Jupe, upon a definition) as 'an eminently practical' father. He
had a particular pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was
considered to have a special application to him. Whatsoever the
public meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such
meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding
to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased
the eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his due, but his
due was acceptable.

He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town,
which was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled,
when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and
banging band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had
there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A
flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind
that it was 'Sleary's Horse-riding' which claimed their suffrages.
Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a money-box at its
elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture,
took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very
narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the
entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act.
Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which
must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to
'elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained
performing dog Merrylegs.' He was also to exhibit 'his astounding
feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession
backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in
mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other
country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from
enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.' The same Signor Jupe