Mrs Gamp's apartment in Kingstone Street, High Holborn, was not a spacious one, but it at least comprised as much accommodation as any person, not sanguine to insanity, could have looked for in a room of its dimensions. An intrusion into its interior by a visitor was inclined to make it smaller still, and the arrangement of the furniture - which included a large bedstead, a chest of drawers, and two large elbow-chairs, of ancient mahogany - did little to assist any such individual in an easy progress across the threadbare carpet; which journey was made even more hazardous by the irregular placement upon the floor of bandboxes, devoted to the reception of various miscellaneous valuables. Further decoration of the apartment was provided by a pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the refractory, and lastly, Mrs Gamp's umbrella, which as something of great price and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation.
Into this Aladdin's cave came Mr Bradley Headstone, followed closely by Mr Poll Sweedlepipe, and Mr Richard Swiveller, and Mr William Guppy, and Mr Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr Augustus Snodgrass, and a number of other gentlemen (whose names we will not trouble the reader with) many of whom were obliged to wait on the stairs as there was not enough room to accommodate them within. It being five o'clock of an afternoon, Mrs Gamp was quite naturally seated at the tea-board, having just concluded her arrangements for the reception of Mrs Betsey Prig, whose arrival the nurse had supposed the most recent knock on the door to have presaged.
The good lady's alarm - more in fear for the survival of the comestibles set out before her than for her own person - was quickly allayed by her landlord, who explained the purpose of their visit. As one devoted to the care of the sick and the infirm, Mrs Gamp lost no time in establishing the terms upon which her services could be secured. Whilst waiting for the return of a boy who was sent out to the nearest tavern for a bottle of gin for medicinal purposes, the kindly nurse took Mr Headstone by the collar of his coat, and gave him some dozen or two of hearty shakes backward and forward; that exercise being considered by herself as being highly beneficial to the performance of the nervous functions. Its effect in this instance was to render the patient so giddy and addle-headed, that he could hardly speak; which Mrs Gamp regarded as the triumph of her art.
Mr Charles Dickens
