“Why then, sir,” said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, “ ’tis a muddle. ’Tis just a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner I am dead, the better.”

( Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the people.)

“Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, my good fellow,” said Mr. Bounderby, “about things you don’t understand; and don’t you call the institutions of your country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are not your piecework, and the only thing you have got to do, is, to mind your piecework. You didn’t take your wife for fast and for loose; but for better for worse. If she has turned out worse⁠—why, all we have got to say is, she might have turned out better.”