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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Nicholas Nickleby, by Dickens**
+#31 In our series by Charles Dickens
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+The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+July, 1997  [Etext #967]
+
+
+*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Nicholas Nickleby, by Dickens*
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+
+THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY,
+containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes,
+Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+
+This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of
+the completed "Pickwick Papers."  There were, then, a good many cheap
+Yorkshire schools in existence.  There are very few now.
+
+Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard
+of it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and
+miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable
+example.  Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other
+occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification,
+to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he
+undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy
+into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of
+it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the
+candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the
+schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were
+the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to
+spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it; these
+Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the
+whole ladder.  Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of
+parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal
+men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board
+and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy cornerstone
+of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded
+LAISSEZ-ALLER neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world.
+
+We hear sometimes of an action for damages against the unqualified
+medical practitioner, who has deformed a broken limb in pretending to
+heal it.  But, what of the hundreds of thousands of minds that have
+been deformed for ever by the incapable pettifoggers who have
+pretended to form them!
+
+I make mention of the race, as of the Yorkshire schoolmasters, in the
+past tense.  Though it has not yet finally disappeared, it is
+dwindling daily.  A long day's work remains to be done about us in
+the way of education, Heaven knows; but great improvements and
+facilities towards the attainment of a good one, have been furnished,
+of late years.
+
+I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear about Yorkshire
+schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places
+near Rochester Castle, with a head full of PARTRIDGE, STRAP, TOM
+PIPES, and SANCHO PANZA; but I know that my first impressions of them
+were picked up at that time, and that they were somehow or other
+connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had come home with,
+in consequence of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend,
+having ripped it open with an inky pen-knife.  The impression made
+upon me, however made, never left me.  I was always curious about
+Yorkshire schools--fell, long afterwards and at sundry times, into
+the way of hearing more about them--at last, having an audience,
+resolved to write about them.
+
+With that intent I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book,
+in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described
+herein.  As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned
+that those gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a
+visit from the author of the "Pickwick Papers," I consulted with a
+professional friend who had a Yorkshire connexion, and with whom I
+concerted a pious fraud.  He gave me some letters of introduction, in
+the name, I think, of my travelling companion; they bore reference to
+a supposititious little boy who had been left with a widowed mother
+who didn't know what to do with him; the poor lady had thought, as a
+means of thawing the tardy compassion of her relations in his behalf,
+of sending him to a Yorkshire school; I was the poor lady's friend,
+travelling that way; and if the recipient of the letter could inform
+me of a school in his neighbourhood, the writer would be very much
+obliged.
+
+I went to several places in that part of the country where I
+understood the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no
+occasion to deliver a letter until I came to a certain town which
+shall be nameless.  The person to whom it was addressed, was not at
+home; but he came down at night, through the snow, to the inn where I
+was staying.  It was after dinner; and he needed little persuasion to
+sit down by the fire in a warrn corner, and take his share of the
+wine that was on the table.
+
+I am afraid he is dead now.  I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy,
+broad-faced man; that we got acquainted directly; and that we talked
+on all kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great
+anxiety to avoid.  "Was there any large school near?" I asked him, in
+reference to the letter.  "Oh yes," he said; "there was a pratty big
+'un."  "Was it a good one?" I asked.  "Ey!" he said, "it was as good
+as anoother; that was a' a matther of opinion"; and fell to looking
+at the fire, staring round the room, and whistling a little.  On my
+reverting to some other topic that we had been discussing, he
+recovered immediately; but, though I tried him again and again, I
+never approached the question of the school, even if he were in the
+middle of a laugh, without observing that his countenance fell, and
+that he became uncomfortable.  At last, when we had passed a couple
+of hours or so, very agreeably, he suddenly took up his hat, and
+leaning over the table and looking me full in the face, said, in a
+low voice: "Weel, Misther, we've been vara pleasant toogather, and
+ar'll spak' my moind tiv'ee.  Dinnot let the weedur send her lattle
+boy to yan o' our school-measthers, while there's a harse to hoold in
+a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in.  Ar wouldn't mak' ill
+words amang my neeburs, and ar speak tiv'ee quiet loike.  But I'm
+dom'd if ar can gang to bed and not tellee, for weedur's sak', to
+keep the lattle boy from a' sike scoondrels while there's a harse to
+hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in!"  Repeating these
+words with great heartiness, and with a solemnity on his jolly face
+that made it look twice as large as before, he shook hands and went
+away.  I never saw him afterwards, but I sometimes imagine that I
+descry a faint reflection of him in John Browdie.
+
+In reference to these gentry, I may here quote a few words from the
+original preface to this book.
+
+"It has afforded the Author great amusement and satisfaction, during
+the progress of this work, to learn, from country friends and from a
+variety of ludicrous statements concerning himself in provincial
+newspapers, that more than one Yorkshire schoolmaster lays claim to
+being the original of Mr. Squeers.  One worthy, he has reason to
+believe, has actually consulted authorities learned in the law, as to
+his having good grounds on which to rest an action for libel;
+another, has meditated a journey to London, for the express purpose
+of committing an assault and battery on his traducer; a third,
+perfectly remembers being waited on, last January twelve-month, by
+two gentlemen, one of whom held him in conversation while the other
+took his likeness; and, although Mr. Squeers has but one eye, and he
+has two, and the published sketch does not resemble him (whoever he
+may be) in any other respect, still he and all his friends and
+neighbours know at once for whom it is meant, because--the character
+is SO like him.
+
+"While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the compliment
+thus conveyed to him, he ventures to suggest that these contentions
+may arise from the fact, that Mr. Squeers is the representative of a
+class, and not of an individual.  Where imposture, ignorance, and
+brutal cupidity, are the stock in trade of a small body of men, and
+one is described by these characteristics, all his fellows will
+recognise something belonging to themselves, and each will have a
+misgiving that the portrait is his own.
+
+'The Author's object in calling public attention to the system would
+be very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own
+person, emphatically and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school
+are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely
+subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible.  That
+there are, upon record, trials at law in which damages have been
+sought as a poor recompense for lasting agonies and disfigurements
+inflicted upon children by the treatment of the master in these
+places, involving such offensive and foul details of neglect,
+cruelty, and disease, as no writer of fiction would have the boldness
+to imagine.  And that, since he has been engaged upon these
+Adventures, he has received, from private quarters far beyond the
+reach of suspicion or distrust, accounts of atrocities, in the
+perpetration of which upon neglected or repudiated children, these
+schools have been the main instruments, very far exceeding any that
+appear in these pages."
+
+This comprises all I need say on the subject; except that if I had
+seen occasion, I had resolved to reprint a few of these details of
+legal proceedings, from certain old newspapers.
+
+One other quotation from the same Preface may serve to introduce a
+fact that my readers may think curious.
+
+"To turn to a more pleasant subject, it may be right to say, that
+there ARE two characters in this book which are drawn from life.  It
+is remarkable that what we call the world, which is so very credulous
+in what professes to be true, is most incredulous in what professes
+to be imaginary; and that, while, every day in real life, it will
+allow in one man no blemishes, and in another no virtues, it will
+seldom admit a very strongly-marked character, either good or bad, in
+a fictitious narrative, to be within the limits of probability.  But
+those who take an interest in this tale, will be glad to learn that
+the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE live; that their liberal charity, their
+singleness of heart, their noble nature, and their unbounded
+benevolence, are no creations of the Author's brain; but are
+prompting every day (and oftenest by stealth) some munificent and
+generous deed in that town of which they are the pride and honour."
+
+If I were to attempt to sum up the thousands of letters, from all
+sorts of people in all sorts of latitudes and climates, which this
+unlucky paragraph brought down upon me, I should get into an
+arithmetical difficulty from which I could not easily extricate
+myself.  Suffice it to say, that I believe the applications for
+loans, gifts, and offices of profit that I have been requested to
+forward to the originals of the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE (with whom I never
+interchanged any communication in my life) would have exhausted the
+combined patronage of all the Lord Chancellors since the accession of
+the House of Brunswick, and would have broken the Rest of the Bank of
+England.
+
+The Brothers are now dead.
+
+There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a
+remark.  If Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or
+agreeable, he is not always intended to appear so.  He is a young man
+of an impetuous temper and of little or no experience; and I saw no
+reason why such a hero should be lifted out of nature.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+Introduces all the Rest
+
+
+There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire,
+one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his
+head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being
+young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of
+fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her
+turn had taken him for the same reason.  Thus two people who cannot
+afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game
+for love.
+
+Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, may
+perhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better
+likened to two principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune is
+low and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the mere
+pleasure of the buffeting; and in one respect indeed this comparison
+would hold good; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives' Court
+will afterwards send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of the
+lookers-on for the means of regaling themselves, so Mr Godfrey
+Nickleby and HIS partner, the honeymoon being over, looked out
+wistfully into the world, relying in no inconsiderable degree upon
+chance for the improvement of their means.  Mr Nickleby's income, at
+the period of his marriage, fluctuated between sixty and eighty
+pounds PER ANNUM.
+
+There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even in
+London (where Mr Nickleby dwelt in those days) but few complaints
+prevail, of the population being scanty.  It is extraordinary how
+long a man may look among the crowd without discovering the face of
+a friend, but it is no less true.  Mr Nickleby looked, and looked,
+till his eyes became sore as his heart, but no friend appeared; and
+when, growing tired of the search, he turned his eyes homeward, he
+saw very little there to relieve his weary vision.  A painter who
+has gazed too long upon some glaring colour, refreshes his dazzled
+sight by looking upon a darker and more sombre tint; but everything
+that met Mr Nickleby's gaze wore so black and gloomy a hue, that he
+would have been beyond description refreshed by the very reverse of
+the contrast.
+
+At length, after five years, when Mrs Nickleby had presented her
+husband with a couple of sons, and that embarassed gentleman,
+impressed with the necessity of making some provision for his
+family, was seriously revolving in his mind a little commercial
+speculation of insuring his life next quarter-day, and then falling
+from the top of the Monument by accident, there came, one morning,
+by the general post, a black-bordered letter to inform him how his
+uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and had left him the bulk of his
+little property, amounting in all to five thousand pounds sterling.
+
+As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his
+lifetime, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been christened
+after him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a morocco
+case, which, as he had not too much to eat with it, seemed a kind of
+satire upon his having been born without that useful article of
+plate in his mouth, Mr Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcely
+believe the tidings thus conveyed to him.  On examination, however,
+they turned out to be strictly correct.  The amiable old gentleman,
+it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal Humane
+Society, and had indeed executed a will to that effect; but the
+Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months before, to
+save the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowance
+of three shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very natural
+exasperation, revoked the bequest in a codicil, and left it all to
+Mr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation, not
+only against the society for saving the poor relation's life, but
+against the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved.
+
+With a portion of this property Mr Godfrey Nickleby purchased a
+small farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with his
+wife and two children, to live upon the best interest he could get
+for the rest of his money, and the little produce he could raise
+from his land.  The two prospered so well together that, when he
+died, some fifteen years after this period, and some five after his
+wife, he was enabled to leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, three
+thousand pounds in cash, and to his youngest son, Nicholas, one
+thousand and the farm, which was as small a landed estate as one
+would desire to see.
+
+These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at
+Exeter; and, being accustomed to go home once a week, had often
+heard, from their mother's lips, long accounts of their father's
+sufferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle's
+importance in his days of affluence: which recitals produced a very
+different impression on the two: for, while the younger, who was of
+a timid and retiring disposition, gleaned from thence nothing but
+forewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quiet
+routine of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-
+repeated tale the two great morals that riches are the only true
+source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just to
+compass their acquisition by all means short of felony.  'And,'
+reasoned Ralph with himself, 'if no good came of my uncle's money
+when he was alive, a great deal of good came of it after he was
+dead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving it up for
+me, which is a highly virtuous purpose; and, going back to the old
+gentleman, good DID come of it to him too, for he had the pleasure
+of thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted
+by all his family besides.'  And Ralph always wound up these mental
+soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing
+like money.
+
+Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties to
+rust, even at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, this
+promising lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; putting
+out at good interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles,
+and gradually extending his operations until they aspired to the
+copper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated to considerable
+advantage.  Nor did he trouble his borrowers with abstract
+calculations of figures, or references to ready-reckoners; his
+simple rule of interest being all comprised in the one golden
+sentence, 'two-pence for every half-penny,' which greatly simplified
+the accounts, and which, as a familiar precept, more easily acquired
+and retained in the memory than any known rule of arithmetic, cannot
+be too strongly recommended to the notice of capitalists, both large
+and small, and more especially of money-brokers and bill-
+discounters.  Indeed, to do these gentlemen justice, many of them
+are to this day in the frequent habit of adopting it, with eminent
+success.
+
+In like manner, did young Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute and
+intricate calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sums
+in simple-interest can fail to have found most embarrassing, by
+establishing the one general rule that all sums of principal and
+interest should be paid on pocket-money day, that is to say, on
+Saturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday, or
+on the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, the
+same.  Indeed he argued, and with great show of reason, that it
+ought to be rather more for one day than for five, inasmuch as the
+borrower might in the former case be very fairly presumed to be in
+great extremity, otherwise he would not borrow at all with such odds
+against him.  This fact is interesting, as illustrating the secret
+connection and sympathy which always exist between great minds.
+Though Master Ralph Nickleby was not at that time aware of it, the
+class of gentlemen before alluded to, proceed on just the same
+principle in all their transactions.
+
+From what we have said of this young gentleman, and the natural
+admiration the reader will immediately conceive of his character, it
+may perhaps be inferred that he is to be the hero of the work which
+we shall presently begin.  To set this point at rest, for once and
+for ever, we hasten to undeceive them, and stride to its commencement.
+
+On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, who had been some time
+before placed in a mercantile house in London, applied himself
+passionately to his old pursuit of money-getting, in which he
+speedily became so buried and absorbed, that he quite forgot his
+brother for many years; and if, at times, a recollection of his old
+playfellow broke upon him through the haze in which he lived--for
+gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old
+senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal--it
+brought along with it a companion thought, that if they were
+intimate he would want to borrow money of him.  So, Mr Ralph Nickleby
+shrugged his shoulders, and said things were better as they were.
+
+As for Nicholas, he lived a single man on the patrimonial estate
+until he grew tired of living alone, and then he took to wife the
+daughter of a neighbouring gentleman with a dower of one thousand
+pounds.  This good lady bore him two children, a son and a daughter,
+and when the son was about nineteen, and the daughter fourteen, as
+near as we can guess--impartial records of young ladies' ages
+being, before the passing of the new act, nowhere preserved in the
+registries of this country--Mr Nickleby looked about him for the
+means of repairing his capital, now sadly reduced by this increase
+in his family, and the expenses of their education.
+
+'Speculate with it,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Spec--u--late, my dear?' said Mr Nickleby, as though in doubt.
+
+'Why not?' asked Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Because, my dear, if we SHOULD lose it,' rejoined Mr Nickleby, who
+was a slow and time-taking speaker, 'if we SHOULD lose it, we shall
+no longer be able to live, my dear.'
+
+'Fiddle,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'I am not altogether sure of that, my dear,' said Mr Nickleby.
+
+'There's Nicholas,' pursued the lady, 'quite a young man--it's time
+he was in the way of doing something for himself; and Kate too, poor
+girl, without a penny in the world.  Think of your brother!  Would
+he be what he is, if he hadn't speculated?'
+
+'That's true,' replied Mr Nickleby.  'Very good, my dear.  Yes.  I
+WILL speculate, my dear.'
+
+Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of
+their cards at first starting; gains MAY be great--and so may
+losses.  The run of luck went against Mr Nickleby.  A mania
+prevailed, a bubble burst, four stock-brokers took villa residences
+at Florence, four hundred nobodies were ruined, and among them Mr
+Nickleby.
+
+'The very house I live in,' sighed the poor gentleman, 'may be taken
+from me tomorrow.  Not an article of my old furniture, but will be
+sold to strangers!'
+
+The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his
+bed; apparently resolved to keep that, at all events.
+
+'Cheer up, sir!' said the apothecary.
+
+'You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir,' said the nurse.
+
+'Such things happen every day,' remarked the lawyer.
+
+'And it is very sinful to rebel against them,' whispered the
+clergyman.
+
+'And what no man with a family ought to do,' added the neighbours.
+
+Mr Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room,
+embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns to
+his languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow.  They
+were concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for
+he babbled, for a long time, about the generosity and goodness of
+his brother, and the merry old times when they were at school
+together.  This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them to
+One who never deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and,
+smiling gently on them, turned upon his face, and observed, that he
+thought he could fall asleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings,
+and of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance
+
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you would call a
+merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special
+pleader, nor a notary.  He was certainly not a tradesman, and still
+less could he lay any claim to the title of a professional
+gentleman; for it would have been impossible to mention any
+recognised profession to which he belonged.  Nevertheless, as he
+lived in a spacious house in Golden Square, which, in addition to a
+brass plate upon the street-door, had another brass plate two sizes
+and a half smaller upon the left hand door-post, surrounding a brass
+model of an infant's fist grasping a fragment of a skewer, and
+displaying the word 'Office,' it was clear that Mr Ralph Nickleby
+did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and the fact, if it
+required any further circumstantial evidence, was abundantly
+demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of half-
+past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat
+upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the
+end of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he
+answered the bell.
+
+Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden
+Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere.  It
+is one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has
+gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings.  Many of its
+first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and
+it takes boarders besides.  It is a great resort of foreigners.  The
+dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards,
+and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade,
+and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the
+afternoon, when they give away the orders,--all live in Golden
+Square, or within a street of it.  Two or three violins and a wind
+instrument from the Opera band reside within its precincts.  Its
+boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float
+in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue, the
+guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of
+the square.  On a summer's night, windows are thrown open, and
+groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the passer-by, lounging
+at the casements, and smoking fearfully.  Sounds of gruff voices
+practising vocal music invade the evening's silence; and the fumes
+of choice tobacco scent the air.  There, snuff and cigars, and
+German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the
+supremacy between them.  It is the region of song and smoke.  Street
+bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-
+singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its
+boundaries.
+
+This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of
+business; but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding,
+for many years, and uttered no complaint on that score.  He knew
+nobody round about, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the
+reputation of being immensely rich.  The tradesmen held that he was
+a sort of lawyer, and the other neighbours opined that he was a kind
+of general agent; both of which guesses were as correct and definite
+as guesses about other people's affairs usually are, or need to be.
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready
+dressed to walk abroad.  He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue
+coat; a white waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington
+boots drawn over them.  The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill
+struggled out, as if insisting to show itself, from between his chin
+and the top button of his spencer; and the latter garment was not
+made low enough to conceal a long gold watch-chain, composed of a
+series of plain rings, which had its beginning at the handle of a
+gold repeater in Mr Nickleby's pocket, and its termination in two
+little keys: one belonging to the watch itself, and the other to
+some patent padlock.  He wore a sprinkling of powder upon his head,
+as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were his purpose,
+he would perhaps have done better to powder his countenance also,
+for there was something in its very wrinkles, and in his cold
+restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would announce
+itself in spite of him.  However this might be, there he was; and as
+he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the
+eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then,
+and are consequently no business of ours just now.
+
+Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and,
+throwing himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction
+through the dirty window.  Some London houses have a melancholy
+little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four high
+whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which
+there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a
+show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees
+shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled
+and smoke-dried, till the following season, when it repeats the same
+process, and perhaps, if the weather be particularly genial, even
+tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches.  People
+sometimes call these dark yards 'gardens'; it is not supposed that
+they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of
+unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original
+brick-field.  No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of
+turning it to any account.  A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken
+bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant
+first moves in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he
+goes away again: the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it
+thinks proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted
+everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully
+about--a prey to 'blacks' and dirt.
+
+It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he
+sat with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window.  He had
+fixed his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former
+tenant in a tub that had once been green, and left there, years
+before, to rot away piecemeal.  There was nothing very inviting in
+the object, but Mr Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat
+contemplating it with far greater attention than, in a more
+conscious mood, he would have deigned to bestow upon the rarest
+exotic.  At length, his eyes wandered to a little dirty window on
+the left, through which the face of the clerk was dimly visible;
+that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to attend.
+
+In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to
+which he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off
+and on), and presented himself in Mr Nickleby's room.  He was a tall
+man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a
+rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term
+be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for
+wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of
+buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.
+
+'Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp and
+grating voice.
+
+'Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the--' Noggs was going to
+add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted
+'regular time.'
+
+'My watch has stopped,' said Mr Nickleby; 'I don't know from what
+cause.'
+
+'Not wound up,' said Noggs.
+
+'Yes it is,' said Mr Nickleby.
+
+'Over-wound then,' rejoined Noggs.
+
+'That can't very well be,' observed Mr Nickleby.
+
+'Must be,' said Noggs.
+
+'Well!' said Mr Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket;
+'perhaps it is.'
+
+Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all
+disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and
+(as he rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell
+into a grim silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other:
+cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all
+possible distortions.  The incessant performance of this routine on
+every occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look to
+his unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to
+render it impossible for anybody to determine where or at what he
+was looking, were two among the numerous peculiarities of Mr Noggs,
+which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight.
+
+'I am going to the London Tavern this morning,' said Mr Nickleby.
+
+'Public meeting?' inquired Noggs.
+
+Mr Nickleby nodded.  'I expect a letter from the solicitor
+respecting that mortgage of Ruddle's.  If it comes at all, it will
+be here by the two o'clock delivery.  I shall leave the city about
+that time and walk to Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the
+way; if there are any letters, come and meet me, and bring them with
+you.'
+
+Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office
+bell.  The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly
+remained in a stationary position.
+
+'The bell,' said Noggs, as though in explanation.  'At home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'To anybody?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'To the tax-gatherer?'
+
+'No!  Let him call again.'
+
+Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say 'I thought
+so!' and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he
+presently returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr Bonney, a pale
+gentleman in a violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in
+great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravat
+tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up
+in the night and had not dressed himself since.
+
+'My dear Nickleby,' said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which
+was so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head,
+'there's not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door.  Sir
+Matthew Pupker takes the chair, and three members of Parliament are
+positively coming.  I have seen two of them safely out of bed.  The
+third, who was at Crockford's all night, has just gone home to put a
+clean shirt on, and take a bottle or two of soda water, and will
+certainly be with us, in time to address the meeting.  He is a
+little excited by last night, but never mind that; he always speaks
+the stronger for it.'
+
+'It seems to promise pretty well,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, whose
+deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other
+man of business.
+
+'Pretty well!' echoed Mr Bonney.  'It's the finest idea that was
+ever started.  "United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet
+Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.  Capital, five millions, in
+five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each."  Why the very name
+will get the shares up to a premium in ten days.'
+
+'And when they ARE at a premium,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, smiling.
+
+'When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man
+alive, and how to back quietly out at the right time,' said Mr
+Bonney, slapping the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder.  'By-
+the-bye, what a VERY remarkable man that clerk of yours is.'
+
+'Yes, poor devil!' replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves.  'Though
+Newman Noggs kept his horses and hounds once.'
+
+'Ay, ay?' said the other carelessly.
+
+'Yes,' continued Ralph, 'and not many years ago either; but he
+squandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and
+in short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar.
+He took to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came
+here to borrow a pound, as in his better days I had--'
+
+'Done business with him,' said Mr Bonney with a meaning look.
+
+'Just so,' replied Ralph; 'I couldn't lend it, you know.'
+
+'Oh, of course not.'
+
+'But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, I
+took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since.  He
+is a little mad, I think,' said Mr Nickleby, calling up a charitable
+look, 'but he is useful enough, poor creature--useful enough.'
+
+The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, being
+utterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages
+of a boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty
+chronicle, that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially
+valuable person in a place where much business was done, of which it
+was desirable no mention should be made out of doors.  The other
+gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as they
+hurried into the hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps
+Mr Nickleby forgot to mention circumstances so unimportant.
+
+There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew
+up, and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking across
+the road under a press of paper, bearing gigantic announcements that
+a Public Meeting would be holden at one o'clock precisely, to take
+into consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour
+of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking
+and Punctual Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five
+hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set
+forth in fat black figures of considerable size.  Mr Bonney elbowed
+his way briskly upstairs, receiving in his progress many low bows
+from the waiters who stood on the landings to show the way; and,
+followed by Mr Nickleby, dived into a suite of apartments behind the
+great public room: in the second of which was a business-looking
+table, and several business-looking people.
+
+'Hear!' cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr Bonney presented
+himself.  'Chair, gentlemen, chair!'
+
+The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr
+Bonney bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his
+fingers through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman's knock on
+the table with a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried
+'Hear!' and nodded slightly to each other, as much as to say what
+spirited conduct that was.  Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish
+with agitation, tore into the room, and throwing the door open with
+a crash, shouted 'Sir Matthew Pupker!'
+
+The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and while
+they were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two
+live members of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling
+and bowing, and looking so pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel
+how any man could have the heart to vote against them.  Sir Matthew
+Pupker especially, who had a little round head with a flaxen wig on
+the top of it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the wig
+threatened to be jerked off, every instant.  When these symptoms had
+in some degree subsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms
+with Sir Matthew Pupker, or the two other members, crowded round
+them in three little groups, near one or other of which the
+gentlemen who were NOT on speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or
+the two other members, stood lingering, and smiling, and rubbing
+their hands, in the desperate hope of something turning up which
+might bring them into notice.  All this time, Sir Matthew Pupker and
+the two other members were relating to their separate circles what
+the intentions of government were, about taking up the bill; with a
+full account of what the government had said in a whisper the last
+time they dined with it, and how the government had been observed to
+wink when it said so; from which premises they were at no loss to
+draw the conclusion, that if the government had one object more at
+heart than another, that one object was the welfare and advantage of
+the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and
+Punctual Delivery Company.
+
+Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a
+fair division of the speechifying, the public in the large room were
+eyeing, by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music
+Gallery.  In these amusements the greater portion of them had been
+occupied for a couple of hours before, and as the most agreeable
+diversions pall upon the taste on a too protracted enjoyment of
+them, the sterner spirits now began to hammer the floor with their
+boot-heels, and to express their dissatisfaction by various hoots
+and cries.  These vocal exertions, emanating from the people who had
+been there longest, naturally proceeded from those who were nearest
+to the platform and furthest from the policemen in attendance, who
+having no great mind to fight their way through the crowd, but
+entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desire to do something to
+quell the disturbance, immediately began to drag forth, by the coat
+tails and collars, all the quiet people near the door; at the same
+time dealing out various smart and tingling blows with their
+truncheons, after the manner of that ingenious actor, Mr Punch:
+whose brilliant example, both in the fashion of his weapons and
+their use, this branch of the executive occasionally follows.
+
+Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shout
+attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there
+poured on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of
+gentlemen with their hats off, all looking behind them, and uttering
+vociferous cheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently explained when
+Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other real members of Parliament came
+to the front, amidst deafening shouts, and testified to each other
+in dumb motions that they had never seen such a glorious sight as
+that, in the whole course of thier public career.
+
+At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir
+Matthew Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse
+which lasted five minutes.  This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to
+say what must be his feelings on that great occasion, and what must
+be that occasion in the eyes of the world, and what must be the
+intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be
+the wealth and respectability of his honourable friends behind him,
+and lastly, what must be the importance to the wealth, the
+happiness, the comfort, the liberty, the very existence of a free
+and great people, of such an Institution as the United Metropolitan
+Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery
+Company!
+
+Mr Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; and
+having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in
+an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of the
+gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species of bottle-
+holder to the orators generally), and said he would read to them the
+first resolution--'That this meeting views with alarm and
+apprehension, the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this
+Metropolis and its neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys,
+as at present constituted, wholly underserving the confidence of the
+public; and that it deems the whole Muffin system alike prejudicial
+to the health and morals of the people, and subversive of the best
+interests of a great commercial and mercantile community.'  The
+honourable gentleman made a speech which drew tears from the eyes of
+the ladies, and awakened the liveliest emotions in every individual
+present.  He had visited the houses of the poor in the various
+districts of London, and had found them destitute of the slightest
+vestige of a muffin, which there appeared too much reason to believe
+some of these indigent persons did not taste from year's end to
+year's end.  He had found that among muffin-sellers there existed
+drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he attributed to the
+debasing nature of their employment as at present exercised; he had
+found the same vices among the poorer class of people who ought to
+be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to the despair
+engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of that nutritious
+article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant in intoxicating
+liquors.  He would undertake to prove before a committee of the
+House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the
+price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove
+it by bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove,
+that these men corresponded with each other by secret words and
+signs as 'Snooks,' 'Walker,' 'Ferguson,' 'Is Murphy right?' and many
+others.  It was this melancholy state of things that the Company
+proposed to correct; firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties,
+all private muffin trading of every description; secondly, by
+themselves supplying the public generally, and the poor at their own
+homes, with muffins of first quality at reduced prices.  It was with
+this object that a bill had been introduced into Parliament by their
+patriotic chairman Sir Matthew Pupker; it was this bill that they
+had met to support; it was the supporters of this bill who would
+confer undying brightness and splendour upon England, under the name
+of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking
+and Punctual Delivery Company; he would add, with a capital of Five
+Millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman
+having moved that it be amended by the insertion of the words 'and
+crumpet' after the word 'muffin,' whenever it occurred, it was
+carried triumphantly.  Only one man in the crowd cried 'No!' and he
+was promptly taken into custody, and straightway borne off.
+
+The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of
+immediately abolishing 'all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders
+in muffins (or crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or
+female, boys or men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,' was moved by
+a grievous gentleman of semi-clerical appearance, who went at once
+into such deep pathetics, that he knocked the first speaker clean
+out of the course in no time.  You might have heard a pin fall--a
+pin! a feather--as he described the cruelties inflicted on muffin
+boys by their masters, which he very wisely urged were in themselves
+a sufficient reason for the establishment of that inestimable
+company.  It seemed that the unhappy youths were nightly turned out
+into the wet streets at the most inclement periods of the year, to
+wander about, in darkness and rain--or it might be hail or snow--for
+hours together, without shelter, food, or warmth; and let the public
+never forget upon the latter point, that while the muffins were
+provided with warm clothing and blankets, the boys were wholly
+unprovided for, and left to their own miserable resources.  (Shame!)
+The honourable gentleman related one case of a muffin boy, who
+having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous system for no less
+than five years, at length fell a victim to a cold in the head,
+beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into a perspiration
+and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but he
+had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more
+heart-rending and appalling circumstance.  He had heard of the case
+of an orphan muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney
+carriage, had been removed to the hospital, had undergone the
+amputation of his leg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing
+his occupation on crutches.  Fountain of justice, were these things
+to last!
+
+This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and
+this was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies.  The men
+shouted; the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they
+were moist, and waved them till they were dry; the excitement was
+tremendous; and Mr Nickleby whispered his friend that the shares
+were thenceforth at a premium of five-and-twenty per cent.
+
+The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every
+man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his
+enthusiasm have held up both legs also, if he could have
+conveniently accomplished it.  This done, the draft of the proposed
+petition was read at length: and the petition said, as all petitions
+DO say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the petitioned
+very honourable, and the object very virtuous; therefore (said the
+petition) the bill ought to be passed into a law at once, to the
+everlasting honour and glory of that most honourable and glorious
+Commons of England in Parliament assembled.
+
+Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford's all night, and who
+looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came
+forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make
+in favour of that petition whenever it should be presented, and how
+desperately he meant to taunt the parliament if they rejected the
+bill; and to inform them also, that he regretted his honourable
+friends had not inserted a clause rendering the purchase of muffins
+and crumpets compulsory upon all classes of the community, which he
+--opposing all half-measures, and preferring to go the extreme
+animal-- pledged himself to propose and divide upon, in committee.
+After announcing this determination, the honourable gentleman grew
+jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur
+coat collar, assist jokes materially, there was immense laughter and
+much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of ladies'
+pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman quite into the
+shade.
+
+And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted,
+there came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of
+ardent temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can
+make, breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth
+with such fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the
+course whereof, he told them how he would demand the extension of
+that great boon to his native country; how he would claim for her
+equal rights in the muffin laws as in all other laws; and how he yet
+hoped to see the day when crumpets should be toasted in her lowly
+cabins, and muffin bells should ring in her rich green valleys.
+And, after him, came the Scotch member, with various pleasant
+allusions to the probable amount of profits, which increased the
+good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the speeches put
+together did exactly what they were intended to do, and established
+in the hearers' minds that there was no speculation so promising, or
+at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan
+Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery
+Company.
+
+So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the
+meeting adjourned with acclamations, and Mr Nickleby and the other
+directors went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at
+half-past one o'clock; and to remunerate themselves for which
+trouble, (as the company was yet in its infancy,) they only charged
+three guineas each man for every such attendance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby receives Sad Tidings of his Brother, but bears up
+nobly against the Intelligence communicated to him.  The Reader is
+informed how he liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, and how
+kindly he proposed to make his Fortune at once
+
+
+Having rendered his zealous assistance towards dispatching the
+lunch, with all that promptitude and energy which are among the most
+important qualities that men of business can possess, Mr Ralph
+Nickleby took a cordial farewell of his fellow-speculators, and bent
+his steps westward in unwonted good humour.  As he passed St Paul's
+he stepped aside into a doorway to set his watch, and with his hand
+on the key and his eye on the cathedral dial, was intent upon so
+doing, when a man suddenly stopped before him.  It was Newman Noggs.
+
+'Ah!  Newman,' said Mr Nickleby, looking up as he pursued his
+occupation.  'The letter about the mortgage has come, has it?  I
+thought it would.'
+
+'Wrong,' replied Newman.
+
+'What! and nobody called respecting it?' inquired Mr Nickleby,
+pausing.  Noggs shook his head.
+
+'What HAS come, then?' inquired Mr Nickleby.
+
+'I have,' said Newman.
+
+'What else?' demanded the master, sternly.
+
+'This,' said Newman, drawing a sealed letter slowly from his pocket.
+'Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black border, woman's hand, C. N. in
+the corner.'
+
+'Black wax?' said Mr Nickleby, glancing at the letter.  'I know
+something of that hand, too.  Newman, I shouldn't be surprised if my
+brother were dead.'
+
+'I don't think you would,' said Newman, quietly.
+
+'Why not, sir?' demanded Mr Nickleby.
+
+'You never are surprised,' replied Newman, 'that's all.'
+
+Mr Nickleby snatched the letter from his assistant, and fixing a
+cold look upon him, opened, read it, put it in his pocket, and
+having now hit the time to a second, began winding up his watch.
+
+'It is as I expected, Newman,' said Mr Nickleby, while he was thus
+engaged.  'He IS dead.  Dear me!  Well, that's sudden thing.  I
+shouldn't have thought it, really.'  With these touching expressions
+of sorrow, Mr Nickleby replaced his watch in his fob, and, fitting
+on his gloves to a nicety, turned upon his way, and walked slowly
+westward with his hands behind him.
+
+'Children alive?' inquired Noggs, stepping up to him.
+
+'Why, that's the very thing,' replied Mr Nickleby, as though his
+thoughts were about them at that moment.  'They are both alive.'
+
+'Both!' repeated Newman Noggs, in a low voice.
+
+'And the widow, too,' added Mr Nickleby, 'and all three in London,
+confound them; all three here, Newman.'
+
+Newman fell a little behind his master, and his face was curiously
+twisted as by a spasm; but whether of paralysis, or grief, or inward
+laughter, nobody but himself could possibly explain.  The expression
+of a man's face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on
+his speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary
+moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
+
+'Go home!' said Mr Nickleby, after they had walked a few paces:
+looking round at the clerk as if he were his dog.  The words were
+scarcely uttered when Newman darted across the road, slunk among the
+crowd, and disappeared in an instant.
+
+'Reasonable, certainly!' muttered Mr Nickleby to himself, as he
+walked on, 'very reasonable!  My brother never did anything for me,
+and I never expected it; the breath is no sooner out of his body
+than I am to be looked to, as the support of a great hearty woman,
+and a grown boy and girl.  What are they to me!  I never saw them.'
+
+Full of these, and many other reflections of a similar kind, Mr
+Nickleby made the best of his way to the Strand, and, referring to
+his letter as if to ascertain the number of the house he wanted,
+stopped at a private door about half-way down that crowded
+thoroughfare.
+
+A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame
+screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black
+velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress coats with faces looking
+out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young gentleman in a
+very vermilion uniform, flourishing a sabre; and one of a literary
+character with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six books, and a
+curtain.  There was, moreover, a touching representation of a young
+lady reading a manuscript in an unfathomable forest, and a charming
+whole length of a large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with
+his legs fore-shortened to the size of salt-spoons.  Besides these
+works of art, there were a great many heads of old ladies and
+gentlemen smirking at each other out of blue and brown skies, and an
+elegantly written card of terms with an embossed border.
+
+Mr Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and
+gave a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was
+answered by a servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face.
+
+'Is Mrs Nickleby at home, girl?' demanded Ralph sharply.
+
+'Her name ain't Nickleby,' said the girl, 'La Creevy, you mean.'
+
+Mr Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus
+corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she
+was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a
+perpendicular staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was
+wanted.
+
+'Mrs Nickleby,' said Ralph.
+
+'It's the second floor, Hannah,' said the same voice; 'what a stupid
+thing you are!  Is the second floor at home?'
+
+'Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had
+been a cleaning of himself,' replied the girl.
+
+'You had better see,' said the invisible female.  'Show the
+gentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn't knock double
+knocks for the second floor; I can't allow a knock except when the
+bell's broke, and then it must be two single ones.'
+
+'Here,' said Ralph, walking in without more parley, 'I beg your
+pardon; is that Mrs La what's-her-name?'
+
+'Creevy--La Creevy,' replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed
+over the banisters.
+
+'I'll speak to you a moment, ma'am, with your leave,' said Ralph.
+
+The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had
+walked up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was
+received by the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to
+correspond, and was of much the same colour herself.  Miss La Creevy
+was a mincing young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy's apartment
+was the gilt frame downstairs on a larger scale and something
+dirtier.
+
+'Hem!' said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black
+silk mitten.  'A miniature, I presume.  A very strongly-marked
+countenance for the purpose, sir.  Have you ever sat before?'
+
+'You mistake my purpose, I see, ma'am,' replied Mr Nickleby, in his
+usual blunt fashion.  'I have no money to throw away on miniatures,
+ma'am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had.  Seeing you
+on the stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers
+here.'
+
+Miss La Creevy coughed once more--this cough was to conceal her
+disappointment--and said, 'Oh, indeed!'
+
+'I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above
+belongs to you, ma'am,' said Mr Nickleby.
+
+Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied.  The upper part of the house
+belonged to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor
+rooms just then, she was in the habit of letting them.  Indeed,
+there was a lady from the country and her two children in them, at
+that present speaking.
+
+'A widow, ma'am?' said Ralph.
+
+'Yes, she is a widow,' replied the lady.
+
+'A POOR widow, ma'am,' said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that
+little adjective which conveys so much.
+
+'Well, I'm afraid she IS poor,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+
+'I happen to know that she is, ma'am,' said Ralph.  'Now, what
+business has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma'am?'
+
+'Very true,' replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this
+implied compliment to the apartments.  'Exceedingly true.'
+
+'I know her circumstances intimately, ma'am,' said Ralph; 'in fact,
+I am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to
+keep them here, ma'am.'
+
+'I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the
+pecuniary obligations,' said Miss La Creevy with another cough,
+'that the lady's family would--'
+
+'No they wouldn't, ma'am,' interrupted Ralph, hastily.  'Don't think
+it.'
+
+'If I am to understand that,' said Miss La Creevy, 'the case wears a
+very different appearance.'
+
+'You may understand it then, ma'am,' said Ralph, 'and make your
+arrangements accordingly.  I am the family, ma'am--at least, I
+believe I am the only relation they have, and I think it right that
+you should know I can't support them in their extravagances.  How
+long have they taken these lodgings for?'
+
+'Only from week to week,' replied Miss La Creevy.  'Mrs Nickleby
+paid the first week in advance.'
+
+'Then you had better get them out at the end of it,' said Ralph.
+'They can't do better than go back to the country, ma'am; they are
+in everybody's way here.'
+
+'Certainly,' said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands, 'if Mrs
+Nickleby took the apartments without the means of paying for them,
+it was very unbecoming a lady.'
+
+'Of course it was, ma'am,' said Ralph.
+
+'And naturally,' continued Miss La Creevy, 'I who am, AT PRESENT--
+hem--an unprotected female, cannot afford to lose by the apartments.'
+
+'Of course you can't, ma'am,' replied Ralph.
+
+'Though at the same time,' added Miss La Creevy, who was plainly
+wavering between her good-nature and her interest, 'I have nothing
+whatever to say against the lady, who is extremely pleasant and
+affable, though, poor thing, she seems terribly low in her spirits;
+nor against the young people either, for nicer, or better-behaved
+young people cannot be.'
+
+'Very well, ma'am,' said Ralph, turning to the door, for these
+encomiums on poverty irritated him; 'I have done my duty, and
+perhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying
+what I have.'
+
+'I am sure I am very much obliged to you at least, sir,' said Miss
+La Creevy in a gracious manner.  'Would you do me the favour to look
+at a few specimens of my portrait painting?'
+
+'You're very good, ma'am,' said Mr Nickleby, making off with great
+speed; 'but as I have a visit to pay upstairs, and my time is
+precious, I really can't.'
+
+'At any other time when you are passing, I shall be most happy,'
+said Miss La Creevy.  'Perhaps you will have the kindness to take a
+card of terms with you?  Thank you--good-morning!'
+
+'Good-morning, ma'am,' said Ralph, shutting the door abruptly after
+him to prevent any further conversation.  'Now for my sister-in-law.
+Bah!'
+
+Climbing up another perpendicular flight, composed with great
+mechanical ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, Mr Ralph Nickleby
+stopped to take breath on the landing, when he was overtaken by the
+handmaid, whom the politeness of Miss La Creevy had dispatched to
+announce him, and who had apparently been making a variety of
+unsuccessful attempts, since their last interview, to wipe her dirty
+face clean, upon an apron much dirtier.
+
+'What name?' said the girl.
+
+'Nickleby,' replied Ralph.
+
+'Oh!  Mrs Nickleby,' said the girl, throwing open the door, 'here's
+Mr Nickleby.'
+
+A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr Ralph Nickleby entered, but
+appeared incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant upon the arm
+of a slight but very beautiful girl of about seventeen, who had been
+sitting by her.  A youth, who appeared a year or two older, stepped
+forward and saluted Ralph as his uncle.
+
+'Oh,' growled Ralph, with an ill-favoured frown, 'you are Nicholas,
+I suppose?'
+
+'That is my name, sir,' replied the youth.
+
+'Put my hat down,' said Ralph, imperiously.  'Well, ma'am, how do
+you do?  You must bear up against sorrow, ma'am; I always do.'
+
+'Mine was no common loss!' said Mrs Nickleby, applying her
+handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+'It was no UNcommon loss, ma'am,' returned Ralph, as he coolly
+unbuttoned his spencer.  'Husbands die every day, ma'am, and wives
+too.'
+
+'And brothers also, sir,' said Nicholas, with a glance of indignation.
+
+'Yes, sir, and puppies, and pug-dogs likewise,' replied his uncle,
+taking a chair.  'You didn't mention in your letter what my
+brother's complaint was, ma'am.'
+
+'The doctors could attribute it to no particular disease,' said Mrs
+Nickleby; shedding tears.  'We have too much reason to fear that he
+died of a broken heart.'
+
+'Pooh!' said Ralph, 'there's no such thing.  I can understand a
+man's dying of a broken neck, or suffering from a broken arm, or a
+broken head, or a broken leg, or a broken nose; but a broken heart!
+--nonsense, it's the cant of the day.  If a man can't pay his debts,
+he dies of a broken heart, and his widow's a martyr.'
+
+'Some people, I believe, have no hearts to break,' observed
+Nicholas, quietly.
+
+'How old is this boy, for God's sake?' inquired Ralph, wheeling back
+his chair, and surveying his nephew from head to foot with intense
+scorn.
+
+'Nicholas is very nearly nineteen,' replied the widow.
+
+'Nineteen, eh!' said Ralph; 'and what do you mean to do for your
+bread, sir?'
+
+'Not to live upon my mother,' replied Nicholas, his heart swelling
+as he spoke.
+
+'You'd have little enough to live upon, if you did,' retorted the
+uncle, eyeing him contemptuously.
+
+'Whatever it be,' said Nicholas, flushed with anger, 'I shall not
+look to you to make it more.'
+
+'Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself,' remonstrated Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Dear Nicholas, pray,' urged the young lady.
+
+'Hold your tongue, sir,' said Ralph.  'Upon my word!  Fine
+beginnings, Mrs Nickleby--fine beginnings!'
+
+Mrs Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas by a
+gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each
+other for some seconds without speaking.  The face of the old man
+was stern, hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one,
+open, handsome, and ingenuous.  The old man's eye was keen with the
+twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man's bright with the
+light of intelligence and spirit.  His figure was somewhat slight,
+but manly and well formed; and, apart from all the grace of youth
+and comeliness, there was an emanation from the warm young heart in
+his look and bearing which kept the old man down.
+
+However striking such a contrast as this may be to lookers-on, none
+ever feel it with half the keenness or acuteness of perfection with
+which it strikes to the very soul of him whose inferiority it marks.
+It galled Ralph to the heart's core, and he hated Nicholas from that
+hour.
+
+The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph
+withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling
+Nicholas 'a boy.'  This word is much used as a term of reproach by
+elderly gentlemen towards their juniors: probably with the view of
+deluding society into the belief that if they could be young again,
+they wouldn't on any account.
+
+'Well, ma'am,' said Ralph, impatiently, 'the creditors have
+administered, you tell me, and there's nothing left for you?'
+
+'Nothing,' replied Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'And you spent what little money you had, in coming all the way to
+London, to see what I could do for you?' pursued Ralph.
+
+'I hoped,' faltered Mrs Nickleby, 'that you might have an
+opportunity of doing something for your brother's children.  It was
+his dying wish that I should appeal to you in their behalf.'
+
+'I don't know how it is,' muttered Ralph, walking up and down the
+room, 'but whenever a man dies without any property of his own, he
+always seems to think he has a right to dispose of other people's.
+What is your daughter fit for, ma'am?'
+
+'Kate has been well educated,' sobbed Mrs Nickleby.  'Tell your
+uncle, my dear, how far you went in French and extras.'
+
+The poor girl was about to murmur something, when her uncle stopped
+her, very unceremoniously.
+
+'We must try and get you apprenticed at some boarding-school,' said
+Ralph.  'You have not been brought up too delicately for that, I
+hope?'
+
+'No, indeed, uncle,' replied the weeping girl.  'I will try to do
+anything that will gain me a home and bread.'
+
+'Well, well,' said Ralph, a little softened, either by his niece's
+beauty or her distress (stretch a point, and say the latter).  'You
+must try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking or
+tambour-work will come lighter.  Have YOU ever done anything, sir?'
+(turning to his nephew.)
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas, bluntly.
+
+'No, I thought not!' said Ralph.  'This is the way my brother
+brought up his children, ma'am.'
+
+'Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poor father
+could give him,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, 'and he was thinking of--'
+
+'Of making something of him someday,' said Ralph.  'The old story;
+always thinking, and never doing.  If my brother had been a man of
+activity and prudence, he might have left you a rich woman, ma'am:
+and if he had turned his son into the world, as my father turned me,
+when I wasn't as old as that boy by a year and a half, he would have
+been in a situation to help you, instead of being a burden upon you,
+and increasing your distress.  My brother was a thoughtless,
+inconsiderate man, Mrs Nickleby, and nobody, I am sure, can have
+better reason to feel that, than you.'
+
+This appeal set the widow upon thinking that perhaps she might have
+made a more successful venture with her one thousand pounds, and
+then she began to reflect what a comfortable sum it would have been
+just then; which dismal thoughts made her tears flow faster, and in
+the excess of these griefs she (being a well-meaning woman enough,
+but weak withal) fell first to deploring her hard fate, and then to
+remarking, with many sobs, that to be sure she had been a slave to
+poor Nicholas, and had often told him she might have married better
+(as indeed she had, very often), and that she never knew in his
+lifetime how the money went, but that if he had confided in her they
+might all have been better off that day; with other bitter
+recollections common to most married ladies, either during their
+coverture, or afterwards, or at both periods.  Mrs Nickleby
+concluded by lamenting that the dear departed had never deigned to
+profit by her advice, save on one occasion; which was a strictly
+veracious statement, inasmuch as he had only acted upon it once, and
+had ruined himself in consequence.
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby heard all this with a half-smile; and when the
+widow had finished, quietly took up the subject where it had been
+left before the above outbreak.
+
+'Are you willing to work, sir?' he inquired, frowning on his nephew.
+
+'Of course I am,' replied Nicholas haughtily.
+
+'Then see here, sir,' said his uncle.  'This caught my eye this
+morning, and you may thank your stars for it.'
+
+With this exordium, Mr Ralph Nickleby took a newspaper from his
+pocket, and after unfolding it, and looking for a short time among
+the advertisements, read as follows:
+
+'"EDUCATION.--At Mr Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at
+the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire,
+Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money,
+provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living
+and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy,
+trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single stick (if
+required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other
+branch of classical literature.  Terms, twenty guineas per annum.
+No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled.  Mr Squeers is in
+town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen's Head,
+Snow Hill.  N.B.  An able assistant wanted.  Annual salary 5 pounds.
+A Master of Arts would be preferred."
+
+'There!' said Ralph, folding the paper again.  'Let him get that
+situation, and his fortune is made.'
+
+'But he is not a Master of Arts,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'That,' replied Ralph, 'that, I think, can be got over.'
+
+'But the salary is so small, and it is such a long way off, uncle!'
+faltered Kate.
+
+'Hush, Kate my dear,' interposed Mrs Nickleby; 'your uncle must know
+best.'
+
+'I say,' repeated Ralph, tartly, 'let him get that situation, and
+his fortune is made.  If he don't like that, let him get one for
+himself.  Without friends, money, recommendation, or knowledge of
+business of any kind, let him find honest employment in London,
+which will keep him in shoe leather, and I'll give him a thousand
+pounds.  At least,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, checking himself, 'I
+would if I had it.'
+
+'Poor fellow!' said the young lady.  'Oh! uncle, must we be
+separated so soon!'
+
+'Don't tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking only for
+our good, my love,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Nicholas, my dear, I wish
+you would say something.'
+
+'Yes, mother, yes,' said Nicholas, who had hitherto remained silent
+and absorbed in thought.  'If I am fortunate enough to be appointed
+to this post, sir, for which I am so imperfectly qualified, what
+will become of those I leave behind?'
+
+'Your mother and sister, sir,' replied Ralph, 'will be provided for,
+in that case (not otherwise), by me, and placed in some sphere of
+life in which they will be able to be independent.  That will be my
+immediate care; they will not remain as they are, one week after
+your departure, I will undertake.'
+
+'Then,' said Nicholas, starting gaily up, and wringing his uncle's
+hand, 'I am ready to do anything you wish me.  Let us try our
+fortune with Mr Squeers at once; he can but refuse.'
+
+'He won't do that,' said Ralph.  'He will be glad to have you on my
+recommendation.  Make yourself of use to him, and you'll rise to be
+a partner in the establishment in no time.  Bless me, only think! if
+he were to die, why your fortune's made at once.'
+
+'To be sure, I see it all,' said poor Nicholas, delighted with a
+thousand visionary ideas, that his good spirits and his inexperience
+were conjuring up before him.  'Or suppose some young nobleman who
+is being educated at the Hall, were to take a fancy to me, and get
+his father to appoint me his travelling tutor when he left, and when
+we come back from the continent, procured me some handsome appointment.
+Eh! uncle?'
+
+'Ah, to be sure!' sneered Ralph.
+
+'And who knows, but when he came to see me when I was settled (as he
+would of course), he might fall in love with Kate, who would be
+keeping my house, and--and marry her, eh! uncle?  Who knows?'
+
+'Who, indeed!' snarled Ralph.
+
+'How happy we should be!' cried Nicholas with enthusiasm.  'The pain
+of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.  Kate will be a
+beautiful woman, and I so proud to hear them say so, and mother so
+happy to be with us once again, and all these sad times forgotten,
+and--'  The picture was too bright a one to bear, and Nicholas,
+fairly overpowered by it, smiled faintly, and burst into tears.
+
+This simple family, born and bred in retirement, and wholly
+unacquainted with what is called the world--a conventional phrase
+which, being interpreted, often signifieth all the rascals in it--
+mingled their tears together at the thought of their first
+separation; and, this first gush of feeling over, were proceeding to
+dilate with all the buoyancy of untried hope on the bright prospects
+before them, when Mr Ralph Nickleby suggested, that if they lost
+time, some more fortunate candidate might deprive Nicholas of the
+stepping-stone to fortune which the advertisement pointed out, and
+so undermine all their air-built castles.  This timely reminder
+effectually stopped the conversation.  Nicholas, having carefully
+copied the address of Mr Squeers, the uncle and nephew issued forth
+together in quest of that accomplished gentleman; Nicholas firmly
+persuading himself that he had done his relative great injustice in
+disliking him at first sight; and Mrs Nickleby being at some pains
+to inform her daughter that she was sure he was a much more kindly
+disposed person than he seemed; which, Miss Nickleby dutifully
+remarked, he might very easily be.
+
+To tell the truth, the good lady's opinion had been not a little
+influenced by her brother-in-law's appeal to her better
+understanding, and his implied compliment to her high deserts; and
+although she had dearly loved her husband, and still doted on her
+children, he had struck so successfully on one of those little
+jarring chords in the human heart (Ralph was well acquainted with
+its worst weaknesses, though he knew nothing of its best), that she
+had already begun seriously to consider herself the amiable and
+suffering victim of her late husband's imprudence.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of time)
+wait upon Mr Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire Schoolmaster
+
+
+Snow Hill!  What kind of place can the quiet townspeople who see the
+words emblazoned, in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark
+shading, on the north-country coaches, take Snow Hill to be?  All
+people have some undefined and shadowy notion of a place whose name
+is frequently before their eyes, or often in their ears.  What a
+vast number of random ideas there must be perpetually floating
+about, regarding this same Snow Hill.  The name is such a good one.
+Snow Hill--Snow Hill too, coupled with a Saracen's Head: picturing
+to us by a double association of ideas, something stern and rugged!
+A bleak desolate tract of country, open to piercing blasts and
+fierce wintry storms--a dark, cold, gloomy heath, lonely by day, and
+scarcely to be thought of by honest folks at night--a place which
+solitary wayfarers shun, and where desperate robbers congregate;--
+this, or something like this, should be the prevalent notion of Snow
+Hill, in those remote and rustic parts, through which the Saracen's
+Head, like some grim apparition, rushes each day and night with
+mysterious and ghost-like punctuality; holding its swift and
+headlong course in all weathers, and seeming to bid defiance to the
+very elements themselves.
+
+The reality is rather different, but by no means to be despised
+notwithstanding.  There, at the very core of London, in the heart of
+its business and animation, in the midst of a whirl of noise and
+motion: stemming as it were the giant currents of life that flow
+ceaselessly on from different quarters, and meet beneath its walls:
+stands Newgate; and in that crowded street on which it frowns so
+darkly--within a few feet of the squalid tottering houses--upon the
+very spot on which the vendors of soup and fish and damaged fruit
+are now plying their trades--scores of human beings, amidst a roar
+of sounds to which even the tumult of a great city is as nothing,
+four, six, or eight strong men at a time, have been hurried
+violently and swiftly from the world, when the scene has been
+rendered frightful with excess of human life; when curious eyes have
+glared from casement and house-top, and wall and pillar; and when,
+in the mass of white and upturned faces, the dying wretch, in his
+all-comprehensive look of agony, has met not one--not one--that bore
+the impress of pity or compassion.
+
+Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and
+the Compter, and the bustle and noise of the city; and just on that
+particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastward
+seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in
+hackney cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident,
+is the coach-yard of the Saracen's Head Inn; its portal guarded by
+two Saracens' heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and
+glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at
+night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed
+tranquillity; possibly because this species of humour is now
+confined to St James's parish, where door knockers are preferred as
+being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient
+toothpicks.  Whether this be the reason or not, there they are,
+frowning upon you from each side of the gateway.  The inn itself
+garnished with another Saracen's Head, frowns upon you from the top
+of the yard; while from the door of the hind boot of all the red
+coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's
+Head, with a twin expression to the large Saracens' Heads below, so
+that the general appearance of the pile is decidedly of the
+Saracenic order.
+
+When you walk up this yard, you will see the booking-office on your
+left, and the tower of St Sepulchre's church, darting abruptly up
+into the sky, on your right, and a gallery of bedrooms on both
+sides.  Just before you, you will observe a long window with the
+words 'coffee-room' legibly painted above it; and looking out of
+that window, you would have seen in addition, if you had gone at the
+right time, Mr Wackford Squeers with his hands in his pockets.
+
+Mr Squeers's appearance was not prepossessing.  He had but one eye,
+and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two.  The eye he had,
+was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a
+greenish grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street
+door.  The blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up,
+which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he
+smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the
+villainous.  His hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends,
+where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead,
+which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner.  He was
+about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he
+wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic
+black; but his coat sleeves being a great deal too long, and his
+trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his
+clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at
+finding himself so respectable.
+
+Mr Squeers was standing in a box by one of the coffee-room fire-
+places, fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-
+rooms, and two of extraordinary shapes and dimensions made to suit
+the angles of the partition.  In a corner of the seat, was a very
+small deal trunk, tied round with a scanty piece of cord; and on the
+trunk was perched--his lace-up half-boots and corduroy trousers
+dangling in the air--a diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up
+to his ears, and his hands planted on his knees, who glanced timidly
+at the schoolmaster, from time to time, with evident dread and
+apprehension.
+
+'Half-past three,' muttered Mr Squeers, turning from the window, and
+looking sulkily at the coffee-room clock.  'There will be nobody
+here today.'
+
+Much vexed by this reflection, Mr Squeers looked at the little boy
+to see whether he was doing anything he could beat him for.  As he
+happened not to be doing anything at all, he merely boxed his ears,
+and told him not to do it again.
+
+'At Midsummer,' muttered Mr Squeers, resuming his complaint, 'I took
+down ten boys; ten twenties is two hundred pound.  I go back at
+eight o'clock tomorrow morning, and have got only three--three
+oughts is an ought--three twos is six--sixty pound.  What's come of
+all the boys? what's parents got in their heads? what does it all
+mean?'
+
+Here the little boy on the top of the trunk gave a violent sneeze.
+
+'Halloa, sir!' growled the schoolmaster, turning round.  'What's
+that, sir?'
+
+'Nothing, please sir,' replied the little boy.
+
+'Nothing, sir!' exclaimed Mr Squeers.
+
+'Please sir, I sneezed,' rejoined the boy, trembling till the little
+trunk shook under him.
+
+'Oh! sneezed, did you?' retorted Mr Squeers.  'Then what did you say
+"nothing" for, sir?'
+
+In default of a better answer to this question, the little boy
+screwed a couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry,
+wherefore Mr Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one
+side of the face, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other.
+
+'Wait till I get you down into Yorkshire, my young gentleman,' said
+Mr Squeers, 'and then I'll give you the rest.  Will you hold that
+noise, sir?'
+
+'Ye--ye--yes,' sobbed the little boy, rubbing his face very hard
+with the Beggar's Petition in printed calico.
+
+'Then do so at once, sir,' said Squeers.  'Do you hear?'
+
+As this admonition was accompanied with a threatening gesture, and
+uttered with a savage aspect, the little boy rubbed his face harder,
+as if to keep the tears back; and, beyond alternately sniffing and
+choking, gave no further vent to his emotions.
+
+'Mr Squeers,' said the waiter, looking in at this juncture; 'here's
+a gentleman asking for you at the bar.'
+
+'Show the gentleman in, Richard,' replied Mr Squeers, in a soft
+voice.  'Put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel,
+or I'll murder you when the gentleman goes.'
+
+The schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these words in a fierce
+whisper, when the stranger entered.  Affecting not to see him, Mr
+Squeers feigned to be intent upon mending a pen, and offering
+benevolent advice to his youthful pupil.
+
+'My dear child,' said Mr Squeers, 'all people have their trials.
+This early trial of yours that is fit to make your little heart
+burst, and your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is
+it?  Nothing; less than nothing.  You are leaving your friends, but
+you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs Squeers.
+At the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in
+Yorkshire, where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed,
+furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries--'
+
+'It IS the gentleman,' observed the stranger, stopping the
+schoolmaster in the rehearsal of his advertisement.  'Mr Squeers, I
+believe, sir?'
+
+'The same, sir,' said Mr Squeers, with an assumption of extreme
+surprise.
+
+'The gentleman,' said the stranger, 'that advertised in the Times
+newspaper?'
+
+'--Morning Post, Chronicle, Herald, and Advertiser, regarding the
+Academy called Dotheboys Hall at the delightful village of
+Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire,' added Mr Squeers.  'You
+come on business, sir.  I see by my young friends.  How do you do,
+my little gentleman? and how do you do, sir?'  With this salutation
+Mr Squeers patted the heads of two hollow-eyed, small-boned little
+boys, whom the applicant had brought with him, and waited for
+further communications.
+
+'I am in the oil and colour way.  My name is Snawley, sir,' said the
+stranger.
+
+Squeers inclined his head as much as to say, 'And a remarkably
+pretty name, too.'
+
+The stranger continued.  'I have been thinking, Mr Squeers, of
+placing my two boys at your school.'
+
+'It is not for me to say so, sir,' replied Mr Squeers, 'but I don't
+think you could possibly do a better thing.'
+
+'Hem!' said the other.  'Twenty pounds per annewum, I believe, Mr
+Squeers?'
+
+'Guineas,' rejoined the schoolmaster, with a persuasive smile.
+
+'Pounds for two, I think, Mr Squeers,' said Mr Snawley, solemnly.
+
+'I don't think it could be done, sir,' replied Squeers, as if he had
+never considered the proposition before.  'Let me see; four fives is
+twenty, double that, and deduct the--well, a pound either way shall
+not stand betwixt us.  You must recommend me to your connection,
+sir, and make it up that way.'
+
+'They are not great eaters,' said Mr Snawley.
+
+'Oh! that doesn't matter at all,' replied Squeers.  'We don't
+consider the boys' appetites at our establishment.'  This was
+strictly true; they did not.
+
+'Every wholesome luxury, sir, that Yorkshire can afford,' continued
+Squeers; 'every beautiful moral that Mrs Squeers can instil; every--
+in short, every comfort of a home that a boy could wish for, will be
+theirs, Mr Snawley.'
+
+'I should wish their morals to be particularly attended to,' said Mr
+Snawley.
+
+'I am glad of that, sir,' replied the schoolmaster, drawing himself
+up.  'They have come to the right shop for morals, sir.'
+
+'You are a moral man yourself,' said Mr Snawley.
+
+'I rather believe I am, sir,' replied Squeers.
+
+'I have the satisfaction to know you are, sir,' said Mr Snawley.  'I
+asked one of your references, and he said you were pious.'
+
+'Well, sir, I hope I am a little in that line,' replied Squeers.
+
+'I hope I am also,' rejoined the other.  'Could I say a few words
+with you in the next box?'
+
+'By all means,' rejoined Squeers with a grin.  'My dears, will you
+speak to your new playfellow a minute or two?  That is one of my
+boys, sir.  Belling his name is,--a Taunton boy that, sir.'
+
+'Is he, indeed?' rejoined Mr Snawley, looking at the poor little
+urchin as if he were some extraordinary natural curiosity.
+
+'He goes down with me tomorrow, sir,' said Squeers.  'That's his
+luggage that he is a sitting upon now.  Each boy is required to
+bring, sir, two suits of clothes, six shirts, six pair of stockings,
+two nightcaps, two pocket-handkerchiefs, two pair of shoes, two
+hats, and a razor.'
+
+'A razor!' exclaimed Mr Snawley, as they walked into the next box.
+'What for?'
+
+'To shave with,' replied Squeers, in a slow and measured tone.
+
+There was not much in these three words, but there must have been
+something in the manner in which they were said, to attract
+attention; for the schoolmaster and his companion looked steadily at
+each other for a few seconds, and then exchanged a very meaning
+smile.  Snawley was a sleek, flat-nosed man, clad in sombre
+garments, and long black gaiters, and bearing in his countenance an
+expression of much mortification and sanctity; so, his smiling
+without any obvious reason was the more remarkable.
+
+'Up to what age do you keep boys at your school then?' he asked at
+length.
+
+'Just as long as their friends make the quarterly payments to my
+agent in town, or until such time as they run away,' replied
+Squeers.  'Let us understand each other; I see we may safely do so.
+What are these boys;--natural children?'
+
+'No,' rejoined Snawley, meeting the gaze of the schoolmaster's one
+eye.  'They ain't.'
+
+'I thought they might be,' said Squeers, coolly.  'We have a good
+many of them; that boy's one.'
+
+'Him in the next box?' said Snawley.
+
+Squeers nodded in the affirmative; his companion took another peep
+at the little boy on the trunk, and, turning round again, looked as
+if he were quite disappointed to see him so much like other boys,
+and said he should hardly have thought it.
+
+'He is,' cried Squeers.  'But about these boys of yours; you wanted
+to speak to me?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Snawley.  'The fact is, I am not their father, Mr
+Squeers.  I'm only their father-in-law.'
+
+'Oh!  Is that it?' said the schoolmaster.  'That explains it at
+once.  I was wondering what the devil you were going to send them to
+Yorkshire for.  Ha! ha!  Oh, I understand now.'
+
+'You see I have married the mother,' pursued Snawley; 'it's
+expensive keeping boys at home, and as she has a little money in her
+own right, I am afraid (women are so very foolish, Mr Squeers) that
+she might be led to squander it on them, which would be their ruin,
+you know.'
+
+'I see,' returned Squeers, throwing himself back in his chair, and
+waving his hand.
+
+'And this,' resumed Snawley, 'has made me anxious to put them to
+some school a good distance off, where there are no holidays--none
+of those ill-judged coming home twice a year that unsettle
+children's minds so--and where they may rough it a little--you
+comprehend?'
+
+'The payments regular, and no questions asked,' said Squeers,
+nodding his head.
+
+'That's it, exactly,' rejoined the other.  'Morals strictly attended
+to, though.'
+
+'Strictly,' said Squeers.
+
+'Not too much writing home allowed, I suppose?' said the father-in-
+law, hesitating.
+
+'None, except a circular at Christmas, to say they never were so
+happy, and hope they may never be sent for,' rejoined Squeers.
+
+'Nothing could be better,' said the father-in-law, rubbing his
+hands.
+
+'Then, as we understand each other,' said Squeers, 'will you allow
+me to ask you whether you consider me a highly virtuous, exemplary,
+and well-conducted man in private life; and whether, as a person
+whose business it is to take charge of youth, you place the
+strongest confidence in my unimpeachable integrity, liberality,
+religious principles, and ability?'
+
+'Certainly I do,' replied the father-in-law, reciprocating the
+schoolmaster's grin.
+
+'Perhaps you won't object to say that, if I make you a reference?'
+
+'Not the least in the world.'
+
+'That's your sort!' said Squeers, taking up a pen; 'this is doing
+business, and that's what I like.'
+
+Having entered Mr Snawley's address, the schoolmaster had next to
+perform the still more agreeable office of entering the receipt of
+the first quarter's payment in advance, which he had scarcely
+completed, when another voice was heard inquiring for Mr Squeers.
+
+'Here he is,' replied the schoolmaster; 'what is it?'
+
+'Only a matter of business, sir,' said Ralph Nickleby, presenting
+himself, closely followed by Nicholas.  'There was an advertisement
+of yours in the papers this morning?'
+
+'There was, sir.  This way, if you please,' said Squeers, who had by
+this time got back to the box by the fire-place.  'Won't you be
+seated?'
+
+'Why, I think I will,' replied Ralph, suiting the action to the
+word, and placing his hat on the table before him.  'This is my
+nephew, sir, Mr Nicholas Nickleby.'
+
+'How do you do, sir?' said Squeers.
+
+Nicholas bowed, said he was very well, and seemed very much
+astonished at the outward appearance of the proprietor of Dotheboys
+Hall: as indeed he was.
+
+'Perhaps you recollect me?' said Ralph, looking narrowly at the
+schoolmaster.
+
+'You paid me a small account at each of my half-yearly visits to
+town, for some years, I think, sir,' replied Squeers.
+
+'I did,' rejoined Ralph.
+
+'For the parents of a boy named Dorker, who unfortunately--'
+
+'--unfortunately died at Dotheboys Hall,' said Ralph, finishing the
+sentence.
+
+'I remember very well, sir,' rejoined Squeers.  'Ah! Mrs Squeers,
+sir, was as partial to that lad as if he had been her own; the
+attention, sir, that was bestowed upon that boy in his illness!  Dry
+toast and warm tea offered him every night and morning when he
+couldn't swallow anything--a candle in his bedroom on the very night
+he died--the best dictionary sent up for him to lay his head upon--I
+don't regret it though.  It is a pleasant thing to reflect that one
+did one's duty by him.'
+
+Ralph smiled, as if he meant anything but smiling, and looked round
+at the strangers present.
+
+'These are only some pupils of mine,' said Wackford Squeers,
+pointing to the little boy on the trunk and the two little boys on
+the floor, who had been staring at each other without uttering a
+word, and writhing their bodies into most remarkable contortions,
+according to the custom of little boys when they first become
+acquainted.  'This gentleman, sir, is a parent who is kind enough to
+compliment me upon the course of education adopted at Dotheboys
+Hall, which is situated, sir, at the delightful village of
+Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, where youth are boarded,
+clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money--'
+
+'Yes, we know all about that, sir,' interrupted Ralph, testily.
+'It's in the advertisement.'
+
+'You are very right, sir; it IS in the advertisement,' replied
+Squeers.
+
+'And in the matter of fact besides,' interrupted Mr Snawley.  'I
+feel bound to assure you, sir, and I am proud to have this
+opportunity OF assuring you, that I consider Mr Squeers a gentleman
+highly virtuous, exemplary, well conducted, and--'
+
+'I make no doubt of it, sir,' interrupted Ralph, checking the
+torrent of recommendation; 'no doubt of it at all.  Suppose we come
+to business?'
+
+'With all my heart, sir,' rejoined Squeers.  '"Never postpone
+business," is the very first lesson we instil into our commercial
+pupils.  Master Belling, my dear, always remember that; do you
+hear?'
+
+'Yes, sir,' repeated Master Belling.
+
+'He recollects what it is, does he?' said Ralph.
+
+'Tell the gentleman,' said Squeers.
+
+'"Never,"' repeated Master Belling.
+
+'Very good,' said Squeers; 'go on.'
+
+'Never,' repeated Master Belling again.
+
+'Very good indeed,' said Squeers.  'Yes.'
+
+'P,' suggested Nicholas, good-naturedly.
+
+'Perform--business!' said Master Belling.  'Never--perform--
+business!'
+
+'Very well, sir,' said Squeers, darting a withering look at the
+culprit.  'You and I will perform a little business on our private
+account by-and-by.'
+
+'And just now,' said Ralph, 'we had better transact our own,
+perhaps.'
+
+'If you please,' said Squeers.
+
+'Well,' resumed Ralph, 'it's brief enough; soon broached; and I hope
+easily concluded.  You have advertised for an able assistant, sir?'
+
+'Precisely so,' said Squeers.
+
+'And you really want one?'
+
+'Certainly,' answered Squeers.
+
+'Here he is!' said Ralph.  'My nephew Nicholas, hot from school,
+with everything he learnt there, fermenting in his head, and nothing
+fermenting in his pocket, is just the man you want.'
+
+'I am afraid,' said Squeers, perplexed with such an application from
+a youth of Nicholas's figure, 'I am afraid the young man won't suit
+me.'
+
+'Yes, he will,' said Ralph; 'I know better.  Don't be cast down,
+sir; you will be teaching all the young noblemen in Dotheboys Hall
+in less than a week's time, unless this gentleman is more obstinate
+than I take him to be.'
+
+'I fear, sir,' said Nicholas, addressing Mr Squeers, 'that you
+object to my youth, and to my not being a Master of Arts?'
+
+'The absence of a college degree IS an objection,' replied Squeers,
+looking as grave as he could, and considerably puzzled, no less by
+the contrast between the simplicity of the nephew and the worldly
+manner of the uncle, than by the incomprehensible allusion to the
+young noblemen under his tuition.
+
+'Look here, sir,' said Ralph; 'I'll put this matter in its true
+light in two seconds.'
+
+'If you'll have the goodness,' rejoined Squeers.
+
+'This is a boy, or a youth, or a lad, or a young man, or a
+hobbledehoy, or whatever you like to call him, of eighteen or
+nineteen, or thereabouts,' said Ralph.
+
+'That I see,' observed the schoolmaster.
+
+'So do I,' said Mr Snawley, thinking it as well to back his new
+friend occasionally.
+
+'His father is dead, he is wholly ignorant of the world, has no
+resources whatever, and wants something to do,' said Ralph.  'I
+recommend him to this splendid establishment of yours, as an opening
+which will lead him to fortune if he turns it to proper account.  Do
+you see that?'
+
+'Everybody must see that,' replied Squeers, half imitating the sneer
+with which the old gentleman was regarding his unconscious relative.
+
+'I do, of course,' said Nicholas, eagerly.
+
+'He does, of course, you observe,' said Ralph, in the same dry, hard
+manner.  'If any caprice of temper should induce him to cast aside
+this golden opportunity before he has brought it to perfection, I
+consider myself absolved from extending any assistance to his mother
+and sister.  Look at him, and think of the use he may be to you in
+half-a-dozen ways!  Now, the question is, whether, for some time to
+come at all events, he won't serve your purpose better than twenty
+of the kind of people you would get under ordinary circumstances.
+Isn't that a question for consideration?'
+
+'Yes, it is,' said Squeers, answering a nod of Ralph's head with a
+nod of his own.
+
+'Good,' rejoined Ralph.  'Let me have two words with you.'
+
+The two words were had apart; in a couple of minutes Mr Wackford
+Squeers announced that Mr Nicholas Nickleby was, from that moment,
+thoroughly nominated to, and installed in, the office of first
+assistant master at Dotheboys Hall.
+
+'Your uncle's recommendation has done it, Mr Nickleby,' said
+Wackford Squeers.
+
+Nicholas, overjoyed at his success, shook his uncle's hand warmly,
+and could almost have worshipped Squeers upon the spot.
+
+'He is an odd-looking man,' thought Nicholas.  'What of that?
+Porson was an odd-looking man, and so was Doctor Johnson; all these
+bookworms are.'
+
+'At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, Mr Nickleby,' said Squeers, 'the
+coach starts.  You must be here at a quarter before, as we take
+these boys with us.'
+
+'Certainly, sir,' said Nicholas.
+
+'And your fare down, I have paid,' growled Ralph.  'So, you'll have
+nothing to do but keep yourself warm.'
+
+Here was another instance of his uncle's generosity!  Nicholas felt
+his unexpected kindness so much, that he could scarcely find words
+to thank him; indeed, he had not found half enough, when they took
+leave of the schoolmaster, and emerged from the Saracen's Head
+gateway.
+
+'I shall be here in the morning to see you fairly off,' said Ralph.
+'No skulking!'
+
+'Thank you, sir,' replied Nicholas; 'I never shall forget this
+kindness.'
+
+'Take care you don't,' replied his uncle.  'You had better go home
+now, and pack up what you have got to pack.  Do you think you could
+find your way to Golden Square first?'
+
+'Certainly,' said Nicholas.  'I can easily inquire.'
+
+'Leave these papers with my clerk, then,' said Ralph, producing a
+small parcel, 'and tell him to wait till I come home.'
+
+Nicholas cheerfully undertook the errand, and bidding his worthy
+uncle an affectionate farewell, which that warm-hearted old
+gentleman acknowledged by a growl, hastened away to execute his
+commission.
+
+He found Golden Square in due course; Mr Noggs, who had stepped out
+for a minute or so to the public-house, was opening the door with a
+latch-key, as he reached the steps.
+
+'What's that?' inquired Noggs, pointing to the parcel.
+
+'Papers from my uncle,' replied Nicholas; 'and you're to have the
+goodness to wait till he comes home, if you please.'
+
+'Uncle!' cried Noggs.
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said Nicholas in explanation.
+
+'Come in,' said Newman.
+
+Without another word he led Nicholas into the passage, and thence
+into the official pantry at the end of it, where he thrust him into
+a chair, and mounting upon his high stool, sat, with his arms
+hanging, straight down by his sides, gazing fixedly upon him, as
+from a tower of observation.
+
+'There is no answer,' said Nicholas, laying the parcel on a table
+beside him.
+
+Newman said nothing, but folding his arms, and thrusting his head
+forward so as to obtain a nearer view of Nicholas's face, scanned
+his features closely.
+
+'No answer,' said Nicholas, speaking very loud, under the impression
+that Newman Noggs was deaf.
+
+Newman placed his hands upon his knees, and, without uttering a
+syllable, continued the same close scrutiny of his companion's face.
+
+This was such a very singular proceeding on the part of an utter
+stranger, and his appearance was so extremely peculiar, that
+Nicholas, who had a sufficiently keen sense of the ridiculous, could
+not refrain from breaking into a smile as he inquired whether Mr
+Noggs had any commands for him.
+
+Noggs shook his head and sighed; upon which Nicholas rose, and
+remarking that he required no rest, bade him good-morning.
+
+It was a great exertion for Newman Noggs, and nobody knows to this
+day how he ever came to make it, the other party being wholly
+unknown to him, but he drew a long breath and actually said, out
+loud, without once stopping, that if the young gentleman did not
+object to tell, he should like to know what his uncle was going to
+do for him.
+
+Nicholas had not the least objection in the world, but on the
+contrary was rather pleased to have an opportunity of talking on the
+subject which occupied his thoughts; so, he sat down again, and (his
+sanguine imagination warming as he spoke) entered into a fervent and
+glowing description of all the honours and advantages to be derived
+from his appointment at that seat of learning, Dotheboys Hall.
+
+'But, what's the matter--are you ill?' said Nicholas, suddenly
+breaking off, as his companion, after throwing himself into a
+variety of uncouth attitudes, thrust his hands under the stool, and
+cracked his finger-joints as if he were snapping all the bones in
+his hands.
+
+Newman Noggs made no reply, but went on shrugging his shoulders and
+cracking his finger-joints; smiling horribly all the time, and
+looking steadfastly at nothing, out of the tops of his eyes, in a
+most ghastly manner.
+
+At first, Nicholas thought the mysterious man was in a fit, but, on
+further consideration, decided that he was in liquor, under which
+circumstances he deemed it prudent to make off at once.  He looked
+back when he had got the street-door open.  Newman Noggs was still
+indulging in the same extraordinary gestures, and the cracking of
+his fingers sounded louder that ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+Nicholas starts for Yorkshire.  Of his Leave-taking and his Fellow-
+Travellers, and what befell them on the Road
+
+
+If tears dropped into a trunk were charms to preserve its owner from
+sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas Nickleby would have commenced his
+expedition under most happy auspices.  There was so much to be done,
+and so little time to do it in; so many kind words to be spoken, and
+such bitter pain in the hearts in which they rose to impede their
+utterance; that the little preparations for his journey were made
+mournfully indeed.  A hundred things which the anxious care of his
+mother and sister deemed indispensable for his comfort, Nicholas
+insisted on leaving behind, as they might prove of some after use,
+or might be convertible into money if occasion required.  A hundred
+affectionate contests on such points as these, took place on the sad
+night which preceded his departure; and, as the termination of every
+angerless dispute brought them nearer and nearer to the close of
+their slight preparations, Kate grew busier and busier, and wept
+more silently.
+
+The box was packed at last, and then there came supper, with some
+little delicacy provided for the occasion, and as a set-off against
+the expense of which, Kate and her mother had feigned to dine when
+Nicholas was out.  The poor lady nearly choked himself by attempting
+to partake of it, and almost suffocated himself in affecting a jest
+or two, and forcing a melancholy laugh.  Thus, they lingered on till
+the hour of separating for the night was long past; and then they
+found that they might as well have given vent to their real feelings
+before, for they could not suppress them, do what they would.  So,
+they let them have their way, and even that was a relief.
+
+Nicholas slept well till six next morning; dreamed of home, or of
+what was home once--no matter which, for things that are changed or
+gone will come back as they used to be, thank God! in sleep--and
+rose quite brisk and gay.  He wrote a few lines in pencil, to say
+the goodbye which he was afraid to pronounce himself, and laying
+them, with half his scanty stock of money, at his sister's door,
+shouldered his box and crept softly downstairs.
+
+'Is that you, Hannah?' cried a voice from Miss La Creevy's sitting-
+room, whence shone the light of a feeble candle.
+
+'It is I, Miss La Creevy,' said Nicholas, putting down the box and
+looking in.
+
+'Bless us!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy, starting and putting her hand
+to her curl-papers.  'You're up very early, Mr Nickleby.'
+
+'So are you,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'It's the fine arts that bring me out of bed, Mr Nickleby,' returned
+the lady.  'I'm waiting for the light to carry out an idea.'
+
+Miss La Creevy had got up early to put a fancy nose into a miniature
+of an ugly little boy, destined for his grandmother in the country,
+who was expected to bequeath him property if he was like the family.
+
+'To carry out an idea,' repeated Miss La Creevy; 'and that's the
+great convenience of living in a thoroughfare like the Strand.  When
+I want a nose or an eye for any particular sitter, I have only to
+look out of window and wait till I get one.'
+
+'Does it take long to get a nose, now?' inquired Nicholas, smiling.
+
+'Why, that depends in a great measure on the pattern,' replied Miss
+La Creevy.  'Snubs and Romans are plentiful enough, and there are
+flats of all sorts and sizes when there's a meeting at Exeter Hall;
+but perfect aquilines, I am sorry to say, are scarce, and we
+generally use them for uniforms or public characters.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Nicholas.  'If I should meet with any in my travels,
+I'll endeavour to sketch them for you.'
+
+'You don't mean to say that you are really going all the way down
+into Yorkshire this cold winter's weather, Mr Nickleby?' said Miss
+La Creevy.  'I heard something of it last night.'
+
+'I do, indeed,' replied Nicholas.  'Needs must, you know, when
+somebody drives.  Necessity is my driver, and that is only another
+name for the same gentleman.'
+
+'Well, I am very sorry for it; that's all I can say,' said Miss La
+Creevy; 'as much on your mother's and sister's account as on yours.
+Your sister is a very pretty young lady, Mr Nickleby, and that is an
+additional reason why she should have somebody to protect her.  I
+persuaded her to give me a sitting or two, for the street-door case.
+'Ah! she'll make a sweet miniature.'  As Miss La Creevy spoke, she
+held up an ivory countenance intersected with very perceptible sky-
+blue veins, and regarded it with so much complacency, that Nicholas
+quite envied her.
+
+'If you ever have an opportunity of showing Kate some little
+kindness,' said Nicholas, presenting his hand, 'I think you will.'
+
+'Depend upon that,' said the good-natured miniature painter; 'and
+God bless you, Mr Nickleby; and I wish you well.'
+
+It was very little that Nicholas knew of the world, but he guessed
+enough about its ways to think, that if he gave Miss La Creevy one
+little kiss, perhaps she might not be the less kindly disposed
+towards those he was leaving behind.  So, he gave her three or four
+with a kind of jocose gallantry, and Miss La Creevy evinced no
+greater symptoms of displeasure than declaring, as she adjusted her
+yellow turban, that she had never heard of such a thing, and
+couldn't have believed it possible.
+
+Having terminated the unexpected interview in this satisfactory
+manner, Nicholas hastily withdrew himself from the house.  By the
+time he had found a man to carry his box it was only seven o'clock,
+so he walked slowly on, a little in advance of the porter, and very
+probably with not half as light a heart in his breast as the man
+had, although he had no waistcoat to cover it with, and had
+evidently, from the appearance of his other garments, been spending
+the night in a stable, and taking his breakfast at a pump.
+
+Regarding, with no small curiosity and interest, all the busy
+preparations for the coming day which every street and almost every
+house displayed; and thinking, now and then, that it seemed rather
+hard that so many people of all ranks and stations could earn a
+livelihood in London, and that he should be compelled to journey so
+far in search of one; Nicholas speedily arrived at the Saracen's
+Head, Snow Hill.  Having dismissed his attendant, and seen the box
+safely deposited in the coach-office, he looked into the coffee-room
+in search of Mr Squeers.
+
+He found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with the three
+little boys before noticed, and two others who had turned up by some
+lucky chance since the interview of the previous day, ranged in a
+row on the opposite seat.  Mr Squeers had before him a small measure
+of coffee, a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but he
+was at that moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little
+boys.
+
+'This is twopenn'orth of milk, is it, waiter?' said Mr Squeers,
+looking down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to
+get an accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it.
+
+'That's twopenn'orth, sir,' replied the waiter.
+
+'What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in London!' said Mr
+Squeers, with a sigh.  'Just fill that mug up with lukewarm water,
+William, will you?'
+
+'To the wery top, sir?' inquired the waiter.  'Why, the milk will be
+drownded.'
+
+'Never you mind that,' replied Mr Squeers.  'Serve it right for
+being so dear.  You ordered that thick bread and butter for three,
+did you?'
+
+'Coming directly, sir.'
+
+'You needn't hurry yourself,' said Squeers; 'there's plenty of time.
+Conquer your passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles.' As
+he uttered this moral precept, Mr Squeers took a large bite out of
+the cold beef, and recognised Nicholas.
+
+'Sit down, Mr Nickleby,' said Squeers.  'Here we are, a breakfasting
+you see!'
+
+Nicholas did NOT see that anybody was breakfasting, except Mr
+Squeers; but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as
+cheerful as he could.
+
+'Oh! that's the milk and water, is it, William?' said Squeers.
+'Very good; don't forget the bread and butter presently.'
+
+At this fresh mention of the bread and butter, the five little boys
+looked very eager, and followed the waiter out, with their eyes;
+meanwhile Mr Squeers tasted the milk and water.
+
+'Ah!' said that gentleman, smacking his lips, 'here's richness!
+Think of the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be
+glad of this, little boys.  A shocking thing hunger, isn't it, Mr
+Nickleby?'
+
+'Very shocking, sir,' said Nicholas.
+
+'When I say number one,' pursued Mr Squeers, putting the mug before
+the children, 'the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take
+a drink; and when I say number two, the boy next him will go in, and
+so till we come to number five, which is the last boy.  Are you
+ready?'
+
+'Yes, sir,' cried all the little boys with great eagerness.
+
+'That's right,' said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast;
+'keep ready till I tell you to begin.  Subdue your appetites, my
+dears, and you've conquered human natur.  This is the way we
+inculcate strength of mind, Mr Nickleby,' said the schoolmaster,
+turning to Nicholas, and speaking with his mouth very full of beef
+and toast.
+
+Nicholas murmured something--he knew not what--in reply; and the
+little boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and
+butter (which had by this time arrived), and every morsel which Mr
+Squeers took into his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments
+of expectation.
+
+'Thank God for a good breakfast,' said Squeers, when he had
+finished.  'Number one may take a drink.'
+
+Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to
+make him wish for more, when Mr Squeers gave the signal for number
+two, who gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and
+the process was repeated until the milk and water terminated with
+number five.
+
+'And now,' said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for
+three into as many portions as there were children, 'you had better
+look sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute
+or two, and then every boy leaves off.'
+
+Permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat
+voraciously, and in desperate haste: while the schoolmaster (who was
+in high good humour after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork,
+and looked smilingly on.  In a very short time, the horn was heard.
+
+'I thought it wouldn't be long,' said Squeers, jumping up and
+producing a little basket from under the seat; 'put what you haven't
+had time to eat, in here, boys!  You'll want it on the road!'
+
+Nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical
+arrangements; but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the
+little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and their
+boxes had to be brought out and put in, and Mr Squeers's luggage was
+to be seen carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices
+were in his department.  He was in the full heat and bustle of
+concluding these operations, when his uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby,
+accosted him.
+
+'Oh! here you are, sir!' said Ralph.  'Here are your mother and
+sister, sir.'
+
+'Where?' cried Nicholas, looking hastily round.
+
+'Here!' replied his uncle.  'Having too much money and nothing at
+all to do with it, they were paying a hackney coach as I came up,
+sir.'
+
+'We were afraid of being too late to see him before he went away
+from us,' said Mrs Nickleby, embracing her son, heedless of the
+unconcerned lookers-on in the coach-yard.
+
+'Very good, ma'am,' returned Ralph, 'you're the best judge of
+course.  I merely said that you were paying a hackney coach.  I
+never pay a hackney coach, ma'am; I never hire one.  I haven't been
+in a hackney coach of my own hiring, for thirty years, and I hope I
+shan't be for thirty more, if I live as long.'
+
+'I should never have forgiven myself if I had not seen him,' said
+Mrs Nickleby.  'Poor dear boy--going away without his breakfast too,
+because he feared to distress us!'
+
+'Mighty fine certainly,' said Ralph, with great testiness.  'When I
+first went to business, ma'am, I took a penny loaf and a ha'porth of
+milk for my breakfast as I walked to the city every morning; what do
+you say to that, ma'am?  Breakfast!  Bah!'
+
+'Now, Nickleby,' said Squeers, coming up at the moment buttoning his
+greatcoat; 'I think you'd better get up behind.  I'm afraid of one
+of them boys falling off and then there's twenty pound a year gone.'
+
+'Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, touching her brother's arm, 'who is
+that vulgar man?'
+
+'Eh!' growled Ralph, whose quick ears had caught the inquiry.  'Do
+you wish to be introduced to Mr Squeers, my dear?'
+
+'That the schoolmaster!  No, uncle.  Oh no!' replied Kate, shrinking
+back.
+
+'I'm sure I heard you say as much, my dear,' retorted Ralph in his
+cold sarcastic manner.  'Mr Squeers, here's my niece: Nicholas's
+sister!'
+
+'Very glad to make your acquaintance, miss,' said Squeers, raising
+his hat an inch or two.  'I wish Mrs Squeers took gals, and we had
+you for a teacher.  I don't know, though, whether she mightn't grow
+jealous if we had.  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+If the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall could have known what was
+passing in his assistant's breast at that moment, he would have
+discovered, with some surprise, that he was as near being soundly
+pummelled as he had ever been in his life.  Kate Nickleby, having a
+quicker perception of her brother's emotions, led him gently aside,
+and thus prevented Mr Squeers from being impressed with the fact in
+a peculiarly disagreeable manner.
+
+'My dear Nicholas,' said the young lady, 'who is this man?  What
+kind of place can it be that you are going to?'
+
+'I hardly know, Kate,' replied Nicholas, pressing his sister's hand.
+'I suppose the Yorkshire folks are rather rough and uncultivated;
+that's all.'
+
+'But this person,' urged Kate.
+
+'Is my employer, or master, or whatever the proper name may be,'
+replied Nicholas quickly; 'and I was an ass to take his coarseness
+ill.  They are looking this way, and it is time I was in my place.
+Bless you, love, and goodbye!  Mother, look forward to our meeting
+again someday!  Uncle, farewell!  Thank you heartily for all you
+have done and all you mean to do.  Quite ready, sir!'
+
+With these hasty adieux, Nicholas mounted nimbly to his seat, and
+waved his hand as gallantly as if his heart went with it.
+
+At this moment, when the coachman and guard were comparing notes for
+the last time before starting, on the subject of the way-bill; when
+porters were screwing out the last reluctant sixpences, itinerant
+newsmen making the last offer of a morning paper, and the horses
+giving the last impatient rattle to their harness; Nicholas felt
+somebody pulling softly at his leg.  He looked down, and there stood
+Newman Noggs, who pushed up into his hand a dirty letter.
+
+'What's this?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'Hush!' rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr Ralph Nickleby, who was
+saying a few earnest words to Squeers, a short distance off: 'Take
+it.  Read it.  Nobody knows.  That's all.'
+
+'Stop!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'No,' replied Noggs.
+
+Nicholas cried stop, again, but Newman Noggs was gone.
+
+A minute's bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the
+vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard,
+climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the
+horn, a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below, and the hard
+features of Mr Ralph Nickleby--and the coach was gone too, and
+rattling over the stones of Smithfield.
+
+The little boys' legs being too short to admit of their feet resting
+upon anything as they sat, and the little boys' bodies being
+consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the coach,
+Nicholas had enough to do over the stones to hold them on.  Between
+the manual exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon this task,
+he was not a little relieved when the coach stopped at the Peacock
+at Islington.  He was still more relieved when a hearty-looking
+gentleman, with a very good-humoured face, and a very fresh colour,
+got up behind, and proposed to take the other corner of the seat.
+
+'If we put some of these youngsters in the middle,' said the new-
+comer, 'they'll be safer in case of their going to sleep; eh?'
+
+'If you'll have the goodness, sir,' replied Squeers, 'that'll be the
+very thing.  Mr Nickleby, take three of them boys between you and
+the gentleman.  Belling and the youngest Snawley can sit between me
+and the guard.  Three children,' said Squeers, explaining to the
+stranger, 'books as two.'
+
+'I have not the least objection I am sure,' said the fresh-coloured
+gentleman; 'I have a brother who wouldn't object to book his six
+children as two at any butcher's or baker's in the kingdom, I dare
+say.  Far from it.'
+
+'Six children, sir?' exclaimed Squeers.
+
+'Yes, and all boys,' replied the stranger.
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said Squeers, in great haste, 'catch hold of that
+basket.  Let me give you a card, sir, of an establishment where
+those six boys can be brought up in an enlightened, liberal, and
+moral manner, with no mistake at all about it, for twenty guineas a
+year each--twenty guineas, sir--or I'd take all the boys together
+upon a average right through, and say a hundred pound a year for the
+lot.'
+
+'Oh!' said the gentleman, glancing at the card, 'you are the Mr
+Squeers mentioned here, I presume?'
+
+'Yes, I am, sir,' replied the worthy pedagogue; 'Mr Wackford Squeers
+is my name, and I'm very far from being ashamed of it.  These are
+some of my boys, sir; that's one of my assistants, sir--Mr Nickleby,
+a gentleman's son, amd a good scholar, mathematical, classical, and
+commercial.  We don't do things by halves at our shop.  All manner
+of learning my boys take down, sir; the expense is never thought of;
+and they get paternal treatment and washing in.'
+
+'Upon my word,' said the gentleman, glancing at Nicholas with a
+half-smile, and a more than half expression of surprise, 'these are
+advantages indeed.'
+
+'You may say that, sir,' rejoined Squeers, thrusting his hands into
+his great-coat pockets.  'The most unexceptionable references are
+given and required.  I wouldn't take a reference with any boy, that
+wasn't responsible for the payment of five pound five a quarter, no,
+not if you went down on your knees, and asked me, with the tears
+running down your face, to do it.'
+
+'Highly considerate,' said the passenger.
+
+'It's my great aim and end to be considerate, sir,' rejoined
+Squeers.  'Snawley, junior, if you don't leave off chattering your
+teeth, and shaking with the cold, I'll warm you with a severe
+thrashing in about half a minute's time.'
+
+'Sit fast here, genelmen,' said the guard as he clambered up.
+
+'All right behind there, Dick?' cried the coachman.
+
+'All right,' was the reply.  'Off she goes!'  And off she did go--if
+coaches be feminine--amidst a loud flourish from the guard's horn,
+and the calm approval of all the judges of coaches and coach-horses
+congregated at the Peacock, but more especially of the helpers, who
+stood, with the cloths over their arms, watching the coach till it
+disappeared, and then lounged admiringly stablewards, bestowing
+various gruff encomiums on the beauty of the turn-out.
+
+When the guard (who was a stout old Yorkshireman) had blown himself
+quite out of breath, he put the horn into a little tunnel of a
+basket fastened to the coach-side for the purpose, and giving
+himself a plentiful shower of blows on the chest and shoulders,
+observed it was uncommon cold; after which, he demanded of every
+person separately whether he was going right through, and if not,
+where he WAS going.  Satisfactory replies being made to these
+queries, he surmised that the roads were pretty heavy arter that
+fall last night, and took the liberty of asking whether any of them
+gentlemen carried a snuff-box.  It happening that nobody did, he
+remarked with a mysterious air that he had heard a medical gentleman
+as went down to Grantham last week, say how that snuff-taking was
+bad for the eyes; but for his part he had never found it so, and
+what he said was, that everybody should speak as they found.  Nobody
+attempting to controvert this position, he took a small brown-paper
+parcel out of his hat, and putting on a pair of horn spectacles (the
+writing being crabbed) read the direction half-a-dozen times over;
+having done which, he consigned the parcel to its old place, put up
+his spectacles again, and stared at everybody in turn.  After this,
+he took another blow at the horn by way of refreshment; and, having
+now exhausted his usual topics of conversation, folded his arms as
+well as he could in so many coats, and falling into a solemn
+silence, looked carelessly at the familiar objects which met his eye
+on every side as the coach rolled on; the only things he seemed to
+care for, being horses and droves of cattle, which he scrutinised
+with a critical air as they were passed upon the road.
+
+The weather was intensely and bitterly cold; a great deal of snow
+fell from time to time; and the wind was intolerably keen.  Mr
+Squeers got down at almost every stage--to stretch his legs as he
+said--and as he always came back from such excursions with a very
+red nose, and composed himself to sleep directly, there is reason to
+suppose that he derived great benefit from the process.  The little
+pupils having been stimulated with the remains of their breakfast,
+and further invigorated by sundry small cups of a curious cordial
+carried by Mr Squeers, which tasted very like toast-and-water put
+into a brandy bottle by mistake, went to sleep, woke, shivered, and
+cried, as their feelings prompted.  Nicholas and the good-tempered
+man found so many things to talk about, that between conversing
+together, and cheering up the boys, the time passed with them as
+rapidly as it could, under such adverse circumstances.
+
+So the day wore on.  At Eton Slocomb there was a good coach dinner,
+of which the box, the four front outsides, the one inside, Nicholas,
+the good-tempered man, and Mr Squeers, partook; while the five
+little boys were put to thaw by the fire, and regaled with
+sandwiches.  A stage or two further on, the lamps were lighted, and
+a great to-do occasioned by the taking up, at a roadside inn, of a
+very fastidious lady with an infinite variety of cloaks and small
+parcels, who loudly lamented, for the behoof of the outsides, the
+non-arrival of her own carriage which was to have taken her on, and
+made the guard solemnly promise to stop every green chariot he saw
+coming; which, as it was a dark night and he was sitting with his
+face the other way, that officer undertook, with many fervent
+asseverations, to do.  Lastly, the fastidious lady, finding there
+was a solitary gentleman inside, had a small lamp lighted which she
+carried in reticule, and being after much trouble shut in, the
+horses were put into a brisk canter and the coach was once more in
+rapid motion.
+
+The night and the snow came on together, and dismal enough they
+were.  There was no sound to be heard but the howling of the wind;
+for the noise of the wheels, and the tread of the horses' feet, were
+rendered inaudible by the thick coating of snow which covered the
+ground, and was fast increasing every moment.  The streets of
+Stamford were deserted as they passed through the town; and its old
+churches rose, frowning and dark, from the whitened ground.  Twenty
+miles further on, two of the front outside passengers, wisely
+availing themselves of their arrival at one of the best inns in
+England, turned in, for the night, at the George at Grantham.  The
+remainder wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks,
+and leaving the light and warmth of the town behind them, pillowed
+themselves against the luggage, and prepared, with many half-
+suppressed moans, again to encounter the piercing blast which swept
+across the open country.
+
+They were little more than a stage out of Grantham, or about halfway
+between it and Newark, when Nicholas, who had been asleep for a
+short time, was suddenly roused by a violent jerk which nearly threw
+him from his seat.  Grasping the rail, he found that the coach had
+sunk greatly on one side, though it was still dragged forward by the
+horses; and while--confused by their plunging and the loud screams
+of the lady inside--he hesitated, for an instant, whether to jump
+off or not, the vehicle turned easily over, and relieved him from
+all further uncertainty by flinging him into the road.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+In which the Occurrence of the Accident mentioned in the last
+Chapter, affords an Opportunity to a couple of Gentlemen to tell
+Stories against each other
+
+
+'Wo ho!' cried the guard, on his legs in a minute, and running to
+the leaders' heads.  'Is there ony genelmen there as can len' a
+hond here?  Keep quiet, dang ye!  Wo ho!'
+
+'What's the matter?' demanded Nicholas, looking sleepily up.
+
+'Matther mun, matter eneaf for one neight,' replied the guard; 'dang
+the wall-eyed bay, he's gane mad wi' glory I think, carse t'coorch
+is over.  Here, can't ye len' a hond?  Dom it, I'd ha' dean it if
+all my boans were brokken.'
+
+'Here!' cried Nicholas, staggering to his feet, 'I'm ready.  I'm
+only a little abroad, that's all.'
+
+'Hoold 'em toight,' cried the guard, 'while ar coot treaces.  Hang
+on tiv'em sumhoo.  Well deane, my lod.  That's it.  Let'em goa noo.
+Dang 'em, they'll gang whoam fast eneaf!'
+
+In truth, the animals were no sooner released than they trotted
+back, with much deliberation, to the stable they had just left,
+which was distant not a mile behind.
+
+'Can you blo' a harn?' asked the guard, disengaging one of the
+coach-lamps.
+
+'I dare say I can,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Then just blo' away into that 'un as lies on the grund, fit to
+wakken the deead, will'ee,' said the man, 'while I stop sum o' this
+here squealing inside.  Cumin', cumin'.  Dean't make that noise,
+wooman.'
+
+As the man spoke, he proceeded to wrench open the uppermost door of
+the coach, while Nicholas, seizing the horn, awoke the echoes far
+and wide with one of the most extraordinary performances on that
+instrument ever heard by mortal ears.  It had its effect, however,
+not only in rousing such of their fall, but in summoning assistance
+to their relief; for lights gleamed in the distance, and people were
+already astir.
+
+In fact, a man on horseback galloped down, before the passengers
+were well collected together; and a careful investigation being
+instituted, it appeared that the lady inside had broken her lamp,
+and the gentleman his head; that the two front outsides had escaped
+with black eyes; the box with a bloody nose; the coachman with a
+contusion on the temple; Mr Squeers with a portmanteau bruise on his
+back; and the remaining passengers without any injury at all--thanks
+to the softness of the snow-drift in which they had been overturned.
+These facts were no sooner thoroughly ascertained, than the lady
+gave several indications of fainting, but being forewarned that if
+she did, she must be carried on some gentleman's shoulders to the
+nearest public-house, she prudently thought better of it, and walked
+back with the rest.
+
+They found on reaching it, that it was a lonely place with no very
+great accommodation in the way of apartments--that portion of its
+resources being all comprised in one public room with a sanded
+floor, and a chair or two.  However, a large faggot and a plentiful
+supply of coals being heaped upon the fire, the appearance of things
+was not long in mending; and, by the time they had washed off all
+effaceable marks of the late accident, the room was warm and light,
+which was a most agreeable exchange for the cold and darkness out of
+doors.
+
+'Well, Mr Nickleby,' said Squeers, insinuating himself into the
+warmest corner, 'you did very right to catch hold of them horses.  I
+should have done it myself if I had come to in time, but I am very
+glad you did it.  You did it very well; very well.'
+
+'So well,' said the merry-faced gentleman, who did not seem to
+approve very much of the patronising tone adopted by Squeers, 'that
+if they had not been firmly checked when they were, you would most
+probably have had no brains left to teach with.'
+
+This remark called up a discourse relative to the promptitude
+Nicholas had displayed, and he was overwhelmed with compliments and
+commendations.
+
+'I am very glad to have escaped, of course,' observed Squeers:
+'every man is glad when he escapes from danger; but if any one of my
+charges had been hurt--if I had been prevented from restoring any
+one of these little boys to his parents whole and sound as I
+received him--what would have been my feelings?  Why the wheel a-top
+of my head would have been far preferable to it.'
+
+'Are they all brothers, sir?' inquired the lady who had carried the
+'Davy' or safety-lamp.
+
+'In one sense they are, ma'am,' replied Squeers, diving into his
+greatcoat pocket for cards.  'They are all under the same parental
+and affectionate treatment.  Mrs Squeers and myself are a mother and
+father to every one of 'em.  Mr Nickleby, hand the lady them cards,
+and offer these to the gentleman.  Perhaps they might know of some
+parents that would be glad to avail themselves of the establishment.'
+
+Expressing himself to this effect, Mr Squeers, who lost no
+opportunity of advertising gratuitously, placed his hands upon his
+knees, and looked at the pupils with as much benignity as he could
+possibly affect, while Nicholas, blushing with shame, handed round
+the cards as directed.
+
+'I hope you suffer no inconvenience from the overturn, ma'am?' said
+the merry-faced gentleman, addressing the fastidious lady, as though
+he were charitably desirous to change the subject.
+
+'No bodily inconvenience,' replied the lady.
+
+'No mental inconvenience, I hope?'
+
+'The subject is a very painful one to my feelings, sir,' replied the
+lady with strong emotion; 'and I beg you as a gentleman, not to
+refer to it.'
+
+'Dear me,' said the merry-faced gentleman, looking merrier still, 'I
+merely intended to inquire--'
+
+'I hope no inquiries will be made,' said the lady, 'or I shall be
+compelled to throw myself on the protection of the other gentlemen.
+Landlord, pray direct a boy to keep watch outside the door--and if a
+green chariot passes in the direction of Grantham, to stop it
+instantly.'
+
+The people of the house were evidently overcome by this request, and
+when the lady charged the boy to remember, as a means of identifying
+the expected green chariot, that it would have a coachman with a
+gold-laced hat on the box, and a footman, most probably in silk
+stockings, behind, the attentions of the good woman of the inn were
+redoubled.  Even the box-passenger caught the infection, and growing
+wonderfully deferential, immediately inquired whether there was not
+very good society in that neighbourhood, to which the lady replied
+yes, there was: in a manner which sufficiently implied that she
+moved at the very tiptop and summit of it all.
+
+'As the guard has gone on horseback to Grantham to get another
+coach,' said the good-tempered gentleman when they had been all
+sitting round the fire, for some time, in silence, 'and as he must
+be gone a couple of hours at the very least, I propose a bowl of hot
+punch.  What say you, sir?'
+
+This question was addressed to the broken-headed inside, who was a
+man of very genteel appearance, dressed in mourning.  He was not
+past the middle age, but his hair was grey; it seemed to have been
+prematurely turned by care or sorrow.  He readily acceded to the
+proposal, and appeared to be prepossessed by the frank good-nature
+of the individual from whom it emanated.
+
+This latter personage took upon himself the office of tapster when
+the punch was ready, and after dispensing it all round, led the
+conversation to the antiquities of York, with which both he and the
+grey-haired gentleman appeared to be well acquainted.  When this
+topic flagged, he turned with a smile to the grey-headed gentleman,
+and asked if he could sing.
+
+'I cannot indeed,' replied gentleman, smiling in his turn.
+
+'That's a pity,' said the owner of the good-humoured countenance.
+'Is there nobody here who can sing a song to lighten the time?'
+
+The passengers, one and all, protested that they could not; that
+they wished they could; that they couldn't remember the words of
+anything without the book; and so forth.
+
+'Perhaps the lady would not object,' said the president with great
+respect, and a merry twinkle in his eye.  'Some little Italian thing
+out of the last opera brought out in town, would be most acceptable
+I am sure.'
+
+As the lady condescended to make no reply, but tossed her head
+contemptuously, and murmured some further expression of surprise
+regarding the absence of the green chariot, one or two voices urged
+upon the president himself, the propriety of making an attempt for
+the general benefit.
+
+'I would if I could,' said he of the good-tempered face; 'for I hold
+that in this, as in all other cases where people who are strangers
+to each other are thrown unexpectedly together, they should
+endeavour to render themselves as pleasant, for the joint sake of
+the little community, as possible.'
+
+'I wish the maxim were more generally acted on, in all cases,' said
+the grey-headed gentleman.
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' returned the other.  'Perhaps, as you can't
+sing, you'll tell us a story?'
+
+'Nay.  I should ask you.'
+
+'After you, I will, with pleasure.'
+
+'Indeed!' said the grey-haired gentleman, smiling, 'Well, let it be
+so.  I fear the turn of my thoughts is not calculated to lighten the
+time you must pass here; but you have brought this upon yourselves,
+and shall judge.  We were speaking of York Minster just now.  My
+story shall have some reference to it.  Let us call it
+
+
+THE FIVE SISTERS OF YORK
+
+
+After a murmur of approbation from the other passengers, during
+which the fastidious lady drank a glass of punch unobserved, the
+grey-headed gentleman thus went on:
+
+'A great many years ago--for the fifteenth century was scarce two
+years old at the time, and King Henry the Fourth sat upon the throne
+of England--there dwelt, in the ancient city of York, five maiden
+sisters, the subjects of my tale.
+
+'These five sisters were all of surpassing beauty.  The eldest was
+in her twenty-third year, the second a year younger, the third a
+year younger than the second, and the fourth a year younger than the
+third.  They were tall stately figures, with dark flashing eyes and
+hair of jet; dignity and grace were in their every movement; and the
+fame of their great beauty had spread through all the country round.
+
+'But, if the four elder sisters were lovely, how beautiful was the
+youngest, a fair creature of sixteen!  The blushing tints in the
+soft bloom on the fruit, or the delicate painting on the flower, are
+not more exquisite than was the blending of the rose and lily in her
+gentle face, or the deep blue of her eye.  The vine, in all its
+elegant luxuriance, is not more graceful than were the clusters of
+rich brown hair that sported round her brow.
+
+'If we all had hearts like those which beat so lightly in the bosoms
+of the young and beautiful, what a heaven this earth would be!  If,
+while our bodies grow old and withered, our hearts could but retain
+their early youth and freshness, of what avail would be our sorrows
+and sufferings!  But, the faint image of Eden which is stamped upon
+them in childhood, chafes and rubs in our rough struggles with the
+world, and soon wears away: too often to leave nothing but a
+mournful blank remaining.
+
+'The heart of this fair girl bounded with joy and gladness.  Devoted
+attachment to her sisters, and a fervent love of all beautiful
+things in nature, were its pure affections.  Her gleesome voice and
+merry laugh were the sweetest music of their home.  She was its very
+light and life.  The brightest flowers in the garden were reared by
+her; the caged birds sang when they heard her voice, and pined when
+they missed its sweetness.  Alice, dear Alice; what living thing
+within the sphere of her gentle witchery, could fail to love her!
+
+'You may seek in vain, now, for the spot on which these sisters
+lived, for their very names have passed away, and dusty antiquaries
+tell of them as of a fable.  But they dwelt in an old wooden house--
+old even in those days--with overhanging gables and balconies of
+rudely-carved oak, which stood within a pleasant orchard, and was
+surrounded by a rough stone wall, whence a stout archer might have
+winged an arrow to St Mary's Abbey.  The old abbey flourished then;
+and the five sisters, living on its fair domains, paid yearly dues
+to the black monks of St Benedict, to which fraternity it belonged.
+
+'It was a bright and sunny morning in the pleasant time of summer,
+when one of those black monks emerged from the abbey portal, and
+bent his steps towards the house of the fair sisters.  Heaven above
+was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a
+path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from
+the shady trees; the lark soared high above the waving corn; and the
+deep buzz of insects filled the air.  Everything looked gay and
+smiling; but the holy man walked gloomily on, with his eyes bent
+upon the ground.  The beauty of the earth is but a breath, and man
+is but a shadow.  What sympathy should a holy preacher have with
+either?
+
+'With eyes bent upon the ground, then, or only raised enough to
+prevent his stumbling over such obstacles as lay in his way, the
+religious man moved slowly forward until he reached a small postern
+in the wall of the sisters' orchard, through which he passed,
+closing it behind him.  The noise of soft voices in conversation,
+and of merry laughter, fell upon his ears ere he had advanced many
+paces; and raising his eyes higher than was his humble wont, he
+descried, at no great distance, the five sisters seated on the
+grass, with Alice in the centre: all busily plying their customary
+task of embroidering.
+
+'"Save you, fair daughters!" said the friar; and fair in truth they
+were.  Even a monk might have loved them as choice masterpieces of
+his Maker's hand.
+
+'The sisters saluted the holy man with becoming reverence, and the
+eldest motioned him to a mossy seat beside them.  But the good friar
+shook his head, and bumped himself down on a very hard stone,--at
+which, no doubt, approving angels were gratified.
+
+'"Ye were merry, daughters," said the monk.
+
+'"You know how light of heart sweet Alice is," replied the eldest
+sister, passing her fingers through the tresses of the smiling girl.
+
+'"And what joy and cheerfulness it wakes up within us, to see all
+nature beaming in brightness and sunshine, father," added Alice,
+blushing beneath the stern look of the recluse.
+
+'The monk answered not, save by a grave inclination of the head, and
+the sisters pursued their task in silence.
+
+'"Still wasting the precious hours," said the monk at length,
+turning to the eldest sister as he spoke, "still wasting the
+precious hours on this vain trifling.  Alas, alas! that the few
+bubbles on the surface of eternity--all that Heaven wills we should
+see of that dark deep stream--should be so lightly scattered!'
+
+'"Father," urged the maiden, pausing, as did each of the others, in
+her busy task, "we have prayed at matins, our daily alms have been
+distributed at the gate, the sick peasants have been tended,--all
+our morning tasks have been performed.  I hope our occupation is a
+blameless one?'
+
+'"See here," said the friar, taking the frame from her hand,
+"an intricate winding of gaudy colours, without purpose or object,
+unless it be that one day it is destined for some vain ornament, to
+minister to the pride of your frail and giddy sex.  Day after day
+has been employed upon this senseless task, and yet it is not half
+accomplished.  The shade of each departed day falls upon our graves,
+and the worm exults as he beholds it, to know that we are hastening
+thither.  Daughters, is there no better way to pass the fleeting
+hours?"
+
+'The four elder sisters cast down their eyes as if abashed by the
+holy man's reproof, but Alice raised hers, and bent them mildly on
+the friar.
+
+'"Our dear mother," said the maiden; "Heaven rest her soul!"
+
+'"Amen!" cried the friar in a deep voice.
+
+'"Our dear mother," faltered the fair Alice, "was living when these
+long tasks began, and bade us, when she should be no more, ply them
+in all discretion and cheerfulness, in our leisure hours; she said
+that if in harmless mirth and maidenly pursuits we passed those
+hours together, they would prove the happiest and most peaceful of
+our lives, and that if, in later times, we went forth into the
+world, and mingled with its cares and trials--if, allured by its
+temptations and dazzled by its glitter, we ever forgot that love and
+duty which should bind, in holy ties, the children of one loved
+parent--a glance at the old work of our common girlhood would awaken
+good thoughts of bygone days, and soften our hearts to affection and
+love."
+
+'"Alice speaks truly, father," said the elder sister, somewhat
+proudly.  And so saying she resumed her work, as did the others.
+
+'It was a kind of sampler of large size, that each sister had before
+her; the device was of a complex and intricate description, and the
+pattern and colours of all five were the same.  The sisters bent
+gracefully over their work; the monk, resting his chin upon his
+hands, looked from one to the other in silence.
+
+'"How much better," he said at length, "to shun all such thoughts
+and chances, and, in the peaceful shelter of the church, devote your
+lives to Heaven!  Infancy, childhood, the prime of life, and old
+age, wither as rapidly as they crowd upon each other.  Think how
+human dust rolls onward to the tomb, and turning your faces steadily
+towards that goal, avoid the cloud which takes its rise among the
+pleasures of the world, and cheats the senses of their votaries.
+The veil, daughters, the veil!"
+
+'"Never, sisters," cried Alice.  "Barter not the light and air of
+heaven, and the freshness of earth and all the beautiful things
+which breathe upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell.  Nature's
+own blessings are the proper goods of life, and we may share them
+sinlessly together.  To die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us
+die with life about us; when our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm
+hearts be beating near; let our last look be upon the bounds which
+God has set to his own bright skies, and not on stone walls and bars
+of iron!  Dear sisters, let us live and die, if you list, in this
+green garden's compass; only shun the gloom and sadness of a
+cloister, and we shall be happy."
+
+'The tears fell fast from the maiden's eyes as she closed her
+impassioned appeal, and hid her face in the bosom of her sister.
+
+'"Take comfort, Alice," said the eldest, kissing her fair forehead.
+"The veil shall never cast its shadow on thy young brow.  How say
+you, sisters?  For yourselves you speak, and not for Alice, or for
+me."
+
+'The sisters, as with one accord, cried that their lot was cast
+together, and that there were dwellings for peace and virtue beyond
+the convent's walls.
+
+'"Father," said the eldest lady, rising with dignity, "you hear our
+final resolve.  The same pious care which enriched the abbey of St
+Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy guardianship, directed that
+no constraint should be imposed upon our inclinations, but that we
+should be free to live according to our choice.  Let us hear no more
+of this, we pray you.  Sisters, it is nearly noon.  Let us take
+shelter until evening!"  With a reverence to the friar, the lady rose
+and walked towards the house, hand in hand with Alice; the other
+sisters followed.
+
+'The holy man, who had often urged the same point before, but had
+never met with so direct a repulse, walked some little distance
+behind, with his eyes bent upon the earth, and his lips moving AS IF
+in prayer.  As the sisters reached the porch, he quickened his pace,
+and called upon them to stop.
+
+'"Stay!" said the monk, raising his right hand in the air, and
+directing an angry glance by turns at Alice and the eldest sister.
+"Stay, and hear from me what these recollections are, which you
+would cherish above eternity, and awaken--if in mercy they
+slumbered--by means of idle toys.  The memory of earthly things is
+charged, in after life, with bitter disappointment, affliction,
+death; with dreary change and wasting sorrow.  The time will one day
+come, when a glance at those unmeaning baubles will tear open deep
+wounds in the hearts of some among you, and strike to your inmost
+souls.  When that hour arrives--and, mark me, come it will--turn
+from the world to which you clung, to the refuge which you spurned.
+Find me the cell which shall be colder than the fire of mortals
+grows, when dimmed by calamity and trial, and there weep for the
+dreams of youth.  These things are Heaven's will, not mine," said
+the friar, subduing his voice as he looked round upon the shrinking
+girls.  "The Virgin's blessing be upon you, daughters!"
+
+'With these words he disappeared through the postern; and the
+sisters hastening into the house were seen no more that day.
+
+'But nature will smile though priests may frown, and next day the
+sun shone brightly, and on the next, and the next again.  And in the
+morning's glare, and the evening's soft repose, the five sisters
+still walked, or worked, or beguiled the time by cheerful
+conversation, in their quiet orchard.
+
+'Time passed away as a tale that is told; faster indeed than many
+tales that are told, of which number I fear this may be one.  The
+house of the five sisters stood where it did, and the same trees
+cast their pleasant shade upon the orchard grass.  The sisters too
+were there, and lovely as at first, but a change had come over their
+dwelling.  Sometimes, there was the clash of armour, and the
+gleaming of the moon on caps of steel; and, at others, jaded
+coursers were spurred up to the gate, and a female form glided
+hurriedly forth, as if eager to demand tidings of the weary
+messenger.  A goodly train of knights and ladies lodged one night
+within the abbey walls, and next day rode away, with two of the fair
+sisters among them.  Then, horsemen began to come less frequently,
+and seemed to bring bad tidings when they did, and at length they
+ceased to come at all, and footsore peasants slunk to the gate after
+sunset, and did their errand there, by stealth.  Once, a vassal was
+dispatched in haste to the abbey at dead of night, and when morning
+came, there were sounds of woe and wailing in the sisters' house;
+and after this, a mournful silence fell upon it, and knight or lady,
+horse or armour, was seen about it no more.
+
+'There was a sullen darkness in the sky, and the sun had gone
+angrily down, tinting the dull clouds with the last traces of his
+wrath, when the same black monk walked slowly on, with folded arms,
+within a stone's-throw of the abbey.  A blight had fallen on the
+trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the
+unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from
+time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the
+coming storm.  The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the
+heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose
+instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten in the rain.
+
+'No longer were the friar's eyes directed to the earth; they were
+cast abroad, and roamed from point to point, as if the gloom and
+desolation of the scene found a quick response in his own bosom.
+Again he paused near the sisters' house, and again he entered by the
+postern.
+
+'But not again did his ear encounter the sound of laughter, or his
+eyes rest upon the beautiful figures of the five sisters.  All was
+silent and deserted.  The boughs of the trees were bent and broken,
+and the grass had grown long and rank.  No light feet had pressed it
+for many, many a day.
+
+'With the indifference or abstraction of one well accustomed to the
+change, the monk glided into the house, and entered a low, dark
+room.  Four sisters sat there.  Their black garments made their pale
+faces whiter still, and time and sorrow had worked deep ravages.
+They were stately yet; but the flush and pride of beauty were gone.
+
+'And Alice--where was she?  In Heaven.
+
+'The monk--even the monk--could bear with some grief here; for it
+was long since these sisters had met, and there were furrows in
+their blanched faces which years could never plough.  He took his
+seat in silence, and motioned them to continue their speech.
+
+'"They are here, sisters," said the elder lady in a trembling voice.
+"I have never borne to look upon them since, and now I blame myself
+for my weakness.  What is there in her memory that we should dread?
+To call up our old days shall be a solemn pleasure yet."
+
+'She glanced at the monk as she spoke, and, opening a cabinet,
+brought forth the five frames of work, completed long before.  Her
+step was firm, but her hand trembled as she produced the last one;
+and, when the feelings of the other sisters gushed forth at sight of
+it, her pent-up tears made way, and she sobbed "God bless her!"
+
+'The monk rose and advanced towards them.  "It was almost the last
+thing she touched in health," he said in a low voice.
+
+'"It was," cried the elder lady, weeping bitterly.
+
+'The monk turned to the second sister.
+
+'"The gallant youth who looked into thine eyes, and hung upon thy
+very breath when first he saw thee intent upon this pastime, lies
+buried on a plain whereof the turf is red with blood.  Rusty
+fragments of armour, once brightly burnished, lie rotting on the
+ground, and are as little distinguishable for his, as are the bones
+that crumble in the mould!"
+
+'The lady groaned, and wrung her hands.
+
+'"The policy of courts," he continued, turning to the two other
+sisters, "drew ye from your peaceful home to scenes of revelry and
+splendour.  The same policy, and the restless ambition of--proud and
+fiery men, have sent ye back, widowed maidens, and humbled outcasts.
+Do I speak truly?"
+
+'The sobs of the two sisters were their only reply.
+
+'"There is little need," said the monk, with a meaning look, "to
+fritter away the time in gewgaws which shall raise up the pale
+ghosts of hopes of early years.  Bury them, heap penance and
+mortification on their heads, keep them down, and let the convent be
+their grave!"
+
+'The sisters asked for three days to deliberate; and felt, that
+night, as though the veil were indeed the fitting shroud for their
+dead joys.  But, morning came again, and though the boughs of the
+orchard trees drooped and ran wild upon the ground, it was the same
+orchard still.  The grass was coarse and high, but there was yet the
+spot on which they had so often sat together, when change and sorrow
+were but names.  There was every walk and nook which Alice had made
+glad; and in the minster nave was one flat stone beneath which she
+slept in peace.
+
+'And could they, remembering how her young heart had sickened at the
+thought of cloistered walls, look upon her grave, in garbs which
+would chill the very ashes within it?  Could they bow down in
+prayer, and when all Heaven turned to hear them, bring the dark
+shade of sadness on one angel's face?  No.
+
+'They sent abroad, to artists of great celebrity in those times, and
+having obtained the church's sanction to their work of piety, caused
+to be executed, in five large compartments of richly stained glass,
+a faithful copy of their old embroidery work.  These were fitted
+into a large window until that time bare of ornament; and when the
+sun shone brightly, as she had so well loved to see it, the familiar
+patterns were reflected in their original colours, and throwing a
+stream of brilliant light upon the pavement, fell warmly on the name
+of Alice.
+
+'For many hours in every day, the sisters paced slowly up and down
+the nave, or knelt by the side of the flat broad stone.  Only three
+were seen in the customary place, after many years; then but two,
+and, for a long time afterwards, but one solitary female bent with
+age.  At length she came no more, and the stone bore five plain
+Christian names.
+
+'That stone has worn away and been replaced by others, and many
+generations have come and gone since then.  Time has softened down
+the colours, but the same stream of light still falls upon the
+forgotten tomb, of which no trace remains; and, to this day, the
+stranger is shown in York Cathedral, an old window called the Five
+Sisters.'
+
+
+'That's a melancholy tale,' said the merry-faced gentleman, emptying
+his glass.
+
+'It is a tale of life, and life is made up of such sorrows,'
+returned the other, courteously, but in a grave and sad tone of
+voice.
+
+'There are shades in all good pictures, but there are lights too, if
+we choose to contemplate them,' said the gentleman with the merry
+face.  'The youngest sister in your tale was always light-hearted.'
+
+'And died early,' said the other, gently.
+
+'She would have died earlier, perhaps, had she been less happy,'
+said the first speaker, with much feeling.  'Do you think the
+sisters who loved her so well, would have grieved the less if her
+life had been one of gloom and sadness?  If anything could soothe
+the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it would be--with me--the
+reflection, that those I mourned, by being innocently happy here,
+and loving all about them, had prepared themselves for a purer and
+happier world.  The sun does not shine upon this fair earth to meet
+frowning eyes, depend upon it.'
+
+'I believe you are right,' said the gentleman who had told the
+story.
+
+'Believe!' retorted the other, 'can anybody doubt it?  Take any
+subject of sorrowful regret, and see with how much pleasure it is
+associated.  The recollection of past pleasure may become pain--'
+
+'It does,' interposed the other.
+
+'Well; it does.  To remember happiness which cannot be restored, is
+pain, but of a softened kind.  Our recollections are unfortunately
+mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions which we
+bitterly repent; still in the most chequered life I firmly think
+there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon, that I
+do not believe any mortal (unless he had put himself without the
+pale of hope) would deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of
+Lethe, if he had it in his power.'
+
+'Possibly you are correct in that belief,' said the grey-haired
+gentleman after a short reflection.  'I am inclined to think you
+are.'
+
+'Why, then,' replied the other, 'the good in this state of existence
+preponderates over the bad, let miscalled philosophers tell us what
+they will.  If our affections be tried, our affections are our
+consolation and comfort; and memory, however sad, is the best and
+purest link between this world and a better.  But come!  I'll tell
+you a story of another kind.'
+
+After a very brief silence, the merry-faced gentleman sent round the
+punch, and glancing slyly at the fastidious lady, who seemed
+desperately apprehensive that he was going to relate something
+improper, began
+
+
+THE BARON OF GROGZWIG
+
+
+'The Baron Von Koeldwethout, of Grogzwig in Germany, was as likely a
+young baron as you would wish to see.  I needn't say that he lived
+in a castle, because that's of course; neither need I say that he
+lived in an old castle; for what German baron ever lived in a new
+one?  There were many strange circumstances connected with this
+venerable building, among which, not the least startling and
+mysterious were, that when the wind blew, it rumbled in the
+chimneys, or even howled among the trees in the neighbouring forest;
+and that when the moon shone, she found her way through certain
+small loopholes in the wall, and actually made some parts of the
+wide halls and galleries quite light, while she left others in
+gloomy shadow.  I believe that one of the baron's ancestors, being
+short of money, had inserted a dagger in a gentleman who called one
+night to ask his way, and it WAS supposed that these miraculous
+occurrences took place in consequence.  And yet I hardly know how
+that could have been, either, because the baron's ancestor, who was
+an amiable man, felt very sorry afterwards for having been so rash,
+and laying violent hands upon a quantity of stone and timber which
+belonged to a weaker baron, built a chapel as an apology, and so
+took a receipt from Heaven, in full of all demands.
+
+'Talking of the baron's ancestor puts me in mind of the baron's
+great claims to respect, on the score of his pedigree.  I am afraid
+to say, I am sure, how many ancestors the baron had; but I know that
+he had a great many more than any other man of his time; and I only
+wish that he had lived in these latter days, that he might have had
+more.  It is a very hard thing upon the great men of past centuries,
+that they should have come into the world so soon, because a man who
+was born three or four hundred years ago, cannot reasonably be
+expected to have had as many relations before him, as a man who is
+born now.  The last man, whoever he is--and he may be a cobbler or
+some low vulgar dog for aught we know--will have a longer pedigree
+than the greatest nobleman now alive; and I contend that this is not
+fair.
+
+'Well, but the Baron Von Koeldwethout of Grogzwig!  He was a fine
+swarthy fellow, with dark hair and large moustachios, who rode
+a-hunting in clothes of Lincoln green, with russet boots on his feet,
+and a bugle slung over his shoulder like the guard of a long stage.
+When he blew this bugle, four-and-twenty other gentlemen of inferior
+rank, in Lincoln green a little coarser, and russet boots with a
+little thicker soles, turned out directly: and away galloped the
+whole train, with spears in their hands like lacquered area
+railings, to hunt down the boars, or perhaps encounter a bear: in
+which latter case the baron killed him first, and greased his
+whiskers with him afterwards.
+
+'This was a merry life for the Baron of Grogzwig, and a merrier
+still for the baron's retainers, who drank Rhine wine every night
+till they fell under the table, and then had the bottles on the
+floor, and called for pipes.  Never were such jolly, roystering,
+rollicking, merry-making blades, as the jovial crew of Grogzwig.
+
+'But the pleasures of the table, or the pleasures of under the
+table, require a little variety; especially when the same five-and-
+twenty people sit daily down to the same board, to discuss the same
+subjects, and tell the same stories.  The baron grew weary, and
+wanted excitement.  He took to quarrelling with his gentlemen, and
+tried kicking two or three of them every day after dinner.  This was
+a pleasant change at first; but it became monotonous after a week or
+so, and the baron felt quite out of sorts, and cast about, in
+despair, for some new amusement.
+
+'One night, after a day's sport in which he had outdone Nimrod or
+Gillingwater, and slaughtered "another fine bear," and brought him
+home in triumph, the Baron Von Koeldwethout sat moodily at the head
+of his table, eyeing the smoky roof of the hall with a discontended
+aspect.  He swallowed huge bumpers of wine, but the more he
+swallowed, the more he frowned.  The gentlemen who had been honoured
+with the dangerous distinction of sitting on his right and left,
+imitated him to a miracle in the drinking, and frowned at each
+other.
+
+'"I will!" cried the baron suddenly, smiting the table with his
+right hand, and twirling his moustache with his left.  "Fill to the
+Lady of Grogzwig!"
+
+'The four-and-twenty Lincoln greens turned pale, with the exception
+of their four-and-twenty noses, which were unchangeable.
+
+'"I said to the Lady of Grogzwig," repeated the baron, looking round
+the board.
+
+'"To the Lady of Grogzwig!" shouted the Lincoln greens; and down
+their four-and-twenty throats went four-and-twenty imperial pints of
+such rare old hock, that they smacked their eight-and-forty lips,
+and winked again.
+
+'"The fair daughter of the Baron Von Swillenhausen," said
+Koeldwethout, condescending to explain.  "We will demand her in
+marriage of her father, ere the sun goes down tomorrow.  If he
+refuse our suit, we will cut off his nose."
+
+'A hoarse murmur arose from the company; every man touched, first
+the hilt of his sword, and then the tip of his nose, with appalling
+significance.
+
+'What a pleasant thing filial piety is to contemplate!  If the
+daughter of the Baron Von Swillenhausen had pleaded a preoccupied
+heart, or fallen at her father's feet and corned them in salt tears,
+or only fainted away, and complimented the old gentleman in frantic
+ejaculations, the odds are a hundred to one but Swillenhausen Castle
+would have been turned out at window, or rather the baron turned out
+at window, and the castle demolished.  The damsel held her peace,
+however, when an early messenger bore the request of Von
+Koeldwethout next morning, and modestly retired to her chamber, from
+the casement of which she watched the coming of the suitor and his
+retinue.  She was no sooner assured that the horseman with the large
+moustachios was her proffered husband, than she hastened to her
+father's presence, and expressed her readiness to sacrifice herself
+to secure his peace.  The venerable baron caught his child to his
+arms, and shed a wink of joy.
+
+'There was great feasting at the castle, that day.  The four-and-
+twenty Lincoln greens of Von Koeldwethout exchanged vows of eternal
+friendship with twelve Lincoln greens of Von Swillenhausen, and
+promised the old baron that they would drink his wine "Till all was
+blue"--meaning probably until their whole countenances had acquired
+the same tint as their noses.  Everybody slapped everybody else's
+back, when the time for parting came; and the Baron Von Koeldwethout
+and his followers rode gaily home.
+
+'For six mortal weeks, the bears and boars had a holiday.  The
+houses of Koeldwethout and Swillenhausen were united; the spears
+rusted; and the baron's bugle grew hoarse for lack of blowing.
+
+'Those were great times for the four-and-twenty; but, alas! their
+high and palmy days had taken boots to themselves, and were already
+walking off.
+
+'"My dear," said the baroness.
+
+'"My love," said the baron.
+
+'"Those coarse, noisy men--"
+
+'"Which, ma'am?" said the baron, starting.
+
+'The baroness pointed, from the window at which they stood, to the
+courtyard beneath, where the unconscious Lincoln greens were taking
+a copious stirrup-cup, preparatory to issuing forth after a boar or
+two.
+
+'"My hunting train, ma'am," said the baron.
+
+'"Disband them, love," murmured the baroness.
+
+'"Disband them!" cried the baron, in amazement.
+
+'"To please me, love," replied the baroness.
+
+'"To please the devil, ma'am," answered the baron.
+
+'Whereupon the baroness uttered a great cry, and swooned away at the
+baron's feet.
+
+'What could the baron do?  He called for the lady's maid, and roared
+for the doctor; and then, rushing into the yard, kicked the two
+Lincoln greens who were the most used to it, and cursing the others
+all round, bade them go--but never mind where.  I don't know the
+German for it, or I would put it delicately that way.
+
+'It is not for me to say by what means, or by what degrees, some
+wives manage to keep down some husbands as they do, although I may
+have my private opinion on the subject, and may think that no Member
+of Parliament ought to be married, inasmuch as three married members
+out of every four, must vote according to their wives' consciences
+(if there be such things), and not according to their own.  All I
+need say, just now, is, that the Baroness Von Koeldwethout somehow
+or other acquired great control over the Baron Von Koeldwethout, and
+that, little by little, and bit by bit, and day by day, and year by
+year, the baron got the worst of some disputed question, or was
+slyly unhorsed from some old hobby; and that by the time he was a
+fat hearty fellow of forty-eight or thereabouts, he had no feasting,
+no revelry, no hunting train, and no hunting--nothing in short that
+he liked, or used to have; and that, although he was as fierce as a
+lion, and as bold as brass, he was decidedly snubbed and put down,
+by his own lady, in his own castle of Grogzwig.
+
+'Nor was this the whole extent of the baron's misfortunes.  About a
+year after his nuptials, there came into the world a lusty young
+baron, in whose honour a great many fireworks were let off, and a
+great many dozens of wine drunk; but next year there came a young
+baroness, and next year another young baron, and so on, every year,
+either a baron or baroness (and one year both together), until the
+baron found himself the father of a small family of twelve.  Upon
+every one of these anniversaries, the venerable Baroness Von
+Swillenhausen was nervously sensitive for the well-being of her
+child the Baroness Von Koeldwethout; and although it was not found
+that the good lady ever did anything material towards contributing
+to her child's recovery, still she made it a point of duty to be as
+nervous as possible at the castle of Grogzwig, and to divide her
+time between moral observations on the baron's housekeeping, and
+bewailing the hard lot of her unhappy daughter.  And if the Baron of
+Grogzwig, a little hurt and irritated at this, took heart, and
+ventured to suggest that his wife was at least no worse off than the
+wives of other barons, the Baroness Von Swillenhausen begged all
+persons to take notice, that nobody but she, sympathised with her
+dear daughter's sufferings; upon which, her relations and friends
+remarked, that to be sure she did cry a great deal more than her
+son-in-law, and that if there were a hard-hearted brute alive, it
+was that Baron of Grogzwig.
+
+'The poor baron bore it all as long as he could, and when he could
+bear it no longer lost his appetite and his spirits, and sat himself
+gloomily and dejectedly down.  But there were worse troubles yet in
+store for him, and as they came on, his melancholy and sadness
+increased.  Times changed.  He got into debt.  The Grogzwig coffers
+ran low, though the Swillenhausen family had looked upon them as
+inexhaustible; and just when the baroness was on the point of making
+a thirteenth addition to the family pedigree, Von Koeldwethout
+discovered that he had no means of replenishing them.
+
+'"I don't see what is to be done," said the baron.  "I think I'll
+kill myself."
+
+'This was a bright idea.  The baron took an old hunting-knife from a
+cupboard hard by, and having sharpened it on his boot, made what
+boys call "an offer" at his throat.
+
+'"Hem!" said the baron, stopping short.  "Perhaps it's not sharp
+enough."
+
+'The baron sharpened it again, and made another offer, when his hand
+was arrested by a loud screaming among the young barons and
+baronesses, who had a nursery in an upstairs tower with iron bars
+outside the window, to prevent their tumbling out into the moat.
+
+'"If I had been a bachelor," said the baron sighing, "I might have
+done it fifty times over, without being interrupted.  Hallo!  Put a
+flask of wine and the largest pipe in the little vaulted room behind
+the hall."
+
+'One of the domestics, in a very kind manner, executed the baron's
+order in the course of half an hour or so, and Von Koeldwethout
+being apprised thereof, strode to the vaulted room, the walls of
+which, being of dark shining wood, gleamed in the light of the
+blazing logs which were piled upon the hearth.  The bottle and pipe
+were ready, and, upon the whole, the place looked very comfortable.
+
+'"Leave the lamp," said the baron.
+
+'"Anything else, my lord?" inquired the domestic.
+
+'"The room," replied the baron.  The domestic obeyed, and the baron
+locked the door.
+
+'"I'll smoke a last pipe," said the baron, "and then I'll be off."
+So, putting the knife upon the table till he wanted it, and tossing
+off a goodly measure of wine, the Lord of Grogzwig threw himself
+back in his chair, stretched his legs out before the fire, and
+puffed away.
+
+'He thought about a great many things--about his present troubles
+and past days of bachelorship, and about the Lincoln greens, long
+since dispersed up and down the country, no one knew whither: with
+the exception of two who had been unfortunately beheaded, and four
+who had killed themselves with drinking.  His mind was running upon
+bears and boars, when, in the process of draining his glass to the
+bottom, he raised his eyes, and saw, for the first time and with
+unbounded astonishment, that he was not alone.
+
+'No, he was not; for, on the opposite side of the fire, there sat
+with folded arms a wrinkled hideous figure, with deeply sunk and
+bloodshot eyes, and an immensely long cadaverous face, shadowed by
+jagged and matted locks of coarse black hair.  He wore a kind of
+tunic of a dull bluish colour, which, the baron observed, on
+regarding it attentively, was clasped or ornamented down the front
+with coffin handles.  His legs, too, were encased in coffin plates
+as though in armour; and over his left shoulder he wore a short
+dusky cloak, which seemed made of a remnant of some pall.  He took
+no notice of the baron, but was intently eyeing the fire.
+
+'"Halloa!" said the baron, stamping his foot to attract attention.
+
+'"Halloa!" replied the stranger, moving his eyes towards the baron,
+but not his face or himself "What now?"
+
+'"What now!" replied the baron, nothing daunted by his hollow voice
+and lustreless eyes.  "I should ask that question.  How did you get
+here?"
+
+'"Through the door," replied the figure.
+
+'"What are you?" says the baron.
+
+'"A man," replied the figure.
+
+'"I don't believe it," says the baron.
+
+'"Disbelieve it then," says the figure.
+
+'"I will," rejoined the baron.
+
+'The figure looked at the bold Baron of Grogzwig for some time, and
+then said familiarly,
+
+'"There's no coming over you, I see.  I'm not a man!"
+
+'"What are you then?" asked the baron.
+
+'"A genius," replied the figure.
+
+'"You don't look much like one," returned the baron scornfully.
+
+'"I am the Genius of Despair and Suicide," said the apparition.
+"Now you know me."
+
+'With these words the apparition turned towards the baron, as if
+composing himself for a talk--and, what was very remarkable, was,
+that he threw his cloak aside, and displaying a stake, which was run
+through the centre of his body, pulled it out with a jerk, and laid
+it on the table, as composedly as if it had been a walking-stick.
+
+'"Now," said the figure, glancing at the hunting-knife, "are you
+ready for me?"
+
+'"Not quite," rejoined the baron; "I must finish this pipe first."
+
+'"Look sharp then," said the figure.
+
+'"You seem in a hurry," said the baron.
+
+'"Why, yes, I am," answered the figure; "they're doing a pretty
+brisk business in my way, over in England and France just now, and
+my time is a good deal taken up."
+
+'"Do you drink?" said the baron, touching the bottle with the bowl
+of his pipe.
+
+'"Nine times out of ten, and then very hard," rejoined the figure,
+drily.
+
+'"Never in moderation?" asked the baron.
+
+'"Never," replied the figure, with a shudder, "that breeds
+cheerfulness."
+
+'The baron took another look at his new friend, whom he thought an
+uncommonly queer customer, and at length inquired whether he took
+any active part in such little proceedings as that which he had in
+contemplation.
+
+'"No," replied the figure evasively; "but I am always present."
+
+'"Just to see fair, I suppose?" said the baron.
+
+'"Just that," replied the figure, playing with his stake, and
+examining the ferule.  "Be as quick as you can, will you, for
+there's a young gentleman who is afflicted with too much money and
+leisure wanting me now, I find."
+
+'"Going to kill himself because he has too much money!" exclaimed
+the baron, quite tickled.  "Ha! ha! that's a good one."  (This was
+the first time the baron had laughed for many a long day.)
+
+'"I say," expostulated the figure, looking very much scared; "don't
+do that again."
+
+'"Why not?" demanded the baron.
+
+'"Because it gives me pain all over," replied the figure.  "Sigh as
+much as you please: that does me good."
+
+'The baron sighed mechanically at the mention of the word; the
+figure, brightening up again, handed him the hunting-knife with most
+winning politeness.
+
+'"It's not a bad idea though," said the baron, feeling the edge of
+the weapon; "a man killing himself because he has too much money."
+
+'"Pooh!" said the apparition, petulantly, "no better than a man's
+killing himself because he has none or little."
+
+'Whether the genius unintentionally committed himself in saying
+this, or whether he thought the baron's mind was so thoroughly made
+up that it didn't matter what he said, I have no means of knowing.
+I only know that the baron stopped his hand, all of a sudden, opened
+his eyes wide, and looked as if quite a new light had come upon him
+for the first time.
+
+'"Why, certainly," said Von Koeldwethout, "nothing is too bad to be
+retrieved."
+
+'"Except empty coffers," cried the genius.
+
+'"Well; but they may be one day filled again," said the baron.
+
+'"Scolding wives," snarled the genius.
+
+'"Oh!  They may be made quiet," said the baron.
+
+'"Thirteen children," shouted the genius.
+
+'"Can't all go wrong, surely," said the baron.
+
+'The genius was evidently growing very savage with the baron, for
+holding these opinions all at once; but he tried to laugh it off,
+and said if he would let him know when he had left off joking he
+should feel obliged to him.
+
+'"But I am not joking; I was never farther from it," remonstrated
+the baron.
+
+'"Well, I am glad to hear that," said the genius, looking very grim,
+"because a joke, without any figure of speech, IS the death of me.
+Come!  Quit this dreary world at once."
+
+'"I don't know," said the baron, playing with the knife; "it's a
+dreary one certainly, but I don't think yours is much better, for
+you have not the appearance of being particularly comfortable.  That
+puts me in mind--what security have I, that I shall be any the
+better for going out of the world after all!" he cried, starting up;
+"I never thought of that."
+
+'"Dispatch," cried the figure, gnashing his teeth.
+
+'"Keep off!" said the baron.  'I'll brood over miseries no longer,
+but put a good face on the matter, and try the fresh air and the
+bears again; and if that don't do, I'll talk to the baroness
+soundly, and cut the Von Swillenhausens dead.'  With this the baron
+fell into his chair, and laughed so loud and boisterously, that the
+room rang with it.
+
+'The figure fell back a pace or two, regarding the baron meanwhile
+with a look of intense terror, and when he had ceased, caught up the
+stake, plunged it violently into its body, uttered a frightful howl,
+and disappeared.
+
+'Von Koeldwethout never saw it again.  Having once made up his mind
+to action, he soon brought the baroness and the Von Swillenhausens
+to reason, and died many years afterwards: not a rich man that I am
+aware of, but certainly a happy one: leaving behind him a numerous
+family, who had been carefully educated in bear and boar-hunting
+under his own personal eye.  And my advice to all men is, that if
+ever they become hipped and melancholy from similar causes (as very
+many men do), they look at both sides of the question, applying a
+magnifying-glass to the best one; and if they still feel tempted to
+retire without leave, that they smoke a large pipe and drink a full
+bottle first, and profit by the laudable example of the Baron of
+Grogzwig.'
+
+
+'The fresh coach is ready, ladies and gentlemen, if you please,'
+said a new driver, looking in.
+
+This intelligence caused the punch to be finished in a great hurry,
+and prevented any discussion relative to the last story.  Mr Squeers
+was observed to draw the grey-headed gentleman on one side, and to
+ask a question with great apparent interest; it bore reference to
+the Five Sisters of York, and was, in fact, an inquiry whether he
+could inform him how much per annum the Yorkshire convents got in
+those days with their boarders.
+
+The journey was then resumed.  Nicholas fell asleep towards morning,
+and, when he awoke, found, with great regret, that, during his nap,
+both the Baron of Grogzwig and the grey-haired gentleman had got
+down and were gone.  The day dragged on uncomfortably enough.  At
+about six o'clock that night, he and Mr Squeers, and the little
+boys, and their united luggage, were all put down together at the
+George and New Inn, Greta Bridge.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+Mr and Mrs Squeers at Home
+
+
+Mr Squeers, being safely landed, left Nicholas and the boys standing
+with the luggage in the road, to amuse themselves by looking at the
+coach as it changed horses, while he ran into the tavern and went
+through the leg-stretching process at the bar.  After some minutes,
+he returned, with his legs thoroughly stretched, if the hue of his
+nose and a short hiccup afforded any criterion; and at the same time
+there came out of the yard a rusty pony-chaise, and a cart, driven
+by two labouring men.
+
+'Put the boys and the boxes into the cart,' said Squeers, rubbing
+his hands; 'and this young man and me will go on in the chaise.  Get
+in, Nickleby.'
+
+Nicholas obeyed.  Mr.  Squeers with some difficulty inducing the
+pony to obey also, they started off, leaving the cart-load of infant
+misery to follow at leisure.
+
+'Are you cold, Nickleby?' inquired Squeers, after they had travelled
+some distance in silence.
+
+'Rather, sir, I must say.'
+
+'Well, I don't find fault with that,' said Squeers; 'it's a long
+journey this weather.'
+
+'Is it much farther to Dotheboys Hall, sir?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'About three mile from here,' replied Squeers.  'But you needn't
+call it a Hall down here.'
+
+Nicholas coughed, as if he would like to know why.
+
+'The fact is, it ain't a Hall,' observed Squeers drily.
+
+'Oh, indeed!' said Nicholas, whom this piece of intelligence much
+astonished.
+
+'No,' replied Squeers.  'We call it a Hall up in London, because it
+sounds better, but they don't know it by that name in these parts.
+A man may call his house an island if he likes; there's no act of
+Parliament against that, I believe?'
+
+'I believe not, sir,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+Squeers eyed his companion slyly, at the conclusion of this little
+dialogue, and finding that he had grown thoughtful and appeared in
+nowise disposed to volunteer any observations, contented himself
+with lashing the pony until they reached their journey's end.
+
+'Jump out,' said Squeers.  'Hallo there!  Come and put this horse
+up.  Be quick, will you!'
+
+While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries,
+Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-
+looking house, one storey high, with a few straggling out-buildings
+behind, and a barn and stable adjoining.  After the lapse of a
+minute or two, the noise of somebody unlocking the yard-gate was
+heard, and presently a tall lean boy, with a lantern in his hand,
+issued forth.
+
+'Is that you, Smike?' cried Squeers.
+
+'Yes, sir,' replied the boy.
+
+'Then why the devil didn't you come before?'
+
+'Please, sir, I fell asleep over the fire,' answered Smike, with
+humility.
+
+'Fire! what fire?  Where's there a fire?' demanded the schoolmaster,
+sharply.
+
+'Only in the kitchen, sir,' replied the boy.  'Missus said as I was
+sitting up, I might go in there for a warm.'
+
+'Your missus is a fool,' retorted Squeers.  'You'd have been a
+deuced deal more wakeful in the cold, I'll engage.'
+
+By this time Mr Squeers had dismounted; and after ordering the boy
+to see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn't any more corn
+that night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front-door a minute
+while he went round and let him in.
+
+A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding upon
+Nicholas during the whole journey, thronged into his mind with
+redoubled force when he was left alone.  His great distance from
+home and the impossibility of reaching it, except on foot, should he
+feel ever so anxious to return, presented itself to him in most
+alarming colours; and as he looked up at the dreary house and dark
+windows, and upon the wild country round, covered with snow, he felt
+a depression of heart and spirit which he had never experienced
+before.
+
+'Now then!' cried Squeers, poking his head out at the front-door.
+'Where are you, Nickleby?'
+
+'Here, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Come in, then,' said Squeers 'the wind blows in, at this door, fit
+to knock a man off his legs.'
+
+Nicholas sighed, and hurried in.  Mr Squeers, having bolted the door
+to keep it shut, ushered him into a small parlour scantily furnished
+with a few chairs, a yellow map hung against the wall, and a couple
+of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on
+the other, a tutor's assistant, a Murray's grammar, half-a-dozen
+cards of terms, and a worn letter directed to Wackford Squeers,
+Esquire, were arranged in picturesque confusion.
+
+They had not been in this apartment a couple of minutes, when a
+female bounced into the room, and, seizing Mr Squeers by the throat,
+gave him two loud kisses: one close after the other, like a
+postman's knock.  The lady, who was of a large raw-boned figure, was
+about half a head taller than Mr Squeers, and was dressed in a
+dimity night-jacket; with her hair in papers; she had also a dirty
+nightcap on, relieved by a yellow cotton handkerchief which tied it
+under the chin.
+
+'How is my Squeery?' said this lady in a playful manner, and a very
+hoarse voice.
+
+'Quite well, my love,' replied Squeers.  'How's the cows?'
+
+'All right, every one of'em,' answered the lady.
+
+'And the pigs?' said Squeers.
+
+'As well as they were when you went away.'
+
+'Come; that's a blessing,' said Squeers, pulling off his great-coat.
+'The boys are all as they were, I suppose?'
+
+'Oh, yes, they're well enough,' replied Mrs Squeers, snappishly.
+'That young Pitcher's had a fever.'
+
+'No!' exclaimed Squeers.  'Damn that boy, he's always at something
+of that sort.'
+
+'Never was such a boy, I do believe,' said Mrs Squeers; 'whatever he
+has is always catching too.  I say it's obstinacy, and nothing shall
+ever convince me that it isn't.  I'd beat it out of him; and I told
+you that, six months ago.'
+
+'So you did, my love,' rejoined Squeers.  'We'll try what can be
+done.'
+
+Pending these little endearments, Nicholas had stood, awkwardly
+enough, in the middle of the room: not very well knowing whether he
+was expected to retire into the passage, or to remain where he was.
+He was now relieved from his perplexity by Mr Squeers.
+
+'This is the new young man, my dear,' said that gentleman.
+
+'Oh,' replied Mrs Squeers, nodding her head at Nicholas, and eyeing
+him coldly from top to toe.
+
+'He'll take a meal with us tonight,' said Squeers, 'and go among the
+boys tomorrow morning.  You can give him a shake-down here, tonight,
+can't you?'
+
+'We must manage it somehow,' replied the lady.  'You don't much mind
+how you sleep, I suppose, sir?'
+
+No, indeed,' replied Nicholas, 'I am not particular.'
+
+'That's lucky,' said Mrs Squeers.  And as the lady's humour was
+considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr Squeers laughed heartily,
+and seemed to expect that Nicholas should do the same.
+
+After some further conversation between the master and mistress
+relative to the success of Mr Squeers's trip and the people who had
+paid, and the people who had made default in payment, a young
+servant girl brought in a Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, which
+being set upon the table, the boy Smike appeared with a jug of ale.
+
+Mr Squeers was emptying his great-coat pockets of letters to
+different boys, and other small documents, which he had brought down
+in them.  The boy glanced, with an anxious and timid expression, at
+the papers, as if with a sickly hope that one among them might
+relate to him.  The look was a very painful one, and went to
+Nicholas's heart at once; for it told a long and very sad history.
+
+It induced him to consider the boy more attentively, and he was
+surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments which
+formed his dress.  Although he could not have been less than
+eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a
+skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little boys, and
+which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite
+wide enough for his attenuated frame.  In order that the lower part
+of his legs might be in perfect keeping with this singular dress, he
+had a very large pair of boots, originally made for tops, which
+might have been once worn by some stout farmer, but were now too
+patched and tattered for a beggar.  Heaven knows how long he had
+been there, but he still wore the same linen which he had first
+taken down; for, round his neck, was a tattered child's frill, only
+half concealed by a coarse, man's neckerchief.  He was lame; and as
+he feigned to be busy in arranging the table, glanced at the letters
+with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless, that
+Nicholas could hardly bear to watch him.
+
+'What are you bothering about there, Smike?' cried Mrs Squeers; 'let
+the things alone, can't you?'
+
+'Eh!' said Squeers, looking up.  'Oh! it's you, is it?'
+
+'Yes, sir,' replied the youth, pressing his hands together, as
+though to control, by force, the nervous wandering of his fingers.
+'Is there--'
+
+'Well!' said Squeers.
+
+'Have you--did anybody--has nothing been heard--about me?'
+
+'Devil a bit,' replied Squeers testily.
+
+The lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his hand to his face, moved
+towards the door.
+
+'Not a word,' resumed Squeers, 'and never will be.  Now, this is a
+pretty sort of thing, isn't it, that you should have been left here,
+all these years, and no money paid after the first six--nor no
+notice taken, nor no clue to be got who you belong to?  It's a
+pretty sort of thing that I should have to feed a great fellow like
+you, and never hope to get one penny for it, isn't it?'
+
+The boy put his hand to his head as if he were making an effort to
+recollect something, and then, looking vacantly at his questioner,
+gradually broke into a smile, and limped away.
+
+'I'll tell you what, Squeers,' remarked his wife as the door closed,
+'I think that young chap's turning silly.'
+
+'I hope not,' said the schoolmaster; 'for he's a handy fellow out of
+doors, and worth his meat and drink, anyway.  I should think he'd
+have wit enough for us though, if he was.  But come; let's have
+supper, for I am hungry and tired, and want to get to bed.'
+
+This reminder brought in an exclusive steak for Mr Squeers, who
+speedily proceeded to do it ample justice.  Nicholas drew up his
+chair, but his appetite was effectually taken away.
+
+'How's the steak, Squeers?' said Mrs S.
+
+'Tender as a lamb,' replied Squeers.  'Have a bit.'
+
+'I couldn't eat a morsel,' replied his wife.  'What'll the young man
+take, my dear?'
+
+'Whatever he likes that's present,' rejoined Squeers, in a most
+unusual burst of generosity.
+
+'What do you say, Mr Knuckleboy?' inquired Mrs Squeers.
+
+'I'll take a little of the pie, if you please,' replied Nicholas.
+'A very little, for I'm not hungry.'
+
+Well, it's a pity to cut the pie if you're not hungry, isn't it?'
+said Mrs Squeers.  'Will you try a bit of the beef?'
+
+'Whatever you please,' replied Nicholas abstractedly; 'it's all the
+same to me.'
+
+Mrs Squeers looked vastly gracious on receiving this reply; and
+nodding to Squeers, as much as to say that she was glad to find the
+young man knew his station, assisted Nicholas to a slice of meat
+with her own fair hands.
+
+'Ale, Squeery?' inquired the lady, winking and frowning to give him
+to understand that the question propounded, was, whether Nicholas
+should have ale, and not whether he (Squeers) would take any.
+
+'Certainly,' said Squeers, re-telegraphing in the same manner.  'A
+glassful.'
+
+So Nicholas had a glassful, and being occupied with his own
+reflections, drank it, in happy innocence of all the foregone
+proceedings.
+
+'Uncommon juicy steak that,' said Squeers, as he laid down his knife
+and fork, after plying it, in silence, for some time.
+
+'It's prime meat,' rejoined his lady.  'I bought a good large piece
+of it myself on purpose for--'
+
+'For what!' exclaimed Squeers hastily.  'Not for the--'
+
+'No, no; not for them,' rejoined Mrs Squeers; 'on purpose for you
+against you came home.  Lor! you didn't think I could have made such
+a mistake as that.'
+
+'Upon my word, my dear, I didn't know what you were going to say,'
+said Squeers, who had turned pale.
+
+'You needn't make yourself uncomfortable,' remarked his wife,
+laughing heartily.  'To think that I should be such a noddy!  Well!'
+
+This part of the conversation was rather unintelligible; but popular
+rumour in the neighbourhood asserted that Mr Squeers, being amiably
+opposed to cruelty to animals, not unfrequently purchased for by
+consumption the bodies of horned cattle who had died a natural
+death; possibly he was apprehensive of having unintentionally
+devoured some choice morsel intended for the young gentlemen.
+
+Supper being over, and removed by a small servant girl with a hungry
+eye, Mrs Squeers retired to lock it up, and also to take into safe
+custody the clothes of the five boys who had just arrived, and who
+were half-way up the troublesome flight of steps which leads to
+death's door, in consequence of exposure to the cold.  They were
+then regaled with a light supper of porridge, and stowed away, side
+by side, in a small bedstead, to warm each other, and dream of a
+substantial meal with something hot after it, if their fancies set
+that way: which it is not at all improbable they did.
+
+Mr Squeers treated himself to a stiff tumbler of brandy and water,
+made on the liberal half-and-half principle, allowing for the
+dissolution of the sugar; and his amiable helpmate mixed Nicholas
+the ghost of a small glassful of the same compound.  This done, Mr
+and Mrs Squeers drew close up to the fire, and sitting with their
+feet on the fender, talked confidentially in whispers; while
+Nicholas, taking up the tutor's assistant, read the interesting
+legends in the miscellaneous questions, and all the figures into the
+bargain, with as much thought or consciousness of what he was doing,
+as if he had been in a magnetic slumber.
+
+At length, Mr Squeers yawned fearfully, and opined that it was high
+time to go to bed; upon which signal, Mrs Squeers and the girl
+dragged in a small straw mattress and a couple of blankets, and
+arranged them into a couch for Nicholas.
+
+'We'll put you into your regular bedroom tomorrow, Nickelby,' said
+Squeers.  'Let me see!  Who sleeps in Brooks's's bed, my dear?'
+
+'In Brooks's,' said Mrs Squeers, pondering.  'There's Jennings,
+little Bolder, Graymarsh, and what's his name.'
+
+'So there is,' rejoined Squeers.  'Yes!  Brooks is full.'
+
+'Full!' thought Nicholas.  'I should think he was.'
+
+'There's a place somewhere, I know,' said Squeers; 'but I can't at
+this moment call to mind where it is.  However, we'll have that all
+settled tomorrow.  Good-night, Nickleby.  Seven o'clock in the
+morning, mind.'
+
+'I shall be ready, sir,' replied Nicholas.  'Good-night.'
+
+'I'll come in myself and show you where the well is,' said Squeers.
+'You'll always find a little bit of soap in the kitchen window; that
+belongs to you.'
+
+Nicholas opened his eyes, but not his mouth; and Squeers was again
+going away, when he once more turned back.
+
+'I don't know, I am sure,' he said, 'whose towel to put you on; but
+if you'll make shift with something tomorrow morning, Mrs Squeers
+will arrange that, in the course of the day.  My dear, don't
+forget.'
+
+'I'll take care,' replied Mrs Squeers; 'and mind YOU take care,
+young man, and get first wash.  The teacher ought always to have it;
+but they get the better of him if they can.'
+
+Mr Squeers then nudged Mrs Squeers to bring away the brandy bottle,
+lest Nicholas should help himself in the night; and the lady having
+seized it with great precipitation, they retired together.
+
+Nicholas, being left alone, took half-a-dozen turns up and down the
+room in a condition of much agitation and excitement; but, growing
+gradually calmer, sat himself down in a chair, and mentally
+resolved that, come what come might, he would endeavour, for a time,
+to bear whatever wretchedness might be in store for him, and that
+remembering the helplessness of his mother and sister, he would give
+his uncle no plea for deserting them in their need.  Good
+resolutions seldom fail of producing some good effect in the mind
+from which they spring.  He grew less desponding, and--so sanguine
+and buoyant is youth--even hoped that affairs at Dotheboys Hall
+might yet prove better than they promised.
+
+He was preparing for bed, with something like renewed cheerfulness,
+when a sealed letter fell from his coat pocket.  In the hurry of
+leaving London, it had escaped his attention, and had not occurred
+to him since, but it at once brought back to him the recollection of
+the mysterious behaviour of Newman Noggs.
+
+'Dear me!' said Nicholas; 'what an extraordinary hand!'
+
+It was directed to himself, was written upon very dirty paper, and
+in such cramped and crippled writing as to be almost illegible.
+After great difficulty and much puzzling, he contrived to read as
+follows:--
+
+My dear young Man.
+
+I know the world.  Your father did not, or he would not have done
+me a kindness when there was no hope of return.  You do not, or you
+would not be bound on such a journey.
+
+If ever you want a shelter in London (don't be angry at this, I once
+thought I never should), they know where I live, at the sign of the
+Crown, in Silver Street, Golden Square.  It is at the corner of
+Silver Street and James Street, with a bar door both ways.  You can
+come at night.  Once, nobody was ashamed--never mind that.  It's all
+over.
+
+Excuse errors.  I should forget how to wear a whole coat now.  I
+have forgotten all my old ways.  My spelling may have gone with
+them.
+
+NEWMAN NOGGS.
+
+P.S.  If you should go near Barnard Castle, there is good ale at the
+King's Head.  Say you know me, and I am sure they will not charge
+you for it.  You may say Mr Noggs there, for I was a gentleman then.
+I was indeed.
+
+
+It may be a very undignified circumstances to record, but after he
+had folded this letter and placed it in his pocket-book, Nicholas
+Nickleby's eyes were dimmed with a moisture that might have been
+taken for tears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall
+
+
+A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather, is one of the
+best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can devise.  Perhaps it
+is even a sweetener of dreams, for those which hovered over the
+rough couch of Nicholas, and whispered their airy nothings in his
+ear, were of an agreeable and happy kind.  He was making his fortune
+very fast indeed, when the faint glimmer of an expiring candle shone
+before his eyes, and a voice he had no difficulty in recognising as
+part and parcel of Mr Squeers, admonished him that it was time to
+rise.
+
+'Past seven, Nickleby,' said Mr Squeers.
+
+'Has morning come already?' asked Nicholas, sitting up in bed.
+
+'Ah! that has it,' replied Squeers, 'and ready iced too.  Now,
+Nickleby, come; tumble up, will you?'
+
+Nicholas needed no further admonition, but 'tumbled up' at once, and
+proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper, which Mr
+Squeers carried in his hand.
+
+'Here's a pretty go,' said that gentleman; 'the pump's froze.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Nicholas, not much interested in the intelligence.
+
+'Yes,' replied Squeers.  'You can't wash yourself this morning.'
+
+'Not wash myself!' exclaimed Nicholas.
+
+'No, not a bit of it,' rejoined Squeers tartly.  'So you must be
+content with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in
+the well, and can get a bucketful out for the boys.  Don't stand
+staring at me, but do look sharp, will you?'
+
+Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his clothes.
+Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew the candle out;
+when the voice of his amiable consort was heard in the passage,
+demanding admittance.
+
+'Come in, my love,' said Squeers.
+
+Mrs Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night-jacket
+which had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previous
+night, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of some
+antiquity, which she wore, with much ease and lightness, on the top
+of the nightcap before mentioned.
+
+'Drat the things,' said the lady, opening the cupboard; 'I can't
+find the school spoon anywhere.'
+
+'Never mind it, my dear,' observed Squeers in a soothing manner;
+'it's of no consequence.'
+
+'No consequence, why how you talk!' retorted Mrs Squeers sharply;
+'isn't it brimstone morning?'
+
+'I forgot, my dear,' rejoined Squeers; 'yes, it certainly is.  We
+purify the boys' bloods now and then, Nickleby.'
+
+'Purify fiddlesticks' ends,' said his lady.  'Don't think, young
+man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses,
+just to purify them; because if you think we carry on the business
+in that way, you'll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell you
+plainly.'
+
+'My dear,' said Squeers frowning.  'Hem!'
+
+'Oh! nonsense,' rejoined Mrs Squeers.  'If the young man comes to be
+a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don't want any
+foolery about the boys.  They have the brimstone and treacle, partly
+because if they hadn't something or other in the way of medicine
+they'd be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly
+because it spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast
+and dinner.  So, it does them good and us good at the same time, and
+that's fair enough I'm sure.'
+
+Having given this explanation, Mrs Squeers put her head into the
+closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon, in which Mr
+Squeers assisted.  A few words passed between them while they were
+thus engaged, but as their voices were partially stifled by the
+cupboard, all that Nicholas could distinguish was, that Mr Squeers
+said what Mrs Squeers had said, was injudicious, and that Mrs
+Squeers said what Mr Squeers said, was 'stuff.'
+
+A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it proving
+fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs Squeers, and boxed
+by Mr Squeers; which course of treatment brightening his intellects,
+enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs Squeers might have the
+spoon in her pocket, as indeed turned out to be the case.  As Mrs
+Squeers had previously protested, however, that she was quite
+certain she had not got it, Smike received another box on the ear
+for presuming to contradict his mistress, together with a promise of
+a sound thrashing if he were not more respectful in future; so that
+he took nothing very advantageous by his motion.
+
+'A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby,' said Squeers when his
+consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before her.
+
+'Indeed, sir!' observed Nicholas.
+
+'I don't know her equal,' said Squeers; 'I do not know her equal.
+That woman, Nickleby, is always the same--always the same bustling,
+lively, active, saving creetur that you see her now.'
+
+Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agreeable
+domestic prospect thus opened to him; but Squeers was, fortunately,
+too much occupied with his own reflections to perceive it.
+
+'It's my way to say, when I am up in London,' continued Squeers,
+'that to them boys she is a mother.  But she is more than a mother
+to them; ten times more.  She does things for them boys, Nickleby,
+that I don't believe half the mothers going, would do for their own
+sons.'
+
+'I should think they would not, sir,' answered Nicholas.
+
+Now, the fact was, that both Mr and Mrs Squeers viewed the boys in
+the light of their proper and natural enemies; or, in other words,
+they held and considered that their business and profession was to
+get as much from every boy as could by possibility be screwed out of
+him.  On this point they were both agreed, and behaved in unison
+accordingly.  The only difference between them was, that Mrs Squeers
+waged war against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers
+covered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual
+deceit; as if he really had a notion of someday or other being able
+to take himself in, and persuade his own mind that he was a very
+good fellow.
+
+'But come,' said Squeers, interrupting the progress of some thoughts
+to this effect in the mind of his usher, 'let's go to the
+schoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?'
+
+Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting-
+jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage; and Squeers,
+arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a door
+in the rear of the house.
+
+'There,' said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together; 'this is
+our shop, Nickleby!'
+
+It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to
+attract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really
+without seeing anything at all.  By degrees, however, the place
+resolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a couple of
+windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being
+stopped up with old copy-books and paper.  There were a couple of
+long old rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked, and damaged, in
+every possible way; two or three forms; a detached desk for Squeers;
+and another for his assistant.  The ceiling was supported, like that
+of a barn, by cross-beams and rafters; and the walls were so stained
+and discoloured, that it was impossible to tell whether they had
+ever been touched with paint or whitewash.
+
+But the pupils--the young noblemen!  How the last faint traces of
+hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his
+efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in
+dismay around!  Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures,
+children with the countenances of old men, deformities with irons
+upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long
+meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on
+the view together; there were the bleared eye, the hare-lip, the
+crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of
+unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of
+young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one
+horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect.  There were little faces
+which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen,
+dogged suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye
+quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining;
+there were vicious-faced boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like
+malefactors in a jail; and there were young creatures on whom the
+sins of their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the
+mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their
+loneliness.  With every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its
+birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved
+down, with every revengeful passion that can fester in swollen
+hearts, eating its evil way to their core in silence, what an
+incipient Hell was breeding here!
+
+And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features,
+which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have
+provoked a smile.  Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding
+over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious
+compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in
+succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might
+have been originally manufactured for some gigantic top, and which
+widened every young gentleman's mouth considerably: they being all
+obliged, under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the
+bowl at a gasp.  In another corner, huddled together for
+companionship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding
+night, three of them in very large leather breeches, and two in old
+trousers, a something tighter fit than drawers are usually worn; at
+no great distance from these was seated the juvenile son and heir of
+Mr Squeers--a striking likeness of his father--kicking, with great
+vigour, under the hands of Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of
+new boots that bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the
+least of the little boys had worn on the journey down--as the little
+boy himself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriation
+with a look of most rueful amazement.  Besides these, there was a
+long row of boys waiting, with countenances of no pleasant
+anticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who had just escaped
+from the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths indicative of
+anything but satisfaction.  The whole were attired in such motley,
+ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been
+irresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt,
+disorder, and disease, with which they were associated.
+
+'Now,' said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane,
+which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, 'is
+that physicking over?'
+
+'Just over,' said Mrs Squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry,
+and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon to restore
+him.  'Here, you Smike; take away now.  Look sharp!'
+
+Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs Squeers having called up
+a little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands upon it, hurried
+out after him into a species of wash-house, where there was a small
+fire and a large kettle, together with a number of little wooden
+bowls which were arranged upon a board.
+
+Into these bowls, Mrs Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant,
+poured a brown composition, which looked like diluted pincushions
+without the covers, and was called porridge.  A minute wedge of
+brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their
+porridge by means of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and
+had finished their breakfast; whereupon Mr Squeers said, in a solemn
+voice, 'For what we have received, may the Lord make us truly
+thankful!'--and went away to his own.
+
+Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for much the
+same reason which induces some savages to swallow earth--lest they
+should be inconveniently hungry when there is nothing to eat.
+Having further disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to
+him in virtue of his office, he sat himself down, to wait for
+school-time.
+
+He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all seemed to
+be.  There was none of the noise and clamour of a schoolroom; none
+of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth.  The children sat crouching
+and shivering together, and seemed to lack the spirit to move about.
+The only pupil who evinced the slightest tendency towards locomotion
+or playfulness was Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to
+tread upon the other boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of
+spirits was rather disagreeable than otherwise.
+
+After some half-hour's delay, Mr Squeers reappeared, and the boys
+took their places and their books, of which latter commodity the
+average might be about one to eight learners.  A few minutes having
+elapsed, during which Mr Squeers looked very profound, as if he had
+a perfect apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could
+say every word of their contents by heart if he only chose to take
+the trouble, that gentleman called up the first class.
+
+Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the
+schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and
+elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his
+learned eye.
+
+'This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy,
+Nickleby,' said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him.
+'We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you.  Now, then,
+where's the first boy?'
+
+'Please, sir, he's cleaning the back-parlour window,' said the
+temporary head of the philosophical class.
+
+'So he is, to be sure,' rejoined Squeers.  'We go upon the practical
+mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system.  C-l-e-a-
+n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour.  W-i-n, win, d-e-r,
+der, winder, a casement.  When the boy knows this out of book, he
+goes and does it.  It's just the same principle as the use of the
+globes.  Where's the second boy?'
+
+'Please, sir, he's weeding the garden,' replied a small voice.
+
+'To be sure,' said Squeers, by no means disconcerted.  'So he is.
+B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun
+substantive, a knowledge of plants.  When he has learned that
+bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em.
+That's our system, Nickleby: what do you think of it?'
+
+'It's very useful one, at any rate,' answered Nicholas.
+
+'I believe you,' rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of his
+usher.  'Third boy, what's horse?'
+
+'A beast, sir,' replied the boy.
+
+'So it is,' said Squeers.  'Ain't it, Nickleby?'
+
+'I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,' answered Nicholas.
+
+'Of course there isn't,' said Squeers.  'A horse is a quadruped, and
+quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the
+grammar knows, or else where's the use of having grammars at all?'
+
+'Where, indeed!' said Nicholas abstractedly.
+
+'As you're perfect in that,' resumed Squeers, turning to the boy,
+'go and look after MY horse, and rub him down well, or I'll rub you
+down.  The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebody
+tells you to leave off, for it's washing-day tomorrow, and they want
+the coppers filled.'
+
+So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in
+practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning
+and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he
+might think of him by this time.
+
+'That's the way we do it, Nickleby,' he said, after a pause.
+
+Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was scarcely
+perceptible, and said he saw it was.
+
+'And a very good way it is, too,' said Squeers.  'Now, just take
+them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you
+know, you must begin to be useful.  Idling about here won't do.'
+
+Mr Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, either
+that he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his
+assistant did not say enough to him in praise of the establishment.
+The children were arranged in a semicircle round the new master, and
+he was soon listening to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of
+those stories of engrossing interest which are to be found in the
+more antiquated spelling-books.
+
+In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on.  At one
+o'clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites thoroughly
+taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in the kitchen to
+some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciously permitted to
+take his portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it there in peace.
+After this, there was another hour of crouching in the schoolroom
+and shivering with cold, and then school began again.
+
+It was Mr Squeer's custom to call the boys together, and make a sort
+of report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis,
+regarding the relations and friends he had seen, the news he had
+heard, the letters he had brought down, the bills which had been
+paid, the accounts which had been left unpaid, and so forth.  This
+solemn proceeding always took place in the afternoon of the day
+succeeding his return; perhaps, because the boys acquired strength
+of mind from the suspense of the morning, or, possibly, because Mr
+Squeers himself acquired greater sternness and inflexibility from
+certain warm potations in which he was wont to indulge after his
+early dinner.  Be this as it may, the boys were recalled from house-
+window, garden, stable, and cow-yard, and the school were assembled
+in full conclave, when Mr Squeers, with a small bundle of papers in
+his hand, and Mrs S. following with a pair of canes, entered the
+room and proclaimed silence.
+
+'Let any boy speak a word without leave,' said Mr Squeers mildly,
+'and I'll take the skin off his back.'
+
+This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a deathlike
+silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which Mr Squeers went
+on to say:
+
+'Boys, I've been to London, and have returned to my family and you,
+as strong and well as ever.'
+
+According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble cheers
+at this refreshing intelligence.  Such cheers!  Sights of extra
+strength with the chill on.
+
+'I have seen the parents of some boys,' continued Squeers, turning
+over his papers, 'and they're so glad to hear how their sons are
+getting on, that there's no prospect at all of their going away,
+which of course is a very pleasant thing to reflect upon, for all
+parties.'
+
+Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers said this,
+but the greater part of the young gentlemen having no particular
+parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in the thing one way
+or other.
+
+'I have had diappointments to contend against,' said Squeers,
+looking very grim; 'Bolder's father was two pound ten short.  Where
+is Bolder?'
+
+'Here he is, please sir,' rejoined twenty officious voices.  Boys
+are very like men to be sure.
+
+'Come here, Bolder,' said Squeers.
+
+An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands, stepped
+from his place to the master's desk, and raised his eyes imploringly
+to Squeers's face; his own, quite white from the rapid beating of
+his heart.
+
+'Bolder,' said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was
+considering, as the saying goes, where to have him.  'Bolder, if you
+father thinks that because--why, what's this, sir?'
+
+As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff of his
+jacket, and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror and
+disgust.
+
+'What do you call this, sir?' demanded the schoolmaster,
+administering a cut with the cane to expedite the reply.
+
+'I can't help it, indeed, sir,' rejoined the boy, crying.  'They
+will come; it's the dirty work I think, sir--at least I don't know
+what it is, sir, but it's not my fault.'
+
+'Bolder,' said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and moistening
+the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane, 'you're
+an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrashing did you
+no good, we must see what another will do towards beating it out of
+you.'
+
+With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, Mr
+Squeers fell upon the boy and caned him soundly: not leaving off,
+indeed, until his arm was tired out.
+
+'There,' said Squeers, when he had quite done; 'rub away as hard as
+you like, you won't rub that off in a hurry.  Oh! you won't hold
+that noise, won't you?  Put him out, Smike.'
+
+The drudge knew better from long experience, than to hesitate about
+obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side-door, and Mr Squeers
+perched himself again on his own stool, supported by Mrs Squeers,
+who occupied another at his side.
+
+'Now let us see,' said Squeers.  'A letter for Cobbey.  Stand up,
+Cobbey.'
+
+Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard while Squeers
+made a mental abstract of the same.
+
+'Oh!' said Squeers: 'Cobbey's grandmother is dead, and his uncle
+John has took to drinking, which is all the news his sister sends,
+except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that broken square of
+glass.  Mrs Squeers, my dear, will you take the money?'
+
+The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most business-like
+air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as coolly as possible.
+
+'Graymarsh,' said Squeers, 'he's the next.  Stand up, Graymarsh.'
+
+Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the letter as
+before.
+
+'Graymarsh's maternal aunt,' said Squeers, when he had possessed
+himself of the contents, 'is very glad to hear he's so well and
+happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs Squeers, and
+thinks she must be an angel.  She likewise thinks Mr Squeers is too
+good for this world; but hopes he may long be spared to carry on the
+business.  Would have sent the two pair of stockings as desired, but
+is short of money, so forwards a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh
+will put his trust in Providence.  Hopes, above all, that he will
+study in everything to please Mr and Mrs Squeers, and look upon them
+as his only friends; and that he will love Master Squeers; and not
+object to sleeping five in a bed, which no Christian should.  Ah!'
+said Squeers, folding it up, 'a delightful letter.  Very affecting
+indeed.'
+
+It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh's maternal aunt was
+strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no other than
+his maternal parent; Squeers, however, without alluding to this part
+of the story (which would have sounded immoral before boys),
+proceeded with the business by calling out 'Mobbs,' whereupon
+another boy rose, and Graymarsh resumed his seat.
+
+'Mobbs's step-mother,' said Squeers, 'took to her bed on hearing
+that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since.  She
+wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he
+quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up
+his nose at the cow's-liver broth, after his good master had asked a
+blessing on it.  This was told her in the London newspapers--not by
+Mr Squeers, for he is too kind and too good to set anybody against
+anybody--and it has vexed her so much, Mobbs can't think.  She is
+sorry to find he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and
+hopes Mr Squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind; with
+which view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money,
+and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the
+Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him.'
+
+'A sulky state of feeling,' said Squeers, after a terrible pause,
+during which he had moistened the palm of his right hand again,
+'won't do.  Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up.  Mobbs,
+come to me!'
+
+Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in
+anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards
+retired by the side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have.
+
+Mr Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of
+letters; some enclosing money, which Mrs Squeers 'took care of;' and
+others referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and so forth,
+all of which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and
+calculated for nobody but young Squeers, who would appear indeed to
+have had most accommodating limbs, since everything that came into
+the school fitted him to a nicety.  His head, in particular, must
+have been singularly elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions
+were alike to him.
+
+This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and
+Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of
+the boys in the school-room, which was very cold, and where a meal of
+bread and cheese was served out shortly after dark.
+
+There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest
+to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, so depressed and
+self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death
+could have come upon him at that time, he would have been almost
+happy to meet it.  The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling
+witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his
+best moods, the filthy place, the sights and sounds about him, all
+contributed to this state of feeling; but when he recollected that,
+being there as an assistant, he actually seemed--no matter what
+unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass--to be
+the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest
+disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the
+moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situation
+must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head again.
+
+But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution he
+had formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed.  He had
+written to his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of
+his journey, and saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, and saying
+that little as cheerfully, as he possibly could.  He hoped that by
+remaining where he was, he might do some good, even there; at all
+events, others depended too much on his uncle's favour, to admit of
+his awakening his wrath just then.
+
+One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish
+considerations arising out of his own position.  This was the
+probable destination of his sister Kate.  His uncle had deceived
+him, and might he not consign her to some miserable place where her
+youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse than ugliness and
+decrepitude?  To a caged man, bound hand and foot, this was a
+terrible idea--but no, he thought, his mother was by; there was the
+portrait-painter, too--simple enough, but still living in the world,
+and of it.  He was willing to believe that Ralph Nickleby had
+conceived a personal dislike to himself.  Having pretty good reason,
+by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no great difficulty in
+arriving at this conclusion, and tried to persuade himself that the
+feeling extended no farther than between them.
+
+As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once encountered
+the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove,
+picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the
+fire.  He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw
+that he was observed, shrunk back, as if expecting a blow.
+
+'You need not fear me,' said Nicholas kindly.  'Are you cold?'
+
+'N-n-o.'
+
+'You are shivering.'
+
+'I am not cold,' replied Smike quickly.  'I am used to it.'
+
+There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner, and
+he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could
+not help exclaiming, 'Poor fellow!'
+
+If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a
+word.  But, now, he burst into tears.
+
+'Oh dear, oh dear!' he cried, covering his face with his cracked and
+horny hands.  'My heart will break.  It will, it will.'
+
+'Hush!' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder.  'Be a
+man; you are nearly one by years, God help you.'
+
+'By years!' cried Smike.  'Oh dear, dear, how many of them!  How
+many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are
+here now!  Where are they all!'
+
+'Whom do you speak of?' inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the poor
+half-witted creature to reason.  'Tell me.'
+
+'My friends,' he replied, 'myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have
+been!'
+
+'There is always hope,' said Nicholas; he knew not what to say.
+
+'No,' rejoined the other, 'no; none for me.  Do you remember the boy
+that died here?'
+
+'I was not here, you know,' said Nicholas gently; 'but what of him?'
+
+'Why,' replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner's side,
+'I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no
+more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to
+see faces round his bed that came from home; he said they smiled,
+and talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss
+them.  Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'What faces will smile on me when I die!' cried his companion,
+shivering.  'Who will talk to me in those long nights!  They cannot
+come from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don't
+know what it is, and shouldn't know them.  Pain and fear, pain and
+fear for me, alive or dead.  No hope, no hope!'
+
+The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his
+usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice.  It
+was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not
+retired; there was no retirement there--followed--to his dirty and
+crowded dormitory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+Of Miss Squeers, Mrs Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr Squeers; and of
+various Matters and Persons connected no less with the Squeerses
+than Nicholas Nickleby
+
+
+When Mr Squeers left the schoolroom for the night, he betook
+himself, as has been before remarked, to his own fireside, which was
+situated--not in the room in which Nicholas had supped on the night
+of his arrival, but in a smaller apartment in the rear of the
+premises, where his lady wife, his amiable son, and accomplished
+daughter, were in the full enjoyment of each other's society; Mrs
+Squeers being engaged in the matronly pursuit of stocking-darning;
+and the young lady and gentleman being occupied in the adjustment of
+some youthful differences, by means of a pugilistic contest across
+the table, which, on the approach of their honoured parent, subsided
+into a noiseless exchange of kicks beneath it.
+
+And, in this place, it may be as well to apprise the reader, that
+Miss Fanny Squeers was in her three-and-twentieth year.  If there be
+any one grace or loveliness inseparable from that particular period
+of life, Miss Squeers may be presumed to have been possessed of it,
+as there is no reason to suppose that she was a solitary exception
+to an universal rule.  She was not tall like her mother, but short
+like her father; from the former she inherited a voice of harsh
+quality; from the latter a remarkable expression of the right eye,
+something akin to having none at all.
+
+Miss Squeers had been spending a few days with a neighbouring
+friend, and had only just returned to the parental roof.  To this
+circumstance may be referred, her having heard nothing of Nicholas,
+until Mr Squeers himself now made him the subject of conversation.
+
+'Well, my dear,' said Squeers, drawing up his chair, 'what do you
+think of him by this time?'
+
+'Think of who?' inquired Mrs Squeers; who (as she often remarked)
+was no grammarian, thank Heaven.
+
+'Of the young man--the new teacher--who else could I mean?'
+
+'Oh! that Knuckleboy,' said Mrs Squeers impatiently.  'I hate him.'
+
+'What do you hate him for, my dear?' asked Squeers.
+
+'What's that to you?' retorted Mrs Squeers.  'If I hate him, that's
+enough, ain't it?'
+
+'Quite enough for him, my dear, and a great deal too much I dare
+say, if he knew it,' replied Squeers in a pacific tone.  'I only ask
+from curiosity, my dear.'
+
+'Well, then, if you want to know,' rejoined Mrs Squeers, 'I'll tell
+you.  Because he's a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nosed
+peacock.'
+
+Mrs Squeers, when excited, was accustomed to use strong language,
+and, moreover, to make use of a plurality of epithets, some of which
+were of a figurative kind, as the word peacock, and furthermore the
+allusion to Nicholas's nose, which was not intended to be taken in
+its literal sense, but rather to bear a latitude of construction
+according to the fancy of the hearers.
+
+Neither were they meant to bear reference to each other, so much as
+to the object on whom they were bestowed, as will be seen in the
+present case: a peacock with a turned-up nose being a novelty in
+ornithology, and a thing not commonly seen.
+
+'Hem!' said Squeers, as if in mild deprecation of this outbreak.
+'He is cheap, my dear; the young man is very cheap.'
+
+'Not a bit of it,' retorted Mrs Squeers.
+
+'Five pound a year,' said Squeers.
+
+'What of that; it's dear if you don't want him, isn't it?' replied
+his wife.
+
+'But we DO want him,' urged Squeers.
+
+'I don't see that you want him any more than the dead,' said Mrs
+Squeers.  'Don't tell me.  You can put on the cards and in the
+advertisements, "Education by Mr Wackford Squeers and able
+assistants," without having any assistants, can't you?  Isn't it
+done every day by all the masters about?  I've no patience with
+you.'
+
+'Haven't you!' said Squeers, sternly.  'Now I'll tell you what, Mrs
+Squeers.  In this matter of having a teacher, I'll take my own way,
+if you please.  A slave driver in the West Indies is allowed a man
+under him, to see that his blacks don't run away, or get up a
+rebellion; and I'll have a man under me to do the same with OUR
+blacks, till such time as little Wackford is able to take charge of
+the school.'
+
+'Am I to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?' said
+Wackford junior, suspending, in the excess of his delight, a vicious
+kick which he was administering to his sister.
+
+'You are, my son,' replied Mr Squeers, in a sentimental voice.
+
+'Oh my eye, won't I give it to the boys!' exclaimed the interesting
+child, grasping his father's cane.  'Oh, father, won't I make 'em
+squeak again!'
+
+It was a proud moment in Mr Squeers's life, when he witnessed that
+burst of enthusiasm in his young child's mind, and saw in it a
+foreshadowing of his future eminence.  He pressed a penny into his
+hand, and gave vent to his feelings (as did his exemplary wife
+also), in a shout of approving laughter.  The infantine appeal to
+their common sympathies, at once restored cheerfulness to the
+conversation, and harmony to the company.
+
+'He's a nasty stuck-up monkey, that's what I consider him,' said Mrs
+Squeers, reverting to Nicholas.
+
+'Supposing he is,' said Squeers, 'he is as well stuck up in our
+schoolroom as anywhere else, isn't he?--especially as he don't like
+it.'
+
+'Well,' observed Mrs Squeers, 'there's something in that.  I hope
+it'll bring his pride down, and it shall be no fault of mine if it
+don't.'
+
+Now, a proud usher in a Yorkshire school was such a very
+extraordinary and unaccountable thing to hear of,--any usher at all
+being a novelty; but a proud one, a being of whose existence the
+wildest imagination could never have dreamed--that Miss Squeers, who
+seldom troubled herself with scholastic matters, inquired with much
+curiosity who this Knuckleboy was, that gave himself such airs.
+
+'Nickleby,' said Squeers, spelling the name according to some
+eccentric system which prevailed in his own mind; 'your mother
+always calls things and people by their wrong names.'
+
+'No matter for that,' said Mrs Squeers; 'I see them with right eyes,
+and that's quite enough for me.  I watched him when you were laying
+on to little Bolder this afternoon.  He looked as black as thunder,
+all the while, and, one time, started up as if he had more than got
+it in his mind to make a rush at you.  I saw him, though he thought
+I didn't.'
+
+'Never mind that, father,' said Miss Squeers, as the head of the
+family was about to reply.  'Who is the man?'
+
+'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.
+
+'He's nothing of the kind,' said Squeers, in answer to the above
+remark, 'for his father was married to his mother years before he
+was born, and she is alive now.  If he was, it would be no business
+of ours, for we make a very good friend by having him here; and if
+he likes to learn the boys anything besides minding them, I have no
+objection I am sure.'
+
+'I say again, I hate him worse than poison,' said Mrs Squeers
+vehemently.
+
+'If you dislike him, my dear,' returned Squeers, 'I don't know
+anybody who can show dislike better than you, and of course there's
+no occasion, with him, to take the trouble to hide it.'
+
+'I don't intend to, I assure you,' interposed Mrs S.
+
+'That's right,' said Squeers; 'and if he has a touch of pride about
+him, as I think he has, I don't believe there's woman in all England
+that can bring anybody's spirit down, as quick as you can, my love.'
+
+Mrs Squeers chuckled vastly on the receipt of these flattering
+compliments, and said, she hoped she had tamed a high spirit or two
+in her day.  It is but due to her character to say, that in
+conjunction with her estimable husband, she had broken many and many
+a one.
+
+Miss Fanny Squeers carefully treasured up this, and much more
+conversation on the same subject, until she retired for the night,
+when she questioned the hungry servant, minutely, regarding the
+outward appearance and demeanour of Nicholas; to which queries the
+girl returned such enthusiastic replies, coupled with so many
+laudatory remarks touching his beautiful dark eyes, and his sweet
+smile, and his straight legs--upon which last-named articles she
+laid particular stress; the general run of legs at Dotheboys Hall
+being crooked--that Miss Squeers was not long in arriving at the
+conclusion that the new usher must be a very remarkable person, or,
+as she herself significantly phrased it, 'something quite out of the
+common.'  And so Miss Squeers made up her mind that she would take a
+personal observation of Nicholas the very next day.
+
+In pursuance of this design, the young lady watched the opportunity
+of her mother being engaged, and her father absent, and went
+accidentally into the schoolroom to get a pen mended: where, seeing
+nobody but Nicholas presiding over the boys, she blushed very
+deeply, and exhibited great confusion.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' faltered Miss Squeers; 'I thought my father
+was--or might be--dear me, how very awkward!'
+
+'Mr Squeers is out,' said Nicholas, by no means overcome by the
+apparition, unexpected though it was.
+
+'Do you know will he be long, sir?' asked Miss Squeers, with bashful
+hesitation.
+
+'He said about an hour,' replied Nicholas--politely of course, but
+without any indication of being stricken to the heart by Miss
+Squeers's charms.
+
+'I never knew anything happen so cross,' exclaimed the young lady.
+'Thank you!  I am very sorry I intruded, I am sure.  If I hadn't
+thought my father was here, I wouldn't upon any account have--it is
+very provoking--must look so very strange,' murmured Miss Squeers,
+blushing once more, and glancing, from the pen in her hand, to
+Nicholas at his desk, and back again.
+
+'If that is all you want,' said Nicholas, pointing to the pen, and
+smiling, in spite of himself, at the affected embarrassment of the
+schoolmaster's daughter, 'perhaps I can supply his place.'
+
+Miss Squeers glanced at the door, as if dubious of the propriety of
+advancing any nearer to an utter stranger; then round the
+schoolroom, as though in some measure reassured by the presence of
+forty boys; and finally sidled up to Nicholas and delivered the pen
+into his hand, with a most winning mixture of reserve and
+condescension.
+
+'Shall it be a hard or a soft nib?' inquired Nicholas, smiling to
+prevent himself from laughing outright.
+
+'He HAS a beautiful smile,' thought Miss Squeers.
+
+'Which did you say?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Dear me, I was thinking of something else for the moment, I
+declare,' replied Miss Squeers.  'Oh! as soft as possible, if you
+please.'  With which words, Miss Squeers sighed.  It might be, to
+give Nicholas to understand that her heart was soft, and that the
+pen was wanted to match.
+
+Upon these instructions Nicholas made the pen; when he gave it to
+Miss Squeers, Miss Squeers dropped it; and when he stooped to pick
+it up, Miss Squeers stopped also, and they knocked their heads
+together; whereat five-and-twenty little boys laughed aloud: being
+positively for the first and only time that half-year.
+
+'Very awkward of me,' said Nicholas, opening the door for the young
+lady's retreat.
+
+'Not at all, sir,' replied Miss Squeers; 'it was my fault.  It was
+all my foolish--a--a--good-morning!'
+
+'Goodbye,' said Nicholas.  'The next I make for you, I hope will be
+made less clumsily.  Take care!  You are biting the nib off now.'
+
+'Really,' said Miss Squeers; 'so embarrassing that I scarcely know
+what I--very sorry to give you so much trouble.'
+
+'Not the least trouble in the world,' replied Nicholas, closing the
+schoolroom door.
+
+'I never saw such legs in the whole course of my life!' said Miss
+Squeers, as she walked away.
+
+In fact, Miss Squeers was in love with Nicholas Nickleby.
+
+To account for the rapidity with which this young lady had conceived
+a passion for Nicholas, it may be necessary to state, that the
+friend from whom she had so recently returned, was a miller's
+daughter of only eighteen, who had contracted herself unto the son
+of a small corn-factor, resident in the nearest market town.  Miss
+Squeers and the miller's daughter, being fast friends, had
+covenanted together some two years before, according to a custom
+prevalent among young ladies, that whoever was first engaged to be
+married, should straightway confide the mighty secret to the bosom
+of the other, before communicating it to any living soul, and
+bespeak her as bridesmaid without loss of time; in fulfilment of
+which pledge the miller's daughter, when her engagement was formed,
+came out express, at eleven o'clock at night as the corn-factor's son
+made an offer of his hand and heart at twenty-five minutes past ten
+by the Dutch clock in the kitchen, and rushed into Miss Squeers's
+bedroom with the gratifying intelligence.  Now, Miss Squeers being
+five years older, and out of her teens (which is also a great
+matter), had, since, been more than commonly anxious to return the
+compliment, and possess her friend with a similar secret; but,
+either in consequence of finding it hard to please herself, or
+harder still to please anybody else, had never had an opportunity so
+to do, inasmuch as she had no such secret to disclose.  The little
+interview with Nicholas had no sooner passed, as above described,
+however, than Miss Squeers, putting on her bonnet, made her way,
+with great precipitation, to her friend's house, and, upon a solemn
+renewal of divers old vows of secrecy, revealed how that she was--
+not exactly engaged, but going to be--to a gentleman's son--(none of
+your corn-factors, but a gentleman's son of high descent)--who had
+come down as teacher to Dotheboys Hall, under most mysterious and
+remarkable circumstances--indeed, as Miss Squeers more than once
+hinted she had good reason to believe, induced, by the fame of her
+many charms, to seek her out, and woo and win her.
+
+'Isn't it an extraordinary thing?' said Miss Squeers, emphasising
+the adjective strongly.
+
+'Most extraordinary,' replied the friend.  'But what has he said to
+you?'
+
+'Don't ask me what he said, my dear,' rejoined Miss Squeers.  'If
+you had only seen his looks and smiles!  I never was so overcome in
+all my life.'
+
+'Did he look in this way?' inquired the miller's daughter,
+counterfeiting, as nearly as she could, a favourite leer of the
+corn-factor.
+
+'Very like that--only more genteel,' replied Miss Squeers.
+
+'Ah!' said the friend, 'then he means something, depend on it.'
+
+Miss Squeers, having slight misgivings on the subject, was by no
+means ill pleased to be confirmed by a competent authority; and
+discovering, on further conversation and comparison of notes, a
+great many points of resemblance between the behaviour of Nicholas,
+and that of the corn-factor, grew so exceedingly confidential, that
+she intrusted her friend with a vast number of things Nicholas had
+NOT said, which were all so very complimentary as to be quite
+conclusive.  Then, she dilated on the fearful hardship of having a
+father and mother strenuously opposed to her intended husband; on
+which unhappy circumstance she dwelt at great length; for the
+friend's father and mother were quite agreeable to her being
+married, and the whole courtship was in consequence as flat and
+common-place an affair as it was possible to imagine.
+
+'How I should like to see him!' exclaimed the friend.
+
+'So you shall, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers.  'I should consider
+myself one of the most ungrateful creatures alive, if I denied you.
+I think mother's going away for two days to fetch some boys; and
+when she does, I'll ask you and John up to tea, and have him to meet
+you.'
+
+This was a charming idea, and having fully discussed it, the friends
+parted.
+
+It so fell out, that Mrs Squeers's journey, to some distance, to
+fetch three new boys, and dun the relations of two old ones for the
+balance of a small account, was fixed that very afternoon, for the
+next day but one; and on the next day but one, Mrs Squeers got up
+outside the coach, as it stopped to change at Greta Bridge, taking
+with her a small bundle containing something in a bottle, and some
+sandwiches, and carrying besides a large white top-coat to wear in
+the night-time; with which baggage she went her way.
+
+Whenever such opportunities as these occurred, it was Squeers's
+custom to drive over to the market town, every evening, on pretence
+of urgent business, and stop till ten or eleven o'clock at a tavern
+he much affected.  As the party was not in his way, therefore, but
+rather afforded a means of compromise with Miss Squeers, he readily
+yielded his full assent thereunto, and willingly communicated to
+Nicholas that he was expected to take his tea in the parlour that
+evening, at five o'clock.
+
+To be sure Miss Squeers was in a desperate flutter as the time
+approached, and to be sure she was dressed out to the best
+advantage: with her hair--it had more than a tinge of red, and she
+wore it in a crop--curled in five distinct rows, up to the very top
+of her head, and arranged dexterously over the doubtful eye; to say
+nothing of the blue sash which floated down her back, or the worked
+apron or the long gloves, or the green gauze scarf worn over one
+shoulder and under the other; or any of the numerous devices which
+were to be as so many arrows to the heart of Nicholas.  She had
+scarcely completed these arrangements to her entire satisfaction,
+when the friend arrived with a whity-brown parcel--flat and three-
+cornered--containing sundry small adornments which were to be put on
+upstairs, and which the friend put on, talking incessantly.  When
+Miss Squeers had 'done' the friend's hair, the friend 'did' Miss
+Squeers's hair, throwing in some striking improvements in the way of
+ringlets down the neck; and then, when they were both touched up to
+their entire satisfaction, they went downstairs in full state with
+the long gloves on, all ready for company.
+
+'Where's John, 'Tilda?' said Miss Squeers.
+
+'Only gone home to clean himself,' replied the friend.  'He will be
+here by the time the tea's drawn.'
+
+'I do so palpitate,' observed Miss Squeers.
+
+'Ah! I know what it is,' replied the friend.
+
+'I have not been used to it, you know, 'Tilda,' said Miss Squeers,
+applying her hand to the left side of her sash.
+
+'You'll soon get the better of it, dear,' rejoined the friend.
+While they were talking thus, the hungry servant brought in the tea-
+things, and, soon afterwards, somebody tapped at the room door.
+
+'There he is!' cried Miss Squeers.  'Oh 'Tilda!'
+
+'Hush!' said 'Tilda.  'Hem!  Say, come in.'
+
+'Come in,' cried Miss Squeers faintly.  And in walked Nicholas.
+
+'Good-evening,' said that young gentleman, all unconscious of his
+conquest.  'I understood from Mr Squeers that--'
+
+'Oh yes; it's all right,' interposed Miss Squeers.  'Father don't
+tea with us, but you won't mind that, I dare say.' (This was said
+archly.)
+
+Nicholas opened his eyes at this, but he turned the matter off very
+coolly--not caring, particularly, about anything just then--and went
+through the ceremony of introduction to the miller's daughter with
+so much grace, that that young lady was lost in admiration.
+
+'We are only waiting for one more gentleman,' said Miss Squeers,
+taking off the teapot lid, and looking in, to see how the tea was
+getting on.
+
+It was matter of equal moment to Nicholas whether they were waiting
+for one gentleman or twenty, so he received the intelligence with
+perfect unconcern; and, being out of spirits, and not seeing any
+especial reason why he should make himself agreeable, looked out of
+the window and sighed involuntarily.
+
+As luck would have it, Miss Squeers's friend was of a playful turn,
+and hearing Nicholas sigh, she took it into her head to rally the
+lovers on their lowness of spirits.
+
+'But if it's caused by my being here,' said the young lady, 'don't
+mind me a bit, for I'm quite as bad.  You may go on just as you would
+if you were alone.'
+
+''Tilda,' said Miss Squeers, colouring up to the top row of curls,
+'I am ashamed of you;' and here the two friends burst into a variety
+of giggles, and glanced from time to time, over the tops of their
+pocket-handkerchiefs, at Nicholas, who from a state of unmixed
+astonishment, gradually fell into one of irrepressible laughter--
+occasioned, partly by the bare notion of his being in love with Miss
+Squeers, and partly by the preposterous appearance and behaviour of
+the two girls.  These two causes of merriment, taken together,
+struck him as being so keenly ridiculous, that, despite his
+miserable condition, he laughed till he was thoroughly exhausted.
+
+'Well,' thought Nicholas, 'as I am here, and seem expected, for some
+reason or other, to be amiable, it's of no use looking like a goose.
+I may as well accommodate myself to the company.'
+
+We blush to tell it; but his youthful spirits and vivacity getting,
+for the time, the better of his sad thoughts, he no sooner formed
+this resolution than he saluted Miss Squeers and the friend with
+great gallantry, and drawing a chair to the tea-table, began to make
+himself more at home than in all probability an usher has ever done
+in his employer's house since ushers were first invented.
+
+The ladies were in the full delight of this altered behaviour on the
+part of Mr Nickleby, when the expected swain arrived, with his hair
+very damp from recent washing, and a clean shirt, whereof the collar
+might have belonged to some giant ancestor, forming, together with
+a white waistcoat of similar dimensions, the chief ornament of his
+person.
+
+'Well, John,' said Miss Matilda Price (which, by-the-bye, was the
+name of the miller's daughter).
+
+'Weel,' said John with a grin that even the collar could not
+conceal.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' interposed Miss Squeers, hastening to do the
+honours.  'Mr Nickleby--Mr John Browdie.'
+
+'Servant, sir,' said John, who was something over six feet high,
+with a face and body rather above the due proportion than below it.
+
+'Yours to command, sir,' replied Nicholas, making fearful ravages on
+the bread and butter.
+
+Mr Browdie was not a gentleman of great conversational powers, so he
+grinned twice more, and having now bestowed his customary mark of
+recognition on every person in company, grinned at nothing in
+particular, and helped himself to food.
+
+'Old wooman awa', bean't she?' said Mr Browdie, with his mouth full.
+
+Miss Squeers nodded assent.
+
+Mr Browdie gave a grin of special width, as if he thought that
+really was something to laugh at, and went to work at the bread and
+butter with increased vigour.  It was quite a sight to behold how he
+and Nicholas emptied the plate between them.
+
+'Ye wean't get bread and butther ev'ry neight, I expect, mun,' said
+Mr Browdie, after he had sat staring at Nicholas a long time over
+the empty plate.
+
+Nicholas bit his lip, and coloured, but affected not to hear the
+remark.
+
+'Ecod,' said Mr Browdie, laughing boisterously, 'they dean't put too
+much intiv'em.  Ye'll be nowt but skeen and boans if you stop here
+long eneaf.  Ho! ho! ho!'
+
+'You are facetious, sir,' said Nicholas, scornfully.
+
+'Na; I dean't know,' replied Mr Browdie, 'but t'oother teacher, 'cod
+he wur a learn 'un, he wur.'  The recollection of the last teacher's
+leanness seemed to afford Mr Browdie the most exquisite delight, for
+he laughed until he found it necessary to apply his coat-cuffs to
+his eyes.
+
+'I don't know whether your perceptions are quite keen enough, Mr
+Browdie, to enable you to understand that your remarks are
+offensive,' said Nicholas in a towering passion, 'but if they are,
+have the goodness to--'
+
+'If you say another word, John,' shrieked Miss Price, stopping her
+admirer's mouth as he was about to interrupt, 'only half a word,
+I'll never forgive you, or speak to you again.'
+
+'Weel, my lass, I dean't care aboot 'un,' said the corn-factor,
+bestowing a hearty kiss on Miss Matilda; 'let 'un gang on, let 'un
+gang on.'
+
+It now became Miss Squeers's turn to intercede with Nicholas, which
+she did with many symptoms of alarm and horror; the effect of the
+double intercession was, that he and John Browdie shook hands across
+the table with much gravity; and such was the imposing nature of the
+ceremonial, that Miss Squeers was overcome and shed tears.
+
+'What's the matter, Fanny?' said Miss Price.
+
+'Nothing, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, sobbing.
+
+'There never was any danger,' said Miss Price, 'was there, Mr
+Nickleby?'
+
+'None at all,' replied Nicholas.  'Absurd.'
+
+'That's right,' whispered Miss Price, 'say something kind to her,
+and she'll soon come round.  Here!  Shall John and I go into the
+little kitchen, and come back presently?'
+
+'Not on any account,' rejoined Nicholas, quite alarmed at the
+proposition.  'What on earth should you do that for?'
+
+'Well,' said Miss Price, beckoning him aside, and speaking with some
+degree of contempt--'you ARE a one to keep company.'
+
+'What do you mean?' said Nicholas; 'I am not a one to keep company
+at all--here at all events.  I can't make this out.'
+
+'No, nor I neither," rejoined Miss Price; 'but men are always
+fickle, and always were, and always will be; that I can make out,
+very easily.'
+
+'Fickle!' cried Nicholas; 'what do you suppose?  You don't mean to
+say that you think--'
+
+'Oh no, I think nothing at all,' retorted Miss Price, pettishly.
+'Look at her, dressed so beautiful and looking so well--really
+ALMOST handsome.  I am ashamed at you.'
