THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 From the cxDllection 
 of 
 
 Alfred Garvin Ehgstrom 
 and 
 
 ^fery Claire Randolph 
 Ehgstrom 
 
i 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2020 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lifeadventuresof00dick_3 
 
I DON’T FORGET YOU. MY SOUL. AND NEVER SHALL. AND NEVER.CAN.” SAID MANTALINI. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS' COMPLETE WORKS. 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY EDITION, 
 
 With 200 Illustrations by Cruikshank, Phiz, Barnard, and others. 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 
 
 OF 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ESTES AND LAURIAT, 
 
 301-303 Washington Street. 
 
 1882., 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROUNA 
 AT CHAPEL HILL 
 

 
 
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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 formin<y 
 good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, this 
 class of 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 an^'where; although j^rc- 
 paration 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 im[)Ostors that might 
 naturally be expected to arise from such a state of things, 
 and to fiourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were 
 the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder. 
 Traders in the avarice-, indifference, or imbecilit}^ of parents, 
 and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal 
 
 (V) 
 
vi 
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 men, to whom few considerate persons would have en¬ 
 trusted the hoard and lodging of a horse or a dog; they 
 formed the worthy corner-stone of a structure, which, for 
 absurdity and a magnificent high-handed 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 about 
 the hundreds of thousands of minds that have been 
 deformed for ever by the incapable pettifoggers who have 
 pretended to form them I 
 
 I make mention of the race, as of the Yorkshire school¬ 
 masters, in the past tense. Though it has not yet finally 
 disappeared, it is dwindling daily. A long daj^’s work 
 remains to be done about us in the way of education. 
 Ilea veil knows; but great improvements and facilities 
 towards the attainment of a good one, have been furnished, 
 of late years, to those who can afford to pay for it. 
 
 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 Bochester Castle, with a head 
 full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sanciio Panza ; 
 but, I know that m}^ 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. Tlie impression made upon me, however 
 made, never left me. I was alwa3’s curious about them— 
 fell, long afterwards, and at sundi*}' times, into the way of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Vll 
 
 hearing more about them—at last, having an audience, 
 resolved to write about them. 
 
 With that intent, 1 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 school¬ 
 master or two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen 
 might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from 
 me, I consulted with a professional friend hei’e, who had 
 a Yorkshire connection, 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 suppositious 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 lelations 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 neighbour¬ 
 hood, the writer w^ould be veiy much obliged. 
 
 I went to several places in that part of the country 
 where I understood these schools to be 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 warm corner, 
 and take his share of the wine that was on the table. 
 
 1 am afraid he is dead now. I recollect he was a jovial, 
 rudd}’, broad-faced man ; that we got acquainted directly’’; 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 and that we talked on all kinds of subjects, except the 
 school, w'hich he showed a great anxietj' to avoid. Was 
 there any large school near? I asked him, in reference to 
 the letter. '' Oh, 3'es,” he said; “ there was a pratty 
 big ’un.” “ Was it a good one ?” i asked. “ Ey 1 ” 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 m3’ reverting to some 
 other topic that we had been discussing, he recovered 
 immediatel3’; 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, agree¬ 
 ably, he suddenly took up his hat, and leaning oyer the 
 table and looking me full in the face, said, in a low voice. 
 “ Weel Misther, we’ve been vaiy pleasant toogather, and 
 ar ’ll spak’ m3’ moind tiv ’ee. Dinnot let the weediir send 
 her lattle boy to 3’an o’ our schoolmeasthers, 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 ’ra dom’d if ar can gang 
 to bed and not tellec, for weedur’s sak’, to keep the lattle 
 bo3’’ from a’ sike scoondrels while tliere ’s a harse to hoold 
 in a’ Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in !” Bepeating 
 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 after- 
 W’ards, but I sometimes imagine that I descry a faint 
 reflection of him in John Browdie. 
 
rREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 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, 
 tliat more than one A'orkshire schoolmaster lays claim to 
 being the original of Air. 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 63*6, and he has two, and the published 
 sketch docs not resemble him (whoever he may be) in an\' 
 other respect, still he and all his friends and neighbours 
 know at once for whom it is meant, because—the charactei 
 is so like him. 
 
 “ While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the 
 compliment thus conve3"ed to him, he ventures to suggest 
 that these contentions may arise fi’om the fact, that Mr. 
 Squeers is the representative of a class, and not of an 
 individual. Where imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidi¬ 
 ty, are the stock in trade of a small body of men, and one 
 is described b}" these characteristics, all his fellows will 
 recognise something belonging to themselves, and each 
 will have a misgiving that the portrait is his own. 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 “ The Author’s object in calling public attention to the 
 s_ystem 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 
 kej^t 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 treat¬ 
 ment of tlie master in these places, involving such offensive 
 and foul details of neglect, cruelt}^ and disease, as no 
 writer of fiction would have the lioldness to imagine—and 
 that, since he has been engaged upon these Adventures, he 
 has received, from private quarters far bejmnd 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 1 need say on tlie 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 ma}'’ 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 imagi¬ 
 nary’ ; and that, while, every day in real life, it will allow 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xi 
 
 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 Ciiee- 
 RYBLE 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 hundreds upon 
 hundreds of letters, from all sorts of people in all sorts of 
 latitudes and climates, to which this unlucky paragraph 
 has since given rise, 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 which 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 Chanccll<^rs since the accession of the House 
 of Brunswick, and would have broken the Best of the 
 Bank of England. 
 
 There is onl}’’ one other point, on which I would desire 
 to oflbr a remark. If Nicholas be not alwa^'s found to bo 
 blameless or agreeable, he is not alwa3’s intended to 
 appear so. He is a j’oung 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. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 “ I don’t forget you, my Soul, and never shall, and 
 
 NEVER CAN,” SAID Mantalini. F 7 - 07 itispiece. 
 
 “Oh! as soft as possible, if you please” .... 127 
 
 “ I AM AFRAID YOU HAVE BEEN GIVING HER SOME OF 
 
 YOUR WICKED LoOKS, MY LORD,” SAID THE INTENDED 261 
 
 Lashing himself up to an extravagant Pitch of 
 Fury, Newman Noggs jerked himself about the 
 Room with the most eccentric Motion ever be¬ 
 
 held IN A Human Being.454 
 
 The meditative Ogre.579 
 
 “ Oh ! Mr. Linkinwater, you’re joking ”.896 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 •-♦- 
 
 CBAPTEK PASS 
 
 i.—Introduces all the rest,... 17 
 
 n.—Of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishment, and his Under¬ 
 takings. And of a great Joint Stock Company of vast na¬ 
 tional importance. 23 
 
 III.—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 Nieholas, who is herein 
 introduced, and how kindly ho proposed to make his Fortune 
 at once. Sd 
 
 IV.—Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of 
 time) wait upon Mr. Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire School¬ 
 master. 48 
 
 V.—Nicholas starts lor Yorkshire.—Of his Leave-taking and his 
 
 Fellow Travelers, and what befel them on the road. 62 
 
 VI.—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 ether. 74 
 
 VII.—Mr. and Mrs. Squeers at Home. 
 
 VIII.—Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall. 103 
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTBE PAQI 
 
 IX,—Of Miss Squeers, Mrs, Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr. 
 Squeers; and various Matters and Persons connected no less 
 v^ith the Squeerses than with Nicholas Nickleby. 122 
 
 X.—How Mr. Ralph Nickleby provided for his Niece and Sister-in- 
 
 Law. 139 
 
 XI.—Mr. Newman Noggs Inducts Mrs. and Miss Nickleby into 
 
 their New Dwelling in the City. 154 
 
 XII.—Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further course 
 of Miss Fanny Squeors's Love, and to ascertain whether it 
 ran smoothly or otherwise. 160 
 
 XIII. —Nicholas varies the monotony of Dotheboys Hall by a most 
 
 vigorous and remarkable Proceeding, which leads to Conse¬ 
 quences of some importance. 173 
 
 XIV. —Having the Misfortune to treat of none but Common People, is 
 
 necessarily of a Mean and Vulgar Character. 189 
 
 XV.—Acquaints the Reader with the Cause and Origin of the Inter¬ 
 ruption described in the last Chapter, and with some other 
 Matters necessary to be known. 202 
 
 XVI.—Nicholas seeks to employ himself in a New Capacity, and being 
 unsuccessful, accepts an engagement as Tutor in a Private 
 
 Family. 217 
 
 XVII.—Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby.. 239 
 
 XVIII.—Miss Knag, after doating 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. 260 
 
 XIX.—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. 386 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 11 
 
 CHATTBR pagh 
 
 XX.—Wherein Nicholas at length encounters his tJncIe, to whom 
 he expresses his Sentiments with much Candor. His Reso¬ 
 lution. 28S 
 
 XXL—Madame Mantalini finds herself in a Situation of some Diffi¬ 
 culty, and Miss Nickleby finds herself in no situation at sdL 290 
 
 XXII.—Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth to seek his 
 Fortune. He encounters Mr. Vincent Crummies; and who 
 he was is herein made manifest. 310 
 
 XXIII.—Treats of the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummies, and of his 
 
 Affairs, Domestic and Theatrical. 327 
 
 XXrV.—Of the Great Despeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first ap¬ 
 pearance of NichO'las upon any Stage. 342 
 
 XXV.—Concerning a young Lady from London who joins the Com¬ 
 pany, and an elderly Admirer who follows in her Train j 
 
 with an affecting Ceremony consequent on their Arrival. 360 
 
 XXVI.—Is fraught with some Danger to Miss Nickleby’s Peace of 
 
 Mind. 375 
 
 XXVII.—Mrs. Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs. Pyke and 
 
 Pluck, whose Affection and Interest are beyond all bounds. 387 
 
 XXVIII.—Miss Nickleby, rendered desperate by the Persecution of Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk, and the complicated Difficulties and Dis¬ 
 tresses which surround her, appeals, as a last resource, to 
 
 her Uncle for Protection... 403 
 
 XXIX.—Of the Proceedings of Nicholas, and certain Internal Divi¬ 
 sions in the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummies.. 423 
 
 XXX.—Festivities are held in honor of Nicholas, who suddenly with¬ 
 draws himself from the society of Mr. Vincent Crummies 
 and his Theatrical Companions.... ^33 
 
12 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PASB 
 
 XXXI.—Of Kalph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise 
 Precautions, the success or failure of which will appear 
 in the Sequel. 449 
 
 XXXII.—Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and some 
 
 remarkable Proceedings to which it gives rise. 457 
 
 XXXIII.—In which Mr. Ralph Nickleby is relieved, by a very expedi¬ 
 tious Process, from all Commerce with his relations,. 469 
 
 XXXIV.—Wherein Mr. Ralph Nickleby is visited l.y Persons with 
 
 whom the Reader has been already made acquainted. 477 
 
 XXXV.—Smike becomes known to Mrs. Nickleby and Kate. Nicho¬ 
 las also meets with new Acquaintances, and brighter Days 
 seem to dawn upon the Family. 496 
 
 XXXVI.—Private and confidential j relating to family matters. Show¬ 
 ing how Mr. Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and 
 how Mrs. Kenwigs was as well as could be expected. 613 
 
 XXXVII.—Nicholas finds further Favor 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 im¬ 
 portant Disclosure from the lips of Mrs. Nickleby. 623 
 
 XXXVm. —Comprises certain Particulars arising out of a Visit of Con¬ 
 dolence, which may prove important hereafter. Smike 
 unexpectedly encounters a very old Friend, who invites 
 
 him to his house, and will take no denial-.. 542 
 
 XXXIX.—In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very oppor¬ 
 tunely and to some purpose.. 658 
 
 XL.—In which Nicholas falls in Love. lie employs a Mediator, 
 whose Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, 
 excepting in one solitary Particular.. 
 
 568 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTBE PAGd 
 
 XLI.—Containiog some Romantic Passages between Mrs. Nickleby 
 
 and the Gentleman in the Small-clothes next Door. 637 
 
 XLII.—Illustrative of the convivial Sentiment, that the best of Friends 
 
 must sometimes part.... 60t 
 
 XLIII.—Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various 
 
 people together. 614 
 
 -XLIV.—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. 629 
 
 XLV.—Containing matter of a surprising kind.. 645 
 
 XLVI.—Throws some light upon Nicholas's Lovej but whether for 
 
 G ood or Evil the Reader must determine. 659 
 
 XLVII.—Ml. Ralph Nickleby has some confidential intercourse with 
 another old Friend. They concert between them a Project 
 which promises well for both. 674 
 
 XLVIII.—Being for the Benefit of Mr. Vincent Crummies, and positively 
 
 his last Appearance on this Stage. 691 
 
 XLIX.—Chronicles the further Proceedings of the Nickleby Family, 
 and the Sequel of the Adventure of the Gentleman in the 
 Small-clothes. 704 
 
 L.—Involves a serious Catastrophe. 721 
 
 LI.—The project of Mr. Ralph Nickleby and his Friend approach¬ 
 ing a successful Issue, becomes unexpectedly known to 
 another Party, not admitted into their Confidence.. 738 
 
 LII.—Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up 
 his spirits again, and determines to attempt iu Domestic 
 Intelligence of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks. 719 
 
!4 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 OHAPTEH PAGa 
 
 LIII.—Containin.g the farther progress of the Plot contrivod by Mr. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Arthur Gride. 768 
 
 LIV.—The Crisis of the Project and its Result... 781 
 
 LV.—Of Family matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointmnets, and Sor¬ 
 rows. 794 
 
 LVI.—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. 808 
 
 LVII.—How Ralph Nickleby’s Auxiliary went about his work, and 
 
 how he prospered with it. 822 
 
 LVIII.—In which one Scene of this History is closed. 834 
 
 LIX.—The Plots begin to fail, and doubts and dangers to disturb the 
 
 Plotter. 841 
 
 LX.—The Dangers thicken, and the worst is told. 857 
 
 LXI.—Wherein Nicholas and his Sister forfeit the Good Opinion of 
 
 all worldly and prudent People...... 870 
 
 LXII.—Ralph makes one last Appointment—and keeps it. 881 
 
 LXIII.- -The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for them¬ 
 selves and others, and Tim Linkinwater makes a Declara¬ 
 
 tion for himself.. 888 
 
 LXtV. —An old Acquaintance is Recognized under melancholy circum¬ 
 stances, and Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever. 900 
 
 LXV.—Conclusion.. 910 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTUEES 
 
 OF 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCES ALL THE REST. 
 
 There once lived in a sequestered part of the county ot 
 Devonshire, one Mr. Godfrey Nickleby, a wortliy gentbman, 
 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 (lame out of 
 mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same 
 reason ; thus two people who cannot afford to play cardo for 
 money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love. 
 
 Some ill-conditioned persons, who sneer at the life-matrimo¬ 
 nial, 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 
 Bet 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, ai.d 
 trust to the bounty of the lookers-on for the means of regaling 
 themselves, so Mr. Godfrey Nickleby and his partner, the honey¬ 
 moon being over, looked wistfully out into the world, relying in 
 2 
 
18 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 no inconsiderable degree upon chance for the improvement of 
 their means. Mr. Nickleby’s income, at tlie period of his 
 marriage, liuctuated between sixty and eighty pounds per 
 annum. 
 
 There are people enough in the world, heaven knows! and 
 even in London (where Mr. Ts^ickleby dwelt in those days) but 
 few complaints prevail of the population being scanty. Tt is 
 extraordinary how long a man may look among the crowd with¬ 
 out discovering the face of a friend, but it is no less true. Mr. 
 Nicklcby 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 color, refreshes his dazzled sight by looking 
 upon a darker and more sombre tint; but every thing 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 embarrassed gentle¬ 
 man, impressed with the necessity of making some provision for 
 his family, was seriously revolving in his mind a little comnier’ 
 cial 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 in¬ 
 form 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 life-time, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been 
 christened after him, on a 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 
 further examination, however, they turned out to be strictly cor¬ 
 rect. The amiable old gentleman, it seemed, had intended to 
 leave the whole to the Ri)yal Humane Society, and had, indeed, 
 executed a will to that cfiect; but the Institution having been 
 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 19 
 
 nnfortnnate enough, a few months before, to save the life of a 
 poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowance of three shil¬ 
 lings 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 pur¬ 
 chased a small farm near Pawlish, 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 ; if indeed 
 that can be called a farm, which, exclusive of house and pad- 
 dock, is about the size of Russell Square, measuring from the 
 street-doors of the houses. 
 
 These two brothers had been brought up together in a school 
 at Exeter, and being accustomed to go home once a week, liad 
 often heard, from their mother’s lips, long accounts of their 
 father’s sulferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased 
 uncle’s importance in his days of affluence, which recitals ])ro- 
 duced 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 oft-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 Ral[)h 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 vir¬ 
 tuous purpose ; and, going back to the old getitlemaii, 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 meutaJ 
 
20 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Boliloquies 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 
 Fch )ol, 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 recom¬ 
 mended 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 ever 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 in¬ 
 terest 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 for¬ 
 mer case be very fairly presumed to be in great extremity, other¬ 
 wise he would not borrow at all with such odds against him 
 This fact is interesting, as illustrating the secret connection and 
 eympathy 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 
 
W 10 HUL Aa xM 0 KL KL Y . 
 
 £1 
 
 of the work which we shall presently begin. To set this point 
 at rest for once and forever, we hasten to undeceive them, and 
 stride to its commencement. 
 
 On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, wdio had been 
 sometime before placed in a mercantile house in Londoii, applied 
 himself passionately to his old pursuit of money-getting, iu 
 wdiich he Sj)eedily became so buried and absorbed, that he quite 
 forgot his brother for many years; and ifat times a recollection 
 of his old play-fellow broke upon him through the haze in which 
 he lived—for gold conjures up a mist about a man more destruc¬ 
 tive 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 w^ere intimate he wmuld want to borrow 
 money of him; and 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 
 w’ife the daughter of a neighboring 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 hii 
 capital, now sadly reduced by this increase in his family and 
 the expenses of their education. 
 
 “Speculate with it,” said IMrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “ Spec—u—late, my dear ?” said Mr. Nicklebv, as though in 
 doubt. 
 
 “Why not?” asked INIrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “Because, my dear, if we should lose it,” rejoined Mr. Nick¬ 
 leby, who was a slow and time-taking speaker, “it \vg should 
 ](jse 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 xXicholas,” pursued the lady, “(piite a young man— 
 it’s time he was in the way of doing something for himself; an I 
 Kate too, poor girl, without a })enny in the world, dhink of 
 your brother; would he be what he is. if he hadn’t speculated?” 
 
22 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “That’s true,” replied Mr. Nickleby. “Very good, my dear 
 Ves. I uill speculate, ray dear.” 
 
 Si»cculation 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 to-morrow. Not an article of my old furni¬ 
 ture, 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 
 neighbors, 
 
 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 gener¬ 
 osity and goodness of his brother, and the merry old times when 
 they were at school together Th’s 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 II. 
 
 OF MR. RALPH NICKLEBY, AND ITIS ESTABLISHMENT, AND HT8 
 
 UNDERTAKINGS. AND OF A GREAT JOINT STOCK COMPANY OF 
 
 VAST N^iTIONAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you 
 ■woiild call a merchant; neither was he a banker, nor an at¬ 
 torney, 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 wonld have been im¬ 
 possible to mention any recognized profession to which he 
 belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in 
 Golden Square, which, in addition to a brass ])late upon the 
 street-door, had another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller 
 upon the left hand door-))ost, surmounting a brass model of an 
 infant’s fist grasiiing a fragment of a skewer, and disi)hiying 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 tlie 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 Scpiare, it is not e.xactly in any body’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-comide.xioned men 
 who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards and bushy 
 Avhiskers, and who congregate under the Opera colonnade, and 
 about the box-olBce in the season, between four and five in the 
 
 ( 23 ) 
 
24 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 afternoon, when Mr. Seguin gives 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 around the head 
 of the mournful .statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness 
 of shrubs, in the centre of the scpiare. On a summer’s nigLt 
 windows are thrown open, and groups of swarthy mustachio’d 
 men are seen by the passer-by lounging at the casements, and 
 smoking fearfully. Sounds of gruff voices practicing 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 be¬ 
 tween 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 trans¬ 
 action 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 
 neighbors opined that he was a kind of general agent; both of 
 which guesses were as correet and definite as guesses about 
 other people’s affairs usually are, or need to be. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Kickleby sat in his private office one morning, 
 ready dressed to walk abroad. He were 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 
 garment was not made low enough to conceal a long gold watch- 
 chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which had its begin¬ 
 ning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr. ^sbckleby’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 
 B})rinkling of powder upon his head, as if to make himself look 
 benevolent; but if that were his purpose, he would perhaps have 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 26 
 
 done better to powder his countenance also, for there was 
 BOinetliing 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 any body just then, and 
 are consequently no business of ours just now. 
 
 JNIr. Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his deslq 
 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 effoi’t, lingers on all crackled and smoke-dried till the fol¬ 
 lowing season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps if 
 the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheurnatie 
 sparrow to chirrup in its branches. People sometimes call these 
 dark yards “gardens it is not supposed that they wei’e 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 jrlace, 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 move.9 
 in, but nothing more; and there they remain till 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 mourn¬ 
 fully about—a prey to “ blacks” and dirt. 
 
 It was into a place of this kind that Air. Ralph Nickleby 
 gazed as he sat with his hands in his pockets looking out at 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. 
 
26 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 At length his eyes wandered to a little dirty v, indow on the 
 left, through which the face of the clerk was dimly visible, and 
 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’a 
 room. lie was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes, 
 whereof one wms 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 w^orse for w^ear, very much too small, 
 and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was 
 quite marvelous liow he contrived to keep them on. 
 
 “ Was that half past twmlve, 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, 
 he 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 I” 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) tri¬ 
 umphed, and (as he rarely spoke to any body 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 per¬ 
 formance of this routine on every occasion, and the communi¬ 
 cation 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 
 any body to determine where or at wdiat he was looking, were 
 two among the numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which 
 struck an inexperienced observer at first sight. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 27 
 
 “ I am going to the London Tavern this morning,” said Mr. 
 Kickleby, 
 
 “ 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 delismry. 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 any body ?” 
 
 “ Yes.” 
 
 “ To the tax-gatherer ?” 
 
 “ No I Let him call again.” 
 
 Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say, “1 
 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 him¬ 
 self 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 ; and the third, who was at 
 Crockford’s all night, has just gone home to put a clean slurt 
 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 u’.ght, but never mind that; he always speaks 
 the stronger for it.” 
 
 “It seems to promise pretty well,” said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, 
 
28 
 
 NICHOLAS NICRLEBT. 
 
 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 llot 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 by, what a very remarkable man that 
 clerk of yours is.” 
 
 “Yes, poor devil I” 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 para¬ 
 lysis, and then came here to borrow a pound, as in his belter 
 days I had—had—” 
 
 “ 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 rot.” 
 
 “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. lie 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 meutiou 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 29 
 
 should be made out of doors. The other gentlemaii was i)laiuly 
 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 favor 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 up stairs, receiving in his progress many low bows 
 from the waiters who stood on the landings to show the way, 
 and followed b}' Mr. Nickleby, dived into a suit of apartments 
 behind the great public room, in the second of which was a 
 business-looking table, and several business-looking people. 
 
 “Hear I” 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 
 nat, 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 I” 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 fla.Ken wig on tlie top of it, 
 fell into such a paro.xysm of bows that the w ig threatened to be 
 jerked off every instant. When these symptoms had in some 
 
80 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 Sii 
 Matthew I’upker or the two other members, stood lingering, 
 and smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope of 
 BOinething turning up which might bring them into notice. 
 Ail 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 w'hen 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 Ilot Muffin 
 and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. 
 
 Meainvhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings 
 and a fair division of the speechifying, the public in the large 
 room w'ere eying, 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 
 nammer the floor with their boot-heels, and to express their dis¬ 
 satisfaction by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions, 
 emanating from the people who had been there longest, natur¬ 
 ally 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 crow'd, 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 ])eople near the door; at the same time 
 dealing out various smart and tingling blows with their trun¬ 
 cheons, 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 w’ere in progress, when a 
 loud shout attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 81 
 
 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 rea! 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 their 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-country¬ 
 men before him, and what must be the wealth and respectability 
 of his honorable 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 a* 
 Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin 
 and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. 
 
 Mr. Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolu¬ 
 tion, 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—“Tliat this meeting 
 views mth alarm and apprehension, the existing state of the 
 Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and its neighborhood; that it 
 considers the Muffin Boys, as at present constituted, wholly 
 undeserving the confidence of the public, and that it deems the 
 whole Muffin system alike prejudicial to tlie health and morals 
 of the people, and subversive of the best interests of a great 
 commercial and mercantile community.” The honorable gentle¬ 
 man 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 vesture 
 of a muffin, which there appeared too much reason to believe 
 some of these indigent persons did not taste from year’s end to 
 
82 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 year’s end. lie had found that among muffin sellers there ey* 
 isted drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he attri¬ 
 buted 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 attri¬ 
 buted 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 bellman 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 ; 
 and secondly, by themselves supplying the public generally, and 
 the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first quality at re¬ 
 duced prices. It was with this object that a bill had been in¬ 
 troduced 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 splendor 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 
 o( the words “and crumpet” after the word “ muffin,” whenever 
 it occurred, it was carried triumphantly ; only one man in the 
 crowd cried “Nol” and he was promptly taken into custody, 
 and straightway borne off. 
 
 The second resolution, which recognized 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 other¬ 
 wise,” was moved by a grievous gentleman of semi-clerical ap- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 88 
 
 pearance 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 de¬ 
 scribed 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 honorable gentleman related one case of a 
 muffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and bar¬ 
 barous 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 (aim'' 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 occupa¬ 
 tion on crutches. Fountain of justice, were these things to 
 last 1 
 
 This was the department of the subject that took the meet¬ 
 ing, and this was the style of speaking to enlist their sympa¬ 
 thies. The men shouted, the ladies wept into their ]>ocket- 
 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 pre¬ 
 mium of five-and-twenty per cent. 
 
 The resolution was of course carried with loud acclamations, 
 every man holding up botli hands in favor 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 pro¬ 
 posed petition was read at length; and the petition said, as all 
 petitions do say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the 
 3 
 
34 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 petitioned very honorable, and the object very virtuous, there¬ 
 fore, (said the petition) the bill ought to be passed into a law at 
 once, to the everlasting honor and glory of that most honorable 
 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 conse¬ 
 quence, came forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a 
 speech he meant to make in favor 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 honorable friends had not inserted a 
 clause rendering the purchase of mulEns and crumpets com¬ 
 pulsory 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 honorable gentleman 
 grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-colored kid gloves, 
 and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there was immense 
 laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant dis¬ 
 play of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gen¬ 
 tleman 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 fervor, 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 allu¬ 
 sions to the probable amount of profits, which increased the 
 good humor 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 35 
 
 Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and 
 Punctual Delivery Company. 
 
 So, the petition in favor 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 them¬ 
 selves foj which trouble, (as the company was yet in its infanc^y,) 
 they only charged three guineas each man for every such 
 attendance. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. RALPH NICKLEBY RECEIVES SAD TIDINGS OF HIS BROTHER; 
 
 BUT BEARS UP NOBLY AGAINST THE INTELLIGENCE COMMU¬ 
 NICATED 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 humor. As he passed Saint 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 pur¬ 
 sued his occupation. “ The letter about the mortgage haa 
 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. “ Postmark, 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.” 
 
 ( 36 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 37 
 
 Mr. Nicklcby 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 wind¬ 
 ing 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 a 
 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 curi¬ 
 ously 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 1” 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 I” muttered Mr. Nicklcl)y to himself, 
 as he walked on, “ very reasonable 1 My brother never did 
 any thing 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 wotnan and a grown boy and girl. What are 
 they to me ? / 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 re¬ 
 ferring to his Ltter as if to ascertain the number of the house, he 
 
88 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 pas¬ 
 sage, inquired who was wanted. 
 
 “Mrs. Nickleby,” said Ralph. 
 
 “ It’s the second floor, Hannah,” said the same voice ; “ what 
 a stupid thing you are 1 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 tho 
 gentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knoek 
 double knocks for the second floor; I can’t allow a knock ex¬ 
 cept when the bell’s broke, and then it must be two single ones 
 
 “ Here,” said Ralph, walking in without more parley, “ 1 
 beg your pardon is that Mrs. La what’s-her-name ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 89 
 
 “ Crecvy—La Crcevy,” replied the voice, as a yellow head¬ 
 dress 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; bat 
 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 color 
 herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing young lady of fifty, and 
 Miss La Creevy’s apartment was the gilt frame down stairs on 
 a larger scale and something dirtier. 
 
 “ Hem I” 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 con¬ 
 ceal her disappointment—and said, “ Oh, indeed I” 
 
 “ 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. In¬ 
 deed, 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 powertul em¬ 
 phasis on that little adjective which conveys so much. 
 
 “Well, I am 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 ?” 
 
 Yery true,” replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased 
 
40 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with this implied compliment to the apartments. “Exceed¬ 
 ingly true.” 
 
 “ I know her circumstances intimately, Ma’am,” said Ralph; 
 “in fact, I am a relation of the family; and I should recom¬ 
 mend 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 every body’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 ai 
 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 
 ])lainly wavering between her good nature and her interest, “ 1 
 have nothing whatever to say again?t 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 41 
 
 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 favor 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 up stairs, 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 ab¬ 
 ruptly 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 ap¬ 
 parently 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 seven¬ 
 teen, 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-favored frown, “you ara 
 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: f 
 alv/ays do=” 
 
42 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “Mine was no common lossl” said Mrs. Nicldeby, applying 
 her handkerchief to her eyes.” 
 
 “It was no u/icommon 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 in¬ 
 dignation. 
 
 “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 rea¬ 
 son to fear that he died of a broken heart.” 
 
 “PoohI” said Ralph, “there’s no such thing. I can under¬ 
 stand 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, wheel¬ 
 ing 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, eying him contemptuously. 
 
 “Whatever it be,” said Nicholas, flushed with anger, “Ishall 
 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 wordl 
 Fine beginnings, Mrs. Nickleby—fine beginnings.” 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 43 
 
 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 emana¬ 
 tion 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 perfec¬ 
 tion 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 terra 
 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 pro¬ 
 perty 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 forth something, when 
 ber uncle stopped her very unceremoniously. 
 
44 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “We must try and get you apprenticed at some boarding- 
 scbool,” said Ralph. “ You have not been brought up too de¬ 
 licately for that, I hope ?” 
 
 “No, indeed, uncle,” replied the weeping girl. “I will try 
 to do any thing that will gain me a home and bread.” 
 
 “Well, well,” said Ralph, a little softened, either by hia 
 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 
 dress-making or tambour-work will come lighter. ITave you 
 ever done any thing. Sir ?” (turning to his nephew.) 
 
 “ No,” replied Nicholas, bluntly. 
 
 “No, I thought not I” 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 some day,” 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 vvith her one thou¬ 
 sand 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 gincfs she (being 
 a well-meaning woman enough, but rather weak withal) fell first 
 to deploring her hard fate, and then to remarking, with many 
 sobs, that to be sure she had been a slav.p 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 life-time 
 how the money went, but tliat if he had confided in her they 
 might all have been better olf that day; with other bitter re¬ 
 collections common to most married ladies either during their 
 
NICHOLAS NIOKLEBF. 
 
 46 
 
 coverture, or afterwards, or at both periods. Mrs. Nickleby 
 cor.cluded 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 Squeer’s Academy, Do- 
 theboys 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, or¬ 
 thography, 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 A Mas¬ 
 ter 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 oflF, 
 uncle,” faltei’ed Kate. 
 
 “Hush, Kale, 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 
 
45 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 for himself. Without friends, money, recommendation, or know¬ 
 ledge 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, check¬ 
 ing himself, " I would if I had it.” 
 
 “ Poor fellow !” said the young lady. “ Oh ! uncle, must we 
 be separated so soon 1” 
 
 “ Don’t teaze 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 pro¬ 
 vided 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 ray immediate care ; they will not remain as they are, one 
 week after your departure, I will undertake.” 
 
 “ Then,” said Nicholas, starting gayly up, and wringing his 
 uncle’s hand, “I am ready to do any thing you wish me. Let 
 us try our fortune with Mr. Squeers at once; he can but re¬ 
 fuse.” 
 
 “ He won’t do that,” said Ralph. “ He will be glad to have 
 you o.n 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 1 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 in¬ 
 experience 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 travel¬ 
 ing tutor when he left, and when we come back from the 
 continent, procured me some handsome appointment. Eh 1 
 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, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 47 
 
 who wonkl be keeping my house, and—and—marry her, eli I 
 uncle ? Who knows ?” 
 
 “ Who, indeed I” snarled Ralph, 
 
 “ How happy we should be 1” cried Nicholas with enthusiasm. 
 “ The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. 
 Kale 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 a*, 
 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, signifieth all the raseals in it— 
 mingled their tears together at the thought of their first separa¬ 
 tion : and, this first gush of feeling over, were proceeding to 
 dilate with all the buoyancy of untried hope on the bright pros¬ 
 pects 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 advertise¬ 
 ment pointed out, and so undermine all their air-built castles. 
 This timely reminder effectually stopped the conversation, and 
 Nicholas having carefully copied the address of Mr. Squeers, 
 the uncle and nephew issued forth together in quest of that ac¬ 
 complished 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 lit¬ 
 tle influenced by her brother-in-law’s appeal to her better under¬ 
 standing 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 ly. 
 
 \ ■ 
 
 tUCHOLAS AND HIS DNCLE (tO SECURE THE FORTUNE WITHOUT 
 
 LOSS OP time) wait upon MR. WACKFORD SQUEERS, THE YORK¬ 
 SHIRE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Snow Hill f What kind of place can the quiet town’s-people 
 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, and 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, and 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 con¬ 
 gregate ;—this, or something like this, we imagine must 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 venders of 
 ( 48 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. -ly 
 
 Bonp 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 eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, 
 and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards 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 wms 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 humor is now confined to Saint James’s 
 parish, where door knockers are preferred, as being more 
 portable, and bell-wires esteemed as ponvenient tooth-picks. 
 Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning 
 upon you from each side of the gateway, and 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 Sara¬ 
 cens’ Heads below, so that the general appearance of the pile 
 is of the Saracenic order. 
 
 When you walk up this yard, you will see the booking-office 
 on your left, and the towmr of Saint Sepulchre’s church darting 
 abruptly up into the sky on your right, and a gallery of bed¬ 
 rooms on both sides. Just before you, you will observe a long 
 window with the wmrds “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 iu his pockets. 
 
 4 
 
60 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Mr. Sqneers’s appearance was not prepossessing. Ho had 
 bat one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two. 
 The eye he had was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not 
 ornarnental, being of a greenish grey, and in shape resembling 
 the fanlight of a street door. The blank side of his face wa.*’ 
 much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister 
 appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expres¬ 
 sion 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 trowsers a great deal too 
 short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in 
 8 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 trowsers 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 to-day.” 
 
 Much vexed by this reflection, Mr. Squeers looked at the 
 little boy to see whether he was doing any thing he could beat 
 him for; as he happened not to be doing any thing at all, he 
 merely boxed his ears, and told him not to do it again. 
 
 “At Midsummer,” muttered Mr. Squeers, resuming his com¬ 
 plaint, “ I took down ten boys; ten twentys—two hundred 
 ])ound. I go back at eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and 
 have got only three—three oughts an ought—three twos six— 
 sixty pound. What’s come of all the boys ? What’s parents 
 got in theii heads? What does it all mean ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6] 
 
 Here the little boy on the top of the trunk gave a violent 
 sneeze. 
 
 “ Halloo, 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 I 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 oif the trunk with a 
 blow on one side of his face, and knocked him on again with a 
 blow on the other. 
 
 “Wait till I get you down into Yorkshire, my young gentle¬ 
 man,” 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 alter¬ 
 nately sniffing and choking, gave no further vent to his emo¬ 
 tions. 
 
 “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 f Nothing; less than nothing. ou are 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 5‘<i 
 
 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, regard¬ 
 ing 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 commu¬ 
 nications. 
 
 “ I am in the oil and color way. My name is Snawley, Sir,” 
 said the stranger. 
 
 O 
 
 Squeers inclined his head, as much as to say, “ And a remark¬ 
 ably pretty name, too.” 
 
 The stranger continued. “ I have been thinking, Mr. 
 Squeers, of placing ray 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 lives is twenty, double that, and deduct the—well, a pound 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 68 
 
 sither way shall not stand betwixt us. You must recommend 
 me to your connections, Sir, and make it up that way.” 
 
 ” They are not great eaters,” said Mr. Snawley. 
 
 “ Oh I that doesn’t matter at all,” replied Squeers. “ W o 
 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 instill; 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 way,” 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 to-morrow. Sir,” said Squeers. 
 “That’s his luggage that he is 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. 
 
« 
 
 54 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 that his smiling without any obvious reason was the more re¬ 
 markable. 
 
 “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 school¬ 
 master’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, and 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 I 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 1 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 55 
 
 them to some school a good distance off, where there are no 
 holidays—none of those ill-judged comings 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 that 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, “ wUl 
 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 op 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, pr^"- 
 eenting 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, 
 
5o 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 v/ho YixC. bj this time got back to the box by the fire-place 
 “ Won’t you be seated 
 
 “ Why, I think I will,” replied llalph, 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 verr 
 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 unfortu¬ 
 nately—” 
 
 “■—Unfortunately died at Dotheboys Hall,” said Ralph, finish¬ 
 ing the sentence. 
 
 “ I remember very well, Sir,” rejoined Squeers. “Ah 1 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 any thing—a candle in his 
 bed-room 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 any thing 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 contor¬ 
 tions, 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 de¬ 
 lightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, 
 where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished 
 with pocket-money-” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 67 
 
 “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. Snaw- 
 ley. “ 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-conductcd, 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 post¬ 
 pone business,’ is the very first lesson we instill into our com¬ 
 mercial 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—per¬ 
 form—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 ?” 
 
 '• Oertainly,” answered Squeers. 
 
 “ Here he is,” said Ralph. “ My nephew Nicholas, hot 
 from school with every thing he learnt there, fermenting in his 
 
68 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 head, and nothing fermenting in his pocket, is just the man you 
 want.” 
 
 “I am afraid ” said Squeers, perplexed with such an applica¬ 
 tion 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 bo cast 
 down, Sir; you will be teaching all the young noblemen in 
 Dotheboys Hall in less than a week’s time, unless this gentle¬ 
 man is more obstinate than I take him to be.” 
 
 “I fear. Sir,” said Nicholas, addressing Mr. Squeers, “that 
 you object to my youth, and 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 I do,” 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 ?” 
 
 “ Every body must see that,” replied Squeers, half imitating 
 the sneer with which the old gentleman was regarding his un¬ 
 conscious 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 thinl? 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 69 
 
 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 tlio 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, and 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 have worshiped 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 to-morrow 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 ’’ 
 
60 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 "Leave these papers with my clerk, then,” said Ralph, pro¬ 
 ducing a small parcel, "and tell him to wait till I come home.’ 
 
 Nicholas cheerfully undertook the errand, and bidding hva 
 worthy uncle an affectionate farewell, which that warm-hearted 
 old gentleman acknowledged by a growl, hastened away to exe¬ 
 cute his commission. 
 
 He found Golden Square in due course; and Mr. Noggs, who 
 had stepped out for a minute or so to the public house, waa 
 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 1” cried Noggs. 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby,” said Nicholas in explanation. 
 
 " Come in,” saiil 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 tire 
 impression that Newman Noggs was deaf. 
 
 Newman placed his hands upon his knees, and without utter¬ 
 ing a syllable, continued the same close scrutiny of his com¬ 
 panion’s face. 
 
 This was such a very singular proceeding on the part of an 
 utter stranger, and his appearance was so extremely peculiar, 
 that N icholas, who had a sufficiently keen sense of the ridiculous, 
 could not refrain from breaking into a smile as he inquii'ed 
 whether Mr. Noggs had any commands for him. 
 
 Noggs shook his head and sighed; upon which Nicliolas 
 rose, and remarking that he required no rest, bade him good 
 morning. 
 
 It was a great exertion for Newman Noggs, and nobody 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6 ] 
 
 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 honors 
 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, sud¬ 
 denly 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, lie 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 than 
 ever. 
 
CHAPTER y. 
 
 NICHOLAS STARTS FOR YORKSHIRE.— OP HIS LEAVE-T.».KINa AND 
 HIS FELLOW-TRAVELERS, 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 prepartions 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 hun¬ 
 dred affectionate contests on such points as these, took place 
 on the sad night which preceded his departure; and, as the ter¬ 
 mination 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 lad nearly 
 choked himself by attempting to partake of it, and almost suffo¬ 
 cated 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, fur 
 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 
 ( 62 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 good-by which he was afraid to pro¬ 
 nounce himself, and laying them with half his scanty stock of 
 money at his sister’s door, shouldered his box and crept softly 
 down stairs. 
 
 “ Is that you, Hannah ?” cried a voice from Miss La Creevy’g 
 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 carryout 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,” re¬ 
 plied 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 cha¬ 
 racters.” 
 
 “Indeed !” said Nicholas. “If I should meet with any in 
 my travels. I’ll endeavor to sketch them for you.” 
 
 “You don’t mean lo say that you are really going all the 
 way down into Yorkshire this cold winter’s weather, Mr. 
 
64 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Nicldeby ?” 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 complaisance, 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 declar¬ 
 ing, 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 satisfac¬ 
 tory 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 vvaistcoat to cover 
 it with, and had evidently, from the appearance of his other gar¬ 
 ments, been spending the night in a stable, and taking his break¬ 
 fast at a pump. 
 
 Regarding with no small curiosity and interest all the busy 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6 £ 
 
 preparations for the coming day which every street and alnaost 
 every house displayed; and thinking now and then that it seemed 
 rather hard that so many people of all ranks and stations couid 
 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 atten¬ 
 dant, and seen the box safely deposited in the coach-office, he 
 looked into the colfee-roora 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 pre¬ 
 vious 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 recognized Nicholas. 
 
 “ Sit down, Mr. Nickleby,” said Squeers. “Here we are, a 
 breakfasting, you see.” 
 
 Nicholas did not see that any body 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 
 
 .fs 
 
66 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Squeers. “ Yery good; don’t forget the bread and batter 
 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 rich¬ 
 ness 1 Think of the many beggars and oi’phans in the streets 
 that would be glad of this, little boys. A shocking thing hun¬ 
 ger is, 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, aud the process was repeated till the 
 miUt 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 oif.” 
 
 Permissiofl being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 67 
 
 voraciously, and in desperate haste, while the schoolmaster (who 
 was in high good humor 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 1 You’ll want it on 
 the road I” 
 
 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 
 bo.ves had to be brought out and put in, and Mr. Squeers’s lug¬ 
 gage 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 1” 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 
 1 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 sha’n’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 hig 
 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; \^hat do you say to that. Ma’am? Break- 
 fasti Pshaw 1” 
 
 “Now, Nickleby,” said Squeers, coming up at the moment, 
 
6B 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 buttoning his great coat; “ 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 brotner’s 
 arm, “ wlio 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 I No, uncle. Oh, no 1” 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 acquaiutance. 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 1 ha ! ha 1” 
 
 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 pummeled as he had ever been in his life. Kate 
 Nickleby having a quicker perception of her brother’s emo¬ 
 tions 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 good-by. Mother; 
 look forward to our meeting again some day. Uncle, farewell! 
 Thank you heartily for all you have done and all you mean to 
 do. Quite ready. Sir.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 69 
 
 With these hasty adieus, 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 com¬ 
 paring 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. lie 
 looked down, and there stood Newman Noggs, who pushed up 
 into his hand a dirty letter. 
 
 “ What’s this ?” inquired Nicholas. 
 
 “ Hush 1” rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr. Ralph Nick- 
 leby, 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 any thing as they sat, and the little boys’ bodies 
 being consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the 
 coach, Nicholas had enough to do to hold them on : and be¬ 
 tween the manual exertion and the mental anxiety attendant 
 upon this task, he was not a little relieved when the coach stop¬ 
 ped at the Peacock at Islington. He was still more relieved 
 when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very good-humored 
 face, and a very fresh color, 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 
 
70 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 be the very thing. Mr. Nickleby, take three of them boys be¬ 
 tween you and the gentleman. Belling and the youngest Snaw- 
 ley ean 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- 
 colored gentleman : “ I have a brother who wouldn’t object to 
 book his six children as tw^o at any butcher’s or baker’s in the 
 kingdom, I dare say. Far from it.” 
 
 “ Six children. Sir 1” exclaimed Squeers. 
 
 “ l!’es, 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’ll take 
 all the boys together upon a average right through, and say a 
 hundred pound a year for the lot.” 
 
 “ Oh 1” 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, and 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 
 bands into his great-coat pockets. “ The most unexception¬ 
 able references are given and required. I wouldn’t take a 
 reference wdth any boy that was not responsible for the pay¬ 
 ment 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 71 
 
 Squcers. “ 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, geuelmen,” said the guard as he clam¬ 
 bered 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 every body 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 spec¬ 
 tacles (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 every 
 bodv 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 
 
72 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 rolled on ; the only things he seemed to care for being hones 
 and droves of cattle, which he scrutinized 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 sups 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 feel¬ 
 ings 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 road-side 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 car¬ 
 riage 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 asse¬ 
 verations, to do. Lastly, the fastidious lady, finding there was 
 a solitary gentleman inside, had a small lamp lighted which she 
 carried in her reticule; and being after much trouble shut in, 
 the horses were put into a brisk canter and the coach was on( e 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 7f 
 
 horses’ feet were rendered inaudible by the thick coating of 
 snow which covered the earth, 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 ol 
 the front outside passengers wisely availing themselves of then 
 arrival at one of the best inns in England, turned in for the 
 bight 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 them¬ 
 selves 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 
 half way 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 Hot, the vehicle 
 turned easily over, and relieved him from all further uncertamty 
 by flinging him into the road. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 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 run¬ 
 ning to the leaders’ heads. “ Is there ony genelmen there, as 
 can len’ a hand here ? Keep quiet, dang ye. Wo ho 1” 
 
 “What’s the matter?” demanded Nicholas, looking sleepily 
 up. 
 
 “ Matther, mun, matther eneaf for one neight,” replied the 
 guard; “ dang the wall-eyed bay, he’s gane mad wi’ glory I 
 tliink, carse t’coorch is over. Here, can’t ye len’ a bond ? 
 Dom it, I’d ha’ dean it if all my boans were brokken,” 
 
 “Here I” 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. Weel deame, my lad. 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 bio’ a barn ?” asked the guard, disengaging one 
 of the coach-lamps. 
 
 “ I dare say I can,” replied Nicholas. 
 
 “Tlien just bio’ 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 liere squealing inside. Cumin’, cumin’; dean’t make 
 that noise, wooman.” 
 
 As the man spoke he proceeded to wrench open the upper¬ 
 most door of the coach, wdiile Nicholas seizing the horn, awoke 
 the echoes far and wide with one of the most e.xtraordinary per¬ 
 formances on that instrument ever heard by mortal ears. It 
 had its effect, however, not only in rousing such of the pas- 
 (T4) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 75 
 
 sengers as were recovering from the stunning effects of their fall, 
 but in summoning assistance to their relief, for lights gleamed 
 in the distance, and the people were already astir. 
 
 In fact, a man on horseback galloped down before the pas¬ 
 sengers 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 
 bad 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 indica¬ 
 tions 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. Ilowever, a large faggot and 
 a plentiful supply of coals being heaped upon the fire, the ap¬ 
 pearance of things was not long in mending, and by the time 
 they had washed off all effacable marks of the late accident, 
 the room was warm and light, which was a most agreeable ex¬ 
 change 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 patronizing 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 compli¬ 
 ments and commendations. 
 
70 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “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 great-coat 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 gentlemen. 
 Perhaps they might know of some parents that would be glad 
 to avail themselves of the establishment,” f 
 
 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 
 bo 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 re¬ 
 quest, and when the lady charged the boy to remember, as a 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 7Z 
 
 means of identifying the expected green chariot, that it would 
 have a coachman with a gold-laced hat on the box, and a foot¬ 
 man most probably in silk stockings behind, the attentions of 
 the good woman of the inn v/ere redoubled. Even the box- 
 passenger caught the infection, and growing wonderfully defer¬ 
 ential, immediately inquired whether there was not very good 
 society in that neighborhood, to which the lady replied yes, 
 there was, in a manner which sufficiently implied that she moved 
 at the very tip-top 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 pro¬ 
 pose 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 mourn¬ 
 ing. 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 pre-' 
 possessed by the frank good nature of the individual from whom 
 it emanated. 
 
 This latter pei’sonage took upon himself the office of tapster 
 when the punch was ready, and after divspensing it all round, 
 led the conversation to the antiquities of York, with which both 
 he and the grey-haired gentleman appeared 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 the gentleman, smiling in his 
 turn. 
 
 “That’s a pity,” said the owner of the good-humored counte¬ 
 nance. “ 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 any thing 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.” ^ ... 
 
78 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 endeavor 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 1” 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 unob¬ 
 served, 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 
 ofY ork, 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 h.ad 
 spread through all the country round. 
 
 “ But if the four elder sisters were lovely, how beautiful was 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 79 
 
 the youngest, a fair creature of sixteen ! The blushing tints in 
 the soft bloora 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 ill all its elegant luxuriance is not more graceful, than 
 were the clusters of rich brown hair that sported around hei 
 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 1 If, while our bodies grew old and withered, our 
 hearts could but retain their early youth and freshness, of what 
 avail would be our sorrows and sufferings 1 But the faiiit 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 Iilank re¬ 
 maining. 
 
 “ 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 glee- 
 some 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 Saint 
 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 Saint Benedict, to which fraternity it belonged. 
 
 “ It was a bright and sunny morning in the pleasant time of 
 summer when one of these 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; 
 
80 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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. Every thing 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 ear 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 
 master-pieces 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 1 that the few 
 bubbles on the surface of eternity—all that Heaven wills we 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.; 8l 
 
 should see of that dark deep stream—should be so lightly 
 scattered!’ 
 
 “‘Father,’ urged the maiden, pausing, as did each of the 
 others, iu her busy task, we have prayed at matins, our daily 
 aims have been distributed at the gate, the sick pousants have 
 been tended,—all our morning tasks have been performed. I 
 hope our occupation is a blameless one V ) 
 
 “ ‘ See here,’ said the friar, taking the frame from her hand, 
 ‘an intricate winding of gaudy colors 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 by-gone 
 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 descripr,* 
 
 . 6 . .. 
 
82 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 tion, and the pattern and colors of all five were the same 
 The sisters bent gracefully over their work, and the monk 
 resting his chin upon his hands, looked from one to the other in 
 silence. 
 
 “‘Ilowmuch better,’he said et length, ‘to shun all such 
 thoughts and chances, and in the peaceful shelter of the church 
 devote your lives to Heaven 1 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 vail, daughters, the vail 1’ 
 
 “ ‘Never, sisters,’ cried Alice. ‘Barter not the light and air 
 of heaven, and the freshness of earth and ail the beautiful things 
 which breathe upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell. Na¬ 
 ture’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 fore 
 head. ‘ The vail shall never cast its shadow on thy young brow 
 How say you, sisters? For yourselves you speak, and not fo: 
 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 Saint Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy guardian¬ 
 ship, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 83 
 
 reverence to the friar, the lady rose and walked towards the 
 house hand in hand with Alice; and 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 avsmken—if in mercy they 
 slumbered—by means of idle toys. The memory of earthly 
 things is charged in after life with bitter disappointment, afflic¬ 
 tion, and death ; with dreary change and wasting sorrow. The 
 time will one day come when a glance at those unmeaning 
 baubles shall 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, sub¬ 
 duing his voice as he looked round upon the shrinking girls. 
 ‘ The Virgin’s blessing be upon you, daughters 1’ 
 
 “ 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 
 hud come over their dwelling. Sometimes there was the clash 
 of armor, and the gleaming of the moon on caps of steel, and 
 at others jaded coursers were spurred up to the gate, and a 
 
84 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 female form glided hurriedly forth as if eager to demand tidings 
 of the weary messenger. A goodly train of knights and ladie? 
 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 
 foot-sore 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 
 armor, 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 be¬ 
 ginning 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 w'ell accustom¬ 
 ed to the change, the monk glided into the house, and entered 
 a low, dark room. Four sisters sat there. Their black gar¬ 
 ments made their pale faces whiter still, and time and sor¬ 
 row had worked deep ravages. They were stately yet; but 
 the flush and pride, of beauty, were-gone*^ •. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY: 
 
 85 
 
 . “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 
 plow. 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 armor once brightly burnished, lie 
 rotting on the ground, and are as little distinguishable for his, 
 as are the bones that crumble in the mould 1’ 
 
 “ 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 splendor. The same policy, and the restless ambiy 
 tion 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Bd 
 
 and mortification on their heads, keep them down, and let th 
 convent be their grave I’ 
 
 “ Tlie sisters asked for three days to deliberate, and felt that 
 night as though the vail 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 angePs 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 orna¬ 
 ment, and when the sun shone brightly, as she had so s\"ell loved 
 to see it, the familiar patterns were reflected in their original 
 colors, and throwing a stream of brilliant light upon the pave¬ 
 ment, 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 ijway and been replaced by others, 
 and many generations have come and gone since then. Time 
 has softened down the colors, 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 87 
 
 “ 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 any thing 
 could soothe the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it would be—• 
 with me—the reflection, that those I mourned, by being inno¬ 
 cently 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 I” retorted the other, “ can any body doubt it ? Take' 
 any subject of sorrowful regret, and sec with how much of 
 pleasure it is associated. The recollection of past pleasure may 
 become pain-” 
 
 “ It does,” interposed the other. 
 
 “AVell; 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 checkered 
 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 tin's state of 
 existence preponderates over the bad, let miscalled philosophers 
 
'68 
 
 NrCHOLAS NrCKLEBT. 
 
 jtell us wliat they will. If our affections be tried, our affectionE 
 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 
 Tound 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 circum¬ 
 stances connected with this venerable building, among which not 
 Ahe least startling and mysterious were, that when the wind blew, 
 it rumbled in the chimneys, or even howled among the trees in 
 the neighboring 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 ccmie into 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 89 
 
 tbe world so soon, because a man who was bom 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 Yon Koeldwethout, of Grogzwig—he 
 was a fine swarthy fellow, with dark hair and large mustaches, 
 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 lackered 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 bot¬ 
 tles 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- 
 aud-tweuty 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. lie took to quarreling 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 fell 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 Gillingwatcr, and slaughtered ‘ another fine bear’ and 
 lirought him home in triumph, the Baron Von Koeldwethout sat 
 moodily at the head of his table, eying the smoky roof of the 
 hall with a discontented aspect. He swallowed huge bumpers 
 of wine, but the more he swallowed, the more he frowned: the 
 
90 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 gentlemen who liarl been honored with the dangerous distinction 
 of sittiim on liis riijht 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 
 liis ri<rht hand, and twirlins his mustache with his left. ‘Fill 
 to the lady of Grogzwig.’ 
 
 ‘‘ Tlie four-aiul-tvveniy Lincoln greens turned pale, with the 
 exception of their four-and-twenty noses, which were uncliauge- 
 able. 
 
 “‘I said to the Lady of Grogzwig,’ repeated the baron, look¬ 
 ing 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-forly lips, and winked again. 
 
 “‘The fair daughter of the Baron Yon Svvillenhausen,’ said 
 Koeldwetliout, condescending to explain. ‘We will demand 
 her in marriage of her father, ere the sun goes down to-morrow. 
 If he refuse our suit, we will cut off his nose,’ 
 
 “A hoarse murmur arose from the company, and 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 I If the 
 daughter of the Baron Von Swillenhausen had pleaded a pre¬ 
 occupied heart, or fallen at her father’s feet and corned them in 
 tears, or only fainted away, and complimented the old gentleman 
 in frantic ejaculations, the odds ai’e a hundred to one, but Swil¬ 
 lenhausen 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 Yon Koeldwetliout next morning, and mo¬ 
 destly 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 mustaches 
 was her proflered 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* 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 91 
 
 and-twenty Lincoln greens of Von Koeldwethout exchanged 
 rows of eternal friendship with twelve Lincoln greens of Von 
 Svvillenhausen, and promised the old baron that they would 
 drink his wine ‘Till all was bine’—meaning probably until 
 their whole countenances had acquired the same tint as their 
 noses. Every body slapped every body else’s back when tho 
 time for parting came; and the Baron Von Koeldwethout aud 
 his followers rode gayly home. 
 
 “ For six mortal Aveeks the bears and boars had a holiday. 
 The houses of Koeldwethout and Swillenhausen were united; 
 the spears rusted, aud the baron’s bugle grew hoarse for lack of 
 blowing. 
 
 “ These 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 V said the baron starting. 
 
 “The baroness pointed from the window at which they stood, 
 to the court-yard beneath, where the unconscious Lincoln greens 
 were taking a copious stirrup-cup preparatory to issuing forth 
 after a boar or tw o. 
 
 My hunting train. Ma’am,’ said the baron. 
 
 “‘Disband them, love,’ murmured the baroness. 
 
 “‘Disband them I’ 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. 
 
 “ Wh at could the baron do ? He called for the lady’s maid, 
 and roared for the doctor; and then rushing into the yard, 
 ki(!ked the two Lincoln greens who were the most used to it, 
 
 and cursing the others all round, bade them go to-but never 
 
 mind where. I don’t know the German for it, or I Avould put 
 it delicately that way. 
 
 “It is not for me to say by Avhat 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 
 
92 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 n-ot according to their own. All I need say just now is, 
 that the Baroness Von Koeldwethout somehow or other ac¬ 
 quired 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 honor 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 sensi¬ 
 tive for the well-being of her child the Baroness Von Koeld¬ 
 wethout, and although it was not found that the good lady ever 
 did any thing material towards contributing to her child’s re¬ 
 covery, still she made it a point of duty to be as nervous as 
 possible at the castle of Grogzwig, and to divide her time be¬ 
 tween 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 Swillen¬ 
 hausen begged all persons to take notice, that nobody but she 
 sympathized 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 was a hard¬ 
 hearted brute alive, it was that Baron of Grogzwig. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 98 
 
 “ 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 melan¬ 
 choly 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. 
 
 “ ‘1 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 up-stairs 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. 
 Halloo. 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 apprized 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. 
 
 “ ‘Any thing 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 toss- 
 
94 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ing off a goodly measure of wine, the Lord of Grogzwig threw 
 himself back in his chair, stretched his legs out before the fire, 
 uud puffed away. 
 
 “ lie 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 whiiher, with the exception of two who had been unfor¬ 
 tunately beheaded, and four who had killed themselves with 
 drinking. Ilis 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 astonish¬ 
 ment, 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, 
 lie wore a kind of tunic of a dull bluish color, which the baron 
 observed, on regarding it attentively, was clasped or ornamented 
 down the front with coffin handles. Ills legs too, were eneased 
 in coffin plates as though in armor, and over his left shoulder 
 he wore a short, dusky cloak, which seemed made of a remnant 
 of some pall, lie took no notice of the baron, but was intently 
 eying the fire. 
 
 ‘“Halloo I’ said the baron, stamping his foot to attract atten¬ 
 tion. 
 
 “ ‘ Halloo I’ replied the stranger, moving his eyes towards the 
 baron, but not his face or himself. ‘ What now V 
 
 “ ‘ What now I’ replied the baron, nothing daunted by his hol¬ 
 low voice and lustreless eyes. ‘ 1 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 1’ 
 
NICHULAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 96 
 
 “ ‘ What are yon, then ?’ asked the baron. 
 
 “ ‘ A genius,’ replied the figure. 
 
 '“You don’t look much like one,’ returned the baron, ecorn- 
 fully. 
 
 “ ‘ I am the Genius of Despair and Suicide,’ said the appari¬ 
 tion. ‘ Now you know me.’ 
 
 “With these words the apparition turned towards the baron, 
 as if composing himself for a talk—and what was very remark¬ 
 able 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 
 his 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, dryly. 
 
 “ ‘ Never in moderation ?’ asked the baron. 
 
 “‘Never,’ replied the figure, with a shudder; ‘that breeds 
 cheerfulne.ss.’ 
 
 “ 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 ferrule. ‘ De 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.’ 
 
96 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “‘Goiug to kill himself because he has too much money I’ 
 exclaimed the baron, quite tickled. ‘ Ha I ha I 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 a 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, 
 and 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 got 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 cofi’ers,’ 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,’ re¬ 
 monstrated the baron. 
 
 “ ‘ Well, I am glad to hear that,’ said the genius, looking 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 97 
 
 vcrj’ 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 bet¬ 
 ter, for you have not the appearance of being particularly com¬ 
 fortable. That puts me in mind—what security have I that I 
 shall be any the better for going out of the world after all 1’ he 
 cried, starting up ; ‘I never thought of that.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Dispatch,’ cried the figure, gnashing its 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 Yon 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. 
 
 “Yon Koeldwethout never saw it again. Having once made 
 up his mind to action, he soon brought the baroness and the 
 Yon 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 gentle- 
 7 
 
98 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 man on one side and to ask a question with great apparent 
 interest; it bore reference to tlie 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, and 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 Ne» Inn, Greta 
 Bridge. 
 
CHAPTER YII. 
 
 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 laboring 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, and Mr. Squeers with some difficulty 
 inducing the pony to obev also, they started off, leaving the 
 cart-load of infant misery to follow at leisure. 
 
 “ Are you cold, Nickleby ?” inquired Squeers, after they had 
 traveled some distance in silence. 
 
 “Rather, Sir, I mi>st say.” 
 
 “ Well, I don’t find fault with that,” said Squeers; “ it’s a 
 long journey this weather.” 
 
 “ Is it much further to Dotheboys Hall, Sir ?” asked 
 Nicholas. 
 
 “ About three mile from here,” replied Squeers. “But yon 
 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 dryly. 
 
 “ Oh, indeed 1” 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 
 n these parts. A man may call his house an island if he likes; 
 there’s no act of Parliament against that, I believe.” 
 
 (99) 
 
100 
 
 NICHOLA!:^ NiCKLEBY. 
 
 "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, con¬ 
 tented himself with lashing the pony until they reached their 
 journey’s end. 
 
 “Jump out,” said Squeers. Halloo there! come and but 
 this horse up. Be quick, will you ?” 
 
 While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other im¬ 
 patient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was 
 a long cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling 
 outbuildings 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 order¬ 
 ing 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 dis¬ 
 tance 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 colors; 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 101 
 
 “ 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 olf his legs.” 
 
 Nicholas sighed and hurried in. Mr. Squeers having bolted 
 the door to keep it shut, ushered him into a small parlor scantily 
 furnished with a few chairs, a yellow map hung against the 
 wall, and a couple of tables, one of which bore some prepara¬ 
 tions 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 iu 
 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 night-cap 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 are 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, snap¬ 
 pishly. “ That young Pitcher’s had a fever.” 
 
 “No 1” exclaimed Squeers. “ Damn that boy, he’s always at 
 something of that sort.” 
 
 “Never was such a boy, I do believe,” said Mrs. Squerrs; 
 “ 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.” 
 
102 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “So you did, my love,” rejoined Squeers. “We’ll try what 
 can be done.” 
 
 Pending these little endearments, Nicholas had stood awk¬ 
 wardly 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. lie 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 eying him coldly from top to toe. 
 
 “ Tie’ll take a meal with us to-night,” said Squeers, “and go 
 among the boys to-morrow morning. You can give him a shako 
 down here to-night, 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 humor 
 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 mis¬ 
 tress relative to the success of Mr. Squcers’s trip, and the peo¬ 
 ple who had paid, and the people who had made a default in 
 payment, a young servant girl brought in a Yorkshire pie and 
 some cold beef, which being set upon the table, the boy Sraiki 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 103 
 
 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. 
 God 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 1” 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 fin¬ 
 gers ; “is there—” 
 
 “AVell I” said Squeers. 
 
 “ Have you—did any body—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. 
 
 “ 1 hope not,” said the schoolmaster; “for he’s a handy fel¬ 
 low out of doors, and worth his meat and drink any way. I 
 should think he’d have wit enough for us though, if he W£^ 
 
104 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 piece 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 man¬ 
 ner. “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 pur- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 105 
 
 pose for you against you came home. Lor’ 1 you didn’t think 
 I could have made such a mistake as that 1” 
 
 “Upon my word, my dear, I didn’t know what you were 
 going to say,” said Squeers, who had turned very 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 rumor in the neighborhood asserted that Mr. Squeers, 
 being amiably opposed to cruelty to animals, not unfrequently 
 purchased for boy consumption the bodies of horned cattle who 
 had died a natural death, and 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 some¬ 
 thing 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 con¬ 
 sciousness of what he was doing, as if he had been in a mag¬ 
 netic 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. 
 
106 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “We’ll put you into your regular bed-room to-morrow, 
 Nickleby,’’ said Squeers. “Let me see, who sleeps in Brooks’s 
 bed, my dear ?” 
 
 “ In Brooks’s,” said Mrs. Squeers, pondering. “ There’s 
 Jennings, little Bolder, Graymarsh, and what’s his name.” 
 
 “So there are,” 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 to-morrow. 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 sliift with something to-morrow morning, 
 Mrs. Squeers will arrange that, iu 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 excite¬ 
 ment, but growing gradually calmer, sat himself down in a 
 chair and mentally resolved that, come what come miglit, he 
 would endeavor 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 effects in the mind from which they 
 spring. He grew less desponding, and—so sanguine and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 107 
 
 buoyant is youth—even hoped that affairs at Dotheboys Hall 
 might yet prove better that they promised. 
 
 He was preparing for bed with something like renewed cheer¬ 
 fulness, 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 behavior of Newman Noggs 
 
 “Dear me!” said Nicholas; “what an extraordinary handl” 
 
 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 con¬ 
 trived 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 not 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 circumstance to record, but after 
 he had folded this letter and placed it in his pocket-book, 
 Nicholas Nicklehy’s eyes were dimmed with a moisture that 
 might have been taken for tears. 
 
CHATTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE INTERNAL ECONOMY OP DOTHEBOY8 HALL. 
 
 A RILE 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 
 whieh 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 recognizing 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. 
 
 “Ahl 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 1” said Nicholas, not much interested in the intel¬ 
 ligence. 
 
 “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 g’ving 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, Avill you ?” 
 
 OiTering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his 
 clothes, and Squeers meanwhile opened the shutters and blew 
 ( 108 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 109 
 
 tlie 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 
 upon the top of the nightcap before mentioned. 
 
 ‘‘Drat the things,” said the lady, opening the cupboard; “t 
 can’t find the school spoon any where.” 
 
 “Never mind it, my dear,” observed Squeers iu a soothing 
 manner; “ it’s of no consequence.” 
 
 “No consequence, why how you talk I” 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 
 BO I tell you plainly.” 
 
 “ My dear,” said Squeers frowning. “ Hem !” 
 
 “ Oh 1 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 appe¬ 
 tites 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 
 iato 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 distitiguish was, 
 that Mr. Squeers said what Mrs. Squeers had said was injudi¬ 
 cious, and that Mrs Squeers said what Mr. Squeers said was 
 “ stuff.” 
 
110 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 A vast deal of searching and rummaging succeeded, and it 
 proving fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs. Squcera 
 and boxed by Mr. Squeers, which course of treatment bright¬ 
 ening his intellects, enabled him to suggest that possibly Mrs. 
 Sqiieers raiglit 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 1” 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, for¬ 
 tunately, too much occupied with his own reflections to per¬ 
 ceive 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 aceordingly. The only 
 difference between them was, that Mrs. Squeers waged war 
 against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers cov¬ 
 ered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his haliitual 
 deceit, as if he really had a notion of some day or other being 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ill 
 
 able to take hiraself in, and persuade his own mind that he was 
 a very good fellow. 
 
 “l)iit come,” said Squeers, interrupting the progress of some 
 thoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, “ let’s go to the 
 school-room; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will 
 vca ?” 
 
 Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting 
 jacket, wdiich he took dowm from a peg in the passage; and 
 Squeers arming himself with his cane, led the wmy 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 any thing at all. By degrees, however, 
 the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty room with a 
 couple of windows, w^hereof a tenth part might be of glass, the re¬ 
 mainder 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 wmy; two or three forms, 
 a detached desk for Squeers, and another for his assistant. The 
 ceiling wms supported like that of a barn, by cross beams and 
 rafters, and the w'alls were so stained and discolored, that it wms 
 impossible to tell whether they had ever been touched with paint 
 or whitewash. 
 
 But the pupils—the young noblemen 1 IIow 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 I Pale and haggard 
 face.s, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of 
 old men, deformities wdth irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted 
 growth, and others whose long meagre legs w^ould hardly bear 
 their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together; there 
 W'ore the bleared eye, the harelip, 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 wdiich should have 
 been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen dogged suf- 
 
112 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 feriiig; 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 male¬ 
 factors 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 iu 
 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 iucipient Hell was breeding there ! 
 
 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 
 installment to each boy in succession, using for the purpose a 
 common wooden spoon, which might have been originally manu¬ 
 factured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young 
 gentleman’s mouth considerably, they being all obliged, under 
 heavy corporeal 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 
 trowsers, a something tighter fit than drawers are usually worn ; 
 at no great distance from them was seated the juvenile son and 
 heir of Mr. Squeers—a striking likeness of his father—kicking 
 with great vigor under the hands of Smike, who was fitting 
 upon him a pair of new boots, that bore a most suspicious re¬ 
 semblance 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 rue¬ 
 ful 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 inflic¬ 
 tion, making a variety of wry mouths indicative of any thing 
 but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley, ill- 
 assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been irresist- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 113 
 
 jbly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder, and 
 disease, with which they were associated. 
 
 “Now,” said Sqneers, giving the desk a great rap with Lis 
 cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their 
 boots, “ is that physicing over 
 
 “Just over,” said Mrs. Sqneers, 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 aw^ay 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 ser¬ 
 vant, poured a brovvn 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 eat their porridge by means of the bread, the 
 boys eat 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 1”—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 bat observe how silent and sad the boys all 
 seemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamor of a 
 school-room, none of its boisterous play or hearty mirth. The 
 children sat crouchinsr 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 disa¬ 
 greeable than otherwise. 
 
 S 
 
314 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 After some half-hour’s delay Mr. Squeers reappeared, and 
 the bo 3 's 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 tliis summons there ranged themselves in front 
 of the schoolmaster’s desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out ai 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 phil sophy, 
 Kickleby,” 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 parlor 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 a very useful one, at any rate,” answered Nicholas sig¬ 
 nificantly. 
 
 “ I believe you,” rejoined Squeers, not remarking the empha¬ 
 sis of his usher. “ Third boy, what’s a 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 quad¬ 
 ruped, and quadruped’s Latin for beast, as every body that’s 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 115 
 
 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 oft', for it’s washing day to-mor¬ 
 row, 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 cun¬ 
 ning 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 long 
 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 those fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, be¬ 
 cause you know you must begin to be useful, and 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 estab¬ 
 lishment. The children wmre arranged in a semi-circle round 
 the new master, and he was soon listening to their dull, drawl¬ 
 ing, 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 gra¬ 
 ciously permitted to take his portion to his own solitary desk, 
 and to eat there in peace. After this there was another hour 
 of crouching in the school-room and shivering with cold, and 
 then school began again. 
 
 It was j\lr. Scpieers’s custom to call the boys together, and 
 make a sort of rejiort after every half-yearly visit to the metro- 
 ])olis regarding the relatioiis and friends he had seen, the news 
 he had heard, the letters he had brought down, the bills which 
 
,16 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 had been paid, the accounts which had been left unpaid, and so 
 forth. This solemn proceeding always took place in the after¬ 
 noon of the day succeeding his return; perhaps because the 
 boys acquired strength of mind from the suspense of the morn¬ 
 ing, or possibly because Mr. Squecrs 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 death¬ 
 like 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 1 Sigha 
 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 disappointments 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 ofiBcious 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 117 
 
 imploringly to Sqneers’s face ; his own quite white from the rapid 
 beating of liis heart, 
 
 “Bolder,” said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was con¬ 
 sidering, as the saying goes, where to have him. “ Bolder, if 
 your father thinks that because—why, what’s this. Sir ?” 
 
 As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy’s hand by the cufif 
 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 mois¬ 
 tening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane, 
 “ you’re an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrash¬ 
 ing 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 1 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 ha,rd while 
 Squeers made a mental abstract of the same. 
 
 “ Oh 1” 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 
 
118 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 
 business-like air, and Squeers passed on to the nextbov as coolly 
 as possible. 
 
 “ Graymarsh,” said Squeers, “ he’s the next. Stand up, 
 Grayinarsh,” 
 
 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. 
 Scpieers, and thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks 
 ]Slr. 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 Grayinarsh will put his trust in Provi¬ 
 dence. Hopes, above all, that he will study in every thing 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 I” 
 said Squeers, folding it up, “a delightful letter. Very atfect- 
 ing, indeed.” 
 
 It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh’s maternal aunt 
 w'as 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 “ Mobl)s,” whereupon another boy rose, and Graymarsh re¬ 
 sumed his seat. 
 
 “ Mobbs’s raother-in-law,” said Squeers, “took to her bed on 
 hearing that he would not 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 any body against any body—and it has vexed 
 her so much, Mobbs can’t think. She is sorry to find he is dis¬ 
 contented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. Squeers 
 will flog him into a happier state of mind ; wdth which view she 
 has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 119 
 
 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 after¬ 
 wards retired by the side door, with as good cause as a boy 
 need have. 
 
 Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous col¬ 
 lection of letters, some inclosing money, which Mrs. Squeers 
 ' took care ofand 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 accom¬ 
 modating limbs, since every thing 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 per¬ 
 formed, 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 behavior 
 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 unluqipy train of circumstances 
 had led him to that pass—to be the aider and abettor of a sys¬ 
 tem which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he 
 loathed himself, and felt for the moment as though the mere con- 
 
120 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Bciousness of Ins present situation must, through all time to come, 
 prevent his raising his head in society 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 con¬ 
 clusion 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, and at all events others depended too much 
 on his uncle’s favor to admit of his awakening his wrath just 
 then. 
 
 One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish con¬ 
 siderations arising out of his own position. This was the prob¬ 
 able 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 reci¬ 
 procate it, he had no great difficulty in arriving at that conclu¬ 
 sion, 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 en¬ 
 countered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees be¬ 
 fore 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 man¬ 
 ner, and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, tha* 
 Nicholas could not help exclaiming, “ Poor fellow I” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 121 
 
 If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away with¬ 
 out a word. But now he burst into tears. 
 
 “Oh dear, oh dear!” he cried, covering his face with his 
 cracked and homy hands. “ My heart will break. It will, it 
 will.” 
 
 “ Hush 1” said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. 
 “ Be a man; you are nearly one by years, God help you.” 
 
 “ By years 1” cried Smike. “ Oh dear, oh dear, how many 
 of them 1 How many of them since I was a little child, younger 
 than any that are here now ! Where are they all 1” 
 
 “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 re¬ 
 member 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 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 ?” said 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 sliouldn’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 witli a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards—no, 
 not retired ; there was no retirement there—followed—to his 
 dirty and crowded dormitory. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OP MISS SQTJEERS, MRS. SQUEERS, MASTER SQUEERS, AND MR. 
 
 SQUEERS; AND VARIOUS MATTERS AND PERSONS CONNECTED NO 
 
 LESS WITU TUE SQUEERSES TUAN WITH NICUOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 When Mr. Squeers left the school-room for the night, he 
 betook himself, as has been before remarked, to his own fireside, 
 which was situated—not in the room in which Nicliolas 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 
 occupied in the adjustment of some youthful differences by 
 means of a pugilistic contest across the table, which, on the 
 approach of their honored parent, subsided into a noiseless ex¬ 
 change of kicks beneath it. 
 
 And in this place it may be as well to apprise the reader, 
 that Miss Fanny Squeers was in her thrce-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 a universal rule. She was not tall 
 like her mother, but short like her father; from the former she 
 inherited a voice of harsh quality, and from the latter a re¬ 
 markable expression of the right eye, something akin to having 
 none at all. 
 
 Miss Squeers had been spending a few days with a neighbor¬ 
 ing 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 sub¬ 
 ject of conversation. 
 
 “Well, my dear,” said Squeers, drawing up his chair, “what 
 do you think of him by this time 
 ( 122 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 128 
 
 ‘Think of who ?” inquired Mrs. Squeers ; who (as she often 
 remarked) was no grammarian, thank God. 
 
 “ Of the young man—the new teacher—who else could I 
 mean 
 
 “ Oh 1 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 asked 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. Wackibrd 
 Squeers and able assistants,’ without having any assistants, can’t 
 
124 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 you ? Isn’t it done every day by all the masters about ? I’ve 
 no patience with you.” 
 
 “ Haven’t you 1” 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 Wack- 
 ford 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 sou,” replied Mr. Squeers, in a sentimental 
 voice. 
 
 “ Oh, my eye, won’t I give it to the boys 1” 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 to witness that 
 burst of enthusiasm in his young child’s mind, and to see in it 
 a foreshadowing of his future eminence. He pressed a penny 
 into his hand, and gave vent to his feelings (as did his exem¬ 
 plary 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 school-room as anyw^here 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 exist¬ 
 ence the wildest imagination could never have dreamt—that 
 Miss Squeers, who seldom troubled herself with scholastic mat¬ 
 ters, inquired with much curiosity who this Knuckleboy waa 
 that gave himself such airs. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 126 
 
 “ Nicklcby,*’ 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. lie 
 looked as black as thunder all tlie 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 1” 
 
 “ Yes ; but I don’t believe a word of it. If he’s a gentle¬ 
 man’s son at all he’s a fondling, that’s my opinion.” 
 
