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 L161 0-1096
 
 THE 
 
 3Ltft antr gfofccnturcs 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 a 
 
 FROM A PAINTING BY T. WEBSTER, ESQ., R.A. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1857.
 
 LONDON: 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEJTUARS.
 
 WILLIAM CHARLES MACBEADY 
 
 THE FOLLOWING PAGES 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED, 
 
 A SLIGHT TOKEN OF ADMIRATION AND REGARD.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS story waa begun, within a few months after the publication of the 
 completed "Pickwick Papers." There were, then, a good many cheap 
 Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now. 
 
 Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard of 
 it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable 
 or happy men, 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 
 anywhere ; although preparation for the functions he undertook, was 
 required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or 
 might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it, in the chemist, the 
 attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, the whole round 
 of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted ; and although school- 
 masters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors that might naturally 
 be expected to arise from such a state of things, and to flourish in it ; 
 these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in 
 the whole ladder. Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of 
 parents, and the helplessness of children ; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to 
 whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging 
 of a horse or a dog ; they formed the worthy 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 make mention of the race, as of the Yorkshire schoolmasters, in the 
 past tense. Though it has not yet finally disappeared, it is dwindling 
 daily. A long day's work remains to be done about us in the way of 
 education, Heaven knows ; but great improvements and facilities towards 
 the attainment of a good one, have been furnished, of late years, 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 waa a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places, near Rochester
 
 T. PREFACE. 
 
 Castle, with a head full of PARTRIDGE, STRAP, TOM PIPES, and SANCHO 
 PANZA; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that 
 time, and that they were, somehow or other, connected with a suppurated 
 abscess that some boy had come home with, in consequence of his York- 
 shire guide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with an inky 
 pen-knife. The impression made upon me, however made, never left me. 
 I was always curious about them fell, long afterwards, and at sundry 
 times, into the way of hearing more about them at last, having an 
 audience, resolved to write about them. 
 
 With that intent I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, 
 in very severe winter-time which is pretty faithfully described herein. As 
 I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those gen- 
 tlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the author 
 of the " Pickwick Papers," I consulted with a professional friend here, 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 suppositions little boy who 
 had been left with a widowed mother who did'nt know what to do with 
 him ; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy com- 
 passion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a Yorkshire 
 school ; I was the poor lady's friend, travelling that way ; and if the 
 recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his neighbourhood, 
 the writer would be very much obliged. 
 
 I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood 
 these schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to deliver 
 a letter until I came to a certain town which shall be nameless. The person 
 to whom it was addressed, was not at home ; but he came down at night, 
 through the snow, to the inn where I was staying. It was after dinner ; 
 and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a warm corner, 
 qnd take his share of the wine that was on the table. 
 
 I am afraid he is dead now. I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy, broad- 
 faced man ; that we got acquainted directly ; and that we talked on all 
 kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great anxiety to 
 avoid. Was there any large school near ? I asked him, in reference to the 
 letter. " Oh yes," he said; "there was a prattybig 'un." "Was it a good 
 one 1 " I asked. " Ey ! " he said, " it was as good as anoother ; that was 
 a' a matther of opinion ; " and fell to looking at the fire, staring round the 
 room, and whistling a little. On my reverting to some other topic that we 
 had been discussing, he recovered immediately ; but, though I tried him 
 again and again, I never approached the question of the school, even if he 
 were in the middle of a laugh, without observing that his countenance fell, 
 and that he became uncomfortable. At last, when we had passed a couple 
 of hours or so, very agreeably, he suddenly took up his hat, and leaning 
 over the table and looking me full in the face, said, in a low voice : " Weel 
 Misther, we've been vary pleasant toogather, and aril spak' my moind 
 tiv'ee. Dinnot let the weedur send her lattle boy to yan o' our school- 
 measthers, while there 's a harse to hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie 
 asleep in. Ar wouldn't mak' ill words amang my neeburs, and ar speak 
 tiv'ee quiet loike. But I'm dom'd if ar can gang to bed and not tellee, for
 
 PREFACE. rii 
 
 weedur's sak', to keep the lattle boy from a' sike scoondrels while there 's a 
 h:ir#e to hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in ! " Repeating 
 these words with great heartiness, and with a solemnity on his jolly face 
 that made it look twice as large as before, he shook hands and went away. 
 I never saw him afterwards, but I sometimes imagine that I descry a faint 
 reflection of him in John Browdie. 
 
 In reference to these gentry, I may here quote a few words from the 
 original preface to this book, 
 
 " It has afforded the Author great amusement and satisfaction, during 
 the progress of this work, to learn, from country friends and from a variety 
 of ludicrous statements concerning himself in provincial newspapers, that 
 more than one Yorkshire schoolmaster lays claim to being the original of 
 Mr. Squeers. One worthy, he has reason to believe, has actually consulted 
 authorities learned in the law, as to his having good grounds on which to 
 rest an action for libel ; another, has meditated a journey to London, for 
 the express purpose of committing an assault and battery on his traducer ; 
 n third, perfectly remembers being wailed on, last January twelve month, 
 by two gentlemen, one of whom held him in conversation while the other 
 took his likeness ; and, although Mr. Squeers has but one eye, and he has 
 two, and the published sketch does not resemble him (whoever he may be) 
 in any other respect, still he and all his friends and neighbours know at 
 once for whom it is meant, because the character is so like him. 
 
 " While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the compliment thus 
 conveyed to him, he ventures to suggest that these contentions may arise 
 from the fact, that Mr. Squeers is the representative of a class, and not of 
 an individual. Where imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidity, arc the 
 stock in trade of a small body of men, and one is described by these charac- 
 teristics, all his fellows will recognise something belonging to themselves, 
 and each will have a misgiving that the portrait is his own. 
 
 " The Author's object in calling public attention to the system would be 
 very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, 
 emphatically and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school are faint and 
 feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down 
 lest they should be deemed impossible that there are, upon record, trials 
 at law in which damages have been sought as a poor recompense for lasting 
 agonies and disfigurements inflicted upon children by the treatment of the 
 master in these places, involving such offensive and foul details of neglect, 
 cruelty, and disease, as no writer of fiction would have the boldness to 
 imagine and that, since he has been engaged upon these Adventures, he has 
 received, from private quarters far beyond the reach of suspicion or distrust, 
 accounts of atrocities, in the perpetration of which, upon neglected or 
 repudiated children, these schools have been the main instruments, very 
 far exceeding any that appear in these pages." 
 
 This comprises all I need say on the subject ; except that if I had seen 
 occasion, I had resolved to reprint a few of these details of legal proceedings, 
 from certain old newspapers. 
 
 One other quotation from the same Preface, may serve to introduce a 
 fact that my readers may think curious.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 " To turn to a more pleasant subject, it may be right to say, that thera 
 are two characters in this book which are drawn from life. It is remark- 
 able that what we call the world, which is so very credulous in what pro- 
 fesses to be true, is most incredulous in what professes to be imaginary ; 
 and that, while, every day in real life, it will allow in one man no blemishes, 
 and in another no virtues, it will seldom admit a very strongly-marked 
 character, either good or bad, in a fictitious narrative, to be within the 
 limits of probability. But those who take an interest in this tale, will be 
 glad to learn that the BROTHERS CHEERY BLE live ; that their liberal charity, 
 their singleness of heart, their noble nature, and their unbounded benevo- 
 lence, 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 diffi- 
 culty from which I could not easily extricate myself. Suffice it to say, that 
 I believe the applications for loans, gifts, and offices of profit that I have 
 been requested to forward to the originals of the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE (with 
 whom I never interchanged auy communication in my life), would have 
 exhausted the combined patronage of all the Lord Chancellors since the 
 accession of the House of Brunswick, and would have broken the Eest of 
 the Bank of England. 
 
 There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a remark. 
 If Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or agreeable, he is not 
 always intended to appear so. He is a young man of an impetuous temper 
 and of little or no experience ; and I saw no reason why such a hero should 
 be lifted out of nature. 
 
 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, 
 May, 1848.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOR 
 
 CHAPTER I. Introduces I1 tbe rest . 1 
 
 CHAP. II. Of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishment, and his Under- 
 takings. And of a great Joint Stock. Company of vast national 
 importance . . . . . . . . . ' 4 
 
 CHAP. III. Mr. Ralph Nicklcby receives Sad Tidings of his Brother, but 
 bears up nobly against the intelligence communicated to him. The 
 Reader is informed how he liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, 
 and how kindly he proposed to make his Fortune at once . . .11 
 
 CHAP. IV. Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of 
 
 time) wait upon Mr. Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire Schoolmaster . 18 
 
 CHAP. V. Nicholas starts for Yorkshire. Of his Leave-taking and his 
 
 Fellow Travellers, and what befel them on the road .... 26 
 
 CHAP. 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 other .......... 32 
 
 CHAP. VII. Mr. and Mrs. Squeers at Home ... ... 46 
 
 CHAP. VIII. Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall . . . 51 
 
 CHAP. IX. Of Miss Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr. 
 Squeers ; and of various Matters and Persons connected no less with the 
 Squecrses than with Nicholas Nickleby ..... 59 
 
 CHAP. X. How Mr. Ralph Nickleby provided for his Niece and Sister-in-Law 68 
 
 CHAP. XI. Mr. Newman Noggs inducts Mrs. and Miss Nicklcby into their 
 
 New Dwelling in the City . ' 77 
 
 CHAP. XII. Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further 
 course of Miss Fanny Squeers's Love, and to ascertain whether it ran 
 smooth or otherwise . . . .80 
 
 CHAP. XIII. Nicholas varies the monotony of Dotheboys Hall by a most 
 vigorous and remarkable Proceeding, which leads to Consequences of 
 some importance .......... 37 
 
 CHAP. XIV. Having the Misfortune to treat of none but Common People, 
 
 is necessarily of a Mean and Vulgar Character 96
 
 x CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 CHAP. XV. Acquaints Jhe Reader with the Cause and Origin of the Inter- 
 ruption described in the last Chapter, and with some other Matters 
 necessary to be known . . . . . . . . . 103 
 
 CHAP. XVI. Nicholas seeks to employ himself in a New Capacity, and 
 
 being unsuccessful, accepts an engagement as Tutor in a Private Family 111 
 
 CHAP. XVII. Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby . 123 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. Miss Knag, after doating on Kate Nickleby for three whole 
 Days, makes up her mind to hate her for evermore. The Causes which 
 lead Miss Knag to form this resolution . . . . . . ] 29 
 
 CHAP. XIX. Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr. Ralph Nirkleby's, and of the 
 Manner in which the Company entertained themselves, before Dinner, 
 at Dinner, and after Dinner . .137 
 
 CHAP. XX. Wherein Nicholas at length encounters his Uncle, to whom 
 
 he expresses his Sentiments with much Candour. His Resolution . 147 
 
 CHAP. XXI. Madame Mantalini finds herself in a Situation of some Diffi- 
 culty, and Miss Nickleby finds herself in no Situation at all . . . 154 
 
 CHAP. XXII. Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth to seek Lis 
 Fortune. He encounters Mr. Vincent Crummies ; and who he was is 
 herein made manifest . . . . . . . . .162 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. Treats of the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummies, and of 
 
 his Affairs, Domestic and Theatrical . . . . . . 171 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. Of the Great Bespeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first 
 
 appearance of Nicholas upon any Stage . . . . . .179 
 
 CHAP. XXV. Concerning a young Lady from London who joins the Com- 
 pany, and an elderly Admirer who follows in her Train ; with an 
 affecting Ceremony consequent on their Arrival . . . .189 
 
 CHAP. XXVI. Is fraught with some Danger to Miss Nicklehy's Peace of 
 
 Mind . . 198 
 
 CHAP. XXVII. Mrs. Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs. Pyke and 
 
 Pluck, whose Affection and Interest are beyond all bounds . . 204 
 
 CHAP. XXVIII. Miss Nickleby, rendered desperate by the Persecution of 
 S. ; r Mulberry Hawk, and the complicated Difficulties and Distresses 
 wtich surround her, appeals, as a last resource, to her Uncle for Pro- 
 tection 213 
 
 CHAP. XXIX. Of the Proceedings of Nicholas, and certain Internal Divi- 
 sions in the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummies .... 224 
 
 CHAP. XXX. Festivities are held in honour of Nicholas, who suddenly 
 withdraws himself from the society of Mr. Vincent Crummies and his 
 Theatrical Companions 22!) 
 
 CHAP. XXXI. Of Ralph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise 
 
 Precautions, the success or failure of which will appear in the Sequel . 239 
 
 CHAP. XXXII. Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and 
 
 some remarkable Proceedings to which it gives rise . . . .244
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAOK 
 
 CHAP. XXXIII. In which Mr. Ralph Nicklefcy is relieved, by a very 
 
 expeditious Process, from all Commerce with his relations . . . 250 
 
 CIUP. XXXIV. Wherein Mr. Ralph Nickleby is visited by Persons with 
 
 whom the Reader has been already made acquainted ... 255 
 
 CHAP. XXXV. Smike becomes known to Mrs. Nickleby and Kate. 
 Nirholas also meets with new Acquaintances, and brighter Days seem 
 to dawn upon the Family ........ 264 
 
 CIUP. XXXVI. Private and confidential ; relating to family matters. 
 Showing how Mr. Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and how Mrs. 
 Kenwigs was as well as could be expected ..... 275 
 
 CIUP. XXXVII. Nicholas finds further Favour in the eyes of the Brothers 
 Cheeryble and Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. The Brothers give a Banquet 
 on a great annual occasion. Nicholas, on returning home from it, 
 receives a mysterious and important Disclosure from the lips of Mrs. 
 Nickleby 280 
 
 CHAP. XXXVIII. Comprises certain Particulars arising out of a Visit of 
 Condolence, which may prove important hereafter. Smike unexpectedly 
 encounters a very old Friend, who invites him to his house, and will 
 take no denial 271 
 
 CHAP. XXXIX. In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very 
 
 opportunely and to some purpose . 300 
 
 CHAP. XL. In which Nicholas falls in Love. He employs a Mediator, 
 whose Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, excepting in 
 one solitary Particular . . . . .'. . . . 306 
 
 CHAP. XLI. Containing some Romantic Passages between Mrs. Nickleby 
 
 and the Gentleman in the Small-Clothes next Door . . . . 31C 
 
 CHAP. XLII. Illustrative of the convivial Sentiment, that the best of 
 
 Friends must sometimes part . ....... 324 
 
 CHAP. XLIII. Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various 
 
 People together 331 
 
 CHAP. 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 . . . 340 
 
 CHAP. XLV. Containing Matter of a surprising Kind . . . . 349 
 
 CHAP. XLVI. Throws some light upon Nicholas's Love ; but whether for 
 
 Good or Evil the Reader must determine 357 
 
 CHAP. XLVII. Mr. Ralph Nickleby has some confidential intercourse with 
 another old Friend. They concert between them a Project, which 
 promises well for both . . 36G 
 
 CHAP. XLVIII. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Vincent Crummies, and 
 
 Positively his last Appearance on this Stage 375 
 
 CHAP. XLIX. Chronicles the further Proceedings of the Nickleby Family, 
 
 and the Sequel of the Adventure of the Gentleman in the Small-Clothes 382
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PA OR 
 
 CHAP. L. Involves a serious Catastrophe 392 
 
 CHAP. LI. The project of Mr. Ralph Nickleby and his Friend approaching 
 a successful Issue, becomes unexpectedly known to another Party, not 
 admitted into their Confidence ....... 401 
 
 CHAP. LII. Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his 
 spirits again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence of 
 the Kcnwigses and Lollyvicks 408 
 
 CHAP. LIII. Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Arthur Gride 416 
 
 CHAP. LIV. The Crisis of the Project, and its Result . . . . 426 
 
 CHAP. LV. Of Family matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointments, and 
 
 Sorrows 433 
 
 CHAP. LVI. Ralph Nickleb}-, 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 . . . . . . 441 
 
 CHAP. LVII. How Ralph Nickleby's Auxiliary went about his work, and 
 
 how he prospered with it ........ 449 
 
 CHAP. LVIII. In which one Scene of this History is closed . . . 455 
 
 CHAP. LIX. The Plots begin to fail, and Doubts and Dangers to disturb the 
 
 Plotter 459 
 
 CHAP. LX. The Dangers thicken, and the Worst is told . . . . 468 
 
 CHAP. LXI. Wherein Nicholas and his Sister forfeit the Good Opinion of 
 
 all worldly and prudent People . . . . . . .475 
 
 CHAP. LXII. Ralph makes one last Appointment and keeps it . . . 482 
 
 CHAP. LXII I. The Brothers Cheery ble make various Declarations for 
 themselves and others.- Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for 
 himself 485 
 
 CHAP. LXIV. An old Acquaintance is Recognised under melancholy Cir- 
 cumstances, and Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever . . . . 492 
 
 CHAP. LXV. Conclusion . 498
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 
 
 OP 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCES ALL THE REST. 
 
 THERE once lived, in a sequestered 
 part of the county of Devonshire, one 
 Mr. Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gen- 
 tleman, who, taking it into his head 
 rather late in life that he must get 
 married, and not being young enough 
 or rich enough to aspire to the hand 
 of a lady of fortune, had wedded an 
 old flame out of mere attachment, who 
 in her turn had taken him for the 
 same reason. Thus two people who 
 cannot afford to play cards for money, 
 sometimes sit down to a quiet game 
 for love. 
 
 Some ill-conditioned persons who 
 sneer at the life-matrimonial, may 
 perhaps suggest, in this place, that the 
 good couple would be better likened 
 to two principals in a sparring match, 
 who, when fortune is low and 
 backers scarce, will chivalrously set 
 to, for the mere pleasure of the 
 buffeting ; and in one respect indeed 
 this comparison would hold good : for, 
 as the adventurous pair of the Fives' 
 Court will afterwards send round a 
 hat, and trust to the bounty of the 
 lookers-on for the means of regaling 
 themselves, so Mr. Godfrey Nickleby 
 and hit partner, the honey-moon being 
 over, looked wistfully out into the 
 world, relying in no inconsider- 
 able degree upon chance for the 
 improvement of their means. Mr. 
 Nickleby'a income; at the period of 
 
 No. 32. 
 
 his marriage, fluctuated between sixty 
 and eighty pounds per annum. 
 
 There are people enough in the 
 world, Heaven knows ! and even in 
 London (where Mr. Nickleby dwelt 
 in those days) but few complaints 
 prevail, of the population being scanty. 
 It is extraordinary how long a- man 
 may look among the crowd without 
 discovering the face of a friend, but it 
 is no less true. Mr. Nickleby looked, 
 and looked, till his eyes became sore 
 as his heart, but no friend appeared ; 
 and when, growing tired of the search, 
 he turned his eyes homeward, he saw 
 very little there, to relieve his weary 
 vision. A painter who has gazed too 
 long upon some glaring colourj re- 
 freshes his dazzled sight by looking 
 upon a darker and more sombre tint ; 
 but everything that met Mr. Nickleby's 
 gaze wore so black and gloomy a hue, 
 that he would have been beyond de- 
 scription 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 gentleman, im- 
 pressed with the necessity of making 
 some provision for his family, was 
 seriously revolving in his mind a little 
 commercial speculation of insuring 
 his life next quarter-day, and then 
 falling from the top of the Monument
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 by accident, there came, one morning, 
 by the general post, a black-bordered 
 letter to inform him how his uncle, 
 Mr. Ralph Nic-kleby, was dead, and 
 had left him the bulk of his little pro- 
 perty, amounting in all to five thou- 
 sand pounds sterling. 
 
 As the deceased had taken no fur- 
 ther notice of his nephew in his life- 
 time, than sending to his eldest boy 
 (who had been christened after him, 
 on desperate spaculation) 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 con- 
 veyed to huii. On examination, 
 however, they turned out to be 
 strictly correct. The amiable old 
 gentleman, it seemed, had intended 
 to leave the whole to the Royal 
 Humane Society, and had indeed 
 executed a will to that effect ; but 
 the Institution, having been unfortu- 
 nate enough, a few months before, to 
 save the life of a poor relation to 
 whom he paid a weekly allowance of 
 three shillings and sixpence, he had, 
 in a fit of very natural exasperation, 
 revoked the bequest in a codicil, and 
 left it all to Mr. Godfrey Nickleby ; 
 with a special mention of his indigna- 
 tion, not only against the society for 
 saving the poor relation's life, but 
 against the poor relation also, for 
 allowing himself to be saved. 
 
 With a portion of this property Mr. 
 Godfrey Nickleby purchased a small 
 farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, 
 whither he retired with his wife and 
 two children, to live upon the best 
 interest he could get for the rest of 
 his money, and the little produce he 
 could raise from his land. The two 
 prospered BO 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 thou- 
 sand pounds in cash, and to his 
 youngest son, Nicholas, one thou- 
 sand and the farm, which was as 
 
 small a landed estate as one would 
 desire to see. 
 
 These two brothers had been 
 brought up together in a school at 
 Exeter ; and, being accustomed to go 
 home once a week, had often heard, 
 from their mother's lips, long accounts 
 of their father's sufferings in his days 
 of poverty, and of their deceased 
 uncle's importance in his days of 
 affluence : which recitals produced a 
 very different impression on the two : 
 for, while the younger, who was of a 
 timid and retiring disposition, gleaned 
 from thence nothing but forewamings 
 to shun the great world and attach 
 himself to the quiet routine of a coun- 
 try life, Ralph, the elder, deduced 
 from the often-repeated tale the two 
 great morals that riches are the only 
 true source of happiness and power, 
 and that it is lawful and just to com- 
 pass their acquisition by all means 
 short of felony. " And," reasoned 
 Ralph with himself, " if no good came 
 of my uncle's money when he was 
 alive, a great deal of good came of it 
 after he was dead, inasmuch as my 
 father has got it now, and is saving it 
 up for me, which is a highly virtuous 
 purpose ; and, going back to the old 
 gentleman, good did come- of it to 
 him too, for he had the pleasure 
 of thinking of it all his life long, 
 and of being envied and courted 
 by all his family besides." And 
 Ralph always wound up these mental 
 soliloquies by arriving "at the conclu- 
 sion, 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 specu- 
 lations, this promising hid commenced 
 usurer on a limited scale at school ; 
 putting out at good interest a small 
 capital of slate-pencil and marbles, 
 and gradually extending his operations 
 until they aspired to the copper coin- 
 age of this realm, in which he specu- 
 lated 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 com-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 prised in the one golden sentence, 
 " two-pence for every half-penny," 
 which greatly simplified the accounts, 
 and which, as a familiar precept, more 
 easily acquired and retained in the 
 memory than any known rule of 
 arithmetic, cannot be too strongly 
 recommended to the notice of capi- 
 talists, both large and small, and 
 more especially of money-brokers and 
 bill-discounters. Indeed, to do these 
 gentlemen justice, many of them 
 are to this day in the frequent 
 habit of adopting it, with eminent 
 success. 
 
 In like manner, did young Ralph 
 Nickleby avoid all those minute and 
 intricate calculations of odd days, 
 which nobody who has worked 
 sums in simple-interest can fail to 
 have found most embarrassing, by 
 establishing the one general rule that 
 all sums of principal and interest 
 should be paid on pocket-money day, 
 that is to say, on Saturday ; and that 
 whether a loan were contracted on the 
 Monday, or on the Friday, the amount 
 of interest should be, in both cases, the 
 same. Indeed he argued, and with 
 great show of reason, that it ought to be 
 rather more for one day than for five, 
 inasmuch as the borrower might in 
 the former case be very fairly pre- 
 sumed 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 sympathy which 
 always exists between great minds. 
 Though master Ralph Nickleby was 
 not at that time aware of it, the class 
 of gentlemen before alluded to, pro- 
 ceed 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 imme- 
 diately conceive of his character, it 
 may perhaps be inferred that he is 
 to be the hero of the work which we 
 shall presently begin. To set this 
 pomtat rest, for once and for ever, we 
 hasten to undeceive them, and stride 
 to its commencement. 
 
 On the death of his father, Ralph 
 
 Nickleby, who had been some time 
 before placed in a mercantile house in 
 London, applied himself passionately 
 to his old pursuit of money-getting, in 
 which he speedily became so buried 
 and absorbed, that he quite forgot lua 
 brother for many years ; and if, at 
 times, a recollection of his old play- 
 fellow broke upon him through tho 
 haze in which he lived for gold con- 
 jures up a mist about a man, moro 
 destructive of all his old senses and 
 lulling to his feelings than the fumes 
 of charcoal it brought along with it 
 a companion thought, that if they 
 were intimate he would want to bor- 
 row money of him. So, Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby shrugged his shoulders, and 
 said, things were better as they were. 
 
 As for Nicholas, he lived a single 
 man on the patrimonial estate until 
 he grew tired of living alone, and 
 then he took to wife the daughter of 
 a neighbouring gentleman with, a 
 dower of one thousand pounds. This 
 good lady bore him two children, a 
 son and a daughter, and when the 
 son was about nineteen, and the 
 daughter fourteen, as near as we can 
 guess impartial records of young 
 ladies' ages being, before the passing 
 of the new act, nowhere preserved iu 
 the registries of this country Mr. 
 Nickleby looked about him for the 
 means of repairing his capital, now 
 sadly reduced by this increase in 
 his family, and the expenses of their 
 education. 
 
 "Speculate with it," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 " Spec u late, my dear ? " said 
 Mr. Nickleby, as though in doubt. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " Because, my dear, if we should 
 lose it," rejoined Mr. Nickleby, who 
 was a slow and time-taking speaker, 
 " if we should lose it, we shall no 
 longer be able to live, my dear." 
 
 " Fiddle," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " I am not altogether sure of that, 
 my dear," said Mr. Nickleby. 
 
 "There's Nicholas," pursued the 
 lady, " quite a young man it's time 
 he was in the way of doing something 
 for himself ; and Kate too, poor girl, 
 
 a
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 without a penny in the world. Think 
 of your brother ! Would he be what 
 he is, if he hadn't speculated ? " 
 
 " That's true," replied Mr. Nickleby. 
 " Very good, my dear. Yes. I will 
 speculate, my dear." 
 
 Speculation is a round game ; the 
 players see little or nothing of their 
 cards at first starting ; gains may be 
 great and so may losses. The run 
 of luck went against Mr. Nickleby. 
 A mania prevailed, a bubble burst, 
 four stock-brokers took villa resi- 
 dences 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 furniture, but will be sold 
 to strangers ! " 
 
 The last reflection hurt him so 
 much, that he took at once to his bed ; 
 apparently resolved to keep that, at 
 all events. 
 
 " Cheer up, sir ! " said the apothe- 
 cary. 
 
 " 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 clergy- 
 man. 
 
 " And what no man with a family 
 ought to do," added the neighbours. 
 
 Mr. Nickleby shook his head, and 
 motioning them all out of the room, 
 embraced his wife and children, and 
 having pressed them by turns to his 
 languidly beating heart, sunk ex- 
 hausted on his pillow. They were 
 concerned to find that his reason went 
 astray after this ; for he babbled, for a 
 long time, about the generosity and 
 goodness of his brother, and the merry 
 old times when they were at school 
 together. This fit of wandering past, 
 he solemnly commended them to One 
 who never deserted the widow or her 
 fatherless children, and, smiling gently 
 on them, turned upon his face, and 
 | observed, that he thought he could fall 
 , asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF MR. RALPH NICKLEBY, AND HIS ESTABLISHMENT, AND HIS UNDERTAKINGS. 
 AND OF A GREAT JOINT STOCK COMPANY OF VAST NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
 MR. RALPH NICKLEBY was not, 
 strictly speaking, what you would call 
 a merchant, neither was he a banker, 
 nor an attorney, nor a special pleader, 
 nor a notary. He was certainly not a 
 tradesman,and still less coidd he lay any 
 claim to the title of a professional gen- 
 tleman ; for it would have been im- 
 possible to mention any recognised 
 profession to which he belonged. Ne- 
 vertheless, as he lived in a spacious 
 house in Golden Square, which, in ad- 
 dition to a brass plate upon the street- 
 door, had another brass plate two sizes 
 and a half smaller upon the left hand 
 door-post, surmounting a brass model 
 of an infant's fist grasping a fragment 
 of a skewer, and displaying the word 
 
 Office," it was clear that Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby did, or pretended to do, busi- 
 ness of some kind ; and the fact, if it 
 required any further circumstantial 
 evidence, tvasabundantly demonstrated, 
 by the diurnal attendance, between 
 the hours of half-past nine and five, 
 of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, 
 who sat upon an uncommonly hard 
 stool in a species of butler's pantry at 
 the end of the passage, and always 
 had a pen behind his ear when he an- 
 swered the bell. 
 
 Although a few members of the 
 graver professions live about Golden 
 Square, it is not exactly in anybody's 
 way to or from anywhere. It is one of 
 the squares that have been ; a quarter
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 of the town that lias 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-com- 
 pJexioned men who wear large rings, 
 and heavy watch-guards, and bushy 
 whiskers, and who congregate under 
 the Opera Colonnade, and about the 
 box-office in the season, between four 
 and five in the afternoon, when 
 they give away the orders, all live 
 in Golden Square, or within a street 
 of it Two or three violins and a 
 wind instrument from the Opera band 
 reside within its precincts. ' Its board- 
 ing-houses are musical, and the notes 
 of pianos and harps float in the even- 
 ing time round the head of the mourn- 
 ful statue, the guardian genius of a 
 little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre 
 of the square. On a summer's night, 
 windows are thrown open, and groups 
 of swarthy mustachioed men are seen 
 by the passer-by, lounging at the case- 
 ments, and smoking fearfully. Sounds 
 of gruff voices practising vocal music 
 invade the evening's silence; and the 
 fumes of choice tobacco scent the 
 air. There, snuff and cigars, and 
 German pipes and flutes, and violins 
 and violoncellos, divide the supremacy 
 between them. It is the region of 
 song and emoke. Street bands are on 
 their mettle in Golden Square ; and 
 itinerant glee-singers quaver involun- 
 tarily as they raise their voices within 
 its boundaries. 
 
 This would not seem a spot very 
 well adapted to the transaction of bu- 
 siness ; but Mr. Ralph Nickleby had 
 lived there, notwithstanding, for many 
 years, and uttered no complaint on 
 that score. He knew nobody round 
 about, and nobody knew him, although 
 he enjoyed the reputation of being 
 immensely rich. The tradesmen held 
 that he was a sort of lawyer, and the 
 other neighbours opined that he was a 
 kind of general agent ; both of which 
 guesses were as correct and definite as 
 guesses about other people's affairs 
 usually are, or need to be. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby sat in his pri- 
 
 vate office one morning, ready dressed 
 to walk abroad. He wore a bottle- 
 green spencer over a blue coat ; a 
 white waistcoat, grey mixture panta- 
 loons, and Wellington boots drawn 
 over them. The corner of a small- 
 plaited shirt frill struggled out, as if 
 insisting to show itself, from between 
 his chin and the top button of his 
 spencer; and the latter garment was 
 not made low enough to conceal a long 
 gold watch-chain, composed of a series 
 of plain rings, which had its beginning 
 at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr. 
 Nickleby's pocket, and its termination 
 in two little keys : one belonging to the 
 watch itself, and the other to some pa- 
 tent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of 
 powder upon his head, as if to make 
 himself look benevolent ; but if that 
 were his purpose, he would perhaps 
 have done better to powder his coun- 
 tenance also, for there was something 
 in its very wrinkles, and in his cold 
 restless eye, which seemed to tell of 
 cunning that would announce itself in 
 spite of him. However this might be, 
 there he was ; and as he was all alone, 
 neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, 
 nor the eyes, had the smallest effect, 
 good or bad, upon anybody just then, 
 and are consequently no business of 
 ours just now. 
 
 Mr. Nickleby closed an account- 
 book which lay on his desk, and, throw- 
 ing 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 au- 
 tumn when other trees shed theirs 
 and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, 
 all crackled and smoke-dried, till the 
 following season, when it repeats the 
 sftme process, and perhaps if the wea- 
 ther be particularly genial, even 
 tempts some rheumatic sparrow to 
 chirrup in its branches. People some- 
 times call these dark yards " gardens ;" 
 it is not supposed that they were ever
 
 B 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 planted, but rather that they are 
 pieces of unreclaimed laud, with the 
 withered vegetation of the original 
 brick-field. No man thinks of walking 
 in this desolate place, or of turning it 
 to any account. A few hampers, half- 
 a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like 
 rubbish, may be thrown there, when 
 the tenant first moves in, but nothing 
 more ; nmd there they remain until he 
 goes away again: the damp straw tak- 
 ing just as long to moulder as it thinks 
 proper: and mingling with the scanty 
 box, and stunted everbrowns, and 
 broken flower-pots, that are scattered 
 mournfully about a prey to " blacks" 
 and dirt. 
 
 It was into a place of this kind that 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat 
 with his hands in his pockets looking 
 out at 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 ob- 
 ject, but Mr. Nickleby was wrapt in 
 a brown study, and sat contemplating 
 it with far greater attention than, in 
 a more conscious mood, he would have 
 deigned to bestow upon the rarest 
 exotic. At length, his eyes wandered 
 to a little dirty window on the left, 
 through which the face of the clerk 
 was dimly visible ; that worthy 
 chancing to look up, he beckoned him 
 to attend. 
 
 In obedience to this summons the 
 clerk got off the high stool (to which 
 he had communicated a high polish 
 by countless gettings off and on), and 
 presented himself in Mr. Nickleby's 
 room. He was a tall man of middle- 
 age, with two goggle eyes whereof one 
 was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cada- 
 verous face, and a suit of clothes (if 
 the term be allowable when they suited 
 him not at all) much the worse for 
 wear, very much too small, and placed 
 upon such a short allowance of but- 
 tons that it was marvellous how he 
 contrived to keep them on. 
 
 " Was that half-past twelve, Noggs !" 
 said Mr. Nickleby, in a sharp and 
 grating voice. 
 
 " Not more than fivc-aud-twenty 
 minutes by the " Noggs was going to 
 add public-house clock, but recol- 
 lecting himself, substituted "regular 
 time." 
 
 " My watch has stopped," said Mr. 
 Nickleby; "I don't know from what 
 cause." 
 
 " Not wound up," said Noggs. 
 Yes it is," said Mr. Nickleby. 
 * Over-wound then," rejoined Noggs. 
 " That can't very well be," observed 
 Mr. Nickleby. 
 " Must be," said Noggs. 
 Well ! " said Mr. Nickleby, put- 
 ting the repeater back in his pocket ; 
 " perhaps it is." 
 
 Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was 
 his custom at the end of all disputes 
 with his master, to imply that he 
 (Noggs) triumphed ; and (as he rarely 
 spoke to anybody unless somebody 
 spoke to him) fell into a grim silence, 
 and rubbed his hands slowly over each 
 other: cracking the joints of his fingers, 
 and squeezing them into all possible 
 distortions. The incessant performance 
 of this routine on every occasion, and 
 the communication of a fixed and rigid 
 look to his unaffected eye, so as to 
 make it uniform with the other, and to 
 render it impossible for anybody to 
 determine where or at what he was 
 looking, were two among the numerous 
 peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which 
 struck an inexperienced observer at 
 first sight. 
 
 " I am going to the London Tavern 
 this morning," said Mr. Nickleby. 
 " Pubh'c meeting ? " inquired Noggs. 
 Mr. Nickleby nodded. " I expect a 
 letter from the solicitor respecting 
 that mortgage of Ruddle's. If it 
 comes at all, it will be here by the 
 two o'clock delivery. I shall leave 
 the city about that time and walk to 
 Charing-Cross on the left-hand side of 
 the way ; if there are any letters, come 
 and meet me, and bring them with 
 you." 
 
 Noggs nodded ; and as he nodded, 
 there came a ring at the office bell. 
 The master looked up from his papers, 
 and the clerk calmly remained in a 
 stationary position.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 " The bell," said Noggs, as though 
 in explanation. " At home 1 " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " To anybody 1 " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 "To the tax-gatherer!" 
 
 " No ! Let him call again." 
 
 Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, 
 as much as to say " I thought so ! " 
 and, the ring being repeated, went to 
 the door, whence he presently returned, 
 ushering in, by the name of Mr. Bon- 
 ney, a pale gentleman in a violent 
 hurry, who, with his hair standing up 
 in great disorder all over his head, and 
 a very narrow white cravat tied 
 loosely round his throat, looked as if 
 he had been knocked up in the night 
 and had not dressed himself since. 
 
 " My dear Nickleby," said the gen- 
 tleman, taking off a white hat which 
 was so full of papers that it would 
 scarcely stick upon his head, " there 's 
 not a moment to lose ; I have a cab 
 at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker 
 takes the chair, and three members of 
 Parliament are positively coming. I 
 have seen two of them safely out of 
 bed. The third, who was at Crock- 
 ford's all night, lias just gone home to 
 put a clean shirt on, and take a bottle 
 or two of soda water, and will cer- 
 tainly be with us, in time to address 
 the meeting. He is a little excited by 
 last night, but never mind that ; he 
 always speaks the stronger for it." 
 
 " It seems to promise pretty well," 
 said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, whose deli- 
 berate manner was strongly opposed 
 to the vivacity of the other man of bu- 
 siness. 
 
 " Pretty well ! " echoed Mr. Bonney. 
 " It 's the finest idea that was ever 
 started. ' United Metropolitan Im- 
 proved Hot Muffin and Crumpet 
 JLJaking, and Punctual Delivery Com- 
 pany. Capital, five millions, in five 
 hundred thousand shares of ten pounds 
 each.' Why the very name will get 
 the sliarcs 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. Bonuey, 
 slapping the capitalist familiarly on 
 the shoulder. " By the bye, what a 
 very remarkable man that clerk of 
 yours is." 
 
 " Yes, poor devil ! " replied Ralph, 
 drawing on his gloves. " Though 
 Newman Noggs kept his horses and 
 hounds once." 
 
 " Aye, aye ? " said the other care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Yes," continued Ralph, " and not 
 many years ago either ; but he squan- 
 dered 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 drink- 
 ing, and had a touch of paralysis, and 
 then, came here to borrow a pound, as 
 in his better days I had " 
 
 " Done business with him," said Mr. 
 Bonney with a meaning look. 
 
 " Just so," replied Ralph ; " I 
 couldn't lend it, you know." 
 
 " Oh, of course not." 
 
 " But as I wanted a clerk just then, 
 to open the door and so forth, I took 
 him out of charity, and he has re- 
 mained with me ever since. He is a 
 little mad, I think," said Mr. Nickleby, 
 calling up a charitable look, " but ho 
 is useful enough, poor creature use- 
 ful 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 men- 
 tion in his hasty chronicle, that his 
 eccentric taciturnity rendered him an 
 especially valuable person in a place 
 where much business was done, of 
 which it was desirable no mention 
 should be made out of doors. The 
 other gentleman was plainly impatient 
 to be gone, however, and as they 
 hurried into the hackney cabriolet 
 immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr. 
 Nickleby forgot to mention circum- 
 stances so unimportant. 
 
 There was iv great hustle in Bishops- 
 gate Street Within, a they drew up, 
 and (it being a windy day) half a 
 dozen men were tacking across tlio
 
 o 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 road under .1 press of paper, bearing 
 gigantic announcements that a Public 
 Meeting would be holden at one 
 o'clock precisely, to take into con- 
 sideration the propriety of petitioning 
 Parliament in favour of the United 
 Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin 
 and Crumpet Baking and Punctual 
 Delivery Company, capital five mil- 
 lions, 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 by Mr. Nickleby, dived 
 into a suite of apartments behind the 
 great public room : in the second of 
 which was a business-looking table, 
 and several business-looking people. 
 
 " Hear ! " cried a gentleman with a 
 double chin, as Mr. Bonney presented 
 himself. " Chair, gentlemen, chair ! " 
 The new comers were received with 
 universal approbation, and Mr. Bonney 
 bustled up to the top of the table, 
 took off" his hat, ran his fingers 
 through his hair, and knocked a hack- 
 ney-coachman's knock on the table 
 with a little hammer : whereat several 
 gentlemen cried " Hear ! " and nodded 
 slightly to each other, as much as to 
 say what spirited conduct that was. 
 Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish 
 with agitation, tore into the room, and 
 throwing the door open with a crash, 
 shouted " Sir Matthew Pupker ! " 
 
 The committee stood up and clapped 
 their hands for joy ; and while they 
 were clapping them, in came Sir 
 Matthew Pupker, attended by two 
 live members of Parliament, one Irish 
 and one Scotch, all smiling and bow- 
 ing, and looking so pleasant that it 
 seemed a perfect marvel how any man 
 could have the heart to vote against 
 them. Sir Matthew Pupker especi- 
 ally, who had a little round head with 
 a flaxen wig on the top of it, fell into 
 such a paroxysm of bows, that the 
 wig threatened to be jerked off, every 
 instant. When these symptoms had 
 in some degree subsided, the gentle- 
 
 men who were on speaking terms with 
 Sir Matthew Pupker, or the two other 
 members, crowded round them in 
 three little groups, near one or other 
 of which the gentlemen who were not 
 on speaking terms with Sir Matthew 
 Pupker or the two other members, 
 stood lingering, and smiling, and rub- 
 bing their hands, in the desperate 
 hope of something turning up which 
 might bring them into notice. All this 
 time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the 
 two other members were relating to 
 their separate circles what the inten- 
 tions of government were, about taking 
 up the bill ; with a full account of 
 what the government had said in a 
 whisper the last time they dined with 
 it, and how the government had been 
 observed to wink when it said so ; 
 from which premises they were at no 
 loss to draw the conclusion, that if the 
 government liad one object more at 
 heart than another, that one object 
 was the welfare and advantage of the 
 United Metropolitan Improved Hot 
 Muffin and Crumpet Baking and 
 Punctual Delivery Company. 
 
 Meanwhile, and pending the ar- 
 rangement of the proceedings, and a 
 fair division of the speechifying, the 
 public in the large room were eyeing, 
 by turns, the empty platform, and the 
 ladies in the Music Gallery. In these 
 amusements the greater portion of 
 them had been occupied for a couple 
 of hours before, and as the most agree- 
 able diversions pall upon the taste on 
 a too protracted enjoyment of them, 
 the sterner spirits now began to ham- 
 mer the floor with their boot-heels, 
 and to express their dissatisfaction 
 by various hoots and cries. These 
 vocal exertions, emanating from the 
 people who had been there longest, 
 naturally proceeded from those who 
 were nearest to the platform and 
 furthest from the policemen in attend- 
 ance, who having no great mind to 
 fight their way through the crowd, 
 but entertaining nevertheless a praise- 
 worthy desire to do something to quell 
 the disturbance, immediately began to 
 drag forth, by the coat tails and collars, 
 all the quiet people near the door ; at
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 the same time dealing out various 
 smart and tingling blows with their 
 truncheons, after the manner oi that 
 ingenious actor, Mr. Punch : whose 
 brilliant example, both in the fashion of 
 his weapons and their use, this branch 
 of the executive occasionally follows. 
 
 Several very exciting skirmishes 
 were in progress, when a loud shout 
 attracted the attention even of the 
 belligerents, and then there poured 
 on to the platform, from a door at the 
 side, a long line of gentlemen with 
 their hats off, all looking behind them, 
 and uttering vociferous cheers ; the 
 cause whereof was sufficiently ex- 
 plained when Sir Matthew Pupker 
 and the two other real members of 
 Parliament came to the front, amidst 
 deafening shouts, and testified to each 
 other in dumb motions that they had 
 never seen such a glorious sight as 
 that, in the whole course of 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 wlu'ch lasted 
 h' ve 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 honour- 
 able friends behind him, and lastly, 
 what must be the importance to the 
 wealth, the happiness, the comfort, the 
 liberty, the very existence of a free 
 and great people, of such an Institution 
 as the United Metropolitan Improved 
 Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and 
 Punctual Deli very Company ! 
 
 Mr. Bonney then presented himself 
 to move the first resolution ; and having 
 run his right hand through his hair, 
 and planted his left, in an easy manner, 
 in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the 
 care of the gentleman with the double 
 chin (who acted as a species of bottle- 
 holder to the orators generally), and 
 said he would read to them the first 
 resolution " That this meeting views 
 with alarm and apprehension, the 
 
 existing state of the Muffin Trade in 
 this Metropolis and its neighbourhood; 
 that it considers the Muffin Boys, as 
 at present constituted, wholly unde- 
 serving the confidence of the public ; 
 and that it deems the whole Muffin 
 system alike prejudicial to the health 
 and morals of the people, and subver- 
 sive of the best interests of a great 
 commercial and mercantile commu- 
 nity." The honourable gentleman 
 made a speech wliich drew tears from 
 the eyes of the ladies, and awakened 
 the liveliest emotions in every indi- 
 vidual present. He had visited the 
 houses of the poor in the various dis- 
 tricts of London, and had found them 
 destitute of the slightest vestige of a 
 muffin, which there appeared too 
 much reason to believe some of these 
 indigent persons did not taste from 
 year's end to year's end. He had 
 found that among muffin-sellers there 
 existed drunkenness, debauchery, and 
 profligacy, which he attributed to the 
 debasing nature of their employment 
 as at present exercised ; he had found 
 the same vices among the poorer class 
 of people who ought to be muffin con- 
 sumers ; and this he attributed to the 
 despair engendered by their being 
 placed beyond the reach of that nuti'i- 
 tious 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 combi- 
 nation to keep up the price of muffins, 
 and to give the bellmen a monopoly ; he 
 would prove it by bellmen at the bar of 
 that House ; and he would also prove, 
 that these men corresponded with each 
 other by secret words and signs, as 
 " Snooks," " Walker," " Ferguson," 
 " Is Murphy right ?" and many others. 
 It was this melancholy state of things 
 that the Company proposed to correct; 
 firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy 
 penalties, all private muffin trading 
 of every description ; secondly, by 
 themselves supplying the public gener- 
 ally, and the poor at their own homes, 
 with muffins of first quality at reduced 
 prices. It was with this object that a bill 
 had been introduced into Parliament
 
 10 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 by their patriotic chairman Sir Mat- 
 thew Pupker; it was this bill that 
 they had met to support ; it was the 
 supporters of this bill who would con- 
 fer undying brightness and splendour 
 upon England, under the name of the 
 United Metropolitan Improved Hot 
 Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punc- 
 tual Delivery Company ; he would add, 
 with a capital of Five Millions, in five 
 J i undred thousand shares of ten pounds 
 ea-ch. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby seconded the 
 resolution, and another gentleman 
 having moved that it be amended by 
 the insertion of the words " and crum- 
 pet" after the word " muffin," when- 
 ever it occurred, it was carried tri- 
 umphantly. Only one man in the 
 crow d cried " No ! " and he was 
 promptly taken into custody, and 
 strai htway borne off. 
 
 The second resolution, which recog- 
 nised the expediency of immediately 
 aboli sliing " all muffin (or crumpet) 
 sellers, all traders in muffins (or 
 crumpets) of whatsoever description, 
 whether male or female, boys or men, 
 rin ing hand-bells or otherwise," was 
 moved by a grievous gentleman of 
 semi-clerical appearance, who went at 
 once into such deep pathetics, that he 
 knocked the first speaker clean out of 
 the course in no time. You might 
 'have heard a pin fall a pin ! a feather 
 as he described the cruelties in- 
 flicted on muffin boys by their mas- 
 ters, which he very wisely urged were 
 in themselves a sufficient reason for 
 the establishment of that inestimable 
 company. It seemed that the un- 
 happy youths were nightly turned out 
 into the wet streets at the most incle- 
 ment periods of the year, to wander 
 about, in darkness and rain or it 
 might be hail or snow for hours to- 
 gether, without shelter, food, or 
 warmth ; and let the public never 
 forget upon the latter point, that while 
 the muffins were provided with warm 
 clothing and blankets, the boys were 
 wholly unprovided for, and left to their 
 own miserable resources. (Shame !) 
 The honourable gentleman related one 
 case of a muffin boy, who having been 
 
 exposed to this inhuman and barlnu 
 rous 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 lie could vouch 
 for, on his own authority, but he had 
 heard (and he had no reason to doubt 
 the fact) of a still more heart-rending 
 and appalling circumstance. He had 
 heard of the case of an orphan muffin 
 boy, who, having been run over by a 
 hackney carriage, had been removed 
 to the hospital, had undergone the 
 amputation of his leg below the knee, 
 and was now actually pursuing his 
 occupation on- crutches. Fountain of 
 justice, were these things to last ! 
 
 This was the department of the 
 subject that took the meeting, and 
 this was the style of speaking to enlist 
 their sympathies. The men shouted ; 
 the ladies wept into their pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs till they were moist, and 
 waved them till they were dry ; the 
 excitement was tremendous; and Mr. 
 Nickleby whispered his friend that the 
 shares were thenceforth at a premium, 
 of five-and-twenty per cent 
 
 The resolution was, of course, carried 
 with loud acclamations, every man 
 holding up both hands in favour of it, 
 as he would in his enthusiasm have 
 held up both legs also, if he could have 
 conveniently accomplished it This 
 done, the draft of the proposed petition 
 was read at length ; and the petition 
 said, as all petitions do say, that the 
 petitioners were very humble, and the 
 petitioned very honorable, and the 
 object very virtuous; therefore (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 consequence, came forward to 
 tell his fellow-countrymen what a 
 speech he meant to make in favour of 
 that petition whenever it should be 
 presented, and how desperately ho 
 meant to taunt the parliament if they
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 11 
 
 rejected the bill ; and to inform them 
 also, that he regretted his honorable 
 friends had not inserted a clause ren- 
 dering the purchase of muffins and 
 crumpets compulsory upon all classes 
 of the community, which he opposing 
 all half measures, and preferring to go 
 the extreme animal pledged himself 
 to propose and divide upon, in com- 
 mittee. After announcing this deter- 
 mination, the honorable gentleman 
 grew jocular ; and as patent boots, 
 lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur 
 coat collar, assist jokes materially, 
 there was immense laughter and much 
 cheering, and moreover such a brilliant 
 display of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, 
 as threw the grievous gentleman quite 
 into the shade. 
 
 And when the petition had been 
 read and was about to be adopted, 
 there came forward the Irish member 
 (who was a young gentleman of ardent 
 temperament,) with such a speech as 
 only an Irish member can make, 
 breathing the true soul and spirit of 
 poetry, and poured forth with such 
 fervour, that it made one warm to look 
 at him ; in the course whereof, he told 
 them how he would demand the ex- 
 tension of that great boon to his native 
 
 country ; how he would claim for her 
 equal rights in the muffin laws as in 
 all other laws ; and how he yet hoped 
 to see the day when crumpets should 
 be toasted in her lowly cabins, and 
 muffin bells should ring in her rich 
 green valleys. And, after him, came 
 the Scotch member, with various 
 pleasant allusions to the probable 
 amount of profits, which increased the 
 good humour that the poetry had 
 awakened; and all the speeches put 
 together did exactly what they were 
 intended to do, and established in the 
 hearers' minds that there was no specu- 
 lation so promising, or at the same 
 time so praiseworthy, as the United 
 Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and 
 Crumpet Baking and Punctual De- 
 livery Company. 
 
 So, the petition in favour of the bill 
 was agreed upon, and the meeting ad- 
 journed with acclamations, and Mr. 
 Nickleby and the other directors went 
 to the office to lunch, as they did every 
 day at half-past one o'clock ; and to 
 remunerate themselves for which 
 trouble, (as the company was yet in 
 its infancyj) 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 COMMUNICATED TO HIM. THE READER 
 IS INFORMED HOW HE LIKED NICHOLAS, WHO IS HEREIN INTRODUCED, 
 AND HOW KINDLY HE PROPOSED TO MAKE HIS FORTUNE AT ONCE. 
 
 HAVING rendered his zealous assist- 
 ance towards despatching the lunch, 
 with all that promptitude and energy 
 which are among the most important 
 qualities that men of business can pos- 
 sess, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a cordial 
 farewell of his fellow speculators, and 
 bent his steps westward in unwonted 
 good humour. 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 pursued his occupa- 
 tion. " The letter about the mortgage 
 has come, has it ? I thought it would." 
 
 " Wrong," replied Newman. 
 
 " What ! and nobody called respect- 
 ing it ? " inquired Mr. Nickleby, paus- 
 ing. Noggs shook his head. 
 
 " What has come, then 1 " inquired 
 Mr. Nickleby. 
 
 " I have," said Newman.
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " What else 1 " demanded the master, 
 sternly. 
 
 "Tliis," said Newman, drawing a 
 sealed letter slowly from his pocket 
 " Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black 
 border, woman's hand, C. N. in the 
 corner." 
 
 Black wax ?" said Mr. Nickleby, 
 glancing at the letter. " I know some- 
 thing of that hand, too. Newman, I 
 shouldn't be surprised if my brother 
 were dead." 
 
 ' I don't think you would," said 
 Newman, quietly. 
 
 " Why not, sir ? " demanded Mr. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 " You never are surprised," replied 
 Newman, " that 's all." 
 
 Mr. Nickleby snatched the letter 
 from his assistant, and fixing a cold 
 look upon him, opened, read it, put it 
 ia his pocket, and having now hit the 
 time to a second, began winding up his 
 watch. 
 
 " It is as I expected, Newman," said 
 Mr. Nickleby, while he was thus en- 
 gaged. " He ia 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," re- 
 plied 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, New- 
 man." 
 
 Newman fell a little behind his 
 master, and his face was curiously 
 twisted as by a spasm ; but whether of 
 paralysis, or grief, or inward laughter, 
 nobody but himself could possibly ex- 
 plain. The expression of a man's face 
 is commonly a help to his thoughts, or 
 glossary on his speech ; but the coun- 
 
 tenance of Newman Nojrgs, in his ordi- 
 nary moods, was a proljlem which no 
 stretch of ingenuity could solve. 
 
 " Go home ! " said Mr. Nickleby 
 after they had walked a few paces : 
 looking round at the clerk as if he were 
 his dog. The words were scarcely 
 uttered when Newman darted across 
 the road, slunk among the crowd, and 
 disappeared in an instant. 
 
 " Reasonable, certainly ! " muttered 
 Mr. Nickleby to himself, as he walked 
 on, " very reasonable ! My brother 
 never did anything for me, and I never 
 expected it ; the breath is no sooner 
 out of his body than I am to be looked 
 to, as the support of a great hearty 
 woman, and a grown boy and girl. 
 What are they to me ! / never saw 
 them." 
 
 Full of these, and many other reflec- 
 tions of a similar kind, Mr. Nickleby 
 made the best of his way to the Strand, 
 and, referring to his letter as if to ascer- 
 tain the number of the house he 
 wanted, stopped at a private door 
 about half-way down that crowded 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 A miniature painter lived there, for 
 there was a large gilt frame screwed 
 upon the street-door, in which were 
 displayed, upon a black velvet ground, 
 two portraits of naval dress coats with 
 faces looking out of them, and tele- 
 scopes attached; one of a young gentle- 
 man in a very vermilion uniform, 
 flourishing a sabre ; and one of a lite- 
 rary character with a high forehead, 
 a pen and ink, six books, and a cur- 
 tain. 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 fri- 
 volities with great contempt, and gave 
 a double knock, which, having been 
 thrice repeated was answered by a
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 13 
 
 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 cor- 
 rected, and demanded with much 
 asperity what she meant; wliich she 
 was about to state, when a female 
 voice, proceeding from a perpendicular 
 staircase at the end of the passage, in- 
 quired who was wanted. 
 
 " Mrs. Nickleby," said Ralph. 
 
 "It's the second floor, Hannah," 
 said the same voice ; " what a stupid 
 thing you are ! Is the second floor at 
 home i " 
 
 " 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 in- 
 visible female. " Show the gentleman 
 vhere the bell is, and tell him he 
 mustn't knock double knocks for the 
 second floor; I can't allow a knock 
 except when the bell 's broke, and then 
 it must be two single ones." 
 
 " Here," said Ralph, walking in 
 without more parley, " I beg your 
 pardon ; is that Mrs. La what 's-her- 
 name ? " 
 
 " Creevy La Creevy," replied the 
 voice, as a yellow head-dress bobbed 
 over the banisters. 
 
 " I '11 speak to you a moment, 
 ma'am, with your leave," said Ralph. 
 
 The voice replied that the gentleman 
 was to walk up ; but he had walked 
 up before it spoke, and stepping into 
 the first floor, was received by the 
 wearer of the yellow -head-dress, who 
 liad a gown to correspond, and was of 
 much the same colour herself. Miss 
 La Creevy was a mincing young lady 
 of fifty, and Miss La Crcevy's apart- 
 ment was the gilt frame down stairs on 
 a larger scale and something dirtier. 
 
 " Hem ! " said Miss La Creevy, 
 coughing delicately behind her black 
 silk mitten. " A miniature, I presume. 
 A very strongly-marked countenance 
 for the purpose, sir. Have you ever 
 Bat before I " 
 
 " 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 stall's, I wanted to ask a question 
 of you, about some lodgers here." 
 
 Miss La Creevy coughed once moi'e 
 this cough was to conceal her dis- 
 appointment and said, "Oh, in- 
 deed ! " 
 
 " 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 re- 
 plied. The upper part of the house 
 belonged to her, and as she had no 
 necessity for the second-floor rooms 
 just then, she was in the habit of 
 letting them. Indeed, there was a 
 lady from the country and her two 
 children in them, at that present 
 speaking. 
 
 " A widow, ma'am ? " said Ralph. 
 
 " Yes, she is a widow," replied the 
 lady. 
 
 " A poor widow, ma'am, " said 
 Ralph, with a powerful emphasis oil 
 that little adjective wliich 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 ? " 
 
 " Very true," replied Miss La Creevy, 
 not at all displeased with this implied 
 compliment to the apartments. " Ex- 
 ceedingly true." 
 
 " I know her circumstances inti- 
 mately, ma'am," said Ralph ; " in fact, 
 1 am a relation of the family ; and I 
 should recommend you not to keep 
 them here, ma'am." 
 
 " I should hope, if there was any in- 
 compatibility to meet the pecuniary 
 obligations," said Miss La Creevy with 
 another cough, " that the lady's family 
 would " 
 
 " No they wouldn't, ma'am," inter- 
 rupted Ralph, hastily. " Don't think 
 it." 
 
 " If I am to understand that ; "
 
 1! 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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, 1 believe I am 
 the only relation they have, and I 
 think it right that you should know / 
 can't support them in their extrava- 
 gances. 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 unbe- 
 coming a lady." 
 
 " Of course it was, ma'am," said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " And naturally," continued Miss 
 La Creevy, " I who am, at present 
 hem an unprotected female, cannot 
 afford to lose by the apartments." 
 
 " Of course you can't, ma'am," re- 
 plied Ralph. 
 
 " Though at the same time," added 
 Miss La Creevy who was plainly 
 wavering between her good-nature and 
 her interest, " I have nothing what- 
 ever to say against the lady, who is 
 extremely pleasant and affable, though, 
 poor thing, she seems terribly low in 
 her spirits ; nor against the young 
 people either, for nicer, or better- 
 behaved young people cannot be." 
 
 " Very well, ma'am," said Ralph, 
 turning to the door, for these enco- 
 miums on poverty irritated him ; "I 
 have done my duty, and perhaps more 
 than I ought : of course nobody will 
 thank me for saying what I have." 
 
 " I am sure / am very much obliged 
 to you at least, sir," said Miss La 
 Creevy in a gracious manner. " Would 
 you do me the favour to look at a few 
 specimens of my portrait painting 1 " 
 
 " 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 abruptly after him 
 to prevent any further conversation. 
 " Now for my sister-in-law. Bah ! " 
 
 Climbing up another perpendicular 
 flight, composed with great mechanical 
 ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby stopped to take 
 breath on the landing, when he was 
 overtaken by the handmaid, whom the 
 politeness of Miss La Creevy had 
 despatched to announce him, and who 
 had apparently been making a variety 
 of unsuccessful attempts since their 
 last interview, to wipe her dirty face 
 clean, upon an apron much dirtier. 
 
 " What name ? " said the girl. 
 
 " Nickleby," replied Ralph. 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Nickleby," said the 
 girl, throwing open the door, " here 's 
 Mr. Nickleby." 
 
 A lady in deep mourning rose as 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby entered, but ap- 
 peared 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- 
 favoured frown, "yon are Nicholas, I 
 suppose ! " 
 
 " That is my name, sir," replied the 
 youth. 
 
 " Put my hat down," said Ralph, 
 imperiously. " Well, ma'am, how do 
 you do ! You must bear up against 
 sorrow, ma'am ; /always do." 
 
 K Mine was no common loss ! " said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, applying her handker- 
 chief to her eyes. 
 
 " It was no wwcommon loss, ma'am," 
 returned Ralph, as he coolly unbut- 
 toned his spencer. " Husbands die 
 every day, ma'am, and wives too."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 " And brothers also, sir," said Nicho- 
 las, with a glance of indignation. 
 
 "Yes, sir, and puppies, and pug- 
 dogs likewise," replied his uncle, tak- 
 ing a chair. " You didn't mention in 
 your letter- what my brother's com- 
 plaint was, ma'am." 
 
 ** The doctors could attribute it 
 to no particular disease," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, shedding tears. " We have 
 too much reason to fear that he died of 
 a broken heart." 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Ralph, " there 's no 
 such tiling. I can understand a man's 
 dying of a broken neck, or suffering 
 from a broken arm, or a broken head, 
 or a broken leg, or a broken nose ; but 
 a broken heart! nonsense, it's the 
 cant of the day. If a man can 't pay 
 his debts, he dies of a broken heart, 
 and his widow 's a martyr." 
 
 " Some people, I believe, have no 
 hearts to break," observed Nicholas, 
 quietly. 
 
 " How old is this boy, for God's 
 sake ? " inquired Ralph, wheeling back 
 his chair, and surveying his nephew 
 from head to foot with intense scorn. 
 
 " Nicholas is very nearly nineteen," 
 replied the widow. 
 
 " Nineteen, eh ! " said Ralph, " and 
 what do you mean to do for your bread, 
 sir?" 
 
 u Not to live upon my mother," 
 replied Nicholas, his heart swelling as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " You'd have little enough to live 
 upon, if you did," retorted the uncle, 
 eyeing him contemptuously. 
 
 " Whatever it be," said Nicholas, 
 flushed with anger, " I shall not look 
 to you to make it more." 
 
 " Nicholas, my dear, recollect your- 
 self," remonstrated Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 "Dear Nicholas, pray," urged the 
 young lady. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, sir," said Ralph. 
 " Upon my word ! Fine beginnings, 
 Mrs. Nickleby fine beginnings !" 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby made no other reply 
 than entreating Nicholas by a gesture 
 to keep silent ; and the uncle and 
 nephew looked at each other for some 
 seconds without speaking. The face 
 of the old man w as btern, hard-featured 
 
 and forbidding ; that of the young one, 
 open, handsome, and ingenuous. The 
 old man's eye was keen with the twink- 
 lings of avarice and cunning ; the 
 young man's, bright with the light of 
 intelligence and spirit. His figure was 
 somewhat slight, but manly and well- 
 formed ; and apart from all the grace 
 of youth and comeliness, there was an 
 emanation from the warm young heart 
 in his look and bearing which kept the 
 old man down. 
 
 However striking such a contrast as 
 this may be to lookers-on, none ever 
 feel it with half the keenness or acute- 
 ness of perfection with which it strikes 
 to the very soul of him whose inferio- 
 rity it marks. It galled Ralph to tho 
 heart's core, and he hated Nicholas 
 from that hour. 
 
 The mutual inspection was at length 
 brought to a close by Ralph withdraw- 
 ing his eyes, with a great show of dis- 
 dain, and calling Nicholas " a boy." 
 This word is much used as a term of 
 reproach by elderly gentlemen towards 
 their juniors: probably with the view 
 of deluding society into the belief that 
 if they could be young again, they 
 wouldn't on any account. 
 
 " Well, ma'am," said Ralph, im- 
 patiently, " the creditors have adminis- 
 tered, 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 wisli that 
 I should appeal to you in their behalf." 
 
 " I don't know how it is," muttered 
 Ralph, walking up and down the room, 
 " but whenever a man dies without any 
 property of his own, he always seems 
 to think he has a right to dispose of 
 other people's. What is your daughter 
 fit for, ma'am ? " 
 
 " Kate has been well educated," 
 sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. "Tell your 
 uncle, my dear, how far you went in 
 French and extras."
 
 LTFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 The poor girl was about to murmur 
 something, when her uncle stopped 
 her, very unceremoniously. 
 
 " We must try and get you appren- 
 ticed at some hoarding-school," said 
 Ralph. " You have not been brought 
 up too delicately for that, I hope ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, uncle," replied the 
 weeping girl. " I will try to do any- 
 thing that will gain me a home and 
 bread." 
 
 "Well, well," said Ralph, a h'ttle 
 softened, either by his niece's beauty 
 or her distress (stretch a point, and 
 say the latter). " You must try it, 
 and if the life is too hard, perhaps 
 dress-making or tambour-work will 
 come lighter. Have you ever done any- 
 thing, sir ? " (turning to his nephew.) 
 
 " No," replied Nicholas, bluntly. 
 
 " No, I thought not ! " said Ralph. 
 " This is the way my brother brought 
 up his children, ma'am." 
 
 "Nicholas lias not long completed 
 such education as his poor father could 
 give him," rejoined Mrs. Nickleby, 
 * 4 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, inconsider- 
 ate man, Mrs. Nickleby, and nobody, I 
 am sure, can have better reason to feel 
 that, than you." 
 
 This appeal set the widow upon 
 thinking that perhaps she might have 
 made a more successful venture with 
 her one thousand pounds, and then she 
 began to reflect what a comfortable 
 Mini it would have been just then ; 
 which dismal thoughts made her tears 
 flow faster, and in the excess of 
 these griefs she (being a well-meaning 
 woman enough, but weak withal) fell 
 first to deploring her hard fate, and 
 then to remarking, with many sobs, 
 
 that to be sure she had been a slave to 
 poor Nicholas, and had often told him 
 she might have married better (as 
 indeed she liad, very often), and that 
 she never knew in his life-time how the 
 money went, but that if he had con- 
 fided in her they might all have been 
 better off that day ; with other bitter 
 recollections common to most married 
 ladies, either during their coverture, or 
 afterwards, or at both periods. Mrs. 
 Nickleby concluded by lamenting that 
 the dear departed had never deigned to 
 profit by her advice, save on one occa- 
 sion : which was a strictly veracious 
 statement, inasmuch as he had only 
 acted upon it once, and had ruined 
 himself in consequence. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby heard all this 
 with a half smile ; and when the 
 widow had finished, quietly took up 
 the subject where it had been left 
 before the above outbreak. 
 
 " Are you willing to work, sir ? " he 
 inquired, frowning on his nephew. 
 
 " Of course I am," replied Nicholas 
 haughtily. 
 
 " Then see here, sir," said his uncle. 
 "This caught my eye this morning, 
 and you may thank your stars for 
 it." 
 
 With this exordium, Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby took a newspaper from his 
 pocket, and after unfolding it, and 
 looking for a short time among the 
 advertisements, read as follows : 
 
 " 'EDUCATION. At Mr. Wackford 
 Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, 
 at the delightful village of Dotheboys, 
 near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, 
 Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, 
 furnished with pocket-money, provided 
 with all necessaries, instructed in 
 all languages living and dead, mathe- 
 matics, orthography, geometry, astro- 
 nomy, trigonometry, the use of tiie 
 globes, algebra, single stick (if re- 
 quired), writing, arithmetic, fortifica- 
 tion, 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 wwited.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 17 
 
 Annual salary 5. A Master of Arts 
 would be preferred." 
 
 "There!" said Ralph, folding tha 
 paper again. "Let him get that situ- 
 ation, and his fortune is made." 
 
 " But he is not a Master of Arts," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 "That," replied Ralph, "that I 
 think, can be got over." 
 
 " But the salary is so small, and it 
 is such a long way off, uncle ! " fal- 
 tered Kate. 
 
 " Hush, Kate my dear," interposed 
 Mrs. Nickleby; "your uncle must 
 know best." 
 
 " I say," repeated Ralph, tartly, " let 
 him get that situation, and his fortune 
 is made. If he don't like that, let him 
 get one for himself. Without friends, 
 money, recommendation, or know- 
 ledge of business of any kind, let him 
 find honest employment in London 
 which will keep him in shoe leather, 
 and I '11 give him a thousand pounds. 
 At least," said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, 
 checking himself, " I would, if I 
 had it" 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said the young 
 lady. " Oh ! uncle, must we be sepa- 
 rated so soon ! " 
 
 " Don't teaze your uncle with ques- 
 tions when he is thinking only for our 
 good, my love," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " Nicholas, my dear, I wish you would 
 say something." 
 
 " Yes, mofiier, yes," said Nicholas, 
 who had hitherto remained silent and 
 absorbed in thought. " If I am for- 
 tunate enough to be appointed to this 
 post, sir, for which I am so imper- 
 fectly qualified, what will become of 
 those I leave behind ? " 
 
 " Your mother and sister, sir," re- 
 plied Ralph, " will be provided for, hi 
 that case (not otherwise), by me, and 
 placed in some sphere of life in which 
 they will be able to be independent. 
 That will be my immediate care ; they 
 will not remain as they are, one week 
 after your departure, I will undertake." 
 
 " Then," said Nicholas, starting gaily 
 up, and wringing his uncle's hand, 
 " I am ready to do anything you wish 
 me. Let us try our fortune with Mr. 
 Squeers at once ; he can but refuse." 
 
 No. 33. 
 
 "He won't do that," said Ralph. 
 " He will be glad to have you on my 
 recommendation. Make yourself of 
 use to him, and you'll rise to be a 
 partner in the establishment in no time. 
 Bless me, only think ! if he were to die, 
 why your fortune 's made at once." 
 
 " To be sure, I see it all," said poor 
 Nicholas, delighted with a thousand 
 visionary ideas, that his good spirits 
 and his inexperience were conjuring 
 up before him. " Or suppose some 
 young nobleman who is being educated 
 at the Hall, were to take a fancy to 
 me, and get his father to appoint me 
 his travelling tutor when he left, and 
 when we come back from the continent, 
 procured me some handsome appoint- 
 ment. Eh ! uncle ? " 
 
 " Ah, to be sure ! " sneered Ralph. 
 
 " And who knows, but when he came 
 to see me when I was settled (as he 
 would of course), he might fall in love 
 with Kate, who would be keeping my 
 house, and and marry her, eh! 
 uncle 1 Who knows ? " 
 
 " Who, indeed ! " snarled Ralph. 
 
 " How happy we should be ! " cried 
 Nicholas with enthusiasm. " The pain 
 of parting is nothing to the joy of 
 meeting again. Kate will be a beau- 
 tiful woman, and I so proud to hear 
 them say so, and mother so happy to 
 be with us once again, and all these 
 sad times forgotten, and " The pic- 
 ture 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 con- 
 ventional phrase which, being inter- 
 preted, often signifieth all the rascals 
 in it mingled their tears together at 
 the thought of their first separation ; 
 and, this first gush of feeling over, were 
 proceeding to dilate with all the buoy- 
 ancy of untried hope on the bright 
 prospects before them, when Mr. 
 Ralph Nickleby suggested, that if they 
 lost time, some more fortunate can- 
 didate might deprive Nicholas of the 
 stepping-stone to fortune which the 
 advertisement pointed out, and so un- 
 dermine all their air-built castles. Thr
 
 18 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 timely reminder effectually stopped 
 the conversation. Nicholas, having 
 carefully copied the address of Mr. 
 Squeers, the uncle and nephew issued 
 forth together in quest of that accom- 
 plished gentleman ; Nicholas firmly 
 persuading himself that he had done 
 his relative great injustice in disliking 
 him at first sight ; and Mrs. Nickleby 
 being at some pains to inform her 
 daughter that she was sure he was 
 a much more kindly disposed person 
 than he seemed : which, Miss Nickleby 
 dutifully remarked, he might very 
 easily be. 
 
 To tell the truth, the good lady's 
 
 opinion had been not a little influenced 
 by her brother-in-law's appeal to her 
 better understanding, and his implied 
 compliment to her high deserts ; and 
 although she had dearly loved her 
 husband, and still doted on her chil- 
 dren, he had struck so successfully 
 on one of those little jarring chords in 
 the human heart (Ralph was well ac- 
 quainted 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 IV. 
 
 
 MCHOLAS AND HIS UNCLE (TO SECURE THE FORTUNE WITHOUT LOSS OF TIME) 
 WAIT UPON MR. WACKFORD SQUEERS, THE YORKSHIRE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 SNOW HILL ! What kind of place 
 can the quiet town's-people who see 
 the words emblazoned, in all the legi- 
 bility of gilt letters and dark shading, 
 on the north-country coaches, take 
 Snow Hill to be ? All people have 
 some undefined and shadowy notion of 
 a place whose name is frequently before 
 their eyes, or often in their ears. 
 What a vast number of random ideas 
 there must be perpetually floating 
 about, regarding this same Snow Hill. 
 The name is such a good one. Snow 
 Hill Snow Hill too, coupled with a 
 Saracen's Head : picturing to us by a 
 double association of ideas, something 
 stern and rugged ! A bleak desolate 
 tract of country, open to piercing 
 blasts and fierce wintry storms a 
 dark, cold, gloomy heath, lonely by 
 day, and scarcely to be thought of 
 by honest folks at night a place which 
 solitary wayfarers shun, and where 
 desperate robbers congregate ; this, 
 or something like this, should be 
 the prevalent notion of Snow Hill, in 
 those remote and rustic parts, through 
 which the Saracen's Head, like 
 Kome grim apparition, rushes each 
 day and night with mysterious and 
 
 ghost-like punctuality ; holding its 
 swift and headlong course in all wea- 
 thers, and seeming to bid defiance to 
 the very elements themselves. 
 
 The reality is rather different, but 
 by no means to be despised notwith- 
 standing. 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 totter- 
 ing houses upon the very spot on 
 which the venders of soup and fish 
 and damaged fruit are now plying 
 their trades scores of human beings, 
 amidst a roar of sounds to which even 
 the tumult of a great city is as nothing, 
 four, six, or eight strong men at a time, 
 have been hurried violently and swiftly 
 from the world, when the scene has 
 been rendered frightful with excess of 
 human life ; when curious eyes have 
 glared from casement, and house-top, 
 and wall and pillar ; and when, in the 
 mass of white and upturned faces, the
 
 NICHOLAS NIOKLBBT. 
 
 19 
 
 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 Comp- 
 ter, and the bustle and noise of the 
 city ; and just on that particular part 
 of Snow Hill where omnibus horses 
 going eastward seriously think of fall- 
 ing down on purpose, and where horses 
 in hackney cabriolets going west- 
 ward not unfrequently fall by acci- 
 dent , is the coach-yard of the Saracen's- 
 1 1 rail Inn ; its portal guarded by two 
 Saracens' heads and shoulders, which 
 it was once the pride and glory of the 
 choice spirits of this metropolis to 
 pull down at night, but which have for 
 some time remained in undisturbed 
 tranquillity ; possibly because this spe- 
 cies of humour is now confined to Saint 
 James's parish, where door knockers 
 are preferred as being more portable, 
 and bell-wires esteemed as convenient 
 tooth-picks. Whether this be the 
 reason or not, there they are, frown- 
 ing upon you from each side of the 
 gateway. The inn itself, garnished 
 with another Saracen's Head, frowns 
 upon you from the top of the yard ; 
 while from the door of the hind boot 
 of all the red coaches that are stand- 
 ing therein, there glares a small Sara- 
 cen's Head, with a twin expression to 
 the large Saracens' Heads below, so 
 that the general appearance of the pile 
 is decidedly of the Saracenic order. 
 
 When you walk up this yard, you 
 will see the booking-office on your left, 
 and the tower of 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 words " coffee-room " legibly 
 painted above it ; and, looking out of 
 that window, you would have seen in 
 addition, if you had gone at the right 
 time, Mr. Wackford Squeers with his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 Mr. Squeers's appearance was not 
 prepossessing. He had but one eye, 
 and the popular prejudice runs in 
 favour of two. The eye he had, was 
 
 unquestionably useful, but decidedly 
 not ornamental : being of a greenish 
 grey, and in shape resembling the fan- 
 light of a street door. The blank side 
 of his face was much wrinkled and 
 puckered up, which gave him a very 
 sinister appearance, especially when 
 he smiled, at which times his expression 
 bordered closely on the villanous. 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 end?, 
 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 a perpe- 
 tual 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 shoul- 
 ders 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 appre- 
 hension. 
 
 " 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 anything he 
 could beat him for. As he happened not 
 to be doing anything at all, he merely 
 boxed his ears, and told him not to do 
 it again. 
 
 " At Midsummer," muttered Mr. 
 Squeers, resuming his complaint, "f 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 took down ten boys ; ten twentys is 
 two hundred pound. I go back at 
 eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and 
 have got only three three oughts is an 
 ought three twos is six sixty pound. 
 What 's come of all the boys ? what 's 
 parents got in their heads ? what does 
 it all mean '. " 
 
 Here the little boy on the top of the 
 trunk gave a violent sneeze. 
 
 " Halloa, sir !"growled the school-mas- 
 ter, turning round. " What 's that, sir ? " 
 
 " Nothing, please sir," replied the 
 little boy. 
 
 " Nothing, sir ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Please sir, I sneezed," rejoined the 
 boy, trembling till the little trunk 
 shook under him. 
 
 " Oh ! sneezed, did you 1 " retorted 
 Mr. Squeers. " Then what did you 
 say < nothing ' for, sir ? " 
 
 In default of a better answer to this 
 question, the little boy screwed a 
 couple of knuckles into each of his 
 eyes and began to cry, wherefore Mr. 
 Squeers knocked him off the trunk 
 with a blow on one side of his face, 
 and knocked him on again with a blow 
 on the other. 
 
 " Wait till I get you down into 
 Yorkshire, my young gentleman," said 
 Mr. Squeers, " and then I '11 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 emotions. 
 
 "Mr. Squeers," said the waiter, 
 looking in at this juncture ; "here's a 
 gentleman asking for you at the bar." 
 
 " Show the gentleman in, Richard," 
 replied Mr. Squeers, in a soft voice. 
 "Put your handkerchief in your 
 pocket, you little scoundrel, or I'll 
 murder you when the gentleman goes." 
 
 The schoolmaster had scarcely ut- 
 tered 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 youth- 
 ful pupil. 
 
 " My dear child," said Mr. Squeers, 
 "all people have their trials. Thia 
 early trial of yours that is fit to make 
 your little heart burst, and your very 
 eyes come out of your head with cry- 
 ing, what is it ! Nothing ; less than 
 nothing. You are leaving your friends, 
 but you will have a father in me, my 
 dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeere. 
 At the delightful village of Dotheboys, 
 near Greta Bridge hi 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 sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " The gentleman," said the stranger, 
 "that advertised in the Tunes news- 
 paper ? " 
 
 "Morning Post, Chronicle, He- 
 rald, and Advertiser, regarding the 
 Academy called Dotbeboys Hall at the 
 delightful village of Dotheboys, near 
 Greta Bridge in Yorkshire," added 
 Mr. Squeers. " You come on busi- 
 ness, 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 fur- 
 ther communications. 
 
 " I am in the oil and colour way. 
 My name is Snawley, sir," said the 
 stranger. 
 
 Squeers inclined his head as much 
 as to say, " And a remarkably pretty 
 name, too." 
 
 The stranger continued. " I have 
 been thinking, Mr. Squeers, of placing 
 my two boys at your school." 
 " It is not for me to say so, : sir,"
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 21 
 
 replied Mr.Squeers, " but I don't think 
 vou could possibly do a better thing." 
 
 " Hem ! " said the other. " Twenty 
 I omuls per annewum, I believe, Mr. 
 Squeers." 
 
 " Guineas," rejoined the schoolmas- 
 ter, with a persuasive smile. 
 
 " Pounds for two, I think, Mr. 
 Squeere," said Mr. Snawley, solemnly. 
 
 " I don't think it could be done, sir," 
 replied Squeers, as if he had never 
 considered the proposition before. 
 "Let me see ; four fives is twenty, 
 double that, and deduct the well, a 
 pound either way shall not stand be- 
 twixt us. You must recommend me 
 to your connection, sir, and make it up 
 that way." 
 
 " They are not great eaters," said 
 Mr. Snawley. 
 
 " Oh ! that doesn't matter at all," 
 replied Squeers. " We don't consider 
 the boys' appetites at our establish- 
 ment." This was strictly true ; they 
 did not. 
 
 " Every wholesome luxury, sir, that 
 Yorkshire can afford," continued 
 Squeere ; " every beautiful moral that 
 Mrs. Squeere can instil ; every in 
 short, every comfort of a home that 
 a boy could wish for, will be theirs, 
 Mr. Snawley." 
 
 * I should wish their morals to be 
 particularly attended to," said Mr. 
 Snawley. 
 
 " I am glad of that, sir," replied 
 the schoolmaster, drawing himself up. 
 "They have come to the right shop 
 for morals, sir." 
 
 " You are a moral man yourself," 
 said Mr. Snawley. 
 
 " I rather believe I am, sir," replied 
 Squeere. 
 
 "I have the satisfaction to know 
 you are, sir," said Mr. Snawley. " I 
 asked one of your references, and he 
 said you were pious." 
 
 " Well, sir, I hope I am a little in 
 that line," replied Squeere. 
 
 "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 
 epeak 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 extraordi 
 nary natural curiosity. 
 
 " He goes down with me to-morrow, 
 sir," said Squeere. " That 's his lug- 
 gage that he is a sitting upon now. Each 
 boy is required to bring, sir, two suits 
 of clothes, six shirts, six pair of stock- 
 ings, two nightcaps, two pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs, two pair of shoes, two hats, 
 and a razor." 
 
 " A razor ! " exclaimed Mr. Snaw- 
 ley, as they walked into the next box. 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " To shave with," replied Squeers, 
 in a slow and measured tone. 
 
 There was not much in these three 
 words, but there must have been some- 
 thing in the manner in which they 
 were said, to attract attention ; for the 
 schoolmaster and his companion looked 
 steadily at each other for a few seconds, 
 and then exchanged a very meaning 
 smile. Snawley was a sleek, flat-nosed 
 man, clad in sombre garments, and 
 long black gaiters, and bearing in his 
 countenance an expression of much 
 mortification and sanctity ; so, his 
 smiling without any obvious reason was 
 the more remarkable. 
 
 " Up to what age do you keep boys 
 at your school then!" he asked at 
 length. 
 
 " Just as long as their friends make 
 the quarterly payments to my agent in 
 town, or until such time as they run 
 away," replied Squeere. "Let us 
 understand each other ; I see we may 
 safely do so. What are these boys ; 
 natural children ? " 
 
 " No," rejoined Snawley, meeting 
 the gaze of the schoolmaster's one eye. 
 They an't." 
 
 "I thought they might be," said 
 Squeers, coolly. " We have a good 
 many of them ; that boy 's one." 
 
 " Him in the next box } " said 
 Snawley. 
 
