and sound, inside
of my great-coat.'

'Beaten at every point!' muttered Ralph.

'Ah!' sighed Squeers, who, between the brandy and water and his broken
head, wandered strangely, 'at the delightful village of Dotheboys near
Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed,
furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed
in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry,
astronomy, trigonometry--this is a altered state of trigonomics, this
is! A double 1--all, everything--a cobbler's weapon. U-p-up, adjective,
not down. S-q-u-double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, a educator of
youth. Total, all up with Squeers!'

His running on, in this way, had afforded Ralph an opportunity of
recovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested to him
the necessity of removing, as far as possible, the schoolmaster's
misgivings, and leading him to believe that his safety and best policy
lay in the preservation of a rigid silence.

'I tell you, once again,' he said, 'they can't hurt you. You shall have
an action for false imprisonment, and make a profit of this, yet. We
will devise a story for you that should carry you through twenty times
such a trivial scrape as this; and if they want security in a thousand
pounds for your reappearance in case you should be called upon, you
shall have it. All you have to do is, to keep back the truth. You're a
little fuddled tonight, and may not be able to see this as clearly as
you would at another time; but this is what you must do, and you'll need
all your senses about you; for a slip might be awkward.'

'Oh!' said Squeers, who had looked cunningly at him, with his head stuck
on one side, like an old raven. 'That's what I'm to do, is it? Now then,
just you hear a word or two from me. I an't a-going to have any stories
made for me, and I an't a-going to stick to any. If I find matters going
again me, I shall expect you to take your share, and I'll take care you
do. You never said anything about danger. I never bargained for being
brought into such a plight as this, and I don't mean to take it as quiet
as you think. I let you lead me on, from one thing to another, because
we had been mixed up together in a certain sort of a way, and if you had
liked to be ill-natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, and
if you liked to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way.
Well; if all goes right now, that's quite correct