Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes his dear Twemlow. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in nature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend must please to look at baby. “Ah! You will know the friend of your family better, Tootleums,” says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally at that new article, “when you begin to take notice.” He then begs to make his dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer — and clearly has no distinct idea which is which.

But now a fearful circumstance occurs.

“Mis-ter and Mis-sis Podsnap!”

“My dear,” says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much friendly interest, while the door stands open, “the Podsnaps.”

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with:

“How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of this opportunity, I am sure!”

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in his neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the large man closed with him and proved too strong.

“Let me,” says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his wife in the distance, “have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnap to her host. She will be,” in his fatal freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, “she will be so glad of the opportunity, I am sure!”

In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own account, because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does her best in the way of handsomely supporting her husband’s, by looking towards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs Veneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very like him.

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for any other man; but, Mr Veneering having this very evening set up the shirt-front of the young Antinous (in new worked cambric just come home), is not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry and weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally resents the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is so sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the large man an offensive ass.

In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with extended hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:

“Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!”

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he is haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken hands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by saying to the last-named, “Ridiculous opportunity — but so glad of it, I am sure!”