be. It's not for me to boast of any family with which I have the honour to be connected; at the same time, Mrs Kenwigs's is -- I should say,' said Mr Kenwigs, abruptly, and raising his voice as he spoke, `that my children might come into a matter of a hundred pound apiece, perhaps. Perhaps more, but certainly that.'
`And a very pretty little fortune,' said the married lady.
`There are some relations of Mrs Kenwigs's,' said Mr Kenwigs, taking a pinch of snuff from the doctor's box, and then sneezing very hard, for he wasn't used to it, `that might leave their hundred pound apiece to ten people, and yet not go begging when they had done it.'
`Ah! I know who you mean,' observed the married lady, nodding her head.
`I made mention of no names, and I wish to make mention of no names,'
said Mr Kenwigs, with a portentous look. `Many of my friends have met a relation of Mrs Kenwigs's in this very room, as would do honour to any company; that's all.'
`I've met him,' said the married lady, with a glance towards Dr Lumbey.
`It's naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a father, to see such a man as that, a kissing and taking notice of my children,' pursued Mr Kenwigs. `It's naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a man, to know that man. It will be naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a husband, to make that man acquainted with this ewent.'
Having delivered his sentiments in this form of words, Mr Kenwigs arranged his second daughter's flaxen tail, and bade her be a good girl and mind what her sister, Morleena, said.
`That girl grows more like her mother every day,' said Mr Lumbey, suddenly stricken with an enthusiastic admiration of Morleena.
`There!' rejoined the married lady. `What I always say -- what I always did say! She's the very picter of her.' Having thus directed the general attention to the young lady in question, the married lady embraced the opportunity of taking another sip of the brandy-and-water -- and a pretty long sip too.
`Yes! there is a likeness,' said Mr Kenwigs, after some reflection.
`But such a woman as Mrs Kenwigs was, afore she was married! Good gracious, such a woman!'
Mr Lumbey shook his head with great solemnity, as though to imply that he supposed she must have been rather a dazzler.
`Talk of fairies!' cried Mr Kenwigs ` I never see anybody so light to be alive -- never. Such manners too; so playful, and yet so sewerely proper! As for her figure! It isn't generally known,' said Mr Kenwigs, dropping his voice; `but her figure was such, at that time, that the sign of the Britannia, over in the Holloway Road, was painted from it!'
`But only see what it is now,' urged the married lady. `Does she look like the mother of six?'
`Quite ridiculous,' cried the doctor.
`She looks a deal more like her own daughter,' said the married lady.
`So she does,' assented Mr Lumbey. `A great deal more.'
Mr Kenwigs was about to make some further observations, most probably in confirmation of this opinion, when another married lady, who had looked in to keep up Mrs Kenwigs's spirits, and help to clear off anything in the eating and drinking way that might be going about, put in her head to announce that she had just been down to answer the bell, and that there was a gentleman at the door who wanted to see Mr Kenwigs `most particular.'
Shadowy visions of his distinguished relation flitted through the brain of Mr Kenwigs, as this message was delivered; and under their influence, he dispatched Morleena to show the gentleman up straightway.
`Why, I do declare,' said Mr Kenwigs, standing opposite the door so as to get the earliest glimpse of the visitor, as he came upstairs, `it's Mr Johnson! How do you find yourself, sir?'
Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old pupils all round, intrusted a large parcel of toys to the guardianship of Morleena, bowed to the doctor and the married ladies, and inquired after Mrs Kenwigs in a tone of interest, which went to the very heart and soul of the nurse, who had come in to warm some mysterious compound, in a little saucepan over the fire.
`I ought to make a hundred apologies to you for calling at such a season,'
said Nicholas, `but I was not aware of it until I had rung the bell, and my time is so fully occupied now, that I feared it might be some days before I could possibly come again.'
`No time like the present, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs. `The sitiwation ofMrs Kenwigs, sir, is no obstacle to a little conversation between you and me, I hope?'
`You are very good,' said Nicholas.
At this juncture, proclamation was made by another married lady, that the baby had begun to eat like anything; whereupon the two married ladies, already mentioned, rushed tumultuously into the bedroom to behold him in the act.
`The fact is,' resumed Nicholas, `that before I left the country, where I have been for some time past, I undertook to deliver a message to you.'
`Ay, ay?' said Mr Kenwigs.
