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Men's Wives by William Makepeace Thackeray
page 64 of 235 (27%)
quite silently, glaring at all, and jumping up, and hitching up his
coat-sleeves, when anyone entered the room.

The "Kidneys" did not like this behaviour. Clinker ceased to come.
Bustard, the poulterer, ceased to come. As for Snaffle, he also
disappeared, for Woolsey wished to make him answerable for the
misbehaviour of Eglantine, and proposed to him the duel which the
latter had declined. So Snaffle went. Presently they all went,
except the tailor and Tressle, who lived down the street, and these
two would sit and pug their tobacco, one on each side of Crump, the
landlord, as silent as Indian chiefs in a wigwam. There grew to be
more and more room for poor old Crump in his chair and in his
clothes; the "Kidneys" were gone, and why should he remain? One
Saturday he did not come down to preside at the club (as he still
fondly called it), and the Saturday following Tressle had made a
coffin for him; and Woolsey, with the undertaker by his side,
followed to the grave the father of the "Kidneys."

Mrs. Crump was now alone in the world. "How alone?" says some
innocent and respected reader. Ah! my dear sir, do you know so
little of human nature as not to be aware that, one week after the
Richmond affair, Morgiana married Captain Walker? That did she
privately, of course; and, after the ceremony, came tripping back to
her parents, as young people do in plays, and said, "Forgive me,
dear Pa and Ma, I'm married, and here is my husband the Captain!"
Papa and mamma did forgive her, as why shouldn't they? and papa paid
over her fortune to her, which she carried home delighted to the
Captain. This happened several months before the demise of old
Crump; and Mrs. Captain Walker was on the Continent with her Howard
when that melancholy event took place; hence Mrs. Crump's loneliness
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