Hard Times by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you txt) 📕

them all, “I’ll tell you. It’s not to be mentioned everywhere; it’s not to be mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned (there’s a gang of ’em) may be thrown off their guard. So take this in confidence. Now wait a bit.” Mr. Bounderby wiped his head again. “What should you say to;” here he violently exploded: “to a hand being in it?”

“I hope,” said Harthouse, lazily, “not our friend Blackpot?”

“Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,” returned Bounderby, “and that’s the man.”

Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and surprise.

“O yes! I know!” said Bounderby, immediately catching at the sound. “I know! I am used to that. I know all about it. They are the finest people in the world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of the gab, they have. They only want to have their rights explained to them, they do. But I tell you what. Show me a dissatisfied hand, and I’ll show you a man that’s fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it is.”

Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains had been taken to disseminate⁠—and which some people really believed.

“But I am acquainted with these chaps,” said Bounderby. “I can read ’em off, like books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I appeal to you. What warning did I give that fellow, the first time he set foot in the house, when the express object of his visit was to know how he could knock religion over, and floor the established church? Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high connections, you are on a level with the aristocracy⁠—did I say, or did I not say, to that fellow, ‘you can’t hide the truth from me: you are not the kind of fellow I like; you’ll come to no good’?”

“Assuredly, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “you did, in a highly impressive manner, give him such an admonition.”

“When he shocked you, ma’am,” said Bounderby; “when he shocked your feelings?”

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake of her head, “he certainly did so. Though I do not mean to say but that my feelings may be weaker on such points⁠—more foolish if the term is preferred⁠—than they might have been, if I had always occupied my present position.”

Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, as much as to say, “I am the proprietor of this female, and she’s worth your attention, I think.” Then, resumed his discourse.

“You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to him when you saw him. I didn’t mince the matter with him. I am never mealy with ’em. I know ’em. Very well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went off, nobody knows where: as my mother did in my infancy⁠—only with this difference, that he is a worse subject than my mother, if possible. What did he do before he went? What do you say;” Mr. Bounderby, with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every little division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine; “to his being seen⁠—night after night⁠—watching the Bank?⁠—to his lurking about there⁠—after dark?⁠—To its striking Mrs. Sparsit⁠—that he could be lurking for no good⁠—To her calling Bitzer’s attention to him, and their both taking notice of him⁠—And to its appearing on inquiry today⁠—that he was also noticed by the neighbours?” Having come to the climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put his tambourine on his head.

“Suspicious,” said James Harthouse, “certainly.”

“I think so, sir,” said Bounderby, with a defiant nod. “I think so. But there are more of ’em in it. There’s an old woman. One never hears of these things till the mischief’s done; all sorts of defects are found out in the stable door after the horse is stolen; there’s an old woman turns up now. An old woman who seems to have been flying into town on a broomstick, every now and then. She watches the place a whole day before this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, she steals away with him and holds a council with him⁠—I suppose, to make her report on going off duty, and be damned to her.”

There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk from observation, thought Louisa.

“This is not all of ’em, even as we already know ’em,” said Bounderby, with many nods of hidden meaning. “But I have said enough for the present. You’ll have the goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to no one. It may take time, but we shall have ’em. It’s policy to give ’em line enough, and there’s no objection to that.”

“Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, as notice-boards observe,” replied James Harthouse, “and serve them right. Fellows who go in for banks must take the consequences. If there were no consequences, we should all go in for banks.” He had gently taken Louisa’s parasol from her hand, and had put it up for her; and she walked under its shade, though the sun did not shine there.

“For the present, Loo Bounderby,” said her husband, “here’s Mrs. Sparsit to look after. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been acted upon by this business, and she’ll stay here a day or two. So make her comfortable.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” that discreet lady observed, “but pray do not let my comfort be a consideration. Anything will do for me.”

It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her association with that domestic establishment, it was that she was so excessively regardless of herself and regardful of others, as to be a nuisance. On being shown her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible of its comforts as to suggest the inference that she would have preferred to pass the night on the mangle in the laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses were accustomed to splendour, “but it is my duty to remember,” Mrs. Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty grace: particularly when any of the domestics were present, “that what