 Squeers nodded in the affirmative ; 
 his companion took another peep at 
 the little boy on the trunk, and turning
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 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 1 " 
 
 " Yes," replied Snawley. The 
 fact is, I am not their father, Mr. 
 Squeers. I 'm only their father-in- 
 law." 
 
 " Oh ! Is that it ? " said the school- 
 master. " That explains it at once. 
 I was wondering what the devil you 
 were going to send them to Yorkshire 
 for. Ha ! ha ! Oh, I understand now." 
 
 " You see I have married the 
 mother," pursued Snawley ; " it 's ex- 
 pensive 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." 
 
 "/see," returned Squeers, throwing 
 himself back in his chair, and waving 
 his hand. 
 
 " And this," resumed Snawley, "has 
 made me anxious to put them to some 
 school a good distance off, where there 
 are no holidays none of those ill- 
 judged 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, nod- 
 ding his bead. 
 
 " That 's it, exactly," rejoined the 
 other. " Morals strictly attended to, 
 though." 
 
 " Strictly," said Squeers. 
 " Not too much writing home al- 
 lowed, I suppose \ " said the father- 
 in-law, hesitating. 
 
 " None, except a circular at Christ- 
 mas, to say they never were so 
 happy, and hope they may never be 
 sent for," rejoined Squeers. 
 
 " Nothing could be better," said the 
 father-in-law, rubbing his hands. 
 
 " Then, as we understand each 
 other," said Squeers, " will you allow 
 me to a^k 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 unim- 
 peachable integrity, liberality, religious- 
 principles, and ability 1 " 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " Not the least in the world." 
 , " That 's your sort ! " said Squeers, 
 taking up a pen ; " this is doing busi- 
 ness, and that's what I like." 
 
 Having entered Mr. Snawley's ad- 
 dress, 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 school- 
 master ; " what is it ? " 
 
 " Only a matter of business, sir,'* 
 said Ralph Nickleby, presenting him- 
 ' self, closely followed by Nicholas. 
 j " There was an advertisement of yours 
 ! in the papers this morning ? " 
 
 " There was, sir. This way, if you 
 please," said Squeers, who had by this 
 ' time got back to the box by the fire- 
 place. " Won't you be seated ! " 
 
 " Why, I think I will," replied 
 Ralph, suiting the action to the word, 
 and placing his hat on the table before 
 him. " This is my nephew, sir, Mr. 
 Nicholas Nickleby." 
 
 " How do you do, sir ? " said Squeers. 
 
 Nicholas bowed, said he was very 
 well, and seemed very much astonished 
 at the outward appearance of the pro- 
 prietor of Dotheboys Hall : as indeed 
 he was. 
 
 " Perhaps you recollect me ? " said 
 Ralph, looking narrowly at the school- 
 master. 
 
 " You paid me a small account at 
 each of my half-yearly visits to town, 
 for some years, I think, sir," replied 
 Squeers. 
 
 " I did," rejoined Ralph. 
 
 " For the parents of a boy named 
 Dorker, who unfortunately "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLKBY. 
 
 23 
 
 * unfortunately died at Dotheboys 
 Hall," said Ralph, finishing the sen- 
 tence. 
 
 " I remember very well, sir," re- 
 joined Squeers. " Ah ! Mrs. Squeers, 
 sir, was as partial to that lad as if he 
 had been her own ; the attention, sir, 
 that was bestowed upon that boy in his 
 illness ! Dry toast and warm tea offered 
 im every night and morning when he 
 couldn't swallow anything 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, point- 
 ing to the little boy on the trunk and 
 the two little boys on the floor, who 
 had been staring at each other with- 
 out 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 delightful village of Dotheboys, 
 near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, 
 where youth are boarded, clothed, 
 booked, washed, furnished with pocket- 
 money " 
 
 " Yes, we know all about that, sir," 
 interrupted Ralph, testily. " It 's in 
 the advertisement." 
 
 " You are very right, sir; it is in 
 the advertisement," replied Squeers. 
 
 " And in the matter of fact besides," 
 interrupted Mr. Snawley. " I feel 
 bound to assure you, sir, and I am 
 proud to have this opportunity of as- 
 suring you, that I consider Mr. Squeers 
 a gentleman highly virtuous, exem- 
 plary, well-conducted, and " 
 
 " I make no doubt of it, sir," inter- 
 rupted Ralph, checking the torrent of 
 recommendation ; " no doubt of it at 
 ail. Suppose we come to business ? " 
 
 " With all my heart, sir," rejoined 
 Squeers. " ' Never postpone business,' 
 
 is the very first lesson we instil into 
 our commercial pupils. Master Bel- 
 ling, my dear, always remember that ; 
 do you hear \ " 
 
 " Yes, sir," repeated Master Bel- 
 ling. 
 
 " He recollects what it is, does he ?" 
 said Ralph. 
 
 " Tell the gentleman," said Squeers. 
 " ' Never,' " repeated Master Belling. 
 " Very good," said Squeers ; " go 
 on." 
 
 " Never," repeated Master Belling 
 again. 
 
 " Very good indeed," said Squeers. 
 Yes." 
 
 " P," suggested Nicholas, good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 " Perform business ! " said Master 
 Belling. " Never perform busi- 
 ness ! " 
 
 "Very well, sir," said Squeers, 
 darting a withering look at the culprit. 
 " You and I will perform a little busi- 
 ness on our private account by and 
 bye." 
 
 " 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 ad- 
 vertised for an able assistant, sir 1 " 
 " Precisely so," said Squeers. 
 " And you really want one ? " 
 " Certainly," answered Squeers. 
 " Here he is ! " said Ralph. " My 
 nephew Nicholas, hot from school, 
 with everything he learnt there, fer- 
 menting in his head, and nothing fer- 
 menting in his pocket, is just the man 
 you want." 
 
 " I am afraid," said Squeers, per- 
 plexed with such an application from 
 a youth of Nicholas's figure, " I am 
 afraid the young man won't suit me." 
 "Yes, he will," said Ralph; "I 
 know better. Don't be cast down, 
 sir ; you will be teaching all the young 
 noblemen in Dotheboys Hall in less 
 than a week's time, unless this gentle- 
 man is more obstinate than I take him 
 to be." 
 
 " I fear, sir," said Nicholas, address- 
 , ing Mr. Squeers, " that you object to
 
 24 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 my youth, and to my not being a Master 
 of Arts I " 
 
 u The absence of a college degree is 
 an objection," replied Squeers, look- 
 ing as grave as he could, and consider- 
 ably 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 youngnoblemen under his tuition. 
 
 " Look here, sir," said Ralph ; ** I '11 
 put this matter in its true light in two 
 seconds." 
 
 " If you "11 have the goodness," re- 
 joined 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 1 see," observed the school- 
 master. 
 
 "So do I," said Mr. Snawley, think- 
 ing it as well to back his new friend 
 occasionally. 
 
 " His father is dead, he is wholly ig- 
 norant 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 ac- 
 count. Do you see that ! " 
 
 " Everybody must see that," replied 
 Squeers, half imitating the sneer with 
 which the old gentleman was regard- 
 ng his unconscious relative. 
 
 " I do, of course," said Nicholas, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " He does, of course, you observe," 
 said Ralph, in the same dry, hard 
 manner. " If any caprice of temper 
 should induce him to cast aside this 
 golden opportunity before he has 
 brought it to perfection, I consider 
 myself absolved from extending any 
 assistance to his mother and sister. 
 Look at him, and think of the use he 
 may be to you in half a dozen ways ! 
 Now, the question is, whether, for some 
 time to come at all events, he won't 
 serve your purpose better than twenty 
 of the kind of people you would get 
 under ordinary circumstances. Isn't 
 that a question for consideration ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is," said Squeers, answer- 
 ing a nod of Ralph's head with a nod 
 of his own. 
 
 " Good," rejoined Ralph. K Let me 
 have two words with you." 
 
 The two words were had apart ; 
 in a couple of minutes Mr. Wackford 
 Squeers announced that Mr. Nicholas 
 Nickleby was, from that moment, tho- 
 roughly nominated to, and installed in, 
 the office of first assistant master at 
 Dotheboys HaU. 
 
 " Your uncle's recommendation has 
 done it, Mr. Nickleby," said Wack- 
 ford Squeers. 
 
 Nicholas, overjoyed at his success, 
 shook his uncle's hand warmly, and 
 could almost have worshipped Squeers 
 upon the spot 
 
 " He is an odd-looking man," thought 
 Nicholas. " What of that ? Person 
 was an odd-looking man, and so was 
 Doctor Johnson ; all these bookworms 
 are." 
 
 " At eight o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing, 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 '11 
 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. u I can 
 easily inquire."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 25 
 
 *' Leave these papers with my clerk, 
 then," said Ralph, producing a small 
 parcel, "and tell him to wait till I 
 come home." 
 
 Nicholas cheerfully undertook the 
 errand, and bidding his worthy uncle 
 au affectionate farewell, which that 
 warm-hearted old gentleman acknow- 
 ledged by a growl, hastened away to 
 execute his commission. 
 
 He found Golden Square in due 
 course ; Mr. Noggs, who had stepped 
 out for a minute or so to the 
 public-house, was opening the door 
 with a latch-key as he reached the 
 steps. 
 
 " What 's that ? " inquired Noggs, 
 pointing to the parcel. 
 
 " Papers from my uncle," replied 
 Nicholas ; " and you.'re to have the 
 goodness to wait till he comes home, 
 if you please." 
 
 " Uncle ! " cried Noggs. 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby," said Nicholas in 
 explanation. 
 
 " Come in," said Newman. 
 
 Without another word he led 
 Nicholas into the passage, and thence 
 into the official pantry at the end of 
 it, where he thrust him into a chair, 
 and mounting upon his high stool, sat, 
 with his arms hanging straight down 
 by his sides, gazing fixedly upon him, 
 as from a tower of observation. 
 
 " There is no answer," said 
 Nicholas, laying the parcel on a table 
 beside him. 
 
 Newman said nothing, but folding 
 his arms, and thrusting hie head for- 
 ward so as to obtain a nearer view 
 of Nicholas's face, scanned his fea- 
 tures closely. 
 
 " No answer," said Nicholas, speak- 
 ing very loud, under the impression 
 that Newman Noggs was deaf. 
 
 Newman placed his hands upon his 
 knees, and, without uttering a syllable, 
 continued the same close scrutiny of 
 his companion's face. 
 
 This was such a very singular 
 proceeding on the part of an utter 
 .-tfanger, and his appearance was so 
 extremely peculiar, that Nicholas, 
 who had a sufficiently keen sense of 
 
 the ridiculous, could not refrain from 
 breaking into a smile as he inquired 
 whether Mr. Noggs had any commands 
 for him. 
 
 Noggs shook his head and sighed ; 
 upon which Nicholas rose, and re- 
 marking that he required no rest, bade 
 him good morning. 
 
 It was a great exertion for Newman 
 Noggs, and nobody knows to this day 
 how he ever came to make it, the 
 other party being wholly unknown to 
 him, but he drew a long breath and 
 actually said, out loud, without once 
 stopping, that if the young gentleman 
 did not object to tell, he should like 
 to know what his uncle was going to 
 do for him. 
 
 Nicholas had not the least objection 
 in the world, but on the contrary was 
 rather pleased to have an opportunity 
 of talking on the subject which occu- 
 pied his thoughts ; so, he sat down 
 again, and (his sanguine imagination 
 warming as he spoke) entered into a 
 fervent and glowing description of all 
 the honours and advantages to be 
 derived from his appointment at that 
 seat of learning, Dotheboys Hall. 
 
 " But, what 's the matter are you 
 ill ? " said Nicholas, suddenly break- 
 ing off, as his companion, after throw- 
 ing 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 hor- 
 ribly all the time, and looking sted- 
 fastly at nothing, out of the tops of 
 his eyes, in a most ghastly manner. 
 
 At first, Nicholas thought the mys- 
 terious man was in a fit, but, on fur- 
 ther consideration, decided that he was 
 in liquor, under which circumstances 
 he deemed it prudent to make off at 
 once. He looked back when he had 
 got the street-door open. Newman 
 Noggs was still indulging in the same 
 extraordinary gestures, and the crack- 
 ing of his fingers sounded louder than
 
 26 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 NICHOLAS STARTS FOE YORKSHIRE. OP HIS J.EAVE-TAKING AND HIS FELLOW- 
 TRAVELLERS, AXD WHAT BEFEL THEM ON THE ROAD. 
 
 which, for things that are changed or 
 gone will come back as they used to 
 be, thank God ! in sleep and rose 
 quite brisk and gay. He wrote a few 
 linos in pencil, to say the good bye 
 which he was afraid to pronounce 
 himself, and laying them, with half his 
 scanty stock of money, at his sister's 
 door, shouldered his box and crept 
 softly down stairs. 
 
 " Is that you, Hannah 1 " cried a 
 voice from Miss La Creevy's sitting- 
 room, whence shone the light of a 
 feeble candle. 
 
 "It is I, Miss La Creevy," said 
 Nicholas, putting down the box and 
 looking in. 
 
 " Bless us ! " exclaimed Miss La 
 Creevy, starting and putting her hand 
 to her curl-papers ; " You 're up very 
 early, Mr. Nickleby." 
 
 u 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 grand- 
 mother in the country, who was ex- 
 pected to bequeath him property if he 
 was like the family. 
 
 "To carry out an idea," repeated 
 Miss La Creevy ; " and that 's the great 
 convenience of living in a thorough- 
 fare 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 & nose, 
 now ! " inquired Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 " Why, that depends in a great 
 measure on the pattern," replied Miss 
 La Creevy. " Snubs and romans are 
 plentiful enough, and there are flats of 
 all sorts and sizes when there's a 
 meeting at Exeter Hall ; but perfect 
 aquilincs, I am sorry to say, an 
 
 IF tears dropped into a trunk were ] 
 charms to preserve its owner from 
 sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas 
 Nickleby would have commenced his 
 expedition under most happy auspices. 
 There was so much to be done, and so 
 little time to do it in ; so many kind 
 words to be spoken, and such bitter 
 pain in the hearts in which they rose 
 to impede their utterance ; that the ' 
 little preparations for his journey were 
 made mournfully indeed. A hundred 
 things which the anxious care of his 
 mother and sister deemed indispens- 
 able for his comfort, Nicholas insisted 
 on leaving behind, as they might prove 
 of some after use, or might be con- 
 vertible into money if occasion re- 
 quired. A hundred affectionate con- 
 tests on such pouits as these, took 
 place on the sad night which preceded 
 his departure ; and, as the termination 
 of every angerless dispute brought 
 them nearer and nearer to the close 
 of their slight preparations, Kate grew 
 busier and busier, and wept more 
 silently. 
 
 The box was packed at last, and 
 then there came supper, with some 
 little delicacy provided for the occa- 
 sion, and as a set-off against the ex- 
 pense 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 suffocated himself in affect- 
 ing a jest or two, and forcing a melon- J 
 choly laugh. Thus, they lingered on 
 till the hour of separating for the night 
 was long past ; and then they found 
 that they might as well have given 
 vent to their real feelings before, for 
 they could not suppress them, do what 
 they would. So, they let them have 
 their way, and even that was a relief. 
 
 Nicholas slept well till six next 
 morning ; dreamed of home, or of 
 what was home once no matter
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 27 
 
 scarce, and we generally use them for 
 uniforms or public characters." 
 
 ' Indeed ! " said Nicholas. ** If I 
 should meet with any in my travels, 
 I '11 endeavour to sketch them for 
 you," 
 
 * You don't mean to say that you 
 are really going all the way down into 
 Yorkshire this cold winter's weather, 
 Mr. Nickleby I " said Miss La Creevy. 
 " I heard something of it last night." 
 
 " I do, indeed," replied Nicholas. 
 " Needs must, you know, when some- 
 body 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 '11 make a 
 sweet miniature." As Miss La Creevy 
 spoke, she held up an ivory counte- 
 nance intersected with very percep- 
 tible sky-blue veins, and regarded it 
 with so much complacency, that Ni- 
 cholas 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 Kttle that Nicholas 
 knew of the world, but he guessed 
 enough about its ways to think, that if 
 he gave Miss La Creevy one little 
 kiss, perhaps she might not be the 
 less kindly disposed towards those he 
 was leaving behind. So, he gave her 
 three or four with a kind of jocose 
 gallantry, and Miss La Creevy evinced 
 no greater symptoms of displeasure 
 than declaring, as she adjusted her 
 yellow turban, that she had never 
 heard of such a thing, and couldn't 
 have believed it possible. 
 
 Having terminated the unexpected 
 
 interview in this satisfactory manner, 
 Nicholas hastily withdrew himself 
 from the house. By the time he had 
 found a man to carry his box it was 
 only seven o'clock, so he walked 
 slowly on, a little in advance of the 
 porter, and very probably with not 
 half as light a heart in his breast as 
 the man had, although he had no 
 waistcoat to cover it with, and had 
 evidently, from the appearance of his 
 other garments, been spending the 
 night in a stable, and taking his break- 
 fast at a pump. 
 
 Regarding, with no small curiosity 
 and interest, all the busy preparations 
 for the coming day which every street 
 and almost every house displayed ; 
 and thinking, now and then, that it 
 seemed rather hard that so many 
 people of all ranks and stations could 
 earn a livelihood in London, and that 
 he should be compelled to journey so 
 far in search of one ; Nicholas speedily 
 arrived at the Saracen's Head, Snow 
 Hill. Having dismissed his attendant, 
 and seen the box safely deposited in 
 the coach-office, he looked into the 
 coffee-room in search of Mr. Squeers. 
 
 He found that learned gentleman 
 sitting at breakfast, with the three 
 little boys before noticed, and two 
 others who had turned up by some 
 lucky chance since the interview of 
 the previous day, ranged in a row on 
 the opposite seat. Mr. Squeers had 
 before him a small measure of coffee, a 
 plate of hot toast, and a cold round of 
 beef; but he was at that moment 
 intent on preparing breakfast for the 
 little boys. 
 
 " This is twopenn'orth of milk is it, 
 waiter?" said Mr. Squeers, looking 
 down into a large blue mug, and slant- 
 ing 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. Squeera 
 with a sigh. " Just fill that mug up 
 with lukewarm water, William, will 
 you ? " 
 
 " To the wery top, sir ? " inquired
 
 28 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 the waiter. " Why, the milk will be 
 drownded." 
 
 ** Never you mind that," replied 
 Mr. Squeers. " Serve it right for 
 being so dear. You ordered that thick 
 bread and butter for three, did you ! " 
 
 " Coming directly, sir." 
 
 " You needn't hurry yourself," said 
 Squeers ; " there 's plenty of time. 
 Conquer your passions, boys, and don't 
 be eager after vittles." As he uttered 
 this moral precept, Mr. Squeers took 
 a large bite out of the cold beef, and 
 recognised Nicholas. 
 
 u Sit down, Mr. Nickleby," said 
 Squeers. " Here we are, a breakfast- 
 ing you see ! " 
 
 Nicholas did not see that anybody 
 was breakfasting, except Mr. Squeers ; 
 but he bowed with all becoming rever- 
 ence, and looked as cheerful as he 
 could. 
 
 " Oh ! that 's the milk and water, is 
 it, .William 1 " said Squeers. " Very 
 good ; don't forget the bread and 
 butter presently." 
 
 At this freih 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, smack- 
 ing his lips, " here 's richness ! Think 
 of the many beggars and orphans in 
 the streets that would be glad of this, 
 little boys. A shocking thing hunger 
 is, isn't it, Mr. Nickleby ? " 
 
 " Very shocking, sir," said Nicholas. 
 
 " When I say-- number one," pur- 
 sued Mr. Squeers, putting the muj,' 
 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 1 " 
 
 " 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 tor- 
 ments 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 raven- 
 ously, 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 interest- 
 ing moment to number three ; and the 
 process was repeated until the milk and 
 water terminated with number five. 
 
 " And now," said the schoolmaster, 
 dividing the bread and butter for three 
 into as many portions as there were 
 children, " you had better look sharp 
 with your breakfast, for the horn will 
 blow in s minute or two, and then 
 every boy leaves off." 
 
 Permission being thus given to fall 
 to, the boys began to eat voraciously, 
 and in desperate haste : while the 
 schoolmaster (who was in high good 
 humour after his meal) picked his 
 teeth with a fork, and looked smilingly 
 on. In a very short time, the horn 
 was heard. 
 
 "I thought it wouldn't be long," 
 said Squeers, jumping up and produc- 
 ing a little basket from under the seat j 
 " put what you haven't had tune to 
 eat, in here, boys ! You '11 want it on 
 the road ! " 
 
 Nicholas was considerably startled 
 by these very economical arrange- 
 ments ; but he had no time to reflect 
 upon them, for the little boys had to 
 be got up to the top of the coach, and 
 their boxes had to be brought out and 
 put in, and Mr. Squeers's luggage was 
 to be seen carefully deposited in the 
 boot, and ah* these offices were in his 
 department. He was hi the full heat 
 and bustle of concluding these opera- 
 tions, when his uncle, Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby, accosted him.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Oh ! here you are, sir ! " said 
 Ralph. " Here are your mother and 
 sister, sir." 
 
 " Where ! " cried Nicholas, looking 
 hastily round. 
 
 " Here ! " replied his uncle. " Hav- 
 ing 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. 7 never pay 
 a hackney coach, ma'am, I never hire 
 one. I hav'n't been in a hackney 
 coach of my own hiring, for thirty 
 years, and I hope I shan't be for thirty 
 more, if I live as long." 
 
 " I should never have forgiven my- 
 self if I had not seen him," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. " Poor dear boy going 
 away without his breakfast too, because 
 he feared to distress us ! " 
 
 " Mighty fine certainly," said Ralph, 
 with great testiness. " When I first 
 went to business, ma'am, I took a 
 penny loaf and a ha'portli of milk for 
 my breakfast as I walked to the city 
 every morning ; what do you say to 
 that, ma'am} Breakfast! Bah!" 
 
 " Now, Nickleby," said Squeers, 
 coming up at the moment buttoning 
 his 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 brother's arm, " who is 
 that vulgar man ? " 
 
 " Eh !" growled Ralph, whose quick 
 ears had caught the inquiry. " Do 
 you wish to be introduced to Mr. 
 Squeers, my dear ? " 
 
 " That the schoolmaster ! No, 
 uncle. Oh no ! " replied Kate, shrink- 
 ing 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 acquaint- 
 ance, 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, whe- 
 ther she mightn't grow jealous if we 
 had. Ha! Ha! Ha!" 
 
 If the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall 
 could have known what was passing in 
 his assistant's breast at that moment, he 
 would have discovered, with some sur- 
 prise, that he was as near being soundly 
 pummelled as he had ever been in his 
 life. Kate Nickleby, having a quicker 
 perception of her brother's emotions, 
 led him gently aside, and thus pre- 
 vented Mr. Squeers from being im- 
 pressed 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 Ni- 
 cholas, 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 what- 
 ever 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 bye I 
 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 !" 
 
 With these hasty adieux, Nicholas 
 mounted nimbly to his scat, and waved 
 his hand as gallantly as if his heart 
 went with it. 
 
 At this moment, when the coachman 
 and guard were comparing notes for the 
 last time before starting, on the subject 
 of the way-bill ; when porters were 
 screwing out the last reluctant six- 
 pences, 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 log. He looked down, 
 and there stood Newman Noggs, who 
 pushed up into his hand a dirty letter.
 
 30 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " What 's this 1 " inquired Nicholas. 
 
 " Hush ! " rejoined Noggs, pointing 
 to Mr. Ralph Nickleby, who was say- 
 ing a few earnest words to Squeers, a 
 short distance off. " Take it. Read 
 it Nobody knows. That 'sail." 
 
 " Stop ! " cried Nicholas. 
 
 ** No," replied Noggs. 
 
 Nicholas cried stop, again, but New- 
 man 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 Smith- 
 field. 
 
 The little boys' legs being too short 
 to admit of then? 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, over the 
 stones, to hold them on. Between the 
 manual exertion and the mental anxiety 
 attendant upon this task, he was not a 
 little relieved when the coach stopped 
 at the Peacock at Islington. He was 
 still more relieved when a hearty- 
 looking gentleman, with a very good- 
 humoured face, and a very fresh colour, 
 got up behind, and proposed to take 
 the other corner of the seat. 
 
 " If we put some of these youngsters 
 in the middle," said the new comer, 
 " they '11 be safer in case of their going 
 to sleep ; eh I " 
 
 u If you '11 have the goodness, sir," 
 replied Squeers, "that'll be the very 
 thing. Mr. Nickleby, take three of them 
 boys between you and the gentleman. 
 Belling and the youngest Snawley can 
 sit between me and the guard. Three 
 children," said Squeers, explaining to 
 the stranger, " books as two." 
 
 " I have not the least objection I am 
 sure," said the fresh-coloured gentle- 
 man ; " I have a brother who wouldn't 
 object to book his six children as two 
 at any butcher's or baker's in the king- 
 dom, I dare say. Far from it." 
 
 " Six children, sir \ " exclaimed 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Yes, and all boys," replied the 
 stranger. 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby," said Squeers, in 
 great haste, " catch hold of that basket, 
 Let me give you a card, sir, of an esta- 
 blishment where those six boys can be 
 brought up in an enlightened, liberal, 
 and moral manner, with no mistake 
 at all about it, for twenty guineas a 
 year each twenty guineas, sir or I 'd 
 take all the boys together upon a ave- 
 rage right through, and say a hundred 
 pound a year for the lot." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the gentleman, glancing 
 at the card, " You are the Mr. Squeers 
 mentioned here, I presume 1 " 
 
 " Yes I am,Jsir," replied the worthy 
 pedagogue; "Mr. Wackford Squeere 
 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 as- 
 sistants, sir Mr. Nickleby, a gentle- 
 man's son, and a good scholar, mathe- 
 matical, 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 treat- 
 ment and washing hi." 
 
 " Upon my word," said the gentle- 
 man, glancing at Nicholas with a hall 
 smile, and a more than half expression 
 of surprise, " these are advantages 
 indeed." 
 
 " You may say that, sir," rejoined 
 Squeers, thrusting his hands into his 
 great-coat pockets. " The most unex- 
 ceptionable references are given and 
 required. I wouldn't take a reference 
 with any boy, that wasn't responsible 
 for the payment of five pound five a 
 quarter, no, not if you went down on 
 your knees, and asked me, with the 
 tears running down your face, to do it." 
 
 " Highly considerate," said the pas- 
 senger. 
 
 " It 's my great aim and end to be 
 considerate, sir," rejoined Squeers. 
 "Snawley, junior, if you don't leave 
 off chattering your teeth, and shaking 
 with the cold, I '11 warm you with a 
 severe thrashing in about half a 
 minute's time."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 31 
 
 u Sit fast here, genelmen," said the 
 guard as he clambered up. 
 
 "All right behind there, Dick?" 
 cried the coachman. 
 
 "All right," was the reply. "Off 
 she goes ! " And off she did go, if 
 coaches be feminine amidst a loud 
 flourish from the guard's horn, and 
 the calm approval of all the judges of 
 coaches and coach-horses congregated 
 at the Peacock, but more especially of 
 the helpers, who stood, with the cloths 
 over their arms, watching the coach 
 till it disappeared, and then lounged 
 admiringly stablewards, bestowing 
 various gruff encomiums on the beauty 
 of the turn-out. 
 
 When the guard (who was a stout 
 old Yorkshireman) had blown himself 
 quite out of breath, he put the horn 
 into a little tunnel of a basket fastened 
 to the coach-side for the purpose, and 
 giving himself a plentiful shower of 
 blows on the chest and shoulders, ob- 
 served 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 ask- 
 ing whether any of them gentlemen 
 carried a snuff-box. It happening 
 that nobody did, he remarked with a 
 mysterious air that he had heard a 
 medical gentleman as went down to 
 Grantham last week, say how that 
 snuff-taking was bad for the eyes ; but 
 for his part he had never found it so, 
 and what he said was, that everybody 
 should speak as they found. Nobody 
 attempting to controvert this position, 
 he took a small brown-paper parcel 
 out of his hat, and putting on a pair 
 of horn spectacles (the writing being 
 crabbed) read the direction half-a- 
 dozen times over ; having done which, 
 he consigned the parcel to its old place, 
 put up his spectacles again, and stared 
 at everybody in turn. After this, he 
 took another blow at the horn by way 
 of refreshment ; and, having now ex- 
 hausted his usual topics of conversation, 
 folded his arms as well as he could in 
 
 so many coats, and falling into a solemn 
 silence, looked carelessly at the familiar 
 objects which met his eye on every 
 side as the coach rolled on ; the 
 only things he seemed to care for, 
 being horses and droves of cattle, 
 which he scrutinised with a critical 
 air as they were passed upon the road. 
 
 The weather was intensely and bit- 
 terly 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 re- 
 mains 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 feelings prompted. 
 Nicholas and the good-tempered man 
 found so many things to talk about, 
 that between conversing together, and 
 cheering up the boys, the time passed 
 with them as rapidly as it could, under 
 such adverse circumstances. 
 
 So the day wore on. At Eton Slo- 
 comb there was a good coach dinner, 
 of which the box, the four front out- 
 sides, 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 re- 
 galed 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 out- 
 sides, 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 asseverations, to dw.
 
 82 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 once more in rapid motion. 
 The night and the snow came on 
 together, and dismal enough they 
 were. There was no sound to be 
 heard but the howling of the wind ; 
 for the noise of the wheels, and the 
 tread of the horses' feet, were rendered 
 inaudible by the thick coating of snow 
 which covered the ground, and was fast 
 increasing every moment. The streets 
 of Stamford were deserted as they 
 passed through the town ; and its old 
 churches rose, frowning and dark, from 
 the whitened ground. Twenty miles 
 further on, two of the front outside 
 passengers wisely availing themselves 
 of their arrival at one of the best inns 
 in England, turned in, for the night, 
 at the George at Grantham. The 
 
 remainder wrapped themselves more 
 closely in their coats and cloaks, and 
 leaving the light and warmth of the 
 town behind them, pillowed themselves 
 against the luggage, and prepared, with 
 many half-suppressed moans, again to 
 encounter the piercing blast which 
 swept across the open country. 
 
 They were little more than a stage 
 out of Grantham, or about 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 not, 
 the vehicle turned easily over, and 
 relieved him from all further uncer- 
 tainty by flinging him into the road. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN WHICH THE OCCURRENCE OF THE ACCIDENT MENTIONED IN THE LAS1 
 CHAPTER, AFFORDS AN OPPORTUNITY TO A COUPLE OF GENTLEMEN TO TELL 
 STORIES AGAINST EACH OTHER. 
 
 " Wo ho ! " cried the guard, on his 
 legs in a minute, and running to the 
 leaders' heads. " Is there ony genel- 
 men there, as can len' a hand here ? 
 Keep quiet, dang ye ! Wo ho ! " 
 
 " 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 think, 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 ! " cried Nicholas, stagger- 
 ing 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 deane, my 
 
 That 's it. Let 'em goa noo. 
 'em, they '11 gang whoam fast 
 
 lod. 
 Dang 
 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 1 " asked the 
 guard, disengaging one of the coach- 
 lamps. 
 
 " I dare say I can," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Then 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 here squealing in- 
 side. Cumin', cumin'. Dean't make 
 that noise, wooman." 
 
 As the man spoke, he proceeded to 
 wrench open the uooermost door oi
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 the coach, while Nicholas, seizing the 
 horn, awoke the echoes far and wide 
 with one of the most extraordinary 
 performances on that instrument ever 
 heard by mortal ears. It had its 
 effect however, not only in rousing 
 such of the passengers as were reco- 
 vering from the stunning effects of 
 their fall, but in summoning assist- 
 ance to their relief ; for lights gleamed 
 in the distance, and people were already 
 astir. 
 
 In fact, a man on horseback gal- 
 loped down, before the passengers were 
 well collected together ; and a careful 
 investigation being instituted, it ap- 
 peared that tin- Li'ly inside had broken 
 her lamp, and the gentleman his head ; 
 that the two front outsides had escaped 
 with black eyes ; the box with a bloody 
 nose ; the coachman with a contusion 
 on the temple ; Mr. Squeers with a 
 portmanteau bruise on his back ; and 
 the remaining passengers without any 
 injury at all thanks to the softness 
 of the snow-drift in which they had 
 been overturned. These facts were 
 no sooner thoroughly ascertained, than 
 the lady gave several indications of 
 fainting, but being forewarned that if 
 she did, she must be carried on some 
 gentleman's shoulders to the nearest 
 public-house, she prudently thought 
 better of it, and walked back with the 
 rest. 
 
 They found on reaching it, that it 
 was a lonely place with no very great 
 accommodation in the way of apart- 
 ments that portion of its resources 
 being all comprised in one public 
 room with a sanded floor, and a chair 
 or two. However, a large faggot and 
 a plentiful supply of coals being heaped 
 upon the fire, the appearance of things 
 was not long in mending ; and, by the 
 time they had washed offtall effaceable 
 marks of the late accident, the room 
 was warm and light, which was a most 
 agreeable exchange for the cold and 
 darkness out of doors. 
 
 Well, Mr. Nickleby," said Squeers, 
 insinuating himself into the warmest 
 corner, " you did very right to catch 
 hold of them horses. I should have 
 done it myself if I had come to in 
 
 No. 34, 
 
 time, but I am very glad you did it 
 You did it very well ; very well." 
 
 " So well," said the merry-faced 
 gentleman, who did not seem to 
 approve very much of the patronising 
 tone adopted by Squeers, '-that if 
 they had not been firmly checked 
 when they were, you would most 
 probably have had no brains left to 
 teach with." 
 
 This remark called up a discourse 
 relative to the promptitude Nicholas 
 had displayed, and he was over- 
 whelmed with compliments and com- 
 mendations. 
 
 " 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 pre- 
 vented 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 ! " in- 
 quired 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 affec- 
 tionate 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." 
 
 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 1 " said the 
 merry-faced gentleman, addressing 
 the fastidious lady, as though he were 
 charitably desirous to change the sub- 
 ject.
 
 34 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 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 ; u and I beg you, 
 AS a gentleman, not to refer to it." 
 
 "Dear me," said the merry-faced 
 gentleman, looking merrier still, u I 
 merely intended to inquire " 
 
 " I hope no inquiries will be made," 
 said the lady, ** or I shall be compelled 
 to throw myself on the protection of 
 the other gentlemen. Landlord, pray 
 direct a boy to keep watch outside the 
 door and if a green chariot passes in 
 the direction of Grantham, to stop it 
 instantly." 
 
 The people of the house were evi- 
 dently overcome by this request, and 
 when the lady charged the boy to re- 
 member, as a means of identifying the 
 expected green chariot, that it would 
 have a coachman with a gold-laced 
 hat on the box, and a footman, most 
 probably in silk stockings, behind, the 
 attentions of the good woman of the 
 inn were redoubled. Even the box- 
 oassenger caught the infection, and 
 growing wonderfully deferential, im- 
 mediately inquired whether there was 
 not very good society in that neigh- 
 bourhood, to which the lady replied 
 yes, there was : in a manner which suf- 
 ficiently implied that she moved at the 
 very tiptop and summit of it all. 
 
 " As the guard has gone on horse- 
 back to Grantham to get another 
 coach," said the good-tempered gentle- 
 man when they had been all sitting 
 round the fire, for some time, in silence, 
 " and as he must be gone a couple of 
 hours at the very least, I propose a 
 bowl of hot punch. What say you, sir?" 
 
 This question was addressed to the 
 broken-headed inside, who was a man 
 of very genteel appearance, dressed in 
 mourning. He was not past the 
 middle age, but his hair was grey ; it 
 seemed to have been prematurely 
 turned by care or sorrow. He readily 
 acceded to the proposal, and appeared 
 to be prepossessed by the frank good- 
 nature of the individual from whom it 
 emanated. 
 
 This latter personage took upon 
 himself the office of tapster when the 
 punch was ready, -and after dispensing 
 it all round, led the conversation to the 
 antiquities of York, with which both 
 he and the grey-haired gentleman ap- 
 peared 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 gen- 
 tleman, smiling in his turn. 
 
 " That's a pity," said the owner of 
 the good-humoured countenance. u Is 
 there nobody here who can sing a 
 song to lighten the time ? " 
 
 The passengers, one and all, pro- 
 tested that they could not ; that they 
 wished they could ; that they couldn't 
 remember the words of anything with- 
 out the book ; and so forth. 
 
 " Perhaps the lady would not ob- 
 ject," said the president with great re- 
 spect, and a merry twinkle in his eye. 
 " Some little Italian thing out of the 
 last opera brought out in town, would 
 be most acceptable I am sure." 
 
 As the lady condescended to make 
 no reply, but tossed her head contemp- 
 tuously, 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 hi 
 this, as in all other cases where people 
 who are strangers to each other are 
 thrown unexpectedly together, they 
 should endeavour to render themselves 
 as pleasant, for the joint sake of the 
 little community, as possible." 
 
 " I wish the maxim were more ge- 
 nerally 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 '11 tell us a story ! " 
 
 " Nay. I should ask you." 
 
 " After you, I will, with pleasure." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the grey-haired 
 gentleman, smiling. " Well, let it be 
 so. I fear the turn of my thoughts is 
 not calculated to lighten the time you
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 35 
 
 must pass here ; but you have brought 
 this upon yourselves, and shall judge. 
 We were speaking of York Minster 
 just now. My story shall have some 
 reference to it. Let us call it 
 
 THE FIVE SISTERS OF YORK. 
 
 After a murmur of approbation from 
 the other passengers, during which the 
 fastidious lady drank a glass of punch 
 unobserved, the grey-headed gentle- 
 man thus went on : 
 
 " A great many years ago for the 
 fifteenth century was scarce two years 
 old at the time, and King Henry the 
 Fourth sat upon the throne of England 
 there dwelt, in the ancient city of 
 York, five maiden sisters, the subjects 
 of my tale. 
 
 " These five sisters were all of sur- 
 passing 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 dork 
 flashing eyes and hair of jet ; dignity 
 and grace were in their every move- 
 ment ; aud the fame of their great 
 beauty had spread through all the 
 country round. 
 
 " But, if the four elder sisters were 
 lovely, how beautiful was the youngest, 
 a fair creature of sixteen ! The blush- 
 ing tints in the soft bloom on the 
 fruit, or the delicate painting on the 
 flower, are not more exquisite than 
 was the blending of the rose and lily in 
 oer gentle face, or the deep blue of her 
 eye. The vine, in all its elegant luxu- 
 riance, is not more graceful than were 
 the clusters of rich brown hair that 
 sported round her brow. 
 
 "If we all had hearts like those 
 which beat so lightly in the bosoms 
 of the young and beautiful, what a 
 heaven this earth would be ! If, 
 while our bodies grew old and wither- 
 ed, our hearts could but retain their 
 early youth and freshness, of what 
 avail would be our sorrows and suf- 
 ferings ! But, the faint image of Eden 
 which is stamped upon them in child- 
 hood, chafes and rubs in our rough 
 
 struggles with the world, and soon 
 wears away : too often to leave nothing 
 but a mournful blank remaining. 
 
 " The heart of this fair girl bounded 
 with joy and gladness. Devoted at- 
 tachment to her sisters, and a fervent 
 love of all beautiful tilings 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 tiling 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 bal- 
 conies 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 ab- 
 bey. 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 fra- 
 ternity it belonged. 
 
 " It was a bright and sunny morn- 
 ing in the pleasant time of summer, 
 when one of these black monks 
 emerged from the abbey portal, and 
 bent his steps towards the honse of 
 the fair sisters. Heaven above was 
 blue, and earth beneath was green ; 
 the river glistened like a path of dia- 
 monds in the sun ; the birds poured 
 forth their songs from the shady trees ; 
 the lark soared high above the wav- 
 ing corn ; and the deep buzz of insects 
 filled the air. Everything looked gay 
 and smiling ; but the holy man walked 
 gloomily on, with his eyes bent upon 
 the ground. The beauty of the earth 
 is but a breath, and man is but a sha- 
 dow. What sympathy should a holy 
 preacher have with either I 
 
 " With eyes bent upon the ground,
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 then, or only raised enough to pre- 
 vent 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 sis- 
 ters' 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 sis- 
 ter, passing her fingers through the 
 tresses of the smiling girl. 
 
 " * And what joy and cheerfulness 
 it wakes up within us, to see all na- 
 ture beaming in brightness and sun- 
 shine, father,' added Alice, blushing 
 beneath the stern look of the recluse. 
 
 " The monk answered not, save by 
 a grave inclination of the head, and 
 the sisters pursued their task in silence. 
 
 " ' Still wasting the precious hours,' 
 said the monk at length, turning to 
 the eldest sister as he spoke, 'still 
 wasting the precious hours on this 
 vain trifling. Alas, alas ! that the few 
 bubbles on the surface of eternity all 
 that Heaven wills we should see of 
 that dark deep stream should be so 
 lightly scattered ! ' 
 
 " ' Father,' urged the maiden, paus- 
 ing, as did each of the others, in her 
 busy task, < we have prayed at matins, 
 our daily alms have been distributed 
 at the gate, the sick peasants have 
 
 been tended, all our morning tasks 
 have been performed. I hope our 
 occupation is a blameless one \ ' 
 
 " See here,' said the friar, taking 
 the frame from her hand, ' an intricate 
 winding of gaudy colours, without pur- 
 pose or object, unless it be that one 
 day it is destined for some vain orna- 
 ment, 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 accom- 
 plished. 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. Daugh- 
 ters, is there no better way to pass 
 the fleeting hours 1 ' 
 
 "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 lei- 
 sure hours : she said that if in harm- 
 less 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 in- 
 tricate description, and the pattern 
 and colours of all five were the same.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 37 
 
 'flie sisters bent gracefully over their 
 work ; the monk, resting his chin 
 npon his hands, looked from one to 
 the other in silence. 
 
 " ' How much better,' he said at 
 length, ' to shun all such thoughts and 
 chances, and, in the peaceful shelter of 
 the church, devote your lives to Heaven ! 
 Infancy, childhood, the prime of life, 
 and old age, wither as rapidly as they 
 crowd upon each other. Think how 
 human dust rolls onward to the tomb, 
 and turning your faces steadily towards 
 that goal, avoid the cloud which takes 
 its rise among the pleasures of the 
 world, and cheats the senses of their 
 votaries. The veil, daughters, the 
 veil ! ' 
 
 " ' Never, sisters,' cried Alice. 
 ' Barter not the light and air of heaven, 
 and the freshness of earth and all the 
 beautiful things which breathe upon it, 
 for the cold cloister and the cell. 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 beat- 
 ing near ; let our last look be upon the 
 bounds which God has set to his own 
 bright skies, and not on stone walls and 
 liars of iron ! Dear sisters, let us live 
 and die, if you list, in this green gar- 
 den's compass ; only shun the gloom 
 and sadness of a cloister, and we shall 
 be happy.' 
 
 "The tears fell fast from the maiden's 
 eyes as she closed her impassioned 
 appeal, and hid her face in the bosom 
 of her sister. 
 
 " ' Take comfort, Alice,' said the 
 eldest, kissing her fair forehead. ' The 
 veil shall never cast its shadow on thy 
 young brow. How say you, sisters ? 
 For yourselves you speak, and not for 
 Alice, or for me.' 
 
 "The sisters, as with one accord, 
 cried that their lot was cast together, 
 and that there were dwellings for peace 
 and virtue beyond the convent's walls. 
 
 " ' Father,' said the eldest lady, 
 rising with dignity, 'you hear our 
 final resolve. The same pious care 
 which enriched the abbey of Saint 
 
 Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy 
 guardianship, directed that no con- 
 straint 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 rever- 
 ence to the friar, the lady rose and 
 walked towards the house, hand in 
 hand with Alice ; the other sisters fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 " The holy man, who had often urged 
 the same point before, but had never 
 met with so direct a repulse, walked 
 some little distance behind, with his 
 eyes bent upon the earth, and his lips 
 moving as if in prayer. As the sisters 
 reached the porch, he quickened his 
 pace, and called upon them to stop. 
 
 " ' Stay ! ' said the monk, raising his 
 right hand in the air, and directing an 
 angry glance by turns at Alice and the 
 eldest sister, ' Stay, and hear from me 
 what these recollections are, which you 
 would cherish above eternity, and 
 awaken if in mercy they slumbered 
 by means of idle toys. The memory 
 of earthly things is charged, in after 
 life, with bitter disappointment, afflic- 
 tion, death ; with dreary change and 
 wasting sorrow. The time will one 
 day come, when a glance at those 
 unmeaning baubles will tear open deep 
 wounds in the hearts of some among 
 you, and strike to your inmost souls. 
 When that hour arrives and, mark 
 me, come it will turn from the world 
 to which you clung, to the refuge which 
 you spurned. Find me the cell which 
 shall be colder than the fire of mortals 
 grows, when dimmed by calamity and 
 trial, and there weep for the dreams of 
 youth. These things are Heaven's 
 will, not mine,' said the friar, subdu- 
 ing his voice as he looked round upon 
 the shrinking girls. ' The Virgin's 
 blessing be upon you, daughters ! ' 
 
 " With these words he disappeared 
 through the postern ; and the sisters 
 hastening into the house were seen no 
 more that day. 
 
 " But nature will smile though priests 
 may frown, and next day the sun shone 
 brightly, and on the next, and the next
 
 38 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 conver- 
 sation, in their quiet orchard. 
 
 " Time passed away as a tale that is 
 told ; .faster indeed than many tales 
 that are told, of which number I fear 
 this may be one. The house of the 
 five sisters stood where it did, and the 
 same trees cast their pleasant shade 
 upon the orchard grass. The sisters 
 too were there, and lovely as at first, 
 but a change had come over their 
 dwelling. Sometimes, there was the 
 clash of armour, and the gleaming of 
 the moon on caps of steel ; and, at 
 others, jaded coursers were spurred up 
 to the gate, and a female form glided 
 hurriedly forth, as if eager to demand 
 tidings of the weary messenger. A 
 goodly train of knights and ladies 
 lodged one night within the abbey 
 walls, and next day rode away, with 
 two of the fair sisters among them. 
 Then, horsemen began to come less fre- 
 quently, 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 despatched 
 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 mourn- 
 ful silence fell upon it, and knight or 
 lady, horse or armour, was seen about 
 it no more. 
 
 " There was a sullen darkness in the 
 sky, and the sun had gone angrily 
 down, tinting the dull clouds with the 
 last traces of his wrath, when the same 
 black monk walked slowly on, with 
 folded arms, within a stone's-throw of 
 the abbey. A blight had fallen on the 
 trees and shrubs ; and the wind, at 
 length beginning to break the unna- 
 tural stillness that had prevailed all 
 day, sighed heavily from time to tune, 
 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 abstrac- 
 tion of one well accustomed to the 
 change, the monk glided into the house 
 and entered a low, dark room. Four 
 sisters sat there. Their black gar- 
 ments made their pale faces whiter 
 still, and tune and sorrow had worked 
 deep ravages. They were stately yet ; 
 but the flush and pride of beauty were 
 gone. 
 
 " And Alice where was she ? In 
 Heaven. 
 
 " The monk even the monk could 
 bear with some grief here ; for it was 
 long since these sisters had met, and 
 there were furrows in their blanched 
 faces which years could never plough. 
 He took his seat in silence, and mo- 
 tioned 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, com- 
 pleted 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 to-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 39 
 
 wards them. * It was almost the last 
 hing she touched in hoahli,' he said 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "'It was,' cried the elder lady, 
 weeping bitterly. 
 
 " The monk turned to the second 
 sister. 
 
 " ' The gallant youth who looked into 
 thine eyes, and hung upon thy very 
 breath when first he saw thee intent 
 upon this pastime, lies buried on a 
 plain whereof the turf is red with 
 blood. Rusty fragments of armour, 
 once brightly burnished, lie rotting on 
 the ground, and are as little distin- 
 guishable for his, as are the bones 
 that crumble in the mould !' 
 
 " The lady groaned, and wrung her 
 hands. 
 
 * ' The policy of courts,' he con- 
 tinued, turning to the two other sisters, 
 ' drew ye from your peaceful home to 
 scenes of revelry and splendour. The 
 same policy, and the restless ambition 
 of proud and fiery men, have sent ye 
 back, widowed maidens, and humbled 
 outcasts. Do I speak truly ? ' 
 
 " The sobs of the two sisters were 
 their only reply. 
 
 "< There is little need,' said the 
 monk, with a meaning look, ' to fritter 
 away the time in gewgaws which shall 
 raise up the pale ghosts of hopes of 
 early years. Bury them, heap penance 
 and mortification on their heads, keep 
 them down, and let the convent be 
 their grave !' * 
 
 " The sisters asked for three days to 
 deliberate; andfelt, that night,as though 
 the veil were indeed the fitting shroud 
 for their dead joys. But, morning 
 came again, and though the boughs of 
 the orchard trees drooped and ran wild 
 upon the ground, it was the same or- 
 chard still. The grass was coarse and 
 high, but there was yet the spot on 
 which they had so often sat together, 
 when change and sorrow were but 
 names. There was every walk and 
 nook which Alice had made glad ; and 
 in the minster nave was one flat stone 
 beneath which she slept in peace. 
 
 " And could they, remembering how 
 her young heart had sickened at the 
 thought of cloistered walls, look upon 
 
 her grave, in garbs which would chill 
 the very ashes within it ? Could they 
 bow down in prayer, and when all 
 Heaven turned to hear them, bring the 
 dark shade of sadness on one angel's 
 face ? No. 
 
 " They sent abroad, to artists of 
 great celebrity in those times, " and 
 having obtained the church's sanction 
 to their work of piety, caused to be 
 executed, in five large compartments 
 of richly staped glass, a faithful copy 
 of their old embroidery work. These 
 were fitted into a large window until 
 that time bare of ornament ; and when 
 the sun shone brightly, as she had sc 
 well loved to see it, the familiar pat- 
 terns were reflected in their original 
 colours, and throwing a stream of 
 brilliant light upon the pavement, fell 
 warmly on the name of yitrr. 
 
 " For many hours in every day, the 
 sisters paced slowly up and down tin: 
 nave, or knelt by the side of the flat 
 broad stone. Only three were seen in 
 the customary place, after many years ; 
 then but two, and, for a long time 
 afterwards, but one solitary female 
 bent with age. At length she came 
 no more, and the stone bore five plain 
 Christian names. 
 
 " That stone has worn away and 
 been replaced by others, and many 
 generations have come and gone since 
 then. Time hal softened down the 
 colours, but the same stream of light 
 still falls upon the forgotten tomb, of 
 which no trace remains ; and, to this 
 day, the stranger is shown in York 
 cathedral, an old window called the 
 Five Sisters." 
 
 "That's a melancholy tale," said 
 the merry-faced gentleman, emptying 
 his glass. 
 
 " It is a tale of life, and life is made 
 up of such sorrows," returned the 
 other, courteously, but in a grave and 
 sad tone of voice. 
 
 " There are shades in all good pic- 
 tures, 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."
 
 40 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " And died early," said the other, 
 gently. 
 
 " She would have died earlier, per- 
 haps, had she been less happy," said 
 the first speaker, with much feeling. 
 " Do you think the sisters who loved 
 her so well, would have grieved the 
 less if her life had been one of gloom 
 and sadness ! If anything could soothe 
 the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it 
 would be with me the reflection, 
 that those I mourned, by being 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 ! " retorted the other, " can 
 anybody doubt it ? Take any subject 
 of sorrowful regret, and see with how 
 much of pleasure it is associated. The 
 recollection of past pleasure may be- 
 come pain " 
 
 " It does," interposed the other. 
 " Well ; it does. To remember 
 happiness which cannot be restored, is 
 pain, but of a softened kind. Our re- 
 collections are unfortunately mingled 
 with much that we deplore, and with 
 many actions which we bitterly repent ; 
 still in the most chequered life I firmly 
 think there are so many little rays of 
 sunshine to look back upon, that I do 
 not believe any mortal (unless he had 
 put himself without the pale of hope) 
 would deliberately drain a goblet of 
 the waters of Lethe, if he had it in his 
 power." 
 
 "Possibly you are correct in that 
 belief," said the grey-haired gentleman 
 after a short reflection. " I am in- 
 clined to think you are." 
 
 "Why, then," replied the other, 
 "the good in this state of existence 
 preponderates over the bad, let mis- 
 called philosophers tell us what they 
 will. If our affections be tried, our 
 affections are our consolation and 
 comfort ; and memory, however sad, 
 is the best and purest link between 
 this world and a better. But come ! 
 I '11 tell you a story of another kind." 
 After a very brief silence, the 
 
 merry-faced gentleman sent round the 
 punch, and, glancing slily at the fasti- 
 dious lady, who seemed desperately 
 apprehensive that he was going tc 
 relate something improper, began 
 
 THE BARON OF GROGZWIG. 
 
 The Baron Von Koeldwethout, of 
 Grogzwig in Germany, was as likely a 
 young baron as you would wish to see., 
 I needn't say that he lived in a castle,- 
 because that 's of course ; neither need 
 I say that he lived in an old castle ; for 
 what German baron ever lived in a 
 new one ? There were many strange 
 circumstances connected with this 
 venerable building, among which, not 
 the least startling and mysterious 
 were, that when the wind blew, it 
 rumbled in the chimneys, or even 
 howled among the trees in the neigh- 
 bouring 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 41 
 
 centuries, that they should have come 
 into the world so soon, because a man 
 who was born three or four hundred 
 years ago, cannot reasonably be ex- 
 pected to have had as many relations 
 before him, as a man who is born now. 
 The last man, whoever he is and he 
 may be a cobbler or some low vulgar 
 dog for aught we know will have a 
 longer pedigree than the greatest 
 nobleman now alive ; and I contend 
 that this is not fair. 
 
 Well, but the Baron Von Koeld- 
 wethout of Grogzwig ! He was a fine 
 swarthy fellow, with dark hair and 
 large moustachios, who rode a-hunting 
 in clothes of Lincoln green, with 
 russet boots on his feet, and a bugle 
 slung over his shoulder, h'ke the guard 
 of a long stage. When he blew this 
 bugle, four-and-twenty other gentle- 
 men 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 whis- 
 kers with him afterwards. 
 
 "This was a merry life for the 
 Baron of Grogzwig, and a merrier 
 still for the baron's retainers, who 
 drank Rhine wine every night till 
 they fell under the table, and then had 
 the bottles on the floor, and called 
 for pipes. Never were such jolly, 
 roystering, rollicking, merry-making 
 blades, as the jovial crew of Grog- 
 zwig. 
 
 " But the pleasures of the table, or 
 the pleasures of under the table, re- 
 quire a little variety ; especially when 
 the same five-and-twenty people sit 
 daily down to the same board, to dis- 
 cuss the same subjects, and tell the 
 same stories. The baron grew weary, 
 and wanted excitement He took to 
 quarrelling with his gentlemen, and 
 tried kicking two or three of them 
 every day after dinner. This was a 
 pleasant change at first ; but it became 
 monotonous after a week or so, and 
 the baron felt quite out of sorts, and 
 
 cast about, in despair, for some new 
 amusement. 
 
 "One night, after a day's sport in 
 which he had outdone Nimrod or 
 Gillingwater, and slaughtered ' another 
 fine bear' and brought him home in 
 triumph, the Baron Von Koeldwethout 
 sat moodily at the head of his table, 
 eyeing the smoky roof of the hall with 
 a discontented aspect. He swallowed 
 huge bumpers of wine, but the more 
 he swallowed, the more he frowned. 
 The gentlemen who had been honoured 
 with the dangerous distinction of 
 sitting on his right and left, imitated 
 him to a miracle in the drinking, and 
 frowned at each other. 
 
 u ' I will ! ' cried the baron sud- 
 denly, smiting the table with his right 
 hand, and twirling his moustache with 
 his left. Fill to the Lady of Grog- 
 zwig !' 
 
 " The four - and - twenty Lincoln 
 greens turned pale, with the exception, 
 of their four-and-twenty noses, which 
 were unchangeable. 
 
 " ' I said to the Lady of Grogzwig,' 
 repeated the baron, looking round the 
 board. 
 
 " < To the Lady of Grogzwig ! ' 
 shouted the Lincoln greens ; and down 
 their four-and-twenty throats went 
 four-and-twenty imperial pints of such 
 rare old hock, that they smacked their 
 eight-and-forty lips, and winked again, 
 
 " ' The fair daughter of the Baron 
 Von Swillenhausen,' said Koeldweth- 
 out, 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 ; every man touched, first 
 the hilt of his sword, and then the tip 
 of his nose, with appalling significance. 
 
 " What a pleasant thing filial piety 
 is, to contemplate ! If the daughter of 
 the Baron Von Swillenhausen had 
 pleaded a pro-occupied heart, or fallen 
 at her father's feet and corned them 
 in salt tears, or only fainted away, and 
 complimented the old gentleman in 
 frantic ejaculations, the odds are a 
 hundred to one, but Swilleuhauseu
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 castle would have been turned out at 
 window, or rather the baron turned 
 out at window, and the castle demo- 
 lished. The damsel held her peace, 
 however, when im early messenger bore 
 the request of Von Koeldwethout next 
 morning, and modestly retired to her 
 chamber, from the casement of which 
 she watched the coming of the suitor 
 and his retinue. She was no sooner 
 assured that the horseman with the 
 large moustachios was her proffered 
 husband, than she hastened to her 
 father's presence, and expressed her 
 readiness to sacrifice herself to secure 
 his peace. The venerable baron caught 
 his child to his arms, and shed a wink 
 of joy. 
 
 "There was great feasting at the 
 castle, that day. The four-and-twenty 
 Lincoln greens of Von Koeldwethout 
 exchanged vows of eternal friendship 
 with twelve Lincoln greens of Von 
 Swillenhausen, and promised the old 
 baron that they would drink his wine 
 ' Till all was blue ' meaning probably 
 until their whole countenances had 
 acquired the same tint as their noses. 
 Everybody slapped everybody else's 
 back, when the time for parting came ; 
 and the Baron Von Koeldwethout and 
 his followers rode gaily home. 
 
 " For six mortal weeks, the bears 
 and boars had a holiday. The houses 
 of Koeldwethout and Swillenhausen 
 were united ; the spears rusted ; and 
 the baron's bugle grew hoarse for lack 
 of blowing. 
 
 " Those were great tunes for the 
 four-and-twenty ; but, alas ! their high 
 and palmy days had taken boots to them- 
 selves, and were already walking off. 
 
 " * My dear,' said the baroness. 
 
 " ' My love,' said the baron. 
 
 " ' Those coarse, noisy men ' 
 
 " ' Which, ma'am ? ' said the baron 
 starting. 
 
 " The baroness pointed, from the 
 window at which they stood, to the 
 courtyard beneath, where the uncon- 
 scious Lincoln greens were taking a 
 copious stirrup-cup, preparatory to 
 issuing forth after a boar or two. 
 
 " * My hunting train, ma'am,' said 
 the baron. 
 
 " ' Disband them, love,' murmured 
 the baroness. 
 
 " ' Disband them ! ' cried the baron, 
 in amazement. 
 
 " ' To please me, love,' replied the 
 baroness. 
 
 " ' To please the devil ma'am,' 
 answered the baron. 
 
 " Whereupon the baroness uttered 
 a great cry, and swooned away at the 
 baron's feet. 
 
 " What could the baron do ? He 
 called for the lady's maid, and roared 
 for the doctor ; and then, rushing into 
 the yard, kicked the two Lincoln 
 greens who were the most used to it, 
 and cursing the others all round, bade 
 
 them go but never mind 
 
 where. I don't know the German for 
 it, or I would put it delicately that way 
 
 " It is not for me to say by what 
 means or by what degrees, some wives 
 manage to keep down some husbands 
 as they do, although I may have my 
 private opinion on the subject, and 
 may think that no Member of Parlia- 
 ment ought to be married, inasmuch 
 as three married members out of 
 every four, must vote according to 
 their wives' consciences (if there be 
 such things), and not according to 
 their own. All I need say, just now, 
 is, that the Baroness Von Koeldwe- 
 thout somehow or other acquired great 
 control over the Baron Von Koeld- 
 wethout, 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 slily 
 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 
 year after his nuptials, there came into 
 the world a lusty young baron, in whose 
 honour a great many fireworks were
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 43 
 
 let off, and & great many dozens of 
 wine drunk ; but next year there oame 
 a young baroness, and next year an- 
 other 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 Ba- 
 roness Von Swilleuhausen was ner- 
 vously sensitive for the well-being of 
 her child the Baroness Von Koe'ld- 
 wethout ; and although it was not found 
 that the good lady ever did anything 
 material towards contributing to her 
 child's recovery, still she made it a 
 point of duty to be as nervous as pqg- 
 sible at the castle of Grogzwig, and td 
 divide her time between moral obser- 
 vations on the baron's housekeeping, 
 and bewailing the hard lot of her un- 
 happy daughter. And if the Baron of 
 Grogzwig, a little hurt and irritated at 
 this, took heart, and ventured to sug- 
 gest that his wife was at least no worse 
 off than the wives of other barons, the 
 Baroness Yon Swillenhausen begged 
 all persons to take notice, that nobody 
 but she, sympathised with her dear 
 daughter's sufferings ; upon which, her 
 relations and friends remarked, that to 
 be sure she did cry a great deal more 
 than her son-in-law, and that if there 
 were a hard-hearted brute alive, it was 
 that Baron of Grogzwig. 
 
 " The poor baron bore it all, as long 
 as he could, and when he could bear it 
 no longer lost his appetite and his 
 spirits, and sat himself gloomily and 
 dejectedly down. But there were 
 worse troubles yet in store for him, 
 and as they came on, his melancholy 
 and sadness increased. Times changed. 
 He got into debt. The Grogzwig 
 coffers ran low, though the Swillen- 
 hausen family had looked upon them 
 as inexhaustible ; and just when the 
 baroness was on the point of making 
 a thirteenth addition to the family pedi- 
 gree, Von Koeldwethout discovered that 
 he had no means of replenishing them. 
 
 " ' I don't see what is to be done,' said 
 the baron. ' I think I'll kill myself.' 
 
 " This was a bright idea. The baron 
 took an old hunting-knife from a cup- 
 
 board hard by, and having sharpened 
 it on his boot, made what boys call 
 an offer 1 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 hi an up-stairs tower 
 with iron bars outside the window, tc 
 prevent their tumbling out into the 
 moat. 
 
 " ' If I had been a bachelor,' said 
 the baron sighing, ' I might hare 
 done it fifty times over, without being 
 interrupted. Hallo ! Put a flask ot 
 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 hi the course of half an hour ox 
 so, and Von Koeldwethout being ap- 
 prised thereof, strode to the vaulted 
 room, the walls of which, being of dark 
 shining wood, gleamed in the light ot 
 the blazing logs which were piled upon 
 the hearth. The but tie and pipe were 
 ready, and, upon the whole, the place 
 looked very comfortable. 
 
 " * Leave the lamp,' said the baron. 
 
 " ' Anything else, my lord I ' in- 
 quired 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 '11 be off.' So, 
 putting the knife upon the table till 
 lie wanted it, and tossing off a goodly 
 measure of wine, the Lord of Grog- 
 zwig threw himself back in his chair, 
 stretched his legs out before the fire, 
 and puffed away. 
 
 " He thought about a great many 
 things about his present troubles 
 and past days of bachelorship, and 
 about the Lincoln greens, long since 
 dispersed up and down the country 
 no one knew whither : with the excep- 
 tion of two who had been unfortu- 
 nately beheaded, and four who had 
 killed themselves with drinking. His 
 in i ml was running upon bears and 
 boars, when, in the process of draining
 
 44, 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 his glass to the bottom, he raised his 
 eyes, and saw, for the first time and 
 with unbounded astonishment, that he 
 was not alone. 
 
 " No, he was not ; for, on the op- 
 posite side of the fire, there sat with 
 folded arms a wrinkled hideous figure, 
 with deeply sunk and bloodshot eyes, 
 and an immensely long cadaverous 
 face, shadowed by jagged and matted 
 locks of coarse black hair. He wore 
 a kind of tunic of a dull blueish colour, 
 which, the baron observed, on regard- 
 ing it attentively, was clasped or orna- 
 mented down the front, with coffin 
 handles. His legs too, were encased 
 in coffin plates as though in armour ; 
 and over his left shoulder he wore a 
 short dusky cloak, which seemed made 
 of a remnant of some pall. He took 
 no notice of the baron, but was in- 
 tently eyeing the fire. 
 
 " ' Halloa ! ' said the baron, stamp- 
 ing his foot to attract attention. 
 
 " ' Halloa ! ' replied the stranger, 
 moving his eyes towards the baron, but 
 not his face or himself. * What now ? ' 
 
 " ' What now !' replied the baron, 
 nothing daunted by his hollow voice 
 and lustreless eyes, ' 7 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. 
 
 tf ' I will,' rejoined the baron. 
 
 u The figure looked at the bold Baron 
 of Grogzwig for some time, and then 
 said familiarly, 
 
 " ' There's no coming over you, I 
 see. I 'm not a man !' 
 
 " ' What are you then !' asked the 
 baron. 
 
 " ' A genius,' replied the figure. 
 
 " ' You don't look much like one,' 
 returned the baron scornfully. 
 
 " ' I am the Genius of Despair and 
 Suicide,' said the apparition. 'Now 
 you know me.' 
 
 "With these words the apparition 
 turned towards the baron, as if com- 
 posing himself for a talk and, what 
 was very remarkable, was, that he 
 
 threw his cloak aside, and displaying a 
 stake, which was run through the 
 centre of his body, pulled it out with 
 a jerk, and laid it on the table, as com- 
 posedly 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 j 
 ' 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 ie 
 a good deal taken up.' 
 
 " ' Do you drink ! ' said the baron- 
 touching the bottle with the bowl of 
 his pipe. 
 
 " ' Nine times out of ten, and then 
 very hard,' rejoined the figure, drily. 
 
 " ' Never in moderation ?' asked the 
 baron. 
 
 " ' Never, ' replied the figure, with 
 a shudder, ' that breeds cheerfulness.* 
 
 "The baron took another look at 
 his new friend, whom he thought an 
 uncommonly queer customer, and at 
 length inquired whether he took any 
 active part in such little proceedings 
 as that which he had in contemplation. 
 
 " No,' replied the figure evasively ; 
 ' but I am always present.' 
 
 " ' Just to see fair, I suppose ! ' said 
 the baron. 
 
 "'Just that,' replied the figure, 
 playing with his stake, and examining 
 the ferule. ' Be as quick as you can, 
 will you, for there 's a young gentleman 
 who is afflicted with too much money 
 and leisure wanting me now, I find.' 
 
 " ' Going to kill himself because he 
 has too much money ! ' exclaimed the 
 baron, quite tickled ; ' Ha ! ha ! that's 
 a good one.' (This was the first time 
 the baron had laughed for many a 
 long day.) 
 
 " < I say,' expostulated the figure, 
 looking very much scared ; ' don't do 
 that again.' 
 
 " Why not ? ' demanded the baron. 
 
 " ' Because it gives me pain all
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 over,' replied the figure. ' Sigh as 
 much as you please ; that does me 
 good.' 
 
 " The baron sighed mechanically, at 
 the mention of the word ; the figure, 
 brightening up again, handed him the 
 hunting-knife with most winning polite- 
 ness. 
 
 It's not a bad idea though,' said 
 the baron, feeling the edge of the 
 weapon ; a man killing himself be- 
 cause he has too much money.' 
 
 " ' Pooh ! ' said the apparition, petu- 
 lantly, ' no better than a man's kill- 
 ing himself because he has none or 
 little.' 
 
 " Whether the genius unintention- 
 ally committed himself hi 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 tune. 
 
 " ' Why, certainly,' said Von Koe'ld- 
 wethout, 'nothing is too bad to be 
 retrieved.' 
 
 " Except empty coffers,' cried the 
 genius. 
 
 " ' Well ; but they may be one day 
 filled again,' said the baron. 
 
 " * Scolding wives,' snarled the 
 genius. 
 
 " ' Oh ! They may be made quiet,' 
 said the baron. 
 
 "'Thirteen children,' shouted the 
 genius. 
 
 " ' Can't all go wrong, surely,' said 
 the baron. 
 
 u The genius was evidently growing 
 very savage with the baron, for holding 
 these opinions all at once ; but he tried 
 to laugh it off, and said if he would let 
 him know when he had left off joking, 
 he should feel obliged to him. 
 
 " ' But I am not joking ; I was 
 never farther from it,' remonstrated 
 the baron. 
 
 Well, I am glad to hear that,' 
 said the genius, looking very grim, 
 ' because a joke, without any figure of 
 speech, !.< 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 your* 
 is much better, for you have no't the 
 appearance of being particularly com- 
 fortable. That puts me hi mind 
 what security have I, that I shall be 
 any the better for going out of the 
 world after all ! ' he cried, starting up ; 
 ' I never thought of that.' 
 
 " ' Dispatch,' cried the figure, gnash- 
 ing its teeth. 
 
 " ' Keep off !' said the baron. ' I '11 
 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 '11 talk to the baroness 
 soundly, and cut the Von Swillen- 
 hausens 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 twos 
 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 disap- 
 peared. 
 
 " Von Koeldwethout never saw it 
 again. Having once made up his 
 mind to action, he soon brought the 
 baroness and the Von Swillenhausens 
 to reason, and died many years after- 
 wards : 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 per- 
 sonal 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 with- 
 out 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, ladiea 
 and gentlemen, if you please," said a 
 new driver, looking in. 
 
 This intelligence caused the punch
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 to be finished in a great hurry, and 
 prevented any discussion relative to 
 the last story. Mr. Squeers was ob- 
 served to draw the grey-headed gentle- 
 man on one side, and to ask a question 
 with great apparent interest ; it bore 
 reference to the Five Sisters of York, 
 and was, in fact, an inquiry whether 
 he could inform him how much per 
 annum the Yorkshire convents got in 
 those days with their boarders. 
 
 The journey was then resumed. 
 
 Nicholas fell asleep towards morning, 
 and, when he awoke, found, with great 
 regret, that, during his nap, both the 
 Baron of Grogzwig and the grey-haired 
 gentleman had got down and were 
 gone. The day dragged on uncom- 
 fortably enough. At about six o'clock 
 that night, he and Mr. Squeers, and 
 the little boys, and their united lug- 
 gage, were all put down together at 
 the George and New Inn, Greta 
 Bridge 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. SO.UEERS AT HOME. 
 
 Ma. SQCEERS, being safely landed, 
 left Nicholas and the boys standing 
 with the luggage in the road, to amuse 
 themselves by looking at the coach as 
 it changed horses, while he ran into 
 the tavern and went through the leg- 
 stretching process at the bar. After 
 some minutes, he returned, with his 
 legs thoroughly stretched, if the hue 
 of his nose and a short hiccup afforded 
 any criterion ; and at the same time 
 there came out of the yard a rusty 
 pony-chaise, and a cart, driven by two 
 labouring men. 
 
 " Put the boys and the boxes into 
 ihe cart," said Squeers, rubbing his 
 aands ; " and this young man and me 
 will go on in the chaise. Get in 
 Nickleby." 
 
 Nicholas obeyed. Mr. Squeers with 
 some difficulty inducing the pony to 
 obey also, they started off, leaving the 
 cart-load of infant misery to follow at 
 leisure. 
 
 " Are you cold, Nickleby * " inquired 
 Squeers, after they had travelled some 
 distance hi silence. 
 
 " Rather, sir, I must say." 
 
 Well, I don't find fault with that," 
 eaid Squeers ; "it's a long journey 
 this weather." 
 
 " Is it much farther to Dotheboys 
 Hall, sir ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 u About three mile from here," re- 
 
 plied Squeers. " But you needn't call 
 it a Hall down here." 
 
 Nicholas coughed, as if he would 
 like to know why. 
 
 The fact is, it ain't a Hall," ob- 
 served Squeers drily. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Nicholas, whom 
 this piece of intelligence much asto- 
 nished. 
 
 " No," replied Squeers. We call 
 it a Hall up in London, because it 
 sounds better, but they don't know it 
 by that name hi these parts. A man 
 may call his house an island if he 
 likes ; there 's no act of Parliament 
 against that, I believe 1 " 
 
 "I believe not, sir," rejoined Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 Squeers eyed his companion slily, at 
 the conclusion of this little dialogue, 
 and finding that he had grown thought- 
 ful and appeared in nowise disposed to 
 volunteer any observations, contented 
 himself with lashing the pony until 
 they reached their journey's end. 
 
 " Jump out," said Squeers. " Hallo 
 there ! come and put this horse up. 
 Be quick, will you ! " 
 
 While the schoolmaster was uttering 
 these and other impatient cries, Niche- 
 las had time to observe that the school 
 was a long, cold-looking house, one 
 story high, with a few straggling out- 
 buildings behind, and a barn and stable
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 47 
 
 adjoining. After the lapse of a minute 
 or two, the noise of somebody unlock- 
 ing the yard-gate was heard, and pre- 
 sently 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." 
 
 u Your Missus is a fool," retorted 
 Squeers. " You 'd have been a deuced 
 deal more wakeful in the cold, I '11 en- 
 Rage." 
 
 By this time Mr. Squeers had dis- 
 mounted ; and after ordering the boy 
 to see to the pony, and to take care 
 that he hadn't any more corn that 
 night, he told Nicholas to wait at the 
 front door a minute, while he went 
 round and let him in. 
 
 A host of unpleasant misgivings, 
 which had been crowding upon Nicho- 
 las during the whole journey, thronged 
 into his mind with redoubled force 
 when he was left alone. His great 
 distance from home and the impossi- 
 bility of reaching it, except on foot, 
 should he feel ever so anxious to re- 
 turn, presented itself to him in most 
 alarming colours ; and as he looked 
 up at the dreary house and dark win- 
 dows,and upon the wild country round, 
 covered with snow, he felt a depression 
 of heart and spirit which he had never 
 experienced before. 
 
 u Now then ! " cried Squeers, poking 
 his head out at the front door. " Where 
 are you, Nickleby!" 
 
 " Here, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 "Come in then," said Squeers, "the 
 wind blows in, at this door, fit to knock 
 a man off his legs." 
 
 Nicholas sighed, and hurried in. 
 Mr. Squeers, having bolted the door to 
 keep it shut, ushered him into a small 
 parlour scantily furnished with a few 
 
 chairs, a yellow map hung against the 
 wall, and a couple of tables ; one oi 
 which bore some preparations for 
 supper ; while, on the other, a tutor's 
 assistant, a Murray's grammar, half a 
 dozen cards of terms, and a worn letter 
 directed to Wackford Squeers, Esquire, 
 were arranged in picturesque con- 
 fusion. 
 
 They had not been in this apartment 
 a couple of minutes, when a female 
 bounced into the room, and, seizing 
 Mr. Squeers by the throat, gave him 
 two loud kisses : one close after the 
 other, like a postman's knock. The 
 lady, who was of a large raw-boned 
 figure, was about half a head taller 
 than Mr. Squeers, and was dressed in 
 a dimity night-jacket ; with her hair in 
 papers ; she had also a dirty nightcap 
 on, relieved by a yellow cotton hand- 
 kerchief which tied it under the chin. 
 
 " How is my Squeery ? " said this 
 lady in a playful manner, and a very 
 hoarse voice. 
 
 " Quite well, my love," replied 
 Squeers. " How's the cows ? " 
 
 " All right, every one of 'em," an- 
 swered the lady. 
 
 " And the pigs ? " said Squeers. 
 
 "As well as they were when yon 
 went away." 
 
 " Come ; that 's a blessing," said 
 Squeers, pulling off his great-coat. 
 " The boys are all as they were, I sup- 
 
 " Oh, yes, they 're well enough," 
 replied Mrs. Squeers, snappishly. 
 " That young Pitcher 's had a fever." 
 
 *' No ! " exclaimed Squeers. " Damn 
 that boy, he 's always at something of 
 that sort." 
 
 " Never was such a boy, I do be- 
 lieve," said Mrs. Squeers ; " whatever 
 he has, is always catching too. I say 
 it 's obstinacy, and nothing shall ever 
 convince me that it isn't. I 'd beat it 
 out of him ; and I told you that, six 
 months ago." 
 
 "So you did, my love," rejoined 
 Squeers. " We '11 try what can be 
 done." 
 
 Pending these little endearments, 
 Nicholas had stood, awkwardly enough, 
 in the middle of the room : not verv
 
 48 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 well knowing whether he was expected 
 to retire into the passage, or to remain 
 where he was. He was now relieved 
 from his perplexity by Mr. Squeers. 
 
 "This is the new young man, my 
 dear," said that gentleman. 
 
 "Oh," replied Mrs. Squeers, nod- 
 ding her head at Nicholas, and eyeing 
 him coldly from top to toe. 
 
 " He '11 take a meal with us to- 
 night," said Squeers, " and go among 
 the boys to-morrow morning. You 
 can give him a shake-down here, to- 
 night, can't you ? " 
 
 " We must manage it somehow," re- 
 plied the lady. " You don't much 
 mind how you sleep, I suppose sir ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," replied Nicholas, 
 u I am not particular." 
 
 " That's lucky," said Mrs. Squeers. 
 And as the lady 's humour was con- 
 sidered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr. 
 Squeers laughed heartily, and seemed 
 to expect that Nicholas should do the 
 same. 
 
 After some further conversation be- 
 tween the master and mistress relative 
 to the success of Mr. Squeers's trip, 
 and the people who had paid, and the 
 people who had made default in pay- 
 ment, a young servant girl brought in 
 a Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, 
 which, being set upon the table, the 
 boy Smike appeared with a jug of ale. 
 
 Mr. Squeers was emptying his great- 
 coat pockets of letters to different 
 boys, and other small documents, 
 which he had brought down in them. 
 The boy glanced, with an anxious and 
 timid expression, at the papers, as if 
 with a sickly hope that one among 
 them might relate to him. The look 
 was a very painful one, and went to 
 Nicholas's heart at once ; for it told a 
 long and very sad history. 
 
 It induced him to consider the boy 
 more attentively, and he was surprised 
 to observe the extraordinary mixture 
 of garments which formed his dress. 
 Although he could not have been less 
 than eighteen or nineteen years old, 
 and was tall for that age, he wore a 
 skeleton suit, such as is usually put 
 upon very little boys,and which, though 
 most absurdly short in the arms and 
 
 legs, was quite wide enough for his 
 attenuated frame. In order that the 
 lower part of his legs might be in per- 
 fect keeping with this singular dress, 
 he had a very large pair of boots, ori- 
 ginally made for tops, which might 
 have been once worn by some stout 
 farmer, but were now too patched and 
 tattered for a beggar. Heaven knows 
 how long he had been there, but he still 
 wore the same linen which he had 
 first taken down ; for, round his neck, 
 was a tattered child's frill, only half 
 concealed by a coarse, man's necker- 
 chief. He was lame ; and as he feigned 
 to be busy in arranging the table, 
 glanced at the letters with n look so 
 keen, and yet so dispirited and hope- 
 less, that Nicholas could hardly be.-ir 
 to watch him. 
 
 " What are you bothering about 
 there, Smike ? " cried Mrs. Squeers ; 
 " let the things alone, can't you." 
 
 " Eh ! " said Squeers, looking up. 
 "Oh ! it's you, is it!" 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the youth, press- 
 ing his hands together, as though to 
 control, by force, the nervous wandering 
 of his fingers ; " Is there " 
 
 " Well ! " said Squeers. 
 
 " Have you did anybody has no- 
 thing been heard about me ? " 
 
 " Devil a bit," replied Squeers 
 testily. 
 
 The lad withdrew his eyes, and, put- 
 ting his hand to his face, moved to- 
 wards 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 t " 
 
 The boy put his hand to his head as 
 if he were making an effort to recol- 
 lect something, and then, looking va- 
 cantly at his questioner, gradually 
 broke into a smile, and limped away. 
 
 "I'll tell you what, Squeers," re- 
 marked his wife as the door closed,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ' I think that young chap 's turning 
 silly." 
 
 " I hope not," said die school:. 
 ' for he's a handy fellow out 
 md worth his meat anil drink, any \\-.-.\-. 
 .:<[ think he M have wit cnoui;li 
 hoiiL'h. if he was. But come ; 
 - pp'T, for I am hungry 
 and tired, and want to get to bed.'' 
 This mnind'T brought in an ev.-hi- 
 
 .!; for Mr. Sowers, wh 
 ly proceeded to do it ample justice. 
 . up his chair, but his ap- 
 petite w;< effectually taken away. 
 
 ., S.iiir. n 
 Mrs. >. 
 
 plied Sqoeers. 
 
 a hit." 
 
 " I couldn't eat a morsel," replied 
 !iis wife. "What '11 the young man 
 take, my d. 
 
 - Whatever heliki -s that's present," 
 rejoined Squecrs, in a most unusual 
 
 ierosity. 
 
 " What a- Mr. Knuckle- 
 
 Uiy ?" hundred Mrs. Squcers. 
 
 " I '11 take a little of the pie, if you 
 replied Nichola-. A \i -; 
 little, for I'm not hungry."' 
 
 Well, it's a pity to em the pie if 
 you 're not hungry, isn't it '. " said M rs. 
 Squeers. " Will you try a hit of the 
 beef!" 
 
 " Whatever you please," replied 
 Nicholas abstractedly; '-'it's all tlie 
 same : 
 
 Mr-. Si in 1 -tly gracious 
 
 on receiving this reply ; and nodding 
 to Squeers, as much as to say that she 
 .1 to iind the young man knew 
 his station, assisted Nicholas to a slice 
 Of meat with her own fair hands. 
 
 - Ale, S[ii"cry i " inquired the lady, 
 winking and frowning to give him to 
 
 aid that the question pro- 
 pounded, was, whether Nicholas should 
 ha vale, anil nut whether ho (Squeers) 
 would take any. 
 
 ! Siuicers, re-tele- 
 graphing in the same manner. " A 
 glassful." 
 
 So Nicholas had a glassful. ::nd,heing 
 occupiedwith his own reflection*, drank 
 it, in happy innocence of all the fore- 
 gone proceedings. 
 
 No. 35. 
 
 " Uncommon juicy steak that," said 
 Squeers as he laid down his knife and 
 fork, after plying it, in silence, for some 
 time. 
 
 prime meat." rejoined his 
 lady. I bought a good larue j 
 it myself on purpose for " 
 
 For \\hat!" e.vlaiined Squeers 
 
 hastily. ' Not for the '' 
 
 . no ; not for them," rejoined 
 Mr-. Squocrs ; '-on purpose for you 
 against yon came home. Lor ! you 
 didn't think 1 could have made sin-h a 
 mistake as that." 
 
 I pon my word, my dear, I didn u 
 know what you were going t. 
 said Squeers, who had turned palf. 
 
 " You needn't make yourself uncom- 
 fortable," remarked his wife, humhin- 
 heartily. ^ " To think that I should be 
 such a noddy ! Well ! " 
 
 This part of the conversation was 
 rather unintelligible ; hut popular 
 rumour in the neighbourhood a- 
 that Mr. Squeers, being amiably op- 
 posed to cruelty to animals, not unfre- 
 quently purchased for boy consumption 
 the bodies of horned cattle who had 
 died a natural death ; possibly he 
 was apprehensive of having uninten- 
 tionally devoured some choice morsel 
 intended for the young gentlemen. 
 
