ough
no one spoke a word.

'I am surprised, Steerforth--although your candour does you honour,'
said Mr. Creakle, 'does you honour, certainly--I am surprised,
Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any
person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.'

Steerforth gave a short laugh.

'That's not an answer, sir,' said Mr. Creakle, 'to my remark. I expect
more than that from you, Steerforth.'

If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would
be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. 'Let him deny
it,' said Steerforth.

'Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?' cried Mr. Creakle. 'Why, where
does he go a-begging?'

'If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one,' said
Steerforth. 'It's all the same.'

He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me upon the
shoulder. I looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart,
but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me
kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him.

'Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,' said Steerforth,
'and to say what I mean,--what I have to say is, that his mother lives
on charity in an alms-house.'

Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the
shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: 'Yes, I
thought so.'

Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured
politeness:

'Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if
you please, to set him right before the assembled school.'

'He is right, sir, without correction,' returned Mr. Mell, in the midst
of a dead silence; 'what he has said is true.'

'Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,' said Mr. Creakle,
putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school,
'whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?'

'I believe not directly,' he returned.

'Why, you know not,' said Mr. Creakle. 'Don't you, man?'

'I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very
good,' replied the assistant. 'You know what my position is, and always
has been, here.'

'I apprehend, if you come to that,' said Mr. Creakle, with his veins
swelling again bigger than ever, 'that you've been in a wrong position
altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we'll part,
if you please. The sooner the better.'

'There is no time,' answered Mr. Mell, risi