 his usual irreverence, that Mr. Pecksniff had
been a successful rascal all his life through, and that it would be a lasting
source of happiness to him (John) if he could help to do him justice in the
smallest particular.
    A busy day! But Martin had no lodgings yet; so when these matters were
disposed of, he excused himself from dining with John Westlock and was fain to
wander out alone, and look for some. He succeeded, after great trouble, in
engaging two garrets for himself and Mark, situated in a court in the Strand,
not far from Temple Bar. Their luggage, which was waiting for them at a
coach-office, he conveyed to this new place of refuge; and it was with a glow of
satisfaction, which as a selfish man he never could have known and never had,
that, thinking how much pains and trouble he had saved Mark, and how pleased and
astonished Mark would be, he afterwards walked up and down, in the Temple,
eating a meat-pie for his dinner.
 

                                  Chapter XLIX

In which Mrs. Harris, Assisted by a Tea-Pot, Is the Cause of a Division Between
                                    Friends.

Mrs. Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore, metaphorically
speaking, a robe of state. It was swept and garnished for the reception of a
visitor. That visitor was Betsey Prig: Mrs. Prig, of Bartlemy's; or as some said
Barklemy's, or as some said Bardlemy's: for by all these endearing and familiar
appellations, had the hospital of Saint Bartholomew become a household word
among the sisterhood which Betsey Prig adorned.
    Mrs. Gamp's apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented mind, a
closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr. Sweedlepipe's may have
been, in the imagination of Mrs. Gamp, a stately pile. If it were not exactly
that, to restless intellects, it at least comprised as much accommodation as any
person, not sanguine to insanity, could have looked for in a room of its
dimensions. For only keep the bedstead always in your mind; and you were safe.
That was the grand secret. Remembering the bedstead, you might even stoop to
look under the little round table for anything you had dropped, without hurting
yourself much against the chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint
Bartholomew, by falling into the fire.
    Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an
unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture, by its