 Supper being over, and removed by 
 a small servant girl with a hungry <-\t\ 
 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 trouble- 
 some flight of steps which leads to 
 death's door, in consequence of ex- 
 posure to the cold. They were then 
 regaled with a light supper of porridge, 
 and stowed away, side by side, in a 
 small bedstead, to warm each other, 
 and dream of a substantial meal with 
 something hot after it, if their fancies 
 set that way : which it is not at all 
 improbable they did. 
 
 .Mr. Squeers treated himself to a 
 stiff tumbler of brandy and water, 
 made on the liberal half-and-half prin- 
 ciple, allowing for the dissolution of 
 the sugar ; and his amiable helpmate 
 mixed Nicholas the ghost of a small 
 glassful of tho same compound. This
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 done, Mr. and Mrs. Squeera drew 
 close up to the fire, and sitting with 
 their feet on the fender, talked confi- 
 dentially in whispers ; while Nicholas, 
 taking up the tutor's assistant, road 
 the interesting legends in the miscel- 
 laneous questions, and all the figures 
 into the bargain, with as much thought 
 or consciousness of what he was 
 doing, as if he had been in a magnetic 
 slumber. 
 
 At length, Mr. Squeers yawned 
 fearfully, and opined that it was high 
 time to go to bed ; upon which signal, 
 Mrs. Squeers and the girl dragged in 
 a small straw mattress and a couple of 
 blankets, and arranged them into a 
 couch for Nicholas. 
 
 " We'll put you into your regular 
 bed-room to-morrow, Nickleby," said 
 Squeers. " Let me see ! Who sleeps 
 in Brooks's bed, my dear I " 
 
 " In Brooks's," said Mrs. Squeers, 
 pondering. " There 's Jennings, little 
 Bolder, Graymarsh, and what's his 
 name." 
 
 " So there is," rejoined Squeers. 
 ' Yes ! Brooks is full." 
 
 "Full!" thought Nicholas, I 
 should think he was." 
 
 " There 's a place somewhere, I 
 know," said Squeers ; " but I can't at 
 this moment call to mind where it is. 
 However, we '11 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 '11 come in myself and show you 
 where the well is," said Squeers. 
 " You '11 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 '11 make shift with something to- 
 narrow morning, Mrs. Squeers will 
 -tfT'ange that, in the course of the day. 
 My dear, don't forget." 
 
 " 1 '11 take care," replied Mrs. 
 Squeers ; " and mind you take care, 
 
 young man, and get first wash. The 
 teacher ouxht 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 him- 
 self in the night ; and the lady having 
 seized it with great precipitation, they 
 retired togethrr. 
 
 Nicholas, being left alone, took half 
 a dozen turns up and down the room 
 in a condition of much agitation and 
 excitement ; but, growing gradually 
 calmer, sat himself down in a chair, and 
 mentally resolved that, come what come 
 might, he would endeavour, for a time, 
 to bear whatever wretchedness might 
 be in store for him, and that remem- 
 bering 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 pro- 
 ducing some good effect in the mind . 
 from which they spring. He grew 
 less desponding, and so sanguine and 
 buoyant is youth even hoped that 
 affairs at Dotheboys Hah" might yet 
 prove better than they promised. 
 
 He was preparing for bed with 
 something like renewed cheerfulness, 
 when a sealed letter fell from his coat 
 pocket. In the hurry of leaving Lon- 
 don, it had escaped his attention and 
 had not occurred to him since, but it 
 at once brought back to him the recol- 
 lection of the mysterious behaviour of 
 Newman Noggs. 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Nicholas ; " what 
 an extraordinary hand ! " 
 
 It was directed to himself, was writ- 
 ten upon very dirty paper, and in such 
 cramped and crippled writing as to be 
 almost illegible. After great difficulty 
 and much puzzling, he contrived to 
 read as follows : 
 
 " My dear young Man. 
 
 " I know the world. Your 
 father did not, or he would not have 
 done me a kindness when there was 
 no hope of return. You do not, or 
 you would not be bound on such a 
 journey. 
 
 ft If ever you want a shelter in Lon-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEIJY. 
 
 51 
 
 don, (don't be angry at this, / once 
 thought I never should), they know 
 where I live, at the sign of the Crown, 
 in Silver Street, Golden Squan-. It 
 is at the corner of Silver Street and 
 James Street, with a bar door both 
 ways. You can come at night. Once, 
 nobody was ashamed never mind 
 that. It 's all over. 
 
 " Excuse errors. I should forget 
 how to wear a whole coat now. I 
 have forgotten all my old wav.-. M\ 
 spelling may have gone with them. 
 " NEWMAN NOGGS. 
 
 " P.S. If you should go near Bar- 
 nard 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 cir- 
 cumstance to record, but after he had 
 folded this letter and placed it in his 
 pocket-book, Nicholas Nickleby's eyes 
 were dimmed with a moisture that 
 might have been taken for tears. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE INTERNAL ECONOMY OF DOTUEBOYS HALL. 
 
 A RIPE of two hundred and odd 
 miles in severe weather, is one of the 
 best softeners of a hard bed that inge- 
 nuity can devise. Perhaps it is even 
 a sweetener of dreams, for those which 
 hovered over the rough couch of 
 Nicholas, and whispered their airy 
 nothings in his ear, were of an agree- 
 able and happy kind. He was making 
 his fortune very fast indeed, when the 
 fault glimmer of an expiring candle 
 shone before his eyes, and a voice he 
 had no difficulty hi recognising as part 
 and parcel of Mr. Squeers, admonished 
 him that it was time to rise. 
 
 " Past seven, Nickleby," said Mr. 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Has morning come already ? " 
 asked Nicholas, sitting up in bed. 
 
 " Ah ! that has it," replied Squeers, 
 "' and ready iced too. Now, Nickleby, 
 come ; tumble up, will you ! " 
 
 Nicholas needed no further admoni- 
 tion, but " tumbled up " at once, and 
 proceeded to dress himself by the light 
 of the taper which Mr. Squeers car- 
 cied in his hand. 
 
 * Here 's a pretty go," said that gen- 
 tleman ; " the pump 's froze." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Nicholas, not much 
 interested in the intelligence.* 
 
 Yes," replied Squeers. You 
 an t wash yourself this morning." 
 
 " Not wash myself ! " exclaimed 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " No, not a bit of it," rejoined 
 Squeers tartly. " So you must be con- 
 tent with giving yourself a dry polish 
 till we break the ice in the well, and 
 can get/ a bucketful out for the boys. 
 Don't stand staring at me, but do look 
 sharp, will you ? " 
 
 Offering no further observation, 
 Nicholas huddled on his clothes. 
 Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shut- 
 ters and blew the candle out ; when the 
 voice of his amiable consort was heard 
 in the passage, demanding admittance. 
 
 " Come in, my love," said Squeers. 
 
 Mrs. Squeers came in, still habited 
 in the primitive night-jacket which had 
 displayed the symmetry of her figure 
 on the previous night, and further 
 ornamented with a beaver bonnet of 
 some antiquity, which she wore, with 
 much ease and lightness, on the top 
 of the nightcap before mentioned. 
 
 " Drat the things," said the lady, 
 opening the cupboard ; "I can't find 
 the school spoon anywhere." 
 
 " Never mind it, my dear," observed 
 Squeers in a soothing manner; "it's 
 of no consequence." 
 
 " No consequence, why how you 
 talk ! " retorted Mrs. Squeers sharply ; 
 isn't it brimstone morning 1 " 
 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNO
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 1 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 brim- 
 stone and molasses, just to purify them ; 
 because if you think we carry on the 
 business in that way, you '11 find your- 
 self mistaken, and so I tell you plainly." 
 
 " My dear," said Squeers frowning. 
 ' Hem ! " 
 
 " Oh ! nonsense," rejoined Mrs. 
 Squeers. "If the young man comes 
 10 be a teacher here, let him under- 
 stand, at once, that we don't want any 
 foolery about the boys. They have 
 the brimstone and treacle, partly be- 
 cause 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 'a 
 fair enough I 'm sure." 
 
 Having given this explanation, Mrs. 
 Squeers put her head into tjie closet 
 and instituted a stricter search after 
 the spoon, in which Mr. Squeers as- 
 sisted. A few words passed between 
 them while they were thus engaged, 
 but as their voices were partially stifled 
 by the cupboard, all that Nicholas could 
 distinguish was, that Mr. Squeers said 
 what Mrs. Squeers had said, was inju- 
 dicious, and that Mrs. Squeers said 
 what Mr. Squeers said, was " stuff." 
 
 A vast deal of searching and rum- 
 maging ensued, and it proving fruit- 
 less, Smike was called in, and pushed 
 by Mrs. Squeers, and boxed by 
 Mr. Squeers ; which course of treat- 
 ment brightening his intellects, enabled 
 him to suggest that possibly -Mrs. 
 Squeers might have the spoon in her 
 pocket, as indeed turned out to be the 
 case. As Mrs. Squeers had previously 
 protested, however, that she was quite 
 eertain she had not got it, Smike re- 
 ceived another box on the ear for pre- 
 suming to contradict his mistress, 
 together with a promise of a sound 
 thrashing if he were not more respect- 
 
 ful in future ; so that he took nothing 
 VITV advantageous by his motion. 
 
 " A most invaluable woman, that, 
 Nickleby," said Squeers when his con- 
 sort had hurried away, pushing the 
 drudge before her. 
 
 " Indeed, sir ! " observed Nicholas. 
 
 " I don't know her equal," said 
 Squeers ; " I do not know her equal. 
 That woman, Nickleby, is always the 
 same always the same bustling, lively, 
 active, saving creetur that you see her 
 now." 
 
 Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the 
 thought of the agreeable domestic pros- 
 pect thus opened to him ; but Squeers 
 was, fortunately, too much occupied 
 with his own reflections to perceive it. 
 
 " It 's my way to say, when I am up 
 in London," continued Squeers, "that 
 to them boys she is a mother. But 
 she is more thai) a mother to them ; ten 
 times more. She does things for them 
 boys, Nickleby, that I don't believe 
 half the mothers going, would do for 
 their own sons." 
 
 "I should think they would not, 
 sir," answered Nicholas. 
 
 Now, the fact was, that both Mr. 
 and Mrs. Squeers viewed the boys in 
 the light of their proper and natural 
 enemies ; or, in other words, they held 
 and considered that their business and 
 profession was to get as much from 
 every boy as could by possibility be 
 screwed out of him. On this point 
 they were both agreed, and behaved 
 in unison accordingly. The only differ- 
 ence between them was, that Mrs, 
 Squeers waged war against the enemy 
 openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers 
 covered his rascality, even at home, 
 with a spice of his habitual deceit; as if 
 he really had a notion of some day or 
 other being able to take himself in, 
 and persuade his own mind that ho 
 was a very good fellow. 
 
 " But come," said Squeers, inter- 
 rupting 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 you 3 " 
 
 Nicholas assisted his master to put 
 on an old fustian shooting-jacket,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 53 
 
 which he took down from a peg in 
 the passage ; and Squeers, arming 
 himself with his cane, led the way 
 across a yard, to a door in the rear of 
 the house. 
 
 " There," said the schoolmaster as 
 they stepped in together ; " this is 
 our shop, Nickloliy ! !< 
 
 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, whereof a tenth part might 
 be of glass, the remainder being 
 stopped up with old copybooks and 
 paper. There were a couple of long 
 old rickety desks, cut and notched, 
 and inked, and damaged, in every 
 possible way ; two or three forms ; 
 a detached desk for Squeers ; and 
 another for his assistant. The ceiling 
 was supported, like that of a barn, by 
 cross beams and rafters ; and the walls 
 were so stained and discoloured, that 
 it was impossible to tell whether they 
 had ever been touched with paint or 
 whitewash. 
 
 But the pupils the young noble- 
 men ! How the last faint traces of 
 hope, the remotest glimmering of any 
 good to be derived from his efforts ! 
 in this den, faded from the mind of i 
 Nicholas as he looked in dismay 
 around ! Pale and haggard faces, i 
 lank and bony figures, children with ! 
 the countenances of old men, defor- 
 mities with irons upon their limbs, 
 boys of stunted growth, and others 
 whose long meagre legs would hardly 
 bear their stooping bodies, all crowded 
 on the view together ; there were the 
 bleared eye, the hare-lip, the crooked 
 foot, and every ugliness or distortion 
 that told of unnatural aversion con- 
 ceived by parents for their offspring, 
 or of young lives which, from the 
 earliest dawn of infancy, had been one 
 horrible endurance of cruelty and 
 neglect. There were little faces which 
 should have been handsome, darkened 
 with the scowl of sullen, dogged suf- 
 ; there was childhood with the 
 
 light of its eye quenched, its beauty 
 gone, and its helplessness alone re- 
 maining ; there were vicious-faced 
 boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like 
 malefactors in a jail ; and there were 
 young creatures on whom the sins of 
 their frail parents had descended, 
 weeping even for the mercenary 
 nurses they had known, and lonesomo 
 even in their loneliness. With every 
 kindly sympathy and affection blasted 
 in its birth, with every young and 
 healthy feeling flogged and starved 
 down, with every revengeful passion 
 that can fester in swollen hearts, 
 eating its evil way to their core in 
 silence, what an incipient Hell was 
 breeding here ! 
 
 And yet this scene, painful as it 
 was, had its grotesque features, which, 
 in a less interested observer than 
 Nicholas, might have provoked a 
 smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of 
 the desks, presiding over an immense 
 basin of brimstone and treacle, ol 
 which delicious compound she admi- 
 nistered a large instalment to each 
 boy in succession : using for the pur- 
 pose a common wooden spoon, which 
 might have been originally manu- 
 factured for some gigantic top, and 
 which widened every young gentle- 
 man's mouth considerably : they being 
 all obliged, under heavy corporal 
 penalties, to take in the whole of the 
 bowl at a gasp. In another corner, 
 huddled together for companionship, 
 were the little boys who had arrived 
 on the preceding night, three of them 
 in very large leather breeches, and 
 two in old trousers, a something 
 tighter fit than drawers are usually 
 worn ; at no great distance from 
 these was seated the juvenile son and 
 heir of Mr. Squeers a striking like- 
 ness of his father kicking, with great 
 vigour, under the hands of Smike, who 
 was fitting upon him a pair of new 
 boots that bore a most suspicious 
 resemblance to those which the least 
 of the little boys had worn on the 
 journey down as the little boy him- 
 self seemed to think, for he was re- 
 garding the appropriation with a look 
 of most rueful amazement. Besides
 
 54 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 these, there was a long row of boys 
 waiting, with countenances of no plea- 
 sant anticipation, to be treacled ; and 
 another file, who had just escaped 
 from the infliction, making a variety 
 of wry mouths indicative of anything 
 but satisfaction. The whole were 
 attired in such motley, ill-assorted, 
 extraordinary garments, as would 
 have been irresistibly ridiculous, but 
 for the foul appearance of dirt, dis- 
 order, and disease, with which they 
 were associated. 
 
 "Now," said Squeers, giving the 
 desk a great rap with his cane, which 
 made half the little boys nearly jump 
 out of their boots, " is that physicking 
 over ? " 
 
 " Just over," said Mrs. 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 away now. 
 Look sharp !" 
 
 Smike shuffled out with the basin, 
 and Mrs. Squeers having called up a 
 little boy with a curly head, and 
 wiped her hands upon it, hurried out 
 after him into a species of wash-house, 
 where there was a small fire and a 
 large kettle, together with a number 
 of little wooden bowls which were 
 arranged upon a board. 
 
 Into these bowls, Mrs. Squeers, 
 assisted by the hungry servant, poured 
 a brown composition, which looked 
 like diluted pincushions without the 
 covers, and was called porridge. A 
 minute wedge of brown bread was 
 inserted in each bowl, and when they 
 had eaten their porridge by means of 
 the bread, the boys ate the bread 
 itself, and had finished their break- 
 fast ; whereupon Mr. Squeers said, 
 in a solemn voice, "For what we 
 have received, may the Lord make us 
 truly thankful ! " and went away to 
 his own. 
 
 Nicholas distended his stomach with 
 a bowl of porridge, for much the same 
 reason which induces some savages to 
 swallow earth lest they should be 
 inconveniently hungry when there is 
 nothing to eat. Having further dis- 
 posed of a slice of bread and butter, 
 
 allotted to him in virtue of his office, 
 he sat himself down, to wait for School- 
 time. 
 
 He could not but observe how silent 
 and sad the boys all seemed to be. 
 There was none of the noise and 
 clamour of a school-room ; none of its 
 boisterous play, or hearty mirth. The 
 children sat crouching and shivering 
 together, and seemed to lack the spirit 
 to move about. The only pupil who 
 evinced the slightest tendency towards 
 locomotion or playfulness, was Master 
 Squeers, and as his chief amusement 
 was to tread upon the other boys' toes 
 in his new boots, his flow of spirits 
 was rather disagreeable than other- 
 wise. 
 
 After some half-hour's delay, Mr. 
 Squeers reappeared, and the boys took 
 their places and their books, of which 
 latter commodity the average might 
 be about one to eight learners. A few 
 minutes having elapsed, during which 
 Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as 
 if he had a perfect apprehension of 
 ! what was inside all the books, and 
 could say every word of their contents 
 by heart if he only chose to take the 
 ! trouble, that gentleman called up the 
 first class. 
 
 Obedient to this summons there 
 ranged themselves in front of the 
 schoolmaster's desk, half-a-dozen 
 scarecrows, out at knees asd elbows, 
 one of whom placed a torn and filthy 
 book beneath his learned eye. 
 
 "This is the first class in English 
 spelling and philosophy, Nickleby," 
 said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas tc 
 stand beside him. " We '11 get up a 
 Latin one, and hand that over to yon. 
 Now, then, where 's the first boy ! " 
 
 " Please, sir, he 's cleaning the back 
 parlour window," said the temporary 
 head of the philosophical class. 
 
 " So he is, to be sure," rejoined 
 Squeers. " We go upon the practical 
 mode of teaching, Nickleby ; the 
 regular education system. C-1-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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 55 
 
 of the globes. Where's the second 
 boy!" 
 
 " Please, sir, he 's weeding the gar- 
 den," replied a small voice. 
 
 " To be sure," said Squeers, by no 
 means disconcerted. " So he is. B-o-t, 
 -n, tin, hot t in, n-e-y, ney, bottin- 
 :,. \ , noun substantive, a knowledge of 
 plants. When he has learned that 
 Ixittiuney 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. 
 
 "I believe you," rejoined Squeers, 
 
 not remarking the emphasis of his 
 
 " 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 quadruped, 
 and quadruped's Latin for beast, as 
 every body that's gone through the 
 grammar, knows, or else where 's the 
 use of having grammars at all ? " 
 
 " Where, indeed ! " said Nicholas 
 abstractedly. 
 
 "As you're perfect in that," re- 
 sumed Squeers, turning to the boy, 
 " go and look after my horse, and rub 
 him down well, or I '11 rub you down. 
 The rest of the class go and draw 
 water up, till somebody tells you to 
 leave' off, for it 's wasliing-day to- 
 morrow, and they want the coppers 
 filled." 
 
 So saying, he dismissed the first class 
 tn their experiments in practical phi- 
 losophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, 
 half cunning and half doubtful, as if he 
 were not altogether certain what he 
 might think of him by this tune. 
 
 " That 's the way we do it, 
 Nickleby," he said, after a pause. 
 
 Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in 
 a manner that was scarcely percepti- 
 ble, and said he saw it was. 
 
 " And a very good way it is, too," 
 said Squeers. " Now, just take them 
 fourteen little boys and hear them 
 some reading, because, you know, you 
 
 must begin to be useful. Idling about 
 here, won't do." 
 
 Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had 
 suddenly occurred to him, either that 
 he must not say too much to his assis- 
 tant, or that his assistant did not say 
 enough to him in praise of the esta- 
 blishment. The children were ar- 
 ranged in a semicircle round the new 
 master, and he was soon listening to 
 their dull, drawling, hesitating recital 
 of those stories of engrossing interest 
 which are to be foitud hi the more 
 antiquated spelling books. 
 
 In this exciting occupation, the 
 morning lagged heavily on. At one 
 o'clock, the boys having previously 
 had their appetites thoroughly taken 
 away by stir-about and potatoes, sat 
 down in the kitchen to some hard salt 
 beef, of which Nicholas was graciously 
 permitted to take his portion to his 
 own solitary desk, to eat it there in 
 peace. After this, there was another 
 hour of crouching in the school-room 
 and shivering with cold, and then 
 school began again. 
 
 It was Mr. Squeers's custom to call 
 the boys together, and make a sort of 
 report, after every half-yearly visit to 
 the metropolis, regarding the relations 
 and friends he had seen, the news he 
 had heard, the letters he had brought 
 down, the bills which had been paid 
 the accounts which had been left 
 unpaid, and so forth. This solemi: 
 proceeding always took place in the 
 afternoon of the day succeeding his 
 return ; perhaps, because the boys ac- 
 quired strength of mind from the sus- 
 pense of the morning, or, possibly ; 
 because Mr. Squeers himself acquired 
 greater sternness and inflexibility froir 
 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 con- 
 clave, 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
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 leave," said Mr. Squcers, mildly, "and 
 I '11 take the skin off his back." 
 
 This special proclamation had the 
 desired effect, and a deathlike silence 
 immediately prevailed, in the midst of 
 whi"h 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 ! Sighs 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 gentle- 
 men having no particular parents to 
 speak of, were wholly uninterested in 
 the thing one way or other. 
 
 " I have had disappointments to con- 
 tend against," said Squeers, looking 
 very grim ; " Solder's father was two 
 pound ten short. Where is Bolder ? " 
 
 " Here he is, please sir," rejoined 
 twenty officious voices. Boys are very 
 like men to be sure. 
 
 " Come here, Bolder," said Squeers. 
 
 An unhealthy-looking boy, wit'n warts 
 all over his hands, stepped from his 
 place to the master's desk, and raised 
 his eyes imploringly to Squeers's face; 
 his own, quite white from the rapid 
 beating o his heart. 
 
 " Bolder," said Squeers, speaking 
 very slowly, for he was considering, 
 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 cuff of his jacket, 
 and surveyed it with an edifying 
 aspect of horror and disgust. 
 
 " What do you call this sir ?" de- 
 manded the schoolmaster, administer- 
 ing a cut with the cane to expedite 
 the reply. 
 
 " I can't help it, indeed, sir," re- 
 joined tin- boy, crying. "They will 
 come ; it's the dirty work I think, 
 sir at least I don't know what it is, 
 sir, but it's not my fault." 
 
 " Bolder," said Squeers, tucking up 
 his wristbands, and moistening the 
 palm of his right hand to get a good 
 grip of the cane, " you're an incorri- 
 gible young scoundrel, and as the last 
 thrashing did you no good, we must 
 see what another will do towards 
 beating it out of you." 
 
 With this, and wholly disregarding 
 a piteous cry for mercy, Mr. Squcers 
 fell upon the boy and caned him 
 soundly : not leaving off indeed, until 
 his arm was tired out. 
 
 " There," said Squeers, when he 
 had quite done ; " rub away as hard 
 as you like, you won't rub that off 
 in a hurry. Oh ! you won't hold that 
 noise, won't you ? Put him out, Srnike." 
 
 The drudge knew better from long 
 experience, than to hesitate about 
 obeying, so he bundled the victim out 
 by a side door, and Mr. Squeers 
 perched himself again on his own 
 stool, supported by Mrs. Squeers, who 
 occupied another at his side. 
 
 " Now let us see," said Squeers. 
 " A letter for Cobbey. Stand up, 
 Cobbey." 
 
 Another boy stood up, and eyed the 
 letter very hard while Squeers made a 
 i mental abstract of the same. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Squeers : " Cobbey 's 
 
 grandmother is dead, and his uncle 
 
 John has took to drinking, which is 
 
 all the news his sister sends, except 
 
 eightcenpeuee, which will just pay for 
 
 I that broken square of glass. Mrs. 
 
 : Squeers, my deal', will you take the 
 
 money I " 
 
 The worthy lady pocketed the 
 eighteeupcnce with a most business- 
 i like ah-, and Squeers passed on to the 
 next boy, as coolly as possible. 
 
 " Graymarsh," said Squeers, "he's 
 the next. Stand up, Graymarsh." 
 
 Another boy stood up, and the 
 schoolmaster looked over the letter as 
 before. 
 
 " Graymarsh's maternal aunt," said 
 Squeers when he had possessed him-
 
 NICHOLAS XICKLEBY. 
 
 self of the contents, ' is very glad to 
 hear he's so well and happy, and sends 
 her respectful compliments to Mrs. 
 Sijueers, and thinks she must be an 
 angel. She likewise thinks .Mr. Squeers 
 is too good for this world ; but hopes 
 he may long be spared to carry on the 
 liusiness. Would have sent the two 
 pair of stockings as desired, but is 
 short of money, so forwards a tract 
 instead, and hopes Gray marsh will put 
 -t in Providence. Hopes, above 
 all, that he will study in everything 
 :> please Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, and 
 look upon them as his only friends ; 
 iLiul that he will love Master Squeers ; 
 and not object to sleeping five in a 
 bed, which no Christian should. Ah !" 
 .-.-.id Squecrs, folding it up, "a delight- 
 ful letter. Very affecting indeed." 
 
 It was affecting in one sense, for 
 Graymarsh's maternal aunt was 
 strongly supposed, by her more inti- 
 mate friends, to be no other than his 
 maternal parent ; Squeers, however, 
 without alluding to this part of the 
 story (which would have sounded im- 
 moral before boys), proceeded with 
 the business by calling out " Mobbs," 
 whereupon another boy rose, and 
 Graymarsh resumed his seat. 
 
 " Mobbs's mother-in-law," said 
 Squeers, " took to her bed on hearing 
 that he wouldn't cat fat, and has 
 been very ill ever since. She wishes 
 to know, by an early post, where he 
 expects to go to, if he quarrels with 
 his vittles ; and with what feelings 
 he could turn up his nose at the cow's 
 liver broth, after his good master had 
 asked a blessing on it. This was told 
 her in the London newspapers not 
 by Mr. Squeers, for he is too kind 
 and too good to set anybody against 
 anybody and it has vexed her so 
 much, Mobbs can't think. She is 
 sorry to find he is discontented, which 
 is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. 
 Squeers will flog him into a happier 
 state of mind ; with which view, she 
 has also stopped his lialfpenny a week 
 pocket-money, and given a double- 
 i'l.-ided kuii'cr with a corkscrew in it to 
 the Missionaries, which she liad bought 
 on purpose for him." 
 
 " A sulky state of feeling," said 
 Squecrs, after a terrible pause, during 
 which he had moistened the pahn 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 lie 
 soon afterwards retired by the side 
 door, with as good cause as a boy need 
 have. 
 
 Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open 
 a miscellaneous collection of letters : 
 some enclosing money, which Mrs 
 Squeers " took care of ;" and others 
 referring to small articles of apparel, 
 as caps and so forth, all of which the 
 same lady stated to be too large, or too 
 small, pjid calculated for nobody but 
 young Squeers, who would appear in- 
 deed to have had most accommodating 
 limbs, since everything that came into 
 the school fitted him to a nicety. His 
 head, in particular, must have been 
 singularly elastic, for hats and caps of 
 all dimensions were alike to him. 
 
 This business despatched, a few 
 slovenly lessons were performed, and 
 Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving 
 Nicholas to take care of the boys in 
 the school-room, which was very cold, 
 and where a meal of bread and 
 cheese was served out shortly after 
 dark. 
 
 There was a small stove at that 
 corner of the room which was nearest 
 to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas 
 sat down, so depressed and self- 
 degraded by the consciousness of his 
 position, that if death could have come 
 upon him at that time, he would have 
 been almost happy to meet it. The 
 cruelty of which he had been an un- 
 willing witness, the coarse and ruffianly 
 behaviour of Squeers even in his best 
 moods, the filthy place, the sights and 
 sounds about him, all contributed tc 
 this state of feeling ; but when he 
 recollected that, being there as an as- 
 sistant, he actually seemed no matter 
 what unhappy train of circumstances 
 had brought him to that pass to be the 
 aider and abettor of a system which 
 filled him with honest disgust and in-
 
 68 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 dignation, he loathed himself, and felt, 
 for the moment, as though the mere 
 consciousness of his present situation 
 must, tlirough all time to come, pre- 
 vent his raising his head again. 
 
 But, for the present, his resolve was 
 taken, and the resolution he had 
 formed on the preceding night re- 
 mained undisturbed. He had written 
 to his mother and sister, announcing 
 the safe conclusion of his journey, and 
 saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, 
 and saying that little as cheerfully, as 
 he possibly could. He hoped that by 
 remaining where he was, he might 
 do some good, even there ; at all 
 events, others depended too much on 
 his uncle's favour, .to admit of his 
 awakening his wrath just then. 
 
 One reflection disturbed him far 
 more than any selfish considerations 
 arising out of his own position. This 
 was the probable destination of his 
 sister Kate. His uncle had deceived 
 him, and might he not consign her to 
 some miserable place where her youth 
 and beauty would prove a far greater 
 curse than ugliness and decrepitude I 
 To a caged man, bound hand and foot, 
 this was a terrible idea j but no, he 
 thought, his mother was by ; there 
 was the portrait-painter, too simple 
 enough, but still living in the world, 
 and of it. He was willing to believe 
 that Ralph Nickleby had conceived a 
 personal dislike to himself. Having 
 pretty good reason, by this time, to 
 reciprocate it, he had no great diffi- 
 culty in arriving at this conclusion, 
 and tried to persuade himself that the 
 feeling extended no farther than be- 
 tween them. 
 
 As he was absorbed in these medi- 
 tations, he all at once encountered the 
 upturned face of Smike, who was on 
 his knees before the stove, picking a 
 few stray cinders from the hearth and 
 planting them on the fire. He had 
 paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and 
 when he saw that he was observed, 
 shrunk back, as if expecting a blow. 
 
 " You need not fear me," said Ni- 
 cholas kindly. " Are you cold ? " 
 N-n-o." 
 u You are shivering." 
 
 " I am not cold," replied Smike 
 quickly. " I am used to it." 
 
 There was such an obvious fear of 
 giving offence in his manner, and he 
 was such a timid, broken-spirited 
 creature, that Nicholas could not help 
 exclaiming, " Poor fellow ! " 
 
 If he had struck the drudge, he 
 would have slunk away without a 
 word. But, now, he burst into tears. 
 " Oh dear, oh dear ! " he cried, 
 covering his face with his cracked and 
 borny hands. " My heart will break. 
 It will, it will." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Nicholas, laying his 
 hand upon his shoulder. " Be a man; 
 you are nearly one by years, God help 
 you." 
 
 By years ! " cried Smike. " Oh 
 dear, dear, how many of them ! How 
 many of them since I was a little 
 child, younger than any that are here 
 now ! Where are they all ! " 
 
 Whom do you speak of ? " in- 
 quired 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 Ni- 
 cholas ; he knew not what to say. 
 
 " No," rejoined the other, " no ; 
 none for me. Do you remember the 
 boy that died here ? " 
 
 "I was not here, you know," said 
 Nicholas gently ; " but what of him ! " 
 " Why," replied the youth, drawing 
 closer to his questioner's side, " I wag 
 with him at night, and when it was all 
 silent he cried no more for friends he 
 wished to come and sit with him, but 
 began to see faces round his bed that 
 came from home ; he said they smiled> 
 and talked to him ; and he died at last 
 lifting his head to kiss them. Do you 
 hear? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " What faces will smile on me when 
 
 1 1 die !" cried his companion, shivering. 
 
 " Who will talk to me in those long 
 
 1 nights ! They cannot come from 
 
 home ; they would frighten me, if they 
 
 ; did, for I don't know what it is, and 
 
 ! shouldn't know them. Pain and fear.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 9 
 
 pain and fear for me, alive or dead, to avoid notice. It was with a heavy 
 
 No hope, no hope !" In-art that Nicholas soon afterwards 
 
 The bell rang to bed ; and the boy, no, not retired ; there was no retire- 
 
 suh^i.ling at the sound into his usual ment there followed to his dirty 
 
 listless state, crept away as if anxious and crowded dormitory. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF MISS SQUEERS, MRS. SQUEERS, MASTER SQUEERS, AND MR. SQUEERS J AND OF 
 VARIOUS MATTERS AND PERSONS CONNECTED NO LESS WITH THE SQUEERSES 
 THAN WITH NICHOLAS NICKLKHY. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Squeers left the school- 
 room for the night, hc'betook himself, 
 as has been before remarked, to his 
 own fire-side, which was situated not 
 in the room in which Nicholas had 
 sapped on the night of his arrival, but 
 in a smaller apartment in the rear of 
 the premises, where his lady wife, 
 his amiable son, and accomplished 
 daughter, were in the full enjoyment 
 of each other's society ; Mrs. Squeers 
 being engaged in the matronly pursuit 
 of stocking-darning ; and the young 
 lady and gentleman being occupied in 
 the adjustment of some youthful differ- 
 ences, by means of a pugilistic contest 
 across the table, which, on the ap- 
 proach of their honoured parent, sub- 
 sided into a noiseless exchange of kicks 
 beneath it. 
 
 And, in this place, it may be as well 
 to apprise the reader, that Miss Fanny 
 Squeers was in her thrce-and-twentieth 
 year. If there be any one grace or 
 loveliness inseparable from that parti- 
 cular period of life, Miss Squeers may 
 be presumed to have been possessed 
 of it, as there is no reason to suppose 
 that she was a solitary exception to an 
 universal rule. She was not tall like 
 her mother, but short like her father ; 
 from the former she inherited a voice 
 of harsh quality ; from the latter a 
 remarkable expression of the right 
 eye, something akin to having none 
 at all. 
 
 Miss Squeers had been spending a 
 few days with a neighbouring friend, 
 and had only just returned to the pa- ; 
 
 rental roof. To this circumstance may 
 be referred, her having heard nothing 
 of Nicholas, until Mr. Squeers himself 
 now made him the subject of conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " Well, my dear," said Squeers, 
 drawing up his chair, " what do you 
 think of him by this time?" 
 
 " Think of who ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Squeers ; who (as she often remarked) 
 was no grammarian, thank Heaven. 
 
 " Of the young man the new teacher 
 who else could I mean ?" 
 
 " Oh ! that Knuckleboy," said Mrs. 
 Squeers impatiently. " I hate him." 
 
 "What do you hate him for, my 
 dear ?' asked Squeers. 
 
 "What's that to you?' retorted 
 Mrs. Squeers. " If I hate him, that 's 
 enough, ain't it." 
 
 " Quite enough for him, my dear, 
 and a great deal too much I dare say, 
 if he knew it," replied Squeers in a 
 pacific tone. " I only asked from curi- 
 osity, my dear." 
 
 " Well, then, if you want to know,'' 
 rejoined Mrs. Squeers, " I '11 tell you. 
 Because he 's a proud, haughty, con- 
 sequential, turned-up-nosed peacock." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers, whe*n excited, was 
 accustomed to use strong language, 
 and, moreover, to make use of a plura- 
 lity of epithets, some of which were of 
 a figurative kind, as the word peacock, 
 and furthermore the allusion to Ni- 
 cholas's nose, which was not intended 
 to be taken in its literal sense, but 
 rather to bear a latitude of construc- 
 tion according to the fancy of the
 
 CO 
 
 LIFE AMD ADVENTURES OF 
 
 hearers. Neither were they meant to 
 bear reference to each other, so much 
 as to the object on whom they were 
 I '(-stowed, as will be seen in the present 
 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 f 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, ' Edu- 
 cation by Mr. Wackford Squeers and 
 able assistants,' without having any 
 assistants, can't you ? Isn't it done 
 every day by all the masters about ! 
 I 've no patience with you." 
 
 " Haven't you ! " said Squeers, 
 sternly. " Now I '11 tell you what, 
 Mrs. Squeers. In this matter of hav- j 
 ing a teacher, I '11 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 '11 
 have a man under me to do the same 
 with our blacks, till such time as little 
 Wackford is able to take charge of the 
 school." 
 
 " Am I to take care of the school 
 when I grow up a man, father ?" said 
 Wackford junior, suspending, in the 
 excess of his delight, a vicious kick 
 which he was administering to his 
 sister. 
 
 " You are, my son," replied Mr. 
 Squeers, in a sentimental voice. 
 
 " Oh my eye, won't I give it to the 
 boys !" exclaimed the interesting child, 
 grasping his father's cane. " Oh, 
 lather, won't I make 'em squeak again I" 
 
 It was a proud moment in Mr. 
 Squeers's life, when he witnessed that 
 burst of enthusiasm in his young child's 
 
 mind,and saw in it a foreshadowing of his 
 future eminence. He pressed a penny 
 int'i his hand, and gave vent to his 
 feeling* (as did his exemplary wife 
 also), in a shout of approving laughter. 
 The infantine appeal to their common 
 sympathies, at once restored cheerful- 
 ness 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 anywhere else, isn't he ? 
 especially as he don't like it." 
 
 " Well," observed Mrs. Squeers, 
 " there 's something in that. I hope 
 it '11 bring his pride down, and it shall 
 be no fault of mine if it don't." 
 
 Now, a proud usher in a Yorkshire 
 school was such a very extraordinary 
 and unaccountable thing to hear of, 
 any usher at all being a novelty; but a 
 proud one, a being of whose existence 
 the wildest imagination could never 
 have dreamed that Miss Squeers, who 
 seldom troubled herself with scholastic 
 matters, inquired with much curiosity 
 who this Knuckleboy was, that gave 
 himself such airs. 
 
 " Nickleby," said Squeers, spelling 
 the name according to some eccentric 
 system which prevailed in his own 
 mind; "yourmother always calls things 
 and people by their wrong names." 
 
 "No matter for that," said Mrs 
 Squeers, " I see them with right eyes, 
 and that's quite enough for me. I 
 watched him when you were laying on 
 to little Bolder this afternoon. He 
 looked as black as thunder, all the 
 while, and, one time, started up as if he 
 had more than got it in his mind to 
 make a rush at you. /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 ! ''
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 61 
 
 " Yes ; but I don't believe a word of 
 it. If he 's a gentleman's son at all, 
 he 's a fondling, that 's my opinion." 
 
 M rs. Squeers intended to say" found- 
 ling,'' but, as she frequently remarked 
 when she made any such mistake, it 
 would be all the same a hundred years 
 hence ; with which axiom of philosophy, 
 indeed, she was in the constant habit of 
 consoling the boys when they laboured 
 under more than ordinary ill usage. 
 
 " He 's nothing of the kind," said 
 Squeers, in answer to the above re- 
 mark, " for his father was married to 
 his mother, years before he was born, 
 and sho is alive now. If he was, it 
 would be no business of ours, for we 
 make a very good friend by having 
 him here ; and if he likes to learn the 
 boys anything besides minding them, 
 I have no objection I am sure." 
 
 " I say again, I hate him worse than 
 poison," said Mrs. Squeers vehemently. 
 
 "If you dislike him, my dear," 
 returned Squeers, " I don't know 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 asure 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 anybody's spirit down, as 
 quick as you can, my love." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers chuckled vastly on 
 the receipt of these flattering compli- 
 ments, and said, sho 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 trea- 
 sured up this, and much more conver- 
 sation on the' same subject, until she 
 retired for the night, when she ques- 
 tioned the hungry servant, minutely, 
 regarding the outward appearance and 
 demeanour of Nicholas ; to which 
 queries the girl returned such enthu- 
 siastic replies, coupled with so many 
 laudatory remarks touching his beau- 
 tiful dark eyes, and his sweet smile, 
 
 and his straight .ogs 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 ob- 
 servation of Nicholas the very next day. 
 
 In pursuance of this design, the 
 young lady watched the opportunity 
 of her mother being engaged, and her 
 father absent, and went accidentally into 
 the school-room to get a pen mended : 
 where, seeing nobody but Nicholas 
 presiding over the boys, she blushed 
 very deeply, and exhibited great con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," faltered Miss 
 Squeers ; " I thought my father was 
 or might be dear me, how very 
 awkward ! " 
 
 " Mr. Squeers is out," said Nicholas, 
 by no means overcome by the appari- 
 tion, unexpected though it was 
 
 " Do you know will ho be long, 
 sir ? " asked Miss Squeers, with bash- 
 ful hesitation. 
 
 " He said about an hour," replied 
 Nicholas politely of course but 
 without any indication of being stricken 
 to the heart by Miss Squeers 1 s charms. 
 
 " I never knew anything happen so 
 cross," exclaimed the young lady. 
 " Thank you ! I am very sorry I in- 
 truded, I am sure. If I hadn't thought 
 my father was here, I wouldn't upon 
 any account have it is very provok- 
 ing must look so very strange," 
 murmured Miss Squeers, blushing 
 once more, and glancing, from the pen 
 in her hand, to Nicholas 'at his desk, 
 and back again. 
 
 " If that is all you want," paid 
 Nicholas, pointing to the pen, and 
 smiling, in spite of himself, at the 
 affected embarrassment of the school- 
 master's daughter, "perhaps I can 
 supply his place." 
 
 Miss Squeers glanced at the door, as 
 if dubious of the propriety of advanc- 
 ing any nearer to an utter stranger :
 
 62 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 then round the school-room, as though 
 in some measure reassured by tin- ]>[<- 
 sence of forty boys ; and finally sidled 
 up to Nicholas and delivered the pen 
 into his hand, with a most winning mix- 
 ture of reserve and condescension. 
 
 Shall it be a hard or a soft nib 1 " 
 inquired Nicholas, smiling to prevent 
 Himself from laughing outright. 
 
 " He has a beautiful smile," thought 
 Miss Squeers. 
 
 " Which did you say 1 " asked 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Dear me, I was thinking of some- 
 thing eke for the moment, I declare," 
 replied Miss Squeers " Oh ! as soft 
 as possible, if you please." With 
 which words, Miss Squeers sighed. It 
 might be, to give Nicholas to under- 
 stand 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 h'ttle 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 bye," said Nicholas. " The 
 next I make for you, I hope will be 
 made less clumsily. Take care ! You 
 are biting the nib off now." 
 
 " Really," said Miss Squeers ; " so 
 embarrassing that I scarcely know 
 what I very sorry to give you so 
 much trouble." 
 
 " Not the least trouble in the world,' 
 replied Nicholas, closing the school- 
 room door. 
 
 " I never saw such legs in the whole 
 course of my life ! " said Miss Squeera 
 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 conceivec 
 a passion for Nicholas, it may be 
 
 accessary to state, that the friend from 
 vhom she had so recently returned, 
 ivas a miller's daughter of only eigh-> 
 .ecn, who had contracted herself unto 
 he son of a small corn-factor, resident 
 n the nearest market town. Miss 
 queers and the miller's daughter, 
 >eing fast friends, had covenanted to- 
 gether some two years before, accord- 
 ng to a custom prevalent among 
 roung ladies, that whoever was first 
 mgaged to be married, should straight- 
 way confide the mighty secret to the 
 josom of the other, before communi- 
 cating it to any living soul, and be- 
 speak her as bridesmaid without loss 
 of tune ; hi fulfilment of which pledge 
 the miller's daughter, when her en- 
 gagement was formed, came out ex- 
 press, at eleven o'clock at night as the 
 corn-factor's son made an offer of his 
 hand and heart at twenty-five minutes 
 past ten by the Dutch clock in the 
 kitchen, and rushed into Miss Squeers's 
 bed-room with the gratifying intelli- 
 jence. Now, Miss Squeers being five 
 years older, and out of her teens 
 (which is also a great matter), had, 
 since, been more than commonly 
 anxious to return the compliment, 
 and possess her friend with a similar 
 secret ; but, either in consequence of 
 finding it hard to please herself, or 
 harder still to please 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 pi'ecipitation, 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 gentle- 
 man'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 mysteri- 
 ous and remarkable circumstances 
 indeed, as Miss Squeers more than 
 once hinted she had good reason to 
 believe, induced, by the fame of her 
 many charms, to seek her out, and woo 
 and win her.
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 G3 
 
 " Isn't it an extraordinary tiling ? " 
 said Miss Squeers, emphasising the 
 adjective strongly. 
 
 "Most extraordinary," replied the 
 friend. >' But what has he said to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Don't ask me what he said, my 
 dear," rejoined Miss Squeers. " If 
 you had only seen his looks and binik-s ! 
 I ni-ver was so overcome in all my 
 life." 
 
 " Did he look in this way 1 " in- 
 quired the miller's daughter, counter- 
 feiting, as nearly as she could, a 
 favourite leer of the corn-factor. 
 
 " Very like that only more gen- 
 teel," replied Miss Squeers. 
 
 Ah ! " said the friend, then he 
 means something, depend on it." 
 
 Miss Squeers, having slight misgiv- 
 ings on the subject, was by no means 
 ill pleased to be confirmed by a com- 
 petent authority ; and, discovering, on 
 further conversation and comparison 
 of notes, a great many points of re- 
 semblance between the behaviour of 
 Nicholas, and that of the corn-factor, 
 ^rew so exceedingly confidential, that 
 -ho 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 hard- 
 ship of having a father and mother 
 strenuously opposed to her intended 
 husband ; on- which unhappy circum- 
 stance she dwelt at great length ; for 
 the friend's father and mother were 
 quite agreeable to her being married, 
 and the whole courtship was in conse- 
 quence as flat and common-place an 
 affair as it was possible to imagine. 
 
 " How I should like to see him 1 " 
 exclaimed the friend. 
 
 So you shall, 'Tilda," replied Miss 
 Squeers. u I should consider myself 
 one of the most ungrateful creatures 
 alive, if I denied you. I think mother's 
 going away for two days to fetch some 
 boys ; and when she does, I'll ask you 
 and John up to tea, and have him to 
 meet you." 
 
 This was a charming idea, and 
 having fully discussed it, the friends 
 parted. 
 
 It so fell out, that Mrs. Squeers's 
 journey, to some distance, to fetch 
 three new boys, and dun the relations 
 of two old ones for the balance of a 
 small account, was fixed, that very 
 afternoon, for the next day but one ; 
 and on the next day but one, Mrs. 
 Squeers got up outside the coach, as it 
 stopped to change at Greta Bridge, 
 taking with her a small bundle con- 
 taining something in a bottle, and some 
 sandwiches, and carrying besides a 
 large white top coat to wear in the 
 night-time ; with which baggage she 
 went her way. 
 
 Whenever such opportunities as 
 these, occurred, it was Squeers's cus- 
 tom to drive over to the market town, 
 every evening, on pretence of urgent 
 business, and stop till ten or eleven 
 o'clock at a tavern he much affected. 
 As the party was not in his way, there- 
 fore, but rather afforded a means of 
 compromise with Miss Squeers, he 
 readily yielded his full assent there- 
 unto, and willingly communicated to 
 Nicholas that he was expected to take 
 his tea in the parlour that evening, at 
 five o'clock. 
 
 To he sure Miss Squeers was in 
 a desperate flutter as the time ap- 
 proached, and to be sure she was 
 dressed out to the best advantage : 
 with her hair it had more than a 
 tinge of red, and she wore it In a crop 
 curled in five distinct rows, np to the 
 very top of her head, and arranged 
 dexterously over the doubtful eye ; to 
 say nothing of the blue sash which 
 floated down her back, or the worked 
 apron, or the long gloves, or the green 
 gauze scarf, worn over one shoulder 
 and under the other ; or any of the 
 numerous devices which were to be 
 as so many arrows to the heart of 
 Nicholas. She had scarcely completed 
 these arrangements to her entire satis- 
 faction, when the friend arrived with a 
 whitey-brown parcel flat and three- 
 cornered containing 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,
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 tin-owing in some striking improve- 
 ments in the way of ringlets down the 
 neck ; and then, when they were both 
 touched up to their entire sati-slui-iimi, 
 they went down stairs in full state 
 with the long gloves on, all ready for 
 companv. 
 
 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 
 Squeere. 
 
 " Ah ! I know what it is," replied 
 the friend. 
 
 "I have not been used to it, you 
 know, 'Tilda," said Miss Squeers, ap- 
 plying her hand to the left side of her 
 sash. 
 
 " You'll soon get the better of it, 
 dear," rejoined the friend. While 
 they were talking thus, the hungry 
 servant brought in the tea things, and, 
 soon afterwards, somebody tapped at 
 the room door. 
 
 " There he is ! " cried Miss Squeers. 
 Oh 'Tilda ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " said 'Tilda. Hem ! 
 Say, come in." 
 
 " Come in," cried Miss Squeers 
 faintly. And in walked Nicholas. 
 
 " Good evening,'" said that young 
 gentleman, all unconscious of his con- 
 quest. " 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 
 ne turned the matter off very coolly 
 not caring, particularly, about anything 
 iust then and went through the cere- 
 mony 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 re- 
 ceived the intelligence with perfect 
 
 unconcern ; and, being out of spirits, 
 and not seeing any especial reason why 
 he should make himself agrfc.-ibli . 
 looked out of the window and sighed 
 involuntarily. 
 
 As luck would have it, MissSqueers's 
 friend was of a playful turn, and hear- 
 ing Nicholas sigh, .she took it into her 
 head to rally the lovers on, their low- 
 ness of spirits. 
 
 " But if it 's caused by my being 
 here," said the young lady, " don't 
 mind me a bit, for I 'm quite as bad. 
 You may go on, just as you would if you 
 were alone." 
 
 " 'Tilda," said Miss Squeers, colour- 
 ing up to the top row of curls, " I am 
 ashamed of you ;" and here the two 
 friends burst into a variety of giggles, 
 and glanced, from time to time, over the 
 tops of their pocket-handkerchiefs, at 
 Nicholas, who, from a state of unmixed 
 astonishment, gradually fell into one 
 of irrepressible laughter occasioned, 
 partly by the bare notion of his being 
 in love with Miss Squeers, and partly 
 by the preposterous appearance and 
 behaviour of the two girls. These two 
 causes of merriment, taken together, 
 struck him as being so keenly ridi- 
 culous, that, despite his miserable con- 
 dition, he laughed till he was thorouglily 
 exhausted. 
 
 " Well," tliought Nicholas, as I 
 am here, and seem expected, for some 
 ! reason or other, to be amiable, it 's of 
 'no use looking like a goose. I may 
 as well accommodate myself to the 
 company." 
 
 We blush to tell it ; but his youthful 
 spirits and vivacity, getting, for 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 pro- 
 bability an usher has ever done in 
 his employer's house since ushers were 
 first invented. 
 
 The ladies were in the full delight of 
 this altered behaviour on the part of 
 Mr. Nickleby, when the expected 
 swain arrived, with his hair very damp 
 from recoil t washing, and a clean shirt.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 65 
 
 whereof the collar might have be- 
 longed to some giant ancestor, form- 
 ing, together with a white waistcoat 
 of similar dimensions, the chief orna- 
 ment of his person. 
 
 " Well, John," said Miss Matilda 
 Price (which, by-the-bye, was the name 
 of the miller's daughter). 
 
 " Weel," said John with a grin that 
 even the collar could not conceal. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," interposed 
 Miss Squeers, hastening to do the 
 honours, "Mr. Nickleby Mr. John 
 Browdie." 
 
 " Servant, sir," said John, who was 
 something over six feet high, with a 
 face and body rather above the due 
 proportion than below it. 
 
 " Yours to command, sir," replied 
 Nicholas, making fearful ravages on 
 the bread and butter. 
 
 Mr. Browdie was not a gentleman 
 of great conversational powers, so he 
 grinned twice more, and having now 
 bestowed his customary mark of recog- 
 nition on every person in company, 
 grinned at nothing particular and 
 helped himself to food. 
 
 " Old wooman awa', bean't she 1 " 
 s'lid Mr. Browdie, with his mouth full. 
 Squeers nodded assent. 
 
 Mr. Browdie gave a grin of special 
 width, as if he thought that really was 
 something to laugh at, and went to 
 work at the bread and butter with in- 
 creased vigour. It was quite a sight 
 to behold how he and Nicholas emptied 
 the plate between them. 
 
 " Ye weau't get bread and butther 
 ev'ry neight, I expect, muii," said Mr. 
 Browdie, after he had sat staring at 
 Nicholas a long time over the empty 
 plate. 
 
 Nicholas bit his lip, and coloured, 
 but affected not to hear the remark. 
 
 " Ecod," said Mr. Browdie, laugh- 
 ing boisterously, " they dean't put too 
 much iutiv'em. Ye '11 be nowt but 
 skeen and boaus if you stop here long 
 eneaf. Ho ! ho ! ho ! " 
 
 " You are facetious, sir," said Nicho- 
 las, scornfully. 
 
 " Na ; I dean't know," replied Mr. 
 Browdie, " but t'oother teacher, 'cod 
 he wur a learn 'un, he wur." The recol- ' 
 
 No. 36. 
 
 lection of die last teacher's leanness 
 seemed to afford Mr. Browdie the most 
 exquisite delight, for he laughed until 
 he found it necessary to apply his coat- 
 cuffs to his eyes. 
 
 " I don't know whether your per- 
 ceptions are quite keen enough, Mr. 
 Browdie, to enable you to understand 
 that your remarks are offensive," 
 said Nicholas in a towering passion, 
 "but if they are, have the goodness 
 to " 
 
 " If you say another word, John," 
 shrieked Miss Price, stopping her ad- 
 mirer's mouth as he was about to 
 interrupt, " only half a word, I '11 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 inter- 
 cession, was, that he and .John Browdie 
 shook hands across the table with 
 much gravity ; and such was the im- 
 posing nature of the ceremonial, that 
 Miss Squeers was overcome and shed 
 tears. 
 
 What 's the matter, Fanny 1 " said 
 Miss Price. 
 
 " Nothing, : Tilda/' replied Miss 
 Squeers, sobbing. 
 
 " There never was any danger," 
 said Miss Price, " was there, Mr. 
 Nickleby " 
 
 " None at all," replied Nicholas. 
 Absurd." 
 
 " That 's right," whispered Miss 
 Price, "say something kind to her, 
 and she'll soon come round. Here! 
 Shall John and I go into the little 
 kitchen, and come back presently ? " 
 
 " Not on any account," rejoined 
 Nicholas, quite alarmed at the propo- 
 sition. " What on earth should you 
 do that for ! " 
 
 " Well," said Miss Price, beckoning 
 him aside, and speaking with some 
 degree of contempt " you are a one to 
 keep company." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said Nicho- 
 las : " I am not a one to keep company
 
 66 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 at all hero at all events. I can't 
 make this out." 
 
 " No, nor I neither," rejoined Miss 
 Price ; "but men are always fickle, 
 and always were, and always will be ; 
 that I can make out, very easily." 
 
 " Fickle ! " cried Nicholas ; " what 
 do you suppose t You don't mean to 
 say that you think " 
 
 "Oh no, I think nothing at all," 
 retorted Miss Price, pettishly. "Look 
 at her, dressed so beautiful and looking 
 so well really almost handsome. I 
 am ashamed at you." 
 
 " My dear girl, what have I got to 
 do with her dressing beautifully or 
 looking well \ " inquired Nicholas. 
 
 " Come, don't call me a dear girl," 
 said Miss Price smiling a little 
 though, for she was pretty, and a 
 coquette too in her small way, and 
 Nicholas was good-looking, and she 
 supposed him the property of some- 
 body else, which were all reasons why 
 she should be gratified to think she 
 had made an impression on him, " or 
 Fanny will be saying it's my fault. 
 Come ; w 're going to have a game 
 at cards." Pronouncing these last 
 words aloud, she tripped away and 
 rejoined the big Yorkshireman. 
 
 This was wholly unintelligible to 
 Nicholas, who had no other distinct 
 impression on his mind at the moment, 
 than that Miss Squeers was an ordi- 
 nary-looking girl, and her friend Miss 
 Price a pretty one ; but he had not 
 time to enlighten himself by reflection, 
 for the hearth being by this time swept 
 up, and the candle snuffed, they sat 
 down to play speculation. 
 
 " There are only four of us, 'Tilda," 
 said Miss Squeers, looking slyly at 
 Nicholas ; " so we had better go part- 
 ners, two against two." 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Nickleby ! " 
 inquired Miss Price. 
 
 With all ihe pleasure in life," re- 
 plied Nicholas. And so saying, quite 
 unconscious' of his heinous offence, he 
 amalgamated into one common heap 
 those portions of a Dothebovs Hall 
 card of terms, which represented his 
 own counters, and those allotted to 
 Miss Price, respectively. 
 
 u Mr. Browdio," said Miss Squeers 
 hysterically, "shall we make a bank 
 against them ? " 
 
 The Yorkshireman assented appa- 
 rently quite overwhelmed by the new 
 usher's impudence and Miss Squeers 
 darted a spiteful look at her friend, 
 and giggled convulsively. 
 
 The deal fell to Nicholas, and the 
 hand prospered. 
 
 " We intend to win everything," 
 said he. 
 
 "'Tilda JMS won something she 
 didn't expect I think, haven't you, 
 dear 1 " said Miss Squeers, maliciously. 
 
 " Only a dozen and eight, love," re- 
 plied 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 jea- 
 lousy ; " Oh no ! " 
 
 " That 's well," remarked Miss 
 Price. " Your hair 's coming out of 
 curl, dear." 
 
 "Never mind me," tittered Miss 
 Squeers ; " you had better attend to 
 your partner." 
 
 "Thank you for reminding her," 
 said Nicholas. " So she had." 
 
 The Yorkshireman flattened his 
 nose, once or twice, with his clenched 
 fist, as if to keep his hand in, till he 
 had an opportunity of exercising it 
 upon the features of some other gen- 
 tleman ; and Miss Squeers tossed her 
 head with such indignation, that the 
 gust of wind raised by the multitudi- 
 nous curls in motion, nearly blew the 
 candle out. 
 
 "I never had such luck, really," 
 exclaimed coquettish Miss Price, after 
 another hand or two. " It 's all along 
 of you, Mr. Nickleby, I think. I 
 should like to have you for a partner 
 always." 
 
 " I wish you had." 
 
 " You '11 have a bad wife, though, 
 if you always win at cards," said Miss 
 Price. 
 
 "Not if your wish is gratified,"
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 67 
 
 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 car- 
 rying on ! It would have been worth 
 a small annuity to have beheld that ; 
 let alone Miss Price's evident joy at 
 making them jealous, and Nicholas 
 Nickleby's happy unconsciousness of 
 making anybody uncomfortable. 
 
 " We have all the talking to our- 
 selves, it seems," said Nicholas, look- 
 ing good-humouredly round the table 
 as he took up the cards for a fresh 
 deal. 
 
 " You do . it so well," tittered Miss 
 Squeers, " that it would be a pity to 
 interrupt, wouldn't it, Mr. Browdie ? 
 He ! he ! he ! " 
 
 " Nay," said Nicholas, " we do it 
 in default of having anybody else to 
 talk to." 
 
 " We "11 talk to you, you know, if 
 you '11 say anything," said Miss Price. 
 
 " Thank you, Tilda, dear," retorted 
 Miss Squeers, majestically. 
 
 " Or you can talk to each other, if 
 
 Siu don't choose to talk to us," said 
 iss Price, rallying her dear friend. 
 " John, why don't you say something V 
 
 " Say summat ? " repeated the York- 
 shireman. 
 
 " Ay, and not sit there so silent and 
 glum." 
 
 " Weel, then ! " said the Yorkshire- 
 man, 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 astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Cum whoam, tell 'e, cum whoam," 
 replied the Yorkshireman, sternly. 
 And as he delivered the reply, Miss 
 Squeers burst into a shower of tears ; 
 arising in part from desperate vexa- 
 tion, and hi 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 and workings. 
 Miss Squeers had brought it about, by 
 aspiring to the high state and condition 
 of being matrimonially engaged, without 
 good grounds for so doing ; Miss Price 
 had brought it about, by indulging in 
 three motives of action : first, a desire 
 to punish her friend for laying claim 
 to a rivalship in dignity, having no 
 good title : secondly, the gratification 
 of her own vanity, in receiving the 
 compliments of a smart young man : 
 and thirdly, a wish to convince the 
 corn-factor of the great danger he 
 ran, in deferring the celebration of 
 their expected nuptials ; while Nicholas 
 had brought it about, by half an hour's 
 gaiety and thoughtlessness, and a very 
 sincere desire to avoid the imputation 
 of inclining at all to Miss Squeers. 
 So the means employed, and the 
 end produced, were alike the most 
 natural in the world ; for young ladies 
 will look forward to being married, 
 and will jostle each other in the race 
 to the altar, and will avail themselves 
 of all opportunities of displaying their 
 own attractions to the best advantage, 
 down to the very end of time, as they 
 have done from its beginning. 
 
 " Why, and here 's Fanny in tears 
 now ! " exclaimed Miss Price, as if in 
 fresh amazement. " What can be the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Oh ! you don't know, Miss, of 
 course you don't know. Pray don't 
 trouble yourself to inquire," said 
 Miss Squeers, producing that change 
 of countenance which children call, 
 making a face. 
 
 " Well, I 'm sure ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Price. 
 
 "And who cares whether you are 
 sure or not, ma'am?" retorted Miss 
 Squeers, making another face. 
 
 " You are monstrous polite, ma'am," 
 said Miss Price. 
 
 " I shall not come to you- to take 
 lessons in the art, ma'am"? " retorted 
 Miss Squeers. 
 
 You needn't take the trouble to 
 make yourself plainer than you are, 
 ma'am, however," rejoined Miss Price. 
 because that 's quite unnecessary ." 
 
 F2
 
 68 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Miss Squeers, in reply, turned very 
 red, and thanked God that she hadn't 
 got the bold faces of some people. 
 Miss Price, in rejoinder, congratulated 
 herself upon not being possessed of 
 the envious feeling of other people ; 
 whereupon Miss Squeers made some 
 general remark touching the danger of 
 associating with low persons ; in which 
 Miss Price entirely coincided : observ- 
 ing 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 '11 cry your eyes out, when I 'm 
 gone; you know you will." 
 
 " I scorn your words, Minx," said 
 Miss Squeers. 
 
 " You pay me a great compliment 
 when you say so," answered the 
 miller's daughter, curtseying very low. 
 " Wish you a very good night, ma'am, 
 and pleasant dreams attend your 
 sleep ! " 
 
 With this parting benediction, Miss 
 Price swept from the room, followed 
 by the huge Yorkshireman, who ex- 
 changed with Nicholas, at parting, that 
 peculiarly expressive scowl with which 
 the cut-and-thrust counts, in melo-dra- 
 matic performances, inform each other 
 they will meet again. 
 
 They were no sooner gone, than 
 
 Miss Squeers fulfilled the prediction 
 of her quondam friend by giving vent 
 to a most copious burst of tears, and 
 uttering various dismal lamentations 
 and incoherent words. Nicholas stood 
 looking on for a few seconds, rathe! 
 doubtful what to do, but feeling un- 
 certain whether the fit would end in 
 his being embraced, or scratched, and 
 considering that either infliction would 
 be equally agreeable, he walked off 
 very quietly while Miss Squeers was 
 moaning hi her pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " This is one consequence," thought 
 Nicholas, when he had groped his way 
 to the dark sleeping-room, " of my 
 cursed readiness to adapt myself to 
 any society in which chance carries 
 me. If I had sat mute and motion- 
 less, as I might have done, this would 
 not have happened." 
 
 He listened for a few minutes, but 
 all was quiet. 
 
 " I was glad," he murmured, " to 
 grasp at any relief from the sight of 
 this dreadful place, er the presence of 
 its vile master. I have set these peo- 
 ple by the ears, and made two new 
 enemies, where, Heaven knows, I 
 needed none. Well, it is a just pun- 
 ishment for having forgotten, even for 
 an hour, what is around me now ! " 
 
 So saying, he felt his way among 
 the throng of weary-hearted sleepers, 
 and crept into his poor bed. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW MR. RALPH NICKLEBY PROVIDED FOR HIS NIECE AND SISTER-IN-LAW. 
 
 ON the second morning after the 
 departure of Nicholas for Yorkshire, 
 Kate Nickleby sat in a very faded 
 chair raised upon a very dusty throne 
 in Miss La Creevy's room, giving that 
 lady a sitting for the portrait upon 
 which she was engaged ; and towards 
 the full perfection of which, Miss La 
 Creevy had had the street-door case 
 brought 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 Crcevy's chief 
 friends and patrons, to be quite a 
 novelty in art : as indeed it was.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 "I think I have caught it now," 
 suiil Miss .La Creevy. "The very 
 vlmilr ! This will be the sweetest por- 
 trait 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 
 tloar," rejoined Miss La Creevy. " It's 
 n vi-:-y nice subject a very nice subject, 
 indeed though of course, MMobf 
 depends upon the mode of treatment." 
 
 " And not a little," observed Kate. 
 
 " Wh.y, my dear, you are right 
 there," said Miss La Creevy, " in the 
 main you are right there ; though I 
 don't allow that it is of such very 
 great importance in the present case. 
 Ah ! The difficulties of Art, my dear, 
 are great." 
 
 " They must be, I have no doubt," 
 said Kate, humouring her good-na- 
 tured little friend. 
 
 " They are beyond anything you 
 can form the faintest conception of," 
 replied Miss La Creevy. " What 
 with bringing out eyes with all one's 
 power, and keeping down noses with 
 all one's force, and adding to heads, 
 and taking away teeth altogether, you 
 liave no idea of the trouble one little 
 miniature is." 
 
 "The remuneration can scarcely 
 repay you," said Kate. 
 
 " Why, it does not, and that 's the 
 truth," answered Miss La Creevy ; 
 "and then people are so dissatisfied 
 and unreasonable, that, nine times out 
 nf ten, there 's no pleasure in painting 
 them. Sometimes they say, ' Oh, 
 how very serious yon have made 
 me look, Miss La Creevy!' and at 
 others, La, Miss La Creevy, how very 
 smirking ' when the very essence of 
 a good portrait is, that it must be 
 cither 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 gen- 
 tlemen 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 confi- 
 dential 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 gentle- 
 men who don't care so much about 
 looking clever." 
 
 Kate seemed highly amused by this 
 information, and Miss La Creevy went 
 on painting and talking, with immov- 
 able complacency. 
 
 " What a number of officers you 
 seem to paint ! " said Kate, availing 
 herself of a pause in the discourse, and 
 glancing round the room. 
 
 u Number of what, child ? " inquired 
 Miss La Creevy, looking up from her 
 work. " Character portraits, oh yes 
 they 're not real military men, you 
 know." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Bless your heart, of course not ; 
 only clerks and that, who hire a uni- 
 form coat to be painted in and send it 
 here in a carpet bag? Some artists," 
 said Miss La Creevy, " keep a red 
 coat, and charge seven-and-sixpence 
 extra for hire and carmine ; but I 
 don't do that myself, for I don't con- 
 sider it legitimate." 
 
 Drawing herself up, as though she 
 plumed herself greatly upon not re- 
 sorting to these lures to catch sitters, 
 Miss La Creevy applied herself, more 
 intently, to her task : only raising her 
 head occasionally, to look with un- 
 speakable satisfaction at some touch 
 she had just put in : and now and then 
 giving Miss Nickleby to understand 
 what particular feature she was at 
 work upon, at the moment ; " not," 
 she expressly observed, " that you 
 should make it up for painting, my 
 dear, but because it's our custom 
 sometimes, to tell sitters what part 
 we are upon, in order that if there 's 
 any particular expression they <vant
 
 70 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 introduced, they may throw it in, at 
 the time, you know." 
 
 " And when," said Miss La Creevy, 
 after a long silence, to wit, an in- 
 terval of full a minute and a half, 
 " when do you expect to see your 
 uncle again : " 
 
 " I scarcely know ; I had expected 
 to have seen him before now," re- 
 plied Kate. " Soon, I hope, for this state 
 of uncertainty is worse than anything." 
 
 "I suppose he has money, hasn't 
 he ? " inquired Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " He is very rich, I have heard," 
 rejoined Kate. " I don't know that 
 he is, but I believe so." 
 
 " Ah, you may depend upon it he 
 is, or he wouldn't be so surly," re- 
 marked Miss La Creevy, who was an 
 odd little mixture of shrewdness and 
 simplicity. " When a man's a bear, he 
 is generally pretty independent." 
 
 " His manner is rough," said Kate. 
 
 " Rough ! " cried Miss La Creevy, 
 " a porcupine 's a feather-bed to him ! 
 I never met with such a cross-grained 
 old savage." 
 
 " It is only his manner, I believe," 
 observed Kate, timidly : " he was dis- 
 appointed in. early life, I think I have 
 heard, or has had his temper soured 
 by some calamity. I should be sorry 
 to think ill of him until I knew he 
 deserved it." 
 
 " Well ; that 's very right and pro- 
 per," observed the miniature painter, 
 " and Heaven forbid that I should be 
 the cause of your doing so ! But, now, 
 mightn't he, without feeling it him- 
 self, make you and your mama some 
 nice little allowance that would keep 
 you both comfortable until you were 
 well married, and be a little fortune 
 to her afterwards ? What would a 
 hundred a year, for instance, be to 
 him?" 
 
 " I don't know what it would be to 
 hun," said Kate, with energy, " but it 
 would be that to me I would rather 
 die than take." 
 
 " Heyday ! " cried Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " A dependence upon him," said 
 Kate, " would embitter my whole life 
 I should feel begging, a far less degra. 
 dation." 
 
 Well ! " exclaimed Miss La 
 Creevy. ** This of a rektion whom 
 you will not hear an indifferent 
 person speak ill of, my dear, sounds 
 oddly enough, I confess." 
 
 " I dare say it does," replied Kate, 
 speaking more gently, " indeed I am 
 sure it must. I I only mean that 
 with the feelings and recollection of 
 better times upon me, I could not 
 bear to live on anybody's bounty not 
 his particularly, but anybody's." 
 
 Miss La Creevy looked slyly at 
 her companion, as if she doubted 
 whether Ralph himself were not the 
 subject of dislike, but seeing that her 
 young friend was distressed, made no 
 remark. 
 
 " I only ask of him," continued 
 Kate, whose tears fell while she spoke, 
 " that he will move so little out of his 
 way, in my behalf, as to enable me 
 by his recommendation only by his 
 recommendation to earn, literally, 
 my bread and remain with my mother. 
 Whether we shall ever taste happiness 
 again, depends upon the fortunes of 
 my dear brother ; but if he will do 
 this, and Nicholas only tells us that 
 he is well and cheerful, I shall be 
 contented." 
 
 As she ceased to speak, there was a 
 rustling behind the screen which stood 
 between her and the door, and some 
 person knocked at the wainscot. 
 
 " Come in, whoever it is ! " cried Miss 
 La Creevy. 
 
 The person complied, and, coming 
 forward at once, gave to view the form 
 and features of no less an individual 
 than Mr. Ralph Nickleby himself. 
 
 " Your servant, ladies," said Ralph, 
 looking sharply at them by turns. 
 " You were talking so loud, that I was 
 unable to make you hear." 
 
 When the man of business had 
 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLBBY. 
 
 71 
 
 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 
 rtrait. " 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 in.-, ma'am," cried Ralph, moving 
 away, " I have no eye for likenesses. 
 Is it nearly finished ? " 
 
 " ^ hy> y 68 )" replied Miss La 
 Ci-ii-vy, considering with the pencil- 
 end of hor Imisli in her mouth. " Two 
 sittings more will " 
 
 " Have them at once, ma'am," said 
 Ralph. "She '11 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 1 " 
 
 " I have not put a bill up yet, sir." 
 
 " Put it up at once, ma'am ; they 
 won't want the rooms after this week, 
 or if they do, can't pay for them. 
 Nnw, 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. 
 Stopping them somewhat abruptly, 
 Ralph waved his hand with an im- 
 patient gesture, and proceeded to the 
 object of his visit. 
 
 " I have found a situation for your 
 daughter, ma'am," said Ralph. 
 
 Well," replied Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " Now, I will say that that is only just 
 what I have expected of you. 'De- 
 pend upon it,' I said to Kate, only 
 yesterday morning at breakfast, ' that 
 after your uncle has provided, in that 
 most ready manner, for Nicholas, he 
 
 will not leare 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 pro- 
 ceed," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " I am most anxious that he should, 
 mama," rejoined Kate. 
 
 " Well, my dear, if you are anxious 
 that he should, you had better allow 
 your uncle to say what he has to say, 
 without interruption," observed Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with many small nods and 
 frowns. " Your uncle's time is very 
 valuable, my dear ; and however de- 
 sirous 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 consider- 
 ation the important nature of his occu 
 pations 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," inter- 
 posed Ralph tartly, " had no idea what 
 business was was unacquainted, I 
 verily believe, with the very meaning 
 of the word." 
 
 " I fear he was," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 with her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 " If it hadn't been for me, I don't know 
 what would have become of him." 
 
 What strange creatures we are ! 
 The slight bait so skilfully thrown out 
 by Ralph, on their first interview, was 
 dangling on the hook yet. At every 
 small deprivation or discomfort which 
 presented itself in the course of the 
 four-and-twenty hours to remind her
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 of her straitened and altered circum- 
 stances, peevish visions of her dower 
 of one thousand pounds had arisen 
 before Mrs. Nickleby's mind, until, 
 at last, she had come to persuade her- 
 self that of all her late husband's 
 creditors she was the worst used and 
 the most to be pitied. And yet, she 
 had loved him dearly for many years, 
 and had no greater share of selfishness 
 than is the usual lot of mortals. Such 
 is the irritability of sudden poverty. 
 A decent annuity would have restored ! 
 her thoughts to their old train, at 
 once. 
 
 " Repining is of no use, ma'am," 
 said Ralph. " Of all fruitless errands, 
 sending a tear to look after a day that 
 is gone, is the most fruitless." 
 
 "So it is," sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " So it is." 
 
 " As you feel so keenly, in your own 
 "purse and person, the consequences of' 
 inattention to business, ma'am," said 
 Ralph, u I am sure you will impress 
 upon your children the necessity of 
 attaching themselves to it, early in 
 life." 
 
 " Of course I must see that/' re- 
 joined Mrs. Nickleby. " Sad expe- 
 rience, you know, brother-in-law . 
 Kate, my dear, put that down in the 
 next letter to Nicholas, or remind me 
 to do it if I write." 
 
 Ralph paused, for a few moments, 
 and seeing that he had now made 
 pretty sure of the mother, in case the 
 daughter objected to his proposition, 
 went on to say : 
 
 "The situation that I have made 
 interest to procure, ma'am, is with 
 with a milliner and 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 rou- 
 tine of life, make large fortunes, keep 
 equipages, and become 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 con- 
 
 nected with certain wicker baskets 
 lined with black oilskin, which she 
 remembered to have seen carried to 
 and fro in the streets ; but, as Ralph 
 proceeded, these disappeared, and were 
 replaced by visions of large houses at 
 the west end, neat private carriages, 
 add a banker's book ; all of which 
 images succeeded each other, with such 
 rapidity, that he had no sooner finished 
 speaking, than she nodded her head 
 and said "Very true," with great ap- 
 pearance of satisfaction. 
 
 " What your uncle says, is very 
 true, Kate, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. " I recollect when your 
 poor papa and I came to town after we 
 were married, that a young lady brought 
 me home a chip cottage-bonnet, with 
 white and green trimming, and green 
 persian lining, in her own carriage, 
 which drove up to the door full gallop ; 
 at least, I am not quite certain 
 whether it was her own carriage or a 
 hackney chariot, but I remember very 
 well that the horse dropped down 
 dead as he was turning round, and 
 that your poor papa said he hadn't had 
 any corn for a fortnight." 
 
 This anecdote, so strikingly illustra- 
 tive of the opulence of milliners, was 
 not received with any great demon- 
 stration of feeling, inasmuch as Kate 
 hung down her head while it was 
 relating, and Ralph manifested very 
 intelligible symptoms of extreme im- 
 patience. 
 
 " The lady's* name," said Ralph, 
 hastily striking in, " is Mautalini 
 Madame Mautalini. I know her. She 
 lives near Cavendish Square. If your 
 daughter is disposed to try after the 
 situation, I '11 take her there, directly." 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to your 
 uncle, my love ? " inquired Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 a A great deal," replied Kate ; "but 
 not now. I would rather speak to him 
 when we are alone ; it will save his 
 time if I thank him and say what I 
 wish to say to him, as we walk along." 
 
 With these words, Kate hurried 
 away, to hide the traces of emotion 
 that were stealing down her face, and 
 to prepare herself for the walk, while
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 73 
 
 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 tlirir days of affluence, 
 t<i'_'i'tlitT with a minute description of 
 i-iirht drawing-room chairs, with turned 
 legs and green chintz squabs to match 
 the curtains, which had cost two 
 pounds fifteen shillings a-piece, and 
 had gone at the sale for a mere nothing. 
 These reminiscences were at length 
 cut short by Kate's return in her walk- 
 ing d/ess, when Ralph, who had been 
 fretting and filming during the whole 
 time of her absence, lost no time, and 
 used very little ceremony, in descend- 
 ing into the street. 
 
 "Now," he said, taking her arm, 
 " walk as fast as you can, and you '11 
 get into the step that you '11 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 '11 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, 1 know, uncle," 
 ln-^an poor Kate. 
 
 " It is," replied Ralph, stopping IKT 
 short, " and very affected besides. 
 Let me see no more of it." 
 
 Perhaps this was not the best way 
 to dry the tears of a young and sensi- 
 tive female, about to make her first 
 entry on an entirely new scene of life, 
 among cold and uninterested strangers; 
 but it had its effect notwithstanding. 
 Kate coloured deeply, breathed quickly 
 for a few moments, and then walked 
 on with a firmer and more determined 
 step. 
 
 It was a curious contrast to see how 
 the timid country girl shrunk through 
 the crowd that hurried up and down 
 the streets, giving way to the press of 
 people, and clinging closely to Ralph 
 
 as though she feared to lose him in 
 tin- tlimng; and how the stern and 
 liard-featured man of business went 
 doggedly on, elbowing the passengers 
 aside, and now and then exchanging a 
 [jruff .salutation with some passing 
 acquaintance, who turned to look back 
 upon his pretty charge, with looks ex- 
 pressive of surprise, and seemed to 
 ivonder at the ill-assorted companion- 
 ship. But, it would have been a 
 stranger contrast still, to have read 
 the hearts that were beating side by 
 side ; to have laid bare the gentle 
 innocence of the one, and the nigged 
 villany of the other ; to have hung 
 upon the guileless thoughts of the 
 affectionate girl, and been amazed 
 that, among all the wily plots and cal- 
 culations of the old man, there should 
 not be one word or figure denoting 
 thought of death or of the grave. But 
 so it was ; and stranger still though 
 this is a thing of every day the warm 
 young heart palpitated with a thousand 
 anxieties and apprehensions, while 
 that of the old worldly man lay rusting 
 in its cell, beating only as a piece of 
 cunning mechanism, and yielding no 
 one throb of hope, or fear, or love, or 
 care, for any living thing. 
 
 " Uncle, " said Kate, when she 
 judged they must be near their desti- 
 nation, " I must ask one question of 
 you. I am to live at home ? " 
 
 ' At home ! " replied Ralph ; 
 " where 's that ? " 
 
 " I mean with my mother the 
 widow," said Kate emphatically. 
 
 " You will live, to all intents and 
 purposes, here," rejoined Ralph ; "for 
 here you will take your meals, and 
 here you will be from morning till 
 nightoccasionally perhaps till morn- 
 ing again." 
 
 " But at night, I mean," said Kate ; 
 "I cannot leave her, uncle. 1 must 
 have some place that I can call a 
 home ; it will be wherever she is, you 
 know, and may be a very humble one." 
 
 "May be!" said Ralph, walking 
 faster, in the impatience provoked by 
 the remark, " must be, you mean. 
 May be a humble one! Is the girl 
 mad?"
 
 74 
 
 LIKK AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " The word slipped from my lips, I 
 did not mean it indeed," urged Kute. 
 
 " 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 pro- 
 vided against it. I spoke of you as an 
 out-of-door worker ; so you will go to this 
 home that maybe 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 
 .ill, and they arrived without any fur- 
 ther conversation 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 hand- 
 somely curtained windows, of two or 
 three elegant bonnets of the newest 
 fashion, and some costly garments in 
 -the most approved taste. 
 
 A liveried footman opened the door, 
 and in reply to Ralph's inquiry whe- 
 ther 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 ar- 
 ranged on stands, others laid carelessly 
 on sofas, and others again, scattered 
 over the carpet, hanging on the cheval 
 glasses, or mingling, in some other way, 
 with the rich furniture of various de- 
 scriptions, which was profusely dis- 
 played. 
 
 They waited here, a much longer 
 time than was agreeable to Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby, who eyed the gaudy frippery 
 about him with very little concern, and 
 was at length about to pull the bell , when 
 a gentleman suddenly popped his head 
 into the room, and, seeing somebody 
 there, as suddenly popped it out again. 
 
 "Here. Hollo!" cried Ralph 
 Who 's that I " 
 
 At the sound of Ralph's voice, the 
 head reappeared, and the mouth, dis- 
 playing a very long row of very white 
 teeth, uttered in a mincing tone the 
 words, " Demmit. What, Nickleby ! 
 oh, demmit ! " Having uttered which 
 ejaculations, the gentleman advanced, 
 and shook hands with Ralph, with great 
 warmth. He was dressed in a gor- 
 geous morning gown, with a waistcoat 
 and Turkish trousers of the same 
 pattern, a pink silk neckerchief, and 
 bright green slippers, and had a very 
 copious watch-chain wound round his 
 body. Moreover, he had whiskers and 
 a moustache, both dyed black and 
 gracefully curled. 
 
 " Demmit, you don't mean to say 
 you want me, do you, demmit 1 " said 
 this gentleman, smiling Ralph on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Not yet," said Ralph, sarcastically. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! demmit," cried the gen- 
 tleman ; when, wheeling round to 
 laugh with greater elegance, he en- 
 countered Kate Nickleby, who was 
 standing near. 
 
 " My niece," said Ralph. 
 
 " I remember," said the gentleman, 
 striking his nose with the knuckle 
 of his forefinger as a chastening for 
 his forgetfulness. " Demmit, I remem- 
 ber what you come for. Step this 
 way, Nickleby ; my dear, will you fol- 
 low 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- 
 ment below, where the presence of a 
 silver coflfee-pot, an egg-shell, and 
 sloppy china for one, seemed to show 
 that he had just breakfasted. 
 
 " Sit down, my dear," said the gen- 
 tleman : first staring Miss Nickleby 
 out of countenance, and then grinning 
 in delight at the achievement. " This 
 cursed high room takes one's breath 
 away. These infernal sky parlours 
 I 'm afraid I must move, Nickleby."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 75 
 
 " I would, by all means," replied 
 Ralph, looking bitterly round. 
 
