!«
    »Be composed, sir,« said Ralph, with a gruff expression of sympathy; »you
have got him now.«
    »Got him! Oh, haven't I got him! Have I got him, though?« cried Mr. Snawley,
scarcely able to believe it. »Yes, here he is, flesh and blood, flesh and
blood.«
    »Vary little flesh,« said John Browdie.
    Mr. Snawley was too much occupied by his parental feelings to notice this
remark; and, to assure himself more completely of the restoration of his child,
tucked his head under his arm again, and kept it there.
    »What was it,« said Snawley, »that made me take such a strong interest in
him, when that worthy instructor of youth brought him to my house? What was it
that made me burn all over with a wish to chastise him severely for cutting away
from his best friends, his pastors and masters?«
    »It was parental instinct, sir,« observed Squeers.
    »That's what it was, sir,« rejoined Snawley; »the elevated feeling, the
feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of the field and
birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and tom-cats, which sometimes
devour their offspring. My heart yearned towards him. I could have - I don't
know what I couldn't have done to him in the anger of a father.«
    »It only shows what Natur is, sir,« said Mr. Squeers. »She's a rum 'un, is
Natur.«
    »She is a holy thing, sir,« remarked Snawley.
    »I believe you,« added Mr. Squeers, with a moral sigh. »I should like to
know how we should ever get on without her. Natur,« said Mr. Squeers, solemnly,
»is more easier conceived than described. Oh what a blessed thing, sir, to be in
a state o' natur!«
    Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had been quite
stupefied with amazement, while Nicholas had looked keenly from Snawley to
Squeers, and from Squeers to Ralph, divided between his feelings of disgust,
doubt, and surprise. At this juncture, Smike escaping from his father fled to
Nicholas, and implored him, in most moving terms, never to give him up, but to
let him live and die beside him.
    »If you are this boy's father,« said Nicholas, »look at the wreck
