acorn, a hour; but when the h is sounded, the a only is to be used, as a hand, a heart, a highway," replied Mr. Squeers, quoting at random from the grammar, "at least if it isn't, you don't know any better, and if it is, I've done it accidentally."
Delivering this reply in his accustomed tone of voice, in which of course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr. Squeers drew a stool up to the fire, and placing himself over against her, and the bottle and glass on the floor between them, roared out again very loud,
"Well, my Slider."
"I hear you," said Peg, receiving him very graciously.
"I've come according to promise," roared Squeers.
"So they used to say in that part of the country I come from," observed Peg, complacently, "but I think oil's better."
"Better than what ?" shouted Squeers, adding some rather strong language in an under-tone.
"No," said Peg, "of course not."
"I never saw such a monster as you are!" muttered Squeers, looking as amiable as he possibly could the while; for Peg's eye was upon him, and she was chuckling fearfully, as though in delight at having made a choice repartee. "Do you see this? this is a bottle."
"I see it," answered Peg.
"Well, and do you see this?" bawled Squeers. "This is a glass?"
Peg saw that too.
"See here, then," said Squeers, accompanying his remarks with appropriate action, "I fill the glass from the bottle, and I say 'your health, Slider,' and empty it; then I rinse it genteelly with a little drop, which I'm forced to throw into the fire—Hallo! we shall have the chimbley alight next—fill it again, and hand it over to you."
"Your health," said Peg.
"She understands that, anyways," muttered Squeers, watching Mrs. Sliderskew as she despatched her portion, and choked and gasped in a most awful manner after so doing; "now then, let's have a talk. How's the rheumatics?"
Mrs. Sliderskew, with much blinking and chuckling, and with looks expressive of her strong admiration of Mr. Squeers, his person, manners, and conversation, replied that the rheumatics were better.
"What's the reason," said Mr. Squeers, deriving fresh facetiousness from the bottle; "what's the reason of rheumatics, what do they mean, what do people have 'em for—eh? "
Mrs. Sliderskew didn't know, but suggested that it was possibly because they couldn't help it.
"Measles, rheumatics, hooping-cough, fevers, agues, and lumbagers," said Mr. Squeers, "is all philosophy together, that's what it is. The heavenly bodies is philosophy, and the earthly bodies is philosophy. If there's a screw loose in a heavenly body, that's philosophy, and if there's a screw loose in a earthly body that's philosophy too; or it may be that sometimes there's a little metaphysics in it, but that's not often. Philosophy's the chap for me. If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, or mathematical line, says I, gravely, 'Why,
