“I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbour Pullet?” Mr Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant.
“Mr Glegg, I wonder at you,” said his wife. “It’s very unbecoming in a man o’ your age and belongings.”
“What’s unbecoming, Mrs G.?” said Mr Glegg, winking pleasantly at the company. “My new blue coat as I’ve got on?”
“I pity your weakness, Mr Glegg. I say it’s unbecoming to be making a joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin.”
“If you mean me by that,” said Mr Tulliver, considerably nettled, “you needn’t trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own affairs without troubling other folks.”
“Bless me!” said Mr Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, “why, now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send his son—the deformed lad—to a clergyman, didn’t they, Susan?” (appealing to his wife).
“I can give no account of it, I’m sure,” said Mrs Deane, closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs Deane was not a woman to take part in a scene where missiles were flying.
“Well,” said Mr Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully, that Mrs Glegg might see he didn’t mind her, “if Wakem thinks o’ sending his son to a clergyman, depend on it I shall make no mistake i’ sending Tom to one. Wakem’s as big a scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, but he knows the length of every man’s foot he’s got to deal with. Ay, ay, tell me who’s Wakem’s butcher, and I’ll tell you where to get your meat.”
“But lawyer Wakem’s son’s got a hump-back,” said Mrs Pullet, who felt as if the whole business had a funereal aspect; “it’s more nat’ral to send him to a clergyman.”
“Yes,” said Mr Glegg, interpreting Mrs Pullet’s observation with erroneous plausibility, “you must consider that, neighbour Tulliver; Wakem’s son isn’t likely to follow any business. Wakem ’ull make a gentleman of him, poor fellow.”