+
+ 'My dear girl, what have I got to do with her dressing beautifully
+or looking well?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'Come, don't call me a dear girl,' said Miss Price--smiling a little
+though, for she was pretty, and a coquette too in her small way, and
+Nicholas was good-looking, and she supposed him the property of
+somebody else, which were all reasons why she should be gratified to
+think she had made an impression on him,--'or Fanny will be saying
+it's my fault.  Come; we're going to have a game at cards.'
+Pronouncing these last words aloud, she tripped away and rejoined
+the big Yorkshireman.
+
+This was wholly unintelligible to Nicholas, who had no other
+distinct impression on his mind at the moment, than that Miss
+Squeers was an ordinary-looking girl, and her friend Miss Price a
+pretty one; but he had not time to enlighten himself by reflection,
+for the hearth being by this time swept up, and the candle snuffed,
+they sat down to play speculation.
+
+'There are only four of us, 'Tilda,' said Miss Squeers, looking
+slyly at Nicholas; 'so we had better go partners, two against two.'
+
+'What do you say, Mr Nickleby?' inquired Miss Price.
+
+'With all the pleasure in life,' replied Nicholas.  And so saying,
+quite unconscious of his heinous offence, he amalgamated into one
+common heap those portions of a Dotheboys Hall card of terms, which
+represented his own counters, and those allotted to Miss Price,
+respectively.
+
+'Mr Browdie,' said Miss Squeers hysterically, 'shall we make a bank
+against them?'
+
+The Yorkshireman assented--apparently quite overwhelmed by the new
+usher's impudence--and Miss Squeers darted a spiteful look at her
+friend, and giggled convulsively.
+
+The deal fell to Nicholas, and the hand prospered.
+
+'We intend to win everything,' said he.
+
+''Tilda HAS won something she didn't expect, I think, haven't you,
+dear?' said Miss Squeers, maliciously.
+
+'Only a dozen and eight, love,' replied Miss Price, affecting to
+take the question in a literal sense.
+
+'How dull you are tonight!' sneered Miss Squeers.
+
+'No, indeed,' replied Miss Price, 'I am in excellent spirits.  I was
+thinking YOU seemed out of sorts.'
+
+'Me!' cried Miss Squeers, biting her lips, and trembling with very
+jealousy.  'Oh no!'
+
+'That's well,' remarked Miss Price.  'Your hair's coming out of
+curl, dear.'
+
+'Never mind me,' tittered Miss Squeers; 'you had better attend to
+your partner.'
+
+'Thank you for reminding her,' said Nicholas.  'So she had.'
+
+The Yorkshireman flattened his nose, once or twice, with his
+clenched fist, as if to keep his hand in, till he had an opportunity
+of exercising it upon the features of some other gentleman; and Miss
+Squeers tossed her head with such indignation, that the gust of wind
+raised by the multitudinous curls in motion, nearly blew the candle
+out.
+
+'I never had such luck, really,' exclaimed coquettish Miss Price,
+after another hand or two.  'It's all along of you, Mr Nickleby, I
+think.  I should like to have you for a partner always.'
+
+'I wish you had.'
+
+'You'll have a bad wife, though, if you always win at cards,' said
+Miss Price.
+
+'Not if your wish is gratified,' replied Nicholas.  'I am sure I
+shall have a good one in that case.'
+
+To see how Miss Squeers tossed her head, and the corn-factor
+flattened his nose, while this conversation was carrying on!  It
+would have been worth a small annuity to have beheld that; let alone
+Miss Price's evident joy at making them jealous, and Nicholas
+Nickleby's happy unconsciousness of making anybody uncomfortable.
+
+'We have all the talking to ourselves, it seems,' said Nicholas,
+looking good-humouredly round the table as he took up the cards for
+a fresh deal.
+
+'You do it so well,' tittered Miss Squeers, 'that it would be a pity
+to interrupt, wouldn't it, Mr Browdie?  He! he! he!'
+
+'Nay,' said Nicholas, 'we do it in default of having anybody else to
+talk to.'
+
+'We'll talk to you, you know, if you'll say anything,' said Miss
+Price.
+
+'Thank you, 'Tilda, dear,' retorted Miss Squeers, majestically.
+
+'Or you can talk to each other, if you don't choose to talk to us,'
+said Miss Price, rallying her dear friend.  'John, why don't you say
+something?'
+
+'Say summat?' repeated the Yorkshireman.
+
+'Ay, and not sit there so silent and glum.'
+
+'Weel, then!' said the Yorkshireman, striking the table heavily with
+his fist, 'what I say's this--Dang my boans and boddy, if I stan'
+this ony longer.  Do ye gang whoam wi' me, and do yon loight an'
+toight young whipster look sharp out for a brokken head, next time
+he cums under my hond.'
+
+'Mercy on us, what's all this?' cried Miss Price, in affected
+astonishment.
+
+'Cum whoam, tell 'e, cum whoam,' replied the Yorkshireman, sternly.
+And as he delivered the reply, Miss Squeers burst into a shower of
+tears; arising in part from desperate vexation, and in part from an
+impotent desire to lacerate somebody's countenance with her fair
+finger-nails.
+
+This state of things had been brought about by divers means and
+workings.  Miss Squeers had brought it about, by aspiring to the
+high state and condition of being matrimonially engaged, without
+good grounds for so doing; Miss Price had brought it about, by
+indulging in three motives of action: first, a desire to punish her
+friend for laying claim to a rivalship in dignity, having no good
+title: secondly, the gratification of her own vanity, in receiving
+the compliments of a smart young man: and thirdly, a wish to
+convince the corn-factor of the great danger he ran, in deferring
+the celebration of their expected nuptials; while Nicholas had
+brought it about, by half an hour's gaiety and thoughtlessness, and
+a very sincere desire to avoid the imputation of inclining at all to
+Miss Squeers.  So the means employed, and the end produced, were
+alike the most natural in the world; for young ladies will look
+forward to being married, and will jostle each other in the race to
+the altar, and will avail themselves of all opportunities of
+displaying their own attractions to the best advantage, down to the
+very end of time, as they have done from its beginning.
+
+'Why, and here's Fanny in tears now!' exclaimed Miss Price, as if in
+fresh amazement.  'What can be the matter?'
+
+'Oh! you don't know, miss, of course you don't know.  Pray don't
+trouble yourself to inquire,' said Miss Squeers, producing that
+change of countenance which children call making a face.
+
+'Well, I'm sure!' exclaimed Miss Price.
+
+'And who cares whether you are sure or not, ma'am?' retorted Miss
+Squeers, making another face.
+
+'You are monstrous polite, ma'am,' said Miss Price.
+
+'I shall not come to you to take lessons in the art, ma'am!'
+retorted Miss Squeers.
+
+'You needn't take the trouble to make yourself plainer than you are,
+ma'am, however,' rejoined Miss Price, 'because that's quite
+unnecessary.'
+
+Miss Squeers, in reply, turned very red, and thanked God that she
+hadn't got the bold faces of some people.  Miss Price, in rejoinder,
+congratulated herself upon not being possessed of the envious
+feeling of other people; whereupon Miss Squeers made some general
+remark touching the danger of associating with low persons; in which
+Miss Price entirely coincided: observing that it was very true
+indeed, and she had thought so a long time.
+
+''Tilda,' exclaimed Miss Squeers with dignity, 'I hate you.'
+
+'Ah!  There's no love lost between us, I assure you,' said Miss
+Price, tying her bonnet strings with a jerk.  'You'll cry your eyes
+out, when I'm gone; you know you will.'
+
+'I scorn your words, Minx,' said Miss Squeers.
+
+'You pay me a great compliment when you say so,' answered the
+miller's daughter, curtseying very low.  'Wish you a very good-
+night, ma'am, and pleasant dreams attend your sleep!'
+
+With this parting benediction, Miss Price swept from the room,
+followed by the huge Yorkshireman, who exchanged with Nicholas, at
+parting, that peculiarly expressive scowl with which the cut-and-
+thrust counts, in melodramatic performances, inform each other they
+will meet again.
+
+They were no sooner gone, than Miss Squeers fulfilled the prediction
+of her quondam friend by giving vent to a most copious burst of
+tears, and uttering various dismal lamentations and incoherent
+words.  Nicholas stood looking on for a few seconds, rather doubtful
+what to do, but feeling uncertain whether the fit would end in his
+being embraced, or scratched, and considering that either infliction
+would be equally agreeable, he walked off very quietly while Miss
+Squeers was moaning in her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+'This is one consequence,' thought Nicholas, when he had groped his
+way to the dark sleeping-room, 'of my cursed readiness to adapt
+myself to any society in which chance carries me.  If I had sat mute
+and motionless, as I might have done, this would not have happened.'
+
+He listened for a few minutes, but all was quiet.
+
+'I was glad,' he murmured, 'to grasp at any relief from the sight of
+this dreadful place, or the presence of its vile master.  I have set
+these people by the ears, and made two new enemies, where, Heaven
+knows, I needed none.  Well, it is a just punishment for having
+forgotten, even for an hour, what is around me now!'
+
+So saying, he felt his way among the throng of weary-hearted
+sleepers, and crept into his poor bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+How Mr Ralph Nickleby provided for his Niece and Sister-in-Law
+
+
+On the second morning after the departure of Nicholas for Yorkshire,
+Kate Nickleby sat in a very faded chair raised upon a very dusty
+throne in Miss La Creevy's room, giving that lady a sitting for the
+portrait upon which she was engaged; and towards the full perfection
+of which, Miss La Creevy had had the street-door case brought
+upstairs, in order that she might be the better able to infuse into
+the counterfeit countenance of Miss Nickleby, a bright salmon flesh-
+tint which she had originally hit upon while executing the miniature
+of a young officer therein contained, and which bright salmon flesh-
+tint was considered, by Miss La Creevy's chief friends and patrons,
+to be quite a novelty in art: as indeed it was.
+
+'I think I have caught it now,' said Miss La Creevy.  'The very
+shade!  This will be the sweetest portrait I have ever done,
+certainly.'
+
+'It will be your genius that makes it so, then, I am sure,' replied
+Kate, smiling.
+
+'No, no, I won't allow that, my dear,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+'It's a very nice subject--a very nice subject, indeed--though, of
+course, something depends upon the mode of treatment.'
+
+'And not a little,' observed Kate.
+
+'Why, my dear, you are right there,' said Miss La Creevy, 'in the
+main you are right there; though I don't allow that it is of such
+very great importance in the present case.  Ah!  The difficulties of
+Art, my dear, are great.'
+
+'They must be, I have no doubt,' said Kate, humouring her good-
+natured little friend.
+
+'They are beyond anything you can form the faintest conception of,'
+replied Miss La Creevy.  'What with bringing out eyes with all one's
+power, and keeping down noses with all one's force, and adding to
+heads, and taking away teeth altogether, you have no idea of the
+trouble one little miniature is.'
+
+'The remuneration can scarcely repay you,' said Kate.
+
+'Why, it does not, and that's the truth,' answered Miss La Creevy;
+'and then people are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine
+times out of ten, there's no pleasure in painting them.  Sometimes
+they say, "Oh, how very serious you have made me look, Miss La
+Creevy!" and at others, "La, Miss La Creevy, how very smirking!"
+when the very essence of a good portrait is, that it must be either
+serious or smirking, or it's no portrait at all.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Kate, laughing.
+
+'Certainly, my dear; because the sitters are always either the one
+or the other,' replied Miss La Creevy.  'Look at the Royal Academy!
+All those beautiful shiny portraits of gentlemen in black velvet
+waistcoats, with their fists doubled up on round tables, or marble
+slabs, are serious, you know; and all the ladies who are playing
+with little parasols, or little dogs, or little children--it's the
+same rule in art, only varying the objects--are smirking.  In fact,'
+said Miss La Creevy, sinking her voice to a confidential whisper,
+'there are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the
+smirk; and we always use the serious for professional people (except
+actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen
+who don't care so much about looking clever.'
+
+Kate seemed highly amused by this information, and Miss La Creevy
+went on painting and talking, with immovable complacency.
+
+'What a number of officers you seem to paint!' said Kate, availing
+herself of a pause in the discourse, and glancing round the room.
+
+'Number of what, child?' inquired Miss La Creevy, looking up from
+her work.  'Character portraits, oh yes--they're not real military
+men, you know.'
+
+'No!'
+
+'Bless your heart, of course not; only clerks and that, who hire a
+uniform coat to be painted in, and send it here in a carpet bag.
+Some artists,' said Miss La Creevy, 'keep a red coat, and charge
+seven-and-sixpence extra for hire and carmine; but I don't do that
+myself, for I don't consider it legitimate.'
+
+Drawing herself up, as though she plumed herself greatly upon not
+resorting to these lures to catch sitters, Miss La Creevy applied
+herself, more intently, to her task: only raising her head
+occasionally, to look with unspeakable satisfaction at some touch
+she had just put in: and now and then giving Miss Nickleby to
+understand what particular feature she was at work upon, at the
+moment; 'not,' she expressly observed, 'that you should make it up
+for painting, my dear, but because it's our custom sometimes to tell
+sitters what part we are upon, in order that if there's any
+particular expression they want introduced, they may throw it in, at
+the time, you know.'
+
+'And when,' said Miss La Creevy, after a long silence, to wit, an
+interval of full a minute and a half, 'when do you expect to see
+your uncle again?'
+
+'I scarcely know; I had expected to have seen him before now,'
+replied Kate.  'Soon I hope, for this state of uncertainty is worse
+than anything.'
+
+'I suppose he has money, hasn't he?' inquired Miss La Creevy.
+
+'He is very rich, I have heard,' rejoined Kate.  'I don't know that
+he is, but I believe so.'
+
+'Ah, you may depend upon it he is, or he wouldn't be so surly,'
+remarked Miss La Creevy, who was an odd little mixture of shrewdness
+and simplicity.  'When a man's a bear, he is generally pretty
+independent.'
+
+'His manner is rough,' said Kate.
+
+'Rough!' cried Miss La Creevy, 'a porcupine's a featherbed to him!
+I never met with such a cross-grained old savage.'
+
+'It is only his manner, I believe,' observed Kate, timidly; 'he was
+disappointed in early life, I think I have heard, or has had his
+temper soured by some calamity.  I should be sorry to think ill of
+him until I knew he deserved it.'
+
+'Well; that's very right and proper,' observed the miniature
+painter, 'and Heaven forbid that I should be the cause of your doing
+so!  But, now, mightn't he, without feeling it himself, make you and
+your mama some nice little allowance that would keep you both
+comfortable until you were well married, and be a little fortune to
+her afterwards?  What would a hundred a year for instance, be to
+him?'
+
+'I don't know what it would be to him,' said Kate, with energy, 'but
+it would be that to me I would rather die than take.'
+
+'Heyday!' cried Miss La Creevy.
+
+'A dependence upon him,' said Kate, 'would embitter my whole life.
+I should feel begging a far less degradation.'
+
+'Well!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy.  'This of a relation whom you will
+not hear an indifferent person speak ill of, my dear, sounds oddly
+enough, I confess.'
+
+'I dare say it does,' replied Kate, speaking more gently, 'indeed I
+am sure it must.  I--I--only mean that with the feelings and
+recollection of better times upon me, I could not bear to live on
+anybody's bounty--not his particularly, but anybody's.'
+
+Miss La Creevy looked slyly at her companion, as if she doubted
+whether Ralph himself were not the subject of dislike, but seeing
+that her young friend was distressed, made no remark.
+
+'I only ask of him,' continued Kate, whose tears fell while she
+spoke, 'that he will move so little out of his way, in my behalf, as
+to enable me by his recommendation--only by his recommendation--to
+earn, literally, my bread and remain with my mother.  Whether we
+shall ever taste happiness again, depends upon the fortunes of my
+dear brother; but if he will do this, and Nicholas only tells us
+that he is well and cheerful, I shall be contented.'
+
+As she ceased to speak, there was a rustling behind the screen which
+stood between her and the door, and some person knocked at the
+wainscot.'
+
+'Come in, whoever it is!' cried Miss La Creevy.
+
+The person complied, and, coming forward at once, gave to view the
+form and features of no less an individual than Mr Ralph Nickleby
+himself.
+
+'Your servant, ladies,' said Ralph, looking sharply at them by
+turns.  'You were talking so loud, that I was unable to make you
+hear.'
+
+When the man of business had a more than commonly vicious snarl
+lurking at his heart, he had a trick of almost concealing his eyes
+under their thick and protruding brows, for an instant, and then
+displaying them in their full keenness.  As he did so now, and tried
+to keep down the smile which parted his thin compressed lips, and
+puckered up the bad lines about his mouth, they both felt certain
+that some part, if not the whole, of their recent conversation, had
+been overheard.
+
+'I called in, on my way upstairs, more than half expecting to find
+you here,' said Ralph, addressing his niece, and looking
+contemptuously at the portrait.  'Is that my niece's portrait,
+ma'am?'
+
+'Yes it is, Mr Nickleby,' said Miss La Creevy, with a very sprightly
+air, 'and between you and me and the post, sir, it will be a very
+nice portrait too, though I say it who am the painter.'
+
+'Don't trouble yourself to show it to me, ma'am,' cried Ralph,
+moving away, 'I have no eye for likenesses.  Is it nearly finished?'
+
+'Why, yes,' replied Miss La Creevy, considering with the pencil end
+of her brush in her mouth.  'Two sittings more will--'
+
+'Have them at once, ma'am,' said Ralph.  'She'll have no time to
+idle over fooleries after tomorrow.  Work, ma'am, work; we must all
+work.  Have you let your lodgings, ma'am?'
+
+'I have not put a bill up yet, sir.'
+
+'Put it up at once, ma'am; they won't want the rooms after this
+week, or if they do, can't pay for them.  Now, my dear, if you're
+ready, we'll lose no more time.'
+
+With an assumption of kindness which sat worse upon him even than
+his usual manner, Mr Ralph Nickleby motioned to the young lady to
+precede him, and bowing gravely to Miss La Creevy, closed the door
+and followed upstairs, where Mrs Nickleby received him with many
+expressions of regard.  Stopping them somewhat abruptly, Ralph waved
+his hand with an impatient gesture, and proceeded to the object of
+his visit.
+
+'I have found a situation for your daughter, ma'am,' said Ralph.
+
+'Well,' replied Mrs Nickleby.  'Now, I will say that that is only
+just what I have expected of you.  "Depend upon it," I said to Kate,
+only yesterday morning at breakfast, "that after your uncle has
+provided, in that most ready manner, for Nicholas, he will not leave
+us until he has done at least the same for you."  These were my very
+words, as near as I remember.  Kate, my dear, why don't you thank
+your--'
+
+'Let me proceed, ma'am, pray,' said Ralph, interrupting his sister-
+in-law in the full torrent of her discourse.
+
+'Kate, my love, let your uncle proceed,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'I am most anxious that he should, mama,' rejoined Kate.
+
+'Well, my dear, if you are anxious that he should, you had better
+allow your uncle to say what he has to say, without interruption,'
+observed Mrs Nickleby, with many small nods and frowns.  'Your
+uncle's time is very valuable, my dear; and however desirous you may
+be--and naturally desirous, as I am sure any affectionate relations
+who have seen so little of your uncle as we have, must naturally be
+to protract the pleasure of having him among us, still, we are
+bound not to be selfish, but to take into consideration the
+important nature of his occupations in the city.'
+
+'I am very much obliged to you, ma'am,' said Ralph with a scarcely
+perceptible sneer.  'An absence of business habits in this family
+leads, apparently, to a great waste of words before business--when
+it does come under consideration--is arrived at, at all.'
+
+'I fear it is so indeed,' replied Mrs Nickleby with a sigh.  'Your
+poor brother--'
+
+'My poor brother, ma'am,' interposed Ralph tartly, 'had no idea what
+business was--was unacquainted, I verily believe, with the very
+meaning of the word.'
+
+'I fear he was,' said Mrs Nickleby, with her handkerchief to her
+eyes.  'If it hadn't been for me, I don't know what would have
+become of him.'
+
+What strange creatures we are!  The slight bait so skilfully thrown
+out by Ralph, on their first interview, was dangling on the hook
+yet.  At every small deprivation or discomfort which presented
+itself in the course of the four-and-twenty hours to remind her of
+her straitened and altered circumstances, peevish visions of her
+dower of one thousand pounds had arisen before Mrs Nickleby's mind,
+until, at last, she had come to persuade herself that of all her
+late husband's creditors she was the worst used and the most to be
+pitied.  And yet, she had loved him dearly for many years, and had
+no greater share of selfishness than is the usual lot of mortals.
+Such is the irritability of sudden poverty.  A decent annuity would
+have restored her thoughts to their old train, at once.
+
+'Repining is of no use, ma'am,' said Ralph.  'Of all fruitless
+errands, sending a tear to look after a day that is gone is the most
+fruitless.'
+
+'So it is,' sobbed Mrs Nickleby.  'So it is.'
+
+'As you feel so keenly, in your own purse and person, the
+consequences of inattention to business, ma'am,' said Ralph, 'I am
+sure you will impress upon your children the necessity of attaching
+themselves to it early in life.'
+
+'Of course I must see that,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby.  'Sad
+experience, you know, brother-in-law.--Kate, my dear, put that down
+in the next letter to Nicholas, or remind me to do it if I write.'
+
+Ralph paused for a few moments, and seeing that he had now made
+pretty sure of the mother, in case the daughter objected to his
+proposition, went on to say:
+
+'The situation that I have made interest to procure, ma'am, is with
+--with a milliner and dressmaker, in short.'
+
+'A milliner!' cried Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'A milliner and dressmaker, ma'am,' replied Ralph.  'Dressmakers in
+London, as I need not remind you, ma'am, who are so well acquainted
+with all matters in the ordinary routine of life, make large
+fortunes, keep equipages, and become persons of great wealth and
+fortune.'
+
+Now, the first idea called up in Mrs Nickleby's mind by the words
+milliner and dressmaker were connected with certain wicker baskets
+lined with black oilskin, which she remembered to have seen carried
+to and fro in the streets; but, as Ralph proceeded, these
+disappeared, and were replaced by visions of large houses at the
+West end, neat private carriages, and a banker's book; all of which
+images succeeded each other with such rapidity, that he had no
+sooner finished speaking, than she nodded her head and said 'Very
+true,' with great appearance of satisfaction.
+
+'What your uncle says is very true, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs
+Nickleby.  'I recollect when your poor papa and I came to town after
+we were married, that a young lady brought me home a chip cottage-
+bonnet, with white and green trimming, and green persian lining, in
+her own carriage, which drove up to the door full gallop;--at least,
+I am not quite certain whether it was her own carriage or a hackney
+chariot, but I remember very well that the horse dropped down dead
+as he was turning round, and that your poor papa said he hadn't had
+any corn for a fortnight.'
+
+This anecdote, so strikingly illustrative of the opulence of
+milliners, was not received with any great demonstration of feeling,
+inasmuch as Kate hung down her head while it was relating, and Ralph
+manifested very intelligible symptoms of extreme impatience.
+
+'The lady's name,' said Ralph, hastily striking in, 'is Mantalini--
+Madame Mantalini.  I know her.  She lives near Cavendish Square.  If
+your daughter is disposed to try after the situation, I'll take her
+there directly.'
+
+'Have you nothing to say to your uncle, my love?' inquired Mrs
+Nickleby.
+
+'A great deal,' replied Kate; 'but not now.  I would rather speak to
+him when we are alone;--it will save his time if I thank him and say
+what I wish to say to him, as we walk along.'
+
+With these words, Kate hurried away, to hide the traces of emotion
+that were stealing down her face, and to prepare herself for the
+walk, while Mrs Nickleby amused her brother-in-law by giving him,
+with many tears, a detailed account of the dimensions of a rosewood
+cabinet piano they had possessed in their days of affluence,
+together with a minute description of eight drawing-room chairs,
+with turned legs and green chintz squabs to match the curtains,
+which had cost two pounds fifteen shillings apiece, and had gone at
+the sale for a mere nothing.
+
+These reminiscences were at length cut short by Kate's return in her
+walking dress, when Ralph, who had been fretting and fuming during
+the whole time of her absence, lost no time, and used very little
+ceremony, in descending into the street.
+
+'Now,' he said, taking her arm, 'walk as fast as you can, and you'll
+get into the step that you'll have to walk to business with, every
+morning.'  So saying, he led Kate off, at a good round pace, towards
+Cavendish Square.
+
+'I am very much obliged to you, uncle,' said the young lady, after
+they had hurried on in silence for some time; 'very.'
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' said Ralph.  'I hope you'll do your duty.'
+
+'I will try to please, uncle,' replied Kate: 'indeed I--'
+
+'Don't begin to cry,' growled Ralph; 'I hate crying.'
+
+'It's very foolish, I know, uncle,' began poor Kate.
+
+'It is,' replied Ralph, stopping her short, 'and very affected
+besides.  Let me see no more of it.'
+
+Perhaps this was not the best way to dry the tears of a young and
+sensitive female, about to make her first entry on an entirely new
+scene of life, among cold and uninterested strangers; but it had its
+effect notwithstanding.  Kate coloured deeply, breathed quickly for
+a few moments, and then walked on with a firmer and more determined
+step.
+
+It was a curious contrast to see how the timid country girl shrunk
+through the crowd that hurried up and down the streets, giving way
+to the press of people, and clinging closely to Ralph as though she
+feared to lose him in the throng; and how the stern and hard-
+featured man of business went doggedly on, elbowing the passengers
+aside, and now and then exchanging a gruff salutation with some
+passing acquaintance, who turned to look back upon his pretty
+charge, with looks expressive of surprise, and seemed to wonder at
+the ill-assorted companionship.  But, it would have been a stranger
+contrast still, to have read the hearts that were beating side by
+side; to have laid bare the gentle innocence of the one, and the
+rugged villainy of the other; to have hung upon the guileless
+thoughts of the affectionate girl, and been amazed that, among all
+the wily plots and calculations of the old man, there should not be
+one word or figure denoting thought of death or of the grave.  But
+so it was; and stranger still--though this is a thing of every day--
+the warm young heart palpitated with a thousand anxieties and
+apprehensions, while that of the old worldly man lay rusting in its
+cell, beating only as a piece of cunning mechanism, and yielding no
+one throb of hope, or fear, or love, or care, for any living thing.
+
+'Uncle,' said Kate, when she judged they must be near their
+destination, 'I must ask one question of you.  I am to live at
+home?'
+
+'At home!' replied Ralph; 'where's that?'
+
+'I mean with my mother--THE WIDOW,' said Kate emphatically.
+
+'You will live, to all intents and purposes, here,' rejoined Ralph;
+'for here you will take your meals, and here you will be from
+morning till night--occasionally perhaps till morning again.'
+
+'But at night, I mean,' said Kate; 'I cannot leave her, uncle.  I
+must have some place that I can call a home; it will be wherever she
+is, you know, and may be a very humble one.'
+
+'May be!' said Ralph, walking faster, in the impatience provoked by
+the remark; 'must be, you mean.  May be a humble one!  Is the girl
+mad?'
+
+'The word slipped from my lips, I did not mean it indeed,' urged
+Kate.
+
+'I hope not,' said Ralph.
+
+'But my question, uncle; you have not answered it.'
+
+'Why, I anticipated something of the kind,' said Ralph; 'and--though
+I object very strongly, mind--have provided against it.  I spoke of
+you as an out-of-door worker; so you will go to this home that may
+be humble, every night.'
+
+There was comfort in this.  Kate poured forth many thanks for her
+uncle's consideration, which Ralph received as if he had deserved
+them all, and they arrived without any further conversation at the
+dressmaker's door, which displayed a very large plate, with Madame
+Mantalini's name and occupation, and was approached by a handsome
+flight of steps.  There was a shop to the house, but it was let off
+to an importer of otto of roses.  Madame Mantalini's shows-rooms
+were on the first-floor: a fact which was notified to the nobility
+and gentry by the casual exhibition, near the handsomely curtained
+windows, of two or three elegant bonnets of the newest fashion, and
+some costly garments in the most approved taste.
+
+A liveried footman opened the door, and in reply to Ralph's inquiry
+whether Madame Mantalini was at home, ushered them, through a
+handsome hall and up a spacious staircase, into the show saloon,
+which comprised two spacious drawing-rooms, and exhibited an immense
+variety of superb dresses and materials for dresses: some arranged
+on stands, others laid carelessly on sofas, and others again,
+scattered over the carpet, hanging on the cheval-glasses, or
+mingling, in some other way, with the rich furniture of various
+descriptions, which was profusely displayed.
+
+They waited here a much longer time than was agreeable to Mr Ralph
+Nickleby, who eyed the gaudy frippery about him with very little
+concern, and was at length about to pull the bell, when a gentleman
+suddenly popped his head into the room, and, seeing somebody there,
+as suddenly popped it out again.
+
+'Here.  Hollo!' cried Ralph.  'Who's that?'
+
+At the sound of Ralph's voice, the head reappeared, and the mouth,
+displaying a very long row of very white teeth, uttered in a mincing
+tone the words, 'Demmit.  What, Nickleby! oh, demmit!'  Having
+uttered which ejaculations, the gentleman advanced, and shook hands
+with Ralph, with great warmth.  He was dressed in a gorgeous morning
+gown, with a waistcoat and Turkish trousers of the same pattern, a
+pink silk neckerchief, and bright green slippers, and had a very
+copious watch-chain wound round his body.  Moreover, he had whiskers
+and a moustache, both dyed black and gracefully curled.
+
+'Demmit, you don't mean to say you want me, do you, demmit?' said
+this gentleman, smiting Ralph on the shoulder.
+
+'Not yet,' said Ralph, sarcastically.
+
+'Ha! ha! demmit,' cried the gentleman; when, wheeling round to laugh
+with greater elegance, he encountered Kate Nickleby, who was
+standing near.
+
+'My niece,' said Ralph.
+
+'I remember,' said the gentleman, striking his nose with the knuckle
+of his forefinger as a chastening for his forgetfulness.  'Demmit, I
+remember what you come for.  Step this way, Nickleby; my dear, will
+you follow me?  Ha! ha!  They all follow me, Nickleby; always did,
+demmit, always.'
+
+Giving loose to the playfulness of his imagination, after this
+fashion, the gentleman led the way to a private sitting-room on the
+second floor, scarcely less elegantly furnished than the apartment
+below, where the presence of a silver coffee-pot, an egg-shell, and
+sloppy china for one, seemed to show that he had just breakfasted.
+
+'Sit down, my dear,' said the gentleman: first staring Miss Nickleby
+out of countenance, and then grinning in delight at the achievement.
+'This cursed high room takes one's breath away.  These infernal sky
+parlours--I'm afraid I must move, Nickleby.'
+
+'I would, by all means,' replied Ralph, looking bitterly round.
+
+'What a demd rum fellow you are, Nickleby,' said the gentleman, 'the
+demdest, longest-headed, queerest-tempered old coiner of gold and
+silver ever was--demmit.'
+
+Having complimented Ralph to this effect, the gentleman rang the
+bell, and stared at Miss Nickleby until it was answered, when he
+left off to bid the man desire his mistress to come directly; after
+which, he began again, and left off no more until Madame Mantalini
+appeared.
+
+The dressmaker was a buxom person, handsomely dressed and rather
+good-looking, but much older than the gentleman in the Turkish
+trousers, whom she had wedded some six months before.  His name was
+originally Muntle; but it had been converted, by an easy transition,
+into Mantalini: the lady rightly considering that an English
+appellation would be of serious injury to the business.  He had
+married on his whiskers; upon which property he had previously
+subsisted, in a genteel manner, for some years; and which he had
+recently improved, after patient cultivation by the addition of a
+moustache, which promised to secure him an easy independence: his
+share in the labours of the business being at present confined to
+spending the money, and occasionally, when that ran short, driving
+to Mr Ralph Nickleby to procure discount--at a percentage--for the
+customers' bills.
+
+'My life,' said Mr Mantalini, 'what a demd devil of a time you have
+been!'
+
+'I didn't even know Mr Nickleby was here, my love,' said Madame
+Mantalini.
+
+'Then what a doubly demd infernal rascal that footman must be, my
+soul,' remonstrated Mr Mantalini.
+
+'My dear,' said Madame, 'that is entirely your fault.'
+
+'My fault, my heart's joy?'
+
+'Certainly,' returned the lady; 'what can you expect, dearest, if
+you will not correct the man?'
+
+'Correct the man, my soul's delight!'
+
+'Yes; I am sure he wants speaking to, badly enough,' said Madame,
+pouting.
+
+'Then do not vex itself,' said Mr Mantalini; 'he shall be horse-
+whipped till he cries out demnebly.'  With this promise Mr Mantalini
+kissed Madame Mantalini, and, after that performance, Madame
+Mantalini pulled Mr Mantalini playfully by the ear: which done, they
+descended to business.
+
+'Now, ma'am,' said Ralph, who had looked on, at all this, with such
+scorn as few men can express in looks, 'this is my niece.'
+
+'Just so, Mr Nickleby,' replied Madame Mantalini, surveying Kate
+from head to foot, and back again.  'Can you speak French, child?'
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' replied Kate, not daring to look up; for she felt that
+the eyes of the odious man in the dressing-gown were directed
+towards her.
+
+'Like a demd native?' asked the husband.
+
+Miss Nickleby offered no reply to this inquiry, but turned her back
+upon the questioner, as if addressing herself to make answer to what
+his wife might demand.
+
+'We keep twenty young women constantly employed in the
+establishment,' said Madame.
+
+'Indeed, ma'am!' replied Kate, timidly.
+
+'Yes; and some of 'em demd handsome, too,' said the master.
+
+'Mantalini!' exclaimed his wife, in an awful voice.
+
+'My senses' idol!' said Mantalini.
+
+'Do you wish to break my heart?'
+
+'Not for twenty thousand hemispheres populated with--with--with
+little ballet-dancers,' replied Mantalini in a poetical strain.
+
+'Then you will, if you persevere in that mode of speaking,' said his
+wife.  'What can Mr Nickleby think when he hears you?'
+
+'Oh!  Nothing, ma'am, nothing,' replied Ralph.  'I know his amiable
+nature, and yours,--mere little remarks that give a zest to your
+daily intercourse--lovers' quarrels that add sweetness to those
+domestic joys which promise to last so long--that's all; that's
+all.'
+
+If an iron door could be supposed to quarrel with its hinges, and to
+make a firm resolution to open with slow obstinacy, and grind them
+to powder in the process, it would emit a pleasanter sound in so
+doing, than did these words in the rough and bitter voice in which
+they were uttered by Ralph.  Even Mr Mantalini felt their influence,
+and turning affrighted round, exclaimed: 'What a demd horrid
+croaking!'
+
+'You will pay no attention, if you please, to what Mr Mantalini
+says,' observed his wife, addressing Miss Nickleby.
+
+'I do not, ma'am,' said Kate, with quiet contempt.
+
+'Mr Mantalini knows nothing whatever about any of the young women,'
+continued Madame, looking at her husband, and speaking to Kate.  'If
+he has seen any of them, he must have seen them in the street, going
+to, or returning from, their work, and not here.  He was never even
+in the room.  I do not allow it.  What hours of work have you been
+accustomed to?'
+
+'I have never yet been accustomed to work at all, ma'am,' replied
+Kate, in a low voice.
+
+'For which reason she'll work all the better now,' said Ralph,
+putting in a word, lest this confession should injure the
+negotiation.
+
+'I hope so,' returned Madame Mantalini; 'our hours are from nine to
+nine, with extra work when we're very full of business, for which I
+allow payment as overtime.'
+
+Kate bowed her head, to intimate that she heard, and was satisfied.
+
+'Your meals,' continued Madame Mantalini, 'that is, dinner and tea,
+you will take here.  I should think your wages would average from
+five to seven shillings a week; but I can't give you any certain
+information on that point, until I see what you can do.'
+
+Kate bowed her head again.
+
+'If you're ready to come,' said Madame Mantalini, 'you had better
+begin on Monday morning at nine exactly, and Miss Knag the forewoman
+shall then have directions to try you with some easy work at first.
+Is there anything more, Mr Nickleby?'
+
+'Nothing more, ma'am,' replied Ralph, rising.
+
+'Then I believe that's all,' said the lady.  Having arrived at this
+natural conclusion, she looked at the door, as if she wished to be
+gone, but hesitated notwithstanding, as though unwilling to leave to
+Mr Mantalini the sole honour of showing them downstairs.  Ralph
+relieved her from her perplexity by taking his departure without
+delay: Madame Mantalini making many gracious inquiries why he never
+came to see them; and Mr Mantalini anathematising the stairs with
+great volubility as he followed them down, in the hope of inducing
+Kate to look round,--a hope, however, which was destined to remain
+ungratified.
+
+'There!' said Ralph when they got into the street; 'now you're
+provided for.'
+
+Kate was about to thank him again, but he stopped her.
+
+'I had some idea,' he said, 'of providing for your mother in a
+pleasant part of the country--(he had a presentation to some
+almshouses on the borders of Cornwall, which had occurred to him
+more than once)--but as you want to be together, I must do something
+else for her.  She has a little money?'
+
+'A very little,' replied Kate.
+
+'A little will go a long way if it's used sparingly,' said Ralph.
+'She must see how long she can make it last, living rent free.  You
+leave your lodgings on Saturday?'
+
+'You told us to do so, uncle.'
+
+'Yes; there is a house empty that belongs to me, which I can put you
+into till it is let, and then, if nothing else turns up, perhaps I
+shall have another.  You must live there.'
+
+'Is it far from here, sir?' inquired Kate.
+
+'Pretty well,' said Ralph; 'in another quarter of the town--at the
+East end; but I'll send my clerk down to you, at five o'clock on
+Saturday, to take you there.  Goodbye.  You know your way?  Straight
+on.'
+
+Coldly shaking his niece's hand, Ralph left her at the top of Regent
+Street, and turned down a by-thoroughfare, intent on schemes of
+money-getting.  Kate walked sadly back to their lodgings in the
+Strand.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+Newman Noggs inducts Mrs and Miss Nickleby into their New Dwelling
+in the City
+
+
+Miss Nickleby's reflections, as she wended her way homewards, were
+of that desponding nature which the occurrences of the morning had
+been sufficiently calculated to awaken.  Her uncle's was not a
+manner likely to dispel any doubts or apprehensions she might have
+formed, in the outset, neither was the glimpse she had had of Madame
+Mantalini's establishment by any means encouraging.  It was with
+many gloomy forebodings and misgivings, therefore, that she looked
+forward, with a heavy heart, to the opening of her new career.
+
+If her mother's consolations could have restored her to a pleasanter
+and more enviable state of mind, there were abundance of them to
+produce the effect.  By the time Kate reached home, the good lady
+had called to mind two authentic cases of milliners who had been
+possessed of considerable property, though whether they had acquired
+it all in business, or had had a capital to start with, or had been
+lucky and married to advantage, she could not exactly remember.
+However, as she very logically remarked, there must have been SOME
+young person in that way of business who had made a fortune without
+having anything to begin with, and that being taken for granted, why
+should not Kate do the same?  Miss La Creevy, who was a member of
+the little council, ventured to insinuate some doubts relative to
+the probability of Miss Nickleby's arriving at this happy
+consummation in the compass of an ordinary lifetime; but the good
+lady set that question entirely at rest, by informing them that she
+had a presentiment on the subject--a species of second-sight with
+which she had been in the habit of clenching every argument with the
+deceased Mr Nickleby, and, in nine cases and three-quarters out of
+every ten, determining it the wrong way.
+
+'I am afraid it is an unhealthy occupation,' said Miss La Creevy.
+'I recollect getting three young milliners to sit to me, when I
+first began to paint, and I remember that they were all very pale
+and sickly.'
+
+'Oh! that's not a general rule by any means,' observed Mrs Nickleby;
+'for I remember, as well as if it was only yesterday, employing one
+that I was particularly recommended to, to make me a scarlet cloak
+at the time when scarlet cloaks were fashionable, and she had a very
+red face--a very red face, indeed.'
+
+'Perhaps she drank,' suggested Miss La Creevy.
+
+'I don't know how that may have been,' returned Mrs Nickleby: 'but I
+know she had a very red face, so your argument goes for nothing.'
+
+In this manner, and with like powerful reasoning, did the worthy
+matron meet every little objection that presented itself to the new
+scheme of the morning.  Happy Mrs Nickleby!  A project had but to be
+new, and it came home to her mind, brightly varnished and gilded as
+a glittering toy.
+
+This question disposed of, Kate communicated her uncle's desire
+about the empty house, to which Mrs Nickleby assented with equal
+readiness, characteristically remarking, that, on the fine evenings,
+it would be a pleasant amusement for her to walk to the West end to
+fetch her daughter home; and no less characteristically forgetting,
+that there were such things as wet nights and bad weather to be
+encountered in almost every week of the year.
+
+'I shall be sorry--truly sorry to leave you, my kind friend,' said
+Kate, on whom the good feeling of the poor miniature painter had
+made a deep impression.
+
+'You shall not shake me off, for all that,' replied Miss La Creevy,
+with as much sprightliness as she could assume.  'I shall see you
+very often, and come and hear how you get on; and if, in all London,
+or all the wide world besides, there is no other heart that takes an
+interest in your welfare, there will be one little lonely woman that
+prays for it night and day.'
+
+With this, the poor soul, who had a heart big enough for Gog, the
+guardian genius of London, and enough to spare for Magog to boot,
+after making a great many extraordinary faces which would have
+secured her an ample fortune, could she have transferred them to
+ivory or canvas, sat down in a corner, and had what she termed 'a
+real good cry.'
+
+But no crying, or talking, or hoping, or fearing, could keep off the
+dreaded Saturday afternoon, or Newman Noggs either; who, punctual to
+his time, limped up to the door, and breathed a whiff of cordial gin
+through the keyhole, exactly as such of the church clocks in the
+neighbourhood as agreed among themselves about the time, struck
+five.  Newman waited for the last stroke, and then knocked.
+
+'From Mr Ralph Nickleby,' said Newman, announcing his errand, when
+he got upstairs, with all possible brevity.
+
+'We shall be ready directly,' said Kate.  'We have not much to
+carry, but I fear we must have a coach.'
+
+'I'll get one,' replied Newman.
+
+'Indeed you shall not trouble yourself,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'I will,' said Newman.
+
+'I can't suffer you to think of such a thing,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'You can't help it,' said Newman.
+
+'Not help it!'
+
+'No; I thought of it as I came along; but didn't get one, thinking
+you mightn't be ready.  I think of a great many things.  Nobody can
+prevent that.'
+
+'Oh yes, I understand you, Mr Noggs,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Our
+thoughts are free, of course.  Everybody's thoughts are their own,
+clearly.'
+
+'They wouldn't be, if some people had their way,' muttered Newman.
+
+'Well, no more they would, Mr Noggs, and that's very true,' rejoined
+Mrs Nickleby.  'Some people to be sure are such--how's your master?'
+
+Newman darted a meaning glance at Kate, and replied with a strong
+emphasis on the last word of his answer, that Mr Ralph Nickleby was
+well, and sent his LOVE.
+
+'I am sure we are very much obliged to him,' observed Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Very,' said Newman.  'I'll tell him so.'
+
+It was no very easy matter to mistake Newman Noggs, after having
+once seen him, and as Kate, attracted by the singularity of his
+manner (in which on this occasion, however, there was something
+respectful and even delicate, notwithstanding the abruptness of his
+speech), looked at him more closely, she recollected having caught a
+passing glimpse of that strange figure before.
+
+'Excuse my curiosity,' she said, 'but did I not see you in the
+coachyard, on the morning my brother went away to Yorkshire?'
+
+Newman cast a wistful glance on Mrs Nickleby and said 'No,' most
+unblushingly.
+
+'No!' exclaimed Kate, 'I should have said so anywhere.'
+
+'You'd have said wrong,' rejoined Newman.  'It's the first time I've
+been out for three weeks.  I've had the gout.'
+
+Newman was very, very far from having the appearance of a gouty
+subject, and so Kate could not help thinking; but the conference was
+cut short by Mrs Nickleby's insisting on having the door shut, lest
+Mr Noggs should take cold, and further persisting in sending the
+servant girl for a coach, for fear he should bring on another attack
+of his disorder.  To both conditions, Newman was compelled to yield.
+Presently, the coach came; and, after many sorrowful farewells, and
+a great deal of running backwards and forwards across the pavement
+on the part of Miss La Creevy, in the course of which the yellow
+turban came into violent contact with sundry foot-passengers, it
+(that is to say the coach, not the turban) went away again, with the
+two ladies and their luggage inside; and Newman, despite all Mrs
+Nickleby's assurances that it would be his death--on the box beside
+the driver.
+
+They went into the city, turning down by the river side; and, after
+a long and very slow drive, the streets being crowded at that hour
+with vehicles of every kind, stopped in front of a large old dingy
+house in Thames Street: the door and windows of which were so
+bespattered with mud, that it would have appeared to have been
+uninhabited for years.
+
+The door of this deserted mansion Newman opened with a key which he
+took out of his hat--in which, by-the-bye, in consequence of the
+dilapidated state of his pockets, he deposited everything, and would
+most likely have carried his money if he had had any--and the coach
+being discharged, he led the way into the interior of the mansion.
+
+Old, and gloomy, and black, in truth it was, and sullen and dark
+were the rooms, once so bustling with life and enterprise.  There
+was a wharf behind, opening on the Thames.  An empty dog-kennel,
+some bones of animals, fragments of iron hoops, and staves of old
+casks, lay strewn about, but no life was stirring there.  It was a
+picture of cold, silent decay.
+
+'This house depresses and chills one,' said Kate, 'and seems as if
+some blight had fallen on it.  If I were superstitious, I should be
+almost inclined to believe that some dreadful crime had been
+perpetrated within these old walls, and that the place had never
+prospered since.  How frowning and how dark it looks!'
+
+'Lord, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, 'don't talk in that way, or
+you'll frighten me to death.'
+
+'It is only my foolish fancy, mama,' said Kate, forcing a smile.
+
+'Well, then, my love, I wish you would keep your foolish fancy to
+yourself, and not wake up MY foolish fancy to keep it company,'
+retorted Mrs Nickleby.  'Why didn't you think of all this before--
+you are so careless--we might have asked Miss La Creevy to keep us
+company or borrowed a dog, or a thousand things--but it always was
+the way, and was just the same with your poor dear father.  Unless I
+thought of everything--'  This was Mrs Nickleby's usual commencement
+of a general lamentation, running through a dozen or so of
+complicated sentences addressed to nobody in particular, and into
+which she now launched until her breath was exhausted.
+
+Newman appeared not to hear these remarks, but preceded them to a
+couple of rooms on the first floor, which some kind of attempt had
+been made to render habitable.  In one, were a few chairs, a table,
+an old hearth-rug, and some faded baize; and a fire was ready laid
+in the grate.  In the other stood an old tent bedstead, and a few
+scanty articles of chamber furniture.
+
+'Well, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, trying to be pleased, 'now isn't
+this thoughtful and considerate of your uncle?  Why, we should not
+have had anything but the bed we bought yesterday, to lie down upon,
+if it hadn't been for his thoughtfulness!'
+
+'Very kind, indeed,' replied Kate, looking round.
+
+Newman Noggs did not say that he had hunted up the old furniture
+they saw, from attic and cellar; or that he had taken in the
+halfpennyworth of milk for tea that stood upon a shelf, or filled
+the rusty kettle on the hob, or collected the woodchips from the
+wharf, or begged the coals.  But the notion of Ralph Nickleby having
+directed it to be done, tickled his fancy so much, that he could not
+refrain from cracking all his ten fingers in succession: at which
+performance Mrs Nickleby was rather startled at first, but supposing
+it to be in some remote manner connected with the gout, did not
+remark upon.
+
+'We need detain you no longer, I think,' said Kate.
+
+'Is there nothing I can do?' asked Newman.
+
+'Nothing, thank you,' rejoined Miss Nickleby.
+
+'Perhaps, my dear, Mr Noggs would like to drink our healths,' said
+Mrs Nickleby, fumbling in her reticule for some small coin.
+
+'I think, mama,' said Kate hesitating, and remarking Newman's
+averted face, 'you would hurt his feelings if you offered it.'
+
+Newman Noggs, bowing to the young lady more like a gentleman than
+the miserable wretch he seemed, placed his hand upon his breast,
+and, pausing for a moment, with the air of a man who struggles to
+speak but is uncertain what to say, quitted the room.
+
+As the jarring echoes of the heavy house-door, closing on its latch,
+reverberated dismally through the building, Kate felt half tempted
+to call him back, and beg him to remain a little while; but she was
+ashamed to own her fears, and Newman Noggs was on his road homewards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further course of
+Miss Fanny Squeer's Love, and to ascertain whether it ran smooth or
+otherwise.
+
+
+It was a fortunate circumstance for Miss Fanny Squeers, that when
+her worthy papa returned home on the night of the small tea-party,
+he was what the initiated term 'too far gone' to observe the
+numerous tokens of extreme vexation of spirit which were plainly
+visible in her countenance.  Being, however, of a rather violent and
+quarrelsome mood in his cups, it is not impossible that he might
+have fallen out with her, either on this or some imaginary topic, if
+the young lady had not, with a foresight and prudence highly
+commendable, kept a boy up, on purpose, to bear the first brunt of
+the good gentleman's anger; which, having vented itself in a variety
+of kicks and cuffs, subsided sufficiently to admit of his being
+persuaded to go to bed.  Which he did with his boots on, and an
+umbrella under his arm.
+
+The hungry servant attended Miss Squeers in her own room according
+to custom, to curl her hair, perform the other little offices of her
+toilet, and administer as much flattery as she could get up, for the
+purpose; for Miss Squeers was quite lazy enough (and sufficiently
+vain and frivolous withal) to have been a fine lady; and it was only
+the arbitrary distinctions of rank and station which prevented her
+from being one.
+
+'How lovely your hair do curl tonight, miss!' said the handmaiden.
+'I declare if it isn't a pity and a shame to brush it out!'
+
+'Hold your tongue!' replied Miss Squeers wrathfully.
+
+Some considerable experience prevented the girl from being at all
+surprised at any outbreak of ill-temper on the part of Miss Squeers.
+Having a half-perception of what had occurred in the course of the
+evening, she changed her mode of making herself agreeable, and
+proceeded on the indirect tack.
+
+'Well, I couldn't help saying, miss, if you was to kill me for it,'
+said the attendant, 'that I never see nobody look so vulgar as Miss
+Price this night.'
+
+Miss Squeers sighed, and composed herself to listen.
+
+'I know it's very wrong in me to say so, miss,' continued the girl,
+delighted to see the impression she was making, 'Miss Price being a
+friend of your'n, and all; but she do dress herself out so, and go on
+in such a manner to get noticed, that--oh--well, if people only saw
+themselves!'
+
+'What do you mean, Phib?' asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own
+little glass, where, like most of us, she saw--not herself, but the
+reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain.  'How you talk!'
+
+'Talk, miss!  It's enough to make a Tom cat talk French grammar,
+only to see how she tosses her head,' replied the handmaid.
+
+'She DOES toss her head,' observed Miss Squeers, with an air of
+abstraction.
+
+'So vain, and so very--very plain,' said the girl.
+
+'Poor 'Tilda!' sighed Miss Squeers, compassionately.
+
+'And always laying herself out so, to get to be admired,' pursued
+the servant.  'Oh, dear!  It's positive indelicate.'
+
+'I can't allow you to talk in that way, Phib,' said Miss Squeers.
+''Tilda's friends are low people, and if she don't know any better,
+it's their fault, and not hers.'
+
+'Well, but you know, miss,' said Phoebe, for which name 'Phib' was
+used as a patronising abbreviation, 'if she was only to take copy by
+a friend--oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, and would but set
+herself right by you, what a nice young woman she might be in time!'
+
+'Phib,' rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, 'it's not proper
+for me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make 'Tilda look a
+coarse improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me to
+listen to them.  I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at
+the same time, I must say, that if 'Tilda Price would take pattern
+by somebody--not me particularly--'
+
+'Oh yes; you, miss,' interposed Phib.
+
+'Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,' said Miss Squeers.  'I
+must say, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.'
+
+'So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,' said the girl
+mysteriously.
+
+'What do you mean?' demanded Miss Squeers.
+
+'Never mind, miss,' replied the girl; 'I know what I know; that's
+all.'
+
+'Phib,' said Miss Squeers dramatically, 'I insist upon your
+explaining yourself.  What is this dark mystery?  Speak.'
+
+'Why, if you will have it, miss, it's this,' said the servant girl.
+'Mr John Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn't too far gone
+to do it creditable, he'd be very glad to be off with Miss Price,
+and on with Miss Squeers.'
+
+'Gracious heavens!' exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with
+great dignity.  'What is this?'
+
+'Truth, ma'am, and nothing but truth,' replied the artful Phib.
+
+'What a situation!' cried Miss Squeers; 'on the brink of
+unconsciously destroying the peace and happiness of my own 'Tilda.
+What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether I like it
+or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake?'
+
+'Because they can't help it, miss,' replied the girl; 'the reason's
+plain.' (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.)
+
+'Never let me hear of it again,' retorted Miss Squeers.  'Never!  Do
+you hear?  'Tilda Price has faults--many faults--but I wish her
+well, and above all I wish her married; for I think it highly
+desirable--most desirable from the very nature of her failings--that
+she should be married as soon as possible.  No, Phib.  Let her have
+Mr Browdie.  I may pity HIM, poor fellow; but I have a great regard
+for 'Tilda, and only hope she may make a better wife than I think
+she will.'
+
+With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed.
+
+Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble of
+feelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the
+language.  Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts that
+what the miserable serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying
+flattery, as did the girl herself; yet the mere opportunity of
+venting a little ill-nature against the offending Miss Price, and
+affecting to compassionate her weaknesses and foibles, though only
+in the presence of a solitary dependant, was almost as great a
+relief to her spleen as if the whole had been gospel truth.  Nay,
+more.  We have such extraordinary powers of persuasion when they are
+exerted over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite high-minded and
+great after her noble renunciation of John Browdie's hand, and
+looked down upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness and
+tranquillity, that had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffled
+feelings.
+
+This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing about a
+reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door next day,
+and the miller's daughter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself
+to the parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful
+to behold.
+
+'Well, Fanny,' said the miller's daughter, 'you see I have come to
+see you, although we HAD some words last night.'
+
+'I pity your bad passions, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, 'but I
+bear no malice.  I am above it.'
+
+'Don't be cross, Fanny,' said Miss Price.  'I have come to tell you
+something that I know will please you.'
+
+'What may that be, 'Tilda?' demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up her
+lips, and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water, could
+afford her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.
+
+'This,' rejoined Miss Price.  'After we left here last night John
+and I had a dreadful quarrel.'
+
+'That doesn't please me,' said Miss Squeers--relaxing into a smile
+though.
+
+'Lor!  I wouldn't think so bad of you as to suppose it did,'
+rejoined her companion.  'That's not it.'
+
+'Oh!' said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy.  'Go on.'
+
+'After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see each
+other any more,' continued Miss Price, 'we made it up, and this
+morning John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the
+first time, next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and
+I give you notice to get your frock made.'
+
+There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence.  The prospect
+of the friend's being married so soon was the gall, and the
+certainty of her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was
+the honey.  Upon the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the
+bitter, so Miss Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that
+she hoped 'Tilda might be happy, though at the same time she didn't
+know, and would not have her build too much upon it, for men were
+strange creatures, and a great many married women were very
+miserable, and wished themselves single again with all their hearts;
+to which condolences Miss Squeers added others equally calculated to
+raise her friend's spirits and promote her cheerfulness of mind.
+
+'But come now, Fanny,' said Miss Price, 'I want to have a word or
+two with you about young Mr Nickleby.'
+
+'He is nothing to me,' interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical
+symptoms.  'I despise him too much!'
+
+'Oh, you don't mean that, I am sure?' replied her friend.  'Confess,
+Fanny; don't you like him now?'
+
+Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell
+into a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a
+wretched, neglected, miserable castaway.
+
+'I hate everybody,' said Miss Squeers, 'and I wish that everybody
+was dead--that I do.'
+
+'Dear, dear,' said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of
+misanthropical sentiments.  'You are not serious, I am sure.'
+
+'Yes, I am,' rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her pocket-
+handkerchief and clenching her teeth.  'And I wish I was dead too.
+There!'
+
+'Oh! you'll think very differently in another five minutes,' said
+Matilda.  'How much better to take him into favour again, than to
+hurt yourself by going on in that way.  Wouldn't it be much nicer,
+now, to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-
+keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner?'
+
+'I don't know but what it would,' sobbed Miss Squeers.  'Oh!
+'Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dishonourable!  I
+wouldn't have believed it of you, if anybody had told me.'
+
+'Heyday!' exclaimed Miss Price, giggling.  'One would suppose I had
+been murdering somebody at least.'
+
+'Very nigh as bad,' said Miss Squeers passionately.
+
+'And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks to make
+people civil to me,' cried Miss Price.  'Persons don't make their
+own faces, and it's no more my fault if mine is a good one than it
+is other people's fault if theirs is a bad one.'
+
+'Hold your tongue,' shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest tone;
+'or you'll make me slap you, 'Tilda, and afterwards I should be
+sorry for it!'
+
+It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each young
+lady was in some slight degree affected by the tone of her
+conversation, and that a dash of personality was infused into the
+altercation, in consequence.  Indeed, the quarrel, from slight
+beginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming a very
+violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a great passion
+of tears, exclaimed simultaneously, that they had never thought of
+being spoken to in that way: which exclamation, leading to a
+remonstrance, gradually brought on an explanation: and the upshot
+was, that they fell into each other's arms and vowed eternal
+friendship; the occasion in question making the fifty-second time of
+repeating the same impressive ceremony within a twelvemonth.
+
+Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturally ensued
+upon the number and nature of the garments which would be
+indispensable for Miss Price's entrance into the holy state of
+matrimony, when Miss Squeers clearly showed that a great many more
+than the miller could, or would, afford, were absolutely necessary,
+and could not decently be dispensed with.  The young lady then, by
+an easy digression, led the discourse to her own wardrobe, and after
+recounting its principal beauties at some length, took her friend
+upstairs to make inspection thereof.  The treasures of two drawers
+and a closet having been displayed, and all the smaller articles
+tried on, it was time for Miss Price to return home; and as she had
+been in raptures with all the frocks, and had been stricken quite
+dumb with admiration of a new pink scarf, Miss Squeers said in high
+good humour, that she would walk part of the way with her, for the
+pleasure of her company; and off they went together: Miss Squeers
+dilating, as they walked along, upon her father's accomplishments:
+and multiplying his income by ten, to give her friend some faint
+notion of the vast importance and superiority of her family.
+
+It happened that that particular time, comprising the short daily
+interval which was suffered to elapse between what was pleasantly
+called the dinner of Mr Squeers's pupils, and their return to the
+pursuit of useful knowledge, was precisely the hour when Nicholas
+was accustomed to issue forth for a melancholy walk, and to brood,
+as he sauntered listlessly through the village, upon his miserable
+lot.  Miss Squeers knew this perfectly well, but had perhaps
+forgotten it, for when she caught sight of that young gentleman
+advancing towards them, she evinced many symptoms of surprise and
+consternation, and assured her friend that she 'felt fit to drop
+into the earth.'
+
+'Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?' asked Miss Price.  'He
+don't see us yet.'
+
+'No, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, 'it is my duty to go through
+with it, and I will!'
+
+As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made a high
+moral resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or two chokes and
+catchings of breath, indicative of feelings at a high pressure, her
+friend made no further remark, and they bore straight down upon
+Nicholas, who, walking with his eyes bent upon the ground, was not
+aware of their approach until they were close upon him; otherwise,
+he might, perhaps, have taken shelter himself.
+
+'Good-morning,' said Nicholas, bowing and passing by.
+
+'He is going,' murmured Miss Squeers.  'I shall choke, 'Tilda.'
+
+'Come back, Mr Nickleby, do!' cried Miss Price, affecting alarm at
+her friend's threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish to hear
+what Nicholas would say; 'come back, Mr Nickleby!'
+
+Mr Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, as he
+inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him.
+
+'Don't stop to talk,' urged Miss Price, hastily; 'but support her on
+the other side.  How do you feel now, dear?'
+
+'Better,' sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of a reddish
+brown with a green veil attached, on Mr Nickleby's shoulder.  'This
+foolish faintness!'
+
+'Don't call it foolish, dear,' said Miss Price: her bright eye
+dancing with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas; 'you
+have no reason to be ashamed of it.  It's those who are too proud to
+come round again, without all this to-do, that ought to be ashamed.'
+
+'You are resolved to fix it upon me, I see,' said Nicholas, smiling,
+'although I told you, last night, it was not my fault.'
+
+'There; he says it was not his fault, my dear,' remarked the wicked
+Miss Price.  'Perhaps you were too jealous, or too hasty with him?
+He says it was not his fault.  You hear; I think that's apology
+enough.'
+
+'You will not understand me,' said Nicholas.  'Pray dispense with
+this jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to be
+the subject or promoter of mirth just now.'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Miss Price, affecting amazement.
+
+'Don't ask him, 'Tilda,' cried Miss Squeers; 'I forgive him.'
+
+'Dear me,' said Nicholas, as the brown bonnet went down on his
+shoulder again, 'this is more serious than I supposed.  Allow me!
+Will you have the goodness to hear me speak?'
+
+Here he raised up the brown bonnet, and regarding with most
+unfeigned astonishment a look of tender reproach from Miss Squeers,
+shrunk back a few paces to be out of the reach of the fair burden,
+and went on to say:
+
+'I am very sorry--truly and sincerely sorry--for having been the
+cause of any difference among you, last night.  I reproach myself,
+most bitterly, for having been so unfortunate as to cause the
+dissension that occurred, although I did so, I assure you, most
+unwittingly and heedlessly.'
+
+'Well; that's not all you have got to say surely,' exclaimed Miss
+Price as Nicholas paused.
+
+'I fear there is something more,' stammered Nicholas with a half-
+smile, and looking towards Miss Squeers, 'it is a most awkward thing
+to say--but--the very mention of such a supposition makes one look
+like a puppy--still--may I ask if that lady supposes that I
+entertain any--in short, does she think that I am in love with her?'
+
+'Delightful embarrassment,' thought Miss Squeers, 'I have brought
+him to it, at last.  Answer for me, dear,' she whispered to her
+friend.
+
+'Does she think so?' rejoined Miss Price; 'of course she does.'
+
+'She does!' exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance as
+might have been, for the moment, mistaken for rapture.
+
+'Certainly,' replied Miss Price
+
+'If Mr Nickleby has doubted that, 'Tilda,' said the blushing Miss
+Squeers in soft accents, 'he may set his mind at rest.  His
+sentiments are recipro--'
+
+'Stop,' cried Nicholas hurriedly; 'pray hear me.  This is the
+grossest and wildest delusion, the completest and most signal
+mistake, that ever human being laboured under, or committed.  I have
+scarcely seen the young lady half-a-dozen times, but if I had seen
+her sixty times, or am destined to see her sixty thousand, it would
+be, and will be, precisely the same.  I have not one thought, wish,
+or hope, connected with her, unless it be--and I say this, not to
+hurt her feelings, but to impress her with the real state of my own
+--unless it be the one object, dear to my heart as life itself, of
+being one day able to turn my back upon this accursed place, never
+to set foot in it again, or think of it--even think of it--but with
+loathing and disgust.'
+
+With this particularly plain and straightforward declaration, which
+he made with all the vehemence that his indignant and excited
+feelings could bring to bear upon it, Nicholas waiting to hear no
+more, retreated.
+
+But poor Miss Squeers!  Her anger, rage, and vexation; the rapid
+succession of bitter and passionate feelings that whirled through
+her mind; are not to be described.  Refused! refused by a teacher,
+picked up by advertisement, at an annual salary of five pounds
+payable at indefinite periods, and 'found' in food and lodging like
+the very boys themselves; and this too in the presence of a little
+chit of a miller's daughter of eighteen, who was going to be
+married, in three weeks' time, to a man who had gone down on his
+very knees to ask her.  She could have choked in right good earnest,
+at the thought of being so humbled.
+
+But, there was one thing clear in the midst of her mortification;
+and that was, that she hated and detested Nicholas with all the
+narrowness of mind and littleness of purpose worthy a descendant of
+the house of Squeers.  And there was one comfort too; and that was,
+that every hour in every day she could wound his pride, and goad him
+with the infliction of some slight, or insult, or deprivation, which
+could not but have some effect on the most insensible person, and
+must be acutely felt by one so sensitive as Nicholas.  With these
+two reflections uppermost in her mind, Miss Squeers made the best of
+the matter to her friend, by observing that Mr Nickleby was such an
+odd creature, and of such a violent temper, that she feared she
+should be obliged to give him up; and parted from her.
+
+And here it may be remarked, that Miss Squeers, having bestowed her
+affections (or whatever it might be that, in the absence of anything
+better, represented them) on Nicholas Nickleby, had never once
+seriously contemplated the possibility of his being of a different
+opinion from herself in the business.  Miss Squeers reasoned that
+she was prepossessing and beautiful, and that her father was master,
+and Nicholas man, and that her father had saved money, and Nicholas
+had none, all of which seemed to her conclusive arguments why the
+young man should feel only too much honoured by her preference.  She
+had not failed to recollect, either, how much more agreeable she
+could render his situation if she were his friend, and how much more
+disagreeable if she were his enemy; and, doubtless, many less
+scrupulous young gentlemen than Nicholas would have encouraged her
+extravagance had it been only for this very obvious and intelligible
+reason.  However, he had thought proper to do otherwise, and Miss
+Squeers was outrageous.
+
+'Let him see,' said the irritated young lady, when she had regained
+her own room, and eased her mind by committing an assault on Phib,
+'if I don't set mother against him a little more when she comes
+back!'
+
+It was scarcely necessary to do this, but Miss Squeers was as good
+as her word; and poor Nicholas, in addition to bad food, dirty
+lodging, and the being compelled to witness one dull unvarying round
+of squalid misery, was treated with every special indignity that
+malice could suggest, or the most grasping cupidity put upon him.
+
+Nor was this all.  There was another and deeper system of annoyance
+which made his heart sink, and nearly drove him wild, by its
+injustice and cruelty.
+
+The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas had spoken
+kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to and fro, with
+an ever-restless desire to serve or help him; anticipating such
+little wants as his humble ability could supply, and content only to
+be near him.  He would sit beside him for hours, looking patiently
+into his face; and a word would brighten up his care-worn visage,
+and call into it a passing gleam, even of happiness.  He was an
+altered being; he had an object now; and that object was, to show
+his attachment to the only person--that person a stranger--who had
+treated him, not to say with kindness, but like a human creature.
+
+Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humour that could not
+be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed.  Drudgery would
+have been nothing--Smike was well used to that.  Buffetings
+inflicted without cause, would have been equally a matter of course;
+for to them also he had served a long and weary apprenticeship; but
+it was no sooner observed that he had become attached to Nicholas,
+than stripes and blows, stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night,
+were his only portion.  Squeers was jealous of the influence which
+his man had so soon acquired, and his family hated him, and Smike
+paid for both.  Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every
+repetition of the savage and cowardly attack.
+
+He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys; and one night,
+as he paced up and down the dismal schoolroom, his swollen heart
+almost bursting to think that his protection and countenance should
+have increased the misery of the wretched being whose peculiar
+destitution had awakened his pity, he paused mechanically in a dark
+corner where sat the object of his thoughts.
+
+The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with the traces
+of recent tears still upon his face; vainly endeavouring to master
+some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of ordinary
+powers, could have conquered with ease, but which, to the addled
+brain of the crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed and hopeless
+mystery.  Yet there he sat, patiently conning the page again and
+again, stimulated by no boyish ambition, for he was the common jest
+and scoff even of the uncouth objects that congregated about him,
+but inspired by the one eager desire to please his solitary friend.
+
+Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder.
+
+'I can't do it,' said the dejected creature, looking up with bitter
+disappointment in every feature.  'No, no.'
+
+'Do not try,' replied Nicholas.
+
+The boy shook his head, and closing the book with a sigh, looked
+vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm.  He was weeping.
+
+'Do not for God's sake,' said Nicholas, in an agitated voice; 'I
+cannot bear to see you.'
+
+'They are more hard with me than ever,' sobbed the boy.
+
+'I know it,' rejoined Nicholas.  'They are.'
+
+'But for you,' said the outcast, 'I should die.  They would kill me;
+they would; I know they would.'
+
+'You will do better, poor fellow,' replied Nicholas, shaking his
+head mournfully, 'when I am gone.'
+
+'Gone!' cried the other, looking intently in his face.
+
+'Softly!' rejoined Nicholas.  'Yes.'
+
+'Are you going?' demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.
+
+'I cannot say,' replied Nicholas.  'I was speaking more to my own
+thoughts, than to you.'
+
+'Tell me,' said the boy imploringly, 'oh do tell me, WILL you go--
+WILL you?'
+
+'I shall be driven to that at last!' said Nicholas.  'The world is
+before me, after all.'
+
+'Tell me,' urged Smike, 'is the world as bad and dismal as this
+place?'
+
+'Heaven forbid,' replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his own
+thoughts; 'its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.'
+
+'Should I ever meet you there?' demanded the boy, speaking with
+unusual wildness and volubility.
+
+'Yes,' replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.
+
+'No, no!' said the other, clasping him by the hand.  'Should I--
+should I--tell me that again.  Say I should be sure to find you.'
+
+'You would,' replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention, 'and
+I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I
+have done here.'
+
+The boy caught both the young man's hands passionately in his, and,
+hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken sounds which were
+unintelligible.  Squeers entered at the moment, and he shrunk back
+into his old corner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+Nicholas varies the Monotony of Dothebys Hall by a most vigorous and
+remarkable proceeding, which leads to Consequences of some
+Importance
+
+
+The cold, feeble dawn of a January morning was stealing in at the
+windows of the common sleeping-room, when Nicholas, raising himself
+on his arm, looked among the prostrate forms which on every side
+surrounded him, as though in search of some particular object.
+
+It needed a quick eye to detect, from among the huddled mass of
+sleepers, the form of any given individual.  As they lay closely
+packed together, covered, for warmth's sake, with their patched and
+ragged clothes, little could be distinguished but the sharp outlines
+of pale faces, over which the sombre light shed the same dull heavy
+colour; with, here and there, a gaunt arm thrust forth: its thinness
+hidden by no covering, but fully exposed to view, in all its
+shrunken ugliness.  There were some who, lying on their backs with
+upturned faces and clenched hands, just visible in the leaden light,
+bore more the aspect of dead bodies than of living creatures; and
+there were others coiled up into strange and fantastic postures,
+such as might have been taken for the uneasy efforts of pain to gain
+some temporary relief, rather than the freaks of slumber.  A few--
+and these were among the youngest of the children--slept peacefully
+on, with smiles upon their faces, dreaming perhaps of home; but ever
+and again a deep and heavy sigh, breaking the stillness of the room,
+announced that some new sleeper had awakened to the misery of
+another day; and, as morning took the place of night, the smiles
+gradually faded away, with the friendly darkness which had given
+them birth.
+
+Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on
+earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the
+sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily
+pilgrimage through the world.
+
+Nicholas looked upon the sleepers; at first, with the air of one who
+gazes upon a scene which, though familiar to him, has lost none of
+its sorrowful effect in consequence; and, afterwards, with a more
+intense and searching scrutiny, as a man would who missed something
+his eye was accustomed to meet, and had expected to rest upon.  He
+was still occupied in this search, and had half risen from his bed
+in the eagerness of his quest, when the voice of Squeers was heard,
+calling from the bottom of the stairs.
+
+'Now then,' cried that gentleman, 'are you going to sleep all day,
+up there--'
+
+'You lazy hounds?' added Mrs Squeers, finishing the sentence, and
+producing, at the same time, a sharp sound, like that which is
+occasioned by the lacing of stays.
+
+'We shall be down directly, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Down directly!' said Squeers.  'Ah! you had better be down
+directly, or I'll be down upon some of you in less.  Where's that
+Smike?'
+
+Nicholas looked hurriedly round again, but made no answer.
+
+'Smike!' shouted Squeers.
+
+'Do you want your head broke in a fresh place, Smike?' demanded his
+amiable lady in the same key.
+
+Still there was no reply, and still Nicholas stared about him, as
+did the greater part of the boys, who were by this time roused.
+
+'Confound his impudence!' muttered Squeers, rapping the stair-rail
+impatiently with his cane.  'Nickleby!'
+
+'Well, sir.'
+
+'Send that obstinate scoundrel down; don't you hear me calling?'
+
+'He is not here, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Don't tell me a lie,' retorted the schoolmaster.  'He is.'
+
+'He is not,' retorted Nicholas angrily, 'don't tell me one.'
+
+'We shall soon see that,' said Mr Squeers, rushing upstairs.  'I'll
+find him, I warrant you.'
+
+With which assurance, Mr Squeers bounced into the dormitory, and,
+swinging his cane in the air ready for a blow, darted into the
+corner where the lean body of the drudge was usually stretched at
+night.  The cane descended harmlessly upon the ground.  There was
+nobody there.
+
+'What does this mean?' said Squeers, turning round with a very pale
+face.  'Where have you hid him?'
+
+'I have seen nothing of him since last night,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Come,' said Squeers, evidently frightened, though he endeavoured to
+look otherwise, 'you won't save him this way.  Where is he?'
+
+'At the bottom of the nearest pond for aught I know,' rejoined
+Nicholas in a low voice, and fixing his eyes full on the master's
+face.
+
+'Damn you, what do you mean by that?' retorted Squeers in great
+perturbation.  Without waiting for a reply, he inquired of the boys
+whether any one among them knew anything of their missing
+schoolmate.
+
+There was a general hum of anxious denial, in the midst of which,
+one shrill voice was heard to say (as, indeed, everybody thought):
+
+'Please, sir, I think Smike's run away, sir.'
+
+'Ha!' cried Squeers, turning sharp round.  'Who said that?'
+
+'Tomkins, please sir,' rejoined a chorus of voices.  Mr Squeers made
+a plunge into the crowd, and at one dive, caught a very little boy,
+habited still in his night-gear, and the perplexed expression of
+whose countenance, as he was brought forward, seemed to intimate
+that he was as yet uncertain whether he was about to be punished or
+rewarded for the suggestion.  He was not long in doubt.
+
+'You think he has run away, do you, sir?' demanded Squeers.
+
+'Yes, please sir,' replied the little boy.
+
+'And what, sir,' said Squeers, catching the little boy suddenly by
+the arms and whisking up his drapery in a most dexterous manner,
+'what reason have you to suppose that any boy would want to run away
+from this establishment?  Eh, sir?'
+
+The child raised a dismal cry, by way of answer, and Mr Squeers,
+throwing himself into the most favourable attitude for exercising
+his strength, beat him until the little urchin in his writhings
+actually rolled out of his hands, when he mercifully allowed him to
+roll away, as he best could.
+
+'There,' said Squeers.  'Now if any other boy thinks Smike has run
+away, I shall be glad to have a talk with him.'
+
+There was, of course, a profound silence, during which Nicholas
+showed his disgust as plainly as looks could show it.
+
+'Well, Nickleby,' said Squeers, eyeing him maliciously.  'YOU think
+he has run away, I suppose?'
+
+'I think it extremely likely,' replied Nicholas, in a quiet manner.
+
+'Oh, you do, do you?' sneered Squeers.  'Maybe you know he has?'
+
+'I know nothing of the kind.'
+
+'He didn't tell you he was going, I suppose, did he?' sneered
+Squeers.
+
+'He did not,' replied Nicholas; 'I am very glad he did not, for it
+would then have been my duty to have warned you in time.'
+
+'Which no doubt you would have been devilish sorry to do,' said
+Squeers in a taunting fashion.
+
+'I should indeed,' replied Nicholas.  'You interpret my feelings
+with great accuracy.'
+
+Mrs Squeers had listened to this conversation, from the bottom of
+the stairs; but, now losing all patience, she hastily assumed her
+night-jacket, and made her way to the scene of action.
+
+'What's all this here to-do?' said the lady, as the boys fell off
+right and left, to save her the trouble of clearing a passage with
+her brawny arms.  'What on earth are you a talking to him for,
+Squeery!'
+
+'Why, my dear,' said Squeers, 'the fact is, that Smike is not to be
+found.'
+
+'Well, I know that,' said the lady, 'and where's the wonder?  If you
+get a parcel of proud-stomached teachers that set the young dogs a
+rebelling, what else can you look for?  Now, young man, you just
+have the kindness to take yourself off to the schoolroom, and take
+the boys off with you, and don't you stir out of there till you have
+leave given you, or you and I may fall out in a way that'll spoil
+your beauty, handsome as you think yourself, and so I tell you.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Nicholas.
+
+'Yes; and indeed and indeed again, Mister Jackanapes,' said the
+excited lady; 'and I wouldn't keep such as you in the house another
+hour, if I had my way.'
+
+'Nor would you if I had mine,' replied Nicholas.  'Now, boys!'
+
+'Ah!  Now, boys,' said Mrs Squeers, mimicking, as nearly as she
+could, the voice and manner of the usher.  'Follow your leader,
+boys, and take pattern by Smike if you dare.  See what he'll get for
+himself, when he is brought back; and, mind!  I tell you that you
+shall have as bad, and twice as bad, if you so much as open your
+mouths about him.'
+
+'If I catch him,' said Squeers, 'I'll only stop short of flaying him
+alive.  I give you notice, boys.'
+
+'IF you catch him,' retorted Mrs Squeers, contemptuously; 'you are
+sure to; you can't help it, if you go the right way to work.  Come!
+Away with you!'
+
+With these words, Mrs Squeers dismissed the boys, and after a little
+light skirmishing with those in the rear who were pressing forward
+to get out of the way, but were detained for a few moments by the
+throng in front, succeeded in clearing the room, when she confronted
+her spouse alone.
+
+'He is off,' said Mrs Squeers.  'The cow-house and stable are locked
+up, so he can't be there; and he's not downstairs anywhere, for the
+girl has looked.  He must have gone York way, and by a public road
+too.'
+
+'Why must he?' inquired Squeers.
+
+'Stupid!' said Mrs Squeers angrily.  'He hadn't any money, had he?'
+
+'Never had a penny of his own in his whole life, that I know of,'
+replied Squeers.
+
+'To be sure,' rejoined Mrs Squeers, 'and he didn't take anything to
+eat with him; that I'll answer for.  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed Squeers.
+
+'Then, of course,' said Mrs S., 'he must beg his way, and he could
+do that, nowhere, but on the public road.'
+
+'That's true,' exclaimed Squeers, clapping his hands.
+
+'True!  Yes; but you would never have thought of it, for all that,
+if I hadn't said so,' replied his wife.  'Now, if you take the
+chaise and go one road, and I borrow Swallow's chaise, and go the
+other, what with keeping our eyes open, and asking questions, one or
+other of us is pretty certain to lay hold of him.'
+
+The worthy lady's plan was adopted and put in execution without a
+moment's delay.  After a very hasty breakfast, and the prosecution
+of some inquiries in the village, the result of which seemed to show
+that he was on the right track, Squeers started forth in the pony-
+chaise, intent upon discovery and vengeance.  Shortly afterwards,
+Mrs Squeers, arrayed in the white top-coat, and tied up in various
+shawls and handkerchiefs, issued forth in another chaise and another
+direction, taking with her a good-sized bludgeon, several odd pieces
+of strong cord, and a stout labouring man: all provided and carried
+upon the expedition, with the sole object of assisting in the
+capture, and (once caught) insuring the safe custody of the
+unfortunate Smike.
+
+Nicholas remained behind, in a tumult of feeling, sensible that
+whatever might be the upshot of the boy's flight, nothing but
+painful and deplorable consequences were likely to ensue from it.
+Death, from want and exposure to the weather, was the best that
+could be expected from the protracted wandering of so poor and
+helpless a creature, alone and unfriended, through a country of
+which he was wholly ignorant.  There was little, perhaps, to choose
+between this fate and a return to the tender mercies of the
+Yorkshire school; but the unhappy being had established a hold upon
+his sympathy and compassion, which made his heart ache at the
+prospect of the suffering he was destined to undergo.  He lingered
+on, in restless anxiety, picturing a thousand possibilities, until
+the evening of next day, when Squeers returned, alone, and
+unsuccessful.
+
+'No news of the scamp!' said the schoolmaster, who had evidently
+been stretching his legs, on the old principle, not a few times
+during the journey.  'I'll have consolation for this out of
+somebody, Nickleby, if Mrs Squeers don't hunt him down; so I give
+you warning.'
+
+'It is not in my power to console you, sir,' said Nicholas.  'It is
+nothing to me.'
+
+'Isn't it?' said Squeers in a threatening manner.  'We shall see!'
+
+'We shall,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Here's the pony run right off his legs, and me obliged to come home
+with a hack cob, that'll cost fifteen shillings besides other
+expenses,' said Squeers; 'who's to pay for that, do you hear?'
+
+Nicholas shrugged his shoulders and remained silent.
+
+'I'll have it out of somebody, I tell you,' said Squeers, his usual
+harsh crafty manner changed to open bullying 'None of your whining
+vapourings here, Mr Puppy, but be off to your kennel, for it's past
+your bedtime!  Come!  Get out!'
+
+Nicholas bit his lip and knit his hands involuntarily, for his
+fingerends tingled to avenge the insult; but remembering that the
+man was drunk, and that it could come to little but a noisy brawl,
+he contented himself with darting a contemptuous look at the tyrant,
+and walked, as majestically as he could, upstairs: not a little
+nettled, however, to observe that Miss Squeers and Master Squeers,
+and the servant girl, were enjoying the scene from a snug corner;
+the two former indulging in many edifying remarks about the
+presumption of poor upstarts, which occasioned a vast deal of
+laughter, in which even the most miserable of all miserable servant
+girls joined: while Nicholas, stung to the quick, drew over his head
+such bedclothes as he had, and sternly resolved that the outstanding
+account between himself and Mr Squeers should be settled rather more
+speedily than the latter anticipated.
+
+Another day came, and Nicholas was scarcely awake when he heard the
+wheels of a chaise approaching the house.  It stopped.  The voice of
+Mrs Squeers was heard, and in exultation, ordering a glass of
+spirits for somebody, which was in itself a sufficient sign that
+something extraordinary had happened.  Nicholas hardly dared to look
+out of the window; but he did so, and the very first object that met
+his eyes was the wretched Smike: so bedabbled with mud and rain, so
+haggard and worn, and wild, that, but for his garments being such as
+no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, he might have been doubtful,
+even then, of his identity.
+
+'Lift him out,' said Squeers, after he had literally feasted his
+eyes, in silence, upon the culprit.  'Bring him in; bring him in!'
+
+'Take care,' cried Mrs Squeers, as her husband proffered his
+assistance.  'We tied his legs under the apron and made'em fast to
+the chaise, to prevent his giving us the slip again.'
+
+With hands trembling with delight, Squeers unloosened the cord; and
+Smike, to all appearance more dead than alive, was brought into the
+house and securely locked up in a cellar, until such time as Mr
+Squeers should deem it expedient to operate upon him, in presence of
+the assembled school.
+
+Upon a hasty consideration of the circumstances, it may be matter of
+surprise to some persons, that Mr and Mrs Squeers should have taken
+so much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which
+it was their wont to complain so loudly; but their surprise will
+cease when they are informed that the manifold services of the
+drudge, if performed by anybody else, would have cost the
+establishment some ten or twelve shillings per week in the shape of
+wages; and furthermore, that all runaways were, as a matter of
+policy, made severe examples of, at Dotheboys Hall, inasmuch as, in
+consequence of the limited extent of its attractions, there was but
+little inducement, beyond the powerful impulse of fear, for any
+pupil, provided with the usual number of legs and the power of using
+them, to remain.
+
+The news that Smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran
+like wild-fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on
+tiptoe all the morning.  On tiptoe it was destined to remain,
+however, until afternoon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself
+with his dinner, and further strengthened himself by an extra
+libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable
+partner) with a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful
+instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new,--in
+short, purchased that morning, expressly for the occasion.
+
+'Is every boy here?' asked Squeers, in a tremendous voice.
+
+Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak, so Squeers
+glared along the lines to assure himself; and every eye drooped, and
+every head cowered down, as he did so.
+
+'Each boy keep his place,' said Squeers, administering his favourite
+blow to the desk, and regarding with gloomy satisfaction the
+universal start which it never failed to occasion.  'Nickleby! to
+your desk, sir.'
+
+It was remarked by more than one small observer, that there was a
+very curious and unusual expression in the usher's face; but he took
+his seat, without opening his lips in reply.  Squeers, casting a
+triumphant glance at his assistant and a look of most comprehensive
+despotism on the boys, left the room, and shortly afterwards
+returned, dragging Smike by the collar--or rather by that fragment
+of his jacket which was nearest the place where his collar would
+have been, had he boasted such a decoration.
+
+In any other place, the appearance of the wretched, jaded,
+spiritless object would have occasioned a murmur of compassion and
+remonstrance.  It had some effect, even there; for the lookers-on
+moved uneasily in their seats; and a few of the boldest ventured to
+steal looks at each other, expressive of indignation and pity.
+
+They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened on the
+luckless Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in such cases,
+whether he had anything to say for himself.
+
+'Nothing, I suppose?' said Squeers, with a diabolical grin.
+
+Smike glanced round, and his eye rested, for an instant, on
+Nicholas, as if he had expected him to intercede; but his look was
+riveted on his desk.
+
+'Have you anything to say?' demanded Squeers again: giving his right
+arm two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness.  'Stand
+a little out of the way, Mrs Squeers, my dear; I've hardly got room
+enough.'
+
+'Spare me, sir!' cried Smike.
+
+'Oh! that's all, is it?' said Squeers.  'Yes, I'll flog you within
+an inch of your life, and spare you that.'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha,' laughed Mrs Squeers, 'that's a good 'un!'
+
+'I was driven to do it,' said Smike faintly; and casting another
+imploring look about him.
+
+'Driven to do it, were you?' said Squeers.  'Oh! it wasn't your
+fault; it was mine, I suppose--eh?'
+
+'A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking dog,'
+exclaimed Mrs Squeers, taking Smike's head under her arm, and
+administering a cuff at every epithet; 'what does he mean by that?'
+
+'Stand aside, my dear,' replied Squeers.  'We'll try and find out.'
+
+Mrs Squeers, being out of breath with her exertions, complied.
+Squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had
+fallen on his body--he was wincing from the lash and uttering a
+scream of pain--it was raised again, and again about to fall--when
+Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly starting up, cried 'Stop!' in a voice
+that made the rafters ring.
+
+'Who cried stop?' said Squeers, turning savagely round.
+
+'I,' said Nicholas, stepping forward.  'This must not go on.'
+
+'Must not go on!' cried Squeers, almost in a shriek.
+
+'No!' thundered Nicholas.
+
+Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, Squeers
+released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed
+upon Nicholas with looks that were positively frightful.
+
+'I say must not,' repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted; 'shall not.  I
+will prevent it.'
+
+Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of
+his head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him
+of speech.
+
+'You have disregarded all my quiet interference in the miserable
+lad's behalf,' said Nicholas; 'you have returned no answer to the
+letter in which I begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be
+responsible that he would remain quietly here.  Don't blame me for
+this public interference.  You have brought it upon yourself; not I.'
+
+'Sit down, beggar!' screamed Squeers, almost beside himself with
+rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke.
+
+'Wretch,' rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, 'touch him at your peril!  I
+will not stand by, and see it done.  My blood is up, and I have the
+strength of ten such men as you.  Look to yourself, for by Heaven I
+will not spare you, if you drive me on!'
+
+'Stand back,' cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon.
+
+'I have a long series of insults to avenge,' said Nicholas, flushed
+with passion; 'and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly
+cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den.  Have a
+care; for if you do raise the devil within me, the consequences
+shall fall heavily upon your own head!'
+
+He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak of
+wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spat upon him,
+and struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of
+torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted.
+Smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one
+moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas
+sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him
+by the throat, beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy.
+
+The boys--with the exception of Master Squeers, who, coming to his
+father's assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear--moved not, hand
+or foot; but Mrs Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the
+tail of her partner's coat, and endeavoured to drag him from his
+infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping
+through the keyhole in expectation of a very different scene, darted
+in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower
+of inkstands at the usher's head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content;
+animating herself, at every blow, with the recollection of his
+having refused her proffered love, and thus imparting additional
+strength to an arm which (as she took after her mother in this
+respect) was, at no time, one of the weakest.
+
+Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no
+more than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired
+of the noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides,
+he threw all his remaining strength into half-a-dozen finishing
+cuts, and flung Squeers from him with all the force he could muster.
+The violence of his fall precipitated Mrs Squeers completely over an
+adjacent form; and Squeers striking his head against it in his
+descent, lay at his full length on the ground, stunned and
+motionless.
+
+Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascertained,
+to his thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was only stunned, and not
+dead (upon which point he had had some unpleasant doubts at first),
+Nicholas left his family to restore him, and retired to consider
+what course he had better adopt.  He looked anxiously round for
+Smike, as he left the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.
+
+After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small
+leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to oppose his
+progress, marched boldly out by the front-door, and shortly
+afterwards, struck into the road which led to Greta Bridge.
+
+When he had cooled sufficiently to be enabled to give his present
+circumstances some little reflection, they did not appear in a very
+encouraging light; he had only four shillings and a few pence in his
+pocket, and was something more than two hundred and fifty miles from
+London, whither he resolved to direct his steps, that he might
+ascertain, among other things, what account of the morning's
+proceedings Mr Squeers transmitted to his most affectionate uncle.
+
+Lifting up his eyes, as he arrived at the conclusion that there was
+no remedy for this unfortunate state of things, he beheld a horseman
+coming towards him, whom, on nearer approach, he discovered, to his
+infinite chagrin, to be no other than Mr John Browdie, who, clad in
+cords and leather leggings, was urging his animal forward by means
+of a thick ash stick, which seemed to have been recently cut from
+some stout sapling.
+
+'I am in no mood for more noise and riot,' thought Nicholas, 'and
+yet, do what I will, I shall have an altercation with this honest
+blockhead, and perhaps a blow or two from yonder staff.'
+
+In truth, there appeared some reason to expect that such a result
+would follow from the encounter, for John Browdie no sooner saw
+Nicholas advancing, than he reined in his horse by the footpath, and
+waited until such time as he should come up; looking meanwhile, very
+sternly between the horse's ears, at Nicholas, as he came on at his
+leisure.
+
+'Servant, young genelman,' said John.
+
+'Yours,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Weel; we ha' met at last,' observed John, making the stirrup ring
+under a smart touch of the ash stick.
+
+'Yes,' replied Nicholas, hesitating.  'Come!' he said, frankly,
+after a moment's pause, 'we parted on no very good terms the last
+time we met; it was my fault, I believe; but I had no intention of
+offending you, and no idea that I was doing so.  I was very sorry
+for it, afterwards.  Will you shake hands?'
+
+'Shake honds!' cried the good-humoured Yorkshireman; 'ah! that I
+weel;' at the same time, he bent down from the saddle, and gave
+Nicholas's fist a huge wrench: 'but wa'at be the matther wi' thy
+feace, mun?  it be all brokken loike.'
+
+'It is a cut,' said Nicholas, turning scarlet as he spoke,--'a blow;
+but I returned it to the giver, and with good interest too.'
+
+'Noa, did 'ee though?' exclaimed John Browdie.  'Well deane!  I
+loike 'un for thot.'
+
+'The fact is,' said Nicholas, not very well knowing how to make the
+avowal, 'the fact is, that I have been ill-treated.'
+
+'Noa!' interposed John Browdie, in a tone of compassion; for he was
+a giant in strength and stature, and Nicholas, very likely, in his
+eyes, seemed a mere dwarf; 'dean't say thot.'
+
+'Yes, I have,' replied Nicholas, 'by that man Squeers, and I have
+beaten him soundly, and am leaving this place in consequence.'
+
+'What!' cried John Browdie, with such an ecstatic shout, that the
+horse quite shied at it.  'Beatten the schoolmeasther!  Ho! ho! ho!
+Beatten the schoolmeasther! who ever heard o' the loike o' that noo!
+Giv' us thee hond agean, yoongster.  Beatten the schoolmeasther!
+Dang it, I loov' thee for't.'
+
+With these expressions of delight, John Browdie laughed and laughed
+again--so loud that the echoes, far and wide, sent back nothing but
+jovial peals of merriment--and shook Nicholas by the hand meanwhile,
+no less heartily.  When his mirth had subsided, he inquired what
+Nicholas meant to do; on his informing him, to go straight to
+London, he shook his head doubtfully, and inquired if he knew how
+much the coaches charged to carry passengers so far.
+
+'No, I do not,' said Nicholas; 'but it is of no great consequence to
+me, for I intend walking.'
+
+'Gang awa' to Lunnun afoot!' cried John, in amazement.
+
+'Every step of the way,' replied Nicholas.  'I should be many steps
+further on by this time, and so goodbye!'
+
+'Nay noo,' replied the honest countryman, reining in his impatient
+horse, 'stan' still, tellee.  Hoo much cash hast thee gotten?'
+
+'Not much,' said Nicholas, colouring, 'but I can make it enough.
+Where there's a will, there's a way, you know.'
+
+John Browdie made no verbal answer to this remark, but putting his
+hand in his pocket, pulled out an old purse of solid leather, and
+insisted that Nicholas should borrow from him whatever he required
+for his present necessities.
+
+'Dean't be afeard, mun,' he said; 'tak' eneaf to carry thee whoam.
+Thee'lt pay me yan day, a' warrant.'
+
+Nicholas could by no means be prevailed upon to borrow more than a
+sovereign, with which loan Mr Browdie, after many entreaties that he
+would accept of more (observing, with a touch of Yorkshire caution,
+that if he didn't spend it all, he could put the surplus by, till he
+had an opportunity of remitting it carriage free), was fain to
+content himself.
+
+'Tak' that bit o' timber to help thee on wi', mun,' he added,
+pressing his stick on Nicholas, and giving his hand another squeeze;
+'keep a good heart, and bless thee.  Beatten the schoolmeasther!
+'Cod it's the best thing a've heerd this twonty year!'
+
+So saying, and indulging, with more delicacy than might have been
+expected from him, in another series of loud laughs, for the purpose
+of avoiding the thanks which Nicholas poured forth, John Browdie set
+spurs to his horse, and went off at a smart canter: looking back,
+from time to time, as Nicholas stood gazing after him, and waving
+his hand cheerily, as if to encourage him on his way.  Nicholas
+watched the horse and rider until they disappeared over the brow of
+a distant hill, and then set forward on his journey.
+
+He did not travel far that afternoon, for by this time it was nearly
+dark, and there had been a heavy fall of snow, which not only
+rendered the way toilsome, but the track uncertain and difficult to
+find, after daylight, save by experienced wayfarers.  He lay, that
+night, at a cottage, where beds were let at a cheap rate to the more
+humble class of travellers; and, rising betimes next morning, made
+his way before night to Boroughbridge.  Passing through that town in
+search of some cheap resting-place, he stumbled upon an empty barn
+within a couple of hundred yards of the roadside; in a warm corner
+of which, he stretched his weary limbs, and soon fell asleep.
+
+When he awoke next morning, and tried to recollect his dreams, which
+had been all connected with his recent sojourn at Dotheboys Hall, he
+sat up, rubbed his eyes and stared--not with the most composed
+countenance possible--at some motionless object which seemed to be
+stationed within a few yards in front of him.
+
+'Strange!' cried Nicholas; 'can this be some lingering creation of
+the visions that have scarcely left me!  It cannot be real--and yet
+I--I am awake!  Smike!'
+
+The form moved, rose, advanced, and dropped upon its knees at his
+feet.  It was Smike indeed.
+
+'Why do you kneel to me?' said Nicholas, hastily raising him.
+
+'To go with you--anywhere--everywhere--to the world's end--to the
+churchyard grave,' replied Smike, clinging to his hand.  'Let me, oh
+do let me.  You are my home--my kind friend--take me with you,
+pray.'
+
+'I am a friend who can do little for you,' said Nicholas, kindly.
+'How came you here?'
+
+He had followed him, it seemed; had never lost sight of him all the
+way; had watched while he slept, and when he halted for refreshment;
+and had feared to appear before, lest he should be sent back.  He
+had not intended to appear now, but Nicholas had awakened more
+suddenly than he looked for, and he had had no time to conceal
+himself.
+
+'Poor fellow!' said Nicholas, 'your hard fate denies you any friend
+but one, and he is nearly as poor and helpless as yourself.'
+
+'May I--may I go with you?' asked Smike, timidly.  'I will be your
+faithful hard-working servant, I will, indeed.  I want no clothes,'
+added the poor creature, drawing his rags together; 'these will do
+very well.  I only want to be near you.'
+
+'And you shall,' cried Nicholas.  'And the world shall deal by you
+as it does by me, till one or both of us shall quit it for a better.
+Come!'
+
+With these words, he strapped his burden on his shoulders, and,
+taking his stick in one hand, extended the other to his delighted
+charge; and so they passed out of the old barn, together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+Having the Misfortune to treat of none but Common People, is
+necessarily of a Mean and Vulgar Character
+
+
+In that quarter of London in which Golden Square is situated, there
+is a bygone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of
+tall meagre houses, which seem to have stared each other out of
+countenance years ago.  The very chimneys appear to have grown
+dismal and melancholy, from having had nothing better to look at
+than the chimneys over the way.  Their tops are battered, and
+broken, and blackened with smoke; and, here and there, some taller
+stack than the rest, inclining heavily to one side, and toppling
+over the roof, seems to mediate taking revenge for half a century's
+neglect, by crushing the inhabitants of the garrets beneath.
+
+The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither
+and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to
+adopt, and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to
+understand, are perfectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of
+their owners.  Dingy, ill-plumed, drowsy flutterers, sent, like many
+of the neighbouring children, to get a livelihood in the streets,
+they hop, from stone to stone, in forlorn search of some hidden
+eatable in the mud, and can scarcely raise a crow among them.  The
+only one with anything approaching to a voice, is an aged bantam at
+the baker's; and even he is hoarse, in consequence of bad living in
+his last place.
+
+To judge from the size of the houses, they have been, at one time,
+tenanted by persons of better condition than their present
+occupants; but they are now let off, by the week, in floors or
+rooms, and every door has almost as many plates or bell-handles as
+there are apartments within.  The windows are, for the same reason,
+sufficiently diversified in appearance, being ornamented with every
+variety of common blind and curtain that can easily be imagined;
+while every doorway is blocked up, and rendered nearly impassable,
+by a motley collection of children and porter pots of all sizes,
+from the baby in arms and the half-pint pot, to the full-grown girl
+and half-gallon can.
+
+In the parlour of one of these houses, which was perhaps a thought
+dirtier than any of its neighbours; which exhibited more bell-
+handles, children, and porter pots, and caught in all its freshness
+the first gust of the thick black smoke that poured forth, night and
+day, from a large brewery hard by; hung a bill, announcing that
+there was yet one room to let within its walls, though on what story
+the vacant room could be--regard being had to the outward tokens of
+many lodgers which the whole front displayed, from the mangle in the
+kitchen window to the flower-pots on the parapet--it would have been
+beyond the power of a calculating boy to discover.
+
+The common stairs of this mansion were bare and carpetless; but a
+curious visitor who had to climb his way to the top, might have
+observed that there were not wanting indications of the progressive
+poverty of the inmates, although their rooms were shut.  Thus, the
+first-floor lodgers, being flush of furniture, kept an old mahogany
+table--real mahogany--on the landing-place outside, which was only
+taken in, when occasion required.  On the second story, the spare
+furniture dwindled down to a couple of old deal chairs, of which
+one, belonging to the back-room, was shorn of a leg, and bottomless.
+The story above, boasted no greater excess than a worm-eaten wash-
+tub; and the garret landing-place displayed no costlier articles
+than two crippled pitchers, and some broken blacking-bottles.
+
+It was on this garret landing-place that a hard-featured square-
+faced man, elderly and shabby, stopped to unlock the door of the
+front attic, into which, having surmounted the task of turning the
+rusty key in its still more rusty wards, he walked with the air of
+legal owner.
+
+This person wore a wig of short, coarse, red hair, which he took off
+with his hat, and hung upon a nail.  Having adopted in its place a
+dirty cotton nightcap, and groped about in the dark till he found a
+remnant of candle, he knocked at the partition which divided the two
+garrets, and inquired, in a loud voice, whether Mr Noggs had a
+light.
+
+The sounds that came back were stifled by the lath and plaster, and
+it seemed moreover as though the speaker had uttered them from the
+interior of a mug or other drinking vessel; but they were in the
+voice of Newman, and conveyed a reply in the affirmative.
+
+'A nasty night, Mr Noggs!' said the man in the nightcap, stepping in
+to light his candle.
+
+'Does it rain?' asked Newman.
+
+'Does it?' replied the other pettishly.  'I am wet through.'
+
+'It doesn't take much to wet you and me through, Mr Crowl,' said
+Newman, laying his hand upon the lappel of his threadbare coat.
+
+'Well; and that makes it the more vexatious,' observed Mr Crowl, in
+the same pettish tone.
+
+Uttering a low querulous growl, the speaker, whose harsh countenance
+was the very epitome of selfishness, raked the scanty fire nearly
+out of the grate, and, emptying the glass which Noggs had pushed
+towards him, inquired where he kept his coals.
+
+Newman Noggs pointed to the bottom of a cupboard, and Mr Crowl,
+seizing the shovel, threw on half the stock: which Noggs very
+deliberately took off again, without saying a word.
+
+'You have not turned saving, at this time of day, I hope?' said
+Crowl.
+
+Newman pointed to the empty glass, as though it were a sufficient
+refutation of the charge, and briefly said that he was going
+downstairs to supper.
+
+'To the Kenwigses?' asked Crowl.
+
+Newman nodded assent.
+
+'Think of that now!' said Crowl.  'If I didn't--thinking that you
+were certain not to go, because you said you wouldn't--tell Kenwigs
+I couldn't come, and make up my mind to spend the evening with you!'
+
+'I was obliged to go,' said Newman.  'They would have me.'
+
+'Well; but what's to become of me?' urged the selfish man, who never
+thought of anybody else.  'It's all your fault.  I'll tell you what
+--I'll sit by your fire till you come back again.'
+
+Newman cast a despairing glance at his small store of fuel, but, not
+having the courage to say no--a word which in all his life he never
+had said at the right time, either to himself or anyone else--gave
+way to the proposed arrangement.  Mr Crowl immediately went about
+making himself as comfortable, with Newman Nogg's means, as
+circumstances would admit of his being made.
+
+The lodgers to whom Crowl had made allusion under the designation of
+'the Kenwigses,' were the wife and olive branches of one Mr Kenwigs,
+a turner in ivory, who was looked upon as a person of some
+consideration on the premises, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of
+the first floor, comprising a suite of two rooms.  Mrs Kenwigs, too,
+was quite a lady in her manners, and of a very genteel family,
+having an uncle who collected a water-rate; besides which
+distinction, the two eldest of her little girls went twice a week to
+a dancing school in the neighbourhood, and had flaxen hair, tied
+with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs;
+and wore little white trousers with frills round the ankles--for all
+of which reasons, and many more equally valid but too numerous to
+mention, Mrs Kenwigs was considered a very desirable person to know,
+and was the constant theme of all the gossips in the street, and
+even three or four doors round the corner at both ends.
+
+It was the anniversary of that happy day on which the Church of
+England as by law established, had bestowed Mrs Kenwigs upon Mr
+Kenwigs; and in grateful commemoration of the same, Mrs Kenwigs had
+invited a few select friends to cards and a supper in the first
+floor, and had put on a new gown to receive them in: which gown,
+being of a flaming colour and made upon a juvenile principle, was so
+successful that Mr Kenwigs said the eight years of matrimony and the
+five children seemed all a dream, and Mrs Kenwigs younger and more
+blooming than on the very first Sunday he had kept company with her.
+
+Beautiful as Mrs Kenwigs looked when she was dressed though, and so
+stately that you would have supposed she had a cook and housemaid at
+least, and nothing to do but order them about, she had a world of
+trouble with the preparations; more, indeed, than she, being of a
+delicate and genteel constitution, could have sustained, had not the
+pride of housewifery upheld her.  At last, however, all the things
+that had to be got together were got together, and all the things
+that had to be got out of the way were got out of the way, and
+everything was ready, and the collector himself having promised to
+come, fortune smiled upon the occasion.
+
+The party was admirably selected.  There were, first of all, Mr
+Kenwigs and Mrs Kenwigs, and four olive Kenwigses who sat up to
+supper; firstly, because it was but right that they should have a
+treat on such a day; and secondly, because their going to bed, in
+presence of the company, would have been inconvenient, not to say
+improper.  Then, there was a young lady who had made Mrs Kenwigs's
+dress, and who--it was the most convenient thing in the world--
+living in the two-pair back, gave up her bed to the baby, and got a
+little girl to watch it.  Then, to match this young lady, was a
+young man, who had known Mr Kenwigs when he was a bachelor, and was
+much esteemed by the ladies, as bearing the reputation of a rake.
+To these were added a newly-married couple, who had visited Mr and
+Mrs Kenwigs in their courtship; and a sister of Mrs Kenwigs's, who
+was quite a beauty; besides whom, there was another young man,
+supposed to entertain honourable designs upon the lady last
+mentioned; and Mr Noggs, who was a genteel person to ask, because he
+had been a gentleman once.  There were also an elderly lady from the
+back-parlour, and one more young lady, who, next to the collector,
+perhaps was the great lion of the party, being the daughter of a
+theatrical fireman, who 'went on' in the pantomime, and had the
+greatest turn for the stage that was ever known, being able to sing
+and recite in a manner that brought the tears into Mrs Kenwigs's
+eyes.  There was only one drawback upon the pleasure of seeing such
+friends, and that was, that the lady in the back-parlour, who was
+very fat, and turned of sixty, came in a low book-muslin dress and
+short kid gloves, which so exasperated Mrs Kenwigs, that that lady
+assured her visitors, in private, that if it hadn't happened that
+the supper was cooking at the back-parlour grate at that moment, she
+certainly would have requested its representative to withdraw.
+
+'My dear,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'wouldn't it be better to begin a round
+game?'
+
+'Kenwigs, my dear,' returned his wife, 'I am surprised at you.
+Would you begin without my uncle?'
+
+'I forgot the collector,' said Kenwigs; 'oh no, that would never
+do.'
+
+'He's so particular,' said Mrs Kenwigs, turning to the other married
+lady, 'that if we began without him, I should be out of his will for
+ever.'
+
+'Dear!' cried the married lady.
+
+'You've no idea what he is,' replied Mrs Kenwigs; 'and yet as good a
+creature as ever breathed.'
+
+'The kindest-hearted man as ever was,' said Kenwigs.
+
+'It goes to his heart, I believe, to be forced to cut the water off,
+when the people don't pay,' observed the bachelor friend, intending
+a joke.
+
+'George,' said Mr Kenwigs, solemnly, 'none of that, if you please.'
+
+'It was only my joke,' said the friend, abashed.
+
+'George,' rejoined Mr Kenwigs, 'a joke is a wery good thing--a wery
+good thing--but when that joke is made at the expense of Mrs
+Kenwigs's feelings, I set my face against it.  A man in public life
+expects to be sneered at--it is the fault of his elewated
+sitiwation, and not of himself.  Mrs Kenwigs's relation is a public
+man, and that he knows, George, and that he can bear; but putting
+Mrs Kenwigs out of the question (if I COULD put Mrs Kenwigs out of
+the question on such an occasion as this), I have the honour to be
+connected with the collector by marriage; and I cannot allow these
+remarks in my--'  Mr Kenwigs was going to say 'house,' but he rounded
+the sentence with 'apartments'.
+
+At the conclusion of these observations, which drew forth evidences
+of acute feeling from Mrs Kenwigs, and had the intended effect of
+impressing the company with a deep sense of the collector's dignity,
+a ring was heard at the bell.
+
+'That's him,' whispered Mr Kenwigs, greatly excited.  'Morleena, my
+dear, run down and let your uncle in, and kiss him directly you get
+the door open.  Hem!  Let's be talking.'
+
+Adopting Mr Kenwigs's suggestion, the company spoke very loudly, to
+look easy and unembarrassed; and almost as soon as they had begun to
+do so, a short old gentleman in drabs and gaiters, with a face that
+might have been carved out of LIGNUM VITAE, for anything that
+appeared to the contrary, was led playfully in by Miss Morleena
+Kenwigs, regarding whose uncommon Christian name it may be here
+remarked that it had been invented and composed by Mrs Kenwigs
+previous to her first lying-in, for the special distinction of her
+eldest child, in case it should prove a daughter.
+
+'Oh, uncle, I am SO glad to see you,' said Mrs Kenwigs, kissing the
+collector affectionately on both cheeks.  'So glad!'
+
+'Many happy returns of the day, my dear,' replied the collector,
+returning the compliment.
+
+Now, this was an interesting thing.  Here was a collector of water-
+rates, without his book, without his pen and ink, without his double
+knock, without his intimidation, kissing--actually kissing--an
+agreeable female, and leaving taxes, summonses, notices that he had
+called, or announcements that he would never call again, for two
+quarters' due, wholly out of the question.  It was pleasant to see
+how the company looked on, quite absorbed in the sight, and to
+behold the nods and winks with which they expressed their
+gratification at finding so much humanity in a tax-gatherer.
+
+'Where will you sit, uncle?' said Mrs Kenwigs, in the full glow of
+family pride, which the appearance of her distinguished relation
+occasioned.
+
+'Anywheres, my dear,' said the collector, 'I am not particular.'
+
+Not particular!  What a meek collector!  If he had been an author,
+who knew his place, he couldn't have been more humble.
+
+'Mr Lillyvick,' said Kenwigs, addressing the collector, 'some
+friends here, sir, are very anxious for the honour of--thank you--Mr
+and Mrs Cutler, Mr Lillyvick.'
+
+'Proud to know you, sir,' said Mr Cutler; 'I've heerd of you very
+often.'  These were not mere words of ceremony; for, Mr Cutler,
+having kept house in Mr Lillyvick's parish, had heard of him very
+often indeed.  His attention in calling had been quite extraordinary.
+
+'George, you know, I think, Mr Lillyvick,' said Kenwigs; 'lady from
+downstairs--Mr Lillyvick.  Mr Snewkes--Mr Lillyvick.  Miss Green--Mr
+Lillyvick.  Mr Lillyvick--Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury
+Lane.  Very glad to make two public characters acquainted!  Mrs
+Kenwigs, my dear, will you sort the counters?'
+
+Mrs Kenwigs, with the assistance of Newman Noggs, (who, as he
+performed sundry little acts of kindness for the children, at all
+times and seasons, was humoured in his request to be taken no notice
+of, and was merely spoken about, in a whisper, as the decayed
+gentleman), did as he was desired; and the greater part of the
+guests sat down to speculation, while Newman himself, Mrs Kenwigs,
+and Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, looked after the
+supper-table.
+
+While the ladies were thus busying themselves, Mr Lillyvick was
+intent upon the game in progress, and as all should be fish that
+comes to a water-collector's net, the dear old gentleman was by no
+means scrupulous in appropriating to himself the property of his
+neighbours, which, on the contrary, he abstracted whenever an
+opportunity presented itself, smiling good-humouredly all the while,
+and making so many condescending speeches to the owners, that they
+were delighted with his amiability, and thought in their hearts that
+he deserved to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at least.
+
+After a great deal of trouble, and the administration of many slaps
+on the head to the infant Kenwigses, whereof two of the most
+rebellious were summarily banished, the cloth was laid with much
+elegance, and a pair of boiled fowls, a large piece of pork, apple-
+pie, potatoes and greens, were served; at sight of which, the worthy
+Mr Lillyvick vented a great many witticisms, and plucked up
+amazingly: to the immense delight and satisfaction of the whole body
+of admirers.
+
+Very well and very fast the supper went off; no more serious
+difficulties occurring, than those which arose from the incessant
+demand for clean knives and forks; which made poor Mrs Kenwigs wish,
+more than once, that private society adopted the principle of
+schools, and required that every guest should bring his own knife,
+fork, and spoon; which doubtless would be a great accommodation in
+many cases, and to no one more so than to the lady and gentleman of
+the house, especially if the school principle were carried out to
+the full extent, and the articles were expected, as a matter of
+delicacy, not to be taken away again.
+
+Everybody having eaten everything, the table was cleared in a most
+alarming hurry, and with great noise; and the spirits, whereat the
+eyes of Newman Noggs glistened, being arranged in order, with water
+both hot and cold, the party composed themselves for conviviality;
+Mr Lillyvick being stationed in a large armchair by the fireside,
+and the four little Kenwigses disposed on a small form in front of
+the company with their flaxen tails towards them, and their faces to
+the fire; an arrangement which was no sooner perfected, than Mrs
+Kenwigs was overpowered by the feelings of a mother, and fell upon
+the left shoulder of Mr Kenwigs dissolved in tears.
+
+'They are so beautiful!' said Mrs Kenwigs, sobbing.
+
+'Oh, dear,' said all the ladies, 'so they are! it's very natural you
+should feel proud of that; but don't give way, don't.'
+
+'I can--not help it, and it don't signify,' sobbed Mrs Kenwigs; 'oh!
+they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!'
+
+On hearing this alarming presentiment of their being doomed to an
+early death in the flower of their infancy, all four little girls
+raised a hideous cry, and burying their heads in their mother's lap
+simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated
+again; Mrs Kenwigs meanwhile clasping them alternately to her bosom,
+with attitudes expressive of distraction, which Miss Petowker
+herself might have copied.
+
+At length, the anxious mother permitted herself to be soothed into a
+more tranquil state, and the little Kenwigses, being also composed,
+were distributed among the company, to prevent the possibility of
+Mrs Kenwigs being again overcome by the blaze of their combined
+beauty.  This done, the ladies and gentlemen united in prophesying
+that they would live for many, many years, and that there was no
+occasion at all for Mrs Kenwigs to distress herself; which, in good
+truth, there did not appear to be; the loveliness of the children by
+no means justifying her apprehensions.
+
+'This day eight year,' said Mr Kenwigs after a pause.  'Dear me--
+ah!'
+
+This reflection was echoed by all present, who said 'Ah!' first, and
+'dear me,' afterwards.
+
+'I was younger then,' tittered Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'No,' said the collector.
+
+'Certainly not,' added everybody.
+
+'I remember my niece,' said Mr Lillyvick, surveying his audience
+with a grave air; 'I remember her, on that very afternoon, when she
+first acknowledged to her mother a partiality for Kenwigs.
+"Mother," she says, "I love him."'
+
+'"Adore him," I said, uncle,' interposed Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'"Love him," I think, my dear,' said the collector, firmly.
+
+'Perhaps you are right, uncle,' replied Mrs Kenwigs, submissively.
+'I thought it was "adore."'
+
+'"Love," my dear,' retorted Mr Lillyvick.  '"Mother," she says, "I
+love him!"  "What do I hear?" cries her mother; and instantly falls
+into strong conwulsions.'
+
+A general exclamation of astonishment burst from the company.
+
+'Into strong conwulsions,' repeated Mr Lillyvick, regarding them
+with a rigid look.  'Kenwigs will excuse my saying, in the presence
+of friends, that there was a very great objection to him, on the
+ground that he was beneath the family, and would disgrace it.  You
+remember, Kenwigs?'
+
+'Certainly,' replied that gentleman, in no way displeased at the
+reminiscence, inasmuch as it proved, beyond all doubt, what a high
+family Mrs Kenwigs came of.
+
+'I shared in that feeling,' said Mr Lillyvick: 'perhaps it was
+natural; perhaps it wasn't.'
+
+A gentle murmur seemed to say, that, in one of Mr Lillyvick's
+station, the objection was not only natural, but highly praiseworthy.
+
+'I came round to him in time,' said Mr Lillyvick.  'After they were
+married, and there was no help for it, I was one of the first to say
+that Kenwigs must be taken notice of.  The family DID take notice of
+him, in consequence, and on my representation; and I am bound to
+say--and proud to say--that I have always found him a very honest,
+well-behaved, upright, respectable sort of man.  Kenwigs, shake
+hands.'
+
+'I am proud to do it, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'So am I, Kenwigs,' rejoined Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'A very happy life I have led with your niece, sir,' said Kenwigs.
+
+'It would have been your own fault if you had not, sir,' remarked Mr
+Lillyvick.
+
+'Morleena Kenwigs,' cried her mother, at this crisis, much affected,
+'kiss your dear uncle!'
+
+The young lady did as she was requested, and the three other little
+girls were successively hoisted up to the collector's countenance,
+and subjected to the same process, which was afterwards repeated on
+them by the majority of those present.
+
+'Oh dear, Mrs Kenwigs,' said Miss Petowker, 'while Mr Noggs is
+making that punch to drink happy returns in, do let Morleena go
+through that figure dance before Mr Lillyvick.'
+
+'No, no, my dear,' replied Mrs Kenwigs, 'it will only worry my
+uncle.'
+
+'It can't worry him, I am sure,' said Miss Petowker.  'You will be
+very much pleased, won't you, sir?'
+
+'That I am sure I shall' replied the collector, glancing at the
+punch-mixer.
+
+'Well then, I'll tell you what,' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'Morleena shall
+do the steps, if uncle can persuade Miss Petowker to recite us the
+Blood-Drinker's Burial, afterwards.'
+
+There was a great clapping of hands and stamping of feet, at this
+proposition; the subject whereof, gently inclined her head several
+times, in acknowledgment of the reception.
+
+'You know,' said Miss Petowker, reproachfully, 'that I dislike doing
+anything professional in private parties.'
+
+'Oh, but not here!' said Mrs Kenwigs.  'We are all so very friendly
+and pleasant, that you might as well be going through it in your own
+room; besides, the occasion--'
+
+'I can't resist that,' interrupted Miss Petowker; 'anything in my
+humble power I shall be delighted to do.'
+
+Mrs Kenwigs and Miss Petowker had arranged a small PROGRAMME of the
+entertainments between them, of which this was the prescribed order,
+but they had settled to have a little pressing on both sides,
+because it looked more natural.  The company being all ready, Miss
+Petowker hummed a tune, and Morleena danced a dance; having
+previously had the soles of her shoes chalked, with as much care as
+if she were going on the tight-rope.  It was a very beautiful
+figure, comprising a great deal of work for the arms, and was
+received with unbounded applause.
+
+'If I was blessed with a--a child--' said Miss Petowker, blushing,
+'of such genius as that, I would have her out at the Opera
+instantly.'
+
+Mrs Kenwigs sighed, and looked at Mr Kenwigs, who shook his head,
+and observed that he was doubtful about it.
+
+'Kenwigs is afraid,' said Mrs K.
+
+'What of?' inquired Miss Petowker, 'not of her failing?'
+
+'Oh no,' replied Mrs Kenwigs, 'but if she grew up what she is now,--
+only think of the young dukes and marquises.'
+
+'Very right,' said the collector.
+
+'Still,' submitted Miss Petowker, 'if she took a proper pride in
+herself, you know--'
+
+'There's a good deal in that,' observed Mrs Kenwigs, looking at her
+husband.
+
+'I only know--' faltered Miss Petowker,--'it may be no rule to be
+sure--but I have never found any inconvenience or unpleasantness of
+that sort.'
+
+Mr Kenwigs, with becoming gallantry, said that settled the question
+at once, and that he would take the subject into his serious
+consideration.  This being resolved upon, Miss Petowker was
+entreated to begin the Blood-Drinker's Burial; to which end, that
+young lady let down her back hair, and taking up her position at the
+other end of the room, with the bachelor friend posted in a corner,
+to rush out at the cue 'in death expire,' and catch her in his arms
+when she died raving mad, went through the performance with
+extraordinary spirit, and to the great terror of the little
+Kenwigses, who were all but frightened into fits.
+
+The ecstasies consequent upon the effort had not yet subsided, and
+Newman (who had not been thoroughly sober at so late an hour for a
+long long time,) had not yet been able to put in a word of
+announcement, that the punch was ready, when a hasty knock was heard
+at the room-door, which elicited a shriek from Mrs Kenwigs, who
+immediately divined that the baby had fallen out of bed.
+
+'Who is that?' demanded Mr Kenwigs, sharply.
+
+'Don't be alarmed, it's only me,' said Crowl, looking in, in his
+nightcap.  'The baby is very comfortable, for I peeped into the room
+as I came down, and it's fast asleep, and so is the girl; and I
+don't think the candle will set fire to the bed-curtain, unless a
+draught was to get into the room--it's Mr Noggs that's wanted.'
+
+'Me!' cried Newman, much astonished.
+
+'Why, it IS a queer hour, isn't it?' replied Crowl, who was not best
+pleased at the prospect of losing his fire; 'and they are queer-
+looking people, too, all covered with rain and mud.  Shall I tell
+them to go away?'
+
+'No,' said Newman, rising.  'People?  How many?'
+
+'Two,' rejoined Crowl.
+
+'Want me?  By name?' asked Newman.
+
+'By name,' replied Crowl.  'Mr Newman Noggs, as pat as need be.'
+
+Newman reflected for a few seconds, and then hurried away, muttering
+that he would be back directly.  He was as good as his word; for, in
+an exceedingly short time, he burst into the room, and seizing,
+without a word of apology or explanation, a lighted candle and
+tumbler of hot punch from the table, darted away like a madman.
+
+'What the deuce is the matter with him?' exclaimed Crowl, throwing
+the door open.  'Hark!  Is there any noise above?'
+
+The guests rose in great confusion, and, looking in each other's
+faces with much perplexity and some fear, stretched their necks
+forward, and listened attentively.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+Acquaints the Reader with the Cause and Origin of the Interruption
+described in the last Chapter, and with some other Matters necessary
+to be known
+
+
+Newman Noggs scrambled in violent haste upstairs with the steaming
+beverage, which he had so unceremoniously snatched from the table of
+Mr Kenwigs, and indeed from the very grasp of the water-rate
+collector, who was eyeing the contents of the tumbler, at the moment
+of its unexpected abstraction, with lively marks of pleasure visible
+in his countenance.  He bore his prize straight to his own back-
+garret, where, footsore and nearly shoeless, wet, dirty, jaded, and
+disfigured with every mark of fatiguing travel, sat Nicholas and
+Smike, at once the cause and partner of his toil; both perfectly
+worn out by their unwonted and protracted exertion.
+
+Newman's first act was to compel Nicholas, with gentle force, to
+swallow half of the punch at a breath, nearly boiling as it was; and
+his next, to pour the remainder down the throat of Smike, who, never
+having tasted anything stronger than aperient medicine in his whole
+life, exhibited various odd manifestations of surprise and delight,
+during the passage of the liquor down his throat, and turned up his
+eyes most emphatically when it was all gone.
+
+'You are wet through,' said Newman, passing his hand hastily over
+the coat which Nicholas had thrown off; 'and I--I--haven't even a
+change,' he added, with a wistful glance at the shabby clothes he
+wore himself.
+
+'I have dry clothes, or at least such as will serve my turn well, in
+my bundle,' replied Nicholas.  'If you look so distressed to see me,
+you will add to the pain I feel already, at being compelled, for one
+night, to cast myself upon your slender means for aid and shelter.'
+
+Newman did not look the less distressed to hear Nicholas talking in
+this strain; but, upon his young friend grasping him heartily by the
+hand, and assuring him that nothing but implicit confidence in the
+sincerity of his professions, and kindness of feeling towards
+himself, would have induced him, on any consideration, even to have
+made him acquainted with his arrival in London, Mr Noggs brightened
+up again, and went about making such arrangements as were in his
+power for the comfort of his visitors, with extreme alacrity.
+
+These were simple enough; poor Newman's means halting at a very
+considerable distance short of his inclinations; but, slight as they
+were, they were not made without much bustling and running about.
+As Nicholas had husbanded his scanty stock of money, so well that it
+was not yet quite expended, a supper of bread and cheese, with some
+cold beef from the cook's shop, was soon placed upon the table; and
+these viands being flanked by a bottle of spirits and a pot of
+porter, there was no ground for apprehension on the score of hunger
+or thirst, at all events.  Such preparations as Newman had it in his
+power to make, for the accommodation of his guests during the night,
+occupied no very great time in completing; and as he had insisted,
+as an express preliminary, that Nicholas should change his clothes,
+and that Smike should invest himself in his solitary coat (which no
+entreaties would dissuade him from stripping off for the purpose),
+the travellers partook of their frugal fare, with more satisfaction
+than one of them at least had derived from many a better meal.
+
+They then drew near the fire, which Newman Noggs had made up as well
+as he could, after the inroads of Crowl upon the fuel; and Nicholas,
+who had hitherto been restrained by the extreme anxiety of his
+friend that he should refresh himself after his journey, now pressed
+him with earnest questions concerning his mother and sister.
+
+'Well,' replied Newman, with his accustomed taciturnity; 'both
+well.'
+
+'They are living in the city still?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'They are,' said Newman.
+
+'And my sister,'--added Nicholas.  'Is she still engaged in the
+business which she wrote to tell me she thought she should like so
+much?'
+
+Newman opened his eyes rather wider than usual, but merely replied
+by a gasp, which, according to the action of the head that
+accompanied it, was interpreted by his friends as meaning yes or no.
+In the present instance, the pantomime consisted of a nod, and not a
+shake; so Nicholas took the answer as a favourable one.
+
+'Now listen to me,' said Nicholas, laying his hand on Newman's
+shoulder.  'Before I would make an effort to see them, I deemed it
+expedient to come to you, lest, by gratifying my own selfish desire,
+I should inflict an injury upon them which I can never repair.  What
+has my uncle heard from Yorkshire?'
+
+Newman opened and shut his mouth, several times, as though he were
+trying his utmost to speak, but could make nothing of it, and
+finally fixed his eyes on Nicholas with a grim and ghastly stare.
+
+'What has he heard?' urged Nicholas, colouring.  'You see that I am
+prepared to hear the very worst that malice can have suggested.  Why
+should you conceal it from me?  I must know it sooner or later; and
+what purpose can be gained by trifling with the matter for a few
+minutes, when half the time would put me in possession of all that
+has occurred?  Tell me at once, pray.'
+
+'Tomorrow morning,' said Newman; 'hear it tomorrow.'
+
+'What purpose would that answer?' urged Nicholas.
+
+'You would sleep the better,' replied Newman.
+
+'I should sleep the worse,' answered Nicholas, impatiently.  'Sleep!
+Exhausted as I am, and standing in no common need of rest, I cannot
+hope to close my eyes all night, unless you tell me everything.'
+
+'And if I should tell you everything,' said Newman, hesitating.
+
+'Why, then you may rouse my indignation or wound my pride,' rejoined
+Nicholas; 'but you will not break my rest; for if the scene were
+acted over again, I could take no other part than I have taken; and
+whatever consequences may accrue to myself from it, I shall never
+regret doing as I have done--never, if I starve or beg in
+consequence.  What is a little poverty or suffering, to the disgrace
+of the basest and most inhuman cowardice!  I tell you, if I had
+stood by, tamely and passively, I should have hated myself, and
+merited the contempt of every man in existence.  The black-hearted
+scoundrel!'
+
+With this gentle allusion to the absent Mr Squeers, Nicholas
+repressed his rising wrath, and relating to Newman exactly what had
+passed at Dotheboys Hall, entreated him to speak out without more
+pressing.  Thus adjured, Mr Noggs took, from an old trunk, a sheet
+of paper, which appeared to have been scrawled over in great haste;
+and after sundry extraordinary demonstrations of reluctance,
+delivered himself in the following terms.
+
+'My dear young man, you mustn't give way to--this sort of thing will
+never do, you know--as to getting on in the world, if you take
+everybody's part that's ill-treated--Damn it, I am proud to hear of
+it; and would have done it myself!'
+
+Newman accompanied this very unusual outbreak with a violent blow
+upon the table, as if, in the heat of the moment, he had mistaken it
+for the chest or ribs of Mr Wackford Squeers.  Having, by this open
+declaration of his feelings, quite precluded himself from offering
+Nicholas any cautious worldly advice (which had been his first
+intention), Mr Noggs went straight to the point.
+
+'The day before yesterday,' said Newman, 'your uncle received this
+letter.  I took a hasty copy of it, while he was out.  Shall I read
+it?'
+
+'If you please,' replied Nicholas.  Newman Noggs accordingly read as
+follows:
+
+'DOTHEBOYS HALL,
+'THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+'SIR,
+
+'My pa requests me to write to you, the doctors considering it
+doubtful whether he will ever recuvver the use of his legs which
+prevents his holding a pen.
+
+'We are in a state of mind beyond everything, and my pa is one mask
+of brooses both blue and green likewise two forms are steepled in
+his Goar.  We were kimpelled to have him carried down into the
+kitchen where he now lays.  You will judge from this that he has
+been brought very low.
+
+'When your nevew that you recommended for a teacher had done this to
+my pa and jumped upon his body with his feet and also langwedge
+which I will not pollewt my pen with describing, he assaulted my ma
+with dreadful violence, dashed her to the earth, and drove her back
+comb several inches into her head.  A very little more and it must
+have entered her skull.  We have a medical certifiket that if it
+had, the tortershell would have affected the brain.
+
+'Me and my brother were then the victims of his feury since which we
+have suffered very much which leads us to the arrowing belief that
+we have received some injury in our insides, especially as no marks
+of violence are visible externally.  I am screaming out loud all the
+time I write and so is my brother which takes off my attention
+rather and I hope will excuse mistakes.
+
+'The monster having sasiated his thirst for blood ran away, taking
+with him a boy of desperate caracter that he had excited to
+rebellyon, and a garnet ring belonging to my ma, and not having been
+apprehended by the constables is supposed to have been took up by
+some stage-coach.  My pa begs that if he comes to you the ring may
+be returned, and that you will let the thief and assassin go, as if
+we prosecuted him he would only be transported, and if he is let go
+he is sure to be hung before long which will save us trouble and be
+much more satisfactory.  Hoping to hear from you when convenient
+
+'I remain
+'Yours and cetrer
+'FANNY SQUEERS.
+
+'P.S.  I pity his ignorance and despise him.'
+
+A profound silence succeeded to the reading of this choice epistle,
+during which Newman Noggs, as he folded it up, gazed with a kind of
+grotesque pity at the boy of desperate character therein referred
+to; who, having no more distinct perception of the matter in hand,
+than that he had been the unfortunate cause of heaping trouble and
+falsehood upon Nicholas, sat mute and dispirited, with a most
+woe-begone and heart-stricken look.
+
+'Mr Noggs,' said Nicholas, after a few moments' reflection, 'I must
+go out at once.'
+
+'Go out!' cried Newman.
+
+'Yes,' said Nicholas, 'to Golden Square.  Nobody who knows me would
+believe this story of the ring; but it may suit the purpose, or
+gratify the hatred of Mr Ralph Nickleby to feign to attach credence
+to it.  It is due--not to him, but to myself--that I should state
+the truth; and moreover, I have a word or two to exchange with him,
+which will not keep cool.'
+
+'They must,' said Newman.
+
+'They must not, indeed,' rejoined Nicholas firmly, as he prepared to
+leave the house.
+
+'Hear me speak,' said Newman, planting himself before his impetuous
+young friend.  'He is not there.  He is away from town.  He will not
+be back for three days; and I know that letter will not be answered
+before he returns.'
+
+'Are you sure of this?' asked Nicholas, chafing violently, and
+pacing the narrow room with rapid strides.
+
+'Quite,' rejoined Newman.  'He had hardly read it when he was called
+away.  Its contents are known to nobody but himself and us.'
+
+'Are you certain?' demanded Nicholas, precipitately; 'not even to my
+mother or sister?  If I thought that they--I will go there--I must
+see them.  Which is the way?  Where is it?'
+
+'Now, be advised by me,' said Newman, speaking for the moment, in
+his earnestness, like any other man--'make no effort to see even
+them, till he comes home.  I know the man.  Do not seem to have been
+tampering with anybody.  When he returns, go straight to him, and
+speak as boldly as you like.  Guessing at the real truth, he knows
+it as well as you or I.  Trust him for that.'
+
+'You mean well to me, and should know him better than I can,'
+replied Nicholas, after some consideration.  'Well; let it be so.'
+
+Newman, who had stood during the foregoing conversation with his
+back planted against the door, ready to oppose any egress from the
+apartment by force, if necessary, resumed his seat with much
+satisfaction; and as the water in the kettle was by this time
+boiling, made a glassful of spirits and water for Nicholas, and a
+cracked mug-full for the joint accommodation of himself and Smike,
+of which the two partook in great harmony, while Nicholas, leaning
+his head upon his hand, remained buried in melancholy meditation.
+
+Meanwhile, the company below stairs, after listening attentively and
+not hearing any noise which would justify them in interfering for
+the gratification of their curiosity, returned to the chamber of the
+Kenwigses, and employed themselves in hazarding a great variety of
+conjectures relative to the cause of Mr Noggs' sudden disappearance
+and detention.
+
+'Lor, I'll tell you what,' said Mrs Kenwigs.  'Suppose it should be
+an express sent up to say that his property has all come back
+again!'
+
+'Dear me,' said Mr Kenwigs; 'it's not impossible.  Perhaps, in that
+case, we'd better send up and ask if he won't take a little more
+punch.'
+
+'Kenwigs!' said Mr Lillyvick, in a loud voice, 'I'm surprised at
+you.'
+
+'What's the matter, sir?' asked Mr Kenwigs, with becoming submission
+to the collector of water-rates.
+
+'Making such a remark as that, sir,' replied Mr Lillyvick, angrily.
+'He has had punch already, has he not, sir?  I consider the way in
+which that punch was cut off, if I may use the expression, highly
+disrespectful to this company; scandalous, perfectly scandalous.  It
+may be the custom to allow such things in this house, but it's not
+the kind of behaviour that I've been used to see displayed, and so I
+don't mind telling you, Kenwigs.  A gentleman has a glass of punch
+before him to which he is just about to set his lips, when another
+gentleman comes and collars that glass of punch, without a "with
+your leave", or "by your leave", and carries that glass of punch
+away.  This may be good manners--I dare say it is--but I don't
+understand it, that's all; and what's more, I don't care if I never
+do.  It's my way to speak my mind, Kenwigs, and that is my mind; and
+if you don't like it, it's past my regular time for going to bed,
+and I can find my way home without making it later.'
+
+Here was an untoward event!  The collector had sat swelling and
+fuming in offended dignity for some minutes, and had now fairly
+burst out.  The great man--the rich relation--the unmarried uncle--
+who had it in his power to make Morleena an heiress, and the very
+baby a legatee--was offended.  Gracious Powers, where was this to
+end!
+
+'I am very sorry, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs, humbly.
+
+'Don't tell me you're sorry,' retorted Mr Lillyvick, with much
+sharpness.  'You should have prevented it, then.'
+
+The company were quite paralysed by this domestic crash.  The back-
+parlour sat with her mouth wide open, staring vacantly at the
+collector, in a stupor of dismay; the other guests were scarcely
+less overpowered by the great man's irritation.  Mr Kenwigs, not
+being skilful in such matters, only fanned the flame in attempting
+to extinguish it.
+
+'I didn't think of it, I am sure, sir,' said that gentleman.  'I
+didn't suppose that such a little thing as a glass of punch would
+have put you out of temper.'
+
+'Out of temper!  What the devil do you mean by that piece of
+impertinence, Mr Kenwigs?' said the collector.  'Morleena, child--
+give me my hat.'
+
+'Oh, you're not going, Mr Lillyvick, sir,' interposed Miss Petowker,
+with her most bewitching smile.
+
+But still Mr Lillyvick, regardless of the siren, cried obdurately,
+'Morleena, my hat!' upon the fourth repetition of which demand, Mrs
+Kenwigs sunk back in her chair, with a cry that might have softened
+a water-butt, not to say a water-collector; while the four little
+girls (privately instructed to that effect) clasped their uncle's
+drab shorts in their arms, and prayed him, in imperfect English, to
+remain.
+
+'Why should I stop here, my dears?' said Mr Lillyvick; 'I'm not
+wanted here.'
+
+'Oh, do not speak so cruelly, uncle,' sobbed Mrs Kenwigs, 'unless
+you wish to kill me.'
+
+'I shouldn't wonder if some people were to say I did,' replied Mr
+Lillyvick, glancing angrily at Kenwigs.  'Out of temper!'
+
+'Oh!  I cannot bear to see him look so, at my husband,' cried Mrs
+Kenwigs.  'It's so dreadful in families.  Oh!'
+
+'Mr Lillyvick,' said Kenwigs, 'I hope, for the sake of your niece,
+that you won't object to be reconciled.'
+
+The collector's features relaxed, as the company added their
+entreaties to those of his nephew-in-law.  He gave up his hat, and
+held out his hand.
+
+'There, Kenwigs,' said Mr Lillyvick; 'and let me tell you, at the
+same time, to show you how much out of temper I was, that if I had
+gone away without another word, it would have made no difference
+respecting that pound or two which I shall leave among your children
+when I die.'
+
+'Morleena Kenwigs,' cried her mother, in a torrent of affection.
+'Go down upon your knees to your dear uncle, and beg him to love you
+all his life through, for he's more a angel than a man, and I've
+always said so.'
+
+Miss Morleena approaching to do homage, in compliance with this
+injunction, was summarily caught up and kissed by Mr Lillyvick; and
+thereupon Mrs Kenwigs darted forward and kissed the collector, and
+an irrepressible murmur of applause broke from the company who had
+witnessed his magnanimity.
+
+The worthy gentleman then became once more the life and soul of the
+society; being again reinstated in his old post of lion, from which
+high station the temporary distraction of their thoughts had for a
+moment dispossessed him.  Quadruped lions are said to be savage,
+only when they are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than
+when their appetite for distinction remains unappeased.  Mr
+Lillyvick stood higher than ever; for he had shown his power; hinted
+at his property and testamentary intentions; gained great credit for
+disinterestedness and virtue; and, in addition to all, was finally
+accommodated with a much larger tumbler of punch than that which
+Newman Noggs had so feloniously made off with.
+
+'I say!  I beg everybody's pardon for intruding again,' said Crowl,
+looking in at this happy juncture; 'but what a queer business this
+is, isn't it?  Noggs has lived in this house, now going on for five
+years, and nobody has ever been to see him before, within the memory
+of the oldest inhabitant.'
+
+'It's a strange time of night to be called away, sir, certainly,'
+said the collector; 'and the behaviour of Mr Noggs himself, is, to
+say the least of it, mysterious.'
+
+'Well, so it is,' rejoined Growl; 'and I'll tell you what's more--I
+think these two geniuses, whoever they are, have run away from
+somewhere.'
+
+'What makes you think that, sir?' demanded the collector, who
+seemed, by a tacit understanding, to have been chosen and elected
+mouthpiece to the company.  'You have no reason to suppose that they
+have run away from anywhere without paying the rates and taxes due,
+I hope?'
+
+Mr Crowl, with a look of some contempt, was about to enter a general
+protest against the payment of rates or taxes, under any
+circumstances, when he was checked by a timely whisper from Kenwigs,
+and several frowns and winks from Mrs K., which providentially
+stopped him.
+
+'Why the fact is,' said Crowl, who had been listening at Newman's
+door with all his might and main; 'the fact is, that they have been
+talking so loud, that they quite disturbed me in my room, and so I
+couldn't help catching a word here, and a word there; and all I
+heard, certainly seemed to refer to their having bolted from some
+place or other.  I don't wish to alarm Mrs Kenwigs; but I hope they
+haven't come from any jail or hospital, and brought away a fever or
+some unpleasantness of that sort, which might be catching for the
+children.'
+
+Mrs Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed
+all the tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal,
+Drury Lane, to restore her to anything like a state of calmness; not
+to mention the assiduity of Mr Kenwigs, who held a fat smelling-
+bottle to his lady's nose, until it became matter of some doubt
+whether the tears which coursed down her face were the result of
+feelings or SAL VOLATILE.
+
+The ladies, having expressed their sympathy, singly and separately,
+fell, according to custom, into a little chorus of soothing
+expressions, among which, such condolences as 'Poor dear!'--'I
+should feel just the same, if I was her'--'To be sure, it's a very
+trying thing'--and 'Nobody but a mother knows what a mother's
+feelings is,' were among the most prominent, and most frequently
+repeated.  In short, the opinion of the company was so clearly
+manifested, that Mr Kenwigs was on the point of repairing to Mr
+Noggs's room, to demand an explanation, and had indeed swallowed a
+preparatory glass of punch, with great inflexibility and steadiness
+of purpose, when the attention of all present was diverted by a new
+and terrible surprise.
+
+This was nothing less than the sudden pouring forth of a rapid
+succession of the shrillest and most piercing screams, from an upper
+story; and to all appearance from the very two-pair back, in which
+the infant Kenwigs was at that moment enshrined.  They were no
+sooner audible, than Mrs Kenwigs, opining that a strange cat had
+come in, and sucked the baby's breath while the girl was asleep,
+made for the door, wringing her hands, and shrieking dismally; to
+the great consternation and confusion of the company.
+
+'Mr Kenwigs, see what it is; make haste!' cried the sister, laying
+violent hands upon Mrs Kenwigs, and holding her back by force.  'Oh
+don't twist about so, dear, or I can never hold you.'
+
+'My baby, my blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed baby!' screamed Mrs
+Kenwigs, making every blessed louder than the last.  'My own
+darling, sweet, innocent Lillyvick--Oh let me go to him.  Let me go-
+o-o-o!'
+
+Pending the utterance of these frantic cries, and the wails and
+lamentations of the four little girls, Mr Kenwigs rushed upstairs to
+the room whence the sounds proceeded; at the door of which, he
+encountered Nicholas, with the child in his arms, who darted out
+with such violence, that the anxious father was thrown down six
+stairs, and alighted on the nearest landing-place, before he had
+found time to open his mouth to ask what was the matter.
+
+'Don't be alarmed,' cried Nicholas, running down; 'here it is; it's
+all out, it's all over; pray compose yourselves; there's no harm
+done;' and with these, and a thousand other assurances, he delivered
+the baby (whom, in his hurry, he had carried upside down), to Mrs
+Kenwigs, and ran back to assist Mr Kenwigs, who was rubbing his head
+very hard, and looking much bewildered by his tumble.
+
+Reassured by this cheering intelligence, the company in some degree
+recovered from their fears, which had been productive of some most
+singular instances of a total want of presence of mind; thus, the
+bachelor friend had, for a long time, supported in his arms Mrs
+Kenwigs's sister, instead of Mrs Kenwigs; and the worthy Mr
+Lillyvick had been actually seen, in the perturbation of his
+spirits, to kiss Miss Petowker several times, behind the room-door,
+as calmly as if nothing distressing were going forward.
+
+'It is a mere nothing,' said Nicholas, returning to Mrs Kenwigs;
+'the little girl, who was watching the child, being tired I suppose,
+fell asleep, and set her hair on fire.'
+
+'Oh you malicious little wretch!' cried Mrs Kenwigs, impressively
+shaking her forefinger at the small unfortunate, who might be
+thirteen years old, and was looking on with a singed head and a
+frightened face.
+
+'I heard her cries,' continued Nicholas, 'and ran down, in time to
+prevent her setting fire to anything else.  You may depend upon it
+that the child is not hurt; for I took it off the bed myself, and
+brought it here to convince you.'
+
+This brief explanation over, the infant, who, as he was christened
+after the collector! rejoiced in the names of Lillyvick Kenwigs, was
+partially suffocated under the caresses of the audience, and
+squeezed to his mother's bosom, until he roared again.  The
+attention of the company was then directed, by a natural transition,
+to the little girl who had had the audacity to burn her hair off,
+and who, after receiving sundry small slaps and pushes from the more
+energetic of the ladies, was mercifully sent home: the ninepence,
+with which she was to have been rewarded, being escheated to the
+Kenwigs family.
+
+'And whatever we are to say to you, sir,' exclaimed Mrs Kenwigs,
+addressing young Lillyvick's deliverer, 'I am sure I don't know.'
+
+'You need say nothing at all,' replied Nicholas.  'I have done
+nothing to found any very strong claim upon your eloquence, I am
+sure.'
+
+'He might have been burnt to death, if it hadn't been for you, sir,'
+simpered Miss Petowker.
+
+'Not very likely, I think,' replied Nicholas; 'for there was
+abundance of assistance here, which must have reached him before he
+had been in any danger.'
+
+'You will let us drink your health, anyvays, sir!' said Mr Kenwigs
+motioning towards the table.
+
+'--In my absence, by all means,' rejoined Nicholas, with a smile.
+'I have had a very fatiguing journey, and should be most indifferent
+company--a far greater check upon your merriment, than a promoter of
+it, even if I kept awake, which I think very doubtful.  If you will
+allow me, I'll return to my friend, Mr Noggs, who went upstairs
+again, when he found nothing serious had occurred.  Good-night.'
+
+Excusing himself, in these terms, from joining in the festivities,
+Nicholas took a most winning farewell of Mrs Kenwigs and the other
+ladies, and retired, after making a very extraordinary impression
+upon the company.
+
+'What a delightful young man!' cried Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'Uncommon gentlemanly, really,' said Mr Kenwigs.  'Don't you think
+so, Mr Lillyvick?'
+
+'Yes,' said the collector, with a dubious shrug of his shoulders,
+'He is gentlemanly, very gentlemanly--in appearance.'
+
+'I hope you don't see anything against him, uncle?' inquired Mrs
+Kenwigs.
+
+'No, my dear,' replied the collector, 'no.  I trust he may not turn
+out--well--no matter--my love to you, my dear, and long life to the
+baby!'
+
+'Your namesake,' said Mrs Kenwigs, with a sweet smile.
+
+'And I hope a worthy namesake,' observed Mr Kenwigs, willing to
+propitiate the collector.  'I hope a baby as will never disgrace his
+godfather, and as may be considered, in arter years, of a piece with
+the Lillyvicks whose name he bears.  I do say--and Mrs Kenwigs is of
+the same sentiment, and feels it as strong as I do--that I consider
+his being called Lillyvick one of the greatest blessings and Honours
+of my existence.'
+
+'THE greatest blessing, Kenwigs,' murmured his lady.
+
+'THE greatest blessing,' said Mr Kenwigs, correcting himself.  'A
+blessing that I hope, one of these days, I may be able to deserve.'
+
+This was a politic stroke of the Kenwigses, because it made Mr
+Lillyvick the great head and fountain of the baby's importance.  The
+good gentleman felt the delicacy and dexterity of the touch, and at
+once proposed the health of the gentleman, name unknown, who had
+signalised himself, that night, by his coolness and alacrity.
+
+'Who, I don't mind saying,' observed Mr Lillyvick, as a great
+concession, 'is a good-looking young man enough, with manners that I
+hope his character may be equal to.'
+
+'He has a very nice face and style, really,' said Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'He certainly has,' added Miss Petowker.  'There's something in his
+appearance quite--dear, dear, what's that word again?'
+
+'What word?' inquired Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'Why--dear me, how stupid I am,' replied Miss Petowker, hesitating.
+'What do you call it, when Lords break off door-knockers and beat
+policemen, and play at coaches with other people's money, and all
+that sort of thing?'
+
+'Aristocratic?' suggested the collector.
+
+'Ah! aristocratic,' replied Miss Petowker; 'something very
+aristocratic about him, isn't there?'
+
+The gentleman held their peace, and smiled at each other, as who
+should say, 'Well! there's no accounting for tastes;' but the ladies
+resolved unanimously that Nicholas had an aristocratic air; and
+nobody caring to dispute the position, it was established
+triumphantly.
+
+The punch being, by this time, drunk out, and the little Kenwigses
+(who had for some time previously held their little eyes open with
+their little forefingers) becoming fractious, and requesting rather
+urgently to be put to bed, the collector made a move by pulling out
+his watch, and acquainting the company that it was nigh two o'clock;
+whereat some of the guests were surprised and others shocked, and
+hats and bonnets being groped for under the tables, and in course of
+time found, their owners went away, after a vast deal of shaking of
+hands, and many remarks how they had never spent such a delightful
+evening, and how they marvelled to find it so late, expecting to
+have heard that it was half-past ten at the very latest, and how
+they wished that Mr and Mrs Kenwigs had a wedding-day once a week,
+and how they wondered by what hidden agency Mrs Kenwigs could
+possibly have managed so well; and a great deal more of the same
+kind.  To all of which flattering expressions, Mr and Mrs Kenwigs
+replied, by thanking every lady and gentleman, SERIATIM, for the
+favour of their company, and hoping they might have enjoyed
+themselves only half as well as they said they had.
+
+As to Nicholas, quite unconscious of the impression he had produced,
+he had long since fallen asleep, leaving Mr Newman Noggs and Smike
+to empty the spirit bottle between them; and this office they
+performed with such extreme good-will, that Newman was equally at a
+loss to determine whether he himself was quite sober, and whether he
+had ever seen any gentleman so heavily, drowsily, and completely
+intoxicated as his new acquaintance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+Nicholas seeks to employ himself in a New Capacity, and being
+unsuccessful, accepts an engagement as Tutor in a Private Family
+
+
+The first care of Nicholas, next morning, was, to look after some
+room in which, until better times dawned upon him, he could contrive
+to exist, without trenching upon the hospitality of Newman Noggs,
+who would have slept upon the stairs with pleasure, so that his
+young friend was accommodated.
+
+The vacant apartment to which the bill in the parlour window bore
+reference, appeared, on inquiry, to be a small back-room on the
+second floor, reclaimed from the leads, and overlooking a soot-
+bespeckled prospect of tiles and chimney-pots.  For the letting of
+this portion of the house from week to week, on reasonable terms,
+the parlour lodger was empowered to treat; he being deputed by the
+landlord to dispose of the rooms as they became vacant, and to keep
+a sharp look-out that the lodgers didn't run away.  As a means of
+securing the punctual discharge of which last service he was
+permitted to live rent-free, lest he should at any time be tempted
+to run away himself.
+
+Of this chamber, Nicholas became the tenant; and having hired a few
+common articles of furniture from a neighbouring broker, and paid
+the first week's hire in advance, out of a small fund raised by the
+conversion of some spare clothes into ready money, he sat himself
+down to ruminate upon his prospects, which, like the prospect
+outside his window, were sufficiently confined and dingy.  As they
+by no means improved on better acquaintance, and as familiarity
+breeds contempt, he resolved to banish them from his thoughts by
+dint of hard walking.  So, taking up his hat, and leaving poor Smike
+to arrange and rearrange the room with as much delight as if it had
+been the costliest palace, he betook himself to the streets, and
+mingled with the crowd which thronged them.
+
+Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a
+mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by
+no means follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal
+facility, of a very strong sense of the importance and magnitude of
+his cares.  The unhappy state of his own affairs was the one idea
+which occupied the brain of Nicholas, walk as fast as he would; and
+when he tried to dislodge it by speculating on the situation and
+prospects of the people who surrounded him, he caught himself, in a
+few seconds, contrasting their condition with his own, and gliding
+almost imperceptibly back into his old train of thought again.
+
+Occupied in these reflections, as he was making his way along one of
+the great public thoroughfares of London, he chanced to raise his
+eyes to a blue board, whereon was inscribed, in characters of gold,
+'General Agency Office; for places and situations of all kinds
+inquire within.' It was a shop-front, fitted up with a gauze blind
+and an inner door; and in the window hung a long and tempting array
+of written placards, announcing vacant places of every grade, from a
+secretary's to a foot-boy's.
+
+Nicholas halted, instinctively, before this temple of promise, and
+ran his eye over the capital-text openings in life which were so
+profusely displayed.  When he had completed his survey he walked on
+a little way, and then back, and then on again; at length, after
+pausing irresolutely several times before the door of the General
+Agency Office, he made up his mind, and stepped in.
+
+He found himself in a little floor-clothed room, with a high desk
+railed off in one corner, behind which sat a lean youth with cunning
+eyes and a protruding chin, whose performances in capital-text
+darkened the window.  He had a thick ledger lying open before him,
+and with the fingers of his right hand inserted between the leaves,
+and his eyes fixed on a very fat old lady in a mob-cap--evidently
+the proprietress of the establishment--who was airing herself at the
+fire, seemed to be only waiting her directions to refer to some
+entries contained within its rusty clasps.
+
+As there was a board outside, which acquainted the public that
+servants-of-all-work were perpetually in waiting to be hired from
+ten till four, Nicholas knew at once that some half-dozen strong
+young women, each with pattens and an umbrella, who were sitting
+upon a form in one corner, were in attendance for that purpose:
+especially as the poor things looked anxious and weary.  He was not
+quite so certain of the callings and stations of two smart young
+ladies who were in conversation with the fat lady before the fire,
+until--having sat himself down in a corner, and remarked that he
+would wait until the other customers had been served--the fat lady
+resumed the dialogue which his entrance had interrupted.
+
+'Cook, Tom,' said the fat lady, still airing herself as aforesaid.
+
+'Cook,' said Tom, turning over some leaves of the ledger.  'Well!'
+
+'Read out an easy place or two,' said the fat lady.
+
+'Pick out very light ones, if you please, young man,' interposed a
+genteel female, in shepherd's-plaid boots, who appeared to be the
+client.
+
+'"Mrs Marker,"' said Tom, reading, '"Russell Place, Russell Square;
+offers eighteen guineas; tea and sugar found.  Two in family, and
+see very little company.  Five servants kept.  No man.  No
+followers."'
+
+'Oh Lor!' tittered the client.  'THAT won't do.  Read another, young
+man, will you?'
+
+'"Mrs Wrymug,"' said Tom, '"Pleasant Place, Finsbury.  Wages, twelve
+guineas.  No tea, no sugar.  Serious family--"'
+
+'Ah! you needn't mind reading that,' interrupted the client.
+
+'"Three serious footmen,"' said Tom, impressively.
+
+'Three? did you say?' asked the client in an altered tone.
+
+'Three serious footmen,' replied Tom.  '"Cook, housemaid, and
+nursemaid; each female servant required to join the Little Bethel
+Congregation three times every Sunday--with a serious footman.  If
+the cook is more serious than the footman, she will be expected to
+improve the footman; if the footman is more serious than the cook,
+he will be expected to improve the cook."'
+
+'I'll take the address of that place,' said the client; 'I don't
+know but what it mightn't suit me pretty well.'
+
+'Here's another,' remarked Tom, turning over the leaves.  '"Family
+of Mr Gallanbile, MP.  Fifteen guineas, tea and sugar, and servants
+allowed to see male cousins, if godly.  Note.  Cold dinner in the
+kitchen on the Sabbath, Mr Gallanbile being devoted to the
+Observance question.  No victuals whatever cooked on the Lord's Day,
+with the exception of dinner for Mr and Mrs Gallanbile, which, being
+a work of piety and necessity, is exempted.  Mr Gallanbile dines
+late on the day of rest, in order to prevent the sinfulness of the
+cook's dressing herself."'
+
+'I don't think that'll answer as well as the other,' said the
+client, after a little whispering with her friend.  'I'll take the
+other direction, if you please, young man.  I can but come back
+again, if it don't do.'
+
+Tom made out the address, as requested, and the genteel client,
+having satisfied the fat lady with a small fee, meanwhile, went away
+accompanied by her friend.
+
+As Nicholas opened his mouth, to request the young man to turn to
+letter S, and let him know what secretaryships remained undisposed
+of, there came into the office an applicant, in whose favour he
+immediately retired, and whose appearance both surprised and
+interested him.
+
+This was a young lady who could be scarcely eighteen, of very slight
+and delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped, who, walking timidly up
+to the desk, made an inquiry, in a very low tone of voice, relative
+to some situation as governess, or companion to a lady.  She raised
+her veil, for an instant, while she preferred the inquiry, and
+disclosed a countenance of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a
+cloud of sadness, which, in one so young, was doubly remarkable.
+Having received a card of reference to some person on the books, she
+made the usual acknowledgment, and glided away.
+
+She was neatly, but very quietly attired; so much so, indeed, that
+it seemed as though her dress, if it had been worn by one who
+imparted fewer graces of her own to it, might have looked poor and
+shabby.  Her attendant--for she had one--was a red-faced, round-
+eyed, slovenly girl, who, from a certain roughness about the bare
+arms that peeped from under her draggled shawl, and the half-washed-
+out traces of smut and blacklead which tattooed her countenance, was
+clearly of a kin with the servants-of-all-work on the form: between
+whom and herself there had passed various grins and glances,
+indicative of the freemasonry of the craft.
+
+This girl followed her mistress; and, before Nicholas had recovered
+from the first effects of his surprise and admiration, the young
+lady was gone.  It is not a matter of such complete and utter
+improbability as some sober people may think, that he would have
+followed them out, had he not been restrained by what passed between
+the fat lady and her book-keeper.
+
+'When is she coming again, Tom?' asked the fat lady.
+
+'Tomorrow morning,' replied Tom, mending his pen.
+
+'Where have you sent her to?' asked the fat lady.
+
+'Mrs Clark's,' replied Tom.
+
+'She'll have a nice life of it, if she goes there,' observed the fat
+lady, taking a pinch of snuff from a tin box.
+
+Tom made no other reply than thrusting his tongue into his cheek,
+and pointing the feather of his pen towards Nicholas--reminders
+which elicited from the fat lady an inquiry, of 'Now, sir, what can
+we do for YOU?'
+
+Nicholas briefly replied, that he wanted to know whether there was
+any such post to be had, as secretary or amanuensis to a gentleman.
+
+'Any such!' rejoined the mistress; 'a-dozen-such.  An't there, Tom?'
+
+'I should think so,' answered that young gentleman; and as he said
+it, he winked towards Nicholas, with a degree of familiarity which
+he, no doubt, intended for a rather flattering compliment, but with
+which Nicholas was most ungratefully disgusted.
+
+Upon reference to the book, it appeared that the dozen secretaryships
+had dwindled down to one.  Mr Gregsbury, the great member of
+parliament, of Manchester Buildings, Westminster, wanted a
+young man, to keep his papers and correspondence in order; and
+Nicholas was exactly the sort of young man that Mr Gregsbury wanted.
+
+'I don't know what the terms are, as he said he'd settle them
+himself with the party,' observed the fat lady; 'but they must be
+pretty good ones, because he's a member of parliament.'
+
+Inexperienced as he was, Nicholas did not feel quite assured of the
+force of this reasoning, or the justice of this conclusion; but
+without troubling himself to question it, he took down the address,
+and resolved to wait upon Mr Gregsbury without delay.
+
+'I don't know what the number is,' said Tom; 'but Manchester
+Buildings isn't a large place; and if the worst comes to the worst
+it won't take you very long to knock at all the doors on both sides
+of the way till you find him out.  I say, what a good-looking gal
+that was, wasn't she?'
+
+'What girl?' demanded Nicholas, sternly.
+
+'Oh yes.  I know--what gal, eh?' whispered Tom, shutting one eye,
+and cocking his chin in the air.  'You didn't see her, you didn't--I
+say, don't you wish you was me, when she comes tomorrow morning?'
+
+Nicholas looked at the ugly clerk, as if he had a mind to reward his
+admiration of the young lady by beating the ledger about his ears,
+but he refrained, and strode haughtily out of the office; setting at
+defiance, in his indignation, those ancient laws of chivalry, which
+not only made it proper and lawful for all good knights to hear the
+praise of the ladies to whom they were devoted, but rendered it
+incumbent upon them to roam about the world, and knock at head all
+such matter-of-fact and un-poetical characters, as declined to
+exalt, above all the earth, damsels whom they had never chanced to
+look upon or hear of--as if that were any excuse!
+
+Thinking no longer of his own misfortunes, but wondering what could
+be those of the beautiful girl he had seen, Nicholas, with many
+wrong turns, and many inquiries, and almost as many misdirections,
+bent his steps towards the place whither he had been directed.
+
+Within the precincts of the ancient city of Westminster, and within
+half a quarter of a mile of its ancient sanctuary, is a narrow and
+dirty region, the sanctuary of the smaller members of Parliament in
+modern days.  It is all comprised in one street of gloomy lodging-
+houses, from whose windows, in vacation-time, there frown long
+melancholy rows of bills, which say, as plainly as did the
+countenances of their occupiers, ranged on ministerial and
+opposition benches in the session which slumbers with its fathers,
+'To Let', 'To Let'.  In busier periods of the year these bills
+disappear, and the houses swarm with legislators.  There are
+legislators in the parlours, in the first floor, in the second, in
+the third, in the garrets; the small apartments reek with the breath
+of deputations and delegates.  In damp weather, the place is
+rendered close, by the steams of moist acts of parliament and frouzy
+petitions; general postmen grow faint as they enter its infected
+limits, and shabby figures in quest of franks, flit restlessly to
+and fro like the troubled ghosts of Complete Letter-writers
+departed.  This is Manchester Buildings; and here, at all hours of
+the night, may be heard the rattling of latch-keys in their
+respective keyholes: with now and then--when a gust of wind sweeping
+across the water which washes the Buildings' feet, impels the sound
+towards its entrance--the weak, shrill voice of some young member
+practising tomorrow's speech.  All the livelong day, there is a
+grinding of organs and clashing and clanging of little boxes of
+music; for Manchester Buildings is an eel-pot, which has no outlet
+but its awkward mouth--a case-bottle which has no thoroughfare, and
+a short and narrow neck--and in this respect it may be typical of
+the fate of some few among its more adventurous residents, who,
+after wriggling themselves into Parliament by violent efforts and
+contortions, find that it, too, is no thoroughfare for them; that,
+like Manchester Buildings, it leads to nothing beyond itself; and
+that they are fain at last to back out, no wiser, no richer, not one
+whit more famous, than they went in.
+
+Into Manchester Buildings Nicholas turned, with the address of the
+great Mr Gregsbury in his hand.  As there was a stream of people
+pouring into a shabby house not far from the entrance, he waited
+until they had made their way in, and then making up to the servant,
+ventured to inquire if he knew where Mr Gregsbury lived.
+
+The servant was a very pale, shabby boy, who looked as if he had
+slept underground from his infancy, as very likely he had.  'Mr
+Gregsbury?' said he; 'Mr Gregsbury lodges here.  It's all right.
+Come in!'
+
+Nicholas thought he might as well get in while he could, so in he
+walked; and he had no sooner done so, than the boy shut the door,
+and made off.
+
+This was odd enough: but what was more embarrassing was, that all
+along the passage, and all along the narrow stairs, blocking up the
+window, and making the dark entry darker still, was a confused crowd
+of persons with great importance depicted in their looks; who were,
+to all appearance, waiting in silent expectation of some coming
+event.  From time to time, one man would whisper his neighbour, or a
+little group would whisper together, and then the whisperers would
+nod fiercely to each other, or give their heads a relentless shake,
+as if they were bent upon doing something very desperate, and were
+determined not to be put off, whatever happened.
+
+As a few minutes elapsed without anything occurring to explain this
+phenomenon, and as he felt his own position a peculiarly
+uncomfortable one, Nicholas was on the point of seeking some
+information from the man next him, when a sudden move was visible on
+the stairs, and a voice was heard to cry, 'Now, gentleman, have the
+goodness to walk up!'
+
+So far from walking up, the gentlemen on the stairs began to walk
+down with great alacrity, and to entreat, with extraordinary
+politeness, that the gentlemen nearest the street would go first;
+the gentlemen nearest the street retorted, with equal courtesy, that
+they couldn't think of such a thing on any account; but they did it,
+without thinking of it, inasmuch as the other gentlemen pressing
+some half-dozen (among whom was Nicholas) forward, and closing up
+behind, pushed them, not merely up the stairs, but into the very
+sitting-room of Mr Gregsbury, which they were thus compelled to
+enter with most unseemly precipitation, and without the means of
+retreat; the press behind them, more than filling the apartment.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Mr Gregsbury, 'you are welcome.  I am rejoiced to
+see you.'
+
+For a gentleman who was rejoiced to see a body of visitors, Mr
+Gregsbury looked as uncomfortable as might be; but perhaps this was
+occasioned by senatorial gravity, and a statesmanlike habit of
+keeping his feelings under control.  He was a tough, burly, thick-
+headed gentleman, with a loud voice, a pompous manner, a tolerable
+command of sentences with no meaning in them, and, in short, every
+requisite for a very good member indeed.
+
+'Now, gentlemen,' said Mr Gregsbury, tossing a great bundle of
+papers into a wicker basket at his feet, and throwing himself back
+in his chair with his arms over the elbows, 'you are dissatisfied
+with my conduct, I see by the newspapers.'
+
+'Yes, Mr Gregsbury, we are,' said a plump old gentleman in a violent
+heat, bursting out of the throng, and planting himself in the front.
+
+'Do my eyes deceive me,' said Mr Gregsbury, looking towards the
+speaker, 'or is that my old friend Pugstyles?'
+
+'I am that man, and no other, sir,' replied the plump old gentleman.
+
+'Give me your hand, my worthy friend,' said Mr Gregsbury.
+'Pugstyles, my dear friend, I am very sorry to see you here.'
+
+'I am very sorry to be here, sir,' said Mr Pugstyles; 'but your
+conduct, Mr Gregsbury, has rendered this deputation from your
+constituents imperatively necessary.'
+
+'My conduct, Pugstyles,' said Mr Gregsbury, looking round upon the
+deputation with gracious magnanimity--'my conduct has been, and ever
+will be, regulated by a sincere regard for the true and real
+interests of this great and happy country.  Whether I look at home,
+or abroad; whether I behold the peaceful industrious communities of
+our island home: her rivers covered with steamboats, her roads with
+locomotives, her streets with cabs, her skies with balloons of a
+power and magnitude hitherto unknown in the history of aeronautics
+in this or any other nation--I say, whether I look merely at home,
+or, stretching my eyes farther, contemplate the boundless prospect
+of conquest and possession--achieved by British perseverance and
+British valour--which is outspread before me, I clasp my hands, and
+turning my eyes to the broad expanse above my head, exclaim, "Thank
+Heaven, I am a Briton!"'
+
+The time had been, when this burst of enthusiasm would have been
+cheered to the very echo; but now, the deputation received it with
+chilling coldness.  The general impression seemed to be, that as an
+explanation of Mr Gregsbury's political conduct, it did not enter
+quite enough into detail; and one gentleman in the rear did not
+scruple to remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it savoured rather
+too much of a 'gammon' tendency.
+
+'The meaning of that term--gammon,' said Mr Gregsbury, 'is unknown
+to me.  If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even
+hyperbolical, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice
+of the remark.  I AM proud of this free and happy country.  My form
+dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my
+bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory.'
+
+'We wish, sir,' remarked Mr Pugstyles, calmly, 'to ask you a few
+questions.'
+
+'If you please, gentlemen; my time is yours--and my country's--and
+my country's--' said Mr Gregsbury.
+
+This permission being conceded, Mr Pugstyles put on his spectacles,
+and referred to a written paper which he drew from his pocket;
+whereupon nearly every other member of the deputation pulled a
+written paper from HIS pocket, to check Mr Pugstyles off, as he read
+the questions.
+
+This done, Mr Pugstyles proceeded to business.
+
+'Question number one.--Whether, sir, you did not give a voluntary
+pledge previous to your election, that in event of your being
+returned, you would immediately put down the practice of coughing
+and groaning in the House of Commons.  And whether you did not
+submit to be coughed and groaned down in the very first debate of
+the session, and have since made no effort to effect a reform in
+this respect?  Whether you did not also pledge yourself to astonish
+the government, and make them shrink in their shoes?  And whether
+you have astonished them, and made them shrink in their shoes, or
+not?'
+
+'Go on to the next one, my dear Pugstyles,' said Mr Gregsbury.
+
+'Have you any explanation to offer with reference to that question,
+sir?' asked Mr Pugstyles.
+
+'Certainly not,' said Mr Gregsbury.
+
+The members of the deputation looked fiercely at each other, and
+afterwards at the member.  'Dear Pugstyles' having taken a very long
+stare at Mr Gregsbury over the tops of his spectacles, resumed his
+list of inquiries.
+
+'Question number two.--Whether, sir, you did not likewise give a
+voluntary pledge that you would support your colleague on every
+occasion; and whether you did not, the night before last, desert him
+and vote upon the other side, because the wife of a leader on that
+other side had invited Mrs Gregsbury to an evening party?'
+
+'Go on,' said Mr Gregsbury.
+
+'Nothing to say on that, either, sir?' asked the spokesman.
+
+'Nothing whatever,' replied Mr Gregsbury.  The deputation, who had
+only seen him at canvassing or election time, were struck dumb by
+his coolness.  He didn't appear like the same man; then he was all
+milk and honey; now he was all starch and vinegar.  But men ARE so
+different at different times!
+
+'Question number three--and last,' said Mr Pugstyles, emphatically.
+'Whether, sir, you did not state upon the hustings, that it was your
+firm and determined intention to oppose everything proposed; to
+divide the house upon every question, to move for returns on every
+subject, to place a motion on the books every day, and, in short, in
+your own memorable words, to play the very devil with everything and
+everybody?'  With this comprehensive inquiry, Mr Pugstyles folded up
+his list of questions, as did all his backers.
+
+Mr Gregsbury reflected, blew his nose, threw himself further back in
+his chair, came forward again, leaning his elbows on the table, made
+a triangle with his two thumbs and his two forefingers, and tapping
+his nose with the apex thereof, replied (smiling as he said it), 'I
+deny everything.'
+
+At this unexpected answer, a hoarse murmur arose from the
+deputation; and the same gentleman who had expressed an opinion
+relative to the gammoning nature of the introductory speech, again
+made a monosyllabic demonstration, by growling out 'Resign!'  Which
+growl being taken up by his fellows, swelled into a very earnest and
+general remonstrance.
+
+'I am requested, sir, to express a hope,' said Mr Pugstyles, with a
+distant bow, 'that on receiving a requisition to that effect from a
+great majority of your constituents, you will not object at once to
+resign your seat in favour of some candidate whom they think they
+can better trust.'
+
+To this, Mr Gregsbury read the following reply, which, anticipating
+the request, he had composed in the form of a letter, whereof copies
+had been made to send round to the newspapers.
+
+'MY DEAR MR PUGSTYLES,
+
+'Next to the welfare of our beloved island--this great and free
+and happy country, whose powers and resources are, I sincerely
+believe, illimitable--I value that noble independence which is
+an Englishman's proudest boast, and which I fondly hope to bequeath
+to my children, untarnished and unsullied.  Actuated by no personal
+motives, but moved only by high and great constitutional
+considerations; which I will not attempt to explain, for they are
+really beneath the comprehension of those who have not made
+themselves masters, as I have, of the intricate and arduous
+study of politics; I would rather keep my seat, and intend doing so.
+
+'Will you do me the favour to present my compliments to the
+constituent body, and acquaint them with this circumstance?
+
+'With great esteem,
+'My dear Mr Pugstyles,
+'&c.&c.'
+
+'Then you will not resign, under any circumstances?' asked the
+spokesman.
+
+Mr Gregsbury smiled, and shook his head.
+
+'Then, good-morning, sir,' said Pugstyles, angrily.
+
+'Heaven bless you!' said Mr Gregsbury.  And the deputation, with
+many growls and scowls, filed off as quickly as the narrowness of
+the staircase would allow of their getting down.
+
+The last man being gone, Mr Gregsbury rubbed his hands and chuckled,
+as merry fellows will, when they think they have said or done a more
+than commonly good thing; he was so engrossed in this self-
+congratulation, that he did not observe that Nicholas had been left
+behind in the shadow of the window-curtains, until that young
+gentleman, fearing he might otherwise overhear some soliloquy
+intended to have no listeners, coughed twice or thrice, to attract
+the member's notice.
+
+'What's that?' said Mr Gregsbury, in sharp accents.
+
+Nicholas stepped forward, and bowed.
+
+'What do you do here, sir?' asked Mr Gregsbury; 'a spy upon my
+privacy!  A concealed voter!  You have heard my answer, sir.  Pray
+follow the deputation.'
+
+'I should have done so, if I had belonged to it, but I do not,' said
+Nicholas.
+
+'Then how came you here, sir?' was the natural inquiry of Mr
+Gregsbury, MP.  'And where the devil have you come from, sir?' was
+the question which followed it.
+
+'I brought this card from the General Agency Office, sir,' said
+Nicholas, 'wishing to offer myself as your secretary, and
+understanding that you stood in need of one.'
+
+'That's all you have come for, is it?' said Mr Gregsbury, eyeing him
+in some doubt.
+
+Nicholas replied in the affirmative.
+
+'You have no connection with any of those rascally papers have you?'
+said Mr Gregsbury.  'You didn't get into the room, to hear what was
+going forward, and put it in print, eh?'
+
+'I have no connection, I am sorry to say, with anything at present,'
+rejoined Nicholas,--politely enough, but quite at his ease.
+
+'Oh!' said Mr Gregsbury.  'How did you find your way up here, then?'
+
+Nicholas related how he had been forced up by the deputation.
+
+'That was the way, was it?' said Mr Gregsbury.  'Sit down.'
+
+Nicholas took a chair, and Mr Gregsbury stared at him for a long
+time, as if to make certain, before he asked any further questions,
+that there were no objections to his outward appearance.
+
+'You want to be my secretary, do you?' he said at length.
+
+'I wish to be employed in that capacity, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Well,' said Mr Gregsbury; 'now what can you do?'
+
+'I suppose,' replied Nicholas, smiling, 'that I can do what usually
+falls to the lot of other secretaries.'
+
+'What's that?' inquired Mr Gregsbury.
+
+'What is it?' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Ah!  What is it?' retorted the member, looking shrewdly at him,
+with his head on one side.
+
+'A secretary's duties are rather difficult to define, perhaps,' said
+Nicholas, considering.  'They include, I presume, correspondence?'
+
+'Good,' interposed Mr Gregsbury.
+
+'The arrangement of papers and documents?'
+
+'Very good.'
+
+'Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and
+possibly, sir,' said Nicholas, with a half-smile, 'the copying of
+your speech for some public journal, when you have made one of more
+than usual importance.'
+
+'Certainly,' rejoined Mr Gregsbury.  'What else?'
+
+'Really,' said Nicholas, after a moment's reflection, 'I am not
+able, at this instant, to recapitulate any other duty of a
+secretary, beyond the general one of making himself as agreeable and
+useful to his employer as he can, consistently with his own
+respectability, and without overstepping that line of duties which
+he undertakes to perform, and which the designation of his office is
+usually understood to imply.'
+
+Mr Gregsbury looked fixedly at Nicholas for a short time, and then
+glancing warily round the room, said in a suppressed voice:
+
+'This is all very well, Mr--what is your name?'
+
+'Nickleby.'
+
+'This is all very well, Mr Nickleby, and very proper, so far as it
+goes--so far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.  There are
+other duties, Mr Nickleby, which a secretary to a parliamentary
+gentleman must never lose sight of.  I should require to be crammed,
+sir.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' interposed Nicholas, doubtful whether he had
+heard aright.
+
+'--To be crammed, sir,' repeated Mr Gregsbury.
+
+'May I beg your pardon again, if I inquire what you mean, sir?' said
+Nicholas.
+
+'My meaning, sir, is perfectly plain,' replied Mr Gregsbury with a
+solemn aspect.  'My secretary would have to make himself master of
+the foreign policy of the world, as it is mirrored in the
+newspapers; to run his eye over all accounts of public meetings, all
+leading articles, and accounts of the proceedings of public bodies;
+and to make notes of anything which it appeared to him might be made
+a point of, in any little speech upon the question of some petition
+lying on the table, or anything of that kind.  Do you understand?'
+
+'I think I do, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Then,' said Mr Gregsbury, 'it would be necessary for him to make
+himself acquainted, from day to day, with newspaper paragraphs on
+passing events; such as "Mysterious disappearance, and supposed
+suicide of a potboy," or anything of that sort, upon which I might
+found a question to the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
+Then, he would have to copy the question, and as much as I
+remembered of the answer (including a little compliment about
+independence and good sense); and to send the manuscript in a frank
+to the local paper, with perhaps half-a-dozen lines of leader, to
+the effect, that I was always to be found in my place in parliament,
+and never shrunk from the responsible and arduous duties, and so
+forth.  You see?'
+
+Nicholas bowed.
+
+'Besides which,' continued Mr Gregsbury, 'I should expect him, now
+and then, to go through a few figures in the printed tables, and to
+pick out a few results, so that I might come out pretty well on
+timber duty questions, and finance questions, and so on; and I
+should like him to get up a few little arguments about the
+disastrous effects of a return to cash payments and a metallic
+currency, with a touch now and then about the exportation of
+bullion, and the Emperor of Russia, and bank notes, and all that
+kind of thing, which it's only necessary to talk fluently about,
+because nobody understands it.  Do you take me?'
+
+'I think I understand,' said Nicholas.
+
+'With regard to such questions as are not political,' continued Mr
+Gregsbury, warming; 'and which one can't be expected to care a curse
+about, beyond the natural care of not allowing inferior people to be
+as well off as ourselves--else where are our privileges?--I should
+wish my secretary to get together a few little flourishing speeches,
+of a patriotic cast.  For instance, if any preposterous bill were
+brought forward, for giving poor grubbing devils of authors a right
+to their own property, I should like to say, that I for one would
+never consent to opposing an insurmountable bar to the diffusion of
+literature among THE PEOPLE,--you understand?--that the creations of
+the pocket, being man's, might belong to one man, or one family; but
+that the creations of the brain, being God's, ought as a matter of
+course to belong to the people at large--and if I was pleasantly
+disposed, I should like to make a joke about posterity, and say that
+those who wrote for posterity should be content to be rewarded by
+the approbation OF posterity; it might take with the house, and
+could never do me any harm, because posterity can't be expected to
+know anything about me or my jokes either--do you see?'
+
+'I see that, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'You must always bear in mind, in such cases as this, where our
+interests are not affected,' said Mr Gregsbury, 'to put it very
+strong about the people, because it comes out very well at election-
+time; and you could be as funny as you liked about the authors;
+because I believe the greater part of them live in lodgings, and are
+not voters.  This is a hasty outline of the chief things you'd have
+to do, except waiting in the lobby every night, in case I forgot
+anything, and should want fresh cramming; and, now and then, during
+great debates, sitting in the front row of the gallery, and saying
+to the people about--'You see that gentleman, with his hand to his
+face, and his arm twisted round the pillar--that's Mr Gregsbury--the
+celebrated Mr Gregsbury,'--with any other little eulogium that might
+strike you at the moment.  And for salary,' said Mr Gregsbury,
+winding up with great rapidity; for he was out of breath--'and for
+salary, I don't mind saying at once in round numbers, to prevent any
+dissatisfaction--though it's more than I've been accustomed to give
+--fifteen shillings a week, and find yourself.  There!'
+
+With this handsome offer, Mr Gregsbury once more threw himself back
+in his chair, and looked like a man who had been most profligately
+liberal, but is determined not to repent of it notwithstanding.
+
+'Fifteen shillings a week is not much,' said Nicholas, mildly.
+
+'Not much!  Fifteen shillings a week not much, young man?' cried Mr
+Gregsbury.  'Fifteen shillings a--'
+
+'Pray do not suppose that I quarrel with the sum, sir,' replied
+Nicholas; 'for I am not ashamed to confess, that whatever it may be
+in itself, to me it is a great deal.  But the duties and
+responsibilities make the recompense small, and they are so very
+heavy that I fear to undertake them.'
+
+'Do you decline to undertake them, sir?' inquired Mr Gregsbury, with
+his hand on the bell-rope.
+
+'I fear they are too great for my powers, however good my will may
+be, sir,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'That is as much as to say that you had rather not accept the place,
+and that you consider fifteen shillings a week too little,' said Mr
+Gregsbury, ringing.  'Do you decline it, sir?'
+
+'I have no alternative but to do so,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Door, Matthews!' said Mr Gregsbury, as the boy appeared.
+
+'I am sorry I have troubled you unnecessarily, sir,' said Nicholas,
+
+'I am sorry you have,' rejoined Mr Gregsbury, turning his back upon
+him.  'Door, Matthews!'
+
+'Good-morning, sir,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Door, Matthews!' cried Mr Gregsbury.
+
+The boy beckoned Nicholas, and tumbling lazily downstairs before
+him, opened the door, and ushered him into the street.  With a sad
+and pensive air, he retraced his steps homewards.
+
+Smike had scraped a meal together from the remnant of last night's
+supper, and was anxiously awaiting his return.  The occurrences of
+the morning had not improved Nicholas's appetite, and, by him, the
+dinner remained untasted.  He was sitting in a thoughtful attitude,
+with the plate which the poor fellow had assiduously filled with the
+choicest morsels, untouched, by his side, when Newman Noggs looked
+into the room.
+
+'Come back?' asked Newman.
+
+'Yes,' replied Nicholas, 'tired to death: and, what is worse, might
+have remained at home for all the good I have done.'
+
+'Couldn't expect to do much in one morning,' said Newman.
+
+'Maybe so, but I am sanguine, and did expect,' said Nicholas, 'and
+am proportionately disappointed.'  Saying which, he gave Newman an
+account of his proceedings.
+
+'If I could do anything,' said Nicholas, 'anything, however slight,
+until Ralph Nickleby returns, and I have eased my mind by
+confronting him, I should feel happier.  I should think it no
+disgrace to work, Heaven knows.  Lying indolently here, like a half-
+tamed sullen beast, distracts me.'
+
+'I don't know,' said Newman; 'small things offer--they would pay the
+rent, and more--but you wouldn't like them; no, you could hardly be
+expected to undergo it--no, no.'
+
+'What could I hardly be expected to undergo?' asked Nicholas,
+raising his eyes.  'Show me, in this wide waste of London, any
+honest means by which I could even defray the weekly hire of this
+poor room, and see if I shrink from resorting to them!  Undergo!  I
+have undergone too much, my friend, to feel pride or squeamishness
+now.  Except--' added Nicholas hastily, after a short silence,
+'except such squeamishness as is common honesty, and so much pride
+as constitutes self-respect.  I see little to choose, between
+assistant to a brutal pedagogue, and toad-eater to a mean and
+ignorant upstart, be he member or no member.'
+
+'I hardly know whether I should tell you what I heard this morning,
+or not,' said Newman.
+
+'Has it reference to what you said just now?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'It has.'
+
+'Then in Heaven's name, my good friend, tell it me,' said Nicholas.
+'For God's sake consider my deplorable condition; and, while I
+promise to take no step without taking counsel with you, give me, at
+least, a vote in my own behalf.'
+
+Moved by this entreaty, Newman stammered forth a variety of most
+unaccountable and entangled sentences, the upshot of which was, that
+Mrs Kenwigs had examined him, at great length that morning, touching
+the origin of his acquaintance with, and the whole life, adventures,
+and pedigree of, Nicholas; that Newman had parried these questions
+as long as he could, but being, at length, hard pressed and driven
+into a corner, had gone so far as to admit, that Nicholas was a
+tutor of great accomplishments, involved in some misfortunes which
+he was not at liberty to explain, and bearing the name of Johnson.
+That Mrs Kenwigs, impelled by gratitude, or ambition, or maternal
+pride, or maternal love, or all four powerful motives conjointly,
+had taken secret conference with Mr Kenwigs, and had finally
+returned to propose that Mr Johnson should instruct the four Miss
+Kenwigses in the French language as spoken by natives, at the weekly
+stipend of five shillings, current coin of the realm; being at the
+rate of one shilling per week, per each Miss Kenwigs, and one
+shilling over, until such time as the baby might be able to take it
+out in grammar.
+
+'Which, unless I am very much mistaken,' observed Mrs Kenwigs in
+making the proposition, 'will not be very long; for such clever
+children, Mr Noggs, never were born into this world, I do believe.'
+
+'There,' said Newman, 'that's all.  It's beneath you, I know; but I
+thought that perhaps you might--'
+
+'Might!' cried Nicholas, with great alacrity; 'of course I shall.  I
+accept the offer at once.  Tell the worthy mother so, without delay,
+my dear fellow; and that I am ready to begin whenever she pleases.'
+
+Newman hastened, with joyful steps, to inform Mrs Kenwigs of his
+friend's acquiescence, and soon returning, brought back word that
+they would be happy to see him in the first floor as soon as
+convenient; that Mrs Kenwigs had, upon the instant, sent out to
+secure a second-hand French grammar and dialogues, which had long
+been fluttering in the sixpenny box at the bookstall round the
+corner; and that the family, highly excited at the prospect of this
+addition to their gentility, wished the initiatory lesson to come
+off immediately.
+
+And here it may be observed, that Nicholas was not, in the ordinary
+sense of the word, a young man of high spirit.  He would resent an
+affront to himself, or interpose to redress a wrong offered to
+another, as boldly and freely as any knight that ever set lance in
+rest; but he lacked that peculiar excess of coolness and great-
+minded selfishness, which invariably distinguish gentlemen of high
+spirit.  In truth, for our own part, we are disposed to look upon
+such gentleman as being rather incumbrances than otherwise in rising
+families: happening to be acquainted with several whose spirit
+prevents their settling down to any grovelling occupation, and only
+displays itself in a tendency to cultivate moustachios, and look
+fierce; and although moustachios and ferocity are both very pretty
+things in their way, and very much to be commended, we confess to a
+desire to see them bred at the owner's proper cost, rather than at
+the expense of low-spirited people.
+
+Nicholas, therefore, not being a high-spirited young man according
+to common parlance, and deeming it a greater degradation to borrow,
+for the supply of his necessities, from Newman Noggs, than to teach
+French to the little Kenwigses for five shillings a week, accepted
+the offer with the alacrity already described, and betook himself to
+the first floor with all convenient speed.
+
+Here, he was received by Mrs Kenwigs with a genteel air, kindly
+intended to assure him of her protection and support; and here, too,
+he found Mr Lillyvick and Miss Petowker; the four Miss Kenwigses on
+their form of audience; and the baby in a dwarf porter's chair with
+a deal tray before it, amusing himself with a toy horse without a
+head; the said horse being composed of a small wooden cylinder, not
+unlike an Italian iron, supported on four crooked pegs, and painted
+in ingenious resemblance of red wafers set in blacking.
+
+'How do you do, Mr Johnson?' said Mrs Kenwigs.  'Uncle--Mr Johnson.'
+
+'How do you do, sir?' said Mr Lillyvick--rather sharply; for he had
+not known what Nicholas was, on the previous night, and it was
+rather an aggravating circumstance if a tax collector had been too
+polite to a teacher.
+
+'Mr Johnson is engaged as private master to the children, uncle,'
+said Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'So you said just now, my dear,' replied Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'But I hope,' said Mrs Kenwigs, drawing herself up, 'that that will
+not make them proud; but that they will bless their own good
+fortune, which has born them superior to common people's children.
+Do you hear, Morleena?'
+
+'Yes, ma,' replied Miss Kenwigs.
+
+'And when you go out in the streets, or elsewhere, I desire that you
+don't boast of it to the other children,' said Mrs Kenwigs; 'and
+that if you must say anything about it, you don't say no more than
+"We've got a private master comes to teach us at home, but we ain't
+proud, because ma says it's sinful."  Do you hear, Morleena?'
+
+'Yes, ma,' replied Miss Kenwigs again.
+
+'Then mind you recollect, and do as I tell you,' said Mrs Kenwigs.
+'Shall Mr Johnson begin, uncle?'
+
+'I am ready to hear, if Mr Johnson is ready to commence, my dear,'
+said the collector, assuming the air of a profound critic.  'What
+sort of language do you consider French, sir?'
+
+'How do you mean?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Do you consider it a good language, sir?' said the collector; 'a
+pretty language, a sensible language?'
+
+'A pretty language, certainly,' replied Nicholas; 'and as it has a
+name for everything, and admits of elegant conversation about
+everything, I presume it is a sensible one.'
+
+'I don't know,' said Mr Lillyvick, doubtfully.  'Do you call it a
+cheerful language, now?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Nicholas, 'I should say it was, certainly.'
+
+'It's very much changed since my time, then,' said the collector,
+'very much.'
+
+'Was it a dismal one in your time?' asked Nicholas, scarcely able to
+repress a smile.
+
+'Very,' replied Mr Lillyvick, with some vehemence of manner.  'It's
+the war time that I speak of; the last war.  It may be a cheerful
+language.  I should be sorry to contradict anybody; but I can only
+say that I've heard the French prisoners, who were natives, and
+ought to know how to speak it, talking in such a dismal manner, that
+it made one miserable to hear them.  Ay, that I have, fifty times,
+sir--fifty times!'
+
+Mr Lillyvick was waxing so cross, that Mrs Kenwigs thought it
+expedient to motion to Nicholas not to say anything; and it was not
+until Miss Petowker had practised several blandishments, to soften
+the excellent old gentleman, that he deigned to break silence by
+asking,
+
+'What's the water in French, sir?'
+
+'L'EAU,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Lillyvick, shaking his head mournfully, 'I thought as
+much.  Lo, eh?  I don't think anything of that language--nothing at
+all.'
+
+'I suppose the children may begin, uncle?' said Mrs Kenwigs.
+
+'Oh yes; they may begin, my dear,' replied the collector,
+discontentedly.  'I have no wish to prevent them.'
+
+This permission being conceded, the four Miss Kenwigses sat in a
+row, with their tails all one way, and Morleena at the top: while
+Nicholas, taking the book, began his preliminary explanations.  Miss
+Petowker and Mrs Kenwigs looked on, in silent admiration, broken
+only by the whispered assurances of the latter, that Morleena would
+have it all by heart in no time; and Mr Lillyvick regarded the group
+with frowning and attentive eyes, lying in wait for something upon
+which he could open a fresh discussion on the language.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby
+
+
+It was with a heavy heart, and many sad forebodings which no effort
+could banish, that Kate Nickleby, on the morning appointed for the
+commencement of her engagement with Madame Mantalini, left the city
+when its clocks yet wanted a quarter of an hour of eight, and
+threaded her way alone, amid the noise and bustle of the streets,
+towards the west end of London.
+
+At this early hour many sickly girls, whose business, like that of
+the poor worm, is to produce, with patient toil, the finery that
+bedecks the thoughtless and luxurious, traverse our streets, making
+towards the scene of their daily labour, and catching, as if by
+stealth, in their hurried walk, the only gasp of wholesome air and
+glimpse of sunlight which cheer their monotonous existence during
+the long train of hours that make a working day.  As she drew nigh
+to the more fashionable quarter of the town, Kate marked many of
+this class as they passed by, hurrying like herself to their painful
+occupation, and saw, in their unhealthy looks and feeble gait, but
+too clear an evidence that her misgivings were not wholly groundless.
+
+She arrived at Madame Mantalini's some minutes before the appointed
+hour, and after walking a few times up and down, in the hope that
+some other female might arrive and spare her the embarrassment of
+stating her business to the servant, knocked timidly at the door:
+which, after some delay, was opened by the footman, who had been
+putting on his striped jacket as he came upstairs, and was now
+intent on fastening his apron.
+
+'Is Madame Mantalini in?' faltered Kate.
+
+'Not often out at this time, miss,' replied the man in a tone which
+rendered "Miss," something more offensive than "My dear."
+
+'Can I see her?' asked Kate.
+
+'Eh?' replied the man, holding the door in his hand, and honouring
+the inquirer with a stare and a broad grin, 'Lord, no.'
+
+'I came by her own appointment,' said Kate; 'I am--I am--to be
+employed here.'
+
+'Oh! you should have rung the worker's bell,' said the footman,
+touching the handle of one in the door-post.  'Let me see, though, I
+forgot--Miss Nickleby, is it?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Kate.
+
+'You're to walk upstairs then, please,' said the man.  'Madame
+Mantalini wants to see you--this way--take care of these things on
+the floor.'
+
+Cautioning her, in these terms, not to trip over a heterogeneous
+litter of pastry-cook's trays, lamps, waiters full of glasses, and
+piles of rout seats which were strewn about the hall, plainly
+bespeaking a late party on the previous night, the man led the way
+to the second story, and ushered Kate into a back-room,
+communicating by folding-doors with the apartment in which she had
+first seen the mistress of the establishment.
+
+'If you'll wait here a minute,' said the man, 'I'll tell her
+presently.'  Having made this promise with much affability, he
+retired and left Kate alone.
+
+There was not much to amuse in the room; of which the most
+attractive feature was, a half-length portrait in oil, of Mr
+Mantalini, whom the artist had depicted scratching his head in an
+easy manner, and thus displaying to advantage a diamond ring, the
+gift of Madame Mantalini before her marriage.  There was, however,
+the sound of voices in conversation in the next room; and as the
+conversation was loud and the partition thin, Kate could not help
+discovering that they belonged to Mr and Mrs Mantalini.
+
+'If you will be odiously, demnebly, outrIgeously jealous, my soul,'
+said Mr Mantalini, 'you will be very miserable--horrid miserable--
+demnition miserable.'  And then, there was a sound as though Mr
+Mantalini were sipping his coffee.
+
+'I AM miserable,' returned Madame Mantalini, evidently pouting.
+
+'Then you are an ungrateful, unworthy, demd unthankful little
+fairy,' said Mr Mantalini.
+
+'I am not,' returned Madame, with a sob.
+
+'Do not put itself out of humour,' said Mr Mantalini, breaking an
+egg.  'It is a pretty, bewitching little demd countenance, and it
+should not be out of humour, for it spoils its loveliness, and makes
+it cross and gloomy like a frightful, naughty, demd hobgoblin.'
+
+'I am not to be brought round in that way, always,' rejoined Madame,
+sulkily.
+
+'It shall be brought round in any way it likes best, and not brought
+round at all if it likes that better,' retorted Mr Mantalini, with
+his egg-spoon in his mouth.
+
+'It's very easy to talk,' said Mrs Mantalini.
+
+'Not so easy when one is eating a demnition egg,' replied Mr
+Mantalini; 'for the yolk runs down the waistcoat, and yolk of egg
+does not match any waistcoat but a yellow waistcoat, demmit.'
+
+'You were flirting with her during the whole night,' said Madame
+Mantalini, apparently desirous to lead the conversation back to the
+point from which it had strayed.
+
+'No, no, my life.'
+
+'You were,' said Madame; 'I had my eye upon you all the time.'
+
+'Bless the little winking twinkling eye; was it on me all the time!'
+cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture.  'Oh, demmit!'
+
+'And I say once more,' resumed Madame, 'that you ought not to waltz
+with anybody but your own wife; and I will not bear it, Mantalini,
+if I take poison first.'
+
+'She will not take poison and have horrid pains, will she?' said
+Mantalini; who, by the altered sound of his voice, seemed to have
+moved his chair, and taken up his position nearer to his wife.  'She
+will not take poison, because she had a demd fine husband who might
+have married two countesses and a dowager--'
+
+'Two countesses,' interposed Madame.  'You told me one before!'
+
+'Two!' cried Mantalini.  'Two demd fine women, real countesses and
+splendid fortunes, demmit.'
+
+'And why didn't you?' asked Madame, playfully.
+
+'Why didn't I!' replied her husband.  'Had I not seen, at a morning
+concert, the demdest little fascinator in all the world, and while
+that little fascinator is my wife, may not all the countesses and
+dowagers in England be--'
+
+Mr Mantalini did not finish the sentence, but he gave Madame
+Mantalini a very loud kiss, which Madame Mantalini returned; after
+which, there seemed to be some more kissing mixed up with the
+progress of the breakfast.
+
+'And what about the cash, my existence's jewel?' said Mantalini,
+when these endearments ceased.  'How much have we in hand?'
+
+'Very little indeed,' replied Madame.
+
+'We must have some more,' said Mantalini; 'we must have some
+discount out of old Nickleby to carry on the war with, demmit.'
+
+'You can't want any more just now,' said Madame coaxingly.
+
+'My life and soul,' returned her husband, 'there is a horse for sale
+at Scrubbs's, which it would be a sin and a crime to lose--going, my
+senses' joy, for nothing.'
+
+'For nothing,' cried Madame, 'I am glad of that.'
+
+'For actually nothing,' replied Mantalini.  'A hundred guineas down
+will buy him; mane, and crest, and legs, and tail, all of the
+demdest beauty.  I will ride him in the park before the very
+chariots of the rejected countesses.  The demd old dowager will
+faint with grief and rage; the other two will say "He is married, he
+has made away with himself, it is a demd thing, it is all up!"  They
+will hate each other demnebly, and wish you dead and buried.  Ha!
+ha!  Demmit.'
+
+Madame Mantalini's prudence, if she had any, was not proof against
+these triumphal pictures; after a little jingling of keys, she
+observed that she would see what her desk contained, and rising for
+that purpose, opened the folding-door, and walked into the room
+where Kate was seated.
+
+'Dear me, child!' exclaimed Madame Mantalini, recoiling in surprise.
+'How came you here?'
+
+'Child!' cried Mantalini, hurrying in.  'How came--eh!--oh--demmit,
+how d'ye do?'
+
+'I have been waiting, here some time, ma'am,' said Kate, addressing
+Madame Mantalini.  'The servant must have forgotten to let you know
+that I was here, I think.'
+
+'You really must see to that man,' said Madame, turning to her
+husband.  'He forgets everything.'
+
+'I will twist his demd nose off his countenance for leaving such a
+very pretty creature all alone by herself,' said her husband.
+
+'Mantalini,' cried Madame, 'you forget yourself.'
+
+'I don't forget you, my soul, and never shall, and never can,' said
+Mantalini, kissing his wife's hand, and grimacing aside, to Miss
+Nickleby, who turned away.
+
+Appeased by this compliment, the lady of the business took some
+papers from her desk which she handed over to Mr Mantalini, who
+received them with great delight.  She then requested Kate to follow
+her, and after several feints on the part of Mr Mantalini to attract
+the young lady's attention, they went away: leaving that gentleman
+extended at full length on the sofa, with his heels in the air and a
+newspaper in his hand.
+
+Madame Mantalini led the way down a flight of stairs, and through a
+passage, to a large room at the back of the premises where were a
+number of young women employed in sewing, cutting out, making up,
+altering, and various other processes known only to those who are
+cunning in the arts of millinery and dressmaking.  It was a close
+room with a skylight, and as dull and quiet as a room need be.
+
+On Madame Mantalini calling aloud for Miss Knag, a short, bustling,
+over-dressed female, full of importance, presented herself, and all
+the young ladies suspending their operations for the moment,
+whispered to each other sundry criticisms upon the make and texture
+of Miss Nickleby's dress, her complexion, cast of features, and
+personal appearance, with as much good breeding as could have been
+displayed by the very best society in a crowded ball-room.
+
+'Oh, Miss Knag,' said Madame Mantalini, 'this is the young person I
+spoke to you about.'
+
+Miss Knag bestowed a reverential smile upon Madame Mantalini, which
+she dexterously transformed into a gracious one for Kate, and said
+that certainly, although it was a great deal of trouble to have
+young people who were wholly unused to the business, still, she was
+sure the young person would try to do her best--impressed with which
+conviction she (Miss Knag) felt an interest in her, already.
+
+'I think that, for the present at all events, it will be better for
+Miss Nickleby to come into the show-room with you, and try things on
+for people,' said Madame Mantalini.  'She will not be able for the
+present to be of much use in any other way; and her appearance will--'
+
+'Suit very well with mine, Madame Mantalini,' interrupted Miss Knag.
+'So it will; and to be sure I might have known that you would not be
+long in finding that out; for you have so much taste in all those
+matters, that really, as I often say to the young ladies, I do not
+know how, when, or where, you possibly could have acquired all you
+know--hem--Miss Nickleby and I are quite a pair, Madame Mantalini,
+only I am a little darker than Miss Nickleby, and--hem--I think my
+foot may be a little smaller.  Miss Nickleby, I am sure, will not
+be offended at my saying that, when she hears that our family always
+have been celebrated for small feet ever since--hem--ever since our
+family had any feet at all, indeed, I think.  I had an uncle once,
+Madame Mantalini, who lived in Cheltenham, and had a most excellent
+business as a tobacconist--hem--who had such small feet, that they
+were no bigger than those which are usually joined to wooden legs--
+the most symmetrical feet, Madame Mantalini, that even you can
+imagine.'
+
+'They must have had something of the appearance of club feet, Miss
+Knag,' said Madame.
+
+'Well now, that is so like you,' returned Miss Knag, 'Ha! ha! ha!
+Of club feet!  Oh very good!  As I often remark to the young ladies,
+"Well I must say, and I do not care who knows it, of all the ready
+humour--hem--I ever heard anywhere"--and I have heard a good deal;
+for when my dear brother was alive (I kept house for him, Miss
+Nickleby), we had to supper once a week two or three young men,
+highly celebrated in those days for their humour, Madame Mantalini--
+"Of all the ready humour," I say to the young ladies, "I ever heard,
+Madame Mantalini's is the most remarkable--hem.  It is so gentle, so
+sarcastic, and yet so good-natured (as I was observing to Miss
+Simmonds only this morning), that how, or when, or by what means she
+acquired it, is to me a mystery indeed."'
+
+Here Miss Knag paused to take breath, and while she pauses it may be
+observed--not that she was marvellously loquacious and marvellously
+deferential to Madame Mantalini, since these are facts which require
+no comment; but that every now and then, she was accustomed, in the
+torrent of her discourse, to introduce a loud, shrill, clear 'hem!'
+the import and meaning of which, was variously interpreted by her
+acquaintance; some holding that Miss Knag dealt in exaggeration, and
+introduced the monosyllable when any fresh invention was in course
+of coinage in her brain; others, that when she wanted a word, she
+threw it in to gain time, and prevent anybody else from striking
+into the conversation.  It may be further remarked, that Miss Knag
+still aimed at youth, although she had shot beyond it, years ago;
+and that she was weak and vain, and one of those people who are best
+described by the axiom, that you may trust them as far as you can
+see them, and no farther.
+
+'You'll take care that Miss Nickleby understands her hours, and so
+forth,' said Madame Mantalini; 'and so I'll leave her with you.
+You'll not forget my directions, Miss Knag?'
+
+Miss Knag of course replied, that to forget anything Madame
+Mantalini had directed, was a moral impossibility; and that lady,
+dispensing a general good-morning among her assistants, sailed away.
+
+'Charming creature, isn't she, Miss Nickleby?' said Miss Knag,
+rubbing her hands together.
+
+'I have seen very little of her,' said Kate.  'I hardly know yet.'
+
+'Have you seen Mr Mantalini?' inquired Miss Knag.
+
+'Yes; I have seen him twice.'
+
+'Isn't HE a charming creature?'
+
+'Indeed he does not strike me as being so, by any means,' replied
+Kate.
+
+'No, my dear!' cried Miss Knag, elevating her hands.  'Why, goodness
+gracious mercy, where's your taste?  Such a fine tall, full-
+whiskered dashing gentlemanly man, with such teeth and hair, and--
+hem--well now, you DO astonish me.'
+
+'I dare say I am very foolish,' replied Kate, laying aside her
+bonnet; 'but as my opinion is of very little importance to him or
+anyone else, I do not regret having formed it, and shall be slow to
+change it, I think.'
+
+'He is a very fine man, don't you think so?' asked one of the young
+ladies.
+
+'Indeed he may be, for anything I could say to the contrary,'
+replied Kate.
+
+'And drives very beautiful horses, doesn't he?' inquired another.
+
+'I dare say he may, but I never saw them,' answered Kate.
+
+'Never saw them!' interposed Miss Knag.  'Oh, well!  There it is at
+once you know; how can you possibly pronounce an opinion about a
+gentleman--hem--if you don't see him as he turns out altogether?'
+
+There was so much of the world--even of the little world of the
+country girl--in this idea of the old milliner, that Kate, who was
+anxious, for every reason, to change the subject, made no further
+remark, and left Miss Knag in possession of the field.
+
+After a short silence, during which most of the young people made a
+closer inspection of Kate's appearance, and compared notes
+respecting it, one of them offered to help her off with her shawl,
+and the offer being accepted, inquired whether she did not find
+black very uncomfortable wear.
+
+'I do indeed,' replied Kate, with a bitter sigh.
+
+'So dusty and hot,' observed the same speaker, adjusting her dress
+for her.
+
+Kate might have said, that mourning is sometimes the coldest wear
+which mortals can assume; that it not only chills the breasts of
+those it clothes, but extending its influence to summer friends,
+freezes up their sources of good-will and kindness, and withering
+all the buds of promise they once so liberally put forth, leaves
+nothing but bared and rotten hearts exposed.  There are few who have
+lost a friend or relative constituting in life their sole
+dependence, who have not keenly felt this chilling influence of
+their sable garb.  She had felt it acutely, and feeling it at the
+moment, could not quite restrain her tears.
+
+'I am very sorry to have wounded you by my thoughtless speech,' said
+her companion.  'I did not think of it.  You are in mourning for
+some near relation?'
+
+'For my father,' answered Kate.
+
+'For what relation, Miss Simmonds?' asked Miss Knag, in an audible
+voice.
+
+'Her father,' replied the other softly.
+
+'Her father, eh?' said Miss Knag, without the slightest depression
+of her voice.  'Ah!  A long illness, Miss Simmonds?'
+
+'Hush,' replied the girl; 'I don't know.'
+
+'Our misfortune was very sudden,' said Kate, turning away, 'or I
+might perhaps, at a time like this, be enabled to support it
+better.'
+
+There had existed not a little desire in the room, according to
+invariable custom, when any new 'young person' came, to know who
+Kate was, and what she was, and all about her; but, although it
+might have been very naturally increased by her appearance and
+emotion, the knowledge that it pained her to be questioned, was
+sufficient to repress even this curiosity; and Miss Knag, finding it
+hopeless to attempt extracting any further particulars just then,
+reluctantly commanded silence, and bade the work proceed.
+
+In silence, then, the tasks were plied until half-past one, when a
+baked leg of mutton, with potatoes to correspond, were served in the
+kitchen.  The meal over, and the young ladies having enjoyed the
+additional relaxation of washing their hands, the work began again,
+and was again performed in silence, until the noise of carriages
+rattling through the streets, and of loud double knocks at doors,
+gave token that the day's work of the more fortunate members of
+society was proceeding in its turn.
+
+One of these double knocks at Madame Mantalini's door, announced the
+equipage of some great lady--or rather rich one, for there is
+occasionally a distinction between riches and greatness--who had
+come with her daughter to approve of some court-dresses which had
+been a long time preparing, and upon whom Kate was deputed to wait,
+accompanied by Miss Knag, and officered of course by Madame
+Mantalini.
