2. It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to attract
attention, that at first Nicholas stared about him, really without seeing
anything at all. By degrees, however, the place resolved itself into a
bare and dirty room with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might
be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copy books and paper.


3. There were a couple of long, old, rickety desks, cut and notched, and
inked and damaged in every possible way; two or three forms, a detached
desk for Squeers, and another for his assistant. The ceiling was supported
like that of a barn, by crossbeams and rafters, and the walls were so
stained and discolored that it was impossible to tell whether they had
ever been touched by paint or whitewash.

4. Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the
countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of
stunted growth, and others whose long, meager legs would hardly bear their
stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together. There were little faces
which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged
suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its
beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining.

5. And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features,
which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked a
smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense
basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she
administered a large installment to each boy in succession, using for the
purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally
manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young
gentleman's mouth considerably, they being all obliged, under heavy