‘I thought you couldn’t make ’em,’ interrupted Bounderby.
‘Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes and I should feel sensible of your delicacy, and grateful for it, if you would spare me these references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our conversation with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in connecting him with mine.’
‘I never mentioned his name!’ said Bounderby.
‘Well, well!’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive, air. And he sat for a little while pondering. ‘Bounderby, I see reason to doubt whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.’
‘Who do you mean by We?’
‘Let me say I, then,’ he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted question; ‘I doubt whether I have understood Louisa. I doubt whether I have been quite right in the manner of her education.’
‘There you hit it,’ returned Bounderby. ‘There I agree with you. You have found it out at last, have you? Education! I’ll tell you what education is—To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the shortest allowance of everything except blows. That’s what I call education.’
‘I think your good sense will perceive,’ Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in all humility, ‘that whatever the merits of such a system may be, it would be difficult of general application to girls.’
‘I don’t see it at all, sir,’ returned the obstinate Bounderby.
‘Well,’ sighed Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we will not enter into the question. I assure you I have no desire to be controversial. I seek to repair what is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good spirit, Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.’