"Well!" blustered Mr. Bounderby, "what's the matter? What is young Thomas in the dumps about?"
He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa.
"We were peeping at the circus," muttered Louisa haughtily; "and father caught us."
"And, Mrs. Gradgrind," said her husband, in a lofty manner, "I should as soon have expected to find my children reading poetry."
"Dear me!" whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. "How can you, Louisa and Thomas? I wonder at you. I declare you're enough to make one regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn't. Then what would you have done, I should like to know? As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't go and look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you, instead of circuses. I'm sure you have enough to do if that's what you want. With my head in its present state I couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to attend to."
"That's the reason," pouted Louisa.
"Don't tell me that's the reason, because it can be nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Gradgrind. "Go and be something logical directly."
Mrs. Gradgrind, not being a scientific character, usually dismissed her children to their studies with the general injunction that they were to choose their own pursuit.
II.--Mr. Bounderby of Coketown
Mr. Josiah Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind's bosom friend as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can be to another man perfectly devoid of sentiment.