第177章

`Were you obliged to have medical attendance?' inquired Ralph.

`Ay, was I,' rejoined Squeers, `and a precious bill the medical attendant brought in too; but I paid it though.'

Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a manner which might be expressive of either sympathy or astonishment--just as the beholder was pleased to take it.

`Yes, I paid it, every farthing,' replied Squeers, who seemed to know the man he had to deal with, too well to suppose that any blinking of the question would induce him to subscribe towards the expenses; `I wasn't out of pocket by it after all, either.'

`No!' said Ralph.

`Not a halfpenny,' replied Squeers. `The fact is, we have only one extra with our boys, and that is for doctors when required--and not then, unless we're sure of our customers. Do you see?'

`I understand,' said Ralph.

`Very good,' rejoined Squeers. `Then, after my bill was run up, we picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure pay) that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a cottage where they'd got it, and he took it, and then we put the four others to sleep with him, and they took it, and then the doctor came and attended 'em once all round, and we divided my total among 'em, and added it on to their little bills, and the parents paid it. Ha! ha! ha!'

`And a good plan too,' said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily.

`I believe you,' rejoined Squeers. `We always do it. Why, when Mrs Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses among 'em, monthly nurse included. Ha! ha! ha!'

Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr Squeers had enjoyed the professional joke to his heart's content, inquired what had brought him to town.

`Some bothering law business,' replied Squeers, scratching his head, `connected with an action, for what they call neglect of a boy. I don't know what they would have. He had as good grazing, that boy had, as there is about us.'

Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation.

`Grazing,' said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impression that as Ralph failed to comprehend him, he must be deaf. `When a boy gets weak and ill and don't relish his meals, we give him a change of diet--turn him out, for an hour or so every day, into a neighbour's turnip field, or sometimes, if it's a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an't better land in the country than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he goes and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his friends brings a lawsuit against me ! Now, you'd hardly suppose,' added Squeers, moving in his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, `that people's ingratitude would carry them quite as far as that; would you?'

`A hard case, indeed,' observed Ralph.

`You don't say more than the truth when you say that,' replied Squeers.

`I don't suppose there's a man going, as possesses the fondness for youth that I do. There's youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a year at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I'd take sixteen hundred pound worth if I could get 'em, and be as fond of every individual twenty pound among 'em as nothing should equal it!'

`Are you stopping at your old quarters?' asked Ralph.

`Yes, we are at the Saracen,' replied Squeers, `and as it don't want very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continney to stop there till I've collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope. I've brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and guardians. I shall put him in the advertisement, this time. Look at that boy--himself a pupil--why he's a miracle of high feeding, that boy is!'

`I should like to have a word with you,' said Ralph, who had both spoken and listened mechanically for some time, and seemed to have been thinking.

`As many words as you like, sir,' rejoined Squeers. `Wackford, you go and play in the back-office, and don't move about too much or you'll get thin, and that won't do. You haven't got such a thing as twopence, Mr Nickleby, have you?' said Squeers, rattling a bunch of keys in his coat pocket, and muttering something about its being all silver.

`I--think I have,' said Ralph, very slowly, and producing, after much rummaging in an old drawer, a penny, a halfpenny, and two farthings.

`Thankee,' said Squeers, bestowing it upon his son. `Here! You go and buy a tart--Mr Nickleby's man will show you where--and mind you buy a rich one. Pastry,' added Squeers, closing the door on Master Wackford, `makes his flesh shine a good deal, and parents thinks that a healthy sign.'

With this explanation, and a peculiarly knowing look to eke it out, Mr Squeers moved his chair so as to bring himself opposite to Ralph Nickleby at no great distance off; and having planted it to his entire satisfaction, sat down.

`Attend to me,' said Ralph, bending forward a little.

Squeers nodded.

`I am not to suppose,' said Ralph, `that you are dolt enough to forgive or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or the exposure which accompanied it?'

`Devil a bit,' replied Squeers, tartly.

`Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if you could get one?' said Ralph.

`Show me one, and try,' rejoined Squeers.

`Some such object it was that induced you to call on me?' said Ralph, raising his eyes to the schoolmaster's face.

`N-n-no, I don't know that,' replied Squeers. `I thought that if it was in your power to make me, besides the trifle of money you sent, any compensation--'

`Ah!' cried Ralph, interrupting him. `You needn't go on.'

After a long pause, during which Ralph appeared absorbed in contemplation, he again broke silence by asking:

`Who is this boy that he took with him?'

Squeers stated his name.

`Was he young or old, healthy or sickly, tractable or rebellious? Speak out, man,' retorted Ralph.

`Why, he wasn't young,' answered Squeers; `that is, not young for a boy, you know.'