, and could say it without
faltering, Mrs. Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man, the
tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred and
thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen families
with pickled walnuts, and other historical characters and interesting but
misguided individuals. And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and so
apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been shut up together
for a couple of hours, she was in full possession of the history of the whole
establishment, and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors.
    Mrs. Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result, and
carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining arrangements within
doors, by virtue of which the passage had been already converted into a grove of
green baize hung with the inscriptions she had already seen (Mr. Slum's
productions), and a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs.
Jarley herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company with
his Majesty King George the Third, Mr. Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots,
an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr. Pitt holding in his
hand a correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The
preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of great
personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico over the door;
and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest possible
complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a cart, consulting the
miniature of a lady.
    It now only remained that Mr. Slum's compositions should be judiciously
distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all private
houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing »If I know'd a donkey,«
should be confined to the taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers' clerks
and choice spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs. Jarley had
waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill composed expressly
for them, in which it was distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind,
cultivated the taste, and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that
indefatigable lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to
a flourishing campaign.
 

                                  Chapter XXIX

Unquestionably Mrs. Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the various
devices for attracting
