Chapter 18: I

I Of an Educational Character The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a book—the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great preparatory establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book—was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction; the other half kept them i…