No More Learning

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CHARLES DICKENS
4635
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL
From Hard Times'
"Now
ow what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls
nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant
nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only
form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else
will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on
which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on
which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir! "
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-
room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observa-
tions by underscoring every sentence with a line on the school-
master's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base,
while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves,
overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the
speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The em-
phasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible,
dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of
firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely
warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's
obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,-
nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with
an unaccommodating grasp like a stubborn fact, as it was,-all
helped the emphasis.
"In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but
Facts! "
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown per-
son present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the in-
clined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order,
ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until
they were full to the brim.
THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts
and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that
two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be
talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir,


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4636
CHARLES DICKENS
- peremptorily Thomas,-Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and
a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket,
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of
figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get
some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind,
or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind
(all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of
Thomas Gradgrind-no, sir!
In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced him-
self, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the pub-
lic in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words
"boys and girls," for "sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented
Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to
be filled so full of facts.
Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage
before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the
muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the
regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing
apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for
the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.
"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing
with his square forefinger; "I don't know that girl. Who is that
girl? "
"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, stand-
ing up, and courtesying.
"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Don't call
yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia. "
"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl
in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy.
"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind.
"Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is
your father? »
"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir. "
Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable call-
ing with his hand.
"We don't want to know anything about that here. You
mustn't tell us about that here. Your father breaks horses,
don't he? "
"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do
break horses in the ring, sir. "


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CHARLES DICKENS
4637
"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then.
Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses,
I dare say? "
"Oh yes, sir. "
"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and
horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse. "
(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand. )
«< Girl number twenty unable to define a horse! " said Mr.
Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers.
"Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one
of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse.
Bitzer, yours. "
The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly
on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of
sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the
intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and
girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies,
divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at
the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the begin-
ning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row
on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But
whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she
seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-
haired that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what
little color he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have
been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing
them into immediate contrast with something paler than them-
selves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have
been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead
and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural
tinge, that he looked as though if he were cut he would bleed
white.
"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind.
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-
four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in
the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard,
but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known
mouth. " Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
by marks in
horse. "
"Your definition of a


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4638
CHARLES DICKENS
"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know
what a horse is. "
She courtesied again, and would have blushed deeper, if she
could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time.
Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both
eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends
of lashes that they looked like the antennæ of busy insects, put
his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again.
The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at
cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way
(and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always in
training, always with a system to force down the general throat
like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little
Public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic
phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch,
wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly cus-
tomer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with
his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore
his opponent (he always fought All England) to the ropes, and
fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out
of common-sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the
call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to
bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commis-
sioners should reign upon earth.
"Very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and fold-
ing his arms. "That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls
and boys, Would you paper a room with representations of
horses ? »
After a pause one-half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes,
sir! " Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face
that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "No, sir! "
custom is in these examinations.
as the
"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you? "
A pause.
One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of
breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a
room at all, but would paint it.
"You must paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly.
"You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you
like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do
you mean, boy? "


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CHARLES DICKENS
4639
"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another
and dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with repre-
sentations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and
down the sides of rooms in reality-in fact?
- in fact? Do you? "
"Yes, sir! " from one-half. "No, sir! " from the other.
"Of course no," said the gentleman, with an indignant look
at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere
what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what
you don't have in fact. What is called Taste is only another
name for Fact. "
Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.
"This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said
the gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again.
"Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were
going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a rep-
resentation of flowers upon it? "
There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir! »
was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of
No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes;
among them Sissy Jupe.
"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the
calm strength of knowledge.
Sissy blushed, and stood up.
"So you would carpet your room or your husband's room,
if you were
a grown woman, and had a husband-with repre-
sentations of flowers, would you? " said the gentleman. "Why
would you? "
"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the
girl.
-
"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon
them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots? "
"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither,
if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very
pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy-
>>>
"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman,
quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it!
are never to fancy. "
You
"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly
repeated, "to do anything of that kind. "
And "Fact, fact,
"Fact, fact, fact! " said the gentleman.
fact! " repeated Thomas Gradgrind.


