y,
'I ain't no patience with him. You give him his own way too much by
half. A worritin' wexagious creetur!'

No doubt with the view of carrying out the precepts she enforced, and
'bothering the old wictim' in practice as well as in theory, Mrs Gamp
took him by the collar of his coat, and gave him some dozen or two of
hearty shakes backward and forward in his chair; that exercise being
considered by the disciples of the Prig school of nursing (who are very
numerous among professional ladies) as exceedingly conducive to repose,
and highly beneficial to the performance of the nervous functions.
Its effect in this instance was to render the patient so giddy and
addle-headed, that he could say nothing more; which Mrs Gamp regarded as
the triumph of her art.

'There!' she said, loosening the old man's cravat, in consequence of his
being rather black in the face, after this scientific treatment. 'Now,
I hope, you're easy in your mind. If you should turn at all faint we
can soon rewive you, sir, I promige you. Bite a person's thumbs, or
turn their fingers the wrong way,' said Mrs Gamp, smiling with the
consciousness of at once imparting pleasure and instruction to her
auditors, 'and they comes to, wonderful, Lord bless you!'

As this excellent woman had been formerly entrusted with the care of Mr
Chuffey on a previous occasion, neither Mrs Jonas nor anybody else had
the resolution to interfere directly with her mode of treatment;
though all present (Tom Pinch and his sister especially) appeared to be
disposed to differ from her views. For such is the rash boldness of the
uninitiated, that they will frequently set up some monstrous abstract
principle, such as humanity, or tenderness, or the like idle folly, in
obstinate defiance of all precedent and usage; and will even venture to
maintain the same against the persons who have made the precedents
and established the usage, and who must therefore be the best and most
impartial judges of the subject.

'Ah, Mr Pinch!' said Miss Pecksniff. 'It all comes of this unfortunate
marriage. If my sister had not been so precipitate, and had not united
herself to a Wretch, there would have been no Mr Chuffey in the house.'

'Hush!' cried Tom. 'She'll hear you.'

'I should be very sorry if she did hear me, Mr Pinch,' said Cherry,
raising her voice a little; 'for it is not in my nature to add to the
uneasiness of any person; far less of my own sister. I know what a
sister's duties are,