As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and seen that she was going to ask him something, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her tea, glancing through the open window, down into the street.

‘Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit.

‘Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.’ He now and then slided into my lady, instead of ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgment of Mrs. Sparsit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence.

‘The clerks,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, ‘are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, of course?’

‘Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception.’

He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to rise in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he had no affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of the nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young man of the steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his father’s death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man—not a part of man’s duty, but the whole.

‘Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception, ma’am,’ repeated Bitzer.

‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her tea-cup, and taking a long gulp.

‘Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma’am, I don’t like his ways at all.’

‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, ‘do you recollect my having said anything to you respecting names?’

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. It’s quite true that you did object to names being used, and they’re always best avoided.’