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4640
CHARLES DICKENS
"You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said
the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board
of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the
people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You
must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to
do with it. You are not to have in any object of use or orna-
ment what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk
upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers
in carpets.
You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come
and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint
foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never
meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not
have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said
the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modi-
fications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures, which are
susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discov-
ery. This is fact. This is taste. "
The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and
she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact pros-
pect the world afforded.
"Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild," said the gentleman, "will
proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be
happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure. "
Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. "Mr. M'Choakumchild, we
only wait for you.
So Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and
some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately
turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same prin-
ciples, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through
an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody,
biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the
sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and
leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the
ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way
into her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's Schedule B,
and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics
and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He
knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever
they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the


## p. 4641 (#435) ###########################################

CHARLES DICKENS
4641
names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions,
manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their bounda-
ries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass.
Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a
little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much
more!
He went to work in this preparatory lesson not unlike Mor-
giana in the 'Forty Thieves': looking into all the vessels ranged
before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say,
good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store thou shalt
fill each jar brim-full, by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt.
always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within-or some-
times only maim him and distort him!
THE BOY AT MUGBY
From Mugby Junction'
AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am.
I
You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think
you do.
I think you must. Look here. I am the Boy at
what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and
what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal
being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often
counted 'em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven
ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the
nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic
object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen,
according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents,
which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveler by
a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and
lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye-you
ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby,
for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try
to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner
to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of
your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you
can possibly bear it.
That's me.
VIII-201


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4642
CHARLES DICKENS
What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are,
at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young
ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the
young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it
mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em.
Why,
I originally come into the business meek myself. But Our
Missis, she soon took that out of me.
What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters
as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line.
There's Papers, for instance,- my honorable friend, if he will
allow me to call him so,-him as belongs to Smith's bookstall.
Why, he no more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games
than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at
full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at
limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every
compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a
train, if he was to ventur' to imitate my demeanor. It's the
same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with
the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary,
traffic manager, or very chairman. There ain't a one among 'em
on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch
one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a sys-
tem of surveying the Line through a transparent medium com-
posed of your head and body? I should hope not.
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.
It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice
usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our
young ladies Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it,
betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing them-
selves for the combat. When you're telegraphed you should see
their noses all agoing up with scorn, as if it was a part of the
working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.
You should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the
Beast to be Fed! " and then you should see 'em indignantly
skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer
Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and
chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get
out the-ha, ha, ha! - the Sherry,-O my eye, my eye! - for
your Refreshment.
It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by
which of course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting


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CHARLES DICKENS
4643
is so effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the
public. There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his
hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel
gloss hoff prarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through
him by all, and no other acknowledgment, was a-proceeding at
last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own coun-
try, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bando-
lined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him,
cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down!
I won't allow that! " The foreigner turned pale, stepped back
with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped,
and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed:-"Ah! Is it possible, this!
That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are
placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the
voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives
it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot? "
Another time a merry, wide-awake American gent had tried the
sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that
out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur' upon But-
ter-Scotch, and had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-sur-
veyed through, when as the bell was ringing and he paid Our
Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered:-"I tell Yew what
'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha'
seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the
Atlantic Ocean, and I haive traveled right slick over the Limited,
head on through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France
and Italy Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to the
Chief Europian Village; but such an Institution as Yew, and
Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore
the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found
the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew, and
Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as
aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not abso-
lute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and
Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur - Theer! I la'af!
I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af! " And so he went, stamping and shak-
ing his sides, along the platform all the way to his own com-
partment.
I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as give
Our Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a com-
parison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters


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4644
CHARLES DICKENS
and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave
and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say agin,
Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs.
Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going: for, as they says to
Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the
herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink,
but above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to
prove what is a'ready proved? Our Missis, however (being a
teazer at all pints), stood out grim obstinate, and got a return
pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should
be her dispositions, to Marseilles.
Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant
cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room,
and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind
the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped,
his demeanor towards the public being disgusting servile. How
Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I
don't know; but I suppose he does, and I should think he wished
he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be
much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff
and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff
about when he is let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things.
out of his hands when in his servility he is a-going to let the
public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling
baseness of his spirit he is a-going to answer a public question,
and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard
does, which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't
strong. ) Once when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across
to get the milkpot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in
her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into
the Bandolining Room.
But Mrs. Sniff-how different! She's the one! She's the
one as you'll notice to be always looking another away from you
when you look at her. She's the one with the small waist
buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists,
which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands
a-smoothing while the public foams. This smoothing the cuffs
and looking another way while the public foams is the last
accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby
to be finished by Our Missis; and it's always taught by Mrs.
Sniff.


