in a state of mind so disconsolate that he was already half-disposed to “go in” for something else.

“My name, sir,” said his visitor, “is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown.”

Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected.

“Coketown, sir,” said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, “is not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me—or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man—I’ll tell you something about it before we go any further.”

Mr. Harthouse would be charmed.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said Bounderby. “I don’t promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink to us. It’s the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear ’em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland.”

By way of “going in” to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, “Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Bounderby. “Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I’ll state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re not a-going to do.”

“Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.”

“Lastly,” said Bounderby, “as to our Hands. There’s not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they’re not a-going—none of ’em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place.”

Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question.

“Why, you see,” replied Mr. Bounderby, “it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind’s letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don’t you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.”

If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him.

“So now,” said Bounderby, “we may shake hands on equal terms. I say ‘equal terms’ because, although I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope you’re pretty well.”

The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with favour.

“Perhaps you know,” said he, “or perhaps you don’t know, I married Tom Gradgrind’s daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk up town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.”

“Mr. Bounderby,” said Jem, “you anticipate my dearest wishes.”

They went out without further discourse, and Mr. Bounderby piloted the new acquaintance, who so strongly contrasted with him, to the private red brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds, and the black street-door up the two white steps. In the drawing-room of which mansion there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart humility—from which she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut