In which another old Friend encounters Smike,very opportunely and to some Purpose.

　　The night, fraught with so much bitterness to one poor soul,had given place to a bright and cloudless summermorning, when a north-country mail-coach traversed, withcheerful noise, the yet silent streets of Islington, and, giving brisknote of its approach with the lively winding of the guard’s horn,clattered onward to its halting-place hard by the Post Office.

　　The only outside passenger was a burly, honest-lookingcountryman on the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome ofSt Paul’s Cathedral, appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, as tobe quite insensible to all the bustle of getting out the bags andparcels, until one of the coach windows being let sharply down, helooked round, and encountered a pretty female face which wasjust then thrust out.

　　‘See there, lass!’ bawled the countryman, pointing towards theobject of his admiration. ‘There be Paul’s Church. ‘Ecod, he be asoizable ’un, he be.’

　　‘Goodness, John! I shouldn’t have thought it could have beenhalf the size. What a monster!’

　　‘Monsther!—Ye’re aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs Browdie,’

　　said the countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down inhis huge top-coat; ‘and wa’at dost thee tak yon place to be noo—thot ’un owor the wa’? Ye’d never coom near it ’gin you thried fortwolve moonths. It’s na’ but a Poast Office! Ho! ho! They need to charge for dooble-latthers. A Poast Office! Wa’at dost thee think o’

　　thot? ’Ecod, if thot’s on’y a Poast Office, I’d loike to see where theLord Mayor o’ Lunnun lives.’

　　So saying, John Browdie—for he it was—opened the coach-door, and tapping Mrs Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek ashe looked in, burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.

　　‘Weel!’ said John. ‘Dang my bootuns if she bean’t asleep agean!’

　　‘She’s been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for aminute or two now and then,’ replied John Browdie’s choice, ‘andI was very sorry when she woke, for she has been so cross!’

　　The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, somuffled in shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter ofimpossibility to guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet andgreen veil which ornamented the head, and which, having beencrushed and flattened, for two hundred and fifty miles, in thatparticular angle of the vehicle from which the lady’s snores nowproceeded, presented an appearance sufficiently ludicrous to havemoved less risible muscles than those of John Browdie’s ruddyface.

　　‘Hollo!’ cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil.

　　‘Coom, wakken oop, will ’ee?’

　　After several burrowings into the old corner, and manyexclamations of impatience and fatigue, the figure struggled into asitting posture; and there, under a mass of crumpled beaver, andsurrounded by a semicircle of blue curl-papers, were the delicatefeatures of Miss Fanny Squeers.

　　‘Oh, ’Tilda!’ cried Miss Squeers, ‘how you have been kicking ofme through this blessed night!’

　　‘Well, I do like that,’ replied her friend, laughing, ‘when you have had nearly the whole coach to yourself.’

　　‘Don’t deny it, ’Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, impressively, ‘becauseyou have, and it’s no use to go attempting to say you haven’t. Youmightn’t have known it in your sleep, ’Tilda, but I haven’t closedmy eyes for a single wink, and so I think I am to be believed.’

　　With which reply, Miss Squeers adjusted the bonnet and veil,which nothing but supernatural interference and an uttersuspension of nature’s laws could have reduced to any shape orform; and evidently flattering herself that it looked uncommonlyneat, brushed off the sandwich-crumbs and bits of biscuit whichhad accumulated in her lap, and availing herself of John Browdie’sproffered arm, descended from the coach.

　　‘Noo,’ said John, when a hackney coach had been called, andthe ladies and the luggage hurried in, ‘gang to the Sarah’s Head,mun.’

　　‘To the vere?’ cried the coachman.

　　‘Lawk, Mr Browdie!’ interrupted Miss Squeers. ‘The idea!

　　Saracen’s Head.’

　　‘Sure-ly,’ said John, ‘I know’d it was something aboot Sarah’sSon’s Head. Dost thou know thot?’

　　‘Oh, ah! I know that,’ replied the coachman gruffly, as hebanged the door.

　　‘‘Tilda, dear, really,’ remonstrated Miss Squeers, ‘we shall betaken for I don’t know what.’

　　‘Let them tak’ us as they foind us,’ said John Browdie; ‘wedean’t come to Lunnun to do nought but ‘joy oursel, do we?’

　　‘I hope not, Mr Browdie,’ replied Miss Squeers, lookingsingularly dismal.

　　‘Well, then,’ said John, ‘it’s no matther. I’ve only been a married man fower days, ‘account of poor old feyther deein, and puttin’ itoff. Here be a weddin’ party—broide and broide’s-maid, and thegroom—if a mun dean’t ’joy himsel noo, when ought he, hey? Dratit all, thot’s what I want to know.’

