ng to the best of my ability.'
'Mrs. Gamp' she says, in answer, 'if ever there was a sober creetur to
be got at eighteen-pence a day for working people, and three-and-six
for gentlefolks,--night-watching being a extra charge,--you are that
inwallable person. Never did I think, till I know'd you, as any woman
could sick-nurse and monthly likeways, on the little that you takes to
drink.' 'Mrs. Harris, ma'am,' I says to her, 'none on us knows what we
can do till we tries; and wunst _I_ thought so too. But now,' I says,
'my half a pint of porter fully satisfies; perwisin', Mrs. Harris, that
it's brought reg'lar, and draw'd mild.'" Not but occasionally even that
modest "sip of liquor" she finds so far "settling heavy on the chest"
as to necessitate, every now and then, a casual dram by way of extra
quencher.

It was so arranged in the Reading that, immediately upon the completion
of Mrs. Gamp's affecting narrative of the confidential opinions of
her sobriety entertained by Mrs. Harris, Mr. Mould, the undertaker,
opportunely presented to the audience his well-remembered
countenance--"a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds
with a smirk of satisfaction." The impersonation, here, was conveyed in
something better than the unsatisfactory hint by which that attempted
in regard to Mr. Pecksniff was alone to be expressed. Speaking of Old
Chuzzlewit's funeral, as ordered by his bereaved son, Mr. Jonas, with
"no limitation, positively no limitation in point of expense,"
the undertaker observes to Mr. Pecksniff, "This is one of the most
impressive cases, sir, that I have seen in the whole course of my
professional experience. Anything so filial as this--anything so
honourable to human nature, anything _so_ expensive, anything so
calculated to reconcile all of us to the world we live in--never yet
came under my observation. It only proves, sir, what was so forcibly
expressed by the lamented poet,--buried at Stratford,--that there
is good in everything." Even the very manner of his departure was
delicious: "Mr. Mould was going away with a brisk smile, when he
remembered the occasion," we read in the narrative and saw on the
platform. "Quickly becoming depressed again, he sighed; looked into the
crown of his hat, as if for comfort; put it on without finding any; and
slowly departed."

The spirit and substance of the whole Reading, however, were, as a
matter of course, Mrs. Gamp and her grotesque remembrances, drawn,
t