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CHARLES DICKENS
4645
When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff
was left in charge. She did hold the public in check most beau-
tiful! In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea
given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so
many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it with-
When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say, "Then you'd
better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another. "
It was a most highly delicious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshment-
ing business more than ever, and was so glad I had tock to it
when young.
out.
Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young
ladies, and it, as it might be, penetrated to me through the crev-
ices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if
revelations so contemptible could be dignified with the name.
Agitation become weakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups.
Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on
our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time of
that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views
of foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.
It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining
table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated
on a packing-case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a
tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it.
Two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and
daliahs being in, ornamented the wall with three devices in those.
flowers. On one might be read, "MAY ALBION NEVER LEARN";
on another, "KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN"; on another, "OUR RE-
FRESHMENTING CHARTER. " The whole had a beautiful appearance,
with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.
On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the
fatal platform. (Not that that was anythink new. ) Miss Whiff
and Miss Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting
Room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of
her, on which the pupils was accommodated. Behind them a
very close observer might have discerned a Boy.
"Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is
Myself.
Sniff? "
"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should
not be let come in. He is such an Ass. "
"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it
not desirable to improve his mind? "


## p. 4646 (#440) ###########################################

4646
CHARLES DICKENS
"Oh, nothing will ever improve him," said Mrs. Sniff.
"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel. "
I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was
hailed with disapprobation from all sides, on account of his
having brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force
of habit. "
"The force! " said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking
about force, for Gracious's sake. There! Do stand still where
you are, with your back against the wall. "
He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean
way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance
(language can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near
the door, with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a
waiting for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the
Army.
"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolt-
ing disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope
that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exer-
cise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet
more devoted to the constitutional motto which I see before
me," it was behind her, but the words sounded better so,-
< May Albion never learn! '»
――――――――――
Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried,
"Hear! Hear! Hear! " Sniff, showing an inclination to join in
chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow.
"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis,
«< as dis-
played in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if
not surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the
celebrated Bonaparte. "
Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath,
equal to saying, "We thought as much! " Miss Whiff and Miss
Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I
drored another to aggravate 'em.
"Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes,
"when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that
treacherous shore-"
Here Sniff, either busting out mad, or thinking aloud, says,
in a low voice, "Feet. Plural, you know. "
The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by
all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient
punishment for a cove so groveling. In the midst of a silence


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CHARLES DICKENS
4647
rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with
which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:
"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I
landed," this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treach-
erous shore, then I was ushered into a Refreshment Room
where there were-I do not exaggerate actually eatable things
to eat? "
A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the
honor of jining, but also of lengthening it out.
"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable
things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink? "
Miss Piff,
A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz.
trembling with indignation, called out, Name! "
«<
"I will name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot
and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned
potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask, shall I be cred-
ited? ) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the con-
sumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly;
there was salad; there was-mark me! -fresh pastry, and that
of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit; there
was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size, and
adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply
to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all
could help themselves. "
Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely
less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to
them.
"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional
experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last and
worst. But no.
As I proceeded farther into that enslaved and
ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not ex-
plain to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the
British Refreshment sangwich ? »
Universal laughter,-except from Sniff, who as sangwich-
cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he
stood with it agin the wall.
"Well! " said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils.
"Take a
fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and
best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair
and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon
round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one


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CHARLES DICKENS
end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it.
And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your
disgusted vision. "
A cry of "Shame! " from all
stomach with a soothing hand.
except Sniff, which rubbed his
"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the
usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment room? »
No, no, and laughter; Sniff agin shaking his head in low
spirits agin the wall.
"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general
decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to
easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance
of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a
prevailing cleanliness and tastefulness, postively addressing the
public, and making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains? "
Contemptous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff
looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody
else looking as if they'd rayther not.
"Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly
terrimenjious state, "three times did I
"three times did I see these shameful
things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting
either: at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains.
Tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in
England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby
Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and
dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a
passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at
perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred
miles farther on? "
-
There was disagreement what such a person should be called.
Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (I said him), or Un-English.
Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words, "A
malignant maniac! "
"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a per-
son by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A
malignant maniac. Know, then, that that malignant maniac has
sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant
madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my
journey. "
I noticed that Sniff was rubbing his hands, and that Mrs.
Sniff had got her eye upon him.
But I did not take more


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CHARLES DICKENS
4649
particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young
ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with
a howl.
"On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep
tone, "I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But
fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full
speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing
forward the number of diners. Fancy every one expected, and
the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charm-
ing dinner, in a charming room, and the head cook, concerned
for the honor of every dish, superintending in his clean white
jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast traveling six hundred miles on
end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to
expect all this to be done for it! "
A spirited chorus of "The Beast! "
I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a
soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I
didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to
stimilate public feeling. It being a lark besides.
"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French Re-
freshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total!
First: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink. "
A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.
"Second: convenience, and even elegance. "
Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.
"Third: moderate charges. "
This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies.
"Fourth: - and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angriest
sympathy, attention, common civility, nay, even politeness! "
Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.
"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis with her spite-
fullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable
nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they
wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at
Mugby Junction for a single month, and that they would turn us
to the right-about and put another system in our places as soon
as look at us; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the
good taste to care to look at us twice. "
The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away
by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher
and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his


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CHARLES DICKENS
corkscrew over his head. It was at this moment that Mrs.