If he's a gentleman's son at all, he's a fondling, that's my opinion.'
'Why, your father has got some nonsense in his head that he's the son of a poor gentleman that died the other day,' said Mrs Squeers.
'The son of a gentleman!'
'Yes; but I don't believe a word of it. If he's a gentleman's son at all, he's a fondling, that's my opinion.'
'Mrs. Squeers intended to say 'foundling,' but, as she frequently remarked when she made any such mistake, it would be all the same a hundred years hence; with which axiom of philosophy, indeed, she was in the constant habit of consoling the boys when they laboured under more than ordinary ill-usage.
