Firstly, because I couldn't take so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to remember.

Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look the part.

Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old enough to be married.' 'What would happen if he did ?' Podsnap inquires of Mrs Veneering.
'My dear Mr Podsnap, it's very foolish I know, but I have an instinctive presentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else first, he would never give away baby.' Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed together, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like her one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessary for distinction's sake.
'But, my dear Podsnap,' quoth Veneering, 'there IS a tried friend of our family who, I think and hope you will agree with me, Podsnap, is the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves.

That friend,' saying the words as if the company were about a hundred and fifty in number, 'is now among us.

That friend is Twemlow.' 'Certainly!' From Podsnap.
'That friend,' Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 'is our dear good Twemlow.