Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall.

　　Aride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather, isone of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity candevise. Perhaps it is even a sweetener of dreams, for thosewhich hovered over the rough couch of Nicholas, and whisperedtheir airy nothings in his ear, were of an agreeable and happykind. He was making his fortune very fast indeed, when the faintglimmer of an expiring candle shone before his eyes, and a voicehe had no difficulty in recognising as part and parcel of MrSqueers, admonished him that it was time to rise.

　　‘Past seven, Nickleby,’ said Mr Squeers.

　　‘Has morning come already?’ asked Nicholas, sitting up in bed.

　　‘Ah! that has it,’ replied Squeers, ‘and ready iced too. Now,Nickleby, come; tumble up, will you?’

　　Nicholas needed no further admonition, but ‘tumbled up’ atonce, and proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper,which Mr Squeers carried in his hand.

　　‘Here’s a pretty go,’ said that gentleman; ‘the pump’s froze.’

　　‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas, not much interested in the intelligence.

　　‘Yes,’ replied Squeers. ‘You can’t wash yourself this morning.’

　　‘Not wash myself!’ exclaimed Nicholas.

　　‘No, not a bit of it,’ rejoined Squeers tartly. ‘So you must becontent with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in thewell, and can get a bucketful out for the boys. Don’t stand staringat me, but do look sharp, will you?’

　　 Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on hisclothes. Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew thecandle out; when the voice of his amiable consort was heard in thepassage, demanding admittance.

　　‘Come in, my love,’ said Squeers.

　　Mrs Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night-jacketwhich had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previousnight, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of someantiquity, which she wore, with much ease and lightness, on thetop of the nightcap before mentioned.

　　‘Drat the things,’ said the lady, opening the cupboard; ‘I can’tfind the school spoon anywhere.’

　　‘Never mind it, my dear,’ observed Squeers in a soothingmanner; ‘it’s of no consequence.’

　　‘No consequence, why how you talk!’ retorted Mrs Squeerssharply; ‘isn’t it brimstone morning?’

　　‘I forgot, my dear,’ rejoined Squeers; ‘yes, it certainly is. Wepurify the boys’ bloods now and then, Nickleby.’

　　‘Purify fiddlesticks’ ends,’ said his lady. ‘Don’t think, youngman, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone andmolasses, just to purify them; because if you think we carry on thebusiness in that way, you’ll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell youplainly.’

　　‘My dear,’ said Squeers frowning. ‘Hem!’

　　‘Oh! nonsense,’ rejoined Mrs Squeers. ‘If the young man comesto be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don’twant any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone andtreacle, partly because if they hadn’t something or other in theway of medicine they’d be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites and comescheaper than breakfast and dinner. So, it does them good and usgood at the same time, and that’s fair enough I’m sure.’

　　Having given this explanation, Mrs Squeers put her head intothe closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon, in whichMr Squeers assisted. A few words passed between them while theywere thus engaged, but as their voices were partially stifled by thecupboard, all that Nicholas could distinguish was, that Mr Squeerssaid what Mrs Squeers had said, was injudicious, and that MrsSqueers said what Mr Squeers said, was ‘stuff.’

　　A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it provingfruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs Squeers, andboxed by Mr Squeers; which course of treatment brightening hisintellects, enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs Squeers mighthave the spoon in her pocket, as indeed turned out to be the case.

　　As Mrs Squeers had previously protested, however, that she wasquite certain she had not got it, Smike received another box on theear for presuming to contradict his mistress, together with apromise of a sound thrashing if he were not more respectful infuture; so that he took nothing very advantageous by his motion.

　　‘A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby,’ said Squeers whenhis consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before her.

　　‘Indeed, sir!’ observed Nicholas.

　　‘I don’t know her equal,’ said Squeers; ‘I do not know her equal.

　　That woman, Nickleby, is always the same—always the samebustling, lively, active, saving creetur that you see her now.’

　　Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agreeabledomestic prospect thus opened to him; but Squeers was,fortunately, too much occupied with his own reflections to perceive it.

　　‘It’s my way to say, when I am up in London,’ continuedSqueers, ‘that to them boys she is a mother. But she is more than amother to them; ten times more. She does things for them boys,Nickleby, that I don’t believe half the mothers going, would do fortheir own sons.’

　　‘I should think they would not, sir,’ answered Nicholas.

　　Now, the fact was, that both Mr and Mrs Squeers viewed theboys in the light of their proper and natural enemies; or, in otherwords, they held and considered that their business andprofession was to get as much from every boy as could bypossibility be screwed out of him. On this point they were bothagreed, and behaved in unison accordingly. The only differencebetween them was, that Mrs Squeers waged war against theenemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers covered hisrascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual deceit; as if hereally had a notion of someday or other being able to take himselfin, and persuade his own mind that he was a very good fellow.

　　‘But come,’ said Squeers, interrupting the progress of somethoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, ‘let’s go to theschoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?’

　　Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting-jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage; andSqueers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard,to a door in the rear of the house.

