it out. She also produced a handful of mustard and cress, a trifle of the herb called dandelion, three bunches of radishes, an onion rather larger than an average turnip, three substantial slices of beetroot, and a short prong or antler of celery; the whole of this garden-stuff having been publicly exhibited, but a short time before, as a twopenny salad, and purchased by Mrs Prig on condition that the vendor could get it all into her pocket. Which had been happily accomplished, in High Holborn, to the breathless interest of a hackney-coach stand. And she laid so little stress on this surprising forethought, that she did not even smile, but returning her pocket into its accustomed sphere, merely recommended that these productions of nature should be sliced up, for immediate consumption, in plenty of vinegar.
“And don't go a-droppin” none of your snuff in it,” said Mrs Prig. “In gruel, barley-water, apple-tea, mutton- broth, and that, it don't signify. It stimulates a patient. But I don't relish it myself.”
“Why, Betsey Prig!” cried Mrs Gamp, “how CAN you talk so!”
“Why, ain't your patients, wotever their diseases is, always asneezin” their wery heads off, along of your snuff?” said Mrs Prig.
“And wot if they are!” said Mrs Gamp
“Nothing if they are,” said Mrs Prig. “But don't deny it, Sairah.”
“Who deniges of it?” Mrs Gamp inquired.
Mrs Prig returned no answer.
“WHO deniges of it, Betsey?” Mrs Gamp inquired again. Then Mrs Gamp, by reversing the question, imparted a deeper and more awful character of solemnity to the same. “Betsey, who deniges of it?”
It was the nearest possible approach to a very decided difference of opinion between these ladies; but Mrs Prig's impatience for the meal being greater at the moment than her impatience of contradiction, she replied, for the present, “Nobody, if you don't, Sairah,” and prepared herself for tea. For a quarrel can be taken up at any time, but a limited quantity of salmon cannot.
Her toilet was simple. She had merely to “chuck” her bonnet and shawl upon the bed; give her hair two pulls, one upon the right side and one upon the left, as if she were ringing a couple of bells; and all was done. The tea was already made, Mrs Gamp was not long over the salad, and they were soon at the height of their repast.
The temper of both parties was improved, for the time being, by the enjoyments of the table. When the meal came to a termination (which it was pretty long in doing), and Mrs Gamp having cleared away, produced the teapot from the top shelf, simultaneously with a couple of wine-glasses, they were quite amiable.
“Betsey,” said Mrs Gamp, filling her own glass and passing the teapot, “I will now propoge a toast. My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig!”
“Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp; I drink,” said Mrs Prig, “with love and tenderness.”
From this moment symptoms of inflammation began to lurk in the nose of each lady; and perhaps, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, in the temper also.
“Now, Sairah,” said Mrs Prig, “joining business with pleasure, wot is this case in which you wants me?”
Mrs Gamp betraying in her face some intention of returning an evasive answer, Betsey added:
“IS it Mrs Harris?”
“No, Betsey Prig, it ain't,” was Mrs Gamp's reply.
“Well!” said Mrs Prig, with a short laugh. “I'm glad of that, at any rate.”
“Why should you be glad of that, Betsey?” Mrs Gamp retorted, warmly. “She is unbeknown to you except by hearsay, why should you be glad? If you have anythink to say contrairy to the character of Mrs Harris, which well I knows behind her back, afore her face, or anywheres, is not to be impeaged, out with it, Betsey. I have know'd that sweetest and best of women,” said Mrs Gamp, shaking her head, and shedding tears, “ever since afore her First, which Mr Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped his ears in a empty dog-kennel, and never took his hands away or come out once till he was showed the baby, wen bein” took with fits, the doctor collared him and laid him on his back upon the airy stones, and she was told to ease her mind, his owls was organs. And I have know'd her, Betsey Prig, when he has hurt her feelin” art by sayin” of his Ninth that it was one too many, if not two, while that dear innocent was cooin” in his face, which thrive it did though bandy, but I have never know'd as you had occagion to be glad, Betsey, on accounts of Mrs Harris not requiring you. Require she never will, depend upon it, for her constant words in sickness is, and will be, “Send for Sairey?”
