‘It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe?’
‘It was,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I can’t wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with you.’
‘You see, my friend,’ Mr Bounderby put in, ‘we are the kind of people who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people who don’t know the value of time.’
‘I have not,’ retorted Mr Childers, after surveying him from head to foot, ‘the honour of knowing you; – but if you mean that you can make more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your appearance, that you are about right.’
‘And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,’ said Cupid.
‘Kidderminster, stow that!’7said Mr Childers. (Master Kidderminster was Cupid’s mortal name.)
‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. ‘If you want to cheek us, pay your ochre8at the doors and take it out.’
‘Kidderminster,’ said Mr Childers, raising his voice, ‘stow that! – Sir,’ to Mr Gradgrind, ‘I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that Jupe has missed his tip9very often, lately.’
‘Has – what has he missed?’ asked Mr Gradgrind, glancing at the potent Bounderby for assistance.
‘Missed his tip.’
‘Offered at the garters four times last night, and never done ’em once,’ said Master Kidderminster. ‘Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose in his ponging.’10
‘Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling,’ Mr Childers interpreted.
‘Oh!’ said Mr Gradgrind, ‘that is tip, is it?’
‘In a general way that’s missing his tip,’ Mr E. W. B. Childers answered.
‘Nine-oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh!’ ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. ‘Queer sort of company, too, for a man who has raised himself.’
‘Lower yourself, then,’ retorted Cupid. ‘Oh Lord! if you’ve raised yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.’
‘This is a very obtrusive lad!’ said Mr Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.
‘We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were coming,’ retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. ‘It’s a pity you don’t have a bespeak,11being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, ain’t you?’
‘What does this unmannerly boy mean,’ asked Mr Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort of desperation, ‘by Tight-Jeff?’
‘There! Get out, get out!’ said Mr Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the prairie manner. ‘Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, it don’t much signify: it’s only tightrope and slack-rope. You were going to give me a message for Jupe?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Then,’ continued Mr Childers, quickly, ‘my opinion is, he will never receive it. Do you know much of him?’
‘I never saw the man in my life.’
‘I doubt if you ever willsee him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s off.’
‘Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?’
‘Ay! I mean,’ said Mr Childers, with a nod, ‘that he has cut.
He was goosed12last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed today. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can’t stand it.’
‘Why has he been – so very much – Goosed?’ asked Mr Gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance.
‘His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,’ said Childers. ‘He has his points as a Cackler13still, but he can’t get a living out of them.’
‘A Cackler!’ Bounderby repeated. ‘Here we go again!’
‘A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,’ said Mr E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder, and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair – which all shook at once. ‘Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being goosed, than to go through with it.’
‘Good!’ interrupted Mr Bounderby. ‘This is good, Gradgrind! A man so fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is devilish good! Ha! ha! Now, I’ll tell you what, young man. I haven’t always occupied my present station of life. I know what these things are. You may be astonished to hear it, but my mother ran away from me.’
E. W. B.