tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort
of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the
characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as
heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything
said boastfully, 'Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I
were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much
an ounce;--wouldn't you like to melt me down?' A corpulent straddling
epergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather
than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver
platform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each
furnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a big
silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the
table, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the
big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expressly
for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every
morsel they ate.

The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several
heavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a foreign gentleman
among them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate with
himself--believing the whole European continent to be in mortal alliance
against the young person--and there was a droll disposition, not only on
the part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he were
a child who was hard of hearing.

As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, Mr
Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as 'Madame Podsnap;'
also his daughter as 'Mademoiselle Podsnap,' with some inclination to
add 'ma fille,' in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The
Veneerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had added (in