 " What a demd rum fellow you are, 
 Nickleby," said the gentleman, "the 
 denidest, longest-headed, queerest-tem- 
 pered old coiner of gold and silver ever 
 was demniit" 
 
 Having complimented Ralph to this 
 fleet, the gentleman rang the bell, and 
 stared at Miss Niekleby until it was 
 answered, when he left off to bid the 
 man desire his mistress to come di- 
 rectly ; after which, he began again, 
 and left off no more until Madame 
 Mantalini appeared. 
 
 The dress-maker was a buxom per- 
 son, handsomely dressed and rather 
 good-looking, but mueh-older than the 
 gentleman in the Turkish trousers, 
 whom she had wedded some six months 
 before. His name was originally Mun- 
 tle ; 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 whieh ho 
 had recently improved, after patient 
 cultivation, by the addition of a mous- 
 tache, which promised to secure him 
 an easy independence : his share in 
 the labours of the business being at 
 present confined to spending the money, 
 and occasionally, when that ran short, 
 driving to Mr. Ralph Niekleby to pro- 
 cure discount at a per centage for 
 the customers' bills. 
 
 " My life," said Mr. Mantalini," what 
 a demd devil of a time you have been ! " 
 
 " I didn't even know Mr. Niekleby 
 was here, my love," said Madame 
 Mantalini. 
 
 " Then what a doubly demd infernal 
 rascal that footman must be, my soul," 
 remonstrated Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 " My dear," said Madame, " that is 
 entirely your fault" 
 
 " My fault, my heart's joy ? " 
 
 " Certainly," returned the lady ; 
 " what can you expect, dearest, if you 
 will not correct the man 1 " 
 
 "Correct the man, my soul's de- 
 light ! " 
 
 " Yes ; I am sure he wants speaking 
 to, badly enough," said Madame, pout- 
 ing. 
 
 u Then do not vex itself," said Mr. 
 Mamalini ; "ho shall be horse-whip- 
 ped till he eries out demnebly." With 
 this promise Mr. Muntalini kis.-eil 
 Madame Mantalini, and, after that per- 
 formance, Madame Mantalini pulled 
 Mr. Mautaliui 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. Niekleby," replied 
 Madame Mantalini, surveying Kate 
 from head to foot, and back again. 
 " Can you speak French, child ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," replied Kate, not 
 daring to look up ; for she felt that 
 the eyes of the odious man in the 
 dressing-gown were directed towards 
 her. 
 
 " Like a demd native ? " asked the 
 husband. 
 
 Miss Niekleby offered no reply to 
 ill is inquiry, but turned her back upon 
 the questioner, as if addressing her- 
 self to make answer to what his wife 
 might demand. 
 
 " We keep twenty young women 
 constantly employed in the establish- 
 ment," said Madame. 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am ! " reph'ed Kate, 
 timidly. 
 
 " Yes ; and some of 'em demd hand- 
 some, too," said the master. 
 
 " Mantalini ! " exclaimed his wife, 
 in an awful voice. 
 
 " My senses' idol ! " said Mantalini. 
 " Do you wish to break my heart I " 
 "Not for twenty thousand hemi- 
 spheres populated with with with 
 little ballet-dancers," replied Manta- 
 lini in a poetical strain. 
 
 " Then you will, if you persevere in 
 that mode of speaking," said his wife. 
 " What can Mr. Niekleby think when 
 he hears you ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Nothing, ma'am, nothing," 
 replied Ralph. " I know his amiablo 
 nature, and yours, mere little re- 
 marks that give a zest to your daily 
 intercourse lovers' quarrels that add
 
 76 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 sweetness to those domestic joys which 
 promise to hist so long that's all; 
 that 's all." 
 
 \( an iron door could be supposed to 
 quarrel with its hinges, and to make a 
 firm resolution to open with slow 
 obstinacy, and grind them to powder in 
 the process, it would emit a pleasanter 
 sound in so doing, than did these words 
 in the rough and bitter voice in which 
 they were uttered by Ralph. Even 
 Mr. Mantalini felt their influence, and 
 turning affrighted round, exclaimed : 
 " What a demd horrid croaking ! " 
 
 " You will pay no attention, if you 
 please, to what Mr. Mantalini says," 
 observed his wife, addressing Miss 
 Nickleby. 
 
 " I do not, ma'am," sard Kate, with 
 quiet contempt. 
 
 " Mr. Mantalini knows nothing what- 
 ever about any of the young women," 
 Continued Madame, looking at her 
 husband, and speaking to Kate. " If 
 he has seen any of them, he must have 
 seen them in the street, going to, or 
 returning from, their work, and not 
 here. He was never even in the 
 room. I do not allow it. What hours 
 of work have you been accustomed 
 to?" 
 
 " I have never yet been accustomed 
 to work at all, ma'am," replied Kate, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " For which reason she '11 work all 
 the better now," said Ralph, putting in 
 a word, lest this confession should 
 injure the negotiation. 
 
 " I hope so," returned Madame 
 Mantalini ; " our hours are from nine 
 to nine, with extra work when we 're 
 very full of business, for which I allow 
 payment as over-time." 
 
 Kate bowed her head, to intimate 
 that she heard, and was satisfied. 
 
 " Your meals," continued Madame 
 Mantalini, " that is, dinner and tea, 
 you will take here. I should think 
 your wages would average from five to 
 seven shillings a-week ; but I can't 
 give you any certain information on 
 that point, until I see what you can 
 do." 
 
 Kate bowed her head again. 
 
 ** If you 're ready to come," said Ma- 
 
 dame Mantalini, " you had better begin 
 on Monday morning at nine exactly, 
 and Miss Knag the forewoman shall 
 then have directions to try you with 
 some easy work at first. Js there 
 anything more, Mr. Nickleby 1 " 
 
 " Nothing more, ma'am," replied 
 Ralph, rising. 
 
 " Then I believe that 'a all," said the 
 lady. Having arrived at this natural 
 conclusion, she looked at the door, as 
 if she wished to bo gone, but hesitated 
 notwithstanding, as though unwilling 
 to leave to Mr. Mantalini the sole 
 honour of showing them down stairs. 
 Ralph relieved her from her perplexity 
 by taking his departure without delay : 
 Madame Mantalini making many gra- 
 cious inquiries why he never came to 
 see them : and Mr. Mantalini anathe- 
 matising the stairs with great volu 
 bility as he followed them down, in tlv 
 hope of inducing Kate to look round, 
 a hope, however, which was destined 
 to remain ungratified. 
 
 " There ! " said Ralph when they 
 got into the street ; " now you 're pro- 
 vided 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 pre- 
 sentation to some alms-houses on the 
 borders of Cornwall, which had oc- 
 curred to him more than once) but 
 as you want to be together, I must do 
 something else for her. She has a 
 little money 1 " 
 
 " A very little," replied Kate. 
 
 " A little will go a long way if it '& 
 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 1 " inquired 
 Kate. 
 
 " Pretty well," said Ralph ; " in 
 another quarter of the town at the
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 77 
 
 East end ; but I '11 send my clerk 
 down to you, at five o'clock on Satur- 
 day, to take you there. Good bye. 
 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 bye tho- 
 roughfare, intent on schemes of money- 
 P'uin:.'. Kate walked sadly back, to 
 their lodgings in the Strand. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 NEWMAN NOGGS INDUCTS MRS. AND MISS N1CKLKBY INTO THEIR NEW 
 DWELLING IN THE CITV. 
 
 Miss NICKLEBY'S reflections, as she 
 wended her way homewards, were of 
 that desponding nature which the oc- 
 currences of the morning had been 
 sufficiently calculated to awaken. Her 
 uncle's was not a manner likely to dis- 
 pel any doubts or apprehensions she 
 might have formed, in the outset, 
 neither was the glimpse she had had 
 of Madame Mantalini's establishment, 
 by any means encouraging. It was 
 with many gloomy forebodings and 
 misgivings, therefore, that she looked 
 forward, with a heavy heart, to the 
 opening of her new career. 
 
 If her mother's consolations could 
 have restored her to a pleasauter and 
 more enviable state of mind, there 
 were abundance of them to produce the 
 effect. By the time Kate readied 
 home, the good lady had called to 
 mind two authentic cases of milliners 
 who had been possessed of consider- 
 able property, though whether they 
 had acquired it all in business, or had 
 iiad a capital to start with, or had 
 been lucky and married to advantage, 
 she could not exactly remember. 
 However, as she very logically re- 
 marked, there must have been some 
 young person in that way of business 
 who had made a fortune without 
 having anything to begin with, and 
 that being taken for granted, why 
 should not Kate do the same ? Miss La 
 Creevy, who was a member of the li ttle 
 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 
 j informing them that she had a presen- 
 timent on the subject a species of 
 second-sight with which she had been 
 in the habit of clenching every argu- 
 ment with the deceased Mr. Nickleby, 
 and, in nine cases and three quarters 
 out of every ten, determining it the 
 wrong way. 
 
 " I am afraid it is an unhealthy oc- 
 cupation," said Miss La Creevy. " I 
 recollect getting three young milliners 
 to sit to me, when I first began to 
 paint, and I remember that they were 
 all very pale and sickly." 
 
 " Oh ! that 's not a general rule by 
 any means," observed Mrs. Nickleby ; 
 " for I remember, as well as if it was 
 only yesterday, employing one that I 
 was particularly recommended to, to 
 make me a scarlet cloak at the time 
 when scarlet cloaks were fashionable, 
 and she had a very red face a very 
 red face, indeed." 
 
 " Perhaps she drank," suggested 
 Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " I don't know how that may have 
 been," returned Mrs. Nickleby : " but 
 I know she had a very red face, so 
 your argument goes for nothing." 
 
 In this manner, and with like pow- 
 erful reasoning, did die worthy ma- 
 tron 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 var- 
 nished and gilded as a glittering toy. 
 
 This question disposed of, Kate com- 
 municated her uncle's desire about the 
 empty house, to which Mrs. Nickleby
 
 78 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 assented with equal readiness, charac- 
 teristically remarking, that, on the 
 fine evenings, it would be a pleasant 
 amusement for her to walk to the 
 West end to fetch her daughter home ; 
 and no less characteristically forget- 
 ting, that there 'were such thing* as 
 wet nights and bad weather to be en- 
 countered in almost every week of the 
 year. 
 
 "I shall be sorry truly sorry to 
 leave you, my kind friend," said Kate, 
 on whom the good feeling of the poor 
 miniature-painter had made a deep 
 impression. 
 
 " You shall not shake me off, for all 
 that," replied Miss La Creevy, with as 
 much sprightliness as she could as- 
 sume. " I shall see you very often, 
 and conra and hear how you get on ; 
 and if, in all London, or all the wide 
 world besides, there is no other heart 
 that takes an interest in your welfare, 
 there will be one little lonely woman 
 that prays for it night and day." 
 
 With this, the poor soul, who had a 
 heart big enough for Gog, the guardian 
 genius of London, and enough to spare 
 for Magog to boot, after making a 
 great many extraordinary faces which 
 would have secured her an ample for- 
 tune, could she have transferred them 
 to ivory or canvass, 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 key- 
 hole, exactly : as such of the church 
 clocks in the neighbourhood as agreed 
 among themselves about the time, 
 struck five. Newman waited for the 
 last- stroke, and then knocked. 
 
 " From Mr. Ralph Nickleby," said 
 Newman, announcing his errand, when 
 he got up stairs, with all possiblebrevity. 
 
 " We shall be ready directly," said 
 Kate. " We have not much to carry, 
 but I fear we must have a coach." 
 
 " I '11 get one," replied Newman. 
 
 " Indeed you shall not trouble your- 
 self," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " I will," said Newman. 
 
 " I can't suffer you to think of such 
 a thing," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " You can't help it," said Newman. 
 
 Not help it ! " 
 
 " No ; I thought of it as I came 
 along ; but didn't get one, thinking you 
 mightn't be ready. I think of a great 
 many things. Nobody can prevent 
 that." 
 
 " Oh yes, I understand you, Mr. 
 Noggs," said Mrs. Nickleby. " Our 
 thoughts are free, of course. 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 such how 's your master 1 " 
 
 Newman darted a meaning glance 
 at Kate, and replied with a strong em- 
 phasis 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 '11 tell 
 him so." 
 
 It was no very easy matter to mis- 
 take 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 abrupt- 
 ness of his speech), looked at him 
 more closely, she recollected having 
 caught a passing glimpse of that 
 strange figure before. 
 
 " Excuse my curiosity," she said, 
 " but did I not see you in the coach- 
 yard, on the morning my brother went 
 away to Yorkshire ? " 
 
 Newman cast a wistful glance oil 
 Mrs. Nickleby, and said " No," most 
 unblushingly. 
 
 " No ! " exclaimed Kate, " I should 
 have said so anywhere." 
 
 " You 'd have said wrong," rejoined 
 Newman. "It's the first time I've 
 been out for three weeks. I 've had 
 the gout." 
 
 Newman was very, very far from
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 having the appearance of a gouty 
 subject, and so Kate could not help 
 thinking ; but the conference was cut 
 short by Mrs. Nickleby's insisting on 
 having the door shut, lest Mr. Noggs 
 should take cold, and further persist- 
 ing in sending the servant girl for a 
 coach, for fear he should bring on 
 nnotlier attack of his disorder. To 
 both conditions, Newman was com- 
 pelled to yield. Presently, the coach 
 came ; and, after many sorrowful 
 farewells, and a great deal of running 
 backwards and forwards across the 
 pavement on the part of Miss La 
 Creevy, in the course of which the 
 yellow turban came into violent con- 
 tact 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 Airs. 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 vehi- 
 cles of every kind, stopped in front of 
 a large old dingy house in Thames 
 Street : the door and windows of which 
 were so bespattered with mud, that it 
 would have appeared to have been 
 uninhabited for years. 
 
 The door of this deserted mansion 
 .Xewman opened with a key which he 
 took out of his hat in which, by-the- 
 bye, in consequence of the dilapidated 
 state of his pockets, he deposited 
 everything, and would most likely 
 have carried his money if he had had 
 any and the coach being discharged, 
 he led the way into the interior of the 
 mansion. 
 
 Old, and gloomy, and black, in truth 
 it was, and sullen and dark were the 
 rooms, once so bustling with life and 
 enterprise. There was a wharf behind, 
 opening on the Thames. An empty 
 dog-kennel, some bones of animals, 
 fragments of iron hoops, and staves of 
 old casks, lay strewn about, but no 
 life was stirring there. It was a pic- 
 ture 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 in- 
 clined to believe that some dreadful 
 crime had been perpetrated within 
 these old walls, and that the place had 
 never prospered since. How frown- 
 ing and how dark it looks ! " 
 
 " Lord, my dear," replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " don't talk in that way, 
 or you '11 frighten me to death." 
 
 " It is only my foolish fancy, mama," 
 said Kate, forcing a smile. 
 
 "Well, then, my love, I wi*h you 
 would keep your foolish fancy to your- 
 self, 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 care- 
 less we might have asked Miss La 
 Creevy to keep us company or bor- 
 rowed a dog, or a thousand ihings 
 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 ad- 
 dressed to nobody in particular, and 
 into which she now launched until her 
 breath was exhausted. 
 
 Newman appeared not to hear 
 these remarks, but preceded them to 
 a couple of rooms on the first floor, 
 which some kind of attempt had been 
 made to render habitable. In one, 
 were a few chairs, a table, an old 
 hearth-rug, and some faded baize ; 
 and a fire was ready laid in the grate. 
 In the other, stood an old tent bed- 
 stead, and a few scanty articles of 
 chamber furniture. 
 
 " Well, my dear," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 trying to be pleased, "now isn't this 
 thoughtful and considerate of your 
 uncle ? Why, we should not have 
 had anything but the bed we bought 
 yesterday, to lie down upon, if it 
 hadn't been for his thoughtlulness !" 
 
 Very kind, indeed," replied Kate, 
 looking round. 
 
 Newman Noggs did not say that he 
 hod hunted up the old furniture they 
 saw, from attic and cellar ; or that he
 
 80 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 the 
 wharf, or begged the coals. But the 
 notion of Ralph Nickleby having 
 directed it to be done, tickled his 
 fancy so much, that he could not 
 refrain from cracking all his ten 
 fingers in succession : at which per- 
 formance Mrs. Nickleby was rather 
 startled at first, but supposing it to be 
 in some remote manner connected 
 with the gout, did not remark upon. 
 
 " We need detain you no longer, I 
 think," said Kate. 
 
 " Is there nothing I can do ? " asked 
 Newman. 
 
 " Nothing, thank you," rejoined 
 Miss Nickleby. 
 
 " Perhaps my dear, Mr. Noggs 
 would like to drink our healths," said 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby, fumbling in her reticule 
 for some small coin. 
 
 " I think, mama," said Kate hesi- 
 tating, and remarking Newman's 
 averted face, "you would hurt his 
 feelings if you offered it." 
 
 Newman Noggs, bowing to the 
 young lady more like a gentleman 
 than the miserable wretch he seemed, 
 placed his hand upon his breast, and, 
 pausing for a moment, with the air of 
 a man who struggles to speak but 
 is uncertain what to say, quitted the 
 room. 
 
 As the jarring echoes of the heavy 
 house-door, closing on its latch, rever- 
 berated dismally through the build- 
 ing, Kate felt half tempted to call him 
 back, and beg him to remain a little 
 while ; but she was ashamed to own 
 her fears, and Newman Noggs was on 
 his road homewards. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHEREBY THE READER WILL BE ENABLED TO TRACE THE FURTHER COURSE, 
 OF MISS FAXNT SQCEERS'S LOVE. AND TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER IT RAN 
 SMOOTH OR OTHERWISE. 
 
 IT was a fortunate circumstance for 
 Miss Fanny Squeers, that when her 
 worthy papa returned home on the 
 night of the small tea-party, he was 
 what the initiated term " too far gone" 
 to observe the numerous tokens of 
 extreme vexation of spirit which were 
 plainly visible in her countenance. 
 Being, however, of a rather violent 
 and quarrelsome mood in his cups, it 
 is not impossible that he might have 
 fallen out with her, either on this or 
 some imaginary topic, if the young 
 lady had not, with a foresight and pru- 
 dence 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 cuff's, subsided sufficiently to 
 admit of his being pi-r-uiaded to go to 
 bed. Which he did with his boots on, j 
 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 handmaiden. 
 " I declare if it isn't a pity and a 
 shame to brush it out ! " 
 
 '' Hold your tongue ! " replied Miss 
 Squeers wrathfully. 
 
 Some considerable experience pre- 
 vented the girl from being at all sur- 
 prised at any outbreak of ill-temper 
 on the part of Miss Squeers. Having 
 a half perception of what had occurred 
 in the course of the evening, slio
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 81 
 
 changed her mode of making herself 
 agreeable, and proceeded on the indi- 
 rect tack. 
 
 " Well, I couldn't help saying, miss, 
 if you was to kill me for it," said the 
 attendant, " that I never see nobody 
 look so vulgar as Miss Price this 
 night" 
 
 Miss Squeers sighed, and composed 
 herself to listen. 
 
 " I know it 's very wrong in me to 
 say so, miss," continued the girl, de- 
 lighted to see the impression she was 
 making, " Miss Price being a friend 
 of yourn, and all ; but she do dress 
 herself out so, and go on in such a 
 manner to get noticed, that oh well, 
 if people only saw themselves ! " 
 
 " What do you mean, Phib 1 " asked 
 Miss Squeers, looking in her own little 
 glass, where, like most of us, she saw 
 not herself, but the reflection of 
 some pleasant image in her own brain. 
 " How you talk ! " 
 
 " Talk, miss ! It 's enough to make 
 a Tom cat talk French grammar, only 
 to see how she tosses her head," 
 replied the handmaid. 
 
 " She doet toss her head," observed 
 Miss Squeers, with an air of abstrac- 
 tion. 
 
 "So vain, and so very very plain," 
 said the girl. 
 
 " Poor "Tilda ! " sighed Miss Squeers, 
 compassionately. 
 
 ** And always laying herself out so, 
 to get to be admired," pursued the 
 servant. " Oh dear ! It 's positive 
 indelicate." 
 
 " I can't allow you to talk in that 
 way, Phib," said Miss Squeers. 
 " "Tilda's friends are low people, and 
 if she don't know any better, it 's their 
 fault, and not hers." 
 
 " Well, but you know, miss," said 
 Phnobe, for which name " Phib " was 
 used as a patronising abbreviation, " if 
 she was only to take copy by a friend 
 oh ! if she only knew how wrong 
 she was, and would but set herself 
 right by you, what a nice young 
 woman she might be in time ! " 
 
 " Phib," rejoined Miss Squeers, 
 with a stately air, " it 'a not proper for 
 me to hear these comparisons drawn ; 
 
 No. 37. 
 
 they make 'Tilda look a coarse impro- 
 per sort of person, and it seems un- 
 friendly in mo to listen to them. I 
 would rather you dropped the subject, 
 Phib ; at the same time, 1 must say, 
 that if 'Tilda Price would take pat- 
 tern by somebody not me particu- 
 larly " 
 
 " Oh yes ; you miss," interposed 
 Phib. 
 
 " Well, me Phib, if you will have it 
 so," said Miss Squeers. " I must say, 
 that if she would, she would be all the 
 better for it." 
 
 " So somebody else thinks, or I am 
 much mistaken," said the girl myste- 
 riously. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " demanded 
 Miss Squeers. 
 
 " Never mind, miss," replied the 
 girl ; " / know what I know ; that 's 
 all." 
 
 " Phib," said Miss Squeers drama- 
 tically, " I insist upon your explaining 
 yourself. What is this dark mystery ? 
 Speak." 
 
 " Why, if you will have it, miss, it's 
 this," said the servant girl. " Mr. 
 John Browdie thinks as you think ; 
 and if he wasn't too far gone to do it 
 creditable, he 'd be very glad to be off 
 with Miss Price, and on with Miss 
 Squeers." 
 
 " Gracious Heavens ! " exclaimed 
 Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with 
 great dignity. " What is this 1 " 
 
 " Truth, ma'am, and nothing but 
 truth," replied the artful Phib. 
 
 " What a situation ! " cried Miss 
 Squeers ; " on the brink of uncon- 
 sciously destroying the peace and 
 happiness of my own 'Tilda. What is 
 the reason that men fall in love with 
 me, whether I like it or not, and 
 desert their chosen intendeds for my 
 sake ! " 
 
 " Because they can't help it, miss," 
 replied the girl ; " the reason 's plain." 
 (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it 
 was very plain.) 
 
 " Never let me hear of it again," 
 retorted Miss Squeers. " Never ! Do 
 you hear ? 'Tilda Price has faults 
 many faults but I wish her well, and 
 above all I wish her married ; for I 
 G
 
 82 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 think it highly desirable most desira- 
 ble 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 sh 
 may make a better wife than 1 think 
 she will." 
 
 With this effusion of feeling, Miss 
 Squeers went to bed. 
 
 Spite is a little word ; but it repre- 
 sents as strange a jumble of feelings, 
 and compound of discords, as any 
 polysyllable in the language. Miss 
 Squeers knew as well in her heart of 
 hearts, that what the miserable serving 
 girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying 
 flattery, as did the girl herself; yet 
 the mere opportunity of venting a 
 little ill-nature against the offending 
 Miss Price, and affecting to compas- 
 sionate her weaknesses and foibles, 
 though only hi the presence of a soli- 
 tary dependant, was almost as great a 
 relief to her spleen as if the whole had 
 been gospel truth. Nay, more. We 
 have such extraordinary powers of 
 persuasion when they are exerted over 
 ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite 
 high-minded and great after her noble 
 renunciation of John Browdie's hand, 
 and looked down upon her rival with 
 a kind of holy calmness and tranquil- 
 lity, that had a mighty effect in sooth- 
 ing her ruffled feelings. 
 
 This happy state of mind had some 
 influence in bringing about a recon- 
 ciliation ; for, when a knock came at 
 the front door next day, and the mil- 
 ler's daughter was announced, Miss 
 Squeers betook herself to the parlour 
 in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly 
 beautiful to behold. 
 
 "Well, Fanny," said the miller's 
 daughter, "you see I have come to 
 see you, although we had some words 
 last night." 
 
 " I pity your bad passions, 'Tilda," 
 replied Miss Squeers ; " but I bear no 
 malice. I am above it." 
 
 " Don't be cross, Fanny," said Miss 
 Price. " I have come to tell yon 
 something that I know will please 
 you." 
 
 " What may that be, 'Tilda ! " de- 
 manded Miss Squeers ; screwing up 
 her lips, and looking as if nothing in 
 earth, air, fire, or water, could afford 
 her the slightest gleam of satisfaction. 
 
 " This," rejoined Miss Price. " After 
 we left here last night, John and I had 
 a dreadful quarrel." 
 
 " That doesn't please me," said Miss 
 Squeers relaxing into a smile though. 
 
 " Lor ! I wouldn't think so bad of 
 you as to suppose it did," rejoined her 
 companion. " That 's not it." 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Squeers, relapsing 
 into melancholy. " Go on." 
 
 "After a great deal of wrangling, 
 and saying we would never see each 
 other any more," continued Miss Price, 
 "we made it up, and this morning John 
 went and wrote our names down to be 
 put up, for the first time, next Sunday, 
 so we shall be married in three weeks, 
 and I give yon notice to get your frock 
 made." 
 
 There was mingled gall and honey 
 in this intelligence. The prospect of 
 the friend's being married so soon, 
 was the gall, and the certainty of her 
 not entertaining serious designs upon 
 Nicholas was the honey. Upon the 
 whole, the sweet greatly preponderated 
 over the bitter, so Miss Squeers said 
 she would get the frock made, and 
 that she hoped 'Tilda might be happy, 
 though at the same time she didn't 
 know, and would not have her build 
 too much upon it, for men were strange 
 creatures, and a great many married 
 women were very miserable, and 
 wished themselves single again with 
 all their hearts ; to which condolences 
 Miss Squeers added others equally cal- 
 culated to raise her friend's spirits and 
 promote her cheerfulness of mind. 
 
 " But come now, Fanny," said 
 Miss Price, " I want to have a word 
 or two with you about young Mr. 
 Nickleby." 
 
 " He is nothing to me," interrupted 
 Miss Squeers, with hysterical symp- 
 toms. " I despise him too much ! " 
 
 " Oh, you don't mean that, I am 
 sure 1 " replied her friend. " Confess, 
 Fanny ; don't you like him now ! " 
 
 Without returning any direct reply,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 83 
 
 Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into a 
 paroxysm of spiteful tears, and ex- 
 claimed that she was a wretched, neg- 
 lected, miserable, castaway. 
 
 " I hate everybody," said Miss 
 Squeers, " and I wish that everybody 
 was dead that I do." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said Miss Price, 
 quite moved by this avowal of misan- 
 thropical sentiments. "You are not 
 serious, I am sure." 
 
 " Yes, I am," rejoined Miss Squeers, 
 tying tight knots in her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief and clenching her teeth, 
 "And I wish / was dead too. 
 There 1" 
 
 "Oh ! you'll think very differently 
 in another five minutes," said Matilda. 
 " How much better to take him into 
 favour again, than to hurt yourself by 
 going on in that way. Wouldn't it be 
 much nicer, now, to have him all to 
 yourself on good terms, in a company- 
 keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of 
 manner ? " 
 
 " I don't know but what it would," 
 sobbed Miss Squeers. "Oh! 'Tilda, 
 how could you have acted so mean 
 and dishonourable ! I wouldn't have 
 believed it of you, if anybody had told 
 me." 
 
 " Heyday ! " exclaimed Miss Price, 
 giggling. "One would suppose I had 
 been murdering somebody at least." 
 
 "Very nigh as bad," said Miss 
 Squeers passionately. 
 
 " And all this, because I happen to 
 have enough of good looks to make 
 people civil to me," cried Miss Price. 
 " Persons don't make their own faces, 
 and it 's no more my fault if mine is a 
 good one than it is other people's fault 
 if theirs is a bad one." 
 
 " Hold your tongue," shrieked Miss 
 Squeers, in her shrillest tone ; " or 
 you '11 make me slap you, 'Tilda, 
 and afterwards I should be sorry 
 for it!" 
 
 It is needless to say, that, by this 
 time, the temper of each young lady 
 was in some slight degree affected by 
 the tone of her conversation, and that 
 a dash of personality was infused into 
 the altercation, in consequence. In- 
 deed, the quarrel, from slight begin- 
 
 nings, rose to a considerable height, 
 and was assuming a very violent com- 
 lexion, when both parties, falling into 
 a great passion of tears, exclaimed 
 simultaneously, that they had never 
 thought of being spoken to in that 
 way : which exclamation, leading to a 
 remonstrance, gradually brought on 
 an explanation : and the upshot was, 
 that they fell into each other's arms 
 and vowed eternal friendship ; the 
 occasion in question, making the 
 ~fty-second time of repeating the 
 same impressive ceremony within a 
 ;welvemonth. 
 
 Perfect amicability being thus re- 
 stored, a dialogue naturally ensued 
 upon the number and nature of the 
 jarments which would be indispensable 
 'or Miss Price's entrance into the holy 
 state of matrimony, when Miss Squeers 
 clearly showed that a great many more 
 than the miller could, or would, afford, 
 were absolutely necessary, and could 
 not decently be dispensed with. The 
 young lady then, by an easy digression, 
 led the discourse to her own ward- 
 robe, and after recounting its principal 
 beauties, at some length, took her friend 
 up stairs to make inspection thereof. 
 The treasures of two drawers and a 
 closet having been displayed, and all 
 the smaller articles' tried on, it was 
 time for Miss Price to return home ; 
 and as she had been in raptures with 
 all the frocks, and had been stricken 
 quite dumb with admiration of a new 
 pink scarf, Miss Squeers said in high 
 good humour, that she would walk 
 part of the way with her, for the plea- 
 sure of her company ; and off they 
 went together : Miss Squeers dilating, 
 as they walked along, upon her father's 
 accomplishments : and multiplying his 
 income by ten, to give her friend some 
 faint notion of the vast importance 
 and superiority of her family. 
 
 It happened that that particular 
 time, comprising the short daily inter- 
 val which was suffered to elapse be- 
 tween 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 aocuetomcd to 
 01
 
 84 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 issue forth for a melancholy walk, and 
 to brood, as he sauntered listlessly 
 through the village, upon his miser- 
 able 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, 
 u it is my duty to go through with it, 
 and I will!" 
 
 As Miss Squeers said this, in the 
 tone of one who has made a high moral 
 resolution, and was, besides, taken with 
 one or two chokes and catchings of 
 breath, indicative of feelings at a high 
 pressure, her friend made no farther 
 remark, and they bore straight down 
 upon Nicholas, who, walking with his 
 eyes bent upon the ground, was not 
 aware of their approach until they 
 were close upon him ; otherwise he 
 might, perhaps, have taken shelter 
 himself. 
 
 " Good morning," said Nicholas, 
 bowing and passing by. 
 
 " He is going," murmured Miss 
 Squeers. " I shall choke, 'Tilda." 
 
 "Come back, Mr. Nickleby, do!" 
 cried Miss Price, affecting alarm at 
 her friend's threat, but really actuated 
 by a malicious wish to hear what 
 Nicholas would say ; " come back, Mr. 
 Nickleby !" 
 
 Mr. Nickleby came back, and looked 
 as confused as might be, as he inquired 
 whether the ladies had any commands 
 for him. 
 
 "Don't stop to talk," urged Miss 
 Price, hastily ; " but support her on 
 the other side. How do you feel now, 
 dear I " 
 
 " Better," sighed Miss Squeers, lay- 
 ing a beaver bonnet of a reddish brown 
 with a green veil attached, on Mr. 
 Nickleby's shoulder. " This foolish 
 faintness ! " 
 
 " Don't call it foolish, dear," said 
 Miss Price : her bright eye dancing 
 
 with merriment as she saw the per- 
 plexity of Nicholas ; " you have no 
 reason to be ashamed of it. It 's thoso 
 who are too proud to come round 
 again, withoftt all this to-do, that ought 
 to be ashamed." 
 
 " You are resolved to fix it upon me^ 
 I see," said Nicholas, smiling, " al- 
 though I told you, last night, it was not 
 my fault." 
 
 " There ; he says it was iiot his 
 fault, my dear," remarked the wicked 
 Miss Price. " Perhaps you were too 
 jealous, or too hasty with him 1 He 
 says it was not his fault. You hear ; I 
 think that 's apology enough." 
 
 " You will not understand me," said 
 Nicholas. "Pray dispense with this 
 jesting, for I have no time, and really 
 no inclination, to be the subject or 
 promoter of mirth just now." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Miss 
 Price, affecting amazement. 
 
 " Don't ask him, 'Tilda," cried Miss 
 Squeers ; " I forgive him." 
 
 " Dear me," said Nicholas, as the 
 brown bonnet went down on his shoul- 
 der again, " this is more serious than 
 I supposed. Allow me ! Will you have 
 the goodness to hear me speak 1 " 
 
 Here he raised up the brown bon- 
 net, and regarding with most unfeigned 
 astonishment a look of tender reproach 
 from Miss Squeers, shrunk back a few 
 paces to bo out of the reach of the fair 
 burden, and ,went on to say : 
 
 " I am very sorry truly and sin- 
 cerely sorry for having been the cause 
 of any difference among you, last night. 
 I reproach myself, most bitterly, for 
 having been so unfortunate as to cause 
 the dissension that occurred, although I 
 did so, I assure you, most unwittingly 
 and heedlessly." 
 
 " Well ; that 's not all you have got 
 to say surely," exclaimed Miss Price 
 as Nicholas paused. 
 
 " I fear there is something more," 
 stammered Nicholas with a half smile, 
 and looking towards Miss Squeers, 
 " it is a most awkward thing to say 
 but the very mention of such a sup- 
 position makes one look like a puppy 
 still may I ask if that lady supposes 
 that I entertain any in short, does
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 85 
 
 she think that I am in lore with 
 her?" 
 
 " Delightful embarrassment," thought 
 Miss Squeers, " I have brought him to 
 it, at last. Answer for me, dear," she 
 whispered to her friend. 
 
 " Does she think so ? " rejoined Miss 
 Price ; " of course she does." 
 
 " She does ! " exclaimed Nicholas 
 with such energy of utterance as might 
 have been, for the moment, mistaken 
 for rapture. 
 
 " Certainly," replied Miss Price. 
 
 " If Mr. Nickleby has doubted that, 
 'Tilda," said the blushing Miss Squeers 
 in soft accents, " he may set his mind at 
 test. His sentiments are recipro ' 
 
 " Stop," cried Nicholas hurriedly ; 
 " pray hear me. This is the gross- 
 est and wildest delusion, the com- 
 pletest and most signal mistake, that 
 ever human being laboured under, or 
 committed. I have scarcely seen 
 the young lady half a dozen times, 
 but if I had seen her sixty times, or 
 am destined to see her sixty thousand, 
 it would be, and will be, precisely the 
 same. I have not one thought, wish, 
 or hope, connected with her, unless it 
 be and I say this, not to hurt her 
 feelings, but to impress her with the 
 real state of my own unless it be the 
 one object, dear to my heart as life 
 itself, of being one day able to turn my 
 back upon this accursed place, never 
 to set foot in it again, or.think of it 
 even think of it but with loathing and 
 disgust." 
 
 With this particularly plain and 
 straight-forward declaration, which he 
 made with all the vehemence that his 
 indignant and excited feelings could 
 bring to bear upon it, Nicholas, waiting 
 to hear no move, retreated. 
 
 But poor Miss Squeers ! Her 
 anger, rage, and vexation ; the rapid 
 euccession of bitter and passionate 
 feelings that whirled through her 
 mind ; are not to be described. Re- 
 fused ! refused by a teacher, picked 
 up by advertisement, at an annual 
 salary of five pounds payable at inde- 
 finite periods, and "found" in food 
 and lodging like the very boys them- 
 selves ; and this too in the presence 
 
 of a little chit of a miller's daughter of 
 eighteen, who was going to be married, 
 in three weeks' time, to a man who 
 had gone down on his very knees to 
 ask her ! She could have choked in 
 right good earnest, at the thought of 
 being so humbled. 
 
 But, there was one tiling clear in 
 the midst of her mortification ; and 
 that was, that she hated and detested 
 Nicholas with all the narrowness of 
 mind and littleness of purpose worthy 
 a descendant of the house of Squeers. 
 And there was one comfort too ; and 
 that was, that every hour in every day 
 she could wound his pride, and goad 
 him with the infliction of some slight, 
 or insult, or deprivation, which could 
 not but have some effect on the most 
 insensible person, and must be acutely 
 felt by one so sensitive as Nicholas. 
 With these two reflections uppermost 
 in her mind, Miss Squeers made tho 
 best of the matter to her friend, by 
 observing that Mr. Nickleby was such 
 an odd creature, and of such a violent 
 temper, that she feared she should be 
 obliged to give him up ; and parted 
 from her. 
 
 And here it may be remarked, that 
 Miss Squeers, having bestowed her 
 affections (or whatever it might be that, 
 in the absence of anything better, re- 
 presented them) on Nicholas Nickleby, 
 had never once seriously contemplated 
 the possibility of his being of a differ- 
 ent opinion from herself in the business. 
 Miss Squeers reasoned that she was 
 prepossessing and beautiful, and that 
 her father was master, and Nicholas 
 man, and that her father had saved 
 money, and Nicholas had none, all 
 of which seemed to her conclusive 
 arguments why the young man should 
 feel only too much honoured by her 
 preference. She had not failed to 
 recollect, either, how much more 
 agreeable she could render his situa- 
 tion if she were his friend, and how 
 much more disagreeable if she were 
 his enemy ; and, doubtless, many less 
 scrupulous young gentlemen than Ni- 
 cholas would have encouraged her 
 extravagance had it been only for this 
 very obvious and intelligible reason.
 
 86 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 However, he had thought proper to 
 do otherwise, and Miss Squeers was 
 outrageous. 
 
 " Let him see," said the irritated 
 young lady, when she had regained 
 her own room, and eased her mind by 
 committing an assault on Phih, " if I 
 don't set mother against him a little 
 more when she comes back ! " 
 
 It was scarcely necessary to do this, 
 but Miss Squeers was as good as her 
 word ; and poor Nicholas, in addition 
 to bad food, dirty lodging, and the 
 being compelled to witness one dull 
 unvarying round of squalid misery, 
 was treated with every special indig- 
 nity 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 fol- 
 lowed him to and fro, with an ever 
 restless desire to serve or help him ; 
 anticipating such little wants as his 
 humble ability could supply, and con- 
 tent only to be near him. He would 
 sit beside him for hours, looking pa- 
 tiently into his face ; and a word would 
 brighten up his care-worn visage, and 
 call into it a passing gleam, even of 
 happiness. He was an altered being ; 
 he had an object now ; and that object 
 was, to show his attachment to the 
 only person that person a stranger 
 who had treated him, not to say with 
 kindness, but like a human creature. 
 
 Upon this poor being, all the spleen 
 and ill-humour that could not be 
 vented on Nicholas were unceasingly 
 bestowed. Drudgery would have been 
 nothing Smike was well used to that, 
 Bufferings inflicted without cause, 
 would have been equally a matter of 
 course ; for to them also, he had served 
 a long and weary apprenticeship ; but 
 it was no sooner observed that he had 
 become attached to Nicholas, than 
 stripes and blows, stripes and blows, 
 morning, noon, and night, were his 
 only portion. Squeers was jealous of 
 the influence which his man had so 
 
 soon acquired, and his family hated 
 liim, and Smike paid for both. Ni- 
 cholas saw it, and ground his teeth at 
 every repetition of the savage and 
 cowardly attack. 
 
 He had arranged a few regular 
 lessons for the boys ; and one night as 
 he paced up and down the dismal 
 school-room, his swoln heart almost 
 bursting to think that his protection 
 and countenance should have increased 
 the misery of the wretched being 
 whose peculiar destitution had awaken- 
 ed his pity, he paused mechanically in 
 a dark corner where sat the object of 
 his thoughts. 
 
 The poor soul was poring hard over 
 a tattered book, with the traces of 
 recent tears still upon his face ; vainly 
 endeavouring to master some task 
 which a child of nine years old, pos- 
 sessed of ordinary powers, could have 
 conquered with ease, but which, to the 
 addled brain of the crushed boy of 
 nineteen, was a sealed and hopeless 
 mystery. Yet there he sat, patiently 
 conning the page again and again, 
 stimulated by no boyish ambition, 
 for he was the common jest and scoff 
 even of the uncouth objects that con- 
 gregated about him, but inspired by 
 the one eager desire to please his soli- 
 tary friend. 
 
 Nicholas laid his hand upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I can't do it," said the dejected 
 creature, looking up with bitter dis- 
 appointment 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 Ni- 
 cholas, in an agitated voice ; " I can- 
 not bear to see yon." 
 
 " 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,"
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 87 
 
 replied Nicholas, shaking his head 
 mournfully, " when I am gone." 
 
 " Gone ! " cried the other, looking 
 intently in his face. 
 
 " Softly !" rejoined Nicholas. "Yes." 
 
 " Are you going ? " demanded the 
 boy, in au earnest whisper. 
 
 " I cannot say," reph'ed Nicholas. 
 " I was speaking more to my own 
 thoughts, than to you." 
 
 " Tell me," said the boy imploringly, 
 " Oh do tell me, un'Myougo will you { " 
 
 ' I shall be driven to that at last ! " 
 said Nicholas. ' The world is before 
 me, after all." 
 
 " Tell me," urged Smike, " is tlie 
 world as bad and dismal as this place I " 
 
 " Heaven forbid," replied Nicholas, 
 pursuing the train of his own thoughts, 
 its hardest, coarsest toil, were happi- 
 ness to this." 
 
 " Should I ever meet you there * " 
 demanded the boy, speaking with un- 
 usual wildness and volubility. 
 
 " Yes," reph'ed Nicholas, willing to 
 soothe him. 
 
 " No, no !" said the other, clasping 
 him by the hand. - Should I should 
 I tell me that again. Say I should 
 be sure to find you." 
 
 " You would," replied Nicholas, 
 with the same humane intention, " and 
 I would help and aid you, and not 
 bring fresh sorrow on you as I have 
 done here." 
 
 The boy caught both the young 
 man's hands passionately in his, and, 
 hugging them to his breast, uttered a 
 few broken sounds which were unin- 
 telligible. Squeers entered, at the mo- 
 ment, aud he shrunk back into his old 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NICHOLAS VARIES THE MONOTONY OF DOTHEBOYS HALL BY A MOST VIGOROUS 
 AND REMARKABLE PROCEEDING, WHICH LEADS TO CONSEQUENCES OF SOME 
 IMPORTANCE. 
 
 THE cold, feeble, dawn, of a January 
 morning was stealing in at the win- 
 dows of the common sleeping-room, 
 when Nicholas, raising himself on his 
 arm, looked among the prostrate forms 
 which on every side surrounded him, 
 as though in search of some particular 
 object. 
 
 It needed a quick eye to detect, 
 from among the huddled mass of 
 sleepers, the form of any given in- 
 dividual. As they ly closely packed 
 together, covered, for warmth's sake, 
 with their patched and ragged clothes, 
 little could be distinguished but the 
 sharp outlines of pale faces, over which 
 the sombre light shed the same dull 
 heavy colour ; with, here and there, a 
 gaunt arm thrust forth : its thinness 
 hidden by no covering, but fully ex- 
 posed to view, in all its shrunken ugli- 
 ness. There were some who, lying on 
 
 their backs with upturned faces and 
 clenched hands, just visible in the 
 leaden light, bore more the aspect of 
 dead bodies than of living creatures ; 
 and there were others coiled up into 
 strange and fastastic postures, such as 
 might have been taken for the uneasy 
 efforts of pain to gain some temporary 
 relief, rather than the freaks of slum- 
 ber. A few and these were among 
 the youngest of the children slept 
 peacefully on, with smiles upon their 
 faces, dreaming perhaps of home ; 
 but ever and again a deep and heavy 
 sigh, breaking the stillness of the 
 room, announced that some new 
 sleeper had awakened to the misery 
 of another day ; and, as morning took 
 the place of night, the smiles gradually 
 faded away, with the friendly darkness 
 which had given them birth. 
 
 Dreams are the bright creatures of
 
 88 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ^oem and legend, who sport on earth 
 in the night season, and melt away in 
 the first beam of the sun, which lights 
 grim care and stern reality on their 
 daily pilgrimage through the world. 
 
 Nicholas looked upon the sleepers ; 
 at first, with the air of one who gazes 
 upon a scene which, though familiar 
 to him, has lost none of its sorrowful 
 effect in consequence ; and, afterwards, 
 with a more intense and searching 
 scrutiny, as a man would, who missed 
 something his eye was accustomed to 
 meet, and had expected to rest upon. 
 He was still occupied in this search, 
 and had half risen from his bed in the 
 eagerness of his quest, when the voice 
 of Squeers was heard, calling from the 
 bottom of the stairs. 
 
 " Now then," cried that gentleman, 
 " are you going to sleep all day, up 
 there " 
 
 "You lazy hounds?" added Mrs. 
 Squeers, finishing the sentence, and 
 producing, at the same time, a sharp 
 sound, like that which is occasioned by 
 the lacing of stays. 
 
 "We shall be down directly, sir," 
 replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Down directly ! " said Squeers. 
 "Ah ! you had better be down di- 
 rectly, or I '11 be down upon some of 
 you in less. Where's that Smike ? " 
 
 Nicholas looked hurriedly round 
 again, but made no answer. 
 
 " Smike ! " shouted Squeers. 
 
 " Do you want your head broke in 
 a fresh place, Smike 1" 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!" mut- 
 tered Squeers, rapping the stair-rail im- 
 patiently with his cane. "Nickleby !" 
 
 Well, sir." 
 
 " Send that obstinate scoundrel 
 down ; don't you hear me calling ! " 
 
 " He is not here, sir," replied 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Don't tell me a lie," retorted the 
 schoolmaster. " He is." 
 
 " He is not," retorted Nicholas 
 angrily, " don't tell me one." 
 
 " We shall soon see that," said Mr. 
 Squeers, rushing up stairs. " I '11 find 
 him, I warrant you." 
 
 With which assurance, Mr. Squeers 
 bounced into the dormitory, and, 
 swinging his cane in the air ready for 
 a blow, darted into the corner where 
 the lean body of the drudge was 
 usually stretched at night. The cane 
 descended harmlessly upon the ground. 
 There was nobody there. 
 
 " What does this mean * " said 
 Squeers, turning round with a very 
 pale face. " Where have you hid 
 him?" 
 
 " I have seen nothing of him, since 
 last night," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Come," said Squeers, evidently 
 frightened, though he endeavoured to 
 look otherwise, " you won't save him 
 this way. Where is he ! " 
 
 " At the bottom of the nearest pond 
 for aught I know," rejoined Nicholas 
 in a low voice, and fixing his eyes full 
 on the master's face. 
 
 " D n you, what do you mean by 
 that ? " retorted Squeers in great per- 
 turbation. Without waiting for a reply, 
 he inquired of the boys whether any 
 one among them knew anything of their 
 missing schoolmate. 
 
 There was a general hum of anxious 
 denial, in the midst of which, one shrill 
 voice was heard to say (as, indeed, 
 everybody thought) : 
 
 " Please, sir, I think Smike 's run 
 away, sir." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Squeers, turning 
 sharp round ; " Who said that 1 " 
 
 "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 counte- 
 nance as he was brought forward, 
 seemed to intimate that he was as yet 
 uncertain whether he was about to be 
 punished or rewarded for the sugges- 
 tion. He was not long in doubt. 
 
 "You think he has run away, do 
 you, sir ? " demanded Squeers. 
 
 " Yes, please sir," replied the little 
 boy. 
 
 "And what, sir," said Squeers,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 89 
 
 catching the little boy suddenly by the 
 arms and whisking up his drapery in 
 a most dexterous manner, " what rea- 
 son have you to suppose that any boy 
 would want to run away from this 
 establishment ! Eh, sir ! " 
 
 The child raised a dismal cry, by 
 way of answer, and Mr. Squeers, 
 throwing himself into the most favour- 
 able attitude for exercising his strength, 
 beat him until the little urchin in his 
 writhings actually rolled out of his 
 hands, when he mercifully allowed 
 him to roll away, as he best could. 
 
 There," said Squeers. " Now if 
 any other boy thinks Smike has run 
 away, I shall be glad to have a talk 
 with him." 
 
 There was, of course, a profound 
 silence, during which, Nicholas showed 
 his disgust as plainly as looks could 
 show it. 
 
 " Well, Nickleby," said Squeers, 
 eyeing him maliciously. " You think 
 he has run away, I suppose 1 " 
 
 " I think it extremely likely," re- 
 plied Nicholas, in a quiet manner. 
 
 "Oh, you do, do you!" sneered 
 Squeers. " Maybe you know he 
 
 " I know nothing of the kind." 
 
 u He did'nt tell you he was going, I 
 suppose, did he 1 " sneered Squeers. 
 
 " He did not," replied Nicholas ; 
 " I am very glad he did not, for it 
 would then have been my duty to have 
 warned you, in time." 
 
 " Which no doubt you would have 
 been devilish sorry to do," said Squeers 
 in a taunting fashion. 
 
 " I should, indeed," replied Nicholas. 
 " You interpret my feelings with great 
 accuracy." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers had listened to this 
 conversation, from the bottom of the 
 stairs ; but, now losing all patience, she 
 hastily assumed her night-jacket, and 
 made her way to the scene of action. 
 
 " What's all this here to do 1" said 
 the lady, as the boys fell off right and 
 left, to save her the trouble of clearing 
 a passage with her brawny arms. 
 " What on earth are you a talking to 
 him for, Squeery ! " 
 
 " Why, my dear," said Squeers, 
 
 " the fact is, that Smike is not to be 
 found." 
 
 " Well, I know that," said the lady, 
 " and where 's the wonder ? If you 
 get a parcel of proud-stomached 
 teachers that set the young dogs a 
 rebelling, what else can you look for I 
 Now, young man, you just have the 
 kindness to take yourself off to the 
 school-room, and ta'ke the boys off with 
 you, and don't you stir out of there 
 'till you have leave given you, or you 
 and I may fall out in a way that '11 
 spoil your beauty, handsome as you 
 think yourself, and so I tell you." 
 
 " Indeed !" said Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes ; and indeed and indeed again, 
 Mister Jackanapes," said the excited 
 lady ; " and I wouldn't keep such as 
 you in the house, another hour, if I had 
 my way." 
 
 " Nor would you if I had mine," 
 replied Nicholas. " Now, boys ! " 
 
 " Ah ! Now boys," said Mrs. 
 Squeers, mimicking, as nearly as she 
 could, the voice and manner of the 
 usher. " Follow your leader, boys, 
 and take pattern by Smike if you dare. 
 See what he '11 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 '11 only stop short of flaying him 
 alive. I give you notice, boys." 
 
 " If you catch him," retorted Mrs. 
 Squeers, contemptuously, "you are 
 sure to ; you can't help it, if you go 
 the right way to work. Come ! Away 
 with you ! " 
 
 With these words, Mrs. Squeers 
 dismissed the boys, and after a little 
 light skirmishing with those in the 
 rear who were pressing forward to get 
 out of the way, but were detained for 
 a few moments by the throng in front, 
 succeeded in clearing the room, when 
 she confronted her spouse alone. 
 
 "He is off," said Mrs. Squeers. 
 " The cow-house and stable are locked 
 up, so he can't be there ; and he 's not 
 down stairs anywhere, for the girl has 
 looked. He must have gone Yorlt 
 way, and by a public road too."
 
 90 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Why must he ! " inquired Squeers. 
 
 " Stupid !" said Mrs. Squeers angrily. 
 " He hadn't any money, had he I " 
 
 " Never had a penny of his own in 
 his whole life, that I know of," replied 
 Squeers. 
 
 " To be sure," rejoined Mrs. Squeers, 
 "and he didn't take anything to eat 
 with him ; that I '11 answer for. Ha ! 
 ha! ha!" 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Squeers. 
 
 " Then, of course," said Mrs. S., 
 " he must beg his way, and he could 
 do that, nowhere, but on the public 
 road." 
 
 " That 's true," exclaimed Squeers, 
 clapping his hands. 
 
 " True ! Yes ; but you would never 
 have thought of it, for all that, if I 
 hadn't said so," replied his wife. 
 " Now, if you take the chaise and go 
 one road, and I borrow Swallows's 
 chaise, and go the other, what with 
 keeping our eyes open, and asking 
 questions, one or other of us is pretty 
 certain to- lay hold of him." 
 
 The worthy lady's plan was adopted 
 and put in execution without a mo- 
 ment's delay. After a very hasty 
 breakfast, and the prosecution of some 
 inquiries in the village, the result of 
 which seemed to show that he was on 
 the right track, Squeers started forth 
 in the pony-chaise, intent upon dis- 
 covery and vengeance. Shortly after- 
 wards, Mrs. Squeers, arrayed in the 
 white top-coat, and tied up in various 
 shawls and handkerchiefs, issued forth 
 in another chaise and another direc- 
 tion, taking with her a good-sized 
 bludgeon, several odd pieces of strong 
 cord, and a stout labouring man : all 
 provided and carried upon the expe- 
 dition, with the sole object of assisting 
 in the capture, and (once caught) 
 insuring the safe custody of the unfor- 
 tunate Smike. 
 
 Nicholas remained behind, in a 
 tumult of feeling, sensible that what- 
 ever might be the upshot of the boy's 
 flight, nothing but painful and deplo- 
 rable 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 
 lielpless a creature, alone and un- 
 friended, tlirough a country of which 
 be 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 un- 
 happy being had established a hold 
 upon his sympathy and compassion, 
 which made his heart ache at the pros- 
 pect of the suffering he was destined 
 to undergo. He lingered on, in rest- 
 less anxiety, picturing a thousand pos- 
 sibilities, 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 '11 have consolation for this out of 
 somebody, Nickleby, if Mrs. Squeers 
 don't hunt him down ; so I give you 
 warning." 
 
 " It is not in my power to console 
 you, sir," said Nicholas. "It is no- 
 thing to me." 
 
 " Isn't it?" said Squeers in a threat- 
 ening manner. " We shall see ! " 
 
 " We shall," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " Here 's the pony run right off his 
 legs, and me obliged to come home 
 with a hack cob, that'll cost fifteen 
 shillings besides other expenses," said 
 Squeers ; " who 's to pay for that, do 
 you hear ? " 
 
 Nicholas shrugged his shoulders and 
 remained silent. 
 
 " I '11 have it out of somebody I tell 
 you," said Squeers, his usual harsh 
 crafty manner changed to open bully- 
 ing. " None of your whining vapour- 
 ings 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 
 i he could, up stairs : not a little nettled 
 ! however to observe that Miss Squeers
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 91 
 
 and Master Squeers, and the servant 
 girl, were enjoying the scene from a 
 snug corner ; the two former, indulging 
 in many edifying remarks about the 
 presumption of poor upstarts, which 
 occasioned a vast deal of laughter, in 
 which even the most miserable of all 
 miserable servant girls joined : while 
 Nicholas, stung to the quick, drew 
 over his head such bed-clothes as he 
 had, and sternly resolved that the out- 
 standing account between himself and 
 Mr. Squeers should be settled rather 
 more speedily than the latter anti- 
 cipated. 
 
 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 ex- 
 altation, ordering a glass of spirits for 
 somebody, which was in itself a suffi- 
 cient sign that something extraordi- 
 nary had happened. Nicholas hardly 
 dared to look out of the window ; but 
 he did so, and the very first object 
 that met his eyes was the wretched 
 Smike : so bedabbled with mud and 
 rain, so haggard and worn, and wild, 
 that, but for his garments being such 
 as no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, 
 he might have been doubtful, even 
 then, of his identity. 
 
 a Lift him out," said Squeers, after 
 he had literally feasted his eyes, in 
 silence, upon the culprit. " Bring him 
 in ; bring him in !" 
 
 "Take care," cried Mrs. Squeers, 
 as her husband proffered his assist- 
 ance. " We tied his legs under the 
 apron and made 'em fast to the chaise, 
 to prevent his giving us the slip 
 again." 
 
 With hands trembling with delight, 
 Squeers unloosened the cord ; and 
 Smike, to all appearance more dead 
 than alive, was brought into the house 
 and securely locked up in a cellar, 
 until such time as Mr. Squeers should 
 deem it expedient to operate upon 
 him, in presence of the assembled 
 school. 
 
 Upon a hasty consideration of the 
 circumstances, it may be matter of 
 surprise to some persons, that Mr. 
 
 and Mrs. Squeers should have taken 
 so much trouble to repossess them- 
 selves of an incumbrauce of which it 
 was their wont to complain so loudly ; 
 but their surprise will cease when they 
 are informed that the manifold ser- 
 vices of the drudge, if performed by 
 anybody else, would have cost the 
 establishment some ten or twelve shil- 
 lings per week in the shape of wages ; 
 and furthermore, that all runaways 
 were, as a matter of policy, made 
 severe examples of, at Dotheboys Hall, 
 inasmuch as, in consequence of the 
 limited extent of its attractions, there 
 was but little inducement, beyond the 
 powerful impulse of fear, for any pupil, 
 provided with the usual number of 
 legs and the power of using them, to 
 remain. 
 
 The news that Smike had been 
 caught and brought back in triumph, 
 ran like wild-fire through the hungry 
 community, and expectation was on 
 tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it 
 was destined to remain, however, until 
 afternoon ; when Squeers, having re- 
 freshed himself with his dinner, and 
 further strengthened himself by an 
 extra libation or so, made his appear- 
 ance (accompanied by his amiable 
 partner) with a countenance of por- 
 tentous import, and a fearful instru- 
 ment of flagellation, strong, supple, 
 wax-ended, and new in short, pur- 
 chased that morning, expressly for the 
 occasion. 
 
 " Is every boy here ? " asked 
 Squeers, in a tremendous voice. 
 
 Every boy was there, but every 
 boy was afraid to speak ; so, Squeers 
 glared along the lines to assure him- 
 self ; and every eye drooped, and every 
 head cowered down, as he did so. 
 
 " Each boy keep his place," said 
 Squeers, administering his favourite 
 blow to the desk, and regarding with 
 gloomy satisfaction the universal start 
 which it never failed to occasion. 
 Nickleby ! to your desk, sir." 
 
 It was remarked by more than one 
 small observer, that there was a very 
 curious and unusual expression in the 
 usher's face ; but he took his seat, 
 without opening his lips in reply.
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Squeers, casting a triumphant glance 
 at his assistant and a look of most 
 comprehensive despotism on the boys, 
 left the room, and shortly afterwards 
 returned, dragging Smike by the collar 
 or rather by that fragment of his 
 jacket which was nearest the place 
 where his collar would have been, had 
 he boasted such a decoration. 
 
 In any other place, the appearance 
 of the wretched, jaded, spiritless ob- 
 ject would have occasioned a murmur 
 of compassion and remonstrance. It 
 had some effect, even there ; for the 
 lookers-on moved uneasily in their 
 teats ; and a few of the boldest ven- 
 tured to steal looks at each other, ex- 
 pressive of indignation and pity. 
 
 They were lost on Squeers, how- 
 ever, whose gaze was fastened on the 
 luckless Smike, as he inquired, accord- 
 ing to custom in such cases, whether 
 he had anything to say for himself. 
 
 " Nothing, I suppose ? " said Squeers, 
 with a diabolical grin. 
 
 Smike glanced round, and his eye 
 rested, for an instant, on Nicholas, as if 
 he had expected him to intercede ; but 
 his look was riveted on his desk. 
 
 " Have you anything to say !" de- 
 mended Squeers again : giving his 
 right arm two or three flourishes to 
 try its power and suppleness. " Stand 
 a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, 
 my dear ; I 've hardly got room 
 enough." 
 
 " Spare me, sir !" cried Smike. 
 
 Oh ! that 's all, is it ! " said 
 Squeers. " Yes, I '11 flog you within 
 an inch of your life, and spare you 
 that." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mrs. Squeers, 
 "that's a good 'un !" 
 
 " I was driven to do it," said Smike 
 faintly ; and casting another imploring 
 look about him. 
 
 " Driven to do it, were you ? " said 
 Squeers. " Oh ! it wasn 't your fault ; 
 it was mine, I suppose eh ? " 
 
 a A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, 
 brutish, obstinate, sneaking dog," ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike's 
 head under her arm, and administer- 
 ing a cuff at every epithet ; " what 
 does he mean by that ? " 
 
 " Stand aside, my dear," replied 
 Squeere. " We '11 try and find out." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers, being out of breath 
 with her exertions, complied. Squeere 
 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 for- 
 ward. " This must not go on." 
 
 " Must not go on ! " cried Squeers, 
 almost in a shriek. 
 
 " No ! " thundered Nicholas. 
 
 Aghast and stupified by the bold- 
 ness of the interference, Squeers re- 
 leased his hold of Smike, and, falling 
 back a pace or two, gazed upon Nicho- 
 las with looks that were positively 
 frightful 
 
 " I say must not," repeated Nicho- 
 las, 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 ray quiet 
 interference in the miserable lad's 
 behalf," said Nicholas ; " you have 
 returned no answer to the letter in 
 which I begged forgiveness f or him, and 
 offered to be responsible that he would 
 remain quietly here. Don't blame me 
 for this public interference. You have 
 brought it upon yourself ; not I." 
 
 " Sit down, beggar ! " screamed 
 Squeers, almost beside himself with 
 rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke. 
 
 " Wretch," rej oined Nicholas, fiercely, 
 " touch him at your peril ! I will not 
 stand by, and see it done. My blood 
 is up, and I have the strength of ten 
 such men as you. Look to yourself, 
 for by Heaven I will not spare you, if 
 you drive me on !" 
 
 Stand back," cried Squeers, bran- 
 dishing his weapon. 
 
 " I have a long series of insults to 
 avenge," said Nicholas, flushed with
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 passion ; and ray indignation is 
 aggravated by the dastardly cruelties 
 practised on helpless infancy in this 
 fonl den. Have a care ; for if you do 
 raise the devil within me, the conse- 
 quences shall fall heavily upon your 
 own head ! " 
 
 He had scarcely spoken, when 
 Squeers, in a violent outbreak of 
 wrath, and with a cry like the howl of 
 a wild beast, spat upon him, and 
 struck him a blow across die face with 
 his instrument of torture, which raised 
 up a bar of livid flesh as it was in- 
 flicted. Smarting with the agony of 
 the blow, and concentrating into that 
 one moment all his feelings of rage, 
 scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang 
 upon him, wrested the weapon from 
 his hand, and pinning him by the 
 throat, beat the ruffian till he roared 
 for mercy. 
 
 The boys with the exception of 
 Master Squeers, who, coming to his 
 father's assistance, harassed the 
 enemy in the rear moved not, hand 
 or foot ; but Mrs. Squeers, with many 
 shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of 
 her partner's coat, and endeavoured to 
 drag him from his infuriated adver- 
 sary ; 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 : ani- 
 mating herself, at every blow, with the 
 recollection of his having refused her 
 proffered love, and thus imparting 
 additional strength to an arm which 
 (as she took after her mother in this 
 respect) was, at no time, one of the 
 weakest. 
 
 Nicholas, in the full torrent of his 
 violence, felt the blows no more than 
 if they had been dealt with feathers ; 
 but, becoming tired of the noise and 
 uproar, and feeling that his arm grew 
 weak besides, he threw all his remain- 
 ing strength into half-a-dozen finishing 
 cuts, and Hung Squeers from him, with 
 all the force he could muster. The 
 violence of his fall precipitated Mrs. 
 Squeers completely over an adjacent 
 
 form ; and Squeers, striking his head 
 against it in his descent, lay at his full 
 length on the ground, stunned and 
 motionless. 
 
 Having brought affairs to this happy 
 termination, and ascertained, to his 
 thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was 
 only stunned, and not dead (upou 
 which point he had had some unplea- 
 sant doubts at first), Nicholas left his 
 family to restore him, and retired to 
 consider what course he had better 
 adopt. He looked anxiously round for 
 Smike, as he left the room, but he was 
 nowhere to be seen. 
 
 After a brief consideration, he 
 packed up a few clothes in a small 
 leathern valise, and, finding that no- 
 body 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 circum- 
 stances some lit tli reflection, they did 
 not appear in a very encouraging 
 light ; he had only four shillings and 
 a few pence in his pocket, and wa 
 something more than two hundred 
 and fifty miles from London, whither 
 he resolved to direct his steps, that he 
 might ascertain, among other things, 
 what account of the morning's pro- 
 ceedings Mr. Squeers transmitted to 
 his most affectionate uncle. 
 
 Lifting up his eyes, as he arrived at 
 the conclusion that there was no re- 
 medy for this unfortunate state of 
 things, he beheld a horseman coming 
 towards him, whom, on nearer ap- 
 proach, he discovered, to his infinite 
 chagrin, to be no other than Mr. John 
 Browdie, who, clad in cords and 
 leather leggings, was urging his animal 
 forward by means of a thick ash stick, 
 which seemed to have been recently 
 cut from some stout sapling. 
 
 " I am in no mood for more noiso 
 and riot," thought Nicholas, "and yet, 
 do what I will, I shall have an alterca- 
 tion 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
 
 94 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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. 
 
 u Weel ; we ha' met at last," ob- 
 served John, making the stirrup ring 
 under a smart touch of the ash stick. 
 
 " Yes," replied Nicholas, hesitating. 
 " Come !" he said, frankly, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, " we parted on no very 
 good terms the last time we met ; it 
 was my fault, I believe ; but I had no 
 intention of offending you, and no idea 
 that 1 was doing so. I was very sorry 
 for it, afterwards. Will you shake 
 hands?" 
 
 " Shake honds ! " cried the good- 
 humoured Yorkshireman ; " ah ! that 
 I weel ; " at the same time, he bent 
 down from the saddle, and gave Nicho- 
 las's fist a huge wTench : " but wa'at 
 be the matther wi' thy feace, mun ? it 
 be all brokken loike." 
 
 " It is a cut," said Nicholas, turn- 
 ing scarlet as he spoke, " a blow; but 
 .1 returned it to the giver, and with 
 good interest too." 
 
 " Noa, did 'ee though ? " exclaimed 
 John Browdie. " Well deane ! I loike 
 'un for thot." 
 
 "The fact is," said Nicholas, not 
 very well knowing how to make the 
 avowal, " the fact is, that I have been 
 ill-treated." 
 
 " Noa ! " interposed John Browdie, 
 in a tone of compassion ; for he was a 
 giant in strength and stature, and Ni- 
 cholas, very likely, in his eyes, seemed 
 a mere dwarf ; u 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 ! Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
 Beatten the schoolmeasther ! who ever 
 
 heard o' the loike o' that noo ! Git* 
 us thee hond agean, yoongster. Beat- 
 ten the schoohneasther ! Dang it, I 
 loove thee for V 
 
 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 Nicho- 
 las by the hand meanwhile, no less 
 heartily. When his mirth had sub- 
 sided, he inquired what Nicholas meant 
 to do ; on his informing him, to go 
 straight to London, he shook his head 
 doubtfully, and inquired if he knew 
 how much the coaches charged, to 
 carry passengers so far. 
 
 "No, I do not," said Nicholas ; 
 "but it is of no great consequence to 
 me, for I intend walking." 
 
 " Gang awa' to Lunnun afoot ! " 
 cried John, in amazement. 
 
 " Every step of the way," replied 
 Nicholas. " I should be many steps 
 further on by this time, and so good 
 bye!" 
 
 " Nay noo," replied the honest 
 countryman, reining in his impatient 
 horse, " stan' still, tellee. Hoo much 
 cash hast thee gotten \ " 
 
 " Not much," said Nicholas, colour- 
 ing, " but I can make it enough. 
 Where there 's a will, there 's a way, 
 you know." 
 
 John Browdie made no verbal an- 
 swer 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 pre- 
 vailed upon to borrow more than a 
 sovereign, with which loan Mr. Brow- 
 die, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 on \ri', mun," he added, pressing his 
 stick on Nicholas, and giving his hand 
 another squeeze ; " keep a good heart, 
 and bless thee. Beatten the school- 
 measther ! 'Cod it's the best thin 
 a 've heerd this twenty year ! " 
 
 So saying, and indulging, with more 
 delicacy than might have been expected 
 from him, in another series of loud 
 laughs, for the purpose of avoiding the 
 thanks which Nicholas poured forth, 
 John Browdie set spurs to his horse, 
 and went off at a smart canter : lookin u 
 back, from time to time, as Nicholas 
 stood gazing after liim, and waving 
 his hand cheerily, as if to encourage 
 him on his way. Nicholas watched 
 the horse and rider until they disap- 
 peared over the brow of a distant hill, 
 and then set forward on his journey. 
 
 He did not travel far, that afternoon, 
 for by this time it was nearly dark, 
 and there had been a heavy fall of 
 snow, which not only rendered the way 
 toilsome, but the track uncertain and 
 difficult to find, after daylight, save by 
 experienced wayfarers. He lay, that 
 night, at a cottage, where beds were let 
 at a cheap rate to the more humble 
 class of travellers ; and, rising betimes 
 next morning, made his way before 
 night to Boroughbridge. Passing 
 through that town in search of some 
 cheap resting-place, he stumbled upon 
 an empty barn within a couple of hun- 
 dred 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, which 
 had been all connected with his recent 
 .sojourn at Dotheboys Hall, he sat up, 
 rubbed his eyes, and stared not with 
 die most composed countenance pos- 
 sible at some motionless object which 
 seemed to be stationed within a few 
 yards in front of him. 
 
 " Strange ! " cried Nicholas ; " can 
 this be some lingering creation of the 
 
 visions that have scarcely left me ! It 
 cannot be real and yet I I am 
 awake ! Sraike 1 " 
 
 The form moved, rose, advanced, 
 and dropped upon its knees at his feet. 
 It was Smike indeed. 
 
 " Why do you kneel to me ? " said 
 Nicholas, hastily raising him. 
 
 " To go with yon anywhere every- 
 where to the world's end to the 
 churchyard grave," replied Smike, 
 clinging to his hand. " Let me, oh do 
 let me. You are my home my kind 
 friend take me witli you, pray." 
 
 " I am a friend who can do fettle for 
 you," said Nicholas, kindly. " How 
 came you here ! " 
 
 He had followed him, it seemed ; 
 had never lost sight of him all the way ; 
 had watched while he slept, and when 
 he halted for refreshment ; and had 
 feared to appear, before, lest he should 
 be sent back. He had not intended to 
 appear now, but Nicholas had awak- 
 ened more suddenly than he looked 
 for, and he had liad 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 1 " 
 asked Smike, timidly. " I will be your 
 faithful hard-working servant, I will, 
 indeed. I want no clothes," added the 
 poor creature, drawing his rags to- 
 gether ; " these will do very well. I 
 only want to be near you." 
 
 "And you shall," cried Nicholas. 
 " And the world shall deal by you as 
 it does by me, till one or both of us 
 shall quit it for a better. Come !" 
 
 With these words, he strapped his 
 burden on his shoulders, and, taking 
 his stick in one hand, extended tho 
 other to his delighted charge ; and so 
 they passed out of the old barn, to- 
 gether
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HATING THE MISFORTUNE TO TREAT OF NONE BUT COMMON PEOPLE, IS NECES- 
 SARILY OF A MEAN AND VULGAR CHARACTER. 
 
 IN that quarter of London in which 
 Golden Square is situated, 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 ken- 
 nels, jerking their bodies hither and 
 thither with a gait which none but 
 town fowls are ever seen to adopt, and 
 which any country cock or hen would 
 be puzzled to understand, are perfectly 
 in keeping with the crazy habitations 
 of their owners. Dingy, ill-plumed 
 drowsy flutterers, sent, like many of 
 the neighbouring children, to get a 
 li velihood in the streets, they hop, from 
 stone to stone, in forlorn search of 
 some hidden eatable in the mud, and 
 can scarcely raise a crow among them. 
 The only one with anything approach- 
 ing to a voice, is Mi 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 bettr 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 orna- 
 mented with every variety of common 
 
 blind and curtain that can easily be 
 imagined; while every doorway is 
 blocked up, and rendered nearly im- 
 passable, by a motley collection of 
 children and porter pots of all sizes, 
 from the baby in arms and the half- 
 pint pot, to the full-grown girl and 
 half-gallon can. 
 
 In the parlour of one of these houses, 
 which was perhaps a thought dirtier 
 than any of its neighbours ; which 
 exhibited more bell-handles, children, 
 and porter pots, and caught in all its 
 freshness the first gust of the thick 
 black smoke that poured forth, night 
 and day, from a large brewery hard 
 by ; hung a bill, announcing that 
 there was yet one room to let within 
 its walls, though on what story the 
 vacant room could be regard being 
 had to the outward tokens of many 
 lodgers which the whole front dis- 
 played, from the mangle in the kitchen- 
 window to the flower-pots on the para- 
 pet 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 
 pitcheirs, and some broken blacking- 
 bottles.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 97 
 
 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 \\itli the air of legal 
 owner. 
 
 This person wore a wig of short, 
 coarse, red hair, which he took off 
 with his hat, and hung upon a nail. 
 Having adopted in its place a dirty 
 cotton nightcap, and groped about in 
 the dark till he found a remnant of 
 candle, he knocked at the partition 
 which divided the two garrets, and 
 inquired, in a loud voice, whether Mr. 
 Noggs had a light 
 
 The sounds that came back, were 
 stifled by the lath and plaster, and it 
 seemed moreover as though the 
 speaker had uttered them from the 
 interior of a mug or other drinking 
 vessel ; but they were in the voice of 
 Newman, and conveyed a reply in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 " A nasty night, Mr. Noggs ! " said 
 the man in the night-cap, stepping in 
 to light his candle. 
 
 " Does it rain J " asked Newman. 
 
 " Does it ? " replied the other pet- 
 tishly. " 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 bot- 
 tom of a cupboard, and Mr. Crowl, 
 seizing the shovel, threw on half the 
 stock : which Noggs very deliberately 
 took off again, without saying a word. 
 
 " You have not turned saving, at 
 this time of day, I hope ? " said Crowl. 
 
 Newman pointed to the empty glass, 
 as though it were a sufficient refuta- 
 
 No. 38. 
 
 I tion of the charge, and briefly said that 
 he was going down stairs to supper. 
 
 " To the Kenwigses ? " asked Crowl. 
 
 Newman nodded assent. 
 
 " Think of that now ! " said Crowl. 
 " If I didn't thinking that you were 
 certain not to go, because you said 
 you wouldn't tell Kenwigs I couldn't 
 come, and make up my mind to spend 
 the evening with you ! " 
 
 "I was obliged to go," said New- 
 man. " They would have me." 
 
 " Well ; but what 's to become of 
 me ? " urged the selfish man, who never 
 thought of anybody else. " It 'a all 
 your fault. I '11 tell you what I '11 sit 
 by your fire till you come back again." 
 
 Newman cast a despairing glance at 
 his small store of fuel, but, not having 
 the courage to say no a word which 
 in all his life he never had said at the 
 right time, either to himself or any one 
 else gave way to the proposed ar- 
 rangement. Mr. Crowl immediately 
 went about making himself as comfort- 
 able, with Newman Noggs's means, as 
 circumstances would admit of his being 
 made. 
 
 The lodgers to whom Crowl had made 
 allusion under the designation of " the 
 Kenwigses," were the wife and olive 
 branches of one Mr. Kenwigs, a turner 
 in ivory, who was looked upon as a 
 person of some consideration on the 
 premises, inasmuch as he occupied the 
 whole of the first floor, comprising a 
 suite of two rooms. Mrs. Kenwigs, 
 too, was quite a lady in her manners, 
 and of a very genteel family, having an 
 uncle who collected a water-rate ; be- 
 sides which distinction, the two eldest 
 of her little girls went twice a week tt> 
 a dancing school in the neighbourhood, 
 and had flaxen hair, tied with blue 
 ribands, hanging in luxuriant pigtails 
 down their backs ; and wore little white 
 trousers with frills round the ancles 
 forall of which reasons, and many more 
 equally valid but too numerous to men. 
 tion, 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 thnthaof.y 
 ~
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 day on which the church of England as 
 by law established, had bestowed Mrs. 
 Kenwigs upon Mr. Kenwigs ; and in 
 grateful commemoration of the same, 
 Mrs. Kenwigs had invited a few select 
 friends to cards and a supper in tin- 
 first floor, and had put on a new gown to 
 receive them in : which gown, being of 
 a flaming colour and made upon a 
 juvenile principle, was so successful 
 that Mr. Kenwigs said the eight years 
 of matrimony and the five children 
 seemed all a dream, and Mrs. Kenwigs 
 younger and more blooming than on the 
 very first Sunday he had kept company 
 with her. 
 
 Beautiful as Mrs. Kenwigs looked 
 when she was dressed though, and so 
 stately that you would have supposed 
 she had a cook and housemaid at least, 
 and nothing to do but order them 
 about, she had a world of trouble with 
 the preparations ; more, indeed, than 
 she, being of a delicate and genteel 
 constitution, could have sustained, had 
 not the pride of housewifery upheld 
 her. At last, however, all the things 
 that had to be got together rere got 
 together, and all the things that had 
 to be got out of the way were got out 
 of the way, and everything was ready, 
 and the collector himself having pro- 
 mised to come, fortune smiled upon the 
 occasion. 
 
 The party was admirably selected. 
 There were, first of all, Mr. Kenwigs 
 and Mrs. Kenwigs, and four olive Ken- 
 wigses who sat up to supper ; firstly, 
 because it was but right that they 
 should have a treat on such a day; 
 and secondly, because their going to 
 bed, in presence of the company, would 
 have been inconvenient, not to say 
 improper. Then, there was a young 
 lady who had made Mrs. Kenwigs's 
 dress, and who it was the most con- 
 venient thing in the world living in 
 the two-p&ir back, gave up her bed to 
 the baby, and got a little girl to watch 
 it. Then, to match this young lady, 
 was a young man, who had known Mr. 
 Kenwigs when he was a bachelor, and 
 was much esteemed by the ladies, as 
 bearing the reputation of a rake. To 
 these, were added a newly-married 
 
 couple, who had visited Mr. and Mrs. 
 Kenwigs in their courtship ; and a 
 sister of Mrs. Kenwigs's, who was quite 
 a beauty ; besides whom, there was 
 another young man, supposed to enter- 
 tain honourable designs upon the lady 
 last mentioned ; and Mr. Noggs, who 
 was a genteel person to ask, because he 
 had been a gentleman once. There 
 were also an elderly lady from the back 
 parlour, and one more young lady, who, 
 next to the collector, perhaps was the 
 great lion of the party, being the 
 daughter of a theatrical fireman, who 
 " went on " in the pantomime, and had 
 the greatest turn for the stage that was 
 ever known, being able to sing and 
 recite in a manner that brought the 
 tears into Mrs. Kenwigs's eyes. There 
 was only one drawback upon the plea- 
 sure of seeing such friends, and that 
 was, that the lady in the back parlour, 
 who was very fat, and turned of sixty, 
 came in a low book-muslin dress and 
 short kid gloves, which so exasperated 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, that that lady assured 
 her visiters, in private, that if it hadn't 
 happened that the supper was cooking 
 at the back-parlour grate at that mo- 
 ment, she certainly would have re- 
 quested its representative to with- 
 draw. 
 
 " My dear," said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 " wouldn't it be better to begin a round 
 game ?" 
 
 " Kenwigs, my dear," returned his 
 wife, " I am surprised at you. Would 
 you begin without my uncle ! " 
 
 " I forgot the collector," said Ken- 
 wigs ; " oh no, that would never do." 
 
 " He 's so particular," said Mrs. 
 Kenwigs, turning to the other mar- 
 ried lady, " that if we began without 
 him, I should be out of his will for 
 ever." 
 
 " Dear ! " cried the married lady. 
 
 " You 've no idea what he is," re- 
 plied Mrs. Kenwigs ; " and yet as good 
 a creature as ever breathed." 
 
 " The kindest-hearted man as ever 
 was," said Kenwigs. 
 
 " It goes to his heart, I believe, to 
 be forced to cut the water off, when 
 the people don't pay," observed the 
 bachelor friend, intending a joke.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 "George," said Mr. Kenwigs, so- 
 lemnly, " 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. Ken- 
 wigs's feelings, 1 set my face against 
 it. A man in public life expects to be 
 sneered at it is the fault of his ele- 
 vated sitiwation, and not of himself. 
 Mrs. Kenwigs's relation is a public man, 
 and that he knows, George, and that he 
 can bear ; but putting Mrs. Kenwigs 
 out of the question (if I could put Mrs. 
 Kenwigs out of the question on such 
 an occasion as this), I have the honour 
 to be connected with the collector by 
 marriage ; and I cannot allow these 
 remarks ir my " Mr. Kenwigs was 
 going to say " house," but he rounded 
 die sentence with " apartments." 
 
 At the conclusion of these observa- 
 tions, which drew forth evidences of 
 acute feeling from Mrs. Kenwigs, and 
 had the intended effect of impressing 
 the company with a deep sense of the 
 collector's dignity, a ring was heart at 
 the bell. 
 
 That 's him," whispered Mr. Ken- 
 wigs, 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 vita, for 
 anything that appeared to the contrary, 
 was led playfully in by Miss Morleena 
 Kenwigs, regarding whose uncommon 
 Christian name it may be here re- 
 marked that it had been invented and 
 composed by Mrs. Kenwigs previous to 
 her first lying-in, for the special dis- 
 tinction of her eldest child, in case it 
 should prove a daughter. 
 
 " Oh uncle, I am so glad to see you," 
 said Mrs. Ken wigs, kissing the collector 
 affectionately on both cheeks. " So 
 glad ! " 
 
 Many happy returns of the day, 
 my dear," replied the collector, re- 
 turning the compliment. 
 
 Now, this was an interesting thing. 
 Here was a collector of water-rates, 
 without his book, without his pen and 
 ink, without his double knock, without 
 his intimidation, kissing actually kiss- 
 ing an agreeable female, and leaving 
 taxes, summonses, notices that he had 
 called, or announcements that he would 
 never call again, for two quarters' due, 
 wholly out of the question. It was 
 pleasant to flee how the company looked 
 on, quite absorbed in the sight, and to 
 behold the nods and winks with which 
 they expressed their gratification at 
 finding so much humanity in a tax- 
 gatherer. 
 
 " Where will you sit, uncle ? " said 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, in the full glow of family 
 pride, which the appearance of her dis- 
 tinguished relation occasioned. 
 
 " Anywheres, my dear," said the 
 collector, " I am not particular." 
 
 Not particular ! What a meek col- 
 lector. If he had been an author, who 
 knew his place, he couldn't have been 
 more humble. 
 
 " Mr. Lilly vick," said Kenwigs, ad- 
 dressing the collector, " some friends 
 here, sir, are very anxious for the 
 honour of thank you Mr. and Mrs. 
 Cutler, Mr. Lillyvick." 
 
