CHAPTER 7. THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA
The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor Haggage’s brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians, like the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her existence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being almost a part of the entrance footing of every new collegian to nurse the child who had been born in the college.
‘ By rights,’ remarked the turnkey when she was first shown to him, ‘I ought to be her godfather.’
The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t object to really being her godfather?’
‘ Oh! I don’t object,’ replied the turnkey, ‘if you don’t.’
Thus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, wh
