A Little Dinner at Timminss | Page 5

glad enough to come.
The city people are glad to mix with the old families."

"Very good," says Fitz, with a sad face of assent--and Mrs. Timmins
went on reading her list.
"Mr. and Mrs. Topham Sawyer, Belgravine Place."
"Mrs. Sawyer hasn't asked you all the season. She gives herself the airs
of an empress; and when--"
"One's Member, you know, my dear, one must have," Rosa replied,
with much dignity as if the presence of the representative of her native
place would be a protection to her dinner. And a note was written and
transported by the page early next morning to the mansion of the
Sawyers, in Belgravine Place.
The Topham Sawyers had just come down to breakfast; Mrs. T. in her
large dust-colored morning-dress and Madonna front (she looks rather
scraggy of a morning, but I promise you her ringlets and figure will
stun you of an evening); and having read the note, the following
dialogue passed:--
Mrs. Topham Sawyer.--"Well, upon my word, I don't know where
things will end. Mr. Sawyer, the Timminses have asked us to dinner."
Mr. Topham Sawyer.--"Ask us to dinner! What d----- impudence!"
Mrs. Topham Sawyer.--"The most dangerous and insolent
revolutionary principles are abroad, Mr. Sawyer; and I shall write and
hint as much to these persons."
Mr. Topham Sawyer.--"No, d--- it, Joanna: they are my constituents
and we must go. Write a civil note, and say we will come to their
party." (He resumes the perusal of 'The times,' and Mrs. Topham
Sawyer writes)--
"MY DEAR ROSA,--We shall have GREAT PLEASURE in joining
your little party. I do not reply in the third person, as WE ARE OLD
FRIENDS, you know, and COUNTRY NEIGHBORS. I hope your
mamma is well: present my KINDEST REMEMBRANCES to her, and
I hope we shall see much MORE of each other in the summer, when we
go down to the Sawpits (for going abroad is out of the question in these
DREADFUL TIMES). With a hundred kisses to your dear little PET,
"Believe me your attached
"J. T. S."
She said Pet, because she did not know whether Rosa's child was a girl
or boy: and Mrs. Timmins was very much pleased with the kind and
gracious nature of the reply to her invitation.

II.
The next persons whom little Mrs. Timmins was bent upon asking,
were Mr. and Mrs. John Rowdy, of the firm of Stumpy, Rowdy and Co.,
of Brobdingnag Gardens, of the Prairie, Putney, and of Lombard Street,
City.
Mrs. Timinins and Mrs. Rowdy had been brought up at the same school
together, and there was always a little rivalry between them, from the
day when they contended for the French prize at school to last week,
when each had a stall at the Fancy Fair for the benefit of the Daughters
of Decayed Muffin-men; and when Mrs. Timmins danced against Mrs.
Rowdy in the Scythe Mazurka at the Polish Ball, headed by Mrs. Hugh
Slasher. Rowdy took twenty-three pounds more than Timmins in the
Muffin transaction (for she had possession of a kettle-holder worked by
the hands of R-y-lty, which brought crowds to her stall); but in the
Mazurka Rosa conquered: she has the prettiest little foot possible
(which in a red boot and silver heel looked so lovely that even the
Chinese ambassador remarked it), whereas Mrs. Rowdy's foot is no
trifle, as Lord Cornbury acknowledged when it came down on his
lordship's boot-tip as they danced together amongst the Scythes.
"These people are ruining themselves," said Mrs. John Rowdy to her
husband, on receiving the pink note. It was carried round by that rogue
of a buttony page in the evening; and he walked to Brobdingnag
Gardens, and in the Park afterwards, with a young lady who is
kitchen-maid at 27, and who is not more than fourteen years older than
little Buttons.
"These people are ruining themselves," said Mrs. John to her husband.
"Rosa says she has asked the Bungays."
"Bungays indeed! Timmins was always a tuft-hunter," said Rowdy,
who had been at college with the barrister, and who, for his own part,
has no more objection to a lord than you or I have; and adding, "Hang
him, what business has HE to be giving parties?" allowed Mrs. Rowdy,
nevertheless, to accept Rosa's invitation.
"When I go to business to-morrow, I will just have a look at Mr. Fitz's
account," Mr. Rowdy thought; "and if it is overdrawn, as it usually is,
why . . ." The announcement of Mrs. Rowdy's brougham here put an
end to this agreeable train of thought; and the banker and his lady
stepped into it to join a snug little family-party of two-and-twenty,

given by Mr. and Mrs. Secondchop at their great house on the other
side of the Park.
"Rowdys 2, Bungays 3,