Having been apprised of the events surrounding Mr Headstone's prolonged absence from society, it was not unnatural that the pedagogue's friends and acquaintances, being solicitous of the state of that good gentleman's health, should be desirous of obtaining expert medical opinion on the likelihood as to whether a severe blow to the head (or, indeed, two severe blows to the head) should have any detrimental physiological effect on an individual unfortunate enough to be exposed to such a traumatic circumstance.
Expert opinion, however, always comes at a price, and money being - as it so often was in the affairs of Mr Headstone - an object, it was Mr Poll Sweedlepipe who suggested that the services of a nurse by the name of Gamp could be secured on reasonable terms, those being eighteen pence a day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks, with the additional provision of a shilling's worth of gin and warm water to be left on the chimney piece in case it was wanted.
This suggestion was received as being both sensible and economical, and Mr Sweedlepipe observed that for the additional modest sum of half a crown the professional opinion of the distinguished Mr Mould could also be secured. This gentleman, he ventured to explain, was not in the strictest definition of the term a medical man, but rather attended on those persons whom doctors were no longer able to assist, which was to say, in short, that he was an undertaker by trade. It being the general opinion of the company that Mr Mould's standing as a man of learning should not be foresworn simply on account of the fact that his customers were inanimate, Poll Sweedlepipe was instructed to lead the way to his residence in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, where Mrs Gamp took lodgings, next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop.
Mr Charles Dickens