+
+Kate's part in the pageant was humble enough, her duties being
+limited to holding articles of costume until Miss Knag was ready to
+try them on, and now and then tying a string, or fastening a hook-
+and-eye.  She might, not unreasonably, have supposed herself beneath
+the reach of any arrogance, or bad humour; but it happened that the
+lady and daughter were both out of temper that day, and the poor
+girl came in for her share of their revilings.  She was awkward--her
+hands were cold--dirty--coarse--she could do nothing right; they
+wondered how Madame Mantalini could have such people about her;
+requested they might see some other young woman the next time they
+came; and so forth.
+
+So common an occurrence would be hardly deserving of mention, but
+for its effect.  Kate shed many bitter tears when these people were
+gone, and felt, for the first time, humbled by her occupation.  She
+had, it is true, quailed at the prospect of drudgery and hard
+service; but she had felt no degradation in working for her bread,
+until she found herself exposed to insolence and pride.  Philosophy
+would have taught her that the degradation was on the side of those
+who had sunk so low as to display such passions habitually, and
+without cause: but she was too young for such consolation, and her
+honest feeling was hurt.  May not the complaint, that common people
+are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of UNcommon
+people being below theirs?
+
+In such scenes and occupations the time wore on until nine o'clock,
+when Kate, jaded and dispirited with the occurrences of the day,
+hastened from the confinement of the workroom, to join her mother at
+the street corner, and walk home:--the more sadly, from having to
+disguise her real feelings, and feign to participate in all the
+sanguine visions of her companion.
+
+'Bless my soul, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'I've been thinking all
+day what a delightful thing it would be for Madame Mantalini to take
+you into partnership--such a likely thing too, you know!  Why, your
+poor dear papa's cousin's sister-in-law--a Miss Browndock--was taken
+into partnership by a lady that kept a school at Hammersmith, and
+made her fortune in no time at all.  I forget, by-the-bye, whether
+that Miss Browndock was the same lady that got the ten thousand
+pounds prize in the lottery, but I think she was; indeed, now I come
+to think of it, I am sure she was.  "Mantalini and Nickleby", how
+well it would sound!--and if Nicholas has any good fortune, you
+might have Doctor Nickleby, the head-master of Westminster School,
+living in the same street.'
+
+'Dear Nicholas!' cried Kate, taking from her reticule her brother's
+letter from Dotheboys Hall.  'In all our misfortunes, how happy it
+makes me, mama, to hear he is doing well, and to find him writing
+in such good spirits!  It consoles me for all we may undergo, to
+think that he is comfortable and happy.'
+
+Poor Kate! she little thought how weak her consolation was, and how
+soon she would be undeceived.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+Miss Knag, after doting on Kate Nickleby for three whole Days, makes
+up her Mind to hate her for evermore.  The Causes which led Miss
+Knag to form this Resolution
+
+
+There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering, which,
+having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them, are
+disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but who
+pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to rouse it.
+
+There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in
+their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of
+pleasure in theirs; and hence it is that diseased sympathy and
+compassion are every day expended on out-of-the-way objects, when
+only too many demands upon the legitimate exercise of the same
+virtues in a healthy state, are constantly within the sight and
+hearing of the most unobservant person alive.  In short, charity
+must have its romance, as the novelist or playwright must have his.
+A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of
+by persons of refinement; but dress him in green velvet, with a
+high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations, from a
+thickly-peopled city, to a mountain road, and you shall find in him
+the very soul of poetry and adventure.  So it is with the one great
+cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, leads to,
+if it does not necessarily include, all the others.  It must have
+its romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life
+there is in that romance, the better.
+
+The life to which poor Kate Nickleby was devoted, in consequence of
+the unforeseen train of circumstances already developed in this
+narrative, was a hard one; but lest the very dulness, unhealthy
+confinement, and bodily fatigue, which made up its sum and
+substance, should deprive it of any interest with the mass of the
+charitable and sympathetic, I would rather keep Miss Nickleby
+herself in view just now, than chill them in the outset, by a minute
+and lengthened description of the establishment presided over by
+Madame Mantalini.
+
+'Well, now, indeed, Madame Mantalini,' said Miss Knag, as Kate was
+taking her weary way homewards on the first night of her novitiate;
+'that Miss Nickleby is a very creditable young person--a very
+creditable young person indeed--hem--upon my word, Madame Mantalini,
+it does very extraordinary credit even to your discrimination that
+you should have found such a very excellent, very well-behaved,
+very--hem--very unassuming young woman to assist in the fitting on.
+I have seen some young women when they had the opportunity of
+displaying before their betters, behave in such a--oh, dear--well--
+but you're always right, Madame Mantalini, always; and as I very
+often tell the young ladies, how you do contrive to be always right,
+when so many people are so often wrong, is to me a mystery indeed.'
+
+'Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss Nickleby
+has not done anything very remarkable today--that I am aware of, at
+least,' said Madame Mantalini in reply.
+
+'Oh, dear!' said Miss Knag; 'but you must allow a great deal for
+inexperience, you know.'
+
+'And youth?' inquired Madame.
+
+'Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,' replied Miss Knag,
+reddening; 'because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn't have--'
+
+'Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,' suggested Madame.
+
+'Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,'
+rejoined Miss Knag most complacently, 'and that's the fact, for you
+know what one's going to say, before it has time to rise to one's
+lips.  Oh, very good!  Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'For myself,' observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected
+carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve,
+'I consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my
+life.'
+
+'Poor dear thing,' said Miss Knag, 'it's not her fault.  If it was,
+we might hope to cure it; but as it's her misfortune, Madame
+Mantalini, why really you know, as the man said about the blind
+horse, we ought to respect it.'
+
+'Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,' remarked Madame
+Mantalini.  'I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever met
+with.'
+
+'Ordinary!' cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; 'and
+awkward!  Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite
+love the poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-
+looking, and twice as awkward as she is, I should be only so much
+the more her friend, and that's the truth of it.'
+
+In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate
+Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short
+conversation with her superior increased the favourable
+prepossession to a most surprising extent; which was the more
+remarkable, as when she first scanned that young lady's face and
+figure, she had entertained certain inward misgivings that they
+would never agree.
+
+'But now,' said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself in
+a mirror at no great distance, 'I love her--I quite love her--I
+declare I do!'
+
+Of such a highly disinterested quality was this devoted friendship,
+and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-
+nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate
+Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for the
+business, but that she need not give herself the slightest
+uneasiness on this account, for that she (Miss Knag), by increased
+exertions on her own part, would keep her as much as possible in the
+background, and that all she would have to do, would be to remain
+perfectly quiet before company, and to shrink from attracting notice
+by every means in her power.  This last suggestion was so much in
+accordance with the timid girl's own feelings and wishes, that she
+readily promised implicit reliance on the excellent spinster's
+advice: without questioning, or indeed bestowing a moment's
+reflection upon, the motives that dictated it.
+
+'I take quite a lively interest in you, my dear soul, upon my word,'
+said Miss Knag; 'a sister's interest, actually.  It's the most
+singular circumstance I ever knew.'
+
+Undoubtedly it was singular, that if Miss Knag did feel a strong
+interest in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather have been the
+interest of a maiden aunt or grandmother; that being the conclusion
+to which the difference in their respective ages would have
+naturally tended.  But Miss Knag wore clothes of a very youthful
+pattern, and perhaps her feelings took the same shape.
+
+'Bless you!' said Miss Knag, bestowing a kiss upon Kate at the
+conclusion of the second day's work, 'how very awkward you have been
+all day.'
+
+'I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more
+painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me,' sighed
+Kate.
+
+'No, no, I dare say not,' rejoined Miss Knag, in a most uncommon
+flow of good humour.  'But how much better that you should know it
+at first, and so be able to go on, straight and comfortable!  Which
+way are you walking, my love?'
+
+'Towards the city,' replied Kate.
+
+'The city!' cried Miss Knag, regarding herself with great favour in
+the glass as she tied her bonnet.  'Goodness gracious me! now do you
+really live in the city?'
+
+'Is it so very unusual for anybody to live there?' asked Kate, half
+smiling.
+
+'I couldn't have believed it possible that any young woman could
+have lived there, under any circumstances whatever, for three days
+together,' replied Miss Knag.
+
+'Reduced--I should say poor people,' answered Kate, correcting
+herself hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, 'must live
+where they can.'
+
+'Ah! very true, so they must; very proper indeed!' rejoined Miss
+Knag with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three
+slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society;
+'and that's what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go
+away ill, one after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen's rather
+too damp for 'em to sleep in.  These sort of people, I tell him, are
+glad to sleep anywhere!  Heaven suits the back to the burden.  What
+a nice thing it is to think that it should be so, isn't it?'
+
+'Very,' replied Kate.
+
+'I'll walk with you part of the way, my dear,' said Miss Knag, 'for
+you must go very near our house; and as it's quite dark, and our
+last servant went to the hospital a week ago, with St Anthony's fire
+in her face, I shall be glad of your company.'
+
+Kate would willingly have excused herself from this flattering
+companionship; but Miss Knag having adjusted her bonnet to her
+entire satisfaction, took her arm with an air which plainly showed
+how much she felt the compliment she was conferring, and they were
+in the street before she could say another word.
+
+'I fear,' said Kate, hesitating, 'that mama--my mother, I mean--is
+waiting for me.'
+
+'You needn't make the least apology, my dear,' said Miss Knag,
+smiling sweetly as she spoke; 'I dare say she is a very respectable
+old person, and I shall be quite--hem--quite pleased to know her.'
+
+As poor Mrs Nickleby was cooling--not her heels alone, but her limbs
+generally at the street corner, Kate had no alternative but to make
+her known to Miss Knag, who, doing the last new carriage customer at
+second-hand, acknowledged the introduction with condescending
+politeness.  The three then walked away, arm in arm: with Miss Knag
+in the middle, in a special state of amiability.
+
+'I have taken such a fancy to your daughter, Mrs Nickleby, you can't
+think,' said Miss Knag, after she had proceeded a little distance in
+dignified silence.
+
+'I am delighted to hear it,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'though it is
+nothing new to me, that even strangers should like Kate.'
+
+'Hem!' cried Miss Knag.
+
+'You will like her better when you know how good she is,' said Mrs
+Nickleby.  'It is a great blessing to me, in my misfortunes, to have
+a child, who knows neither pride nor vanity, and whose bringing-up
+might very well have excused a little of both at first.  You don't
+know what it is to lose a husband, Miss Knag.'
+
+As Miss Knag had never yet known what it was to gain one, it
+followed, very nearly as a matter of course, that she didn't know
+what it was to lose one; so she said, in some haste, 'No, indeed I
+don't,' and said it with an air intending to signify that she should
+like to catch herself marrying anybody--no, no, she knew better than
+that.
+
+'Kate has improved even in this little time, I have no doubt,' said
+Mrs Nickleby, glancing proudly at her daughter.
+
+'Oh! of course,' said Miss Knag.
+
+'And will improve still more,' added Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'That she will, I'll be bound,' replied Miss Knag, squeezing Kate's
+arm in her own, to point the joke.
+
+'She always was clever,' said poor Mrs Nickleby, brightening up,
+'always, from a baby.  I recollect when she was only two years and a
+half old, that a gentleman who used to visit very much at our house
+--Mr Watkins, you know, Kate, my dear, that your poor papa went bail
+for, who afterwards ran away to the United States, and sent us a
+pair of snow shoes, with such an affectionate letter that it made
+your poor dear father cry for a week.  You remember the letter?  In
+which he said that he was very sorry he couldn't repay the fifty
+pounds just then, because his capital was all out at interest, and
+he was very busy making his fortune, but that he didn't forget you
+were his god-daughter, and he should take it very unkind if we
+didn't buy you a silver coral and put it down to his old account?
+Dear me, yes, my dear, how stupid you are! and spoke so
+affectionately of the old port wine that he used to drink a bottle
+and a half of every time he came.  You must remember, Kate?'
+
+'Yes, yes, mama; what of him?'
+
+'Why, that Mr Watkins, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby slowly, as if she
+were making a tremendous effort to recollect something of paramount
+importance; 'that Mr Watkins--he wasn't any relation, Miss Knag will
+understand, to the Watkins who kept the Old Boar in the village; by-
+the-bye, I don't remember whether it was the Old Boar or the George
+the Third, but it was one of the two, I know, and it's much the
+same--that Mr Watkins said, when you were only two years and a half
+old, that you were one of the most astonishing children he ever saw.
+He did indeed, Miss Knag, and he wasn't at all fond of children, and
+couldn't have had the slightest motive for doing it.  I know it was
+he who said so, because I recollect, as well as if it was only
+yesterday, his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor dear papa the
+very moment afterwards.'
+
+Having quoted this extraordinary and most disinterested testimony to
+her daughter's excellence, Mrs Nickleby stopped to breathe; and Miss
+Knag, finding that the discourse was turning upon family greatness,
+lost no time in striking in, with a small reminiscence on her own
+account.
+
+'Don't talk of lending money, Mrs Nickleby,' said Miss Knag, 'or
+you'll drive me crazy, perfectly crazy.  My mama--hem--was the most
+lovely and beautiful creature, with the most striking and exquisite
+--hem--the most exquisite nose that ever was put upon a human face, I
+do believe, Mrs Nickleby (here Miss Knag rubbed her own nose
+sympathetically); the most delightful and accomplished woman,
+perhaps, that ever was seen; but she had that one failing of lending
+money, and carried it to such an extent that she lent--hem--oh!
+thousands of pounds, all our little fortunes, and what's more, Mrs
+Nickleby, I don't think, if we were to live till--till--hem--till
+the very end of time, that we should ever get them back again.  I
+don't indeed.'
+
+After concluding this effort of invention without being interrupted,
+Miss Knag fell into many more recollections, no less interesting
+than true, the full tide of which, Mrs Nickleby in vain attempting
+to stem, at length sailed smoothly down by adding an under-current
+of her own recollections; and so both ladies went on talking
+together in perfect contentment; the only difference between them
+being, that whereas Miss Knag addressed herself to Kate, and talked
+very loud, Mrs Nickleby kept on in one unbroken monotonous flow,
+perfectly satisfied to be talking and caring very little whether
+anybody listened or not.
+
+In this manner they walked on, very amicably, until they arrived at
+Miss Knag's brother's, who was an ornamental stationer and small
+circulating library keeper, in a by-street off Tottenham Court Road;
+and who let out by the day, week, month, or year, the newest old
+novels, whereof the titles were displayed in pen-and-ink characters
+on a sheet of pasteboard, swinging at his door-post.  As Miss Knag
+happened, at the moment, to be in the middle of an account of her
+twenty-second offer from a gentleman of large property, she insisted
+upon their all going in to supper together; and in they went.
+
+'Don't go away, Mortimer,' said Miss Knag as they entered the shop.
+'It's only one of our young ladies and her mother.  Mrs and Miss
+Nickleby.'
+
+'Oh, indeed!' said Mr Mortimer Knag.  'Ah!'
+
+Having given utterance to these ejaculations with a very profound
+and thoughtful air, Mr Knag slowly snuffed two kitchen candles on
+the counter, and two more in the window, and then snuffed himself
+from a box in his waistcoat pocket.
+
+There was something very impressive in the ghostly air with which
+all this was done; and as Mr Knag was a tall lank gentleman of
+solemn features, wearing spectacles, and garnished with much less
+hair than a gentleman bordering on forty, or thereabouts, usually
+boasts, Mrs Nickleby whispered her daughter that she thought he must
+be literary.
+
+'Past ten,' said Mr Knag, consulting his watch.  'Thomas, close the
+warehouse.'
+
+Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall as a shutter, and the warehouse
+was a shop about the size of three hackney coaches.
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Knag once more, heaving a deep sigh as he restored to
+its parent shelf the book he had been reading.  'Well--yes--I
+believe supper is ready, sister.'
+
+With another sigh Mr Knag took up the kitchen candles from the
+counter, and preceded the ladies with mournful steps to a back-
+parlour, where a charwoman, employed in the absence of the sick
+servant, and remunerated with certain eighteenpences to be deducted
+from her wages due, was putting the supper out.
+
+'Mrs Blockson,' said Miss Knag, reproachfully, 'how very often I
+have begged you not to come into the room with your bonnet on!'
+
+'I can't help it, Miss Knag,' said the charwoman, bridling up on the
+shortest notice.  'There's been a deal o'cleaning to do in this
+house, and if you don't like it, I must trouble you to look out for
+somebody else, for it don't hardly pay me, and that's the truth, if
+I was to be hung this minute.'
+
+'I don't want any remarks if YOU please,' said Miss Knag, with a
+strong emphasis on the personal pronoun.  'Is there any fire
+downstairs for some hot water presently?'
+
+'No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,' replied the substitute; 'and
+so I won't tell you no stories about it.'
+
+'Then why isn't there?' said Miss Knag.
+
+'Because there arn't no coals left out, and if I could make coals I
+would, but as I can't I won't, and so I make bold to tell you, Mem,'
+replied Mrs Blockson.
+
+'Will you hold your tongue--female?' said Mr Mortimer Knag, plunging
+violently into this dialogue.
+
+'By your leave, Mr Knag,' retorted the charwoman, turning sharp
+round.  'I'm only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting
+when and where I'm spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female,
+sir, I should wish to know what you considered yourself?'
+
+'A miserable wretch,' exclaimed Mr Knag, striking his forehead.  'A
+miserable wretch.'
+
+'I'm very glad to find that you don't call yourself out of your
+name, sir,' said Mrs Blockson; 'and as I had two twin children the
+day before yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley
+fell down a airy and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it
+as a favour if you'll send nine shillings, for one week's work, to
+my house, afore the clock strikes ten tomorrow.'
+
+With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with great
+ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr Knag, at the same
+moment, flung himself into the 'warehouse,' and groaned aloud.
+
+'What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?' inquired Mrs
+Nickleby, greatly disturbed by the sound.
+
+'Is he ill?' inquired Kate, really alarmed.
+
+'Hush!' replied Miss Knag; 'a most melancholy history.  He was once
+most devotedly attached to--hem--to Madame Mantalini.'
+
+'Bless me!' exclaimed Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Yes,' continued Miss Knag, 'and received great encouragement too,
+and confidently hoped to marry her.  He has a most romantic heart,
+Mrs Nickleby, as indeed--hem--as indeed all our family have, and the
+disappointment was a dreadful blow.  He is a wonderfully
+accomplished man--most extraordinarily accomplished--reads--hem--
+reads every novel that comes out; I mean every novel that--hem--that
+has any fashion in it, of course.  The fact is, that he did find so
+much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and
+did find himself in every respect so much like the heroes--because
+of course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and
+very naturally--that he took to scorning everything, and became a
+genius; and I am quite sure that he is, at this very present moment,
+writing another book.'
+
+'Another book!' repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for
+somebody to say something.
+
+'Yes,' said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; 'another book, in
+three volumes post octavo.  Of course it's a great advantage to him,
+in all his little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit of
+my--hem--of my experience, because, of course, few authors who write
+about such things can have such opportunities of knowing them as I
+have.  He's so wrapped up in high life, that the least allusion to
+business or worldly matters--like that woman just now, for instance--
+quite distracts him; but, as I often say, I think his disappointment
+a great thing for him, because if he hadn't been disappointed he
+couldn't have written about blighted hopes and all that; and the
+fact is, if it hadn't happened as it has, I don't believe his
+genius would ever have come out at all.'
+
+How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under more
+favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the
+gloomy one was within ear-shot, and the fire wanted making up, her
+disclosures stopped here.  To judge from all appearances, and the
+difficulty of making the water warm, the last servant could not have
+been much accustomed to any other fire than St Anthony's; but a
+little brandy and water was made at last, and the guests, having
+been previously regaled with cold leg of mutton and bread and
+cheese, soon afterwards took leave; Kate amusing herself, all the
+way home, with the recollection of her last glimpse of Mr Mortimer
+Knag deeply abstracted in the shop; and Mrs Nickleby by debating
+within herself whether the dressmaking firm would ultimately become
+'Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby', or 'Mantalini, Nickleby, and Knag'.
+
+At this high point, Miss Knag's friendship remained for three whole
+days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini's young ladies who
+had never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on the
+fourth, it received a check no less violent than sudden, which thus
+occurred.
+
+It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to marry
+a young lady of no family in particular, came with the young lady,
+and the young lady's sister, to witness the ceremony of trying on
+two nuptial bonnets which had been ordered the day before, and
+Madame Mantalini announcing the fact, in a shrill treble, through
+the speaking-pipe, which communicated with the workroom, Miss Knag
+darted hastily upstairs with a bonnet in each hand, and presented
+herself in the show-room, in a charming state of palpitation,
+intended to demonstrate her enthusiasm in the cause.  The bonnets
+were no sooner fairly on, than Miss Knag and Madame Mantalini fell
+into convulsions of admiration.
+
+'A most elegant appearance,' said Madame Mantalini.
+
+'I never saw anything so exquisite in all my life,' said Miss Knag.
+
+Now, the old lord, who was a VERY old lord, said nothing, but
+mumbled and chuckled in a state of great delight, no less with the
+nuptial bonnets and their wearers, than with his own address in
+getting such a fine woman for his wife; and the young lady, who was
+a very lively young lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous
+condition, chased the old lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and
+there kissed him, while Madame Mantalini and the other young lady
+looked, discreetly, another way.
+
+But, pending the salutation, Miss Knag, who was tinged with
+curiosity, stepped accidentally behind the glass, and encountered
+the lively young lady's eye just at the very moment when she kissed
+the old lord; upon which the young lady, in a pouting manner,
+murmured something about 'an old thing,' and 'great impertinence,'
+and finished by darting a look of displeasure at Miss Knag, and
+smiling contemptuously.
+
+'Madame Mantalini,' said the young lady.
+
+'Ma'am,' said Madame Mantalini.
+
+'Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yesterday.'
+
+'Oh yes, do,' said the sister.
+
+'Of all things in the world, Madame Mantalini,' said the lord's
+intended, throwing herself languidly on a sofa, 'I hate being waited
+upon by frights or elderly persons.  Let me always see that young
+creature, I beg, whenever I come.'
+
+'By all means,' said the old lord; 'the lovely young creature, by
+all means.'
+
+'Everybody is talking about her,' said the young lady, in the same
+careless manner; 'and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty, must
+positively see her.'
+
+'She IS universally admired,' replied Madame Mantalini.  'Miss Knag,
+send up Miss Nickleby.  You needn't return.'
+
+'I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?' asked
+Miss Knag, trembling.
+
+'You needn't return,' repeated the superior, sharply.  Miss Knag
+vanished without another word, and in all reasonable time was
+replaced by Kate, who took off the new bonnets and put on the old
+ones: blushing very much to find that the old lord and the two young
+ladies were staring her out of countenance all the time.
+
+'Why, how you colour, child!' said the lord's chosen bride.
+
+'She is not quite so accustomed to her business, as she will be in a
+week or two,' interposed Madame Mantalini with a gracious smile.
+
+'I am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks, my
+lord,' said the intended.
+
+'No, no, no,' replied the old lord, 'no, no, I'm going to be
+married, and lead a new life.  Ha, ha, ha! a new life, a new life!
+ha, ha, ha!'
+
+It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going
+to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would
+not last him much longer.  The mere exertion of protracted chuckling
+reduced him to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasping; it was some
+minutes before he could find breath to remark that the girl was too
+pretty for a milliner.
+
+'I hope you don't think good looks a disqualification for the
+business, my lord,' said Madame Mantalini, simpering.
+
+'Not by any means,' replied the old lord, 'or you would have left it
+long ago.'
+
+'You naughty creature,' said the lively lady, poking the peer with
+her parasol; 'I won't have you talk so.  How dare you?'
+
+This playful inquiry was accompanied with another poke, and another,
+and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn't give it up
+again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some
+very pretty sportiveness ensued.
+
+'You will see that those little alterations are made, Madame
+Mantalini,' said the lady.  'Nay, you bad man, you positively shall
+go first; I wouldn't leave you behind with that pretty girl, not for
+half a second.  I know you too well.  Jane, my dear, let him go
+first, and we shall be quite sure of him.'
+
+The old lord, evidently much flattered by this suspicion, bestowed a
+grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed; and, receiving another tap
+with the parasol for his wickedness, tottered downstairs to the
+door, where his sprightly body was hoisted into the carriage by two
+stout footmen.
+
+'Foh!' said Madame Mantalini, 'how he ever gets into a carriage
+without thinking of a hearse, I can't think.  There, take the things
+away, my dear, take them away.'
+
+Kate, who had remained during the whole scene with her eyes modestly
+fixed upon the ground, was only too happy to avail herself of the
+permission to retire, and hasten joyfully downstairs to Miss Knag's
+dominion.
+
+The circumstances of the little kingdom had greatly changed,
+however, during the short period of her absence.  In place of Miss
+Knag being stationed in her accustomed seat, preserving all the
+dignity and greatness of Madame Mantalini's representative, that
+worthy soul was reposing on a large box, bathed in tears, while
+three or four of the young ladies in close attendance upon her,
+together with the presence of hartshorn, vinegar, and other
+restoratives, would have borne ample testimony, even without the
+derangement of the head-dress and front row of curls, to her having
+fainted desperately.
+
+'Bless me!' said Kate, stepping hastily forward, 'what is the
+matter?'
+
+This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a relapse;
+and several young ladies, darting angry looks at Kate, applied more
+vinegar and hartshorn, and said it was 'a shame.'
+
+'What is a shame?' demanded Kate.  'What is the matter?  What has
+happened? tell me.'
+
+'Matter!' cried Miss Knag, coming, all at once, bolt upright, to the
+great consternation of the assembled maidens; 'matter!  Fie upon
+you, you nasty creature!'
+
+'Gracious!' cried Kate, almost paralysed by the violence with which
+the adjective had been jerked out from between Miss Knag's closed
+teeth; 'have I offended you?'
+
+'YOU offended me!' retorted Miss Knag, 'YOU! a chit, a child, an
+upstart nobody!  Oh, indeed!  Ha, ha!'
+
+Now, it was evident, as Miss Knag laughed, that something struck her
+as being exceedingly funny; and as the young ladies took their tone
+from Miss Knag--she being the chief--they all got up a laugh without
+a moment's delay, and nodded their heads a little, and smiled
+sarcastically to each other, as much as to say how very good that
+was!
+
+'Here she is,' continued Miss Knag, getting off the box, and
+introducing Kate with much ceremony and many low curtseys to the
+delighted throng; 'here she is--everybody is talking about her--the
+belle, ladies--the beauty, the--oh, you bold-faced thing!'
+
+At this crisis, Miss Knag was unable to repress a virtuous shudder,
+which immediately communicated itself to all the young ladies; after
+which, Miss Knag laughed, and after that, cried.
+
+'For fifteen years,' exclaimed Miss Knag, sobbing in a most
+affecting manner, 'for fifteen years have I been the credit and
+ornament of this room and the one upstairs.  Thank God,' said Miss
+Knag, stamping first her right foot and then her left with
+remarkable energy, 'I have never in all that time, till now, been
+exposed to the arts, the vile arts, of a creature, who disgraces us
+with all her proceedings, and makes proper people blush for
+themselves.  But I feel it, I do feel it, although I am disgusted.'
+
+Miss Knag here relapsed into softness, and the young ladies renewing
+their attentions, murmured that she ought to be superior to such
+things, and that for their part they despised them, and considered
+them beneath their notice; in witness whereof, they called out, more
+emphatically than before, that it was a shame, and that they felt so
+angry, they did, they hardly knew what to do with themselves.
+
+'Have I lived to this day to be called a fright!' cried Miss Knag,
+suddenly becoming convulsive, and making an effort to tear her front
+off.
+
+'Oh no, no,' replied the chorus, 'pray don't say so; don't now!'
+
+'Have I deserved to be called an elderly person?' screamed Miss
+Knag, wrestling with the supernumeraries.
+
+'Don't think of such things, dear,' answered the chorus.
+
+'I hate her,' cried Miss Knag; 'I detest and hate her.  Never let
+her speak to me again; never let anybody who is a friend of mine
+speak to her; a slut, a hussy, an impudent artful hussy!'  Having
+denounced the object of her wrath, in these terms, Miss Knag
+screamed once, hiccuped thrice, gurgled in her throat several times,
+slumbered, shivered, woke, came to, composed her head-dress, and
+declared herself quite well again.
+
+Poor Kate had regarded these proceedings, at first, in perfect
+bewilderment.  She had then turned red and pale by turns, and once
+or twice essayed to speak; but, as the true motives of this altered
+behaviour developed themselves, she retired a few paces, and looked
+calmly on without deigning a reply.  Nevertheless, although she
+walked proudly to her seat, and turned her back upon the group of
+little satellites who clustered round their ruling planet in the
+remotest corner of the room, she gave way, in secret, to some such
+bitter tears as would have gladdened Miss Knag's inmost soul, if she
+could have seen them fall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr Ralph Nickleby's, and of the Manner in
+which the Company entertained themselves, before Dinner, at Dinner,
+and after Dinner.
+
+
+The bile and rancour of the worthy Miss Knag undergoing no
+diminution during the remainder of the week, but rather augmenting
+with every successive hour; and the honest ire of all the young
+ladies rising, or seeming to rise, in exact proportion to the good
+spinster's indignation, and both waxing very hot every time Miss
+Nickleby was called upstairs; it will be readily imagined that that
+young lady's daily life was none of the most cheerful or enviable
+kind.  She hailed the arrival of Saturday night, as a prisoner would
+a few delicious hours' respite from slow and wearing torture, and
+felt that the poor pittance for her first week's labour would have
+been dearly and hardly earned, had its amount been trebled.
+
+When she joined her mother, as usual, at the street corner, she was
+not a little surprised to find her in conversation with Mr Ralph
+Nickleby; but her surprise was soon redoubled, no less by the matter
+of their conversation, than by the smoothed and altered manner of Mr
+Nickleby himself.
+
+'Ah! my dear!' said Ralph; 'we were at that moment talking about
+you.'
+
+'Indeed!' replied Kate, shrinking, though she scarce knew why, from
+her uncle's cold glistening eye.
+
+'That instant,' said Ralph.  'I was coming to call for you, making
+sure to catch you before you left; but your mother and I have been
+talking over family affairs, and the time has slipped away so
+rapidly--'
+
+'Well, now, hasn't it?' interposed Mrs Nickleby, quite insensible to
+the sarcastic tone of Ralph's last remark.  'Upon my word, I
+couldn't have believed it possible, that such a--Kate, my dear,
+you're to dine with your uncle at half-past six o'clock tomorrow.'
+
+Triumphing in having been the first to communicate this
+extraordinary intelligence, Mrs Nickleby nodded and smiled a great
+many times, to impress its full magnificence on Kate's wondering
+mind, and then flew off, at an acute angle, to a committee of ways
+and means.
+
+'Let me see,' said the good lady.  'Your black silk frock will be
+quite dress enough, my dear, with that pretty little scarf, and a
+plain band in your hair, and a pair of black silk stock--Dear,
+dear,' cried Mrs Nickleby, flying off at another angle, 'if I had
+but those unfortunate amethysts of mine--you recollect them, Kate,
+my love--how they used to sparkle, you know--but your papa, your
+poor dear papa--ah! there never was anything so cruelly sacrificed
+as those jewels were, never!'  Overpowered by this agonising thought,
+Mrs Nickleby shook her head, in a melancholy manner, and applied her
+handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+I don't want them, mama, indeed,' said Kate.  'Forget that you ever
+had them.'
+
+'Lord, Kate, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, pettishly, 'how like a
+child you talk!  Four-and-twenty silver tea-spoons, brother-in-law,
+two gravies, four salts, all the amethysts--necklace, brooch, and
+ear-rings--all made away with, at the same time, and I saying,
+almost on my bended knees, to that poor good soul, "Why don't you do
+something, Nicholas?  Why don't you make some arrangement?"  I am
+sure that anybody who was about us at that time, will do me the
+justice to own, that if I said that once, I said it fifty times a
+day.  Didn't I, Kate, my dear?  Did I ever lose an opportunity of
+impressing it on your poor papa?'
+
+'No, no, mama, never,' replied Kate.  And to do Mrs Nickleby
+justice, she never had lost--and to do married ladies as a body
+justice, they seldom do lose--any occasion of inculcating similar
+golden percepts, whose only blemish is, the slight degree of
+vagueness and uncertainty in which they are usually enveloped.
+
+'Ah!' said Mrs Nickleby, with great fervour, 'if my advice had been
+taken at the beginning--Well, I have always done MY duty, and that's
+some comfort.'
+
+When she had arrived at this reflection, Mrs Nickleby sighed, rubbed
+her hands, cast up her eyes, and finally assumed a look of meek
+composure; thus importing that she was a persecuted saint, but that
+she wouldn't trouble her hearers by mentioning a circumstance which
+must be so obvious to everybody.
+
+'Now,' said Ralph, with a smile, which, in common with all other
+tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play
+boldly over it--'to return to the point from which we have strayed.
+I have a little party of--of--gentlemen with whom I am connected in
+business just now, at my house tomorrow; and your mother has
+promised that you shall keep house for me.  I am not much used to
+parties; but this is one of business, and such fooleries are an
+important part of it sometimes.  You don't mind obliging me?'
+
+'Mind!' cried Mrs Nickleby.  'My dear Kate, why--'
+
+'Pray,' interrupted Ralph, motioning her to be silent.  'I spoke to
+my niece.'
+
+'I shall be very glad, of course, uncle,' replied Kate; 'but I am
+afraid you will find me awkward and embarrassed.'
+
+'Oh no,' said Ralph; 'come when you like, in a hackney coach--I'll
+pay for it.  Good-night--a--a--God bless you.'
+
+The blessing seemed to stick in Mr Ralph Nickleby's throat, as if it
+were not used to the thoroughfare, and didn't know the way out.  But
+it got out somehow, though awkwardly enough; and having disposed of
+it, he shook hands with his two relatives, and abruptly left them.
+
+'What a very strongly marked countenance your uncle has!' said Mrs
+Nickleby, quite struck with his parting look.  'I don't see the
+slightest resemblance to his poor brother.'
+
+'Mama!' said Kate reprovingly.  'To think of such a thing!'
+
+'No,' said Mrs Nickleby, musing.  'There certainly is none.  But
+it's a very honest face.'
+
+The worthy matron made this remark with great emphasis and
+elocution, as if it comprised no small quantity of ingenuity and
+research; and, in truth, it was not unworthy of being classed among
+the extraordinary discoveries of the age.  Kate looked up hastily,
+and as hastily looked down again.
+
+'What has come over you, my dear, in the name of goodness?' asked
+Mrs Nickleby, when they had walked on, for some time, in silence.
+
+'I was only thinking, mama,' answered Kate.
+
+'Thinking!' repeated Mrs Nickleby.  'Ay, and indeed plenty to think
+about, too.  Your uncle has taken a strong fancy to you, that's
+quite clear; and if some extraordinary good fortune doesn't come to
+you, after this, I shall be a little surprised, that's all.'
+
+With this she launched out into sundry anecdotes of young ladies,
+who had had thousand-pound notes given them in reticules, by
+eccentric uncles; and of young ladies who had accidentally met
+amiable gentlemen of enormous wealth at their uncles' houses, and
+married them, after short but ardent courtships; and Kate, listening
+first in apathy, and afterwards in amusement, felt, as they walked
+home, something of her mother's sanguine complexion gradually
+awakening in her own bosom, and began to think that her prospects
+might be brightening, and that better days might be dawning upon
+them.  Such is hope, Heaven's own gift to struggling mortals;
+pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both
+good and bad; as universal as death, and more infectious than
+disease!
+
+The feeble winter's sun--and winter's suns in the city are very
+feeble indeed--might have brightened up, as he shone through the dim
+windows of the large old house, on witnessing the unusual sight
+which one half-furnished room displayed.  In a gloomy corner, where,
+for years, had stood a silent dusty pile of merchandise, sheltering
+its colony of mice, and frowning, a dull and lifeless mass, upon the
+panelled room, save when, responding to the roll of heavy waggons in
+the street without, it quaked with sturdy tremblings and caused the
+bright eyes of its tiny citizens to grow brighter still with fear,
+and struck them motionless, with attentive ear and palpitating
+heart, until the alarm had passed away--in this dark corner, was
+arranged, with scrupulous care, all Kate's little finery for the
+day; each article of dress partaking of that indescribable air of
+jauntiness and individuality which empty garments--whether by
+association, or that they become moulded, as it were, to the owner's
+form--will take, in eyes accustomed to, or picturing, the wearer's
+smartness.  In place of a bale of musty goods, there lay the black
+silk dress: the neatest possible figure in itself.  The small shoes,
+with toes delicately turned out, stood upon the very pressure of
+some old iron weight; and a pile of harsh discoloured leather had
+unconsciously given place to the very same little pair of black silk
+stockings, which had been the objects of Mrs Nickleby's peculiar
+care.  Rats and mice, and such small gear, had long ago been
+starved, or had emigrated to better quarters: and, in their stead,
+appeared gloves, bands, scarfs, hair-pins, and many other little
+devices, almost as ingenious in their way as rats and mice
+themselves, for the tantalisation of mankind.  About and among them
+all, moved Kate herself, not the least beautiful or unwonted relief
+to the stern, old, gloomy building.
+
+In good time, or in bad time, as the reader likes to take it--for
+Mrs Nickleby's impatience went a great deal faster than the clocks
+at that end of the town, and Kate was dressed to the very last hair-
+pin a full hour and a half before it was at all necessary to begin
+to think about it--in good time, or in bad time, the toilet was
+completed; and it being at length the hour agreed upon for starting,
+the milkman fetched a coach from the nearest stand, and Kate, with
+many adieux to her mother, and many kind messages to Miss La Creevy,
+who was to come to tea, seated herself in it, and went away in
+state, if ever anybody went away in state in a hackney coach yet.
+And the coach, and the coachman, and the horses, rattled, and
+jangled, and whipped, and cursed, and swore, and tumbled on
+together, until they came to Golden Square.
+
+The coachman gave a tremendous double knock at the door, which was
+opened long before he had done, as quickly as if there had been a
+man behind it, with his hand tied to the latch.  Kate, who had
+expected no more uncommon appearance than Newman Noggs in a clean
+shirt, was not a little astonished to see that the opener was a man
+in handsome livery, and that there were two or three others in the
+hall.  There was no doubt about its being the right house, however,
+for there was the name upon the door; so she accepted the laced
+coat-sleeve which was tendered her, and entering the house, was
+ushered upstairs, into a back drawing-room, where she was left
+alone.
+
+If she had been surprised at the apparition of the footman, she was
+perfectly absorbed in amazement at the richness and splendour of the
+furniture.  The softest and most elegant carpets, the most exquisite
+pictures, the costliest mirrors; articles of richest ornament, quite
+dazzling from their beauty and perplexing from the prodigality with
+which they were scattered around; encountered her on every side.
+The very staircase nearly down to the hall-door, was crammed with
+beautiful and luxurious things, as though the house were brimful of
+riches, which, with a very trifling addition, would fairly run over
+into the street.
+
+Presently, she heard a series of loud double knocks at the street-
+door, and after every knock some new voice in the next room; the
+tones of Mr Ralph Nickleby were easily distinguishable at first, but
+by degrees they merged into the general buzz of conversation, and
+all she could ascertain was, that there were several gentlemen with
+no very musical voices, who talked very loud, laughed very heartily,
+and swore more than she would have thought quite necessary.  But
+this was a question of taste.
+
+At length, the door opened, and Ralph himself, divested of his
+boots, and ceremoniously embellished with black silks and shoes,
+presented his crafty face.
+
+'I couldn't see you before, my dear,' he said, in a low tone, and
+pointing, as he spoke, to the next room.  'I was engaged in
+receiving them.  Now--shall I take you in?'
+
+'Pray, uncle,' said Kate, a little flurried, as people much more
+conversant with society often are, when they are about to enter a
+room full of strangers, and have had time to think of it previously,
+'are there any ladies here?'
+
+'No,' said Ralph, shortly, 'I don't know any.'
+
+'Must I go in immediately?' asked Kate, drawing back a little.
+
+'As you please,' said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders.  'They are all
+come, and dinner will be announced directly afterwards--that's all.'
+
+Kate would have entreated a few minutes' respite, but reflecting
+that her uncle might consider the payment of the hackney-coach fare
+a sort of bargain for her punctuality, she suffered him to draw her
+arm through his, and to lead her away.
+
+Seven or eight gentlemen were standing round the fire when they went
+in, and, as they were talking very loud, were not aware of their
+entrance until Mr Ralph Nickleby, touching one on the coat-sleeve,
+said in a harsh emphatic voice, as if to attract general attention--
+
+'Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, Miss Nickleby.'
+
+The group dispersed, as if in great surprise, and the gentleman
+addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the most
+superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache,
+a head of hair, and a young face.
+
+'Eh!' said the gentleman.  'What--the--deyvle!'
+
+With which broken ejaculations, he fixed his glass in his eye, and
+stared at Miss Nickleby in great surprise.
+
+'My niece, my lord,' said Ralph.
+
+'Then my ears did not deceive me, and it's not wa-a-x work,' said
+his lordship.  'How de do?  I'm very happy.'  And then his lordship
+turned to another superlative gentleman, something older, something
+stouter, something redder in the face, and something longer upon
+town, and said in a loud whisper that the girl was 'deyvlish pitty.'
+
+'Introduce me, Nickleby,' said this second gentleman, who was
+lounging with his back to the fire, and both elbows on the
+chimneypiece.
+
+'Sir Mulberry Hawk,' said Ralph.
+
+'Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby,' said
+Lord Frederick Verisopht.
+
+'Don't leave me out, Nickleby,' cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who
+was sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading the paper.
+
+'Mr Pyke,' said Ralph.
+
+'Nor me, Nickleby,' cried a gentleman with a flushed face and a
+flash air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry Hawk.
+
+'Mr Pluck,' said Ralph.  Then wheeling about again, towards a
+gentleman with the neck of a stork and the legs of no animal in
+particular, Ralph introduced him as the Honourable Mr Snobb; and a
+white-headed person at the table as Colonel Chowser.  The colonel
+was in conversation with somebody, who appeared to be a make-weight,
+and was not introduced at all.
+
+There were two circumstances which, in this early stage of the
+party, struck home to Kate's bosom, and brought the blood tingling
+to her face.  One was the flippant contempt with which the guests
+evidently regarded her uncle, and the other, the easy insolence of
+their manner towards herself.  That the first symptom was very
+likely to lead to the aggravation of the second, it needed no great
+penetration to foresee.  And here Mr Ralph Nickleby had reckoned
+without his host; for however fresh from the country a young lady
+(by nature) may be, and however unacquainted with conventional
+behaviour, the chances are, that she will have quite as strong an
+innate sense of the decencies and proprieties of life as if she had
+run the gauntlet of a dozen London seasons--possibly a stronger one,
+for such senses have been known to blunt in this improving process.
+
+When Ralph had completed the ceremonial of introduction, he led his
+blushing niece to a seat.  As he did so, he glanced warily round as
+though to assure himself of the impression which her unlooked-for
+appearance had created.
+
+'An unexpected playsure, Nickleby,' said Lord Frederick Verisopht,
+taking his glass out of his right eye, where it had, until now, done
+duty on Kate, and fixing it in his left, to bring it to bear on
+Ralph.
+
+'Designed to surprise you, Lord Frederick,' said Mr Pluck.
+
+'Not a bad idea,' said his lordship, 'and one that would almost
+warrant the addition of an extra two and a half per cent.'
+
+'Nickleby,' said Sir Mulberry Hawk, in a thick coarse voice, 'take
+the hint, and tack it on the other five-and-twenty, or whatever it
+is, and give me half for the advice.'
+
+Sir Mulberry garnished this speech with a hoarse laugh, and
+terminated it with a pleasant oath regarding Mr Nickleby's limbs,
+whereat Messrs Pyke and Pluck laughed consumedly.
+
+These gentlemen had not yet quite recovered the jest, when dinner
+was announced, and then they were thrown into fresh ecstasies by a
+similar cause; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess of humour, shot
+dexterously past Lord Frederick Verisopht who was about to lead Kate
+downstairs, and drew her arm through his up to the elbow.
+
+'No, damn it, Verisopht,' said Sir Mulberry, 'fair play's a jewel,
+and Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter with our eyes ten minutes
+ago.'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the honourable Mr Snobb, 'very good, very
+good.'
+
+Rendered additionally witty by this applause, Sir Mulberry Hawk
+leered upon his friends most facetiously, and led Kate downstairs
+with an air of familiarity, which roused in her gentle breast such
+burning indignation, as she felt it almost impossible to repress.
+Nor was the intensity of these feelings at all diminished, when she
+found herself placed at the top of the table, with Sir Mulberry Hawk
+and Lord Frederick Verisopht on either side.
+
+'Oh, you've found your way into our neighbourhood, have you?' said
+Sir Mulberry as his lordship sat down.
+
+'Of course,' replied Lord Frederick, fixing his eyes on Miss
+Nickleby, 'how can you a-ask me?'
+
+'Well, you attend to your dinner,' said Sir Mulberry, 'and don't
+mind Miss Nickleby and me, for we shall prove very indifferent
+company, I dare say.'
+
+'I wish you'd interfere here, Nickleby,' said Lord Frederick.
+
+'What is the matter, my lord?' demanded Ralph from the bottom of the
+table, where he was supported by Messrs Pyke and Pluck.
+
+'This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising your niece,' said Lord Frederick.
+
+'He has a tolerable share of everything that you lay claim to, my
+lord,' said Ralph with a sneer.
+
+''Gad, so he has,' replied the young man; 'deyvle take me if I know
+which is master in my house, he or I.'
+
+'I know,' muttered Ralph.
+
+'I think I shall cut him off with a shilling,' said the young
+nobleman, jocosely.
+
+'No, no, curse it,' said Sir Mulberry.  'When you come to the
+shilling--the last shilling--I'll cut you fast enough; but till
+then, I'll never leave you--you may take your oath of it.'
+
+This sally (which was strictly founded on fact) was received with a
+general roar, above which, was plainly distinguishable the laughter
+of Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck, who were, evidently, Sir Mulberry's toads
+in ordinary.  Indeed, it was not difficult to see, that the majority
+of the company preyed upon the unfortunate young lord, who, weak and
+silly as he was, appeared by far the least vicious of the party.
+Sir Mulberry Hawk was remarkable for his tact in ruining, by himself
+and his creatures, young gentlemen of fortune--a genteel and elegant
+profession, of which he had undoubtedly gained the head.  With all
+the boldness of an original genius, he had struck out an entirely
+new course of treatment quite opposed to the usual method; his
+custom being, when he had gained the ascendancy over those he took
+in hand, rather to keep them down than to give them their own way;
+and to exercise his vivacity upon them openly, and without reserve.
+Thus, he made them butts, in a double sense, and while he emptied
+them with great address, caused them to ring with sundry well-
+administered taps, for the diversion of society.
+
+The dinner was as remarkable for the splendour and completeness of
+its appointments as the mansion itself, and the company were
+remarkable for doing it ample justice, in which respect Messrs Pyke
+and Pluck particularly signalised themselves; these two gentlemen
+eating of every dish, and drinking of every bottle, with a capacity
+and perseverance truly astonishing.  They were remarkably fresh,
+too, notwithstanding their great exertions: for, on the appearance
+of the dessert, they broke out again, as if nothing serious had
+taken place since breakfast.
+
+'Well,' said Lord Frederick, sipping his first glass of port, 'if
+this is a discounting dinner, all I have to say is, deyvle take me,
+if it wouldn't be a good pla-an to get discount every day.'
+
+'You'll have plenty of it, in your time,' returned Sir Mulberry
+Hawk; 'Nickleby will tell you that.'
+
+'What do you say, Nickleby?' inquired the young man; 'am I to be a
+good customer?'
+
+'It depends entirely on circumstances, my lord,' replied Ralph.
+
+'On your lordship's circumstances,' interposed Colonel Chowser of
+the Militia--and the race-courses.
+
+The gallant colonel glanced at Messrs Pyke and Pluck as if he
+thought they ought to laugh at his joke; but those gentlemen, being
+only engaged to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, were, to his signal
+discomfiture, as grave as a pair of undertakers.  To add to his
+defeat, Sir Mulberry, considering any such efforts an invasion of
+his peculiar privilege, eyed the offender steadily, through his
+glass, as if astonished at his presumption, and audibly stated his
+impression that it was an 'infernal liberty,' which being a hint to
+Lord Frederick, he put up HIS glass, and surveyed the object of
+censure as if he were some extraordinary wild animal then exhibiting
+for the first time.  As a matter of course, Messrs Pyke and Pluck
+stared at the individual whom Sir Mulberry Hawk stared at; so, the
+poor colonel, to hide his confusion, was reduced to the necessity of
+holding his port before his right eye and affecting to scrutinise
+its colour with the most lively interest.
+
+All this while, Kate had sat as silently as she could, scarcely
+daring to raise her eyes, lest they should encounter the admiring
+gaze of Lord Frederick Verisopht, or, what was still more
+embarrassing, the bold looks of his friend Sir Mulberry.  The latter
+gentleman was obliging enough to direct general attention towards
+her.
+
+'Here is Miss Nickleby,' observed Sir Mulberry, 'wondering why the
+deuce somebody doesn't make love to her.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Kate, looking hastily up, 'I--' and then she
+stopped, feeling it would have been better to have said nothing at
+all.
+
+'I'll hold any man fifty pounds,' said Sir Mulberry, 'that Miss
+Nickleby can't look in my face, and tell me she wasn't thinking so.'
+
+'Done!' cried the noble gull.  'Within ten minutes.'
+
+'Done!' responded Sir Mulberry.  The money was produced on both
+sides, and the Honourable Mr Snobb was elected to the double office
+of stake-holder and time-keeper.
+
+'Pray,' said Kate, in great confusion, while these preliminaries
+were in course of completion.  'Pray do not make me the subject of
+any bets.  Uncle, I cannot really--'
+
+'Why not, my dear?' replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however,
+there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and
+would rather that the proposition had not been broached.  'It is
+done in a moment; there is nothing in it.  If the gentlemen insist
+on it--'
+
+'I don't insist on it,' said Sir Mulberry, with a loud laugh.  'That
+is, I by no means insist upon Miss Nickleby's making the denial, for
+if she does, I lose; but I shall be glad to see her bright eyes,
+especially as she favours the mahogany so much.'
+
+'So she does, and it's too ba-a-d of you, Miss Nickleby,' said the
+noble youth.
+
+'Quite cruel,' said Mr Pyke.
+
+'Horrid cruel,' said Mr Pluck.
+
+'I don't care if I do lose,' said Sir Mulberry; 'for one tolerable
+look at Miss Nickleby's eyes is worth double the money.'
+
+'More,' said Mr Pyke.
+
+'Far more,' said Mr Pluck.
+
+'How goes the enemy, Snobb?' asked Sir Mulberry Hawk.
+
+'Four minutes gone.'
+
+'Bravo!'
+
+'Won't you ma-ake one effort for me, Miss Nickleby?' asked Lord
+Frederick, after a short interval.
+
+'You needn't trouble yourself to inquire, my buck,' said Sir
+Mulberry; 'Miss Nickleby and I understand each other; she declares
+on my side, and shows her taste.  You haven't a chance, old fellow.
+Time, Snobb?'
+
+'Eight minutes gone.'
+
+'Get the money ready,' said Sir Mulberry; 'you'll soon hand over.'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Pyke.
+
+Mr Pluck, who always came second, and topped his companion if he
+could, screamed outright.
+
+The poor girl, who was so overwhelmed with confusion that she
+scarcely knew what she did, had determined to remain perfectly
+quiet; but fearing that by so doing she might seem to countenance
+Sir Mulberry's boast, which had been uttered with great coarseness
+and vulgarity of manner, raised her eyes, and looked him in the
+face.  There was something so odious, so insolent, so repulsive in
+the look which met her, that, without the power to stammer forth a
+syllable, she rose and hurried from the room.  She restrained her
+tears by a great effort until she was alone upstairs, and then gave
+them vent.
+
+'Capital!' said Sir Mulberry Hawk, putting the stakes in his pocket.
+
+'That's a girl of spirit, and we'll drink her health.'
+
+It is needless to say, that Pyke and Co. responded, with great
+warmth of manner, to this proposal, or that the toast was drunk with
+many little insinuations from the firm, relative to the completeness
+of Sir Mulberry's conquest.  Ralph, who, while the attention of the
+other guests was attracted to the principals in the preceding scene,
+had eyed them like a wolf, appeared to breathe more freely now his
+niece was gone; the decanters passing quickly round, he leaned back
+in his chair, and turned his eyes from speaker to speaker, as they
+warmed with wine, with looks that seemed to search their hearts, and
+lay bare, for his distempered sport, every idle thought within them.
+
+Meanwhile Kate, left wholly to herself, had, in some degree,
+recovered her composure.  She had learnt from a female attendant,
+that her uncle wished to see her before she left, and had also
+gleaned the satisfactory intelligence, that the gentlemen would take
+coffee at table.  The prospect of seeing them no more, contributed
+greatly to calm her agitation, and, taking up a book, she composed
+herself to read.
+
+She started sometimes, when the sudden opening of the dining-room
+door let loose a wild shout of noisy revelry, and more than once
+rose in great alarm, as a fancied footstep on the staircase
+impressed her with the fear that some stray member of the party was
+returning alone.  Nothing occurring, however, to realise her
+apprehensions, she endeavoured to fix her attention more closely on
+her book, in which by degrees she became so much interested, that
+she had read on through several chapters without heed of time or
+place, when she was terrified by suddenly hearing her name
+pronounced by a man's voice close at her ear.
+
+The book fell from her hand.  Lounging on an ottoman close beside
+her, was Sir Mulberry Hawk, evidently the worse--if a man be a
+ruffian at heart, he is never the better--for wine.
+
+'What a delightful studiousness!' said this accomplished gentleman.
+'Was it real, now, or only to display the eyelashes?'
+
+Kate, looking anxiously towards the door, made no reply.
+
+'I have looked at 'em for five minutes,' said Sir Mulberry.  'Upon
+my soul, they're perfect.  Why did I speak, and destroy such a
+pretty little picture?'
+
+'Do me the favour to be silent now, sir,' replied Kate.
+
+'No, don't,' said Sir Mulberry, folding his crushed hat to lay his
+elbow on, and bringing himself still closer to the young lady; 'upon
+my life, you oughtn't to.  Such a devoted slave of yours, Miss
+Nickleby--it's an infernal thing to treat him so harshly, upon my
+soul it is.'
+
+'I wish you to understand, sir,' said Kate, trembling in spite of
+herself, but speaking with great indignation, 'that your behaviour
+offends and disgusts me.  If you have a spark of gentlemanly feeling
+remaining, you will leave me.'
+
+'Now why,' said Sir Mulberry, 'why will you keep up this appearance
+of excessive rigour, my sweet creature?  Now, be more natural--my
+dear Miss Nickleby, be more natural--do.'
+
+Kate hastily rose; but as she rose, Sir Mulberry caught her dress,
+and forcibly detained her.
+
+'Let me go, sir,' she cried, her heart swelling with anger.  'Do you
+hear?  Instantly--this moment.'
+
+'Sit down, sit down,' said Sir Mulberry; 'I want to talk to you.'
+
+'Unhand me, sir, this instant,' cried Kate.
+
+'Not for the world,' rejoined Sir Mulberry.  Thus speaking, he
+leaned over, as if to replace her in her chair; but the young lady,
+making a violent effort to disengage herself, he lost his balance,
+and measured his length upon the ground.  As Kate sprung forward to
+leave the room, Mr Ralph Nickleby appeared in the doorway, and
+confronted her.
+
+'What is this?' said Ralph.
+
+'It is this, sir,' replied Kate, violently agitated: 'that beneath
+the roof where I, a helpless girl, your dead brother's child, should
+most have found protection, I have been exposed to insult which
+should make you shrink to look upon me.  Let me pass you.'
+
+Ralph DID shrink, as the indignant girl fixed her kindling eye upon
+him; but he did not comply with her injunction, nevertheless: for he
+led her to a distant seat, and returning, and approaching Sir
+Mulberry Hawk, who had by this time risen, motioned towards the
+door.
+
+'Your way lies there, sir,' said Ralph, in a suppressed voice, that
+some devil might have owned with pride.
+
+'What do you mean by that?' demanded his friend, fiercely.
+
+The swoln veins stood out like sinews on Ralph's wrinkled forehead,
+and the nerves about his mouth worked as though some unendurable
+emotion wrung them; but he smiled disdainfully, and again pointed to
+the door.
+
+'Do you know me, you old madman?' asked Sir Mulberry.
+
+'Well,' said Ralph.  The fashionable vagabond for the moment quite
+quailed under the steady look of the older sinner, and walked
+towards the door, muttering as he went.
+
+'You wanted the lord, did you?' he said, stopping short when he
+reached the door, as if a new light had broken in upon him, and
+confronting Ralph again.  'Damme, I was in the way, was I?'
+
+Ralph smiled again, but made no answer.
+
+'Who brought him to you first?' pursued Sir Mulberry; 'and how,
+without me, could you ever have wound him in your net as you have?'
+
+'The net is a large one, and rather full,' said Ralph.  'Take care
+that it chokes nobody in the meshes.'
+
+'You would sell your flesh and blood for money; yourself, if you
+have not already made a bargain with the devil,' retorted the other.
+'Do you mean to tell me that your pretty niece was not brought here
+as a decoy for the drunken boy downstairs?'
+
+Although this hurried dialogue was carried on in a suppressed tone
+on both sides, Ralph looked involuntarily round to ascertain that
+Kate had not moved her position so as to be within hearing.  His
+adversary saw the advantage he had gained, and followed it up.
+
+'Do you mean to tell me,' he asked again, 'that it is not so?  Do
+you mean to say that if he had found his way up here instead of me,
+you wouldn't have been a little more blind, and a little more deaf,
+and a little less flourishing, than you have been?  Come, Nickleby,
+answer me that.'
+
+'I tell you this,' replied Ralph, 'that if I brought her here, as a
+matter of business--'
+
+'Ay, that's the word,' interposed Sir Mulberry, with a laugh.
+'You're coming to yourself again now.'
+
+'--As a matter of business,' pursued Ralph, speaking slowly and
+firmly, as a man who has made up his mind to say no more, 'because I
+thought she might make some impression on the silly youth you have
+taken in hand and are lending good help to ruin, I knew--knowing
+him--that it would be long before he outraged her girl's feelings,
+and that unless he offended by mere puppyism and emptiness, he
+would, with a little management, respect the sex and conduct even of
+his usurer's niece.  But if I thought to draw him on more gently by
+this device, I did not think of subjecting the girl to the
+licentiousness and brutality of so old a hand as you.  And now we
+understand each other.'
+
+'Especially as there was nothing to be got by it--eh?' sneered Sir
+Mulberry.
+
+'Exactly so,' said Ralph.  He had turned away, and looked over his
+shoulder to make this last reply.  The eyes of the two worthies met,
+with an expression as if each rascal felt that there was no
+disguising himself from the other; and Sir Mulberry Hawk shrugged
+his shoulders and walked slowly out.
+
+His friend closed the door, and looked restlessly towards the spot
+where his niece still remained in the attitude in which he had left
+her.  She had flung herself heavily upon the couch, and with her
+head drooping over the cushion, and her face hidden in her hands,
+seemed to be still weeping in an agony of shame and grief.
+
+Ralph would have walked into any poverty-stricken debtor's house,
+and pointed him out to a bailiff, though in attendance upon a young
+child's death-bed, without the smallest concern, because it would
+have been a matter quite in the ordinary course of business, and the
+man would have been an offender against his only code of morality.
+But, here was a young girl, who had done no wrong save that of
+coming into the world alive; who had patiently yielded to all his
+wishes; who had tried hard to please him--above all, who didn't owe
+him money--and he felt awkward and nervous.
+
+Ralph took a chair at some distance; then, another chair a little
+nearer; then, moved a little nearer still; then, nearer again, and
+finally sat himself on the same sofa, and laid his hand on Kate's
+arm.
+
+'Hush, my dear!' he said, as she drew it back, and her sobs burst
+out afresh.  'Hush, hush!  Don't mind it, now; don't think of it.'
+
+'Oh, for pity's sake, let me go home,' cried Kate.  'Let me leave
+this house, and go home.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said Ralph.  'You shall.  But you must dry your eyes
+first, and compose yourself.  Let me raise your head.  There--
+there.'
+
+'Oh, uncle!' exclaimed Kate, clasping her hands.  'What have I done
+--what have I done--that you should subject me to this?  If I had
+wronged you in thought, or word, or deed, it would have been most
+cruel to me, and the memory of one you must have loved in some old
+time; but--'
+
+'Only listen to me for a moment,' interrupted Ralph, seriously
+alarmed by the violence of her emotions.  'I didn't know it would be
+so; it was impossible for me to foresee it.  I did all I could.--
+Come, let us walk about.  You are faint with the closeness of the
+room, and the heat of these lamps.  You will be better now, if you
+make the slightest effort.'
+
+'I will do anything,' replied Kate, 'if you will only send me home.'
+
+'Well, well, I will,' said Ralph; 'but you must get back your own
+looks; for those you have, will frighten them, and nobody must know
+of this but you and I.  Now let us walk the other way.  There.  You
+look better even now.'
+
+With such encouragements as these, Ralph Nickleby walked to and fro,
+with his niece leaning on his arm; actually trembling beneath her
+touch.
+
+In the same manner, when he judged it prudent to allow her to
+depart, he supported her downstairs, after adjusting her shawl and
+performing such little offices, most probably for the first time in
+his life.  Across the hall, and down the steps, Ralph led her too;
+nor did he withdraw his hand until she was seated in the coach.
+
+As the door of the vehicle was roughly closed, a comb fell from
+Kate's hair, close at her uncle's feet; and as he picked it up, and
+returned it into her hand, the light from a neighbouring lamp shone
+upon her face.  The lock of hair that had escaped and curled loosely
+over her brow, the traces of tears yet scarcely dry, the flushed
+cheek, the look of sorrow, all fired some dormant train of
+recollection in the old man's breast; and the face of his dead
+brother seemed present before him, with the very look it bore on
+some occasion of boyish grief, of which every minutest circumstance
+flashed upon his mind, with the distinctness of a scene of
+yesterday.
+
+Ralph Nickleby, who was proof against all appeals of blood and
+kindred--who was steeled against every tale of sorrow and distress--
+staggered while he looked, and went back into his house, as a man
+who had seen a spirit from some world beyond the grave.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+Wherein Nicholas at length encounters his Uncle, to whom he
+expresses his Sentiments with much Candour.  His Resolution.
+
+
+Little Miss La Creevy trotted briskly through divers streets at the
+west end of the town, early on Monday morning--the day after the
+dinner--charged with the important commission of acquainting Madame
+Mantalini that Miss Nickleby was too unwell to attend that day, but
+hoped to be enabled to resume her duties on the morrow.  And as Miss
+La Creevy walked along, revolving in her mind various genteel forms
+and elegant turns of expression, with a view to the selection of the
+very best in which to couch her communication, she cogitated a good
+deal upon the probable causes of her young friend's indisposition.
+
+'I don't know what to make of it,' said Miss La Creevy.  'Her eyes
+were decidedly red last night.  She said she had a headache;
+headaches don't occasion red eyes.  She must have been crying.'
+
+Arriving at this conclusion, which, indeed, she had established to
+her perfect satisfaction on the previous evening, Miss La Creevy
+went on to consider--as she had done nearly all night--what new
+cause of unhappiness her young friend could possibly have had.
+
+'I can't think of anything,' said the little portrait painter.
+'Nothing at all, unless it was the behaviour of that old bear.
+Cross to her, I suppose?  Unpleasant brute!'
+
+Relieved by this expression of opinion, albeit it was vented upon
+empty air, Miss La Creevy trotted on to Madame Mantalini's; and
+being informed that the governing power was not yet out of bed,
+requested an interview with the second in command; whereupon Miss
+Knag appeared.
+
+'So far as I am concerned,' said Miss Knag, when the message had
+been delivered, with many ornaments of speech; 'I could spare Miss
+Nickleby for evermore.'
+
+'Oh, indeed, ma'am!' rejoined Miss La Creevy, highly offended.
+'But, you see, you are not mistress of the business, and therefore
+it's of no great consequence.'
+
+'Very good, ma'am,' said Miss Knag.  'Have you any further commands
+for me?'
+
+'No, I have not, ma'am,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+
+'Then good-morning, ma'am,' said Miss Knag.
+
+'Good-morning to you, ma'am; and many obligations for your extreme
+politeness and good breeding,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+
+Thus terminating the interview, during which both ladies had
+trembled very much, and been marvellously polite--certain
+indications that they were within an inch of a very desperate
+quarrel--Miss La Creevy bounced out of the room, and into the
+street.
+
+'I wonder who that is,' said the queer little soul.  'A nice person
+to know, I should think!  I wish I had the painting of her: I'D do
+her justice.'  So, feeling quite satisfied that she had said a very
+cutting thing at Miss Knag's expense, Miss La Creevy had a hearty
+laugh, and went home to breakfast in great good humour.
+
+Here was one of the advantages of having lived alone so long!  The
+little bustling, active, cheerful creature existed entirely within
+herself, talked to herself, made a confidante of herself, was as
+sarcastic as she could be, on people who offended her, by herself;
+pleased herself, and did no harm.  If she indulged in scandal,
+nobody's reputation suffered; and if she enjoyed a little bit of
+revenge, no living soul was one atom the worse.  One of the many to
+whom, from straitened circumstances, a consequent inability to form
+the associations they would wish, and a disinclination to mix with
+the society they could obtain, London is as complete a solitude as
+the plains of Syria, the humble artist had pursued her lonely, but
+contented way for many years; and, until the peculiar misfortunes of
+the Nickleby family attracted her attention, had made no friends,
+though brimful of the friendliest feelings to all mankind.  There
+are many warm hearts in the same solitary guise as poor little Miss
+La Creevy's.
+
+However, that's neither here nor there, just now.  She went home to
+breakfast, and had scarcely caught the full flavour of her first sip
+of tea, when the servant announced a gentleman, whereat Miss La
+Creevy, at once imagining a new sitter transfixed by admiration at
+the street-door case, was in unspeakable consternation at the
+presence of the tea-things.
+
+'Here, take 'em away; run with 'em into the bedroom; anywhere,' said
+Miss La Creevy.  'Dear, dear; to think that I should be late on this
+particular morning, of all others, after being ready for three weeks
+by half-past eight o'clock, and not a soul coming near the place!'
+
+'Don't let me put you out of the way,' said a voice Miss La Creevy
+knew.  'I told the servant not to mention my name, because I wished
+to surprise you.'
+
+'Mr Nicholas!' cried Miss La Creevy, starting in great astonishment.
+'You have not forgotten me, I see,' replied Nicholas, extending his
+hand.
+
+'Why, I think I should even have known you if I had met you in the
+street,' said Miss La Creevy, with a smile.  'Hannah, another cup
+and saucer.  Now, I'll tell you what, young man; I'll trouble you
+not to repeat the impertinence you were guilty of, on the morning
+you went away.'
+
+'You would not be very angry, would you?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Wouldn't I!' said Miss La Creevy.  'You had better try; that's
+all!'
+
+Nicholas, with becoming gallantry, immediately took Miss La Creevy
+at her word, who uttered a faint scream and slapped his face; but it
+was not a very hard slap, and that's the truth.
+
+'I never saw such a rude creature!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy.
+
+'You told me to try,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Well; but I was speaking ironically,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+
+'Oh! that's another thing,' said Nicholas; 'you should have told me
+that, too.'
+
+'I dare say you didn't know, indeed!' retorted Miss La Creevy.
+'But, now I look at you again, you seem thinner than when I saw you
+last, and your face is haggard and pale.  And how come you to have
+left Yorkshire?'
+
+She stopped here; for there was so much heart in her altered tone
+and manner, that Nicholas was quite moved.
+
+'I need look somewhat changed,' he said, after a short silence; 'for
+I have undergone some suffering, both of mind and body, since I left
+London.  I have been very poor, too, and have even suffered from
+want.'
+
+'Good Heaven, Mr Nicholas!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy, 'what are you
+telling me?'
+
+'Nothing which need distress you quite so much,' answered Nicholas,
+with a more sprightly air; 'neither did I come here to bewail my
+lot, but on matter more to the purpose.  I wish to meet my uncle
+face to face.  I should tell you that first.'
+
+'Then all I have to say about that is,' interposed Miss La Creevy,
+'that I don't envy you your taste; and that sitting in the same room
+with his very boots, would put me out of humour for a fortnight.'
+
+'In the main,' said Nicholas, 'there may be no great difference of
+opinion between you and me, so far; but you will understand, that I
+desire to confront him, to justify myself, and to cast his duplicity
+and malice in his throat.'
+
+'That's quite another matter,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.  'Heaven
+forgive me; but I shouldn't cry my eyes quite out of my head, if
+they choked him.  Well?'
+
+'To this end, I called upon him this morning,' said Nicholas.  'He
+only returned to town on Saturday, and I knew nothing of his arrival
+until late last night.'
+
+'And did you see him?' asked Miss La Creevy.
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas.  'He had gone out.'
+
+'Hah!' said Miss La Creevy; 'on some kind, charitable business, I
+dare say.'
+
+'I have reason to believe,' pursued Nicholas, 'from what has been
+told me, by a friend of mine who is acquainted with his movements,
+that he intends seeing my mother and sister today, and giving them
+his version of the occurrences that have befallen me.  I will meet
+him there.'
+
+'That's right,' said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands.  'And yet, I
+don't know,' she added, 'there is much to be thought of--others to
+be considered.'
+
+'I have considered others,' rejoined Nicholas; 'but as honesty and
+honour are both at issue, nothing shall deter me.'
+
+'You should know best,' said Miss La Creevy.
+
+'In this case I hope so,' answered Nicholas.  'And all I want you to
+do for me, is, to prepare them for my coming.  They think me a long
+way off, and if I went wholly unexpected, I should frighten them.
+If you can spare time to tell them that you have seen me, and that I
+shall be with them in a quarter of an hour afterwards, you will do
+me a great service.'
+
+'I wish I could do you, or any of you, a greater,' said Miss La
+Creevy; 'but the power to serve, is as seldom joined with the will,
+as the will is with the power, I think.'
+
+Talking on very fast and very much, Miss La Creevy finished her
+breakfast with great expedition, put away the tea-caddy and hid the
+key under the fender, resumed her bonnet, and, taking Nicholas's
+arm, sallied forth at once to the city.  Nicholas left her near the
+door of his mother's house, and promised to return within a quarter
+of an hour.
+
+It so chanced that Ralph Nickleby, at length seeing fit, for his own
+purposes, to communicate the atrocities of which Nicholas had been
+guilty, had (instead of first proceeding to another quarter of the
+town on business, as Newman Noggs supposed he would) gone straight
+to his sister-in-law.  Hence, when Miss La Creevy, admitted by a
+girl who was cleaning the house, made her way to the sitting-room,
+she found Mrs Nickleby and Kate in tears, and Ralph just concluding
+his statement of his nephew's misdemeanours.  Kate beckoned her not
+to retire, and Miss La Creevy took a seat in silence.
+
+'You are here already, are you, my gentleman?' thought the little
+woman.  'Then he shall announce himself, and see what effect that
+has on you.'
+
+'This is pretty,' said Ralph, folding up Miss Squeers's note; 'very
+pretty.  I recommend him--against all my previous conviction, for I
+knew he would never do any good--to a man with whom, behaving
+himself properly, he might have remained, in comfort, for years.
+What is the result?  Conduct for which he might hold up his hand at
+the Old Bailey.'
+
+'I never will believe it,' said Kate, indignantly; 'never.  It is
+some base conspiracy, which carries its own falsehood with it.'
+
+'My dear,' said Ralph, 'you wrong the worthy man.  These are not
+inventions.  The man is assaulted, your brother is not to be found;
+this boy, of whom they speak, goes with him--remember, remember.'
+
+'It is impossible,' said Kate.  'Nicholas!--and a thief too!  Mama,
+how can you sit and hear such statements?'
+
+Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had, at no time, been remarkable for the
+possession of a very clear understanding, and who had been reduced
+by the late changes in her affairs to a most complicated state of
+perplexity, made no other reply to this earnest remonstrance than
+exclaiming from behind a mass of pocket-handkerchief, that she never
+could have believed it--thereby most ingeniously leaving her hearers
+to suppose that she did believe it.
+
+'It would be my duty, if he came in my way, to deliver him up to
+justice,' said Ralph, 'my bounden duty; I should have no other
+course, as a man of the world and a man of business, to pursue.  And
+yet,' said Ralph, speaking in a very marked manner, and looking
+furtively, but fixedly, at Kate, 'and yet I would not.  I would
+spare the feelings of his--of his sister.  And his mother of
+course,' added Ralph, as though by an afterthought, and with far
+less emphasis.
+
+Kate very well understood that this was held out as an additional
+inducement to her to preserve the strictest silence regarding the
+events of the preceding night.  She looked involuntarily towards
+Ralph as he ceased to speak, but he had turned his eyes another way,
+and seemed for the moment quite unconscious of her presence.
+
+'Everything,' said Ralph, after a long silence, broken only by Mrs
+Nickleby's sobs, 'everything combines to prove the truth of this
+letter, if indeed there were any possibility of disputing it.  Do
+innocent men steal away from the sight of honest folks, and skulk in
+hiding-places, like outlaws?  Do innocent men inveigle nameless
+vagabonds, and prowl with them about the country as idle robbers do?
+Assault, riot, theft, what do you call these?'
+
+'A lie!' cried a voice, as the door was dashed open, and Nicholas
+came into the room.
+
+In the first moment of surprise, and possibly of alarm, Ralph rose
+from his seat, and fell back a few paces, quite taken off his guard
+by this unexpected apparition.  In another moment, he stood, fixed
+and immovable with folded arms, regarding his nephew with a scowl;
+while Kate and Miss La Creevy threw themselves between the two, to
+prevent the personal violence which the fierce excitement of
+Nicholas appeared to threaten.
+
+'Dear Nicholas,' cried his sister, clinging to him.  'Be calm,
+consider--'
+
+'Consider, Kate!' cried Nicholas, clasping her hand so tight in
+the tumult of his anger, that she could scarcely bear the pain.
+'When I consider all, and think of what has passed, I need be
+made of iron to stand before him.'
+
+'Or bronze,' said Ralph, quietly; 'there is not hardihood enough in
+flesh and blood to face it out.'
+
+'Oh dear, dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, 'that things should have come
+to such a pass as this!'
+
+'Who speaks in a tone, as if I had done wrong, and brought disgrace
+on them?' said Nicholas, looking round.
+
+'Your mother, sir,' replied Ralph, motioning towards her.
+
+'Whose ears have been poisoned by you,' said Nicholas; 'by you--who,
+under pretence of deserving the thanks she poured upon you, heaped
+every insult, wrong, and indignity upon my head.  You, who sent me
+to a den where sordid cruelty, worthy of yourself, runs wanton, and
+youthful misery stalks precocious; where the lightness of childhood
+shrinks into the heaviness of age, and its every promise blights,
+and withers as it grows.  I call Heaven to witness,' said Nicholas,
+looking eagerly round, 'that I have seen all this, and that he knows
+it.'
+
+'Refute these calumnies,' said Kate, 'and be more patient, so that
+you may give them no advantage.  Tell us what you really did, and
+show that they are untrue.'
+
+'Of what do they--or of what does he--accuse me?' said Nicholas.
+
+'First, of attacking your master, and being within an ace of
+qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,' interposed Ralph.  'I
+speak plainly, young man, bluster as you will.'
+
+'I interfered,' said Nicholas, 'to save a miserable creature from
+the vilest cruelty.  In so doing, I inflicted such punishment upon a
+wretch as he will not readily forget, though far less than he
+deserved from me.  If the same scene were renewed before me now, I
+would take the same part; but I would strike harder and heavier, and
+brand him with such marks as he should carry to his grave, go to it
+when he would.'
+
+'You hear?' said Ralph, turning to Mrs Nickleby.  'Penitence, this!'
+
+'Oh dear me!' cried Mrs Nickleby, 'I don't know what to think, I
+really don't.'
+
+'Do not speak just now, mama, I entreat you,' said Kate.  'Dear
+Nicholas, I only tell you, that you may know what wickedness can
+prompt, but they accuse you of--a ring is missing, and they dare to
+say that--'
+
+'The woman,' said Nicholas, haughtily, 'the wife of the fellow from
+whom these charges come, dropped--as I suppose--a worthless ring
+among some clothes of mine, early in the morning on which I left the
+house.  At least, I know that she was in the bedroom where they lay,
+struggling with an unhappy child, and that I found it when I opened
+my bundle on the road.  I returned it, at once, by coach, and they
+have it now.'
+
+'I knew, I knew,' said Kate, looking towards her uncle.  'About this
+boy, love, in whose company they say you left?'
+
+'The boy, a silly, helpless creature, from brutality and hard usage,
+is with me now,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'You hear?' said Ralph, appealing to the mother again, 'everything
+proved, even upon his own confession.  Do you choose to restore that
+boy, sir?'
+
+'No, I do not,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'You do not?' sneered Ralph.
+
+'No,' repeated Nicholas, 'not to the man with whom I found him.  I
+would that I knew on whom he has the claim of birth: I might wring
+something from his sense of shame, if he were dead to every tie of
+nature.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Ralph.  'Now, sir, will you hear a word or two from
+me?'
+
+'You can speak when and what you please,' replied Nicholas,
+embracing his sister.  'I take little heed of what you say or
+threaten.'
+
+'Mighty well, sir,' retorted Ralph; 'but perhaps it may concern
+others, who may think it worth their while to listen, and consider
+what I tell them.  I will address your mother, sir, who knows the
+world.'
+
+'Ah! and I only too dearly wish I didn't,' sobbed Mrs Nickleby.
+
+There really was no necessity for the good lady to be much
+distressed upon this particular head; the extent of her worldly
+knowledge being, to say the least, very questionable; and so Ralph
+seemed to think, for he smiled as she spoke.  He then glanced
+steadily at her and Nicholas by turns, as he delivered himself in
+these words:
+
+'Of what I have done, or what I meant to do, for you, ma'am, and my
+niece, I say not one syllable.  I held out no promise, and leave you
+to judge for yourself.  I hold out no threat now, but I say that
+this boy, headstrong, wilful and disorderly as he is, should not
+have one penny of my money, or one crust of my bread, or one grasp
+of my hand, to save him from the loftiest gallows in all Europe.  I
+will not meet him, come where he comes, or hear his name.  I will
+not help him, or those who help him.  With a full knowledge of what
+he brought upon you by so doing, he has come back in his selfish
+sloth, to be an aggravation of your wants, and a burden upon his
+sister's scanty wages.  I regret to leave you, and more to leave
+her, now, but I will not encourage this compound of meanness and
+cruelty, and, as I will not ask you to renounce him, I see you no
+more.'
+
+If Ralph had not known and felt his power in wounding those he
+hated, his glances at Nicholas would have shown it him, in all its
+force, as he proceeded in the above address.  Innocent as the young
+man was of all wrong, every artful insinuation stung, every well-
+considered sarcasm cut him to the quick; and when Ralph noted his
+pale face and quivering lip, he hugged himself to mark how well he
+had chosen the taunts best calculated to strike deep into a young
+and ardent spirit.
+
+'I can't help it,' cried Mrs Nickleby.  'I know you have been very
+good to us, and meant to do a good deal for my dear daughter.  I am
+quite sure of that; I know you did, and it was very kind of you,
+having her at your house and all--and of course it would have been a
+great thing for her and for me too.  But I can't, you know, brother-
+in-law, I can't renounce my own son, even if he has done all you say
+he has--it's not possible; I couldn't do it; so we must go to rack
+and ruin, Kate, my dear.  I can bear it, I dare say.'  Pouring forth
+these and a perfectly wonderful train of other disjointed
+expressions of regret, which no mortal power but Mrs Nickleby's
+could ever have strung together, that lady wrung her hands, and her
+tears fell faster.
+
+'Why do you say "IF Nicholas has done what they say he has," mama?'
+asked Kate, with honest anger.  'You know he has not.'
+
+'I don't know what to think, one way or other, my dear,' said Mrs
+Nickleby; 'Nicholas is so violent, and your uncle has so much
+composure, that I can only hear what he says, and not what Nicholas
+does.  Never mind, don't let us talk any more about it.  We can go
+to the Workhouse, or the Refuge for the Destitute, or the Magdalen
+Hospital, I dare say; and the sooner we go the better.'  With this
+extraordinary jumble of charitable institutions, Mrs Nickleby again
+gave way to her tears.
+
+'Stay,' said Nicholas, as Ralph turned to go.  'You need not leave
+this place, sir, for it will be relieved of my presence in one
+minute, and it will be long, very long, before I darken these doors
+again.'
+
+'Nicholas,' cried Kate, throwing herself on her brother's shoulder,
+'do not say so.  My dear brother, you will break my heart.  Mama,
+speak to him.  Do not mind her, Nicholas; she does not mean it, you
+should know her better.  Uncle, somebody, for Heaven's sake speak to
+him.'
+
+'I never meant, Kate,' said Nicholas, tenderly, 'I never meant to
+stay among you; think better of me than to suppose it possible.  I
+may turn my back on this town a few hours sooner than I intended,
+but what of that?  We shall not forget each other apart, and better
+days will come when we shall part no more.  Be a woman, Kate,' he
+whispered, proudly, 'and do not make me one, while HE looks on.'
+
+'No, no, I will not,' said Kate, eagerly, 'but you will not leave
+us.  Oh! think of all the happy days we have had together, before
+these terrible misfortunes came upon us; of all the comfort and
+happiness of home, and the trials we have to bear now; of our having
+no protector under all the slights and wrongs that poverty so much
+favours, and you cannot leave us to bear them alone, without one
+hand to help us.'
+
+'You will be helped when I am away,' replied Nicholas hurriedly.  'I
+am no help to you, no protector; I should bring you nothing but
+sorrow, and want, and suffering.  My own mother sees it, and her
+fondness and fears for you, point to the course that I should take.
+And so all good angels bless you, Kate, till I can carry you to some
+home of mine, where we may revive the happiness denied to us now,
+and talk of these trials as of things gone by.  Do not keep me here,
+but let me go at once.  There.  Dear girl--dear girl.'
+
+The grasp which had detained him relaxed, and Kate swooned in his
+arms.  Nicholas stooped over her for a few seconds, and placing her
+gently in a chair, confided her to their honest friend.
+
+'I need not entreat your sympathy,' he said, wringing her hand, 'for
+I know your nature.  You will never forget them.'
+
+He stepped up to Ralph, who remained in the same attitude which he
+had preserved throughout the interview, and moved not a finger.
+
+'Whatever step you take, sir,' he said, in a voice inaudible beyond
+themselves, 'I shall keep a strict account of.  I leave them to you,
+at your desire.  There will be a day of reckoning sooner or later,
+and it will be a heavy one for you if they are wronged.'
+
+Ralph did not allow a muscle of his face to indicate that he heard
+one word of this parting address.  He hardly knew that it was
+concluded, and Mrs Nickleby had scarcely made up her mind to detain
+her son by force if necessary, when Nicholas was gone.
+
+As he hurried through the streets to his obscure lodging, seeking to
+keep pace, as it were, with the rapidity of the thoughts which
+crowded upon him, many doubts and hesitations arose in his mind, and
+almost tempted him to return.  But what would they gain by this?
+Supposing he were to put Ralph Nickleby at defiance, and were even
+fortunate enough to obtain some small employment, his being with
+them could only render their present condition worse, and might
+greatly impair their future prospects; for his mother had spoken of
+some new kindnesses towards Kate which she had not denied.  'No,'
+thought Nicholas, 'I have acted for the best.'
+
+But, before he had gone five hundred yards, some other and different
+feeling would come upon him, and then he would lag again, and
+pulling his hat over his eyes, give way to the melancholy
+reflections which pressed thickly upon him.  To have committed no
+fault, and yet to be so entirely alone in the world; to be separated
+from the only persons he loved, and to be proscribed like a
+criminal, when six months ago he had been surrounded by every
+comfort, and looked up to, as the chief hope of his family--this was
+hard to bear.  He had not deserved it either.  Well, there was
+comfort in that; and poor Nicholas would brighten up again, to be
+again depressed, as his quickly shifting thoughts presented every
+variety of light and shade before him.
+
+Undergoing these alternations of hope and misgiving, which no one,
+placed in a situation of ordinary trial, can fail to have
+experienced, Nicholas at length reached his poor room, where, no
+longer borne up by the excitement which had hitherto sustained him,
+but depressed by the revulsion of feeling it left behind, he threw
+himself on the bed, and turning his face to the wall, gave free vent
+to the emotions he had so long stifled.
+
+He had not heard anybody enter, and was unconscious of the presence
+of Smike, until, happening to raise his head, he saw him, standing
+at the upper end of the room, looking wistfully towards him.  He
+withdrew his eyes when he saw that he was observed, and affected to
+be busied with some scanty preparations for dinner.
+
+'Well, Smike,' said Nicholas, as cheerfully as he could speak, 'let
+me hear what new acquaintances you have made this morning, or what
+new wonder you have found out, in the compass of this street and the
+next one.'
+
+'No,' said Smike, shaking his head mournfully; 'I must talk of
+something else today.'
+
+'Of what you like,' replied Nicholas, good-humouredly.
+
+'Of this,' said Smike.  'I know you are unhappy, and have got into
+great trouble by bringing me away.  I ought to have known that, and
+stopped behind--I would, indeed, if I had thought it then.  You--
+you--are not rich; you have not enough for yourself, and I should
+not be here.  You grow,' said the lad, laying his hand timidly on
+that of Nicholas, 'you grow thinner every day; your cheek is paler,
+and your eye more sunk.  Indeed I cannot bear to see you so, and
+think how I am burdening you.  I tried to go away today, but the
+thought of your kind face drew me back.  I could not leave you
+without a word.'  The poor fellow could say no more, for his eyes
+filled with tears, and his voice was gone.
+
+'The word which separates us,' said Nicholas, grasping him heartily
+by the shoulder, 'shall never be said by me, for you are my only
+comfort and stay.  I would not lose you now, Smike, for all the
+world could give.  The thought of you has upheld me through all I
+have endured today, and shall, through fifty times such trouble.
+Give me your hand.  My heart is linked to yours.  We will journey
+from this place together, before the week is out.  What, if I am
+steeped in poverty?  You lighten it, and we will be poor together.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+Madam Mantalini finds herself in a Situation of some Difficulty, and
+Miss Nickleby finds herself in no Situation at all
+
+
+The agitation she had undergone, rendered Kate Nickleby unable to
+resume her duties at the dressmaker's for three days, at the
+expiration of which interval she betook herself at the accustomed
+hour, and with languid steps, to the temple of fashion where Madame
+Mantalini reigned paramount and supreme.
+
+The ill-will of Miss Knag had lost nothing of its virulence in the
+interval.  The young ladies still scrupulously shrunk from all
+companionship with their denounced associate; and when that
+exemplary female arrived a few minutes afterwards, she was at no
+pains to conceal the displeasure with which she regarded Kate's
+return.
+
+'Upon my word!' said Miss Knag, as the satellites flocked round, to
+relieve her of her bonnet and shawl; 'I should have thought some
+people would have had spirit enough to stop away altogether, when
+they know what an incumbrance their presence is to right-minded
+persons.  But it's a queer world; oh! it's a queer world!'
+
+Miss Knag, having passed this comment on the world, in the tone in
+which most people do pass comments on the world when they are out of
+temper, that is to say, as if they by no means belonged to it,
+concluded by heaving a sigh, wherewith she seemed meekly to
+compassionate the wickedness of mankind.
+
+The attendants were not slow to echo the sigh, and Miss Knag was
+apparently on the eve of favouring them with some further moral
+reflections, when the voice of Madame Mantalini, conveyed through
+the speaking-tube, ordered Miss Nickleby upstairs to assist in the
+arrangement of the show-room; a distinction which caused Miss Knag
+to toss her head so much, and bite her lips so hard, that her powers
+of conversation were, for the time, annihilated.
+
+'Well, Miss Nickleby, child,' said Madame Mantalini, when Kate
+presented herself; 'are you quite well again?'
+
+'A great deal better, thank you,' replied Kate.
+
+'I wish I could say the same,' remarked Madame Mantalini, seating
+herself with an air of weariness.
+
+'Are you ill?' asked Kate.  'I am very sorry for that.'
+
+'Not exactly ill, but worried, child--worried,' rejoined Madame.
+
+'I am still more sorry to hear that,' said Kate, gently.  'Bodily
+illness is more easy to bear than mental.'
+
+'Ah! and it's much easier to talk than to bear either,' said Madame,
+rubbing her nose with much irritability of manner.  'There, get to
+your work, child, and put the things in order, do.'
+
+While Kate was wondering within herself what these symptoms of
+unusual vexation portended, Mr Mantalini put the tips of his
+whiskers, and, by degrees, his head, through the half-opened door,
+and cried in a soft voice--
+
+'Is my life and soul there?'
+
+'No,' replied his wife.
+
+'How can it say so, when it is blooming in the front room like a
+little rose in a demnition flower-pot?' urged Mantalini.  'May its
+poppet come in and talk?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Madame: 'you know I never allow you here.
+Go along!'
+
+The poppet, however, encouraged perhaps by the relenting tone of
+this reply, ventured to rebel, and, stealing into the room, made
+towards Madame Mantalini on tiptoe, blowing her a kiss as he came
+along.
+
+'Why will it vex itself, and twist its little face into bewitching
+nutcrackers?' said Mantalini, putting his left arm round the waist
+of his life and soul, and drawing her towards him with his right.
+
+'Oh! I can't bear you,' replied his wife.
+
+'Not--eh, not bear ME!' exclaimed Mantalini.  'Fibs, fibs.  It
+couldn't be.  There's not a woman alive, that could tell me such a
+thing to my face--to my own face.'  Mr Mantalini stroked his chin, as
+he said this, and glanced complacently at an opposite mirror.
+
+'Such destructive extravagance,' reasoned his wife, in a low tone.
+
+'All in its joy at having gained such a lovely creature, such a
+little Venus, such a demd, enchanting, bewitching, engrossing,
+captivating little Venus,' said Mantalini.
+
+'See what a situation you have placed me in!' urged Madame.
+
+'No harm will come, no harm shall come, to its own darling,'
+rejoined Mr Mantalini.  'It is all over; there will be nothing the
+matter; money shall be got in; and if it don't come in fast enough,
+old Nickleby shall stump up again, or have his jugular separated if
+he dares to vex and hurt the little--'
+
+'Hush!' interposed Madame.  'Don't you see?'
+
+Mr Mantalini, who, in his eagerness to make up matters with his
+wife, had overlooked, or feigned to overlook, Miss Nickleby
+hitherto, took the hint, and laying his finger on his lip, sunk his
+voice still lower.  There was, then, a great deal of whispering,
+during which Madame Mantalini appeared to make reference, more than
+once, to certain debts incurred by Mr Mantalini previous to her
+coverture; and also to an unexpected outlay of money in payment of
+the aforesaid debts; and furthermore, to certain agreeable
+weaknesses on that gentleman's part, such as gaming, wasting,
+idling, and a tendency to horse-flesh; each of which matters of
+accusation Mr Mantalini disposed of, by one kiss or more, as its
+relative importance demanded.  The upshot of it all was, that Madame
+Mantalini was in raptures with him, and that they went upstairs to
+breakfast.
+
+Kate busied herself in what she had to do, and was silently
+arranging the various articles of decoration in the best taste she
+could display, when she started to hear a strange man's voice in the
+room, and started again, to observe, on looking round, that a white
+hat, and a red neckerchief, and a broad round face, and a large
+head, and part of a green coat were in the room too.
+
+'Don't alarm yourself, miss,' said the proprietor of these
+appearances.  'I say; this here's the mantie-making consarn, an't it?'
+
+'Yes,' rejoined Kate, greatly astonished.  'What did you want?'
+
+The stranger answered not; but, first looking back, as though to
+beckon to some unseen person outside, came, very deliberately, into
+the room, and was closely followed by a little man in brown, very
+much the worse for wear, who brought with him a mingled fumigation
+of stale tobacco and fresh onions.  The clothes of this gentleman
+were much bespeckled with flue; and his shoes, stockings, and nether
+garments, from his heels to the waist buttons of his coat inclusive,
+were profusely embroidered with splashes of mud, caught a fortnight
+previously--before the setting-in of the fine weather.
+
+Kate's very natural impression was, that these engaging individuals
+had called with the view of possessing themselves, unlawfully, of
+any portable articles that chanced to strike their fancy.  She did
+not attempt to disguise her apprehensions, and made a move towards
+the door.
+
+'Wait a minnit,' said the man in the green coat, closing it softly,
+and standing with his back against it.  'This is a unpleasant
+bisness.  Vere's your govvernor?'
+
+'My what--did you say?' asked Kate, trembling; for she thought
+'governor' might be slang for watch or money.
+
+'Mister Muntlehiney,' said the man.  'Wot's come on him?  Is he at
+home?'
+
+'He is above stairs, I believe,' replied Kate, a little reassured by
+this inquiry.  'Do you want him?'
+
+'No,' replied the visitor.  'I don't ezactly want him, if it's made
+a favour on.  You can jist give him that 'ere card, and tell him if
+he wants to speak to ME, and save trouble, here I am; that's all.'
+
+With these words, the stranger put a thick square card into Kate's
+hand, and, turning to his friend, remarked, with an easy air, 'that
+the rooms was a good high pitch;' to which the friend assented,
+adding, by way of illustration, 'that there was lots of room for a
+little boy to grow up a man in either on 'em, vithout much fear of
+his ever bringing his head into contract vith the ceiling.'
+
+After ringing the bell which would summon Madame Mantalini, Kate
+glanced at the card, and saw that it displayed the name of 'Scaley,'
+together with some other information to which she had not had time
+to refer, when her attention was attracted by Mr Scaley himself,
+who, walking up to one of the cheval-glasses, gave it a hard poke in
+the centre with his stick, as coolly as if it had been made of cast
+iron.
+
+'Good plate this here, Tix,' said Mr Scaley to his friend.
+
+'Ah!' rejoined Mr Tix, placing the marks of his four fingers, and a
+duplicate impression of his thumb, on a piece of sky-blue silk; 'and
+this here article warn't made for nothing, mind you.'
+
+From the silk, Mr Tix transferred his admiration to some elegant
+articles of wearing apparel, while Mr Scaley adjusted his neckcloth,
+at leisure, before the glass, and afterwards, aided by its
+reflection, proceeded to the minute consideration of a pimple on his
+chin; in which absorbing occupation he was yet engaged, when Madame
+Mantalini, entering the room, uttered an exclamation of surprise
+which roused him.
+
+'Oh!  Is this the missis?' inquired Scaley.
+
+'It is Madame Mantalini,' said Kate.
+
+'Then,' said Mr Scaley, producing a small document from his pocket
+and unfolding it very slowly, 'this is a writ of execution, and if
+it's not conwenient to settle we'll go over the house at wunst,
+please, and take the inwentory.'
+
+Poor Madame Mantalini wrung her hands for grief, and rung the bell
+for her husband; which done, she fell into a chair and a fainting
+fit, simultaneously.  The professional gentlemen, however, were not
+at all discomposed by this event, for Mr Scaley, leaning upon a
+stand on which a handsome dress was displayed (so that his shoulders
+appeared above it, in nearly the same manner as the shoulders of the
+lady for whom it was designed would have done if she had had it on),
+pushed his hat on one side and scratched his head with perfect
+unconcern, while his friend Mr Tix, taking that opportunity for a
+general survey of the apartment preparatory to entering on business,
+stood with his inventory-book under his arm and his hat in his hand,
+mentally occupied in putting a price upon every object within his
+range of vision.
+
+Such was the posture of affairs when Mr Mantalini hurried in; and as
+that distinguished specimen had had a pretty extensive intercourse
+with Mr Scaley's fraternity in his bachelor days, and was, besides,
+very far from being taken by surprise on the present agitating
+occasion, he merely shrugged his shoulders, thrust his hands down to
+the bottom of his pockets, elevated his eyebrows, whistled a bar or
+two, swore an oath or two, and, sitting astride upon a chair, put
+the best face upon the matter with great composure and decency.
+
+'What's the demd total?' was the first question he asked.
+
+'Fifteen hundred and twenty-seven pound, four and ninepence
+ha'penny,' replied Mr Scaley, without moving a limb.
+
+'The halfpenny be demd,' said Mr Mantalini, impatiently.
+
+'By all means if you vish it,' retorted Mr Scaley; 'and the
+ninepence.'
+
+'It don't matter to us if the fifteen hundred and twenty-seven pound
+went along with it, that I know on,' observed Mr Tix.
+
+'Not a button,' said Scaley.
+
+'Well,' said the same gentleman, after a pause, 'wot's to be done--
+anything?  Is it only a small crack, or a out-and-out smash?  A
+break-up of the constitootion is it?--werry good.  Then Mr Tom Tix,
+esk-vire, you must inform your angel wife and lovely family as you
+won't sleep at home for three nights to come, along of being in
+possession here.  Wot's the good of the lady a fretting herself?'
+continued Mr Scaley, as Madame Mantalini sobbed.  'A good half of
+wot's here isn't paid for, I des-say, and wot a consolation oughtn't
+that to be to her feelings!'
+
+With these remarks, combining great pleasantry with sound moral
+encouragement under difficulties, Mr Scaley proceeded to take the
+inventory, in which delicate task he was materially assisted by the
+uncommon tact and experience of Mr Tix, the broker.
+
+'My cup of happiness's sweetener,' said Mantalini, approaching his
+wife with a penitent air; 'will you listen to me for two minutes?'
+
+'Oh! don't speak to me,' replied his wife, sobbing.  'You have
+ruined me, and that's enough.'
+
+Mr Mantalini, who had doubtless well considered his part, no sooner
+heard these words pronounced in a tone of grief and severity, than
+he recoiled several paces, assumed an expression of consuming mental
+agony, rushed headlong from the room, and was, soon afterwards,
+heard to slam the door of an upstairs dressing-room with great
+violence.
+
+'Miss Nickleby,' cried Madame Mantalini, when this sound met her
+ear, 'make haste, for Heaven's sake, he will destroy himself!  I
+spoke unkindly to him, and he cannot bear it from me.  Alfred, my
+darling Alfred.'
+
+With such exclamations, she hurried upstairs, followed by Kate who,
+although she did not quite participate in the fond wife's
+apprehensions, was a little flurried, nevertheless.  The dressing-
+room door being hastily flung open, Mr Mantalini was disclosed to
+view, with his shirt-collar symmetrically thrown back: putting a
+fine edge to a breakfast knife by means of his razor strop.
+
+'Ah!' cried Mr Mantalini, 'interrupted!' and whisk went the
+breakfast knife into Mr Mantalini's dressing-gown pocket, while Mr
+Mantalini's eyes rolled wildly, and his hair floating in wild
+disorder, mingled with his whiskers.
+
+'Alfred,' cried his wife, flinging her arms about him, 'I didn't
+mean to say it, I didn't mean to say it!'
+
+'Ruined!' cried Mr Mantalini.  'Have I brought ruin upon the best
+and purest creature that ever blessed a demnition vagabond!  Demmit,
+let me go.'  At this crisis of his ravings Mr Mantalini made a pluck
+at the breakfast knife, and being restrained by his wife's grasp,
+attempted to dash his head against the wall--taking very good care
+to be at least six feet from it.
+
+'Compose yourself, my own angel,' said Madame.  'It was nobody's
+fault; it was mine as much as yours, we shall do very well yet.
+Come, Alfred, come.'
+
+Mr Mantalini did not think proper to come to, all at once; but,
+after calling several times for poison, and requesting some lady or
+gentleman to blow his brains out, gentler feelings came upon him,
+and he wept pathetically.  In this softened frame of mind he did not
+oppose the capture of the knife--which, to tell the truth, he was
+rather glad to be rid of, as an inconvenient and dangerous article
+for a skirt pocket--and finally he suffered himself to be led away
+by his affectionate partner.
+
+After a delay of two or three hours, the young ladies were informed
+that their services would be dispensed with until further notice,
+and at the expiration of two days, the name of Mantalini appeared in
+the list of bankrupts: Miss Nickleby received an intimation per
+post, on the same morning, that the business would be, in future,
+carried on under the name of Miss Knag, and that her assistance
+would no longer be required--a piece of intelligence with which Mrs
+Nickleby was no sooner made acquainted, than that good lady declared
+she had expected it all along and cited divers unknown occasions on
+which she had prophesied to that precise effect.
+
+'And I say again,' remarked Mrs Nickleby (who, it is scarcely
+necessary to observe, had never said so before), 'I say again, that
+a milliner's and dressmaker's is the very last description of
+business, Kate, that you should have thought of attaching yourself
+to.  I don't make it a reproach to you, my love; but still I will
+say, that if you had consulted your own mother--'
+
+'Well, well, mama,' said Kate, mildly: 'what would you recommend
+now?'
+
+'Recommend!' cried Mrs Nickleby, 'isn't it obvious, my dear, that of
+all occupations in this world for a young lady situated as you are,
+that of companion to some amiable lady is the very thing for which
+your education, and manners, and personal appearance, and everything
+else, exactly qualify you?  Did you never hear your poor dear papa
+speak of the young lady who was the daughter of the old lady who
+boarded in the same house that he boarded in once, when he was a
+bachelor--what was her name again?  I know it began with a B, and
+ended with g, but whether it was Waters or--no, it couldn't have
+been that, either; but whatever her name was, don't you know that
+that young lady went as companion to a married lady who died soon
+afterwards, and that she married the husband, and had one of the
+finest little boys that the medical man had ever seen--all within
+eighteen months?'
+
+Kate knew, perfectly well, that this torrent of favourable
+recollection was occasioned by some opening, real or imaginary,
+which her mother had discovered, in the companionship walk of life.
+She therefore waited, very patiently, until all reminiscences and
+anecdotes, bearing or not bearing upon the subject, had been
+exhausted, and at last ventured to inquire what discovery had been
+made.  The truth then came out.  Mrs Nickleby had, that morning, had
+a yesterday's newspaper of the very first respectability from the
+public-house where the porter came from; and in this yesterday's
+newspaper was an advertisement, couched in the purest and most
+grammatical English, announcing that a married lady was in want of a
+genteel young person as companion, and that the married lady's name
+and address were to be known, on application at a certain library at
+the west end of the town, therein mentioned.
+
+'And I say,' exclaimed Mrs Nickleby, laying the paper down in
+triumph, 'that if your uncle don't object, it's well worth the
+trial.'
+
+Kate was too sick at heart, after the rough jostling she had already
+had with the world, and really cared too little at the moment what
+fate was reserved for her, to make any objection.  Mr Ralph Nickleby
+offered none, but, on the contrary, highly approved of the
+suggestion; neither did he express any great surprise at Madame
+Mantalini's sudden failure, indeed it would have been strange if he
+had, inasmuch as it had been procured and brought about chiefly by
+himself.  So, the name and address were obtained without loss of
+time, and Miss Nickleby and her mama went off in quest of Mrs
+Wititterly, of Cadogan Place, Sloane Street, that same forenoon.
+
+Cadogan Place is the one slight bond that joins two great extremes;
+it is the connecting link between the aristocratic pavements of
+Belgrave Square, and the barbarism of Chelsea.  It is in Sloane
+Street, but not of it.  The people in Cadogan Place look down upon
+Sloane Street, and think Brompton low.  They affect fashion too, and
+wonder where the New Road is.  Not that they claim to be on
+precisely the same footing as the high folks of Belgrave Square and
+Grosvenor Place, but that they stand, with reference to them, rather
+in the light of those illegitimate children of the great who are
+content to boast of their connections, although their connections
+disavow them.  Wearing as much as they can of the airs and
+semblances of loftiest rank, the people of Cadogan Place have the
+realities of middle station.  It is the conductor which communicates
+to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit, the shock of pride
+of birth and rank, which it has not within itself, but derives from
+a fountain-head beyond; or, like the ligament which unites the
+Siamese twins, it contains something of the life and essence of two
+distinct bodies, and yet belongs to neither.
+
+Upon this doubtful ground, lived Mrs Wititterly, and at Mrs
+Wititterly's door Kate Nickleby knocked with trembling hand.  The
+door was opened by a big footman with his head floured, or chalked,
+or painted in some way (it didn't look genuine powder), and the big
+footman, receiving the card of introduction, gave it to a little
+page; so little, indeed, that his body would not hold, in ordinary
+array, the number of small buttons which are indispensable to a
+page's costume, and they were consequently obliged to be stuck on
+four abreast.  This young gentleman took the card upstairs on a
+salver, and pending his return, Kate and her mother were shown into
+a dining-room of rather dirty and shabby aspect, and so comfortably
+arranged as to be adapted to almost any purpose rather than eating
+and drinking.
+
+Now, in the ordinary course of things, and according to all
+authentic descriptions of high life, as set forth in books, Mrs
+Wititterly ought to have been in her BOUDOIR; but whether it was
+that Mr Wititterly was at that moment shaving himself in the BOUDOIR
+or what not, certain it is that Mrs Wititterly gave audience in the
+drawing-room, where was everything proper and necessary, including
+curtains and furniture coverings of a roseate hue, to shed a
+delicate bloom on Mrs Wititterly's complexion, and a little dog to
+snap at strangers' legs for Mrs Wititterly's amusement, and the
+afore-mentioned page, to hand chocolate for Mrs Wititterly's
+refreshment.
+
+The lady had an air of sweet insipidity, and a face of engaging
+paleness; there was a faded look about her, and about the furniture,
+and about the house.  She was reclining on a sofa in such a very
+unstudied attitude, that she might have been taken for an actress
+all ready for the first scene in a ballet, and only waiting for the
+drop curtain to go up.
+
+'Place chairs.'
+
+The page placed them.
+
+'Leave the room, Alphonse.'
+
+The page left it; but if ever an Alphonse carried plain Bill in his
+face and figure, that page was the boy.
+
+'I have ventured to call, ma'am,' said Kate, after a few seconds of
+awkward silence, 'from having seen your advertisement.'
+
+'Yes,' replied Mrs Wititterly, 'one of my people put it in the
+paper--Yes.'
+
+'I thought, perhaps,' said Kate, modestly, 'that if you had not
+already made a final choice, you would forgive my troubling you with
+an application.'
+
+'Yes,' drawled Mrs Wititterly again.
+
+'If you have already made a selection--'
+
+'Oh dear no,' interrupted the lady, 'I am not so easily suited.  I
+really don't know what to say.  You have never been a companion
+before, have you?'
+
+Mrs Nickleby, who had been eagerly watching her opportunity, came
+dexterously in, before Kate could reply.  'Not to any stranger,
+ma'am,' said the good lady; 'but she has been a companion to me for
+some years.  I am her mother, ma'am.'
+
+'Oh!' said Mrs Wititterly, 'I apprehend you.'
+
+'I assure you, ma'am,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'that I very little
+thought, at one time, that it would be necessary for my daughter to
+go out into the world at all, for her poor dear papa was an
+independent gentleman, and would have been at this moment if he had
+but listened in time to my constant entreaties and--'
+
+'Dear mama,' said Kate, in a low voice.
+
+'My dear Kate, if you will allow me to speak,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I
+shall take the liberty of explaining to this lady--'
+
+'I think it is almost unnecessary, mama.'
+
+And notwithstanding all the frowns and winks with which Mrs Nickleby
+intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the
+business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look,
+and for once Mrs Nickleby was stopped upon the very brink of an
+oration.
+
+'What are your accomplishments?' asked Mrs Wititterly, with her eyes
+shut.
+
+Kate blushed as she mentioned her principal acquirements, and Mrs
+Nickleby checked them all off, one by one, on her fingers; having
+calculated the number before she came out.  Luckily the two
+calculations agreed, so Mrs Nickleby had no excuse for talking.
+
+'You are a good temper?' asked Mrs Wititterly, opening her eyes for
+an instant, and shutting them again.
+
+'I hope so,' rejoined Kate.
+
+'And have a highly respectable reference for everything, have you?'
+
+Kate replied that she had, and laid her uncle's card upon the table.
+
+'Have the goodness to draw your chair a little nearer, and let me
+look at you,' said Mrs Wititterly; 'I am so very nearsighted that I
+can't quite discern your features.'
+
+Kate complied, though not without some embarrassment, with this
+request, and Mrs Wititterly took a languid survey of her
+countenance, which lasted some two or three minutes.
+
+'I like your appearance,' said that lady, ringing a little bell.
+'Alphonse, request your master to come here.'
+
+The page disappeared on this errand, and after a short interval,
+during which not a word was spoken on either side, opened the door
+for an important gentleman of about eight-and-thirty, of rather
+plebeian countenance, and with a very light head of hair, who leant
+over Mrs Wititterly for a little time, and conversed with her in
+whispers.
+
+'Oh!' he said, turning round, 'yes.  This is a most important
+matter.  Mrs Wititterly is of a very excitable nature; very
+delicate, very fragile; a hothouse plant, an exotic.'
+
+'Oh! Henry, my dear,' interposed Mrs Wititterly.
+
+'You are, my love, you know you are; one breath--' said Mr W.,
+blowing an imaginary feather away.  'Pho! you're gone!'
+
+The lady sighed.
+
+'Your soul is too large for your body,' said Mr Wititterly.  'Your
+intellect wears you out; all the medical men say so; you know that
+there is not a physician who is not proud of being called in to you.
+What is their unanimous declaration?  "My dear doctor," said I to
+Sir Tumley Snuffim, in this very room, the very last time he came.
+"My dear doctor, what is my wife's complaint?  Tell me all.  I can
+bear it.  Is it nerves?"  "My dear fellow," he said, "be proud of
+that woman; make much of her; she is an ornament to the fashionable
+world, and to you.  Her complaint is soul.  It swells, expands,
+dilates--the blood fires, the pulse quickens, the excitement
+increases--Whew!"'  Here Mr Wititterly, who, in the ardour of his
+description, had flourished his right hand to within something less
+than an inch of Mrs Nickleby's bonnet, drew it hastily back again,
+and blew his nose as fiercely as if it had been done by some violent
+machinery.
+
+'You make me out worse than I am, Henry,' said Mrs Wititterly, with
+a faint smile.
+
+'I do not, Julia, I do not,' said Mr W.  'The society in which you
+move--necessarily move, from your station, connection, and
+endowments--is one vortex and whirlpool of the most frightful
+excitement.  Bless my heart and body, can I ever forget the night
+you danced with the baronet's nephew at the election ball, at
+Exeter!  It was tremendous.'
+
+'I always suffer for these triumphs afterwards,' said Mrs
+Wititterly.
+
+'And for that very reason,' rejoined her husband, 'you must have a
+companion, in whom there is great gentleness, great sweetness,
+excessive sympathy, and perfect repose.'
+
+Here, both Mr and Mrs Wititterly, who had talked rather at the
+Nicklebys than to each other, left off speaking, and looked at their
+two hearers, with an expression of countenance which seemed to say,
+'What do you think of all this?'
+
+'Mrs Wititterly,' said her husband, addressing himself to Mrs
+Nickleby, 'is sought after and courted by glittering crowds and
+brilliant circles.  She is excited by the opera, the drama, the fine
+arts, the--the--the--'
+
+'The nobility, my love,' interposed Mrs Wititterly.
+
+'The nobility, of course,' said Mr Wititterly.  'And the military.
+She forms and expresses an immense variety of opinions on an immense
+variety of subjects.  If some people in public life were acquainted
+with Mrs Wititterly's real opinion of them, they would not hold
+their heads, perhaps, quite as high as they do.'
+
+'Hush, Henry,' said the lady; 'this is scarcely fair.'
+
+'I mention no names, Julia,' replied Mr Wititterly; 'and nobody is
+injured.  I merely mention the circumstance to show that you are no
+ordinary person, that there is a constant friction perpetually going
+on between your mind and your body; and that you must be soothed and
+tended.  Now let me hear, dispassionately and calmly, what are this
+young lady's qualifications for the office.'
+
+In obedience to this request, the qualifications were all gone
+through again, with the addition of many interruptions and cross-
+questionings from Mr Wititterly.  It was finally arranged that
+inquiries should be made, and a decisive answer addressed to Miss
+Nickleby under cover of her uncle, within two days.  These
+conditions agreed upon, the page showed them down as far as the
+staircase window; and the big footman, relieving guard at that
+point, piloted them in perfect safety to the street-door.
+
+'They are very distinguished people, evidently,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+as she took her daughter's arm.  'What a superior person Mrs
+Wititterly is!'
+
+'Do you think so, mama?' was all Kate's reply.
+
+'Why, who can help thinking so, Kate, my love?' rejoined her mother.
+'She is pale though, and looks much exhausted.  I hope she may not
+be wearing herself out, but I am very much afraid.'
+
+These considerations led the deep-sighted lady into a calculation of
+the probable duration of Mrs Wititterly's life, and the chances of
+the disconsolate widower bestowing his hand on her daughter.  Before
+reaching home, she had freed Mrs Wititterly's soul from all bodily
+restraint; married Kate with great splendour at St George's, Hanover
+Square; and only left undecided the minor question, whether a
+splendid French-polished mahogany bedstead should be erected for
+herself in the two-pair back of the house in Cadogan Place, or in
+the three-pair front: between which apartments she could not quite
+balance the advantages, and therefore adjusted the question at last,
+by determining to leave it to the decision of her son-in-law.
+
+The inquiries were made.  The answer--not to Kate's very great joy--
+was favourable; and at the expiration of a week she betook herself,
+with all her movables and valuables, to Mrs Wititterly's mansion,
+where for the present we will leave her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth to seek his Fortune.
+He encounters Mr Vincent Crummles; and who he was, is herein made
+manifest
+
+
+The whole capital which Nicholas found himself entitled to, either
+in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, after paying his
+rent and settling with the broker from whom he had hired his poor
+furniture, did not exceed, by more than a few halfpence, the sum of
+twenty shillings.  And yet he hailed the morning on which he had
+resolved to quit London, with a light heart, and sprang from his bed
+with an elasticity of spirit which is happily the lot of young
+persons, or the world would never be stocked with old ones.
+
+It was a cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring.  A few meagre
+shadows flitted to and fro in the misty streets, and occasionally
+there loomed through the dull vapour, the heavy outline of some
+hackney coach wending homewards, which, drawing slowly nearer,
+rolled jangling by, scattering the thin crust of frost from its
+whitened roof, and soon was lost again in the cloud.  At intervals
+were heard the tread of slipshod feet, and the chilly cry of the
+poor sweep as he crept, shivering, to his early toil; the heavy
+footfall of the official watcher of the night, pacing slowly up and
+down and cursing the tardy hours that still intervened between him
+and sleep; the rambling of ponderous carts and waggons; the roll of
+the lighter vehicles which carried buyers and sellers to the
+different markets; the sound of ineffectual knocking at the doors of
+heavy sleepers--all these noises fell upon the ear from time to
+time, but all seemed muffled by the fog, and to be rendered almost
+as indistinct to the ear as was every object to the sight.  The
+sluggish darkness thickened as the day came on; and those who had
+the courage to rise and peep at the gloomy street from their
+curtained windows, crept back to bed again, and coiled themselves up
+to sleep.
+
+Before even these indications of approaching morning were rife in
+busy London, Nicholas had made his way alone to the city, and stood
+beneath the windows of his mother's house.  It was dull and bare to
+see, but it had light and life for him; for there was at least one
+heart within its old walls to which insult or dishonour would bring
+the same blood rushing, that flowed in his own veins.
+
+He crossed the road, and raised his eyes to the window of the room
+where he knew his sister slept.  It was closed and dark.  'Poor
+girl,' thought Nicholas, 'she little thinks who lingers here!'
+
+He looked again, and felt, for the moment, almost vexed that Kate
+was not there to exchange one word at parting.  'Good God!' he
+thought, suddenly correcting himself, 'what a boy I am!'
+
+'It is better as it is,' said Nicholas, after he had lounged on, a
+few paces, and returned to the same spot.  'When I left them before,
+and could have said goodbye a thousand times if I had chosen, I
+spared them the pain of leave-taking, and why not now?'  As he spoke,
+some fancied motion of the curtain almost persuaded him, for the
+instant, that Kate was at the window, and by one of those strange
+contradictions of feeling which are common to us all, he shrunk
+involuntarily into a doorway, that she might not see him.  He smiled
+at his own weakness; said 'God bless them!' and walked away with a
+lighter step.
+
+Smike was anxiously expecting him when he reached his old lodgings,
+and so was Newman, who had expended a day's income in a can of rum
+and milk to prepare them for the journey.  They had tied up the
+luggage, Smike shouldered it, and away they went, with Newman Noggs
+in company; for he had insisted on walking as far as he could with
+them, overnight.
+
+'Which way?' asked Newman, wistfully.
+
+'To Kingston first,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'And where afterwards?' asked Newman.  'Why won't you tell me?'
+
+'Because I scarcely know myself, good friend,' rejoined Nicholas,
+laying his hand upon his shoulder; 'and if I did, I have neither
+plan nor prospect yet, and might shift my quarters a hundred times
+before you could possibly communicate with me.'
+
+'I am afraid you have some deep scheme in your head,' said Newman,
+doubtfully.
+
+'So deep,' replied his young friend, 'that even I can't fathom it.
+Whatever I resolve upon, depend upon it I will write you soon.'
+
+'You won't forget?' said Newman.
+
+'I am not very likely to,' rejoined Nicholas.  'I have not so many
+friends that I shall grow confused among the number, and forget my
+best one.'
+
+Occupied in such discourse, they walked on for a couple of hours, as
+they might have done for a couple of days if Nicholas had not sat
+himself down on a stone by the wayside, and resolutely declared his
+intention of not moving another step until Newman Noggs turned back.
+Having pleaded ineffectually first for another half-mile, and
+afterwards for another quarter, Newman was fain to comply, and to
+shape his course towards Golden Square, after interchanging many
+hearty and affectionate farewells, and many times turning back to
+wave his hat to the two wayfarers when they had become mere specks
+in the distance.
+
+'Now listen to me, Smike,' said Nicholas, as they trudged with stout
+hearts onwards.  'We are bound for Portsmouth.'
+
+Smike nodded his head and smiled, but expressed no other emotion;
+for whether they had been bound for Portsmouth or Port Royal would
+have been alike to him, so they had been bound together.
+
+'I don't know much of these matters,' resumed Nicholas; 'but
+Portsmouth is a seaport town, and if no other employment is to be
+obtained, I should think we might get on board some ship.  I am
+young and active, and could be useful in many ways.  So could you.'
+
+'I hope so,' replied Smike.  'When I was at that--you know where I
+mean?'
+
+'Yes, I know,' said Nicholas.  'You needn't name the place.'
+
+'Well, when I was there,' resumed Smike; his eyes sparkling at the
+prospect of displaying his abilities; 'I could milk a cow, and groom
+a horse, with anybody.'
+
+'Ha!' said Nicholas, gravely.  'I am afraid they don't keep many
+animals of either kind on board ship, Smike, and even when they have
+horses, that they are not very particular about rubbing them down;
+still you can learn to do something else, you know.  Where there's a
+will, there's a way.'
+
+'And I am very willing,' said Smike, brightening up again.
+
+'God knows you are,' rejoined Nicholas; 'and if you fail, it shall
+go hard but I'll do enough for us both.'
+
+'Do we go all the way today?' asked Smike, after a short silence.
+
+'That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing legs,' said
+Nicholas, with a good-humoured smile.  'No.  Godalming is some
+thirty and odd miles from London--as I found from a map I borrowed--
+and I purpose to rest there.  We must push on again tomorrow, for we
+are not rich enough to loiter.  Let me relieve you of that bundle!
+Come!'
+
+'No, no,' rejoined Smike, falling back a few steps.  'Don't ask me
+to give it up to you.'
+
+'Why not?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Let me do something for you, at least,' said Smike.  'You will
+never let me serve you as I ought.  You will never know how I think,
+day and night, of ways to please you.'
+
+'You are a foolish fellow to say it, for I know it well, and see it,
+or I should be a blind and senseless beast,' rejoined Nicholas.
+'Let me ask you a question while I think of it, and there is no one
+by,' he added, looking him steadily in the face.  'Have you a good
+memory?'
+
+'I don't know,' said Smike, shaking his head sorrowfully.  'I think
+I had once; but it's all gone now--all gone.'
+
+'Why do you think you had once?' asked Nicholas, turning quickly
+upon him as though the answer in some way helped out the purport of
+his question.
+
+'Because I could remember, when I was a child,' said Smike, 'but
+that is very, very long ago, or at least it seems so.  I was always
+confused and giddy at that place you took me from; and could never
+remember, and sometimes couldn't even understand, what they said to
+me.  I--let me see--let me see!'
+
+'You are wandering now,' said Nicholas, touching him on the arm.
+
+'No,' replied his companion, with a vacant look 'I was only thinking
+how--'  He shivered involuntarily as he spoke.
+
+'Think no more of that place, for it is all over,' retorted
+Nicholas, fixing his eyes full upon that of his companion, which was
+fast settling into an unmeaning stupefied gaze, once habitual to
+him, and common even then.  'What of the first day you went to
+Yorkshire?'
+
+'Eh!' cried the lad.
+
+'That was before you began to lose your recollection, you know,'
+said Nicholas quietly.  'Was the weather hot or cold?'
+
+'Wet,' replied the boy.  'Very wet.  I have always said, when it has
+rained hard, that it was like the night I came: and they used to
+crowd round and laugh to see me cry when the rain fell heavily.  It
+was like a child, they said, and that made me think of it more.  I
+turned cold all over sometimes, for I could see myself as I was
+then, coming in at the very same door.'
+
+'As you were then,' repeated Nicholas, with assumed carelessness;
+'how was that?'
+
+'Such a little creature,' said Smike, 'that they might have had pity
+and mercy upon me, only to remember it.'
+
+'You didn't find your way there, alone!' remarked Nicholas.
+
+'No,' rejoined Smike, 'oh no.'
+
+'Who was with you?'
+
+'A man--a dark, withered man.  I have heard them say so, at the
+school, and I remembered that before.  I was glad to leave him, I
+was afraid of him; but they made me more afraid of them, and used me
+harder too.'
+
+'Look at me,' said Nicholas, wishing to attract his full attention.
+'There; don't turn away.  Do you remember no woman, no kind woman,
+who hung over you once, and kissed your lips, and called you her
+child?'
+
+'No,' said the poor creature, shaking his head, 'no, never.'
+
+'Nor any house but that house in Yorkshire?'
+
+'No,' rejoined the youth, with a melancholy look; 'a room--I
+remember I slept in a room, a large lonesome room at the top of a
+house, where there was a trap-door in the ceiling.  I have covered
+my head with the clothes often, not to see it, for it frightened me:
+a young child with no one near at night: and I used to wonder what
+was on the other side.  There was a clock too, an old clock, in one
+corner.  I remember that.  I have never forgotten that room; for
+when I have terrible dreams, it comes back, just as it was.  I see
+things and people in it that I had never seen then, but there is the
+room just as it used to be; THAT never changes.'
+
+'Will you let me take the bundle now?' asked Nicholas, abruptly
+changing the theme.
+
+'No,' said Smike, 'no.  Come, let us walk on.'
+
+He quickened his pace as he said this, apparently under the
+impression that they had been standing still during the whole of the
+previous dialogue.  Nicholas marked him closely, and every word of
+this conversation remained upon his memory.
+
+It was, by this time, within an hour of noon, and although a dense
+vapour still enveloped the city they had left, as if the very breath
+of its busy people hung over their schemes of gain and profit, and
+found greater attraction there than in the quiet region above, in
+the open country it was clear and fair.  Occasionally, in some low
+spots they came upon patches of mist which the sun had not yet
+driven from their strongholds; but these were soon passed, and as
+they laboured up the hills beyond, it was pleasant to look down, and
+see how the sluggish mass rolled heavily off, before the cheering
+influence of day.  A broad, fine, honest sun lighted up the green
+pastures and dimpled water with the semblance of summer, while it
+left the travellers all the invigorating freshness of that early
+time of year.  The ground seemed elastic under their feet; the
+sheep-bells were music to their ears; and exhilarated by exercise,
+and stimulated by hope, they pushed onward with the strength of
+lions.
+
+The day wore on, and all these bright colours subsided, and assumed
+a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time, or youthful
+features by degrees resolving into the calm and serenity of age.
+But they were scarcely less beautiful in their slow decline, than
+they had been in their prime; for nature gives to every time and
+season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from
+the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle
+and easy, that we can scarcely mark their progress.
+
+To Godalming they came at last, and here they bargained for two
+humble beds, and slept soundly.  In the morning they were astir:
+though not quite so early as the sun: and again afoot; if not with
+all the freshness of yesterday, still, with enough of hope and
+spirit to bear them cheerily on.
+
+It was a harder day's journey than yesterday's, for there were long
+and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great
+deal easier to go down hill than up.  However, they kept on, with
+unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to
+heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.
+
+They walked upon the rim of the Devil's Punch Bowl; and Smike
+listened with greedy interest as Nicholas read the inscription upon
+the stone which, reared upon that wild spot, tells of a murder
+committed there by night.  The grass on which they stood, had once
+been dyed with gore; and the blood of the murdered man had run down,
+drop by drop, into the hollow which gives the place its name.  'The
+Devil's Bowl,' thought Nicholas, as he looked into the void, 'never
+held fitter liquor than that!'
+
+Onward they kept, with steady purpose, and entered at length upon a
+wide and spacious tract of downs, with every variety of little hill
+and plain to change their verdant surface.  Here, there shot up,
+almost perpendicularly, into the sky, a height so steep, as to be
+hardly accessible to any but the sheep and goats that fed upon its
+sides, and there, stood a mound of green, sloping and tapering off
+so delicately, and merging so gently into the level ground, that you
+could scarce define its limits.  Hills swelling above each other;
+and undulations shapely and uncouth, smooth and rugged, graceful and
+grotesque, thrown negligently side by side, bounded the view in each
+direction; while frequently, with unexpected noise, there uprose
+from the ground a flight of crows, who, cawing and wheeling round
+the nearest hills, as if uncertain of their course, suddenly poised
+themselves upon the wing and skimmed down the long vista of some
+opening valley, with the speed of light itself.
+
+By degrees, the prospect receded more and more on either hand, and
+as they had been shut out from rich and extensive scenery, so they
+emerged once again upon the open country.  The knowledge that they
+were drawing near their place of destination, gave them fresh
+courage to proceed; but the way had been difficult, and they had
+loitered on the road, and Smike was tired.  Thus, twilight had
+already closed in, when they turned off the path to the door of a
+roadside inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth.
+
+'Twelve miles,' said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick,
+and looking doubtfully at Smike.
+
+'Twelve long miles,' repeated the landlord.
+
+'Is it a good road?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'Very bad,' said the landlord.  As of course, being a landlord, he
+would say.
+
+'I want to get on,' observed Nicholas.  hesitating.  'I scarcely
+know what to do.'
+
+'Don't let me influence you,' rejoined the landlord.  'I wouldn't go
+on if it was me.'
+
+'Wouldn't you?' asked Nicholas, with the same uncertainty.
+
+'Not if I knew when I was well off,' said the landlord.  And having
+said it he pulled up his apron, put his hands into his pockets, and,
+taking a step or two outside the door, looked down the dark road
+with an assumption of great indifference.
+
+A glance at the toil-worn face of Smike determined Nicholas, so
+without any further consideration he made up his mind to stay where
+he was.
+
+The landlord led them into the kitchen, and as there was a good fire
+he remarked that it was very cold.  If there had happened to be a
+bad one he would have observed that it was very warm.
+
+'What can you give us for supper?' was Nicholas's natural question.
+
+'Why--what would you like?' was the landlord's no less natural
+answer.
+
+Nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat--poached
+eggs, but there were no eggs--mutton chops, but there wasn't a
+mutton chop within three miles, though there had been more last week
+than they knew what to do with, and would be an extraordinary supply
+the day after tomorrow.
+
+'Then,' said Nicholas, 'I must leave it entirely to you, as I would
+have done, at first, if you had allowed me.'
+
+'Why, then I'll tell you what,' rejoined the landlord.  'There's a
+gentleman in the parlour that's ordered a hot beef-steak pudding and
+potatoes, at nine.  There's more of it than he can manage, and I
+have very little doubt that if I ask leave, you can sup with him.
+I'll do that, in a minute.'
+
+'No, no,' said Nicholas, detaining him.  'I would rather not.  I--at
+least--pshaw! why cannot I speak out?  Here; you see that I am
+travelling in a very humble manner, and have made my way hither on
+foot.  It is more than probable, I think, that the gentleman may not
+relish my company; and although I am the dusty figure you see, I am
+too proud to thrust myself into his.'
+
+'Lord love you,' said the landlord, 'it's only Mr Crummles; HE isn't
+particular.'
+
+'Is he not?' asked Nicholas, on whose mind, to tell the truth, the
+prospect of the savoury pudding was making some impression.
+
+'Not he,' replied the landlord.  'He'll like your way of talking, I
+know.  But we'll soon see all about that.  Just wait a minute.'
+
+The landlord hurried into the parlour, without staying for further
+permission, nor did Nicholas strive to prevent him: wisely
+considering that supper, under the circumstances, was too serious a
+matter to be trifled with.  It was not long before the host
+returned, in a condition of much excitement.
+
+'All right,' he said in a low voice.  'I knew he would.  You'll see
+something rather worth seeing, in there.  Ecod, how they are a-going
+of it!'
+
+There was no time to inquire to what this exclamation, which was
+delivered in a very rapturous tone, referred; for he had already
+thrown open the door of the room; into which Nicholas, followed by
+Smike with the bundle on his shoulder (he carried it about with him
+as vigilantly as if it had been a sack of gold), straightway
+repaired.
+
+Nicholas was prepared for something odd, but not for something quite
+so odd as the sight he encountered.  At the upper end of the room,
+were a couple of boys, one of them very tall and the other very
+short, both dressed as sailors--or at least as theatrical sailors,
+with belts, buckles, pigtails, and pistols complete--fighting what
+is called in play-bills a terrific combat, with two of those short
+broad-swords with basket hilts which are commonly used at our minor
+theatres.  The short boy had gained a great advantage over the tall
+boy, who was reduced to mortal strait, and both were overlooked by a
+large heavy man, perched against the corner of a table, who
+emphatically adjured them to strike a little more fire out of the
+swords, and they couldn't fail to bring the house down, on the very
+first night.
+
+'Mr Vincent Crummles,' said the landlord with an air of great
+deference.  'This is the young gentleman.'
+
+Mr Vincent Crummles received Nicholas with an inclination of the
+head, something between the courtesy of a Roman emperor and the nod
+of a pot companion; and bade the landlord shut the door and begone.
+
+'There's a picture,' said Mr Crummles, motioning Nicholas not to
+advance and spoil it.  'The little 'un has him; if the big 'un
+doesn't knock under, in three seconds, he's a dead man.  Do that
+again, boys.'
+
+The two combatants went to work afresh, and chopped away until the
+swords emitted a shower of sparks: to the great satisfaction of Mr
+Crummles, who appeared to consider this a very great point indeed.
+The engagement commenced with about two hundred chops administered
+by the short sailor and the tall sailor alternately, without
+producing any particular result, until the short sailor was chopped
+down on one knee; but this was nothing to him, for he worked himself
+about on the one knee with the assistance of his left hand, and
+fought most desperately until the tall sailor chopped his sword out
+of his grasp.  Now, the inference was, that the short sailor,
+reduced to this extremity, would give in at once and cry quarter,
+but, instead of that, he all of a sudden drew a large pistol from
+his belt and presented it at the face of the tall sailor, who was so
+overcome at this (not expecting it) that he let the short sailor
+pick up his sword and begin again.  Then, the chopping recommenced,
+and a variety of fancy chops were administered on both sides; such
+as chops dealt with the left hand, and under the leg, and over the
+right shoulder, and over the left; and when the short sailor made a
+vigorous cut at the tall sailor's legs, which would have shaved them
+clean off if it had taken effect, the tall sailor jumped over the
+short sailor's sword, wherefore to balance the matter, and make it
+all fair, the tall sailor administered the same cut, and the short
+sailor jumped over HIS sword.  After this, there was a good deal of
+dodging about, and hitching up of the inexpressibles in the absence
+of braces, and then the short sailor (who was the moral character
+evidently, for he always had the best of it) made a violent
+demonstration and closed with the tall sailor, who, after a few
+unavailing struggles, went down, and expired in great torture as the
+short sailor put his foot upon his breast, and bored a hole in him
+through and through.
+
+'That'll be a double ENCORE if you take care, boys,' said Mr
+Crummles.  'You had better get your wind now and change your
+clothes.'
+
+Having addressed these words to the combatants, he saluted Nicholas,
+who then observed that the face of Mr Crummles was quite
+proportionate in size to his body; that he had a very full under-
+lip, a hoarse voice, as though he were in the habit of shouting very
+much, and very short black hair, shaved off nearly to the crown of
+his head--to admit (as he afterwards learnt) of his more easily
+wearing character wigs of any shape or pattern.
+
+'What did you think of that, sir?' inquired Mr Crummles.
+
+'Very good, indeed--capital,' answered Nicholas.
+
+'You won't see such boys as those very often, I think,' said Mr
+Crummles.
+
+Nicholas assented--observing that if they were a little better
+match--
+
+'Match!' cried Mr Crummles.
+
+'I mean if they were a little more of a size,' said Nicholas,
+explaining himself.
+
+'Size!' repeated Mr Crummles; 'why, it's the essence of the combat
+that there should be a foot or two between them.  How are you to get
+up the sympathies of the audience in a legitimate manner, if there
+isn't a little man contending against a big one?--unless there's at
+least five to one, and we haven't hands enough for that business in
+our company.'
+
+'I see,' replied Nicholas.  'I beg your pardon.  That didn't occur
+to me, I confess.'
+
+'It's the main point,' said Mr Crummles.  'I open at Portsmouth the
+day after tomorrow.  If you're going there, look into the theatre,
+and see how that'll tell.'
+
+Nicholas promised to do so, if he could, and drawing a chair near
+the fire, fell into conversation with the manager at once.  He was
+very talkative and communicative, stimulated perhaps, not only by
+his natural disposition, but by the spirits and water he sipped very
+plentifully, or the snuff he took in large quantities from a piece
+of whitey-brown paper in his waistcoat pocket.  He laid open his
+affairs without the smallest reserve, and descanted at some length
+upon the merits of his company, and the acquirements of his family;
+of both of which, the two broad-sword boys formed an honourable
+portion.  There was to be a gathering, it seemed, of the different
+ladies and gentlemen at Portsmouth on the morrow, whither the father
+and sons were proceeding (not for the regular season, but in the
+course of a wandering speculation), after fulfilling an engagement
+at Guildford with the greatest applause.
+
+'You are going that way?' asked the manager.
+
+'Ye-yes,' said Nicholas.  'Yes, I am.'
+
+'Do you know the town at all?' inquired the manager, who seemed to
+consider himself entitled to the same degree of confidence as he had
+himself exhibited.
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Never there?'
+
+'Never.'
+
+Mr Vincent Crummles gave a short dry cough, as much as to say, 'If
+you won't be communicative, you won't;' and took so many pinches of
+snuff from the piece of paper, one after another, that Nicholas
+quite wondered where it all went to.
+
+While he was thus engaged, Mr Crummles looked, from time to time,
+with great interest at Smike, with whom he had appeared considerably
+struck from the first.  He had now fallen asleep, and was nodding in
+his chair.
+
+'Excuse my saying so,' said the manager, leaning over to Nicholas,
+and sinking his voice, 'but what a capital countenance your friend
+has got!'
+
+'Poor fellow!' said Nicholas, with a half-smile, 'I wish it were a
+little more plump, and less haggard.'
+
+'Plump!' exclaimed the manager, quite horrified, 'you'd spoil it for
+ever.'
+
+'Do you think so?'
+
+'Think so, sir!  Why, as he is now,' said the manager, striking his
+knee emphatically; 'without a pad upon his body, and hardly a touch
+of paint upon his face, he'd make such an actor for the starved
+business as was never seen in this country.  Only let him be
+tolerably well up in the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the
+slightest possible dab of red on the tip of his nose, and he'd be
+certain of three rounds the moment he put his head out of the
+practicable door in the front grooves O.P.'
+
+'You view him with a professional eye,' said Nicholas, laughing.
+
+'And well I may,' rejoined the manager.  'I never saw a young fellow
+so regularly cut out for that line, since I've been in the
+profession.  And I played the heavy children when I was eighteen
+months old.'
+
+The appearance of the beef-steak pudding, which came in
+simultaneously with the junior Vincent Crummleses, turned the
+conversation to other matters, and indeed, for a time, stopped it
+altogether.  These two young gentlemen wielded their knives and
+forks with scarcely less address than their broad-swords, and as the
+whole party were quite as sharp set as either class of weapons,
+there was no time for talking until the supper had been disposed of.
+
+The Master Crummleses had no sooner swallowed the last procurable
+morsel of food, than they evinced, by various half-suppressed yawns
+and stretchings of their limbs, an obvious inclination to retire for
+the night, which Smike had betrayed still more strongly: he having,
+in the course of the meal, fallen asleep several times while in the
+very act of eating.  Nicholas therefore proposed that they should
+break up at once, but the manager would by no means hear of it;
+vowing that he had promised himself the pleasure of inviting his new
+acquaintance to share a bowl of punch, and that if he declined, he
+should deem it very unhandsome behaviour.
+
+'Let them go,' said Mr Vincent Crummles, 'and we'll have it snugly
+and cosily together by the fire.'
+
+Nicholas was not much disposed to sleep--being in truth too anxious--
+so, after a little demur, he accepted the offer, and having
+exchanged a shake of the hand with the young Crummleses, and the
+manager having on his part bestowed a most affectionate benediction
+on Smike, he sat himself down opposite to that gentleman by the
+fireside to assist in emptying the bowl, which soon afterwards
+appeared, steaming in a manner which was quite exhilarating to
+behold, and sending forth a most grateful and inviting fragrance.
+
+But, despite the punch and the manager, who told a variety of
+stories, and smoked tobacco from a pipe, and inhaled it in the shape
+of snuff, with a most astonishing power, Nicholas was absent and
+dispirited.  His thoughts were in his old home, and when they
+reverted to his present condition, the uncertainty of the morrow
+cast a gloom upon him, which his utmost efforts were unable to
+dispel.  His attention wandered; although he heard the manager's
+voice, he was deaf to what he said; and when Mr Vincent Crummles
+concluded the history of some long adventure with a loud laugh, and
+an inquiry what Nicholas would have done under the same
+circumstances, he was obliged to make the best apology in his power,
+and to confess his entire ignorance of all he had been talking
+about.
+
+'Why, so I saw,' observed Mr Crummles.  'You're uneasy in your mind.
+What's the matter?'
+
+Nicholas could not refrain from smiling at the abruptness of the
+question; but, thinking it scarcely worth while to parry it, owned
+that he was under some apprehensions lest he might not succeed in
+the object which had brought him to that part of the country.
+
+'And what's that?' asked the manager.
+
+'Getting something to do which will keep me and my poor fellow-
+traveller in the common necessaries of life,' said Nicholas.
+'That's the truth.  You guessed it long ago, I dare say, so I may as
+well have the credit of telling it you with a good grace.'
+
+'What's to be got to do at Portsmouth more than anywhere else?'
+asked Mr Vincent Crummles, melting the sealing-wax on the stem of
+his pipe in the candle, and rolling it out afresh with his little
+finger.
+
+'There are many vessels leaving the port, I suppose,' replied
+Nicholas.  'I shall try for a berth in some ship or other.  There is
+meat and drink there at all events.'
+
+'Salt meat and new rum; pease-pudding and chaff-biscuits,' said the
+manager, taking a whiff at his pipe to keep it alight, and returning
+to his work of embellishment.
+
+'One may do worse than that,' said Nicholas.  'I can rough it, I
+believe, as well as most young men of my age and previous habits.'
+
+'You need be able to,' said the manager, 'if you go on board ship;
+but you won't.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'Because there's not a skipper or mate that would think you worth
+your salt, when he could get a practised hand,' replied the manager;
+'and they as plentiful there, as the oysters in the streets.'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Nicholas, alarmed by this prediction, and
+the confident tone in which it had been uttered.  'Men are not born
+able seamen.  They must be reared, I suppose?'
+
+Mr Vincent Crummles nodded his head.  'They must; but not at your
+age, or from young gentlemen like you.'
+
+There was a pause.  The countenance of Nicholas fell, and he gazed
+ruefully at the fire.
+
+'Does no other profession occur to you, which a young man of your
+figure and address could take up easily, and see the world to
+advantage in?' asked the manager.
+
+'No,' said Nicholas, shaking his head.
+
+'Why, then, I'll tell you one,' said Mr Crummles, throwing his pipe
+into the fire, and raising his voice.  'The stage.'
+
+'The stage!' cried Nicholas, in a voice almost as loud.
+
+'The theatrical profession,' said Mr Vincent Crummles.  'I am in the
+theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the theatrical
+profession, my children are in the theatrical profession.  I had a
+dog that lived and died in it from a puppy; and my chaise-pony goes
+on, in Timour the Tartar.  I'll bring you out, and your friend too.
+Say the word.  I want a novelty.'
+
+'I don't know anything about it,' rejoined Nicholas, whose breath
+had been almost taken away by this sudden proposal.  'I never acted
+a part in my life, except at school.'
+
+'There's genteel comedy in your walk and manner, juvenile tragedy in
+your eye, and touch-and-go farce in your laugh,' said Mr Vincent
+Crummles.  'You'll do as well as if you had thought of nothing else
+but the lamps, from your birth downwards.'
+
+Nicholas thought of the small amount of small change that would
+remain in his pocket after paying the tavern bill; and he hesitated.
+
+'You can be useful to us in a hundred ways,' said Mr Crummles.
+'Think what capital bills a man of your education could write for
+the shop-windows.'
+
+'Well, I think I could manage that department,' said Nicholas.
+
+'To be sure you could,' replied Mr Crummles.  '"For further
+particulars see small hand-bills"--we might have half a volume in
+every one of 'em.  Pieces too; why, you could write us a piece to
+bring out the whole strength of the company, whenever we wanted
+one.'
+
+'I am not quite so confident about that,' replied Nicholas.  'But I
+dare say I could scribble something now and then, that would suit
+you.'
+
+'We'll have a new show-piece out directly,' said the manager.  'Let
+me see--peculiar resources of this establishment--new and splendid
+scenery--you must manage to introduce a real pump and two washing-
+tubs.'
+
+'Into the piece?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Yes,' replied the manager.  'I bought 'em cheap, at a sale the
+other day, and they'll come in admirably.  That's the London plan.
+They look up some dresses, and properties, and have a piece written
+to fit 'em.  Most of the theatres keep an author on purpose.'
+
+'Indeed!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'Oh, yes,' said the manager; 'a common thing.  It'll look very well
+in the bills in separate lines--Real pump!--Splendid tubs!--Great
+attraction!  You don't happen to be anything of an artist, do you?'
+
+'That is not one of my accomplishments,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Ah!  Then it can't be helped,' said the manager.  'If you had been,
+we might have had a large woodcut of the last scene for the posters,
+showing the whole depth of the stage, with the pump and tubs in the
+middle; but, however, if you're not, it can't be helped.'
+
+'What should I get for all this?' inquired Nicholas, after a few
+moments' reflection.  'Could I live by it?'
+
+'Live by it!' said the manager.  'Like a prince!  With your own
+salary, and your friend's, and your writings, you'd make--ah! you'd
+make a pound a week!'
+
+'You don't say so!'
+
+'I do indeed, and if we had a run of good houses, nearly double the
+money.'
+
+Nicholas shrugged his shoulders; but sheer destitution was before
+him; and if he could summon fortitude to undergo the extremes of
+want and hardship, for what had he rescued his helpless charge if it
+were only to bear as hard a fate as that from which he had wrested
+him?  It was easy to think of seventy miles as nothing, when he was
+in the same town with the man who had treated him so ill and roused
+his bitterest thoughts; but now, it seemed far enough.  What if he
+went abroad, and his mother or Kate were to die the while?
+
+Without more deliberation, he hastily declared that it was a
+bargain, and gave Mr Vincent Crummles his hand upon it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+Treats of the Company of Mr Vincent Crummles, and of his Affairs,
+Domestic and Theatrical
+
+
+As Mr Crummles had a strange four-legged animal in the inn stables,
+which he called a pony, and a vehicle of unknown design, on which he
+bestowed the appellation of a four-wheeled phaeton, Nicholas
+proceeded on his journey next morning with greater ease than he had
+expected: the manager and himself occupying the front seat: and the
+Master Crummleses and Smike being packed together behind, in company
+with a wicker basket defended from wet by a stout oilskin, in which
+were the broad-swords, pistols, pigtails, nautical costumes, and
+other professional necessaries of the aforesaid young gentlemen.
+
+The pony took his time upon the road, and--possibly in consequence
+of his theatrical education--evinced, every now and then, a strong
+inclination to lie down.  However, Mr Vincent Crummles kept him up
+pretty well, by jerking the rein, and plying the whip; and when
+these means failed, and the animal came to a stand, the elder Master
+Crummles got out and kicked him.  By dint of these encouragements,
+he was persuaded to move from time to time, and they jogged on (as
+Mr Crummles truly observed) very comfortably for all parties.
+
+'He's a good pony at bottom,' said Mr Crummles, turning to Nicholas.
+
+He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not at top,
+seeing that his coat was of the roughest and most ill-favoured kind.
+So, Nicholas merely observed that he shouldn't wonder if he was.
+
+'Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone,' said Mr Crummles,
+flicking him skilfully on the eyelid for old acquaintance' sake.
+'He is quite one of us.  His mother was on the stage.'
+
+'Was she?' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'She ate apple-pie at a circus for upwards of fourteen years,' said
+the manager; 'fired pistols, and went to bed in a nightcap; and, in
+short, took the low comedy entirely.  His father was a dancer.'
+
+'Was he at all distinguished?'
+
+'Not very,' said the manager.  'He was rather a low sort of pony.
+The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he
+never quite got over his old habits.  He was clever in melodrama
+too, but too broad--too broad.  When the mother died, he took the
+port-wine business.'
+
+'The port-wine business!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'Drinking port-wine with the clown,' said the manager; 'but he was
+greedy, and one night bit off the bowl of the glass, and choked
+himself, so his vulgarity was the death of him at last.'
+
+The descendant of this ill-starred animal requiring increased
+attention from Mr Crummles as he progressed in his day's work, that
+gentleman had very little time for conversation.  Nicholas was thus
+left at leisure to entertain himself with his own thoughts, until
+they arrived at the drawbridge at Portsmouth, when Mr Crummles
+pulled up.
+
+'We'll get down here,' said the manager, 'and the boys will take him
+round to the stable, and call at my lodgings with the luggage.  You
+had better let yours be taken there, for the present.'
+
+Thanking Mr Vincent Crummles for his obliging offer, Nicholas jumped
+out, and, giving Smike his arm, accompanied the manager up High
+Street on their way to the theatre; feeling nervous and
+uncomfortable enough at the prospect of an immediate introduction to
+a scene so new to him.
+
+They passed a great many bills, pasted against the walls and
+displayed in windows, wherein the names of Mr Vincent Crummles, Mrs
+Vincent Crummles, Master Crummles, Master P. Crummles, and Miss
+Crummles, were printed in very large letters, and everything else in
+very small ones; and, turning at length into an entry, in which was
+a strong smell of orange-peel and lamp-oil, with an under-current of
+sawdust, groped their way through a dark passage, and, descending a
+step or two, threaded a little maze of canvas screens and paint
+pots, and emerged upon the stage of the Portsmouth Theatre.
+
+'Here we are,' said Mr Crummles.
+
+It was not very light, but Nicholas found himself close to the first
+entrance on the prompt side, among bare walls, dusty scenes,
+mildewed clouds, heavily daubed draperies, and dirty floors.  He
+looked about him; ceiling, pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings,
+and decorations of every kind,--all looked coarse, cold, gloomy, and
+wretched.
+
+'Is this a theatre?' whispered Smike, in amazement; 'I thought it
+was a blaze of light and finery.'
+
+'Why, so it is,' replied Nicholas, hardly less surprised; 'but not
+by day, Smike--not by day.'
+
+The manager's voice recalled him from a more careful inspection of
+the building, to the opposite side of the proscenium, where, at a
+small mahogany table with rickety legs and of an oblong shape, sat a
+stout, portly female, apparently between forty and fifty, in a
+tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings in her
+hand, and her hair (of which she had a great quantity) braided in a
+large festoon over each temple.
+
+'Mr Johnson,' said the manager (for Nicholas had given the name
+which Newman Noggs had bestowed upon him in his conversation with
+Mrs Kenwigs), 'let me introduce Mrs Vincent Crummles.'
+
+'I am glad to see you, sir,' said Mrs Vincent Crummles, in a
+sepulchral voice.  'I am very glad to see you, and still more happy
+to hail you as a promising member of our corps.'
+
+The lady shook Nicholas by the hand as she addressed him in these
+terms; he saw it was a large one, but had not expected quite such an
+iron grip as that with which she honoured him.
+
+'And this,' said the lady, crossing to Smike, as tragic actresses
+cross when they obey a stage direction, 'and this is the other.  You
+too, are welcome, sir.'
+
+'He'll do, I think, my dear?' said the manager, taking a pinch of
+snuff.
+
+'He is admirable,' replied the lady.  'An acquisition indeed.'
+
+As Mrs Vincent Crummles recrossed back to the table, there bounded
+on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty
+white frock with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandaled
+shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers;
+who turned a pirouette, cut twice in the air, turned another
+pirouette, then, looking off at the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded
+forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a
+beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair
+of buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering his
+teeth, fiercely brandished a walking-stick.
+
+'They are going through the Indian Savage and the Maiden,' said Mrs
+Crummles.
+
+'Oh!' said the manager, 'the little ballet interlude.  Very good, go
+on.  A little this way, if you please, Mr Johnson.  That'll do.
+Now!'
+
+The manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed, and the
+savage, becoming ferocious, made a slide towards the maiden; but the
+maiden avoided him in six twirls, and came down, at the end of the
+last one, upon the very points of her toes.  This seemed to make
+some impression upon the savage; for, after a little more ferocity
+and chasing of the maiden into corners, he began to relent, and
+stroked his face several times with his right thumb and four
+fingers, thereby intimating that he was struck with admiration of
+the maiden's beauty.  Acting upon the impulse of this passion, he
+(the savage) began to hit himself severe thumps in the chest, and to
+exhibit other indications of being desperately in love, which being
+rather a prosy proceeding, was very likely the cause of the maiden's
+falling asleep; whether it was or no, asleep she did fall, sound as
+a church, on a sloping bank, and the savage perceiving it, leant his
+left ear on his left hand, and nodded sideways, to intimate to all
+whom it might concern that she WAS asleep, and no shamming.  Being
+left to himself, the savage had a dance, all alone.  Just as he left
+off, the maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got off the bank, and had
+a dance all alone too--such a dance that the savage looked on in
+ecstasy all the while, and when it was done, plucked from a
+neighbouring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small
+pickled cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first wouldn't
+have it, but on the savage shedding tears relented.  Then the savage
+jumped for joy; then the maiden jumped for rapture at the sweet
+smell of the pickled cabbage.  Then the savage and the maiden danced
+violently together, and, finally, the savage dropped down on one
+knee, and the maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus
+concluding the ballet, and leaving the spectators in a state of
+pleasing uncertainty, whether she would ultimately marry the savage,
+or return to her friends.
+
+'Very well indeed,' said Mr Crummles; 'bravo!'
+
+'Bravo!' cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything.
+'Beautiful!'
+
+'This, sir,' said Mr Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward,
+'this is the infant phenomenon--Miss Ninetta Crummles.'
+
+'Your daughter?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'My daughter--my daughter,' replied Mr Vincent Crummles; 'the idol
+of every place we go into, sir.  We have had complimentary letters
+about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every
+town in England.'
+
+'I am not surprised at that,' said Nicholas; 'she must be quite a
+natural genius.'
+
+'Quite a--!'  Mr Crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough
+to describe the infant phenomenon.  'I'll tell you what, sir,' he
+said; 'the talent of this child is not to be imagined.  She must be
+seen, sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated.  There; go to
+your mother, my dear.'
+
+'May I ask how old she is?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'You may, sir,' replied Mr Crummles, looking steadily in his
+questioner's face, as some men do when they have doubts about being
+implicitly believed in what they are going to say.  'She is ten
+years of age, sir.'
+
+'Not more!'
+
+'Not a day.'
+
+'Dear me!' said Nicholas, 'it's extraordinary.'
+
+It was; for the infant phenomenon, though of short stature, had a
+comparatively aged countenance, and had moreover been precisely the
+same age--not perhaps to the full extent of the memory of the oldest
+inhabitant, but certainly for five good years.  But she had been
+kept up late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of
+gin-and-water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps
+this system of training had produced in the infant phenomenon these
+additional phenomena.
+
+While this short dialogue was going on, the gentleman who had
+enacted the savage, came up, with his walking shoes on his feet, and
+his slippers in his hand, to within a few paces, as if desirous to
+join in the conversation.  Deeming this a good opportunity, he put
+in his word.
+
+'Talent there, sir!' said the savage, nodding towards Miss Crummles.
+
+Nicholas assented.
+
+'Ah!' said the actor, setting his teeth together, and drawing in his
+breath with a hissing sound, 'she oughtn't to be in the provinces,
+she oughtn't.'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked the manager.
+
+'I mean to say,' replied the other, warmly, 'that she is too good
+for country boards, and that she ought to be in one of the large
+houses in London, or nowhere; and I tell you more, without mincing
+the matter, that if it wasn't for envy and jealousy in some quarter
+that you know of, she would be.  Perhaps you'll introduce me here,
+Mr Crummles.'
+
+'Mr Folair,' said the manager, presenting him to Nicholas.
+
+'Happy to know you, sir.'  Mr Folair touched the brim of his hat with
+his forefinger, and then shook hands.  'A recruit, sir, I
+understand?'
+
+'An unworthy one,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Did you ever see such a set-out as that?' whispered the actor,
+drawing him away, as Crummles left them to speak to his wife.
+
+'As what?'
+
+Mr Folair made a funny face from his pantomime collection, and
+pointed over his shoulder.
+
+'You don't mean the infant phenomenon?'
+
+'Infant humbug, sir,' replied Mr Folair.  'There isn't a female
+child of common sharpness in a charity school, that couldn't do
+better than that.  She may thank her stars she was born a manager's
+daughter.'
+
+'You seem to take it to heart,' observed Nicholas, with a smile.
+
+'Yes, by Jove, and well I may,' said Mr Folair, drawing his arm
+through his, and walking him up and down the stage.  'Isn't it
+enough to make a man crusty to see that little sprawler put up in
+the best business every night, and actually keeping money out of the
+house, by being forced down the people's throats, while other people
+are passed over?  Isn't it extraordinary to see a man's confounded
+family conceit blinding him, even to his own interest?  Why I KNOW
+of fifteen and sixpence that came to Southampton one night last
+month, to see me dance the Highland Fling; and what's the
+consequence?  I've never been put up in it since--never once--while
+the "infant phenomenon" has been grinning through artificial flowers
+at five people and a baby in the pit, and two boys in the gallery,
+every night.'
+
+'If I may judge from what I have seen of you,' said Nicholas, 'you
+must be a valuable member of the company.'
+
+'Oh!' replied Mr Folair, beating his slippers together, to knock the
+dust out; 'I CAN come it pretty well--nobody better, perhaps, in my
+own line--but having such business as one gets here, is like putting
+lead on one's feet instead of chalk, and dancing in fetters without
+the credit of it.  Holloa, old fellow, how are you?'
+
+The gentleman addressed in these latter words was a dark-
+complexioned man, inclining indeed to sallow, with long thick black
+hair, and very evident inclinations (although he was close shaved)
+of a stiff beard, and whiskers of the same deep shade.  His age did
+not appear to exceed thirty, though many at first sight would have
+considered him much older, as his face was long, and very pale, from
+the constant application of stage paint.  He wore a checked shirt,
+an old green coat with new gilt buttons, a neckerchief of broad red
+and green stripes, and full blue trousers; he carried, too, a common
+ash walking-stick, apparently more for show than use, as he
+flourished it about, with the hooked end downwards, except when he
+raised it for a few seconds, and throwing himself into a fencing
+attitude, made a pass or two at the side-scenes, or at any other
+object, animate or inanimate, that chanced to afford him a pretty
+good mark at the moment.
+
+'Well, Tommy,' said this gentleman, making a thrust at his friend,
+who parried it dexterously with his slipper, 'what's the news?'
+
+'A new appearance, that's all,' replied Mr Folair, looking at
+Nicholas.
+
+'Do the honours, Tommy, do the honours,' said the other gentleman,
+tapping him reproachfully on the crown of the hat with his stick.
+
+'This is Mr Lenville, who does our first tragedy, Mr Johnson,' said
+the pantomimist.
+
+'Except when old bricks and mortar takes it into his head to do it
+himself, you should add, Tommy,' remarked Mr Lenville.  'You know
+who bricks and mortar is, I suppose, sir?'
+
+'I do not, indeed,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'We call Crummles that, because his style of acting is rather in the
+heavy and ponderous way,' said Mr Lenville.  'I mustn't be cracking
+jokes though, for I've got a part of twelve lengths here, which I
+must be up in tomorrow night, and I haven't had time to look at it
+yet; I'm a confounded quick study, that's one comfort.'
+
+Consoling himself with this reflection, Mr Lenville drew from his
+coat pocket a greasy and crumpled manuscript, and, having made
+another pass at his friend, proceeded to walk to and fro, conning it
+to himself and indulging occasionally in such appropriate action as
+his imagination and the text suggested.
+
+A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place;
+for besides Mr Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a
+slim young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited
+lovers and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the
+comic countryman--a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad
+face, and staring eyes.  Making himself very amiable to the infant
+phenomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths
+of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous old men; and paying
+especial court to Mrs Crummles was another elderly gentleman, a
+shade more respectable, who played the irascible old men--those
+funny fellows who have nephews in the army and perpetually run about
+with thick sticks to compel them to marry heiresses.  Besides these,
+there was a roving-looking person in a rough great-coat, who strode
+up and down in front of the lamps, flourishing a dress cane, and
+rattling away, in an undertone, with great vivacity for the
+amusement of an ideal audience.  He was not quite so young as he had
+been, and his figure was rather running to seed; but there was an
+air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the hero of
+swaggering comedy.  There was, also, a little group of three or four
+young men with lantern jaws and thick eyebrows, who were conversing
+in one corner; but they seemed to be of secondary importance, and
+laughed and talked together without attracting any attention.
+
+The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round the
+rickety table before mentioned.  There was Miss Snevellicci--who
+could do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also
+always played some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit--
+glancing, from the depths of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at
+Nicholas, and affecting to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting
+story to her friend Miss Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was
+making up a ruff in the most natural manner possible.  There was
+Miss Belvawney--who seldom aspired to speaking parts, and usually
+went on as a page in white silk hose, to stand with one leg bent,
+and contemplate the audience, or to go in and out after Mr Crummles
+in stately tragedy--twisting up the ringlets of the beautiful Miss
+Bravassa, who had once had her likeness taken 'in character' by an
+engraver's apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up for sale in
+the pastry-cook's window, and the greengrocer's, and at the
+circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the announce bills
+came out for her annual night.  There was Mrs Lenville, in a very
+limp bonnet and veil, decidedly in that way in which she would wish
+to be if she truly loved Mr Lenville; there was Miss Gazingi, with
+an imitation ermine boa tied in a loose knot round her neck,
+flogging Mr Crummles, junior, with both ends, in fun.  Lastly, there
+was Mrs Grudden in a brown cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who
+assisted Mrs Crummles in her domestic affairs, and took money at the
+doors, and dressed the ladies, and swept the house, and held the
+prompt book when everybody else was on for the last scene, and acted
+any kind of part on any emergency without ever learning it, and was
+put down in the bills under my name or names whatever, that occurred
+to Mr Crummles as looking well in print.
+
+Mr Folair having obligingly confided these particulars to Nicholas,
+left him to mingle with his fellows; the work of personal
+introduction was completed by Mr Vincent Crummles, who publicly
+heralded the new actor as a prodigy of genius and learning.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Miss Snevellicci, sidling towards
+Nicholas, 'but did you ever play at Canterbury?'
+
+'I never did,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'I recollect meeting a gentleman at Canterbury,' said Miss
+Snevellicci, 'only for a few moments, for I was leaving the company
+as he joined it, so like you that I felt almost certain it was the
+same.'
+
+'I see you now for the first time,' rejoined Nicholas with all due
+gallantry.  'I am sure I never saw you before; I couldn't have
+forgotten it.'
+
+'Oh, I'm sure--it's very flattering of you to say so,' retorted Miss
+Snevellicci with a graceful bend.  'Now I look at you again, I see
+that the gentleman at Canterbury hadn't the same eyes as you--you'll
+think me very foolish for taking notice of such things, won't you?'
+
+'Not at all,' said Nicholas.  'How can I feel otherwise than
+flattered by your notice in any way?'
+
+'Oh! you men are such vain creatures!' cried Miss Snevellicci.
+Whereupon, she became charmingly confused, and, pulling out her
+pocket-handkerchief from a faded pink silk reticule with a gilt
+clasp, called to Miss Ledrook--
+
+'Led, my dear,' said Miss Snevellicci.
+
+'Well, what is the matter?' said Miss Ledrook.
+
+'It's not the same.'
+
+'Not the same what?'
+
+'Canterbury--you know what I mean.  Come here!  I want to speak to
+you.'
+
+But Miss Ledrook wouldn't come to Miss Snevellicci, so Miss
+Snevellicci was obliged to go to Miss Ledrook, which she did, in a
+skipping manner that was quite fascinating; and Miss Ledrook
+evidently joked Miss Snevellicci about being struck with Nicholas;
+for, after some playful whispering, Miss Snevellicci hit Miss
+Ledrook very hard on the backs of her hands, and retired up, in a
+state of pleasing confusion.
+
+'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Mr Vincent Crummles, who had been
+writing on a piece of paper, 'we'll call the Mortal Struggle
+tomorrow at ten; everybody for the procession.  Intrigue, and Ways
+and Means, you're all up in, so we shall only want one rehearsal.
+Everybody at ten, if you please.'
+
+'Everybody at ten,' repeated Mrs Grudden, looking about her.
+
+'On Monday morning we shall read a new piece,' said Mr Crummles;
+'the name's not known yet, but everybody will have a good part.  Mr
+Johnson will take care of that.'
+
+'Hallo!' said Nicholas, starting.  'I--'
+
+'On Monday morning,' repeated Mr Crummles, raising his voice, to
+drown the unfortunate Mr Johnson's remonstrance; 'that'll do, ladies
+and gentlemen.'
+
+The ladies and gentlemen required no second notice to quit; and, in
+a few minutes, the theatre was deserted, save by the Crummles
+family, Nicholas, and Smike.
+
+'Upon my word,' said Nicholas, taking the manager aside, 'I don't
+think I can be ready by Monday.'
+
+'Pooh, pooh,' replied Mr Crummles.
+
+'But really I can't,' returned Nicholas; 'my invention is not
+accustomed to these demands, or possibly I might produce--'
+
+'Invention! what the devil's that got to do with it!' cried the
+manager hastily.
+
+'Everything, my dear sir.'
+
+'Nothing, my dear sir,' retorted the manager, with evident
+impatience.  'Do you understand French?'
+
+'Perfectly well.'
+
+'Very good,' said the manager, opening the table drawer, and giving
+a roll of paper from it to Nicholas.  'There!  Just turn that into
+English, and put your name on the title-page.  Damn me,' said Mr
+Crummles, angrily, 'if I haven't often said that I wouldn't have a
+man or woman in my company that wasn't master of the language, so
+that they might learn it from the original, and play it in English,
+and save all this trouble and expense.'
+
+Nicholas smiled and pocketed the play.
+
+'What are you going to do about your lodgings?' said Mr Crummles.
+
+Nicholas could not help thinking that, for the first week, it would
+be an uncommon convenience to have a turn-up bedstead in the pit,
+but he merely remarked that he had not turned his thoughts that way.
+
+'Come home with me then,' said Mr Crummles, 'and my boys shall go
+with you after dinner, and show you the most likely place.'
+
+The offer was not to be refused; Nicholas and Mr Crummles gave Mrs
+Crummles an arm each, and walked up the street in stately array.
+Smike, the boys, and the phenomenon, went home by a shorter cut, and
+Mrs Grudden remained behind to take some cold Irish stew and a pint
+of porter in the box-office.
+
+Mrs Crummles trod the pavement as if she were going to immediate
+execution with an animating consciousness of innocence, and that
+heroic fortitude which virtue alone inspires.  Mr Crummles, on the
+other hand, assumed the look and gait of a hardened despot; but they
+both attracted some notice from many of the passers-by, and when
+they heard a whisper of 'Mr and Mrs Crummles!' or saw a little boy
+run back to stare them in the face, the severe expression of their
+countenances relaxed, for they felt it was popularity.
+
+Mr Crummles lived in St Thomas's Street, at the house of one Bulph,
+a pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the
+same colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his
+parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities.
+He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-
+handle, all very bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on
+the top of it, in his back yard.
+
+'You are welcome,' said Mrs Crummles, turning round to Nicholas when
+they reached the bow-windowed front room on the first floor.
+
+Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was unfeignedly glad to see
+the cloth laid.
+
+'We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,' said Mrs
+Crummles, in the same charnel-house voice; 'but such as our dinner
+is, we beg you to partake of it.'
+
+'You are very good,' replied Nicholas, 'I shall do it ample
+justice.'
+
+'Vincent,' said Mrs Crummles, 'what is the hour?'
+
+'Five minutes past dinner-time,' said Mr Crummles.
+
+Mrs Crummles rang the bell.  'Let the mutton and onion sauce
+appear.'
+
+The slave who attended upon Mr Bulph's lodgers, disappeared, and
+after a short interval reappeared with the festive banquet.
+Nicholas and the infant phenomenon opposed each other at the
+pembroke-table, and Smike and the master Crummleses dined on the
+sofa bedstead.
+
+'Are they very theatrical people here?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'No,' replied Mr Crummles, shaking his head, 'far from it--far from
+it.'
+
+'I pity them,' observed Mrs Crummles.
+
+'So do I,' said Nicholas; 'if they have no relish for theatrical
+entertainments, properly conducted.'
+
+'Then they have none, sir,' rejoined Mr Crummles.  'To the infant's
+benefit, last year, on which occasion she repeated three of her most
+popular characters, and also appeared in the Fairy Porcupine, as
+originally performed by her, there was a house of no more than four
+pound twelve.'
+
+'Is it possible?' cried Nicholas.
+
+'And two pound of that was trust, pa,' said the phenomenon.
+
+'And two pound of that was trust,' repeated Mr Crummles.  'Mrs
+Crummles herself has played to mere handfuls.'
+
+'But they are always a taking audience, Vincent,' said the manager's
+wife.
+
+'Most audiences are, when they have good acting--real good acting--
+the regular thing,' replied Mr Crummles, forcibly.
+
+'Do you give lessons, ma'am?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'I do,' said Mrs Crummles.
+
+'There is no teaching here, I suppose?'
+
+'There has been,' said Mrs Crummles.  'I have received pupils here.
+I imparted tuition to the daughter of a dealer in ships' provision;
+but it afterwards appeared that she was insane when she first came
+to me.  It was very extraordinary that she should come, under such
+circumstances.'
+
+Not feeling quite so sure of that, Nicholas thought it best to hold
+his peace.
+
+'Let me see,' said the manager cogitating after dinner.  'Would you
+like some nice little part with the infant?'
+
+'You are very good,' replied Nicholas hastily; 'but I think perhaps
+it would be better if I had somebody of my own size at first, in
+case I should turn out awkward.  I should feel more at home,
+perhaps.'
+
+'True,' said the manager.  'Perhaps you would.  And you could play
+up to the infant, in time, you know.'
+
+'Certainly,' replied Nicholas: devoutly hoping that it would be a
+very long time before he was honoured with this distinction.
+
+'Then I'll tell you what we'll do,' said Mr Crummles.  'You shall
+study Romeo when you've done that piece--don't forget to throw the
+pump and tubs in by-the-bye--Juliet Miss Snevellicci, old Grudden
+the nurse.--Yes, that'll do very well.  Rover too;--you might get up
+Rover while you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler.  You
+can easily knock them off; one part helps the other so much.  Here
+they are, cues and all.'
+
+With these hasty general directions Mr Crummles thrust a number of
+little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and bidding his
+eldest son go with him and show where lodgings were to be had, shook
+him by the hand, and wished him good night.
+
+There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in Portsmouth,
+and no difficulty in finding some that are proportionate to very
+slender finances; but the former were too good, and the latter too
+bad, and they went into so many houses, and came out unsuited, that
+Nicholas seriously began to think he should be obliged to ask
+permission to spend the night in the theatre, after all.
+
+Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small rooms up three
+pair of stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, at a tobacconist's
+shop, on the Common Hard: a dirty street leading down to the
+dockyard.  These Nicholas engaged, only too happy to have escaped
+any request for payment of a week's rent beforehand.
+
+'There!  Lay down our personal property, Smike,' he said, after
+showing young Crummles downstairs.  'We have fallen upon strange
+times, and Heaven only knows the end of them; but I am tired with
+the events of these three days, and will postpone reflection till
+tomorrow--if I can.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+Of the Great Bespeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first Appearance
+of Nicholas upon any Stage
+
+
+Nicholas was up betimes in the morning; but he had scarcely begun to
+dress, notwithstanding, when he heard footsteps ascending the
+stairs, and was presently saluted by the voices of Mr Folair the
+pantomimist, and Mr Lenville, the tragedian.
+
+'House, house, house!' cried Mr Folair.
+
+'What, ho! within there" said Mr Lenville, in a deep voice.
+
+'Confound these fellows!' thought Nicholas; 'they have come to
+breakfast, I suppose.  I'll open the door directly, if you'll wait
+an instant.'
+
+The gentlemen entreated him not to hurry himself; and, to beguile
+the interval, had a fencing bout with their walking-sticks on the
+very small landing-place: to the unspeakable discomposure of all the
+other lodgers downstairs.
+
+'Here, come in,' said Nicholas, when he had completed his toilet.
+'In the name of all that's horrible, don't make that noise outside.'
+
+'An uncommon snug little box this,' said Mr Lenville, stepping into
+the front room, and taking his hat off, before he could get in at
+all.  'Pernicious snug.'
+
+'For a man at all particular in such matters, it might be a trifle
+too snug,' said Nicholas; 'for, although it is, undoubtedly, a great
+convenience to be able to reach anything you want from the ceiling
+or the floor, or either side of the room, without having to move
+from your chair, still these advantages can only be had in an
+apartment of the most limited size.'
+
+'It isn't a bit too confined for a single man,' returned Mr
+Lenville.  'That reminds me,--my wife, Mr Johnson,--I hope she'll
+have some good part in this piece of yours?'
+
+'I glanced at the French copy last night,' said Nicholas.  'It looks
+very good, I think.'
+
+'What do you mean to do for me, old fellow?' asked Mr Lenville,
+poking the struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards
+wiping it on the skirt of his coat.  'Anything in the gruff and
+grumble way?'
+
+'You turn your wife and child out of doors,' said Nicholas; 'and, in
+a fit of rage and jealousy, stab your eldest son in the library.'
+
+'Do I though!' exclaimed Mr Lenville.  'That's very good business.'
+
+'After which,' said Nicholas, 'you are troubled with remorse till
+the last act, and then you make up your mind to destroy yourself.
+But, just as you are raising the pistol to your head, a clock
+strikes--ten.'
+
+'I see,' cried Mr Lenville.  'Very good.'
+
+'You pause,' said Nicholas; 'you recollect to have heard a clock
+strike ten in your infancy.  The pistol falls from your hand--you
+are overcome--you burst into tears, and become a virtuous and
+exemplary character for ever afterwards.'
+
+'Capital!' said Mr Lenville: 'that's a sure card, a sure card.  Get
+the curtain down with a touch of nature like that, and it'll be a
+triumphant success.'
+
+'Is there anything good for me?' inquired Mr Folair, anxiously.
+
+'Let me see,' said Nicholas.  'You play the faithful and attached
+servant; you are turned out of doors with the wife and child.'
+
+'Always coupled with that infernal phenomenon,' sighed Mr Folair;
+'and we go into poor lodgings, where I won't take any wages, and
+talk sentiment, I suppose?'
+
+'Why--yes,' replied Nicholas: 'that is the course of the piece.'
+
+'I must have a dance of some kind, you know,' said Mr Folair.
+'You'll have to introduce one for the phenomenon, so you'd better
+make a PAS DE DEUX, and save time.'
+
+'There's nothing easier than that,' said Mr Lenville, observing the
+disturbed looks of the young dramatist.
+
+'Upon my word I don't see how it's to be done,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Why, isn't it obvious?' reasoned Mr Lenville.  'Gadzooks, who can
+help seeing the way to do it?--you astonish me!  You get the
+distressed lady, and the little child, and the attached servant,
+into the poor lodgings, don't you?--Well, look here.  The distressed
+lady sinks into a chair, and buries her face in her pocket-
+handkerchief.  "What makes you weep, mama?" says the child.  "Don't
+weep, mama, or you'll make me weep too!"--"And me!" says the
+favourite servant, rubbing his eyes with his arm.  "What can we do
+to raise your spirits, dear mama?" says the little child.  "Ay,
+what CAN we do?" says the faithful servant.  "Oh, Pierre!" says the
+distressed lady; "would that I could shake off these painful
+thoughts."--"Try, ma'am, try," says the faithful servant; "rouse
+yourself, ma'am; be amused."--"I will," says the lady, "I will learn
+to suffer with fortitude.  Do you remember that dance, my honest
+friend, which, in happier days, you practised with this sweet angel?
+It never failed to calm my spirits then.  Oh! let me see it once
+again before I die!"--There it is--cue for the band, BEFORE I DIE,--
+and off they go.  That's the regular thing; isn't it, Tommy?'
+
+'That's it,' replied Mr Folair.  'The distressed lady, overpowered
+by old recollections, faints at the end of the dance, and you close
+in with a picture.'
+
+Profiting by these and other lessons, which were the result of the
+personal experience of the two actors, Nicholas willingly gave them
+the best breakfast he could, and, when he at length got rid of them,
+applied himself to his task: by no means displeased to find that it
+was so much easier than he had at first supposed.  He worked very
+hard all day, and did not leave his room until the evening, when he
+went down to the theatre, whither Smike had repaired before him to
+go on with another gentleman as a general rebellion.
+
+Here all the people were so much changed, that he scarcely knew
+them.  False hair, false colour, false calves, false muscles--they
+had become different beings.  Mr Lenville was a blooming warrior of
+most exquisite proportions; Mr Crummles, his large face shaded by a
+profusion of black hair, a Highland outlaw of most majestic bearing;
+one of the old gentlemen a jailer, and the other a venerable
+patriarch; the comic countryman, a fighting-man of great valour,
+relieved by a touch of humour; each of the Master Crummleses a
+prince in his own right; and the low-spirited lover, a desponding
+captive.  There was a gorgeous banquet ready spread for the third
+act, consisting of two pasteboard vases, one plate of biscuits, a
+black bottle, and a vinegar cruet; and, in short, everything was on
+a scale of the utmost splendour and preparation.
+
+Nicholas was standing with his back to the curtain, now
+contemplating the first scene, which was a Gothic archway, about two
+feet shorter than Mr Crummles, through which that gentleman was to
+make his first entrance, and now listening to a couple of people who
+were cracking nuts in the gallery, wondering whether they made the
+whole audience, when the manager himself walked familiarly up and
+accosted him.
+
+'Been in front tonight?' said Mr Crummles.
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas, 'not yet.  I am going to see the play.'
+
+'We've had a pretty good Let,' said Mr Crummles.  'Four front places
+in the centre, and the whole of the stage-box.'
+
+'Oh, indeed!' said Nicholas; 'a family, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Mr Crummles, 'yes.  It's an affecting thing.  There
+are six children, and they never come unless the phenomenon plays.'
+
+It would have been difficult for any party, family, or otherwise, to
+have visited the theatre on a night when the phenomenon did NOT
+play, inasmuch as she always sustained one, and not uncommonly two
+or three, characters, every night; but Nicholas, sympathising with
+the feelings of a father, refrained from hinting at this trifling
+circumstance, and Mr Crummles continued to talk, uninterrupted by
+him.
+
+'Six,' said that gentleman; 'pa and ma eight, aunt nine, governess
+ten, grandfather and grandmother twelve.  Then, there's the footman,
+who stands outside, with a bag of oranges and a jug of toast-and-
+water, and sees the play for nothing through the little pane of
+glass in the box-door--it's cheap at a guinea; they gain by taking a
+box.'
+
+'I wonder you allow so many,' observed Nicholas.
+
+'There's no help for it,' replied Mr Crummles; 'it's always expected
+in the country.  If there are six children, six people come to hold
+them in their laps.  A family-box carries double always.  Ring in
+the orchestra, Grudden!'
+
+That useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly afterwards
+the tuning of three fiddles was heard.  Which process having been
+protracted as long as it was supposed that the patience of the
+audience could possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk
+of the bell, which, being the signal to begin in earnest, set the
+orchestra playing a variety of popular airs, with involuntary
+variations.
+
+If Nicholas had been astonished at the alteration for the better
+which the gentlemen displayed, the transformation of the ladies was
+still more extraordinary.  When, from a snug corner of the manager's
+box, he beheld Miss Snevellicci in all the glories of white muslin
+with a golden hem, and Mrs Crummles in all the dignity of the
+outlaw's wife, and Miss Bravassa in all the sweetness of Miss
+Snevellicci's confidential friend, and Miss Belvawney in the white
+silks of a page doing duty everywhere and swearing to live and die
+in the service of everybody, he could scarcely contain his
+admiration, which testified itself in great applause, and the
+closest possible attention to the business of the scene.  The plot
+was most interesting.  It belonged to no particular age, people, or
+country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as
+nobody's previous information could afford the remotest glimmering
+of what would ever come of it.  An outlaw had been very successful
+in doing something somewhere, and came home, in triumph, to the
+sound of shouts and fiddles, to greet his wife--a lady of masculine
+mind, who talked a good deal about her father's bones, which it
+seemed were unburied, though whether from a peculiar taste on the
+part of the old gentleman himself, or the reprehensible neglect of
+his relations, did not appear.  This outlaw's wife was, somehow or
+other, mixed up with a patriarch, living in a castle a long way off,
+and this patriarch was the father of several of the characters, but
+he didn't exactly know which, and was uncertain whether he had
+brought up the right ones in his castle, or the wrong ones; he
+rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy, relieved
+his mind with a banquet, during which solemnity somebody in a cloak
+said 'Beware!' which somebody was known by nobody (except the
+audience) to be the outlaw himself, who had come there, for reasons
+unexplained, but possibly with an eye to the spoons.  There was an
+agreeable little surprise in the way of certain love passages
+between the desponding captive and Miss Snevellicci, and the comic
+fighting-man and Miss Bravassa; besides which, Mr Lenville had
+several very tragic scenes in the dark, while on throat-cutting
+expeditions, which were all baffled by the skill and bravery of the
+comic fighting-man (who overheard whatever was said all through the
+piece) and the intrepidity of Miss Snevellicci, who adopted tights,
+and therein repaired to the prison of her captive lover, with a
+small basket of refreshments and a dark lantern.  At last, it came
+out that the patriarch was the man who had treated the bones of the
+outlaw's father-in-law with so much disrespect, for which cause and
+reason the outlaw's wife repaired to his castle to kill him, and so
+got into a dark room, where, after a good deal of groping in the
+dark, everybody got hold of everybody else, and took them for
+somebody besides, which occasioned a vast quantity of confusion,
+with some pistolling, loss of life, and torchlight; after which, the
+patriarch came forward, and observing, with a knowing look, that he
+knew all about his children now, and would tell them when they got
+inside, said that there could not be a more appropriate occasion for
+marrying the young people than that; and therefore he joined their
+hands, with the full consent of the indefatigable page, who (being
+the only other person surviving) pointed with his cap into the
+clouds, and his right hand to the ground; thereby invoking a
+blessing and giving the cue for the curtain to come down, which it
+did, amidst general applause.
+
+'What did you think of that?' asked Mr Crummles, when Nicholas went
+round to the stage again.  Mr Crummles was very red and hot, for
+your outlaws are desperate fellows to shout.
+
+'I think it was very capital indeed,' replied Nicholas; 'Miss
+Snevellicci in particular was uncommonly good.'
+
+'She's a genius,' said Mr Crummles; 'quite a genius, that girl.  By-
+the-bye, I've been thinking of bringing out that piece of yours on
+her bespeak night.'
+
+'When?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'The night of her bespeak.  Her benefit night, when her friends and
+patrons bespeak the play,' said Mr Crummles.
+
+'Oh! I understand,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'You see,' said Mr.  Crummles, 'it's sure to go, on such an
+occasion, and even if it should not work up quite as well as we
+expect, why it will be her risk, you know, and not ours.'
+
+'Yours, you mean,' said Nicholas.
+
+'I said mine, didn't I?' returned Mr Crummles.  'Next Monday week.
+What do you say?  You'll have done it, and are sure to be up in the
+lover's part, long before that time.'
+
+'I don't know about "long before,"' replied Nicholas; 'but BY that
+time I think I can undertake to be ready.'
+
+'Very good,' pursued Mr Crummles, 'then we'll call that settled.
+Now, I want to ask you something else.  There's a little--what shall
+I call it?--a little canvassing takes place on these occasions.'
+
+'Among the patrons, I suppose?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Among the patrons; and the fact is, that Snevellicci has had so
+many bespeaks in this place, that she wants an attraction.  She had
+a bespeak when her mother-in-law died, and a bespeak when her uncle
+died; and Mrs Crummles and myself have had bespeaks on the
+anniversary of the phenomenon's birthday, and our wedding-day, and
+occasions of that description, so that, in fact, there's some
+difficulty in getting a good one.  Now, won't you help this poor
+girl, Mr Johnson?' said Crummles, sitting himself down on a drum,
+and taking a great pinch of snuff, as he looked him steadily in the
+face.
+
+'How do you mean?' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Don't you think you could spare half an hour tomorrow morning, to
+call with her at the houses of one or two of the principal people?'
+murmured the manager in a persuasive tone.
+
+'Oh dear me,' said Nicholas, with an air of very strong objection,
+'I shouldn't like to do that.'
+
+'The infant will accompany her,' said Mr Crummles.  'The moment it
+was suggested to me, I gave permission for the infant to go.  There
+will not be the smallest impropriety--Miss Snevellicci, sir, is the
+very soul of honour.  It would be of material service--the gentleman
+from London--author of the new piece--actor in the new piece--first
+appearance on any boards--it would lead to a great bespeak, Mr
+Johnson.'
+
+'I am very sorry to throw a damp upon the prospects of anybody, and
+more especially a lady,' replied Nicholas; 'but really I must
+decidedly object to making one of the canvassing party.'
+
+'What does Mr Johnson say, Vincent?' inquired a voice close to his
+ear; and, looking round, he found Mrs Crummles and Miss Snevellicci
+herself standing behind him.
+
+'He has some objection, my dear,' replied Mr Crummles, looking at
+Nicholas.
+
+'Objection!' exclaimed Mrs Crummles.  'Can it be possible?'
+
+'Oh, I hope not!' cried Miss Snevellicci.  'You surely are not so
+cruel--oh, dear me!--Well, I--to think of that now, after all one's
+looking forward to it!'
+
+'Mr Johnson will not persist, my dear,' said Mrs Crummles.  'Think
+better of him than to suppose it.  Gallantry, humanity, all the best
+feelings of his nature, must be enlisted in this interesting cause.'
+
+'Which moves even a manager,' said Mr Crummles, smiling.
+
+'And a manager's wife,' added Mrs Crummles, in her accustomed
+tragedy tones.  'Come, come, you will relent, I know you will.'
+
+'It is not in my nature,' said Nicholas, moved by these appeals, 'to
+resist any entreaty, unless it is to do something positively wrong;
+and, beyond a feeling of pride, I know nothing which should prevent
+my doing this.  I know nobody here, and nobody knows me.  So be it
+then.  I yield.'
+
+Miss Snevellicci was at once overwhelmed with blushes and
+expressions of gratitude, of which latter commodity neither Mr nor
+Mrs Crummles was by any means sparing.  It was arranged that
+Nicholas should call upon her, at her lodgings, at eleven next
+morning, and soon after they parted: he to return home to his
+authorship: Miss Snevellicci to dress for the after-piece: and the
+disinterested manager and his wife to discuss the probable gains of
+the forthcoming bespeak, of which they were to have two-thirds of
+the profits by solemn treaty of agreement.
+
+At the stipulated hour next morning, Nicholas repaired to the
+lodgings of Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place called Lombard
+Street, at the house of a tailor.  A strong smell of ironing
+pervaded the little passage; and the tailor's daughter, who opened
+the door, appeared in that flutter of spirits which is so often
+attendant upon the periodical getting up of a family's linen.
+
+'Miss Snevellicci lives here, I believe?' said Nicholas, when the
+door was opened.
+
+The tailor's daughter replied in the affirmative.
+
+'Will you have the goodness to let her know that Mr Johnson is
+here?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Oh, if you please, you're to come upstairs,' replied the tailor's
+daughter, with a smile.
+
+Nicholas followed the young lady, and was shown into a small
+apartment on the first floor, communicating with a back-room; in
+which, as he judged from a certain half-subdued clinking sound, as
+of cups and saucers, Miss Snevellicci was then taking her breakfast
+in bed.
+
+'You're to wait, if you please,' said the tailor's daughter, after a
+short period of absence, during which the clinking in the back-room
+had ceased, and been succeeded by whispering--'She won't be long.'
+
+As she spoke, she pulled up the window-blind, and having by this
+means (as she thought) diverted Mr Johnson's attention from the room
+to the street, caught up some articles which were airing on the
+fender, and had very much the appearance of stockings, and darted
+off.
+
+As there were not many objects of interest outside the window,
+Nicholas looked about the room with more curiosity than he might
+otherwise have bestowed upon it.  On the sofa lay an old guitar,
+several thumbed pieces of music, and a scattered litter of curl-
+papers; together with a confused heap of play-bills, and a pair of
+soiled white satin shoes with large blue rosettes.  Hanging over the
+back of a chair was a half-finished muslin apron with little pockets
+ornamented with red ribbons, such as waiting-women wear on the
+stage, and (by consequence) are never seen with anywhere else.  In
+one corner stood the diminutive pair of top-boots in which Miss
+Snevellicci was accustomed to enact the little jockey, and, folded
+on a chair hard by, was a small parcel, which bore a very suspicious
+resemblance to the companion smalls.
+
+But the most interesting object of all was, perhaps, the open
+scrapbook, displayed in the midst of some theatrical duodecimos that
+were strewn upon the table; and pasted into which scrapbook were
+various critical notices of Miss Snevellicci's acting, extracted
+from different provincial journals, together with one poetic address
+in her honour, commencing--
+
+
+     Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth
+     Thrice-gifted SNEVELLICCI came on earth,
+     To thrill us with her smile, her tear, her eye,
+     Sing, God of Love, and tell me quickly why.
+
+
+Besides this effusion, there were innumerable complimentary
+allusions, also extracted from newspapers, such as--'We observe from
+an advertisement in another part of our paper of today, that the
+charming and highly-talented Miss Snevellicci takes her benefit on
+Wednesday, for which occasion she has put forth a bill of fare that
+might kindle exhilaration in the breast of a misanthrope.  In the
+confidence that our fellow-townsmen have not lost that high
+appreciation of public utility and private worth, for which they
+have long been so pre-eminently distinguished, we predict that this
+charming actress will be greeted with a bumper.'  'To
+Correspondents.--J.S. is misinformed when he supposes that the
+highly-gifted and beautiful Miss Snevellicci, nightly captivating
+all hearts at our pretty and commodious little theatre, is NOT the
+same lady to whom the young gentleman of immense fortune, residing
+within a hundred miles of the good city of York, lately made
+honourable proposals.  We have reason to know that Miss Snevellicci
+IS the lady who was implicated in that mysterious and romantic
+affair, and whose conduct on that occasion did no less honour to her
+head and heart, than do her histrionic triumphs to her brilliant
+genius.'  A copious assortment of such paragraphs as these, with long
+bills of benefits all ending with 'Come Early', in large capitals,
+formed the principal contents of Miss Snevellicci's scrapbook.
+
+Nicholas had read a great many of these scraps, and was absorbed in
+a circumstantial and melancholy account of the train of events which
+had led to Miss Snevellicci's spraining her ankle by slipping on a
+piece of orange-peel flung by a monster in human form, (so the paper
+said,) upon the stage at Winchester,--when that young lady herself,
+attired in the coal-scuttle bonnet and walking-dress complete,
+tripped into the room, with a thousand apologies for having detained
+him so long after the appointed time.
+
+'But really,' said Miss Snevellicci, 'my darling Led, who lives with
+me here, was taken so very ill in the night that I thought she would
+have expired in my arms.'
+
+'Such a fate is almost to be envied,' returned Nicholas, 'but I am
+very sorry to hear it nevertheless.'
+
+'What a creature you are to flatter!' said Miss Snevellicci,
+buttoning her glove in much confusion.
+
+'If it be flattery to admire your charms and accomplishments,'
+rejoined Nicholas, laying his hand upon the scrapbook, 'you have
+better specimens of it here.'
+
+'Oh you cruel creature, to read such things as those!  I'm almost
+ashamed to look you in the face afterwards, positively I am,' said
+Miss Snevellicci, seizing the book and putting it away in a closet.
+'How careless of Led!  How could she be so naughty!'
+
+'I thought you had kindly left it here, on purpose for me to read,'
+said Nicholas.  And really it did seem possible.
+
+'I wouldn't have had you see it for the world!' rejoined Miss
+Snevellicci.  'I never was so vexed--never!  But she is such a
+careless thing, there's no trusting her.'
+
+The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the
+phenomenon, who had discreetly remained in the bedroom up to this
+moment, and now presented herself, with much grace and lightness,
+bearing in her hand a very little green parasol with a broad fringe
+border, and no handle.  After a few words of course, they sallied
+into the street.
+
+The phenomenon was rather a troublesome companion, for first the
+right sandal came down, and then the left, and these mischances
+being repaired, one leg of the little white trousers was discovered
+to be longer than the other; besides these accidents, the green
+parasol was dropped down an iron grating, and only fished up again
+with great difficulty and by dint of much exertion.  However, it was
+impossible to scold her, as she was the manager's daughter, so
+Nicholas took it all in perfect good humour, and walked on, with
+Miss Snevellicci, arm-in-arm on one side, and the offending infant
+on the other.
+
+The first house to which they bent their steps, was situated in a
+terrace of respectable appearance.  Miss Snevellicci's modest
+double-knock was answered by a foot-boy, who, in reply to her
+inquiry whether Mrs Curdle was at home, opened his eyes very wide,
+grinned very much, and said he didn't know, but he'd inquire.  With
+this he showed them into a parlour where he kept them waiting, until
+the two women-servants had repaired thither, under false pretences,
+to see the play-actors; and having compared notes with them in the
+passage, and joined in a vast quantity of whispering and giggling,
+he at length went upstairs with Miss Snevellicci's name.
+
+Now, Mrs Curdle was supposed, by those who were best informed on
+such points, to possess quite the London taste in matters relating
+to literature and the drama; and as to Mr Curdle, he had written a
+pamphlet of sixty-four pages, post octavo, on the character of the
+Nurse's deceased husband in Romeo and Juliet, with an inquiry
+whether he really had been a 'merry man' in his lifetime, or whether
+it was merely his widow's affectionate partiality that induced her
+so to report him.  He had likewise proved, that by altering the
+received mode of punctuation, any one of Shakespeare's plays could
+be made quite different, and the sense completely changed; it is
+needless to say, therefore, that he was a great critic, and a very
+profound and most original thinker.
+
+'Well, Miss Snevellicci,' said Mrs Curdle, entering the parlour,
+'and how do YOU do?'
+
+Miss Snevellicci made a graceful obeisance, and hoped Mrs Curdle was
+well, as also Mr Curdle, who at the same time appeared.  Mrs Curdle
+was dressed in a morning wrapper, with a little cap stuck upon the
+top of her head.  Mr Curdle wore a loose robe on his back, and his
+right forefinger on his forehead after the portraits of Sterne, to
+whom somebody or other had once said he bore a striking resemblance.
+
+'I venture to call, for the purpose of asking whether you would put
+your name to my bespeak, ma'am,' said Miss Snevellicci, producing
+documents.
+
+'Oh! I really don't know what to say,' replied Mrs Curdle.  'It's
+not as if the theatre was in its high and palmy days--you needn't
+stand, Miss Snevellicci--the drama is gone, perfectly gone.'
+
+'As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions, and a realisation
+of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy
+moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental
+eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone,' said Mr Curdle.
+
+'What man is there, now living, who can present before us all those
+changing and prismatic colours with which the character of Hamlet is
+invested?' exclaimed Mrs Curdle.
+
+'What man indeed--upon the stage,' said Mr Curdle, with a small
+reservation in favour of himself.  'Hamlet!  Pooh! ridiculous!
+Hamlet is gone, perfectly gone.'
+
+Quite overcome by these dismal reflections, Mr and Mrs Curdle
+sighed, and sat for some short time without speaking.  At length,
+the lady, turning to Miss Snevellicci, inquired what play she
+proposed to have.
+
+'Quite a new one,' said Miss Snevellicci, 'of which this gentleman
+is the author, and in which he plays; being his first appearance on
+any stage.  Mr Johnson is the gentleman's name.'
+
+'I hope you have preserved the unities, sir?' said Mr Curdle.
+
+'The original piece is a French one,' said Nicholas.  'There is
+abundance of incident, sprightly dialogue, strongly-marked
+characters--'
+
+'--All unavailing without a strict observance of the unities, sir,'
+returned Mr Curdle.  'The unities of the drama, before everything.'
+
+'Might I ask you,' said Nicholas, hesitating between the respect he
+ought to assume, and his love of the whimsical, 'might I ask you
+what the unities are?'
+
+Mr Curdle coughed and considered.  'The unities, sir,' he said, 'are
+a completeness--a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to
+place and time--a sort of a general oneness, if I may be allowed to
+use so strong an expression.  I take those to be the dramatic
+unities, so far as I have been enabled to bestow attention upon
+them, and I have read much upon the subject, and thought much.  I
+find, running through the performances of this child,' said Mr
+Curdle, turning to the phenomenon, 'a unity of feeling, a breadth, a
+light and shade, a warmth of colouring, a tone, a harmony, a glow,
+an artistical development of original conceptions, which I look for,
+in vain, among older performers--I don't know whether I make myself
+understood?'
+
+'Perfectly,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Just so,' said Mr Curdle, pulling up his neckcloth.  'That is my
+definition of the unities of the drama.'
+
+Mrs Curdle had sat listening to this lucid explanation with great
+complacency.  It being finished, she inquired what Mr Curdle
+thought, about putting down their names.
+
+'I don't know, my dear; upon my word I don't know,' said Mr Curdle.
+'If we do, it must be distinctly understood that we do not pledge
+ourselves to the quality of the performances.  Let it go forth to
+the world, that we do not give THEM the sanction of our names, but
+that we confer the distinction merely upon Miss Snevellicci.  That
+being clearly stated, I take it to be, as it were, a duty, that we
+should extend our patronage to a degraded stage, even for the sake
+of the associations with which it is entwined.  Have you got two-
+and-sixpence for half-a-crown, Miss Snevellicci?' said Mr Curdle,
+turning over four of those pieces of money.
+
+Miss Snevellicci felt in all the corners of the pink reticule, but
+there was nothing in any of them.  Nicholas murmured a jest about
+his being an author, and thought it best not to go through the form
+of feeling in his own pockets at all.
+
+'Let me see,' said Mr Curdle; 'twice four's eight--four shillings
+a-piece to the boxes, Miss Snevellicci, is exceedingly dear in the
+present state of the drama--three half-crowns is seven-and-six; we
+shall not differ about sixpence, I suppose?  Sixpence will not part
+us, Miss Snevellicci?'
+
+Poor Miss Snevellicci took the three half-crowns, with many smiles
+and bends, and Mrs Curdle, adding several supplementary directions
+relative to keeping the places for them, and dusting the seat, and
+sending two clean bills as soon as they came out, rang the bell, as
+a signal for breaking up the conference.
+
+'Odd people those,' said Nicholas, when they got clear of the house.
+
+'I assure you,' said Miss Snevellicci, taking his arm, 'that I think
+myself very lucky they did not owe all the money instead of being
+sixpence short.  Now, if you were to succeed, they would give people
+to understand that they had always patronised you; and if you were
+to fail, they would have been quite certain of that from the very
+beginning.'
+
+At the next house they visited, they were in great glory; for,
+there, resided the six children who were so enraptured with the
+public actions of the phenomenon, and who, being called down from
+the nursery to be treated with a private view of that young lady,
+proceeded to poke their fingers into her eyes, and tread upon her
+toes, and show her many other little attentions peculiar to their
+time of life.
+
+'I shall certainly persuade Mr Borum to take a private box,' said
+the lady of the house, after a most gracious reception.  'I shall
+only take two of the children, and will make up the rest of the
+party, of gentlemen--your admirers, Miss Snevellicci.  Augustus, you
+naughty boy, leave the little girl alone.'
+
+This was addressed to a young gentleman who was pinching the
+phenomenon behind, apparently with a view of ascertaining whether
+she was real.
+
+'I am sure you must be very tired,' said the mama, turning to Miss
+Snevellicci.  'I cannot think of allowing you to go, without first
+taking a glass of wine.  Fie, Charlotte, I am ashamed of you!  Miss
+Lane, my dear, pray see to the children.'
+
+Miss Lane was the governess, and this entreaty was rendered
+necessary by the abrupt behaviour of the youngest Miss Borum, who,
+having filched the phenomenon's little green parasol, was now
+carrying it bodily off, while the distracted infant looked
+helplessly on.
+
+'I am sure, where you ever learnt to act as you do,' said good-
+natured Mrs Borum, turning again to Miss Snevellicci, 'I cannot
+understand (Emma, don't stare so); laughing in one piece, and crying
+in the next, and so natural in all--oh, dear!'
+
+'I am very happy to hear you express so favourable an opinion,' said
+Miss Snevellicci.  'It's quite delightful to think you like it.'
+
+'Like it!' cried Mrs Borum.  'Who can help liking it?  I would go to
+the play, twice a week if I could: I dote upon it--only you're too
+affecting sometimes.  You do put me in such a state--into such fits
+of crying!  Goodness gracious me, Miss Lane, how can you let them
+torment that poor child so!'
+
+The phenomenon was really in a fair way of being torn limb from
+limb; for two strong little boys, one holding on by each of her
+hands, were dragging her in different directions as a trial of
+strength.  However, Miss Lane (who had herself been too much
+occupied in contemplating the grown-up actors, to pay the necessary
+attention to these proceedings) rescued the unhappy infant at this
+juncture, who, being recruited with a glass of wine, was shortly
+afterwards taken away by her friends, after sustaining no more
+serious damage than a flattening of the pink gauze bonnet, and a
+rather extensive creasing of the white frock and trousers.
+
+It was a trying morning; for there were a great many calls to make,
+and everybody wanted a different thing.  Some wanted tragedies, and
+others comedies; some objected to dancing; some wanted scarcely
+anything else.  Some thought the comic singer decidedly low, and
+others hoped he would have more to do than he usually had.  Some
+people wouldn't promise to go, because other people wouldn't promise
+to go; and other people wouldn't go at all, because other people
+went.  At length, and by little and little, omitting something in
+this place, and adding something in that, Miss Snevellicci pledged
+herself to a bill of fare which was comprehensive enough, if it had
+no other merit (it included among other trifles, four pieces, divers
+songs, a few combats, and several dances); and they returned home,
+pretty well exhausted with the business of the day.
+
+Nicholas worked away at the piece, which was speedily put into
+rehearsal, and then worked away at his own part, which he studied
+with great perseverance and acted--as the whole company said--to
+perfection.  And at length the great day arrived.  The crier was
+sent round, in the morning, to proclaim the entertainments with the
+sound of bell in all the thoroughfares; and extra bills of three
+feet long by nine inches wide, were dispersed in all directions,
+flung down all the areas, thrust under all the knockers, and
+developed in all the shops.  They were placarded on all the walls
+too, though not with complete success, for an illiterate person
+having undertaken this office during the indisposition of the
+regular bill-sticker, a part were posted sideways, and the remainder
+upside down.
+
+At half-past five, there was a rush of four people to the gallery-
+door; at a quarter before six, there were at least a dozen; at six
+o'clock the kicks were terrific; and when the elder Master Crummles
+opened the door, he was obliged to run behind it for his life.
+Fifteen shillings were taken by Mrs Grudden in the first ten
+minutes.
+
+Behind the scenes, the same unwonted excitement prevailed.  Miss
+Snevellicci was in such a perspiration that the paint would scarcely
+stay on her face.  Mrs Crummles was so nervous that she could hardly
+remember her part.  Miss Bravassa's ringlets came out of curl with
+the heat and anxiety; even Mr Crummles himself kept peeping through
+the hole in the curtain, and running back, every now and then, to
+announce that another man had come into the pit.
+
+At last, the orchestra left off, and the curtain rose upon the new
+piece.  The first scene, in which there was nobody particular,
+passed off calmly enough, but when Miss Snevellicci went on in the
+second, accompanied by the phenomenon as child, what a roar of
+applause broke out!  The people in the Borum box rose as one man,
+waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and uttering shouts of 'Bravo!'
+Mrs Borum and the governess cast wreaths upon the stage, of which,
+some fluttered into the lamps, and one crowned the temples of a fat
+gentleman in the pit, who, looking eagerly towards the scene,
+remained unconscious of the honour; the tailor and his family kicked
+at the panels of the upper boxes till they threatened to come out
+altogether; the very ginger-beer boy remained transfixed in the
+centre of the house; a young officer, supposed to entertain a
+passion for Miss Snevellicci, stuck his glass in his eye as though
+to hide a tear.  Again and again Miss Snevellicci curtseyed lower
+and lower, and again and again the applause came down, louder and
+louder.  At length, when the phenomenon picked up one of the smoking
+wreaths and put it on, sideways, over Miss Snevellicci's eye, it
+reached its climax, and the play proceeded.
+
+But when Nicholas came on for his crack scene with Mrs Crummles,
+what a clapping of hands there was!  When Mrs Crummles (who was his
+unworthy mother), sneered, and called him 'presumptuous boy,' and he
+defied her, what a tumult of applause came on!  When he quarrelled
+with the other gentleman about the young lady, and producing a case
+of pistols, said, that if he WAS a gentleman, he would fight him in
+that drawing-room, until the furniture was sprinkled with the blood
+of one, if not of two--how boxes, pit, and gallery, joined in one
+most vigorous cheer!  When he called his mother names, because she
+wouldn't give up the young lady's property, and she relenting,
+caused him to relent likewise, and fall down on one knee and ask her
+blessing, how the ladies in the audience sobbed!  When he was hid
+behind the curtain in the dark, and the wicked relation poked a
+sharp sword in every direction, save where his legs were plainly
+visible, what a thrill of anxious fear ran through the house!  His
+air, his figure, his walk, his look, everything he said or did, was
+the subject of commendation.  There was a round of applause every
+time he spoke.  And when, at last, in the pump-and-tub scene, Mrs
+Grudden lighted the blue fire, and all the unemployed members of the
+company came in, and tumbled down in various directions--not because
+that had anything to do with the plot, but in order to finish off
+with a tableau--the audience (who had by this time increased
+considerably) gave vent to such a shout of enthusiasm as had not
+been heard in those walls for many and many a day.
+
+In short, the success both of new piece and new actor was complete,
+and when Miss Snevellicci was called for at the end of the play,
+Nicholas led her on, and divided the applause.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+Concerning a young Lady from London, who joins the Company, and an
+elderly Admirer who follows in her Train; with an affecting Ceremony
+consequent on their Arrival
+
+
+The new piece being a decided hit, was announced for every evening
+of performance until further notice, and the evenings when the
+theatre was closed, were reduced from three in the week to two.  Nor
+were these the only tokens of extraordinary success; for, on the
+succeeding Saturday, Nicholas received, by favour of the
+indefatigable Mrs Grudden, no less a sum than thirty shillings;
+besides which substantial reward, he enjoyed considerable fame and
+honour: having a presentation copy of Mr Curdle's pamphlet forwarded
+to the theatre, with that gentleman's own autograph (in itself an
+inestimable treasure) on the fly-leaf, accompanied with a note,
+containing many expressions of approval, and an unsolicited
+assurance that Mr Curdle would be very happy to read Shakespeare to
+him for three hours every morning before breakfast during his stay
+in the town.
+
+'I've got another novelty, Johnson,' said Mr Crummles one morning in
+great glee.
+
+'What's that?' rejoined Nicholas.  'The pony?'
+
+'No, no, we never come to the pony till everything else has failed,'
+said Mr Crummles.  'I don't think we shall come to the pony at all,
+this season.  No, no, not the pony.'
+
+'A boy phenomenon, perhaps?' suggested Nicholas.
+
+'There is only one phenomenon, sir,' replied Mr Crummles
+impressively, 'and that's a girl.'
+
+'Very true,' said Nicholas.  'I beg your pardon.  Then I don't know
+what it is, I am sure.'
+
+'What should you say to a young lady from London?' inquired Mr
+Crummles.  'Miss So-and-so, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane?'
+
+'I should say she would look very well in the bills,' said Nicholas.
+
+'You're about right there,' said Mr Crummles; 'and if you had said
+she would look very well upon the stage too, you wouldn't have been
+far out.  Look here; what do you think of this?'
+
+With this inquiry Mr Crummles unfolded a red poster, and a blue
+poster, and a yellow poster, at the top of each of which public
+notification was inscribed in enormous characters--'First appearance
+of the unrivalled Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane!'
+
+'Dear me!' said Nicholas, 'I know that lady.'