During this touching address, Mrs Prig adroitly feigning to be the victim of that absence of mind which has its origin in excessive attention to one topic, helped herself from the teapot without appearing to observe it. Mrs Gamp observed it, however, and came to a premature close in consequence.
“Well, it ain't her, it seems,” said Mrs Prig, coldly; “who is it then?”
“You have heerd me mention, Betsey,” Mrs Gamp replied, after glancing in an expressive and marked manner at the tea-pot, “a person as I took care on at the time as you and me was pardners off and on, in that there fever at the Bull?”
“Old Snuffey,” Mrs Prig observed.
Sarah Gamp looked at her with an eye of fire, for she saw in this mistake of Mrs Prig, another willful and malignant stab at that same weakness or custom of hers, an ungenerous allusion to which, on the part of Betsey, had first disturbed their harmony that evening. And she saw it still more clearly, when, politely but firmly correcting that lady by the distinct enunciation of the word “Chuffey,” Mrs Prig received the correction with a diabolical laugh.
The best among us have their failings, and it must be conceded of Mrs Prig, that if there were a blemish in the goodness of her disposition, it was a habit she had of not bestowing all its sharp and acid properties upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman would have done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the service of her friends. Highly pickled salmon, and lettuces chopped up in vinegar, may, as viands possessing some acidity of their own, have encouraged and increased this failing in Mrs Prig; and every application to the teapot certainly did; for it was often remarked of her by her friends, that she was most contradictory when most elevated. It is certain that her countenance became about this time derisive and defiant, and that she sat with her arms folded, and one eye shut up, in a somewhat offensive, because obstrusively intelligent, manner.
Mrs Gamp observing this, felt it the more necessary that Mrs Prig should know her place, and be made sensible of her exact station in society, as well as of her obligations to herself. She therefore assumed an air of greater patronage and importance, as she went on to answer Mrs Prig a little more in detail.
“Mr Chuffey, Betsey,” said Mrs Gamp, “is weak in his mind. Excuge me if I makes remark, that he may neither be so weak as people thinks, nor people may not think he is so weak as they pretends, and what I knows, I knows; and what you don't, you don't; so do not ask me, Betsey. But Mr Chuffey's friends has made propojals for his bein” took care on, and has said to me, “Mrs Gamp, WILL you undertake it? We couldn't think,” they says, “of trusting him to nobody but you, for, Sairey, you are gold as has passed the furnage. Will you undertake it, at your own price, day and night, and by your own self?” “No,” I says, “I will not. Do not reckon on it. There is,” I says, but one creetur in the world as I would undertake on sech terms, and her name is Harris. But,” I says, “I am acquainted with a friend, whose name is Betsey Prig, that I can recommend, and will assist me. Betsey,” I says, “is always to be trusted under me, and will be guided as I could desire.”
Here Mrs Prig, without any abatement of her offensive manner again counterfeited abstraction of mind, and stretched out her hand to the teapot. It was more than Mrs Gamp could bear. She stopped the hand of Mrs Prig with her own, and said, with great feeling:
“No, Betsey! Drink fair, wotever you do!”
Mrs Prig, thus baffled, threw herself back in her chair, and closing the same eye more emphatically, and folding her arms tighter, suffered her head to roll slowly from side to side, while she surveyed her friend with a contemptuous smile.
Mrs Gamp resumed:
“Mrs Harris, Betsey—”
“Bother Mrs Harris!” said Betsey Prig.
Mrs Gamp looked at her with amazement, incredulity, and indignation; when Mrs Prig, shutting her eye still closer, and folding her arms still tighter, uttered these memorable and tremendous words:
“I don't believe there's no sich a person!”
After the utterance of which expressions, she leaned forward, and snapped her fingers once, twice, thrice; each time nearer to the face of Mrs Gamp, and then rose to put on her bonnet, as one who felt that there was now a gulf between them, which nothing could ever bridge across.
