The umbrella with the
circular patch was particularly hard to be got rid of, and several times
thrust out its battered brass nozzle from improper crevices and chinks,
to the great terror of the other passengers. Indeed, in her intense
anxiety to find a haven of refuge for this chattel, Mrs Gamp so often
moved it, in the course of five minutes, that it seemed not one umbrella
but fifty. At length it was lost, or said to be; and for the next five
minutes she was face to face with the coachman, go wherever he might,
protesting that it should be 'made good,' though she took the question
to the House of Commons.
At last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and everything
else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of Poll and Mr
Bailey, dropped a curtsey to John Westlock, and parted as from a
cherished member of the sisterhood with Betsey Prig.
'Wishin you lots of sickness, my darlin creetur,' Mrs Gamp observed,
'and good places. It won't be long, I hope, afore we works together, off
and on, again, Betsey; and may our next meetin' be at a large family's,
where they all takes it reg'lar, one from another, turn and turn about,
and has it business-like.
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