+
+'Then you are acquainted with as much talent as was ever compressed
+into one young person's body,' retorted Mr Crummles, rolling up the
+bills again; 'that is, talent of a certain sort--of a certain sort.
+"The Blood Drinker,"' added Mr Crummles with a prophetic sigh, '"The
+Blood Drinker" will die with that girl; and she's the only sylph I
+ever saw, who could stand upon one leg, and play the tambourine on
+her other knee, LIKE a sylph.'
+
+'When does she come down?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'We expect her today,' replied Mr Crummles.  'She is an old friend
+of Mrs Crummles's.  Mrs Crummles saw what she could do--always knew
+it from the first.  She taught her, indeed, nearly all she knows.
+Mrs Crummles was the original Blood Drinker.'
+
+'Was she, indeed?'
+
+'Yes.  She was obliged to give it up though.'
+
+'Did it disagree with her?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Not so much with her, as with her audiences,' replied Mr Crummles.
+'Nobody could stand it.  It was too tremendous.  You don't quite
+know what Mrs Crummles is yet.'
+
+Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did.
+
+'No, no, you don't,' said Mr Crummles; 'you don't, indeed.  I don't,
+and that's a fact.  I don't think her country will, till she is
+dead.  Some new proof of talent bursts from that astonishing woman
+every year of her life.  Look at her--mother of six children--three
+of 'em alive, and all upon the stage!'
+
+'Extraordinary!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'Ah! extraordinary indeed,' rejoined Mr Crummles, taking a
+complacent pinch of snuff, and shaking his head gravely.  'I pledge
+you my professional word I didn't even know she could dance, till
+her last benefit, and then she played Juliet, and Helen Macgregor,
+and did the skipping-rope hornpipe between the pieces.  The very
+first time I saw that admirable woman, Johnson,' said Mr Crummles,
+drawing a little nearer, and speaking in the tone of confidential
+friendship, 'she stood upon her head on the butt-end of a spear,
+surrounded with blazing fireworks.'
+
+'You astonish me!' said Nicholas.
+
+'SHE astonished ME!' returned Mr Crummles, with a very serious
+countenance.  'Such grace, coupled with such dignity!  I adored her
+from that moment!'
+
+The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an abrupt
+termination to Mr Crummles's eulogium.  Almost immediately
+afterwards, Master Percy Crummles entered with a letter, which had
+arrived by the General Post, and was directed to his gracious
+mother; at sight of the superscription whereof, Mrs Crummles
+exclaimed, 'From Henrietta Petowker, I do declare!' and instantly
+became absorbed in the contents.
+
+'Is it--?' inquired Mr Crummles, hesitating.
+
+'Oh, yes, it's all right,' replied Mrs Crummles, anticipating the
+question.  'What an excellent thing for her, to be sure!'
+
+'It's the best thing altogether, that I ever heard of, I think,'
+said Mr Crummles; and then Mr Crummles, Mrs Crummles, and Master
+Percy Crummles, all fell to laughing violently.  Nicholas left them
+to enjoy their mirth together, and walked to his lodgings; wondering
+very much what mystery connected with Miss Petowker could provoke
+such merriment, and pondering still more on the extreme surprise
+with which that lady would regard his sudden enlistment in a
+profession of which she was such a distinguished and brilliant
+ornament.
+
+But, in this latter respect he was mistaken; for--whether Mr Vincent
+Crummles had paved the way, or Miss Petowker had some special reason
+for treating him with even more than her usual amiability--their
+meeting at the theatre next day was more like that of two dear
+friends who had been inseparable from infancy, than a recognition
+passing between a lady and gentleman who had only met some half-
+dozen times, and then by mere chance.  Nay, Miss Petowker even
+whispered that she had wholly dropped the Kenwigses in her
+conversations with the manager's family, and had represented herself
+as having encountered Mr Johnson in the very first and most
+fashionable circles; and on Nicholas receiving this intelligence
+with unfeigned surprise, she added, with a sweet glance, that she
+had a claim on his good nature now, and might tax it before long.
+
+Nicholas had the honour of playing in a slight piece with Miss
+Petowker that night, and could not but observe that the warmth of
+her reception was mainly attributable to a most persevering umbrella
+in the upper boxes; he saw, too, that the enchanting actress cast
+many sweet looks towards the quarter whence these sounds proceeded;
+and that every time she did so, the umbrella broke out afresh.
+Once, he thought that a peculiarly shaped hat in the same corner was
+not wholly unknown to him; but, being occupied with his share of the
+stage business, he bestowed no great attention upon this
+circumstance, and it had quite vanished from his memory by the time
+he reached home.
+
+He had just sat down to supper with Smike, when one of the people of
+the house came outside the door, and announced that a gentleman
+below stairs wished to speak to Mr Johnson.
+
+'Well, if he does, you must tell him to come up; that's all I know,'
+replied Nicholas.  'One of our hungry brethren, I suppose, Smike.'
+
+His fellow-lodger looked at the cold meat in silent calculation of
+the quantity that would be left for dinner next day, and put back a
+slice he had cut for himself, in order that the visitor's
+encroachments might be less formidable in their effects.
+
+'It is not anybody who has been here before,' said Nicholas, 'for he
+is tumbling up every stair.  Come in, come in.  In the name of
+wonder!  Mr Lillyvick?'
+
+It was, indeed, the collector of water-rates who, regarding Nicholas
+with a fixed look and immovable countenance, shook hands with most
+portentous solemnity, and sat himself down in a seat by the chimney-
+corner.
+
+'Why, when did you come here?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'This morning, sir,' replied Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'Oh! I see; then you were at the theatre tonight, and it was your
+umb--'
+
+'This umbrella,' said Mr Lillyvick, producing a fat green cotton one
+with a battered ferrule.  'What did you think of that performance?'
+
+'So far as I could judge, being on the stage,' replied Nicholas, 'I
+thought it very agreeable.'
+
+'Agreeable!' cried the collector.  'I mean to say, sir, that it was
+delicious.'
+
+Mr Lillyvick bent forward to pronounce the last word with greater
+emphasis; and having done so, drew himself up, and frowned and
+nodded a great many times.
+
+'I say, delicious,' repeated Mr Lillyvick.  'Absorbing, fairy-like,
+toomultuous,' and again Mr Lillyvick drew himself up, and again he
+frowned and nodded.
+
+'Ah!' said Nicholas, a little surprised at these symptoms of
+ecstatic approbation.  'Yes--she is a clever girl.'
+
+'She is a divinity,' returned Mr Lillyvick, giving a collector's
+double knock on the ground with the umbrella before-mentioned.  'I
+have known divine actresses before now, sir, I used to collect--at
+least I used to CALL for--and very often call for--the water-rate at
+the house of a divine actress, who lived in my beat for upwards of
+four year but never--no, never, sir of all divine creatures,
+actresses or no actresses, did I see a diviner one than is Henrietta
+Petowker.'
+
+Nicholas had much ado to prevent himself from laughing; not trusting
+himself to speak, he merely nodded in accordance with Mr Lillyvick's
+nods, and remained silent.
+
+'Let me speak a word with you in private,' said Mr Lillyvick.
+
+Nicholas looked good-humouredly at Smike, who, taking the hint,
+disappeared.
+
+'A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir,' said Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'Is he?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'He is,' rejoined the collector.  'I have lived in the world for
+nigh sixty year, and I ought to know what it is.'
+
+'You OUGHT to know, certainly,' thought Nicholas; 'but whether you
+do or not, is another question.'
+
+'If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of money,' said
+Mr Lillyvick, 'his sisters and brothers, and nephews and nieces,
+look TO that money, and not to him; even if, by being a public
+character, he is the head of the family, or, as it may be, the main
+from which all the other little branches are turned on, they still
+wish him dead all the while, and get low-spirited every time they
+see him looking in good health, because they want to come into his
+little property.  You see that?'
+
+'Oh yes,' replied Nicholas: 'it's very true, no doubt.'
+
+'The great reason for not being married,' resumed Mr Lillyvick, 'is
+the expense; that's what's kept me off, or else--Lord!' said Mr
+Lillyvick, snapping his fingers, 'I might have had fifty women.'
+
+'Fine women?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Fine women, sir!' replied the collector; 'ay! not so fine as
+Henrietta Petowker, for she is an uncommon specimen, but such women
+as don't fall into every man's way, I can tell you.  Now suppose a
+man can get a fortune IN a wife instead of with her--eh?'
+
+'Why, then, he's a lucky fellow,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'That's what I say,' retorted the collector, patting him benignantly
+on the side of the head with his umbrella; 'just what I say.
+Henrietta Petowker, the talented Henrietta Petowker has a fortune in
+herself, and I am going to--'
+
+'To make her Mrs Lillyvick?' suggested Nicholas.
+
+'No, sir, not to make her Mrs Lillyvick,' replied the collector.
+'Actresses, sir, always keep their maiden names--that's the regular
+thing--but I'm going to marry her; and the day after tomorrow, too.'
+
+'I congratulate you, sir,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Thank you, sir,' replied the collector, buttoning his waistcoat.
+'I shall draw her salary, of course, and I hope after all that it's
+nearly as cheap to keep two as it is to keep one; that's a
+consolation.'
+
+'Surely you don't want any consolation at such a moment?' observed
+Nicholas.
+
+'No,' replied Mr Lillyvick, shaking his head nervously: 'no--of
+course not.'
+
+'But how come you both here, if you're going to be married, Mr
+Lillyvick?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Why, that's what I came to explain to you,' replied the collector
+of water-rate.  'The fact is, we have thought it best to keep it
+secret from the family.'
+
+'Family!' said Nicholas.  'What family?'
+
+'The Kenwigses of course,' rejoined Mr Lillyvick.  'If my niece and
+the children had known a word about it before I came away, they'd
+have gone into fits at my feet, and never have come out of 'em till
+I took an oath not to marry anybody--or they'd have got out a
+commission of lunacy, or some dreadful thing,' said the collector,
+quite trembling as he spoke.
+
+'To be sure,' said Nicholas.  'Yes; they would have been jealous, no
+doubt.'
+
+'To prevent which,' said Mr Lillyvick, 'Henrietta Petowker (it was
+settled between us) should come down here to her friends, the
+Crummleses, under pretence of this engagement, and I should go down
+to Guildford the day before, and join her on the coach there, which
+I did, and we came down from Guildford yesterday together.  Now, for
+fear you should be writing to Mr Noggs, and might say anything about
+us, we have thought it best to let you into the secret.  We shall be
+married from the Crummleses' lodgings, and shall be delighted to see
+you--either before church or at breakfast-time, which you like.  It
+won't be expensive, you know,' said the collector, highly anxious to
+prevent any misunderstanding on this point; 'just muffins and
+coffee, with perhaps a shrimp or something of that sort for a
+relish, you know.'
+
+'Yes, yes, I understand,' replied Nicholas.  'Oh, I shall be most
+happy to come; it will give me the greatest pleasure.  Where's the
+lady stopping--with Mrs Crummles?'
+
+'Why, no,' said the collector; 'they couldn't very well dispose of
+her at night, and so she is staying with an acquaintance of hers,
+and another young lady; they both belong to the theatre.'
+
+'Miss Snevellicci, I suppose?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Yes, that's the name.'
+
+'And they'll be bridesmaids, I presume?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Why,' said the collector, with a rueful face, 'they WILL have four
+bridesmaids; I'm afraid they'll make it rather theatrical.'
+
+'Oh no, not at all,' replied Nicholas, with an awkward attempt to
+convert a laugh into a cough.  'Who may the four be?  Miss
+Snevellicci of course--Miss Ledrook--'
+
+'The--the phenomenon,' groaned the collector.
+
+'Ha, ha!' cried Nicholas.  'I beg your pardon, I don't know what I'm
+laughing at--yes, that'll be very pretty--the phenomenon--who else?'
+
+'Some young woman or other,' replied the collector, rising; 'some
+other friend of Henrietta Petowker's.  Well, you'll be careful not
+to say anything about it, will you?'
+
+'You may safely depend upon me,' replied Nicholas.  'Won't you take
+anything to eat or drink?'
+
+'No,' said the collector; 'I haven't any appetite.  I should think
+it was a very pleasant life, the married one, eh?'
+
+'I have not the least doubt of it,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Yes,' said the collector; 'certainly.  Oh yes.  No doubt.  Good
+night.'
+
+With these words, Mr Lillyvick, whose manner had exhibited through
+the whole of this interview a most extraordinary compound of
+precipitation, hesitation, confidence and doubt, fondness,
+misgiving, meanness, and self-importance, turned his back upon the
+room, and left Nicholas to enjoy a laugh by himself if he felt so
+disposed.
+
+Without stopping to inquire whether the intervening day appeared to
+Nicholas to consist of the usual number of hours of the ordinary
+length, it may be remarked that, to the parties more directly
+interested in the forthcoming ceremony, it passed with great
+rapidity, insomuch that when Miss Petowker awoke on the succeeding
+morning in the chamber of Miss Snevellicci, she declared that
+nothing should ever persuade her that that really was the day which
+was to behold a change in her condition.
+
+'I never will believe it,' said Miss Petowker; 'I cannot really.
+It's of no use talking, I never can make up my mind to go through
+with such a trial!'
+
+On hearing this, Miss Snevellicci and Miss Ledrook, who knew
+perfectly well that their fair friend's mind had been made up for
+three or four years, at any period of which time she would have
+cheerfully undergone the desperate trial now approaching if she
+could have found any eligible gentleman disposed for the venture,
+began to preach comfort and firmness, and to say how very proud she
+ought to feel that it was in her power to confer lasting bliss on a
+deserving object, and how necessary it was for the happiness of
+mankind in general that women should possess fortitude and
+resignation on such occasions; and that although for their parts
+they held true happiness to consist in a single life, which they
+would not willingly exchange--no, not for any worldly consideration--
+still (thank God), if ever the time SHOULD come, they hoped they
+knew their duty too well to repine, but would the rather submit with
+meekness and humility of spirit to a fate for which Providence had
+clearly designed them with a view to the contentment and reward of
+their fellow-creatures.
+
+'I might feel it was a great blow,' said Miss Snevellicci, 'to break
+up old associations and what-do-you-callems of that kind, but I
+would submit, my dear, I would indeed.'
+
+'So would I,' said Miss Ledrook; 'I would rather court the yoke than
+shun it.  I have broken hearts before now, and I'm very sorry for
+it: for it's a terrible thing to reflect upon.'
+
+'It is indeed,' said Miss Snevellicci.  'Now Led, my dear, we must
+positively get her ready, or we shall be too late, we shall indeed.'
+
+This pious reasoning, and perhaps the fear of being too late,
+supported the bride through the ceremony of robing, after which,
+strong tea and brandy were administered in alternate doses as a
+means of strengthening her feeble limbs and causing her to walk
+steadier.
+
+'How do you feel now, my love?' inquired Miss Snevellicci.
+
+'Oh Lillyvick!' cried the bride.  'If you knew what I am undergoing
+for you!'
+
+'Of course he knows it, love, and will never forget it,' said Miss
+Ledrook.
+
+'Do you think he won't?' cried Miss Petowker, really showing great
+capability for the stage.  'Oh, do you think he won't?  Do you think
+Lillyvick will always remember it--always, always, always?'
+
+There is no knowing in what this burst of feeling might have ended,
+if Miss Snevellicci had not at that moment proclaimed the arrival of
+the fly, which so astounded the bride that she shook off divers
+alarming symptoms which were coming on very strong, and running to
+the glass adjusted her dress, and calmly declared that she was ready
+for the sacrifice.
+
+She was accordingly supported into the coach, and there 'kept up'
+(as Miss Snevellicci said) with perpetual sniffs of SAL VOLATILE and
+sips of brandy and other gentle stimulants, until they reached the
+manager's door, which was already opened by the two Master
+Crummleses, who wore white cockades, and were decorated with the
+choicest and most resplendent waistcoats in the theatrical wardrobe.
+By the combined exertions of these young gentlemen and the
+bridesmaids, assisted by the coachman, Miss Petowker was at length
+supported in a condition of much exhaustion to the first floor,
+where she no sooner encountered the youthful bridegroom than she
+fainted with great decorum.
+
+'Henrietta Petowker!' said the collector; 'cheer up, my lovely one.'
+
+Miss Petowker grasped the collector's hand, but emotion choked her
+utterance.
+
+'Is the sight of me so dreadful, Henrietta Petowker?' said the
+collector.
+
+'Oh no, no, no,' rejoined the bride; 'but all the friends--the
+darling friends--of my youthful days--to leave them all--it is such
+a shock!'
+
+With such expressions of sorrow, Miss Petowker went on to enumerate
+the dear friends of her youthful days one by one, and to call upon
+such of them as were present to come and embrace her.  This done,
+she remembered that Mrs Crummles had been more than a mother to her,
+and after that, that Mr Crummles had been more than a father to her,
+and after that, that the Master Crummleses and Miss Ninetta Crummles
+had been more than brothers and sisters to her.  These various
+remembrances being each accompanied with a series of hugs, occupied
+a long time, and they were obliged to drive to church very fast, for
+fear they should be too late.
+
+The procession consisted of two flys; in the first of which were
+Miss Bravassa (the fourth bridesmaid), Mrs Crummles, the collector,
+and Mr Folair, who had been chosen as his second on the occasion.
+In the other were the bride, Mr Crummles, Miss Snevellicci, Miss
+Ledrook, and the phenomenon.  The costumes were beautiful.  The
+bridesmaids were quite covered with artificial flowers, and the
+phenomenon, in particular, was rendered almost invisible by the
+portable arbour in which she was enshrined.  Miss Ledrook, who was
+of a romantic turn, wore in her breast the miniature of some field-
+officer unknown, which she had purchased, a great bargain, not very
+long before; the other ladies displayed several dazzling articles of
+imitative jewellery, almost equal to real, and Mrs Crummles came out
+in a stern and gloomy majesty, which attracted the admiration of all
+beholders.
+
+But, perhaps the appearance of Mr Crummles was more striking and
+appropriate than that of any member of the party.  This gentleman,
+who personated the bride's father, had, in pursuance of a happy and
+original conception, 'made up' for the part by arraying himself in a
+theatrical wig, of a style and pattern commonly known as a brown
+George, and moreover assuming a snuff-coloured suit, of the previous
+century, with grey silk stockings, and buckles to his shoes.  The
+better to support his assumed character he had determined to be
+greatly overcome, and, consequently, when they entered the church,
+the sobs of the affectionate parent were so heart-rending that the
+pew-opener suggested the propriety of his retiring to the vestry,
+and comforting himself with a glass of water before the ceremony
+began.
+
+The procession up the aisle was beautiful.  The bride, with the four
+bridesmaids, forming a group previously arranged and rehearsed; the
+collector, followed by his second, imitating his walk and gestures
+to the indescribable amusement of some theatrical friends in the
+gallery; Mr Crummles, with an infirm and feeble gait; Mrs Crummles
+advancing with that stage walk, which consists of a stride and a
+stop alternately--it was the completest thing ever witnessed.  The
+ceremony was very quickly disposed of, and all parties present
+having signed the register (for which purpose, when it came to his
+turn, Mr Crummles carefully wiped and put on an immense pair of
+spectacles), they went back to breakfast in high spirits.  And here
+they found Nicholas awaiting their arrival.
+
+'Now then,' said Crummles, who had been assisting Mrs Grudden in the
+preparations, which were on a more extensive scale than was quite
+agreeable to the collector.  'Breakfast, breakfast.'
+
+No second invitation was required.  The company crowded and squeezed
+themselves at the table as well as they could, and fell to,
+immediately: Miss Petowker blushing very much when anybody was
+looking, and eating very much when anybody was NOT looking; and Mr
+Lillyvick going to work as though with the cool resolve, that since
+the good things must be paid for by him, he would leave as little as
+possible for the Crummleses to eat up afterwards.
+
+'It's very soon done, sir, isn't it?' inquired Mr Folair of the
+collector, leaning over the table to address him.
+
+'What is soon done, sir?' returned Mr Lillyvick.
+
+'The tying up--the fixing oneself with a wife,' replied Mr Folair.
+'It don't take long, does it?'
+
+'No, sir,' replied Mr Lillyvick, colouring.  'It does not take long.
+And what then, sir?'
+
+'Oh! nothing,' said the actor.  'It don't take a man long to hang
+himself, either, eh?  ha, ha!'
+
+Mr Lillyvick laid down his knife and fork, and looked round the
+table with indignant astonishment.
+
+'To hang himself!' repeated Mr Lillyvick.
+
+A profound silence came upon all, for Mr Lillyvick was dignified
+beyond expression.
+
+'To hang himself!' cried Mr Lillyvick again.  'Is any parallel
+attempted to be drawn in this company between matrimony and
+hanging?'
+
+'The noose, you know,' said Mr Folair, a little crest-fallen.
+
+'The noose, sir?' retorted Mr Lillyvick.  'Does any man dare to
+speak to me of a noose, and Henrietta Pe--'
+
+'Lillyvick,' suggested Mr Crummles.
+
+'--And Henrietta Lillyvick in the same breath?' said the collector.
+'In this house, in the presence of Mr and Mrs Crummles, who have
+brought up a talented and virtuous family, to be blessings and
+phenomenons, and what not, are we to hear talk of nooses?'
+
+'Folair,' said Mr Crummles, deeming it a matter of decency to be
+affected by this allusion to himself and partner, 'I'm astonished at
+you.'
+
+'What are you going on in this way at me for?' urged the unfortunate
+actor.  'What have I done?'
+
+'Done, sir!' cried Mr Lillyvick, 'aimed a blow at the whole framework
+of society--'
+
+'And the best and tenderest feelings,' added Crummles, relapsing
+into the old man.
+
+'And the highest and most estimable of social ties,' said the
+collector.  'Noose!  As if one was caught, trapped into the married
+state, pinned by the leg, instead of going into it of one's own
+accord and glorying in the act!'
+
+'I didn't mean to make it out, that you were caught and trapped, and
+pinned by the leg,' replied the actor.  'I'm sorry for it; I can't
+say any more.'
+
+'So you ought to be, sir,' returned Mr Lillyvick; 'and I am glad to
+hear that you have enough of feeling left to be so.'
+
+The quarrel appearing to terminate with this reply, Mrs Lillyvick
+considered that the fittest occasion (the attention of the company
+being no longer distracted) to burst into tears, and require the
+assistance of all four bridesmaids, which was immediately rendered,
+though not without some confusion, for the room being small and the
+table-cloth long, a whole detachment of plates were swept off the
+board at the very first move.  Regardless of this circumstance,
+however, Mrs Lillyvick refused to be comforted until the
+belligerents had passed their words that the dispute should be
+carried no further, which, after a sufficient show of reluctance,
+they did, and from that time Mr Folair sat in moody silence,
+contenting himself with pinching Nicholas's leg when anything was
+said, and so expressing his contempt both for the speaker and the
+sentiments to which he gave utterance.
+
+There were a great number of speeches made; some by Nicholas, and
+some by Crummles, and some by the collector; two by the Master
+Crummleses in returning thanks for themselves, and one by the
+phenomenon on behalf of the bridesmaids, at which Mrs Crummles shed
+tears.  There was some singing, too, from Miss Ledrook and Miss
+Bravassa, and very likely there might have been more, if the fly-
+driver, who stopped to drive the happy pair to the spot where they
+proposed to take steamboat to Ryde, had not sent in a peremptory
+message intimating, that if they didn't come directly he should
+infallibly demand eighteen-pence over and above his agreement.
+
+This desperate threat effectually broke up the party.  After a most
+pathetic leave-taking, Mr Lillyvick and his bride departed for Ryde,
+where they were to spend the next two days in profound retirement,
+and whither they were accompanied by the infant, who had been
+appointed travelling bridesmaid on Mr Lillyvick's express
+stipulation: as the steamboat people, deceived by her size, would
+(he had previously ascertained) transport her at half-price.
+
+As there was no performance that night, Mr Crummles declared his
+intention of keeping it up till everything to drink was disposed of;
+but Nicholas having to play Romeo for the first time on the ensuing
+evening, contrived to slip away in the midst of a temporary
+confusion, occasioned by the unexpected development of strong
+symptoms of inebriety in the conduct of Mrs Grudden.
+
+To this act of desertion he was led, not only by his own
+inclinations, but by his anxiety on account of Smike, who, having to
+sustain the character of the Apothecary, had been as yet wholly
+unable to get any more of the part into his head than the general
+idea that he was very hungry, which--perhaps from old recollections--
+he had acquired with great aptitude.
+
+'I don't know what's to be done, Smike,' said Nicholas, laying down
+the book.  'I am afraid you can't learn it, my poor fellow.'
+
+'I am afraid not,' said Smike, shaking his head.  'I think if you--
+but that would give you so much trouble.'
+
+'What?' inquired Nicholas.  'Never mind me.'
+
+'I think,' said Smike, 'if you were to keep saying it to me in
+little bits, over and over again, I should be able to recollect it
+from hearing you.'
+
+'Do you think so?' exclaimed Nicholas.  'Well said.  Let us see who
+tires first.  Not I, Smike, trust me.  Now then.  Who calls so
+loud?"
+
+'"Who calls so loud?"' said Smike.
+
+'"Who calls so loud?"' repeated Nicholas.
+
+'"Who calls so loud?"' cried Smike.
+
+Thus they continued to ask each other who called so loud, over and
+over again; and when Smike had that by heart Nicholas went to
+another sentence, and then to two at a time, and then to three, and
+so on, until at midnight poor Smike found to his unspeakable joy
+that he really began to remember something about the text.
+
+Early in the morning they went to it again, and Smike, rendered more
+confident by the progress he had already made, got on faster and
+with better heart.  As soon as he began to acquire the words pretty
+freely, Nicholas showed him how he must come in with both hands
+spread out upon his stomach, and how he must occasionally rub it, in
+compliance with the established form by which people on the stage
+always denote that they want something to eat.  After the morning's
+rehearsal they went to work again, nor did they stop, except for a
+hasty dinner, until it was time to repair to the theatre at night.
+
+Never had master a more anxious, humble, docile pupil.  Never had
+pupil a more patient, unwearying, considerate, kindhearted master.
+
+As soon as they were dressed, and at every interval when he was not
+upon the stage, Nicholas renewed his instructions.  They prospered
+well.  The Romeo was received with hearty plaudits and unbounded
+favour, and Smike was pronounced unanimously, alike by audience and
+actors, the very prince and prodigy of Apothecaries.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+Is fraught with some Danger to Miss Nickleby's Peace of Mind
+
+
+The place was a handsome suite of private apartments in Regent
+Street; the time was three o'clock in the afternoon to the dull and
+plodding, and the first hour of morning to the gay and spirited; the
+persons were Lord Frederick Verisopht, and his friend Sir Mulberry
+Hawk.
+
+These distinguished gentlemen were reclining listlessly on a couple
+of sofas, with a table between them, on which were scattered in rich
+confusion the materials of an untasted breakfast.  Newspapers lay
+strewn about the room, but these, like the meal, were neglected and
+unnoticed; not, however, because any flow of conversation prevented
+the attractions of the journals from being called into request, for
+not a word was exchanged between the two, nor was any sound uttered,
+save when one, in tossing about to find an easier resting-place for
+his aching head, uttered an exclamation of impatience, and seemed
+for a moment to communicate a new restlessness to his companion.
+
+These appearances would in themselves have furnished a pretty strong
+clue to the extent of the debauch of the previous night, even if
+there had not been other indications of the amusements in which it
+had been passed.  A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two
+battered hats, a champagne bottle with a soiled glove twisted round
+the neck, to allow of its being grasped more surely in its capacity
+of an offensive weapon; a broken cane; a card-case without the top;
+an empty purse; a watch-guard snapped asunder; a handful of silver,
+mingled with fragments of half-smoked cigars, and their stale and
+crumbled ashes;--these, and many other tokens of riot and disorder,
+hinted very intelligibly at the nature of last night's gentlemanly
+frolics.
+
+Lord Frederick Verisopht was the first to speak.  Dropping his
+slippered foot on the ground, and, yawning heavily, he struggled
+into a sitting posture, and turned his dull languid eyes towards his
+friend, to whom he called in a drowsy voice.
+
+'Hallo!' replied Sir Mulberry, turning round.
+
+'Are we going to lie here all da-a-y?' said the lord.
+
+'I don't know that we're fit for anything else,' replied Sir
+Mulberry; 'yet awhile, at least.  I haven't a grain of life in me
+this morning.'
+
+'Life!' cried Lord Verisopht.  'I feel as if there would be nothing
+so snug and comfortable as to die at once.'
+
+'Then why don't you die?' said Sir Mulberry.
+
+With which inquiry he turned his face away, and seemed to occupy
+himself in an attempt to fall asleep.
+
+His hopeful fiend and pupil drew a chair to the breakfast-table, and
+essayed to eat; but, finding that impossible, lounged to the window,
+then loitered up and down the room with his hand to his fevered
+head, and finally threw himself again on his sofa, and roused his
+friend once more.
+
+'What the devil's the matter?' groaned Sir Mulberry, sitting upright
+on the couch.
+
+Although Sir Mulberry said this with sufficient ill-humour, he did
+not seem to feel himself quite at liberty to remain silent; for,
+after stretching himself very often, and declaring with a shiver
+that it was 'infernal cold,' he made an experiment at the breakfast-
+table, and proving more successful in it than his less-seasoned
+friend, remained there.
+
+'Suppose,' said Sir Mulberry, pausing with a morsel on the point of
+his fork, 'suppose we go back to the subject of little Nickleby,
+eh?'
+
+'Which little Nickleby; the money-lender or the ga-a-l?' asked Lord
+Verisopht.
+
+'You take me, I see,' replied Sir Mulberry.  'The girl, of course.'
+
+'You promised me you'd find her out,' said Lord Verisopht.
+
+'So I did,' rejoined his friend; 'but I have thought further of the
+matter since then.  You distrust me in the business--you shall find
+her out yourself.'
+
+'Na-ay,' remonstrated Lord Verisopht.
+
+'But I say yes,' returned his friend.  'You shall find her out
+yourself.  Don't think that I mean, when you can--I know as well as
+you that if I did, you could never get sight of her without me.  No.
+I say you shall find her out--SHALL--and I'll put you in the way.'
+
+'Now, curse me, if you ain't a real, deyvlish, downright, thorough-
+paced friend,' said the young lord, on whom this speech had produced
+a most reviving effect.
+
+'I'll tell you how,' said Sir Mulberry.  'She was at that dinner as
+a bait for you.'
+
+'No!' cried the young lord.  'What the dey--'
+
+'As a bait for you,' repeated his friend; 'old Nickleby told me so
+himself.'
+
+'What a fine old cock it is!' exclaimed Lord Verisopht; 'a noble
+rascal!'
+
+'Yes,' said Sir Mulberry, 'he knew she was a smart little creature--'
+
+'Smart!' interposed the young lord.  'Upon my soul, Hawk, she's a
+perfect beauty--a--a picture, a statue, a--a--upon my soul she is!'
+
+'Well,' replied Sir Mulberry, shrugging his shoulders and
+manifesting an indifference, whether he felt it or not; 'that's a
+matter of taste; if mine doesn't agree with yours, so much the
+better.'
+
+'Confound it!' reasoned the lord, 'you were thick enough with her
+that day, anyhow.  I could hardly get in a word.'
+
+'Well enough for once, well enough for once,' replied Sir Mulberry;
+'but not worth the trouble of being agreeable to again.  If you
+seriously want to follow up the niece, tell the uncle that you must
+know where she lives and how she lives, and with whom, or you are no
+longer a customer of his.  He'll tell you fast enough.'
+
+'Why didn't you say this before?' asked Lord Verisopht, 'instead of
+letting me go on burning, consuming, dragging out a miserable
+existence for an a-age!'
+
+'I didn't know it, in the first place,' answered Sir Mulberry
+carelessly; 'and in the second, I didn't believe you were so very
+much in earnest.'
+
+Now, the truth was, that in the interval which had elapsed since the
+dinner at Ralph Nickleby's, Sir Mulberry Hawk had been furtively
+trying by every means in his power to discover whence Kate had so
+suddenly appeared, and whither she had disappeared.  Unassisted by
+Ralph, however, with whom he had held no communication since their
+angry parting on that occasion, all his efforts were wholly
+unavailing, and he had therefore arrived at the determination of
+communicating to the young lord the substance of the admission he
+had gleaned from that worthy.  To this he was impelled by various
+considerations; among which the certainty of knowing whatever the
+weak young man knew was decidedly not the least, as the desire of
+encountering the usurer's niece again, and using his utmost arts to
+reduce her pride, and revenge himself for her contempt, was
+uppermost in his thoughts.  It was a politic course of proceeding,
+and one which could not fail to redound to his advantage in every
+point of view, since the very circumstance of his having extorted
+from Ralph Nickleby his real design in introducing his niece to such
+society, coupled with his extreme disinterestedness in communicating
+it so freely to his friend, could not but advance his interests in
+that quarter, and greatly facilitate the passage of coin (pretty
+frequent and speedy already) from the pockets of Lord Frederick
+Verisopht to those of Sir Mulberry Hawk.
+
+Thus reasoned Sir Mulberry, and in pursuance of this reasoning he
+and his friend soon afterwards repaired to Ralph Nickleby's, there
+to execute a plan of operations concerted by Sir Mulberry himself,
+avowedly to promote his friend's object, and really to attain his
+own.
+
+They found Ralph at home, and alone.  As he led them into the
+drawing-room, the recollection of the scene which had taken place
+there seemed to occur to him, for he cast a curious look at Sir
+Mulberry, who bestowed upon it no other acknowledgment than a
+careless smile.
+
+They had a short conference upon some money matters then in
+progress, which were scarcely disposed of when the lordly dupe (in
+pursuance of his friend's instructions) requested with some
+embarrassment to speak to Ralph alone.
+
+'Alone, eh?' cried Sir Mulberry, affecting surprise.  'Oh, very
+good.  I'll walk into the next room here.  Don't keep me long,
+that's all.'
+
+So saying, Sir Mulberry took up his hat, and humming a fragment of a
+song disappeared through the door of communication between the two
+drawing-rooms, and closed it after him.
+
+'Now, my lord,' said Ralph, 'what is it?'
+
+'Nickleby,' said his client, throwing himself along the sofa on
+which he had been previously seated, so as to bring his lips nearer
+to the old man's ear, 'what a pretty creature your niece is!'
+
+'Is she, my lord?' replied Ralph.  'Maybe--maybe--I don't trouble my
+head with such matters.'
+
+'You know she's a deyvlish fine girl,' said the client.  'You must
+know that, Nickleby.  Come, don't deny that.'
+
+'Yes, I believe she is considered so,' replied Ralph.  'Indeed, I
+know she is.  If I did not, you are an authority on such points, and
+your taste, my lord--on all points, indeed--is undeniable.'
+
+Nobody but the young man to whom these words were addressed could
+have been deaf to the sneering tone in which they were spoken, or
+blind to the look of contempt by which they were accompanied.  But
+Lord Frederick Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary.
+
+'Well,' he said, 'p'raps you're a little right, and p'raps you're a
+little wrong--a little of both, Nickleby.  I want to know where this
+beauty lives, that I may have another peep at her, Nickleby.'
+
+'Really--' Ralph began in his usual tones.
+
+'Don't talk so loud,' cried the other, achieving the great point of
+his lesson to a miracle.  'I don't want Hawk to hear.'
+
+'You know he is your rival, do you?' said Ralph, looking sharply at
+him.
+
+'He always is, d-a-amn him,' replied the client; 'and I want to
+steal a march upon him.  Ha, ha, ha!  He'll cut up so rough,
+Nickleby, at our talking together without him.  Where does she live,
+Nickleby, that's all?  Only tell me where she lives, Nickleby.'
+
+'He bites,' thought Ralph.  'He bites.'
+
+'Eh, Nickleby, eh?' pursued the client.  'Where does she live?'
+
+'Really, my lord,' said Ralph, rubbing his hands slowly over each
+other, 'I must think before I tell you.'
+
+'No, not a bit of it, Nickleby; you mustn't think at all,' replied
+Verisopht.  'Where is it?'
+
+'No good can come of your knowing,' replied Ralph.  'She has been
+virtuously and well brought up; to be sure she is handsome, poor,
+unprotected!  Poor girl, poor girl.'
+
+Ralph ran over this brief summary of Kate's condition as if it were
+merely passing through his own mind, and he had no intention to
+speak aloud; but the shrewd sly look which he directed at his
+companion as he delivered it, gave this poor assumption the lie.
+
+'I tell you I only want to see her,' cried his client.  'A ma-an may
+look at a pretty woman without harm, mayn't he?  Now, where DOES she
+live?  You know you're making a fortune out of me, Nickleby, and
+upon my soul nobody shall ever take me to anybody else, if you only
+tell me this.'
+
+'As you promise that, my lord,' said Ralph, with feigned reluctance,
+'and as I am most anxious to oblige you, and as there's no harm in
+it--no harm--I'll tell you.  But you had better keep it to yourself,
+my lord; strictly to yourself.'  Ralph pointed to the adjoining room
+as he spoke, and nodded expressively.
+
+The young lord, feigning to be equally impressed with the necessity
+of this precaution, Ralph disclosed the present address and
+occupation of his niece, observing that from what he heard of the
+family they appeared very ambitious to have distinguished
+acquaintances, and that a lord could, doubtless, introduce himself
+with great ease, if he felt disposed.
+
+'Your object being only to see her again,' said Ralph, 'you could
+effect it at any time you chose by that means.'
+
+Lord Verisopht acknowledged the hint with a great many squeezes of
+Ralph's hard, horny hand, and whispering that they would now do well
+to close the conversation, called to Sir Mulberry Hawk that he might
+come back.
+
+'I thought you had gone to sleep,' said Sir Mulberry, reappearing
+with an ill-tempered air.
+
+'Sorry to detain you,' replied the gull; 'but Nickleby has been so
+ama-azingly funny that I couldn't tear myself away.'
+
+'No, no,' said Ralph; 'it was all his lordship.  You know what a
+witty, humorous, elegant, accomplished man Lord Frederick is.  Mind
+the step, my lord--Sir Mulberry, pray give way.'
+
+With such courtesies as these, and many low bows, and the same cold
+sneer upon his face all the while, Ralph busied himself in showing
+his visitors downstairs, and otherwise than by the slightest
+possible motion about the corners of his mouth, returned no show of
+answer to the look of admiration with which Sir Mulberry Hawk seemed
+to compliment him on being such an accomplished and most consummate
+scoundrel.
+
+There had been a ring at the bell a few minutes before, which was
+answered by Newman Noggs just as they reached the hall.  In the
+ordinary course of business Newman would have either admitted the
+new-comer in silence, or have requested him or her to stand aside
+while the gentlemen passed out.  But he no sooner saw who it was,
+than as if for some private reason of his own, he boldly departed
+from the established custom of Ralph's mansion in business hours,
+and looking towards the respectable trio who were approaching, cried
+in a loud and sonorous voice, 'Mrs Nickleby!'
+
+'Mrs Nickleby!' cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, as his friend looked back,
+and stared him in the face.
+
+It was, indeed, that well-intentioned lady, who, having received an
+offer for the empty house in the city directed to the landlord, had
+brought it post-haste to Mr Nickleby without delay.
+
+'Nobody YOU know,' said Ralph.  'Step into the office, my--my--dear.
+I'll be with you directly.'
+
+'Nobody I know!' cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, advancing to the
+astonished lady.  'Is this Mrs Nickleby--the mother of Miss
+Nickleby--the delightful creature that I had the happiness of
+meeting in this house the very last time I dined here?  But no;'
+said Sir Mulberry, stopping short.  'No, it can't be.  There is the
+same cast of features, the same indescribable air of--But no; no.
+This lady is too young for that.'
+
+'I think you can tell the gentleman, brother-in-law, if it concerns
+him to know,' said Mrs Nickleby, acknowledging the compliment with a
+graceful bend, 'that Kate Nickleby is my daughter.'
+
+'Her daughter, my lord!' cried Sir Mulberry, turning to his friend.
+'This lady's daughter, my lord.'
+
+'My lord!' thought Mrs Nickleby.  'Well, I never did--'
+
+'This, then, my lord,' said Sir Mulberry, 'is the lady to whose
+obliging marriage we owe so much happiness.  This lady is the mother
+of sweet Miss Nickleby.  Do you observe the extraordinary likeness,
+my lord?  Nickleby--introduce us.'
+
+Ralph did so, in a kind of desperation.
+
+'Upon my soul, it's a most delightful thing," said Lord Frederick,
+pressing forward.  'How de do?'
+
+Mrs Nickleby was too much flurried by these uncommonly kind
+salutations, and her regrets at not having on her other bonnet, to
+make any immediate reply, so she merely continued to bend and smile,
+and betray great agitation.
+
+'A--and how is Miss Nickleby?' said Lord Frederick.  'Well, I hope?'
+
+'She is quite well, I'm obliged to you, my lord,' returned Mrs
+Nickleby, recovering.  'Quite well.  She wasn't well for some days
+after that day she dined here, and I can't help thinking, that she
+caught cold in that hackney coach coming home.  Hackney coaches, my
+lord, are such nasty things, that it's almost better to walk at any
+time, for although I believe a hackney coachman can be transported
+for life, if he has a broken window, still they are so reckless,
+that they nearly all have broken windows.  I once had a swelled face
+for six weeks, my lord, from riding in a hackney coach--I think it
+was a hackney coach,' said Mrs Nickleby reflecting, 'though I'm not
+quite certain whether it wasn't a chariot; at all events I know it
+was a dark green, with a very long number, beginning with a nought
+and ending with a nine--no, beginning with a nine, and ending with a
+nought, that was it, and of course the stamp-office people would
+know at once whether it was a coach or a chariot if any inquiries
+were made there--however that was, there it was with a broken window
+and there was I for six weeks with a swelled face--I think that was
+the very same hackney coach, that we found out afterwards, had the
+top open all the time, and we should never even have known it, if
+they hadn't charged us a shilling an hour extra for having it open,
+which it seems is the law, or was then, and a most shameful law it
+appears to be--I don't understand the subject, but I should say the
+Corn Laws could be nothing to THAT act of Parliament.'
+
+Having pretty well run herself out by this time, Mrs Nickleby
+stopped as suddenly as she had started off; and repeated that Kate
+was quite well.  'Indeed,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I don't think she
+ever was better, since she had the hooping-cough, scarlet-fever, and
+measles, all at the same time, and that's the fact.'
+
+'Is that letter for me?' growled Ralph, pointing to the little
+packet Mrs Nickleby held in her hand.
+
+'For you, brother-in-law,' replied Mrs Nickleby, 'and I walked all
+the way up here on purpose to give it you.'
+
+'All the way up here!' cried Sir Mulberry, seizing upon the chance
+of discovering where Mrs Nickleby had come from.  'What a confounded
+distance!  How far do you call it now?'
+
+'How far do I call it?' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Let me see.  It's just
+a mile from our door to the Old Bailey.'
+
+'No, no.  Not so much as that,' urged Sir Mulberry.
+
+'Oh!  It is indeed,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'I appeal to his lordship.'
+
+'I should decidedly say it was a mile,' remarked Lord Frederick,
+with a solemn aspect.
+
+'It must be; it can't be a yard less,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'All
+down Newgate Street, all down Cheapside, all up Lombard Street, down
+Gracechurch Street, and along Thames Street, as far as Spigwiffin's
+Wharf.  Oh!  It's a mile.'
+
+'Yes, on second thoughts I should say it was,' replied Sir Mulberry.
+'But you don't surely mean to walk all the way back?'
+
+'Oh, no,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby.  'I shall go back in an omnibus.  I
+didn't travel about in omnibuses, when my poor dear Nicholas was
+alive, brother-in-law.  But as it is, you know--'
+
+'Yes, yes,' replied Ralph impatiently, 'and you had better get back
+before dark.'
+
+'Thank you, brother-in-law, so I had,' returned Mrs Nickleby.  'I
+think I had better say goodbye, at once.'
+
+'Not stop and--rest?' said Ralph, who seldom offered refreshments
+unless something was to be got by it.
+
+'Oh dear me no,' returned Mrs Nickleby, glancing at the dial.
+
+'Lord Frederick,' said Sir Mulberry, 'we are going Mrs Nickleby's
+way.  We'll see her safe to the omnibus?'
+
+'By all means.  Ye-es.'
+
+'Oh! I really couldn't think of it!' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+But Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Verisopht were peremptory in their
+politeness, and leaving Ralph, who seemed to think, not unwisely,
+that he looked less ridiculous as a mere spectator, than he would
+have done if he had taken any part in these proceedings, they
+quitted the house with Mrs Nickleby between them; that good lady in
+a perfect ecstasy of satisfaction, no less with the attentions shown
+her by two titled gentlemen, than with the conviction that Kate
+might now pick and choose, at least between two large fortunes, and
+most unexceptionable husbands.
+
+As she was carried away for the moment by an irresistible train of
+thought, all connected with her daughter's future greatness, Sir
+Mulberry Hawk and his friend exchanged glances over the top of the
+bonnet which the poor lady so much regretted not having left at
+home, and proceeded to dilate with great rapture, but much respect
+on the manifold perfections of Miss Nickleby.
+
+'What a delight, what a comfort, what a happiness, this amiable
+creature must be to you,' said Sir Mulberry, throwing into his voice
+an indication of the warmest feeling.
+
+'She is indeed, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby; 'she is the sweetest-
+tempered, kindest-hearted creature--and so clever!'
+
+'She looks clayver,' said Lord Verisopht, with the air of a judge of
+cleverness.
+
+'I assure you she is, my lord,' returned Mrs Nickleby.  'When she
+was at school in Devonshire, she was universally allowed to be
+beyond all exception the very cleverest girl there, and there were a
+great many very clever ones too, and that's the truth--twenty-five
+young ladies, fifty guineas a year without the et-ceteras, both the
+Miss Dowdles the most accomplished, elegant, fascinating creatures--
+Oh dear me!' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I never shall forget what pleasure
+she used to give me and her poor dear papa, when she was at that
+school, never--such a delightful letter every half-year, telling us
+that she was the first pupil in the whole establishment, and had
+made more progress than anybody else!  I can scarcely bear to think
+of it even now.  The girls wrote all the letters themselves,' added
+Mrs Nickleby, 'and the writing-master touched them up afterwards
+with a magnifying glass and a silver pen; at least I think they
+wrote them, though Kate was never quite certain about that, because
+she didn't know the handwriting of hers again; but anyway, I know it
+was a circular which they all copied, and of course it was a very
+gratifying thing--very gratifying.'
+
+With similar recollections Mrs Nickleby beguiled the tediousness of
+the way, until they reached the omnibus, which the extreme
+politeness of her new friends would not allow them to leave until it
+actually started, when they took their hats, as Mrs Nickleby
+solemnly assured her hearers on many subsequent occasions,
+'completely off,' and kissed their straw-coloured kid gloves till
+they were no longer visible.
+
+Mrs Nickleby leant back in the furthest corner of the conveyance,
+and, closing her eyes, resigned herself to a host of most pleasing
+meditations.  Kate had never said a word about having met either of
+these gentlemen; 'that,' she thought, 'argues that she is strongly
+prepossessed in favour of one of them.'  Then the question arose,
+which one could it be.  The lord was the youngest, and his title was
+certainly the grandest; still Kate was not the girl to be swayed by
+such considerations as these.  'I will never put any constraint upon
+her inclinations,' said Mrs Nickleby to herself; 'but upon my word I
+think there's no comparison between his lordship and Sir Mulberry--
+Sir Mulberry is such an attentive gentlemanly creature, so much
+manner, such a fine man, and has so much to say for himself.  I hope
+it's Sir Mulberry--I think it must be Sir Mulberry!'  And then her
+thoughts flew back to her old predictions, and the number of times
+she had said, that Kate with no fortune would marry better than
+other people's daughters with thousands; and, as she pictured with
+the brightness of a mother's fancy all the beauty and grace of the
+poor girl who had struggled so cheerfully with her new life of
+hardship and trial, her heart grew too full, and the tears trickled
+down her face.
+
+Meanwhile, Ralph walked to and fro in his little back-office,
+troubled in mind by what had just occurred.  To say that Ralph loved
+or cared for--in the most ordinary acceptation of those terms--any
+one of God's creatures, would be the wildest fiction.  Still, there
+had somehow stolen upon him from time to time a thought of his niece
+which was tinged with compassion and pity; breaking through the dull
+cloud of dislike or indifference which darkened men and women in his
+eyes, there was, in her case, the faintest gleam of light--a most
+feeble and sickly ray at the best of times--but there it was, and it
+showed the poor girl in a better and purer aspect than any in which
+he had looked on human nature yet.
+
+'I wish,' thought Ralph, 'I had never done this.  And yet it will
+keep this boy to me, while there is money to be made.  Selling a
+girl--throwing her in the way of temptation, and insult, and coarse
+speech.  Nearly two thousand pounds profit from him already though.
+Pshaw! match-making mothers do the same thing every day.'
+
+He sat down, and told the chances, for and against, on his fingers.
+
+'If I had not put them in the right track today,' thought Ralph,
+'this foolish woman would have done so.  Well.  If her daughter is
+as true to herself as she should be from what I have seen, what harm
+ensues?  A little teasing, a little humbling, a few tears.  Yes,'
+said Ralph, aloud, as he locked his iron safe.  'She must take her
+chance.  She must take her chance.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+Mrs Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, whose
+Affection and Interest are beyond all Bounds
+
+
+Mrs Nickleby had not felt so proud and important for many a day, as
+when, on reaching home, she gave herself wholly up to the pleasant
+visions which had accompanied her on her way thither.  Lady Mulberry
+Hawk--that was the prevalent idea.  Lady Mulberry Hawk!--On Tuesday
+last, at St George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the
+Bishop of Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North
+Wales, to Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby,
+Esquire, of Devonshire.  'Upon my word!' cried Mrs Nicholas
+Nickleby, 'it sounds very well.'
+
+Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivities, to
+the perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine mother
+pictured to her imagination a long train of honours and distinctions
+which could not fail to accompany Kate in her new and brilliant
+sphere.  She would be presented at court, of course.  On the
+anniversary of her birthday, which was upon the nineteenth of July
+('at ten minutes past three o'clock in the morning,' thought Mrs
+Nickleby in a parenthesis, 'for I recollect asking what o'clock it
+was'), Sir Mulberry would give a great feast to all his tenants, and
+would return them three and a half per cent on the amount of their
+last half-year's rent, as would be fully described and recorded in
+the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight and
+admiration of all the readers thereof.  Kate's picture, too, would
+be in at least half-a-dozen of the annuals, and on the opposite page
+would appear, in delicate type, 'Lines on contemplating the Portrait
+of Lady Mulberry Hawk.  By Sir Dingleby Dabber.'  Perhaps some one
+annual, of more comprehensive design than its fellows, might even
+contain a portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines
+by the father of Sir Dingleby Dabber.  More unlikely things had come
+to pass.  Less interesting portraits had appeared.  As this thought
+occurred to the good lady, her countenance unconsciously assumed
+that compound expression of simpering and sleepiness which, being
+common to all such portraits, is perhaps one reason why they are
+always so charming and agreeable.
+
+With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs Nickleby occupy
+the whole evening after her accidental introduction to Ralph's
+titled friends; and dreams, no less prophetic and equally promising,
+haunted her sleep that night.  She was preparing for her frugal
+dinner next day, still occupied with the same ideas--a little
+softened down perhaps by sleep and daylight--when the girl who
+attended her, partly for company, and partly to assist in the
+household affairs, rushed into the room in unwonted agitation, and
+announced that two gentlemen were waiting in the passage for
+permission to walk upstairs.
+
+'Bless my heart!' cried Mrs Nickleby, hastily arranging her cap and
+front, 'if it should be--dear me, standing in the passage all this
+time--why don't you go and ask them to walk up, you stupid thing?'
+
+While the girl was gone on this errand, Mrs Nickleby hastily swept
+into a cupboard all vestiges of eating and drinking; which she had
+scarcely done, and seated herself with looks as collected as she
+could assume, when two gentlemen, both perfect strangers, presented
+themselves.
+
+'How do you DO?' said one gentleman, laying great stress on the last
+word of the inquiry.
+
+'HOW do you do?' said the other gentleman, altering the emphasis, as
+if to give variety to the salutation.
+
+Mrs Nickleby curtseyed and smiled, and curtseyed again, and
+remarked, rubbing her hands as she did so, that she hadn't the--
+really--the honour to--
+
+'To know us,' said the first gentleman.  'The loss has been ours,
+Mrs Nickleby.  Has the loss been ours, Pyke?'
+
+'It has, Pluck,' answered the other gentleman.
+
+'We have regretted it very often, I believe, Pyke?' said the first
+gentleman.
+
+'Very often, Pluck,' answered the second.
+
+'But now,' said the first gentleman, 'now we have the happiness we
+have pined and languished for.  Have we pined and languished for
+this happiness, Pyke, or have we not?'
+
+'You know we have, Pluck,' said Pyke, reproachfully.
+
+'You hear him, ma'am?' said Mr Pluck, looking round; 'you hear the
+unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke--that reminds me,--
+formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilised
+society.  Pyke--Mrs Nickleby.'
+
+Mr Pyke laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed low.
+
+'Whether I shall introduce myself with the same formality,' said Mr
+Pluck--'whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or whether
+I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly introduced, is
+competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs Nickleby, that my name
+is Pluck; whether I shall claim your acquaintance on the plain
+ground of the strong interest I take in your welfare, or whether I
+shall make myself known to you as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk--
+these, Mrs Nickleby, are considerations which I leave to you to
+determine.'
+
+ 'Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk's requires no better introduction
+to me,' observed Mrs Nickleby, graciously.
+
+ 'It is delightful to hear you say so,' said Mr Pluck, drawing a
+chair close to Mrs Nickleby, and sitting himself down.  'It is
+refreshing to know that you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mulberry,
+in such high esteem.  A word in your ear, Mrs Nickleby.  When Sir
+Mulberry knows it, he will be a happy man--I say, Mrs Nickleby, a
+happy man.  Pyke, be seated.'
+
+'MY good opinion,' said Mrs Nickleby, and the poor lady exulted in
+the idea that she was marvellously sly,--'my good opinion can be of
+very little consequence to a gentleman like Sir Mulberry.'
+
+'Of little consequence!' exclaimed Mr Pluck.  'Pyke, of what
+consequence to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is the good opinion of Mrs
+Nickleby?'
+
+'Of what consequence?' echoed Pyke.
+
+'Ay,' repeated Pluck; 'is it of the greatest consequence?'
+
+'Of the very greatest consequence,' replied Pyke.
+
+'Mrs Nickleby cannot be ignorant,' said Mr Pluck, 'of the immense
+impression which that sweet girl has--'
+
+'Pluck!' said his friend, 'beware!'
+
+'Pyke is right,' muttered Mr Pluck, after a short pause; 'I was not
+to mention it.  Pyke is very right.  Thank you, Pyke.'
+
+'Well now, really,' thought Mrs Nickleby within herself.  'Such
+delicacy as that, I never saw!'
+
+Mr Pluck, after feigning to be in a condition of great embarrassment
+for some minutes, resumed the conversation by entreating Mrs
+Nickleby to take no heed of what he had inadvertently said--to
+consider him imprudent, rash, injudicious.  The only stipulation he
+would make in his own favour was, that she should give him credit
+for the best intentions.
+
+'But when,' said Mr Pluck, 'when I see so much sweetness and beauty
+on the one hand, and so much ardour and devotion on the other, I--
+pardon me, Pyke, I didn't intend to resume that theme.  Change the
+subject, Pyke.'
+
+'We promised Sir Mulberry and Lord Frederick,' said Pyke, 'that we'd
+call this morning and inquire whether you took any cold last night.'
+
+'Not the least in the world last night, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby,
+'with many thanks to his lordship and Sir Mulberry for doing me the
+honour to inquire; not the least--which is the more singular, as I
+really am very subject to colds, indeed--very subject.  I had a cold
+once,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I think it was in the year eighteen
+hundred and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine, and--yes,
+eighteen hundred and seventeen, that I thought I never should get
+rid of; actually and seriously, that I thought I never should get
+rid of.  I was only cured at last by a remedy that I don't know
+whether you ever happened to hear of, Mr Pluck.  You have a gallon
+of water as hot as you can possibly bear it, with a pound of salt,
+and sixpen'orth of the finest bran, and sit with your head in it for
+twenty minutes every night just before going to bed; at least, I
+don't mean your head--your feet.  It's a most extraordinary cure--a
+most extraordinary cure.  I used it for the first time, I recollect,
+the day after Christmas Day, and by the middle of April following
+the cold was gone.  It seems quite a miracle when you come to think
+of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of September.'
+
+'What an afflicting calamity!' said Mr Pyke.
+
+'Perfectly horrid!' exclaimed Mr Pluck.
+
+'But it's worth the pain of hearing, only to know that Mrs Nickleby
+recovered it, isn't it, Pluck?' cried Mr Pyke.
+
+'That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling interest,'
+replied Mr Pluck.
+
+'But come,' said Pyke, as if suddenly recollecting himself; 'we must
+not forget our mission in the pleasure of this interview.  We come
+on a mission, Mrs Nickleby.'
+
+'On a mission,' exclaimed that good lady, to whose mind a definite
+proposal of marriage for Kate at once presented itself in lively
+colours.
+
+'From Sir Mulberry,' replied Pyke.  'You must be very dull here.'
+
+'Rather dull, I confess,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'We bring the compliments of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand
+entreaties that you'll take a seat in a private box at the play
+tonight,' said Mr Pluck.
+
+'Oh dear!' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I never go out at all, never.'
+
+'And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs Nickleby, why you should
+go out tonight,' retorted Mr Pluck.  'Pyke, entreat Mrs Nickleby.'
+
+'Oh, pray do,' said Pyke.
+
+'You positively must,' urged Pluck.
+
+'You are very kind,' said Mrs Nickleby, hesitating; 'but--'
+
+'There's not a but in the case, my dear Mrs Nickleby,' remonstrated
+Mr Pluck; 'not such a word in the vocabulary.  Your brother-in-law
+joins us, Lord Frederick joins us, Sir Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins
+us--a refusal is out of the question.  Sir Mulberry sends a
+carriage for you--twenty minutes before seven to the moment--you'll
+not be so cruel as to disappoint the whole party, Mrs Nickleby?'
+
+'You are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to say,'
+replied the worthy lady.
+
+'Say nothing; not a word, not a word, my dearest madam,' urged Mr
+Pluck.  'Mrs Nickleby,' said that excellent gentleman, lowering his
+voice, 'there is the most trifling, the most excusable breach of
+confidence in what I am about to say; and yet if my friend Pyke
+there overheard it--such is that man's delicate sense of honour, Mrs
+Nickleby--he'd have me out before dinner-time.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike Pyke, who
+had walked to the window; and Mr Pluck, squeezing her hand, went on:
+
+'Your daughter has made a conquest--a conquest on which I may
+congratulate you.  Sir Mulberry, my dear ma'am, Sir Mulberry is her
+devoted slave.  Hem!'
+
+'Hah!' cried Mr Pyke at this juncture, snatching something from the
+chimney-piece with a theatrical air.  'What is this! what do I
+behold!'
+
+'What DO you behold, my dear fellow?' asked Mr Pluck.
+
+'It is the face, the countenance, the expression,' cried Mr Pyke,
+falling into his chair with a miniature in his hand; 'feebly
+portrayed, imperfectly caught, but still THE face, THE countenance,
+THE expression.'
+
+'I recognise it at this distance!' exclaimed Mr Pluck in a fit of
+enthusiasm.  'Is it not, my dear madam, the faint similitude of--'
+
+'It is my daughter's portrait,' said Mrs Nickleby, with great pride.
+And so it was.  And little Miss La Creevy had brought it home for
+inspection only two nights before.
+
+Mr Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his
+conjecture, than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of
+the divine original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the
+picture a thousand times, while Mr Pluck pressed Mrs Nickleby's hand
+to his heart, and congratulated her on the possession of such a
+daughter, with so much earnestness and affection, that the tears
+stood, or seemed to stand, in his eyes.  Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had
+listened in a state of enviable complacency at first, became at
+length quite overpowered by these tokens of regard for, and
+attachment to, the family; and even the servant girl, who had peeped
+in at the door, remained rooted to the spot in astonishment at the
+ecstasies of the two friendly visitors.
+
+By degrees these raptures subsided, and Mrs Nickleby went on to
+entertain her guests with a lament over her fallen fortunes, and a
+picturesque account of her old house in the country: comprising a
+full description of the different apartments, not forgetting the
+little store-room, and a lively recollection of how many steps you
+went down to get into the garden, and which way you turned when you
+came out at the parlour door, and what capital fixtures there were
+in the kitchen.  This last reflection naturally conducted her into
+the wash-house, where she stumbled upon the brewing utensils, among
+which she might have wandered for an hour, if the mere mention of
+those implements had not, by an association of ideas, instantly
+reminded Mr Pyke that he was 'amazing thirsty.'
+
+'And I'll tell you what,' said Mr Pyke; 'if you'll send round to the
+public-house for a pot of milk half-and-half, positively and
+actually I'll drink it.'
+
+And positively and actually Mr Pyke DID drink it, and Mr Pluck
+helped him, while Mrs Nickleby looked on in divided admiration of
+the condescension of the two, and the aptitude with which they
+accommodated themselves to the pewter-pot; in explanation of which
+seeming marvel it may be here observed, that gentlemen who, like
+Messrs Pyke and Pluck, live upon their wits (or not so much,
+perhaps, upon the presence of their own wits as upon the absence of
+wits in other people) are occasionally reduced to very narrow shifts
+and straits, and are at such periods accustomed to regale themselves
+in a very simple and primitive manner.
+
+'At twenty minutes before seven, then,' said Mr Pyke, rising, 'the
+coach will be here.  One more look--one little look--at that sweet
+face.  Ah! here it is.  Unmoved, unchanged!'  This, by the way, was a
+very remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many
+changes of expression--'Oh, Pluck!  Pluck!'
+
+Mr Pluck made no other reply than kissing Mrs Nickleby's hand with a
+great show of feeling and attachment; Mr Pyke having done the same,
+both gentlemen hastily withdrew.
+
+Mrs Nickleby was commonly in the habit of giving herself credit for
+a pretty tolerable share of penetration and acuteness, but she had
+never felt so satisfied with her own sharp-sightedness as she did
+that day.  She had found it all out the night before.  She had never
+seen Sir Mulberry and Kate together--never even heard Sir Mulberry's
+name--and yet hadn't she said to herself from the very first, that
+she saw how the case stood? and what a triumph it was, for there
+was now no doubt about it.  If these flattering attentions to
+herself were not sufficient proofs, Sir Mulberry's confidential
+friend had suffered the secret to escape him in so many words.  'I
+am quite in love with that dear Mr Pluck, I declare I am,' said Mrs
+Nickleby.
+
+There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst of this good
+fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom she could
+confide it.  Once or twice she almost resolved to walk straight to
+Miss La Creevy's and tell it all to her.  'But I don't know,'
+thought Mrs Nickleby; 'she is a very worthy person, but I am afraid
+too much beneath Sir Mulberry's station for us to make a companion
+of.  Poor thing!'  Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected
+the idea of taking the little portrait painter into her confidence,
+and contented herself with holding out sundry vague and mysterious
+hopes of preferment to the servant girl, who received these obscure
+hints of dawning greatness with much veneration and respect.
+
+Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney
+coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman, whose
+legs, although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere abstract
+legs, have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy.  It
+was quite exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with which he
+banged the door and jumped up behind after Mrs Nickleby was in; and
+as that good lady was perfectly unconscious that he applied the
+gold-headed end of his long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed
+most disrespectfully to the coachman over her very head, she sat in
+a state of much stiffness and dignity, not a little proud of her
+position.
+
+At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and
+there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her
+box; and so polite were they, that Mr Pyke threatened with many
+oaths to 'smifligate' a very old man with a lantern who accidentally
+stumbled in her way--to the great terror of Mrs Nickleby, who,
+conjecturing more from Mr Pyke's excitement than any previous
+acquaintance with the etymology of the word that smifligation and
+bloodshed must be in the main one and the same thing, was alarmed
+beyond expression, lest something should occur.  Fortunately,
+however, Mr Pyke confined himself to mere verbal smifligation, and
+they reached their box with no more serious interruption by the way,
+than a desire on the part of the same pugnacious gentleman to
+'smash' the assistant box-keeper for happening to mistake the
+number.
+
+Mrs Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the curtain of the
+box in an armchair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord Verisopht arrived,
+arrayed from the crowns of their heads to the tips of their gloves,
+and from the tips of their gloves to the toes of their boots, in the
+most elegant and costly manner.  Sir Mulberry was a little hoarser
+than on the previous day, and Lord Verisopht looked rather sleepy
+and queer; from which tokens, as well as from the circumstance of
+their both being to a trifling extent unsteady upon their legs, Mrs
+Nickleby justly concluded that they had taken dinner.
+
+'We have been--we have been--toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs
+Nickleby,' whispered Sir Mulberry, sitting down behind her.
+
+'Oh, ho!' thought that knowing lady; 'wine in, truth out.--You are
+very kind, Sir Mulberry.'
+
+'No, no upon my soul!' replied Sir Mulberry Hawk.  'It's you that's
+kind, upon my soul it is.  It was so kind of you to come tonight.'
+
+'So very kind of you to invite me, you mean, Sir Mulberry,' replied
+Mrs Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodigiously sly.
+
+'I am so anxious to know you, so anxious to cultivate your good
+opinion, so desirous that there should be a delicious kind of
+harmonious family understanding between us,' said Sir Mulberry,
+'that you mustn't think I'm disinterested in what I do.  I'm
+infernal selfish; I am--upon my soul I am.'
+
+'I am sure you can't be selfish, Sir Mulberry!' replied Mrs
+Nickleby.  'You have much too open and generous a countenance for
+that.'
+
+'What an extraordinary observer you are!' said Sir Mulberry Hawk.
+
+'Oh no, indeed, I don't see very far into things, Sir Mulberry,'
+replied Mrs Nickleby, in a tone of voice which left the baronet to
+infer that she saw very far indeed.
+
+'I am quite afraid of you,' said the baronet.  'Upon my soul,'
+repeated Sir Mulberry, looking round to his companions; 'I am afraid
+of Mrs Nickleby.  She is so immensely sharp.'
+
+Messrs Pyke and Pluck shook their heads mysteriously, and observed
+together that they had found that out long ago; upon which Mrs
+Nickleby tittered, and Sir Mulberry laughed, and Pyke and Pluck
+roared.
+
+'But where's my brother-in-law, Sir Mulberry?' inquired Mrs
+Nickleby.  'I shouldn't be here without him.  I hope he's coming.'
+
+'Pyke,' said Sir Mulberry, taking out his toothpick and lolling back
+in his chair, as if he were too lazy to invent a reply to this
+question.  'Where's Ralph Nickleby?'
+
+'Pluck,' said Pyke, imitating the baronet's action, and turning the
+lie over to his friend, 'where's Ralph Nickleby?'
+
+Mr Pluck was about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle
+caused by a party entering the next box seemed to attract the
+attention of all four gentlemen, who exchanged glances of much
+meaning.  The new party beginning to converse together, Sir Mulberry
+suddenly assumed the character of a most attentive listener, and
+implored his friends not to breathe--not to breathe.
+
+'Why not?' said Mrs Nickleby.  'What is the matter?'
+
+'Hush!' replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm.  'Lord
+Frederick, do you recognise the tones of that voice?'
+
+'Deyvle take me if I didn't think it was the voice of Miss
+Nickleby.'
+
+'Lor, my lord!' cried Miss Nickleby's mama, thrusting her head
+round the curtain.  'Why actually--Kate, my dear, Kate.'
+
+'YOU here, mama!  Is it possible!'
+
+'Possible, my dear?  Yes.'
+
+'Why who--who on earth is that you have with you, mama?' said Kate,
+shrinking back as she caught sight of a man smiling and kissing his
+hand.
+
+'Who do you suppose, my dear?' replied Mrs Nickleby, bending towards
+Mrs Wititterly, and speaking a little louder for that lady's
+edification.  'There's Mr Pyke, Mr Pluck, Sir Mulberry Hawk, and
+Lord Frederick Verisopht.'
+
+'Gracious Heaven!' thought Kate hurriedly.  'How comes she in such
+society?'
+
+Now, Kate thought thus SO hurriedly, and the surprise was so great,
+and moreover brought back so forcibly the recollection of what had
+passed at Ralph's delectable dinner, that she turned extremely pale
+and appeared greatly agitated, which symptoms being observed by Mrs
+Nickleby, were at once set down by that acute lady as being caused
+and occasioned by violent love.  But, although she was in no small
+degree delighted by this discovery, which reflected so much credit
+on her own quickness of perception, it did not lessen her motherly
+anxiety in Kate's behalf; and accordingly, with a vast quantity of
+trepidation, she quitted her own box to hasten into that of Mrs
+Wititterly.  Mrs Wititterly, keenly alive to the glory of having a
+lord and a baronet among her visiting acquaintance, lost no time in
+signing to Mr Wititterly to open the door, and thus it was that in
+less than thirty seconds Mrs Nickleby's party had made an irruption
+into Mrs Wititterly's box, which it filled to the very door, there
+being in fact only room for Messrs Pyke and Pluck to get in their
+heads and waistcoats.
+
+'My dear Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby, kissing her daughter
+affectionately.  'How ill you looked a moment ago!  You quite
+frightened me, I declare!'
+
+'It was mere fancy, mama,--the--the--reflection of the lights
+perhaps,' replied Kate, glancing nervously round, and finding it
+impossible to whisper any caution or explanation.
+
+'Don't you see Sir Mulberry Hawk, my dear?'
+
+Kate bowed slightly, and biting her lip turned her head towards the
+stage.
+
+But Sir Mulberry Hawk was not to be so easily repulsed, for he
+advanced with extended hand; and Mrs Nickleby officiously informing
+Kate of this circumstance, she was obliged to extend her own.  Sir
+Mulberry detained it while he murmured a profusion of compliments,
+which Kate, remembering what had passed between them, rightly
+considered as so many aggravations of the insult he had already put
+upon her.  Then followed the recognition of Lord Verisopht, and then
+the greeting of Mr Pyke, and then that of Mr Pluck, and finally, to
+complete the young lady's mortification, she was compelled at Mrs
+Wititterly's request to perform the ceremony of introducing the
+odious persons, whom she regarded with the utmost indignation and
+abhorrence.
+
+'Mrs Wititterly is delighted,' said Mr Wititterly, rubbing his
+hands; 'delighted, my lord, I am sure, with this opportunity of
+contracting an acquaintance which, I trust, my lord, we shall
+improve.  Julia, my dear, you must not allow yourself to be too much
+excited, you must not.  Indeed you must not.  Mrs Wititterly is of a
+most excitable nature, Sir Mulberry.  The snuff of a candle, the
+wick of a lamp, the bloom on a peach, the down on a butterfly.  You
+might blow her away, my lord; you might blow her away.'
+
+Sir Mulberry seemed to think that it would be a great convenience if
+the lady could be blown away.  He said, however, that the delight
+was mutual, and Lord Verisopht added that it was mutual, whereupon
+Messrs Pyke and Pluck were heard to murmur from the distance that it
+was very mutual indeed.
+
+'I take an interest, my lord,' said Mrs Wititterly, with a faint
+smile, 'such an interest in the drama.'
+
+'Ye--es.  It's very interesting,' replied Lord Verisopht.
+
+'I'm always ill after Shakespeare,' said Mrs Wititterly.  'I
+scarcely exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after
+a tragedy, my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.'
+
+'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht.  'He was a clayver man.'
+
+'Do you know, my lord,' said Mrs Wititterly, after a long silence,
+'I find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been
+to that dear little dull house he was born in!  Were you ever there,
+my lord?'
+
+'No, nayver,' replied Verisopht.
+
+'Then really you ought to go, my lord,' returned Mrs Wititterly, in
+very languid and drawling accents.  'I don't know how it is, but
+after you've seen the place and written your name in the little
+book, somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite
+a fire within one.'
+
+'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht, 'I shall certainly go there.'
+
+'Julia, my life,' interposed Mr Wititterly, 'you are deceiving his
+lordship--unintentionally, my lord, she is deceiving you.  It is
+your poetical temperament, my dear--your ethereal soul--your fervid
+imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement.
+There is nothing in the place, my dear--nothing, nothing.'
+
+'I think there must be something in the place,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+who had been listening in silence; 'for, soon after I was married, I
+went to Stratford with my poor dear Mr Nickleby, in a post-chaise
+from Birmingham--was it a post-chaise though?' said Mrs Nickleby,
+considering; 'yes, it must have been a post-chaise, because I
+recollect remarking at the time that the driver had a green shade
+over his left eye;--in a post-chaise from Birmingham, and after we
+had seen Shakespeare's tomb and birthplace, we went back to the inn
+there, where we slept that night, and I recollect that all night
+long I dreamt of nothing but a black gentleman, at full length, in
+plaster-of-Paris, with a lay-down collar tied with two tassels,
+leaning against a post and thinking; and when I woke in the morning
+and described him to Mr Nickleby, he said it was Shakespeare just as
+he had been when he was alive, which was very curious indeed.
+Stratford--Stratford,' continued Mrs Nickleby, considering.  'Yes, I
+am positive about that, because I recollect I was in the family way
+with my son Nicholas at the time, and I had been very much
+frightened by an Italian image boy that very morning.  In fact, it
+was quite a mercy, ma'am,' added Mrs Nickleby, in a whisper to Mrs
+Wititterly, 'that my son didn't turn out to be a Shakespeare, and
+what a dreadful thing that would have been!'
+
+When Mrs Nickleby had brought this interesting anecdote to a close,
+Pyke and Pluck, ever zealous in their patron's cause, proposed the
+adjournment of a detachment of the party into the next box; and with
+so much skill were the preliminaries adjusted, that Kate, despite
+all she could say or do to the contrary, had no alternative but to
+suffer herself to be led away by Sir Mulberry Hawk.  Her mother and
+Mr Pluck accompanied them, but the worthy lady, pluming herself upon
+her discretion, took particular care not so much as to look at her
+daughter during the whole evening, and to seem wholly absorbed in
+the jokes and conversation of Mr Pluck, who, having been appointed
+sentry over Mrs Nickleby for that especial purpose, neglected, on
+his side, no possible opportunity of engrossing her attention.
+
+Lord Frederick Verisopht remained in the next box to be talked to by
+Mrs Wititterly, and Mr Pyke was in attendance to throw in a word or
+two when necessary.  As to Mr Wititterly, he was sufficiently busy
+in the body of the house, informing such of his friends and
+acquaintance as happened to be there, that those two gentlemen
+upstairs, whom they had seen in conversation with Mrs W., were the
+distinguished Lord Frederick Verisopht and his most intimate friend,
+the gay Sir Mulberry Hawk--a communication which inflamed several
+respectable house-keepers with the utmost jealousy and rage, and
+reduced sixteen unmarried daughters to the very brink of despair.
+
+The evening came to an end at last, but Kate had yet to be handed
+downstairs by the detested Sir Mulberry; and so skilfully were the
+manoeuvres of Messrs Pyke and Pluck conducted, that she and the
+baronet were the last of the party, and were even--without an
+appearance of effort or design--left at some little distance behind.
+
+'Don't hurry, don't hurry,' said Sir Mulberry, as Kate hastened on,
+and attempted to release her arm.
+
+She made no reply, but still pressed forward.
+
+'Nay, then--' coolly observed Sir Mulberry, stopping her outright.
+
+'You had best not seek to detain me, sir!' said Kate, angrily.
+
+'And why not?' retorted Sir Mulberry.  'My dear creature, now why do
+you keep up this show of displeasure?'
+
+'SHOW!' repeated Kate, indignantly.  'How dare you presume to speak
+to me, sir--to address me--to come into my presence?'
+
+'You look prettier in a passion, Miss Nickleby,' said Sir Mulberry
+Hawk, stooping down, the better to see her face.
+
+'I hold you in the bitterest detestation and contempt, sir,' said
+Kate.  'If you find any attraction in looks of disgust and aversion,
+you--let me rejoin my friends, sir, instantly.  Whatever
+considerations may have withheld me thus far, I will disregard them
+all, and take a course that even YOU might feel, if you do not
+immediately suffer me to proceed.'
+
+Sir Mulberry smiled, and still looking in her face and retaining her
+arm, walked towards the door.
+
+'If no regard for my sex or helpless situation will induce you to
+desist from this coarse and unmanly persecution,' said Kate,
+scarcely knowing, in the tumult of her passions, what she said,--'I
+have a brother who will resent it dearly, one day.'
+
+'Upon my soul!' exclaimed Sir Mulberry, as though quietly communing
+with himself; passing his arm round her waist as he spoke, 'she
+looks more beautiful, and I like her better in this mood, than when
+her eyes are cast down, and she is in perfect repose!'
+
+How Kate reached the lobby where her friends were waiting she never
+knew, but she hurried across it without at all regarding them, and
+disengaged herself suddenly from her companion, sprang into the
+coach, and throwing herself into its darkest corner burst into
+tears.
+
+Messrs Pyke and Pluck, knowing their cue, at once threw the party
+into great commotion by shouting for the carriages, and getting up a
+violent quarrel with sundry inoffensive bystanders; in the midst of
+which tumult they put the affrighted Mrs Nickleby in her chariot,
+and having got her safely off, turned their thoughts to Mrs
+Wititterly, whose attention also they had now effectually distracted
+from the young lady, by throwing her into a state of the utmost
+bewilderment and consternation.  At length, the conveyance in which
+she had come rolled off too with its load, and the four worthies,
+being left alone under the portico, enjoyed a hearty laugh together.
+
+'There,' said Sir Mulberry, turning to his noble friend.  'Didn't I
+tell you last night that if we could find where they were going by
+bribing a servant through my fellow, and then established ourselves
+close by with the mother, these people's honour would be our own?
+Why here it is, done in four-and-twenty hours.'
+
+'Ye--es,' replied the dupe.  'But I have been tied to the old woman
+all ni-ight.'
+
+'Hear him,' said Sir Mulberry, turning to his two friends.  'Hear
+this discontented grumbler.  Isn't it enough to make a man swear
+never to help him in his plots and schemes again?  Isn't it an
+infernal shame?'
+
+Pyke asked Pluck whether it was not an infernal shame, and Pluck
+asked Pyke; but neither answered.
+
+'Isn't it the truth?' demanded Verisopht.  'Wasn't it so?'
+
+'Wasn't it so!' repeated Sir Mulberry.  'How would you have had it?
+How could we have got a general invitation at first sight--come when
+you like, go when you like, stop as long as you like, do what you
+like--if you, the lord, had not made yourself agreeable to the
+foolish mistress of the house?  Do I care for this girl, except as
+your friend?  Haven't I been sounding your praises in her ears, and
+bearing her pretty sulks and peevishness all night for you?  What
+sort of stuff do you think I'm made of?  Would I do this for every
+man?  Don't I deserve even gratitude in return?'
+
+'You're a deyvlish good fellow,' said the poor young lord, taking
+his friend's arm.  'Upon my life you're a deyvlish good fellow,
+Hawk.'
+
+'And I have done right, have I?' demanded Sir Mulberry.
+
+'Quite ri-ght.'
+
+'And like a poor, silly, good-natured, friendly dog as I am, eh?'
+
+'Ye--es, ye--es; like a friend,' replied the other.
+
+'Well then,' replied Sir Mulberry, 'I'm satisfied.  And now let's go
+and have our revenge on the German baron and the Frenchman, who
+cleaned you out so handsomely last night.'
+
+With these words the friendly creature took his companion's arm and
+led him away, turning half round as he did so, and bestowing a wink
+and a contemptuous smile on Messrs Pyke and Pluck, who, cramming
+their handkerchiefs into their mouths to denote their silent
+enjoyment of the whole proceedings, followed their patron and his
+victim at a little distance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+Miss Nickleby, rendered desperate by the Persecution of Sir Mulberry
+Hawk, and the Complicated Difficulties and Distresses which surround
+her, appeals, as a last resource, to her Uncle for Protection
+
+
+The ensuing morning brought reflection with it, as morning usually
+does; but widely different was the train of thought it awakened in
+the different persons who had been so unexpectedly brought together
+on the preceding evening, by the active agency of Messrs Pyke and
+Pluck.
+
+The reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk--if such a term can be applied
+to the thoughts of the systematic and calculating man of
+dissipation, whose joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are all of
+self, and who would seem to retain nothing of the intellectual
+faculty but the power to debase himself, and to degrade the very
+nature whose outward semblance he wears--the reflections of Sir
+Mulberry Hawk turned upon Kate Nickleby, and were, in brief, that
+she was undoubtedly handsome; that her coyness MUST be easily
+conquerable by a man of his address and experience, and that the
+pursuit was one which could not fail to redound to his credit, and
+greatly to enhance his reputation with the world.  And lest this
+last consideration--no mean or secondary one with Sir Mulberry--
+should sound strangely in the ears of some, let it be remembered
+that most men live in a world of their own, and that in that limited
+circle alone are they ambitious for distinction and applause.  Sir
+Mulberry's world was peopled with profligates, and he acted
+accordingly.
+
+Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most
+extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day.
+It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at
+the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the
+opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is
+precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little
+world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world
+dumb with amazement.
+
+The reflections of Mrs Nickleby were of the proudest and most
+complacent kind; and under the influence of her very agreeable
+delusion she straightway sat down and indited a long letter to Kate,
+in which she expressed her entire approval of the admirable choice
+she had made, and extolled Sir Mulberry to the skies; asserting, for
+the more complete satisfaction of her daughter's feelings, that he
+was precisely the individual whom she (Mrs Nickleby) would have
+chosen for her son-in-law, if she had had the picking and choosing
+from all mankind.  The good lady then, with the preliminary
+observation that she might be fairly supposed not to have lived in
+the world so long without knowing its ways, communicated a great
+many subtle precepts applicable to the state of courtship, and
+confirmed in their wisdom by her own personal experience.  Above all
+things she commended a strict maidenly reserve, as being not only a
+very laudable thing in itself, but as tending materially to
+strengthen and increase a lover's ardour.  'And I never,' added Mrs
+Nickleby, 'was more delighted in my life than to observe last night,
+my dear, that your good sense had already told you this.'  With which
+sentiment, and various hints of the pleasure she derived from the
+knowledge that her daughter inherited so large an instalment of her
+own excellent sense and discretion (to nearly the full measure of
+which she might hope, with care, to succeed in time), Mrs Nickleby
+concluded a very long and rather illegible letter.
+
+Poor Kate was well-nigh distracted on the receipt of four closely-
+written and closely-crossed sides of congratulation on the very
+subject which had prevented her closing her eyes all night, and kept
+her weeping and watching in her chamber; still worse and more trying
+was the necessity of rendering herself agreeable to Mrs Wititterly,
+who, being in low spirits after the fatigue of the preceding night,
+of course expected her companion (else wherefore had she board and
+salary?) to be in the best spirits possible.  As to Mr Wititterly,
+he went about all day in a tremor of delight at having shaken hands
+with a lord, and having actually asked him to come and see him in
+his own house.  The lord himself, not being troubled to any
+inconvenient extent with the power of thinking, regaled himself with
+the conversation of Messrs Pyke and Pluck, who sharpened their wit
+by a plentiful indulgence in various costly stimulants at his
+expense.
+
+It was four in the afternoon--that is, the vulgar afternoon of the
+sun and the clock--and Mrs Wititterly reclined, according to custom,
+on the drawing-room sofa, while Kate read aloud a new novel in three
+volumes, entitled 'The Lady Flabella,' which Alphonse the doubtful
+had procured from the library that very morning.  And it was a
+production admirably suited to a lady labouring under Mrs
+Wititterly's complaint, seeing that there was not a line in it, from
+beginning to end, which could, by the most remote contingency,
+awaken the smallest excitement in any person breathing.
+
+Kate read on.
+
+'"Cherizette," said the Lady Flabella, inserting her mouse-like feet
+in the blue satin slippers, which had unwittingly occasioned the
+half-playful half-angry altercation between herself and the youthful
+Colonel Befillaire, in the Duke of Mincefenille's SALON DE DANSE on
+the previous night.  "CHERIZETTE, MA CHERE, DONNEZ-MOI DE L'EAU-DE-
+COLOGNE, S'IL VOUS PLAIT, MON ENFANT."
+
+'"MERCIE--thank you," said the Lady Flabella, as the lively but
+devoted Cherizette plentifully besprinkled with the fragrant
+compound the Lady Flabella's MOUCHOIR of finest cambric, edged with
+richest lace, and emblazoned at the four corners with the Flabella
+crest, and gorgeous heraldic bearings of that noble family.
+"MERCIE--that will do."
+
+'At this instant, while the Lady Flabella yet inhaled that delicious
+fragrance by holding the MOUCHOIR to her exquisite, but
+thoughtfully-chiselled nose, the door of the BOUDOIR (artfully
+concealed by rich hangings of silken damask, the hue of Italy's
+firmament) was thrown open, and with noiseless tread two VALETS-DE-
+CHAMBRE, clad in sumptuous liveries of peach-blossom and gold,
+advanced into the room followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE--silk
+stockings--who, while they remained at some distance making the most
+graceful obeisances, advanced to the feet of his lovely mistress,
+and dropping on one knee presented, on a golden salver gorgeously
+chased, a scented BILLET.
+
+'The Lady Flabella, with an agitation she could not repress, hastily
+tore off the ENVELOPE and broke the scented seal.  It WAS from
+Befillaire--the young, the slim, the low-voiced--HER OWN
+Befillaire.'
+
+'Oh, charming!' interrupted Kate's patroness, who was sometimes
+taken literary.  'Poetic, really.  Read that description again, Miss
+Nickleby.'
+
+Kate complied.
+
+'Sweet, indeed!' said Mrs Wititterly, with a sigh.  'So voluptuous,
+is it not--so soft?'
+
+'Yes, I think it is,' replied Kate, gently; 'very soft.'
+
+'Close the book, Miss Nickleby,' said Mrs Wititterly.  'I can hear
+nothing more today; I should be sorry to disturb the impression of
+that sweet description.  Close the book.'
+
+Kate complied, not unwillingly; and, as she did so, Mrs Wititterly
+raising her glass with a languid hand, remarked, that she looked
+pale.
+
+'It was the fright of that--that noise and confusion last night,'
+said Kate.
+
+'How very odd!' exclaimed Mrs Wititterly, with a look of surprise.
+And certainly, when one comes to think of it, it WAS very odd that
+anything should have disturbed a companion.  A steam-engine, or
+other ingenious piece of mechanism out of order, would have been
+nothing to it.
+
+'How did you come to know Lord Frederick, and those other delightful
+creatures, child?' asked Mrs Wititterly, still eyeing Kate through
+her glass.
+
+'I met them at my uncle's,' said Kate, vexed to feel that she was
+colouring deeply, but unable to keep down the blood which rushed to
+her face whenever she thought of that man.
+
+'Have you known them long?'
+
+'No,' rejoined Kate.  'Not long.'
+
+'I was very glad of the opportunity which that respectable person,
+your mother, gave us of being known to them,' said Mrs Wititterly,
+in a lofty manner.  'Some friends of ours were on the very point of
+introducing us, which makes it quite remarkable.'
+
+This was said lest Miss Nickleby should grow conceited on the honour
+and dignity of having known four great people (for Pyke and Pluck
+were included among the delightful creatures), whom Mrs Wititterly
+did not know.  But as the circumstance had made no impression one
+way or other upon Kate's mind, the force of the observation was
+quite lost upon her.
+
+'They asked permission to call,' said Mrs Wititterly.  'I gave it
+them of course.'
+
+'Do you expect them today?' Kate ventured to inquire.
+
+Mrs Wititterly's answer was lost in the noise of a tremendous
+rapping at the street-door, and before it had ceased to vibrate,
+there drove up a handsome cabriolet, out of which leaped Sir
+Mulberry Hawk and his friend Lord Verisopht.
+
+'They are here now,' said Kate, rising and hurrying away.
+
+'Miss Nickleby!' cried Mrs Wititterly, perfectly aghast at a
+companion's attempting to quit the room, without her permission
+first had and obtained.  'Pray don't think of going.'
+
+'You are very good!' replied Kate.  'But--'
+
+'For goodness' sake, don't agitate me by making me speak so much,'
+said Mrs Wititterly, with great sharpness.  'Dear me, Miss Nickleby,
+I beg--'
+
+It was in vain for Kate to protest that she was unwell, for the
+footsteps of the knockers, whoever they were, were already on the
+stairs.  She resumed her seat, and had scarcely done so, when the
+doubtful page darted into the room and announced, Mr Pyke, and Mr
+Pluck, and Lord Verisopht, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, all at one burst.
+
+'The most extraordinary thing in the world,' said Mr Pluck, saluting
+both ladies with the utmost cordiality; 'the most extraordinary
+thing.  As Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove up to the door,
+Pyke and I had that instant knocked.'
+
+'That instant knocked,' said Pyke.
+
+'No matter how you came, so that you are here,' said Mrs Wititterly,
+who, by dint of lying on the same sofa for three years and a half,
+had got up quite a little pantomime of graceful attitudes, and now
+threw herself into the most striking of the whole series, to
+astonish the visitors.  'I am delighted, I am sure.'
+
+'And how is Miss Nickleby?' said Sir Mulberry Hawk, accosting Kate,
+in a low voice--not so low, however, but that it reached the ears of
+Mrs Wititterly.
+
+'Why, she complains of suffering from the fright of last night,'
+said the lady.  'I am sure I don't wonder at it, for my nerves are
+quite torn to pieces.'
+
+'And yet you look,' observed Sir Mulberry, turning round; 'and yet
+you look--'
+
+'Beyond everything,' said Mr Pyke, coming to his patron's
+assistance.  Of course Mr Pluck said the same.
+
+'I am afraid Sir Mulberry is a flatterer, my lord,' said Mrs
+Wititterly, turning to that young gentleman, who had been sucking
+the head of his cane in silence, and staring at Kate.
+
+'Oh, deyvlish!' replied Verisopht.  Having given utterance to which
+remarkable sentiment, he occupied himself as before.
+
+'Neither does Miss Nickleby look the worse,' said Sir Mulberry,
+bending his bold gaze upon her.  'She was always handsome, but upon
+my soul, ma'am, you seem to have imparted some of your own good
+looks to her besides.'
+
+To judge from the glow which suffused the poor girl's countenance
+after this speech, Mrs Wititterly might, with some show of reason,
+have been supposed to have imparted to it some of that artificial
+bloom which decorated her own.  Mrs Wititterly admitted, though not
+with the best grace in the world, that Kate DID look pretty.  She
+began to think, too, that Sir Mulberry was not quite so agreeable a
+creature as she had at first supposed him; for, although a skilful
+flatterer is a most delightful companion if you can keep him all to
+yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to
+complimenting other people.
+
+'Pyke,' said the watchful Mr Pluck, observing the effect which the
+praise of Miss Nickleby had produced.
+
+'Well, Pluck,' said Pyke.
+
+'Is there anybody,' demanded Mr Pluck, mysteriously, 'anybody you
+know, that Mrs Wititterly's profile reminds you of?'
+
+'Reminds me of!' answered Pyke.  'Of course there is.'
+
+'Who do you mean?' said Pluck, in the same mysterious manner.  'The
+D. of B.?'
+
+'The C. of B.,' replied Pyke, with the faintest trace of a grin
+lingering in his countenance.  'The beautiful sister is the
+countess; not the duchess.'
+
+'True,' said Pluck, 'the C. of B.  The resemblance is wonderful!'
+
+'Perfectly startling,' said Mr Pyke.
+
+Here was a state of things!  Mrs Wititterly was declared, upon the
+testimony of two veracious and competent witnesses, to be the very
+picture of a countess!  This was one of the consequences of getting
+into good society.  Why, she might have moved among grovelling
+people for twenty years, and never heard of it.  How could she,
+indeed? what did THEY know about countesses?
+
+The two gentlemen having, by the greediness with which this little
+bait was swallowed, tested the extent of Mrs Wititterly's appetite
+for adulation, proceeded to administer that commodity in very large
+doses, thus affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an opportunity of
+pestering Miss Nickleby with questions and remarks, to which she was
+absolutely obliged to make some reply.  Meanwhile, Lord Verisopht
+enjoyed unmolested the full flavour of the gold knob at the top of
+his cane, as he would have done to the end of the interview if Mr
+Wititterly had not come home, and caused the conversation to turn to
+his favourite topic.
+
+'My lord,' said Mr Wititterly, 'I am delighted--honoured--proud.  Be
+seated again, my lord, pray.  I am proud, indeed--most proud.'
+
+It was to the secret annoyance of his wife that Mr Wititterly said
+all this, for, although she was bursting with pride and arrogance,
+she would have had the illustrious guests believe that their visit
+was quite a common occurrence, and that they had lords and baronets
+to see them every day in the week.  But Mr Wititterly's feelings
+were beyond the power of suppression.
+
+'It is an honour, indeed!' said Mr Wititterly.  'Julia, my soul, you
+will suffer for this tomorrow.'
+
+'Suffer!' cried Lord Verisopht.
+
+'The reaction, my lord, the reaction,' said Mr Wititterly.  'This
+violent strain upon the nervous system over, my lord, what ensues?
+A sinking, a depression, a lowness, a lassitude, a debility.  My
+lord, if Sir Tumley Snuffim was to see that delicate creature at
+this moment, he would not give a--a--THIS for her life.'  In
+illustration of which remark, Mr Wititterly took a pinch of snuff
+from his box, and jerked it lightly into the air as an emblem of
+instability.
+
+'Not THAT,' said Mr Wititterly, looking about him with a serious
+countenance.  'Sir Tumley Snuffim would not give that for Mrs
+Wititterly's existence.'
+
+Mr Wititterly told this with a kind of sober exultation, as if it
+were no trifling distinction for a man to have a wife in such a
+desperate state, and Mrs Wititterly sighed and looked on, as if she
+felt the honour, but had determined to bear it as meekly as might
+be.
+
+'Mrs Wititterly,' said her husband, 'is Sir Tumley Snuffim's
+favourite patient.  I believe I may venture to say, that Mrs
+Wititterly is the first person who took the new medicine which is
+supposed to have destroyed a family at Kensington Gravel Pits.  I
+believe she was.  If I am wrong, Julia, my dear, you will correct
+me.'
+
+'I believe I was,' said Mrs Wititterly, in a faint voice.
+
+As there appeared to be some doubt in the mind of his patron how he
+could best join in this conversation, the indefatigable Mr Pyke
+threw himself into the breach, and, by way of saying something to
+the point, inquired--with reference to the aforesaid medicine--
+whether it was nice.
+
+'No, sir, it was not.  It had not even that recommendation,' said Mr
+W.
+
+'Mrs Wititterly is quite a martyr,' observed Pyke, with a
+complimentary bow.
+
+'I THINK I am,' said Mrs Wititterly, smiling.
+
+'I think you are, my dear Julia,' replied her husband, in a tone
+which seemed to say that he was not vain, but still must insist upon
+their privileges.  'If anybody, my lord,' added Mr Wititterly,
+wheeling round to the nobleman, 'will produce to me a greater martyr
+than Mrs Wititterly, all I can say is, that I shall be glad to see
+that martyr, whether male or female--that's all, my lord.'
+
+Pyke and Pluck promptly remarked that certainly nothing could be
+fairer than that; and the call having been by this time protracted
+to a very great length, they obeyed Sir Mulberry's look, and rose to
+go.  This brought Sir Mulberry himself and Lord Verisopht on their
+legs also.  Many protestations of friendship, and expressions
+anticipative of the pleasure which must inevitably flow from so
+happy an acquaintance, were exchanged, and the visitors departed,
+with renewed assurances that at all times and seasons the mansion of
+the Wititterlys would be honoured by receiving them beneath its
+roof.
+
+That they came at all times and seasons--that they dined there one
+day, supped the next, dined again on the next, and were constantly
+to and fro on all--that they made parties to visit public places,
+and met by accident at lounges--that upon all these occasions Miss
+Nickleby was exposed to the constant and unremitting persecution of
+Sir Mulberry Hawk, who now began to feel his character, even in the
+estimation of his two dependants, involved in the successful
+reduction of her pride--that she had no intervals of peace or rest,
+except at those hours when she could sit in her solitary room, and
+weep over the trials of the day--all these were consequences
+naturally flowing from the well-laid plans of Sir Mulberry, and
+their able execution by the auxiliaries, Pyke and Pluck.
+
+And thus for a fortnight matters went on.  That any but the weakest
+and silliest of people could have seen in one interview that Lord
+Verisopht, though he was a lord, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, though he
+was a baronet, were not persons accustomed to be the best possible
+companions, and were certainly not calculated by habits, manners,
+tastes, or conversation, to shine with any very great lustre in the
+society of ladies, need scarcely be remarked.  But with Mrs
+Wititterly the two titles were all sufficient; coarseness became
+humour, vulgarity softened itself down into the most charming
+eccentricity; insolence took the guise of an easy absence of
+reserve, attainable only by those who had had the good fortune to
+mix with high folks.
+
+If the mistress put such a construction upon the behaviour of her
+new friends, what could the companion urge against them?  If they
+accustomed themselves to very little restraint before the lady of
+the house, with how much more freedom could they address her paid
+dependent!  Nor was even this the worst.  As the odious Sir Mulberry
+Hawk attached himself to Kate with less and less of disguise, Mrs
+Wititterly began to grow jealous of the superior attractions of Miss
+Nickleby.  If this feeling had led to her banishment from the
+drawing-room when such company was there, Kate would have been only
+too happy and willing that it should have existed, but unfortunately
+for her she possessed that native grace and true gentility of
+manner, and those thousand nameless accomplishments which give to
+female society its greatest charm; if these be valuable anywhere,
+they were especially so where the lady of the house was a mere
+animated doll.  The consequence was, that Kate had the double
+mortification of being an indispensable part of the circle when Sir
+Mulberry and his friends were there, and of being exposed, on that
+very account, to all Mrs Wititterly's ill-humours and caprices when
+they were gone.  She became utterly and completely miserable.
+
+Mrs Wititterly had never thrown off the mask with regard to Sir
+Mulberry, but when she was more than usually out of temper,
+attributed the circumstance, as ladies sometimes do, to nervous
+indisposition.  However, as the dreadful idea that Lord Verisopht
+also was somewhat taken with Kate, and that she, Mrs Wititterly, was
+quite a secondary person, dawned upon that lady's mind and gradually
+developed itself, she became possessed with a large quantity of
+highly proper and most virtuous indignation, and felt it her duty,
+as a married lady and a moral member of society, to mention the
+circumstance to 'the young person' without delay.
+
+Accordingly Mrs Wititterly broke ground next morning, during a pause
+in the novel-reading.
+
+'Miss Nickleby,' said Mrs Wititterly, 'I wish to speak to you very
+gravely.  I am sorry to have to do it, upon my word I am very sorry,
+but you leave me no alternative, Miss Nickleby.'  Here Mrs Wititterly
+tossed her head--not passionately, only virtuously--and remarked,
+with some appearance of excitement, that she feared that palpitation
+of the heart was coming on again.
+
+'Your behaviour, Miss Nickleby,' resumed the lady, 'is very far from
+pleasing me--very far.  I am very anxious indeed that you should do
+well, but you may depend upon it, Miss Nickleby, you will not, if
+you go on as you do.'
+
+'Ma'am!' exclaimed Kate, proudly.
+
+'Don't agitate me by speaking in that way, Miss Nickleby, don't,'
+said Mrs Wititterly, with some violence, 'or you'll compel me to
+ring the bell.'
+
+Kate looked at her, but said nothing.
+
+'You needn't suppose,' resumed Mrs Wititterly, 'that your looking at
+me in that way, Miss Nickleby, will prevent my saying what I am
+going to say, which I feel to be a religious duty.  You needn't
+direct your glances towards me,' said Mrs Wititterly, with a sudden
+burst of spite; 'I am not Sir Mulberry, no, nor Lord Frederick
+Verisopht, Miss Nickleby, nor am I Mr Pyke, nor Mr Pluck either.'
+
+Kate looked at her again, but less steadily than before; and resting
+her elbow on the table, covered her eyes with her hand.
+
+'If such things had been done when I was a young girl,' said Mrs
+Wititterly (this, by the way, must have been some little time
+before), 'I don't suppose anybody would have believed it.'
+
+'I don't think they would,' murmured Kate.  'I do not think anybody
+would believe, without actually knowing it, what I seem doomed to
+undergo!'
+
+'Don't talk to me of being doomed to undergo, Miss Nickleby, if you
+please,' said Mrs Wititterly, with a shrillness of tone quite
+surprising in so great an invalid.  'I will not be answered, Miss
+Nickleby.  I am not accustomed to be answered, nor will I permit it
+for an instant.  Do you hear?' she added, waiting with some apparent
+inconsistency FOR an answer.
+
+'I do hear you, ma'am,' replied Kate, 'with surprise--with greater
+surprise than I can express.'
+
+'I have always considered you a particularly well-behaved young
+person for your station in life,' said Mrs Wititterly; 'and as you
+are a person of healthy appearance, and neat in your dress and so
+forth, I have taken an interest in you, as I do still, considering
+that I owe a sort of duty to that respectable old female, your
+mother.  For these reasons, Miss Nickleby, I must tell you once for
+all, and begging you to mind what I say, that I must insist upon
+your immediately altering your very forward behaviour to the
+gentleman who visit at this house.  It really is not becoming,' said
+Mrs Wititterly, closing her chaste eyes as she spoke; 'it is
+improper--quite improper."
+
+'Oh!' cried Kate, looking upwards and clasping her hands; 'is not
+this, is not this, too cruel, too hard to bear!  Is it not enough
+that I should have suffered as I have, night and day; that I should
+almost have sunk in my own estimation from very shame of having been
+brought into contact with such people; but must I also be exposed to
+this unjust and most unfounded charge!'
+
+'You will have the goodness to recollect, Miss Nickleby,' said Mrs
+Wititterly, 'that when you use such terms as "unjust", and
+"unfounded", you charge me, in effect, with stating that which is
+untrue.'
+
+'I do,' said Kate with honest indignation.  'Whether you make this
+accusation of yourself, or at the prompting of others, is alike to
+me.  I say it IS vilely, grossly, wilfully untrue.  Is it possible!'
+cried Kate, 'that anyone of my own sex can have sat by, and not have
+seen the misery these men have caused me?  Is it possible that you,
+ma'am, can have been present, and failed to mark the insulting
+freedom that their every look bespoke?  Is it possible that you can
+have avoided seeing, that these libertines, in their utter
+disrespect for you, and utter disregard of all gentlemanly
+behaviour, and almost of decency, have had but one object in
+introducing themselves here, and that the furtherance of their
+designs upon a friendless, helpless girl, who, without this
+humiliating confession, might have hoped to receive from one so much
+her senior something like womanly aid and sympathy?  I do not--I
+cannot believe it!'
+
+If poor Kate had possessed the slightest knowledge of the world, she
+certainly would not have ventured, even in the excitement into which
+she had been lashed, upon such an injudicious speech as this.  Its
+effect was precisely what a more experienced observer would have
+foreseen.  Mrs Wititterly received the attack upon her veracity with
+exemplary calmness, and listened with the most heroic fortitude to
+Kate's account of her own sufferings.  But allusion being made to
+her being held in disregard by the gentlemen, she evinced violent
+emotion, and this blow was no sooner followed up by the remark
+concerning her seniority, than she fell back upon the sofa, uttering
+dismal screams.
+
+'What is the matter?' cried Mr Wititterly, bouncing into the room.
+'Heavens, what do I see?  Julia!  Julia! look up, my life, look up!'
+
+But Julia looked down most perseveringly, and screamed still louder;
+so Mr Wititterly rang the bell, and danced in a frenzied manner
+round the sofa on which Mrs Wititterly lay; uttering perpetual cries
+for Sir Tumley Snuffim, and never once leaving off to ask for any
+explanation of the scene before him.
+
+'Run for Sir Tumley,' cried Mr Wititterly, menacing the page with
+both fists.  'I knew it, Miss Nickleby,' he said, looking round with
+an air of melancholy triumph, 'that society has been too much for
+her.  This is all soul, you know, every bit of it.'  With this
+assurance Mr Wititterly took up the prostrate form of Mrs
+Wititterly, and carried her bodily off to bed.
+
+Kate waited until Sir Tumley Snuffim had paid his visit and looked
+in with a report, that, through the special interposition of a
+merciful Providence (thus spake Sir Tumley), Mrs Wititterly had gone
+to sleep.  She then hastily attired herself for walking, and leaving
+word that she should return within a couple of hours, hurried away
+towards her uncle's house.
+
+It had been a good day with Ralph Nickleby--quite a lucky day; and
+as he walked to and fro in his little back-room with his hands
+clasped behind him, adding up in his own mind all the sums that had
+been, or would be, netted from the business done since morning, his
+mouth was drawn into a hard stern smile; while the firmness of the
+lines and curves that made it up, as well as the cunning glance of
+his cold, bright eye, seemed to tell, that if any resolution or
+cunning would increase the profits, they would not fail to be
+excited for the purpose.
+
+'Very good!' said Ralph, in allusion, no doubt, to some proceeding
+of the day.  'He defies the usurer, does he?  Well, we shall see.
+"Honesty is the best policy," is it?  We'll try that too.'
+
+He stopped, and then walked on again.
+
+'He is content,' said Ralph, relaxing into a smile, 'to set his
+known character and conduct against the power of money--dross, as he
+calls it.  Why, what a dull blockhead this fellow must be!  Dross
+to, dross!  Who's that?'
+
+'Me,' said Newman Noggs, looking in.  'Your niece.'
+
+'What of her?' asked Ralph sharply.
+
+'She's here.'
+
+'Here!'
+
+Newman jerked his head towards his little room, to signify that she
+was waiting there.
+
+'What does she want?' asked Ralph.
+
+'I don't know,' rejoined Newman.  'Shall I ask?' he added quickly.
+
+'No,' replied Ralph.  'Show her in!  Stay.'  He hastily put away a
+padlocked cash-box that was on the table, and substituted in its
+stead an empty purse.  'There,' said Ralph.  'NOW she may come in.'
+
+Newman, with a grim smile at this manoeuvre, beckoned the young lady
+to advance, and having placed a chair for her, retired; looking
+stealthily over his shoulder at Ralph as he limped slowly out.
+
+'Well,' said Ralph, roughly enough; but still with something more of
+kindness in his manner than he would have exhibited towards anybody
+else.  'Well, my--dear.  What now?'
+
+Kate raised her eyes, which were filled with tears; and with an
+effort to master her emotion strove to speak, but in vain.  So
+drooping her head again, she remained silent.  Her face was hidden
+from his view, but Ralph could see that she was weeping.
+
+'I can guess the cause of this!' thought Ralph, after looking at her
+for some time in silence.  'I can--I can--guess the cause.  Well!
+Well!' thought Ralph--for the moment quite disconcerted, as he
+watched the anguish of his beautiful niece.  'Where is the harm?
+only a few tears; and it's an excellent lesson for her, an excellent
+lesson.'
+
+'What is the matter?' asked Ralph, drawing a chair opposite, and
+sitting down.
+
+He was rather taken aback by the sudden firmness with which Kate
+looked up and answered him.
+
+'The matter which brings me to you, sir,' she said, 'is one which
+should call the blood up into your cheeks, and make you burn to
+hear, as it does me to tell.  I have been wronged; my feelings have
+been outraged, insulted, wounded past all healing, and by your
+friends.'
+
+'Friends!' cried Ralph, sternly.  'I have no friends, girl.'
+
+'By the men I saw here, then,' returned Kate, quickly.  'If they
+were no friends of yours, and you knew what they were,--oh, the more
+shame on you, uncle, for bringing me among them.  To have subjected
+me to what I was exposed to here, through any misplaced confidence
+or imperfect knowledge of your guests, would have required some
+strong excuse; but if you did it--as I now believe you did--knowing
+them well, it was most dastardly and cruel.'
+
+Ralph drew back in utter amazement at this plain speaking, and
+regarded Kate with the sternest look.  But she met his gaze proudly
+and firmly, and although her face was very pale, it looked more
+noble and handsome, lighted up as it was, than it had ever appeared
+before.
+
+'There is some of that boy's blood in you, I see,' said Ralph,
+speaking in his harshest tones, as something in the flashing eye
+reminded him of Nicholas at their last meeting.
+
+'I hope there is!' replied Kate.  'I should be proud to know it.  I
+am young, uncle, and all the difficulties and miseries of my
+situation have kept it down, but I have been roused today beyond all
+endurance, and come what may, I WILL NOT, as I am your brother's
+child, bear these insults longer.'
+
+'What insults, girl?' demanded Ralph, sharply.
+
+'Remember what took place here, and ask yourself,' replied Kate,
+colouring deeply.  'Uncle, you must--I am sure you will--release me
+from such vile and degrading companionship as I am exposed to now.
+I do not mean,' said Kate, hurrying to the old man, and laying her
+arm upon his shoulder; 'I do not mean to be angry and violent--I beg
+your pardon if I have seemed so, dear uncle,--but you do not know
+what I have suffered, you do not indeed.  You cannot tell what the
+heart of a young girl is--I have no right to expect you should; but
+when I tell you that I am wretched, and that my heart is breaking, I
+am sure you will help me.  I am sure, I am sure you will!'
+
+Ralph looked at her for an instant; then turned away his head, and
+beat his foot nervously upon the ground.
+
+'I have gone on day after day,' said Kate, bending over him, and
+timidly placing her little hand in his, 'in the hope that this
+persecution would cease; I have gone on day after day, compelled to
+assume the appearance of cheerfulness, when I was most unhappy.  I
+have had no counsellor, no adviser, no one to protect me.  Mama
+supposes that these are honourable men, rich and distinguished, and
+how CAN I--how can I undeceive her--when she is so happy in these
+little delusions, which are the only happiness she has?  The lady
+with whom you placed me, is not the person to whom I could confide
+matters of so much delicacy, and I have come at last to you, the
+only friend I have at hand--almost the only friend I have at all--to
+entreat and implore you to assist me.'
+
+'How can I assist you, child?' said Ralph, rising from his chair,
+and pacing up and down the room in his old attitude.
+
+'You have influence with one of these men, I KNOW,' rejoined Kate,
+emphatically.  'Would not a word from you induce them to desist from
+this unmanly course?'
+
+'No,' said Ralph, suddenly turning; 'at least--that--I can't say it,
+if it would.'
+
+'Can't say it!'
+
+'No,' said Ralph, coming to a dead stop, and clasping his hands more
+tightly behind him.  'I can't say it.'
+
+Kate fell back a step or two, and looked at him, as if in doubt
+whether she had heard aright.
+
+'We are connected in business,' said Ralph, poising himself
+alternately on his toes and heels, and looking coolly in his niece's
+face, 'in business, and I can't afford to offend them.  What is it
+after all?  We have all our trials, and this is one of yours.  Some
+girls would be proud to have such gallants at their feet.'
+
+'Proud!' cried Kate.
+
+'I don't say,' rejoined Ralph, raising his forefinger, 'but that you
+do right to despise them; no, you show your good sense in that, as
+indeed I knew from the first you would.  Well.  In all other
+respects you are comfortably bestowed.  It's not much to bear.  If
+this young lord does dog your footsteps, and whisper his drivelling
+inanities in your ears, what of it?  It's a dishonourable passion.
+So be it; it won't last long.  Some other novelty will spring up one
+day, and you will be released.  In the mean time--'
+
+'In the mean time,' interrupted Kate, with becoming pride and
+indignation, 'I am to be the scorn of my own sex, and the toy of the
+other; justly condemned by all women of right feeling, and despised
+by all honest and honourable men; sunken in my own esteem, and
+degraded in every eye that looks upon me.  No, not if I work my
+fingers to the bone, not if I am driven to the roughest and hardest
+labour.  Do not mistake me.  I will not disgrace your
+recommendation.  I will remain in the house in which it placed me,
+until I am entitled to leave it by the terms of my engagement;
+though, mind, I see these men no more.  When I quit it, I will hide
+myself from them and you, and, striving to support my mother by hard
+service, I will live, at least, in peace, and trust in God to help
+me.'
+
+With these words, she waved her hand, and quitted the room, leaving
+Ralph Nickleby motionless as a statue.
+
+The surprise with which Kate, as she closed the room-door, beheld,
+close beside it, Newman Noggs standing bolt upright in a little
+niche in the wall like some scarecrow or Guy Faux laid up in winter
+quarters, almost occasioned her to call aloud.  But, Newman laying
+his finger upon his lips, she had the presence of mind to refrain.
+
+'Don't,' said Newman, gliding out of his recess, and accompanying
+her across the hall.  'Don't cry, don't cry.'  Two very large tears,
+by-the-bye, were running down Newman's face as he spoke.
+
+'I see how it is,' said poor Noggs, drawing from his pocket what
+seemed to be a very old duster, and wiping Kate's eyes with it, as
+gently as if she were an infant.  'You're giving way now.  Yes, yes,
+very good; that's right, I like that.  It was right not to give way
+before him.  Yes, yes!  Ha, ha, ha!  Oh, yes.  Poor thing!'
+
+With these disjointed exclamations, Newman wiped his own eyes with
+the afore-mentioned duster, and, limping to the street-door, opened
+it to let her out.
+
+'Don't cry any more,' whispered Newman.  'I shall see you soon.  Ha!
+ha! ha!  And so shall somebody else too.  Yes, yes.  Ho! ho!'
+
+'God bless you,' answered Kate, hurrying out, 'God bless you.'
+
+'Same to you,' rejoined Newman, opening the door again a little way
+to say so.  'Ha, ha, ha!  Ho! ho! ho!'
+
+And Newman Noggs opened the door once again to nod cheerfully, and
+laugh--and shut it, to shake his head mournfully, and cry.
+
+Ralph remained in the same attitude till he heard the noise of the
+closing door, when he shrugged his shoulders, and after a few turns
+about the room--hasty at first, but gradually becoming slower, as he
+relapsed into himself--sat down before his desk.
+
+It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted
+down, but not solved;--although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment
+for his conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although
+his libertine clients had done precisely what he had expected,
+precisely what he most wished, and precisely what would tend most to
+his advantage, still he hated them for doing it, from the very
+bottom of his soul.
+
+'Ugh!' said Ralph, scowling round, and shaking his clenched hand as
+the faces of the two profligates rose up before his mind; 'you shall
+pay for this.  Oh! you shall pay for this!'
+
+As the usurer turned for consolation to his books and papers, a
+performance was going on outside his office door, which would have
+occasioned him no small surprise, if he could by any means have
+become acquainted with it.
+
+Newman Noggs was the sole actor.  He stood at a little distance from
+the door, with his face towards it; and with the sleeves of his coat
+turned back at the wrists, was occupied in bestowing the most
+vigorous, scientific, and straightforward blows upon the empty air.
+
+At first sight, this would have appeared merely a wise precaution in
+a man of sedentary habits, with the view of opening the chest and
+strengthening the muscles of the arms.  But the intense eagerness
+and joy depicted in the face of Newman Noggs, which was suffused
+with perspiration; the surprising energy with which he directed a
+constant succession of blows towards a particular panel about five
+feet eight from the ground, and still worked away in the most
+untiring and persevering manner, would have sufficiently explained
+to the attentive observer, that his imagination was thrashing, to
+within an inch of his life, his body's most active employer, Mr
+Ralph Nickleby.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+Of the Proceedings of Nicholas, and certain Internal Divisions in
+the Company of Mr Vincent Crummles
+
+
+The unexpected success and favour with which his experiment at
+Portsmouth had been received, induced Mr Crummles to prolong his
+stay in that town for a fortnight beyond the period he had
+originally assigned for the duration of his visit, during which time
+Nicholas personated a vast variety of characters with undiminished
+success, and attracted so many people to the theatre who had never
+been seen there before, that a benefit was considered by the manager
+a very promising speculation.  Nicholas assenting to the terms
+proposed, the benefit was had, and by it he realised no less a sum
+than twenty pounds.
+
+Possessed of this unexpected wealth, his first act was to enclose to
+honest John Browdie the amount of his friendly loan, which he
+accompanied with many expressions of gratitude and esteem, and many
+cordial wishes for his matrimonial happiness.  To Newman Noggs he
+forwarded one half of the sum he had realised, entreating him to
+take an opportunity of handing it to Kate in secret, and conveying
+to her the warmest assurances of his love and affection.  He made no
+mention of the way in which he had employed himself; merely
+informing Newman that a letter addressed to him under his assumed
+name at the Post Office, Portsmouth, would readily find him, and
+entreating that worthy friend to write full particulars of the
+situation of his mother and sister, and an account of all the grand
+things that Ralph Nickleby had done for them since his departure
+from London.
+
+'You are out of spirits,' said Smike, on the night after the letter
+had been dispatched.
+
+'Not I!' rejoined Nicholas, with assumed gaiety, for the confession
+would have made the boy miserable all night; 'I was thinking about
+my sister, Smike.'
+
+'Sister!'
+
+'Ay.'
+
+'Is she like you?' inquired Smike.
+
+'Why, so they say,' replied Nicholas, laughing, 'only a great deal
+handsomer.'
+
+'She must be VERY beautiful,' said Smike, after thinking a little
+while with his hands folded together, and his eyes bent upon his
+friend.
+
+'Anybody who didn't know you as well as I do, my dear fellow, would
+say you were an accomplished courtier,' said Nicholas.
+
+'I don't even know what that is,' replied Smike, shaking his head.
+'Shall I ever see your sister?'
+
+'To be sure,' cried Nicholas; 'we shall all be together one of these
+days--when we are rich, Smike.'
+
+'How is it that you, who are so kind and good to me, have nobody to
+be kind to you?' asked Smike.  'I cannot make that out.'
+
+'Why, it is a long story,' replied Nicholas, 'and one you would have
+some difficulty in comprehending, I fear.  I have an enemy--you
+understand what that is?'
+
+'Oh, yes, I understand that,' said Smike.
+
+'Well, it is owing to him,' returned Nicholas.  'He is rich, and not
+so easily punished as YOUR old enemy, Mr Squeers.  He is my uncle,
+but he is a villain, and has done me wrong.'
+
+'Has he though?' asked Smike, bending eagerly forward.  'What is his
+name?  Tell me his name.'
+
+'Ralph--Ralph Nickleby.'
+
+'Ralph Nickleby,' repeated Smike.  'Ralph.  I'll get that name by
+heart.'
+
+He had muttered it over to himself some twenty times, when a loud
+knock at the door disturbed him from his occupation.  Before he
+could open it, Mr Folair, the pantomimist, thrust in his head.
+
+Mr Folair's head was usually decorated with a very round hat,
+unusually high in the crown, and curled up quite tight in the brims.
+On the present occasion he wore it very much on one side, with the
+back part forward in consequence of its being the least rusty; round
+his neck he wore a flaming red worsted comforter, whereof the
+straggling ends peeped out beneath his threadbare Newmarket coat,
+which was very tight and buttoned all the way up.  He carried in his
+hand one very dirty glove, and a cheap dress cane with a glass
+handle; in short, his whole appearance was unusually dashing, and
+demonstrated a far more scrupulous attention to his toilet than he
+was in the habit of bestowing upon it.
+
+'Good-evening, sir,' said Mr Folair, taking off the tall hat, and
+running his fingers through his hair.  'I bring a communication.
+Hem!'
+
+'From whom and what about?' inquired Nicholas.  'You are unusually
+mysterious tonight.'
+
+'Cold, perhaps,' returned Mr Folair; 'cold, perhaps.  That is the
+fault of my position--not of myself, Mr Johnson.  My position as a
+mutual friend requires it, sir.'  Mr Folair paused with a most
+impressive look, and diving into the hat before noticed, drew from
+thence a small piece of whity-brown paper curiously folded, whence
+he brought forth a note which it had served to keep clean, and
+handing it over to Nicholas, said--
+
+'Have the goodness to read that, sir.'
+
+Nicholas, in a state of much amazement, took the note and broke the
+seal, glancing at Mr Folair as he did so, who, knitting his brow and
+pursing up his mouth with great dignity, was sitting with his eyes
+steadily fixed upon the ceiling.
+
+It was directed to blank Johnson, Esq., by favour of Augustus
+Folair, Esq.; and the astonishment of Nicholas was in no degree
+lessened, when he found it to be couched in the following laconic
+terms:--
+
+"Mr Lenville presents his kind regards to Mr Johnson, and will feel
+obliged if he will inform him at what hour tomorrow morning it will
+be most convenient to him to meet Mr L. at the Theatre, for the
+purpose of having his nose pulled in the presence of the company.
+
+"Mr Lenville requests Mr Johnson not to neglect making an
+appointment, as he has invited two or three professional friends to
+witness the ceremony, and cannot disappoint them upon any account
+whatever.
+
+"PORTSMOUTH, TUESDAY NIGHT."
+
+Indignant as he was at this impertinence, there was something so
+exquisitely absurd in such a cartel of defiance, that Nicholas was
+obliged to bite his lip and read the note over two or three times
+before he could muster sufficient gravity and sternness to address
+the hostile messenger, who had not taken his eyes from the ceiling,
+nor altered the expression of his face in the slightest degree.
+
+'Do you know the contents of this note, sir?' he asked, at length.
+
+'Yes,' rejoined Mr Folair, looking round for an instant, and
+immediately carrying his eyes back again to the ceiling.
+
+'And how dare you bring it here, sir?' asked Nicholas, tearing it
+into very little pieces, and jerking it in a shower towards the
+messenger.  'Had you no fear of being kicked downstairs, sir?'
+
+Mr Folair turned his head--now ornamented with several fragments of
+the note--towards Nicholas, and with the same imperturbable dignity,
+briefly replied 'No.'
+
+'Then,' said Nicholas, taking up the tall hat and tossing it towards
+the door, 'you had better follow that article of your dress, sir, or
+you may find yourself very disagreeably deceived, and that within a
+dozen seconds.'
+
+'I say, Johnson,' remonstrated Mr Folair, suddenly losing all his
+dignity, 'none of that, you know.  No tricks with a gentleman's
+wardrobe.'
+
+'Leave the room,' returned Nicholas.  'How could you presume to come
+here on such an errand, you scoundrel?'
+
+'Pooh! pooh!' said Mr Folair, unwinding his comforter, and gradually
+getting himself out of it.  'There--that's enough.'
+
+'Enough!' cried Nicholas, advancing towards him.  'Take yourself
+off, sir.'
+
+'Pooh! pooh!  I tell you,' returned Mr Folair, waving his hand in
+deprecation of any further wrath; 'I wasn't in earnest.  I only
+brought it in joke.'
+
+'You had better be careful how you indulge in such jokes again,'
+said Nicholas, 'or you may find an allusion to pulling noses rather
+a dangerous reminder for the subject of your facetiousness.  Was it
+written in joke, too, pray?'
+
+'No, no, that's the best of it,' returned the actor; 'right down
+earnest--honour bright.'
+
+Nicholas could not repress a smile at the odd figure before him,
+which, at all times more calculated to provoke mirth than anger, was
+especially so at that moment, when with one knee upon the ground, Mr
+Folair twirled his old hat round upon his hand, and affected the
+extremest agony lest any of the nap should have been knocked off--an
+ornament which it is almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted
+for many months.
+
+'Come, sir,' said Nicholas, laughing in spite of himself.  'Have the
+goodness to explain.'
+
+'Why, I'll tell you how it is,' said Mr Folair, sitting himself down
+in a chair with great coolness.  'Since you came here Lenville has
+done nothing but second business, and, instead of having a reception
+every night as he used to have, they have let him come on as if he
+was nobody.'
+
+'What do you mean by a reception?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Jupiter!' exclaimed Mr Folair, 'what an unsophisticated shepherd
+you are, Johnson!  Why, applause from the house when you first come
+on.  So he has gone on night after night, never getting a hand, and
+you getting a couple of rounds at least, and sometimes three, till
+at length he got quite desperate, and had half a mind last night to
+play Tybalt with a real sword, and pink you--not dangerously, but
+just enough to lay you up for a month or two.'
+
+'Very considerate,' remarked Nicholas.
+
+'Yes, I think it was under the circumstances; his professional
+reputation being at stake,' said Mr Folair, quite seriously.  'But
+his heart failed him, and he cast about for some other way of
+annoying you, and making himself popular at the same time--for
+that's the point.  Notoriety, notoriety, is the thing.  Bless you,
+if he had pinked you,' said Mr Folair, stopping to make a
+calculation in his mind, 'it would have been worth--ah, it would
+have been worth eight or ten shillings a week to him.  All the town
+would have come to see the actor who nearly killed a man by mistake;
+I shouldn't wonder if it had got him an engagement in London.
+However, he was obliged to try some other mode of getting popular,
+and this one occurred to him.  It's clever idea, really.  If you had
+shown the white feather, and let him pull your nose, he'd have got
+it into the paper; if you had sworn the peace against him, it would
+have been in the paper too, and he'd have been just as much talked
+about as you--don't you see?'
+
+'Oh, certainly,' rejoined Nicholas; 'but suppose I were to turn the
+tables, and pull HIS nose, what then?  Would that make his fortune?'
+
+'Why, I don't think it would,' replied Mr Folair, scratching his
+head, 'because there wouldn't be any romance about it, and he
+wouldn't be favourably known.  To tell you the truth though, he
+didn't calculate much upon that, for you're always so mild-spoken,
+and are so popular among the women, that we didn't suspect you of
+showing fight.  If you did, however, he has a way of getting out of
+it easily, depend upon that.'
+
+'Has he?' rejoined Nicholas.  'We will try, tomorrow morning.  In
+the meantime, you can give whatever account of our interview you
+like best.  Good-night.'
+
+As Mr Folair was pretty well known among his fellow-actors for a man
+who delighted in mischief, and was by no means scrupulous, Nicholas
+had not much doubt but that he had secretly prompted the tragedian
+in the course he had taken, and, moreover, that he would have
+carried his mission with a very high hand if he had not been
+disconcerted by the very unexpected demonstrations with which it had
+been received.  It was not worth his while to be serious with him,
+however, so he dismissed the pantomimist, with a gentle hint that if
+he offended again it would be under the penalty of a broken head;
+and Mr Folair, taking the caution in exceedingly good part, walked
+away to confer with his principal, and give such an account of his
+proceedings as he might think best calculated to carry on the joke.
+
+He had no doubt reported that Nicholas was in a state of extreme
+bodily fear; for when that young gentleman walked with much
+deliberation down to the theatre next morning at the usual hour, he
+found all the company assembled in evident expectation, and Mr
+Lenville, with his severest stage face, sitting majestically on a
+table, whistling defiance.
+
+Now the ladies were on the side of Nicholas, and the gentlemen
+(being jealous) were on the side of the disappointed tragedian; so
+that the latter formed a little group about the redoubtable Mr
+Lenville, and the former looked on at a little distance in some
+trepidation and anxiety.  On Nicholas stopping to salute them, Mr
+Lenville laughed a scornful laugh, and made some general remark
+touching the natural history of puppies.
+
+'Oh!' said Nicholas, looking quietly round, 'are you there?'
+
+'Slave!' returned Mr Lenville, flourishing his right arm, and
+approaching Nicholas with a theatrical stride.  But somehow he
+appeared just at that moment a little startled, as if Nicholas did
+not look quite so frightened as he had expected, and came all at
+once to an awkward halt, at which the assembled ladies burst into a
+shrill laugh.
+
+'Object of my scorn and hatred!' said Mr Lenville, 'I hold ye in
+contempt.'
+
+Nicholas laughed in very unexpected enjoyment of this performance;
+and the ladies, by way of encouragement, laughed louder than before;
+whereat Mr Lenville assumed his bitterest smile, and expressed his
+opinion that they were 'minions'.
+
+'But they shall not protect ye!' said the tragedian, taking an
+upward look at Nicholas, beginning at his boots and ending at the
+crown of his head, and then a downward one, beginning at the crown
+of his head, and ending at his boots--which two looks, as everybody
+knows, express defiance on the stage.  'They shall not protect ye--
+boy!'
+
+Thus speaking, Mr Lenville folded his arms, and treated Nicholas to
+that expression of face with which, in melodramatic performances, he
+was in the habit of regarding the tyrannical kings when they said,
+'Away with him to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat;' and
+which, accompanied with a little jingling of fetters, had been known
+to produce great effects in its time.
+
+Whether it was the absence of the fetters or not, it made no very
+deep impression on Mr Lenville's adversary, however, but rather
+seemed to increase the good-humour expressed in his countenance; in
+which stage of the contest, one or two gentlemen, who had come out
+expressly to witness the pulling of Nicholas's nose, grew impatient,
+murmuring that if it were to be done at all it had better be done at
+once, and that if Mr Lenville didn't mean to do it he had better say
+so, and not keep them waiting there.  Thus urged, the tragedian
+adjusted the cuff of his right coat sleeve for the performance of
+the operation, and walked in a very stately manner up to Nicholas,
+who suffered him to approach to within the requisite distance, and
+then, without the smallest discomposure, knocked him down.
+
+Before the discomfited tragedian could raise his head from the
+boards, Mrs Lenville (who, as has been before hinted, was in an
+interesting state) rushed from the rear rank of ladies, and uttering
+a piercing scream threw herself upon the body.
+
+'Do you see this, monster?  Do you see THIS?' cried Mr Lenville,
+sitting up, and pointing to his prostrate lady, who was holding him
+very tight round the waist.
+
+'Come,' said Nicholas, nodding his head, 'apologise for the insolent
+note you wrote to me last night, and waste no more time in talking.'
+
+'Never!' cried Mr Lenville.
+
+'Yes--yes--yes!' screamed his wife.  'For my sake--for mine,
+Lenville--forego all idle forms, unless you would see me a blighted
+corse at your feet.'
+
+'This is affecting!' said Mr Lenville, looking round him, and
+drawing the back of his hand across his eyes.  'The ties of nature
+are strong.  The weak husband and the father--the father that is yet
+to be--relents.  I apologise.'
+
+'Humbly and submissively?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Humbly and submissively,' returned the tragedian, scowling upwards.
+'But only to save her,--for a time will come--'
+
+'Very good,' said Nicholas; 'I hope Mrs Lenville may have a good
+one; and when it does come, and you are a father, you shall retract
+it if you have the courage.  There.  Be careful, sir, to what
+lengths your jealousy carries you another time; and be careful,
+also, before you venture too far, to ascertain your rival's temper.'
+With this parting advice Nicholas picked up Mr Lenville's ash stick
+which had flown out of his hand, and breaking it in half, threw him
+the pieces and withdrew, bowing slightly to the spectators as he
+walked out.
+
+The profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that night, and the
+people who had been most anxious to have his nose pulled in the
+morning, embraced occasions of taking him aside, and telling him
+with great feeling, how very friendly they took it that he should
+have treated that Lenville so properly, who was a most unbearable
+fellow, and on whom they had all, by a remarkable coincidence, at
+one time or other contemplated the infliction of condign punishment,
+which they had only been restrained from administering by
+considerations of mercy; indeed, to judge from the invariable
+termination of all these stories, there never was such a charitable
+and kind-hearted set of people as the male members of Mr Crummles's
+company.
+
+Nicholas bore his triumph, as he had his success in the little world
+of the theatre, with the utmost moderation and good humour.  The
+crestfallen Mr Lenville made an expiring effort to obtain revenge by
+sending a boy into the gallery to hiss, but he fell a sacrifice to
+popular indignation, and was promptly turned out without having his
+money back.
+
+'Well, Smike,' said Nicholas when the first piece was over, and he
+had almost finished dressing to go home, 'is there any letter yet?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Smike, 'I got this one from the post-office.'
+
+'From Newman Noggs,' said Nicholas, casting his eye upon the cramped
+direction; 'it's no easy matter to make his writing out.  Let me
+see--let me see.'
+
+By dint of poring over the letter for half an hour, he contrived to
+make himself master of the contents, which were certainly not of a
+nature to set his mind at ease.  Newman took upon himself to send
+back the ten pounds, observing that he had ascertained that neither
+Mrs Nickleby nor Kate was in actual want of money at the moment, and
+that a time might shortly come when Nicholas might want it more.  He
+entreated him not to be alarmed at what he was about to say;--there
+was no bad news--they were in good health--but he thought
+circumstances might occur, or were occurring, which would render it
+absolutely necessary that Kate should have her brother's protection,
+and if so, Newman said, he would write to him to that effect, either
+by the next post or the next but one.
+
+Nicholas read this passage very often, and the more he thought of it
+the more he began to fear some treachery upon the part of Ralph.
+Once or twice he felt tempted to repair to London at all hazards
+without an hour's delay, but a little reflection assured him that if
+such a step were necessary, Newman would have spoken out and told
+him so at once.
+
+'At all events I should prepare them here for the possibility of my
+going away suddenly,' said Nicholas; 'I should lose no time in doing
+that.'  As the thought occurred to him, he took up his hat and
+hurried to the green-room.
+
+'Well, Mr Johnson,' said Mrs Crummles, who was seated there in full
+regal costume, with the phenomenon as the Maiden in her maternal
+arms, 'next week for Ryde, then for Winchester, then for--'
+
+'I have some reason to fear,' interrupted Nicholas, 'that before you
+leave here my career with you will have closed.'
+
+'Closed!' cried Mrs Crummles, raising her hands in astonishment.
+
+'Closed!' cried Miss Snevellicci, trembling so much in her tights
+that she actually laid her hand upon the shoulder of the manageress
+for support.
+
+'Why he don't mean to say he's going!' exclaimed Mrs Grudden, making
+her way towards Mrs Crummles.  'Hoity toity!  Nonsense.'
+
+The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and moreover
+excitable, raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney and Miss Bravassa
+actually shed tears.  Even the male performers stopped in their
+conversation, and echoed the word 'Going!' although some among them
+(and they had been the loudest in their congratulations that day)
+winked at each other as though they would not be sorry to lose such
+a favoured rival; an opinion, indeed, which the honest Mr Folair,
+who was ready dressed for the savage, openly stated in so many words
+to a demon with whom he was sharing a pot of porter.
+
+Nicholas briefly said that he feared it would be so, although he
+could not yet speak with any degree of certainty; and getting away
+as soon as he could, went home to con Newman's letter once more, and
+speculate upon it afresh.
+
+How trifling all that had been occupying his time and thoughts for
+many weeks seemed to him during that sleepless night, and how
+constantly and incessantly present to his imagination was the one
+idea that Kate in the midst of some great trouble and distress might
+even then be looking--and vainly too--for him!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 30
+
+Festivities are held in honour of Nicholas, who suddenly withdraws
+himself from the Society of Mr Vincent Crummles and his Theatrical
+Companions
+
+
+Mr Vincent Crummles was no sooner acquainted with the public
+announcement which Nicholas had made relative to the probability of
+his shortly ceasing to be a member of the company, than he evinced
+many tokens of grief and consternation; and, in the extremity of his
+despair, even held out certain vague promises of a speedy
+improvement not only in the amount of his regular salary, but also
+in the contingent emoluments appertaining to his authorship.
+Finding Nicholas bent upon quitting the society--for he had now
+determined that, even if no further tidings came from Newman, he
+would, at all hazards, ease his mind by repairing to London and
+ascertaining the exact position of his sister--Mr Crummles was fain
+to content himself by calculating the chances of his coming back
+again, and taking prompt and energetic measures to make the most of
+him before he went away.
+
+'Let me see,' said Mr Crummles, taking off his outlaw's wig, the
+better to arrive at a cool-headed view of the whole case.  'Let me
+see.  This is Wednesday night.  We'll have posters out the first
+thing in the morning, announcing positively your last appearance for
+tomorrow.'
+
+'But perhaps it may not be my last appearance, you know,' said
+Nicholas.  'Unless I am summoned away, I should be sorry to
+inconvenience you by leaving before the end of the week.'
+
+'So much the better,' returned Mr Crummles.  'We can have positively
+your last appearance, on Thursday--re-engagement for one night more,
+on Friday--and, yielding to the wishes of numerous influential
+patrons, who were disappointed in obtaining seats, on Saturday.
+That ought to bring three very decent houses.'
+
+'Then I am to make three last appearances, am I?' inquired Nicholas,
+smiling.
+
+'Yes,' rejoined the manager, scratching his head with an air of some
+vexation; 'three is not enough, and it's very bungling and irregular
+not to have more, but if we can't help it we can't, so there's no
+use in talking.  A novelty would be very desirable.  You couldn't
+sing a comic song on the pony's back, could you?'
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas, 'I couldn't indeed.'
+
+'It has drawn money before now,' said Mr Crummles, with a look of
+disappointment.  'What do you think of a brilliant display of
+fireworks?'
+
+'That it would be rather expensive,' replied Nicholas, drily.
+
+'Eighteen-pence would do it,' said Mr Crummles.  'You on the top of
+a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an attitude; "Farewell!" on a
+transparency behind; and nine people at the wings with a squib in
+each hand--all the dozen and a half going off at once--it would be
+very grand--awful from the front, quite awful.'
+
+As Nicholas appeared by no means impressed with the solemnity of the
+proposed effect, but, on the contrary, received the proposition in a
+most irreverent manner, and laughed at it very heartily, Mr Crummles
+abandoned the project in its birth, and gloomily observed that they
+must make up the best bill they could with combats and hornpipes,
+and so stick to the legitimate drama.
+
+For the purpose of carrying this object into instant execution, the
+manager at once repaired to a small dressing-room, adjacent, where
+Mrs Crummles was then occupied in exchanging the habiliments of a
+melodramatic empress for the ordinary attire of matrons in the
+nineteenth century.  And with the assistance of this lady, and the
+accomplished Mrs Grudden (who had quite a genius for making out
+bills, being a great hand at throwing in the notes of admiration,
+and knowing from long experience exactly where the largest capitals
+ought to go), he seriously applied himself to the composition of the
+poster.
+
+'Heigho!' sighed Nicholas, as he threw himself back in the
+prompter's chair, after telegraphing the needful directions to
+Smike, who had been playing a meagre tailor in the interlude, with
+one skirt to his coat, and a little pocket-handkerchief with a large
+hole in it, and a woollen nightcap, and a red nose, and other
+distinctive marks peculiar to tailors on the stage.  'Heigho! I wish
+all this were over.'
+
+'Over, Mr Johnson!' repeated a female voice behind him, in a kind of
+plaintive surprise.
+
+'It was an ungallant speech, certainly,' said Nicholas, looking up
+to see who the speaker was, and recognising Miss Snevellicci.  'I
+would not have made it if I had known you had been within hearing.'
+
+'What a dear that Mr Digby is!' said Miss Snevellicci, as the tailor
+went off on the opposite side, at the end of the piece, with great
+applause.  (Smike's theatrical name was Digby.)
+
+'I'll tell him presently, for his gratification, that you said so,'
+returned Nicholas.
+
+'Oh you naughty thing!' rejoined Miss Snevellicci.  'I don't know
+though, that I should much mind HIS knowing my opinion of him; with
+some other people, indeed, it might be--'  Here Miss Snevellicci
+stopped, as though waiting to be questioned, but no questioning
+came, for Nicholas was thinking about more serious matters.
+
+'How kind it is of you,' resumed Miss Snevellicci, after a short
+silence, 'to sit waiting here for him night after night, night after
+night, no matter how tired you are; and taking so much pains with
+him, and doing it all with as much delight and readiness as if you
+were coining gold by it!'
+
+'He well deserves all the kindness I can show him, and a great deal
+more,' said Nicholas.  'He is the most grateful, single-hearted,
+affectionate creature that ever breathed.'
+
+'So odd, too,' remarked Miss Snevellicci, 'isn't he?'
+
+'God help him, and those who have made him so; he is indeed,'
+rejoined Nicholas, shaking his head.
+
+'He is such a devilish close chap,' said Mr Folair, who had come up
+a little before, and now joined in the conversation.  'Nobody can
+ever get anything out of him.'
+
+'What SHOULD they get out of him?' asked Nicholas, turning round
+with some abruptness.
+
+'Zooks! what a fire-eater you are, Johnson!' returned Mr Folair,
+pulling up the heel of his dancing shoe.  'I'm only talking of the
+natural curiosity of the people here, to know what he has been about
+all his life.'
+
+'Poor fellow! it is pretty plain, I should think, that he has not
+the intellect to have been about anything of much importance to them
+or anybody else,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Ay,' rejoined the actor, contemplating the effect of his face in a
+lamp reflector, 'but that involves the whole question, you know.'
+
+'What question?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Why, the who he is and what he is, and how you two, who are so
+different, came to be such close companions,' replied Mr Folair,
+delighted with the opportunity of saying something disagreeable.
+'That's in everybody's mouth.'
+
+'The "everybody" of the theatre, I suppose?' said Nicholas,
+contemptuously.
+
+'In it and out of it too,' replied the actor.  'Why, you know,
+Lenville says--'
+
+'I thought I had silenced him effectually,' interrupted Nicholas,
+reddening.
+
+'Perhaps you have,' rejoined the immovable Mr Folair; 'if you have,
+he said this before he was silenced: Lenville says that you're a
+regular stick of an actor, and that it's only the mystery about you
+that has caused you to go down with the people here, and that
+Crummles keeps it up for his own sake; though Lenville says he don't
+believe there's anything at all in it, except your having got into a
+scrape and run away from somewhere, for doing something or other.'
+
+'Oh!' said Nicholas, forcing a smile.
+
+'That's a part of what he says,' added Mr Folair.  'I mention it as
+the friend of both parties, and in strict confidence.  I don't agree
+with him, you know.  He says he takes Digby to be more knave than
+fool; and old Fluggers, who does the heavy business you know, HE
+says that when he delivered messages at Covent Garden the season
+before last, there used to be a pickpocket hovering about the coach-
+stand who had exactly the face of Digby; though, as he very properly
+says, Digby may not be the same, but only his brother, or some near
+relation.'
+
+'Oh!' cried Nicholas again.
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Folair, with undisturbed calmness, 'that's what they
+say.  I thought I'd tell you, because really you ought to know.  Oh!
+here's this blessed phenomenon at last.  Ugh, you little imposition,
+I should like to--quite ready, my darling,--humbug--Ring up, Mrs G.,
+and let the favourite wake 'em.'
+
+Uttering in a loud voice such of the latter allusions as were
+complimentary to the unconscious phenomenon, and giving the rest in
+a confidential 'aside' to Nicholas, Mr Folair followed the ascent of
+the curtain with his eyes, regarded with a sneer the reception of
+Miss Crummles as the Maiden, and, falling back a step or two to
+advance with the better effect, uttered a preliminary howl, and
+'went on' chattering his teeth and brandishing his tin tomahawk as
+the Indian Savage.
+
+'So these are some of the stories they invent about us, and bandy
+from mouth to mouth!' thought Nicholas.  'If a man would commit an
+inexpiable offence against any society, large or small, let him be
+successful.  They will forgive him any crime but that.'
+
+'You surely don't mind what that malicious creature says, Mr
+Johnson?' observed Miss Snevellicci in her most winning tones.
+
+'Not I,' replied Nicholas.  'If I were going to remain here, I might
+think it worth my while to embroil myself.  As it is, let them talk
+till they are hoarse.  But here,' added Nicholas, as Smike
+approached, 'here comes the subject of a portion of their good-
+nature, so let he and I say good night together.'
+
+'No, I will not let either of you say anything of the kind,'
+returned Miss Snevellicci.  'You must come home and see mama, who
+only came to Portsmouth today, and is dying to behold you.  Led, my
+dear, persuade Mr Johnson.'
+
+'Oh, I'm sure,' returned Miss Ledrook, with considerable vivacity,
+'if YOU can't persuade him--'  Miss Ledrook said no more, but
+intimated, by a dexterous playfulness, that if Miss Snevellicci
+couldn't persuade him, nobody could.
+
+'Mr and Mrs Lillyvick have taken lodgings in our house, and share
+our sitting-room for the present,' said Miss Snevellicci.  'Won't
+that induce you?'
+
+'Surely,' returned Nicholas, 'I can require no possible inducement
+beyond your invitation.'
+
+'Oh no! I dare say,' rejoined Miss Snevellicci.  And Miss Ledrook
+said, 'Upon my word!'  Upon which Miss Snevellicci said that Miss
+Ledrook was a giddy thing; and Miss Ledrook said that Miss
+Snevellicci needn't colour up quite so much; and Miss Snevellicci
+beat Miss Ledrook, and Miss Ledrook beat Miss Snevellicci.
+
+'Come,' said Miss Ledrook, 'it's high time we were there, or we
+shall have poor Mrs Snevellicci thinking that you have run away with
+her daughter, Mr Johnson; and then we should have a pretty to-do.'
+
+'My dear Led,' remonstrated Miss Snevellicci, 'how you do talk!'
+
+Miss Ledrook made no answer, but taking Smike's arm in hers, left
+her friend and Nicholas to follow at their pleasure; which it
+pleased them, or rather pleased Nicholas, who had no great fancy for
+a TETE-A-TETE under the circumstances, to do at once.
+
+There were not wanting matters of conversation when they reached the
+street, for it turned out that Miss Snevellicci had a small basket
+to carry home, and Miss Ledrook a small bandbox, both containing
+such minor articles of theatrical costume as the lady performers
+usually carried to and fro every evening.  Nicholas would insist
+upon carrying the basket, and Miss Snevellicci would insist upon
+carrying it herself, which gave rise to a struggle, in which
+Nicholas captured the basket and the bandbox likewise.  Then
+Nicholas said, that he wondered what could possibly be inside the
+basket, and attempted to peep in, whereat Miss Snevellicci screamed,
+and declared that if she thought he had seen, she was sure she
+should faint away.  This declaration was followed by a similar
+attempt on the bandbox, and similar demonstrations on the part of
+Miss Ledrook, and then both ladies vowed that they wouldn't move a
+step further until Nicholas had promised that he wouldn't offer to
+peep again.  At last Nicholas pledged himself to betray no further
+curiosity, and they walked on: both ladies giggling very much, and
+declaring that they never had seen such a wicked creature in all
+their born days--never.
+
+Lightening the way with such pleasantry as this, they arrived at the
+tailor's house in no time; and here they made quite a little party,
+there being present besides Mr Lillyvick and Mrs Lillyvick, not only
+Miss Snevellicci's mama, but her papa also.  And an uncommonly fine
+man Miss Snevellicci's papa was, with a hook nose, and a white
+forehead, and curly black hair, and high cheek bones, and altogether
+quite a handsome face, only a little pimply as though with drinking.
+He had a very broad chest had Miss Snevellicci's papa, and he wore a
+threadbare blue dress-coat buttoned with gilt buttons tight across
+it; and he no sooner saw Nicholas come into the room, than he
+whipped the two forefingers of his right hand in between the two
+centre buttons, and sticking his other arm gracefully a-kimbo seemed
+to say, 'Now, here I am, my buck, and what have you got to say to
+me?'
+
+Such was, and in such an attitude sat Miss Snevellicci's papa, who
+had been in the profession ever since he had first played the ten-
+year-old imps in the Christmas pantomimes; who could sing a little,
+dance a little, fence a little, act a little, and do everything a
+little, but not much; who had been sometimes in the ballet, and
+sometimes in the chorus, at every theatre in London; who was always
+selected in virtue of his figure to play the military visitors and
+the speechless noblemen; who always wore a smart dress, and came on
+arm-in-arm with a smart lady in short petticoats,--and always did it
+too with such an air that people in the pit had been several times
+known to cry out 'Bravo!' under the impression that he was somebody.
+Such was Miss Snevellicci's papa, upon whom some envious persons
+cast the imputation that he occasionally beat Miss Snevellicci's
+mama, who was still a dancer, with a neat little figure and some
+remains of good looks; and who now sat, as she danced,--being rather
+too old for the full glare of the foot-lights,--in the background.
+
+To these good people Nicholas was presented with much formality.
+The introduction being completed, Miss Snevellicci's papa (who was
+scented with rum-and-water) said that he was delighted to make the
+acquaintance of a gentleman so highly talented; and furthermore
+remarked, that there hadn't been such a hit made--no, not since the
+first appearance of his friend Mr Glavormelly, at the Coburg.
+
+'You have seen him, sir?' said Miss Snevellicci's papa.
+
+'No, really I never did,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'You never saw my friend Glavormelly, sir!' said Miss Snevellicci's
+papa.  'Then you have never seen acting yet.  If he had lived--'
+
+'Oh, he is dead, is he?' interrupted Nicholas.
+
+'He is,' said Mr Snevellicci, 'but he isn't in Westminster Abbey,
+more's the shame.  He was a--.  Well, no matter.  He is gone to that
+bourne from whence no traveller returns.  I hope he is appreciated
+THERE.'
+
+So saying Miss Snevellicci's papa rubbed the tip of his nose with a
+very yellow silk handkerchief, and gave the company to understand
+that these recollections overcame him.
+
+'Well, Mr Lillyvick,' said Nicholas, 'and how are you?'
+
+'Quite well, sir,' replied the collector.  'There is nothing like
+the married state, sir, depend upon it.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Nicholas, laughing.
+
+'Ah! nothing like it, sir,' replied Mr Lillyvick solemnly.  'How do
+you think,' whispered the collector, drawing him aside, 'how do you
+think she looks tonight?'
+
+'As handsome as ever,' replied Nicholas, glancing at the late Miss
+Petowker.
+
+'Why, there's air about her, sir,' whispered the collector, 'that I
+never saw in anybody.  Look at her, now she moves to put the kettle
+on.  There!  Isn't it fascination, sir?'
+
+'You're a lucky man,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' rejoined the collector.  'No.  Do you think I am
+though, eh?  Perhaps I may be, perhaps I may be.  I say, I couldn't
+have done much better if I had been a young man, could I?  You
+couldn't have done much better yourself, could you--eh--could you?'
+With such inquires, and many more such, Mr Lillyvick jerked his
+elbow into Nicholas's side, and chuckled till his face became quite
+purple in the attempt to keep down his satisfaction.
+
+By this time the cloth had been laid under the joint superintendence
+of all the ladies, upon two tables put together, one being high and
+narrow, and the other low and broad.  There were oysters at the top,
+sausages at the bottom, a pair of snuffers in the centre, and baked
+potatoes wherever it was most convenient to put them.  Two
+additional chairs were brought in from the bedroom: Miss Snevellicci
+sat at the head of the table, and Mr Lillyvick at the foot; and
+Nicholas had not only the honour of sitting next Miss Snevellicci,
+but of having Miss Snevellicci's mama on his right hand, and Miss
+Snevellicci's papa over the way.  In short, he was the hero of the
+feast; and when the table was cleared and something warm introduced,
+Miss Snevellicci's papa got up and proposed his health in a speech
+containing such affecting allusions to his coming departure, that
+Miss Snevellicci wept, and was compelled to retire into the bedroom.
+
+'Hush!  Don't take any notice of it,' said Miss Ledrook, peeping in
+from the bedroom.  'Say, when she comes back, that she exerts
+herself too much.'
+
+Miss Ledrook eked out this speech with so many mysterious nods and
+frowns before she shut the door again, that a profound silence came
+upon all the company, during which Miss Snevellicci's papa looked
+very big indeed--several sizes larger than life--at everybody in
+turn, but particularly at Nicholas, and kept on perpetually emptying
+his tumbler and filling it again, until the ladies returned in a
+cluster, with Miss Snevellicci among them.
+
+'You needn't alarm yourself a bit, Mr Snevellicci,' said Mrs
+Lillyvick.  'She is only a little weak and nervous; she has been so
+ever since the morning.'
+
+'Oh,' said Mr Snevellicci, 'that's all, is it?'
+
+'Oh yes, that's all.  Don't make a fuss about it,' cried all the
+ladies together.
+
+Now this was not exactly the kind of reply suited to Mr Snevellicci's
+importance as a man and a father, so he picked out the unfortunate
+Mrs Snevellicci, and asked her what the devil she meant by talking
+to him in that way.
+
+'Dear me, my dear!' said Mrs Snevellicci.
+
+'Don't call me your dear, ma'am,' said Mr Snevellicci, 'if you
+please.'
+
+'Pray, pa, don't,' interposed Miss Snevellicci.
+
+'Don't what, my child?'
+
+'Talk in that way.'
+
+'Why not?' said Mr Snevellicci.  'I hope you don't suppose there's
+anybody here who is to prevent my talking as I like?'
+
+'Nobody wants to, pa,' rejoined his daughter.
+
+'Nobody would if they did want to,' said Mr Snevellicci.  'I am not
+ashamed of myself, Snevellicci is my name; I'm to be found in Broad
+Court, Bow Street, when I'm in town.  If I'm not at home, let any
+man ask for me at the stage-door.  Damme, they know me at the stage-
+door I suppose.  Most men have seen my portrait at the cigar shop
+round the corner.  I've been mentioned in the newspapers before now,
+haven't I?  Talk!  I'll tell you what; if I found out that any man
+had been tampering with the affections of my daughter, I wouldn't
+talk.  I'd astonish him without talking; that's my way.'
+
+So saying, Mr Snevellicci struck the palm of his left hand three
+smart blows with his clenched fist; pulled a phantom nose with his
+right thumb and forefinger, and swallowed another glassful at a
+draught.  'That's my way,' repeated Mr Snevellicci.
+
+Most public characters have their failings; and the truth is that Mr
+Snevellicci was a little addicted to drinking; or, if the whole
+truth must be told, that he was scarcely ever sober.  He knew in his
+cups three distinct stages of intoxication,--the dignified--the
+quarrelsome--the amorous.  When professionally engaged he never got
+beyond the dignified; in private circles he went through all three,
+passing from one to another with a rapidity of transition often
+rather perplexing to those who had not the honour of his
+acquaintance.
+
+Thus Mr Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he
+smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited
+symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed 'The ladies!  Bless their
+hearts!' in a most vivacious manner.
+
+'I love 'em,' said Mr Snevellicci, looking round the table, 'I love
+'em, every one.'
+
+'Not every one,' reasoned Mr Lillyvick, mildly.
+
+'Yes, every one,' repeated Mr Snevellicci.
+
+'That would include the married ladies, you know,' said Mr
+Lillyvick.
+
+'I love them too, sir,' said Mr Snevellicci.
+
+The collector looked into the surrounding faces with an aspect of
+grave astonishment, seeming to say, 'This is a nice man!' and
+appeared a little surprised that Mrs Lillyvick's manner yielded no
+evidences of horror and indignation.
+
+'One good turn deserves another,' said Mr Snevellicci.  'I love them
+and they love me.'  And as if this avowal were not made in sufficient
+disregard and defiance of all moral obligations, what did Mr
+Snevellicci do?  He winked--winked openly and undisguisedly; winked
+with his right eye--upon Henrietta Lillyvick!
+
+The collector fell back in his chair in the intensity of his
+astonishment.  If anybody had winked at her as Henrietta Petowker,
+it would have been indecorous in the last degree; but as Mrs
+Lillyvick!  While he thought of it in a cold perspiration, and
+wondered whether it was possible that he could be dreaming, Mr
+Snevellicci repeated the wink, and drinking to Mrs Lillyvick in dumb
+show, actually blew her a kiss!  Mr Lillyvick left his chair, walked
+straight up to the other end of the table, and fell upon him--
+literally fell upon him--instantaneously.  Mr Lillyvick was no light
+weight, and consequently when he fell upon Mr Snevellicci, Mr
+Snevellicci fell under the table.  Mr Lillyvick followed him, and
+the ladies screamed.
+
+'What is the matter with the men!  Are they mad?' cried Nicholas,
+diving under the table, dragging up the collector by main force, and
+thrusting him, all doubled up, into a chair, as if he had been a
+stuffed figure.  'What do you mean to do?  What do you want to do?
+What is the matter with you?'
+
+While Nicholas raised up the collector, Smike had performed the same
+office for Mr Snevellicci, who now regarded his late adversary in
+tipsy amazement.
+
+'Look here, sir,' replied Mr Lillyvick, pointing to his astonished
+wife, 'here is purity and elegance combined, whose feelings have
+been outraged--violated, sir!'
+
+'Lor, what nonsense he talks!' exclaimed Mrs Lillyvick in answer to
+the inquiring look of Nicholas.  'Nobody has said anything to me.'
+
+'Said, Henrietta!' cried the collector.  'Didn't I see him--'  Mr
+Lillyvick couldn't bring himself to utter the word, but he
+counterfeited the motion of the eye.
+
+'Well!' cried Mrs Lillyvick.  'Do you suppose nobody is ever to look
+at me?  A pretty thing to be married indeed, if that was law!'
+
+'You didn't mind it?' cried the collector.
+
+'Mind it!' repeated Mrs Lillyvick contemptuously.  'You ought to go
+down on your knees and beg everybody's pardon, that you ought.'
+
+'Pardon, my dear?' said the dismayed collector.
+
+'Yes, and mine first,' replied Mrs Lillyvick.  'Do you suppose I
+ain't the best judge of what's proper and what's improper?'
+
+'To be sure,' cried all the ladies.  'Do you suppose WE shouldn't be
+the first to speak, if there was anything that ought to be taken
+notice of?'
+
+'Do you suppose THEY don't know, sir?' said Miss Snevellicci's papa,
+pulling up his collar, and muttering something about a punching of
+heads, and being only withheld by considerations of age.  With which
+Miss Snevellicci's papa looked steadily and sternly at Mr Lillyvick
+for some seconds, and then rising deliberately from his chair,
+kissed the ladies all round, beginning with Mrs Lillyvick.
+
+The unhappy collector looked piteously at his wife, as if to see
+whether there was any one trait of Miss Petowker left in Mrs
+Lillyvick, and finding too surely that there was not, begged pardon
+of all the company with great humility, and sat down such a crest-
+fallen, dispirited, disenchanted man, that despite all his
+selfishness and dotage, he was quite an object of compassion.
+
+Miss Snevellicci's papa being greatly exalted by this triumph, and
+incontestable proof of his popularity with the fair sex, quickly
+grew convivial, not to say uproarious; volunteering more than one
+song of no inconsiderable length, and regaling the social circle
+between-whiles with recollections of divers splendid women who had
+been supposed to entertain a passion for himself, several of whom he
+toasted by name, taking occasion to remark at the same time that if
+he had been a little more alive to his own interest, he might have
+been rolling at that moment in his chariot-and-four.  These
+reminiscences appeared to awaken no very torturing pangs in the
+breast of Mrs Snevellicci, who was sufficiently occupied in
+descanting to Nicholas upon the manifold accomplishments and merits
+of her daughter.  Nor was the young lady herself at all behind-hand
+in displaying her choicest allurements; but these, heightened as
+they were by the artifices of Miss Ledrook, had no effect whatever
+in increasing the attentions of Nicholas, who, with the precedent of
+Miss Squeers still fresh in his memory, steadily resisted every
+fascination, and placed so strict a guard upon his behaviour that
+when he had taken his leave the ladies were unanimous in pronouncing
+him quite a monster of insensibility.
+
+Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were
+informed, in all the colours of the rainbow, and in letters
+afflicted with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how
+that Mr Johnson would have the honour of making his last appearance
+that evening, and how that an early application for places was
+requested, in consequence of the extraordinary overflow attendant on
+his performances,--it being a remarkable fact in theatrical history,
+but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless
+endeavour to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first
+brought to believe that they will never get into it.
+
+Nicholas was somewhat at a loss, on entering the theatre at night,
+to account for the unusual perturbation and excitement visible in
+the countenances of all the company, but he was not long in doubt as
+to the cause, for before he could make any inquiry respecting it Mr
+Crummles approached, and in an agitated tone of voice, informed him
+that there was a London manager in the boxes.
+
+'It's the phenomenon, depend upon it, sir,' said Crummles, dragging
+Nicholas to the little hole in the curtain that he might look
+through at the London manager.  'I have not the smallest doubt it's
+the fame of the phenomenon--that's the man; him in the great-coat
+and no shirt-collar.  She shall have ten pound a week, Johnson; she
+shall not appear on the London boards for a farthing less.  They
+shan't engage her either, unless they engage Mrs Crummles too--
+twenty pound a week for the pair; or I'll tell you what, I'll throw
+in myself and the two boys, and they shall have the family for
+thirty.  I can't say fairer than that.  They must take us all, if
+none of us will go without the others.  That's the way some of the
+London people do, and it always answers.  Thirty pound a week--it's
+too cheap, Johnson.  It's dirt cheap.'
+
+Nicholas replied, that it certainly was; and Mr Vincent Crummles
+taking several huge pinches of snuff to compose his feelings,
+hurried away to tell Mrs Crummles that he had quite settled the only
+terms that could be accepted, and had resolved not to abate one
+single farthing.
+
+When everybody was dressed and the curtain went up, the excitement
+occasioned by the presence of the London manager increased a
+thousand-fold.  Everybody happened to know that the London manager
+had come down specially to witness his or her own performance, and
+all were in a flutter of anxiety and expectation.  Some of those who
+were not on in the first scene, hurried to the wings, and there
+stretched their necks to have a peep at him; others stole up into
+the two little private boxes over the stage-doors, and from that
+position reconnoitred the London manager.  Once the London manager
+was seen to smile--he smiled at the comic countryman's pretending to
+catch a blue-bottle, while Mrs Crummles was making her greatest
+effect.  'Very good, my fine fellow,' said Mr Crummles, shaking his
+fist at the comic countryman when he came off, 'you leave this
+company next Saturday night.'
+
+In the same way, everybody who was on the stage beheld no audience
+but one individual; everybody played to the London manager.  When Mr
+Lenville in a sudden burst of passion called the emperor a
+miscreant, and then biting his glove, said, 'But I must dissemble,'
+instead of looking gloomily at the boards and so waiting for his
+cue, as is proper in such cases, he kept his eye fixed upon the
+London manager.  When Miss Bravassa sang her song at her lover, who
+according to custom stood ready to shake hands with her between the
+verses, they looked, not at each other, but at the London manager.
+Mr Crummles died point blank at him; and when the two guards came in
+to take the body off after a very hard death, it was seen to open
+its eyes and glance at the London manager.  At length the London
+manager was discovered to be asleep, and shortly after that he woke
+up and went away, whereupon all the company fell foul of the unhappy
+comic countryman, declaring that his buffoonery was the sole cause;
+and Mr Crummles said, that he had put up with it a long time, but
+that he really couldn't stand it any longer, and therefore would
+feel obliged by his looking out for another engagement.
+
+All this was the occasion of much amusement to Nicholas, whose only
+feeling upon the subject was one of sincere satisfaction that the
+great man went away before he appeared.  He went through his part in
+the two last pieces as briskly as he could, and having been received
+with unbounded favour and unprecedented applause--so said the bills
+for next day, which had been printed an hour or two before--he took
+Smike's arm and walked home to bed.
+
+With the post next morning came a letter from Newman Noggs, very
+inky, very short, very dirty, very small, and very mysterious,
+urging Nicholas to return to London instantly; not to lose an
+instant; to be there that night if possible.
+
+'I will,' said Nicholas.  'Heaven knows I have remained here for the
+best, and sorely against my own will; but even now I may have
+dallied too long.  What can have happened?  Smike, my good fellow,
+here--take my purse.  Put our things together, and pay what little
+debts we owe--quick, and we shall be in time for the morning coach.
+I will only tell them that we are going, and will return to you
+immediately.'
+
+So saying, he took his hat, and hurrying away to the lodgings of Mr
+Crummles, applied his hand to the knocker with such hearty good-
+will, that he awakened that gentleman, who was still in bed, and
+caused Mr Bulph the pilot to take his morning's pipe very nearly out
+of his mouth in the extremity of his surprise.
+
+The door being opened, Nicholas ran upstairs without any ceremony,
+and bursting into the darkened sitting-room on the one-pair front,
+found that the two Master Crummleses had sprung out of the sofa-
+bedstead and were putting on their clothes with great rapidity,
+under the impression that it was the middle of the night, and the
+next house was on fire.
+
+Before he could undeceive them, Mr Crummles came down in a flannel
+gown and nightcap; and to him Nicholas briefly explained that
+circumstances had occurred which rendered it necessary for him to
+repair to London immediately.
+
+'So goodbye,' said Nicholas; 'goodbye, goodbye.'
+
+He was half-way downstairs before Mr Crummles had sufficiently
+recovered his surprise to gasp out something about the posters.
+
+'I can't help it,' replied Nicholas.  'Set whatever I may have
+earned this week against them, or if that will not repay you, say at
+once what will.  Quick, quick.'
+
+'We'll cry quits about that,' returned Crummles.  'But can't we have
+one last night more?'
+
+'Not an hour--not a minute,' replied Nicholas, impatiently.
+
+'Won't you stop to say something to Mrs Crummles?' asked the
+manager, following him down to the door.
+
+'I couldn't stop if it were to prolong my life a score of years,'
+rejoined Nicholas.  'Here, take my hand, and with it my hearty
+thanks.--Oh! that I should have been fooling here!'
+
+Accompanying these words with an impatient stamp upon the ground, he
+tore himself from the manager's detaining grasp, and darting rapidly
+down the street was out of sight in an instant.
+
+'Dear me, dear me,' said Mr Crummles, looking wistfully towards the
+point at which he had just disappeared; 'if he only acted like that,
+what a deal of money he'd draw!  He should have kept upon this
+circuit; he'd have been very useful to me.  But he don't know what's
+good for him.  He is an impetuous youth.  Young men are rash, very
+rash.'
+
+Mr Crummles being in a moralising mood, might possibly have
+moralised for some minutes longer if he had not mechanically put his
+hand towards his waistcoat pocket, where he was accustomed to keep
+his snuff.  The absence of any pocket at all in the usual direction,
+suddenly recalled to his recollection the fact that he had no
+waistcoat on; and this leading him to a contemplation of the extreme
+scantiness of his attire, he shut the door abruptly, and retired
+upstairs with great precipitation.
+
+Smike had made good speed while Nicholas was absent, and with his
+help everything was soon ready for their departure.  They scarcely
+stopped to take a morsel of breakfast, and in less than half an hour
+arrived at the coach-office: quite out of breath with the haste they
+had made to reach it in time.  There were yet a few minutes to
+spare, so, having secured the places, Nicholas hurried into a
+slopseller's hard by, and bought Smike a great-coat.  It would
+have been rather large for a substantial yeoman, but the shopman
+averring (and with considerable truth) that it was a most uncommon
+fit, Nicholas would have purchased it in his impatience if it had
+been twice the size.
+
+As they hurried up to the coach, which was now in the open street
+and all ready for starting, Nicholas was not a little astonished to
+find himself suddenly clutched in a close and violent embrace, which
+nearly took him off his legs; nor was his amazement at all lessened
+by hearing the voice of Mr Crummles exclaim, 'It is he--my friend,
+my friend!'
+
+'Bless my heart,' cried Nicholas, struggling in the manager's arms,
+'what are you about?'
+
+The manager made no reply, but strained him to his breast again,
+exclaiming as he did so, 'Farewell, my noble, my lion-hearted boy!'
+
+In fact, Mr Crummles, who could never lose any opportunity for
+professional display, had turned out for the express purpose of
+taking a public farewell of Nicholas; and to render it the more
+imposing, he was now, to that young gentleman's most profound
+annoyance, inflicting upon him a rapid succession of stage embraces,
+which, as everybody knows, are performed by the embracer's laying
+his or her chin on the shoulder of the object of affection, and
+looking over it.  This Mr Crummles did in the highest style of
+melodrama, pouring forth at the same time all the most dismal forms
+of farewell he could think of, out of the stock pieces.  Nor was
+this all, for the elder Master Crummles was going through a similar
+ceremony with Smike; while Master Percy Crummles, with a very little
+second-hand camlet cloak, worn theatrically over his left shoulder,
+stood by, in the attitude of an attendant officer, waiting to convey
+the two victims to the scaffold.
+
+The lookers-on laughed very heartily, and as it was as well to put a
+good face upon the matter, Nicholas laughed too when he had
+succeeded in disengaging himself; and rescuing the astonished Smike,
+climbed up to the coach roof after him, and kissed his hand in
+honour of the absent Mrs Crummles as they rolled away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+Of Ralph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise Precautions, the
+success or failure of which will appear in the Sequel
+
+
+In blissful unconsciousness that his nephew was hastening at the
+utmost speed of four good horses towards his sphere of action, and
+that every passing minute diminished the distance between them,
+Ralph Nickleby sat that morning occupied in his customary
+avocations, and yet unable to prevent his thoughts wandering from
+time to time back to the interview which had taken place between
+himself and his niece on the previous day.  At such intervals, after
+a few moments of abstraction, Ralph would mutter some peevish
+interjection, and apply himself with renewed steadiness of purpose
+to the ledger before him, but again and again the same train of
+thought came back despite all his efforts to prevent it, confusing
+him in his calculations, and utterly distracting his attention from
+the figures over which he bent.  At length Ralph laid down his pen,
+and threw himself back in his chair as though he had made up his
+mind to allow the obtrusive current of reflection to take its own
+course, and, by giving it full scope, to rid himself of it effectually.
+
+'I am not a man to be moved by a pretty face,' muttered Ralph
+sternly.  'There is a grinning skull beneath it, and men like me who
+look and work below the surface see that, and not its delicate
+covering.  And yet I almost like the girl, or should if she had been
+less proudly and squeamishly brought up.  If the boy were drowned or
+hanged, and the mother dead, this house should be her home.  I wish
+they were, with all my soul.'
+
+Notwithstanding the deadly hatred which Ralph felt towards Nicholas,
+and the bitter contempt with which he sneered at poor Mrs Nickleby--
+notwithstanding the baseness with which he had behaved, and was then
+behaving, and would behave again if his interest prompted him,
+towards Kate herself--still there was, strange though it may seem,
+something humanising and even gentle in his thoughts at that moment.
+He thought of what his home might be if Kate were there; he placed
+her in the empty chair, looked upon her, heard her speak; he felt
+again upon his arm the gentle pressure of the trembling hand; he
+strewed his costly rooms with the hundred silent tokens of feminine
+presence and occupation; he came back again to the cold fireside and
+the silent dreary splendour; and in that one glimpse of a better
+nature, born as it was in selfish thoughts, the rich man felt
+himself friendless, childless, and alone.  Gold, for the instant,
+lost its lustre in his eyes, for there were countless treasures of
+the heart which it could never purchase.
+
+A very slight circumstance was sufficient to banish such reflections
+from the mind of such a man.  As Ralph looked vacantly out across
+the yard towards the window of the other office, he became suddenly
+aware of the earnest observation of Newman Noggs, who, with his red
+nose almost touching the glass, feigned to be mending a pen with a
+rusty fragment of a knife, but was in reality staring at his
+employer with a countenance of the closest and most eager scrutiny.
+
+Ralph exchanged his dreamy posture for his accustomed business
+attitude: the face of Newman disappeared, and the train of thought
+took to flight, all simultaneously, and in an instant.
+
+After a few minutes, Ralph rang his bell.  Newman answered the
+summons, and Ralph raised his eyes stealthily to his face, as if he
+almost feared to read there, a knowledge of his recent thoughts.
+
+There was not the smallest speculation, however, in the countenance
+of Newman Noggs.  If it be possible to imagine a man, with two eyes
+in his head, and both wide open, looking in no direction whatever,
+and seeing nothing, Newman appeared to be that man while Ralph
+Nickleby regarded him.
+
+'How now?' growled Ralph.
+
+'Oh!' said Newman, throwing some intelligence into his eyes all at
+once, and dropping them on his master, 'I thought you rang.'  With
+which laconic remark Newman turned round and hobbled away.
+
+'Stop!' said Ralph.
+
+Newman stopped; not at all disconcerted.
+
+'I did ring.'
+
+'I knew you did.'
+
+'Then why do you offer to go if you know that?'
+
+'I thought you rang to say you didn't ring" replied Newman.  'You
+often do.'
+
+'How dare you pry, and peer, and stare at me, sirrah?' demanded
+Ralph.
+
+'Stare!' cried Newman, 'at YOU!  Ha, ha!' which was all the
+explanation Newman deigned to offer.
+
+'Be careful, sir,' said Ralph, looking steadily at him.  'Let me
+have no drunken fooling here.  Do you see this parcel?'
+
+'It's big enough,' rejoined Newman.
+
+'Carry it into the city; to Cross, in Broad Street, and leave it
+there--quick.  Do you hear?'
+
+Newman gave a dogged kind of nod to express an affirmative reply,
+and, leaving the room for a few seconds, returned with his hat.
+Having made various ineffective attempts to fit the parcel (which
+was some two feet square) into the crown thereof, Newman took it
+under his arm, and after putting on his fingerless gloves with great
+precision and nicety, keeping his eyes fixed upon Mr Ralph Nickleby
+all the time, he adjusted his hat upon his head with as much care,
+real or pretended, as if it were a bran-new one of the most
+expensive quality, and at last departed on his errand.
+
+He executed his commission with great promptitude and dispatch, only
+calling at one public-house for half a minute, and even that might
+be said to be in his way, for he went in at one door and came out at
+the other; but as he returned and had got so far homewards as the
+Strand, Newman began to loiter with the uncertain air of a man who
+has not quite made up his mind whether to halt or go straight
+forwards.  After a very short consideration, the former inclination
+prevailed, and making towards the point he had had in his mind,
+Newman knocked a modest double knock, or rather a nervous single
+one, at Miss La Creevy's door.
+
+It was opened by a strange servant, on whom the odd figure of the
+visitor did not appear to make the most favourable impression
+possible, inasmuch as she no sooner saw him than she very nearly
+closed it, and placing herself in the narrow gap, inquired what he
+wanted.  But Newman merely uttering the monosyllable 'Noggs,' as if
+it were some cabalistic word, at sound of which bolts would fly back
+and doors open, pushed briskly past and gained the door of Miss La
+Creevy's sitting-room, before the astonished servant could offer any
+opposition.
+
+'Walk in if you please,' said Miss La Creevy in reply to the sound
+of Newman's knuckles; and in he walked accordingly.
+
+'Bless us!' cried Miss La Creevy, starting as Newman bolted in;
+'what did you want, sir?'
+
+'You have forgotten me,' said Newman, with an inclination of the
+head.  'I wonder at that.  That nobody should remember me who knew
+me in other days, is natural enough; but there are few people who,
+seeing me once, forget me NOW.'  He glanced, as he spoke, at his
+shabby clothes and paralytic limb, and slightly shook his head.
+
+'I did forget you, I declare,' said Miss La Creevy, rising to
+receive Newman, who met her half-way, 'and I am ashamed of myself
+for doing so; for you are a kind, good creature, Mr Noggs.  Sit down
+and tell me all about Miss Nickleby.  Poor dear thing!  I haven't
+seen her for this many a week.'
+
+'How's that?' asked Newman.
+
+'Why, the truth is, Mr Noggs,' said Miss La Creevy, 'that I have
+been out on a visit--the first visit I have made for fifteen years.'
+
+'That is a long time,' said Newman, sadly.
+
+'So it is a very long time to look back upon in years, though,
+somehow or other, thank Heaven, the solitary days roll away
+peacefully and happily enough,' replied the miniature painter.  'I
+have a brother, Mr Noggs--the only relation I have--and all that
+time I never saw him once.  Not that we ever quarrelled, but he was
+apprenticed down in the country, and he got married there; and new
+ties and affections springing up about him, he forgot a poor little
+woman like me, as it was very reasonable he should, you know.  Don't
+suppose that I complain about that, because I always said to myself,
+"It is very natural; poor dear John is making his way in the world,
+and has a wife to tell his cares and troubles to, and children now
+to play about him, so God bless him and them, and send we may all
+meet together one day where we shall part no more."  But what do you
+think, Mr Noggs,' said the miniature painter, brightening up and
+clapping her hands, 'of that very same brother coming up to London
+at last, and never resting till he found me out; what do you think
+of his coming here and sitting down in that very chair, and crying
+like a child because he was so glad to see me--what do you think of
+his insisting on taking me down all the way into the country to his
+own house (quite a sumptuous place, Mr Noggs, with a large garden
+and I don't know how many fields, and a man in livery waiting at
+table, and cows and horses and pigs and I don't know what besides),
+and making me stay a whole month, and pressing me to stop there all
+my life--yes, all my life--and so did his wife, and so did the
+children--and there were four of them, and one, the eldest girl of
+all, they--they had named her after me eight good years before, they
+had indeed.  I never was so happy; in all my life I never was!'  The
+worthy soul hid her face in her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud; for
+it was the first opportunity she had had of unburdening her heart,
+and it would have its way.
+
+'But bless my life,' said Miss La Creevy, wiping her eyes after a
+short pause, and cramming her handkerchief into her pocket with
+great bustle and dispatch; 'what a foolish creature I must seem to
+you, Mr Noggs!  I shouldn't have said anything about it, only I
+wanted to explain to you how it was I hadn't seen Miss Nickleby.'
+
+'Have you seen the old lady?' asked Newman.
+
+'You mean Mrs Nickleby?' said Miss La Creevy.  'Then I tell you
+what, Mr Noggs, if you want to keep in the good books in that
+quarter, you had better not call her the old lady any more, for I
+suspect she wouldn't be best pleased to hear you.  Yes, I went there
+the night before last, but she was quite on the high ropes about
+something, and was so grand and mysterious, that I couldn't make
+anything of her: so, to tell you the truth, I took it into my head
+to be grand too, and came away in state.  I thought she would have
+come round again before this, but she hasn't been here.'
+
+'About Miss Nickleby--' said Newman.
+
+'Why, she was here twice while I was away,' returned Miss La Creevy.
+'I was afraid she mightn't like to have me calling on her among
+those great folks in what's-its-name Place, so I thought I'd wait a
+day or two, and if I didn't see her, write.'
+
+'Ah!' exclaimed Newman, cracking his fingers.
+
+'However, I want to hear all the news about them from you,' said
+Miss La Creevy.  'How is the old rough and tough monster of Golden
+Square?  Well, of course; such people always are.  I don't mean how
+is he in health, but how is he going on: how is he behaving
+himself?'
+
+'Damn him!' cried Newman, dashing his cherished hat on the floor;
+'like a false hound.'
+
+'Gracious, Mr Noggs, you quite terrify me!' exclaimed Miss La
+Creevy, turning pale.
+
+'I should have spoilt his features yesterday afternoon if I could
+have afforded it,' said Newman, moving restlessly about, and shaking
+his fist at a portrait of Mr Canning over the mantelpiece.  'I was
+very near it.  I was obliged to put my hands in my pockets, and keep
+'em there very tight.  I shall do it some day in that little back-
+parlour, I know I shall.  I should have done it before now, if I
+hadn't been afraid of making bad worse.  I shall double-lock myself
+in with him and have it out before I die, I'm quite certain of it.'
+
+'I shall scream if you don't compose yourself, Mr Noggs,' said Miss
+La Creevy; 'I'm sure I shan't be able to help it.'
+
+'Never mind,' rejoined Newman, darting violently to and fro.  'He's
+coming up tonight: I wrote to tell him.  He little thinks I know; he
+little thinks I care.  Cunning scoundrel! he don't think that.  Not
+he, not he.  Never mind, I'll thwart him--I, Newman Noggs.  Ho, ho,
+the rascal!'
+
+Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs
+jerked himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever
+beheld in a human being: now sparring at the little miniatures on
+the wall, and now giving himself violent thumps on the head, as if
+to heighten the delusion, until he sank down in his former seat
+quite breathless and exhausted.
+
+'There,' said Newman, picking up his hat; 'that's done me good.  Now
+I'm better, and I'll tell you all about it.'
+
+It took some little time to reassure Miss La Creevy, who had been
+almost frightened out of her senses by this remarkable
+demonstration; but that done, Newman faithfully related all that had
+passed in the interview between Kate and her uncle, prefacing his
+narrative with a statement of his previous suspicions on the
+subject, and his reasons for forming them; and concluding with a
+communication of the step he had taken in secretly writing to
+Nicholas.
+
+Though little Miss La Creevy's indignation was not so singularly
+displayed as Newman's, it was scarcely inferior in violence and
+intensity.  Indeed, if Ralph Nickleby had happened to make his
+appearance in the room at that moment, there is some doubt whether
+he would not have found Miss La Creevy a more dangerous opponent
+than even Newman Noggs himself.
+
+'God forgive me for saying so,' said Miss La Creevy, as a wind-up to
+all her expressions of anger, 'but I really feel as if I could stick
+this into him with pleasure.'
+
+It was not a very awful weapon that Miss La Creevy held, it being in
+fact nothing more nor less than a black-lead pencil; but discovering
+her mistake, the little portrait painter exchanged it for a mother-
+of-pearl fruit knife, wherewith, in proof of her desperate thoughts,
+she made a lunge as she spoke, which would have scarcely disturbed
+the crumb of a half-quartern loaf.
+
+'She won't stop where she is after tonight,' said Newman.  'That's a
+comfort.'
+
+'Stop!' cried Miss La Creevy, 'she should have left there, weeks
+ago.'
+
+'--If we had known of this,' rejoined Newman.  'But we didn't.
+Nobody could properly interfere but her mother or brother.  The
+mother's weak--poor thing--weak.  The dear young man will be here
+tonight.'
+
+'Heart alive!' cried Miss La Creevy.  'He will do something
+desperate, Mr Noggs, if you tell him all at once.'
+
+Newman left off rubbing his hands, and assumed a thoughtful look.
+
+'Depend upon it,' said Miss La Creevy, earnestly, 'if you are not
+very careful in breaking out the truth to him, he will do some
+violence upon his uncle or one of these men that will bring some
+terrible calamity upon his own head, and grief and sorrow to us
+all.'
+
+'I never thought of that,' rejoined Newman, his countenance falling
+more and more.  'I came to ask you to receive his sister in case he
+brought her here, but--'
+
+'But this is a matter of much greater importance,' interrupted Miss
+La Creevy; 'that you might have been sure of before you came, but
+the end of this, nobody can foresee, unless you are very guarded and
+careful.'
+
+'What CAN I do?' cried Newman, scratching his head with an air of
+great vexation and perplexity.  'If he was to talk of pistoling 'em
+all, I should be obliged to say, "Certainly--serve 'em right."'
+
+Miss La Creevy could not suppress a small shriek on hearing this,
+and instantly set about extorting a solemn pledge from Newman that
+he would use his utmost endeavours to pacify the wrath of Nicholas;
+which, after some demur, was conceded.  They then consulted together
+on the safest and surest mode of communicating to him the
+circumstances which had rendered his presence necessary.
+
+'He must have time to cool before he can possibly do anything,' said
+Miss La Creevy.  'That is of the greatest consequence.  He must not
+be told until late at night.'
+
+'But he'll be in town between six and seven this evening,' replied
+Newman.  'I can't keep it from him when he asks me.'
+
+'Then you must go out, Mr Noggs,' said Miss La Creevy.  'You can
+easily have been kept away by business, and must not return till
+nearly midnight.'
+
+'Then he will come straight here,' retorted Newman.
+
+'So I suppose,' observed Miss La Creevy; 'but he won't find me at
+home, for I'll go straight to the city the instant you leave me,
+make up matters with Mrs Nickleby, and take her away to the theatre,
+so that he may not even know where his sister lives.'
+
+Upon further discussion, this appeared the safest and most feasible
+mode of proceeding that could possibly be adopted.  Therefore it was
+finally determined that matters should be so arranged, and Newman,
+after listening to many supplementary cautions and entreaties, took
+his leave of Miss La Creevy and trudged back to Golden Square;
+ruminating as he went upon a vast number of possibilities and
+impossibilities which crowded upon his brain, and arose out of the
+conversation that had just terminated.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and some
+remarkable Proceedings to which it gives rise
+
+
+'London at last!' cried Nicholas, throwing back his greatcoat and
+rousing Smike from a long nap.  'It seemed to me as though we should
+never reach it.'
+
+'And yet you came along at a tidy pace too,' observed the coachman,
+looking over his shoulder at Nicholas with no very pleasant
+expression of countenance.
+
+'Ay, I know that,' was the reply; 'but I have been very anxious to
+be at my journey's end, and that makes the way seem long.'
+
+'Well,' remarked the coachman, 'if the way seemed long with such
+cattle as you've sat behind, you MUST have been most uncommon
+anxious;' and so saying, he let out his whip-lash and touched up a
+little boy on the calves of his legs by way of emphasis.
+
+They rattled on through the noisy, bustling, crowded street of
+London, now displaying long double rows of brightly-burning lamps,
+dotted here and there with the chemists' glaring lights, and
+illuminated besides with the brilliant flood that streamed from the
+windows of the shops, where sparkling jewellery, silks and velvets
+of the richest colours, the most inviting delicacies, and most
+sumptuous articles of luxurious ornament, succeeded each other in
+rich and glittering profusion.  Streams of people apparently without
+end poured on and on, jostling each other in the crowd and hurrying
+forward, scarcely seeming to notice the riches that surrounded them
+on every side; while vehicles of all shapes and makes, mingled up
+together in one moving mass, like running water, lent their
+ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult.
+
+As they dashed by the quickly-changing and ever-varying objects, it
+was curious to observe in what a strange procession they passed
+before the eye.  Emporiums of splendid dresses, the materials
+brought from every quarter of the world; tempting stores of
+everything to stimulate and pamper the sated appetite and give new
+relish to the oft-repeated feast; vessels of burnished gold and
+silver, wrought into every exquisite form of vase, and dish, and
+goblet; guns, swords, pistols, and patent engines of destruction;
+screws and irons for the crooked, clothes for the newly-born, drugs
+for the sick, coffins for the dead, and churchyards for the buried--
+all these jumbled each with the other and flocking side by side,
+seemed to flit by in motley dance like the fantastic groups of the
+old Dutch painter, and with the same stern moral for the unheeding
+restless crowd.
+
+Nor were there wanting objects in the crowd itself to give new point
+and purpose to the shifting scene.  The rags of the squalid ballad-
+singer fluttered in the rich light that showed the goldsmith's
+treasures, pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where
+was tempting food, hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded
+by one thin sheet of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked
+shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden
+stuffs of India.  There was a christening party at the largest
+coffin-maker's and a funeral hatchment had stopped some great
+improvements in the bravest mansion.  Life and death went hand in
+hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and
+starvation laid them down together.
+
+But it was London; and the old country lady inside, who had put her
+head out of the coach-window a mile or two this side Kingston, and
+cried out to the driver that she was sure he must have passed it and
+forgotten to set her down, was satisfied at last.
+
+Nicholas engaged beds for himself and Smike at the inn where the
+coach stopped, and repaired, without the delay of another moment, to
+the lodgings of Newman Noggs; for his anxiety and impatience had
+increased with every succeeding minute, and were almost beyond
+control.
+
+There was a fire in Newman's garret; and a candle had been left
+burning; the floor was cleanly swept, the room was as comfortably
+arranged as such a room could be, and meat and drink were placed in
+order upon the table.  Everything bespoke the affectionate care and
+attention of Newman Noggs, but Newman himself was not there.
+
+'Do you know what time he will be home?' inquired Nicholas, tapping
+at the door of Newman's front neighbour.
+
+'Ah, Mr Johnson!' said Crowl, presenting himself.  'Welcome, sir.
+How well you're looking!  I never could have believed--'
+
+'Pardon me,' interposed Nicholas.  'My question--I am extremely
+anxious to know.'
+
+'Why, he has a troublesome affair of business,' replied Crowl, 'and
+will not be home before twelve o'clock.  He was very unwilling to
+go, I can tell you, but there was no help for it.  However, he left
+word that you were to make yourself comfortable till he came back,
+and that I was to entertain you, which I shall be very glad to do.'
+
+In proof of his extreme readiness to exert himself for the general
+entertainment, Mr Crowl drew a chair to the table as he spoke, and
+helping himself plentifully to the cold meat, invited Nicholas and
+Smike to follow his example.
+
+Disappointed and uneasy, Nicholas could touch no food, so, after he
+had seen Smike comfortably established at the table, he walked out
+(despite a great many dissuasions uttered by Mr Crowl with his mouth
+full), and left Smike to detain Newman in case he returned first.
+
+As Miss La Creevy had anticipated, Nicholas betook himself straight
+to her house.  Finding her from home, he debated within himself for
+some time whether he should go to his mother's residence, and so
+compromise her with Ralph Nickleby.  Fully persuaded, however, that
+Newman would not have solicited him to return unless there was some
+strong reason which required his presence at home, he resolved to go
+there, and hastened eastwards with all speed.
+
+Mrs Nickleby would not be at home, the girl said, until past twelve,
+or later.  She believed Miss Nickleby was well, but she didn't live
+at home now, nor did she come home except very seldom.  She couldn't
+say where she was stopping, but it was not at Madame Mantalini's.
+She was sure of that.
+
+With his heart beating violently, and apprehending he knew not what
+disaster, Nicholas returned to where he had left Smike.  Newman had
+not been home.  He wouldn't be, till twelve o'clock; there was no
+chance of it.  Was there no possibility of sending to fetch him if
+it were only for an instant, or forwarding to him one line of
+writing to which he might return a verbal reply?  That was quite
+impracticable.  He was not at Golden Square, and probably had been
+sent to execute some commission at a distance.
+
+Nicholas tried to remain quietly where he was, but he felt so
+nervous and excited that he could not sit still.  He seemed to be
+losing time unless he was moving.  It was an absurd fancy, he knew,
+but he was wholly unable to resist it.  So, he took up his hat and
+rambled out again.
+
+He strolled westward this time, pacing the long streets with hurried
+footsteps, and agitated by a thousand misgivings and apprehensions
+which he could not overcome.  He passed into Hyde Park, now silent
+and deserted, and increased his rate of walking as if in the hope of
+leaving his thoughts behind.  They crowded upon him more thickly,
+however, now there were no passing objects to attract his attention;
+and the one idea was always uppermost, that some stroke of ill-
+fortune must have occurred so calamitous in its nature that all were
+fearful of disclosing it to him.  The old question arose again and
+again--What could it be?  Nicholas walked till he was weary, but was
+not one bit the wiser; and indeed he came out of the Park at last a
+great deal more confused and perplexed than when he went in.
+
+He had taken scarcely anything to eat or drink since early in the
+morning, and felt quite worn out and exhausted.  As he returned
+languidly towards the point from which he had started, along one of
+the thoroughfares which lie between Park Lane and Bond Street, he
+passed a handsome hotel, before which he stopped mechanically.
+
+'An expensive place, I dare say,' thought Nicholas; 'but a pint of
+wine and a biscuit are no great debauch wherever they are had.  And
+yet I don't know.'
+
+He walked on a few steps, but looking wistfully down the long vista
+of gas-lamps before him, and thinking how long it would take to
+reach the end of it and being besides in that kind of mood in which
+a man is most disposed to yield to his first impulse--and being,
+besides, strongly attracted to the hotel, in part by curiosity, and
+in part by some odd mixture of feelings which he would have been
+troubled to define--Nicholas turned back again, and walked into the
+coffee-room.
+
+It was very handsomely furnished.  The walls were ornamented with
+the choicest specimens of French paper, enriched with a gilded
+cornice of elegant design.  The floor was covered with a rich
+carpet; and two superb mirrors, one above the chimneypiece and one
+at the opposite end of the room reaching from floor to ceiling,
+multiplied the other beauties and added new ones of their own to
+enhance the general effect.  There was a rather noisy party of four
+gentlemen in a box by the fire-place, and only two other persons
+present--both elderly gentlemen, and both alone.
+
+Observing all this in the first comprehensive glance with which a
+stranger surveys a place that is new to him, Nicholas sat himself
+down in the box next to the noisy party, with his back towards them,
+and postponing his order for a pint of claret until such time as the
+waiter and one of the elderly gentlemen should have settled a
+disputed question relative to the price of an item in the bill of
+fare, took up a newspaper and began to read.
+
+He had not read twenty lines, and was in truth himself dozing, when
+he was startled by the mention of his sister's name.  'Little Kate
+Nickleby' were the words that caught his ear.  He raised his head in
+amazement, and as he did so, saw by the reflection in the opposite
+glass, that two of the party behind him had risen and were standing
+before the fire.  'It must have come from one of them,' thought
+Nicholas.  He waited to hear more with a countenance of some
+indignation, for the tone of speech had been anything but
+respectful, and the appearance of the individual whom he presumed to
+have been the speaker was coarse and swaggering.
+
+This person--so Nicholas observed in the same glance at the mirror
+which had enabled him to see his face--was standing with his back to
+the fire conversing with a younger man, who stood with his back to
+the company, wore his hat, and was adjusting his shirt-collar by the
+aid of the glass.  They spoke in whispers, now and then bursting
+into a loud laugh, but Nicholas could catch no repetition of the
+words, nor anything sounding at all like the words, which had
+attracted his attention.
+
+At length the two resumed their seats, and more wine being ordered,
+the party grew louder in their mirth.  Still there was no reference
+made to anybody with whom he was acquainted, and Nicholas became
+persuaded that his excited fancy had either imagined the sounds
+altogether, or converted some other words into the name which had
+been so much in his thoughts.
+
+'It is remarkable too,' thought Nicholas: 'if it had been "Kate" or
+"Kate Nickleby," I should not have been so much surprised: but
+"little Kate Nickleby!"'
+
+The wine coming at the moment prevented his finishing the sentence.
+He swallowed a glassful and took up the paper again.  At that
+instant--
+
+'Little Kate Nickleby!' cried the voice behind him.
+
+'I was right,' muttered Nicholas as the paper fell from his hand.
+'And it was the man I supposed.'
+
+'As there was a proper objection to drinking her in heel-taps,' said
+the voice, 'we'll give her the first glass in the new magnum.
+Little Kate Nickleby!'
+
+'Little Kate Nickleby,' cried the other three.  And the glasses were
+set down empty.
+
+Keenly alive to the tone and manner of this slight and careless
+mention of his sister's name in a public place, Nicholas fired at
+once; but he kept himself quiet by a great effort, and did not even
+turn his head.
+
+'The jade!' said the same voice which had spoken before.  'She's a
+true Nickleby--a worthy imitator of her old uncle Ralph--she hangs
+back to be more sought after--so does he; nothing to be got out of
+Ralph unless you follow him up, and then the money comes doubly
+welcome, and the bargain doubly hard, for you're impatient and he
+isn't.  Oh! infernal cunning.'
+
+'Infernal cunning,' echoed two voices.
+
+Nicholas was in a perfect agony as the two elderly gentlemen
+opposite, rose one after the other and went away, lest they should
+be the means of his losing one word of what was said.  But the
+conversation was suspended as they withdrew, and resumed with even
+greater freedom when they had left the room.
+
+'I am afraid,' said the younger gentleman, 'that the old woman has
+grown jea-a-lous, and locked her up.  Upon my soul it looks like
+it.'
+
+'If they quarrel and little Nickleby goes home to her mother, so
+much the better,' said the first.  'I can do anything with the old
+lady.  She'll believe anything I tell her.'
+
+'Egad that's true,' returned the other voice.  'Ha, ha, ha!  Poor
+deyvle!'
+
+The laugh was taken up by the two voices which always came in
+together, and became general at Mrs Nickleby's expense.  Nicholas
+turned burning hot with rage, but he commanded himself for the
+moment, and waited to hear more.
+
+What he heard need not be repeated here.  Suffice it that as the
+wine went round he heard enough to acquaint him with the characters
+and designs of those whose conversation he overhead; to possess him
+with the full extent of Ralph's villainy, and the real reason of his
+own presence being required in London.  He heard all this and more.
+He heard his sister's sufferings derided, and her virtuous conduct
+jeered at and brutally misconstrued; he heard her name bandied from
+mouth to mouth, and herself made the subject of coarse and insolent
+wagers, free speech, and licentious jesting.
+
+The man who had spoken first, led the conversation, and indeed
+almost engrossed it, being only stimulated from time to time by some
+slight observation from one or other of his companions.  To him then
+Nicholas addressed himself when he was sufficiently composed to
+stand before the party, and force the words from his parched and
+scorching throat.
+
+'Let me have a word with you, sir,' said Nicholas.
+
+'With me, sir?' retorted Sir Mulberry Hawk, eyeing him in disdainful
+surprise.
+
+'I said with you,' replied Nicholas, speaking with great difficulty,
+for his passion choked him.
+
+'A mysterious stranger, upon my soul!' exclaimed Sir Mulberry,
+raising his wine-glass to his lips, and looking round upon his
+friends.
+
+'Will you step apart with me for a few minutes, or do you refuse?'
+said Nicholas sternly.
+
+Sir Mulberry merely paused in the act of drinking, and bade him
+either name his business or leave the table.
+
+Nicholas drew a card from his pocket, and threw it before him.
+
+'There, sir,' said Nicholas; 'my business you will guess.'
+
+A momentary expression of astonishment, not unmixed with some
+confusion, appeared in the face of Sir Mulberry as he read the name;
+but he subdued it in an instant, and tossing the card to Lord
+Verisopht, who sat opposite, drew a toothpick from a glass before
+him, and very leisurely applied it to his mouth.
+
+'Your name and address?' said Nicholas, turning paler as his passion
+kindled.
+
+'I shall give you neither,' replied Sir Mulberry.
+
+'If there is a gentleman in this party,' said Nicholas, looking
+round and scarcely able to make his white lips form the words, 'he
+will acquaint me with the name and residence of this man.'
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+'I am the brother of the young lady who has been the subject of
+conversation here,' said Nicholas.  'I denounce this person as a
+liar, and impeach him as a coward.  If he has a friend here, he will
+save him the disgrace of the paltry attempt to conceal his name--and
+utterly useless one--for I will find it out, nor leave him until I
+have.'
+
+Sir Mulberry looked at him contemptuously, and, addressing his
+companions, said--
+
+'Let the fellow talk, I have nothing serious to say to boys of his
+station; and his pretty sister shall save him a broken head, if he
+talks till midnight.'
+
+'You are a base and spiritless scoundrel!' said Nicholas, 'and shall
+be proclaimed so to the world.  I WILL know you; I will follow you
+home if you walk the streets till morning.'
+
+Sir Mulberry's hand involuntarily closed upon the decanter, and he
+seemed for an instant about to launch it at the head of his
+challenger.  But he only filled his glass, and laughed in derision.
+
+Nicholas sat himself down, directly opposite to the party, and,
+summoning the waiter, paid his bill.
+
+'Do you know that person's name?' he inquired of the man in an
+audible voice; pointing out Sir Mulberry as he put the question.
+
+Sir Mulberry laughed again, and the two voices which had always
+spoken together, echoed the laugh; but rather feebly.
+
+'That gentleman, sir?' replied the waiter, who, no doubt, knew his
+cue, and answered with just as little respect, and just as much
+impertinence as he could safely show: 'no, sir, I do not, sir.'
+
+'Here, you sir,' cried Sir Mulberry, as the man was retiring; 'do
+you know THAT person's name?'
+
+'Name, sir?  No, sir.'
+
+'Then you'll find it there,' said Sir Mulberry, throwing Nicholas's
+card towards him; 'and when you have made yourself master of it, put
+that piece of pasteboard in the fire--do you hear me?'
+
+The man grinned, and, looking doubtfully at Nicholas, compromised
+the matter by sticking the card in the chimney-glass.  Having done
+this, he retired.
+
+Nicholas folded his arms, and biting his lip, sat perfectly quiet;
+sufficiently expressing by his manner, however, a firm determination
+to carry his threat of following Sir Mulberry home, into steady
+execution.
+
+It was evident from the tone in which the younger member of the
+party appeared to remonstrate with his friend, that he objected to
+this course of proceeding, and urged him to comply with the request
+which Nicholas had made.  Sir Mulberry, however, who was not quite
+sober, and who was in a sullen and dogged state of obstinacy, soon
+silenced the representations of his weak young friend, and further
+seemed--as if to save himself from a repetition of them--to insist
+on being left alone.  However this might have been, the young
+gentleman and the two who had always spoken together, actually rose
+to go after a short interval, and presently retired, leaving their
+friend alone with Nicholas.
+
+It will be very readily supposed that to one in the condition of
+Nicholas, the minutes appeared to move with leaden wings indeed, and
+that their progress did not seem the more rapid from the monotonous
+ticking of a French clock, or the shrill sound of its little bell
+which told the quarters.  But there he sat; and in his old seat on
+the opposite side of the room reclined Sir Mulberry Hawk, with his
+legs upon the cushion, and his handkerchief thrown negligently over
+his knees: finishing his magnum of claret with the utmost coolness
+and indifference.
+
+Thus they remained in perfect silence for upwards of an hour--
+Nicholas would have thought for three hours at least, but that the
+little bell had only gone four times.  Twice or thrice he looked
+angrily and impatiently round; but there was Sir Mulberry in the
+same attitude, putting his glass to his lips from time to time, and
+looking vacantly at the wall, as if he were wholly ignorant of the
+presence of any living person.
+
+At length he yawned, stretched himself, and rose; walked coolly to
+the glass, and having surveyed himself therein, turned round and
+honoured Nicholas with a long and contemptuous stare.  Nicholas
+stared again with right good-will; Sir Mulberry shrugged his
+shoulders, smiled slightly, rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to
+help him on with his greatcoat.
+
+The man did so, and held the door open.
+
+'Don't wait,' said Sir Mulberry; and they were alone again.
+
+Sir Mulberry took several turns up and down the room, whistling
+carelessly all the time; stopped to finish the last glass of claret
+which he had poured out a few minutes before, walked again, put on
+his hat, adjusted it by the glass, drew on his gloves, and, at last,
+walked slowly out.  Nicholas, who had been fuming and chafing until
+he was nearly wild, darted from his seat, and followed him: so
+closely, that before the door had swung upon its hinges after Sir
+Mulberry's passing out, they stood side by side in the street
+together.
+
+There was a private cabriolet in waiting; the groom opened the
+apron, and jumped out to the horse's head.
+
+'Will you make yourself known to me?' asked Nicholas in a suppressed
+voice.
+
+'No,' replied the other fiercely, and confirming the refusal with an
+oath.  'No.'
+
+'If you trust to your horse's speed, you will find yourself
+mistaken,' said Nicholas.  'I will accompany you.  By Heaven I will,
+if I hang on to the foot-board.'
+
+'You shall be horsewhipped if you do,' returned Sir Mulberry.
+
+'You are a villain,' said Nicholas.
+
+'You are an errand-boy for aught I know,' said Sir Mulberry Hawk.
+
+'I am the son of a country gentleman,' returned Nicholas, 'your
+equal in birth and education, and your superior I trust in
+everything besides.  I tell you again, Miss Nickleby is my sister.
+Will you or will you not answer for your unmanly and brutal
+conduct?'
+
+'To a proper champion--yes.  To you--no,' returned Sir Mulberry,
+taking the reins in his hand.  'Stand out of the way, dog.  William,
+let go her head.'
+
+'You had better not,' cried Nicholas, springing on the step as Sir
+Mulberry jumped in, and catching at the reins.  'He has no command
+over the horse, mind.  You shall not go--you shall not, I swear--
+till you have told me who you are.'
+
+The groom hesitated, for the mare, who was a high-spirited animal
+and thorough-bred, plunged so violently that he could scarcely hold
+her.
+
+'Leave go, I tell you!' thundered his master.
+
+The man obeyed.  The animal reared and plunged as though it would
+dash the carriage into a thousand pieces, but Nicholas, blind to all
+sense of danger, and conscious of nothing but his fury, still
+maintained his place and his hold upon the reins.
+
+'Will you unclasp your hand?'
+
+'Will you tell me who you are?'
+
+'No!'
+
+'No!'
+
+In less time than the quickest tongue could tell it, these words
+were exchanged, and Sir Mulberry shortening his whip, applied it
+furiously to the head and shoulders of Nicholas.  It was broken in
+the struggle; Nicholas gained the heavy handle, and with it laid
+open one side of his antagonist's face from the eye to the lip.  He
+saw the gash; knew that the mare had darted off at a wild mad
+gallop; a hundred lights danced in his eyes, and he felt himself
+flung violently upon the ground.
+
+He was giddy and sick, but staggered to his feet directly, roused by
+the loud shouts of the men who were tearing up the street, and
+screaming to those ahead to clear the way.  He was conscious of a
+torrent of people rushing quickly by--looking up, could discern the
+cabriolet whirled along the foot-pavement with frightful rapidity--
+then heard a loud cry, the smashing of some heavy body, and the
+breaking of glass--and then the crowd closed in in the distance, and
+he could see or hear no more.
+
+The general attention had been entirely directed from himself to the
+person in the carriage, and he was quite alone.  Rightly judging
+that under such circumstances it would be madness to follow, he
+turned down a bye-street in search of the nearest coach-stand,
+finding after a minute or two that he was reeling like a drunken
+man, and aware for the first time of a stream of blood that was
+trickling down his face and breast.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+In which Mr Ralph Nickleby is relieved, by a very expeditious
+Process, from all Commerce with his Relations
+
+
+Smike and Newman Noggs, who in his impatience had returned home long
+before the time agreed upon, sat before the fire, listening
+anxiously to every footstep on the stairs, and the slightest sound
+that stirred within the house, for the approach of Nicholas.  Time
+had worn on, and it was growing late.  He had promised to be back in
+an hour; and his prolonged absence began to excite considerable
+alarm in the minds of both, as was abundantly testified by the blank
+looks they cast upon each other at every new disappointment.
+
+At length a coach was heard to stop, and Newman ran out to light
+Nicholas up the stairs.  Beholding him in the trim described at the
+conclusion of the last chapter, he stood aghast in wonder and
+consternation.
+
+'Don't be alarmed,' said Nicholas, hurrying him back into the room.
+'There is no harm done, beyond what a basin of water can repair.'
+
+'No harm!' cried Newman, passing his hands hastily over the back and
+arms of Nicholas, as if to assure himself that he had broken no
+bones.  'What have you been doing?'
+
+'I know all,' interrupted Nicholas; 'I have heard a part, and
+guessed the rest.  But before I remove one jot of these stains, I
+must hear the whole from you.  You see I am collected.  My
+resolution is taken.  Now, my good friend, speak out; for the time
+for any palliation or concealment is past, and nothing will avail
+Ralph Nickleby now.'
+
+'Your dress is torn in several places; you walk lame, and I am sure
+you are suffering pain,' said Newman.  'Let me see to your hurts
+first.'
+
+'I have no hurts to see to, beyond a little soreness and stiffness
+that will soon pass off,' said Nicholas, seating himself with some
+difficulty.  'But if I had fractured every limb, and still preserved
+my senses, you should not bandage one till you had told me what I
+have the right to know.  Come,' said Nicholas, giving his hand to
+Noggs.  'You had a sister of your own, you told me once, who died
+before you fell into misfortune.  Now think of her, and tell me,
+Newman.'
