With the usual exception.'
He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the
establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at
Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an
extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe
to rise in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he
had no affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result
of the nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause
that Mrs. Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young
man of the steadiest principle she had ever known. Having
satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a
right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had
asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the
principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse
ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound
of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all gifts
have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and
secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity
would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give,
and sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been
clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the
whole duty of man - not a part of man's duty, but the whole.
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