Our Mutual Friend Book 4, Part 18, Chapter 8 Summary

A Few Grains of Pepper

  • Mr. Fledgeby heads into Jenny Wren's place looking for Mr. Riah. During the conversation, Jenny Wren figures out that Mr. Fledgeby is actually the man behind Pubsey and Co. So she was hard on her friend Mr. Riah for no good reason. Riah is nothing more than Fledgeby's puppet.
  • The real reason Fledgeby is there is because he'd like to know where Lizzie Hexam is.
  • Fledgeby leaves by promising Jenny Wren all the scrap fabric she'll ever need if she tells him where Lizzie is.
  • The next day, Jenny heads toward Fledgeby's place. But she's stopped by a stern lady who won't let her upstairs to see Fledgeby. The women is none other than Mrs. Lammle, whose husband Alfred is upstairs beating up Fledgeby for being a deceiving jerk. After all, it was Fledgeby who brought the Lammles into bankruptcy. Oh yeah, and Mr. Lammle puts pepper up Fledgeby's nose to add insult to injury.
  • After the Lammles leave, Jenny heads upstairs and finds Fledgeby rolling around on the floor, in pain from all the pepper up his nose.
  • Fledgeby asks Jenny to help him by mixing up some plaster and making casts and bandages for him. Jenny is happy to oblige, but not before she puts more pepper into the plaster and slaps the plaster around Mr. Fledgeby's cuts, making them hurt even more. She leaves Fledgeby rolling around on the floor in pain. Awesome.