+
+'Yes, I will, I will,' said Noggs.  'I'll tell you the whole truth.'
+
+Newman did so.  Nicholas nodded his head from time to time, as it
+corroborated the particulars he had already gleaned; but he fixed
+his eyes upon the fire, and did not look round once.
+
+His recital ended, Newman insisted upon his young friend's stripping
+off his coat and allowing whatever injuries he had received to be
+properly tended.  Nicholas, after some opposition, at length
+consented, and, while some pretty severe bruises on his arms and
+shoulders were being rubbed with oil and vinegar, and various other
+efficacious remedies which Newman borrowed from the different
+lodgers, related in what manner they had been received.  The recital
+made a strong impression on the warm imagination of Newman; for when
+Nicholas came to the violent part of the quarrel, he rubbed so hard,
+as to occasion him the most exquisite pain, which he would not have
+exhibited, however, for the world, it being perfectly clear that,
+for the moment, Newman was operating on Sir Mulberry Hawk, and had
+quite lost sight of his real patient.
+
+This martyrdom over, Nicholas arranged with Newman that while he was
+otherwise occupied next morning, arrangements should be made for his
+mother's immediately quitting her present residence, and also for
+dispatching Miss La Creevy to break the intelligence to her.  He
+then wrapped himself in Smike's greatcoat, and repaired to the inn
+where they were to pass the night, and where (after writing a few
+lines to Ralph, the delivery of which was to be intrusted to Newman
+next day), he endeavoured to obtain the repose of which he stood so
+much in need.
+
+Drunken men, they say, may roll down precipices, and be quite
+unconscious of any serious personal inconvenience when their reason
+returns.  The remark may possibly apply to injuries received in
+other kinds of violent excitement: certain it is, that although
+Nicholas experienced some pain on first awakening next morning, he
+sprung out of bed as the clock struck seven, with very little
+difficulty, and was soon as much on the alert as if nothing had
+occurred.
+
+Merely looking into Smike's room, and telling him that Newman Noggs
+would call for him very shortly, Nicholas descended into the street,
+and calling a hackney coach, bade the man drive to Mrs Wititterly's,
+according to the direction which Newman had given him on the
+previous night.
+
+It wanted a quarter to eight when they reached Cadogan Place.
+Nicholas began to fear that no one might be stirring at that early
+hour, when he was relieved by the sight of a female servant,
+employed in cleaning the door-steps.  By this functionary he was
+referred to the doubtful page, who appeared with dishevelled hair
+and a very warm and glossy face, as of a page who had just got out
+of bed.
+
+By this young gentleman he was informed that Miss Nickleby was then
+taking her morning's walk in the gardens before the house.  On the
+question being propounded whether he could go and find her, the page
+desponded and thought not; but being stimulated with a shilling, the
+page grew sanguine and thought he could.
+
+'Say to Miss Nickleby that her brother is here, and in great haste
+to see her,' said Nicholas.
+
+The plated buttons disappeared with an alacrity most unusual to
+them, and Nicholas paced the room in a state of feverish agitation
+which made the delay even of a minute insupportable.  He soon heard
+a light footstep which he well knew, and before he could advance to
+meet her, Kate had fallen on his neck and burst into tears.
+
+'My darling girl,' said Nicholas as he embraced her.  'How pale you
+are!'
+
+'I have been so unhappy here, dear brother,' sobbed poor Kate; 'so
+very, very miserable.  Do not leave me here, dear Nicholas, or I
+shall die of a broken heart.'
+
+'I will leave you nowhere,' answered Nicholas--'never again, Kate,'
+he cried, moved in spite of himself as he folded her to his heart.
+'Tell me that I acted for the best.  Tell me that we parted because
+I feared to bring misfortune on your head; that it was a trial to me
+no less than to yourself, and that if I did wrong it was in
+ignorance of the world and unknowingly.'
+
+'Why should I tell you what we know so well?' returned Kate
+soothingly.  'Nicholas--dear Nicholas--how can you give way thus?'
+
+'It is such bitter reproach to me to know what you have undergone,'
+returned her brother; 'to see you so much altered, and yet so kind
+and patient--God!' cried Nicholas, clenching his fist and suddenly
+changing his tone and manner, 'it sets my whole blood on fire again.
+You must leave here with me directly; you should not have slept here
+last night, but that I knew all this too late.  To whom can I speak,
+before we drive away?'
+
+This question was most opportunely put, for at that instant Mr
+Wititterly walked in, and to him Kate introduced her brother, who at
+once announced his purpose, and the impossibility of deferring it.
+
+'The quarter's notice,' said Mr Wititterly, with the gravity of a
+man on the right side, 'is not yet half expired.  Therefore--'
+
+'Therefore,' interposed Nicholas, 'the quarter's salary must be
+lost, sir.  You will excuse this extreme haste, but circumstances
+require that I should immediately remove my sister, and I have not a
+moment's time to lose.  Whatever she brought here I will send for,
+if you will allow me, in the course of the day.'
+
+Mr Wititterly bowed, but offered no opposition to Kate's immediate
+departure; with which, indeed, he was rather gratified than
+otherwise, Sir Tumley Snuffim having given it as his opinion, that
+she rather disagreed with Mrs Wititterly's constitution.
+
+'With regard to the trifle of salary that is due,' said Mr
+Wititterly, 'I will'--here he was interrupted by a violent fit of
+coughing--'I will--owe it to Miss Nickleby.'
+
+Mr Wititterly, it should be observed, was accustomed to owe small
+accounts, and to leave them owing.  All men have some little
+pleasant way of their own; and this was Mr Wititterly's.
+
+'If you please,' said Nicholas.  And once more offering a hurried
+apology for so sudden a departure, he hurried Kate into the vehicle,
+and bade the man drive with all speed into the city.
+
+To the city they went accordingly, with all the speed the hackney
+coach could make; and as the horses happened to live at Whitechapel
+and to be in the habit of taking their breakfast there, when they
+breakfasted at all, they performed the journey with greater
+expedition than could reasonably have been expected.
+
+Nicholas sent Kate upstairs a few minutes before him, that his
+unlooked-for appearance might not alarm his mother, and when the way
+had been paved, presented himself with much duty and affection.
+Newman had not been idle, for there was a little cart at the door,
+and the effects were hurrying out already.
+
+Now, Mrs Nickleby was not the sort of person to be told anything in
+a hurry, or rather to comprehend anything of peculiar delicacy or
+importance on a short notice.  Wherefore, although the good lady had
+been subjected to a full hour's preparation by little Miss La
+Creevy, and was now addressed in most lucid terms both by Nicholas
+and his sister, she was in a state of singular bewilderment and
+confusion, and could by no means be made to comprehend the necessity
+of such hurried proceedings.
+
+'Why don't you ask your uncle, my dear Nicholas, what he can
+possibly mean by it?' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'My dear mother,' returned Nicholas, 'the time for talking has gone
+by.  There is but one step to take, and that is to cast him off with
+the scorn and indignation he deserves.  Your own honour and good
+name demand that, after the discovery of his vile proceedings, you
+should not be beholden to him one hour, even for the shelter of
+these bare walls.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Mrs Nickleby, crying bitterly, 'he is a brute, a
+monster; and the walls are very bare, and want painting too, and I
+have had this ceiling whitewashed at the expense of eighteen-pence,
+which is a very distressing thing, considering that it is so much
+gone into your uncle's pocket.  I never could have believed it--
+never.'
+
+'Nor I, nor anybody else,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Lord bless my life!' exclaimed Mrs Nickleby.  'To think that that
+Sir Mulberry Hawk should be such an abandoned wretch as Miss La
+Creevy says he is, Nicholas, my dear; when I was congratulating
+myself every day on his being an admirer of our dear Kate's, and
+thinking what a thing it would be for the family if he was to become
+connected with us, and use his interest to get you some profitable
+government place.  There are very good places to be got about the
+court, I know; for a friend of ours (Miss Cropley, at Exeter, my
+dear Kate, you recollect), he had one, and I know that it was the
+chief part of his duty to wear silk stockings, and a bag wig like a
+black watch-pocket; and to think that it should come to this after
+all--oh, dear, dear, it's enough to kill one, that it is!'  With
+which expressions of sorrow, Mrs Nickleby gave fresh vent to her
+grief, and wept piteously.
+
+As Nicholas and his sister were by this time compelled to
+superintend the removal of the few articles of furniture, Miss La
+Creevy devoted herself to the consolation of the matron, and
+observed with great kindness of manner that she must really make an
+effort, and cheer up.
+
+'Oh I dare say, Miss La Creevy,' returned Mrs Nickleby, with a
+petulance not unnatural in her unhappy circumstances, 'it's very
+easy to say cheer up, but if you had as many occasions to cheer up
+as I have had--and there,' said Mrs Nickleby, stopping short.
+'Think of Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck, two of the most perfect gentlemen
+that ever lived, what am I too say to them--what can I say to them?
+Why, if I was to say to them, "I'm told your friend Sir Mulberry is
+a base wretch," they'd laugh at me.'
+
+'They will laugh no more at us, I take it,' said Nicholas,
+advancing.  'Come, mother, there is a coach at the door, and until
+Monday, at all events, we will return to our old quarters.'
+
+'--Where everything is ready, and a hearty welcome into the
+bargain,' added Miss La Creevy.  'Now, let me go with you
+downstairs.'
+
+But Mrs Nickleby was not to be so easily moved, for first she
+insisted on going upstairs to see that nothing had been left, and
+then on going downstairs to see that everything had been taken away;
+and when she was getting into the coach she had a vision of a
+forgotten coffee-pot on the back-kitchen hob, and after she was shut
+in, a dismal recollection of a green umbrella behind some unknown
+door.  At last Nicholas, in a condition of absolute despair, ordered
+the coachman to drive away, and in the unexpected jerk of a sudden
+starting, Mrs Nickleby lost a shilling among the straw, which
+fortunately confined her attention to the coach until it was too
+late to remember anything else.
+
+Having seen everything safely out, discharged the servant, and
+locked the door, Nicholas jumped into a cabriolet and drove to a bye
+place near Golden Square where he had appointed to meet Noggs; and
+so quickly had everything been done, that it was barely half-past
+nine when he reached the place of meeting.
+
+'Here is the letter for Ralph,' said Nicholas, 'and here the key.
+When you come to me this evening, not a word of last night.  Ill
+news travels fast, and they will know it soon enough.  Have you
+heard if he was much hurt?'
+
+Newman shook his head.
+
+'I will ascertain that myself without loss of time,' said Nicholas.
+
+'You had better take some rest,' returned Newman.  'You are fevered
+and ill.'
+
+Nicholas waved his hand carelessly, and concealing the indisposition
+he really felt, now that the excitement which had sustained him was
+over, took a hurried farewell of Newman Noggs, and left him.
+
+Newman was not three minutes' walk from Golden Square, but in the
+course of that three minutes he took the letter out of his hat and
+put it in again twenty times at least.  First the front, then the
+back, then the sides, then the superscription, then the seal, were
+objects of Newman's admiration.  Then he held it at arm's length as
+if to take in the whole at one delicious survey, and then he rubbed
+his hands in a perfect ecstasy with his commission.
+
+He reached the office, hung his hat on its accustomed peg, laid the
+letter and key upon the desk, and waited impatiently until Ralph
+Nickleby should appear.  After a few minutes, the well-known
+creaking of his boots was heard on the stairs, and then the bell
+rung.
+
+'Has the post come in?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Any other letters?'
+
+'One.' Newman eyed him closely, and laid it on the desk.
+
+'What's this?' asked Ralph, taking up the key.
+
+'Left with the letter;--a boy brought them--quarter of an hour ago,
+or less.'
+
+Ralph glanced at the direction, opened the letter, and read as
+follows:--
+
+'You are known to me now.  There are no reproaches I could heap upon
+your head which would carry with them one thousandth part of the
+grovelling shame that this assurance will awaken even in your
+breast.
+
+'Your brother's widow and her orphan child spurn the shelter of your
+roof, and shun you with disgust and loathing.  Your kindred renounce
+you, for they know no shame but the ties of blood which bind them in
+name with you.
+
+'You are an old man, and I leave you to the grave.  May every
+recollection of your life cling to your false heart, and cast their
+darkness on your death-bed.'
+
+Ralph Nickleby read this letter twice, and frowning heavily, fell
+into a fit of musing; the paper fluttered from his hand and dropped
+upon the floor, but he clasped his fingers, as if he held it still.
+
+Suddenly, he started from his seat, and thrusting it all crumpled
+into his pocket, turned furiously to Newman Noggs, as though to ask
+him why he lingered.  But Newman stood unmoved, with his back
+towards him, following up, with the worn and blackened stump of an
+old pen, some figures in an Interest-table which was pasted against
+the wall, and apparently quite abstracted from every other object.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+Wherein Mr Ralph Nickleby is visited by Persons with whom the Reader
+has been already made acquainted
+
+
+'What a demnition long time you have kept me ringing at this
+confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which
+is enough to throw a strong man into blue convulsions, upon my life
+and soul, oh demmit,'--said Mr Mantalini to Newman Noggs, scraping
+his boots, as he spoke, on Ralph Nickleby's scraper.
+
+'I didn't hear the bell more than once,' replied Newman.
+
+'Then you are most immensely and outr-i-geously deaf,' said Mr
+Mantalini, 'as deaf as a demnition post.'
+
+Mr Mantalini had got by this time into the passage, and was making
+his way to the door of Ralph's office with very little ceremony,
+when Newman interposed his body; and hinting that Mr Nickleby was
+unwilling to be disturbed, inquired whether the client's business
+was of a pressing nature.
+
+'It is most demnebly particular,' said Mr Mantalini.  'It is to melt
+some scraps of dirty paper into bright, shining, chinking, tinkling,
+demd mint sauce.'
+
+Newman uttered a significant grunt, and taking Mr Mantalini's
+proffered card, limped with it into his master's office.  As he
+thrust his head in at the door, he saw that Ralph had resumed the
+thoughtful posture into which he had fallen after perusing his
+nephew's letter, and that he seemed to have been reading it again,
+as he once more held it open in his hand.  The glance was but
+momentary, for Ralph, being disturbed, turned to demand the cause of
+the interruption.
+
+As Newman stated it, the cause himself swaggered into the room, and
+grasping Ralph's horny hand with uncommon affection, vowed that he
+had never seen him looking so well in all his life.
+
+'There is quite a bloom upon your demd countenance,' said Mr
+Mantalini, seating himself unbidden, and arranging his hair and
+whiskers.  'You look quite juvenile and jolly, demmit!'
+
+'We are alone,' returned Ralph, tartly.  'What do you want with me?'
+
+'Good!' cried Mr Mantalini, displaying his teeth.  'What did I want!
+Yes.  Ha, ha!  Very good.  WHAT did I want.  Ha, ha.  Oh dem!'
+
+'What DO you want, man?' demanded Ralph, sternly.
+
+'Demnition discount,' returned Mr Mantalini, with a grin, and
+shaking his head waggishly.
+
+'Money is scarce,' said Ralph.
+
+'Demd scarce, or I shouldn't want it,' interrupted Mr Mantalini.
+
+'The times are bad, and one scarcely knows whom to trust,' continued
+Ralph.  'I don't want to do business just now, in fact I would
+rather not; but as you are a friend--how many bills have you there?'
+
+'Two,' returned Mr Mantalini.
+
+'What is the gross amount?'
+
+'Demd trifling--five-and-seventy.'
+
+'And the dates?'
+
+'Two months, and four.'
+
+'I'll do them for you--mind, for YOU; I wouldn't for many people--
+for five-and-twenty pounds,' said Ralph, deliberately.
+
+'Oh demmit!' cried Mr Mantalini, whose face lengthened considerably
+at this handsome proposal.
+
+'Why, that leaves you fifty,' retorted Ralph.  'What would you have?
+Let me see the names.'
+
+'You are so demd hard, Nickleby,' remonstrated Mr Mantalini.
+
+'Let me see the names,' replied Ralph, impatiently extending his
+hand for the bills.  'Well!  They are not sure, but they are safe
+enough.  Do you consent to the terms, and will you take the money?
+I don't want you to do so.  I would rather you didn't.'
+
+'Demmit, Nickleby, can't you--' began Mr Mantalini.
+
+'No,' replied Ralph, interrupting him.  'I can't.  Will you take the
+money--down, mind; no delay, no going into the city and pretending
+to negotiate with some other party who has no existence, and never
+had.  Is it a bargain, or is it not?'
+
+Ralph pushed some papers from him as he spoke, and carelessly
+rattled his cash-box, as though by mere accident.  The sound was too
+much for Mr Mantalini.  He closed the bargain directly it reached
+his ears, and Ralph told the money out upon the table.
+
+He had scarcely done so, and Mr Mantalini had not yet gathered it
+all up, when a ring was heard at the bell, and immediately
+afterwards Newman ushered in no less a person than Madame Mantalini,
+at sight of whom Mr Mantalini evinced considerable discomposure, and
+swept the cash into his pocket with remarkable alacrity.
+
+'Oh, you ARE here,' said Madame Mantalini, tossing her head.
+
+'Yes, my life and soul, I am,' replied her husband, dropping on his
+knees, and pouncing with kitten-like playfulness upon a stray
+sovereign.  'I am here, my soul's delight, upon Tom Tiddler's ground,
+picking up the demnition gold and silver.'
+
+'I am ashamed of you,' said Madame Mantalini, with much indignation.
+
+'Ashamed--of ME, my joy?  It knows it is talking demd charming
+sweetness, but naughty fibs,' returned Mr Mantalini.  'It knows it
+is not ashamed of its own popolorum tibby.'
+
+Whatever were the circumstances which had led to such a result, it
+certainly appeared as though the popolorum tibby had rather
+miscalculated, for the nonce, the extent of his lady's affection.
+Madame Mantalini only looked scornful in reply; and, turning to
+Ralph, begged him to excuse her intrusion.
+
+'Which is entirely attributable,' said Madame, 'to the gross
+misconduct and most improper behaviour of Mr Mantalini.'
+
+'Of me, my essential juice of pineapple!'
+
+'Of you,' returned his wife.  'But I will not allow it.  I will not
+submit to be ruined by the extravagance and profligacy of any man.
+I call Mr Nickleby to witness the course I intend to pursue with
+you.'
+
+'Pray don't call me to witness anything, ma'am,' said Ralph.
+'Settle it between yourselves, settle it between yourselves.'
+
+'No, but I must beg you as a favour,' said Madame Mantalini, 'to
+hear me give him notice of what it is my fixed intention to do--my
+fixed intention, sir,' repeated Madame Mantalini, darting an angry
+look at her husband.
+
+'Will she call me "Sir"?' cried Mantalini.  'Me who dote upon her
+with the demdest ardour!  She, who coils her fascinations round me
+like a pure angelic rattlesnake!  It will be all up with my
+feelings; she will throw me into a demd state.'
+
+'Don't talk of feelings, sir,' rejoined Madame Mantalini, seating
+herself, and turning her back upon him.  'You don't consider mine.'
+
+'I do not consider yours, my soul!' exclaimed Mr Mantalini.
+
+'No,' replied his wife.
+
+And notwithstanding various blandishments on the part of Mr
+Mantalini, Madame Mantalini still said no, and said it too with such
+determined and resolute ill-temper, that Mr Mantalini was clearly
+taken aback.
+
+'His extravagance, Mr Nickleby,' said Madame Mantalini, addressing
+herself to Ralph, who leant against his easy-chair with his hands
+behind him, and regarded the amiable couple with a smile of the
+supremest and most unmitigated contempt,--'his extravagance is
+beyond all bounds.'
+
+'I should scarcely have supposed it,' answered Ralph, sarcastically.
+
+'I assure you, Mr Nickleby, however, that it is,' returned Madame
+Mantalini.  'It makes me miserable!  I am under constant
+apprehensions, and in constant difficulty.  And even this,' said
+Madame Mantalini, wiping her eyes, 'is not the worst.  He took some
+papers of value out of my desk this morning without asking my
+permission.'
+
+Mr Mantalini groaned slightly, and buttoned his trousers pocket.
+
+'I am obliged,' continued Madame Mantalini, 'since our late
+misfortunes, to pay Miss Knag a great deal of money for having her
+name in the business, and I really cannot afford to encourage him in
+all his wastefulness.  As I have no doubt that he came straight
+here, Mr Nickleby, to convert the papers I have spoken of, into
+money, and as you have assisted us very often before, and are very
+much connected with us in this kind of matters, I wish you to know
+the determination at which his conduct has compelled me to arrive.'
+
+Mr Mantalini groaned once more from behind his wife's bonnet, and
+fitting a sovereign into one of his eyes, winked with the other at
+Ralph.  Having achieved this performance with great dexterity, he
+whipped the coin into his pocket, and groaned again with increased
+penitence.
+
+'I have made up my mind,' said Madame Mantalini, as tokens of
+impatience manifested themselves in Ralph's countenance, 'to
+allowance him.'
+
+'To do that, my joy?' inquired Mr Mantalini, who did not seem to
+have caught the words.
+
+'To put him,' said Madame Mantalini, looking at Ralph, and prudently
+abstaining from the slightest glance at her husband, lest his many
+graces should induce her to falter in her resolution, 'to put him
+upon a fixed allowance; and I say that if he has a hundred and
+twenty pounds a year for his clothes and pocket-money, he may
+consider himself a very fortunate man.'
+
+Mr Mantalini waited, with much decorum, to hear the amount of the
+proposed stipend, but when it reached his ears, he cast his hat and
+cane upon the floor, and drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, gave
+vent to his feelings in a dismal moan.
+
+'Demnition!' cried Mr Mantalini, suddenly skipping out of his chair,
+and as suddenly skipping into it again, to the great discomposure of
+his lady's nerves.  'But no.  It is a demd horrid dream.  It is not
+reality.  No!'
+
+Comforting himself with this assurance, Mr Mantalini closed his eyes
+and waited patiently till such time as he should wake up.
+
+'A very judicious arrangement,' observed Ralph with a sneer, 'if
+your husband will keep within it, ma'am--as no doubt he will.'
+
+'Demmit!' exclaimed Mr Mantalini, opening his eyes at the sound of
+Ralph's voice, 'it is a horrid reality.  She is sitting there before
+me.  There is the graceful outline of her form; it cannot be
+mistaken--there is nothing like it.  The two countesses had no
+outlines at all, and the dowager's was a demd outline.  Why is she
+so excruciatingly beautiful that I cannot be angry with her, even
+now?'
+
+'You have brought it upon yourself, Alfred,' returned Madame
+Mantalini--still reproachfully, but in a softened tone.
+
+'I am a demd villain!' cried Mr Mantalini, smiting himself on the
+head.  'I will fill my pockets with change for a sovereign in
+halfpence and drown myself in the Thames; but I will not be angry
+with her, even then, for I will put a note in the twopenny-post as I
+go along, to tell her where the body is.  She will be a lovely
+widow.  I shall be a body.  Some handsome women will cry; she will
+laugh demnebly.'
+
+'Alfred, you cruel, cruel creature,' said Madame Mantalini, sobbing
+at the dreadful picture.
+
+'She calls me cruel--me--me--who for her sake will become a demd,
+damp, moist, unpleasant body!' exclaimed Mr Mantalini.
+
+'You know it almost breaks my heart, even to hear you talk of such a
+thing,' replied Madame Mantalini.
+
+'Can I live to be mistrusted?' cried her husband.  'Have I cut my
+heart into a demd extraordinary number of little pieces, and given
+them all away, one after another, to the same little engrossing
+demnition captivater, and can I live to be suspected by her?
+Demmit, no I can't.'
+
+'Ask Mr Nickleby whether the sum I have mentioned is not a proper
+one,' reasoned Madame Mantalini.
+
+'I don't want any sum,' replied her disconsolate husband; 'I shall
+require no demd allowance.  I will be a body.'
+
+On this repetition of Mr Mantalini's fatal threat, Madame Mantalini
+wrung her hands, and implored the interference of Ralph Nickleby;
+and after a great quantity of tears and talking, and several
+attempts on the part of Mr Mantalini to reach the door, preparatory
+to straightway committing violence upon himself, that gentleman was
+prevailed upon, with difficulty, to promise that he wouldn't be a
+body.  This great point attained, Madame Mantalini argued the
+question of the allowance, and Mr Mantalini did the same, taking
+occasion to show that he could live with uncommon satisfaction upon
+bread and water, and go clad in rags, but that he could not support
+existence with the additional burden of being mistrusted by the
+object of his most devoted and disinterested affection.  This
+brought fresh tears into Madame Mantalini's eyes, which having just
+begun to open to some few of the demerits of Mr Mantalini, were only
+open a very little way, and could be easily closed again.  The
+result was, that without quite giving up the allowance question,
+Madame Mantalini, postponed its further consideration; and Ralph
+saw, clearly enough, that Mr Mantalini had gained a fresh lease of
+his easy life, and that, for some time longer at all events, his
+degradation and downfall were postponed.
+
+'But it will come soon enough,' thought Ralph; 'all love--bah! that
+I should use the cant of boys and girls--is fleeting enough; though
+that which has its sole root in the admiration of a whiskered face
+like that of yonder baboon, perhaps lasts the longest, as it
+originates in the greater blindness and is fed by vanity.  Meantime
+the fools bring grist to my mill, so let them live out their day,
+and the longer it is, the better.'
+
+These agreeable reflections occurred to Ralph Nickleby, as sundry
+small caresses and endearments, supposed to be unseen, were
+exchanged between the objects of his thoughts.
+
+'If you have nothing more to say, my dear, to Mr Nickleby,' said
+Madame Mantalini, 'we will take our leaves.  I am sure we have
+detained him much too long already.'
+
+Mr Mantalini answered, in the first instance, by tapping Madame
+Mantalini several times on the nose, and then, by remarking in words
+that he had nothing more to say.
+
+'Demmit! I have, though,' he added almost immediately, drawing Ralph
+into a corner.  'Here's an affair about your friend Sir Mulberry.
+Such a demd extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of thing as never was
+--eh?'
+
+'What do you mean?' asked Ralph.
+
+'Don't you know, demmit?' asked Mr Mantalini.
+
+'I see by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last
+night, and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger,'
+answered Ralph with great composure; 'but I see nothing
+extraordinary in that--accidents are not miraculous events, when men
+live hard, and drive after dinner.'
+
+'Whew!' cried Mr Mantalini in a long shrill whistle.  'Then don't
+you know how it was?'
+
+'Not unless it was as I have just supposed,' replied Ralph,
+shrugging his shoulders carelessly, as if to give his questioner to
+understand that he had no curiosity upon the subject.
+
+'Demmit, you amaze me,' cried Mantalini.
+
+Ralph shrugged his shoulders again, as if it were no great feat to
+amaze Mr Mantalini, and cast a wistful glance at the face of Newman
+Noggs, which had several times appeared behind a couple of panes of
+glass in the room door; it being a part of Newman's duty, when
+unimportant people called, to make various feints of supposing that
+the bell had rung for him to show them out: by way of a gentle hint
+to such visitors that it was time to go.
+
+'Don't you know,' said Mr Mantalini, taking Ralph by the button,
+'that it wasn't an accident at all, but a demd, furious,
+manslaughtering attack made upon him by your nephew?'
+
+'What!' snarled Ralph, clenching his fists and turning a livid
+white.
+
+'Demmit, Nickleby, you're as great a tiger as he is,' said
+Mantalini, alarmed at these demonstrations.
+
+'Go on,' cried Ralph.  'Tell me what you mean.  What is this story?
+Who told you?  Speak,' growled Ralph.  'Do you hear me?'
+
+''Gad, Nickleby,' said Mr Mantalini, retreating towards his wife,
+'what a demneble fierce old evil genius you are!  You're enough to
+frighten the life and soul out of her little delicious wits--flying
+all at once into such a blazing, ravaging, raging passion as never
+was, demmit!'
+
+'Pshaw,' rejoined Ralph, forcing a smile.  'It is but manner.'
+
+'It is a demd uncomfortable, private-madhouse-sort of a manner,'
+said Mr Mantalini, picking up his cane.
+
+Ralph affected to smile, and once more inquired from whom Mr
+Mantalini had derived his information.
+
+'From Pyke; and a demd, fine, pleasant, gentlemanly dog it is,'
+replied Mantalini.  'Demnition pleasant, and a tip-top sawyer.'
+
+'And what said he?' asked Ralph, knitting his brows.
+
+'That it happened this way--that your nephew met him at a
+coffeehouse, fell upon him with the most demneble ferocity, followed
+him to his cab, swore he would ride home with him, if he rode upon
+the horse's back or hooked himself on to the horse's tail; smashed
+his countenance, which is a demd fine countenance in its natural
+state; frightened the horse, pitched out Sir Mulberry and himself,
+and--'
+
+'And was killed?' interposed Ralph with gleaming eyes.  'Was he?  Is
+he dead?'
+
+Mantalini shook his head.
+
+'Ugh,' said Ralph, turning away.  'Then he has done nothing.  Stay,'
+he added, looking round again.  'He broke a leg or an arm, or put
+his shoulder out, or fractured his collar-bone, or ground a rib or
+two?  His neck was saved for the halter, but he got some painful and
+slow-healing injury for his trouble?  Did he?  You must have heard
+that, at least.'
+
+'No,' rejoined Mantalini, shaking his head again.  'Unless he was
+dashed into such little pieces that they blew away, he wasn't hurt,
+for he went off as quiet and comfortable as--as--as demnition,' said
+Mr Mantalini, rather at a loss for a simile.
+
+'And what,' said Ralph, hesitating a little, 'what was the cause of
+quarrel?'
+
+'You are the demdest, knowing hand,' replied Mr Mantalini, in an
+admiring tone, 'the cunningest, rummest, superlativest old fox--oh
+dem!--to pretend now not to know that it was the little bright-eyed
+niece--the softest, sweetest, prettiest--'
+
+'Alfred!' interposed Madame Mantalini.
+
+'She is always right,' rejoined Mr Mantalini soothingly, 'and when
+she says it is time to go, it is time, and go she shall; and when
+she walks along the streets with her own tulip, the women shall say,
+with envy, she has got a demd fine husband; and the men shall say
+with rapture, he has got a demd fine wife; and they shall both be
+right and neither wrong, upon my life and soul--oh demmit!'
+
+With which remarks, and many more, no less intellectual and to the
+purpose, Mr Mantalini kissed the fingers of his gloves to Ralph
+Nickleby, and drawing his lady's arm through his, led her mincingly
+away.
+
+'So, so,' muttered Ralph, dropping into his chair; 'this devil is
+loose again, and thwarting me, as he was born to do, at every turn.
+He told me once there should be a day of reckoning between us,
+sooner or later.  I'll make him a true prophet, for it shall surely
+come.'
+
+'Are you at home?' asked Newman, suddenly popping in his head.
+
+'No,' replied Ralph, with equal abruptness.
+
+Newman withdrew his head, but thrust it in again.
+
+'You're quite sure you're not at home, are you?' said Newman.
+
+'What does the idiot mean?' cried Ralph, testily.
+
+'He has been waiting nearly ever since they first came in, and may
+have heard your voice--that's all,' said Newman, rubbing his hands.
+
+'Who has?' demanded Ralph, wrought by the intelligence he had just
+heard, and his clerk's provoking coolness, to an intense pitch of
+irritation.
+
+The necessity of a reply was superseded by the unlooked-for entrance
+of a third party--the individual in question--who, bringing his one
+eye (for he had but one) to bear on Ralph Nickleby, made a great
+many shambling bows, and sat himself down in an armchair, with his
+hands on his knees, and his short black trousers drawn up so high in
+the legs by the exertion of seating himself, that they scarcely
+reached below the tops of his Wellington boots.'
+
+'Why, this IS a surprise!' said Ralph, bending his gaze upon the
+visitor, and half smiling as he scrutinised him attentively; 'I
+should know your face, Mr Squeers.'
+
+'Ah!' replied that worthy, 'and you'd have know'd it better, sir, if
+it hadn't been for all that I've been a-going through.  Just lift
+that little boy off the tall stool in the back-office, and tell him
+to come in here, will you, my man?' said Squeers, addressing himself
+to Newman.  'Oh, he's lifted his-self off.  My son, sir, little
+Wackford.  What do you think of him, sir, for a specimen of the
+Dotheboys Hall feeding?  Ain't he fit to bust out of his clothes,
+and start the seams, and make the very buttons fly off with his
+fatness?  Here's flesh!' cried Squeers, turning the boy about, and
+indenting the plumpest parts of his figure with divers pokes and
+punches, to the great discomposure of his son and heir.  'Here's
+firmness, here's solidness!  Why you can hardly get up enough of him
+between your finger and thumb to pinch him anywheres.'
+
+In however good condition Master Squeers might have been, he
+certainly did not present this remarkable compactness of person, for
+on his father's closing his finger and thumb in illustration of his
+remark, he uttered a sharp cry, and rubbed the place in the most
+natural manner possible.
+
+'Well,' remarked Squeers, a little disconcerted, 'I had him there;
+but that's because we breakfasted early this morning, and he hasn't
+had his lunch yet.  Why you couldn't shut a bit of him in a door,
+when he's had his dinner.  Look at them tears, sir,' said Squeers,
+with a triumphant air, as Master Wackford wiped his eyes with the
+cuff of his jacket, 'there's oiliness!'
+
+'He looks well, indeed,' returned Ralph, who, for some purposes of
+his own, seemed desirous to conciliate the schoolmaster.  'But how
+is Mrs Squeers, and how are you?'
+
+'Mrs Squeers, sir,' replied the proprietor of Dotheboys, 'is as she
+always is--a mother to them lads, and a blessing, and a comfort, and
+a joy to all them as knows her.  One of our boys--gorging his-self
+with vittles, and then turning in; that's their way--got a abscess
+on him last week.  To see how she operated upon him with a pen-knife!
+Oh Lor!' said Squeers, heaving a sigh, and nodding his head a great
+many times, 'what a member of society that woman is!'
+
+Mr Squeers indulged in a retrospective look, for some quarter of a
+minute, as if this allusion to his lady's excellences had naturally
+led his mind to the peaceful village of Dotheboys near Greta Bridge
+in Yorkshire; and then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for him to say
+something.
+
+'Have you quite recovered that scoundrel's attack?' asked Ralph.
+
+'I've only just done it, if I've done it now,' replied Squeers.  'I
+was one blessed bruise, sir,' said Squeers, touching first the roots
+of his hair, and then the toes of his boots, 'from HERE to THERE.
+Vinegar and brown paper, vinegar and brown paper, from morning to
+night.  I suppose there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper
+stuck upon me, from first to last.  As I laid all of a heap in our
+kitchen, plastered all over, you might have thought I was a large
+brown-paper parcel, chock full of nothing but groans.  Did I groan
+loud, Wackford, or did I groan soft?' asked Mr Squeers, appealing to
+his son.
+
+'Loud,' replied Wackford.
+
+'Was the boys sorry to see me in such a dreadful condition,
+Wackford, or was they glad?' asked Mr Squeers, in a sentimental
+manner.
+
+'Gl--'
+
+'Eh?' cried Squeers, turning sharp round.
+
+'Sorry,' rejoined his son.
+
+'Oh!' said Squeers, catching him a smart box on the ear.  'Then take
+your hands out of your pockets, and don't stammer when you're asked
+a question.  Hold your noise, sir, in a gentleman's office, or I'll
+run away from my family and never come back any more; and then what
+would become of all them precious and forlorn lads as would be let
+loose on the world, without their best friend at their elbers?'
+
+'Were you obliged to have medical attendance?' inquired Ralph.
+
+'Ay, was I,' rejoined Squeers, 'and a precious bill the medical
+attendant brought in too; but I paid it though.'
+
+Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a manner which might be expressive of
+either sympathy or astonishment--just as the beholder was pleased to
+take it.
+
+'Yes, I paid it, every farthing,' replied Squeers, who seemed to
+know the man he had to deal with, too well to suppose that any
+blinking of the question would induce him to subscribe towards the
+expenses; 'I wasn't out of pocket by it after all, either.'
+
+'No!' said Ralph.
+
+'Not a halfpenny,' replied Squeers.  'The fact is, we have only one
+extra with our boys, and that is for doctors when required--and not
+then, unless we're sure of our customers.  Do you see?'
+
+'I understand,' said Ralph.
+
+'Very good,' rejoined Squeers.  'Then, after my bill was run up, we
+picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure
+pay) that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a
+cottage where they'd got it, and he took it, and then we put the
+four others to sleep with him, and THEY took it, and then the doctor
+came and attended 'em once all round, and we divided my total among
+'em, and added it on to their little bills, and the parents paid it.
+Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+'And a good plan too,' said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily.
+
+'I believe you,' rejoined Squeers.  'We always do it.  Why, when Mrs
+Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the
+hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses
+among 'em, monthly nurse included.  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest
+approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr Squeers had
+enjoyed the professional joke to his heart's content, inquired what
+had brought him to town.
+
+'Some bothering law business,' replied Squeers, scratching his head,
+'connected with an action, for what they call neglect of a boy.  I
+don't know what they would have.  He had as good grazing, that boy
+had, as there is about us.'
+
+Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation.
+
+'Grazing,' said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impression
+that as Ralph failed to comprehend him, he must be deaf.  'When a
+boy gets weak and ill and don't relish his meals, we give him a
+change of diet--turn him out, for an hour or so every day, into a
+neighbour's turnip field, or sometimes, if it's a delicate case, a
+turnip field and a piece of carrots alternately, and let him eat as
+many as he likes.  There an't better land in the country than this
+perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he goes and catches cold and
+indigestion and what not, and then his friends brings a lawsuit
+against ME!  Now, you'd hardly suppose,' added Squeers, moving in
+his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, 'that people's
+ingratitude would carry them quite as far as that; would you?'
+
+'A hard case, indeed,' observed Ralph.
+
+'You don't say more than the truth when you say that,' replied
+Squeers.  'I don't suppose there's a man going, as possesses the
+fondness for youth that I do.  There's youth to the amount of eight
+hundred pound a year at Dotheboys Hall at this present time.  I'd
+take sixteen hundred pound worth if I could get 'em, and be as fond
+of every individual twenty pound among 'em as nothing should equal
+it!'
+
+'Are you stopping at your old quarters?' asked Ralph.
+
+'Yes, we are at the Saracen,' replied Squeers, 'and as it don't want
+very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continney to stop
+there till I've collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope.
+I've brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and
+guardians.  I shall put him in the advertisement, this time.  Look
+at that boy--himself a pupil.  Why he's a miracle of high feeding,
+that boy is!'
+
+'I should like to have a word with you,' said Ralph, who had both
+spoken and listened mechanically for some time, and seemed to have
+been thinking.
+
+'As many words as you like, sir,' rejoined Squeers.  'Wackford, you
+go and play in the back office, and don't move about too much or
+you'll get thin, and that won't do.  You haven't got such a thing as
+twopence, Mr Nickleby, have you?' said Squeers, rattling a bunch of
+keys in his coat pocket, and muttering something about its being all
+silver.
+
+'I--think I have,' said Ralph, very slowly, and producing, after
+much rummaging in an old drawer, a penny, a halfpenny, and two
+farthings.
+
+'Thankee,' said Squeers, bestowing it upon his son.  'Here!  You go
+and buy a tart--Mr Nickleby's man will show you where--and mind you
+buy a rich one.  Pastry,' added Squeers, closing the door on Master
+Wackford, 'makes his flesh shine a good deal, and parents thinks
+that a healthy sign.'
+
+With this explanation, and a peculiarly knowing look to eke it out,
+Mr Squeers moved his chair so as to bring himself opposite to Ralph
+Nickleby at no great distance off; and having planted it to his
+entire satisfaction, sat down.
+
+'Attend to me,' said Ralph, bending forward a little.
+
+Squeers nodded.
+
+'I am not to suppose,' said Ralph, 'that you are dolt enough to
+forgive or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed
+upon you, or the exposure which accompanied it?'
+
+'Devil a bit,' replied Squeers, tartly.
+
+'Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if you
+could get one?' said Ralph.
+
+'Show me one, and try,' rejoined Squeers.
+
+'Some such object it was, that induced you to call on me?' said
+Ralph, raising his eyes to the schoolmaster's face.
+
+'N-n-no, I don't know that,' replied Squeers.  'I thought that if it
+was in your power to make me, besides the trifle of money you sent,
+any compensation--'
+
+'Ah!' cried Ralph, interrupting him.  'You needn't go on.'
+
+After a long pause, during which Ralph appeared absorbed in
+contemplation, he again broke silence by asking:
+
+'Who is this boy that he took with him?'
+
+Squeers stated his name.
+
+'Was he young or old, healthy or sickly, tractable or rebellious?
+Speak out, man,' retorted Ralph.
+
+'Why, he wasn't young,' answered Squeers; 'that is, not young for a
+boy, you know.'
+
+'That is, he was not a boy at all, I suppose?' interrupted Ralph.
+
+'Well,' returned Squeers, briskly, as if he felt relieved by the
+suggestion, 'he might have been nigh twenty.  He wouldn't seem so
+old, though, to them as didn't know him, for he was a little wanting
+here,' touching his forehead; 'nobody at home, you know, if you
+knocked ever so often.'
+
+'And you DID knock pretty often, I dare say?' muttered Ralph.
+
+'Pretty well,' returned Squeers with a grin.
+
+'When you wrote to acknowledge the receipt of this trifle of money
+as you call it,' said Ralph, 'you told me his friends had deserted
+him long ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to
+tell you who he was.  Is that the truth?'
+
+'It is, worse luck!' replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy
+and familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the
+less reserve.  'It's fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book,
+since a strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and
+left him there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in
+advance.  He might have been five or six year old at that time--not
+more.'
+
+'What more do you know about him?' demanded Ralph.
+
+'Devilish little, I'm sorry to say,' replied Squeers.  'The money
+was paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped.  He had
+given an address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the
+point, of course nobody knowed anything about him.  So I kept the
+lad out of--out of--'
+
+'Charity?' suggested Ralph drily.
+
+'Charity, to be sure,' returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, 'and
+when he begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young
+scoundrel of a Nickleby comes and carries him off.  But the most
+vexatious and aggeravating part of the whole affair is,' said
+Squeers, dropping his voice, and drawing his chair still closer to
+Ralph, 'that some questions have been asked about him at last--not
+of me, but, in a roundabout kind of way, of people in our village.
+So, that just when I might have had all arrears paid up, perhaps,
+and perhaps--who knows? such things have happened in our business
+before--a present besides for putting him out to a farmer, or
+sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to disgrace his
+parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our boys are
+--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don't collar him in open day,
+and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.'
+
+'We will both cry quits with him before long,' said Ralph, laying
+his hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
+
+'Quits!' echoed Squeers.  'Ah! and I should like to leave a small
+balance in his favour, to be settled when he can.  I only wish Mrs
+Squeers could catch hold of him.  Bless her heart!  She'd murder
+him, Mr Nickleby--she would, as soon as eat her dinner.'
+
+'We will talk of this again,' said Ralph.  'I must have time to
+think of it.  To wound him through his own affections and fancies--.
+If I could strike him through this boy--'
+
+'Strike him how you like, sir,' interrupted Squeers, 'only hit him
+hard enough, that's all--and with that, I'll say good-morning.
+Here!--just chuck that little boy's hat off that corner peg, and
+lift him off the stool will you?'
+
+Bawling these requests to Newman Noggs, Mr Squeers betook himself to
+the little back-office, and fitted on his child's hat with parental
+anxiety, while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and
+immovable, on his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with
+a broad stare.
+
+'He's a fine boy, an't he?' said Squeers, throwing his head a little
+on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate
+the proportions of little Wackford.
+
+'Very,' said Newman.
+
+'Pretty well swelled out, an't he?' pursued Squeers.  'He has the
+fatness of twenty boys, he has.'
+
+'Ah!' replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of
+Squeers, 'he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more!  He's got it all.
+God help that others.  Ha! ha!  Oh Lord!'
+
+Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon
+his desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity.
+
+'Why, what does the man mean?' cried Squeers, colouring.  'Is he
+drunk?'
+
+Newman made no reply.
+
+'Is he mad?' said Squeers.
+
+But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his
+own; so, Mr Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both
+drunk AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his
+hopeful son away.
+
+In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a
+struggling and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of
+Nicholas augmented.  It might be, that to atone for the weakness of
+inclining to any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other
+more intensely than before; but such had been the course of his
+feelings.  And now, to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her
+in the worst and most repulsive colours, to know that she was taught
+to hate and despise him: to feel that there was infection in his
+touch, and taint in his companionship--to know all this, and to know
+that the mover of it all was that same boyish poor relation who had
+twitted him in their very first interview, and openly bearded and
+braved him since, wrought his quiet and stealthy malignity to such a
+pitch, that there was scarcely anything he would not have hazarded
+to gratify it, if he could have seen his way to some immediate
+retaliation.
+
+But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although
+he cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working
+on the one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and
+business that came with it, night found him at last, still harping
+on the same theme, and still pursuing the same unprofitable
+reflections.
+
+'When my brother was such as he,' said Ralph, 'the first comparisons
+were drawn between us--always in my disfavour.  HE was open,
+liberal, gallant, gay; I a crafty hunks of cold and stagnant blood,
+with no passion but love of saving, and no spirit beyond a thirst
+for gain.  I recollected it well when I first saw this whipster; but
+I remember it better now.'
+
+He had been occupied in tearing Nicholas's letter into atoms; and as
+he spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower about him.
+
+'Recollections like these,' pursued Ralph, with a bitter smile,
+'flock upon me--when I resign myself to them--in crowds, and from
+countless quarters.  As a portion of the world affect to despise the
+power of money, I must try and show them what it is.'
+
+And being, by this time, in a pleasant frame of mind for slumber,
+Ralph Nickleby went to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+Smike becomes known to Mrs Nickleby and Kate.  Nicholas also meets
+with new Acquaintances.  Brighter Days seem to dawn upon the Family
+
+
+Having established his mother and sister in the apartments of the
+kind-hearted miniature painter, and ascertained that Sir Mulberry
+Hawk was in no danger of losing his life, Nicholas turned his
+thoughts to poor Smike, who, after breakfasting with Newman Noggs,
+had remained, in a disconsolate state, at that worthy creature's
+lodgings, waiting, with much anxiety, for further intelligence of
+his protector.
+
+'As he will be one of our own little household, wherever we live, or
+whatever fortune is in reserve for us,' thought Nicholas, 'I must
+present the poor fellow in due form.  They will be kind to him for
+his own sake, and if not (on that account solely) to the full extent
+I could wish, they will stretch a point, I am sure, for mine.'
+
+Nicholas said 'they', but his misgivings were confined to one
+person.  He was sure of Kate, but he knew his mother's
+peculiarities, and was not quite so certain that Smike would find
+favour in the eyes of Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'However,' thought Nicholas as he departed on his benevolent errand;
+'she cannot fail to become attached to him, when she knows what a
+devoted creature he is, and as she must quickly make the discovery,
+his probation will be a short one.'
+
+'I was afraid,' said Smike, overjoyed to see his friend again, 'that
+you had fallen into some fresh trouble; the time seemed so long, at
+last, that I almost feared you were lost.'
+
+'Lost!' replied Nicholas gaily.  'You will not be rid of me so
+easily, I promise you.  I shall rise to the surface many thousand
+times yet, and the harder the thrust that pushes me down, the more
+quickly I shall rebound, Smike.  But come; my errand here is to take
+you home.'
+
+'Home!' faltered Smike, drawing timidly back.
+
+'Ay,' rejoined Nicholas, taking his arm.  'Why not?'
+
+'I had such hopes once,' said Smike; 'day and night, day and night,
+for many years.  I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away
+with grief, but now--'
+
+'And what now?' asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face.  'What
+now, old friend?'
+
+'I could not part from you to go to any home on earth,' replied
+Smike, pressing his hand; 'except one, except one.  I shall never be
+an old man; and if your hand placed me in the grave, and I could
+think, before I died, that you would come and look upon it sometimes
+with one of your kind smiles, and in the summer weather, when
+everything was alive--not dead like me--I could go to that home
+almost without a tear.'
+
+'Why do you talk thus, poor boy, if your life is a happy one with
+me?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Because I should change; not those about me.  And if they forgot
+me, I should never know it,' replied Smike.  'In the churchyard we
+are all alike, but here there are none like me.  I am a poor
+creature, but I know that.'
+
+'You are a foolish, silly creature,' said Nicholas cheerfully.  'If
+that is what you mean, I grant you that.  Why, here's a dismal face
+for ladies' company!--my pretty sister too, whom you have so often
+asked me about.  Is this your Yorkshire gallantry?  For shame! for
+shame!'
+
+Smike brightened up and smiled.
+
+'When I talk of home,' pursued Nicholas, 'I talk of mine--which is
+yours of course.  If it were defined by any particular four walls
+and a roof, God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say
+whereabouts it lay; but that is not what I mean.  When I speak of
+home, I speak of the place where--in default of a better--those I
+love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent,
+or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.
+And now, for what is my present home, which, however alarming your
+expectations may be, will neither terrify you by its extent nor its
+magnificence!'
+
+So saying, Nicholas took his companion by the arm, and saying a
+great deal more to the same purpose, and pointing out various things
+to amuse and interest him as they went along, led the way to Miss La
+Creevy's house.
+
+'And this, Kate,' said Nicholas, entering the room where his sister
+sat alone, 'is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow-traveller
+whom I prepared you to receive.'
+
+Poor Smike was bashful, and awkward, and frightened enough, at
+first, but Kate advanced towards him so kindly, and said, in such a
+sweet voice, how anxious she had been to see him after all her
+brother had told her, and how much she had to thank him for having
+comforted Nicholas so greatly in their very trying reverses, that he
+began to be very doubtful whether he should shed tears or not, and
+became still more flurried.  However, he managed to say, in a broken
+voice, that Nicholas was his only friend, and that he would lay down
+his life to help him; and Kate, although she was so kind and
+considerate, seemed to be so wholly unconscious of his distress and
+embarrassment, that he recovered almost immediately and felt quite
+at home.
+
+Then, Miss La Creevy came in; and to her Smike had to be presented
+also.  And Miss La Creevy was very kind too, and wonderfully
+talkative: not to Smike, for that would have made him uneasy at
+first, but to Nicholas and his sister.  Then, after a time, she
+would speak to Smike himself now and then, asking him whether he was
+a judge of likenesses, and whether he thought that picture in the
+corner was like herself, and whether he didn't think it would have
+looked better if she had made herself ten years younger, and whether
+he didn't think, as a matter of general observation, that young
+ladies looked better not only in pictures, but out of them too, than
+old ones; with many more small jokes and facetious remarks, which
+were delivered with such good-humour and merriment, that Smike
+thought, within himself, she was the nicest lady he had ever seen;
+even nicer than Mrs Grudden, of Mr Vincent Crummles's theatre; and
+she was a nice lady too, and talked, perhaps more, but certainly
+louder, than Miss La Creevy.
+
+At length the door opened again, and a lady in mourning came in; and
+Nicholas kissing the lady in mourning affectionately, and calling
+her his mother, led her towards the chair from which Smike had risen
+when she entered the room.
+
+'You are always kind-hearted, and anxious to help the oppressed, my
+dear mother,' said Nicholas, 'so you will be favourably disposed
+towards him, I know.'
+
+'I am sure, my dear Nicholas,' replied Mrs Nickleby, looking very
+hard at her new friend, and bending to him with something more of
+majesty than the occasion seemed to require: 'I am sure any friend
+of yours has, as indeed he naturally ought to have, and must have,
+of course, you know, a great claim upon me, and of course, it is a
+very great pleasure to me to be introduced to anybody you take an
+interest in.  There can he no doubt about that; none at all; not the
+least in the world,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'At the same time I must
+say, Nicholas, my dear, as I used to say to your poor dear papa,
+when he WOULD bring gentlemen home to dinner, and there was nothing
+in the house, that if he had come the day before yesterday--no, I
+don't mean the day before yesterday now; I should have said,
+perhaps, the year before last--we should have been better able to
+entertain him.'
+
+With which remarks, Mrs Nickleby turned to her daughter, and
+inquired, in an audible whisper, whether the gentleman was going to
+stop all night.
+
+'Because, if he is, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I don't see
+that it's possible for him to sleep anywhere, and that's the truth.'
+
+Kate stepped gracefully forward, and without any show of annoyance
+or irritation, breathed a few words into her mother's ear.
+
+'La, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, shrinking back, 'how you do
+tickle one!  Of course, I understand THAT, my love, without your
+telling me; and I said the same to Nicholas, and I AM very much
+pleased.  You didn't tell me, Nicholas, my dear,' added Mrs
+Nickleby, turning round with an air of less reserve than she had
+before assumed, 'what your friend's name is.'
+
+'His name, mother,' replied Nicholas, 'is Smike.'
+
+The effect of this communication was by no means anticipated; but
+the name was no sooner pronounced, than Mrs Nickleby dropped upon a
+chair, and burst into a fit of crying.
+
+'What is the matter?' exclaimed Nicholas, running to support her.
+
+'It's so like Pyke,' cried Mrs Nickleby; 'so exactly like Pyke.  Oh!
+don't speak to me--I shall be better presently.'
+
+And after exhibiting every symptom of slow suffocation in all its
+stages, and drinking about a tea-spoonful of water from a full
+tumbler, and spilling the remainder, Mrs Nickleby WAS better, and
+remarked, with a feeble smile, that she was very foolish, she knew.
+
+'It's a weakness in our family,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'so, of course,
+I can't be blamed for it.  Your grandmama, Kate, was exactly the
+same--precisely.  The least excitement, the slightest surprise--she
+fainted away directly.  I have heard her say, often and often, that
+when she was a young lady, and before she was married, she was
+turning a corner into Oxford Street one day, when she ran against
+her own hairdresser, who, it seems, was escaping from a bear;--the
+mere suddenness of the encounter made her faint away directly.
+Wait, though,' added Mrs Nickleby, pausing to consider.  'Let me be
+sure I'm right.  Was it her hairdresser who had escaped from a bear,
+or was it a bear who had escaped from her hairdresser's?  I declare
+I can't remember just now, but the hairdresser was a very handsome
+man, I know, and quite a gentleman in his manners; so that it has
+nothing to do with the point of the story.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby having fallen imperceptibly into one of her
+retrospective moods, improved in temper from that moment, and
+glided, by an easy change of the conversation occasionally, into
+various other anecdotes, no less remarkable for their strict
+application to the subject in hand.
+
+'Mr Smike is from Yorkshire, Nicholas, my dear?' said Mrs Nickleby,
+after dinner, and when she had been silent for some time.
+
+'Certainly, mother,' replied Nicholas.  'I see you have not
+forgotten his melancholy history.'
+
+'O dear no,' cried Mrs Nickleby.  'Ah! melancholy, indeed.  You
+don't happen, Mr Smike, ever to have dined with the Grimbles of
+Grimble Hall, somewhere in the North Riding, do you?' said the good
+lady, addressing herself to him.  'A very proud man, Sir Thomas
+Grimble, with six grown-up and most lovely daughters, and the finest
+park in the county.'
+
+'My dear mother,' reasoned Nicholas, 'do you suppose that the
+unfortunate outcast of a Yorkshire school was likely to receive many
+cards of invitation from the nobility and gentry in the
+neighbourhood?'
+
+'Really, my dear, I don't know why it should be so very
+extraordinary,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'I know that when I was at
+school, I always went at least twice every half-year to the
+Hawkinses at Taunton Vale, and they are much richer than the
+Grimbles, and connected with them in marriage; so you see it's not
+so very unlikely, after all.'
+
+Having put down Nicholas in this triumphant manner, Mrs Nickleby was
+suddenly seized with a forgetfulness of Smike's real name, and an
+irresistible tendency to call him Mr Slammons; which circumstance
+she attributed to the remarkable similarity of the two names in
+point of sound both beginning with an S, and moreover being spelt
+with an M.  But whatever doubt there might be on this point, there
+was none as to his being a most excellent listener; which
+circumstance had considerable influence in placing them on the very
+best terms, and inducing Mrs Nickleby to express the highest opinion
+of his general deportment and disposition.
+
+Thus, the little circle remained, on the most amicable and agreeable
+footing, until the Monday morning, when Nicholas withdrew himself
+from it for a short time, seriously to reflect upon the state of his
+affairs, and to determine, if he could, upon some course of life,
+which would enable him to support those who were so entirely
+dependent upon his exertions.
+
+Mr Crummles occurred to him more than once; but although Kate was
+acquainted with the whole history of his connection with that
+gentleman, his mother was not; and he foresaw a thousand fretful
+objections, on her part, to his seeking a livelihood upon the stage.
+There were graver reasons, too, against his returning to that mode
+of life.  Independently of those arising out of its spare and
+precarious earnings, and his own internal conviction that he could
+never hope to aspire to any great distinction, even as a provincial
+actor, how could he carry his sister from town to town, and place to
+place, and debar her from any other associates than those with whom
+he would be compelled, almost without distinction, to mingle?  'It
+won't do,' said Nicholas, shaking his head; 'I must try something
+else.'
+
+It was much easier to make this resolution than to carry it into
+effect.  With no greater experience of the world than he had
+acquired for himself in his short trials; with a sufficient share of
+headlong rashness and precipitation (qualities not altogether
+unnatural at his time of life); with a very slender stock of money,
+and a still more scanty stock of friends; what could he do?  'Egad!'
+said Nicholas, 'I'll try that Register Office again.'
+
+He smiled at himself as he walked away with a quick step; for, an
+instant before, he had been internally blaming his own
+precipitation.  He did not laugh himself out of the intention,
+however, for on he went: picturing to himself, as he approached the
+place, all kinds of splendid possibilities, and impossibilities too,
+for that matter, and thinking himself, perhaps with good reason,
+very fortunate to be endowed with so buoyant and sanguine a
+temperament.
+
+The office looked just the same as when he had left it last, and,
+indeed, with one or two exceptions, there seemed to be the very same
+placards in the window that he had seen before.  There were the same
+unimpeachable masters and mistresses in want of virtuous servants,
+and the same virtuous servants in want of unimpeachable masters and
+mistresses, and the same magnificent estates for the investment of
+capital, and the same enormous quantities of capital to be invested
+in estates, and, in short, the same opportunities of all sorts for
+people who wanted to make their fortunes.  And a most extraordinary
+proof it was of the national prosperity, that people had not been
+found to avail themselves of such advantages long ago.
+
+As Nicholas stopped to look in at the window, an old gentleman
+happened to stop too; and Nicholas, carrying his eye along the
+window-panes from left to right in search of some capital-text
+placard which should be applicable to his own case, caught sight of
+this old gentleman's figure, and instinctively withdrew his eyes
+from the window, to observe the same more closely.
+
+He was a sturdy old fellow in a broad-skirted blue coat, made pretty
+large, to fit easily, and with no particular waist; his bulky legs
+clothed in drab breeches and high gaiters, and his head protected by
+a low-crowned broad-brimmed white hat, such as a wealthy grazier
+might wear.  He wore his coat buttoned; and his dimpled double chin
+rested in the folds of a white neckerchief--not one of your stiff-
+starched apoplectic cravats, but a good, easy, old-fashioned white
+neckcloth that a man might go to bed in and be none the worse for.
+But what principally attracted the attention of Nicholas was the old
+gentleman's eye,--never was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry,
+happy eye, as that.  And there he stood, looking a little upward,
+with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat, and the other
+playing with his old-fashioned gold watch-chain: his head thrown a
+little on one side, and his hat a little more on one side than his
+head, (but that was evidently accident; not his ordinary way of
+wearing it,) with such a pleasant smile playing about his mouth, and
+such a comical expression of mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-
+heartedness, and good-humour, lighting up his jolly old face, that
+Nicholas would have been content to have stood there and looked at
+him until evening, and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that there was
+such a thing as a soured mind or a crabbed countenance to be met
+with in the whole wide world.
+
+But, even a very remote approach to this gratification was not to be
+made, for although he seemed quite unconscious of having been the
+subject of observation, he looked casually at Nicholas; and the
+latter, fearful of giving offence, resumed his scrutiny of the
+window instantly.
+
+Still, the old gentleman stood there, glancing from placard to
+placard, and Nicholas could not forbear raising his eyes to his face
+again.  Grafted upon the quaintness and oddity of his appearance,
+was something so indescribably engaging, and bespeaking so much
+worth, and there were so many little lights hovering about the
+corners of his mouth and eyes, that it was not a mere amusement, but
+a positive pleasure and delight to look at him.
+
+This being the case, it is no wonder that the old man caught
+Nicholas in the fact, more than once.  At such times, Nicholas
+coloured and looked embarrassed: for the truth is, that he had begun
+to wonder whether the stranger could, by any possibility, be looking
+for a clerk or secretary; and thinking this, he felt as if the old
+gentleman must know it.
+
+Long as all this takes to tell, it was not more than a couple of
+minutes in passing.  As the stranger was moving away, Nicholas
+caught his eye again, and, in the awkwardness of the moment,
+stammered out an apology.
+
+'No offence.  Oh no offence!' said the old man.
+
+This was said in such a hearty tone, and the voice was so exactly
+what it should have been from such a speaker, and there was such a
+cordiality in the manner, that Nicholas was emboldened to speak
+again.
+
+'A great many opportunities here, sir,' he said, half smiling as he
+motioned towards the window.
+
+'A great many people willing and anxious to be employed have
+seriously thought so very often, I dare say,' replied the old man.
+'Poor fellows, poor fellows!'
+
+He moved away as he said this; but seeing that Nicholas was about to
+speak, good-naturedly slackened his pace, as if he were unwilling to
+cut him short.  After a little of that hesitation which may be
+sometimes observed between two people in the street who have
+exchanged a nod, and are both uncertain whether they shall turn back
+and speak, or not, Nicholas found himself at the old man's side.
+
+'You were about to speak, young gentleman; what were you going to
+say?'
+
+'Merely that I almost hoped--I mean to say, thought--you had some
+object in consulting those advertisements,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Ay, ay?  what object now--what object?' returned the old man,
+looking slyly at Nicholas.  'Did you think I wanted a situation now
+--eh?  Did you think I did?'
+
+Nicholas shook his head.
+
+'Ha! ha!' laughed the old gentleman, rubbing his hands and wrists as
+if he were washing them.  'A very natural thought, at all events,
+after seeing me gazing at those bills.  I thought the same of you,
+at first; upon my word I did.'
+
+'If you had thought so at last, too, sir, you would not have been
+far from the truth,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Eh?' cried the old man, surveying him from head to foot.  'What!
+Dear me!  No, no.  Well-behaved young gentleman reduced to such a
+necessity!  No no, no no.'
+
+Nicholas bowed, and bidding him good-morning, turned upon his heel.
+
+'Stay,' said the old man, beckoning him into a bye street, where they
+could converse with less interruption.  'What d'ye mean, eh?'
+
+'Merely that your kind face and manner--both so unlike any I have
+ever seen--tempted me into an avowal, which, to any other stranger
+in this wilderness of London, I should not have dreamt of making,'
+returned Nicholas.
+
+'Wilderness!  Yes, it is, it is.  Good!  It IS a wilderness,' said
+the old man with much animation.  'It was a wilderness to me once.
+I came here barefoot.  I have never forgotten it.  Thank God!' and he
+raised his hat from his head, and looked very grave.
+
+'What's the matter?  What is it?  How did it all come about?' said the
+old man, laying his hand on the shoulder of Nicholas, and walking
+him up the street.  'You're--Eh?' laying his finger on the sleeve of
+his black coat.  'Who's it for, eh?'
+
+'My father,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Ah!' said the old gentleman quickly.  'Bad thing for a young man to
+lose his father.  Widowed mother, perhaps?'
+
+Nicholas sighed.
+
+'Brothers and sisters too?  Eh?'
+
+'One sister,' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'Poor thing, poor thing!  You are a scholar too, I dare say?' said
+the old man, looking wistfully into the face of the young one.
+
+'I have been tolerably well educated,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Fine thing,' said the old gentleman, 'education a great thing: a
+very great thing! I never had any.  I admire it the more in others.
+A very fine thing.  Yes, yes.  Tell me more of your history.  Let me
+hear it all.  No impertinent curiosity--no, no, no.'
+
+There was something so earnest and guileless in the way in which all
+this was said, and such a complete disregard of all conventional
+restraints and coldnesses, that Nicholas could not resist it.  Among
+men who have any sound and sterling qualities, there is nothing so
+contagious as pure openness of heart.  Nicholas took the infection
+instantly, and ran over the main points of his little history
+without reserve: merely suppressing names, and touching as lightly
+as possible upon his uncle's treatment of Kate.  The old man
+listened with great attention, and when he had concluded, drew his
+arm eagerly through his own.
+
+'Don't say another word.  Not another word' said he.  'Come along
+with me.  We mustn't lose a minute.'
+
+So saying, the old gentleman dragged him back into Oxford Street,
+and hailing an omnibus on its way to the city, pushed Nicholas in
+before him, and followed himself.
+
+As he appeared in a most extraordinary condition of restless
+excitement, and whenever Nicholas offered to speak, immediately
+interposed with: 'Don't say another word, my dear sir, on any
+account--not another word,' the young man thought it better to
+attempt no further interruption.  Into the city they journeyed
+accordingly, without interchanging any conversation; and the farther
+they went, the more Nicholas wondered what the end of the adventure
+could possibly be.
+
+The old gentleman got out, with great alacrity, when they reached
+the Bank, and once more taking Nicholas by the arm, hurried him
+along Threadneedle Street, and through some lanes and passages on
+the right, until they, at length, emerged in a quiet shady little
+square.  Into the oldest and cleanest-looking house of business in
+the square, he led the way.  The only inscription on the door-post
+was 'Cheeryble, Brothers;' but from a hasty glance at the directions
+of some packages which were lying about, Nicholas supposed that the
+brothers Cheeryble were German merchants.
+
+Passing through a warehouse which presented every indication of a
+thriving business, Mr Cheeryble (for such Nicholas supposed him to
+be, from the respect which had been shown him by the warehousemen
+and porters whom they passed) led him into a little partitioned-off
+counting-house like a large glass case, in which counting-house
+there sat--as free from dust and blemish as if he had been fixed
+into the glass case before the top was put on, and had never come
+out since--a fat, elderly, large-faced clerk, with silver spectacles
+and a powdered head.
+
+'Is my brother in his room, Tim?' said Mr Cheeryble, with no less
+kindness of manner than he had shown to Nicholas.
+
+'Yes, he is, sir,' replied the fat clerk, turning his spectacle-
+glasses towards his principal, and his eyes towards Nicholas, 'but
+Mr Trimmers is with him.'
+
+'Ay!  And what has he come about, Tim?' said Mr Cheeryble.
+
+'He is getting up a subscription for the widow and family of a man
+who was killed in the East India Docks this morning, sir,' rejoined
+Tim.  'Smashed, sir, by a cask of sugar.'
+
+'He is a good creature,' said Mr Cheeryble, with great earnestness.
+'He is a kind soul.  I am very much obliged to Trimmers.  Trimmers
+is one of the best friends we have.  He makes a thousand cases known
+to us that we should never discover of ourselves.  I am VERY much
+obliged to Trimmers.'  Saying which, Mr Cheeryble rubbed his hands
+with infinite delight, and Mr Trimmers happening to pass the door
+that instant, on his way out, shot out after him and caught him by
+the hand.
+
+'I owe you a thousand thanks, Trimmers, ten thousand thanks.  I take
+it very friendly of you, very friendly indeed,' said Mr Cheeryble,
+dragging him into a corner to get out of hearing.  'How many
+children are there, and what has my brother Ned given, Trimmers?'
+
+'There are six children,' replied the gentleman, 'and your brother
+has given us twenty pounds.'
+
+'My brother Ned is a good fellow, and you're a good fellow too,
+Trimmers,' said the old man, shaking him by both hands with
+trembling eagerness.  'Put me down for another twenty--or--stop a
+minute, stop a minute.  We mustn't look ostentatious; put me down
+ten pound, and Tim Linkinwater ten pound.  A cheque for twenty pound
+for Mr Trimmers, Tim.  God bless you, Trimmers--and come and dine
+with us some day this week; you'll always find a knife and fork, and
+we shall be delighted.  Now, my dear sir--cheque from Mr
+Linkinwater, Tim.  Smashed by a cask of sugar, and six poor
+children--oh dear, dear, dear!'
+
+Talking on in this strain, as fast as he could, to prevent any
+friendly remonstrances from the collector of the subscription on the
+large amount of his donation, Mr Cheeryble led Nicholas, equally
+astonished and affected by what he had seen and heard in this short
+space, to the half-opened door of another room.
+
+'Brother Ned,' said Mr Cheeryble, tapping with his knuckles, and
+stooping to listen, 'are you busy, my dear brother, or can you spare
+time for a word or two with me?'
+
+'Brother Charles, my dear fellow,' replied a voice from the inside,
+so like in its tones to that which had just spoken, that Nicholas
+started, and almost thought it was the same, 'don't ask me such a
+question, but come in directly.'
+
+They went in, without further parley.  What was the amazement of
+Nicholas when his conductor advanced, and exchanged a warm greeting
+with another old gentleman, the very type and model of himself--the
+same face, the same figure, the same coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth,
+the same breeches and gaiters--nay, there was the very same white
+hat hanging against the wall!
+
+As they shook each other by the hand: the face of each lighted up by
+beaming looks of affection, which would have been most delightful to
+behold in infants, and which, in men so old, was inexpressibly
+touching: Nicholas could observe that the last old gentleman was
+something stouter than his brother; this, and a slight additional
+shade of clumsiness in his gait and stature, formed the only
+perceptible difference between them.  Nobody could have doubted
+their being twin brothers.
+
+'Brother Ned,' said Nicholas's friend, closing the room-door, 'here
+is a young friend of mine whom we must assist.  We must make proper
+inquiries into his statements, in justice to him as well as to
+ourselves, and if they are confirmed--as I feel assured they will
+be--we must assist him, we must assist him, brother Ned.'
+
+'It is enough, my dear brother, that you say we should,' returned
+the other.  'When you say that, no further inquiries are needed.  He
+SHALL be assisted.  What are his necessities, and what does he
+require?  Where is Tim Linkinwater?  Let us have him here.'
+
+Both the brothers, it may be here remarked, had a very emphatic and
+earnest delivery; both had lost nearly the same teeth, which
+imparted the same peculiarity to their speech; and both spoke as if,
+besides possessing the utmost serenity of mind that the kindliest
+and most unsuspecting nature could bestow, they had, in collecting
+the plums from Fortune's choicest pudding, retained a few for
+present use, and kept them in their mouths.
+
+'Where is Tim Linkinwater?' said brother Ned.
+
+'Stop, stop, stop!' said brother Charles, taking the other aside.
+'I've a plan, my dear brother, I've a plan.  Tim is getting old, and
+Tim has been a faithful servant, brother Ned; and I don't think
+pensioning Tim's mother and sister, and buying a little tomb for the
+family when his poor brother died, was a sufficient recompense for
+his faithful services.'
+
+'No, no, no,' replied the other.  'Certainly not.  Not half enough,
+not half.'
+
+'If we could lighten Tim's duties,' said the old gentleman, 'and
+prevail upon him to go into the country, now and then, and sleep in
+the fresh air, besides, two or three times a week (which he could,
+if he began business an hour later in the morning), old Tim
+Linkinwater would grow young again in time; and he's three good
+years our senior now.  Old Tim Linkinwater young again!  Eh, brother
+Ned, eh?  Why, I recollect old Tim Linkinwater quite a little boy,
+don't you?  Ha, ha, ha!  Poor Tim, poor Tim!'
+
+And the fine old fellows laughed pleasantly together: each with a
+tear of regard for old Tim Linkinwater standing in his eye.
+
+'But hear this first--hear this first, brother Ned,' said the old
+man, hastily, placing two chairs, one on each side of Nicholas:
+'I'll tell it you myself, brother Ned, because the young gentleman
+is modest, and is a scholar, Ned, and I shouldn't feel it right that
+he should tell us his story over and over again as if he was a
+beggar, or as if we doubted him.  No, no no.'
+
+'No, no, no,' returned the other, nodding his head gravely.  'Very
+right, my dear brother, very right.'
+
+'He will tell me I'm wrong, if I make a mistake,' said Nicholas's
+friend.  'But whether I do or not, you'll be very much affected,
+brother Ned, remembering the time when we were two friendless lads,
+and earned our first shilling in this great city.'
+
+The twins pressed each other's hands in silence; and in his own
+homely manner, brother Charles related the particulars he had heard
+from Nicholas.  The conversation which ensued was a long one, and
+when it was over, a secret conference of almost equal duration took
+place between brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater in another room.  It
+is no disparagement to Nicholas to say, that before he had been
+closeted with the two brothers ten minutes, he could only wave his
+hand at every fresh expression of kindness and sympathy, and sob
+like a little child.
+
+At length brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater came back together, when
+Tim instantly walked up to Nicholas and whispered in his ear in a
+very brief sentence (for Tim was ordinarily a man of few words),
+that he had taken down the address in the Strand, and would call
+upon him that evening, at eight.  Having done which, Tim wiped his
+spectacles and put them on, preparatory to hearing what more the
+brothers Cheeryble had got to say.
+
+'Tim,' said brother Charles, 'you understand that we have an
+intention of taking this young gentleman into the counting-house?'
+
+Brother Ned remarked that Tim was aware of that intention, and quite
+approved of it; and Tim having nodded, and said he did, drew himself
+up and looked particularly fat, and very important.  After which,
+there was a profound silence.
+
+'I'm not coming an hour later in the morning, you know,' said Tim,
+breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute.  'I'm not going
+to sleep in the fresh air; no, nor I'm not going into the country
+either.  A pretty thing at this time of day, certainly.  Pho!'
+
+'Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater,' said brother Charles,
+looking at him without the faintest spark of anger, and with a
+countenance radiant with attachment to the old clerk.  'Damn your
+obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater, what do you mean, sir?'
+
+'It's forty-four year,' said Tim, making a calculation in the air
+with his pen, and drawing an imaginary line before he cast it up,
+'forty-four year, next May, since I first kept the books of
+Cheeryble, Brothers.  I've opened the safe every morning all that
+time (Sundays excepted) as the clock struck nine, and gone over the
+house every night at half-past ten (except on Foreign Post nights,
+and then twenty minutes before twelve) to see the doors fastened,
+and the fires out.  I've never slept out of the back-attic one
+single night.  There's the same mignonette box in the middle of the
+window, and the same four flower-pots, two on each side, that I
+brought with me when I first came.  There an't--I've said it again
+and again, and I'll maintain it--there an't such a square as this in
+the world.  I KNOW there an't,' said Tim, with sudden energy, and
+looking sternly about him.  'Not one.  For business or pleasure, in
+summer-time or winter--I don't care which--there's nothing like it.
+There's not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway.
+There's not such a view in England as the view out of my window;
+I've seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know
+something about it.  I have slept in that room,' added Tim, sinking
+his voice a little, 'for four-and-forty year; and if it wasn't
+inconvenient, and didn't interfere with business, I should request
+leave to die there.'
+
+'Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?' roared
+the twins by one impulse, and blowing their old noses violently.
+
+'That's what I've got to say, Mr Edwin and Mr Charles,' said Tim,
+squaring his shoulders again.  'This isn't the first time you've
+talked about superannuating me; but, if you please, we'll make it
+the last, and drop the subject for evermore.'
+
+With these words, Tim Linkinwater stalked out, and shut himself up
+in his glass case, with the air of a man who had had his say, and
+was thoroughly resolved not to be put down.
+
+The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times
+without speaking.
+
+'He must be done something with, brother Ned,' said the other,
+warmly; 'we must disregard his old scruples; they can't be
+tolerated, or borne.  He must be made a partner, brother Ned; and if
+he won't submit to it peaceably, we must have recourse to violence.'
+
+'Quite right,' replied brother Ned, nodding his head as a man
+thoroughly determined; 'quite right, my dear brother.  If he won't
+listen to reason, we must do it against his will, and show him that
+we are determined to exert our authority.  We must quarrel with him,
+brother Charles.'
+
+'We must.  We certainly must have a quarrel with Tim Linkinwater,'
+said the other.  'But in the meantime, my dear brother, we are
+keeping our young friend; and the poor lady and her daughter will be
+anxious for his return.  So let us say goodbye for the present, and
+--there, there--take care of that box, my dear sir--and--no, no, not
+a word now; but be careful of the crossings and--'
+
+And with any disjointed and unconnected words which would prevent
+Nicholas from pouring forth his thanks, the brothers hurried him
+out: shaking hands with him all the way, and affecting very
+unsuccessfully--they were poor hands at deception!--to be wholly
+unconscious of the feelings that completely mastered him.
+
+Nicholas's heart was too full to allow of his turning into the
+street until he had recovered some composure.  When he at last
+glided out of the dark doorway corner in which he had been compelled
+to halt, he caught a glimpse of the twins stealthily peeping in at
+one corner of the glass case, evidently undecided whether they
+should follow up their late attack without delay, or for the present
+postpone laying further siege to the inflexible Tim Linkinwater.
+
+To recount all the delight and wonder which the circumstances just
+detailed awakened at Miss La Creevy's, and all the things that were
+done, said, thought, expected, hoped, and prophesied in consequence,
+is beside the present course and purpose of these adventures.  It is
+sufficient to state, in brief, that Mr Timothy Linkinwater arrived,
+punctual to his appointment; that, oddity as he was, and jealous, as
+he was bound to be, of the proper exercise of his employers' most
+comprehensive liberality, he reported strongly and warmly in favour
+of Nicholas; and that, next day, he was appointed to the vacant
+stool in the counting-house of Cheeryble, Brothers, with a present
+salary of one hundred and twenty pounds a year.
+
+'And I think, my dear brother,' said Nicholas's first friend, 'that
+if we were to let them that little cottage at Bow which is empty, at
+something under the usual rent, now?  Eh, brother Ned?'
+
+'For nothing at all,' said brother Ned.  'We are rich, and should be
+ashamed to touch the rent under such circumstances as these.  Where
+is Tim Linkinwater?--for nothing at all, my dear brother, for
+nothing at all.'
+
+'Perhaps it would be better to say something, brother Ned,'
+suggested the other, mildly; 'it would help to preserve habits of
+frugality, you know, and remove any painful sense of overwhelming
+obligations.  We might say fifteen pound, or twenty pound, and if it
+was punctually paid, make it up to them in some other way.  And I
+might secretly advance a small loan towards a little furniture, and
+you might secretly advance another small loan, brother Ned; and if
+we find them doing well--as we shall; there's no fear, no fear--we
+can change the loans into gifts.  Carefully, brother Ned, and by
+degrees, and without pressing upon them too much; what do you say
+now, brother?'
+
+Brother Ned gave his hand upon it, and not only said it should be
+done, but had it done too; and, in one short week, Nicholas took
+possession of the stool, and Mrs Nickleby and Kate took possession
+of the house, and all was hope, bustle, and light-heartedness.
+
+There surely never was such a week of discoveries and surprises as
+the first week of that cottage.  Every night when Nicholas came
+home, something new had been found out.  One day it was a grapevine,
+and another day it was a boiler, and another day it was the key of
+the front-parlour closet at the bottom of the water-butt, and so on
+through a hundred items.  Then, this room was embellished with a
+muslin curtain, and that room was rendered quite elegant by a
+window-blind, and such improvements were made, as no one would have
+supposed possible.  Then there was Miss La Creevy, who had come out
+in the omnibus to stop a day or two and help, and who was
+perpetually losing a very small brown-paper parcel of tin tacks and
+a very large hammer, and running about with her sleeves tucked up at
+the wrists, and falling off pairs of steps and hurting herself very
+much--and Mrs Nickleby, who talked incessantly, and did something
+now and then, but not often--and Kate, who busied herself
+noiselessly everywhere, and was pleased with everything--and Smike,
+who made the garden a perfect wonder to look upon--and Nicholas, who
+helped and encouraged them every one--all the peace and cheerfulness
+of home restored, with such new zest imparted to every frugal
+pleasure, and such delight to every hour of meeting, as misfortune
+and separation alone could give!
+
+In short, the poor Nicklebys were social and happy; while the rich
+Nickleby was alone and miserable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+Private and confidential; relating to Family Matters.  Showing how
+Mr Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and how Mrs Kenwigs was as
+well as could be expected
+
+
+It might have been seven o'clock in the evening, and it was growing
+dark in the narrow streets near Golden Square, when Mr Kenwigs sent
+out for a pair of the cheapest white kid gloves--those at fourteen-
+pence--and selecting the strongest, which happened to be the right-
+hand one, walked downstairs with an air of pomp and much excitement,
+and proceeded to muffle the knob of the street-door knocker therein.
+Having executed this task with great nicety, Mr Kenwigs pulled the
+door to, after him, and just stepped across the road to try the
+effect from the opposite side of the street.  Satisfied that nothing
+could possibly look better in its way, Mr Kenwigs then stepped back
+again, and calling through the keyhole to Morleena to open the door,
+vanished into the house, and was seen no longer.
+
+Now, considered as an abstract circumstance, there was no more
+obvious cause or reason why Mr Kenwigs should take the trouble of
+muffling this particular knocker, than there would have been for his
+muffling the knocker of any nobleman or gentleman resident ten miles
+off; because, for the greater convenience of the numerous lodgers,
+the street-door always stood wide open, and the knocker was never
+used at all.  The first floor, the second floor, and the third
+floor, had each a bell of its own.  As to the attics, no one ever
+called on them; if anybody wanted the parlours, they were close at
+hand, and all he had to do was to walk straight into them; while the
+kitchen had a separate entrance down the area steps.  As a question
+of mere necessity and usefulness, therefore, this muffling of the
+knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible.
+
+But knockers may be muffled for other purposes than those of mere
+utilitarianism, as, in the present instance, was clearly shown.
+There are certain polite forms and ceremonies which must be observed
+in civilised life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism.
+No genteel lady was ever yet confined--indeed, no genteel
+confinement can possibly take place--without the accompanying symbol
+of a muffled knocker.  Mrs Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to
+gentility; Mrs Kenwigs was confined.  And, therefore, Mr Kenwigs
+tied up the silent knocker on the premises in a white kid glove.
+
+'I'm not quite certain neither,' said Mr Kenwigs, arranging his
+shirt-collar, and walking slowly upstairs, 'whether, as it's a boy,
+I won't have it in the papers.'
+
+Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it
+was likely to create in the neighbourhood, Mr Kenwigs betook himself
+to the sitting-room, where various extremely diminutive articles of
+clothing were airing on a horse before the fire, and Mr Lumbey, the
+doctor, was dandling the baby--that is, the old baby--not the new
+one.
+
+'It's a fine boy, Mr Kenwigs,' said Mr Lumbey, the doctor.
+
+'You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?' returned Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'It's the finest boy I ever saw in all my life,' said the doctor.
+'I never saw such a baby.'
+
+It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete
+answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the
+human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one
+than the last.
+
+'I ne--ver saw such a baby,' said Mr Lumbey, the doctor.
+
+'Morleena was a fine baby,' remarked Mr Kenwigs; as if this were
+rather an attack, by implication, upon the family.
+
+'They were all fine babies,' said Mr Lumbey.  And Mr Lumbey went on
+nursing the baby with a thoughtful look.  Whether he was considering
+under what head he could best charge the nursing in the bill, was
+best known to himself.
+
+During this short conversation, Miss Morleena, as the eldest of the
+family, and natural representative of her mother during her
+indisposition, had been hustling and slapping the three younger Miss
+Kenwigses, without intermission; which considerate and affectionate
+conduct brought tears into the eyes of Mr Kenwigs, and caused him to
+declare that, in understanding and behaviour, that child was a
+woman.
+
+'She will be a treasure to the man she marries, sir,' said Mr
+Kenwigs, half aside; 'I think she'll marry above her station, Mr
+Lumbey.'
+
+'I shouldn't wonder at all,' replied the doctor.
+
+'You never see her dance, sir, did you?' asked Mr Kenwigs.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+'Ay!' said Mr Kenwigs, as though he pitied him from his heart, 'then
+you don't know what she's capable of.'
+
+All this time there had been a great whisking in and out of the
+other room; the door had been opened and shut very softly about
+twenty times a minute (for it was necessary to keep Mrs Kenwigs
+quiet); and the baby had been exhibited to a score or two of
+deputations from a select body of female friends, who had assembled
+in the passage, and about the street-door, to discuss the event in
+all its bearings.  Indeed, the excitement extended itself over the
+whole street, and groups of ladies might be seen standing at the
+doors, (some in the interesting condition in which Mrs Kenwigs had
+last appeared in public,) relating their experiences of similar
+occurrences.  Some few acquired great credit from having prophesied,
+the day before yesterday, exactly when it would come to pass;
+others, again, related, how that they guessed what it was, directly
+they saw Mr Kenwigs turn pale and run up the street as hard as ever
+he could go.  Some said one thing, and some another; but all talked
+together, and all agreed upon two points: first, that it was very
+meritorious and highly praiseworthy in Mrs Kenwigs to do as she had
+done: and secondly, that there never was such a skilful and
+scientific doctor as that Dr Lumbey.
+
+In the midst of this general hubbub, Dr Lumbey sat in the first-
+floor front, as before related, nursing the deposed baby, and
+talking to Mr Kenwigs.  He was a stout bluff-looking gentleman, with
+no shirt-collar to speak of, and a beard that had been growing since
+yesterday morning; for Dr Lumbey was popular, and the neighbourhood
+was prolific; and there had been no less than three other knockers
+muffled, one after the other within the last forty-eight hours.
+
+'Well, Mr Kenwigs,' said Dr Lumbey, 'this makes six.  You'll have a
+fine family in time, sir.'
+
+'I think six is almost enough, sir,' returned Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'Pooh! pooh!' said the doctor.  'Nonsense! not half enough.'
+
+With this, the doctor laughed; but he didn't laugh half as much as a
+married friend of Mrs Kenwigs's, who had just come in from the sick
+chamber to report progress, and take a small sip of brandy-and-
+water: and who seemed to consider it one of the best jokes ever
+launched upon society.
+
+'They're not altogether dependent upon good fortune, neither,' said
+Mr Kenwigs, taking his second daughter on his knee; 'they have
+expectations.'
+
+'Oh, indeed!' said Mr Lumbey, the doctor.
+
+'And very good ones too, I believe, haven't they?' asked the married
+lady.
+
+'Why, ma'am,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'it's not exactly for me to say what
+they may be, or what they may not be.  It's not for me to boast of
+any family with which I have the honour to be connected; at the same
+time, Mrs Kenwigs's is--I should say,' said Mr Kenwigs, abruptly,
+and raising his voice as he spoke, 'that my children might come into
+a matter of a hundred pound apiece, perhaps.  Perhaps more, but
+certainly that.'
+
+'And a very pretty little fortune,' said the married lady.
+
+'There are some relations of Mrs Kenwigs's,' said Mr Kenwigs, taking
+a pinch of snuff from the doctor's box, and then sneezing very hard,
+for he wasn't used to it, 'that might leave their hundred pound
+apiece to ten people, and yet not go begging when they had done it.'
+
+'Ah! I know who you mean,' observed the married lady, nodding her
+head.
+
+'I made mention of no names, and I wish to make mention of no
+names,' said Mr Kenwigs, with a portentous look.  'Many of my
+friends have met a relation of Mrs Kenwigs's in this very room, as
+would do honour to any company; that's all.'
+
+'I've met him,' said the married lady, with a glance towards Dr
+Lumbey.
+
+'It's naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a father, to see
+such a man as that, a kissing and taking notice of my children,'
+pursued Mr Kenwigs.  'It's naterally very gratifying to my feelings
+as a man, to know that man.  It will be naterally very gratifying to
+my feelings as a husband, to make that man acquainted with this
+ewent.'
+
+Having delivered his sentiments in this form of words, Mr Kenwigs
+arranged his second daughter's flaxen tail, and bade her be a good
+girl and mind what her sister, Morleena, said.
+
+'That girl grows more like her mother every day,' said Mr Lumbey,
+suddenly stricken with an enthusiastic admiration of Morleena.
+
+'There!' rejoined the married lady.  'What I always say; what I
+always did say!  She's the very picter of her.'  Having thus directed
+the general attention to the young lady in question, the married
+lady embraced the opportunity of taking another sip of the brandy-
+and-water--and a pretty long sip too.
+
+'Yes! there is a likeness,' said Mr Kenwigs, after some reflection.
+'But such a woman as Mrs Kenwigs was, afore she was married!  Good
+gracious, such a woman!'
+
+Mr Lumbey shook his head with great solemnity, as though to imply
+that he supposed she must have been rather a dazzler.
+
+'Talk of fairies!' cried Mr Kenwigs 'I never see anybody so light to
+be alive, never.  Such manners too; so playful, and yet so sewerely
+proper!  As for her figure!  It isn't generally known,' said Mr
+Kenwigs, dropping his voice; 'but her figure was such, at that time,
+that the sign of the Britannia, over in the Holloway Road, was
+painted from it!'
+
+'But only see what it is now,' urged the married lady.  'Does SHE
+look like the mother of six?'
+
+'Quite ridiculous,' cried the doctor.
+
+'She looks a deal more like her own daughter,' said the married
+lady.
+
+'So she does,' assented Mr Lumbey.  'A great deal more.'
+
+Mr Kenwigs was about to make some further observations, most
+probably in confirmation of this opinion, when another married lady,
+who had looked in to keep up Mrs Kenwigs's spirits, and help to
+clear off anything in the eating and drinking way that might be
+going about, put in her head to announce that she had just been down
+to answer the bell, and that there was a gentleman at the door who
+wanted to see Mr Kenwigs 'most particular.'
+
+Shadowy visions of his distinguished relation flitted through the
+brain of Mr Kenwigs, as this message was delivered; and under their
+influence, he dispatched Morleena to show the gentleman up
+straightway.
+
+'Why, I do declare,' said Mr Kenwigs, standing opposite the door so
+as to get the earliest glimpse of the visitor, as he came upstairs,
+'it's Mr Johnson!  How do you find yourself, sir?'
+
+Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old pupils all round, intrusted a
+large parcel of toys to the guardianship of Morleena, bowed to the
+doctor and the married ladies, and inquired after Mrs Kenwigs in a
+tone of interest, which went to the very heart and soul of the
+nurse, who had come in to warm some mysterious compound, in a little
+saucepan over the fire.
+
+'I ought to make a hundred apologies to you for calling at such a
+season,' said Nicholas, 'but I was not aware of it until I had rung
+the bell, and my time is so fully occupied now, that I feared it
+might be some days before I could possibly come again.'
+
+'No time like the present, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs.  'The sitiwation
+of Mrs Kenwigs, sir, is no obstacle to a little conversation between
+you and me, I hope?'
+
+'You are very good,' said Nicholas.
+
+At this juncture, proclamation was made by another married lady,
+that the baby had begun to eat like anything; whereupon the two
+married ladies, already mentioned, rushed tumultuously into the
+bedroom to behold him in the act.
+
+'The fact is,' resumed Nicholas, 'that before I left the country,
+where I have been for some time past, I undertook to deliver a
+message to you.'
+
+'Ay, ay?' said Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'And I have been,' added Nicholas, 'already in town for some days,
+without having had an opportunity of doing so.'
+
+'It's no matter, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs.  'I dare say it's none the
+worse for keeping cold.  Message from the country!' said Mr Kenwigs,
+ruminating; 'that's curious.  I don't know anybody in the country.'
+
+'Miss Petowker,' suggested Nicholas.
+
+'Oh! from her, is it?' said Mr Kenwigs.  'Oh dear, yes.  Ah! Mrs
+Kenwigs will be glad to hear from her.  Henrietta Petowker, eh?  How
+odd things come about, now!  That you should have met her in the
+country!  Well!'
+
+Hearing this mention of their old friend's name, the four Miss
+Kenwigses gathered round Nicholas, open eyed and mouthed, to hear
+more.  Mr Kenwigs looked a little curious too, but quite comfortable
+and unsuspecting.
+
+'The message relates to family matters,' said Nicholas, hesitating.
+
+'Oh, never mind,' said Kenwigs, glancing at Mr Lumbey, who, having
+rashly taken charge of little Lillyvick, found nobody disposed to
+relieve him of his precious burden.  'All friends here.'
+
+Nicholas hemmed once or twice, and seemed to have some difficulty in
+proceeding.
+
+'At Portsmouth, Henrietta Petowker is,' observed Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'Yes,' said Nicholas, 'Mr Lillyvick is there.'
+
+Mr Kenwigs turned pale, but he recovered, and said, THAT was an odd
+coincidence also.
+
+'The message is from him,' said Nicholas.
+
+Mr Kenwigs appeared to revive.  He knew that his niece was in a
+delicate state, and had, no doubt, sent word that they were to
+forward full particulars.  Yes.  That was very kind of him; so like
+him too!
+
+'He desired me to give his kindest love,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Very much obliged to him, I'm sure.  Your great-uncle, Lillyvick,
+my dears!' interposed Mr Kenwigs, condescendingly explaining it to
+the children.
+
+'His kindest love,' resumed Nicholas; 'and to say that he had no
+time to write, but that he was married to Miss Petowker.'
+
+Mr Kenwigs started from his seat with a petrified stare, caught his
+second daughter by her flaxen tail, and covered his face with his
+pocket-handkerchief.  Morleena fell, all stiff and rigid, into the
+baby's chair, as she had seen her mother fall when she fainted away,
+and the two remaining little Kenwigses shrieked in affright.
+
+'My children, my defrauded, swindled infants!' cried Mr Kenwigs,
+pulling so hard, in his vehemence, at the flaxen tail of his second
+daughter, that he lifted her up on tiptoe, and kept her, for some
+seconds, in that attitude.  'Villain, ass, traitor!'
+
+'Drat the man!' cried the nurse, looking angrily around.  'What does
+he mean by making that noise here?'
+
+'Silence, woman!' said Mr Kenwigs, fiercely.
+
+'I won't be silent,' returned the nurse.  'Be silent yourself, you
+wretch.  Have you no regard for your baby?'
+
+'No!' returned Mr Kenwigs.
+
+'More shame for you,' retorted the nurse.  'Ugh! you unnatural
+monster.'
+
+'Let him die,' cried Mr Kenwigs, in the torrent of his wrath.  'Let
+him die!  He has no expectations, no property to come into.  We want
+no babies here,' said Mr Kenwigs recklessly.  'Take 'em away, take
+'em away to the Fondling!'
+
+With these awful remarks, Mr Kenwigs sat himself down in a chair,
+and defied the nurse, who made the best of her way into the
+adjoining room, and returned with a stream of matrons: declaring
+that Mr Kenwigs had spoken blasphemy against his family, and must be
+raving mad.
+
+Appearances were certainly not in Mr Kenwigs's favour, for the
+exertion of speaking with so much vehemence, and yet in such a tone
+as should prevent his lamentations reaching the ears of Mrs Kenwigs,
+had made him very black in the face; besides which, the excitement
+of the occasion, and an unwonted indulgence in various strong
+cordials to celebrate it, had swollen and dilated his features to a
+most unusual extent.  But, Nicholas and the doctor--who had been
+passive at first, doubting very much whether Mr Kenwigs could be in
+earnest--interfering to explain the immediate cause of his
+condition, the indignation of the matrons was changed to pity, and
+they implored him, with much feeling, to go quietly to bed.
+
+'The attention,' said Mr Kenwigs, looking around with a plaintive
+air, 'the attention that I've shown to that man!  The hyseters he
+has eat, and the pints of ale he has drank, in this house--!'
+
+'It's very trying, and very hard to bear, we know,' said one of the
+married ladies; 'but think of your dear darling wife.'
+
+'Oh yes, and what she's been a undergoing of, only this day,'
+cried a great many voices.  'There's a good man, do.'
+
+'The presents that have been made to him,' said Mr Kenwigs,
+reverting to his calamity, 'the pipes, the snuff-boxes--a pair of
+india-rubber goloshes, that cost six-and-six--'
+
+'Ah! it won't bear thinking of, indeed,' cried the matrons
+generally; 'but it'll all come home to him, never fear.'
+
+Mr Kenwigs looked darkly upon the ladies, as if he would prefer its
+all coming home to HIM, as there was nothing to be got by it; but he
+said nothing, and resting his head upon his hand, subsided into a
+kind of doze.
+
+Then, the matrons again expatiated on the expediency of taking the
+good gentleman to bed; observing that he would be better tomorrow,
+and that they knew what was the wear and tear of some men's minds
+when their wives were taken as Mrs Kenwigs had been that day, and
+that it did him great credit, and there was nothing to be ashamed of
+in it; far from it; they liked to see it, they did, for it showed a
+good heart.  And one lady observed, as a case bearing upon the
+present, that her husband was often quite light-headed from anxiety
+on similar occasions, and that once, when her little Johnny was
+born, it was nearly a week before he came to himself again, during
+the whole of which time he did nothing but cry 'Is it a boy, is it a
+boy?' in a manner which went to the hearts of all his hearers.
+
+At length, Morleena (who quite forgot she had fainted, when she
+found she was not noticed) announced that a chamber was ready for
+her afflicted parent; and Mr Kenwigs, having partially smothered his
+four daughters in the closeness of his embrace, accepted the
+doctor's arm on one side, and the support of Nicholas on the other,
+and was conducted upstairs to a bedroom which been secured for the
+occasion.
+
+Having seen him sound asleep, and heard him snore most
+satisfactorily, and having further presided over the distribution of
+the toys, to the perfect contentment of all the little Kenwigses,
+Nicholas took his leave.  The matrons dropped off one by one, with
+the exception of six or eight particular friends, who had determined
+to stop all night; the lights in the houses gradually disappeared;
+the last bulletin was issued that Mrs Kenwigs was as well as could
+be expected; and the whole family were left to their repose.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 37
+
+Nicholas finds further Favour in the Eyes of the brothers Cheeryble
+and Mr Timothy Linkinwater.  The brothers give a Banquet on a great
+Annual Occasion.  Nicholas, on returning Home from it, receives a
+mysterious and important Disclosure from the Lips of Mrs Nickleby
+
+
+The square in which the counting-house of the brothers Cheeryble was
+situated, although it might not wholly realise the very sanguine
+expectations which a stranger would be disposed to form on hearing
+the fervent encomiums bestowed upon it by Tim Linkinwater, was,
+nevertheless, a sufficiently desirable nook in the heart of a busy
+town like London, and one which occupied a high place in the
+affectionate remembrances of several grave persons domiciled in the
+neighbourhood, whose recollections, however, dated from a much more
+recent period, and whose attachment to the spot was far less
+absorbing, than were the recollections and attachment of the
+enthusiastic Tim.
+
+And let not those whose eyes have been accustomed to the
+aristocratic gravity of Grosvenor Square and Hanover Square, the
+dowager barrenness and frigidity of Fitzroy Square, or the gravel
+walks and garden seats of the Squares of Russell and Euston, suppose
+that the affections of Tim Linkinwater, or the inferior lovers of
+this particular locality, had been awakened and kept alive by any
+refreshing associations with leaves, however dingy, or grass,
+however bare and thin.  The city square has no enclosure, save the
+lamp-post in the middle: and no grass, but the weeds which spring up
+round its base.  It is a quiet, little-frequented, retired spot,
+favourable to melancholy and contemplation, and appointments of
+long-waiting; and up and down its every side the Appointed saunters
+idly by the hour together wakening the echoes with the monotonous
+sound of his footsteps on the smooth worn stones, and counting,
+first the windows, and then the very bricks of the tall silent
+houses that hem him round about.  In winter-time, the snow will
+linger there, long after it has melted from the busy streets and
+highways.  The summer's sun holds it in some respect, and while he
+darts his cheerful rays sparingly into the square, keeps his fiery
+heat and glare for noisier and less-imposing precincts.  It is so
+quiet, that you can almost hear the ticking of your own watch when
+you stop to cool in its refreshing atmosphere.  There is a distant
+hum--of coaches, not of insects--but no other sound disturbs the
+stillness of the square.  The ticket porter leans idly against the
+post at the corner: comfortably warm, but not hot, although the day
+is broiling.  His white apron flaps languidly in the air, his head
+gradually droops upon his breast, he takes very long winks with both
+eyes at once; even he is unable to withstand the soporific influence
+of the place, and is gradually falling asleep.  But now, he starts
+into full wakefulness, recoils a step or two, and gazes out before
+him with eager wildness in his eye.  Is it a job, or a boy at
+marbles?  Does he see a ghost, or hear an organ?  No; sight more
+unwonted still--there is a butterfly in the square--a real, live
+butterfly! astray from flowers and sweets, and fluttering among the
+iron heads of the dusty area railings.
+
+But if there were not many matters immediately without the doors of
+Cheeryble Brothers, to engage the attention or distract the thoughts
+of the young clerk, there were not a few within, to interest and
+amuse him.  There was scarcely an object in the place, animate or
+inanimate, which did not partake in some degree of the scrupulous
+method and punctuality of Mr Timothy Linkinwater.  Punctual as the
+counting-house dial, which he maintained to be the best time-keeper
+in London next after the clock of some old, hidden, unknown church
+hard by, (for Tim held the fabled goodness of that at the Horse
+Guards to be a pleasant fiction, invented by jealous West-enders,)
+the old clerk performed the minutest actions of the day, and
+arranged the minutest articles in the little room, in a precise and
+regular order, which could not have been exceeded if it had actually
+been a real glass case, fitted with the choicest curiosities.
+Paper, pens, ink, ruler, sealing-wax, wafers, pounce-box, string-
+box, fire-box, Tim's hat, Tim's scrupulously-folded gloves, Tim's
+other coat--looking precisely like a back view of himself as it hung
+against the wall--all had their accustomed inches of space.  Except
+the clock, there was not such an accurate and unimpeachable
+instrument in existence as the little thermometer which hung behind
+the door.  There was not a bird of such methodical and business-like
+habits in all the world, as the blind blackbird, who dreamed and
+dozed away his days in a large snug cage, and had lost his voice,
+from old age, years before Tim first bought him.  There was not such
+an eventful story in the whole range of anecdote, as Tim could tell
+concerning the acquisition of that very bird; how, compassionating
+his starved and suffering condition, he had purchased him, with the
+view of humanely terminating his wretched life; how he determined to
+wait three days and see whether the bird revived; how, before half
+the time was out, the bird did revive; and how he went on reviving
+and picking up his appetite and good looks until he gradually became
+what--'what you see him now, sir,'--Tim would say, glancing proudly
+at the cage.  And with that, Tim would utter a melodious chirrup,
+and cry 'Dick;' and Dick, who, for any sign of life he had
+previously given, might have been a wooden or stuffed representation
+of a blackbird indifferently executed, would come to the side of the
+cage in three small jumps, and, thrusting his bill between the bars,
+turn his sightless head towards his old master--and at that moment
+it would be very difficult to determine which of the two was the
+happier, the bird or Tim Linkinwater.
+
+Nor was this all.  Everything gave back, besides, some reflection of
+the kindly spirit of the brothers.  The warehousemen and porters
+were such sturdy, jolly fellows, that it was a treat to see them.
+Among the shipping announcements and steam-packet list's which
+decorated the counting-house wall, were designs for almshouses,
+statements of charities, and plans for new hospitals.  A blunderbuss
+and two swords hung above the chimney-piece, for the terror of evil-
+doers, but the blunderbuss was rusty and shattered, and the swords
+were broken and edgeless.  Elsewhere, their open display in such a
+condition would have realised a smile; but, there, it seemed as
+though even violent and offensive weapons partook of the reigning
+influence, and became emblems of mercy and forbearance.
+
+Such thoughts as these occurred to Nicholas very strongly, on the
+morning when he first took possession of the vacant stool, and
+looked about him, more freely and at ease, than he had before
+enjoyed an opportunity of doing.  Perhaps they encouraged and
+stimulated him to exertion, for, during the next two weeks, all his
+spare hours, late at night and early in the morning, were
+incessantly devoted to acquiring the mysteries of book-keeping and
+some other forms of mercantile account.  To these, he applied
+himself with such steadiness and perseverance that, although he
+brought no greater amount of previous knowledge to the subject than
+certain dim recollections of two or three very long sums entered
+into a ciphering-book at school, and relieved for parental
+inspection by the effigy of a fat swan tastefully flourished by the
+writing-master's own hand, he found himself, at the end of a
+fortnight, in a condition to report his proficiency to Mr
+Linkinwater, and to claim his promise that he, Nicholas Nickleby,
+should now be allowed to assist him in his graver labours.
+
+It was a sight to behold Tim Linkinwater slowly bring out a massive
+ledger and day-book, and, after turning them over and over, and
+affectionately dusting their backs and sides, open the leaves here
+and there, and cast his eyes, half mournfully, half proudly, upon
+the fair and unblotted entries.
+
+'Four-and-forty year, next May!' said Tim.  'Many new ledgers since
+then.  Four-and-forty year!'
+
+Tim closed the book again.
+
+'Come, come,' said Nicholas, 'I am all impatience to begin.'
+
+Tim Linkinwater shook his head with an air of mild reproof.  Mr
+Nickleby was not sufficiently impressed with the deep and awful
+nature of his undertaking.  Suppose there should be any mistake--any
+scratching out!
+
+Young men are adventurous.  It is extraordinary what they will rush
+upon, sometimes.  Without even taking the precaution of sitting
+himself down upon his stool, but standing leisurely at the desk, and
+with a smile upon his face--actually a smile--there was no mistake
+about it; Mr Linkinwater often mentioned it afterwards--Nicholas
+dipped his pen into the inkstand before him, and plunged into the
+books of Cheeryble Brothers!
+
+Tim Linkinwater turned pale, and tilting up his stool on the two
+legs nearest Nicholas, looked over his shoulder in breathless
+anxiety.  Brother Charles and brother Ned entered the counting-house
+together; but Tim Linkinwater, without looking round, impatiently
+waved his hand as a caution that profound silence must be observed,
+and followed the nib of the inexperienced pen with strained and
+eager eyes.
+
+The brothers looked on with smiling faces, but Tim Linkinwater
+smiled not, nor moved for some minutes.  At length, he drew a long
+slow breath, and still maintaining his position on the tilted stool,
+glanced at brother Charles, secretly pointed with the feather of his
+pen towards Nicholas, and nodded his head in a grave and resolute
+manner, plainly signifying 'He'll do.'
+
+Brother Charles nodded again, and exchanged a laughing look with
+brother Ned; but, just then, Nicholas stopped to refer to some other
+page, and Tim Linkinwater, unable to contain his satisfaction any
+longer, descended from his stool, and caught him rapturously by the
+hand.
+
+'He has done it!' said Tim, looking round at his employers and
+shaking his head triumphantly.  'His capital B's and D's are exactly
+like mine; he dots all his small i's and crosses every t as he
+writes it.  There an't such a young man as this in all London,' said
+Tim, clapping Nicholas on the back; 'not one.  Don't tell me!  The
+city can't produce his equal.  I challenge the city to do it!'
+
+With this casting down of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck the
+desk such a blow with his clenched fist, that the old blackbird
+tumbled off his perch with the start it gave him, and actually
+uttered a feeble croak, in the extremity of his astonishment.
+
+'Well said, Tim--well said, Tim Linkinwater!' cried brother Charles,
+scarcely less pleased than Tim himself, and clapping his hands
+gently as he spoke.  'I knew our young friend would take great
+pains, and I was quite certain he would succeed, in no time.  Didn't
+I say so, brother Ned?'
+
+'You did, my dear brother; certainly, my dear brother, you said so,
+and you were quite right,' replied Ned.  'Quite right.  Tim
+Linkinwater is excited, but he is justly excited, properly excited.
+Tim is a fine fellow.  Tim Linkinwater, sir--you're a fine fellow.'
+
+'Here's a pleasant thing to think of!' said Tim, wholly regardless
+of this address to himself, and raising his spectacles from the
+ledger to the brothers.  'Here's a pleasant thing.  Do you suppose I
+haven't often thought of what would become of these books when I was
+gone?  Do you suppose I haven't often thought that things might go
+on irregular and untidy here, after I was taken away?  But now,'
+said Tim, extending his forefinger towards Nicholas, 'now, when I've
+shown him a little more, I'm satisfied.  The business will go on,
+when I'm dead, as well as it did when I was alive--just the same--
+and I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that there never were
+such books--never were such books!  No, nor never will be such
+books--as the books of Cheeryble Brothers.'
+
+Having thus expressed his sentiments, Mr Linkinwater gave vent to a
+short laugh, indicative of defiance to the cities of London and
+Westminster, and, turning again to his desk, quietly carried
+seventy-six from the last column he had added up, and went on with
+his work.
+
+'Tim Linkinwater, sir,' said brother Charles; 'give me your hand,
+sir.  This is your birthday.  How dare you talk about anything else
+till you have been wished many happy returns of the day, Tim
+Linkinwater?  God bless you, Tim!  God bless you!'
+
+'My dear brother,' said the other, seizing Tim's disengaged fist,
+'Tim Linkinwater looks ten years younger than he did on his last
+birthday.'
+
+'Brother Ned, my dear boy,' returned the other old fellow, 'I
+believe that Tim Linkinwater was born a hundred and fifty years old,
+and is gradually coming down to five-and-twenty; for he's younger
+every birthday than he was the year before.'
+
+'So he is, brother Charles, so he is,' replied brother Ned.
+'There's not a doubt about it.'
+
+'Remember, Tim,' said brother Charles, 'that we dine at half-past
+five today instead of two o'clock; we always depart from our usual
+custom on this anniversary, as you very well know, Tim Linkinwater.
+Mr Nickleby, my dear sir, you will make one.  Tim Linkinwater, give
+me your snuff-box as a remembrance to brother Charles and myself of
+an attached and faithful rascal, and take that, in exchange, as a
+feeble mark of our respect and esteem, and don't open it until you
+go to bed, and never say another word upon the subject, or I'll kill
+the blackbird.  A dog!  He should have had a golden cage half-a-
+dozen years ago, if it would have made him or his master a bit the
+happier.  Now, brother Ned, my dear fellow, I'm ready.  At half-past
+five, remember, Mr Nickleby!  Tim Linkinwater, sir, take care of Mr
+Nickleby at half-past five.  Now, brother Ned.'
+
+Chattering away thus, according to custom, to prevent the
+possibility of any thanks or acknowledgment being expressed on the
+other side, the twins trotted off, arm-in-arm; having endowed Tim
+Linkinwater with a costly gold snuff-box, enclosing a bank note
+worth more than its value ten times told.
+
+At a quarter past five o'clock, punctual to the minute, arrived,
+according to annual usage, Tim Linkinwater's sister; and a great to-
+do there was, between Tim Linkinwater's sister and the old
+housekeeper, respecting Tim Linkinwater's sister's cap, which had
+been dispatched, per boy, from the house of the family where Tim
+Linkinwater's sister boarded, and had not yet come to hand:
+notwithstanding that it had been packed up in a bandbox, and the
+bandbox in a handkerchief, and the handkerchief tied on to the boy's
+arm; and notwithstanding, too, that the place of its consignment had
+been duly set forth, at full length, on the back of an old letter,
+and the boy enjoined, under pain of divers horrible penalties, the
+full extent of which the eye of man could not foresee, to deliver
+the same with all possible speed, and not to loiter by the way.  Tim
+Linkinwater's sister lamented; the housekeeper condoled; and both
+kept thrusting their heads out of the second-floor window to see if
+the boy was 'coming'--which would have been highly satisfactory,
+and, upon the whole, tantamount to his being come, as the distance
+to the corner was not quite five yards--when, all of a sudden, and
+when he was least expected, the messenger, carrying the bandbox with
+elaborate caution, appeared in an exactly opposite direction,
+puffing and panting for breath, and flushed with recent exercise; as
+well he might be; for he had taken the air, in the first instance,
+behind a hackney coach that went to Camberwell, and had followed two
+Punches afterwards and had seen the Stilts home to their own door.
+The cap was all safe, however--that was one comfort--and it was no
+use scolding him--that was another; so the boy went upon his way
+rejoicing, and Tim Linkinwater's sister presented herself to the
+company below-stairs, just five minutes after the half-hour had
+struck by Tim Linkinwater's own infallible clock.
+
+The company consisted of the brothers Cheeryble, Tim Linkinwater, a
+ruddy-faced white-headed friend of Tim's (who was a superannuated
+bank clerk), and Nicholas, who was presented to Tim Linkinwater's
+sister with much gravity and solemnity.  The party being now
+completed, brother Ned rang for dinner, and, dinner being shortly
+afterwards announced, led Tim Linkinwater's sister into the next
+room, where it was set forth with great preparation.  Then, brother
+Ned took the head of the table, and brother Charles the foot; and
+Tim Linkinwater's sister sat on the left hand of brother Ned, and
+Tim Linkinwater himself on his right: and an ancient butler of
+apoplectic appearance, and with very short legs, took up his
+position at the back of brother Ned's armchair, and, waving his
+right arm preparatory to taking off the covers with a flourish,
+stood bolt upright and motionless.
+
+'For these and all other blessings, brother Charles,' said Ned.
+
+'Lord, make us truly thankful, brother Ned,' said Charles.
+
+Whereupon the apoplectic butler whisked off the top of the soup
+tureen, and shot, all at once, into a state of violent activity.
+
+There was abundance of conversation, and little fear of its ever
+flagging, for the good-humour of the glorious old twins drew
+everybody out, and Tim Linkinwater's sister went off into a long and
+circumstantial account of Tim Linkinwater's infancy, immediately
+after the very first glass of champagne--taking care to premise that
+she was very much Tim's junior, and had only become acquainted with
+the facts from their being preserved and handed down in the family.
+This history concluded, brother Ned related how that, exactly
+thirty-five years ago, Tim Linkinwater was suspected to have
+received a love-letter, and how that vague information had been
+brought to the counting-house of his having been seen walking down
+Cheapside with an uncommonly handsome spinster; at which there was a
+roar of laughter, and Tim Linkinwater being charged with blushing,
+and called upon to explain, denied that the accusation was true; and
+further, that there would have been any harm in it if it had been;
+which last position occasioned the superannuated bank clerk to laugh
+tremendously, and to declare that it was the very best thing he had
+ever heard in his life, and that Tim Linkinwater might say a great
+many things before he said anything which would beat THAT.
+
+There was one little ceremony peculiar to the day, both the matter
+and manner of which made a very strong impression upon Nicholas.
+The cloth having been removed and the decanters sent round for the
+first time, a profound silence succeeded, and in the cheerful faces
+of the brothers there appeared an expression, not of absolute
+melancholy, but of quiet thoughtfulness very unusual at a festive
+table.  As Nicholas, struck by this sudden alteration, was wondering
+what it could portend, the brothers rose together, and the one at
+the top of the table leaning forward towards the other, and speaking
+in a low voice as if he were addressing him individually, said:
+
+'Brother Charles, my dear fellow, there is another association
+connected with this day which must never be forgotten, and never can
+be forgotten, by you and me.  This day, which brought into the world
+a most faithful and excellent and exemplary fellow, took from it the
+kindest and very best of parents, the very best of parents to us
+both.  I wish that she could have seen us in our prosperity, and
+shared it, and had the happiness of knowing how dearly we loved her
+in it, as we did when we were two poor boys; but that was not to be.
+My dear brother--The Memory of our Mother.'
+
+'Good Lord!' thought Nicholas, 'and there are scores of people of
+their own station, knowing all this, and twenty thousand times more,
+who wouldn't ask these men to dinner because they eat with their
+knives and never went to school!'
+
+But there was no time to moralise, for the joviality again became
+very brisk, and the decanter of port being nearly out, brother Ned
+pulled the bell, which was instantly answered by the apoplectic
+butler.
+
+'David,' said brother Ned.
+
+'Sir,' replied the butler.
+
+'A magnum of the double-diamond, David, to drink the health of Mr
+Linkinwater.'
+
+Instantly, by a feat of dexterity, which was the admiration of all
+the company, and had been, annually, for some years past, the
+apoplectic butler, bringing his left hand from behind the small of
+his back, produced the bottle with the corkscrew already inserted;
+uncorked it at a jerk; and placed the magnum and the cork before his
+master with the dignity of conscious cleverness.
+
+'Ha!' said brother Ned, first examining the cork and afterwards
+filling his glass, while the old butler looked complacently and
+amiably on, as if it were all his own property, but the company were
+quite welcome to make free with it, 'this looks well, David.'
+
+'It ought to, sir,' replied David.  'You'd be troubled to find such
+a glass of wine as is our double-diamond, and that Mr Linkinwater
+knows very well.  That was laid down when Mr Linkinwater first come:
+that wine was, gentlemen.'
+
+'Nay, David, nay,' interposed brother Charles.
+
+'I wrote the entry in the cellar-book myself, sir, if you please,'
+said David, in the tone of a man, quite confident in the strength of
+his facts.  'Mr Linkinwater had only been here twenty year, sir,
+when that pipe of double-diamond was laid down.'
+
+'David is quite right, quite right, brother Charles," said Ned: 'are
+the people here, David?'
+
+'Outside the door, sir,' replied the butler.
+
+'Show 'em in, David, show 'em in.'
+
+At this bidding, the older butler placed before his master a small
+tray of clean glasses, and opening the door admitted the jolly
+porters and warehousemen whom Nicholas had seen below.  They were
+four in all, and as they came in, bowing, and grinning, and
+blushing, the housekeeper, and cook, and housemaid, brought up the
+rear.
+
+'Seven,' said brother Ned, filling a corresponding number of glasses
+with the double-diamond, 'and David, eight.  There!  Now, you're all
+of you to drink the health of your best friend Mr Timothy
+Linkinwater, and wish him health and long life and many happy
+returns of this day, both for his own sake and that of your old
+masters, who consider him an inestimable treasure.  Tim Linkinwater,
+sir, your health.  Devil take you, Tim Linkinwater, sir, God bless
+you.'
+
+With this singular contradiction of terms, brother Ned gave Tim
+Linkinwater a slap on the back, which made him look, for the moment,
+almost as apoplectic as the butler: and tossed off the contents of
+his glass in a twinkling.
+
+The toast was scarcely drunk with all honour to Tim Linkinwater,
+when the sturdiest and jolliest subordinate elbowed himself a little
+in advance of his fellows, and exhibiting a very hot and flushed
+countenance, pulled a single lock of grey hair in the middle of his
+forehead as a respectful salute to the company, and delivered
+himself as follows--rubbing the palms of his hands very hard on a
+blue cotton handkerchief as he did so:
+
+'We're allowed to take a liberty once a year, gen'lemen, and if you
+please we'll take it now; there being no time like the present, and
+no two birds in the hand worth one in the bush, as is well known--
+leastways in a contrairy sense, which the meaning is the same.  (A
+pause--the butler unconvinced.) What we mean to say is, that there
+never was (looking at the butler)--such--(looking at the cook)
+noble--excellent--(looking everywhere and seeing nobody) free,
+generous-spirited masters as them as has treated us so handsome this
+day.  And here's thanking of 'em for all their goodness as is so
+constancy a diffusing of itself over everywhere, and wishing they
+may live long and die happy!'
+
+When the foregoing speech was over--and it might have been much more
+elegant and much less to the purpose--the whole body of subordinates
+under command of the apoplectic butler gave three soft cheers;
+which, to that gentleman's great indignation, were not very regular,
+inasmuch as the women persisted in giving an immense number of
+little shrill hurrahs among themselves, in utter disregard of the
+time.  This done, they withdrew; shortly afterwards, Tim
+Linkinwater's sister withdrew; in reasonable time after that, the
+sitting was broken up for tea and coffee, and a round game of cards.
+
+At half-past ten--late hours for the square--there appeared a little
+tray of sandwiches and a bowl of bishop, which bishop coming on the
+top of the double-diamond, and other excitements, had such an effect
+upon Tim Linkinwater, that he drew Nicholas aside, and gave him to
+understand, confidentially, that it was quite true about the
+uncommonly handsome spinster, and that she was to the full as good-
+looking as she had been described--more so, indeed--but that she was
+in too much of a hurry to change her condition, and consequently,
+while Tim was courting her and thinking of changing his, got married
+to somebody else.  'After all, I dare say it was my fault,' said
+Tim.  'I'll show you a print I have got upstairs, one of these days.
+It cost me five-and-twenty shillings.  I bought it soon after we
+were cool to each other.  Don't mention it, but it's the most
+extraordinary accidental likeness you ever saw--her very portrait,
+sir!'
+
+By this time it was past eleven o'clock; and Tim Linkinwater's
+sister declaring that she ought to have been at home a full hour
+ago, a coach was procured, into which she was handed with great
+ceremony by brother Ned, while brother Charles imparted the fullest
+directions to the coachman, and besides paying the man a shilling
+over and above his fare, in order that he might take the utmost care
+of the lady, all but choked him with a glass of spirits of uncommon
+strength, and then nearly knocked all the breath out of his body in
+his energetic endeavours to knock it in again.
+
+At length the coach rumbled off, and Tim Linkinwater's sister being
+now fairly on her way home, Nicholas and Tim Linkinwater's friend
+took their leaves together, and left old Tim and the worthy brothers
+to their repose.
+
+As Nicholas had some distance to walk, it was considerably past
+midnight by the time he reached home, where he found his mother and
+Smike sitting up to receive him.  It was long after their usual hour
+of retiring, and they had expected him, at the very latest, two
+hours ago; but the time had not hung heavily on their hands, for Mrs
+Nickleby had entertained Smike with a genealogical account of her
+family by the mother's side, comprising biographical sketches of the
+principal members, and Smike had sat wondering what it was all
+about, and whether it was learnt from a book, or said out of Mrs
+Nickleby's own head; so that they got on together very pleasantly.
+
+Nicholas could not go to bed without expatiating on the excellences
+and munificence of the brothers Cheeryble, and relating the great
+success which had attended his efforts that day.  But before he had
+said a dozen words, Mrs Nickleby, with many sly winks and nods,
+observed, that she was sure Mr Smike must be quite tired out, and
+that she positively must insist on his not sitting up a minute
+longer.
+
+'A most biddable creature he is, to be sure,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+when Smike had wished them good-night and left the room.  'I know
+you'll excuse me, Nicholas, my dear, but I don't like to do this
+before a third person; indeed, before a young man it would not be
+quite proper, though really, after all, I don't know what harm there
+is in it, except that to be sure it's not a very becoming thing,
+though some people say it is very much so, and really I don't know
+why it should not be, if it's well got up, and the borders are
+small-plaited; of course, a good deal depends upon that.'
+
+With which preface, Mrs Nickleby took her nightcap from between the
+leaves of a very large prayer-book where it had been folded up
+small, and proceeded to tie it on: talking away in her usual
+discursive manner, all the time.
+
+'People may say what they like,' observed Mrs Nickleby, 'but there's
+a great deal of comfort in a nightcap, as I'm sure you would
+confess, Nicholas my dear, if you would only have strings to yours,
+and wear it like a Christian, instead of sticking it upon the very
+top of your head like a blue-coat boy.  You needn't think it an
+unmanly or quizzical thing to be particular about your nightcap, for
+I have often heard your poor dear papa, and the Reverend Mr What's-
+his-name, who used to read prayers in that old church with the
+curious little steeple that the weathercock was blown off the night
+week before you were born,--I have often heard them say, that the
+young men at college are uncommonly particular about their
+nightcaps, and that the Oxford nightcaps are quite celebrated for
+their strength and goodness; so much so, indeed, that the young men
+never dream of going to bed without 'em, and I believe it's admitted
+on all hands that THEY know what's good, and don't coddle
+themselves.'
+
+Nicholas laughed, and entering no further into the subject of this
+lengthened harangue, reverted to the pleasant tone of the little
+birthday party.  And as Mrs Nickleby instantly became very curious
+respecting it, and made a great number of inquiries touching what
+they had had for dinner, and how it was put on table, and whether it
+was overdone or underdone, and who was there, and what 'the Mr
+Cherrybles' said, and what Nicholas said, and what the Mr Cherrybles
+said when he said that; Nicholas described the festivities at full
+length, and also the occurrences of the morning.
+
+'Late as it is,' said Nicholas, 'I am almost selfish enough to wish
+that Kate had been up to hear all this.  I was all impatience, as I
+came along, to tell her.'
+
+'Why, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby, putting her feet upon the fender,
+and drawing her chair close to it, as if settling herself for a long
+talk.  'Kate has been in bed--oh! a couple of hours--and I'm very
+glad, Nicholas my dear, that I prevailed upon her not to sit up, for
+I wished very much to have an opportunity of saying a few words to
+you.  I am naturally anxious about it, and of course it's a very
+delightful and consoling thing to have a grown-up son that one can
+put confidence in, and advise with; indeed I don't know any use
+there would be in having sons at all, unless people could put
+confidence in them.'
+
+Nicholas stopped in the middle of a sleepy yawn, as his mother began
+to speak: and looked at her with fixed attention.
+
+'There was a lady in our neighbourhood,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+'speaking of sons puts me in mind of it--a lady in our neighbourhood
+when we lived near Dawlish, I think her name was Rogers; indeed I am
+sure it was if it wasn't Murphy, which is the only doubt I have--'
+
+'Is it about her, mother, that you wished to speak to me?' said
+Nicholas quietly.
+
+'About HER!' cried Mrs Nickleby.  'Good gracious, Nicholas, my dear,
+how CAN you be so ridiculous!  But that was always the way with your
+poor dear papa,--just his way--always wandering, never able to fix
+his thoughts on any one subject for two minutes together.  I think I
+see him now!' said Mrs Nickleby, wiping her eyes, 'looking at me
+while I was talking to him about his affairs, just as if his ideas
+were in a state of perfect conglomeration!  Anybody who had come in
+upon us suddenly, would have supposed I was confusing and
+distracting him instead of making things plainer; upon my word they
+would.'
+
+'I am very sorry, mother, that I should inherit this unfortunate
+slowness of apprehension,' said Nicholas, kindly; 'but I'll do my
+best to understand you, if you'll only go straight on: indeed I
+will.'
+
+'Your poor pa!' said Mrs Nickleby, pondering.  'He never knew, till
+it was too late, what I would have had him do!'
+
+This was undoubtedly the case, inasmuch as the deceased Mr Nickleby
+had not arrived at the knowledge.  Then he died.  Neither had Mrs
+Nickleby herself; which is, in some sort, an explanation of the
+circumstance.
+
+'However,' said Mrs Nickleby, drying her tears, 'this has nothing to
+do--certainly nothing whatever to do--with the gentleman in the next
+house.'
+
+'I should suppose that the gentleman in the next house has as little
+to do with us,' returned Nicholas.
+
+'There can be no doubt,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'that he IS a gentleman,
+and has the manners of a gentleman, and the appearance of a
+gentleman, although he does wear smalls and grey worsted stockings.
+That may be eccentricity, or he may be proud of his legs.  I don't
+see why he shouldn't be.  The Prince Regent was proud of his legs,
+and so was Daniel Lambert, who was also a fat man; HE was proud of
+his legs.  So was Miss Biffin: she was--no,' added Mrs Nickleby,
+correcting, herself, 'I think she had only toes, but the principle
+is the same.'
+
+Nicholas looked on, quite amazed at the introduction of this new
+theme.  Which seemed just what Mrs Nickleby had expected him to be.
+
+'You may well be surprised, Nicholas, my dear,' she said, 'I am sure
+I was.  It came upon me like a flash of fire, and almost froze my
+blood.  The bottom of his garden joins the bottom of ours, and of
+course I had several times seen him sitting among the scarlet-beans
+in his little arbour, or working at his little hot-beds.  I used to
+think he stared rather, but I didn't take any particular notice of
+that, as we were newcomers, and he might be curious to see what we
+were like.  But when he began to throw his cucumbers over our wall--'
+
+'To throw his cucumbers over our wall!' repeated Nicholas, in great
+astonishment.
+
+'Yes, Nicholas, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby in a very serious
+tone; 'his cucumbers over our wall.  And vegetable marrows
+likewise.'
+
+'Confound his impudence!' said Nicholas, firing immediately.  'What
+does he mean by that?'
+
+'I don't think he means it impertinently at all,' replied Mrs
+Nickleby.
+
+'What!' said Nicholas, 'cucumbers and vegetable marrows flying at
+the heads of the family as they walk in their own garden, and not
+meant impertinently!  Why, mother--'
+
+Nicholas stopped short; for there was an indescribable expression of
+placid triumph, mingled with a modest confusion, lingering between
+the borders of Mrs Nickleby's nightcap, which arrested his attention
+suddenly.
+
+'He must be a very weak, and foolish, and inconsiderate man,' said
+Mrs Nickleby; 'blamable indeed--at least I suppose other people
+would consider him so; of course I can't be expected to express any
+opinion on that point, especially after always defending your poor
+dear papa when other people blamed him for making proposals to me;
+and to be sure there can be no doubt that he has taken a very
+singular way of showing it.  Still at the same time, his attentions
+are--that is, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent of course--
+a flattering sort of thing; and although I should never dream of
+marrying again with a dear girl like Kate still unsettled in life--'
+
+'Surely, mother, such an idea never entered your brain for an
+instant?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Bless my heart, Nicholas my dear,' returned his mother in a peevish
+tone, 'isn't that precisely what I am saying, if you would only let
+me speak?  Of course, I never gave it a second thought, and I am
+surprised and astonished that you should suppose me capable of such
+a thing.  All I say is, what step is the best to take, so as to
+reject these advances civilly and delicately, and without hurting
+his feelings too much, and driving him to despair, or anything of
+that kind?  My goodness me!' exclaimed Mrs Nickleby, with a half-
+simper, 'suppose he was to go doing anything rash to himself.  Could
+I ever be happy again, Nicholas?'
+
+Despite his vexation and concern, Nicholas could scarcely help
+smiling, as he rejoined, 'Now, do you think, mother, that such a
+result would be likely to ensue from the most cruel repulse?'
+
+'Upon my word, my dear, I don't know," returned Mrs Nickleby;
+'really, I don't know.  I am sure there was a case in the day before
+yesterday's paper, extracted from one of the French newspapers,
+about a journeyman shoemaker who was jealous of a young girl in an
+adjoining village, because she wouldn't shut herself up in an air-
+tight three-pair-of-stairs, and charcoal herself to death with him;
+and who went and hid himself in a wood with a sharp-pointed knife,
+and rushed out, as she was passing by with a few friends, and killed
+himself first, and then all the friends, and then her--no, killed
+all the friends first, and then herself, and then HIMself--which it
+is quite frightful to think of.  Somehow or other,' added Mrs
+Nickleby, after a momentary pause, 'they always ARE journeyman
+shoemakers who do these things in France, according to the papers.
+I don't know how it is--something in the leather, I suppose.'
+
+'But this man, who is not a shoemaker--what has he done, mother,
+what has he said?' inquired Nicholas, fretted almost beyond
+endurance, but looking nearly as resigned and patient as Mrs
+Nickleby herself.  'You know, there is no language of vegetables,
+which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment.'
+
+'My dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, tossing her head and looking at the
+ashes in the grate, 'he has done and said all sorts of things.'
+
+'Is there no mistake on your part?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Mistake!' cried Mrs Nickleby.  'Lord, Nicholas my dear, do you
+suppose I don't know when a man's in earnest?'
+
+'Well, well!' muttered Nicholas.
+
+'Every time I go to the window,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'he kisses one
+hand, and lays the other upon his heart--of course it's very foolish
+of him to do so, and I dare say you'll say it's very wrong, but he
+does it very respectfully--very respectfully indeed--and very
+tenderly, extremely tenderly.  So far, he deserves the greatest
+credit; there can be no doubt about that.  Then, there are the
+presents which come pouring over the wall every day, and very fine
+they certainly are, very fine; we had one of the cucumbers at dinner
+yesterday, and think of pickling the rest for next winter.  And last
+evening,' added Mrs Nickleby, with increased confusion, 'he called
+gently over the wall, as I was walking in the garden, and proposed
+marriage, and an elopement.  His voice is as clear as a bell or a
+musical glass--very like a musical glass indeed--but of course I
+didn't listen to it.  Then, the question is, Nicholas my dear, what
+am I to do?'
+
+'Does Kate know of this?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'I have not said a word about it yet,' answered his mother.
+
+'Then, for Heaven's sake,' rejoined Nicholas, rising, 'do not, for
+it would make her very unhappy.  And with regard to what you should
+do, my dear mother, do what your good sense and feeling, and respect
+for my father's memory, would prompt.  There are a thousand ways in
+which you can show your dislike of these preposterous and doting
+attentions.  If you act as decidedly as you ought and they are still
+continued, and to your annoyance, I can speedily put a stop to them.
+But I should not interfere in a matter so ridiculous, and attach
+importance to it, until you have vindicated yourself.  Most women
+can do that, but especially one of your age and condition, in
+circumstances like these, which are unworthy of a serious thought.
+I would not shame you by seeming to take them to heart, or treat
+them earnestly for an instant.  Absurd old idiot!'
+
+So saying, Nicholas kissed his mother, and bade her good-night, and
+they retired to their respective chambers.
+
+To do Mrs Nickleby justice, her attachment to her children would
+have prevented her seriously contemplating a second marriage, even
+if she could have so far conquered her recollections of her late
+husband as to have any strong inclinations that way.  But, although
+there was no evil and little real selfishness in Mrs Nickleby's
+heart, she had a weak head and a vain one; and there was something
+so flattering in being sought (and vainly sought) in marriage at
+this time of day, that she could not dismiss the passion of the
+unknown gentleman quite so summarily or lightly as Nicholas appeared
+to deem becoming.
+
+'As to its being preposterous, and doting, and ridiculous,' thought
+Mrs Nickleby, communing with herself in her own room, 'I don't see
+that, at all.  It's hopeless on his part, certainly; but why he
+should be an absurd old idiot, I confess I don't see.  He is not to
+be supposed to know it's hopeless.  Poor fellow!  He is to be
+pitied, I think!'
+
+Having made these reflections, Mrs Nickleby looked in her little
+dressing-glass, and walking backward a few steps from it, tried to
+remember who it was who used to say that when Nicholas was one-and-
+twenty he would have more the appearance of her brother than her
+son.  Not being able to call the authority to mind, she extinguished
+her candle, and drew up the window-blind to admit the light of
+morning, which had, by this time, begun to dawn.
+
+'It's a bad light to distinguish objects in,' murmured Mrs Nickleby,
+peering into the garden, 'and my eyes are not very good--I was
+short-sighted from a child--but, upon my word, I think there's
+another large vegetable marrow sticking, at this moment, on the
+broken glass bottles at the top of the wall!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 38
+
+Comprises certain Particulars arising out of a Visit of
+Condolence, which may prove important hereafter.  Smike
+unexpectedly encounters a very old Friend, who invites him to his
+House, and will take no Denial
+
+
+Quite unconscious of the demonstrations of their amorous
+neighbour, or their effects upon the susceptible bosom of her
+mama, Kate Nickleby had, by this time, begun to enjoy a settled
+feeling of tranquillity and happiness, to which, even in
+occasional and transitory glimpses, she had long been a stranger.
+Living under the same roof with the beloved brother from whom she
+had been so suddenly and hardly separated: with a mind at ease,
+and free from any persecutions which could call a blush into her
+cheek, or a pang into her heart, she seemed to have passed into a
+new state of being.  Her former cheerfulness was restored, her
+step regained its elasticity and lightness, the colour which had
+forsaken her cheek visited it once again, and Kate Nickleby looked
+more beautiful than ever.
+
+Such was the result to which Miss La Creevy's ruminations and
+observations led her, when the cottage had been, as she
+emphatically said, 'thoroughly got to rights, from the chimney-
+pots to the street-door scraper,' and the busy little woman had at
+length a moment's time to think about its inmates.
+
+'Which I declare I haven't had since I first came down here,' said
+Miss La Creevy; 'for I have thought of nothing but hammers, nails,
+screwdrivers, and gimlets, morning, noon, and night.'
+
+'You never bestowed one thought upon yourself, I believe,'
+returned Kate, smiling.
+
+'Upon my word, my dear, when there are so many pleasanter things
+to think of, I should be a goose if I did,' said Miss La Creevy.
+'By-the-bye, I HAVE thought of somebody too.  Do you know, that I
+observe a great change in one of this family--a very extraordinary
+change?'
+
+'In whom?' asked Kate, anxiously.  'Not in--'
+
+'Not in your brother, my dear,' returned Miss La Creevy,
+anticipating the close of the sentence, 'for he is always the same
+affectionate good-natured clever creature, with a spice of the--I
+won't say who--in him when there's any occasion, that he was when
+I first knew you.  No. Smike, as he WILL be called, poor fellow!
+for he won't hear of a MR before his name, is greatly altered,
+even in this short time.'
+
+'How?' asked Kate. 'Not in health?'
+
+'N--n--o; perhaps not in health exactly,' said Miss La Creevy,
+pausing to consider, 'although he is a worn and feeble creature,
+and has that in his face which it would wring my heart to see in
+yours.  No; not in health.'
+
+'How then?'
+
+'I scarcely know,' said the miniature painter.  'But I have
+watched him, and he has brought the tears into my eyes many times.
+It is not a very difficult matter to do that, certainly, for I am
+easily melted; still I think these came with good cause and
+reason.  I am sure that since he has been here, he has grown, from
+some strong cause, more conscious of his weak intellect.  He feels
+it more.  It gives him greater pain to know that he wanders
+sometimes, and cannot understand very simple things.  I have
+watched him when you have not been by, my dear, sit brooding by
+himself, with such a look of pain as I could scarcely bear to see,
+and then get up and leave the room: so sorrowfully, and in such
+dejection, that I cannot tell you how it has hurt me.  Not three
+weeks ago, he was a light-hearted busy creature, overjoyed to be
+in a bustle, and as happy as the day was long.  Now, he is another
+being--the same willing, harmless, faithful, loving creature--but
+the same in nothing else.'
+
+'Surely this will all pass off,' said Kate. 'Poor fellow!'
+
+'I hope,' returned her little friend, with a gravity very unusual
+in her, 'it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, it may.
+However,' said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into the cheerful,
+chattering tone, which was habitual to her, 'I have said my say,
+and a very long say it is, and a very wrong say too, I shouldn't
+wonder at all.  I shall cheer him up tonight, at all events, for
+if he is to be my squire all the way to the Strand, I shall talk
+on, and on, and on, and never leave off, till I have roused him
+into a laugh at something.  So the sooner he goes, the better for
+him, and the sooner I go, the better for me, I am sure, or else I
+shall have my maid gallivanting with somebody who may rob the
+house--though what there is to take away, besides tables and
+chairs, I don't know, except the miniatures: and he is a clever
+thief who can dispose of them to any great advantage, for I can't,
+I know, and that's the honest truth.'
+
+So saying, little Miss La Creevy hid her face in a very flat
+bonnet, and herself in a very big shawl; and fixing herself
+tightly into the latter, by means of a large pin, declared that
+the omnibus might come as soon as it pleased, for she was quite
+ready.
+
+But there was still Mrs Nickleby to take leave of; and long before
+that good lady had concluded some reminiscences bearing upon, and
+appropriate to, the occasion, the omnibus arrived.  This put Miss
+La Creevy in a great bustle, in consequence whereof, as she
+secretly rewarded the servant girl with eighteen-pence behind the
+street-door, she pulled out of her reticule ten-pennyworth of
+halfpence, which rolled into all possible corners of the passage,
+and occupied some considerable time in the picking up.  This
+ceremony had, of course, to be succeeded by a second kissing of
+Kate and Mrs Nickleby, and a gathering together of the little
+basket and the brown-paper parcel, during which proceedings, 'the
+omnibus,' as Miss La Creevy protested, 'swore so dreadfully, that
+it was quite awful to hear it.'  At length and at last, it made a
+feint of going away, and then Miss La Creevy darted out, and
+darted in, apologising with great volubility to all the
+passengers, and declaring that she wouldn't purposely have kept
+them waiting on any account whatever.  While she was looking about
+for a convenient seat, the conductor pushed Smike in, and cried
+that it was all right--though it wasn't--and away went the huge
+vehicle, with the noise of half-a-dozen brewers' drays at least.
+
+Leaving it to pursue its journey at the pleasure of the conductor
+aforementioned, who lounged gracefully on his little shelf
+behind, smoking an odoriferous cigar; and leaving it to stop, or
+go on, or gallop, or crawl, as that gentleman deemed expedient and
+advisable; this narrative may embrace the opportunity of
+ascertaining the condition of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and to what
+extent he had, by this time, recovered from the injuries
+consequent on being flung violently from his cabriolet, under the
+circumstances already detailed.
+
+With a shattered limb, a body severely bruised, a face disfigured
+by half-healed scars, and pallid from the exhaustion of recent
+pain and fever, Sir Mulberry Hawk lay stretched upon his back, on
+the couch to which he was doomed to be a prisoner for some weeks
+yet to come.  Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck sat drinking hard in the next
+room, now and then varying the monotonous murmurs of their
+conversation with a half-smothered laugh, while the young lord--
+the only member of the party who was not thoroughly irredeemable,
+and who really had a kind heart--sat beside his Mentor, with a
+cigar in his mouth, and read to him, by the light of a lamp, such
+scraps of intelligence from a paper of the day, as were most
+likely to yield him interest  or amusement.
+
+'Curse those hounds!' said the invalid, turning his head
+impatiently towards the adjoining room; 'will nothing stop their
+infernal throats?'
+
+Messrs Pyke and Pluck heard the exclamation, and stopped
+immediately: winking to each other as they did so, and filling
+their glasses to the brim, as some recompense for the deprivation
+of speech.
+
+'Damn!' muttered the sick man between his teeth, and writhing
+impatiently in his bed.  'Isn't this mattress hard enough, and the
+room dull enough, and pain bad enough, but THEY must torture me?
+What's the time?'
+
+'Half-past eight,' replied his friend.
+
+'Here, draw the table nearer, and let us have the cards again,'
+said Sir Mulberry. 'More piquet.  Come.'
+
+It was curious to see how eagerly the sick man, debarred from any
+change of position save the mere turning of his head from side to
+side, watched every motion of his friend in the progress of the
+game; and with what eagerness and interest he played, and yet how
+warily and coolly.  His address and skill were more than twenty
+times a match for his adversary, who could make little head
+against them, even when fortune favoured him with good cards,
+which was not often the case.  Sir Mulberry won every game; and
+when his companion threw down the cards, and refused to play any
+longer, thrust forth his wasted arm and caught up the stakes with
+a boastful oath, and the same hoarse laugh, though considerably
+lowered in tone, that had resounded in Ralph Nickleby's dining-
+room, months before.
+
+While he was thus occupied, his man appeared, to announce that Mr
+Ralph Nickleby was below, and wished to know how he was, tonight.
+
+'Better,' said Sir Mulberry, impatiently.
+
+'Mr Nickleby wishes to know, sir--'
+
+'I tell you, better,' replied Sir Mulberry, striking his hand upon
+the table.
+
+The man hesitated for a moment or two, and then said that Mr
+Nickleby had requested permission to see Sir Mulberry Hawk, if it
+was not inconvenient.
+
+'It IS inconvenient.  I can't see him.  I can't see anybody,' said
+his master, more violently than before.  'You know that, you
+blockhead.'
+
+'I am very sorry, sir,' returned the man.  'But Mr Nickleby
+pressed so much, sir--'
+
+The fact was, that Ralph Nickleby had bribed the man, who, being
+anxious to earn his money with a view to future favours, held the
+door in his hand, and ventured to linger still.
+
+'Did he say whether he had any business to speak about?' inquired
+Sir Mulberry, after a little impatient consideration.
+
+'No, sir.  He said he wished to see you, sir.  Particularly, Mr
+Nickleby said, sir.'
+
+'Tell him to come up.  Here,' cried Sir Mulberry, calling the man
+back, as he passed his hand over his disfigured face, 'move that
+lamp, and put it on the stand behind me.  Wheel that table away,
+and place a chair there--further off.  Leave it so.'
+
+The man obeyed these directions as if he quite comprehended the
+motive with which they were dictated, and left the room.  Lord
+Frederick Verisopht, remarking that he would look in presently,
+strolled into the adjoining apartment, and closed the folding door
+behind him.
+
+Then was heard a subdued footstep on the stairs; and Ralph
+Nickleby, hat in hand, crept softly into the room, with his body
+bent forward as if in profound respect, and his eyes fixed upon
+the face of his worthy client.
+
+'Well, Nickleby,' said Sir Mulberry, motioning him to the chair by
+the couch side, and waving his hand in assumed carelessness, 'I
+have had a bad accident, you see.'
+
+'I see,' rejoined Ralph, with the same steady gaze.  'Bad, indeed!
+I should not have known you, Sir Mulberry. Dear, dear!  This IS
+bad.'
+
+Ralph's manner was one of profound humility and respect; and the
+low tone of voice was that, which the gentlest consideration for a
+sick man would have taught a visitor to assume.  But the
+expression of his face, Sir Mulberry's being averted, was in
+extraordinary contrast; and as he stood, in his usual attitude,
+calmly looking on the prostrate form before him, all that part of
+his features which was not cast into shadow by his protruding and
+contracted brows, bore the impress of a sarcastic smile.
+
+'Sit down,' said Sir Mulberry, turning towards him, as though by a
+violent effort. 'Am I a sight, that you stand gazing there?'
+
+As he turned his face, Ralph recoiled a step or two, and making as
+though he were irresistibly impelled to express astonishment, but
+was determined not to do so, sat down with well-acted confusion.
+
+'I have inquired at the door, Sir Mulberry, every day,' said
+Ralph, 'twice a day, indeed, at first--and tonight, presuming upon
+old acquaintance, and past transactions by which we have mutually
+benefited in some degree, I could not resist soliciting admission
+to your chamber.  Have you--have you suffered much?' said Ralph,
+bending forward, and allowing the same harsh smile to gather upon
+his face, as the other closed his eyes.
+
+'More than enough to please me, and less than enough to please
+some broken-down hacks that you and I know of, and who lay their
+ruin between us, I dare say,' returned Sir Mulberry, tossing his
+arm restlessly upon the coverlet.
+
+Ralph shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of the intense
+irritation with which this had been said; for there was an
+aggravating, cold distinctness in his speech and manner which so
+grated on the sick man that he could scarcely endure it.
+
+'And what is it in these  "past transactions," that brought you
+here tonight?' asked Sir Mulberry.
+
+'Nothing,' replied Ralph.  'There are some bills of my lord's
+which need renewal; but let them be till you are well.  I--I--
+came,' said Ralph, speaking more slowly, and with harsher
+emphasis, 'I came to say how grieved I am that any relative of
+mine, although disowned by me, should have inflicted such
+punishment on you as--'
+
+'Punishment!' interposed Sir Mulberry.
+
+'I know it has been a severe one,' said Ralph, wilfully mistaking
+the meaning of the interruption, 'and that has made me the more
+anxious to tell you that I disown this vagabond--that I
+acknowledge him as no kin of mine--and that I leave him to take
+his deserts from you, and every man besides.  You may wring his
+neck if you please.  I shall not interfere.'
+
+'This story that they tell me here, has got abroad then, has it?'
+asked Sir Mulberry, clenching his hands and teeth.
+
+'Noised in all directions,' replied Ralph.  'Every club and
+gaming-room has rung with it.  There has been a good song made
+about it, as I am told,' said Ralph, looking eagerly at his
+questioner.  'I have not heard it myself, not being in the way of
+such things, but I have been told it's even printed--for private
+circulation--but that's all over town, of course.'
+
+'It's a lie!' said Sir Mulberry; 'I tell you it's all a lie.  The
+mare took fright.'
+
+'They SAY he frightened her,' observed Ralph, in the same unmoved
+and quiet manner.  'Some say he frightened you, but THAT'S a lie,
+I know.  I have said that boldly--oh, a score of times!  I am a
+peaceable man, but I can't hear folks tell that of you.  No, no.'
+
+When Sir  Mulberry found coherent words to utter, Ralph bent
+forward with his hand to his ear, and a face as calm as if its
+every line of sternness had been cast in iron.
+
+'When I am off this cursed bed,' said the invalid, actually
+striking at his broken leg in the ecstasy of his passion, 'I'll
+have such revenge as never man had yet.  By God, I will.  Accident
+favouring him, he has marked me for a week or two, but I'll put a
+mark on him that he shall carry to his grave.  I'll slit his nose
+and ears, flog him, maim him for life.  I'll do more than that;
+I'll drag that pattern of chastity, that pink of prudery, the
+delicate sister, through--'
+
+It might have been that even Ralph's cold blood tingled in his
+cheeks at that moment.  It might have been that Sir Mulberry
+remembered, that, knave and usurer as he was, he must, in some
+early time of infancy, have twined his arm about her father's
+neck.  He stopped, and menacing with his hand, confirmed the
+unuttered threat with a tremendous oath.
+
+'It is a galling thing,' said Ralph, after a short term of
+silence, during which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, 'to think
+that the man about town, the rake, the ROUE, the rook of twenty
+seasons should be brought to this pass by a mere boy!'
+
+Sir  Mulberry darted a wrathful look at him, but Ralph's eyes were
+bent upon the ground, and his face wore no other expression than
+one of thoughtfulness.
+
+'A raw, slight stripling,' continued Ralph, 'against a man whose
+very weight might crush him; to say nothing of his skill in--I am
+right, I think,' said Ralph, raising his eyes, 'you WERE a patron
+of the ring once, were you not?'
+
+The sick man made an impatient gesture, which Ralph chose to
+consider as one of acquiescence.
+
+'Ha!' he said, 'I thought so.  That was before I knew you, but I
+was pretty sure I couldn't be mistaken.  He is light and active, I
+suppose.  But those were slight advantages compared with yours.
+Luck, luck!  These hang-dog outcasts have it.'
+
+'He'll need the most he has, when I am well again,' said Sir
+Mulberry Hawk, 'let him fly where he will.'
+
+'Oh!' returned Ralph quickly, 'he doesn't dream of that.  He is
+here, good sir, waiting your pleasure, here in London, walking the
+streets at noonday; carrying it off jauntily; looking for you, I
+swear,' said Ralph, his face darkening, and his own hatred getting
+the upper hand of him, for the first time, as this gay picture of
+Nicholas presented itself; 'if we were only citizens of a country
+where it could be safely done, I'd give good money to have him
+stabbed to the heart and rolled into the kennel for the dogs to
+tear.'
+
+As Ralph, somewhat to the surprise of his old client, vented this
+little piece of sound family feeling, and took up his hat
+preparatory to departing, Lord Frederick Verisopht looked in.
+
+'Why what in the deyvle's name, Hawk, have you and Nickleby been
+talking about?' said the young man.  'I neyver heard such an
+insufferable riot.  Croak, croak, croak.  Bow, wow, wow.  What has
+it all been about?'
+
+'Sir Mulberry has been angry, my Lord,' said Ralph, looking
+towards the couch.
+
+'Not about money, I hope?  Nothing has gone wrong in business, has
+it, Nickleby?'
+
+'No, my Lord, no,' returned Ralph.  'On that point we always
+agree.  Sir Mulberry has been calling to mind the cause of--'
+
+There was neither necessity nor opportunity for Ralph to proceed;
+for Sir Mulberry took up the theme, and vented his threats and
+oaths against Nicholas, almost as ferociously as before.
+
+Ralph, who was no common observer, was surprised to see that as
+this tirade  proceeded, the manner of Lord Frederick Verisopht,
+who at the commencement had been twirling his whiskers with a most
+dandified and listless air, underwent a complete alteration.  He
+was still more surprised when, Sir Mulberry ceasing to speak, the
+young lord angrily, and almost unaffectedly, requested never to
+have the subject renewed in his presence.
+
+'Mind that, Hawk!' he added, with unusual energy.  'I never will
+be a party to, or permit, if I can help it, a cowardly attack upon
+this young fellow.'
+
+'Cowardly!' interrupted his friend.
+
+'Ye-es,' said the other,  turning full upon him.  'If you had told
+him who you were; if you had given him your card, and found out,
+afterwards, that his station or character prevented your fighting
+him, it would have been bad enough then; upon my soul it would
+have been bad enough then.  As it is, you did wrong.  I did wrong
+too, not to interfere, and I am sorry for it.  What happened to
+you afterwards, was as much the consequence of accident as design,
+and more your fault than his; and it shall not, with my knowledge,
+be cruelly visited upon him, it shall not indeed.'
+
+With this emphatic repetition of his concluding words, the young
+lord turned upon his heel; but before he had reached the adjoining
+room he turned back again, and said, with even greater vehemence
+than he had displayed before,
+
+'I do believe, now; upon my honour I do believe, that the sister
+is as virtuous and modest a young lady as she is a handsome one;
+and of the brother, I say this, that he acted as her brother
+should, and in a manly and spirited manner. And I only wish, with
+all my heart and soul, that any one of us came out of this matter
+half as well as he does.'
+
+So saying, Lord Frederick Verisopht walked out of the room,
+leaving Ralph Nickleby and Sir Mulberry in most unpleasant
+astonishment.
+
+'Is this your pupil?' asked Ralph, softly, 'or has he come fresh
+from some country parson?'
+
+'Green fools take these fits sometimes,' replied Sir Mulberry
+Hawk, biting his lip, and pointing to the door.  'Leave him to
+me.'
+
+Ralph exchanged a familiar look with his old acquaintance; for
+they had suddenly grown confidential again in this alarming
+surprise; and took his way home, thoughtfully and slowly.
+
+While these things were being said and done, and long before they
+were concluded, the omnibus had disgorged Miss La Creevy and her
+escort, and they had arrived at her own door.  Now, the good-
+nature of the little miniature painter would by no means allow of
+Smike's walking back again, until he had been previously refreshed
+with just a sip of something comfortable and a mixed biscuit or
+so; and Smike, entertaining no objection either to the sip of
+something comfortable, or the mixed biscuit, but, considering on
+the contrary that they would be a very pleasant preparation for a
+walk to Bow, it fell out that he delayed much longer than he
+originally intended, and that it was some half-hour after dusk
+when he set forth on his journey home.
+
+There was no likelihood of his losing his way, for it lay quite
+straight before him, and he had walked into town with Nicholas,
+and back alone, almost every day.  So, Miss La Creevy and he shook
+hands with mutual confidence, and, being charged with more kind
+remembrances to Mrs and Miss Nickleby, Smike started off.
+
+At the foot of Ludgate Hill, he turned a little out of the road to
+satisfy his curiosity by having a look at Newgate.  After staring
+up at the sombre walls, from the opposite side of the way, with
+great care and dread for some minutes, he turned back again into
+the old track, and walked briskly through the city; stopping now
+and then to gaze in at the window of some particularly
+attractive shop, then running for a little way, then stopping
+again, and so on, as any other country lad might do.
+
+He had been gazing for a long time through a jeweller's window,
+wishing he could take some of the beautiful trinkets home as a
+present, and imagining what delight they would afford if he could,
+when the clocks struck three-quarters past eight; roused by the
+sound, he hurried on at a very quick pace, and was crossing the
+corner of a by-street when he felt himself violently brought to,
+with a jerk so sudden that he was obliged to cling to a lamp-post
+to save himself from falling.  At the same moment, a small boy
+clung tight round his leg, and a shrill cry of 'Here he is,
+father!  Hooray!' vibrated in his ears.
+
+Smike knew that voice too well.  He cast his despairing eyes
+downward towards the form from which it had proceeded, and,
+shuddering from head to foot, looked round.  Mr Squeers had
+hooked him in the coat collar with the handle of his umbrella,
+and was hanging on at the other end with all his might and main.
+The cry of triumph proceeded from Master Wackford, who, regardless
+of all his kicks and struggles, clung to him with the tenacity of
+a bull-dog!
+
+One glance showed him this; and in that one glance the terrified
+creature became utterly powerless and unable to utter a sound.
+
+'Here's a go!' cried Mr Squeers, gradually coming hand-over-hand
+down the umbrella, and only unhooking it when he had got tight
+hold of the victim's collar.  'Here's a delicious go!  Wackford, my
+boy, call up one of them coaches.'
+
+'A coach, father!' cried little Wackford.
+
+'Yes, a coach, sir,' replied Squeers, feasting his eyes upon the
+countenance of Smike. 'Damn the expense.  Let's have him in a
+coach.'
+
+'What's he been a doing of?' asked a labourer with a hod of
+bricks, against whom and a fellow-labourer Mr Squeers had backed,
+on the first jerk of the umbrella.
+
+'Everything!' replied Mr Squeers, looking fixedly at his old pupil
+in a sort of rapturous trance.  'Everything--running away, sir--
+joining in bloodthirsty attacks upon his master--there's nothing
+that's bad that he hasn't done.  Oh, what a delicious go is this
+here, good Lord!'
+
+The man looked from Squeers to Smike; but such mental faculties as
+the poor fellow possessed, had utterly deserted him.  The coach
+came up; Master Wackford entered; Squeers pushed in his prize, and
+following close at his heels, pulled up the glasses.  The coachman
+mounted his box and drove slowly off, leaving the two bricklayers,
+and an old apple-woman, and a town-made little boy returning from
+an evening school, who had been the only witnesses of the scene,
+to meditate upon it at their leisure.
+
+Mr Squeers sat himself down on the opposite seat to the
+unfortunate Smike, and, planting his hands firmly on his knees,
+looked at him for some five minutes, when, seeming to recover from
+his trance, he uttered a loud laugh, and slapped his old pupil's
+face several times--taking the right and left sides alternately.
+
+'It isn't a dream!' said Squeers. 'That's real flesh and blood!  I
+know the feel of it!' and being quite assured of his good fortune
+by these experiments, Mr Squeers administered a few boxes on the
+ear, lest the entertainments should seem to partake of sameness,
+and laughed louder and longer at every one.
+
+'Your mother will be fit to jump out of her skin, my boy, when she
+hears of this,' said Squeers to his son.
+
+'Oh, won't she though, father?' replied Master Wackford.
+
+'To think,' said Squeers, 'that you and me should be turning out
+of a street, and come upon him at the very nick; and that I should
+have him tight, at only one cast of the umbrella, as if I had
+hooked him with a grappling-iron!  Ha, ha!'
+
+'Didn't I catch hold of his leg, neither, father?' said little
+Wackford.
+
+'You did; like a good 'un, my boy,' said Mr Squeers, patting his
+son's head, 'and you shall have the best button-over jacket and
+waistcoat that the next new boy brings down, as a reward of merit.
+Mind that.  You always keep on in the same path, and do them
+things that you see your father do, and when you die you'll go
+right slap to Heaven and no questions asked.'
+
+Improving the occasion in these words, Mr Squeers patted his son's
+head again, and then patted Smike's--but harder; and inquired in a
+bantering tone how he found himself by this time.
+
+'I must go home,' replied Smike, looking wildly round.
+
+'To be sure you must.  You're about right there,' replied Mr
+Squeers. 'You'll go home very soon, you will.  You'll find
+yourself at the peaceful village of Dotheboys, in Yorkshire, in
+something under a week's time, my young friend; and the next time
+you get away from there, I give you leave to keep away.  Where's
+the clothes you run off in, you ungrateful robber?' said Mr
+Squeers, in a severe voice.
+
+Smike glanced at the neat attire which the care of Nicholas had
+provided for him; and wrung his hands.
+
+'Do you know that I could hang you up, outside of the Old Bailey,
+for making away with them articles of property?' said Squeers.  'Do
+you know that it's a hanging matter--and I an't quite certain
+whether it an't an anatomy one besides--to walk off with up'ards
+of the valley of five pound from a dwelling-house?  Eh?  Do you
+know that?  What do you suppose was the worth of them clothes you
+had?  Do you know that that Wellington boot you wore, cost eight-
+and-twenty shillings when it was a pair, and the shoe seven-and-
+six?  But you came to the right shop for mercy when you came to
+me, and thank your stars that it IS me as has got to serve you
+with the article.'
+
+Anybody not in Mr Squeers's confidence would have supposed that he
+was quite out of the article in question, instead of having a
+large stock on hand ready for all comers; nor would the opinion of
+sceptical persons have undergone much alteration when he followed
+up the remark by poking Smike in the chest with the ferrule of his
+umbrella, and dealing a smart shower of blows, with the ribs of
+the same instrument, upon his head and shoulders.
+
+'I never threshed a boy in a hackney coach before,' said Mr
+Squeers, when he stopped to rest.  'There's inconveniency in it,
+but the novelty gives it a sort of relish, too!'
+
+Poor Smike!  He warded off the blows, as well as he could, and now
+shrunk into a corner of the coach, with his head resting on his
+hands, and his elbows on his knees; he was stunned and stupefied,
+and had no more idea that any act of his, would enable him to
+escape from the all-powerful Squeers, now that he had no friend to
+speak to or to advise with, than he had had in all the weary years
+of his Yorkshire life which preceded the arrival of Nicholas.
+
+The journey seemed endless; street after street was entered and
+left behind; and still they went jolting on.  At last Mr Squeers
+began to thrust his head out of the widow every half-minute, and
+to bawl a variety of directions to the coachman; and after
+passing, with some difficulty, through several mean streets which
+the appearance of the houses and the bad state of the road denoted
+to have been recently built, Mr Squeers suddenly tugged at the
+check string with all his might, and cried, 'Stop!'
+
+'What are you pulling a man's arm off for?' said the coachman
+looking angrily down.
+
+'That's the house,' replied Squeers.  'The second of them four
+little houses, one story high, with the green shutters.  There's
+brass plate on the door, with the name of Snawley.'
+
+'Couldn't you say that without wrenching a man's limbs off his
+body?' inquired the coachman.
+
+'No!' bawled Mr Squeers.  'Say another word, and I'll summons you
+for having a broken winder.  Stop!'
+
+Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr Snawley's
+door.  Mr Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and sanctified
+gentleman who confided two sons (in law) to the parental care of
+Mr Squeers, as narrated in the fourth chapter of this history.
+Mr Snawley's house was on the extreme borders of some new
+settlements adjoining Somers Town, and Mr Squeers had taken
+lodgings therein for a short time, as his stay was longer than
+usual, and the Saracen, having experience of Master Wackford's
+appetite, had declined to receive him on any other terms than as a
+full-grown customer.
+
+'Here we are!' said Squeers, hurrying Smike into the little
+parlour, where Mr Snawley and his wife were taking a lobster
+supper.  'Here's the vagrant--the felon--the rebel--the monster
+of unthankfulness.'
+
+'What!  The boy that run away!' cried Snawley, resting his knife
+and fork upright on the table, and opening his eyes to their full
+width.
+
+'The very boy', said Squeers, putting his fist close to Smike's
+nose, and drawing it away again, and repeating the process several
+times, with a vicious aspect.  'If there wasn't a lady present, I'd
+fetch him such a--: never mind, I'll owe it him.'
+
+And here Mr Squeers related how, and in what manner, and when and
+where, he had picked up the runaway.
+
+'It's clear that there has been a Providence in it, sir,' said Mr
+Snawley, casting down his eyes with an air of humility, and
+elevating his fork, with a bit of lobster on the top of it,
+towards the ceiling.
+
+'Providence is against him, no doubt,' replied Mr Squeers,
+scratching his nose.  'Of course; that was to be expected.  Anybody
+might have known that.'
+
+'Hard-heartedness and evil-doing will never prosper, sir,' said Mr
+Snawley.
+
+'Never was such a thing known,' rejoined Squeers, taking a little
+roll of notes from his pocket-book, to see that they were all
+safe.
+
+'I have been, Mr Snawley,' said Mr Squeers, when he had satisfied
+himself upon this point, 'I have been that chap's benefactor,
+feeder, teacher, and clother.  I have been that chap's classical,
+commercial, mathematical, philosophical, and trigonomical friend.
+My son--my only son, Wackford--has been his brother; Mrs Squeers
+has been his mother, grandmother, aunt,--ah! and I may say uncle
+too, all in one.  She never cottoned to anybody, except them two
+engaging and delightful boys of yours, as she cottoned to this
+chap.  What's my return?  What's come of my milk of human kindness?
+It turns into curds and whey when I look at him.'
+
+'Well it may, sir,' said Mrs Snawley. 'Oh!  Well it may, sir.'
+
+'Where has he been all this time?' inquired Snawley. 'Has he been
+living with--?'
+
+'Ah, sir!' interposed Squeers, confronting him again. 'Have you
+been a living with that there devilish Nickleby, sir?'
+
+But no threats or cuffs could elicit from Smike one word of reply
+to this question; for he had internally resolved that he would
+rather perish in the wretched prison to which he was again about
+to be consigned, than utter one syllable which could involve his
+first and true friend.  He had already called to mind the strict
+injunctions of secrecy as to his past life, which Nicholas had
+laid upon him when they travelled from Yorkshire; and a confused
+and perplexed idea that his benefactor might have committed some
+terrible crime in bringing him away, which would render him liable
+to heavy punishment if detected, had contributed, in some degree,
+to reduce him to his present state of apathy and terror.
+
+Such were the thoughts--if to visions so imperfect and undefined
+as those which wandered through his enfeebled brain, the term can
+be applied--which were present to the mind of Smike, and rendered
+him deaf alike to intimidation and persuasion.  Finding every
+effort useless, Mr Squeers conducted him to a little back room
+up-stairs, where he was to pass the night; and, taking the
+precaution of removing his shoes, and coat and waistcoat, and also
+of locking the door on the outside, lest he should muster up
+sufficient energy to make an attempt at escape, that worthy
+gentleman left him to his meditations.
+
+What those meditations were, and how the poor creature's heart
+sunk within him when he thought--when did he, for a moment, cease
+to think?--of his late home, and the dear friends and familiar
+faces with which it was associated, cannot be told. To prepare the
+mind for such a heavy sleep, its growth must be stopped by rigour
+and cruelty in childhood; there must be years of misery and
+suffering, lightened by no ray of hope; the chords of the heart,
+which beat a quick response to the voice of gentleness and
+affection, must have rusted and broken in their secret places, and
+bear the lingering echo of no old word of love or kindness.
+Gloomy, indeed, must have been the short day, and dull the long,
+long twilight, preceding such a night of intellect as his.
+
+There were voices which would have roused him, even then; but
+their welcome tones could not penetrate there; and he crept to bed
+the same listless, hopeless, blighted creature, that Nicholas had
+first found him at the Yorkshire school.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very opportunely and
+to some Purpose
+
+
+The night, fraught with so much bitterness to one poor soul, had
+given place to a bright and cloudless summer morning, when a north-
+country mail-coach traversed, with cheerful noise, the yet silent
+streets of Islington, and, giving brisk note of its approach with
+the lively winding of the guard's horn, clattered onward to its
+halting-place hard by the Post Office.
+
+The only outside passenger was a burly, honest-looking countryman on
+the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome of St Paul's
+Cathedral, appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, as to be quite
+insensible to all the bustle of getting out the bags and parcels,
+until one of the coach windows being let sharply down, he looked
+round, and encountered a pretty female face which was just then
+thrust out.
+
+'See there, lass!' bawled the countryman, pointing towards the
+object of his admiration.  'There be Paul's Church.  'Ecod, he be a
+soizable 'un, he be.'
+
+'Goodness, John!  I shouldn't have thought it could have been half
+the size.  What a monster!'
+
+'Monsther!--Ye're aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs Browdie,' said
+the countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down in his huge
+top-coat; 'and wa'at dost thee tak yon place to be noo--thot'un
+owor the wa'?  Ye'd never coom near it 'gin you thried for twolve
+moonths.  It's na' but a Poast Office!  Ho! ho!  They need to charge
+for dooble-latthers.  A Poast Office!  Wa'at dost thee think o'
+thot?  'Ecod, if thot's on'y a Poast Office, I'd loike to see where
+the Lord Mayor o' Lunnun lives.'
+
+So saying, John Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and
+tapping Mrs Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in,
+burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.
+
+'Weel!' said John.  'Dang my bootuns if she bean't asleep agean!'
+
+'She's been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a
+minute or two now and then,' replied John Browdie's choice, 'and I
+was very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!'
+
+The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in
+shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to
+guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which
+ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened,
+for two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the
+vehicle from which the lady's snores now proceeded, presented an
+appearance sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles
+than those of John Browdie's ruddy face.
+
+'Hollo!' cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil.  'Coom,
+wakken oop, will 'ee?'
+
+After several burrowings into the old corner, and many exclamations
+of impatience and fatigue, the figure struggled into a sitting
+posture; and there, under a mass of crumpled beaver, and surrounded
+by a semicircle of blue curl-papers, were the delicate features of
+Miss Fanny Squeers.
+
+'Oh, 'Tilda!' cried Miss Squeers, 'how you have been kicking of me
+through this blessed night!'
+
+'Well, I do like that,' replied her friend, laughing, 'when you have
+had nearly the whole coach to yourself.'
+
+'Don't deny it, 'Tilda,' said Miss Squeers, impressively, 'because
+you have, and it's no use to go attempting to say you haven't.  You
+mightn't have known it in your sleep, 'Tilda, but I haven't closed
+my eyes for a single wink, and so I THINK I am to be believed.'
+
+With which reply, Miss Squeers adjusted the bonnet and veil, which
+nothing but supernatural interference and an utter suspension of
+nature's laws could have reduced to any shape or form; and evidently
+flattering herself that it looked uncommonly neat, brushed off the
+sandwich-crumbs and bits of biscuit which had accumulated in her
+lap, and availing herself of John Browdie's proffered arm, descended
+from the coach.
+
+'Noo,' said John, when a hackney coach had been called, and the
+ladies and the luggage hurried in, 'gang to the Sarah's Head, mun.'
+
+'To the VERE?' cried the coachman.
+
+'Lawk, Mr Browdie!' interrupted Miss Squeers.  'The idea!  Saracen's
+Head.'
+
+'Sure-ly,' said John, 'I know'd it was something aboot Sarah's Son's
+Head.  Dost thou know thot?'
+
+'Oh, ah!  I know that,' replied the coachman gruffly, as he banged
+the door.
+
+''Tilda, dear, really,' remonstrated Miss Squeers, 'we shall be
+taken for I don't know what.'
+
+'Let them tak' us as they foind us,' said John Browdie; 'we dean't
+come to Lunnun to do nought but 'joy oursel, do we?'
+
+'I hope not, Mr Browdie,' replied Miss Squeers, looking singularly
+dismal.
+
+'Well, then,' said John, 'it's no matther.  I've only been a married
+man fower days, 'account of poor old feyther deein, and puttin' it
+off.  Here be a weddin' party--broide and broide's-maid, and the
+groom--if a mun dean't 'joy himsel noo, when ought he, hey?  Drat it
+all, thot's what I want to know.'
+
+So, in order that he might begin to enjoy himself at once, and lose
+no time, Mr Browdie gave his wife a hearty kiss, and succeeded in
+wresting another from Miss Squeers, after a maidenly resistance of
+scratching and struggling on the part of that young lady, which was
+not quite over when they reached the Saracen's Head.
+
+Here, the party straightway retired to rest; the refreshment of
+sleep being necessary after so long a journey; and here they met
+again about noon, to a substantial breakfast, spread by direction of
+Mr John Browdie, in a small private room upstairs commanding an
+uninterrupted view of the stables.
+
+To have seen Miss Squeers now, divested of the brown beaver, the
+green veil, and the blue curl-papers, and arrayed in all the virgin
+splendour of a white frock and spencer, with a white muslin bonnet,
+and an imitative damask rose in full bloom on the inside thereof--
+her luxuriant crop of hair arranged in curls so tight that it was
+impossible they could come out by any accident, and her bonnet-cap
+trimmed with little damask roses, which might be supposed to be so
+many promising scions of the big rose--to have seen all this, and to
+have seen the broad damask belt, matching both the family rose and
+the little roses, which encircled her slender waist, and by a happy
+ingenuity took off from the shortness of the spencer behind,--to
+have beheld all this, and to have taken further into account the
+coral bracelets (rather short of beads, and with a very visible
+black string) which clasped her wrists, and the coral necklace which
+rested on her neck, supporting, outside her frock, a lonely
+cornelian heart, typical of her own disengaged affections--to have
+contemplated all these mute but expressive appeals to the purest
+feelings of our nature, might have thawed the frost of age, and
+added new and inextinguishable fuel to the fire of youth.
+
+The waiter was touched.  Waiter as he was, he had human passions and
+feelings, and he looked very hard at Miss Squeers as he handed the
+muffins.
+
+'Is my pa in, do you know?' asked Miss Squeers with dignity.
+
+'Beg your pardon, miss?'
+
+'My pa,' repeated Miss Squeers; 'is he in?'
+
+'In where, miss?'
+
+'In here--in the house!' replied Miss Squeers.  'My pa--Mr Wackford
+Squeers--he's stopping here.  Is he at home?'
+
+'I didn't know there was any gen'l'man of that name in the house,
+miss' replied the waiter.  'There may be, in the coffee-room.'
+
+MAY BE.  Very pretty this, indeed!  Here was Miss Squeers, who had
+been depending, all the way to London, upon showing her friends how
+much at home she would be, and how much respectful notice her name
+and connections would excite, told that her father MIGHT be there!
+'As if he was a feller!' observed Miss Squeers, with emphatic
+indignation.
+
+'Ye'd betther inquire, mun,' said John Browdie.  'An' hond up
+another pigeon-pie, will 'ee?  Dang the chap,' muttered John,
+looking into the empty dish as the waiter retired; 'does he ca' this
+a pie--three yoong pigeons and a troifling matther o' steak, and a
+crust so loight that you doant know when it's in your mooth and when
+it's gane?  I wonder hoo many pies goes to a breakfast!'
+
+After a short interval, which John Browdie employed upon the ham and
+a cold round of beef, the waiter returned with another pie, and the
+information that Mr Squeers was not stopping in the house, but that
+he came there every day and that directly he arrived, he should be
+shown upstairs.  With this, he retired; and he had not retired two
+minutes, when he returned with Mr Squeers and his hopeful son.
+
+'Why, who'd have thought of this?' said Mr Squeers, when he had
+saluted the party and received some private family intelligence from
+his daughter.
+
+'Who, indeed, pa!' replied that young lady, spitefully.  'But you
+see 'Tilda IS married at last.'
+
+'And I stond threat for a soight o' Lunnun, schoolmeasther,' said
+John, vigorously attacking the pie.
+
+'One of them things that young men do when they get married,'
+returned Squeers; 'and as runs through with their money like nothing
+at all!  How much better wouldn't it be now, to save it up for the
+eddication of any little boys, for instance!  They come on you,'
+said Mr Squeers in a moralising way, 'before you're aware of it;
+mine did upon me.'
+
+'Will 'ee pick a bit?' said John.
+
+'I won't myself,' returned Squeers; 'but if you'll just let little
+Wackford tuck into something fat, I'll be obliged to you.  Give it
+him in his fingers, else the waiter charges it on, and there's lot
+of profit on this sort of vittles without that.  If you hear the
+waiter coming, sir, shove it in your pocket and look out of the
+window, d'ye hear?'
+
+'I'm awake, father,' replied the dutiful Wackford.
+
+'Well,' said Squeers, turning to his daughter, 'it's your turn to be
+married next.  You must make haste.'
+
+'Oh, I'm in no hurry,' said Miss Squeers, very sharply.
+
+'No, Fanny?' cried her old friend with some archness.
+
+'No, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, shaking her head vehemently.  'I
+can wait.'
+
+'So can the young men, it seems, Fanny,' observed Mrs Browdie.
+
+'They an't draw'd into it by ME, 'Tilda,' retorted Miss Squeers.
+
+'No,' returned her friend; 'that's exceedingly true.'
+
+The sarcastic tone of this reply might have provoked a rather
+acrimonious retort from Miss Squeers, who, besides being of a
+constitutionally vicious temper--aggravated, just now, by travel and
+recent jolting--was somewhat irritated by old recollections and the
+failure of her own designs upon Mr Browdie; and the acrimonious
+retort might have led to a great many other retorts, which might
+have led to Heaven knows what, if the subject of conversation had
+not been, at that precise moment, accidentally changed by Mr Squeers
+himself
+
+'What do you think?' said that gentleman; 'who do you suppose we
+have laid hands on, Wackford and me?'
+
+'Pa! not Mr--?'  Miss Squeers was unable to finish the sentence, but
+Mrs Browdie did it for her, and added, 'Nickleby?'
+
+'No,' said Squeers.  'But next door to him though.'
+
+'You can't mean Smike?' cried Miss Squeers, clapping her hands.
+
+'Yes, I can though,' rejoined her father.  'I've got him, hard and
+fast.'
+
+'Wa'at!' exclaimed John Browdie, pushing away his plate.  'Got that
+poor--dom'd scoondrel?  Where?'
+
+'Why, in the top back room, at my lodging,' replied Squeers, 'with
+him on one side, and the key on the other.'
+
+'At thy loodgin'!  Thee'st gotten him at thy loodgin'?  Ho! ho!  The
+schoolmeasther agin all England.  Give us thee hond, mun; I'm
+darned but I must shak thee by the hond for thot.--Gotten him at thy
+loodgin'?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Squeers, staggering in his chair under the
+congratulatory blow on the chest which the stout Yorkshireman dealt
+him; 'thankee.  Don't do it again.  You mean it kindly, I know,
+but it hurts rather.  Yes, there he is.  That's not so bad, is it?'
+
+'Ba'ad!' repeated John Browdie.  'It's eneaf to scare a mun to hear
+tell on.'
+
+'I thought it would surprise you a bit,' said Squeers, rubbing his
+hands.  'It was pretty neatly done, and pretty quick too.'
+
+'Hoo wor it?' inquired John, sitting down close to him.  'Tell us
+all aboot it, mun; coom, quick!'
+
+Although he could not keep pace with John Browdie's impatience, Mr
+Squeers related the lucky chance by which Smike had fallen into his
+hands, as quickly as he could, and, except when he was interrupted
+by the admiring remarks of his auditors, paused not in the recital
+until he had brought it to an end.
+
+'For fear he should give me the slip, by any chance,' observed
+Squeers, when he had finished, looking very cunning, 'I've taken
+three outsides for tomorrow morning--for Wackford and him and me--
+and have arranged to leave the accounts and the new boys to the
+agent, don't you see?  So it's very lucky you come today, or you'd
+have missed us; and as it is, unless you could come and tea with me
+tonight, we shan't see anything more of you before we go away.'
+
+'Dean't say anoother wurd,' returned the Yorkshireman, shaking him
+by the hand.  'We'd coom, if it was twonty mile.'
+
+'No, would you though?' returned Mr Squeers, who had not expected
+quite such a ready acceptance of his invitation, or he would have
+considered twice before he gave it.
+
+John Browdie's only reply was another squeeze of the hand, and an
+assurance that they would not begin to see London till tomorrow, so
+that they might be at Mr Snawley's at six o'clock without fail; and
+after some further conversation, Mr Squeers and his son departed.
+
+During the remainder of the day, Mr Browdie was in a very odd and
+excitable state; bursting occasionally into an explosion of
+laughter, and then taking up his hat and running into the coach-yard
+to have it out by himself.  He was very restless too, constantly
+walking in and out, and snapping his fingers, and dancing scraps of
+uncouth country dances, and, in short, conducting himself in such a
+very extraordinary manner, that Miss Squeers opined he was going
+mad, and, begging her dear 'Tilda not to distress herself,
+communicated her suspicions in so many words.  Mrs Browdie, however,
+without discovering any great alarm, observed that she had seen him
+so once before, and that although he was almost sure to be ill after
+it, it would not be anything very serious, and therefore he was
+better left alone.
+
+The result proved her to be perfectly correct for, while they were
+all sitting in Mr Snawley's parlour that night, and just as it was
+beginning to get dusk, John Browdie was taken so ill, and seized
+with such an alarming dizziness in the head, that the whole company
+were thrown into the utmost consternation.  His good lady, indeed,
+was the only person present, who retained presence of mind enough to
+observe that if he were allowed to lie down on Mr Squeers's bed for
+an hour or so, and left entirely to himself, he would be sure to
+recover again almost as quickly as he had been taken ill.  Nobody
+could refuse to try the effect of so reasonable a proposal, before
+sending for a surgeon.  Accordingly, John was supported upstairs,
+with great difficulty; being a monstrous weight, and regularly
+tumbling down two steps every time they hoisted him up three; and,
+being laid on the bed, was left in charge of his wife, who, after a
+short interval, reappeared in the parlour, with the gratifying
+intelligence that he had fallen fast asleep.
+
+Now, the fact was, that at that particular moment, John Browdie was
+sitting on the bed with the reddest face ever seen, cramming the
+corner of the pillow into his mouth, to prevent his roaring out loud
+with laughter.  He had no sooner succeeded in suppressing this
+emotion, than he slipped off his shoes, and creeping to the
+adjoining room where the prisoner was confined, turned the key,
+which was on the outside, and darting in, covered Smike's mouth with
+his huge hand before he could utter a sound.
+
+'Ods-bobs, dost thee not know me, mun?' whispered the Yorkshireman
+to the bewildered lad.  'Browdie.  Chap as met thee efther
+schoolmeasther was banged?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' cried Smike.  'Oh! help me.'
+
+'Help thee!' replied John, stopping his mouth again, the instant he
+had said this much.  'Thee didn't need help, if thee warn't as silly
+yoongster as ever draw'd breath.  Wa'at did 'ee come here for,
+then?'
+
+'He brought me; oh! he brought me,' cried Smike.
+
+'Brout thee!' replied John.  'Why didn't 'ee punch his head, or lay
+theeself doon and kick, and squeal out for the pollis?  I'd ha'
+licked a doozen such as him when I was yoong as thee.  But thee
+be'est a poor broken-doon chap,' said John, sadly, 'and God forgi'
+me for bragging ower yan o' his weakest creeturs!'
+
+Smike opened his mouth to speak, but John Browdie stopped him.
+
+'Stan' still,' said the Yorkshireman, 'and doant'ee speak a morsel
+o' talk till I tell'ee.'
+
+With this caution, John Browdie shook his head significantly, and
+drawing a screwdriver from his pocket, took off the box of the lock
+in a very deliberate and workmanlike manner, and laid it, together
+with the implement, on the floor.
+
+'See thot?' said John 'Thot be thy doin'.  Noo, coot awa'!'
+
+Smike looked vacantly at him, as if unable to comprehend his
+meaning.
+
+'I say, coot awa',' repeated John, hastily.  'Dost thee know where
+thee livest?  Thee dost?  Weel.  Are yon thy clothes, or
+schoolmeasther's?'
+
+'Mine,' replied Smike, as the Yorkshireman hurried him to the
+adjoining room, and pointed out a pair of shoes and a coat which
+were lying on a chair.
+
+'On wi' 'em,' said John, forcing the wrong arm into the wrong
+sleeve, and winding the tails of the coat round the fugitive's neck.
+'Noo, foller me, and when thee get'st ootside door, turn to the
+right, and they wean't see thee pass.'
+
+'But--but--he'll hear me shut the door,' replied Smike, trembling
+from head to foot.
+
+'Then dean't shut it at all,' retorted John Browdie.  'Dang it, thee
+bean't afeard o' schoolmeasther's takkin cold, I hope?'
+
+'N-no,' said Smike, his teeth chattering in his head.  'But he
+brought me back before, and will again.  He will, he will indeed.'
+
+'He wull, he wull!' replied John impatiently.  'He wean't, he
+wean't.  Look'ee!  I wont to do this neighbourly loike, and let them
+think thee's gotten awa' o' theeself, but if he cooms oot o' thot
+parlour awhiles theer't clearing off, he mun' have mercy on his oun
+boans, for I wean't.  If he foinds it oot, soon efther, I'll put 'un
+on a wrong scent, I warrant 'ee.  But if thee keep'st a good hart,
+thee'lt be at whoam afore they know thee'st gotten off.  Coom!'
+
+Smike, who comprehended just enough of this to know it was intended
+as encouragement, prepared to follow with tottering steps, when John
+whispered in his ear.
+
+'Thee'lt just tell yoong Measther that I'm sploiced to 'Tilly Price,
+and to be heerd on at the Saracen by latther, and that I bean't
+jealous of 'un--dang it, I'm loike to boost when I think o' that
+neight!  'Cod, I think I see 'un now, a powderin' awa' at the thin
+bread an' butther!'
+
+It was rather a ticklish recollection for John just then, for he was
+within an ace of breaking out into a loud guffaw.  Restraining
+himself, however, just in time, by a great effort, he glided
+downstairs, hauling Smike behind him; and placing himself close to
+the parlour door, to confront the first person that might come out,
+signed to him to make off.
+
+Having got so far, Smike needed no second bidding.  Opening the
+house-door gently, and casting a look of mingled gratitude and
+terror at his deliverer, he took the direction which had been
+indicated to him, and sped away like the wind.
+
+The Yorkshireman remained on his post for a few minutes, but,
+finding that there was no pause in the conversation inside, crept
+back again unheard, and stood, listening over the stair-rail, for a
+full hour.  Everything remaining perfectly quiet, he got into Mr
+Squeers's bed, once more, and drawing the clothes over his head,
+laughed till he was nearly smothered.
+
+If there could only have been somebody by, to see how the bedclothes
+shook, and to see the Yorkshireman's great red face and round head
+appear above the sheets, every now and then, like some jovial
+monster coming to the surface to breathe, and once more dive down
+convulsed with the laughter which came bursting forth afresh--that
+somebody would have been scarcely less amused than John Browdie
+himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+In which Nicholas falls in Love.  He employs a Mediator, whose
+Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, excepting in one
+solitary Particular
+
+
+Once more out of the clutches of his old persecutor, it needed no
+fresh stimulation to call forth the utmost energy and exertion that
+Smike was capable of summoning to his aid.  Without pausing for a
+moment to reflect upon the course he was taking, or the probability
+of its leading him homewards or the reverse, he fled away with
+surprising swiftness and constancy of purpose, borne upon such wings
+as only Fear can wear, and impelled by imaginary shouts in the well
+remembered voice of Squeers, who, with a host of pursuers, seemed to
+the poor fellow's disordered senses to press hard upon his track;
+now left at a greater distance in the rear, and now gaining faster
+and faster upon him, as the alternations of hope and terror agitated
+him by turns.  Long after he had become assured that these sounds
+were but the creation of his excited brain, he still held on, at a
+pace which even weakness and exhaustion could scarcely retard.  It
+was not until the darkness and quiet of a country road, recalled him
+to a sense of external objects, and the starry sky, above, warned
+him of the rapid flight of time, that, covered with dust and panting
+for breath, he stopped to listen and look about him.
+
+All was still and silent.  A glare of light in the distance, casting
+a warm glow upon the sky, marked where the huge city lay.  Solitary
+fields, divided by hedges and ditches, through many of which he had
+crashed and scrambled in his flight, skirted the road, both by the
+way he had come and upon the opposite side.  It was late now.  They
+could scarcely trace him by such paths as he had taken, and if he
+could hope to regain his own dwelling, it must surely be at such a
+time as that, and under cover of the darkness.  This, by degrees,
+became pretty plain, even to the mind of Smike.  He had, at first,
+entertained some vague and childish idea of travelling into the
+country for ten or a dozen miles, and then returning homewards by a
+wide circuit, which should keep him clear of London--so great was
+his apprehension of traversing the streets alone, lest he should
+again encounter his dreaded enemy--but, yielding to the conviction
+which these thoughts inspired, he turned back, and taking the open
+road, though not without many fears and misgivings, made for London
+again, with scarcely less speed of foot than that with which he had
+left the temporary abode of Mr Squeers.
+
+By the time he re-entered it, at the western extremity, the greater
+part of the shops were closed.  Of the throngs of people who had
+been tempted abroad after the heat of the day, but few remained in
+the streets, and they were lounging home.  But of these he asked his
+way from time to time, and by dint of repeated inquiries, he at
+length reached the dwelling of Newman Noggs.
+
+All that evening, Newman had been hunting and searching in byways
+and corners for the very person who now knocked at his door, while
+Nicholas had been pursuing the same inquiry in other directions.  He
+was sitting, with a melancholy air, at his poor supper, when Smike's
+timorous and uncertain knock reached his ears.  Alive to every
+sound, in his anxious and expectant state, Newman hurried
+downstairs, and, uttering a cry of joyful surprise, dragged the
+welcome visitor into the passage and up the stairs, and said not a
+word until he had him safe in his own garret and the door was shut
+behind them, when he mixed a great mug-full of gin-and-water, and
+holding it to Smike's mouth, as one might hold a bowl of medicine to
+the lips of a refractory child, commanded him to drain it to the
+last drop.
+
+Newman looked uncommonly blank when he found that Smike did little
+more than put his lips to the precious mixture; he was in the act of
+raising the mug to his own mouth with a deep sigh of compassion for
+his poor friend's weakness, when Smike, beginning to relate the
+adventures which had befallen him, arrested him half-way, and he
+stood listening, with the mug in his hand.
+
+It was odd enough to see the change that came over Newman as Smike
+proceeded.  At first he stood, rubbing his lips with the back of his
+hand, as a preparatory ceremony towards composing himself for a
+draught; then, at the mention of Squeers, he took the mug under his
+arm, and opening his eyes very wide, looked on, in the utmost
+astonishment.  When Smike came to the assault upon himself in the
+hackney coach, he hastily deposited the mug upon the table, and
+limped up and down the room in a state of the greatest excitement,
+stopping himself with a jerk, every now and then, as if to listen
+more attentively.  When John Browdie came to be spoken of, he
+dropped, by slow and gradual degrees, into a chair, and rubbing, his
+hands upon his knees--quicker and quicker as the story reached its
+climax--burst, at last, into a laugh composed of one loud sonorous
+'Ha! ha!' having given vent to which, his countenance immediately
+fell again as he inquired, with the utmost anxiety, whether it was
+probable that John Browdie and Squeers had come to blows.
+
+'No! I think not,' replied Smike.  'I don't think he could have
+missed me till I had got quite away.'
+
+Newman scratched his head with a shout of great disappointment, and
+once more lifting up the mug, applied himself to the contents;
+smiling meanwhile, over the rim, with a grim and ghastly smile at
+Smike.
+
+'You shall stay here,' said Newman; 'you're tired--fagged.  I'll
+tell them you're come back.  They have been half mad about you.  Mr
+Nicholas--'
+
+'God bless him!' cried Smike.
+
+'Amen!' returned Newman.  'He hasn't had a minute's rest or peace;
+no more has the old lady, nor Miss Nickleby.'
+
+'No, no.  Has SHE thought about me?' said Smike.  'Has she though?
+oh, has she, has she?  Don't tell me so if she has not.'
+
+'She has,' cried Newman.  'She is as noble-hearted as she is
+beautiful.'
+
+'Yes, yes!' cried Smike.  'Well said!'
+
+'So mild and gentle,' said Newman.
+
+'Yes, yes!' cried Smike, with increasing eagerness.
+
+'And yet with such a true and gallant spirit,' pursued Newman.
+
+He was going on, in his enthusiasm, when, chancing to look at his
+companion, he saw that he had covered his face with his hands, and
+that tears were stealing out between his fingers.
+
+A moment before, the boy's eyes were sparkling with unwonted fire,
+and every feature had been lighted up with an excitement which made
+him appear, for the moment, quite a different being.
+
+'Well, well,' muttered Newman, as if he were a little puzzled.  'It
+has touched ME, more than once, to think such a nature should have
+been exposed to such trials; this poor fellow--yes, yes,--he feels
+that too--it softens him--makes him think of his former misery.
+Hah!  That's it?  Yes, that's--hum!'
+
+It was by no means clear, from the tone of these broken reflections,
+that Newman Noggs considered them as explaining, at all
+satisfactorily, the emotion which had suggested them.  He sat, in a
+musing attitude, for some time, regarding Smike occasionally with an
+anxious and doubtful glance, which sufficiently showed that he was
+not very remotely connected with his thoughts.
+
+At length he repeated his proposition that Smike should remain where
+he was for that night, and that he (Noggs) should straightway repair
+to the cottage to relieve the suspense of the family.  But, as Smike
+would not hear of this--pleading his anxiety to see his friends
+again--they eventually sallied forth together; and the night being,
+by this time, far advanced, and Smike being, besides, so footsore
+that he could hardly crawl along, it was within an hour of sunrise
+when they reached their destination.
+
+At the first sound of their voices outside the house, Nicholas, who
+had passed a sleepless night, devising schemes for the recovery of
+his lost charge, started from his bed, and joyfully admitted them.
+There was so much noisy conversation, and congratulation, and
+indignation, that the remainder of the family were soon awakened,
+and Smike received a warm and cordial welcome, not only from Kate,
+but from Mrs Nickleby also, who assured him of her future favour and
+regard, and was so obliging as to relate, for his entertainment and
+that of the assembled circle, a most remarkable account extracted
+from some work the name of which she had never known, of a
+miraculous escape from some prison, but what one she couldn't
+remember, effected by an officer whose name she had forgotten,
+confined for some crime which she didn't clearly recollect.
+
+At first Nicholas was disposed to give his uncle credit for some
+portion of this bold attempt (which had so nearly proved successful)
+to carry off Smike; but on more mature consideration, he was
+inclined to think that the full merit of it rested with Mr Squeers.
+Determined to ascertain, if he could, through John Browdie, how the
+case really stood, he betook himself to his daily occupation:
+meditating, as he went, on a great variety of schemes for the
+punishment of the Yorkshire schoolmaster, all of which had their
+foundation in the strictest principles of retributive justice, and
+had but the one drawback of being wholly impracticable.
+
+'A fine morning, Mr Linkinwater!' said Nicholas, entering the
+office.
+
+'Ah!' replied Tim, 'talk of the country, indeed!  What do you think
+of this, now, for a day--a London day--eh?'
+
+'It's a little clearer out of town,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Clearer!' echoed Tim Linkinwater.  'You should see it from my
+bedroom window.'
+
+'You should see it from MINE,' replied Nicholas, with a smile.
+
+'Pooh! pooh!' said Tim Linkinwater, 'don't tell me.  Country!'  (Bow
+was quite a rustic place to Tim.)  'Nonsense!  What can you get in
+the country but new-laid eggs and flowers?  I can buy new-laid eggs
+in Leadenhall Market, any morning before breakfast; and as to
+flowers, it's worth a run upstairs to smell my mignonette, or to see
+the double wallflower in the back-attic window, at No. 6, in the
+court.'
+
+'There is a double wallflower at No. 6, in the court, is there?'
+said Nicholas.
+
+'Yes, is there!' replied Tim, 'and planted in a cracked jug, without
+a spout.  There were hyacinths there, this last spring, blossoming,
+in--but you'll laugh at that, of course.'
+
+'At what?'
+
+'At their blossoming in old blacking-bottles,' said Tim.
+
+'Not I, indeed,' returned Nicholas.
+
+Tim looked wistfully at him, for a moment, as if he were encouraged
+by the tone of this reply to be more communicative on the subject;
+and sticking behind his ear, a pen that he had been making, and
+shutting up his knife with a smart click, said,
+
+'They belong to a sickly bedridden hump-backed boy, and seem to be
+the only pleasure, Mr Nickleby, of his sad existence.  How many
+years is it,' said Tim, pondering, 'since I first noticed him, quite
+a little child, dragging himself about on a pair of tiny crutches?
+Well!  Well!  Not many; but though they would appear nothing, if I
+thought of other things, they seem a long, long time, when I think
+of him.  It is a sad thing,' said Tim, breaking off, 'to see a
+little deformed child sitting apart from other children, who are
+active and merry, watching the games he is denied the power to share
+in.  He made my heart ache very often.'
+
+'It is a good heart,' said Nicholas, 'that disentangles itself from
+the close avocations of every day, to heed such things.  You were
+saying--'
+
+'That the flowers belonged to this poor boy,' said Tim; 'that's all.
+When it is fine weather, and he can crawl out of bed, he draws a
+chair close to the window, and sits there, looking at them and
+arranging them, all day long.  He used to nod, at first, and then we
+came to speak.  Formerly, when I called to him of a morning, and
+asked him how he was, he would smile, and say, "Better!" but now he
+shakes his head, and only bends more closely over his old plants.
+It must be dull to watch the dark housetops and the flying clouds,
+for so many months; but he is very patient.'
+
+'Is there nobody in the house to cheer or help him?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'His father lives there, I believe,' replied Tim, 'and other people
+too; but no one seems to care much for the poor sickly cripple.  I
+have asked him, very often, if I can do nothing for him; his answer
+is always the same.  "Nothing."  His voice is growing weak of late,
+but I can SEE that he makes the old reply.  He can't leave his bed
+now, so they have moved it close beside the window, and there he
+lies, all day: now looking at the sky, and now at his flowers, which
+he still makes shift to trim and water, with his own thin hands.  At
+night, when he sees my candle, he draws back his curtain, and leaves
+it so, till I am in bed.  It seems such company to him to know that
+I am there, that I often sit at my window for an hour or more, that
+he may see I am still awake; and sometimes I get up in the night to
+look at the dull melancholy light in his little room, and wonder
+whether he is awake or sleeping.
+
+'The night will not be long coming,' said Tim, 'when he will sleep,
+and never wake again on earth.  We have never so much as shaken
+hands in all our lives; and yet I shall miss him like an old friend.
+Are there any country flowers that could interest me like these, do
+you think?  Or do you suppose that the withering of a hundred kinds
+of the choicest flowers that blow, called by the hardest Latin names
+that were ever invented, would give me one fraction of the pain that
+I shall feel when these old jugs and bottles are swept away as
+lumber?  Country!' cried Tim, with a contemptuous emphasis; 'don't
+you know that I couldn't have such a court under my bedroom window,
+anywhere, but in London?'
+
+With which inquiry, Tim turned his back, and pretending to be
+absorbed in his accounts, took an opportunity of hastily wiping his
+eyes when he supposed Nicholas was looking another way.
+
+Whether it was that Tim's accounts were more than usually intricate
+that morning, or whether it was that his habitual serenity had been
+a little disturbed by these recollections, it so happened that when
+Nicholas returned from executing some commission, and inquired
+whether Mr Charles Cheeryble was alone in his room, Tim promptly,
+and without the smallest hesitation, replied in the affirmative,
+although somebody had passed into the room not ten minutes before,
+and Tim took especial and particular pride in preventing any
+intrusion on either of the brothers when they were engaged with any
+visitor whatever.
+
+'I'll take this letter to him at once,' said Nicholas, 'if that's
+the case.'  And with that, he walked to the room and knocked at the
+door.
+
+No answer.
+
+Another knock, and still no answer.
+
+'He can't be here,' thought Nicholas.  'I'll lay it on his table.'
+
+So, Nicholas opened the door and walked in; and very quickly he
+turned to walk out again, when he saw, to his great astonishment and
+discomfiture, a young lady upon her knees at Mr Cheeryble's feet,
+and Mr Cheeryble beseeching her to rise, and entreating a third
+person, who had the appearance of the young lady's female
+attendant, to add her persuasions to his to induce her to do so.
+
+Nicholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was precipitately
+retiring, when the young lady, turning her head a little, presented
+to his view the features of the lovely girl whom he had seen at the
+register-office on his first visit long before.  Glancing from her
+to the attendant, he recognised the same clumsy servant who had
+accompanied her then; and between his admiration of the young lady's
+beauty, and the confusion and surprise of this unexpected
+recognition, he stood stock-still, in such a bewildered state of
+surprise and embarrassment that, for the moment, he was quite bereft
+of the power either to speak or move.
+
+'My dear ma'am--my dear young lady,' cried brother Charles in
+violent agitation, 'pray don't--not another word, I beseech and
+entreat you!  I implore you--I beg of you--to rise.  We--we--are not
+alone.'
+
+As he spoke, he raised the young lady, who staggered to a chair and
+swooned away.
+
+'She has fainted, sir,' said Nicholas, darting eagerly forward.
+
+'Poor dear, poor dear!' cried brother Charles 'Where is my brother
+Ned?  Ned, my dear brother, come here pray.'
+
+'Brother Charles, my dear fellow,' replied his brother, hurrying
+into the room, 'what is the--ah! what--'
+
+'Hush! hush!--not a word for your life, brother Ned,' returned the
+other.  'Ring for the housekeeper, my dear brother--call Tim
+Linkinwater!  Here, Tim Linkinwater, sir--Mr Nickleby, my dear sir,
+leave the room, I beg and beseech of you.'
+
+'I think she is better now,' said Nicholas, who had been watching
+the patient so eagerly, that he had not heard the request.
+
+'Poor bird!' cried brother Charles, gently taking her hand in his,
+and laying her head upon his arm.  'Brother Ned, my dear fellow, you
+will be surprised, I know, to witness this, in business hours; but--'
+here he was again reminded of the presence of Nicholas, and
+shaking him by the hand, earnestly requested him to leave the room,
+and to send Tim Linkinwater without an instant's delay.
+
+Nicholas immediately withdrew and, on his way to the counting-house,
+met both the old housekeeper and Tim Linkinwater, jostling each
+other in the passage, and hurrying to the scene of action with
+extraordinary speed.  Without waiting to hear his message, Tim
+Linkinwater darted into the room, and presently afterwards Nicholas
+heard the door shut and locked on the inside.
+
+He had abundance of time to ruminate on this discovery, for Tim
+Linkinwater was absent during the greater part of an hour, during
+the whole of which time Nicholas thought of nothing but the young
+lady, and her exceeding beauty, and what could possibly have brought
+her there, and why they made such a mystery of it.  The more he
+thought of all this, the more it perplexed him, and the more anxious
+he became to know who and what she was.  'I should have known her
+among ten thousand,' thought Nicholas.  And with that he walked up
+and down the room, and recalling her face and figure (of which he
+had a peculiarly vivid remembrance), discarded all other subjects of
+reflection and dwelt upon that alone.
+
+At length Tim Linkinwater came back--provokingly cool, and with
+papers in his hand, and a pen in his mouth, as if nothing had
+happened.
+
+'Is she quite recovered?' said Nicholas, impetuously.
+
+'Who?' returned Tim Linkinwater.
+
+'Who!' repeated Nicholas.  'The young lady.'
+
+'What do you make, Mr Nickleby,' said Tim, taking his pen out of his
+mouth, 'what do you make of four hundred and twenty-seven times
+three thousand two hundred and thirty-eight?'
+
+'Nay,' returned Nicholas, 'what do you make of my question first?  I
+asked you--'
+
+'About the young lady,' said Tim Linkinwater, putting on his
+spectacles.  'To be sure.  Yes.  Oh! she's very well.'
+
+'Very well, is she?' returned Nicholas.
+
+'Very well,' replied Mr Linkinwater, gravely.
+
+'Will she be able to go home today?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'She's gone,' said Tim.
+
+'Gone!'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'I hope she has not far to go?' said Nicholas, looking earnestly at
+the other.
+
+'Ay,' replied the immovable Tim, 'I hope she hasn't.'
+
+Nicholas hazarded one or two further remarks, but it was evident
+that Tim Linkinwater had his own reasons for evading the subject,
+and that he was determined to afford no further information
+respecting the fair unknown, who had awakened so much curiosity in
+the breast of his young friend.  Nothing daunted by this repulse,
+Nicholas returned to the charge next day, emboldened by the
+circumstance of Mr Linkinwater being in a very talkative and
+communicative mood; but, directly he resumed the theme, Tim relapsed
+into a state of most provoking taciturnity, and from answering in
+monosyllables, came to returning no answers at all, save such as
+were to be inferred from several grave nods and shrugs, which only
+served to whet that appetite for intelligence in Nicholas, which had
+already attained a most unreasonable height.
+
+Foiled in these attempts, he was fain to content himself with
+watching for the young lady's next visit, but here again he was
+disappointed.  Day after day passed, and she did not return.  He
+looked eagerly at the superscription of all the notes and letters,
+but there was not one among them which he could fancy to be in her
+handwriting.  On two or three occasions he was employed on business
+which took him to a distance, and had formerly been transacted by
+Tim Linkinwater.  Nicholas could not help suspecting that, for some
+reason or other, he was sent out of the way on purpose, and that the
+young lady was there in his absence.  Nothing transpired, however,
+to confirm this suspicion, and Tim could not be entrapped into any
+confession or admission tending to support it in the smallest
+degree.
+
+Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the
+growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.
+'Out of sight, out of mind,' is well enough as a proverb applicable
+to cases of friendship, though absence is not always necessary to
+hollowness of heart, even between friends, and truth and honesty,
+like precious stones, are perhaps most easily imitated at a
+distance, when the counterfeits often pass for real.  Love, however,
+is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination: which
+has a long memory, and will thrive, for a considerable time, on very
+slight and sparing food.  Thus it is, that it often attains its most
+luxuriant growth in separation and under circumstances of the utmost
+difficulty; and thus it was, that Nicholas, thinking of nothing but
+the unknown young lady, from day to day and from hour to hour,
+began, at last, to think that he was very desperately in love with
+her, and that never was such an ill-used and persecuted lover as he.
+
+Still, though he loved and languished after the most orthodox
+models, and was only deterred from making a confidante of Kate by
+the slight considerations of having never, in all his life, spoken
+to the object of his passion, and having never set eyes upon her,
+except on two occasions, on both of which she had come and gone like
+a flash of lightning--or, as Nicholas himself said, in the numerous
+conversations he held with himself, like a vision of youth and
+beauty much too bright to last--his ardour and devotion remained
+without its reward.  The young lady appeared no more; so there was a
+great deal of love wasted (enough indeed to have set up half-a-dozen
+young gentlemen, as times go, with the utmost decency), and nobody
+was a bit the wiser for it; not even Nicholas himself, who, on the
+contrary, became more dull, sentimental, and lackadaisical, every
+day.
+
+While matters were in this state, the failure of a correspondent of
+the brothers Cheeryble, in Germany, imposed upon Tim Linkinwater and
+Nicholas the necessity of going through some very long and
+complicated accounts, extending over a considerable space of time.
+To get through them with the greater dispatch, Tim Linkinwater
+proposed that they should remain at the counting-house, for a week
+or so, until ten o'clock at night; to this, as nothing damped the
+zeal of Nicholas in the service of his kind patrons--not even
+romance, which has seldom business habits--he cheerfully assented.
+On the very first night of these later hours, at nine exactly, there
+came: not the young lady herself, but her servant, who, being
+closeted with brother Charles for some time, went away, and returned
+next night at the same hour, and on the next, and on the next again.
+
+These repeated visits inflamed the curiosity of Nicholas to the very
+highest pitch.  Tantalised and excited, beyond all bearing, and
+unable to fathom the mystery without neglecting his duty, he
+confided the whole secret to Newman Noggs, imploring him to be on
+the watch next night; to follow the girl home; to set on foot such
+inquiries relative to the name, condition, and history of her
+mistress, as he could, without exciting suspicion; and to report the
+result to him with the least possible delay.