 " Proud to know you, sir," said Mr. 
 Cutler, " I 've heerd of you very often." 
 These were not mere words of cere- 
 mony ; for, Mr. Cutler, having kept 
 house in Mr. Lillyvick's parish, had 
 heard of him very often indeed. His 
 attention in calling had been quite 
 extraordinary. 
 
 " George, you know, I think, Mr. 
 Lillyvick," said Kenwigs ; " lady from 
 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 ! Mrs. Kenwigs, 
 my dear, will you sort the counters I " 
 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, with the assistance of 
 Newman Noggs, (who, as he performed 
 sundry little acts of kindness lor the 
 children, at all times and seasons, waa 
 
 H2
 
 100 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 humoured in his request to be taken 
 no notice of, and was merely spokeh 
 about, in a whisper, as the decayed gen- 
 tleman), did as he was desired ; and 
 the greater part of the guests sat down 
 to speculation, while Newman himself, 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, and Miss Petowker of 
 the Theatre Royal Drury Landlocked 
 after the supper-table. 
 
 While the ladies were thus busying 
 themselves, Mr. Lillyvick was intent 
 upon the game in progress, and as all 
 should be fish that comes to a water- 
 collector's net, the dear old gentleman 
 was by no means scrupulous in appro- 
 priating to himself the property of his 
 neighbours, which, on the contrary, 
 he abstracted whenever an opportu- 
 nity presented itself, smiling good- 
 humouredly all the while, and making 
 so many condescending speeches to 
 the owners, that they were delighted 
 with his amiability, and thought in 
 their hearts that he deserved to be 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer at least. 
 
 After a great deal of trouble, and 
 the administration of many slaps on 
 the head to the infant Kenwigses, 
 whereof two of the most rebellious 
 were summarily banished, the cloth 
 was laid with much elegance, and a 
 pair of boiled fowls, a large piece of 
 pork, apple-pie, potatoes and greens, 
 were served ; at sight of which, the 
 worthy Mr. Lillyvick vented a great 
 many witticisms, and plucked up 
 amazingly : to the immense delight 
 *nd satisfaction of the whole body of 
 admirers. 
 
 Very well and very fast the supper 
 went of ; no more serious difficulties 
 occurring, than those which arose 
 from the incessant demand for clean 
 knives and forks: which made poor 
 Mrs. Kenwigs wish, more than once, 
 that private society adopted the 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. 
 
 Everybody having eaten everything, 
 the table was cleared in a most alarm- 
 ing hurry, and with great noise ; and 
 the spirits, whereat the eyes of New- 
 man Noggs glistened, being arranged 
 in order, with water both hot and cold, 
 the party composed themselves for 
 conviviality ; Air. Lillyvick being sta- 
 tioned in a large arm-chair by the 
 fire-side, and the four little Kenwigses 
 disposed on a small form in front of 
 the company with their flaxen tails 
 towards them, and their faces to the 
 fire ; an arrangement which was no 
 sooner perfected, than Mrs. Kenwigs 
 was overpowered by the feelings of a 
 mother, and fell upon the left shoulder 
 of Mr. Kenwigs dissolved in tears. 
 
 " They are so beautiful !" said Mrs. 
 Kenwigs, sobbing. 
 
 Oh, dear," said all the ladies, " so 
 they are ! It 's very natural you should 
 feel proud of that ; but don't give 
 way, don't." 
 
 " I can not help it, and it don't 
 signify," sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs ; " oh ! 
 they 're too beautiful to live, much too 
 beautiful ! " 
 
 On hearing this alarming presenti- 
 ment 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 mean- 
 while clasping them alternately to her 
 bosom, with attitudes expressive of 
 distraction, which Miss Petowker her- 
 self might have copied. 
 
 At length, the anxious mother per- 
 mitted herself to be soothed into a 
 more tranquil state, and the little 
 Kenwigses, being also composed, were 
 distributed among the company, to 
 prevent tne possibility of Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs being again overcome by the 
 blaze of their combined beauty. 
 This done, the ladies and gentlemen 
 united in prophesying that they would 
 live for many, many years, and that 
 there was no occasion at all for Mrs. 
 Kenwigs to distress herself : which, in
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 101 
 
 good truth, there did not appear to be ; 
 the loveliness of the children by no 
 means justifying her apprehensions. 
 
 "This day eight year," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs after a pause. " Dear me 
 ah!" 
 
 This reflection was echoed by all 
 present, who said Ah ! " first, and 
 " dear me," afterwards. 
 
 " I was younger then," tittered Mrs. 
 Kenwigs. 
 
 No,?' said the collector. 
 
 " Certainly not," added everybody. 
 
 " I remember my niece," said Mr. 
 Lilly vick, surveying his audience with 
 a grave air ; " I remember her, on 
 that very afternoon, when she first 
 acknowledged to her mother a par- 
 tiality for Kenwigs. ' Mother,' she 
 says, ' I love him.' " 
 
 " ' Adore him,' I said, uncle," inter- 
 posed Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 " ' Love him,' 1 think, my dear," 
 said the collector, firmly. 
 
 " Perhaps you are right, uncle," 
 replied Mrs. Kenwigs, submissively. 
 " I thought it was ' adore.' " 
 
 " ' Love,' my dear," retorted Mr. 
 Lillyvick. " ' Mother,' she says, ' I 
 love him ! ' ' What do I hear ? ' cries 
 her mother ; and instantly falls into 
 strong conwulsions." 
 
 A general exclamation of astonish- 
 ment burst from the company. 
 
 " Into strong conwulsions," repeated 
 Mr. Lillyvick, regarding them with a 
 rigid look. " Kenwigs will excuse my 
 saying, in the presence of friends, that 
 there was a very great objection to 
 him, on the ground that he was be- 
 neath the family, and would disgrace 
 it. You remember, Kenwigs ? " 
 
 " Certainly," replied that gentleman, 
 in no way displeased at the reminis- 
 cence, inasmuch as it proved, beyond 
 all doubt, what a high family Mrs. 
 Kenwigs came of. 
 
 " I shared in that feeling," said Mr. 
 Lillyvick : " perhaps it was natural ; 
 perhaps it wasn't." 
 
 A gentle murmur seemed to say, 
 that, in one of Mr. Lillyvick's station, 
 the objection was not only natural, but 
 highly praiseworthy. 
 
 "I came round to him in time," 
 
 said Mr. Lillyvick. " After they 
 were married, and there was no help 
 for it, I was one of die first to say 
 that Kenwigs must bo taken notice of. 
 The family did take notice of him, in 
 consequence, and on my representa- 
 tion ; and I am bound to say and 
 proud to say that 1 have always 
 found him a very honest, well-behaved, 
 upright, respectable sort of man. Ken- 
 wigs, shake hands." 
 
 " I am proud to do it, sir," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs. 
 
 " So am I, Kenwigs," rejoined Mr. 
 Lillyvick. 
 
 " A very happy life I have led with 
 your niece, sir," said Kenwigs. 
 
 " It would have been your own fault 
 if you had not, sir," remarked Mr. 
 Lillyvick. 
 
 " Morleena Kenwigs," cried her 
 mother, at this crisis, much affected, 
 " kiss your dear uncle ! " 
 
 The young lady did as she was re- 
 quested, and the three other little 
 girls were successively hoisted up to 
 the collector's countenance, and sub- 
 jected to the same process, which was 
 afterwards repeated on them by the 
 majority of those present. 
 
 " Oh dear, Mrs. Kenwigs," said 
 Miss Petowker, " while Mr. Noggs is 
 making that punch to drink happy 
 returns in, do let Morleena go through 
 that figure dance before Mr. Lillyvick." 
 
 " No, no, my dear," replied Mrs. 
 Kenwigs, "it will only worry my 
 uncle." 
 
 "It can't worry him, I am sure," 
 said Miss Petowker. " You will be 
 very much pleased, won't you sir ? " 
 
 " That I am sure I shall," replied 
 the collector, glancing at the punch- 
 mixer. 
 
 "Well then, I'll tell you what," 
 said Mrs. Kenwigs, " Morleena shall 
 do the steps, if uncle can persuade 
 Miss Petowker to recite us the Blood- 
 Drinker's Burial, afterwards." 
 
 There was a great clapping of hands 
 and stamping of feet, at this proposi- 
 tion ; the subject whereof, gently in- 
 clined her head several times, in 
 acknowledgment of the reception. 
 
 " You know," said Miss Petowker^
 
 104 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 shop, was soon placed upon the table ; 
 and these viands being flanked by a 
 bottle of spirits and a pot of porter, 
 there was no ground for apprehension 
 on the score of hunger or thirst, at 
 all etwnts. Such preparations as New- 
 man 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 entrea- 
 ties would dissuade him from stripping 
 off for the purpose), the travellers 
 partook of their frugal fare, with more 
 satisfaction than one of them at least 
 had derived from many a better 
 meal. 
 
 They then drew near the fire, which 
 Newman Noggs had made up as well 
 as he could, after the inroads of Crowl 
 upon the fuel ; and Nicholas, who had 
 hitherto been restrained by the ex- 
 treme anxiety of his friend that he 
 should refresh himself after his jour- 
 ney, now pressed him with earnest 
 questions concerning his mother and 
 sister. 
 
 " Well ; " replied Newman, with his 
 accustomed taciturnity ; " both well." 
 
 " They are living in the city still ? " 
 inquired Nicholas. 
 
 " They are," said Newman. 
 
 " And my sister " added Nicholas. 
 " Is she still engaged in the business 
 which she wrote to tell me she thought 
 she should like so much ? " 
 
 Newman opened his' eyes rather 
 wider than usual, but merely replied 
 by a gasp, which, according to the ac- 
 tion of the head that accompanied it, 
 was interpreted by his friends as mean- 
 ing yes or no. In the present instance, 
 the pantomime consisted of a nod, and 
 not a shake ; so Nicholas took the an- 
 swer as a favourable one. 
 
 " Now listen to me," said Nicholas, 
 laying his hand on Newman's shoul- 
 der. " Before I would make an effort 
 to see them, I deemed it expedient to 
 come to you, lest, by gratifying my own 
 selfish desire, I should inflict an injury 
 upon them which I can never repair. 
 
 What has my uncle heard from York- 
 shire ? " 
 
 Newman opened and shut his mouth, 
 several times, as though he were try 
 ing 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 Ni- 
 cholas, colouring. " You see that I 
 am prepared to hear the very worst 
 that malice can have suggested. Why 
 should you conceal it from me 1 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 posses- 
 sion of all that has occurred ? Tell 
 me at at once, pray." 
 
 " To-morrow morning," said New- 
 man ; " hear it to-morrow." 
 
 " What purpose would that answer!" 
 urged Nicholas. 
 
 " You would sleep the better," re- 
 plied Newman. 
 
 "I should sleep the worse," answered 
 Nicholas, impatiently. " Sleep ! Ex- 
 hausted as I am, and standing in no 
 common need of rest, I cannot hope 
 to close my eyes all night, unless you 
 tell me everything." 
 
 " And if I should tell you every- 
 thing," said Newman, hesitating. 
 
 " Why, then you may rouse my in- 
 dignation or wound my pride," rejoined 
 Nicholas ; " but you will not break my 
 rest ; for if the scene were acted over 
 again, I could take no other part than I 
 have taken ; and whatever consequences 
 may accrue to myself from it, I shall 
 never regret doing as I have done 
 never, if I starve or beg in consequence. 
 What is a little poverty or suffering, 
 to the disgrace of the basest and most 
 inhuman cowardice ! I tell you, if I 
 had stood by, tamely and passively, 
 I should have hated myself, and. 
 merited the contempt of every man 
 existence. The black - hearted 
 scoundrel ! " 
 
 With this gentle allusion to the ab- 
 sent Mr. Squeers, Nicholas repressed 
 his rising wrath, and relating to New- 
 man exactly what had passed at Dothe- 
 boys Hall, entreated him to speak out
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 105 
 
 without more pressing. Thus ad- 
 jured, Mr. Noggs took, from an old 
 trunk, a sheet of paper, which ap- 
 peared to have beeu scrawled over in 
 great haste ; and after sundry extra- 
 ordinary demonstrations of reluctance, 
 delivered himself in the following 
 terms. 
 
 " My dear young man, you mustn't 
 give way to this sort of thing will 
 never do, you know as to getting on 
 in the world, if you take everybody's 
 part that 's ill-treated Damn it, I am 
 proud to hear of it ; and would have 
 done it myself ! " 
 
 Newman accompanied this very 
 unusual outbreak with a violent blow 
 upon the table, as if , in the heat of the 
 moment, he had mistaken it for the 
 chest or ribs of Mr. Wackford Squeers. 
 Having, by this open declaration of 
 bis feelings, quite precluded himself 
 from offering Nicholas any cautious 
 worldly advice (which had been his 
 first intention), Mr. Noggs went straight 
 to the point. 
 
 " The day before yesterday," said 
 Newman, " your uncle received this 
 letter. I took a hasty copy of it, while 
 he was out Shall I read it 1 " 
 
 " If you please," replied Nicholas. 
 Newman Noggs accordingly read as 
 follows : 
 
 " Dotheboys Hall, 
 
 " Thursday Morning. 
 
 "SIR, 
 
 " My pa requests me to write to 
 you, the doctors considering it doubt- 
 ful whether he will ever recuvver the 
 use of his legs which prevents his hold- 
 ing a pen. 
 
 " We are in a state of mind beyond 
 everything, and my pa is one mask of 
 brooms both blue and green likewise 
 two forms are steepled in his Goar. 
 We were kimpelled 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 recom- 
 mended for a teacher had done this to 
 my pa and jumped upon his body with 
 his feet and also langwedge which I 
 will not pollewt my pen with 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 certifiket that if it had; 
 the tortershell would have affected the 
 brain. 
 
 " Me and my brother were then the 
 victims of his feury since which we 
 have suffered very much which leads 
 us to the arrowing belief that we have 
 received some injury in our iusides, 
 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 atten- 
 tion rather and I hope will excuse 
 mistakes. 
 
 " The monster having sasiated his 
 thirst for blood ran away, taking with 
 him a boy of desperate caracter that 
 he had excited to rebellyon, and 
 a garnet ring belonging to my ma, 
 and not having been apprehended 
 by the constables is supposed to 
 have been took up by some stage- 
 coach. My pa begs that if he comes 
 to you the ring may be returned, 
 and that you will let the thief and 
 assassin go, as if we prosecuted him 
 he would only be transported, and if 
 he is let go he is sure to be hung before 
 long which will save us trouble and 
 be much more satisfactory. Hoping 
 to hear from you when convenient 
 " I remain 
 
 " Yours and cetrer 
 
 " FANNY SQUEERS. 
 
 " P.S. I pity his ignorance and de- 
 spise him." 
 
 A profound silence succeeded to the 
 reading of this choice epistle, during 
 which Newman Noggs, as he folded it 
 up, gazed with a kind of grotesque 
 pity at the boy of desperate character 
 therein referred to ; who, having no 
 more distinct perception of the matter 
 in hand, than that he had been the 
 unfortunate cause of heaping trouble 
 and falsehood upon Nicholas, sat mute 
 and dispirited, with a most woe-begone 
 and heart-stricken look. 
 
 " Mr. Noggs," said Nicholas, after a
 
 104 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 shop, was soon placed upon the table ; 
 and these viands being flanked by a 
 bottle of spirits and a pot of porter, 
 there was no ground for apprehension 
 on the score of hunger or thirst, at 
 all < -T ,.i it s. Such preparations as New- 
 man 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 entrea- 
 ties would dissuade him from stripping 
 off for the purpose), the travellers 
 partook of their frugal fare, with more 
 satisfaction than one of them at least 
 had derived from many a better 
 meal. 
 
 They then drew near the fire, which 
 Newman Noggs had made up as well 
 as he could, after the inroads of Growl 
 upon the fuel ; and Nicholas, who had 
 hitherto been restrained by the ex- 
 treme anxiety of his friend that he 
 should refresh himself after his jour- 
 ney, now pressed him with earnest 
 questions concerning his mother and 
 sister. 
 
 " Well ; " replied Newman, with his 
 accustomed taciturnity ; " both well." 
 
 " They are living in the city still ? " 
 inquired Nicholas. 
 
 " They are," said Newman. 
 
 " And my sister " added Nicholas. 
 " Is she still engaged in the business 
 which she wrote to tell me she thought 
 she should like so much 1 " 
 
 Newman opened his' eyes rather 
 wider than usual, but merely replied 
 by a gasp, which, according to the ac- 
 tion of the head that accompanied it, 
 was interpreted by his friends as mean- 
 ing yes or no. In the present instance, 
 the pantomime consisted of a nod, and 
 not a shake ; so Nicholas took the an- 
 swer as a favourable one. 
 
 " Now listen to me," said Nicholas, 
 laying his hand on Newman's shoul- 
 der. " Before I would make an effort 
 to see them, I deemed it expedient to 
 come to you, lest, by gratifying my own 
 selfish desire, I should inflict an injury 
 upon them which I can never repair. 
 
 What has my uncle heard from York- 
 shire I " 
 
 Newman opened and shut his mouth, 
 several times, as though he were try 
 ing his utmost to speak, but could 
 make nothing of it, and finally fixed 
 his eyes on Nicholas with a grim and 
 ghastly stare. 
 
 What lias he heard ? " urged Ni- 
 cholas, colouring. " You see that I 
 am prepared to hear the very worst 
 that malice can have suggested. Why 
 should you conceal it from me ! I must 
 know it sooner or later ; and what 
 purpose can be gained by trifling with 
 the matter for a few minutes, when 
 half the time would put me in posses- 
 sion of all that has occurred ? Tell 
 me at at once, pray." 
 
 " To-morrow morning," said New- 
 man ; " hear it to-morrow." 
 
 " What purpose would that answer?" 
 urged Nicholas. 
 
 " You would sleep the better," re- 
 plied Newman. 
 
 "I should sleep the worse," answered 
 Nicholas, impatiently. " Sleep ! Ex- 
 hausted as I am, and standing in no 
 common need of rest, I cannot hope 
 to close my eyes all night, unless you 
 tell me everything." 
 
 " And if I should tell you every- 
 thing," said Newman, hesitating. 
 
 " Why, then you may rouse my in- 
 dignation or wound my pride," rejoined 
 Nicholas ; " but you will not break my 
 rest ; for if the scene were acted over 
 again, I could take no other part than I 
 have taken ; and whatever consequences 
 may accrue to myself from it, I shall 
 never regret doing as I have done 
 never, if I starve or beg in consequence. 
 What is a little poverty or suffering, 
 to the disgrace of the basest and most 
 inhuman cowardice ! I tell you, if I 
 had stood by, tamely and passively, 
 I should have hated myself, and. 
 merited the contempt of every man 
 in existence. The black-hearted 
 scoundrel ! " 
 
 With this gentle allusion to the ab- 
 sent Mr. Squeers, Nicholas repressed 
 his rising wrath, and relating to New- 
 man exactly what had passed at Dothe- 
 boys Hall, entreated him to speak out
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 105 
 
 without more pressing. Thus ad- 
 jured, Mr. Noggs took, from an old 
 trunk, a sheet of paper, which ap- 
 peared to have been scrawled over in 
 great haste ; and after sundry extra- 
 ordinary demonstrations of reluctance, 
 delivered himself in the following 
 terms. 
 
 " My dear young man, you mustn't 
 give way to this sort of tiling will 
 never do, you know as to getting on 
 iu the world, if you take everybody's 
 part that 's ill-treated Damn it, I am 
 proud to hear of it ; and would have 
 done it myself ! " 
 
 Newman accompanied this very 
 unusual outbreak with a violent blow 
 upon the table, as if, in the heat of the 
 moment, he had mistaken it for the 
 chest or ribs of Mr. Wackford Squeers. 
 Having, by this open declaration of 
 his feelings, quite precluded himself 
 from offering Nicholas any cautious 
 worldly advice (which had been his 
 first intention), Air. 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 i " 
 
 " If you please," replied Nicholas. 
 Newman Noggs accordingly read as 
 follows : 
 
 " Dotleboys Hall, 
 
 " Thursday Morning. 
 
 "SiR, 
 
 " My pa requests me to write to 
 you, the doctors considering it doubt- 
 ful whether he will ever recuwer the 
 use of his legs which prevents his hold- 
 ing a pen. 
 
 " We are in a state of mind beyond 
 everything, and my pa is one mask of 
 brooses both blue and green likewise 
 two forms are steepled in his Goar. 
 We were kimpelled to have him 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 recom- 
 mended for a teacher had done this to 
 my pa and jumped upon his body with 
 his feet and also langwedge which I 
 will not pollewt my pen with 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 certifiket that if it had; 
 the tortershell would have affected the 
 brain. 
 
 " Me and my brother were then the 
 victims of his feury since which we 
 have suffered very much which leads 
 us to the arrowing belief that we have 
 received some injury in our insides, 
 especially as no marks of violence are 
 visible externally. I am screaming 
 out loud all the time I write and so is 
 my brother which takes off my atten- 
 tion rather and I hope will excuse 
 mistakes. 
 
 " The monster having sasiated his 
 thirst for blood ran away, taking with 
 him a boy of desperate caracter that 
 he had excited to rebellyon, and 
 a garnet ring belonging to my ma, 
 and not having been apprehended 
 by the constables is supposed to 
 have been took up by some stage- 
 coach. My pa begs that if he comes 
 to you the ring may be returned, 
 and that you will let the thief and 
 assassin go, as if we prosecuted him 
 he would only be transported, and if 
 he is let go he is sure to be hung before 
 long which will save us trouble and 
 be much more satisfactory. Hoping 
 to hear from you when convenient 
 " I remain 
 
 " Yours and cetrer 
 
 " FANNY SQUEERS. 
 
 " P.S. I pity his ignorance and de- 
 spise him." 
 
 A profound silence succeeded to the 
 reading of this choice epistle, during 
 which Newman Noggs, as he folded it 
 up, gazed with a kind of grotesque 
 pity at the boy of desperate character 
 therein referred to ; who, having no 
 more distinct perception of the matter 
 in hand, than that he had been the 
 unfortunate cause of heaping trouble 
 and falsehood upon Nicholas, sat mute 
 and dispirited, with a most woe-begone 
 and heart-stricken look. 
 
 " Mr. Noggs," said Nicholas, after a
 
 106 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 few moments' reflection, " I must go 
 out at once." 
 
 " Go out ! " cried Newman. 
 
 " Yes," said Nicholas, " to Golden 
 Square. Nobody who knows me 
 would believe this story of the ring ; 
 but it may suit the purpose, or gratify 
 the hatred, of Mr. Ralph Nickleby to 
 feign to attach credence to it. It is 
 due not to him, but to myself that 
 I should state the truth ; and more- 
 over, I have a word or two to ex- 
 change with him, which will not keep 
 cool." 
 
 " They must," said Newman. 
 
 " They must not, indeed," rejoined 
 Nicholas firmly, as he prepared to 
 leave the house. 
 
 " Hear me speak," said Newman, 
 planting himself before his impetuous 
 young friend. * He is not there. He 
 is away from town. He will not be 
 back for three days ; and I know 
 that letter will not be answered before 
 he returns." 
 
 " Are you sure of this ? " asked Ni- 
 cholas, 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 no- 
 body 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 I" 
 
 "Now, be advised by me," said 
 Newman, speaking for the moment, in 
 his earnestness, like any other man 
 " make no effort to see even them, till 
 he comes home. I know the man. 
 Do not seem to have been tampering 
 with anybody. When he returns, go 
 straight to him, and speak as boldly 
 as you like. Guessing at the real 
 truth, he knows it as well as you or I. 
 Trust him for that" 
 
 " Yon mean well to me, and should 
 know him better than I can," replied 
 Nicholas, after some consideration. 
 " Well ; let it be so." 
 
 Newman, who had stood during the 
 foregoing conversation with his back 
 
 planted against the door, ready to 
 oppose any egress from the apartment 
 by force, if necessary, resumed his 
 seat with much satisfaction ; and as 
 the water in the kettle was by this 
 time boiling, made a glassful of spirits 
 and water for Nicholas, and a cracked 
 mug-full for the joint accommodation 
 of himself and Smike, of which the 
 two partook in great harmony, while 
 Nicholas, leaning his head upon his 
 hand, remained buried in melancholy 
 meditation. 
 
 Meanwhile, the company below 
 stairs, after listening attentively and 
 not hearing any noise which would 
 justify them in interfering for the gra- 
 tification of their curiosity, returned 
 to the chamber of the Kenwigses, and 
 employed themselves in hazarding a 
 great variety of conjectures relative 
 to the cause of Mr. Noggs'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 all come back again ! " 
 
 " Dear me," said Mr. Kenwigs ; 
 "it's not impossible. Perhaps, in 
 that case, we 'd better send up and 
 ask if he won't take a little more 
 punch." 
 
 " Kenwigs ! " said Mr. Lillyvick, in 
 a loud voice, " I'm surprised at you." 
 
 "What's the matter, sir!" asked 
 Mr. Kenwigs, with becoming submis- 
 sion to the collector of water-rates. 
 
 " Making such a remark as that, 
 sir," replied Mr. Lillyvick, angrily. 
 " He has had punch already, has he 
 not, sir ! I consider the way in which 
 that punch was cut off, if I may use 
 the expression, highly disrespectful to 
 this company ; scandalous, perfectly 
 scandalous. It may be the custom to 
 allow such things in this house, but 
 it 's not the kind of behaviour that 
 I 've been used to see displayed, and 
 so I don't mind telling you Kenwigs. 
 A gentleman has a glass of punch be- 
 fore him to which he is just about to 
 set his lips, when another gentleman 
 comes and collars that glass of punch, 
 without a 'with your leave,' or 'by 
 your leave, 1 and carries that glass of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 107 
 
 punch away. This may be good man- 
 ners I dare say it is but I don't 
 understand it, that 's all ; and what V 
 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 
 li ke it, it 's past my regular time for 
 going to bed, and I can find my way 
 Home without making it later." 
 
 Here was an untoward event ! The 
 collector had sat swelling and fuming 
 in offended dignity for some minutes, 
 and had now fairly burst out. The 
 great man the rich relation the 
 unmarried uncle who had it in his 
 power to make Morleeua an heiress, 
 and the very baby a legatee was 
 offended. Gracious Powers, where 
 was this to end ! 
 
 "I am very sorry, sir," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, humbly. 
 
 * Don't tell me yon 're sorry," re- 
 torted Mr. Lillyvick, with much sharp- 
 ness. " You should have prevented 
 it, then." 
 
 The company were quite paralysed 
 by this domestic crash. The back 
 parlour sat with her mouth wide open, 
 staring vacantly at the collector, in a 
 stupor of dismay ; the other guests 
 were scarcely less overpowered by the 
 great man's irritation. Mr. Kenwigs, 
 not being skilful in such matters, only 
 fanned the flame in attempting to ex- 
 tinguish it. 
 
 "I didn't think of it, I am sure, 
 air," 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 imperti- 
 nence, Mr. Kenwigs 1" said the col- 
 lector. u Morleena, child give me 
 my hat," 
 
 " Oh, you 're not going, Mr. Lilly- 
 vick, sir," interposed Miss Petowker, 
 with her most bewitching smile. 
 
 But still Mr. Lillyvick, regardless 
 of the siren, cried obdurately, " Mor- 
 leena, my hat ! " upon the fourth 
 repetition of which demand, Mrs. 
 Kenwigs sunk back in her chair, with 
 a cry that might have softened a water- 
 butt, not to say a water-collector ; 
 
 while the four little girls (privately 
 instructed to that effect) clasped their 
 uncle's drab shorts in their arms, 
 and prayed him, in imperfect English, 
 to remain. 
 
 "Why should I stop here, my dears ? ' 
 said Mr. Lillyvick ; " I 'm not wanted 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, do not speak so cruelly, uncle," 
 sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs, " unless you 
 wish to kill me." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if some people 
 were to say I did," replied Mr. Lilly- 
 vick, glancing angrily at Kenwigs. 
 " Out of temper ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I cannot bear to see him 
 look so, at my husband," cried Mrs. 
 Kenwigs. " It 's so dreadful in families. 
 Oh!" 
 
 " Mr. Lillyvick," said Kenwigs, " I 
 hope, for the sake of your niece, that 
 you won't object to be reconciled." 
 
 The collector's features relaxed, as 
 the company added their entreaties to 
 those of his nephew-in-law. He gave 
 up his hat, and held out his hand. 
 
 " There, Kenwigs," said Mr. Lilly- 
 vick ; " and let me tell you, at the same 
 time, to show you how much out of 
 temper I was, that if I had gone away 
 without another word, it would have 
 made no difference respecting that 
 pound or two which I shall leave 
 among your children when I die." 
 
 "Morleena Kenwigs," cried her 
 mother, in a torrent of affection. 
 "Go down upon your knees to your 
 dear uncle, and beg him to love you 
 all his life through, for he's more a 
 angel than a man, and I 've always 
 said so." 
 
 Miss Morleena approaching to do 
 homage, in compliance with this in- 
 junction, was summarily caught up 
 and kissed by Mr. Lillyvick ; and 
 thereupon Mrs. Kenwigs darted for- 
 ward and kissed the collector, and an 
 irrepressible murmur of applause broke 
 from the company who had witnessed 
 his magnanimity. 
 
 The worthy gentleman then became 
 once more the life and soul of the 
 society ; being again reinstated in his 
 old post of lion, from which high station 
 the temporary distraction of their
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 thoughts Ii.-uf for a moment dispos- 
 sessed him. Quadruped lions are said 
 to be savage, only when they are hun- 
 gry ; biped lions are rarely sulky 
 longer than when their appetite for 
 distinction remains unappeased. Mr. 
 Lilly vick stood higher than ever ; for 
 he had shown his power ; hinted at his 
 property and testamentary intentions ; 
 gained great credit for disinterested- 
 ness and virtue ; and, in addition to 
 all, was finally accommodated with 
 a much larger tumbler of punch than 
 that which Newman Noggs had so 
 feloniously made off with. 
 
 " I say ! I beg everybody's pardon 
 for intruding again," said Crowl, look- 
 ing in at this happy juncture ; " but 
 what a queer business this is, isn't it ! 
 Noggs has lived in this house, now 
 going on for five years, and nobody 
 has ever been to see him before, within 
 the memory of the oldest inhabitant." 
 
 " It 's a strange time of night to be 
 called away, sir, certainly," said the 
 collector ; " and the behaviour of Mr. 
 Noggs himself, is, to say the least of it, 
 mysterious." 
 
 " Well, so it is," rejoined Crowl ; 
 " and I '11 tell you what 's more 
 I think these two geniuses, whoever 
 they are, have run away from some- 
 where." 
 
 " What makes you think that, sir ?" 
 demanded the collector, who seemed, 
 by a tacit understanding, to kave been 
 chosen and elected mouthpiece to the 
 company. "You have no reason to 
 suppose that they have run away from 
 anywhere without paying the rates 
 and taxes due, I hope 2 " 
 
 Mr. Crowl, with a look of some con- 
 tempt, was about to enter a general 
 protest against the payment of rates 
 or taxes, under any circumstances, 
 when he was checked by a timely 
 whisper from Kenwigs, and several 
 frowns and winks from Mrs. K., which 
 providentially stopped him. 
 
 " Why the fact is," said Crowl, who 
 had been listening at Newman's door, 
 with all his might and main ; " the 
 fact is, that they have been talking 
 so loud, that they quite disturbed me 
 in my room, and so I couldn't help 
 
 catching a word here, and a word 
 there ; and all I heard, certainly seemed 
 to refer to their having bolted from 
 some place or other. I don't wish to 
 alarm Mrs. Kenwigs ; but I hope they 
 haven't come from any jail or hospital, 
 and brought away a fever or some un- 
 pleasantness 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 Petow- 
 ker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury 
 Lane, to restore her to anything like 
 a state of calmness ; not to mention 
 the assiduity of Mr. Kenwigs, who 
 held a fat smelling-bottle to his lady's 
 nose, until it became matter of some 
 doubt whether the tears which coursed 
 down her face, were the result of feel- 
 ings or sal volatile. 
 
 The ladies, having expressed their 
 sympathy, singly and separately, fell, 
 according to custom, into a little chorus 
 of soothing expressions, among which, 
 such condolences as " Poor dear ! " 
 " I should feel just the same, if I was 
 her " " To be sure, it 's a very trying 
 thing " and " Nobody but a mother 
 knows what a mother's feelings is," 
 were among the most prominent, and 
 most frequently repeated. In short, 
 the opinion of the company was so 
 clearly manifested, that Mr. Kenwigs 
 was on the point of repairing to Mr. 
 Noggs's room, to demand an expla- 
 nation, and had indeed swallowed a 
 preparatory glass of punch, with great 
 inflexibility and steadiness of pur- 
 pose, when the attention of all present 
 was diverted by a new and terrible 
 surprise. 
 
 This was nothing less than the sud- 
 den 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 con-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Bternation and confusion of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 " Mr. Kenwigs, see what it is ; make 
 haste ! " cried the sister, laying violent 
 hands upon Mrs. Kenwigs, and holding 
 her back by force. " Oh don't twist 
 about so, dear, or I can never hold 
 you." 
 
 " My baby, my blessed, blessed, 
 blessed, blessed baby ! " screamed Mrs. 
 Kenwigs, making every blessed louder 
 than the last "My own darling, 
 sweet, innocent Lillyvick Oh let me 
 go to him. Let me go-o-o-o ! " 
 
 Pending the utterance of these 
 frantic cries, and the wails and lamen- 
 tations of the four little girls, Mr. 
 Kenwigs rushed up stairs to the room 
 whence the sounds proceeded ; at the 
 doorof 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 your- 
 selves ; there 's no harm done ; " and 
 with these, and a thousand other 
 assurances, he delivered the baby 
 (whom, in his hurry, he had carried 
 upside down), to Mrs. Kenwigs, and 
 ran back to assist Mr. Kenwigs, who 
 was rubbing his head very hard, and 
 looking much bewildered by his tumble. 
 
 Reassured by this cheering intelli- 
 gence, the company in some degree 
 recovered from their fears, which had 
 been productive of some most singular 
 instances of a total want of presence 
 of mind ; thus, the bachelor friend had, 
 for a long time, supported in his arms 
 Mrs. Kenwigs's sister, instead of Mrs. 
 Kenwigs ; and the worthy Mr. Lilly- 
 vick had been actually seen, in the 
 perturbation of his spirits, to kiss Miss 
 Petowker several times, behind the 
 room door, as calmly as if nothing 
 distressing were going forward. 
 
 " It is a mere nothing," said 
 Nicholas, returning to Mrs. Kenwigs ; 
 "the little girl, who was watching the 
 
 child, being tired I suppose, fell asleep, 
 and set her hair on fire." 
 
 " Oh you malicious little wretch ! " 
 cried Mrs. Kenwigs, impressively 
 shaking her 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 anything 
 else. You may depend upon it that 
 the child is not hurt ; for I took it off 
 the bed myself, and brought it here 
 to convince you." 
 
 This brief explanation over, the 
 infant, who, as he was christened after 
 the collector, rejoiced in the names of 
 Lillyvick Kenwigs, was partially suffo- 
 cated under the caresses of the au- 
 dience, 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 re- 
 ceiving sundry small slaps and pushes 
 from the more energetic of the ladies, 
 was mercifully sent home ; the nine- 
 pence, with which site was to have been 
 rewarded, being escheated to the 
 Kenwigs family. 
 
 "And whatever we are to say to 
 you, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Kenwiga, 
 addressing young Lilly vick's deliverer, 
 " I am sure I don't know." 
 
 " You need say nothing at all," re- 
 plied Nicholas. "I have done nothing 
 to found any very strong claim upon 
 your eloquence, I am sure." 
 
 " He might have been burnt to 
 death, if it hadn't been for you, sir," 
 simpered Miss Petowker. 
 
 " Not very likely, I think," replied 
 Nicholas ; " for there was abundance 
 of assistance here, which must have 
 reached him before he had been in any 
 danger." 
 
 " You will let us drink your health, 
 anyvays, sir!" said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 motioning towards the table. 
 
 " In my absence, by all means," 
 rejoined Nicholas, with a smile. " I 
 have had a very fatiguing journey, and 
 should be most indifferent company
 
 110 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 a far greater check upon your merri- 
 ment, than a promoter of it, even if I 
 kept awake, which I think very doubt- 
 ful. If you will ailow me, I'll return 
 to my friend, Mr. Noggs, who went up 
 stairs again, when he found nothing 
 serious had occurred. Good night 1 " 
 
 Excusing himself, in these terms, 
 from joining in the festivities, Nicholas 
 took a most winning farewell of Mrs. 
 Kenwigs and the other ladies, and 
 retired, after making a very 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 shoulders, " He is 
 gentlemanly, very gentlemanly in ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 "I hope you don't see anything 
 against him, uncle I " inquired Mrs. 
 Kenwigs. 
 
 " No, my dear," replied the col- 
 lector, " 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. Ken- 
 \rigs, with a sweet smile. 
 
 " a And I hope a worthy namesake," 
 observed Mr. Kenwigs, willing to pro- 
 pitiate 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 senti- 
 ment, and feels it as strong as I do 
 that I consider his being called Lilly- 
 vick one of the greatest blessings and 
 Aonours of my existence." 
 
 " The greatest blessing, Kenwigs," 
 murmured his lady. 
 
 " The greatest blessing," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, correcting himself. " A 
 blessing that I hope, one of these days, 
 I may be able to deserve." 
 
 This was a politic stroke of the 
 Kenwigses, because it made Mr. Lilly- 
 vick the great head and fountain of 
 the baby's importance. The good 
 gentleman felt the delicacy and dex- 
 
 terity of the touch, and at once pro- 
 posed the healtl f the gentleman, 
 name unknown, who had signalised 
 himself, that night, by his coolness and 
 alacrity. 
 
 " Who, I don't mind saying," ob- 
 served Mr. Lillyvick, as a great con- 
 cession, "is a good-looking young 
 man enough, with manners that I 
 hope his character may be equal to." 
 
 " He has a very nice face and style, 
 really," said Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 " He certainly has," added Miss 
 Petowker. " There 's something in 
 his appearance quite dear, dear, 
 what 's that word again \ " 
 
 "What word!" inquired Mr. Lil- 
 lyvick. 
 
 " Why dear me, how stupid I am," 
 replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. 
 " What do you call it, when Lords 
 break off door-knockers and beat po- 
 licemen, and play at coaches with 
 other people's money, and all that 
 sort of thing 1 " 
 
 " Aristocratic ? " suggested the col- 
 lector. 
 
 " Ah ! aristocratic," replied Miss 
 Petowker ; " something very aristo- 
 cratic about him, isn't there ? " 
 
 The gentlemen held their peace, and 
 smiled at each other, as who should 
 say, " Well ! there 's no accounting 
 for tastes ;" but the ladies resolved 
 unanimously that Nicholas had an 
 aristocratic air ; and nobody caring to 
 dispute the position, it was established 
 triumphantly. 
 
 The punch being, by this time, drunk 
 out, and the little Kenwigses (who had 
 for some time previously held their 
 little eyes open with their little 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 delightful evening, and
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 how they marvelled to find it so late, 
 expecting to have heard that it was 
 half-past ten at the very latest, and 
 how they wished that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Kenwigs had a wedding-day once a 
 week, and how they wondered by what 
 hidden agency Mrs. Kenwigs could 
 possibly have managed so well ; and a 
 great deal more of t In same kind. To 
 all of which flattering expressions, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Kenwigs replied, by thanking 
 every lady and gentleman, seriatim, 
 for the favour of their company, and 
 hoping they might have en joyed them- 
 
 selves 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 Nogga 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 gentle- 
 man so heavily .drowsily ,and completely 
 intoxicated, as his new acquaintance. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 NICHOLAS SEEKS TO EMPLOY HIMSELF IN A NEW CAPACITY, AND BEING UNSUC- 
 CESSFUL, ACCEPTS AN ENGAGEMENT AS TUTOR IN A PRIVATE FAMILY. 
 
 TUB first care of Nicholas, next 
 morning, was, to look after some room 
 in which, until better times dawned 
 upon him, he could contrive to exist, 
 without trenching upon the hospitality 
 of Newman Noggs, who would have 
 slept upon the stairs with pleasui-e, 
 so that liis young friend was accommo- 
 dated. 
 
 The vacant apartment to which the 
 bill in the parlour window bore refer- 
 ence, appeared, on inquiry, to be a 
 small back room on the second floor, 
 reclaimed from the leads, and over- 
 looking a soot-bespeckled prospect of 
 tiles and chimney-pots. For the let- 
 ting of this portion of the house from 
 week to week, on reasonable terms, 
 the parlour lodger was empowered to 
 treat ; he being deputed by the land- 
 lord to dispose of the rooms as they 
 became vacant, and to keep a sharp 
 look-out that the lodgers didn't run 
 away. As a means of securing the 
 punctual discharge of which last ser- 
 vice he was permitted to live rent-free, 
 lest he should at any time be tempted 
 to run away himself. 
 
 Of this cliamber, Nicholas became 
 the tenant ; and having hired a few 
 common articles of furniture from a 
 
 neighbouring broker, and paid the 
 first week's hire in advance, out of a 
 small fund raised by the conversion 
 of some spare clothes into ready 
 money, he sat himself down to rumi- 
 nate upon his prospects, which,like the 
 prospect outside his window, were suffi- 
 ciently confined and dingy. As they 
 by no means improved on better ac- 
 quaintance, 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. 
 
 Although a man may lose a sense of 
 ' his own importance when he is a mere 
 j unit among a busy throng, all utterly 
 i regardless of him, it by no means 
 i follows that he can dispossess himself, 
 with equal facility, of a very strong 
 sense of the importance and magni- 
 tude of his cares. The unhappy state 
 of his own affairs was the one idea 
 winch occupied the brain of Nicholas, 
 walk as fast as he would ; and when 
 he tried to dislodge it by speculating
 
 112 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 on the situation and prospects of the 
 people who surrounded him, he caught 
 himself, in a few seconds, contrasting 
 their condition with his own, and 
 gliding almost imperceptibly back into 
 his old train of thought again. 
 
 Occupied in these reflections, as he 
 was making his way along one of the 
 great public thoroughfares of London, 
 he chanced to raise his eyes to a blue 
 board, whereon was inscribed, in cha- 
 racters of gold, " General Agency 
 Office ; for places and situations of all 
 kinds inquire within." It was a shop- 
 front, fitted up with a gauze blind and 
 an inner door ; and in the window 
 hung a long and tempting array of 
 written placards, announcing vacant 
 places of every grade, from a secre- 
 tary'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 survey 
 he walked on a little way, and then 
 back, and then on again ; at length, 
 after pausing irresolutely several 
 tunes before the door of the General 
 Agency Office, he made up his mind, 
 and stepped in. 
 
 He found himself in a little floor- 
 clothed room, with a high desk railed 
 off in one corner, behind which sat a 
 lean youth with cunning eyes and a 
 protruding chin, whose performances 
 in capital-text darkened the window. 
 He had. a thick ledger lying open 
 before him, and with the fingers of his 
 right hand inserted between the leaves, 
 and his eyes fixed on a very fat old 
 lady in a mob-cap evidently the pro- 
 prietress of the establishment who 
 was airing herself at the fire, seemed 
 to be only waiting her directions to 
 refer to some entries contained within 
 its rusty clasps. 
 
 As there was a board outside, which 
 acquainted the public that servants-of- 
 all-work were perpetually in waiting 
 to be hired from ten till four, Nicholas 
 knew at once that some half-dozen 
 strong young women, each with 
 pattens and an umbrella, who were 
 sitting upon a form in one corner, 
 
 were in attendance for that purpose : 
 especially as the poor things looked 
 anxious and weary. He was not quite 
 so certain of the callings and stations 
 of two smart young ladies who were 
 in conversation with the fat lady be- 
 fore 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 en- 
 trance had interrupted. 
 
 " Cook, Tom," said the fat lady, still 
 airing herself as aforesaid. 
 
 "Cook," said Tom, turning over 
 some leaves of the ledger. " Well ! " 
 
 " Read out an easy place or two," 
 said the fat lady. 
 
 " Pick out very light ones, if you 
 please, young man," interposed a 
 genteel female in shepherd's-plaid 
 boots, who appeared to be the client. 
 
 " ' Mrs. Marker,' " said Tom, read- 
 ing, " ' Russell Place, Russell Square ; 
 offers eighteen guineas ; tea and sugar 
 found. Two in family, and see very 
 h'ttle 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, " ' Plea- 
 sant Place, Finsbury. Wages, twelve 
 guineas. No tea, no sugar. Serious 
 family' " 
 
 " Ah ! you needn't mind reading 
 that," interrupted the client. 
 
 " ' Three serious footmen,' " said 
 Tom, impressively. 
 
 "Three ? did you say ?" asked the 
 client in an altered tone. 
 
 " Three serious footmen," replied 
 Tom. " ' Cook, housemaid, and nurse- 
 maid ; each female servant required 
 to join the Little Bethel Congrega- 
 tion 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 '11 take the address of that place,*' 
 said the client ; " I don't know but 
 what it mightn't suit me pretty well."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 113 
 
 * Here 's another," remarked Tom, 
 turning over the leaves ; " ' Family of 
 Mr. Gallanbile, M.P. Fifteen guineas, 
 tea and sugar, and servants allowed to 
 sec male cousins, if godly. Note. 
 Cold dinner in the kitchen on the Sab- 
 bath, 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 ex- 
 empted. Mr. Gallanbile dines late on 
 the day of rest, in order to prevent 
 the sinfuluess of the cook's dressing 
 herself.' " 
 
 " I don't think that '11 answer as 
 well as the other," said the client, 
 after a little whispering with her 
 friend. " I '11 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 re- 
 quested, 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 secre- 
 taryships remained undisposed of, 
 there came into the office an applicant, 
 in whose favour he immediately re- 
 tired, and whose appearance both sur- 
 prised and interested bun. 
 
 This was a young lady who could be 
 scarcely eighteen, of very slight and 
 delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped, 
 who, walking timidly up to the desk, 
 made an inquiry, in a very low tone of 
 voice, relative to some situation as 
 governess, or companion to a lady. 
 She raised her veil, for an instant, 
 while she preferred the inquiry, and 
 disclosed a countenance of most un- 
 common beauty, though shaded by a 
 cloud of sadness, which, in one so 
 young, was doubly remarkable. Having 
 received a card of reference to some 
 person on the books, she made the 
 usual acknowledgment, and glided 
 away. 
 
 She was neatly, but very quietly 
 attired ; so much so, indeed, that it 
 eeenied as though her dress, it it had 
 
 No. 39. 
 
 been worn by one who imparted fewer 
 graces of her own to it, might have 
 looked poor and shabby. Her atten- 
 dant for she had one was a red- 
 faced, round-eyed, slovenly girl, who. 
 from a certain roughness about the 
 bare arms that peeped from under her 
 draggled shawl, and the half-washed- 
 out traces of smut and blacklead which 
 tattoed her countenance, was clearly 
 of a kin with the servants-of-all-work 
 on the form : between whom and her- 
 self there had passed various grins 
 and glances, indicative of the freema- 
 sonry of the craft. 
 
 This girl followed her mistress ; 
 and, before Nicholas had recovered 
 from the first effects of his surprise 
 and admiration, the young lady was 
 gone. It is not a matter of such com- 
 plete and utter improbability as some 
 sober people may think, that he would 
 have followed them out, had he not 
 been restrained by what passed be- 
 tween the fat lady and her bookkeeper. 
 
 " 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 '11 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 fa^ lady an inquiry 
 of" Now, sir, what can we do for you / " 
 
 Nicholas briefly replied, that he 
 wanted to know whether there was 
 any such post to be had, as secretary 
 or amanuensis to a gentleman. 
 
 " Any such ! " rejoined the mis- 
 tress ; " a dozen such. An't there, 
 Tom ? " 
 
 " / should think so," answered that 
 young gentleman ; and as he said it, 
 he winked towards Nicholas, with a 
 degree of familiarity which lie, no 
 doubt, intended for a rather flattering 
 compliment, but with which Nicholas 
 was most ungratefully disgusted. 
 
 I 8
 
 114 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Upon reference to the book, it ap- 
 peared that the dozen secretaryships 
 had dwindled down to one. Mr. 
 Gregsbury, the great member of par- 
 iament, of Manchester Buildings, 
 Westminster, wanted a young man, to 
 keep his papers and correspondence in 
 order ; and Nicholas was exactly the 
 sort of young man that Mr. Gregsbury 
 wanted. 
 
 " I don't know what the terms are, 
 as he said he'd settle them himself 
 with the party," observed the fat 
 lady ; " but they must be pretty good 
 ones, because he 's a member of par- 
 liament." 
 
 Inexperienced as he was, Nicholas 
 did not feel quite assured of the force 
 of this reasoning, or the justice of this 
 conclusion ; but without troubling 
 himself to question it, he took down 
 the address, and resolved to wait upon 
 Mr. Gregsbury, without delay. 
 
 " I don't know what the number is," 
 said Tom ; " but Manchester Build- 
 ings isn't a large place ; and if the 
 worst comes to the worst, it won't 
 take you very long to knock at all the 
 doors on both sides of the way 'till 
 you find him out. I say, what a good- 
 looking gal that was, wasn't she ? " 
 
 "What girl?" demanded Nicholas, 
 sternly. 
 
 " Oh yes. I know what gal, eh ? " 
 whispered Tom, shutting one eye, and 
 cocking his chin in the air. " You 
 didn't see her, you didn't I say, don't 
 you wish you was me, when she comes 
 to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 Nicholas looked at the ugly clerk, 
 as if he had a mind to reward his ad- 
 miration of the young lady by beating 
 the ledger about his ears, but he re- 
 frained, and strode haughtily out of 
 the office ; setting at defiance, in his 
 indignation, those ancient laws of chi- 
 valry, 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 incum- 
 bent upon them to roam about the 
 world, and knock at head all such 
 matter-of-fact and unpoetical charac- 
 ters, 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 mis- 
 fortunes, but wondering what could be 
 those of the beautiful girl he had seen, 
 Nicholas, with many wrong turns, and 
 many inquiries, and almost as many 
 misdirections, bent his steps towards 
 the place whither he had been directed. 
 
 Within the precincts of the ancient 
 city of Westminster, and within half a 
 quarter of a mile of its ancient sanc- 
 tuary, 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 me- 
 lancholy rows of bills, which say, as 
 plainly as did the countenances of their 
 occupiers, ranged on ministerial and 
 opposition benches in the session which 
 slumbers with its fathers, "To Let," 
 " To Let." In busier periods of the year 
 these bills disappear, and the houses 
 swarm with legislators. There are 
 legislators in the parlours, in the first 
 floor, in the second, in the thirdj in the 
 garrets; the small apartments reek 
 with the breath of deputations and 
 delegates. In damp weather, the place 
 is rendered close, by the steams of moist 
 acts of parliament and frowzy peti- 
 tions ; 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 de- 
 parted. This is Manchester Build intrs ; 
 and here, at all hours of the night, 
 may be heard the rattling of latch- 
 keys in their respective keyholes : with 
 now and then when a gust of wind 
 sweeping across the water which washes 
 the Buildings' feet, impels the sound 
 towards its entrance the weak, shrill 
 voice of some young member prac- 
 tising to-morrow's speech. All the live- 
 long day, there is a grinding of organs 
 and clashing and clanging of little boxes 
 of music ; for Manchester Buildings is 
 an eel-pot, which has no outlet but its 
 awkward mouth a case-bottle which 
 has no thoroughfare, and a short and 
 narrow neck and in this, respect it
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 115 
 
 may be typical of the fate of some few 
 among its more adventurous residents, 
 who, after wriggling themselves into 
 Parliament by violent efforts and con- 
 tortions, find that it, too, is no thorough- 
 fare for them ; that, like Manchester 
 Buildings, it leads to nothing beyond 
 itself ; and that they are fain at last to 
 back out, no wiser, no richer, not one 
 whit more famous, than they went in. 
 
 Into Manchester Buildings Nicholas 
 turned, with the address of the great 
 Mr. Gregsbury in his hand. As 
 there was a stream of people pouring 
 into a shabby house not far from the 
 entrance, he waited until they had 
 made their way in, and then making 
 up to the servant, ventured to inquire 
 if he knew where Mr. Gregsbury lived. 
 
 The servant was a very pale, shabby 
 boy, who looked as if he had slept under 
 ground from his infancy, as very likely 
 he had. Mr. Gregsbury !" said he ; 
 K Mr. Gregsbury lodges here. It 'sail 
 right. Come in !" 
 
 Nicholas thought he might as well 
 get in while he could, so in he walked ; 
 and he had no sooner done so, than the 
 boy shut the door, and made off. 
 
 This was odd enough ; but what was 
 more embarrassing was, that all along 
 the passage, and all along the narrow 
 stairs, blocking up the window, and 
 making the dark entry darker still, 
 was a confused crowd of persons with 
 great importance depicted in their 
 looks ; who were, to all appearance, 
 waiting in silent expectation of some 
 coming event. From time to time, one 
 man would whisper his neighbour, or 
 a little group would whisper together, 
 and then the whisperers would nod 
 fiercely to each other, or give their 
 heads a relentless shake, as if they 
 were bent upon doing something very 
 desperate, and were determined not to 
 be put off, whatever happened. 
 
 As a few minutes elapsed without 
 anything occurring to explain this phe- 
 nomenon, and as he felt his own posi- 
 tion a peculiarly uncomfortable one, 
 Nicholas was on the point of seeking 
 some information from the man next 
 him, when a sudden move was visible 
 on the stairs, and a voice was heard to 
 
 cry, " Now, gentlemen, have the good- 
 ness to walk up ! " 
 
 So far from walking up, the gentle- 
 men on the stairs began to walk down 
 with great alacrity, and to entreat, with 
 extraordinary politeness, that the gen- 
 tlemen nearest the street would go 
 first ; the gentlemen nearest the street 
 retorted, with equal courtesy, that they 
 couldn't think of such a thing on any 
 account ; but they did it, without think- 
 ing of it, inasmuch as the other gentle- 
 men 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 with- 
 out the means of retreat; the press 
 behind them, more than filling the 
 apartment. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Mr. Gregsbury, 
 " you are welcome. I am rejoiced to 
 see you." 
 
 For a gentleman who was rejoiced 
 to see a body of visitors, Mr. Gregs- 
 bury looked as uncomfortable as might 
 be ; but perhaps 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. Gregs- 
 bury, tossing a great bundle of papers 
 into a wicker basket at his feet, and 
 throwing himself back in his chair witli 
 his arms over the elbows, "you are 
 dissatisfied with my conduct, I see by 
 the newspapers." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Gregsbury, we are," said 
 a plump old gentleman in a violent 
 heat, bursting out of the throng, and 
 planting himself in the front. 
 
 " Do my eyes deceive me," said Mr. 
 Gregsbnry,looking towards the speaker, 
 " or is that my old friend Pugstyles I " 
 
 " I am that man, and no other, sir," 
 replied the plump old gentleman. 
 
 " Give me your hand, my worthy 
 friend," said Mr. Gregsbury. " Pug- 
 i 2
 
 
 /If. 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 styles, my dear friend, I am very sorry 
 to sec you here." 
 
 " I am very sorry to be here, sir," 
 said Mr. Pugstyles ; " but your conduct, 
 Mr. Gregsbury, lias rendered this de- 
 putation from your constituents, impe- 
 ratively necessary." 
 
 * My conduct, Pugstyles," said Mr. 
 Gregsbury, looking round upon the de- 
 putation with gracious magnanimity 
 " My conduct lias been, and ever will 
 be, regulated by a sincere regard for 
 the true and real interests of this great 
 and happy country. Whether I look 
 at home, or abroad ; whether I behold 
 the peaceful industrious communities 
 of our island home : her rivers covered 
 with steam-boats, her roads with loco- 
 motives, her streets with cabs, her 
 skies with balloons of a power and 
 magnitude hitherto unknown in the 
 history of aeronautics in this or any 
 other nation I say, whether I look 
 merely at home, or, stretching my eyes 
 farther, contemplate the boundless 
 prospect of conquest and possession 
 achieved by British perseverance and 
 British valour which is outspread 
 before me, I clasp my hands, and 
 turning my eyes to the broad expanse 
 above my head, exclaim, ' Thank Hea- 
 ven, I am a Briton !' " 
 
 The time had been, when this burst 
 of enthusiasm would have been cheered 
 to the very echo ; but now, the deputa- 
 tion received it with chilling coldness. 
 The general impression seemed to be, 
 that as an explanation of Mr. Gregs- 
 bury's political conduct, it did not enter 
 quite enough into detail ; and one gen- 
 tleman in the rear did not scruple to 
 remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it 
 savoured rather too much of a "gam- 
 mon " tendency. 
 
 " The meaning of that term gam- 
 mon," said Mr. Gregsbury," is unknown 
 to ice If it means that I grow a little 
 too fervid, or perhaps even hyper- 
 bolical, hi extolling my native land, I 
 admit the full justice of the remark. 
 I am. proud of this free and happy 
 country. My form dilates, my eye 
 glistens, my breast heaves, my heart 
 swells, my bosom burns, when I call to 
 mind her greatness and her glory." 
 
 " We wish, sir," remarked Mr. Pug. 
 styles, calmly, " to ask you a few ques- 
 tions." 
 
 " If you please, gentlemen ; my time 
 is yours and my country's and my 
 country's " said Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 This permission being conceded, Mr. 
 Pugstyles put on his spectacles, and 
 referred to a written paper which he 
 drew from his pocket; whereupon nearly 
 every other member of the deputation 
 pulled a written paper from his pocket, 
 to check Mr. Pugstyles off, as he read 
 the questions. 
 
 This done, Mr. Pugstyles proceeded 
 to business. 
 
 " Question number one. Whether, 
 sir, you did not g^ve a voluntary pledge 
 previous to your election, that in event 
 of your being returned, you would im- 
 mediately put down the practice of 
 coughing and groaning in the House of 
 Commons. And whether you did not 
 submit to be coughed and groaned down 
 in the very first debate of the session, 
 and have since made no effort to effect 
 a reform in this respect ? Whether you 
 did not also pledge yourself to astonish 
 the government, and make them shrink 
 in their shoes. And whether you have 
 astonished them, and made them shrink 
 in their shoes, or not?" 
 
 "Go on to the next one, my dear 
 Pugstyles," said Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 " Have you any explanation to offer 
 with reference to that question, sir !" 
 asked Mr. Pugstyles. 
 
 " Certainly not," said Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 The members of the deputation 
 looked fiercely at each other, and after- 
 wards at the member. " Dear Pug- 
 styles " having taken a very long stare 
 at Mr. Gregsbury over the tops of 
 his spectacles, resumed his list of in- 
 quiries. 
 
 " Question number two.. Whether, 
 sir, you did not likewise give a volun- 
 tary pledge that you would support 
 your colleague on every occasion ; and 
 whether you did not, the night before 
 last, desert him and vote upon the 
 other side, because the wife of a leader 
 on that other side had invited Mrs. 
 Gregsbury to an evening party ? " 
 
 " Go on," said Mr. Gregsbury.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 117 
 
 " Nothing to say on that, either, 
 sir ? " asked the spokesman. 
 
 " Nothing whatever," replied Mr. 
 Gregsbury. The deputation, who had 
 only seen him at canvassing or election 
 time, were struck dumb by his coolness. 
 He didn't appear like the same man ; 
 then he was all milk and honey ; now 
 lie was all starch and vinegar. But 
 men are so different at different times ! 
 
 " Question number three and lust 
 -" said Mr. Pugstyles, emphatically. 
 " Whether, sir, you did not state upon 
 the hustings, that it was your firm and 
 determined intention to oppose every- 
 thing proposed; to divide the house 
 upon every question, to move forreturns 
 on every subject, to place a motion on 
 the books every day, and, in short, in 
 your own memorable words, to play the 
 very devil with everything and every- 
 body?" With this comprehensive in- 
 quiry, 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 hia two thumbs and his two fore- 
 fingers, and tapping his nose with the 
 apex thereof, replied (smiling as he 
 said it), " I deny everything." 
 
 At this unexpected answer, a hoarse 
 murmur arose from the deputation ; and 
 the same gentleman who had expressed 
 an opinion relative to the gammoning 
 nature of the introductory speech, again 
 made a monosyllabic demonstration, by 
 growling out " Resign ! " Which growl 
 being taken up by his fellows, swelled 
 into a very earnest and general remon- 
 strance. 
 
 r " I am requested, sir, to express a 
 hope," said Mr. Pugstyles, with a dis- 
 tant bow, " that on receiving a requi- 
 sition to that effect from a great ma- 
 jority of your constituents, you will not 
 object at once to resign your seat in 
 favour of some candidate whom they 
 think they can better trust." 
 
 To tin's, Mr. Gregsbury read the 
 following reply, which, anticipating the 
 request, he had composed hi the form 
 of a letter, whereof copies had been 
 made to scud round to the newspapers. 
 
 " Mr DEAR PUGSTYLES, 
 Next to the welfare of our beloved 
 island this great and free and happy 
 country, whose powers and resources 
 are, I sincerely believe, illimitable I 
 value that noble independence which is 
 an Englishman's proudest boast, and 
 which I fondly hope to bequeath to 
 my children, untarnished andunsullied. 
 Actuated by no personal motives, but 
 moved only by high and great consti- 
 tutional considerations ; which I will not 
 attempt to explain, for they are really 
 beneath the comprehension of those 
 who have not made themselves masters, 
 as I have, of the intricate and arduous 
 study of politics ; I would rather keep 
 my seat, and intend doing so. 
 
 ' Will you do me the favour to pre- 
 sent my compliments to the constituent 
 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 spokes- 
 man. 
 
 Mr. Gregsbury smiled, and shook 
 his head. 
 
 " Then, good morning, sir," said Pug- 
 styles, angrily. 
 
 " Heavenblessyou!" said Mr. Gregs- 
 bury. And the deputation, with many 
 growls and scowls, filed off as quickly 
 as the narrowness of the staircase 
 would allow of their getting down. 
 
 The last man being gone, Mr. Gregs- 
 bury 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 tho 
 window -curtains, until that young 
 gentleman, fearing he might other- 
 wise overhear some soliloquy in- 
 tended to have no listeners, coughed 
 twice or thrice, to attract the mem- 
 ber's notice. 
 
 " What 's that ? " said Mr. Gregs- 
 bury, in sharp accents. 
 
 Nicholas stepped forward, and bowed.
 
 118 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ** What do you do here, sir ? " asked 
 Mr. Gregsbury ; " a spy upon my pri- 
 vacy ! A concealed voter ! You have 
 heard my answer, sir. Pray follow 
 the deputation." 
 
 " I should have done so, if I had be- 
 longed to it, but I do not," said Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Then how came you here, sir ? " 
 was the natural inquiry of Mr. Gregs- 
 bury, M. P. "And where the devil 
 have you come from, sir ? " was the 
 question which followed it 
 
 " I brought this card from the Ge- 
 neral Agency Office, sir," said Nicholas, 
 " wishing to offer myself as your secre- 
 tary, and understanding that you stood 
 in need of one." 
 
 "That's all you have come for, is 
 it ? " said Mr. Gregsbury, eyeing him in 
 some doubt. 
 
 Nicholas replied in the affirmative. 
 
 " You have no connexion with any 
 of those rascally papers, have you ? " 
 said Mr. Gregsbury. " You didn't 
 get into the room to hear what was 
 going forward, and put it in print, 
 eh?" 
 
 " I have no connexion, I am sorry 
 to say, with anything at present," re- 
 joined Nicholas, politely enough, but 
 quite at his ease. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Gregsbnry. " How 
 did you find your way up here, then 1" 
 
 Nicholas related how he had been 
 forced up by the deputation. 
 
 " That was the way, was it !" said 
 Mr. Gregsbury. " Sit down." 
 
 Nicholas took a chair, and Mr. 
 Gregsbury stared at him for a long 
 time, as if to make certain, before he 
 asked any further questions, that there 
 were no objections to his outward ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 " You want to be my secretary, do 
 you ? " he said at length. 
 
 " I wish to be employed in that 
 capacity, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 a 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 1 " 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 Ni- 
 cholas, considering. "They include, I 
 presume, correspondence 1 " 
 
 " Good," interposed Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 " The arrangement of papers and 
 documents ? " 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 " Occasionally, perhaps, the writing 
 from your dictation ; and possibly, sir," 
 said Nicholas, with a half smile, " the 
 copying of your speech, for some pub- 
 lic journal, when you have made one 
 of more than usual importance." 
 
 " Certainly," rejoined Mr. Gregs- 
 bury. "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 ha 
 can, consistently with his own respect- 
 ability, and without overstepping that 
 line of duties which he undertakes to 
 perform, and which the designation 
 of his office is usually understood 
 to imply." 
 
 Mr. Gregsbury looked fixedly at 
 Nicholas for a short time, and then 
 glancing warily round the room, said 
 in a suppressed voice : 
 
 " This is all very well, Mr. what 
 is your name ? " 
 
 Nickleby." 
 
 " This is all very well, Mr. Nick- 
 leby, and very proper, so far as it 
 goes so far as it goes, but it doesn't 
 go far enough. There are other duties, 
 Mr. Nickleby, which a secretary to a 
 parliamentary gentleman must never 
 lose sight of. I should require to be 
 crammed, sir." 
 
 ' I beg your pardon," interposed 
 Nicholas, doubtful whether he had 
 heard aright. 
 
 " To be crammed, sir," repeated 
 Mr. Gregsbury. 
 
 " May I beg your pardon again, 
 if I inquire what you mean, sir ? " said 
 Nicholas.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 lid 
 
 " My meaning, sir, is perfectly 
 plain," replied Mr. Gregsbury, with a 
 solemn aspect. " My secretary would 
 have to make himself master of the 
 foreign policy of the world, as it is 
 mirrored in the newspapers ; to run 
 his eye over all accounts of public 
 meetings, all leading articles, and ac- 
 counts of the proceedings of public 
 bodies ; and to make notes of anything 
 which it appeared to him might be 
 made a point of, in any little speech 
 upon the question of some petition 
 lying on the table, or anything of that 
 kind. Do you understand ! " 
 
 " I think I do, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Gregsbury, " it 
 would be necessary for him to make 
 himself acquainted, from day to day, 
 with newspaper paragraphs on passing 
 events ; such as ' Mysterious disap- 
 pearance, and supposed suicide of a 
 pot-boy,' or anything of that sort, upon 
 which I might found a question to the 
 Secretary of State for the Home De- 
 partment. Then, he would have to 
 copy the question, and as much as I 
 remembered of the answer (includ- 
 ing a little compliment about inde- 
 pendence and good sense) ; and to 
 send the manuscript in a frank to the 
 local paper, with perhaps half a dozen 
 lines of leader, to the effect, that I was 
 always to be found in my place in par- 
 liament, and never shrunk from the 
 responsible and arduous duties, and so 
 forth. You see?" 
 
 Nicholas bowed. 
 
 " Besides which," continued Mr. 
 Gregsbury, " I should expect him, now 
 and then, to go through a few figures 
 in the printed tables, and to pick out a 
 few results, so that I might come out 
 pretty well on timber duty questions, 
 and finance questions, and so on ; and 
 I should like him to get np a few little 
 arguments about the disastrous effects 
 of a return to cash payments and a 
 metallic currency, with a touch now 
 and then about the exportation of 
 bullion, and the Emperor of Russia, 
 and bank notes, and all that kind of 
 thing, which it 's only necessary to talk 
 fluently about, because nobody under- 
 stands it. Do you take me I " 
 
 "I think I understand," said Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " With regard to such questions as 
 are not political," continued Mr. Gregs- 
 bury, warming ; " and which one can't 
 be expected to care a curse about, 
 beyond the natural care of not allow- 
 ing inferior people to be as well off as 
 ourselves else where are our privi- 
 leges ! I should wish my 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 poor grub- 
 bing devils of authors a right to their 
 own property, I should like to say, 
 that I for one would never consent to 
 opposing an insurmountable bar to the 
 diffusion of literature among the people, 
 you understand 1 that the creations 
 of the pocket, being man's, might 
 belong to one man, or one family ; but 
 that the creations of the brain, being 
 God's, ought as a matter of course to 
 belong to the people at large and if I 
 was pleasantly disposed, I should like 
 to make a joke about posterity, and 
 say that those who wrote for posterity 
 should be content to be rewarded by 
 the approbation of posterity ; it might 
 take with the house, and could never 
 do me any harm, because posterity 
 can't be expected to know anything 
 about me or my jokes either do you 
 see?" 
 
 " I see that, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " You must always bear in mi ml, in 
 such cases as this, where our interests 
 are n>t affected," said Mr. Gregsbury, 
 " to put it very strong about the 
 people, because it comes out very well 
 at election-time ; and you could be as 
 funny as you liked about the authors ; 
 because I believe the greater part of 
 them live in lodgings, and are not 
 voters. This is a hasty outline of tho 
 chief things you 'd have to do, except 
 waiting in the lobby every night, in 
 case I forgot anything, and should 
 want fresh cramming ; and, now and 
 then, during great debates, sitting in 
 the front row of the gallery, and saying 
 to the people about ' You see that 
 gentleman, with his liand to his face, 
 and his arm twisted round the pillar
 
 120 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 greal 
 rapidity ; for he was out of breath 
 " And for salary, I don't mind saying 
 at once in round numbers, to prevenl 
 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. Gregs- 
 bury once more threw himself back in 
 his chair, and looked like a man who 
 had been most profligately liberal, but 
 is determined not to repent of it not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 " Fifteen shillings a week is not 
 much," said Nicholas, mildly. 
 
 " Not much ! Fifteen shillings a 
 week not much, young man ?" cried 
 Mr. Gregsbury. " Fifteen shillings 
 
 " Pray do not suppose that I quarrel 
 with the sum, sir," replied Nicholas ; 
 " for I am not ashamed to confess, that 
 whatever it may be in itself, to me it 
 is a great deal. But the duties and 
 responsibilities make the recompence 
 Frnall, 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. 
 
 u I fear they are too great for my 
 powers, however good my will may 
 be, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " That is as much as to say that you 
 had rather not accept the place, and 
 that you consider fifteen shillings a 
 week too little," said Mr. Gregsbury, 
 ringing. " Do you decline it, sir I " 
 
 " I have no alternative but to do so," 
 replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Door, Matthews! " said Mr. Gregs- 
 bury, as the boy appeared. 
 
 " I am sorry I have troubled you 
 unnecessarily, sir," said Nicholas. 
 
 " I am sorry you have," rejoined 
 Mr. Gregsbury, turning his back upon 
 him. " Door, Matthews ! " 
 
 " Good morning, sir," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Door, Matthews !" cried Mr. Gregs- 
 burv. 
 
 The boy beckoned Nicholas, and 
 tumbling lazily down stairs 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 sup- 
 per, and was anxiously awaiting his 
 return. The occurrences of the morn- 
 big had not improved Nicholas's appe- 
 tite, and, by him, the dinner remained 
 untasted. He was sitting in a thought- 
 ful attitude, with the plate which the 
 poor fellow had assiduously filled with 
 the choicest morsels ? untouched, by his 
 side, when Newman Noggs looked into 
 the room. 
 
 " Come back ? " asked Newman. 
 
 " Yes," replied Nicholas, " tired to 
 death ; and, what is worse, might have 
 remained at home for all the good I 
 have done." 
 
 " Couldn't expect to do much in one 
 morning," said Newman. 
 
 "May be so, but I am sanguine, 
 and did expect," said Nicholas, " and 
 am proportionately disappointed." Say- 
 ing which, he gave Newman an account 
 of his proceedings. 
 
 " If I could do anything," said Ni- 
 cholas, " anything however slight, until 
 Ralph Nickleby returns, and I have 
 eased my mind by confronting him, I 
 should feel happier. I should think it 
 no disgrace to work, Heaven knows. 
 Lying indolently here, like a half-tamed 
 sullen beast, distracts me." 
 
 " I don't know," said Newman ', 
 
 small things ofifer they would pay 
 
 the rent, and more but you wouldn't 
 
 ike them ; no, you could hardly be 
 
 expected to undergo it no, no." 
 
 " What could I hardly be expected 
 jo undergo !" asked Nicholas, raising 
 lis eyes. ** Show me, in this wide 
 waste of London, any honest means by 
 which I could even defray the weekly 
 lire of this poor room, and see if I 
 shrink from resorting to them ! Un- 
 dergo ! I have undergone too much, 
 my friend, to feel pride or squeamish- 
 ness now. Except " added Nicholas 
 lastily, after a short silence, " except 
 such squeamishness as is common 
 louesty, and so much pride as con-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 121 
 
 stitutcs self-respect I see little to 
 choose, between assistant to a brutal 
 pedagogue, and toad-eater to a mean 
 and ignorant upstart, be he member or 
 no member." 
 
 " I hardly know whether I should 
 tell you what I heard this morning, or 
 not," said Newman. 
 
 u 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 deplor- 
 able condition ; and, while I promise to 
 take no step without taking counsel 
 with you, give me, at least, a vote in 
 my own behalf." 
 
 Moved by this entreaty, Newman 
 stammered forth a variety of most 
 unaccountable and entangled sentences, 
 the upshot of which, was, that Mrs. 
 Kenwigs had examined him, at great 
 length that morning, touching the origin 
 of his acquaintance with, and the whole 
 life, adventures, and pedigree of, 
 Nicholas ; that Newman had parried 
 these questions as long as he could, but 
 being, at length, hard pressed and driven 
 into a corner, had gone so far as to 
 admit, that Nicholas was a tutor of 
 great accomplishments, involved in 
 some misfortunes which he was not at 
 liberty to explain, and bearing the 
 name of Johnson. That Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs, impelled by gratitude, or ambi- 
 tion, or maternal pride, or maternal 
 love, or all four powerful motives con- 
 jointly, had taken secret conference with 
 Mr. Kenwigs, and had finally returned 
 to propose that Mr. Johnson should 
 instruct the four Miss Kenwigses in 
 the French language as spoken by 
 natives, at the weekly stipend of five 
 shillings, current coin of the realm; 
 being at the rate of one shilling per 
 week, per each Miss Kenwigs, and one 
 shilling over, until such timeas the baby 
 .night 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 'a 
 all. It's beneath you, I know ; but I 
 thought that perhaps you might " 
 
 u Might ! " cried Nicholas, with great 
 alacrity ; " of course I shall. I accept 
 the offer at once. Tell the worthy 
 mother so, without delay, my dear 
 fellow ; and that I am ready to begin 
 whenever she pleases." 
 
 Newman hastened, with joyful steps, 
 to inform Mrs. Kenwigs of his friend's 
 acquiescence, and soon returning, 
 brought back word that they would be 
 happy to see him in the first floor as 
 soon as convenient ; that Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs 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 pros- 
 pect 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 higli 
 spirit. He would resent an affront to 
 himself, or interpose to redress a 
 wrong offered to another, as boldly and 
 freely as any knight that ever set lance 
 in rest ; but he lacked that peculiar 
 excess of coolness and great-minded 
 selfishness, which invariably distin- 
 guish, gentlemen of high spirit. In 
 truth, for our own part, we are dis- 
 posed to look upon such gentlemen 
 as being rather incumbrances than 
 otherwise in rising families : happening 
 to be acquainted with several whose 
 spirit prevents their settling down to 
 any grovelling occupation, and only 
 displays itself in a tendency to culti- 
 vate mustachios, and look fierce ; and 
 although mustachios and ferocity are 
 both very pretty things in their way, 
 and very much to be commended, wo 
 confess to a desire to see them bred at 
 the owner's proper cost, rather than 
 at the expense of low-spirited people. 
 
 Nicholas, therefore, not being a high- 
 spirited young man according to com- 
 mon parlance, and deeming it a greater 
 degradation to borrow, for the supply 
 of his necessities, from NewmanNoggs,
 
 122 
 
 than to teach Frencn to the little Ken- 
 wigses for five shillings a week, ac- 
 cepted the offer, with the alacrity 
 already described, and betook himself 
 to the first floor with all convenient 
 speed. 
 
 Here, he was received by Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs with a genteel air, kindly intended 
 to assure him of her protection and 
 support ; and here, too, he found Mr. 
 Lillyvick and Miss Petowker ; the 
 four Miss Kenwigses on their form of 
 audience ; and the baby in a dwarf 
 porter's chair with a deal tray before 
 it, amusing himself with a toy horse 
 without a head ; the said horse being 
 composed of a small wooden cylinder, 
 not unlike an Italian iron, supported 
 on four crooked pegs, and 'painted in 
 ingenious resemblance of red wafers 
 set in blacking. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Johnson ? " 
 said Mr. Kenwigs. " Uncle Mr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 " How do you do, sir ? " said Mr. 
 Lillyvick rather sharply ; for he had 
 not known what Nicholas was, on the 
 previous night, and it was rather an 
 aggravating circumstance if a tax 
 collector had been too polite to a 
 teacher. 
 
 Mr. Johnson is engaged as private 
 master to the children, uncle," said 
 Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 " So you said just now, my dear," 
 replied Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 " But I hope," said Mrs. Kenwigs, 
 drawing herself up, " that that will not 
 make them proud ; but that they will 
 bless their own good fortune, which 
 has born them superior to common 
 people's children. Do you hear, Mor- 
 leena ! " 
 
 " Yes, ma," replied Miss Kenwigs. 
 
 " And when you go out in the streets, 
 or elsewhere, I desire that you don't 
 boast of it to the other children," said 
 Mrs. Kenwigs ; " and that if you must 
 say anything about it, you don't say no 
 more than ' We've got a private 
 master comes to teach us at home, but 
 we ain't proud, because ma says it 's 
 sinful.' Do you hear, Morleena I " 
 
 u Yes, ma," replied Miss Kenwigs 
 again. 
 
 "Then mind you recollect, and do 
 as 'I tell you," said Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 " Shall Mr. Johnson begin, uncle ? " 
 
 " I am ready to hear, if Mr. Johnson 
 is ready to commence, my dear," said 
 the collector, assuming the air of a 
 profound critic. " What sort of Ian 
 guage do you consider French, sir ? " 
 
 " How do you mean ? " asked 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "Do you consider it a good lan- 
 guage, sir ? " said the collector ; " a 
 pretty language, a sensible language ? " 
 
 " A pretty language, certainly," re- 
 plied Nicholas ; " and as it has a name 
 for everything, and admits of elegant 
 conversation about everything, I pre- 
 sume it is a sensible one." 
 
 " I don't know," said Mr. Lillyvick, 
 doubtfully. " Do you call it a cheer- 
 ful language, now ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Nicholas, " I should 
 say it was, certainly." 
 
 " It 's very much changed since my 
 time, then," said the collector, " very 
 much." 
 
 " Was it a dismal one in your time ? " 
 asked Nicholas, scarcely able to re- 
 press a smile. 
 
 " Very," replied Mr. Lillyvick, with 
 some vehemence of manner. " It 'a 
 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 such a dismal man- 
 ner, 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 
 Petowker had practised several bland- 
 ishments, to soften the excellent old 
 gentleman, that he deigned to break 
 silence, by asking, 
 
 ** What 's the water in French, sir?" 
 
 "IS Eait" replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Lillyvick, shaking 
 his head mournfully, " I thought as 
 much. Lo, eh ? I don't think any- 
 thing of that language nothing at all."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 123 
 
 " I suppose the children may begin, 
 uncle : " said Mrs. Kenwigs. 
 
 " Oh yes ; they may begin, my dear," 
 replied the collector, discontentedly. 
 " / have no wish to prevent them." 
 
 This permission being conceded, 
 the four Miss Kenwigses sat in a row, 
 with their tails all one way, and Mor- 
 leena at the top : while Nicholas, 
 taking the book, began his preliminary 
 
 explanations. Miss Petowker and 
 Mrs. Kenwigs looked on, in silent 
 admiration, broken only by the whis- 
 pered assurances of the latter, that 
 Morleena would have it all by heart 
 in no time; and Mr. Lilly vick 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 XVII. 
 
 FOLLOWS THE FORTUNES OF MISS NICKLEBY. 
 
 IT was with a heavy heart, and many 
 sad forebodings which no effort could 
 banish, that Kate Nickleby, on the 
 morning appointed for the commence- 
 ment 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 tin- 
 streets, towards the west end of 
 London. 
 
 At this early hour many sickly girls, 
 whose business, like that of the poor 
 worm, is to produce, with patient toil, 
 the finery that bedecks the thoughtless 
 and luxurious, traverse our streets, 
 making towards the scene of their daily 
 labour, and catching, as if by stealth, 
 in their hurried walk, the only gasp of 
 wholesome air and glimpse of sunlight 
 which cheers their monotonous ex- 
 istence during the long train of hours 
 that make a working day. As she 
 drew ni<;h to the more fashionable 
 quarter of the town, Kate marked 
 many of this class as they passed by, 
 hurrying like herself to their painful 
 occupation, and saw, in their unhealthy 
 looks and feeble gait, but too clear an 
 evidence that her misgivings were not 
 wholly groundless. 
 
 She arrived at Madame Mantalini's 
 some minutes before the appointed 
 hour, and after walking a few times 
 up and down, in the hope that some 
 
 other female might arrive and spare 
 
 her the embarrassment of stating her 
 
 business to the servant, knocked 
 
 timidly at the door : which, after some 
 
 j delay, was opened by the footman, who 
 
 I had been putting on his striped jacket 
 
 I as he came up stairs, and was now 
 
 ' intent on fastening his apron. 
 
 ' Is Madame MantalLni in ! " fal- 
 tered Kate. 
 
 " Not often out at this time, Miss," 
 replied the man in a tone which ren- 
 dered ' Miss,' something more offensive 
 than ' My dear.' 
 
 " Can I see her ? " asked Kate. 
 
 " Eh ? " replied the man, holding 
 the door in his hand, and honouring 
 the inquirer with a stare and a broad 
 grin, " Lord, no." 
 
 " I came by her own appointment," 
 said Kate ; " I am I am to be em- 
 ployed here." 
 
 " Oh ! you should have rung the 
 worker's bell," said the footman, 
 touching the handle of one in the 
 door-post "Let me see, though, I 
 forgot Miss Nickleby, is it ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Kate. 
 
 " You 're to walk 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
 
 124 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 pastry cook's trays, lamps, waiters 
 full of glasses, and piles of rout seats 
 which were strewn about the hall, 
 plainly bespeaking a late party on the 
 previous night, the man led the way 
 to the second story, and ushered Kate 
 into a back room, communicating by 
 folding-doors with the apartment in 
 which she had first seen the mistress 
 of the establishment. 
 
 " If you '11 wait here a minute," 
 said the man, " I '11 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. Mantaliui, 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 mar- 
 riage. 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, 
 outr/geously jealous, my soul," 'said 
 Mr. Mantalini, " you will be very 
 miserable horrid miserable demni- 
 tion miserable." And then, there was 
 a sound as though Mr. Mantalini were 
 sipping his coffee. 
 
 "I am miserable," returned Ma- 
 dame Mantalini, evidently pouting. 
 
