Bitzer, said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would have said, See how miserable I am! Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in

remembrance of the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that

remembrance.
I really wonder, sir, rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative manner, to find you taking . My schooling was paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain ended like an oriental dancer, put his tambourine on his head..
It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was

to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didnt get to Heaven that way,

it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.
I dont deny, added Bitzer, that my schooling was cheap. But that comes right, sir. I was made in the cheapest market, and have to dispose of myself in the dearest.
He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy crying.
Pray dont do that, said he, its of no use doing that: it only worries. You seem to think that I have some animosity against young Mr. Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the reasonable

grounds I have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. If he was to resist, I should set up the cry of Stop thief! But, he wont resist, you may depend upon it.
Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to these doctrines with profound attention, here stepped forward.
Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knowth perfectly well (better than you, becauthe I thed it to her), that I didnt know what your thon had done, and that I didnt want to know - I thed it

wath better not, though I only thought, then, it wath thome thkylarking. However, thith young man having made it known to be a robbery of a bank, why, thath a theriouth thing; muth too theriouth a thing for

me to compound, ath thith young man hath very properly called it. Conthequently, Thquire, you muthnt quarrel with me if I take thith young manth thide, and thay heth right and thereth no help for it. But I

tell you what Ill do, Thquire; Ill drive your thon and thith young man over to the rail, and prevent expothure here. I cant conthent to do more, but Ill do that.