g away, sir--joining in
bloodthirsty attacks upon his master--there's nothing that's bad that he
hasn't done. Oh, what a delicious go is this here, good Lord!'

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