+
+Beyond all measure proud of this commission, Newman Noggs took up
+his post, in the square, on the following evening, a full hour
+before the needful time, and planting himself behind the pump and
+pulling his hat over his eyes, began his watch with an elaborate
+appearance of mystery, admirably calculated to excite the suspicion
+of all beholders.  Indeed, divers servant girls who came to draw
+water, and sundry little boys who stopped to drink at the ladle,
+were almost scared out of their senses, by the apparition of Newman
+Noggs looking stealthily round the pump, with nothing of him visible
+but his face, and that wearing the expression of a meditative Ogre.
+
+Punctual to her time, the messenger came again, and, after an
+interview of rather longer duration than usual, departed.  Newman
+had made two appointments with Nicholas: one for the next evening,
+conditional on his success: and one the next night following, which
+was to be kept under all circumstances.  The first night he was not
+at the place of meeting (a certain tavern about half-way between the
+city and Golden Square), but on the second night he was there before
+Nicholas, and received him with open arms.
+
+'It's all right,' whispered Newman.  'Sit down.  Sit down, there's a
+dear young man, and let me tell you all about it.'
+
+Nicholas needed no second invitation, and eagerly inquired what was
+the news.
+
+'There's a great deal of news,' said Newman, in a flutter of
+exultation.  'It's all right.  Don't be anxious.  I don't know where
+to begin.  Never mind that.  Keep up your spirits.  It's all right.'
+
+'Well?' said Nicholas eagerly.  'Yes?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Newman.  'That's it.'
+
+'What's it?' said Nicholas.  'The name--the name, my dear fellow!'
+
+'The name's Bobster,' replied Newman.
+
+'Bobster!' repeated Nicholas, indignantly.
+
+'That's the name,' said Newman.  'I remember it by lobster.'
+
+'Bobster!' repeated Nicholas, more emphatically than before.  'That
+must be the servant's name.'
+
+'No, it an't,' said Newman, shaking his head with great positiveness.
+'Miss Cecilia Bobster.'
+
+'Cecilia, eh?' returned Nicholas, muttering the two names together
+over and over again in every variety of tone, to try the effect.
+'Well, Cecilia is a pretty name.'
+
+'Very.  And a pretty creature too,' said Newman.
+
+'Who?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Miss Bobster.'
+
+'Why, where have you seen her?' demanded Nicholas.
+
+'Never mind, my dear boy,' retorted Noggs, clapping him on the
+shoulder.  'I HAVE seen her.  You shall see her.  I've managed it
+all.'
+
+'My dear Newman,' cried Nicholas, grasping his hand, 'are you
+serious?'
+
+'I am,' replied Newman.  'I mean it all.  Every word.  You shall see
+her tomorrow night.  She consents to hear you speak for yourself.  I
+persuaded her.  She is all affability, goodness, sweetness, and
+beauty.'
+
+'I know she is; I know she must be, Newman!' said Nicholas, wringing
+his hand.
+
+'You are right,' returned Newman.
+
+'Where does she live?' cried Nicholas.  'What have you learnt of her
+history?  Has she a father--mother--any brothers--sisters?  What did
+she say?  How came you to see her?  Was she not very much surprised?
+Did you say how passionately I have longed to speak to her?  Did you
+tell her where I had seen her?  Did you tell her how, and when, and
+where, and how long, and how often, I have thought of that sweet
+face which came upon me in my bitterest distress like a glimpse of
+some better world--did you, Newman--did you?'
+
+Poor Noggs literally gasped for breath as this flood of questions
+rushed upon him, and moved spasmodically in his chair at every fresh
+inquiry, staring at Nicholas meanwhile with a most ludicrous
+expression of perplexity.
+
+'No,' said Newman, 'I didn't tell her that.'
+
+'Didn't tell her which?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'About the glimpse of the better world,' said Newman.  'I didn't
+tell her who you were, either, or where you'd seen her.  I said you
+loved her to distraction.'
+
+'That's true, Newman,' replied Nicholas, with his characteristic
+vehemence.  'Heaven knows I do!'
+
+'I said too, that you had admired her for a long time in secret,'
+said Newman.
+
+'Yes, yes.  What did she say to that?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Blushed,' said Newman.
+
+'To be sure.  Of course she would,' said Nicholas approvingly.
+Newman then went on to say, that the young lady was an only child,
+that her mother was dead, that she resided with her father, and that
+she had been induced to allow her lover a secret interview, at the
+intercession of her servant, who had great influence with her.  He
+further related how it required much moving and great eloquence to
+bring the young lady to this pass; how it was expressly understood
+that she merely afforded Nicholas an opportunity of declaring his
+passion; and how she by no means pledged herself to be favourably
+impressed with his attentions.  The mystery of her visits to the
+brothers Cheeryble remained wholly unexplained, for Newman had not
+alluded to them, either in his preliminary conversations with the
+servant or his subsequent interview with the mistress, merely
+remarking that he had been instructed to watch the girl home and
+plead his young friend's cause, and not saying how far he had
+followed her, or from what point.  But Newman hinted that from what
+had fallen from the confidante, he had been led to suspect that the
+young lady led a very miserable and unhappy life, under the strict
+control of her only parent, who was of a violent and brutal temper;
+a circumstance which he thought might in some degree account, both
+for her having sought the protection and friendship of the brothers,
+and her suffering herself to be prevailed upon to grant the promised
+interview.  The last he held to be a very logical deduction from the
+premises, inasmuch as it was but natural to suppose that a young
+lady, whose present condition was so unenviable, would be more than
+commonly desirous to change it.
+
+It appeared, on further questioning--for it was only by a very long
+and arduous process that all this could be got out of Newman Noggs--
+that Newman, in explanation of his shabby appearance, had
+represented himself as being, for certain wise and indispensable
+purposes connected with that intrigue, in disguise; and, being
+questioned how he had come to exceed his commission so far as to
+procure an interview, he responded, that the lady appearing willing
+to grant it, he considered himself bound, both in duty and
+gallantry, to avail himself of such a golden means of enabling
+Nicholas to prosecute his addresses.  After these and all possible
+questions had been asked and answered twenty times over, they
+parted, undertaking to meet on the following night at half-past ten,
+for the purpose of fulfilling the appointment; which was for eleven
+o'clock.
+
+'Things come about very strangely!' thought Nicholas, as he walked
+home.  'I never contemplated anything of this kind; never dreamt of
+the possibility of it.  To know something of the life of one in whom
+I felt such interest; to see her in the street, to pass the house in
+which she lived, to meet her sometimes in her walks, to hope that a
+day might come when I might be in a condition to tell her of my
+love, this was the utmost extent of my thoughts.  Now, however--but
+I should be a fool, indeed, to repine at my own good fortune!'
+
+Still, Nicholas was dissatisfied; and there was more in the
+dissatisfaction than mere revulsion of feeling.  He was angry with
+the young lady for being so easily won, 'because,' reasoned
+Nicholas, 'it is not as if she knew it was I, but it might have been
+anybody,'--which was certainly not pleasant.  The next moment, he
+was angry with himself for entertaining such thoughts, arguing that
+nothing but goodness could dwell in such a temple, and that the
+behaviour of the brothers sufficiently showed the estimation in
+which they held her.  'The fact is, she's a mystery altogether,'
+said Nicholas.  This was not more satisfactory than his previous
+course of reflection, and only drove him out upon a new sea of
+speculation and conjecture, where he tossed and tumbled, in great
+discomfort of mind, until the clock struck ten, and the hour of
+meeting drew nigh.
+
+Nicholas had dressed himself with great care, and even Newman Noggs
+had trimmed himself up a little; his coat presenting the phenomenon
+of two consecutive buttons, and the supplementary pins being
+inserted at tolerably regular intervals.  He wore his hat, too, in
+the newest taste, with a pocket-handkerchief in the crown, and a
+twisted end of it straggling out behind after the fashion of a
+pigtail, though he could scarcely lay claim to the ingenuity of
+inventing this latter decoration, inasmuch as he was utterly
+unconscious of it: being in a nervous and excited condition which
+rendered him quite insensible to everything but the great object of
+the expedition.
+
+They traversed the streets in profound silence; and after walking at
+a round pace for some distance, arrived in one, of a gloomy
+appearance and very little frequented, near the Edgeware Road.
+
+'Number twelve,' said Newman.
+
+'Oh!' replied Nicholas, looking about him.
+
+'Good street?' said Newman.
+
+'Yes,' returned Nicholas.  'Rather dull.'
+
+Newman made no answer to this remark, but, halting abruptly, planted
+Nicholas with his back to some area railings, and gave him to
+understand that he was to wait there, without moving hand or foot,
+until it was satisfactorily ascertained that the coast was clear.
+This done, Noggs limped away with great alacrity; looking over his
+shoulder every instant, to make quite certain that Nicholas was
+obeying his directions; and, ascending the steps of a house some
+half-dozen doors off, was lost to view.
+
+After a short delay, he reappeared, and limping back again, halted
+midway, and beckoned Nicholas to follow him.
+
+'Well?' said Nicholas, advancing towards him on tiptoe.
+
+'All right,' replied Newman, in high glee.  'All ready; nobody at
+home.  Couldn't be better.  Ha! ha!'
+
+With this fortifying assurance, he stole past a street-door, on
+which Nicholas caught a glimpse of a brass plate, with 'BOBSTER,' in
+very large letters; and, stopping at the area-gate, which was open,
+signed to his young friend to descend.
+
+'What the devil!' cried Nicholas, drawing back.  'Are we to sneak
+into the kitchen, as if we came after the forks?'
+
+'Hush!' replied Newman.  'Old Bobster--ferocious Turk.  He'd kill
+'em all--box the young lady's ears--he does--often.'
+
+'What!' cried Nicholas, in high wrath, 'do you mean to tell me that
+any man would dare to box the ears of such a--'
+
+He had no time to sing the praises of his mistress, just then, for
+Newman gave him a gentle push which had nearly precipitated him to
+the bottom of the area steps.  Thinking it best to take the hint in
+good part, Nicholas descended, without further remonstrance, but
+with a countenance bespeaking anything rather than the hope and
+rapture of a passionate lover.  Newman followed--he would have
+followed head first, but for the timely assistance of Nicholas--and,
+taking his hand, led him through a stone passage, profoundly dark,
+into a back-kitchen or cellar, of the blackest and most pitchy
+obscurity, where they stopped.
+
+'Well!' said Nicholas, in a discontented whisper, 'this is not all,
+I suppose, is it?'
+
+'No, no,' rejoined Noggs; 'they'll be here directly.  It's all
+right.'
+
+'I am glad to hear it,' said Nicholas.  'I shouldn't have thought
+it, I confess.'
+
+They exchanged no further words, and there Nicholas stood, listening
+to the loud breathing of Newman Noggs, and imagining that his nose
+seemed to glow like a red-hot coal, even in the midst of the
+darkness which enshrouded them.  Suddenly the sound of cautious
+footsteps attracted his ear, and directly afterwards a female voice
+inquired if the gentleman was there.
+
+'Yes,' replied Nicholas, turning towards the corner from which the
+voice proceeded.  'Who is that?'
+
+'Only me, sir,' replied the voice.  'Now if you please, ma'am.'
+
+A gleam of light shone into the place, and presently the servant
+girl appeared, bearing a light, and followed by her young mistress,
+who seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty and confusion.
+
+At sight of the young lady, Nicholas started and changed colour; his
+heart beat violently, and he stood rooted to the spot.  At that
+instant, and almost simultaneously with her arrival and that of the
+candle, there was heard a loud and furious knocking at the street-
+door, which caused Newman Noggs to jump up, with great agility, from
+a beer-barrel on which he had been seated astride, and to exclaim
+abruptly, and with a face of ashy paleness, 'Bobster, by the Lord!'
+
+The young lady shrieked, the attendant wrung her hands, Nicholas
+gazed from one to the other in apparent stupefaction, and Newman
+hurried to and fro, thrusting his hands into all his pockets
+successively, and drawing out the linings of every one in the excess
+of his irresolution.  It was but a moment, but the confusion crowded
+into that one moment no imagination can exaggerate.
+
+'Leave the house, for Heaven's sake!  We have done wrong, we deserve
+it all,' cried the young lady.  'Leave the house, or I am ruined and
+undone for ever.'
+
+'Will you hear me say but one word?' cried Nicholas.  'Only one.  I
+will not detain you.  Will you hear me say one word, in explanation
+of this mischance?'
+
+But Nicholas might as well have spoken to the wind, for the young
+lady, with distracted looks, hurried up the stairs.  He would have
+followed her, but Newman, twisting his hand in his coat collar,
+dragged him towards the passage by which they had entered.
+
+'Let me go, Newman, in the Devil's name!' cried Nicholas.  'I must
+speak to her.  I will!  I will not leave this house without.'
+
+'Reputation--character--violence--consider,' said Newman, clinging
+round him with both arms, and hurrying him away.  'Let them open the
+door.  We'll go, as we came, directly it's shut.  Come.  This way.
+Here.'
+
+Overpowered by the remonstrances of Newman, and the tears and
+prayers of the girl, and the tremendous knocking above, which had
+never ceased, Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried off; and,
+precisely as Mr Bobster made his entrance by the street-door, he and
+Noggs made their exit by the area-gate.
+
+They hurried away, through several streets, without stopping or
+speaking.  At last, they halted and confronted each other with blank
+and rueful faces.
+
+'Never mind,' said Newman, gasping for breath.  'Don't be cast down.
+It's all right.  More fortunate next time.  It couldn't be helped.
+I did MY part.'
+
+'Excellently,' replied Nicholas, taking his hand.  'Excellently, and
+like the true and zealous friend you are.  Only--mind, I am not
+disappointed, Newman, and feel just as much indebted to you--only IT
+WAS THE WRONG LADY.'
+
+'Eh?' cried Newman Noggs.  'Taken in by the servant?'
+
+'Newman, Newman,' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder:
+'it was the wrong servant too.'
+
+Newman's under-jaw dropped, and he gazed at Nicholas, with his sound
+eye fixed fast and motionless in his head.
+
+'Don't take it to heart,' said Nicholas; 'it's of no consequence;
+you see I don't care about it; you followed the wrong person, that's
+all.'
+
+That WAS all.  Whether Newman Noggs had looked round the pump, in a
+slanting direction, so long, that his sight became impaired; or
+whether, finding that there was time to spare, he had recruited
+himself with a few drops of something stronger than the pump could
+yield--by whatsoever means it had come to pass, this was his
+mistake.  And Nicholas went home to brood upon it, and to meditate
+upon the charms of the unknown young lady, now as far beyond his
+reach as ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 41
+
+Containing some Romantic Passages between Mrs Nickleby and the
+Gentleman in the Small-clothes next Door
+
+
+Ever since her last momentous conversation with her son, Mrs
+Nickleby had begun to display unusual care in the adornment of her
+person, gradually superadding to those staid and matronly
+habiliments, which had, up to that time, formed her ordinary attire,
+a variety of embellishments and decorations, slight perhaps in
+themselves, but, taken together, and considered with reference to
+the subject of her disclosure, of no mean importance.  Even her
+black dress assumed something of a deadly-lively air from the jaunty
+style in which it was worn; and, eked out as its lingering
+attractions were; by a prudent disposal, here and there, of certain
+juvenile ornaments of little or no value, which had, for that reason
+alone, escaped the general wreck and been permitted to slumber
+peacefully in odd corners of old drawers and boxes where daylight
+seldom shone, her mourning garments assumed quite a new character.
+From being the outward tokens of respect and sorrow for the dead,
+they became converted into signals of very slaughterous and killing
+designs upon the living.
+
+Mrs Nickleby might have been stimulated to this proceeding by a
+lofty sense of duty, and impulses of unquestionable excellence.  She
+might, by this time, have become impressed with the sinfulness of
+long indulgence in unavailing woe, or the necessity of setting a
+proper example of neatness and decorum to her blooming daughter.
+Considerations of duty and responsibility apart, the change might
+have taken its rise in feelings of the purest and most disinterested
+charity.  The gentleman next door had been vilified by Nicholas;
+rudely stigmatised as a dotard and an idiot; and for these attacks
+upon his understanding, Mrs Nickleby was, in some sort, accountable.
+She might have felt that it was the act of a good Christian to show
+by all means in her power, that the abused gentleman was neither the
+one nor the other.  And what better means could she adopt, towards
+so virtuous and laudable an end, than proving to all men, in her own
+person, that his passion was the most rational and reasonable in the
+world, and just the very result, of all others, which discreet and
+thinking persons might have foreseen, from her incautiously
+displaying her matured charms, without reserve, under the very eye,
+as it were, of an ardent and too-susceptible man?
+
+'Ah!' said Mrs Nickleby, gravely shaking her head; 'if Nicholas knew
+what his poor dear papa suffered before we were engaged, when I used
+to hate him, he would have a little more feeling.  Shall I ever
+forget the morning I looked scornfully at him when he offered to
+carry my parasol?  Or that night, when I frowned at him?  It was a
+mercy he didn't emigrate.  It very nearly drove him to it.'
+
+Whether the deceased might not have been better off if he had
+emigrated in his bachelor days, was a question which his relict did
+not stop to consider; for Kate entered the room, with her workbox,
+in this stage of her reflections; and a much slighter interruption,
+or no interruption at all, would have diverted Mrs Nickleby's
+thoughts into a new channel at any time.
+
+'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'I don't know how it is, but a
+fine warm summer day like this, with the birds singing in every
+direction, always puts me in mind of roast pig, with sage and onion
+sauce, and made gravy.'
+
+'That's a curious association of ideas, is it not, mama?'
+
+'Upon my word, my dear, I don't know,' replied Mrs Nickleby.  'Roast
+pig; let me see.  On the day five weeks after you were christened,
+we had a roast--no, that couldn't have been a pig, either, because I
+recollect there were a pair of them to carve, and your poor papa and
+I could never have thought of sitting down to two pigs--they must
+have been partridges.  Roast pig!  I hardly think we ever could have
+had one, now I come to remember, for your papa could never bear the
+sight of them in the shops, and used to say that they always put him
+in mind of very little babies, only the pigs had much fairer
+complexions; and he had a horror of little babies, to, because he
+couldn't very well afford any increase to his family, and had a
+natural dislike to the subject.  It's very odd now, what can have
+put that in my head!  I recollect dining once at Mrs Bevan's, in
+that broad street round the corner by the coachmaker's, where the
+tipsy man fell through the cellar-flap of an empty house nearly a
+week before the quarter-day, and wasn't found till the new tenant
+went in--and we had roast pig there.  It must be that, I think, that
+reminds me of it, especially as there was a little bird in the room
+that would keep on singing all the time of dinner--at least, not a
+little bird, for it was a parrot, and he didn't sing exactly, for he
+talked and swore dreadfully: but I think it must be that.  Indeed I
+am sure it must.  Shouldn't you say so, my dear?'
+
+'I should say there was not a doubt about it, mama,' returned Kate,
+with a cheerful smile.
+
+'No; but DO you think so, Kate?' said Mrs Nickleby, with as much
+gravity as if it were a question of the most imminent and thrilling
+interest.  'If you don't, say so at once, you know; because it's
+just as well to be correct, particularly on a point of this kind,
+which is very curious and worth settling while one thinks about it.'
+
+Kate laughingly replied that she was quite convinced; and as her
+mama still appeared undetermined whether it was not absolutely
+essential that the subject should be renewed, proposed that they
+should take their work into the summer-house, and enjoy the beauty
+of the afternoon.  Mrs Nickleby readily assented, and to the summer-
+house they repaired, without further discussion.
+
+'Well, I will say,' observed Mrs Nickleby, as she took her seat,
+'that there never was such a good creature as Smike.  Upon my word,
+the pains he has taken in putting this little arbour to rights, and
+training the sweetest flowers about it, are beyond anything I could
+have--I wish he wouldn't put ALL the gravel on your side, Kate, my
+dear, though, and leave nothing but mould for me.'
+
+'Dear mama,' returned Kate, hastily, 'take this seat--do--to oblige
+me, mama.'
+
+'No, indeed, my dear.  I shall keep my own side,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+'Well! I declare!'
+
+Kate looked up inquiringly.
+
+'If he hasn't been,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'and got, from somewhere
+or other, a couple of roots of those flowers that I said I was so
+fond of, the other night, and asked you if you were not--no, that
+YOU said YOU were so fond of, the other night, and asked me if I
+wasn't--it's the same thing.  Now, upon my word, I take that as very
+kind and attentive indeed!  I don't see,' added Mrs Nickleby,
+looking narrowly about her, 'any of them on my side, but I suppose
+they grow best near the gravel.  You may depend upon it they do,
+Kate, and that's the reason they are all near you, and he has put
+the gravel there, because it's the sunny side.  Upon my word, that's
+very clever now!  I shouldn't have had half as much thought myself!'
+
+'Mama,' said Kate, bending over her work so that her face was
+almost hidden, 'before you were married--'
+
+'Dear me, Kate,' interrupted Mrs Nickleby, 'what in the name of
+goodness graciousness makes you fly off to the time before I was
+married, when I'm talking to you about his thoughtfulness and
+attention to me?  You don't seem to take the smallest interest in
+the garden.'
+
+'Oh! mama,' said Kate, raising her face again, 'you know I do.'
+
+'Well then, my dear, why don't you praise the neatness and
+prettiness with which it's kept?' said Mrs Nickleby.  'How very odd
+you are, Kate!'
+
+'I do praise it, mama,' answered Kate, gently.  'Poor fellow!'
+
+'I scarcely ever hear you, my dear,' retorted Mrs Nickleby; 'that's
+all I've got to say.'  By this time the good lady had been a long
+while upon one topic, so she fell at once into her daughter's little
+trap, if trap it were, and inquired what she had been going to say.
+
+'About what, mama?' said Kate, who had apparently quite forgotten
+her diversion.
+
+'Lor, Kate, my dear,' returned her mother, 'why, you're asleep or
+stupid!  About the time before I was married.'
+
+'Oh yes!' said Kate, 'I remember.  I was going to ask, mama, before
+you were married, had you many suitors?'
+
+'Suitors, my dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful
+complacency.  'First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at
+least.'
+
+'Mama!' returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance.
+
+'I had indeed, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'not including your poor
+papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same
+dancing school, and who WOULD send gold watches and bracelets to our
+house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who
+afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a
+convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I
+don't know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he
+accidentally choked himself, and the government pardoned him.  Then
+there was young Lukin,' said Mrs Nickleby, beginning with her left
+thumb and checking off the names on her fingers--'Mogley--Tipslark--
+Cabbery--Smifser--'
+
+Having now reached her little finger, Mrs Nickleby was carrying the
+account over to the other hand, when a loud 'Hem!' which appeared to
+come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself
+and her daughter a violent start.
+
+'Mama! what was that?' said Kate, in a low tone of voice.
+
+'Upon my word, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, considerably
+startled, 'unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house,
+I don't know what it could possibly--'
+
+'A--hem!' cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an
+ordinary clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke
+up all the echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an
+extent which must have made the unseen bellower quite black in the
+face.
+
+'I understand it now, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, laying her hand
+on Kate's; 'don't be alarmed, my love, it's not directed to you, and
+is not intended to frighten anybody.  Let us give everybody their
+due, Kate; I am bound to say that.'
+
+So saying, Mrs Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her
+daughter's hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell
+something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank
+Heaven; and wouldn't do it.
+
+'What do you mean, mama?' demanded Kate, in evident surprise.
+
+'Don't be flurried, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, looking towards
+the garden-wall, 'for you see I'm not, and if it would be excusable
+in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would--under all the
+circumstances--be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate--not at all.'
+
+'It seems designed to attract our attention, mama,' said Kate.
+
+'It is designed to attract our attention, my dear; at least,'
+rejoined Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her
+daughter's hand more blandly than before, 'to attract the attention
+of one of us.  Hem! you needn't be at all uneasy, my dear.'
+
+Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for
+further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an
+elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel,
+with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as
+the former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber
+was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket,
+whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs
+Nickleby's feet.
+
+This remarkable appearance was succeeded by another of a precisely
+similar description; then a fine vegetable marrow, of unusually
+large dimensions, was seen to whirl aloft, and come toppling down;
+then, several cucumbers shot up together; and, finally, the air was
+darkened by a shower of onions, turnip-radishes, and other small
+vegetables, which fell rolling and scattering, and bumping about, in
+all directions.
+
+As Kate rose from her seat, in some alarm, and caught her mother's
+hand to run with her into the house, she felt herself rather
+retarded than assisted in her intention; and following the direction
+of Mrs Nickleby's eyes, was quite terrified by the apparition of an
+old black velvet cap, which, by slow degrees, as if its wearer were
+ascending a ladder or pair of steps, rose above the wall dividing
+their garden from that of the next cottage, (which, like their own,
+was a detached building,) and was gradually followed by a very large
+head, and an old face, in which were a pair of most extraordinary
+grey eyes: very wild, very wide open, and rolling in their sockets,
+with a dull, languishing, leering look, most ugly to behold.
+
+'Mama!' cried Kate, really terrified for the moment, 'why do you
+stop, why do you lose an instant?  Mama, pray come in!'
+
+'Kate, my dear,' returned her mother, still holding back, 'how can
+you be so foolish?  I'm ashamed of you.  How do you suppose you are
+ever to get through life, if you're such a coward as this?  What do
+you want, sir?' said Mrs Nickleby, addressing the intruder with a
+sort of simpering displeasure.  'How dare you look into this
+garden?'
+
+'Queen of my soul,' replied the stranger, folding his hands
+together, 'this goblet sip!'
+
+'Nonsense, sir,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Kate, my love, pray be quiet.'
+
+'Won't you sip the goblet?' urged the stranger, with his head
+imploringly on one side, and his right hand on his breast.  'Oh, do
+sip the goblet!'
+
+'I shall not consent to do anything of the kind, sir,' said Mrs
+Nickleby.  'Pray, begone.'
+
+'Why is it,' said the old gentleman, coming up a step higher, and
+leaning his elbows on the wall, with as much complacency as if he
+were looking out of window, 'why is it that beauty is always
+obdurate, even when admiration is as honourable and respectful as
+mine?'  Here he smiled, kissed his hand, and made several low bows.
+'Is it owing to the bees, who, when the honey season is over, and
+they are supposed to have been killed with brimstone, in reality fly
+to Barbary and lull the captive Moors to sleep with their drowsy
+songs?  Or is it,' he added, dropping his voice almost to a whisper,
+'in consequence of the statue at Charing Cross having been lately
+seen, on the Stock Exchange at midnight, walking arm-in-arm with the
+Pump from Aldgate, in a riding-habit?'
+
+'Mama,' murmured Kate, 'do you hear him?'
+
+'Hush, my dear!' replied Mrs Nickleby, in the same tone of voice,
+'he is very polite, and I think that was a quotation from the poets.
+Pray, don't worry me so--you'll pinch my arm black and blue.  Go
+away, sir!'
+
+'Quite away?' said the gentleman, with a languishing look.  'Oh!
+quite away?'
+
+'Yes,' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'certainly.  You have no business
+here.  This is private property, sir; you ought to know that.'
+
+'I do know,' said the old gentleman, laying his finger on his nose,
+with an air of familiarity, most reprehensible, 'that this is a
+sacred and enchanted spot, where the most divine charms'--here he
+kissed his hand and bowed again--'waft mellifluousness over the
+neighbours' gardens, and force the fruit and vegetables into
+premature existence.  That fact I am acquainted with.  But will you
+permit me, fairest creature, to ask you one question, in the absence
+of the planet Venus, who has gone on business to the Horse Guards,
+and would otherwise--jealous of your superior charms--interpose
+between us?'
+
+'Kate,' observed Mrs Nickleby, turning to her daughter, 'it's very
+awkward, positively.  I really don't know what to say to this
+gentleman.  One ought to be civil, you know.'
+
+'Dear mama,' rejoined Kate, 'don't say a word to him, but let us
+run away as fast as we can, and shut ourselves up till Nicholas
+comes home.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby looked very grand, not to say contemptuous, at this
+humiliating proposal; and, turning to the old gentleman, who had
+watched them during these whispers with absorbing eagerness, said:
+
+'If you will conduct yourself, sir, like the gentleman I should
+imagine you to be, from your language and--and--appearance, (quite
+the counterpart of your grandpapa, Kate, my dear, in his best days,)
+and will put your question to me in plain words, I will answer it.'
+
+If Mrs Nickleby's excellent papa had borne, in his best days, a
+resemblance to the neighbour now looking over the wall, he must have
+been, to say the least, a very queer-looking old gentleman in his
+prime.  Perhaps Kate thought so, for she ventured to glance at his
+living portrait with some attention, as he took off his black velvet
+cap, and, exhibiting a perfectly bald head, made a long series of
+bows, each accompanied with a fresh kiss of the hand.  After
+exhausting himself, to all appearance, with this fatiguing
+performance, he covered his head once more, pulled the cap very
+carefully over the tips of his ears, and resuming his former
+attitude, said,
+
+'The question is--'
+
+Here he broke off to look round in every direction, and satisfy
+himself beyond all doubt that there were no listeners near.  Assured
+that there were not, he tapped his nose several times, accompanying
+the action with a cunning look, as though congratulating himself on
+his caution; and stretching out his neck, said in a loud whisper,
+
+'Are you a princess?'
+
+'You are mocking me, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby, making a feint of
+retreating towards the house.
+
+'No, but are you?' said the old gentleman.
+
+'You know I am not, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury?'
+inquired the old gentleman with great anxiety, 'or to the Pope of
+Rome?  Or the Speaker of the House of Commons?  Forgive me, if I am
+wrong, but I was told you were niece to the Commissioners of Paving,
+and daughter-in-law to the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council,
+which would account for your relationship to all three.'
+
+'Whoever has spread such reports, sir,' returned Mrs Nickleby, with
+some warmth, 'has taken great liberties with my name, and one which
+I am sure my son Nicholas, if he was aware of it, would not allow
+for an instant.  The idea!' said Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up,
+'niece to the Commissioners of Paving!'
+
+'Pray, mama, come away!' whispered Kate.
+
+'"Pray mama!"  Nonsense, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby, angrily, 'but
+that's just the way.  If they had said I was niece to a piping
+bullfinch, what would you care?  But I have no sympathy,' whimpered
+Mrs Nickleby.  'I don't expect it, that's one thing.'
+
+'Tears!' cried the old gentleman, with such an energetic jump, that
+he fell down two or three steps and grated his chin against the
+wall.  'Catch the crystal globules--catch 'em--bottle 'em up--cork
+'em tight--put sealing wax on the top--seal 'em with a cupid--label
+'em "Best quality"--and stow 'em away in the fourteen binn, with a
+bar of iron on the top to keep the thunder off!'
+
+Issuing these commands, as if there were a dozen attendants all
+actively engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap inside
+out, put it on with great dignity so as to obscure his right eye and
+three-fourths of his nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked
+very fiercely at a sparrow hard by, till the bird flew away, when he
+put his cap in his pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and
+addressed himself with respectful demeanour to Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Beautiful madam,' such were his words, 'if I have made any mistake
+with regard to your family or connections, I humbly beseech you to
+pardon me.  If I supposed you to be related to Foreign Powers or
+Native Boards, it is because you have a manner, a carriage, a
+dignity, which you will excuse my saying that none but yourself
+(with the single exception perhaps of the tragic muse, when playing
+extemporaneously on the barrel organ before the East India Company)
+can parallel.  I am not a youth, ma'am, as you see; and although
+beings like you can never grow old, I venture to presume that we are
+fitted for each other.'
+
+'Really, Kate, my love!' said Mrs Nickleby faintly, and looking
+another way.
+
+'I have estates, ma'am,' said the old gentleman, flourishing his
+right hand negligently, as if he made very light of such matters,
+and speaking very fast; 'jewels, lighthouses, fish-ponds, a whalery
+of my own in the North Sea, and several oyster-beds of great profit
+in the Pacific Ocean.  If you will have the kindness to step down to
+the Royal Exchange and to take the cocked-hat off the stoutest
+beadle's head, you will find my card in the lining of the crown,
+wrapped up in a piece of blue paper.  My walking-stick is also to be
+seen on application to the chaplain of the House of Commons, who is
+strictly forbidden to take any money for showing it.  I have enemies
+about me, ma'am,' he looked towards his house and spoke very low,
+'who attack me on all occasions, and wish to secure my property.  If
+you bless me with your hand and heart, you can apply to the Lord
+Chancellor or call out the military if necessary--sending my
+toothpick to the commander-in-chief will be sufficient--and so clear
+the house of them before the ceremony is performed.  After that,
+love, bliss and rapture; rapture, love and bliss.  Be mine, be mine!'
+
+Repeating these last words with great rapture and enthusiasm, the
+old gentleman put on his black velvet cap again, and looking up into
+the sky in a hasty manner, said something that was not quite
+intelligible concerning a balloon he expected, and which was rather
+after its time.
+
+'Be mine, be mine!' repeated the old gentleman.
+
+'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I have hardly the power to
+speak; but it is necessary for the happiness of all parties that
+this matter should be set at rest for ever.'
+
+'Surely there is no necessity for you to say one word, mama?'
+reasoned Kate.
+
+'You will allow me, my dear, if you please, to judge for myself,'
+said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Be mine, be mine!' cried the old gentleman.
+
+'It can scarcely be expected, sir,' said Mrs Nickleby, fixing her
+eyes modestly on the ground, 'that I should tell a stranger whether
+I feel flattered and obliged by such proposals, or not.  They
+certainly are made under very singular circumstances; still at the
+same time, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent of course'
+(Mrs Nickleby's customary qualification), 'they must be gratifying
+and agreeable to one's feelings.'
+
+'Be mine, be mine,' cried the old gentleman.  'Gog and Magog, Gog
+and Magog.  Be mine, be mine!'
+
+'It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,' resumed Mrs Nickleby,
+with perfect seriousness--'and I'm sure you'll see the propriety of
+taking an answer and going away--that I have made up my mind to
+remain a widow, and to devote myself to my children.  You may not
+suppose I am the mother of two children--indeed many people have
+doubted it, and said that nothing on earth could ever make 'em
+believe it possible--but it is the case, and they are both grown up.
+We shall be very glad to have you for a neighbour--very glad;
+delighted, I'm sure--but in any other character it's quite
+impossible, quite.  As to my being young enough to marry again, that
+perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn't think of it for
+an instant, not on any account whatever.  I said I never would, and
+I never will.  It's a very painful thing to have to reject
+proposals, and I would much rather that none were made; at the same
+time this is the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this
+is the answer I shall always give.'
+
+These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman,
+partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy.  Towards their
+conclusion, the suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of
+inattention, and Mrs Nickleby had scarcely finished speaking, when,
+to the great terror both of that lady and her daughter, he suddenly
+flung off his coat, and springing on the top of the wall, threw
+himself into an attitude which displayed his small-clothes and grey
+worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded by standing on one
+leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence.
+
+While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it
+with a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide
+stealthily and swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit
+of a fly, and then to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old
+gentleman's ankles.  This done, the companion hand appeared, and
+clasped the other ankle.
+
+Thus encumbered the old gentleman lifted his legs awkwardly once or
+twice, as if they were very clumsy and imperfect pieces of
+machinery, and then looking down on his own side of the wall, burst
+into a loud laugh.
+
+'It's you, is it?' said the old gentleman.
+
+'Yes, it's me,' replied a gruff voice.
+
+'How's the Emperor of Tartary?' said the old gentleman.
+
+'Oh! he's much the same as usual,' was the reply.  'No better and no
+worse.'
+
+'The young Prince of China,' said the old gentleman, with much
+interest.  'Is he reconciled to his father-in-law, the great potato
+salesman?'
+
+'No,' answered the gruff voice; 'and he says he never will be,
+that's more.'
+
+'If that's the case,' observed the old gentleman, 'perhaps I'd
+better come down.'
+
+'Well,' said the man on the other side, 'I think you had, perhaps.'
+
+One of the hands being then cautiously unclasped, the old gentleman
+dropped into a sitting posture, and was looking round to smile and
+bow to Mrs Nickleby, when he disappeared with some precipitation, as
+if his legs had been pulled from below.
+
+Very much relieved by his disappearance, Kate was turning to speak
+to her mama, when the dirty hands again became visible, and were
+immediately followed by the figure of a coarse squat man, who
+ascended by the steps which had been recently occupied by their
+singular neighbour.
+
+'Beg your pardon, ladies,' said this new comer, grinning and
+touching his hat.  'Has he been making love to either of you?'
+
+'Yes,' said Kate.
+
+'Ah!' rejoined the man, taking his handkerchief out of his hat and
+wiping his face, 'he always will, you know.  Nothing will prevent
+his making love.'
+
+'I need not ask you if he is out of his mind, poor creature,' said
+Kate.
+
+'Why no,' replied the man, looking into his hat, throwing his
+handkerchief in at one dab, and putting it on again.  'That's pretty
+plain, that is.'
+
+'Has he been long so?' asked Kate.
+
+'A long while.'
+
+'And is there no hope for him?' said Kate, compassionately
+
+'Not a bit, and don't deserve to be,' replied the keeper.  'He's a
+deal pleasanter without his senses than with 'em.  He was the
+cruellest, wickedest, out-and-outerest old flint that ever drawed
+breath.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Kate.
+
+'By George!' replied the keeper, shaking his head so emphatically
+that he was obliged to frown to keep his hat on.  'I never come
+across such a vagabond, and my mate says the same.  Broke his poor
+wife's heart, turned his daughters out of doors, drove his sons into
+the streets; it was a blessing he went mad at last, through evil
+tempers, and covetousness, and selfishness, and guzzling, and
+drinking, or he'd have drove many others so.  Hope for HIM, an old
+rip!  There isn't too much hope going' but I'll bet a crown that
+what there is, is saved for more deserving chaps than him, anyhow.'
+
+With which confession of his faith, the keeper shook his head again,
+as much as to say that nothing short of this would do, if things
+were to go on at all; and touching his hat sulkily--not that he was
+in an ill humour, but that his subject ruffled him--descended the
+ladder, and took it away.
+
+During this conversation, Mrs Nickleby had regarded the man with a
+severe and steadfast look.  She now heaved a profound sigh, and
+pursing up her lips, shook her head in a slow and doubtful manner.
+
+'Poor creature!' said Kate.
+
+'Ah! poor indeed!' rejoined Mrs Nickleby.  'It's shameful that such
+things should be allowed.  Shameful!'
+
+'How can they be helped, mama?' said Kate, mournfully.  'The
+infirmities of nature--'
+
+'Nature!' said Mrs Nickleby.  'What!  Do YOU suppose this poor
+gentleman is out of his mind?'
+
+'Can anybody who sees him entertain any other opinion, mama?'
+
+'Why then, I just tell you this, Kate,' returned Mrs Nickleby,
+'that, he is nothing of the kind, and I am surprised you can be so
+imposed upon.  It's some plot of these people to possess themselves
+of his property--didn't he say so himself?  He may be a little odd
+and flighty, perhaps, many of us are that; but downright mad! and
+express himself as he does, respectfully, and in quite poetical
+language, and making offers with so much thought, and care, and
+prudence--not as if he ran into the streets, and went down upon his
+knees to the first chit of a girl he met, as a madman would!  No,
+no, Kate, there's a great deal too much method in HIS madness;
+depend upon that, my dear.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 42
+
+Illustrative of the convivial Sentiment, that the best of Friends
+must sometimes part
+
+
+The pavement of Snow Hill had been baking and frying all day in the
+heat, and the twain Saracens' heads guarding the entrance to the
+hostelry of whose name and sign they are the duplicate presentments,
+looked--or seemed, in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by, to
+look--more vicious than usual, after blistering and scorching in the
+sun, when, in one of the inn's smallest sitting-rooms, through whose
+open window there rose, in a palpable steam, wholesome exhalations
+from reeking coach-horses, the usual furniture of a tea-table was
+displayed in neat and inviting order, flanked by large joints of
+roast and boiled, a tongue, a pigeon pie, a cold fowl, a tankard of
+ale, and other little matters of the like kind, which, in degenerate
+towns and cities, are generally understood to belong more
+particularly to solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or unusually
+substantial breakfasts.
+
+Mr John Browdie, with his hands in his pockets, hovered restlessly
+about these delicacies, stopping occasionally to whisk the flies out
+of the sugar-basin with his wife's pocket-handkerchief, or to dip a
+teaspoon in the milk-pot and carry it to his mouth, or to cut off a
+little knob of crust, and a little corner of meat, and swallow them
+at two gulps like a couple of pills.  After every one of these
+flirtations with the eatables, he pulled out his watch, and declared
+with an earnestness quite pathetic that he couldn't undertake to
+hold out two minutes longer.
+
+'Tilly!' said John to his lady, who was reclining half awake and
+half asleep upon a sofa.
+
+'Well, John!'
+
+'Well, John!' retorted her husband, impatiently.  'Dost thou feel
+hoongry, lass?'
+
+'Not very,' said Mrs Browdie.
+
+'Not vary!' repeated John, raising his eyes to the ceiling.  'Hear
+her say not vary, and us dining at three, and loonching off pasthry
+thot aggravates a mon 'stead of pacifying him!  Not vary!'
+
+'Here's a gen'l'man for you, sir,' said the waiter, looking in.
+
+'A wa'at for me?' cried John, as though he thought it must be a
+letter, or a parcel.
+
+'A gen'l'man, sir.'
+
+'Stars and garthers, chap!' said John, 'wa'at dost thou coom and say
+thot for?  In wi' 'un.'
+
+'Are you at home, sir?'
+
+'At whoam!' cried John, 'I wish I wur; I'd ha tea'd two hour ago.
+Why, I told t'oother chap to look sharp ootside door, and tell 'un
+d'rectly he coom, thot we war faint wi' hoonger.  In wi' 'un.  Aha!
+Thee hond, Misther Nickleby.  This is nigh to be the proodest day o'
+my life, sir.  Hoo be all wi' ye?  Ding!  But, I'm glod o' this!'
+
+Quite forgetting even his hunger in the heartiness of his
+salutation, John Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand again and again,
+slapping his palm with great violence between each shake, to add
+warmth to the reception.
+
+'Ah! there she be,' said John, observing the look which Nicholas
+directed towards his wife.  'There she be--we shan't quarrel about
+her noo--eh?  Ecod, when I think o' thot--but thou want'st soom'at
+to eat.  Fall to, mun, fall to, and for wa'at we're aboot to
+receive--'
+
+No doubt the grace was properly finished, but nothing more was
+heard, for John had already begun to play such a knife and fork,
+that his speech was, for the time, gone.
+
+'I shall take the usual licence, Mr Browdie,' said Nicholas, as he
+placed a chair for the bride.
+
+'Tak' whatever thou like'st,' said John, 'and when a's gane, ca' for
+more.'
+
+Without stopping to explain, Nicholas kissed the blushing Mrs
+Browdie, and handed her to her seat.
+
+'I say,' said John, rather astounded for the moment, 'mak' theeself
+quite at whoam, will 'ee?'
+
+'You may depend upon that,' replied Nicholas; 'on one condition.'
+
+'And wa'at may thot be?' asked John.
+
+'That you make me a godfather the very first time you have occasion
+for one.'
+
+'Eh! d'ye hear thot?' cried John, laying down his knife and fork.
+'A godfeyther!  Ha! ha! ha!  Tilly--hear till 'un--a godfeyther!
+Divn't say a word more, ye'll never beat thot.  Occasion for 'un--a
+godfeyther!  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+Never was man so tickled with a respectable old joke, as John
+Browdie was with this.  He chuckled, roared, half suffocated himself
+by laughing large pieces of beef into his windpipe, roared again,
+persisted in eating at the same time, got red in the face and black
+in the forehead, coughed, cried, got better, went off again laughing
+inwardly, got worse, choked, had his back thumped, stamped about,
+frightened his wife, and at last recovered in a state of the last
+exhaustion and with the water streaming from his eyes, but still
+faintly ejaculating, 'A godfeyther--a godfeyther, Tilly!' in a tone
+bespeaking an exquisite relish of the sally, which no suffering
+could diminish.
+
+'You remember the night of our first tea-drinking?' said Nicholas.
+
+'Shall I e'er forget it, mun?' replied John Browdie.
+
+'He was a desperate fellow that night though, was he not, Mrs
+Browdie?' said Nicholas.  'Quite a monster!'
+
+'If you had only heard him as we were going home, Mr Nickleby, you'd
+have said so indeed,' returned the bride.  'I never was so
+frightened in all my life.'
+
+'Coom, coom,' said John, with a broad grin; 'thou know'st betther
+than thot, Tilly.'
+
+'So I was,' replied Mrs Browdie.  'I almost made up my mind never to
+speak to you again.'
+
+'A'most!' said John, with a broader grin than the last.  'A'most
+made up her mind!  And she wur coaxin', and coaxin', and wheedlin',
+and wheedlin' a' the blessed wa'.  "Wa'at didst thou let yon chap
+mak' oop tiv'ee for?" says I.  "I deedn't, John," says she, a
+squeedgin my arm.  "You deedn't?" says I.  "Noa," says she, a
+squeedgin of me agean.'
+
+'Lor, John!' interposed his pretty wife, colouring very much.  'How
+can you talk such nonsense?  As if I should have dreamt of such a
+thing!'
+
+'I dinnot know whether thou'd ever dreamt of it, though I think
+that's loike eneaf, mind,' retorted John; 'but thou didst it.
+"Ye're a feeckle, changeable weathercock, lass," says I.  "Not
+feeckle, John," says she.  "Yes," says I, "feeckle, dom'd feeckle.
+Dinnot tell me thou bean't, efther yon chap at schoolmeasther's,"
+says I.  "Him!" says she, quite screeching.  "Ah! him!" says I.
+"Why, John," says she--and she coom a deal closer and squeedged a
+deal harder than she'd deane afore--"dost thou think it's nat'ral
+noo, that having such a proper mun as thou to keep company wi', I'd
+ever tak' opp wi' such a leetle scanty whipper-snapper as yon?" she
+says.  Ha! ha! ha! She said whipper-snapper!  "Ecod!" I says,
+"efther thot, neame the day, and let's have it ower!"  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+Nicholas laughed very heartily at this story, both on account of its
+telling against himself, and his being desirous to spare the blushes
+of Mrs Browdie, whose protestations were drowned in peals of
+laughter from her husband.  His good-nature soon put her at her
+ease; and although she still denied the charge, she laughed so
+heartily at it, that Nicholas had the satisfaction of feeling
+assured that in all essential respects it was strictly true.
+
+'This is the second time,' said Nicholas, 'that we have ever taken a
+meal together, and only third I have ever seen you; and yet it
+really seems to me as if I were among old friends.'
+
+'Weel!' observed the Yorkshireman, 'so I say.'
+
+'And I am sure I do,' added his young wife.
+
+'I have the best reason to be impressed with the feeling, mind,'
+said Nicholas; 'for if it had not been for your kindness of heart,
+my good friend, when I had no right or reason to expect it, I know
+not what might have become of me or what plight I should have been
+in by this time.'
+
+'Talk aboot soom'at else,' replied John, gruffly, 'and dinnot
+bother.'
+
+'It must be a new song to the same tune then,' said Nicholas,
+smiling.  'I told you in my letter that I deeply felt and admired
+your sympathy with that poor lad, whom you released at the risk of
+involving yourself in trouble and difficulty; but I can never tell
+you how greateful he and I, and others whom you don't know, are to
+you for taking pity on him.'
+
+'Ecod!' rejoined John Browdie, drawing up his chair; 'and I can
+never tell YOU hoo gratful soom folks that we do know would be
+loikewise, if THEY know'd I had takken pity on him.'
+
+'Ah!' exclaimed Mrs Browdie, 'what a state I was in that night!'
+
+'Were they at all disposed to give you credit for assisting in the
+escape?' inquired Nicholas of John Browdie.
+
+'Not a bit,' replied the Yorkshireman, extending his mouth from ear
+to ear.  'There I lay, snoog in schoolmeasther's bed long efther it
+was dark, and nobody coom nigh the pleace.  "Weel!" thinks I, "he's
+got a pretty good start, and if he bean't whoam by noo, he never
+will be; so you may coom as quick as you loike, and foind us reddy"
+--that is, you know, schoolmeasther might coom.'
+
+'I understand,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Presently,' resumed John, 'he DID coom.  I heerd door shut
+doonstairs, and him a warking, oop in the daark.  "Slow and steddy,'
+I says to myself, "tak' your time, sir--no hurry." He cooms to the
+door, turns the key--turns the key when there warn't nothing to
+hoold the lock--and ca's oot 'Hallo, there!"--"Yes," thinks I, "you
+may do thot agean, and not wakken anybody, sir."  "Hallo, there," he
+says, and then he stops.  "Thou'd betther not aggravate me," says
+schoolmeasther, efther a little time.  "I'll brak' every boan in
+your boddy, Smike," he says, efther another little time.  Then all
+of a soodden, he sings oot for a loight, and when it cooms--ecod,
+such a hoorly-boorly!  "Wa'at's the matter?" says I.  "He's gane,"
+says he,--stark mad wi' vengeance.  "Have you heerd nought?"  "Ees,"
+says I, "I heerd street-door shut, no time at a' ago.  I heerd a
+person run doon there" (pointing t'other wa'--eh?)  "Help!" he cries.
+"I'll help you," says I; and off we set--the wrong wa'!  Ho! ho!
+ho!'
+
+'Did you go far?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'Far!' replied John; 'I run him clean off his legs in quarther of an
+hoor.  To see old schoolmeasther wi'out his hat, skimming along oop
+to his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling
+into ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi' his one eye looking
+sharp out for the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him
+spattered wi' mud all ower, face and all!  I tho't I should ha'
+dropped doon, and killed myself wi' laughing.'
+
+John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he
+communicated the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst
+into peals of laughter, which were renewed again and again, until
+they could laugh no longer.
+
+'He's a bad 'un,' said John, wiping his eyes; 'a very bad 'un, is
+schoolmeasther.'
+
+'I can't bear the sight of him, John,' said his wife.
+
+'Coom,' retorted John, 'thot's tidy in you, thot is.  If it wa'nt
+along o' you, we shouldn't know nought aboot 'un.  Thou know'd 'un
+first, Tilly, didn't thou?'
+
+'I couldn't help knowing Fanny Squeers, John,' returned his wife;
+'she was an old playmate of mine, you know.'
+
+'Weel,' replied John, 'dean't I say so, lass?  It's best to be
+neighbourly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I say is,
+dean't quarrel if 'ee can help it.  Dinnot think so, Mr Nickleby?'
+
+'Certainly,' returned Nicholas; 'and you acted upon that principle
+when I meet you on horseback on the road, after our memorable
+evening.'
+
+'Sure-ly,' said John.  'Wa'at I say, I stick by.'
+
+'And that's a fine thing to do, and manly too,' said Nicholas,
+'though it's not exactly what we understand by "coming Yorkshire
+over us" in London.  Miss Squeers is stopping with you, you said in
+your note.'
+
+'Yes,' replied John, 'Tilly's bridesmaid; and a queer bridesmaid she
+be, too.  She wean't be a bride in a hurry, I reckon.'
+
+'For shame, John,' said Mrs Browdie; with an acute perception of the
+joke though, being a bride herself.
+
+'The groom will be a blessed mun,' said John, his eyes twinkling at
+the idea.  'He'll be in luck, he will.'
+
+'You see, Mr Nickleby,' said his wife, 'that it was in consequence
+of her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because
+we thought that it wouldn't be pleasant for you to meet, after what
+has passed.'
+
+'Unquestionably.  You were quite right in that,' said Nicholas,
+interrupting.
+
+'Especially,' observed Mrs Browdie, looking very sly, 'after what we
+know about past and gone love matters.'
+
+'We know, indeed!' said Nicholas, shaking his head.  'You behaved
+rather wickedly there, I suspect.'
+
+'O' course she did,' said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger
+through one of his wife's pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of
+her.  'She wur always as skittish and full o' tricks as a--'
+
+'Well, as a what?' said his wife.
+
+'As a woman,' returned John.  'Ding!  But I dinnot know ought else
+that cooms near it.'
+
+'You were speaking about Miss Squeers,' said Nicholas, with the view
+of stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass
+between Mr and Mrs Browdie, and which rendered the position of a
+third party in some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel
+rather in the way than otherwise.
+
+'Oh yes,' rejoined Mrs Browdie.  'John ha' done.  John fixed tonight,
+because she had settled that she would go and drink tea with her
+father.  And to make quite sure of there being nothing amiss, and of
+your being quite alone with us, he settled to go out there and fetch
+her home.'
+
+'That was a very good arrangement,' said Nicholas, 'though I am
+sorry to be the occasion of so much trouble.'
+
+'Not the least in the world,' returned Mrs Browdie; 'for we have
+looked forward to see you--John and I have--with the greatest
+possible pleasure.  Do you know, Mr Nickleby,' said Mrs Browdie,
+with her archest smile, 'that I really think Fanny Squeers was very
+fond of you?'
+
+'I am very much obliged to her,' said Nicholas; 'but upon my word, I
+never aspired to making any impression upon her virgin heart.'
+
+'How you talk!' tittered Mrs Browdie.  'No, but do you know that
+really--seriously now and without any joking--I was given to
+understand by Fanny herself, that you had made an offer to her, and
+that you two were going to be engaged quite solemn and regular.'
+
+'Was you, ma'am--was you?' cried a shrill female voice, 'was you
+given to understand that I--I--was going to be engaged to an
+assassinating thief that shed the gore of my pa?  Do you--do you
+think, ma'am--that I was very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, as
+I couldn't condescend to touch with kitchen tongs, without blacking
+and crocking myself by the contract?  Do you, ma'am--do you?  Oh!
+base and degrading 'Tilda!'
+
+With these reproaches Miss Squeers flung the door wide open, and
+disclosed to the eyes of the astonished Browdies and Nicholas, not
+only her own symmetrical form, arrayed in the chaste white garments
+before described (a little dirtier), but the form of her brother and
+father, the pair of Wackfords.
+
+'This is the hend, is it?' continued Miss Squeers, who, being
+excited, aspirated her h's strongly; 'this is the hend, is it, of
+all my forbearance and friendship for that double-faced thing--that
+viper, that--that--mermaid?'  (Miss Squeers hesitated a long time for
+this last epithet, and brought it out triumphantly as last, as if it
+quite clinched the business.)  'This is the hend, is it, of all my
+bearing with her deceitfulness, her lowness, her falseness, her
+laying herself out to catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way
+which made me blush for my--for my--'
+
+'Gender,' suggested Mr Squeers, regarding the spectators with a
+malevolent eye--literally A malevolent eye.
+
+'Yes,' said Miss Squeers; 'but I thank my stars that my ma is of the
+same--'
+
+'Hear, hear!' remarked Mr Squeers; 'and I wish she was here to have
+a scratch at this company.'
+
+'This is the hend, is it,' said Miss Squeers, tossing her head, and
+looking contemptuously at the floor, 'of my taking notice of that
+rubbishing creature, and demeaning myself to patronise her?'
+
+'Oh, come,' rejoined Mrs Browdie, disregarding all the endeavours of
+her spouse to restrain her, and forcing herself into a front row,
+'don't talk such nonsense as that.'
+
+'Have I not patronised you, ma'am?' demanded Miss Squeers.
+
+'No,' returned Mrs Browdie.
+
+'I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,' said Miss Squeers,
+haughtily, 'for that countenance is a stranger to everything but
+hignominiousness and red-faced boldness.'
+
+'I say,' interposed John Browdie, nettled by these accumulated
+attacks on his wife, 'dra' it mild, dra' it mild.'
+
+'You, Mr Browdie,' said Miss Squeers, taking him up very quickly, 'I
+pity.  I have no feeling for you, sir, but one of unliquidated
+pity.'
+
+'Oh!' said John.
+
+'No,' said Miss Squeers, looking sideways at her parent, 'although I
+AM a queer bridesmaid, and SHAN'T be a bride in a hurry, and
+although my husband WILL be in luck, I entertain no sentiments
+towards you, sir, but sentiments of pity.'
+
+Here Miss Squeers looked sideways at her father again, who looked
+sideways at her, as much as to say, 'There you had him.'
+
+'I know what you've got to go through,' said Miss Squeers, shaking
+her curls violently.  'I know what life is before you, and if you
+was my bitterest and deadliest enemy, I could wish you nothing
+worse.'
+
+'Couldn't you wish to be married to him yourself, if that was the
+case?' inquired Mrs Browdie, with great suavity of manner.
+
+'Oh, ma'am, how witty you are,' retorted Miss Squeers with a low
+curtsy, 'almost as witty, ma'am, as you are clever.  How very clever
+it was in you, ma'am, to choose a time when I had gone to tea with
+my pa, and was sure not to come back without being fetched!  What a
+pity you never thought that other people might be as clever as
+yourself and spoil your plans!'
+
+'You won't vex me, child, with such airs as these,' said the late
+Miss Price, assuming the matron.
+
+'Don't MISSIS me, ma'am, if you please,' returned Miss Squeers,
+sharply.  'I'll not bear it.  Is THIS the hend--'
+
+'Dang it a',' cried John Browdie, impatiently.  'Say thee say out,
+Fanny, and mak' sure it's the end, and dinnot ask nobody whether it
+is or not.'
+
+'Thanking you for your advice which was not required, Mr Browdie,'
+returned Miss Squeers, with laborious politeness, 'have the goodness
+not to presume to meddle with my Christian name.  Even my pity shall
+never make me forget what's due to myself, Mr Browdie.  'Tilda,'
+said Miss Squeers, with such a sudden accession of violence that
+John started in his boots, 'I throw you off for ever, miss.  I
+abandon you.  I renounce you.  I wouldn't,' cried Miss Squeers in a
+solemn voice, 'have a child named 'Tilda, not to save it from its
+grave.'
+
+'As for the matther o' that,' observed John, 'it'll be time eneaf to
+think aboot neaming of it when it cooms.'
+
+'John!' interposed his wife, 'don't tease her.'
+
+'Oh!  Tease, indeed!' cried Miss Squeers, bridling up.  'Tease,
+indeed!  He, he!  Tease, too!  No, don't tease her.  Consider her
+feelings, pray!'
+
+'If it's fated that listeners are never to hear any good of
+themselves,' said Mrs Browdie, 'I can't help it, and I am very sorry
+for it.  But I will say, Fanny, that times out of number I have
+spoken so kindly of you behind your back, that even you could have
+found no fault with what I said.'
+
+'Oh, I dare say not, ma'am!' cried Miss Squeers, with another
+curtsy.  'Best thanks to you for your goodness, and begging and
+praying you not to be hard upon me another time!'
+
+'I don't know,' resumed Mrs Browdie, 'that I have said anything very
+bad of you, even now.  At all events, what I did say was quite true;
+but if I have, I am very sorry for it, and I beg your pardon.  You
+have said much worse of me, scores of times, Fanny; but I have never
+borne any malice to you, and I hope you'll not bear any to me.'
+
+Miss Squeers made no more direct reply than surveying her former
+friend from top to toe, and elevating her nose in the air with
+ineffable disdain.  But some indistinct allusions to a 'puss,' and a
+'minx,' and a 'contemptible creature,' escaped her; and this,
+together with a severe biting of the lips, great difficulty in
+swallowing, and very frequent comings and goings of breath, seemed
+to imply that feelings were swelling in Miss Squeers's bosom too
+great for utterance.
+
+While the foregoing conversation was proceeding, Master Wackford,
+finding himself unnoticed, and feeling his preponderating
+inclinations strong upon him, had by little and little sidled up to
+the table and attacked the food with such slight skirmishing as
+drawing his fingers round and round the inside of the plates, and
+afterwards sucking them with infinite relish; picking the bread, and
+dragging the pieces over the surface of the butter; pocketing lumps
+of sugar, pretending all the time to be absorbed in thought; and so
+forth.  Finding that no interference was attempted with these small
+liberties, he gradually mounted to greater, and, after helping
+himself to a moderately good cold collation, was, by this time, deep
+in the pie.
+
+Nothing of this had been unobserved by Mr Squeers, who, so long as
+the attention of the company was fixed upon other objects, hugged
+himself to think that his son and heir should be fattening at the
+enemy's expense.  But there being now an appearance of a temporary
+calm, in which the proceedings of little Wackford could scarcely
+fail to be observed, he feigned to be aware of the circumstance for
+the first time, and inflicted upon the face of that young gentleman
+a slap that made the very tea-cups ring.
+
+'Eating!' cried Mr Squeers, 'of what his father's enemies has left!
+It's fit to go and poison you, you unnat'ral boy.'
+
+'It wean't hurt him,' said John, apparently very much relieved by
+the prospect of having a man in the quarrel; 'let' un eat.  I wish
+the whole school was here.  I'd give'em soom'at to stay their
+unfort'nate stomachs wi', if I spent the last penny I had!'
+
+Squeers scowled at him with the worst and most malicious expression
+of which his face was capable--it was a face of remarkable
+capability, too, in that way--and shook his fist stealthily.
+
+'Coom, coom, schoolmeasther,' said John, 'dinnot make a fool o'
+thyself; for if I was to sheake mine--only once--thou'd fa' doon wi'
+the wind o' it.'
+
+'It was you, was it,' returned Squeers, 'that helped off my runaway
+boy?  It was you, was it?'
+
+'Me!' returned John, in a loud tone.  'Yes, it wa' me, coom; wa'at
+o' that?  It wa' me.  Noo then!'
+
+'You hear him say he did it, my child!' said Squeers, appealing to
+his daughter.  'You hear him say he did it!'
+
+'Did it!' cried John.  'I'll tell 'ee more; hear this, too.  If
+thou'd got another roonaway boy, I'd do it agean.  If thou'd got
+twonty roonaway boys, I'd do it twonty times ower, and twonty more
+to thot; and I tell thee more,' said John, 'noo my blood is oop,
+that thou'rt an old ra'ascal; and that it's weel for thou, thou
+be'est an old 'un, or I'd ha' poonded thee to flour when thou told
+an honest mun hoo thou'd licked that poor chap in t' coorch.'
+
+'An honest man!' cried Squeers, with a sneer.
+
+'Ah! an honest man,' replied John; 'honest in ought but ever putting
+legs under seame table wi' such as thou.'
+
+'Scandal!' said Squeers, exultingly.  'Two witnesses to it; Wackford
+knows the nature of an oath, he does; we shall have you there, sir.
+Rascal, eh?'  Mr Squeers took out his pocketbook and made a note of
+it.  'Very good.  I should say that was worth full twenty pound at
+the next assizes, without the honesty, sir.'
+
+''Soizes,' cried John, 'thou'd betther not talk to me o' 'Soizes.
+Yorkshire schools have been shown up at 'Soizes afore noo, mun, and
+it's a ticklish soobjact to revive, I can tell ye.'
+
+Mr Squeers shook his head in a threatening manner, looking very
+white with passion; and taking his daughter's arm, and dragging
+little Wackford by the hand, retreated towards the door.
+
+'As for you,' said Squeers, turning round and addressing Nicholas,
+who, as he had caused him to smart pretty soundly on a former
+occasion, purposely abstained from taking any part in the
+discussion, 'see if I ain't down upon you before long.  You'll go a
+kidnapping of boys, will you?  Take care their fathers don't turn
+up--mark that--take care their fathers don't turn up, and send 'em
+back to me to do as I like with, in spite of you.'
+
+'I am not afraid of that,' replied Nicholas, shrugging his shoulders
+contemptuously, and turning away.
+
+'Ain't you!' retorted Squeers, with a diabolical look.  'Now then,
+come along.'
+
+'I leave such society, with my pa, for Hever,' said Miss Squeers,
+looking contemptuously and loftily round.  'I am defiled by
+breathing the air with such creatures.  Poor Mr Browdie!  He! he!
+he!  I do pity him, that I do; he's so deluded.  He! he! he!--Artful
+and designing 'Tilda!'
+
+With this sudden relapse into the sternest and most majestic wrath,
+Miss Squeers swept from the room; and having sustained her dignity
+until the last possible moment, was heard to sob and scream and
+struggle in the passage.
+
+John Browdie remained standing behind the table, looking from his
+wife to Nicholas, and back again, with his mouth wide open, until
+his hand accidentally fell upon the tankard of ale, when he took it
+up, and having obscured his features therewith for some time, drew a
+long breath, handed it over to Nicholas, and rang the bell.
+
+'Here, waither,' said John, briskly.  'Look alive here.  Tak' these
+things awa', and let's have soomat broiled for sooper--vary
+comfortable and plenty o' it--at ten o'clock.  Bring soom brandy and
+soom wather, and a pair o' slippers--the largest pair in the house--
+and be quick aboot it.  Dash ma wig!' said John, rubbing his hands,
+'there's no ganging oot to neeght, noo, to fetch anybody whoam, and
+ecod, we'll begin to spend the evening in airnest.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 43
+
+Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various People
+together
+
+
+The storm had long given place to a calm the most profound, and the
+evening was pretty far advanced--indeed supper was over, and the
+process of digestion proceeding as favourably as, under the
+influence of complete tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and a
+moderate allowance of brandy-and-water, most wise men conversant
+with the anatomy and functions of the human frame will consider that
+it ought to have proceeded, when the three friends, or as one might
+say, both in a civil and religious sense, and with proper deference
+and regard to the holy state of matrimony, the two friends, (Mr and
+Mrs Browdie counting as no more than one,) were startled by the
+noise of loud and angry threatenings below stairs, which presently
+attained so high a pitch, and were conveyed besides in language so
+towering, sanguinary, and ferocious, that it could hardly have been
+surpassed, if there had actually been a Saracen's head then present
+in the establishment, supported on the shoulders and surmounting the
+trunk of a real, live, furious, and most unappeasable Saracen.
+
+This turmoil, instead of quickly subsiding after the first outburst,
+(as turmoils not unfrequently do, whether in taverns, legislative
+assemblies, or elsewhere,) into a mere grumbling and growling
+squabble, increased every moment; and although the whole din
+appeared to be raised by but one pair of lungs, yet that one pair
+was of so powerful a quality, and repeated such words as
+'scoundrel,' 'rascal,' 'insolent puppy,' and a variety of expletives
+no less flattering to the party addressed, with such great relish
+and strength of tone, that a dozen voices raised in concert under
+any ordinary circumstances would have made far less uproar and
+created much smaller consternation.
+
+'Why, what's the matter?' said Nicholas, moving hastily towards the
+door.
+
+John Browdie was striding in the same direction when Mrs Browdie
+turned pale, and, leaning back in her chair, requested him with a
+faint voice to take notice, that if he ran into any danger it was
+her intention to fall into hysterics immediately, and that the
+consequences might be more serious than he thought for.  John looked
+rather disconcerted by this intelligence, though there was a lurking
+grin on his face at the same time; but, being quite unable to keep
+out of the fray, he compromised the matter by tucking his wife's arm
+under his own, and, thus accompanied, following Nicholas downstairs
+with all speed.
+
+The passage outside the coffee-room door was the scene of
+disturbance, and here were congregated the coffee-room customers and
+waiters, together with two or three coachmen and helpers from the
+yard.  These had hastily assembled round a young man who from his
+appearance might have been a year or two older than Nicholas, and
+who, besides having given utterance to the defiances just now
+described, seemed to have proceeded to even greater lengths in his
+indignation, inasmuch as his feet had no other covering than a pair
+of stockings, while a couple of slippers lay at no great distance
+from the head of a prostrate figure in an opposite corner, who bore
+the appearance of having been shot into his present retreat by means
+of a kick, and complimented by having the slippers flung about his
+ears afterwards.
+
+The coffee-room customers, and the waiters, and the coachmen, and
+the helpers--not to mention a barmaid who was looking on from behind
+an open sash window--seemed at that moment, if a spectator might
+judge from their winks, nods, and muttered exclamations, strongly
+disposed to take part against the young gentleman in the stockings.
+Observing this, and that the young gentleman was nearly of his own
+age and had in nothing the appearance of an habitual brawler,
+Nicholas, impelled by such feelings as will influence young men
+sometimes, felt a very strong disposition to side with the weaker
+party, and so thrust himself at once into the centre of the group,
+and in a more emphatic tone, perhaps, than circumstances might seem
+to warrant, demanded what all that noise was about.
+
+'Hallo!' said one of the men from the yard, 'this is somebody in
+disguise, this is.'
+
+'Room for the eldest son of the Emperor of Roosher, gen'l'men!'
+cried another fellow.
+
+Disregarding these sallies, which were uncommonly well received, as
+sallies at the expense of the best-dressed persons in a crowd
+usually are, Nicholas glanced carelessly round, and addressing the
+young gentleman, who had by this time picked up his slippers and
+thrust his feet into them, repeated his inquiries with a courteous
+air.
+
+'A mere nothing!' he replied.
+
+At this a murmur was raised by the lookers-on, and some of the
+boldest cried, 'Oh, indeed!--Wasn't it though?--Nothing, eh?--He
+called that nothing, did he?  Lucky for him if he found it nothing.'
+These and many other expressions of ironical disapprobation having
+been exhausted, two or three of the out-of-door fellows began to
+hustle Nicholas and the young gentleman who had made the noise:
+stumbling against them by accident, and treading on their toes, and
+so forth.  But this being a round game, and one not necessarily
+limited to three or four players, was open to John Browdie too, who,
+bursting into the little crowd--to the great terror of his wife--and
+falling about in all directions, now to the right, now to the left,
+now forwards, now backwards, and accidentally driving his elbow
+through the hat of the tallest helper, who had been particularly
+active, speedily caused the odds to wear a very different
+appearance; while more than one stout fellow limped away to a
+respectful distance, anathematising with tears in his eyes the heavy
+tread and ponderous feet of the burly Yorkshireman.
+
+'Let me see him do it again,' said he who had been kicked into the
+corner, rising as he spoke, apparently more from the fear of John
+Browdie's inadvertently treading upon him, than from any desire to
+place himself on equal terms with his late adversary.  'Let me see
+him do it again.  That's all.'
+
+'Let me hear you make those remarks again,' said the young man, 'and
+I'll knock that head of yours in among the wine-glasses behind you
+there.'
+
+Here a waiter who had been rubbing his hands in excessive enjoyment
+of the scene, so long as only the breaking of heads was in question,
+adjured the spectators with great earnestness to fetch the police,
+declaring that otherwise murder would be surely done, and that he
+was responsible for all the glass and china on the premises.
+
+'No one need trouble himself to stir,' said the young gentleman, 'I
+am going to remain in the house all night, and shall be found here
+in the morning if there is any assault to answer for.'
+
+'What did you strike him for?' asked one of the bystanders.
+
+'Ah! what did you strike him for?' demanded the others.
+
+The unpopular gentleman looked coolly round, and addressing himself
+to Nicholas, said:
+
+'You inquired just now what was the matter here.  The matter is
+simply this.  Yonder person, who was drinking with a friend in the
+coffee-room when I took my seat there for half an hour before going
+to bed, (for I have just come off a journey, and preferred stopping
+here tonight, to going home at this hour, where I was not expected
+until tomorrow,) chose to express himself in very disrespectful, and
+insolently familiar terms, of a young lady, whom I recognised from
+his description and other circumstances, and whom I have the honour
+to know.  As he spoke loud enough to be overheard by the other
+guests who were present, I informed him most civilly that he was
+mistaken in his conjectures, which were of an offensive nature, and
+requested him to forbear.  He did so for a little time, but as he
+chose to renew his conversation when leaving the room, in a more
+offensive strain than before, I could not refrain from making after
+him, and facilitating his departure by a kick, which reduced him to
+the posture in which you saw him just now.  I am the best judge of
+my own affairs, I take it,' said the young man, who had certainly
+not quite recovered from his recent heat; 'if anybody here thinks
+proper to make this quarrel his own, I have not the smallest earthly
+objection, I do assure him.'
+
+Of all possible courses of proceeding under the circumstances
+detailed, there was certainly not one which, in his then state of
+mind, could have appeared more laudable to Nicholas than this.
+There were not many subjects of dispute which at that moment could
+have come home to his own breast more powerfully, for having the
+unknown uppermost in his thoughts, it naturally occurred to him that
+he would have done just the same if any audacious gossiper durst
+have presumed in his hearing to speak lightly of her.  Influenced by
+these considerations, he espoused the young gentleman's quarrel with
+great warmth, protesting that he had done quite right, and that he
+respected him for it; which John Browdie (albeit not quite clear as
+to the merits) immediately protested too, with not inferior
+vehemence.
+
+'Let him take care, that's all,' said the defeated party, who was
+being rubbed down by a waiter, after his recent fall on the dusty
+boards.  'He don't knock me about for nothing, I can tell him that.
+A pretty state of things, if a man isn't to admire a handsome girl
+without being beat to pieces for it!'
+
+This reflection appeared to have great weight with the young lady in
+the bar, who (adjusting her cap as she spoke, and glancing at a
+mirror) declared that it would be a very pretty state of things
+indeed; and that if people were to be punished for actions so
+innocent and natural as that, there would be more people to be
+knocked down than there would be people to knock them down, and that
+she wondered what the gentleman meant by it, that she did.
+
+'My dear girl,' said the young gentleman in a low voice, advancing
+towards the sash window.
+
+'Nonsense, sir!' replied the young lady sharply, smiling though as
+she turned aside, and biting her lip, (whereat Mrs Browdie, who was
+still standing on the stairs, glanced at her with disdain, and
+called to her husband to come away).
+
+'No, but listen to me,' said the young man.  'If admiration of a
+pretty face were criminal, I should be the most hopeless person
+alive, for I cannot resist one.  It has the most extraordinary
+effect upon me, checks and controls me in the most furious and
+obstinate mood.  You see what an effect yours has had upon me
+already.'
+
+'Oh, that's very pretty,' replied the young lady, tossing her head,
+'but--'
+
+'Yes, I know it's very pretty,' said the young man, looking with an
+air of admiration in the barmaid's face; 'I said so, you know, just
+this moment.  But beauty should be spoken of respectfully--
+respectfully, and in proper terms, and with a becoming sense of its
+worth and excellence, whereas this fellow has no more notion--'
+
+The young lady interrupted the conversation at this point, by
+thrusting her head out of the bar-window, and inquiring of the
+waiter in a shrill voice whether that young man who had been knocked
+down was going to stand in the passage all night, or whether the
+entrance was to be left clear for other people.  The waiters taking
+the hint, and communicating it to the hostlers, were not slow to
+change their tone too, and the result was, that the unfortunate
+victim was bundled out in a twinkling.
+
+'I am sure I have seen that fellow before,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Indeed!' replied his new acquaintance.
+
+'I am certain of it,' said Nicholas, pausing to reflect.  'Where can
+I have--stop!--yes, to be sure--he belongs to a register-office up
+at the west end of the town.  I knew I recollected the face.'
+
+It was, indeed, Tom, the ugly clerk.
+
+'That's odd enough!' said Nicholas, ruminating upon the strange
+manner in which the register-office seemed to start up and stare him
+in the face every now and then, and when he least expected it.
+
+'I am much obliged to you for your kind advocacy of my cause when it
+most needed an advocate,' said the young man, laughing, and drawing
+a card from his pocket.  'Perhaps you'll do me the favour to let me
+know where I can thank you.'
+
+Nicholas took the card, and glancing at it involuntarily as he
+returned the compliment, evinced very great surprise.
+
+'Mr Frank Cheeryble!' said Nicholas.  'Surely not the nephew of
+Cheeryble Brothers, who is expected tomorrow!'
+
+'I don't usually call myself the nephew of the firm,' returned Mr
+Frank, good-humouredly; 'but of the two excellent individuals who
+compose it, I am proud to say I AM the nephew.  And you, I see, are
+Mr Nickleby, of whom I have heard so much!  This is a most
+unexpected meeting, but not the less welcome, I assure you.'
+
+Nicholas responded to these compliments with others of the same
+kind, and they shook hands warmly.  Then he introduced John Browdie,
+who had remained in a state of great admiration ever since the young
+lady in the bar had been so skilfully won over to the right side.
+Then Mrs John Browdie was introduced, and finally they all went
+upstairs together and spent the next half-hour with great
+satisfaction and mutual entertainment; Mrs John Browdie beginning
+the conversation by declaring that of all the made-up things she
+ever saw, that young woman below-stairs was the vainest and the
+plainest.
+
+This Mr Frank Cheeryble, although, to judge from what had recently
+taken place, a hot-headed young man (which is not an absolute
+miracle and phenomenon in nature), was a sprightly, good-humoured,
+pleasant fellow, with much both in his countenance and disposition
+that reminded Nicholas very strongly of the kind-hearted brothers.
+His manner was as unaffected as theirs, and his demeanour full of
+that heartiness which, to most people who have anything generous in
+their composition, is peculiarly prepossessing.  Add to this, that
+he was good-looking and intelligent, had a plentiful share of
+vivacity, was extremely cheerful, and accommodated himself in five
+minutes' time to all John Browdie's oddities with as much ease as if
+he had known him from a boy; and it will be a source of no great
+wonder that, when they parted for the night, he had produced a most
+favourable impression, not only upon the worthy Yorkshireman and his
+wife, but upon Nicholas also, who, revolving all these things in his
+mind as he made the best of his way home, arrived at the conclusion
+that he had laid the foundation of a most agreeable and desirable
+acquaintance.
+
+'But it's a most extraordinary thing about that register-office
+fellow!' thought Nicholas.  'Is it likely that this nephew can know
+anything about that beautiful girl?  When Tim Linkinwater gave me to
+understand the other day that he was coming to take a share in the
+business here, he said he had been superintending it in Germany for
+four years, and that during the last six months he had been engaged
+in establishing an agency in the north of England.  That's four
+years and a half--four years and a half.  She can't be more than
+seventeen--say eighteen at the outside.  She was quite a child when
+he went away, then.  I should say he knew nothing about her and had
+never seen her, so HE can give me no information.  At all events,'
+thought Nicholas, coming to the real point in his mind, 'there can
+be no danger of any prior occupation of her affections in that
+quarter; that's quite clear.'
+
+Is selfishness a necessary ingredient in the composition of that
+passion called love, or does it deserve all the fine things which
+poets, in the exercise of their undoubted vocation, have said of it?
+There are, no doubt, authenticated instances of gentlemen having
+given up ladies and ladies having given up gentlemen to meritorious
+rivals, under circumstances of great high-mindedness; but is it
+quite established that the majority of such ladies and gentlemen
+have not made a virtue of necessity, and nobly resigned what was
+beyond their reach; as a private soldier might register a vow never
+to accept the order of the Garter, or a poor curate of great piety
+and learning, but of no family--save a very large family of
+children--might renounce a bishopric?
+
+Here was Nicholas Nickleby, who would have scorned the thought of
+counting how the chances stood of his rising in favour or fortune
+with the brothers Cheeryble, now that their nephew had returned,
+already deep in calculations whether that same nephew was likely to
+rival him in the affections of the fair unknown--discussing the
+matter with himself too, as gravely as if, with that one exception,
+it were all settled; and recurring to the subject again and again,
+and feeling quite indignant and ill-used at the notion of anybody
+else making love to one with whom he had never exchanged a word in
+all his life.  To be sure, he exaggerated rather than depreciated
+the merits of his new acquaintance; but still he took it as a kind
+of personal offence that he should have any merits at all--in the
+eyes of this particular young lady, that is; for elsewhere he was
+quite welcome to have as many as he pleased.  There was undoubted
+selfishness in all this, and yet Nicholas was of a most free and
+generous nature, with as few mean or sordid thoughts, perhaps, as
+ever fell to the lot of any man; and there is no reason to suppose
+that, being in love, he felt and thought differently from other
+people in the like sublime condition.
+
+He did not stop to set on foot an inquiry into his train of thought
+or state of feeling, however; but went thinking on all the way home,
+and continued to dream on in the same strain all night.  For, having
+satisfied himself that Frank Cheeryble could have no knowledge of,
+or acquaintance with, the mysterious young lady, it began to occur
+to him that even he himself might never see her again; upon which
+hypothesis he built up a very ingenious succession of tormenting
+ideas which answered his purpose even better than the vision of Mr
+Frank Cheeryble, and tantalised and worried him, waking and sleeping.
+
+Notwithstanding all that has been said and sung to the contrary,
+there is no well-established case of morning having either deferred
+or hastened its approach by the term of an hour or so for the mere
+gratification of a splenetic feeling against some unoffending lover:
+the sun having, in the discharge of his public duty, as the books of
+precedent report, invariably risen according to the almanacs, and
+without suffering himself to be swayed by any private considerations.
+So, morning came as usual, and with it business-hours, and with
+them Mr Frank Cheeryble, and with him a long train of smiles and
+welcomes from the worthy brothers, and a more grave and clerk-like,
+but scarcely less hearty reception from Mr Timothy Linkinwater.
+
+'That Mr Frank and Mr Nickleby should have met last night,' said Tim
+Linkinwater, getting slowly off his stool, and looking round the
+counting-house with his back planted against the desk, as was his
+custom when he had anything very particular to say: 'that those two
+young men should have met last night in that manner is, I say, a
+coincidence, a remarkable coincidence.  Why, I don't believe now,'
+added Tim, taking off his spectacles, and smiling as with gentle
+pride, 'that there's such a place in all the world for coincidences
+as London is!'
+
+'I don't know about that,' said Mr Frank; 'but--'
+
+'Don't know about it, Mr Francis!' interrupted Tim, with an
+obstinate air.  'Well, but let us know.  If there is any better
+place for such things, where is it?  Is it in Europe?  No, that it
+isn't.  Is it in Asia?  Why, of course it's not.  Is it in Africa?
+Not a bit of it.  Is it in America?  YOU know better than that, at
+all events.  Well, then,' said Tim, folding his arms resolutely,
+'where is it?'
+
+'I was not about to dispute the point, Tim,' said young Cheeryble,
+laughing.  'I am not such a heretic as that.  All I was going to say
+was, that I hold myself under an obligation to the coincidence,
+that's all.'
+
+'Oh! if you don't dispute it,' said Tim, quite satisfied, 'that's
+another thing.  I'll tell you what though.  I wish you had.  I wish
+you or anybody would.  I would so put that man down,' said Tim,
+tapping the forefinger of his left hand emphatically with his
+spectacles, 'so put that man down by argument--'
+
+It was quite impossible to find language to express the degree of
+mental prostration to which such an adventurous wight would be
+reduced in the keen encounter with Tim Linkinwater, so Tim gave up
+the rest of his declaration in pure lack of words, and mounted his
+stool again.
+
+'We may consider ourselves, brother Ned,' said Charles, after he had
+patted Tim Linkinwater approvingly on the back, 'very fortunate in
+having two such young men about us as our nephew Frank and Mr
+Nickleby.  It should be a source of great satisfaction and pleasure
+to us.'
+
+'Certainly, Charles, certainly,' returned the other.
+
+'Of Tim,' added brother Ned, 'I say nothing whatever, because Tim is
+a mere child--an infant--a nobody that we never think of or take
+into account at all.  Tim, you villain, what do you say to that,
+sir?'
+
+'I am jealous of both of 'em,' said Tim, 'and mean to look out for
+another situation; so provide yourselves, gentlemen, if you please.'
+
+Tim thought this such an exquisite, unparalleled, and most
+extraordinary joke, that he laid his pen upon the inkstand, and
+rather tumbling off his stool than getting down with his usual
+deliberation, laughed till he was quite faint, shaking his head all
+the time so that little particles of powder flew palpably about the
+office.  Nor were the brothers at all behind-hand, for they laughed
+almost as heartily at the ludicrous idea of any voluntary separation
+between themselves and old Tim.  Nicholas and Mr Frank laughed quite
+boisterously, perhaps to conceal some other emotion awakened by this
+little incident, (and so, indeed, did the three old fellows after
+the first burst,) so perhaps there was as much keen enjoyment and
+relish in that laugh, altogether, as the politest assembly ever
+derived from the most poignant witticism uttered at any one person's
+expense.
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said brother Charles, calling him aside, and taking
+him kindly by the hand, 'I--I--am anxious, my dear sir, to see that
+you are properly and comfortably settled in the cottage.  We cannot
+allow those who serve us well to labour under any privation or
+discomfort that it is in our power to remove.  I wish, too, to see
+your mother and sister: to know them, Mr Nickleby, and have an
+opportunity of relieving their minds by assuring them that any
+trifling service we have been able to do them is a great deal more
+than repaid by the zeal and ardour you display.--Not a word, my dear
+sir, I beg.  Tomorrow is Sunday.  I shall make bold to come out at
+teatime, and take the chance of finding you at home; if you are not,
+you know, or the ladies should feel a delicacy in being intruded on,
+and would rather not be known to me just now, why I can come again
+another time, any other time would do for me.  Let it remain upon
+that understanding.  Brother Ned, my dear fellow, let me have a word
+with you this way.'
+
+The twins went out of the office arm-in-arm, and Nicholas, who saw
+in this act of kindness, and many others of which he had been the
+subject that morning, only so many delicate renewals on the arrival
+of their nephew of the kind assurance which the brothers had given
+him in his absence, could scarcely feel sufficient admiration and
+gratitude for such extraordinary consideration.
+
+The intelligence that they were to have visitor--and such a visitor--
+next day, awakened in the breast of Mrs Nickleby mingled feelings
+of exultation and regret; for whereas on the one hand she hailed it
+as an omen of her speedy restoration to good society and the almost-
+forgotten pleasures of morning calls and evening tea-drinkings, she
+could not, on the other, but reflect with bitterness of spirit on
+the absence of a silver teapot with an ivory knob on the lid, and a
+milk-jug to match, which had been the pride of her heart in days of
+yore, and had been kept from year's end to year's end wrapped up in
+wash-leather on a certain top shelf which now presented itself in
+lively colours to her sorrowing imagination.
+
+'I wonder who's got that spice-box,' said Mrs Nickleby, shaking her
+head.  'It used to stand in the left-hand corner, next but two to
+the pickled onions.  You remember that spice-box, Kate?'
+
+'Perfectly well, mama.'
+
+'I shouldn't think you did, Kate,' returned Mrs Nickleby, in a
+severe manner, 'talking about it in that cold and unfeeling way!  If
+there is any one thing that vexes me in these losses more than the
+losses themselves, I do protest and declare,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+rubbing her nose with an impassioned air, 'that it is to have people
+about me who take things with such provoking calmness.'
+
+'My dear mama,' said Kate, stealing her arm round her mother's
+neck, 'why do you say what I know you cannot seriously mean or
+think, or why be angry with me for being happy and content?  You and
+Nicholas are left to me, we are together once again, and what regard
+can I have for a few trifling things of which we never feel the
+want?  When I have seen all the misery and desolation that death can
+bring, and known the lonesome feeling of being solitary and alone in
+crowds, and all the agony of separation in grief and poverty when we
+most needed comfort and support from each other, can you wonder that
+I look upon this as a place of such delicious quiet and rest, that
+with you beside me I have nothing to wish for or regret?  There was
+a time, and not long since, when all the comforts of our old home
+did come back upon me, I own, very often--oftener than you would
+think perhaps--but I affected to care nothing for them, in the hope
+that you would so be brought to regret them the less.  I was not
+insensible, indeed.  I might have felt happier if I had been.  Dear
+mama,' said Kate, in great agitation, 'I know no difference between
+this home and that in which we were all so happy for so many years,
+except that the kindest and gentlest heart that ever ached on earth
+has passed in peace to heaven.'
+
+'Kate my dear, Kate,' cried Mrs Nickleby, folding her in her arms.
+
+'I have so often thought,' sobbed Kate, 'of all his kind words--of
+the last time he looked into my little room, as he passed upstairs
+to bed, and said "God bless you, darling."  There was a paleness in
+his face, mama--the broken heart--I know it was--I little thought
+so--then--'
+
+A gush of tears came to her relief, and Kate laid her head upon her
+mother's breast, and wept like a little child.
+
+It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when the
+heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or
+affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most
+powerfully and irresistibly.  It would almost seem as though our
+better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the
+soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with
+the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in life.  Alas! how often
+and how long may those patient angels hover above us, watching for
+the spell which is so seldom uttered, and so soon forgotten!
+
+Poor Mrs Nickleby, accustomed to give ready utterance to whatever
+came uppermost in her mind, had never conceived the possibility of
+her daughter's dwelling upon these thoughts in secret, the more
+especially as no hard trial or querulous reproach had ever drawn
+them from her.  But now, when the happiness of all that Nicholas had
+just told them, and of their new and peaceful life, brought these
+recollections so strongly upon Kate that she could not suppress
+them, Mrs Nickleby began to have a glimmering that she had been
+rather thoughtless now and then, and was conscious of something like
+self-reproach as she embraced her daughter, and yielded to the
+emotions which such a conversation naturally awakened.
+
+There was a mighty bustle that night, and a vast quantity of
+preparation for the expected visitor, and a very large nosegay was
+brought from a gardener's hard by, and cut up into a number of very
+small ones, with which Mrs Nickleby would have garnished the little
+sitting-room, in a style that certainly could not have failed to
+attract anybody's attention, if Kate had not offered to spare her
+the trouble, and arranged them in the prettiest and neatest manner
+possible.  If the cottage ever looked pretty, it must have been on
+such a bright and sunshiny day as the next day was.  But Smike's
+pride in the garden, or Mrs Nickleby's in the condition of the
+furniture, or Kate's in everything, was nothing to the pride with
+which Nicholas looked at Kate herself; and surely the costliest
+mansion in all England might have found in her beautiful face and
+graceful form its most exquisite and peerless ornament.
+
+About six o'clock in the afternoon Mrs Nickleby was thrown into a
+great flutter of spirits by the long-expected knock at the door, nor
+was this flutter at all composed by the audible tread of two pair of
+boots in the passage, which Mrs Nickleby augured, in a breathless
+state, must be 'the two Mr Cheerybles;' as it certainly was, though
+not the two Mrs Nickleby expected, because it was Mr Charles
+Cheeryble, and his nephew, Mr Frank, who made a thousand apologies
+for his intrusion, which Mrs Nickleby (having tea-spoons enough and
+to spare for all) most graciously received.  Nor did the appearance
+of this unexpected visitor occasion the least embarrassment, (save
+in Kate, and that only to the extent of a blush or two at first,)
+for the old gentleman was so kind and cordial, and the young
+gentleman imitated him in this respect so well, that the usual
+stiffness and formality of a first meeting showed no signs of
+appearing, and Kate really more than once detected herself in the
+very act of wondering when it was going to begin.
+
+At the tea-table there was plenty of conversation on a great variety
+of subjects, nor were there wanting jocose matters of discussion,
+such as they were; for young Mr Cheeryble's recent stay in Germany
+happening to be alluded to, old Mr Cheeryble informed the company
+that the aforesaid young Mr Cheeryble was suspected to have fallen
+deeply in love with the daughter of a certain German burgomaster.
+This accusation young Mr Cheeryble most indignantly repelled, upon
+which Mrs Nickleby slyly remarked, that she suspected, from the very
+warmth of the denial, there must be something in it.  Young Mr
+Cheeryble then earnestly entreated old Mr Cheeryble to confess that
+it was all a jest, which old Mr Cheeryble at last did, young Mr
+Cheeryble being so much in earnest about it, that--as Mrs Nickleby
+said many thousand times afterwards in recalling the scene--he
+'quite coloured,' which she rightly considered a memorable
+circumstance, and one worthy of remark, young men not being as a
+class remarkable for modesty or self-denial, especially when there
+is a lady in the case, when, if they colour at all, it is rather
+their practice to colour the story, and not themselves.
+
+After tea there was a walk in the garden, and the evening being very
+fine they strolled out at the garden-gate into some lanes and bye-
+roads, and sauntered up and down until it grew quite dark.  The time
+seemed to pass very quickly with all the party.  Kate went first,
+leaning upon her brother's arm, and talking with him and Mr Frank
+Cheeryble; and Mrs Nickleby and the elder gentleman followed at a
+short distance, the kindness of the good merchant, his interest in
+the welfare of Nicholas, and his admiration of Kate, so operating
+upon the good lady's feelings, that the usual current of her speech
+was confined within very narrow and circumscribed limits.  Smike
+(who, if he had ever been an object of interest in his life, had
+been one that day) accompanied them, joining sometimes one group and
+sometimes the other, as brother Charles, laying his hand upon his
+shoulder, bade him walk with him, or Nicholas, looking smilingly
+round, beckoned him to come and talk with the old friend who
+understood him best, and who could win a smile into his careworn
+face when none else could.
+
+Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of
+a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal
+virtues--faith and hope.  This was the pride which swelled Mrs
+Nickleby's heart that night, and this it was which left upon her
+face, glistening in the light when they returned home, traces of the
+most grateful tears she had ever shed.
+
+There was a quiet mirth about the little supper, which harmonised
+exactly with this tone of feeling, and at length the two gentlemen
+took their leave.  There was one circumstance in the leave-taking
+which occasioned a vast deal of smiling and pleasantry, and that
+was, that Mr Frank Cheeryble offered his hand to Kate twice over,
+quite forgetting that he had bade her adieu already.  This was held
+by the elder Mr Cheeryble to be a convincing proof that he was
+thinking of his German flame, and the jest occasioned immense
+laughter.  So easy is it to move light hearts.
+
+In short, it was a day of serene and tranquil happiness; and as we
+all have some bright day--many of us, let us hope, among a crowd of
+others--to which we revert with particular delight, so this one was
+often looked back to afterwards, as holding a conspicuous place in
+the calendar of those who shared it.
+
+Was there one exception, and that one he who needed to have been
+most happy?
+
+Who was that who, in the silence of his own chamber, sunk upon his
+knees to pray as his first friend had taught him, and folding his
+hands and stretching them wildly in the air, fell upon his face in a
+passion of bitter grief?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 44
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby cuts an old Acquaintance.  It would also appear
+from the Contents hereof, that a Joke, even between Husband and
+Wife, may be sometimes carried too far
+
+
+There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching
+themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious
+of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every
+day towards this end, affect nevertheless--even to themselves--a
+high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over
+the depravity of the world.  Some of the craftiest scoundrels that
+ever walked this earth, or rather--for walking implies, at least,
+an erect position and the bearing of a man--that ever crawled and
+crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely
+jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular
+debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a
+floating balance in their own favour.  Whether this is a gratuitous
+(the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and trickery of such
+men's lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven itself, and
+lay up treasure in the next world by the same process which has
+enabled them to lay up treasure in this--not to question how it is,
+so it is.  And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain
+autobiographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to
+prove serviceable, in the one respect of sparing the recording Angel
+some time and labour.
+
+Ralph Nickleby was not a man of this stamp.  Stern, unyielding,
+dogged, and impenetrable, Ralph cared for nothing in life, or beyond
+it, save the gratification of two passions, avarice, the first and
+predominant appetite of his nature, and hatred, the second.
+Affecting to consider himself but a type of all humanity, he was at
+little pains to conceal his true character from the world in
+general, and in his own heart he exulted over and cherished every
+bad design as it had birth.  The only scriptural admonition that
+Ralph Nickleby heeded, in the letter, was 'know thyself.'  He knew
+himself well, and choosing to imagine that all mankind were cast in
+the same mould, hated them; for, though no man hates himself, the
+coldest among us having too much self-love for that, yet most men
+unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very
+generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and
+affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
+samples.
+
+But the present business of these adventures is with Ralph himself,
+who stood regarding Newman Noggs with a heavy frown, while that
+worthy took off his fingerless gloves, and spreading them carefully
+on the palm of his left hand, and flattening them with his right to
+take the creases out, proceeded to roll them up with an absent air
+as if he were utterly regardless of all things else, in the deep
+interest of the ceremonial.
+
+'Gone out of town!' said Ralph, slowly.  'A mistake of yours.  Go
+back again.'
+
+'No mistake,' returned Newman.  'Not even going; gone.'
+
+'Has he turned girl or baby?' muttered Ralph, with a fretful
+gesture.
+
+'I don't know,' said Newman, 'but he's gone.'
+
+The repetition of the word 'gone' seemed to afford Newman Noggs
+inexpressible delight, in proportion as it annoyed Ralph Nickleby.
+He uttered the word with a full round emphasis, dwelling upon it as
+long as he decently could, and when he could hold out no longer
+without attracting observation, stood gasping it to himself as if
+even that were a satisfaction.
+
+'And WHERE has he gone?' said Ralph.
+
+'France,' replied Newman.  'Danger of another attack of erysipelas
+--a worse attack--in the head.  So the doctors ordered him off.  And
+he's gone.'
+
+'And Lord Frederick--?' began Ralph.
+
+'He's gone too,' replied Newman.
+
+'And he carries his drubbing with him, does he?' said Ralph, turning
+away; 'pockets his bruises, and sneaks off without the retaliation
+of a word, or seeking the smallest reparation!'
+
+'He's too ill,' said Newman.
+
+'Too ill!' repeated Ralph.  'Why I would have it if I were dying; in
+that case I should only be the more determined to have it, and that
+without delay--I mean if I were he.  But he's too ill!  Poor Sir
+Mulberry!  Too ill!'
+
+Uttering these words with supreme contempt and great irritation of
+manner, Ralph signed hastily to Newman to leave the room; and
+throwing himself into his chair, beat his foot impatiently upon the
+ground.
+
+'There is some spell about that boy,' said Ralph, grinding his
+teeth.  'Circumstances conspire to help him.  Talk of fortune's
+favours!  What is even money to such Devil's luck as this?'
+
+He thrust his hands impatiently into his pockets, but notwithstanding
+his previous reflection there was some consolation there, for his
+face relaxed a little; and although there was still a deep frown
+upon the contracted brow, it was one of calculation, and not of
+disappointment.
+
+'This Hawk will come back, however,' muttered Ralph; 'and if I know
+the man (and I should by this time) his wrath will have lost
+nothing of its violence in the meanwhile.  Obliged to live in
+retirement--the monotony of a sick-room to a man of his habits--no
+life--no drink--no play--nothing that he likes and lives by.  He
+is not likely to forget his obligations to the cause of all this.
+Few men would; but he of all others?  No, no!'
+
+He smiled and shook his head, and resting his chin upon his hand,
+fell a musing, and smiled again.  After a time he rose and rang the
+bell.
+
+'That Mr Squeers; has he been here?' said Ralph.
+
+'He was here last night.  I left him here when I went home,'
+returned Newman.
+
+'I know that, fool, do I not?' said Ralph, irascibly.  'Has he been
+here since?  Was he here this morning?'
+
+'No,' bawled Newman, in a very loud key.
+
+'If he comes while I am out--he is pretty sure to be here by nine
+tonight--let him wait.  And if there's another man with him, as
+there will be--perhaps,' said Ralph, checking himself, 'let him
+wait too.'
+
+'Let 'em both wait?' said Newman.
+
+'Ay,' replied Ralph, turning upon him with an angry look.  'Help me
+on with this spencer, and don't repeat after me, like a croaking
+parrot.'
+
+'I wish I was a parrot,' Newman, sulkily.
+
+'I wish you were,' rejoined Ralph, drawing his spencer on; 'I'd have
+wrung your neck long ago.'
+
+Newman returned no answer to this compliment, but looked over
+Ralph's shoulder for an instant, (he was adjusting the collar of the
+spencer behind, just then,) as if he were strongly disposed to tweak
+him by the nose.  Meeting Ralph's eye, however, he suddenly recalled
+his wandering fingers, and rubbed his own red nose with a vehemence
+quite astonishing.
+
+Bestowing no further notice upon his eccentric follower than a
+threatening look, and an admonition to be careful and make no
+mistake, Ralph took his hat and gloves, and walked out.
+
+He appeared to have a very extraordinary and miscellaneous
+connection, and very odd calls he made, some at great rich houses,
+and some at small poor ones, but all upon one subject: money.  His
+face was a talisman to the porters and servants of his more dashing
+clients, and procured him ready admission, though he trudged on
+foot, and others, who were denied, rattled to the door in carriages.
+Here he was all softness and cringing civility; his step so light,
+that it scarcely produced a sound upon the thick carpets; his voice
+so soft that it was not audible beyond the person to whom it was
+addressed.  But in the poorer habitations Ralph was another man; his
+boots creaked upon the passage floor as he walked boldly in; his
+voice was harsh and loud as he demanded the money that was overdue;
+his threats were coarse and angry.  With another class of customers,
+Ralph was again another man.  These were attorneys of more than
+doubtful reputation, who helped him to new business, or raised fresh
+profits upon old.  With them Ralph was familiar and jocose,
+humorous upon the topics of the day, and especially pleasant upon
+bankruptcies and pecuniary difficulties that made good for trade.
+In short, it would have been difficult to have recognised the same
+man under these various aspects, but for the bulky leather case full
+of bills and notes which he drew from his pocket at every house, and
+the constant repetition of the same complaint, (varied only in tone
+and style of delivery,) that the world thought him rich, and that
+perhaps he might be if he had his own; but there was no getting
+money in when it was once out, either principal or interest, and it
+was a hard matter to live; even to live from day to day.
+
+It was evening before a long round of such visits (interrupted only
+by a scanty dinner at an eating-house) terminated at Pimlico, and
+Ralph walked along St James's Park, on his way home.
+
+There were some deep schemes in his head, as the puckered brow and
+firmly-set mouth would have abundantly testified, even if they had
+been unaccompanied by a complete indifference to, or unconsciousness
+of, the objects about him.  So complete was his abstraction,
+however, that Ralph, usually as quick-sighted as any man, did not
+observe that he was followed by a shambling figure, which at one
+time stole behind him with noiseless footsteps, at another crept a
+few paces before him, and at another glided along by his side; at
+all times regarding him with an eye so keen, and a look so eager and
+attentive, that it was more like the expression of an intrusive face
+in some powerful picture or strongly marked dream, than the scrutiny
+even of a most interested and anxious observer.
+
+The sky had been lowering and dark for some time, and the
+commencement of a violent storm of rain drove Ralph for shelter to a
+tree.  He was leaning against it with folded arms, still buried in
+thought, when, happening to raise his eyes, he suddenly met those of
+a man who, creeping round the trunk, peered into his face with a
+searching look.  There was something in the usurer's expression at
+the moment, which the man appeared to remember well, for it decided
+him; and stepping close up to Ralph, he pronounced his name.
+
+Astonished for the moment, Ralph fell back a couple of paces and
+surveyed him from head to foot.  A spare, dark, withered man, of
+about his own age, with a stooping body, and a very sinister face
+rendered more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply
+sunburnt, and thick black eyebrows, blacker in contrast with the
+perfect whiteness of his hair; roughly clothed in shabby garments,
+of a strange and uncouth make; and having about him an indefinable
+manner of depression and degradation--this, for a moment, was all
+he saw.  But he looked again, and the face and person seemed
+gradually to grow less strange; to change as he looked, to subside
+and soften into lineaments that were familiar, until at last they
+resolved themselves, as if by some strange optical illusion, into
+those of one whom he had known for many years, and forgotten and
+lost sight of for nearly as many more.
+
+The man saw that the recognition was mutual, and beckoning to Ralph
+to take his former place under the tree, and not to stand in the
+falling rain, of which, in his first surprise, he had been quite
+regardless, addressed him in a hoarse, faint tone.
+
+'You would hardly have known me from my voice, I suppose, Mr
+Nickleby?' he said.
+
+'No,' returned Ralph, bending a severe look upon him.  'Though there
+is something in that, that I remember now.'
+
+'There is little in me that you can call to mind as having been
+there eight years ago, I dare say?' observed the other.
+
+'Quite enough,' said Ralph, carelessly, and averting his face.
+'More than enough.'
+
+'If I had remained in doubt about YOU, Mr Nickleby,' said the other,
+'this reception, and YOUR manner, would have decided me very soon.'
+
+'Did you expect any other?' asked Ralph, sharply.
+
+'No!' said the man.
+
+'You were right,' retorted Ralph; 'and as you feel no surprise, need
+express none.'
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said the man, bluntly, after a brief pause, during
+which he had seemed to struggle with an inclination to answer him by
+some reproach, 'will you hear a few words that I have to say?'
+
+'I am obliged to wait here till the rain holds a little,' said
+Ralph, looking abroad.  'If you talk, sir, I shall not put my
+fingers in my ears, though your talking may have as much effect as
+if I did.'
+
+'I was once in your confidence--' thus his companion began.  Ralph
+looked round, and smiled involuntarily.
+
+'Well,' said the other, 'as much in your confidence as you ever
+chose to let anybody be.'
+
+'Ah!' rejoined Ralph, folding his arms; 'that's another thing,
+quite another thing.'
+
+'Don't let us play upon words, Mr Nickleby, in the name of
+humanity.'
+
+'Of what?' said Ralph.
+
+'Of humanity,' replied the other, sternly.  'I am hungry and in
+want.  If the change that you must see in me after so long an
+absence--must see, for I, upon whom it has come by slow and hard
+degrees, see it and know it well--will not move you to pity, let
+the knowledge that bread; not the daily bread of the Lord's Prayer,
+which, as it is offered up in cities like this, is understood to
+include half the luxuries of the world for the rich, and just as
+much coarse food as will support life for the poor--not that, but
+bread, a crust of dry hard bread, is beyond my reach today--let
+that have some weight with you, if nothing else has.'
+
+'If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,' said Ralph, 'you
+have studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one
+who knows something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a
+lower tone; a little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of
+being starved in good earnest.'
+
+As he said this, Ralph clenched his left wrist tightly with his
+right hand, and inclining his head a little on one side and dropping
+his chin upon his breast, looked at him whom he addressed with a
+frowning, sullen face.  The very picture of a man whom nothing could
+move or soften.
+
+'Yesterday was my first day in London,' said the old man, glancing
+at his travel-stained dress and worn shoes.
+
+'It would have been better for you, I think, if it had been your
+last also,' replied Ralph.
+
+'I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were
+most likely to be found,' resumed the other more humbly, 'and I met
+you here at last, when I had almost given up the hope of
+encountering you, Mr Nickleby.'
+
+He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he
+continued:
+
+'I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old,
+and as destitute and helpless as a child of six.'
+
+'I am sixty years old, too,' replied Ralph, 'and am neither
+destitute nor helpless.  Work.  Don't make fine play-acting speeches
+about bread, but earn it.'
+
+'How?' cried the other.  'Where?  Show me the means.  Will you give
+them to me--will you?'
+
+'I did once,' replied Ralph, composedly; 'you scarcely need ask me
+whether I will again.'
+
+'It's twenty years ago, or more,' said the man, in a suppressed
+voice, 'since you and I fell out.  You remember that?  I claimed a
+share in the profits of some business I brought to you, and, as I
+persisted, you arrested me for an old advance of ten pounds, odd
+shillings, including interest at fifty per cent, or so.'
+
+'I remember something of it,' replied Ralph, carelessly.  'What
+then?'
+
+'That didn't part us,' said the man.  'I made submission, being on
+the wrong side of the bolts and bars; and as you were not the made
+man then that you are now, you were glad enough to take back a clerk
+who wasn't over nice, and who knew something of the trade you
+drove.'
+
+'You begged and prayed, and I consented,' returned Ralph.  'That was
+kind of me.  Perhaps I did want you.  I forget.  I should think I
+did, or you would have begged in vain.  You were useful; not too
+honest, not too delicate, not too nice of hand or heart; but
+useful.'
+
+'Useful, indeed!' said the man.  'Come.  You had pinched and ground
+me down for some years before that, but I had served you faithfully
+up to that time, in spite of all your dog's usage.  Had I?'
+
+Ralph made no reply.
+
+'Had I?' said the man again.
+
+'You had had your wages,' rejoined Ralph, 'and had done your work.
+We stood on equal ground so far, and could both cry quits.'
+
+'Then, but not afterwards,' said the other.
+
+'Not afterwards, certainly, nor even then, for (as you have just
+said) you owed me money, and do still,' replied Ralph.
+
+'That's not all,' said the man, eagerly.  'That's not all.  Mark
+that.  I didn't forget that old sore, trust me.  Partly in
+remembrance of that, and partly in the hope of making money someday
+by the scheme, I took advantage of my position about you, and
+possessed myself of a hold upon you, which you would give half of
+all you have to know, and never can know but through me.  I left
+you--long after that time, remember--and, for some poor trickery
+that came within the law, but was nothing to what you money-makers
+daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away a convict for
+seven years.  I have returned what you see me.  Now, Mr Nickleby,'
+said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of power,
+'what help and assistance will you give me; what bribe, to speak out
+plainly?  My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to
+live I must eat and drink.  Money is on your side, and hunger and
+thirst on mine.  You may drive an easy bargain.'
+
+'Is that all?' said Ralph, still eyeing his companion with the same
+steady look, and moving nothing but his lips.
+
+'It depends on you, Mr Nickleby, whether that's all or not,' was the
+rejoinder.
+
+'Why then, harkye, Mr--, I don't know by what name I am to call
+you,' said Ralph.
+
+'By my old one, if you like.'
+
+'Why then, harkye, Mr Brooker,' said Ralph, in his harshest accents,
+'and don't expect to draw another speech from me.  Harkye, sir.  I
+know you of old for a ready scoundrel, but you never had a stout
+heart; and hard work, with (maybe) chains upon those legs of yours,
+and shorter food than when I "pinched" and "ground" you, has blunted
+your wits, or you would not come with such a tale as this to me.
+You a hold upon me!  Keep it, or publish it to the world, if you
+like.'
+
+'I can't do that,' interposed Brooker.  'That wouldn't serve me.'
+
+'Wouldn't it?' said Ralph.  'It will serve you as much as bringing
+it to me, I promise you.  To be plain with you, I am a careful man,
+and know my affairs thoroughly.  I know the world, and the world
+knows me.  Whatever you gleaned, or heard, or saw, when you served
+me, the world knows and magnifies already.  You could tell it
+nothing that would surprise it, unless, indeed, it redounded to my
+credit or honour, and then it would scout you for a liar.  And yet I
+don't find business slack, or clients scrupulous.  Quite the
+contrary.  I am reviled or threatened every day by one man or
+another,' said Ralph; 'but things roll on just the same, and I don't
+grow poorer either.'
+
+'I neither revile nor threaten,' rejoined the man.  'I can tell you
+of what you have lost by my act, what I only can restore, and what,
+if I die without restoring, dies with me, and never can be
+regained.'
+
+'I tell my money pretty accurately, and generally keep it in my own
+custody,' said Ralph.  'I look sharply after most men that I deal
+with, and most of all I looked sharply after you.  You are welcome
+to all you have kept from me.'
+
+'Are those of your own name dear to you?' said the man emphatically.
+'If they are--'
+
+'They are not,' returned Ralph, exasperated at this perseverance,
+and the thought of Nicholas, which the last question awakened.
+'They are not.  If you had come as a common beggar, I might have
+thrown a sixpence to you in remembrance of the clever knave you used
+to be; but since you try to palm these stale tricks upon one you
+might have known better, I'll not part with a halfpenny--nor would I
+to save you from rotting.  And remember this, 'scape-gallows,' said
+Ralph, menacing him with his hand, 'that if we meet again, and you
+so much as notice me by one begging gesture, you shall see the
+inside of a jail once more, and tighten this hold upon me in
+intervals of the hard labour that vagabonds are put to.  There's my
+answer to your trash.  Take it.'
+
+With a disdainful scowl at the object of his anger, who met his eye
+but uttered not a word, Ralph walked away at his usual pace, without
+manifesting the slightest curiosity to see what became of his late
+companion, or indeed once looking behind him.  The man remained on
+the same spot with his eyes fixed upon his retreating figure until
+it was lost to view, and then drawing his arm about his chest, as if
+the damp and lack of food struck coldly to him, lingered with
+slouching steps by the wayside, and begged of those who passed
+along.
+
+Ralph, in no-wise moved by what had lately passed, further than as he
+had already expressed himself, walked deliberately on, and turning
+out of the Park and leaving Golden Square on his right, took his way
+through some streets at the west end of the town until he arrived in
+that particular one in which stood the residence of Madame
+Mantalini.  The name of that lady no longer appeared on the flaming
+door-plate, that of Miss Knag being substituted in its stead; but
+the bonnets and dresses were still dimly visible in the first-floor
+windows by the decaying light of a summer's evening, and excepting
+this ostensible alteration in the proprietorship, the establishment
+wore its old appearance.
+
+'Humph!' muttered Ralph, drawing his hand across his mouth with a
+connoisseur-like air, and surveying the house from top to bottom;
+'these people look pretty well.  They can't last long; but if I know
+of their going in good time, I am safe, and a fair profit too.  I
+must keep them closely in view; that's all.'
+
+So, nodding his head very complacently, Ralph was leaving the spot,
+when his quick ear caught the sound of a confused noise and hubbub
+of voices, mingled with a great running up and down stairs, in the
+very house which had been the subject of his scrutiny; and while he
+was hesitating whether to knock at the door or listen at the keyhole
+a little longer, a female servant of Madame Mantalini's (whom he had
+often seen) opened it abruptly and bounced out, with her blue cap-
+ribbons streaming in the air.
+
+'Hallo here.  Stop!' cried Ralph.  'What's the matter?  Here am I.
+Didn't you hear me knock?'
+
+'Oh! Mr Nickleby, sir,' said the girl.  'Go up, for the love of
+Gracious.  Master's been and done it again.'
+
+'Done what?' said Ralph, tartly; 'what d'ye mean?'
+
+'I knew he would if he was drove to it,' cried the girl.  'I said so
+all along.'
+
+'Come here, you silly wench,' said Ralph, catching her by the wrist;
+'and don't carry family matters to the neighbours, destroying the
+credit of the establishment.  Come here; do you hear me, girl?'
+
+Without any further expostulation, he led or rather pulled the
+frightened handmaid into the house, and shut the door; then bidding
+her walk upstairs before him, followed without more ceremony.
+
+Guided by the noise of a great many voices all talking together, and
+passing the girl in his impatience, before they had ascended many
+steps, Ralph quickly reached the private sitting-room, when he was
+rather amazed by the confused and inexplicable scene in which he
+suddenly found himself.
+
+There were all the young-lady workers, some with bonnets and some
+without, in various attitudes expressive of alarm and consternation;
+some gathered round Madame Mantalini, who was in tears upon one
+chair; and others round Miss Knag, who was in opposition tears upon
+another; and others round Mr Mantalini, who was perhaps the most
+striking figure in the whole group, for Mr Mantalini's legs were
+extended at full length upon the floor, and his head and shoulders
+were supported by a very tall footman, who didn't seem to know what
+to do with them, and Mr Mantalini's eyes were closed, and his face
+was pale and his hair was comparatively straight, and his whiskers
+and moustache were limp, and his teeth were clenched, and he had a
+little bottle in his right hand, and a little tea-spoon in his left;
+and his hands, arms, legs, and shoulders, were all stiff and
+powerless.  And yet Madame Mantalini was not weeping upon the body,
+but was scolding violently upon her chair; and all this amidst a
+clamour of tongues perfectly deafening, and which really appeared to
+have driven the unfortunate footman to the utmost verge of
+distraction.
+
+'What is the matter here?' said Ralph, pressing forward.
+
+At this inquiry, the clamour was increased twenty-fold, and an
+astounding string of such shrill contradictions as 'He's poisoned
+himself'--'He hasn't'--'Send for a doctor'--'Don't'--'He's dying'--
+'He isn't, he's only pretending'--with various other cries, poured
+forth with bewildering volubility, until Madame Mantalini was seen
+to address herself to Ralph, when female curiosity to know what she
+would say, prevailed, and, as if by general consent, a dead silence,
+unbroken by a single whisper, instantaneously succeeded.
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said Madame Mantalini; 'by what chance you came here,
+I don't know.'
+
+Here a gurgling voice was heard to ejaculate, as part of the
+wanderings of a sick man, the words 'Demnition sweetness!' but
+nobody heeded them except the footman, who, being startled to hear
+such awful tones proceeding, as it were, from between his very
+fingers, dropped his master's head upon the floor with a pretty loud
+crash, and then, without an effort to lift it up, gazed upon the
+bystanders, as if he had done something rather clever than
+otherwise.
+
+'I will, however,' continued Madame Mantalini, drying her eyes, and
+speaking with great indignation, 'say before you, and before
+everybody here, for the first time, and once for all, that I never
+will supply that man's extravagances and viciousness again.  I have
+been a dupe and a fool to him long enough.  In future, he shall
+support himself if he can, and then he may spend what money he
+pleases, upon whom and how he pleases; but it shall not be mine, and
+therefore you had better pause before you trust him further.'
+
+Thereupon Madame Mantalini, quite unmoved by some most pathetic
+lamentations on the part of her husband, that the apothecary had not
+mixed the prussic acid strong enough, and that he must take another
+bottle or two to finish the work he had in hand, entered into a
+catalogue of that amiable gentleman's gallantries, deceptions,
+extravagances, and infidelities (especially the last), winding up
+with a protest against being supposed to entertain the smallest
+remnant of regard for him; and adducing, in proof of the altered
+state of her affections, the circumstance of his having poisoned
+himself in private no less than six times within the last fortnight,
+and her not having once interfered by word or deed to save his
+life.
+
+'And I insist on being separated and left to myself,' said Madame
+Mantalini, sobbing.  'If he dares to refuse me a separation, I'll
+have one in law--I can--and I hope this will be a warning to all
+girls who have seen this disgraceful exhibition.'
+
+Miss Knag, who was unquestionably the oldest girl in company, said
+with great solemnity, that it would be a warning to HER, and so did
+the young ladies generally, with the exception of one or two who
+appeared to entertain some doubts whether such whispers could do
+wrong.
+
+'Why do you say all this before so many listeners?' said Ralph, in a
+low voice.  'You know you are not in earnest.'
+
+'I AM in earnest,' replied Madame Mantalini, aloud, and retreating
+towards Miss Knag.
+
+'Well, but consider,' reasoned Ralph, who had a great interest in
+the matter.  'It would be well to reflect.  A married woman has no
+property.'
+
+'Not a solitary single individual dem, my soul,' and Mr Mantalini,
+raising himself upon his elbow.
+
+'I am quite aware of that,' retorted Madame Mantalini, tossing her
+head; 'and I have none.  The business, the stock, this house, and
+everything in it, all belong to Miss Knag.'
+
+'That's quite true, Madame Mantalini,' said Miss Knag, with whom her
+late employer had secretly come to an amicable understanding on this
+point.  'Very true, indeed, Madame Mantalini--hem--very true.  And I
+never was more glad in all my life, that I had strength of mind to
+resist matrimonial offers, no matter how advantageous, than I am
+when I think of my present position as compared with your most
+unfortunate and most undeserved one, Madame Mantalini.'
+
+'Demmit!' cried Mr Mantalini, turning his head towards his wife.
+'Will it not slap and pinch the envious dowager, that dares to
+reflect upon its own delicious?'
+
+But the day of Mr Mantalini's blandishments had departed.  'Miss
+Knag, sir,' said his wife, 'is my particular friend;' and although
+Mr Mantalini leered till his eyes seemed in danger of never coming
+back to their right places again, Madame Mantalini showed no signs
+of softening.
+
+To do the excellent Miss Knag justice, she had been mainly
+instrumental in bringing about this altered state of things, for,
+finding by daily experience, that there was no chance of the
+business thriving, or even continuing to exist, while Mr Mantalini
+had any hand in the expenditure, and having now a considerable
+interest in its well-doing, she had sedulously applied herself to
+the investigation of some little matters connected with that
+gentleman's private character, which she had so well elucidated, and
+artfully imparted to Madame Mantalini, as to open her eyes more
+effectually than the closest and most philosophical reasoning could
+have done in a series of years.  To which end, the accidental
+discovery by Miss Knag of some tender correspondence, in which
+Madame Mantalini was described as 'old' and 'ordinary,' had most
+providentially contributed.
+
+However, notwithstanding her firmness, Madame Mantalini wept very
+piteously; and as she leant upon Miss Knag, and signed towards the
+door, that young lady and all the other young ladies with
+sympathising faces, proceeded to bear her out.
+
+'Nickleby,' said Mr Mantalini in tears, 'you have been made a
+witness to this demnition cruelty, on the part of the demdest
+enslaver and captivator that never was, oh dem! I forgive that
+woman.'
+
+'Forgive!' repeated Madame Mantalini, angrily.
+
+'I do forgive her, Nickleby,' said Mr Mantalini.  'You will blame
+me, the world will blame me, the women will blame me; everybody will
+laugh, and scoff, and smile, and grin most demnebly.  They will say,
+"She had a blessing.  She did not know it.  He was too weak; he was
+too good; he was a dem'd fine fellow, but he loved too strong; he
+could not bear her to be cross, and call him wicked names.  It was a
+dem'd case, there never was a demder."  But I forgive her.'
+
+With this affecting speech Mr Mantalini fell down again very flat,
+and lay to all appearance without sense or motion, until all the
+females had left the room, when he came cautiously into a sitting
+posture, and confronted Ralph with a very blank face, and the little
+bottle still in one hand and the tea-spoon in the other.
+
+'You may put away those fooleries now, and live by your wits again,'
+said Ralph, coolly putting on his hat.
+
+'Demmit, Nickleby, you're not serious?'
+
+'I seldom joke,' said Ralph.  'Good-night.'
+
+'No, but Nickleby--' said Mantalini.
+
+'I am wrong, perhaps,' rejoined Ralph.  'I hope so.  You should know
+best.  Good-night.'
+
+Affecting not to hear his entreaties that he would stay and advise
+with him, Ralph left the crest-fallen Mr Mantalini to his
+meditations, and left the house quietly.
+
+'Oho!' he said, 'sets the wind that way so soon?  Half knave and
+half fool, and detected in both characters?  I think your day is
+over, sir.'
+
+As he said this, he made some memorandum in his pocket-book in which
+Mr Mantalini's name figured conspicuously, and finding by his watch
+that it was between nine and ten o'clock, made all speed home.
+
+'Are they here?' was the first question he asked of Newman.
+
+Newman nodded.  'Been here half an hour.'
+
+'Two of them?  One a fat sleek man?'
+
+'Ay,' said Newman.  'In your room now.'
+
+'Good,' rejoined Ralph.  'Get me a coach.'
+
+'A coach!  What, you--going to--eh?' stammered Newman.
+
+Ralph angrily repeated his orders, and Noggs, who might well have
+been excused for wondering at such an unusual and extraordinary
+circumstance (for he had never seen Ralph in a coach in his life)
+departed on his errand, and presently returned with the conveyance.
+
+Into it went Mr Squeers, and Ralph, and the third man, whom Newman
+Noggs had never seen.  Newman stood upon the door-step to see them
+off, not troubling himself to wonder where or upon what business
+they were going, until he chanced by mere accident to hear Ralph
+name the address whither the coachman was to drive.
+
+Quick as lightning and in a state of the most extreme wonder, Newman
+darted into his little office for his hat, and limped after the
+coach as if with the intention of getting up behind; but in this
+design he was balked, for it had too much the start of him and was
+soon hopelessly ahead, leaving him gaping in the empty street.
+
+'I don't know though,' said Noggs, stopping for breath, 'any good
+that I could have done by going too.  He would have seen me if I
+had.  Drive THERE!  What can come of this?  If I had only known it
+yesterday I could have told--drive there!  There's mischief in it.
+There must be.'
+
+His reflections were interrupted by a grey-haired man of a very
+remarkable, though far from prepossessing appearance, who, coming
+stealthily towards him, solicited relief.
+
+Newman, still cogitating deeply, turned away; but the man followed
+him, and pressed him with such a tale of misery that Newman (who
+might have been considered a hopeless person to beg from, and who
+had little enough to give) looked into his hat for some halfpence
+which he usually kept screwed up, when he had any, in a corner of
+his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+While he was busily untwisting the knot with his teeth, the man said
+something which attracted his attention; whatever that something
+was, it led to something else, and in the end he and Newman walked
+away side by side--the strange man talking earnestly, and Newman
+listening.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 45
+
+Containing Matter of a surprising Kind
+
+
+'As we gang awa' fra' Lunnun tomorrow neeght, and as I dinnot know
+that I was e'er so happy in a' my days, Misther Nickleby, Ding! but
+I WILL tak' anoother glass to our next merry meeting!'
+
+So said John Browdie, rubbing his hands with great joyousness, and
+looking round him with a ruddy shining face, quite in keeping with
+the declaration.
+
+The time at which John found himself in this enviable condition was
+the same evening to which the last chapter bore reference; the place
+was the cottage; and the assembled company were Nicholas, Mrs
+Nickleby, Mrs Browdie, Kate Nickleby, and Smike.
+
+A very merry party they had been.  Mrs Nickleby, knowing of her
+son's obligations to the honest Yorkshireman, had, after some demur,
+yielded her consent to Mr and Mrs Browdie being invited out to tea;
+in the way of which arrangement, there were at first sundry
+difficulties and obstacles, arising out of her not having had an
+opportunity of 'calling' upon Mrs Browdie first; for although Mrs
+Nickleby very often observed with much complacency (as most
+punctilious people do), that she had not an atom of pride or
+formality about her, still she was a great stickler for dignity and
+ceremonies; and as it was manifest that, until a call had been made,
+she could not be (politely speaking, and according to the laws of
+society) even cognisant of the fact of Mrs Browdie's existence, she
+felt her situation to be one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty.
+
+'The call MUST originate with me, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby,
+'that's indispensable.  The fact is, my dear, that it's necessary
+there should be a sort of condescension on my part, and that I
+should show this young person that I am willing to take notice of
+her.  There's a very respectable-looking young man,' added Mrs
+Nickleby, after a short consideration, 'who is conductor to one of
+the omnibuses that go by here, and who wears a glazed hat--your
+sister and I have noticed him very often--he has a wart upon his
+nose, Kate, you know, exactly like a gentleman's servant.'
+
+'Have all gentlemen's servants warts upon their noses, mother?'
+asked Nicholas.
+
+'Nicholas, my dear, how very absurd you are,' returned his mother;
+'of course I mean that his glazed hat looks like a gentleman's
+servant, and not the wart upon his nose; though even that is not so
+ridiculous as it may seem to you, for we had a footboy once, who had
+not only a wart, but a wen also, and a very large wen too, and he
+demanded to have his wages raised in consequence, because he found
+it came very expensive.  Let me see, what was I--oh yes, I know.
+The best way that I can think of would be to send a card, and my
+compliments, (I've no doubt he'd take 'em for a pot of porter,) by
+this young man, to the Saracen with Two Necks.  If the waiter took
+him for a gentleman's servant, so much the better.  Then all Mrs
+Browdie would have to do would be to send her card back by the
+carrier (he could easily come with a double knock), and there's an
+end of it.'
+
+'My dear mother,' said Nicholas, 'I don't suppose such
+unsophisticated people as these ever had a card of their own, or
+ever will have.'
+
+'Oh that, indeed, Nicholas, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'that's
+another thing.  If you put it upon that ground, why, of course, I
+have no more to say, than that I have no doubt they are very good
+sort of persons, and that I have no kind of objection to their
+coming here to tea if they like, and shall make a point of being
+very civil to them if they do.'
+
+The point being thus effectually set at rest, and Mrs Nickleby duly
+placed in the patronising and mildly-condescending position which
+became her rank and matrimonial years, Mr and Mrs Browdie were
+invited and came; and as they were very deferential to Mrs Nickleby,
+and seemed to have a becoming appreciation of her greatness, and
+were very much pleased with everything, the good lady had more than
+once given Kate to understand, in a whisper, that she thought they
+were the very best-meaning people she had ever seen, and perfectly
+well behaved.
+
+And thus it came to pass, that John Browdie declared, in the parlour
+after supper, to wit, and twenty minutes before eleven o'clock p.m.,
+that he had never been so happy in all his days.
+
+Nor was Mrs Browdie much behind her husband in this respect, for
+that young matron, whose rustic beauty contrasted very prettily with
+the more delicate loveliness of Kate, and without suffering by the
+contrast either, for each served as it were to set off and decorate
+the other, could not sufficiently admire the gentle and winning
+manners of the young lady, or the engaging affability of the elder
+one.  Then Kate had the art of turning the conversation to subjects
+upon which the country girl, bashful at first in strange company,
+could feel herself at home; and if Mrs Nickleby was not quite so
+felicitous at times in the selection of topics of discourse, or if
+she did seem, as Mrs Browdie expressed it, 'rather high in her
+notions,' still nothing could be kinder, and that she took
+considerable interest in the young couple was manifest from the very
+long lectures on housewifery with which she was so obliging as to
+entertain Mrs Browdie's private ear, which were illustrated by
+various references to the domestic economy of the cottage, in which
+(those duties falling exclusively upon Kate) the good lady had about
+as much share, either in theory or practice, as any one of the
+statues of the Twelve Apostles which embellish the exterior of St
+Paul's Cathedral.
+
+'Mr Browdie,' said Kate, addressing his young wife, 'is the best-
+humoured, the kindest and heartiest creature I ever saw.  If I were
+oppressed with I don't know how many cares, it would make me happy
+only to look at him.'
+
+'He does seem indeed, upon my word, a most excellent creature,
+Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'most excellent.  And I am sure that at
+all times it will give me pleasure--really pleasure now--to have
+you, Mrs Browdie, to see me in this plain and homely manner.  We
+make no display,' said Mrs Nickleby, with an air which seemed to
+insinuate that they could make a vast deal if they were so disposed;
+'no fuss, no preparation; I wouldn't allow it.  I said, "Kate, my
+dear, you will only make Mrs Browdie feel uncomfortable, and how
+very foolish and inconsiderate that would be!" '
+
+'I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, ma'am,' returned Mrs
+Browdie, gratefully.  'It's nearly eleven o'clock, John.  I am
+afraid we are keeping you up very late, ma'am.'
+
+'Late!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with a sharp thin laugh, and one little
+cough at the end, like a note of admiration expressed.  'This is
+quite early for us.  We used to keep such hours!  Twelve, one, two,
+three o'clock was nothing to us.  Balls, dinners, card-parties!
+Never were such rakes as the people about where we used to live.  I
+often think now, I am sure, that how we ever could go through with
+it is quite astonishing, and that is just the evil of having a large
+connection and being a great deal sought after, which I would
+recommend all young married people steadily to resist; though of
+course, and it's perfectly clear, and a very happy thing too, I
+think, that very few young married people can be exposed to such
+temptations.  There was one family in particular, that used to live
+about a mile from us--not straight down the road, but turning sharp
+off to the left by the turnpike where the Plymouth mail ran over the
+donkey--that were quite extraordinary people for giving the most
+extravagant parties, with artificial flowers and champagne, and
+variegated lamps, and, in short, every delicacy of eating and
+drinking that the most singular epicure could possibly require.  I
+don't think that there ever were such people as those Peltiroguses.
+You remember the Peltiroguses, Kate?'
+
+Kate saw that for the ease and comfort of the visitors it was high
+time to stay this flood of recollection, so answered that she
+entertained of the Peltiroguses a most vivid and distinct
+remembrance; and then said that Mr Browdie had half promised, early
+in the evening, that he would sing a Yorkshire song, and that she
+was most impatient that he should redeem his promise, because she
+was sure it would afford her mama more amusement and pleasure than
+it was possible to express.
+
+Mrs Nickleby confirming her daughter with the best possible grace--
+for there was patronage in that too, and a kind of implication that
+she had a discerning taste in such matters, and was something of a
+critic--John Browdie proceeded to consider the words of some north-
+country ditty, and to take his wife's recollection respecting the
+same.  This done, he made divers ungainly movements in his chair,
+and singling out one particular fly on the ceiling from the other
+flies there asleep, fixed his eyes upon him, and began to roar a
+meek sentiment (supposed to be uttered by a gentle swain fast pining
+away with love and despair) in a voice of thunder.
+
+At the end of the first verse, as though some person without had
+waited until then to make himself audible, was heard a loud and
+violent knocking at the street-door; so loud and so violent, indeed,
+that the ladies started as by one accord, and John Browdie stopped.
+
+'It must be some mistake,' said Nicholas, carelessly.  'We know
+nobody who would come here at this hour.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby surmised, however, that perhaps the counting-house was
+burnt down, or perhaps 'the Mr Cheerybles' had sent to take Nicholas
+into partnership (which certainly appeared highly probable at that
+time of night), or perhaps Mr Linkinwater had run away with the
+property, or perhaps Miss La Creevy was taken in, or perhaps--
+
+But a hasty exclamation from Kate stopped her abruptly in her
+conjectures, and Ralph Nickleby walked into the room.
+
+'Stay,' said Ralph, as Nicholas rose, and Kate, making her way
+towards him, threw herself upon his arm.  'Before that boy says a
+word, hear me.'
+
+Nicholas bit his lip and shook his head in a threatening manner, but
+appeared for the moment unable to articulate a syllable.  Kate clung
+closer to his arm, Smike retreated behind them, and John Browdie,
+who had heard of Ralph, and appeared to have no great difficulty in
+recognising him, stepped between the old man and his young friend,
+as if with the intention of preventing either of them from advancing
+a step further.
+
+'Hear me, I say,' said Ralph, 'and not him.'
+
+'Say what thou'st gotten to say then, sir,' retorted John; 'and tak'
+care thou dinnot put up angry bluid which thou'dst betther try to
+quiet.'
+
+'I should know YOU,' said Ralph, 'by your tongue; and HIM' (pointing
+to Smike) 'by his looks.'
+
+'Don't speak to him,' said Nicholas, recovering his voice.  'I will
+not have it.  I will not hear him.  I do not know that man.  I
+cannot breathe the air that he corrupts.  His presence is an insult
+to my sister.  It is shame to see him.  I will not bear it.'
+
+'Stand!' cried John, laying his heavy hand upon his chest.
+
+'Then let him instantly retire,' said Nicholas, struggling.  'I am
+not going to lay hands upon him, but he shall withdraw.  I will not
+have him here.  John, John Browdie, is this my house, am I a child?
+If he stands there,' cried Nicholas, burning with fury, 'looking so
+calmly upon those who know his black and dastardly heart, he'll
+drive me mad.'
+
+To all these exclamations John Browdie answered not a word, but he
+retained his hold upon Nicholas; and when he was silent again,
+spoke.
+
+'There's more to say and hear than thou think'st for,' said John.
+'I tell'ee I ha' gotten scent o' thot already.  Wa'at be that
+shadow ootside door there?  Noo, schoolmeasther, show thyself, mun;
+dinnot be sheame-feaced.  Noo, auld gen'l'man, let's have
+schoolmeasther, coom.'
+
+Hearing this adjuration, Mr Squeers, who had been lingering in the
+passage until such time as it should be expedient for him to enter
+and he could appear with effect, was fain to present himself in a
+somewhat undignified and sneaking way; at which John Browdie laughed
+with such keen and heartfelt delight, that even Kate, in all the
+pain, anxiety, and surprise of the scene, and though the tears were
+in her eyes, felt a disposition to join him.
+
+'Have you done enjoying yourself, sir?' said Ralph, at length.
+
+'Pratty nigh for the prasant time, sir,' replied John.
+
+'I can wait,' said Ralph.  'Take your own time, pray.'
+
+Ralph waited until there was a perfect silence, and then turning to
+Mrs Nickleby, but directing an eager glance at Kate, as if more
+anxious to watch his effect upon her, said:
+
+'Now, ma'am, listen to me.  I don't imagine that you were a party to
+a very fine tirade of words sent me by that boy of yours, because I
+don't believe that under his control, you have the slightest will of
+your own, or that your advice, your opinion, your wants, your
+wishes, anything which in nature and reason (or of what use is your
+great experience?) ought to weigh with him, has the slightest
+influence or weight whatever, or is taken for a moment into
+account.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby shook her head and sighed, as if there were a good deal
+in that, certainly.
+
+'For this reason,' resumed Ralph, 'I address myself to you, ma'am.
+For this reason, partly, and partly because I do not wish to be
+disgraced by the acts of a vicious stripling whom I was obliged to
+disown, and who, afterwards, in his boyish majesty, feigns to--ha!
+ha!--to disown ME, I present myself here tonight.  I have another
+motive in coming: a motive of humanity.  I come here,' said Ralph,
+looking round with a biting and triumphant smile, and gloating and
+dwelling upon the words as if he were loath to lose the pleasure of
+saying them, 'to restore a parent his child.  Ay, sir,' he
+continued, bending eagerly forward, and addressing Nicholas, as he
+marked the change of his countenance, 'to restore a parent his
+child; his son, sir; trepanned, waylaid, and guarded at every turn
+by you, with the base design of robbing him some day of any little
+wretched pittance of which he might become possessed.'
+
+'In that, you know you lie,' said Nicholas, proudly.
+
+'In this, I know I speak the truth.  I have his father here,'
+retorted Ralph.
+
+'Here!' sneered Squeers, stepping forward.  'Do you hear that?
+Here!  Didn't I tell you to be careful that his father didn't turn
+up and send him back to me?  Why, his father's my friend; he's to
+come back to me directly, he is.  Now, what do you say--eh!--now--
+come--what do you say to that--an't you sorry you took so much
+trouble for nothing? an't you? an't you?'
+
+'You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,' said Nicholas,
+looking quietly away, 'and may talk in acknowledgment of them as
+much as you please.  You'll talk a long time before you rub them
+out, Mr Squeers.'
+
+The estimable gentleman last named cast a hasty look at the table,
+as if he were prompted by this retort to throw a jug or bottle at
+the head of Nicholas, but he was interrupted in this design (if such
+design he had) by Ralph, who, touching him on the elbow, bade him
+tell the father that he might now appear and claim his son.
+
+This being purely a labour of love, Mr Squeers readily complied, and
+leaving the room for the purpose, almost immediately returned,
+supporting a sleek personage with an oily face, who, bursting from
+him, and giving to view the form and face of Mr Snawley, made
+straight up to Smike, and tucking that poor fellow's head under his
+arm in a most uncouth and awkward embrace, elevated his broad-
+brimmed hat at arm's length in the air as a token of devout
+thanksgiving, exclaiming, meanwhile, 'How little did I think of this
+here joyful meeting, when I saw him last!  Oh, how little did I
+think it!'
+
+'Be composed, sir,' said Ralph, with a gruff expression of sympathy,
+'you have got him now.'
+
+'Got him!  Oh, haven't I got him!  Have I got him, though?' cried Mr
+Snawley, scarcely able to believe it.  'Yes, here he is, flesh and
+blood, flesh and blood.'
+
+'Vary little flesh,' said John Browdie.
+
+Mr Snawley was too much occupied by his parental feelings to notice
+this remark; and, to assure himself more completely of the
+restoration of his child, tucked his head under his arm again, and
+kept it there.
+
+'What was it,' said Snawley, 'that made me take such a strong
+interest in him, when that worthy instructor of youth brought him to
+my house?  What was it that made me burn all over with a wish to
+chastise him severely for cutting away from his best friends, his
+pastors and masters?'
+
+'It was parental instinct, sir,' observed Squeers.
+
+'That's what it was, sir,' rejoined Snawley; 'the elevated feeling,
+the feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of
+the field and birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and
+tom-cats, which sometimes devour their offspring.  My heart yearned
+towards him.  I could have--I don't know what I couldn't have done
+to him in the anger of a father.'
+
+'It only shows what Natur is, sir,' said Mr Squeers.  'She's rum 'un,
+is Natur.'
+
+'She is a holy thing, sir,' remarked Snawley.
+
+'I believe you,' added Mr Squeers, with a moral sigh.  'I should
+like to know how we should ever get on without her.  Natur,' said Mr
+Squeers, solemnly, 'is more easier conceived than described.  Oh
+what a blessed thing, sir, to be in a state of natur!'
+
+Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had been quite
+stupefied with amazement, while Nicholas had looked keenly from
+Snawley to Squeers, and from Squeers to Ralph, divided between his
+feelings of disgust, doubt, and surprise.  At this juncture, Smike
+escaping from his father fled to Nicholas, and implored him, in most
+moving terms, never to give him up, but to let him live and die
+beside him.
+
+'If you are this boy's father,' said Nicholas, 'look at the wreck he
+is, and tell me that you purpose to send him back to that loathsome
+den from which I brought him.'
+
+'Scandal again!' cried Squeers.  'Recollect, you an't worth powder
+and shot, but I'll be even with you one way or another.'
+
+'Stop,' interposed Ralph, as Snawley was about to speak.  'Let us
+cut this matter short, and not bandy words here with hare-brained
+profligates.  This is your son, as you can prove.  And you, Mr
+Squeers, you know this boy to be the same that was with you for so
+many years under the name of Smike.  Do you?'
+
+'Do I!' returned Squeers.  'Don't I?'
+
+'Good,' said Ralph; 'a very few words will be sufficient here.  You
+had a son by your first wife, Mr Snawley?'
+
+'I had,' replied that person, 'and there he stands.'
+
+'We'll show that presently,' said Ralph.  'You and your wife were
+separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when he was a year
+old.  You received a communication from her, when you had lived
+apart a year or two, that the boy was dead; and you believed it?'
+
+'Of course I did!' returned Snawley.  'Oh the joy of--'
+
+'Be rational, sir, pray,' said Ralph.  'This is business, and
+transports interfere with it.  This wife died a year and a half ago,
+or thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was
+housekeeper in a family.  Is that the case?'
+
+'That's the case,' replied Snawley.
+
+'Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you,
+about this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in
+your name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few
+days since?'
+
+'Just so,' said Snawley.  'Correct in every particular, sir.'
+
+'And this confession,' resumed Ralph, 'is to the effect that his
+death was an invention of hers to wound you--was a part of a system
+of annoyance, in short, which you seem to have adopted towards each
+other--that the boy lived, but was of weak and imperfect intellect--
+that she sent him by a trusty hand to a cheap school in Yorkshire--
+that she had paid for his education for some years, and then, being
+poor, and going a long way off, gradually deserted him, for which
+she prayed forgiveness?'
+
+Snawley nodded his head, and wiped his eyes; the first slightly, the
+last violently.
+
+'The school was Mr Squeers's,' continued Ralph; 'the boy was left
+there in the name of Smike; every description was fully given, dates
+tally exactly with Mr Squeers's books, Mr Squeers is lodging with
+you at this time; you have two other boys at his school: you
+communicated the whole discovery to him, he brought you to me as the
+person who had recommended to him the kidnapper of his child; and I
+brought you here.  Is that so?'
+
+'You talk like a good book, sir, that's got nothing in its inside
+but what's the truth,' replied Snawley.
+
+'This is your pocket-book,' said Ralph, producing one from his coat;
+'the certificates of your first marriage and of the boy's birth, and
+your wife's two letters, and every other paper that can support
+these statements directly or by implication, are here, are they?'
+
+'Every one of 'em, sir.'
+
+'And you don't object to their being looked at here, so that these
+people may be convinced of your power to substantiate your claim at
+once in law and reason, and you may resume your control over your
+own son without more delay.  Do I understand you?'
+
+'I couldn't have understood myself better, sir.'
+
+'There, then,' said Ralph, tossing the pocket-book upon the table.
+'Let them see them if they like; and as those are the original
+papers, I should recommend you to stand near while they are being
+examined, or you may chance to lose some.'
+
+With these words Ralph sat down unbidden, and compressing his lips,
+which were for the moment slightly parted by a smile, folded his
+arms, and looked for the first time at his nephew.
+
+Nicholas, stung by the concluding taunt, darted an indignant glance
+at him; but commanding himself as well as he could, entered upon a
+close examination of the documents, at which John Browdie assisted.
+There was nothing about them which could be called in question.  The
+certificates were regularly signed as extracts from the parish
+books, the first letter had a genuine appearance of having been
+written and preserved for some years, the handwriting of the second
+tallied with it exactly, (making proper allowance for its having
+been written by a person in extremity,) and there were several other
+corroboratory scraps of entries and memoranda which it was equally
+difficult to question.
+
+'Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, who had been looking anxiously over
+his shoulder, 'can this be really the case?  Is this statement
+true?'
+
+'I fear it is,' answered Nicholas.  'What say you, John?'
+
+'John scratched his head and shook it, but said nothing at all.
+
+'You will observe, ma'am,' said Ralph, addressing himself to Mrs
+Nickleby, 'that this boy being a minor and not of strong mind, we
+might have come here tonight, armed with the powers of the law, and
+backed by a troop of its myrmidons.  I should have done so, ma'am,
+unquestionably, but for my regard for the feelings of yourself, and
+your daughter.'
+
+'You have shown your regard for HER feelings well,' said Nicholas,
+drawing his sister towards him.
+
+'Thank you,' replied Ralph.  'Your praise, sir, is commendation,
+indeed.'
+
+'Well,' said Squeers, 'what's to be done?  Them hackney-coach horses
+will catch cold if we don't think of moving; there's one of 'em a
+sneezing now, so that he blows the street door right open.  What's
+the order of the day?  Is Master Snawley to come along with us?'
+
+'No, no, no,' replied Smike, drawing back, and clinging to Nicholas.
+
+'No.  Pray, no.  I will not go from you with him.  No, no.'
+
+'This is a cruel thing,' said Snawley, looking to his friends for
+support.  'Do parents bring children into the world for this?'
+
+'Do parents bring children into the world for THOT?' said John
+Browdie bluntly, pointing, as he spoke, to Squeers.
+
+'Never you mind,' retorted that gentleman, tapping his nose
+derisively.
+
+'Never I mind!' said John, 'no, nor never nobody mind, say'st thou,
+schoolmeasther.  It's nobody's minding that keeps sike men as thou
+afloat.  Noo then, where be'est thou coomin' to?  Dang it, dinnot
+coom treadin' ower me, mun.'
+
+Suiting the action to the word, John Browdie just jerked his elbow
+into the chest of Mr Squeers who was advancing upon Smike; with so
+much dexterity that the schoolmaster reeled and staggered back upon
+Ralph Nickleby, and being unable to recover his balance, knocked
+that gentleman off his chair, and stumbled heavily upon him.
+
+This accidental circumstance was the signal for some very decisive
+proceedings.  In the midst of a great noise, occasioned by the
+prayers and entreaties of Smike, the cries and exclamations of the
+women, and the vehemence of the men, demonstrations were made of
+carrying off the lost son by violence.  Squeers had actually
+begun to haul him out, when Nicholas (who, until then, had been
+evidently undecided how to act) took him by the collar, and shaking
+him so that such teeth as he had, chattered in his head, politely
+escorted him to the room-door, and thrusting him into the passage,
+shut it upon him.
+
+'Now,' said Nicholas to the other two, 'have the goodness to follow
+your friend.'
+
+'I want my son,' said Snawley.
+
+'Your son,' replied Nicholas, 'chooses for himself.  He chooses to
+remain here, and he shall.'
+
+'You won't give him up?' said Snawley.
+
+'I would not give him up against his will, to be the victim of such
+brutality as that to which you would consign him,' replied Nicholas,
+'if he were a dog or a rat.'
+
+'Knock that Nickleby down with a candlestick,' cried Mr Squeers,
+through the keyhole, 'and bring out my hat, somebody, will you,
+unless he wants to steal it.'
+
+'I am very sorry, indeed,' said Mrs Nickleby, who, with Mrs Browdie,
+had stood crying and biting her fingers in a corner, while Kate
+(very pale, but perfectly quiet) had kept as near her brother as she
+could.  'I am very sorry, indeed, for all this.  I really don't know
+what would be best to do, and that's the truth.  Nicholas ought to
+be the best judge, and I hope he is.  Of course, it's a hard thing
+to have to keep other people's children, though young Mr Snawley is
+certainly as useful and willing as it's possible for anybody to be;
+but, if it could be settled in any friendly manner--if old Mr
+Snawley, for instance, would settle to pay something certain for his
+board and lodging, and some fair arrangement was come to, so that we
+undertook to have fish twice a week, and a pudding twice, or a
+dumpling, or something of that sort--I do think that it might be
+very satisfactory and pleasant for all parties.'
+
+This compromise, which was proposed with abundance of tears and
+sighs, not exactly meeting the point at issue, nobody took any
+notice of it; and poor Mrs Nickleby accordingly proceeded to
+enlighten Mrs Browdie upon the advantages of such a scheme, and the
+unhappy results flowing, on all occasions, from her not being
+attended to when she proffered her advice.
+
+'You, sir,' said Snawley, addressing the terrified Smike, 'are an
+unnatural, ungrateful, unlovable boy.  You won't let me love you
+when I want to.  Won't you come home, won't you?'
+
+'No, no, no,' cried Smike, shrinking back.
+
+'He never loved nobody,' bawled Squeers, through the keyhole.  'He
+never loved me; he never loved Wackford, who is next door but one to
+a cherubim.  How can you expect that he'll love his father?  He'll
+never love his father, he won't.  He don't know what it is to have a
+father.  He don't understand it.  It an't in him.'
+
+Mr Snawley looked steadfastly at his son for a full minute, and then
+covering his eyes with his hand, and once more raising his hat in
+the air, appeared deeply occupied in deploring his black ingratitude.
+Then drawing his arm across his eyes, he picked up Mr Squeers's hat,
+and taking it under one arm, and his own under the other, walked
+slowly and sadly out.
+
+'Your romance, sir,' said Ralph, lingering for a moment, 'is
+destroyed, I take it.  No unknown; no persecuted descendant of a man
+of high degree; but the weak, imbecile son of a poor, petty
+tradesman.  We shall see how your sympathy melts before plain matter
+of fact.'
+
+'You shall,' said Nicholas, motioning towards the door.
+
+'And trust me, sir,' added Ralph, 'that I never supposed you would
+give him up tonight.  Pride, obstinacy, reputation for fine feeling,
+were all against it.  These must be brought down, sir, lowered,
+crushed, as they shall be soon.  The protracted and wearing anxiety
+and expense of the law in its most oppressive form, its torture from
+hour to hour, its weary days and sleepless nights, with these I'll
+prove you, and break your haughty spirit, strong as you deem it now.
+And when you make this house a hell, and visit these trials upon
+yonder wretched object (as you will; I know you), and those who
+think you now a young-fledged hero, we'll go into old accounts
+between us two, and see who stands the debtor, and comes out best at
+last, even before the world.'
+
+Ralph Nickleby withdrew.  But Mr Squeers, who had heard a portion of
+this closing address, and was by this time wound up to a pitch of
+impotent malignity almost unprecedented, could not refrain from
+returning to the parlour door, and actually cutting some dozen
+capers with various wry faces and hideous grimaces, expressive of
+his triumphant confidence in the downfall and defeat of Nicholas.
+
+Having concluded this war-dance, in which his short trousers and
+large boots had borne a very conspicuous figure, Mr Squeers followed
+his friends, and the family were left to meditate upon recent
+occurrences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 46
+
+Throws some Light upon Nicholas's Love; but whether for Good or Evil
+the Reader must determine
+
+
+After an anxious consideration of the painful and embarrassing
+position in which he was placed, Nicholas decided that he ought to
+lose no time in frankly stating it to the kind brothers.  Availing
+himself of the first opportunity of being alone with Mr Charles
+Cheeryble at the close of next day, he accordingly related Smike's
+little history, and modestly but firmly expressed his hope that the
+good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described,
+hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering
+between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his
+disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might
+seem, and would doubtless be represented as, a thing so repulsive
+and unnatural, as to render those who countenanced him in it, fit
+objects of general detestation and abhorrence.
+
+'So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,' said
+Nicholas, 'that I can hardly believe he really is his son.  Nature
+does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling
+of affection for him, and surely she can never err.'
+
+'My dear sir,' replied brother Charles, 'you fall into the very
+common mistake of charging upon Nature, matters with which she has
+not the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way
+responsible.  Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose
+sight of what is natural while they do so.  Here is a poor lad who
+has never felt a parent's care, who has scarcely known anything all
+his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told
+is his father, and whose first act is to signify his intention of
+putting an end to his short term of happiness, of consigning him to
+his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had--
+which is yourself.  If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad's
+breast but one secret prompting which urged him towards his father
+and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot.'
+
+Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so
+warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same
+purpose, made no reply.
+
+'The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at
+every turn,' said brother Charles.  'Parents who never showed their
+love, complain of want of natural affection in their children;
+children who never showed their duty, complain of want of natural
+feeling in their parents; law-makers who find both so miserable that
+their affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop
+them, are loud in their moralisings over parents and children too,
+and cry that the very ties of nature are disregarded.  Natural
+affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the
+Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must
+be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be
+wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as
+it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended,
+should be choked with weeds and briers.  I wish we could be brought
+to consider this, and remembering natural obligations a little more
+at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.'
+
+After this, brother Charles, who had talked himself into a great
+heat, stopped to cool a little, and then continued:
+
+'I dare say you are surprised, my dear sir, that I have listened to
+your recital with so little astonishment.  That is easily explained.
+Your uncle has been here this morning.'
+
+Nicholas coloured, and drew back a step or two.
+
+'Yes,' said the old gentleman, tapping his desk emphatically, 'here,
+in this room.  He would listen neither to reason, feeling, nor
+justice.  But brother Ned was hard upon him; brother Ned, sir, might
+have melted a paving-stone.'
+
+'He came to--' said Nicholas.
+
+'To complain of you,' returned brother Charles, 'to poison our ears
+with calumnies and falsehoods; but he came on a fruitless errand,
+and went away with some wholesome truths in his ear besides.
+Brother Ned, my dear My Nickleby--brother Ned, sir, is a perfect
+lion.  So is Tim Linkinwater; Tim is quite a lion.  We had Tim in to
+face him at first, and Tim was at him, sir, before you could say
+"Jack Robinson."'
+
+'How can I ever thank you for all the deep obligations you impose
+upon me every day?' said Nicholas.
+
+'By keeping silence upon the subject, my dear sir,' returned brother
+Charles.  'You shall be righted.  At least you shall not be wronged.
+Nobody belonging to you shall be wronged.  They shall not hurt a
+hair of your head, or the boy's head, or your mother's head, or your
+sister's head.  I have said it, brother Ned has said it, Tim
+Linkinwater has said it.  We have all said it, and we'll all do it.
+I have seen the father--if he is the father--and I suppose he must
+be.  He is a barbarian and a hypocrite, Mr Nickleby.  I told him,
+"You are a barbarian, sir." I did.  I said, "You're a barbarian,
+sir."  And I'm glad of it, I am VERY glad I told him he was a
+barbarian, very glad indeed!'
+
+By this time brother Charles was in such a very warm state of
+indignation, that Nicholas thought he might venture to put in a
+word, but the moment he essayed to do so, Mr Cheeryble laid his hand
+softly upon his arm, and pointed to a chair.
+
+'The subject is at an end for the present,' said the old gentleman,
+wiping his face.  'Don't revive it by a single word.  I am going to
+speak upon another subject, a confidential subject, Mr Nickleby.  We
+must be cool again, we must be cool.'
+
+After two or three turns across the room he resumed his seat, and
+drawing his chair nearer to that on which Nicholas was seated, said:
+
+'I am about to employ you, my dear sir, on a confidential and
+delicate mission.'
+
+'You might employ many a more able messenger, sir,' said Nicholas,
+'but a more trustworthy or zealous one, I may be bold to say, you
+could not find.'
+
+'Of that I am well assured,' returned brother Charles, 'well
+assured.  You will give me credit for thinking so, when I tell you
+that the object of this mission is a young lady.'
+
+'A young lady, sir!' cried Nicholas, quite trembling for the moment
+with his eagerness to hear more.
+
+'A very beautiful young lady,' said Mr Cheeryble, gravely.
+
+'Pray go on, sir,' returned Nicholas.
+
+'I am thinking how to do so,' said brother Charles; sadly, as it
+seemed to his young friend, and with an expression allied to pain.
+'You accidentally saw a young lady in this room one morning, my dear
+sir, in a fainting fit.  Do you remember?  Perhaps you have
+forgotten.'
+
+'Oh no,' replied Nicholas, hurriedly.  'I--I--remember it very well
+indeed.'
+
+'SHE is the lady I speak of,' said brother Charles.  Like the famous
+parrot, Nicholas thought a great deal, but was unable to utter a
+word.
+
+'She is the daughter,' said Mr Cheeryble, 'of a lady who, when she
+was a beautiful girl herself, and I was very many years younger, I--
+it seems a strange word for me to utter now--I loved very dearly.
+You will smile, perhaps, to hear a grey-headed man talk about such
+things.  You will not offend me, for when I was as young as you, I
+dare say I should have done the same.'
+
+'I have no such inclination, indeed,' said Nicholas.
+
+'My dear brother Ned,' continued Mr Cheeryble, 'was to have married
+her sister, but she died.  She is dead too now, and has been for
+many years.  She married her choice; and I wish I could add that
+her after-life was as happy as God knows I ever prayed it might be!'
+
+A short silence intervened, which Nicholas made no effort to break.
+
+'If trial and calamity had fallen as lightly on his head, as in the
+deepest truth of my own heart I ever hoped (for her sake) it would,
+his life would have been one of peace and happiness,' said the old
+gentleman calmly.  'It will be enough to say that this was not the
+case; that she was not happy; that they fell into complicated
+distresses and difficulties; that she came, twelve months before her
+death, to appeal to my old friendship; sadly changed, sadly altered,
+broken-spirited from suffering and ill-usage, and almost broken-
+hearted.  He readily availed himself of the money which, to give her
+but one hour's peace of mind, I would have poured out as freely as
+water--nay, he often sent her back for more--and yet even while he
+squandered it, he made the very success of these, her applications
+to me, the groundwork of cruel taunts and jeers, protesting that he
+knew she thought with bitter remorse of the choice she had made,
+that she had married him from motives of interest and vanity (he was
+a gay young man with great friends about him when she chose him for
+her husband), and venting in short upon her, by every unjust and
+unkind means, the bitterness of that ruin and disappointment which
+had been brought about by his profligacy alone.  In those times this
+young lady was a mere child.  I never saw her again until that
+morning when you saw her also, but my nephew, Frank--'
+
+Nicholas started, and indistinctly apologising for the interruption,
+begged his patron to proceed.
+
+'--My nephew, Frank, I say,' resumed Mr Cheeryble, 'encountered her by
+accident, and lost sight of her almost in a minute afterwards,
+within two days after he returned to England.  Her father lay in
+some secret place to avoid his creditors, reduced, between sickness
+and poverty, to the verge of death, and she, a child,--we might
+almost think, if we did not know the wisdom of all Heaven's decrees
+--who should have blessed a better man, was steadily braving
+privation, degradation, and everything most terrible to such a young
+and delicate creature's heart, for the purpose of supporting him.
+She was attended, sir,' said brother Charles, 'in these reverses, by
+one faithful creature, who had been, in old times, a poor kitchen
+wench in the family, who was then their solitary servant, but who
+might have been, for the truth and fidelity of her heart--who might
+have been--ah! the wife of Tim Linkinwater himself, sir!'
+
+Pursuing this encomium upon the poor follower with such energy and
+relish as no words can describe, brother Charles leant back in his
+chair, and delivered the remainder of his relation with greater
+composure.
+
+It was in substance this: That proudly resisting all offers of
+permanent aid and support from her late mother's friends, because
+they were made conditional upon her quitting the wretched man, her
+father, who had no friends left, and shrinking with instinctive
+delicacy from appealing in their behalf to that true and noble heart
+which he hated, and had, through its greatest and purest goodness,
+deeply wronged by misconstruction and ill report, this young girl
+had struggled alone and unassisted to maintain him by the labour of
+her hands.  That through the utmost depths of poverty and affliction
+she had toiled, never turning aside for an instant from her task,
+never wearied by the petulant gloom of a sick man sustained by no
+consoling recollections of the past or hopes of the future; never
+repining for the comforts she had rejected, or bewailing the hard
+lot she had voluntarily incurred.  That every little accomplishment
+she had acquired in happier days had been put into requisition for
+this purpose, and directed to this one end.  That for two long
+years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the needle,
+the pencil, and the pen, and submitting, as a daily governess, to
+such caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too
+often love to inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such
+capacities, as though in jealousy of the superior intelligence which
+they are necessitated to employ,--indignities, in ninety-nine cases
+out of every hundred, heaped upon persons immeasurably and
+incalculably their betters, but outweighing in comparison any that
+the most heartless blackleg would put upon his groom--that for two
+long years, by dint of labouring in all these capacities and
+wearying in none, she had not succeeded in the sole aim and object
+of her life, but that, overwhelmed by accumulated difficulties and
+disappointments, she had been compelled to seek out her mother's old
+friend, and, with a bursting heart, to confide in him at last.
+
+'If I had been poor,' said brother Charles, with sparkling eyes; 'if
+I had been poor, Mr Nickleby, my dear sir, which thank God I am not,
+I would have denied myself (of course anybody would under such
+circumstances) the commonest necessaries of life, to help her.  As
+it is, the task is a difficult one.  If her father were dead,
+nothing could be easier, for then she should share and cheer the
+happiest home that brother Ned and I could have, as if she were our
+child or sister.  But he is still alive.  Nobody can help him; that
+has been tried a thousand times; he was not abandoned by all without
+good cause, I know.'
+
+'Cannot she be persuaded to--' Nicholas hesitated when he had got
+thus far.
+
+'To leave him?' said brother Charles.  'Who could entreat a child to
+desert her parent?  Such entreaties, limited to her seeing him
+occasionally, have been urged upon her--not by me--but always with
+the same result.'
+
+'Is he kind to her?' said Nicholas.  'Does he requite her affection?'
+
+'True kindness, considerate self-denying kindness, is not in his
+nature,' returned Mr Cheeryble.  'Such kindness as he knows, he
+regards her with, I believe.  The mother was a gentle, loving,
+confiding creature, and although he wounded her from their marriage
+till her death as cruelly and wantonly as ever man did, she never
+ceased to love him.  She commended him on her death-bed to her
+child's care.  Her child has never forgotten it, and never will.'
+
+'Have you no influence over him?' asked Nicholas.
+
+'I, my dear sir!  The last man in the world.  Such are his jealousy
+and hatred of me, that if he knew his daughter had opened her heart
+to me, he would render her life miserable with his reproaches;
+although--this is the inconsistency and selfishness of his
+character--although if he knew that every penny she had came from
+me, he would not relinquish one personal desire that the most
+reckless expenditure of her scanty stock could gratify.'
+
+'An unnatural scoundrel!' said Nicholas, indignantly.
+
+'We will use no harsh terms,' said brother Charles, in a gentle
+voice; 'but accommodate ourselves to the circumstances in which this
+young lady is placed.  Such assistance as I have prevailed upon her
+to accept, I have been obliged, at her own earnest request, to dole
+out in the smallest portions, lest he, finding how easily money was
+procured, should squander it even more lightly than he is accustomed
+to do.  She has come to and fro, to and fro, secretly and by night,
+to take even this; and I cannot bear that things should go on in
+this way, Mr Nickleby, I really cannot bear it.'
+
+Then it came out by little and little, how that the twins had been
+revolving in their good old heads manifold plans and schemes for
+helping this young lady in the most delicate and considerate way,
+and so that her father should not suspect the source whence the aid
+was derived; and how they had at last come to the conclusion, that
+the best course would be to make a feint of purchasing her little
+drawings and ornamental work at a high price, and keeping up a
+constant demand for the same.  For the furtherance of which end and
+object it was necessary that somebody should represent the dealer in
+such commodities, and after great deliberation they had pitched upon
+Nicholas to support this character.
+
+'He knows me,' said brother Charles, 'and he knows my brother Ned.
+Neither of us would do.  Frank is a very good fellow--a very fine
+fellow--but we are afraid that he might be a little flighty and
+thoughtless in such a delicate matter, and that he might, perhaps--
+that he might, in short, be too susceptible (for she is a beautiful
+creature, sir; just what her poor mother was), and falling in love
+with her before he knew well his own mind, carry pain and sorrow
+into that innocent breast, which we would be the humble instruments
+of gradually making happy.  He took an extraordinary interest in her
+fortunes when he first happened to encounter her; and we gather from
+the inquiries we have made of him, that it was she in whose behalf
+he made that turmoil which led to your first acquaintance.'
+
+Nicholas stammered out that he had before suspected the possibility
+of such a thing; and in explanation of its having occurred to him,
+described when and where he had seen the young lady himself.
+
+'Well; then you see,' continued brother Charles, 'that HE wouldn't
+do.  Tim Linkinwater is out of the question; for Tim, sir, is such a
+tremendous fellow, that he could never contain himself, but would go
+to loggerheads with the father before he had been in the place five
+minutes.  You don't know what Tim is, sir, when he is aroused by
+anything that appeals to his feelings very strongly; then he is
+terrific, sir, is Tim Linkinwater, absolutely terrific.  Now, in you
+we can repose the strictest confidence; in you we have seen--or at
+least I have seen, and that's the same thing, for there's no
+difference between me and my brother Ned, except that he is the
+finest creature that ever lived, and that there is not, and never
+will be, anybody like him in all the world--in you we have seen
+domestic virtues and affections, and delicacy of feeling, which
+exactly qualify you for such an office.  And you are the man, sir.'
+
+'The young lady, sir,' said Nicholas, who felt so embarrassed that
+he had no small difficulty in saying anything at all--'Does--is--is
+she a party to this innocent deceit?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' returned Mr Cheeryble; 'at least she knows you come from
+us; she does NOT know, however, but that we shall dispose of these
+little productions that you'll purchase from time to time; and,
+perhaps, if you did it very well (that is, VERY well indeed),
+perhaps she might be brought to believe that we--that we made a
+profit of them.  Eh?  Eh?'
+
+In this guileless and most kind simplicity, brother Charles was so
+happy, and in this possibility of the young lady being led to think
+that she was under no obligation to him, he evidently felt so
+sanguine and had so much delight, that Nicholas would not breathe a
+doubt upon the subject.
+
+All this time, however, there hovered upon the tip of his tongue a
+confession that the very same objections which Mr Cheeryble had
+stated to the employment of his nephew in this commission applied
+with at least equal force and validity to himself, and a hundred
+times had he been upon the point of avowing the real state of his
+feelings, and entreating to be released from it.  But as often,
+treading upon the heels of this impulse, came another which urged
+him to refrain, and to keep his secret to his own breast.  'Why
+should I,' thought Nicholas, 'why should I throw difficulties in the
+way of this benevolent and high-minded design?  What if I do love
+and reverence this good and lovely creature.  Should I not appear a
+most arrogant and shallow coxcomb if I gravely represented that
+there was any danger of her falling in love with me?  Besides, have
+I no confidence in myself?  Am I not now bound in honour to repress
+these thoughts?  Has not this excellent man a right to my best and
+heartiest services, and should any considerations of self deter me
+from rendering them?'
+
+Asking himself such questions as these, Nicholas mentally answered
+with great emphasis 'No!' and persuading himself that he was a most
+conscientious and glorious martyr, nobly resolved to do what, if he
+had examined his own heart a little more carefully, he would have
+found he could not resist.  Such is the sleight of hand by which we
+juggle with ourselves, and change our very weaknesses into stanch
+and most magnanimous virtues!
+
+Mr Cheeryble, being of course wholly unsuspicious that such
+reflections were presenting themselves to his young friend,
+proceeded to give him the needful credentials and directions for his
+first visit, which was to be made next morning; and all
+preliminaries being arranged, and the strictest secrecy enjoined,
+Nicholas walked home for the night very thoughtfully indeed.
+
+The place to which Mr Cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean
+and not over-cleanly houses, situated within 'the Rules' of the
+King's Bench Prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the
+obelisk in St George's Fields.  The Rules are a certain liberty
+adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which
+debtors who can raise money to pay large fees, from which their
+creditors do NOT derive any benefit, are permitted to reside by the
+wise provisions of the same enlightened laws which leave the debtor
+who can raise no money to starve in jail, without the food,
+clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided for felons
+convicted of the most atrocious crimes that can disgrace humanity.
+There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation,
+but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that
+which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye,
+and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men,
+without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.
+
+To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr Charles Cheeryble,
+Nicholas directed his steps, without much troubling his head with
+such matters as these; and at this row of houses--after traversing a
+very dirty and dusty suburb, of which minor theatricals, shell-fish,
+ginger-beer, spring vans, greengrocery, and brokers' shops, appeared
+to compose the main and most prominent features--he at length
+arrived with a palpitating heart.  There were small gardens in front
+which, being wholly neglected in all other respects, served as
+little pens for the dust to collect in, until the wind came round
+the corner and blew it down the road.  Opening the rickety gate
+which, dangling on its broken hinges before one of these, half
+admitted and half repulsed the visitor, Nicholas knocked at the
+street door with a faltering hand.
+
+It was in truth a shabby house outside, with very dim parlour
+windows and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin
+curtains dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp
+strings.  Neither, when the door was opened, did the inside appear
+to belie the outward promise, as there was faded carpeting on the
+stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; in addition to which
+discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlour
+(though it was not yet noon), while the lady of the house was busily
+engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead
+at the door of the back parlour, as if in preparation for the reception
+of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it.
+
+Nicholas had ample time to make these observations while the little
+boy, who went on errands for the lodgers, clattered down the kitchen
+stairs and was heard to scream, as in some remote cellar, for Miss
+Bray's servant, who, presently appearing and requesting him to
+follow her, caused him to evince greater symptoms of nervousness and
+disorder than so natural a consequence of his having inquired for
+that young lady would seem calculated to occasion.
+
+Upstairs he went, however, and into a front room he was shown, and
+there, seated at a little table by the window, on which were drawing
+materials with which she was occupied, sat the beautiful girl who
+had so engrossed his thoughts, and who, surrounded by all the new
+and strong interest which Nicholas attached to her story, seemed
+now, in his eyes, a thousand times more beautiful than he had ever
+yet supposed her.
+
+But how the graces and elegancies which she had dispersed about the
+poorly-furnished room went to the heart of Nicholas!  Flowers,
+plants, birds, the harp, the old piano whose notes had sounded so
+much sweeter in bygone times; how many struggles had it cost her to
+keep these two last links of that broken chain which bound her yet
+to home!  With every slender ornament, the occupation of her leisure
+hours, replete with that graceful charm which lingers in every
+little tasteful work of woman's hands, how much patient endurance
+and how many gentle affections were entwined!  He felt as though the
+smile of Heaven were on the little chamber; as though the beautiful
+devotion of so young and weak a creature had shed a ray of its own
+on the inanimate things around, and made them beautiful as itself;
+as though the halo with which old painters surround the bright
+angels of a sinless world played about a being akin in spirit to
+them, and its light were visibly before him.
+
+And yet Nicholas was in the Rules of the King's Bench Prison!  If he
+had been in Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, and the
+scene a stately terrace!  But, there is one broad sky over all the
+world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it;
+so, perhaps, he had no need of compunction for thinking as he did.
+
+It is not to be supposed that he took in everything at one glance,
+for he had as yet been unconscious of the presence of a sick man
+propped up with pillows in an easy-chair, who, moving restlessly and
+impatiently in his seat, attracted his attention.
+
+He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so emaciated as to appear much
+older.  His features presented the remains of a handsome
+countenance, but one in which the embers of strong and impetuous
+passions were easier to be traced than any expression which would
+have rendered a far plainer face much more prepossessing.  His looks
+were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the
+bone, but there was something of the old fire in the large sunken
+eye notwithstanding, and it seemed to kindle afresh as he struck a
+thick stick, with which he seemed to have supported himself in his
+seat, impatiently on the floor twice or thrice, and called his
+daughter by her name.
+
+'Madeline, who is this?  What does anybody want here?  Who told a
+stranger we could be seen?  What is it?'
+
+'I believe--' the young lady began, as she inclined her head with an
+air of some confusion, in reply to the salutation of Nicholas.
+
+'You always believe,' returned her father, petulantly.  'What is
+it?'
+
+By this time Nicholas had recovered sufficient presence of mind to
+speak for himself, so he said (as it had been agreed he should say)
+that he had called about a pair of hand-screens, and some painted
+velvet for an ottoman, both of which were required to be of the most
+elegant design possible, neither time nor expense being of the
+smallest consideration.  He had also to pay for the two drawings,
+with many thanks, and, advancing to the little table, he laid upon
+it a bank note, folded in an envelope and sealed.
+
+'See that the money is right, Madeline,' said the father.  'Open the
+paper, my dear.'
+
+'It's quite right, papa, I'm sure.'
+
+'Here!' said Mr Bray, putting out his hand, and opening and shutting
+his bony fingers with irritable impatience.  'Let me see.  What are
+you talking about, Madeline?  You're sure?  How can you be sure of any
+such thing?  Five pounds--well, is THAT right?'
+
+'Quite,' said Madeline, bending over him.  She was so busily
+employed in arranging the pillows that Nicholas could not see her
+face, but as she stooped he thought he saw a tear fall.
+
+'Ring the bell, ring the bell,' said the sick man, with the same
+nervous eagerness, and motioning towards it with such a quivering
+hand that the bank note rustled in the air.  'Tell her to get it
+changed, to get me a newspaper, to buy me some grapes, another
+bottle of the wine that I had last week--and--and--I forget half I
+want just now, but she can go out again.  Let her get those first,
+those first.  Now, Madeline, my love, quick, quick!  Good God, how
+slow you are!'
+
+'He remembers nothing that SHE wants!' thought Nicholas.  Perhaps
+something of what he thought was expressed in his countenance, for
+the sick man, turning towards him with great asperity, demanded to
+know if he waited for a receipt.
+
+'It is no matter at all,' said Nicholas.
+
+'No matter! what do you mean, sir?' was the tart rejoinder.  'No
+matter!  Do you think you bring your paltry money here as a favour
+or a gift; or as a matter of business, and in return for value
+received?  D--n you, sir, because you can't appreciate the time and
+taste which are bestowed upon the goods you deal in, do you think
+you give your money away?  Do you know that you are talking to a
+gentleman, sir, who at one time could have bought up fifty such men
+as you and all you have?  What do you mean?'
+
+'I merely mean that as I shall have many dealings with this lady, if
+she will kindly allow me, I will not trouble her with such forms,'
+said Nicholas.
+
+'Then I mean, if you please, that we'll have as many forms as we
+can, returned the father.  'My daughter, sir, requires no kindness
+from you or anybody else.  Have the goodness to confine your
+dealings strictly to trade and business, and not to travel beyond
+it.  Every petty tradesman is to begin to pity her now, is he?  Upon
+my soul!  Very pretty.  Madeline, my dear, give him a receipt; and
+mind you always do so.'
+
+While she was feigning to write it, and Nicholas was ruminating upon
+the extraordinary but by no means uncommon character thus presented
+to his observation, the invalid, who appeared at times to suffer
+great bodily pain, sank back in his chair and moaned out a feeble
+complaint that the girl had been gone an hour, and that everybody
+conspired to goad him.
+
+'When,' said Nicholas, as he took the piece of paper, 'when shall I
+call again?'
+
+This was addressed to the daughter, but the father answered
+immediately.
+
+'When you're requested to call, sir, and not before.  Don't worry
+and persecute.  Madeline, my dear, when is this person to call
+again?'
+
+'Oh, not for a long time, not for three or four weeks; it is not
+necessary, indeed; I can do without,' said the young lady, with
+great eagerness.
+
+'Why, how are we to do without?' urged her father, not speaking
+above his breath.  'Three or four weeks, Madeline!  Three or four
+weeks!'
+
+'Then sooner, sooner, if you please,' said the young lady, turning
+to Nicholas.
+
+'Three or four weeks!' muttered the father.  'Madeline, what on
+earth--do nothing for three or four weeks!'
+
+'It is a long time, ma'am,' said Nicholas.
+
+'YOU think so, do you?' retorted the father, angrily.  'If I chose
+to beg, sir, and stoop to ask assistance from people I despise,
+three or four months would not be a long time; three or four years
+would not be a long time.  Understand, sir, that is if I chose to be
+dependent; but as I don't, you may call in a week.'
+
+Nicholas bowed low to the young lady and retired, pondering upon Mr
+Bray's ideas of independence, and devoutly hoping that there might
+be few such independent spirits as he mingling with the baser clay
+of humanity.
+
+He heard a light footstep above him as he descended the stairs, and
+looking round saw that the young lady was standing there, and
+glancing timidly towards him, seemed to hesitate whether she should
+call him back or no.  The best way of settling the question was to
+turn back at once, which Nicholas did.
+
+'I don't know whether I do right in asking you, sir,' said Madeline,
+hurriedly, 'but pray, pray, do not mention to my poor mother's dear
+friends what has passed here today.  He has suffered much, and is
+worse this morning.  I beg you, sir, as a boon, a favour to myself.'
+
+'You have but to hint a wish,' returned Nicholas fervently, 'and I
+would hazard my life to gratify it.'
+
+'You speak hastily, sir.'
+
+'Truly and sincerely,' rejoined Nicholas, his lips trembling as he
+formed the words, 'if ever man spoke truly yet.  I am not skilled in
+disguising my feelings, and if I were, I could not hide my heart
+from you.  Dear madam, as I know your history, and feel as men and
+angels must who hear and see such things, I do entreat you to
+believe that I would die to serve you.'
+
+The young lady turned away her head, and was plainly weeping.
+
+'Forgive me,' said Nicholas, with respectful earnestness, 'if I seem
+to say too much, or to presume upon the confidence which has been
+intrusted to me.  But I could not leave you as if my interest and
+sympathy expired with the commission of the day.  I am your faithful
+servant, humbly devoted to you from this hour, devoted in strict
+truth and honour to him who sent me here, and in pure integrity of
+heart, and distant respect for you.  If I meant more or less than
+this, I should be unworthy his regard, and false to the very nature
+that prompts the honest words I utter.'
+
+She waved her hand, entreating him to be gone, but answered not a
+word.  Nicholas could say no more, and silently withdrew.  And thus
+ended his first interview with Madeline Bray.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 47
+
+Mr Ralph Nickleby has some confidential Intercourse with another old
+Friend.  They concert between them a Project, which promises well
+for both
+
+
+'There go the three-quarters past!' muttered Newman Noggs, listening
+to the chimes of some neighbouring church 'and my dinner time's two.
+He does it on purpose.  He makes a point of it.  It's just like
+him.'
+
+It was in his own little den of an office and on the top of his
+official stool that Newman thus soliloquised; and the soliloquy
+referred, as Newman's grumbling soliloquies usually did, to Ralph
+Nickleby.
+
+'I don't believe he ever had an appetite,' said Newman, 'except for
+pounds, shillings, and pence, and with them he's as greedy as a
+wolf.  I should like to have him compelled to swallow one of every
+English coin.  The penny would be an awkward morsel--but the crown--
+ha! ha!'
+
+His good-humour being in some degree restored by the vision of Ralph
+Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five-shilling piece, Newman slowly
+brought forth from his desk one of those portable bottles, currently
+known as pocket-pistols, and shaking the same close to his ear so as
+to produce a rippling sound very cool and pleasant to listen to,
+suffered his features to relax, and took a gurgling drink, which
+relaxed them still more.  Replacing the cork, he smacked his lips
+twice or thrice with an air of great relish, and, the taste of the
+liquor having by this time evaporated, recurred to his grievance
+again.
+
+'Five minutes to three,' growled Newman; 'it can't want more by this
+time; and I had my breakfast at eight o'clock, and SUCH a breakfast!
+and my right dinner-time two!  And I might have a nice little bit of
+hot roast meat spoiling at home all this time--how does HE know I
+haven't?  "Don't go till I come back,"  "Don't go till I come back,"
+day after day.  What do you always go out at my dinner-time for
+then--eh?  Don't you know it's nothing but aggravation--eh?'
+
+These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were addressed to
+nothing but empty air.  The recital of his wrongs, however, seemed
+to have the effect of making Newman Noggs desperate; for he
+flattened his old hat upon his head, and drawing on the everlasting
+gloves, declared with great vehemence, that come what might, he
+would go to dinner that very minute.
+
+Carrying this resolution into instant effect, he had advanced as far
+as the passage, when the sound of the latch-key in the street door
+caused him to make a precipitate retreat into his own office again.
+
+'Here he is,' growled Newman, 'and somebody with him.  Now it'll be
+"Stop till this gentleman's gone."  But I won't.  That's flat.'
+
+So saying, Newman slipped into a tall empty closet which opened with
+two half doors, and shut himself up; intending to slip out directly
+Ralph was safe inside his own room.
+
+'Noggs!' cried Ralph, 'where is that fellow, Noggs?'
+
+But not a word said Newman.
+
+'The dog has gone to his dinner, though I told him not,' muttered
+Ralph, looking into the office, and pulling out his watch.  'Humph!'
+You had better come in here, Gride.  My man's out, and the sun is
+hot upon my room.  This is cool and in the shade, if you don't mind
+roughing it.'
+
+'Not at all, Mr Nickleby, oh not at all!  All places are alike to
+me, sir.  Ah! very nice indeed.  Oh! very nice!'
+
+The parson who made this reply was a little old man, of about
+seventy or seventy-five years of age, of a very lean figure, much
+bent and slightly twisted.  He wore a grey coat with a very narrow
+collar, an old-fashioned waistcoat of ribbed black silk, and such
+scanty trousers as displayed his shrunken spindle-shanks in their
+full ugliness.  The only articles of display or ornament in his
+dress were a steel watch-chain to which were attached some large
+gold seals; and a black ribbon into which, in compliance with an old
+fashion scarcely ever observed in these days, his grey hair was
+gathered behind.  His nose and chin were sharp and prominent, his
+jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, his face was shrivelled
+and yellow, save where the cheeks were streaked with the colour of a
+dry winter apple; and where his beard had been, there lingered yet a
+few grey tufts which seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to denote the
+badness of the soil from which they sprung.  The whole air and
+attitude of the form was one of stealthy cat-like obsequiousness;
+the whole expression of the face was concentrated in a wrinkled
+leer, compounded of cunning, lecherousness, slyness, and avarice.
+
+Such was old Arthur Gride, in whose face there was not a wrinkle, in
+whose dress there was not one spare fold or plait, but expressed the
+most covetous and griping penury, and sufficiently indicated his
+belonging to that class of which Ralph Nickleby was a member.  Such
+was old Arthur Gride, as he sat in a low chair looking up into the
+face of Ralph Nickleby, who, lounging upon the tall office stool,
+with his arms upon his knees, looked down into his; a match for him
+on whatever errand he had come.
+
+'And how have you been?' said Gride, feigning great interest in
+Ralph's state of health.  'I haven't seen you for--oh! not for--'
+
+'Not for a long time,' said Ralph, with a peculiar smile, importing
+that he very well knew it was not on a mere visit of compliment that
+his friend had come.  'It was a narrow chance that you saw me now,
+for I had only just come up to the door as you turned the corner.'
+
+'I am very lucky,' observed Gride.
+
+'So men say,' replied Ralph, drily.
+
+The older money-lender wagged his chin and smiled, but he originated
+no new remark, and they sat for some little time without speaking.
+Each was looking out to take the other at a disadvantage.
+
+'Come, Gride,' said Ralph, at length; 'what's in the wind today?'
+
+'Aha! you're a bold man, Mr Nickleby,' cried the other, apparently
+very much relieved by Ralph's leading the way to business.  'Oh
+dear, dear, what a bold man you are!'
+
+'Why, you have a sleek and slinking way with you that makes me seem
+so by contrast,' returned Ralph.  'I don't know but that yours may
+answer better, but I want the patience for it.'
+
+'You were born a genius, Mr Nickleby,' said old Arthur.  'Deep,
+deep, deep.  Ah!'
+
+'Deep enough,' retorted Ralph, 'to know that I shall need all the
+depth I have, when men like you begin to compliment.  You know I
+have stood by when you fawned and flattered other people, and I
+remember pretty well what THAT always led to.'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands.  'So you do, so
+you do, no doubt.  Not a man knows it better.  Well, it's a pleasant
+thing now to think that you remember old times.  Oh dear!'
+
+'Now then,' said Ralph, composedly; 'what's in the wind, I ask
+again?  What is it?'
+
+'See that now!' cried the other.  'He can't even keep from business
+while we're chatting over bygones.  Oh dear, dear, what a man it
+is!'
+
+'WHICH of the bygones do you want to revive?' said Ralph.  'One of
+them, I know, or you wouldn't talk about them.'
+
+'He suspects even me!' cried old Arthur, holding up his hands.
+'Even me!  Oh dear, even me.  What a man it is!  Ha, ha, ha!  What a
+man it is!  Mr Nickleby against all the world.  There's nobody like
+him.  A giant among pigmies, a giant, a giant!'
+
+Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in
+this strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink
+within him as the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.
+
+'I must humour him though,' cried old Arthur; 'he must have his way
+--a wilful man, as the Scotch say--well, well, they're a wise people,
+the Scotch.  He will talk about business, and won't give away his
+time for nothing.  He's very right.  Time is money, time is money.'
+
+'He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,' said Ralph.
+'Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon
+interest by it.  Time IS money!  Yes, and time costs money; it's
+rather an expensive article to some people we could name, or I
+forget my trade.'
+
+In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again
+chuckled, and again ejaculated 'What a man it is!' which done, he
+dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph's high stool, and
+looking upwards into his immovable face, said,
+
+'What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was--that I
+was--going to be married?'
+
+'I should tell you,' replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him,
+'that for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it
+wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last; that I wasn't
+surprised and wasn't to be taken in.'
+
+'Then I tell you seriously that I am,' said old Arthur.
+
+'And I tell you seriously,' rejoined Ralph, 'what I told you this
+minute.  Stay.  Let me look at you.  There's a liquorish devilry in
+your face.  What is this?'
+
+'I wouldn't deceive YOU, you know,' whined Arthur Gride; 'I couldn't
+do it, I should be mad to try.  I, I, to deceive Mr Nickleby!  The
+pigmy to impose upon the giant.  I ask again--he, he, he!--what
+should you say to me if I was to tell you that I was going to be
+married?'
+
+'To some old hag?' said Ralph.
+
+'No, No,' cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in
+an ecstasy.  'Wrong, wrong again.  Mr Nickleby for once at fault;
+out, quite out!  To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely,
+bewitching, and not nineteen.  Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe and
+ruddy lips that to look at is to long to kiss, beautiful clustering
+hair that one's fingers itch to play with, such a waist as might
+make a man clasp the air involuntarily, thinking of twining his arm
+about it, little feet that tread so lightly they hardly seem to walk
+upon the ground--to marry all this, sir, this--hey, hey!'
+
+'This is something more than common drivelling,' said Ralph, after
+listening with a curled lip to the old sinner's raptures.  'The
+girl's name?'
+
+'Oh deep, deep!  See now how deep that is!' exclaimed old Arthur.
+'He knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it
+must all turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already.  Her
+name--is there nobody within hearing?'
+
+'Why, who the devil should there be?' retorted Ralph, testily.
+
+'I didn't know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down
+the stairs,' said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and
+carefully reclosing it; 'or but that your man might have come back
+and might have been listening outside.  Clerks and servants have a
+trick of listening, and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr
+Noggs--'
+
+'Curse Mr Noggs,' said Ralph, sharply, 'and go on with what you have
+to say.'
+
+'Curse Mr Noggs, by all means,' rejoined old Arthur; 'I am sure I
+have not the least objection to that.  Her name is--'
+
+'Well,' said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur's pausing
+again 'what is it?'
+
+'Madeline Bray.'
+
+Whatever reasons there might have been--and Arthur Gride appeared to
+have anticipated some--for the mention of this name producing an
+effect upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon
+him, he permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the
+name several times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it
+before.
+
+'Bray,' said Ralph.  'Bray--there was young Bray of--,no, he never
+had a daughter.'
+
+'You remember Bray?' rejoined Arthur Gride.
+
+'No,' said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.
+
+'Not Walter Bray!  The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so
+ill?'
+
+'If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection
+by such a trait as that,' said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, 'I
+shall confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever
+known.'
+
+'Tut, tut.  That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,' said
+old Arthur.  'You can't have forgotten Bray.  Both of us did
+business with him.  Why, he owes you money!'
+
+'Oh HIM!' rejoined Ralph.  'Ay, ay.  Now you speak.  Oh!  It's HIS
+daughter, is it?'
+
+Naturally as this was said, it was not said so naturally but that a
+kindred spirit like old Arthur Gride might have discerned a design
+upon the part of Ralph to lead him on to much more explicit
+statements and explanations than he would have volunteered, or that
+Ralph could in all likelihood have obtained by any other means.  Old
+Arthur, however, was so intent upon his own designs, that he
+suffered himself to be overreached, and had no suspicion but that
+his good friend was in earnest.
+
+'I knew you couldn't forget him, when you came to think for a
+moment,' he said.
+
+'You were right,' answered Ralph.  'But old Arthur Gride and
+matrimony is a most anomalous conjunction of words; old Arthur Gride
+and dark eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to look at is to long to
+kiss, and clustering hair that he wants to play with, and waists
+that he wants to span, and little feet that don't tread upon
+anything--old Arthur Gride and such things as these is more
+monstrous still; but old Arthur Gride marrying the daughter of a
+ruined "dashing man" in the Rules of the Bench, is the most
+monstrous and incredible of all.  Plainly, friend Arthur Gride, if
+you want any help from me in this business (which of course you do,
+or you would not be here), speak out, and to the purpose.  And,
+above all, don't talk to me of its turning to my advantage, for I
+know it must turn to yours also, and to a good round tune too, or
+you would have no finger in such a pie as this.'
+
+There was enough acerbity and sarcasm not only in the matter of
+Ralph's speech, but in the tone of voice in which he uttered it, and
+the looks with which he eked it out, to have fired even the ancient
+usurer's cold blood and flushed even his withered cheek.  But he
+gave vent to no demonstration of anger, contenting himself with
+exclaiming as before, 'What a man it is!' and rolling his head from
+side to side, as if in unrestrained enjoyment of his freedom and
+drollery.  Clearly observing, however, from the expression in
+Ralph's features, that he had best come to the point as speedily as
+might be, he composed himself for more serious business, and entered
+upon the pith and marrow of his negotiation.
+
+First, he dwelt upon the fact that Madeline Bray was devoted to the
+support and maintenance, and was a slave to every wish, of her only
+parent, who had no other friend on earth; to which Ralph rejoined
+that he had heard something of the kind before, and that if she had
+known a little more of the world, she wouldn't have been such a
+fool.
+
+Secondly, he enlarged upon the character of her father, arguing,
+that even taking it for granted that he loved her in return with the
+utmost affection of which he was capable, yet he loved himself a
+great deal better; which Ralph said it was quite unnecessary to say
+anything more about, as that was very natural, and probable enough.
+
+And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a delicate and
+beautiful creature, and that he had really a hankering to have her
+for his wife.  To this Ralph deigned no other rejoinder than a harsh
+smile, and a glance at the shrivelled old creature before him, which
+were, however, sufficiently expressive.
+
+'Now,' said Gride, 'for the little plan I have in my mind to bring
+this about; because, I haven't offered myself even to the father
+yet, I should have told you.  But that you have gathered already?
+Ah! oh dear, oh dear, what an edged tool you are!'
+
+'Don't play with me then,' said Ralph impatiently.  'You know the
+proverb.'
+
+'A reply always on the tip of his tongue!' cried old Arthur, raising
+his hands and eyes in admiration.  'He is always prepared!  Oh dear,
+what a blessing to have such a ready wit, and so much ready money to
+back it!'  Then, suddenly changing his tone, he went on: 'I have
+been backwards and forwards to Bray's lodgings several times within
+the last six months.  It is just half a year since I first saw this
+delicate morsel, and, oh dear, what a delicate morsel it is!  But
+that is neither here nor there.  I am his detaining creditor for
+seventeen hundred pounds!'
+
+'You talk as if you were the only detaining creditor,' said Ralph,
+pulling out his pocket-book.  'I am another for nine hundred and
+seventy-five pounds four and threepence.'
+
+'The only other, Mr Nickleby,' said old Arthur, eagerly.  'The only
+other.  Nobody else went to the expense of lodging a detainer,
+trusting to our holding him fast enough, I warrant you.  We both
+fell into the same snare; oh dear, what a pitfall it was; it almost
+ruined me!  And lent him our money upon bills, with only one name
+besides his own, which to be sure everybody supposed to be a good
+one, and was as negotiable as money, but which turned out you know
+how.  Just as we should have come upon him, he died insolvent.  Ah!
+it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss did!'
+
+'Go on with your scheme,' said Ralph.  'It's of no use raising the
+cry of our trade just now; there's nobody to hear us!'
+
+'It's always as well to talk that way,' returned old Arthur, with a
+chuckle, 'whether there's anybody to hear us or not.  Practice makes
+perfect, you know.  Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son-in-
+law, upon one simple condition that the moment I am fast married he
+shall be quietly released, and have an allowance to live just
+t'other side the water like a gentleman (he can't live long, for I
+have asked his doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one of
+the Heart and it is impossible), and if all the advantages of this
+condition are properly stated and dwelt upon to him, do you think he
+could resist me?  And if he could not resist ME, do you think his
+daughter could resist HIM?  Shouldn't I have her Mrs Arthur Gride--
+pretty Mrs Arthur Gride--a tit-bit--a dainty chick--shouldn't I have
+her Mrs Arthur Gride in a week, a month, a day--any time I chose to
+name?'
+
+'Go on,' said Ralph, nodding his head deliberately, and speaking in
+a tone whose studied coldness presented a strange contrast to the
+rapturous squeak to which his friend had gradually mounted.  'Go on.
+You didn't come here to ask me that.'
+
+'Oh dear, how you talk!' cried old Arthur, edging himself closer
+still to Ralph.  'Of course I didn't, I don't pretend I did!  I came
+to ask what you would take from me, if I prospered with the father,
+for this debt of yours.  Five shillings in the pound, six and-
+eightpence, ten shillings?  I WOULD go as far as ten for such a
+friend as you, we have always been on such good terms, but you won't
+be so hard upon me as that, I know.  Now, will you?'
+
+'There's something more to be told,' said Ralph, as stony and
+immovable as ever.
+
+'Yes, yes, there is, but you won't give me time,' returned Arthur
+Gride.  'I want a backer in this matter; one who can talk, and urge,
+and press a point, which you can do as no man can.  I can't do that,
+for I am a poor, timid, nervous creature.  Now, if you get a good
+composition for this debt, which you long ago gave up for lost,
+you'll stand my friend, and help me.  Won't you?'
+
+'There's something more,' said Ralph.
+
+'No, no, indeed,' cried Arthur Gride.
+
+'Yes, yes, indeed.  I tell you yes,' said Ralph.
+
+'Oh!' returned old Arthur feigning to be suddenly enlightened.  'You
+mean something more, as concerns myself and my intention.  Ay,
+surely, surely.  Shall I mention that?'
+
+'I think you had better,' rejoined Ralph, drily.
+
+'I didn't like to trouble you with that, because I supposed your
+interest would cease with your own concern in the affair,' said
+Arthur Gride.  'That's kind of you to ask.  Oh dear, how very kind
+of you!  Why, supposing I had a knowledge of some property--some
+little property--very little--to which this pretty chick was
+entitled; which nobody does or can know of at this time, but which
+her husband could sweep into his pouch, if he knew as much as I do,
+would that account for--'
+
+'For the whole proceeding,' rejoined Ralph, abruptly.  'Now, let me
+turn this matter over, and consider what I ought to have if I should
+help you to success.'
+
+'But don't be hard,' cried old Arthur, raising his hands with an
+imploring gesture, and speaking, in a tremulous voice.  'Don't be
+too hard upon me.  It's a very small property, it is indeed.  Say
+the ten shillings, and we'll close the bargain.  It's more than I
+ought to give, but you're so kind--shall we say the ten?  Do now,
+do.'
+
+Ralph took no notice of these supplications, but sat for three or
+four minutes in a brown study, looking thoughtfully at the person
+from whom they proceeded.  After sufficient cogitation he broke
+silence, and it certainly could not be objected that he used any
+needless circumlocution, or failed to speak directly to the purpose.
+
+'If you married this girl without me,' said Ralph, 'you must pay my
+debt in full, because you couldn't set her father free otherwise.
+It's plain, then, that I must have the whole amount, clear of all
+deduction or incumbrance, or I should lose from being honoured with
+your confidence, instead of gaining by it.  That's the first article
+of the treaty.  For the second, I shall stipulate that for my
+trouble in negotiation and persuasion, and helping you to this
+fortune, I have five hundred pounds.  That's very little, because you
+have the ripe lips, and the clustering hair, and what not, all to
+yourself.  For the third and last article, I require that you
+execute a bond to me, this day, binding yourself in the payment of
+these two sums, before noon of the day of your marriage with
+Madeline Bray.  You have told me I can urge and press a point.  I
+press this one, and will take nothing less than these terms.  Accept
+them if you like.  If not, marry her without me if you can.  I shall
+still get my debt.'
+
+To all entreaties, protestations, and offers of compromise between
+his own proposals and those which Arthur Gride had first suggested,
+Ralph was deaf as an adder.  He would enter into no further
+discussion of the subject, and while old Arthur dilated upon the
+enormity of his demands and proposed modifications of them,
+approaching by degrees nearer and nearer to the terms he resisted,
+sat perfectly mute, looking with an air of quiet abstraction over
+the entries and papers in his pocket-book.  Finding that it was
+impossible to make any impression upon his staunch friend, Arthur
+Gride, who had prepared himself for some such result before he came,
+consented with a heavy heart to the proposed treaty, and upon the
+spot filled up the bond required (Ralph kept such instruments
+handy), after exacting the condition that Mr Nickleby should
+accompany him to Bray's lodgings that very hour, and open the
+negotiation at once, should circumstances appear auspicious and
+favourable to their designs.
+
+In pursuance of this last understanding the worthy gentlemen went
+out together shortly afterwards, and Newman Noggs emerged, bottle in
+hand, from the cupboard, out of the upper door of which, at the
+imminent risk of detection, he had more than once thrust his red
+nose when such parts of the subject were under discussion as
+interested him most.
+
+'I have no appetite now,' said Newman, putting the flask in his
+pocket.  'I've had MY dinner.'
+
+Having delivered this observation in a very grievous and doleful
+tone, Newman reached the door in one long limp, and came back again
+in another.
+
+'I don't know who she may be, or what she may be,' he said: 'but I
+pity her with all my heart and soul; and I can't help her, nor can I
+any of the people against whom a hundred tricks, but none so vile as
+this, are plotted every day!  Well, that adds to my pain, but not to
+theirs.  The thing is no worse because I know it, and it tortures me
+as well as them.  Gride and Nickleby!  Good pair for a curricle.  Oh
+roguery! roguery! roguery!'
+
+With these reflections, and a very hard knock on the crown of his
+unfortunate hat at each repetition of the last word, Newman Noggs,
+whose brain was a little muddled by so much of the contents of the
+pocket-pistol as had found their way there during his recent
+concealment, went forth to seek such consolation as might be
+derivable from the beef and greens of some cheap eating-house.
+
+Meanwhile the two plotters had betaken themselves to the same house
+whither Nicholas had repaired for the first time but a few mornings
+before, and having obtained access to Mr Bray, and found his
+daughter from home, had by a train of the most masterly approaches
+that Ralph's utmost skill could frame, at length laid open the real
+object of their visit.
+
+'There he sits, Mr Bray,' said Ralph, as the invalid, not yet
+recovered from his surprise, reclined in his chair, looking
+alternately at him and Arthur Gride.  'What if he has had the ill-
+fortune to be one cause of your detention in this place?  I have been
+another; men must live; you are too much a man of the world not to
+see that in its true light.  We offer the best reparation in our
+power.  Reparation!  Here is an offer of marriage, that many a
+titled father would leap at, for his child.  Mr Arthur Gride, with
+the fortune of a prince.  Think what a haul it is!'
+
+'My daughter, sir,' returned Bray, haughtily, 'as I have brought her
+up, would be a rich recompense for the largest fortune that a man
+could bestow in exchange for her hand.'
+
+'Precisely what I told you,' said the artful Ralph, turning to his
+friend, old Arthur.  'Precisely what made me consider the thing so
+fair and easy.  There is no obligation on either side.  You have
+money, and Miss Madeline has beauty and worth.  She has youth, you
+have money.  She has not money, you have not youth.  Tit for tat,
+quits, a match of Heaven's own making!'
+
+'Matches are made in Heaven, they say,' added Arthur Gride, leering
+hideously at the father-in-law he wanted.  'If we are married, it
+will be destiny, according to that.'
+
+'Then think, Mr Bray,' said Ralph, hastily substituting for this
+argument considerations more nearly allied to earth, 'think what a
+stake is involved in the acceptance or rejection of these proposals
+of my friend.'
+
+'How can I accept or reject,' interrupted Mr Bray, with an irritable
+consciousness that it really rested with him to decide.  'It is for
+my daughter to accept or reject; it is for my daughter.  You know
+that.'
+
+'True,' said Ralph, emphatically; 'but you have still the power to
+advise; to state the reasons for and against; to hint a wish.'
+
+'To hint a wish, sir!' returned the debtor, proud and mean by turns,
+and selfish at all times.  'I am her father, am I not?  Why should I
+hint, and beat about the bush?  Do you suppose, like her mother's
+friends and my enemies--a curse upon them all!--that there is
+anything in what she has done for me but duty, sir, but duty?  Or do
+you think that my having been unfortunate is a sufficient reason why
+our relative positions should be changed, and that she should
+command and I should obey?  Hint a wish, too!  Perhaps you think,
+because you see me in this place and scarcely able to leave this
+chair without assistance, that I am some broken-spirited dependent
+creature, without the courage or power to do what I may think best
+for my own child.  Still the power to hint a wish!  I hope so!'
+
+'Pardon me,' returned Ralph, who thoroughly knew his man, and had
+taken his ground accordingly; 'you do not hear me out.  I was about
+to say that your hinting a wish, even hinting a wish, would surely
+be equivalent to commanding.'
+
+'Why, of course it would,' retorted Mr Bray, in an exasperated tone.
+'If you don't happen to have heard of the time, sir, I tell you that
+there was a time, when I carried every point in triumph against her
+mother's whole family, although they had power and wealth on their
+side, by my will alone.'
+
+'Still,' rejoined Ralph, as mildly as his nature would allow him,
+'you have not heard me out.  You are a man yet qualified to shine in
+society, with many years of life before you; that is, if you lived
+in freer air, and under brighter skies, and chose your own
+companions.  Gaiety is your element, you have shone in it before.
+Fashion and freedom for you.  France, and an annuity that would
+support you there in luxury, would give you a new lease of life,
+would transfer you to a new existence.  The town rang with your
+expensive pleasures once, and you could blaze up on a new scene again,
+profiting by experience, and living a little at others' cost,
+instead of letting others live at yours.  What is there on the
+reverse side of the picture?  What is there?  I don't know which is
+the nearest churchyard, but a gravestone there, wherever it is, and
+a date, perhaps two years hence, perhaps twenty.  That's all.'
+
+Mr Bray rested his elbow on the arm of his chair, and shaded his
+face with his hand.
+
+'I speak plainly,' said Ralph, sitting down beside him, 'because I
+feel strongly.  It's my interest that you should marry your daughter
+to my friend Gride, because then he sees me paid--in part, that is.
+I don't disguise it.  I acknowledge it openly.  But what interest
+have you in recommending her to such a step?  Keep that in view.
+She might object, remonstrate, shed tears, talk of his being too
+old, and plead that her life would be rendered miserable.  But what
+is it now?'
+
+Several slight gestures on the part of the invalid showed that these
+arguments were no more lost upon him, than the smallest iota of his
+demeanour was upon Ralph.
+
+'What is it now, I say,' pursued the wily usurer, 'or what has it a
+chance of being?  If you died, indeed, the people you hate would
+make her happy.  But can you bear the thought of that?'
+
+'No!' returned Bray, urged by a vindictive impulse he could not
+repress.
+
+'I should imagine not, indeed!' said Ralph, quietly.  'If she
+profits by anybody's death,' this was said in a lower tone, 'let it
+be by her husband's.  Don't let her have to look back to yours, as
+the event from which to date a happier life.  Where is the
+objection?  Let me hear it stated.  What is it?  That her suitor is
+an old man?  Why, how often do men of family and fortune, who
+haven't your excuse, but have all the means and superfluities of
+life within their reach, how often do they marry their daughters to
+old men, or (worse still) to young men without heads or hearts, to
+tickle some idle vanity, strengthen some family interest, or secure
+some seat in Parliament!  Judge for her, sir, judge for her.  You
+must know best, and she will live to thank you.'
+
+'Hush! hush!' cried Mr Bray, suddenly starting up, and covering
+Ralph's mouth with his trembling hand.  'I hear her at the door!'
+
+There was a gleam of conscience in the shame and terror of this
+hasty action, which, in one short moment, tore the thin covering of
+sophistry from the cruel design, and laid it bare in all its
+meanness and heartless deformity.  The father fell into his chair
+pale and trembling; Arthur Gride plucked and fumbled at his hat, and
+durst not raise his eyes from the floor; even Ralph crouched for the
+moment like a beaten hound, cowed by the presence of one young
+innocent girl!
+
+The effect was almost as brief as sudden.  Ralph was the first to
+recover himself, and observing Madeline's looks of alarm, entreated
+the poor girl to be composed, assuring her that there was no cause
+for fear.
+
+'A sudden spasm,' said Ralph, glancing at Mr Bray.  'He is quite
+well now.'
+
+It might have moved a very hard and worldly heart to see the young
+and beautiful creature, whose certain misery they had been
+contriving but a minute before, throw her arms about her father's
+neck, and pour forth words of tender sympathy and love, the sweetest
+a father's ear can know, or child's lips form.  But Ralph looked
+coldly on; and Arthur Gride, whose bleared eyes gloated only over
+the outward beauties, and were blind to the spirit which reigned
+within, evinced--a fantastic kind of warmth certainly, but not
+exactly that kind of warmth of feeling which the contemplation of
+virtue usually inspires.
+
+'Madeline,' said her father, gently disengaging himself, 'it was
+nothing.'
+
+'But you had that spasm yesterday, and it is terrible to see you in
+such pain.  Can I do nothing for you?'
+
+'Nothing just now.  Here are two gentlemen, Madeline, one of whom
+you have seen before.  She used to say,' added Mr Bray, addressing
+Arthur Gride, 'that the sight of you always made me worse.  That was
+natural, knowing what she did, and only what she did, of our
+connection and its results.  Well, well.  Perhaps she may change her
+mind on that point; girls have leave to change their minds, you
+know.  You are very tired, my dear.'
+
+'I am not, indeed.'
+
+'Indeed you are.  You do too much.'
+
+'I wish I could do more.'
+
+'I know you do, but you overtask your strength.  This wretched life,
+my love, of daily labour and fatigue, is more than you can bear, I
+am sure it is.  Poor Madeline!'
+
+With these and many more kind words, Mr Bray drew his daughter to
+him and kissed her cheek affectionately.  Ralph, watching him
+sharply and closely in the meantime, made his way towards the door,
+and signed to Gride to follow him.
+
+'You will communicate with us again?' said Ralph.
+
+'Yes, yes,' returned Mr Bray, hastily thrusting his daughter aside.
+'In a week.  Give me a week.'
