The young gentleman was mistaken in this closing sentence, inasmuch as he never told it to Jinkins, but always to Mrs. Todgers.
"However," he said, "these are not proper subjects for ladies' ears. All I've got to say to you, Mrs, Todgers, is,—a week's notice from next Saturday. The same house can't contain that miscreant and me any longer. If we get over the intermediate time without bloodshed, you may think yourself pretty fortunate. I don't myself expect we shall."
"Dear, dear!" cried Mrs. Todgers, "what would I have given to have prevented this! To lose you, sir, would be like losing the house's right-hand. So popular as you are among the gentlemen; so generally looked up to; and so much liked! I do hope you'll think better of it; if on nobody else's account, on mine."
"There's Jinkins," said the youngest gentleman, moodily. "Your favourite. He'll console you and the gentlemen too for the loss of twenty such as me. I'm not understood in this house. I never have been."
"Don't run away with that opinion, sir!" cried Mrs. Todgers, with a show of honest indignation, "Don't make such a charge as that against the establishment, I must beg of you. It is not so bad as that comes to, sir. Make any remark you please against the gentlemen, or against me; but don't say you're not understood in this house."
"I'm not treated as if I was," said the youngest gentleman.
"There you make a great mistake, sir," returned Mrs. Todgers, In the same strain. "As many of the gentlemen and I have often said, you are too sensitive. That's where it is. You are of too susceptible a nature; it's in your spirit."
The young gentleman coughed.
"And as," said Mrs. Todgers, "as to Mr. Jinkins, I must beg of you, if we are to part, to understand that I don't abet Mr. Jinkins by any means. Far from it. I could wish that Mr. Jinkins would take a lower tone in this establishment; and would not be the means of raising differences between me and gentlemen that I can much less bear to part with, than I could with him. Mr. Jinkins is not such a boarder, sir," added Mrs. Todgers, "that all considerations of private feeling and respect give way before him. Quite the contrary, I assure you."
The young gentleman was so much mollified by these and similar speeches on the part of Mrs. Todgers, that he and that lady gradually changed positions; so that she became the injured party, and he was understood to be the injurer; but in a complimentary, not in an offensive sense; his cruel conduct being attributable to his exalted nature, and to that alone. So, in the end, the young gentleman withdrew his notice, and assured Mrs. Todgers of his unalterable regard: and having done so, went back to business.
"Goodness me. Miss Pecksniffs!" cried that lady, as she came into the back room, and sat wearily down, with her basket on her knees, and her hands folded upon it, "what a trial of temper it is to keep a house like this! You must have heard most of what has just passed. Now did you ever hear the like?"
"Never!" said the two Miss Pecksniffs.
