Mr Pecksniff was in a hackney cabriolet, for Jonas Chuzzlewit had said ‘Spare no expense.’ Mankind is evil in its thoughts and in its base constructions, and Jonas was resolved it should not have an inch to stretch into an ell against him. It never should be charged upon his father’s son that he had grudged³ the money for his father’s funeral. Hence, until the obsequies should be concluded, Jonas had taken for his motto ‘Spend, and spare not!’

Mr Pecksniff had been to the undertaker, and was now upon his way to another officer in the train of mourning—a female functionary⁴, a nurse, and watcher, and performer of nameless offices about the persons of the dead—whom he had recommended. Her name, as Mr Pecksniff gathered from a scrap⁵ of writing in his hand, was Gamp; her residence in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn. So Mr Pecksniff, in a hackney cab, was rattling⁶ over Holborn stones, in quest of Mrs Gamp.

This lady lodged⁷ at a bird-fancier’s, next door but one to the celebrated⁸ mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite to the original cat’s-meat warehouse⁹; the renown¹⁰ of which establishments was duly heralded¹¹ on their respective fronts. It was a little house, and this was the more convenient; for Mrs Gamp being, in her highest walk of art, a monthly nurse, or, as her sign-board boldly had it, ‘Midwife,’ and

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