About this story
Wackford and Mrs Squeers treat hunger and injury as discipline already paid for, and your objections earn nothing but a warning to mind the terms you were hired under. You slip Smike your own bread; weeks later, he runs. Days later, Mrs Squeers drags him back bound in the rain, as Squeers orders every boy assembled to watch the punishment begin.
How it opens
Snow lay grey around Dotheboys Hall, a low Yorkshire house hunched behind a broken fence.
The schoolroom windows gave little light and less warmth to the boys waiting inside.
Wackford SqueersHere is Mr Nickleby, your new master, so look grateful before he begins improving you.
Mrs SqueersSupper follows lessons here, provided lessons leave anything worth feeding.
Choose
Who is the young man collecting the slates?
Does he attend lessons or work for the school?