Chapter 4 — Chapter 4

‘If you had said I was another father to Tom—young
Tom, I mean, not my friend Tom Gradgrind—you might have
been nearer the mark.  I am going to take young Tom into my
office.  Going to have him under my wing,
ma’am.’

‘Indeed?  Rather young for that, is he not,
sir?’  Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’ in
addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting
consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to
finish his educational cramming before then,’ said
Bounderby.  ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have
enough of it, first and last!  He’d open his eyes,
that boy would, if he knew how empty of learning my young
maw was, at his time of life.’  Which, by the by, he
probably did know, for he had heard of it often enough. 
‘But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on
scores of such subjects, in speaking to any one on equal
terms.  Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this
morning about tumblers.  Why, what do you know about
tumblers?  At the time when, to have been a tumbler in the
mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in
the lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera.  You were
coming out of the Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and
jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn’t a penny to buy
a link to light you.’

my

you

‘I certainly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a
dignity serenely mournful, ‘was familiar with the Italian
Opera at a very early age.’

‘Egad, ma’am, so was I,’ said Bounderby,
‘—with the wrong side of it.  A hard bed the
pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you.  People
like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down
feathers, have no idea how hard a paving-stone is, without
trying it.  No, no, it’s of no use my talking to
you about tumblers.  I should speak of foreign
dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and
ladies and honourables.’