Chapter 60

CHAPTER 60

The Dangers thicken, and the Worst is told

Instead of going home, Ralph threw himself into the first street
cabriolet he could find, and, directing the driver towards the
police-office of the district in which Mr Squeers's misfortunes had
occurred, alighted at a short distance from it, and, discharging the
man, went the rest of his way thither on foot. Inquiring for the
object of his solicitude, he learnt that he had timed his visit
well; for Mr Squeers was, in fact, at that moment waiting for a
hackney coach he had ordered, and in which he purposed proceeding to
his week's retirement, like a gentleman.

Demanding speech with the prisoner, he was ushered into a kind of
waiting-room in which, by reason of his scholastic profession and
superior respectability, Mr Squeers had been permitted to pass the
day. Here, by the light of a guttering and blackened candle, he
could barely discern the schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in a
remote corner. An empty glass stood on a table before him, which,
with his somnolent condition and a very strong smell of brandy and
water, forewarned the visitor that Mr Squeers had been seeking, in
creature comforts, a temporary forgetfulness of his unpleasant
situation.

It was not a very easy matter to rouse him: so lethargic and heavy
were his slumbers. Regaining his faculties by slow and faint
glimmerings, he at length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow
face, a very red nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of
which was considerably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief,
spotted with blood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under
his chin: stared ruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings
found a vent in this pithy sentence:

'I say, young fellow, you've been and done it now; you have!'

'What's the matter with your head?' asked Ralph.

'Why, your man, your informing kidnapping man, has been and broke
it,' rejoined Squeers sulkily; 'that's what's the matter with it.
You've come at last, have you?'

'Why have you not sent to me?' said Ralph. 'How could I come till I
knew what had befallen you?'

'My family!' hiccuped Mr Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling:
'my daughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-
coming out strong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private
life, and the pride and ornament of a doting willage--here's a shock
for my family! The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their
sun is gone down into the ocean wave!'

'You have been drinking,' said Ralph, 'and have not yet slept
yourself sober.'

'I haven't been drinking YOUR health, my codger,' replied Mr
Squeers; 'so you have nothing to do with that.'