rendered hopeless. He felt flattered. Disinterested affection is always flattering.
"Ah, dear!" moaned Mrs. Gamp, sinking into the shaving chair, "That there blessed Bull, Mr. Sweedlepipe, has done his wery best to conker me. Of all the trying invalieges in this wally of the shadder, that one beats 'em black and blue."
It was the practice of Mrs. Gamp and her friends in the profession, to say this of all the easy customers; as having at once the effect of discouraging competitors for office, and accounting for the necessity of high living on the part of the nurses.
"Talk of constitooshun!" Mrs. Gamp observed. "A person's constitooshun need be made of Bricks to stand it. Mrs. Harris jestly says to me, but t'other day, 'Oh! Sairey Gamp,' she says, 'how is it done!' 'Mrs. Harris, ma'am,' I says to her, 'we gives no trust ourselves, and puts a deal o' trust elsevere; these is our religious feelins, and we finds 'em answer.' 'Sairey,' says Mrs. Harris, 'sech is life. Vich likeways is the hend of all things!'"
The barber gave a soft murmur, as much as to say that Mrs. Harris's remark, though perhaps not quite so intelligible as could be desired from such an authority, did equal honour to her head and to her heart.
"And here," continued Mrs. Gamp, "and here am I a goin twenty mile in distant, on as wentersome a chance as ever any one as monthlied ever run, I do believe. Says Mrs. Harris, with a woman's and a mother's art a beatin in her human breast, says she to me, 'You 're not a goin, Sairey, Lord forgive you!' 'Why am I not a going, Mrs. Harris?" I replies. 'Mrs. Gill,' I says, 'wos never wrong with six; and is it likely, ma'am—I ast you as a mother—that she will begin to be unreg'lar now. Often and often have I heerd him say,' I says to Mrs. Harris, 'meaning Mr. Gill, that he would back his wife agen Moore's almanack, to name the very day and hour, for ninepence farden. Is it likely, ma'am,' I says, 'as she will fail this once?' Says Mrs. Harris, 'No, ma'am, not in the course of nater. But,' she says, the tears a fillin in her eyes, 'you knows much betterer than me, with your experienge, how little puts us out. A Punch's show,' she says, 'a chimbley sweep, a newfunlandog, or a drunkin man, a comin round the corner sharp, may do it.' So it may, Mr. Sweedlepipes," said Mrs. Gamp, "there's no deniging of it; and though my books is clear for full a week, I takes a anxious art along with me, I do assure you, sir."
"You 're so full of zeal, you see!" said Poll. "You worrit yourself so."
"Worrit myself!" cried Mrs. Gamp, raising her hands and turning up her eyes. "You speak the truth in that, sir, if you never speaks no more, 'twixt this and when two Sundays jines together. I feels the sufferins of other people more than I feels my own, though no one mayn't suppoge it. The families I've had," said Mrs. Gamp, "if all wos knowd, and credit done where credit's doo, would take a week to chris'en at Saint Polge's fontin!"
"Where's the patient going?" asked Sweedlepipe.
"Into Harfordshire, which is his native air. But native airs nor native graces neither," Mrs. Gamp observed, "won't bring him round."
"So bad as that?" inquired the wistful barber. "Indeed!"