　　‘There,’ said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together; ‘thisis our shop, Nickleby!’

　　It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects toattract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the placeresolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a couple ofwindows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainderbeing stopped up with old copy-books and paper. There were acouple of long old rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked, anddamaged, in every possible way; two or three forms; a detacheddesk for Squeers; and another for his assistant. The ceiling wassupported, like that of a barn, by cross-beams and rafters; and thewalls were so stained and discoloured, that it was impossible to tellwhether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash.

　　But the pupils—the young noblemen! How the last faint tracesof hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived fromhis efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as helooked in dismay around! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bonyfigures, children with the countenances of old men, deformitieswith irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and otherswhose long meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies,all crowded on the view together; there were the bleared eye, thehare-lip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion thattold of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring,or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, hadbeen one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There werelittle faces which should have been handsome, darkened with thescowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with thelight of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessnessalone remaining; there were vicious-faced boys, brooding, withleaden eyes, like malefactors in a jail; and there were youngcreatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had descended,weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every kindly sympathyand affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthyfeeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful passionthat can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to their core insilence, what an incipient Hell was breeding here!

　　And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features,which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might haveprovoked a smile. Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks, presidingover an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of whichdelicious compound she administered a large instalment to eachboy in succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon,which might have been originally manufactured for some gigantictop, and which widened every young gentleman’s mouthconsiderably: they being all obliged, under heavy corporalpenalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. In anothercorner, huddled together for companionship, were the little boyswho had arrived on the preceding night, three of them in verylarge leather breeches, and two in old trousers, a somethingtighter fit than drawers are usually worn; at no great distance fromthese was seated the juvenile son and heir of Mr Squeers—astriking likeness of his father—kicking, with great vigour, underthe hands of Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of new bootsthat bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the leastof the little boys had worn on the journey down—as the little boyhimself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriationwith a look of most rueful amazement. Besides these, there was along row of boys waiting, with countenances of no pleasantanticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who had just escapedfrom the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths indicative of anything but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley,ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have beenirresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder,and disease, with which they were associated.

　　‘Now,’ said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane,which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, ‘isthat physicking over?’

　　‘Just over,’ said Mrs Squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry,and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon torestore him. ‘Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!’

　　Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs Squeers havingcalled up a little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands uponit, hurried out after him into a species of wash-house, where therewas a small fire and a large kettle, together with a number of littlewooden bowls which were arranged upon a board.

　　Into these bowls, Mrs Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant,poured a brown composition, which looked like dilutedpincushions without the covers, and was called porridge. A minutewedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and when theyhad eaten their porridge by means of the bread, the boys ate thebread itself, and had finished their breakfast; whereupon MrSqueers said, in a solemn voice, ‘For what we have received, maythe Lord make us truly thankful!’—and went away to his own.

　　Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, formuch the same reason which induces some savages to swallowearth—lest they should be inconveniently hungry when there isnothing to eat. Having further disposed of a slice of bread andbutter, allotted to him in virtue of his office, he sat himself down,to wait for school-time.

　　 He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys allseemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamour of aschoolroom; none of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. Thechildren sat crouching and shivering together, and seemed to lackthe spirit to move about. The only pupil who evinced the slightesttendency towards locomotion or playfulness was Master Squeers,and as his chief amusement was to tread upon the other boys’ toesin his new boots, his flow of spirits was rather disagreeable thanotherwise.

　　After some half-hour’s delay, Mr Squeers reappeared, and theboys took their places and their books, of which latter commoditythe average might be about one to eight learners. A few minuteshaving elapsed, during which Mr Squeers looked very profound,as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all thebooks, and could say every word of their contents by heart if heonly chose to take the trouble, that gentleman called up the firstclass.

　　Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front ofthe schoolmaster’s desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees andelbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath hislearned eye.

　　‘This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy,Nickleby,’ said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him.

　　‘We’ll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then,where’s the first boy?’

　　‘Please, sir, he’s cleaning the back-parlour window,’ said thetemporary head of the philosophical class.

　　‘So he is, to be sure,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We go upon thepractical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-in, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows thisout of book, he goes and does it. It’s just the same principle as theuse of the globes. Where’s the second boy?’

　　‘Please, sir, he’s weeding the garden,’ replied a small voice.

　　‘To be sure,’ said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. ‘So he is.

　　B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive,a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney meansa knowledge of plants, he goes and knows ’em. That’s our system,Nickleby: what do you think of it?’

　　‘It’s very useful one, at any rate,’ answered Nicholas.

　　‘I believe you,’ rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis ofhis usher. ‘Third boy, what’s horse?’

　　‘A beast, sir,’ replied the boy.

　　‘So it is,’ said Squeers. ‘Ain’t it, Nickleby?’

　　‘I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,’ answered Nicholas.

　　‘Of course there isn’t,’ said Squeers. ‘A horse is a quadruped,and quadruped’s Latin for beast, as everybody that’s gone throughthe grammar knows, or else where’s the use of having ............