File:Bringing Him in.jpg

Bringing Him in Marcus Stone

Wood engraving by Dalziel

14 cm high x 9.5 cm wide

Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, Book Two ("Birds of a Feather"), Chapter Four, "Cupid Prompted" [This part of the novel originally appeared in periodical form in Part 7, November 1864.]

Reverting to the plot involving the banker Podsnap, his discontented daughter, Georgiana, and the "confidence couple," the Lammles, Dickens begins "Cupid Prompted" with another series of society dinners. Very quickly, however, the scene shifts to the handsomely furnished Sackville Street, Piccadilly, townhouse of Sophronia and Alfred Lammle.

Stone distinguishes this dinner party from the one which the Lammles throw for Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana Podsnap by the presence of her parents at the dinner table. The Podsnaps are readily identifiable, even though they have their backs toward the viewer, by virtue of their distinctive hairstyles, repeated from the central couple in "Podsnappery". The opulent interior, with its Corinthian column and central gassolier, is utterly convincing, and as indicative of the wealth and taste of the diners as the suspended tropical fruits and dignified butler. The title implies the Lammles' trying to "reel in" the awkward Flegeby, a young man of independent means whom Alfred Lammle regards as a mark; the title contrasts the "reeling in" activities of Gaffer Hexam and Rogue Riderhood on the river in Part 5.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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