Hard Times | Page 7

the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped it!
Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. He was an affectionate
father, after his manner; but he would probably have described himself (if he had been
put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as 'an eminently practical' father. He had a
particular pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have a special
application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the
subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding to
his eminently practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased the eminently practical
friend. He knew it to be his due, but his due was acceptable.
He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither
town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of
music. The clashing and banging band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which
had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating from the
summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was 'Sleary's Horse-riding' which
claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a money-box at its
elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss
Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced,
was then inaugurating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean
flower-act. Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which must be
seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to 'elucidate the diverting
accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog Merrylegs.' He was also to exhibit
'his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession
backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never
before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous

plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.' The same Signor Jupe was to
'enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips
and retorts.' Lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr.
William Button, of Tooley Street, in 'the highly novel and laughable hippo- comedietta of
The Tailor's Journey to Brentford.'
Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a
practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or
consigning them to the House of Correction. But, the turning of the road took him by the
back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a number of children were congregated in
a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place.
This brought him to a stop. 'Now, to think of these vagabonds,' said he, 'attracting the
young rabble from a model school.'
A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the young rabble, he
took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look for any child he knew by name, and might
order off. Phenomenon almost incredible though distinctly seen, what did he then behold
but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal
board, and his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a
hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act!
Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus
disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said:
'Louisa!! Thomas!!'
Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at her father with more boldness than
Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home
like a machine.
'In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!' said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a
hand; 'what do you do here?'
'Wanted to see what it was like,' returned Louisa, shortly.
'What it was like?'
'Yes, father.'
There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl: yet,
struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest
upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow,
which brightened its expression. Not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but
with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them, analogous
to the changes on a blind face groping its way.
She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would seem to become a

woman all at once. Her father thought so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have
been self-willed (he thought in his eminently practical way) but for