 Mrs. Squeers intended to say “ foundling,” but, as she fre¬ 
 quently remarked when she made any such mistake, it would be 
 all the same a hundred years hence; with which axiom of phi¬ 
 losophy indeed she was in the constant habit of consoling the 
 boys when they labored 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 any thing 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 any body 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 a woman in 
 all England that can bring any body’s spirit down as quick aa 
 you can, my love.” 
 
126 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, M'hen she questioned the hungry servant minutely regard¬ 
 ing the outward appearance and demeanor 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 op¬ 
 portunity of her mother being engaged and her father absent, 
 and went accidentally into the school-room 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 1” 
 
 “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. 
 
 “ lie 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 any thing 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, T wouldn’t upon 
 any account have—it is very provoking—must look so very 
 Btrange,” murmured Miss Squeers, blushing once more, and 
 

 
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 fj 
 
 
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 # 
 
 /■ 
 
 
 % 
 
 * 
 
 
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 -t 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 / r 
 
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 “OH! AS SOFT AS POSSIBLE, IF YOU PLEASE.' 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 127 
 
 glancing from tlie 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 pro¬ 
 priety of advancing any nearer to an utter sti’anger, then round 
 the school-room 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 1 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 stooped 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.” 
 
 “ Good-by,” 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 Nicholao, 
 closing the school-room door. 
 
128 
 
 NICHOLAS itiCKLEBY. 
 
 “ I never saw siich 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 mar¬ 
 ket town. Miss Squeers and the miller’s daughter being fast 
 friends, had covenanted together some two years before, ac¬ 
 cording to a custom prevalent among young ladies, that who¬ 
 ever was first engaged to be married should straightway confide 
 the mighty secret to the bosom of the other, before communi¬ 
 cating it to any living soul, and bespeak her as bridesmaid 
 without loss of time ; in fulfillment of which pledge, the miller’s 
 daughter, when her engagement was formed, came out ex¬ 
 press at eleven o’clock at night as the corn-factor’s son made 
 an olfer of his hand and heart at twenty-five minutes past ten 
 Dy the Dutch clock in the kitchen, and rushed into Miss 
 Squeers’s bed-room vdth 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 anx¬ 
 ious 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 any body 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 remark¬ 
 able 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, empha¬ 
 sizing the adjective strongly. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 129 
 
 “ Most extraordinary,” replied the friend. “ But what baa 
 her said to you ?” 
 
 “ Don’t ask me what he said, my dear,” rejoined Miss Squeers. 
 '‘If you had only seen his looks and smiles 1 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 favorite leer of the corn- 
 factor. 
 
 “Very like that—only more genteel,” replied Miss Squeers. 
 
 “ Ah 1” 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 behavior 
 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 compli¬ 
 mentary as to be quite conclusive. Then she dilated on the 
 fearful hardship of having a father and mother strenuously op¬ 
 posed 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 court¬ 
 ship was in consequence as flat and commonplace 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 after¬ 
 noon for the next day but one ; and on the next day but oiie 
 Mrs. Squeers got up outside the coach as it stopped to change 
 at Greta Bridge, taking with her a small bundle containing 
 n 
 
130 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Rometliing 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. 
 
 AVhenever such opportunities as these occurred, it was 
 Squeers’s custom to drive over to the market town every even¬ 
 ing on pretence of urgent business, and stop till ten or eleven 
 o’clock at a tavern he much affected. As the party was not iu 
 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 parlor 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 ad¬ 
 vantage : 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 doubt¬ 
 ful 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 ar¬ 
 rangements to her entire satisfaction when the friend arrived 
 with a whitey-brown parcel—flat and three-cornered—contain¬ 
 ing sundry small adornments which were to be put on up stairs, 
 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 down stairs 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 
 W'hile they were talking thus the hungry servant brought in 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 131 
 
 the tea things, and soon afterwards somebody tapped at the 
 room door. 
 
 “ There he is !” cried Miss Squeers. “ Oh ’Tilda !” 
 
 “ Hush !” said ’Tilda. “Heml 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 any thing 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 tea-pot 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 intelli¬ 
 gence with perfect unconcern; and being out of spirits, and not 
 seeing any especial reason why he should make himself agree¬ 
 able, looked out of the window and sighed involuntarily. 
 
 As luck would have it. Miss Squeers’s friend was of a play 
 ful 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 
 us you would if you were alone.” 
 
 “’Tilda,” said Miss Squeers, coloring 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 unrnixed astonishment, gradually fell into one of irre¬ 
 pressible laughter—occasioned partly by the bare notion of his 
 being in love with Miss Squeers, and partly by the preposterous 
 appearance and behavior of the two girls; the two causes 
 of merriment taken together, struck him as being so keenly ridi- 
 
132 
 
 NICHOLAS NTCKLEBY. 
 
 culons. that despite his miserable condition, he laughed till he 
 was thoroughly exhausted. 
 
 “Well,” thought Nicholas, “as I am here, and seem ex¬ 
 pected 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 get¬ 
 ting for a 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 behavior 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-by, 
 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 honors, “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 particular and helped himself to food. 
 
 “ Old wooman awa’, beant 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 tho 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 133 
 
 bread and butter with increased vigor. It was quite a sight to 
 bcliold how he and Nicholas emptied the plate between them, 
 
 “ Ye weant 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 colored, but affected not to hear the 
 remark. 
 
 “ Ecod,” said Mr. Browdie, laughing boisterously, “ they 
 dean’t put too much intiv ’em. Y'e’ll be nowt but skeen and 
 boans if you stop here long eneaf. Ho ! hoi ho 1” 
 
 “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 neces¬ 
 sary 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 very offensive,” said Nicholas in a towering pas¬ 
 sion, “ 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 taere, 
 Mr. Nickleby ?” 
 
 “ None at all,” replied Nicholas. “Absurd.” 
 
 “That’s right,” whispered Miss Price, “say something kind 
 
134 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 speak¬ 
 ing with some degree of contempt—“you are a one to keep 
 company.” 
 
 “What do you mean ?” said Nicholas; “I am not 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.” 
 
 “Pickle!” 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, pet¬ 
 tishly. “ Look at her, dressed so beautifully and looking so 
 well—really almost handsome. I am ashamed at you.” 
 
 “ My dear girl, what have I got to do with her dressing beau 
 tifully 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 Panny 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 Yorkshire- 
 man. 
 
 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 re¬ 
 flection, 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, look¬ 
 ing slyly at Nicholas; “ so we had better go partners, two 
 against two.” 
 
 “ What do you say, Mr. Nickleby ?” inquired Miss Price. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 • 136 
 
 “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 every thing,” 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 to-night!” 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 oppor¬ 
 tunity of exercising it upon the features of some other gentle¬ 
 man ; and Miss Squeers tossed her head with such indignation, 
 that the gust of wind raised by the multitudinous curls in mo 
 tion, 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.” 
 
136 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “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 1 It 
 would have been worth a small annuity to have beheld that; 
 lot alone Miss Price’s evident joy at making them jealons, and 
 Nicholas Nickleby’s happy unconsciousness of making any body 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 “ We have all the talking to ourselves, it seems,” said Nicho¬ 
 las, looking good-humoredly 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 I he 1 he !” 
 
 “Nay,” said Nicholas, “w'e do it in default of having any 
 body else to talk to.” 
 
 “Wfc ll talk to you, you know, if you’ll say any thing,” said 
 Miss Price. 
 
 “ Thank you, ’Tilda, dear,” retorted Miss Squeers, majesti¬ 
 cally. 
 
 “ 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 Yorkshireraan. 
 
 “Ay, and not sit there so silent and glum.” 
 
 “Weel, then 1” 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 bond.” 
 
 “ Mercy on us, what’s all this ?” cried Miss Price, in affected 
 astonishment. 
 
 “ Cum whoam, tell’e, cum whoam,” replied the Yorkshireman, 
 Etemly. 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 counte¬ 
 nance with her fair finger-nails. 
 
 This state of things had been brought about by divers means 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 137 
 
 aud 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 broiight 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 nupti; Is : 
 while Nicholas had brought it about by half an hour’s gayety 
 and thoughtlessness, and a very sincere desire to avoid the 
 imputation of inclining at all to Miss Squeers. So, that the 
 means employed, and the end produced, were alike the most 
 natural in the world : for young ladies will look forward to be¬ 
 ing 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 1” 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, and 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 
 
138 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, courtesying 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 melo-dramatic performances inform 
 each other they will meet again. 
 
 They were no sooner gone than Miss Squeers fulfilled the pre¬ 
 diction of her quondam friend by giving vent to a most copious 
 burst of tears, and uttering various dismal lamentations and in¬ 
 coherent 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 consider¬ 
 ing 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 readi¬ 
 ness to adapt myself to any society into which chance carries 
 me. If I had sat mute and motionless, as I might have done, 
 this would not have happened.” 
 
 lie 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 punish¬ 
 ment for having forgotten, even for an hour, what is around me 
 now.” 
 
 So saying, he felt his way among the throng of weary-hcart,ed 
 Bleepers, and crept into his poor bed. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HO'W 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 up stairs, 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 treat¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 “ 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 I the 
 difficulties of art, ray dear, are great.” 
 
 “ They must be, I have no doubt,” said Kate, humoring her 
 good-natured little friend. 
 
 “ They are beyond any thing you can form the faintest con¬ 
 ception of,” replied Miss La Creevy. “What with bringing 
 
 (139) 
 
140 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 minia¬ 
 ture is.” 
 
 “ The remuneration can scarcely repay you,” said Kate. 
 
 “Why, it does not, and that’s the truth,” answered Miss La 
 Oreevy; “ 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 1’ 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 gentle¬ 
 men 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 ranch about looking clever.” 
 
 Kate seemed highly amused by this information, and Miss 
 La Creevy went on painting and talking with immovable com¬ 
 plaisance. 
 
 “ What a number of officers you seem to paint 1” 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 1” 
 
 “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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 141 
 
 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 some¬ 
 times, 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 ex¬ 
 pect 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 uncer¬ 
 tainty is worse than any thing.” 
 
 “ 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.” 
 
 “ Ilis manner is rough,” said Kate. 
 
 “Rough 1” cried Miss La Creevy, “a porcupine’s a feather¬ 
 bed to him. I never met with such a cross-grained old sav¬ 
 age.” 
 
 “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 
 thii k 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. Rut now mightn’t he, without feeling it himself, 
 
142 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 make you and your mamma 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 
 great energy, “ but it would be that to me I would rather die 
 than take.” 
 
 “ Heyday!” cried Miss La Creevy. 
 
 “ X dependence upon him,” said Kate, “would imbitter 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 any body’s bounty—not his particularly, but 
 any body’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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 14S 
 
 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 up stairs, 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, “ 1 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 to-morrow. 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; tliey 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 up stairs, where Mrs, 
 Nickleby received him with many expressions of regard. Stop¬ 
 ping them somewhat abruptly, Ralph waved his hand with an 
 imi)atient gesture, and proceeded to the object of his visit. 
 
 “I have found a situation for your daughter. Ma’am,” said 
 Ral ph. 
 
 “Well,” replied Mrs. Nickleby. “ Now I will say that that 
 is only jus! what I have expected of you. ‘ Depend upon it,’ 1 
 
144 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, mamma,” 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 inter¬ 
 ruption,” observed Mrs. Nickleby, with many small nods and 
 frowns. “Your uncle’s time is very valuable, my dear; and how¬ 
 ever desirious 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 I The slight bait so skillfully 
 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 straightened and altered circumstances, peevish 
 visions of her dower of one thousand pounds had arisen before 
 Mrs. Nicklebj’s mind, until at last she had come to persuade 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 146 
 
 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 fruit¬ 
 less 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 yon 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 ob¬ 
 jected to his proposition, went on to say— 
 
 “ The situation that I have made interest to procure. Ma’am, 
 is with—with a milliner and dress-maker, in short.” 
 
 “A milliner!” cried Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “ A milliner and dress-maker. Ma’am,” replied Ralph. 
 “Dress-makers 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 be¬ 
 come persons of great wealth and fortune.” 
 
 Now, the first ideas called up in Mrs. Nickleby’s mind by 
 the words milliner and dress-maker 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 pro¬ 
 ceeded these disappeared, and were replaced by visions of large 
 liouses at the West End, neat private carriages, and a banker’s 
 book, all of which images succeeded each other with such ra¬ 
 pidity, that he had no sooner finished speaking than she nodded 
 her head and said, “Very true,” with great appearance of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 10 
 
14(5 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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 re¬ 
 member 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 re¬ 
 lating, and llalj)!! manifested very intelligible symptoms of 
 extreme impatience. 
 
 “The lady’s name,” said Ralph, hastily striking in, “is Man- 
 talini—^ladame Mantalihi. 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 her¬ 
 self for the walk, white 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 went at the sale for a mere nothing. 
 
 These reminiscences were at length cut short by Kate’s re¬ 
 turn 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 147 
 
 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.” 
 
 I^erhaps 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 colored deeply, breathed 
 quickly for a few moments, and then Vvalked 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 companion¬ 
 ship. Rut it would have been a stranger contrast still, to have 
 read the hearts that were beating side by side ; to have had laid 
 bare the gentle innocence of the one, and the rugged villany of 
 the other; to have hung upon the guileless thoughts of the af¬ 
 fectionate girl, and been amazed that among all the wily [)lots 
 and calculations of the old man, there should not be one word 
 or figure denoting thought of death or of the grave. Rut 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 
 ita cell, beating only as a piece of cunning mechanism, and 
 
148 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 1” replied Ralph ; “where’s that ?” 
 
 “ I mean with mj mother— the widow, said Kate, emphati¬ 
 cally. 
 
 “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 1” said Ralph, walking faster in the impatience pro¬ 
 voked 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 conver¬ 
 sation at the dress-maker’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 show-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 gar¬ 
 ments in the most approved taste. 
 
 A liveried footman opened the door, and in reply to Ralph’s 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 149 
 
 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 upon the 
 cheval glasses, or mingling in some other way with the rich furni¬ 
 ture 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 pvull the 
 bell, when a gentleman suddenly popped his head into the room, 
 and seeing somebody there as suddenly popped it out again. 
 
 “Here. Halloo 1” 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 1 oh, 
 demmiti” 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 trowsers 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 mus¬ 
 tache, 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 1 ha 1 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 
 knuckles 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 apart 
 
150 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 raeut 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 Misa 
 Nickleby out of countenance, and then grinning in delight at 
 the achievement. “ This cursed high room takes one’s breath 
 away. These infernal sky parlors—I’m afraid I must move, 
 Nickleby ” 
 
 “ I would, by all means,” replied Kalph, looking bitterly round. 
 
 “What a demd rum fellow you are, Nickleby,” said the gen¬ 
 tleman, “ 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 till 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 till 
 Madame Mantalini appeared. 
 
 The dress-maker was a buxom person, handsomely dressed 
 and rather good-looking, but much older than the gentleman 
 in the Turkish trowsers, whom she had wedded some six 
 months before Ilis 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 mustache, which 
 promised to secure him an easy independence: his share in the 
 labors of the business being at present confined to spending the 
 money, and occasionally when that ran short, driving to Mr. 
 Pi,alph 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 1” 
 
 “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 I” remonstrated Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 “My dear,” said Madame, “that is entirely your fault.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 151 
 
 “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 per¬ 
 formance 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, survey¬ 
 ing 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 inquiiy, 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 1” replied Kate, timidly. 
 
 “Yes; and some of ’em demd handsome, too,” said the 
 master. 
 
 “ Mantalini 1” exclaimed his wife, in an awful voice. V 
 
 “ My senses’ idol 1” said Mantalini. 
 
 “ Do you wish to break my heart ?” 
 
 “Not for twenty thousand hemispheres populated with— 
 with—w'ith 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 1 nothing. Ma’am, nothing,” replied Ralph. “ 1 
 
152 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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. Man- 
 talini felt their influence, and turning affrighted round, ex 
 claimed—“What a demd horrid croaking I” 
 
 “You will pay no attention, if you please, to what Mr. Man 
 talini 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 accus¬ 
 tomed 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 busi¬ 
 ness, for which I allow payment as over-time.” 
 
 Kate bowed her head to intimate that she heard, and was 
 satisfied. 
 
 “Your meals,” continued Madame Mantalini, “that is, din¬ 
 ner and tea, you w’ill 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 bowmd her head again. 
 
 “ If you’re ready to come,” said Madame Mantalini, “ you 
 had better begin on Monday morning at nine exactly, and Miss 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 153 
 
 Knag, the forewoman, shall then have directions to try you with 
 some easy work at first. Is there any thing 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 honor of showing 
 them down stairs. 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 anathematizing 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 I” 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 alms-houses 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. Good-by. 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 iti the Strand. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 am. NEWMAN NOQGS INDUCTS MRS, AND MISS NICKLEBY INTO 
 THEIR NEW DWELLING IN THE CITY. 
 
 Miss Xickleby’s reflections as she wended her way home¬ 
 wards, were of that desponding nature which the occurrences 
 of the morning liad 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 fore¬ 
 bodings 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 abun¬ 
 dance 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 per¬ 
 son in that way of business who had made a fortune without 
 having any thing 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 clinching every argument with the deceased Mr. 
 Nickleby, and in nine cases and three-quarters out of every tea, 
 determining it the wrong way. 
 a54) 
 
NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 155 
 
 “ 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 I that’s not a general rule, by any means,” observed 
 Mrs. Nickleby; “ for I remember as well as if it was only yes¬ 
 terday, 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 argu¬ 
 ment 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 remai’king, 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 cha¬ 
 racteristically forgetting, that there were such things as wet 
 nights and bad weather to be encountered in almost every week 
 of the year. 
 
 “ 1 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 Mis 
 La Creevy, with as much sprightliness as she could assume 
 “ I shall see you very often, and come and hear how you ge 
 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 
 Clog, the guardian genius of Loudon, and enough to spare for 
 
156 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 neighborhood as agreed among them¬ 
 selves 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 up stairs, 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 sutler you to think of such a thing,” said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 “ You can’t help it,” said Newman. 
 
 “ Not help it 1” 
 
 “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. Every body’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 
 -uch—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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 157 
 
 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 ab¬ 
 ruptness of his speech), looked at him more closely, she recol¬ 
 lected having caught a passing glimpse of that strange figure 
 before. 
 
 “Excuse my curiosity,” she said, “but did I not see you in 
 the coach-yard on the morning ray brother went away to York¬ 
 shire 
 
 Newman cast a wistful glance on Mrs, Nickleby, and said 
 “No,” most unblushingly. 
 
 “No I” exclaimed Kate. “I should have said so any where.” 
 
 “ 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 
 eonference 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 con¬ 
 ditions 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 tur¬ 
 ban 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 ap¬ 
 peared to have been uninhabited for years. 
 
 The door of this deserted mansion Newman opened with a 
 a key which he took out of his hat—in which, by-the-by, in 
 consequence of the dilapidated state of his pockets, he deposited 
 
158 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 every tliiHg, and would most likely have cai’ried 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. 
 'JMiere 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 dark it looks 1” 
 
 “ Lord, my dear,” replied Mrs. Nickleby, “ don’t talk in that 
 way, or you’ll frighten me to death.” 
 
 “It’s only my foolish fancy, mamma,” 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 
 M iss La Creevy to keep us comparly, 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 every 
 
 thing-” 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 e.vhausted. 
 
 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 furni¬ 
 ture. 
 
 “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 any thing but the bed we bought 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 169 
 
 yesterday to lie down upon, if it hadn’t been for his thought¬ 
 fulness.” 
 
 “Very kind, indeed,” replied Kate, looking round. 
 
 Newman Noggs did not say that he had hunted up the old 
 furniture they saw, from attic or cellar; or that he had taken 
 in the halfpenny worth of milk for tea that stood upon a shelf, 
 or filled the rusty kettle on the hob, or collected the wood-chips 
 from tne 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 fin¬ 
 gers 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, mamma,” said Kate hesitating, and remarking New¬ 
 man’s averted face, “you would hurt his feelings if you offered 
 it.” 
 
 Newman Noggs, bowing to the young lady more like a gen¬ 
 tleman 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 owr her fe:.rs, and Newman 
 N^oggs was on his road homewards. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHEREBY THE READER WILL BE ENABLED TO TRACE THE Fim, 
 
 THER COURSE OF MISS FANNY SQUEERS’S LOVE, AND TO 
 
 ASCERTAIN WHETHER IT RAN SMOOTHLY 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, how¬ 
 ever, 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 to-night. Miss!” said the 
 hand-maiden. “ 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 perccution of what had occurred 
 flflO') 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 161 
 
 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 any body 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 yours and all; but she do dress herself 
 out so, and go 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 1 It’s enough to make a Torn 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 got to be admired,” 
 pursued the servant. “ Oh dear 1 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 patronizing 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 voung woman she might be in time I” 
 
 “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 par¬ 
 ticularly-” 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Oh yes ; you, Miss,” interposed Phib. 
 
 “ Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,” said Miss Squeers. 
 “1 must say that if she would, she would be all the better for 
 it.” 
 
 “ So somebody else thinks, or I am muck mistaken,” said the 
 girl mysteriously. 
 
 " What do you mean ?” demanded Miss Squeers. 
 
 “ IS’ever mind. Miss,” replied the girl; “ / 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 1” 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 I” 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 
 ray 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 polysyllaWe in 
 the language. Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 168 
 
 hearts, that what the miserable serving girl had said was sheer 
 coarse lying flattery, as did the girl herself; yet the mere oppor¬ 
 tunity 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 dependent, 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 excited over ourselves, that Miss 
 Squeers felt quite high-minded and great after her noble renun¬ 
 ciation 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 be¬ 
 took herself to the parlor 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 satis¬ 
 faction. 
 
 “ 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 mar- 
 
164 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ried 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 Mend’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 condo¬ 
 lences 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 Mrs. Squeers, with hyste¬ 
 rical symptoms. “ I despise him too much 1” 
 
 “ 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 every body,” said Miss Squeers, “and I wish that 
 every body 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 clinching 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 favor 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 terras, in a 
 company-keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner ?” 
 
 “ I don’t know but what it would,” sobbed Miss Squeers. 
 “ Oh I ’Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dis- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 165 
 
 honorable 1 I wouldn’t have believed it of you if any body had 
 told me.” 
 
 “ Heyday I” 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, “Per¬ 
 sons 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 the 
 conversation, and that a dash of personality was infused into the 
 altercation in consequence. Indeed the quarrel, from slight be¬ 
 ginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming a very 
 violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a great pas¬ 
 sion 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, aflbrd were abso¬ 
 lutely 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 up stairs to make insi)ectiou 
 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 
 
1G6 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 of a new pink scarf, Miss Squeers said in high good humor, tliat 
 the 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 mul¬ 
 tiplying 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 melan¬ 
 choly walk, and to brood, as he sauntered listlessly through the 
 village, upon his miserable lot. Miss Squeers knew this per¬ 
 fectly 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 a 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. “1 shall choke, 
 ’Tilda.” 
 
 “ Come back, Mr. Nickleby, do,” cried Miss Price, affecting 
 alarm at her friend’s threat, but really actuated by a malicious 
 wisli 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 107 
 
 “Don’t stop to talk,” urged Miss Price, hastily; “but sup¬ 
 port her on the other side. How do you feel now, dear ?” 
 
 “ Better,” sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of red¬ 
 dish brown with a green vail attached, on Mr. Nickleby’g 
 shoulder. “This foolish faintness !” 
 
 “Don’t call it foolish, dear,” said Miss Price, her bright eye 
 dancing with merriment as she saw the perple.xity 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, “althougli 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 dis¬ 
 pense with this jesting, for I have no time, and really no ineli- 
 nation, to be the subject or promoter of mirth just now.” 
 
 “ What do you mean ?” asked Miss Price, aflecting amaze¬ 
 ment. 
 
 “ 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 re¬ 
 proach 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 1” exclaimed 
 M iss Price as Nicholas ])aused. 
 
 “I fear there is something more,” stammered Nicholas with 
 a half smile, and looking towards Miss Squeers; “it is a most 
 
168 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 awkward thing to say—but—the very mention of such a suppo¬ 
 sition makes one look like a puppy—still—may I ask if that 
 iady supposes that I entertain any—in short, does she think tha'' 
 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 1” exclaimed INicholas with such energy of utter' 
 ance as might have been for the moment mistaken for rapture. 
 
 “Certainly,” replied Miss Price. 
 
 “ If Mr. Nickleby has doubted that, ’Tilda,” said the blush* 
 ing 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 sig¬ 
 nal mistake, that ever human being labored 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 w'itli 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 to 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 slightly 
 bowed, and waiting to hear no more, retreated. 
 
 But poor Miss Squeers 1 Her anger, rage, and vexation ; the 
 rapid succession of bitter and passionate feelings that whirled 
 through lier mind, are not to be described. Refused I 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 
 ])resence 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 169 
 
 gone down on his very knees to ask her 1 She could have 
 choked in right good earnest at the thought cf being so 
 humbled. 
 
 But there was one thing clear in the midst of her mortifica¬ 
 tion, 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 com¬ 
 fort 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 crea¬ 
 ture, 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 be¬ 
 stowed her affections (or whatever it might be that in the ab¬ 
 sence of any thing better represented them) on Nicholas Nickle¬ 
 by, 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 fa¬ 
 ther had saved money and Nicholas had none, all of which 
 seemed to her conclusive arguments why the young man should 
 feel only too much honored by her preference. She had not 
 failed to recollect, either, how mueh 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 encour¬ 
 aged her extravagance had it been only for this very obvious 
 and intelligible reason. However, he had thought proper to do 
 otherwise, and Miss Squeers wms 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 Sepreers was as 
 good as her word ; and poor Nicholas, in addition to bad food, 
 
170 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 dirty lodgment, 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 school-room, had followed him to 
 and fro with an ever restless desire to serve or help him, antici¬ 
 pating such little v/ants 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 careworn 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-humor that could 
 not be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgery 
 would have been nothing—he 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 appren¬ 
 ticeship ; but it was no sooner observed that he had become at¬ 
 tached to Nicholas, than stripes and blows, stripes and blows, 
 morning, noon, and night, were his only portion. Squeers 
 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. 
 
 lie had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys, and one 
 night, as he paced up and down the dismal school-room, his 
 Bwoln 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 ])Oor soul was poring hard over a tattered book with the 
 traces of recent tears still upon his face, vainly endeavoring to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 171 
 
 master some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of 
 ordinary i)owers, 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 1” cried the other, looking intently in his face. 
 
 “ Softly 1” rejoined Nicholas. “Y'es.” 
 
 “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, vnll 
 you go —will you?” 
 
 “I shall be driven to that at last 1” said Nicholas. “The 
 world is before me, after all.” 
 
 “Tell me,” urged Sinike, “is the world as bad and dismal as 
 this ))lace ?” 
 
 “ Heaven forbid,” replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his 
 ovni thoughts; “ its hardest, coarsest toil, were hap[)iness to 
 this.” 
 
 “ Should I ever meet you there?” demanded the boy, speak¬ 
 ing vvilh unusual wildness and volubility. 
 
172 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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.” 
 
 “ Y'ou would,” replied Nicholas, with the same humane inten¬ 
 tion, “ and I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sor¬ 
 row 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 mo 
 ment, and he shrunk back iato his old corner. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NICHOLAS VARIES THE MONOTONY OF DOTIIEBOYS HALL BY A 
 
 MOST VIGOROUS AND REMARKABLE PROCEEDING, WHICH 
 
 LEADS TO CONSEQUENCES OP 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 upon 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 color, with here and there a gaunt arm 
 thrust forth : its thinness hidden by no covering, but fully ex¬ 
 posed to view in all its shrunken ugliness. There were some 
 who, lying on their backs with upturned faces and clinched 
 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 
 tlie jilace 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 
 
 '(ua) 
 
174 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV". 
 
 beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stem reality or 
 their daily pilgrimage through the world. 
 
 Nicholas looked upon the sleepers, at first with the air of 
 one who gazed 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 1” added Mrs. Squeers, finishing the sen¬ 
 tence, 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 I” 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. “lie is.” 
 
 “He is not,” retorted Nicholas angrily, “don’t tell me one.” 
 
 “We shall soon see that,” said JVIr. Squeers, rushing up 
 stairs. “I’ll find him, I warrant you.” 
 
 With which assurance Mr. Squeers bouneed into the dormi¬ 
 tory, and swinging his cane in the air ready for a blow, darned 
 
NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 176 
 
 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 en¬ 
 deavored 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. 
 
 “ D—n you, what do you mean by that ?” retorted Squeers 
 in great perturbation. And without waiting for a reply, he in¬ 
 quired of the boys whether any one among them knew any thing 
 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, every body 
 thought)— 
 
 “Please, Sir, I think Smike’s run away. Sir.” 
 
 “Ilal” 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 per¬ 
 plexed expression of whose countenance as he was brought for¬ 
 ward, seemed to intimate that he was as yet uncertain whether 
 he was about to be punished or rewarded for the suggestion, 
 lie 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 sud¬ 
 denly 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 
 
176 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 Squeers, throwing himself into the most favorable attitude for 
 exercising his strength, beat him till 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, eying him maliciously. 
 “ You think he has run away, I suppose ?” 
 
 “I think it extremely likely,” replied Nicholas, in a very 
 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.” 
 
 ]\Irs. Squeers had listened to this conversation from the bot¬ 
 tom 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 
 olf right and left to save her the trouble of clearing a passage 
 with her brawny arms. “ What on earth are you 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 won¬ 
 der ? 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 ofi’ to 
 the school-room, and take the boys olf with you, and don’t you 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 177 
 
 stir out of there till you have leave given you, or you and 1 may 
 fall out in a way that’ll spoil your beauty, handsome as you 
 think yourself, and so I tell you.’’ 
 
 “ Indeed 1” said Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 “ 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 Stnike if you dare. See what 
 lie’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 
 woi'k. Come, away with you I” 
 
 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. 
 
 “lie is off,” said Mrs. Squeers. “ The cow-house and stable 
 are locked up, so he can’t be there; and he’s not down stairs 
 any where, for the girl has looked. He must have gone York 
 way, and by a pul)lic road too.” 
 
 “Why must he?” inquired Squeers. 
 
 “Stupid!” said Mrs. Squeers angrily. “lie 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 iVIrs. Squeers, “and he didn’t take 
 an)' thing to eat witli him, that I’ll answer for. Hal ha! ha!” 
 
 “Ila! ha! ha!” cried Squeers. 
 
 “Then of course,” said iSIrs S., “he must beg his way, and 
 he could do that nowhere but on the public road.” 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 “ Thut’s true,” exclaimed Squeers, clapping his hands. 
 
 “ True 1 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 ask¬ 
 ing questions, one or other of ns is pretty certain to lay hold 
 oi 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 sliow 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 laboring 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 ci’eature, 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, whi(!h 
 made his heart ache at the prospect of the suffering he was des¬ 
 tined to undergo. lie lingered on in restless anxiety, ])icturing 
 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 179 
 
 “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 I” 
 
 “ 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 vaporings here, Mr. Puppy, but be off to your 
 kennel, for it’s past your bed-time. Come. Get out.” 
 
 Nicholas bit his lip and knit his hands involuntarily, for his 
 finger-ends 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 up stairs, 
 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 occa¬ 
 sioned a vast deal of laughter, in which even the most miserable 
 of all miserable of 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 exul¬ 
 tation, ordering a glass of spirits for somebody, which was in 
 itself a sufficient sign that something extraordinary had hap¬ 
 pened. 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 
 
180 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, he might have been doubt¬ 
 ful, even then, of his identity. 
 
 “ Lift him out,” said Squeers, after he had literally feasted 
 his eyes in silence upon the culprit. “ Bring him iu ; bring 
 him iu.” 
 
 “ 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 A1 rs. 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 mani¬ 
 fold services of the drudge, if performed by any body 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 Dothe- 
 boys Hall, inasmuch as in consequence of the limited extent of 
 its attractions there was but little inducement, beyond the 
 powerful im|)ulse 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-Qre through the hungry community, and 
 expectation was on tip-toe all the morning. On tip-toe it was des¬ 
 tined to remain, however, until afternoon ; when Squeers, hav¬ 
 ing refreshed himself with his dinner, and further strengthened 
 himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accom¬ 
 panied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of portentous 
 imjiort, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 181 
 
 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 
 favorite blow to the desk, and regarding wiUi gloomy satisfac¬ 
 tion the universal start which it never failed to occasion, “ Nick- 
 leby, 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; and 
 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 Sraike 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 compas¬ 
 sion 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 luckle.ss Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in 
 such cases, whether he had any thing 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 any thing to say ?” demanded Squeers again; giv¬ 
 ing his right arm two or three flourishes to try its power and 
 suppleness. “Stand a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, ray 
 dear; I’ve hardly got room enough.” 
 
 “S|)are 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. 
 
182 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Driven to do it, were you?” said Squeers. “OhI it wasn’t 
 your fault; it was mine, I suppose—eh?” 
 
 “A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneak¬ 
 ing dog,” exclaimed Mrs, Squeers, taking Smike’s head under 
 her arm, and administering a culf 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, com¬ 
 plied, 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 mis¬ 
 erable lad’s behalf,” said Nicholas; “returned no answer to th^ 
 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 him¬ 
 self with rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke. 
 
 “Wretch,” rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, “touch him at your 
 peril 1 I will not stand by and see it done; my blood is up, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 188 
 
 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, 
 flashed with passion; "and my indignation is aggravated by 
 the dastardly cruelties practiced 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.” 
 
 lie 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, com¬ 
 ing 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 endeavored 
 to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, 
 who had been peeping through the key-hole 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 it 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 lengtli on the 
 ground, stunned and motionless. 
 
184 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascer¬ 
 tained 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 
 lie 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, for he had only four shillings and a 
 few pence in his pocket, and was something more than two hun¬ 
 dred 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 his nearer approach, 
 he discovered, to his infinite chagrin, to be no other than Mr. 
 Tohn 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, 
 • Mid 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 185 
 
 "Weel; we ha’ met at last,” observed John, making tho 
 etirrup 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, 1 believe; but 
 I had no intention of offending you, and no idea that I was 
 doing so. 1 was very sorry for it afterwards. Will you shake 
 hands ?” 
 
 “Shake bonds I” cried the good-humored Yorkshiremaii; 
 “ ah I that I weelat 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 fcace, 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. “Weel 
 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 I” interposed John Browdie, in a tone of com¬ 
 passion ; 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 shyed at it. “Beatten the schoolmeasther 1 IIol 
 - ho ! ho ! Beatten the schoolmeasther 1 who ever heard o’ the 
 loike o’ that noo ! Giv’ us thee bond agean, yoongster. Beatten 
 a schoolmeasther 1 Dang it, I loove 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 sub¬ 
 sided, he inquired what Nicholas meant to do ; on his inform¬ 
 ing him, to go straight to London, he shook his head doubtfully, 
 and inquired if he knew how much the coaches charged to carry 
 passei'.gers so far. 
 
186 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “No, I do not,” said Nicholas; “but it is of no great con¬ 
 sequence 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 furtlier on by this time, and so good-by.” 
 
 “Nay, noo,” replied the honest countryman, reining in his 
 impatient horse, “ stan’ still, tehee, IIoo much cash hast thee 
 gotten ?” 
 
 “Not much,” said Nicholas, coloring, “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 soiled 
 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 hart, and bless thee. Beatten 
 a schoolmeasther! ’Cod it’s the best thing a’ve heerd this 
 twenty year !” 
 
 So saying, and indulging, with more delicacy than could have 
 been expected from him, in another series of loud laughs, foi 
 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. 
 
 lie did not travel far that afternoon, for by this time it was 
 nearly dark, and there had been a heavy fall of snow, which nor 
 only rendered the way toilsome, but the track uncertain and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 187 
 
 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 travelers, 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 wdthin a couple of hundred yards 
 of the road-side; 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, vvliich 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 motion¬ 
 less object which seemed to be stationed within a few yards in 
 front of him. 
 
 “ Strange I” cried Nicholas; “ can this be some lingering 
 creation of the visions that have scarcely left me I 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 V’ said Nicholas, hastily raising 
 him. 
 
 “ To go with you—any where—every where—to the world’s 
 end—to the church-yard grave,” replied Smike, clinging to his 
 hand. “ Let me, oh do let me. You are my home—my kind 
 friend—take me wdth 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 feared to appear before, lest he should 
 be sent back. He had not intended to appear now, but Nicho¬ 
 las had awakened more suddenly than he looked for, and he 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 lus rags 
 
188 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 together; “these will do very well. I only want to be near 
 you.” 
 
 “ And yon shall,” cried Nicholas. “ And the w^orld 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 de¬ 
 lighted charge, and so they passed out of the old barn together. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 HAVING THE MISFORTUNE TO TREAT OF NONE BUT COMMON PEO- 
 
 PLE, 18 NECESSARILY OF A MEAN AND VULGAR CHARACTER. 
 
 In that quarter of London in which Golden Square is situ 
 atcd, there is a by-gone, 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 medi¬ 
 tate 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 flut- 
 terers, sent, like many of the neighboring children, to get a live¬ 
 lihood 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 any thing ap¬ 
 proaching 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 
 
 (1 K9^ 
 
190 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 nearly ihipassable 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 parlor of one of these houses, which was perhaps a 
 thought dirtier than any of its neighbors; 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, 
 although on what story the vacant room could be—regard being 
 had to the outward tokens of many lodgers Mdiich 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 its legal owner. 
 
 This jicrson wore a wig of short, coarse, red hoir, which he 
 took off with his hat, and hung ’apon a nail. Having adopted 
 in its place a dirty cotton night-cap, and groped about in the 
 dark till he found a remnant of candle, he knocked at the par¬ 
 tition which divided the two garrets, and inquired in a loud 
 voice whether Mr. Noggs had got a light. 
 
 The sounds that came back were stifled by the lath and 
 
NICHOLAS NIC K L E B Y. 
 
 191 
 
 plaster, aud it seemed moreover as though the speaker had ut¬ 
 tered them from the interior of a rung or other drinking vessel; 
 but they were in the voice of Newman, and conveyed a reply 
 in the aHirmative. 
 
 “A nasty night, Mr. Noggs,” said the man in the night-cap, 
 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 suf¬ 
 ficient refutation of the charge, and briefly said that he was 
 going down stairs to sui)per. 
 
 “ To the Kenwigses ?” asked Crowl. 
 
 Newman nodded assent. 
 
 “Think of that now 1” 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 
 8j)end 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 any body 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 could say at the right time, either to himselt' to 
 
192 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 any one else, gave way to the proposed arrangement, and Mr. 
 Crowl immediately went about making himself as comfortable 
 with N’ewman Xoggs’s means, as circumstances would admit of 
 his being. 
 
 The lodgers to w-hom 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, inas¬ 
 much as he occupied the whole of the first floor, comprising a 
 suit 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 
 neighborhood, and had flaxen hair tied with blue ribbons hang¬ 
 ing in luxuriant pigtails down their backs, and wore little white 
 trowsers 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 supper in the first floor, and put on a new gown to 
 receive them in, which gown, being of a flaming color and 
 made upon a juvenile principle, was so successful that Mr. 
 Kenwigs said the eight years of matrimony and the five chil¬ 
 dren seemed all a dream, and Mrs. Kenwigs younger and more 
 blooming than the very first Sunday he 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 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 to¬ 
 gether were got together, and all the things that had to be got 
 cut of the way were got out of the way, and every thing was 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 193 
 
 read}'', and the collector himself having promised to come, for¬ 
 tune 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 the 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 
 W’atch 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 wmre 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 honorable 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 parlor, 
 and one more young lady, who, next to the collector, per¬ 
 haps, 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 plea¬ 
 sure of seeing such friends, and that was, that the lady in the 
 back parlor, who was very fat, and turned of sixty, came in a 
 low book-muslin dress and short kid gloves, which so exas¬ 
 perated Mrs. Kenwigs, that that lady assured her sister in private, 
 that if it hadn’t happened that the supper was cooking at the 
 back-parlor grate at that moment, she certainly would have re¬ 
 quested its representative to withdraw. 
 
 “My dear,” said Mr. Kenwigs, “wouldn’t it be better to be¬ 
 gin a round game ?” 
 
 “ Kenwigs, my dear,” returned his wife, “ I am surprised at 
 you. Would you begin without my uncle ?” 
 
 13 
 
131 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 1 rorg’ot the collector,” said Kenwigs; “oh, no, that would 
 never do.” 
 
 “ Jle’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 forever.” 
 
 “ Dear I” 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 that ever was,” said KeiiAvigs 
 
 “ It goes to his heart, I believe, to be forced to cut the water 
 olf 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, 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 honor to be connected with the colleqtor 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 in¬ 
 tended 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 
 xntce, for any thing that appeared to the contrary, was led play- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 J95 
 
 fully in by Miss Morleena Kenwigs, regarding whose uncommon 
 Christian name it may be here remarked that it was invented 
 and composed by Mrs. Kenwigs previous to her first lying-in, 
 for the special distinction of her eldest child, in case it shou.d 
 prove a daughter. 
 
 “ Oh uncle, I am so glad to see you,” said Mrs. Kenwigs, 
 kissing the collector aflectionately on both cheeks. “ So glad.' 
 
 " Many happy returns of the day, my dear,” replied the col¬ 
 lector, returning the compliment. 
 
 Now this was an interesting thing. Here wms 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 ques¬ 
 tion. It was pleasant to see how the company looked on, quite 
 absorbed in the sight, and to behold the nods and wdnks 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. 
 
 “Anywdieres, my dear, ” said the collector; “ I am not particular.” 
 
 Not particular 1 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 honor 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. Ilis attention in calling had 
 been quite extraordinary. 
 
 “George, you know, I think, Mr. Lillyvick,” said Kenwigs; 
 “ lady from down stairs—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. Mi*s. Kenwigs, my 
 dear, will you sort the counters ?” 
 
l'J6 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Mrs. Ken wigs, with the assistance of Newman Noggs (wlio, 
 as he performed sundry little acts of kindness for the children at 
 all times and seasons, was humored in his request to be taken 
 no notice of, and was merely spoken about in a whisper as the 
 decayed gentleman), did as she was desired, and the greater part 
 of the guests sat down to speculation, while Newman himself, 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, and Miss Fetowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury 
 Lane, looked after the supper table. 
 
 While the ladies were thus busying themselves, Mr. Lilly- 
 vick 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 neighbors, which, on the contrary, he abstracted 
 whenever an opportunity presented itself, smiling good-humor¬ 
 edly 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 great elegance, and a pair of boiled fowls, a large piec(j.^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 satisfac¬ 
 tion 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. Ken¬ 
 wigs wish more than once that private society adopted the prin¬ 
 ciple 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. 
 
 Every body having eaten every thing, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 197 
 
 in order, with water both hot and cold, the party composed 
 themselves for conviviality, Mr. Lillyvick being stationed in a 
 large arm-chair by the fireside, and the four little Kenwigscs 
 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. Kenwiga 
 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. Ken 
 v\igs; “oh 1 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. Which done, the ladies and gentle¬ 
 men 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. 
 “ Pear me—ah 1” 
 
 This reflection was echoed by all present, who said “Ahl” 
 first, and “ Dear me” afterwards. 
 
 “ I was younger then,” tittered Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 “ No,” said the collector. 
 
 “ Certainly not,” added every body. 
 
 “ I remember my niece,” said Mr. Lillyvick, surveying hia 
 audience with a grave air; “ I remember her, on that very after- 
 
198 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 noon when she first acknow^ledged to her mother a partiality for 
 Kenwdgs. ‘ Mother,’ she says, ‘I love him.’ ” 
 
 “‘Adore him,’ I said, uncle,” interposed Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 “ ‘Love him,’ I think, my dear,” said the collector, tirmly. 
 
 “Perhaps you are right, uncle,” replied Mrs. Kenwigs, sub¬ 
 missively. “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 convulsions.” 
 
 A general exclamation of astonishment burst from the com¬ 
 pany. 
 
 “ Into strong convulsions,” repeated Mr. Lillyvick, regard¬ 
 ing them with a rigid look. “Kenwdgs will excuse my saying, 
 in the presence of friends, that there was a very great objec¬ 
 tion to him, on the ground that he was beneath the family, and 
 would disgrace it. You remember that, Kenwigs ?” 
 
 “ Certainly,” replied that gentleman, in no way displeased at 
 the reminiscence, inasmuch as it proved, beyond all doubt, what 
 a high family Mrs. Kenwdgs 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. Lilly- 
 vick’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 thut Kenwigs must be taken notice of. The 
 family did take notice of him in consequence, and on my repre¬ 
 sentation ; and I am bound to say—and proud to say—that 1 
 have always found him a very honest, well-behaved, upright, re¬ 
 spectable 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 ” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 139 
 
 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 after¬ 
 wards repeated 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, “Mor¬ 
 leena 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 dis¬ 
 like doing any thing 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; “any thing 
 in my humble power I shall be delighted to do.” 
 
 Mrs. Kenwigs and Miss Petowker had arranged a small pro¬ 
 gramme of the entertainments between them, of which this was 
 the prescribed order, but they had settled to have a little press¬ 
 ing on both sides, because it looked more natural. The com- 
 ])any being all ready, Miss Petowker hummed a tune, and Mor¬ 
 leena danced a dance, having previously had the soles of her 
 shoes chalked with as much care as if she were going on the 
 tight-rnpe. It was a very beautiful figure, comprising a great 
 deal of work for the arms, and was received with unbounded 
 applatise. 
 
 “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.” 
 
200 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Mrs. Kenwigs sighed and looked at Mr. Ken wigs, 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.” 
 
 “Yery right,” said the collector. 
 
 “Still,” submitted Miss Petowker, “if she has a proper pride 
 in herself, you know—” 
 
 “There’s a good deal in that,” observed Mrs. Kenwigs, look¬ 
 ing 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 
 anpleasantness 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 npon the effort had not yet subsided, 
 and Newman (who had not been thoroughly sober at so late an 
 hour for a 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. N 
 
 “Who is that?” demanded Mr. Kenwigs, sharply. 
 
 “Don’t be alarmed, it’s only me,” said Growl, looking in, in 
 his nightcap. “The baby is very comfortable, for I peeped 
 into the room as I came dowm, and it’s fast asleep, and so ia 
 the girl; ana I don’t think the candle will set fire to the bed- 
 curtain, unless a draught gets into the room—it’s Mr. Noggs 
 lhat’o wanted.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 201 
 
 “Me !” cried Newman, much astonished. 
 
 “Why, it 2 S a queer hour, isn’t it ?” replied Growl, 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 Growl. 
 
 “ Want me ? By name ?” asked Newman. 
 
 “ By name,” replied Growl. “ Mr. Newman Noggs, as pat as 
 need be.” 
 
 Newman reflected for a few seconds, and then hurried away, 
 muttering that he w^ould 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 Growl, 
 throwing the door open. “Harkl 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 XV. 
 
 ACQUAINTS THE READER WITH THE CAUSE AND ORIGIN OP 
 
 THE INTERRUPTION DESCRIBED IN THE LAST CHAPTER, AND 
 
 WITH SOME OTHER MATTERS NECESSARY TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 Newman Noggs scrambled in violeot haste up stairs 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 eying the con¬ 
 tents of the tumbler at the moment of its unexpected abstraction, 
 with lively marks of pleasure visible in his countenance, and 
 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 any thing stronger tlian ape¬ 
 rient medicine in his whole life, exhibited various odd mani¬ 
 festations of surprise and delight, during the passage of the 
 liquor down his throat, and turned up his eyes most emphati¬ 
 cally when it was all gone. 
 
 “ You are wet through,” said Newman, passing his hand 
 hastily over the coat which Nicholas had thrown otf; “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 bundIe^” replied Nicholas. “ If you look so dis¬ 
 tressed 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 henr NichMas 
 
 ( 202 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 203 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sideration, 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, Avas 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 and 
 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 travelers 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 Growl 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 con¬ 
 cerning 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 ?” 
 
204 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, w^as 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 
 favorable one, 
 
 “ Now listen to me,” said Nicholas, laying his hand on New¬ 
 man’s shoulder. “ Before I would make an effort to see them, 
 I deemed it expedient to come to you, lest, by gratifying ray 
 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, coloring. “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.” 
 
 “ To-morrow morning,” said Newman; “ hear it to-morrow.” 
 
 “ What purpose would that answer ?” urged Nicholas. 
 
 “ You would sleep the better,” replied Newman. 
 
 “ I should sleep the worse,” answered Nicholas, impatiently. 
 “ Sleep 1 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 every thing.” 
 
 “ And if I should tell you every thing,” 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 layself from it, I shall never regret doing as I have—never, 
 if r starve or beg in consequence. What is a little poverty or 
 suflcring, to the disgrace of the basest and most inhuman 
 cowardice 1 I tell you, if I had stood by, tamely and passively. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 205 
 
 f should have hated myself, and merited the contempt of every 
 man in existence. The black-hearted scoundrel I” 
 
 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 further 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 every body’s part that’s ill-treated—Damn it, I am 
 proud to hear it; and would have done it myself 1” 
 
 Newman accompanied this very unusual outbreak with a vio¬ 
 lent 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; 
 and having, by this open declaration of his feelings, quite pre¬ 
 cluded 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 accord¬ 
 ingly read as follows : 
 
 “ Dotheboys Hall, 
 
 ''Thursday Morning. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " My pa requests me to write to you. The doctors con¬ 
 sidering it doubtful whether he will ever recuvver the use of 
 his legs which prevents his holding a pen. 
 
 “ We ai*e in a state of mind beyond every thing, and my pa 
 is one mask of brooses both blue and green likewise two forms 
 are steepled in his Goar. We were kirapelled'to have him car¬ 
 ried 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 
 
20G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 done this to my pa and jumped upon his body with his feet and 
 also langwedge which I would not pollewt my pen with describ¬ 
 ing, 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 certilikct that if it had, the tortcrshell 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 arrow¬ 
 ing 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 satiated 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 choiee 
 epistle, during which Newman Noggs, as he folded it up, gazed 
 with a kind of grotesque pity at the boy of desperate charactei 
 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 wobegone and heart-stricken look. 
 
 “INIr. Noggs,” said Nicholas, after a few moments’ reflection, 
 “ 1 must go out at once.” 
 
 “ Go outl” cried Newman. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 207 
 
 “ 5fes,” 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. Ilalph 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 hia 
 impetuous young friend. “ lie 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 any body. 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 further thought. “ 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 si)irits and water for 
 Nicholas, and a cracked mug-full for the joint accommodation 
 of himself and Smike, of wdiich the two partook in great bar- 
 
208 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 raony, while Nicholas, leaning his head upon his hand, remained 
 buried in melancholy meditation. 
 
 Meanwhile the company below stairs, after listening atten¬ 
 tively and not hearing any noise which would justify them in in¬ 
 terfering for the gratification of their curiosity, returned to the 
 chamber of the Kenwigses, and employed themselves in hazar d¬ 
 ing a great variety of conjectures relative to the cause of JSlr. 
 Noggs’s 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 ail 
 come back again I” 
 
 “Dear me,” said Mr. Kenwigs; “it’s not impossible. Per¬ 
 haps, in that case, we’d better send up and ask if he won’t take 
 a little moi’e punch.” 
 
 “ Kenwigs,” said Mr. Lillyvick, in a loud voice, “ I’m sur¬ 
 prised at you.” 
 
 “ What’s the matter. Sir ?” asked Mr. Kenwigs, with becom¬ 
 ing 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 con¬ 
 sider 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 behavior 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 pnnch, 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 oftended dignity for some minutes, and had now 
 fairly burst out. The great man.—the rich relation—the unmar¬ 
 ried uncle—who had it in his power to make Morleena an heir- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 209 
 
 ess, and the very baby a legatee—was offended. Gracious 
 Powers, where was this to end I 
 
 “ 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 paralyzed by this domestic crash. 
 The back parlor sat with her mouth wide open, staring vacantly 
 at the collector in a stupor of dismay, and the other guests were 
 scarcely less overpowered by the great man’s irritation. Mr. 
 Kenwigs not being skillful 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 obdu¬ 
 rately, “ Morleena, my hat!” upon the fourth repetition of which 
 demand Mrs. Kenwigs sunk back in her chair, with a cry that 
 miglit 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 corduroy 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 1” 
 
 “ 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 
 14 
 
210 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 KenwigSj” cried her mother, in a torrent of affec¬ 
 tion, “ 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 ap¬ 
 plause broke from the company who had witnessed his mag¬ 
 nanimity. 
 
 The worthy gentleman then became once more the life and 
 Boul of the society, being again reinstated in his old post of lion, 
 from which high station the temporary distraction of theii 
 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 testa¬ 
 mentary intentions ; gained great credit for disinterestedness 
 and virtue ; and in addition to all, he 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 every body’s pardon for intruding again,” said 
 Growl, 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, cer¬ 
 tainly,” said the collector; “and the behavior of Mr. Noggs 
 himself is, to say the least of it, mysterious.” 
 
 “Well, so it is,” rejoined Crowd: “and I’ll tell you what’s more 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 211 
 
 .—I think these two geniused, 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 month-piece to the company. “You have no reason to 
 suppose that they have run away from any where without pay¬ 
 ing the rates and taxes due, I hope ?” 
 
 Mr. Growl, 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 Growl, 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 any thing 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 sepa¬ 
 rately, 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 
 frecpiently repeated. In short, the opinion of the company was 
 so clearly manifested, that Mr. Kenwigs was on the point of re¬ 
 pairing to Mr. Noggs’s room, to demand an explanation; and 
 hod indeed swallowed a preparatory glass of punch, with groat 
 
212 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, bmssed 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 
 up stairs 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 bewil¬ 
 dered 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 ; 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 213 
 
 and the worthy Mr. Lillyvick had been actually seen, in I he 
 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 I” cried Mrs. Kenwigs, im¬ 
 pressively shaking her fore-finger 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 any thing 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 chris¬ 
 tened 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 re¬ 
 warded, 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 elo¬ 
 quence, 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 be¬ 
 fore he had been in any danger.” 
 
 “ You will let us drink your health, any vays, Sir ?” said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, motioning towards the table. 
 
 “ —In my absence, by all means,” rejoined Nicholas, with a 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 21 t 
 
 i3mile “T hare had a very fatiguing journey, and should be 
 most indilTereiit company—a far greater check upon your mer¬ 
 riment, 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 up stairs again, vhen he found 
 nothing serious had occurred. Good night.” 
 
 Excusing himself in these terms from joining in the festivi¬ 
 ties, Nicholas took a most winning farewell of Mrs. Kenwiga 
 and the other ladies, and retired, after making a very extraor¬ 
 dinary 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 shoul¬ 
 ders. “He is gentlemanly, very gentlemanly—in appearance.” 
 
 “ I hope you don’t see any thing 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 honors of my existence.” 
 
 “The greatest blessing, Kenwigs,” murmured his lady. 
 
 “The greatest blessing,” said Mr. Kenwigs, correcting him¬ 
 self. “ A blessing that I hope one of these day 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 import¬ 
 ance. The good gentleman felt the delicacy and dexterity of 
 the touch, and at one proposed the health of the gentleman, 
 name unknown, who had signalized himself that night by his 
 coolness and alacrity. 
 
 “Who, I don’t mind saying,” observed Mr. Lillyvick, as a 
 
NICHOLAS NIOKLEBY. 
 
 215 
 
 great concession, “ is a good-looking yonng man enough, with 
 manners that I hope his character may be equal to.” 
 
 “ He has a very nice face and style, really,” said Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs. 
 
 “ He certainly has,” added Miss Petowker. “ There’s some¬ 
 thing in his appearance quite—dear, dear, what’s that word 
 again ?” 
 
 “What word?” inquired Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 “ Why—dear me, how stupid I am I” replied Miss Petowker, 
 hesitating. “ What do you call it when Lords break olf door¬ 
 knockers and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other 
 people’s money, and all that sort of thing ?” 
 
 “Aristocratic 1” suggested the collector. 
 
 “Ah! aristocratic,” replied Miss Petowker; “something 
 very aristocratic about him, isn’t there ?” 
 
 The gentlemen held their peace and smiled at each other, as 
 who should say, “ Well 1 there’s no accounting for tastesbut 
 the ladies resolved unanimously that Nicholas had an aristo¬ 
 cratic air, and nobody caring to dispute the position it was 
 established triumphantly. 
 
 The punch being by this time drunk out, and the little Ken- 
 wigses (who had for some time previously held their little eyes 
 open with their little fore-fingers) becoming fractious, and re¬ 
 questing 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 delighful evening, 
 and how they marveled 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 {) 0 ssibly 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 gentle¬ 
 man, seriatim for the favor of their company, and hoping they 
 
216 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 miglit 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 XVI. 
 
 mCHOLAS SEEKS TO EMPLOY UIMSELP 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 
 he could contrive to exist, without trenching upon the hospi¬ 
 tality 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 parlor 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 wmek, on rea¬ 
 sonable terms, the parlor 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 dis¬ 
 charge 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 neighboring 
 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 that outside his window, were sufficiently confined 
 and dingy. As they by no means improved on better acquaint¬ 
 ance, 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 re-arrange 
 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. 
 
 (2111 
 
218 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance 
 when he is a mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regard¬ 
 less of him, it by no means follows that he can dispossess him¬ 
 self, 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 iutc 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 vs'as inscribed in charac¬ 
 ters of gold, “ General Agency Office ; for places and situa¬ 
 tions 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 footboy’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 sur¬ 
 vey, 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 capi¬ 
 tal-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 mobcap—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 as 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEI5T. 
 
 219 
 
 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 cus¬ 
 tomers had been served—the fat lady resumed the dialogue 
 which his entrance had interrupted. 
 
 '' Cook, Tom,” said the fat lady, still airing herself aa 
 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,” inter¬ 
 posed 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, Fins¬ 
 bury. 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, house¬ 
 maid, 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 wmll.” 
 
 “Here’s another,” remarked Tom, turning over the leaves; 
 
T20 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “ ‘ Family of Mr. Gallanbile, M. P. 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 
 favor he immediately retired, and whose appearance both sur¬ 
 prised 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 vail for an instant, while she pre¬ 
 ferred the inquiry, and disclosed a countenance of most uncom¬ 
 mon beauty, although 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 rough¬ 
 ness about the bare arras that peeped from under her draggled 
 shawl, and the half-washed-out traces of smut and black-lead 
 which tattooed her countenance, was clearly of a kin with the ser- 
 vants-of-all-work on the form, between whom ajid herself there 
 
NIC II ox AS NICKLEBY. 
 
 221 
 
 had passed various grins and glances, indicative of the free 
 masonry of the craft. 
 
 This girl followed her mistress; and before Nicholas had 
 rccovei'ed 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. 
 
 “To-morrow 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 as secretary or amanuensis to a gentle¬ 
 man to be had. 
 
 “Any suchl” rejoined the mistress; “a dozen such. Ain’t 
 there, Tom ?” 
 
 “/ should think so,” answered that young gentleman; and as 
 he said it, he winked towards Nicholas with a degree of famili¬ 
 arity which he no doubt intended for a rather flattering compli¬ 
 ment, 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, 
 ttie great member of parliament, of Manchester Buildings 
 Westminster, wanted a young man, to keep his papers and cor¬ 
 respondence in order; and Nicholas was exactly the sort of 
 young man that Mr. Gregsbury wanted. 
 
 “I don’t know what the terras 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 parlia¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 Inexperienced as he was, Nicholas did not feel quite assured 
 of the force of this reasoning or the justice of this conclusion; 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 w'hat the number is,'’’said Tom; “but Man* 
 Chester Buildings isn’t a large place; and if the worst cornea 
 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. Sir ?” 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 
 to-morrow 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 haughthy 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 
 unpoetical 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 
 mis irections, bent his steps towards the place wdiither 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 ministe¬ 
 rial 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 ?23 
 
 There ore legislators in the parlors, in the first floor, in the 
 second, in the third, in the garrets; the small ai)artments reek 
 with the breath of deputations and delegates. In damp weather 
 the place is rendered close by the steams of moist acts of Parlia¬ 
 ment and frowzy 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 
 hert, 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 practicing the mor¬ 
 row’s speech. All the live-long day there is a grinding of or¬ 
 gans 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 be¬ 
 yond 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; and as there vras a 
 stream of i)eopIe 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 under ground 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 ami made off. 
 
 This was odd enough, but what was more embarrassing was, 
 that all along the narrow passage, and all along the narrow 
 
224 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKIEBY. 
 
 stairs, blocking up the window, and making tlie dark entry 
 darker still, was a confused crowd of persons with great import¬ 
 ance depicted in their looks; who were, to all appearance, wait¬ 
 ing in silent expectation of some coming event; from time to 
 time one man would whisper his neighbor, 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 olf, whatever happened. 
 
 As a few minutes elapsed without any thing occurring to ex¬ 
 plain this phenomenon, and as he felt his own position a pecu¬ 
 liarly 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, 
 gentlemen, 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 extraordi¬ 
 nary politeness, that the gentlemen nearest the street would go 
 first: the gentlemen nearest the street retorted, with equal cour¬ 
 tesy, 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 be¬ 
 hind 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 per¬ 
 haps this was occasioned by senatorial gravity, and a statesman¬ 
 like 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 225 
 
 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 him¬ 
 self in the front, 
 
 “Do my eyes deceive me,” said Mr. Gregsbury, looking to¬ 
 wards 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. Gregs¬ 
 bury. “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 deputa¬ 
 tion 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 gieat and happy country. 
 Whether I look at home or abroad, whether I behold the peace¬ 
 ful, industrious communities of our island home, her rivers 
 covered with steam-boats, 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 stretch¬ 
 ing my eyes further, contemplate the boundless prospect of con¬ 
 quest and possession-—achieved by British perseverance and 
 British valor—which is outspread before me, I clasp my hands, 
 and turning my eyes to the broad expanse above my head, ex¬ 
 claim, ‘ Tliank 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 
 savored 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. 
 
 o 
 
 If) 
 
22G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 gdistens, 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; ray time is yours—and my 
 country’s—and my country’s—” said Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 This permission being conceded, Mr. Pugstyles put on his spec¬ 
 tacles, 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 the event of 
 your being returned you would immediately put down the prac¬ 
 tice 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, and “ 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 
 the last, desert him and vote upon the other side, because the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 227 
 
 wife of a leader on that other side had invited Mrs. Gregshury 
 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 deputa¬ 
 tion, 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 difierent at different times. 
 
 “ Question number three—and last—” said Mr. Pugstyles, 
 emphatically. “ Whether, Sir, you did not state upon the hus¬ 
 tings, that it was your firm and determined intention to oppose 
 every thing 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 devil with every thing and every body ?” 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 fore¬ 
 fingers, and tapping his nose with the apex thereof, replied 
 (smiling as he said it), “ I deny every thing.” 
 
 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 favor of some candidate 
 whom they think the}^ can better trust.” 
 
 'J'o which Mr. Gregsbury read the following reply, which, 
 aniicipating the request, he had composed in the form of a letter, 
 whereof copies had been made to send round to the newspapers. 
 
U28 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBir. 
 
 Mt dear Pugstyi.es, 
 
 “Next to the welfare of our beloved island—this great 
 nud free and happy country, whose powers and resources are, I 
 sincerely believe, illimitable—I value that noble iiidependeiiee 
 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 intri¬ 
 cate and arduous study of politics, I would rather keep my seat, 
 and intend doing so. 
 
 “ Will you do me the favor to present my compliments to the 
 constitueut body, and acquaint them with this circumstance ? 
 
 “With great esteem, 
 
 “ My dear 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. 
 
 “ God bless you,” said Mr. Gregsbury. And the deputation, 
 with many growls and scowls, filed off as quickly as the narrow¬ 
 ness 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 en¬ 
 grossed 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?” sai^-^ 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 22'J 
 
 " 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, M. P. “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, 
 eying him in some doubt. 
 
 Nicholas replied in the affirmative. 
 
 “You have no connection with any of these 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 any thing 
 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 depu¬ 
 tation. 
 
 *■ 
 
 “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,” 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, con*cs 
 pondence.” 
 
230 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Good,” into posed Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 “ The arrangement of papers and doeuments—” 
 
 “Very good,” 
 
 “Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and 
 possibly,”—said Nicholas, with a half smile, “the copying ol 
 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 agree¬ 
 able and useful to his employer as he can, consistently with his 
 own respectability, and without over-stepping that line of duties 
 which he undertakes to perform, and which the designation of 
 his olfice 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 ?” 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 “ My meaning, Sir, is perfectly plain,” replied Mr. Gregsbury, 
 with a solemn aspect. “ My secretary would have to make hira- 
 Bclf 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 any thing which it ap¬ 
 peared to him might be made a point of, in any little speech 
 upon the question of some petition lying on the table, or any 
 tLing of that kind. Do you understand ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NlCKLEliY. 
 
 231 
 
 “ I lliink I do, Sir,” replied jS^icliolas. 
 
 “ Then,” said Mr. Gregsbuiy, “it would be necessary for biin 
 to make himself acquainted from day to day with newspaper 
 paragraphs on passing events ; such as ‘ Mysterious disappear¬ 
 ance, and supposed suicide of a pot-boy,’ or any thing 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 (in¬ 
 cluding a little compliment about my independence and good 
 sense); and to send the manuscript in a frank to the local papes, 
 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 discharge of ray 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 quesiions, and finance questions, and 
 BO 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 ex¬ 
 portation 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,” con¬ 
 tinued Mr. Gregsbury, warming; “ and which one can’t be 
 expected to care a damn about, beyond the natural care of not 
 allowing inferior peoi)le to be as well off as ourselves, else where 
 are our privileges ? I should wish ray secretary to get together 
 a few little flourishing speeches, of a patriotic cast. For in¬ 
 stance, if any preposterous bill were brought forward for giving 
 ])oor grubbing devils of authors a riglit to their own property, I 
 should like to say, that I for one would never consent to oppo¬ 
 sing an insurmountable bar to the diffusion of literature among 
 the jieojile, —you understand ? that the creations of the pocket, 
 being man’s, might belong to one man, or one family ; bat that 
 
232 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 tlie 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 re¬ 
 warded 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 any thing about me or my jokes either-— 
 don’t 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 lodg¬ 
 ings, 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 any thing, 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 num¬ 
 bers, to prevent any dissatisfaction—though it’s more than I’ve 
 been accustomed to give—fifteen shillings a week, and find your¬ 
 self. There.” 
 
 With this handsome offer Mr. Gregsbury once more threw 
 himself back in his chair, and looked like a man who has 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 V' 
 cried Mr. Gregsbury. “Fifteen shillings a-” 
 
 “Fray do not suppose that I quarrel with the sum,” replied 
 ^Jicholas; “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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 233 
 
 responsibilities make tlie 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,” replied Nicholas. 
 
 “ That is as much as to say that you had rather not accej t 
 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,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “Door, Matthews,” cried Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 The boy beckoned Nicholas, and tumbling lazily down staii’s 
 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 appe¬ 
 tite, 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 New¬ 
 man. 
 
 “ May be so, but I am sanguine, and did expect,” said Nicho¬ 
 las, “ and am proportionately disappointed.” Saying which, he 
 gave Newman an account of his ju'oceedings. 
 
 . If I could do any thing,” said Nicholas, “ any thing, how¬ 
 ever slight, until Ralph Nickleby returns, and I have eased my 
 mind by confronting him, I should feel happier. I should think 
 
2S4 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 
 IS^icholas, 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 the assistant to a brutal peda¬ 
 gogue, and the toad-eater of 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 
 BO far as to admit, that Nicholas was a tutor of great accom¬ 
 plishments, 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 finally returned 
 to propose that Mr. Johnson should instnict the four Miss 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 235 
 
 Kenwigscs in the French language as spoken by natives, at the 
 weekly stipend of live shillings current coin of the realm, being 
 at the rate of one shilling per week per each Miss Ken wigs, 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 I” said 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. Kenwdgs 
 of his friend’s acquiescence, and soon returning, brought back 
 word that they wmuld 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 book¬ 
 stall 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 cool¬ 
 ness and great-minded selfishness, which invariably distinguish 
 gentlemen of high spirit. In truth, for our own part, we are 
 rather disposed to look upon such gentlemen as being rather 
 encumbrances than otherwise in rising families, happening to 
 be acquainted with several whose spirit prevents their settling 
 down to any groveling occupation, and only disi)lays itself in a 
 tendency to cultivate mustaches, and look fierce; and although 
 mustaches and ferocity are both very pretty things in their way. 
 and very much to be commended, we confess to a desire to see 
 
236 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 them bred at tlie 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 degra¬ 
 dation to borrow, for the supply of his necessities, from New¬ 
 man 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 con¬ 
 venient 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 supported on four crooked 
 pegs, not unlike an Italian iron, and painted in ingenious re¬ 
 semblance 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 peo¬ 
 ple’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 any thing about it, you 
 don’t say no more than ‘We’ve got a private master comes to 
 teach ns at home, but we ain’t proud, because ma says it's sin¬ 
 ful.’ Do you hear, Morleena ?” 
 
 “ Yes, ma,” replied Miss Kenwigs again. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 237 
 
 “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 ?” 
 
 “ flow do you mean ?” asked Nieholas. 
 
 “ Do you consider it a good language. Sir ?” said the col¬ 
 lector ; “ a pretty language, a sensible language ?” 
 
 “A pretty language, certainly,” replied Nicholas; “and as 
 it has a name for every thing, and admits of elegant conversa¬ 
 tion about every thing, 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 col¬ 
 lector, “ 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 man¬ 
 ner. “ It’s the war time that I speak of; the last war. It may 
 be a cheerful language. I should be sorry to contradict any 
 body ; 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 sach 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 any thing; and 
 it was not until Miss Fetowker had practiced several blandish¬ 
 ments, to soften the excellent old gentleman, that he deigned to 
 break silence, by asking, 
 
 “ VVTiat’s the water in French, Sir?” 
 
 “ UEau,^’’ replied Nicholas. 
 
 “Ah!” said Mr. Lillyvick, shaking his head mournfully, “I 
 thought as iniufii. Lo, eh ? I don’t think any thing of that 
 language—nothing at all.” 
 
 “I sujipose the children may begin, uncle?’’ said Mrs. Ken¬ 
 wigs. 
 
238 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Oil yes; they may begin, my dear,” replied the collector, 
 discontentedly, “/have no wish to prevent them,” 
 
 This pei’mission 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 expla¬ 
 nations. Miss Petowker and Mrs. Kenwigs looked on in silent 
 admiration, broken only by the whispered assurances of the lat¬ 
 ter, 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 XVTl. 
 
 FOLLOWS THE FORTUNES OF MISS NICKLEBY. 
 
 It was with a heavy heart, and many sad forebodings which 
 no effort could banish, that Kate Kickleby, on the morning ap¬ 
 pointed 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 ^vest 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 labor, and catching as 
 if by stealth, in their hurried walk, the only gasp of wholesome 
 air and glimpse of sunlight which cheers their monotonous ex¬ 
 istence 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 un¬ 
 healthy looks and feeble gait, but too clear an evidence that 
 her misgivings were not wdiolly 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 
 up stairs, and was now intent on fastening his apron. 
 
 “ Is INIadame Mantalini in ?” faltered Kate. 
 
 “ Not often out at this time, ]\Iiss,” 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 
 
 ( 239 ) 
 
5540 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 honoring 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 he^e.” 
 
 “Oh 1 you should have rung the worker's Dell,” said the foot¬ 
 man, touching the handle of one in the door-post. “ Let me 
 see, though, I forgot—Miss Nickleby, is it 1'” 
 
 “ Yes,” replied Kate. 
 
 “You’re to walk up stairs 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 strewm 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, outn'geously jealous, my 
 soul,” said Mr. Mantalini, “you will be very miserable—horrid 
 miserable—demnition miserable.” And then there came 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. 
 
 “ 1 am not,” returned Madame, with a sob. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 241 
 
 “ Do not put itself out of humor,” said Mr. Mantalini, break¬ 
 ing an egg. “ It is a pretty bewitching little demd countenance, 
 and it should not be out of humor, 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. Man- 
 taliui, 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 1” cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture. “ Oh, 
 demmit 1” 
 
 “And I say once more,” resumed Madame, “that you ought 
 not to waltz with any body 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 I” cried Alantalini. “Two demd fine women, real 
 countesses and splendid fortunes, demmit.” 
 
 “ And why didn’t you ?” asked Madame, playfully. 
 
 “Why didn’t 11” replied her husband. “ Had I not seen at 
 16 
 
242 , 
 
 NICHOLAS NIOKLEBY. 
 
 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 Man¬ 
 talini, 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 Kickleby to carry on the war 
 with, demmit.” 
 
 “ You can’t want any more just now,” said Madame, coax- 
 ingly. 
 
 “My life and soul,” returned her husband, “there is a horse 
 for sale at Scrubbs’s, which it would be a sin and crime to lose 
 —going, my senses’joy, for nothing.” 
 
 “For nothing 1” 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 I ha 1 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-doer, and walked 
 into the room where Kate was seated. 
 
 “ Dear me, child!” exclaimed Madame Mantalinij recoiling 
 in surprise. “ How came you here ?” 
 
 “ Child 1” cried Mantalini, hurrying in. “ IIow came it— 
 eh I—oh.—demmit, how d’ye do ?” 
 
 “ I have been waiting here some time. Ma’am,” said Kate, 
 
addressing Madame Mantalini. “ The man 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 every thing.” 
 
 “ 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 grimaeing, aside, to 
 Miss Nickleby, who turned contemptuously away. 
 
 Appeased by this compliment, the lady of the business took 
 some papers from her desk, which she handed over to Mr. Man¬ 
 talini, who received them with great delight. She then re¬ 
 quested 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, cut¬ 
 ting out, making up, altering, and various other processes known 
 only to those who are cunning in the arts of millinery and dress¬ 
 making. It was a close room with a sky-light, and as dull and 
 quiet as a room could be. 
 
 On Madame Mantalini calling aloud for Miss Knag, a short, 
 bustling, over-dressed female, full of importance, presented her¬ 
 self, and all the young ladies suspending their operations for 
 the moment, whispered to eaeh other sundry criticisms upon 
 the make and texture of Miss Kickleby’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 Man¬ 
 talini, which she dexterously transformed into a gracious one 
 for Kate, and said that certainly, although it was a great deal 
 
241 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 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 pos¬ 
 sibly 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 the appearance of club feet, 
 Miss Knag,” said Madame. 
 
 “ Well now, that is so like you,” returned Miss Knag. “Ha 1 
 hal ha I Of club feetl Oh very good I As I often remark 
 to the young ladies, ‘Well I must say, and I do not care who 
 knows it, of all the ready humor—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 humor, Madame Mantalini—‘Of all the ready 
 humor,’ I say to the young ladies, ‘/"ever heard, Madame Man- 
 talini’s is the most remarkable—hem. It is so gentle, so sar¬ 
 castic, and yet so good-natured (as I was observing to Miss 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 215 
 
 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 marvelously loquacious 
 and marvelously 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; and others, that when she wanted a word, 
 she threw it in to gain time, and prevent any body else from 
 striking into the conversation. It may be further remarked, that 
 Miss Knag still aimed at youth, though 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 any thing 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, wdiere’s your taste? Such a 
 fine tall, full-whiskered, dashing, gentlemanly man, with such 
 teeth and hair, and—hem—w'^ell now, you do astonish me. ” 
 
 “1 dare say I am very foolish,” replied Kate, laying aside 
 
246 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 lier bonnet; “but as my opinion is of very little importance to 
 him or any one 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 any thing I could say to the con¬ 
 trary,” replied Kate. 
 
 “And drives very beautiful horses, doesn’t he?” inquired 
 another. 
 
 “ I dare say he may, but I never saw f hern,” answered Kate. 
 
 “Never saw them I” 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 olf 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 was the coldest wear 
 which mortals can assume ;• that it not only chills the breast of 
 those it clothes, but extending its influence to summer friends, 
 freezes up their sources of good-will and kindness, and wither¬ 
 ing 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 restrain her tears. 
 
 “ I am verv sorry to have wounded you by my thoughtless 
 
NICHOLAS' NICKLEBY. 
 
 247 
 
 speecli,” said her companion. “ I did not think of it. You are 
 in mourning for some near relation.” 
 
 “For my father,” answered Kate, weeping. 
 
 “ 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 I A long illness. Miss Sim- 
 nionds ?” 
 
 “ Hush—pray,” 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 wide 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 iMantalini. 
 
 Kate’s part in the pageant was humble enough, her duties 
 being limited to holding articles of costume until Miss Knag 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ‘2iS 
 
 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 
 humor; but it happened that the rich lady and the rich 
 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 70 ung 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 inso¬ 
 lence and the coarsest 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 wncom- 
 mon 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 work-room, 
 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 by, 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 thiidv of it, 
 1 am sure she was. ‘Mantalini and Nickleby,’'how well it 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 249 
 
 would sound I—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 I” cried Kate, taking from her reticule her 
 brother’s letter from Dotheboys Hall. “In all our misfortunes, 
 how happy it makes me, mamma, 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 I she little thought how weak her consoiadon 
 was, and how soon she would be undeceived. 
 
CEAPTER XYIII. 
 
 MISS KNAG, AFTER DOTING ON KA.TE NICKLEBY FOR THREE 
 WHOLE DAYS, MAKES UP HER MIND TO HATE HER FOR EVER¬ 
 MORE. THE CAUSES WHICH LEAD 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 stimu¬ 
 lants to rouse it. 
 
