In Which Mr Mould Interrogates Mr Headstone

Having examined Mr Headstone by the original and efficacious method of prodding that gentleman's frame with the tip of her gig umbrella and rapping portions of his skull with its handle, Mrs Gamp pronounced the patient to be in an excellent state of health and proposed a toast to the continued equanimity of his constitution by taking up the bottle of gin from the chimney piece and putting it to her lips. Notwithstanding the receipt of a professional medical opinion, the pedagogue's friends and acquaintances were still desirous of hearing from Mr Mould, whose attendance they had been expecting for some time.

In fact, the undertaker was at that moment in the street below applying vigorous action to the door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, without making the smallest impression on the premises to which it was addressed. It chanced that Mr Sweedlepipe, leaning out of the window, spied the black crepe of the gentleman's hat and called down to him to let himself in and come up directly to the first floor. On entering the room, Mr Mould began by thanking the company for their confidence in his good opinion and trusted that they would in the fullness of time come into his hands in his true professional capacity, which he promised to execute with all the favours that acquaintance allowed.

Mr Mould was introduced to Mr Headstone and, having been apprised of Mrs Gamp's considered prognosis from that good lady's own lips (when they were not applied to the gin bottle), the undertaker began to question the pedagogue closely on matters of personal history in order to determine whether the gentleman's faculty of memory had been in any manner impaired by his recent misfortunes. As Mr Mould was not familiar with Mr Headstone in any particular whatsoever, this mode of questioning soon ended in a no thoroughfare, and the undertaker appealed to the company for a new theme.

It was Mr Snodgrass who suggested that a fruitful line of enquiry might be achieved by an interrogation of Mr Headstone on the progress of his great project, which, when announced at the beginning of the year in The Saracen's Head, had won the admiration of all his friends and acquaintances. On the introduction of this topic, which all supposed would be a matter of some pride and satisfaction to the pedagogue, Mr Headstone was seen to turn quite pale - indeed, much paler than his emaciated visage would normally allow - and looked for all the world as if he would soon be in need of Mr Mould's professional services. Those about him were thrown into immediate consternation, except for Mrs Gamp, who being as familiar with laying out as she was with laying in, took recourse to the gin bottle in order to bolster her spirits with a swig of the same.