“Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any more than I want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to take her prentith, though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if you’d been chilled and heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath young, ath often ath I have been, your voithe wouldn’t have lathted out, Thquire, no more than mine.”

“I dare say not,” said Mr. Gradgrind.

“What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it a name, Thquire!” said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease.

“Nothing for me, I thank you,” said Mr. Gradgrind.

“Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.”

Here his daughter Josephine⁠—a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies⁠—cried, “Father, hush! she has come back!” Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tightrope lady (herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep over her.

“Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,” said Sleary.

“O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I am sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor father, until you come back!” It was so pathetic to hear her saying many things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand.

“Now, good people all,” said he, “this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! Your father has absconded⁠—deserted you⁠—and you mustn’t expect to see him again as long as you live.”

They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered “Shame!” and the women “Brute!” and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to Mr. Bounderby.

“I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good natur’d people, my people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned if I don’t believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.”

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject.

There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands before her face, “Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me go away before I break my heart!”