Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with
an angry start.

"Come!" said he, "I don't want to be told
about that. I know what I took her for, as
well as you do. Never you mind what
I took her for; that's my look-out."

"I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby,
that we may all be more or less in the wrong,
not even excepting you; and that some yielding
on your part, remembering the trust you
have accepted, may not only be an act of true
kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards
Louisa."

"I think differently," blustered Bounderby;
"I am going to finish this business according
to my own opinions. Now, I don't want to
make a quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind.
To tell you the truth, I don't think it would be
worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a
subject. As to your gentleman-friend, he may
take himself off, wherever he likes best.
If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my
mind; if he don't fall in my way, I sha'nt, for
it won't be worth my while to do it. As to
your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby,
and might have done better by leaving Loo
Gradgrind, if she don't come home to morrow,
by twelve o'clock at noon, I shall understand
that she prefers to stay away, and I
shall send her wearing apparel and so forth
over here, and you'll take charge of her for
the future. What I shall say to people in
general, of the incompatibility that led to my
so laying down the law, will be this. I am
Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up;
she's the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and
she had her bringing-up; and the two horses
would'nt pull together. I am pretty well
known to be rather an uncommon man, I
believe; and most people will understand fast
enough that it must be a woman rather out
of the common also, who in the long run, would
come up to my mark."

"Let me seriously entreat you to re-consider
this, Bounderby," urged Mr. Gradgrind,
"before you commit yourself to such a decision."

"I always come to a decision," said
Bounderby, tossing his hat on; "and whatever I do,
I do at once. I should be surprised at Tom
Gradgrind's addressing such a remark to
Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing
what he knows of him, if I could be surprised
by anything Tom Gradgrind did, after his
making himself a party to sentimental humbug.
I have given you my decision, and I have got
no more to say. Good night!"

So, Mr. Bounderby went home to his town-
house to bed. At five minutes past twelve o'clock
next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby's
property to be carefully packed up and sent to
Tom Gradgrind's; advertised his country
retreat for sale by private contract; and
resumed a bachelor life.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE robbery at the Bank had not
languished before, and did not cease to occupy a
front place in the attention of the principal
of that establishment now. In boastful proof
of his promptitude and activity, as a remarkable
man, and a self-made man, and a
commercial wonder more admirable than Venus,
who had risen out of the mud instead of the
sea, he liked to show how little his domestic
affairs abated his business ardor.
Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed
bachelorhood, he even advanced upon his
usual display of bustle, and every day made
such a rout in renewing his investigations
into the robbery, that the officers who had
it in hand almost wished it had never been
committed.

They were at fault too, and off the scent.
Although they had been so quiet since the first
outbreak of the matter, that most people
really did suppose it to have been abandoned
as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No
implicated man or woman took untimely
courage, or made a self-betraying step. More
remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not
be heard of, and the mysterious old woman
remained a mystery.

Things having come to this pass, and showing
no latent signs of stirring beyond it, the
upshot of Mr. Bounderby's investigations
was, that he resolved to hazard a bold burst.
He drew up a placard, offering Twenty
Pounds reward for the apprehension of
Stephen Blackpool, suspected of complicity in
the robbery of the Coketown Bank on such
a night; he described the said Stephen
Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated
height, and manner, as minutely as he could;
he recited how he had left the town, and in
what direction he had been last seen going;
he had the whole printed in great black letters
on a staring broadsheet; and he caused the
walls to be posted with it in the dead of
night, so that it should strike upon the
sight of the whole population at one
blow.

The factory-bells had need to ring their
loudest that morning to disperse the groups of
workers who stood in the tardy daybreak,
collected round the placards, devouring them
with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the eyes
assembled, were the eyes of those who could
not read. These people, as they listened to
the friendly voice that read aloud — there
was always some such ready to help them —
stared at the characters which meant so much
with a vague awe and respect that would have
been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public
ignorance could ever be otherwise than
threatening and full of evil. Many ears and
eyes were busy with a vision of the matter of
these placards, among turning spindles, rattling
looms, and whirring wheels, for hours afterwards;
and when the Hands cleared out
again into the streets, there were still as many
readers as before.

Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address
his audience too that night; and Slackbridge
had obtained a clean bill from the printer,