 " Then you are an ungrateful, un- 
 worthy, demd unthankful little fairy," 
 said Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 " I am not," returned Madame, 
 with a sob. 
 
 " Do not put itself out of humour," 
 said Mr. Mantalini, breaking an egg. 
 " It is a pretty, bewitching little demd 
 countenance, and it should not be out 
 of humour, for it spoils its loveliness, 
 and makes it cross and gloomy like a 
 frightful, naughty, demd hobgoblin." 
 
 " I am not to be brought round in 
 that way, always," rejoined Madame, 
 sulkily. 
 
 " It shall be brought round in any 
 way it likes best, and not brought 
 
 round at all if it likes tliat better," 
 retorted Mr. Mantalini, with his egg- 
 spoon in his mouth. 
 
 " It 's very easy to talk," said Mrs. 
 Mantalini. 
 
 u Not so easy when one is eating a 
 demnition egg," replied Mr. Man- 
 talini ; " 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 Man- 
 talini, apparently desirous to lead the 
 conversation back to the point from 
 which it had strayed. 
 
 " No, no, my life." 
 
 " You were," said Madame ; " I had 
 my eye upon you all the time." 
 
 " Bless the little winking twinkling 
 eye ; was it on me all the time ! " 
 cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rap- 
 ture. " Oh, demmit ! " 
 
 " And I say once more," resumed 
 Madame, "that you ought not to 
 waltz with anybody but your own wife; 
 and I will not bear it, Mantalini, if I 
 take poison first." 
 
 " She will not take poison and have 
 homed pains, will she ? " said Man- 
 talini ; 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 coun- 
 tesses and a dowager " 
 
 " Two countesses," interposed Ma- 
 dame. " You told me one before ! " 
 
 " Two ! " cried Mantilini. " Two 
 demd fine women, real countesses and 
 splendid fortunes, demmit." 
 
 " And why didn't you ? " asked 
 Madame, playfully. 
 
 " Why didn't I ! " replied her hus- 
 band. " Had I not seen, at a morning 
 concert, the demdest little fascinator 
 in all the world, and while that little 
 fascinator is my wife, may not all the 
 countesses and dowagers in England 
 be " 
 
 Mr. Mantalini did not finish the 
 sentence, but he gave Madame Man- 
 talini a very loud kiss, which Madame 
 Mantalini returned ; after which,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 125 
 
 there seemed to be stone more kissing 
 mixed up with the progress of the 
 breakfast. 
 
 " And what about the cash, my ex- 
 istence's jewel '. " said Mantaiini when 
 these endearments ceased. " How 
 much have we in hand i " 
 
 " Very little indeed," replied Ma- 
 dame. 
 
 " We must have some more," said 
 Mantaiini ; " we must have some dis- 
 count out of old Nickleby to carry on 
 the war with, demmit." 
 
 " You can't want any more just 
 now," said Madame coaxingly. 
 
 " My life and soul," returned her 
 husband, " there is a horse for sale at 
 Scrubbs's, which it would be a sin and 
 a crime to lose going, my senses' joy, 
 for nothing." 
 
 u For nothing," cried Madame, " I 
 am glad of that." 
 
 "For actually nothing," replied 
 Mantaiini. " 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 coun- 
 tesses. The demd old dowager will 
 faint witli grief and rage ; the other 
 two will say ' He is married, he has 
 made away with himself, it is a 
 demd thing, it is all up ! ' They will 
 hate each other demnebly, and wish 
 you dead and buried. Ha ! ha ! 
 Demmit" 
 
 Madame Mautalini's prudence, if 
 she had any, was not proof against 
 these triumphal pictures ; after a little 
 jingling of keys, she observed that she 
 would see what her desk contained, 
 and rising for that purpose, opened the 
 folding-door, and walked into the room 
 where Kate was seated. 
 
 " Dear me, child ! " exclaimed Ma- 
 dame Mantaiini, recoiling in surprise. 
 " How came you here ? " , 
 
 " Child ! " cried Mantaiini, hurry- 
 ing in. " How came eh ! oh 
 demmit, how d'ye do ? " 
 
 "I have been waiting here some 
 time, ma'am," said Kate, addressing 
 Madame Mantaiini. "The servant must 
 liave forgotten to let you know that I 
 was here, I think." 
 
 " You really must see to that man," 
 said Madame, turning to her husband. 
 " He forgets everything." 
 
 " I will twist his demd nose off his 
 countenance for leaving such a very 
 pretty creature nil alone by herself," 
 said her husband. 
 
 " Mantaiini," cried Madame, " you 
 forget yourself." 
 
 " I don't forget you, my soul, and 
 never shall, and never can," said 
 .Mantaiini, kissing his wife's hand, and 
 grimacing, aside, to Miss Nickleby, 
 who turned away. 
 
 Appeased by this compliment, the 
 lady of the business took some papers 
 from her desk, which she handed over 
 to Mr. Mantaiini, who received them 
 with great delight. She then requested 
 Kate to follow her, and after several 
 feints on the part of Mr. Mantaiini to 
 attract the young lady's attention, 
 they went away : leaving that gentle- 
 man extended at full length on the 
 sofa, witli his heels in the air and a 
 newspaper in his hand. 
 
 Madame Mantaiini led the way down 
 a flight of stairs, and through a pas- 
 sage, to a large room at the back of 
 the premises, where were a number 
 of young women employed in sewing, 
 cutting out, making up, altering, and 
 various other processes known only 
 to those who are cunning in the arts 
 of millinery and dress-making. It was 
 a close room with a sky-light, and as 
 dull and quiet as a room need be. 
 
 On Madame Mantaiini calling aloud 
 for Miss Knag, a short, bustling, over- 
 dressed female, full of importance, pre- 
 sented herself, and all the young ladies 
 suspending their operations lor the 
 moment, whispered to each other 
 sundry criticisms upon the make and 
 texture of Miss Nickleby's drcs?, her 
 complexion, cast of features, and per- 
 sonal 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 Madarao 
 Mantaiini, " this is the young person 
 I spoke to you about." 
 
 Miss Knag bestowed a reverential 
 smile upon Madame Mantaiini, which
 
 126 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 she dexterously transformed into a 
 gracious one for Kate, and said that 
 certainly, although it was a great deal 
 of trouble to have young people who 
 were wholly unused to the business, 
 still, she was sure the young person 
 would try to do her best impressed 
 with which conviction she (Miss Knag) 
 felt an interest in her, already. 
 
 *' I think that, for the present at all 
 events, it will be better for Miss Nick- 
 leby to come into the show-room with 
 you, and try things on for people," 
 said Madame Mantalini. "She will 
 not be able for the present to be of 
 much use in any other way ; and her 
 appearance will " 
 
 " Suit very well with mine, Madame 
 Mantalini," interrupted Miss Knag. 
 " So it will ; and to be sure I might 
 have known that you would not be 
 long in finding that out ; for you have 
 so much taste in all those matters, 
 that really, as I often say to the young 
 ladies, I do not know how, when, or 
 where, you possibly could have ac- 
 quired 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 ! ha *! ha ! 
 Of club feet ! Oh very good ! As I 
 often remark to the young ladies, 
 ' Well I must say, and I do not care 
 vfho knows it, of all the ready humour 
 
 hem I ever heard anywhere' 
 and I have heard a good deal ; for 
 when my dear brother was alive (I 
 kept house for him, Miss Nickleby), 
 we had to supper once a week two or 
 three young men, highly celebrated in 
 those days for their humour, Madame 
 Mantalini ' Of all the ready humour,' 
 I say to the young ladies, '/ ever 
 heard, Madame Mantalini's is the most 
 remarkable hem. It is so gentle, so 
 sarcastic, and yet so good-natured (as 
 I was observing to Miss Simmonds 
 only this morning), that how, or when, 
 or fay 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 mar- 
 vellously loquacious and marvellously 
 deferential to Madame Mantalini, 
 since these are facts which require no 
 comment ; but that, every now and 
 then, she was accustomed, in the tor- 
 rent of her discourse, to introduce a 
 loud, shrill, clear, " hem ! " the im- 
 port and meaning of which, was vari- 
 ously interpreted by her acquaintance ; 
 some holding that Miss Knag dealt in 
 exaggeration, and introduced the mo- 
 nosyllable, when any fresh invention 
 was in course of coinage in her brain ; 
 others, that when she wanted a word, 
 she threw it in to gain time, and 
 prevent anybody else from striking 
 into the conversation. It may be 
 further remarked, that Miss Knag 
 still aimed at youth, although she had 
 shot beyond it, years ago ; and that 
 she was weak and vain, and one of 
 those people who are best described 
 by the axiom, that you may trust 
 them as far you can see them, and no 
 farther. 
 
 "You'll take care that Miss Nick- 
 leby understands her hours, and so 
 forth," said Madame Mantalini ; " and 
 so I '11 leave her with you. You '11 
 not forget my directions, Miss Knag !" 
 
 Miss Knag of course replied, that 
 to forget anything Madame Mantalini 
 had directed, was a moral impossi- 
 bility ; and that lady, dispensing a 
 general good morning among her 
 assistants, sailed away.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 127 
 
 "Charming creature, isn't she, Miss 
 Nickleby I " 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 fie a charming creature 1 " 
 
 ' Indeed he does not strike me as 
 being so, by any means," replied Kate. 
 
 " No, my dear ! " cried Miss Knag, 
 elevating her hands. " Why, good- 
 ness gracious mercy, where 's your 
 taste ! Such a tine tall, full-whiskered 
 dashing gentlemanly man, with such 
 teeth and hair, and hem well now, 
 you do astonish me." 
 
 " I dare say I am very foolish," 
 replied Kate, laying aside her bonnet ; 
 " but as my opinion is of very little 
 importance to him or 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 anything I 
 could say to the contrary," replied 
 Kate. 
 
 * And drives very beautiful horses, 
 doesn't he I " inquired another. 
 
 " I dare say he may, but I never 
 saw them," answered Kate. 
 
 " Never saw them ! " interposed 
 Miss Knag. Oh, well ! There it is at 
 once you know ; how can you possibly 
 pronounce an opinion about a gentle- 
 man hem if you don't see him as 
 he turns out altogether I " 
 
 There was so much of the world 
 even of the little world of the country 
 girl in this idea of the old milliner, 
 that Kate, who was anxious, for every 
 reason, to change the subject, made no 
 further remark, and left Miss Knag 
 in possession of the field. 
 
 After a short silence, during which 
 most of the young people made a closer 
 inspection of Kate's appearance, and 
 compared notes respecting it, one of 
 them offered to help her off with her 
 shawl, and the offer being accepted, 
 inquired whether she did not find black 
 very uncomfortable wear. 
 
 " I do indeed," replied Kate, with a 
 bitter sigh. 
 
 "So dusty and hot," observed the 
 same speaker ,adj usting her dress for her. 
 
 Kate might have said, that mourning is 
 sometimes the coldest wear which mor- 
 tals can assume ; that it not only chills 
 the breasts of those it clothes, but, ex- 
 tending its influence to summer friends, 
 freezes up their sources of good-will 
 and kindness, and withering all the 
 buds of promise they once so liberally 
 put forth, leaves nothing but bared and 
 rotten hearts exposed. There are 
 few who have lost a friend or relative 
 constituting in life their sole depend- 
 ence, who have not keenly felt this 
 chilling influence of their sable garb. 
 She had felt it acutely, and feeling it at 
 the moment, could not quite restain 
 her tears. 
 
 " I am very sorry to have wounded 
 you by my thoughtless speech," said 
 her companion. " I did not think of 
 it. You are in mourning for some 
 near relation I " 
 
 " For my father," answered Kate. 
 
 " For what relation, Miss Sim- 
 monds I " asked Miss Knag in an 
 audible voice. 
 
 " Her father," replied the other softly. 
 
 " Her father, eh ? " said Miss Knag, 
 without the slightest depression of her 
 voice. ** Ah ! A long illness, Miss 
 Simmonds ? " 
 
 " Hush," replied the girl ; " I don't 
 know." 
 
 " Our misfortune was very sudden," 
 said Kate, turning away, " or I might 
 perhaps, at a time like this, be enabled 
 to support it better." 
 
 There had existed not a little desire 
 in the room, according to invariable 
 custom when any new " young person " 
 came, to know who Kate was, and what 
 she was, and all about her ; but, al- 
 though it might have been very natu- 
 rally 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.
 
 128 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 
 z-attling through the streets, and of 
 loud double knacks at doors, gave 
 token that the day's work of the more 
 fortunate members of society was pro- 
 ceeding 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 occasion- 
 ally a distinction between riches and 
 greatness who had come with her 
 daughter to approve of some court- 
 dresses which had been a long time 
 preparing, and upon whom Kate was 
 deputed to wait, accompanied by Miss 
 Knag, and officered of course by 
 Madame Mantalini. 
 
 Kate's part in the pageant was hum- 
 ble enough, her duties being limited to 
 holding articles of costume until Miss 
 Knag was ready to try them on, and 
 now and then tying a string, or fasten- 
 ing a hook-and-eye. She might, not 
 unreasonably, have supposed herself 
 beneath the reach of any arrogance, 
 or bad humour ; but it happened 
 that the lady and daughter were 
 both out of temper that day, and the 
 poor girl came in for her share of their 
 revilings. She was awkward her 
 hands were cold dirty coarse she 
 could do nothing right ; they wondered 
 how Madame Mantalini could have 
 such people about her ; requested they 
 might see some other young woman 
 the next time they came ; and so forth. 
 
 So common an occurrence would be 
 hardly deserving of mention, but for 
 its effect. Kate shed many bitter 
 tears when these people were gone, 
 and felt, for the first time, humbled by 
 her occupation. She had, it is true, 
 quailed at the prospect of drudgery 
 and hard service ; but she had felt no 
 degradation in working for her bread, 
 until she found herself exposed to 
 
 insolence and pride. Philosophy would 
 have taught her that the degrada- 
 tion was on the side of those who 
 had sunk so low as to display such pas- 
 sions habitually, and without cause, 
 but she was too young for such conso- 
 lation, 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 un- 
 common 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 feel- 
 ings, and feign to participate hi 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 partner- 
 ship by a lady that kept a school at 
 Hammersmith, and made her fortune 
 in no time at all. I forget, by the bye, 
 whether that Miss Browndock was the 
 same lady that got the ten thousand 
 pounds prize in the lottery, but I 
 think she was ; indeed, now I come to 
 think of it, I am sure she was. ' Man- 
 talini and Nickleby,' how well it would 
 sound ! and if Nicholas has any good 
 fortune, you might have Doctor Nick- 
 leby, the head-master of Westminster 
 School, living in the same street." 
 
 " Dear Nicholas ! " cried Kate, 
 taking from her reticule her brother's 
 letter from Dotheboys Hall. " In all 
 our misfortunes, how happy it makes 
 me, 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 comfort- 
 able and happy." 
 
 Poor Kate ! she little thought how 
 weak her consolation was, and how 
 soon she would be undeceived.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MISS KNAG, AFTER DOATING ON KATE NICKLEBY FOR THREE WHOLE DATS, 
 MAKES UP HER MIND TO HATE HER FOR EVERMORE. 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 com- 
 passion and need high stimulants to 
 rouse it. 
 
 There are not a few among the dis- 
 ciple^ of charity who require, in their 
 vocation, scarcely less excitement than 
 the votaries of pleasure in theirs ; 
 and hence it is that diseased sympathy 
 and compassion are every day ex- 
 pended on out-of-the-way objects, 
 when only too many demands upon 
 the legitimate exercise of the same 
 virtues in a healthy state, are con- 
 stantly within the sight and hearing of 
 the most unobservant person alive. 
 In short, charity must have its ro- 
 mance, 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 fi'nd 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 
 i,s romance; and the less of real, hard, 
 struggling work-a-day life there is in 
 that romance, the better. 
 
 The life to which poor Kate Nickleby 
 was devoted, in consequence of the 
 unforeseen train of circumstances 
 already developed in this narrative, 
 was a hard one ; but lest the very 
 dullness, unhealthy confinement, and 
 bodily fatigue, which made up its sum 
 and substance, should deprive it of 
 any interest with the mass of the 
 
 No. 40. 
 
 charitable and sympathetic, I would 
 rather keep Miss Nickleby herself in 
 view just now, than chill them, in tha 
 outset, by a minute and lengthened de- 
 scription of the establishment presided 
 over by Madame Mantalini. 
 
 " Well, now, indeed Madame Man- 
 talini," said Miss Knag, as Kate was 
 taking her weary way homewards on 
 the first night of her noviciate; "that 
 Miss Nickleby is a very creditable 
 young person a very creditable young 
 person indeed hem upon my word, 
 Madame Mantalini, it does very extra- 
 ordinary credit even to your discrimi- 
 nation that you should have found 
 such a very excellent, very well- 
 behaved, very hem very unassum- 
 ing young woman to assist in the 
 fitting on. I have seen some young 
 women when they had the opportunity 
 of displaying before their betters, 
 behave in such a oh, dear well 
 but you're always right, Madame 
 Mantalini, always ; and as I very 
 often tell the young ladies, how you 
 do contrive to be always right, when 
 so many people are so often wrong, is 
 to me a mystery indeed." 
 
 " Beyond putting a very excellent 
 client out of humour, Miss Nickleby 
 has not done anything very remark- 
 able to-day that I am aware of, at 
 least," said Madame Mantalini in reply. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " said Miss Knag ; " but 
 you must allow a great deal for inex- 
 perience, you know." 
 
 " And youth ?" inquired Madame. 
 
 "Oh, I say nothing about that, 
 Madame Mantalini," replied Mis 
 Knag, reddening ; " because if youth 
 were any excuse, you wouldn't have ' 
 
 " Quite so good a forewoman as I 
 have, I suppose," suggested Madame. 
 
 " Well, I never did know anybody 
 like you, Madame Mantalini," re- 
 joined Miss Knag most complacently, 
 u Q.
 
 130 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " and that 's the fact, for you know 
 what one 's going to say, before it has 
 time to rise to one's lips. Oh, very 
 good ! Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " For myself," observed Madame 
 Mantalini, glancing with affected care- 
 lessness at her assistant, and laughing 
 heartily in her sleeve, " I consider 
 Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl 
 I ever saw in my life." 
 
 " Poor dear thing," said Miss Knag, 
 "it's not her fault. If it was, we 
 might hope to cure it ; but as it's her 
 misfortune, Madame Mantalini, why 
 really you know, as the man said 
 about the blind horse, we ought to 
 respect it." 
 
 " Her uncle told me she had been 
 considered pretty," remarked Madame 
 Mantalini. " I think her one of the 
 most 6rdinary girls I ever met with." 
 
 " Ordinary ! " cried Miss Knag with 
 a countenance beaming delight ; " and 
 awkward' ! Well, all I can say is, 
 Madame Mantalini, that I quite love 
 the poor girl ; and that if she was 
 twice as indifferent-looking, and twice 
 as awkward as she is, I should be only 
 so much the more her friend, and 
 that's the truth of it." 
 
 In fact, Miss Knag had conceived 
 an incipient affection for Kate 
 Nickleby, after witnessing her failure 
 that morning, and this short conversa- 
 tion with her superior increased the 
 favourable prepossession to a most 
 surprising extent ; which was the more 
 remarkable, as when she first scanned 
 that young lady's face and figure, she 
 had entertained certain inward mis- 
 givings 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 
 raality was this devoted friendship, 
 and so superior was it to the little 
 weaknesses of flattery or ill-nature, 
 that the kind-hearted Miss Knag can- 
 didly 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 com- 
 pany, and to shrink from attracting 
 notice by every means in her power. 
 This last suggestion was so much in 
 accordance with the timid girl's own 
 feelings and wishes, that she readily 
 promised implicit reliance on the ex- 
 cellent spinster's advice : without 
 questioning, or indeed bestowing a 
 moment's reflection upon, the motives 
 that dictated it. 
 
 " I take quite a lively interest in 
 you, my dear soul, upon my word," 
 said Miss Knag ; " a sister's interest, 
 actually. It 's the most singular cir- 
 cumstance I ever knew." 
 
 Undoubtedly it was singular, that if 
 Miss Knag did feel a strong interest 
 in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather 
 have been the interest of a maiden 
 aunt or grandmother ; that being the 
 conclusion to which the difference in 
 their respective ages would have na- 
 turally tended. But Miss Knag wore 
 clothes of a very youthful pattern, 
 and perhaps her feelings took the 
 same shape. 
 
 " Bless you ! " said Miss Knag, 
 bestowing a kiss upon Kate at the 
 conclusion of the second day's work, 
 "how very awkward you have been 
 aU day." 
 
 " I fear your kind and open com- 
 munication, which has rendered me 
 more painfully conscious of my own 
 defects, has not improved me," sighed 
 Kate. 
 
 " No, no, I dare say not," rejoined 
 Miss Knag, in a most uncommon flow 
 of good humour. " But how much 
 better that you should know it at first, 
 and so be able to go on, straight and 
 comfortable! Which way are you 
 walking, my love ! " 
 
 " Towards the city," replied Kate. 
 
 " The city ! " cried Miss Knag, re- 
 garding herself with great favour in 
 the glass as she tied her bonnet. 
 " Goodness gracious me ! now do you 
 really live in the city 1 " 
 
 " Is it so very unusual for anybody
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 131 
 
 to live there!" asked Kate, half 
 smiling. 
 
 " I couldn't have believed it possible 
 that any young woman could have 
 lived there, under any circumstances 
 whatever, for three days together," 
 replied Miss Knag. 
 
 " Reduced I should say poor 
 people," answered Kate, correcting 
 herself hastily, for she was afraid of 
 appearing proud, "must live where 
 they can." 
 
 " Ah ! very true, so they must ; 
 very proper indeed ! " rejoined Miss 
 Knag with that sort of half sigh, which, 
 accompanied by two or three slight 
 nods of the head, is pity's small change 
 in general society ; " and that 's what 
 I very often tell my brother, when 
 our servants go away ill, one after 
 another, and he thinks the back 
 kitchen 's rather too damp for 'em to 
 sleep in. These sort of people, I tell 
 him, are glad to sleep anywhere ! 
 Heaven suits the back to the burden. 
 What a nice thing it is to think that 
 it should be so, isn't it ! " 
 
 " Very," replied Kate. 
 
 " I '11 walk with you part of the 
 way, my dear," said Miss Knag, " for 
 you must go very near our house ; 
 and as it's quite dark, and our last 
 servant went to the hospital a week 
 ago, with Saint Anthony's fire in 
 her face, I shall be glad of your 
 company." 
 
 Kate would willingly have excused 
 herself from this flattering companion- 
 ship ; 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, I mean 
 is waiting for me." 
 
 " You needn't make the least apo- 
 logy, my dear," said Miss Knag, 
 smiling sweetly as she spoke ; " I dare 
 say she is a very respectable old 
 person, and I shall be quite hem 
 quite pleased to know her." 
 
 As poor Mrs. Nickleby was cooling 
 
 not her heels alone, but her limbs 
 generally at the street corner, Kate 
 had no alternative but to make her 
 known to Miss Knag, who, doing the 
 last new carriage customer at second- 
 hand, acknowledged the introduction 
 with condescending politeness. The 
 three then walked away, arm in arm: 
 with Miss Knag in the middle, in a 
 special state of amiability. 
 
 " I have taken such a fancy to your 
 daughter, Mrs. Nickleby, you can't 
 think," said Miss Knag, after she had 
 proceeded a little distance in digni- 
 fied silence. 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby ; " though it is nothing 
 new to me, that even strangers should 
 like Kate." 
 
 " Hem ! " cried Miss Knag. 
 
 " You will like her better when you 
 know how good she is," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. " It is a great blessing to 
 me, in my misfortunes, to have a child, 
 who knows neither pride or 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 au 
 air intending to signify that she 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 h-. 
 daughter. 
 
 " Oh ! of course," said Miss Knag. 
 
 "And will improve still more,'* 
 added Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " That she will, I '11 bo bound," re- 
 plied Miss Knag, squeezing Kate's 
 arm in her own, to point the joke. 
 
 "She always was clever," said 
 poor Mrs. Nickleby, brightening up, 
 " always, from a baby. I recollect 
 when she was only two years and a 
 half old, that a gentleman who used 
 to visit very much at our house 
 K2
 
 132 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mr. Watkins, you know, Kate, my dear, 
 that your poor papa went bail for, who 
 afterwards ran away to the United 
 States, and sent us a pair of snow 
 shoes, with such an affectionate letter 
 that it made your poor dear father 
 cry for a week. You remember the 
 letter ? In which he said that he was 
 very sorry he couldn't repay the fifty 
 pounds just then, because his capital 
 was all out at interest, and he was 
 very busy making his fortune, but that 
 he didn't forget you were his god- 
 daughter, and he should take it very 
 unkind if we didn't buy you a silver 
 coral and put it down to his old 
 account ? Dear me, yes, my dear, how 
 stupid you are ! and spoke so affec- 
 tionately of the old port wine that he 
 used to drink a bottle and a half of 
 every time he came. You must re- 
 member, Kate ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, mamma; what of him 1 " 
 
 " 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 re- 
 lation, Miss Knag will understand, to 
 the Watkins who kept the Old Boar in 
 the village ; by the by, I don't remem- 
 ber whether it was the Old Boar or 
 the George the Third, but it was one 
 of the two, I know, and it's much the 
 same that Mr. Watkins said, when 
 you were only two years and a half 
 old, that you were one of the most 
 astonishing children he ever saw. He 
 did indeed, Miss Knag, and he wasn't 
 at all fond of children, and couldn't 
 have had the slightest motive for doing 
 it. I know it was he who said so, be- 
 cause I recollect, as well as if it was 
 only yesterday, his borrowing twenty 
 pounds of her poor dear papa the very 
 moment afterwards." 
 
 Having quoted this extraordinary 
 and most disinterested testimony to her 
 daughter's excellence, Mrs. Nickleby 
 stopped to breathe ; and Miss Knag, 
 finding that the discourse was turning 
 upon family greatness, lost no time in 
 striking in, with a small reminiscence 
 oil 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 ! thousands of pounds, 
 all our little fortunes, and what's more, 
 Mrs. Nickleby, I don't think, if we were 
 to live till tUl hem till the very end 
 of time, that we should ever get them 
 back again. I don't indeed." 
 
 After concluding this effort of in- 
 vention without being interrupted, Miss 
 Knag fell into many more recollections, 
 no less interesting than true, the full 
 tide of which, Mrs. Nickleby in vain 
 attempting to stem, at length sailed 
 smoothly down, by adding an under- 
 current of her own recollections ; and 
 so both ladies went on talking together 
 in perfect contentment ; the only dif- 
 ference between them, being, that 
 whereas Miss Knag addressed herself 
 to Kate, and talked very loud, Mrs. 
 Nickleby kept on in one unbroken mo- 
 notonous flow, perfectly satisfied to be 
 talking, and caring very little whether 
 anybody listened or not. 
 
 In this manner they walked on, very 
 amicably, until they arrived at Miss 
 Knag's brother's, who was an orna- 
 mental stationer and small circulating 
 library keeper, in a by-street off Tot- 
 tenham 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 charac- 
 ters on a sheet of pasteboard, swinging 
 at his door-post. As Miss Knag hap- 
 pened, at the moment, to be in the 
 middle of an account of her twenty- 
 second offer from a gentleman of largs 
 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.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 133 
 
 a 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 caudles on the counter, and 
 two more in the window, and then 
 snuffed himself from a box in his waist- 
 coat pocket. 
 
 There was something very impressive 
 m the ghostly air with which all this 
 was done ; and as Mr. Knag was a tall 
 lank gentleman of solemn features, 
 wearing spectacles, and garnished with 
 much less hair than a gentleman bor- 
 dering on forty, or thereabouts, usually 
 boasts, Mrs. Nickleby whispered her 
 (laughter that she thought he must be 
 literary. 
 
 " Past ten," said Mr. Knag, con- 
 sulting his watch. " Thomas, close the 
 warehouse." 
 
 Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall 
 as a shutter, and the warehouse was a 
 shop about the size of three hackney 
 coaches. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Knag once more, 
 heaving a deep sigh as he restored to 
 its parent shelf the book lie had been 
 reading. " Well yes I believe sup- 
 per is ready, sister." 
 
 With another sigh Mr. Knag took 
 up the kitchen candles from the 
 counter, and preceded the ladies with 
 mournful steps to a back parlour, where 
 a char- woman, employed in the absence 
 of the sick servant, and remunerated 
 with certain eighteenpences to be de- 
 ducted from her wages due, was putting 
 the supper out 
 
 " Mrs. Blockson," said Miss Knag, 
 reproachfully, " how very often I have 
 begged you not to come into the room 
 with your bonnet on ! " 
 
 " I can't help it, Miss Knag," said 
 the char-woman, bridling up on the 
 shortest notice. " There 's been a deal 
 <>' cleaning to do in this house, and if 
 you don't like it, I must trouble you to 
 look out for somebody else, for it don't 
 hardly pay me, and that's the truth, if 
 I was to be hung this minute." 
 
 -" I don't want any remarks if you 
 
 please," said Miss Knag, with a strong 
 emphasis on the personal pronoun. 
 " Is there any fire down stairs for some 
 hot water presently !" 
 
 " No there is not, indeed, Miss 
 Knag," replied the substitute; "and 
 so I won't tell you no stories about it." 
 
 " Then why isn't there 1" said Miss 
 Knag. 
 
 "Because there an'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 fe- 
 male 1 " said Mr. Mortimer Knag, 
 plunging violently into this dialogue. 
 
 " By your leave, Mr. Knag," retorted 
 the char-woman, turning sharp round. 
 " I 'm only too glad not to speak in this 
 house, excepting when and where I 'm 
 spoke to, sir ; and with regard to being 
 a female, sir, I should wish to know 
 what you considered yourself?" 
 
 " A miserable wretch," exclaimed 
 Mr. Knag, striking his forehead. " A 
 miserable wretch." 
 
 " I 'm very glad to find that you 
 don't call yourself out of your name, 
 sir," said Mrs. Blockson ; " and as I 
 had two twin children the day before 
 yesterday was only seven weeks, and 
 my little Charley fell down a airy and 
 put his elber out, last Monday, I shall 
 take it as a favior if you '11 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; Mr. Knag, at the same moment, 
 flung himself into the " warehouse," 
 and groaned aloud. 
 
 " What is the matter with that gen- 
 tleman, pray ? " inquired Mrs. Nick- 
 leby, greatly disturbed by the sound. 
 
 " Is he ill ? " inquired Kate, really 
 alarmed. 
 
 Hush ! " replied Miss Knag ; " a 
 most melancholy history. He was 
 once most devotedly attached to hem 
 to Madame Mantalini." 
 
 " Bless me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Nick- 
 leby.
 
 134 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Yes," continued Miss Knag, " and 
 received great encouragement too, and 
 confidently hoped to marry her. He 
 has a most romantic heart, Mrs. Nick- 
 leby, as indeed hem as indeed all 
 our family have, and the disappoint- 
 ment was a dreadful blow. He is a 
 wonderfully accomplished man most 
 extraordinarily accomplished reads 
 hem reads every novel that comes 
 out ; I mean every novel that hem 
 that has any fashion in it, of course. 
 The fact is, that he did find so much 
 in the books he read, applicable to his 
 own misfortunes, and did find himself 
 in every respect so much like the 
 heroes because of course he is con- 
 scious of his own superiority, as we all 
 are, and very naturally that he took 
 to scorning everything, and became 
 a genius ; and I am quite sure that he 
 is, at this very present moment, writing 
 another book." 
 
 " Another book ! " repeated Kate, 
 finding that a pause was left for some- 
 body to say something. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Knag, nodding in 
 great triumph ; " another book, in 
 three volumes post octavo. Of course 
 it 's a great advantage to him, in all his 
 little fashionable descriptions, to have 
 the benefit of my hem of my ex- 
 perience, because, of course, fewauthors 
 who write about such things can have 
 such opportunities of knowing them as 
 I have. He 's so wrapped up in high 
 life, that the least allusion to business 
 or worldly matters like that woman 
 just now, for instance quite distracts 
 him ; but, as I often say, I think his 
 disappointment a great thing for him, 
 because if he hadn't been disappointed 
 he couldn't have written about blighted 
 hopes and all that ; and the fact is, if 
 it hadn't happened as it has, I don't 
 believe his genius would ever have 
 come out at all." 
 
 How much more communicative 
 Miss Knag might have become under 
 more favourable circumstances, it is 
 impossible to divine, but as the gloomy 
 one was within ear-shot, and the fire 
 wanted making up, her disclosures 
 stopped here. To judge from all ap- 
 pearances, and the difficulty of making 
 
 the water warm, the last servant could 
 not have been much accustomed to 
 any other fire than St. Anthony's ; but 
 a little brandy and water was made at 
 last, and the guests, having been pre- 
 viously 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 glimpe of Mr. Mortimer Knag 
 deeply abstracted in the shop ; and 
 Mrs. Nickleby by debating within her- 
 self whether the dress-making firm 
 would ultimately become " Mantalini, 
 Knag, and Nickleby," or " Mantalini, 
 Nickleby, and Knag." 
 
 At this high point, Miss Knag's 
 friendship remained, for three whole 
 days, much to the wonderment of 
 Madame Mantalini's young ladies who 
 had never beheld such constancy in 
 that quarter, before; but on the fourth, 
 it received a check no less violent than 
 sudden, which thus occurred. 
 
 It happened that an old lord of great 
 family, who was going to marry a 
 young lady of no family in particular, 
 came with the young lady, and the 
 young lady's sister, to witness the cere- 
 mony of trying on two nuptial bonnets 
 which had been ordered the day be- 
 fore ; and Madame Mantalini an- 
 nouncing the fact, in a shrill treble, 
 through the speaking-pipe, which com- 
 municated 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 charm- 
 ing state of palpitation, intended to 
 demonstrate her enthusiasm in the 
 cause. The bonnets were no sooner 
 fairly on, than Miss Knag and Ma- 
 dame Mantalini fell into convulsions 
 of admiration. 
 
 " A most elegant appearance," said 
 Madame Mantalini. 
 
 " I never saw anything so exquisite 
 in all my life," said Miss Knag. 
 
 Now, the old lord, who was a veri, 
 old lord, said nothing, but mumbled 
 and chuckled in a state of great de- 
 light, no less with the nuptial bonnets 
 and their wearers, than with his own 
 address in getting such a fine woman 
 for his wife ; and the young lady, who
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 135 
 
 was a very lively young lady, seeing 
 the old lord in this rapturous con- 
 dition, chased the old lord behind a 
 cheval-glass, and then and there kissed 
 him, while Madame Mantalini and the 
 other young lady looked, discreetly, 
 another way. 
 
 But, pending the salutation, Miss 
 Knag, who was tinged with curiosity, 
 stepped accidentally behind the glass, 
 and encountered the lively young lady's 
 eye just at the very moment when she 
 kissed the old lord ; upon which the 
 young lady, in a pouting manner, mur- 
 mured something about " an old thing," 
 and " great impertinence," and finished 
 by darting a look of displeasure at Miss 
 Knag, and smiling contemptuously. 
 
 " Madame Mantalini," said the young 
 lady. 
 
 " Ma'am," said Madame Mantalini. 
 
 " Pray have up that pretty young 
 creature we saw yesterday." 
 
 " Oh yes, do," said the sister. 
 
 " Of all things in the world, Ma- 
 damo Mantalini,"' said the lord's in- 
 tended, throwing herself languidly on 
 a sofa, " I hate being waited upon by 
 frights or elderly persons. Let me 
 always see that young creature, I beg, 
 whenever I come." 
 
 " By all means," said the old lord ; 
 "the lovely young creature, by ah* 
 means." 
 
 " Everybody is talking about her," 
 said the young lady, in the same care- 
 less manner ; " and my lord, being a 
 great admirer of beauty, must posi- 
 tively see her." 
 
 ' "She w universally admired," re- 
 plied Madame Mantalini. " Miss 
 Knag, send up Miss Nickleby. You 
 needn't return." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Madame Man- 
 talini, 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 rea- 
 sonable time was replaced by Kate, 
 who took off the new bonnets and put 
 on the old ones : blushing very much 
 to find that the old lord and the two 
 young ladies were staring her out of 
 countenance all the time. 
 
 " Why, how you colour, child ! " 
 said the lord's chosen bride. 
 
 " She is not quite so accustomed to 
 her business, as she will be in a week 
 or two," interposed Madame Mantaliiii 
 with a gracious smile. 
 
 " I am afraid you have been giving 
 her some of your wicked looks, my 
 lord," said the intended. 
 
 " No, no, no," replied the old lord, 
 " no, no, I 'm going to be married and 
 lead a new life. Ha, ha, ha ! a new 
 We, a new life ! ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 It was a satisfactory thing to hear 
 that the old gentleman was going to 
 lead a new life, for it was pretty evi- 
 dent that his old one would not last 
 him much longer. The mere exertion 
 of protracted chuckling reduced him 
 to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasp- 
 ing; it was some minutes before he 
 could find breath to remark that the 
 girl was too pretty for a milliner. 
 
 " I hope you don't think good looks 
 a disqualification for the business, my 
 lord," said Madame Mantalini, sim- 
 pering. 
 
 " Not by any means," replied the 
 old lord, " or you would have left it 
 long ago." 
 
 " You naughty creature," said the 
 lively lady, poking the peer with her 
 parasol ; " I won't have you talk so. 
 How dare you ? " 
 
 This playful inquiry was accompa- 
 nied with another poke, and another, 
 and then the old lord caught the para- 
 sol, 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 alte- 
 rations are made, Madame Mantalini," 
 said the lady. " Nay, you bad man, you 
 positively shall go first ; I wouldn't- 
 leave you behind with that pretty girl, 
 not for half a second. I know you 
 too well. Jane, my dear, let him go 
 first, and we shall be quite sure of 
 him." 
 
 The old lord, evidently much flat- 
 tered by this suspicion, bestowed a 
 grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed ; 
 and, receiving another tap with the 
 parasol for his wickedness, tottered
 
 136 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 .Sown stairs to the door, where his 
 sprightly body was hoisted into the 
 carriage by two stout footmen. 
 
 " Foh ! " said Madame Mantalini, 
 "how he ever gets into a carriage 
 without thinking of a hearse, / 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 permis- 
 sion to retire, and hasten joyfully 
 down stairs to Miss Knag's dominion. 
 
 The circumstances of the little king- 
 dom had greatly changed, however, 
 during the short period of her absence. 
 In place of Miss Knag being stationed 
 in her accustomed seat, preserving all 
 the dignity and greatness of Madame 
 Mantalini's representative, that wor- 
 thy 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 re- 
 storatives, would have borne ample 
 testimony, even without the derange- 
 ment of the head-dress and front row 
 of curls, to her having fainted despe- 
 rately. 
 
 " Bless me ! " said Kate, stepping 
 hastily forward, " What is the matter I " 
 
 This inquiry produced in Miss Knag 
 violent symptoms of a relapse ; and 
 several young ladies, darting angry 
 looks at Kate, applied more vinegar 
 and hartshorn, and said it was "a 
 shame " 
 
 " What is a shame ? " demanded 
 Kate. " What is the matter * What 
 has happened ? tell me." 
 
 " Matter! " cried Miss Knag, coming, 
 all at once, bolt upright, to the great 
 consternation of the assembled 
 maidens ; " Matter ! Fie upon you, 
 you nasty creature ! " 
 
 " Gracious ! " cried Kate, almost 
 paralysed by the violence with which 
 the adjective had been jerked out from 
 between Miss Knag's closed teeth ; 
 " have I offended you \ " 
 
 " You offended me ! " retorted Miss 
 Knag, " You I a chit, a child, an up- 
 start nobody ! Ob, indeed ! Ha, ha ! " 
 
 Now, it was evident, as Miss Knag 
 laughed, that something struck her a.-. 
 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 intro- 
 ducing Kate with much ceremony and 
 many low curtseys to the delighted 
 throng ; " here she is everybody is 
 talking about her the belle, ladies 
 the beauty, the oh, you bold-faced 
 thing ! " 
 
 At this crisis, Miss Knag was unable 
 to repress a virtuous shudder, which 
 immediately communicated itself to all 
 the young ladies ; after which, Miss 
 Knag laughed, and after that, cried. 
 
 " For fifteen years," exclaimed 
 Miss Knag, sobbing in a most affecting 
 manner, "for fifteen years have I 
 been the credit and ornament of this 
 room and the one 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 disgraces us with all her proceed- 
 ings, and makes proper people blush 
 for themselves. But I feel it, I do 
 feel it, although I am disgusted." 
 
 Miss Knag here relapsed into soft- 
 ness, and the young ladies renewing 
 their attentions, murmured that she 
 ought to be superior to such things, 
 and that for their part they despised 
 them, and considered tin-in 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 
 tiardly knew what to do with them- 
 selves. 
 
 " Have I lived to this day to be 
 called a fright ! " cried Miss Knag, 
 suddenly becoming convulsive, and 
 making an effort to tear her front off. 
 
 ' Oh no, no," replied the chorus, 
 " pray don't say so ; don't now ! "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 137 
 
 u Have I deserved to be called an 
 elderly person ? " screamed Miss 
 Knag, wrestling with the supernume- 
 raries. 
 
 " Don't think of such tilings, 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 ! " Having denounced the 1 
 object of her wrath, in these terms, 
 Miss Knag screamed once, hiccuped 
 thrice, gurgled in her throat several 
 times, slumbered, shivered, woke, 
 came to, composed her head-dress, and 
 declared herself quite well again. 
 
 Poor Kate had regarded these pro- 
 ceedings, at first, in perfect bewilder- 
 ment She had then turned red and 
 pale by turns, and once or twice 
 essayed to speak ; but, as the true 
 motives of this altered behaviour de- 
 veloped themselves, she retired a few 
 paces, and looked calmly on without 
 deigning a reply. Nevertheless, al- 
 though she walked proudly to her seat, 
 and turned her back upon the group of 
 "ittle satellites who clustered round 
 their ruling planet in the remotest 
 corner of the room, she gave way, in 
 secret, to some such bitter tears as 
 would have gladdened Miss Knag's 
 inmost soul, if she could havo seen 
 them fall. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF A DINNER AT MR. RALPH NICKLEBY'S, AND OF THE MANNER 
 IN WHICH THE COMPANY ENTERTAINED THEMSELVES, DEKORE DINNER, AT 
 DINNER, AND AFTER DINNER. 
 
 altered manner of Mr. Nickleby him- 
 self. 
 
 "Ah! my dear!" said Ralph; 
 "we were at that moment talking 
 about you." 
 
 " Indeed ! " replied Kate, shrinking, 
 though she scarce knew why, from 
 her uncle's cold glistening eye. 
 
 "That instant," said Ralph. "I 
 was coming to call for you, making 
 sure to catch you before you left ; but 
 your mother and I have been talking 
 over family affairs, and the time has 
 slipped away so rapidly " 
 
 " Well, now, hasn't it ? " interposed 
 Mrs. Nickleby, quite insensible to the 
 sarcastic tone of Ralph's last remark. 
 " Upon my word, I couldn't have be- 
 lieved it possible, that such a 
 
 Kate, my dear, you're to dine with 
 your uncle at halt-past six o'clock to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Triumphing in having been the first 
 to communicate this extraordinary 
 intelligence, Mrs. Nickleby nodded 
 and smiled a great many times, to 
 impress its full magnificence on Kate's 
 
 THE bile and rancour of the worthy 
 Miss Knag undergoing no diminution 
 during the remainder of the week, but 
 rather augmenting with every succes- 
 sive hour ; and the honest ire of all 
 the young ladies rising, or seeming to 
 rise, in exact proportion to the good 
 spinster's indignation, and both waxing 
 very hot every time Miss Nickleby 
 was called 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 
 ef Saturday night, as a prisoner would 
 a few delicious hours' respite from 
 slow and wearing torture, and felt, 
 that the poor pittance for her first 
 week's labour would have been dearly 
 and hardly earned, had its amount 
 been trebled. 
 
 When she joined her mother, as 
 usual, at the street corner, she was not 
 a little surprised to find her in con- 
 versation with Mr. Ralph Nickleby ; 
 but her surprise was soon redoubled, 
 DO less by the matter of their con- 
 versation, than by the smoothed and
 
 138 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 wondering mind, and then flew off, at 
 an acute angle, to a committee of ways 
 and means. 
 
 " Let me see," said the good lady. 
 " Your black silk frock will be quite 
 dress enough, my dear, with that 
 pretty little scarf, and a plain band in 
 your hair, and a pair of black silk 
 
 stock Dear, dear," cried Mrs. 
 
 Nickleby, flying off at another angle, 
 " if I had but those unfortunate ame- 
 thysts of mine you recollect them, 
 Kate, my love how they used to 
 sparkle, you know but your papa, 
 your poor dear papa ah ! there never 
 was anything so cruelly sacrificed as 
 those jewels were, never ! " Over- 
 powered by this agonising thought, 
 Mrs. Nickleby shook her head, in a 
 melancholy manner, and applied her 
 handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 "I don't want them, mamma, in- 
 deed," said Kate. " Forget that you 
 ever had them." 
 
 " Lord, Kate, my dear," rejoined 
 Mrs. Nickleby, pettishly, "how like 
 a child you talk ! Four-and-twenty 
 silver tea-spoons, brother-in-law, two 
 gravies, four salts, all the amethysts 
 necklace, brooch, and ear-rings all 
 made away with, at the same time, and 
 I saying, almost on my bended knees, 
 to that poor good soul, ' Why don't 
 you do something, Nicholas ? Why 
 don't you make some arrangement ! ' 
 I am sure that anybody who was about 
 us at that time, will do me the justice 
 to own, that if I said that, once, I said it 
 fifty times a-day. Didn't I, Kate, my 
 dear ? Did I ever lose an opportunity 
 of impressing it on your poor papa ? " 
 
 " No, no, 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 enveloped. 
 
 "All!" said Mrs. Nickleby, with 
 great fervour, " if my advice had been 
 taken at the beginning Well, I have 
 always done my duty, and that 's some 
 comfort." 
 
 When she liad arrived at this re- 
 flection, Mrs. Nickleby sighed, rubbed 
 her hands, cast up her eyes, and 
 finally assumed a look of meek com- 
 posure; thus importing that she was, 
 a persecuted saint, but that sh 
 wouldn't trouble her hearers by men 
 tioning a circumstance which must be 
 so obvious to everybody. 
 
 " Now," said Ralph, with a smile, 
 which, in common with all other 
 tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk 
 under his face, rather than play boldly 
 over it " to return to the point from 
 which we have strayed. I have a 
 little party of of gentlemen with 
 whom I am connected in business just 
 now, at my house 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 au 
 important part of it sometimes. You 
 don't mind obliging me ? " 
 
 Mind ! " cried Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " My dear Kate, why " 
 
 " Pray," interrupted Ralph, mo- 
 tioning her to be silent. " I spoke to 
 my niece." 
 
 " I shall be very glad, of course, 
 uncle," replied Kate ; " but I am 
 afraid you will find me awkward and 
 embarrassed." 
 
 " Oh no," said Ralph ; " come when 
 you like, in a hackney coach I '11 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, 
 Mid abruptly left them. 
 
 " What a very strongly-marked 
 countenance your uncle has ! " said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, quite struck with his 
 parting look. " I don't see the slightest 
 resemblance to his poor brother." 
 
 " Mamma ! " said Kate, reprovingly. 
 " To think of such a thing ! " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Nickleby, musing. 
 " There certainly is none. But it 'a 
 a very honest face."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 139 
 
 The worthy matron made this re- 
 mark with great emphasis and elocu- 
 tion, as if it comprised no small quan- 
 tity of ingenuity and research ; and, in 
 truth, it was not unworthy of being 
 classed among the extraordinary dis- 
 coveries of the age. Kate looked up 
 hastily, and as hastily looked down 
 again. 
 
 " What has come over you, my dear, 
 in the name of goodness ? " asked Mrs. 
 Nickleby, when they had walked on, 
 for some tune, in silence. 
 
 ' I was only thinking, mamma," an- 
 swered Kate. 
 
 *" Thinking !" repeated Mrs. Nick- 
 leby. " Aye, and indeed plenty to 
 think about, too. Your uncle has 
 taken a strong fancy to you, that 's 
 quite clear ; and if some extraordi- 
 nary good fortune doesn't come to you 
 after this, I shall be a little surprised, 
 that 'sail." 
 
 With this, she launched out into 
 sundry anecdotes of young ladies, who 
 had had thousand pound notes given 
 them in reticules, by eccentric uncles; 
 and of young ladies who had acci- 
 dentally met amiable gentlemen of 
 enormous wealth at their uncles' 
 houses, and married them, after short 
 but ardent courtships ; and Kate, 
 listening first in apathy, and after- 
 wards in amusement, felt, as they 
 walked home, something of her 
 mother's sanguine complexion gra- 
 dually awakening in her own bosom, 
 and began to think that her prospects 
 might be brightening, and that better 
 days might be dawning upon them. 
 Such is hope, Heaven's own gift to 
 struggling mortals ; pervading, like 
 some subtle essence from the skies, all 
 things, both good and bad ; as uni- 
 versal as death, and more infectious 
 than disease ! 
 
 The feeble winter's sun and win- 
 ter'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-fur- 
 nished room displayed. In a gloomy 
 corner, where, for years, had stood a 
 silent dusty pile of merchandise, shel- 
 
 tering its colony of mice, and frown- 
 ing, a dull and lifeless mass, upon tha 
 panelled room, save when, respond- 
 ing to the roll of heavy waggons in 
 die street without, it quaked with 
 sturdy tremblings and caused the 
 bright eyes of its tiny citizens to grow 
 brighter still with fear, and struck 
 them motionless, with attentive ear 
 and palpitating heart, until the alarm 
 had passed away in this dark corner, 
 was arranged, with scrupulous care, 
 all Kate's little finery for the day ; 
 each article of dress partaking of that 
 indescribable air of jauntiness and 
 individuality which empty garments 
 whether by association, or that they 
 become moulded, as it were, to the 
 owner's form will take, in eyes 
 accustomed to, or picturing, the 
 wearer's smartness. In place of a 
 bale of musty goods, there lay the 
 black silk dress : the neatest possible 
 figure in itself. The small shoes, 
 with toes delicately turned out, stood 
 upon the very pressure of some old 
 iron weight ; and a pile of harsh dis- 
 coloured leather had unconsciously 
 given place to the very same little 
 pair of black silk stockings, which had 
 been the objects of Mrs. Nickleby's 
 peculiar care. Rats and mice, and 
 such small gear, had long ago been 
 starved, or had emigrated to better 
 quarters ; and, in their stead, appeared 
 gloves, bands, scarfs, hair-pins, and 
 many other little devices, almost as 
 ingenious in their way as rats and 
 mice themselves, for the tantalisation 
 of mankind. About and among them 
 all, moved Kate herself, not the least 
 beautiful or unwonted relief to the 
 stern, old, gloomy building. 
 
 In good time, or in bad time, as the 
 reader likes to take it for Mrs. Nick- 
 leby'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
 
 140 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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, 
 until they came to Golden Square. 
 
 The coachman gave a tremendous 
 double knock at the door, which was 
 opened long before he had done, as 
 quickly as if there had been a man 
 behind it, with his hand tied to the latch. 
 Kate, who had expected no more 
 uncommon appearance than Newman 
 Noggs in a clean shirt, was not a little 
 astonished to see that the opener was 
 a man in handsome livery, and that 
 there were two or three others in the 
 hall. There was no doubt about its 
 being the right house, however, for 
 there was the name upon the door; 
 so, she accepted the laced coat-sleeve 
 which was tendered her, and entering 
 the house, was ushered up stairs, into 
 a back drawing-room, where she was 
 teft alone. 
 
 If she had been surprised at the 
 apparition of the footman, she was per- 
 fectly absorbed in amazement at the 
 richness and splendour of the furni- 
 ture. The softest and most elegant 
 carpets, the most exquisite pictures, 
 the costliest mirrors ; articles of rich- 
 est ornament, quite dazzling from then? 
 foeauty, and perplexing from the pro- 
 digality 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 distinguishable at 
 first, but by degrees they merged into 
 the general buzz of conversation, and 
 all she could ascertain was, that there 
 
 were several gentlemen with no very- 
 musical voices, who talked very loud, 
 laughed very heartily, and swore more 
 than she would have thought quite neces- 
 sary. 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 conver- 
 sant 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 I " 
 
 " No," said Ralph, shortly, " I don't 
 know any." 
 
 " Must I go in immediately ? " asked 
 Kate, drawing back a little. 
 
 " As you please," said Ralph, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. "They are all 
 come, and dinner will be announced 
 directly afterwards that 's all" 
 
 Kate would have entreated a few 
 minutes' respite, but reflecting that 
 her uncle might consider the payment 
 of the hackney-coach fare a sort of 
 bargain for her punctuality, she suf- 
 fered him to draw her arm through 
 his, and to lead her away. 
 
 Seven or eight gentlemen were stand- 
 ing round the fire when they went in, 
 and, as they were talking very loud 
 were not aware of their entrance until 
 Mr. Ralph Nickleby, touching one on 
 the coat-sleeve,said in a harsh emphatic 
 voice, as if to attract general attention : 
 
 " Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, 
 Miss Nickleby." 
 
 The group dispersed, as if in great 
 surprise, and the gentleman addressed, 
 turning round, exhibited a suit of 
 clothes of the most superlative cut, a 
 pair of whiskers of similar quality, a 
 moustache, a head of hair, and a young 
 face. 
 
 " Eh ! " said the gentleman. What 
 | the deyvle 1 "
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 141 
 
 With which broken ejaculations, ho 
 fixed his glass in his eye, and stared at 
 Miss Nickleby in great surprise. 
 
 " My niece, my lord," said Ralph. 
 
 " Then my ears did not deceive 
 me, and it's not wa-a-x work," said 
 his lordship. ** How de do ? I 'm 
 very happy." And then his lordship 
 turned to another superlative gentle- 
 man, something older, something 
 stouter, something redder in the face, 
 and something longer upon town, and 
 said in a loud whisper that the girl 
 was " deyvlish pitty." 
 
 " Introduce me, Nickleby," said this 
 second gentleman, who was lounging 
 with his back to the fire, and both 
 elbows on die chimney-piece. 
 
 " Sir Mulberry Hawk," said Ralph. 
 
 " Otherwise the most knowing card 
 in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby," said 
 Lord Frederick Verisopht. 
 
 " Don't leave me out, Nickleby," 
 cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who 
 was sitting on a low chair with a high 
 back, reading the paper. 
 
 " Mr. Pyke," said Ralph. 
 
 "Nor me, Nickleby," cried a gentle- 
 man with a flushed face and a flash 
 air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk. 
 
 "Mr. Pluck," said Ralph. Then 
 wheeling about again, towards a gentle- 
 man with the neck of a stork and the 
 legs of no animal in particular, Ralph 
 introduced him as the Honourable Mr. 
 Snobb ; and a white-headed person at 
 the table as Colonel Chowser. The 
 colonel was in conversation with some- 
 body, 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 ea^y inso- 
 lence of their manner towards herself. 
 That the first symptom was very likely 
 to lead to the aggravation of the second, 
 it needed no great penetration to fore- 
 see. 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 conven- 
 tional behaviour, the chances are, that 
 she will have quite as strong an innate 
 sense of the decencies and proprieties 
 of life as if she had run the gauntlet of 
 a dozen London seasons possibly a 
 stronger one, for such senses have 
 been known to blunt in this improving 
 process. 
 
 When Ralph had completed the 
 ceremonial of introduction, he led his 
 blushing niece to a seat. As he did so, 
 he glanced warily round as though to 
 assure himself of the impression which 
 her unlooked-for appearance had 
 created. 
 
 " An unexpected playsure, Nick- 
 leby," 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 
 Fredsrick," 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, or whatever it is, and 
 give me half for the advice." 
 
 Sir Mulberry garnished this speech 
 with a hoarse laugh, and terminated 
 it with a pleasant oath regarding 
 Mr. Nickleby's limbs, whereat Messrs. 
 Pyke and Pluck laughed consumedly. 
 
 These gentlemen had not yet quite 
 recovered the jest, when dinner was 
 announced, and then they were thrown 
 into fresh ecstacies by a similar cause ; 
 for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess 
 of humour, shot dexterously past Lord 
 Frederick Verisopht who was about to 
 lead Kate down stairs, and drew her 
 arm through his up to the elbow. 
 
 " No, damn it, Verisopht," said Sir 
 Mulberry, "fair play's a jewel, and 
 Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter 
 with our eyes, ten minutes ago." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed the Honour- 
 able Mr. Snobb, "very good, very 
 good."
 
 142 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 gentle 
 breast such burning indignation, as she 
 felt it almost impossible to repress. 
 Nor was the intensity of these feelings 
 at all diminished, when she found her- 
 self placed at the top of the table, with 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick 
 Verisopht on either side. 
 
 "Oh, you've found your way into 
 our neighbourhood, have you?" said 
 Sir Mulberry as his lordship sat down. 
 
 " Of course," replied Lord Frede- 
 rick, fixing his eyes on Miss Nickleby, 
 "how can you a-ask me 1" 
 
 " 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, Nick- 
 leby," said Lord Frederick. 
 
 "What is the matter, my lord?" 
 demanded Ralph from the bottom of 
 the table, where he was supported by 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck. 
 
 " This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising 
 your niece," said Lord Frederick. 
 
 " He has a tolerable share of every- 
 thing that you lay claim to, my lord," 
 said Ralph with a sneer. 
 
 " 'Gad, so he has," replied the young 
 man ; " dey vie take me if I know which 
 is master in my house, he or I." 
 
 " / know," muttered Ralph. 
 
 " I think I shall cut him off with a 
 shilling,"' said the young nobleman, jo- 
 cosely. 
 
 " No, no, curse it," said Sir Mulberry. 
 " When you come to the shilling the 
 last shilling I '11 cut you fast enough ; 
 but till then, I '11 never leave you you 
 may take your oath of it." 
 
 This sally (which was strictly found- 
 ed on fact,) was received with a general 
 roar, above which, was plainly distin- 
 guishable the laughter of Mr. Pyke 
 and Mr. Pluck, who were, evidently, Sir 
 Mulberry's toads in ordinary. Indeed, 
 it was not difficult to see, that the ma- 
 jority of the company preyed upon the 
 unfortunate young lord, who, weak and 
 
 silly as he was, appeared by far the 
 least vicious of the party. Sir Mul- 
 berry 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 ori- 
 ginal genius, he had struck out an 
 entirely new course of treatment quite 
 opposed to the usualmethod ; his custom 
 being, when he had gained the ascend- 
 ancy over those he took in hand, rather 
 to keep them down than to give them 
 their own way ; and to exercise his 
 vivacityupon them, openly, and without 
 reserve. Thus, he made them butts, in 
 a double sense, and while he emptied 
 them with great address, caused them 
 to ring with sundry well-administered 
 taps, for the diversion of society. 
 
 The dinner was as remarkable for 
 the splendour and completeness of its 
 appointments as the mansion itself, 
 and the company were remarkable for 
 doing it ample justice, in which respect 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck particularly 
 signalised themselves ; these two gen- 
 tlemen eating of every dish, and drink- 
 ing of every bottle, with a capacity and 
 perseverance truly astonishing. They 
 were remarkably fresh, too, notwith- 
 standing 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, sip- 
 ping his first glass of port, "if this 
 is a discounting dinner, all I have to 
 say is, deyvle take me, if it wouldn't be 
 a good pla-an to get discount every 
 day." 
 
 " You '11 have pienty of it, in your 
 time," returned Sir Mulberry Hawk ; 
 " Nickleby will tell you that.' 1 * 
 
 " What do you say, Nickleby !" in- 
 quired the young man ; " am I to be a 
 good customer P 
 
 " It depends entirely on circum- 
 stances, my lord,'' replied Ralph. 
 
 " On your lordship's circumstances," 
 interposed Colonel Chowser of the Mi- 
 litia and the race-courses. 
 
 The gallant colonel glanced at 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck as if he thought
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 143 
 
 they ought to laugh at his joke, but 
 those gentlemen, being only engaged 
 to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, were, 
 to his signal discomfiture, as grave as 
 a pair of undertakers. To add to his 
 defeat, Sir Mulberry, considering any 
 such efforts an invasion of his peculiar 
 privilege, eyed the offender steadily, 
 through his glass, as if astonished at 
 his presumption, and audibly stated 
 his impression that it was an " infernal 
 liberty," which being a hint to Lord 
 Frederick, he put up his glass, and sur- 
 veyed the object of censure as if he 
 were some extraordinary wild animal 
 then exhibiting for the first time. As 
 a matter of course, Messrs. Pyke and 
 Pluck stared at the individual whom 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk stared at ; so, the 
 poor colonel, to hide his confusion, 
 was reduced to the necessity of holding 
 his port before his right eye and affect- 
 ing to scrutinise its colour with the 
 most lively interest. 
 
 All this while, Kate had sat as silently 
 as she could, scarcely daring to raise 
 her eyes, lest they should encounter 
 the admiring gaze of Lord Frederick 
 Verisopht, or, what was still more em- 
 barrassing, the bold looks of his friend 
 Sir Mulberry. The latter gentleman 
 was obliging enough to direct general 
 attention towards her. 
 
 " Here is Miss Nickleby," observed 
 Sir Mulberry, "wondering why the 
 deuce somebody doesn't make love to 
 her." 
 
 "No, indeed," said Kate, looking 
 
 hastily up, "I " and then she 
 
 stopped, feeling it would have been 
 better to have said nothing at all. 
 
 " I '11 hold any man fifty pounds," 
 said Sir Mulberry, "that Miss Nickleby 
 can't look in my face, and tell me she 
 wasn't thinking so." 
 
 " Done ! " cried the noble gull. 
 " Within ten minutes." 
 
 " Done ! " responded Sir Mulberry. 
 The money was produced on both 
 sides, and the Honourable Mr. Snobb 
 was elected to the double office of stake- 
 holder and time-keeper. 
 
 " Pray," said Kate, in great con- 
 fusion, while these preliminaries were 
 in course of completion. " Pray do 
 
 not make me the subject of any bets. 
 Uncle, I cannot really " 
 
 " Why not, my dear 1 " replied 
 Ralph, in whose grating voice, how- 
 ever, there was an unusual huskiness, 
 as though he spoke unwillingly, and 
 would rather that the proposition had 
 not been broached. " It is done in a 
 moment ; there is nothing in it. If 
 the gentlemen insist on it " 
 
 " / don't insist on it," said Sir Mul- 
 berry, with a loud laugh. " That is, I 
 by no means insist upon MissNickleby'a 
 making the denial, for if she does, I 
 lose; but I shall be glad to see her 
 bright eyes, especially as she favours 
 the mahogany so much." 
 
 " So she does, and it 's too ba-a-d of 
 you, Miss Nickleby," said the noble 
 youth. 
 
 " Quite cruel," said Mr. Pyke. 
 
 " Horrid cruel," said Mr. Pluck. 
 
 " I don't care if I do lose," said Sir 
 Mulberry ; " for one tolerable look at 
 Miss Nickleby's eyes is worth double 
 the money." 
 
 " More," said Mr. Pyke. 
 
 " Far more," said Mr. Pluck. 
 
 " How goes the enemy, Snobb t " 
 asked Sir Mulberry Hawk. 
 
 " Four minutes gone." 
 
 Bravo ! " 
 
 " Won't you ma-ake one effort for 
 me, Miss Nickleby ? " asked Lord 
 Frederick, after a short interval. 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself to 
 inquire, my buck," said Sir Mulberry; 
 " Miss Nickleby and I, understand each 
 other; she declares on my side, and 
 shows her taste. You haven't a chance, 
 old fellow. Time, Snobb 1 " 
 
 " Eight minutes gone." 
 
 " Get the money ready," said Sir 
 Mulberry; " you '11 soon hand over." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Mr. Pyke. 
 
 Mr. Pluck, who always came second, 
 and topped his companion if he could, 
 screamed outright. 
 
 The poor girl, who was so over- 
 whelmed with confusion that she 
 scarcely knew what she did, had de- 
 termined to remain perfectly quiet; 
 but fearing that by so doing she might 
 seem to countenance Sir Mulberry's 
 boast, which had been uttered with
 
 144 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 great coarseness and vulgarity of man- 
 ner, raised her eyes, and looked him hi 
 the face. There was something so 
 odious, so insolent, so repulsive in the 
 look which met her, that, without the 
 power to stammer forth a syllable, she 
 rose and hurried from the room. She 
 restrained her tears by a great effort 
 until she was alone up stairs, and then 
 tpwe them vent 
 
 Capital !" said Sir Mulberry Hawk, 
 putting the stakes in his pocket. 
 " That 's a girl of spirit, and we '11 
 drink her health." 
 
 It is needless to say, that Pyke and 
 Co. responded, with great warmth of 
 manner, to this proposal, or that the 
 toast was drunk with many little in- 
 sinuations from the firm, relative to 
 the completeness of Sir Mulberry's 
 conquest. Ralph, who, while the 
 attention of the other guests was at- 
 tracted to the principals hi the pre- 
 ceding scene, had eyed them like a 
 wolf, appeared to breathe more freely 
 now his niece was gone ; the decanters 
 passing quickly round, he leaned 
 back in his chair, and turned his eyes 
 from speaker to speaker, as they 
 warmed with wine, with looks that 
 seemed to search their hearts and lay 
 bare, for his distempered sport, every 
 idle thought within them. 
 
 Meantime, Kate, left wholly to her- 
 self, had, in some degree, recovered her 
 composure. She had learnt from a 
 female attendant, that her uncle wished 
 to see her before she left, and had also 
 gleaned the satisfactory intelligence, 
 that the gentlemen would take coffee 
 at table. The prospect of seeing them 
 no more, contributed greatly to calm 
 her agitation, and, taking up a book, 
 she composed herself to read. 
 
 She started sometimes, when the 
 "fldden opening of the dining-room 
 door let loose a wild shout of noisy 
 revelry, and more than once rose in 
 great alarm, as a fancied footstep on 
 the staircase impressed her with the 
 fear that some stray member of the 
 party was returning alone. Nothing 
 occurring, however, to realise her ap- 
 prehensions, she endeavoured to fix her 
 attention more closely on her book, in 
 
 which by degrees she became so muck 
 interested , that she had read on through 
 several chapters without heed of time 
 or place, when she was terrified by 
 suddenly hearing her name pronounced 
 by a man's voice close at her ear. 
 
 The book fell from her hand. 
 Lounging on an ottoman close beside 
 her, was Sir Mulberry Hawk, evidently 
 the worse if a man be a ruffian at 
 heart, he is never the better for wine. 
 
 ' What a delightful studiousness ! " 
 said this accomplished gentleman. 
 " Was it real, now, or only to display 
 the eye-lashes ? " 
 
 Kate, looking anxiously towards the 
 door, made no reply. 
 
 " I have looked at 'em for five 
 minutes," said Sir Mulberry. " Upon 
 my soul, they 're perfect. Why did I 
 speak, and destroy such a pretty little 
 picture ! " 
 
 " Do me the favour to be silent now, 
 sir," replied Kate. 
 
 " No, don't," said Sir Mulberry, 
 folding his 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 o harshly, upon my 
 soul it is." 
 
 " I wish you to understand, sir," 
 said Kate, trembling in spite of her- 
 self, but speaking with great indigna- 
 tion, " that your behaviour offends and 
 disgusts me. If you have a spark 
 of. gentlemanly feeling remaining, you 
 will leave me." 
 
 " Now why," said Sir Mulberry, 
 " why will you keep up this appear- 
 ance of excessive rigour, my sweet 
 creature ? Now, be more natural 
 my dear Miss Nickleby, be more 
 natural do." 
 
 Kate hastily rose ; but as she rose, 
 Sir Mulberry caught her dress, and 
 forcibly detained her. 
 
 "Let me go, sir," she cried, her 
 heart swelling with anger. " Do you 
 hear ! Instantly this moment." 
 
 " Sit down, sit down," said Sir Mul- 
 berry ; " I want to talk to you." 
 
 " Unhand me, sir, this instant," 
 cried Kate.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 145 
 
 " Not for the world," rejoined Sir 
 Mulberry. Thus speaking, he leaned 
 over, as if to replace her in her chair ; 
 but the young lady, making a violent 
 effort to disengage herself, he lost his 
 balance, and measured his length upon 
 the* ground. As Kate sprung forward 
 to leave the room, Mr. Ralph Nickleby 
 appeared in the door-way, and con- 
 fronted her. 
 
 What is this I " said Ralph. 
 
 " It is this, sir," replied Kate, vio- 
 lently agitated : " that beneath the 
 roof where I, a helpless girl, your 
 dead brother's child, should most have 
 found protection, I have been exposed 
 *o insult which should make you 
 shrink to look upon me. Let me pass 
 you." 
 
 Ralph di<l shrink, as the indignant 
 girl fixed her kindling eye upon him ; 
 but he did not comply with her in- 
 junction, nevertheless : for he led her 
 to a distant seat, and returning, and 
 approaching Sir Mulberry Hawk, who 
 had by this time risen, motioned to- 
 wards 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 s wnl n veins stood out like 
 sinews on Ralph's wrinkled forehead, 
 and the nerves about his mouth 
 worked as though some unendurable 
 emotion wrung them ; but he smiled 
 disdainfully, and again pointed to the 
 door. 
 
 " Do you know me, you old mad- 
 man ? " asked Sir Mulberry. 
 
 " Well," said Ralph. The fashion- 
 able vagabond for the moment quite 
 quailed under the steady logk 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 ngain, but made no 
 answer. 
 
 No. 41. 
 
 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 ascertain that Kate had not 
 moved her position so as to be within 
 hearing. His adversary saw the ad- 
 vantage he had gained, and followed 
 it up. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," he 
 asked again, " that it is not so '. Do 
 you mean to say that if he had found 
 his way up here instead of me, you 
 wouldn't have been a little more blind, 
 and a little more deaf, and a little 
 less flourishing, than you have been ! 
 Come, Nickleby, answer me that." 
 
 " I tell you this," replied Ralph, 
 " that if I brought her here, as a mat- 
 ter of Imsiness " 
 
 "Aye, that's the word," interposed 
 Sir Mulberry, with a laugh. "You're 
 coming to yourself again now." 
 
 " As a matter of business," pur- 
 sued 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 impres- 
 sion 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 ami empti- 
 ness, he would, with a little manage- 
 ment, 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 sub- 
 jecting the girl to the licentiousness 
 and brutality of so old a hand as you. 
 And now we understand each other." 
 
 L 10.
 
 146 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 "Especially as there was nothing 
 to be got by it eh ! " saeered 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 hi 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 busi- 
 ness, and the man would have been 
 an offender against his only code of 
 morality. But, here was a young girl, 
 who had done no wrong save that of 
 coming into the world alive ; who had 
 patiently yielded to all his wishes ; 
 who had tried hard to please him 
 above all, who didn't owe him money 
 and he felt awkward and nervous. 
 
 Ralph took a chair at some distance ; 
 then, another chair a little nearer ; 
 then, moved a little nearer still ; then, 
 nearer again, and finally sat himself 
 on the same sofa, and laid his hand on 
 Kate's arm. 
 
 " Hush, my dear ! " he said, as she 
 drew it back, and her sobs burst out 
 afresh. " Hush, hush ! Don't mind 
 it now ; don't think of it." 
 
 " Oh, for pity's sake, let me go 
 home," cried Kate. " Let me leave 
 this house, and go home." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Ralph. You 
 shall. But you must dry your eyes 
 first, and compose yourself. Let me 
 raise your head. There there." 
 
 " Oh, uncle ! " exclaimed Kate, 
 
 clasping her hands. " What have 1 
 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 h'sten to me for a moment," 
 interrupted Ralph, seriously alarmed 
 by the violence of her emotions. " I 
 didn't know it would be so ; it was 
 impossible for me to foresee it. I did 
 all I could. Come, let us walk about. 
 You are faint with the closeness of 
 the room, and the heat of these lamps. 
 You will be better now, if you make 
 the slightest effort." 
 
 " I will do anything," replied Kate, 
 "if you will only send me home." 
 
 Well, well, I will," said Ralph ; 
 "but you must get back your own 
 looks ; for those you have, will frighten 
 them, and nobody must know of this 
 but you and I. Now let us walk the 
 other way. There. You look better 
 even now." 
 
 With such encouragements as these, 
 Ralph Nickleby walked to and fro, 
 with his niece leaning on his arm ; 
 actually trembling beneath her touch. 
 
 In the same manner, when he judged 
 it prudent to allow her to depart, he 
 supported her down stairs, after ad- 
 justing her shawl and performing 
 such little offices, most probably for 
 the first time in his life. Across 
 the hall, and down the steps, Ralph 
 led her too ; nor did he withdraw 
 his hand, until she was seated in the 
 coach. 
 
 As the door of the vehicle was 
 roughly closed, a comb fell from Kate's 
 hair, close at her uncle's feet ; and as 
 he picked it up, and returned it into 
 her hand, the light from a neighbour- 
 ing lamp shone upon her face. The 
 lock of hair that had escaped and 
 curled loosely over her brow, tho 
 traces of tears yet scarcely dry, the 
 flushed cheek, the look of sorrow, all 
 fired some dormant train of recollec- 
 tion in the old man's breast ; and the 
 face of his dead brother seemed pre- 
 sent before him, with the very look it
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 147 
 
 bore on some occasion of boyish grief, 
 of which every minutest circumstance 
 flashed upon his mind, with the dis- 
 tinctness of a scene of yesterday. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby, who was proof 
 against all appeals of blood and kin- 
 
 dred who was steeled against every 
 tale of sorrow and distress staggered 
 while he looked, and went back into 
 his house, as a man who had seen a 
 spirit from some world beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Ti'MRREIN NICHOLAS AT LENGTH ENCOUNTERS HIS UNCLE, TO WHOM HE 
 EXPRESSES HIS SENTIMENTS WITH MUCH CANDOUR. HIS RESOLUTION. 
 
 LITTLE Miss La Creevy trotted 
 briskly through divers streets at the 
 west end of the town, early on Monday 
 morning the day after the dinner 
 charged with the important commis- 
 sion of acquainting Madame Manta- 
 lini that Miss Nickleby was too unwell 
 to attend that day, but hoped to be 
 enabled to resume her duties on the 
 morrow. And as Miss La Creevy 
 walked along, revolving in her mind 
 various genteel forms and elegant turns 
 of expression, with a view to the selec- 
 tion 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 sin- had a head-ache ; head-aches 
 don't occasion red eyes. She must 
 have been crying." 
 
 Arriving at this conclusion, which, 
 indeed, she had established to her per- 
 fect satisfaction on the previous even- 
 ing, Miss La Creevy went on to con- 
 sider as she had done nearly all night 
 what new cause of un happiness her 
 young friend could possibly have had. 
 
 '* I can't think of anything," said 
 the little portrait painter. " Nothing 
 at all, unless it was the behaviour of 
 that old bear. Cross to her, I sup- 
 pose t Unpleasant brute ! " 
 
 Relieved by this expression of opi- 
 nion, albeit it was vented upon empty 
 air, Miss La Creevy trotted on to 
 Madame Mantalini's ; and being in- 
 formed that the governing power was 
 
 not yet out of bed, requested an inter- 
 view with the second in command ; 
 whereupon Miss Knag appeared. 
 
 " So far as I am concerned," saic 
 Miss Knag, when the message hac 
 been delivered, with many ornaments 
 of speech ; " I could spare Miss Nic- 
 kleby for evermore." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, ma'am ! " rejoined 
 Miss La Creevy, highly offended. 
 " But, you see, you arc not mistress of 
 the business, and therefore it 's of no 
 great consequence." 
 
 "Very good, ma'am," said Miss 
 Knag. " Have you any further com- 
 mands 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," re- 
 joined Miss La Creevy. 
 
 Thus terminating the interview 
 during which both ladies had trembled 
 very much, and been marvellously 
 polite certain indications that they 
 were within an inch of a very despe- 
 rate quarrel Miss La Creevy bounced 
 out of the room, and into the street. 
 
 "I wonder who that is," said the 
 queer little soul. " A nice person to 
 know, I should think ! I wish I had 
 the painting of her : I 'd do her jus- 
 tice." So, feeling quite satisfied that 
 she had said a very cutting thing at 
 ! Miss Knag's expense, Miss La Creevy 
 | had a hearty laugh, and went home to 
 breakfast, in great good humour. 
 L2
 
 148 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 confidant 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 re- 
 putation suffered ; and it she enjoyed 
 a little bit of revenge, no living soul 
 was one atom the worse. One of the 
 many to whom, from straitened cir- 
 cumstances, a consequent inability to 
 form the associations they would wish, 
 and a disinclination to mix with the 
 society they could obtain, London is 
 as complete a solitude as the plains of 
 Syria, the humble artist had pursued 
 her lonely, but contented way for 
 many years ; and, until the peculiar 
 misfortunes of the Nickleby family 
 attracted her attention, had made no 
 friends, though brimfull of the friend- 
 liest feelings to all mankind. There 
 are many warm hearts in the same 
 solitary guise as poor little Miss La 
 Creevy's. 
 
 However, that 's neither here nor 
 there, just now. She went home to 
 breakfast, and had scarcely caught the 
 full flavour of her first sip of tea, when 
 the servant announced a gentleman, 
 whereat Miss La Creevy, at once 
 imagining a new sitter transfixed by 
 admiration at the street-door case, 
 was in unspeakable consternation at 
 the presence of the tea-things. 
 
 " Here, take 'em away ; run with 
 'cm into the bed-room ; anywhere," 
 said Miss La Creevy. " Dear, dear ; 
 to think that I should be late on this 
 particular morning, of all others, after 
 being ready for three weeks by half- 
 past eight o'clock, and not a soul 
 coming near the place ! " 
 
 " Don't let me put you out of the 
 way," said a voice Miss La Creevy 
 knew. " I told the servant not to 
 mention my name, because I wished 
 to surprise you." 
 
 "Mr. Nicholas!" cried Miss La 
 Creevy, starting in great astonishment 
 
 " You have not forgotten me, I see," 
 replied Nicholas, extending his hand. 
 
 " Why, I think I should even have 
 known you if I had met you in the 
 street." said Miss La Creevy, with 
 a smile. " Hannah, another cup and 
 saucer. Now, I '11 tell you what, 
 young man ; I'll trouble you not to 
 repeat the impertinence you were 
 guilty of, on the morning you went 
 away." 
 
 " You would not be very angry, 
 would you ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Wouldn't I ! " said Miss La 
 Creevy. " You had better try ; that 's 
 all!" 
 
 Nicholas, with becoming gallantry, 
 immediately took Miss La Creevy at 
 her word, who uttered a faint scream 
 and slapped his face ; but it was not 
 a very hard slap, and that 's the 
 truth. 
 
 " I never saw such a rude crea- 
 ture ! " exclaimed Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " You told me to try," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Well ; but I was speaking ironi- 
 cally," rejoined Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " Oh ! that 's another thing," said 
 Nicholas ; " you should have told me 
 that, too." 
 
 " I dare say you didn't know, in- 
 deed ! " retorted Miss La Creevy. 
 " But, now I look at you again, you 
 seem thinner than when I saw you 
 last, and your face is haggard and 
 pale. And how come you to have 
 left Yorkshire?" 
 
 She stopped here ; for there was so 
 much heart in her altered tone and 
 manner, that Nicholas was quite 
 moved. 
 
 " I need look somewhat changed," 
 i he said, after a short silence ; " for I 
 have undergone some suffering, both 
 of mind and body, since I left London. 
 I have been very poor, too, and have 
 even suffered from want." 
 
 " Good Heaven, Mr. Nicholas ! " 
 exclaimed Miss La Creevy, " what are 
 you telling me ! " 
 
 " Nothing which need distress you 
 quite so much," answered Nicholas, 
 with a more sprightly air ; " neither 
 did I come here, to bewail my lot, but 
 on matter more to the purpose. I 
 wish to meet my uncle face to face. 
 I should tell you that first"
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 149 
 
 u Then all I have to say about that 
 is," interposed Miss La Creevy, " tliat 
 I don't envy you your taste ; and that 
 sitting in the some room with his very 
 boots, would put me out of humour for 
 a fortnight," 
 
 " In the main," said Nicholas, 
 " there may be no great difference of 
 opinion between you and me, so far ; 
 but you will understand, that I desire 
 to confront him, to justify myself, 
 and to cast his duplicity aud malice in 
 his throat." 
 
 " That 's quite another matter," re- 
 joined Miss La Creevy. " Heaven foi % - 
 give me ; but I shouldn't cry my eyes 
 quite out of my head, if they choked 
 him. Well 1 " 
 
 " To this end, I called upon him this 
 morning," said Nicholas. He only 
 returned to town on Saturday, and I 
 knew nothing of his arrival until late 
 last night" 
 
 " And did you see him ? " asked 
 Miss La Creevy. 
 
 " No," replied Nicholas. " He had 
 gone out" 
 
 "Hah!" said Miss La Creevy; 
 " on some kind, charitable- business, I 
 dare say." 
 
 " I have reason to believe," pursued 
 Nicholas, "from what has been told 
 me, by a friend of mine who is ac- 
 quainted 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 La 
 Crecvy, rubbing her hands. " And 
 yet, 1 don't know," she added, " there 
 is much to be thought of others to 
 be considered." 
 
 " I have considered others," rejoined 
 Nicholas ; " but as honesty and honour 
 HIV both at issue, nothing sliall deter 
 me." 
 
 " You should know best," said Miss 
 La Creevy. 
 
 " In this case I hope so," answered 
 Nicholas. " And all I want you to do 
 for me, is, to prepare them for my 
 coming. They think me a long way 
 oft', and if I went wholly unexpected, 
 1 should frighten them. If you can 
 
 spare time to tell them that you have 
 seen me, and that I shall be with them 
 in a quarter of an hour afterwards, you 
 will do me a great service." 
 
 " I wisli I could do you, or any of 
 you, a greater," said Miss La Creevy ; 
 " but the power to serve, is as seldom 
 joined with the will, as the will is with 
 the power, / think." 
 
 Talking on very fast and very much, 
 Miss La Creevy finished her break- 
 fast with great exped-tion, put away 
 the tea-caddy and hid the key under 
 the fender, resumed her bonnet, and, 
 taking Nicholas's arm, sallied forth at 
 once to the city. Nicholas left her 
 near the door of his mother's house, 
 and promised to return within a quar- 
 ter of an hour. 
 
 It so chanced that Ralph Nickleby, 
 at length seeing fit, for his own pur- 
 poses, to communicate the atrocities 
 of which Nicholas had been guilty, 
 had (instead of first proceeding to 
 another quarter of the town on busi- 
 ness, as Newman Noggs supposed he 
 would), gone straight to his sister-in- 
 law. Hence, when Miss La Creevy, 
 admitted by a girl who was cleaning 
 the house, made her way to the 
 sitting-room, she found Mrs. Nic- 
 I kleby and Kate in tears, and Ralph 
 I just concluding his statement of 
 ' his nephew's misdemeanors. Kate 
 beckoned her not to retire, and Miss 
 La Creevy took a seat in silence. 
 