+
+'One week,' said Ralph, turning to his companion, 'from today.
+Good-morning.  Miss Madeline, I kiss your hand.'
+
+'We will shake hands, Gride,' said Mr Bray, extending his, as old
+Arthur bowed.  'You mean well, no doubt.  I an bound to say so now.
+If I owed you money, that was not your fault.  Madeline, my love,
+your hand here.'
+
+'Oh dear!  If the young lady would condescent!  Only the tips of her
+fingers,' said Arthur, hesitating and half retreating.
+
+Madeline shrunk involuntarily from the goblin figure, but she placed
+the tips of her fingers in his hand and instantly withdrew them.
+After an ineffectual clutch, intended to detain and carry them to
+his lips, old Arthur gave his own fingers a mumbling kiss, and with
+many amorous distortions of visage went in pursuit of his friend,
+who was by this time in the street.
+
+'What does he say, what does he say?  What does the giant say to the
+pigmy?' inquired Arthur Gride, hobbling up to Ralph.
+
+'What does the pigmy say to the giant?' rejoined Ralph, elevating
+his eyebrows and looking down upon his questioner.
+
+'He doesn't know what to say,' replied Arthur Gride.  'He hopes and
+fears.  But is she not a dainty morsel?'
+
+'I have no great taste for beauty,' growled Ralph.
+
+'But I have,' rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands.  'Oh dear!  How
+handsome her eyes looked when she was stooping over him!  Such long
+lashes, such delicate fringe!  She--she--looked at me so soft.'
+
+'Not over-lovingly, I think,' said Ralph.  'Did she?'
+
+'No, you think not?' replied old Arthur.  'But don't you think it
+can be brought about?  Don't you think it can?'
+
+Ralph looked at him with a contemptuous frown, and replied with a
+sneer, and between his teeth:
+
+'Did you mark his telling her she was tired and did too much, and
+overtasked her strength?'
+
+'Ay, ay.  What of it?'
+
+'When do you think he ever told her that before?  The life is more
+than she can bear.  Yes, yes.  He'll change it for her.'
+
+'D'ye think it's done?' inquired old Arthur, peering into his
+companion's face with half-closed eyes.
+
+'I am sure it's done,' said Ralph.  'He is trying to deceive
+himself, even before our eyes, already.  He is making believe that
+he thinks of her good and not his own.  He is acting a virtuous
+part, and so considerate and affectionate, sir, that the daughter
+scarcely knew him.  I saw a tear of surprise in her eye.  There'll
+be a few more tears of surprise there before long, though of a
+different kind.  Oh! we may wait with confidence for this day week.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 48
+
+Being for the Benefit of Mr Vincent Crummles, and positively his
+last Appearance on this Stage
+
+
+It was with a very sad and heavy heart, oppressed by many painful
+ideas, that Nicholas retraced his steps eastward and betook himself
+to the counting-house of Cheeryble Brothers.  Whatever the idle
+hopes he had suffered himself to entertain, whatever the pleasant
+visions which had sprung up in his mind and grouped themselves round
+the fair image of Madeline Bray, they were now dispelled, and not a
+vestige of their gaiety and brightness remained.
+
+It would be a poor compliment to Nicholas's better nature, and one
+which he was very far from deserving, to insinuate that the
+solution, and such a solution, of the mystery which had seemed to
+surround Madeline Bray, when he was ignorant even of her name, had
+damped his ardour or cooled the fervour of his admiration.  If he
+had regarded her before, with such a passion as young men attracted
+by mere beauty and elegance may entertain, he was now conscious of
+much deeper and stronger feelings.  But, reverence for the truth and
+purity of her heart, respect for the helplessness and loneliness of
+her situation, sympathy with the trials of one so young and fair and
+admiration of her great and noble spirit, all seemed to raise her
+far above his reach, and, while they imparted new depth and dignity
+to his love, to whisper that it was hopeless.
+
+'I will keep my word, as I have pledged it to her,' said Nicholas,
+manfully.  'This is no common trust that I have to discharge, and I
+will perform the double duty that is imposed upon me most
+scrupulously and strictly.  My secret feelings deserve no
+consideration in such a case as this, and they shall have none.'
+
+Still, there were the secret feelings in existence just the same,
+and in secret Nicholas rather encouraged them than otherwise;
+reasoning (if he reasoned at all) that there they could do no harm
+to anybody but himself, and that if he kept them to himself from a
+sense of duty, he had an additional right to entertain himself with
+them as a reward for his heroism.
+
+All these thoughts, coupled with what he had seen that morning and
+the anticipation of his next visit, rendered him a very dull and
+abstracted companion; so much so, indeed, that Tim Linkinwater
+suspected he must have made the mistake of a figure somewhere, which
+was preying upon his mind, and seriously conjured him, if such were
+the case, to make a clean breast and scratch it out, rather than
+have his whole life embittered by the tortures of remorse.
+
+But in reply to these considerate representations, and many others
+both from Tim and Mr Frank, Nicholas could only be brought to state
+that he was never merrier in his life; and so went on all day, and
+so went towards home at night, still turning over and over again the
+same subjects, thinking over and over again the same things, and
+arriving over and over again at the same conclusions.
+
+In this pensive, wayward, and uncertain state, people are apt to
+lounge and loiter without knowing why, to read placards on the walls
+with great attention and without the smallest idea of one word of
+their contents, and to stare most earnestly through shop-windows at
+things which they don't see.  It was thus that Nicholas found
+himself poring with the utmost interest over a large play-bill
+hanging outside a Minor Theatre which he had to pass on his way
+home, and reading a list of the actors and actresses who had
+promised to do honour to some approaching benefit, with as much
+gravity as if it had been a catalogue of the names of those ladies
+and gentlemen who stood highest upon the Book of Fate, and he had
+been looking anxiously for his own.  He glanced at the top of the
+bill, with a smile at his own dulness, as he prepared to resume his
+walk, and there saw announced, in large letters with a large space
+between each of them, 'Positively the last appearance of Mr Vincent
+Crummles of Provincial Celebrity!!!'
+
+'Nonsense!' said Nicholas, turning back again.  'It can't be.'
+
+But there it was.  In one line by itself was an announcement of the
+first night of a new melodrama; in another line by itself was an
+announcement of the last six nights of an old one; a third line was
+devoted to the re-engagement of the unrivalled African Knife-
+swallower, who had kindly suffered himself to be prevailed upon to
+forego his country engagements for one week longer; a fourth line
+announced that Mr Snittle Timberry, having recovered from his late
+severe indisposition, would have the honour of appearing that
+evening; a fifth line said that there were 'Cheers, Tears, and
+Laughter!' every night; a sixth, that that was positively the last
+appearance of Mr Vincent Crummles of Provincial Celebrity.
+
+'Surely it must be the same man,' thought Nicholas.  'There can't be
+two Vincent Crummleses.'
+
+The better to settle this question he referred to the bill again,
+and finding that there was a Baron in the first piece, and that
+Roberto (his son) was enacted by one Master Crummles, and Spaletro
+(his nephew) by one Master Percy Crummles--THEIR last appearances--
+and that, incidental to the piece, was a characteristic dance by the
+characters, and a castanet pas seul by the Infant Phenomenon--HER
+last appearance--he no longer entertained any doubt; and presenting
+himself at the stage-door, and sending in a scrap of paper with 'Mr
+Johnson' written thereon in pencil, was presently conducted by a
+Robber, with a very large belt and buckle round his waist, and very
+large leather gauntlets on his hands, into the presence of his
+former manager.
+
+Mr Crummles was unfeignedly glad to see him, and starting up from
+before a small dressing-glass, with one very bushy eyebrow stuck on
+crooked over his left eye, and the fellow eyebrow and the calf of
+one of his legs in his hand, embraced him cordially; at the same
+time observing, that it would do Mrs Crummles's heart good to bid
+him goodbye before they went.
+
+'You were always a favourite of hers, Johnson,' said Crummles,
+'always were from the first.  I was quite easy in my mind about you
+from that first day you dined with us.  One that Mrs Crummles took a
+fancy to, was sure to turn out right.  Ah! Johnson, what a woman
+that is!'
+
+'I am sincerely obliged to her for her kindness in this and all
+other respects,' said Nicholas.  'But where are you going,' that you
+talk about bidding goodbye?'
+
+'Haven't you seen it in the papers?' said Crummles, with some
+dignity.
+
+'No,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'I wonder at that,' said the manager.  'It was among the varieties.
+I had the paragraph here somewhere--but I don't know--oh, yes, here
+it is.'
+
+So saying, Mr Crummles, after pretending that he thought he must
+have lost it, produced a square inch of newspaper from the pocket of
+the pantaloons he wore in private life (which, together with the
+plain clothes of several other gentlemen, lay scattered about on a
+kind of dresser in the room), and gave it to Nicholas to read:
+
+'The talented Vincent Crummles, long favourably known to fame as a
+country manager and actor of no ordinary pretensions, is about to
+cross the Atlantic on a histrionic expedition.  Crummles is to be
+accompanied, we hear, by his lady and gifted family.  We know no man
+superior to Crummles in his particular line of character, or one
+who, whether as a public or private individual, could carry with him
+the best wishes of a larger circle of friends.  Crummles is certain
+to succeed.'
+
+'Here's another bit,' said Mr Crummles, handing over a still smaller
+scrap.  'This is from the notices to correspondents, this one.'
+
+Nicholas read it aloud.  '"Philo-Dramaticus.  Crummles, the country
+manager and actor, cannot be more than forty-three, or forty-four
+years of age.  Crummles is NOT a Prussian, having been born at
+Chelsea."  Humph!' said Nicholas, 'that's an odd paragraph.'
+
+'Very,' returned Crummles, scratching the side of his nose, and
+looking at Nicholas with an assumption of great unconcern.  'I can't
+think who puts these things in.  I didn't.'
+
+Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr Crummles shook his head twice
+or thrice with profound gravity, and remarking, that he could not
+for the life of him imagine how the newspapers found out the things
+they did, folded up the extracts and put them in his pocket again.
+
+'I am astonished to hear this news,' said Nicholas.  'Going to
+America!  You had no such thing in contemplation when I was with
+you.'
+
+'No,' replied Crummles, 'I hadn't then.  The fact is that Mrs
+Crummles--most extraordinary woman, Johnson.'  Here he broke off and
+whispered something in his ear.
+
+'Oh!' said Nicholas, smiling.  'The prospect of an addition to your
+family?'
+
+'The seventh addition, Johnson,' returned Mr Crummles, solemnly.  'I
+thought such a child as the Phenomenon must have been a closer; but
+it seems we are to have another.  She is a very remarkable woman.'
+
+'I congratulate you,' said Nicholas, 'and I hope this may prove a
+phenomenon too.'
+
+'Why, it's pretty sure to be something uncommon, I suppose,'
+rejoined Mr Crummles.  'The talent of the other three is principally
+in combat and serious pantomime.  I should like this one to have a
+turn for juvenile tragedy; I understand they want something of that
+sort in America very much.  However, we must take it as it comes.
+Perhaps it may have a genius for the tight-rope.  It may have any
+sort of genius, in short, if it takes after its mother, Johnson, for
+she is an universal genius; but, whatever its genius is, that genius
+shall be developed.'
+
+Expressing himself after these terms, Mr Crummles put on his other
+eyebrow, and the calves of his legs, and then put on his legs, which
+were of a yellowish flesh-colour, and rather soiled about the knees,
+from frequent going down upon those joints, in curses, prayers, last
+struggles, and other strong passages.
+
+While the ex-manager completed his toilet, he informed Nicholas that
+as he should have a fair start in America from the proceeds of a
+tolerably good engagement which he had been fortunate enough to
+obtain, and as he and Mrs Crummles could scarcely hope to act for
+ever (not being immortal, except in the breath of Fame and in a
+figurative sense) he had made up his mind to settle there
+permanently, in the hope of acquiring some land of his own which
+would support them in their old age, and which they could afterwards
+bequeath to their children.  Nicholas, having highly commended the
+resolution, Mr Crummles went on to impart such further intelligence
+relative to their mutual friends as he thought might prove
+interesting; informing Nicholas, among other things, that Miss
+Snevellicci was happily married to an affluent young wax-chandler
+who had supplied the theatre with candles, and that Mr Lillyvick
+didn't dare to say his soul was his own, such was the tyrannical
+sway of Mrs Lillyvick, who reigned paramount and supreme.
+
+Nicholas responded to this confidence on the part of Mr Crummles, by
+confiding to him his own name, situation, and prospects, and
+informing him, in as few general words as he could, of the
+circumstances which had led to their first acquaintance.  After
+congratulating him with great heartiness on the improved state of
+his fortunes, Mr Crummles gave him to understand that next morning
+he and his were to start for Liverpool, where the vessel lay which
+was to carry them from the shores of England, and that if Nicholas
+wished to take a last adieu of Mrs Crummles, he must repair with him
+that night to a farewell supper, given in honour of the family at a
+neighbouring tavern; at which Mr Snittle Timberry would preside,
+while the honours of the vice-chair would be sustained by the
+African Swallower.
+
+The room being by this time very warm and somewhat crowded, in
+consequence of the influx of four gentlemen, who had just killed
+each other in the piece under representation, Nicholas accepted the
+invitation, and promised to return at the conclusion of the
+performances; preferring the cool air and twilight out of doors to
+the mingled perfume of gas, orange-peel, and gunpowder, which
+pervaded the hot and glaring theatre.
+
+He availed himself of this interval to buy a silver snuff-box--the
+best his funds would afford--as a token of remembrance for Mr
+Crummles, and having purchased besides a pair of ear-rings for Mrs
+Crummles, a necklace for the Phenomenon, and a flaming shirt-pin for
+each of the young gentlemen, he refreshed himself with a walk, and
+returning a little after the appointed time, found the lights out,
+the theatre empty, the curtain raised for the night, and Mr Crummles
+walking up and down the stage expecting his arrival.
+
+'Timberry won't be long,' said Mr Crummles.  'He played the audience
+out tonight.  He does a faithful black in the last piece, and it
+takes him a little longer to wash himself.'
+
+'A very unpleasant line of character, I should think?' said
+Nicholas.
+
+'No, I don't know,' replied Mr Crummles; 'it comes off easily
+enough, and there's only the face and neck.  We had a first-tragedy
+man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black
+himself all over.  But that's feeling a part and going into it as if
+you meant it; it isn't usual; more's the pity.'
+
+Mr Snittle Timberry now appeared, arm-in-arm with the African
+Swallower, and, being introduced to Nicholas, raised his hat half a
+foot, and said he was proud to know him.  The Swallower said the
+same, and looked and spoke remarkably like an Irishman.
+
+'I see by the bills that you have been ill, sir,' said Nicholas to
+Mr Timberry.  'I hope you are none the worse for your exertions
+tonight?'
+
+Mr Timberry, in reply, shook his head with a gloomy air, tapped his
+chest several times with great significancy, and drawing his cloak
+more closely about him, said, 'But no matter, no matter.  Come!'
+
+It is observable that when people upon the stage are in any strait
+involving the very last extremity of weakness and exhaustion, they
+invariably perform feats of strength requiring great ingenuity and
+muscular power.  Thus, a wounded prince or bandit chief, who is
+bleeding to death and too faint to move, except to the softest music
+(and then only upon his hands and knees), shall be seen to approach
+a cottage door for aid in such a series of writhings and twistings,
+and with such curlings up of the legs, and such rollings over and
+over, and such gettings up and tumblings down again, as could never
+be achieved save by a very strong man skilled in posture-making.
+And so natural did this sort of performance come to Mr Snittle
+Timberry, that on their way out of the theatre and towards the
+tavern where the supper was to be holden, he testified the severity
+of his recent indisposition and its wasting effects upon the nervous
+system, by a series of gymnastic performances which were the
+admiration of all witnesses.
+
+'Why this is indeed a joy I had not looked for!' said Mrs Crummles,
+when Nicholas was presented.
+
+'Nor I,' replied Nicholas.  'It is by a mere chance that I have this
+opportunity of seeing you, although I would have made a great
+exertion to have availed myself of it.'
+
+'Here is one whom you know,' said Mrs Crummles, thrusting forward
+the Phenomenon in a blue gauze frock, extensively flounced, and
+trousers of the same; 'and here another--and another,' presenting
+the Master Crummleses.  'And how is your friend, the faithful
+Digby?'
+
+'Digby!' said Nicholas, forgetting at the instant that this had been
+Smike's theatrical name.  'Oh yes.  He's quite--what am I saying?--
+he is very far from well.'
+
+'How!' exclaimed Mrs Crummles, with a tragic recoil.
+
+'I fear,' said Nicholas, shaking his head, and making an attempt to
+smile, 'that your better-half would be more struck with him now than
+ever.'
+
+'What mean you?' rejoined Mrs Crummles, in her most popular manner.
+'Whence comes this altered tone?'
+
+'I mean that a dastardly enemy of mine has struck at me through him,
+and that while he thinks to torture me, he inflicts on him such
+agonies of terror and suspense as--You will excuse me, I am sure,'
+said Nicholas, checking himself.  'I should never speak of this, and
+never do, except to those who know the facts, but for a moment I
+forgot myself.'
+
+With this hasty apology Nicholas stooped down to salute the
+Phenomenon, and changed the subject; inwardly cursing his
+precipitation, and very much wondering what Mrs Crummles must think
+of so sudden an explosion.
+
+That lady seemed to think very little about it, for the supper being
+by this time on table, she gave her hand to Nicholas and repaired
+with a stately step to the left hand of Mr Snittle Timberry.
+Nicholas had the honour to support her, and Mr Crummles was placed
+upon the chairman's right; the Phenomenon and the Master Crummleses
+sustained the vice.
+
+The company amounted in number to some twenty-five or thirty, being
+composed of such members of the theatrical profession, then engaged
+or disengaged in London, as were numbered among the most intimate
+friends of Mr and Mrs Crummles.  The ladies and gentlemen were
+pretty equally balanced; the expenses of the entertainment being
+defrayed by the latter, each of whom had the privilege of inviting
+one of the former as his guest.
+
+It was upon the whole a very distinguished party, for independently
+of the lesser theatrical lights who clustered on this occasion round
+Mr Snittle Timberry, there was a literary gentleman present who had
+dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as
+they had come out--some of them faster than they had come out--and
+who WAS a literary gentleman in consequence.
+
+This gentleman sat on the left hand of Nicholas, to whom he was
+introduced by his friend the African Swallower, from the bottom of
+the table, with a high eulogium upon his fame and reputation.
+
+'I am happy to know a gentleman of such great distinction,' said
+Nicholas, politely.
+
+'Sir,' replied the wit, 'you're very welcome, I'm sure.  The honour
+is reciprocal, sir, as I usually say when I dramatise a book.  Did
+you ever hear a definition of fame, sir?'
+
+'I have heard several,' replied Nicholas, with a smile.  'What is
+yours?'
+
+'When I dramatise a book, sir,' said the literary gentleman, 'THAT'S
+fame.  For its author.'
+
+'Oh, indeed!' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'That's fame, sir,' said the literary gentleman.
+
+'So Richard Turpin, Tom King, and Jerry Abershaw have handed down to
+fame the names of those on whom they committed their most impudent
+robberies?' said Nicholas.
+
+'I don't know anything about that, sir,' answered the literary
+gentleman.
+
+'Shakespeare dramatised stories which had previously appeared in
+print, it is true,' observed Nicholas.
+
+'Meaning Bill, sir?' said the literary gentleman.  'So he did.  Bill
+was an adapter, certainly, so he was--and very well he adapted too--
+considering.'
+
+'I was about to say,' rejoined Nicholas, 'that Shakespeare derived
+some of his plots from old tales and legends in general circulation;
+but it seems to me, that some of the gentlemen of your craft, at the
+present day, have shot very far beyond him--'
+
+'You're quite right, sir,' interrupted the literary gentleman,
+leaning back in his chair and exercising his toothpick.  'Human
+intellect, sir, has progressed since his time, is progressing, will
+progress.'
+
+'Shot beyond him, I mean,' resumed Nicholas, 'in quite another
+respect, for, whereas he brought within the magic circle of his
+genius, traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and turned
+familiar things into constellations which should enlighten the world
+for ages, you drag within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects
+not at all adapted to the purposes of the stage, and debase as he
+exalted.  For instance, you take the uncompleted books of living
+authors, fresh from their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and
+carve them to the powers and capacities of your actors, and the
+capability of your theatres, finish unfinished works, hastily and
+crudely vamp up ideas not yet worked out by their original
+projector, but which have doubtless cost him many thoughtful days
+and sleepless nights; by a comparison of incidents and dialogue,
+down to the very last word he may have written a fortnight before,
+do your utmost to anticipate his plot--all this without his
+permission, and against his will; and then, to crown the whole
+proceeding, publish in some mean pamphlet, an unmeaning farrago of
+garbled extracts from his work, to which your name as author, with
+the honourable distinction annexed, of having perpetrated a hundred
+other outrages of the same description.  Now, show me the
+distinction between such pilfering as this, and picking a man's
+pocket in the street: unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature
+has a regard for pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men's brains,
+except when they are knocked out by violence, to take care of
+themselves.'
+
+'Men must live, sir,' said the literary gentleman, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+'That would be an equally fair plea in both cases,' replied
+Nicholas; 'but if you put it upon that ground, I have nothing more
+to say, than, that if I were a writer of books, and you a thirsty
+dramatist, I would rather pay your tavern score for six months,
+large as it might be, than have a niche in the Temple of Fame with
+you for the humblest corner of my pedestal, through six hundred
+generations.'
+
+The conversation threatened to take a somewhat angry tone when it
+had arrived thus far, but Mrs Crummles opportunely interposed to
+prevent its leading to any violent outbreak, by making some
+inquiries of the literary gentleman relative to the plots of the six
+new pieces which he had written by contract to introduce the African
+Knife-swallower in his various unrivalled performances.  This
+speedily engaged him in an animated conversation with that lady, in
+the interest of which, all recollection of his recent discussion
+with Nicholas very quickly evaporated.
+
+The board being now clear of the more substantial articles of food,
+and punch, wine, and spirits being placed upon it and handed about,
+the guests, who had been previously conversing in little groups of
+three or four, gradually fell off into a dead silence, while the
+majority of those present glanced from time to time at Mr Snittle
+Timberry, and the bolder spirits did not even hesitate to strike the
+table with their knuckles, and plainly intimate their expectations,
+by uttering such encouragements as 'Now, Tim,' 'Wake up, Mr
+Chairman,' 'All charged, sir, and waiting for a toast,' and so
+forth.
+
+To these remonstrances Mr Timberry deigned no other rejoinder than
+striking his chest and gasping for breath, and giving many other
+indications of being still the victim of indisposition--for a man
+must not make himself too cheap either on the stage or off--while Mr
+Crummles, who knew full well that he would be the subject of the
+forthcoming toast, sat gracefully in his chair with his arm thrown
+carelessly over the back, and now and then lifted his glass to his
+mouth and drank a little punch, with the same air with which he was
+accustomed to take long draughts of nothing, out of the pasteboard
+goblets in banquet scenes.
+
+At length Mr Snittle Timberry rose in the most approved attitude,
+with one hand in the breast of his waistcoat and the other on the
+nearest snuff-box, and having been received with great enthusiasm,
+proposed, with abundance of quotations, his friend Mr Vincent
+Crummles: ending a pretty long speech by extending his right hand on
+one side and his left on the other, and severally calling upon Mr
+and Mrs Crummles to grasp the same.  This done, Mr Vincent Crummles
+returned thanks, and that done, the African Swallower proposed Mrs
+Vincent Crummles, in affecting terms.  Then were heard loud moans
+and sobs from Mrs Crummles and the ladies, despite of which that
+heroic woman insisted upon returning thanks herself, which she did,
+in a manner and in a speech which has never been surpassed and
+seldom equalled.  It then became the duty of Mr Snittle Timberry to
+give the young Crummleses, which he did; after which Mr Vincent
+Crummles, as their father, addressed the company in a supplementary
+speech, enlarging on their virtues, amiabilities, and excellences,
+and wishing that they were the sons and daughter of every lady and
+gentleman present.  These solemnities having been succeeded by a
+decent interval, enlivened by musical and other entertainments, Mr
+Crummles proposed that ornament of the profession, the African
+Swallower, his very dear friend, if he would allow him to call him
+so; which liberty (there being no particular reason why he should
+not allow it) the African Swallower graciously permitted.  The
+literary gentleman was then about to be drunk, but it being
+discovered that he had been drunk for some time in another
+acceptation of the term, and was then asleep on the stairs, the
+intention was abandoned, and the honour transferred to the ladies.
+Finally, after a very long sitting, Mr Snittle Timberry vacated the
+chair, and the company with many adieux and embraces dispersed.
+
+Nicholas waited to the last to give his little presents.  When he
+had said goodbye all round and came to Mr Crummles, he could not but
+mark the difference between their present separation and their
+parting at Portsmouth.  Not a jot of his theatrical manner remained;
+he put out his hand with an air which, if he could have summoned it
+at will, would have made him the best actor of his day in homely
+parts, and when Nicholas shook it with the warmth he honestly felt,
+appeared thoroughly melted.
+
+'We were a very happy little company, Johnson,' said poor Crummles.
+'You and I never had a word.  I shall be very glad tomorrow morning
+to think that I saw you again, but now I almost wish you hadn't
+come.'
+
+Nicholas was about to return a cheerful reply, when he was greatly
+disconcerted by the sudden apparition of Mrs Grudden, who it seemed
+had declined to attend the supper in order that she might rise
+earlier in the morning, and who now burst out of an adjoining
+bedroom, habited in very extraordinary white robes; and throwing her
+arms about his neck, hugged him with great affection.
+
+'What!  Are you going too?' said Nicholas, submitting with as good a
+grace as if she had been the finest young creature in the world.
+
+'Going?' returned Mrs Grudden.  'Lord ha' mercy, what do you think
+they'd do without me?'
+
+Nicholas submitted to another hug with even a better grace than
+before, if that were possible, and waving his hat as cheerfully as
+he could, took farewell of the Vincent Crummleses.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 49
+
+Chronicles the further Proceedings of the Nickleby Family, and the
+Sequel of the Adventure of the Gentleman in the Small-clothes
+
+
+While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of interest
+which had recently opened upon him, occupied his leisure hours with
+thoughts of Madeline Bray, and in execution of the commissions which
+the anxiety of brother Charles in her behalf imposed upon him, saw
+her again and again, and each time with greater danger to his peace
+of mind and a more weakening effect upon the lofty resolutions he
+had formed, Mrs Nickleby and Kate continued to live in peace and
+quiet, agitated by no other cares than those which were connected
+with certain harassing proceedings taken by Mr Snawley for the
+recovery of his son, and their anxiety for Smike himself, whose
+health, long upon the wane, began to be so much affected by
+apprehension and uncertainty as sometimes to occasion both them and
+Nicholas considerable uneasiness, and even alarm.
+
+It was no complaint or murmur on the part of the poor fellow himself
+that thus disturbed them.  Ever eager to be employed in such slight
+services as he could render, and always anxious to repay his
+benefactors with cheerful and happy looks, less friendly eyes might
+have seen in him no cause for any misgiving.  But there were times,
+and often too, when the sunken eye was too bright, the hollow cheek
+too flushed, the breath too thick and heavy in its course, the frame
+too feeble and exhausted, to escape their regard and notice.
+
+There is a dread disease which so prepares its victim, as it were,
+for death; which so refines it of its grosser aspect, and throws
+around familiar looks unearthly indications of the coming change; a
+dread disease, in which the struggle between soul and body is so
+gradual, quiet, and solemn, and the result so sure, that day by day,
+and grain by grain, the mortal part wastes and withers away, so that
+the spirit grows light and sanguine with its lightening load, and,
+feeling immortality at hand, deems it but a new term of mortal life;
+a disease in which death and life are so strangely blended, that
+death takes the glow and hue of life, and life the gaunt and grisly
+form of death; a disease which medicine never cured, wealth never
+warded off, or poverty could boast exemption from; which sometimes
+moves in giant strides, and sometimes at a tardy sluggish pace, but,
+slow or quick, is ever sure and certain.
+
+It was with some faint reference in his own mind to this disorder,
+though he would by no means admit it, even to himself, that Nicholas
+had already carried his faithful companion to a physician of great
+repute.  There was no cause for immediate alarm, he said.  There
+were no present symptoms which could be deemed conclusive.  The
+constitution had been greatly tried and injured in childhood, but
+still it MIGHT not be--and that was all.
+
+But he seemed to grow no worse, and, as it was not difficult to find
+a reason for these symptoms of illness in the shock and agitation he
+had recently undergone, Nicholas comforted himself with the hope
+that his poor friend would soon recover.  This hope his mother and
+sister shared with him; and as the object of their joint solicitude
+seemed to have no uneasiness or despondency for himself, but each
+day answered with a quiet smile that he felt better than he had upon
+the day before, their fears abated, and the general happiness was by
+degrees restored.
+
+Many and many a time in after years did Nicholas look back to this
+period of his life, and tread again the humble quiet homely scenes
+that rose up as of old before him.  Many and many a time, in the
+twilight of a summer evening, or beside the flickering winter's
+fire--but not so often or so sadly then--would his thoughts wander
+back to these old days, and dwell with a pleasant sorrow upon every
+slight remembrance which they brought crowding home.  The little
+room in which they had so often sat long after it was dark, figuring
+such happy futures; Kate's cheerful voice and merry laugh; how,
+if she were from home, they used to sit and watch for her return
+scarcely breaking silence but to say how dull it seemed without her;
+the glee with which poor Smike would start from the darkened corner
+where he used to sit, and hurry to admit her, and the tears they
+often saw upon his face, half wondering to see them too, and he so
+pleased and happy; every little incident, and even slight words and
+looks of those old days little heeded then, but well remembered when
+busy cares and trials were quite forgotten, came fresh and thick
+before him many and many a time, and, rustling above the dusty
+growth of years, came back green boughs of yesterday.
+
+But there were other persons associated with these recollections,
+and many changes came about before they had being.  A necessary
+reflection for the purposes of these adventures, which at once
+subside into their accustomed train, and shunning all flighty
+anticipations or wayward wanderings, pursue their steady and
+decorous course.
+
+If the brothers Cheeryble, as they found Nicholas worthy of trust
+and confidence, bestowed upon him every day some new and substantial
+mark of kindness, they were not less mindful of those who depended
+on him.  Various little presents to Mrs Nickleby, always of the very
+things they most required, tended in no slight degree to the
+improvement and embellishment of the cottage.  Kate's little store
+of trinkets became quite dazzling; and for company!  If brother
+Charles and brother Ned failed to look in for at least a few minutes
+every Sunday, or one evening in the week, there was Mr Tim
+Linkinwater (who had never made half-a-dozen other acquaintances in
+all his life, and who took such delight in his new friends as no
+words can express) constantly coming and going in his evening walks,
+and stopping to rest; while Mr Frank Cheeryble happened, by some
+strange conjunction of circumstances, to be passing the door on some
+business or other at least three nights in the week.
+
+'He is the most attentive young man I ever saw, Kate,' said Mrs
+Nickleby to her daughter one evening, when this last-named gentleman
+had been the subject of the worthy lady's eulogium for some time,
+and Kate had sat perfectly silent.
+
+'Attentive, mama!' rejoined Kate.
+
+'Bless my heart, Kate!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with her wonted
+suddenness, 'what a colour you have got; why, you're quite flushed!'
+
+'Oh, mama! what strange things you fancy!'
+
+'It wasn't fancy, Kate, my dear, I'm certain of that,' returned her
+mother.  'However, it's gone now at any rate, so it don't much
+matter whether it was or not.  What was it we were talking about?
+Oh! Mr Frank.  I never saw such attention in MY life, never.'
+
+'Surely you are not serious,' returned Kate, colouring again; and
+this time beyond all dispute.
+
+'Not serious!' returned Mrs Nickleby; 'why shouldn't I be serious?
+I'm sure I never was more serious.  I will say that his politeness
+and attention to me is one of the most becoming, gratifying,
+pleasant things I have seen for a very long time.  You don't often
+meet with such behaviour in young men, and it strikes one more when
+one does meet with it.'
+
+'Oh! attention to YOU, mama,' rejoined Kate quickly--'oh yes.'
+
+'Dear me, Kate,' retorted Mrs Nickleby, 'what an extraordinary girl
+you are!  Was it likely I should be talking of his attention to
+anybody else?  I declare I'm quite sorry to think he should be in
+love with a German lady, that I am.'
+
+'He said very positively that it was no such thing, mama,' returned
+Kate.  'Don't you remember his saying so that very first night he
+came here?  Besides,' she added, in a more gentle tone, 'why should
+WE be sorry if it is the case?  What is it to us, mama?'
+
+'Nothing to US, Kate, perhaps,' said Mrs Nickleby, emphatically;
+'but something to ME, I confess.  I like English people to be
+thorough English people, and not half English and half I don't know
+what.  I shall tell him point-blank next time he comes, that I wish
+he would marry one of his own country-women; and see what he says to
+that.'
+
+'Pray don't think of such a thing, mama,' returned Kate, hastily;
+'not for the world.  Consider.  How very--'
+
+'Well, my dear, how very what?' said Mrs Nickleby, opening her eyes
+in great astonishment.
+
+Before Kate had returned any reply, a queer little double knock
+announced that Miss La Creevy had called to see them; and when Miss
+La Creevy presented herself, Mrs Nickleby, though strongly disposed
+to be argumentative on the previous question, forgot all about it in
+a gush of supposes about the coach she had come by; supposing that
+the man who drove must have been either the man in the shirt-sleeves
+or the man with the black eye; that whoever he was, he hadn't found
+that parasol she left inside last week; that no doubt they had
+stopped a long while at the Halfway House, coming down; or that
+perhaps being full, they had come straight on; and, lastly, that
+they, surely, must have passed Nicholas on the road.
+
+'I saw nothing of him,' answered Miss La Creevy; 'but I saw that
+dear old soul Mr Linkinwater.'
+
+'Taking his evening walk, and coming on to rest here, before he
+turns back to the city, I'll be bound!' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'I should think he was,' returned Miss La Creevy; 'especially as
+young Mr Cheeryble was with him.'
+
+'Surely that is no reason why Mr Linkinwater should be coming here,'
+said Kate.
+
+'Why I think it is, my dear,' said Miss La Creevy.  'For a young
+man, Mr Frank is not a very great walker; and I observe that he
+generally falls tired, and requires a good long rest, when he has
+come as far as this.  But where is my friend?' said the little
+woman, looking about, after having glanced slyly at Kate.  'He has
+not been run away with again, has he?'
+
+'Ah! where is Mr Smike?' said Mrs Nickleby; 'he was here this
+instant.'
+
+Upon further inquiry, it turned out, to the good lady's unbounded
+astonishment, that Smike had, that moment, gone upstairs to bed.
+
+'Well now,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'he is the strangest creature!  Last
+Tuesday--was it Tuesday?  Yes, to be sure it was; you recollect,
+Kate, my dear, the very last time young Mr Cheeryble was here--last
+Tuesday night he went off in just the same strange way, at the very
+moment the knock came to the door.  It cannot be that he don't like
+company, because he is always fond of people who are fond of
+Nicholas, and I am sure young Mr Cheeryble is.  And the strangest
+thing is, that he does not go to bed; therefore it cannot be because
+he is tired.  I know he doesn't go to bed, because my room is the
+next one, and when I went upstairs last Tuesday, hours after him, I
+found that he had not even taken his shoes off; and he had no
+candle, so he must have sat moping in the dark all the time.  Now,
+upon my word,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'when I come to think of it,
+that's very extraordinary!'
+
+As the hearers did not echo this sentiment, but remained profoundly
+silent, either as not knowing what to say, or as being unwilling to
+interrupt, Mrs Nickleby pursued the thread of her discourse after
+her own fashion.
+
+'I hope,' said that lady, 'that this unaccountable conduct may not
+be the beginning of his taking to his bed and living there all his
+life, like the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury, or the Cock-lane Ghost, or
+some of those extraordinary creatures.  One of them had some
+connection with our family.  I forget, without looking back to some
+old letters I have upstairs, whether it was my great-grandfather who
+went to school with the Cock-lane Ghost, or the Thirsty Woman of
+Tutbury who went to school with my grandmother.  Miss La Creevy, you
+know, of course.  Which was it that didn't mind what the clergyman
+said?  The Cock-lane Ghost or the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury?'
+
+'The Cock-lane Ghost, I believe.'
+
+'Then I have no doubt,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'that it was with him my
+great-grandfather went to school; for I know the master of his
+school was a dissenter, and that would, in a great measure, account
+for the Cock-lane Ghost's behaving in such an improper manner to the
+clergyman when he grew up.  Ah!  Train up a Ghost--child, I mean--'
+
+Any further reflections on this fruitful theme were abruptly cut
+short by the arrival of Tim Linkinwater and Mr Frank Cheeryble; in
+the hurry of receiving whom, Mrs Nickleby speedily lost sight of
+everything else.
+
+'I am so sorry Nicholas is not at home,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Kate,
+my dear, you must be both Nicholas and yourself.'
+
+'Miss Nickleby need be but herself,' said Frank.  'I--if I may
+venture to say so--oppose all change in her.'
+
+'Then at all events she shall press you to stay,' returned Mrs
+Nickleby.  'Mr Linkinwater says ten minutes, but I cannot let you go
+so soon; Nicholas would be very much vexed, I am sure.  Kate, my
+dear!'
+
+In obedience to a great number of nods, and winks, and frowns of
+extra significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors
+would remain; but it was observable that she addressed them
+exclusively to Tim Linkinwater; and there was, besides, a certain
+embarrassment in her manner, which, although it was as far from
+impairing its graceful character as the tinge it communicated to her
+cheek was from diminishing her beauty, was obvious at a glance even
+to Mrs Nickleby.  Not being of a very speculative character,
+however, save under circumstances when her speculations could be put
+into words and uttered aloud, that discreet matron attributed the
+emotion to the circumstance of her daughter's not happening to have
+her best frock on: 'though I never saw her look better, certainly,'
+she reflected at the same time.  Having settled the question in this
+way, and being most complacently satisfied that in this, and in all
+other instances, her conjecture could not fail to be the right one,
+Mrs Nickleby dismissed it from her thoughts, and inwardly
+congratulated herself on being so shrewd and knowing.
+
+Nicholas did not come home nor did Smike reappear; but neither
+circumstance, to say the truth, had any great effect upon the little
+party, who were all in the best humour possible.  Indeed, there
+sprung up quite a flirtation between Miss La Creevy and Tim
+Linkinwater, who said a thousand jocose and facetious things, and
+became, by degrees, quite gallant, not to say tender.  Little Miss
+La Creevy, on her part, was in high spirits, and rallied Tim on
+having remained a bachelor all his life with so much success, that
+Tim was actually induced to declare, that if he could get anybody to
+have him, he didn't know but what he might change his condition even
+yet.  Miss La Creevy earnestly recommended a lady she knew, who
+would exactly suit Mr Linkinwater, and had a very comfortable
+property of her own; but this latter qualification had very little
+effect upon Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be no
+object with him, but that true worth and cheerfulness of disposition
+were what a man should look for in a wife, and that if he had these,
+he could find money enough for the moderate wants of both.  This
+avowal was considered so honourable to Tim, that neither Mrs
+Nickleby nor Miss La Creevy could sufficiently extol it; and
+stimulated by their praises, Tim launched out into several other
+declarations also manifesting the disinterestedness of his heart,
+and a great devotion to the fair sex: which were received with no
+less approbation.  This was done and said with a comical mixture of
+jest and earnest, and, leading to a great amount of laughter, made
+them very merry indeed.
+
+Kate was commonly the life and soul of the conversation at home; but
+she was more silent than usual upon this occasion (perhaps because
+Tim and Miss La Creevy engrossed so much of it), and, keeping aloof
+from the talkers, sat at the window watching the shadows as the
+evening closed in, and enjoying the quiet beauty of the night, which
+seemed to have scarcely less attractions to Frank, who first
+lingered near, and then sat down beside, her.  No doubt, there are a
+great many things to be said appropriate to a summer evening, and no
+doubt they are best said in a low voice, as being most suitable to
+the peace and serenity of the hour; long pauses, too, at times, and
+then an earnest word or so, and then another interval of silence
+which, somehow, does not seem like silence either, and perhaps now
+and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping of the eyes
+towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a
+disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to confuse
+hours with minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, as
+many lovely lips can clearly testify.  Neither is there the
+slightest reason why Mrs Nickleby should have expressed surprise
+when, candles being at length brought in, Kate's bright eyes were
+unable to bear the light which obliged her to avert her face, and
+even to leave the room for some short time; because, when one has
+sat in the dark so long, candles ARE dazzling, and nothing can be
+more strictly natural than that such results should be produced, as
+all well-informed young people know.  For that matter, old people
+know it too, or did know it once, but they forget these things
+sometimes, and more's the pity.
+
+The good lady's surprise, however, did not end here.  It was greatly
+increased when it was discovered that Kate had not the least
+appetite for supper: a discovery so alarming that there is no
+knowing in what unaccountable efforts of oratory Mrs Nickleby's
+apprehensions might have been vented, if the general attention had
+not been attracted, at the moment, by a very strange and uncommon
+noise, proceeding, as the pale and trembling servant girl affirmed,
+and as everybody's sense of hearing seemed to affirm also, 'right
+down' the chimney of the adjoining room.
+
+It being quite plain to the comprehension of all present that,
+however extraordinary and improbable it might appear, the noise did
+nevertheless proceed from the chimney in question; and the noise
+(which was a strange compound of various shuffling, sliding,
+rumbling, and struggling sounds, all muffled by the chimney) still
+continuing, Frank Cheeryble caught up a candle, and Tim Linkinwater
+the tongs, and they would have very quickly ascertained the cause of
+this disturbance if Mrs Nickleby had not been taken very faint, and
+declined being left behind, on any account.  This produced a short
+remonstrance, which terminated in their all proceeding to the
+troubled chamber in a body, excepting only Miss La Creevy, who, as
+the servant girl volunteered a confession of having been subject to
+fits in her infancy, remained with her to give the alarm and apply
+restoratives, in case of extremity.
+
+Advancing to the door of the mysterious apartment, they were not a
+little surprised to hear a human voice, chanting with a highly
+elaborated expression of melancholy, and in tones of suffocation
+which a human voice might have produced from under five or six
+feather-beds of the best quality, the once popular air of 'Has she
+then failed in her truth, the beautiful maid I adore?'  Nor, on
+bursting into the room without demanding a parley, was their
+astonishment lessened by the discovery that these romantic sounds
+certainly proceeded from the throat of some man up the chimney, of
+whom nothing was visible but a pair of legs, which were dangling
+above the grate; apparently feeling, with extreme anxiety, for the
+top bar whereon to effect a landing.
+
+A sight so unusual and unbusiness-like as this, completely paralysed
+Tim Linkinwater, who, after one or two gentle pinches at the
+stranger's ankles, which were productive of no effect, stood
+clapping the tongs together, as if he were sharpening them for
+another assault, and did nothing else.
+
+'This must be some drunken fellow,' said Frank.  'No thief would
+announce his presence thus.'
+
+As he said this, with great indignation, he raised the candle to
+obtain a better view of the legs, and was darting forward to pull
+them down with very little ceremony, when Mrs Nickleby, clasping her
+hands, uttered a sharp sound, something between a scream and an
+exclamation, and demanded to know whether the mysterious limbs were
+not clad in small-clothes and grey worsted stockings, or whether her
+eyes had deceived her.
+
+'Yes,' cried Frank, looking a little closer.  'Small-clothes
+certainly, and--and--rough grey stockings, too.  Do you know him,
+ma'am?'
+
+'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, deliberately sitting herself
+down in a chair with that sort of desperate resignation which seemed
+to imply that now matters had come to a crisis, and all disguise was
+useless, 'you will have the goodness, my love, to explain precisely
+how this matter stands.  I have given him no encouragement--none
+whatever--not the least in the world.  You know that, my dear,
+perfectly well.  He was very respectful, exceedingly respectful,
+when he declared, as you were a witness to; still at the same time,
+if I am to be persecuted in this way, if vegetable what's-his-names
+and all kinds of garden-stuff are to strew my path out of doors, and
+gentlemen are to come choking up our chimneys at home, I really
+don't know--upon my word I do NOT know--what is to become of me.
+It's a very hard case--harder than anything I was ever exposed to,
+before I married your poor dear papa, though I suffered a good deal
+of annoyance then--but that, of course, I expected, and made up my
+mind for.  When I was not nearly so old as you, my dear, there was a
+young gentleman who sat next us at church, who used, almost every
+Sunday, to cut my name in large letters in the front of his pew
+while the sermon was going on.  It was gratifying, of course,
+naturally so, but still it was an annoyance, because the pew was in
+a very conspicuous place, and he was several times publicly taken
+out by the beadle for doing it.  But that was nothing to this.  This
+is a great deal worse, and a great deal more embarrassing.  I would
+rather, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, with great solemnity, and
+an effusion of tears: 'I would rather, I declare, have been a pig-
+faced lady, than be exposed to such a life as this!'
+
+Frank Cheeryble and Tim Linkinwater looked, in irrepressible
+astonishment, first at each other and then at Kate, who felt that
+some explanation was necessary, but who, between her terror at the
+apparition of the legs, her fear lest their owner should be
+smothered, and her anxiety to give the least ridiculous solution of
+the mystery that it was capable of bearing, was quite unable to
+utter a single word.
+
+'He gives me great pain,' continued Mrs Nickleby, drying her eyes,
+'great pain; but don't hurt a hair of his head, I beg.  On no
+account hurt a hair of his head.'
+
+It would not, under existing circumstances, have been quite so easy
+to hurt a hair of the gentleman's head as Mrs Nickleby seemed to
+imagine, inasmuch as that part of his person was some feet up the
+chimney, which was by no means a wide one.  But, as all this time he
+had never left off singing about the bankruptcy of the beautiful
+maid in respect of truth, and now began not only to croak very
+feebly, but to kick with great violence as if respiration became a
+task of difficulty, Frank Cheeryble, without further hesitation,
+pulled at the shorts and worsteds with such heartiness as to bring
+him floundering into the room with greater precipitation than he had
+quite calculated upon.
+
+'Oh! yes, yes,' said Kate, directly the whole figure of this
+singular visitor appeared in this abrupt manner.  'I know who it is.
+Pray don't be rough with him.  Is he hurt?  I hope not.  Oh, pray see
+if he is hurt.'
+
+'He is not, I assure you,' replied Frank, handling the object of his
+surprise, after this appeal, with sudden tenderness and respect.
+'He is not hurt in the least.'
+
+'Don't let him come any nearer,' said Kate, retiring as far as she
+could.
+
+'Oh, no, he shall not,' rejoined Frank.  'You see I have him secure
+here.  But may I ask you what this means, and whether you expected,
+this old gentleman?'
+
+'Oh, no,' said Kate, 'of course not; but he--mama does not think
+so, I believe--but he is a mad gentleman who has escaped from the
+next house, and must have found an opportunity of secreting himself
+here.'
+
+'Kate,' interposed Mrs Nickleby with severe dignity, 'I am surprised
+at you.'
+
+'Dear mama,' Kate gently remonstrated.
+
+'I am surprised at you,' repeated Mrs Nickleby; 'upon my word, Kate,
+I am quite astonished that you should join the persecutors of this
+unfortunate gentleman, when you know very well that they have the
+basest designs upon his property, and that that is the whole secret
+of it.  It would be much kinder of you, Kate, to ask Mr Linkinwater
+or Mr Cheeryble to interfere in his behalf, and see him righted.
+You ought not to allow your feelings to influence you; it's not
+right, very far from it.  What should my feelings be, do you
+suppose?  If anybody ought to be indignant, who is it?  I, of
+course, and very properly so.  Still, at the same time, I wouldn't
+commit such an injustice for the world.  No,' continued Mrs
+Nickleby, drawing herself up, and looking another way with a kind of
+bashful stateliness; 'this gentleman will understand me when I tell
+him that I repeat the answer I gave him the other day; that I
+always will repeat it, though I do believe him to be sincere when I
+find him placing himself in such dreadful situations on my account;
+and that I request him to have the goodness to go away directly, or
+it will be impossible to keep his behaviour a secret from my son
+Nicholas.  I am obliged to him, very much obliged to him, but I
+cannot listen to his addresses for a moment.  It's quite
+impossible.'
+
+While this address was in course of delivery, the old gentleman,
+with his nose and cheeks embellished with large patches of soot, sat
+upon the ground with his arms folded, eyeing the spectators in
+profound silence, and with a very majestic demeanour.  He did not
+appear to take the smallest notice of what Mrs Nickleby said, but
+when she ceased to speak he honoured her with a long stare, and
+inquired if she had quite finished.
+
+'I have nothing more to say,' replied that lady modestly.  'I really
+cannot say anything more.'
+
+'Very good,' said the old gentleman, raising his voice, 'then bring
+in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.'
+
+Nobody executing this order, the old gentleman, after a short pause,
+raised his voice again and demanded a thunder sandwich.  This
+article not being forthcoming either, he requested to be served with
+a fricassee of boot-tops and goldfish sauce, and then laughing
+heartily, gratified his hearers with a very long, very loud, and
+most melodious bellow.
+
+But still Mrs Nickleby, in reply to the significant looks of all
+about her, shook her head as though to assure them that she saw
+nothing whatever in all this, unless, indeed, it were a slight
+degree of eccentricity.  She might have remained impressed with
+these opinions down to the latest moment of her life, but for a
+slight train of circumstances, which, trivial as they were, altered
+the whole complexion of the case.
+
+It happened that Miss La Creevy, finding her patient in no very
+threatening condition, and being strongly impelled by curiosity to
+see what was going forward, bustled into the room while the old
+gentleman was in the very act of bellowing.  It happened, too, that
+the instant the old gentleman saw her, he stopped short, skipped
+suddenly on his feet, and fell to kissing his hand violently: a
+change of demeanour which almost terrified the little portrait
+painter out of her senses, and caused her to retreat behind Tim
+Linkinwater with the utmost expedition.
+
+'Aha!' cried the old gentleman, folding his hands, and squeezing
+them with great force against each other.  'I see her now; I see her
+now!  My love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty.  She is come
+at last--at last--and all is gas and gaiters!'
+
+Mrs Nickleby looked rather disconcerted for a moment, but
+immediately recovering, nodded to Miss La Creevy and the other
+spectators several times, and frowned, and smiled gravely, giving
+them to understand that she saw where the mistake was, and would set
+it all to rights in a minute or two.
+
+'She is come!' said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon his
+heart.  'Cormoran and Blunderbore!  She is come!  All the wealth I
+have is hers if she will take me for her slave.  Where are grace,
+beauty, and blandishments, like those?  In the Empress of
+Madagascar?  No.  In the Queen of Diamonds?  No.  In Mrs Rowland,
+who every morning bathes in Kalydor for nothing?  No.  Melt all
+these down into one, with the three Graces, the nine Muses, and
+fourteen biscuit-bakers' daughters from Oxford Street, and make a
+woman half as lovely.  Pho! I defy you.'
+
+After uttering this rhapsody, the old gentleman snapped his fingers
+twenty or thirty times, and then subsided into an ecstatic
+contemplation of Miss La Creevy's charms.  This affording Mrs
+Nickleby a favourable opportunity of explanation, she went about it
+straight.
+
+'I am sure,' said the worthy lady, with a prefatory cough, 'that
+it's a great relief, under such trying circumstances as these, to
+have anybody else mistaken for me--a very great relief; and it's a
+circumstance that never occurred before, although I have several
+times been mistaken for my daughter Kate.  I have no doubt the
+people were very foolish, and perhaps ought to have known better,
+but still they did take me for her, and of course that was no fault
+of mine, and it would be very hard indeed if I was to be made
+responsible for it.  However, in this instance, of course, I must
+feel that I should do exceedingly wrong if I suffered anybody--
+especially anybody that I am under great obligations to--to be made
+uncomfortable on my account.  And therefore I think it my duty to
+tell that gentleman that he is mistaken, that I am the lady who he
+was told by some impertinent person was niece to the Council of
+Paving-stones, and that I do beg and entreat of him to go quietly
+away, if it's only for,' here Mrs Nickleby simpered and hesitated,
+'for MY sake.'
+
+It might have been expected that the old gentleman would have been
+penetrated to the heart by the delicacy and condescension of this
+appeal, and that he would at least have returned a courteous and
+suitable reply.  What, then, was the shock which Mrs Nickleby
+received, when, accosting HER in the most unmistakable manner, he
+replied in a loud and sonourous voice: 'Avaunt!  Cat!'
+
+'Sir!' cried Mrs Nickleby, in a faint tone.
+
+'Cat!' repeated the old gentleman.  'Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin,
+Tabby, Brindle!  Whoosh!' with which last sound, uttered in a hissing
+manner between his teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently
+round and round, and at the same time alternately advanced on Mrs
+Nickleby, and retreated from her, in that species of savage dance
+with which boys on market-days may be seen to frighten pigs, sheep,
+and other animals, when they give out obstinate indications of
+turning down a wrong street.
+
+Mrs Nickleby wasted no words, but uttered an exclamation of horror
+and surprise, and immediately fainted away.
+
+'I'll attend to mama,' said Kate, hastily; 'I am not at all
+frightened.  But pray take him away: pray take him away!'
+
+Frank was not at all confident of his power of complying with this
+request, until he bethought himself of the stratagem of sending Miss
+La Creevy on a few paces in advance, and urging the old gentleman to
+follow her.  It succeeded to a miracle; and he went away in a
+rapture of admiration, strongly guarded by Tim Linkinwater on one
+side, and Frank himself on the other.
+
+'Kate,' murmured Mrs Nickleby, reviving when the coast was clear,
+'is he gone?'
+
+She was assured that he was.
+
+'I shall never forgive myself, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby.  'Never!
+That gentleman has lost his senses, and I am the unhappy cause.'
+
+'YOU the cause!' said Kate, greatly astonished.
+
+'I, my love,' replied Mrs Nickleby, with a desperate calmness.  'You
+saw what he was the other day; you see what he is now.  I told your
+brother, weeks and weeks ago, Kate, that I hoped a disappointment
+might not be too much for him.  You see what a wreck he is.  Making
+allowance for his being a little flighty, you know how rationally,
+and sensibly, and honourably he talked, when we saw him in the
+garden.  You have heard the dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of
+this night, and the manner in which he has gone on with that poor
+unfortunate little old maid.  Can anybody doubt how all this has
+been brought about?'
+
+'I should scarcely think they could,' said Kate mildly.
+
+'I should scarcely think so, either,' rejoined her mother.  'Well!
+if I am the unfortunate cause of this, I have the satisfaction of
+knowing that I am not to blame.  I told Nicholas, I said to him,
+"Nicholas, my dear, we should be very careful how we proceed."  He
+would scarcely hear me.  If the matter had only been properly taken
+up at first, as I wished it to be!  But you are both of you so like
+your poor papa.  However, I have MY consolation, and that should be
+enough for me!'
+
+Washing her hands, thus, of all responsibility under this head,
+past, present, or to come, Mrs Nickleby kindly added that she hoped
+her children might never have greater cause to reproach themselves
+than she had, and prepared herself to receive the escort, who soon
+returned with the intelligence that the old gentleman was safely
+housed, and that they found his custodians, who had been making
+merry with some friends, wholly ignorant of his absence.
+
+Quiet being again restored, a delicious half-hour--so Frank called
+it, in the course of subsequent conversation with Tim Linkinwater as
+they were walking home--was spent in conversation, and Tim's watch
+at length apprising him that it was high time to depart, the ladies
+were left alone, though not without many offers on the part of
+Frank to remain until Nicholas arrived, no matter what hour of
+the night it might be, if, after the late neighbourly irruption,
+they entertained the least fear of being left to themselves.
+As their freedom from all further apprehension, however, left no
+pretext for his insisting on mounting guard, he was obliged to
+abandon the citadel, and to retire with the trusty Tim.
+
+Nearly three hours of silence passed away.  Kate blushed to find,
+when Nicholas returned, how long she had been sitting alone,
+occupied with her own thoughts.
+
+'I really thought it had not been half an hour,' she said.
+
+'They must have been pleasant thoughts, Kate,' rejoined Nicholas
+gaily, 'to make time pass away like that.  What were they now?'
+
+Kate was confused; she toyed with some trifle on the table, looked
+up and smiled, looked down and dropped a tear.
+
+'Why, Kate,' said Nicholas, drawing his sister towards him and
+kissing her, 'let me see your face.  No?  Ah! that was but a
+glimpse; that's scarcely fair.  A longer look than that, Kate.
+Come--and I'll read your thoughts for you.'
+
+There was something in this proposition, albeit it was said without
+the slightest consciousness or application, which so alarmed his
+sister, that Nicholas laughingly changed the subject to domestic
+matters, and thus gathered, by degrees, as they left the room and
+went upstairs together, how lonely Smike had been all night--and by
+very slow degrees, too; for on this subject also, Kate seemed to
+speak with some reluctance.
+
+'Poor fellow,' said Nicholas, tapping gently at his door, 'what can
+be the cause of all this?'
+
+Kate was hanging on her brother's arm.  The door being quickly
+opened, she had not time to disengage herself, before Smike, very
+pale and haggard, and completely dressed, confronted them.
+
+'And have you not been to bed?' said Nicholas.
+
+'N--n--no,' was the reply.
+
+Nicholas gently detained his sister, who made an effort to retire;
+and asked, 'Why not?'
+
+'I could not sleep,' said Smike, grasping the hand which his friend
+extended to him.
+
+'You are not well?' rejoined Nicholas.
+
+'I am better, indeed.  A great deal better,' said Smike quickly.
+
+'Then why do you give way to these fits of melancholy?' inquired
+Nicholas, in his kindest manner; 'or why not tell us the cause?  You
+grow a different creature, Smike.'
+
+'I do; I know I do,' he replied.  'I will tell you the reason one
+day, but not now.  I hate myself for this; you are all so good and
+kind.  But I cannot help it.  My heart is very full; you do not
+know how full it is.'
+
+He wrung Nicholas's hand before he released it; and glancing, for a
+moment, at the brother and sister as they stood together, as if
+there were something in their strong affection which touched him
+very deeply, withdrew into his chamber, and was soon the only
+watcher under that quiet roof.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 50
+
+Involves a serious Catastrophe
+
+
+The little race-course at Hampton was in the full tide and height of
+its gaiety; the day as dazzling as day could be; the sun high in the
+cloudless sky, and shining in its fullest splendour.  Every gaudy
+colour that fluttered in the air from carriage seat and garish tent
+top, shone out in its gaudiest hues.  Old dingy flags grew new
+again, faded gilding was re-burnished, stained rotten canvas looked
+a snowy white, the very beggars' rags were freshened up, and
+sentiment quite forgot its charity in its fervent admiration of
+poverty so picturesque.
+
+It was one of those scenes of life and animation, caught in its very
+brightest and freshest moments, which can scarcely fail to please;
+for if the eye be tired of show and glare, or the ear be weary with
+a ceaseless round of noise, the one may repose, turn almost where it
+will, on eager, happy, and expectant faces, and the other deaden all
+consciousness of more annoying sounds in those of mirth and
+exhilaration.  Even the sunburnt faces of gypsy children, half naked
+though they be, suggest a drop of comfort.  It is a pleasant thing
+to see that the sun has been there; to know that the air and light
+are on them every day; to feel that they ARE children, and lead
+children's lives; that if their pillows be damp, it is with the dews
+of Heaven, and not with tears; that the limbs of their girls are
+free, and that they are not crippled by distortions, imposing an
+unnatural and horrible penance upon their sex; that their lives are
+spent, from day to day, at least among the waving trees, and not in
+the midst of dreadful engines which make young children old before
+they know what childhood is, and give them the exhaustion and
+infirmity of age, without, like age, the privilege to die.  God send
+that old nursery tales were true, and that gypsies stole such
+children by the score!
+
+The great race of the day had just been run; and the close lines of
+people, on either side of the course, suddenly breaking up and
+pouring into it, imparted a new liveliness to the scene, which was
+again all busy movement.  Some hurried eagerly to catch a glimpse of
+the winning horse; others darted to and fro, searching, no less
+eagerly, for the carriages they had left in quest of better
+stations.  Here, a little knot gathered round a pea and thimble
+table to watch the plucking of some unhappy greenhorn; and there,
+another proprietor with his confederates in various disguises--one
+man in spectacles; another, with an eyeglass and a stylish hat; a
+third, dressed as a farmer well to do in the world, with his top-
+coat over his arm and his flash notes in a large leathern pocket-
+book; and all with heavy-handled whips to represent most innocent
+country fellows who had trotted there on horseback--sought, by loud
+and noisy talk and pretended play, to entrap some unwary customer,
+while the gentlemen confederates (of more villainous aspect still,
+in clean linen and good clothes), betrayed their close interest in
+the concern by the anxious furtive glance they cast on all
+new comers.  These would be hanging on the outskirts of a wide circle
+of people assembled round some itinerant juggler, opposed, in his
+turn, by a noisy band of music, or the classic game of 'Ring the
+Bull,' while ventriloquists holding dialogues with wooden dolls, and
+fortune-telling women smothering the cries of real babies, divided
+with them, and many more, the general attention of the company.
+Drinking-tents were full, glasses began to clink in carriages,
+hampers to be unpacked, tempting provisions to be set forth, knives
+and forks to rattle, champagne corks to fly, eyes to brighten that
+were not dull before, and pickpockets to count their gains during
+the last heat.  The attention so recently strained on one object of
+interest, was now divided among a hundred; and look where you would,
+there was a motley assemblage of feasting, laughing, talking,
+begging, gambling, and mummery.
+
+Of the gambling-booths there was a plentiful show, flourishing in
+all the splendour of carpeted ground, striped hangings, crimson
+cloth, pinnacled roofs, geranium pots, and livery servants.  There
+were the Stranger's club-house, the Athenaeum club-house, the
+Hampton club-house, the St James's club-house, and half a mile of
+club-houses to play IN; and there were ROUGE-ET-NOIR, French hazard,
+and other games to play AT.  It is into one of these booths that our
+story takes its way.
+
+Fitted up with three tables for the purposes of play, and crowded
+with players and lookers on, it was, although the largest place of
+the kind upon the course, intensely hot, notwithstanding that a
+portion of the canvas roof was rolled back to admit more air, and
+there were two doors for a free passage in and out.  Excepting one
+or two men who, each with a long roll of half-crowns, chequered with
+a few stray sovereigns, in his left hand, staked their money at
+every roll of the ball with a business-like sedateness which showed
+that they were used to it, and had been playing all day, and most
+probably all the day before, there was no very distinctive character
+about the players, who were chiefly young men, apparently attracted
+by curiosity, or staking small sums as part of the amusement of the
+day, with no very great interest in winning or losing.  There were
+two persons present, however, who, as peculiarly good specimens of a
+class, deserve a passing notice.
+
+Of these, one was a man of six or eight and fifty, who sat on a
+chair near one of the entrances of the booth, with his hands folded
+on the top of his stick, and his chin appearing above them.  He was
+a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a light
+green coat, which made his body look still longer than it was.  He
+wore, besides, drab breeches and gaiters, a white neckerchief, and a
+broad-brimmed white hat.  Amid all the buzzing noise of the games,
+and the perpetual passing in and out of the people, he seemed
+perfectly calm and abstracted, without the smallest particle of
+excitement in his composition.  He exhibited no indication of
+weariness, nor, to a casual observer, of interest either.  There he
+sat, quite still and collected.  Sometimes, but very rarely, he
+nodded to some passing face, or beckoned to a waiter to obey a call
+from one of the tables.  The next instant he subsided into his old
+state.  He might have been some profoundly deaf old gentleman, who
+had come in to take a rest, or he might have been patiently waiting
+for a friend, without the least consciousness of anybody's presence,
+or fixed in a trance, or under the influence of opium.  People
+turned round and looked at him; he made no gesture, caught nobody's
+eye, let them pass away, and others come on and be succeeded by
+others, and took no notice.  When he did move, it seemed wonderful
+how he could have seen anything to occasion it.  And so, in truth,
+it was.  But there was not a face that passed in or out, which this
+man failed to see; not a gesture at any one of the three tables that
+was lost upon him; not a word, spoken by the bankers, but reached
+his ear; not a winner or loser he could not have marked.  And he was
+the proprietor of the place.
+
+The other presided over the ROUGE-ET-NOIR table.  He was probably
+some ten years younger, and was a plump, paunchy, sturdy-looking
+fellow, with his under-lip a little pursed, from a habit of counting
+money inwardly as he paid it, but with no decidedly bad expression
+in his face, which was rather an honest and jolly one than
+otherwise.  He wore no coat, the weather being hot, and stood behind
+the table with a huge mound of crowns and half-crowns before him,
+and a cash-box for notes.  This game was constantly playing.
+Perhaps twenty people would be staking at the same time.  This man
+had to roll the ball, to watch the stakes as they were laid down, to
+gather them off the colour which lost, to pay those who won, to do
+it all with the utmost dispatch, to roll the ball again, and to keep
+this game perpetually alive.  He did it all with a rapidity
+absolutely marvellous; never hesitating, never making a mistake,
+never stopping, and never ceasing to repeat such unconnected phrases
+as the following, which, partly from habit, and partly to have
+something appropriate and business-like to say, he constantly poured
+out with the same monotonous emphasis, and in nearly the same order,
+all day long:
+
+'Rooge-a-nore from Paris!  Gentlemen, make your game and back your
+own opinions--any time while the ball rolls--rooge-a-nore from
+Paris, gentlemen, it's a French game, gentlemen, I brought it over
+myself, I did indeed!--Rooge-a-nore from Paris--black wins--black--
+stop a minute, sir, and I'll pay you, directly--two there, half a
+pound there, three there--and one there--gentlemen, the ball's a
+rolling--any time, sir, while the ball rolls!--The beauty of this
+game is, that you can double your stakes or put down your money,
+gentlemen, any time while the ball rolls--black again--black wins--I
+never saw such a thing--I never did, in all my life, upon my word I
+never did; if any gentleman had been backing the black in the last
+five minutes he must have won five-and-forty pound in four rolls of
+the ball, he must indeed.  Gentlemen, we've port, sherry, cigars, and
+most excellent champagne.  Here, wai-ter, bring a bottle of
+champagne, and let's have a dozen or fifteen cigars here--and let's
+be comfortable, gentlemen--and bring some clean glasses--any time
+while the ball rolls!--I lost one hundred and thirty-seven pound
+yesterday, gentlemen, at one roll of the ball, I did indeed!--how do
+you do, sir?' (recognising some knowing gentleman without any halt
+or change of voice, and giving a wink so slight that it seems an
+accident), 'will you take a glass of sherry, sir?--here, wai-ter!
+bring a clean glass, and hand the sherry to this gentleman--and hand
+it round, will you, waiter?--this is the rooge-a-nore from Paris,
+gentlemen--any time while the ball rolls!--gentlemen, make your
+game, and back your own opinions--it's the rooge-a-nore from Paris--
+quite a new game, I brought it over myself, I did indeed--gentlemen,
+the ball's a-rolling!'
+
+This officer was busily plying his vocation when half-a-dozen
+persons sauntered through the booth, to whom, but without stopping
+either in his speech or work, he bowed respectfully; at the same
+time directing, by a look, the attention of a man beside him to the
+tallest figure in the group, in recognition of whom the proprietor
+pulled off his hat.  This was Sir Mulberry Hawk, with whom were his
+friend and pupil, and a small train of gentlemanly-dressed men, of
+characters more doubtful than obscure.
+
+The proprietor, in a low voice, bade Sir Mulberry good-day.  Sir
+Mulberry, in the same tone, bade the proprietor go to the devil, and
+turned to speak with his friends.
+
+There was evidently an irritable consciousness about him that he was
+an object of curiosity, on this first occasion of showing himself in
+public after the accident that had befallen him; and it was easy to
+perceive that he appeared on the race-course, that day, more in the
+hope of meeting with a great many people who knew him, and so
+getting over as much as possible of the annoyance at once, than with
+any purpose of enjoying the sport.  There yet remained a slight scar
+upon his face, and whenever he was recognised, as he was almost
+every minute by people sauntering in and out, he made a restless
+effort to conceal it with his glove; showing how keenly he felt the
+disgrace he had undergone.
+
+'Ah! Hawk,' said one very sprucely-dressed personage in a Newmarket
+coat, a choice neckerchief, and all other accessories of the most
+unexceptionable kind.  'How d'ye do, old fellow?'
+
+This was a rival trainer of young noblemen and gentlemen, and the
+person of all others whom Sir Mulberry most hated and dreaded to
+meet.  They shook hands with excessive cordiality.
+
+'And how are you now, old fellow, hey?'
+
+'Quite well, quite well,' said Sir Mulberry.
+
+'That's right,' said the other.  'How d'ye do, Verisopht?  He's a
+little pulled down, our friend here.  Rather out of condition still,
+hey?'
+
+It should be observed that the gentleman had very white teeth, and
+that when there was no excuse for laughing, he generally finished
+with the same monosyllable, which he uttered so as to display them.
+
+'He's in very good condition; there's nothing the matter with him,'
+said the young man carelessly.
+
+'Upon my soul I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined the other.  'Have you
+just returned from Brussels?'
+
+'We only reached town late last night,' said Lord Frederick.  Sir
+Mulberry turned away to speak to one of his own party, and feigned
+not to hear.
+
+'Now, upon my life,' said the friend, affecting to speak in a
+whisper, 'it's an uncommonly bold and game thing in Hawk to show
+himself so soon.  I say it advisedly; there's a vast deal of courage
+in it.  You see he has just rusticated long enough to excite
+curiosity, and not long enough for men to have forgotten that deuced
+unpleasant--by-the-bye--you know the rights of the affair, of
+course?  Why did you never give those confounded papers the lie?  I
+seldom read the papers, but I looked in the papers for that, and may
+I be--'
+
+'Look in the papers,' interrupted Sir Mulberry, turning suddenly
+round, 'tomorrow--no, next day, will you?'
+
+'Upon my life, my dear fellow, I seldom or never read the papers,'
+said the other, shrugging his shoulders, 'but I will, at your
+recommendation.  What shall I look for?'
+
+'Good day,' said Sir Mulberry, turning abruptly on his heel, and
+drawing his pupil with him.  Falling, again, into the loitering,
+careless pace at which they had entered, they lounged out, arm in
+arm.
+
+'I won't give him a case of murder to read,' muttered Sir Mulberry
+with an oath; 'but it shall be something very near it if whipcord
+cuts and bludgeons bruise.'
+
+His companion said nothing, but there was something in his manner
+which galled Sir Mulberry to add, with nearly as much ferocity as if
+his friend had been Nicholas himself:
+
+'I sent Jenkins to old Nickleby before eight o'clock this morning.
+He's a staunch one; he was back with me before the messenger.  I had
+it all from him in the first five minutes.  I know where this hound
+is to be met with; time and place both.  But there's no need to
+talk; tomorrow will soon be here.'
+
+'And wha-at's to be done tomorrow?' inquired Lord Frederick.
+
+Sir Mulberry Hawk honoured him with an angry glance, but
+condescended to return no verbal answer to this inquiry.  Both
+walked sullenly on, as though their thoughts were busily occupied,
+until they were quite clear of the crowd, and almost alone, when Sir
+Mulberry wheeled round to return.
+
+'Stop,' said his companion, 'I want to speak to you in earnest.
+Don't turn back.  Let us walk here, a few minutes.'
+
+'What have you to say to me, that you could not say yonder as well
+as here?' returned his Mentor, disengaging his arm.
+
+'Hawk,' rejoined the other, 'tell me; I must know.'
+
+'MUST know,' interrupted the other disdainfully.  'Whew!  Go on.  If
+you must know, of course there's no escape for me.  Must know!'
+
+'Must ask then,' returned Lord Frederick, 'and must press you for a
+plain and straightforward answer.  Is what you have just said only a
+mere whim of the moment, occasioned by your being out of humour and
+irritated, or is it your serious intention, and one that you have
+actually contemplated?'
+
+'Why, don't you remember what passed on the subject one night, when
+I was laid up with a broken limb?' said Sir Mulberry, with a sneer.
+
+'Perfectly well.'
+
+'Then take that for an answer, in the devil's name,' replied Sir
+Mulberry, 'and ask me for no other.'
+
+Such was the ascendancy he had acquired over his dupe, and such the
+latter's general habit of submission, that, for the moment, the
+young man seemed half afraid to pursue the subject.  He soon
+overcame this feeling, however, if it had restrained him at all, and
+retorted angrily:
+
+'If I remember what passed at the time you speak of, I expressed a
+strong opinion on this subject, and said that, with my knowledge or
+consent, you never should do what you threaten now.'
+
+'Will you prevent me?' asked Sir Mulberry, with a laugh.
+
+'Ye-es, if I can,' returned the other, promptly.
+
+'A very proper saving clause, that last,' said Sir Mulberry; 'and
+one you stand in need of.  Oh! look to your own business, and leave
+me to look to mine.'
+
+'This IS mine,' retorted Lord Frederick.  'I make it mine; I will
+make it mine.  It's mine already.  I am more compromised than I
+should be, as it is.'
+
+'Do as you please, and what you please, for yourself,' said Sir
+Mulberry, affecting an easy good-humour.  'Surely that must content
+you!  Do nothing for me; that's all.  I advise no man to interfere
+in proceedings that I choose to take.  I am sure you know me better
+than to do so.  The fact is, I see, you mean to offer me advice.  It
+is well meant, I have no doubt, but I reject it.  Now, if you
+please, we will return to the carriage.  I find no entertainment
+here, but quite the reverse.  If we prolong this conversation, we
+might quarrel, which would be no proof of wisdom in either you or
+me.'
+
+With this rejoinder, and waiting for no further discussion, Sir
+Mulberry Hawk yawned, and very leisurely turned back.
+
+There was not a little tact and knowledge of the young lord's
+disposition in this mode of treating him.  Sir Mulberry clearly saw
+that if his dominion were to last, it must be established now.  He
+knew that the moment he became violent, the young man would become
+violent too.  He had, many times, been enabled to strengthen his
+influence, when any circumstance had occurred to weaken it, by
+adopting this cool and laconic style; and he trusted to it now, with
+very little doubt of its entire success.
+
+But while he did this, and wore the most careless and indifferent
+deportment that his practised arts enabled him to assume, he
+inwardly resolved, not only to visit all the mortification of being
+compelled to suppress his feelings, with additional severity upon
+Nicholas, but also to make the young lord pay dearly for it, one
+day, in some shape or other.  So long as he had been a passive
+instrument in his hands, Sir Mulberry had regarded him with no other
+feeling than contempt; but, now that he presumed to avow opinions in
+opposition to his, and even to turn upon him with a lofty tone and
+an air of superiority, he began to hate him.  Conscious that, in the
+vilest and most worthless sense of the term, he was dependent upon
+the weak young lord, Sir Mulberry could the less brook humiliation
+at his hands; and when he began to dislike him he measured his
+dislike--as men often do--by the extent of the injuries he had
+inflicted upon its object.  When it is remembered that Sir Mulberry
+Hawk had plundered, duped, deceived, and fooled his pupil in every
+possible way, it will not be wondered at, that, beginning to hate
+him, he began to hate him cordially.
+
+On the other hand, the young lord having thought--which he very
+seldom did about anything--and seriously too, upon the affair with
+Nicholas, and the circumstances which led to it, had arrived at a
+manly and honest conclusion.  Sir Mulberry's coarse and insulting
+behaviour on the occasion in question had produced a deep impression
+on his mind; a strong suspicion of his having led him on to pursue
+Miss Nickleby for purposes of his own, had been lurking there for
+some time; he was really ashamed of his share in the transaction,
+and deeply mortified by the misgiving that he had been gulled.  He
+had had sufficient leisure to reflect upon these things, during
+their late retirement; and, at times, when his careless and indolent
+nature would permit, had availed himself of the opportunity.  Slight
+circumstances, too, had occurred to increase his suspicion.  It
+wanted but a very slight circumstance to kindle his wrath against
+Sir Mulberry.  This his disdainful and insolent tone in their recent
+conversation (the only one they had held upon the subject since the
+period to which Sir Mulberry referred), effected.
+
+Thus they rejoined their friends: each with causes of dislike
+against the other rankling in his breast: and the young man haunted,
+besides, with thoughts of the vindictive retaliation which was
+threatened against Nicholas, and the determination to prevent it by
+some strong step, if possible.  But this was not all.  Sir Mulberry,
+conceiving that he had silenced him effectually, could not suppress
+his triumph, or forbear from following up what he conceived to be
+his advantage.  Mr Pyke was there, and Mr Pluck was there, and
+Colonel Chowser, and other gentlemen of the same caste, and it was a
+great point for Sir Mulberry to show them that he had not lost his
+influence.  At first, the young lord contented himself with a silent
+determination to take measures for withdrawing himself from the
+connection immediately.  By degrees, he grew more angry, and was
+exasperated by jests and familiarities which, a few hours before,
+would have been a source of amusement to him.  This did not serve
+him; for, at such bantering or retort as suited the company, he was
+no match for Sir Mulberry.  Still, no violent rupture took place.
+They returned to town; Messrs Pyke and Pluck and other gentlemen
+frequently protesting, on the way thither, that Sir Mulberry had
+never been in such tiptop spirits in all his life.
+
+They dined together, sumptuously.  The wine flowed freely, as indeed
+it had done all day.  Sir Mulberry drank to recompense himself for
+his recent abstinence; the young lord, to drown his indignation; and
+the remainder of the party, because the wine was of the best and
+they had nothing to pay.  It was nearly midnight when they rushed
+out, wild, burning with wine, their blood boiling, and their brains
+on fire, to the gaming-table.
+
+Here, they encountered another party, mad like themselves.  The
+excitement of play, hot rooms, and glaring lights was not calculated
+to allay the fever of the time.  In that giddy whirl of noise and
+confusion, the men were delirious.  Who thought of money, ruin, or
+the morrow, in the savage intoxication of the moment?  More wine was
+called for, glass after glass was drained, their parched and
+scalding mouths were cracked with thirst.  Down poured the wine like
+oil on blazing fire.  And still the riot went on.  The debauchery
+gained its height; glasses were dashed upon the floor by hands that
+could not carry them to lips; oaths were shouted out by lips which
+could scarcely form the words to vent them in; drunken losers cursed
+and roared; some mounted on the tables, waving bottles above their
+heads and bidding defiance to the rest; some danced, some sang, some
+tore the cards and raved.  Tumult and frenzy reigned supreme; when a
+noise arose that drowned all others, and two men, seizing each other
+by the throat, struggled into the middle of the room.
+
+A dozen voices, until now unheard, called aloud to part them.  Those
+who had kept themselves cool, to win, and who earned their living in
+such scenes, threw themselves upon the combatants, and, forcing them
+asunder, dragged them some space apart.
+
+'Let me go!' cried Sir Mulberry, in a thick hoarse voice; 'he struck
+me!  Do you hear?  I say, he struck me.  Have I a friend here?  Who
+is this?  Westwood.  Do you hear me say he struck me?'
+
+'I hear, I hear,' replied one of those who held him.  'Come away for
+tonight!'
+
+'I will not, by G--,' he replied.  'A dozen men about us saw the
+blow.'
+
+'Tomorrow will be ample time,' said the friend.
+
+'It will not be ample time!' cried Sir Mulberry.  'Tonight, at once,
+here!'  His passion was so great, that he could not articulate, but
+stood clenching his fist, tearing his hair, and stamping upon the
+ground.
+
+'What is this, my lord?' said one of those who surrounded him.
+'Have blows passed?'
+
+'ONE blow has,' was the panting reply.  'I struck him.  I proclaim it
+to all here!  I struck him, and he knows why.  I say, with him, let
+this quarrel be adjusted now.  Captain Adams,' said the young lord,
+looking hurriedly about him, and addressing one of those who had
+interposed, 'let me speak with you, I beg.'
+
+The person addressed stepped forward, and taking the young man's
+arm, they retired together, followed shortly afterwards by Sir
+Mulberry and his friend.
+
+It was a profligate haunt of the worst repute, and not a place in
+which such an affair was likely to awaken any sympathy for either
+party, or to call forth any further remonstrance or interposition.
+Elsewhere, its further progress would have been instantly prevented,
+and time allowed for sober and cool reflection; but not there.
+Disturbed in their orgies, the party broke up; some reeled away with
+looks of tipsy gravity; others withdrew noisily discussing what had
+just occurred; the gentlemen of honour who lived upon their winnings
+remarked to each other, as they went out, that Hawk was a good shot;
+and those who had been most noisy, fell fast asleep upon the sofas,
+and thought no more about it.
+
+Meanwhile, the two seconds, as they may be called now, after a long
+conference, each with his principal, met together in another room.
+Both utterly heartless, both men upon town, both thoroughly
+initiated in its worst vices, both deeply in debt, both fallen from
+some higher estate, both addicted to every depravity for which
+society can find some genteel name and plead its most depraving
+conventionalities as an excuse, they were naturally gentlemen of
+most unblemished honour themselves, and of great nicety concerning
+the honour of other people.
+
+These two gentlemen were unusually cheerful just now; for the affair
+was pretty certain to make some noise, and could scarcely fail to
+enhance their reputations.
+
+'This is an awkward affair, Adams,' said Mr Westwood, drawing
+himself up.
+
+'Very,' returned the captain; 'a blow has been struck, and there is
+but one course, OF course.'
+
+'No apology, I suppose?' said Mr Westwood.
+
+'Not a syllable, sir, from my man, if we talk till doomsday,'
+returned the captain.  'The original cause of dispute, I understand,
+was some girl or other, to whom your principal applied certain
+terms, which Lord Frederick, defending the girl, repelled.  But this
+led to a long recrimination upon a great many sore subjects,
+charges, and counter-charges.  Sir Mulberry was sarcastic; Lord
+Frederick was excited, and struck him in the heat of provocation,
+and under circumstances of great aggravation.  That blow, unless
+there is a full retraction on the part of Sir Mulberry, Lord
+Frederick is ready to justify.'
+
+'There is no more to be said,' returned the other, 'but to settle
+the hour and the place of meeting.  It's a responsibility; but there
+is a strong feeling to have it over.  Do you object to say at
+sunrise?'
+
+'Sharp work,' replied the captain, referring to his watch; 'however,
+as this seems to have been a long time breeding, and negotiation is
+only a waste of words, no.'
+
+'Something may possibly be said, out of doors, after what passed in
+the other room, which renders it desirable that we should be off
+without delay, and quite clear of town,' said Mr Westwood.  'What do
+you say to one of the meadows opposite Twickenham, by the river-
+side?'
+
+The captain saw no objection.
+
+'Shall we join company in the avenue of trees which leads from
+Petersham to Ham House, and settle the exact spot when we arrive
+there?' said Mr Westwood.
+
+To this the captain also assented.  After a few other preliminaries,
+equally brief, and having settled the road each party should take to
+avoid suspicion, they separated.
+
+'We shall just have comfortable time, my lord,' said the captain,
+when he had communicated the arrangements, 'to call at my rooms for
+a case of pistols, and then jog coolly down.  If you will allow me
+to dismiss your servant, we'll take my cab; for yours, perhaps,
+might be recognised.'
+
+What a contrast, when they reached the street, to the scene they had
+just left!  It was already daybreak.  For the flaring yellow light
+within, was substituted the clear, bright, glorious morning; for a
+hot, close atmosphere, tainted with the smell of expiring lamps, and
+reeking with the steams of riot and dissipation, the free, fresh,
+wholesome air.  But to the fevered head on which that cool air blew,
+it seemed to come laden with remorse for time misspent and countless
+opportunities neglected.  With throbbing veins and burning skin,
+eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as
+though the light were a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the
+day as if he were some foul and hideous thing.
+
+'Shivering?' said the captain.  'You are cold.'
+
+'Rather.'
+
+'It does strike cool, coming out of those hot rooms.  Wrap that
+cloak about you.  So, so; now we're off.'
+
+They rattled through the quiet streets, made their call at the
+captain's lodgings, cleared the town, and emerged upon the open
+road, without hindrance or molestation.
+
+Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, everything looked very beautiful;
+the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them before, though he
+had passed the same objects a thousand times.  There was a peace and
+serenity upon them all, strangely at variance with the bewilderment
+and confusion of his own half-sobered thoughts, and yet impressive
+and welcome.  He had no fear upon his mind; but, as he looked about
+him, he had less anger; and though all old delusions, relative to
+his worthless late companion, were now cleared away, he rather
+wished he had never known him than thought of its having come to
+this.
+
+The past night, the day before, and many other days and nights
+beside, all mingled themselves up in one unintelligible and
+senseless whirl; he could not separate the transactions of one time
+from those of another.  Now, the noise of the wheels resolved itself
+into some wild tune in which he could recognise scraps of airs he
+knew; now, there was nothing in his ears but a stunning and
+bewildering sound, like rushing water.  But his companion rallied
+him on being so silent, and they talked and laughed boisterously.
+When they stopped, he was a little surprised to find himself in the
+act of smoking; but, on reflection, he remembered when and where he
+had taken the cigar.
+
+They stopped at the avenue gate and alighted, leaving the carriage
+to the care of the servant, who was a smart fellow, and nearly as
+well accustomed to such proceedings as his master.  Sir Mulberry and
+his friend were already there.  All four walked in profound silence
+up the aisle of stately elm trees, which, meeting far above their
+heads, formed a long green perspective of Gothic arches,
+terminating, like some old ruin, in the open sky.
+
+After a pause, and a brief conference between the seconds, they, at
+length, turned to the right, and taking a track across a little
+meadow, passed Ham House and came into some fields beyond.  In one
+of these, they stopped.  The ground was measured, some usual forms
+gone through, the two principals were placed front to front at the
+distance agreed upon, and Sir Mulberry turned his face towards his
+young adversary for the first time.  He was very pale, his eyes were
+bloodshot, his dress disordered, and his hair dishevelled.  For
+the face, it expressed nothing but violent and evil passions.  He
+shaded his eyes with his hand; grazed at his opponent, steadfastly,
+for a few moments; and, then taking the weapon which was tendered to
+him, bent his eyes upon that, and looked up no more until the word
+was given, when he instantly fired.
+
+The two shots were fired, as nearly as possible, at the same
+instant.  In that instant, the young lord turned his head sharply
+round, fixed upon his adversary a ghastly stare, and without a groan
+or stagger, fell down dead.
+
+'He's gone!' cried Westwood, who, with the other second, had run up
+to the body, and fallen on one knee beside it.
+
+'His blood on his own head,' said Sir Mulberry.  'He brought this
+upon himself, and forced it upon me.'
+
+'Captain Adams,' cried Westwood, hastily, 'I call you to witness
+that this was fairly done.  Hawk, we have not a moment to lose.  We
+must leave this place immediately, push for Brighton, and cross to
+France with all speed.  This has been a bad business, and may be
+worse, if we delay a moment.  Adams, consult your own safety, and
+don't remain here; the living before the dead; goodbye!'
+
+With these words, he seized Sir Mulberry by the arm, and hurried him
+away.  Captain Adams--only pausing to convince himself, beyond all
+question, of the fatal result--sped off in the same direction, to
+concert measures with his servant for removing the body, and
+securing his own safety likewise.
+
+So died Lord Frederick Verisopht, by the hand which he had loaded
+with gifts, and clasped a thousand times; by the act of him, but for
+whom, and others like him, he might have lived a happy man, and died
+with children's faces round his bed.
+
+The sun came proudly up in all his majesty, the noble river ran its
+winding course, the leaves quivered and rustled in the air, the
+birds poured their cheerful songs from every tree, the short-lived
+butterfly fluttered its little wings; all the light and life of day
+came on; and, amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every
+blade bore twenty tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and
+rigid face turned upwards to the sky.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 51
+
+The Project of Mr Ralph Nickleby and his Friend approaching a
+successful Issue, becomes unexpectedly known to another Party, not
+admitted into their Confidence
+
+
+In an old house, dismal dark and dusty, which seemed to have
+withered, like himself, and to have grown yellow and shrivelled in
+hoarding him from the light of day, as he had in hoarding his money,
+lived Arthur Gride.  Meagre old chairs and tables, of spare and bony
+make, and hard and cold as misers' hearts, were ranged, in grim
+array, against the gloomy walls; attenuated presses, grown lank and
+lantern-jawed in guarding the treasures they enclosed, and
+tottering, as though from constant fear and dread of thieves, shrunk
+up in dark corners, whence they cast no shadows on the ground, and
+seemed to hide and cower from observation.  A tall grim clock upon
+the stairs, with long lean hands and famished face, ticked in
+cautious whispers; and when it struck the time, in thin and piping
+sounds, like an old man's voice, rattled, as if it were pinched with
+hunger.
+
+No fireside couch was there, to invite repose and comfort.  Elbow-
+chairs there were, but they looked uneasy in their minds, cocked
+their arms suspiciously and timidly, and kept upon their guard.
+Others, were fantastically grim and gaunt, as having drawn
+themselves up to their utmost height, and put on their fiercest
+looks to stare all comers out of countenance.  Others, again,
+knocked up against their neighbours, or leant for support against
+the wall--somewhat ostentatiously, as if to call all men to witness
+that they were not worth the taking.  The dark square lumbering
+bedsteads seemed built for restless dreams; the musty hangings
+seemed to creep in scanty folds together, whispering among
+themselves, when rustled by the wind, their trembling knowledge of
+the tempting wares that lurked within the dark and tight-locked
+closets.
+
+From out the most spare and hungry room in all this spare and hungry
+house there came, one morning, the tremulous tones of old Gride's
+voice, as it feebly chirruped forth the fag end of some forgotten
+song, of which the burden ran:
+
+     Ta--ran--tan--too,
+     Throw the old shoe,
+     And may the wedding be lucky!
+
+which he repeated, in the same shrill quavering notes, again and
+again, until a violent fit of coughing obliged him to desist, and to
+pursue in silence, the occupation upon which he was engaged.
+
+This occupation was, to take down from the shelves of a worm-eaten
+wardrobe a quantity of frouzy garments, one by one; to subject each
+to a careful and minute inspection by holding it up against the
+light, and after folding it with great exactness, to lay it on one
+or other of two little heaps beside him.  He never took two articles
+of clothing out together, but always brought them forth, singly, and
+never failed to shut the wardrobe door, and turn the key, between
+each visit to its shelves.
+
+'The snuff-coloured suit,' said Arthur Gride, surveying a threadbare
+coat.  'Did I look well in snuff-colour?  Let me think.'
+
+The result of his cogitations appeared to be unfavourable, for he
+folded the garment once more, laid it aside, and mounted on a chair
+to get down another, chirping while he did so:
+
+     Young, loving, and fair,
+     Oh what happiness there!
+     The wedding is sure to be lucky!
+
+'They always put in "young,"' said old Arthur, 'but songs are only
+written for the sake of rhyme, and this is a silly one that the poor
+country-people sang, when I was a little boy.  Though stop--young is
+quite right too--it means the bride--yes.  He, he, he!  It means the
+bride.  Oh dear, that's good.  That's very good.  And true besides,
+quite true!'
+
+In the satisfaction of this discovery, he went over the verse again,
+with increased expression, and a shake or two here and there.  He
+then resumed his employment.
+
+'The bottle-green,' said old Arthur; 'the bottle-green was a famous
+suit to wear, and I bought it very cheap at a pawnbroker's, and
+there was--he, he, he!--a tarnished shilling in the waistcoat
+pocket.  To think that the pawnbroker shouldn't have known there was
+a shilling in it!  I knew it!  I felt it when I was examining the
+quality.  Oh, what a dull dog of a pawnbroker!  It was a lucky suit
+too, this bottle-green.  The very day I put it on first, old Lord
+Mallowford was burnt to death in his bed, and all the post-obits
+fell in.  I'll be married in the bottle-green.  Peg.  Peg Sliderskew
+--I'll wear the bottle-green!'
+
+This call, loudly repeated twice or thrice at the room-door, brought
+into the apartment a short, thin, weasen, blear-eyed old woman,
+palsy-stricken and hideously ugly, who, wiping her shrivelled face
+upon her dirty apron, inquired, in that subdued tone in which deaf
+people commonly speak:
+
+'Was that you a calling, or only the clock a striking?  My hearing
+gets so bad, I never know which is which; but when I hear a noise, I
+know it must be one of you, because nothing else never stirs in the
+house.'
+
+'Me, Peg, me,' said Arthur Gride, tapping himself on the breast to
+render the reply more intelligible.
+
+'You, eh?' returned Peg.  'And what do YOU want?'
+
+'I'll be married in the bottle-green,' cried Arthur Gride.
+
+'It's a deal too good to be married in, master,' rejoined Peg, after
+a short inspection of the suit.  'Haven't you got anything worse
+than this?'
+
+'Nothing that'll do,' replied old Arthur.
+
+'Why not do?' retorted Peg.  'Why don't you wear your every-day
+clothes, like a man--eh?'
+
+'They an't becoming enough, Peg,' returned her master.
+
+'Not what enough?' said Peg.
+
+'Becoming.'
+
+'Becoming what?' said Peg, sharply.  'Not becoming too old to wear?'
+
+Arthur Gride muttered an imprecation on his housekeeper's deafness,
+as he roared in her ear:
+
+'Not smart enough!  I want to look as well as I can.'
+
+'Look?' cried Peg.  'If she's as handsome as you say she is, she
+won't look much at you, master, take your oath of that; and as to
+how you look yourself--pepper-and-salt, bottle-green, sky-blue, or
+tartan-plaid will make no difference in you.'
+
+With which consolatory assurance, Peg Sliderskew gathered up the
+chosen suit, and folding her skinny arms upon the bundle, stood,
+mouthing, and grinning, and blinking her watery eyes, like an
+uncouth figure in some monstrous piece of carving.
+
+'You're in a funny humour, an't you, Peg?' said Arthur, with not the
+best possible grace.
+
+'Why, isn't it enough to make me?' rejoined the old woman.  'I
+shall, soon enough, be put out, though, if anybody tries to domineer
+it over me: and so I give you notice, master.  Nobody shall be put
+over Peg Sliderskew's head, after so many years; you know that, and
+so I needn't tell you!  That won't do for me--no, no, nor for you.
+Try that once, and come to ruin--ruin--ruin!'
+
+'Oh dear, dear, I shall never try it,' said Arthur Gride, appalled
+by the mention of the word, 'not for the world.  It would be very
+easy to ruin me; we must be very careful; more saving than ever,
+with another mouth to feed.  Only we--we mustn't let her lose her
+good looks, Peg, because I like to see 'em.'
+
+'Take care you don't find good looks come expensive,' returned Peg,
+shaking her forefinger.
+
+'But she can earn money herself, Peg,' said Arthur Gride, eagerly
+watching what effect his communication produced upon the old woman's
+countenance: 'she can draw, paint, work all manner of pretty things
+for ornamenting stools and chairs: slippers, Peg, watch-guards,
+hair-chains, and a thousand little dainty trifles that I couldn't
+give you half the names of.  Then she can play the piano, (and,
+what's more, she's got one), and sing like a little bird.  She'll be
+very cheap to dress and keep, Peg; don't you think she will?'
+
+'If you don't let her make a fool of you, she may,' returned Peg.
+
+'A fool of ME!' exclaimed Arthur.  'Trust your old master not to be
+fooled by pretty faces, Peg; no, no, no--nor by ugly ones neither,
+Mrs Sliderskew,' he softly added by way of soliloquy.
+
+'You're a saying something you don't want me to hear,' said Peg; 'I
+know you are.'
+
+'Oh dear! the devil's in this woman,' muttered Arthur; adding with
+an ugly leer, 'I said I trusted everything to you, Peg.  That was
+all.'
+
+'You do that, master, and all your cares are over,' said Peg
+approvingly.
+
+'WHEN I do that, Peg Sliderskew,' thought Arthur Gride, 'they will
+be.'
+
+Although he thought this very distinctly, he durst not move his lips
+lest the old woman should detect him.  He even seemed half afraid
+that she might have read his thoughts; for he leered coaxingly upon
+her, as he said aloud:
+
+'Take up all loose stitches in the bottle-green with the best black
+silk.  Have a skein of the best, and some new buttons for the coat,
+and--this is a good idea, Peg, and one you'll like, I know--as I
+have never given her anything yet, and girls like such attentions,
+you shall polish up a sparking necklace that I have got upstairs,
+and I'll give it her upon the wedding morning--clasp it round her
+charming little neck myself--and take it away again next day.  He,
+he, he!  I'll lock it up for her, Peg, and lose it.  Who'll be made the
+fool of there, I wonder, to begin with--eh, Peg?'
+
+Mrs Sliderskew appeared to approve highly of this ingenious scheme,
+and expressed her satisfaction by various rackings and twitchings of
+her head and body, which by no means enhanced her charms.  These she
+prolonged until she had hobbled to the door, when she exchanged them
+for a sour malignant look, and twisting her under-jaw from side to
+side, muttered hearty curses upon the future Mrs Gride, as she crept
+slowly down the stairs, and paused for breath at nearly every one.
+
+'She's half a witch, I think,' said Arthur Gride, when he found
+himself again alone.  'But she's very frugal, and she's very deaf.
+Her living costs me next to nothing; and it's no use her listening
+at keyholes; for she can't hear.  She's a charming woman--for the
+purpose; a most discreet old housekeeper, and worth her weight in--
+copper.'
+
+Having extolled the merits of his domestic in these high terms, old
+Arthur went back to the burden of his song.  The suit destined to
+grace his approaching nuptials being now selected, he replaced the
+others with no less care than he had displayed in drawing them from
+the musty nooks where they had silently reposed for many years.
+
+Startled by a ring at the door, he hastily concluded this operation,
+and locked the press; but there was no need for any particular
+hurry, as the discreet Peg seldom knew the bell was rung unless she
+happened to cast her dim eyes upwards, and to see it shaking against
+the kitchen ceiling.  After a short delay, however, Peg tottered in,
+followed by Newman Noggs.
+
+'Ah! Mr Noggs!' cried Arthur Gride, rubbing his hands.  'My good
+friend, Mr Noggs, what news do you bring for me?'
+
+Newman, with a steadfast and immovable aspect, and his fixed eye
+very fixed indeed, replied, suiting the action to the word, 'A
+letter.  From Mr Nickleby.  Bearer waits.'
+
+'Won't you take a--a--'
+
+Newman looked up, and smacked his lips.
+
+'--A chair?' said Arthur Gride.
+
+'No,' replied Newman.  'Thankee.'
+
+Arthur opened the letter with trembling hands, and devoured its
+contents with the utmost greediness; chuckling rapturously over it,
+and reading it several times, before he could take it from before
+his eyes.  So many times did he peruse and re-peruse it, that Newman
+considered it expedient to remind him of his presence.
+
+'Answer,' said Newman.  'Bearer waits.'
+
+'True,' replied old Arthur.  'Yes--yes; I almost forgot, I do
+declare.'
+
+'I thought you were forgetting,' said Newman.
+
+'Quite right to remind me, Mr Noggs.  Oh, very right indeed,' said
+Arthur.  'Yes.  I'll write a line.  I'm--I'm--rather flurried, Mr
+Noggs.  The news is--'
+
+'Bad?' interrupted Newman.
+
+'No, Mr Noggs, thank you; good, good.  The very best of news.  Sit
+down.  I'll get the pen and ink, and write a line in answer.  I'll
+not detain you long.  I know you're a treasure to your master, Mr
+Noggs.  He speaks of you in such terms, sometimes, that, oh dear!
+you'd be astonished.  I may say that I do too, and always did.  I
+always say the same of you.'
+
+'That's "Curse Mr Noggs with all my heart!" then, if you do,'
+thought Newman, as Gride hurried out.
+
+The letter had fallen on the ground.  Looking carefully about him
+for an instant, Newman, impelled by curiosity to know the result of
+the design he had overheard from his office closet, caught it up and
+rapidly read as follows:
+
+
+'GRIDE.
+
+'I saw Bray again this morning, and proposed the day after
+tomorrow (as you suggested) for the marriage.  There is no objection
+on his part, and all days are alike to his daughter.  We will go
+together, and you must be with me by seven in the morning.  I need
+not tell you to be punctual.
+
+'Make no further visits to the girl in the meantime.  You have been
+there, of late, much oftener than you should.  She does not languish
+for you, and it might have been dangerous.  Restrain your youthful
+ardour for eight-and-forty hours, and leave her to the father.  You
+only undo what he does, and does well.
+
+'Yours,
+
+'RALPH NICKLEBY.'
+
+
+A footstep was heard without.  Newman dropped the letter on the same
+spot again, pressed it with his foot to prevent its fluttering away,
+regained his seat in a single stride, and looked as vacant and
+unconscious as ever mortal looked.  Arthur Gride, after peering
+nervously about him, spied it on the ground, picked it up, and
+sitting down to write, glanced at Newman Noggs, who was staring at
+the wall with an intensity so remarkable, that Arthur was quite
+alarmed.
+
+'Do you see anything particular, Mr Noggs?' said Arthur, trying to
+follow the direction of Newman's eyes--which was an impossibility,
+and a thing no man had ever done.
+
+'Only a cobweb,' replied Newman.
+
+'Oh! is that all?'
+
+'No,' said Newman.  'There's a fly in it.'
+
+'There are a good many cobwebs here,' observed Arthur Gride.
+
+'So there are in our place,' returned Newman; 'and flies too.'
+
+Newman appeared to derive great entertainment from this repartee,
+and to the great discomposure of Arthur Gride's nerves, produced a
+series of sharp cracks from his finger-joints, resembling the noise
+of a distant discharge of small artillery.  Arthur succeeded in
+finishing his reply to Ralph's note, nevertheless, and at length
+handed it over to the eccentric messenger for delivery.
+
+'That's it, Mr Noggs,' said Gride.
+
+Newman gave a nod, put it in his hat, and was shuffling away, when
+Gride, whose doting delight knew no bounds, beckoned him back again,
+and said, in a shrill whisper, and with a grin which puckered up his
+whole face, and almost obscured his eyes:
+
+'Will you--will you take a little drop of something--just a taste?'
+
+In good fellowship (if Arthur Gride had been capable of it) Newman
+would not have drunk with him one bubble of the richest wine that
+was ever made; but to see what he would be at, and to punish him as
+much as he could, he accepted the offer immediately.
+
+Arthur Gride, therefore, again applied himself to the press, and
+from a shelf laden with tall Flemish drinking-glasses, and quaint
+bottles: some with necks like so many storks, and others with square
+Dutch-built bodies and short fat apoplectic throats: took down one
+dusty bottle of promising appearance, and two glasses of curiously
+small size.
+
+'You never tasted this,' said Arthur.  'It's EAU-D'OR--golden water.
+I like it on account of its name.  It's a delicious name.  Water of
+gold, golden water!  O dear me, it seems quite a sin to drink it!'
+
+As his courage appeared to be fast failing him, and he trifled with
+the stopper in a manner which threatened the dismissal of the bottle
+to its old place, Newman took up one of the little glasses, and
+clinked it, twice or thrice, against the bottle, as a gentle reminder
+that he had not been helped yet.  With a deep sigh, Arthur Gride
+slowly filled it--though not to the brim--and then filled his own.
+
+'Stop, stop; don't drink it yet,' he said, laying his hand on
+Newman's; 'it was given to me, twenty years ago, and when I take a
+little taste, which is ve--ry seldom, I like to think of it
+beforehand, and tease myself.  We'll drink a toast.  Shall we drink
+a toast, Mr Noggs?'
+
+'Ah!' said Newman, eyeing his little glass impatiently.  'Look
+sharp.  Bearer waits.'
+
+'Why, then, I'll tell you what,' tittered Arthur, 'we'll drink--he,
+he, he!--we'll drink a lady.'
+
+'THE ladies?' said Newman.
+
+'No, no, Mr Noggs,' replied Gride, arresting his hand, 'A lady.  You
+wonder to hear me say A lady.  I know you do, I know you do.  Here's
+little Madeline.  That's the toast.  Mr Noggs.  Little Madeline!'
+
+'Madeline!' said Newman; inwardly adding, 'and God help her!'
+
+The rapidity and unconcern with which Newman dismissed his portion
+of the golden water, had a great effect upon the old man, who sat
+upright in his chair, and gazed at him, open-mouthed, as if the
+sight had taken away his breath.  Quite unmoved, however, Newman
+left him to sip his own at leisure, or to pour it back again into
+the bottle, if he chose, and departed; after greatly outraging the
+dignity of Peg Sliderskew by brushing past her, in the passage,
+without a word of apology or recognition.
+
+Mr Gride and his housekeeper, immediately on being left alone,
+resolved themselves into a committee of ways and means, and
+discussed the arrangements which should be made for the reception of
+the young bride.  As they were, like some other committees,
+extremely dull and prolix in debate, this history may pursue the
+footsteps of Newman Noggs; thereby combining advantage with
+necessity; for it would have been necessary to do so under any
+circumstances, and necessity has no law, as all the world knows.
+
+'You've been a long time,' said Ralph, when Newman returned.
+
+'HE was a long time,' replied Newman.
+
+'Bah!' cried Ralph impatiently.  'Give me his note, if he gave you
+one: his message, if he didn't.  And don't go away.  I want a word
+with you, sir.'
+
+Newman handed in the note, and looked very virtuous and innocent
+while his employer broke the seal, and glanced his eye over it.
+
+'He'll be sure to come,' muttered Ralph, as he tore it to pieces;
+'why of course, I know he'll be sure to come.  What need to say
+that?  Noggs!  Pray, sir, what man was that, with whom I saw you in
+the street last night?'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Newman.
+
+'You had better refresh your memory, sir,' said Ralph, with a
+threatening look.
+
+'I tell you,' returned Newman boldly, 'that I don't know.  He came
+here twice, and asked for you.  You were out.  He came again.  You
+packed him off, yourself.  He gave the name of Brooker.'
+
+'I know he did,' said Ralph; 'what then?'
+
+'What then?  Why, then he lurked about and dogged me in the street.
+He follows me, night after night, and urges me to bring him face to
+face with you; as he says he has been once, and not long ago either.
+He wants to see you face to face, he says, and you'll soon hear him
+out, he warrants.'
+
+'And what say you to that?' inquired Ralph, looking keenly at his
+drudge.
+
+'That it's no business of mine, and I won't.  I told him he might
+catch you in the street, if that was all he wanted, but no! that
+wouldn't do.  You wouldn't hear a word there, he said.  He must have
+you alone in a room with the door locked, where he could speak
+without fear, and you'd soon change your tone, and hear him
+patiently.'
+
+'An audacious dog!' Ralph muttered.
+
+'That's all I know,' said Newman.  'I say again, I don't know what
+man he is.  I don't believe he knows himself.  You have seen him;
+perhaps YOU do.'
+
+'I think I do,' replied Ralph.
+
+'Well,' retored Newman, sulkily, 'don't expect me to know him too;
+that's all.  You'll ask me, next, why I never told you this before.
+What would you say, if I was to tell you all that people say of you?
+What do you call me when I sometimes do?  "Brute, ass!" and snap at
+me like a dragon.'
+
+This was true enough; though the question which Newman anticipated,
+was, in fact, upon Ralph's lips at the moment.
+
+'He is an idle ruffian,' said Ralph; 'a vagabond from beyond the sea
+where he travelled for his crimes; a felon let loose to run his neck
+into the halter; a swindler, who has the audacity to try his schemes
+on me who know him well.  The next time he tampers with you, hand
+him over to the police, for attempting to extort money by lies and
+threats,--d'ye hear?--and leave the rest to me.  He shall cool his
+heels in jail a little time, and I'll be bound he looks for other
+folks to fleece, when he comes out.  You mind what I say, do you?'
+
+'I hear,' said Newman.
+
+'Do it then,' returned Ralph, 'and I'll reward you.  Now, you may
+go.'
+
+Newman readily availed himself of the permission, and, shutting
+himself up in his little office, remained there, in very serious
+cogitation, all day.  When he was released at night, he proceeded,
+with all the expedition he could use, to the city, and took up his
+old position behind the pump, to watch for Nicholas.  For Newman
+Noggs was proud in his way, and could not bear to appear as his
+friend, before the brothers Cheeryble, in the shabby and degraded
+state to which he was reduced.
+
+He had not occupied this position many minutes, when he was rejoiced
+to see Nicholas approaching, and darted out from his ambuscade to
+meet him.  Nicholas, on his part, was no less pleased to encounter
+his friend, whom he had not seen for some time; so, their greeting
+was a warm one.
+
+'I was thinking of you, at that moment,' said Nicholas.
+
+'That's right,' rejoined Newman, 'and I of you.  I couldn't help
+coming up, tonight.  I say, I think I am going to find out
+something.'
+
+'And what may that be?' returned Nicholas, smiling at this odd
+communication.
+
+'I don't know what it may be, I don't know what it may not be,' said
+Newman; 'it's some secret in which your uncle is concerned, but
+what, I've not yet been able to discover, although I have my strong
+suspicions.  I'll not hint 'em now, in case you should be
+disappointed.'
+
+'I disappointed!' cried Nicholas; 'am I interested?'
+
+'I think you are,' replied Newman.  'I have a crotchet in my head
+that it must be so.  I have found out a man, who plainly knows more
+than he cares to tell at once.  And he has already dropped such
+hints to me as puzzle me--I say, as puzzle me,' said Newman,
+scratching his red nose into a state of violent inflammation, and
+staring at Nicholas with all his might and main meanwhile.
+
+Admiring what could have wound his friend up to such a pitch of
+mystery, Nicholas endeavoured, by a series of questions, to
+elucidate the cause; but in vain.  Newman could not be drawn into
+any more explicit statement than a repetition of the perplexities he
+had already thrown out, and a confused oration, showing, How it was
+necessary to use the utmost caution; how the lynx-eyed Ralph had
+already seen him in company with his unknown correspondent; and how
+he had baffled the said Ralph by extreme guardedness of manner and
+ingenuity of speech; having prepared himself for such a contingency
+from the first.
+
+Remembering his companion's propensity,--of which his nose, indeed,
+perpetually warned all beholders like a beacon,--Nicholas had drawn
+him into a sequestered tavern.  Here, they fell to reviewing the
+origin and progress of their acquaintance, as men sometimes do, and
+tracing out the little events by which it was most strongly marked,
+came at last to Miss Cecilia Bobster.
+
+'And that reminds me,' said Newman, 'that you never told me the
+young lady's real name.'
+
+'Madeline!' said Nicholas.
+
+'Madeline!' cried Newman.  'What Madeline?  Her other name.  Say her
+other name.'
+
+'Bray,' said Nicholas, in great astonishment.
+
+'It's the same!' cried Newman.  'Sad story!  Can you stand idly by,
+and let that unnatural marriage take place without one attempt to
+save her?'
+
+'What do you mean?' exclaimed Nicholas, starting up; 'marriage! are
+you mad?'
+
+'Are you?  Is she?  Are you blind, deaf, senseless, dead?' said
+Newman.  'Do you know that within one day, by means of your uncle
+Ralph, she will be married to a man as bad as he, and worse, if
+worse there is?  Do you know that, within one day, she will be
+sacrificed, as sure as you stand there alive, to a hoary wretch--a
+devil born and bred, and grey in devils' ways?'
+
+'Be careful what you say,' replied Nicholas.  'For Heaven's sake be
+careful!  I am left here alone, and those who could stretch out a
+hand to rescue her are far away.  What is it that you mean?'
+
+'I never heard her name,' said Newman, choking with his energy.
+'Why didn't you tell me?  How was I to know?  We might, at least,
+have had some time to think!'
+
+'What is it that you mean?' cried Nicholas.
+
+It was not an easy task to arrive at this information; but, after a
+great quantity of extraordinary pantomime, which in no way assisted
+it, Nicholas, who was almost as wild as Newman Noggs himself, forced
+the latter down upon his seat and held him down until he began his
+tale.
+
+Rage, astonishment, indignation, and a storm of passions, rushed
+through the listener's heart, as the plot was laid bare.  He no
+sooner understood it all, than with a face of ashy paleness, and
+trembling in every limb, he darted from the house.
+
+'Stop him!' cried Newman, bolting out in pursuit.  'He'll be doing
+something desperate; he'll murder somebody.  Hallo! there, stop him.
+Stop thief! stop thief!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 52
+
+Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his
+Spirits again, and determines to attempt it.  Domestic Intelligence
+of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks
+
+
+Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any
+hazard, and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger,
+attracted by the cry of 'Stop thief,' might lay violent hands upon
+his person, and place him in a disagreeable predicament from which
+he might have some difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon
+slackened his pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him:
+which he did, in so breathless a condition, that it seemed
+impossible he could have held out for a minute longer.
+
+'I will go straight to Bray's,' said Nicholas.  'I will see this
+man.  If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a
+spark of consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless
+as she is, I will awaken it.'
+
+'You will not,' replied Newman.  'You will not, indeed.'
+
+'Then,' said Nicholas, pressing onward, 'I will act upon my first
+impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.'
+
+'By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,' said Newman.
+
+'I'll drag him from it,' cried Nicholas.
+
+'Tut, tut,' said Noggs.  'Be yourself.'
+
+'You are the best of friends to me, Newman,' rejoined Nicholas after
+a pause, and taking his hand as he spoke.  'I have made head against
+many trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved
+in this one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know
+not how to act.'
+
+In truth, it did seem a hopeless case.  It was impossible to make
+any use of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he
+lay concealed in the closet.  The mere circumstance of the compact
+between Ralph Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage,
+or render Bray averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the
+existence of some such understanding, doubtless suspected it.  What
+had been hinted with reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been
+put, with sufficient obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from
+Newman Noggs, and obscured still further by the smoke of his
+pocket-pistol, it became wholly unintelligible, and involved in utter
+darkness.
+
+'There seems no ray of hope,' said Nicholas.
+
+'The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration,
+for thought,' said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look
+anxiously in his friend's face.  'Where are the brothers?'
+
+'Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to
+come.'
+
+'Is there no way of communicating with them?  No way of getting one
+of them here by tomorrow night?'
+
+'Impossible!' said Nicholas, 'the sea is between us and them.  With
+the fairest winds that ever blew, to go and return would take three
+days and nights.'
+
+'Their nephew,' said Newman, 'their old clerk.'
+
+'What could either do, that I cannot?' rejoined Nicholas.  'With
+reference to them, especially, I am enjoined to the strictest
+silence on this subject.  What right have I to betray the confidence
+reposed in me, when nothing but a miracle can prevent this sacrifice?'
+
+'Think,' urged Newman.  'Is there no way.'
+
+'There is none,' said Nicholas, in utter dejection.  'Not one.  The
+father urges, the daughter consents.  These demons have her in their
+toils; legal right, might, power, money, and every influence are on
+their side.  How can I hope to save her?'
+
+'Hope to the last!' said Newman, clapping him on the back.  'Always
+hope; that's a dear boy.  Never leave off hoping; it don't answer.  Do
+you mind me, Nick?  It don't answer.  Don't leave a stone unturned.
+It's always something, to know you've done the most you could.  But,
+don't leave off hoping, or it's of no use doing anything.  Hope,
+hope, to the last!'
+
+Nicholas needed encouragement.  The suddenness with which
+intelligence of the two usurers' plans had come upon him, the little
+time which remained for exertion, the probability, almost amounting
+to certainty itself, that a few hours would place Madeline Bray for
+ever beyond his reach, consign her to unspeakable misery, and
+perhaps to an untimely death; all this quite stunned and overwhelmed
+him.  Every hope connected with her that he had suffered himself to
+form, or had entertained unconsciously, seemed to fall at his feet,
+withered and dead.  Every charm with which his memory or imagination
+had surrounded her, presented itself before him, only to heighten
+his anguish and add new bitterness to his despair.  Every feeling of
+sympathy for her forlorn condition, and of admiration for her
+heroism and fortitude, aggravated the indignation which shook him in
+every limb, and swelled his heart almost to bursting.
+
+But, if Nicholas's own heart embarrassed him, Newman's came to his
+relief.  There was so much earnestness in his remonstrance, and such
+sincerity and fervour in his manner, odd and ludicrous as it always
+was, that it imparted to Nicholas new firmness, and enabled him to
+say, after he had walked on for some little way in silence:
+
+'You read me a good lesson, Newman, and I will profit by it.  One
+step, at least, I may take--am bound to take indeed--and to that I
+will apply myself tomorrow.'
+
+'What is that?' asked Noggs wistfully.  'Not to threaten Ralph?  Not
+to see the father?'
+
+'To see the daughter, Newman,' replied Nicholas.  'To do what, after
+all, is the utmost that the brothers could do, if they were here, as
+Heaven send they were!  To reason with her upon this hideous union,
+to point out to her all the horrors to which she is hastening;
+rashly, it may be, and without due reflection.  To entreat her, at
+least, to pause.  She can have had no counsellor for her good.
+Perhaps even I may move her so far yet, though it is the eleventh
+hour, and she upon the very brink of ruin.'
+
+'Bravely spoken!' said Newman.  'Well done, well done!  Yes.  Very
+good.'
+
+'And I do declare,' cried Nicholas, with honest enthusiasm, 'that in
+this effort I am influenced by no selfish or personal
+considerations, but by pity for her, and detestation and abhorrence
+of this scheme; and that I would do the same, were there twenty
+rivals in the field, and I the last and least favoured of them all.'
+
+'You would, I believe,' said Newman.  'But where are you hurrying
+now?'
+
+'Homewards,' answered Nicholas.  'Do you come with me, or I shall
+say good-night?'
+
+'I'll come a little way, if you will but walk: not run,' said Noggs.
+
+'I cannot walk tonight, Newman,' returned Nicholas, hurriedly.  'I
+must move rapidly, or I could not draw my breath.  I'll tell you
+what I've said and done tomorrow.'
+
+Without waiting for a reply, he darted off at a rapid pace, and,
+plunging into the crowds which thronged the street, was quickly lost
+to view.
+
+'He's a violent youth at times,' said Newman, looking after him;
+'and yet like him for it.  There's cause enough now, or the deuce is
+in it.  Hope!  I SAID hope, I think!  Ralph Nickleby and Gride with
+their heads together!  And hope for the opposite party!  Ho! ho!'
+
+It was with a very melancholy laugh that Newman Noggs concluded this
+soliloquy; and it was with a very melancholy shake of the head, and
+a very rueful countenance, that he turned about, and went plodding
+on his way.
+
+This, under ordinary circumstances, would have been to some small
+tavern or dram-shop; that being his way, in more senses than one.
+But, Newman was too much interested, and too anxious, to betake
+himself even to this resource, and so, with many desponding and
+dismal reflections, went straight home.
+
+It had come to pass, that afternoon, that Miss Morleena Kenwigs had
+received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from
+Westminster Bridge, unto the Eel-pie Island at Twickenham: there to
+make merry upon a cold collation, bottled beer, shrub, and shrimps,
+and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band,
+conveyed thither for the purpose: the steamer being specially
+engaged by a dancing-master of extensive connection for the
+accommodation of his numerous pupils, and the pupils displaying
+their appreciation of the dancing-master's services, by purchasing
+themselves, and inducing their friends to do the like, divers light-
+blue tickets, entitling them to join the expedition.  Of these light-
+blue tickets, one had been presented by an ambitious neighbour to
+Miss Morleena Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her daughters; and
+Mrs Kenwigs, rightly deeming that the honour of the family was
+involved in Miss Morleena's making the most splendid appearance
+possible on so short a notice, and testifying to the dancing-master
+that there were other dancing-masters besides him, and to all
+fathers and mothers present that other people's children could learn
+to be genteel besides theirs, had fainted away twice under the
+magnitude of her preparations, but, upheld by a determination to
+sustain the family name or perish in the attempt, was still hard at
+work when Newman Noggs came home.
+
+Now, between the italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of
+trousers, the trimming of frocks, the faintings and the comings-to
+again, incidental to the occasion, Mrs Kenwigs had been so entirely
+occupied, that she had not observed, until within half an hour
+before, that the flaxen tails of Miss Morleena's hair were, in a
+manner, run to seed; and that, unless she were put under the hands
+of a skilful hairdresser, she never could achieve that signal
+triumph over the daughters of all other people, anything less than
+which would be tantamount to defeat.  This discovery drove Mrs
+Kenwigs to despair; for the hairdresser lived three streets and
+eight dangerous crossings off; Morleena could not be trusted to go
+there alone, even if such a proceeding were strictly proper: of
+which Mrs Kenwigs had her doubts; Mr Kenwigs had not returned from
+business; and there was nobody to take her.  So, Mrs Kenwigs first
+slapped Miss Kenwigs for being the cause of her vexation, and then
+shed tears.
+
+'You ungrateful child!' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'after I have gone through
+what I have, this night, for your good.'
+
+'I can't help it, ma,' replied Morleena, also in tears; 'my hair
+WILL grow.'
+
+'Don't talk to me, you naughty thing!' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'don't!
+Even if I was to trust you by yourself and you were to escape being
+run over, I know you'd run in to Laura Chopkins,' who was the
+daughter of the ambitious neighbour, 'and tell her what you're going
+to wear tomorrow, I know you would.  You've no proper pride in
+yourself, and are not to be trusted out of sight for an instant.'
+
+Deploring the evil-mindedness of her eldest daughter in these terms,
+Mrs Kenwigs distilled fresh drops of vexation from her eyes, and
+declared that she did believe there never was anybody so tried as
+she was.  Thereupon, Morleena Kenwigs wept afresh, and they bemoaned
+themselves together.
+
+Matters were at this point, as Newman Noggs was heard to limp past
+the door on his way upstairs; when Mrs Kenwigs, gaining new hope
+from the sound of his footsteps, hastily removed from her
+countenance as many traces of her late emotion as were effaceable on
+so short a notice: and presenting herself before him, and
+representing their dilemma, entreated that he would escort Morleena
+to the hairdresser's shop.
+
+'I wouldn't ask you, Mr Noggs,' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'if I didn't know
+what a good, kind-hearted creature you are; no, not for worlds.  I
+am a weak constitution, Mr Noggs, but my spirit would no more let me
+ask a favour where I thought there was a chance of its being
+refused, than it would let me submit to see my children trampled
+down and trod upon, by envy and lowness!'
+
+Newman was too good-natured not to have consented, even without this
+avowal of confidence on the part of Mrs Kenwigs.  Accordingly, a
+very few minutes had elapsed, when he and Miss Morleena were on
+their way to the hairdresser's.
+
+It was not exactly a hairdresser's; that is to say, people of a
+coarse and vulgar turn of mind might have called it a barber's; for
+they not only cut and curled ladies elegantly, and children
+carefully, but shaved gentlemen easily.  Still, it was a highly
+genteel establishment--quite first-rate in fact--and there were
+displayed in the window, besides other elegancies, waxen busts of a
+light lady and a dark gentleman which were the admiration of the
+whole neighbourhood.  Indeed, some ladies had gone so far as to
+assert, that the dark gentleman was actually a portrait of the
+spirted young proprietor; and the great similarity between their
+head-dresses--both wore very glossy hair, with a narrow walk
+straight down the middle, and a profusion of flat circular curls on
+both sides--encouraged the idea.  The better informed among the sex,
+however, made light of this assertion, for however willing they were
+(and they were very willing) to do full justice to the handsome face
+and figure of the proprietor, they held the countenance of the dark
+gentleman in the window to be an exquisite and abstract idea of
+masculine beauty, realised sometimes, perhaps, among angels and
+military men, but very rarely embodied to gladden the eyes of
+mortals.
+
+It was to this establishment that Newman Noggs led Miss Kenwigs in
+safety.  The proprietor, knowing that Miss Kenwigs had three
+sisters, each with two flaxen tails, and all good for sixpence
+apiece, once a month at least, promptly deserted an old gentleman
+whom he had just lathered for shaving, and handing him over to the
+journeyman, (who was not very popular among the ladies, by reason
+of his obesity and middle age,) waited on the young lady himself.
+
+Just as this change had been effected, there presented himself for
+shaving, a big, burly, good-humoured coal-heaver with a pipe in his
+mouth, who, drawing his hand across his chin, requested to know when
+a shaver would be disengaged.
+
+The journeyman, to whom this question was put, looked doubtfully at
+the young proprietor, and the young proprietor looked scornfully at
+the coal-heaver: observing at the same time:
+
+'You won't get shaved here, my man.'
+
+'Why not?' said the coal-heaver.
+
+'We don't shave gentlemen in your line,' remarked the young
+proprietor.
+
+'Why, I see you a shaving of a baker, when I was a looking through
+the winder, last week,' said the coal-heaver.
+
+'It's necessary to draw the line somewheres, my fine feller,'
+replied the principal.  'We draw the line there.  We can't go beyond
+bakers.  If we was to get any lower than bakers, our customers would
+desert us, and we might shut up shop.  You must try some other
+establishment, sir.  We couldn't do it here.'
+
+The applicant stared; grinned at Newman Noggs, who appeared highly
+entertained; looked slightly round the shop, as if in depreciation
+of the pomatum pots and other articles of stock; took his pipe out
+of his mouth and gave a very loud whistle; and then put it in again,
+and walked out.
+
+The old gentleman who had just been lathered, and who was sitting in
+a melancholy manner with his face turned towards the wall, appeared
+quite unconscious of this incident, and to be insensible to
+everything around him in the depth of a reverie--a very mournful
+one, to judge from the sighs he occasionally vented--in which he was
+absorbed.  Affected by this example, the proprietor began to clip
+Miss Kenwigs, the journeyman to scrape the old gentleman, and Newman
+Noggs to read last Sunday's paper, all three in silence: when Miss
+Kenwigs uttered a shrill little scream, and Newman, raising his
+eyes, saw that it had been elicited by the circumstance of the old
+gentleman turning his head, and disclosing the features of Mr
+Lillyvick the collector.
+
+The features of Mr Lillyvick they were, but strangely altered.  If
+ever an old gentleman had made a point of appearing in public,
+shaved close and clean, that old gentleman was Mr Lillyvick.  If
+ever a collector had borne himself like a collector, and assumed,
+before all men, a solemn and portentous dignity as if he had the
+world on his books and it was all two quarters in arrear, that
+collector was Mr Lillyvick.  And now, there he sat, with the remains
+of a beard at least a week old encumbering his chin; a soiled and
+crumpled shirt-frill crouching, as it were, upon his breast, instead
+of standing boldly out; a demeanour so abashed and drooping, so
+despondent, and expressive of such humiliation, grief, and shame;
+that if the souls of forty unsubstantial housekeepers, all of whom
+had had their water cut off for non-payment of the rate, could have
+been concentrated in one body, that one body could hardly have
+expressed such mortification and defeat as were now expressed in the
+person of Mr Lillyvick the collector.
+
+Newman Noggs uttered his name, and Mr Lillyvick groaned: then
+coughed to hide it.  But the groan was a full-sized groan, and the
+cough was but a wheeze.
+
+'Is anything the matter?' said Newman Noggs.
+
+'Matter, sir!' cried Mr Lillyvick.  'The plug of life is dry, sir,
+and but the mud is left.'
+
+This speech--the style of which Newman attributed to Mr Lillyvick's
+recent association with theatrical characters--not being quite
+explanatory, Newman looked as if he were about to ask another
+question, when Mr Lillyvick prevented him by shaking his hand
+mournfully, and then waving his own.
+
+'Let me be shaved!' said Mr Lillyvick.  'It shall be done before
+Morleena; it IS Morleena, isn't it?'
+
+'Yes,' said Newman.
+
+'Kenwigses have got a boy, haven't they?' inquired the collector.
+
+Again Newman said 'Yes.'
+
+'Is it a nice boy?' demanded the collector.
+
+'It ain't a very nasty one,' returned Newman, rather embarrassed by
+the question.
+
+'Susan Kenwigs used to say,' observed the collector, 'that if ever
+she had another boy, she hoped it might be like me.  Is this one
+like me, Mr Noggs?'
+
+This was a puzzling inquiry; but Newman evaded it, by replying to Mr
+Lillyvick, that he thought the baby might possibly come like him in
+time.
+
+'I should be glad to have somebody like me, somehow,' said Mr
+Lillyvick, 'before I die.'
+
+'You don't mean to do that, yet awhile?' said Newman.
+
+Unto which Mr Lillyvick replied in a solemn voice, 'Let me be
+shaved!' and again consigning himself to the hands of the
+journeyman, said no more.
+
+This was remarkable behaviour.  So remarkable did it seem to Miss
+Morleena, that that young lady, at the imminent hazard of having her
+ear sliced off, had not been able to forbear looking round, some
+score of times, during the foregoing colloquy.  Of her, however, Mr
+Lillyvick took no notice: rather striving (so, at least, it seemed
+to Newman Noggs) to evade her observation, and to shrink into
+himself whenever he attracted her regards.  Newman wondered very
+much what could have occasioned this altered behaviour on the part
+of the collector; but, philosophically reflecting that he would most
+likely know, sooner or later, and that he could perfectly afford to
+wait, he was very little disturbed by the singularity of the old
+gentleman's deportment.
+
+The cutting and curling being at last concluded, the old gentleman,
+who had been some time waiting, rose to go, and, walking out with
+Newman and his charge, took Newman's arm, and proceeded for some
+time without making any observation.  Newman, who in power of
+taciturnity was excelled by few people, made no attempt to break
+silence; and so they went on, until they had very nearly reached
+Miss Morleena's home, when Mr Lillyvick said:
+
+'Were the Kenwigses very much overpowered, Mr Noggs, by that news?'
+
+'What news?' returned Newman.
+
+'That about--my--being--'
+
+'Married?' suggested Newman.
+
+'Ah!' replied Mr Lillyvick, with another groan; this time not even
+disguised by a wheeze.
+
+'It made ma cry when she knew it,' interposed Miss Morleena, 'but we
+kept it from her for a long time; and pa was very low in his
+spirits, but he is better now; and I was very ill, but I am better
+too.'
+
+'Would you give your great-uncle Lillyvick a kiss if he was to ask
+you, Morleena?' said the collector, with some hesitation.
+
+'Yes; uncle Lillyvick, I would,' returned Miss Morleena, with the
+energy of both her parents combined; 'but not aunt Lillyvick.  She's
+not an aunt of mine, and I'll never call her one.'
+
+Immediately upon the utterance of these words, Mr Lillyvick caught
+Miss Morleena up in his arms, and kissed her; and, being by this
+time at the door of the house where Mr Kenwigs lodged (which, as has
+been before mentioned, usually stood wide open), he walked straight
+up into Mr Kenwigs's sitting-room, and put Miss Morleena down in the
+midst.  Mr and Mrs Kenwigs were at supper.  At sight of their
+perjured relative, Mrs Kenwigs turned faint and pale, and Mr Kenwigs
+rose majestically.
+
+'Kenwigs,' said the collector, 'shake hands.'
+
+'Sir,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'the time has been, when I was proud to
+shake hands with such a man as that man as now surweys me.  The time
+has been, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'when a wisit from that man has
+excited in me and my family's boozums sensations both nateral and
+awakening.  But, now, I look upon that man with emotions totally
+surpassing everythink, and I ask myself where is his Honour, where
+is his straight-for'ardness, and where is his human natur?'
+
+'Susan Kenwigs,' said Mr Lillyvick, turning humbly to his niece,
+'don't you say anything to me?'
+
+'She is not equal to it, sir,' said Mr Kenwigs, striking the table
+emphatically.  'What with the nursing of a healthy babby, and the
+reflections upon your cruel conduct, four pints of malt liquor a day
+is hardly able to sustain her.'
+
+'I am glad,' said the poor collector meekly, 'that the baby is a
+healthy one.  I am very glad of that.'
+
+This was touching the Kenwigses on their tenderest point.  Mrs
+Kenwigs instantly burst into tears, and Mr Kenwigs evinced great
+emotion.
+
+'My pleasantest feeling, all the time that child was expected,' said
+Mr Kenwigs, mournfully, 'was a thinking, "If it's a boy, as I hope
+it may be; for I have heard its uncle Lillyvick say again and again
+he would prefer our having a boy next, if it's a boy, what will his
+uncle Lillyvick say?  What will he like him to be called?  Will he be
+Peter, or Alexander, or Pompey, or Diorgeenes, or what will he be?"
+And now when I look at him; a precious, unconscious, helpless
+infant, with no use in his little arms but to tear his little cap,
+and no use in his little legs but to kick his little self--when I
+see him a lying on his mother's lap, cooing and cooing, and, in his
+innocent state, almost a choking hisself with his little fist--when
+I see him such a infant as he is, and think that that uncle
+Lillyvick, as was once a-going to be so fond of him, has withdrawed
+himself away, such a feeling of wengeance comes over me as no
+language can depicter, and I feel as if even that holy babe was a
+telling me to hate him.'
+
+This affecting picture moved Mrs Kenwigs deeply.  After several
+imperfect words, which vainly attempted to struggle to the surface,
+but were drowned and washed away by the strong tide of her tears,
+she spake.
+
+'Uncle,' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'to think that you should have turned
+your back upon me and my dear children, and upon Kenwigs which is
+the author of their being--you who was once so kind and
+affectionate, and who, if anybody had told us such a thing of, we
+should have withered with scorn like lightning--you that little
+Lillyvick, our first and earliest boy, was named after at the very
+altar!  Oh gracious!'
+
+'Was it money that we cared for?' said Mr Kenwigs.  'Was it property
+that we ever thought of?'
+
+'No,' cried Mrs Kenwigs, 'I scorn it.'
+
+'So do I,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'and always did.'
+
+'My feelings have been lancerated,' said Mrs Kenwigs, 'my heart has
+been torn asunder with anguish, I have been thrown back in my
+confinement, my unoffending infant has been rendered uncomfortable
+and fractious, Morleena has pined herself away to nothing; all this
+I forget and forgive, and with you, uncle, I never can quarrel.  But
+never ask me to receive HER, never do it, uncle.  For I will not, I
+will not, I won't, I won't, I won't!'
+
+'Susan, my dear,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'consider your child.'
+
+'Yes,' shrieked Mrs Kenwigs, 'I will consider my child!  I will
+consider my child!  My own child, that no uncles can deprive me of;
+my own hated, despised, deserted, cut-off little child.'  And, here,
+the emotions of Mrs Kenwigs became so violent, that Mr Kenwigs was
+fain to administer hartshorn internally, and vinegar externally, and
+to destroy a staylace, four petticoat strings, and several small
+buttons.
+
+Newman had been a silent spectator of this scene; for Mr Lillyvick
+had signed to him not to withdraw, and Mr Kenwigs had further
+solicited his presence by a nod of invitation.  When Mrs Kenwigs had
+been, in some degree, restored, and Newman, as a person possessed of
+some influence with her, had remonstrated and begged her to compose
+herself, Mr Lillyvick said in a faltering voice:
+
+'I never shall ask anybody here to receive my--I needn't mention the
+word; you know what I mean.  Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was a week
+she eloped with a half-pay captain!'
+
+Mr and Mrs Kenwigs started together.
+
+'Eloped with a half-pay captain,' repeated Mr Lillyvick, 'basely and
+falsely eloped with a half-pay captain.  With a bottle-nosed captain
+that any man might have considered himself safe from.  It was in
+this room,' said Mr Lillyvick, looking sternly round, 'that I first
+see Henrietta Petowker.  It is in this room that I turn her off, for
+ever.'
+
+This declaration completely changed the whole posture of affairs.
+Mrs Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman's neck, bitterly
+reproaching herself for her late harshness, and exclaiming, if she
+had suffered, what must his sufferings have been!  Mr Kenwigs
+grasped his hand, and vowed eternal friendship and remorse.  Mrs
+Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have
+nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base
+crocodile as Henrietta Petowker.  Mr Kenwigs argued that she must
+have been bad indeed not to have improved by so long a contemplation
+of Mrs Kenwigs's virtue.  Mrs Kenwigs remembered that Mr Kenwigs had
+often said that he was not quite satisfied of the propriety of Miss
+Petowker's conduct, and wondered how it was that she could have been
+blinded by such a wretch.  Mr Kenwigs remembered that he had had his
+suspicions, but did not wonder why Mrs Kenwigs had not had hers, as
+she was all chastity, purity, and truth, and Henrietta all baseness,
+falsehood, and deceit.  And Mr and Mrs Kenwigs both said, with
+strong feelings and tears of sympathy, that everything happened for
+the best; and conjured the good collector not to give way to
+unavailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society of those
+affectionate relations whose arms and hearts were ever open to him.
+
+'Out of affection and regard for you, Susan and Kenwigs,' said Mr
+Lillyvick, 'and not out of revenge and spite against her, for she is
+below it, I shall, tomorrow morning, settle upon your children, and
+make payable to the survivors of them when they come of age of
+marry, that money that I once meant to leave 'em in my will.  The
+deed shall be executed tomorrow, and Mr Noggs shall be one of the
+witnesses.  He hears me promise this, and he shall see it done.'
+
+Overpowered by this noble and generous offer, Mr Kenwigs, Mrs
+Kenwigs, and Miss Morleena Kenwigs, all began to sob together; and
+the noise of their sobbing, communicating itself to the next room,
+where the children lay a-bed, and causing them to cry too, Mr Kenwigs
+rushed wildly in, and bringing them out in his arms, by two and two,
+tumbled them down in their nightcaps and gowns at the feet of Mr
+Lillyvick, and called upon them to thank and bless him.
+
+'And now,' said Mr Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene had ensued
+and the children were cleared away again, 'give me some supper.
+This took place twenty mile from town.  I came up this morning, and
+have being lingering about all day, without being able to make up my
+mind to come and see you.  I humoured her in everything, she had her
+own way, she did just as she pleased, and now she has done this.
+There was twelve teaspoons and twenty-four pound in sovereigns--I
+missed them first--it's a trial--I feel I shall never be able to
+knock a double knock again, when I go my rounds--don't say anything
+more about it, please--the spoons were worth--never mind--never
+mind!'
+
+With such muttered outpourings as these, the old gentleman shed a
+few tears; but, they got him into the elbow-chair, and prevailed
+upon him, without much pressing, to make a hearty supper, and by the
+time he had finished his first pipe, and disposed of half-a-dozen
+glasses out of a crown bowl of punch, ordered by Mr Kenwigs, in
+celebration of his return to the bosom of his family, he seemed,
+though still very humble, quite resigned to his fate, and rather
+relieved than otherwise by the flight of his wife.
+
+'When I see that man,' said Mr Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs
+Kenwigs's waist: his other hand supporting his pipe (which made him
+wink and cough very much, for he was no smoker): and his eyes on
+Morleena, who sat upon her uncle's knee, 'when I see that man as
+mingling, once again, in the spear which he adorns, and see his
+affections deweloping themselves in legitimate sitiwations, I feel
+that his nature is as elewated and expanded, as his standing afore
+society as a public character is unimpeached, and the woices of my
+infant children purvided for in life, seem to whisper to me softly,
+"This is an ewent at which Evins itself looks down!"'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 53
+
+Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr Ralph
+Nickleby and Mr Arthur Gride
+
+
+With that settled resolution, and steadiness of purpose to which
+extreme circumstances so often give birth, acting upon far less
+excitable and more sluggish temperaments than that which was the lot
+of Madeline Bray's admirer, Nicholas started, at dawn of day, from
+the restless couch which no sleep had visited on the previous night,
+and prepared to make that last appeal, by whose slight and fragile
+thread her only remaining hope of escape depended.
+
+Although, to restless and ardent minds, morning may be the fitting
+season for exertion and activity, it is not always at that time that
+hope is strongest or the spirit most sanguine and buoyant.  In
+trying and doubtful positions, youth, custom, a steady contemplation
+of the difficulties which surround us, and a familiarity with them,
+imperceptibly diminish our apprehensions and beget comparative
+indifference, if not a vague and reckless confidence in some relief,
+the means or nature of which we care not to foresee.  But when we
+come, fresh, upon such things in the morning, with that dark and
+silent gap between us and yesterday; with every link in the brittle
+chain of hope, to rivet afresh; our hot enthusiasm subdued, and cool
+calm reason substituted in its stead; doubt and misgiving revive.
+As the traveller sees farthest by day, and becomes aware of rugged
+mountains and trackless plains which the friendly darkness had
+shrouded from his sight and mind together, so, the wayfarer in the
+toilsome path of human life sees, with each returning sun, some new
+obstacle to surmount, some new height to be attained.  Distances
+stretch out before him which, last night, were scarcely taken into
+account, and the light which gilds all nature with its cheerful
+beams, seems but to shine upon the weary obstacles that yet lie
+strewn between him and the grave.
+
+So thought Nicholas, when, with the impatience natural to a
+situation like his, he softly left the house, and, feeling as though
+to remain in bed were to lose most precious time, and to be up and
+stirring were in some way to promote the end he had in view,
+wandered into London; perfectly well knowing that for hours to come
+he could not obtain speech with Madeline, and could do nothing but
+wish the intervening time away.
+
+And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round
+on the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day,
+everything appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency.
+Last night, the sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful
+creature, to such a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing
+too monstrous to succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident
+he felt that some interposition must save her from his clutches.
+But now, when he thought how regularly things went on, from day to
+day, in the same unvarying round; how youth and beauty died, and
+ugly griping age lived tottering on; how crafty avarice grew rich,
+and manly honest hearts were poor and sad; how few they were who
+tenanted the stately houses, and how many of those who lay in
+noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each night, and
+lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon race,
+and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or
+the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in
+seeking, not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a
+most wretched and inadequate subsistence, there were women and
+children in that one town, divided into classes, numbered and
+estimated as regularly as the noble families and folks of great
+degree, and reared from infancy to drive most criminal and dreadful
+trades; how ignorance was punished and never taught; how jail-doors
+gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands urged towards them by
+circumstances darkly curtaining their very cradles' heads, and but
+for which they might have earned their honest bread and lived in
+peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of life; how many
+who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they would, turned
+haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could scarce do
+otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she
+done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice,
+misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from
+year to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to
+remedy or redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from
+the mass the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he
+felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little
+reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of
+distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell
+the great amount.
+
+But youth is not prone to contemplate the darkest side of a picture
+it can shift at will.  By dint of reflecting on what he had to do,
+and reviving the train of thought which night had interrupted,
+Nicholas gradually summoned up his utmost energy, and when the
+morning was sufficiently advanced for his purpose, had no thought
+but that of using it to the best advantage.  A hasty breakfast
+taken, and such affairs of business as required prompt attention
+disposed of, he directed his steps to the residence of Madeline
+Bray: whither he lost no time in arriving.
+
+It had occurred to him that, very possibly, the young lady might be
+denied, although to him she never had been; and he was still
+pondering upon the surest method of obtaining access to her in that
+case, when, coming to the door of the house, he found it had been
+left ajar--probably by the last person who had gone out.  The
+occasion was not one upon which to observe the nicest ceremony;
+therefore, availing himself of this advantage, Nicholas walked
+gently upstairs and knocked at the door of the room into which he
+had been accustomed to be shown.  Receiving permission to enter,
+from some person on the other side, he opened the door and walked
+in.
+
+Bray and his daughter were sitting there alone.  It was nearly three
+weeks since he had seen her last, but there was a change in the
+lovely girl before him which told Nicholas, in startling terms, how
+much mental suffering had been compressed into that short time.
+There are no words which can express, nothing with which can be
+compared, the perfect pallor, the clear transparent whiteness, of
+the beautiful face which turned towards him when he entered.  Her
+hair was a rich deep brown, but shading that face, and straying upon
+a neck that rivalled it in whiteness, it seemed by the strong
+contrast raven black.  Something of wildness and restlessness there
+was in the dark eye, but there was the same patient look, the same
+expression of gentle mournfulness which he well remembered, and no
+trace of a single tear.  Most beautiful--more beautiful, perhaps,
+than ever--there was something in her face which quite unmanned him,
+and appeared far more touching than the wildest agony of grief.  It
+was not merely calm and composed, but fixed and rigid, as though the
+violent effort which had summoned that composure beneath her
+father's eye, while it mastered all other thoughts, had prevented
+even the momentary expression they had communicated to the features
+from subsiding, and had fastened it there, as an evidence of its
+triumph.
+
+The father sat opposite to her; not looking directly in her face,
+but glancing at her, as he talked with a gay air which ill disguised
+the anxiety of his thoughts.  The drawing materials were not on
+their accustomed table, nor were any of the other tokens of her
+usual occupations to be seen.  The little vases which Nicholas had
+always seen filled with fresh flowers were empty, or supplied only
+with a few withered stalks and leaves.  The bird was silent.  The
+cloth that covered his cage at night was not removed.  His mistress
+had forgotten him.
+
+There are times when, the mind being painfully alive to receive
+impressions, a great deal may be noted at a glance.  This was one,
+for Nicholas had but glanced round him when he was recognised by Mr
+Bray, who said impatiently:
+
+'Now, sir, what do you want?  Name your errand here, quickly, if you
+please, for my daughter and I are busily engaged with other and more
+important matters than those you come about.  Come, sir, address
+yourself to your business at once.'
+
+Nicholas could very well discern that the irritability and
+impatience of this speech were assumed, and that Bray, in his heart,
+was rejoiced at any interruption which promised to engage the
+attention of his daughter.  He bent his eyes involuntarily upon the
+father as he spoke, and marked his uneasiness; for he coloured and
+turned his head away.
+
+The device, however, so far as it was a device for causing Madeline
+to interfere, was successful.  She rose, and advancing towards
+Nicholas paused half-way, and stretched out her hand as expecting a
+letter.
+
+'Madeline,' said her father impatiently, 'my love, what are you
+doing?'
+
+'Miss Bray expects an inclosure perhaps,' said Nicholas, speaking
+very distinctly, and with an emphasis she could scarcely
+misunderstand.  'My employer is absent from England, or I should
+have brought a letter with me.  I hope she will give me time--a
+little time.  I ask a very little time.'
+
+'If that is all you come about, sir,' said Mr Bray, 'you may make
+yourself easy on that head.  Madeline, my dear, I didn't know this
+person was in your debt?'
+
+'A--a trifle, I believe,' returned Madeline, faintly.
+
+'I suppose you think now,' said Bray, wheeling his chair round and
+confronting Nicholas, 'that, but for such pitiful sums as you bring
+here, because my daughter has chosen to employ her time as she has,
+we should starve?'
+
+'I have not thought about it,' returned Nicholas.
+
+'You have not thought about it!' sneered the invalid.  'You know you
+HAVE thought about it, and have thought that, and think so every
+time you come here.  Do you suppose, young man, that I don't know
+what little purse-proud tradesmen are, when, through some fortunate
+circumstances, they get the upper hand for a brief day--or think
+they get the upper hand--of a gentleman?'
+
+'My business,' said Nicholas respectfully, 'is with a lady.'
+
+'With a gentleman's daughter, sir,' returned the sick man, 'and the
+pettifogging spirit is the same.  But perhaps you bring ORDERS, eh?
+Have you any fresh ORDERS for my daughter, sir?'
+
+Nicholas understood the tone of triumph in which this interrogatory
+was put; but remembering the necessity of supporting his assumed
+character, produced a scrap of paper purporting to contain a list of
+some subjects for drawings which his employer desired to have
+executed; and with which he had prepared himself in case of any such
+contingency.
+
+'Oh!' said Mr Bray.  'These are the orders, are they?'
+
+'Since you insist upon the term, sir, yes,' replied Nicholas.
+
+'Then you may tell your master,' said Bray, tossing the paper back
+again, with an exulting smile, 'that my daughter, Miss Madeline
+Bray, condescends to employ herself no longer in such labours as
+these; that she is not at his beck and call, as he supposes her to
+be; that we don't live upon his money, as he flatters himself we do;
+that he may give whatever he owes us, to the first beggar that
+passes his shop, or add it to his own profits next time he
+calculates them; and that he may go to the devil for me.  That's my
+acknowledgment of his orders, sir!'
+
+'And this is the independence of a man who sells his daughter as he
+has sold that weeping girl!' thought Nicholas.
+
+The father was too much absorbed with his own exultation to mark the
+look of scorn which, for an instant, Nicholas could not have
+suppressed had he been upon the rack.  'There,' he continued, after
+a short silence, 'you have your message and can retire--unless you
+have any further--ha!--any further orders.'
+
+'I have none,' said Nicholas; 'nor, in the consideration of the
+station you once held, have I used that or any other word which,
+however harmless in itself, could be supposed to imply authority on
+my part or dependence on yours.  I have no orders, but I have fears
+--fears that I will express, chafe as you may--fears that you may be
+consigning that young lady to something worse than supporting you by
+the labour of her hands, had she worked herself dead.  These are my
+fears, and these fears I found upon your own demeanour.  Your
+conscience will tell you, sir, whether I construe it well or not.'
+
+'For Heaven's sake!' cried Madeline, interposing in alarm between
+them.  'Remember, sir, he is ill.'
+
+'Ill!' cried the invalid, gasping and catching for breath.  'Ill!
+Ill!  I am bearded and bullied by a shop-boy, and she beseeches him
+to pity me and remember I am ill!'
+
+He fell into a paroxysm of his disorder, so violent that for a few
+moments Nicholas was alarmed for his life; but finding that he began
+to recover, he withdrew, after signifying by a gesture to the young
+lady that he had something important to communicate, and would wait
+for her outside the room.  He could hear that the sick man came
+gradually, but slowly, to himself, and that without any reference to
+what had just occurred, as though he had no distinct recollection of
+it as yet, he requested to be left alone.
+
+'Oh!' thought Nicholas, 'that this slender chance might not be lost,
+and that I might prevail, if it were but for one week's time and
+reconsideration!'
+
+'You are charged with some commission to me, sir,' said Madeline,
+presenting herself in great agitation.  'Do not press it now, I beg
+and pray you.  The day after tomorrow; come here then.'
+
+'It will be too late--too late for what I have to say,' rejoined
+Nicholas, 'and you will not be here.  Oh, madam, if you have but one
+thought of him who sent me here, but one last lingering care for
+your own peace of mind and heart, I do for God's sake urge you to
+give me a hearing.'
+
+She attempted to pass him, but Nicholas gently detained her.
+
+'A hearing,' said Nicholas.  'I ask you but to hear me: not me
+alone, but him for whom I speak, who is far away and does not know
+your danger.  In the name of Heaven hear me!'
+
+The poor attendant, with her eyes swollen and red with weeping,
+stood by; and to her Nicholas appealed in such passionate terms that
+she opened a side-door, and, supporting her mistress into an
+adjoining room, beckoned Nicholas to follow them.
+
+'Leave me, sir, pray,' said the young lady.
+
+'I cannot, will not leave you thus,' returned Nicholas.  'I have a
+duty to discharge; and, either here, or in the room from which we
+have just now come, at whatever risk or hazard to Mr Bray, I must
+beseech you to contemplate again the fearful course to which you
+have been impelled.'
+
+'What course is this you speak of, and impelled by whom, sir?'
+demanded the young lady, with an effort to speak proudly.
+
+'I speak of this marriage,' returned Nicholas, 'of this marriage,
+fixed for tomorrow, by one who never faltered in a bad purpose, or
+lent his aid to any good design; of this marriage, the history of
+which is known to me, better, far better, than it is to you.  I know
+what web is wound about you.  I know what men they are from whom
+these schemes have come.  You are betrayed and sold for money; for
+gold, whose every coin is rusted with tears, if not red with the
+blood of ruined men, who have fallen desperately by their own mad
+hands.'
+
+'You say you have a duty to discharge,' said Madeline, 'and so have
+I.  And with the help of Heaven I will perform it.'
+
+'Say rather with the help of devils,' replied Nicholas, 'with the
+help of men, one of them your destined husband, who are--'
+
+'I must not hear this,' cried the young lady, striving to repress a
+shudder, occasioned, as it seemed, even by this slight allusion to
+Arthur Gride.  'This evil, if evil it be, has been of my own
+seeking.  I am impelled to this course by no one, but follow it of
+my own free will.  You see I am not constrained or forced.  Report
+this,' said Madeline, 'to my dear friend and benefactor, and, taking
+with you my prayers and thanks for him and for yourself, leave me
+for ever!'
+
+'Not until I have besought you, with all the earnestness and fervour
+by which I am animated,' cried Nicholas, 'to postpone this marriage
+for one short week.  Not until I have besought you to think more
+deeply than you can have done, influenced as you are, upon the step
+you are about to take.  Although you cannot be fully conscious of
+the villainy of this man to whom you are about to give your hand,
+some of his deeds you know.  You have heard him speak, and have
+looked upon his face.  Reflect, reflect, before it is too late, on
+the mockery of plighting to him at the altar, faith in which your
+heart can have no share--of uttering solemn words, against which
+nature and reason must rebel--of the degradation of yourself in your
+own esteem, which must ensue, and must be aggravated every day, as
+his detested character opens upon you more and more.  Shrink from
+the loathsome companionship of this wretch as you would from
+corruption and disease.  Suffer toil and labour if you will, but
+shun him, shun him, and be happy.  For, believe me, I speak the
+truth; the most abject poverty, the most wretched condition of
+human life, with a pure and upright mind, would be happiness to that
+which you must undergo as the wife of such a man as this!'
+
+Long before Nicholas ceased to speak, the young lady buried her face
+in her hands, and gave her tears free way.  In a voice at first
+inarticulate with emotion, but gradually recovering strength as she
+proceeded, she answered him:
+
+'I will not disguise from you, sir--though perhaps I ought--that I
+have undergone great pain of mind, and have been nearly broken-
+hearted since I saw you last.  I do NOT love this gentleman.  The
+difference between our ages, tastes, and habits, forbids it.  This
+he knows, and knowing, still offers me his hand.  By accepting it,
+and by that step alone, I can release my father who is dying in this
+place; prolong his life, perhaps, for many years; restore him to
+comfort--I may almost call it affluence; and relieve a generous man
+from the burden of assisting one, by whom, I grieve to say, his
+noble heart is little understood.  Do not think so poorly of me as
+to believe that I feign a love I do not feel.  Do not report so ill
+of me, for THAT I could not bear.  If I cannot, in reason or in
+nature, love the man who pays this price for my poor hand, I can
+discharge the duties of a wife: I can be all he seeks in me, and
+will.  He is content to take me as I am.  I have passed my word, and
+should rejoice, not weep, that it is so.  I do.  The interest you
+take in one so friendless and forlorn as I, the delicacy with which
+you have discharged your trust, the faith you have kept with me,
+have my warmest thanks: and, while I make this last feeble
+acknowledgment, move me to tears, as you see.  But I do not repent,
+nor am I unhappy.  I am happy in the prospect of all I can achieve
+so easily.  I shall be more so when I look back upon it, and all is
+done, I know.'
+
+'Your tears fall faster as you talk of happiness,' said Nicholas,
+'and you shun the contemplation of that dark future which must be
+laden with so much misery to you.  Defer this marriage for a week.
+For but one week!'
+
+'He was talking, when you came upon us just now, with such smiles as
+I remember to have seen of old, and have not seen for many and many
+a day, of the freedom that was to come tomorrow,' said Madeline,
+with momentary firmness, 'of the welcome change, the fresh air: all
+the new scenes and objects that would bring fresh life to his
+exhausted frame.  His eye grew bright, and his face lightened at the
+thought.  I will not defer it for an hour.'
+
+'These are but tricks and wiles to urge you on,' cried Nicholas.
+
+'I'll hear no more,' said Madeline, hurriedly; 'I have heard too
+much--more than I should--already.  What I have said to you, sir, I
+have said as to that dear friend to whom I trust in you honourably
+to repeat it.  Some time hence, when I am more composed and
+reconciled to my new mode of life, if I should live so long, I will
+write to him.  Meantime, all holy angels shower blessings on his
+head, and prosper and preserve him.'
+
+She was hurrying past Nicholas, when he threw himself before her,
+and implored her to think, but once again, upon the fate to which
+she was precipitately hastening.
+
+'There is no retreat,' said Nicholas, in an agony of supplication;
+'no withdrawing!  All regret will be unavailing, and deep and bitter
+it must be.  What can I say, that will induce you to pause at this
+last moment?  What can I do to save you?'
+
+'Nothing,' she incoherently replied.  'This is the hardest trial I
+have had.  Have mercy on me, sir, I beseech, and do not pierce my
+heart with such appeals as these.  I--I hear him calling.  I--I--
+must not, will not, remain here for another instant.'
+
+'If this were a plot,' said Nicholas, with the same violent rapidity
+with which she spoke, 'a plot, not yet laid bare by me, but which,
+with time, I might unravel; if you were (not knowing it) entitled to
+fortune of your own, which, being recovered, would do all that this
+marriage can accomplish, would you not retract?'
+
+'No, no, no!  It is impossible; it is a child's tale.  Time would
+bring his death.  He is calling again!'
+
+'It may be the last time we shall ever meet on earth,' said
+Nicholas, 'it may be better for me that we should never meet more.'
+
+'For both, for both,' replied Madeline, not heeding what she said.
+'The time will come when to recall the memory of this one interview
+might drive me mad.  Be sure to tell them, that you left me calm and
+happy.  And God be with you, sir, and my grateful heart and
+blessing!'
+
+She was gone.  Nicholas, staggering from the house, thought of the
+hurried scene which had just closed upon him, as if it were the
+phantom of some wild, unquiet dream.  The day wore on; at night,
+having been enabled in some measure to collect his thoughts, he
+issued forth again.
+
+That night, being the last of Arthur Gride's bachelorship, found him
+in tiptop spirits and great glee.  The bottle-green suit had been
+brushed, ready for the morrow.  Peg Sliderskew had rendered the
+accounts of her past housekeeping; the eighteen-pence had been
+rigidly accounted for (she was never trusted with a larger sum at
+once, and the accounts were not usually balanced more than twice a
+day); every preparation had been made for the coming festival; and
+Arthur might have sat down and contemplated his approaching
+happiness, but that he preferred sitting down and contemplating the
+entries in a dirty old vellum-book with rusty clasps.
+
+'Well-a-day!' he chuckled, as sinking on his knees before a strong
+chest screwed down to the floor, he thrust in his arm nearly up to
+the shoulder, and slowly drew forth this greasy volume.  'Well-a-day
+now, this is all my library, but it's one of the most entertaining
+books that were ever written!  It's a delightful book, and all true
+and real--that's the best of it--true as the Bank of England, and
+real as its gold and silver.  Written by Arthur Gride.  He, he, he!
+None of your storybook writers will ever make as good a book as
+this, I warrant me.  It's composed for private circulation, for my
+own particular reading, and nobody else's.  He, he, he!'
+
+Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur carried his precious volume to the
+table, and, adjusting it upon a dusty desk, put on his spectacles,
+and began to pore among the leaves.
+
+'It's a large sum to Mr Nickleby,' he said, in a dolorous voice.
+'Debt to be paid in full, nine hundred and seventy-five, four,
+three.  Additional sum as per bond, five hundred pound.  One
+thousand, four hundred and seventy-five pounds, four shillings, and
+threepence, tomorrow at twelve o'clock.  On the other side, though,
+there's the PER CONTRA, by means of this pretty chick.  But, again,
+there's the question whether I mightn't have brought all this about,
+myself.  "Faint heart never won fair lady."  Why was my heart so
+faint?  Why didn't I boldly open it to Bray myself, and save one
+thousand four hundred and seventy-five, four, three?'
+
+These reflections depressed the old usurer so much, as to wring a
+feeble groan or two from his breast, and cause him to declare, with
+uplifted hands, that he would die in a workhouse.  Remembering on
+further cogitation, however, that under any circumstances he must
+have paid, or handsomely compounded for, Ralph's debt, and being by
+no means confident that he would have succeeded had he undertaken
+his enterprise alone, he regained his equanimity, and chattered and
+mowed over more satisfactory items, until the entrance of Peg
+Sliderskew interrupted him.
+
+'Aha, Peg!' said Arthur, 'what is it?  What is it now, Peg?'
+
+'It's the fowl,' replied Peg, holding up a plate containing a
+little, a very little one.  Quite a phenomenon of a fowl.  So very
+small and skinny.
+
+'A beautiful bird!' said Arthur, after inquiring the price, and
+finding it proportionate to the size.  'With a rasher of ham, and an
+egg made into sauce, and potatoes, and greens, and an apple pudding,
+Peg, and a little bit of cheese, we shall have a dinner for an
+emperor.  There'll only be she and me--and you, Peg, when we've
+done.'
+
+'Don't you complain of the expense afterwards,' said Mrs Sliderskew,
+sulkily.
+
+'I am afraid we must live expensively for the first week,' returned
+Arthur, with a groan, 'and then we must make up for it.  I won't eat
+more than I can help, and I know you love your old master too much
+to eat more than YOU can help, don't you, Peg?'
+
+'Don't I what?' said Peg.
+
+'Love your old master too much--'
+
+'No, not a bit too much,' said Peg.
+
+'Oh, dear, I wish the devil had this woman!' cried Arthur: 'love him
+too much to eat more than you can help at his expense.'
+
+'At his what?' said Peg.
+
+'Oh dear! she can never hear the most important word, and hears all
+the others!' whined Gride.  'At his expense--you catamaran!'
+
+The last-mentioned tribute to the charms of Mrs Sliderskew being
+uttered in a whisper, that lady assented to the general proposition
+by a harsh growl, which was accompanied by a ring at the street-
+door.
+
+'There's the bell,' said Arthur.
+
+'Ay, ay; I know that,' rejoined Peg.
+
+'Then why don't you go?' bawled Arthur.
+
+'Go where?' retorted Peg.  'I ain't doing any harm here, am I?'
+
+Arthur Gride in reply repeated the word 'bell' as loud as he could
+roar; and, his meaning being rendered further intelligible to Mrs
+Sliderskew's dull sense of hearing by pantomime expressive of
+ringing at a street-door, Peg hobbled out, after sharply demanding
+why he hadn't said there was a ring before, instead of talking about
+all manner of things that had nothing to do with it, and keeping her
+half-pint of beer waiting on the steps.
+
+'There's a change come over you, Mrs Peg,' said Arthur, following
+her out with his eyes.  'What it means I don't quite know; but, if
+it lasts, we shan't agree together long I see.  You are turning
+crazy, I think.  If you are, you must take yourself off, Mrs Peg--or
+be taken off.  All's one to me.'  Turning over the leaves of his book
+as he muttered this, he soon lighted upon something which attracted
+his attention, and forgot Peg Sliderskew and everything else in the
+engrossing interest of its pages.
+
+The room had no other light than that which it derived from a dim
+and dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, being still further obscured
+by a dark shade, cast its feeble rays over a very little space, and
+left all beyond in heavy shadow.  This lamp the money-lender had
+drawn so close to him, that there was only room between it and
+himself for the book over which he bent; and as he sat, with his
+elbows on the desk, and his sharp cheek-bones resting on his hands,
+it only served to bring out his ugly features in strong relief,
+together with the little table at which he sat, and to shroud all
+the rest of the chamber in a deep sullen gloom.  Raising his eyes,
+and looking vacantly into this gloom as he made some mental
+calculation, Arthur Gride suddenly met the fixed gaze of a man.
+
+'Thieves! thieves!' shrieked the usurer, starting up and folding his
+book to his breast.  'Robbers!  Murder!'
+
+'What is the matter?' said the form, advancing.
+
+'Keep off!' cried the trembling wretch.  'Is it a man or a--a--'
+
+'For what do you take me, if not for a man?' was the inquiry.
+
+'Yes, yes,' cried Arthur Gride, shading his eyes with his hand, 'it
+is a man, and not a spirit.  It is a man.  Robbers! robbers!'
+
+'For what are these cries raised?  Unless indeed you know me, and
+have some purpose in your brain?' said the stranger, coming close up
+to him.  'I am no thief.'
+
+'What then, and how come you here?' cried Gride, somewhat reassured,
+but still retreating from his visitor: 'what is your name, and what
+do you want?'
+
+'My name you need not know,' was the reply.  'I came here, because I
+was shown the way by your servant.  I have addressed you twice or
+thrice, but you were too profoundly engaged with your book to hear
+me, and I have been silently waiting until you should be less
+abstracted.  What I want I will tell you, when you can summon up
+courage enough to hear and understand me.'
+
+Arthur Gride, venturing to regard his visitor more attentively, and
+perceiving that he was a young man of good mien and bearing,
+returned to his seat, and muttering that there were bad characters
+about, and that this, with former attempts upon his house, had made
+him nervous, requested his visitor to sit down.  This, however, he
+declined.
+
+'Good God!  I don't stand up to have you at an advantage,' said
+Nicholas (for Nicholas it was), as he observed a gesture of alarm on
+the part of Gride.  'Listen to me.  You are to be married tomorrow
+morning.'
+
+'N--n--no,' rejoined Gride.  'Who said I was?  How do you know
+that?'
+
+'No matter how,' replied Nicholas, 'I know it.  The young lady who
+is to give you her hand hates and despises you.  Her blood runs cold
+at the mention of your name; the vulture and the lamb, the rat and
+the dove, could not be worse matched than you and she.  You see I
+know her.'
+
+Gride looked at him as if he were petrified with astonishment, but
+did not speak; perhaps lacking the power.
+
+'You and another man, Ralph Nickleby by name, have hatched this plot
+between you,' pursued Nicholas.  'You pay him for his share in
+bringing about this sale of Madeline Bray.  You do.  A lie is
+trembling on your lips, I see.'
+
+He paused; but, Arthur making no reply, resumed again.
+
+'You pay yourself by defrauding her.  How or by what means--for I
+scorn to sully her cause by falsehood or deceit--I do not know; at
+present I do not know, but I am not alone or single-handed in this
+business.  If the energy of man can compass the discovery of your
+fraud and treachery before your death; if wealth, revenge, and just
+hatred, can hunt and track you through your windings; you will yet
+be called to a dear account for this.  We are on the scent already;
+judge you, who know what we do not, when we shall have you down!'
+
+He paused again, and still Arthur Gride glared upon him in silence.
+
+'If you were a man to whom I could appeal with any hope of touching
+his compassion or humanity,' said Nicholas, 'I would urge upon you
+to remember the helplessness, the innocence, the youth, of this
+lady; her worth and beauty, her filial excellence, and last, and
+more than all, as concerning you more nearly, the appeal she has
+made to your mercy and your manly feeling.  But, I take the only
+ground that can be taken with men like you, and ask what money will
+buy you off.  Remember the danger to which you are exposed.  You see
+I know enough to know much more with very little help.  Bate some
+expected gain for the risk you save, and say what is your price.'
+
+Old Arthur Gride moved his lips, but they only formed an ugly smile
+and were motionless again.
+
+'You think,' said Nicholas, 'that the price would not be paid.  Miss
+Bray has wealthy friends who would coin their very hearts to save
+her in such a strait as this.  Name your price, defer these nuptials
+for but a few days, and see whether those I speak of, shrink from
+the payment.  Do you hear me?'
+
+When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride's impression was, that Ralph
+Nickleby had betrayed him; but, as he proceeded, he felt convinced
+that however he had come by the knowledge he possessed, the part he
+acted was a genuine one, and that with Ralph he had no concern.  All
+he seemed to know, for certain, was, that he, Gride, paid Ralph's
+debt; but that, to anybody who knew the circumstances of Bray's
+detention--even to Bray himself, on Ralph's own statement--must be
+perfectly notorious.  As to the fraud on Madeline herself, his
+visitor knew so little about its nature or extent, that it might be
+a lucky guess, or a hap-hazard accusation.  Whether or no, he had
+clearly no key to the mystery, and could not hurt him who kept it
+close within his own breast.  The allusion to friends, and the offer
+of money, Gride held to be mere empty vapouring, for purposes of
+delay.  'And even if money were to be had,' thought Arthur Glide, as
+he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with passion at his boldness
+and audacity, 'I'd have that dainty chick for my wife, and cheat YOU
+of her, young smooth-face!'
+
+Long habit of weighing and noting well what clients said, and nicely
+balancing chances in his mind and calculating odds to their faces,
+without the least appearance of being so engaged, had rendered Gride
+quick in forming conclusions, and arriving, from puzzling,
+intricate, and often contradictory premises, at very cunning
+deductions.  Hence it was that, as Nicholas went on, he followed him
+closely with his own constructions, and, when he ceased to speak,
+was as well prepared as if he had deliberated for a fortnight.
+
+'I hear you,' he cried, starting from his seat, casting back the
+fastenings of the window-shutters, and throwing up the sash.  'Help
+here!  Help!  Help!'
+
+'What are you doing?' said Nicholas, seizing him by the arm.
+
+'I'll cry robbers, thieves, murder, alarm the neighbourhood,
+struggle with you, let loose some blood, and swear you came to rob
+me, if you don't quit my house,' replied Gride, drawing in his head
+with a frightful grin, 'I will!'
+
+'Wretch!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'YOU'LL bring your threats here, will you?' said Gride, whom
+jealousy of Nicholas and a sense of his own triumph had converted
+into a perfect fiend.  'You, the disappointed lover?  Oh dear!  He!
+he! he!  But you shan't have her, nor she you.  She's my wife, my
+doting little wife.  Do you think she'll miss you?  Do you think
+she'll weep?  I shall like to see her weep, I shan't mind it.  She
+looks prettier in tears.'
+
+'Villain!' said Nicholas, choking with his rage.
+
+'One minute more,' cried Arthur Gride, 'and I'll rouse the street
+with such screams, as, if they were raised by anybody else, should
+wake me even in the arms of pretty Madeline.'
+
+'You hound!' said Nicholas.  'If you were but a younger man--'
+
+'Oh yes!' sneered Arthur Gride, 'If I was but a younger man it
+wouldn't be so bad; but for me, so old and ugly!  To be jilted by
+little Madeline for me!'
+
+'Hear me,' said Nicholas, 'and be thankful I have enough command
+over myself not to fling you into the street, which no aid could
+prevent my doing if I once grappled with you.  I have been no lover
+of this lady's.  No contract or engagement, no word of love, has
+ever passed between us.  She does not even know my name.'
+
+'I'll ask it for all that.  I'll beg it of her with kisses,' said
+Arthur Gride.  'Yes, and she'll tell me, and pay them back, and
+we'll laugh together, and hug ourselves, and be very merry, when we
+think of the poor youth that wanted to have her, but couldn't
+because she was bespoke by me!'
+
+This taunt brought such an expression into the face of Nicholas,
+that Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it to be the forerunner of his
+putting his threat of throwing him into the street in immediate
+execution; for he thrust his head out of the window, and holding
+tight on with both hands, raised a pretty brisk alarm.  Not thinking
+it necessary to abide the issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent to
+an indignant defiance, and stalked from the room and from the house.
+Arthur Gride watched him across the street, and then, drawing in his
+head, fastened the window as before, and sat down to take breath.
+
+'If she ever turns pettish or ill-humoured, I'll taunt her with that
+spark,' he said, when he had recovered.  'She'll little think I know
+about him; and, if I manage it well, I can break her spirit by this
+means and have her under my thumb.  I'm glad nobody came.  I didn't
+call too loud.  The audacity to enter my house, and open upon me!
+But I shall have a very good triumph tomorrow, and he'll be gnawing
+his fingers off: perhaps drown himself or cut his throat! I
+shouldn't wonder!  That would make it quite complete, that would:
+quite.'
+
+When he had become restored to his usual condition by these and
+other comments on his approaching triumph, Arthur Gride put away his
+book, and, having locked the chest with great caution, descended
+into the kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew to bed, and scold her for
+having afforded such ready admission to a stranger.
+
+The unconscious Peg, however, not being able to comprehend the
+offence of which she had been guilty, he summoned her to hold the
+light, while he made a tour of the fastenings, and secured the
+street-door with his own hands.
+
+'Top bolt,' muttered Arthur, fastening as he spoke, 'bottom bolt,
+chain, bar, double lock, and key out to put under my pillow!  So, if
+any more rejected admirers come, they may come through the keyhole.
+And now I'll go to sleep till half-past five, when I must get up to
+be married, Peg!'
+
+With that, he jocularly tapped Mrs Sliderskew under the chin, and
+appeared, for the moment, inclined to celebrate the close of his
+bachelor days by imprinting a kiss on her shrivelled lips.  Thinking
+better of it, however, he gave her chin another tap, in lieu of that
+warmer familiarity, and stole away to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 54
+
+The Crisis of the Project and its Result
+
+
+There are not many men who lie abed too late, or oversleep
+themselves, on their wedding morning.  A legend there is of somebody
+remarkable for absence of mind, who opened his eyes upon the day
+which was to give him a young wife, and forgetting all about the
+matter, rated his servants for providing him with such fine clothes
+as had been prepared for the festival.  There is also a legend of a
+young gentleman, who, not having before his eyes the fear of the
+canons of the church for such cases made and provided, conceived a
+passion for his grandmother.  Both cases are of a singular and
+special kind and it is very doubtful whether either can be
+considered as a precedent likely to be extensively followed by
+succeeding generations.
+
+Arthur Gride had enrobed himself in his marriage garments of bottle-
+green, a full hour before Mrs Sliderskew, shaking off her more heavy
+slumbers, knocked at his chamber door; and he had hobbled downstairs
+in full array and smacked his lips over a scanty taste of his
+favourite cordial, ere that delicate piece of antiquity enlightened
+the kitchen with her presence.
+
+'Faugh!' said Peg, grubbing, in the discharge of her domestic
+functions, among a scanty heap of ashes in the rusty grate.
+'Wedding indeed!  A precious wedding!  He wants somebody better than
+his old Peg to take care of him, does he?  And what has he said to
+me, many and many a time, to keep me content with short food, small
+wages, and little fire?  "My will, Peg! my will!" says he: "I'm a
+bachelor--no friends--no relations, Peg."  Lies!  And now he's to
+bring home a new mistress, a baby-faced chit of a girl!  If he
+wanted a wife, the fool, why couldn't he have one suitable to his
+age, and that knew his ways?  She won't come in MY way, he says.
+No, that she won't, but you little think why, Arthur boy!'
+
+While Mrs Sliderskew, influenced possibly by some lingering feelings
+of disappointment and personal slight, occasioned by her old
+master's preference for another, was giving loose to these
+grumblings below stairs, Arthur Gride was cogitating in the parlour
+upon what had taken place last night.
+
+'I can't think how he can have picked up what he knows,' said
+Arthur, 'unless I have committed myself--let something drop at
+Bray's, for instance--which has been overheard.  Perhaps I may.  I
+shouldn't be surprised if that was it.  Mr Nickleby was often angry
+at my talking to him before we got outside the door.  I mustn't tell
+him that part of the business, or he'll put me out of sorts, and
+make me nervous for the day.'
+
+Ralph was universally looked up to, and recognised among his fellows
+as a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding
+character and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he
+was actually afraid of him.  Cringing and cowardly to the core by
+nature, Arthur Gride humbled himself in the dust before Ralph
+Nickleby, and, even when they had not this stake in common, would
+have licked his shoes and crawled upon the ground before him rather
+than venture to return him word for word, or retort upon him in any
+other spirit than one of the most slavish and abject sycophancy.
+
+To Ralph Nickleby's, Arthur Gride now betook himself according to
+appointment; and to Ralph Nickleby he related how, last night, some
+young blustering blade, whom he had never seen, forced his way into
+his house, and tried to frighten him from the proposed nuptials.
+Told, in short, what Nicholas had said and done, with the slight
+reservation upon which he had determined.
+
+'Well, and what then?' said Ralph.
+
+'Oh! nothing more,' rejoined Gride.
+
+'He tried to frighten you,' said Ralph, 'and you WERE frightened I
+suppose; is that it?'
+
+'I frightened HIM by crying thieves and murder,' replied Gride.
+'Once I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I had more than half a
+mind to swear he uttered threats, and demanded my life or my money.'
+
+'Oho!' said Ralph, eyeing him askew.  'Jealous too!'
+
+'Dear now, see that!' cried Arthur, rubbing his hands and affecting
+to laugh.
+
+'Why do you make those grimaces, man?' said Ralph; 'you ARE jealous
+--and with good cause I think.'
+
+'No, no, no; not with good cause, hey?  You don't think with good
+cause, do you?' cried Arthur, faltering.  'Do you though, hey?'
+
+'Why, how stands the fact?' returned Ralph.  'Here is an old man
+about to be forced in marriage upon a girl; and to this old man
+there comes a handsome young fellow--you said he was handsome,
+didn't you?'
+
+'No!' snarled Arthur Gride.
+
+'Oh!' rejoined Ralph, 'I thought you did.  Well!  Handsome or not
+handsome, to this old man there comes a young fellow who casts all
+manner of fierce defiances in his teeth--gums I should rather say--
+and tells him in plain terms that his mistress hates him.  What does
+he do that for?  Philanthropy's sake?'
+
+'Not for love of the lady,' replied Gride, 'for he said that no word
+of love--his very words--had ever passed between 'em.'
+
+'He said!' repeated Ralph, contemptuously.  'But I like him for one
+thing, and that is, his giving you this fair warning to keep your--
+what is it?--Tit-tit or dainty chick--which?--under lock and key.
+Be careful, Gride, be careful.  It's a triumph, too, to tear her
+away from a gallant young rival: a great triumph for an old man!  It
+only remains to keep her safe when you have her--that's all.'
+
+'What a man it is!' cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity
+of his torture, to be highly amused.  And then he added, anxiously,
+'Yes; to keep her safe, that's all.  And that isn't much, is it?'
+
+'Much!' said Ralph, with a sneer.  'Why, everybody knows what easy
+things to understand and to control, women are.  But come, it's very
+nearly time for you to be made happy.  You'll pay the bond now, I
+suppose, to save us trouble afterwards.'
+
+'Oh what a man you are!' croaked Arthur.
+
+'Why not?' said Ralph.  'Nobody will pay you interest for the money,
+I suppose, between this and twelve o'clock; will they?'
+
+'But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,'
+returned Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness
+he could throw into his face.
+
+'Besides which,' said Ralph, suffering his lip to curl into a smile,
+'you haven't the money about you, and you weren't prepared for this,
+or you'd have brought it with you; and there's nobody you'd so much
+like to accommodate as me.  I see.  We trust each other in about an
+equal degree.  Are you ready?'
+
+Gride, who had done nothing but grin, and nod, and chatter, during
+this last speech of Ralph's, answered in the affirmative; and,
+producing from his hat a couple of large white favours, pinned one
+on his breast, and with considerable difficulty induced his friend
+to do the like.  Thus accoutred, they got into a hired coach which
+Ralph had in waiting, and drove to the residence of the fair and
+most wretched bride.
+
+Gride, whose spirits and courage had gradually failed him more and
+more as they approached nearer and nearer to the house, was utterly
+dismayed and cowed by the mournful silence which pervaded it.  The
+face of the poor servant girl, the only person they saw, was
+disfigured with tears and want of sleep.  There was nobody to
+receive or welcome them; and they stole upstairs into the usual
+sitting-room, more like two burglars than the bridegroom and his
+friend.
+
+'One would think,' said Ralph, speaking, in spite of himself, in a
+low and subdued voice, 'that there was a funeral going on here, and
+not a wedding.'
+
+'He, he!' tittered his friend, 'you are so--so very funny!'
+
+'I need be,' remarked Ralph, drily, 'for this is rather dull and
+chilling.  Look a little brisker, man, and not so hangdog like!'
+
+'Yes, yes, I will,' said Gride.  'But--but--you don't think she's
+coming just yet, do you?'
+
+'Why, I suppose she'll not come till she is obliged,' returned
+Ralph, looking at his watch, 'and she has a good half-hour to spare
+yet.  Curb your impatience.'
+
+'I--I--am not impatient,' stammered Arthur.  'I wouldn't be hard
+with her for the world.  Oh dear, dear, not on any account.  Let her
+take her time--her own time.  Her time shall be ours by all means.'
+
+While Ralph bent upon his trembling friend a keen look, which showed
+that he perfectly understood the reason of this great consideration
+and regard, a footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Bray himself
+came into the room on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with a
+cautious gesture, as if there were some sick person near, who must
+not be disturbed.
+
+'Hush!' he said, in a low voice.  'She was very ill last night.  I
+thought she would have broken her heart.  She is dressed, and crying
+bitterly in her own room; but she's better, and quite quiet.  That's
+everything!'
+
+'She is ready, is she?' said Ralph.
+
+'Quite ready,' returned the father.
+
+'And not likely to delay us by any young-lady weaknesses--fainting,
+or so forth?' said Ralph.
+
+'She may be safely trusted now,' returned Bray.  'I have been
+talking to her this morning.  Here!  Come a little this way.'
+
+He drew Ralph Nickleby to the further end of the room, and pointed
+towards Gride, who sat huddled together in a corner, fumbling
+nervously with the buttons of his coat, and exhibiting a face, of
+which every skulking and base expression was sharpened and
+aggravated to the utmost by his anxiety and trepidation.
+
+'Look at that man,' whispered Bray, emphatically.  'This seems a
+cruel thing, after all.'
+
+'What seems a cruel thing?' inquired Ralph, with as much stolidity
+of face, as if he really were in utter ignorance of the other's
+meaning.
+
+'This marriage,' answered Bray.  'Don't ask me what.  You know as
+well as I do.'
+
+Ralph shrugged his shoulders, in silent deprecation of Bray's
+impatience, and elevated his eyebrows, and pursed his lips, as men
+do when they are prepared with a sufficient answer to some remark,
+but wait for a more favourable opportunity of advancing it, or think
+it scarcely worth while to answer their adversary at all.
+
+'Look at him.  Does it not seem cruel?' said Bray.
+
+'No!' replied Ralph, boldly.
+
+'I say it does,' retorted Bray, with a show of much irritation.  'It
+is a cruel thing, by all that's bad and treacherous!'
+
+When men are about to commit, or to sanction the commission of some
+injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the
+object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel
+themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely
+superior to those who express no pity at all.  This is a kind of
+upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.  To do
+Ralph Nickleby justice, he seldom practised this sort of
+dissimulation; but he understood those who did, and therefore
+suffered Bray to say, again and again, with great vehemence, that
+they were jointly doing a very cruel thing, before he again offered
+to interpose a word.
+
+'You see what a dry, shrivelled, withered old chip it is,' returned
+Ralph, when the other was at length silent.  'If he were younger, it
+might be cruel, but as it is--harkee, Mr Bray, he'll die soon, and
+leave her a rich young widow!  Miss Madeline consults your tastes
+this time; let her consult her own next.'
+
+'True, true,' said Bray, biting his nails, and plainly very ill at
+ease.  'I couldn't do anything better for her than advise her to
+accept these proposals, could I?  Now, I ask you, Nickleby, as a man
+of the world; could I?'
+
+'Surely not,' answered Ralph.  'I tell you what, sir; there are a
+hundred fathers, within a circuit of five miles from this place;
+well off; good, rich, substantial men; who would gladly give their
+daughters, and their own ears with them, to that very man yonder,
+ape and mummy as he looks.'
+
+'So there are!' exclaimed Bray, eagerly catching at anything which
+seemed a justification of himself.  'And so I told her, both last
+night and today.'
+
+'You told her truth,' said Ralph, 'and did well to do so; though I
+must say, at the same time, that if I had a daughter, and my
+freedom, pleasure, nay, my very health and life, depended on her
+taking a husband whom I pointed out, I should hope it would not be
+necessary to advance any other arguments to induce her to consent to
+my wishes.'
+
+Bray looked at Ralph as if to see whether he spoke in earnest, and
+having nodded twice or thrice in unqualified assent to what had
+fallen from him, said:
+
+'I must go upstairs for a few minutes, to finish dressing.  When I
+come down, I'll bring Madeline with me.  Do you know, I had a very
+strange dream last night, which I have not remembered till this
+instant.  I dreamt that it was this morning, and you and I had been
+talking as we have been this minute; that I went upstairs, for the
+very purpose for which I am going now; and that as I stretched out
+my hand to take Madeline's, and lead her down, the floor sunk with
+me, and after falling from such an indescribable and tremendous
+height as the imagination scarcely conceives, except in dreams, I
+alighted in a grave.'
+
+'And you awoke, and found you were lying on your back, or with your
+head hanging over the bedside, or suffering some pain from
+indigestion?' said Ralph.  'Pshaw, Mr Bray!  Do as I do (you will
+have the opportunity, now that a constant round of pleasure and
+enjoyment opens upon you), and, occupying yourself a little more by
+day, have no time to think of what you dream by night.'
+
+Ralph followed him, with a steady look, to the door; and, turning to
+the bridegroom, when they were again alone, said,
+
+'Mark my words, Gride, you won't have to pay HIS annuity very long.
+You have the devil's luck in bargains, always.  If he is not booked
+to make the long voyage before many months are past and gone, I wear
+an orange for a head!'
+
+To this prophecy, so agreeable to his ears, Arthur returned no
+answer than a cackle of great delight.  Ralph, throwing himself into
+a chair, they both sat waiting in profound silence.  Ralph was
+thinking, with a sneer upon his lips, on the altered manner of Bray
+that day, and how soon their fellowship in a bad design had lowered
+his pride and established a familiarity between them, when his
+attentive ear caught the rustling of a female dress upon the stairs,
+and the footstep of a man.
+
+'Wake up,' he said, stamping his foot impatiently upon the ground,
+'and be something like life, man, will you?  They are here.  Urge
+those dry old bones of yours this way.  Quick, man, quick!'
+
+Gride shambled forward, and stood, leering and bowing, close by
+Ralph's side, when the door opened and there entered in haste--not
+Bray and his daughter, but Nicholas and his sister Kate.
+
+If some tremendous apparition from the world of shadows had suddenly
+presented itself before him, Ralph Nickleby could not have been more
+thunder-stricken than he was by this surprise.  His hands fell
+powerless by his side, he reeled back; and with open mouth, and a
+face of ashy paleness, stood gazing at them in speechless rage: his
+eyes so prominent, and his face so convulsed and changed by the
+passions which raged within him, that it would have been difficult
+to recognise in him the same stern, composed, hard-featured man he
+had been not a minute ago.
+
+'The man that came to me last night,' whispered Gride, plucking at
+his elbow.  'The man that came to me last night!'
+
+'I see,' muttered Ralph, 'I know!  I might have guessed as much
+before.  Across my every path, at every turn, go where I will, do
+what I may, he comes!'
+
+The absence of all colour from the face; the dilated nostril; the
+quivering of the lips which, though set firmly against each other,
+would not be still; showed what emotions were struggling for the
+mastery with Nicholas.  But he kept them down, and gently pressing
+Kate's arm to reassure her, stood erect and undaunted, front to
+front with his unworthy relative.
+
+As the brother and sister stood side by side, with a gallant bearing
+which became them well, a close likeness between them was apparent,
+which many, had they only seen them apart, might have failed to
+remark.  The air, carriage, and very look and expression of the
+brother were all reflected in the sister, but softened and refined
+to the nicest limit of feminine delicacy and attraction.  More
+striking still was some indefinable resemblance, in the face of
+Ralph, to both.  While they had never looked more handsome, nor he
+more ugly; while they had never held themselves more proudly, nor he
+shrunk half so low; there never had been a time when this
+resemblance was so perceptible, or when all the worst characteristics
+of a face rendered coarse and harsh by evil thoughts were half so
+manifest as now.
+
+'Away!' was the first word he could utter as he literally gnashed
+his teeth.  'Away!  What brings you here?  Liar, scoundrel, dastard,
+thief!'
+
+'I come here,' said Nicholas in a low deep voice, 'to save your
+victim if I can.  Liar and scoundrel you are, in every action of
+your life; theft is your trade; and double dastard you must be, or
+you were not here today.  Hard words will not move me, nor would
+hard blows.  Here I stand, and will, till I have done my errand.'
+
+'Girl!' said Ralph, 'retire!  We can use force to him, but I would
+not hurt you if I could help it.  Retire, you weak and silly wench,
+and leave this dog to be dealt with as he deserves.'
+
+'I will not retire,' cried Kate, with flashing eyes and the red
+blood mantling in her cheeks.  'You will do him no hurt that he will
+not repay.  You may use force with me; I think you will, for I AM a
+girl, and that would well become you.  But if I have a girl's
+weakness, I have a woman's heart, and it is not you who in a cause
+like this can turn that from its purpose.'
+
+'And what may your purpose be, most lofty lady?' said Ralph.
+
+'To offer to the unhappy subject of your treachery, at this last
+moment,' replied Nicholas, 'a refuge and a home.  If the near
+prospect of such a husband as you have provided will not prevail
+upon her, I hope she may be moved by the prayers and entreaties of
+one of her own sex.  At all events they shall be tried.  I myself,
+avowing to her father from whom I come and by whom I am
+commissioned, will render it an act of greater baseness, meanness,
+and cruelty in him if he still dares to force this marriage on.
+Here I wait to see him and his daughter.  For this I came and
+brought my sister even into your presence.  Our purpose is not to
+see or speak with you; therefore to you we stoop to say no more.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Ralph.  'You persist in remaining here, ma'am, do
+you?'
+
+His niece's bosom heaved with the indignant excitement into which he
+had lashed her, but she gave him no reply.
+
+'Now, Gride, see here,' said Ralph.  'This fellow--I grieve to say
+my brother's son: a reprobate and profligate, stained with every
+mean and selfish crime--this fellow, coming here today to disturb a
+solemn ceremony, and knowing that the consequence of his presenting
+himself in another man's house at such a time, and persisting in
+remaining there, must be his being kicked into the streets and
+dragged through them like the vagabond he is--this fellow, mark you,
+brings with him his sister as a protection, thinking we would not
+expose a silly girl to the degradation and indignity which is no
+novelty to him; and, even after I have warned her of what must
+ensue, he still keeps her by him, as you see, and clings to her
+apron-strings like a cowardly boy to his mother's.  Is not this a
+pretty fellow to talk as big as you have heard him now?'
+
+'And as I heard him last night,' said Arthur Gride; 'as I heard him
+last night when he sneaked into my house, and--he! he! he!--very
+soon sneaked out again, when I nearly frightened him to death.  And
+HE wanting to marry Miss Madeline too!  Oh dear!  Is there anything
+else he'd like?  Anything else we can do for him, besides giving her
+up?  Would he like his debts paid and his house furnished, and a few
+bank notes for shaving paper if he shaves at all?  He! he! he!'
+
+'You will remain, girl, will you?' said Ralph, turning upon Kate
+again, 'to be hauled downstairs like a drunken drab, as I swear you
+shall if you stop here?  No answer!  Thank your brother for what
+follows.  Gride, call down Bray--and not his daughter.  Let them
+keep her above.'
+
+'If you value your head,' said Nicholas, taking up a position before
+the door, and speaking in the same low voice in which he had spoken
+before, and with no more outward passion than he had before
+displayed; 'stay where you are!'
+
+'Mind me, and not him, and call down Bray,' said Ralph.
+
+'Mind yourself rather than either of us, and stay where you are!'
+said Nicholas.
+
+'Will you call down Bray?' cried Ralph.
+
+'Remember that you come near me at your peril,' said Nicholas.
+
+Gride hesitated.  Ralph being, by this time, as furious as a baffled
+tiger, made for the door, and, attempting to pass Kate, clasped her
+arm roughly with his hand.  Nicholas, with his eyes darting fire,
+seized him by the collar.  At that moment, a heavy body fell with
+great violence on the floor above, and, in an instant afterwards,
+was heard a most appalling and terrific scream.
+
+They all stood still, and gazed upon each other.  Scream succeeded
+scream; a heavy pattering of feet succeeded; and many shrill voices
+clamouring together were heard to cry, 'He is dead!'
+
+'Stand off!' cried Nicholas, letting loose all the passion he had
+restrained till now; 'if this is what I scarcely dare to hope it is,
+you are caught, villains, in your own toils.'
+
+He burst from the room, and, darting upstairs to the quarter from
+whence the noise proceeded, forced his way through a crowd of
+persons who quite filled a small bed-chamber, and found Bray lying
+on the floor quite dead; his daughter clinging to the body.
+
+'How did this happen?' he cried, looking wildly about him.
+
+Several voices answered together, that he had been observed, through
+the half-opened door, reclining in a strange and uneasy position
+upon a chair; that he had been spoken to several times, and not
+answering, was supposed to be asleep, until some person going in and
+shaking him by the arm, he fell heavily to the ground and was
+discovered to be dead.
+
+'Who is the owner of this house?' said Nicholas, hastily.
+
+An elderly woman was pointed out to him; and to her he said, as he
+knelt down and gently unwound Madeline's arms from the lifeless mass
+round which they were entwined: 'I represent this lady's nearest
+friends, as her servant here knows, and must remove her from this
+dreadful scene.  This is my sister to whose charge you confide her.
+My name and address are upon that card, and you shall receive from
+me all necessary directions for the arrangements that must be made.
+Stand aside, every one of you, and give me room and air for God's
+sake!'
+
+The people fell back, scarce wondering more at what had just
+occurred, than at the excitement and impetuosity of him who spoke.
+Nicholas, taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore her from the
+chamber and downstairs into the room he had just quitted, followed
+by his sister and the faithful servant, whom he charged to procure a
+coach directly, while he and Kate bent over their beautiful charge
+and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore her to animation.  The girl
+performed her office with such expedition, that in a very few
+minutes the coach was ready.
+
+Ralph Nickleby and Gride, stunned and paralysed by the awful event
+which had so suddenly overthrown their schemes (it would not
+otherwise, perhaps, have made much impression on them), and carried
+away by the extraordinary energy and precipitation of Nicholas,
+which bore down all before him, looked on at these proceedings like
+men in a dream or trance.  It was not until every preparation was
+made for Madeline's immediate removal that Ralph broke silence by
+declaring she should not be taken away.
+
+'Who says so?' cried Nicholas, rising from his knee and confronting
+them, but still retaining Madeline's lifeless hand in his.
+
+'I!' answered Ralph, hoarsely.
+
+'Hush, hush!' cried the terrified Gride, catching him by the arm
+again.  'Hear what he says.'
+
+'Ay!' said Nicholas, extending his disengaged hand in the air, 'hear
+what he says.  That both your debts are paid in the one great debt
+of nature.  That the bond, due today at twelve, is now waste paper.
+That your contemplated fraud shall be discovered yet.  That your
+schemes are known to man, and overthrown by Heaven.  Wretches, that
+he defies you both to do your worst.'
+
+'This man,' said Ralph, in a voice scarcely intelligible, 'this man
+claims his wife, and he shall have her.'
+
+'That man claims what is not his, and he should not have her if he
+were fifty men, with fifty more to back him,' said Nicholas.
+
+'Who shall prevent him?'
+
+'I will.'
+
+'By what right I should like to know,' said Ralph.  'By what right I
+ask?'
+
+'By this right.  That, knowing what I do, you dare not tempt me
+further,' said Nicholas, 'and by this better right; that those I
+serve, and with whom you would have done me base wrong and injury,
+are her nearest and her dearest friends.  In their name I bear her
+hence.  Give way!'
+
+'One word!' cried Ralph, foaming at the mouth.
+
+'Not one,' replied Nicholas, 'I will not hear of one--save this.
+Look to yourself, and heed this warning that I give you!  Your day
+is past, and night is comin' on.'
+
+'My curse, my bitter, deadly curse, upon you, boy!'
+
+'Whence will curses come at your command?  Or what avails a curse or
+blessing from a man like you?  I tell you, that misfortune and
+discovery are thickening about your head; that the structures you
+have raised, through all your ill-spent life, are crumbling into
+dust; that your path is beset with spies; that this very day, ten
+thousand pounds of your hoarded wealth have gone in one great
+crash!'
+
+''Tis false!' cried Ralph, shrinking back.
+
+''Tis true, and you shall find it so.  I have no more words to
+waste.  Stand from the door.  Kate, do you go first.  Lay not a hand
+on her, or on that woman, or on me, or so much a brush their
+garments as they pass you by!--You let them pass, and he blocks the
+door again!'
+
+Arthur Gride happened to be in the doorway, but whether
+intentionally or from confusion was not quite apparent.  Nicholas
+swung him away, with such violence as to cause him to spin round the
+room until he was caught by a sharp angle of the wall, and there
+knocked down; and then taking his beautiful burden in his arms
+rushed out.  No one cared to stop him, if any were so disposed.
+Making his way through a mob of people, whom a report of the
+circumstances had attracted round the house, and carrying Madeline,
+in his excitement, as easily as if she were an infant, he reached
+the coach in which Kate and the girl were already waiting, and,
+confiding his charge to them, jumped up beside the coachman and bade
+him drive away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 55
+
+Of Family Matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointments, and Sorrows
+
+
+Although Mrs Nickleby had been made acquainted by her son and
+daughter with every circumstance of Madeline Bray's history which
+was known to them; although the responsible situation in which
+Nicholas stood had been carefully explained to her, and she had been
+prepared, even for the possible contingency of having to receive the
+young lady in her own house, improbable as such a result had
+appeared only a few minutes before it came about, still, Mrs
+Nickleby, from the moment when this confidence was first reposed in
+her, late on the previous evening, had remained in an unsatisfactory
+and profoundly mystified state, from which no explanations or
+arguments could relieve her, and which every fresh soliloquy and
+reflection only aggravated more and more.
+
+'Bless my heart, Kate!' so the good lady argued; 'if the Mr
+Cheerybles don't want this young lady to be married, why don't they
+file a bill against the Lord Chancellor, make her a Chancery ward,
+and shut her up in the Fleet prison for safety?--I have read of such
+things in the newspapers a hundred times.  Or, if they are so very
+fond of her as Nicholas says they are, why don't they marry her
+themselves--one of them I mean?  And even supposing they don't want
+her to be married, and don't want to marry her themselves, why in
+the name of wonder should Nicholas go about the world, forbidding
+people's banns?'
+
+'I don't think you quite understand,' said Kate, gently.
+
+'Well I am sure, Kate, my dear, you're very polite!' replied Mrs
+Nickleby.  'I have been married myself I hope, and I have seen other
+people married.  Not understand, indeed!'
+
+'I know you have had great experience, dear mama,' said Kate; 'I
+mean that perhaps you don't quite understand all the circumstances
+in this instance.  We have stated them awkwardly, I dare say.'
+
+'That I dare say you have,' retorted her mother, briskly.  'That's
+very likely.  I am not to be held accountable for that; though, at
+the same time, as the circumstances speak for themselves, I shall
+take the liberty, my love, of saying that I do understand them, and
+perfectly well too; whatever you and Nicholas may choose to think to
+the contrary.  Why is such a great fuss made because this Miss
+Magdalen is going to marry somebody who is older than herself?  Your
+poor papa was older than I was, four years and a half older.  Jane
+Dibabs--the Dibabses lived in the beautiful little thatched white
+house one story high, covered all over with ivy and creeping plants,
+with an exquisite little porch with twining honysuckles and all
+sorts of things: where the earwigs used to fall into one's tea on a
+summer evening, and always fell upon their backs and kicked
+dreadfully, and where the frogs used to get into the rushlight
+shades when one stopped all night, and sit up and look through the
+little holes like Christians--Jane Dibabs, SHE married a man who was
+a great deal older than herself, and WOULD marry him, notwithstanding
+all that could be said to the contrary, and she was so fond of him
+that nothing was ever equal to it.  There was no fuss made about
+Jane Dibabs, and her husband was a most honourable and excellent
+man, and everybody spoke well of him.  Then why should there by any
+fuss about this Magdalen?'
+
+'Her husband is much older; he is not her own choice; his character
+is the very reverse of that which you have just described.  Don't
+you see a broad destinction between the two cases?' said Kate.
+
+To this, Mrs Nickleby only replied that she durst say she was very
+stupid, indeed she had no doubt she was, for her own children almost
+as much as told her so, every day of her life; to be sure she was a
+little older than they, and perhaps some foolish people might think
+she ought reasonably to know best.  However, no doubt she was wrong;
+of course she was; she always was, she couldn't be right, she
+couldn't be expected to be; so she had better not expose herself any
+more; and to all Kate's conciliations and concessions for an hour
+ensuing, the good lady gave no other replies than Oh, certainly,
+why did they ask HER?, HER opinion was of no consequence, it didn't
+matter what SHE said, with many other rejoinders of the same class.
+
+In this frame of mind (expressed, when she had become too resigned
+for speech, by nods of the head, upliftings of the eyes, and little
+beginnings of groans, converted, as they attracted attention, into
+short coughs), Mrs Nickleby remained until Nicholas and Kate
+returned with the object of their solicitude; when, having by this
+time asserted her own importance, and becoming besides interested in
+the trials of one so young and beautiful, she not only displayed the
+utmost zeal and solicitude, but took great credit to herself for
+recommending the course of procedure which her son had adopted:
+frequently declaring, with an expressive look, that it was very
+fortunate things were AS they were: and hinting, that but for great
+encouragement and wisdom on her own part, they never could have been
+brought to that pass.
+
+Not to strain the question whether Mrs Nickleby had or had not any
+great hand in bringing matters about, it is unquestionable that she
+had strong ground for exultation.  The brothers, on their return,
+bestowed such commendations on Nicholas for the part he had taken,
+and evinced so much joy at the altered state of events and the
+recovery of their young friend from trials so great and dangers so
+threatening, that, as she more than once informed her daughter, she
+now considered the fortunes of the family 'as good as' made.  Mr
+Charles Cheeryble, indeed, Mrs Nickleby positively asserted, had, in
+the first transports of his surprise and delight, 'as good as' said
+so.  Without precisely explaining what this qualification meant, she
+subsided, whenever she mentioned the subject, into such a mysterious
+and important state, and had such visions of wealth and dignity in
+perspective, that (vague and clouded though they were) she was, at
+such times, almost as happy as if she had really been permanently
+provided for, on a scale of great splendour.
+
+The sudden and terrible shock she had received, combined with the
+great affliction and anxiety of mind which she had, for a long time,
+endured, proved too much for Madeline's strength.  Recovering from
+the state of stupefaction into which the sudden death of her father
+happily plunged her, she only exchanged that condition for one of
+dangerous and active illness.  When the delicate physical powers
+which have been sustained by an unnatural strain upon the mental
+energies and a resolute determination not to yield, at last give
+way, their degree of prostration is usually proportionate to the
+strength of the effort which has previously upheld them.  Thus it
+was that the illness which fell on Madeline was of no slight or
+temporary nature, but one which, for a time, threatened her reason,
+and--scarcely worse--her life itself.
+
+Who, slowly recovering from a disorder so severe and dangerous,
+could be insensible to the unremitting attentions of such a nurse as
+gentle, tender, earnest Kate?  On whom could the sweet soft voice,
+the light step, the delicate hand, the quiet, cheerful, noiseless
+discharge of those thousand little offices of kindness and relief
+which we feel so deeply when we are ill, and forget so lightly when
+we are well--on whom could they make so deep an impression as on a
+young heart stored with every pure and true affection that women
+cherish; almost a stranger to the endearments and devotion of its
+own sex, save as it learnt them from itself; and rendered, by
+calamity and suffering, keenly susceptible of the sympathy so long
+unknown and so long sought in vain?  What wonder that days became as
+years in knitting them together!  What wonder, if with every hour of
+returning health, there came some stronger and sweeter recognition
+of the praises which Kate, when they recalled old scenes--they
+seemed old now, and to have been acted years ago--would lavish on
+her brother!  Where would have been the wonder, even, if those
+praises had found a quick response in the breast of Madeline, and
+if, with the image of Nicholas so constantly recurring in the
+features of his sister that she could scarcely separate the two, she
+had sometimes found it equally difficult to assign to each the
+feelings they had first inspired, and had imperceptibly mingled with
+her gratitude to Nicholas, some of that warmer feeling which she had
+assigned to Kate?
+
+'My dear,' Mrs Nickleby would say, coming into the room with an
+elaborate caution, calculated to discompose the nerves of an invalid
+rather more than the entry of a horse-soldier at full gallop; 'how
+do you find yourself tonight?  I hope you are better.'
+
+'Almost well, mama,' Kate would reply, laying down her work, and
+taking Madeline's hand in hers.
+
+'Kate!' Mrs Nickleby would say, reprovingly, 'don't talk so loud'
+(the worthy lady herself talking in a whisper that would have made
+the blood of the stoutest man run cold in his veins).
+
+Kate would take this reproof very quietly, and Mrs Nickleby, making
+every board creak and every thread rustle as she moved stealthily
+about, would add:
+
+'My son Nicholas has just come home, and I have come, according to
+custom, my dear, to know, from your own lips, exactly how you are;
+for he won't take my account, and never will.'
+
+'He is later than usual to-night,' perhaps Madeline would reply.
+'Nearly half an hour.'
+
+'Well, I never saw such people in all my life as you are, for time,
+up here!' Mrs Nickleby would exclaim in great astonishment; 'I
+declare I never did!  I had not the least idea that Nicholas was
+after his time, not the smallest.  Mr Nickleby used to say--your
+poor papa, I am speaking of, Kate my dear--used to say, that
+appetite was the best clock in the world, but you have no appetite,
+my dear Miss Bray, I wish you had, and upon my word I really think
+you ought to take something that would give you one.  I am sure I
+don't know, but I have heard that two or three dozen native lobsters
+give an appetite, though that comes to the same thing after all, for
+I suppose you must have an appetite before you can take 'em.  If I
+said lobsters, I meant oysters, but of course it's all the same,
+though really how you came to know about Nicholas--'
+
+'We happened to be just talking about him, mama; that was it.'
+
+'You never seem to me to be talking about anything else, Kate, and
+upon my word I am quite surprised at your being so very thoughtless.
+You can find subjects enough to talk about sometimes, and when you
+know how important it is to keep up Miss Bray's spirits, and
+interest her, and all that, it really is quite extraordinary to me
+what can induce you to keep on prose, prose, prose, din, din, din,
+everlastingly, upon the same theme.  You are a very kind nurse,
+Kate, and a very good one, and I know you mean very well; but I will
+say this--that if it wasn't for me, I really don't know what would
+become of Miss Bray's spirits, and so I tell the doctor every day.
+He says he wonders how I sustain my own, and I am sure I very often
+wonder myself how I can contrive to keep up as I do.  Of course it's
+an exertion, but still, when I know how much depends upon me in this
+house, I am obliged to make it.  There's nothing praiseworthy in
+that, but it's necessary, and I do it.'
+
+With that, Mrs Nickleby would draw up a chair, and for some three-
+quarters of an hour run through a great variety of distracting
+topics in the most distracting manner possible; tearing herself
+away, at length, on the plea that she must now go and amuse Nicholas
+while he took his supper.  After a preliminary raising of his
+spirits with the information that she considered the patient
+decidedly worse, she would further cheer him up by relating how
+dull, listless, and low-spirited Miss Bray was, because Kate
+foolishly talked about nothing else but him and family matters.
