Mrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like

a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding

business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able

to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all

with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to

the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his

district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on

the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the

Marshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to

that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but

he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of

the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish

cupboard.

He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune

should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved

an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these

little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.

But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and

no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's

admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she

could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had

as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she

could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little

old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about

Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus;

and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small

internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself

of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by

a baby.

On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista of

pollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow,

when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of

porter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.' Then he would give them Chloe,

and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had

hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs

Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as

Father, and wipe her eyes.




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