 " You are here already, are you, 
 my gentleman ? " thought the little 
 woman. " Then he shall announce 
 himself, and see what effect that has 
 on you." 
 
 This is pretty," said Ralph, fold- 
 ing up Miss Squeers's note ; " very 
 pretty. I recommended him against 
 all my previous conviction, for I knew 
 he would never do any good to a 
 man with whom, behaving himself 
 properly, he might have remained, in 
 comfort, for years. What is the re- 
 sult ! Conduct, for which he might 
 hold up his hand at the Old Bailey." 
 
 " I never will believe it," said Kate, 
 indignantly ; " never. It is some base 
 conspiracy, which carries its own false- 
 hood with it."
 
 150 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " My dear," said Ralph, " you wrong 
 the worthy man. These are not in- 
 ventions. The man is assaulted, your 
 brother is not to be found ; this boy, 
 of whom they speak, goes with him 
 remember, remember." 
 
 " It is impossible," said Kate. " Ni- 
 cholas ! and a thief, too ! Mamma, 
 how can you sit and hear such state- 
 ments ? " 
 
 Poor Mrs. Nickleby, who had, at no 
 time, been remarkable for the posses- 
 sion 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 remon- 
 strance 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 be- 
 lieve it. 
 
 " It would be my duty, if he came 
 in my way, to deliver him up to jus- 
 tice," said Ralph, " my bounden duty ; 
 I should have no other course, as a 
 man of the world and a man of busi- 
 ness, to pursue. And yet," said Ralph, 
 speaking in a very marked manner, 
 and looking furtively, but fixedly, at 
 Kate, " and yet I would not I would 
 spare the feelings of his of his sister. 
 And his mother of course," added 
 Ralph, as though by an afterthought, 
 and with far less emphasis. 
 
 Kate very well understood that this 
 was held out as an additional induce- 
 ment to her, to preserve the strictest 
 silence regarding the events of the 
 preceding night She looked invo- 
 luntarily towards Ralph as he ceased 
 to speak, but he had turned his eyes 
 another way, and seemed for the 
 moment quite unconscious of her pre- 
 sence. 
 
 " Everything," said Ralph, after a 
 long silence, broken only by Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby's sobs, " everything combines 
 to prove the truth of this letter, if 
 indeed there were any possibility of 
 disputing it. Do innocent men steal 
 away from the sight of honest folks, 
 and skulk in hiding-places, like out- 
 laws! Do innocent men inveigle 
 
 nameless vagabonds, and prowl with 
 them about the country as idle rob- 
 bers do ) Assault, riot, theft, what 
 do you call these ? " 
 
 " A lie ! " cried a voice, as the door 
 was dashed open, and Nicholas came 
 into the room. 
 
 In the first moment of surprise, and 
 possibly of alarm, Ralph rose from 
 his seat, and fell back a few paces, 
 quite taken off his guard by this 
 unexpected apparition. In another 
 moment, he stood, fixed and immove- 
 able with folded arms, regarding his 
 nephew with a scowl ; while Kate and 
 Miss La Creevy threw themselves 
 between the two, to prevent the per- 
 sonal violence which the fierce excite- 
 ment of Nicholas appeared to threaten. 
 
 " Dear Nicholas," cried his sister, 
 clinging to him. " Be calm, con- 
 sider " 
 
 " Consider, Kate ! " cried Nicholas, 
 clasping her hand so tight, in the 
 tumult of his anger, that she could 
 scarcely bear the pain. " When I 
 consider all, and think of what has 
 passed, I need be made of iron to 
 stand before him."' 
 
 " Or bronze," said Ralph, quietly ; 
 "there is not hardihood enough in 
 flesh and blood to face it out." 
 
 " Oh dear, dear ! " cried Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby, " that things should have come 
 to such a pass as this ! " 
 
 " Who speaks in a tone, as if I 
 had done wrong, and brought dis- 
 grace on them I " said Nicholas, look- 
 ing round. 
 
 " Your mother, sir," replied Ralph, 
 motioning towards her. 
 
 " Whose ears have been poisoned 
 by you," said Nicholas ; " by you 
 who, under pretence of deserving 
 the thanks she poured upon you, 
 heaped every insult, wrong, and in- 
 dignity, 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 wit- 
 ness," said Nicholas, looking eagerly
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 151 
 
 round, " that I have seen all this, and 
 that he knows it." 
 
 "Refute these calumnies," said 
 Kate, " and be more patient, so that 
 you may give them no advantage. Tell 
 us what you really did, and show that 
 they are untme." 
 
 " Of what do they or of what does 
 he accuse me ! " said Nicholas. 
 
 " First, of attacking your master, 
 and heing within an ace of qualifying 
 yourself to be tried for murder," in- 
 terposed Ralph. " I speak plainly, 
 young man, bluster as you will." 
 
 " I interfered," said Nicholas, " to 
 save a miserable creature from the 
 vilest cruelty. In so doing, I inflicted 
 such punishment upon a wretch as he 
 will not readily forget, though far less 
 than he deserved from me. If the same 
 scene were renewed before me now, 
 I would take the same part ; but I 
 would strike harder and heavier, and 
 brand him with such marks as he 
 should earn- to his grave, go to it 
 when he would." 
 
 "You hear?" said Ralph, turning 
 to Mrs. Nickleby. " Penitence, 
 this!" 
 
 " Oh dear me ! " cried Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby, " 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 wickedness can 
 prompt, but they accuse you of a 
 ring is missing, and they dare to say 
 that" 
 
 " The woman," said Nicholas, 
 haughtily, " the wife of the fellow from 
 whom these charges come, dropped- 
 as I suppose a worthless ring among 
 some clothes of mine, early in the 
 morning on which I left the house. 
 At least, I know that she was in the 
 bed-room where they lay, struggling 
 with an unhappy child, and that I 
 found it when I opened my bundle on 
 the road. I returned it, at once, by 
 coach, and they have it now." 
 
 " I knew, I knew," said Kate, look- 
 ing towards her uncle. "About this 
 boy, love, in whose company they say 
 you left 3 " 
 
 " The boy, a silly, helpless crea- 
 ture, from brutality and hard usage, 
 is with me now," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " You hear ? " said Ralph, appeal- 
 ing to the mother again, " everything 
 proved, even upon his own confession. 
 " Do you choose to restore that bov, 
 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, it 
 he were dead to every tie of nature." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Ralph. " Now, sir, 
 will you hear a word or two from 
 me?" 
 
 " You can speak when and what 
 you please," replied Nicholas, em- 
 bracing his sister. " I take little heed 
 of what you say or threaten." 
 
 " Mighty well, sir," retorted Ralph ; 
 " but perhaps it may concern others, 
 who may think it worth their while to 
 listen, and consider what I tell them. 
 I will address your mother, sir, who 
 knows the world." 
 
 " Ah ! and I only too dearly wish I 
 didn't," sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 There really was no necessity for 
 the good lady to be much distressed 
 upon this particular head ; the extent 
 of her worldly knowledge being, to 
 say the. least, very questionable ; and 
 so Ralph seemed to think, for he 
 smiled as she spoke. He then glanced 
 steadily, at her and Nicholas by 
 turns, as he delivered himself in these 
 words : 
 
 " Of what I have done, or what I 
 meant to do, for you, ma'am, and my 
 niece, I say not one syllable. I held 
 out no promise, and leave you to judge 
 for yourself. I hold out no threat now, 
 but I say that this boy, hcudstrong, 
 wilful, and disorderly as he is, should 
 not have one penny of my money, or 
 one crust of my bread, or one grasp 
 of my hand, to save him from the 
 loftiest gallows in all Kuropc. I will 
 not meet him, come where he comes, 
 or hear his name. 1 will not help 
 him, or those who help him. With a
 
 152 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 full knowledge of what he brought 
 upon you by so doing, he has come 
 back in his selfish sloth, to be an ag- 
 gravation of your wants, and a burden 
 upon his sister's scanty wages. I re- 
 gret to leave you, and more to leave 
 her, now, but I will not encourage this 
 compound of meanness and cruelty, 
 and, as I will not ask you to renounce 
 him, I see you no more." 
 
 If Ralph had not known and felt 
 liis 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. In- 
 nocent as the young man was, of all 
 wrong, every artful insinuation stung, 
 every well-considered sarcasm cut 
 him to the quick ; and when Ralph 
 noted his pale face and quivering lip, 
 he hugged himself to mark how well 
 he had chosen the taunts best calcu- 
 lated to strike deep into a young arid 
 ardent spirit. 
 
 " I can't help it," cried Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " I know you have been 
 very good to us, and meant to do a 
 good deal for my dear daughter. I 
 am quite sure of that ; I know you 
 did, and it was very kind of you, 
 having her at your house and all 
 and of course it would have been a 
 great thing for her and for me too. 
 But I can't, you know, brother-in-law, 
 I can't renounce my own son, even if 
 he has done all you say he has it's 
 not possible ; I couldn't do it ; so we 
 must go to rack and ruin, Kate, my 
 dear. I can bear it, I dare say." 
 Pouring forth these and a perfectly 
 wonderful train of other disjointed 
 expressions of regret, which no mor- 
 tal 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 BO violent, 
 and your uncle has so much com- 
 posure, that I can only hear what he 
 
 says, and not what Nicholas doe* 
 Never mind, don't let us talk any 
 more about it. We can go to the 
 Workhouse, or the Refuge for tha 
 Destitute, or the Magdalen Hospital, I 
 dare say ; and the sooner we go the 
 better." With this extraordinary 
 jumble of charitable institutions, Mrs. 
 Nickleby again gave way to her tears. 
 
 "Stay," said Nicholas, as Ralph 
 turned to go. a You need not leavo 
 this place, sir, for it will be relieved of 
 my presence, in one minute, and it 
 will be long, very long, before I darken, 
 these doors again." 
 
 " Nicholas," cried Kate, throwing 
 herself on her brother's shoulder, " do 
 not say so. My dear brother, you will 
 break my heart. Mamma, speak to him. 
 Do not mind her, Nicholas ; she does not 
 mean it, you should know her better. 
 Uncle, somebody, for Heaven's sake 
 speak to him." 
 
 " I nevermeant, Kate," said Nicholas, 
 tenderly, " I never meant to stay 
 among you ; think better of me than 
 to suppose it possible. I may turn my 
 back on this town a few hours sooner 
 than I intended, but what of that ? 
 We shall not forget each other apart, 
 and better days will come when we 
 shall part no more. Be a woman, 
 Kate," he whispered, proudly, " and 
 do not make me one, while he looks 
 on." 
 
 "No, no, I will not," said Kate, 
 eagerly, " but you will not leave us. 
 Oh ! think of all the happy days we 
 have had together, before these terrible 
 misfortunes came upon us ; of all the 
 comfort and happiness of home, and 
 the trials we have to bear now ; of our 
 having no protector under all the 
 slights and wrongs that poverty so 
 much favours, and you cannot leave us 
 to bear them alone, without one hand 
 to help us." 
 
 " You will be helped when I am. 
 away," replied Nicholas, hurriedly. 
 " I am no help to you, no protector ; 
 I should bring you nothing but sorrow, 
 and want, and suffering. My own 
 mother sees it, and her fondness and 
 fears for you, point to the course that 
 I should take. And so all good angeh
 
 NICHOLAS XICKLEB1. 
 
 133 
 
 bless you, Kate, till I can carry you to 
 some home of mine, where we may 
 revive the happiness denied to us now, 
 and talk of these trials as of things 
 gone by. Do not keep me here, but , 
 let me go at once. There. Dear girl 
 dear girl." 
 
 The grasp which had detained him, 
 relaxed, and Kate swooned in his arms. 
 Nicholas stooped over her, for a few 
 seconds, and placing her gently in a 
 cJmir, confided her to their honest 
 friend. 
 
 " I need not entreat your sympathy," 
 he said, wringing her hand, '' for I 
 know your nature. You will never 
 forget them." 
 
 He stepped up to Ralph, who re- 
 mained in the same attitude which he 
 had preserved throughout the inter- 
 view, and moved not a finger. 
 
 " Whatever step you take, sir," he 
 said, in a voice inaudible beyond them- 
 selves, " I shall 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. He hardly 
 knew that it was concluded, and Mrs. 
 Nickleby had scarcely made up her 
 mind to detain her sou by force if 
 necessary, when Nicholas was gone. 
 
 As he hurried through the streets to 
 his obscure lodging, seeking to keep 
 pace, as it were, with the rapidity of 
 the thoughts which crowded upon him, 
 many doubts and hesitations arose in 
 his mind, and almost tempted him to 
 return. But what would they gain by 
 this ? Supposing he were to put Ralph 
 Nickleby at defiance, and were even 
 fortunate enough to obtain some small 
 employment, his being with them could 
 only render their present condition 
 worse, and might greatly impair their 
 future prospects ; for his mother had 
 spoken of some new kindnesses towards 
 Kate which she had not denied. " No," 
 thought Nicholas, " 1 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 pro- 
 scribed like a criminal, when six 
 months ago he had been surrounded 
 by every comfort, and looked up to, as 
 the chief hope of his family this was 
 hard to bear. He had not deserved it 
 either. Well, there was comfort in 
 that ; and poor Nicholas would brighten 
 up again, to be again depressed, as his 
 quickly-shifting thoughts presented 
 every variety of light and shade before 
 him. 
 
 Undergoing these alternations of 
 hope and misgiving, which no one, 
 placed in a situation of ordinary trial, 
 can fail to have experienced, Nicholas 
 at length reached his poor room, where, 
 no longer borne up by the excitement 
 which had hitherto sustained him, but 
 depressed by the revulsion of feeling it 
 left behind, he threw himself on the 
 bed, and turning his face to the wall, 
 gave free vent to the emotions he had 
 so long stifled. 
 
 He had not heard anybody enter, 
 and was unconscious of the presence 
 of Smike, until, happening to raise his 
 head, he saw him, standing at the upper 
 end of the room, looking wistfully 
 towards him. He withdrew his eyes 
 when he saw that he was observed, 
 and affected to be busied with som 
 scanty preparations for dinner. 
 
 " Well, Smike," said Nicholas, as 
 cheerfully as he could speak, " let me 
 hear what new acquaintances you have 
 made this morning, or what new won- 
 der you have found out, in the compass 
 of this street and the next one." 
 
 " No," said Smike, shaking his head 
 mournfully ; " I must talk of some- 
 thing else to-day." 
 
 " Of what you like," replied Ni- 
 cholas, good-humouredly. 
 
 " Of this ; " said Smike. " I know 
 vou are unhappy, and have got into 
 great trouble by bringing me away. I 
 ought to have known that, and stopped
 
 Io4 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 behind I would, indeed, if I had 
 thought it then. You you are not 
 rich : you have not enough for your- 
 self, 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 say no more, for 
 his eyes filled with tears, and his voice 
 was gone. 
 
 " The word which separates us," 
 said Nicholas, grasping him heartily 
 by the shoulder, " shall never be said 
 by me, for you are my only comfort 
 and stay. I would not lose you now, 
 Smike, for all the world could give. 
 The thought of you has upheld me 
 through all I have endured to-day, 
 and shall, through fifty times such 
 trouble. Give me your hand. My 
 heart is linked to yours. We will 
 journey from this place together, before 
 the week is out. What, if I am steeped 
 in poverty ? You lighten it, and we will 
 be poor together." 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MADAME MANTALINI FINDS KESSELF IN A SITUATION OF SOME DIFFICULTY, AND 
 MISS K1CKLEBY FINDS HERSELF IN NO SITUATION AT ALL. 
 
 THE agitation she had undergone, 
 rendered Kate Nickleby 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 lan- 
 guid steps, to the temple of fashion 
 where Madame Mantalini reigned 
 paramount and supreme. 
 
 The ill will of Miss Knag had lost 
 nothing of its virulence, in the interval. 
 The young ladies still scrupulously 
 shrunk from all companionship with 
 their denounced associate ; and when 
 that exemplary female arrived a few 
 minutes afterwards, she was at no 
 pains to conceal the displeasure with 
 which she regarded Kate's return. 
 
 " Upon my word ! " said Miss Knag, 
 as the satellites flocked round, to relieve 
 her of her bonnet and shawl ; " I should 
 have thought some people would have- 
 had spirit enough to stop away alto- 
 gether, when they know what an in- 
 cumbrance their presence is to right- 
 minded persons. But it's a queer 
 world ; oh ! it 's a queer world !" 
 
 Miss Knag, having passed this com- 
 ment on the world, in the tone in which 
 
 most people do pass comments on the 
 world when they are out of temper, 
 that is to say, as if they by no means 
 belonged to it, concluded by heaving a 
 sigh, wherewith she seemed meekly to 
 compassionate the wickedness of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The attendants were not slow to 
 echo the sigh, and Miss Knag was 
 apparently on the eve of favouring 
 them with some further moral reflec- 
 tions, when the voice of Madame Man- 
 talini, conveyed through the speaking- 
 tube, ordered Miss Nickleby up stairs 
 to assist in the arrangement of the 
 show-room ; a distinction which caused 
 Miss Knag to toss her head so much, 
 and bite her lips so hard, that her 
 powers of conversation were, for the 
 time, annihilated. 
 
 "Well, Miss Nickleby, child," said 
 Madame Mantalini, when Kate pre- 
 sented herself ; " are you quite well 
 again ? " 
 
 " A great deal better, thank you," 
 replied Kate. 
 
 " I wish I could say the same," re- 
 marked Madame Mantalini, seating 
 herself with an air of weariness.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKI.EBV. 
 
 u Are you ill !" asked Kate. "I am 
 verv sorry for that" 
 
 " Not exactly ill, but worried, child 
 vqorried," rejoined -Madame. 
 
 " I am still more sorry to hear that," 
 said Kate, gently. " Bodily illness is 
 more easy to bear, than mental." 
 
 " Ah ! and it 's much easier to talk 
 than to bear either," said Madame, 
 rubbing her nose with much irritability 
 of manner. " There, get to your work, 
 child, and put the things in order, 
 do." 
 
 While Kate was wondering within 
 herself what these symptoms of unusual 
 vexation portended, Mr. Mantalini put 
 the tips of his whiskers, and, by degrees, 
 his head, through the half-opened door, 
 and cried in a soft voice 
 
 " Is my life and soul there \ " 
 
 " No," replied his wife. 
 
 ** How can it say so, when it is 
 blooming in the front room like a little 
 rose in a demnition flower-pot ? " urged 
 Mantalini. ' May its poppet come in 
 and talk J" 
 
 " Certainly not," replied Madame ; 
 " you know I never allow you here. 
 Go along !" 
 
 The poppet, however, encouraged 
 perhaps by the relenting tone of this 
 reply, ventured to rebel, and, stealing 
 into the room, made towards Madame 
 Mantalini on tiptoe, blowing her a kiss 
 as he came along. 
 
 " Why will it vex itself, and twist 
 its little face into bewitching nut- 
 crackers 1 " said Mantalini, putting his 
 left arm round the waist of his life and 
 soul, and drawing her towards him with 
 his right. 
 
 " Oh ! I can't bear you," replied his 
 wife. 
 
 " Not eh, not bear me/" exclaimed 
 Mantalini. " Fibs, fibs. It couldn't 
 be. There 's not a womau alive, that 
 could tell me such a thing to my face 
 to my own face." Mr. Mantalini stroked 
 his chin as he said this, and glanced 
 complacently at an opposite mirror. 
 
 u 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 s situation you have 
 placed me in !" urged Madame. 
 
 " No harm will come, no harm shall 
 come, to its own darling," rejoined Mr. 
 Mantalini. " It is all over ; there will be 
 nothing the matter ; money shall be got 
 in ; and if it don't come in fast enough, 
 old Nickleby shall stump up again, or 
 have his jugular separated if he dares 
 to vex and hurt the little" 
 
 " Hush ! " interposed Madame. 
 "Don't you see ?" 
 
 Mr. Mantalini, who, in his eagerness 
 to make up matters with his wife, had 
 overlooked, or feigned to overlook, Miss 
 Nickleby hitherto, took the hint, and 
 laying his finger on his lip, sunk his 
 voice still lower. There was, then, a 
 great deal of whispering, during which 
 Madame Mantalini appeared to make 
 reference, more than once, to certain 
 debts incurred by Mr. Mantalini pre- 
 vious to her coverture ; and also to an 
 unexpected outlay of money in payment 
 of the aforesaid debts ;and furthermore, 
 to certain agreeable weaknesses on that 
 gentleman's part, such as gaming, 
 wasting, idling, and a tendency to horse- 
 flesh ; each of which matters of accusa- 
 tion Mr. Mantalini disposed of, by ono 
 kiss or more, as its relative imporUinco 
 demanded. The upshot of it all, was, 
 that Madame Mantalini was in raptures 
 with him, and that they went upstairs 
 to breakfast. 
 
 Kate busied herself in what she had 
 to do, and was silently arranging tho 
 various articles of decoration in the best 
 taste she could display, when she started 
 to hear a strange man's voice in the 
 room, and started again, to observe, on 
 looking round, that a white hat, and a 
 red neckerchief, and a broad round 
 face, and a large head, and prvrt of a 
 green coat were in the room too. 
 
 " Don't alarm yourself, Miss," said 
 the proprietor of these appearances. 
 " I say ; this here 's the mantie-making 
 con-sarn, a'nt it ? " 
 
 " Yes," rejoined Kate, greatly asto- 
 nished. " What did you want 1 " 
 
 The stranger answered not ; but, 
 first looking back, as though to beckon
 
 156 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 fumi- 
 gation of stale tobacco and fresh 
 onions. The clothes of this gentleman 
 were much bespeckled with flue ; and 
 his shoes, stockings, and nether gar- 
 ments, from his heels to the waist 
 buttons of his coat inclusive, were 
 profusely embroidered with splashes 
 of mud, caught a fortnight previously 
 before the setting-in of the fine 
 weather. 
 
 Kate's very natural impression was, 
 that these engaging individuals had 
 called with the view of possessing 
 themselves, unlawfully, of any portable 
 articles that chanced to strike their 
 fancy. She did not attempt to disguise 
 her apprehensions, and made a move 
 towards the door. 
 
 " Wait a minnit," said the man in 
 the green coat, closing it softly, and 
 standing with his back against it. 
 " This is a unpleasant bisness. Vere 's 
 your govvernor ? " 
 
 " My what did you say ? " asked 
 Kate, trembling ; for she thought 
 "governor" might be slang for watch 
 or money. 
 
 " Mister Muntlehiney," said the 
 man. " Wot 's come on him ! Is he 
 at home ?" 
 
 " He is above stairs, I believe," 
 replied Kate, a little reassured by this 
 inquiry. " Do you want him ? " 
 
 " No," replied the visitor. " I don't 
 ezactly want him, if it 's made a 
 favour on. You can jist give him 
 that 'ere card, and tell him if he wants 
 to speak to me, and save trouble, here 
 I am ; that 's all." 
 
 With these words, the stranger put a 
 thick square card iuto Kate's hand, 
 and, turning to his friend, remarked, 
 with an easy air, " that the rooms was 
 a good high pitch ;" to which the 
 friend assented, adding, by way of 
 illustration, "that there was lots of 
 room for a little boy to grow up a man 
 in either on 'em, vithout much fear of 
 his ever bringing his head into con- 
 tract vith the ceiling." 
 
 After ringing the bell which would 
 summon Madame Mantulini, Kate 
 glanced at the card, and saw that it 
 displayed the name of " Scaley," to- 
 gether with some other information to 
 which she had not had time to refer, 
 when her attention was attracted by 
 Mr. Scaley himself, who, walking up 
 to one of the cheval glasses, gave it a 
 hard poke in the centre with his stick, 
 as coolly as if it had been made of 
 cast iron. 
 
 " Good plate this here, Tix," said 
 Mr. Scaley to his friend. 
 
 " Ah ! " rejoined Mr. Tix, placing 
 the marks of his four fingers, and a 
 duplicate impression of his thumb on 
 a piece of sky-blue silk ; "and this 
 here article warn't made for nothing, 
 mind you." 
 
 From the silk, Mr. Tix transferred 
 his admiration to some elegant articles 
 of wearing apparel, while Mr. Scaley 
 adjusted his neckcloth, at leisure, 
 before the glass, and afterwards, aided 
 by its reflection, proceeded to the 
 minute consideration of a pimple on 
 his chin : in which absorbing occupa- 
 tion he was yet engaged, when Madame 
 Mautalini entering the room, uttered 
 an exclamation of surprise whichroused 
 him. 
 
 " Oh ! Is this the missis ? " inquired 
 Scaley. 
 
 " It is Madame Mantalini," said 
 Kate. 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Scaley, producing 
 a small document from his pocket and 
 unfolding it very slowly, " this is a 
 writ of execution, and if it 's not con- 
 wenient to settle we'll go over tho 
 house at wunst, please, and take tho 
 inwentory." 
 
 Poor Madame Mantaliui wrung her 
 hands for grief, and rung the belJ for 
 her husband ; which done, she fell 
 into a chair and a fainting fit, simul- 
 taneously. The professional gentle- 
 men, howevsr, were not at all discom- 
 posed by this event, for Mr. Scaley, 
 leaning upon a stand on which a hand- 
 some 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 157 
 
 would have done if she had had it on), 
 pushed his hat on one side and scratch- 
 ed his head with perfect unconcern, 
 while his friend Mr. Tix, taking that 
 opportunity for a general survey of the 
 apartment preparatory to entering 
 on business, stood with his inventory- 
 book under his arm and his hat in his 
 hand, mentally occupied in putting 
 a price upon every object within his 
 range of vision. 
 
 Such was the posture of affairs 
 when Mr. Mantalini hurried in ; and 
 as that distinguished epecimeu had 
 had a pretty extensive intercourse 
 with Mr. Scaley's fraternity in his 
 bachelor days, and was, besides, very 
 far from being taken by surprise on 
 the present agitating occasion, he 
 merely shrugged his shoulders, thrust 
 his hands down to the bottom of his 
 pockets, elevated his eyebrows, whistled 
 a bar or two, swore an oath or two, 
 and, sitting astride upon a chair, put 
 thr best face upon the matter with 
 great composure and decency. 
 
 " What 's the demd total ? " waa 
 the first question he asked. 
 
 " Fifteen hundred and twenty-seven 
 pound, four and ninepence ha'penny," 
 replied Mr. Scaley, without moving a 
 limb. 
 
 " The halfpenny be demd," said 
 Mr. Mantalini, impatiently. 
 
 " By all means if you vish it," re- 
 torted Mr. Scaley ; " and the nine- 
 pence." 
 
 " It don't matter to us if the fifteen 
 hundred and twenty-seven pound went 
 along with it, that I know on," observed 
 Mr. Tix. 
 
 " Not a button," said Scaley. 
 
 " Well ; " said the same gentleman, 
 after a pause, " Wot 's to be done 
 anything ? Is it only a small crack, 
 or a out-and-out smash ? A break-up 
 of the constitootion is it werry good. 
 Then Mr. Tom Tix, esk-vire, you must 
 inform your angel wife and lovely 
 family as you won't sleep at home for 
 three nights to come, along of being in 
 possession here. Wot 's the good of 
 the lady a fretting herself 1 " con- 
 tinued Mr. Scaley, as Madame Manta- 
 lini sobbed. " A good half of wot 's 
 
 here, isn't paid for, I des-say, nnd wot 
 a consolation oughtn't that to be to her 
 feelings ! " 
 
 With these remarks, combining great 
 pleasantry with sound moral encourage- 
 ment under difficulties, Mr. Scaley pro- 
 ceeded to take the inventory, in which 
 delicate task he was materially assisted 
 by the uncommon tact and experience 
 of Mr. Tix, the broker. 
 
 " My cup of happiness's sweetener," 
 said Mantalini, approaching his wife 
 with a penitent air ; " will you listen to 
 me for two minutes ? " 
 
 " Oh ! don't speak to me," replied 
 his wife, sobbing. " You have ruined 
 me, and that's enough." 
 
 Mr. .Mantalini, who had doubtless 
 well considered his part, no sooner 
 heard these words pronounced in a 
 tone of grief and severity, than he 
 recoiled several paces, assumed an ex- 
 pression 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 Nickleby," cried Madame 
 Mantalini, when this sound met her 
 ear, " make haste for Heaven's sake, 
 he will destroy himself ! I spoke un- 
 kindly to him, and he cannot bear it 
 from me. Alfred, my darling Alfred." 
 
 With such exclamations, she hurried 
 up stairs, followed by Kate, who, al- 
 though she did not quite participate in 
 the fond wife's apprehensions, was a 
 little flurried, nevertheless. The dress- 
 ing-room door being hastily flung open, 
 Mr. Mantalini was disclosed to view, 
 with his shirt-collar symmetrically 
 thrown back : putting a fine edge to a 
 breakfast knife by means of his razor 
 strop. 
 
 " Ah !" cried Mr. Mantalini, "inter- 
 rupted ! " and whisk went the breakfast 
 knife into Mr. Mantalini's dressing- 
 gown pocket, while Mr. Mantalini's 
 eyes rolled wildly, and his hair floating 
 in wild disorder, mingled with his 
 whiskers. 
 
 " Alfred," cried his wife, flinging 
 her arms about him, " I didn't mean 
 to say it, I didn't mean to say it ! " 
 
 " Kuined ! " cried Mr. M antaliin
 
 153 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Have I brought ruin upon the best 
 and purest creature that ever blessed 
 a demnition vagabond ! Demmit, let 
 me go." At this crisis of his ravings 
 Mr. Mantalini made a pluck at the 
 breakfast knife, and being restrained 
 by his wife's grasp, attempted to dash 
 his head against the wall taking very 
 good care to be at least six feet from it. 
 
 " Compose yourself, my own angel," 
 said Madame . "It was nobody's fault ; 
 it was mine as much as yours, we shall 
 do very well yet. Come, Alfred, come." 
 
 Mr. Mantalini did not think proper to 
 come to, all at once ; but, after calling 
 several times for poison, and requesting 
 some lady or gentleman to blow his 
 brains out, gentler feelings came upon 
 him, and he wept pathetically. In this 
 softened frame of mind he did not 
 oppose the capture of the knife which, 
 to tell the truth, he was rather glad to 
 be rid of, as an inconvenient and dan- 
 gerous article for a skirt pocket and 
 finally he saffered himself to be led 
 away, by his affectionate partner. 
 
 After a delay of two or three hours, 
 the young ladies were informed that 
 their services would be dispensed with, 
 until further notice, and at the expira- 
 tion of two days, the name of Manta- 
 lini appeared in the list of bankrupts : 
 Miss Nickleby 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 re- 
 quired a piece of intelligence with 
 which Mrs. Nickleby was no sooner 
 made acquainted, than that good lady 
 declared she had expected it all along, 
 and cited divers unknown occasions 
 on which she had prophesied to that 
 precise effect. 
 
 " And I say again," remarked Mrs. 
 Nickleby (who, it is scarcely necessary 
 to observe, had never said so before), 
 "I say again, that a milliner's and 
 dress-maker's is the very last descrip- 
 tion of business, Kate, that you should 
 have thought of attaching yourself to. 
 I don't make it a reproach to you, my 
 love ; but still I will say, that if you had 
 consulted your own mother " 
 
 " Well, well, mamma," said Kate. 
 
 mfldly ; " what would you recommend 
 now ?" 
 
 " Recommend ! " cried Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby, " isn't it obvious, my dear, that 
 of all occupations in this world for a 
 young lady situated as you are, that of 
 companion to some amiable lady is the 
 very thing for which your education, 
 and manners, and personal appearance, 
 and everything else, exactly qualify 
 you ? Did you never hear your poor 
 dear papa speak of the young lady who 
 was the daughter of the old lady who 
 boarded in the same house that he 
 boarded in once, when he was a bache- 
 lor 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 have been that, 
 either; but whatever her name was, 
 don't you know that that young lady 
 went as companion to a married lady 
 who died soon afterwards, and that she 
 married the husband, and had one of 
 the finest little boys that the medical 
 man had ever seen all within eighteen 
 months 1 " 
 
 Kate knew, perfectly well, that this 
 torrent of favourable recollection was 
 occasioned by some opening, real or 
 imaginary, which her mother had disco- 
 vered, in the companionship walk of life. 
 She therefore waited, very patiently, 
 until all reminiscences and anecdotes, 
 bearing or not bearing upon the subject, 
 had been exhausted, and at last ven- 
 tured 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 
 respectability from the public-house 
 where the porter came from ; and in 
 this yesterday's newspaper was an ad- 
 vertisement, couched in the purest and 
 most grammatical English, announcing 
 that a married lady was in want of a 
 genteel young person as companion, 
 and that the married lady's name and 
 address were to be known, on applica- 
 tion at a certain library at the west end 
 of the town, therein mentioned. 
 
 " And I say," exclaimed Mis. Nick- 
 leby, laying the paper down in triumph, 
 " that if your uncle don't object, it 'a 
 well worth the trial."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 ottered none, but, on the 
 contrary, highly approved of the 
 suggestion ; neither did he express any 
 great surprise at Madame Mantalini's 
 sudden failure, indeed it would have 
 been strange if he had, inasmuch as it 
 had been procured and brought about, 
 chiefly by himself. So, the name and 
 address were obtained without loss of 
 time, and Miss Nickleby and her 
 mamma went off in quest of Mrs. 
 Wititterly, of Cadogan Place, Sloane 
 Street, that same forenoon. 
 
 Cadogan Place is the one slight bond 
 that joins two great extremes ; it is 
 the connecting link between the aristo- 
 cratic pavements of Belgrave Square, 
 and the barbarism of Chelsea. It is 
 in Sloane Street, but not of it. The 
 people in Cadogan Place look down 
 upon Sloane Street, and think Bromp- 
 ton 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 Bel- 
 grave Square and Grosvenor Place, 
 but that they stand, with reference to 
 them, rather in the light of those ille- 
 gitimate children of the great who are 
 content to boast of their connexions, 
 although their connexions disavow 
 them. Wearing as much as they can 
 of the airs and semblances of loftiest 
 rank, the people of Cadogan Place 
 have the realities of middle station. It 
 is the conductor which communicates 
 to the inhabitants of regions beyond 
 its limit, the shock of pride of birth 
 and rank, which it has not within 
 itself, but derives from a fountain-head 
 beyond ; or, like the ligament which 
 unites the Siamese twins, it contains 
 something of the life and essence of 
 two distinct bodies, and yet belongs to 
 neither. 
 
 Upon this doubtful ground, lived 
 Mrs. Wititterly, and at Mrs. Witit- 
 terly'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 somo 
 way (it didn't look genuine powder), 
 and die big footman, receiving the 
 card of introduction, gave it to a little 
 page ; so little, indeed, that- his body 
 would not hold, in ordinary array, the 
 number of small buttons which are 
 indispensable to a page's costume, and 
 they were consequently obliged to bo 
 stuck on four abreast. This young 
 gentleman took the card up-stairs on 
 a salver, and pending his return, Kato 
 and her mother were shown into a 
 dining-room of rather dirty and shabby 
 aspect, and so comfortably arranged as 
 to be adapted to almost any purpose 
 rather than eating and drinking. 
 
 Now, in the ordinary course of 
 things, and according to all authentic 
 descriptions of high life, as set forth 
 in books, Mrs. Wititterly ought to 
 have been in her boudoir ; but whether 
 it was that Mr. Wititterly was at that 
 moment shaving himself in the boudoir 
 or what not, certain it is that Mrs. 
 Wititterly gave audience in the draw- 
 ing-room, where was everything pro- 
 per and necessary, including curtains 
 and furniture coverings of a roseate 
 hue, to shed a delicate bloom on Mrs. 
 Wititterly's complexion, and a little 
 dog to snap at strangers' legs for Mrs. 
 Wititterly's amusement, and the afore- 
 mentioned page, to hand chocolate for 
 Mrs. Wititterly's refreshment. 
 
 The lady had an air of sweet insi 
 pidity, and a face of engaging paleness : 
 there was a faded look about her, and 
 about the furniture, and about the 
 house. She was reclining on a sofa 
 in such a very unstudied attitude, 
 that she might have been taken for an 
 actress all ready for the first scene in 
 a ballet, and only waiting for the drop 
 curtain to go up. 
 
 " Place chairs." 
 
 The page placed them. 
 
 " Leave the room, Alphonse." 
 
 The^page left it; but if ever an Al- 
 phonse carried plain Bill in his face 
 and figure, that page was the boy. 
 
 " I have ventured to call, ma'am,* 1 
 said Kate, after a few seconds of 
 awkward silence, " from having seen 
 your advertisement."
 
 /eo 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 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 al- 
 ready made a final choice, you would 
 forgive my troubling you with an 
 application." 
 
 " Yes," drawled Mrs. Wititterly 
 again. 
 
 "If you have already made a selec- 
 tion " 
 
 " Oh dear no," interrupted the lady, 
 " I am not so easily suited. I really 
 don't know what to say. You have 
 never been companion before, have 
 you ! " 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby, who had been eagerly 
 watching her opportunity, came dex- 
 terously 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 con- 
 stant entreaties and " 
 
 " Dear mamma," said Kate, hi 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 Mrs. Nickleby 
 intimated that she was going to say 
 something which would clench the 
 business at once, Kate maintained her 
 jKiint by an expressive look, and for 
 once Mrs. Nickleby was stopped upon 
 the very brink of an oration. 
 
 " What are your accomplishments t" 
 naked Mrs. Wititterly, with her eyes 
 shut. 
 
 Kate blushed as she mentioned her 
 
 principal acquirements, and Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby checked them all off, one by 
 one, on her fingers ; having calculated 
 the number before she came out. 
 Luckily the two calculations agreed, 
 so Mrs. Nickleby had no excuse for 
 talking. 
 
 " You are a good temper ? " asked 
 Mrs. Wititterly, opening her eyes for 
 an instant, and shutting them again. 
 
 " I hope so," rejoined Kate. 
 
 " And have a highly respectable 
 reference for everything, have you ? " 
 
 Kate replied that she had, and laid 
 her uncle's card upon the table. 
 
 " Have the goodness to draw your 
 chair a little nearer, and let me look 
 at you," said Mrs. Wititterly ; " I am 
 so very near-sighted that I can't quite 
 discern your features." 
 
 Kate complied, though not without 
 some embarrassment, with this re- 
 quest, 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 er- 
 rand, and after a short interval, during 
 which not a word was spoken on either 
 side, opened the door for an important 
 gentleman of about eight-and-thirty, 
 of rather plebeian countenance, and 
 with a very light head of hair, who 
 leant over Mrs. Wititterly for a little 
 tune, and conversed with her in 
 whisj)ers. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, turning round, " yes. 
 This is a most important matter. Mrs. 
 Wititterly is of a very excitable nature ; 
 very delicate, very fragile ; a hothouse 
 plant, an exotic." 
 
 " Oh ! Henry, my dear," interposed 
 Mrs. Wititterly. 
 
 " You are my love, you know you 
 are ; one breath " said Mr. W., 
 blowing an imaginary feather away. 
 " Pho ! you 're gone ! " 
 
 The lady sighed. 
 
 " Your soul is too large for your 
 body," said Mr. Wititterly. " Your 
 intellect wears you out ; all the medi- 
 cal men say so j you know that there
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 161 
 
 is not a physician who is not proud of 
 being called in to you. What is their 
 unanimous declaration 1 ' My dear 
 doctor,' said I to Sir Tumley Snuffim, 
 in this very room, the very last time 
 he came. ' My dear doctor, what is 
 my wife's complaint ? Tell me all. I 
 can bear it. Is it nerves ? ' ' My dear 
 fellow,' he said, ' be proud of that 
 woman ; make much of her ; she is an 
 ornament to the fashionable world, 
 and to you. Her complaint is soul. 
 It swells, expands, dilates the blood 
 fires, the pulse quickens, the excite- 
 ment increases Whew ! ' " Here Mr. 
 Wititterly, who, in the ardour of his 
 description, had flourished his right 
 hand to within something less than an 
 inch of Mrs. Nickleby's bonnet, drew 
 it hastily back again, and blew his nose 
 as fiercely as if it had been done by 
 some violent machinery. 
 
 " You make me out worse than I 
 am, Henry," said Mrs. Wititterly, with 
 a faint smile. 
 
 " I do not, Julia, I do not," said Mr. 
 W. " The society in which you move 
 necessarily move, from your station, 
 connexion, 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." 
 
 " 1 always suffer for these triumphs 
 afterwards," said Mrs. Wititterly. 
 
 " And for that very reason," re- 
 joined 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 Nic- 
 klebys than to each other, left off 
 speaking, and looked at their two 
 hearers, with an expression of coun- 
 tenance which seemed to say " What 
 do you think of all this ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Wititterly," said her hus- 
 band, addreasing himself to Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby, " is sought after and courted by 
 glittering crowds, and brilliant circles, 
 tjhe is excited by the opera, the drama, 
 the fine arts, the the the " 
 No. 42. 
 
 ' The nobility, my love," interposed 
 Mrs. Wititterly. 
 
 " The nobility, of course," said Mr. 
 Wititterly. " And the military. She 
 forms and expresses an immense 
 variety of opinions, on an immense 
 variety of subjects. If some people in 
 public life were acquainted with Mrs. 
 Wititterly's real opinion of them, they 
 would not hold their heads, perhaps, 
 quite as high as they do." 
 
 " Hush, Henry," said the lady ; 
 this is scarcely fair." 
 
 " I mention no names, Julia," re- 
 plied Mr. Wititterly ; " and nobody is 
 injured. I merely mention the cir- 
 cumstance to show that you are no 
 ordinary person ; that there is a con- 
 stant friction perpetually going on be- 
 tween your miud and your body ; and 
 that you must be soothed and tended. 
 Now let me hear, dispassionately and 
 calmly, what are this young lady's 
 qualifications for the office." 
 
 In obedience to this request, the 
 qualifications were all gone through 
 again, with the addition of many inter- 
 ruptions and cross-questionings from 
 Mr. Wititterly. It was finally ar- 
 ranged that inquiries should be made, 
 and a decisive answer addressed to 
 Miss Nickleby, under cover to her 
 uncle, within two days. These con- 
 ditions agreed upon, the page showed 
 them down as far as the staircase 
 window; and the big footman, relieving 
 guard at that point, piloted them in 
 perfect safety to the street-door. 
 
 " They are very distinguished people, 
 evidently," said Mrs. Nickleby, as 
 she took her daughter's arm. " What 
 a superior person Mrs. Wititterly is !" 
 
 " Do you think so mama ? " was all 
 Kate's reply. 
 
 " Why who can help thinking so, 
 Kate, my love 1 " rejoined her mother. 
 " She is pale, though, and looks much 
 exhausted. I hope she may not be 
 wearing herself out, but I am very 
 much afraid." 
 
 These considerations led the deep- 
 sighted lady into a calculation of the 
 probable duration of Mrs. Wititterly's 
 life, and the chances of the disconsolate 
 widower bestowing his hand on r ier 
 II it
 
 162 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 daughter. Before reaching home, she 
 had freed Mrs. Wititterly's soul from 
 all bodily restraint; married Kate with 
 great splendour at Saint George's 
 Hanover Square ; and only left unde- 
 cided, the minor question, whether a 
 splendid French-polished mahogany 
 bedstead should be erected for herself 
 in the two-pair back of the house in 
 Cadogan Place, or in the three-pair 
 front : between which apartments she 
 
 could not quite balance the advantages, 
 and therefore adjusted the question at 
 last, by determining to leave it to the 
 decision of her son-in-law. 
 
 The inquiries were made. The 
 answer not to Kate's very great joy 
 was favourable ; and at the expiration 
 of a week she betook herself, with all 
 her moveables and valuables, to Mrs. 
 Wititterly's mansion, where for the 
 present we will leave her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 NICHOLAS, ACCOMPANIED BY SMIKE, SALLIES FORTH TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE. 
 HE ENCOUNTERS MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES ; AND WHO HE WAS, IS HEREIN 
 MADE MANIFEST. 
 
 THE whole capital which Nicholas 
 found himself entitled to, either in pos- 
 session, reversion, remainder, or ex- 
 pectancy, 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 per- 
 sons, or the world would never be 
 stocked with old ones 
 
 It was a cold, dry, foggy morning in 
 early spring. A few meagre shadows 
 flitted to and fro in the misty streets, 
 and occasionally there loomed through 
 the dull vapour, the heavy outline of 
 some hackney-coach wending home- 
 wards, which, drawing slowly nearer, 
 rolled jangling by, scattering the thin 
 crust of frost from its whitened roof, 
 and soon was lost again in the cloud. 
 At intervals were heard the tread of 
 slipshod feet, and the chilly cry of the 
 poor sweep as he crept, shivering, to 
 nis 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 be- 
 tween him and sleep ; the rumbling of 
 
 ponderous carts and waggons; the roll 
 of the lighter vehicles which carried 
 buyers and sellers to the different mar- 
 kets ; the sound of ineffectual knock- 
 ing at the doors of heavy sleepers 
 all these noises fell upon the ear from 
 time to time, but all seemed muffled 
 by the fog, and to be rendered almost 
 as indistinct to the ear as was every 
 object to the sight. The sluggish 
 darkness thickened as the day came 
 on ; and those who had the courage 
 to rise and peep at the gloomy street 
 from their curtained windows, crept 
 back to bed again, and coiled them- 
 selves up to sleep. 
 
 Before even these indications of ap- 
 proaching morning were rife in busy 
 London, Nicholas had made his way 
 alone to the city, and stood beneath 
 the windows of his mother's house. It 
 was dull and bare to see, but it had 
 light and life for him ; for there was 
 at least one heart within its old walls 
 to which insult or dishonour would 
 bring the same blood rushing, that 
 flowed in his own veins. 
 
 He crossed the road, and raised his 
 eyes to the window of the room where 
 he knew his sister slept. It was 
 closed and dark. " Poor girl," thought 
 Nicholas, " she little thinks who 
 lingers here ! "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 163 
 
 He looked again, and felt, for the 
 moment, almost vexed that Kate was 
 not there to exchange one word at 
 parting. " Good God ! " he thought, 
 suddenly correcting himself, " what a 
 boy I am ! " 
 
 " It is better as it is,' 1 said Nicholas, 
 after he had lounged on, a few paces, 
 and returned to the same spot. " When 
 I left them before, and could have said 
 good bye a thousand times if I had 
 chosen, I spared them the pain of 
 leave-taking, and why not now } " As 
 he spoke, some fancied motion of the 
 curtain almost persuaded him, for the 
 instant, that Kate was at the window, 
 and by one of those strange contra- 
 dictions 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 journey. They 
 had tied up the luggage, Smike shoul- 
 dered it, and away they went, with 
 Newman Noggs in company; for he 
 iiad insisted on walking as far as he 
 could with them, over-night. 
 
 "Which way!" asked Newman, 
 wistfully. 
 
 " To Kingston first," replied Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " And where afterwards \ " asked 
 Newman. " Why won't you tell 
 me 1" 
 
 " Because I scarcely know myself, 
 good friend," rejoined Nicholas, lay- 
 ing his hand upon his shoulder ; " and 
 if I did, I have neither plan nor pros- 
 pect yet, and might shift my quarters 
 a hundred times before you could pos- 
 sibly communicate with me." 
 
 " I am afraid you have some deep 
 scheme in your head," said Newman, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " So deep," replied his young friend, 
 a that even I can't fathom it. What- 
 ever I resolve upon, depend upon it I 
 will write you soon." 
 
 You won't forget ? " said Newman. 
 
 " I am not very likely to," rejoined 
 Nicholas. " I have not so many 
 friends that I shall grow confused 
 among the number, and forget my best 
 one." 
 
 Occupied in such discourse, they 
 walked on for a couple of hours, as 
 they might have done for a couple 
 of days if Nicholas had not sat himself 
 down on a stone by the way-side, and 
 resolutely declared his intention of 
 not moving another step until Newman 
 Noggs turned back. Having pleaded 
 ineffectually, first for another half mile, 
 and afterwards for another quarter, 
 Newman was fain to comply, and to 
 shape his course towards Golden 
 Square, after interchanging many 
 hearty and affectionate farewells, and 
 many times turning back to wave his 
 hat to the two wayfarers when they 
 had become mere specks in the 
 distance. 
 
 " Now listen to me, Smike," said 
 Nicholas, as they trudged with stout 
 hearts onwards. " We are bound for 
 Portsmouth." 
 
 Smike nodded his head and smiled, 
 but expressed no other emotion ; for 
 whether they had been bound for 
 Portsmouth or Port Royal would havo 
 been alike to him, so they had been 
 bound together. 
 
 " I don't know much of these mat- 
 ters," resumed Nicholas ; but " Ports 
 mouth is a sea-port town, and if no 
 other employment is to be obtained, I 
 should think we might get on board 
 some ship. I am young and active, 
 and could be useful in many ways. So 
 could you." 
 
 " I hope so," replied Smike. " When 
 I was at that you know where I 
 mean 1 " 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Nicholas. 
 " You needn't name the place." 
 
 " Well, when I was there," resumed 
 Smike ; his eyes sparkling at the pros- 
 pect of displaying his abilities ; " I 
 could milk a cow, and groom a horse, 
 with anybody." 
 
 " Ha ! " said Nicholas, gravely. " I 
 
 am afraid they don't keep many 
 
 hiiimals of either kind on board ship, 
 
 Smike,and even when they have horses 
 
 M2
 
 164 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 that they arc 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 '11 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 Nicho- 
 las, with a good-humoured smile. " No. 
 Godalming is some thirty and odd 
 miles from London as I found from 
 a map I borrowed and I purpose to 
 rest there. We must push on again 
 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 
 & good memory ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Smike, shak- 
 ing his head sorrowfully. " I think I 
 had once ; but it 's all gone now all 
 gone." 
 
 " Why do you think you had once 1 " 
 asked Nicholas, turning quickly upon 
 him as though the answer in some way 
 helped out the purport of his question. 
 
 " Because I could remember, when 
 I was a child," said Smike, " but that 
 is very, very long ago, or at least it 
 seems so. I was always confused and 
 giddy at that place you took me from ; 
 and could never remember, and some- 
 times couldn't even understand, what 
 they said to me. I let me sec 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 un- 
 meaning stupified gaze, once habitual 
 to him, and common even then. 
 " What of the first day you went to 
 Yorkshire ? " 
 
 " Eh ! " cried the lad. 
 
 " That was before you began to lose 
 your recollection, you know," said 
 Nicholas quietly. " Was the weather 
 hot or cold ? " 
 
 " Wet," replied the boy. " Very 
 wet. I have always said, when it has 
 rained hard, that it was like the night 
 I came : and they used to crowd 
 round and laugh to see me cry when 
 the rain fell heavily. It was like a 
 child, they said, and that made me 
 think of it more. I turned cold all 
 over sometimes, for I could see myself 
 as I was then, coming in at the very 
 same door." 
 
 " As you were then," repeated Ni- 
 cholas, with assumed carelessness ; 
 " How was that ? " 
 
 " Such a little creature," said Smike, 
 " that they might have had pity and 
 mercy upon me, only to remember it." 
 
 " You didn't find your way there, 
 alone ! " remarked Nicholas. 
 
 " No," rejoined Smike, " oh no." 
 
 " Who was with you ? " 
 
 " A man a dark, withered man. I 
 have heard them say so, at the school, 
 and I remembered that before. I was 
 glad to leave him, I was afraid of him; 
 but they made me more afraid of them, 
 and used me harder too." 
 
 " Look at me," said Nicholas, wish- 
 ing to attract his full attention. 
 " There ; don't turn away. Do you 
 remember no woman, no kind wo- 
 man, who hung over you once, and 
 kissed your lips, and called you her 
 child ? " 
 
 " No," said the poor creature, snak- 
 ing his head, " no, never."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 165 
 
 " Nor any house but that house in 
 Yorkshire ! " 
 
 " No," rejoined the youth, with a 
 nu'lniu-lioly look : " a room I remem- 
 ber I slept in a room, a large lonesome 
 room at the top of a house, where there 
 was a trap-door in the ceiling. I have 
 covered my head with the clothes often, 
 not to see it, for it frightened me : a 
 young child with no one near at night : 
 and 1 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 
 thru, but there is the room just as it 
 used to be ; that never changes." 
 
 " Will you let me take the bundle 
 now J " asked Nicholas, abruptly 
 changing the theme. 
 
 " No," said Smike, " no. Come, let 
 us walk on." 
 
 He quickened his pace as he said 
 this, apparently under the impression 
 that they had been standing still, during 
 the whole of the previous dialogue. 
 Nicholas marked him closely, and every 
 word of this conversation remained 
 upon his memory. 
 
 It was, by this time, within an hour 
 of noon, and although a dense vapour 
 still enveloped the city they had left, as 
 if the very breath of its busy people 
 hung over their schemes of gain and 
 profit and found greater attraction 
 there than in the quiet region above, 
 in the open country it was clear and 
 fair. Occasionally, in some low spots 
 they came upon patches of mist which 
 the sun had not yet driven from their 
 strongholds ; but these were soon 
 passed, and as they laboured up the 
 hills beyond, it was pleasant to look 
 down, and see how the sluggish mass 
 rolled heavily off, before the cheering 
 influence of day. A broad, fine, honest 
 sun lighted up the green pastures and 
 dimpled water with the semblance of 
 summer, while it left the travellers all 
 the invigorating freshness of that early 
 time of year. The ground seemed elas- 
 tic under their feet; the sheep-bells 
 were music to their ears ; and exhi- 
 
 larated by exercise, and stimulated by 
 hope, they pushed onward with the 
 strength of lions. 
 
 The day wore on, and all these 
 bright colours subsided, and assumed 
 a quieter tint, like young hopes soft- 
 ened down by time, or youthful fea- 
 tures by degrees resolving into the 
 calm and serenity of age. But they 
 were scarcely less beautiful in their 
 slow decline, than they had been in 
 their prime ; for nature gives to every 
 time and season some beauties of its 
 own; and from morning to night, as 
 from the cradle to the grave, is but a 
 succession of changes so gentle and 
 easy, that we can scarcely mark their 
 progress. 
 
 To Godalming they came at last, 
 and here they bargained for two hum- 
 ble beds, and slept soundly. In the 
 morning they were astir : though not 
 quite so early as the sun : and again 
 afoot ; if not with all the freshness of 
 yesterday, still, with enough of hope 
 and spirit to bear them cheerily on. 
 
 It was a harder day's journey than 
 yesterday's, for there were long and 
 weary hills to climb ; and in jour- 
 neys, as in life, it is a great deal 
 easier to go down hill than up. How 
 ever, they kept on, with unabated 
 perseverance, and the hill has not 
 yet lifted its face to heaven that per- 
 severance will not gain the summit of, 
 at last. 
 
 They walked upon the rim of the 
 Devil's Punch Bowl; and Smike list- 
 ened with greedy interest as Nicholas 
 read the inscription upon the stono 
 which, reared upon that wild spot, 
 tells of a murder committed there 
 by night. The grass on which they 
 stood, had once been dyed with 
 gore ; and the blood of the murdered 
 man had run down, drop by drop, 
 into the hollow which gives the 
 place its name. " The Devil's Bowl," 
 thought Nicholas, as he looked into 
 the void, " never held fitter liquor 
 than that ! " 
 
 Onward they kept, with steady pur- 
 pose, and entered at length upon a 
 wide and spacious tract of downs, with 
 every variety of little hill and plain to
 
 166 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 change their verdant surface. Here, 
 there shot up, almost perpendicularly, 
 into the sky, a height so steep, as to be 
 hardly accessible to any but the sheep 
 and goats that fed upon its sides, 
 and there, stood a mound of green, 
 sloping and tapering off so delicately, 
 and merging so gently into the level 
 ground, that you could scarce define 
 its limits. Hills swelling above each 
 other; and undulations, shapely and 
 uncouth, smooth and rugged, graceful 
 and grotesque, thrown negligently 
 side by side, bounded the view in each 
 direction ; while frequently, with un- 
 expected noise, there uprose from the 
 ground, a flight of crows, who, cawing 
 and wheeling round the nearest hills, 
 as if uncertain of their course, sud- 
 denly poised themselves upon the wing 
 and skimmed down the long vista of 
 some opening valley, with the speed of 
 light itself. 
 
 By degrees, the prospect receded 
 more and more on either hand, and as 
 they had been shut out from rich and 
 extensive scenery, so they emerged 
 once again upon the open country. 
 The knowledge that they were drawing 
 near their place of destination, gave 
 them fresh courage to proceed ; but 
 the way had been difficult, and they 
 had loitered on the road, and Smike 
 was tired. Thus, twilight had already 
 closed in, when they turned off the 
 path to the door of a road-side inn, 
 yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth. 
 
 " Twelve miles," said Nicholas, lean- 
 ing with both hands on his stick, and 
 looking doubtfully at Smike. 
 
 " Twelve long miles," repeated the 
 landlord. 
 
 "Is it a good road 1 " inquired 
 Nicholas. 
 
 Very bad," said the landlord. As 
 of course, being a landlord, he would 
 say. 
 
 " I want to get on," observed Nicho- 
 las, hesitating. " I scarcely know 
 what to do." 
 
 " Don't let me influence you," re- 
 joined the landlord. " / wouldn't go 
 on if it was me." 
 
 " Wouldn't you ! " asked Nicholas, 
 with the same uncertainty. 
 
 " Not if I knew when I was well 
 ofT," 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 assump- 
 tion of great indifference. 
 
 A glance at the toil-worn face of 
 Smike determined Nicholas, so with- 
 out any further consideration he made 
 up his mind to stay where he was. 
 
 The landlord led them into the 
 kitchen, and as there was a good fire 
 he remarked that it was very cold. If 
 there had happened to be a bad one 
 he would have observed that it was 
 very warm. 
 
 " What can you give us for supper !*" 
 was Nicholas's natural question. 
 
 " Why what would you like ! " 
 was the. landlord's no less natural 
 answer. 
 
 Nicholas suggested cold meat, but 
 there was no cold meat poached eggs, 
 but there were no eggs mutton chops, 
 but there wasn't a mutton chop within 
 three miles, though there had been 
 more last week than they knew what 
 to do with, and would be an extraor- 
 dinary 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 parlour that's ordered 
 a hot beef-steak pudding and potatoes, 
 at nine. There 's more of it than he 
 can manage, and I have very little 
 doubt that if I ask leave, you can sup 
 with him. 1 '11 do that, in a minute." 
 
 " No, no," said Nicholas, detaining 
 him. "I would rather not. I at 
 least pshaw ! why cannot I speak 
 out Here ; yon see that I am travel- 
 ling in a very humble manner, and 
 have made my way hither on foot. 
 It is more than probable, I think, that 
 the gentleman may not relish my com- 
 pany ; 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."
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 167 
 
 "Is he not I" asked Nicholas, on 
 whose mind, to tell the truth, the 
 prospect of the savoury pudding was 
 making some impression. 
 
 " Not he," replied the landlord. 
 " He '11 like your way of talking, I 
 know. But we'll soon see all about 
 that. Just wait a minute." 
 
 The landlord hurried into the par- 
 lour, without staying for further per- 
 mission, 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 would. You '11 see some- 
 thing rather worth seeing, in there. 
 cod, how they are a going of it !" 
 
 There was no time to inquire to 
 what this exclamation, which was de- 
 livered in a very rapturous tone, re- 
 ferred ; for he had already thrown open 
 the door of the room ; into which Ni- 
 cholas, followed by Smike with the 
 bundle on his shoulder (he carried it 
 about with him as vigilantly as if it 
 had been a sack of gold), straightway 
 repaired. 
 
 Nicholas was prepared for something 
 odd, but not for something quite so odd 
 as the sight he encountered. At the 
 upper end of the room, were a couple 
 of boys, one of them very tall and the 
 other very short, both dressed as sailors 
 or at least as theatrical sailors, with 
 belts, buckles, pigtails, and pistols com- 
 plete fighting what is called in play- 
 bills a terrific combat, with two of those 
 short broad-swords with basket hilts 
 which are commonly used at our minor 
 theatres. The short boy had gained 
 a great advantage over the tall boy, 
 who was reduced to mortal strait, 
 and both were overlooked by a large 
 heavy man, perched against the corner 
 of a table, who emphatically adjured 
 them to strike a little more fire out oi 
 the swords, and they couldn't fail to 
 bring the house down, on the very firsl 
 night. 
 
 " Mr. Vincent Crummies," said the 
 landlord with an air of great deference 
 " This is the young gentleman." 
 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies received Ni- 
 cholas with an inclination of the head, 
 something between the courtesy of a 
 Roman emperor and the nod of a pot 
 companion ; and bade the landlorckshut 
 lu- door and begone. 
 
 " There 's a picture," said Mr. 
 'rummies, motioning Nicholas not to 
 advance and spoil it. " The little 'un has 
 lim; if the big'un doesn't knock under, 
 m three seconds, he 's a dead man. Do 
 that again, boys." 
 
 The two combatants went to work 
 afresh, and chopped away until the 
 swords emitted a shower of sparks: to 
 the great satisfaction of Mr. Crummies, 
 who appeared to consider this a very 
 great point indeed. The engagement 
 commenced with about two hundred 
 chops administered by the short sailor 
 and the tall sailor alternately, without 
 producing any particular result, until 
 the short sailor was chopped down on 
 one knee ; but this was nothing to him, 
 for he worked himself about on the 
 one knee with the assistance of his left 
 hand, and fought most desperately 
 until the tall sailor chopped his sword 
 out of his grasp. Now, the inference 
 was, that the short sailor, reduced to 
 this extremity, would give in at once 
 and cry quarter, but, instead of that, he 
 all of a sudden drew a large pistol from 
 his belt and presented It at the face of 
 the tall sailor, who was so overcome at 
 this (not expecting it) that he let the 
 short sailor pick up his sword and 
 begin again. Then, the chopping re- 
 commenced, and a variety of fancy 
 chops were administered on both sides; 
 such as chops dealt with the left hand, 
 and under the leg, and over the right 
 shoulder, and over the left; and when 
 the short sailor made a vigorous cut at 
 the tall sailor's legs, which would have 
 shaved them clean off if it had taken 
 effect, the tall sailor jumped over the 
 short sailor's sword, wherefore to ba- 
 lance the matter, and make it all fair, 
 the tall sailor administered the same cut 
 and the short sailor jumped over Jiis 
 sword. After this, there was a good 
 deal of dodging about, and hitching up 
 of die inexpressibles in the absence of 
 braces, and then the short sailor (who
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 was the moral character evidently, for 
 lie always had the best of it) made a 
 violent demonstration and closed with 
 the tall sailor, who, after a few unavail- 
 ing 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 '11 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 saluted 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 
 off nearly to the crown of his head 
 to admit (as he afterwards learnt) of 
 his more easily wearing character wigs 
 of any shape or pattern. 
 
 What did you think of that, sir ? " 
 inquired Mr. Crummies. 
 
 " Very good, indeed capital," an- 
 swered Nicholas. 
 
 " You won't see such boys as those 
 very often, I think," said Mr. Crum- 
 mies. 
 
 Nicholas assented observing, that 
 if they were a little better match 
 
 " Match ! " cried Mr. Crummies. 
 
 " I mean if they were a little more 
 of a size," said Nicholas, explaining 
 himself. 
 
 " Size ! " repeated Mr. Crummies ; 
 "why, it's the essence of the com- 
 bat that there should be a foot or 
 two between them. How are you to 
 get up the sympathies of the audience 
 in a legitimate manner, if there isn't a 
 little man contending against a big 
 one unless there 's at least five to 
 one, and we haven't hands enough for 
 that business in our company." 
 
 " I see," replied Nicholas. " I beg 
 your pardon. That didn't occur to me, 
 I confess." 
 
 " It 's the main point," said Mr. 
 Crummies. ' I open at Portsmouth 
 the day after to-morrow. If you're 
 going there, look into the theatre, and 
 see how that '11 tell." 
 
 Nicholas promised to do so, if ho 
 could, and drawing a chair near the 
 fire, fell into conversation with the 
 manager at once. He was very talka- 
 tive and communicative, stimulated 
 perhaps, not only by his natural dis- 
 position, but by the spirits and water 
 he sipped very plentifully, or the 
 snuff he took in large quantities from 
 a piece of whitey-brown paper in his 
 waistcoat pocket. He laid open his 
 affairs without the smallest reserve, 
 and descanted at some length upon the 
 merits of his company, and the ac- 
 quirements of his family : of both of 
 which, the two broad-sword boys formed 
 an honourable portion. There was to 
 be a gathering, it seemed, of the differ- 
 ent ladies and gentlemen at Ports- 
 mouth 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 
 degree of 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 tirno, 
 with great interest at Smike, with 
 whom he had appeared considerably 
 struck from the first. He had now 
 fallen asleep, and was nodding hi his 
 chair. 
 
 " Excuse my saying so," said the 
 manager, leaning over to Nicholas, and 
 sinking his voice, " but what a capital 
 countenance your friend has got I "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 159 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Nicholas, with 
 a half smile, " I wish it were a little 
 more plump, and less haggard." 
 
 " Plump ! " exclaimed the manager, 
 quite horrified, "you'd spoil it forever." 
 
 " Do you think so ! " 
 
 " Think so, sir ! Why, as lie is 
 now," said the manager, striking his 
 knee emphatically ; " without a pad 
 u]>on his body, and hardly a touch of 
 paint upon his face, he M make such 
 an actor for the starved business as 
 was never seen in this country. Only 
 let him be tolerably well up in the 
 Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet with 
 the slightest possible dab of red on the 
 tip of his nose, and he 'd be certain of 
 three rounds the moment he put his 
 head out of the practicable door in the 
 front grooves 0. P." 
 
 " You view him with a professional 
 eye," said Nicholas, laughing. 
 
 " And well I may," rejoined the 
 manager, " I never saw a young fellow 
 so regularly cut out for that line, since 
 I 've been in the profession. And I 
 played the heavy children when I was 
 eighteen months old." 
 
 The appearance of the beef-steak 
 pudding, which came in simultaneously 
 with the junior Vincent Crummleses, 
 turned the conversation to other mat- 
 ters, and indeed, for a time, stopped it 
 altogether. These two young gentle- 
 men 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 dis- 
 posed of. 
 
 The Master Crummleses had no 
 sooner swallowed the last procurable 
 morsel of food, than they evinced, by 
 various half-suppressed yawns and 
 stretchings of their limbs, an obvious 
 inclination to retire for the night, 
 which Smike had betrayed still more 
 strongly : he having, in the course of 
 the meal, fallen asleep several times 
 while in the very act of eating. Nicholas 
 therefore proposed that they should 
 break up at once, but the manager 
 would by no means hear of it ; vowing 
 that he had promised himself the 
 
 pleasure of inviting his new acquaint- 
 ance to share a bowl of punch, and 
 that if he declined, he should deem it 
 very unhandsome behaviour. 
 
 " Let them go," said Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies, " and we '11 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 shako 
 of the hand with the young Crumm- 
 leses, and the manager having on his 
 part bestowed a most affectionate bene- 
 diction on Smike, he sat himself down 
 opposite to that gentleman by the fire- 
 side to assist in emptying the bowl, 
 which soon afterwards appeared, 
 steaming in a manner which was 
 quite exhilarating to behold, and send* 
 ing forth a most grateful and inviting 
 fragrance. 
 
 But, despite the punch and the 
 manager, who told a variety of stories, 
 and smoked tobacco from a pipe, and 
 inhaled it in the shape of snuff, with a 
 most astonishing power, Nicholas was 
 absent and dispirited. His thoughts 
 were in his old home, and when they 
 reverted to his present condition, the 
 uncertainty of the morrow cast a 
 gloom upon him, which his utmost 
 efforts were unable to dispel. His 
 attention wandered ; although he heard 
 the manager's voice, he was deaf to 
 what he said ; and when Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies concluded the history of 
 some long adventure with a loud laugh, 
 and an inquiry what Nicholas would 
 have done under the same circum- 
 stances, he was obliged to make the 
 best apology in his power, and to con- 
 fess 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 ques- 
 tion ; 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 tho 
 country.
 
 170 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " And what 's that 1 " asked the 
 manager. 
 
 " Getting something to do which 
 will keep me and my poor fellow- 
 traveller in the common necessaries 
 of life," said Nicholas. " That 's the 
 truth. You guessed it long ago, I 
 dare say, so I may as well have the 
 credit of telling it you with a good 
 grace." 
 
 " What 's to be got to do at Ports- 
 mouth more than anywhere 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 siipper or 
 mate that would think you worth your 
 salt, when he could get a practised 
 hand," replied the manager ; " and 
 they as plentiful there, as the oysters 
 in the streets." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked Ni- 
 cholas, alarmed by this prediction, and 
 the confident tone in which it had been 
 uttered. " Men are not born able sea- 
 men. They must be reared, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 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 
 
 see the world to advantage in ? " asked 
 the manager. 
 
 " No," said Nicholas, shaking his 
 head. 
 
 Why, then, I '11 tell you one," said 
 Mr. Crummies, throwing his pipe into 
 the fire, and raising his voice. " The 
 stage." 
 
 " The stage ! " cried Nicholas, in a 
 voice almost as loud. 
 
 " The theatrical profession," said 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies. " I am in the 
 theatrical profession myself, my wife is 
 in the theatrical profession, my children 
 are in the theatrical profession. I had 
 a dog that lived and died hi it from a 
 puppy ; and my chaise-pony goes on, 
 in Timour the Tartar. I'll bring you 
 out, and your friend too. Say the 
 word. I want a novelty." 
 
 " I don't know anything about it," 
 rejoined Nicholas, whose breath had 
 been almost taken away, by this sudden 
 proposal. " I never acted a part in 
 my life, except at school." 
 
 " There 's genteel comedy in your 
 walk and manner, juvenile tragedy in 
 your eye, and touch-and-go farce in 
 your laugh," said Mr. Vincent Crum- 
 mies. " You '11 do as well as if -you 
 had thought of nothing else but the 
 lamps, from your birth downwards." 
 
 Nicholas thought of the small amount 
 of small change that would remain in 
 his pocket after paying the tavern bill : 
 and he hesitated. 
 
 " You can be useful to us in a hundred 
 ways," said Mr. Crummies. " Think 
 what capital bills a man of your educa- 
 tion could write for the shop- windows." 
 
 " Well, 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 'em. 
 Pieces too ; why, you could write us a 
 piece to bring out the whole strength 
 of the company, whenever we wanted 
 one." 
 
 " I am not quite so confident about 
 that," replied Nicholas. " But I dare 
 say I could scribble something now and 
 then, that would suit you." 
 
 " We '11 have a new show-piece ou*
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 1/1 
 
 directly," said the manager. * Let me 
 see peculiar resources of this esta- 
 blishment new and splendid scenery 
 you must manage to introduce a real 
 pump and two washing-tubs." 
 
 " Into the piece ? " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes," replied the manager. " I 
 bought 'em cheap, at a sale the other 
 day, and they '11 come in admirably. 
 That 's the London plan. They look 
 up some dresses, and properties, and 
 have a piece written to fit 'em. Most 
 of the theatres keep an author on pur- 
 pose." 
 
 " Indeed ! " cried Nicholas. 
 
 M Oh yes," said the manager ; " a 
 common thing. It'll look very well 
 in the bills in separate lines Real 
 pump '. Splendid tubs ! Great attrac- 
 tion ! You don't happen to be anything 
 of an artist, do you !" 
 
 " That is not one of my accomplish- 
 ments," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 Ah ! Then it can't be helped," 
 said the manager. " If you had been, 
 we might have had a large woodcut of 
 the last scene for the posters, showing 
 the whole depth of the stage, with the 
 pump and tubs in the middle ; but how- 
 ever, 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 I " 
 
 " Live by it !" said the manager. 
 " Like a prince ! With your own salary, 
 and your friend's, and your writings, 
 you 'd make all ! 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 1 
 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 I 
 
 Without more deliberation, hehastily 
 declared that it was a bargain, and gave 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies his hand upon it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TREATS OF THE COMPANY OF MR. VINCENT CRCMMLES, AND OF 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 be- 
 stowed the appellation of a four- 
 wheeled phaeton, Nicholas proceeded 
 on his journey next morning with 
 greater eatie than he had expected : 
 the manager and himself occupying the 
 front seat : and the Master Crummleses 
 and Smike being packed together be- 
 hind, in company with a wicker basket 
 defended from wet by a stout oilskin, 
 in which were the broad-swords, pis- 
 tols, pigtails, nautical costumes, and 
 
 I other professional necessaries of the 
 
 | aforesaid young gentlemen. 
 
 The pony took his time upon the 
 road, and possibly in consequence of 
 his theatrical education evinced, every 
 now and then, a strong inclination to 
 
 j lie down. However, Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies kept him up pretty well, by 
 jerking the rein, and plying the whip ; 
 and when these means failed, and the 
 animal came to a stand, the elder 
 Master Crummies got out and kicked 
 him. By dint of these encourage- 
 ments, he was persuaded to move from 
 time to time, and they jogged on (as
 
 172 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mr. Crummies truly observed) very 
 comfortably for all parties. 
 
 " He 's a good pony at bottom," 
 said Mr. Crummies, turning to Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 He might have been at bottom, but 
 he certainly was not at top, seeing 
 that his coat was of the roughest and 
 most ill-favoured kind. So, Nicholas 
 merely observed that he shouldn't 
 wonder if he was. 
 
 " Many and many is the circuit this 
 pony has gone," said Mr. Crummies, 
 flicking him skilfully on the eyelid 
 for old acquaintance' sake. " He is 
 quite one of us. His mother was on 
 the stage." 
 
 " Was she 1 " rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " She ate apple-pie at a circus for 
 upwards of fourteen years," said the 
 manager ; " fired pistols, and went to 
 bed in a nightcap ; and, in short, took 
 the low comedy entirely. His father 
 was a dancer." 
 
 " Was he at all distinguished ? " 
 
 " Not very," said the manager. 
 " He was rather a low sort of pony. 
 The fact is, he had been originally 
 jobbed out by the day, and he never 
 quite got over his old habits. He was 
 clever in melodrama too, but too 
 broad too broad. When the mother 
 died, he took the port-wine busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " The port-wine business ! " cried 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "Drinking port-wine with the 
 clown," said the manager ; "but he 
 was greedy, and one night bit off the 
 bowl of the glass, and choked himself, 
 so his vulgarity was the death of him 
 at last" 
 
 The descendant of this ill-starred 
 animal requiring increased attention 
 from Mr. Crummies as he progressed 
 in his day's work, that gentleman 
 had very little time for conversation. 
 Nicholas was thus left at leisure to 
 entertain himself with his own thoughts, 
 until they arrived at the drawbridge 
 at Portsmouth, when Mr. Crummies 
 pulled up. 
 
 " We '11 get down here," said the 
 manager, " and the boys will take him 
 round to the stable, and call at my 
 
 lodgings with the luggage. You had 
 better let yours be taken there, for the 
 present." 
 
 Thanking Mr. Vincent Crummies 
 for his obliging offer, Nicholas jumped 
 out, and, giving Smike his arm, ac- 
 companied the manager up High Street 
 on their way to the theatre ; feeling 
 nervous and uncomfortable enough at 
 the prospect of an immediate intro- 
 duction to s scene so new to him. 
 
 They passed a great many bills, 
 pasted against the walls and displayed 
 in windows, wherein the names of Mr. 
 Vincent Crummies, Mrs. Vincent 
 Crummies, Master Crummies, Master 
 P. Crummies, and Miss Crummies, 
 were printed in very large letters, and 
 everything else in very small ones ; 
 and, turning at length into an entry, 
 in which was a strong smell of orange- 
 peel and lamp-oil, with an under-cur- 
 rent of sawdust, groped their way 
 through a dark passage, and, descend- 
 ing a step or two, threaded a little 
 maze of canvass screens and paint 
 pots, and emerged upon the stage of 
 the Portsmouth Theatre. 
 
 " Here we are," said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 It was not very light, but Nicholas 
 found himself close to the first entrance 
 on the prompt side, among bare 
 walls, dusty scenes, mildewed clouds, 
 heavily daubed draperies, and dirty 
 floors. He looked about him ; ceiling, 
 pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings, 
 and decorations of every kind, all 
 looked coarse, cold, gloomy, and 
 wretched. 
 
 " Is this a theatre ? " whispered 
 Smike, in amazement ; " I thought it 
 was a blaze of light and finery," 
 
 " Why, so it is," replied Nicholas, 
 hardly less surprised ; " but not by 
 day, Smike not by day." 
 
 The manager's voice recalled him 
 from a more careful inspection of the 
 building, to the opposite side of the 
 proscenium, where, at a small maho- 
 gany table with rickety legs and of an 
 oblong shape, sat a stout, portly female, 
 apparently between forty and fifty, in 
 a tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet 
 dangling by the strings in her hand, 
 and her hair (of which she had a great
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 173 
 
 quantity) braided in a large festoon 
 over each temple. 
 
 " Mr. Johnson," said the manager 
 (for Nicholas had given the name which 
 Newman Noggs had bestowed upon 
 him in his conversation with Mrs. 
 Kenwigs), "let me introduce Mrs. 
 Vincent Crummies." 
 
 " I am glad to see you, sir," said 
 Mrs. Vincent Crummies, in a sepul- 
 chral voice. " I am very glad to see 
 you, and still more happy to hail you 
 as a promising member of our corps." 
 
 The lady shook Nicholas by the 
 hand as she addressed him in these 
 terms ; he saw it was a large one, but 
 had not expected quite such an iron 
 grip as that with which she honoured 
 him. 
 
 " And this," said the lady, crossing 
 to Smike, as tragic actresses cross 
 when they obey a stage direction, 
 " and this is the other. You too, are 
 welcome, sir." 
 
 " He '11 do, I think, my dear ? " said 
 the manager, taking a pinch of snuff. 
 
 " He is admirable," replied the lady. 
 " An acquisition, indeed." 
 
 As Mrs. Vincent Crummies re- 
 crossed back to the table, there 
 bounded on to the stage from some 
 mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty 
 white frock with tucks up to the knees, 
 short trousers, sandaled shoes, white 
 spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil 
 and curl-papers ; who turned a pirou- 
 ette, 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 gentle- 
 man 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 ! " said the manager, " the 
 little ballet interlude. Very good, 
 go on. A little this way, if you 
 please, Mr. Johnson. That '11 do. 
 Now ! " 
 
 The manager clapped his hands as 
 
 a signal to proceed, and the Savage, 
 becoming ferocious, made a slide to- 
 wards the maiden ; but the maiden 
 avoided him in six twirls, and came 
 down, at the end of the last one, upon 
 the very points of her toes. This 
 seemed to make some impression upon 
 the savage ; for, after a little more 
 ferocity and chasing of the maiden 
 into corners, he began to relent, and 
 stroked his face several times with 
 his right thumb and four fingers, 
 thereby intimating that he was struck 
 with admiration of the maiden's beauty. 
 Acting upon the impulse of this pas- 
 sion, he (the savage) began "'to hit 
 himself severe thumps in the chest, 
 and to exhibit other indications of 
 being desperately in love, which being 
 rather a prosy proceeding, was very 
 likely the cause of the maiden's falling 
 asleep ; whether it was or no, asleep 
 she did fall, sound as a church, on a 
 sloping bank, and the savage per- 
 ceiving it, leant his left ear on his left 
 hand, and nodded sideways, to intimate 
 to all whom it might concern that she 
 was asleep, and no shamming. Being 
 left to himself, the savage had a dance, 
 all alone. Just as he left off, the 
 maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got 
 off the bank, and had a dance all alono 
 too such a dance that the savage 
 looked on in ecstacy all the while, and 
 when it was done, plucked from a 
 neighbouring tree some botanical 
 curiosity, resembling a small pickled 
 cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, 
 who at first wouldn't have it, but on 
 the savage shedding tears relented. 
 Then the savage jumped for joy ; 
 then the maiden jumped for rapture 
 at the sweet smell of the pickled cab- 
 bage. Then the savage and the maiden 
 danced violently together, and, finally, 
 the savage dropped down on one knee, 
 and the maiden stood on one leg upon 
 his other knee ; thus concluding the 
 ballet, and leaving the spectators in a 
 state of pleasing uncertainty, whether 
 she would ultimately marry the savage, 
 or return to her friemlf. 
 
 " Very well indeed," said Mr. 
 Crummies ; " bravo ! " 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried Nicholas, resolved
 
 174 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 to make the best of everything. " Beau- 
 tiful ! " 
 
 This, sir," said Mr. Vincent Crum- 
 mies, bringing the maiden forward, 
 " This is the infant phenomenon 
 Miss Ninetta Crummies." 
 
 " Your daughter ? " inquired Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " My daughter my daughter," 
 replied Mr. Vincent Crummies ; " 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, 1 ' said 
 Nicholas ; " she must be quite a 
 natural genius." 
 
 " Quite a ! " Mr. Crummies 
 
 stopped ; language was not powerful 
 enough to describe the infant pheno- 
 menon. " I '11 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 ?" in- 
 quired Nicholas. 
 
 " You may, sir," replied Mr. Crum- 
 mies, looking steadily in his questioner's 
 face, as some men do when they have 
 doubts about being implicitly believed 
 in what they are going to say. " She 
 is ten years of age, sir." 
 
 " Not more ! " 
 
 " Not a day." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Nicholas, " it 's 
 extraordinary." 
 
 It was : for the infant phenomenon, 
 though of short stature, had a com- 
 paratively aged countenance, and had 
 moreover been precisely the same age 
 not perhaps to the full extent of the 
 memory of the oldest inhabitant, but 
 certainly for five good years. But she 
 had been kept up late every night, and 
 put upon an unlimited allowance of 
 gin-and-water from infancy, to prevent 
 her growing tall, and perhaps this 
 system of training had produced in 
 the infant phenomenon these additional 
 phenomena. 
 
 While this short dialogue was going 
 on, the gentleman who had enacted 
 
 the savage, came up, with his walking- 
 shot's on his feet, and his slippers in 
 his hand, to within a few paces, as if 
 desirous to join in the conversation. 
 Deeming this a good opportunity he 
 put in his word. 
 
 " Talent there, sir ! " said the savage, 
 nodding towards Miss Crummies. 
 
 Nicholas assented. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the actor, setting his 
 teeth together, and drawing in his 
 breath with a hissing sound, " she 
 oughtn't to be in the provinces, she 
 oughtn't." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the 
 manager. 
 
 " I mean to say," replied the other, 
 warmly, "that she is too good for 
 country boards, and that she ought to 
 be in one of the large houses in Lon- 
 don, 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 A recruit, sir, I under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 " An unworthy one," replied Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Did you ever see such a set-out as 
 that 1 " 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. 
 
 u You don't mean the infant pheno- 
 menon ? " 
 
 " 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," ob- 
 served Nicholas, with a smile. 
 
