oe Bagstock and my friend Dombey
in the City, Sir, you'd do!'

CHAPTER 11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene

Mrs Pipchin's constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its
liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after
chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific agency
of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions of Mrs
Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt interest
in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge an inch
from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching herself
on the strong ground of her Uncle's Betsey Jane, she advised Miss Berry,
as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and forewarned her that
her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off suddenly, like a
powder-mill.

'I hope, Miss Berry,' Mrs Wickam would observe, 'that you'll come into
whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I am
sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don't seem much worth
coming into--you'll excuse my being so open--in this dismal den.'

Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away
as usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most
meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable
sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all
these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of
Mrs Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin's friends and admirers; and were made to
harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.

For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the
retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a small
memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in question, and
concerning which divers secret councils and conferences were continually
being held between the parties to that register, on the mat in the
passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were there wanting
dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had been made
revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood), of balances
unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his memory, in the
supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a bachelor and not
a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had once made honourable
offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipc