CHAPTER VI

SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP

THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs

might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse

upon the sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman letters.

Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had

touched off the lines:

Good malt makes good beer,

Walk in, and they’ll draw it here;

Good wine makes good brandy,

Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy.

Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was another

Pegasus—a theatrical one—with real gauze let in for his wings, golden

stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk.

As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had not

grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr.

Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They followed the

girl up some steep corner-stairs without meeting any one, and stopped in

the dark while she went on for a candle. They expected every moment to

hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not

barked when the girl and the candle appeared together.

‘Father is not in our room, sir,’ she said, with a face of great

surprise. ‘If you wouldn’t mind walking in, I’ll find him directly.’

They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with

a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed

in it. The white night-cap, embellished with two peacock’s feathers and

a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon

enlivened the varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and

retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other

token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to

Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal who

went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of it, for any

sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus’s Arms.

They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy went

from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they heard

voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in a great

hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it empty, and

looked round with her hands clasped and her face full of terror.

‘Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don’t know why he

should go there, but he must be there; I’ll bring him in a minute!’ She

was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair

streaming behind her.

‘What does she mean!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Back in a minute? It’s more

than a mile off.’

Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, and

introducing himself with the words, ‘By your leaves, gentlemen!’ walked

in with his hands in his pockets. His face, close-shaven, thin, and

sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll

all round his head, and parted up the centre. His legs were very robust,

but shorter than legs of good proportions should have been. His chest

and back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. He was

dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl

round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender,

and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of

the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended,

nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned

in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated

for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American

Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old

face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried

upside down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by the

crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father’s hand,

according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be

observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings,

white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so

pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part

of the spectators; but in private, where his characteristics were a

precocious cutaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the

Turf, turfy.

‘By your leaves, gentlemen,’ said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round

the room. ‘It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!’

‘It was,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I

can’t wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with

you.’

‘You see, my friend,’ Mr. Bounderby put in, ‘we are the kind of people

who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people who don’t know

the value of time.’

‘I have not,’ retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to

foot, ‘the honour of knowing _you_,—but if you mean that you can make

more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your

appearance, that you are about right.’

‘And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,’ said

Cupid.

‘Kidderminster, stow that!’ said Mr. Childers. (Master Kidderminster was

Cupid’s mortal name.)

‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ cried Master

Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. ‘If you want to

cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.’

‘Kidderminster,’ said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, ‘stow that!—Sir,’

to Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may

not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that

Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.’

‘Has—what has he missed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent

Bounderby for assistance.

‘Missed his tip.’

‘Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done ’em once,’

said Master Kidderminster. ‘Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was

loose in his ponging.’

‘Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his

tumbling,’ Mr. Childers interpreted.

‘Oh!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is tip, is it?’

‘In a general way that’s missing his tip,’ Mr. E. W. B. Childers

answered.

‘Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh!’

ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. ‘Queer sort of company,

too, for a man who has raised himself!’

‘Lower yourself, then,’ retorted Cupid. ‘Oh Lord! if you’ve raised

yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.’

‘This is a very obtrusive lad!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting

his brows on him.

‘We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were

coming,’ retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. ‘It’s a pity

you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff,

ain’t you?’

‘What does this unmannerly boy mean,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in

a sort of desperation, ‘by Tight-Jeff?’

‘There! Get out, get out!’ said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend

from the room, rather in the prairie manner. ‘Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff,

it don’t much signify: it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were

going to give me a message for Jupe?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘Then,’ continued Mr. Childers, quickly, ‘my opinion is, he will never

receive it. Do you know much of him?’

‘I never saw the man in my life.’

‘I doubt if you ever _will_ see him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s

off.’

‘Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?’

‘Ay! I mean,’ said Mr. Childers, with a nod, ‘that he has cut. He was

goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed

to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he

can’t stand it.’

‘Why has he been—so very much—Goosed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the

word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance.

‘His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,’ said Childers.

‘He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of

_them_.’

‘A Cackler!’ Bounderby repeated. ‘Here we go again!’

‘A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,’ said Mr. E. W. B.

Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder,

and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair—which all shook at

once. ‘Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to

know that his daughter knew of his being goosed, than to go through with

it.’

‘Good!’ interrupted Mr. Bounderby. ‘This is good, Gradgrind! A man so

fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is devilish good!

Ha! ha! Now, I’ll tell you what, young man. I haven’t always occupied

my present station of life. I know what these things are. You may be

astonished to hear it, but my mother—ran away from _me_.’

E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all astonished to

hear it.

‘Very well,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran

away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever excused her for

it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her probably the very

worst woman that ever lived in the world, except my drunken grandmother.

There’s no family pride about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental

humbug about me. I call a spade a spade; and I call the mother of Josiah

Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favour, what I should call

her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this

man. He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that’s what he is, in

English.’

‘It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English

or whether in French,’ retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers, facing about. ‘I

am telling your friend what’s the fact; if you don’t like to hear it, you

can avail yourself of the open air. You give it mouth enough, you do;

but give it mouth in your own building at least,’ remonstrated E. W. B.

with stern irony. ‘Don’t give it mouth in this building, till you’re

called upon. You have got some building of your own I dare say, now?’

‘Perhaps so,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and laughing.

‘Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?’ said

Childers. ‘Because this isn’t a strong building, and too much of you

might bring it down!’

Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, as from

a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind.

‘Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was

seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, and a bundle tied

up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never believe it of him,

but he has cut away and left her.’

‘Pray,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘why will she never believe it of him?’

‘Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder. Because,

up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her,’ said Childers, taking a

step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Master

Kidderminster walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart

than the general run of men, and with a very knowing assumption of being

stiff in the knees. This walk was common to all the male members of

Sleary’s company, and was understood to express, that they were always on

horseback.

‘Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,’ said Childers, giving

his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box. ‘Now, he

leaves her without anything to take to.’

‘It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to express

that opinion,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly.

‘_I_ never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year old.’

‘Oh! Indeed?’ said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been

defrauded of his good opinion. ‘I was not aware of its being the custom

to apprentice young persons to—’

‘Idleness,’ Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. ‘No, by the Lord

Harry! Nor I!’

‘Her father always had it in his head,’ resumed Childers, feigning

unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby’s existence, ‘that she was to be taught

the deuce-and-all of education. How it got into his head, I can’t say; I

can only say that it never got out. He has been picking up a bit of

reading for her, here—and a bit of writing for her, there—and a bit of

ciphering for her, somewhere else—these seven years.’

Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, stroked

his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt and a little

hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had sought to conciliate that

gentleman, for the sake of the deserted girl.

‘When Sissy got into the school here,’ he pursued, ‘her father was as

pleased as Punch. I couldn’t altogether make out why, myself, as we were

not stationary here, being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose,

however, he had this move in his mind—he was always half-cracked—and then

considered her provided for. If you should happen to have looked in

to-night, for the purpose of telling him that you were going to do her

any little service,’ said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and

repeating his look, ‘it would be very fortunate and well-timed; very

fortunate and well-timed.’

‘On the contrary,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I came to tell him that her

connections made her not an object for the school, and that she must not

attend any more. Still, if her father really has left her, without any

connivance on her part—Bounderby, let me have a word with you.’

Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his equestrian

walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood stroking his face,

and softly whistling. While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in

Mr. Bounderby’s voice as ‘No. _I_ say no. I advise you not. I say by

no means.’ While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone

the words, ‘But even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which

has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. Think

of it, Bounderby, in that point of view.’

Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s company gradually gathered

together from the upper regions, where they were quartered, and, from

standing about, talking in low voices to one another and to Mr. Childers,

gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room. There were two or

three handsome young women among them, with their two or three husbands,

and their two or three mothers, and their eight or nine little children,

who did the fairy business when required. The father of one of the

families was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the

families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often

made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the

apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling

casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins,

ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. All the

mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and the tight-rope,

and perform rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; none of them were at all

particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a

Greek chariot, drove six in hand into every town they came to. They all

assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their

private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic

arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have

produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable

gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for

any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity

one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much

generous construction, as the every-day virtues of any class of people in

the world.

Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with

one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like

the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a

muddled head which was never sober and never drunk.

‘Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose

breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s, ‘Your thervant!

Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You’ve heard of my Clown

and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?’

