You know our dear friend Podsnap ?' Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with so much confusion, and he says he does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates.
Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as to believe that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years.
In the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with his back to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes.
Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering guests become infected with the Veneering fiction.

Not, however, that he has the least notion of its being his own case.
'Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,' pursues Veneering the veiled prophet: 'our friends Alfred and Sophronia, you will be glad to hear, my dear fellows, are going to be married.

As my wife and I make it a family affair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of course our first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends.' ('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, 'then there are only two of us, and he's the other.') 'I did hope,' Veneering goes on, 'to have had Lady Tippins to meet you; but she is always in request, and is unfortunately engaged.' ('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, 'then there are three of us, and SHE'S the other.') 'Mortimer Lightwood,' resumes Veneering, 'whom you both know, is out of town; but he writes, in his whimsical manner, that as we ask him to be bridegroom's best man when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse, though he doesn't see what he has to do with it.' ('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, 'then there are four of us, and HE'S the other.') 'Boots and Brewer,' observes Veneering, 'whom you also know, I have not asked to-day; but I reserve them for the occasion.' ('Then,' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, 'there are si--' But here collapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and the Analytical has been requested to withdraw.) 'We now come,' says Veneering, 'to the point, the real point, of our little family consultation.

Sophronia, having lost both father and mother, has no one to give her away.' 'Give her away yourself,' says Podsnap.
'My dear Podsnap, no.

For three reasons.