Was short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling,” Mr. Childers interpreted.

“Oh!” said Mr. Gradgrind, “that is tip, is it?”

“In a general way that’s missing his tip,” Mr. E. W. B. Childers answered.

“Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and ponging, eh!” ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. “Queer sort of company, too, for a man who has raised himself.”

“Lower yourself, then,” retorted Cupid. “Oh Lord! If you’ve raised yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.”

“This is a very obtrusive lad!” said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.

“We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you if we had known you were coming,” retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. “It’s a pity you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, ain’t you?”

“What does this unmannerly boy mean,” asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort of desperation, “by Tight-Jeff?”

“There! Get out, get out!” said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the prairie manner. “Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, it don’t much signify; it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were going to give me a message for Jupe?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Then,” continued Mr. Childers, quickly, “my opinion is he will never receive it. Do you know much of him?”

“I never saw the man in my life.”

“I doubt if you ever will see him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s off.”

“Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?”

“Aye! I mean,” said Mr. Childers, with a nod, “that he has cut. He was goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed today. He has lately got the way of being always goosed, and he can’t stand it.”

“Why has he been—so very much—goosed?” asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance.

“His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,” said Childers. “He has his points as a cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of them.”

“A cackler!” Bounderby repeated. “Here we go again!”

“A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,” said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder, and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair—which all shook at once. “Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper to know that his daughter knew of his being goosed than to go through with it.”

“Good!” interrupted Mr.