'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 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 measurable 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, bench by bench,
until he stood in the sawdust, on the verge
of the circle, as far as possible, within its
limits from where his father sat.

"How was this done?" asked the
father.

"How was what done?" moodily answered
the son.

"This robbery," said the father, raising his
voice upon the word.

"I forced the safe myself over night, and
shut it up ajar before I went away. I had
had the key that was found, made long before.
I dropped it that morning, that it might be
supposed to have been used. I did'nt take
the money all at once. I pretended to put
my balance away every night, but I did'nt.
Now you know all about it."

"If a thunderbolt had fallen on me," said
the father, "it would have shocked me less
than this!"

"I don't see why," grumbled the son. "So
many people are employed in situations of
trust; so many people, out of so many, will
be dishonest. I have heard you talk, a
hundred times, of its being a law. How can I
help laws? You have comforted others with
such things, father. Comfort yourself!"

The father buried his face in his hands,
and the son stood in his disgraceful grotesqueness
biting straw: his hands, with the
black partly worn away inside, looking like
the hands of a monkey. The evening was
fast closing in; and, from time to time, he
turned the whites of his eyes restlessly and
impatiently towards his father. They were
the only parts of his face that showed any
life or expression: the pigment upon it was
so thick.

"You must be got to Liverpool, and sent
abroad."

"I suppose I must. I can't be more
miserable anywhere," whimpered the whelp,
"than I have been here, ever since I can
remember. That's one thing."

Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and
returned with Sleary, to whom he submitted
the question, How to get this deplorable
object away?

"Why, I've been thinking of it, Thquire.
There'th not muth time to lothe, tho you
mutht thay yeth or no. Ith over twenty
mileth to the rail. Thereth a coath in half
an hour, that goeth to the rail, 'purpothe to
cath the mail train. That train will take
him right to Liverpool."