uncommonly tender, on account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had
of sounding it with her knuckles, like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel
and dinner: resolved that Paul, now that he was getting so old and well,
should begin a vigorous course of education forthwith, to qualify him
for the position in which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber
should take him in hand immediately.

Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a
supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at
once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with
it.

In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which
there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew
before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and
intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries
(very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere
sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description
of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under
the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No
matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made
him bear to pattern, somehow or other.

This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste
about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover,
one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head
(the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything), suddenly left
off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And
people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots,
and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains.

There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices
and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and
keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by
stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by
sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking
at the gas-lighted world over the little iron bars in the left-hand
corner window of the front three pairs of stairs, aft