 There are not a few among the disciples of charity, who 
 require in their vocation scarcely less excitement than the vota¬ 
 ries of pleasure in theirs ; and hence it is that diseased sympa¬ 
 thy 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 conse¬ 
 quence of the unforeseen train of circumstances already devel¬ 
 oped in this narrative, was a hard one ; but lest the very dullness, 
 unhealthy confinement, and bodily fatigue, which made up its 
 sum and substance, should deprive it of any interest with the 
 (250) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 251 
 
 mass of the charitable and sympathetic, I would rather keep 
 Miss Nicklcby herself in view just how, than chill them in the 
 outset by a minute and lengthened description of the establish¬ 
 ment 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 Nicklcby 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 unas¬ 
 suming young woman to assist in the fitting on. I have seen 
 some young women, when they had the opportunity of display¬ 
 ing before their betters, behave in such a—oh, dear—well—^ 
 but you’re always right, Madame Mantalini, always; and, as 1 
 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 humor, Miss 
 Nickleby has not done any thing very remarkable to-day—that 
 I am aware of, at least,” said Madame Mantalini, in reply. 
 
 “ Oh, dear 1” 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 
 M iss Knag, reddening ; “ because if youth were any excuse, you 
 wouldn’t have—” 
 
 “ Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,” sug¬ 
 gested Madame. 
 
 “ Well, I never did know any body like you, Madame Man¬ 
 talini,” rejoined Miss Knag, most complaisantly, “and that’s 
 die fact, for you know what one’s going to say, before it has 
 time to rise to one’s lips. Oh, very good I Ila, ha, ha!” 
 
 “ For myself,” observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with 
 alfected carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in 
 lier sleeve, “ 1 consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl 
 I ever saw in my life.” 
 
 “Boor 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, 
 
252 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 pret+y,” re¬ 
 marked Madame Mantalini. “ I think her one of the most 
 ordinary girls I ever met with.” 
 
 " Ordinary I” cried Miss Knag, with a countenance beaming 
 delight; “and awkward I Well, all I can say is, Madama 
 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 only be 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 favorable 
 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 friend¬ 
 ship, 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 back-ground, 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 sug¬ 
 gestion 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 tha j 
 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 253 
 
 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 1” 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” 
 
 “ I fear your kind and open communication, which has ren¬ 
 dered 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 humor. “ 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 V 
 
 “ Towards the city,” replied Kate. 
 
 “ The city 1” cried Miss Knag, regarding herself with great 
 favor 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 any body 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, cor¬ 
 recting herself hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, 
 “ must live where they can.” 
 
 “ Ah 1 very true, so they must; very proper indeed!” 
 rejoined Miss Knag with that sort of half sigh, which, accom- 
 ])anied 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 
 any where ! 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, turning away. 
 
 ” I’ll walk with you part of the way, my dear,” said Miss 
 
254 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Knag, “ for you must go very near our house ; and as it’s quito 
 dark, and our last servant went to the hospital a week ago, 
 with Saint 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 mamma, my mother, 
 1 mean—is w'aiting 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 w'as 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 introduc¬ 
 tion with condescending politeness. The three then walked 
 aw'ay 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.” 
 
 “ Ilem !” cried Miss Kna^. 
 
 O 
 
 “ You will like her better when you know how good she is,” 
 said Mrs. Nickleby. “ It is a great blessing to me in my mis¬ 
 fortunes 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 intended to signify that 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 255 
 
 slie should like to catch herself marrying any body—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 1 of course,” said Miss Knag. 
 
 “And will improve stid more,” added Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “That she will, I’ll be bound,” rei)lied Miss Knag, squeezing 
 Kate’s arm in her own, to point the joke. 
 
 “ Slie always was clever,” said poor Mrs. Nickleby, bright¬ 
 ening 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, 
 mj dear, tliat your ])oor 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 wdiich be 
 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 1 aud 
 Bimke 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, mamma; 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 w'ill understand, to the Watkins 
 who kept the Old Boar in the village ; by the by, I don’t re¬ 
 member whether it was the Old Boar or the George the Fourth, 
 but it w'as one of the two, I know, and it’s much the same—that 
 Mr. Watkins said, when you were oidy 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 
 
256 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 it was only yesterday, his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor 
 dear papa the very moment afterwards.” 
 
 Having quoted this extraordinary and most disinterested tes¬ 
 timony 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 mamma 
 •—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 1 thou¬ 
 sands 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 inter¬ 
 rupted, 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 ad¬ 
 dressed 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 '^uy body listened 
 or not. 
 
 In this m.anner 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 oft' 
 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- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 257 
 
 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 gen¬ 
 tleman 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 daugh¬ 
 ter 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 I” 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 parlor, where a char-woman, employed in the absence 
 of the sick servant, and remunerated with certain eighteeu- 
 pences to be deducted from her wages due, was putting the 
 supper out. 
 
 “Mrs. Blockson,” said Miss Knag, reproachfully, “how veiy 
 often 1 have begged you not to come into the room with your 
 bonnet on.” 
 
 “ 1 can’t help it. Miss Knag,” said the char-woman, 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 bung this minute.” 
 
 “I don’i want any remarks, if ycu please,” said Miss Knag, 
 
 n 
 
268 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with a strong emphasis on the personal pronom\. “ Is there any 
 (ire down stairs for some hot water presently ?” 
 
 “ No, there is not, indeed. Miss Knag,” replied the substitutej 
 ‘‘and so I won’t tell you no stories about it.” 
 
 “ Then why isn’t there ?” said Miss Knag. 
 
 "Because thei’e ain’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 char-woman, turn¬ 
 ing 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 fore¬ 
 head. “ 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 favior if you’ll send nine shillings 
 for one week’s work to my house, afore the clock strikes ten to¬ 
 morrow.” 
 
 With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room 
 with great ease of manner, leaving the door wide open, while 
 Mr. Knag, at the same moment, flung himself into the “ware¬ 
 house,” 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, 
 lie was once most devotedly attached to—hem—to Madame 
 Mantalini.” 
 
 “Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “Yes,” continued Miss Knag, “and received great encourage¬ 
 ment 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 2.5(? 
 
 lie is a wonderfully accomplished man—most extraordiniirily 
 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 iii 
 every respect so much like the heroes—because of course he is 
 conscious of his own superiority, as we ail are, and very natu¬ 
 rally—that he took to scorning every thing, and became a 
 genius; and I am quite sure that he is at this very present mo¬ 
 ment writing another book.” 
 
 “ Another book I” 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 ad¬ 
 vantage 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 oppor¬ 
 tunities 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’l 
 ha|)pened as it has, I don’t believe his genius would ever have 
 come out at all.” 
 
 How much more communicative Miss Knag might have be¬ 
 come under more favorable 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 sei'vant 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 dress-making firm would ultimately 
 
260 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 become “Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby,” or "Mantalini, 
 Kickleby, 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 work-room. Miss Knag darted hastily up stairs 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 any thing 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, 
 w^ho 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, w'hile 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. 
 
“I AM AFRAID YOU UAYF, BEEN GIVING HER SOME OF YOUR WICKED LOOKS, MY LORD," SAID THE INTENDED. 
 
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NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 2Gi 
 
 “ Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yes¬ 
 terday.” 
 
 “ 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 crea¬ 
 ture, by all means.” 
 
 “Every body 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 color, child I” 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 1 a new life, a new 
 life ! ha, ha, ha 1” 
 
 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 ])rotiacted chuckling reduced him to a fearful ebb of cough¬ 
 ing and gasping, and 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 tbe 
 business, my lord,” said Madame Mantalini, simpering. 
 
262 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Not by any means,” replied the old lord, “or you would 
 have left it long ago.” 
 
 “You naughty creature 1” 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 
 Maiitalini,” said the lady. “ Nay, my lord, 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, be¬ 
 stowed a grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed, and receiving 
 another tap with the parasol for his wickedness, tottered down 
 stairs to the door, where his sprightly body was hoisted into 
 the carriage, by two stout footmen. 
 
 “Foil!” 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 hastened joyfully 
 down stairs 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 represent¬ 
 ative, 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 I” said Kate, stepping hastily forward. “What is 
 the matter ?” 
 
 This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 263 
 
 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 1” cried Miss Knag, coming all at once bolt upright, 
 to the great consternation of the assembled maidens ; “ Matter! 
 Fie upon you, you nasty creature 1” 
 
 “Gracious!” cried Kate, almost paralyzed 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 I” retorted Miss Knag, “you! a chit, a 
 child, an upstart nobody I Oh, indeed 1 Ida, ha I” 
 
 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 courte¬ 
 sies to the delighted throng ; “here she is—every body is talk¬ 
 ing 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 I have been the credit and 
 ornament of this room and the one up stairs. 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 dis¬ 
 graces us all with 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 
 
264 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 them, arid 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 1” 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 any body who is a 
 friend of mine speak to her; a slut, a hussy, an impudent, artful 
 hussy 1” Having denounced the object of her wrath in these 
 terms. Miss Knag screamed once, hiccoughed thrice, and 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 behavior developed themselves, she retired a few paces, 
 and looked calmly on without deigning a reply. But although 
 she walked proudly to her seat, and turned her back upon the 
 group of little satellites who clustered round their ruling planet iu 
 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 XIX. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OP A DINNER AT MR. RALPH NICKLEBY’S, AND 
 
 OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE COMPANY ENTERTAINED 
 
 THEMSELVES BEFORE DINNER, AT DINNER, AND AFTER DIN¬ 
 NER. 
 
 The bile and rancor of the worthy Miss Knag nndergoing 
 no diminution during the remainder of the week, but rather aug¬ 
 menting 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 Xickleby was called up stairs, 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 labor 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 smooth and 
 retired 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 sl'pped 
 away so rapidly-” 
 
 “ Well, now, hasn’t it ?” interposed Mrs. Nickleby, quite In¬ 
 sensible to the sarcastic tone of Ralph’s last remark. “Upon 
 
 my word. I couldn’t have believed it possible, that such a-- 
 
 ( 265 ) 
 
206 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Kate, my dear, you’re to dine with your uncle at half-past six 
 o’clock to-morrow,” 
 
 Triumphing in having been the first to communicate this ex¬ 
 traordinary intelligence, Mrs. Niokleby nodded and smiled a 
 great many times, to impress its full magnificence on Kate’s 
 wondering mind, and then flew olf, at an acute angle, to a com¬ 
 mittee 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 amethyst’s of mine—you 
 recollect them, Kate, my love—hew they used to sparkle, you 
 know—but your papa, your poor dear papa—ah 1 there never 
 was any thing so cruelly sacrificed as those jewels were, never I” 
 Overpowered by this agonizing thought, Mrs. Nickleby shook 
 her head in a melancholy manner, and applied her handkerchief 
 to her eyes. 
 
 “I don’t want them, mamma, indeed,” said Kate. “Forget 
 that you ever had them.” 
 
 “ Lord, Kate, my dear,” rejoined Mrs. Nickleby, pettishly, 
 “ how like a child you talk I Four-and-twenty silver tea spoons, 
 brother-in-law, two gravies, four salts, all the amethysts—neck¬ 
 lace, 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 any body 
 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, mamma, 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 incul¬ 
 cating similar golden precepts, whose only blemish is, the slight 
 degree of vagueness and uncertainty in which they are usually 
 developed. 
 
 “Ah 1’’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with great fervor, “if my advice 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 267 
 
 had been taken at the beginning—Well, I have always done 
 mu duty, and that’s some comfort.” 
 
 When she had arrived at this reflection, Mrs. Nickleby sighed, 
 rnbbed 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 every body. 
 
 “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 to¬ 
 morrow ; 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 some¬ 
 times. You don’t mind obliging me ?” 
 
 “ Mind I” 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 very awkwmrd 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. “1 
 don’t see the slightest resemblance to his poor brother.” 
 
 “Mammal” said Kate, reprovingly. “To think of such a 
 thing I” 
 
 “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 
 
268 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 good¬ 
 ness ?” asked Mrs. Nickleby, when they had walked on for some 
 time in silence 
 
 “I was only thinking, mamma,” answered Kate. 
 
 “Thinking!” repeated Mrs. Nickleby. “Aye, 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 reti¬ 
 cules, by eccentric uncles; and of young ladies who had acci¬ 
 dentally met amiable gentlemen of enormous wealth at their 
 uncles’ houses, and married them, after short but ardent court¬ 
 ships ; 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 subtile 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 paneled room, save when, re¬ 
 sponding to the roll of heavy wagons in the street without, it 
 quaked with sturdy tremblings, and caused the bright eyes jf 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 jauntincss and 
 individuality which empty garments—whether by association, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 269 
 
 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 turned delicately out, stood upon the very pres¬ 
 sure of some old iron weight; and a pile of harsh discolored 
 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 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 tantalization 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 adieus 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 any body 
 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, till 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 wms 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 
 
270 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 tendered her, and entering the house, was ushered up stairsi, 
 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 
 splendor of the furniture. The softest and most elegant car- 
 ])ets, the most exquisite pictures, the costliest mirrors; articles 
 of richest ornament, quite dazzling from their beauty, and per¬ 
 plexing 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 brim-full 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 distin¬ 
 guishable 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 
 liUle. 
 
 “ 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 reflect- 
 
KICIIOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 271 
 
 ing that her wncle 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 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 Yerisopht, my niece. Miss Nickleby.” 
 
 The group dispersed as if in great surprise, and the gentle¬ 
 man addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the 
 most superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a 
 mustache, a head of hair, and a young face. 
 
 “Eh!’’ said the gentleman. “Yfliat—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. 
 
 “Well, 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 whis¬ 
 per, 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 
 chimney-piece. 
 
 “Sir Mulberry Hawk,” said Ralph. 
 
 “Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack. Miss Nick¬ 
 leby,” said Lord Frederick Yerisopht. 
 
 “Don’t leave me out, Nickleby,” cried a sharp-faced gentle¬ 
 man, who was sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading 
 the paper. 
 
 “M:. Pyke,” said Ralph. 
 
 “Nor me, Nickleby,” cried a gentleman with a flushed face 
 anef a flash air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry Hawk. 
 
 “j\Ir. 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 Honorable 
 Mr. Suobb; and a white-headed person at the table as Colonel 
 
272 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKL2BY. 
 
 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 symp¬ 
 tom 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 behavior, 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 cei'emonial of introduction, 
 he led his blushing niece to a seat, and as he did so, 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 to the other five-and-twenty, oi 
 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’a 
 limbs, whereat Messrs. Pyke and Pluck “laughed consumedly.’’ 
 
 These gentlemen had not yet quite recovered the jest when 
 dinner wms announced, and then they were thrown into fresh 
 ecstasies by a similar cause ; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an 
 excess of humor, shot dexterously past Lord Frederick Veri- 
 
NICHOLAS NTCKLEBY, 
 
 273 
 
 sopht, who was alx)ut to lead Kate down stairs, and drew her 
 arm through his up to the elbow. 
 
 “ No, damn it, Yerisopht,” said Sir Mulberry, “fair play’s a 
 jewel, and Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter with our 
 eyes, len minutes ago.” 
 
 “Ea, ha, ha!” laughed the Honorable Mr. Snobb, “very 
 good; very good.” 
 
 Rendered additionally witty by this applause, Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk leered upon his friends most facetiously, and led Kate 
 down stairs with an air of familiarity, which roused in her gen¬ 
 tle breast such disgust and 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 Yerisopht 
 on either side. 
 
 “ Oh, you’ve found your way into our neighborhood, 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 Yerisopht. 
 
 “ 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 monopolizing your niece,” said Lord 
 Frederick. 
 
 “ He has a tolerable share of every thing 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.” 
 
 “ / know,” muttered Ralph. 
 
 “ 1 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 shilliug—the last shilling—Pll 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 
 18 
 
274 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 with a general roar, alDOve which was plainly distinguishable 
 the laughter of Mr. Pyke and Mr. Pluck, wlio 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 v/as, 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 ascendency 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 diver¬ 
 sion of society. 
 
 The dinner was as remarkable for the splendor and complete¬ 
 ness 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 signalized 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, dey vie 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 Mul¬ 
 berry Hawk ; “ Nickleby will tell you that.” 
 
 “What do you say, Nickleby?” inquired the young man^ 
 “ am 1 to be a good customer ?” 
 
 “ It depends entirely on circumstances, my lord,” replied 
 Ealph. 
 
 “ 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 275 
 
 if he thought they ought to laugh at his joke, but those gentle¬ 
 men, being only engaged to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, 
 were, to his signal discomfiture, as grave as a pair of under¬ 
 takers. To add to his defeat, Sir IMulberry, considering any 
 such efforts an invasion of his peculiar privilege, eyed the 
 offender steadily through his glass as if astounded at his pre¬ 
 sumption, 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 wdld 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 scrutinize its color 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, “wonder¬ 
 ing 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 pro¬ 
 duced on both sides, and the Honorable Mr. Snobb was elected 
 to the double office of stake-holder and time-keeper. 
 
 “Pray,” said Kate, in great confusion, while these prelimina¬ 
 ries 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 
 
270 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 been broached. “ It is done in a moment; there is nothing in 
 
 it. If the gentlemen insist on it-” 
 
 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 favors 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 1” 
 
 “ 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 now, Snobb ?” 
 
 “ Eight minutes gone.” 
 
 “Get the money ready,” said Sir Mulberry; “you’ll soon 
 hand over.” 
 
 “ Ha, ha, ha 1” laughed Mr. Pyke. 
 
 Mr. Pluck, who always came second, and topped his com¬ 
 panion 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 per¬ 
 fectly 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 277 
 
 the room. She restrained her tears by a great effort until she 
 was alone up stairs, 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 & 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 com¬ 
 pleteness of Sir Mulberry’s conquest. Halph, 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; and the decanters 
 passing quickly round, leant 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. 
 
 Meantime, Kate, left wholly to herself, had in some degree 
 recovered her composure. She had learnt from a female attend¬ 
 ant, 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 now and then 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 realize her apprehensions, she endeavored to fix her atten¬ 
 tion more closely on her book, in which by degrees she became so 
 much interested, that she had read on through several chap¬ 
 ters without heed of time or place, when she was terrified by sud¬ 
 denly 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 I” said this accomplished 
 gentleman. “Was it real, now, or only to display the eye¬ 
 lashes ?” 
 
278 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Kate bit her lip, and looking anxiously towards the door, made 
 no reply. 
 
 “I have looked at ’em for five minutes,” said Sir Mulbei’ry. 
 “Upon my soul, they’re perfect. Why did I speak, and de¬ 
 stroy such a pretty little picture !” 
 
 “ Do me the favor to be silent now. Sir,” replied Kate. 
 
 “No, don’t,” said Sir Mulberry, folding his crush 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 behavior offends and disgusts me. If you have one spark 
 of gentlemanly feeling remaining, you will leave me instantly.” 
 
 “Now why,” said Sir Mulberry, “why will you keep up this 
 appearance of excessive rigor, 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 leant 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 
 ill the door-way, 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 
 ujion him; but he did not comply with her injunction, never- 
 
NICHOLAS NIC KLEE Y. 
 
 279 
 
 fheless; for lie led her to a distant seat, and returning and 
 approaching Sir Mulberry Hawk, who had by this lime 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 wriidded 
 forehead, and the nerves about his mouth worked as though 
 some unendurable torture wrung them; but he smiled disdain¬ 
 fully, and again pointed to the door. 
 
 “ Do you know me, you 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 down stairs ?” 
 
 Although this hurried dialogue was carried on in a suppressed 
 tone on both sides, Ralph looked involuntarily round to ascer¬ 
 tain that Kate had not moved her position so as to be within 
 hearing. His adversary saw the advantage he had gained, and 
 fifllowed 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 rae that.” 
 
280 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “I tell you tills,”replied Ralph, “that if I brought her here, 
 as a matter of business-” 
 
 “ Aye, that’s the word,” interposed Sir Mulberry, with a 
 laugh. “You’re comimg 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 licentious¬ 
 ness 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 but that of coming into the world alive ; who 
 had patiently yielded to all his wishes ; who had tried so hard 
 to please him—above all, who didn’t owe him money—and he 
 felt awkward and nervous. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 281 
 
 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 ou 
 Kate’s arm. 
 
 “Hush, my dear 1” 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. 1 
 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 any thing,” 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 no¬ 
 body 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; quelled by her 
 eye, and actually trembling beneath her touch. • 
 
 Ill the same maimer, when he judged it prudent to allow her 
 to depart, he supported her down stairs, after adjusting her 
 shawl and perforniiiig sueh little offices, most iirobably 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 coaeh. 
 
 As the door of the vehicle was roughly closed- a comb fell 
 
282 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 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 neighboring 
 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 dor¬ 
 mant 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 wore on some occasion of boyish grief, of which every 
 minutest circumstance flashed upon his mind, with the distinct¬ 
 ness 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 reeled back into his 
 bouse, as a man who had seen a spirit from some world beyond 
 the gi’ave. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WHEREIN NICHOLAS AT LENGTH ENCOUNTERS HIS UNCLE, TO 
 
 WHOM HE EXPRESSES HIS SENTIMENTS WITH MUCH CANDOR. 
 
 HIS RESOLUTION. 
 
 Little Miss La Creevy trotted briskly tbroiigli divers streets 
 at tbe west end of the town early on Monday morning—the day 
 after the dinner—charged with the important commission OT ac¬ 
 quainting Madame Montalini 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, re¬ 
 volving 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 estab¬ 
 lished to her perfect satisfaction on the previous evening. Miss 
 La Creevy went on to consider—as she liad done nearly all 
 night—what new cause of unhappiness her young friend could 
 possil)ly’have had. 
 
 "I can’t think of any thing,” said the little portrait painter. 
 “Nothing at all, unless it was the behavior of that old bear. 
 Cross to her, I suppose ? Unpleasant brute !” 
 
 Relieved by this expression of opinion, albeit it was vented 
 u]>on empty air. Miss La Creevy hurried on to JMadame Mau- 
 talini’s; and being informed that the governing power was not 
 yet out of bed, requested an interview with the second in com¬ 
 mand, w hereupon Miss Knag appeared. 
 
 “ So fur as / am concerned.” said Miss Knag, when the nns- 
 
 ( 2811 ) 
 
284 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 sage had been delivered, with many ornaments of speech; “1 
 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 marvelously 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 1 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 humor. 
 
 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 confident 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 con¬ 
 sequent 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 285 
 
 warm hearts in the same solitary guise as poor Miss La 
 Creevy’s. 
 
 However, that’s neither here nor there, just now. She weni 
 home to breakfast, and had scarcely caught the full flavor 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 con¬ 
 sternation at the presence of the tea-things. 
 
 “Here, take ’em away; run with ’em into the bed-room; any¬ 
 where,” 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, extend¬ 
 ing 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. “ Han¬ 
 nah, 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 11” said Miss La Creevy. “You had better try; 
 that’s all.” 
 
 Nicholas, with becoming gallantry, immediately took Miss 
 liU Creevy at her word, who uttered a faint scream and slapped 
 his face; but it wms 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 havo 
 told me that, too.” 
 
 “ I dare say you didn’t know indeed!’’ retorted Miss liU 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 23fi 
 
 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 1” 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 humor 
 for a fortnight.” 
 
 “In the main,” said Nicholas, “there may be no great dif¬ 
 ference 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. 
 “God 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.” 
 
 “Hahl” 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 to¬ 
 day, and giving them his version of the occurrences that have 
 befallen me. I will meet him there.” 
 
 “That’s right,” said Miss lia Creevy, rubbing her hands. 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE DY. 
 
 2B-< 
 
 yet, I don’t know^—” she added, “there is much to bo 
 thought of—others to be considered.” 
 
 “ I Iiave considered others,” rejoined Nicholas; “btit as houesty 
 and honor are both at issue, nothing shall deter me.’ 
 
 “You shovdd 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 you 
 have seen me, and that I shall be with them 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 with the power.” 
 
 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. Nicho¬ 
 las left her near the door of his mother’s house, and promised 
 to return within a quarter of an hour at furthest. 
 
 It so chanced that Ralph Nickleby, at length seeing fit, for 
 his own purposes, to communicate the atrocities of which Nicho¬ 
 las 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 
 M iss La Creevy, admitted by a girl who was cleaning the house 
 marie her way to the sitting-room, she found Mrs. Nickleby and 
 Kate in tears, and Ralph just concluding his statement of his 
 nephew’s misdemeanors. Kate beekoned her not to retire, and 
 M iss 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 recommended him against all my previous con¬ 
 viction, for I know he would never do any good-—^to a man with 
 whom, behaving himself properly, he might have remained iu 
 comfort for years. Mdiat is the result? Conduct for which lie 
 might hold up his hand at the Old Bailey.” 
 
288 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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—re¬ 
 member, remember.” 
 
 “ It is impossible,” said Kate. “ Nicholas !—and a thief, 
 too ! Mamma, 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 com¬ 
 plicated 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 
 after-thought, and with far less emphasis. 
 
 Kate very well understood that this was held out as an ad¬ 
 ditional inducement to her, to preserve the strictest silence 
 regarding the events of the preceding night. She looked invol¬ 
 untarily towards Ralph as he ceased to speak, but he had turned 
 his eyes another way, and seemed for the moment quite uncon¬ 
 scious of her presence. 
 
 “Every thing,” said Ralph, after a long silence, broken only 
 by Mrs. Nickleby’s sobs, “ every thing combines to prove the 
 truth of this letter, if indeed there were any possibility of dis¬ 
 puting 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 ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 289 
 
 “ A lie !” cried a furious voice, as the door was dashed open, 
 and Nicholas burst into the centre of the room. 
 
 Ill the first moment of surprise, and possibly of alarm, E,alph 
 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 of deadly hatred, 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 I” 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—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 that man 
 knows it.” 
 
 “Refute these calumnies,” said Kate, “and be more patient, 
 BO 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 withiu an ace of 
 
 in' 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 m 
 
 qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,” interposed Ralph. 
 “1 speak plainly, young man, bluster as you will.” 
 
 “ I interfered,” said Nicholas, “ to save a miserable, wretched 
 creature from the vilest and most degrading cruelty. In so 
 doing T 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. “ Peni¬ 
 tence, this 1” 
 
 “ Oh, dear me 1” cried Mrs. Nickleby, “ I don’t know what to 
 think, I really don’t.” 
 
 ” Do not speak just now, mamma, I entreat you,” said Kate. 
 “Dear Nicholas, I only tell you, that you may know what wick¬ 
 edness can prompt, but they accuse you of—a ring is missing, 
 fcnd 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 morn¬ 
 ing on which I left the house. At least, I know that she was 
 in the bed-room where they lay, struggling with an unhappy 
 child, and that I found it when I opened ray 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 ?” 
 
 “ That boy, a silly, helpless creature, from brutality and bard 
 usage, is with me now,” rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 “You hear?” said Ralph, appealing to the mother again, 
 “ every thing 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 ” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 29J 
 
 "Indeed !” said Ralph.. "Now, Sir, will you hear a word or 
 two from me ?” 
 
 “ You can speak when and what you please.” replied Nicho¬ 
 las, embracing his sister. " I take little need 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 1 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, lie 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, willful, and dis¬ 
 orderly 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. 1 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 ho 
 brought upon you by so doing, he has come back in his selfish 
 sloth, to be an aggravation of your wants, and a burden upor 
 his sister’s scanty v/ages. I regret to leave you, and more 
 leave her, now, but T will not encourage this compound of me:,s 
 ness and cruelty, and, as I will not ask you to renounce a 
 see you no more.’' 
 
 If Ral[)h 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 sarca.o". cut him to the quick, and 
 when I’alph noted his pale face and quivering lip, he hugged 
 
292 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 himself to mark how well he had chosen the taunts best cabu- 
 lated 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 ray 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, ray dear. 
 I can bear it, I dare say.” Pouring forth these, and a peifectly 
 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,’mamma?” 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 honest 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 Workhonse, 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 insitutious, 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, and clasping him in her arms, “ do not say so. My 
 dear brother, you will break my heart. Mamma, speak to him. 
 Do not mind her, Nicholas; she does not mean it, you should 
 know her better. Uncle, somebody, for God’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 
 
 possible. I may turn my back on this town a few houra 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 293 
 
 sooner tlian I intended, but what of that?, We sliall not for¬ 
 get 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 favors, 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 tbat 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 new, 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 fainted 
 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.” 
 
 lie 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 will keep a strict account of. I leave 
 them to you, at your desire. There will be a day of reckon¬ 
 ing 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. lie 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. 
 
294 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 As he liurried through the streets to his obscure lodging, 
 seeking to keep pace, as it Vi^ere, 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 B alph 
 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 kind¬ 
 nesses 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 melan¬ 
 choly 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 Avas 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 even 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 
 •>ehind, 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 any body enter, and was unconscious 3f 
 the presence of Smike, until, happening to raise his head, he 
 saw him standing at the upper end of the room, looking wist¬ 
 fully towards him. He withdrew his eyes when he saw that he 
 was observed, and affected to be busied with some scanty pre¬ 
 parations for dinner. 
 
 “Well, Smike,” said Nicholas, as chom-iully as he could 
 speak, “ let me hear what new acquaintances you have made 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 295 
 
 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; “1 must 
 talk of something else to-day.” 
 
 “ Of what you like,” replied Nicholas, good-humoredly. 
 
 “Of this,” said Smike. “I know you are unliappy, 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 to-day, but the thought of 
 your kind face drew me back. I could not leave you without 
 a word.” The poor fellow could get no further, for his eyes 
 tilled 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 oidy comfort and stay. I would not lose you now, 
 for all the world could give. The thought of you has upheld 
 me through all I have endured to-day, and shall, through fifty 
 times such trouble. Give me your hand. My heart is linked 
 to jours. AVe 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 XXI. 
 
 MADAME MANTALINI FINDS HERSELF IN A SITUATION OP SOME 
 
 DIFFICULTY, AND MISS NICKLEBY FINDS HERSELF IN NO 
 
 SITUATION AT ALL. 
 
 The agitation she had undergone rendei'ed Kate Xickleby 
 unable to resume her duties at the dress-maker’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, for the young ladies still scrupulously shrank 
 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 I” said Miss Knag, as the satellites (locked 
 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 encumbrance their presence 
 is to right-minded persons. But it’s a queer world ; oh ! it’ 
 queer world I” 
 
 Miss Knag having passed this comment on the world, in the 
 lone 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 favoring them with some 
 further moral reflections, when the voice of Madame Mantalini, 
 conveyed through the speaking-tube, ordered Miss Xickleby up 
 stairs to assist in the arrangement of the show-room ; a dis¬ 
 tinction which caused Miss Knag to toss her head so much, and 
 (296) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 297 
 
 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, 
 Beating 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 1 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 symp¬ 
 toms 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 1 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 tip-toe, blowing her a kiss 
 as he came along. 
 
 “Why will it vex itself, and twist its little face into bewitching 
 nut-crackers ?” said Mantalini, putting his left arm round the 
 waist of his life and soul, and drawing her towards him with 
 liis right. 
 
 “ Oh ! 1 can’t bear you,” replied his wife. 
 
 “ Not—eh, not bear me .”’ exclaimed Mantalini. “Fibs, fibs. 
 It couldn’t be. There’s not a w )man alive that could tell me 
 such a thing to nqv face-—to mj own face.” Mr. Mantalini 
 
298 
 
 NICHOLAS NiCKLEBY. 
 
 stroked liis chin as he said this, and glanced complaisantly at aa 
 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. Man¬ 
 talini previous to her coverture; and also to an unexpected 
 outlay of money in payment of the aforesaid debts; and further¬ 
 more, 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 ol 
 by one kiss or more, as its relative importance demanded, and 
 the upshot of it all was, that Madame Mantalini was in raptures 
 with him, and they went up stairs 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 bi’oad 
 1 ound face, and a large head, and part of a green coat, were in 
 the room too. 
 
 “Don’t alarm youirelf, Miss,” said the proprietor of these 
 tT(>pearances. “Isay; this here’s the mantie-making con-sara, 
 a'li’t it ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 299 
 
 “ Yes,” rejoined Kate, greatly astonished. “Wliatdid 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 but 
 tons of his coat inclusive, were profusely embroidered with 
 splashes of mud, caught a fortnight previous.—before the setting 
 in of the fine weather. 
 
 Kate’s very natural impression was, that these engaging in¬ 
 dividuals 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 un¬ 
 pleasant bisuess. Vere’s your govvernor?” 
 
 “ jVty 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 of him ? 
 Is he at home ?” 
 
 “ He is above stairs, I believe,” replied Kate, a little reas¬ 
 sured by this inquiry. “Do you want him ?” 
 
 “ No,” replied the visitor. “ I don’t ezactly want him, if it’s 
 made a favor 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 frieud remarked, with an easy 
 air, “that tlie 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 Man- 
 talini Kate glanced at the card, and saw that it displayed the 
 
80C 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 naHiB 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, 
 ns 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 Mautalini entering the room, ut ered an 
 exclamation of surprise which roused him. 
 
 “ Oh 1 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 exe¬ 
 cution, 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, how¬ 
 ever, 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 upon 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 exten- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 301 
 
 sive intercourse with Mr. Scaley’s fraternity in his bachelor 
 days, and was, besides, very far from being taken by sir[)rise on 
 the present agitating occasion, he merely shrugged his shoulders, 
 thrust his ha,nds 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 nine- 
 pence 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 too.” 
 
 “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—any think ? 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 1” 
 
 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, approach¬ 
 ing 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 
 nave 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 
 
802 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 up-stairs 
 dressing-room with great violence. 
 
 “ Miss Niekleby,” 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 1” 
 
 With such exclamations she hurried up stairs, 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 waa 
 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 I” cried Mr. Mantalini, “ interrupted 1” 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,” ci’ied his wife, flinging her arms about him, “I 
 aidu’t mean to say it, I didn’t mean to say it.” 
 
 “ Ruined I” cried Mr. Mantalini. “ Have I brought ruin 
 upon the best and purest creature that ever blessed a demnition 
 vagabond I 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, however. 
 
 “ 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 ])oison, and requesting some 
 lady or gentleman to blow his brains out, gentler feelings came 
 upon him, a.ad 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 sufifered 
 iiimseif to be led away by his affectionate partner. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 30o 
 
 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 .INickleby 
 receiving 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. Kickleby (who, it is 
 scarcely necessary to observe, had never said so before), ‘‘I 
 say again, that a milliner’s and dress-maker’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, ray 
 love; but still I will say, that if you had consulted your own 
 mother-” 
 
 “Well, well, mamma,” said Kate, mildly; “what would you 
 recommend now ?” 
 
 “ Recommend I” 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 per¬ 
 sonal appearance, and every thing 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 a g, but whether it was Waters or—no, it couldn’t 
 nave 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 hus- 
 ba)id, 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 favorable recollec¬ 
 tion 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 
 
304 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 anecdotes, bearing or not bearing upon the subject, had bceu 
 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-newspaper of the very first re¬ 
 spectability 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 com¬ 
 panion, 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 ti’iumph, “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 ad¬ 
 dress were obtained without loss of time, and Miss Nickleby 
 and her mamma went off in quest of Mrs. Wititterly, of Cado- 
 gan 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 Cado-gau 
 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 
 Iheir 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 con.ductor which communicates to the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 80o 
 
 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. 
 Wititteiiy’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 conse¬ 
 quently obliged to be stuck on four abreast. This young gen¬ 
 tleman took the card up stairs on a salver, and pending his re¬ 
 turn, 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, except 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 him¬ 
 self in the boudoir or what not, certain it is that Mrs. Witit¬ 
 terly gave audience in the drawing-room, where was every thing 
 proper and necessaiy, 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 
 |>aleness; there was a faded look about her, and about - the fur¬ 
 niture, and about the house altogether. 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 ” 
 
 20 
 
806 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 The page left it; but if ever there were an Alphoi,se who 
 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 advertise¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 “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 oppor¬ 
 tunity, 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 mamma,” 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, mamma.” 
 
 And notwithstanding all the frowns and winks with which 
 M rs, Nickleby intimated that she was going to say something 
 which would clinch 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 307 
 
 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 far 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 every thing, 
 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 near¬ 
 sighted that I can’t quite discern your features.” 
 
 Kate comi)lied, 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 w^ord was spoken on either side, 
 opened the dooi 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 conrersed with her in whispers. 
 
 “Oh!” he said, turning round, “yes. This is a most impor¬ 
 tant matter. Mrs. Wititterly is of a very excitable nature, very 
 delicate, very fragile; a hot-house 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 iihysician who is not proud of being 
 called in to you. What is their unanimous declaration? ‘My 
 deal doctor,’ said I to Sir Tumley Snuffin, in this very room, tne 
 
80b 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 very last lime he came. ‘My dear doctor, what is my wife’s com' 
 plaint? 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 ardor 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, con¬ 
 nection, 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 that!” 
 
 “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 not)ility, of course,” said Mr. Wititterly. “And the 
 military. She forms and expresses an immense variety of 
 ojiinions, 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.” 
 
r/ICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 309 
 
 “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 fric¬ 
 tion 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 quali¬ 
 fications 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 to 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 I” 
 
 “Do you think so, mamma?” 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, bat I am very much 
 afraid.” 
 
 These considerations led the deep-sighted lady into a calcula¬ 
 tion 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 splendor 
 at Saint 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 favorable; 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 XXII. 
 
 NICHOLAS, ACCOMPANIED BY SMIKE, SALLIES FORTH SO SEEK 
 
 HIS FORTUNE. HE ENCOUNTERS MR. VINCENT CRUMMLE8; 
 
 AND WHO HE WAS IS HEREIN MADE MANIFEST, 
 
 The whole capital which Xicholas 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 half¬ 
 pence 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 s[)ring; a few 
 meagre shadows flitted to and fro in the misty streets, and occa¬ 
 sionally there loomed through the dull vapor the heavy outline 
 of some hackney-coach Avending 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 slip-shod 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 rumbling of 
 ponderous carts and Avagons, the roll of the lighter vehicles 
 which carried buyers and sellers to the different markets; the 
 sound of ineffectual knocking at the doors of heaA^y 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 indis¬ 
 tinct to the ear as Avas every object to the sight. The sluggish 
 darkness thickened as the day came on; and those Avho had the 
 conrage to rise and peep at the gloomy street fj’om their cur- 
 (310) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 311 
 
 tained windows, crept back to bed again, and coiled themselves 
 up to sleep. 
 
 Before even these indications of approaching morning were 
 rife ill 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 dishonor 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 I” 
 
 He looked again, and felt for the moment almost vexed that 
 Kate w'as not there to exchange one word at parting. “ Good 
 God 1” he thought, suddenly correcting himself, “what a boy 
 I am 1” 
 
 “ It is better as it is,” said Nicholas, after he had lounged on 
 a few paces aud returned to the same spot. “ When I left 
 them before, and could have said good-by a thousand times if 
 I had chosen, I spared them the pain of leave-taking, and why 
 not now ?” As he spoke, some faticied 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 
 door-way, 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 jour¬ 
 ney. 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, over¬ 
 night. 
 
 “Which way ?” asked Newman, wistfully. 
 
 “ To Kingston, first,” replied Nicholas. 
 
 “And where afterwards?” asked Newman. “Why won’t 
 you tell me ?” 
 
812 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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 quar¬ 
 ters 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 as this 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 way- 
 side, and resolutely declared his intention of not moving an¬ 
 other step until Newman Noggs turned back. Having pleaded 
 ineffectually first for another half mile, and afterwards for an¬ 
 other 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 tc wave 
 his hat to the two wayfarers when they had become mere specks 
 ill 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. 
 
 “] don’t know much of these matters,” resumed Nicholas; 
 “ but Portsmouth is a sea-port town, and if no other employ¬ 
 ment is to be obtained, I should think we might get on board 
 of some ship. I am young and actirc, 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 spark- 
 liog at the prospect of displaying his abilities ; “I could milk a 
 cow, and groom a horse with any body.” 
 
 “ Ila 1” said Nieholas, gravely. “ I am afraid they don’t 
 usually keep many animals of either kind on board ship, 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 to-day ?” asked Smike, after a short 
 silence. 
 
 “ That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing 
 legs,” said Nicholas, with a good-humored smile. “No. Go¬ 
 daiming 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 to-morrow, 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 ?” 
 
 “ 1 don’t know,” said Smike, shaking his head sorrowfully. 
 “1 thmk 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 
 
314 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 always confused and giddy at that place you took me from ; 
 and could never remember, and sometimes couldn’t even under¬ 
 stand 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 eye 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 1” 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 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 care¬ 
 lessness ; “ how was that ?” 
 
 “ Such a little creature,” said Smike, “that they might have 
 had pity and mercy upon me, only to remember it.” 
 
 “ You d’dn’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, gentle 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 315 
 
 “Nor any house, but that house in Yorkshire?” 
 
 “ No,” rejoined tlie youtli, with a melancholy look : “a room 
 ■—I remember I slejit in a room, a large, lonesome room, at the 
 top of a house, whei-e there was a trap-door in the celling. 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 indelibly fastened in 
 his memory. 
 
 It was by this time within an hour of noon, and although a 
 dense vapor 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. Occa¬ 
 sionally 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 labored 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, 
 line, honest sun lighted up the green pastures and dimpled watei 
 with the semblance of summer, while it left the travelers all the 
 invigorating freshness of that early time of year. The ground 
 seemed clastic under their feet; the sheep-bells were music to 
 their ears ; and exhilarated by exercise, and stimulated by hope, 
 they ]mshed onwards with the strength of lions. 
 
 Tile day wore on, and all these bright colors subsided, and 
 assumed a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time, 
 or youthful features by degrees resolving into the calm and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 3ie 
 
 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 succes¬ 
 sion of changes so gentle and easy, that we can scarcely mark 
 their progress. 
 
 To Godaiming 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 that they had already 
 performed, 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 in¬ 
 scription upon the stone which, reared upon that wild spot, tells 
 of a foul and treacherous 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 vei’dant 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 huge 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 317 
 
 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 very 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 des¬ 
 tination, gave them fresh courage to proceed ; but the way had 
 leen difficult, and they had loitei’ed on the road, aud Smike was 
 tired. Thus twilight had already closed in, when they turned 
 off the path to the door of a road-side 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 land¬ 
 lord, 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 uncer¬ 
 tainty. 
 
 “ 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 hap¬ 
 pened 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 wmuld you like ?” w'as t ie landlord’s no less 
 natural answer. 
 
318 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 Nicliolas suggested cold meat, but tliere was no cold meal— 
 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 to-morrow. 
 
 “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 parlor that’s ordered a hot beef¬ 
 steak pudding and potatoes at nine. There’s more of it than 
 be 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 1 why cannot I speak out ? Here; 
 you see that I am traveling in a very humble manner, and have 
 made my way hither on foot. It is more than probable, I 
 think, that the geiuleman 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. Crummies ; 
 he isn’t particular.” 
 
 “ Is he not ?” asked Nicholas, on whose mind, to tell the 
 truth, the prospect of the savory pudding M^as making some im¬ 
 pression. 
 
 “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 parlor 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 trifle 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 wculd. 
 You’ll see something rather worth seeing in there. Ecod, how 
 they are a going of it 1” 
 
 Tiiere was no time to inquire to what this exclamation, 
 which was delivered in a very rapturous tone, referred, for ho 
 had already thrown open the door of the room ; into which 
 Nicholas, followed by Smike with the bundle on his shoulder 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 819 
 
 (he carried it about with him as vigilantly as if it had been a 
 purse of gold), straightway repaired. 
 
 Nicholas was pre[)ared for something odd, but not for some* 
 thi/ig cpiite 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 theat¬ 
 rical sailors, with belts, buckles, pigtails, and pistols complete — 
 lighting what is called in play-bills a terrific combat with two 
 of those short broad-sv/ords with basket hilts which are com¬ 
 monly 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 Crummies,” said the landlord with an air of 
 great deference, “this is the young gentleman.” 
 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies received Nicholas with an inclination 
 of the head, something between the courtesy of a Eomaii em¬ 
 peror and the nod of a pot companion ; and bade the landlord 
 shut the door and begone. 
 
 “ There’s a picture,” said Mr. Crummies, 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 satis¬ 
 faction of Mr. Crummies, who appeared to consider this a very 
 great point indeed. The engagement commenced with about 
 two hundred choi)S 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 i)istol from his belt and presented 
 it at the face of the tab sailor, who was so overcome at this 
 
820 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 (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, sueh as 
 ehops 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 olf if it had taken elfect, 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 inexpres¬ 
 sibles 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. 
 Crummies. “You had better get your wind now, and change 
 your clothes.” 
 
 Having addressed these words to the combatants, he salmed 
 Nicholas, who then observed that the face of Mr. Crummies 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 olf 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. Crummies. 
 
 “Very good, indeed—capital,” answered Nicholas. 
 
 “You won’t see such boys as those very often, I think,” said 
 Mr. Crummies. 
 
 Nicholas assented—observing, that if they were a little better 
 match- 
 
 “ Match I” cried Mr. Crummies. 
 
 “ I mean if they were a little more of a size,” said Nicholas, 
 explaining himself. 
 
 “ Size I” repeated Mr. Crummies ; “ why it’s the very 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 821 
 
 legitimate manner, if there isn’t a little man contending against 
 a great 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. Crummies. "I open at Ports¬ 
 mouth the day after to-morrow. 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 which he took in large 
 quantities from a piece of whitey-brown paper in his waistcoat 
 pocket. lie 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 honorable 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 Guild¬ 
 ford 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 confidence as he 
 had himself exhibited. 
 
 “ No,” replied Nicholas. 
 
 “ Never there ?” 
 
 “ Never.” 
 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies 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. Crummies 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. 
 
 21 
 
822 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEI3Y. 
 
 “ Excuse my saying so,” said the manager, leaning over to 
 Nicholas, and sinking his voice, “but—what a capital counti- 
 nance your friend has got I” 
 
 “ Poor fellow!” said Nicholas, with a half smile, “ I wish it 
 were a little more plump and less haggard.” 
 
 •• Plump 1” exclaimed the manager, quite horrified, “you’d 
 spoil it forever.” 
 
 “ Do yon 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 0 uliet, 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 Pve 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- 
 euppressed yawns and stretchings of their limb.s, an obvious 
 iuedination 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 or.ee, but the 
 manager would by no means hear of it, vowing that he had pro¬ 
 mised himself the pleasure of inviting his new acquaintance to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 823 
 
 share a bow] of punch, and that if he declined, he should deem 
 it very unhandsome behavior. 
 
 “ Let them go,” said Mr. Vincent Crummies, “ 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 Cruramleses, 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, wdiich his utmost efforts 
 were unable to dispel. Ills attention wandered; although he 
 heard the manager’s voice, he was deaf to what he said, and 
 when Mr. Vincent Crummies 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 obliired 
 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. Crummies. “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-traveler in the common necessaries of life,” said Nicho¬ 
 las. “ 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.’ 
 
824 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “What’s to be got to do at Portsmouth more than anyvrhere 
 else ?” asked Mr. Vincent Crummies, 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 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 practiced hand,” replied 
 the manager; “ and they are 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 Crummies 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 sec the 
 world to advantage in ?” asked the manager. 
 
 “No,” said Nicholas, shaking his head. 
 
 “ Why, then. I’ll tell you one,” said Mr. Crummies, throwing 
 Ills 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 Crummies. 
 “ I am in the theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the 
 tiieatrical profession, my children are in the theatrical profession. 
 1 had a dog that lived and died in it from a puppy ; and my 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 325 
 
 chaise-pony goes on in Timour the Tartar, I’ll bring j'-ou out, 
 and your friend too. Say the word. I want a novelty.” 
 
 “ I don’t know any thing 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. Yincent Crummies. “ You’ll do as well as if you had 
 thought of nothing else but the lamps, from your birth down¬ 
 wards.” 
 
 Nicholas thought of the small amount of small change there 
 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. 
 Crummies. “ Think what capital bills a man of your education 
 could write for the shop-windows.” 
 
 “AVell, I think I could manage that department,” said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 “To be sure you could,” replied Mr, Crummies. “‘For 
 further particulars see small hand-bills’—we might have half a 
 volume in every one of them. Pieces too; why, you eould ^ 
 write us a pieee 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 otlier day; and they’ll come in admirably. That’s the 
 London plan. They look up some dresses, and properties, and 
 have a pieee written to fit them. Most of the theatres keep an 
 author on purpose.” 
 
 “ Indeed I” cried Nicholas. 
 
 “On yes,” said the manager; “a common thing. It’ll look 
 very well in the bills in separate lines—Real pump 1—Splendid 
 
326 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 tubs 1—Great attraction! You don’t happen to be any thing ot 
 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 tlie 
 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 1” 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 Crummies his hand upon it. 
 
CHAPTEIl XXIII. 
 
 TREATS OF THE COMPANY OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMIES, ANI> OP 
 HIS AFFAIRS, DOMESTIC AND THEATRICAL. 
 
 As Mr. Crummies 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 con 
 sequence of his theatrical education—evinced every now and 
 then a strong inclination to lie down. However, Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies kept him up pretty well, by jerking the rein, and ply¬ 
 ing the whip; and when these means failed, and the animal 
 came to a stand, the elder Master Crummies 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. Crummies 
 truly observed) very comfortably for all parties. 
 
 “lie’s a good pony at bottom,” said Mr. Crummies, 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- 
 favored 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. Crummies, flicking him skillfully on the eyelid for old 
 acquaintance’ sake. “He is quite one of us. His mother was 
 on the stage.” 
 
 “ Was she, indeed?” rejoined Nicholas, 
 
 (327) 
 
828 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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, that he had been originally jobbed out ny 
 1 he 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 1” 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 that his vulgarity was the death of him 
 at last.” 
 
 The descendant of this ill-starred animal requiring increased 
 attention from Mr. Crummies as he progressed in his day’s 
 w^ork, that gentleman had very little time for conversation, and 
 Nicholas was thus left at leisure to entertain himself with his 
 owm thoughts until they arrived at the drawbridge at Ports¬ 
 mouth, when Mr. Crummies pulled up. 
 
 “We’ll set 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 Crummies 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 im¬ 
 mediate introduction to a scene so new to him. 
 
 They passed a great many bills pasted against the walls and 
 displayed in window^s, wherein the names of Mr. Vincent Crum¬ 
 mies, Mrs. Vincent Crummies, Master Crummies, Master P. 
 Crummies, and Miss Crummies, w^ere printed in very large letters, 
 and every thing 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 saw-dust, groped their 
 way through a dark passage, and descending a step or two. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 329 
 
 threaded a little maze of canvas screens and paint pots, and 
 emerged upon the stage at the Portsmouth Theatre. 
 
 "Here we are,” said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 It was not very light, but Nicholas found himself do e to the 
 first entrance on the prompter’s 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 in¬ 
 spection 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 dang¬ 
 ling 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. Vin¬ 
 cent Crummies.” 
 
 “I am glad to see you. Sir,” said Mrs. Vincent Crummies, 
 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 lartre one, but had not expected 
 quite such an iron grip as that witli which she honored 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 adihiiable,” replied the lady “An acquisition, in¬ 
 deed.” 
 
 As Mrs. Vincent Crummies recrossed back to the table, 
 there bounded on to the stage, from some mysterious inlet a little 
 
830 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 girl in a dirty white frock, with tucks up to the knees, short 
 trowsers, sandaled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green 
 vail 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. Crummies. 
 
 “Oh I” said the manager, “the little ballet interlude. Yery 
 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, 
 oe 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 him • 
 self severe thumps in the chest, and to exhibit other indications 
 of being desperately in love, wdiich being rather a prosy pro¬ 
 ceeding, was very likely the cause of the Maiden’s falling asleep; 
 whether it was or not, 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 ah 
 whom it might concern that she loas asleep, and no shamming. 
 Being left to himself, the Savage had a dance, all alone, and 
 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 neighboring 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 ; 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 831 
 
 Uieii 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 dovsm on one 
 knee, and the Maiden stood on one leg ujmn 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. Crummies; “bravo !” 
 
 '• Bravo I” cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of every 
 thing. “Beautiful!” 
 
 “This, Sir,” said Mr. Yincent Crummies, bringing the 
 Maiden forward, “this is the infant phenomenon—Miss Ninetta 
 Crummies.” 
 
 “Your daughter?” inquired Nicholas. 
 
 “ My daughter—my daughter,” replied INIr. Yincent Crumm 
 les; “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. Crummies 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. Crummies, 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 1” 
 
 “ Not a day.” 
 
 “Bear me I” said Nicholas, “ it’s extraordinary.” 
 
 It was ; for the infant phonomenon, 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 
 
832 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system of training 
 had produced in the infant phenomenon these additional phe¬ 
 nomena. 
 
 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, and deeming this a good 
 opportunity, he put in his word. 
 
 “Talent there, Sir,” said the Savage, nodding towards Miss 
 Crummies. 
 
 Nicholas assented. 
 
 “ Ah I” said the actor, setting his teeth together, and draw¬ 
 ing in his breath with a hissing sound, “she oughtn’t to be in 
 the provinces, she oughtn’t.” 
 
 “ What do you mean ?” asked the managei*. 
 
 “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. Crummies.” 
 
 “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 Crummies 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 «3a 
 
 “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 extraor* 
 dinary to see a man’a 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 bet¬ 
 ter 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. Halloo, old fel¬ 
 low, 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 indications (although he was close 
 shaved) of a stiff beard, and whiskers of the same deep shade. 
 His age did not appear to exceed thirty, although 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 trowsers ; he carried too a common ash walking-stick, 
 apparently more for show than use, as he flourished it about 
 with tlie 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 Ids 
 
334 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC K L E B Y. 
 
 friend, wlio parried it dexterously with his slipper, “what’s the 
 news ?” 
 
 “ A new appearance, that’s all,” replied Mr. Folair, looking 
 at Nicholas, 
 
 “Do the honors. Tommy, do the honors,” 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. John¬ 
 son,” 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 Crummies 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 to-morrow 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 sug¬ 
 gested. 
 
 A pretty general muster of the company had by this time 
 taken place ; for besides Mr, Lenville and his friend Tommy, 
 there was ])reseiit 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 turucd-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and staring eyes. 
 Makin g 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. Crummies was another elderly gentleman, a shade 
 more respectable, who played the irascible old men—those funny 
 fellows who have nephews in the array, and perpetually run 
 about with thick sticks to compel them to marry heiresses. Be- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 835 
 
 sides 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 run¬ 
 ning 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 very 
 marked attention. 
 
 The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round 
 the rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss Snevel- 
 licci, wlio could do any thing from a medley dance to Lady 
 Macbeth, and 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. Crummies 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 wmre hung up for 
 sale in the pastry-cook’s window, and the green-grocer’s, and 
 at the circulating library, and the box-office, wdienever the 
 announce bills came out for her annual night. There was Mrs. 
 Lenville in a very limp bonnet and vail, decidedly in that wmy 
 in which she w'ould 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 Air. Crummies, junior, wdth 
 both eTids in fun. Lastly, there was Airs. Grudden in a brown 
 cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who assisted Airs. Crummies 
 in her domestic affairs, and took money at the doors, and dressed 
 the ladies, and swmpt the house, and held the prompt book when 
 every body else wms on for the last scene, and acted any kind 
 
836 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 of part oil any emergency without ever learning it, and was put 
 down in the bills under any name or names whatever that oc¬ 
 curred to Mr. Crummies 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 Crummies, 
 who publicly heralded the new actor as a prodigy of genius and 
 learning. 
 
 “1 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.” 
 
 “ Oil, 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, you are such vain creatures !” cried Miss 
 Snevellicci. Whereupon she became charmingly confused, and, 
 pulling out her pocket handkerchief from a faded pink silk reti¬ 
 cule 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 837 
 
 with Nicholas, for, after some playful whispering. Miss Snevel- 
 licci 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 Crummies, who 
 had been writing on a piece of paper, “we’ll call the Mortal 
 Struggle to-morrow at ten; every body for the procession. 
 Intrigue, and Ways and Means, you’re all up in, so we shall 
 only want one rehearsal. Every body at ten, if you please.” 
 
 “Every body at ten,” repeated Mrs. Grudden, looking about 
 her, 
 
 “ On Monday morning we shall read a new piece,” said Mr. 
 Crummies; “ the name’s not known yet, but every body will 
 have a good part. Mr. Johnson will take care of that.” 
 
 “ Halloo !” said Nicholas, starting, “ I-” 
 
 “On Monday morning,” repeated Mr. Crummies, 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 
 Crummies 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, Crummies. 
 
 “ But really I can’t,” returned Nicholas ; “ my invention is 
 not accustomed to these demands, or possibly I might pro¬ 
 duce-” 
 
 “ Invention ! what the devil’s that got to do with it 1” cried 
 the manager, hastily. 
 
 “Every thing, my dear Sir.” 
 
 “Nothing, my dear Sir,” retorted the manager, with evident 
 impatience. “Do you understand French ?” 
 
 “ Perfectly well.” 
 
 “ V'ery 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. Crummies, 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 
 22 
 
338 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Uie original, and play it in English, and by tliai means save all 
 this trouble and expense.” 
 
 Nicholas smiled, and pocketed the play. 
 
 “ What are you going to do about your lodgings ?” said Mr. 
 Cruniinles. 
 
 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. Crummies, “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. Crummies 
 gave Mrs. Crummies 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. Crummies trod the pavement as if she were going to 
 immediate execution with an animating consciousness of inno¬ 
 cence and that heroic fortitude which virtue alone inspires. 
 Mr. Crummies, 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. Crummies,” or saw a little boy run back to 
 stare them in the face, the severe expression of their counte¬ 
 nances relaxed, for they felt it was popularity. 
 
 Mr. Crummies lived in Saint Thomas’s Street, at the house 
 of one Bulph, a pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with 
 window-frames of the same color, and had the little finger of a 
 drowned man on his parlor mantel-shelf, 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. Crummies, 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 339 
 
 “We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,” said 
 Mrs. Crummies, 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. Crummies, “ what is the hour ?” 
 
 “Five minutes past dinner-time,” said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 Mrs. Crummies rang the bell. “ Let the mutton and onion 
 sauce appear.” 
 
 The slave who attended upon Mr. Bulph’s lodgers dis¬ 
 appeared, and after a short interval re-appeared with the festive 
 banquet. Nicholas and the infant phenomenon opposed each 
 other at the peinbroke-table, and Smike and the Master Crumm- 
 leses dined on the sofa bedstead. 
 
 “ Are they very theatrical people here ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “No,” replied Ivir. Crummies, shaking his head, “far from 
 it—far from it.” 
 
 “ I pity them,” observed Mrs. Crummies. 
 
 “So do I,” said Nicholas; “if they have no relish for 
 theatrical entertainments, properly conducted.” 
 
 “ Then they have none. Sir,” rejoined Mr. Crummies. “ 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. Crummies. 
 “ ]\Irs. Crummies 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 real thing,” replied Mr. Crummies forcibly. 
 
 Do you give lessons, Ma’am ?” inquired Nicholas. 
 
 “ I do,” said Mrs. Crummies. 
 
 “ There is no teaching here, I suppose ?” 
 
 “ There has been,” said Mrs. Crummies. “ I have received 
 pupils here. 1 imparted tuition to the daughter of a dealer in 
 ships’ l^o^ision; but it afterwards appeared tnat she wa.s 
 
840 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 insane when slie first came to me. Is 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 honored with this distinction. 
 
 “ Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Mr. Crummies. 
 “ You shall study Romeo when you’ve done that piece—don’t 
 forget to throw the pump and tubs in, by-the-by—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. Crummies thrust a 
 number of little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and 
 bidding his eldest son go with him and show him where lodg¬ 
 ings 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 propor¬ 
 tionate 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 
 sliould 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 841 
 
 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 Crummies down stairs. “ We have fallen 
 upon strange times, and God only knows the end of them ; but 
 I am tired with the events of these three days, and will post¬ 
 pone reflection till to-morrow—if I can.’' 
 
CHAPTEE, XXIY. 
 
 OF THE GREAT BESPEAK FOR MISS SNEVELLICCI, AND THE FIRST 
 APPEARANCE OF NICHOLAS UPON ANY STAGE. 
 
 Nicholas was np betimes in the morning; but he had 
 scarcely begun to dress, notwithstanding, when he heard foot¬ 
 steps ascending the stairs, and was presently saluted by the 
 voices of Mr, Folair, the pantomimist, and Mr. Lenville, the 
 tragedian. * 
 
 “House, house, house I” cried Mr. Folair 
 
 “ "What, ho I within there I” said Mr. Lenville, in a deep 
 voice. 
 
 Confound these fellows 1 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 dis¬ 
 composure of all the other lodgers down stairs. 
 
 “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, 
 stepi)ing 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 undoubt¬ 
 edly a great convenience to be able to reach any thing you 
 M'ant from the coiling 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. 
 licnville. “That reminds me,—my wife, Mr. Jolmson—I hope 
 she’ll have some good part in this piece of yours ?” 
 
 (342) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 813 
 
 “ 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. “Any thing in 
 the grufi' and grumble way?” 
 
 “ You turn your wife and child out of doors,” said Nicho¬ 
 las ; “ and in a fit of rage and jealousy stab your eldest son in 
 the library.” 
 
 “ Do I, though 1” exclaimed Mr. Lenville. “ That’s very good 
 business.” 
 
 “ After which,” said Nicholas, “ you are troubled with re¬ 
 morse till the last act, and then you make up your mind to de¬ 
 stroy 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 yonr infancy. The pistol falls from your 
 hand—you are overcome—you burst into tears, and become 
 a virtuous and exemplary character forever afterwards.” 
 
 “ Capital 1” said Mr. Lenville: “that’s a sure card, a sure 
 card. Get the curtain dovvn with a touch of nature like that, 
 and it’ll be a triumphant success.” 
 
 “ Is there any thing good for me ?” inquired Mr. Folair, 
 anxiously. 
 
 “Let me sec,” 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, 1 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 it a paft de deux, and save time.” 
 
 “ There’s nothing easier than that,” said Mr. Lenville, ob¬ 
 serving the disturbed looks of tlm young dramatist. 
 
844 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Upon my word I don’t see how it’s to be done,” rejoined 
 Nicholas. 
 
 “ Why, isn’t it obvious ?” reasoned Mr. Lenville. “ Gad- 
 zooks, who can help seeing the way to do it ?—you astonish 
 me 1 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, 
 mamma ?’ says the child. ‘ Don’t weep, mamma, or you’ll make 
 me weep too 1’—‘ And me !’ says the faithful servant, rubbing 
 his eyes with his arm. ‘ What can we do to raise your spirits, 
 dear mamma ?” says the little child. ‘ Aye, what can we do V 
 says the faithful servant. ‘ Oh, Pierre I’ 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 practiced 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, over¬ 
 powered 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 dis¬ 
 pleased 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 color, false calves, false muscles— 
 they had become different beings. Mr. Lenville was a blooming 
 waiTior of most exquisite proportions ; Mr. Crummies, his large 
 face shaded by a profusion of black hair, a highland outlaw of 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 345 
 
 most majestic bearing; one of the old gentlemen a gaoler, and 
 the other a venerable patriarch ; the comic countryman, a 
 fighting man of great valor, relieved by a touch of humor ; 
 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, every thing was on a scale of the 
 utmost splendor 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. Crummies, 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 to-night V said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 “No,” replied Nicholas, “ not yet. I am going to see the 
 play.” 
 
 “We’ve had a pretty good Let,” said Mr. Crummies. “ Four 
 front places in the centre, and the whole of the stage-box.” 
 
 “ Oh, indeed I” said Nicholas ; “ a family, I suppose ?” 
 
 “Yes,” replied Mr. Crummies, “yes. It’s an affecting thing. 
 There are six children, and they never come unless the phe¬ 
 nomenon plays.” 
 
 It would have been difficnlt for any party, family or other¬ 
 wise, 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, 
 sympathizing with the feelings of a father, refrained from hinting 
 at this trifling circumstance, and Mr. Crummies 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.” 
 
 “ 1 wonder you allow so many,” observed Nicholas. 
 
846 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “There’s no help for it,” replied Mr. Crummies ; “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 after¬ 
 wards 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 gold hem, and ISIrs. Crummies in 
 all the dignity of the outlaw’s wife, and Miss Bravassa in all the 
 sweetness of Miss Snevcllicci’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 every body, 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 some¬ 
 how 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, bid rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being 
 uneasy, relieved his mind with a banquet, during which solemnity 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 347 
 
 somebody in a cloak said “Beware!” which somebody was 
 known by nobody (except the audience) to be the outlaw him¬ 
 self, who had come there for reasons unexplained, but possibly 
 with an eye to the spoons. There was an agreeable little sur¬ 
 prise in the way of certain love passages between the desponding 
 captive and Miss Snevellicci, and the comic lighting-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 pi’ison 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 great deal of groping in the dark, every body got hold of 
 every body else, and took them for somebody besides, which 
 occasioned a vast quantity of confusion, with some pistoling, 
 loss of life, and torchlight; after which the patriarch came 
 forw'ard, 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. Crummies, when 
 Nicholas went round to the stage again. Mr. Crummies 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. Crummies; “quite a genius, that 
 girl. By-the-by, I’ve been thinking of bringing out that piece 
 of yours on her bespeak night.” 
 
848 
 
 NICHOLAS NICELEBY. 
 
 “When ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “The night of her bespeak. Her benefit night, when hci 
 friends and patrons bespeak the play,’' said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 “OhI I understand,” replied Nicholas 
 
 “You see,” said Mr. Crummies, “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. Crummies. “Next 
 Monday week. What do you say now? 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.” 
 
 “Yery good,” pursued Mr. Crummies, “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 attrac¬ 
 tion. She had a bespeak when her mother-in-law died, and a 
 bespeak when her uncle died; and Mrs. Crummies and myself 
 have had bespeaks on the anniversary of the phenomenon’s 
 birthday and our wedding-day, and occasions of that descrip¬ 
 tion, so that, in fact, there’s some difficulty in getting a good 
 one. Now won’t you help this poor girl, Mr. Johnson ?” said 
 Crummies, 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 to-morrow 
 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 objec¬ 
 tion, “ I shouldn’t like to do that.” 
 
 “The infant will accompany her,”said Mr. Crummies. “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 honor. It would be of 
 material service—the gentleman from London—author of the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 849 
 
 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 
 any body, and more especially a lady,” replied Nicholas; “but 
 really I must decidedly object to making one of the canvassing 
 party.” 
 
 “What docs Mr. Johnson say, Vincent?” inquired a voice 
 close to his ears; and, looking round, he found Mrs. Crummies 
 and Miss Snevellicci herself standing behind him. 
 
 “ lie has some objection, my dear,” replied Mr. Crummies, 
 looking at Nicholas. 
 
 “ Objection 1” exclaimed Mrs. Crummies. •“ Can it be pos¬ 
 sible ?” 
 
 “Oh, I hope not 1” cried Miss Snevellicci. “You surelj 
 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. Crummies. 
 “ 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. Crummies, 
 smiling. 
 
 “ And a manager’s wife,” added Mrs. Crummies, 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 either, and nobody knows me. So be it, then. I yield.” 
 
 ]\[iss Snevellicci was at once overwhelmed with blushes and 
 expressions of gratitude, of which latter commodity neither INfr. 
 nor Mrs. Crnniinles was by any means sparing. It was arranged 
 that Nicholas should call upon her at her lodgings at eleven 
 next morning, and soon afterwards 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 agiceroent 
 
860 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 At tlie 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 
 BO 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. John¬ 
 son is here ?” said Nicholas. 
 
 “ Oh, if jmu please, you’re to come up stairs,” replied the 
 tailor’s (laughter, with a smile. 
 
 Nicliolas 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 op 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 any where else. In one corner stood the 
 diminutive pair of top-boots in which Miss Snevellicci was 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 m 
 
 accustomed to enact the little jockey, and, folded on a chair 
 hard by, was a small ])arcel, which bore a very suspicious re¬ 
 semblance to the companion smalls. 
 
 But the most interesting object of all, was perhaps the open 
 scrap-book, displayed in the midst of some theatrical duodecimos 
 that were strewn upon the table, and pasted into which scrap¬ 
 book were various critical notices of jNliss Snevellicci’s acting, 
 extracted from different provincial journals, together with one 
 poetic address in her honor, commencing— 
 
 Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth 
 Thrice-gifted Snuvkllicci 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 ob¬ 
 serve from an advertisement in another part of our paper of to¬ 
 day, 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 ability and private 
 Mmrth, for which they have long been so pre-eminently distin¬ 
 guished, 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 honorable proposals 
 Wg have reason to know that Aliss Snevellicci is the lady who 
 was implicated in that mysterious and romantic affair, and 
 whose conduct on that occason did no less honor to her head 
 and heart, than do her histrionic trium])hs to her brilliant 
 genius.” A most cojiions assortment of such paragraphs as 
 these, with long bills of benefits all ending with “Come Early,” 
 in large capitals, forn.cd the principal contents of Aliss Snevel- 
 licei’s scrap-book. 
 
 Nicholas had read a great many of these scraps, and was 
 
852 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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,—wnen 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 Siievellicci, “ 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 I” said Miss Snevellicci, 
 buttoning her glove in much confusion. 
 
 “ If it be flattery to admire your charms and accomplish¬ 
 ments,” rejoined Nicholas, laying his hand upon the scrap-book, 
 “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 1 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 
 Mi ss 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 bed-room 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 trowsers 
 was discovered to be longer than the other; besides these acci¬ 
 dents, the green parasol was dropped down an iron grating. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 853 
 
 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 humor, and walked on with Miss Snevellicci, armdn-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 parlor 
 wdiere 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 up stairs with Miss Snevellicci’s name. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Curdle was supposed, by those who were best in¬ 
 formed 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 Shakspeare’s plays conld 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 par¬ 
 lor, “ and how do you do ?” 
 
 Miss Snevellicci made a graceful obeisance, and hoped Mrs. 
 Curdle wms well, as also Mr. Curdle, who at the same time 
 appeared. Mrs. Curdle was dressed in a morning wrapper, 
 with a little cap stuck upou the top of her head; Mr. Curdle 
 wore a loose robe on his back, and his right fore-finger on his 
 forehead, after the portraits of Sterne, to whom somebody or 
 other had once said he bore a striking resemblance. 
 
 “ I ventured to call for the purpose of asking whether you 
 23 
 
354 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 would put your name to my bespeak, Ma'am,” said Miss Sne- 
 vellicci, producing documents. 
 
 “ Oh I I really don’t know what to say,” replied Mrs. Curdle. 
 “ It’s not as if the tneatre was in its high and palmy days—■ 
 you needn’t stand. Miss Snevellicci—the drama is gone, per¬ 
 fectly gone.” 
 
 “As an exquisite embodiment of the poet’s visions, and a 
 realization 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 colors 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 favor of himself. “ Hamlet I Pooh 1 
 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 
 every thing.” 
 
 “Might I ask you,” said Nicholas, hesitating between the 
 respect he ouglit to assume, and his love of the whimsical, 
 “might I ask you what the unities are ?” 
 
 Mr. Curdle coughed and considered. “The unities, Sir,” ho 
 said, “ are a completeness—a kind of a universal dove-tailed* 
 ness with regard to place and time—a sort of a general oneness, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 356 
 
 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 coloring, a tone, a harmony, a glow, an artistical 
 development of original conceptions, udiich 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, and it being finished, 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 e'ntwined. 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 thi’ough 
 the form of feeling in his own pockets at all. 
 
 “Let me see,” said Mr. Curdle; “ twice four’s eight—four 
 Bhillings apiece to the boxes. Miss Snevellicci, is exceedingly 
 dear in the jireseut state of the drama—three half-crowns is 
 Bcven-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 supplemen¬ 
 tary directions relative to keeping the places for them, and 
 
86G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 
 patronized you ; and if you were to fail, they would have been 
 quite certain of that from the very beginning.” 
 
 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 pecu¬ 
 liar 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 the view of ascertain¬ 
 ing whether she was real. 
 
 “ I am sure you must be very tired,” said the mamma, turn¬ 
 ing 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 behavior 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 learned 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 
 pic(!e, and crying in the next, and so natural in all—oh, dear!” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 357 
 
 “ I am rcry happy to hear you express so favorable an opi¬ 
 nion,” said Miss Snevellicci. “ It’s quite delightful to think 
 vou like it.” 
 
 “Like it!” cried Mrs. Borum. “Who can help liking it 1 
 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 un¬ 
 happy 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 trowsers. 
 
 It was a trying morning, for there were a great many calls to 
 make, and every body wanted a different thing; some wanted 
 tragedies, and others comedies ; some objected to dancing, some 
 wanted scarcely any thing 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, be¬ 
 cause 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 com¬ 
 pany said—to perfection. And at length the great day arrived. 
 The crier was sent round in the morning to proclaim the (mter- 
 taiumente with sound of bell in all the thoroughfares; extra 
 
358 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 dnring the indis¬ 
 position 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 gal¬ 
 lery-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 Crummies 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. Crummies 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. Crummies 
 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 olf, and the curtain rose upon the 
 new piece. The first scene, in which there was nobody par¬ 
 ticular, 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 1 The people in the Borum 
 box rose as one man, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and 
 uttering shouts of “ Bravo I” 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 uncon¬ 
 scious of the honor ; the tailor and his family kicked at the 
 panels of the upper boxes till they threatened to come out alto¬ 
 gether ; the very ginger-beer boy remained transfixed in the 
 center 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 courtesyed 
 lower and lower, and again and again the applause came down 
 louder and louder. At length, when the phenomenon picked 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 359 
 
 np 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. 
 Crummies, what a clapping of hands there was! When Mrs. 
 Crummies (who was his unworthy mother) sneered, and called 
 him “ presumptuous boy,” and he defied her, what a tumult of 
 applause came on 1 When he quarreled with the other gentle¬ 
 men 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, till the furniture was sprinkled with the blood of one, if 
 not of two—how boxes, pit, and gallery, joined in one most 
 vigorous cheer 1 When he called his mother names, because 
 she wouldn’t give up the young lady’s property, and she re¬ 
 lenting, 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 1 His air, his figure, his walk, his look, 
 every thing 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 any thing to do with the plot, but in order to finish 
 olf 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 within 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 XXY. 
 
 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 e^ ei y 
 evening of performance until further notice, and the evenings 
 when the theatre was closed, were reduced from three in the 
 week to two. Xor were these the only tokens of extraordinary 
 success; for on the succeeding Saturday Nicholas received, by 
 favor of the indefatigable Mrs. Grudden, no less a sum than 
 thirty shillings; besides which substantial reward, he enjoyed 
 considerable fame and honor, having a presentation copy of Mr. 
 Curdle’s pamphlet forwarded to the theatre, with that gentle¬ 
 man’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 Shakspeare to him for three hours every 
 morning before breakfast during his stay in the town. 
 
 “ I’ve got another novelty, Johnson,” said Mr. Crummies one 
 morning, in great glee. 
 
 “ What’s that ?” rejoined Nicholas. “The pony?” 
 
 “No, no, we never come to the pony till every thing else has 
 failed,” said Mr. Crummies. “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. Crummies 
 impressively, “and that’s a girl.” 
 
 “ Aery true,” said Nicholas. “ I beg your pardon. Then 1 
 don’t know what it is, I am sure.” 
 
 “What should you say to a young lady from London ?” in- 
 rpiired Mr. Crummies. “Miss So-and-So, of the Theatre 
 Royal, Drury Lane 1” 
 
 (360) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 361 
 
 " I sliould say she would look very well in the bills,” said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 “You’re about right there,” said Mr. Crummies; “and if 
 you had said she would look very well upon the stage too, yon 
 wouldn’t have been far out. Look here ; what do you think of 
 that ? ’• 
 
 With this inquiry Mr. Crummies severally 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 unrivaled Miss Petowker, of the 
 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane 1” 
 
 “ Dear me I” 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. 
 Crummies, rolling up the bills again; “ that is, talent of a 
 ertain sort—of a certain sort. ‘ The Blood Drinker,’ ” added 
 Mr. Crummies 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 to-day,” replied Mr. Crummies. “She is 
 an old friend of Mrs. Crummies’s. Mrs. Crummies saw what she 
 could do—always knew it from the first. She taught her, in¬ 
 deed, nearly all she knows. Mrs. Crummies was the original 
 Blood-Drinker.” 
 
 “Was she, indeed ?” 
 
 “Yes. She was obliged to give it up, though.” 
 
 “ Did it disagree with her ?” asked Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 “Not so much with her, as with her audiences,” replied Mr. 
 Crummies. “ Nobody could stand it. It was too tremendous. 
 You don’t quite know what Mrs. Crummies is, yet.” 
 
 Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did. 
 
 “No, no, you don’t,” said Mr. Crummies; “you don’t, in¬ 
 deed. 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 jmar of her life. Look at her 
 .—mother of six children—three of ’em alive, and all upon the 
 etage 1” 
 
3C2 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 " Extraordinary 1” cried Nicholas. 
 
 “ Ah ! extraordinary indeed,” rejoined Mr. Crummies, taking 
 a complacent pinch of snuif, and shaking his head gravely. “I 
 pledge you my professional word I didn’t even know she could 
 fiance till her last benefit, and then she played Juliet and Helen 
 IMacgregor, and did the skipping-rope hornpipe between the 
 pieces. The very first time I saw that admirable woman. 
 Johnson,” said Mr. Crummies, 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 1” said Nicholas. 
 
 “ She astonished meP' returned Mr. Crummies, with a very 
 serious countenance. “ Such grace, coupled with such dignity I 
 1 adored her from that moment.” 
 
 The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an ab¬ 
 rupt termination to Mr. Crummies’s eulogium, and almost imme¬ 
 diately afterwards. Master Percy Crummies 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. Crummies exclaimed, “ From Henrietta Petowker, I do 
 declare 1” and instantly became absorbed in the contents. 
 
 “ Is it-?” inquired Mr. Crummies, hesitating. 
 
 “Oh yes, it’s all right,” replied Mrs. Crummies, 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. Crummies; and then Mr. Crummies, Mrs. Crummies, 
 and Master Percy Crummies all fell to laughing violently. Nicho¬ 
 las left them to enjoy their mirth together, and walked to his lodg¬ 
 ings, 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 re¬ 
 gard his sudden enlistment in a profession of which she was such 
 a distinguished and brilliant ornament. 
 
