 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
tea-pot, 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
obtrusively 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
