"Exactly so. So you see the tea-party didn't end quite so pleasantly as it began, and from that moment Nicholas had a bitter enemy in the daughter of his employer."
"That's the way with female craft," said Bill. "What happened next?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Squeers came home, bringing the new boy with them. The first thing they did was to give a whipping all round, to make up for the time they'd been away."
"I wish I'd been there," said Bill, swinging his brawny arms.
"Among the scholars was one, worse treated than the rest, named Smike. He had been with them ever since he was a boy of six or eight, and his friends had deserted him. Mr. Squeers would have cast him off, only he found his work more than paid for the scanty food he ate, so he kept him; but he was so beaten and cuffed, and made to drudge so constantly, that it would have been better for him if he had been turned away. At last he determined to run away."
"Good for him!" said Bill.
"As soon as Mr. Squeers found he was gone, he went after him post haste, and, as the boy was weak and couldn't travel very fast, he soon overtook him, and brought him back, bound hand and foot, in the chaise. He suspected that Nicholas had helped Smike to escape, so he determined to inflict a cruel punishment upon him in presence of his assistant. Accordingly, he armed himself with a large whip, and, calling all the school together, he told Smike to strip, and was just about to lay the whip on his naked back when Nicholas shouted out 'Stop!' Squeers glared round, and said in a fierce voice, 'Who said that?' 'I said it,' said Nicholas; 'I tell you, stop!' Squeers turned white with rage, and threatened to whip Nicholas, also. He was about to commence the punishment, when Nicholas sprang from his seat, and, pulling the whip from his hand, knocked Squeers over, and began to belabor him with his own whip."
"Good!" exclaimed Bill, who had become much interested in the narrative. "I hope he made him scream for mercy."
"So he did, and Nicholas kept on belaboring him, notwithstanding Mrs. Squeers and her daughter went at him tooth and nail, and tried to pull him off. But he was so excited with anger that he felt strong enough to cope with half a dozen, and never left off till Squeers was black and blue and aching all over."