Chapter 8

Ay! mark the matron well--and laugh not, Harry,
At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard--
I've call'd her like the ear of Dionysius;
I mean that ear-form'd vault, built o'er his dungeon,
To catch the groans and discontented murmurs
Of his poor bondsmen--Even so doth Martha
Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes,
Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city--
She can retail it too, if that her profit
Shall call on her to do so; and retail it
For your advantage, so that you can make
Your profit jump with hers.
The Conspiracy.

We must now introduce to the reader's acquaintance another character,
busy and important far beyond her ostensible situation in society--in
a word, Dame Ursula Suddlechop, wife of Benjamin Suddlechop, the most
renowned barber in all Fleet Street. This dame had her own particular
merits, the principal part of which was (if her own report could be
trusted) an infinite desire to be of service to her fellow-creatures.
Leaving to her thin half-starved partner the boast of having the most
dexterous snap with his fingers of any shaver in London, and the care
of a shop where starved apprentices flayed the faces of those who were
boobies enough to trust them, the dame drove a separate and more
lucrative trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, that it
seemed in many respects to contradict itself.

Its highest and most important duties were of a very secret and
confidential nature, and Dame Ursula Suddlechop was never known to
betray any transaction intrusted to her, unless she had either been
indifferently paid for her service, or that some one found it
convenient to give her a double douceur to make her disgorge the
secret; and these contingencies happened in so few cases, that her
character for trustiness remained as unimpeached as that for honesty
and benevolence.

In fact, she was a most admirable matron, and could be useful to the
impassioned and the frail in the rise, progress, and consequences of
their passion. She could contrive an interview for lovers who could
show proper reasons for meeting privately; she could relieve the frail
fair one of the burden of a guilty passion, and perhaps establish the
hopeful offspring of unlicensed love as the heir of some family whose
love was lawful, but where an heir had not followed the union. More
than this she could do, and had been concerned in deeper and dearer
secrets. She had been a pupil of Mrs. Turner, and learned from her the
secret of making the yellow starch, and, it may be, two or three other
secrets of more consequence, though perhaps none that went to the
criminal extent of those whereof her mistress was accused. But all
that was deep and dark in her real character was