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Hard Times

Page 4

by Dickens, Charles


  picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and

  backing, and knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it was an

  accident.

  'Was this boy running after you, Jupe?' asked Mr. Gradgrind.

  'Yes, sir,' said the girl reluctantly.

  'No, I wasn't, sir!' cried Bitzer. 'Not till she run away from me.

  But the horse-riders never mind what they say, sir; they're famous

  for it. You know the horse-riders are famous for never minding

  what they say,' addressing Sissy. 'It's as well known in the town

  as - please, sir, as the multiplication table isn't known to the

  horse-riders.' Bitzer tried Mr. Bounderby with this.

  'He frightened me so,' said the girl, 'with his cruel faces!'

  'Oh!' cried Bitzer. 'Oh! An't you one of the rest! An't you a

  horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her if she would

  know how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered to tell her

  again, and she ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that she might

  know how to answer when she was asked. You wouldn't have thought

  of saying such mischief if you hadn't been a horse-rider?'

  'Her calling seems to be pretty well known among 'em,' observed Mr.

  Bounderby. 'You'd have had the whole school peeping in a row, in a

  week.'

  'Truly, I think so,' returned his friend. 'Bitzer, turn you about

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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  and take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear of

  your running in this manner any more, boy, and you will hear of me

  through the master of the school. You understand what I mean. Go

  along.'

  The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again,

  glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated.

  'Now, girl,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'take this gentleman and me to

  your father's; we are going there. What have you got in that

  bottle you are carrying?'

  'Gin,' said Mr. Bounderby.

  'Dear, no, sir! It's the nine oils.'

  'The what?' cried Mr. Bounderby.

  'The nine oils, sir, to rub father with.'

  'Then,' said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short laugh, 'what the

  devil do you rub your father with nine oils for?'

  'It's what our people aways use, sir, when they get any hurts in

  the ring,' replied the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure

  herself that her pursuer was gone. 'They bruise themselves very

  bad sometimes.'

  'Serve 'em right,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for being idle.' She

  glanced up at his face, with mingled astonishment and dread.

  'By George!' said Mr. Bounderby, 'when I was four or five years

  younger than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten oils, twenty

  oils, forty oils, would have rubbed off. I didn't get 'em by

  posture-making, but by being banged about. There was no ropedancing

  for me; I danced on the bare ground and was larruped with

  the rope.'

  Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a man

  as Mr. Bounderby. His character was not unkind, all things

  considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, if he had

  only made some round mistake in the arithmetic that balanced it,

  years ago. He said, in what he meant for a reassuring tone, as

  they turned down a narrow road, 'And this is Pod's End; is it,

  Jupe?'

  'This is it, sir, and - if you wouldn't mind, sir - this is the

  house.'

  She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little publichouse,

  with dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if,

  for want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone

  the way all drunkards go, and was very near the end of it.

  'It's only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you

  wouldn't mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get a candle.

  If you should hear a dog, sir, it's only Merrylegs, and he only

  barks.'

  'Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!' said Mr. Bounderby, entering last

  with his metallic laugh. 'Pretty well this, for a self-made man!'

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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  CHAPTER VI - SLEARY'S HORSEMANSHIP

  THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus's Arms. The Pegasus's

  legs might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the

  winged horse upon the sign-board, the Pegasus's Arms was inscribed

  in Roman letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing

  scroll, the painter had touched off the lines:

  Good malt makes good beer,

  Walk in, and they'll draw it here;

  Good wine makes good brandy,

  Give us a call, and you'll find it handy.

  Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was

  another Pegasus - a theatrical one - with real gauze let in for his

  wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness

  made of red silk.

  As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had

  not grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and

  Mr. Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They

  followed the girl up some steep corner-stairs without meeting any

  one, and stopped in the dark while she went on for a candle. They

  expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly

  trained performing dog had not barked when the girl and the candle

  appeared together.

  'Father is not in our room, sir,' she said, with a face of great

  surprise. 'If you wouldn't mind walking in, I'll find him

  directly.' They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for

  them, sped away with a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily

  furnished room, with a bed in it. The white night-cap, embellished

  with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in which

  Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied

  performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung

  upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token

  of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to

  Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal

  who went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of

  it, for any sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the

  Pegasus's Arms.

  They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy

  went from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they

  heard voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in

  a great hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it

  empty, and looked round with her hands clasped and her face full of

  terror.

  'Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don't know why he

  should go there, but he must be there; I'll bring him in a minute!'

  She was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark,

  childish hair streaming behind her.