 Put in this latter respect he was mistaken; for—whether Mr. 
 Vincent Crummies 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 w'ho had been inseparable 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 368 
 
 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 en¬ 
 countered Mr. Johnson in the very first and most fasliionable 
 circles ; and on Nicholas receiving this intelligence with un¬ 
 feigned 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 honor 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 van¬ 
 ished 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.” 
 
 llis fellow-lodger looked at the cold meat, in silent calcula¬ 
 tion 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 
 elfiicts. 
 
 “ It is not any body 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. 
 
364 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ This morning, Sir,” replied Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 “ Oh ! I see; then you were at the theatre to-night, 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, "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 sa}'-, delicious,” repeated Mr. Lillyvick. “Absorbing, 
 fairy-like, toomultuous.” And again Mr. Lillyvick drew him¬ 
 self 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. Lilly¬ 
 vick. 
 
 Nicholas looked good-humoredly 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 3C5 
 
 “ If a baclielor 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 otlier 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 healtli, 
 because they want to come into his little property. You see 
 that ?” 
 
 “ 0, 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—• 
 Lordl” said Mr. Lillyvick, snapping his fingers, “I miglit have 
 had fifty women.” 
 
 “ Fine women ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “ Fine women. Sir 1” replied the collector; “ aye ! 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 
 that. Now suppose a man can get a fortune in his wife instead 
 of with her—eh ?” 
 
 “Why, then, he is 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 Pe- 
 tuwker, 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 col¬ 
 lector. “ Actresses, Sir, always keep their maiden names, 
 that’s the regular thing,—but I’m going to marry her; and the 
 day after to-morrow, too.” 
 
 “I congratulate you. Sir,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “ Thank you. Sir,” replied the collector, buttoning his waist¬ 
 coat. “ 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 anv consolation at such a moment ?” 
 observed Nicholas. 
 
 “No,” replied Mr. Lillyvick, shaking his head nervously; 
 '‘no--of course not.” 
 
8G6 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 "But bow 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 ray feet, and never have 
 come out of ’em till I took an oath not to marry any body—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 Pe« 
 towker (it was settled between us) should come down here to 
 her friends, the Crumrnleses, 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 any thing about us, wa 
 have thought it best to let you into the secret. We shall ba 
 married from the Crumrnleses’ 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. Crummies ?” 
 
 "Why, no,” said the collector; “they couldn’t very well 
 dispose of her at night, and so she is staying with an acquaint¬ 
 ance 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 367 
 
 “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 Suevellicci of course—Miss Ledrook—” 
 
 “'riie —the phenomenon,” groaned the collector. 
 
 “ Ha, ha 1” cried Nicholas. “ I beg your pardon, I don’t 
 £.now 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 any thing about it, will you ?” 
 
 “ You may safely depend upon me,” replied Nicholas 
 “Won’t you take any thing 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 ex¬ 
 hibited 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 him¬ 
 self, 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 
 witli great rapidity, insomuch that when Miss Petowker awoke 
 on the succeeding morning in the chamber of Miss Suevellicci, 
 she declared that nothing should ever persuade her that that 
 really was the day which was to behold a change in her con¬ 
 dition. 
 
 “ 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 1” 
 
 On hearing this. Miss Suevellicci and Miss Ledrook, who 
 knew perfectly well that their fair friend’s mind had been made 
 
368 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 up for three or four years, at any period of which time she 
 would have cheerfully undergone the desperate trial now ap¬ 
 proaching, if she could have found any eligible gentleman dis¬ 
 posed 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 occa¬ 
 sions ; and that although for their parts they held true happi¬ 
 ness 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 meek¬ 
 ness and humility of spirit to a fate for which Providence had 
 clearly designed them with a view to the contentment and re¬ 
 ward 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 wmuld rather court 
 the yoke than shun it. I have broken hearts before now, and I 
 am 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 wm 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 w'alk 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 know's it, love, and will never forget it,” said 
 Miss Ledrook. 
 
 “ Do you think he won’t ?” cried Miss PetowLer, really 
 show'ing great capability for the stage. “ Oh, do you think ho 
 won’t ? Do you think Lillyvick will always remember it— 
 always, alwmys, always V 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 8H9 
 
 Tliere is no knowing in what this hurst 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 Crurnmleses, who wore white cockades, and 
 were decorated with the choicest and most resplendent waist¬ 
 coats 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 condi¬ 
 tion 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, ray 
 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 
 10 call upon such of them as were present to come and embrace 
 her. This done, she remembered that Mrs. Crummies had been 
 more than a mother to her, and after that, that Mr. Crummies 
 had been more than a father to her, and after that, that the 
 Master Crurnmleses and Miss Ninetta Crummies had been more 
 tlian 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 
 24 
 
870 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 were Miss Bravassa (the fourth bridesmaid), Mrs. Crummies, 
 the collector, and Mr. Folair, who had been chosen as hia 
 second on the occasion. In the other were the bride, Mr. Crum¬ 
 mies, Miss Snevellicci, Miss Ledrook, and the phenomenon. 
 The costumes were beautiful. The bridesmaids were quite 
 covered wiln artificial flowers, and the phenomenon, in particu¬ 
 lar, was rendered almost Invisible by the portable arbor in which 
 she was enshrined. Miss Ledrook, who was of a romantic turn, 
 wore in her breast the miniature of some field-olBcer unknown, 
 which she had purchased, a great bargain, not very long before; 
 the other ladies displayed several dazzling articles of imitative 
 jewelry, almost equal to real; and Mrs. Crummies came out in a 
 stern and gloomy majesty, which attracted the admiration of all 
 beholders. 
 
 But, perhaps the appearance of Mr. Crummies was more strik¬ 
 ing and appropriate than that of any member of the party. 
 This gentleman, who personated the bride’s father, had, in pur¬ 
 suance of a happy and original conception, “ made up” for the 
 part by arraying himself in a theatrical wig, of a style and pat¬ 
 tern commonly known as a brown George, and moreover assum¬ 
 ing a snuff-colored suit, of the i)revious century, with gray 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. Crummies, with an infirm 
 and feeble gait; Mrs. Crummies advancing with that stage walk, 
 which consists of astride and a stop alternately—it was the corn- 
 pletest thing ever witnessed. The ceremony was very quickly dis¬ 
 posed of, and all parlies present having signed the register (for 
 which purpose, when it came to his turn, Mr. Crummies care¬ 
 fully wiped aud put on an immense pair of spectacles), they 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 371 
 
 went back to breakfast in high spirits. And here they found 
 ^^icholas an'aiting their arrival. 
 
 “Now then,” said Crummies, wlio 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 Fetowker blushing very much when 
 any body was looking, and eating very much when any body 
 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 Crum- 
 mleses 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, coloring. “It does not 
 take long. And what then. Sir?” 
 
 “t)h! nothing,” said the actor. “It don’t take a man long 
 to hang himself, either, eh? Ila, 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 dig- 
 nifie 1 beyond expression. 
 
 ‘To hang himself I” cried Mr. Lillyvick again. “Is any 
 parallel attempted to be drawn in this company between matri* 
 mo.iy 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. Crummies. 
 
 — “and Henrietta Lillyvick in the same breath?” said the 
 c-^llector. “In this house, in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ci ummles, who have brought up a talented and virtuous family, 
 
872 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 to be blessings and phenomenons, and what not, are we to hear 
 talk of nooses 
 
 “Folair,” said Mr. Crummies, 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 
 mlfortuuate actor. “What have I done?” 
 
 “Done, Sirl” cried Mr. Lillyvick, “aimed a blow at the 
 whole frame-work of society-—” 
 
 “And the best and tenderest feelings,” added Crummies,, 
 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. Lilly vick; “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 imme¬ 
 diately 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 re¬ 
 fused 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 pinch¬ 
 ing Nicholas’s leg when any thing 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 Crummies, and some by the collector; 
 two by the Master Crummleses, in returning thanks for them¬ 
 selves, and one by the phenomenon on behalf of the brides- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 373 
 
 maids, at which Mrs. Crummies shed tears. There was some 
 singing, t^-O, 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 steam-boat 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 accompa¬ 
 nied by the infant, who had been appointed traveling brides¬ 
 maid on Mr. Lillyvick’s express stipulation, as the steam-boat 
 people, deceived by her size, would (he had previously ascer¬ 
 tained) transport her at half price. 
 
 As there was no performance that night, Mr. Crummies 
 declared his intention of keeping it up till every thing 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 unex¬ 
 pected 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 1” exclaimed Nicholas. 
 
 “ Well said. Let 
 
374 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 US s(^,e who tires first. Not I, Smike, trust me. Now thea 
 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 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, ren¬ 
 dered 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, 
 kind-hearted 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 favor, and Smike was pronounced 
 unanimously, alike by audience and actors, the very prince and 
 prodigy of Apothecaries. 
 
CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 18 FRAUGHT WITH SOME DANGER TO MISS NICKLEBY’S PEACE 
 
 OF MIND. 
 
 The place was a handsome suit 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 Yerisopht, and 
 his friend Sir Mullierry Hawk. 
 
 These distinguislied gentlemen were reclining listlessly on a 
 couple of sofas, with a table between them, on which were scat¬ 
 tered 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 the moment to 
 communicate a new restlessness to his companion. 
 
 These api)earances would in themselves have furnished a 
 pretty strong clue to the extent of the debauch of the previous 
 nisrht, even if there had not been other indications of the amuse- 
 ments 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 iti its capacity of an offensive weapon ; a 
 broken cane ; a card-case witliout 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 crum¬ 
 bled ashes ;—these, and many other tokens of riot and disorder, 
 hinted very intelligibly at the nature of last night’s gentlemanly 
 frolics. 
 
 Lord Frederick Yerisopht was the first to speak. Drojrping 
 
 (■3751 
 
d76 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 his slippered foot on the ground, and yawning heavily, he 
 struggled into a sitting posture, and turned his dull, languia 
 eyes towards his friend, to whom he called, in a drowsy voice. 
 
 “Halloo 1” 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 any thing else,” replied Sir 
 Mulberry; “yet awhile, at least. I haven’t a grain of life iu 
 me this morning.” 
 
 “Life 1” cried Lord Yerisopht. “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 friend 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-humor, 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 thega-a-1?” 
 asked Lord Yerisopht. 
 
 “You take me, I see,” replied Sir Mulberry. “The girl, of 
 course.” 
 
 “ You promised me you’d find her out,” said Lord Yerisopht. 
 
 “ 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 Yerisopht. 
 
 “ But I say yes,” returned his friend. “You shall find her 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 377 
 
 out yourself. Don’t think that I mean, when you can—1 know 
 us 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 1” cried the young lord. “ What the dey—” 
 
 “Asa bait for you,” repeated his friend ; “ old Nickleby told 
 me so himself.” 
 
 “ What a fine old cock it is!” exclaimed Lord Yerisopht; 
 “ a noble rascal 1” 
 
 “Yes,” said Sir Mulberry, “he knew she was a smart little 
 creature—’ ’ 
 
 “ Smart 1” 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 I” 
 
 “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 1” reasoned the lord, “you were thick enough 
 with her that day, any how. 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 Yerisopht, 
 “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 
 
378 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 be 
 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 considera* 
 tions ; among which the certainty of knowing whatever the 
 weak young man knew was decidedly not the least, as the de¬ 
 sire 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 circum¬ 
 stance of his having extorted from Ralph Nickleby his real de¬ 
 sign 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 reason¬ 
 ing he and his friend soon afterwards repaired to Ralph Nick- 
 leby’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 acknowledg¬ 
 ment than a careless smile. 
 
 Tliey 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 879 
 
 So saying, Sir Mulberry took up his hat, and humming a 
 fragment of a song, disappeared through the door of com¬ 
 munication 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. “ Yor 
 must know that, Nickleby. Come, don’t deny that.” 
 
 “ Yes, I believe she is considered so,” replied Ralph. “In¬ 
 deed, 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 un¬ 
 deniable.” 
 
 Nobody but the young man to whom these words were ad¬ 
 dressed 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 tliem 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, Ninkleby.” 
 
 “He bites.” thought Ralph. “He bites.” 
 
380 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 “ 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 Yerisopht. “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 w’hich 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 fortano 
 out of me, Nickleby, and upon my soul nobody shr,ll e>et- take 
 me to any body else, if you only tell me this.” 
 
 “As you promise that, my lord,” said Ralph, *vit>. feigned 
 reluctance, “ and as I am most anxious to oblige yo<i, and as 
 there’s no harm in it—no harm—I’ll tell you. Rue you had 
 better keep it to yourself, my lord; strictly \,o yourself.” 
 Ralph pointed to the adjoining room as he spoke, and nodded 
 expressively. 
 
 The young lord, feigning to be equally impres sed with the 
 necessity of this precaution, Ralph disclosed the piesent address 
 and occupation of his niece, observing that from vhat he heard 
 of the family they appeared very ambitious to have distinguished 
 acquaintances, and that a lord could, doubtless, introduce him¬ 
 self 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 Yerisopht acknowledged the hint with a great many 
 squeezes of Ralph’s hard, horny hand, and whispering that they 
 would new do well to close the conversation, called to Sir Mul¬ 
 berry Hawk that he might come back. 
 
 “ I thought you had gone to sleep,” said Sir Mulberiy, re¬ 
 appearing with an ill-tempered air. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 881 
 
 “ Sorry to detain you,” replied the gull; “ but Nickleby has 
 been so araa-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 him¬ 
 self in showing his visitors down stairs, and otherwise than by 
 the slightest possible motion about the corners of his mouth, re¬ 
 turned no show of answer to the look of admiration with wdiich 
 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 moments 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 re¬ 
 spectable trio who were approaching, cried in a loud and sono¬ 
 rous voice, “ Mrs. Nickleby !” 
 
 “ Mrs. Nickleby 1” 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 tlie 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 I” 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, ack:\owledgiug the 
 
382 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 ex¬ 
 traordinary likeness, my lord? Nickleby, introduce us.” 
 
 Ikalph did so in a kind of desperation. 
 
 “Upon my soul, it’s a most delightiful thing,” said Lord 
 Frederick, pressing forward: “How de do ?” 
 
 Mrs, Nickleby was too much flunned 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 think¬ 
 ing, 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 hack¬ 
 ney 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 
 naught and ending with a nine—no, beginning with a nine and 
 ending with a naught, that was it, and of course the stamp 
 oflice peoi)le 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 88a 
 
 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. Kickleby, “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 1 
 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. 
 “ Whai a confounded distance ! How far do you call it now ?” 
 
 “ How far do I call it 1” 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 I It is, indeed,” said Mrs. Nickleby. “ I appeal to 
 his lordship.” 
 
 “ I should decidedly say it was a mile,” remarked Lord Fred¬ 
 erick, 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 Lom¬ 
 bard Street, down Gracechnrch Street, and along Thames 
 Street, as far as Spigwiffin’s Wharf. Oh 1 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 ray 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 ” 
 
881 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Thank you, brother-in-law, so I had,” returned Mrs. Nick- 
 leby. “ I think I had better say good-by, at once.” 
 
 “Not stop and—rest?” said Ralph, who seldom offered re¬ 
 freshments 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 Yerisopht 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 be¬ 
 tween 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. 
 
 A s she was carried away for the moment by an irresistible 
 train of thought, all connected with her daughter’s future great¬ 
 ness, Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend exchanged glances 
 over the top of the bonnet which the poor lady so much re¬ 
 gretted 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 Yerisopht, with the air of a 
 judge of cleverness. 
 
 “I assure you she is, my lord,” returned Mrs. Nickleby 
 “W’’hen 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 voung ladies, fifty guineas a year without 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 386 
 
 the et-ceteras, both the Miss Dowdies, the most accomplished, 
 elegant, fascinating creatures—Oh dear me 1” 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 any body 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 any 
 way, 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 tedious¬ 
 ness 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-colored kid 
 gloves till they were no longer visible. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby leant back in the furthest corner of the con¬ 
 veyance, 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 favor 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 
 25 
 
88R 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 the beauty and grace of the poor girl who had struggled so 
 cheerfully with her new life of hardship and trial, her heart giew 
 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-—bui, 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 tc be made. 
 Selling a girl—throwing her in the way of temptation, and in¬ 
 sult, and coarse speech. Nearly two thousand pounds profit 
 from him already though. Pshaw 1 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 to day,” 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 teazing, 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 XXVII. 
 
 MBS. NICKLEBY BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH MESSRS. PYKE AND 
 
 PLUCK, WHOSE AFFECTION AND INTEREST ARE BEYOND ALT- 
 
 BOUNDS. 
 
 Mrs. Xickleby had uot 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 1—On Tuesday last, at St. George’s- 
 Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop of Llan- 
 dalf. Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North Wales, to 
 Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby, Esquire, 
 of Devonshire. “Upon my word 1” cried Mrs. Nicholas 
 Nickleby, “it sounds very well.” 
 
 Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivi¬ 
 ties, to the perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine 
 mother pictured to her imagination a long train of honors 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 birth-day, which was upon 
 tlie 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 intel¬ 
 ligence, 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 fellovvs, 
 might even contain a portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry 
 
 (387) 
 
*388 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 charm¬ 
 ing and agreeable. 
 
 With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs. Nickleby 
 occupy the whole evening after her accidenta,! introduction to 
 Ralph’s titled friends; and dreams, no less prophetic and 
 equally promising, haunted her sleep that night. She was pre¬ 
 paring for her frugal dinner next day, still occupied with the 
 same ideas—a little softened down perhaps by sleep and day¬ 
 light—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 gen¬ 
 tlemen were waiting in the passage for permission to walk up 
 stairs. 
 
 “ 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 courtesyed and smiled, and courtesyed again, 
 and remarked, rubbing her hands as she did so, that she hadn’t 
 the—really—the honor 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 889 
 
 “ Vei’y often, Pluck,” answered the second. 
 
 “But now,” said the first gentleman, “ now we have the hap¬ 
 piness 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 I’yke— 
 that reminds me,—formalities, formalities, must not be neglected 
 in civilized 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 you to determine.” 
 
 “Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk’s requires no better in 
 troduction to me,” observed Mrs. Nickleby, graciously. 
 
 “ It is delightful to hear you say so,” said Mr. Pluck, draw¬ 
 ing 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.” 
 
 “ 7!/y good opinion,” said Mrs. Nickleby, and the poor lady 
 exulted in the idea that she was marvelously sly,—“ my good 
 oi)inion can be of very little consequence to a gentleman like 
 Sir Mulberry.” 
 
 “ Of little consequence !” exclaimed Mr. Pluck. “Pjdce, of 
 what consequence to our friend. Sir Mulberry, is the good opi¬ 
 nion of Mrs. Nickleby?” 
 
 “ Of what consequence ?” echoed Pyke. 
 
 “ Aye,” 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—’• 
 
390 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Pluck,” said his friend, “beware I” 
 
 “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 em¬ 
 barrassment for some minutes, resumed the conversation by 
 entreating Mrs. Nickleby to take no heed of what he had inad¬ 
 vertently said—to consider him imprudent, rash, injudicious. 
 The only stipulation he would make in his own favor 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 ardor 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 honor 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 cnought 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 ex¬ 
 traordinary 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 891 
 
 ‘‘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 inter¬ 
 view. 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 colors. 
 
 “From Sir Mulberry,” replied Pyke. “You must be very 
 dull here.” 
 
 “Rather dull, I confess,” said Mrs. Kickleby. 
 
 “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 to-night,” 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 to-night,” retorted Mr. Pluck. “Pyke, 
 entreat Mrs. Kickleby.” 
 
 “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,” re¬ 
 monstrated Mr. Pluck; “not such a word in the vocabulary. 
 Your brother-in-law joins us. Lord Frederick joins us. Sir Mul¬ 
 berry 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 ?” 
 
 “ Ton are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to 
 say,” replied the worthy lady. 
 
 “ Say nothing ; not a word, not a wmrd, my dearest Madam,” 
 urged Mr. Pluck. “Mrs. Nickleby,” said that excellent gen¬ 
 tleman, lowering his voice, “there is the most trifling, the most 
 excusable breach of confidence in wdiat I am about to say; and 
 yet if my friend Pyke there overlieard it—such is that man’s 
 
 
892 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 delicate sense of honor, Mrs. Nickleby—^lie’d have ms out before 
 dinner-time.” 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike 
 Pyke, who had walked to the window; and Mr Pluck, squeez¬ 
 ing 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. Hera 1” 
 
 “ Hah !” cried Mr. Pyke, at this juncture, snatching some¬ 
 thing from the chimney-piece, with a theatrical air. “ What is 
 this 1 what do I behold 1” 
 
 “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 recognize it at this distance !” exclaimed Mr. Pluck in a 
 fit of enthusiasm. “Is it not, my dear Madam, the faint simili¬ 
 tude 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 evtravagant 
 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 earnest¬ 
 ness 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 over¬ 
 powered 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 ecsta¬ 
 sies 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: com¬ 
 prising a full description of the different apartments, not for- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 893 
 
 gelling 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 parlor-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 flour, if tfle mere mention of tflose imple¬ 
 ments flad not by an association of ideas, instantly reminded 
 Mr. Pyke that lie 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 mild half-and-half, posi¬ 
 tively and actually I’ll drink it.” 
 
 And positively and actually Mr. Pyke did drink it, and Mi. 
 Pluck helped him, while Mrs. Nickleby looked on in divided 
 admiration of the condescension of the two, and the aptitude 
 with w'hich 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 occa¬ 
 sionally 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, ris¬ 
 ing, “ 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. Niekleby’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-sighted¬ 
 ness 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 '’eiy first, that she saw how the case stood ? 
 
894 
 
 NICHOLAS NIGKLEBY. 
 
 And what a triumph it was, for there was no doubt about it 1 
 If these flattering attentions to herself were not sufficient proof, 
 Sir Mulberry’s confidential friend had suffered the secret to 
 escape him in so many words. “ I am quite in loi e vvith that 
 dear Mr. Pluck, I declare I am,” said Mrs. Nicklcby. 
 
 There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst oi this 
 good fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom sho 
 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 sta¬ 
 tion for us to make a companion of. Poor thing 1” 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 disrespect¬ 
 fully 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 tvuiting (o 
 escort her to her box; and so polite were they, that Mr. I’yke 
 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 ety¬ 
 mology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in 
 the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expres¬ 
 sion, lest something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr. 
 Pyke confined himself to mere verbal smifligation, and they 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 895 
 
 reached their box with no more serious interruption by tlie way, 
 than a desire on the part of the same pugnacious gentleman to 
 “smash” the assistant box-keeper for happening to mistake the 
 number. 
 
 jVJrs. Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the cur¬ 
 tain of the box in an arm chair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord 
 Yerisopht 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, hoi” thought that knowing lady; “wine in; truth 
 out.—You are very kind, Sir Mulberry.” 
 
 “ No, no, upon my soul 1” replied Sir MulbeiTy Hawk. “It’s 
 you that’s kind, upon my soul it is. It was so kind of you to 
 come to-night.” 
 
 “So very kind of you to invite me, you mean. Sir Mulberry,” 
 replied Mrs. Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodi¬ 
 giously 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 Mul¬ 
 berry, “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 1” replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby. “You have much too open and generous a counte¬ 
 nance for that.” 
 
 “ What an extraordinary observer you are 1” said Sir Mul¬ 
 berry Hawk. 
 
 “Oh no, indeed, I don’t see very far into things. Sir Mul¬ 
 berry,” 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 
 
396 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Eoul,” repeated Sir Mulberry, looking round to his companions; 
 ‘•'T 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 tooth-pick 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 
 bustle caused by a party entering the next box seemed tc 
 attract the attention of all four gentlemen, who exchanged 
 glances of much meaning. The new party beginning to con¬ 
 verse 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 1” replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm. 
 “Lord Frederick, do you recognize 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 mamma, thrusting 
 her head round the curtain. “ Why, actually—Kate, my dear 
 Kate.” 
 
 “ You here, mamma I Is it possible 1” 
 
 “Possible, my dear? Yes.” 
 
 “Why who—who on earth is that you have with yon, 
 mamma?” 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 39 < 
 
 “ Gracious Heaven I” thought Kate, hurriedly. “ How 
 comes she in such society I” 
 
 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 dis¬ 
 covery which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of 
 perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate’s be¬ 
 half; 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 1” 
 
 “It was mere fancy, mamma,—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 
 infoi'ining Kate of this circumstance, she was obliged to extend 
 her own Sir Mulberry detained it while he murmured a pro¬ 
 fusion of compliments, which Kate, remembering wha,t had 
 jiassed between them, rightly considered as so many aggrava¬ 
 tions 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. Wit- 
 
398 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 itterly’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 o])por- 
 tunity 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 con¬ 
 venience 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 interasting,” replied Lord Yerisopht. 
 
 “ I’m always ill after Shakspeare,” said Mrs. Wititterly. “ 1 
 scarcely exist the next day; I find the re-action so very great 
 after a tragedy, my lord, and Shakspeare is such a delicious 
 creature.” 
 
 “Ye—es !” replied Lord Yerisopht. “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 1 
 Were you ever there, my lord ?” 
 
 “No, nayver,” replied Yerisopht. 
 
 “ 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 Yerisopht. “I shall certainly go 
 there.” 
 
 “Julia, my life,” interposed Mr. Wititterly, “you are de- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 39S 
 
 cciving 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 deal 
 —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 poor dear Mr. Nickleby, 
 in a post-chaise from Birmingham—was it a post-chaise thougli I” 
 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 Shakspeare’s tomb 
 and birth-place, 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 
 Baris, with a lay down collar tied with two tassels, leaning 
 against a post and thinking; and when I awoke in the morning 
 and described him to Mr. Nickleby, he said it was Shakspeare 
 just as he had been when he was alive, which was very curious 
 indeed. Stratford—Stratford,” continued Mrs. Nickleby, con¬ 
 sidering. “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 beeii very much frightened by an Italian image boy that 
 very morning. In fact, it was quite a merej", Ma’am,” added 
 !Mrs. Nickleby, in a whisper to Mrs. Wititterly, “that my sou 
 didn’t turn out to be a Shakspeare, 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, 
 ['roposed 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 con¬ 
 trary, 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, j)luming 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. Plurlv who, having been ap- 
 
dOO 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 pointed sentry over Mrs. Nickleby for that especial purpose, 
 neglected, on his side, no possible opportunity of engrossing her 
 attention. 
 
 Lord Frederick Yerisopht 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. Witit¬ 
 terly, he was sufficiently busy in the body of the house, inform¬ 
 ing such of his friends and acquaintance as happened to be 
 there, that those two gentlemen up stairs, 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 housekeepers with the utmost jealousy and rage, 
 and reduced sixtemi unmarried daughters to the very brink of 
 despair. 
 
 The evening came to an end at last, but Kate had yet to be 
 handed down stairs by the detested Sir Mulberry; and so skill¬ 
 fully 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 
 bttle 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, Sirl” 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 ill the bitterest detestation and contempt. Sir,” 
 said Kate. “ If you find any attraction in looks of disgust and 
 eversion, you—let me rejoin my friends, Sir, instantly. What¬ 
 ever considerations may have withheld me thus far, I will dis* 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 401 
 
 re|:ard 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 retain¬ 
 ing 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,—“1 have a brother who will resent it dearly, one day.” 
 
 “ Upon my soul I” 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 1” 
 
 How Kate reached the lobby where her friends were waiting 
 she never knew, but she hurried across it without at all regard¬ 
 ing 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 by¬ 
 standers ; 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 con¬ 
 sternation. At length, the conveyance in which she had come 
 rolled 0 0' 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 ray fellow, and then 
 established ourselves close by with the mother, these people’s 
 honor 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 
 26 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 40‘i 
 
 piai. swear never to help him in his plots and schemes again ? 
 Isn’t it an infernal shame ?” 
 
 Tyke 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 reverme on the German baron and the 
 Frenchman, who cleaned you out so liandsomely last night.” 
 
 With these words the fidendly creature took his companion’s 
 arm and led him away, turning half round as he did so, and be¬ 
 stowing a wink and a contemptuous smile on JMessrs. Pyke and 
 Pluck, who, cramming their handkerchiefs into their mouths to 
 denote their silent enjoyment of the whole proceedings, Idllowed 
 their patron and his victim at a little distance. 
 
CHAPTER XXYIII. 
 
 MISS NICKLEBY, RENDERED DESPERATE BY THE PERSECUTION 
 OP SIR MULBERRY HAWK, AND THE COMPLICATED DIFFICUL- 
 I'JES 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 reiain 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 conqueralfle by a man of his address and expe¬ 
 rience, and that the pursuit was one which could not fail to re¬ 
 dound to his credit, and greatly to enhance his reputation with 
 the world. And lest this last consideration—no mean or secon¬ 
 dary 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 am¬ 
 bitious for distinction and applause. Sir Mulberry’s world was 
 ])eop]ed with profligates, and he acted accordingly. 
 
 Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and tlie 
 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 oiniiion of the woi'ld; but there is no greater fal¬ 
 lacy ; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their 
 
 (403) 
 
404 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 ovvn little world tiiat 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 MulbeiTy 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 with¬ 
 out knowing its ways, communicated a great many subtle pre¬ 
 cepts 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 ardor, “ 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 installment 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 illegi¬ 
 ble 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 iucon- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 405 
 
 venient 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 laboring 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 excite¬ 
 ment 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 her¬ 
 self and the youthful Colonel Befillaire, in the Duke of Mince- 
 fenille’s salon de danse on the previous night. ‘ Cherizelte, 
 ma chere, donnez-moi de Veau-de- Cologne, sHl vous plait, mon 
 enfant. 
 
 ]\Iercie —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-chiseled nose, the door of the boudoir (art¬ 
 fully concealed by rich hangings of silken damask, the hue of 
 Italy’s firmament) was thrown open, and with noiseless tread 
 two valcts-de-chambre, clad in sumptuous liveries of peach- 
 blossom and gold, advanced into the room, followed by a page in 
 has 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 biUr.l. 
 
406 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 “The Lady Flabella, with an agitation she could not re¬ 
 press, hastily tore olf the envelope and broke the scented seal. 
 It was from Belillaire—the young, the slim, the low-voiced— 
 her own Belillaire.” 
 
 “ Oh, charming !” interrupted Kate’s patroness, who was 
 sometimes taken literary. “ Poetic, really. Read that descrip¬ 
 tion 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 to-day; 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 any thing 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 eying 
 Kate through her glass. 
 
 “ I met them at my uncle’s,” said Kate, vexed to feel that she 
 was coloring deeply, but unable to keep down the blood which 
 rushed to her face whenever she thought of that man 
 
 “ Have you knowm them long ?” 
 
 “No,” rty’oined Kate. “Not long.” 
 
 “ I was very glad of the opportunity which that respectable 
 person, your mother, gave us of being knowm to them,” said 
 Mrs. Wititterly, in a lofty manner. “ Some friends of ours 
 w'ere on the very point of introducing us, which makes it quite 
 remarkable.” 
 
 This w'as said lest Miss Nickleby should grow conceited on 
 the honor and dignity of having known four great people (for 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 407 
 
 Pyke and Plnck were included among the deliglitful 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 to-day ?” Kate ventured to inquire. 
 
 Mrs. Wititterly’s answer was lost in the noise of a tremen¬ 
 dous rapping at the street-door, and, before it had ceased to 
 vibrate, there drove uj) a handsome cabriolet, out of which leaped 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend Lord Yerisopht. 
 
 “ They are here now,” said Kate, rising and hurrying away. 
 
 “Miss Nicklcby I” cried Mrs. Wititterly, perfectly aghast at 
 a companion’s attempting to quit the room, without her per¬ 
 mission first had and obtained. “Pray don’t think of going.” 
 
 “You are very good 1” 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 Yerisopht, and Sir Mul 
 berry Hawk, all at one burst. 
 
 “ The most extraordinary thing in the world,” said Mr. Pluck, 
 saluting both ladies with the utmost cordiality; “the most ex¬ 
 traordinary thing. As Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove 
 u]^ to the door, Pyke and I had at that instant knocked.” 
 
 “That instant knocked,” said Pyke. 
 
 “ No matter how you came, so tliat you are here,” said jMrs. 
 W iiitterly, 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 
 wliole 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. 
 
408 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “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 every thing,” 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, deyvlishl” replied Yerisopht. Having given utter¬ 
 ance to which remarkable sentiment, he occupied himself as 
 before. 
 
 “Neither does Miss Nickleby look the worse,” said Sir Mul¬ 
 berry, bending his bold gaze upon her. “ She was always 
 handsome, but, upon my soul. Ma’am, you seem to have im¬ 
 parted some of your own good looks to her besides.” 
 
 To judge from the glow which suffused the poor girl’s counte¬ 
 nance 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 Mul¬ 
 berry was not quite so agreeable a creature as she had at first 
 supposed him ; for, although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful 
 companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste be¬ 
 comes 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 any body,” demanded Mr. Pluck, mysteriously, 
 "any body you know, that Mrs. Wititterly’s profile reminds 
 you of?” 
 
 “Reminds me ofl” 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 409 
 
 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 doclarcil, 
 upon the testimony of two veracious and competent witnesses, 
 to be the very picture of a countess I This w^as one of the con¬ 
 sequences of getting into good society. Why, she might have 
 moved among groveling 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 wdth 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 wms absolutely obliged to make some 
 reply. Meanwhile, Lord Verisopht enjoyed unmolested the full 
 flavor 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 favorite topic. 
 
 “ My lord,” said Mr. Wititterly, “ I am delighed—honored—• 
 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 wms bursting with pride and 
 arrogance, she w^ould 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 INIr. Wititterly’s feelings w'ere beyond the powder of sup 
 pression. 
 
 “ It is an honor, indeed I” said Mr. Wititterly. “ Julia, my 
 soul, you will suffer for this to-morrow.” 
 
 “ Suffer 1” 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 
 
410 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 delicate creature at this moment, he would not give a—a —thin 
 for her life.” In illustration of which remark, Mr. Wititterly 
 took a pinch of snuif from his box and jerked it lightly into the 
 air as an emblem of instability. 
 
 “ Not said Mr, Wititteidy, 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 honor, but had determined to bear it as meekly as 
 might be. 
 
 “ Mrs. Wititterly,” said her husband, “is Sir Tumley Snuffim’s 
 favorite 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 inde¬ 
 fatigable 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 recommenda¬ 
 tion,” 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 any body, my lord,” added 
 ISfr. AVititterly, 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 pronqfily remarked that certainly nothing 
 could be fairer than tliat; and the call having been by this 
 time j)rotracted to a very great length, they obeyed Sir Mub 
 
IIICHOLAS NICKLEBy. 
 
 411 
 
 berry’s look, and rose to go. This brought Sir IMulberry him¬ 
 self 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 Wilitterlys 
 would be honored by receiving them beneath its roof. 
 
 That th^y 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 
 dependents, involved in the successful reduction of her pride—• 
 that she had no intervals of peace or rest, except at those hours 
 w'hen 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, Pvke 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 Yerisopht, 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 humor, vulgarity softened itseli 
 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 wdth high folks. 
 
 If the mistress put such a construction upon the behavior 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 I 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 
 
412 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 any 
 where, they were especially so where the lady of the house was 
 a mere animated doll. The consequence wms, 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’a 
 ill-humors 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 Yerisopht 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 be¬ 
 came 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 Nick¬ 
 leby.’’ Here Mrs. Wititterly tossed her head—not passionately, 
 only virtuously—and remarked, with some appearance of excite¬ 
 ment, that she feared that palpitation of the heart was coming 
 on again. 
 
 “Your behavior. 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, Mies 
 Nickleby, you will not, if you go on as you do.” 
 
 “ Ma’am I” exclaimed Kate, proudly. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 dl3 
 
 “ Don’t agitate me by speaking in that way, Miss Nickleby, 
 don’t,” said Mrs. Wititterly, with some violence, “ or jou’ll com¬ 
 pel 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 say¬ 
 ing what I am going to say, which I feel to be a religious duty. 
 You needn’t direct your glances towards me,” said Mrs. Witit- 
 tcrly, with a sudden burst of spite ; “ I am not Sir Mulberry ; 
 no, nor Lord Frederick Yerisopht, 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 any body would have 
 believed it.” 
 
 “I don’t think they would,” murmured Kate. “I do not 
 think any body would believe, without actually knowing it, what 
 I seem doomed to undergo !” 
 
 “ Don’t talk to me of being doomed to undergo. Miss Nick¬ 
 leby, 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. 
 
 “Ido 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 
 Btill, 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 behavior to the gentlemen who visit at this bouse. It 
 
414 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 really is not becoming,” said Mrs. Wititterly, closing her cLaste 
 eyes as she spoke : “it is improper—quite improper.” 
 
 “ Oh 1” 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 
 ehamo 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, willfully untrue. Is 
 it. possible I” cried Kate, “that any one of my own sex can have 
 sat by, and not have seen the misery these men have caused me 1 
 Is it possible that you. Ma’am, can have been present, and 
 failed to mark the insulting freedom that their every look be¬ 
 spoke ? Is it possible that you can have avoided seeing, tha!, 
 these libertines, in their utter disrespect for you, and utter dis¬ 
 regard of all gentlemanly behavior 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 S 3 unpathy ? I do not—I cannot believe it!” 
 
 If poor Kate had possessed the slightest knowledge of the 
 v/orld, she certainly would not have ventured, even in the ex¬ 
 citement into which she had been lashed, upon such an injudi¬ 
 cious 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 moat heroic fortitude to Kate’s account of 
 her own sufferings. But allusion being made to her being held 
 iu disregard by the gentlemen, she evinced violent emotion, and 
 this blow was no sooner followed up by the remark concerning 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 415 
 
 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! lookup, 
 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 SnufiBra, 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. Witit¬ 
 terly 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 suras 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 
 ))rofits, they would not fail to be excited for the purpose. 
 
 “Yery 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 
 
416 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 his known character and conduct against the power of money- 
 dross, as he calls it. Why, what a dull blockhead this fellow 
 must be 1 Dross too—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 sub¬ 
 stituted in its stead an empty purse. “There,” said Ralph, 
 “nom 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 some¬ 
 thing more of kindness in his manner than he would have ex¬ 
 hibited towards any body 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. 
 
 “ 1 can guess the cause of this !” thought Ralph, after look¬ 
 ing 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 417 
 
 “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 1” cried Ralph, sternly, “/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 
 wen,—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, il 
 was most dastardly and cruel.” 
 
 Ralph drew back in utter amazement at this plain speaking, 
 and regarded Kate with his sternest look. But she met hia 
 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 I” 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 to¬ 
 day beyond all endurance, and, come what may, / 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, coloring 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 fell you that I am wretched, and that my heart is 
 27 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 4ia 
 
 breaking, I am sure you will help me, I am sure, 1 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, com¬ 
 pelled to assume the appearance of clieerfulness, when I was 
 most unhappy, I have had no counselor, no adviser, no one to 
 protect me. Mamma supposes that these are honorable men, 
 rich and distinguished, and how ca)i 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,’’' re¬ 
 joined Kate, emphatically. “Would not a word from you in¬ 
 duce them to desist from this unmanly course ?” 
 
 “No,” said Ralph, suddenly turning; “at least—that—1 
 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 
 wdiether she had heard aright. 
 
 “We are connected in business,” said Ralph, poising him¬ 
 self 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 I” cried Kate. 
 
 “I don’t say,” rejoined Ralph, raising his fore-finger, “but 
 that you do right to despise them; no, you show your gc od 
 sense in that, as indeed I knew from the first you would. Well 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 419 
 
 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 driveling inanities in your ears, what of it ? It’s a 
 dishonorable 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 feel¬ 
 ing, and despised by all honest and honorable men; sunken in 
 my own esteem, and degraded in every eye that looks upon me 
 No, not if I work ray fingers to the bone, not if I am driven to 
 the roughest and hardest labor. 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 ray mother by hard service, I will live 
 at least, in peace, and trust in God to help me.” 
 
 With these wmrds, 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 Newsman, gliding out of his recess, and accom¬ 
 panying her across the hall. “ Don’t cry, don’t cry.” Two 
 very large tears, by-the-by, were running down Newman’s face 
 ns 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 noi to give way before him. Yes, yes ! Ha, ha, ha 1 Oh, 
 j'es. Poor thing !” 
 
 With these disjointed exclamations, Newman wiped his owu 
 
420 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 1 ha 1 And so shall somebody else too. 
 Yes, yes. Ho 1 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 1 Ho 1 ho 1 ho I” 
 
 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 be¬ 
 coming 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 pre¬ 
 cisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he hated 
 them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul. 
 
 “Ughl” said Ralph, scowling round and shaking his 
 clinched hand as the faces of the two profligates rose up be¬ 
 fore his mind; “ you shall pay for this. Oh I you shall pay 
 for this 1” 
 
 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 pre¬ 
 caution in a man of sedentary habits, with the view of opening 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 421 
 
 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 ob¬ 
 server, that his imagination was threshing, to within an inch 
 of his life, his body’s most active employer, Mr. Ralph Nickleby. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE PROCEEDINGS OF NICHOLAS, AND CERTAIN INTERNAL 
 DIVISIONS IN THE COMPANY OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES. 
 
 The unexpected success and favor with which his experiment 
 at Portsmouth had been received, induced Mr. Crummies 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. Nicho¬ 
 las assenting to the terms proposed, the benefit was had, and 
 by it he realized no less a sum than twenty pounds. 
 
 Possessed of this unexpected wealth, his first act was to in¬ 
 close 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 
 realized, 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. lie 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 11” rejoined Nicholas, with assumed gayety, for the 
 confession would have made the boy miserable all night; “I was 
 thinking about my sister, Smike.” 
 
 (422) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 423 
 
 '' Sister I’ 
 
 “ Aye.” 
 
 “ Ts she like you ?” inquired Smike. 
 
 “Why, so they say,” replied Nicholas, laughing, “only a grea 
 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. 
 
 “Any body 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 mo 
 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 occupa¬ 
 tion. Before he could open it, Mr. Folair, the pantomimist, thrust 
 in his head. 
 
 Mr. Folair’s head was usually decorated with a very rouna 
 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 oart forward in consequence of its be 
 
424 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ing the least rusty; round his neck he wore a flaming red 
 worsted comforter, whereof the straggling ends peeped out be¬ 
 neath his threadbare Newmarket coat, which was very tight 
 and buttoned ail 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 deui'^n- 
 strated a far more scrupulous attention to his toilet, than be 
 was in the habit of bestowing upon it. 
 
 “ Good evening. Sir,” said Mr. Folair, taking off the tall hat, 
 and running bis fingers through his hair. “ I bring a commu¬ 
 nication. Hera 1” 
 
 “From whom, and what about?” inquired Nicholas. "You 
 are unusually mysterious to-night.” 
 
 "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 whitey-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 favor 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 to-morrow 
 morning it will be most convenient to him to meet Mr. L. at 
 the Theati’e, 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 professioual 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 42C 
 
 friends to witness the ceremony, and cannot disappoint them 
 upon any account whatever. 
 
 “PortsinouLh, Tuesday nighV 
 
 Indignant as he was at this impertinence, tiiere was some 
 thing 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. “ Ilad you no fear of being kicked 
 down stairs. 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 'ery 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 otf. Sir.” 
 
 “Pooh 1 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 tn such jokes 
 
426 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 aerain,” said Isicholas, “ or you may find an allusion to pulling 
 noses rather a dangerous reminder for the subject of your face¬ 
 tiousness. Was it written in joke too, pray ?” 
 
 “No, no, that’s the best of it,” returned the actor; “right 
 down earnest—honor 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, sittting him¬ 
 self 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, 
 ne^er 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 \^dth 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 profes¬ 
 sional reputation being at stake,” said Mr. Folair, quite seri¬ 
 ously. “ 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, stop¬ 
 ping to make a calculation in his mind, “ it would have been 
 worth—ah, if 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 m 
 
 had got him an engagement in London. Ilovyever, he was 
 obliged to try some other mode of getting popular, and this 
 one occurred to him. It’s a 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, scratch¬ 
 ing his head, “ because there wouldn’t be any romance about it, 
 and he wouldn’t be favorably 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, to-morrow 
 morning. In the mean time, you can give what ever 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 scru- 
 pulons, Nicholas had not much doubt but that he had secretly 
 prompted the tragedian in the course he had taken, and, more¬ 
 over, 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 
 Avorth his while to be serious with him, hoAvever, 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 atvay to 
 confer Avith his principal, and give such an account of his pro¬ 
 ceedings as he might think best calculated to carry on the joke. 
 
 lie had no doubt reported that Nicholas Avas in a state of 
 extreme bodily fear ; for Avhen 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, Avith his severest stage face, 
 sitting majestically on a table, whistling defiance. 
 
428 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Now the lavlies were on the side of Nicholas, and the gentle¬ 
 men (being jealous) were on the side of the disappointed trage¬ 
 dian ; so that the latter formed a little group about the redoubt¬ 
 able 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 1” returned Mr. Lenville, flourishing his right arm, 
 and approaching Nicholas with a theatrical stride. But some¬ 
 how he appeai’ed 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 assem¬ 
 bled ladies burst into a shrill laugh. 
 
 “ Object of my scorn and hatred I” said Mr. Lenville, " I hold 
 ye in contempt.” 
 
 Nicholas laughed in very unexpected enjoyment of this per¬ 
 formance ; 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 I” 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 every body knows, express defiance on the stage. 
 "They shall not protect ye—boy I” 
 
 Thus speaking, Mr. Lenville folded his arms, and treated 
 Nicholas to that expression of face with which, in melo-dramatio 
 performances, he was in the habit of regarding the tyrannical 
 kings, when they said, "Away with him to the deepest dungeon 
 beneath the castle moatand which, accompanied with a little 
 Jingling of fetters, had been known to produce great elfects 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 humor expressed in his 
 countenance; in which stage of the contest, one or two gentle¬ 
 men who had come out expressly to witness the pulling of 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 429 
 
 Nicholas’s nose, grew impatient, murmuring that if it were to 
 be dono at all, it had better be done at once, and that if Mr. 
 Leiiville didn’t mean to do it he had better say so, and not 
 keep them waiting there. Thus urged, the tragedian adjusted 
 the culf of his right coat sleeve for the performance of the ope¬ 
 ration, and walked in a very stately manner up to Nicholas, who 
 Buffered 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 thisT’ 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, “apologize 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 apologize.” 
 
 “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 care¬ 
 ful, 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 jiicked 
 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. 
 
 I’hc profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that night, 
 and the people who had been most anxious to have his nose 
 
430 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 pulled in tlie 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 proper!}', who 
 was a most unbearable fellow, and on whom they had all, by a 
 remarkable coineidence, at one time or other, contemplated the 
 infliction of condign punishment, which they had only been re¬ 
 el rained 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. Crummies’s company, 
 
 Nicholas bore his triumph, as he had his success in the little 
 world of the theatre, with the utmost moderation and good 
 humor. The crest-fallen 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 con¬ 
 trived to make himself master of the contents, which were cer¬ 
 tainly 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 w'ant 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 Avere in good health—but he thought cir¬ 
 cumstances might occur, or were occurring, which would render 
 it absolutely necessary that Kate should have her brother’s pro¬ 
 tection, 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 the 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 re- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLLBY. 
 
 •13] 
 
 flection assured Lim that if such a step were necessary, Newman 
 would have spoken out and told him so at once. 
 
 “At all events, I should prepare tliem here for the possibility 
 of my going oAvay suddenly,” said Nicholas ; “I should lose no 
 time in doing that.” As the thought occurred to him, lie took 
 up his hat and hurried to the green-room. 
 
 “Well, Mr. Johnson,” said Mrs. Crunrmles, who was seated 
 there in full regal costume, with the phenomenon as the IMaiden 
 in her maternal arms, “next week for Hyde, then for Winches¬ 
 ter, 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. Crummies, raising her hands in aston¬ 
 ishment. 
 
 “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. Crummies. “Hoity 
 toity ! nonsense.” 
 
 The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature,- and more¬ 
 over excitable, raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney and Muss 
 Bravassa actually shed tears. Even the male performers stopjied 
 in their conversation, and echoed the word “Going!” although 
 some among them (and they had been the loudest in their con¬ 
 gratulations that day) winked at each other as though they 
 would not be sorry to lose such a favored 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 nigh!", 
 and how constantly and incessantly present to his imagination 
 was tlie one idea that Kate in the midst of some great trouble 
 and distress might even then be looking—and vainly too—for 
 him! 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FESTIVITIES ARE HELD IN HONOR OP NICHOLAS, WHO SUD¬ 
 DENLY WITHDRAWS HI5ISELP FROM THE SOCIETY OP 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 com¬ 
 pany, 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 appertain¬ 
 ing 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. Crummies 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. Crummies, taking oif 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 to-morrow.” 
 
 “ But perliaps 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. Crummies. “ We can 
 have positively your last appearance, on Thursday—re-engage¬ 
 ment for one night more, on Friday—and, yielding to the wishes 
 of numerous influential patrons, who were disappointed in ob- 
 
 (d32) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 433 
 
 tainiiig 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. Crummies, with 
 a look of disappointment. “ What do you think of a brilliant 
 display of fireworks ?” 
 
 “ That it would be rather expensive,” replied Nicholas, 
 dryly. 
 
 “Eighteenpence would do it,” said Mr. Crummies. “You 
 on the top of a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an atti¬ 
 tude ; ‘ 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. Crummies 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 legi¬ 
 timate drama. 
 
 For the purpose of carrying this object into instant execution, 
 the manager at once repaired to a small dressing-room adjacent, 
 where Mrs. Crummies was then occupied in exchanging the 
 ha))iliraents of a melo-dramatic 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 ex¬ 
 actly where the largest capitals ought to go), he seriously applied 
 himself to the composition of the poster. 
 
 28 
 
431 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBl 
 
 “ 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 woolen night-cap, and a red nose, and 
 other distinctive marks peculiar to tailors on the stage. “Ileigho i 
 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 recognizing Miss Snevellicci. 
 “I would not have made it if I had known you had been within 
 hearing.” 
 
 “What a dear that Mr. Digby isl” 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 1” 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 ques¬ 
 tioned, 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 w'ere coining gold by it 1” 
 
 “ 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 ^liss Snevellicci, “isn’t he?” 
 
 “ God help him, and those who have made him so, he is in¬ 
 deed,” 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 couversatVia, 
 “Nobody can ever get any thing out of him.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 4S5 
 
 ‘*What should they get out of him ?” asked Nicholas, traming 
 round with some abruptness. 
 
 “ Zooks I 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 1 it is pretty plain, I should think, that he hag 
 not the intellect to have been about any thing of much import¬ 
 ance to them or any body else,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “Aye,” rejoined the actor, contemplating the effect of hia 
 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 every body’s mouth.” 
 
 “ The ‘ every body’ 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 Crummies keeps it up for his own sake ; 
 though Lenville says he don’t believe there’s any thing at all In 
 it, except your having got into a scrajae and run away from 
 somewhere, for doing something or other.” 
 
 “Oh I” 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. lie 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 pick¬ 
 pocket hovering about the coach-stand who had exactly the 
 
436 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 face of Digby ; though, as he very properly says, Digby may not 
 be the same, but only his brother, or some near relation.” 
 
 “ Oh 1” 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 I 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 favorite 
 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 Crummies 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 ns, and 
 bandy from mouth to mouth I” 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 any thing of the kind,” 
 returned Miss Snevellicci. “You must come home and see 
 mamma, who only came to Portsmouth to-day, 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 437 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lillyvick have taken lodgings in our house, 
 and share our sitting-room for the present,” said Miss Snevel- 
 licci. Won’t that induce you ?” 
 
 ” Surely,” returned Nicholas, “ I can require no possible 
 inducement beyond your invitation.” 
 
 “ Oh no! I dare saj^,” rejoined Miss Snevellicci. And INliss 
 Ledrook said, "Upon my word I” Upon which Miss Snevellicci 
 said that Miss Ledrook was a giddy thing; and Miss Ledrook 
 said that Miss Snevellicci needn’t color 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 1” 
 
 Miss Ledrook made no answer, but taking Smike’s arm in 
 hers, left her friend and Nicholas to follow at their pleasure; 
 ■w'hich it pleased them, or rather pleased Nicholas, who had no 
 great fancy for a tete-a-tete under the circumstances, to do at 
 /)nce. 
 
 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 band- 
 box, 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 
 
438 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 curiosity, and they walked on : both ladies giggling very much, 
 and decdaring 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 mamma, 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 fore-fingers of his right hand in between the two centre but¬ 
 tons, 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 every thing a little, but not much; who had been some¬ 
 times 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 alvrays 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 Snevellici’s papa, upon whom some envious per¬ 
 sons cast the imputation that he occasionally beat Miss Snevel- 
 lii.ci’s mamma, 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 back-ground. 
 
 To these good people Nicholas was presented with much 
 foi'inality. The introduction being completed. Miss Snevel¬ 
 licci’s papa (who was scented with rum and water) said that he 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 '189 
 
 was dtlighted 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 ot his 
 fJend jNlr. GlaTorraelly, at the Coburg. 
 
 “ You have seen him. Sir ?” said Miss Suevellicci’s papa. 
 
 "No, realiy 1 never did,” reidied Nicholas. 
 
 "Y'ou never saw my friend Glavormelly, Sir I” 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 Air. Snevellicci, “ but he isn’t in TVestminster 
 
 Abbey, more’s the shame. lie was a-. Well, no matter. 
 
 n e is gone to that bourn from whence no traveler returns. I 
 hope he is appreciated there.''' 
 
 So saying, Aliss 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, Air. 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 I” said Nicholas, laughing. 
 
 “All! nothing like it. Sir,” replied Air. Lillyvick solemnly 
 “ ITow do you think,” whispered the collector, drawing him 
 aside, “ How do you think she looks to-night ?” 
 
 “ As handsome as ever,” replied Nicholas, glancing at the 
 late Aliss Petowker. 
 
 “Why, there’s a air about her. Sir,” whispered the collector, 
 “ that I never saw in any body. Look at her now she moves 
 to put the kettle on. There 1 Isn’t it fascination, Sir ?” 
 
 “You’re a lucky man,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “Ha, ha, ha!” rejoined the collector. “No. Do you think 
 [ am though, eh ? Perhai)S 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 your¬ 
 self, could you—eh—could you?” AVilh such inquiries, and 
 many more such. Air. Lillyvick jerked his elbow into Nicholas’s 
 side, and chuckled till his face became quite pur})le in the 
 attempt to keep down his satisfaction. 
 
 By this time the cloth had been laid under the joint snperin- 
 
440 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ieudence of all the ladies, upon two tables put together, one be¬ 
 ing 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 bed¬ 
 room ; Miss Snevellicci sat at the head of the table, and Mr, 
 Lillyvick at the foot; and Nicholas had not only the honor of 
 sitting next Miss Snevellicci, but of having Miss Snevellicci’s 
 mamma 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 Lcdrook, 
 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 Snevel¬ 
 licci’s papa looked very big indeed—several sizes larger than 
 life—at every body 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 441 
 
 “ Don’t what, my child ?” 
 
 “Talk in that way.” 
 
 “Why not?” said Mr. Snevellicci. “1 hope yon don’t suppose 
 there’s any body 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 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 clinched fist; pulled a phantom 
 nose with his right thumb and fore-finger, and swallowed an¬ 
 other 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 dig¬ 
 nified—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 honor of his acquaintance. 
 
 Thus Mr. Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glass- 
 full than he smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of 
 having exhibited symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed “ The 
 ladies—bless their hearts 1” in a most vivacious manner. 
 
 “I love ’em,” said ISIr. 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. 
 
442 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “1 love them too, Sir,” said Mr. Snevellicci- 
 
 The collector looked into the snrronnding faces with an aspect 
 of grave astonishment, seeming to say, “ This is a nice man I” 
 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 
 Lilly vick! 
 
 The collector fell back in his chair in the intensity of his 
 astonishment. If any body had winked at her as Henrietta 
 Petowker, it would have been indecorous in the last degree; 
 but as Ml'S. Lillyvick! While he thought of it in a cold per¬ 
 spiration, and wondered whether it was possible that he could 
 be dreaming, Mr. Snevellicci repeated the wdnk, and drinking 
 to Mrs. Lillyvick in dumb show, actually blew her a kiss 1 Mr. 
 Lillyvick left his chair, walked straight up to the other end of 
 the table, and fell upon him—literally fell upon him—instanta¬ 
 neously. Mr. Lillyvick was no light weight, and conse¬ 
 quently 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, divifig 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, whoso 
 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 
 any thing to me.” 
 
 “ Said, Henrietta I” cried the collector. 
 
 “ Didn’t I see 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBF. 
 
 443 
 
 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 I” repeated Mrs. Lillyvick, contemptuously. “You 
 ought to go down on you knees and beg every body’s pardon, 
 that you ought.” 
 
 “ Pardon, ray 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 ice 
 shouldn’t be the first to speak, if there was any thing that 
 ought to be taken notice of?” 
 
 “ Do you suppose they dont’t know. Sir ?” said Miss Snevel- 
 licci’s papa, pulling up his collar, and muttering something 
 about a punching of heads, and being only withheld by conside¬ 
 rations 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, 
 end incontcstible 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 Ills 
 own interest, he might have been rolling at that moment in his 
 eharict-and-four. These reminiscences auneared to awaken ao 
 
444 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEB5r. 
 
 v'ery torturing pangs in the breast of Mrs. Snevellicci, who waa 
 sufficiently occupied in descanting to Nicholas upon the mani¬ 
 fold 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 atten¬ 
 tions 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 behavior 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 colors of the rainbow, and in letters 
 afflicted with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how 
 that Mr. Johnson would have the honor of making his last ap¬ 
 pearance that evening, and how that an early application for 
 places was requested, in consequence of the extraordinary over¬ 
 flow attendant on his performances,—it being a remarkable fact 
 in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dis¬ 
 pute, that it is a hopeless endeavor 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. Crummies approached, and in an agi¬ 
 tated tone of voice, informed him that there was a London 
 manager in the boxes. 
 
 “It’s the phenomenon, depend upon it. Sir,” said Crummies, 
 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 sha’n’t engage her either, unless they 
 engage Mrs. Crummies 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 445 
 
 that. They must taVe 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 
 Crummies taking several huge pinches of snulF to compose his 
 feelings, hurried away to tell Mrs. Crummies that he had quite 
 settled the only terms that could be accepted, and had resolved 
 not to abate one single farthing. 
 
 When every body was dressed and the curtain went up, tho 
 excitement occasioned by the presence of the London manager 
 increased a thousandfold. Every body 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 expec¬ 
 tation. Some of those who were not on in the first scene, hur¬ 
 ried 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 Lon¬ 
 don manager. Once the London manager was seen to smile— 
 he smiled at the comic countryman’s pretending to catch a blue¬ 
 bottle, while Mrs. Crummies was making her greatest elfect 
 ” Very good, my line fellow,” said Mr. Crummies, shaking his 
 fist at the comic countryman when he came off, “you leave this 
 company next Saturday n’ght.” 
 
 In the same way, every body who was on the stage beheld no 
 audience but one individual; every body played to the Loudon 
 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 Bra- 
 vassa sang her scng 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. Crummies 
 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 ho woke up and went away, whereupon all tl e company 
 
446 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 fell foul of the unhappy comic ijountryman, declaring that hia 
 buffoonery was the sole cause; and Mr. Crummies 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, 
 wdiose only feeling upon the subject was one of sincere satisfac¬ 
 tion that the great man went away before he appeared. He 
 vt^ent through his part in the two last pieces as briskly as he 
 could, and having been received with unbounded favor and 
 unprecedented applause—so said the bills for next day, which 
 had been printed an hour or tv.’o 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 lodg¬ 
 ings of Mr. Crummies, applied his hand to the knocker with 
 such hearty good-will, that he awakened that gentleman, who 
 was still in bed, and caused Mr. Bnlph the pilot to take his 
 morning’s pi[)e very nearly out of his mouth iii the extremity 
 of his surprise. 
 
 The door being opened, Nicholas ran up stairs without any 
 ceremony, and bursting into the darkened sitting-room on the 
 one pair front, found that the two Master Crnmmleses 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. Crummies came down 
 in a flannel gown and nightcap; and to him Nicholas briefly 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 447 
 
 explained that circumstances had occurred which rendered it 
 necessary for him to repair to London immediately, 
 
 “ So good-by,” said Nicholas ; “ good-by, good-by.” 
 
 He was half-way down stairs before Mr. Crummies had suffi¬ 
 ciently 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 Crummies. “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. Crummies?” 
 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 1” 
 
 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. Crummies, 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 1 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. Crummies being in a moralizing mood, might possibly 
 have moralized for some minutes longer if he had not mecha¬ 
 nically 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 
 coutemplation of the extreme scantiness of his attire, he shut the 
 door abru])tly, and retired up stairs with great precipitation. 
 
 Sinikc had made goo.d speed while Nicholas was absent, and 
 with his help every thing 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 
 
418 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with the haste they had made to reach it in time. There were 
 yet a few minutes to spare, so, having secured tlie 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 mzzt uncommon fit, Nicholas would have 
 purchased it in his impacience 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 asto¬ 
 nished 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. Crum¬ 
 mies exclaim, “ It is he—my friend—my friend !” 
 
 “Bless my heart,” cried Nicholas, struggling in the mana¬ 
 ger’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. Crummies, who could never lose any oppor¬ 
 tunity 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 succes¬ 
 sion of stage embraces, which, as every body knows, are per¬ 
 formed by the embracer’s laying his or her chin on tho shoulder 
 of the object of affection, and looking over it. This Mr. 
 Crummies did in the highest style of melo-drama, pouring forth 
 at the same time all the most di«!tnal forms of farewell he could 
 think of, out of the stock pieces. Nor was this all, for the 
 elder Master Crummies was going through a similar ceremony 
 with Smike; while Master Percy Crummies, with a very little 
 second-hand camlet cloak, worn theatricalJy over his left shoul¬ 
 der, 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 honoi of the absent Mrs. Crummies as they 
 rolled away. 
 
CHAPTER XXXT. 
 
 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 hia 
 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 ab- 
 Btraction, 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 
 hgures 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 
 50 ^4 4'll 
 
460 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Again if his interest prompted him, towards Kate herself—sHil 
 there was, strange though it may seem, something humanizing 
 and even gentle in his thoughts at that moment. Tie 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 splendor; 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 reflec¬ 
 tions 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 1” 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 I” said Ralph. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBy. 
 
 451 
 
 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 New¬ 
 man. “ You often do.” 
 
 “ How dare you pry, and peer, and stare at me, sirrah ?” de¬ 
 manded llalph. 
 
 “ Stare 1” cried Newman, “ at you! Ha, ha 1” 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 
 re])ly, 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 finger¬ 
 less 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 whoa, the odd figure 
 of the visitor did not appear to make the most favorable im¬ 
 pression possible, inasmuch as she no sooner saw him than she 
 
452 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.! 
 
 very nearly closed it, and placing herself in the narrow gap, in¬ 
 quired 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 accord- 
 iiigly. 
 
 “ Bless me !” 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 noio.'^ 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, IMr. Noggs—the only relation I 
 have—and all that time I never saw him once. Not that we 
 ever quarreled, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 453 
 
 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 mini¬ 
 ature-painter, brightening up and clapping her hands, “of that 
 very same brother coming up to Loudon 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 in¬ 
 sisting 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 1 I never was so happy; in 
 all my life I never was 1” 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 crea¬ 
 ture I must seem to you, Mr. Noggs! I shouldn’t have said 
 any thing 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 toll 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 mys¬ 
 terious, that I couldn’t make any thing 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 co ne round again 
 before this, but she hasn’t been here.” 
 
 “About Miss Nickleby—” said Newman. 
 
 “Why she wt,s here twice while I was away,” returned Miss 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 La Creevy. “I was afraid she mightn’t like to ha’ve me calling 
 on her among those great folks in what's-its-name Place, so T 
 thought Pd wait a day or two, and if I didn’t see her, write.” 
 
 “Ah 1” exclaimed Newman, cracking his fingers. 
 
 “ However, I want to hear all the news about them from yon,” 
 said Miss La Creevy. “ IIow is the old rough and tough mou- 
 eter of Golden Square? Well, of course; such people always 
 are I don’t moan how is he in health, but how is he going 
 on; how is he behaving himself?” 
 
 “Damn himl” cried Newman, dashing his cherished hat on 
 the floor; “like a false hound.” 
 
 “Gracious, Mr. Noggs, you quite terrify me!” exclaimed 
 M iss 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 
 mantel-piece. “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-parlor, 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 Mi’. Noggs,” 
 said Miss La Creevy ; “I’m sure I sha’n’t be able to help it.” 
 
 “Never mind,” rejoined Newman, darting Anciently to and 
 fro. “He’s coming up to-night: I wrote to tell him. He 
 little thinks I know; he little thinks I care. Cunning scoundrel 1 
 he don’t think that. Not he, not he. Never mind. I’ll thwart 
 him— I, Newman Noggs. Ho, ho, the rascal 1” 
 
 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 CreeA'y, who had 
 been almost frightened out of her senses by this remarkable 
 
LASniNO HIMSELF UP TO AN EXTRAVAGANT PITCH OF FURY, NEWMAN NOGGS JERKED HIMSELF ABOUT THE ROOM 
 wri'll THE MOST ECCENTRIC MOTION EVER BEHELD IN A HUMAN BEING. 
 
» V.N 
 
 ■ ■>! 
 
 
 •i 
 
 
 \ 
 
 r 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 j 
 
 io 'a 
 
 ■j 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 465 
 
 (^.rmonstration ; but that done, Newman faithfully related all tha1; 
 had passed in the interview between Kate and her uncle, pre¬ 
 facing 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. 
 
 Tliough little Miss La Creevy’s indignation wms not so singu¬ 
 larly 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 dan¬ 
 gerous 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, vvherewdth, in proof of 
 her desperate thoughts, she made a lunge as she spoke, 
 w'hich would have scarcely disturbed the crumb of a half-quar¬ 
 tern loaf. 
 
 “ She won’t stop where she is, after to-night,” said Newman. 
 “That’s a comfort.” 
 
 “Stop I” cried Miss La Creevy, “she should have left there, 
 w'eeks ago.” 
 
 —“If we had known of this,” rejoined Newman. “Butwm 
 didn’t. Nobody could properly interfere but her mother or 
 brother. The mother’s w'eak—poor thing—weak. The dear 
 young man wdll be here to-night.” 
 
 “Heart alive !” cried Miss La Creevy. “He will do some¬ 
 thing desperate, Mr. Noggs, if you tell him all at once.” 
 
 Newman left olf rubbing his hands, and assumed a thought¬ 
 ful 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 
 Bome terrible calamity iqiou his own head, and grief and sorrow 
 to us all.” 
 
 “ I never thought of that,” rejoined Neivmau, his countenance 
 
466 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 falling more and more. “I came to ask you to receive hlfl 
 sister in case he brought her here, but-” 
 
 “But this is a matter of much greater importance,” inter¬ 
 rupted 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 uith 
 ail 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 endeavors 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 any 
 thing,” said Miss La Creevy. “ That is of the greatest conse¬ 
 quence. 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’ll come straight here,” retorted Newman. 
 
 “Sol 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 XXXII. 
 
 F.ELATING CHIEFLY TO SOME REMARKABLE CONVERSATIO.V, AND 
 
 60JIE REMARKABLE PROCEEDINGS TO WHICH IT GIVES RISE 
 
 “London at last!” cried Xicholas, throwing back his great¬ 
 coat 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 streets 
 of London, now displaying long double rows of brightly-burn¬ 
 ing 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 
 jewelry, silks and velvets of the richest colors, the most invit¬ 
 ing delicacies, and mosl sumptuous articles of luxurious orna¬ 
 ment, 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, leni their 
 ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult. 
 
 As they dashed by the quickly-changing and ever-varying 
 oljjects, it was curious to observe in what a strange procession 
 
 ( 457 ) 
 
458 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC KLEE Y. 
 
 they passed before the eye. Emporiums of splendid dresses, 
 the materials brought from every quarter of the world; tempting 
 stores of every thing 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 tlie crooked, clothes for the 
 newly-born, drugs for the sick, coffins for the dead, and church¬ 
 yards 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 Loudon; 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 com¬ 
 fortably arranged as such a room could be, and meat and drink 
 were placed in order upon the table. Every thing bespoke the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 459 
 
 nffectionate cars and attention of Newman Noggs, but T^ewman 
 himself was not tliere. 
 
 "Do you know what time he will be home?” inquired Nicho¬ 
 las, tapping at the door of Newman’s front neighbor. 
 
 “Ah, Mr. Johnson !” said Growl, presenting himself. "Wel¬ 
 come, Sir.—How well you’re looking 1 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 Growl, 
 "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 com¬ 
 fortable 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. Growl drew a chair to the table as 
 bespoke, 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. 
 Growl with his mouth full), and left Smike to detain Newman 
 in case he returned first. 
 
 As Miss La Greevy had anticipated, Nicholas betook him¬ 
 self 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 })ersuaded, 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 
 eastward 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 sehlom. She couldn’t say where she was stopping, but it 
 was not at Madame Mantalini’s—slie was sure of that. 
 
 With his heart beating violently, and a[)prehending he knew 
 not what disaster, Nicholas returned to where he left Smike. 
 
400 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 Newman had not been home. He wouldn’t be, till twelve 
 o’clock; there was no chance of it. Was there no possibilhj 
 of sending to fetch him if it were only for an instant, or for- 
 warding 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 ho 
 felt so nervous and excited that he could not sit still. He 
 seemed to be losing time unless he was moving. It was an ab¬ 
 surd 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 searcely any thing 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 
 slopped 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 461 
 
 fiTRt impulse—and being, besides, strongly attracted to tlie 
 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 cotiee-rooin. 
 
 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 ('arpet; and two superb mirrors, one above the chimney- 
 piece 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 him¬ 
 self down in the box next to the noisy party, with his back to¬ 
 wards 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 half 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 any thing but respectful, and the ap¬ 
 pearance of the individual whom he presumed to have been 
 the s^jcaker 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 ad¬ 
 justing his shirt collar by the aid of the glass. They spoke 
 In whispers, now and then bursting into a loud laugh, but 
 
4G2 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Nicholas could catch no repetition of the words, nor any thing 
 sounding at all like the words, which had attracted his attcu* 
 tioa. 
 
 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 any body with whom he was acquainted, 
 and Nicnolas became persuaded that his excited fancy had 
 ciilier 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 Mittle Kate Nickleby 1’ ” 
 
 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 I” cried a voice behind him. 
 
 “I was right,” muttered Nicholas as the paper fell from his 
 hand. “And it was the m.an 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 1” 
 
 “ 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 care¬ 
 less 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 I” 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 1 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. 
 Rut the conversation was suspended as they withdrew, and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 403 
 
 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 Nicklehy goes home to her mother, 
 so much the better,” said the first. “ I can do any thing with 
 the old lady. She’ll believe any thing I tell her.” 
 
 “ Egad, that’s true,” returned the other voice. “Ila, ha, ha I 
 Poor deyvle I” 
 
 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 him¬ 
 self for the moment, and waited to hear more. 
 
 What he heard need not be repeated here. Suffice it that a? 
 the wine went round he heard enough to acquaint him with the 
 characters and designs of those whose conversation he over¬ 
 heard ; to possess him with the full extent of Ralph’s villany, 
 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 sliglit observation from one or other of his com¬ 
 panions. 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, eying 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 I” exclaimed Sir Mui- 
 f)erry, raising his wine-glass to his lips, and looking round upon 
 his friends 
 
m 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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 iu 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 tooth-pick 
 from a glass before liim, 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 tliis party,” said Nicholas, look¬ 
 ing 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 v'as a dead silence. 
 
 “ I am the brother of the young lady who has been the sub¬ 
 ject 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—an 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 NICKLEBY. 
 
 4R5 
 
 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 nan 
 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 imi>ertinence as he could safely show: “no. Sir, I do 
 not. Sir.” 
 
 “ Here, you. Sir,” cried Sir Mulberry, as the man was reti¬ 
 ring ; “ do you know that person’s name ?” 
 
 “Name, Sir? No, Sir.” 
 
 “Then you’ll find it there,” said Sir Mulberry, throwing Ni¬ 
 cholas’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, com 
 promised 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 rejirosentations of 
 his weak young friend, and further seemed—as if to save him¬ 
 self 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 Nicliolas. 
 
 It will be very readily supposed that to one in the condition 
 of Kicholas, the minutes appeared to move with leaden wings 
 30 
 
466 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 hand¬ 
 kerchief thrown negligently over his knees: finishing his mag¬ 
 num 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 honored Nicholas with a long and contemptuous 
 stare. Nicholas stared again with right good will; Sir Mul¬ 
 berry shrugged his shoulders, smiled slightly, rang the bell, and 
 ordered the waiter to help him on with his great-coat. 
 
 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 fum¬ 
 ing 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 api’on, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 467 
 
 mistaken,” said Nicholas. “I will accompany you. By Hea¬ 
 ven I will, if I hanj^ on to the foot-board.” 
 
 “ You shall be horsewhipped if you do,” returned Sir Mul¬ 
 berry. 
 
 “ You are a villain,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “You are an errand-boy, for aught I know,” said Sir Mul¬ 
 berry Hawk. 
 
 “ I am the son of a country gentleman,” returned Nicholas, 
 “your equal in birtli and education and your superior I trust 
 in every thing 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 1” thundered his master. 
 
 The man obeyed. The animal reared and plunged as though 
 it would dash the carriage into a thousand pieces, but Nicho¬ 
 las, 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, 
 api)lied 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 dart¬ 
 ed otf at a wild, mad gallop ; a hundred lights danced in hie 
 eyes, and he felt himself flung violently upon the ground. 
 
468 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 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—look¬ 
 ing up, could discern the cabriolet whirled along the foot pave¬ 
 ment 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 him¬ 
 self 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 by-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 XXXIII. 
 
 IN WHICH Mil. RALPH NICKLEBY IS RELIEVED, BY A VERY EXPE¬ 
 DITIOUS PROCESS, FROM ALL COMMERCE WITH HIS RELATIONS. 
 
 Smike and Xewman Noggs, who in his impatience had re¬ 
 turned 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. Ho 
 had promised to be back in an hour; and his prolonged ab¬ 
 sence 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 de¬ 
 scribed 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 col¬ 
 lected, ]\ly 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 are sulferiug pain,” said Newman, “Let me see to 
 your hurts first,” 
 
 “ I have no hurts to see to, beyond a little soreness and stifif- 
 oess that will soou pass off,” said Nicholas, seating himself with 
 
 ( 469 ) 
 
m 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 some difficulty. “ But if I had fractured every limb, and bUII 
 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, aud 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 opposi¬ 
 tion, at length consented, aud while some pretty severe bruises 
 on his arms and shoulders were being rubbed with oil and vine¬ 
 gar, and various other efficacious remedies which Newman bor¬ 
 rowed from the different lodgers, related in what manner they 
 had been received. The recital made a strong impression ou 
 the warm imagination of Newman; for when Nicholas came to 
 the violent part of ihe quarrel, he rubbed so hard, as to occa¬ 
 sion him the most exquisite pain, which he would not have ex¬ 
 hibited, 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 pi'esent 
 residence, and also for dispatching Miss La Creevy to break 
 the intelligence to her. lie then wrapped himself in Smike’s 
 great-coat, and repaired to the inn where they were to pass the 
 night, and where (after writing a few lines to Ralph, the de¬ 
 livery of which was to be intrusted to Newman next day,) he 
 endeavored 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 inju- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 47] 
 
 ries received in other kinds of violent excitement; certain it is, 
 that although Nicholas experienced some pain on first awaken¬ 
 ing 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 New¬ 
 man 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 disheveled 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 un¬ 
 usual 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 
 Durst into tears. 
 
 “ iNIydarling girl,” said Nicholas as he embraced her. “ ITow 
 pale you are !” 
 
 “I liave been so unhappy here, dear brother,” sobbed poor 
 Kate ; “ so very, very miserable. Bo not leave me here, dear 
 ■Nicholas, or I shall die of a broken heart.” 
 
 •‘1 will leave }'ou 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 ma 
 
472 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 unknow¬ 
 ingly.” 
 
 “ 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 bitcef reproach to me to know what you have un¬ 
 dergone,” returned her brother; “to see you so much altered, 
 and yet so kind and patient—God I” cried Nicholas, clinching 
 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 impossi¬ 
 bility 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. There¬ 
 fore—” 
 
 “ Therefore,” interposed Nicholas, “ the quarter’s salary must 
 be lost. Sir. You will excuse this extreme haste, but circum¬ 
 stances 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 grati¬ 
 fied than otherwise. Sir Tumley SnufQm having given it as bin 
 opinion, that she rather disagreed with Mrs. Wititterly’s consti¬ 
 tution. 
 
 “ 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 owa 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 473 
 
 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 ex¬ 
 pected. 
 
 Nicholas sent Kate up stairs, 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 
 any thing in a hurry, or rather to comprehend any thing of pecu¬ 
 liar delicacy or importance on a short notice. Wherefore, 
 although the good lady had been subjected to a full hour’s prepa¬ 
 ration 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 couM 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 
 honor 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 paint¬ 
 ing too, and I have had this ceiling white-washed 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 any body else,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “ Lord bless iny life !” e.xclaiined Mrs. Nickleby. “ To 
 think that Sir INIulberry Hawk should be such an abandoned 
 wretch as Miss La Creevy says he is, Nicholas, my dear ; when 
 
474 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 inter¬ 
 est to get you some profitable government place. There are 
 very good places to be got about the court, I know; for the 
 brother of a friend of ours (Miss Cropley, at Exeter, my deat 
 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. Nic- 
 fdeby, with a petulance not unnatural in her unhappy circum¬ 
 stances, “it’s very easy to say cheer up, but if you had 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 to 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 every thing is ready, and a hearty welcome into 
 the bargain,” added Miss La Creevy. “Now, let me go with 
 you down stairs.” 
 
