During the unusually long toilet of the Sandboys family, Major Oldschool fidgeted about his room for a few minutes, and then it struck him that as he should have to “beau” the ladies about, he really ought to treat himself to a pair of new gloves for the occasion; for really, as he said, he had carried his black kid about with him screwed up in his hands so long during the hot weather, that they were as stiff and crinkly as French plums. Accordingly he put on his hat, and, lest he should detain the ladies, hurried as fast as his wooden leg would carry him into the Strand, there to purchase, for the “first time these thirty years,” a pair of “yellow kids.” In the meantime, the jobbing carpenter had stepped round “first thing in the morning,” as he had been ordered, to cut down the arm-chair, and fix on the rockers which he had brought with him. Mrs. Quinine was no sooner informed of his arrival than she directed Mrs. Pilchers to take the chair to the man, and let him do it down stairs, for that to have him sawing in the next room to her would be more than her nerves could bear. Accordingly, “Nurse” having called the carpenter to fetch the chair, followed him with it into the passage: there she happened to catch sight of the open door and unoccupied state of Major Oldschool’s apartments, and having heard on the previous evening in the kitchen that the “parlours” were going to spend the day at the Great Exhibition, she immediately concluded that the Major had left with his friends for the Crystal Palace: so Mrs. Pilchers, being a discreet woman, and averse to “noises” and “breeding words,” as she called it, in strange places, thought it would be better, since Mrs. Fokesell was a very odd person and had very odd ways with her, if the man just stepped into Major Oldschool’s room, while the old gentleman was out, and did what little he had to do to the chair in that place, without asking any favours of the landlady. Then having strictly enjoined the man to be careful and make no dirt, she told him he might go into the parlour, and there alter the chair.