"William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity fair" - читать интересную книгу автора

Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile
contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it
seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen.
His parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited
abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail's academy
upon what are called "mutual principles"-that is to
say, the expenses of his board and schooling were
defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he
stood there-most at the bottom of the school-in his
scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of
which his great big bones were bursting-as the
representative of so many pounds of tea, candles,
sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild
proportion was supplied for the puddings of the
establishment), and other commodities. A dreadful
day it was for young Dobbin when one of the
youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon
a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied
the cart of Dobbin Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames
Street, London, at the Doctor's door, discharging a cargo
of the wares in which the firm dealt.

Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were
frightful, and merciless against him. "Hullo, Dobbin," one
wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugars
is ris', my boy." Another would set a sum-"If a pound
of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much
must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the
circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly
considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful
and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn
of all real gentlemen.

"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said
in private to the little boy who had brought down the
storm upon him. At which the latter replied haughtily,
"My father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage"; and
Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in
the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the
bitterest sadness and woe. Who amongst us is there that
does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish
grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight;
who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a
gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many
of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture,
for the sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable
dog-latin?

Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire
the rudiments of the above language, as they are