Mrs. Gamp, `if all was knowd and credit done where credit's doo, would take a week to chris'en at Saint Polge's fontin!'

`Where's the patient goin?' asked Sweedlepipe.

`Into Har'fordshire, which is his native air. But native airs nor native graces neither,' Mrs. Gamp observed, `won't bring round.'

`So bad as that?' inquired the wistful barber. `Indeed!'

Mrs. Gamp shook her head mysteriously, and pursed up her lips. `There's fevers of the mind,' she said, `as well as body. You may take your slime drafts till you files into the air with efferwescence; but you won't cure that.'

`Ah!' said the barber, opening his eyes, and putting on his raven aspect, `Lor!'

`No. You may make yourself as light as any gash balloon,' said Mrs. Gamp. `But talk, when you're wrong in your head and when you're in your sleep, of certain things; and you'll be heavy in your mind.'

`Of what kind of things now?' inquired Poll, greedily biting his nails in his great interest. `Ghosts?'

Mrs. Gamp, who perhaps had been already tempted further than she had intended to go, by the barber's stimulating curiosity, gave a sniff of uncommon significance, and said, it didn't signify.

`I'm a-goin down with my patient in the coach this arternoon,' she proceeded. `I'm a-goin to stop with him a day or so, till he gets a country nuss (drat them country nusses, much the orkard hussies knows about their bis'ness); and then I'm a-comin back; and that's my trouble, Mr. Sweedlepipes. But I hope that everythink 'll only go on right and comfortable as long as I'm away; perwisin which, as Mrs. Harris says, Mrs. Gill is welcome to choose her own time: all times of the day and night bein' equally the same to me.'

During the progress of the foregoing remarks, which Mrs. Gamp had addressed exclusively to the barber, Mr. Bailey had been tying his cravat, getting on his coat, and making hideous faces at himself in the glass. Being now personally addressed by Mrs. Gamp, he turned round, and mingled in the conversation.

`You ain't been in the City, I suppose, sir, since we was all three there together,' said Mrs. Gamp, `at Mr. Chuzzlewit's?'

`Yes, I have, Sairah. I was there last night.'

`Last night!' cried the barber.

`Yes, Poll, reether so. You can call it this morning, if you like to be particular. He dined with us.'

`Who does that young Limb mean by "hus?"' said Mrs. Gamp, with most impatient emphasis.

`Me and my Governor, Sairah. He dined at our house. We wos very merry, Sairah. So much so, that I was obliged to see him home in a hackney coach at three o'clock in the morning.' It was on the tip of the boy's tongue to relate what had followed; but remembering how easily it might be carried to his master's ears, and the repeated cautions he had had from Mr. Crimple `not to chatter,' he checked himself: adding only, `She was sitting up, expecting him.'

`And all things considered,' said Mrs. Gamp sharply, `she might have know'd better than to go a-tirin herself out, by doin' anythink of the sort. Did they seem pretty pleasant together, sir?'

`Oh, yes,' answered Bailey, `pleasant enough.'