uld, if quite agreeable, be introduced to Mrs
Gamp.

Paul knocked at Jonas Chuzzlewit's; and, on the door being opened by
that lady, made the two distinguished persons known to one another. It
was a happy feature in Mrs Gamp's twofold profession, that it gave her
an interest in everything that was young as well as in everything that
was old. She received Mr Bailey with much kindness.

'It's very good, I'm sure, of you to come,' she said to her landlord,
'as well as bring so nice a friend. But I'm afraid that I must trouble
you so far as to step in, for the young couple has not yet made
appearance.'

'They're late, ain't they?' inquired her landlord, when she had
conducted them downstairs into the kitchen.

'Well, sir, considern' the Wings of Love, they are,' said Mrs Gamp.

Mr Bailey inquired whether the Wings of Love had ever won a plate, or
could be backed to do anything remarkable; and being informed that it
was not a horse, but merely a poetical or figurative expression, evinced
considerable disgust. Mrs Gamp was so very much astonished by his
affable manners and great ease, that she was about to propound to her
landlord in a whisper the staggering inquiry, whether he was a man or
a boy, when Mr Sweedlepipe, anticipating her design, made a timely
diversion.

'He knows Mrs Chuzzlewit,' said Paul aloud.

'There's nothin' he don't know; that's my opinion,' observed Mrs Gamp.
'All the wickedness of the world is Print to him.'

Mr Bailey received this as a compliment, and said, adjusting his cravat,
'reether so.'

'As you knows Mrs Chuzzlewit, you knows, p'raps, what her chris'en name
is?' Mrs Gamp observed.

'Charity,' said Bailey.

'That it ain't!' cried Mrs Gamp.

'Cherry, then,' said Bailey. 'Cherry's short for it. It's all the same.'

'It don't begin with a C at all,' retorted Mrs Gamp, shaking her head.
'It begins with a M.'

'Whew!' cried Mr Bailey, slapping a little cloud of pipe-clay out of his
left leg, 'then he's been and married the merry one!'

As these words were mysterious, Mrs Gamp called upon him to explain,
which Mr Bailey proceeded to do; that lady listening greedily to
everything he said. He was yet in the fullness of his narrative when the
sound of wheels, and a double knock at the street door, announced the
arrival of the newly married couple. Begging him to reserve what more he
had to say for her hearing on the way home, Mrs Gamp took up the candle,
and hurried away to receive a