but I thuppothe I may conthider thith to be Miss Thquire.”

“This is his sister. Yes.”

“And t’ other on’th daughter. That’h what I mean. Hope I thee you well, mith. And I hope the Thquire’th well?”

“My father will be here soon,” said Louisa, anxious to bring him to the point. “Is my brother safe?”

“Thafe and thound!” he replied. “I want you jutht to take a peep at the Ring, mith, through here. Thethilia, you know the dodgeth; find a thpy-hole for yourthelf.”

They each looked through a chink in the boards.

“That’th Jack the Giant-killer—piethe of comic infant bithnith,” said Sleary. “There’th a property-houthe, you thee, for Jack to hide in; there’th my Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a thpit, for Jack’th thervant; there’th little Jack himthelf in a thplendid thoot of armour; there’th two comic black thervanth twithe ath big ath the houthe, to thtand by it and bring it in and clear it; and the Giant (a very ecthpenthive bathket one), he an’t on yet. Now, do you thee ’em all?”

“Yes,” they both said.

“Look at ’em again,” said Sleary, “look at ’em well. You thee ’em all? Very good. Now, mith”—he put a form for them to sit on—“I have my opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath hith. I don’t want to know what your brother’th been up to; ith better for me not to know. All I thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the Thquire. Your brother ith one o’ them black thervanth.”

Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of satisfaction.

“Ith a fact,” said Sleary, “and even knowin’ it you couldn’t put your finger on him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep your brother here after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint off. Let the Thquire come here after the performanth, or come here yourthelf after the performanth, and you thall find your brother, and have the whole plathe to talk to him in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long ath he’th well hid.”

Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary no longer then. She left her love for her brother, with her eyes full of tears, and she and Sissy went away until later in the afternoon.

Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He, too, had encountered no one whom he knew, and was now sanguine, with Sleary’s assistance, of getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of the three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any disguise, he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most speedily and privately dispatched.

This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite vacated—not only by the audience, but by the company and by the horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit down by the side-door, smoking, as if that were his signal that they might approach.

“Your thervant, Thquire,” was his cautious salutation as they passed in. “If you want me you’ll find me here. You muthn’t mind your thon having a comic livery on.”

They all three went in, and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the Clown’s performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to call his son.

In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, knee-breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing fitting him, and everything of coarse material, moth-eaten and full of holes; with the seams in his black face, where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition daubed all over it—anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other means have believed in, weighable and measureable fact though it was. And one of his model children had come to this!

At first the whelp would not draw any nearer but persisted in remaining up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any concession so sullenly made can be called yielding, to the entreaties of Sissy—for Louisa he disowned altogether—he came down,