rumoured to be wealthy; and a saying had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her money. It was generally considered, indeed, that she had been due some time, and ought to have fallen long ago; but she had kept her life, and her situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that occasioned much offence and disappointment.
Mrs. Sparsit's tea was just set for her on a pert little table, with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she insinuated after office-hours, into the company of the stern, leathern-topped, long board-table that bestrode the middle of the room. The light porter placed the tea-tray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage.
“Thank you, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit.
“Thank you, ma'am,” returned the light porter. He was a very light porter indeed; as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined a horse, for girl number twenty.
“All is shut up, Bitzer?” said Mrs. Sparsit.
“All is shut up, ma'am.”
“And what,” said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, “is the news of the day? Anything?”
“Well, ma'am, I can't say that I have heard anything particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma'am; but that is no news, unfortunately.”
“What are the restless wretches doing now?” asked Mrs. Sparsit.
“Merely going on in the old way, ma'am. Uniting, and leaguing, and engaging to stand by one another.”
“It is much to be regretted,” said Mrs. Sparsit, making her nose more Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength of her severity, “that the united masters allow of any such classcombinations.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Bitzer.
“Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces against employing any man who is united with any other man,” said Mrs. Sparsit.
“They have done that, ma'am,” returned Bitzer; “but it rather fell through, ma'am.”
“I do not pretend to understand these things,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with dignity, “my lot having been signally cast in a widely different sphere; and Mr. Sparsit, as a Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any such dissensions. I only know that these people must be conquered, and that it's high time it was done, once for all.”
“Yes, ma'am,” returned Bitzer, with a demonstration of great respect for Mrs. Sparsit's oracular authority. “You couldn't put it clearer, I am sure, ma'am.”
As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and seen that she was going to ask him something, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her tea, glancing through the open window, down into the street.
“Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?” asked Mrs. Sparsit.
“Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.” He now and then slided into my lady, instead of ma'am, as an involuntary acknowledgment of Mrs. Sparsit's personal dignity and claims to reverence.
“The clerks,” said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left- hand mitten, “are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, of course?”
“Yes, ma'am, pretty fair, ma'am. With the usual exception.”
He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to rise in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he had no affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of the nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young man of the steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man—not a part of man's duty, but the whole.
“Pretty fair, ma'am. With the usual exception, ma'am,” repeated Bitzer.
“Ah—h!” said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her tea-cup, and taking a long gulp.
“Mr. Thomas, ma'am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma'am, I don't like his ways at all.”
“Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, “do you recollect my having said anything to you respecting names?”
“I beg your pardon, ma'am. It's quite true that you did object to names being used, and they're always best avoided.”
“Please to remember that I have a charge here,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with her air of state. “I hold a trust here, Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. However improbable both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it years ago, that he would ever become my patron, making me an annual compliment, I cannot but regard him in that light. From Mr. Bounderby I have received every acknowledgment of my social station, and every recognition of my family descent, that I could possibly expect. More, far more. Therefore, to my patron I will be scrupulously true. And I do not consider, I will not consider, I cannot consider,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with a most extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, “that I should be scrupulously true, if I allowed names to be mentioned under this roof, that are unfortunately—most unfortunately—no doubt of that—connected with his.”
Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged pardon.
“No, Bitzer,” continued Mrs. Sparsit, “say an individual, and I will hear you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must excuse me.”
“With the usual exception, ma'am,” said Bitzer, trying back, “of an individual.”
“Ah—h!” Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the conversation again at the point where it had been interrupted.
“An individual, ma'am,” said Bitzer, “has never been what he ought to have been, since he first came into the place. He is a dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma'am. He wouldn't get it either, if he hadn't a friend and relation at court, ma'am!”
“Ah—h!” said Mrs. Sparsit, with another melancholy shake of her head.
“I only hope, ma'am,” pursued Bitzer, “that his friend and relation may not supply him with the means of carrying on. Otherwise, ma'am, we know out of whose pocket that money comes.”
“Ah—h!” sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with another melancholy shake of her head.
“He is to be pitied, ma'am. The last party I have alluded to, is to be pitied, ma'am,” said Bitzer.
“Yes, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit. “I have always pitied the delusion, always.”
“As to an individual, ma'am,” said Bitzer, dropping his voice and drawing nearer, “he is as improvident as any of the people in this town. And you know what their improvidence is, ma'am. No one could wish to know it better than a lady of your eminence does.”
“They would do well,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “to take example by you, Bitzer.”
“Thank you, ma'am. But, since you do refer to me, now look at me, ma'am. I have put by a little, ma'am, already. That gratuity which I receive at Christmas, ma'am: I never touch it. I don't even go the length of my wages, though they're not high, ma'am. Why can't they do as I have done, ma'am? What one person can do, another can do.”
This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn't each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why don't you go and do it?
“As to their wanting recreations, ma'am,” said Bitzer, “it's stuff and nonsense. I don't want recreations. I never did, and I never shall; I don't like “em. As to their combining together; there are many of them, I have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon one another could earn a trifle now and then, whether in money or good will, and improve their livelihood. Then, why don't they improve it, ma'am! It's the first consideration of a rational creature, and it's what they pretend to want.”
“Pretend indeed!” said Mrs. Sparsit.
