He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell’s hand gently patted me upon the shoulder. I looked up, with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, but Mr. Mell’s eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him.
“Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,” said Steerforth, “and to say what I mean,—what I have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an alms-house.”
Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: “Yes, I thought so.”
Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and labored politeness.
“Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school.”
“He is right, sir, without correction,” returned Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead silence; “what he has said, is true.”
“Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,” said Mr. Creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, “whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?”
“I believe not directly,” he returned.
“Why, you know not,” said Mr. Creakle. “Don’t you, man?”
“I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very good,” replied the assistant. “You know what my position is, and always has been, here.”