He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered ‘Yes.’

‘Well, Thquire,’ he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining

with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. ‘Ith

it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?’

‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,’ said Mr.

Gradgrind.

‘Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any

more than I want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to take her prentith,

though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and

not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if you’d been chilled and

heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath

young, ath often ath I have been, _your_ voithe wouldn’t have lathted

out, Thquire, no more than mine.’

‘I dare say not,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.

‘What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it

a name, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease.

‘Nothing for me, I thank you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.

‘Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you

haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.’

Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who

had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve,

which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire

to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies—cried, ‘Father, hush!

she has come back!’ Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she

had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their

looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and

took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady

(herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her,

and to weep over her.

‘Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,’ said Sleary.

‘O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone

to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I am

sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor

father, until you come back!’ It was so pathetic to hear her saying many

things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched

out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it,

that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the

case in hand.

‘Now, good people all,’ said he, ‘this is wanton waste of time. Let the

girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have

been run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! Your father has

absconded—deserted you—and you mustn’t expect to see him again as long as

you live.’

They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that

advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being

impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they took it in

extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered ‘Shame!’ and the women ‘Brute!’

and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to Mr.

Bounderby.

‘I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that

you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good natur’d

people, my people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their

movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned if I don’t

believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.’

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind

found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject.

‘It is of no moment,’ said he, ‘whether this person is to be expected

back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and there is no

present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on all

hands.’

‘Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that!’ From Sleary.

‘Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl,

Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in

consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not

enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am

prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing

to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you.

The only condition (over and above your good behaviour) I make is, that

you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also,

that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no

more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations

comprise the whole of the case.’

‘At the thame time,’ said Sleary, ‘I mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho

that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you like,

Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know

your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you’re a lying at prethent,

would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine would be a thithter to you. I

don’t pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what,

when you mith’d your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath

or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad

tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at

him went, and that I don’t expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of

life, with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and I have

thed my thay.’

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who

received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked:

‘The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing

your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical

education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand)

appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that much.’

The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild

crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face

full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the force of the

change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, ‘she will

go!’

‘Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,’ Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; ‘I

say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!’

‘When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting into tears again after

a minute’s silence, ‘how will he ever find me if I go away!’

‘You may be quite at ease,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the

whole matter like a sum: ‘you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score.

In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr.—’

‘Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all over

England, and alwayth paythe ith way.’

‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went. I

should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have

no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown.

I am well known.’

‘Well known,’ assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. ‘You’re one of

the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight of money out of the

houthe. But never mind that at prethent.’

There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands

before her face, ‘Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me

go away before I break my heart!’

The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together—it was

soon done, for they were not many—and to pack them in a basket which had

often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground, still

sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby

stood near the door, ready to take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the

middle of the room, with the male members of the company about him,

exactly as he would have stood in the centre of the ring during his

daughter Josephine’s performance. He wanted nothing but his whip.

The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and

smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed about

her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing

her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and were a

tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether.

‘Now, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘If you are quite determined, come!’

But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and

every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the

professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give

her a parting kiss—Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature

there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to

have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary

was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both

her hands, and would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master

manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid

act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him

crying.

‘Good-bye, my dear!’ said Sleary. ‘You’ll make your fortun, I hope, and

none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. I with

your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have

the dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have

performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!’

With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his

company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to

Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse.

‘There the ith, Thquire,’ he said, sweeping her with a professional

glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, ‘and the’ll do you

juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!’

‘Good-bye, Cecilia!’ ‘Good-bye, Sissy!’ ‘God bless you, dear!’ In a

variety of voices from all the room.

But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her

bosom, and he now interposed with ‘Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large

to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!’

‘No, no!’ she said, in another burst of tears. ‘Oh, no! Pray let me

keep it for father till he comes back! He will want it when he comes

back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me for it. I

must keep it for him, if you please!’

‘Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell,

Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of

your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if,

when you’re grown up and married and well off, you come upon any

horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give

it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People mutht be

amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than

ever, by so much talking; ‘they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they

can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht.

I’ve got my living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I

conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to

you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!’

The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and the

fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, too—soon lost the three

figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.