What this purpose was soon appeared; for, after a few turns about the room to steady himself, he took the bottle under his arm and the glass in his hand, and blowing out the candle as if he purposed being gone some time, stole out upon the staircase, and creeping softly to a door opposite his own, tapped gently at it.
‘But what’s the use of tapping?’ he said, ‘She’ll never hear. I suppose she isn’t doing anything very particular; and if she is, it don’t much matter, that I see.’
With this brief preface, Mr. Squeers applied his hand to the latch of the door, and thrusting his head into a garret far more deplorable than that he had just left, and seeing that there was nobody there but an old woman, who was bending over a wretched fire (for although the weather was still warm, the evening was chilly), walked in, and tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Well, my Slider,’ said Mr. Squeers, jocularly.
‘Is that you?’ inquired Peg.
‘Ah! it’s me, and me’s the first person singular, nominative case, agreeing with the verb “it’s”, and governed by Squeers understood, as a acorn, a hour; but when the h is sounded, the a only is to be used, as a and, a art, a ighway,’ replied Mr. Squeers, quoting at random from the grammar. ‘At least, if it isn’t, you don’t know any better, and if it is, I’ve done it accidentally.’
Delivering this reply in his accustomed tone of voice, in which of course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr. Squeers drew a stool to the fire, and placing himself over against her, and the bottle and glass on the floor between them, roared out again, very loud,
‘Well, my Slider!’
‘I hear you,’ said Peg, receiving him very graciously.
‘I’ve come according to promise,’ roared Squeers.