Now he is announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat, who is a disguised messenger from the office.
The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door.

'Mr.
Tupple!' shouts the messenger.

'How _are_ you, Tupple ?' says the master of the house, advancing from the fire, before which he has been talking politics and airing himself.

'My dear, this is Mr.Tupple (a courteous salute from the lady of the house); Tupple, my eldest daughter; Julia, my dear, Mr.Tupple; Tupple, my other daughters; my son, sir;' Tupple rubs his hands very hard, and smiles as if it were all capital fun, and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round, till the whole family have been introduced, when he glides into a chair at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with the young ladies upon the weather, and the theatres, and the old year, and the last new murder, and the balloon, and the ladies' sleeves, and the festivities of the season, and a great many other topics of small talk.
More double knocks! what an extensive party! what an incessant hum of conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Tupple now, in our mind's eye, in the height of his glory.

He has just handed that stout old lady's cup to the servant; and now, he dives among the crowd of young men by the door, to intercept the other servant, and secure the muffin-plate for the old lady's daughter, before he leaves the room; and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he bestows a glance of recognition and patronage upon the young ladies as condescending and familiar as if he had known them from infancy.
Charming person Mr.Tupple--perfect ladies' man--such a delightful companion, too! Laugh!--nobody ever understood papa's jokes half so well as Mr.Tupple, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness.