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with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do
wurth. People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,' continued
Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking; 'they
can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a
learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. I've got my
living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I
conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I
thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!'

The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and
the fixed eye of Philosophy - and its rolling eye, too - soon lost
the three figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.



CHAPTER VII - MRS. SPARSIT



MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his
establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs.
Sparsit was this lady's name; and she was a prominent figure in
attendance on Mr. Bounderby's car, as it rolled along in triumph
with the Bully of humility inside.

For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly
connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called
Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict,
had been by the mother's side what Mrs. Sparsit still called 'a
Powler.' Strangers of limited information and dull apprehension
were sometimes observed not to know what a Powler was, and even to
appear uncertain whether it might be a business, or a political
party, or a profession of faith. The better class of minds,
however, did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an
ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back
that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves -
which they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh,
blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent
Debtors' Court.

The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married
this lady, being by the father's side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers
(an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for
butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get
out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period
when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender
body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no
head worth mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle,
but owed it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over
immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twenty-four (the
scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he did not
leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the
honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen
years older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only
relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and
partly to maintain herself, went out at a salary. And here she was
now, in her elderly days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and

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