Previous  - next

'It's tolerably clear to me,' said Bounderby, 'that the little puss
can get small good out of such companionship.'

'Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?'

'Yes, ma'am, I'm speaking of Louisa.'

'Your observation being limited to "little puss,"' said Mrs.
Sparsit, 'and there being two little girls in question, I did not
know which might be indicated by that expression.'

'Louisa,' repeated Mr. Bounderby. 'Louisa, Louisa.'

'You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.' Mrs. Sparsit took a
little more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows
over her steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical
countenance were invoking the infernal gods.

'If you had said I was another father to Tom - young Tom, I mean,
not my friend Tom Gradgrind - you might have been nearer the mark.
I am going to take young Tom into my office. Going to have him
under my wing, ma'am.'

'Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?' Mrs. Spirit's
'sir,' in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather
exacting consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

'I'm not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational
cramming before then,' said Bounderby. 'By the Lord Harry, he'll
have enough of it, first and last! He'd open his eyes, that boy
would, if he knew how empty of learning my young maw was, at his
time of life.' Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had
heard of it often enough. 'But it's extraordinary the difficulty I
have on scores of such subjects, in speaking to any one on equal
terms. Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this morning
about tumblers. Why, what do you know about tumblers? At the time
when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, would have
been a godsend to me, a prize in the lottery to me, you were at the
Italian Opera. You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma'am, in
white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn't a penny
to buy a link to light you.'

'I certainly, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely
mournful, 'was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early
age.'

'Egad, ma'am, so was I,' said Bounderby, ' - with the wrong side of
it. A hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure
you. People like you, ma'am, accustomed from infancy to lie on
Down feathers, have no idea how hard a paving-stone is, without
trying it. No, no, it's of no use my talking to you about
tumblers. I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of
London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies and honourables.'

'I trust, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, 'it
is not necessary that you should do anything of that kind. I hope
I have learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If
I have acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive
experiences, and can scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit
for that, since I believe it is a general sentiment.

Previous  - next