He was the first to give utterance to his astonishment.
"Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for ?" he said, with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr.Glegg and Mr.
Deane, to see if they showed any signs of comprehension.
"Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I can make out," said poor Mr.Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzling world, laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity.
"Jacobs at th' academy's no parson, and he's done very bad by the boy; and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be to somebody different to Jacobs.

And this Mr.Stelling, by what I can make out, is the sort o' man I want.

And I mean my boy to go to him at Midsummer," he concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-box and taking a pinch.
"You'll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, Tulliver?
The clergymen have highish notions, in general," said Mr.Deane, taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain a neutral position.
"What! do you think the parson'll teach him to know a good sample o' wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver ?" said Mr.Glegg, who was fond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it was not only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view of things.
"Why, you see, I've got a plan i' my head about Tom," said Mr.
Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass.
"Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it's seldom as I am," said Mrs.Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, "I should like to know what good is to come to the boy by bringin' him up above his fortin." "Why," said Mr.Tulliver, not looking at Mrs.Glegg, but at the male part of his audience, "you see, I've made up my mind not to bring Tom up to my own business.

I've had my thoughts about it all along, and I made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and _his_ son.

I mean to put him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I want to give him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyers and folks, and put me up to a notion now an' then." Mrs.Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips, that smiled in mingled pity and scorn.
"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after that introductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers alone." "Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as that at Market Bewley ?" said Mr.Deane.
"No, nothing of that," said Mr.Tulliver.