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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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653 one ever called on them; if anybody wanted the parlours, they were close at hand, and all he had to do was to walk straight into them; while the kitchen had a separate entrance down the area steps. As a question of mere necessity and usefulness, therefore, this muffling of the knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible. But knockers may be muffled for other purposes than those of mere utilitarianism, as, in the present instance, was clearly shown. There are certain polite forms and ceremonies which must be observed in civilised life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism. No genteel lady was ever yet confined--indeed, no genteel confinement can possibly take place--without the accompanying symbol of a muffled knocker. Mrs Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to gentility; Mrs Kenwigs was confined. And, therefore, Mr Kenwigs tied up the silent knocker on the premises in a white kid glove. ‘I’m not quite certain neither,’ said Mr Kenwigs, arranging his shirt-collar, and walking slowly upstairs, ‘whether, as it’s a boy, I won’t have it in the papers.’ Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it was likely to create in the neighbourhood, Mr Kenwigs betook himself to the sitting-room, where various extremely diminutive articles of clothing were airing on a horse before the fire, and Mr Lumbey, the doctor, was dandling the baby--that is, the old baby--not the new one. ‘It’s a fine boy, Mr Kenwigs,’ said Mr Lumbey, the doctor. ‘You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?’ returned Mr Kenwigs. ‘It’s the finest boy I ever saw in all my life,’ said the doctor. ‘I never saw such a baby.’ |
