 of black hair
sticking out at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his
door in Cook's Court, in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up
at the clouds; or stands behind a desk in his dark shop, with a heavy flat
ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin, in company with his two 'prentices; he
is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From beneath his feet, at such
times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise
complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some
occasions, when these reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to
the 'prentices, »I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!«
    This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened the wit
of the Cook's-Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of Mrs. Snagsby;
seeing that she might with great force and expression be termed a Guster, in
compliment to her stormy character. It is, however, the possession, and the only
possession, except fifty shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently
filled with clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed
to have been christened Augusta); who, although she was farmed or contracted
for, during her growing time, by an amiable benefactor of his species resident
at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been developed under the most favourable
circumstances, has fits - which the parish can't account for.
    Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten years
older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits; and is so
apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint, that except
when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the
dinner, or anything else that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure,
she is always at work. She is a satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the
'prentices, who feel that there is little danger of her inspiring tender
emotions in the breast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can
always find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who thinks it
a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment is, in Guster's eyes, a
Temple of plenty and splendour. She believes the little drawing-room up-stairs
