Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/529

438 But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs. Pipchin with another look, remained.

"Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam," said Mr. Dombey, "to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman—in his own house—in his own room—assailed with the impertinences of women-servants!"

"Well, Sir," returned Mrs. Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye, "I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you ’re not," said Mrs. Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan Nipper. "For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!"

"If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs. Pipchin," said Mr. Dombey, turning back towards the fire, "you know what to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!"

"Sir, I know what to do," retorted Mrs. Pipchin, "and of course shall do it. Susan Nipper,’ snapping her up particularly short, "a month’s warning from this hour."

"Oh indeed!" cried Susan, loftily.

"Yes," returned Mrs. Pipchin, "and don’t smile at me, you minx, or I ’ll know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!"

"I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it," said the voluble Nipper. "I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and I won’t stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs. P."

"A good riddance of bad rubbish!" said that wrathful old lady. "Get along with you, or I ’ll have you carried out!"

"My comfort is," said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, "that I have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can’t be told too often or too plain and that no amount of Pipchinses—I hope the number of 'em mayn’t be great’ (here Mrs. Pipchin uttered a very sharp "Go along with you!" and Miss Nipper repeated the look) "can unsay what I have said, though they gave a whole year full of warnings beginning at ten o’clock in the forenoon and never leaving off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion which would be a Jubilee!"

With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began to cry.

From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs. Pipchin outside the door.

"Does that bold-faced slut," said the fell Pipchin, "intend to take her warning, or does she not?"

Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she was to be found in the housekeeper’s room.

"You saucy baggage!" retorted Mrs. Pipchin, rattling at the handle of