 much turning of the head from side to side, as the scales
dipped alternately; but the probable result was still out of sight, only to be
reached through much hot argument and iteration in domestic and social life.
That initial stage of the dispute which consisted in the narration of the case
and the enforcement of Mr. Tulliver's views concerning it throughout the entire
circle of his connections would necessarily take time, and at the beginning of
February, when Tom was going to school again, there were scarcely any new items
to be detected in his father's statement of the case against Pivart, or any more
specific indication of the measures he was bent on taking against that rash
contravener of the principle that water was water. Iteration, like friction, is
likely to generate heat instead of progress, and Mr. Tulliver's heat was
certainly more and more palpable. If there had been no new evidence on any other
point, there had been new evidence that Pivart was as »thick as mud« with Wakem.
    »Father,« said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, »uncle Glegg
says Lawyer Wakem is going to send his son to Mr. Stelling. It isn't true - what
they said about his going to be sent to France. You won't like me to go to
school with Wakem's son, shall you?«
    »It's no matter for that, my boy,« said Mr. Tulliver; »don't you learn
anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's a poor deformed creatur, and takes
after his mother in the face: I think there isn't much of his father in him.
It's a sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Stelling, as he sends his son to him, and
Wakem knows meal from bran.«
    Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son was to
have the same advantages as Wakem's: but Tom was not at all easy on the point;
it would have been much clearer if the lawyer's son had not been deformed, for
then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him with all that freedom
which is derived from a high moral sanction.
 

                                  Chapter III

                              The New Schoolfellow

It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day quite in
keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not carried in his
pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll for little Laura,