+When she had made Nicholas thoroughly comfortable with these and
+other inspiriting remarks, she would discourse at length on the
+arduous duties she had performed that day; and, sometimes, be moved
+to tears in wondering how, if anything were to happen to herself,
+the family would ever get on without her.
+
+At other times, when Nicholas came home at night, he would be
+accompanied by Mr Frank Cheeryble, who was commissioned by the
+brothers to inquire how Madeline was that evening.  On such
+occasions (and they were of very frequent occurrence), Mrs Nickleby
+deemed it of particular importance that she should have her wits
+about her; for, from certain signs and tokens which had attracted
+her attention, she shrewdly suspected that Mr Frank, interested as
+his uncles were in Madeline, came quite as much to see Kate as to
+inquire after her; the more especially as the brothers were in
+constant communication with the medical man, came backwards and
+forwards very frequently themselves, and received a full report from
+Nicholas every morning.  These were proud times for Mrs Nickleby;
+never was anybody half so discreet and sage as she, or half so
+mysterious withal; and never were there such cunning generalship,
+and such unfathomable designs, as she brought to bear upon Mr Frank,
+with the view of ascertaining whether her suspicions were well
+founded: and if so, of tantalising him into taking her into his
+confidence and throwing himself upon her merciful consideration.
+Extensive was the artillery, heavy and light, which Mrs Nickleby
+brought into play for the furtherance of these great schemes;
+various and opposite the means which she employed to bring about the
+end she had in view.  At one time, she was all cordiality and ease;
+at another, all stiffness and frigidity.  Now, she would seem to
+open her whole heart to her unhappy victim; the next time they met,
+she would receive him with the most distant and studious reserve, as
+if a new light had broken in upon her, and, guessing his intentions,
+she had resolved to check them in the bud; as if she felt it her
+bounden duty to act with Spartan firmness, and at once and for ever
+to discourage hopes which never could be realised.  At other times,
+when Nicholas was not there to overhear, and Kate was upstairs
+busily tending her sick friend, the worthy lady would throw out dark
+hints of an intention to send her daughter to France for three or
+four years, or to Scotland for the improvement of her health
+impaired by her late fatigues, or to America on a visit, or anywhere
+that threatened a long and tedious separation.  Nay, she even went
+so far as to hint, obscurely, at an attachment entertained for her
+daughter by the son of an old neighbour of theirs, one Horatio
+Peltirogus (a young gentleman who might have been, at that time,
+four years old, or thereabouts), and to represent it, indeed, as
+almost a settled thing between the families--only waiting for her
+daughter's final decision, to come off with the sanction of the
+church, and to the unspeakable happiness and content of all parties.
+
+It was in the full pride and glory of having sprung this last mine
+one night with extraordinary success, that Mrs Nickleby took the
+opportunity of being left alone with her son before retiring to
+rest, to sound him on the subject which so occupied her thoughts:
+not doubting that they could have but one opinion respecting it.  To
+this end, she approached the question with divers laudatory and
+appropriate remarks touching the general amiability of Mr Frank
+Cheeryble.
+
+'You are quite right, mother,' said Nicholas, 'quite right.  He is a
+fine fellow.'
+
+'Good-looking, too,' said Mrs Nickleby.
+
+'Decidedly good-looking,' answered Nicholas.
+
+'What may you call his nose, now, my dear?' pursued Mrs Nickleby,
+wishing to interest Nicholas in the subject to the utmost.
+
+'Call it?' repeated Nicholas.
+
+'Ah!' returned his mother, 'what style of nose?  What order of
+architecture, if one may say so.  I am not very learned in noses.
+Do you call it a Roman or a Grecian?'
+
+'Upon my word, mother,' said Nicholas, laughing, 'as well as I
+remember, I should call it a kind of Composite, or mixed nose.  But
+I have no very strong recollection on the subject.  If it will
+afford you any gratification, I'll observe it more closely, and let
+you know.'
+
+'I wish you would, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, with an earnest
+look.
+
+'Very well,' returned Nicholas.  'I will.'
+
+Nicholas returned to the perusal of the book he had been reading,
+when the dialogue had gone thus far.  Mrs Nickleby, after stopping a
+little for consideration, resumed.
+
+'He is very much attached to you, Nicholas, my dear.'
+
+Nicholas laughingly said, as he closed his book, that he was glad to
+hear it, and observed that his mother seemed deep in their new
+friend's confidence already.
+
+'Hem!' said Mrs Nickleby.  'I don't know about that, my dear, but I
+think it is very necessary that somebody should be in his
+confidence; highly necessary.'
+
+Elated by a look of curiosity from her son, and the consciousness of
+possessing a great secret, all to herself, Mrs Nickleby went on with
+great animation:
+
+'I am sure, my dear Nicholas, how you can have failed to notice it,
+is, to me, quite extraordinary; though I don't know why I should say
+that, either, because, of course, as far as it goes, and to a
+certain extent, there is a great deal in this sort of thing,
+especially in this early stage, which, however clear it may be to
+females, can scarcely be expected to be so evident to men.  I don't
+say that I have any particular penetration in such matters.  I may
+have; those about me should know best about that, and perhaps do
+know.  Upon that point I shall express no opinion, it wouldn't
+become me to do so, it's quite out of the question, quite.'
+
+Nicholas snuffed the candles, put his hands in his pockets, and,
+leaning back in his chair, assumed a look of patient suffering and
+melancholy resignation.
+
+'I think it my duty, Nicholas, my dear,' resumed his mother, 'to
+tell you what I know: not only because you have a right to know it
+too, and to know everything that happens in this family, but because
+you have it in your power to promote and assist the thing very much;
+and there is no doubt that the sooner one can come to a clear
+understanding on such subjects, it is always better, every way.
+There are a great many things you might do; such as taking a walk in
+the garden sometimes, or sitting upstairs in your own room for a
+little while, or making believe to fall asleep occasionally, or
+pretending that you recollected some business, and going out for an
+hour or so, and taking Mr Smike with you.  These seem very slight
+things, and I dare say you will be amused at my making them of so
+much importance; at the same time, my dear, I can assure you (and
+you'll find this out, Nicholas, for yourself one of these days, if
+you ever fall in love with anybody; as I trust and hope you will,
+provided she is respectable and well conducted, and of course you'd
+never dream of falling in love with anybody who was not), I say, I
+can assure you that a great deal more depends upon these little
+things than you would suppose possible.  If your poor papa was
+alive, he would tell you how much depended on the parties being left
+alone.  Of course, you are not to go out of the room as if you meant
+it and did it on purpose, but as if it was quite an accident, and to
+come back again in the same way.  If you cough in the passage before
+you open the door, or whistle carelessly, or hum a tune, or
+something of that sort, to let them know you're coming, it's always
+better; because, of course, though it's not only natural but
+perfectly correct and proper under the circumstances, still it is
+very confusing if you interrupt young people when they are--when
+they are sitting on the sofa, and--and all that sort of thing: which
+is very nonsensical, perhaps, but still they will do it.'
+
+The profound astonishment with which her son regarded her during
+this long address, gradually increasing as it approached its climax
+in no way discomposed Mrs Nickleby, but rather exalted her opinion
+of her own cleverness; therefore, merely stopping to remark, with
+much complacency, that she had fully expected him to be surprised,
+she entered on a vast quantity of circumstantial evidence of a
+particularly incoherent and perplexing kind; the upshot of which
+was, to establish, beyond the possibility of doubt, that Mr Frank
+Cheeryble had fallen desperately in love with Kate.
+
+'With whom?' cried Nicholas.
+
+Mrs Nickleby repeated, with Kate.
+
+'What!  OUR Kate!  My sister!'
+
+'Lord, Nicholas!' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'whose Kate should it be,
+if not ours; or what should I care about it, or take any interest in
+it for, if it was anybody but your sister?'
+
+'Dear mother,' said Nicholas, 'surely it can't be!'
+
+'Very good, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, with great confidence.
+'Wait and see.'
+
+Nicholas had never, until that moment, bestowed a thought upon the
+remote possibility of such an occurrence as that which was now
+communicated to him; for, besides that he had been much from home of
+late and closely occupied with other matters, his own jealous fears
+had prompted the suspicion that some secret interest in Madeline,
+akin to that which he felt himself, occasioned those visits of Frank
+Cheeryble which had recently become so frequent.  Even now, although
+he knew that the observation of an anxious mother was much more
+likely to be correct in such a case than his own, and although she
+reminded him of many little circumstances which, taken together,
+were certainly susceptible of the construction she triumphantly put
+upon them, he was not quite convinced but that they arose from mere
+good-natured thoughtless gallantry, which would have dictated the
+same conduct towards any other girl who was young and pleasing.  At
+all events, he hoped so, and therefore tried to believe it.
+
+'I am very much disturbed by what you tell me,' said Nicholas, after
+a little reflection, 'though I yet hope you may be mistaken.'
+
+'I don't understand why you should hope so,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I
+confess; but you may depend upon it I am not.'
+
+'What of Kate?' inquired Nicholas.
+
+'Why that, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'is just the point upon
+which I am not yet satisfied.  During this sickness, she has been
+constantly at Madeline's bedside--never were two people so fond of
+each other as they have grown--and to tell you the truth, Nicholas,
+I have rather kept her away now and then, because I think it's a
+good plan, and urges a young man on.  He doesn't get too sure, you
+know.'
+
+She said this with such a mingling of high delight and self-
+congratulation, that it was inexpressibly painful to Nicholas to
+dash her hopes; but he felt that there was only one honourable
+course before him, and that he was bound to take it.
+
+'Dear mother,' he said kindly, 'don't you see that if there were
+really any serious inclination on the part of Mr Frank towards Kate,
+and we suffered ourselves for a moment to encourage it, we should be
+acting a most dishonourable and ungrateful part?  I ask you if you
+don't see it, but I need not say that I know you don't, or you would
+have been more strictly on your guard.  Let me explain my meaning to
+you.  Remember how poor we are.'
+
+Mrs Nickleby shook her head, and said, through her tears, that
+poverty was not a crime.
+
+'No,' said Nicholas, 'and for that reason poverty should engender an
+honest pride, that it may not lead and tempt us to unworthy actions,
+and that we may preserve the self-respect which a hewer of wood and
+drawer of water may maintain, and does better in maintaining than a
+monarch in preserving his.  Think what we owe to these two brothers:
+remember what they have done, and what they do every day for us with
+a generosity and delicacy for which the devotion of our whole lives
+would be a most imperfect and inadequate return.  What kind of
+return would that be which would be comprised in our permitting
+their nephew, their only relative, whom they regard as a son, and
+for whom it would be mere childishness to suppose they have not
+formed plans suitably adapted to the education he has had, and the
+fortune he will inherit--in our permitting him to marry a
+portionless girl: so closely connected with us, that the
+irresistible inference must be, that he was entrapped by a plot;
+that it was a deliberate scheme, and a speculation amongst us three?
+Bring the matter clearly before yourself, mother.  Now, how would
+you feel, if they were married, and the brothers, coming here on one
+of those kind errands which bring them here so often, you had to
+break out to them the truth?  Would you be at ease, and feel that
+you had played an open part?'
+
+Poor Mrs Nickleby, crying more and more, murmured that of course Mr
+Frank would ask the consent of his uncles first.
+
+'Why, to be sure, that would place HIM in a better situation with
+them,' said Nicholas, 'but we should still be open to the same
+suspicions; the distance between us would still be as great; the
+advantages to be gained would still be as manifest as now.  We may
+be reckoning without our host in all this,' he added more
+cheerfully, 'and I trust, and almost believe we are.  If it be
+otherwise, I have that confidence in Kate that I know she will feel
+as I do--and in you, dear mother, to be assured that after a little
+consideration you will do the same.'
+
+After many more representations and entreaties, Nicholas obtained a
+promise from Mrs Nickleby that she would try all she could to think
+as he did; and that if Mr Frank persevered in his attentions she
+would endeavour to discourage them, or, at the least, would render
+him no countenance or assistance.  He determined to forbear
+mentioning the subject to Kate until he was quite convinced that
+there existed a real necessity for his doing so; and resolved to
+assure himself, as well as he could by close personal observation,
+of the exact position of affairs.  This was a very wise resolution,
+but he was prevented from putting it in practice by a new source of
+anxiety and uneasiness.
+
+Smike became alarmingly ill; so reduced and exhausted that he could
+scarcely move from room to room without assistance; and so worn and
+emaciated, that it was painful to look upon him.  Nicholas was
+warned, by the same medical authority to whom he had at first
+appealed, that the last chance and hope of his life depended on his
+being instantly removed from London.  That part of Devonshire in
+which Nicholas had been himself bred was named as the most
+favourable spot; but this advice was cautiously coupled with the
+information, that whoever accompanied him thither must be prepared
+for the worst; for every token of rapid consumption had appeared,
+and he might never return alive.
+
+The kind brothers, who were acquainted with the poor creature's sad
+history, dispatched old Tim to be present at this consultation.
+That same morning, Nicholas was summoned by brother Charles into his
+private room, and thus addressed:
+
+'My dear sir, no time must be lost.  This lad shall not die, if such
+human means as we can use can save his life; neither shall he die
+alone, and in a strange place.  Remove him tomorrow morning, see
+that he has every comfort that his situation requires, and don't
+leave him; don't leave him, my dear sir, until you know that there
+is no longer any immediate danger.  It would be hard, indeed, to
+part you now.  No, no, no!  Tim shall wait upon you tonight, sir; Tim
+shall wait upon you tonight with a parting word or two.  Brother
+Ned, my dear fellow, Mr Nickleby waits to shake hands and say
+goodbye; Mr Nickleby won't be long gone; this poor chap will soon
+get better, very soon get better; and then he'll find out some nice
+homely country-people to leave him with, and will go backwards and
+forwards sometimes--backwards and forwards you know, Ned.  And
+there's no cause to be downhearted, for he'll very soon get better,
+very soon.  Won't he, won't he, Ned?'
+
+What Tim Linkinwater said, or what he brought with him that night,
+needs not to be told.  Next morning Nicholas and his feeble
+companion began their journey.
+
+And who but one--and that one he who, but for those who crowded
+round him then, had never met a look of kindness, or known a word of
+pity--could tell what agony of mind, what blighted thoughts, what
+unavailing sorrow, were involved in that sad parting?
+
+'See,' cried Nicholas eagerly, as he looked from the coach window,
+'they are at the corner of the lane still!  And now there's Kate,
+poor Kate, whom you said you couldn't bear to say goodbye to, waving
+her handkerchief.  Don't go without one gesture of farewell to
+Kate!'
+
+'I cannot make it!' cried his trembling companion, falling back in
+his seat and covering his eyes.  'Do you see her now?  Is she there
+still?'
+
+'Yes, yes!' said Nicholas earnestly.  'There!  She waves her hand
+again!  I have answered it for you--and now they are out of sight.
+Do not give way so bitterly, dear friend, don't.  You will meet them
+all again.'
+
+He whom he thus encouraged, raised his withered hands and clasped
+them fervently together.
+
+'In heaven.  I humbly pray to God in heaven.'
+
+It sounded like the prayer of a broken heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 56
+
+Ralph Nickleby, baffled by his Nephew in his late Design, hatches a
+Scheme of Retaliation which Accident suggests to him, and takes into
+his Counsels a tried Auxiliary
+
+
+The course which these adventures shape out for themselves, and
+imperatively call upon the historian to observe, now demands that
+they should revert to the point they attained previously to the
+commencement of the last chapter, when Ralph Nickleby and Arthur
+Gride were left together in the house where death had so suddenly
+reared his dark and heavy banner.
+
+With clenched hands, and teeth ground together so firm and tight
+that no locking of the jaws could have fixed and riveted them more
+securely, Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the attitude in which he
+had last addressed his nephew: breathing heavily, but as rigid and
+motionless in other respects as if he had been a brazen statue.
+After a time, he began, by slow degrees, as a man rousing himself
+from heavy slumber, to relax.  For a moment he shook his clasped
+fist towards the door by which Nicholas had disappeared; and then
+thrusting it into his breast, as if to repress by force even this
+show of passion, turned round and confronted the less hardy usurer,
+who had not yet risen from the ground.
+
+The cowering wretch, who still shook in every limb, and whose few
+grey hairs trembled and quivered on his head with abject dismay,
+tottered to his feet as he met Ralph's eye, and, shielding his face
+with both hands, protested, while he crept towards the door, that it
+was no fault of his.
+
+'Who said it was, man?' returned Ralph, in a suppressed voice.  'Who
+said it was?'
+
+'You looked as if you thought I was to blame,' said Gride, timidly.
+
+'Pshaw!' Ralph muttered, forcing a laugh.  'I blame him for not
+living an hour longer.  One hour longer would have been long enough.
+I blame no one else.'
+
+'N--n--no one else?' said Gride.
+
+'Not for this mischance,' replied Ralph.  'I have an old score to
+clear with that young fellow who has carried off your mistress;
+but that has nothing to do with his blustering just now, for we
+should soon have been quit of him, but for this cursed accident.'
+
+There was something so unnatural in the calmness with which Ralph
+Nickleby spoke, when coupled with his face, the expression of the
+features, to which every nerve and muscle, as it twitched and
+throbbed with a spasm whose workings no effort could conceal, gave,
+every instant, some new and frightful aspect--there was something so
+unnatural and ghastly in the contrast between his harsh, slow,
+steady voice (only altered by a certain halting of the breath which
+made him pause between almost every word like a drunken man bent
+upon speaking plainly), and these evidences of the most intense and
+violent passion, and the struggle he made to keep them under; that
+if the dead body which lay above had stood, instead of him, before
+the cowering Gride, it could scarcely have presented a spectacle
+which would have terrified him more.
+
+'The coach,' said Ralph after a time, during which he had struggled
+like some strong man against a fit.  'We came in a coach.  Is it
+waiting?'
+
+Gride gladly availed himself of the pretext for going to the window
+to see.  Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other way, tore at his
+shirt with the hand which he had thrust into his breast, and
+muttered in a hoarse whisper:
+
+'Ten thousand pounds!  He said ten thousand!  The precise sum paid
+in but yesterday for the two mortgages, and which would have gone
+out again, at heavy interest, tomorrow.  If that house has failed,
+and he the first to bring the news!--Is the coach there?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said Gride, startled by the fierce tone of the inquiry.
+'It's here.  Dear, dear, what a fiery man you are!'
+
+'Come here,' said Ralph, beckoning to him.  'We mustn't make a show
+of being disturbed.  We'll go down arm in arm.'
+
+'But you pinch me black and blue,' urged Gride.
+
+Ralph let him go impatiently, and descending the stairs with his
+usual firm and heavy tread, got into the coach.  Arthur Gride
+followed.  After looking doubtfully at Ralph when the man asked
+where he was to drive, and finding that he remained silent, and
+expressed no wish upon the subject, Arthur mentioned his own house,
+and thither they proceeded.
+
+On their way, Ralph sat in the furthest corner with folded arms, and
+uttered not a word.  With his chin sunk upon his breast, and his
+downcast eyes quite hidden by the contraction of his knotted brows,
+he might have been asleep for any sign of consciousness he gave
+until the coach stopped, when he raised his head, and glancing
+through the window, inquired what place that was.
+
+'My house,' answered the disconsolate Gride, affected perhaps by its
+loneliness.  'Oh dear! my house.'
+
+'True,' said Ralph 'I have not observed the way we came.  I should
+like a glass of water.  You have that in the house, I suppose?'
+
+'You shall have a glass of--of anything you like,' answered Gride,
+with a groan.  'It's no use knocking, coachman.  Ring the bell!'
+
+The man rang, and rang, and rang again; then, knocked until the
+street re-echoed with the sounds; then, listened at the keyhole of
+the door.  Nobody came.  The house was silent as the grave.
+
+'How's this?' said Ralph impatiently.
+
+'Peg is so very deaf,' answered Gride with a look of anxiety and
+alarm.  'Oh dear!  Ring again, coachman.  She SEES the bell.'
+
+Again the man rang and knocked, and knocked and rang again.  Some of
+the neighbours threw up their windows, and called across the street
+to each other that old Gride's housekeeper must have dropped down
+dead.  Others collected round the coach, and gave vent to various
+surmises; some held that she had fallen asleep; some, that she had
+burnt herself to death; some, that she had got drunk; and one very
+fat man that she had seen something to eat which had frightened her
+so much (not being used to it) that she had fallen into a fit.  This
+last suggestion particularly delighted the bystanders, who cheered
+it rather uproariously, and were, with some difficulty, deterred
+from dropping down the area and breaking open the kitchen door to
+ascertain the fact.  Nor was this all.  Rumours having gone abroad
+that Arthur was to be married that morning, very particular
+inquiries were made after the bride, who was held by the majority to
+be disguised in the person of Mr Ralph Nickleby, which gave rise to
+much jocose indignation at the public appearance of a bride in boots
+and pantaloons, and called forth a great many hoots and groans.  At
+length, the two money-lenders obtained shelter in a house next door,
+and, being accommodated with a ladder, clambered over the wall of
+the back-yard--which was not a high one--and descended in safety on
+the other side.
+
+'I am almost afraid to go in, I declare,' said Arthur, turning to
+Ralph when they were alone.  'Suppose she should be murdered.  Lying
+with her brains knocked out by a poker, eh?'
+
+'Suppose she were,' said Ralph.  'I tell you, I wish such things
+were more common than they are, and more easily done.  You may stare
+and shiver.  I do!'
+
+He applied himself to a pump in the yard; and, having taken a deep
+draught of water and flung a quantity on his head and face, regained
+his accustomed manner and led the way into the house: Gride
+following close at his heels.
+
+It was the same dark place as ever: every room dismal and silent as
+it was wont to be, and every ghostly article of furniture in its
+customary place.  The iron heart of the grim old clock, undisturbed
+by all the noise without, still beat heavily within its dusty case;
+the tottering presses slunk from the sight, as usual, in their
+melancholy corners; the echoes of footsteps returned the same
+dreary sound; the long-legged spider paused in his nimble run,
+and, scared by the sight of men in that his dull domain, hung
+motionless on the wall, counterfeiting death until they should have
+passed him by.
+
+From cellar to garret went the two usurers, opening every creaking
+door and looking into every deserted room.  But no Peg was there.
+At last, they sat them down in the apartment which Arthur Gride
+usually inhabited, to rest after their search.
+
+'The hag is out, on some preparation for your wedding festivities, I
+suppose,' said Ralph, preparing to depart.  'See here! I destroy the
+bond; we shall never need it now.'
+
+Gride, who had been peering narrowly about the room, fell, at that
+moment, upon his knees before a large chest, and uttered a terrible
+yell.
+
+'How now?' said Ralph, looking sternly round.
+
+'Robbed! robbed!' screamed Arthur Gride.
+
+'Robbed! of money?'
+
+'No, no, no.  Worse! far worse!'
+
+'Of what then?' demanded Ralph.
+
+'Worse than money, worse than money!' cried the old man, casting the
+papers out of the chest, like some beast tearing up the earth.  'She
+had better have stolen money--all my money--I haven't much!  She had
+better have made me a beggar than have done this!'
+
+'Done what?' said Ralph.  'Done what, you devil's dotard?'
+
+Still Gride made no answer, but tore and scratched among the papers,
+and yelled and screeched like a fiend in torment.
+
+'There is something missing, you say,' said Ralph, shaking him
+furiously by the collar.  'What is it?'
+
+'Papers, deeds.  I am a ruined man.  Lost, lost!  I am robbed, I am
+ruined!  She saw me reading it--reading it of late--I did very
+often--She watched me, saw me put it in the box that fitted into
+this, the box is gone, she has stolen it.  Damnation seize her, she
+has robbed me!'
+
+'Of WHAT?' cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared to break,
+for his eyes flashed and his frame trembled with agitation as he
+clutched Gride by his bony arm.  'Of what?'
+
+'She don't know what it is; she can't read!' shrieked Gride, not
+heeding the inquiry.  'There's only one way in which money can be
+made of it, and that is by taking it to her.  Somebody will read it
+for her, and tell her what to do.  She and her accomplice will get
+money for it and be let off besides; they'll make a merit of it--say
+they found it--knew it--and be evidence against me.  The only person
+it will fall upon is me, me, me!'
+
+'Patience!' said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeing him
+with a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently to denote
+that he had some hidden purpose in what he was about to say.  'Hear
+reason.  She can't have been gone long.  I'll call the police.  Do
+you but give information of what she has stolen, and they'll lay
+hands upon her, trust me.  Here!  Help!'
+
+'No, no, no!' screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph's
+mouth.  'I can't, I daren't.'
+
+'Help! help!' cried Ralph.
+
+'No, no, no!' shrieked the other, stamping on the ground with the
+energy of a madman.  'I tell you no.  I daren't, I daren't!'
+
+'Daren't make this robbery public?' said Ralph.
+
+'No!' rejoined Gride, wringing his hands.  'Hush! Hush!  Not a word
+of this; not a word must be said.  I am undone.  Whichever way I
+turn, I am undone.  I am betrayed.  I shall be given up.  I shall
+die in Newgate!'
+
+With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in
+which fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-
+stricken wretch gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it
+had softened down into a low despairing moan, chequered now and then
+by a howl, as, going over such papers as were left in the chest, he
+discovered some new loss.  With very little excuse for departing so
+abruptly, Ralph left him, and, greatly disappointing the loiterers
+outside the house by telling them there was nothing the matter, got
+into the coach, and was driven to his own home.
+
+A letter lay on his table.  He let it lie there for some time, as if
+he had not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turned
+deadly pale.
+
+'The worst has happened,' he said; 'the house has failed.  I see.
+The rumour was abroad in the city last night, and reached the ears
+of those merchants.  Well, well!'
+
+He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again.
+
+'Ten thousand pounds!  And only lying there for a day--for one day!
+How many anxious years, how many pinching days and sleepless nights,
+before I scraped together that ten thousand pounds!--Ten thousand
+pounds!  How many proud painted dames would have fawned and smiled,
+and how many spendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face
+and cursed me in their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand
+pounds into twenty!  While I ground, and pinched, and used these
+needy borrowers for my pleasure and profit, what smooth-tongued
+speeches, and courteous looks, and civil letters, they would have
+given me!  The cant of the lying world is, that men like me compass
+our riches by dissimulation and treachery: by fawning, cringing, and
+stooping.  Why, how many lies, what mean and abject evasions, what
+humbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my money, would spurn
+me aside as they do their betters every day, would that ten thousand
+pounds have brought me in!  Grant that I had doubled it--made cent.
+per cent.--for every sovereign told another--there would not be one
+piece of money in all the heap which wouldn't represent ten thousand
+mean and paltry lies, told, not by the money-lender, oh no! but by
+the money-borrowers, your liberal, thoughtless, generous, dashing
+folks, who wouldn't be so mean as save a sixpence for the world!'
+
+Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of his
+regrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continued
+to pace the room.  There was less and less of resolution in his
+manner as his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length,
+dropping into his elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly that
+they creaked again, he said:
+
+'The time has been when nothing could have moved me like the loss of
+this great sum.  Nothing.  For births, deaths, marriages, and all the
+events which are of interest to most men, have (unless they are
+connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me.  But now,
+I swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it.  If he
+had brought it about,--I almost feel as if he had,--I couldn't hate
+him more.  Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow--
+let me but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the
+scale--and I can bear it.'
+
+His meditations were long and deep.  They terminated in his
+dispatching a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr Squeers at the
+Saracen's Head, with instructions to inquire whether he had arrived
+in town, and, if so, to wait an answer.  Newman brought back the
+information that Mr Squeers had come by mail that morning, and had
+received the letter in bed; but that he sent his duty, and word that
+he would get up and wait upon Mr Nickleby directly.
+
+The interval between the delivery of this message, and the arrival
+of Mr Squeers, was very short; but, before he came, Ralph had
+suppressed every sign of emotion, and once more regained the hard,
+immovable, inflexible manner which was habitual to him, and to
+which, perhaps, was ascribable no small part of the influence which,
+over many men of no very strong prejudices on the score of morality,
+he could exert, almost at will.
+
+'Well, Mr Squeers,' he said, welcoming that worthy with his
+accustomed smile, of which a sharp look and a thoughtful frown were
+part and parcel: 'how do YOU do?'
+
+'Why, sir,' said Mr Squeers, 'I'm pretty well.  So's the family, and
+so's the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the
+school, and rather puts 'em off their feed.  But it's a ill wind as
+blows no good to nobody; that's what I always say when them lads has
+a wisitation.  A wisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality.
+Mortality itself, sir, is a wisitation.  The world is chock full of
+wisitations; and if a boy repines at a wisitation and makes you
+uncomfortable with his noise, he must have his head punched.  That's
+going according to the Scripter, that is.'
+
+'Mr Squeers,' said Ralph, drily.
+
+'Sir.'
+
+'We'll avoid these precious morsels of morality if you please, and
+talk of business.'
+
+'With all my heart, sir,' rejoined Squeers, 'and first let me say--'
+
+'First let ME say, if you please.--Noggs!'
+
+Newman presented himself when the summons had been twice or thrice
+repeated, and asked if his master called.
+
+'I did.  Go to your dinner.  And go at once.  Do you hear?'
+
+'It an't time,' said Newman, doggedly.
+
+'My time is yours, and I say it is,' returned Ralph.
+
+'You alter it every day,' said Newman.  'It isn't fair.'
+
+'You don't keep many cooks, and can easily apologise to them for the
+trouble,' retorted Ralph.  'Begone, sir!'
+
+Ralph not only issued this order in his most peremptory manner, but,
+under pretence of fetching some papers from the little office, saw
+it obeyed, and, when Newman had left the house, chained the door, to
+prevent the possibility of his returning secretly, by means of his
+latch-key.
+
+'I have reason to suspect that fellow,' said Ralph, when he returned
+to his own office.  'Therefore, until I have thought of the shortest
+and least troublesome way of ruining him, I hold it best to keep him
+at a distance.'
+
+'It wouldn't take much to ruin him, I should think,' said Squeers,
+with a grin.
+
+'Perhaps not,' answered Ralph.  'Nor to ruin a great many people
+whom I know.  You were going to say--?'
+
+Ralph's summary and matter-of-course way of holding up this example,
+and throwing out the hint that followed it, had evidently an effect
+(as doubtless it was designed to have) upon Mr Squeers, who said,
+after a little hesitation and in a much more subdued tone:
+
+'Why, what I was a-going to say, sir, is, that this here business
+regarding of that ungrateful and hard-hearted chap, Snawley senior,
+puts me out of my way, and occasions a inconveniency quite
+unparalleled, besides, as I may say, making, for whole weeks
+together, Mrs Squeers a perfect widder.  It's a pleasure to me to
+act with you, of course.'
+
+'Of course,' said Ralph, drily.
+
+'Yes, I say of course,' resumed Mr Squeers, rubbing his knees, 'but
+at the same time, when one comes, as I do now, better than two
+hundred and fifty mile to take a afferdavid, it does put a man out a
+good deal, letting alone the risk.'
+
+'And where may the risk be, Mr Squeers?' said Ralph.
+
+'I said, letting alone the risk,' replied Squeers, evasively.
+
+'And I said, where was the risk?'
+
+'I wasn't complaining, you know, Mr Nickleby,' pleaded Squeers.
+'Upon my word I never see such a--'
+
+'I ask you where is the risk?' repeated Ralph, emphatically.
+
+'Where the risk?' returned Squeers, rubbing his knees still harder.
+'Why, it an't necessary to mention.  Certain subjects is best
+awoided.  Oh, you know what risk I mean.'
+
+'How often have I told you,' said Ralph, 'and how often am I to tell
+you, that you run no risk?  What have you sworn, or what are you
+asked to swear, but that at such and such a time a boy was left with
+you in the name of Smike; that he was at your school for a given
+number of years, was lost under such and such circumstances, is now
+found, and has been identified by you in such and such keeping?
+This is all true; is it not?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Squeers, 'that's all true.'
+
+'Well, then,' said Ralph, 'what risk do you run?  Who swears to a
+lie but Snawley; a man whom I have paid much less than I have you?'
+
+'He certainly did it cheap, did Snawley,' observed Squeers.
+
+'He did it cheap!' retorted Ralph, testily; 'yes, and he did it
+well, and carries it off with a hypocritical face and a sanctified
+air, but you!  Risk!  What do you mean by risk?  The certificates are
+all genuine, Snawley HAD another son, he HAS been married twice, his
+first wife IS dead, none but her ghost could tell that she didn't
+write that letter, none but Snawley himself can tell that this is
+not his son, and that his son is food for worms!  The only perjury
+is Snawley's, and I fancy he is pretty well used to it.  Where's
+your risk?'
+
+'Why, you know,' said Squeers, fidgeting in his chair, 'if you come
+to that, I might say where's yours?'
+
+'You might say where's mine!' returned Ralph; 'you may say where's
+mine.  I don't appear in the business, neither do you.  All
+Snawley's interest is to stick well to the story he has told; and
+all his risk is, to depart from it in the least.  Talk of YOUR risk
+in the conspiracy!'
+
+'I say,' remonstrated Squeers, looking uneasily round: 'don't call
+it that!  Just as a favour, don't.'
+
+'Call it what you like,' said Ralph, irritably, 'but attend to me.
+This tale was originally fabricated as a means of annoyance against
+one who hurt your trade and half cudgelled you to death, and to
+enable you to obtain repossession of a half-dead drudge, whom you
+wished to regain, because, while you wreaked your vengeance on him
+for his share in the business, you knew that the knowledge that he
+was again in your power would be the best punishment you could
+inflict upon your enemy.  Is that so, Mr Squeers?'
+
+'Why, sir,' returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the
+determination which Ralph displayed to make everything tell against
+him, and by his stern unyielding manner, 'in a measure it was.'
+
+'What does that mean?' said Ralph.
+
+'Why, in a measure means," returned Squeers, 'as it may be, that it
+wasn't all on my account, because you had some old grudge to
+satisfy, too.'
+
+'If I had not had,' said Ralph, in no way abashed by the reminder,
+'do you think I should have helped you?'
+
+'Why no, I don't suppose you would,' Squeers replied.  'I only
+wanted that point to be all square and straight between us.'
+
+'How can it ever be otherwise?' retorted Ralph.  'Except that the
+account is against me, for I spend money to gratify my hatred, and
+you pocket it, and gratify yours at the same time.  You are, at
+least, as avaricious as you are revengeful.  So am I.  Which is best
+off?  You, who win money and revenge, at the same time and by the
+same process, and who are, at all events, sure of money, if not of
+revenge; or I, who am only sure of spending money in any case, and
+can but win bare revenge at last?'
+
+As Mr Squeers could only answer this proposition by shrugs and
+smiles, Ralph bade him be silent, and thankful that he was so well
+off; and then, fixing his eyes steadily upon him, proceeded to say:
+
+First, that Nicholas had thwarted him in a plan he had formed for
+the disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, and had, in the
+confusion attendant on her father's sudden death, secured that lady
+himself, and borne her off in triumph.
+
+Secondly, that by some will or settlement--certainly by some
+instrument in writing, which must contain the young lady's name, and
+could be, therefore, easily selected from others, if access to the
+place where it was deposited were once secured--she was entitled to
+property which, if the existence of this deed ever became known to
+her, would make her husband (and Ralph represented that Nicholas was
+certain to marry her) a rich and prosperous man, and most formidable
+enemy.
+
+Thirdly, that this deed had been, with others, stolen from one who
+had himself obtained or concealed it fraudulently, and who feared to
+take any steps for its recovery; and that he (Ralph) knew the thief.
+
+To all this Mr Squeers listened, with greedy ears that devoured
+every syllable, and with his one eye and his mouth wide open:
+marvelling for what special reason he was honoured with so much of
+Ralph's confidence, and to what it all tended.
+
+'Now,' said Ralph, leaning forward, and placing his hand on
+Squeers's arm, 'hear the design which I have conceived, and which I
+must--I say, must, if I can ripen it--have carried into execution.
+No advantage can be reaped from this deed, whatever it is, save by
+the girl herself, or her husband; and the possession of this deed by
+one or other of them is indispensable to any advantage being gained.
+THAT I have discovered beyond the possibility of doubt.  I want that
+deed brought here, that I may give the man who brings it fifty
+pounds in gold, and burn it to ashes before his face.'
+
+Mr Squeers, after following with his eye the action of Ralph's hand
+towards the fire-place as if he were at that moment consuming the
+paper, drew a long breath, and said:
+
+'Yes; but who's to bring it?'
+
+'Nobody, perhaps, for much is to be done before it can be got at,'
+said Ralph.  'But if anybody--you!'
+
+Mr Squeers's first tokens of consternation, and his flat
+relinquishment of the task, would have staggered most men, if they
+had not immediately occasioned an utter abandonment of the
+proposition.  On Ralph they produced not the slightest effect.
+Resuming, when the schoolmaster had quite talked himself out of
+breath, as coolly as if he had never been interrupted, Ralph
+proceeded to expatiate on such features of the case as he deemed it
+most advisable to lay the greatest stress on.
+
+These were, the age, decrepitude, and weakness of Mrs Sliderskew;
+the great improbability of her having any accomplice or even
+acquaintance: taking into account her secluded habits, and her long
+residence in such a house as Gride's; the strong reason there was to
+suppose that the robbery was not the result of a concerted plan:
+otherwise she would have watched an opportunity of carrying off a
+sum of money; the difficulty she would be placed in when she began
+to think on what she had done, and found herself encumbered with
+documents of whose nature she was utterly ignorant; and the
+comparative ease with which somebody, with a full knowledge of her
+position, obtaining access to her, and working on her fears, if
+necessary, might worm himself into her confidence and obtain, under
+one pretence or another, free possession of the deed.  To these were
+added such considerations as the constant residence of Mr Squeers at
+a long distance from London, which rendered his association with Mrs
+Sliderskew a mere masquerading frolic, in which nobody was likely to
+recognise him, either at the time or afterwards; the impossibility
+of Ralph's undertaking the task himself, he being already known to
+her by sight; and various comments on the uncommon tact and
+experience of Mr Squeers: which would make his overreaching one old
+woman a mere matter of child's play and amusement.  In addition to
+these influences and persuasions, Ralph drew, with his utmost skill
+and power, a vivid picture of the defeat which Nicholas would
+sustain, should they succeed, in linking himself to a beggar, where
+he expected to wed an heiress--glanced at the immeasurable
+importance it must be to a man situated as Squeers, to preserve such
+a friend as himself--dwelt on a long train of benefits, conferred
+since their first acquaintance, when he had reported favourably of
+his treatment of a sickly boy who had died under his hands (and
+whose death was very convenient to Ralph and his clients, but this
+he did NOT say), and finally hinted that the fifty pounds might be
+increased to seventy-five, or, in the event of very great success,
+even to a hundred.
+
+These arguments at length concluded, Mr Squeers crossed his legs,
+uncrossed them, scratched his head, rubbed his eye, examined the
+palms of his hands, and bit his nails, and after exhibiting many
+other signs of restlessness and indecision, asked 'whether one
+hundred pound was the highest that Mr Nickleby could go.'  Being
+answered in the affirmative, he became restless again, and, after
+some thought, and an unsuccessful inquiry 'whether he couldn't go
+another fifty,' said he supposed he must try and do the most he
+could for a friend: which was always his maxim, and therefore he
+undertook the job.
+
+'But how are you to get at the woman?' he said; 'that's what it is
+as puzzles me.'
+
+'I may not get at her at all,' replied Ralph, 'but I'll try.  I have
+hunted people in this city, before now, who have been better hid
+than she; and I know quarters in which a guinea or two, carefully
+spent, will often solve darker riddles than this.  Ay, and keep them
+close too, if need be!  I hear my man ringing at the door.  We may
+as well part.  You had better not come to and fro, but wait till you
+hear from me.'
+
+'Good!' returned Squeers.  'I say!  If you shouldn't find her out,
+you'll pay expenses at the Saracen, and something for loss of time?'
+
+'Well,' said Ralph, testily; 'yes!  You have nothing more to say?'
+
+Squeers shaking his head, Ralph accompanied him to the streetdoor,
+and audibly wondering, for the edification of Newman, why it was
+fastened as if it were night, let him in and Squeers out, and
+returned to his own room.
+
+'Now!' he muttered, 'come what come may, for the present I am firm
+and unshaken.  Let me but retrieve this one small portion of my loss
+and disgrace; let me but defeat him in this one hope, dear to his
+heart as I know it must be; let me but do this; and it shall be the
+first link in such a chain which I will wind about him, as never
+man forged yet.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 57
+
+How Ralph Nickleby's Auxiliary went about his Work, and how he
+prospered with it
+
+
+It was a dark, wet, gloomy night in autumn, when in an upper room of
+a mean house situated in an obscure street, or rather court, near
+Lambeth, there sat, all alone, a one-eyed man grotesquely habited,
+either for lack of better garments or for purposes of disguise, in a
+loose greatcoat, with arms half as long again as his own, and a
+capacity of breadth and length which would have admitted of his
+winding himself in it, head and all, with the utmost ease, and
+without any risk of straining the old and greasy material of which
+it was composed.
+
+So attired, and in a place so far removed from his usual haunts and
+occupations, and so very poor and wretched in its character, perhaps
+Mrs Squeers herself would have had some difficulty in recognising
+her lord: quickened though her natural sagacity doubtless would have
+been by the affectionate yearnings and impulses of a tender wife.
+But Mrs Squeers's lord it was; and in a tolerably disconsolate mood
+Mrs Squeers's lord appeared to be, as, helping himself from a black
+bottle which stood on the table beside him, he cast round the
+chamber a look, in which very slight regard for the objects within
+view was plainly mingled with some regretful and impatient
+recollection of distant scenes and persons.
+
+There were, certainly, no particular attractions, either in the room
+over which the glance of Mr Squeers so discontentedly wandered, or
+in the narrow street into which it might have penetrated, if he had
+thought fit to approach the window.  The attic chamber in which he
+sat was bare and mean; the bedstead, and such few other articles of
+necessary furniture as it contained, were of the commonest
+description, in a most crazy state, and of a most uninviting
+appearance.  The street was muddy, dirty, and deserted.  Having but
+one outlet, it was traversed by few but the inhabitants at any time;
+and the night being one of those on which most people are glad to be
+within doors, it now presented no other signs of life than the dull
+glimmering of poor candles from the dirty windows, and few sounds
+but the pattering of the rain, and occasionally the heavy closing of
+some creaking door.
+
+Mr Squeers continued to look disconsolately about him, and to listen
+to these noises in profound silence, broken only by the rustling of
+his large coat, as he now and then moved his arm to raise his glass
+to his lips.  Mr Squeers continued to do this for some time, until
+the increasing gloom warned him to snuff the candle.  Seeming to be
+slightly roused by this exertion, he raised his eye to the ceiling,
+and fixing it upon some uncouth and fantastic figures, traced upon
+it by the wet and damp which had penetrated through the roof, broke
+into the following soliloquy:
+
+'Well, this is a pretty go, is this here!  An uncommon pretty go!
+Here have I been, a matter of how many weeks--hard upon six--a
+follering up this here blessed old dowager petty larcenerer,'--Mr
+Squeers delivered himself of this epithet with great difficulty and
+effort,--'and Dotheboys Hall a-running itself regularly to seed the
+while!  That's the worst of ever being in with a owdacious chap like
+that old Nickleby.  You never know when he's done with you, and if
+you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.'
+
+This remark, perhaps, reminded Mr Squeers that he was in for a
+hundred pound at any rate.  His countenance relaxed, and he raised
+his glass to his mouth with an air of greater enjoyment of its
+contents than he had before evinced.
+
+'I never see,' soliloquised Mr Squeers in continuation, 'I never see
+nor come across such a file as that old Nickleby.  Never!  He's out
+of everybody's depth, he is.  He's what you may call a rasper, is
+Nickleby.  To see how sly and cunning he grubbed on, day after day,
+a-worming and plodding and tracing and turning and twining of
+hisself about, till he found out where this precious Mrs Peg was
+hid, and cleared the ground for me to work upon.  Creeping and
+crawling and gliding, like a ugly, old, bright-eyed, stagnation-
+blooded adder!  Ah!  He'd have made a good 'un in our line, but it
+would have been too limited for him; his genius would have busted
+all bonds, and coming over every obstacle, broke down all before it,
+till it erected itself into a monneyment of--Well, I'll think of the
+rest, and say it when conwenient.'
+
+Making a halt in his reflections at this place, Mr Squeers again put
+his glass to his lips, and drawing a dirty letter from his pocket,
+proceeded to con over its contents with the air of a man who had
+read it very often, and now refreshed his memory rather in the
+absence of better amusement than for any specific information.
+
+'The pigs is well,' said Mr Squeers, 'the cows is well, and the boys
+is bobbish.  Young Sprouter has been a-winking, has he?  I'll wink
+him when I get back.  "Cobbey would persist in sniffing while he was
+a-eating his dinner, and said that the beef was so strong it made
+him."--Very good, Cobbey, we'll see if we can't make you sniff a
+little without beef.  "Pitcher was took with another fever,"--of
+course he was--"and being fetched by his friends, died the day after
+he got home,"--of course he did, and out of aggravation; it's part
+of a deep-laid system.  There an't another chap in the school but
+that boy as would have died exactly at the end of the quarter:
+taking it out of me to the very last, and then carrying his spite to
+the utmost extremity.  "The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was
+in Heaven."  I really don't know, I do NOT know what's to be done
+with that young fellow; he's always a-wishing something horrid.  He
+said once, he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn't have
+a father as didn't love him!  Pretty wicious that for a child of
+six!'
+
+Mr Squeers was so much moved by the contemplation of this hardened
+nature in one so young, that he angrily put up the letter, and
+sought, in a new train of ideas, a subject of consolation.
+
+'It's a long time to have been a-lingering in London,' he said; 'and
+this is a precious hole to come and live in, even if it has been
+only for a week or so.  Still, one hundred pound is five boys, and
+five boys takes a whole year to pay one hundred pounds, and there's
+their keep to be substracted, besides.  There's nothing lost,
+neither, by one's being here; because the boys' money comes in just
+the same as if I was at home, and Mrs Squeers she keeps them in
+order.  There'll be some lost time to make up, of course.  There'll
+be an arrear of flogging as'll have to be gone through: still, a
+couple of days makes that all right, and one don't mind a little
+extra work for one hundred pound.  It's pretty nigh the time to wait
+upon the old woman.  From what she said last night, I suspect that
+if I'm to succeed at all, I shall succeed tonight; so I'll have half
+a glass more, to wish myself success, and put myself in spirits.
+Mrs Squeers, my dear, your health!'
+
+Leering with his one eye as if the lady to whom he drank had been
+actually present, Mr Squeers--in his enthusiasm, no doubt--poured
+out a full glass, and emptied it; and as the liquor was raw spirits,
+and he had applied himself to the same bottle more than once
+already, it is not surprising that he found himself, by this time,
+in an extremely cheerful state, and quite enough excited for his
+purpose.
+
+What this purpose was soon appeared; for, after a few turns about
+the room to steady himself, he took the bottle under his arm and the
+glass in his hand, and blowing out the candle as if he purposed
+being gone some time, stole out upon the staircase, and creeping
+softly to a door opposite his own, tapped gently at it.
+
+'But what's the use of tapping?' he said, 'She'll never hear.  I
+suppose she isn't doing anything very particular; and if she is, it
+don't much matter, that I see.'
+
+With this brief preface, Mr Squeers applied his hand to the latch of
+the door, and thrusting his head into a garret far more deplorable
+than that he had just left, and seeing that there was nobody there
+but an old woman, who was bending over a wretched fire (for although
+the weather was still warm, the evening was chilly), walked in, and
+tapped her on the shoulder.
+
+'Well, my Slider,' said Mr Squeers, jocularly.
+
+'Is that you?' inquired Peg.
+
+'Ah! it's me, and me's the first person singular, nominative case,
+agreeing with the verb "it's", and governed by Squeers understood,
+as a acorn, a hour; but when the h is sounded, the a only is to be
+used, as a and, a art, a ighway,' replied Mr Squeers, quoting at
+random from the grammar.  'At least, if it isn't, you don't know any
+better, and if it is, I've done it accidentally.'
+
+Delivering this reply in his accustomed tone of voice, in which of
+course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr Squeers drew a stool to the fire,
+and placing himself over against her, and the bottle and glass on
+the floor between them, roared out again, very loud,
+
+'Well, my Slider!'
+
+'I hear you,' said Peg, receiving him very graciously.
+
+'I've come according to promise,' roared Squeers.
+
+'So they used to say in that part of the country I come from,'
+observed Peg, complacently, 'but I think oil's better.'
+
+'Better than what?' roared Squeers, adding some rather strong
+language in an undertone.
+
+'No,' said Peg, 'of course not.'
+
+'I never saw such a monster as you are!' muttered Squeers, looking
+as amiable as he possibly could the while; for Peg's eye was upon
+him, and she was chuckling fearfully, as though in delight at having
+made a choice repartee, 'Do you see this?  This is a bottle.'
+
+'I see it,' answered Peg.
+
+'Well, and do you see THIS?' bawled Squeers.  'This is a glass.' Peg
+saw that too.
+
+'See here, then,' said Squeers, accompanying his remarks with
+appropriate action, 'I fill the glass from the bottle, and I say
+"Your health, Slider," and empty it; then I rinse it genteelly with
+a little drop, which I'm forced to throw into the fire--hallo! we
+shall have the chimbley alight next--fill it again, and hand it over
+to you.'
+
+'YOUR health,' said Peg.
+
+'She understands that, anyways,' muttered Squeers, watching Mrs
+Sliderskew as she dispatched her portion, and choked and gasped in a
+most awful manner after so doing.  'Now then, let's have a talk.
+How's the rheumatics?'
+
+Mrs Sliderskew, with much blinking and chuckling, and with looks
+expressive of her strong admiration of Mr Squeers, his person,
+manners, and conversation, replied that the rheumatics were better.
+
+'What's the reason,' said Mr Squeers, deriving fresh facetiousness
+from the bottle; 'what's the reason of rheumatics?  What do they
+mean?  What do people have'em for--eh?'
+
+Mrs Sliderskew didn't know, but suggested that it was possibly
+because they couldn't help it.
+
+'Measles, rheumatics, hooping-cough, fevers, agers, and lumbagers,'
+said Mr Squeers, 'is all philosophy together; that's what it is.
+The heavenly bodies is philosophy, and the earthly bodies is
+philosophy.  If there's a screw loose in a heavenly body, that's
+philosophy; and if there's screw loose in a earthly body, that's
+philosophy too; or it may be that sometimes there's a little
+metaphysics in it, but that's not often.  Philosophy's the chap for
+me.  If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, or
+mathematical line, says I, gravely, "Why, sir, in the first place,
+are you a philosopher?"--"No, Mr Squeers," he says, "I an't."  "Then,
+sir," says I, "I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able to explain
+it."  Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was a
+philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one.'
+
+Saying this, and a great deal more, with tipsy profundity and a
+serio-comic air, and keeping his eye all the time on Mrs Sliderskew,
+who was unable to hear one word, Mr Squeers concluded by helping
+himself and passing the bottle: to which Peg did becoming reverence.
+
+'That's the time of day!' said Mr Squeers.  'You look twenty pound
+ten better than you did.'
+
+Again Mrs Sliderskew chuckled, but modesty forbade her assenting
+verbally to the compliment.
+
+'Twenty pound ten better,' repeated Mr Squeers, 'than you did that
+day when I first introduced myself.  Don't you know?'
+
+'Ah!' said Peg, shaking her head, 'but you frightened me that day.'
+
+'Did I?' said Squeers; 'well, it was rather a startling thing for a
+stranger to come and recommend himself by saying that he knew all
+about you, and what your name was, and why you were living so quiet
+here, and what you had boned, and who you boned it from, wasn't it?'
+
+Peg nodded her head in strong assent.
+
+'But I know everything that happens in that way, you see,' continued
+Squeers.  'Nothing takes place, of that kind, that I an't up to
+entirely.  I'm a sort of a lawyer, Slider, of first-rate standing,
+and understanding too; I'm the intimate friend and confidential
+adwiser of pretty nigh every man, woman, and child that gets
+themselves into difficulties by being too nimble with their fingers,
+I'm--'
+
+Mr Squeers's catalogue of his own merits and accomplishments, which
+was partly the result of a concerted plan between himself and Ralph
+Nickleby, and flowed, in part, from the black bottle, was here
+interrupted by Mrs Sliderskew.
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' she cried, folding her arms and wagging her head; 'and
+so he wasn't married after all, wasn't he.  Not married after all?'
+
+'No,' replied Squeers, 'that he wasn't!'
+
+'And a young lover come and carried off the bride, eh?' said Peg.
+
+'From under his very nose,' replied Squeers; 'and I'm told the young
+chap cut up rough besides, and broke the winders, and forced him to
+swaller his wedding favour which nearly choked him.'
+
+'Tell me all about it again,' cried Peg, with a malicious relish of
+her old master's defeat, which made her natural hideousness
+something quite fearful; 'let's hear it all again, beginning at the
+beginning now, as if you'd never told me.  Let's have it every word
+--now--now--beginning at the very first, you know, when he went to
+the house that morning!'
+
+Mr Squeers, plying Mrs Sliderskew freely with the liquor, and
+sustaining himself under the exertion of speaking so loud by
+frequent applications to it himself, complied with this request by
+describing the discomfiture of Arthur Gride, with such improvements
+on the truth as happened to occur to him, and the ingenious
+invention and application of which had been very instrumental in
+recommending him to her notice in the beginning of their
+acquaintance.  Mrs Sliderskew was in an ecstasy of delight, rolling
+her head about, drawing up her skinny shoulders, and wrinkling her
+cadaverous face into so many and such complicated forms of ugliness,
+as awakened the unbounded astonishment and disgust even of Mr
+Squeers.
+
+'He's a treacherous old goat,' said Peg, 'and cozened me with
+cunning tricks and lying promises, but never mind.  I'm even with
+him.  I'm even with him.'
+
+'More than even, Slider,' returned Squeers; 'you'd have been even
+with him if he'd got married; but with the disappointment besides,
+you're a long way ahead.  Out of sight, Slider, quite out of sight.
+And that reminds me,' he added, handing her the glass, 'if you want
+me to give you my opinion of them deeds, and tell you what you'd
+better keep and what you'd better burn, why, now's your time,
+Slider.'
+
+'There an't no hurry for that,' said Peg, with several knowing looks
+and winks.
+
+'Oh! very well!' observed Squeers, 'it don't matter to me; you asked
+me, you know.  I shouldn't charge you nothing, being a friend.
+You're the best judge of course.  But you're a bold woman, Slider.'
+
+'How do you mean, bold?' said Peg.
+
+'Why, I only mean that if it was me, I wouldn't keep papers as might
+hang me, littering about when they might be turned into money--them
+as wasn't useful made away with, and them as was, laid by
+somewheres, safe; that's all,' returned Squeers; 'but everybody's
+the best judge of their own affairs.  All I say is, Slider, I
+wouldn't do it.'
+
+'Come,' said Peg, 'then you shall see 'em.'
+
+'I don't want to see 'em,' replied Squeers, affecting to be out of
+humour; 'don't talk as if it was a treat.  Show 'em to somebody
+else, and take their advice.'
+
+Mr Squeers would, very likely, have carried on the farce of being
+offended a little longer, if Mrs Sliderskew, in her anxiety to
+restore herself to her former high position in his good graces, had
+not become so extremely affectionate that he stood at some risk of
+being smothered by her caresses.  Repressing, with as good a grace
+as possible, these little familiarities--for which, there is reason
+to believe, the black bottle was at least as much to blame as any
+constitutional infirmity on the part of Mrs Sliderskew--he protested
+that he had only been joking: and, in proof of his unimpaired good-
+humour, that he was ready to examine the deeds at once, if, by so
+doing, he could afford any satisfaction or relief of mind to his
+fair friend.
+
+'And now you're up, my Slider,' bawled Squeers, as she rose to fetch
+them, 'bolt the door.'
+
+Peg trotted to the door, and after fumbling at the bolt, crept to
+the other end of the room, and from beneath the coals which filled
+the bottom of the cupboard, drew forth a small deal box.  Having
+placed this on the floor at Squeers's feet, she brought, from under
+the pillow of her bed, a small key, with which she signed to that
+gentleman to open it.  Mr Squeers, who had eagerly followed her
+every motion, lost no time in obeying this hint: and, throwing back
+the lid, gazed with rapture on the documents which lay within.
+
+'Now you see,' said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside him, and
+staying his impatient hand; 'what's of no use we'll burn; what we
+can get any money by, we'll keep; and if there's any we could get
+him into trouble by, and fret and waste away his heart to shreds,
+those we'll take particular care of; for that's what I want to do,
+and what I hoped to do when I left him.'
+
+'I thought,' said Squeers, 'that you didn't bear him any particular
+good-will.  But, I say, why didn't you take some money besides?'
+
+'Some what?' asked Peg.
+
+'Some money,' roared Squeers.  'I do believe the woman hears me, and
+wants to make me break a wessel, so that she may have the pleasure
+of nursing me.  Some money, Slider, money!'
+
+'Why, what a man you are to ask!' cried Peg, with some contempt.
+'If I had taken money from Arthur Gride, he'd have scoured the whole
+earth to find me--aye, and he'd have smelt it out, and raked it up,
+somehow, if I had buried it at the bottom of the deepest well in
+England.  No, no! I knew better than that.  I took what I thought
+his secrets were hid in: and them he couldn't afford to make public,
+let'em be worth ever so much money.  He's an old dog; a sly, old,
+cunning, thankless dog!  He first starved, and then tricked me; and
+if I could I'd kill him.'
+
+'All right, and very laudable,' said Squeers.  'But, first and
+foremost, Slider, burn the box.  You should never keep things as may
+lead to discovery.  Always mind that.  So while you pull it to pieces
+(which you can easily do, for it's very old and rickety) and burn it
+in little bits, I'll look over the papers and tell you what they
+are.'
+
+Peg, expressing her acquiescence in this arrangement, Mr Squeers
+turned the box bottom upwards, and tumbling the contents upon the
+floor, handed it to her; the destruction of the box being an
+extemporary device for engaging her attention, in case it should
+prove desirable to distract it from his own proceedings.
+
+'There!' said Squeers; 'you poke the pieces between the bars, and
+make up a good fire, and I'll read the while.  Let me see, let me
+see.'  And taking the candle down beside him, Mr Squeers, with great
+eagerness and a cunning grin overspreading his face, entered upon
+his task of examination.
+
+If the old woman had not been very deaf, she must have heard, when
+she last went to the door, the breathing of two persons close behind
+it: and if those two persons had been unacquainted with her
+infirmity, they must probably have chosen that moment either for
+presenting themselves or taking to flight.  But, knowing with whom
+they had to deal, they remained quite still, and now, not only
+appeared unobserved at the door--which was not bolted, for the bolt
+had no hasp--but warily, and with noiseless footsteps, advanced into
+the room.
+
+As they stole farther and farther in by slight and scarcely
+perceptible degrees, and with such caution that they scarcely seemed
+to breathe, the old hag and Squeers little dreaming of any such
+invasion, and utterly unconscious of there being any soul near but
+themselves, were busily occupied with their tasks.  The old woman,
+with her wrinkled face close to the bars of the stove, puffing at
+the dull embers which had not yet caught the wood; Squeers stooping
+down to the candle, which brought out the full ugliness of his face,
+as the light of the fire did that of his companion; both intently
+engaged, and wearing faces of exultation which contrasted strongly
+with the anxious looks of those behind, who took advantage of the
+slightest sound to cover their advance, and, almost before they had
+moved an inch, and all was silent, stopped again.  This, with the
+large bare room, damp walls, and flickering doubtful light, combined
+to form a scene which the most careless and indifferent spectator
+(could any have been present) could scarcely have failed to derive
+some interest from, and would not readily have forgotten.
+
+Of the stealthy comers, Frank Cheeryble was one, and Newman Noggs
+the other.  Newman had caught up, by the rusty nozzle, an old pair
+of bellows, which were just undergoing a flourish in the air
+preparatory to a descent upon the head of Mr Squeers, when Frank,
+with an earnest gesture, stayed his arm, and, taking another step in
+advance, came so close behind the schoolmaster that, by leaning
+slightly forward, he could plainly distinguish the writing which he
+held up to his eye.
+
+Mr Squeers, not being remarkably erudite, appeared to be
+considerably puzzled by this first prize, which was in an engrossing
+hand, and not very legible except to a practised eye.  Having tried
+it by reading from left to right, and from right to left, and
+finding it equally clear both ways, he turned it upside down with no
+better success.
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' chuckled Peg, who, on her knees before the fire, was
+feeding it with fragments of the box, and grinning in most devilish
+exultation.  'What's that writing about, eh?'
+
+'Nothing particular,' replied Squeers, tossing it towards her.
+'It's only an old lease, as well as I can make out.  Throw it in the
+fire.'
+
+Mrs Sliderskew complied, and inquired what the next one was.
+
+'This,' said Squeers, 'is a bundle of overdue acceptances and
+renewed bills of six or eight young gentlemen, but they're all MPs,
+so it's of no use to anybody.  Throw it in the fire!'  Peg did as she
+was bidden, and waited for the next.
+
+'This,' said Squeers, 'seems to be some deed of sale of the right of
+presentation to the rectory of Purechurch, in the valley of Cashup.
+Take care of that, Slider, literally for God's sake.  It'll fetch
+its price at the Auction Mart.'
+
+'What's the next?' inquired Peg.
+
+'Why, this,' said Squeers, 'seems, from the two letters that's with
+it, to be a bond from a curate down in the country, to pay half a
+year's wages of forty pound for borrowing twenty.  Take care of
+that, for if he don't pay it, his bishop will very soon be down upon
+him.  We know what the camel and the needle's eye means; no man as
+can't live upon his income, whatever it is, must expect to go to
+heaven at any price.  It's very odd; I don't see anything like it
+yet.'
+
+'What's the matter?' said Peg.
+
+'Nothing,' replied Squeers, 'only I'm looking for--'
+
+Newman raised the bellows again.  Once more, Frank, by a rapid
+motion of his arm, unaccompanied by any noise, checked him in his
+purpose.
+
+'Here you are,' said Squeers, 'bonds--take care of them.  Warrant of
+attorney--take care of that.  Two cognovits--take care of them.
+Lease and release--burn that.  Ah!  "Madeline Bray--come of age or
+marry--the said Madeline"--here, burn THAT!'
+
+Eagerly throwing towards the old woman a parchment that he caught up
+for the purpose, Squeers, as she turned her head, thrust into the
+breast of his large coat, the deed in which these words had caught
+his eye, and burst into a shout of triumph.
+
+'I've got it!' said Squeers.  'I've got it!  Hurrah!  The plan was a
+good one, though the chance was desperate, and the day's our own at
+last!'
+
+Peg demanded what he laughed at, but no answer was returned.
+Newman's arm could no longer be restrained; the bellows, descending
+heavily and with unerring aim on the very centre of Mr Squeers's
+head, felled him to the floor, and stretched him on it flat and
+senseless.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 58
+
+In which one Scene of this History is closed
+
+
+Dividing the distance into two days' journey, in order that his
+charge might sustain the less exhaustion and fatigue from travelling
+so far, Nicholas, at the end of the second day from their leaving
+home, found himself within a very few miles of the spot where the
+happiest years of his life had been passed, and which, while it
+filled his mind with pleasant and peaceful thoughts, brought back
+many painful and vivid recollections of the circumstances in which
+he and his had wandered forth from their old home, cast upon the
+rough world and the mercy of strangers.
+
+It needed no such reflections as those which the memory of old days,
+and wanderings among scenes where our childhood has been passed,
+usually awaken in the most insensible minds, to soften the heart of
+Nicholas, and render him more than usually mindful of his drooping
+friend.  By night and day, at all times and seasons: always
+watchful, attentive, and solicitous, and never varying in the
+discharge of his self-imposed duty to one so friendless and helpless
+as he whose sands of life were now fast running out and dwindling
+rapidly away: he was ever at his side.  He never left him.  To
+encourage and animate him, administer to his wants, support and
+cheer him to the utmost of his power, was now his constant and
+unceasing occupation.
+
+They procured a humble lodging in a small farmhouse, surrounded by
+meadows where Nicholas had often revelled when a child with a troop
+of merry schoolfellows; and here they took up their rest.
+
+At first, Smike was strong enough to walk about, for short distances
+at a time, with no other support or aid than that which Nicholas
+could afford him.  At this time, nothing appeared to interest him so
+much as visiting those places which had been most familiar to his
+friend in bygone days.  Yielding to this fancy, and pleased to find
+that its indulgence beguiled the sick boy of many tedious hours, and
+never failed to afford him matter for thought and conversation
+afterwards, Nicholas made such spots the scenes of their daily
+rambles: driving him from place to place in a little pony-chair, and
+supporting him on his arm while they walked slowly among these old
+haunts, or lingered in the sunlight to take long parting looks of
+those which were most quiet and beautiful.
+
+It was on such occasions as these, that Nicholas, yielding almost
+unconsciously to the interest of old associations, would point out
+some tree that he had climbed, a hundred times, to peep at the young
+birds in their nest; and the branch from which he used to shout to
+little Kate, who stood below terrified at the height he had gained,
+and yet urging him higher still by the intensity of her admiration.
+There was the old house too, which they would pass every day,
+looking up at the tiny window through which the sun used to stream
+in and wake him on the summer mornings--they were all summer
+mornings then--and climbing up the garden-wall and looking over,
+Nicholas could see the very rose-bush which had come, a present to
+Kate, from some little lover, and she had planted with her own
+hands.  There were the hedgerows where the brother and sister had so
+often gathered wild flowers together, and the green fields and shady
+paths where they had so often strayed.  There was not a lane, or
+brook, or copse, or cottage near, with which some childish event was
+not entwined, and back it came upon the mind--as events of childhood
+do--nothing in itself: perhaps a word, a laugh, a look, some slight
+distress, a passing thought or fear: and yet more strongly and
+distinctly marked, and better remembered, than the hardest trials or
+severest sorrows of a year ago.
+
+One of these expeditions led them through the churchyard where was
+his father's grave.  'Even here,' said Nicholas softly, 'we used to
+loiter before we knew what death was, and when we little thought
+whose ashes would rest beneath; and, wondering at the silence, sit
+down to rest and speak below our breath.  Once, Kate was lost, and
+after an hour of fruitless search, they found her, fast asleep,
+under that tree which shades my father's grave.  He was very fond of
+her, and said when he took her up in his arms, still sleeping, that
+whenever he died he would wish to be buried where his dear little
+child had laid her head.  You see his wish was not forgotten.'
+
+Nothing more passed at the time, but that night, as Nicholas sat
+beside his bed, Smike started from what had seemed to be a slumber,
+and laying his hand in his, prayed, as the tears coursed down his
+face, that he would make him one solemn promise.
+
+'What is that?' said Nicholas, kindly.  'If I can redeem it, or hope
+to do so, you know I will.'
+
+'I am sure you will,' was the reply.  'Promise me that when I die, I
+shall be buried near--as near as they can make my grave--to the tree
+we saw today.'
+
+Nicholas gave the promise; he had few words to give it in, but they
+were solemn and earnest.  His poor friend kept his hand in his, and
+turned as if to sleep.  But there were stifled sobs; and the hand
+was pressed more than once, or twice, or thrice, before he sank to
+rest, and slowly loosed his hold.
+
+In a fortnight's time, he became too ill to move about.  Once or
+twice, Nicholas drove him out, propped up with pillows; but the
+motion of the chaise was painful to him, and brought on fits of
+fainting, which, in his weakened state, were dangerous.  There was
+an old couch in the house, which was his favourite resting-place by
+day; and when the sun shone, and the weather was warm, Nicholas had
+this wheeled into a little orchard which was close at hand, and his
+charge being well wrapped up and carried out to it, they used to sit
+there sometimes for hours together.
+
+It was on one of these occasions that a circumstance took place,
+which Nicholas, at the time, thoroughly believed to be the mere
+delusion of an imagination affected by disease; but which he had,
+afterwards, too good reason to know was of real and actual
+occurrence.
+
+He had brought Smike out in his arms--poor fellow! a child might
+have carried him then--to see the sunset, and, having arranged his
+couch, had taken his seat beside it.  He had been watching the whole
+of the night before, and being greatly fatigued both in mind and
+body, gradually fell asleep.
+
+He could not have closed his eyes five minutes, when he was awakened
+by a scream, and starting up in that kind of terror which affects a
+person suddenly roused, saw, to his great astonishment, that his
+charge had struggled into a sitting posture, and with eyes almost
+starting from their sockets, cold dew standing on his forehead, and
+in a fit of trembling which quite convulsed his frame, was calling
+to him for help.
+
+'Good Heaven, what is this?' said Nicholas, bending over him.  'Be
+calm; you have been dreaming.'
+
+'No, no, no!' cried Smike, clinging to him.  'Hold me tight.  Don't
+let me go.  There, there.  Behind the tree!'
+
+Nicholas followed his eyes, which were directed to some distance
+behind the chair from which he himself had just risen.  But, there
+was nothing there.
+
+'This is nothing but your fancy,' he said, as he strove to compose
+him; 'nothing else, indeed.'
+
+'I know better.  I saw as plain as I see now,' was the answer.  'Oh!
+say you'll keep me with you.  Swear you won't leave me for an
+instant!'
+
+'Do I ever leave you?' returned Nicholas.  'Lie down again--there!
+You see I'm here.  Now, tell me; what was it?'
+
+'Do you remember,' said Smike, in a low voice, and glancing
+fearfully round, 'do you remember my telling you of the man who
+first took me to the school?'
+
+'Yes, surely.'
+
+'I raised my eyes, just now, towards that tree--that one with the
+thick trunk--and there, with his eyes fixed on me, he stood!'
+
+'Only reflect for one moment,' said Nicholas; 'granting, for an
+instant, that it's likely he is alive and wandering about a lonely
+place like this, so far removed from the public road, do you think
+that at this distance of time you could possibly know that man
+again?'
+
+'Anywhere--in any dress,' returned Smike; 'but, just now, he stood
+leaning upon his stick and looking at me, exactly as I told you I
+remembered him.  He was dusty with walking, and poorly dressed--I
+think his clothes were ragged--but directly I saw him, the wet
+night, his face when he left me, the parlour I was left in, and the
+people that were there, all seemed to come back together.  When he
+knew I saw him, he looked frightened; for he started, and shrunk
+away.  I have thought of him by day, and dreamt of him by night.  He
+looked in my sleep, when I was quite a little child, and has looked
+in my sleep ever since, as he did just now.'
+
+Nicholas endeavoured, by every persuasion and argument he could
+think of, to convince the terrified creature that his imagination
+had deceived him, and that this close resemblance between the
+creation of his dreams and the man he supposed he had seen was but a
+proof of it; but all in vain.  When he could persuade him to remain,
+for a few moments, in the care of the people to whom the house
+belonged, he instituted a strict inquiry whether any stranger had
+been seen, and searched himself behind the tree, and through the
+orchard, and upon the land immediately adjoining, and in every place
+near, where it was possible for a man to lie concealed; but all in
+vain.  Satisfied that he was right in his original conjecture, he
+applied himself to calming the fears of Smike, which, after some
+time, he partially succeeded in doing, though not in removing the
+impression upon his mind; for he still declared, again and again, in
+the most solemn and fervid manner, that he had positively seen what
+he had described, and that nothing could ever remove his conviction
+of its reality.
+
+And now, Nicholas began to see that hope was gone, and that, upon
+the partner of his poverty, and the sharer of his better fortune,
+the world was closing fast.  There was little pain, little
+uneasiness, but there was no rallying, no effort, no struggle for
+life.  He was worn and wasted to the last degree; his voice had sunk
+so low, that he could scarce be heard to speak.  Nature was
+thoroughly exhausted, and he had lain him down to die.
+
+On a fine, mild autumn day, when all was tranquil and at peace: when
+the soft sweet air crept in at the open window of the quiet room,
+and not a sound was heard but the gentle rustling of the leaves:
+Nicholas sat in his old place by the bedside, and knew that the time
+was nearly come.  So very still it was, that, every now and then, he
+bent down his ear to listen for the breathing of him who lay asleep,
+as if to assure himself that life was still there, and that he had
+not fallen into that deep slumber from which on earth there is no
+waking.
+
+While he was thus employed, the closed eyes opened, and on the pale
+face there came a placid smile.
+
+'That's well!' said Nicholas.  'The sleep has done you good.'
+
+'I have had such pleasant dreams,' was the answer.  'Such pleasant,
+happy dreams!'
+
+'Of what?' said Nicholas.
+
+The dying boy turned towards him, and, putting his arm about his
+neck, made answer, 'I shall soon be there!'
+
+After a short silence, he spoke again.
+
+'I am not afraid to die,' he said.  'I am quite contented.  I almost
+think that if I could rise from this bed quite well I would not wish
+to do so, now.  You have so often told me we shall meet again--so
+very often lately, and now I feel the truth of that so strongly--
+that I can even bear to part from you.'
+
+The trembling voice and tearful eye, and the closer grasp of the arm
+which accompanied these latter words, showed how they filled the
+speaker's heart; nor were there wanting indications of how deeply
+they had touched the heart of him to whom they were addressed.
+
+'You say well,' returned Nicholas at length, 'and comfort me very
+much, dear fellow.  Let me hear you say you are happy, if you can.'
+
+'I must tell you something, first.  I should not have a secret from
+you.  You would not blame me, at a time like this, I know.'
+
+'I blame you!' exclaimed Nicholas.
+
+'I am sure you would not.  You asked me why I was so changed, and--
+and sat so much alone.  Shall I tell you why?'
+
+'Not if it pains you,' said Nicholas.  'I only asked that I might
+make you happier, if I could.'
+
+'I know.  I felt that, at the time.'  He drew his friend closer to
+him.  'You will forgive me; I could not help it, but though I would
+have died to make her happy, it broke my heart to see--I know he
+loves her dearly--Oh! who could find that out so soon as I?'
+
+The words which followed were feebly and faintly uttered, and broken
+by long pauses; but, from them, Nicholas learnt, for the first time,
+that the dying boy, with all the ardour of a nature concentrated on
+one absorbing, hopeless, secret passion, loved his sister Kate.
+
+He had procured a lock of her hair, which hung at his breast, folded
+in one or two slight ribbons she had worn.  He prayed that, when he
+was dead, Nicholas would take it off, so that no eyes but his might
+see it, and that when he was laid in his coffin and about to be
+placed in the earth, he would hang it round his neck again, that it
+might rest with him in the grave.
+
+Upon his knees Nicholas gave him this pledge, and promised again
+that he should rest in the spot he had pointed out.  They embraced,
+and kissed each other on the cheek.
+
+'Now,' he murmured, 'I am happy.'
+
+He fell into a light slumber, and waking smiled as before; then,
+spoke of beautiful gardens, which he said stretched out before him,
+and were filled with figures of men, women, and many children, all
+with light upon their faces; then, whispered that it was Eden--and
+so died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 59
+
+The Plots begin to fail, and Doubts and Dangers to disturb the
+Plotter
+
+
+Ralph sat alone, in the solitary room where he was accustomed to
+take his meals, and to sit of nights when no profitable occupation
+called him abroad.  Before him was an untasted breakfast, and near
+to where his fingers beat restlessly upon the table, lay his watch.
+It was long past the time at which, for many years, he had put it in
+his pocket and gone with measured steps downstairs to the business
+of the day, but he took as little heed of its monotonous warning, as
+of the meat and drink before him, and remained with his head resting
+on one hand, and his eyes fixed moodily on the ground.
+
+This departure from his regular and constant habit, in one so
+regular and unvarying in all that appertained to the daily pursuit
+of riches, would almost of itself have told that the usurer was not
+well.  That he laboured under some mental or bodily indisposition,
+and that it was one of no slight kind so to affect a man like him,
+was sufficiently shown by his haggard face, jaded air, and hollow
+languid eyes: which he raised at last with a start and a hasty
+glance around him, as one who suddenly awakes from sleep, and cannot
+immediately recognise the place in which he finds himself.
+
+'What is this,' he said, 'that hangs over me, and I cannot shake
+off?  I have never pampered myself, and should not be ill.  I have
+never moped, and pined, and yielded to fancies; but what CAN a man
+do without rest?'
+
+He pressed his hand upon his forehead.
+
+'Night after night comes and goes, and I have no rest.  If I sleep,
+what rest is that which is disturbed by constant dreams of the same
+detested faces crowding round me--of the same detested people, in
+every variety of action, mingling with all I say and do, and always
+to my defeat?  Waking, what rest have I, constantly haunted by this
+heavy shadow of--I know not what--which is its worst character?  I
+must have rest.  One night's unbroken rest, and I should be a man
+again.'
+
+Pushing the table from him while he spoke, as though he loathed the
+sight of food, he encountered the watch: the hands of which were
+almost upon noon.
+
+'This is strange!' he said; 'noon, and Noggs not here!  What drunken
+brawl keeps him away?  I would give something now--something in
+money even after that dreadful loss--if he had stabbed a man in a
+tavern scuffle, or broken into a house, or picked a pocket, or done
+anything that would send him abroad with an iron ring upon his leg,
+and rid me of him.  Better still, if I could throw temptation in his
+way, and lure him on to rob me.  He should be welcome to what he
+took, so I brought the law upon him; for he is a traitor, I swear!
+How, or when, or where, I don't know, though I suspect.'
+
+After waiting for another half-hour, he dispatched the woman who
+kept his house to Newman's lodging, to inquire if he were ill, and
+why he had not come or sent.  She brought back answer that he had
+not been home all night, and that no one could tell her anything
+about him.
+
+'But there is a gentleman, sir,' she said, 'below, who was standing
+at the door when I came in, and he says--'
+
+'What says he?' demanded Ralph, turning angrily upon her.  'I told
+you I would see nobody.'
+
+'He says,' replied the woman, abashed by his harshness, 'that he
+comes on very particular business which admits of no excuse; and I
+thought perhaps it might be about--'
+
+'About what, in the devil's name?' said Ralph.  'You spy and
+speculate on people's business with me, do you?'
+
+'Dear, no, sir!  I saw you were anxious, and thought it might be
+about Mr Noggs; that's all.'
+
+'Saw I was anxious!' muttered Ralph; 'they all watch me, now.  Where
+is this person?  You did not say I was not down yet, I hope?'
+
+The woman replied that he was in the little office, and that she had
+said her master was engaged, but she would take the message.
+
+'Well,' said Ralph, 'I'll see him.  Go you to your kitchen, and keep
+there.  Do you mind me?'
+
+Glad to be released, the woman quickly disappeared.  Collecting
+himself, and assuming as much of his accustomed manner as his utmost
+resolution could summon, Ralph descended the stairs.  After pausing
+for a few moments, with his hand upon the lock, he entered Newman's
+room, and confronted Mr Charles Cheeryble.
+
+Of all men alive, this was one of the last he would have wished to
+meet at any time; but, now that he recognised in him only the patron
+and protector of Nicholas, he would rather have seen a spectre.  One
+beneficial effect, however, the encounter had upon him.  It
+instantly roused all his dormant energies; rekindled in his breast
+the passions that, for many years, had found an improving home
+there; called up all his wrath, hatred, and malice; restored the
+sneer to his lip, and the scowl to his brow; and made him again, in
+all outward appearance, the same Ralph Nickleby whom so many had
+bitter cause to remember.
+
+'Humph!' said Ralph, pausing at the door.  'This is an unexpected
+favour, sir.'
+
+'And an unwelcome one,' said brother Charles; 'an unwelcome one, I
+know.'
+
+'Men say you are truth itself, sir,' replied Ralph.  'You speak
+truth now, at all events, and I'll not contradict you.  The favour
+is, at least, as unwelcome as it is unexpected.  I can scarcely say
+more.'
+
+'Plainly, sir--' began brother Charles.
+
+'Plainly, sir,' interrupted Ralph, 'I wish this conference to be a
+short one, and to end where it begins.  I guess the subject upon
+which you are about to speak, and I'll not hear you.  You like
+plainness, I believe; there it is.  Here is the door as you see.
+Our way lies in very different directions.  Take yours, I beg of
+you, and leave me to pursue mine in quiet.'
+
+'In quiet!' repeated brother Charles mildly, and looking at him with
+more of pity than reproach.  'To pursue HIS way in quiet!'
+
+'You will scarcely remain in my house, I presume, sir, against my
+will,' said Ralph; 'or you can scarcely hope to make an impression
+upon a man who closes his ears to all that you can say, and is
+firmly and resolutely determined not to hear you.'
+
+'Mr Nickleby, sir,' returned brother Charles: no less mildly than
+before, but firmly too: 'I come here against my will, sorely and
+grievously against my will.  I have never been in this house before;
+and, to speak my mind, sir, I don't feel at home or easy in it, and
+have no wish ever to be here again.  You do not guess the subject on
+which I come to speak to you; you do not indeed.  I am sure of that,
+or your manner would be a very different one.'
+
+Ralph glanced keenly at him, but the clear eye and open countenance
+of the honest old merchant underwent no change of expression, and
+met his look without reserve.
+
+'Shall I go on?' said Mr Cheeryble.
+
+'Oh, by all means, if you please,' returned Ralph drily.  'Here are
+walls to speak to, sir, a desk, and two stools: most attentive
+auditors, and certain not to interrupt you.  Go on, I beg; make my
+house yours, and perhaps by the time I return from my walk, you will
+have finished what you have to say, and will yield me up possession
+again.'
+
+So saying, he buttoned his coat, and turning into the passage, took
+down his hat.  The old gentleman followed, and was about to speak,
+when Ralph waved him off impatiently, and said:
+
+'Not a word.  I tell you, sir, not a word.  Virtuous as you are, you
+are not an angel yet, to appear in men's houses whether they will or
+no, and pour your speech into unwilling ears.  Preach to the walls I
+tell you; not to me!'
+
+'I am no angel, Heaven knows,' returned brother Charles, shaking his
+head, 'but an erring and imperfect man; nevertheless, there is one
+quality which all men have, in common with the angels, blessed
+opportunities of exercising, if they will; mercy.  It is an errand
+of mercy that brings me here.  Pray let me discharge it.'
+
+'I show no mercy,' retorted Ralph with a triumphant smile, 'and I
+ask none.  Seek no mercy from me, sir, in behalf of the fellow who
+has imposed upon your childish credulity, but let him expect the
+worst that I can do.'
+
+'HE ask mercy at your hands!' exclaimed the old merchant warmly;
+'ask it at his, sir; ask it at his.  If you will not hear me now,
+when you may, hear me when you must, or anticipate what I would say,
+and take measures to prevent our ever meeting again.  Your nephew is
+a noble lad, sir, an honest, noble lad.  What you are, Mr Nickleby,
+I will not say; but what you have done, I know.  Now, sir, when you
+go about the business in which you have been recently engaged, and
+find it difficult of pursuing, come to me and my brother Ned, and
+Tim Linkinwater, sir, and we'll explain it for you--and come soon,
+or it may be too late, and you may have it explained with a little
+more roughness, and a little less delicacy--and never forget, sir,
+that I came here this morning, in mercy to you, and am still ready
+to talk to you in the same spirit.'
+
+With these words, uttered with great emphasis and emotion, brother
+Charles put on his broad-brimmed hat, and, passing Ralph Nickleby
+without any other remark, trotted nimbly into the street.  Ralph
+looked after him, but neither moved nor spoke for some time: when he
+broke what almost seemed the silence of stupefaction, by a scornful
+laugh.
+
+'This,' he said, 'from its wildness, should be another of those
+dreams that have so broken my rest of late.  In mercy to me!  Pho!
+The old simpleton has gone mad.'
+
+Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemptuous
+manner, it was plain that, the more Ralph pondered, the more ill at
+ease he became, and the more he laboured under some vague anxiety
+and alarm, which increased as the time passed on and no tidings of
+Newman Noggs arrived.  After waiting until late in the afternoon,
+tortured by various apprehensions and misgivings, and the
+recollection of the warning which his nephew had given him when they
+last met: the further confirmation of which now presented itself in
+one shape of probability, now in another, and haunted him
+perpetually: he left home, and, scarcely knowing why, save that he
+was in a suspicious and agitated mood, betook himself to Snawley's
+house.  His wife presented herself; and, of her, Ralph inquired
+whether her husband was at home.
+
+'No,' she said sharply, 'he is not indeed, and I don't think he will
+be at home for a very long time; that's more.'
+
+'Do you know who I am?' asked Ralph.
+
+'Oh yes, I know you very well; too well, perhaps, and perhaps he
+does too, and sorry am I that I should have to say it.'
+
+'Tell him that I saw him through the window-blind above, as I
+crossed the road just now, and that I would speak to him on
+business,' said Ralph.  'Do you hear?'
+
+'I hear,' rejoined Mrs Snawley, taking no further notice of the
+request.
+
+'I knew this woman was a hypocrite, in the way of psalms and
+Scripture phrases,' said Ralph, passing quietly by, 'but I never
+knew she drank before.'
+
+'Stop!  You don't come in here,' said Mr Snawley's better-half,
+interposing her person, which was a robust one, in the doorway.
+'You have said more than enough to him on business, before now.  I
+always told him what dealing with you and working out your schemes
+would come to.  It was either you or the schoolmaster--one of you,
+or the two between you--that got the forged letter done; remember
+that!  That wasn't his doing, so don't lay it at his door.'
+
+'Hold your tongue, you Jezebel,' said Ralph, looking fearfully
+round.
+
+'Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, Mr Nickleby,'
+retorted the dame.  'Take care that other people know when to hold
+theirs.'
+
+'You jade,' said Ralph, 'if your husband has been idiot enough to
+trust you with his secrets, keep them; keep them, she-devil that you
+are!'
+
+'Not so much his secrets as other people's secrets, perhaps,'
+retorted the woman; 'not so much his secrets as yours.  None of your
+black looks at me!  You'll want 'em all, perhaps, for another time.
+You had better keep 'em.'
+
+'Will you,' said Ralph, suppressing his passion as well as he could,
+and clutching her tightly by the wrist; 'will you go to your husband
+and tell him that I know he is at home, and that I must see him?
+And will you tell me what it is that you and he mean by this new
+style of behaviour?'
+
+'No,' replied the woman, violently disengaging herself, 'I'll do
+neither.'
+
+'You set me at defiance, do you?' said Ralph.
+
+'Yes,' was the answer.  I do.'
+
+For an instant Ralph had his hand raised, as though he were about to
+strike her; but, checking himself, and nodding his head and
+muttering as though to assure her he would not forget this, walked
+away.
+
+Thence, he went straight to the inn which Mr Squeers frequented, and
+inquired when he had been there last; in the vague hope that,
+successful or unsuccessful, he might, by this time, have returned
+from his mission and be able to assure him that all was safe.  But
+Mr Squeers had not been there for ten days, and all that the people
+could tell about him was, that he had left his luggage and his bill.
+
+Disturbed by a thousand fears and surmises, and bent upon
+ascertaining whether Squeers had any suspicion of Snawley, or was,
+in any way, a party to this altered behaviour, Ralph determined to
+hazard the extreme step of inquiring for him at the Lambeth lodging,
+and having an interview with him even there.  Bent upon this
+purpose, and in that mood in which delay is insupportable, he
+repaired at once to the place; and being, by description, perfectly
+acquainted with the situation of his room, crept upstairs and
+knocked gently at the door.
+
+Not one, nor two, nor three, nor yet a dozen knocks, served to
+convince Ralph, against his wish, that there was nobody inside.  He
+reasoned that he might be asleep; and, listening, almost persuaded
+himself that he could hear him breathe.  Even when he was satisfied
+that he could not be there, he sat patiently on a broken stair and
+waited; arguing, that he had gone out upon some slight errand, and
+must soon return.
+
+Many feet came up the creaking stairs; and the step of some seemed
+to his listening ear so like that of the man for whom he waited,
+that Ralph often stood up to be ready to address him when he reached
+the top; but, one by one, each person turned off into some room
+short of the place where he was stationed: and at every such
+disappointment he felt quite chilled and lonely.
+
+At length he felt it was hopeless to remain, and going downstairs
+again, inquired of one of the lodgers if he knew anything of Mr
+Squeers's movements--mentioning that worthy by an assumed name which
+had been agreed upon between them.  By this lodger he was referred
+to another, and by him to someone else, from whom he learnt, that,
+late on the previous night, he had gone out hastily with two men,
+who had shortly afterwards returned for the old woman who lived on
+the same floor; and that, although the circumstance had attracted
+the attention of the informant, he had not spoken to them at the
+time, nor made any inquiry afterwards.
+
+This possessed him with the idea that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had
+been apprehended for the robbery, and that Mr Squeers, being with
+her at the time, had been apprehended also, on suspicion of being a
+confederate.  If this were so, the fact must be known to Gride; and
+to Gride's house he directed his steps; now thoroughly alarmed, and
+fearful that there were indeed plots afoot, tending to his
+discomfiture and ruin.
+
+Arrived at the usurer's house, he found the windows close shut, the
+dingy blinds drawn down; all was silent, melancholy, and deserted.
+But this was its usual aspect.  He knocked--gently at first--then
+loud and vigorously.  Nobody came.  He wrote a few words in
+pencil on a card, and having thrust it under the door was going
+away, when a noise above, as though a window-sash were stealthily
+raised, caught his ear, and looking up he could just discern the
+face of Gride himself, cautiously peering over the house parapet
+from the window of the garret.  Seeing who was below, he drew it in
+again; not so quickly, however, but that Ralph let him know he was
+observed, and called to him to come down.
+
+The call being repeated, Gride looked out again, so cautiously that
+no part of the old man's body was visible.  The sharp features and
+white hair appearing alone, above the parapet, looked like a severed
+head garnishing the wall.
+
+'Hush!' he cried.  'Go away, go away!'
+
+'Come down,' said Ralph, beckoning him.
+
+'Go a--way!' squeaked Gride, shaking his head in a sort of ecstasy
+of impatience.  'Don't speak to me, don't knock, don't call
+attention to the house, but go away.'
+
+'I'll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbours up in arms,' said
+Ralph, 'if you don't tell me what you mean by lurking there, you
+whining cur.'
+
+'I can't hear what you say--don't talk to me--it isn't safe--go
+away--go away!' returned Gride.
+
+'Come down, I say.  Will you come down?' said Ralph fiercely.
+
+'No--o--o--oo,' snarled Gride.  He drew in his head; and Ralph, left
+standing in the street, could hear the sash closed, as gently and
+carefully as it had been opened.
+
+'How is this,' said he, 'that they all fall from me, and shun me
+like the plague, these men who have licked the dust from my feet?
+IS my day past, and is this indeed the coming on of night?  I'll
+know what it means!  I will, at any cost.  I am firmer and more
+myself, just now, than I have been these many days.'
+
+Turning from the door, which, in the first transport of his rage, he
+had meditated battering upon until Gride's very fears should impel
+him to open it, he turned his face towards the city, and working his
+way steadily through the crowd which was pouring from it (it was by
+this time between five and six o'clock in the afternoon) went
+straight to the house of business of the brothers Cheeryble, and
+putting his head into the glass case, found Tim Linkinwater alone.
+
+'My name's Nickleby,' said Ralph.
+
+'I know it,' replied Tim, surveying him through his spectacles.
+
+'Which of your firm was it who called on me this morning?' demanded
+Ralph.
+
+'Mr Charles.'
+
+'Then, tell Mr Charles I want to see him.'
+
+'You shall see,' said Tim, getting off his stool with great agility,
+'you shall see, not only Mr Charles, but Mr Ned likewise.'
+
+Tim stopped, looked steadily and severely at Ralph, nodded his head
+once, in a curt manner which seemed to say there was a little more
+behind, and vanished.  After a short interval, he returned, and,
+ushering Ralph into the presence of the two brothers, remained in
+the room himself.
+
+'I want to speak to you, who spoke to me this morning,' said Ralph,
+pointing out with his finger the man whom he addressed.
+
+'I have no secrets from my brother Ned, or from Tim Linkinwater,'
+observed brother Charles quietly.
+
+'I have,' said Ralph.
+
+'Mr Nickleby, sir,' said brother Ned, 'the matter upon which my
+brother Charles called upon you this morning is one which is already
+perfectly well known to us three, and to others besides, and must
+unhappily soon become known to a great many more.  He waited upon
+you, sir, this morning, alone, as a matter of delicacy and
+consideration.  We feel, now, that further delicacy and
+consideration would be misplaced; and, if we confer together, it
+must be as we are or not at all.'
+
+'Well, gentlemen,' said Ralph with a curl of the lip, 'talking in
+riddles would seem to be the peculiar forte of you two, and I
+suppose your clerk, like a prudent man, has studied the art also
+with a view to your good graces.  Talk in company, gentlemen, in
+God's name.  I'll humour you.'
+
+'Humour!' cried Tim Linkinwater, suddenly growing very red in the
+face.  'He'll humour us!  He'll humour Cheeryble Brothers!  Do you
+hear that?  Do you hear him?  DO you hear him say he'll humour
+Cheeryble Brothers?'
+
+'Tim,' said Charles and Ned together, 'pray, Tim, pray now, don't.'
+
+Tim, taking the hint, stifled his indignation as well as he could,
+and suffered it to escape through his spectacles, with the
+additional safety-valve of a short hysterical laugh now and then,
+which seemed to relieve him mightily.
+
+'As nobody bids me to a seat,' said Ralph, looking round, 'I'll take
+one, for I am fatigued with walking.  And now, if you please,
+gentlemen, I wish to know--I demand to know; I have the right--what
+you have to say to me, which justifies such a tone as you have
+assumed, and that underhand interference in my affairs which, I have
+reason to suppose, you have been practising.  I tell you plainly,
+gentlemen, that little as I care for the opinion of the world (as
+the slang goes), I don't choose to submit quietly to slander and
+malice.  Whether you suffer yourselves to be imposed upon too
+easily, or wilfully make yourselves parties to it, the result to me
+is the same.  In either case, you can't expect from a plain man like
+myself much consideration or forbearance.'
+
+So coolly and deliberately was this said, that nine men out of ten,
+ignorant of the circumstances, would have supposed Ralph to be
+really an injured man.  There he sat, with folded arms; paler than
+usual, certainly, and sufficiently ill-favoured, but quite
+collected--far more so than the brothers or the exasperated Tim--and
+ready to face out the worst.
+
+'Very well, sir,' said brother Charles.  'Very well.  Brother Ned,
+will you ring the bell?'
+
+'Charles, my dear fellow! stop one instant,' returned the other.
+'It will be better for Mr Nickleby and for our object that he should
+remain silent, if he can, till we have said what we have to say.  I
+wish him to understand that.'
+
+'Quite right, quite right,' said brother Charles.
+
+Ralph smiled, but made no reply.  The bell was rung; the room-door
+opened; a man came in, with a halting walk; and, looking round,
+Ralph's eyes met those of Newman Noggs.  From that moment, his heart
+began to fail him.
+
+'This is a good beginning,' he said bitterly.  'Oh! this is a good
+beginning.  You are candid, honest, open-hearted, fair-dealing men!
+I always knew the real worth of such characters as yours!  To tamper
+with a fellow like this, who would sell his soul (if he had one) for
+drink, and whose every word is a lie.  What men are safe if this is
+done?  Oh, it's a good beginning!'
+
+'I WILL speak,' cried Newman, standing on tiptoe to look over Tim's
+head, who had interposed to prevent him.  'Hallo, you sir--old
+Nickleby!--what do you mean when you talk of "a fellow like this"?
+Who made me "a fellow like this"?  If I would sell my soul for
+drink, why wasn't I a thief, swindler, housebreaker, area sneak,
+robber of pence out of the trays of blind men's dogs, rather than
+your drudge and packhorse?  If my every word was a lie, why wasn't I
+a pet and favourite of yours?  Lie!  When did I ever cringe and fawn
+to you.  Tell me that!  I served you faithfully.  I did more
+work, because I was poor, and took more hard words from you because
+I despised you and them, than any man you could have got from the
+parish workhouse.  I did.  I served you because I was proud; because
+I was a lonely man with you, and there were no other drudges to see
+my degradation; and because nobody knew, better than you, that I was
+a ruined man: that I hadn't always been what I am: and that I might
+have been better off, if I hadn't been a fool and fallen into the
+hands of you and others who were knaves.  Do you deny that?'
+
+'Gently,' reasoned Tim; 'you said you wouldn't.'
+
+'I said I wouldn't!' cried Newman, thrusting him aside, and moving
+his hand as Tim moved, so as to keep him at arm's length; 'don't
+tell me!  Here, you Nickleby!  Don't pretend not to mind me; it won't
+do; I know better.  You were talking of tampering, just now.  Who
+tampered with Yorkshire schoolmasters, and, while they sent the
+drudge out, that he shouldn't overhear, forgot that such great
+caution might render him suspicious, and that he might watch his
+master out at nights, and might set other eyes to watch the
+schoolmaster?  Who tampered with a selfish father, urging him to
+sell his daughter to old Arthur Gride, and tampered with Gride too,
+and did so in the little office, WITH A CLOSET IN THE ROOM?'
+
+Ralph had put a great command upon himself; but he could not have
+suppressed a slight start, if he had been certain to be beheaded for
+it next moment.
+
+'Aha!' cried Newman, 'you mind me now, do you?  What first set this
+fag to be jealous of his master's actions, and to feel that, if he
+hadn't crossed him when he might, he would have been as bad as he,
+or worse?  That master's cruel treatment of his own flesh and blood,
+and vile designs upon a young girl who interested even his broken-
+down, drunken, miserable hack, and made him linger in his service,
+in the hope of doing her some good (as, thank God, he had done
+others once or twice before), when he would, otherwise, have
+relieved his feelings by pummelling his master soundly, and then
+going to the Devil.  He would--mark that; and mark this--that I'm
+here now, because these gentlemen thought it best.  When I sought
+them out (as I did; there was no tampering with me), I told them I
+wanted help to find you out, to trace you down, to go through with
+what I had begun, to help the right; and that when I had done it,
+I'd burst into your room and tell you all, face to face, man to man,
+and like a man.  Now I've said my say, and let anybody else say
+theirs, and fire away!'
+
+With this concluding sentiment, Newman Noggs, who had been
+perpetually sitting down and getting up again all through his
+speech, which he had delivered in a series of jerks; and who was,
+from the violent exercise and the excitement combined, in a state of
+most intense and fiery heat; became, without passing through any
+intermediate stage, stiff, upright, and motionless, and so remained,
+staring at Ralph Nickleby with all his might and main.
+
+Ralph looked at him for an instant, and for an instant only; then,
+waved his hand, and beating the ground with his foot, said in a
+choking voice:
+
+'Go on, gentlemen, go on!  I'm patient, you see.  There's law to be
+had, there's law.  I shall call you to an account for this.  Take
+care what you say; I shall make you prove it.'
+
+'The proof is ready,' returned brother Charles, 'quite ready to our
+hands.  The man Snawley, last night, made a confession.'
+
+'Who may "the man Snawley" be,' returned Ralph, 'and what may his
+"confession" have to do with my affairs?'
+
+To this inquiry, put with a dogged inflexibility of manner, the old
+gentleman returned no answer, but went on to say, that to show him
+how much they were in earnest, it would be necessary to tell him,
+not only what accusations were made against him, but what proof of
+them they had, and how that proof had been acquired.  This laying
+open of the whole question brought up brother Ned, Tim Linkinwater,
+and Newman Noggs, all three at once; who, after a vast deal of
+talking together, and a scene of great confusion, laid before Ralph,
+in distinct terms, the following statement.
+
+That, Newman, having been solemnly assured by one not then
+producible that Smike was not the son of Snawley, and this person
+having offered to make oath to that effect, if necessary, they had
+by this communication been first led to doubt the claim set up,
+which they would otherwise have seen no reason to dispute, supported
+as it was by evidence which they had no power of disproving.  That,
+once suspecting the existence of a conspiracy, they had no
+difficulty in tracing back its origin to the malice of Ralph, and
+the vindictiveness and avarice of Squeers.  That, suspicion and
+proof being two very different things, they had been advised by a
+lawyer, eminent for his sagacity and acuteness in such practice, to
+resist the proceedings taken on the other side for the recovery of
+the youth as slowly and artfully as possible, and meanwhile to beset
+Snawley (with whom it was clear the main falsehood must rest); to
+lead him, if possible, into contradictory and conflicting
+statements; to harass him by all available means; and so to practise
+on his fears, and regard for his own safety, as to induce him to
+divulge the whole scheme, and to give up his employer and whomsoever
+else he could implicate.  That, all this had been skilfully done;
+but that Snawley, who was well practised in the arts of low cunning
+and intrigue, had successfully baffled all their attempts, until an
+unexpected circumstance had brought him, last night, upon his knees.
+
+It thus arose.  When Newman Noggs reported that Squeers was again in
+town, and that an interview of such secrecy had taken place between
+him and Ralph that he had been sent out of the house, plainly lest
+he should overhear a word, a watch was set upon the schoolmaster, in
+the hope that something might be discovered which would throw some
+light upon the suspected plot.  It being found, however, that he
+held no further communication with Ralph, nor any with Snawley, and
+lived quite alone, they were completely at fault; the watch was
+withdrawn, and they would have observed his motions no longer, if it
+had not happened that, one night, Newman stumbled unobserved on him
+and Ralph in the street together.  Following them, he discovered, to
+his surprise, that they repaired to various low lodging-houses, and
+taverns kept by broken gamblers, to more than one of whom Ralph was
+known, and that they were in pursuit--so he found by inquiries when
+they had left--of an old woman, whose description exactly tallied
+with that of deaf Mrs Sliderskew.  Affairs now appearing to assume a
+more serious complexion, the watch was renewed with increased
+vigilance; an officer was procured, who took up his abode in the
+same tavern with Squeers: and by him and Frank Cheeryble the
+footsteps of the unconscious schoolmaster were dogged, until he was
+safely housed in the lodging at Lambeth.  Mr Squeers having shifted
+his lodging, the officer shifted his, and lying concealed in the
+same street, and, indeed, in the opposite house, soon found that Mr
+Squeers and Mrs Sliderskew were in constant communication.
+
+In this state of things, Arthur Gride was appealed to.  The robbery,
+partly owing to the inquisitiveness of the neighbours, and partly to
+his own grief and rage, had, long ago, become known; but he
+positively refused to give his sanction or yield any assistance to
+the old woman's capture, and was seized with such a panic at the
+idea of being called upon to give evidence against her, that he shut
+himself up close in his house, and refused to hold communication
+with anybody.  Upon this, the pursuers took counsel together, and,
+coming so near the truth as to arrive at the conclusion that Gride
+and Ralph, with Squeers for their instrument, were negotiating for
+the recovery of some of the stolen papers which would not bear the
+light, and might possibly explain the hints relative to Madeline
+which Newman had overheard, resolved that Mrs Sliderskew should be
+taken into custody before she had parted with them: and Squeers too,
+if anything suspicious could be attached to him.  Accordingly, a
+search-warrant being procured, and all prepared, Mr Squeers's window
+was watched, until his light was put out, and the time arrived when,
+as had been previously ascertained, he usually visited Mrs
+Sliderskew.  This done, Frank Cheeryble and Newman stole upstairs to
+listen to their discourse, and to give the signal to the officer at
+the most favourable time.  At what an opportune moment they arrived,
+how they listened, and what they heard, is already known to the
+reader.  Mr Squeers, still half stunned, was hurried off with a
+stolen deed in his possession, and Mrs Sliderskew was apprehended
+likewise.  The information being promptly carried to Snawley that
+Squeers was in custody--he was not told for what--that worthy, first
+extorting a promise that he should be kept harmless, declared the
+whole tale concerning Smike to be a fiction and forgery, and
+implicated Ralph Nickleby to the fullest extent.  As to Mr Squeers,
+he had, that morning, undergone a private examination before a
+magistrate; and, being unable to account satisfactorily for his
+possession of the deed or his companionship with Mrs Sliderskew, had
+been, with her, remanded for a week.
+
+All these discoveries were now related to Ralph, circumstantially,
+and in detail.  Whatever impression they secretly produced, he
+suffered no sign of emotion to escape him, but sat perfectly still,
+not raising his frowning eyes from the ground, and covering his
+mouth with his hand.  When the narrative was concluded; he raised
+his head hastily, as if about to speak, but on brother Charles
+resuming, fell into his old attitude again.
+
+'I told you this morning,' said the old gentleman, laying his hand
+upon his brother's shoulder, 'that I came to you in mercy.  How far
+you may be implicated in this last transaction, or how far the
+person who is now in custody may criminate you, you best know.  But,
+justice must take its course against the parties implicated in the
+plot against this poor, unoffending, injured lad.  It is not in my
+power, or in the power of my brother Ned, to save you from the
+consequences.  The utmost we can do is, to warn you in time, and to
+give you an opportunity of escaping them.  We would not have an old
+man like you disgraced and punished by your near relation; nor would
+we have him forget, like you, all ties of blood and nature.  We
+entreat you--brother Ned, you join me, I know, in this entreaty, and
+so, Tim Linkinwater, do you, although you pretend to be an obstinate
+dog, sir, and sit there frowning as if you didn't--we entreat you to
+retire from London, to take shelter in some place where you will be
+safe from the consequences of these wicked designs, and where you
+may have time, sir, to atone for them, and to become a better man.'
+
+'And do you think,' returned Ralph, rising, 'and do you think, you
+will so easily crush ME?  Do you think that a hundred well-arranged
+plans, or a hundred suborned witnesses, or a hundred false curs at
+my heels, or a hundred canting speeches full of oily words, will
+move me?  I thank you for disclosing your schemes, which I am now
+prepared for.  You have not the man to deal with that you think; try
+me! and remember that I spit upon your fair words and false
+dealings, and dare you--provoke you--taunt you--to do to me the very
+worst you can!'
+
+Thus they parted, for that time; but the worst had not come yet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 60
+
+The Dangers thicken, and the Worst is told
+
+
+Instead of going home, Ralph threw himself into the first street
+cabriolet he could find, and, directing the driver towards the
+police-office of the district in which Mr Squeers's misfortunes had
+occurred, alighted at a short distance from it, and, discharging the
+man, went the rest of his way thither on foot.  Inquiring for the
+object of his solicitude, he learnt that he had timed his visit
+well; for Mr Squeers was, in fact, at that moment waiting for a
+hackney coach he had ordered, and in which he purposed proceeding to
+his week's retirement, like a gentleman.
+
+Demanding speech with the prisoner, he was ushered into a kind of
+waiting-room in which, by reason of his scholastic profession and
+superior respectability, Mr Squeers had been permitted to pass the
+day.  Here, by the light of a guttering and blackened candle, he
+could barely discern the schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in a
+remote corner.  An empty glass stood on a table before him, which,
+with his somnolent condition and a very strong smell of brandy and
+water, forewarned the visitor that Mr Squeers had been seeking, in
+creature comforts, a temporary forgetfulness of his unpleasant
+situation.
+
+It was not a very easy matter to rouse him: so lethargic and heavy
+were his slumbers.  Regaining his faculties by slow and faint
+glimmerings, he at length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow
+face, a very red nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of
+which was considerably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief,
+spotted with blood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under
+his chin: stared ruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings
+found a vent in this pithy sentence:
+
+'I say, young fellow, you've been and done it now; you have!'
+
+'What's the matter with your head?' asked Ralph.
+
+'Why, your man, your informing kidnapping man, has been and broke
+it,' rejoined Squeers sulkily; 'that's what's the matter with it.
+You've come at last, have you?'
+
+'Why have you not sent to me?' said Ralph.  'How could I come till I
+knew what had befallen you?'
+
+'My family!' hiccuped Mr Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling:
+'my daughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-
+coming out strong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private
+life, and the pride and ornament of a doting willage--here's a shock
+for my family!  The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their
+sun is gone down into the ocean wave!'
+
+'You have been drinking,' said Ralph, 'and have not yet slept
+yourself sober.'
+
+'I haven't been drinking YOUR health, my codger,' replied Mr
+Squeers; 'so you have nothing to do with that.'
+
+Ralph suppressed the indignation which the schoolmaster's altered
+and insolent manner awakened, and asked again why he had not sent to
+him.
+
+'What should I get by sending to you?' returned Squeers.  'To be
+known to be in with you wouldn't do me a deal of good, and they
+won't take bail till they know something more of the case, so here
+am I hard and fast: and there are you, loose and comfortable.'
+
+'And so must you be in a few days,' retorted Ralph, with affected
+good-humour.  'They can't hurt you, man.'
+
+'Why, I suppose they can't do much to me, if I explain how it was
+that I got into the good company of that there ca-daverous old
+Slider,' replied Squeers viciously, 'who I wish was dead and buried,
+and resurrected and dissected, and hung upon wires in a anatomical
+museum, before ever I'd had anything to do with her.  This is what
+him with the powdered head says this morning, in so many words:
+"Prisoner!  As you have been found in company with this woman; as
+you were detected in possession of this document; as you were
+engaged with her in fraudulently destroying others, and can give no
+satisfactory account of yourself; I shall remand you for a week, in
+order that inquiries may be made, and evidence got.  And meanwhile I
+can't take any bail for your appearance."  Well then, what I say now
+is, that I CAN give a satisfactory account of myself; I can hand in
+the card of my establishment and say, "I am the Wackford Squeers as
+is therein named, sir.  I am the man as is guaranteed, by
+unimpeachable references, to be a out-and-outer in morals and
+uprightness of principle.  Whatever is wrong in this business is no
+fault of mine.  I had no evil design in it, sir.  I was not aware
+that anything was wrong.  I was merely employed by a friend, my
+friend Mr Ralph Nickleby, of Golden Square.  Send for him, sir, and
+ask him what he has to say; he's the man; not me!"'
+
+'What document was it that you had?' asked Ralph, evading, for the
+moment, the point just raised.
+
+'What document?  Why, THE document,' replied Squeers.  'The Madeline
+What's-her-name one.  It was a will; that's what it was.'
+
+'Of what nature, whose will, when dated, how benefiting her, to what
+extent?' asked Ralph hurriedly.
+
+'A will in her favour; that's all I know,' rejoined Squeers, 'and
+that's more than you'd have known, if you'd had them bellows on your
+head.  It's all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of
+it.  If you had let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone,
+it would have been a heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being
+whole and sound, inside of my great-coat.'
+
+'Beaten at every point!' muttered Ralph.
+
+'Ah!' sighed Squeers, who, between the brandy and water and his
+broken head, wandered strangely, 'at the delightful village of
+Dotheboys near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, youth are boarded,
+clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided with
+all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead,
+mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry--this is
+a altered state of trigonomics, this is!  A double 1--all,
+everything--a cobbler's weapon.  U-p-up, adjective, not down.  S-q-
+u-double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, a educator of youth.
+Total, all up with Squeers!'
+
+His running on, in this way, had afforded Ralph an opportunity of
+recovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested to him the
+necessity of removing, as far as possible, the schoolmaster's
+misgivings, and leading him to believe that his safety and best
+policy lay in the preservation of a rigid silence.
+
+'I tell you, once again,' he said, 'they can't hurt you.  You shall
+have an action for false imprisonment, and make a profit of this,
+yet.  We will devise a story for you that should carry you through
+twenty times such a trivial scrape as this; and if they want
+security in a thousand pounds for your reappearance in case you
+should be called upon, you shall have it.  All you have to do is, to
+keep back the truth.  You're a little fuddled tonight, and may not
+be able to see this as clearly as you would at another time; but
+this is what you must do, and you'll need all your senses about you;
+for a slip might be awkward.'
+
+'Oh!' said Squeers, who had looked cunningly at him, with his head
+stuck on one side, like an old raven.  'That's what I'm to do, is
+it?  Now then, just you hear a word or two from me.  I an't a-going
+to have any stories made for me, and I an't a-going to stick to any.
+If I find matters going again me, I shall expect you to take your
+share, and I'll take care you do.  You never said anything about
+danger.  I never bargained for being brought into such a plight as
+this, and I don't mean to take it as quiet as you think.  I let you
+lead me on, from one thing to another, because we had been mixed up
+together in a certain sort of a way, and if you had liked to be ill-
+natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, and if you liked
+to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way.  Well; if
+all goes right now, that's quite correct, and I don't mind it; but
+if anything goes wrong, then times are altered, and I shall just say
+and do whatever I think may serve me most, and take advice from
+nobody.  My moral influence with them lads,' added Mr Squeers, with
+deeper gravity, 'is a tottering to its basis.  The images of Mrs
+Squeers, my daughter, and my son Wackford, all short of vittles, is
+perpetually before me; every other consideration melts away and
+vanishes, in front of these; the only number in all arithmetic that
+I know of, as a husband and a father, is number one, under this here
+most fatal go!'
+
+How long Mr Squeers might have declaimed, or how stormy a discussion
+his declamation might have led to, nobody knows.  Being interrupted,
+at this point, by the arrival of the coach and an attendant who was
+to bear him company, he perched his hat with great dignity on the
+top of the handkerchief that bound his head; and, thrusting one hand
+in his pocket, and taking the attendant's arm with the other,
+suffered himself to be led forth.
+
+'As I supposed from his not sending!' thought Ralph.  'This fellow,
+I plainly see through all his tipsy fooling, has made up his mind to
+turn upon me.  I am so beset and hemmed in, that they are not only
+all struck with fear, but, like the beasts in the fable, have their
+fling at me now, though time was, and no longer ago than yesterday
+too, when they were all civility and compliance.  But they shall not
+move me.  I'll not give way.  I will not budge one inch!'
+
+He went home, and was glad to find his housekeeper complaining of
+illness, that he might have an excuse for being alone and sending
+her away to where she lived: which was hard by.  Then, he sat down
+by the light of a single candle, and began to think, for the first
+time, on all that had taken place that day.
+
+He had neither eaten nor drunk since last night, and, in addition to
+the anxiety of mind he had undergone, had been travelling about,
+from place to place almost incessantly, for many hours.  He felt
+sick and exhausted, but could taste nothing save a glass of water,
+and continued to sit with his head upon his hand; not resting nor
+thinking, but laboriously trying to do both, and feeling that every
+sense but one of weariness and desolation, was for the time
+benumbed.
+
+It was nearly ten o'clock when he heard a knocking at the door, and
+still sat quiet as before, as if he could not even bring his
+thoughts to bear upon that.  It had been often repeated, and he had,
+several times, heard a voice outside, saying there was a light in
+the window (meaning, as he knew, his own candle), before he could
+rouse himself and go downstairs.
+
+'Mr Nickleby, there is terrible news for you, and I am sent to beg
+you will come with me directly,' said a voice he seemed to
+recognise.  He held his hand above his eyes, and, looking out, saw
+Tim Linkinwater on the steps.
+
+'Come where?' demanded Ralph.
+
+'To our house, where you came this morning.  I have a coach here.'
+
+'Why should I go there?' said Ralph.
+
+'Don't ask me why, but pray come with me.'
+
+'Another edition of today!' returned Ralph, making as though he
+would shut the door.
+
+'No, no!' cried Tim, catching him by the arm and speaking most
+earnestly; 'it is only that you may hear something that has
+occurred: something very dreadful, Mr Nickleby, which concerns you
+nearly.  Do you think I would tell you so or come to you like this,
+if it were not the case?'
+
+Ralph looked at him more closely.  Seeing that he was indeed greatly
+excited, he faltered, and could not tell what to say or think.
+
+'You had better hear this now, than at any other time,' said Tim;
+'it may have some influence with you.  For Heaven's sake come!'
+
+Perhaps, at, another time, Ralph's obstinacy and dislike would have
+been proof against any appeal from such a quarter, however
+emphatically urged; but now, after a moment's hesitation, he went
+into the hall for his hat, and returning, got into the coach without
+speaking a word.
+
+Tim well remembered afterwards, and often said, that as Ralph
+Nickleby went into the house for this purpose, he saw him, by the
+light of the candle which he had set down upon a chair, reel and
+stagger like a drunken man.  He well remembered, too, that when he
+had placed his foot upon the coach-steps, he turned round and looked
+upon him with a face so ashy pale and so very wild and vacant that
+it made him shudder, and for the moment almost afraid to follow.
+People were fond of saying that he had some dark presentiment upon
+him then, but his emotion might, perhaps, with greater show of
+reason, be referred to what he had undergone that day.
+
+A profound silence was observed during the ride.  Arrived at their
+place of destination, Ralph followed his conductor into the house,
+and into a room where the two brothers were.  He was so astounded,
+not to say awed, by something of a mute compassion for himself which
+was visible in their manner and in that of the old clerk, that he
+could scarcely speak.
+
+Having taken a seat, however, he contrived to say, though in broken
+words, 'What--what have you to say to me--more than has been said
+already?'
+
+The room was old and large, very imperfectly lighted, and terminated
+in a bay window, about which hung some heavy drapery.  Casting his
+eyes in this direction as he spoke, he thought he made out the dusky
+figure of a man.  He was confirmed in this impression by seeing that
+the object moved, as if uneasy under his scrutiny.
+
+'Who's that yonder?' he said.
+
+'One who has conveyed to us, within these two hours, the
+intelligence which caused our sending to you,' replied brother
+Charles.  'Let him be, sir, let him be for the present.'
+
+'More riddles!' said Ralph, faintly.  'Well, sir?'
+
+In turning his face towards the brothers he was obliged to avert it
+from the window; but, before either of them could speak, he had
+looked round again.  It was evident that he was rendered restless
+and uncomfortable by the presence of the unseen person; for he
+repeated this action several times, and at length, as if in a
+nervous state which rendered him positively unable to turn away from
+the place, sat so as to have it opposite him, muttering as an excuse
+that he could not bear the light.
+
+The brothers conferred apart for a short time: their manner showing
+that they were agitated.  Ralph glanced at them twice or thrice, and
+ultimately said, with a great effort to recover his self-possession,
+'Now, what is this?  If I am brought from home at this time of
+night, let it be for something.  What have you got to tell me?'
+After a short pause, he added, 'Is my niece dead?'
+
+He had struck upon a key which rendered the task of commencement an
+easier one.  Brother Charles turned, and said that it was a death of
+which they had to tell him, but that his niece was well.
+
+'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ralph, as his eyes brightened,
+'that her brother's dead?  No, that's too good.  I'd not believe it,
+if you told me so.  It would be too welcome news to be true.'
+
+'Shame on you, you hardened and unnatural man,' cried the other
+brother, warmly.  'Prepare yourself for intelligence which, if you
+have any human feeling in your breast, will make even you shrink and
+tremble.  What if we tell you that a poor unfortunate boy: a child
+in everything but never having known one of those tender
+endearments, or one of those lightsome hours which make our
+childhood a time to be remembered like a happy dream through all our
+after life: a warm-hearted, harmless, affectionate creature, who
+never offended you, or did you wrong, but on whom you have vented
+the malice and hatred you have conceived for your nephew, and whom
+you have made an instrument for wreaking your bad passions upon him:
+what if we tell you that, sinking under your persecution, sir, and
+the misery and ill-usage of a life short in years but long in
+suffering, this poor creature has gone to tell his sad tale where,
+for your part in it, you must surely answer?'
+
+'If you tell me,' said Ralph; 'if you tell me that he is dead, I
+forgive you all else.  If you tell me that he is dead, I am in your
+debt and bound to you for life.  He is!  I see it in your faces.
+Who triumphs now?  Is this your dreadful news; this your terrible
+intelligence?  You see how it moves me.  You did well to send.  I
+would have travelled a hundred miles afoot, through mud, mire, and
+darkness, to hear this news just at this time.'
+
+Even then, moved as he was by this savage joy, Ralph could see in
+the faces of the two brothers, mingling with their look of disgust
+and horror, something of that indefinable compassion for himself
+which he had noticed before.
+
+'And HE brought you the intelligence, did he?' said Ralph, pointing
+with his finger towards the recess already mentioned; 'and sat
+there, no doubt, to see me prostrated and overwhelmed by it!  Ha,
+ha, ha!  But I tell him that I'll be a sharp thorn in his side for
+many a long day to come; and I tell you two, again, that you don't
+know him yet; and that you'll rue the day you took compassion on the
+vagabond.'
+
+'You take me for your nephew,' said a hollow voice; 'it would be
+better for you, and for me too, if I were he indeed.'
+
+The figure that he had seen so dimly, rose, and came slowly down.
+He started back, for he found that he confronted--not Nicholas, as
+he had supposed, but Brooker.
+
+Ralph had no reason, that he knew, to fear this man; he had never
+feared him before; but the pallor which had been observed in his
+face when he issued forth that night, came upon him again.  He was
+seen to tremble, and his voice changed as he said, keeping his eyes
+upon him,
+
+'What does this fellow here?  Do you know he is a convict, a felon,
+a common thief?'
+
+'Hear what he has to tell you.  Oh, Mr Nickleby, hear what he has to
+tell you, be he what he may!' cried the brothers, with such emphatic
+earnestness, that Ralph turned to them in wonder.  They pointed to
+Brooker.  Ralph again gazed at him: as it seemed mechanically.
+
+'That boy,' said the man, 'that these gentlemen have been talking
+of--'
+
+'That boy,' repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him.
+
+'Whom I saw, stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now
+in his grave--'
+
+'Who is now in his grave,' echoed Ralph, like one who talks in his
+sleep.
+
+The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together:
+
+'--Was your only son, so help me God in heaven!'
+
+In the midst of a dead silence, Ralph sat down, pressing his two
+hands upon his temples.  He removed them, after a minute, and never
+was there seen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such
+a ghastly face as he then disclosed.  He looked at Brooker, who was
+by this time standing at a short distance from him; but did not say
+one word, or make the slightest sound or gesture.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said the man, 'I offer no excuses for myself.  I am
+long past that.  If, in telling you how this has happened, I tell
+you that I was harshly used, and perhaps driven out of my real
+nature, I do it only as a necessary part of my story, and not to
+shield myself.  I am a guilty man.'
+
+He stopped, as if to recollect, and looking away from Ralph, and
+addressing himself to the brothers, proceeded in a subdued and
+humble tone:
+
+'Among those who once had dealings with this man, gentlemen--that's
+from twenty to five-and-twenty years ago--there was one: a rough
+fox-hunting, hard-drinking gentleman, who had run through his own
+fortune, and wanted to squander away that of his sister: they were
+both orphans, and she lived with him and managed his house.  I don't
+know whether it was, originally, to back his influence and try to
+over-persuade the young woman or not, but he,' pointing, to Ralph,
+'used to go down to the house in Leicestershire pretty often, and
+stop there many days at a time.  They had had a great many dealings
+together, and he may have gone on some of those, or to patch up his
+client's affairs, which were in a ruinous state; of course he went
+for profit.  The gentlewoman was not a girl, but she was, I have
+heard say, handsome, and entitled to a pretty large property.  In
+course of time, he married her.  The same love of gain which led him
+to contract this marriage, led to its being kept strictly private;
+for a clause in her father's will declared that if she married
+without her brother's consent, the property, in which she had only
+some life interest while she remained single, should pass away
+altogether to another branch of the family.  The brother would give
+no consent that the sister didn't buy, and pay for handsomely; Mr
+Nickleby would consent to no such sacrifice; and so they went on,
+keeping their marriage secret, and waiting for him to break his neck
+or die of a fever.  He did neither, and meanwhile the result of this
+private marriage was a son.  The child was put out to nurse, a long
+way off; his mother never saw him but once or twice, and then by
+stealth; and his father--so eagerly did he thirst after the money
+which seemed to come almost within his grasp now, for his brother-
+in-law was very ill, and breaking more and more every day--never
+went near him, to avoid raising any suspicion.  The brother lingered
+on; Mr Nickleby's wife constantly urged him to avow their marriage;
+he peremptorily refused.  She remained alone in a dull country
+house: seeing little or no company but riotous, drunken sportsmen.
+He lived in London and clung to his business.  Angry quarrels and
+recriminations took place, and when they had been married nearly
+seven years, and were within a few weeks of the time when the
+brother's death would have adjusted all, she eloped with a younger
+man, and left him.'
+
+Here he paused, but Ralph did not stir, and the brothers signed to
+him to proceed.
+
+'It was then that I became acquainted with these circumstances from
+his own lips.  They were no secrets then; for the brother, and
+others, knew them; but they were communicated to me, not on this
+account, but because I was wanted.  He followed the fugitives.  Some
+said to make money of his wife's shame, but, I believe, to take some
+violent revenge, for that was as much his character as the other;
+perhaps more.  He didn't find them, and she died not long after.  I
+don't know whether he began to think he might like the child, or
+whether he wished to make sure that it should never fall into its
+mother's hands; but, before he went, he intrusted me with the charge
+of bringing it home.  And I did so.'
+
+He went on, from this point, in a still more humble tone, and spoke
+in a very low voice; pointing to Ralph as he resumed.
+
+'He had used me ill--cruelly--I reminded him in what, not long ago
+when I met him in the street--and I hated him.  I brought the child
+home to his own house, and lodged him in the front garret.  Neglect
+had made him very sickly, and I was obliged to call in a doctor, who
+said he must be removed for change of air, or he would die.  I think
+that first put it in my head.  I did it then.  He was gone six weeks,
+and when he came back, I told him--with every circumstance well
+planned and proved; nobody could have suspected me--that the child
+was dead and buried.  He might have been disappointed in some
+intention he had formed, or he might have had some natural
+affection, but he WAS grieved at THAT, and I was confirmed in my
+design of opening up the secret one day, and making it a means of
+getting money from him.  I had heard, like most other men, of
+Yorkshire schools.  I took the child to one kept by a man named
+Squeers, and left it there.  I gave him the name of Smike.  Year by
+year, I paid twenty pounds a-year for him for six years; never
+breathing the secret all the time; for I had left his father's
+service after more hard usage, and quarrelled with him again.  I was
+sent away from this country.  I have been away nearly eight years.
+Directly I came home again, I travelled down into Yorkshire, and,
+skulking in the village of an evening-time, made inquiries about the
+boys at the school, and found that this one, whom I had placed
+there, had run away with a young man bearing the name of his own
+father.  I sought his father out in London, and hinting at what I
+could tell him, tried for a little money to support life; but he
+repulsed me with threats.  I then found out his clerk, and, going on
+from little to little, and showing him that there were good reasons
+for communicating with me, learnt what was going on; and it was I
+who told him that the boy was no son of the man who claimed to be
+his father.  All this time I had never seen the boy.  At length, I
+heard from this same source that he was very ill, and where he was.
+I travelled down there, that I might recall myself, if possible, to
+his recollection and confirm my story.  I came upon him
+unexpectedly; but before I could speak he knew me--he had good cause
+to remember me, poor lad!--and I would have sworn to him if I had
+met him in the Indies.  I knew the piteous face I had seen in the
+little child.  After a few days' indecision, I applied to the young
+gentleman in whose care he was, and I found that he was dead.  He
+knows how quickly he recognised me again, how often he had described
+me and my leaving him at the school, and how he told him of a garret
+he recollected: which is the one I have spoken of, and in his
+father's house to this day.  This is my story.  I demand to be
+brought face to face with the schoolmaster, and put to any possible
+proof of any part of it, and I will show that it's too true, and
+that I have this guilt upon my soul.'
+
+'Unhappy man!' said the brothers.  'What reparation can you make for
+this?'
+
+'None, gentlemen, none!  I have none to make, and nothing to hope
+now.  I am old in years, and older still in misery and care.  This
+confession can bring nothing upon me but new suffering and
+punishment; but I make it, and will abide by it whatever comes.  I
+have been made the instrument of working out this dreadful
+retribution upon the head of a man who, in the hot pursuit of his
+bad ends, has persecuted and hunted down his own child to death.  It
+must descend upon me too.  I know it must fall.  My reparation comes
+too late; and, neither in this world nor in the next, can I have
+hope again!'
+
+He had hardly spoken, when the lamp, which stood upon the table
+close to where Ralph was seated, and which was the only one in the
+room, was thrown to the ground, and left them in darkness.  There
+was some trifling confusion in obtaining another light; the interval
+was a mere nothing; but when the light appeared, Ralph Nickleby was
+gone.
+
+The good brothers and Tim Linkinwater occupied some time in
+discussing the probability of his return; and, when it became
+apparent that he would not come back, they hesitated whether or no
+to send after him.  At length, remembering how strangely and
+silently he had sat in one immovable position during the interview,
+and thinking he might possibly be ill, they determined, although it
+was now very late, to send to his house on some pretence.  Finding
+an excuse in the presence of Brooker, whom they knew not how to
+dispose of without consulting his wishes, they concluded to act upon
+this resolution before going to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 61
+
+Wherein Nicholas and his Sister forfeit the good Opinion of all
+worldly and prudent People
+
+
+On the next morning after Brooker's disclosure had been made,
+Nicholas returned home.  The meeting between him and those whom he
+had left there was not without strong emotion on both sides; for
+they had been informed by his letters of what had occurred: and,
+besides that his griefs were theirs, they mourned with him the death
+of one whose forlorn and helpless state had first established a
+claim upon their compassion, and whose truth of heart and grateful
+earnest nature had, every day, endeared him to them more and more.
+
+'I am sure,' said Mrs Nickleby, wiping her eyes, and sobbing
+bitterly, 'I have lost the best, the most zealous, and most
+attentive creature that has ever been a companion to me in my life--
+putting you, my dear Nicholas, and Kate, and your poor papa, and
+that well-behaved nurse who ran away with the linen and the twelve
+small forks, out of the question, of course.  Of all the tractable,
+equal-tempered, attached, and faithful beings that ever lived, I
+believe he was the most so.  To look round upon the garden, now,
+that he took so much pride in, or to go into his room and see it
+filled with so many of those little contrivances for our comfort
+that he was so fond of making, and made so well, and so little
+thought he would leave unfinished--I can't bear it, I cannot really.
+Ah!  This is a great trial to me, a great trial.  It will be comfort
+to you, my dear Nicholas, to the end of your life, to recollect how
+kind and good you always were to him--so it will be to me, to think
+what excellent terms we were always upon, and how fond he always was
+of me, poor fellow!  It was very natural you should have been
+attached to him, my dear--very--and of course you were, and are very
+much cut up by this.  I am sure it's only necessary to look at you
+and see how changed you are, to see that; but nobody knows what my
+feelings are--nobody can--it's quite impossible!'
+
+While Mrs Nickleby, with the utmost sincerity, gave vent to her
+sorrows after her own peculiar fashion of considering herself
+foremost, she was not the only one who indulged such feelings.
+Kate, although well accustomed to forget herself when others were to
+be considered, could not repress her grief; Madeline was scarcely
+less moved than she; and poor, hearty, honest little Miss La Creevy,
+who had come upon one of her visits while Nicholas was away, and had
+done nothing, since the sad news arrived, but console and cheer them
+all, no sooner beheld him coming in at the door, than she sat
+herself down upon the stairs, and bursting into a flood of tears,
+refused for a long time to be comforted.
+
+'It hurts me so,' cried the poor body, 'to see him come back alone.
+I can't help thinking what he must have suffered himself.  I
+wouldn't mind so much if he gave way a little more; but he bears it
+so manfully.'
+
+'Why, so I should,' said Nicholas, 'should I not?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' replied the little woman, 'and bless you for a good
+creature! but this does seem at first to a simple soul like me--I
+know it's wrong to say so, and I shall be sorry for it presently--
+this does seem such a poor reward for all you have done.'
+
+'Nay,' said Nicholas gently, 'what better reward could I have, than
+the knowledge that his last days were peaceful and happy, and the
+recollection that I was his constant companion, and was not
+prevented, as I might have been by a hundred circumstances, from
+being beside him?'
+
+'To be sure,' sobbed Miss La Creevy; 'it's very true, and I'm an
+ungrateful, impious, wicked little fool, I know.'
+
+With that, the good soul fell to crying afresh, and, endeavouring to
+recover herself, tried to laugh.  The laugh and the cry, meeting
+each other thus abruptly, had a struggle for the mastery; the result
+was, that it was a drawn battle, and Miss La Creevy went into
+hysterics.
+
+Waiting until they were all tolerably quiet and composed again,
+Nicholas, who stood in need of some rest after his long journey,
+retired to his own room, and throwing himself, dressed as he was,
+upon the bed, fell into a sound sleep.  When he awoke, he found Kate
+sitting by his bedside, who, seeing that he had opened his eyes,
+stooped down to kiss him.
+
+'I came to tell you how glad I am to see you home again.'
+
+'But I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, Kate.'
+
+'We have been wearying so for your return,' said Kate, 'mama and I,
+and--and Madeline.'
+
+'You said in your last letter that she was quite well,' said
+Nicholas, rather hastily, and colouring as he spoke.  'Has nothing
+been said, since I have been away, about any future arrangements
+that the brothers have in contemplation for her?'
+
+'Oh, not a word,' replied Kate.  'I can't think of parting from her
+without sorrow; and surely, Nicholas, YOU don't wish it!'
+
+Nicholas coloured again, and, sitting down beside his sister on a
+little couch near the window, said:
+
+'No, Kate, no, I do not.  I might strive to disguise my real
+feelings from anybody but you; but I will tell you that--briefly and
+plainly, Kate--that I love her.'
+
+Kate's eyes brightened, and she was going to make some reply, when
+Nicholas laid his hand upon her arm, and went on:
+
+'Nobody must know this but you.  She, last of all.'
+
+'Dear Nicholas!'
+
+'Last of all; never, though never is a long day.  Sometimes, I try
+to think that the time may come when I may honestly tell her this;
+but it is so far off; in such distant perspective, so many years
+must elapse before it comes, and when it does come (if ever) I shall
+be so unlike what I am now, and shall have so outlived my days of
+youth and romance--though not, I am sure, of love for her--that even
+I feel how visionary all such hopes must be, and try to crush them
+rudely myself, and have the pain over, rather than suffer time to
+wither them, and keep the disappointment in store.  No, Kate!  Since
+I have been absent, I have had, in that poor fellow who is gone,
+perpetually before my eyes, another instance of the munificent
+liberality of these noble brothers.  As far as in me lies, I will
+deserve it, and if I have wavered in my bounden duty to them before,
+I am now determined to discharge it rigidly, and to put further
+delays and temptations beyond my reach.'
+
+'Before you say another word, dear Nicholas,' said Kate, turning
+pale, 'you must hear what I have to tell you.  I came on purpose,
+but I had not the courage.  What you say now, gives me new heart.'
+She faltered, and burst into tears.
+
+There was that in her manner which prepared Nicholas for what was
+coming.  Kate tried to speak, but her tears prevented her.
+
+'Come, you foolish girl,' said Nicholas; 'why, Kate, Kate, be a
+woman!  I think I know what you would tell me.  It concerns Mr
+Frank, does it not?'
+
+Kate sunk her head upon his shoulder, and sobbed out 'Yes.'
+
+'And he has offered you his hand, perhaps, since I have been away,'
+said Nicholas; 'is that it?  Yes.  Well, well; it is not so
+difficult, you see, to tell me, after all.  He offered you his
+hand?'
+
+'Which I refused,' said Kate.
+
+'Yes; and why?'
+
+'I told him,' she said, in a trembling voice, 'all that I have since
+found you told mama; and while I could not conceal from him, and
+cannot from you, that--that it was a pang and a great trial, I did
+so firmly, and begged him not to see me any more.'
+
+'That's my own brave Kate!' said Nicholas, pressing her to his
+breast.  'I knew you would.'
+
+'He tried to alter my resolution,' said Kate, 'and declared that, be
+my decision what it might, he would not only inform his uncles of
+the step he had taken, but would communicate it to you also,
+directly you returned.  I am afraid,' she added, her momentary
+composure forsaking her, 'I am afraid I may not have said, strongly
+enough, how deeply I felt such disinterested love, and how earnestly
+I prayed for his future happiness.  If you do talk together, I
+should--I should like him to know that.'
+
+'And did you suppose, Kate, when you had made this sacrifice to what
+you knew was right and honourable, that I should shrink from mine?'
+said Nicholas tenderly.
+
+'Oh no! not if your position had been the same, but--'
+
+'But it is the same,' interrupted Nicholas.  'Madeline is not the
+near relation of our benefactors, but she is closely bound to them
+by ties as dear; and I was first intrusted with her history,
+specially because they reposed unbounded confidence in me, and
+believed that I was as true as steel.  How base would it be of me to
+take advantage of the circumstances which placed her here, or of the
+slight service I was happily able to render her, and to seek to
+engage her affections when the result must be, if I succeeded, that
+the brothers would be disappointed in their darling wish of
+establishing her as their own child, and that I must seem to hope to
+build my fortunes on their compassion for the young creature whom I
+had so meanly and unworthily entrapped: turning her very gratitude
+and warmth of heart to my own purpose and account, and trading in
+her misfortunes!  I, too, whose duty, and pride, and pleasure, Kate,
+it is to have other claims upon me which I will never forget; and
+who have the means of a comfortable and happy life already, and have
+no right to look beyond it!  I have determined to remove this weight
+from my mind.  I doubt whether I have not done wrong, even now; and
+today I will, without reserve or equivocation, disclose my real
+reasons to Mr Cherryble, and implore him to take immediate measures
+for removing this young lady to the shelter of some other roof.'
+
+'Today? so very soon?'
+
+'I have thought of this for weeks, and why should I postpone it?  If
+the scene through which I have just passed has taught me to reflect,
+and has awakened me to a more anxious and careful sense of duty, why
+should I wait until the impression has cooled?  You would not
+dissuade me, Kate; now would you?'
+
+'You may grow rich, you know,' said Kate.
+
+'I may grow rich!' repeated Nicholas, with a mournful smile, 'ay,
+and I may grow old!  But rich or poor, or old or young, we shall
+ever be the same to each other, and in that our comfort lies.  What
+if we have but one home?  It can never be a solitary one to you and
+me.  What if we were to remain so true to these first impressions as
+to form no others?  It is but one more link to the strong chain that
+binds us together.  It seems but yesterday that we were playfellows,
+Kate, and it will seem but tomorrow when we are staid old people,
+looking back to these cares as we look back, now, to those of our
+childish days: and recollecting with a melancholy pleasure that the
+time was, when they could move us.  Perhaps then, when we are quaint
+old folks and talk of the times when our step was lighter and our
+hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the trials that so
+endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that current,
+down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly.  And
+having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us--
+as young as you and I are now, Kate--may come to us for sympathy,
+and pour distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel
+enough for, into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother
+and his maiden sister.'
+
+Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but
+they were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when
+he had ceased to speak.
+
+'Am I not right, Kate?' he said, after a short silence.
+
+'Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am
+that I have acted as you would have had me.'
+
+'You don't regret?'
+
+'N--n--no,' said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground
+with her little foot.  'I don't regret having done what was
+honourable and right, of course; but I do regret that this should
+have ever happened--at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I
+--I don't know what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has
+agitated me very much.'
+
+It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand
+pounds at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the
+owner of the blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its
+utmost farthing, in perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her
+happiness.  But all he could do was to comfort and console her by
+kind words; and words they were of such love and kindness, and
+cheerful encouragement, that poor Kate threw her arms about his
+neck, and declared she would weep no more.
+
+'What man,' thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon
+afterwards, to the brothers' house, 'would not be sufficiently
+rewarded for any sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a
+heart as Kate's, which, but that hearts weigh light, and gold and
+silver heavy, is beyond all praise?  Frank has money, and wants no
+more.  Where would it buy him such a treasure as Kate?  And yet, in
+unequal marriages, the rich party is always supposed to make a great
+sacrifice, and the other to get a good bargain!  But I am thinking
+like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the
+same.'
+
+Checking thoughts so little adapted to the business on which he was
+bound, by such self-reproofs as this and many others no less sturdy,
+he proceeded on his way and presented himself before Tim Linkinwater.
+
+'Ah! Mr Nickleby!' cried Tim, 'God bless you! how d'ye do?  Well?
+Say you're quite well and never better.  Do now.'
+
+'Quite,' said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands.
+
+'Ah!' said Tim, 'you look tired though, now I come to look at you.
+Hark! there he is, d'ye hear him?  That was Dick, the blackbird.  He
+hasn't been himself since you've been gone.  He'd never get on
+without you, now; he takes as naturally to you as he does to me.'
+
+'Dick is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he
+thinks I am half so well worthy of his notice as you,' replied
+Nicholas.
+
+'Why, I'll tell you what, sir,' said Tim, standing in his favourite
+attitude and pointing to the cage with the feather of his pen, 'it's
+a very extraordinary thing about that bird, that the only people he
+ever takes the smallest notice of, are Mr Charles, and Mr Ned, and
+you, and me.'
+
+Here, Tim stopped and glanced anxiously at Nicholas; then
+unexpectedly catching his eye repeated, 'And you and me, sir, and
+you and me.'  And then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, squeezing
+his hand, said, 'I am a bad one at putting off anything I am
+interested in.  I didn't mean to ask you, but I should like to hear
+a few particulars about that poor boy.  Did he mention Cheeryble
+Brothers at all?'
+
+'Yes,' said Nicholas, 'many and many a time.'
+
+'That was right of him,' returned Tim, wiping his eyes; 'that was
+very right of him.'
+
+'And he mentioned your name a score of times,' said Nicholas, 'and
+often bade me carry back his love to Mr Linkinwater.'
+
+'No, no, did he though?' rejoined Tim, sobbing outright.  'Poor
+fellow!  I wish we could have had him buried in town.  There isn't
+such a burying-ground in all London as that little one on the other
+side of the square--there are counting-houses all round it, and if
+you go in there, on a fine day, you can see the books and safes
+through the open windows.  And he sent his love to me, did he?  I
+didn't expect he would have thought of me.  Poor fellow, poor
+fellow!  His love too!'
+
+Tim was so completely overcome by this little mark of recollection,
+that he was quite unequal to any more conversation at the moment.
+Nicholas therefore slipped quietly out, and went to brother
+Charles's room.
+
+If he had previously sustained his firmness and fortitude, it had
+been by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm
+welcome, the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of
+the good old man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle could
+prevent his showing it.
+
+'Come, come, my dear sir,' said the benevolent merchant; 'we must
+not be cast down; no, no.  We must learn to bear misfortune, and we
+must remember that there are many sources of consolation even in
+death.  Every day that this poor lad had lived, he must have been
+less and less qualified for the world, and more and more unhappy in
+is own deficiencies.  It is better as it is, my dear sir.  Yes, yes,
+yes, it's better as it is.'
+
+'I have thought of all that, sir,' replied Nicholas, clearing his
+throat.  'I feel it, I assure you.'
+
+'Yes, that's well,' replied Mr Cheeryble, who, in the midst of all
+his comforting, was quite as much taken aback as honest old Tim;
+'that's well.  Where is my brother Ned?  Tim Linkinwater, sir, where
+is my brother Ned?'
+
+'Gone out with Mr Trimmers, about getting that unfortunate man into
+the hospital, and sending a nurse to his children,' said Tim.
+
+'My brother Ned is a fine fellow, a great fellow!' exclaimed brother
+Charles as he shut the door and returned to Nicholas.  'He will be
+overjoyed to see you, my dear sir.  We have been speaking of you
+every day.'
+
+'To tell you the truth, sir, I am glad to find you alone,' said
+Nicholas, with some natural hesitation; 'for I am anxious to say
+something to you.  Can you spare me a very few minutes?'
+
+'Surely, surely,' returned brother Charles, looking at him with an
+anxious countenance.  'Say on, my dear sir, say on.'
+
+'I scarcely know how, or where, to begin,' said Nicholas.  'If ever
+one mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and reverence for
+another: with such attachment as would make the hardest service in
+his behalf a pleasure and delight: with such grateful recollections
+as must rouse the utmost zeal and fidelity of his nature: those are
+the feelings which I should entertain for you, and do, from my heart
+and soul, believe me!'
+
+'I do believe you,' replied the old gentleman, 'and I am happy in
+the belief.  I have never doubted it; I never shall.  I am sure I
+never shall.'
+
+'Your telling me that so kindly,' said Nicholas, 'emboldens me to
+proceed.  When you first took me into your confidence, and
+dispatched me on those missions to Miss Bray, I should have told you
+that I had seen her long before; that her beauty had made an
+impression upon me which I could not efface; and that I had
+fruitlessly endeavoured to trace her, and become acquainted with her
+history.  I did not tell you so, because I vainly thought I could
+conquer my weaker feelings, and render every consideration
+subservient to my duty to you.'
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said brother Charles, 'you did not violate the
+confidence I placed in you, or take an unworthy advantage of it.  I
+am sure you did not.'
+
+'I did not,' said Nicholas, firmly.  'Although I found that the
+necessity for self-command and restraint became every day more
+imperious, and the difficulty greater, I never, for one instant,
+spoke or looked but as I would have done had you been by.  I never,
+for one moment, deserted my trust, nor have I to this instant.  But
+I find that constant association and companionship with this sweet
+girl is fatal to my peace of mind, and may prove destructive to the
+resolutions I made in the beginning, and up to this time have
+faithfully kept.  In short, sir, I cannot trust myself, and I
+implore and beseech you to remove this young lady from under the
+charge of my mother and sister without delay.  I know that to anyone
+but myself--to you, who consider the immeasurable distance between
+me and this young lady, who is now your ward, and the object of your
+peculiar care--my loving her, even in thought, must appear the
+height of rashness and presumption.  I know it is so.  But who can
+see her as I have seen, who can know what her life has been, and
+not love her?  I have no excuse but that; and as I cannot fly from
+this temptation, and cannot repress this passion, with its object
+constantly before me, what can I do but pray and beseech you to
+remove it, and to leave me to forget her?'
+
+'Mr Nickleby,' said the old man, after a short silence, 'you can do
+no more.  I was wrong to expose a young man like you to this trial.
+I might have foreseen what would happen.  Thank you, sir, thank you.
+Madeline shall be removed.'
+
+'If you would grant me one favour, dear sir, and suffer her to
+remember me with esteem, by never revealing to her this confession--'
+
+'I will take care,' said Mr Cheeryble.  'And now, is this all you
+have to tell me?'
+
+'No!' returned Nicholas, meeting his eye, 'it is not.'
+
+'I know the rest,' said Mr Cheeryble, apparently very much relieved
+by this prompt reply.  'When did it come to your knowledge?'
+
+'When I reached home this morning.'
+
+'You felt it your duty immediately to come to me, and tell me what
+your sister no doubt acquainted you with?'
+
+'I did,' said Nicholas, 'though I could have wished to have spoken
+to Mr Frank first.'
+
+'Frank was with me last night,' replied the old gentleman.  'You
+have done well, Mr Nickleby--very well, sir--and I thank you again.'
+
+Upon this head, Nicholas requested permission to add a few words.
+He ventured to hope that nothing he had said would lead to the
+estrangement of Kate and Madeline, who had formed an attachment for
+each other, any interruption of which would, he knew, be attended
+with great pain to them, and, most of all, with remorse and pain to
+him, as its unhappy cause.  When these things were all forgotten, he
+hoped that Frank and he might still be warm friends, and that no
+word or thought of his humble home, or of her who was well contented
+to remain there and share his quiet fortunes, would ever again
+disturb the harmony between them.  He recounted, as nearly as he
+could, what had passed between himself and Kate that morning:
+speaking of her with such warmth of pride and affection, and
+dwelling so cheerfully upon the confidence they had of overcoming
+any selfish regrets and living contented and happy in each other's
+love, that few could have heard him unmoved.  More moved himself
+than he had been yet, he expressed in a few hurried words--as
+expressive, perhaps, as the most eloquent phrases--his devotion to
+the brothers, and his hope that he might live and die in their
+service.
+
+To all this, brother Charles listened in profound silence, and with
+his chair so turned from Nicholas that his face could not be seen.
+He had not spoken either, in his accustomed manner, but with a
+certain stiffness and embarrassment very foreign to it.  Nicholas
+feared he had offended him.  He said, 'No, no, he had done quite
+right,' but that was all.
+
+'Frank is a heedless, foolish fellow,' he said, after Nicholas had
+paused for some time; 'a very heedless, foolish fellow.  I will take
+care that this is brought to a close without delay.  Let us say no
+more upon the subject; it's a very painful one to me.  Come to me in
+half an hour; I have strange things to tell you, my dear sir, and
+your uncle has appointed this afternoon for your waiting upon him
+with me.'
+
+'Waiting upon him!  With you, sir!' cried Nicholas.
+
+'Ay, with me,' replied the old gentleman.  'Return to me in half an
+hour, and I'll tell you more.'
+
+Nicholas waited upon him at the time mentioned, and then learnt all
+that had taken place on the previous day, and all that was known of
+the appointment Ralph had made with the brothers; which was for that
+night; and for the better understanding of which it will be
+requisite to return and follow his own footsteps from the house of
+the twin brothers.  Therefore, we leave Nicholas somewhat reassured
+by the restored kindness of their manner towards him, and yet
+sensible that it was different from what it had been (though he
+scarcely knew in what respect): so he was full of uneasiness,
+uncertainty, and disquiet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 62
+
+Ralph makes one last Appointment--and keeps it
+
+
+Creeping from the house, and slinking off like a thief; groping with
+his hands, when first he got into the street, as if he were a blind
+man; and looking often over his shoulder while he hurried away, as
+though he were followed in imagination or reality by someone anxious
+to question or detain him; Ralph Nickleby left the city behind him,
+and took the road to his own home.
+
+The night was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds,
+furiously and fast, before it.  There was one black, gloomy mass
+that seemed to follow him: not hurrying in the wild chase with the
+others, but lingering sullenly behind, and gliding darkly and
+stealthily on.  He often looked back at this, and, more than once,
+stopped to let it pass over; but, somehow, when he went forward
+again, it was still behind him, coming mournfully and slowly up,
+like a shadowy funeral train.
+
+He had to pass a poor, mean burial-ground--a dismal place, raised a
+few feet above the level of the street, and parted from it by a low
+parapet-wall and an iron railing; a rank, unwholesome, rotten spot,
+where the very grass and weeds seemed, in their frouzy growth, to
+tell that they had sprung from paupers' bodies, and had struck their
+roots in the graves of men, sodden, while alive, in steaming courts
+and drunken hungry dens.  And here, in truth, they lay, parted from
+the living by a little earth and a board or two--lay thick and
+close--corrupting in body as they had in mind--a dense and squalid
+crowd.  Here they lay, cheek by jowl with life: no deeper down than
+the feet of the throng that passed there every day, and piled high
+as their throats.  Here they lay, a grisly family, all these dear
+departed brothers and sisters of the ruddy clergyman who did his
+task so speedily when they were hidden in the ground!
+
+As he passed here, Ralph called to mind that he had been one of a
+jury, long before, on the body of a man who had cut his throat; and
+that he was buried in this place.  He could not tell how he came to
+recollect it now, when he had so often passed and never thought
+about him, or how it was that he felt an interest in the
+circumstance; but he did both; and stopping, and clasping the iron
+railings with his hands, looked eagerly in, wondering which might be
+his grave.
+
+While he was thus engaged, there came towards him, with noise of
+shouts and singing, some fellows full of drink, followed by others,
+who were remonstrating with them and urging them to go home in
+quiet.  They were in high good-humour; and one of them, a little,
+weazen, hump-backed man, began to dance.  He was a grotesque,
+fantastic figure, and the few bystanders laughed.  Ralph himself was
+moved to mirth, and echoed the laugh of one who stood near and who
+looked round in his face.  When they had passed on, and he was left
+alone again, he resumed his speculation with a new kind of interest;
+for he recollected that the last person who had seen the suicide
+alive, had left him very merry, and he remembered how strange he and
+the other jurors had thought that at the time.
+
+He could not fix upon the spot among such a heap of graves, but he
+conjured up a strong and vivid idea of the man himself, and how he
+looked, and what had led him to do it; all of which he recalled with
+ease.  By dint of dwelling upon this theme, he carried the
+impression with him when he went away; as he remembered, when a
+child, to have had frequently before him the figure of some goblin
+he had once seen chalked upon a door.  But as he drew nearer and
+nearer home he forgot it again, and began to think how very dull and
+solitary the house would be inside.
+
+This feeling became so strong at last, that when he reached his own
+door, he could hardly make up his mind to turn the key and open it.
+When he had done that, and gone into the passage, he felt as though
+to shut it again would be to shut out the world.  But he let it go,
+and it closed with a loud noise.  There was no light.  How very
+dreary, cold, and still it was!
+
+Shivering from head to foot, he made his way upstairs into the room
+where he had been last disturbed.  He had made a kind of compact
+with himself that he would not think of what had happened until he
+got home.  He was at home now, and suffered himself to consider it.
+
+His own child, his own child!  He never doubted the tale; he felt it
+was true; knew it as well, now, as if he had been privy to it all
+along.  His own child!  And dead too.  Dying beside Nicholas, loving
+him, and looking upon him as something like an angel.  That was the
+worst!
+
+They had all turned from him and deserted him in his very first
+need.  Even money could not buy them now; everything must come out,
+and everybody must know all.  Here was the young lord dead, his
+companion abroad and beyond his reach, ten thousand pounds gone at
+one blow, his plot with Gride overset at the very moment of triumph,
+his after-schemes discovered, himself in danger, the object of his
+persecution and Nicholas's love, his own wretched boy; everything
+crumbled and fallen upon him, and he beaten down beneath the ruins
+and grovelling in the dust.
+
+If he had known his child to be alive; if no deceit had been ever
+practised, and he had grown up beneath his eye; he might have been a
+careless, indifferent, rough, harsh father--like enough--he felt
+that; but the thought would come that he might have been otherwise,
+and that his son might have been a comfort to him, and they two
+happy together.  He began to think now, that his supposed death and
+his wife's flight had had some share in making him the morose, hard
+man he was.  He seemed to remember a time when he was not quite so
+rough and obdurate; and almost thought that he had first hated
+Nicholas because he was young and gallant, and perhaps like the
+stripling who had brought dishonour and loss of fortune on his head.
+
+But one tender thought, or one of natural regret, in his whirlwind
+of passion and remorse, was as a drop of calm water in a stormy
+maddened sea.  His hatred of Nicholas had been fed upon his own
+defeat, nourished on his interference with his schemes, fattened
+upon his old defiance and success.  There were reasons for its
+increase; it had grown and strengthened gradually.  Now it attained
+a height which was sheer wild lunacy.  That his, of all others,
+should have been the hands to rescue his miserable child; that he
+should have been his protector and faithful friend; that he should
+have shown him that love and tenderness which, from the wretched
+moment of his birth, he had never known; that he should have taught
+him to hate his own parent and execrate his very name; that he
+should now know and feel all this, and triumph in the recollection;
+was gall and madness to the usurer's heart.  The dead boy's love for
+Nicholas, and the attachment of Nicholas to him, was insupportable
+agony.  The picture of his deathbed, with Nicholas at his side,
+tending and supporting him, and he breathing out his thanks, and
+expiring in his arms, when he would have had them mortal enemies and
+hating each other to the last, drove him frantic.  He gnashed his
+teeth and smote the air, and looking wildly round, with eyes which
+gleamed through the darkness, cried aloud:
+
+'I am trampled down and ruined.  The wretch told me true.  The night
+has come!  Is there no way to rob them of further triumph, and spurn
+their mercy and compassion?  Is there no devil to help me?'
+
+Swiftly, there glided again into his brain the figure he had raised
+that night.  It seemed to lie before him.  The head was covered now.
+So it was when he first saw it.  The rigid, upturned, marble feet
+too, he remembered well.  Then came before him the pale and
+trembling relatives who had told their tale upon the inquest--the
+shrieks of women--the silent dread of men--the consternation and
+disquiet--the victory achieved by that heap of clay, which, with one
+motion of its hand, had let out the life and made this stir among
+them--
+
+He spoke no more; but, after a pause, softly groped his way out of
+the room, and up the echoing stairs--up to the top--to the front
+garret--where he closed the door behind him, and remained.
+
+It was a mere lumber-room now, but it yet contained an old
+dismantled bedstead; the one on which his son had slept; for no
+other had ever been there.  He avoided it hastily, and sat down as
+far from it as he could.
+
+The weakened glare of the lights in the street below, shining
+through the window which had no blind or curtain to intercept it,
+was enough to show the character of the room, though not sufficient
+fully to reveal the various articles of lumber, old corded trunks
+and broken furniture, which were scattered about.  It had a shelving
+roof; high in one part, and at another descending almost to the
+floor.  It was towards the highest part that Ralph directed his
+eyes; and upon it he kept them fixed steadily for some minutes, when
+he rose, and dragging thither an old chest upon which he had been
+seated, mounted on it, and felt along the wall above his head with
+both hands.  At length, they touched a large iron hook, firmly
+driven into one of the beams.
+
+At that moment, he was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door
+below.  After a little hesitation he opened the window, and demanded
+who it was.
+
+'I want Mr Nickleby,' replied a voice.
+
+'What with him?'
+
+'That's not Mr Nickleby's voice, surely?' was the rejoinder.
+
+It was not like it; but it was Ralph who spoke, and so he said.
+
+The voice made answer that the twin brothers wished to know whether
+the man whom he had seen that night was to be detained; and that
+although it was now midnight they had sent, in their anxiety to do
+right.
+
+'Yes,' cried Ralph, 'detain him till tomorrow; then let them bring
+him here--him and my nephew--and come themselves, and be sure that I
+will be ready to receive them.'
+
+'At what hour?' asked the voice.
+
+'At any hour,' replied Ralph fiercely.  'In the afternoon, tell
+them.  At any hour, at any minute.  All times will be alike to me.'
+
+He listened to the man's retreating footsteps until the sound had
+passed, and then, gazing up into the sky, saw, or thought he saw,
+the same black cloud that had seemed to follow him home, and which
+now appeared to hover directly above the house.
+
+'I know its meaning now,' he muttered, 'and the restless nights, the
+dreams, and why I have quailed of late.  All pointed to this.  Oh! if
+men by selling their own souls could ride rampant for a term, for
+how short a term would I barter mine tonight!'
+
+The sound of a deep bell came along the wind.  One.
+
+'Lie on!' cried the usurer, 'with your iron tongue!  Ring merrily
+for births that make expectants writhe, and marriages that are made
+in hell, and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn
+already!  Call men to prayers who are godly because not found out,
+and ring chimes for the coming in of every year that brings this
+cursed world nearer to its end.  No bell or book for me!  Throw me
+on a dunghill, and let me rot there, to infect the air!'
+
+With a wild look around, in which frenzy, hatred, and despair were
+horribly mingled, he shook his clenched hand at the sky above him,
+which was still dark and threatening, and closed the window.
+
+The rain and hail pattered against the glass; the chimneys quaked
+and rocked; the crazy casement rattled with the wind, as though an
+impatient hand inside were striving to burst it open.  But no hand
+was there, and it opened no more.
+
+
+'How's this?' cried one.  'The gentleman say they can't make anybody
+hear, and have been trying these two hours.'
+
+'And yet he came home last night,' said another; 'for he spoke to
+somebody out of that window upstairs.'
+
+They were a little knot of men, and, the window being mentioned,
+went out into the road to look up at it.  This occasioned their
+observing that the house was still close shut, as the housekeeper
+had said she had left it on the previous night, and led to a great
+many suggestions: which terminated in two or three of the boldest
+getting round to the back, and so entering by a window, while the
+others remained outside, in impatient expectation.
+
+They looked into all the rooms below: opening the shutters as they
+went, to admit the fading light: and still finding nobody, and
+everything quiet and in its place, doubted whether they should go
+farther.  One man, however, remarking that they had not yet been
+into the garret, and that it was there he had been last seen, they
+agreed to look there too, and went up softly; for the mystery and
+silence made them timid.
+
+After they had stood for an instant, on the landing, eyeing each
+other, he who had proposed their carrying the search so far, turned
+the handle of the door, and, pushing it open, looked through the
+chink, and fell back directly.
+
+'It's very odd,' he whispered, 'he's hiding behind the door!  Look!'
+
+They pressed forward to see; but one among them thrusting the others
+aside with a loud exclamation, drew a clasp-knife from his pocket,
+and dashing into the room, cut down the body.
+
+He had torn a rope from one of the old trunks, and hung himself on
+an iron hook immediately below the trap-door in the ceiling--in the
+very place to which the eyes of his son, a lonely, desolate, little
+creature, had so often been directed in childish terror, fourteen
+years before.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 63
+
+The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for themselves and
+others.  Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for himself
+
+
+Some weeks had passed, and the first shock of these events had
+subsided.  Madeline had been removed; Frank had been absent; and
+Nicholas and Kate had begun to try in good earnest to stifle their
+own regrets, and to live for each other and for their mother--who,
+poor lady, could in nowise be reconciled to this dull and altered
+state of affairs--when there came one evening, per favour of Mr
+Linkinwater, an invitation from the brothers to dinner on the next
+day but one: comprehending, not only Mrs Nickleby, Kate, and
+Nicholas, but little Miss La Creevy, who was most particularly
+mentioned.
+
+'Now, my dears,' said Mrs Nickleby, when they had rendered becoming
+honour to the bidding, and Tim had taken his departure, 'what does
+THIS mean?'
+
+'What do YOU mean, mother?' asked Nicholas, smiling.
+
+'I say, my dear,' rejoined that lady, with a face of unfathomable
+mystery, 'what does this invitation to dinner mean?  What is its
+intention and object?'
+
+'I conclude it means, that on such a day we are to eat and drink in
+their house, and that its intent and object is to confer pleasure
+upon us,' said Nicholas.
+
+'And that's all you conclude it is, my dear?'
+
+'I have not yet arrived at anything deeper, mother.'
+
+'Then I'll just tell you one thing,' said Mrs Nickleby, you'll find
+yourself a little surprised; that's all.  You may depend upon it
+that this means something besides dinner.'
+
+'Tea and supper, perhaps,' suggested Nicholas.
+
+'I wouldn't be absurd, my dear, if I were you,' replied Mrs
+Nickleby, in a lofty manner, 'because it's not by any means
+becoming, and doesn't suit you at all.  What I mean to say is, that
+the Mr Cheerybles don't ask us to dinner with all this ceremony for
+nothing.  Never mind; wait and see.  You won't believe anything I
+say, of course.  It's much better to wait; a great deal better; it's
+satisfactory to all parties, and there can be no disputing.  All I
+say is, remember what I say now, and when I say I said so, don't say
+I didn't.'
+
+With this stipulation, Mrs Nickleby, who was troubled, night and
+day, with a vision of a hot messenger tearing up to the door to
+announce that Nicholas had been taken into partnership, quitted that
+branch of the subject, and entered upon a new one.
+
+'It's a very extraordinary thing,' she said, 'a most extraordinary
+thing, that they should have invited Miss La Creevy.  It quite
+astonishes me, upon my word it does.  Of course it's very pleasant
+that she should be invited, very pleasant, and I have no doubt that
+she'll conduct herself extremely well; she always does.  It's very
+gratifying to think that we should have been the means of
+introducing her into such society, and I'm quite glad of it--quite
+rejoiced--for she certainly is an exceedingly well-behaved and good-
+natured little person.  I could wish that some friend would mention
+to her how very badly she has her cap trimmed, and what very
+preposterous bows those are, but of course that's impossible, and if
+she likes to make a fright of herself, no doubt she has a perfect
+right to do so.  We never see ourselves--never do, and never did--
+and I suppose we never shall.'
+
+This moral reflection reminding her of the necessity of being
+peculiarly smart on the occasion, so as to counterbalance Miss La
+Creevy, and be herself an effectual set-off and atonement, led Mrs
+Nickleby into a consultation with her daughter relative to certain
+ribbons, gloves, and trimmings: which, being a complicated question,
+and one of paramount importance, soon routed the previous one, and
+put it to flight.
+
+The great day arriving, the good lady put herself under Kate's hands
+an hour or so after breakfast, and, dressing by easy stages,
+completed her toilette in sufficient time to allow of her daughter's
+making hers, which was very simple, and not very long, though so
+satisfactory that she had never appeared more charming or looked
+more lovely.  Miss La Creevy, too, arrived with two bandboxes
+(whereof the bottoms fell out as they were handed from the coach)
+and something in a newspaper, which a gentleman had sat upon, coming
+down, and which was obliged to be ironed again, before it was fit
+for service.  At last, everybody was dressed, including Nicholas,
+who had come home to fetch them, and they went away in a coach sent
+by the brothers for the purpose: Mrs Nickleby wondering very much
+what they would have for dinner, and cross-examining Nicholas as to
+the extent of his discoveries in the morning; whether he had smelt
+anything cooking at all like turtle, and if not, what he had smelt;
+and diversifying the conversation with reminiscences of dinners to
+which she had gone some twenty years ago, concerning which she
+particularised not only the dishes but the guests, in whom her
+hearers did not feel a very absorbing interest, as not one of them
+had ever chanced to hear their names before.
+
+The old butler received them with profound respect and many smiles,
+and ushered them into the drawing-room, where they were received by
+the brothers with so much cordiality and kindness that Mrs Nickleby
+was quite in a flutter, and had scarcely presence of mind enough,
+even to patronise Miss La Creevy.  Kate was still more affected by
+the reception: for, knowing that the brothers were acquainted with
+all that had passed between her and Frank, she felt her position a
+most delicate and trying one, and was trembling on the arm of
+Nicholas, when Mr Charles took her in his, and led her to another
+part of the room.
+
+'Have you seen Madeline, my dear,' he said, 'since she left your
+house?'
+
+'No, sir!' replied Kate.  'Not once.'
+
+'And not heard from her, eh?  Not heard from her?'
+
+'I have only had one letter,' rejoined Kate, gently.  'I thought she
+would not have forgotten me quite so soon.'
+
+'Ah,' said the old man, patting her on the head, and speaking as
+affectionately as if she had been his favourite child.  'Poor dear!
+what do you think of this, brother Ned?  Madeline has only written
+to her once, only once, Ned, and she didn't think she would have
+forgotten her quite so soon, Ned.'
+
+'Oh! sad, sad; very sad!' said Ned.
+
+The brothers interchanged a glance, and looking at Kate for a little
+time without speaking, shook hands, and nodded as if they were
+congratulating each other on something very delightful.
+
+'Well, well,' said brother Charles, 'go into that room, my dear--
+that door yonder--and see if there's not a letter for you from her.
+I think there's one upon the table.  You needn't hurry back, my
+love, if there is, for we don't dine just yet, and there's plenty of
+time.  Plenty of time.'
+
+Kate retired as she was directed.  Brother Charles, having followed
+her graceful figure with his eyes, turned to Mrs Nickleby, and said:
+
+'We took the liberty of naming one hour before the real dinner-time,
+ma'am, because we had a little business to speak about, which would
+occupy the interval.  Ned, my dear fellow, will you mention what we
+agreed upon?  Mr Nickleby, sir, have the goodness to follow me.'
+
+Without any further explanation, Mrs Nickleby, Miss La Creevy, and
+brother Ned, were left alone together, and Nicholas followed brother
+Charles into his private room; where, to his great astonishment, he
+encountered Frank, whom he supposed to be abroad.
+
+'Young men,' said Mr Cheeryble, 'shake hands!'
+
+'I need no bidding to do that,' said Nicholas, extending his.
+
+'Nor I,' rejoined Frank, as he clasped it heartily.
+
+The old gentleman thought that two handsomer or finer young fellows
+could scarcely stand side by side than those on whom he looked with
+so much pleasure.  Suffering his eyes to rest upon them, for a short
+time in silence, he said, while he seated himself at his desk:
+
+'I wish to see you friends--close and firm friends--and if I thought
+you otherwise, I should hesitate in what I am about to say.  Frank,
+look here!  Mr Nickleby, will you come on the other side?'
+
+The young men stepped up on either hand of brother Charles, who
+produced a paper from his desk, and unfolded it.
+
+'This,' he said, 'is a copy of the will of Madeline's maternal
+grandfather, bequeathing her the sum of twelve thousand pounds,
+payable either upon her coming of age or marrying.  It would appear
+that this gentleman, angry with her (his only relation) because she
+would not put herself under his protection, and detach herself from
+the society of her father, in compliance with his repeated
+overtures, made a will leaving this property (which was all he
+possessed) to a charitable institution.  He would seem to have
+repented this determination, however, for three weeks afterwards,
+and in the same month, he executed this.  By some fraud, it was
+abstracted immediately after his decease, and the other--the only
+will found--was proved and administered.  Friendly negotiations,
+which have only just now terminated, have been proceeding since this
+instrument came into our hands, and, as there is no doubt of its
+authenticity, and the witnesses have been discovered (after some
+trouble), the money has been refunded.  Madeline has therefore
+obtained her right, and is, or will be, when either of the
+contingencies which I have mentioned has arisen, mistress of this
+fortune.  You understand me?'
+
+Frank replied in the affirmative.  Nicholas, who could not trust
+himself to speak lest his voice should be heard to falter, bowed his
+head.
+
+'Now, Frank,' said the old gentleman, 'you were the immediate means
+of recovering this deed.  The fortune is but a small one; but we
+love Madeline; and such as it is, we would rather see you allied to
+her with that, than to any other girl we know who has three times
+the money.  Will you become a suitor to her for her hand?'
+
+'No, sir.  I interested myself in the recovery of that instrument,
+believing that her hand was already pledged to one who has a
+thousand times the claims upon her gratitude, and, if I mistake not,
+upon her heart, that I or any other man can ever urge.  In this it
+seems I judged hastily.'
+
+'As you always, do, sir,' cried brother Charles, utterly forgetting
+his assumed dignity, 'as you always do.  How dare you think, Frank,
+that we would have you marry for money, when youth, beauty, and
+every amiable virtue and excellence were to be had for love?  How
+dared you, Frank, go and make love to Mr Nickleby's sister without
+telling us first what you meant to do, and letting us speak for
+you?'
+
+'I hardly dared to hope--'
+
+'You hardly dared to hope!  Then, so much the greater reason for
+having our assistance!  Mr Nickleby, sir, Frank, although he judged
+hastily, judged, for once, correctly.  Madeline's heart IS occupied.
+Give me your hand, sir; it is occupied by you, and worthily and
+naturally.  This fortune is destined to be yours, but you have a
+greater fortune in her, sir, than you would have in money were it
+forty times told.  She chooses you, Mr Nickleby.  She chooses as we,
+her dearest friends, would have her choose.  Frank chooses as we
+would have HIM choose.  He should have your sister's little hand,
+sir, if she had refused it a score of times; ay, he should, and he
+shall!  You acted nobly, not knowing our sentiments, but now you
+know them, sir, you must do as you are bid.  What!  You are the
+children of a worthy gentleman!  The time was, sir, when my dear
+brother Ned and I were two poor simple-hearted boys, wandering,
+almost barefoot, to seek our fortunes: are we changed in anything
+but years and worldly circumstances since that time?  No, God
+forbid!  Oh, Ned, Ned, Ned, what a happy day this is for you and me!
+If our poor mother had only lived to see us now, Ned, how proud it
+would have made her dear heart at last!'
+
+Thus apostrophised, brother Ned, who had entered with Mrs Nickleby,
+and who had been before unobserved by the young men, darted forward,
+and fairly hugged brother Charles in his arms.
+
+'Bring in my little Kate,' said the latter, after a short silence.
+'Bring her in, Ned.  Let me see Kate, let me kiss her.  I have a
+right to do so now; I was very near it when she first came; I have
+often been very near it.  Ah!  Did you find the letter, my bird?
+Did you find Madeline herself, waiting for you and expecting you?
+Did you find that she had not quite forgotten her friend and nurse
+and sweet companion?  Why, this is almost the best of all!'
+
+'Come, come,' said Ned, 'Frank will be jealous, and we shall have
+some cutting of throats before dinner.'
+
+'Then let him take her away, Ned, let him take her away.  Madeline's
+in the next room.  Let all the lovers get out of the way, and talk
+among themselves, if they've anything to say.  Turn 'em out, Ned,
+every one!'
+
+Brother Charles began the clearance by leading the blushing girl to
+the door, and dismissing her with a kiss.  Frank was not very slow
+to follow, and Nicholas had disappeared first of all.  So there only
+remained Mrs Nickleby and Miss La Creevy, who were both sobbing
+heartily; the two brothers; and Tim Linkinwater, who now came in to
+shake hands with everybody: his round face all radiant and beaming
+with smiles.
+
+'Well, Tim Linkinwater, sir,' said brother Charles, who was always
+spokesman, 'now the young folks are happy, sir.'
+
+'You didn't keep 'em in suspense as long as you said you would,
+though,' returned Tim, archly.  'Why, Mr Nickleby and Mr Frank were
+to have been in your room for I don't know how long; and I don't
+know what you weren't to have told them before you came out with the
+truth.'
+
+'Now, did you ever know such a villain as this, Ned?' said the old
+gentleman; 'did you ever know such a villain as Tim Linkinwater?  He
+accusing me of being impatient, and he the very man who has been
+wearying us morning, noon, and night, and torturing us for leave to
+go and tell 'em what was in store, before our plans were half
+complete, or we had arranged a single thing.  A treacherous dog!'
+
+'So he is, brother Charles,' returned Ned; 'Tim is a treacherous
+dog.  Tim is not to be trusted.  Tim is a wild young fellow.  He
+wants gravity and steadiness; he must sow his wild oats, and then
+perhaps he'll become in time a respectable member of society.'
+
+This being one of the standing jokes between the old fellows and
+Tim, they all three laughed very heartily, and might have laughed
+much longer, but that the brothers, seeing that Mrs Nickleby was
+labouring to express her feelings, and was really overwhelmed by the
+happiness of the time, took her between them, and led her from the
+room under pretence of having to consult her on some most important
+arrangements.
+
+Now, Tim and Miss La Creevy had met very often, and had always been
+very chatty and pleasant together--had always been great friends--
+and consequently it was the most natural thing in the world that
+Tim, finding that she still sobbed, should endeavour to console her.
+As Miss La Creevy sat on a large old-fashioned window-seat, where
+there was ample room for two, it was also natural that Tim should
+sit down beside her; and as to Tim's being unusually spruce and
+particular in his attire that day, why it was a high festival and a
+great occasion, and that was the most natural thing of all.
+
+Tim sat down beside Miss La Creevy, and, crossing one leg over the
+other so that his foot--he had very comely feet and happened to be
+wearing the neatest shoes and black silk stockings possible--should
+come easily within the range of her eye, said in a soothing way:
+
+'Don't cry!'
+
+'I must,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
+
+'No, don't,' said Tim.  'Please don't; pray don't.'
+
+'I am so happy!' sobbed the little woman.
+
+'Then laugh,' said Tim.  'Do laugh.'
+
+What in the world Tim was doing with his arm, it is impossible to
+conjecture, but he knocked his elbow against that part of the window
+which was quite on the other side of Miss La Creevy; and it is clear
+that it could have no business there.
+
+'Do laugh,' said Tim, 'or I'll cry.'
+
+'Why should you cry?' asked Miss La Creevy, smiling.
+
+'Because I'm happy too,' said Tim.  'We are both happy, and I should
+like to do as you do.'
+
+Surely, there never was a man who fidgeted as Tim must have done
+then; for he knocked the window again--almost in the same place--and
+Miss La Creevy said she was sure he'd break it.
+
+'I knew,' said Tim, 'that you would be pleased with this scene.'
+
+'It was very thoughtful and kind to remember me,' returned Miss La
+Creevy.  'Nothing could have delighted me half so much.'
+
+Why on earth should Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater have said all
+this in a whisper?  It was no secret.  And why should Tim
+Linkinwater have looked so hard at Miss La Creevy, and why should
+Miss La Creevy have looked so hard at the ground?
+
+'It's a pleasant thing,' said Tim, 'to people like us, who have
+passed all our lives in the world alone, to see young folks that we
+are fond of, brought together with so many years of happiness before
+them.'
+
+'Ah!' cried the little woman with all her heart, 'that it is!'
+
+'Although,' pursued Tim 'although it makes one feel quite solitary
+and cast away.  Now don't it?'
+
+Miss La Creevy said she didn't know.  And why should she say she
+didn't know?  Because she must have known whether it did or not.
+
+'It's almost enough to make us get married after all, isn't it?'
+said Tim.
+
+'Oh, nonsense!' replied Miss La Creevy, laughing.  'We are too old.'
+
+'Not a bit,' said Tim; 'we are too old to be single.  Why shouldn't
+we both be married, instead of sitting through the long winter
+evenings by our solitary firesides?  Why shouldn't we make one
+fireside of it, and marry each other?'
+
+'Oh, Mr Linkinwater, you're joking!'
+
+'No, no, I'm not.  I'm not indeed,' said Tim.  'I will, if you will.
+Do, my dear!'
+
+'It would make people laugh so.'
+
+'Let 'em laugh,' cried Tim stoutly; 'we have good tempers I know,
+and we'll laugh too.  Why, what hearty laughs we have had since
+we've known each other!'
+
+'So we have,' cried' Miss La Creevy--giving way a little, as Tim
+thought.
+
+'It has been the happiest time in all my life; at least, away from
+the counting-house and Cheeryble Brothers,' said Tim.  'Do, my dear!
+Now say you will.'
+
+'No, no, we mustn't think of it,' returned Miss La Creevy.  'What
+would the brothers say?'
+
+'Why, God bless your soul!' cried Tim, innocently, 'you don't
+suppose I should think of such a thing without their knowing it!
+Why they left us here on purpose.'
+
+'I can never look 'em in the face again!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy,
+faintly.
+
+'Come,' said Tim, 'let's be a comfortable couple.  We shall live in
+the old house here, where I have been for four-and-forty year; we
+shall go to the old church, where I've been, every Sunday morning,
+all through that time; we shall have all my old friends about us--
+Dick, the archway, the pump, the flower-pots, and Mr Frank's
+children, and Mr Nickleby's children, that we shall seem like
+grandfather and grandmother to.  Let's be a comfortable couple, and
+take care of each other!  And if we should get deaf, or lame, or
+blind, or bed-ridden, how glad we shall be that we have somebody we
+are fond of, always to talk to and sit with!  Let's be a comfortable
+couple.  Now, do, my dear!'
+
+Five minutes after this honest and straightforward speech, little
+Miss La Creevy and Tim were talking as pleasantly as if they had
+been married for a score of years, and had never once quarrelled all
+the time; and five minutes after that, when Miss La Creevy had
+bustled out to see if her eyes were red and put her hair to rights,
+Tim moved with a stately step towards the drawing-room, exclaiming
+as he went, 'There an't such another woman in all London!  I KNOW
+there an't!'
+
+By this time, the apoplectic butler was nearly in fits, in
+consequence of the unheard-of postponement of dinner.  Nicholas, who
+had been engaged in a manner in which every reader may imagine for
+himself or herself, was hurrying downstairs in obedience to his
+angry summons, when he encountered a new surprise.
+
+On his way down, he overtook, in one of the passages, a stranger
+genteelly dressed in black, who was also moving towards the dining-
+room.  As he was rather lame, and walked slowly, Nicholas lingered
+behind, and was following him step by step, wondering who he was,
+when he suddenly turned round and caught him by both hands.
+
+'Newman Noggs!' cried Nicholas joyfully
+
+'Ah! Newman, your own Newman, your own old faithful Newman!  My dear
+boy, my dear Nick, I give you joy--health, happiness, every
+blessing!  I can't bear it--it's too much, my dear boy--it makes a
+child of me!'
+
+'Where have you been?' said Nicholas.  'What have you been doing?
+How often have I inquired for you, and been told that I should hear
+before long!'
+
+'I know, I know!' returned Newman.  'They wanted all the happiness
+to come together.  I've been helping 'em.  I--I--look at me, Nick,
+look at me!'
+
+'You would never let ME do that,' said Nicholas in a tone of gentle
+reproach.
+
+'I didn't mind what I was, then.  I shouldn't have had the heart to
+put on gentleman's clothes.  They would have reminded me of old
+times and made me miserable.  I am another man now, Nick.  My dear
+boy, I can't speak.  Don't say anything to me.  Don't think the worse
+of me for these tears.  You don't know what I feel today; you can't,
+and never will!'
+
+They walked in to dinner arm-in-arm, and sat down side by side.
+
+Never was such a dinner as that, since the world began.  There was
+the superannuated bank clerk, Tim Linkinwater's friend; and there
+was the chubby old lady, Tim Linkinwater's sister; and there was so
+much attention from Tim Linkinwater's sister to Miss La Creevy, and
+there were so many jokes from the superannuated bank clerk, and Tim
+Linkinwater himself was in such tiptop spirits, and little Miss La
+Creevy was in such a comical state, that of themselves they would
+have composed the pleasantest party conceivable.  Then, there was
+Mrs Nickleby, so grand and complacent; Madeline and Kate, so
+blushing and beautiful; Nicholas and Frank, so devoted and proud;
+and all four so silently and tremblingly happy; there was Newman so
+subdued yet so overjoyed, and there were the twin brothers so
+delighted and interchanging such looks, that the old servant stood
+transfixed behind his master's chair, and felt his eyes grow dim as
+they wandered round the table.
+
+When the first novelty of the meeting had worn off, and they began
+truly to feel how happy they were, the conversation became more
+general, and the harmony and pleasure if possible increased.  The
+brothers were in a perfect ecstasy; and their insisting on saluting
+the ladies all round, before they would permit them to retire, gave
+occasion to the superannuated bank clerk to say so many good things,
+that he quite outshone himself, and was looked upon as a prodigy of
+humour.
+
+'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, taking her daughter aside, as
+soon as they got upstairs, 'you don't really mean to tell me that
+this is actually true about Miss La Creevy and Mr Linkinwater?'
+
+'Indeed it is, mama.'
+
+'Why, I never heard such a thing in my life!' exclaimed Mrs
+Nickleby.
+
+'Mr Linkinwater is a most excellent creature,' reasoned Kate, 'and,
+for his age, quite young still.'
+
+'For HIS age, my dear!' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'yes; nobody says
+anything against him, except that I think he is the weakest and most
+foolish man I ever knew.  It's HER age I speak of.  That he should
+have gone and offered himself to a woman who must be--ah, half as
+old again as I am--and that she should have dared to accept him!  It
+don't signify, Kate; I'm disgusted with her!'
+
+Shaking her head very emphatically indeed, Mrs Nickleby swept away;
+and all the evening, in the midst of the merriment and enjoyment
+that ensued, and in which with that exception she freely
+participated, conducted herself towards Miss La Creevy in a stately
+and distant manner, designed to mark her sense of the impropriety of
+her conduct, and to signify her extreme and cutting disapprobation
+of the misdemeanour she had so flagrantly committed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 64
+
+An old Acquaintance is recognised under melancholy Circumstances,
+and Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever
+
+
+Nicholas was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless it is
+shared by the friends of adverse and less fortunate days.
+Surrounded by every fascination of love and hope, his warm heart
+yearned towards plain John Browdie.  He remembered their first
+meeting with a smile, and their second with a tear; saw poor Smike
+once again with the bundle on his shoulder trudging patiently by his
+side; and heard the honest Yorkshireman's rough words of
+encouragement as he left them on their road to London.
+
+Madeline and he sat down, very many times, jointly to produce a
+letter which should acquaint John at full length with his altered
+fortunes, and assure him of his friendship and gratitude.  It so
+happened, however, that the letter could never be written.  Although
+they applied themselves to it with the best intentions in the world,
+it chanced that they always fell to talking about something else,
+and when Nicholas tried it by himself, he found it impossible to
+write one-half of what he wished to say, or to pen anything, indeed,
+which on reperusal did not appear cold and unsatisfactory compared
+with what he had in his mind.  At last, after going on thus from day
+to day, and reproaching himself more and more, he resolved (the more
+readily as Madeline strongly urged him) to make a hasty trip into
+Yorkshire, and present himself before Mr and Mrs Browdie without a
+word of notice.
+
+Thus it was that between seven and eight o'clock one evening, he and
+Kate found themselves in the Saracen's Head booking-office, securing
+a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning's coach.  They had to go
+westward, to procure some little necessaries for his journey, and,
+as it was a fine night, they agreed to walk there, and ride home.
+
+The place they had just been in called up so many recollections, and
+Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicholas so many
+anecdotes of Frank, and each was so interested in what the other
+said, and both were so happy and confiding, and had so much to talk
+about, that it was not until they had plunged for a full half-hour
+into that labyrinth of streets which lies between Seven Dials and
+Soho, without emerging into any large thoroughfare, that Nicholas
+began to think it just possible they might have lost their way.
+
+The possibility was soon converted into a certainty; for, on looking
+about, and walking first to one end of the street and then to the
+other, he could find no landmark he could recognise, and was fain to
+turn back again in quest of some place at which he could seek a
+direction.
+
+It was a by-street, and there was nobody about, or in the few
+wretched shops they passed.  Making towards a faint gleam of light
+which streamed across the pavement from a cellar, Nicholas was about
+to descend two or three steps so as to render himself visible to
+those below and make his inquiry, when he was arrested by a loud
+noise of scolding in a woman's voice.
+
+'Oh come away!' said Kate, 'they are quarrelling.  You'll be hurt.'
+
+'Wait one instant, Kate.  Let us hear if there's anything the
+matter,' returned her brother.  'Hush!'
+
+'You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for-nothing brute,' cried the woman,
+stamping on the ground, 'why don't you turn the mangle?'
+
+'So I am, my life and soul!' replied the man's voice.  'I am always
+turning.  I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in a
+demnition mill.  My life is one demd horrid grind!'
+
+'Then why don't you go and list for a soldier?' retorted the woman;
+'you're welcome to.'
+
+'For a soldier!' cried the man.  'For a soldier!  Would his joy and
+gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail?  Would she
+hear of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly?  Would she
+have him fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, and his whiskers
+shaved, and his eyes turned right and left, and his trousers
+pipeclayed?'
+
+'Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, 'you don't know who that is.  It's
+Mr Mantalini I am confident.'
+
+'Do make sure!  Peep at him while I ask the way,' said Nicholas.
+'Come down a step or two.  Come!'
+
+Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps and looked into
+a small boarded cellar.  There, amidst clothes-baskets and clothes,
+stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old patched
+pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat,
+and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous
+dye--there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female--not
+the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern--
+and grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle, whose
+creaking noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost to
+deafen him--there was the graceful, elegant, fascinating, and once
+dashing Mantalini.
+
+'Oh you false traitor!' cried the lady, threatening personal
+violence on Mr Mantalini's face.
+
+'False!  Oh dem!  Now my soul, my gentle, captivating, bewitching,
+and most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm,' said Mr
+Mantalini, humbly.
+
+'I won't!' screamed the woman.  'I'll tear your eyes out!'
+
+'Oh!  What a demd savage lamb!' cried Mr Mantalini.
+
+'You're never to be trusted,' screamed the woman; 'you were out all
+day yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere I know.  You know you were!
+Isn't it enough that I paid two pound fourteen for you, and took you
+out of prison and let you live here like a gentleman, but must you
+go on like this: breaking, my heart besides?'
+
+'I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never do so
+any more; I will never be naughty again; I beg its little pardon,'
+said Mr Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and folding
+his palms together; 'it is all up with its handsome friend!  He has
+gone to the demnition bow-wows.  It will have pity?  It will not
+scratch and claw, but pet and comfort?  Oh, demmit!'
+
+Very little affected, to judge from her action, by this tender
+appeal, the lady was on the point of returning some angry reply,
+when Nicholas, raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly.
+
+Mr Mantalini turned round, caught sight of Kate, and, without
+another word, leapt at one bound into a bed which stood behind the
+door, and drew the counterpane over his face: kicking meanwhile
+convulsively.
+
+'Demmit,' he cried, in a suffocating voice, 'it's little Nickleby!
+Shut the door, put out the candle, turn me up in the bedstead!  Oh,
+dem, dem, dem!'
+
+The woman looked, first at Nicholas, and then at Mr Mantalini, as if
+uncertain on whom to visit this extraordinary behaviour; but Mr
+Mantalini happening by ill-luck to thrust his nose from under the
+bedclothes, in his anxiety to ascertain whether the visitors were
+gone, she suddenly, and with a dexterity which could only have been
+acquired by long practice, flung a pretty heavy clothes-basket at
+him, with so good an aim that he kicked more violently than before,
+though without venturing to make any effort to disengage his head,
+which was quite extinguished.  Thinking this a favourable
+opportunity for departing before any of the torrent of her wrath
+discharged itself upon him, Nicholas hurried Kate off, and left the
+unfortunate subject of this unexpected recognition to explain his
+conduct as he best could.
+
+The next morning he began his journey.  It was now cold, winter
+weather: forcibly recalling to his mind under what circumstances he
+had first travelled that road, and how many vicissitudes and changes
+he had since undergone.  He was alone inside the greater part of the
+way, and sometimes, when he had fallen into a doze, and, rousing
+himself, looked out of the window, and recognised some place which
+he well remembered as having passed, either on his journey down, or
+in the long walk back with poor Smike, he could hardly believe but
+that all which had since happened had been a dream, and that they
+were still plodding wearily on towards London, with the world before
+them.
+
+To render these recollections the more vivid, it came on to snow as
+night set in; and, passing through Stamford and Grantham, and by the
+little alehouse where he had heard the story of the bold Baron of
+Grogzwig, everything looked as if he had seen it but yesterday, and
+not even a flake of the white crust on the roofs had melted away.
+Encouraging the train of ideas which flocked upon him, he could
+almost persuade himself that he sat again outside the coach, with
+Squeers and the boys; that he heard their voices in the air; and
+that he felt again, but with a mingled sensation of pain and
+pleasure now, that old sinking of the heart, and longing after home.
+While he was yet yielding himself up to these fancies he fell
+asleep, and, dreaming of Madeline, forgot them.
+
+He slept at the inn at Greta Bridge on the night of his arrival,
+and, rising at a very early hour next morning, walked to the market
+town, and inquired for John Browdie's house.  John lived in the
+outskirts, now he was a family man; and as everbody knew him,
+Nicholas had no difficulty in finding a boy who undertook to guide
+him to his residence.
+
+Dismissing his guide at the gate, and in his impatience not even
+stopping to admire the thriving look of cottage or garden either,
+Nicholas made his way to the kitchen door, and knocked lustily with
+his stick.
+
+'Halloa!' cried a voice inside.  'Wa'et be the matther noo?  Be the
+toon a-fire?  Ding, but thou mak'st noise eneaf!'
+
+With these words, John Browdie opened the door himself, and opening
+his eyes too to their utmost width, cried, as he clapped his hands
+together, and burst into a hearty roar:
+
+'Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be the godfeyther!  Tilly, here be
+Misther Nickleby.  Gi' us thee hond, mun.  Coom awa', coom awa'.  In
+wi 'un, doon beside the fire; tak' a soop o' thot.  Dinnot say a
+word till thou'st droonk it a'!  Oop wi' it, mun.  Ding! but I'm
+reeght glod to see thee.'
+
+Adapting his action to his text, John dragged Nicholas into the
+kitchen, forced him down upon a huge settle beside a blazing fire,
+poured out from an enormous bottle about a quarter of a pint of
+spirits, thrust it into his hand, opened his mouth and threw back
+his head as a sign to him to drink it instantly, and stood with a
+broad grin of welcome overspreading his great red face like a jolly
+giant.
+
+'I might ha' knowa'd,' said John,;' that nobody but thou would ha'
+coom wi' sike a knock as you.  Thot was the wa' thou knocked at
+schoolmeasther's door, eh?  Ha, ha, ha!  But I say; wa'at be a' this
+aboot schoolmeasther?'
+
+'You know it then?' said Nicholas.
+
+'They were talking aboot it, doon toon, last neeght,' replied John,
+'but neane on 'em seemed quite to un'erstan' it, loike.'
+
+'After various shiftings and delays,' said Nicholas, 'he has been
+sentenced to be transported for seven years, for being in the
+unlawful possession of a stolen will; and, after that, he has to
+suffer the consequence of a conspiracy.'
+
+'Whew!' cried John, 'a conspiracy!  Soom'at in the pooder-plot wa'?
+Eh?  Soom'at in the Guy Faux line?'
+
+'No, no, no, a conspiracy connected with his school; I'll explain it
+presently.'
+
+'Thot's reeght!' said John, 'explain it arter breakfast, not noo,
+for thou be'est hoongry, and so am I; and Tilly she mun' be at the
+bottom o' a' explanations, for she says thot's the mutual
+confidence.  Ha, ha, ha!  Ecod, it's a room start, is the mutual
+confidence!'
+
+The entrance of Mrs Browdie, with a smart cap on, and very many
+apologies for their having been detected in the act of breakfasting
+in the kitchen, stopped John in his discussion of this grave
+subject, and hastened the breakfast: which, being composed of vast
+mounds of toast, new-laid eggs, boiled ham, Yorkshire pie, and other
+cold substantials (of which heavy relays were constantly appearing
+from another kitchen under the direction of a very plump servant),
+was admirably adapted to the cold bleak morning, and received the
+utmost justice from all parties.  At last, it came to a close; and
+the fire which had been lighted in the best parlour having by this
+time burnt up, they adjourned thither, to hear what Nicholas had to
+tell.
+
+Nicholas told them all, and never was there a story which awakened
+so many emotions in the breasts of two eager listeners.  At one
+time, honest John groaned in sympathy, and at another roared with
+joy; at one time he vowed to go up to London on purpose to get a
+sight of the brothers Cheeryble; and, at another, swore that Tim
+Linkinwater should receive such a ham by coach, and carriage free,
+as mortal knife had never carved.  When Nicholas began to describe
+Madeline, he sat with his mouth wide open, nudging Mrs Browdie from
+time to time, and exclaiming under his breath that she must be
+'raa'ther a tidy sart,' and when he heard at last that his young
+friend had come down purposely to communicate his good fortune, and
+to convey to him all those assurances of friendship which he could
+not state with sufficient warmth in writing--that the only object of
+his journey was to share his happiness with them, and to tell them
+that when he was married they must come up to see him, and that
+Madeline insisted on it as well as he--John could hold out no
+longer, but after looking indignantly at his wife, and demanding to
+know what she was whimpering for, drew his coat sleeve over his eyes
+and blubbered outright.
+
+'Tell'ee wa'at though,' said John seriously, when a great deal had
+been said on both sides, 'to return to schoolmeasther.  If this news
+aboot 'un has reached school today, the old 'ooman wean't have a
+whole boan in her boddy, nor Fanny neither.'
+
+'Oh, John!' cried Mrs Browdie.
+
+'Ah! and Oh, John agean,' replied the Yorkshireman.  'I dinnot know
+what they lads mightn't do.  When it first got aboot that
+schoolmeasther was in trouble, some feythers and moothers sent and
+took their young chaps awa'.  If them as is left, should know waat's
+coom tiv'un, there'll be sike a revolution and rebel!--Ding!  But I
+think they'll a' gang daft, and spill bluid like wather!'
+
+In fact, John Browdie's apprehensions were so strong that he
+determined to ride over to the school without delay, and invited
+Nicholas to accompany him, which, however, he declined, pleading
+that his presence might perhaps aggravate the bitterness of their
+adversity.
+
+'Thot's true!' said John; 'I should ne'er ha' thought o' thot.'
+
+'I must return tomorrow,' said Nicholas, 'but I mean to dine with
+you today, and if Mrs Browdie can give me a bed--'
+
+'Bed!' cried John, 'I wish thou couldst sleep in fower beds at once.
+Ecod, thou shouldst have 'em a'.  Bide till I coom back; on'y bide
+till I coom back, and ecod we'll make a day of it.'
+
+Giving his wife a hearty kiss, and Nicholas a no less hearty shake
+of the hand, John mounted his horse and rode off: leaving Mrs
+Browdie to apply herself to hospitable preparations, and his young
+friend to stroll about the neighbourhood, and revisit spots which
+were rendered familiar to him by many a miserable association.
+
+John cantered away, and arriving at Dotheboys Hall, tied his horse
+to a gate and made his way to the schoolroom door, which he found
+locked on the inside.  A tremendous noise and riot arose from
+within, and, applying his eye to a convenient crevice in the wall,
+he did not remain long in ignorance of its meaning.
+
+The news of Mr Squeers's downfall had reached Dotheboys; that was
+quite clear.  To all appearance, it had very recently become known
+to the young gentlemen; for the rebellion had just broken out.
+
+It was one of the brimstone-and-treacle mornings, and Mrs Squeers
+had entered school according to custom with the large bowl and
+spoon, followed by Miss Squeers and the amiable Wackford: who,
+during his father's absence, had taken upon him such minor branches
+of the executive as kicking the pupils with his nailed boots,
+pulling the hair of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in
+aggravating places, and rendering himself, in various similar ways,
+a great comfort and happiness to his mother.  Their entrance,
+whether by premeditation or a simultaneous impulse, was the signal
+of revolt.  While one detachment rushed to the door and locked it,
+and another mounted on the desks and forms, the stoutest (and
+consequently the newest) boy seized the cane, and confronting Mrs
+Squeers with a stern countenance, snatched off her cap and beaver
+bonnet, put them on his own head, armed himself with the wooden
+spoon, and bade her, on pain of death, go down upon her knees and
+take a dose directly.  Before that estimable lady could recover
+herself, or offer the slightest retaliation, she was forced into a
+kneeling posture by a crowd of shouting tormentors, and compelled to
+swallow a spoonful of the odious mixture, rendered more than usually
+savoury by the immersion in the bowl of Master Wackford's head,
+whose ducking was intrusted to another rebel.  The success of this
+first achievement prompted the malicious crowd, whose faces were
+clustered together in every variety of lank and half-starved
+ugliness, to further acts of outrage.  The leader was insisting upon
+Mrs Squeers repeating her dose, Master Squeers was undergoing
+another dip in the treacle, and a violent assault had been commenced
+on Miss Squeers, when John Browdie, bursting open the door with a
+vigorous kick, rushed to the rescue.  The shouts, screams, groans,
+hoots, and clapping of hands, suddenly ceased, and a dead silence
+ensued.
+
+'Ye be noice chaps,' said John, looking steadily round.  'What's to
+do here, thou yoong dogs?'
+
+'Squeers is in prison, and we are going to run away!' cried a score
+of shrill voices.  'We won't stop, we won't stop!'
+
+'Weel then, dinnot stop,' replied John; 'who waants thee to stop?
+Roon awa' loike men, but dinnot hurt the women.'
+
+'Hurrah!' cried the shrill voices, more shrilly still.
+
+'Hurrah?' repeated John.  'Weel, hurrah loike men too.  Noo then,
+look out.  Hip--hip,--hip--hurrah!'
+
+'Hurrah!' cried the voices.
+
+'Hurrah!  Agean;' said John.  'Looder still.'
+
+The boys obeyed.
+
+'Anoother!' said John.  'Dinnot be afeared on it.  Let's have a good
+'un!'
+
+'Hurrah!'
+
+'Noo then,' said John, 'let's have yan more to end wi', and then
+coot off as quick as you loike.  Tak'a good breath noo--Squeers be
+in jail--the school's brokken oop--it's a' ower--past and gane--
+think o' thot, and let it be a hearty 'un!  Hurrah!'
+
+Such a cheer arose as the walls of Dotheboys Hall had never echoed
+before, and were destined never to respond to again.  When the sound
+had died away, the school was empty; and of the busy noisy crowd
+which had peopled it but five minutes before, not one remained.
+
+'Very well, Mr Browdie!' said Miss Squeers, hot and flushed from the
+recent encounter, but vixenish to the last; 'you've been and excited
+our boys to run away.  Now see if we don't pay you out for that,
+sir!  If my pa IS unfortunate and trod down by henemies, we're not
+going to be basely crowed and conquered over by you and 'Tilda.'
+
+'Noa!' replied John bluntly, 'thou bean't.  Tak' thy oath o' thot.
+Think betther o' us, Fanny.  I tell 'ee both, that I'm glod the auld
+man has been caught out at last--dom'd glod--but ye'll sooffer eneaf
+wi'out any crowin' fra' me, and I be not the mun to crow, nor be
+Tilly the lass, so I tell 'ee flat.  More than thot, I tell 'ee noo,
+that if thou need'st friends to help thee awa' from this place--
+dinnot turn up thy nose, Fanny, thou may'st--thou'lt foind Tilly and
+I wi' a thout o' old times aboot us, ready to lend thee a hond.  And
+when I say thot, dinnot think I be asheamed of waa't I've deane, for
+I say again, Hurrah! and dom the schoolmeasther.  There!'
+
+His parting words concluded, John Browdie strode heavily out,
+remounted his nag, put him once more into a smart canter, and,
+carolling lustily forth some fragments of an old song, to which the
+horse's hoofs rang a merry accompaniment, sped back to his pretty
+wife and to Nicholas.
+
+For some days afterwards, the neighbouring country was overrun with
+boys, who, the report went, had been secretly furnished by Mr and
+Mrs Browdie, not only with a hearty meal of bread and meat, but with
+sundry shillings and sixpences to help them on their way.  To this
+rumour John always returned a stout denial, which he accompanied,
+however, with a lurking grin, that rendered the suspicious doubtful,
+and fully confirmed all previous believers.
+
+There were a few timid young children, who, miserable as they had
+been, and many as were the tears they had shed in the wretched
+school, still knew no other home, and had formed for it a sort of
+attachment, which made them weep when the bolder spirits fled, and
+cling to it as a refuge.  Of these, some were found crying under
+hedges and in such places, frightened at the solitude.  One had a
+dead bird in a little cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and
+when his poor favourite died, lost courage, and lay down beside him.
+Another was discovered in a yard hard by the school, sleeping with a
+dog, who bit at those who came to remove him, and licked the
+sleeping child's pale face.
+
+They were taken back, and some other stragglers were recovered, but
+by degrees they were claimed, or lost again; and, in course of time,
+Dotheboys Hall and its last breaking-up began to be forgotten by the
+neighbours, or to be only spoken of as among the things that had
+been.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 65
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+When her term of mourning had expired, Madeline gave her hand and
+fortune to Nicholas; and, on the same day and at the same time, Kate
+became Mrs Frank Cheeryble.  It was expected that Tim Linkinwater
+and Miss La Creevy would have made a third couple on the occasion,
+but they declined, and two or three weeks afterwards went out
+together one morning before breakfast, and, coming back with merry
+faces, were found to have been quietly married that day.
+
+The money which Nicholas acquired in right of his wife he invested
+in the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had become a
+partner.  Before many years elapsed, the business began to be
+carried on in the names of 'Cheeryble and Nickleby,' so that Mrs
+Nickleby's prophetic anticipations were realised at last.
+
+The twin brothers retired.  Who needs to be told that THEY were
+happy?  They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and
+lived but to increase it.
+
+Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreaty and brow-beating,
+to accept a share in the house; but he could never be prevailed upon
+to suffer the publication of his name as a partner, and always
+persisted in the punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly
+duties.
+
+He and his wife lived in the old house, and occupied the very
+bedchamber in which he had slept for four-and-forty years.  As his
+wife grew older, she became even a more cheerful and light-hearted
+little creature; and it was a common saying among their friends,
+that it was impossible to say which looked the happier, Tim as he
+sat calmly smiling in his elbow-chair on one side of the fire, or
+his brisk little wife chatting and laughing, and constantly bustling
+in and out of hers, on the other.
+
+Dick, the blackbird, was removed from the counting-house and
+promoted to a warm corner in the common sitting-room.  Beneath his
+cage hung two miniatures, of Mrs Linkinwater's execution; one
+representing herself, and the other Tim; and both smiling very hard
+at all beholders.  Tim's head being powdered like a twelfth cake,
+and his spectacles copied with great nicety, strangers detected a
+close resemblance to him at the first glance, and this leading them
+to suspect that the other must be his wife, and emboldening them to
+say so without scruple, Mrs Linkinwater grew very proud of these
+achievements in time, and considered them among the most successful
+likenesses she had ever painted.  Tim had the profoundest faith in
+them, likewise; for on this, as on all other subjects, they held but
+one opinion; and if ever there were a 'comfortable couple' in the
+world, it was Mr and Mrs Linkinwater.
+
+Ralph, having died intestate, and having no relations but those with
+whom he had lived in such enmity, they would have become in legal
+course his heirs.  But they could not bear the thought of growing
+rich on money so acquired, and felt as though they could never hope
+to prosper with it.  They made no claim to his wealth; and the
+riches for which he had toiled all his days, and burdened his soul
+with so many evil deeds, were swept at last into the coffers of the
+state, and no man was the better or the happier for them.
+
+Arthur Gride was tried for the unlawful possession of the will,
+which he had either procured to be stolen, or had dishonestly
+acquired and retained by other means as bad.  By dint of an
+ingenious counsel, and a legal flaw, he escaped; but only to undergo
+a worse punishment; for, some years afterwards, his house was broken
+open in the night by robbers, tempted by the rumours of his great
+wealth, and he was found murdered in his bed.
+
+Mrs Sliderskew went beyond the seas at nearly the same time as Mr
+Squeers, and in the course of nature never returned.  Brooker died
+penitent.  Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for some years, courted
+and caressed, and in high repute as a fine dashing fellow.
+Ultimately, returning to this country, he was thrown into jail for
+debt, and there perished miserably, as such high spirits generally
+do.
+
+The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperous
+merchant, was to buy his father's old house.  As time crept on, and
+there came gradually about him a group of lovely children, it was
+altered and enlarged; but none of the old rooms were ever pulled
+down, no old tree was ever rooted up, nothing with which there was
+any association of bygone times was ever removed or changed.
+
+Within a stone's throw was another retreat, enlivened by children's
+pleasant voices too; and here was Kate, with many new cares and
+occupations, and many new faces courting her sweet smile (and one so
+like her own, that to her mother she seemed a child again), the same
+true gentle creature, the same fond sister, the same in the love of
+all about her, as in her girlish days.
+
+Mrs Nickleby lived, sometimes with her daughter, and sometimes with
+her son, accompanying one or other of them to London at those
+periods when the cares of business obliged both families to reside
+there, and always preserving a great appearance of dignity, and
+relating her experiences (especially on points connected with the
+management and bringing-up of children) with much solemnity and
+importance.  It was a very long time before she could be induced to
+receive Mrs Linkinwater into favour, and it is even doubtful whether
+she ever thoroughly forgave her.
+
+There was one grey-haired, quiet, harmless gentleman, who, winter
+and summer, lived in a little cottage hard by Nicholas's house, and,
+when he was not there, assumed the superintendence of affairs.  His
+chief pleasure and delight was in the children, with whom he was a
+child himself, and master of the revels.  The little people could do
+nothing without dear Newman Noggs.
+
+The grass was green above the dead boy's grave, and trodden by feet
+so small and light, that not a daisy drooped its head beneath their
+pressure.  Through all the spring and summertime, garlands of fresh
+flowers, wreathed by infant hands, rested on the stone; and, when
+the children came to change them lest they should wither and be
+pleasant to him no longer, their eyes filled with tears, and they
+spoke low and softly of their poor dead cousin.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Nicholas Nickleby, by Dickens
+