piqued herself at once on being
Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that Power), Mrs.
Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court Bohemians, without
exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an upstart; but they turned them
down again, by falling flat on their faces to worship his wealth. In which
compensating adjustment of their noses, they were pretty much like Treasury,
Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest of them.
    To Mrs. Merdle, Mrs. Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after
having given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into town for the
purpose, in a one-horse carriage, irreverently called at that period of English
history, a pill-box. It belonged to a job-master in a small way, who drove it
himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of the old ladies in
Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony, in that encampment, that
the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded as the private property of the
jobber for the time being, and that the job-master should betray personal
knowledge of nobody but the jobber in possession. So, the Circumlocution
Barnacles, who were the largest job-masters in the universe, always pretended to
know of no other job but the job immediately in hand.
    Mrs. Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with the
parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one side, as if he
took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species. To whom entered Mrs.
Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened the light on the spots of
bloom.
    »My dear soul,« said Mrs. Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's hand with
this fan, after a little indifferent conversation, »you are my only comfort.
That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is to take place. Now, how does it
strike you? I am dying to know, because you represent and express Society so
well.«
    Mrs. Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review; and
having ascertained that show-window of Mr. Merdle's and the London jewellers' to
be in good order, replied:
    »As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that he
should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that he should gain
by marriage. Society requires that he should found a handsome establishment by
marriage