oice in her eating, and
repudiated hashed mutton with scorn. In her drinking too, she was very
punctual and particular, requiring a pint of mild porter at lunch, a
pint at dinner, half-a-pint as a species of stay or holdfast between
dinner and tea, and a pint of the celebrated staggering ale, or Real Old
Brighton Tipper, at supper; besides the bottle on the chimney-piece,
and such casual invitations to refresh herself with wine as the good
breeding of her employers might prompt them to offer. In like manner, Mr
Mould's men found it necessary to drown their grief, like a young kitten
in the morning of its existence, for which reason they generally fuddled
themselves before they began to do anything, lest it should make head
and get the better of them. In short, the whole of that strange week was
a round of dismal joviality and grim enjoyment; and every one, except
poor Chuffey, who came within the shadow of Anthony Chuzzlewit's grave,
feasted like a Ghoul.

At length the day of the funeral, pious and truthful ceremony that it
was, arrived. Mr Mould, with a glass of generous port between his eye
and the light, leaned against the desk in the little glass office with
his gold watch in his unoccupied hand, and conversed with Mrs Gamp; two
mutes were at the house-door, looking as mournful as could be reasonably
expected of men with such a thriving job in hand; the whole of Mr
Mould's establishment were on duty within the house or without; feathers
waved, horses snorted, silk and velvets fluttered; in a word, as Mr
Mould emphatically said, 'Everything that money could do was done.'

'And what can do more, Mrs Gamp?' exclaimed the undertaker as he emptied
his glass and smacked his lips.

'Nothing in the world, sir.'

'Nothing in the world,' repeated Mr Mould. 'You are right, Mrs Gamp.
Why do people spend more money'--here he filled his glass again--'upon a
death, Mrs Gamp, than upon a birth? Come, that's in your way; you ought
to know. How do you account for that now?'

'Perhaps it is because an undertaker's charges comes dearer than a
nurse's charges, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, tittering, and smoothing down her
new black dress with her hands.

'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr Mould. 'You have been breakfasting at somebody's
expense this morning, Mrs Gamp.' But seeing, by the aid of a little
shaving-glass which hung opposite, that he looked merry, he composed his
features and became sorrowful.

'Many's the time that I've not breakfasted