  'What does she mean!' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Back in a minute? It's

  more than a mile off.'

  Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door,

  and introducing himself with the words, 'By your leaves,

  gentlemen!' walked in with his hands in his pockets. His face,

 
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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  close-shaven, thin, and sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of

  dark hair, brushed into a roll all round his head, and parted up

  the centre. His legs were very robust, but shorter than legs of

  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,

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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  too, and was loose in his ponging.'

  'Didn't do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in

  his tumbling,' Mr. Childers interpreted.

  'Oh!' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that is tip, is it?'

  'In a general way that's missing his tip,' Mr. E. W. B. Childers

  answered.

  'Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging,

  eh!' ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. 'Queer sort

  of company, too, for a man who has raised himself!'

  'Lower yourself, then,' retorted Cupid. 'Oh Lord! if you've raised

  yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.'

  'This is a very obtrusive lad!' said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and

  knitting his brows on him.

  'We'd have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you

  were coming,' retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed.

  'It's a pity you don't have a bespeak, being so particular. You're

  on the Tight-Jeff, ain't you?'

  'What does this unmannerly boy mean,' asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing

  him in a sort of desperation, 'by Tight-Jeff?'

  'There! Get out, get out!' said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young

  friend from the room, rather in the prairie manner. 'Tight-Jeff or

  Slack-Jeff, it don't much signify: it's only tight-rope and slackrope.

  You were going to give me a message for Jupe?'

  'Yes, I was.'

  'Then,' continued Mr. Childers, quickly, 'my opinion is, he will

  never receive it. Do you know much of him?'

  'I never saw the man in my life.'

  'I doubt if you ever will see him now. It's pretty plain to me,

  he's off.'

  'Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?'

  'Ay! I mean,' said Mr. Childers, with a nod, 'that he has cut. He

  was goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was

  goosed to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always

  goosed, and he can't stand it.'

  'Why has he been - so very much - Goosed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind,

  forcing the word out of himself, with great solemnity and

  reluctance.

  'His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,' said

  Childers. 'He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can't get

  a living out of them.'

  'A Cackler!' Bounderby repeated. 'Here we go again!'

  'A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,' said Mr. E. W. B.

  Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his

  shoulder, and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair - which

  all shook at once. 'Now, it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut

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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  that man deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being

  goosed, than to go through with it.'

  'Good!' interrupted Mr. Bounderby. 'This is good, Gradgrind! A

  man so fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is

  devilish good! Ha! ha! Now, I'll tell you what, young man. I

  haven't always occupied my present station of life. I know what

  these things are. You may be astonished to hear it, but my mother

  - ran away from me.'

  E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all

  astonished to hear it.

  'Very well,' said Bounderby. 'I was born in a ditch, and my mother

  ran away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever

  excused her for it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her

  probably the very worst woman that ever lived in the world, except

  my drunken grandmother. There's no family pride about me, there's

  no imaginative sentimental humbug about me. I call a spade a

  spade; and I call the mother of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown,

  without any fear or any favour, what I should call her if she had

  been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this man. He


  is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that's what he is, in English.'

  'It's all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in

  English or whether in French,' retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers,

  facing about. 'I am telling your friend what's the fact; if you

  don't like to hear it, you can avail yourself of the open air. You

  give it mouth enough, you do; but give it mouth in your own

  building at least,' remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony. 'Don't

  give it mouth in this building, till you're called upon. You have

  got some building of your own I dare say, now?'

  'Perhaps so,' replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and

  laughing.

  'Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?'

  said Childers. 'Because this isn't a strong building, and too much

  of you might bring it down!'

  Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him,

  as from a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind.

  'Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then

  was seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, and a

  bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never

  believe it of him, but he has cut away and left her.'

  'Pray,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'why will she never believe it of him?'

  'Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder.

  Because, up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her,' said

  Childers, taking a step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both

  Mr. Childers and Master Kidderminster walked in a curious manner;

  with their legs wider apart than the general run of men, and with a

  very knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees. This walk was

  common to all the male members of Sleary's company, and was

  understood to express, that they were always on horseback.

  'Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,' said Childers,

  giving his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box.

  'Now, he leaves her without anything to take to.'

  'It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to

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  Dickens, Charles - Hard Times

  express that opinion,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly.

  'I never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year

  old.'

  'Oh! Indeed?' said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having

  been defrauded of his good opinion. 'I was not aware of its being

  the custom to apprentice young persons to - '

  'Idleness,' Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. 'No, by the

 

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