第202章

The man looked from Squeers to Smike; but such mental faculties as the poor fellow possessed, had utterly deserted him. The coach came up; Master Wackford entered; Squeers pushed in his prize, and following close at his heels, pulled up the glasses. The coachman mounted his box and drove slowly off, leaving the two bricklayers, and an old apple-woman, and a town-made little boy returning from an evening school, who had been the only witnesses of the scene, to meditate upon it at their leisure.

Mr Squeers sat himself down on the opposite seat to the unfortunate Smike, and, planting his hands firmly on his knees, looked at him for some five minutes, when, seeming to recover from his trance, he uttered a loud laugh, and slapped his old pupil's face several times -- taking the right and left sides alternately.

`It isn't a dream!' said Squeers. `That's real flesh and blood! I know the feel of it!' and being quite assured of his good fortune by these experiments, Mr Squeers administered a few boxes on the ear, lest the entertainments should seem to partake of sameness, and laughed louder and longer at every one.

`Your mother will be fit to jump out of her skin, my boy, when she hears of this,' said Squeers to his son.

`Oh, won't she though, father?' replied Master Wackford.

`To think,' said Squeers, `that you and me should be turning out of a street, and come upon him at the very nick; and that I should have him tight, at only one cast of the umbrella, as if I had hooked him with a grappling-iron -- Ha, ha!'

`Didn't I catch hold of his leg, neither, father?' said little Wackford.

`You did; like a good 'un, my boy,' said Mr Squeers, patting his son's head, `and you shall have the best button-over jacket and waistcoat that the next new boy brings down, as a reward of merit -- mind that. You always keep on in the same path, and do them things that you see your father do, and when you die you'll go right slap to Heaven and no questions asked.'

Improving the occasion in these words, Mr Squeers patted his son's head again, and then patted Smike's -- but harder; and inquired in a bantering tone how he found himself by this time.

`I must go home,' replied Smike, looking wildly round.

`To be sure you must. You're about right there,' replied Mr Squeers.

`You'll go home very soon, you will. You'll find yourself at the peaceful village of Dotheboys, in Yorkshire, in something under a week's time, my young friend; and the next time you get away from there, I give you leave to keep away. Where's the clothes you run off in, you ungrateful robber?'

said Mr Squeers, in a severe voice.

Smike glanced at the neat attire which the care of Nicholas had provided for him; and wrung his hands.

`Do you know that I could hang you up, outside of the Old Bailey, for making away with them articles of property?' said Squeers. `Do you know that it's a hanging matter -- and I an't quite certain whether it an't an anatomy one besides -- to walk off with up'ards of the valley of five pound from a dwelling-house? Eh -- do you know that? What do you suppose was the worth of them clothes you had? Do you know that that Wellington boot you wore, cost eight-and-twenty shillings when it was a pair, and the shoe seven-and-six? But you came to the right shop for mercy when you came to me, and thank your stars that it is me as has got to serve you with the article.'

Anybody not in Mr Squeers's confidence would have supposed that he was quite out of the article in question, instead of having a large stock on hand ready for all comers; nor would the opinion of sceptical persons have undergone much alteration when he followed up the remark by poking Smike in the chest with the ferrule of his umbrella, and dealing a smart shower of blows, with the ribs of the same instrument, upon his head and shoulders.

`I never threshed a boy in a hackney coach before,' said Mr Squeers, when he stopped to rest. `There's inconveniency in it, but the novelty gives it a sort of relish, too!'

Poor Smike! He warded off the blows, as well as he could, and now shrunk into a corner of the coach, with his held resting on his hands, and his elbows on his knees; he was stunned and stupefied, and had no more idea that any act of his, would enable him to escape from the allpowerful Squeers, now that he had no friend to speak to or to advise with, than he had had in all the weary years of his Yorkshire life which preceded the arrival of Nicholas.

The journey seemed endless; street after street was entered and left behind; and still they went jolting on. At last Mr Squeers began to thrust his head out of the widow every half-minute, and to bawl a variety of directions to the coachman; and after passing, with some difficulty, through several mean streets which the appearance of the houses and the bad state of the road denoted to have been recently built, Mr Squeers suddenly tugged at the check-string with all his might, and cried, `Stop!'

`What are you pulling a man's arm off for?' said the coachman looking angrily down.

`That's the house,' replied Squeers. `The second of them four little houses, one story high, with the green shutters -- there's brass plate on the door, with the name of Snawley.'