other arrangements on the same scale. Even the snuff with which she now refreshed herself, was so choice in quality, that she took a second pinch.
"There's the little bell a ringing now," said Mrs. Gamp, hurrying to the stair-head and looking over. "Betsy Prig, my—why it's that there disapintin' Sweedlepipes, I do believe."
"Yes, it's me," said the barber, in a faint voice, "I 've just come in."
"You 're always a comin' in, I think," muttered Mrs. Gamp to herself, "except wen you 're a-going out. I ha'n't no patience with that man!"
"Mrs. Gamp!" said the barber. "I say! Mrs. Gamp!"
"Well!" cried Mrs. Gamp, impatiently, as she descended the stairs. "What is it? Is the Thames a-fire, and cooking its own fish, Mr. Sweedlepipes? Why wot's the man gone and been a-doin of to himself? He's as white as chalk!"
She added the latter clause of inquiry, when she got down stairs, and found him seated in the shaving-chair, pale and disconsolate.
"You recollect," said Poll. "You recollect young"
"Not young Wilkins!" cried Mrs. Gamp. "Don't say young Wilkins, wotever you do. If young Wilkins's wife is took"
"It isn't anybody's wife," exclaimed the little barber. "Bailey, Young Bailey!"
"Why, wot do you mean to say that chit's been a-doin of?" retorted Mrs. Gamp, sharply. "Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Sweedlepipes!"
"He hasn't been a doing anything!" exclaimed poor Poll, quite desperate. "What do you catch me up go short for, when you see me put out, to that extent, that I can hardly speak? He 'll never do anything again. He's done for. He's killed. The first time I ever see that boy," said Poll, "I charged him too much for a redpoll. I asked him three-halfpence for a penny one, because I was afraid he'd beat me down. But he did'nt. And now he's dead; and if you was to crowd all the steam-engines and electric fluids that ever was, into this shop, and set 'em every one to work their hardest, they couldn't square the account, though it's only a ha'penny!"
Mr. Sweedlepipe turned aside to the towel, and wiped his eyes with it.
"And what a clever boy he was!" he said. "What a surprising young chap he was! How he talked! and what a deal he know'd? Shaved in this very chair he was; only for fun; it was all his fun; he was full of it. Ah! to think that he 'll never be shaved in earnest! The birds might every one have died, and welcome," cried the little barber, looking round him at the cages, and again applying to the towel, "sooner than I'd have heard this news!"
"How did you ever come to hear it?" said Mrs. Gamp. "Who told you?"
"I went out," returned the little barber, "into the city, to meet a sporting Gent upon the Stock Exchange, that wanted a few slow pigeons to practise at; and when I'd done with him, I went to get a little drop of beer, and there I heard everybody a-talking about it. It's in the papers.