　　So, in order that he might begin to enjoy himself at once, andlose no time, Mr Browdie gave his wife a hearty kiss, andsucceeded in wresting another from Miss Squeers, after amaidenly resistance of scratching and struggling on the part ofthat young lady, which was not quite over when they reached theSaracen’s Head.

　　Here, the party straightway retired to rest; the refreshment ofsleep being necessary after so long a journey; and here they metagain about noon, to a substantial breakfast, spread by direction ofMr John Browdie, in a small private room upstairs commandingan uninterrupted view of the stables.

　　To have seen Miss Squeers now, divested of the brown beaver,the green veil, and the blue curl-papers, and arrayed in all thevirgin splendour of a white frock and spencer, with a white muslinbonnet, and an imitative damask rose in full bloom on the insidethereof—her luxuriant crop of hair arranged in curls so tight thatit was impossible they could come out by any accident, and herbonnet-cap trimmed with little damask roses, which might besupposed to be so many promising scions of the big rose—to haveseen all this, and to have seen the broad damask belt, matchingboth the family rose and the little roses, which encircled herslender waist, and by a happy ingenuity took off from theshortness of the spencer behind,—to have beheld all this, and tohave taken further into account the coral bracelets (rather short ofbeads, and with a very visible black string) which clasped her wrists, and the coral necklace which rested on her neck,supporting, outside her frock, a lonely cornelian heart, typical ofher own disengaged affections—to have contemplated all thesemute but expressive appeals to the purest feelings of our nature,might have thawed the frost of age, and added new andinextinguishable fuel to the fire of youth.

　　The waiter was touched. Waiter as he was, he had humanpassions and feelings, and he looked very hard at Miss Squeers ashe handed the muffins.

　　‘Is my pa in, do you know?’ asked Miss Squeers with dignity.

　　‘Beg your pardon, miss?’

　　‘My pa,’ repeated Miss Squeers; ‘is he in?’

　　‘In where, miss?’

　　‘In here—in the house!’ replied Miss Squeers. ‘My pa—MrWackford Squeers—he’s stopping here. Is he at home?’

　　‘I didn’t know there was any gen’l’man of that name in thehouse, miss’ replied the waiter. ‘There may be, in the coffee-room.’

　　May Be. Very pretty this, indeed! Here was Miss Squeers, whohad been depending, all the way to London, upon showing herfriends how much at home she would be, and how much respectfulnotice her name and connections would excite, told that her fathermight be there! ‘As if he was a feller!’ observed Miss Squeers, withemphatic indignation.

　　‘Ye’d betther inquire, mun,’ said John Browdie. ‘An’ hond upanother pigeon-pie, will ’ee? Dang the chap,’ muttered John,looking into the empty dish as the waiter retired; ‘does he ca’ this apie—three yoong pigeons and a troifling matther o’ steak, and acrust so loight that you doant know when it’s in your mooth andwhen it’s gane? I wonder hoo many pies goes to a breakfast!’

　　 After a short interval, which John Browdie employed upon theham and a cold round of beef, the waiter returned with anotherpie, and the information that Mr Squeers was not stopping in thehouse, but that he came there every day and that directly hearrived, he should be shown upstairs. With this, he retired; and hehad not retired two minutes, when he returned with Mr Squeersand his hopeful son.

　　‘Why, who’d have thought of this?’ said Mr Squeers, when hehad saluted the party and received some private familyintelligence from his daughter.

　　‘Who, indeed, pa!’ replied that young lady, spitefully. ‘But yousee ’Tilda is married at last.’

　　‘And I stond threat for a soight o’ Lunnun, schoolmeasther,’

　　said John, vigorously attacking the pie.

　　‘One of them things that young men do when they get married,’

　　returned Squeers; ‘and as runs through with their money likenothing at all! How much better wouldn’t it be now, to save it upfor the eddication of any little boys, for instance! They come onyou,’ said Mr Squeers in a moralising way, ‘before you’re aware ofit; mine did upon me.’

　　‘Will ’ee pick a bit?’ said John.

　　‘I won’t myself,’ returned Squeers; ‘but if you’ll just let littleWackford tuck into something fat, I’ll be obliged to you. Give ithim in his fingers, else the waiter charges it on, and there’s lot ofprofit on this sort of vittles without that. If you hear the waitercoming, sir, shove it in your pocket and look out of the window,d’ye hear?’

　　‘I’m awake, father,’ replied the dutiful Wackford.

　　‘Well,’ said Squeers, turning to his daughter, ‘it’s your turn to be married next. You must make haste.’

　　‘Oh, I’m in no hurry,’ said Miss Squeers, very sharply.

　　‘No, Fanny?’ cried her old friend with some archness.

　　‘No, ’Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, shaking her headvehemently. ‘I can wait.’

　　‘So can the young men, it seems, Fanny,’ observed MrsBrowdie.

　　‘They an’t draw’d into it by me, ’Tilda,’ retorted Miss Squeers.