setting forth in a hackney cabriolet to-arrange, on behalf
of Jonas Chuzzlewit, for the funeral of the latter's father, in regard
to which he is enjoined to spare no expense, arrives, in due course, in
Kings-gate-street, High Holborn, in quest of the female functionary--"a
nurse and watcher, and performer of nameless offices about the dead,
whom the undertaker had recommended." His destination is reached when
he stands face to face with the lady's lodging over the bird-fancier's,
"next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly
opposite to the original cats'-meat warehouse." Here Mr. Pecksniff's
performance upon the knocker naturally arouses the whole neighbourhood,
it, the knocker, being so ingeniously constructed as to wake the street
with ease, without making the smallest impression upon the premises to
which it was addressed. Everybody is at once under the impression that,
as a matter of course, he is "upon an errand touching not the close of
life, but the other end"--the married ladies, especially, crying out
with uncommon interest, "Knock at the winder, sir, knock at the winder!
Lord bless you, don't lose no more time than you can help,--knock at the
winder!" Mrs. Gamp herself, when roused, is under the same embarrassing
misapprehension. Immediately, however, Mr. Pecksniff has explained the
object of his mission, Mrs. Gamp, who has a face for all occasions,
thereupon putting on her mourning countenance, the surrounding matrons,
while rating her visitor roundly, signify that they would be glad to
know what he means by terrifying delicate females with "his corpses!"
The unoffending gentleman eventually, after hustling Mrs. Gamp into the
cabriolet, drives off "overwhelmed with popular execration."

Here it is that Mrs. Gamp's distinctive characteristics begin to
assert themselves conspicuously. Her labouring under the most erroneous
impressions as to the conveyance in which she is travelling, evidently
confounding it with mail-coaches, insomuch that, in regard to her
luggage, she clamours to the driver to "put it in the boot," her
absorbing anxiety about the pattens, "with which she plays innumerable
games of quoits upon Mr. Pecksniff's legs," her evolutions in that
confined space with her most prominently visible chattel, "a species
of gig umbrella," prepare the way for her still more characteristic
confidences. Then in earnest--she had spoken twice before that from
her window over the bird-fancier