s (as a thoroughly amiable woman would have
done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the service of her
friends. Highly pickled salmon, and lettuces chopped up in vinegar,
may, as viands possessing some acidity of their own, have encouraged and
increased this failing in Mrs Prig; and every application to the teapot
certainly did; for it was often remarked of her by her friends, that
she was most contradictory when most elevated. It is certain that her
countenance became about this time derisive and defiant, and that she
sat with her arms folded, and one eye shut up, in a somewhat offensive,
because obstrusively intelligent, manner.

Mrs Gamp observing this, felt it the more necessary that Mrs Prig should
know her place, and be made sensible of her exact station in society, as
well as of her obligations to herself. She therefore assumed an air of
greater patronage and importance, as she went on to answer Mrs Prig a
little more in detail.

'Mr Chuffey, Betsey,' said Mrs Gamp, 'is weak in his mind. Excuge me
if I makes remark, that he may neither be so weak as people thinks, nor
people may not think he is so weak as they pretends, and what I knows,
I knows; and what you don't, you don't; so do not ask me, Betsey. But Mr
Chuffey's friends has made propojals for his bein' took care on, and has
said to me, "Mrs Gamp, WILL you undertake it? We couldn't think," they
says, "of trusting him to nobody but you, for, Sairey, you are gold as
has passed the furnage. Will you undertake it, at your own price, day
and night, and by your own self?" "No," I says, "I will not. Do not
reckon on it. There is," I says, "but one creetur in the world as I would
undertake on sech terms, and her name is Harris. But," I says, "I
am acquainted with a friend, whose name is Betsey Prig, that I can
recommend, and will assist me. Betsey," I says, "is always to be trusted
under me, and will be guided as I could desire."'

Here Mrs Prig, without any abatement of her offensive manner again
counterfeited abstraction of mind, and stretched out her hand to the
teapot. It was more than Mrs Gamp could bear. She stopped the hand of
Mrs Prig with her own, and said, with great feeling:

'No, Betsey! Drink fair, wotever you do!'

Mrs Prig, thus baffled, threw herself back in her chair, and closing the
same eye more emphatically, and folding her arms tighter, suffered her
head to roll slowly from side to side, while she surveyed her friend
with a cont