 But Mrs. Nickleby was not to be so easily moved, for first 
 she insisted on going up stairs to see that nothing had been left, 
 and then on going down stairs to see that every thing 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 475 
 
 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 any 
 thing else. 
 
 Having seen every thing safely out, discharged the servant, 
 and locked the door, Nicholas jumped into a cabriolet and drove 
 to a by-place near Golden Square, where he had appointed to 
 meet Noggs ; and so quickly had every thing 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.” 
 
 Nicliolas waved his hand carelessly, and concealing the in¬ 
 disposition he really felt, now that the excitement which had 
 sustained liim was ovei’, took a hurried farewell of Newman 
 Noggs, and left him. 
 
 Newman was not three minutes’ walk from Gohlen Square, 
 but in the course of that three minutes he took the letter out 
 of his hat and ])ut it in again twenty times at least. First 
 the front, then the back, then the sides, then the superscription, 
 then tlie seal, were objects of Newman’s admiration. Then he 
 held it at arm’s length as if to take in the whole at one deli¬ 
 cious 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. 
 
 “ lias the post come in ?” 
 
 “ No.” 
 
476 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Any other letters ?” 
 
 “ One.” Newman eyed him closely, and laid it on the desk. 
 
 “ AVhat’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 kuown to me now. There are no reproaches I 
 could heap upon your head which would carry with them one 
 thousandth part of the groveling 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 kindrerl renounce you, for they know no shame but the 
 lies 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 XXXIV. 
 
 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 outrageously 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 hint¬ 
 ing that Mr. Nickleby was unwilling to be disturbed, inquired 
 whether the client’s business was of a pressing nature. 
 
 “It is most dernnebly particular,” said Mr. Mantalini. “It 
 is to melt some scraps of dirty paper into bright, shining, chink¬ 
 ing, tinkling, demd mint sauce.” 
 
 Newman uttered a significant grunt, and taking Mr. Manta- 
 lini’s proffered card, limped with it into his master’s office. As 
 he thrust his head into 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 affec¬ 
 tion, vowed that he had never seen him looking so well in all 
 his life. 
 
 “There is quite a bloom upon your demd countenance,’* said 
 
478 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Mr. Mantalini, seating himself unbidden, and arranging his 
 hair and whiskers. “You look quite juvenile and jolly, 
 deinniit 1” 
 
 “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! Ohdem!” 
 
 “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 flve-and-twenty pounds,” said Ralph, deliberately. 
 
 “Oh demmit!” cried Mr. Mantalini, whose face lengthened 
 considerably at this handsome proposal. 
 
 “AVhy, that leaves you fifty,” retorted Ralph. “What would 
 you have? Let me see the names.” 
 
 “You are so demd hard, Nickleby,” remonstrated Mr. Man¬ 
 talini. 
 
 “Let me see the names,” replied Ralph, impatiently extend¬ 
 ing 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 Avant 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 
 Lake the money-—down, mind; no delay, no going into the City 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 479 
 
 and pi’ctending 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 care¬ 
 lessly rattled his cash-box, as though by mere accident. Tbe 
 sound was too much for Mr. Mantalini. lie closed the bargain 
 directly it reached liis ears, and Ralph told the money out upon 
 the table. 
 
 He had scarcely done so, end Mr. Mantalini had not yet 
 gathered it all up, when a ring was heard at the bell, and imme¬ 
 diately 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 
 Tidler’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.” 
 
 M^hatever 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 
 etl'ection. 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 behavior of Mr. Mantalini.” 
 
 “Of me, my essential juice of pine-apple!” 
 
 “Of you,” returned his wife. “But I will not allow it. 1 
 will not submit to be ruined by the extravagance and jirofli- 
 gacy of any man. I call Mr. Nickleby to witness the course 
 1 intend to pursue with you.” 
 
 “ Bray don’t call me to witness any thing. Ma’am,” said 
 Ralph. “ Settle it between yourselves, settle it between your¬ 
 selves.” 
 
 31 
 
480 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 No, but I must beg you as a favor,” said Madame Manta- 
 Uni, “ to hear me give him notice of what it is my fixed inten¬ 
 tion to do—my fixed intention, Sir,” repeated Madame Manta- 
 lini, darting an angry look at her husband. 
 
 “ Will she call me, ‘ Sir’ I” cried Mantalini. “ Me who dote 
 upon her with the demdest ardor I She, who coils her fascina¬ 
 tions round me like a pure and angelic rattle-snake! 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 
 jonsider mine.” 
 
 “ I do not consider yours, my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Man- 
 tali iii. 
 
 “ 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. Man- 
 talini 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 con¬ 
 tempt,—“ His extravagance is beyond all bounds.” 
 
 “I should scarcely have supposed it,” answered Ralph, sar¬ 
 castically. 
 
 “ 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 trowsers 
 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 mone}'^, and as you have assisted ns very 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 481 
 
 often before, and are very mucli connected with us in these kind 
 of matters, I wish you to know the determination at which hia 
 conduct has compelled me to arrive.” 
 
 Mr. Mantaliui groaned once m.ore 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 counte- 
 nance, “ to allowance him.” 
 
 “ To do what, 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 hus¬ 
 band, 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 foi'tunate 
 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 1” 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 
 tne sound of Ralph’s voice, “ it is a horrid reality. She is sit¬ 
 ting 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 u 
 
432 
 
 •NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 <lemd outline. Why is she so excruciatingly beautiful that 1 
 cannot be angry with her even now 1” 
 
 “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 him¬ 
 self on the head. “ I will fill my pockets with change for a 
 sovereign in half-pence, and drown myself in the Thames; but 
 I will not be angry with her even then, for I vdll 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 hand¬ 
 some 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 1” exclaimed Mr. Man¬ 
 talini. 
 
 “ 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 derad extraordinary number of little pieces, 
 and given them all away one after another to the same little 
 engrossing demnition captivator, and can I live to be suspected 
 by her 1 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 
 llalph Nickleby; and after a great quantity of tears and talk¬ 
 ing, 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 IMantalini 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 483 
 
 his most devoted and disinterested affection. This brought 
 fresh tears into Madame Mantalini’s eyes, which having just 
 leguu to open to some few of the demerits of Mr. Mantalini, 
 vere 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. Man¬ 
 talini 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 1 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, ray 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 re¬ 
 marking 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 pai)er that he was thrown from his cabriolet last 
 night and severely injured, and that his life is in some dangei,” 
 answered Ralph with great composure; “but I see nothing ex¬ 
 traordinary in that—accidents are not miraculous events, when 
 men live hard and drive after dinner.” 
 
 “Whew!” cried iSIr. Mantalini. in a long shrill whistle. 
 “ Then don’t you know how it was?” 
 
484 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ N'ot 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 pains of glass in the room door; it being a 
 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 tliem 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, clinching 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, savagely. “ Tell me what you mean. 
 What is tliis 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 1 You’re 
 enough to frighten my 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 man 
 nor.” 
 
 “ It is a demd uncomfortable and private-madhouse-sort of 
 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 if 
 is,” replied Mantalini. “Demnition pleasant, and a tip-top 
 sawyer.” 
 
 “ And wdiat said he ?” asked Ralph knitting his brows. 
 
 “ That it happened this way—that your nephew met him at 
 a coffee-house fell upon him with the most demneble ferocity, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 485 
 
 followed him to liis cab, swore he would ride home with liim if 
 he rode home upon the horse’s back or hooked himself on to 
 the horse’s tail ; smashed his couiitenauce, 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 ? Ills 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 olf 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. Manta¬ 
 lini, in an admiring tone, “the cunningest, rummest, superla- 
 tivest old fox—oh dem—to pretend now not to know that it was 
 the little bright-eyed niece—the softest, sweetest, prettiest-” 
 
 “ Alfred 1” 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 1” 
 
 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 
 
480 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 every tnrn. He told me once there should be a day of reckon¬ 
 ing 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 New¬ 
 man, 
 
 “ 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 au in¬ 
 tense 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 arm-chair, with his hands on his knees, and his short 
 black trowsers 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 scrutinized him attentively; 
 “ I should know your face, Mr. Squeers.” 
 
 “ Ah 1” 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, ad¬ 
 dressing 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 but¬ 
 tons fly off with his fatness ? Here’s flesh !” cried Squeers, turn¬ 
 ing 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 487 
 
 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 per¬ 
 son, for on his father’s closing his finger and thumb in illustration 
 of his remark, he uttered a sharp cry, and rubbed the place lu 
 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 ^Yackford 
 wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, “there’s oiliness I” 
 
 “He looks well, indeed,” returned Halph, wbo for some pur¬ 
 poses 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 tliem 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 ill; that’s their way 
 —got a abscess on him last week. To see how she operated upon 
 him with a pen-knife 1 Oh Lor’1” said Squeers, heaving a sigh, 
 and nodding his head a great many timc-s, “ what a member of 
 society that woman is 1” 
 
 Mr. Squeers indulged in a retrospective look for some quarter 
 of a minute, as if this allusion to his lady’s excellencies had natu¬ 
 rally 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 1 
 laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all over, you might 
 have thought 1 was a large brown paper parcel, chock full of 
 
488 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 nothing but groans. Did I groan loud, Wackford, oi 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 senti¬ 
 mental manner. 
 
 “ Gl—” 
 
 “ Eh ?” cried Squeers, turning sharp round. 
 
 “ Sorry,” rejoined his son. 
 
 “ Oh I” 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 gen¬ 
 tleman’s office, or I’ll run away from my family and never come 
 lack any more ; and then what wmuld become of all them pre¬ 
 cious and forlorn lads as would be let loose on the world, with¬ 
 out their best friend at their elb*ers 1” 
 
 “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, that 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, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 489 
 
 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 I ha I ha I” 
 
 “ And a good plan too,” said Ralph, eying 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. Ila, 
 ha, ha 1” 
 
 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 observa¬ 
 tion. 
 
 ” Grazing,” said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impres¬ 
 sion 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 neighbor’s turnip field, jr 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 ain’t better land in 
 the county than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he goes 
 and catches cold and indigestion and wdiat not, and then his 
 friends brings a law-suit against me. Now, you’d hardly sup¬ 
 pose,” 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 
 po.ssesse& the fondness for youth that 1 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 wortli 
 
490 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 if I could get ’em, and be as fond of every individual twenty 
 pound among ’em as nothing should equal it I” 
 
 “Are you stopping at your old quarters ?” asked Ral[»h. 
 
 “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 con- 
 tinney 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. “ Wack- 
 ford, 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 mut¬ 
 tering 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’s a healthy sign.” 
 
 With which 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,” rejjlied Squeers, tartly. 
 
 “ Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if 
 you could get one ?” said Ralph, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 491 
 
 “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 
 trille of money you sent, any compensation-” 
 
 “ Ah 1” 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 rebel¬ 
 lious ? Speak out, man,” retorted Ralph, quickly. 
 
 “Why, he wasn’t young,” answered Squeers; “that is, not 
 young for a boy, you know.” 
 
 “ That is, that he was not a boy at all, I suppose ?” inter¬ 
 rupted 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 did’nt 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 1” replied Squeers, becoming more and 
 more easy and familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his 
 iiujuiries with the less reserve. “ It’s fourteen year ago, by the 
 entry in my book, since a strange man brought him to my place 
 one autumn night, and left him there, paying live ])Ound five, 
 for his first quarter in advance. He might lave been five or six 
 year old at that time—not more.” 
 
 “ What more do you know about him ?” demanded Ralph. 
 
 “Devilish little, I am sorry to say,” replied Squeers. “The 
 
492 
 
 NICHOLAS NICRLEBY. 
 
 money was paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped, 
 lie had given an address in London, had this chap; but when 
 it came to the point, of course nobody knowed any thing about 
 him. So I kept the lad out of—out of—” 
 
 “ Charity V' suggested Ralph, dryly. 
 
 “ Charity, to be sure,” returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, 
 “ and when he begins to be useful in a certain sort of a way, this 
 young scoundrel of a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But 
 the most vexatious and aggravating 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 round-about 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 1” echoed Squeers. “ Ah ! and I should like to leave 
 a small balance in his favor, 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 
 or fancies-. If I can 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 I—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 be¬ 
 took 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 493 
 
 “ He’s a fine boy, ain’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, ain’t he ?” pursued Squeers. “ lie 
 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. lie’s 
 got it all. God help the others. Ha 1 ha I Oh, Lord !” 
 
 Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman 
 dropped upon his desk and began to write with most marvelous 
 rapidity. 
 
 “Why, what does the man mean?” cried Squeers, coloring. 
 “ 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 observa¬ 
 tion, 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 colors, 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 tliere was scarcely any thing 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 
 
494 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 round of schemes and business that came with it. nig;ht found 
 him at last still harping on the same theme, and still pursu¬ 
 ing the same unprofitable reflections. 
 
 “When my brother was such as he,” said Kalph, “the first 
 comparisons were dra.vn between us—always in my disfavor. 
 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. .1 recollected it well when 
 [ 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. 
 
CniPTER XXXV. 
 
 SMIKE EECOxMES KNOWN TO MRS. NICKLEBY AND KATE. NICirOKAS 
 
 ALSO MEETS WITH NEW ACQUAINTANCES, AND BRIGHTER DAYS 
 
 SEEM TO DAWN UPON THE FAMILY. 
 
 Having established his motlier 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 
 favor in the eyes of Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “However,” thought Nicholas, as he departed on his bene¬ 
 volent 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 
 BO long at last, that I almost feared you were lost.” 
 
 “ Lost!” replied Nicholas gayly. “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.” 
 
 32 
 
 (495j 
 
496 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 "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 every thing 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/should change; not those about me. And if they 
 forgot me, I should never know it,” replied Smike. " In the 
 church-yard we are all alike, but here there are none like me, 
 I am a poor creature, but I know that well.” 
 
 "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 homes,” 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 gipsy’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 say¬ 
 ing a great deal more to-the same purpose, and pointing out 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLKBY. 
 
 497 
 
 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 wl'.ere 
 his sister sat alone, “ is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow- 
 traveler wh^om 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 try¬ 
 ing 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, ask¬ 
 ing 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 her¬ 
 self 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 Jiumor and merriment that Smike thought within hini- 
 celf she was the nicest lady he had ever seen ; even nicer than 
 Mrs. Grudden, of Mr. Yincent Crumrales’s theatre, and she was 
 a nice lady too, and talked, prehaps 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 affection¬ 
 ately, and calling her his mother, led her towards the chair 
 fi'om which Smike had risen when she entered the room. 
 
 “ You are always kind-hearted, and anxious to help the op- 
 
498 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEEY. 
 
 pressed, my dear mother,” said Nicholas, “so you will be favor¬ 
 ably disposed towards him, I know.” 
 
 “ I am sure, my dear Nicholas,” replied Mrs. Nickleby, look¬ 
 ing very hard at her new friend, and bending to him with some¬ 
 thing 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 intro¬ 
 duced to any body you take an interest in—there can be 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, per¬ 
 haps, 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 1 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.” 
 
 “llis name, mother,” replied Nicholas, “is Smike.” 
 
 The effect of this communication was by no means antici¬ 
 pated ; 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 sup¬ 
 port her. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 499 
 
 “It’d SO like Pyke,” cried Mrs. Nickleby; “so exactly like 
 Pyke, that’s all. Ohl 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-sjmonful 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 grandmamma, Kate, 
 was exaetly the same—precisely. The least exeitement, the 
 slightest surprise, she fainted away directly. I have heard her 
 say, often and often, that when she was a young lady, and be¬ 
 fore she was married, she was turning a corner into Oxford- 
 street one day, when she ran against her own hair-dresser, 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 hair-dresser who had escaped from a bear, 
 or was it a bear who had escaped from her hair-dresser’s ? ] 
 
 declare I can’t remember just now, but the hair-dresser was a 
 very handsome man, I know, and quite a gentleman in his man¬ 
 ners ; 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. “ 1 see you have not 
 forgotten his melancholy history.” 
 
 “Oh 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 
 Pviding, do you ?” said the good lady addressing herself to him 
 “A very proud man, Sir Thomas Grimble, with six grown-up 
 and uiost lovely daughters, and the finest park in the county.” 
 
500 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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 iu 
 the neighborhood ?” 
 
 “ Really, my dear, I don’t know why it should be so very ex¬ 
 traordinary,” said Mrs. Nickleby. “ I know that when I wag 
 at school, I always went at least twice every half-year to the 
 Hawkinses at Taunton Yale, and they are much richer than the 
 Grirables, 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. Slam- 
 mons ; which circumstance she attributed to the remarkable simi¬ 
 larity 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 con¬ 
 siderable influence in placing them on the very best terras, and 
 in 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 affairf?, 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. Crummies 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 
 fietful 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 intenial 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 asso¬ 
 ciates than those with whom he would be compelled, almost 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 601 
 
 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? “Egadl” 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 un¬ 
 impeachable 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 gentle¬ 
 man happened to stop too, and Nicholas carrying his eye along 
 the window-panes from left to right in search of some capital-text 
 ])laeard, which should be applicable to his own case, catight 
 siirht 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 
 
602 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKIEBY. 
 
 head protected by a low-crowned, broad-brimmed white hat, 
 Biich as a wealthy grazier might wear. He wore his coat but¬ 
 toned ; 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 it. 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 : hia 
 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 humor, 
 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 tho 
 whole wide world. 
 
 But, even a very remote approach to thjs 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 be¬ 
 speaking 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 
 colored and looked embarrassed, for the truth is, that he had 
 begun to wonder whether the stranger could by any possibility 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 50 ^ 
 
 be looking lor a clerk or secretary; and thinking this, he felt 
 as if the old gentleman must know it. 
 
 Ijong 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 tho 
 moment, stammered out an apology. 
 
 “ No offence—Oh no offence 1” said the old man. 
 
 This was said in such a hearty tone, and the voice wms so 
 exactly what it should have been from such a speaker, and there 
 was such a cordiality in the manner, that Nicholas was embold¬ 
 ened 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 hesita¬ 
 tion 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. 
 
 “ lla ! 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. 1 
 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 
 
604 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBA^ 
 
 ‘‘Whall Dear me ! No, no. Well-beliaved 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 by-street, 
 where they could converse with less interruption. “ What d’ye 
 mean, eh ? What d’ye mean ?” 
 
 “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 1” 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 1” 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’re 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 quali- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 605 
 
 ties, 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 furthei’ 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 wai'ehouse which presented every indica¬ 
 tion 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. 
 
506 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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 I And what has he come about, Tim ?” said Mr. 
 Cheeryble. 
 
 “ lie 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. lie 
 makes a thousand cases known to us that we should never dis¬ 
 cover of ourselves. I am xerxj much obliged to Trimmers.” 
 Saying which, Mr. Cheeryble rubbed his hands with infinite de¬ 
 light, 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 ostenta¬ 
 tious ; put me down ten pound, and Tim Linkinwater ten 
 pound. A check 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 vre shall be 
 delighted. Now, my dear Sir—check for Mr. Linkinwater, 
 Tim. Smashed by a cask of sugar, and six poor children—oh 
 dear, dear, dear!” 
 
 Talking on in Ihis strain as fast as he could, to prevent any 
 friendly remonstrances from the collector of the subscription on 
 the lai'gc amount of his donation, Mr. Cheeryble led Nicholas. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 50 ? 
 
 equally astonished and affected by what he liad seen and lieard 
 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 yon busy, my dear bro¬ 
 ther, 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 farther parley. What was the amaze¬ 
 ment of Nicholas when his conductor advanced and e.xchanged 
 a warm greeting witli 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 
 dcor, “ here is a young friend of mine that 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, ray dear brother, that you say we should,” 
 returned the other. “ When you say that, no further inquiries 
 are needed, lie ahall be assisted. What are his necessities, 
 and what does he recpiire ? Where is Tim Linkinwater? J^et 
 us have him here.” 
 
 Both the brothers, it may be here remarked, had a very em¬ 
 phatic 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 t.08 
 
 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 recoiflpense 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 I Eh, brother Ned, eh? Why, i 
 recollect old Tim Linkinwater quite a little boy, don’t you ? 
 Ea, ha, ha! Poor Tim, poor Tim !” 
 
 And the fine old fellows laughed pleasantly together : each 
 with a tear cf 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 each side of Nicholas 
 “ I’ll tell it you myself, brother Ned, because the young gentle¬ 
 man 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 
 Yery 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 609 
 
 a long one, and when it was over a secret conference cf almost 
 equal duration took place between brother I^ed and Tim Linkin- 
 water 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-fouii 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 twe’ve), 
 to see the doors fastened and the fires out I’ve never slept out 
 
610 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 of the back attic one single night. There’s the same mignon 
 nette 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 ain’t—I’ve said it again and again, and I’ll 
 maintain it—there ain’t such a square as this in the world, I 
 tcnow there ain’t,” said Tim, with sudden energy, and looking 
 sternly about him. “IS’ot 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 somethiug 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 inter¬ 
 fere 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 superanuating 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 mean time, my dear 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBir. 
 
 611 
 
 brother, we are keeping our young friend; and tlie poor lady 
 and her daughter will be anxious for his return. So let us say 
 good-by for the present, and—there, there—take care of that 
 box, my dear Sir—and—no, no, no, not a word now; but bo 
 careful of the crossings and-” 
 
 And with any disjointed and unconnected words vvdnch 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 whi(*h 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 with¬ 
 out delay, or for the present postpone laying further siege to 
 the inflexible Tim Linkinwater. 
 
 To recount all the delight and wonder which the circum¬ 
 stances just detailed awakened at Miss La Creevy’s, and all the 
 things that were done, said, thought, expected, hoped, and pro- 
 jfliesied in consequence, is beside the ])resent course and jnir- 
 pose of these adventures. It is sufficient to state, in brief, that 
 Mr. Timothy Linkinwater arrived i)unctual 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 favor of Nicholas; and that 
 next day he was appointed to the vacant stool in the counting- 
 house of Cheeryble, lirotliers, with a present salary of one hun¬ 
 dred and twenty pounds a year. 
 
 “And I think, my dear In’other,” 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 
 sliould be ashamed to touch the rent under such circumstances 
 as these. 'WHiere is Tim Linkinwater—For nothing at all, ray 
 dear brother, for nothing at all.” 
 
 "Ferhaps it would be better to say something, brother Ned,” 
 S3 
 
612 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 suggested the other, mildly; “it would help to preserve habiU 
 of frugality, you know, and remove any painful sense of over¬ 
 whelming 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 sur¬ 
 prises as the first week of that cottage. Every night when 
 Nicholas came home, something new had been found out. One 
 day it was a grape-vine, and another day it was a boiler, and 
 another day it was the key of the front parlor closet at the bot¬ 
 tom 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 hurt¬ 
 ing herself very much—and Mrs. Nickleby, who talked inces- 
 aaiitly, and did something now and then, but not often—and 
 Kate, who busied herself noiselessly everywhere, and was pleased 
 with every thing—and Smike, who made the garden a perfect 
 wonder to look upon—and Nicholas, who helped and encou¬ 
 raged 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 XXXVI. 
 
 PEIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL; RELATING TO FAMILY MATTERS, 
 SHOMYNG HOW MR. KENWIGS UNDERWENT VIOLENT AGITATION, 
 AND HOW MRS. ILENWIGS WAS AS WELL AS COULD BE EX¬ 
 PECTED. 
 
 It might have been about seven o’clock in the evening, ana 
 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 fourteenpence—and selecting the strongest, 
 which happened to be the right-hand one, walked down stairs 
 with an air of some pomp and much excitement, and proceeded 
 to muffle the knob of the street-door knocker therein. Having 
 e.xecuted 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 noth¬ 
 ing could possibly look better in its ivay, 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. 
 
 Xow 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 gen¬ 
 tleman resident ten miles off; because, for the greater conveni¬ 
 ence of the numerous lodgers, the street-door always stood wide 
 0]mn, and the knocker was never used at all. The fii'st 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 any 
 body wanted the parlors, there 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 muf 
 fling of the knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible. 
 
514 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 civilized 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 pretentions 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 up stairs, “ 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 neighborhood, 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. 
 
 “Ine—ver saw such a baby,” said Mr. Lumbey, the doctcm. 
 
 “ 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. 
 Whethe' he was considering under what head he could best 
 charge tlie 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 Ke-nwigses, without intermission; which considerate and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 615 
 
 affectionate conduct brought tears into the eyes of Mr. Kenwigs, 
 and caused him to declare that, in understanding and behavior, 
 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 sta¬ 
 tion, Mr. Lumbey.” 
 
 “ I shouldn’t wonder at all,” replied the doctor. 
 
 “You never see her dance. Sir, did you?” asked IMr. Ken- 
 wigs. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 “ Ay I” 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 twm 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 skillful and sci¬ 
 entific doctor as that Doctor Lumbey. 
 
 In Ihe midst of this general hubbub. Doctor Lumbey sat in 
 the first floor fiont, as before related, nursing the deposed baby, 
 and talking to Mr. Kenwigs. lie was a stout bluff-looking 
 gentleman, with no shirt-collar, to speak of, and a beard that 
 had been growing since yesterday morning ; for Doctor Lumbey 
 was popular, and the neighborhood was prolific ; and there had 
 
516 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 been no less than three other knockers muffled, one after the 
 other, within the last forty-eight hours. 
 
 “Well, Mr. Kenwigs,” said Dr. Lnmbey, “this makes six. 
 You’ll have a fine family in time. Sir.” 
 
 “I think six is almost enough, Sir,” returned Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 “Pooh I pooh!” said the doctor. “ Nonsense I 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 1” 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 honor to be 
 
 connected ; at the same time, Mrs. Kenwigs’s is-1 should 
 
 say,” said Mr. Kenwigs, abruptly, and raising his voice as he 
 spoke, “ that my children might come into a matter of a hun- 
 Ired 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. Ken¬ 
 wigs, 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 beg¬ 
 ging when they had done it.” 
 
 “ Ah 1 I know who you mean,” observed the married lady, 
 nodding her head. 
 
 “ I made mention of no names, and I wish to make men¬ 
 tion 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 honor to any company; that’s 
 all” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 617 
 
 
 “ I’ve met him,” said the married lady, with a glance towards 
 Doctor 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 child¬ 
 ren,” 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.” And 
 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 1 there is a likeness,” said Mr. Kenwigs, after some re¬ 
 flection. “ But such a woman as Mrs. Kenwigs was, afore she 
 was married 1 Good gracious, such a woman I” 
 
 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 1” cried Mr. Kenwigs. “ I never see any body 
 80 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 
 phe look like the mother of six ?” 
 
 “ Quite ridiculous,” cried the doctor. 
 
 “ She looks a deal more like her own daughter,” said the 
 
 married ladv. 
 
 */ 
 
 “So she does,” assented Mr. .Tiumbey. “A great deal 
 more.” 
 
 Mr, Kenwigs was about to make some further obscrvaiious, 
 
618 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 most probably in confirmation of this opinion, when another 
 married lady, who had looked in to keep up Mrs. Kenwiga 
 spirits, and help to clear off any thing in the eating and drink¬ 
 ing 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. Kenwigg 
 “ most particular.” 
 
 Shadowy visions of his distingushed relation flitted through 
 the brain of Mr. Kenwigs, as this messsge was delivered; and 
 under their influence, he dispatched Morleena to show the gen¬ 
 tleman 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 up stairs, “it’s Mr. Johnson. How do you find yourself’ 
 Sir ?” 
 
 Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old pupils all round, in¬ 
 trusted 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 sauce-pan 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 con¬ 
 versation 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 any thing ; whereupon 
 the two married ladies, already mentioned, rushed tumultuously 
 into the bed-room 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 519 
 
 “ 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. Keuwigs. “I dare say it’s 
 none the worse for keeping cold. Message from the country i” 
 said Mr. Keuwigs, ruminating; “that’s curious. I don’t know 
 any body in the country.” 
 
 “Miss Petowker,” suggested Nicholas. 
 
 “ Oh ! from her, is it ?” said Mr. Kenwigs. “ Oh dear, yes. 
 Ah I Mrs. Kenwigs will be glad to hear from her. Henrietta 
 Petowker, eh ? IIow odd things come about now 1 That you 
 should have met her in the country—TVell !” 
 
 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, hesi¬ 
 tating. 
 
 “ 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. Ken¬ 
 wigs. 
 
 “Yes,” said Nicholas. “Mr. Lillyvick is there.” 
 
 Mr. Keuwigs 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 
 wmre to forward full particulars ;—ITes. 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.” 
 
520 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 Ml*. Kenwigs started from his seat with a petrified stare, caught 
 his second daughter by the 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 faint¬ 
 ed 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 tip-toe, and kept 
 her for some seconds in that attitude. “ Villain, ass, traitor 1” 
 
 “ Drat the man 1” cried the nurse, looking angrily round. 
 “ What does he mean by making that noise here ?” 
 
 “ Silence, woman 1” 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 1” returned Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 “ More shame for you,” retorted the nurse. “ Ugh 1 you un¬ 
 natural 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 favor, 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 indul¬ 
 gence 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 621 
 
 “Tlie 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— 1” 
 
 “ 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. Ken¬ 
 wigs, reverting to his calamity, “the pipes, the snuff-boxes—a 
 pair of India-rubber goloshes, that cost six and sixpence—” 
 
 “ Ah 1 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 w'ould be better 
 to-morrow, 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 >t showed a good heart. And one lady ob¬ 
 served, 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 par¬ 
 tially smothered his four daughters, in the closeness of his em¬ 
 brace, accepted the doctor’s arm on one side, and the support 
 of Nicholas on the other, and was conducted up stairs to a bed¬ 
 room, which had licen secured for the occasion. 
 
 Having seen him sound asleep, and heard him snore most 
 satisfactorily, and having further presided over the distribution 
 
622 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 of the toys, to the perfect contentment of all the little Ken- 
 wigses, 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 gra¬ 
 dually disappeared; the last bulletin was issued that Mrs Ken- 
 wigs was as well as could be expected; and the whole family 
 were left to their repose. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 NICHOLAS FINDS FURTHER FAVOR IN THE EYES OF THE BRO¬ 
 THERS CHEERYBLE AND MR. TIMOTHY LINKINWATER. THE 
 BROTHERS GIVE A BANQUET ON A GREAT ANNUAL OCCASION ; 
 NICHOLAS, ON RETURNING HOME FROM IT, RECEIVES A MYS¬ 
 TERIOUS AND IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE FROM THE LIPS OP 
 MRS. NICKLEBY. 
 
 The Square in which the counting-house of the brothers 
 Cheeryble was situated, although it might not wholly realize 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 occu¬ 
 pied a high place in the affectionate remembrances of several 
 grave persons domiciled in the neighborhood, whose recollec¬ 
 tions, 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 inclosure, 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, favorable to melancholy and contem¬ 
 plation, and appointments of long-waiting; and up and down 
 its every side the Appointed saunters klly 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 
 
 (523) 
 
624 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, he 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 ? Ho ; 
 sight more unwonted still—there is a butterfly in the square— 
 a real, live butterfly 1 astray from flowers and sweets, and flutter¬ 
 ing among the iron heads of the dusty area railings 1 
 
 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 o’ld 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 626 
 
 hung against the wall—all had their accustomed inches of space. 
 Except the clock, there was not such an accurate and unim- 
 peacliable 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 ac¬ 
 quisition 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 Ijow 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 indiffer¬ 
 ently 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. Every thing gave back, besides, some re¬ 
 flection of the kindly spirit of the brothers. The warehouse¬ 
 men and porters were such sturdy jolly fellows that it was a 
 treat to see them. Among the shipping announcements and 
 steam-packet lists which decorated the counting-house wall, 
 were designs for alms-houses, 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 ihe blunder¬ 
 buss was rusty and shattered, and the swords were broken and 
 edgeless. Elsewhere, their open display in such a condition 
 wo\dd have raised 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 
 
626 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 in¬ 
 cessantly devoted to acquiring the mysteries of book-keeping 
 and some other forms of mercantile account. To these he ap¬ 
 plied himself with such steadiness and perseverance that, although 
 lie brought no greater amount of previous knowledge to the sub¬ 
 ject than certain dim recollections of two or three very long sums 
 entered into a cyphering-book at school, and relieved for parental 
 inspection by the effigy of a fat swan tastefully flourished by the 
 wi’iting-master’s own hand, he found himself at the end of a 
 fortnight, in a condition to report his proficiency to Mr. Linkin- 
 water, and to claim his promise that he, Nicholas Nickleby, 
 should now be allowed to assist him in his graver labors. 
 
 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 I” said Tim. “Many new 
 ledgers since then. Four-and-forty year 1” 
 
 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 men¬ 
 tioned it afterwards ;) Nicholas dipped his pen into the inkstand 
 before him, and ])lunged into the books of Cheeryble, Brothers 1 
 Tim Linkinwater turned pale, and tilting up his stool on the 
 two legs nearest Nicholas, looked over his shoulders in breathless 
 anxiety. Brother Charles and brother Ned entered the count 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 627 
 
 ing-house together; but Tim Linkinwater, without looking 
 round, impatiently waved his hand as a caution that profound 
 silenoe must be observed, and followed the nib of the inexperi¬ 
 enced pen with strained and eager eyes. 
 
 The brothers looked on with smiling faces, but Tim Linkin¬ 
 water 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 e.xchanged 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 ain’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 1” 
 
 With this casting down of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck 
 the desk such a blow with his clinched 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 ])ains, and I was quite certain he would succeed, in 
 DO 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,” re])lied 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 re¬ 
 gardless of this address to himself, and raising his spectacles 
 34 
 
628 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 from the ledger to the brothers. “ Here’s a pleasant thing. 
 Do you suppose I haven’t often thought 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 fore¬ 
 finger 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 Lon¬ 
 don and Westminster, and turning again to his desk quietly car¬ 
 ried 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 birlh-day. How dare you talk 
 about any thing else till you have been wished many happy re¬ 
 turns of the day, Tim Linkinwater ? God bless you, Tim 1 God 
 bless you 1” 
 
 “ My dear brother,” said the other, seizing Tim’s disengaged 
 fist, “ Tim Linkinwater looks ten years younger than he did ou 
 his last birth-day.” 
 
 “ 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 birth-day than he was the year before.” 
 
 “So he is, brother Charles, so he is,” replied brother Ned 
 “ There’s not a doubt about it.” 
 
 “ Ilemember, Tim,” said brother Charles, “that we dine at 
 half-past five to-day instead of two o’clock ; we always depart 
 liom our usual custom on this anniversary, as you very well 
 know, Tim Linkinwater. Mr. Nickleby, ray 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 yon go to bed, 
 and never say another word upon the subject, or I’ll kill the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 629 
 
 blackbird. A dog! He sliould 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 Linkiiiwater, 
 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, inclosing 
 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 house-keeper respecting Tim Linkinwater’s sister’s cap, 
 which had been dispatched, per boy, from the house of the 
 family v\'here 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 hand¬ 
 kerchief 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, undfev 
 pain of divers horrible penalties, the full extent of which the 
 eye of man could not foresee, to deliver the same with all possi¬ 
 ble 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 satis¬ 
 factory, 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 as he might be ; for he had 
 taken the air, in the first instance, l)ehind 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 
 
B80 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 Clieeryble, Tim 
 Linkinwater, a ruddy-faced, white-headed friend of Tim’s, (who 
 was a superannuated bank clerk,) and Nicholas, who was pre¬ 
 sented to Tim Linkinwater’s sister with much gravity and 
 solemnity. The party being now complete, 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 Linkin¬ 
 water’s sister sat on the left-hand of brother Ned, and Tim 
 Ifinkinwaler 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 arm-chair, 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 humor of the glorious old twins 
 drew every body 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 pre¬ 
 served 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 count¬ 
 ing-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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 631 
 
 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 any 
 thing 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 de¬ 
 canters sent round for the first time, a profound silence suc¬ 
 ceeded, and in the cheerful faces of the brotliers there appeared 
 an expression, not of absolute melancholy, but of quiet thought¬ 
 fulness very unusual at a festive table. As Nicholas, struck by 
 this sudden alteration, was wondering v.'hat it could portend, 
 the brothers rose together, and the one at the too 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 associa¬ 
 tion 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 exem¬ 
 plary 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 bro¬ 
 ther—The Memory of our Mother.” 
 
 “ Good God 1” thought Nicholas, “ and there are scores of 
 people of their own station, knowing all this, and twenty thou¬ 
 sand times more, who wouldn’t ask these men to dinner because 
 they eat with their knives and never went to school I” 
 
 But there was no time to moralize, 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 
 
6a2 
 
 NICHOLAS NTCKLEBY. 
 
 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 ihe 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 after¬ 
 wards 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 old 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 be¬ 
 low There were four in all, and as they came in, bowing, and 
 grinning, and blushing, the housekeeper and cook and house¬ 
 maid 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 trea¬ 
 sure. Tim Linkinwater, Sir, your health. Devil take you, 
 Tim Linkinwater, Sir, God bless you.” 
 
 With this singular contradiction of terms, brother Ned gave 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 533 
 
 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 honor to Tim Linkin- 
 water, when the sturdiest and jolliest subordinate elbowed him- 
 Bclf 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—least-ways 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—(look¬ 
 ing every where and seeing nobody) free, generous, spirited 
 masters as them as has treated us so handsome this day. And 
 here’s thanking ’em for all their goodness as is so constancy a 
 diffusing of itself over every where, 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 indig¬ 
 nation, 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 with¬ 
 drew ; and 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 excite¬ 
 ments, 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 
 
634 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 up stairs, 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 1” 
 
 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 endeavors to 
 knock it in again. 
 
 At length the coach rumbled off, and Tim Linkin water’s sis¬ 
 ter being now fairly on her way home, NA'holas and Tim Link- 
 inwater’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, com¬ 
 prising 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 ex¬ 
 cellences and munificence of the Brothers Cheeryble, and re¬ 
 lating 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 536 
 
 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, befoie a 
 young man it would not be quite proper, though really, after all, 
 1 don’t know what harm there is in it, except that, to be sure, 
 it’s not a very becoming thing, though some people soy 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 night-cap 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 night-cap, 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 night-cap, for I have often heard your poor dear 
 papa, and the reverend Mr. what’s-his-name, wdio 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 col¬ 
 lege are uncommonly particular about their night-caps, and that 
 the Oxford night-caps 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 them¬ 
 selves.” 
 
 Nicholas laughed, and entering no further into the subject of 
 this lengthened harangue, reverted to the pleasant tone of the little 
 birth-day party. And as Mrs. Nickleby instantly became very 
 curious I'especting 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 
 
636 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 bad been np, to hear all this. I was all impa¬ 
 tience, 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 op¬ 
 portunity of saying a few words to you, I am naturally 
 anxious about it, and of course it’s a very delightful and con¬ 
 soling thing to have a grown-up son that one can put confi¬ 
 dence in, and advise with—indeed I don’t know any use there 
 would be in having sons at all, unless people could put con¬ 
 fidence 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 neighborhood,” said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 “speaking of sons puts me in mind of it—a lady in our neigh¬ 
 borhood 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 ?” 
 Kaid Nicholas, quietly. 
 
 “ About her V cried Mrs. Nickleby, “Good gracious, Nicho¬ 
 las, 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 INIrs. 
 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 ! Any body 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 unfor- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 637 
 
 tiinate 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 papa!” 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 ai’rived at the knowledge when 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 zs 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 Kegent was proud of his legs, and so was Daniel Lam¬ 
 bert, who was also a fat man ; he was proud of his legs. So 
 was Miss BitFin : 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 ex¬ 
 pected him to be. 
 
 “You may well be surprised, Nicholas, my dear,” she said. 
 “I am sure /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 arbor, or working 
 at his little hot-beds. I used to think he stared rather, but 1 
 didn’t take any particular notice of that, as we were new-comei’s, 
 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 I” repeated Nicholas, 
 in great aslouisUment. 
 
638 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “Yes, Nicholas, my dear,” replied Mrs. Nicldeby, in a very 
 serious tone ; “ his cucumbers over our wall. And vegetable- 
 marrows likewise.” 
 
 Confound his impudence !” said Nicholas, firing imme- 
 diaiely. “ 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 
 flyiug at the heads of the family as they walk in their own gar¬ 
 den, and not meant impertinently 1 Why, mother—” 
 
 Nicholas stopped short, for there was an indescribable ex¬ 
 pression of placid triumph, mingled with a modest confusion, 
 lingering between the borders of Mrs. Nickleby’s night-cap, which 
 arrested his attention suddenly. 
 
 “ He must be a very weak, and foolish, and inconsiderate 
 man,” said Mrs. Nickleby; “blameable indeed—at least I sup¬ 
 pose 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 show¬ 
 ing 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 ouly let me speak ? Of course, I never gave it a second 
 thought, and I am astonished and surprised 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 deli¬ 
 cately, and without hurting his feelings too much, and driving 
 him to despair, or any thing of that kind ? My goodness, me!” 
 exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby, with a half simper, “suppose he was 
 to go doing any thing rash to himself, could I ever be happy 
 again, Nicholas ?” 
 
 Despite his vexation and concern, Nicholas could scarcely 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 639 
 
 ]ielp smiling, as lie rejoined, “Now, do you think, mother, 
 tliat 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 him¬ 
 self 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 /(imself—which it is quite 
 frightful to think of. Somehow or other,” added Mrs. 
 Nickleby, after a momentary pause, “they always are journey¬ 
 men 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 cuenmber into a formal declara¬ 
 tion of attachment.” 
 
 “ My dear,” replied Mrs. Nickleby, tossing her head and 
 looking at the ashes in the grate, “ he has done and said all 
 eorts 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 ?” 
 
 “AVell, 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. 
 Tiien there are the presents which come pouring over the wall 
 
540 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK] EBT. 
 
 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. Nick- 
 leby, 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 mnsical 
 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 better sense and 
 feeling, and respect for my father’s memory, would prompt. 
 There are a thousand ways in which you can show your dis¬ 
 like 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 im¬ 
 portance 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 recollec¬ 
 tions 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 
 vaiidy 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,” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEB Y. 
 
 541 
 
 thought Mrs. Nickleby, communing with herself in her own 
 room, “ I don’t see that at all. It’s hopeless on his part, 
 certainl}^; but why he should be an absurd 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 V' 
 
 Having made these reflections, Mrs. Xiekleby 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 
 Kicholas was one-and-twenty he would have more the appear¬ 
 ance 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 ol the wall 1” 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 nOMPRISES CERTAIN PARTICULARS ARISING OUT OP A VISIT OP 
 
 CONDOLENCE, WHICH MAY PROVE IMPORTANT HEREAPTER. 
 
 SMIKE UNEXPECTEDLY ENCOUNTERS A VERY OLD PRIEND, 
 
 WHO INVITES HIM TO HIS HOUSE, AND WILL TAKE NO DENIAL. 
 
 Quite unconscious of the demonstrations of their amorous 
 neighbor, or of their effects upon the susceptible bosom of her 
 mamma, Kate Nickleby had, by this time, begun to enjoy a settled 
 feeling of tranquility and happiness, to which, even in occa¬ 
 sional and transitory glimpses, she had long been a stranger. 
 Living under the same roof with the beloved brother from whom 
 she had been 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 color 
 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 ner, 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 bad 
 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 INliss La Creevy, “for I have thought of nothing 
 but hammers, nails, screw-drivers and gimlets, morning, noon, 
 and night.” 
 
 “You never bestow one thought upon yourself, I believe,” 
 returned Kate, smiling. 
 
 “Ujion my word, my dear, when there are so many pleasanter 
 thingrs to think of, I should be a goose if I did,” said Miss La 
 Creevy. “By the by, I have thought of somebody too. Do 
 ( 542 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 543 
 
 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—1 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 3Ir. 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 1 
 have watched him, and he has brought the tears into my eyes 
 many times. It is not a very difficult matter to do that, cer¬ 
 tainly, for I am very easily melted; still, I think these came 
 witli 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 under¬ 
 stand 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 tlie 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 un¬ 
 usual in her, “it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, 
 it may. However,” said ]\liss La Creevy, relapsing into the 
 cheerful, chattering tone, which was habitual to her, “ I have 
 said my say, and a "'ery long say it is, and a very wrong say 
 35 
 
644 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 loo, I sliouldn’t wonder at all. I shall cheer him up to-night 
 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 I’oused him into a laugh at something. So the sooner 
 he goes the better for him, and the sooner I go, the better for 
 me, 1 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 omni¬ 
 bus 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, bear¬ 
 ing 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 pro¬ 
 tested, “ 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, apologizing 
 with grea-t 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 coi...ductor pushed Sraike in, and cried that it was all 
 right—though it wasn’t—and avay 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 con¬ 
 ductor afore-mentioned, who lounged gracefully on his little 
 shelf behind, smoking an odoriferous cigar; and leaving it to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 645 
 
 stop, or go on, or gallop, or crawl, as that gentlemaL deemed 
 expedient and advisable, this narrative may embrace the oppor¬ 
 tunity of ascertaining the condition of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and 
 to what extent he had by this time recovered from the injuries 
 consequent upon being flung violently from his cabriolet, under 
 the circumstances already detailed. 
 
 With a shattered limb, a body severely bruised, a face dis- 
 ngured 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 mo¬ 
 notonous 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 intelligencr 
 from a paper of the day as were most likely to yield him inte 
 rest 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 depriva¬ 
 tion 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 the pain bad enough, 
 but thej/ must torture me ? What’s the time ?” 
 
 “ Half-past eight,” replied his friend. 
 
 “ Here, draw the table nearer, and let us have the cards 
 egain,” said Sir Alulberry. “ 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 iiithe pro¬ 
 gress 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 
 
516 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ooukl make little head against them, even when fortune favored 
 him with good cards, which was not often the case. Sir Mul¬ 
 berry 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 to-night. 
 
 “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 favors, 
 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 olf. Leave it 
 BO.” 
 
 The man obeyed these directions as if he quite comprehended 
 the motive with which they were dictated, and left the room. 
 Lord Yerisopht, remarking that he would look in presently, 
 strolled into the adjoining apartment, and closed the folding- 
 door behind him. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 547 
 
 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 care¬ 
 lessness, “ 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 considera¬ 
 tion 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 1 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 aston¬ 
 ishment, 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 to-night, 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 Rali)h, bending forward, and allowing the stime 
 hiirsh smile to gather upon his face, as the other closed his eyes. 
 
 “ jMore than enough to please me, and less than enough to 
 y)lease some broken-down hacks that you and I know of, and 
 who lay their ruin between us, I dare say,” returned Sir Mul¬ 
 berry, tossing his arm restlessly upon the coverlet. 
 
 Ral|)h shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of the Intense 
 irritation with which this had been said, for there was an aggra 
 
648 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 vating 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 to-night?” 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 em¬ 
 phasis, “ I came to say how grieved I am that any relative of 
 mine, although disowned by me, should have inflicted such pun¬ 
 ishment on you as-” 
 
 “ Punishment I” interposed Sir Mulberry. 
 
 “I know it has been a severe one,” said Ralph, willfully mis¬ 
 taking 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 pri¬ 
 vate circulation, but that’s all over town, of course.” 
 
 “It’s a lie 1” 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 
 ihal'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 G— I will 1 
 Accident favoring him he has marked me for a week or two, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 643 
 
 but I’ll pat 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 Mul¬ 
 berry renumbered that, knave and usurer as he was, he must, 
 in some early time of infancy, have twined his arm about he’' 
 father’s neck. He stopped, and, menacing with his hand, con¬ 
 firmed 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 twe’Jty seasons, should, be brought to this pass by a 
 mere boy 1” 
 
 Sir Mulberry darted a wrathful look at him, but Ralph’s eyes 
 were bent upon the ground, and his face wore no other expres¬ 
 sion 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. 
 
 “ Ila!” 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 hangdog 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 Ralj)!!, his face darkening, and his own 
 hatred getting the upper hand of iiim for the first time, as this 
 gay pictui’e of Nicholas presented itself; “if we were only citi¬ 
 zens of a country where it could be safely done, I’d give good 
 
650 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, vvhat in the deyvePs name. Hawk, have you and 
 Niekleby 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 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 Mnlberry 
 ceasing to speak, the young lord, angrily, and almost un¬ 
 affectedly, 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, Lord Verisopht 1” interrupted his friend. 
 
 “ Y-cs,” 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 eiiQugh 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 con- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 551 
 
 sequence of accident as design, and more yonr fault tlian Ids ; 
 and it shall not, with ray 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 honor I do believe, that the 
 sister is as virtuous and modest a young lady as she is a hand¬ 
 some one; and of the brother, I say this, that he acted as her 
 brother should, and in a manly and spirited manner. And 1 
 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 Yerisopht walked out of the room, 
 leaving Ralph Nicklcby 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 suddeidy 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 plea¬ 
 sant ])reparation 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 b.aek alone, almost every day. So, Miss La Creevy and he 
 
552 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 Nevfgate. 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 ; 
 stO])ping now and then to gaze in at the window of some par¬ 
 ticularly 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 jeweler’s win¬ 
 dow, 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 clock 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 I” vibrated in his ears. 
 
 Smike knew that voice too well. He cast his despairing eyes 
 downwards 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 Wackfoid, 
 who, regardless of all his kicks and struggles, clung to him with 
 the tenacity of a bull-dog 1 
 
 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 gol” 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 1 Wackford, my boy, call up one of them coaches.” 
 
 “A coach, father I” cried little Wackford. 
 
 “Yes, a coach. Sir,” replied Squeers, feasting his eyes upon 
 the countenance of Smike. “ Damn the expanse. Let’s have 
 him in a coach.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 653 
 
 “What’s he been a doing of?” asked a laborer, with a hod 
 of bricks, against whom and a fellow-laborer Mr. Sqneers had 
 backed, on the first jerk of the umbrella. 
 
 “Everything!” replied Mr. Sqneers, looking fixedly at his 
 old pupil in a sort of a rapturous trance. “Every thing—run¬ 
 ning away, Sir—joining in blood-thirsty attacks upon his master, 
 Sir—there’s nothing that’s bad that he hasn’t done. Oh, what 
 a, delicious go is this here, good Lord 1” 
 
 The man looked from Sqneers to Smike; but such mental 
 faculties as the poor fellow possessed had utterly deserted him. 
 The coach came up ; Master Wackford entered ; Sqneers 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 un¬ 
 fortunate 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 alter¬ 
 nately. 
 
 “It isn’t a dream!” said Squeers. “That’s real flesh and 
 blood, I know the feel of itand 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 par¬ 
 take 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 um¬ 
 brella, as if I had hooked him with a grappling-iron !—Ila, 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, pat¬ 
 ting his son’s head, “and you shall have the best button-over 
 
654 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 tilings that you see your father do, and when 
 you die you’ll go right slap to Heaven and be asked no ques¬ 
 tions.” 
 
 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 Iffinging matter—and I ain’t 
 quite certain whether it ain’t an anatomy one besides—to walk 
 off with up’ards of the valley of five pounds 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 Well¬ 
 ington 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.” 
 
 Any body not in Mr. Squeers’s confidence, would have sup¬ 
 posed 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 fermle of his umbrella, and dealing a smart shower of 
 blows with the ribs of the same instrument, upon his head and' 
 Bhoulders. 
 
 “ I never threshed a ]joy in a hackney coach before,” said Mr 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 56d 
 
 Squeers, when he stopped to rest. “There’s inconveniency in 
 it, but the novelty pelves it a sort of relish too !” 
 
 Poor Smike 1 He warded olf 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 en¬ 
 able him to escape from the all-powerful Squeers, now that he 
 had no friend to speak to or advise with, than he had had in all 
 the weary years of his Yorkshire life, which preceded the arri¬ 
 val 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 at the win¬ 
 dow, 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 coach¬ 
 man, 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 
 a brass ])late on the door, with the name of Suawley.” 
 
 “ Couldn’t you say that, without wrenching a man's limbs off 
 his body ?” inquired the coachman. 
 
 “No!” bawled Mr. Squeers. “ Say another wmrd, and I’ll 
 summons you for having a broken winder. Stop 1” 
 
 Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr. Snaw- 
 ley’s door. Mr. Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and 
 sanctified gentleman who confided two sons {in laic) to the pa¬ 
 rental care of Mr. Squeers, as narrated in the foiiidh chapter of 
 this history. Mr. Snawley’s house was on the extreme borders 
 of some new settlements adjoining Somers Town, and Mr. 
 Sijueers had taken lodgings therein for a short time as his stay 
 was longer than usual, and the Saracen, having experience of 
 .M aster AVackford’s a])]ietite, had declined to receive him on any 
 other terms than as a full-grown customer. 
 
 “ Here wo are 1” said Squeers, hurrying Smike into the little 
 
656 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 parlor, where Mr. Siiawley and his wife were taking a lobster 
 supper. “ Here’s the vagrant—the felon—the rebel—the monster 
 of unthankfiilness.” 
 
 “ What! The boy that run away 1” 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 Sinike’s 
 nose, and drawing it away again, and repeating the process seve¬ 
 ral 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 wbat 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 dowm 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 w'as to be expected. 
 Any body might have known that.” 
 
 "Hard-heartedness and evil-doing will never prosper. Sir,” 
 said Mr. Snawley. 
 
 "Never was such a thing knowm,” rejoined Squeers, taking a 
 roll of notes from his pocket-book, to see that they were all safe. 
 
 " I have been, Mrs. Snawley,” said Mr. Squeers, when he 
 had satisfied himself upon this point, "I have been that chap’s ben¬ 
 efactor, feeder, teacher, and clother. I have been that chap’s clas¬ 
 sical, 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 any body 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 
 Whej^ when I look at him.” 
 
 " Well it may. Sir,” said Mrs. Snawley. " Oh ! Well it may, 
 Sir, ” 
 
 " Whei’e has he been all this time ?” inquired Snawley. "Has 
 he been living with-?” 
 
 " Ah, Sir,” interposed Squeers, confronring him again. 
 " Have you been a living with that there devilish Nickleby, Sir 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 567 
 
 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 svllable which could 
 involve his first and time 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 traveled from i oriv- 
 shire; 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 unde¬ 
 fined 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 waist¬ 
 coat, 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. 
 
 And 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 wdiich it was associated, cannot be told. 
 To prepare the mind for such a heavy sleep, its growth must be 
 stopped by rigor 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 I’esponse to the voice of gen¬ 
 tleness and affection, must have rusted and broken in their 
 secret plai;es, 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, which precedes 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 tii-st found him at the Yorkshire school 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 IN WHICH ANOTHER OLD FRIEND ENCOUNTERS SMIKE, VEHl 
 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 a brisk note of its ap¬ 
 proach with a lively winding of the guard's horn, clattered on¬ 
 ward to its halting place hard by the post-office. 
 
 The only outside- passenger was a burly, honest-looking coun¬ 
 tryman upon the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome of 
 St. Paul’s Cathedral, appeared so wrapped 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 sizable ’im, he be.” 
 
 “Goodness, John I I shouldn’t have thought it could have 
 been half the size. What a monster!” 
 
 “Monsther!—Ye’re aboot right there, I reckon, Mrs. Brow- 
 die,” said the countryman, good-humoredly, as he came slowly 
 down in his huge top-coat, “ and wa’at dost thee tak yon place 
 to be noo—thot ’un ower the wa’. Ye’d never coom near it 
 ’gin ye thried ’for twelve moonths. It’s na’ but a poast-office. 
 Ho ! ho! They need to charge for dooble-hitthers. A poast- 
 ofiice I Wa’at dost thee think o’ thot ? ’Ecod, if thot’s on’v 
 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. 
 
 ( 558 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 669 
 
 “Weel,” said John—“dang my bootuns if she bea’nt asleep 
 agean 1” 
 
 “ 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 I” 
 
 The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so 
 muffled ill shawl and cloak that it would have been matter 
 of impossibility to guess at its sex but for a brown-beaver bon- 
 nei and green veil which ornamented the head, and which, hav¬ 
 ing 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 borrowings into the old corner, and many ex¬ 
 clamations of impatienc-e 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 ISIiss 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 Ihini; 
 I am to be believed.” 
 
 'WJth 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 uncom¬ 
 monly 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, 
 36 
 
560 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and the ladies and the luggage hurried in, “ gang to the Sarah’s 
 Head, mun.” 
 
 “ To the vere ?” cried the coachman. 
 
 “Lawk, Mr. Brovvdie!” interrupted Miss Squeers. “The 
 idea! Saracen’s Head.” 
 
 “Sure-ly,” said John, “I know’d it was summut aboot Sarah 
 —to the Sarah Son’s Head. Host 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 ’em 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 mun fower days, ’account of poor old feyther deein’ 
 and puttin’ it off. Here be a weddin’ party—broide and 
 brokle’smaid, and the groom—if a mun dean’t ’joy himsel noo, 
 when ought he, hey ? Draat it all, thot’s what I wont 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 up 
 stairs 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 splendor 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 661 
 
 roses, which might be supposed to be so many promising scions 
 of the big one—to have seen all this, and to have seen the broad 
 damask belt, matching both the family rose and the little ones, 
 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 cor¬ 
 nelian 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 Squeera 
 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 he. 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 I” ob¬ 
 served Miss Squeers, with emphatic indignation. 
 
 “ Ye’d better inquire, mun,” said John Browdie. “ An’ hcnd 
 up another ))igeon-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 trifling 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 I” 
 
662 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT 
 
 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 up stairs. With 
 this he retired; and he had not retired two minutes, when he 
 returned with Mr. Squeers and his hopeful son. 
 
 ‘‘ Why, wdio’d have thought of this ?” said Mr. Squeers, wdieu 
 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, schoolmeas 
 ther,” said John, vigorously attacking the pie. 
 
 “ One of them things that young men do when they get mar 
 I’ied,” returned Squeers ; “ and as runs through wdth their mo¬ 
 ney like nothing at all. How much better w'ouldn’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 moralizing 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 wdndow, 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 wdth some archness. 
 
 “ No, ’Tilda,” replied Miss Squeers, shaking her head vehe¬ 
 mently. “ I —can wmit.” 
 
 “ So can the young men, it seems, Fanny,” observed Mrs. 
 Brow^die. 
 
 “ They an’t draw’d into it by me, ’Tilda,” retorted Miss 
 Squeers. 
 
 “ No.” returned her friend; “ that’s exceedingly true.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 663 
 
 The sarcastic tone of this reply might have provoked a rather 
 acrimonious retort from Miss Squeers, who, besides being of a 
 constitutionally vicious ’emper—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, it 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 
 
 “ Ba ! 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’atl” exclaimed John Browdie, pushing away his plate. 
 “ Got thot 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’1 Thee’st gotten him at thy loodgin’l 
 Ho I ho! The schoolmeasther agin ah England. Give us 
 thee bond, mun;—I’m darned but I must shok thee by the bond 
 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. A"ou mean it kindly, 
 I know, but it hurts rather.—yes, there he is. That’s not so 
 bad, is it ?” 
 
 “ Ba’ad 1” repeated John Browdie, “It’s eneaf to Scare a 
 mun to hear tell on.” 
 
 “ I thought it would surprise you a bit,” said Squeers, rub¬ 
 bing 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.” 
 
664 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Although he could not keep pace with John Browdie’s im¬ 
 patience, 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 to-morrow morning, for Wack- 
 ford 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 to-day. or you’d have missed us ; and, as it is, 
 unless you could come and tea with me to-night, we shan’t see 
 any thing 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 twenty 
 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 
 to-morrow, 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, con¬ 
 ducting himself in such a very extraordinary manner, that Mis? 
 Squeers opined he was going mad, and, begging her dear 
 ’Tilda not to distress herself, communicated her suspicions in 
 80 many words. Mrs. Browdie, however, without discovering 
 any great alarm, observed that she had seen him so once before, 
 and although he was almost sure to be ill after it, it would not 
 be any thing very serious and therefore he was better left 
 alone. 
 
 The result proved her to be perfectly correct: for while they 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 665 
 
 were all sitting in Mr. Snawley’s parlor that night, and just as 
 it was beginning to get dusk, John J3rowdie was taken so ill, 
 and seized with such an alarming dizziness in the head, that 
 the whole company were thrown into the utmost consternation, 
 llis good lady, indeed, was the only person present who re¬ 
 tained presence of mind enough to observe that if he were 
 allowmd 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 send¬ 
 ing for a surgeon. Accordingly, John wms supported up stairs 
 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 parlor with the grati¬ 
 fying 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 otf his shoes, and 
 creeping to the adjoining room, where the prisoner wms 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 afther schoolmeasther was banged ?” 
 
 “Yes, yes,” cried Smike. “ Oh ! help me.” 
 
 “Help thee I” I’eplied John, stopping his mouth again the 
 instant he had said thus much. “Thee didn’t need help if thee 
 war’nt as silly yoongster as ever draw’d breath. Wa’at did 
 ’ee come here for, then ?” 
 
 “ He brought me ; oh I he brought me,” cried Smike. 
 
 “ Brout thee 1” 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, 
 
666 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 '* and God forgi' me for bragging ower yan o’ his weakest 
 creeturs.” 
 
 Smike opened his mouth to speak, but John Browdie stopped 
 liim. 
 
 " 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 screw-driver 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? Week Are yon thy 
 clothes, or school-measther’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’ ein,” said John, forcing the wrong arm into the 
 wrong sleeve, and winding the tails of the coat round the fugi¬ 
 tive’s neck. “Noo, foller me, and when thee get’st ootside the 
 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’ schoohneasther’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 wall, he wull!” replied John impatiently. “ He wean’t, 
 he wean’t. Look ’ee. I wont to do this neighborly loike, and 
 let them think thee’s gotten awa’ o’ theeself, but if lie cooms oot 
 o’ that parlor awhiles thecr’t clearing off, he mun’ have mercy 
 on his oun boans, for I wean’t. If he foinds it oot soon afther. 
 I’ll put ’un on a wrong scent, I warrant ’ee. But if thee kee})s’t 
 a good hart, thee’lt be at whoara afore they know thees’t gotten 
 off. Coom.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 567 
 
 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. 
 
 “The’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 
 bee’nt jealous of ’un—dang it, I’m loike to boost when I think 
 o’ that Height; ’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 ho 
 was within an ace of breaking out into a loud guffaw. Re¬ 
 straining himself, however, just in time, by a great effort, ho 
 glided down stairs, hauling Smike behind him ; and placing 
 himself close to the parlor-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. Open¬ 
 ing the house-door gently, and casting a look of mingled grati¬ 
 tude and terror at his deliverer, he took the direction which had 
 been indicated to him, and sped away like the wind 
 
 The Yprkshireman 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 
 bed-clothes 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 XL. 
 
 IN WHICH NICHOLAS FALLS IN LOVE. HE EMPLOYS A MEDI¬ 
 ATOR, AVHOSE PROCEEDINGS ARE CROVr^NED 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 ; and 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 
 (568) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 669 
 
 pretty plain even to the minrl of Sinike. lie had at first enter¬ 
 tained some vague and childish idea of traveling 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 ana searching in 
 by-ways 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 down stairs, 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 very last drop. 
 
 Newman looked uncommonly blank when he found that 
 Sniike did little more than put his lips to the precious mi.xture; 
 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 New¬ 
 man as Smike proceeded. At first he stood rubbing his lipa 
 
570 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with the back of his hand, as a preparatory ceremony towards 
 eoin[)osing himself for a draught; then, at the mention of 
 Squccrs, lie took tlie mug under his arm, and opening his eyes 
 very wide, looked on in the utmost astonishment. When Sraike 
 came to the assault upon himself in the hackney coach, he 
 hastily deposited the mug on 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 Brovvdie 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 1 
 Ila !” 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 Srnike. “ I don’t think he could 
 have missed me till I had got quite away.” 
 
 Newman scratched his head with a show of great disappoint¬ 
 ment, 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. “lie hasn’t had a minute’s 
 rest or peace ; no more has the old lady, nor Miss Nickleby.” 
 
 “No, no. Has s/ie 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 I” cried Smike. “ Well said I” 
 
 “ So mild and gentle,” said Newman. 
 
 “Yes yes, 1” cried Smike, with increasing eagerness. 
 
 “ And yet, with such a true and gallant spirit,” pursued Newman 
 
 He was going on, in his enthusiasm, v.hen 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 lingers. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 671 
 
 A moment before, the boy’s eyes were sparkling witli unwont¬ 
 ed fire, and every feature had been lighted up with an excite¬ 
 ment which made him appear for the moment quite a different 
 being. 
 
 “Well, well,” muttered Newman, as if he were a little puz¬ 
 zled. “ It has touched me more than once, to think such a 
 natur(; should have been exposed to such trials; this poor fel¬ 
 low—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 re¬ 
 flections, 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 oc¬ 
 casionally 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 straight¬ 
 way repair to the cottage, to relieve the suspense of the family. 
 But as Smike would not hear of this, pleading his anxiety to 
 see nis friends again, they eventually sallied forth together; and 
 the night being by this time far advanced, and Smike being be¬ 
 sides so footsore that he could hardly crawl along, it was with¬ 
 in an hour of sunrise, when they I’eached their destination. 
 
 At the first sound of their voices, outside the house, Nicholas, 
 who had |)assed a sleepless night, devising schemes for the re¬ 
 covery of his lost charge, started from his bed, and joyfully ad¬ 
 mitted 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 favor and regard; and was so obliging as to relate, for 
 his entertainment, and that of the assembled circle, a most re¬ 
 markable 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, 
 wliose name she had forgetton, confined for some crime, which 
 she didn’t clearly recollect. 
 
672 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 At fi/st, Nicholas was disposed to give his uncle credit fo) 
 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 hia 
 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 re¬ 
 tributive 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 7mne,” replied Nicholas, with a smile. 
 
 “Pooh ! Pooh !” said Tim Linkinwater, “ don’t tell me. Coun¬ 
 try 1” (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 be¬ 
 fore breakfast; and as to flowers, it’s worth a run up stairs 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 1” 
 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 en¬ 
 couraged, 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, bed-ridden, hump-backed boy, and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 673 
 
 seem to be the only pleasures, 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 1 Weil! not many ; but though they would ap¬ 
 pear nothing, if I thought of other things, they seem a long, long 
 time, vrhen I think of him. It is a sad thing,” said Tim, break¬ 
 ing off, “ to see a little deformed child, sitting apart from other 
 children, who are active and meri’y, watching the games he is 
 denied the power to share in. lie 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 wmre 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. We used to nod at first, and then 
 we came to speak. Formerly, when I called to him of a morn¬ 
 ing, and asked him how he was, he would smile, and say, ‘bet¬ 
 ter but now he shakes his head, and only bends more closely 
 over his old plants. It must be dull to watch the dark house¬ 
 tops 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. 
 
 “ Ilis 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.’ Ilis voice has 
 grown weak of late, but I can see that he makes the old rei)ly. 
 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 1 often sit at my window for an hour and more, that he may 
 see I am still awake; and sometimes I get up in the night to 
 
b74 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 awake 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 yon think ? Or do you suppose that the with 
 ering ol a hundred kinds of the choicest flowers that blow, called 
 by the hardest I/atin 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 any where but in 
 London ?” 
 
 With which inquiry, Tim turned his back, and pretending to 
 be absorbed in his accounts, took an opportunity of hastily 
 wdping 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 seren¬ 
 ity had been a little disturbed by these recollections, it so hap¬ 
 pened that when Nicholas returned from executing some commis¬ 
 sion, and inquired whether Mr. Charles Cheeryble was alone in 
 Ids 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 particu¬ 
 lar 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 quick¬ 
 ly he turned to walk out again, when he saw to his great aston¬ 
 ishment and discomfiture a young lady upon her knees at Mr 
 Cheeryble’s feet, and Mr. Cheeryble beseeching her to rise, and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 576 
 
 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. 
 
 jS’icholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was pre¬ 
 cipitately 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 recognized 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, 1 
 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.” 
 
 “ Brotlier Charles, my dear fellow,” replied his brother, hur¬ 
 rying into the room, “ what is the-ah ! what-” 
 
 “ IIusli I hush !—not a word for your life, brother Ned,” re¬ 
 turned the other. “ Ring for the housekeeper, my dear brother 
 —call Tim Liukinwater. 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 re¬ 
 quest. 
 
 “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 
 
 37 
 
676 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 count- 
 iiig-tiouse 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 
 alierwards 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 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 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 ques¬ 
 tion 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 to-day ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “She’s gone,” said Tim. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 577 
 
 “ Gone!” 
 
 “Yes.” 
 
 “ I hope she has not far to go ?” said Nicholas, looking earn¬ 
 estly at the other. 
 
 “Ay,” replied the iramovealble 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 in¬ 
 formation 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 relaxed into a state of most provoking 
 taciturnity, and from answering in monosyllables, came to re¬ 
 turning 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 hims^elf 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 hand-writing. On two or three occasions ho 
 was employed on business which took him to a distance, and 
 had formerly been transacted by Tim Linkinwater. Nicho¬ 
 las 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 indispen.-5able 
 to the growth of love, but they are very often its powerful aux¬ 
 iliaries. “ Out of sight, out of mind,” is well enough as a pro¬ 
 verb applicable to cases of friendship, though absence is not 
 alv.ays necessary to hollowness of heart even between friends, 
 and truth and honesty, like precious stones, are perhaps most 
 
678 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 sepa¬ 
 ration, 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 ardor and 
 devotion remained without its reward. The young lady ap¬ 
 peared no more; so that there was a great deal of love wasted 
 (enough indeed to have set up half-a-dozen young gentlemen, 
 as times go, with the ntmost decency) and nobody was a bit 
 the wiser for it; not even Nicholas himself, who, on the con¬ 
 trary, became more dull, sentimental, and lackadaisical^ every 
 day. 
 
 While matters were in this state, the failure of a correspon¬ 
 dent of the Brothers Cheerybles, in Germany, imposed upon 
 Tim Linkinwater and Nicholas the necessity of going through 
 some very-long and complicated accounts extending over a con¬ 
 siderable 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 sel¬ 
 dom business habits—he cheerfully assented. On the very first 
 night of those late 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 
 
THE MEDITATIVE OGRE. 
 
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NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 579 
 
 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 i)itch. Tantalized and excited beyond all 
 bearing, and unable to fathom the mystery without neglecting 
 his duty, he confided the whole secret to Newman Noggs, implor¬ 
 ing him to be on the watch next night, to follow the girl hone 
 to set on foot such inquiries relative to the name, condition, 
 and history of her mistress, as he could without exciting sus¬ 
 picion ; 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 the beholders. Indeed, divers ser¬ 
 vant-girls who came to draw water, and sundry little boys who 
 stoi)ped to drink at the ladle, were almost scared out of their 
 senses by the apparition of Newman Noggs, looking stealthily 
 around 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. New¬ 
 man 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.” 
 
580 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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 Bobstcr,” replied Newman. 
 
 “Bobsterl” repeated Nicholas, indignantly. 
 
 “That’s the name,” said Newman. “I remembered it by 
 lobster.” 
 
 “Bobster!” repeated Nicholas, more emphatically than 
 before. “ That must be the servant’s name.” 
 
 “No, it ain’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.” 
 
 “ Yery. 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 
 have 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 to-morrow 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, wringing his hand. 
 
 “You are rigid,” returned Newman. 
 
 “Where docs she live?” cried Nicholas. “What have you 
 learnt of her history ? lias 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 passion¬ 
 ately 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 581 
 
 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 ipies- 
 tions 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 character¬ 
 istic vehemence. “ Heaven knows I do 1” 
 
 “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, approv 
 ingly. 
 
 Newman then went on to say that the young lady was an 
 only child, that her mother was dead, and 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 had 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 favorably impressed 
 ^\'ith his attentions. The mystery of her visits to the Brothers 
 (Ihecryble 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 ])lead 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 
 
682 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 might ill some degree account, both for her having sought the 
 protection and friendship of the brothers, and her suffering her 
 self 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 him¬ 
 self 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 ful¬ 
 filling the appointment, which was for eleven o’clock. 
 
 “Things come about very strangely,” thought Nicholas, as 
 he walked home. “ I never contemplated any thing of this 
 kind; never dreamt of the possibility of it. To know some¬ 
 thing 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 
 any body,”—which was certainly not pleasant. The next mo¬ 
 ment he was angry with himself for entertaining such thoughts, 
 arguing that nothing but goodness could dwell in such a tein- 
 l)lc, and that the behavior of the brothers sufficiently showed 
 the estimation in which they held her. “The fact is. she’s a 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 583 
 
 mystery altogether,” said Nicholas. This was not more satis¬ 
 factory 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 New¬ 
 man Noggs had trimmed himself up a little ; his coat presenting 
 llie phenomenon of two consecutive buttons, and the supple¬ 
 mentary pins being inserted at tolerably regular intervals. He 
 wore his hat, too, in the newest taste, with a pocket-handker¬ 
 chief in the crown, and a twisted end of it straggling out be¬ 
 hind, after the fashion of a pigtail, though he could scarcely 
 lay claim to the ingenuity of inventing this latter decoiaition, 
 inasmuch as he was irtterly unconscious of it: being in a ner¬ 
 vous and excited condition which rendered him quite insensible 
 to every thing 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 Edge- 
 ware-road. 
 
 “ Number twelve,” said Newman. 
 
 “ Oh 1” replied Nicholas, looking about him. 
 
 “ Good street ?” said Newman. 
 
 “Yes,” returned Nicholas, “rather dull.” 
 
 Newman made no answer to this I’emark, but halting ab- 
 ru]flly, 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 I” 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 1” 
 
 With this fortifying assurance, he stole past a street door on 
 
684 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 which Nicholas caught a glimpse of a brass plate, witb 
 •‘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 precipi¬ 
 tated 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 any thing 
 rather than the hope and rapture of a passionate lover. New¬ 
 man followed—he would have followed head first, but for the 
 tiuiely 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 im¬ 
 agining 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 were 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 ser¬ 
 vant-girl appeared, bearing a light, and followed by her young 
 mistress, who seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty and con¬ 
 fusion. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 585 
 
 At sight 01 the young lady, Nicholas started and changed 
 color; his heai’t 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 knock¬ 
 ing 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 I” 
 
 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 I” 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 Imd never ceased, Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried 
 olf; 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 
 
586 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 or speaking. At last they halted, and confronted each other 
 with blank and rueful faces. 
 
 “ Never mind,” said Newman, gasping for breath. “ Don’t bo 
 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. “Excel 
 lently, 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 conse¬ 
 quence ; 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 XL I. 
 
 CONTATNINQ SOME ROMANTIC PASSAGES BETWEEN MRS. NICKEEB? 
 
 A N D THE GENTLEMAN IN THE SMALL-CLOTHES NEXT DOOR. 
 
 Ever since her last momentous conversation with her son, 
 M rs, Nickleby had by little and little 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 de¬ 
 corations, 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, and from 
 being the outward tokens of respect and sorrow for the dead, 
 were converted into signals of very slaughterous and killing de¬ 
 signs upon the living. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby might have been stimulated to this proceeding 
 by a lofty sense of duty, and impulses of unquestionable excel¬ 
 lence. 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 
 ni)art, the change might have taken its rise in feelings of the 
 ))urcst and most disinterested charity. The gentleman next door 
 bad 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 hav^ 
 felt that it was the act of a good Christian to show, by all means 
 
 ( 587 ) 
 
688 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 reason¬ 
 able in the world, and just the very result of all others which 
 discreet and thinking persons might have foreseen, from her in¬ 
 cautiously displaying her matured charms, without reserve, under 
 the very eye, as it were, of an ardent and too-susceptible man ? 
 
 “Ahl” 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 ho 
 had emigrated in his bachelor days, was a question which his 
 relict did not stop to consider, for Kate entered the room with 
 her work-box 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 sing¬ 
 ing 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, mamma ?” 
 
 “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 hav« 
 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 oi 
 sitting down to two pigs—they must have been partridges. Roast 
 pig 1 I hardly think we ever could have had one, now I come 
 to remember, for youi 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, too, 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 put that in 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 589 
 
 my head. 1 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 quarter-day, and wasn’t found till the new tenant went in 
 •—and we had roast pig there. It must be that, T 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 1 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, mamma,” re¬ 
 turned 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 mamma 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 
 arbor to rights and training the sweetest flowers about it, are 
 
 beyond any thing I could have- 1 wish he wouldn’t put all 
 
 the gravel on your side, Kate, my dear, though, and leave 
 nothing but mould for me.” 
 
 “Dear mamma,” returned Kate, hastily, “take this seat—do 
 .—to oblige me, mamma.” 
 
 “ No, indeed, my dear. I shall keep my own side,” said Mrs, 
 Nickleby. “ Well! I declare 1” 
 
 Kate looked up inquiringly. 
 
 “ If he nasu’i been,” said Mrs. Nickleby, “ and got from 
 
690 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 soraewlicre 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, tlie other night, and 
 asked rae if I wasn’t—it’s the same thing—now, upon my word, 
 1 take tliat as very kind and attentive indeed! I don’t see,” 
 added Mrs. Nickleby, looking narrowly about her, “any ot 
 tliem 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 
 the j are all near you, and he has put the gravel tliere beeause 
 it’s the sunny side. Upon my word, that’s very clever now. I 
 shouldn’t have had half as much thought myself!” 
 
 “Mamma,” said Kate, hurriedly, bending over her work so 
 that her face was almost hidden, “ before you were married—” 
 
 “Dear me, Kate,” interrupted Mrs. Kickleby, “what in the 
 name of goodness graeiousness 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 1 mamma,” 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 is kept,” said Mrs. Nickleby. “How 
 very odd you are, Kate 1” 
 
 “ I do praise it, mamma,” 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 for changing it—if trap it were—and in¬ 
 quired what she had been going to say. 
 
