ts imparted to the students at Dotheboys Hall, including
"single-stick" (if required), together with "fortification, and every
other branch of classical literature." The Reader laying particular
stress, among other items in the announcement, upon "No extras, no
vacations, and diet unparalleled;" and upon the finishing touch (having
especial reference to the subject in hand), "An able assistant wanted:
annual salary, L5! A master of arts would be preferred!" Immediately
after this, in the Reading, came the description of Mr. Squeers, several
of the particulars in regard to whose villainous appearance always told
wonderfully: as, where it was said "he had but one eye, and the popular
prejudice runs in favour of two;" or, again, where in reference to his
attire--it having been mentioned that his coat-sleeves were a great deal
too-long and his trousers a great deal too short--it was added that "he
appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual
state of astonishment at finding himself so respectable." Listening to
the Reader, we were there, in the coffee-room of the Saracen's Head--the
rascal Squeers in the full enjoyment of his repast of hot toast and
cold round of beef, the while five little boys sat opposite hungrily and
thirstily expectant of their share in a miserable meal of two-penn'orth
of milk and thick bread and butter for three. "Just fill that mug up
with lukewarm water, William, will you?" "To the wery top, sir? Why the
milk will be drownded!" "_Serve it right for being so dear!_" Squeers
adding with a chuckle, as he pounded away at his own coffee and
viands,--"Conquer your passions, boys, and don't be eager after
wittles." To see the Reader as Squeers, stirring the mug of lukewarm
milk and water, and then smacking his lips with an affected relish after
tasting a spoonful of it, before reverting to his own fare of buttered
toast and beef, was to be there with Nicholas, a spectator on that
wintry morning in the Snow Hill Tavern, watching the guttling pedagogue
and the five little famished expectants. Only when Squeers, immediately
before the signal for the coach starting, wiped his mouth, with a
self-satisfied "Thank God for a good breakfast," was the mug rapidly
passed from mouth to mouth at once ravenously and tantalizingly. The
long and bitter journey on the north road, through the snow, was barely
referred to in the Reading; due mention, however, being made, and always
tellingly, of Mr. S