r, Mr Moddle, if
I may make so bold as speak so plain of what is plain enough to them as
needn't look through millstones, Mrs Todgers, to find out wot is wrote
upon the wall behind. Which no offence is meant, ladies and gentlemen;
none bein' took, I hope. To think as I should see that smilinest and
sweetest face which me and another friend of mine, took notice of among
the packages down London Bridge, in this promiscous place, is a surprige
in-deed!'

Having contrived, in this happy manner, to invest every member of her
audience with an individual share and immediate personal interest in
her address, Mrs Gamp dropped several curtseys to Ruth, and smilingly
shaking her head a great many times, pursued the thread of her
discourse:

'Now, ain't we rich in beauty this here joyful arternoon, I'm sure. I
knows a lady, which her name, I'll not deceive you, Mrs Chuzzlewit, is
Harris, her husband's brother bein' six foot three, and marked with
a mad bull in Wellington boots upon his left arm, on account of his
precious mother havin' been worrited by one into a shoemaker's shop,
when in a sitiwation which blessed is the man as has his quiver full of
sech, as many times I've said to Gamp when words has roge betwixt us on
account of the expense--and often have I said to Mrs Harris, "Oh, Mrs
Harris, ma'am! your countenance is quite a angel's!" Which, but
for Pimples, it would be. "No, Sairey Gamp," says she, "you best of
hard-working and industrious creeturs as ever was underpaid at any
price, which underpaid you are, quite diff'rent. Harris had it done
afore marriage at ten and six," she says, "and wore it faithful next his
heart till the colour run, when the money was declined to be give back,
and no arrangement could be come to. But he never said it was a angel's,
Sairey, wotever he might have thought." If Mrs Harris's husband was
here now,' said Mrs Gamp, looking round, and chuckling as she dropped
a general curtsey, 'he'd speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife
would be the last to blame him! For if ever a woman lived as know'd not
wot it was to form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and had no
reagion give her by the best of husbands, Mrs Harris is that ev'nly
dispogician!'

With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped in
to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have any
engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr
Chuffey, who was seated in the same corn