“Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it’s seldom as I am,” said Mrs Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, “I should like to know what good is to come to the boy by bringin’ him up above his fortin.” “Why,” said Mr Tulliver, not looking at Mrs Glegg, but at the male part of his audience, “you see, I’ve made up my mind not to bring Tom up to my own business. I’ve had my thoughts about it all along, and I made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and _his_ son. I mean to put him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I want to give him an eddication as he’ll be even wi’ the lawyers and folks, and put me up to a notion now an’ then.” Mrs Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips, that smiled in mingled pity and scorn. “It ’ud be a fine deal better for some people,” she said, after that introductory note, “if they’d let the lawyers alone.” “Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as that at Market Bewley?” said Mr Deane. “No, nothing of that,” said Mr Tulliver. “He won’t take more than two or three pupils, and so he’ll have the more time to attend to ’em, you know.” “Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner; they can’t learn much at a time when there’s so many of ’em,” said uncle Pullet, feeling that he was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter. “But he’ll want the more pay, I doubt,” said Mr Glegg. “Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that’s all,” said Mr Tulliver, with some pride at his own spirited course. “But then, you know, it’s an investment; Tom’s eddication ’ull be so much capital to him.” “Ay, there’s something in that,” said Mr Glegg. “Well well, neighbour Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right: ‘When land is gone and money’s spent, Then learning is most excellent.’ “I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbour Pullet?” Mr Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant. “Mr Glegg, I wonder _at_ you,” said his wife. “It’s very unbecoming in a man o’ your age and belongings.” “What’s unbecoming, Mrs G.?” said Mr Glegg, winking pleasantly at the company. “My new blue coat as I’ve got on?” “I pity your weakness, Mr Glegg. I say it’s unbecoming to be making a joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin.” “If you mean me by that,” said Mr Tulliver, considerably nettled, “you needn’t trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own affairs without troubling other folks.” “Bless me!” said Mr Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, “why, now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send _his_ son—the deformed lad—to a clergyman, didn’t they, Susan?” (appealing to his wife). “I can give no account of it, I’m sure,” said Mrs Deane, closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs Deane was not a woman to take part in a scene where missiles were flying.