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good proportions should have been. His chest and back were as much
too broad, as his legs were too short. He was dressed in a
Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his
neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses' provender, and
sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded
of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the
other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This
gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B.
Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the
Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which popular
performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now accompanied
him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside down over
his father's shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his
head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand, according to
the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed
to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings,
white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into
so pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the
maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where his
characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely
gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy.

'By your leaves, gentlemen,' said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing
round the room. 'It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see
Jupe!'

'It was,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'His daughter has gone to fetch him,
but I can't wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message
for him with you.'

'You see, my friend,' Mr. Bounderby put in, 'we are the kind of
people who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people
who don't know the value of time.'

'I have not,' retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head
to foot, 'the honour of knowing you, - but if you mean that you can
make more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge
from your appearance, that you are about right.'

'And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,'
said Cupid.

'Kidderminster, stow that!' said Mr. Childers. (Master
Kidderminster was Cupid's mortal name.)

'What does he come here cheeking us for, then?' cried Master
Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. 'If you want
to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.'

'Kidderminster,' said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, 'stow that!
- Sir,' to Mr. Gradgrind, 'I was addressing myself to you. You may
or you may not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the
audience), that Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.'

'Has - what has he missed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the
potent Bounderby for assistance.

'Missed his tip.'

'Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done 'em
once,' said Master Kidderminster. 'Missed his tip at the banners,
too, and was loose in his ponging.

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