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376 Mr. Squeers suddenly tugged at the check string with all his might, and cried, "Stop!"

"What are you pulling a man's arm off for?" said the coachman, looking angrily down.

"That's the house," replied Squeers. "The second of them four little houses, one story high, with the green shutters—there's a brass plate on the door with the name of Snawley."

"Couldn't you say that, without wrenching a man's limbs off his body?" inquired the coachman.

"No!" bawled Mr. Squeers. "Say another word, and I'll summons you for having a broken winder. Stop!"

Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr. Snawley's door. Mr. Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and sanctified gentleman who confided two sons {in law) to the parental care of Mr. Squeers, as narrated in the fourth chapter of this history. Mr. Snawley's house was on the extreme borders of some new settlements adjoining Somers Town, and Mr. Squeers had taken lodgings therein for a short time as his stay was longer than usual, and the Saracen, having experience of Master Wackford's appetite, had declined to receive him on any other terms than as a full-grown customer.

"Here we are!" said Squeers, hurrying Smike into the little parlour, where Mr. Snawley and his wife were taking a lobster supper. "Here's the vagrant—the felon—the rebel—the monster of unthankfulness."

"What! The boy that run away!" cried Snawley, resting his knife and fork upright on the table, and opening his eyes to their full width.

"The very boy," said Squeers, putting his fist close to Smike's nose, and drawing it away again, and repeating the process several times with a vicious aspect. "If there wasn't a lady present, I'd fetch him such a——: never mind, I'll owe it him."

And here Mr. Squeers related how, and in what manner, and when and where, he had picked up the runaway.

"It's clear that there has been a Providence in it, sir," said Mr. Snawley, casting down his eyes with an air of humility, and elevating his fork with a bit of lobster on the top of it towards the ceiling.

"Providence is against him, no doubt," replied Mr. Squeers, scratching his nose. "Of course, that was to be expected. Anybody might have known that."

"Hard-heartedness and evil-doing will never prosper, sir," said Mr. Snawley.

"Never was such a thing known," rejoined Squeers, taking a roll of notes from his pocket-book, to see that they were all safe.

"I have been, Mrs. Snawley," said Mr. Squeers, when he had satisfied himself upon this point, "I have been that chap's benefactor, feeder, teacher, and clother. I have been that chap's classical, commercial, mathematical, philosophical, and trigonomical friend. My son—my only son, Wackford—has been his brother; Mrs. Squeers has been his mother, grandmother, aunt,—Ah! and I may say uncle too, all in one. She never cottoned to anybody except them two engaging and delightful boys of yours, as she cottoned to this chap. What's my