 “About what, mamma?” 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 I” said Kate, “ I remember. I was going to ask, 
 mamma, before you were married, had you many suitors ?” 
 
 “ Suitors, my dear I” cried- Mrs. Nickleby, with a smile of 
 wonderful complacency. “First and last, Kate, I must have 
 had a dozen at least.” 
 
NICHOLAS NIC KLEE Y. 
 
 591 
 
 “ Mamma 1” 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 wlio 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 tlie 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 1” wliich appeared to come from the very foundation of 
 the garden wall, gave both herself and her daughter a violent 
 start. 
 
 “ Mamma I” what was that ?” said Kate, in a low tone of 
 voice. 
 
 “Upon my word, my dear,” returned Mrs. Nickleby, con¬ 
 siderably startled, “unless it was the gentleman belonging to 
 the next house, I don’t know what it could possibly—” 
 
 “A—hem 1” cried tlie 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 neighborhood, and was 
 prolonged to an extent which must have made the unseen 
 bellower quite black in the face. 
 
 “I understand it now, iny 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 any body. Let 
 us give every body their due, Kate; I am bound to say that.” 
 
 So saying, Mrs. Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the 
 Lack 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 God ! and wouldn’t do it. 
 
 “What do you mean, mamma?” demanded Kate, in evident 
 surprise. 
 
 “Don’t bo fiurried, mv dear,” replied Mrs. Nickleby, looking 
 38 
 
692 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 towards the garden-wall, “for you see I’m not, and if it would 
 be excusable in any body 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, mamma,” said 
 K ate. 
 
 “ 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 I 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 
 Ihe 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, and leering look, most ugly to behold. 
 
 “Mamma I” cried Kate, really terrified for the moment, “why 
 
NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 698 
 
 do you stop, why do you lose an instant?—Mamma, pray 
 come in 1” 
 
 “Kate, my dear,” returned her mother, still holdinf^ 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 I What do you want. Sir ?” said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 addressing the intruder with a sort of simpering displeasure. 
 “ H ow 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, with a haughty air. “Pray, begone.” 
 
 “ Why is it,” said the old gentleman, coming up a step 
 higher, and leaning his elbows on the wall, with as much com¬ 
 placency as if he were looking out of a window, “ why is it that 
 beauty is always obdurate, even when admiration is as honorable 
 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 Ihe 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?” 
 
 “Mamma,” murmured Kate, “do you hear him?” 
 
 “ Hush, my dear 1” replied Mrs. Nickleby, in the same tone 
 of voice, “he is very ])olite 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 I quite away.” 
 
 “ Yea,” returned Mrs Nickleby, “certainly. You have no 
 
594 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 mellifluous- 
 ness over the neighbors’ gardens, and force the fruit and vege¬ 
 tables into premature existence. Tliat fact I am acquainted 
 will,. 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.” 
 
 “Hear mamma,” rejoined Kate, “don’tsay a word to him, but 
 let us run away as fast as we can, and shut ourselvs 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 which 
 I should imagine you to be from your language and—and—ap¬ 
 pearance (quite the counterpart of your grand-papa, 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 neighbor now looking over the wall, he 
 must have been, to say the least, a very queer-looking old gen¬ 
 tleman in his prime. Perhaps Kate thought so, for she ven¬ 
 tured to glance at his living portrait with some attention, as he 
 took off his black velvet cap, and, exhibiting a perfectly bald 
 Iiead, 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 re¬ 
 suming his former attitude, said, 
 
 “ The question is-” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 696 
 
 Here he broke off to look round in every direction, and satisfy 
 himself beyond all doubt that there were no listeners near. As¬ 
 sured that there were not, he tapped his nose several times, ac¬ 
 companying the action with a cunning look, as though congrat¬ 
 ulating 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 
 e feint of retreating towards the house. 
 
 “ No, but are you said the old gentleman. 
 
 “You know 1 am not, sir,” replied Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “ Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canter¬ 
 bury ?” inquired the old gentleman with great anxiety, “or to 
 the Pope of Home ? 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 repoi’ts, sir,” returned Mrs. Nick¬ 
 leby, 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 I” 
 
 “ Pray, mamma, come away I” whispered Kate. 
 
 “ ‘ Pray, mamma 1’ Nonsense, Kate,” said Mrs. Nickleby, an¬ 
 grily, “ but that’s just the way. If they had said I was niece to a 
 pil)ing bullfinch, what would you care ! But I have no sym- 
 ])athy”—whimpered Mrs. Nickleby, “I don’t expect it, that’s 
 one thing.” 
 
 “ Tears 1” 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 u[)—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 
 dll actively engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap 
 
596 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 inside out, put it on with great dignity so as to obscure hia 
 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 a.way, when he put his cap in his pocket with an air of great 
 satisfaction, and addressed himself with a respectful demeanor 
 to Mrs Nickleby. 
 
 “ Beautiful madam,” such were his words—" if I have made 
 any mistake with regard to your family or connexions, I humbly 
 beseech j ou to pardon me. If I supposed you to be related to 
 Foreign Powers or Native Boards, it is because you have a man¬ 
 ner, a carriage, a dignity, which you will excuse my saying that 
 none but yourself (with the single exception perhaps of tho 
 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 1” said Mrs. Nickleby faintly, and 
 looking another way. 
 
 “ I have estates, ma’am,” said the old gentleman, flourishing 
 his hand negligently, as if he made very light of such matters, 
 and speaking very fast; “jewels, light-houses, 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 kind¬ 
 ness 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 Honse of Commons, who is strictly forbidden to take any 
 money for showing it. I have enemies about me, ma’am,” he 
 looked towards his honse 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 Chan¬ 
 cellor or call out the military if necessary—sending my tooth¬ 
 pick to tlie coinmander-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 I” 
 
 Repeating these last words with great rapture and enthu- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 597 
 
 siasra, 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 I” 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, 
 mamma ?” reasoned Kate. 
 
 “ y ou will allow me, my dear, if you please, to judge for 
 myself,” said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “ Be mine, be mine I” 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 1” cried the old gentleman. “ Gog and 
 Magog, Gog and Magog. Be mine, be mine 1” 
 
 “ It will be sufficient for me to say. Sir,” resumed Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with ])erfect 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 neighbor—very glad ; delighted, I’m sure 
 — b\it 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 in- 
 ctant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would, and 
 I never will. It’s a very painful thing to have to reject pro¬ 
 posals, 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.” 
 
598 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 These observations were partly addressed to the old gentle¬ 
 man, partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. 
 Towards their conclusion, the suitor evinced a very irreve¬ 
 rent 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 favorite 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 de.xterity one 
 of the old gentleman’s ancles. This done, the companion hand 
 appeared, and clasped the other ancle. 
 
 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 1 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 
 ]’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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 699 
 
 to speak to her mamma, 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 neighbor. 
 
 “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 I” rejoined the man, taking his handkerchief out of hla 
 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 tlie cruelest, wickedest, out-and-outerest old flint that ever 
 drawed breath.” 
 
 “ Indeed I” said Kate. 
 
 “ By George 1” 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 
 selflshiiess, and guzzling, and drinking, or he’d have drove 
 many others so. Hope for hivi, an old rip! There isn’t too 
 much ho}m 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, iie 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 humor, but that his subject ruffled 
 him—descended the ladder, and took it away. 
 
600 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 During this conversation, Mrs. Nickleby had regarded the 
 man with a severe and steadfast look. She now heaved a pro¬ 
 found sigh, and pursing up her lips, shook her head in a slow 
 and doubtful manner. 
 
 “ Poor creature 1” said Kate. 
 
 “ Ah 1 poor indeed I” rejoined Mrs. Nickleby “ It’s shame¬ 
 ful that such things should be allowed. Shameful!” 
 
 “How can they be helped, mamma ?” said Kate mournfully. 
 
 “The infirmities of nature-” 
 
 “Nature 1” said Mrs. Nickleby. “What! Do you suppose 
 this poor gentleman is out of his mind ?” 
 
 “ Can any body who sees him entertain any other opinion, 
 mamma ?” 
 
 “Why then, I just tell you this, Kate,” returned Mrs. Nick¬ 
 leby, “ tliat 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 1 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 
 :hit 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 XLII. 
 
 ijjLustrative of the convivial sentiment, that the best 
 
 OF FRIENDS MUST SOMETIMES PART. 
 
 The pavement of Snow Hill bad been baking and frying all 
 day in the heat, and the twain Saracens’ heads guarding the 
 entrance to the hostlery of whose name and sign they are the 
 duplicate presentments, looked—or seemed in the eyes of jaded 
 and foot-sore 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, fianked by large joints of roast and boil, 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 break¬ 
 fasts. 
 
 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-handker¬ 
 chief, or to dip a tea-spoon in the milk-pot and carry it to his 
 mouth, or 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!” 
 
 “ Weel, John !” retorted her husband, impatiently. “ Dost 
 thou feel hungry, lass ?” 
 
 “Not very,” said Mrs. Browdie. 
 
 (600 
 
602 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Not vary 1” repeated John, raising his eyes to tlie ceiling 
 “ Hear her say not vary, and us dining at three, and loonching 
 oif pasthry that aggravates a inon ’stead of pacifying him t 
 Not vary I” 
 
 “ Here’s a gen’l’raan for yon, Sir,” said ilie 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’raan. Sir.” 
 
 “Stars and garthers, chap!” said John, “wa’at dost thoo 
 coom and say thot for. In wi’ ’un.” 
 
 “ Arc 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, that we war faint wi’ 
 hoonger. In wi’ ’un. Aha I Thee bond, Misther Nickleby. 
 This is nigh to be the proodest day o’ my life. Sir. Hoo be all 
 wi’ ye ? Ding I But I’m glod o’ this I” 
 
 Quite forgetting even his hunger in the lieartiness of his salu¬ 
 tation, John Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand again and 
 again, slapping his palm wdth great violence between each shake, 
 to add warmth to the reception. 
 
 “ Ah ! there she be 1” 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 license, 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, “ male’ 
 theeself quite at whoam, will ’ee ?” 
 
 “You may depend upon that,” replied Nicholas; “on one 
 condition.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 603 
 
 “ And wa’at may tlmt be ?” asked John. 
 
 “ That you make me a godfather the very first time you hare 
 occasion for one.” 
 
 “Eh! d’ye hear thot I” cried Jolin, laying down his knife 
 and fork. “ A godfeyther ! Ila I ha 1 ha I Tilly—hear till 
 ’un—a godfeyther I Jlivn’t say a "word more, ye’ll never beat 
 thot. Occasion for ’un—a godfeyther 1 ITa ! ha ! ha I” 
 
 Never was man so tickled witli a respectable old juke, as 
 John Browdie was with this. lie chuckled, roared, half suR'o 
 cated himself by laughing large pieces of beef into his wind[)ipe, 
 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 exliaustion and with the water 
 streaming from his eyes, but still faintly ejaculating “ A god- 
 feyther—a godfeyther, Tilly !” in a tone bes])eaking an excpu- 
 site relish of the sally, which no suffering could diminish. 
 
 “ You remember the night of our first tea-drinking ?” said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 “ Sliall I e’er forget it, mun !” replied John Browdie. 
 
 “He was a desperate fellow that night though, was he not, 
 ^Irs. Browdie ?” said Nicholas. “ Quite a monster ?” 
 
 “If you had only heard him as we were going home, IMr. 
 Nickleby, you’d have said so indeed,” returned the bride 
 “ I never was so frightened in all my life.” 
 
 “ Coom, cooni,” said John, with a broad grin; “thou 
 know’st betther than thot, Tilly.” 
 
 “ So I was,” rei)lied 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’. 
 ‘ \Va’at did’st thou let yon chap mak’ oop tiv’ee for ?’ says I. 
 'I dcedu’t, John,’ says she, a squcedgin my arm. ‘You 
 dcetln’t ?’ says I. ‘ Noa,’ says she, a s(pieedgin of me agean.” 
 
 “ Lor, John I” interposed his pretty wife, coloring very much 
 “ How can you talk such nonsense ? As if I should have 
 dreamt of such a thing 1” 
 
604 
 
 NICHOLAS NIOKLEBy. 
 
 “ 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, afther you chap at school- 
 measther’s,’ says I. ‘ Him !’ says she, quite screeching. ‘ Ah 1 
 him!’ says I. ‘Why, John,’ says she—and she ccom 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’ oop wi’ such a 
 leetle scanty whipper-snapper as yon I’ she says. Ha! ha! ha! 
 She said whipper-snapper! ‘ Ecod !’ I says, ‘ efther thot, neamo 
 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 the 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 rae or what 
 plight I should have been in by this time.” 
 
 “ Talk aboot soom’at else,” replied John, gruffly, “ and din¬ 
 not bother.” 
 
 ‘ It must be a new song to the same tune then,” said Nicho¬ 
 las, 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 grateful he and I, and otherri whom you 
 don’t know, are to you for taking pity on him.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 COa 
 
 “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 takkeii pity on 
 him.” 
 
 “ Ah I” exclaimed Mrs. Browdie, “ what a state I was in, 
 thal night 1” 
 
 “ Were they at all disposed to give you credit foi 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 cooni 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 loik, 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 doon stairs, and him a warking oop in the dark. ‘ Slow 
 and steddy,’ I says to myself, ‘tak’ your time. Sir—no hurry.’ 
 He cooms to the door, turns the key—turns the key wdien there 
 warn’t nothing to hoold the lock—and ca’s oot, ‘ Halloo, there I’ 
 
 .—‘Yes,’thinks I, ‘you may do thot agean, and not wakkeu 
 any body. Sir.’ ‘ Halloo, there,’ he says, and then he stops. 
 ‘Thou’d betther not aggravate me,’ says schoolmeasther, efthei 
 a little time. ‘PH 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 comes—ecod, such a hoorly- 
 boorly ! ‘ Wa’at’s the matther V 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 wm’—eh ?) ‘ Help !’ 
 
 he cries. ‘I’ll heb) you,’says I; and off we set—the wrong 
 wa’ I IIo ! ho ! ho !” 
 
 ” Did you go far ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “ Far I” replied John ; “ I run him clean off his legs in qnar- 
 ther 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 coattails 
 
COG 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLE13Y. 
 
 Oying out behind, and him spattered wi’ mud all ower—face and 
 all;—I thought 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 
 ’uu, 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’ant 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 neighborly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I 
 say is, dean’t quarrel if ’ee can help it. Diniiot think so, Mr, 
 Nickleby ?” 
 
 “ Certainly,” returned Nicholas; “and you acted upon that 
 principle when I met 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, “ 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 per¬ 
 ception of the joke though, being a bride herself. 
 
 “The groom will be a blessed niun,” said John, his eyes 
 twinkling at the idea. “He’ll be in luck, he will.” 
 
 “You sec, Mr. Nickleby,” said his wife, “that it was in con¬ 
 sequence of her being here, that John wrote to you and fi.xed to¬ 
 night, because we thought that it wouldn’t lie pleasant for you 
 to meet, after what has passed—” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 007 
 
 “ Unquestionably, You were quite ri^ht in that,” said Nicho¬ 
 las, interrupting'. 
 
 “Especially,” observed Mrs. Browdie, looking very sly, “after 
 what we know about past and gone love matters.” 
 
 “Weknow, indeed!”said Nicholas, shaking his head. “You 
 behaved rather wickedly there, I suspect.” 
 
 “ O’course she did,” said John Brovvdie, passing his huge 
 fore-finger 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 comes 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 embar¬ 
 rassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way than other¬ 
 wise. 
 
 “ Oh yes,” rejoined Mrs. Browdie. “John ha’ done-John 
 
 dxed to-night, because she had settled that she would go and 
 drink tea with her father. And to make quite sure of there be¬ 
 ing 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 seeing 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 
 vii-gin heart.” 
 
 “ How you talk !” tittered IMrs. Browdie. “No, but do you 
 know tiiat really—seriously now and without any joking—I was 
 given to nuderstand by Fanny herseif, that you had made au 
 offer to her, and that you two were gohig to be engaged quite 
 Bolemu and regular.” 
 
 39 
 
608 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “Was you, Ma’am—was you ?” cried a slirill female voice, 
 “ was you given to understand that I—I—was going to be en¬ 
 gaged to an assassinating thief that slied the gore of my pa ? 
 Do you—do you think, Ma’am—that I was very fond of such 
 dirt beneath my feet, as 1 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 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 
 at 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 patronize 
 her ?” 
 
 “Oh, come,” rejoined Mrs. Browdie, disregarding all the en¬ 
 deavors of her spouse to restrain her, and forcing herself into a 
 front row, “ don’t talk such nonsense as that.” 
 
 “Have I not patronized you. Ma’am,” demanded Miss 
 Squeers. 
 
 “ No,” returned Mrs. Browdie. 
 
 “I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,” said Miss 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 609 
 
 Squeers, hauglitily, “for that countenance is a stranger to every 
 thing but hi 2 :noiniuiousness and red-faced boldness. ” 
 
 “ I say,” interposed John Browdie, nettled by these accumu¬ 
 lated 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 1” said John. 
 
 “No,” said Miss Squeers, looking sideways at her parent, 
 
 “ although I am a queer bridesmaid, and shanH 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. ” 
 
 “7 know what yon’ve got to go through,” said Miss Squeers, 
 shaking her curls violently, “/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 courtesy, “ 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 I What a pity you never thought that 
 other people might De 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 oat, 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 chria 
 
610 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 tian name. Even my pity shall never make me forj^et what’s 
 clue to myself, IMr. Browdie. ’Tilda,” said Miss Sqiieers with 
 such a sudden accession of violence that John started in his 
 boots, “ I throw you off for ever, Miss. I abandon you, I re¬ 
 nounce 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 
 eueaf to think aboot nearaing 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! Ho, don’t tease 
 her. Consider her feelings, pray.” 
 
 “ It is 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 courtesy. “ 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 
 any thing 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 l)eg ycur 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.” 
 
 IMiss Scpceers made no more direct reply than surveying her 
 former friend from top to toe, and elevating her nose in the air 
 with inetTable disdain. But some indistinct allusions to a “]iuss,” 
 and a “minx,” and a “contemptible creature,” escaped her; 
 and this, together with a severe biting of the lips, gi’eat diffi¬ 
 culty 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, tinding himself unnoticed, and feeling his prepon¬ 
 derating inclinations strong upon him, had by little and little 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 611 
 
 sidled up to the table and attacked the food with such slight skir¬ 
 mishing 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 aijsorbed 
 in thought—and so forth. Einding 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 ap¬ 
 pearance 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. 
 
 “Ealing!” cried Mr. Squeers, “of what his father’s enemies 
 has left I It’s fit to go and poison you, you unnat’ral boy.” 
 
 “It wean’t hurt him,” said John, apparently very ranch 
 relieved by the prospect of having a man in the quarrel; “ let 
 ’uii eat. I wish the whole school was here. I’d give ’em soom’uc 
 to stay their uiifort’nate stomachs wi’, if I spent the last penny 
 I had I” 
 
 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, schoolmcasther,” 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’tluit! It wa’ me. Noo then !” 
 
 “You hear him say he did it, my child!” said Squeers ap¬ 
 pealing to his daughter. “ You hear him say he did it!” 
 
 “ Did it!” cried John. “ I’ll tell ’ce more ; hear this too. If 
 
812 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 thou'd get another roonaway boy, I’d do it agean. If thou’d 
 got twonty roonaway boys, I’d do it twonty times ower, and 
 twenty 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 wee! 
 for thou, thou be’st 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 manl” cried Squeers, with a sneer. 
 
 “ Ahl an honest manl” replied John; “honest in ought but 
 ever putting legs under seamc table wi’ such as thou.” 
 
 “ Scandal I” said Squeers, exultiugly. “ 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 pocket- 
 book 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 Aever,” said Misa 
 Squeers, looking contemptuously and loftily round. “I am 
 deflled by breathing the air with such creatures. Poor Mr. Brow- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 618 
 
 die 1 He 1 lie! he ! I do pity him, that I do; he’s so deluded 1 
 Tie! 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 
 sci’eam and struggle in the passage. 
 
 John Browdie remainevl 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 any body whoam, and ecod, we’ll begin to 
 spend the evening in airnest.” 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 OFFICIATES Ab A KIND OP 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 favorably as, 
 under the influence of complete tranquility, 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 ma¬ 
 trimony, 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, san¬ 
 guinary and ferocious, that it could hardly have been surpassed, 
 if there had actually been a Sai’acen’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 out¬ 
 burst, (as turmoils not unfrequently do, whether in taverns, legisla¬ 
 tive assemblies, or elsewhere,) into a mere grumbling and growl¬ 
 ing squabble, increased every moment; and althougu 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 puj^py,” and a variety of ex¬ 
 pletives 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 up¬ 
 roar and created much smaller consternation. 
 
 “ Why, what’s the matter ?” said Nicholas, moving hastily 
 towards the door. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6J5 
 
 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 dan¬ 
 ger it was her intention to fall into hysterics immediately, and 
 that the coiihe^juences 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 nnal)le to keei) out of the fray, he compromised the mat 
 ter by tucking his wife’s arm under his own, and, thus accompa¬ 
 nied, following Nicholas down stairs with all speed. 
 
 The passage outside the coftee-room door was the scene of dis¬ 
 turbance, and here were congregated the coffee-room customers 
 and waiters, together with two or three coachmen and helpers 
 from the yard. I'liese had hastily assembled round a young 
 man who from his appearance might have been a year or two 
 older than Nicholas, and Avho, 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 sli[)pers lay at no great distance from the head of a pros¬ 
 trate figure in an opposite corner, who bore the appearance of 
 having been shot into his present retreat by moans of a kick, and 
 comi)limented by having the slippers flung about his ears after¬ 
 wards. 
 
 The coffee-room customers, and the waiters, and the coach¬ 
 men, and the helpers—not to mention a barmaid who was look¬ 
 ing on from behind an open sash window—seemed at that mo¬ 
 ment, if a spectator might judge from their winks, nods, and mut¬ 
 tered 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 a])pearance of an habitual brawler, Nicholas, im- 
 ])elled 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 gi’oup, and in a 
 more enqdiatic tone ])erhaps than circumstances might seem to 
 warrant, demanded what all that noise was about. 
 
 “ Hallo !” said one of the men from the yard, “ this is some¬ 
 body in disguise, this is.” 
 
61G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 “Koom for the eldest son of the Emperor of Koosher, gen’P- 
 men !” cried another fellow. 
 
 Disregarding these sallies, which were uncommonly well re¬ 
 ceived, as sallies at the expense of the best-dressed persons in a 
 crowd usually are, Nicholas glanced carelessly round, and ad¬ 
 dressing 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 iron¬ 
 ical disapprobation having been exhausted, two or three of the 
 out-of-doors 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 appeai’- 
 ance; while more than one stout fellow limped away to a re¬ 
 spectful 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 terras 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 bo 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 617 
 
 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 gentle 
 man ; ” 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 1 what did you strike him for ?” demanded the others. 
 
 The unpopular gentleman looked coolly round, and address¬ 
 ing 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 colfee-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 to-night, to going home at this 
 hour, where I was not expected until to-morrow,) chose to 
 express himself in very disrespectful, and insolently familiar 
 terms, of a young lady, whom I recognized from his description 
 and other circumstances, and whom I have the honor 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 mis¬ 
 taken in his conjectures, which were of an olfensive nature, 
 and requested him to forbear, lie 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 any body here thinks proper to make this quar¬ 
 rel 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 power¬ 
 fully, for having the unknown up})ermost in his thoughts, it 
 naturally occurred to him that he would have done just the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 Cl 8 
 
 same if any audacious gossipcr durst have presumed in his hear¬ 
 ing 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 lirowdie (albeit not quite clear as to 
 the merits) immediately protested too, with not inferior vehe¬ 
 mence. 
 
 " 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. “ lie 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 I” 
 
 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 ])unished 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 shar])ly, 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 admira¬ 
 tion of a pretty face were criminal, I should be the most hope¬ 
 less 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 ui)on me already.” 
 
 “ Oh, that’s very pretty,” replied the young lady, tossing hei 
 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 be- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 619 
 
 comins: sense of its worth and excellence, whereas this fellow 
 ha^ no more notion-” 
 
 The young lady interrupted the conversation at tins 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 ])assage all night, 
 01 whether the entrance was to be left clear for other people. 
 The waiters taking the hint, and communicating it to the 
 hostlers, wci'e 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 jNicholas. 
 
 “ 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 recol¬ 
 lected the face.” 
 
 It was, indeed, Tom-—the ugly clerk. 
 
 “ That’s odd enough !” said Nicholas, ruminating upon the 
 strange manner in which that 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 favor 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 to-morrow !” 
 
 “ 1 don’t usually call myself the nephew of the firm,” returned 
 Mr. Frank, good-humoredly, “but of the two excellent indi- 
 vi.lnals who compose it, I am proud to say I am the nephew. 
 And you, I see, are Mr. Nickleby, of wdiom I have heard so 
 much! This is a most unexpected meeting, but not the less 
 welcome, I assure you.” 
 
 Nicholas responded to these com|)limcnts with others of the 
 same kind, and they shook hands wmrmly. Then he introduced 
 John Brownlie, who had remained in a state of great adniirn,- 
 tion ever since the young lady in the bar had been so skillfully 
 
620 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 won over to the right side. Then Mrs. John Browdie was 
 introduced, and finally they all went up stairs together and spent 
 the next half hour with great satisfaction and mutual entertain¬ 
 ment; Mrs. 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 ia 
 not an absolute miracle and phenomenon in nature,) was a 
 sprightly, good-humored, pleasant fellow, with much both in 
 his countenance and disposition that reminded Nicholas very 
 strongly of the kind-hearted brothers. His manner was as un¬ 
 affected as theirs, and his demeanor full of that heartiness 
 which, to most people who have any thing generous in their 
 composition, is peculiarly prepossessing. Add to this that he 
 was good-looking and intelligent, had a plentiful share of viva¬ 
 city, 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 favorable impression, not only upon the worthy 
 Yorkshireman and his wife, but upon Nicholas also, who, revolv¬ 
 ing 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 any thing 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 h.alf—four 
 years and a half. She can’t be more than seventeen—say eigh¬ 
 teen 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 621 
 
 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-minded¬ 
 ness ; but is it quite established that the majority of such ladies 
 and gentlemen have not made a virtue of necessity, and nobly re¬ 
 signed 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 Niekleby, who would have scorned the 
 thought of counting how the chances stood of his rising in favor 
 or fortune with the Brothers Cheeryble, now that their nephew 
 had returned, already deep in calculations whether that said 
 nephew was likely to rival him in the affections of the fair un¬ 
 known—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 any body 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 
 su]>))Ose 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 ; he went thinking on all the 
 way home, and continued to dream on in the same strain aP 
 night. For, having satislied himself that Frank Cheeryble 
 could have no knowledge of, or acquaiutaime with the mysteri- 
 
G22 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ons young; lady, it began to occnr to bini that even ho hiraself 
 niigiit never see her again; upon which hypothesis he built up 
 a very ingenious succession of tormenting ideas wliich answered 
 his })urpose even better tlian the ■vision of Mr. Frank Cheeryble, 
 and tantalized and worried him, waking and sleeping. 
 
 Notwithstandwig 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 Linkin- 
 water. 
 
 “ 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 any thing very par¬ 
 ticular 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 623 
 
 “Oh! if you don’t dispute it,” said Tim, cpiite satiLfied, 
 “that’s anotlier thing. I’ll tell you what though—I wish you 
 had. I \\dsh you or anybody would. I would so put that man 
 down,” said Tim, tapping the forefinger of his left hand em¬ 
 phatically with his spectacles, “so put that man down by argu¬ 
 ment-” 
 
 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, be¬ 
 cause 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 hand upon the inkstand, 
 and rather tumbling olF 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 behindhand, for 
 they laughed almost as heartily at the ludicrous idea of any 
 voluntary se[)aration 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 imlitest assembly ever derived from the most 
 poignant witticism uttered at any one person’s expense. 
 
 “Mr. Nickleby,” said brother Charles, calling him aside, and 
 40 
 
624 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 taking him kindly by the liand, “ 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 laboi 
 under any privation or discomfort that it is in our power to re¬ 
 move. 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 ardor you display.—Not a word, my dear Sir, I beg. To¬ 
 morrow is Sunday, I shall make bold to come out at tea-time, 
 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 re¬ 
 newals on the arrival of their nephew of the kind assurances 
 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 a 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 re¬ 
 flect 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 colors 
 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 ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 625 
 
 “ Perfectly well, mamma.” 
 
 “I shouldn’t think you did, Kate,” returned Mrs. Nickleby, 
 in a severe manner, “talking about it in that cold and unfeeling 
 way I 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 pro¬ 
 voking calmness.” 
 
 “ My dear mamma,” 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 foi a few 
 trifling things of wdiich 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 wmuld think, perhaps—but I 
 affected to care nothing for them, in the hope that you would 
 so be brought to regret them less. I was not insensible, indeed. 
 I might have felt happier if I had been. Dear mamma,” 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 la.st time he looked into my little room, as he 
 passed up stairs to bed, and said, ‘God bless you, darling.’ 
 There was a paleness in his face, mamma—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 litttle child. 
 
626 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 It is an exquisite and b^eautifui tiling in our nature, that when 
 tlie heart is touched and softened by some tranquil haiipiness or 
 aO'ectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most 
 powerfully and irresistibl 3 \ 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 in¬ 
 tercourse Avith the siiirjts of those wdiom we dearly loved in 
 dfe. Alas I how often and how long may those patient angels 
 hover about ns, watching for the spell which is so seldom uttered, 
 end so soon forgotten ! 
 
 Poor Mrs. Nickleby, accustomed to give ready utterance to 
 W'hatever 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 em¬ 
 braced 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 e.xpected visitor, and a very large nosegay 
 Avas brought from a gardener’s hard by and cut up into a number 
 of very small ones with which Mrs. Nickleby Avonld have gar¬ 
 nished the little sitting-room, in a style that certainly could not 
 liave failed to attract any body’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 Sraike’s pride in the garden, or Mrs, Nickleby’a 
 in the condition of the furniture, or Kate’s in every thing, was 
 nothing to the pride Avith Avhich Nicholas looked at Kate her¬ 
 self ; 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 AA’as thrown 
 into a great flutter of spirits by the long-expected knock at the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 627 
 
 door, nor was this tlutter at all composed by the audible tread 
 of two pair of boots in the jiassage, which l\lrs. Nicklcby 
 augured, in a breathless state, must be “the two Mr Chcery- 
 bles as it certainly was, thoiig-h not the two Mrs. Nicklcby 
 expected, because it was Mr. Charles Cheeryblc, and his nephew, 
 ]\lr. 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 ap])earance of this un¬ 
 expected visitor occasion the least emirarrassment, (save in Kate, 
 and that oidy 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 act of won¬ 
 dering 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 dis¬ 
 cussion, such as they were ; for young Mr. Cheeryble’s recent 
 stay in Germany happening to be alluded to, old Mr. Cheery- 
 ble informed the company that the aforesaid young Mr. Cheery- 
 ble was suspected to have fallen deeply in love with the daughter 
 of a certain German burgomaster. This accusation young Mr. 
 Cliecryble most indignantly repelled, upon which Mrs. Nickleby 
 slily remarked, that she suspected from the very warmth of the 
 denial, there must be something in it. Young IMr. Cheeryble 
 then earnestly entreated old Mr. Cheeryble to confess that it 
 was all a jest, which old IMr. Cheeryl)le 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 colored,” 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, espe¬ 
 cially when there is a lady in the case, when, if they color at all, 
 it is rather their practice to color the story, and not themselves. 
 
 After tea there was a walk in the garden, and the evening 
 being veiy fine they strolled out at the garden gate into some 
 lanes and l)y-roads, and sauntered up and down nntil 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 
 
628 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 talking w ith him and Mr. Frank Cheeryble ; and Mrs. Nicklehy 
 and the elder gentleman followed at a short distance, the kind¬ 
 ness of the irood merchant, his interest in the welfare of Niciiolas, 
 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 (wdio, if he had 
 ever been an object of interest in his life had been one that 
 day) accompanied them, joining sometimes one group and some¬ 
 times the other, as brother Charles, laying his hand upon his 
 ehoulder, 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 care- 
 w'orii 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 wms the pride which 
 swelled Mrs. Nickleby’s heart that night, and this it was wdiich 
 left upon her face, glistening in the light wdieii they returned 
 home, traces of the most grateful tears she had ever shed. 
 
 There was a quiet mirth about the little supper, wdiich har¬ 
 monized exactly with this tone of feeling, and at length the 
 two gentlemen took their leave. There wms 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 wms 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 w'as a day of serene and tranquil happiness; and 
 as w'e 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 afteiwvards, as holding a 
 conspicuous place in the calendar of those wdio shared it. 
 
 AVas there one exception, and that one he who needed to have 
 been most happy ? 
 
 Who was that who, in the silence of his owm chamber, sunk 
 upon his knees to pray as his first friend had taught him, and 
 folding his bauds and stretching them w ildly in the air, fell upon 
 his face in a passion of bitter grief? 
 
CHAPTER XLIY. 
 
 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 en¬ 
 riching themselves, no matter by what means, and being per¬ 
 fectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means 
 which they will use every day towards this end, affect neverthe¬ 
 less—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 favor. 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 serviceaoie, in the one respect of sparing the recording 
 angel some time and labor. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby was not a man of this stamp. Stern, un¬ 
 yielding, dogged, and impenetrable, Ralph cared for nothing in 
 life, or beyond it, save the gratification of two ])assions, avarice, 
 the first and ]>redominant appetite of his nature, and hatred, 
 the second. Affecting to consider himself but a type of all 
 numanity, he was at little i)ains to conceal his true charaeter 
 from the world in general, and in his own heart he exulted over 
 
 (G2<)) 
 
630 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and cherished ever^ bad design as it had birth. The only 
 scriptural admonition that Ral])h Nickleby heeded, in the letter, 
 was “know thjself.” lie knew himself well, and choosiiig 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 Ral})h 
 himself, who stood regarding Newman Noggs with a heavy 
 frown, while that worthy took off his fingerless gloves, aud 
 spreading them carefully on the palm of his left hand, and flat¬ 
 tening them with his right to take the creases out, proceeded 
 to roll them up with an absent air as if he were utterly regard¬ 
 less 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 New¬ 
 man Noggs ine.xpressible delight, in proportion as it annoyed 
 Ral])!! Nickleby. He uttered the word with a full round em¬ 
 phasis, dwelling upon it as long as he decently could, and 
 when he could hokl out no longer without attracting observa¬ 
 tion, stood gasping it to himself, as if even that were a satis¬ 
 faction. 
 
 ‘'And ivhere has he gone ?” said Ralph. 
 
 “France,” re[)lied Newman. “Danger of another attack of 
 erysipelas—a woise attack—in the head. So the doctors or¬ 
 dered him off. And he’s gone.” 
 
 “And Lord Frederick-?” began Ralph. 
 
 “ He’s gone too,” rei)lied Newman. 
 
 “And he carries his drubbing with him, docs he !” said Ralph, 
 
NK’IIOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 63] 
 
 turning away—"pockets liis bruises, and sneaks off willioiit tbe 
 retaliation of a word, or seeking the smallest reparation 1” 
 
 "He’s too ill,” said Newman. 
 
 " Too ill !” repeated Ralph " Why I would have it if I wore 
 dying; in that case I should only be the more determined to 
 have it, and that without delay—I mean if I were he. Rut he’s 
 too ill I Poor Sir Mulberry ! Too id !” 
 
 Uttering these words with supreme contempt and great irri¬ 
 tation of manner, Ralph signed hastily to Newman to leave the 
 room ; and throwing himself into his chair, beat his foot impa¬ 
 tiently upon the ground. 
 
 "There is some sjiell about that boy,” said Ralph, grinding 
 his teeth. " Circumstances conspire to help him. Talk of for¬ 
 tune’s favors ! What is even money to such devil’s luck as this !” 
 
 He thrust his hands impatiently into his pockets, but not¬ 
 withstanding 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 calcula¬ 
 tion 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 hea'd, and resting his chin upon his 
 hand fell a musing, and smiled again. After a time he rose and 
 rang the bell. 
 
 " 'riiat Mr. Squeers ; has he been here ?” said Ralph. 
 
 " ile was here last night. I left him here when I went home,” 
 returnetl Newman. 
 
 " 1 know that, fool, do I not ?” said Ralph, irascibly. " Has 
 he l)(‘en 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 to-night-—let him wait. And if there’s another man with 
 tiiin, as there will be-—perhaps,” said Ralph, checking himself, 
 " let him wait too.” 
 
632 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 “J^et’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,” 
 
 " 1 wish I was a parrot,” said 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 col¬ 
 lar of the spencer behind, just then,) as if he were strongly dis¬ 
 posed to tweak him by the nose. Meeting Ralph’s eye, how¬ 
 ever, 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 sma’l poor ones—but all upon one subject: 
 money. Ilis 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 caciiages. 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 audi¬ 
 ble 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 over-due ; 
 his threats were coarse and angry. With another class of cus¬ 
 tomers, Ralph was again another man. These were attorneys 
 of more than doubtful reputation, who helped him to new busi¬ 
 ness, or raised fresh profits upon old. With them Ralph was 
 familiar and jocose—humorous upon the topics of the da} and 
 especially pleasant upon bankruptcies and pecuniary difficulties 
 that made good for trade. In short, it would have been diffi¬ 
 cult to have recognized 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 repeti- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 033 
 
 Liou of the same complaint, (varied only in tone and style of deli¬ 
 very,) 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 
 nard 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 Pim¬ 
 lico, and Ralph walked along Saint 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-siglited 
 as any man, did not observe that he was followed by a sham¬ 
 bling 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 pic¬ 
 ture 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 shel¬ 
 ter to a tree. He was leaning against it with folded arms, still 
 buried in thought, when happening to raise his eyes, he sud¬ 
 denly 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 
 Raljih, 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-favored by hollow and 
 hungry cheeks, deeply sun-burnt, and thick, black eyebrows, 
 blacker in contrast with the i)erfect whiteness of his hair; 
 roughly clothed in shabby garments, of a strange and uncouth 
 make ; and having about him an indefinable manner of depres- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 HR 4 
 
 Sion and degradation;—this, for a moment, was ail he saw. 
 Bat lie 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 sup¬ 
 pose, 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 ?/owr manner, would have de¬ 
 cided me very soon.” 
 
 “ Bid you expect any other ?” asked Ralph, sharply. 
 
 “No I” said the man. 
 
 “You were right,” retorted Ralph ; “and as you feel no sur¬ 
 prise—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 
 1 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 be¬ 
 gan. Ralph looked round, and smiled involuntarily. 
 
 “ Well,” said the other, “as much in your confidence as you 
 ever chose to let any body be.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 635 
 
 "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 
 glow 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 
 ray reach to-day—let that have some weight with you, if no¬ 
 thing 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 fi’ora 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 drop¬ 
 ping 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 helples.s as a child of six ” 
 
G86 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ I am sisty 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 is twenty years ago, or more,” said the man, in a sup¬ 
 pressed 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 thei ?” 
 
 “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 some¬ 
 thing 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 I” 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 ma Partly in 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 681 
 
 remembrance of that, and partly'in the hope of making money 
 Bome day 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. Nick- 
 leby,” 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 ej'eing 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 raag- 
 iiilies already. You could tell it nothing that would surprise it 
 i—unless, indeed, it redounded to my credit or honor, and then 
 
638 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 Italph; 
 “ but things roll on just the same, and I don’t grow poorer either.” 
 
 “I neither revile nor threaten,” rejoined the man. “lean 
 tell you of what you have lost by ray 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 that 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 perse- 
 veranee, and the thought of Nicholas, which the last question 
 awakened. “ They are not. If you had come as a common 
 beggar, I might have throvvn a sixpence to you in remerabranco 
 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 half-penny—nor would I to save you from rot¬ 
 ting. And remember this, ’scape-gallows,” said Ralph, me¬ 
 nacing 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 labor that vagabonds are put to. There’s 
 my answer to your trash. Take it.” 
 
 With a disdainful scowl at the object of his anger, Avho met 
 Lis eye but uttered not a word, Ral])h walked away at his usual 
 pace, without manifesting the slightest curiosity to see what 
 became of his late comi)aidon, or indeed once looking behind 
 him. The man remained on the same spot with his eyes fixed 
 upon his retreating figure uiuil it was lost to view, and then 
 drawing his arms al)ont his chest, as if the damp and lack of food 
 struck coldly to him, lingered with slouching steps by the way¬ 
 side, 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 Turk and leaving Golden Square on his 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6; <9 
 
 ri^ht, took liis way through some streets at the west end of the 
 town until he arrived in that particular one in wliieh stood the 
 residence of Madame Mantaliui. 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 alter¬ 
 ation in the proprietorship, the establishment wore its old ap¬ 
 pearance. 
 
 “ Humph !” muttered Ralph, drawing his hand across his 
 mouth with a connoisseur-like air, and surveying tlie 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 jMadame Mantalini’s (whom he had often seen) 
 opened it abruptly and bounced out, with her blue cap-ribbons 
 streaming in the air. 
 
 “ Hollo, here. Stop !” said 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 
 lie wrist; “and don’t carry family matters to the neighbors, 
 destroying the credit of the establishment. Come here ; do you 
 hear me, girl f” 
 
 “AVithout any further expostulation, he led or rather pulled 
 the frightened handmaid into the house, and shut the door; 
 then bidding her walk up stairs before him, followed without 
 more ceremony. 
 
 Guided bj the noise of a great many voices, all talking 
 41 
 
640 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 Mantilini, 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. Mantiliui’s legs were extended at full 
 length upon the floor, and his head and shoulders were sup¬ 
 ported 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 mustache 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 Mantilini was 
 not weeping upon the body, but was scolding violently upon 
 her chair; and all this amidst a clamor of tongues, perfectly 
 deafening, and which really appeared to have driven the unfor¬ 
 tunate footman to the uttermost verge of distraction. 
 
 “ What is the matter here ?” said Ralph, pressing forward. 
 
 At this inquiry, the clamor 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 va¬ 
 rious 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 whis¬ 
 per, instantaneously succeeded. 
 
 “Mr. Nickleby,” said Madame Mantalini; “by what . hance 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 611 
 
 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. 
 
 “ T will, however,” continued Madame Mantalini, drying her 
 eyes, and speaking with great indignation, “say before you, and 
 before every body 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 be¬ 
 fore you trust him further.” 
 
 Thereupon Madame Mantalini, quite unmoved by some most 
 pathetic lamentations on the part of her husband, that the apo¬ 
 thecary 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 gal¬ 
 lantries, 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 sepa¬ 
 ration, 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 com¬ 
 pany, said with great solemnity, that it would be a warning to 
 her, and so did the young ladies generally, with the exception 
 oi one or two who appeared to entertain some doubts whether 
 such whiskers could do wrong. 
 
 “ Why do yon say all this before so many listeners ?” said 
 Kalph, in a low voice. “You know you are not earnest.” 
 
 “I am in earnest,” replied Madame Mantalini, aloud, and 
 retreating towards Miss Knag. 
 
 “ Well, but consider,” reasoned Ralph, who had a great in- 
 
642 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 terest in the matter. “ It would be well to reflect. A mamed 
 woman has no property.” 
 
 “Not a solitary single individual dem, my soul,” said Mr. 
 Mantalini, raising himself upon his elbow. 
 
 “ I am quite aware of that,” retorted Madame Mantalini, toss¬ 
 ing her head ; “ and /have none. The business, the stock, this 
 house, and every thing 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 Man¬ 
 talini—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 un¬ 
 deserved 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 dan¬ 
 ger 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 in¬ 
 strumental in bringing about this altered state of things, for 
 finding, by daily experience, that there was no chance of the busi¬ 
 ness thriving, or even continuing to exist, while Mr. Mantalini 
 had any hand in the expenditure, and having now a consider¬ 
 able interest in its well-doing, she had sedulously applied her¬ 
 self to the investigation of some little matters connected with 
 that gentleman’s private character, which she had so well eluci¬ 
 dated, and artfully imparted to Madame Mantalini, as to open 
 her eyes more effectually than the closest and most philosophi¬ 
 cal reasoning could have done in a series of years. To which 
 and, the accidental discovery by Miss Knag of some tender cor¬ 
 respondence, 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 643 
 
 signed towards the door, that young lady and all the other young 
 ladies, with sympathizing 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 deiii- 
 dest enslaver and captivator that never was, oh dem 1 I foi’give 
 that woman.” 
 
 “ Forgive 1” 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 
 deinnebly. They will say, ‘ She had a blessing. She did not 
 know it. He was too weak ; he was too good ; he was a dera’d 
 line 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 tills 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 Kalph 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 Halph, coolly putting on his hat. 
 
 “ Demmit, Nickleby, you’re not serious?” 
 
 “ I seldom joke,” said Halph. “ 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, Kalph 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—hum—I 
 think your day is over, sir.” 
 
 As he said this, he made some memorandum in his pocket- 
 book in which Mr. IMantalini’s name flgured conspicuously, and 
 lindiiig 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 ha'i-an-hour.” 
 
G44 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Two of them ? one a fat sleek man 
 
 “ Ay,” said Newman. “In your room now.” 
 
 “ Good,” rejoined Ralph. “ Get me a coach.” 
 
 “A coach I 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 Ral))h 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 I What can come of this ! If 
 I had only known it yesterday I could have told—drive there 1 
 There’s mischief in it. There must be. 
 
 Ilis reflections were interrupted by a grey-haired man of a 
 very remarlcable, 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. 
 
CHAPTEE XliV. 
 
 CONTAINING MATTER OE A SURPRISING KIND. 
 
 “ As we gang awa’ fra’ Lunniin to-morrow neeglit, and as I 
 diniiot know that I was e’er so happy in a’ my days, Misther 
 Nickleby, Omg I but I will tak’ anoother glass to our next merry 
 meeting k’ 
 
 So said John Browdie, rubbing his hands with great joyous¬ 
 ness, 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 con¬ 
 dition, was the same evening to which the last chapter bore re¬ 
 ference; 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 be¬ 
 ing invited out to tea; in the way of which arrangement, there 
 were at first sundry dilGculties and obstacles, arising out of her 
 not having had an opportunity of “ calling” upon Mrs. Brow¬ 
 die first; for although Mrs. Nickleby very often observed with 
 much complacency (as most punctilious peojile 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 mani¬ 
 fest that, until a call had been made, she could not be (politely 
 speaking, and according to the laws of society) even cognizant 
 of the fact of Mrs. Browdie’s existence, she felt her situation 
 10 be one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty. 
 
 “ The call munt originate with me, my dear,” said Mrs. 
 Nickleliy, “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 
 
 fG45) 
 
646 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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, mo¬ 
 ther ?” asked Nicholas. 
 
 “ Nicholas, my dear, how very absurd you are,” returned his 
 mother; “ of course I mean that his glazed hat looks like a gen¬ 
 tleman’s servant, and not the wart upon his nose—though even 
 that is not so ridiculous as it may seern 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 became 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. Brow- 
 die 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 un¬ 
 sophisticated 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 1 
 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 patronizing and mildly-condescending posi¬ 
 tion which became her rank and matrimonial years, Mr. and 
 ]\lrs. 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 vdib 
 erery thing, the good lady had more than once given Kate to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 647 
 
 understand, in a whisper, that she thought they were the very 
 best meaning people she had ever seen, and perfectly well be¬ 
 haved. 
 
 And thus it came to pass, that John Browdie declared, in 
 the parlor after supper, to wit, at twenty minutes before eleven 
 o’clock, p. M., that he had never been so happy in all his davs. 
 
 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 her¬ 
 self at home ; and if Mrs. Nickleby was not quite so felicitous 
 at times in the selection of toi)ics of discourse, or if she did 
 seem, as Mrs. Browdie expressed it, “rather high in her no¬ 
 tions,” still nothing could be kinder, and that she took con¬ 
 siderable 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 
 ])ractice, as anyone of the statues of the Twelve Apostles which 
 embellish the exterior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
 
 “ Mr. B rowdie,” said Kate, addressing his young wife, “ is the 
 best humored, the kindest and heartiest creature I ever saw. 
 If I were oppressed with I don’t knowhow many cares, it would 
 make me happy only to look at him.” 
 
 “ lie does seem indeed, upon my word, a most excellent crea¬ 
 ture, Kate,” said Airs. Nickleby; “most excellent. And I am 
 sure that at all times it will give me pleasure—really pleasure 
 now—to have you. Airs. Browdie, to see me in this ])lain and 
 homely manner. We make no display,” said Airs. Nickleby, 
 with an air wdiich seemed to insinuate that they could make a 
 vast deal if they w'ere so disposed—“no fuss, no preparation ; I 
 wouldn’t allow it. I said ‘ Kate, my dear, you will only make 
 
648 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Mrs. Browdie feel uncomfortable, and how very foolish and in¬ 
 considerate 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 I” 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. lYe used to keep such hours! 
 Twelve, one, two, three o’clock was nothing to us. Balls, din¬ 
 ners, card-partie.s—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 
 it’s 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 don¬ 
 key—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 there ever were such people as those Peltiro- 
 guses. 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 remem¬ 
 brance ; 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 mainma 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 im¬ 
 plication 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 G49 
 
 recollection respecting the same. This done, he made divers 
 ungainly movements in his chair, and singling out one particular 
 tiy 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 ies- 
 pair) 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 
 aud violent knocking at the street door—so loud and so violent, 
 indeed, that the ladies started as by one accord, and John Brow- 
 die stopped. 
 
 “It must be some mistake,” said Nicnolas, 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. Linkin- 
 water had run away with the property, or perhaps Miss La 
 Creevy was taken ill, 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, tlirew herself upon his arm. “Before that 
 boy says a word, hear me.” 
 
 Nicholas bit his lip and shook his head in a threatening man¬ 
 ner, 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 recognizing 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 
 betthcr try to quiet.” 
 
 “ 1 should know said Ralph, “ by your tongue ; and 
 
 him'' (pointing to Smike) “by his looks.” 
 
 “ Don’t speak to him,” said Nicholas, recovering his voice, 
 will not have it. I will not hear him. I do not know 
 
'•660 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 that man. 1 cannot breathe the air that he corrupts. His 
 presence is an insult to my sister. It is shame to see him. T 
 will not bear it, by-” 
 
 “ 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, burn¬ 
 ing 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 si¬ 
 lent 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 
 thot shadow ootside door there? Noo schoolmeasther, show 
 thyself, mun ; dinnot be sheame-feaced. Noo, auld geu’lm’n, 
 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 Balph, 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 wdll of your own, or that your advice, your opinion, 
 your wants, your wishes—any thing which in nature and reason 
 (or of what use is your great experience ?) ought to weigh with 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 651 
 
 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 yon, 
 M a' 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 to-night. I have anothei 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 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 1 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 thaF—ain’t 
 you sorry you took so much trouble for nothing ? ain’t you ? 
 ain’t you?” 
 
 “You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,” said 
 Nicholas, looking quietly away, “and may talk in acknowledg¬ 
 ment of them as much as you please. Y^on’ll talk a long time 
 before you rub them out, Mr. Squeers. 
 
 fl'lie estimable gentleman last named, cast a hasty look at the 
 table, as if he were ])rom]ited 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 nov appear 
 and claim his sou. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 V 
 
 662 
 
 This beino; purely a lab(»r of love, Mr. Squeers readily com¬ 
 plied, 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 
 eml)race, 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!” 
 
 “lie 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 ho 
 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 
 bis 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. Sqiners 
 “ She’s a rum ’un, is Natur.” 
 
 “ She’s a holy thing. Sir,” remarked Snawley. 
 
 “ I believe you,” added Mr. Squeers, with a moral sigh. “ 1 
 should like to know how we should ever get on without her. 
 Natur,” said Mr. Squeers, solemnly, “ is more easier conceived 
 
■A 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC K L E B Y. G63 
 
 than described. Oh what a blessed thing, Sir, to be in a state 
 of natur I” 
 
 Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had 
 been quite stupified with amazement, while Nicholas had looked 
 keenly from Snawlcy to Squeers, and from Squeers'to Ralph, 
 divided between his feelings of disgust, doubt, and surprise, 
 At this juncture, Sinike 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 ain’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 Ral})h. “You and your 
 ulfe were separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when 
 he was a year old. Y^ou 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 1” returned Snawley. “ Oh the joy of-” 
 
 “ Re rational. Sir, pray,” said Ralph. “ This is business, and 
 transports interfere with it. Tliis 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 other- 
 
654 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 wise tliau in your name, only reached you, and that by a cir¬ 
 cuitous course, a few days since ?” 
 
 “Just so,” said Snawley. “Correct in every pailicular, Sir.” 
 
 “And this confession,” resumed Ralph, “is to the effect that 
 his deatli 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 Ousty 
 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 Sinike; 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 yon to me as the person who had recommended 
 to nini 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 under¬ 
 stand 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 (5.35 
 
 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 dowm 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 nei)hew. 
 
 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 Brovvdie 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 hand-writing of the second tallied with it ex¬ 
 actly, (making proper allowance for its having been written by 
 a person in extremity,) and there were several other corrobora¬ 
 tory 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 to-night, armed with the pow- 
 ei’s 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 com¬ 
 mendation, 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—eh ? Is Master 
 Snawley to come along with us ?” 
 
 “ No, no, no,” replied Smike, drawing back, and clinging to 
 42 
 
650 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 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 1” said John, “no, nor never nobody mind, 
 say’st thou, schoolmeasther. It’s nobody’s minding that keeps 
 silce men as thou afloat. Noo then, where be’st 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 re¬ 
 cover his balance, knocked that gentleman olf his chair, and 
 stumbled heavily upon him. 
 
 This accidental circumstance was the signal for some very de¬ 
 cisive proceedings. In the midst of a great noise, occasioned 
 by the prayers and entreaties of Smike, the cries and exclama¬ 
 tions of the women, and the vehemence of the men, demonstra¬ 
 tions were made of carrying off the lost son by violence : and 
 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 kindness 
 to follow your friend.” 
 
 “ I want my son,” said Snawley. 
 
 “Your son,” replied Nicholas, "chooses for himself. lie 
 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,” re¬ 
 plied Nicholas “ if he were a dog or a 7at.” 
 
 “Knock that Nickleby down with a candlestick,” cried Mr. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEHY. 
 
 667 
 
 Squeers, through the keyhole, “and bring out my hat, some¬ 
 body, will you, unless he wants to steal it.” 
 
 “ I am very sorry, indeed, said Mrs. jS’ickleby, who, with 
 Mrs. Browdie, had stood crying and biting her fingers in a cor¬ 
 ner, 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 any body 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 pro¬ 
 ceeded 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, unloveable 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 key¬ 
 hole. “ He never loved me ; he never loved Wackford, who ia 
 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 under¬ 
 stand it. Tt ain’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 
 bis black ingratitude. Then drawing his arm across his eyes, 
 
658 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 descend¬ 
 ant of a man of high degree; but the weak, imbecile son of a 
 poor, petty tradesman. AVe 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 to-night. 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 op¬ 
 pressive 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. Sqneers, 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 parlor-door, and actually cut¬ 
 ting some dozen capers with various wry faces and hideous 
 grimaces, expressive of his triumphant confidence in the down¬ 
 fall and defeat of Nicholas. 
 
 Having concluded this war-dance, in which his short trousers 
 and large boots had borne a very conspicuous figure, Mr. 
 Sqneers followed his friends, and the family were left to meditate 
 open recent occurrences. 
 
CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 TmiOWS SOME LIGHT UPON NICHOLAS’S LOVE ; BUT WHETHER 
 FOR GOOD OR EVIL THE READER MUST DETERMINE. 
 
 After an anxious consideration of the painful and embar¬ 
 rassing 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 the 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 doubt¬ 
 less 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 dee]dy-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 
 ])Oor lad who has never felt a parent’s care, who has scarcely 
 known any thing 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 hap¬ 
 piness : of consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from 
 the only friend he has ever had—which is yourself. If Nature, 
 
 C659) 
 
660 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 in such a case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompt, 
 ing 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, com¬ 
 plain 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 suii to develop them, are loud in their moral- 
 izings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties 
 of nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, ray 
 dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but 
 like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fos¬ 
 tered, 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 1 have listened 
 to your recital with so little astonishment. That is easily e.\- 
 plained—your uncle has been here this morning.” 
 
 Nicholas colored, and drew back a step or two. 
 
 “Yes,” said the old gentleman, tapping his desk emphati 
 cally, “here—in this room. lie 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 fruit- 
 less errand, and went away with some wholesome truths in his ear, 
 besides. Brother Ned, dear Mr. Nickleby—brother Ned, Sir, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 6G1 
 
 iis 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, bro¬ 
 ther 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 gen¬ 
 tleman, 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 
 assui’ed. 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 
 
6G2 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 " Pray go on, Sir,” returned Nieholas. 
 
 “ 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 lit. 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 Mi\ 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. lie readily availed himself of the 
 money which, to give her but one hour’s peace of mind, I v/ould 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 668 
 
 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 dis- 
 8.ppointment 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 apologizing for the inter¬ 
 ruption, begged his patron to proceed. 
 
 “My nephew, Frank, Isay,” resumed Mr. Cheeryble, “en¬ 
 countered 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, re¬ 
 duced, 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 
 every thing most terrible to such a young and delicate crea¬ 
 ture’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 him¬ 
 self, 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 re¬ 
 lation 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 
 
C64 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and ill report, this young girl had struggled alone and unas¬ 
 sisted to maintain him by the labor of her hands. That 
 througli 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 accomplish¬ 
 ment 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, work¬ 
 ing 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 
 laboring in all these capacities and wearying in none, she had not 
 succeeded in the sole aim and object of her life, but that, over¬ 
 whelmed 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 neces¬ 
 saries 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 665 
 
 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 V 
 
 “ 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 motlier was a gentle, 
 loving, confiding creature, and altho-ugh 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 I The last man in the world. Such is 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 selfish- 
 oess 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 gen¬ 
 tle 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 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—1 really cannot 
 near it.” 
 
 Then it came out by little and little, how that the twins had 
 f)(;en revolving in their good old heads manifold plans and schemes 
 for helping this young lady in the most delicate and considerate 
 wa}', and so that her father should not suspect the source whence 
 the aid was derived ; and how they had at last come to the con¬ 
 clusion, that the best course would be to make a feint of pur¬ 
 chasing her little drawings and ornamental work at a high price, 
 and keoping up a constant demand for the same. For the fur- 
 
666 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 therance of which end and object it was necessary that some¬ 
 body 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 suscep¬ 
 tible (for she is a beautiful creature. Sir; just what her poor 
 mother was), and falling in love with her before he well knew 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 wdien and where he had seen the 
 young lady himself. 
 
 “Well ; then you see,” continued brother Charles, “that he 
 wouldn’t do. Tim Liukinwater 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 roused by anything that appeals to his feel¬ 
 ings very strongly—then he is terrific. Sir, is Tim Liukinwater 
 •—absolutely terrific. Now, in you we can repose the strictest 
 confidence ; in you we have seen—or at least 1 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 af¬ 
 fections, and delicacy of feeling, which exactly qualify you for 
 such an ofiice. And you are the man, Sir.” 
 
 “The young lady. Sir,” said Nicholas, who felt so embar¬ 
 rassed that he had no small difficulty in saying anything at all 
 •—“ Does—is—is she a party to this innocent deceit ?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 C67 
 
 “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 ve7'y 
 well indeed), perhaps she might be brought to believe that we 
 —that we made a profit of them Eh ?—Eh ?” 
 
 Ill 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 evi¬ 
 dently 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, “ why should I throw difficulties in the way of this benevo¬ 
 lent and high-minded design ? What if I do love and reverence 
 this good and lovedy creature—should I not appear a most arro¬ 
 gant and shallow coxcomb if I gravely reiiresented that there 
 was any danger of her falling in love with me ? Besides, have 
 I no confidence in myself? Am I not bound in honor 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 martyi’, 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 weakness into stanch and most magnanimous 
 virtues! 
 
 ^Ir. Cheeryble, being of course wholly unsuspicious that such 
 veflectiyns were presenting themselves to his young friend, pro- 
 
668 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 ceeded to give him the needful credentials and directions for 
 his first visit, which was to be made next morning; and all pre¬ 
 liminaries 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 Saint 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 vot 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 ia 
 not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which sup¬ 
 poses every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and 
 the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, with 
 out the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets. 
 
 To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr. Charles Cheery¬ 
 ble, 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 thea¬ 
 tricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, spring vans, green-grocery, and 
 brokers’ shops, appeared to compose the main and most promi¬ 
 nent 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 aiid 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 parlor 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 669 
 
 appear to belie the outward promise, as there was faded car¬ 
 peting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage ; in ad¬ 
 dition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking 
 hard in the front parlor (though it was not yet noon), while the 
 lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the dis¬ 
 jointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of a back par¬ 
 lor, 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 conse¬ 
 quence of his having inquired for that young lady would seem 
 calculated to occasion. 
 
 Up stairs 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 interests 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 1 
 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 1 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 affec¬ 
 tions were entwined I He felt as though the smile of Heaven 
 were on the little chamber; as though the beautiful devotiun of 
 so young and weak a creature had slied a ray of its own on llio 
 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 S})irit to 
 them and its light were visibly before him. 
 
670 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 every thing ac 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. 
 
 lie 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 impetu¬ 
 ous passions were easier to be traced than any expression which 
 would have rendered a far plainer face much more prepossess¬ 
 ing. 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 any body 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,” re turned 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.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 671 
 
 “It’s quite right, papa, I am sure.” 
 
 “ Here I” 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— 
 hi)W can you be sure of any such thing—live 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 I Good God, how slow you are !” 
 
 “ He remembers nothing that she wants I” 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 I what do you mean, Sir ?” was the tart rejoinder. 
 “No matter I Do you think you bring your paltry money hero 
 as a favor or a gift; or as a matter of business, and in return 
 for value received? D—n you, sir, because you can’t appre¬ 
 ciate 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 ? 
 Udiat 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 
 bucIi 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 
 uo kindness from you'or any body else. Have the goodness to 
 confine your dealings strictly to trade and business, aud not to 
 43 
 
672 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBy. 
 
 travel beyond it. Every petty tradesman is to begin to pity 
 her now, is he? Upon my soul! Yery pretty. Madeline, 
 my dear, give him a receipt; and mind you always do so.” 
 
 "Wliile she was feigning to write it, and Nicliolas was rumi¬ 
 nating upon the extraordinary, but by no means uncommon 
 character thus presented to his observation, the invalid, who 
 ai)peared 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 every body conspired to goad him. 
 
 “When,” said Nicholas, as he took the piece of paper, “when 
 shall I—call again ?” 
 
 This was addressed to the daughtei*, 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 1” 
 
 “ Then sooner—sooner, if you please,” said the young lady, 
 turning to Nicholas. 
 
 “Three or four weeks 1” 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 
 npon 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 
 Btairs, and looking round saw that the young lady was standing 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 673 
 
 there, and glanein^ timidly towards him, seemed to hesitate 
 whether she should call him back or no. The best way of set¬ 
 tling the question was to turn back at once, w^hich 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 to-day. lie 
 has suffered much, and is worse this morning. I beg you. Sir. 
 as a boon, a favor 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 honor to him who sent 
 me here, and in pure integrity of heart, and distant respect for 
 you. If 1 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 with¬ 
 drew. And thus ended his first interview with Madeline Bray. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 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 neighboring 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 soliloquized; 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 1” 
 
 His good humor 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 grievances 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 mch a breakfast I and my right dinner time two I 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 
 (674) 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 676 
 
 do you always go out at my dinner time for then—eh ? Don’t 
 you know know it’s nothing but aggravation—eh ?” 
 
 These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were a<l- 
 dressed to nothing but enipty 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 vehe¬ 
 mence, 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 oflice 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 Ralj)!), 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 person 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 trowsers as displayed his shrunken spindle-shanks 
 in their full ugliness. The only articles of disjilay 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 com¬ 
 pliance with an old fashion scarcely ever observed in these days, 
 bis grey hair was gathered behind. His nose and chin were 
 shaqj aud prominent, his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of 
 
670 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 teeth, his face was shriveled and yellow, save where the cheeks 
 were streaked with the color of a dry winter apple; and where 
 his beard had been, there lingered yet a few grey tnfts 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 wms concentrated in a wrinkled leer, com- 
 pounded 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 suffi¬ 
 ciently 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 in¬ 
 terest in Ralph’s state of health. “ I haven’t seen you for—oh 1 
 not for—” 
 
 “Not for a long time,” said Ralph, with a peculiar smile, 
 importing that he very well knew that 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 with¬ 
 out speaking. Each was looking out to take the other at a 
 disadvantage. 
 
 “ Come, Gride,” said Ralph, at length ; “ what’s in the wind 
 to-day ?” 
 
 “ 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 yon 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 677 
 
 ‘‘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, 
 Yi)U. 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 I” 
 
 “ Now then,” said Ralph, composedly ; “what’s in the wind, 
 1 ask again—what is it ?” 
 
 “ See that now !” cried the other. “ He can’t even keep from 
 business while we’re chatting over bygones 1 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 I What a man it is 1 Mr. Nickleby against all the 
 world—there’s nobody like him. A giant among pigmies—a 
 giant—a giant I” 
 
 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 humor him though,” cried old Arthur; “he must 
 have his way—a willful 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 I A^es, and 
 time costs money—it’s rather an e.xpensive article to some peo¬ 
 ple we could uame, or I forget my trade.” 
 
 Tn rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, 
 again chuckled, and again ejaculated “ What a man it is 1” which 
 
678 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 done, lie clrtigged 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 
 liim, “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 1 
 wasn’t surprised and wasn’t to be taken in.” 
 
 “ Then I tell you seriously that I am,” said old Arthur. 
 
 “And 7tell you seriously,” rejoined Ralph, “what I told 
 you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There’s a liquor¬ 
 ish deviltry 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 ecstacy. “ Wrong, wrong again. Mr. Nickleby for 
 once at fault—out, quite out I 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 iuvolutarily, 
 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 driveling,” said 
 Ralph, after listening with a curled lip to the old sinner’s rap¬ 
 tures. “ The girl’s name ?” 
 
 “ Oh deep, deep 1 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 679 
 
 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; “ 1 
 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 I The dashing man, who used his hand¬ 
 some wife so ill ?” 
 
 “ If you seek to recal 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 I 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 volun¬ 
 teered, or than Ralph could in all likelihood have obtained by 
 any other means. Old Arthur, however,* was so intent upon his 
 
680 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 omi 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 any thing—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, con¬ 
 tenting himself with exclaiming as before, “ What a man it is 1” 
 and rolling his head from side to side, as if in unrestrained en¬ 
 joyment of his freedom and drollery. Clearly observing, how¬ 
 ever, from the expression ’.n Ralph’s features, that he had best 
 come to the point as speedily as might be, he composed him¬ 
 self for more serious business, and entered upon the pith and 
 n arrow 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 enlargod upon the character of her father, argu¬ 
 ing, that even taking it for granted that he loved her in return 
 
NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 681 
 
 with the utmost affection of which he was capable, yet he loved 
 himself a great deal better; which Ralph said it was quite un¬ 
 necessary to say any thing more about, as that was very natural, 
 and probable enough. 
 
 And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a deli¬ 
 cate 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 shriveled 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 I oh dear, oh dear, what an edged-tool 
 you are I” 
 
 “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. “ lie is 
 always prepared ! Oh dear, wdiat a blessing to have such a 
 ready wit, and so much ready money to back it!” Then, sud¬ 
 denly 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 seven¬ 
 teen 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 pit- 
 fall 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 negotia¬ 
 ble 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 1” 
 
682 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “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 alA’ays as well to talk that way,” returned old Arthur, 
 wilh a chuckle, “whether there’s any body 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 Shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur 
 
 Gride—jwetty 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 gradu¬ 
 ally mounted. “Go on. You didn’t come here to ask me 
 that.” 
 
 “ Oh dear, how you talk !” cried old Arthuur, 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 pros¬ 
 pered with the father, for this debt of yours—five shillings in 
 the pound—six and eight pence—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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 683 
 
 long ago give up for lost, you’ll stand my friend, and help me. 
 Won’t you ?” 
 
 “ There’s something more,” said Ralph. 
 
 “iSo, no, indeed,” cried Arthur Gride. 
 
 “ Y'es, yes, indeed. I tell you yes,” said Ralph. 
 
 “ Oh 1” returned old Arthur, feigning to be suddenly en 
 lightened. “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 woukl cease with your own concern in the atfair,” 
 said Arthur Gride. “That’s kind of you to ask. Oh dear, 
 how very kind of you 1 Why, supposing I had a knowledge of 
 some property—some little property—very little—to which this 
 pretty chick was entitled ; which nobody knows 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. 
 “ Yow, 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 w'e’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.” 
 
 Ral[ih took no notice of these supplications, but sat for three 
 or four minutes in a brown study, looking thoughtfully at the 
 l)erson from whom they proceeded. After sutficient cogitation 
 he broke silence, and it certainly could not be objected that ho 
 used any needless cir<*umlocution, or failed tc speak directly to 
 the purpose. 
 
 “Jf 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 honored with your confidence, instead of gaining by 
 it. ’I’haL’s the first article of the treaty. For the second, I 
 shall stipulate that for my trouble in negotiation and persuasion, 
 
684 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and helping to this fortune, I have live hundred pounds— 
 that’s very little, because you have the ripe lips, and the cluster¬ 
 ing hair, and what not, all to yourself. For the third and last 
 article, I require that you execute a bond to me, this day, bind¬ 
 ing yourrelf in the payment of these two sums, before noon of 
 the day of your marriage with Madeline Bray. You have told 
 me 1 can urge and press a point; I press this one, and will take 
 nothi/ig 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 be¬ 
 tween 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 af 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 ab¬ 
 straction over the entries and papers in his pocket-book. Find¬ 
 ing that it was impossible to make any impression upon his 
 stanch 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 the bond required 
 (Ralph kept such instruments handy), after exacting the con¬ 
 dition that Mr. JNickleby should accompany him to Bray’s 
 lodgings that very hour, and open the negotiation at once, 
 should circumstances appear auspicious and favorable to their 
 designs. 
 
 In pursuance of this last understanding the worthy gentle¬ 
 men 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 ])Ocket. “ 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 in another. 
 
 "I don't know who she may be, or what she may be,” he 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 G85 
 
 said: “ but I pity her with all my heart and soul; and I can’t 
 lielp her, nor can I any of the people against whom a hundred 
 tricks—but none so vile as this—are plotted every day ! "W'ell, 
 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 
 andNickleby! Good [)air for a curricle—oh roguery I roguery! 
 roguery!” 
 
 With these reflections, and a very hard knock on the crown 
 o( his unfortunate hat at each repetition of the last word, New¬ 
 man 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 consola¬ 
 tion 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 olfer of 
 marriage, that many a titled father would leap at, for his child. 
 Mr. Arthur Gride, with the fortune of a i)rince. Think what a 
 haul it is !” 
 
 “My daughter. Sir,” returned Bray, haughtily, “ as I have 
 bi ought her up, would be a rich recompense for the largest for¬ 
 tune that a man could bestow in exchange for her hand.” 
 
 “ Precisely what 1 told you,” said the artful Ralph, turning 
 to his friend, old Arthur. “ Precisely what made me consider 
 the thing so fair and easy. Tliere 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 
 
686 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 you have not youth. Tit for tat—quits—a uiatcli of Ileavcn’s 
 own making !” 
 
 '• Matches are made in Heaven, they say,” added Arthur 
 dride, 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 eartin 
 “ 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 (|^ide. 
 “It is for my daughter to accept or reject; it is for my daugh¬ 
 ter. 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 any thing 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 1 I hope so.” 
 
 “ Pardon me,” returned Ralph, who thoroughly knew his 
 man, and had taken his ground accordingly ; “ you do not hear 
 rne 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 e.vas- 
 peratod 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 uature would allow 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 687 
 
 him, “you have not heard me out. You are a man yet qualified 
 to shine in society, with many years before you—that is, if you 
 lived ill 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—transfer you to a new existence. The town rang 
 with your expensive pleasures once, and you could blaze upon 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 church-yard, but a gravestone 
 there, wherever ft is, and a date—perhaps tivo years hence, per¬ 
 haps twenty. Teat’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 clown beside him, “be¬ 
 cause 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, remon¬ 
 strate, 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, showmd that 
 these arguments were no more lost upon him, than the smallest 
 iota of his demeanor was upon Ralph, 
 
 “What is it now, I sayq” 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 I” said Ralph, quietly. “ If 
 she profits by any body’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 
 41 
 
688 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 thaidv you.” 
 
 “Hush ! hush !” cried Mr. Bray, suddenly starting up, and 
 covering Balph’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 fum¬ 
 bled 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 
 wms 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,” sa'i her father, gently disengaging himself, “it 
 was nothing.” 
 
 “ But you had tl at spasm yesterday, and it is terrible to see 
 xou in such pain. Can I do nothing for you ?” 
 
 “ Nothing just now. Here are two gentlemen, Madeline, one 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 689 
 
 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 labor and fatigue, is more than 
 you can bear, I am sure it is. Poor Madeline I” 
 
 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 mean time, 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 daugh¬ 
 ter aside. “ In a week. Give me a week. 
 
 “One week,” said Ralph, turning to his companion, “from 
 to-day. 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 am 
 bound to say so now. If I owed you money, that was not 
 your fault. Madeline, my love—your hand here.” 
 
 “Oh dearl If the young lady would condescend—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 with¬ 
 drew 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 ill 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 tlie pigmy ?” inquired Arthur Gride, hobbling up to 
 Ralph. 
 
 “ What does the pigmy say to the giant ?” rejoined Ralph 
 elevating his eyebows and looking down upon his questioner. 
 
“ lie doesn’t know what to say,” replied Arthur Gride. " ffe 
 ho])es and fears. But is slie not a dainty morsel ?” 
 
 “ I have no great taste for beauty,” growled Ralph. 
 
 “ But I have,” rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. “ Oh 
 dear I How handsome her eyes looked when she was stooping^ 
 OA er him—such long lashes—such delicate fringe ! She—she 
 —looked at me so soft.” 
 
 “ Not over-lovingly, I think ?” said Ralph. “Did she ?” 
 
 “Do 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 re¬ 
 plied 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 faee with half-closed eyes. 
 
 “ I am sure it’s done,” said Ralph. “ He is trying to de¬ 
 ceive himself, even before our eyes, already.—making believe 
 that he thinks of her good and not his own—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 XLVIII. 
 
 BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR, VINCENT CRUMMLES, AND 
 rOSITIVELY HIS LAST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE. 
 
 It was with a very sad and heavy heart, oppressed by many 
 painful ideas, that Xicholas 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 Xicholas’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 ardor or cooled the fervor of his 
 admiration. If he had regarded her before, with such a passion 
 as young men attracted by mere beauty and elegance may en¬ 
 tertain, 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 ad¬ 
 miration of her great and noble spirit, all seemed to raise her 
 far above his reacli, 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 de¬ 
 serve 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 ill secret Xicholas rather encouraged them than other- 
 
 691) 
 
C92 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 wise; reasoning (if he reasoned at all) that there they could 
 do no harm to any body 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 Ids heroism. 
 
 All these thoughts, coupled with what he had seen that morn¬ 
 ing 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 seri¬ 
 ously conjured him, if such were the case, to make a clean 
 breast and scratch it out, rather than have his whole life em¬ 
 bittered 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 turn¬ 
 ing 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 actors and 
 actresses who had promised to do honor 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 dullness, as he prepared to resume his walk, and there sii w 
 announced in large letters, with a large space between each of 
 them, “ Positively the last appearance of Mr. Yincent Crummies 
 of Provincial Celebrity !! I” 
 
 "Nonsense !” said Nicholas, turning back again. " It can’t 
 be.” 
 
 But there it was In one line by itself was an annomicercent 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLECr. 
 
 698 
 
 of the first night of a new inelo-drama ; 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 nnrivaled 
 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 honor 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 Crum¬ 
 mies &f 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 
 Koberto (his son) was enacted by one Master Crummies, and 
 Spaletro (his nephew) by one Master Percy Crummies —their 
 last appearances—and that, incidental to the piece, was a cha¬ 
 racteristic dance by the characters, and a castanet pas seul by 
 the infant Phenomenon —her last appeai’ance—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. Crummies was unfeignedly glad to see him, and starting 
 U]) from before a small dressing-glass, with one very bushy eye¬ 
 brow stuck on crooked over his left eye, and the fellow eyebrow 
 and the calf of one of his legs in his hand, embraced him cor¬ 
 dially ; at the same time observing, that it would do Mrs. 
 Crummies’s heart good to bid him good-bye before they went. 
 
 “You were always a favorite of hers, Johnson,” said Crum¬ 
 mies, “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. Crummies took a fancy to was sure to turn out right. 
 Ah ! Johnson, what a woman that is ! 
 
 T 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 good-bye ?” 
 
694 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Haven’t you seen it in the papers ?” said Crummies, with 
 Borne dignity, 
 
 “Ts’o,” 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. Crummies, 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 gentleman, lay 
 scattered about on a kind of dresser in the room), and gave it 
 to Nicholas to read:— 
 
 “ The talented Vincent Crummies,, long favorably known to 
 fame as a country manager and actor of no ordinary pretensions, 
 is about to cross the Atlantic on a histrionic expedition. 
 Crummies is to be accompanied, we hear, by his lady and gifted 
 family. We know no man superior to Crummies in his par¬ 
 ticular line of character, or one who, whether as a public or a 
 private individual, could carry with him the best wishes of a 
 larger circle of friends. Crummies is certain to succeed.” 
 
