Hard Times by Book 1 Chapter 7 Page 9

classical countenance were invoking the infernal gods.

‘If you had said I was another father to Tom — young Tom, I mean, not my friend Tom Gradgrind — you might have been nearer the mark. I am going to take young Tom into my office. Going to have him under my wing, ma’am.’

‘Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?’ Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’ in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational cramming before then,’ said Bounderby. ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, that boy