against doors, and drawing

them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on

the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time

it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that

when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half

dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him

upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him,

and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell

asleep.

From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was

awakened after daybreak and before sunrise by the presence of

his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with

him; at least so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her

head against the headboard of the bed.

“I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “and I did.”

“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored.

“You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry,

“and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey;

why the devil don’t you?”

“I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with

tears.

“Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is it

honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying

you