The schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these words in a fierce whisper, when the stranger entered. Affecting not to see him, Mr Squeers feigned to be intent upon mending a pen, and offering benevolent advice to his youthful pupil.

`My dear child,' said Mr Squeers, `all people have their trials. This early trial of yours that is fit to make your little heart burst, and your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is it? Nothing; less than nothing. You are leaving your friends, but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs Squeers. At the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries --'

`It is the gentleman,' observed the stranger, stopping the schoolmaster in the rehearsal of his advertisement. `Mr Squeers, I believe, sir?'

`The same, sir,' said Mr Squeers, with an assumption of extreme surprise.

`The gentleman,' said the stranger, `that advertised in the Times newspaper?'

`-- Morning Post, Chronicle, Herald, and Advertiser, regarding the Academy called Dotheboys Hall at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire,' added Mr Squeers. `You come on business, sir. I see by my young friends. How do you do, my little gentleman? and how do you do, sir?' With this salutation Mr Squeers patted the heads of two hollow-eyed, small-boned little boys, whom the applicant had brought with him, and waited for further communications.

`I am in the oil and colour way. My name is Snawley, sir,' said the stranger.

Squeers inclined his head as much as to say, `And a remarkably pretty name, too.'

The stranger continued. `I have been thinking, Mr Squeers, of placing my two boys at your school.'

`It is not for me to say so, sir,' replied Mr Squeers, `but I don't think you could possibly do a better thing.'

`Hem!' said the other. `Twenty pounds per annewum, I believe, Mr Squeers?'

`Guineas,' rejoined the schoolmaster, with a persuasive smile.

`Pounds for two, I think, Mr Squeers,' said Mr Snawley, solemnly.

`I don't think it could be done, sir,' replied Squeers, as if he had never considered the proposition before. `Let me see; four fives is twenty, double that, and deduct the -- well, a pound either way shall not stand betwixt us. You must recommend me to your connection, sir, and make it up that way.'

`They are not great eaters,' said Mr Snawley.

`Oh! that doesn't matter at all,' replied Squeers. `We don't consider the boys' appetites at our establishment.' This was strictly true; they did not.

`Every wholesome luxury, sir, that Yorkshire can afford,' continued Squeers; `every beautiful moral that Mrs Squeers can instil; every -- in short, every comfort of a home that a boy could wish for, will be theirs, Mr Snawley.'

`I should wish their morals to be particularly attended to,' said Mr Snawley.

`I am glad of that, sir,' replied the schoolmaster, drawing himself up. `They have come to the right shop for morals, sir.'

`You are a moral man yourself,' said Mr Snawley.