rging the
man, went the rest of his way thither on foot. Inquiring for the object
of his solicitude, he learnt that he had timed his visit well; for Mr
Squeers was, in fact, at that moment waiting for a hackney coach he had
ordered, and in which he purposed proceeding to his week's retirement,
like a gentleman.

Demanding speech with the prisoner, he was ushered into a kind of
waiting-room in which, by reason of his scholastic profession and
superior respectability, Mr Squeers had been permitted to pass the day.
Here, by the light of a guttering and blackened candle, he could barely
discern the schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in a remote corner.
An empty glass stood on a table before him, which, with his somnolent
condition and a very strong smell of brandy and water, forewarned
the visitor that Mr Squeers had been seeking, in creature comforts, a
temporary forgetfulness of his unpleasant situation.

It was not a very easy matter to rouse him: so lethargic and heavy were
his slumbers. Regaining his faculties by slow and faint glimmerings, he
at length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow face, a very
red nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of which was
considerably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief, spotted with
blood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under his chin: stared
ruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings found a vent in this
pithy sentence:

'I say, young fellow, you've been and done it now; you have!'

'What's the matter with your head?' asked Ralph.

'Why, your man, your informing kidnapping man, has been and broke it,'
rejoined Squeers sulkily; 'that's what's the matter with it. You've come
at last, have you?'

'Why have you not sent to me?' said Ralph. 'How could I come till I knew
what had befallen you?'

'My family!' hiccuped Mr Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling: 'my
daughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-coming out
strong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private life, and the
pride and ornament of a doting willage--here's a shock for my family!
The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their sun is gone down
into the ocean wave!'

'You have been drinking,' said Ralph, 'and have not yet slept yourself
sober.'

'I haven't been drinking YOUR health, my codger,' replied Mr Squeers;
'so you have nothing to do with that.'

Ralph suppressed the indignation which the schoolmaster's altered and
insolent manner