 “Here’s another bit,” said Mr. Crummies, handing over a 
 still smaller scrap. “ This is from the notices to correspondents, 
 this one.” 
 
 Nicholas read it aloud. “ ‘ Philo Dramaticus.—Crummies, 
 the country manager and actor, cannot be more than forty-three, 
 or forty-four years of age. Crummies is not a Prussian, having 
 been born at Chelsea.’ Humph 1” said Nicholas, “ that’s an 
 odd paragraph.” 
 
 “Very,” returned Crummies, 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. Crummies 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 I You had no such thing in contemplation when I 
 'vas with you.” 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 696 
 
 “!No,” replied Crummies, “I hadn’t then. The fact is, that 
 Mrs. Crummies—most extraordinary woman, Johnson”—here 
 he broke oif and whispered something in his ear. 
 
 “Ohl” said Nicholas, smiling. “The prospect of an addi¬ 
 tion to your family ?” 
 
 “The seventh addition, Johnson,” returned Mr. Crummies, 
 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, T sup- 
 ])ose,” rejoined Mr. Crummies. “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. Crummies put on 
 his other eyebrow, and the calves of his legs, and then put on 
 his legs, which were of a yellowish flesh-color, 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 foir start in America, from 
 the proceeds of a tolerably good engagement which he had been 
 fortunate enough to obtain, and as. he and Mrs. Crummies could 
 scarcely hope to act forever—not being immortal, except in the 
 bi’ealh 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 cliildren. Nicho¬ 
 las, having highly commended this resolution, Mr. Crummies 
 went on to impart such further intelligence relative to their 
 mutual friends as he thought might prove interesting ; inform¬ 
 ing Nicholas, among other things, that Miss Snevellici was hap¬ 
 pily married to an affluent young wax-chandler who had supplied 
 
696 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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. 
 Crummies, by confiding to him his own name, situation, and 
 ]irospects, and informing him in as few general words as he 
 could, of the circumstances which had led to their first acquaint¬ 
 ance. After congratulating him with great heartiness on the 
 improved state of his fortunes, Mr. Crummies gave him to un¬ 
 derstand that next morning he and his were to start for Liver¬ 
 pool, 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. Crummies, he must repair with him that night to 
 a farewell-supper, given in honor of the family at a neighboring 
 tavern ; at which Mr. Snittle Timberry would preside, while 
 the honors 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. Crummies, and having purchased besides a pair of ear¬ 
 rings for Mrs. Crummies, a necklace for the Phenomenon, and 
 a flaming shirt-pin for each of the young gentlemen, he refreshed 
 himself with a walk, and I’eturning a little after the appointed 
 time, found the lights out, the theatre empty, the curtain raised 
 for the night, and Mr. Crummies walking up and down the 
 stage expecting his arrival. 
 
 '‘Timberry won’t be long,” said Mr. Crummies. “He 
 played the audience out to-night. 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. Crummies; it comes off easily 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 697 
 
 enough, and there’s only the face and neck. We had a first- 
 tragedy man in our company once, wlio, 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 to-night ?” 
 
 Mr. Timberry, in reply, shook his head with a gloomy air, 
 tapped his chest several times with great significancy, and draw¬ 
 ing 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. 
 
 " AVhy this is indeed a joy I had not looked for !” said Mrs, 
 Crummies, when Nicholas was presented. 
 
 “Nor I,” replied Nicholas. “It is by a mere chance that T 
 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. Crummies, thrust- 
 
698 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ing forward the Phenomenon in a blue gauze frock, extensively 
 flounced, and trovvsers of the same ; “ and here another—and 
 another,” presenting the Masters Cruinraleses. “ 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. Tie’s quite— 
 what am I saying ?—he is very far from well.” 
 
 “ How !” exclaimed Mrs. Crummies, 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. Crummies, 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 ex¬ 
 
 cuse 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. Crum¬ 
 mies 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 Tim- 
 berry. Nicholas had the honor to support her, and Mr. Crum¬ 
 mies was placed upon the chairman’s right; the Phenomenon 
 and the Masters Crumnileses sustained the vice. 
 
 The company amounted in number to some twenty-five or 
 thirty, being composed of such members of the theatrical pro- 
 'fession, then engaged or disengaged in London, as were num- 
 1 tered among the most intimate friends of Mr. and Mrs. Crummies. 
 The ladies and gentleman were pretty equally balanced ; the ex¬ 
 penses 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 inde¬ 
 pendently of the lesser theatrical lights who clustered on this 
 occasion round Mr. Snittle Timberry, there was a literary gen 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 G99 
 
 tleman present who had dramatized 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 was a literary gentle¬ 
 man 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 
 honor is reciprocal. Sir, as I usually say when I dramatize 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 dramatize 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 com¬ 
 mitted their most impudent robberies ?” said Nicholas. 
 
 “I don’t know any thing about that. Sir,” answered the lite¬ 
 rary gentleman. 
 
 “ Shakspeare dramatized stories which had previously ap¬ 
 peared 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.” 
 
 “1 was about to say,” rejoined Nicholas, “that Shakspeare 
 derived scum of his plots from old tales and legends in general 
 circulation ; but it seems to me, that some of the gentleman of 
 your craft at the present day, have shot very far beyond 
 him—” 
 
 "You’re quite right. Sir, interrupted the litei’ary 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 
 
700 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 
 dullness, subjects not at all adapted to the purposes of the stage^ 
 and debase as he exalted. For instance, you take the uncom¬ 
 pleted books of living authors, fresh from their hands, wet from 
 (he press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers and capaci¬ 
 ties of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, fi lish 
 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 com¬ 
 parison of incidents and dialogue, down to the very last word 
 he may have written a fortnight before, do your utmost to anti¬ 
 cipate 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 you put your name as author, with the hon¬ 
 orable 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. Crummies opportunely 
 interposed to prevent its leading to any violent outbreak, by 
 making some inquiries of the literary gentleman relative to the 
 olots of the six new pieces which he had written by contract to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 701 
 
 introduce the African Knife-swallower in his various unrivaled 
 performances. This speedily engaged him in an animated con¬ 
 versation 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 dea'd 
 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 tables with their knuckles, and plainly 
 intimate their e.xpectations, 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 indis¬ 
 position—for a man must not make himself too cheap either on 
 the stage or off—while Mr. Crummies, 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 whicli 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 Crummies; ending a pretty l-ong speech by 
 extending his right hand on one side and his left on the other, 
 and severally calling upon Mr. and Mrs. Crummies to grasp 
 the same. This done, Mr. Vincent Crummies returned thanks, 
 and that done, the African Swallower proposed Mrs. Vincent 
 Crummies, in affecting terms. Then were heard loud moans 
 and sobs from Mrs. Crummies and the ladies, desi)ite of which 
 that heroic woman insisted upon returning thanks herself, which 
 she did, in a manner and in a speech which has never been sur¬ 
 passed and seldom equaled. It then became the duty of Mr. 
 
702 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 SniUle Timberry to give the young Crumraleses, which he did ; 
 after which Mr. Vincent Crummies, 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. Crum 
 mles proposed that ornament of the profession, Mr. Snittlo 
 Timberry ; and at a little later period of the evening, the health 
 of that other 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 Svvallower 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 honor transferred to the 
 ladies. Finally, after a very long sitting, Mr. Snittle Timberry 
 vacated the chair, and the company with many adieus and 
 embraces dispersed. 
 
 Nicholas waited to the last to give his little presents. When 
 he had said good-by all round and came to Mr. Crummies, he 
 could not but mark the difference between their present sepa¬ 
 ration 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 
 Crummies. “You and I never had a word. I shall be very 
 glad to-morrow morning to think that 1 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 tlie 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 703 
 
 robes; and throwing her arms about his neck, hugged him with 
 great affection. 
 
 “ What I Are you going too said Nicholas, submitting 
 with as good a grace as if she had been the finest young crea¬ 
 ture 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 cheer¬ 
 fully as he could, took farewell of the Yincent Ci’ummleses. 
 
 45 
 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 CUEONICLES THE FURTHER PROCEEDINGS OF THE NICKLEBY 
 FAMILY, AND THE SEQUEL OF THE ADVENTURE OF THE GEN¬ 
 TLEMAN IN THE SMALL-CLOTHES. 
 
 While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of 
 interest which had recently opened upon him, occupied his lei¬ 
 sure 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 weak¬ 
 ening effect upon the lofty resolutions he had formed, Mrs. 
 Nickleby and Kate continued to live in peace and quiet, agi¬ 
 tated by no other cares than those which were connected with 
 certain harassing proceedings taken by Mr. Snawley for the re¬ 
 covery of his son, and their anexiety 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 em¬ 
 ployed 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 mis¬ 
 giving. 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 ex- 
 liausted, to escape their regard and notiee. 
 
 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 dav, and grain by grain, the mortal part wastes and 
 (704) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 706 
 
 withers away, so that the spirit grows light and sanguine with 
 its liglitening 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 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 dis¬ 
 order, 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 micjlit 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 him¬ 
 self 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 flicker¬ 
 ing winter’s fire—but not so often or so sadly then—would his 
 thoughts wander back to these old days, and dwell with a pleas¬ 
 ant 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 ; and how, if she were from home, 
 they used to sit and watch for her return, scarcely breaking si¬ 
 lence but to say how dull it seemed without her—the glee with 
 which poor S,ni!a> would start from the darkened corner where 
 
m 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 remem¬ 
 bered when busy cares and trials were quite forgot, 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. 
 
 33ut there were other persons associated with these recollec¬ 
 tions, and many changes came about before they had being—a 
 necessary reflection for the purposes of these adventurers, 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 Cheei’yble, 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. 
 Nicklebj"—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, mamma !” rejoined Kate. 
 
 “ Bless my heart, Kate!” cried Mrs. Nickleby, with her 
 wonted suddenness, “what a color you have got; why, you’re 
 quite flushed. 
 
 “ Oh, mamma ! what strange things you fancy.” 
 
 “ It wasn’t fancy, Kate, my dear. I’m certain of that,” re 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 707 
 
 turned 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 I Mr. Frank. I never saw such at¬ 
 tention in lay life, never.” 
 
 “ Surely you are not serious,” returned Kate, coloring again; 
 and this time beyond all dispute. 
 
 “Not serious I” returned Mrs. Nickleby; “why shouldn’t I 
 be serious ? I’m sure I never was more serious. I will say that 
 bis 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 behavior in young men, and it 
 strikes one more when one does meet with it.” 
 
 “ Oh I attention to you, mamma,” rejoined Kate, quickly— 
 “ oh yes.” 
 
 “Hear me, Kate,” retorted INIrs. Nickleby, “what an exira- 
 ordinary girl you are. Was it likely I should be talking of his 
 attention to any body else ? I declare I’m quite sorry to think 
 he should be in love with a German lady, that I am.” 
 
 “ He said very j)Ositively that it was no such thing, mamma,’ 
 returned Kate. “ Don’t you remember his saying so that very 
 Crst 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, mamma ?” 
 
 “ Nothing to us, Kate,” perhaps,” said Mrs. Nickleby, em¬ 
 phatically; “but something to me, I confess. I like English 
 l)Cople 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 owu 
 countrywomen; and see what he says to to that.” 
 
 “ J'ray don’t think of such a thing, mamma,” returned Kate, 
 hastily; “ not for the world. Consider—how very-” 
 
 “ Well, my dear, how very whatl” said Mrs. Nickleby, open¬ 
 ing 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 
 ahe had come by; supposing that the man who drove must have 
 
708 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 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 per¬ 
 haps 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 1 
 saw that dear old soul, Mr. Linkinwater.” 
 
 “ Taking his evening walk, and coming on to rest here befoie 
 he returns back to the city. I’ll be bound!” said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “I should think he was,” returned Miss La Creevy; “espe¬ 
 cially as young Mr. Cheeryble was with him.” 
 
 “ Surely that is no reason why Mr. Linkinwater should bo 
 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 ob¬ 
 serve that he generally falls tired, and requires a good long rest, 
 when he has come as far as this. But where is ray 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 un¬ 
 bounded astonishment, that Smike had that moment gone up 
 stairs to bed. 
 
 “Well, now,” said Mrs. Nickleby, “he is the strangest crea¬ 
 ture I 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. Cheerj^ble 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 up stairs 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 709 
 
 lime. 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, hut remoined 
 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 o vn 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 up stairs, 
 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 Tutbuiy ?” 
 
 “The Cock-lane Ghost, I believe.” 
 
 “Then I have no donbt,” 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 every thing else. 
 
 “ I am so sorry Nicholas is not at home,” said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 “Kate, my dear, you must be both Nicholas and yourself.” 
 
 “ ]\liss Nickleby need be but herself,” said Frank. “I—if 1 
 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, 
 
 1 am sure. Kate my dear-” 
 
 In obedience to a great number of nods and wiidvs and frowna 
 of extra significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors 
 
710 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 would remain; but it was observable that she addressed them 
 exclusively to Tim Liulunwater ; and there was, besides, a cer¬ 
 tain embarrassment in her manner, which, although it was as far 
 from impairing its graceful character as the tinge it communi¬ 
 cated to her cheek was from diminishing her beauty, was obvious 
 at a glance even to Mrs. Niekleby. Not being of a very specu¬ 
 lative character, however, save under circumstances when her 
 speculations could be put into words and uttered aloud, that dis¬ 
 creet 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 in this, as in all other instances, her con¬ 
 jecture could not fail to be the right one, Mrs. Niekleby dis¬ 
 missed 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 eftect upon 
 the little party, who were all in the best humor 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 any body to have him, he didn’t 
 know but what he might change his condition even yet. Miss 
 La Creevy earnestly reccommended a lady she knew who would 
 exactly suit Mr. Linkinwater, and had a very comfortable pro¬ 
 perty of her own ; but this latter qualification had very little 
 etfect upon Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be 
 no object with him, but that true worth and cheerfulness of dis¬ 
 position 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 honorable to 
 Tim, that neither Mrs. Niekleby 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 tha 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 711 
 
 fair sex, which were received with no less approbation. This 
 was done acid 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 
 W'atching the shadows as the evening closed in, and enjoying the 
 quiet beauty of the night, which seemed to have scarcely less at¬ 
 tractions for Frank, who first lingered near and then sat down 
 beside her. Ko 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, vvith 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 expi’essed 
 surprise when—candles being at length brought in—Kate’s 
 bright eyes were nnable 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 daz¬ 
 zling, 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 
 
 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. Nick- 
 leby’s apprehensions might have been vented, if the general at¬ 
 tention had not been attracted at the moment by a very strange 
 and uncommon noise, proceeding, as the pale and trembiing 
 
712 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 r>ervant-girl affirmed, and as every body’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 quebtion ; 
 and the noise (which was a strange compound of various shuf¬ 
 fling, 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 
 (juickly ascertained the cause of this disturbance if Mrs. Nick- 
 leby 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 in¬ 
 fancy, remained with her to give the alarm and apply restora¬ 
 tives, 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 popu¬ 
 lar air of “ Has she then failed in her truth, the beautiful maid 
 I adore I” Nor, on bursting into the room without demand¬ 
 ing a parley, was their astonishment lessened by the discovery 
 that the romantic sounds certainly proceeded from the throat 
 of some man up the chimuey, 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 
 paralyzed 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 713 
 
 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 perse¬ 
 cuted 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 ray word I do not know—what is to become of me. 
 It’s a very hard case—harder than any thing 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 ladjh than be exposed to such a life as this !” 
 
 Fraidc Cheeryble and Tim Linkinwater looked, in irrepressible 
 astonishment, first at each other and then at Kate, who felt that 
 some explanation w'as necessary, but who, between her terror 
 
714 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 
 60 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 singinof about the bank- 
 ruptcy 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 with¬ 
 out 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 the 
 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. 
 
 “ No, 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—mamma does 
 not think so, I believe—but he is a mad gentleman who has 
 escaped from the next house, and must have found an opportu 
 nity of secreting himself here.” 
 
 “ Kate,” interposed Mrs. Nickleby, with a severe dignity, 
 “ I am surprised at you.” 
 
 “ Dear mamma—” Kate gently remonstrated. 
 
 “ I am surprised at you,” repeated Mrs. Nickleby; “ upon 
 my word, Kate, I am quite astonished that you should join the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 715 
 
 )3ersecutors 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 kindei 
 of you, Kate, to ask Mr. Linkinwater or Mr. Cheeiyble 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 any 
 body 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 sin¬ 
 cere when I And 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 behavior 
 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 is quite impossible.” 
 
 While this address was in course of delivery, the old gentle¬ 
 man, with his nose and cheeks embellished with large patches of 
 soot, sat upon the ground with his arms folded, eyeing the spec¬ 
 tators in profound silence, and with a very majestic demeanor. 
 He did not appear to take the smallest notice of what Mis. 
 Nickleby said, but when she ceased to speak he honored 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 any thing more.” 
 
 “ Very good,” said the old gentleman, raising his voice, “ then 
 bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a cork-screw.” 
 
 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 gold-fish 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 
 
716 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 curi¬ 
 osity to see what was going forward, bustled into the room while 
 the old gentleman was in the very act of bellowing. It hap¬ 
 pened, 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 demeanor which almost terrified the 
 little portrait-painter out of her senses, and caused her to re¬ 
 treat 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 peer¬ 
 less 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 heai’t. “ Cormoran and Blunderbore 1 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 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 favorable opportunity of explanation, she went 
 about it straight. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 717 
 
 “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 any body 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 
 sulfercd any body—especially any body 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 imper¬ 
 tinent 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 m.ight have been expected that the old gentleman would 
 have been penetrated to the heart by the delicacy and conde¬ 
 scension 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 sonorous voice 
 ■—“ Avaunt-Cat I” 
 
 “ Sir,” cried Mrs. Nickleby, in a faint tone. 
 
 “ Cat,” repeated the old gentleman. “ Puss, Kit, Tit, Grim¬ 
 alkin, Tabby, Brindlc—"Whoosh 1” with which last sound, ut¬ 
 tered 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 
 limy 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 mamma,” said Kate, hastily; “I am not at 
 
718 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 Liukinwater 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 calm¬ 
 ness. “ You saw what he was the other day ; you see what he 
 is now. I told your brother, weeks and weeks ago, that I 
 hoped a-disappointment would 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 honorably 
 ‘ 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 any bodv doubt how all this has been 
 brought about!” 
 
 “1 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 satis¬ 
 faction 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 
 
NiCnOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 719 
 
 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 custo¬ 
 dians, 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—a delicious half hour 
 was spent in conversation, and Tim’s watch at length apprising 
 him that it was high time to dejiart, the ladies were left alone, 
 though not without many offers on the part of Frank to remain 
 antil Nicholas arrived, no matter what hour of the night it 
 niigiit be, if, after the late neighborly 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, and 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 Nicliolas, 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 Fll 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 up stairs together, how lonely Smike had 
 been all night—and by very slow degrees, too, for on this sub¬ 
 ject also Kate seemed to speak with some reluctance. 
 
 46 
 
720 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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, and the door being 
 quickly opened, 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 L. 
 
 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 splendor. 
 Every gaudy color 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 reburnished, stained 
 rotten canvas looked a snowy white; the very beggars’ rags 
 were fi’eshened 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 sun-burnt faces of 
 gipsy 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 in¬ 
 firmity of age, without, like age, the privilege to die. God send 
 that the old nursery tales were true, and that gipsies stole such 
 children by the score ! 
 
 The great race of the day had just been run ; and the close 
 
 (721) 
 
Tl'Z 
 
 MCnOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 fre 
 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 plu( king of some unhappy greenhorn, 
 and there another proprietor with his confederates in various 
 disguises—one man in spectacles, another with an eyC-glass 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 con¬ 
 federates (of more villanous 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 cvould 
 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, wms now divided among a hundred ; and look 
 wdiere you would, was a motley assemblage of feasting, laughing, 
 talking, begging, gambling, and mummery. 
 
 Of the gambling-booths there was a plentiful show, flourish¬ 
 ing in all the splendor of carpeted ground, striped hangings, 
 crimson cloth, pinnacled roofs, geranium pots, and livery ser¬ 
 vants. There were the Stranger’s club-house, the Athenmura 
 club-house, the Hampton club-house, the Saint James’s club¬ 
 house, and half-a-mile of club-houses to play in : and there was 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 723 
 
 rouge-et-noir, French hazard, and La llerveille, to p!ay 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 npon the course^—intensely hot, not¬ 
 withstanding 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 speci¬ 
 mens 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, 
 lie 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, and 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 people, he seemed perfectly calm and abstracted, without 
 the smallest particle of excitement in his composition. He ex¬ 
 hibited no indication of weariness, nor, to a casual observer, of 
 interest either. There he sat, quite still and collected. Some¬ 
 times, but very rarely, he nodded to some passing face, or beck¬ 
 oned 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 any body’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 
 
724 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 by others, and took no notice. When he did move it seemed 
 wonderful how he could have seen any thing to occasion it. And 
 so, in truth, it was. But there was not a face that passed in or 
 out 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 playing 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 
 colors 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 marvel¬ 
 ous ; 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 some¬ 
 thing 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'—roogo- 
 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 yon 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 725 
 
 he must hare won five-and-forty pounds in four rolls of the ball, 
 he must indeed—Grentleinen, 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 pounds yesterday, gentlemen, at one roll of the ball: I 
 did indeed !—how do you do. Sir,” (recognizing 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 be¬ 
 side 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 
 ho 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 [lerceive 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 recognized, as he was almost every minute by people 
 sauntering iu and out, he made a restless effort to conceal it 
 
726 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with his glove, showing how keenly he felt the disgrace he had 
 undergone. 
 
 “Ah 1 Hawk,” said one very sprucely-dressed personage in 
 a Now-market coat, a choice neckerchief, and all other accesso¬ 
 ries of the most unexceptionable kind. “ How d’ye do, old 
 fellow 
 
 This was a rival trainer of yonng 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, Yerisopht? 
 He’s a little pulled down, our friend here—rather out of condi¬ 
 tion still, hey ?” 
 
 It should be observed that the gentleman had very white 
 teeth, and that when there was no excuse for laughing, he gene¬ 
 rally finished with the same monosyllable, which he uttered to 
 disiplay them. 
 
 “ He’s in a 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 part}'’, and 
 feigned not to hear. 
 
 “ Now, upon my life,” said the friend, atfecting 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 for¬ 
 gotten that deuced unpleasant—by the by—you know the rights 
 of the affair of course. \Vhy did you never give those con¬ 
 founded 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 sud¬ 
 denly round—“ to-morrow—no, next day, will you ?” 
 
 “ Upon my life, my dear fellow, I seldom or never read tho 
 papers,” said the other, shrugging his shoulders, “but I will at 
 your recommendation. What shall I look jjr, hey?” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 727 
 
 " Good day,” said Sir Mulberry, turning abruptly on his heel, 
 and drawing his pupil with him. Falling again into the loiter¬ 
 ing, 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 whip-cord cuts and bludgeons bruise.” 
 
 Ilis companion said nothing, but there was that 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 Nickleby before eight o’clock this morn¬ 
 ing. He’s a stanch one; he was back wdth me before the 
 messenger. I had it all from him in the first five minutes. I 
 know where this hound is to be met wdth—time and place 
 both. But there’s no need to talk ; to-morrow will soon be 
 here.” 
 
 “ And w'ha-at’s to be done to-morrow ?” inquired Lord Fred¬ 
 erick. 
 
 “ Sir Mulberry Hawk honored him with an angry glance, but 
 condescended to return no verbal answer to this inquiry, and 
 both walked sullenly on as though their thoughts were busily 
 occupied, until they w^ere quite clear of the crowd, and almost 
 alone, w'hen 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—” 
 
 “ ]\Iusl know,” interrupted the other, disdainfully. “ Whev/1 
 Go on. If you must know, of course there’s no escape for me. 
 Must know I” 
 
 “INIust ask, then,” returned Lord Frederick, “and must press 
 you for a i)laiu and straightforward answer—is what you have 
 just said only a mere whim of the moment, occasioned by your 
 being out of humor and irritated, or is it your serious inten¬ 
 tion, 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 Mul¬ 
 berry, with a sneel, 
 
72S 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Perfectly well.” 
 
 " Then take that for an answer, in the devil’s name,” replied 
 Sir MulbeiT}'^, “and ask me for no other.” 
 
 Such was the ascendency he had acquired over his dupe, and 
 such the latter’s general habit of submission, that, for the mo¬ 
 ment, tlie 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 
 iny 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 busi¬ 
 ness 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 compro¬ 
 mised than I should be, as it is.” 
 
 “ Do as you please, and what you please, for yourself,” said 
 Sir Mulberry, affecting an easy good humor. “ Surely that 
 must content you I Do nothing for me; that’s all. I advise 
 no man to interfere in proceedings that I choose to take, and 
 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 re¬ 
 verse, and 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 Mul¬ 
 berry clearly saw that if his dominion were to last, it must be 
 established now. lie 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 circum- 
 ataace had occurred to weaken it, by adopting this cool and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 723 
 
 laconic style, and be trusted to it now, with very little doubt ot 
 its entire success. 
 
 But while he did this, and wore the most careless and indif- 
 t’erent deportment that his practiced 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 pre¬ 
 sumed 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 any thing—having thought, 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 behavior on the occasion in 
 question had produced a deep impression on his mind ; a strong 
 6 us})icion of his having led him on to pursue Miss Nickleby for 
 puri)oses of his own, had been lurking there for some time ; ho 
 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, and this his disdainful and insolent tone 
 in their recent conversation (the only one they had held upon 
 
<30 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 the subject since the period to which Sir Mulberry referred) 
 etfected. 
 
 Thus they rejoined their friends, each with causes of dislike 
 against the other rankling in his breast, and the young man 
 haunted besides with thouglits of the vindictive retaliation which 
 was threatened against Nicholas, and the determination to pre¬ 
 vent 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 Chouser, and other 
 gentlemen of the same caste, and it wms 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 determina¬ 
 tion to take measures for withdrawing himself from the connec¬ 
 tion immediately. By degrees he grew more angry, and was 
 exasperated by jests and familiarities which a few hours before 
 would have be-en 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, and 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 tip-top spirits in all 
 his life. 
 
 They dined together sumptuously. The wine flowed freely, 
 as indeed it had clone all day. Sir Mulberry drank to recom¬ 
 pense 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 Are. Ami 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 781 
 
 Btill 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, Tiunult and frenzy reigned 
 Eupreme; 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 combat¬ 
 ants, and forcing them asunder, dragged them some space apart. 
 
 “ Let me go !” cried Sir Mulberry, in a thick hoarse voice; 
 “ he struck me I 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” 
 
 “I hear, I hear,” replied one of those who held him. “ Come 
 away for to-night.” 
 
 “ I will not, by G—,” he replied, fiercely. “ A dozen men 
 about us saw the blow.” 
 
 “ To-morrow will be ample time,” said the friend. 
 
 “It will not be ample time !” cried Sir Mulberry, gnashing 
 his teeth. “ To-night—at once—here !” His passion was so 
 great that he could not articulate, but stood clenching his fist, 
 tearing his hair, and stami)ing 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 well 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 repnte, and not a place 
 
82 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKIEBY. 
 
 in wliich such an aEfair was likely to awaken an} sympathy for 
 either party, oi to call forth any further remonstrance or inter¬ 
 position. Elsewhere its further progress would have been in¬ 
 stantly prevented, and time allowed for sober and cool re¬ 
 flection ; 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 gentle¬ 
 men of honor 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 sofas, and thought 
 nc more o.bout 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 de¬ 
 pravity for which society can find some genteel name and plead 
 its most depraving conventionalities as an excuse, they were 
 naturally gentleman of most unblemished honor themselves, and 
 of great nicety concerning the honor 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 considerably. 
 
 “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, q/course.” 
 
 “No apology, I suppose?” said Mr. Westwood. 
 
 “Not a syllable. Sir, from my man, if we talk till dooms¬ 
 day,” returned the captain. “ The original cause of dispute, 1 
 understand, was some girl or other, to whom your principal ap¬ 
 plied certain terras, 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 aggra¬ 
 vation. That blow, unless there is a full retraction on the ])art 
 of Sir Mulberry, Lord Frederick is ready to justify.” 
 
 “There is no more to be said,” returned the other “but to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 738 
 
 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 brooding, 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 wo 
 should be olf without delay, and quite clear of town,” said Mr. 
 Westwood. “ What do you say to one of the meadows opjyo- 
 site 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 
 wm arrive there ?” said Mr. Westwood. 
 
 To this the captain also assented. After a few other pre¬ 
 liminaries, equally brief, and having settled the road each party 
 should take to avoid suspicion, they separated. 
 
 “We shall just have comfortable time, my lord,” sa.id the 
 captain, when he had communicated the arrangements, “to call 
 at my rooms for a case of pistols, and then jog coolly dowm. If 
 you w'ill allow me to dismiss your servant, we’ll take my cab, 
 for yours, perhaps, might be recognized.” 
 
 What a contrast when they reached the street, to the scene 
 they had just left I It was already daybreak. For the flaring 
 yellow light wdthin, wms 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 dissi¬ 
 pation, the free, fresh, wdiolesome air. But to the fevered head 
 On w'hich that cool air blew, it seemed to come laden wdth re¬ 
 morse for time misspent and countless opportunities neglected. 
 With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wdld and heavy, 
 thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light 
 wmre a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he 
 w'ere some foul and hideous thing. 
 
 “ Shivering said the captain. “ You are cold.” 
 
 “ Bather.” 
 
 It does strike cool, coming out of those hot rooms. Wrap 
 that cloak about you. So, so ; now wm’re olf.” 
 
714 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 They rattled through the quiet streets, made tlieir call at the 
 captain’s lodgings, cleared the town, and emerged upon the 
 open road, without hindrance or molestation. 
 
 Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, every thing looked very beau¬ 
 tiful ; the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them be- 
 Fre, though he had passed the same objects a thousand times. 
 Tliere 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 
 00 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. Last night seemed a week 
 ago, and months ago were as last night. Now the noise of the 
 wheels resolved itself into some wild tune in which he could 
 recognize scraps of airs he knew, and 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 
 v'as 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. 
 ISir Mulberry and his fr>end were already there, and all four 
 walked in profound silence up the aisle of stately elm trees, 
 which, meeting far above their heads, formed a long green per¬ 
 spective 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 
 littk meadow, passed Ham House and came into some fields 
 beyond. In one of these they stopped. The ground was mea¬ 
 sured, some usual forms gone through, the two principals were 
 placed front to front at the distance agreed upon, and Sir Mnl* 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 735 
 
 berry turned his face towards Ins young adversary for the first 
 time. He was very pale—his eyes were bloodshot, his dress 
 disordered, and his hair disheveled—all most probably the con 
 sequences of the previous day and night. For the face, it ex¬ 
 pressed nothing but violent and evil passions. He shaded his 
 eyes with his hand, gazed 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 be 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. AVe must leave this place immediately, push for Brigh¬ 
 ton, and cross to France with all speed. This has been a bad 
 business, and may be worse if we delay a moment. Adams, 
 considt your own safety, and don’t remain here; the living be¬ 
 fore the dead—good bye.” 
 
 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 olf in the 
 same direction, to concert measures with his servant for removing 
 the body, and securing his own safety likewise. 
 
 So died Lord Frederick A^erisopht, by the hand which he had 
 loaded with gifts and clasped a thousand times ; by the act of 
 Iiim 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 Ijirds 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 LI. 
 
 TOE rnOJECT OF MR. RALPH NICKLEBY AND HIS FRIEND .\P- 
 PB CACHING A SUCCESSFUL ISSUE, BECOMES UNEXPECTEDLY 
 KNOWN TO ANOTHER PARTY', NOT ADMITTED INTO THEIR CON¬ 
 FIDENCE. 
 
 In an old house, dismal, dark and dusty, which seemed to 
 have withered, like himself, and to have grown yellow and 
 shriveled 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 con¬ 
 stant 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 ’twere 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 arras 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. Olhers 
 again knocked up against their neighbors, 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 to creep in scanty folds together, whispering among 
 themselves, when rustled by the wind, their trembling knowledge 
 
NICHOLAS N IC K L E B Y. 
 
 7‘^'i 
 
 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 niaj 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 frowsy 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-colored suit,” said Arthur Gride, surveying a 
 threadbare coat, “did I look well in snuff-color? let me think.” 
 
 The result of his cogitations appeared to be unfavorable, 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 bi ide— 
 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, and then resumed his employment. 
 
 “ The bottle-grpen, ’ said old Arthur; “the bottle-green was 
 
738 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 a famous suit to wear, and I bought it very cheap at a pawn¬ 
 broker’s, and there was—he, he, he !—a tarnished shilling in the 
 waistcoat pochet. 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 ! It was a 
 lucky suit too, this bottle-gi’een. The very day I put in 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 
 shriveled 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 
 ever stirs in the house.” 
 
 “ Me, Peg—me,” said Arthur Gride, tapping himself on tho 
 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 any 
 thing 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 ain’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 upon 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 sh»' 
 is, she won’t look much at you, master, take your oath of that; 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 73i 
 
 and as to how you look yourself—pepper-and-salt, bottle-green,’ 
 eky-blue, or tartan-plaid, will make no differenee in you.” 
 
 With which consolatory assurance. Peg Sliderskew gathered 
 ap 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 humor, ain'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 any body tries to 
 domineer it over me, and so I give you notice, master. No 
 body 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, fund, what’s more, she’s got one,) and 
 sing like a little bitu. 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. 
 
740 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ You’re a saying something you don’t want me to hear,” 
 said Peg ; “ I know yon are.” 
 
 “Oh, dear! the devil’s in this woman,” muttered Artliur*, 
 adding with an ugly leer, “ 1 said I trusted every thing 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 any thing yet, and girls like 
 such attentions, you shall polish up a sparkling necklace that 
 I’ve got up stairs, and I’ll give it her upon the wedding morn¬ 
 ing—clasp it round her charming little neck myself—and take 
 it away again next day. He, he, he 1—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 inge¬ 
 nious scheme, and expressed her satisfaction by various rankings 
 and twitchings of her head and body, which by no means en¬ 
 hanced her charms. These she prolonged until she had hob¬ 
 bled to the door, when she exchanged them for a sour malig¬ 
 nant look, and twisting her under-jaw from side to side, mut¬ 
 tered 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, and, the suit • 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 741 
 
 destined to grace his approaching nuptials being now selected, 
 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 ope¬ 
 ration, and locked the press ; but there was no need for any 
 particular hurry as the discreet Peg seldjm 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 1 Mr. Noggs 1” cried Arthur Gride, rubbing his hands. 
 “ My good friend, Mr. Noggs, what news do you bitng for me. 
 
 Newman, with a steadfast and immoveable aspect, and his 
 fixed eye very fixed indeed, replied, suiting the action to the 
 word, “A letter. From Mr. Nickleby. The bearer waits.” 
 
 “Won’t you take a—a—” 
 
 Newman looked up, and smacked his lips. 
 
 “ A chair ?” said Arthur Gride. 
 
 “No,” replied Newman. “ Thank’ee.” 
 
 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 reperuse it, 
 that Newman considered it expedient to remind him of his 
 presence. 
 
 “Answer,” said Newman. “Bearer waits.” 
 
 “True,” replied old Artlmr. “Yes—yes; I almost forgot, I 
 do declare.” 
 
 “I thought you were forgetting,” sai’d Newman. 
 
 “ Quite right to remind me, Mr. Noggs. Oh very right in¬ 
 deed,” said Arthur. “Yes. I’ll write a line. I’m—I’m rather 
 hurried, Mr. Noggs The news is—” 
 
 “Bad?” interrupted Newman. 
 
 “ No, j\lr. 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 some¬ 
 times, that, oh dear ! you’d be astonished. I may say that I do 
 too. and always did. I always say the same of you.” 
 
742 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 That’s ‘ Curse Mr. Noggs with all ray heart!’ then, if you 
 dO;” thought Newraan, as Gride hurried out. 
 
 The letter had fallen on the ground. Looking carefully about 
 hira 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 lollows : 
 
 “ Gride, 
 
 “ 1 saw Bray again this morning, and proposed the day 
 after to-morrow (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 yon to be punctual. 
 
 “Make no further visits to the girl in the mean time. You 
 have been there of late much oftener than you should. She 
 does not languish for you, and it might have been dangerous. 
 Bestrain your youthful ardor 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, 
 Mdio 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 I 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 ” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 743 
 
 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, resem¬ 
 bling the noise of a distant discharge of small artillery. Arthur 
 succeeded in finishing his reply to Kalph’s note, nevertheless, 
 and at length handed it over to the eccentric messenger for de. 
 livery. 
 
 “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 wonld not have drunk with him one bubble of the 
 richest wine that was ever made ; but to see what he w^uld be 
 at, and to punish him as much as he could, he accepted the 
 offer immediately. 
 
 Arthur Gride, therefore, again applied himself to tlm press, 
 and from a shelf laden with tali Flemish drinking-glasses and 
 quaint bottles, some with necks like so many storks, and others 
 with square Dutch-built bodies and short fat apopletic 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! Oh 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, Nevvman took up one of the little 
 glasses and chinked 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 
 i—and then filled his own. 
 
 “ Stop, stop; don’t drink it yet,” he said, laying his hand on 
 Ncwinar’s ; “it was given to me twenty years ago, and when I 
 
744 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 take a little taste, which is ve—ry seldom, I like to think of it 
 beforehand and teaze myself. We’ll drink a toast. Shall we 
 have a toast, Mr. Noggs ?” 
 
 “Ah I” said Newman, eyeing his little glass impatiently. 
 “ Imok sharp. Bearer waits,” 
 
 “Why, then. I’ll tell you what,” tittered Arthur, “we’ll 
 di’ink—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 de¬ 
 parted ; after greatly outraging the dignity of Peg Sliderskew 
 by brushing past her in the passage without a word of apologv 
 or recognition. 
 
 Mr. Gride and his housekeeper, immediately on being lefi 
 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 know. 
 
 “You’ve been a long time,” said Balph, when Newman re¬ 
 turned. 
 
 “ lie was a long time,” replied Newman. 
 
 “Bah!” cried Balph, impatiently. “Give me his note, if ne 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 745 
 
 innocent while his employer broke the seal, and glanced his eye 
 over it. 
 
 “lie’ll be sure to come 1” 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 wdiom 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 
 him at all. He came here twice and asked for you. You w^ere 
 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 sec 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 w^on’t. I told him he 
 might catch you in the street, if that was all he wanted, but no ! 
 that, wouldn’t do. You w^ouldn’t hear a w^ord there, he said. 
 He must have you alone in a room with the door locked, w^here 
 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,” retorted Newman, sulkily, “ then 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 some¬ 
 times do? ‘Brute, ass I’ 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. 
 
,46 
 
 NICHOLAS NIOKLEBT. 
 
 “He is an idle ruffian,” said Ralph; ‘‘a vagabond from 
 beyond the sea, where he traveled for his crimes, a felon let loose 
 to run his neck into the halter; a swindler, who has the auda¬ 
 city 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 iail a little 
 time, and I’ll be bound he looks for other folks to leece 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 shut¬ 
 ting himself up in his little otBce, remained there in very serious 
 cogitation all day. When he was released at night, he pro¬ 
 ceeded with all the expedition he could use to the city, and 
 took up his old position behind the pump, to watch for Nicho¬ 
 las—for Newman Noggs was proud in his way, and couid not 
 bear to appear as his friend before the Brothers Cheeryole, in 
 the shabby and degraded state to which he was reduced. 
 
 He had not occupied this position many minutes when he vvas 
 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 Nicholau. 
 
 “ That’s right,” rejoined Newman, “ and I of you. I C0i*idn’t 
 help coming up to-night. I say, I think I’m 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 himt ’em now, in case you 
 should be disappointed.” 
 
 “ I disappointed 1” 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 
 
.'NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 747 
 
 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 endeavored, by a series of ques¬ 
 tions, to elucidate the cause, but in vain. Newman could not 
 be drawn into any mor& 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 cau¬ 
 tion ; now the lynx-eyed Ralph had already seen him in com 
 pany with his unknown correspondent; and how he had baffled 
 the said Ralph by extreme guardedness of manner and inge¬ 
 nuity 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, and there 
 they fell to reviewing the origin and progress of their acquaint¬ 
 ance, as men sometimes do, and tracing out the little events by 
 which it was most strongly marked, came at last to Miss Cecilia 
 IJobster. 
 
 “And that reminds me,” said Newman, “that you never told 
 me the young lady’s real name.” 
 
 “ Madeline I” said Nicholas. 
 
 “Madeline !” cried Newman; “what Madeline? Her other 
 name—say her other name.” 
 
 “Bray !” said Nicholas, in great astonishment. 
 
 “ It’s the same !” shrieked Newman. “ Sad story ? Can yon 
 stand idly by, and let that unnatural marriage take place with¬ 
 out one attempt to save her ?” 
 
 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicholas, starting up; 
 “ marriage ! are you mad ?” 
 
 “Are you? is she? are yon 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 
 out day she will be sacrificed, as sure as you stand there alive. 
 
r48 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 1” 
 
 “ 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 him down upon his seat and held him 
 down till he began his tale. 
 
 Rage, astonishment, indignation, and a storm of passions 
 rushed through the listener’s heart as the plot was laid bai-e. 
 He no sooner understood it all, than with a face of ashy pale¬ 
 ness, 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 I 
 there, stop him. Stop thief! stop thief 1” 
 
CHAPTER LII. 
 
 NICHOI.AS DESPAmS OF RESCUING MADELINE BRAY, BUT PI.UCKS 
 
 UP HIS SPIRITS AGAIN, AND DETERMINES TO ATTEMPT IT. 
 
 DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE OF THE KENWIGSES AND LILLYVI0K8. 
 
 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 really lay 
 violent hands upon his person, and place him in a disagreeable 
 predicament from which he might have some difficulty in extri¬ 
 cating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his ])ace, 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 straighu to Bray’s,” said Nicholas. “I will see 
 this man ; and if there is one feeling of humanity lingering in 
 his breast, one spark of consideration for his own child, mother¬ 
 less 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, fiercely. 
 
 “ 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 aiiolher, 
 and such misery is involved in this one, that I declare to you 
 1 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 cir¬ 
 cumstance of the compact between Ralph Nickleby and Gride 
 
 (7491 
 
750 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 would not invalidate the marriage, or render Bray averse to it, 
 wdio, if he did not actually know of the existence of some such 
 understanding, doubtless suspected it. What had been hinted 
 wdth 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 considera¬ 
 tion, 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 wdth them ? no w'ay of 
 getting one of them here by to-morrow 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.” 
 
 “AVhat 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 monstrous sacrifice ?” 
 
 “Think,” urged Newmian. “Is there no way?” 
 
 “There is none,” said Nicholas, in utter dejection. “Not 
 one. The lather urges—the daughter consents. These demons 
 have her in their toils ; legal right, might, power, money, and 
 every influence ai’e 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 any thing. Hope, hope, to the last!” 
 
 Nicholas needed encouragement, for the suddenness with 
 
NICHOLAS NICK LEE T. 
 
 751 
 
 which intelligence of the two usurers’ plans had come upon 
 nim, the little time which remained for exertion, the proba¬ 
 bility, almost amounting to certainty itself, that a few hours 
 would place Madeline Bray forever beyond his reach, consign 
 her to unspeakable misery, and perhaps to an untimely death : 
 all this quite stunned and overwhelmed him. Every hope con¬ 
 nected 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 re¬ 
 monstrance, and such sincerity and fervor 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 to-morrow.” 
 
 “What is that?” asked Noggs, wistfully. “Not to threaten 
 Balph ? 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 I 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 counselor for her good ; and perhaps even I may move 
 her so far yet, though it is the eleventh hour, and she up )n 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 lam influenced l)y no selfish or personal 
 considerations, but by pity for her and detestation and abhor 
 4S 
 
762 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 rence of this heartless scheme; and that I would do the same 
 were there twenty rivals in the field, and I the last and least 
 favored of them all.” 
 
 “You would, I believe,” said Newman. “But where are you 
 hurrying now ?” 
 
 “ Homewards,” answered Nicholas. “ Do you come with me, 
 or shall I say good night ?” 
 
 “I’ll come a little way if you will but walk, not run,’’ said 
 Noggs. 
 
 “ I cannot walk to-night, Newman,” returned Nicholas, hur¬ 
 riedly. “ I must move rapidly, or I could not draw my breath. 
 I’ll tell you what I’ve said and done to-morrow !” 
 
 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 I like him for it. There’s cause enough now, 
 or the deuce is in it. Hope ! I said hope, I think I 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, aud 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 Ken- 
 wigs had received an invitation to repair next day per steamer 
 from Westminster Bridge unto the Eel-pie Island at Twicken¬ 
 ham, 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 ex¬ 
 tensive connection for the accommodation of his numerous 
 pupils, and the pupils displaying their aporeciation of the 
 dancing-master’s services by purchasing themselves, and in- 
 
NICnOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 768 
 
 fencing their friends to do the like, divers light-blue tickets en¬ 
 titling them to join the expedition. Of these light-blue tickets, 
 one had been presented by an ambitious neighbor to Miss Mor- 
 leena Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her daughters; anti 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, rightly deeming that the honor of the family was 
 involved in Miss Morleena’s making the most splendid appear¬ 
 ance 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 child'’en 
 could learn to be genteel besides theirs, had fainted away twice 
 under the magnitude of her preparations, but upheld by a de¬ 
 termination 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 hxintings 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 tlie 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 skillful hair-dresser, she never could achieve 
 that signal triumph over the daughters of all other people, any 
 thing less than which would be tantamount to defeat. This 
 discovery drove Mrs. Kenwigs to despair, for the hair-dresser 
 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 ISIrs. 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 I” 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 1 was to trust yon by yourself and you were 
 to escape being run over, I know you’d run in to Laura Chop- 
 kins,” who was the daughter of the ambitious neighbor, “and 
 tell her what you’re going to wear to-morrow, I know yon 
 
754 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEHI. 
 
 would. You’ve no proper pride in yourself, and are not Lo bd 
 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 
 BO 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 up stairs, when Mrs. KenwigvS, 
 gaining new hope from the sound of his footsteps, hastily re¬ 
 moved 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 hair-dresser’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 favor 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 hair-dresser’s. 
 
 It was not exactly a hair-dresser’s; that is to say, people 
 of a coai’se 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 neighborhood. Indeed, some ladies 
 had gone so far as to assert, that the dark gentleman was ac¬ 
 tually a portrait of the spirited 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 pro¬ 
 fusion of Hat circular curls on both sides—encouraged the idea 
 The better informed among the sex, however, made light of this 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 756 
 
 assertion, for however willing they were (and they were very will¬ 
 ing) to do full justice to the handsome face and figure of the pro¬ 
 prietor, they held the countenance of the dark gentleman in the 
 window to be an exquisite and abstract idea of masculine beauty, 
 realized 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, and the proprietor knowdng that Miss Ken- 
 wigs had three sisters, each with two flaxen tails, and all good 
 for sixpence a-piece 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-humored 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 coahheaver, 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 oui 
 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 ap- 
 peai’ed highly entertained, looked slightly round the shop, as if 
 in depreciation of the pomatum pots and other articles of stock, 
 took bis pipe out of his mouth and gave a very loud wdustle, and 
 then put it in again, and w'alked ont. 
 
756 
 
 • NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 The old gentleman who had just been lathered, and who waa 
 sitting in a melancholy manner, with his face turned towards the 
 wall, appeared quite unconscious of this incident, and to be insen¬ 
 sible to every thing 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 Ken wigs, 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, thei’e 
 he sat with the remains of a beard at least a week old encum¬ 
 bering his chin, a soiled and crumpled shirt-frill crouching as it 
 were upon his breast instead of standing boldly out; a demeanor 
 so abashed and drooping, so despondent, expressive of such 
 humiliation, grief, and shame, that if the souls of forty unsub¬ 
 stantial 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 morti¬ 
 fication and defeat as were now expressed in the person of Mr. 
 liillyvick, 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 any thing 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. 
 Lillyvic'k’s recent association with theatrical characters—not 
 being quite explanatiry, Newman looked as if he were about 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEEY. ‘ 
 
 757 
 
 to ask another question, when Mr. Lillyvick prevented him by 
 sliaking his hand mournfully, and then waving his own. 
 
 “Let me be shaved,” said Mr. Lillyvick. “I shall be done 
 before Morleena—it is Morleena, isn’t it ?” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Newman. 
 
 “ Kcnwigses 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 embar¬ 
 rassed by the question. 
 
 “Susan Kenwngs 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 re¬ 
 plying to Mr. Lillyvick, that he thought the baby might possi¬ 
 bly come like him in time. 
 
 “ I should be glad to have somebody like me, somehow,” said 
 JNIr. Lillyvick, “before I die.” 
 
 “ Y^'ou 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 wms remarkable behavior, and 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 behavior on the part of the collector ; but philosophi¬ 
 cally reflecting that he would most likely know sooner or later, 
 aud that he could perfectly afford to wait, he was very little dis¬ 
 turbed by the singularity of the old gentleman’s deportment. 
 
 The cutting and curling being at last concluded, the old gen¬ 
 tleman, who had been some time wmiting, rose to go, and walking 
 out with Newman and Id's charge, took Newman’s arm, and 
 proceeded with them for some time without making any obser- 
 
758 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 vation. Newman, who in power of taciturnity was excelled by 
 few people, made no attempt to break silence, and so they went 
 on until they liad very nearly reached Miss Morleena’s home, 
 when Mr. Lillyvick said— 
 
 “Were th-e Kenwigses very much overpowered, Mr, Noggs, 
 by that news?” 
 
 “What news ?” returned Newmian. 
 
 “ That about—my—being-” 
 
 “ Mai’ried ?” 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 Mor- 
 leena, “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, 
 wdth 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. Ken¬ 
 wigs 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 sur- 
 wmys 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 7«onor, where is his straight-for’ardness, and 
 where is his human natur.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 759 
 
 “ 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 tlio 
 table emphatically. “ What with the nursing of a healthy bab- 
 by, and the reflections on 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 
 agaiu and again he vrould 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 
 Liorgeenes, 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 
 himself 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 bo 
 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 aifecting 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 shouldhaAO 
 turned your back upon me and my dear children, and up-ori 
 Kenwigs, which is the author of their being—you who was once 
 so kind and affectionate, and who, if any body 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 ! 
 
700 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ 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 confanement, my unoffending infant has been ren¬ 
 dered 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-oh little 
 child.” And here the emotions of Mrs. Kenwigs became so 
 violent that Mr. Kenwigs was fain to administer hartshorn in¬ 
 ternally 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 vuth her, had remon¬ 
 strated and begged her to compose herself, Mr. Lillyvick said 
 in a faltering voice : 
 
 " I never shall ask any body here to receive m}^-1 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 elo[)ed with a half-pay captain—with a 
 bottle-nosed captain that any man might have considered him¬ 
 self 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. Mr& Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman’s 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 7fi1 
 
 neck, bitterly reproaching herself for her late harshness, and 
 exclaiming if she had suffered, what must his sufferings have 
 been I 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 
 Fetowker. 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 
 tiad often said that he was not quite satisfied of the propriety 
 of Miss Petowker’s couduct, and wondered how it was that she 
 could have been blinded by such a wretch. Mr. Kenwigs re¬ 
 membered 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 
 feeling and tears of sympathy, that every thing happened for the 
 best, and conjured the good collector not to give way to una¬ 
 vailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society of those af¬ 
 fectionate 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 to-morrow morning settle upon 
 your children, and make payable to the survivors of them when 
 they come of age or marry, that money that I once meant 
 to leave ’em in my will. The deed shall be executed to-morrow, 
 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 
 nigbt-caps and gowns at the feet of Mr. Lillyvick, and called 
 ujmD them to thank and bless him. 
 
 “^^ud now,” said Mr. Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene 
 had ensued and the children were cleared away again. “Give 
 
7G2 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 me some supper. This toot place twenty mile from town, I 
 came up this morning, and have been lingering about all day 
 without being able to make up my mind to come and see you. 
 1 Imraored lier in every thing, 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 any thing more 
 about it, please—the spoons were worth—never mind—never 
 mind 1” 
 
 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 dis¬ 
 posed 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 liim 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 a mingling once again in the spear 
 which he adorns, and see his affections deweloping themselves 
 in legitimate sitiwatious, I feel that his natur is as elewated and 
 expanded as his standing afore society as a public character is 
 uuimpeached, 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 LIII. 
 
 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 
 ivliich extreme circumstances so often give birth, acting upon 
 far less excitable and more sluggish temperaments than that 
 which was ‘he 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, use, custom, a 
 steady contemplation of the difficulties which surround us, and 
 a familiarity with them, imperceptibly diminish our appre¬ 
 hensions and beget coupiarative indilference, 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 ill 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 
 traveler 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 liglit wliich gilds all nature with its 
 cheerful beams, sefinis but to shine ujioii the weary obstacles 
 which yet lie strewn between him and the grave. 
 
 063 ) 
 
764 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 So thought Nicholas, when, with the impatience natural to a 
 situation like his, he softiy 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, he wandered into London, although 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, every thing appeared to yield him some new occasion 
 for despondency. Last night the sacrifice of a young, affec¬ 
 tionate, 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 interpo¬ 
 sition 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 those who lay 
 in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down at 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 thou¬ 
 sands 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 scarcely do otherwise, 
 and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she done 
 
NICHOLAS- NICKLEBY. 
 
 765 
 
 well, than even they, had they done ill—how much injustice, and 
 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 cause or 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 in¬ 
 terrupted, Nicholas gradually summoned up his utmost energy, 
 and by the time 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 affair's of business as required 
 prompt attention disposed of, he directed his steps to the resi¬ 
 dence 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 u}X)n 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 ob¬ 
 serve the nicest ceremony ; therefore, availing himself of this 
 advantage, Nicholas walked gently up stairs 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, what 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 trans¬ 
 parent cold ghastly 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 rivaled it 
 in whiteness, it seemed by the strong contrast raven black 
 
NICHOLAS NIC K L E B Y 
 
 7fi6 
 
 Something of wildness and restlessness there was in the dark 
 eye, but there was the same patient look, the same expression 
 of gentle mournfulness w^hich he well remembered, and no trace 
 of a single tear. Most beautiful—more beautiful perhaps in 
 appearance than ever —there wms 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 fi sed and rigid, as though the violent effoi t which had sum¬ 
 moned 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 sub¬ 
 siding, 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 he had always seen filled with fresh flowers, w'ere 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 wms 
 one, for Nicholas had but glanced round him when he wms re 
 cognized by Mr. Bray, w'ho said impatiently, 
 
 “Now, Sir, what do you want? Name your errand here, 
 quickly, if you please, for my daughter and I are busily en¬ 
 gaged 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 im 
 patience of this speech wmre 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 
 colored directly and turned his head aw’ay. 
 
 The device, however, so far as it was a device for causing 
 Madeline to interfere, was successful. She rose, and advancing 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 767 
 
 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 enclosure, 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 1” 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, 
 wflien 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 
 bi'ing orders, eh ? Have you any fresh orders for my daughter, 
 Sir ?” 
 
 Nicholas understood the tone of triumph and the sneer in 
 wfliich this interrogatory was put, but remembering the necessity 
 fif supporting his assumed character, produced a scrap of paper 
 purporting to contain a list of some subjects for drawings which 
 his era[)loycr desired to have executed ; and with which he had 
 prepared himself in case of any such contingency. 
 
 “ Oli I” said Mr. Bray. “ These are the orders, are they ?” 
 
 “ Since you insist upon the terra. Sir—yes,” replied Nicholas. 
 
 “ Then you may tell your master,” said Bray, tossing the paper 
 49 
 
7G8 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEHY. 
 
 back again with an exulting smile, “that my daughter—Miss 
 Madeline Bray—condescends to employ herself no longer in 
 such labors 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; tliat 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 mv 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, 
 indignantly. 
 
 The father was too much absorbed with his own exultation 
 to mark the look of scorn which for an instant Nicholas would 
 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, sternly ; “neither in considera¬ 
 tion 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 ray 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 labor of her hands, 
 had she worked herself dead. These are my fears, and these 
 fears I found upon your own demeanor. 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 commu¬ 
 nicate, and would wait for her outside the room. lie could 
 hear that the sick man came gradually but slowly to himself. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 7&9 
 
 and thiit without any reference to what had just occurred, aa 
 though he had no distinct recollection of it as yet, he requested 
 to be left alone. 
 
 “Oh I” 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 I” 
 
 “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 to-morrow— 
 come here then.” 
 
 “ It will be too late—too late for what I have to say,” re¬ 
 joined Nicholas, “ and you will not be here. Oh, Madame, 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 weep¬ 
 ing 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, 
 S’r ?” demanded the young lady, with an effort to speak 
 proudly. 
 
 “ I speak of this marriage,” returned Nicholas, “ of this mar¬ 
 riage, fixed for to-morrow 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 whoir th.ese schemes have come. You 
 
770 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 are betrayed, and sold for money—for gold, whose every coin 
 is rusted with tears, if not red with the blood of mined men, 
 wlio have fallen desperately by their own mad hands.” 
 
 “ You say you have a duty to discharge,” said Madeline, 
 firmly, “and so have I. And with the help of Heaven I will 
 [)erform 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 is, 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 by menace and intimidation. Report this,” said 
 Madeline, “ to my dear friend and benefactor, and taking with 
 you my prayers and tli^inks, for him and for yourself, leave me 
 for ever.” 
 
 “Not until I have besought you, with all the earnestness and 
 fervor 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. 
 Y'ou have heard him speak, and 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 foul wretch as you would from 
 corruption and disease. Suffer, toil and labor, if you will, but 
 shun him, shun him, and be happy. For, believe me, that I 
 speak the truth, the most abject poverty, the most wretched 
 condition of human life, with a pure and ui)right mind, would 
 be happiness to that which you must undergo as the wife of 
 such a man as this I” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 771 
 
 Long before Nicholas ceased to speak, the yoiing 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 ougnt 
 —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 beaL If I cannot in reason or in nature love 
 the man vvlio pays this price for my poor hand, I can dischai’ge 
 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, and 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, and you shun the contemplation of that dark future which 
 must come laden with so much misery to you. Defer this mar¬ 
 riage 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 to-mor¬ 
 row,” 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, 
 
772 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 honorably 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 their blessings on his head, and prosper and preserve 
 him.” 
 
 She was hurrying past Nicholas, when he threw himself be¬ 
 fore 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 suppli¬ 
 cation, “ 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 I 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 call¬ 
 ing; 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 re¬ 
 covered, 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 forme that we should never meet 
 more.” 
 
 “ For both—for both,” replied Madeline, not heeding what 
 fjhe 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 mj grateful heart an 1 blessing 1” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 773 
 
 She was gone, and 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 col¬ 
 lect his thoughts, he issued forth again. 
 
 That night, being the last of Arthur Gride's bachelorship, 
 found him in tip-top spirits and great glee. The bottle-green 
 suit had been brushed ready for the morrow. Peg Sliderskcw 
 had rendered the accounts of her past housekeeping; the eigh- 
 teenpence 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 pre¬ 
 ferred sitting down and contemplating the entries in a dirty old 
 vellnm-book with rusty clasps. 
 
 Well-a-day 1” 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 story-book writers 
 will ever make as good a book as this, I warrant me. It’s com¬ 
 posed for private circulation—for my own particular reading, 
 and nobody else’s. He, he !” 
 
 Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur carried his precious volume 
 to the table, and adjusting it upon a dusty desk, put on his spec¬ 
 tacles, and began to pore among the leaves. 
 
 “ It’s a large sum to Mr. Nicklcby,” 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 ])ound. 
 One thousond, four hundred and seventy-five pounds, four shil¬ 
 lings, and threepence, to-morrow 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 
 In ougnt all this about myself. Faint heart never won fair lady.’ 
 Why vvas my heart so faint? Why didn’t I boldly open it to 
 
771 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Bray myself, and save one thousand four hundred and seventy- 
 live, four, three !” 
 
 These reflections depressed the old usurer so much as to wring 
 a feeble groan or two from his breast, anti cause him to declare 
 with uplifted hands that he would die in a workhouse. Remem¬ 
 bering on further cogitation, however, that under any circum¬ 
 stances 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 re¬ 
 gained his equanimity, and chattered and mowed over more 
 satisfactory items until the entrance of Peg Sliderskew inter¬ 
 rupted him. 
 
 " Aha, Peg !” said Arthur, “ what is it ? What is it now, 
 ]’eg ?” 
 
 “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—nobody else.” 
 
 “Don’t you complain of the expense afterwards,” said Mrs. 
 Sliderskew, sulkilv. 
 
 “ I’m afraid we must live expensively for the first week,” le- 
 tiirned 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’"^ 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 1 she can never hear the most important word, and 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 775 
 
 hoars all the others 1” 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. 
 
 “ Tliere’s the bell,” said Arthur. 
 
 “ Ay, ay; I know that,” rejoined Peg. 
 
 “Tlien why don’t you go ?” bawled Arthur. 
 
 “ Go where?” retorted Peg. I ain’t doing any harm here, 
 am 1 ?” 
 
 Arthur Gride in reply repeated the word “bell” as loud as ho 
 could roar, and his meaning being rendered further intelligible 
 to Mrs. Sliderskew’s dull sense of hearing by pantomime expres¬ 
 sive 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, and if you are you must take yourself 
 off, Mrs. l*eg—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 every thing else in the engrossing interest of its 
 pages. 
 
 The room h-ad 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 the money¬ 
 lender had drawn so close to him, that there was only room be 
 tween 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 hideous fea¬ 
 tures 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 Pvaising his eyes and looking vacantly into this gloom 
 
i76 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 I” 
 
 “ 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 dis¬ 
 dainful 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 1 
 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, fellow.” 
 
 “ AVhat then, and how came you here ?” cried Gride, some¬ 
 what 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 ad¬ 
 dressed 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 1 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 to-morrow morning.” 
 
 “ N—n—no,” rejoined Gride. “ Who said I was ? How do 
 von know that ?” 
 
 “No matter how,” replied Nicholas, “ I know it. The young 
 lady who is to give you her hand hates and despises you. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 777 
 
 Her blood runs eold 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. 
 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, that 
 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 inno¬ 
 cence, 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 ai*e 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 
 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 ?” 
 
778 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride’s impression was that 
 Kalph Nickleby had betrayed him ; but as he proceeded he felt 
 convinced that however he had come by the knowledge he pos¬ 
 sessed, the part he acted was a genuine one, and that with 
 Ilalph he had uo concern. All he seemed to know for certain 
 was, that he. Gride, paid Ralph’s debt, but that, to any body 
 who knew the circumstances of Bray’s detention—even to Bray 
 liimself 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, and 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 vaporing for the purposes 
 of delay. “And even if money wei’e to be had,” thought 
 Arthur Gride, 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 
 sasli. “Help here! Help! Help!” 
 
 “ AVhat are you doing!” said Nicholas, seizing him by the 
 arm. 
 
 “ I’ll cry robbers, thieves, murder, alarm the neighborhood, 
 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. 
 
 “ YuuHl bring your threats here, will you V' said Gride, whom 
 jealousy of Nicholas and a sense of his own triumph had con* 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 779 
 
 verted into a perfect fiend. “You, the disappointed lover— oh 
 dear 1 He! he ! he I—but you shan’t have her, nor she you. 
 She’s my wife, my fond 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 rage. 
 
 “ One minute more,” cried Arthur Gride, “ and I’ll rouse the 
 street with such screams as, if they were raised by any body 
 else, should \vake me even in the arras of pretty Madeline.” 
 
 ‘ Vou base hound 1” 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, wdiich 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 wdth kisses,” said 
 Arthur Gride. “ Yes, and she’ll tell me, and pay them back, 
 and w'e’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-hmnored. 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 thii means and have her under my thumb. I’m 
 
780 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 p^!ad nobody camo. I didn’t call too loud. The audacity to 
 enter my house, and open upon me !—But I ghall have a very 
 good triumph to-morrow, and he’ll be gnawing his fingers off, 
 perhaps drown himself, or cut his throat I I shouldn’t wonder 1 
 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 up the chest with great 
 caution, descended into the kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew to 
 bed, and to 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 ray 
 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 shriveled 
 lips. Thinking better of it, however, he gave her chin another 
 tap in lieu of that warmer familiarity, and stole away to bed. 
 
CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF THE PROJECT AND ITS RESULT. 
 
 There are not many men who lie abed too late or oversleep 
 tliemselves on their weddinor morninsr. A legend tliere is of 
 somebody remarkable for absence of mind, who opened his eyes 
 upon the day which was to give him a young wife, and for-get¬ 
 ting all about the matter, rated his servants for providing him 
 with such fine clothes as had been pi-epared 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 sucli 
 cases made and provided, conceived a passion for his giand- 
 mamma. Both cases ai-e 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 "arments 
 of bottle-gi-een, a full hour befoi-e Mrs, Sliderskew, shaking olf 
 her more heavy slumbers, knocked at his chamber door ; and he 
 had hobbled down stairs in full array and smacked his lips over 
 a scanty taste of his favorite cordial, ere that delicate piece of 
 antiquity enlightened the kitchen with her presence. 
 
 “ Faugh !” said Peg, grubbing, in the discharge of her do¬ 
 mestic functions, among a scanty heap of ashes in the rusty g.^ate^ 
 “Wedding indeed I A precious wedding! He wants seme- 
 body 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 keej) me 
 content with short food, small wages, and little fire ? ‘ My 
 
 will. Peg ! my will!’ says he, ‘ Pm 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 w-anted 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. Xo, that she 
 won’t, but you little think why, Arthur, boy,” 
 
 While Mrs. Sliderskew, influenced possibly by some lingering 
 
 G 81 ) 
 
782 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 parlor 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. Per¬ 
 haps 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 recognized 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 that 
 of the most slavish and abject sycophancy. 
 
 To Ralph Nickleby’s, Arthur Gride now betook himself ac¬ 
 cording to appointment, and to Ralph Nickleby he related how 
 that 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. 
 
 “lie tried to frighten you?” said Ralph, disdainfully, “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 ray money.” 
 
 “ Oho !” said Ralph, eyeing him askew. “ Jealous too !” 
 
 “Dear, now, see that!” cried Arthur, rubbing his hands and 
 atfecting lo laugh. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 783 
 
 “ Why do you make those grimaces, man ?” said Ra];*;h, 
 harshly, “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 1” snarled Arthur Gride. 
 
 “Oh 1” rejoined Ralph, “I thought you did. Well, hand¬ 
 some or not handsome, to this old man there comes a young fel¬ 
 low who casts all manner of fierce defiance in his teeth—gums 
 I should rather say—and tells him in plain terms that his mis¬ 
 tress hates him. What does he do that for ? Philanthropy’s 
 sake ?” 
 
 “Notfor 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 tri¬ 
 umph 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 ex¬ 
 tremity 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, every body 
 knows what easy things, to understand and to control, women 
 ai’e. 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 after¬ 
 wards.” 
 
 “ 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 ?” 
 
 50 
 
784 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you kncw,“ 
 returned Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and sly* 
 ness 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 pre¬ 
 pared 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 tins last speech of Ralph’s, answered in the affirmative, 
 and producing from bis hat a couple of large white favors, 
 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 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 
 up stairs 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” 
 
 “I need be,” remarked Ralph, drily, “for this is rather dull 
 and chilling. Look a little brisker, man, and not so hang-dog 
 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—T—am not impatient,” stammered Arthur. “ I wouldn’t 
 be hard with her for the world. Oh dear, dear, not on any ac* 
 
NICHOLAS NIC KLEE Y. 
 
 785 
 
 count. 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 hold¬ 
 ing up his hand with a cautious gesture, as if there were some 
 sick person near who must not be disturbed. 
 
 “Hush 1” 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 expresssion was sharp¬ 
 ened and aggravated to the utmost by his anxiety and trepida¬ 
 tion. 
 
 “ Look at tliat 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 quite as wmll 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 favorable opportunity of advancing 
 it, or think it soarcely worth while to answer their adversary at 
 all. 
 
 “ Look at him. Does it not seem cruel ?” said Bray. 
 
786 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “No 1” 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 at all 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 com¬ 
 fortable. To do Ralph Nickleby justice, he seldom practiced 
 this sort of dissimulation ; but he understood those who did, and 
 therefore suffered Bray to say again and again, with great vehe¬ 
 mence, that they were jointly doing a very cruel thing, before he 
 again offered to interpose a word. 
 
 “You see what a dry, shriveled, 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—hark’ee, Mr. Bray, 
 he’ll die soon, and leave her a rich young widow. Miss Madeline 
 consults your taste 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 any thing 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 will 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 any 
 thing which seemed a justification of himself. “ And so I told 
 her, both last night and to-day.” 
 
 “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, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 787 
 
 and having nodded twice or thrice in unqualified absent to what 
 had fallen from him, said, 
 
 “I must go up stairs for a few minutes to finish dressing, and 
 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 remem¬ 
 bered 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 up stairs, 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 wdth your head hanging over the bedside, or suftering 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 occupy¬ 
 ing 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 turn¬ 
 ing 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 pro})hecy, so agreeable to his ears, Arthur returned 
 no answer, than a cackle of great delight, and Ralph throw¬ 
 ing 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 rustluig 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 
 liere. Urge those dry old bones of yours this wmy—quick, man, 
 quick.” 
 
 Gride sbamblcd forward, and stood leering and bowing close 
 by Ralph's side, when the door opened and there entered iu 
 
788 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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 tlian he was by this sur¬ 
 prise. His hands fell powerless by his side, he staggered 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 recognize 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 color from the face, the dilated nostril, the 
 quivering of the lips which though set firmly against each other 
 would not be still, showed what fierce 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 stinking 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. ” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 789 
 
 “I come here/’ said Nicholas, in a low deep voice, “to save 
 ✓our 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 to-day. Hard words will not move me, 
 nor would hard blows. Here I stand and will till I have done 
 my errand. 
 
 “Girl 1” 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, and 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 vile pres¬ 
 ence. Our purpose is not to see or speak with you ; therefore 
 to yon, we stoop to say no more.” 
 
 “ Indeed 1” 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 sayj iny brother’s son; a reprobate and profligate, stained 
 with every mean and selfish crime—this fellow coming here to¬ 
 day to disturb a solemn ceremony, and knowing that the conse¬ 
 quence of his presenting himself in another man’s house at such 
 a time, cud persistiug in remaining there, must be his being 
 
790 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 kicked into the streets and dragged through them like the vaga¬ 
 bond 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 this a pretty fellow to talk 
 as big as you have heard him now I” 
 
 “ nd as I heard him last night,” said Arthur Gride, “ as I 
 heard him last night when he sneaked into my house, and—he 1 
 he 1 he !—very soon sneaked out again, when I nearly frightened 
 him to death. And he wanting to marry Miss Madeline too 1 
 Oh dear 1 Is there any thing else he’d like'—any thing 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 1 he I he !” 
 
 “You will remain, girl, will you ?” said Ilalph, turning upon 
 Kate again, “to be hauled down stairs like a drunken drab—as 
 I swear you shall if you stop here? No answer 1 Thank your 
 brother for wdrat follows. Gride, call down Bray—and not his 
 daughter. Let them keep her above.” 
 
 “ If you value your head,” said Nicholas, taking up a posi¬ 
 tion before the door, and speaking in the samm low voice in 
 w'hich 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 Ilalph. 
 
 “ Mind yourself rather than either of us, and stay where you 
 are,” said Nicholas. 
 
 “Will you call down Bray ?” cried Ealph, passionately. 
 
 “Eemember 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 lire, seized him by the collar. At that moment a 
 heavy body fell with great violence on the floor above, and an 
 instant afterwards was heard a most appalling and terrific 
 scream. 
 
 They all stood still and gazed upon each other. Scream 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 791 
 
 succeeded scream; a heavy pattering of feet succeeded; and 
 many shrill voices clamoring together were heard to cry, “Ho 
 is dead I” 
 
 “Stand olF!” cried Nicholas, letting loose all the violent 
 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 up stairs to the quarter 
 from whence the noise proceeded, forced his way through a 
 crowd of persons who quite filled a small bedchamber, and found 
 Bray lying on the floor quite dead, and 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 per¬ 
 son 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 Grod’s sake. 
 
 The people fell back, scarce wondering more at what had just 
 occurred, than at the excitement and impetuosity of him who 
 spoke, and Nicholas, taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore 
 her from the chamber and down stairs into the room he had just 
 ouitted, followed by his sister and the faithful servant, whom ho 
 charged to procure a coach directly, while he and Kate bent 
 over their beautiful charge and endeavored, but in vain, to re¬ 
 store her to animation. The girl performed her office with such 
 expedition, that in a very few minutes the coach was ready. 
 
 Balph Nickleby and Gride, stunned and paralyzed by the 
 awful event which had so suddenly overthrown their schemes 
 
702 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 (it would not otherwise, perhaps, have made much impression 
 on them), and carried away by the extraordinary energy and pre¬ 
 cipitation of Nicholas, which bore down all before them, 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 that ?” cried Nicholas, starting from his knee and 
 confronting them, but still retaining Madeline’s lifeless hand 
 in his. 
 
 “ I !” answered Ralph, hoarsely. 
 
 “ Hush, hush 1” cried the terrified Gride, catching him by the 
 arm again. “ Hear what he says.” 
 
 “ Aye 1” 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 to-day at twelve is 
 now waste paper—that your contemplated fraud shall be dis¬ 
 covered yet—that your schemes are known to man, and over¬ 
 thrown 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 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,” cried 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 1” 
 
 “ One word 1” 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 yoiL 
 Your day is past, and night is coming on—” 
 
 “My curse, my bik •'r deadly curse, upon you, boy!” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 793 
 
 Whence will curses come at your command ? or what avails 
 a curse or blessing from a man like you ? I warn you, that 
 misfortune and discovery are thickening about your head; that 
 the structures you have raised through all your ill-spent life 
 are criunbliiig into dust; that your path is beset with spies; 
 that this very day, ten thousand pounds of your hoarded wealth 
 hr.ve 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 as 
 brush their garments as they pass you by I—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. Nich¬ 
 olas swung him away with such violence as to cause him to spin 
 round the room until he was caught by a shaiq) angle of the 
 wall and there knocked down ; and then taking his beautiful 
 burden in his arms rushed violently 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 great 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 LV. 
 
 OF FAMILY MATTERS, CARES, HOPES, DISAPPOINTMENTS, AND 
 
 SORROM’S. 
 
 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 contin¬ 
 gency 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 pre¬ 
 vious 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, v'hy 
 don’t they file a bill against the Lord Chancellor, make her a 
 chancery ward, and shut her up iu 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 won¬ 
 der should Nicholas go about the world forbidding people’s 
 banns?” 
 
 “ I don’t think you quite understand,’-’ said Kate, gently. 
 
 ‘AVell I am sure, Kate, my dear, you’re very polite,” replied. 
 JNIrs. Nickleby. “I have been married myself I hope, and I 
 have seen other people married. Not understand, indeed 1” 
 
 “ I know you have had great experience, dear mamma,” said 
 Kate ; “I mean that perhaps you don’t quite understand all the 
 (794) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 796 
 
 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 them¬ 
 selves, I shall take the liberty, my love, of saying that I do un¬ 
 derstand them, and jierfectly well too, whatever you and Nicho¬ 
 las may choose to think to the contrary. Why is such a great 
 fuss made because this Miss Magdaku is going to marry some- 
 l)ody 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 honeysuckles 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 honorable and excellent man, and every body spoke well 
 of him. Then why should there be any fuss about this Mag¬ 
 dalen ?” 
 
 “ Her husband is much older ; he is not her own choice, his 
 character is the very reverse of that which you have just de¬ 
 scribed. Don’t you see a broad distinction between the two 
 cases ?” said Kate. 
 
 To this Mrs. Nickleby only replied that she durst say she 
 was very stu})id, 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. 
 
 II owever, no doubt she was wrong, of course she was—she 
 always was—she couldn’t be right, indeed—couldn’t be ex¬ 
 pected to be—so she had better not expose herself a)iy more; 
 and to all K ite’s conciliations and concessions for an hour en- 
 
796 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 suing, Ine 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 at¬ 
 tention 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 w^ere 
 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 un¬ 
 questionable that she had strong ground for exultation. The 
 brothers, upon their return, bestowed such commendations 
 upon 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 threat¬ 
 ening, 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, and without precisely explaining what this qualifi¬ 
 cation 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 
 6j)lendor, and all her cares were over. 
 
 The sudden and terrible shock she had received, combined 
 with tlie great affliction and anxiety of mind which she had for 
 a long time endured, proved too much for Madeline’s strength. 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 797 
 
 Recovering from the state of stupefaction into which the sud¬ 
 den 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 deter¬ 
 mination not to yield, at last give way, their degree of prostra¬ 
 tion 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 recovei’ing from a disorder so severe and dan¬ 
 gerous, 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 
 BO 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 Avith every hour of returning 
 health, there came some stronger and sweeter recognition of the 
 praises which Kate, Avhen 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 lirst inspired, and had imperceptibly min¬ 
 gled 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, .ialculated to discompose the nerves 
 of an invalid rather more than the entry of a horse-soldier at 
 
798 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 full gallop; “how do you find yourself to-night. I hope you 
 are better ?” 
 
 “ Almost well, mamma,” 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. Nick¬ 
 leby, 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 1” Mrs. Nickleby would exclaim in great astonish¬ 
 ment ; “ I declare I never did 1 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-” 
 
 “Wo happened to be just talking about him, mamma ; that 
 was it.” 
 
