 else, »if you will favour me with your attention for half a minute, I should
like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, that you had nothing to
tell us about this business. You are quite sure of that before we go any
further.«
    »Sir, I am sure on 't.«
    »Here's a gentleman from London present,« Mr. Bounderby made a backhanded
point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, »a Parliament gentleman. I should
like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, instead of taking
the substance of it - for I know precious well, beforehand, what it will be;
nobody knows better than I do, take notice! - instead of receiving it on trust
from my mouth.«
    Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a rather more
troubled mind than usual. He turned his eyes involuntarily to his former refuge,
but at a look from that quarter (expressive though instantaneous) he settled
them on Mr. Bounderby's face.
    »Now, what do you complain of?« asked Mr. Bounderby.
    »I ha' not coom here, sir,« Stephen reminded him, »to complain. I coom for
that I were sent for.«
    »What,« repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, »do you people, in a
general way, complain of?«
    Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, and then
seemed to make up his mind.
    »Sir, I were never good at showin o 't, though I ha had'n my share in
feeling o 't. 'Deed we are in a muddle, sir. Look round town - so rich as 'tis -
and see the numbers o' people as has been broughten into bein heer, fur to
weave, an' to card, an' to piece out a livin', aw the same one way, somehows,
'twixt their cradles and their graves. Look how we live, an' wheer we live, an'
in what numbers, an' by what chances, and wi' what sameness; and look how the
mills is awlus a goin, and how they never works us no nigher to ony dis'ant
object - ceptin awlus, Death. Look how you considers of us, and writes of us,
and talks of us, and goes up wi' yor deputations to Secretaries o' State 'bout
us, and how yo are awlus right, and
