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 class-combinations.”

“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 place 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 acknowledgement 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 lefthand 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 pauperize 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.