 “ You never seem to me to be talking about au}^ thing else, 
 Kate, and up)n my word I am quite surprised at your being so 
 very thoughtless. Yon 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 ray own, and 1 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. Kicklcby 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 ; tear¬ 
 ing herself away at length on the plea that she must now go 
 and amuse Nicholas while he took his supper. After a prelimi¬ 
 nary raising of his spirits with the information that she con¬ 
 sidered 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 any thing 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 commis¬ 
 sioned by the brothers to inquire how Madeline was that even' 
 ing. On such occasions (and they were of very frequent occur¬ 
 rence), 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 INIadeline, 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 frecpiently 
 themselves, and received a full report from Nicholas every morn¬ 
 ing. These were proud times for Mrs. Nickleby, and never was 
 any body half so discreet and sage as she, or half so mysterious 
 51 
 
BOO 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKIEBY. 
 
 p^ithal; and never was there such cunning generalsliip, or such 
 unfalhoaiable designs, as she brought to bear upon Mr. Frank, 
 witii the view of ascertaining whether her suspicions were well 
 founded, and if so, of tantalizing him into taking her into his 
 conlidence and throwing himself upon her merciful considera¬ 
 tion. Extensive was the artillerj'’, heavy and light, which Mrs. 
 Nickleby brought into play for the furtherance of these great 
 schemes, and 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, and the next time they met 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 realized. At other times, when Nicholas 
 was not there to overhear, and Kate was up stairs busily tend¬ 
 ing her sick friend, the worthy lady would throw out dark hints 
 of an intention to send her 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 any where that threat¬ 
 ened 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 neighbor 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 retir¬ 
 ing to rest, to sound him upon 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 vyith 
 divers laudatory and appropriate remarks touching the general 
 amiability of Mr. Frank Cher.ryble. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 801 
 
 “You are quite right, mother,” said Nicholas, “ quite right, 
 lie is a hue 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 upon the subject, 
 and 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 I” 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 conscioua- 
 ness 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 
 1 don’t say that I have any particular ponetrallon in smdi ncH- 
 
802 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ters. 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 cpute 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. 
 
 “ 1 think it’s my duty, Nicholas, my dear,” resumed his mo¬ 
 ther, “ to tell you what I know, not only because you have a 
 right to know it too, and to know every thing 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 upon such sub¬ 
 jects, it is always better every way. There are a great many 
 things you might do, such as taking a walk in the garden some¬ 
 times, or sitting up stairs 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 any body, 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 any body who 
 was not), I say, I can assure you that a great deal more de¬ 
 pends upon these little things than you would suppose possible. 
 If your poor papa was alive, he would tell you how much de¬ 
 pended upon 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 h you interrupt young people when they 
 are—when they are sitting on the sofa, and—and all that sort 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 803 
 
 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 upon a vast quantity 
 of circumstantial evidence of a particularly incoherent and per¬ 
 plexing kind, the upshot of which was to establish, beyond tlie 
 possibility of doubt, that Mr. Frank Cheeryble had fallen 
 desperately in love with Kate. 
 
 “ With whom ?” cried Nicholas. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby repeated, with Kate. 
 
 “What I 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 any body 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 one 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 
 liim 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 
 
804 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 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. Pie 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 honorable 
 course before him, and that he was bound to take it. 
 
 “Dear mother,” he said kindly, “don’t you see that if there 
 really were any serious inclination on the part of Mr. Frardc 
 towards Kate, and we suffered ourselves for one moment to 
 encourage it, we should be acting a most dishonorable 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 upon 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 very 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 main¬ 
 tain—and does belter in maintaining than a monarch his. Think 
 what we owe to these two brothers; remember what they have 
 done and do every day for us with a generosity and delicacy for 
 which the devotion of our whole lives would be a most imper¬ 
 fect 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 mei’e childishness to suppose they have not formed 
 plans suitably adapted to the education he has had, and the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 805 
 
 fortune he will inherit—in our permitting him to marry a por¬ 
 tionless 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 
 cue of those kind errands which bring them here so often, you 
 had to break out to them the truth ? Would you be at case, 
 and feel that you had played an honest, open part ?” 
 
 Poor Mrs. Nickleby, crying more and more, murmured that 
 of course Mr. Frank would ask the consent of his uncles first. 
 
 “ Wh)'’, 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 Avould 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 endeavor 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 there existed a real necessity for his doing 
 BO, 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 ui)on 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 when a boy, was named as the most favorable spot; but 
 
806 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 crea¬ 
 ture’s sad history, despatched old Tim to be present at this con¬ 
 sult ation. That same morning, Nicholas was summoned bv 
 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 to¬ 
 morrow morning, see that he has every comfort that his situation 
 requires, and don’t leave him—don’t leave him, ray 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 to-night. Sir; Tim shall wait upon you 
 to-night with a parting word or two. Brother Ned, my dear 
 fellow, Mr. Nickleby waits to shake hands and say good bye ; 
 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 go backwards and 
 forwards sometimes—backwards and forwards you know, Ned-— 
 and there’s no cause to be down-hearted, 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 good bye to—waving her handkerchief. Don’t go without 
 one gesture of farewell to Kate!” 
 
 “1 cannot make it I” cried his trembling companion, falling 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 807 
 
 back in his seat and corering 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, do not. 
 You will meet them all again.” 
 
 lie whom he thus encouraged, raised his withered hands and 
 clasped them fervently together. 
 
 “ In heaven—I humbly pray to God—in heaven I” 
 
 It sounded like the prayer of a broken heart. 
 
CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 RALPH NIOKLEBY, BAFFLED BY HIS NEPHEW IN HIS LATE DE¬ 
 SIGN, HATCHES A SCHEME OF RETALIATION WHICH ACCIDENT 
 SUGGESTS TO HIM, AND TAKES INTO HIS COUNSELS A TRIED 
 AU XILIARY. 
 
 The course which these adventures shape out for themselves 
 and imperatively call upon the historian to observe, now de¬ 
 mands that they should revert to the point they attained pre¬ 
 vious to the commencement of tlie 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 for the time have fixed 
 and riveted them more securely, Ralph stood for some minutes 
 in the same 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 stealthily and 
 savagely 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 gray 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 to¬ 
 wards 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 1” Ralph muttered, forcing a laugh. “ I blame him 
 
 esos) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 809 
 
 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—that young fellow who has carried otf 
 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 constrained calmne;«i 
 with which Ralph Nickleby spoke, when coupled with the livid 
 face, the horrible expression of the features to which every nerve 
 and muscle, as it twitched and throbbed with a spasm whose 
 workings no effect 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 passions, 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, and Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other 
 way, tore at his shirt with the hand which he had thrust into 
 his breast, and mnttered in a hoarse whisper— 
 
 “Ten thousand pounds ! He said ten thousand ! The pre¬ 
 cise sum paid in but yesterday for the two mortgages, and which 
 would have gone out again at heavy interest to-morrow. If that 
 liouse has failed, and he the first to bring the news!—Is the 
 coa(!h there ?” 
 
 “Yes, yes,” said Gride, startled by the fierce tone of tho 
 inquiry. “ It’s here. Dear, dear, what a fiery man you are 1” 
 
 “ Come here,” said Ralph, beckoning to him. “ We mustn’t 
 make a show of being disturbed. We’ll go down arm in arm.” 
 
810 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 “ But you pinch me black and blue,” urged Gride, writhing 
 with pain. 
 
 Ralph threw him off impatiently, and descending the stairsi 
 with his usual firm and heavy tread, got into the coach. Artliur 
 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 men¬ 
 tioned 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 inquh'ed what place 
 that was. 
 
 “ My house,” answered the disconsolate Gride, affected by its 
 loneliness. “Oh dear I 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 any thing 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, and the house was silent 
 as the grave. 
 
 “How’s thisf” 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 neighbors threw up their windows and 
 culled across the street to each other that old Gride’s house- 
 keep'cr 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 811 
 
 (not being used to it) tliat she bad 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, for rumors having gone 
 abroad that Arthur was to be married that morning, very par¬ 
 ticular 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 appear¬ 
 ance 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. 
 
 “lam 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 hoarsely. “ 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 (lung 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 old grim clock, 
 undisturhed 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 moiionless upon the wall, counterfeiting death until they 
 should have passed him by. 
 
 From cellar to garret went the two usurers, oi)ening every 
 creaking door and looking into every deserted room. But no 
 Reg 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 fes* 
 
812 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 tivities, 1 suppose,” said Ralph, preparing to depart. “See, 
 here. 1 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 1 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 1” 
 
 “ 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 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 I” 
 
 “Of what I'' cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared 
 to break, for his eyes flashed, and his frame trembled with agi¬ 
 tation 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 accom¬ 
 plice 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 I” 
 
 “ Patience 1” said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eye¬ 
 ing him with a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently 
 to denote that he had some hidden purpose in what he was 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 813 
 
 about to say. “Rearreason. She can’t have been gone long. 
 I’ll call the police. Give you but 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 upon 
 Ralph’s mouth. “I can’t, I daren’t.” 
 
 “ Help ! help !” cried Ralph. 
 
 “No, no, no,” shrieked the other, stamping upon 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, eagerly. 
 
 “ No I” rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. “ Hush ! Rush 1 
 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 I” 
 
 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 moaii, 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 abrubtly, Ralph left him, and greatly disap¬ 
 pointing 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 rumor was abroad in the city last night, and reached 
 the ears of those merchants. Well—well!” 
 
 Re strode violently up and down the room and stopped 
 tigain. 
 
 “ Ten thousand pounds 1 And only lying there for a day— 
 for .one day ! Row many anxious years, how many pinching 
 days and sleepless nights, before I scraped together that ten 
 thousand ])Ounds! Ten thousand pounds! Row many proud 
 painted dames would have fawned and smiled, and how many 
 Bpendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed 
 me in their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into 
 
814 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 iwent}'! While I ground, and pinched, and used these needy 
 borrowers for iny i)leasure 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 behavior 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 that heap of coin which wouldn’t represent ten 
 thousand mean and paltry^ies, 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 six¬ 
 pence 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 con¬ 
 tinued to pace the room. There was less and less of resolution 
 in his manner as his riiind gradually reverted to his loss ; and 
 at length, dropping into his elbow-chair and grasping its sides 
 60 firmly that they creaked again, he said, between his set 
 teeth : 
 
 “ The time has been when nothing could have moved me like 
 the loss of this great sum—nothing, for births, deaths, maiwiages, 
 and every event which is of interest to most men, had (unless it 
 is connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. 
 But now I swear, I mjx 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 
 degi’ees however slow; let me but begin to get the better of 
 him, let me but turn the scale, and I can bear it ” 
 
 II is meditations were long and deep. They terminated in 
 his despatching a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr. Sqm.crg 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 815 
 
 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. Squecrs 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 
 l)rejudices 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 run¬ 
 ning 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 S(;ripter, 
 that is.” 
 
 “ ]\lr. Squeers,” said Ralph, drily. 
 
 “Sir.” 
 
 “We’ll avoid all 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-IN’oggs !” 
 
 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 ain’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 apologize to 
 them for the trouble,” retorted Ralph. “Begone Sir I” 
 
 52 
 
816 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Ralph aot 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, 1 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 manner 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 iii 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 in- 
 conveniency 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 ?” 
 
 “1 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, emphati¬ 
 cally. 
 
 “ Where the risk ?” returned Squeers, rubbing his knees still 
 harder. “Why, it ain’t necessary to mention—certain subjects 
 is best av'oided. Oh, you know what risk 1 mean.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 817 
 
 “ 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 yoli in the name of Smike; that he 
 was at your school for a given number of years, was lest under 
 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 ceitainly did it cheap, did Snawley,” observe-d 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 1 
 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 I” 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 favor, don’t.” 
 
 “Call it what you like,” said Ralph, irritably, “but attend to 
 me. This tale was originally fabricated as a means of deep 
 annoyance against one who hurt your trade and half cudgeled 
 you to death, and to enable you to obtain repossession of a 
 half-dead drudge, whom you wished to regain, because A’hile 
 you wreaked your vengeance on him for his share in the busi¬ 
 ness, yon knew that the knowledge that he was again in your 
 power would be the best punishment you could inflict upon youf 
 enemy. Is that so, IMr. Squeers?” 
 
818 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 "Why, Sir,” returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the 
 determination whi-cli Ralph displayed to make every thing tell 
 against him, and by his stern unyielding manner, " in a measure 
 it was.” 
 
 " What does that mean ?” said Ralph, quietly. 
 
 "Why, in a measure, means,” returned Squeers, "as it may 
 be so ; 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 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 oif ? 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 sternly 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 that he had 
 formed for the disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, 
 and had, in the confusion attendant upon 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 819 
 
 wlio had himself obtained or concealed it frandnlently, and who 
 feared to take any steps for its recovery ; and that lie (Ralph) 
 knew the thief. 
 
 To all this, Mr. Squeers listened with greedy c-ars that 
 devoured every syllable, and with his one eje and his mouth 
 wide open : marveling for what special reason he was honored 
 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 T have discovered beyond 
 the i)ossibility 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 any body—you.” 
 
 Mr. Squeers’s first tokens of consternation, and his flat 
 relinquishment of the task, would have staggered most men, if 
 they had not occasioned an utter abandonment of the proposi¬ 
 tion. On Ralph they produced not the slightest effect. Re¬ 
 suming when the schoolmaster had quite talked himself out of 
 breath, as coolly as if he had never been interrupted, Rali)h 
 proceeded to expatiate on such features of the case as he deemed 
 it most advisable to lay the greatest stress upon. 
 
 These wmre, the age, decrepitude, and weakness of INIrs, 
 Sliderskew, the great improbability of her having any accom- 
 ])lice or even acquaintance, taking into account her secluded 
 hal)its, 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 w'ould have watched 
 an 0 ])portunity of carrying off a sura of money, or even of her 
 being in wnxnt (to w'^hich the same argument applied); the diffi- 
 
820 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 culty sLe would be placed in when she be<^an to think on whal 
 she,had done, and found herself incumbered 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 upon 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 recognize him either at the time 
 or afterwards ; the impossibility of Ralph’s undertaking the 
 task himself, being already known to her by sight, and various 
 comments upon 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 favorably 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 and uncrossed them, and scratched his head, and rubbed 
 his eye,- and examined the palms of his hands, and bit his nails, 
 and after exhibiting many other signs of restlessness and inde¬ 
 cision, asked, “ whether one hundred pound was the highest 
 bhat Mr. Nickleby could go.” Being answered in the affirma¬ 
 tive, 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 821 
 
 “ 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 down 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 ring¬ 
 ing 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 I “yes. You have nothing more 
 to say ?” 
 
 Squeers, shaking his head, Ralph accompanied him to the 
 street door, and audibly wondering, for the edification of New¬ 
 man, why it was fastened as if it were night, let him in and 
 Squeers out, and returned to his own room. 
 
 “Now!” he muttered, doggedly. “ 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 shall wind about him, as never man 
 forged yet,. ” 
 
CHAPTER LYII. 
 
 now RALPH NICKLEBY’S auxiliary went about Ills WORK, 
 AND now 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, tliere sat all alone, a one-eyed man, 
 grotescpiely habited, cither for lack of better garments or for 
 inu-poses of disguise, in a loose great-coat, 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 ea.se, and without any risk of straining 
 the old and greasy material of which it was composed. 
 
 So attired, and in a i)lace 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 
 difliculty in recognizing her lord, quickened though her natural 
 sagacity would have been by the alfectionate yearnings and 
 impulses of a tender wife. But Mrs. Squeers’s lord it was ; 
 and in a tolerably disconsolate mood jMrs. Squeers’s lord ap- 
 |)earcd 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 imi)aticnt recollection of distant 
 scenes and ])ersous. 
 
 There were certainly no ])articular attractions, either in the 
 room over which the glance of Mr. Squeers so discontentedly 
 wandered, or in the narrow street into \vhieh it might have pene¬ 
 trated, if he had thought tit to ap])roach the w'iudow. The attic- 
 chamber in which he sat \vas bare and mean ; the bedstead, and 
 such few olher articles of necessary furniture as it contained, of 
 the commonest description, in a most crazy state, and of a most 
 uninviting appearance. The street was muddy, dirty, and de¬ 
 serted. Having but one outlet, it was traversed by few but the 
 ( 822 ) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 823 
 
 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 sileticc, 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 suulf the 
 candle. Seeming to be slightly roused by this exertion, he 
 raised his eyes to the ceiling, and fixing them upon some uncouth 
 and fantastic figures, traced upon it by the wet and damp which 
 had penetrated through the roof, broke out into the following 
 soliloquy : 
 
 “ Well, this is a pretty go, is this here !—aii 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 larcencr,” 
 ■—Mr. Squeers delivered himself of this epithet with great diffi¬ 
 culty and effort—“and Dotheboys Hall a-runiiing itself regularly 
 to seed the while I That’s the worst of ever being in with a 
 ow-dacious chap like that old INickleby; 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 wdth an air of greater enjoy¬ 
 ment of its contents than he had before evinced. 
 
 “I never see,” soliloquized Mr. Squeers in coutiuuatiou, “I 
 never see nor come across such a file as that old jS’ickleby— 
 never. He’s out of every body’s depth, he is. lie’s what you 
 may a-call a rasper, is Nickleby. To sec 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 JNfrs. 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 I 
 Ah I He’d have made a good un in our line, but it would have 
 
821 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 been too limited for him; his genius would have busted all 
 bounds, 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 coiiwenient.” 
 
 Making a halt in his reflections at this place, Mr. Squeers 
 again put his glass to his lips, and drawing a dirty letter from 
 Ills 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.’—Yery 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 
 ain’t another chap in the school but that boy as would have died 
 exa,ctly 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. lie 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 let¬ 
 ter, and sought, in a new train of ideas, a subject of consolation. 
 
 “It’s a long time to have been a-lingering in London,” ha 
 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 
 pound, and there’s their keep to be substracted, besides. There’s 
 nothing lost, neither, by one’s being here ; because the boys’ 
 D'oney comes in just the same as if I was at home, and Mrs. 
 Sqneers she keeps them in order. There’ll be some lost time 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 826 
 
 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 to-night, 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 doul>t 
 —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 ex¬ 
 cited for his purpose. 
 
 What his 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 gentlyatit. 
 
 “ But what’s the use of tapping ?” he said, “ she’ll never hear. 
 I suppose she isn’t doing any thing 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, jocidarly. 
 
 “ Is that you ?” inquired Peg. 
 
 “ Ah 1 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 hand, a lieart, a highway,” 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 acci¬ 
 dentally.” 
 
 Delivering this reply in his accustomed tone of voice, in which 
 
826 
 
 NICHOLAS NICRLEBY. 
 
 of course it was mandible to Peg, Mr. Sqneers drew a stool np 
 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 Sqneers. 
 
 “ So they used to say in that part of the country I como 
 from,” observed Peg, complacently, “but I think oil’s better.” 
 
 “ Better than what ?” shouted Squeers, adding some rather 
 strong language in an under-tone. 
 
 “ No,” said Peg, “ of course not.” 
 
 “ I never saw such a monster as you are !” muttered Squeers, 
 looking as amiably as he possibly could tlie while ; for Peg’s eye 
 was upon him, and she was chuckling fearful]}^ 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 ihisV^ 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, watch¬ 
 ing 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 face¬ 
 tiousness 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 pos¬ 
 sibly because they couldn’t help it. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 827 
 
 ‘‘ Measles, rheumatics, hooping-cough, fevers, agues, and !um- 
 bagers,” said Mr. Sque.ers, “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 philoso[)hy, and if there’s a screw loose in a earthly 
 body tlrat’s philosophy too ; or it may be that sometimes there’s 
 a little metaphysics in it, but that’s not often. Philoso])hy’s 
 the chap for me. If a parent asks a cpiestion in the classicM, 
 commercial, or mathematical line, says I, gravely, ‘Why, Sir, 
 in the first place, are you a philosopher ?’—‘ No, Mr. Squeers,” 
 he says, ‘I ain’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. Sli- 
 derskew, who was unable to hear one word, Mr. Squeers con¬ 
 cluded 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 I” 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 ho 
 knew all about you, and what your name was, and why you were 
 living so quiet liere, and what you had boned, and who you 
 boned it from, wasn’t it ?” 
 
 Peg nodded her head in strong assent. 
 
 “ But I know every thing that happens in that way, you see,” 
 continued Squeers. “ Nothing takes place of that kind that I 
 ain’t up to entirely. I’m a sort of a lawyer. Slider, of first-rate 
 Blaiuling, and understanding too ; I’m the intimate friend and 
 confidential adwiser of pretty nigh every man, woman and child 
 
828 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 that gets themselves into difficulties by being too nimble with 
 their fingers, I'm-” 
 
 Mr. Squeers’s catalogue of his own merits and accomplish¬ 
 ments, which was partly the result of a concerted }ilan 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 wmgging her 
 head ; “ and so he wasn’t married after all, wasn’t he—not mar¬ 
 ried after all ?” 
 
 “No,” replied Squeers, “that he wasn’t 1” 
 
 “And a young lover came 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 favor, 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 hide¬ 
 ousness something quite fearful; “ let’s hear it all again, begin¬ 
 ning at the beginning now, as if you’d never told me. Let’s 
 have it every w'ord—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 im¬ 
 provements on the truth as happened to occur to him, and the 
 ingenious invention and application of which had been very in¬ 
 strumental in recommending him to her notice in the beginning 
 of their acquaintance. Mrs. Sliderskew was in an ecstacy of 
 delight, rolling her head about, drawing up her skinny shoulders, 
 and wrinkling her cadaverous face into so many and such com¬ 
 plicated forms of ugliness, as awakened the unbounded astonish¬ 
 ment and disgust even of Mr. Squeers. 
 
 “He’s a treacherous old goat,” said Peg, “and cozened me 
 w ith cunning tricks and lying promises, but never mind—I’m 
 even wdth 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 dis- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 829 
 
 appointment 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 
 3 'ou’d better burn, why, now’s your time. Slider.” 
 
 “ There ain’t no hurry for that,” said Peg, with several know¬ 
 ing looks and winks. 
 
 “ Oh I 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—that’s all.” 
 
 “ 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 somewhere safe, that’s all,” returned Squeers; “but 
 every body’s the best judge of their own affairs. All as I say 
 is. Slider, I wouldn’t do it.” 
 
 “ Come,” said Peg, “ then you shall see ’em.” 
 
 “7 don’t want to see ’em,” replied Squeers, affecting to be 
 out of humor, “don’t talk as if it was a treat. Show 
 ’em to some body 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 that 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 humor, 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, “l)olt 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 
 filWi the bottom of the cupboard, drew forth a small deal box 
 
830 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 docu¬ 
 ments which lay within. 
 
 “ Now you see,” said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside 
 him, and staying his impatient hand; “what is 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 w'ant to do, and 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 tliat. 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, thank¬ 
 less 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, Landed it to her; the destruction of 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 8^1 
 
 the box being an extemporary device for engaging her attention, 
 in ease it should prove desirable to distract it from his own pro¬ 
 ceedings. 
 
 There,” said Squeers, “you poke the pieces between the 
 bars, and make up a good fire, and I’ll read the while—let me 
 seC'—let me see.” And taking the candle down beside him, 
 Mr. Squeers, with great eagerness and a cunning grin over* 
 spreading his face, entered upon his task of examination. 
 
 If the old woman had not been very deaf, she must havm 
 heard, when she last went to the door, the breathing of two 
 persons close behind it, and if those two persons had been un¬ 
 acquainted 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 re¬ 
 mained 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 stoic further and further in, by slight and scarcely per¬ 
 ceptible 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 exulta¬ 
 tion, 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, stojiped again—this, with the large, bare room, damp 
 walls, and flickering, doulitful 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 Newraau 
 Noggs the other. Newman had caught up by the rusty nozzle 
 an old ])air o^ bellows, which were just undergoing a flourisli 
 
882 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 
 sclioolmaster 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 en¬ 
 grossing 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 up¬ 
 side 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 over-due acceptances 
 and renewed bills of six or eight young gentleman, but they’re 
 all M.P’s., 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 
 lialf-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 bo 
 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. 1 
 don’t see any thing like it yet.” 
 
 “What’s the matter?” said Peg. 
 
 “.Nothing,” replied Squeers, “only I’m looking for-” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 833 
 
 Newman raised the bellows again, and 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 I ‘Made¬ 
 line Lray—come of age or marry—the said Madeline’—Here, 
 burn thaV^ 
 
 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 1” 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 re¬ 
 turned, for 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 LVIIL’ 
 
 rN WHICH ONE SCENE OP THIS HISTORY IS CLOSED. 
 
 DivrDiNG the distance into two days’ journey, in order that 
 his charge miffht sustain the less exhaustion and fatiijue from 
 traveling 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 tlieir 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 var 3 dng 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 farm-house, sur¬ 
 rounded by meadows, where Nicholas had often reveled when a 
 child with a troop of merry school-fellows; 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 
 (834) 
 
NICHOLAS NIC K L E B Y. 
 
 835 
 
 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 attbrd him matter for 
 thought and conversation afterwards, Niciiolas 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 
 ill 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 nests, 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 win¬ 
 dow 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 hedge-rows 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 far 
 remembered, than the hardest trials or severest sorrows of but a 
 year ago. 
 
 One of these expeditions led them through the chnrdiyard 
 where was his fathei’’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 
 
836 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEHY. 
 
 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 up 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 to-day.” 
 
 Nicholas gave the promise; he had few words to give it in, 
 but they were solemn and earnest. Ills 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 favorite 
 resting-place by day ; 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 wrapt 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 afiTected by disease, but which 
 he had afterwards too good reason to know was of real and 
 actual occurrence. 
 
 lie 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 837 
 
 He could not have closed Ills 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 asto¬ 
 nishment that his charge had struggled into a sitting posture, 
 and with eyes almost starting b’om their sockets, the cold dew 
 standing on his forehead, and in a fit of trembling which quite 
 convulsed his frame, was shrieking to him for help. 
 
 “ Good Heaven, what is this ?” cried 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 1” 
 
 Nicholas followed his eyes, which were directed to some dis¬ 
 tance behind the chair from which he himself had just risen. 
 But there was nothing there. 
 
 “This is nothing but your fancy,” ho said, as he strove to 
 compose him ; “nothing else indeed.” 
 
 “ I know better. I saw as plain as I see now,” was the an¬ 
 swer. “ Oh! say you’ll keep me with you—swear you won’t 
 leave me for an instant 1” 
 
 “Do I ever leave you?” returned Nicholas. “Lie down 
 again now—there. You see I’m here. Now tell me-—what 
 was it ?” 
 
 “Do you remember,” said Smike, in a low voice, and glanc¬ 
 ing 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 parlor 1 
 
838 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 was left ill, aud 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 
 1 was quite a little child, and has looked in my sleep ever since, 
 as he did just now.” 
 
 Nicholas endeavored, by every persuasion and argument he 
 conld think of, to convince the terrified creature that hig 
 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 
 conld 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 him¬ 
 self behind the tree, and through the orchard, aud upon the 
 land immediately adjoining, and in every place near, where it 
 was possible for a man to lie concealed, but all in vain. Satis¬ 
 fied that he was right in his original conjecture, he ultimately 
 applied himself to calming the fears of Sraike, 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 posi¬ 
 tively seen what he described, and that nothing could ever 
 remove his firm conviction of its reality. 
 
 -And now Nicholas began to see that hope was gone, and 
 that upon the partner of his povert}’-, and the sharer of hig 
 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 ne 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 bed¬ 
 side, 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 
 tlie breathing of him who lay asleep, as if to assure himself 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY, 
 
 839 
 
 cnat life was still there, and that he had not fallen into that deep 
 Bluinber from which on earth there is no waking. 
 
 While he was tlius 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’ve had such pleasant dreams,” was the answer. “Such 
 pleasant, happy dreams 1” 
 
 “Of what 1” said Nicholas. 
 
 The dying boy turned towards him, and putting his arm 
 about his neck, made answer, “ I shall soon be there 1” 
 
 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 sjieaker’s heart; nor were there wanting indica¬ 
 tions 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. Lot 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, 1 
 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. IShall I tell you why C' 
 
 “Not if it pains you,” said Nicholas. “I only asked that I 
 might make you hapjiier if I could.” 
 
 “I know—I felt that at the time.” lie drew his friend 
 closer to him. “ You will forgive me; I could not help it, Imt 
 though I would have died to make her happy, it Iji’oke 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. 
 
840 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and broken by long pauses; but from them Nicholas learnt, for 
 the first time, that the dying boy, with all the ardor 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 ribands she had worn. lie prayed 
 that when he was dead, Nicholas would take it ofi', 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 slight 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 
 tJiat it was Eden—and so died. 
 
CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 THE PLOTS BEGIN TO FAIL, AND DOUBTS AND DANGF.RS TO DIS¬ 
 TURB 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 occu¬ 
 pation called him abroad; before him was an untasted brealcfast, 
 and near to where his fingers beat restlessly npon 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 down 
 stairs 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 pur¬ 
 suit of riches, would almost-of itself have told that the usurer 
 was not well. That he labored 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 recognize 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 j 
 bnt what can a man do without rest ?” 
 
 He pressed his hand upon his forehead. 
 
 “ Niglit after night comes and goes, and I have no rest. 
 
 I sleep, what rest is that which is disturbed by constant dreams 
 of the same detested faces crowding around 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 
 
 (841) 
 
812 
 
 NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 have I, constantly haunted by this heavy shadow of—I know 
 not what, which is its worst character. I must have rest. Ono 
 night’s uul)rokeu rest, and I sliould 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 herel 
 what drunken brawl keeps him away ? I would give something 
 n' w, 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 any thing that would send him 
 abroad with an iron ring upon his leg, and rid me of him. 
 Petter still if I could throw temptation in his way, and lure 
 him on to rob me. lie should bo 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 despatched 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 any thing about him. 
 
 “But there is a gentleman. Sir,” she said, “below, vtdio was 
 standing at the door when I came in, and he says-” 
 
 “What says he ?” demanded Ralph, turning angrily upon hei. 
 “ I told you I would see nobody.” 
 
 “lie sa 3 's,” replied the w^oman, 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, hastily. 
 “ You si)y and speculate on people’s business with me, do you, 
 woman ?” 
 
 “ 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 mo 
 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NIC RLE BY. 
 
 84 ^ 
 
 “ Well/’said Ralph, “ I’ll sec him. Go you to your kitchen, 
 and keep there,—do you mind me ?” 
 
 Glad to be released, the woman quickly disappeared. Col- 
 lectinc; himself, and assuming as much of his accustomed man¬ 
 ner as his utmost resolution could summon, Ral{)h descended 
 llie stairs, and after pausing for a few moments with his hand 
 upon the lock, 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 recognized in him 
 enly the patron and protector of Nicholas, he would rather 
 nave seen a spectre. One beneficial effect, however, the en- 
 eounter had upon him. It instantly roused all his dormant 
 energies, rekindled in his breast the passions that for many years 
 aad found an improving home there, called up all his wrath, 
 liatred, and malice ; restored the sneer to his lip, and scowl 
 to his brow, and made him again, in all outward appearance, 
 the same Ralph Nickleby that so many had bitter cause to 
 remember. 
 
 “Humph,” said Ralph, pausing at the door. “This is an 
 unexpected favor. Sir.” 
 
 “ And an unwelcome one,” said brother Charles; “an unwel¬ 
 come one, I know.” 
 
 “Men say you are truth itself. Sir,” sneered Ralph. “You 
 speak truth now at all events, and I’ll not contradict you. The 
 favor is at least as unwelcome as it is unexpected. I can 
 scarcely say more !” 
 
 “ riainly. Sir-” began brother Charles. 
 
 “Plainly, Sir,” interrupted Ral))h, “I wish this conference 
 tc be a short one, and to end where it begins. I guess the sub¬ 
 ject upon which you are about to speak, and I’ll not hear you. 
 Von 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 I” repeated brother Charles, mildly, and looking at 
 him with more of pity than reproach, “ To pursue his way in 
 quiet!” 
 
 “ V ou will scarcely remain in my house, I presume, Sir, 
 against my will,” said Ralph; or you can scarcely hope to 
 
844 
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LEE Y. 
 
 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. Nicklcby, Sir,” returned brother Charles, no less mildly 
 than before, but firmly too, “ I come here against my will— 
 Gorely 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, dryly. 
 " Here are walls to speak to. Sir, a desk, and two stools—most 
 attentive auditors, and certain not to inte upt you. Go on, I 
 beg; make my house yours, and perhaps by the time 1 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 ; neverthe¬ 
 less 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 dis¬ 
 charge it.” 
 
 “I show no mercy,” retorted Ralph, with a triumphant smile, 
 " and I ask none. Seek no mercy from me. Sir, on behalf of a 
 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, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 845 
 
 warmly, “ ask it at Lis, 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 meet¬ 
 ing 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 niy brother Ned, and Tim 
 Linkinwatcr, 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 for¬ 
 get, 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 further 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 wdldness, should be another of those 
 dreams that have so broken ray rest of late. In mercy to me I 
 —Pho ! The old simpleton has gone mad.” 
 
 Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemp¬ 
 tuous manner, it was plain that the more Ralph pondered, the 
 more ill at ease he became, and the more he labored under some 
 vague anxiety and alarm, which increased as the time passed on 
 and no tidings of Newman Noggs appeared. After w^aiting 
 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. 
 
84G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Oh yes, I know you very well—too well, perhaps, and per 
 haps he does too, and sorry am 1 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, sarcastically. “ 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 })hrases,” 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 door¬ 
 way. “ 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 fear¬ 
 fully round. 
 
 “Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, 
 Mr. Nickleby,” retorted the dame. Take care that other peo¬ 
 ple know when to hold theirs.” 
 
 “A'ou jade,” said Ralph, grinning with rage; “if your husband 
 Ims 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 wf>l! 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 behavior.” 
 
 “No,” replied the woman, violently disengaging herself, “ [’ll 
 do neither.” 
 
 “You set me at defiance, do you ?” said R,alph. 
 
 “Yes,” was the answer. “I do.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 847 
 
 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 fre¬ 
 quented and inquired when he had been there last; in the vague 
 hope that whether successful or unsuccessful, he might by this 
 time hare returned from his mission and be able to assure him 
 that all was safe. Rut 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 Suawley, or 
 was in any way a party to this altered behavior, Ralph deter¬ 
 mined 10 hazard the extreme step of inquiring for him at the 
 Lambeth lodging, and having an interview with him even there. 
 Rent 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 up stairs 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, 
 lie 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 down 
 upon a broken chair 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 ])lace where he was stationed, 
 and at every such disapjiointment he felt quite chilled and lonely. 
 
 At length he felt it was hopeless to remain, and going down 
 slairs again, inquired of one of the lodgers if he knew anything 
 of i\lr. S([ueers’s movements—mentioning that worthy by an 
 assumed name which had been agreed upon between them. Ry 
 this lodger he was referred to another, and by him to some one 
 else, from whom he learnt that late on the previous night he had 
 54 
 
848 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 gone on't hastily with two men, who had shortly afterwards re¬ 
 turned for the old woman who lived on the same floor; and thal 
 although the circumstance had attracted the attention of the in¬ 
 formant, 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 sus¬ 
 picion 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 silent, melancholy, and 
 deserted. But this was its usual aspect. He knocked—gently 
 at first, then loud and vigorously, but 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, and 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 ecstacy of impatience. “ Don’t speak to me, don’t knock, dor't 
 call attention to the house, but go away.” 
 
 “ I’ll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbors up in arms,” 
 said Ralph, “ if you don’t tell me v\'hat you mean by li rking 
 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. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 849 
 
 “ Come down, I say. Will you come down 1” said Ralph, 
 fiercely. 
 
 "No— 0 —o—o,” 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 
 impelled him to open it, he turned his face towards the city, and 
 working his way steadily through the crowd which was pouring 
 fi’om 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 spec¬ 
 tacles. 
 
 “ 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 not see 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 Balph, pointing out with his finger the man whom ho 
 addressed. 
 
 “I have no secrets from my brother Ned, or from Tim Tan- 
 kinwatcr,” observed brother Charles, quietly. 
 
850 
 
 NICnOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 '' I have,” said Kalph. 
 
 “Mr. Nickleby, Sir,” said brother Ned, “the matter npoa 
 which my brother Charles called upon you this morning is one 
 wdiich is already perfectly well known to us three and to othera 
 besides, and must unhappily soon become known to a great 
 many more. Tie waited upon you, Sir, this morning, alone, aa 
 a matter of delicacy and consideration. We feel now that fur* 
 ther delicacy and consideration would be misplaced, and if we 
 confer together it must be as "we are or not at all.” 
 
 “AVell, gentlemen,” said Ralph, with a curl of the lip, “talk¬ 
 ing 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 humor you.” 
 
 “ Humor 1” cried Tim Linkinwater, suddenly growing very 
 red in the face, “he’ll humor us! He’ll humor Cheeryble 
 Brothers 1 Do you hear that ? Do you hear him ? Do you 
 hear him say he’ll humor 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 inter¬ 
 ference in my affairs which I have reason to suppose you have 
 been practising. I tell you plainly, gentleman, 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 impos-ed upon too easily, or wilfully 
 make yourselves parties to it, the result to me is the same, and 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 851 
 
 Ralph to be really an injured man. There he sat with folded 
 arms; paler than usually, certainly, and sufficiently ill-favored, 
 but quite collected—far more so than the brothers or the ex¬ 
 asperated Tim, and ready to face out the very worst. 
 
 “Yery well. Sir,” said brother Charles. “Yery well. 
 Brother Ned, will you ring the bell ?” 
 
 “Charles, ray dear fellow 1 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 be¬ 
 ginning !” 
 
 “I will speak,” cried Newman, standing on tiptoe to loot 
 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 V Who made me ‘a fellow like this V 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 favorite of 
 yours ? Lie I When did I ever cringe and fawn to you—eh ? 
 Tell me that. I served you faithfully. I did more work be¬ 
 cause I was poor, and took more hard words from you because 
 I desjnsed you and them, than any man you could have g('t 
 from the parish workhouse. I did. I served you oecause I 
 was proud ; because I was a lonely man with you, and there 
 wore 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 
 
862 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 better oif if I hadn’t been a fool and fallen into the hands of 
 you and ovhers who were knaves. Do you deny that—eh ?” 
 
 “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 school¬ 
 masters, and, while they sent the drudge out that he shouldn’t 
 overhear, forgot that such great caution might render him sus¬ 
 picious, and that he might watch his master out at nights, and 
 might set other eyes to watch the schoolmaster besides ? 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 roomV^ 
 
 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 1” 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 be¬ 
 fore), when he would otherwise have relieved his feelings by pum- 
 meling 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 
 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 any body 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 853 
 
 was, from the violent exercise and the excitement combined, in 
 a state of most intense and fiery heat, became, without passing 
 tlirough any intermediate stage, stiff, upright, and motionless, 
 and so remained, staring at llalph 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 con¬ 
 fession.” 
 
 “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 
 which language cannot express, 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 
 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 
 ])erson 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 saga¬ 
 city and acuteness in such practice, to resist the proceedings 
 taken on the other side for the recovery of the youth as slowly 
 
854 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and artfully as possible, and meanwhile to beset Snawley (mtli 
 whom it was clear the main falsehood mast rest), to lead him, 
 if possible, into coniradictory 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 skillfully done; 
 but that Snawley, who was well practised in the arts of low cun¬ 
 ning 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 lield 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 upon 
 him and Ralph in the street together. Following them, he dis¬ 
 covered, to his great 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 vvere in pursuit—so 
 he found by inquiries when they had left—of an old woman, 
 whose description exactly tallied with that of deaf Mrs. Slider- 
 skew. Affairs now appearing to assume a more serious com¬ 
 plexion, 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 tlie lodging at Lambeth. Mr. Squeers having shifted 
 his lodging, the oflicer 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 communi¬ 
 cation. 
 
 In this state of things Arthur Gride was artoealed to. The 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 863 
 
 robbery, partly owing to the inquisitiveness of the neighbors, 
 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 any body. Upon this, the 
 pursuers took counsel together, and, coming so near the truth 
 as to arrive at the conclusion that Gride and Ralph, with 
 Squccrs 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 any thing 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 as¬ 
 certained, he usually visited Mrs. Sliderskew. This done, 
 Frank Cheeryble and Newman stole up stairs to listen to their 
 discourse, and to give the signal to the officer at the most favor¬ 
 able 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 wdth a 
 stolen deed in his possession, and Mrs. Sliderskew was appre¬ 
 hended 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 fic¬ 
 tion 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 com¬ 
 panionship with Mrs. Sliderskew, had been, with her, remanded 
 for a week. 
 
 All these discoveries were now related to Ralph, circumstaii' 
 tially, and in detail. Whatever iinpressions they secretly pro¬ 
 duced, he suffered no sign of emotion to escape him, but sat 
 ])erfectly still, not raising his frowning eyes from the ground, 
 
856 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and covering liis 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 Linkin- 
 water 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, with the sneer 
 of a devil, “and do you think you will so easily crush vie? Do 
 you think that a hundred w'ell-arranged plans, or a hundred 
 suborned witnesses, or a hundred false curs at my heels, or a 
 hundred canting speeches full of oily wmrds, 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 mo 
 the very worst you can.” 
 
 Thus they parted for that time ; but the worst had not come 
 yet. 
 
CHAPTER LX. 
 
 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 misfor¬ 
 tunes 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 learned 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 pro¬ 
 fession and superior respectability, Mr. Squeers had been per¬ 
 mitted 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, and this, 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 handkerehief, spotted with blood, drawn over the crown 
 of bis head and tied under his chin, stared ruefully at Ralph, in 
 silenct 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, jmur man, vour informing kidnapping man, has been 
 
 (85T) 
 
858 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 !” hiccupped Mr. Squeers, raising his eyes to the 
 ceiling; “my daughter as is at that age when all die sensibili¬ 
 ties 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 the family I 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 great 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 you must be in a few days,” retorted Ralph, with 
 affected good humor. “ 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 any thing to do 
 with her. This is what him with the powMered head says this 
 morning, in so many words—‘Prisoner, as you have been found 
 in company with this woman ; as you were detected in posses- 
 elon of this document; and as you wmre engaged with her in 
 fraudulently destroying others, and can give no satisfactory ac¬ 
 count of yourself, I shall remand you for a w'eek, in order that 
 inquiries may be made, and evidence got—and meanwhile I can’t 
 take any bail for your appearance.’ Well, then, what 1 say 
 now is, that I can give a satisfactory account of myself; I can 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 859 
 
 hand in the card of my estabblishment and say, ‘ I am the Wack- 
 ford Squcers as is therein named, Sir, I am the man as is guaran¬ 
 teed by n'nimpeachable references to be a out-and-outer in morals 
 and uprightness of principle. Whatever is wrong in this busi¬ 
 ness is no fault of mine. I had no evil design in it, Sir. I was 
 not aware that any thing was wrong, I was merely employed 
 by a friend.—my friend, Mr. llalph 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, evad¬ 
 ing for the moment the point just raised. 
 
 “What document? Why,//ie 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 hei, 
 to what extent ?” asked Ralph, hurriedly. 
 
 “A will in her favor, 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, gnawing his 
 fingers. 
 
 “ Ah 1” 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, pro^'ided 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, every thing—a cobbler’s weapon. U-p-up, ad¬ 
 jective, not down. S-q-u-double e-r-s-S(pieers, noun su))stan- 
 tive, a educator of youth. Total, all up with Squeers !” 
 
 His running on in this way had afforded Ralph an opportu- 
 nily of recovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested 
 to him the necessity of removing as far as possible the school* 
 
860 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 master’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 
 to-night, 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 1” 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 ain’t a going to have any stories made for me, and I ain’t 
 a going to stick to any. If I find matters going against me, 
 I shall expect you to take your share, and I’ll take care you do. 
 You never said any thing 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 any thing 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, 
 ard the only number iu all arithmetic that I know of as a hus¬ 
 band 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 861 
 
 an attendant who was to bear him company, he perched his hat 
 with great dignity on the top of the handkei’chief that bound 
 his bead, 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 boasts 
 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 I” 
 
 He went home, and was glad to find the housekeeper com¬ 
 plaining 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 ad¬ 
 dition to the anxiety of mind he had undergone, had been 
 traveling 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 or 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 down stairs. 
 
 “ 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 recognize. 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. 
 
862 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 “ Don’t ask me why, but pray come with me.” 
 
 “ Another edition of to-day!” returned Ralph, making ay 
 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, and seeing that he was 
 indeed greatly excited, 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, how¬ 
 ever 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 Ralpn 
 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 hud 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 ?” 
 
NICIIOLvVS NICKLEBY. 
 
 863 
 
 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, and was con¬ 
 firmed 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 1” 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 ren¬ 
 dered 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, and 
 muttered 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 ?” Aftera short pause, he added, 
 “ Is my niece dead ? ” 
 
 He had struck upon a key which rendered the ta,sk of com¬ 
 mencement 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 lu’other, 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, 
 anfortunate boy, a child in everything, but never having known 
 55 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 instru¬ 
 ment 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, eagerly; “ 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 1 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 traveled 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 the brothers, mingling with their look 
 of disgust and horror, something of that indefinable compassion 
 ^br 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 1 Ha, ha, ha 1 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, dejected 
 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; 
 
NICnOLx\S NICKLEBY. 
 
 865 
 
 he was seen to tremble, and his voice changed, as he said, keep¬ 
 ing 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 ma}^,” cried the brothers, with 
 such emphatic earnestness, that Ralph turned to them in wonder. 
 They pointed to Brooker, and 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 to¬ 
 gether : 
 
 “-Was your only son, so help me God, in heaven I” 
 
 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 
 fi.xedly 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 olfer 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 ray story, and 
 not to shield myself; I am a guilty man.” 
 
 Here he stopped as if to recollect, and looking away from 
 R,al])h and addressing himself to the brothers, proceeded in a 
 cubdued and humble tone : 
 
 “Among those who once had dealings with this man, gentle¬ 
 men—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 orplians, and she lived with him 
 
8(56 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and managed his house. I don’t know whether it was originally 
 to back his influence and try to overpersuade 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.” 
 
 Hero he paused, but Ralph did not stir, and the brothers 
 signed to him to proceed. 
 
 “ It was then that I became acquainted with these circum¬ 
 stances from his own lips. They were no secrets then, for the 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 8G7 
 
 brother and others knew them, but they were (.ommunieated 
 to me not on this account, but because I was wanted. lie 
 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 entrusted 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 would 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 na¬ 
 tural 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. 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 quarreled with him again. 
 
 I was sent away from this country. I have been away nearly 
 eight years. Directly I came liome again I traveled 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, 
 wliom I had placed there, had run away with a young man bear¬ 
 ing tlie name of his own father. I sought his fattier out in Lon¬ 
 don, 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 
 
868 
 
 NICPIOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 out his clerk, and going on from little to little, and showing 
 him that there w^ere 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 
 traveled down there that I might reveal myself, if possible, to 
 his recollection and confirm my story. I came upon him unexpoci- 
 edly ; 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 recognized 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 1 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 suf¬ 
 fering and punishment; but I make it, and will abide by it what¬ 
 ever 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 Halph was seated, and which was the (.uly 
 one in the I’oom, was thrown to the ground and left, them in 
 ntter darkness. There was some trifling confusion in obtaining 
 another light; the interval was a mere nothing ; but when it ap¬ 
 peared, Ralph Nicklebv was gone. 
 
 The good brothers and Tim Linkinwater oc( apied some time 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 869 
 
 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, and 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 LXL 
 
 WHEREIN NICHOLAS AND HIS SISTER FORFEIT THE GOOD OPIN¬ 
 ION OF ALL WORLDLY AND PRUDENT PEOPLE. 
 
 On tlie next morning after Brooker’s disclosure had beer, 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 oc* 
 curred; 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 sob¬ 
 bing 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 contri¬ 
 vances 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 1 This is a great trial to me, a great trial. 
 It will be a 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 1 
 It was very natural you should have been atrached 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 
 (8T0) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 871 
 
 how changed you are to see that; but nobody knows what my 
 feelings are—nobody can—it’s quite hnpossible !” 
 
 While Mrs. Nickleby, with the utmost sincerity, gave vent to 
 her sorrows after her own peculiar fashion of considering her¬ 
 self 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 cir¬ 
 cumstances, 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, endeavoring 
 to recover herself, tried to laugh. The laugh and the cry 
 meeting each other thus abruptly had a struggle for the mas¬ 
 tery, and the result was that it was a drawn battle, and Miss 
 I.,a 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 5 2 
 
 as he was, upon the bed, fell into a sound sleep. When ho 
 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, 
 “mamma and I, and—and Madeline.” 
 
 “You said in your last letter that she was quite well,” said 
 Nicholas, rather hastily, and coloring 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 colored 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 any body 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 re¬ 
 ply, when Nicholas laid his hand upon her arm, and went on ; 
 
 “ Nobody must know this but you. She last of all.” 
 
 “ Dear Nicholas 1” 
 
 “ 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 olf, 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 1 have wavered in my bounden duty to them before, J am 
 jiow determined to discharge it rigidly, and to put further delays 
 and temptations beyond my reach.” 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 873 
 
 “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, jmu foolish girl,” said Nicholas ; “ why Kate, Kate, 
 be a woman. I think I know what you would tell me. It con* 
 cerns 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’s not so diflScult, 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 mamma, 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 I” 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 highly I felt such disinterested 
 love should be regarded, 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 sacii* 
 fice to what you knew was right and honorable, that I should 
 shrink from mine ?” said Nicholas, tenderly. 
 
 “ Oh. no 1 not if your position had been the same, but—” 
 
 “^But it is the same,” interrupted Nicholas; “ Madelino is 
 
874 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 not tte near relation of our benefactors, but she is closely bound 
 to them by ties as dear, and I was first entrusted whith her his¬ 
 tory, specially because they reposed unbounded confidence in 
 me, and believed that I was true as steel. How ba-se 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 com¬ 
 passion for the young creature whom I had so meanly and un¬ 
 worthily entrapped, turning her very gratitude and warmth of 
 heart to my own purpose and account, and trading in her mis¬ 
 fortunes I 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 to-day I will without reserve or 
 equivocation dislcose my real reasons to Mr. Cheeryble, and 
 implore him to take immediate measures for removing this 
 young lady to the shelter of some other roof.” 
 
 “ To-day ? so very soon !” 
 
 “ I have thought of this for weeks, and why should I post¬ 
 pone it ? If the scene through which I have just passed has 
 taught me to reflect and 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 sti'ong chain that binds us together. 
 It seems but yesterday that we were playfellows, Kate, and it 
 will seem l)ut to-morrow that we are staid old people, looking 
 back then to these cares as we look back now to those of oux 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 875 
 
 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 kair not gre}’', 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 
 —shall 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 honorable 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 that blushing cheek and downcast eye, have be¬ 
 stowed 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 
 llirew hei arms about his neck and declared she would weep no 
 more. 
 
 “ What man,” thought Nicholas, proudly, while on his way 
 scon afterwards to the brothers’ house, “would not be suffi¬ 
 ciently rewarded for any sacrilice of fortune, by the possession 
 of such a heart as that, which, but that hearts w'eigli light and 
 gold and silver heavy, is beyond all praise. Frank has money 
 
876 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 and wants no more. Where would it buy him such a treasure 
 as Kate 1 And yet in unequal marriages, the rich party is 
 always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get 
 a good bargain 1 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 be¬ 
 fore Tim Linkinwater. 
 
 “Ah 1 Mr. Nickleby,” cried Tim, “ God bless you ! how d’ye 
 do 1 Well ? Say you’re quite well and never better—do 
 now.” 
 
 “ Quite,” said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands. 
 
 “Ah I” 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 natu¬ 
 rally 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 
 favorite attitude and pointing up 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 
 any thing 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 Nicho¬ 
 las, “and often bade me carry back his love to Mr. Linkinwater.” 
 
 “ No, no, did he though ?” rejoined Tim, sobbing outright. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 877 
 
 “Poor fellow 1 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. ]*oor fellow, poor fellow I His love too !” 
 
 Tim was so completely overcome by this little mark of recol¬ 
 lection, that he was quite unequal to any further 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 com¬ 
 miseration 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 unhappy in his 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 Lin- 
 kinwater. Sir, where is my brother Ned ? 
 
 “Gone out with Mr. Trimmers, about getting that unfortu¬ 
 nate man into the hospital, and sending a nurse to his children,” 
 eaid Tim. 
 
 “ My brother Ned is a fine fellow—a great fellow !” exclaimed 
 bi'other 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 anxiois 
 
878 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 to say something to jmu. 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.” 
 
 “1 scarcely know how or where to begin,” said Nicholas. 
 “ If ever one mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and 
 rererence 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 endeavored 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 companion¬ 
 ship wdth 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 any one but myself-—to you who 
 consider tl'e immeasurable distance between me and this young 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 879 
 
 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 
 obj’ect constantly before me, what can I do but pray and beseech 
 73u 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 w'ould happen. Thank 
 you. Sir, thank you. Madeline shall be removed. 
 
 “ If you would grant me one favor, dear Sir, and suffer her to 
 remember me w'ith esteem by never revealing to her this con¬ 
 fession—” 
 
 “I wall take care,”'—said Mr. Cheeryble. “And now, is this 
 all you have to tell me ?” 
 
 “No I” 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 
 knowdedge ?” 
 
 “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 wdth 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. lie ventured to hope that nothing he had said W'ould 
 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 wairm friends, and tliat 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 har- 
 5(1 
 
880 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 mony between them. He recounted, as nearly as he could, what 
 had passed between him and Kate that morning ; speaking other 
 with such warmth of pride and affection, and dwelling so cheer¬ 
 fully 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 ex¬ 
 pressive 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, 
 ray dear Sir, and your uncle has appointed this afternoon for 
 your waiting upon him with me.” 
 
 “ Waiting upon him 1 With you. Sir I” 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 bro¬ 
 thers, 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 Nicho¬ 
 las 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), and full 
 of aueasiness, uncertainty, and disquiet. 
 
CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 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 
 some one anxious to question or detain him, Ralph Nickleby 
 left the city behind him, and took the road to his own home. 
 
 The night w'as 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 i)Oor, mean burial-ground—a dismal place 
 raised a few feet above the level of the street, and parted from 
 it by a low paraiiet wall and an iron railing ; a rank, unwhole¬ 
 some, rotten spot, where the very grass and weeds seemed, in their 
 frowsy growth, to tell that they had sprung from paupers’ bodies, 
 and struck their roots in the graves of men, sodden in steaming 
 courts and drunken, hungry dens. And here in truth they lay, 
 ])arted from the living by a little earth and a board or two— 
 lay thick and close—cornq)ting 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 ])iled high as their throats. Here they lay, 
 a grisly family, all those 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 ol a jury long before, on the body of a man who had eui 
 
 (8S1) 
 
882 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 a 
 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-humor, and one 
 of them, a little, weazen, hump-backed man, began to dance. 
 He was a grotesque, fantastic figure, and the few by-standers 
 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 re¬ 
 sumed his speculation with a new kind of interest, for he recol¬ 
 lected 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 
 hia 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 tlie 
 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 1 
 
 Shivering from head to foot he made his way up stairs into 
 the room where he had been last disturbed. He had made a 
 kind of compact with himself that he would not think of wha^ 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 883 
 
 had happened until he got home. He was at home now, and 
 Bulfered himself for the first time 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 1 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; every thing must 
 come out, and every body 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; every thing crumbled and fallen 
 upon him, and he beaten down beneath the ruins and groveling 
 in the dust. 
 
 If he had known his child to be alive, if no deceit had been 
 ever practiced 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 dishonor and loss of fortune on 
 his head. 
 
 But one tender thought, or one of natural regret in that 
 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 pro- 
 
684 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 tectoi* and faithful friend, that he should have shotvn 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 recollec¬ 
 tion, 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 death-bed, with 
 Nicholas at his side tending and supporting him, and he breath¬ 
 ing 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, up¬ 
 turned, marble feet too, he remembered well. Then came be¬ 
 fore 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 re¬ 
 mained— 
 
 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 885 
 
 corded trunks and broken furniture, which were scattered about. 
 It had a shelving roof; high in one part, and at another de¬ 
 scending 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 
 on old chest upon which he had been seated, mounted upon 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 
 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 de¬ 
 tained, and that although it was now midnight they had sent in 
 their anxiety to do right. 
 
 “Yes,” cried Ralph, “detain him till to-morrow; then let 
 them bring him here—him and my nephew—and come them¬ 
 selves, 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 1 if men by selling their own souls could ride ram¬ 
 pant for a term, for how short a term would I barter mine to¬ 
 night 1 
 
 The sound of a deep bell came along the wind. One. 
 
 “Lie on!” cried the usurer, “with your iron tongue; ring 
 
88G 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 I” 
 
 With a wild look around, in which frenzy, hatred, and despair, 
 w'ere 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. 
 
 :ic * * :(e ^ H! 
 
 “How’s this?” cried one, “the gentlemen say they can’t 
 make any body 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 up stairs.” 
 
 They were a little knot of men, and, the window being men¬ 
 tioned, went out into the road to look up at it. This occasioned 
 their observing that the house v/as still close shut, as the house¬ 
 keeper 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 win¬ 
 dow, while the others remained outside in impatient expecta¬ 
 tion. 
 
 They looked into all the rooms below, opening the shutters 
 as they went to admit the fading light; and still finding nobody, 
 and every thing 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 fed back directly. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 887 
 
 “It’s very odd,” he whispered, “he’s hiding behind the door! 
 Look 1” 
 
 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 
 ten’or fourteen years before. 
 
CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE MAKE VARIOUS DECLARATIONS Ff/R 
 
 THEMSELVES AND OTHERS; AND TIM LINKINWATER MAKES 
 
 A DECLARATION EOR 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 ear¬ 
 nest to stifle their own regrets, and to live for each other and 
 for their mother, who, poor lady, could in no wise be reconciled 
 to this dull and altered state of affairs, when there came one 
 evening, per favor 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 done 
 becoming honor to the bidding, and Tim had taken his depart¬ 
 ure, “ what does this mean ?” 
 
 “What do you mean, mother?” asked Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 “ I say, my dear,” rejoined that lady, with a face of unfathom¬ 
 able 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 any thing 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 be¬ 
 coming, and doesn’t suit you at all. What I mean to say is, 
 fSSS) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 889 
 
 that the Mr. Chcerybles don’t ask us to dinner with all this 
 ceremony for nothing. JS’ever mind, wait and see. You won’t 
 helieve any thing 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 T didn’t.” 
 
 With this stipulation, Mrs. Nickleby, who was troubled night 
 ttnd 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 extra¬ 
 ordinary 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 it 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 upon the occasion, so as to counterbalance Misa 
 Iia Creevy, and be herself an effectual set-off and atonement, led 
 Mrs. Nickleby into a consultation wdth her daughter relative to 
 certain ribbons, gloves, and trimmings, w’hich, being a compli¬ 
 cated 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 
 1 ands an hour or so after breakfast, and, dressing by easy stages 
 completed her toilet in sufficient time to allow of her daugh¬ 
 ter’s making hers, which was very simple and not very long, 
 though so satisfactory that she had never appeared more charm¬ 
 ing or looked more lovely. Mi.ss La Creevy, too, arrived with 
 two bandboxes (whereof the bottoms fell out as they were 
 
890 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 every 
 body 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 any thing 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, concern¬ 
 ing which she particularized 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 kind¬ 
 ness that Mrs. Nickleby was quite in a flutter, and had scarcely 
 presence of mind enough even to patronzn 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 upon 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 I” said the old man, patting her on the head, and speak¬ 
 ing as affectionately as if she had been his favorite child. “ Poor 
 dear ! what do you think of this, brother Ned ? Madeline hag 
 only written to her once—only once, Ned, and she didn’t think 
 she would have forgotten her quite so soon, Ned.” 
 
 “ Oh I sad, sad—very sad 1” said Ned. 
 
 The brothers interchanged a glance, and looking at Kate for 
 a little time without speaking, shook hands, and nodded as if 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 891 
 
 they were congratulating each other upon something very de¬ 
 lightful. 
 
 '• 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 
 huj ry back, mj 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, and boother Charles having 
 followed her graceful figure with his eyes, turned to Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby and said— 
 
 “We took the liberty of naming one hour before the real 
 dinner time, Ma’a-ra, because we had a little business to speak 
 about, which would occupy the interval. ISTed, 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 mucli pleasure. Suffering his eyes to rest upon 
 them for a short time in silence, he said, while he seated him¬ 
 self 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 he 
 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 wdll of Madeline’s mater¬ 
 nal grandfather, bequeathing her the snm of tw'elve 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 h.is protec- 
 
892 
 
 NICHOLAS NICNLEBY. 
 
 tion, and detach herself from the society of her father, in com¬ 
 pliance with his repeated overtures, made a will, leaving this 
 l)roperty, 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 im¬ 
 mediate 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 instru¬ 
 ment, 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, than I or any other man can ever 
 urge. In this it seems I judged hastily.” 
 
 “As you always do. Sir,” cried brother Charles, utterly for¬ 
 getting 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, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 893 
 
 although he judged hastilj'^, judged for once correcily. Made¬ 
 line’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 sliould have your sister’s little hand. Sir, if she had refused it 
 a score of times—ay, he should, and he shall 1 You acted nobly, 
 not knowing our sentiments, but now you know them. Sir, and 
 must do as you are bid. What 1 You are the children of a worthy 
 gentleman 1 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 any thing 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 1” 
 
 Thus apostrophized, 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 ; 
 T have often been very near it. Ah! Did you find the letter, 
 ray 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 any thing to say. 
 Turn ’em out, Ned, every one.” 
 
 Ib’othcr Charles began the clearance by leading the blushing 
 girl himself to the door, and dismissing her with a kiss. Frank 
 was not very slow to follow, and Nicholas had disappeared first 
 
894 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 .Tith jveiy 
 body, 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 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 ari’anged a single 
 thing—a treacherous dog !” 
 
 “So he is, brother, Charles,” returned Ned, “Tim is a treach¬ 
 erous 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 mem¬ 
 ber 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 laboring 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 en¬ 
 deavor 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 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 895 
 
 V day, why it was a high festival and a great occasion, and tliat 
 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 stock¬ 
 ings 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.” 
 
 AVhat in the world Tim was doing with his arm it is impos¬ 
 sible 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 conld 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 fidgetted 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 Linkiiuvater 
 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 I” cried the little woman, with all her heart, “ that it is !” 
 
 51 
 
890 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBr. 
 
 “Altliougli,” pursued Tim—“although it makes oue 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 1” replied Miss La Creevy, laughing, “we are 
 loo 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. lunkinwater, 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 have 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 ray 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 1” cried Tim, innocently, “you 
 don’t suppose I should think of such a thing without their know¬ 
 ing it 1 Why they left us here on purpose.” 
 
 “I can never look ’em in the face again!” exclaimed Miss 
 liQ 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; w'e shall go to the old church, where I’ve been every 
 Sumlay morning all through that time : we shall have all my 
 old friends about us—Dick, the archway, the pump, the flowcr- 
 pols, and Mr. Frank’s children, and Mr. Nickleby’s children, 
 that we shall seem like grandfather and grandmother to. Let’s 
 
oh: MR. LIXKINWATER, YOURE JOKING. 
 

 
 
 ■ ; f 
 
 I 
 
 
 - 
 
 / 
 
 Jr 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 897 
 
 be a comfortable couple, and take care of each other, and if we 
 should get deaf, or lame, or blind, or bed-rulden, how glad we 
 shall be that we have somebody we are fond of always to talk 
 to and sit with I Let’s be a comfortable couple. Now do, my 
 dear.” 
 
 Five minutes after this honest and straight-forward 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 
 quarreled 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 draw¬ 
 ing-room, exclaiming as he went, “ There ain’t such another 
 woman in all London—I know there ain’t.” 
 
 By this time the apoplectic butler was nearly in fits, in con¬ 
 sequence of the unheard-of postponement of dinner. Nicholas, 
 who had been engaged in a manner which every reader may 
 imagine for himself or herself, was hurrying down stairs in 
 obedience to his angry summons when he encountered a new 
 surprise. 
 
 Upon his way down, he overtook in one of the passages a 
 stranger genteelly dressed in black w^ho was also moving towards 
 the dining-room. As he wms 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 1 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 1’’’ 
 
 “ Where have you been?” said Nicholas, '‘what have you 
 been doing 1 How often have I inquired for you, and been told 
 that I should hear before longl” 
 
 “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 
 
898 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 heart to put on gentlemen’s clothes. They would have reminded 
 me of old times and made me miserable; I arn another man, 
 now, Nick. My dear boy, I can’t speak—don’t say any thing 
 to me—don’t think the worse of me for these tears—you don’t 
 know what I feel to-day : 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 
 BO grand and complacent, Madeline and Kate so blushing and 
 beautiful, Nieholas and Frank so devoted and proud, and all four 
 so silently and tremblingly happy—there was Newman so sub¬ 
 dued yet so overjoyed, and there were the twin brothers so de¬ 
 lighted, 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 woni off, and they 
 began truly to feel how happy they were, the conversation be¬ 
 came more general and the harmony and pleasure, if possible, 
 increased. The brothers were in a perfect ecstacy, and their 
 insisting on saluting the ladies all round before they would per¬ 
 mit them to retire, gave occasion to the superannuated bank 
 clerk to say so many good things that he quite outshone him¬ 
 self, and was looked upon as a prodigy of humor. 
 
 “ Kate, my dear,” said Mrs. Nickleby, taking her daughter 
 aside—directly they got up stairs, “you don’t really mean to 
 tell me that this is actually true about Miss La Creevy and 
 Mr. Linkinwater ?” 
 
 “ Indeed it is, mamma.” 
 
 “ Why I never heard such a thing in my life 1” exclaimed 
 Mrs. Nickleby 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 899 
 
 “Mr. Linkinwater is a most excellent creature,” reasoned 
 Kate, “and for his age, quite young still.” 
 
 “For his age, my dear 1” returned Mrs. Nickleby, “yes; 
 nobody says any thing aginst him, except that I think he is the 
 weakest and most foolish man I ever knew. It’s hei- age I 
 speak of. That he should have gone and otiered himself to a 
 woman who must be^—ah, half as old again as I am, and that 
 sne should have dared to accept him I It don’t signify, Kate; 
 —I’m disgusted with her I” 
 
 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, de.signed to mark her 
 sense of the impropriety of her conduct, and to signify he ex¬ 
 treme and cutting disapprobation of the misdemeanor she had 
 80 flagrantly committed. 
 
CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IS RECOGNIZED 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 Yorkshire- 
 man’s rough words of encouragement as he left them on their 
 road to London. 
 
 Madeline and he sat down very many times, jointly to pro¬ 
 duce a letter which should acquaint John at full length v.dth 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 
 any thing, 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 him¬ 
 self 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 ever- 
 ing, he and Kate found themselves in the Saracen’s Head book¬ 
 ing-office, securing a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning’a 
 coach. They had to go westward to procure some little neces- 
 (900) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 901 
 
 Barics 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 recollec¬ 
 tions, and Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicho¬ 
 las 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 possil)ly 
 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 land-mark he could recog¬ 
 nize, 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 stream 3 d 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 1” said Kate, “they are quarreling. You’ll 
 be hurt.” 
 
 “Wait one instant, Kate. Let us hear if there’s any thing 
 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 im, my life and soul I” replied a 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 ? AVonld 
 his joy and gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little 
 tail ? W^ould she hear of his being slapped and beat by drum¬ 
 mers damnebly ? Would she have him fire off real guns, and 
 
902 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 have his hair cut and his whiskers shaved, and his eyes turned 
 right and left, and his trousers pipe-clayed ?” 
 
 "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 Ni 
 cholas. " 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-bas¬ 
 kets and clothes, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still 
 an old patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once bril¬ 
 liant waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lack¬ 
 ing their lustrous dye—there, endeavoring to mollify the wrath 
 of a buxom female, 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 1” cried the lady, threatening personal 
 violence on Mr. Mantalini’s face. 
 
 " False 1 Oh dem I Now my soul, my gentle, captivating, be 
 witching, 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 yon out of prison and let you live 
 hero like a gentleman, but must you go on like this : breaking 
 iny 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 poini of returning some angry reply, 
 when Nicholas, raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly, 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 908 
 
 Mr. Mantalini turned round, caught sight of Kate, and, with¬ 
 out another word, leapt at one bound into a bed whicdi stood 
 behind the door, and drew the counterpane over his face, kick¬ 
 ing meanwhile convulsively. 
 
 “ Pemmit,” he cried, in a sulfocaling voice, “ it’s little Nicklc- 
 by 1 Shut the door, put out the candle, turn me up in the bed¬ 
 stead ; oh, dem, dera, dera 1” 
 
 The woman looked first at Nicholas, and then at Mr. Man- 
 lalini, as if uncertain on whom to visit this extraordinary beha¬ 
 vior, but Mr. Mantalirvi happening by ill luck to thrust his nose 
 from under the bed-clothes, in his an.xiety 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 favorable 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 unex¬ 
 pected 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 cir¬ 
 cumstances he had first traveled that road, and how many vicis¬ 
 situdes and changes he had since undergone. He was alone 
 inside the greater part of the way, and sometimes, when he had 
 fallen into a dose, and, rousing himself, looked out of the win¬ 
 dow, and recognized 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 Graii- 
 thani. and by the little alehouse where he had heard the story 
 of tne Dold Baron of Grogswig, everything looked as if he had 
 seen it but yesterday, and not even a flake of the white (;nist 
 upon the roofs had melted away. Encouraging the train of 
 ideas which flocked upon him, he could almost persuade him- 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ?}04 
 
 self that be 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 arri¬ 
 val, 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 every 
 body 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 I” cried a voice inside, “ waa’t be the matther noo? 
 Be the toon a-fire ? Ding, but thou mak’est noise eneaf!” 
 
 With these words John Browdie opened the door himself, and 
 opening his eyes too to their utmost width, cried, as he clapped 
 hie hands together and burst into a hearty roar, 
 
 “ Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be the godfeyther I Tilly, 
 here be Misther Nickleby. Gi’ us thee bond, raun. Cooin 
 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 I 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 bla¬ 
 zing fire, poured out from an enormous bottle about a quarter 
 
 a ])int 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 thon 
 would ha’ coora wi’ sike a knock as yon Thot was the wa’ 
 thou knocked at schoolrneasther’s door, eh ? Ha, ha, ha! But 
 I say—waa’t be a’ this about schoolmeasther ?” 
 
 “ You know it. then ?” said Nicholas. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 905 
 
 “ They were talking about it doon toon last neeght,” replied 
 John, “but neane on ’em seemed quite to nn’erstan’ itloike.” 
 
 “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 I” cried John, “ a conspiracy 1 Sooma’tin thepooder 
 plot wa’—eh ? Sooma’t in the Guy Fanrx line ?” 
 
 “No, no, no, a. conspiracy connected with his school; I’ll 
 explain it presently.” 
 
 “Thot’s reeght 1” said John, “explain it arter breakfast, not 
 noo, for thou bees’t hoongry, and so am I ; and Tilly she mnn’ 
 be at the bottom o’ a’ explanations, for she say’s thot’s the 
 mutual confidence I Ila, ha. ha 1 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 
 oreakfasting in the kitchen, stopped John in his discussion of 
 this grave subject, and hastened the breakfast, which being com¬ 
 posed of vast mounds of toast, new-laid eggs, boiled ham, York¬ 
 shire pie, and other cold substantials (of which heavy relays 
 were constantly appearing from another kitchen under the direc¬ 
 tion 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 parlor 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 listen¬ 
 ers. At one time honest John groane^l 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 Cheeryl)le, 
 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 t)egan to describe Madeline, he sat 
 with his mouth wide open nudging Mrs. Jirowdie from time to 
 time, and exclaiming under his breath that she must be “raa’ther 
 a tidy sort,” and when he heard at last that his young friend 
 bad come down purposely to communicate his good fortune, and 
 
906 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 waa’t, 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 to-day, the old ’oomau 
 vvoan’t have a whole boan in her boddy, nor Fanny neither.” 
 
 “ Oh John I” 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 
 raoothers sent and took their yoong chaps awa’. If them as is 
 left should know waa’ts coom tiv’un, there’ll be sike a revolu¬ 
 tion and rebel !—Ding 1 But 1 think they’ll a’ gang daft, and 
 spill bluidlike watherl” 
 
 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, plead¬ 
 ing 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 to-morrow,” said Nicholas, “ but I mean to 
 dine with you to-day, and if Mrs. Browdie can give me a bed—” 
 
 “ Bed !” cried John, “ I wish thou could’st sleep in fowerbeds 
 at onee. Ecod thou should’st have ’em a’. Bide till I coom 
 l>ack, on’y bide till I coom back, and ecod we’ll mak’ a day of 
 it.” 
 
 Giving his wife a hearty kiss, and Nicholas a no less hearty 
 sliake 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 neighborhood, and revisit 
 spots which were rendered familiar to him by many a miserable 
 association 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 907 
 
 John cantered away, and arriving at Dotheboys Hall tied his 
 horse to a gate and made his A^ay 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 e.xecutive 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 him¬ 
 self in various similar ways a great comfort and happiness to 
 his mother. Their entrance, whether by premeditation or a simul¬ 
 taneous impulse, was the signal of revolt. While one detach¬ 
 ment rushed to the door and locked it, and another mounted 
 upon the desks and forms, the stoutest (and coiisequently the 
 newest) boy seized the cane, and confronting Mrs. Squeers with 
 a stern countenance, snatched off her cap and beaver bonnet, 
 put it on his own head, armed himself with the wooden spoon, 
 and bade her, on pain of death, go down upon her knees, and 
 lake 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 com- 
 jielled 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 entrusted 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 undei'going another dip 
 ii; the treacle, and a violent assault had been commenced on 
 Miss Squeers, when John Browdie, bursting open the door with 
 one vigorous kick, rushed to the rescue. The shouts, screams. 
 
908 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 1” 
 
 “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 I” repeated John. “Weel, hurrah loike men too. 
 Noo then, loolt out. Hip—hip—hip—hurrah !” 
 
 “Hurrah !” cried the voices. 
 
 “Hurrah agean,” said John. “Looder still.” 
 
 The boys obeyed. 
 
 “ Anoother I” said John. “Dinnot be afeared on it. Let’s 
 have a good ’un.” 
 
 “ Hurrah I” 
 
 “Noo then,” says John, “let’s have yan more to end wi’, and 
 then cut 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 ’nn. 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 be¬ 
 fore, 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 1 If my pa is unfortunate 
 and trod down l)y 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. Thiidv betther o’ us, Fanny. I tell’ee both that I’m 
 glod the auld man has been caught out at last—dom’d glod—• 
 bill ye’ll soofer eneaf wi’out any crowin’ fra’ me, and I be not 
 the mnn to crow nor l)e Tilly the lass, so I tell’ee flat. More 
 than that, T tell’ee noo, that if thou need’st friends to help thee 
 awa’ from this place—dinnot turn up thy nose, Fanny, thou 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 909 
 
 may’st—thou’lt foind Tilly and I wi’ a tliout o’ old times aboot 
 113 , ready to lend thee a hond. And when I say thot, din not 
 tliiiik I be ashamed of waa’t I’ve deane, for I say agean, Hurrah I 
 and dom the schoolmeasther—there !” 
 
 TIis parting words concluded, John Browdie strode heavily 
 out, remounted Ids nag, put him once more into a smart canter, 
 and caroling lustily forth some fragments of an old song, to 
 which the horse’s hoofs rano: a merry accompaniment, sped back 
 to his pretty wife and to Nicholas. 
 
 For some days afterwards the neighboring country was over¬ 
 run 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 rumor 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 in their opinion. 
 
 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 wan¬ 
 dered nearly twenty miles, and when his poor favorite died, lost 
 courage and lay down beside him. Another was discovered iq 
 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 re¬ 
 covered, but by degrees they were claimed, or lost again ; and 
 'ill course of time Hotheboys Hall and its last breaking up began 
 I'l be forgotten by the neighbors, or to be only spoken of os 
 among the things that had been. 
 
CHAPTER LXy. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 W HEN her terra 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 ex¬ 
 pected 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 ho 
 invested in the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had 
 become a partner. Before many years elap.sed, the business 
 began to be carried on in the names of “ Cheeryble and Nick- 
 leby,” so that Mrs. Nickleby’s prophetic anticipations were 
 realized 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 part¬ 
 ner, 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 
 bedcliamber in which he had slept for four-and-forty years. As 
 fiis 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 
 (910) 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 911 
 
 and promoted to a warm corner in tne 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 emboldeniug them to say so vvithout 
 scruple, Mrs. Linkinwater grew very proud of these achieve¬ 
 ments in time, and considered them among the most successful 
 likenesses she had ever painted. Tim had the profoundest faith 
 in them likewise, for upon this, as upon all other subjects, they 
 held but one opinion, and if ever there was 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 cou'i 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 dishonestly 
 acquired and retained by other means as bad. By dint of an 
 ingenious counsel, and a legal flaw, he escaped, but only to un¬ 
 dergo a worse punishment; for some years afterwards his house 
 was broken open in the night by robbers, tempted by the rumors 
 of his great wealth, and he was found horribly murdered in his 
 bed 
 
 Mi'a Sliderskew went beyond the seas at nearly the same 
 time as Squeers, and in the course of nature never retiir;jed. 
 Brooker died penitent. Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for 
 some years, courted and caressed, and in high repute as a line 
 dashing fellow; and ultimately, returning to this country, was 
 thrown into jail for debt, and there perished miserably, as such 
 high, noble spirits generally do. 
 
 The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and pros- 
 58 
 
912 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 perous 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 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 some- 
 limes with her son, accompanying one or other of them to Lon¬ 
 don at those periods when the cares of business obliged both 
 families to reside there, and always preserving a great appear¬ 
 ance 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. Linkin- 
 water into favor, 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 
 N oggs. 
 
 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 summer¬ 
 time, garlands of fresh flowers wreathed by infant hands rested 
 upon 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. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
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