I don't want nobody's wife and baby to have to do for, and 'd sooner have a Parliament gent like yourself than any one else.
Yours umbly and respectful, JANE BUNCE.
To this he replied that he would certainly come back to the rooms in Great Marlborough Street, should he be lucky enough to find them vacant, and he expressed his willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February.

And on the 3rd of February he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs.Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefoot and to stave off the Equity draftsman's wife and baby.

Bunce, however, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot.

"If he means well, why did he go and stay with them lords down in Scotland?
I knows all about it.

I knows a man when I sees him.