 " Yes, by Jove, and well I may," 
 said Mr. Folair, drawing his arm
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 175 
 
 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 3 Isn't it ex- 
 traordinary to see a man's confounded 
 family conceit blinding him, even to 
 his own interest ! Why I know of 
 fifteen and sixpence that came to South- 
 ampton one night last month, to see me 
 dance the Highland Fling ; and what 's 
 the consequence ! I 've never been 
 put up in it since never once while 
 the infant phenomenon ' has been 
 grinning through artificial flowers at 
 five people and a baby in the pit, 
 and two boys in the gallery, every 
 night." 
 
 " If I may judge from what I have 
 seen of you," said Nicholas, " you 
 must be a valuable member of the 
 company." 
 
 " Oh ! " replied Mr. Folair, beating 
 his slippers together, to knock the dust 
 out ; " I can come it pretty well 
 nobody better, perhaps, in my own line 
 but having such business as one gets 
 here, is like putting lead on one's feet 
 instead of chalk, and dancing in fetters 
 without the credit of it. Holloa, old 
 fellow, how are you ? " 
 
 The gentleman addressed in these 
 latter words, was a dark-complexioned 
 man, inclining indeed to sallow, with 
 long thick black hair, and very evi- 
 dent 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, though 
 many at first eight would have con- 
 sidered him much older, as his face 
 was long, and very pale, from the con- 
 stant application of stage paint He 
 wore a checked shirt, an old green 
 coat with new gilt buttons, a necker- 
 chief of broad red and green stripes, 
 and full blue trousers ; he carried, too, 
 a common ash walking-stick, appa- 
 rently more for show than use, as he 
 flourished it about, with the hooked 
 ;iid 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 inani- 
 mate, that chanced to afford him a 
 pretty good mark at the moment. 
 
 " Well, Tommy," said this gentle- 
 man, making a tlirust at his friend, 
 who parried it dexterously with his 
 slipper, " what's the news 1 " 
 
 " A new appearance, that's all," 
 replied Mr. Folair, looking at Nicholas. 
 
 " Do the honours, Tommy, do the 
 honours," said the other gentleman, 
 tapping him reproachfully on the crown 
 of the hat with his stick. 
 
 " This is Mr. Lenville, who does our 
 first tragedy, Mr. Johnson," said the 
 pantomimist. 
 
 " Except when old bricks and mor- 
 tar takes it into his head to do it him- 
 self, you should add Tommy," re- 
 marked 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 re- 
 flection, 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 in- 
 dulging occasionally in such appro- 
 priate action as his imagination and the 
 text suggested. 
 
 A pretty general muster of the com- 
 pany had by this time taken place ; 
 for besides Mr. Lenville and his friend 
 Tomrry, there were present, a slim 
 young gentleman with weak eyes, who 
 played the low-spirited lovers and sang 
 tenor songs, and who had come arm- 
 in-arm with the comic countryman 
 a man with a tumetl-up nose, large 
 mouth, broad face, and staring eyes. 
 Making himself very amiable to the 
 infant phenomenon, was an inebriated
 
 176 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 elderly gentleman in the last depths of 
 fihabbiness, who played the calm and 
 virtuous old men ; and paying especial 
 court to Mrs. Crummies was another 
 elderly gentleman, a shade more re- 
 spectable, who played the irascible old 
 men those funny fellows who have 
 nephews in the army, and perpetually 
 run about with thick sticks to compel 
 them to marry heiresses. Besides 
 these, there was a roving-looking per- 
 son 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 viva- 
 city for the amusement of an ideal 
 audience. He was not quite so young 
 as he had been, and his figure was 
 rather running to seed ; but there was 
 an air of exaggerated gentility about 
 him, which bespoke the hero of swag- 
 gering comedy. There was, also, a 
 little group of three or four young 
 men, with lantern jaws and thick eye- 
 brows, who were conversing in one 
 corner ; but they seemed to be of 
 secondary importance, and laughed and 
 talked together without attracting any 
 attention. 
 
 The ladies were gathered in a little 
 knot by themselves round the rickety 
 table before mentioned. There was Miss 
 Snevellicci who could do anything, 
 from a medley dance to Lady Mac- 
 beth, and also always played some part 
 in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit 
 glancing, from the depths of her coal- 
 scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and 
 affecting to be absorbed in the recital 
 of a diverting story to her friend Miss 
 Ledrook, who had brought her work, 
 and was making up a ruff in the most 
 natural manner possible. There was 
 Miss Belvawney who seldom aspired 
 to speaking parts, and usually went on 
 as a page in white silk hose, to stand 
 with one leg bent, and contemplate the 
 audience, or to go in and out after Mr. 
 Crummies in stately tragedy twisting 
 up the ringlets of the beautiful Miss 
 Bravassa, who had once had her like- 
 ness taken " in character " by an en- 
 graver's apprentice, whereof impres- 
 sions were hung up for sale in the 
 l>astry-cook's window, and the green- 
 
 grocer's, and at the circulating library, 
 and the box-office, whenever the an- 
 nounce bills came out for her annual 
 night. There was Mrs. Lenville, in a 
 very limp bonnet and veil, decidedly 
 in that way in which she would wish 
 to be if she truly loved Mr. Lenville ; 
 there was Miss Gazingi, with an imi- 
 tation ermine boa tied in a loose knot 
 round her neck, flogging Mr. Crummies, 
 junior, with both ends, in fun. Lastly, 
 there was Mrs. Grudden in a brown 
 cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who 
 assisted Mrs. Crummies in her domestic 
 affairs, and took money at the doors, 
 and dressed the ladies, and swept the 
 house, and held the prompt book 
 when everybody else was on for the 
 last scene, and acted any kind of part 
 on any emergency without ever learn- 
 ing it, and was put down in the bills 
 under any name or names whatever, 
 that occurred to Mr. Crummies as 
 looking well in print. 
 
 Mr. Folair having obligingly con- 
 fided 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. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Miss 
 Snevellicci, sidling towards Nicholas, 
 " but did you ever play at Canter- 
 bury ? " 
 
 " I never did," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " I recollect meeting a gentleman at 
 Canterbury," said Miss Snevellicci, 
 " only for a few momenta, 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 gallan- 
 try. " I am sure I never saw you be- 
 fore ; I couldn't have forgotten it." 
 
 " Oh, I 'm sure it 's very flattering 
 of you to say so," retorted Miss Snevel- 
 licci with a graceful bend. " Now I 
 look at you again, I see that the gentle- 
 man at Canterbury hadn't the same 
 eyes as you you '11 think me very 
 foolish for taking notice of such things, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 " Not at all," said Nicholas. " How
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 177 
 
 can I fet-1 otherwise than flattered by 
 your notice iu any way 1 " 
 
 "Oli ! you men are such vain 
 creatures ! " cried Miss Snevellicci. 
 Whereupon, she became charmingly 
 confused, and, pulling out her pocket 
 handkerchief from a faded pink silk 
 reticule with a gilt clasp, called to Miss 
 Ledrook 
 
 " Led, my dear," said Miss Snevel- 
 licci. 
 
 "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 Snevel- 
 licci about being struck with Nicholas ; 
 for, after some playful whispering, 
 Miss Snevellicci hit Miss Ledrook very 
 hard on the backs of her hands, and 
 retired up, in a state of pleasing con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. 
 Vincent Crummies, who had been 
 writing on a piece of paper, " we 11 
 call the Mortal Struggle to-morrow at 
 ten ; everybody for the procession. 
 Intrigue, and Ways and Means, you 're 
 all up in, so we shall only want one 
 rehearsal. Everybody at ten, if you 
 please." 
 
 " Everybody at ten," repeated Mrs. 
 Grudden, looking about her. 
 
 " On Monday morning we shall read 
 a new piece," said Mr. Crummies; 
 " the name 's not known yet, but every- 
 body will have a good part. Mr. 
 Johnson will take care of that." 
 
 ' Hallo ! " said Nicholas, starting, 
 I 
 
 " On Monday morning," repeated 
 Mr. Crummies, raising his voice, to 
 drown the unfortunate Mr. Johnson's 
 remonstrance ; " that '11 do, ladies and 
 gentlemen." 
 
 The ladies and gentlemen required 
 no second notice to quit ; and, in a few 
 
 No. 43 
 
 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 Ni- 
 cholas ; " my invention is not accus- 
 tomed to these demands, or possibly I 
 might produce " 
 
 " Invention ! what the devil's that 
 got to do with it ! " cried the manager, 
 hastily. 
 
 " Everything, my dear sir." 
 
 " Nothing, my dear sir," retorted 
 the manager, with evident impatience. 
 " Do you understand French ? " 
 
 " Perfectly well." 
 
 "Very good," said the manager, 
 opening the table-drawer, and giving 
 a roll of paper from it to Nicholas. 
 " There ! Just turn that into English, 
 and put your name on the title-page. 
 Damn me," said Mr. 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 the original, and play it in 
 English, and save all this trouble and 
 expense." 
 
 Nicholas smiled and pocketed the 
 play. 
 
 " What are you going to do about 
 your lodgings ? " said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 Nicholas could not help thinking that, 
 for the first week, it would be an un- 
 common 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. Grud- 
 den remained behind to take some cold 
 Irish stew and a pint of porter in the 
 box-office. 
 
 12 K
 
 178 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mrs. Crummies trod the pavement 
 as if she were going to immediate exe- 
 cution with an animating consciousness 
 of innocence, and that heroic fortitude 
 which virtue alone inspires. Mr. 
 Crummies, on the other hand, assumed 
 the look and gait of a hardened des- 
 pot ; but they both attracted some 
 notice from many of the passers-by, 
 and when they heard a whisper of 
 u Mr. and Mrs. Crummies ! " or saw a 
 little boy run back to stare them in 
 - the face, the severe expression of their 
 countenances relaxed, for they felt it 
 was popularity. 
 
 Mr. Crummies lived in Saint Tho- 
 mas's Street, at the house of one 
 Bulph, a pilot, who sported a boat- 
 green door, with window-frames of 
 the same colour, and had the little 
 finger of a drowned man on his parlour 
 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 acknowledg- 
 ments, and was unfeignedly glad to 
 see the cloth laid. 
 
 " We have but a shoulder of mutton 
 vith 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 Ni- 
 cholas, u I shall do it ample justice." 
 
 " Vincent," said Mrs. Crummies, 
 " what is the hour ! " 
 
 " Five minutes past dinner-tune," 
 said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 Mrs. Crummies rang the bell. * Let 
 the mutton and onion sauce appear." 
 
 The slave who attended upon Mr. 
 Bulph's lodgers, disappeared, and after 
 a short interval re-appeared with the 
 festive banquet. Nicholas and the 
 infant phenomenon opposed each other 
 at the pembroke-table, and Smike and 
 the master Crummleses dined on the 
 sofa bedstead. 
 
 u Are they very theatrical people 
 here ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 u No," replied Mr. 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 entertain- 
 ments, properly conducted." 
 
 " Then they have none, sir," re- 
 joined 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 per- 
 formed 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. " Mrs. 
 Crummies herself has played to mere 
 handfuls." 
 
 " But they are always a taking au- 
 dience, Vincent," said the manager s 
 wife. 
 
 " Most audiences are, when they 
 have good acting real good acting 
 the regular thing," replied Mr. 
 Crummies, forcibly. 
 
 " Do you give lessons, ma'am ? " 
 inquired Nicholas. 
 
 " I do," said Mrs. Crummies. 
 
 " There is no teaching here, I sup- 
 pose 1" 
 
 "There has been," said Mrs. 
 Crummies. " I have received pupils 
 here. I imparted tuition to the daugh- 
 ter of a dealer in ships' provision ; but 
 it afterwards appeared that she was 
 insane when she first came to me. It 
 was very extraordinary that she should 
 come, under such circumstances." 
 
 Not feeling quite so sure of that, 
 Nicholas thought it best to hold his 
 peace. 
 
 " Let me see," said the manager 
 cogitating after dinner. " Would you 
 like some nice little part with the 
 infant ? " 
 
 " You are very good," replied Ni- 
 cholas hastily ; " but I think perhaps 
 it would be better if I had somebody
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 179 
 
 of my own size at first, in case I should 
 turn out awkward. I should feel more 
 at home, perhaps." 
 
 " True," said the manager. " Per- 
 haps you would. And you coxild play 
 up to the infant, in time, you know." 
 
 " Certainly," replied Nicholas : de- 
 voutly hoping that it would be a very 
 long time before he was honoured with 
 this distinction. 
 
 " Then I '11 U-ll you what we '11 do," 
 v-iul Mr. Crummies. " You shall study 
 Romeo when you 've done that pfece 
 don't forget to throw the pump and 
 tubs in by-the-bye Juliet Miss Sne- 
 vellicci, old Grudden the nurse. Yes, 
 that '11 do very well. Rover too ; 
 you might get up Rover while yon 
 were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy 
 Diddler. You can easily knock them 
 oft' ; 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 where lodgings 
 were to be had, shook him by the 
 hand, and wished him good night. 
 
 There is no lack of comfortable fur- 
 nished apartments in Portsmouth, and 
 no difficulty in finding some that are 
 proportionate to very slender finances ; 
 but the former were too good, and the 
 latter too bad, and they went into so 
 many houses, and came out unsuited, 
 that Nicholas seriously began to think 
 he should be obliged to ask permission 
 to spend the night in the theatre, 
 
 ; after all. 
 
 Eventually, however, they stumbled 
 
 I upon two small rooms up three pair of 
 stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, 
 
 ! at a tobacconist's shop, on the Com- 
 
 j mon Hard : a dirty street leading down 
 to the dockyard. These Nicholas 
 engaged, only too happy to have escaped 
 any request for payment of a week's 
 rent beforehand. 
 
 " There ! Lay down our personal pro- 
 perty, Smike," he said, after showing 
 young Crummies down stairs. " We 
 have fallen upon strange times, and 
 Heaven only knows the end of them ; 
 but I am tired with the events of these 
 three days, and will postpone reflection 
 till to-morrow if I can." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE GREAT BESPBAK FOR MISS SNEVELLICCI, AND THE FIRST APPEARANCE 
 OP NICHOLAS UPON ANT STAGE. 
 
 NICHOLAS was up betimes in the 
 morning ; but he had scarcely begun 
 to dress, notwithstanding, when he 
 heard footsteps ascending the stairs, 
 and was presently saluted by the voices 
 of Mr. Folair the pantomimist, and 
 Mr. Lonville, the tragedian. 
 
 " House, house, house !" cried Mr. 
 Folair. 
 
 " What, ho ! within there ! " said 
 Mr. Lenville, in a deep voice. 
 
 " Confound these fellows ! thought 
 Nicholas ; they have come to breakfast, 
 I suppose. I '11 open the door directly, 
 if you '11 wait an instant." 
 
 The gentlemen entreated him not to 
 
 hurry himself ; and, to beguile the in- 
 terval, had a fencing bout with their 
 walking-sticks on the very small landing- 
 place: to the unspeakable discomposure 
 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, stepping into the 
 front room,and taking his hat off, before 
 he could get in at all. "Pernicious 
 snug." 
 
 " For a man at all particular in such 
 matters it might be a trifle too snug," 
 
 a
 
 180 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 said Nicholas ; " for, although it is, un- 
 doubtedly, a great convenience to be 
 able to reach anything you want from 
 the ceiling or the floor, or either side 
 of the room, without having to move 
 from your chair, still these advantages 
 can only be had in an apartment of the 
 most limited size." 
 
 " It isn't a bit too confined for a 
 single man," returned Mr. Lenville. 
 " That reminds me, my wife, Mr. 
 Johnson I hope she '11 have some 
 good part in this piece of yours ? " 
 
 " I glanced at the French copy last 
 night," said Nicholas. " It looks very 
 good, I think." 
 
 " What do you mean to do for me, 
 old fellow I " asked Mr. Lenville, poking 
 the struggling fire with his walking- 
 stick, and afterwards wiping it on the 
 skirt of his coat. " Anything in the 
 gruff and grumble way I " 
 
 " You turn your wife and child out 
 of doors," said Nicholas ; " and, hi a fit 
 of rage and jealousy, stab your eldest 
 son in the library." 
 
 " Do I though ! " exclaimed Mr. Len- 
 ville. " That 's very good business." 
 
 " After which," said Nicholas, "you 
 are troubled with remorse till the last 
 act, and then you make up your mind 
 to destroy yourself. But, just as you 
 are raising the pistol to your head, a 
 clock strikes ten." 
 
 " I see," cried Mr. Lenville. "Very 
 good." 
 
 " You pause," said Nicholas ; " you 
 recollect to have heard a clock strike 
 ten in your infancy. The pistol falls 
 from your hand you are overcome 
 you burst into tears, and become a vir- 
 tuous and exemplary character for ever 
 afterwards." 
 
 "Capital !" said Mr. Lenville : "that's 
 a sure card, a sure card. Get the cur- 
 tain down with a touch of nature like 
 that, and it '11 be a triumphant success." 
 
 "Is there anything good for me !" 
 inquired Mr. Folair, anxiously. 
 
 " Let me see," said Nicholas. " Yon 
 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 '11 
 have to introduce one for the pheno- 
 menon, so you 'd better make it a pas 
 de deux, and save time." 
 
 " There 's nothing easier than that," 
 said Mr. Lenville, observing the dis- 
 turbed looks of the young dramatist. 
 
 " Upon my word I don't see how it's 
 to be done," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " Why, isn't it obvious ?" reasoned 
 Mr. Lenville. " Gadzooks, who can 
 help seeing the way to do it ? yon 
 astonish me ! You get the distressed 
 lady, and the little child, and the at- 
 tached servant, into the poor lodgings, 
 don't you ? Well, look here. The dis- 
 tressed lady sinks into a chair, and 
 buries her face in her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief ' What makes you weep 
 mama 1 ' says the child. ' Don't weep, 
 mama, or you '11 make me weep too ! ' 
 ' And me ! ' says the faithful servant, 
 rubbing his eyes with his arm. ' What 
 can we do to raise your spirits, dear 
 mama \ ' says the little child. ' Aye, 
 what can we do ! ' says the faithful ser- 
 vant ' Oh, Pierre ! ' says the distressed 
 lady; 'would that I could shake off 
 these painful thoughts.' ' Try, ma'am, 
 try,' says the faithful servant ; ' rouse 
 yourself, ma'am ; be amused.' ' I will,' 
 says the lady, ' I will learn to suffer 
 with fortitude. Do you remember that 
 dance, my honest friend, which, in 
 happier days, you practised with this 
 sweet angel I It never failed to calm 
 my spirits then. Oh ! let me see it once 
 again before I die ! ' There it is cue 
 for the band, before I die, and off they 
 go. That 's the regular thing ; isn't it, 
 Tommy!" 
 
 " That 's it, replied Mr. Folair. " The 
 distressed lady, overpowered by old 
 recollections, faints at the end of the 
 dance, and you close in with a picture." 
 
 Profiting by these and other lessons, 
 which were the result of the personal 
 experience of tht two actors, Nicholas 
 willingly gave the u the best breakfast
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 181 
 
 he could, and, when he at length got rid 
 of them, applied himself to his task : by 
 no means displeased to find that it was 
 so much easier than he had at first 
 supposed. He worked very hard all 
 day, and did not leave his room until 
 the evening, when he went down to the 
 theatre, whither Smike had repaired 
 before him to go on with another gen- 
 tleman as a general rebellion. 
 
 Here all the people were so much 
 changed, that he scarcely knew them. 
 False hair, false colour, false calves, 
 false muscles they had become dif- 
 ferent beings. Mr. Lenville was a 
 blooming warrior of most exquisite 
 proportions ; Mr. Crummies, his large 
 face shaded by a profusion of black 
 hair, a Highland outlaw of most ma- 
 jestic bearing ; one of the old gentle- 
 men a gaoler, and the other a vene- 
 rable patriarch ; the comic country- 
 man, a fighting-man of great valour, 
 relieved by a touch of humour ; each 
 of the master Crummleses a prince in 
 his own right ; and the low-spirited 
 lover, a desponding captive. There 
 was a gorgeous banquet ready spread 
 for the third act, consisting of two 
 pasteboard vases, one plate of biscuits, 
 a black bottle, and a vinegar cruet ; and. 
 in short, everything was on a scale of 
 the utmost splendour and preparation. 
 
 Nicholas was standing with his back 
 to the curtain, now contemplating the 
 first scene, which was a Gothic arch- 
 way, about two feet shorter than Mr. 
 Crummies, through which that gentle- 
 man was to make his first entrance, 
 and now listening to a couple of peo- 
 ple who were cracking nuts in the gal- 
 lery, wondering whether they made 
 the whole audience, when the manager 
 himself walked familiarly up and ac- 
 costed him. 
 
 " Been in front to-night ? " 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 ! " 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 phenomenon plays." 
 
 It would have been difficult for any 
 party, family or otherwise, to have 
 visited the theatre on a night when 
 the phenomenon did not play, inasmuch 
 as she always sustained one, and not 
 uncommonly two or three, characters, 
 every night ; but Nicholas, sympathis- 
 ing with the feelings of a father, re- 
 frained from hinting at this trifling 
 circumstance, and Mr. Crummies con- 
 tinued 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 .-, jug of toast-and-water, 
 and sees the play for nothing through 
 the little pane of glass in the box-door 
 it 's cheap at a guinea ; they gain 
 by taking a box." 
 
 " I wonder you allow so many," ob- 
 served Nichol&s. 
 
 " 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 re- 
 quested, and shortly afterwards the 
 tuning of tliree fiddles was heard. 
 Which process having been protracted 
 as long as it was supposed that the 
 patience of the audience could pos- 
 sibly 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 transforma- 
 tion of the ladies was still more extra- 
 ordinary. 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 Mrs. 
 Crummies in all the dignity of the 
 outlaw's wife, and Miss Bravansa ir
 
 182 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 all the sweetness of Miss Snevellicci's 
 confidential friend, and Miss Belvaw- 
 ney in the white silks of a page doing 
 duty evei*ywhere and swearing to live 
 and die in the service of everybody, 
 he could scarcely contain his admira- 
 tion, which testified itself in great 
 applause, and the closest possible atten- 
 tion to the business of the scene. The 
 plot was most interesting. It belonged 
 to no particular age, people, or coun- 
 try, and was perhaps the more delight- 
 ful on that account, as nobody's pre- 
 vious 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 reprehen- 
 sible neglect of his relations, did not 
 appear. This outlaw's wife was, some- 
 how or other, mixed up with a patri- 
 arch, 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 uncer- 
 tain whether he had brought up the 
 right ones in his castle, or die wrong 
 ones, but rather inclined to the latter 
 opinion, and, being uneasy, relieved 
 his mind with a banquet, during which 
 solemnity somebody in a cloak said 
 " Beware ! " which somebody was 
 known by nobody (except the au- 
 dience) to be the outlaw himself, who 
 had come there, for reasons unex- 
 plained, but possibly with an eye to 
 the spoons. There was an agreeable 
 little surprise in the way of certain 
 love passages between the desponding 
 captive and Miss Snevellieei, and the 
 comic fighting-man and Miss Bravassa; 
 besides which, Mr. Lenville had several 
 very tragic scenes in the dark, while on 
 throat-cutting expeditions, which were 
 all baffled by the skill and bravery of 
 the comic fighting-man (who over- 
 heard whatever was said all through 
 the piece) and the intrepidity of Miss 
 
 Snevellieei, who adopted tights, and 
 therein repaired to the prison of her 
 captive lover, with a small basket of 
 refreshments and a dark lantern. At 
 last, it came out that the patriarch was 
 the man who had treated the bones of 
 the outlaw's father-in-law with so much 
 disrespect, for which cause and reason 
 the outlaw's wife repaired to his castle 
 to kill him, and so got into a dark 
 room, where, after a good' deal of 
 groping hi the dark, everybody got 
 hold of everybody else, and took them 
 for somebody besides, which occa- 
 I sioned a vast quantity of confusion, 
 ' with some pistolling, loss of life, and 
 ! torchlight ; after which, the patriarch 
 came forward, and observing, with a 
 knowing look, that he knew all about 
 i his children now, and would tell them 
 j when they got inside, said that there 
 ; could not be a more appropriate occa- 
 sion for marrying the young people 
 i than that ; and therefore he joined 
 , their hands, with the full consent of 
 I 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 in- 
 voking 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 ; u Miss Snevellieei 
 in particular was uncommonly good." 
 " She 's a genius," said Mr. Crumm- 
 ies ; " quite a genius, that girl. By- 
 the-bye, I 've been thinking of bring- 
 ing out that piece of yours on her 
 bespeak night." 
 
 " When ? " asked Nicholas. 
 " The night of her bespeak. Her 
 benefit night, when her friends and 
 patrons bespeak the play," said Mr. 
 Crummies. 
 
 " Oh ! I understand," replied Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " You see," said Mr. Crummies, 
 " it 's sure to go, on such an occasion,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 183 
 
 Mid 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. 
 
 a I said mine, didn't 11" returned 
 Mr. Crummies. " Next Monday week. 
 What do you say ? You '11 have done 
 it, and are sure to be up in the lover's 
 part, long before that time." 
 
 " I don't know about ' long before,' " 
 replied Nicholas ; " but by that time I 
 think I can undertake to be ready." 
 
 " Very good," pursued Mr. Crummies, 
 " then we '11 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 oc- 
 casions." 
 
 " Among the patrons, I suppose 1 " 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Among the patrons ; and the fact \ 
 is, that Snevellicci lias had so many 
 bespeaks in this place, that she wants 
 an attraction. She had a bespeak when 
 her mother-in-law died, and a be- 
 speak when her uncle died ; and Mrs. 
 Crummies and myself have had be- 
 speaks on the anniversary of tlia phe- 
 nomenon's birthday, and our wedding- 
 day, and occasions of that description, 
 so that, in fact, there 's some difficulty 
 in getting a good one. Now, won't 
 you help this poor girl, Mr. Johnson ? " 
 said 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 ? " mur- 
 mured the manager in a persuasive tone. 
 
 " Oh dear me," said Nicholas, with 
 an air of very strong objection, * I 
 shouldn't like to do that." 
 
 " The infant will accompany her," 
 said Mr. Crummies. " The moment 
 it was suggested to me, I gave per- 
 mission for the infant to go. There 
 will not be the smallest impropriety 
 Miss Snevellicci, sir, is the very soul 
 of honour. It would be of material 
 service the gentleman from London 
 
 author of the new piece actor in 
 the new piece first appearance on 
 any boards it would lead to a great 
 bespeak, Mr. Johnson." 
 
 ? I am very sorry to throw a damp 
 upon the prospects of anybody, and 
 more especially a lady," replied Ni- 
 cholas ; " but really I must decidedly 
 object to making one of the canvassing 
 party." 
 
 " What does Mr. Johnson say, Vin- 
 cent ? " inquired a voice close to his 
 ear ; and, looking round, he found Mrs. 
 Crummies and Miss Snevellicci herself 
 standing behind him. 
 
 " He has some objection, my dear," 
 replied Mr. Crummies, looking at Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Objection ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Crummies. " Can it be possible ? " 
 
 " Oh, I hope not ! " cried Miss Sne- 
 vellicci. " You surely are not so 
 cruel oh, dear me ! Well, I to 
 think of that now, after all one's look- 
 ing forward to it ! " 
 
 " Mr. Johnson will not persist, my 
 dear," said Mrs. Crummies. " Think 
 better of him than to suppose it. Gal- 
 lantry, 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 Ni- 
 cholas, moved by these appeals, "to 
 resist any entreaty, unless it is to do 
 something positively wrong ; and, be- 
 yond a feeling of pride, I know nothing 
 which should prevent my doing this. 
 I know nobody here, and nobody knows 
 me. So be it then. I yield." 
 
 Miss Snevellicci was at once over- 
 whelmed with blushes and expressions 
 of gratitude, of which latter commo- 
 dity neither Mr. nor Mrs. Crummies 
 was by any means sparing. It was 
 arranged that Nicholas should call 
 upon her, at her lodgings, at eleven 
 next morning, and soon after they 
 parted : he to return home to his au- 
 thorship : Miss Snevellicci to dress for
 
 184 
 
 LIFE AND ADVEN'TURES OF 
 
 the after-piece : and the disinterested 
 manager and his wife to discuss the 
 probable gains of the forthcoming be- 
 speak, of which they were to have two- 
 thirds of the profits by solemn treaty 
 of agreement. 
 
 At the stipulated hour next morning, 
 Nicholas repaired to the lodgings of 
 Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place 
 called Lombard-street, at the house of 
 a tailor. A strong smell of ironing 
 pervaded the little passage ; and the 
 tailor's daughter, who opened the door, 
 appeared in that flutter of spirits which 
 is so often attendant upon the perio- 
 dical getting up of a family's linen. 
 
 " Miss Snevellicci li ves here, I be- 
 lieve ? " said Nicholas, when the door 
 was opened. 
 
 The tailor's daughter replied in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 " Will you have the goodness to let 
 her know tliat Mr. Jolinson is here ? " 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Oh, if you please, you 're to come 
 up stairs," replied the tailor's daughter, 
 with a smik. 
 
 Nicholas followed the young Lady, 
 and was shown into a small apartment 
 on the first floor, communicating with 
 a back room ; in which, as he judged 
 from a certain half-subdued clinking 
 sound, as of cups and saucers, Miss 
 Snevellicci was then taking her break- 
 fast in bed. 
 
 " You 're to wait, if you please," 
 said the tailor's daughter, after a short 
 period of absence, during winch the 
 clinking in the back room had ceased, 
 and been succeeded by whispering 
 " She won't be long." 
 
 As she spoke, she pulled up the win- 
 dow-blind, and having by this means 
 (as she thought) diverted Mr. John- 
 son's attention from the room to the 
 street, caught up some articles which 
 were airing on the fender, and had 
 very much the appearance of stockings, 
 and darted off. 
 
 As there were not many objects of 
 Interest outside the window, Nicholas 
 looked about the room with more 
 curiosity than he might otherwise have 
 bestowed upon it On the sofa lay an 
 old guitar, several thumbed pieces of 
 
 music, and a scattered litter of curl- 
 papers : together with a confused heap 
 of play-bills, and a pair of soiled white 
 satin shoes with large blue rosettes. 
 Hanging over the back of a chair was 
 a half-finished muslin apron with little 
 pockets ornamented with red ribbons, 
 such as waiting-women wear on the 
 stage, and (by consequence) are never 
 seen with anywhere else. In one cor- 
 ner stood the diminutive pair of top- 
 boots hi which Miss Suevellicci was 
 accustomed to enact the little jockey, 
 and, folded on a chair hard by, was 
 a small parcel, which bore a very sus- 
 picious resemblance to the companion 
 smalls. 
 
 But the most interesting object of 
 all, was, perhaps, the open scrap-book, 
 displayed in the midst of some theatri- 
 cal duodecimos that were strewn upon 
 the table ; and pasted into which scrap- 
 book were various critical notices of 
 Miss Snevellicci's acting, extracted 
 from different provincial journals, to- 
 gether with one poetic address in her 
 honour, commencing 
 
 Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth 
 Thrice-gifted SNEVKLLICCI 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 innu- 
 merable complimentary allusions, also 
 extracted from newspapers, such as 
 " We observe 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 worth, for which they have 
 long been so pre-eminently distin- 
 guished, we predict that this cliai ining 
 actress will be greeted with a bumpvT." 
 " To Correspondents. J. S. is misin- 
 formed when he supposes that the 
 highly-gifted and beautiful Miss Sne- 
 vellicci, nightly captivating all hearts 
 at our pretty and commodious little 
 theatre, is not the same lady to whom 
 the young gentleman of immense for-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 185 
 
 tone, residing within a hundred miles 
 of the good city of York, lately made 
 honourable proposals. We have reason 
 to know that Miss Snevellicci t* the 
 lady who was implicated in that mys- 
 terious and romantic affair, and whose 
 conduct on that occasion did no less 
 honour to her head and heart, than do 
 her histrionic triumphs to her brilliant 
 genius." A copious assortment of 
 such paragraphs as these, with long 
 bills of benefits all ending with " Come 
 Early," in large capitals, formed the 
 principal contents of Miss Sue veil icci's 
 scrap-book. 
 
 Nicholas had read a great many of 
 these scraps, and was absorbed in a 
 circumstantial and melancholy account 
 of the train of events which had led to 
 Miss Snevellicci's spraining her ancle 
 by slipping on a piece of orange-peel 
 flung by a monster in human form, 
 (so the paper said,) upon the stage at 
 Winchester, when that young lady 
 herself, attired in the coal-scuttle bon- 
 net and walking-dress complete, trip- 
 ped into the room, with a thousand 
 apologies for having detained him so 
 long after the appointed time. 
 
 " But really," said Miss Snevellicci, 
 " my darling Led, who lives with me 
 here, was taken so very ill in the night 
 that I thought she would have expired 
 in my arms." 
 
 " Such a fate is almost to be envied," 
 returned Nicholas, "but I am very 
 sorry to hear it nevertheless." 
 
 " What a creature you are to flat- 
 ter ! " said Miss Snevellicci, buttoning 
 her glove in much confusion. 
 
 " If it be flattery to admire your 
 charms and accomplishments," re- 
 joined Nicholas, laying his hand upon 
 the scrap-book, " you have better spe- 
 cimens of it here." 
 
 " Oh you cruel creature, to read 
 Mich things as those ! I 'm almost 
 ashamed to look you in the face after- 
 wards, positively I am," said Miss Sne- 
 vellicci, seizing the book and putting 
 it away in a closet. " How careless 
 of Led ! How could she be so 
 naughty ! " 
 
 " I thought you had kindly left it 
 here, on purpose for me to read," 
 
 said Nicholas. And really it did seem 
 possible. 
 
 " I wouldn't have had you see it, for 
 the world ! " rejoined Miss Snevellicci. 
 " I never was so vexed never ! But 
 she is such a careless thing, there 's no 
 trusting her." 
 
 The conversation was here inter- 
 rupted by the entrance of the pheno- 
 menon, who had discreetly remained 
 in the bedroom up to this moment, 
 and now presented herself, with much 
 grace and lightness, bearing in her 
 hand a very little green parasol with a 
 broad fringe border, and no handle. 
 After a few words of course, they 
 sallied into tin- street. 
 
 The phenomenon was rather a 
 troublesome companion, for first the 
 right sandal came down, and then the 
 left, and these mischances being re- 
 paired, 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, 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 Ni- 
 cholas took it all in perfect good 
 humour, and walked on, with Miss 
 Snevellicci, arm in arm on one side, 
 and the offending infant on the other. 
 
 The first house to which they bent 
 their steps, was situated in a terrace 
 of respectable appearance. Miss Sne- 
 vellicci's modest double-knock was 
 answered by a foot-boy, who, in reply 
 to her inquiry whether Mrs. Curdle 
 was at home, opened his eyes very 
 wide, grinned very much, and said he 
 didn't know, but he 'd inquire. With 
 this, he showed them into a parlour 
 where he kept them waiting, until the 
 two women-servants had repaired 
 thither, under false pretences, to see 
 the play-actors ; and having compared 
 notes with them in the passage, and 
 joined in a vast quantity of whispering 
 and giggling, he at length went up 
 stairs with Miss Snevellicci's name. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Curdle was supposed, by 
 those who were best informed on such 
 points, to possess quite the London
 
 186 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 cha- 
 racter of the Nurse's deceased hus- 
 band 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 
 BO to report him. He had likewise 
 proved, that by altering the received 
 mode of punctuation, any one of Shak- 
 speare's plays could be made quite 
 different, and the sense completely 
 changed ; it is needless to say, there- 
 fore, that he was a great critic, and a 
 very profound and most original 
 thinker. 
 
 " Well, Miss Snevellicci," said Mrs. 
 Curdle, entering the parlour, "and 
 how do you do ? " 
 
 Miss Snevellicci made a graceful 
 obeisance, and hoped Mrs. Curdle was 
 well, as also Mr. Curdle, who at the 
 same time appeared. Mrs. Curdle 
 was dressed in a morning wrapper, 
 with a little cap stack upon the top of 
 her head. Mr. Curdle wore a loose 
 robe on his back, and his right fore- 
 finger on his forehead after the por- 
 traits 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 would put your 
 name to my bespeak ma'am," said 
 Miss Snevellicci, producing documents. 
 
 " Oh ! I really don 't know what to 
 say," replied Mrs. Curdle. " It 's not 
 as if the theatre was in its high and 
 palmy days you needn't stand, Miss 
 Snevellicci the drama is gone, per- 
 fectly gone." 
 
 " As an exquisite embodiment of 
 the poet's visions, and a realisation of 
 human intellectuality, gilding with re- 
 fulgent 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 chang- 
 ing and prismatic colours with which 
 
 the character of Hamlet is invested I" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Curdle. / 
 
 ** What man indeed upon the 
 stage," said Mr. Curdle, with a small 
 reservation in favour of himself. 
 " Hamlet ! Pooh ! ridiculous ! Hamlet 
 is gone, perfectly gone." 
 
 Quite overcome by these dismal re- 
 flections, 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 Sne- 
 vellicci, " 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 dia- 
 logue, strongly-marked characters " 
 
 " All unavailing without a strict 
 observance of the unities, sir," re- 
 turned Mr. Curdle. " The unities of 
 the drama, before everything." 
 
 " Might I ask you," said Nicholas, 
 hesitating between the respect he 
 ought to assume, and his love of the 
 whimsical, " might I ask you what the 
 unities are?" 
 
 Mr. Curdle coughed and considered-. 
 " The unities, sir," he said, are a com- 
 pleteness a kind of a universal dove- 
 tailedness with regard to place and 
 time a sort of a general oneness, if I 
 may be allowed to use so strong an 
 expression. I take those to be the' 
 dramatic unities, so far as I have been 
 enabled to bestow attention upon them, 
 and I have read much upon the sub- 
 ject, and thought much. I find, run- 
 ning through the performances of this 
 child," said Mr. Curdle, turning to the 
 phenomenon, "a unity of feeling, a 
 breadth, a light and shade, a warmth 
 of colouring, a tone, a harmony, a 
 glow, an artistical development of ori- 
 ginal conceptions, which 1 look for, in 
 vain, among older performers I don't 
 know whether I make myself un- 
 derstood!" 
 
 u Perfectly," replied Nicholas.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 18J 
 
 " Just so," said Mr. Curdle, pulling 
 up his neckcloth. " That is my defini- 
 tion of the unities of the drama." 
 
 Mrs. Curdle had sat listening to this 
 lucid explanation with great compla- 
 cency. It being finished, she inquired 
 what Mr. Curdle thought, about putting 
 down their names. 
 
 " I don't know, my dear ; upon my 
 word I don't know," said Mr. Curdle. 
 " If we do, it must be distinctly under- 
 stood that we do not pledge our- 
 selves to the quality of the perform- 
 ances. 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 Snevel- 
 licci. 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 en- 
 twined. Have you got two-and-six- 
 pence for half-a-crown, Miss Snevel- 
 licci ? " said Mr. Curdle, turning over 
 four of those pieces of money. 
 
 Miss Snevellicci felt in all the 
 corners of the pink reticule, but there 
 was nothing in any of them. Nicholas 
 murmured a jest about his being an 
 author, and thought it best not to go 
 through the form of feeling in his own 
 pockets at all. 
 
 " Let me see," said Mr. Curdle ; 
 " twice four 's eight four shillings a- 
 piece to the boxes, Miss Snevellicci, is 
 exceedingly dear in the present state 
 of the drama three half-crowns is 
 seven-and-six ; we shall not differ 
 about sixpence, I suppose ? Sixpence 
 will not part us, Miss Snevellicci ? " 
 
 Poor Miss Snevellicci took the three 
 half-crowns, with many smiles and 
 bends, and Sirs. Curdle, adding several 
 supplementary directions relative to 
 keeping the places for them, and dust- 
 ing 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 Snevel- 
 licci, taking his arm, "that I think 
 myself very lucky they did not owe 
 
 | all the money instead of being sixpence 
 short. Now, if you were to succeed, 
 they would give people to understand 
 that they had always patronised you ; 
 and if you were to fail, they would 
 have been quite certain of that from 
 the very beginning." 
 
 At the next house they visited, they 
 were in great glory ; for, there, resided 
 the six children who were so' enrap- 
 tured 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 
 in to. her eyes, and tread upon her toes, 
 and show her many other little atten- 
 tions peculiar to their time of life. 
 
 " I shall certainly persuade Mr. 
 Borum to take a private box," said 
 the lady of the house, after a most 
 gracious reception. "I shall only 
 take two of the children, and will 
 make up the rest of the party, of 
 gentlemen your admirers, Miss Sne- 
 vellicci. Augustus, you naughty boy, 
 leave the little girl alone." 
 
 This was addressed to a young gen- 
 tleman who was pinching the pheno- 
 menon behind, apparently with the 
 view of ascertaining whether she was 
 real. 
 
 " I am sure you must be very tired," 
 said the mama, turning to Miss Sne- 
 vellicci. " I cannot think of allowing 
 you to go, without first taking a glass 
 of wine. Fie, Charlotte, I am ashamed 
 of you ! Miss Lane, my dear, pray see 
 to the children." 
 
 Miss Lane was the governess, and 
 this entreaty was rendered necessary 
 by the abrupt behaviour of the 
 youngest Miss Borum, who, having 
 filched the phenomenon's little green 
 parasol, was now carrying it bodily 
 off, while the distracted infant looked 
 helplessly on. 
 
 " I am sure, where you ever learnt 
 to act as you do," said good-natured 
 Mrs. Borum, turning again to Miss 
 Snevellicci, " 1 cannot understand 
 (Emma, don't stare so) ; laughing in 
 one piece, and crying in the next, and 
 so natural in all oh, dear ! " 
 
 " I am very happy to hear you
 
 188 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 express so favourable an opinion," said 
 Miss Snevellicei. " It 's quite delight- 
 ful to think you like it." 
 
 " Like it ! " cried Mrs. Borum. 
 " Who can help liking it ! I would 
 go to the play, twice a week if I could: 
 I dote upon it only you 're too affect- 
 ing 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 drag- 
 ging 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 atten- 
 tion to these proceedings) rescued the 
 unhappy infant at this juncture, who, 
 being recruited with a glass of wine, 
 was shortly afterwards taken away by 
 her friends, after sustaining no more 
 serious damage than a flattening of 
 the pink gauze bonnet, and a rather 
 extensive creasing of the white frock 
 and trowsers. 
 
 It was a trying morning ; for there 
 were a great many calls to make, and 
 everybody wanted a different tiling. 
 Some wan ted _ tragedies, and others 
 comedies ; some objected to dancing ; 
 some wanted scarcely anything else. 
 Some thought the comic singer de- 
 cidedly low, and others hoped he 
 would have more to do than he 
 usually had. Some people wouldn't 
 promise to go, because other people 
 wouldn't promise to go ; and other 
 people wouldn't go at all, because 
 other people went. At length, and 
 by little and little, omitting something 
 in this place, and adding something in 
 that, Miss Snevellicei pledged herself 
 to a bill of fare which was comprehen- 
 sive 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 persever- 
 ance and acted as the whole company 
 said to perfection. And at length 
 the great day arrived. The crier was 
 sent round, in the morning, to proclaim 
 the entertainments with sound of bell hi 
 all the thoroughfares ; and extra bills 
 of three feet long by nine inches wide, 
 were dispersed in all directions, flung 
 down all the areas, thrust under all 
 the knockers, and developed in all the 
 shops. They were placarded on all the 
 walls too, though not with complete 
 success, for an illiterate person having 
 undertaken this office during the 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 gallery-door ; at a 
 quarter before six, there were at least 
 a dozen ; at six o'clock the kicks were 
 terrific ; and when the elder Master 
 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 un- 
 wonted excitement prevailed. Miss 
 Snevellicei was in such a perspiration 
 that the paint would scarcely stay on 
 her face. Mrs. Crummies was so ner- 
 
 j vous 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 off, and the 
 curtain rose upon the new piece. The 
 first scene, in which there was nobody 
 particular, passed off calmly enough, 
 but when Miss Snevellicei went on in 
 the second, accompanied by the phe- 
 nomenon as child, what a roar of ap- 
 
 i plause broke out ! The people in the 
 Borum box rose as one man, waving 
 
 I their hats and handkerchiefs,and utter- 
 ing shouts of " bravo ! " Mrs. Borum 
 and the governess cast wreaths upon 
 the stage, of which, some fluttered into
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 189 
 
 the lamps, and one crowned the temples ] 
 of a I'at gentleman in the pit, who, 
 looking eagerly towards the scene, re- 
 mained unconscious of the honour ; 
 the tailor and his family kicked at the 
 I>aneU of the upper boxes till they 
 threatened to come out altogether ; 
 the very ginger-heer boy remained 
 transfixed in the centre of the house ; 
 a young officer, supposed to entertain a 
 passion for Miss Snevellicci, stuck his 
 glass in his eye as though to hide a 
 tear. Again and again Miss Snevel- 
 licci curtseyed lower and lower, and 
 again and again the applause came 
 down, louder and louder. At length , 
 when the phenomenon picked up one 
 of the smoking wreaths and put it on, 
 sideways, over Miss Snevellicci's eye, 
 it reached its climax ,and the play pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 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 Iwy," and 
 he defied her, what a tumult of ap- 
 plause came on ! When he quarrelled 
 with the other gentleman about the 
 young lady, and producing a case of 
 pistols, said, that if he was a gen- 
 tleman, he would fight him in that 
 drawing-room, until the furniture was 
 sprinkled with the blood of one, if not 
 of two how boxes, pit, and gallery, 
 
 joined in one most vigorous cheer ! 
 When he called his mother names, 
 because she wouldn't give up the young 
 lady's property, and she relenting, 
 caused him to relent likewise, and fall 
 down on one knee and ask her bless- 
 ing, how the ladies in the audience 
 sobbed ! When he was hid behind 
 the curtain in the dark, and the wicked 
 relation poked a sharp sword in 
 every direction, save where his legs 
 were plainly visible, what a thrill of 
 anxious fear ran through the house ! 
 His air, his figure, his walk, his look, 
 everything he said or did, was the sub- 
 ject of commendation. There was a 
 round of applause every time he spoke. 
 And when, at last, in the pump-and- 
 tub scene, Mrs. Grudden lighted the 
 blue fire, and all the unemployed 
 members of the company came in, and 
 tumbled down in various directions 
 not because that had anything to do 
 with the plot, but in order to finish 
 off with a tableau the audience (who 
 had by this time increased consider 
 ably) gave vent to such a shout of 
 enthusiasm, as had not been heard 
 in those walls for many and many a 
 day. 
 
 In short, the success both of new 
 piece and new actor was complete, and 
 when Miss Snevellicei was called for at 
 the end of the play, Nicholas led her 
 on, and divided the applause. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CONCERNING A YOUNG LADY FROM LONDON, WHO JOINS THE COSU>A.\Y, AND A3 
 ELDERLY ADMIRER WHO FOLLOWS IN HER THAIN ; WITH AN AFFECTING 
 CF.REMONY CONSEQUENT ON THELB AKRITAL. 
 
 THE new piece being a decided hit, 
 was announced for every evening of 
 performance until further notice, and 
 the evenings when the theatre was 
 closed, were reduced from three in the 
 week to two. Nor were these the only 
 tokens of extraordinary success ; for, 
 on the succeeding Saturday, Nicholas 
 
 received, by favour of the indefatigable 
 Mrs. Grudden, no less a sum than 
 thirty shillings ; besides which sub- 
 stantial reward, he enjoyed consider- 
 able fame and honour : having a pre- 
 sentation copy of Mr. Curdle's pamph- 
 let forwarded to the theatre, with that 
 gentleman's own autograph (iu itself an
 
 190 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 Shak- 
 speare to him for three hours every 
 morning before breakfast during his 
 stay in the town. 
 
 " I 've got another novelty, John- 
 son," said Mr. Crummies one morning 
 *n great glee. 
 
 What 's that I " rejoined Nicholas. 
 " The pony ? " 
 
 " No, no, we never come to the pony 
 till everything 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 impres- 
 sively, " and that 's a girl." 
 
 " Very true," said Nicholas. " I 
 beg your pardon. Then I don't know 
 what it is, I am sure." 
 
 " What should you say to a young 
 lady from London ? " inquired Mr. 
 Crummies. a Miss So-and-so, of the 
 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane ? " 
 
 " I should say she would look very 
 well in the bills," said Nicholas. 
 
 " You 're about right there," said 
 Mr. Crummies ; " and if you had said 
 she would look very well upon the 
 stage too, you wouldn't have been far 
 out. Look here ; what do you think 
 of this?" 
 
 With this inquiry Mr. Crummies 
 unfolded a red poster, and a blue 
 poster, and a yellow poster, at the 
 top of each of which public notification 
 was inscribed in enormous characters 
 " First appearance of the unrivalled 
 Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, 
 Drury Lane ! " 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Nicholas, " I 
 know that lady." 
 
 " Then you are acquainted with as 
 much talent as was ever compressed 
 into one young person's body," re- 
 torted Mr. Crummies, rolling up the 
 bills again ; " that is, talent of a cer- 
 tain 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 /ever saw,who could 
 stand upon one leg, and play the tam- 
 bourine 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. Crummles's. Mrs. Crummies 
 saw what she could do always knew 
 it from the first. She taught her, 
 indeed, 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. 
 
 " 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 tht 
 he thought he did. 
 
 " No, no, you don't," said Mr. Crum- 
 mies ; " you don't, indeed. / don't, 
 and that's a fact. I don't think her 
 country will, till she is dead. Some 
 new proof of talent bursts from that 
 astonishing woman every year of her 
 life. Look at her mother of six 
 children three of 'em alive, and all 
 upon the stage ! " 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " cried Nicholas. 
 
 u Ah ! extraordinary indeed," re- 
 joined Mr. Crummies, taking a com- 
 placent pinch of snuff, and shaking 
 his head gravely. " I pledge you 
 my professional word I didn't even 
 know she could dance, till her last 
 benefit, and then she played Juliet, 
 and Helen Macgregor, and did the 
 skipping-rope hornpipe between the 
 pieces. The very first time I saw 
 that admirable woman, Johnson," said 
 Mr. Crummies, drawing a little nearer, 
 and speaking hi the tone ot confiden- 
 tial friendship, " she stood upon her 
 head on the butt-end of a spear, sur- 
 rounded with blazing fireworks." 
 
 " You astonish me ! " said Nicholas. 
 
 " She astonished me /" returned Mr.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 191 
 
 Crummies, with a very serious coun- 
 tenance. " Such grace, coupled with 
 such dignity ! I adored her from that 
 moment." 
 
 The arrival of the gifted subject of 
 these remarks put an abrupt ter- 
 mination to Mr. Crummles's eulp- 
 gium. Almost immediately 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 Petow- 
 ker, I do declare !" and instantly be- 
 came absorbed in the contents. 
 
 "Is it 1" inquired Mr. Crum- 
 mies, hesitating. 
 
 " Oh, yes, it's all right," replied 
 Mrs. Crummies, anticipating the ques- 
 tion. " 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 vio- 
 lently. Nicholas left them to enjoy 
 their mirth together, and walked to 
 hia lodgings: wondering very much 
 what mystery connected with Miss 
 Petowker could provoke such merri- 
 ment, and pondering still more on the 
 extreme surprise with which that lady 
 would regard his sudden enlistment 
 in a profession of which she was 
 such a distinguished and brilliant or- 
 nament. 
 
 But, 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 art the 
 theatre next day was more like that of 
 two dear friends who had been inse- 
 parable from infancy, than a recogni- 
 tion passing between a lady and gen- 
 tleman who had only met some half 
 dozen times, and then by mere chance. 
 Nay, Miss Petowker even whispered 
 that she had wholly dropped the Ken- 
 wigses in her conversations with the 
 manager's family, and had represented 
 herself as having encountered Mr. 
 
 Johnson in the very first and most 
 fashionable circles ; and on Nicholas 
 receiving this intelligence with 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 honour of playing 
 in a slight piece with Miss Petowker 
 that night, and could not but observe 
 that the warmth of her reception was 
 mainly attributable to a most perse- 
 vering umbrella in the upper boxes ; 
 he saw, too, that the enchanting actress 
 cast many sweet looks towards the 
 quarter whence these sounds pro- 
 ceeded ; 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 atten- 
 tion upon this circumstance, and it. 
 had quite vanished from his memory 
 by the time he reached home. 
 
 He had just sat down, to supper 
 with Smike, when one of the people 
 of the house came outside thp door, 
 and announced that a gentleman below 
 stab's 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 bre- 
 thren, I suppose, Smike." 
 
 His fellow-lodger looked at the cold 
 meat, in silent calculation of the quan- 
 tity 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 formi- 
 dable in their effects. 
 
 " It is not anybody who has been 
 here before," said Nicholas, " for he is 
 tumbling up every stair. Come in, 
 come in. In the name of wonder J 
 Mr. Lillyvick!" 
 
 It was, indeed, the collector of wa- 
 ter-rates who, regarding Nicholas with 
 a fixed look and immoveable counte- 
 nance, shook hands with most por- 
 tentous solemnity, and sat himself 
 down ia a seat by the chimney-corner. 
 
 " Why, when did you come here? 
 asked Nicholas.
 
 192 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 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. Lilly- 
 vick, producing a fat green cotton one 
 with a battered ferrule. What did you 
 think of that performance \" 
 
 " So far as I could judge, being on 
 the stage," replied Nicholas," I thought 
 it very agreeable." 
 
 "Agreeable!" cried the collector. 
 " I mean to say, sir, that it was deli- 
 cious." 
 
 Mr. Lillyvick bent forward to pro- 
 nounce the last word with greater em- 
 phasis ; and having done so, drew 
 himself up, and frowned and nodded a 
 great many times. 
 
 " I say, delicious," repeated Mr. Lil- 
 lyvick. " Absorbing, fairy-like, too- 
 multuous." And again Mr. Lillyvick 
 , drew himself up, and again he frowned 
 and nodded. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Nicholas, a little sur- 
 prised 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 wa- 
 ter-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. LUlyvick'a nods, 
 and remained silent. 
 
 " Let me speak a word with you in 
 private," said Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 Nicholas looked good-humouredly 
 at Smike, who, taking the hint, dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 " A bachelor is a miserable wretch, 
 sir," said Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 "Is ha !" 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 ouyht to know certainly," 
 thought Nicholas ; " but whether you 
 do or not, is another question." 
 
 " If a bachelor happens to have 
 saved a little matter of money," said 
 Mr. Lillyvick, " his sisters and bro- 
 thers, and nephews and nieces, look to 
 that money, and not to him ; even if, 
 by being a public character, lie is the 
 head of the family, or, as it may be, the 
 main from which all the other little 
 branches are turned on, they still wish 
 him dead all the while, and get low- 
 spirited every time they see him look- 
 ing in good health, because they want 
 to come into his little property. You 
 see that 1 " 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied Nicholas : " it 's 
 very true, no doubt." 
 
 "The great reason for not being 
 married," resumed Mr. Lillyvick, "is 
 the expense ; that 's wliat 's kept me 
 off, or else Lord ! " said Mr. Lilly- 
 vick, snapping his fingers, " I might 
 have had fifty women." 
 
 " Fine women ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Fine women, sir ! " replied the 
 collector ; " aye ! not so fine as Hen- 
 rietta Petowker, for she is an uncom- 
 mon specimen, but such women as 
 don't fall into every man's way, I can 
 tell you. Now suppose a man can 
 get a fortune in a wife instead of 
 with her eh!" 
 
 " Why, then, he 's a lucky fellow," 
 replied Nicholas. 
 
 " That 's what 1 say," retorted the 
 collector, patting him benignantly on 
 the side of the head with his umbrella ; 
 "just what I say. Henrietta Petow- 
 ker, the talented Henrietta Petowker, 
 lias a fortune in herself, and I am 
 going to ." 
 
 " To make her Mrs. Lillyvick I " 
 suggested Nicholas. 
 
 " No, sir, not to make her Mrs. 
 Lillyvick," replied the collector. " Ac- 
 tresses, 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."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 * I congratulate you, sir," said Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," replied the col- 
 lector, buttoning his waistcoat. "I 
 shall draw her salary, of course, and 
 I hope after all that it's nearly as 
 cheap to keep two as it is to keep one ; 
 that 's a consolation." 
 
 " Surely you don't want any conso- 
 lation at such a moment I" observed 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " No," replied Mr. Lillyvick, shaking 
 his head nervously : " no of course 
 not." 
 
 " But how come you both here, if 
 you're going to be married, Mr. Lilly- 
 Tick !" asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Why, that 's what I came to ex- 
 plain 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," re- 
 joined Mr. Lillyvick. " If my niece 
 and the children had known a word 
 about it before I came away, they 'd 
 have gone into fits at my feet, and 
 never have come out of 'em till I took 
 an oath not to marry anybody or 
 they'd have got out a commission of 
 lunacy, or some dreadful thing," said 
 the collector, quite trembling as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " To be sure," said Nicholas. Yes ; 
 they would have been jealous, no 
 doubt." 
 
 " To prevent which," said Mr. Lil- 
 lyvick, " Henrietta Petowker (it was 
 settled between us) should come down 
 here to her friends, the Crummleses, 
 under pretence of this engagement, 
 and I should go down to Guildford the 
 day before, and join her on the coach 
 there, which I did, and we came down 
 from Guildford yesterday together. 
 Now, for fear you should be writing 
 to Mr. Noggs,and might say anything 
 about us, we have thought it best to 
 let you into the secret. We shall be 
 married from the Crummleses' lodg- 
 ings, and shall be delighted to see 
 you either before church or at break- 
 fast-time, which you like. It won't 
 
 No. 44. 
 
 he expensive, you know," said the col- 
 lector, highly anxious to prevent any 
 misunderstanding on this point ; "just 
 muffins and coffee, with perhaps a 
 shrimp or something of that sort tor 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 acquaintance of hers, and another 
 young lady ; they both belong to the 
 theatre." 
 
 " Miss Snevellicci, I suppose ?" said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes, that 's the name." 
 
 " And they '11 be bridesmaids, I pre- 
 sume ! " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Why," said the collector, with a 
 rueful face, " they will have four brides- 
 maids ; I 'in afraid they '11 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 1 Miss Snevellicci of course 
 Miss Ledrook " 
 
 "The the phenomenon," groaned 
 the collector. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " cried Nicholas. " I beg 
 your pardon, I don't know what I 'm 
 laughing at yes, that '11 be very pretty 
 the phenomenon who else I " 
 
 " Some young woman or other," re- 
 plied the collector, rising ; " some other 
 friend of Henrietta Petowker's. Well, 
 you '11 be careful not to say anything 
 about it, will you 1 " 
 
 " You may safely depend upon me," 
 replied Nicholas. "Won't you take 
 anything to eat or drink ? " 
 
 " No," said the collector ; " I haven't 
 any appetite. I should think it was a 
 very pleasant life, the married one 
 eh!" 
 
 " I have not the least doubt of it," 
 rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes," said the collector ; " cer- 
 tainly. Oh yes. No doubt. Good 
 night." 
 
 With these words, Mr. Lillyvick, 
 13 o
 
 19t 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 v. hose manner had exhibited through 
 the whole of this interview a most ex- 
 traordinary compound of precipitation, 
 hesitation, confidence and doubt ; fond- 
 ness, misgiving, meanness, and self- 
 importance, turned his back upon the 
 room, and left Nicholas to enjoy a 
 laugh by himself if he felt so dis- 
 posed. 
 
 Without stopping to inquire whether 
 the intervening day appeared to Nicho- 
 las to consist of the usual number of 
 hours of the ordinary length, it may 
 be remarked that, to the parties more 
 directly interested in the forthcoming 
 ceremony, it passed with great rapidity, 
 insomuch that when Miss Petowker 
 vwoke on the succeeding morning in 
 the chamber of Miss Snevellicci, she 
 declared that nothing should ever per- 
 suade her that that really was the day 
 which was to behold a change in her 
 condition. 
 
 " I never will believe it," said Miss 
 Petowker ; " I cannot really. It 's of 
 no use talking, I never can make up 
 my mind to go through with such a 
 trial ! " 
 
 On hearing this, Miss Snevellicci 
 and Miss Ledrook, who knew perfectly 
 well that their fair friend's mind had 
 been made up for three or four years, 
 at any period of which time she would 
 have cheerfully undergone the despe- 
 rate trial now approaching 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 neces- 
 sary it was for the happiness of man- 
 kind in general that women should 
 possess fortitude and resignation on 
 such occasions ; and that although for 
 their parts they held true happiness to 
 consist in a single life, which they 
 would not willwigly exchange no, not 
 for any worldly consideration still 
 (thank God), if ever the time should 
 come, they hoped they knew their duty 
 too well to repine, but would the rather 
 submit with meekness and humility of 
 spirit to a fate for which Providence 
 had clearly designed them with a view 
 
 to the contentment and reward of their 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 " I might feel it was a great blow," 
 said Miss Snevellicci, " to break up old 
 associations and \vhat-do-you-callems 
 of that kind, but I would submit my 
 dear, I would indeed." 
 
 " So would I," said Miss Ledrook ; 
 " I would rather court the yoke than 
 shun it I have broken hearts before 
 now, and I 'm very sorry for it : for 
 it 's a terrible thing to reflect upon." 
 
 " It is indeed," said Miss Snevellicci. 
 " Now Led, my dear, we must posi- 
 tively get her ready, or we shall be to 
 late, we shall indeed." 
 
 This pious reasoning, and perhaps 
 the fear of being too late, supported 
 the bride through the ceremony of 
 robing, after which, strong tea and 
 brandy were administered in alternate 
 doses as a means of strengthening her 
 feeble limbs and causing her to walk 
 steadier. 
 
 " How do you feel now, my love ? " 
 enquired Miss Snevellicci. 
 
 "Oh Lillyvick!" cried the bride 
 " If you knew what I am undergoing 
 for you ! " 
 
 " Of course he knows it, love, and 
 will never forget it," said Miss Led- 
 rook. 
 
 " Do you think he won't ? " cried 
 Miss Petowker, really showing great 
 capability for the stage. " Oh, do you 
 think he won't ! Do you think Lilly- 
 vick will always remember it always, 
 always, always I " 
 
 There is no knowing in what this 
 burst of feeling might have ended, if 
 Miss Snevellicci had not at that moment 
 proclaimed the arrival of the fly, which 
 so astounded the bride that she shook 
 off divers alarming symptoms which 
 were coming on very strong, and 
 running to the glass adjusted her dress, 
 and calmly declared that she was ready 
 for the sacrifice. 
 
 She was accordingly supported into 
 the coach, and there " kept up " (as 
 Miss Snevellicci said) with perpetual 
 sniffs of aal volatile and sips of brandy 
 and other gentle stimulants, until they 
 reached the manager's door, which was 
 already opened by the two Master
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 195 
 
 Crummleses, who wore white cockades, 
 and were decorated with the choicest 
 and most resplendent waistcoats in the 
 theatrical wardrobe. By the combined 
 exertions of these young gentlemen 
 and tiie bridesmaids, assisted by the 
 coachman, Miss Petowker was at length 
 supported in a condition of much ex- 
 haustion to the first floor, where she 
 no sooner encountered the youthful 
 bridegroom than she fainted with great 
 decorum. 
 
 " Henrietta Petowker ! " said the 
 collector ; ' cheer up, my lovely one." 
 
 Miss Petowker grasped the collec- 
 tor's hand, but emotion choked her 
 utterance. 
 
 "Is the sight of me so dreadful, 
 Henrietta Petowker!" said the col- 
 lector. 
 
 " Oh no, no, no," rejoined the bride; 
 " but all the friends the darling 
 friends of my youthful days to leave 
 them aU it is such a shock ! " 
 
 Wi*a such expressions of sorrow, 
 Miss Petowker went on to enumerate 
 the dear friends of her youthful days 
 one by one, and to call upon such of 
 them as were present to come and 
 embrace her. This done, she remem- 
 bered 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 Crummleses and 
 Miss Ninetta Crummies had been more 
 than brothers and sisters to her. These 
 various remembrances being each ac- 
 companied with a series of hugs, occu- 
 pied a long time, and they were obliged 
 to drive to church very fast, for fear 
 they should be too late. 
 
 The procession consisted of two flys; 
 in the first of which were Miss Bra- 
 vassa (the fourth bridesmaid), Mrs. 
 Crummies, the collector, and Mr. 
 Folair, who had been chosen as his 
 second on the occasion. In the other 
 were the bride, Mr. Crummies, Miss 
 Snevellicei, Miss Ledrook, and the 
 phenomenon. The costumes were 
 beautiful. The bridesmaids were quite 
 covered with artificial flowers, and the 
 phenomenon, in particular, was ren- 
 dered almost invisible by the portable 
 
 arbour in which she was enshrined. 
 Miss Ledrook, who was of a romantic 
 turn, wore in her breast the miniature 
 of some field-officer unknown, which 
 she had purchased, a great bargain, 
 not very long before ; the other ladies 
 displayed several dazzling articles of 
 imitative jewellery, almost equal to 
 real ; and Mrs. Crummies came out in 
 a stern and gloomy majesty, which 
 attracted the admiration of all be- 
 holders. 
 
 But, perhaps the appearance of Mr. 
 Crummies was more striking and ap- 
 propriate than that of any member of 
 the party. This gentleman, who per- 
 sonated the bride's father, had, in pur- 
 suance of a happy and original con- 
 ception, "made up" for the part by 
 arraying himself in a theatrical wig, of 
 a style and pattern commonly known 
 as a brown George, and moreover as- 
 suming a snuff-coloured suit, of the 
 previous century, with grey silk stock- 
 ings, and buckles to his shoes. The 
 better to support his assumed character 
 he had determined to be greatly over- 
 come, and, consequently, when they 
 entered the church, the sobs of the 
 affectionate parent were so heart-rend- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 viously arranged and rehearsed ; the 
 collector, followed by his second, imi 
 tating 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 a 
 stride and a stop alternately it was 
 the completest thing ever witnessed. 
 The ceremony was very quickly dis- 
 posed of, and all parties present having 
 signed the register (for which purpose, 
 when it came to his turn, Mr. Crummies 
 carefully wiped and put on an immense 
 pair of spectacles), they wont back to 
 breakfast in high spirits. And here 
 o9
 
 196 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 they found Nicholas awaiting their 
 Arrival. 
 
 "Now then," said Crummies, who 
 had been assisting Mrs. Grudden in 
 the preparations, which were on a more 
 extensive scale than was quite agree- 
 able to the collector. " Breakfast, 
 breakfast." 
 
 No second invitation was required. 
 The company crowded and squeezed 
 themselves at the table as well as they 
 could, and fell to, immediately : Miss 
 Petowker blushing very much when 
 anybody was looking, and eating very 
 much when anybody was not looking ; 
 and Mr. Lillyvick going to work as 
 though with the cool resolve, that since 
 the good things must be paid for by 
 him, he would leave as little as possible 
 for the Crummleses to eat up afterwards. 
 
 " It's very soon done, sir, isn't it ?" 
 inquired Mr. Folair of the collector, 
 leaning over the table to address him. 
 
 " What is soon done, sir ! " returned 
 Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 "The tying up the fixing oneself 
 with a wife," replied Mr. Folair. " It 
 don't take long, does it ?" 
 
 "No, sir," replied Mr. Lillyvick, 
 colouring. "It does not take long. 
 And what then, sir ! " 
 
 " Oh ! nothing," said the actor." It 
 don't take a man long to hang himself, 
 either, eh 1 ha, ha ! " 
 
 Mr. Lillyvick laid down his knife 
 and fork, and looked round the table 
 with indignant astonishment. 
 
 " To hang himself ! " repeated Mr. 
 Lillyvick. 
 
 A profound silence came upon all, 
 for Mr. Lillyvick was dignified beyond 
 expression. 
 
 " To hang himself ! " cried Mr. Lilly- 
 vick again. " Is any parallel attempted 
 to be drawn in this company between 
 matrimony and hanging ? " 
 
 " The noose, you know," said Mr. 
 Folair, a little crest-fallen. 
 
 " The noose, sir ! " retorted Mr. 
 Lillyvick. " Does any man dare to 
 speak to me of a noose, and Henrietta 
 Pe " 
 
 " Lillyvick," suggested Mr. Crumm- 
 ies. 
 
 *and Henrietta Lillyvick in the 
 
 same breath ? " said the collector. " lu 
 this house, in the presence of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Crummies, who have brought up 
 a talented and virtuous family, to be 
 blessings and phenomenons, and what 
 not, are we to hear talk of nooses ? " 
 
 " Folair," said Mr. Crummies, deem- 
 ing it a matter of decency to be affected 
 by this allusion to himself and partner, 
 " I 'm astonished at you." 
 
 " What are you going on in this way 
 at me for!" urged the unfortunate 
 actor. ** What have I done ? " 
 
 " Done, sir ! " cried Mr. Lillyvick, 
 " aimed a blow at the whole frame-work 
 of society " 
 
 " And the best and tenderest feel- 
 ings," added Crummies, relapsing into 
 the old man. 
 
 " And the highest and most estima- 
 ble of social ties," said the collector. 
 " Noose ! As if one was caught, trapped 
 into the married state, pinned by the 
 leg, instead of going into it of one's 
 own accord and glorying in the act ! " 
 
 '' I didn't mean to make it out, that 
 you were caught and trapped, and 
 pinned by the leg," replied the actor. 
 "I'm sorry for it; I can't say any 
 more." 
 
 " So you ought to be, sir," returned 
 Mr. Lillyvick ; " and I am glad to hear 
 that you have enough of feeling left to 
 be so." 
 
 The quarrel appearing to terminate 
 with this reply, Mrs. Lillyvick consi- 
 dered that the fittest occasion (the 
 attention of the company being no 
 longer distracted) to burst into tears, 
 and require the assistance of all foul- 
 bridesmaids, which was immediately 
 rendered, though not without some 
 confusion, for the room being small 
 and the table-cloth long, a whole de- 
 tachment of plates were swept off the 
 board at the very first move. Regard- 
 less of this circumstance, however, 
 Mrs. Lillyvick refused to be comforted 
 until the belligerents had passed their 
 words that the dispute should be car- 
 ried no further, which, after a suffi- 
 cient show of reluctance, they did, and 
 from that time Mr. Folair sat in 
 moody silence, contenting himself with 
 pinching Nicholas's leg when anything
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 197 
 
 was said, and so expressing his con- 
 tempt both for the speaker and the 
 sentiments to which he gave utter- 
 ance. 
 
 There were a great number of 
 speeches made, some by Nicholas, and 
 some by Crummies, and some by the 
 collector ; two by the master Crumm- 
 leses in returning thanks for them- 
 selves, and onj by the phenomenon on 
 behalf of the bridesmaids, at which 
 Mrs. Crummies shed tears. There 
 was some singing, too, from Miss 
 Ledrook and Miss Bravassa, and very 
 likely there might have been more, if 
 the fly-driver, who stopped to drive 
 the happy pair to the spot where they 
 proposed to take steam-boat to Hyde, 
 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 
 
 perhaps from old recoflections 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 
 shaking his head. 
 
 not," said Smike, 
 " 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 healing you." 
 
 " Do you think so ! " exclaimed 
 Nicholas. "Well said. Let us see 
 who tires first. Not I, Smike, trust 
 me. Now then. ' Who calls so loud 2 ' " 
 
 " 'Who calls so loud ? ' " said Smike. 
 
 "<Who calls so loud!'" repeated 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "< Who calls so loud T" cried Smike 
 
 Thus they continued to ask each 
 other who called so loud, over and 
 
 and his bride departed for Ryde, where over again ; and when Smike had that 
 they were to spend the next two days J by heart, Nicholas went to another 
 in profound retirement, and whither , sentence, and then to two at a time, 
 they were accompanied by the infant, I and then to three, and so on, until at 
 who had been appointed travelling j midnight poor Smike found to his 
 bridesmaid on Mr. Lillyvick's express ) unspeakable joy that he really began 
 stipulation, as the steam-boat people, to remember something about the 
 deceived by her size, would (he had 
 previously ascertained) 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 unexpected development of strong 
 symptoms of inebriety hi the conduct 
 of Mrs. Grudden. something to eat. After the morning's 
 
 To this act of desertion he was led, rehearsal they went to work again, nor 
 not only by his own inclinations, but did they stop, except for a hasty din- 
 by his anxiety on account of Smike, ner, until it was time to repair to the 
 who, having to sustain the character theatre at night, 
 of the Apothecary, had been as yet Never had master a more anxious, 
 
 humble, docile pupil. Never had pupil 
 a more patient, unwearying, consi- 
 derate, kind-hearted master. 
 
 part into his head than the general 
 idea that he was very hungry, which 
 
 text. 
 
 Early in the morning they went to 
 it again, and Smike, rendered more 
 confident by the progress he had al- 
 ready made, got on faster and with 
 better heart As soon as he began to 
 acquire the words pretty freely, Nicho- 
 las showed him how he must come in 
 with both hands spread out upon his 
 stomach, and how he must occasion- 
 ally rub it, in compliance with the 
 established form by which people ou
 
 108 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 As soon ns they were dressed, and 
 at every interval when he was not 
 upon the stage, Nicholas renewed his 
 instructions. They prospered well. 
 The lloraeo was received with hearty 
 
 plaudits and unbounded favour, and 
 Smike was pronounced unanimously, 
 alike by audience and actors, the very 
 prince and prodigy of Apothecaries. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 IS FRAUGHT WITH SOME DANGER TO BUSS NICKLEBY's PEACE OF HIND. 
 
 THE place was a handsome suite of 
 private apartments in Regent-street ; 
 the time was three o'clock in the after- 
 noon to the dull and plodding, and the 
 first hour of morning to the gay and 
 spirited ; the persons were Lord Fre- 
 derick Verisopht, and his friend Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk. 
 
 These distinguished gentlemen were 
 reclining listlessly on a couple of sofas, 
 with a table between them, on which 
 were scattered hi rich confusion the 
 materials of an untasted breakfast. 
 Newspapers lay strewn about the room, 
 but these, like the meal, were reg- 
 lected and unnoticed ; not, however, 
 because any flow of conversation pre- 
 vented 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 com- 
 municate a new restlessness to his 
 companion. 
 
 These appearances would in them- 
 selves have furnished a pretty strong 
 clue to the extent of the debauch of 
 the previous night, even if there had 
 not been other indications of the amuse- 
 ments in which it had been passed. A 
 couple of billiard balls, all mud and 
 dirt, two battered hats, a cliampagne 
 bottle with a soiled glove twisted round 
 the neck, to allow of its being grasped 
 more surely in its capacity of an 
 offensive weapon ; a broken cane ; a 
 card-case without the top ; an empty 
 purse ; a watch-guard snapped asun- 
 der ; a handful of silver, mingled with 
 
 fragments of half-smoked cigars, and 
 their stale and crumbled ashes ; 
 these, and many other tokens of riot 
 and disorder, hinted very intelligibly 
 at the nature of last night's gentle- 
 manly frolics. 
 
 Lord Frederick Verisopht was the 
 first to speak. Dropping his slippered 
 foot on the ground, and, yawning 
 heavily, he struggled into, a sitting 
 posture, and turned his dull languid 
 eyes towards his friend, to whom he 
 called in a drowsy voice. 
 
 " Hallo ! " replied Sir Mulberry, 
 turning round. 
 
 " Are we going to he here all da-a-y ! " 
 said the lord. 
 
 "I don't know that we're fit for 
 anything else," replied Sir Mulberry ; 
 "yet awhile, at least. I haven't a 
 grain of life in me this morning." 
 
 " Life ! " cried Lord Verisopht. " 1 
 feel as if there would be nothing BO 
 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 es- 
 sayed to eat ; but, finding that impos- 
 sible, 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 1" 
 groaned Sir Mulberry, sitting upright 
 on the couch. 
 
 Although Gir Mulberry said thia
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 199 
 
 with sufficient ill-humour, he did not 
 seem to feel himself quite at liberty to 
 remain silent ; for, after stretching 
 himself very often, and declaring with 
 a shiver that it was " infernal cold," 
 he made an experiment at the break- 
 fast-table, and proving more successful 
 in it than his less-seasoned friend, re- 
 mained there. 
 
 " Suppose," said Sir Mulberry, paus- 
 ing with a morsel on the point of his 
 fork, " Suppose we go back to the sub- 
 ject of little Nickleby, eh t " 
 
 " Which little Nickleby ; the money- 
 lender or the ga-a-1 1 " asked Lord 
 Verisopht. 
 
 " You take me, I see," replied Sir 
 Mulberry. " The girl, of course." 
 
 " You promised me you 'd find her 
 out," said Lord Verisopht. 
 
 " So I did,'' rejoined his friend ; 
 '' but I have thought further of the 
 matter since then. Yon distrust me in 
 the business you shall find her out 
 yourself." 
 
 " Na ay," remonstrated Lord Veri- 
 sopht. 
 
 " But I say yes," returned his friend. 
 " You shall find her out voursrif. Don't 
 think that I mean, when you can I 
 know as well as you that if I did, yon 
 could never get sight of her .without 
 me. No. I say you shall find her 
 out sliall 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 re- 
 viving effect 
 
 I'll tell you how," said Sir Mul- 
 berry. " She was at that dinner as a 
 bait for you." 
 
 " No ! " cried the young lord. " What 
 the dey " 
 
 " As a bait for you," repeated his 
 friend ; " old Nickleby told me so 
 himself." 
 
 What a fine old cock it is !" ex- 
 claimed Lord Verisopht ; " a noble 
 rascal !" 
 
 "Yes," said Sir Mulberry, he 
 knew she was a smart little crea- 
 ture " 
 
 " Smart ! " interposed the young 
 
 lord, u Upon my soul, Hawk, she 's 
 a perfect beauty a a picture, a sta- 
 tue, a a upon my soul she is ! " 
 
 ' Well," replied Sir Mulberry, 
 shrugging his shoulders and manifest- 
 ing an indifference, whether he felt 
 it or not ; " that 's a matter of taste ; 
 if mine doesn't agree with yours, so 
 much the better." 
 
 " Confound it !" reasoned the lord, 
 " you were thick enough with her that 
 day, anyhow. 1 could hardly get in a 
 word." 
 
 ' Well enough for once, well enough 
 for once," replied Sir Mulberry ; " but 
 not worth the trouble of being agree- 
 able 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 '11 tell you fast enough." 
 
 " Why didn't you say this before ? " 
 asked Lord Verisopht, "instead of 
 letting me go on burning, consuming, 
 dragging out a miserable existence for 
 an a-age ! " 
 
 " I didn't know it, in the first place," 
 answered Sir Mulberry carelessly ; 
 " and in the second, I didn't believe 
 you were so very much in earnest." 
 
 Now, the truth was, that in the 
 interval which had elapsed since the 
 dinner at Halph Nickleby's, Sir Mul- 
 berry Hawk had been furtively trying 
 by every means in his power to disco- 
 ver whence Kate had so suddenly 
 appeared, and whither she had disap- 
 peared. Unassisted by Ralph, how- 
 ever, with whom he had held no com- 
 munication since their angry parting 
 on that occasion, all his efforts were 
 wholly unavailing, and he had there- 
 fore 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 consider- 
 ations ; among which the certainty of 
 knowing whatever the weak young 
 man knew was decidedly not the least, 
 as the desire of encountering the usu- 
 rer's niece again, and using his utmost 
 arts to reduce her pride, and revenge 
 himself for her contempt, was upper-
 
 200 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 most in his thoughts. It was a politic 
 course of proceeding, and one which 
 could not fail to redound to his advan- 
 tage in every point of view, since the 
 very circumstance of his having ex- 
 torted from Ralph Nickleby his real 
 design hi introducing his niece to such 
 society, coupled with his extreme dis- 
 interestedness in communicating it so 
 freely to his friend, could not but 
 advance his interests in that quarter, 
 and greatly facilitate the passage of 
 com (pretty frequent and speedy al- 
 ready) from the pockets of Lord Fre- 
 derick Verisopht to those of Sir Mul- 
 berry Hawk. 
 
 Thus reasoned Sir Mulberry, and in 
 pursuance of this reasoning he and his 
 friend soon afterwards repaired to 
 Ralph Nickleby's, there to execute a 
 plan of operations concerted by Sir 
 Mulberry himself, avowedly to pro- 
 mote his friend's object, and really to 
 attain his own. 
 
 They found Ralph at home, and 
 alone. As he led them into the draw- 
 ing-room, the recollection of the scene 
 which had taken place there seemed to 
 occur to him, for he cast a curious look 
 at Sir Mulberry, who bestowed upon 
 it no other acknowledgment than a 
 careless smile. 
 
 They had a short conference upon 
 some money matters then in progress, 
 which were scarcely disposed of when the 
 lordly dupe (hi pursuance of his friend's 
 instructions) requested with some em- 
 barrassment to speak to Ralph alone. 
 
 " Alone, eh !" cried Sir Mulberry, 
 affecting surprise. " Oh, very good. 
 I'll walk into the next room here. 
 Don't keep me long, that's all." 
 
 So saying, Sir Mulberry took up his 
 hat, and humming a fragment of a song 
 disappeared through the door of com- 
 munication between the two drawing- 
 rooms, and closed it after him. 
 
 u Now, my lord," said Ralph, u 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 car, 
 "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 deyv'lish fine 
 girl," said the client. " You must 
 know that, Nickleby. Come, don't 
 deny that." 
 
 " Yes, I believe she is considered 
 so," replied Ralph. " Indeed, I know 
 she is. If I did not, you are an autho- 
 rity on such points, and your taste, 
 my lord on all points, indeed is 
 undeniable." 
 
 Nobody but the young man to whom 
 these words were addressed could have 
 been deaf to the sneering tone in which 
 they were spoken, or blind to the look 
 of contempt by which they were 
 accompanied. But Lord Frederick 
 Verisopht was both, and took them to 
 be complimentary. 
 
 " Well," he said, "p'raps you're a 
 little right, and p'raps you're a little 
 wrong a little of both, Nickleby. I 
 want to know where this beauty lives, 
 that I may have another peep at her, 
 Nickleby." 
 
 " Really " Ralph began hi his usual 
 tones. 
 
 "Don't talk so loud," cried the 
 other, achieving the great point of hi 
 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," re- 
 plied the client ; " and I want to steal 
 a march upon him. Ha, ha, ha ! He'll 
 cut up so rough, Nickleby, at our talk- 
 ing together without him. Where does 
 she live, Nickleby, that's all ? Only 
 tell me where she lives, Nickleby." 
 
 " He bites," thought Ralph. He 
 bites." 
 
 Eh, Nickleby, eh!" pursued the 
 client " Where does she live ! " 
 
 " Really, my lord," said Ralph, 
 rubbing his hands slowly over each 
 other, " I must think before I tell you." 
 
 " No, not a bit of it, Nickleby ; you 
 mustn't think at all," replied Verisopht. 
 Where is it ! " 
 
 " No good can come of your know- 
 ing," replied Ralph. "She lias been 
 virtuously and well brought up ; to be
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 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 tlirough his own mind, and he 
 had no intention to speak aloud ; but 
 the shrewd sly look which he directed 
 at his companion as he delivered it, 
 gave tliis poor assumption the lie. 
 
 " I tell you I only want to see her," 
 cried his client. " A ma-aii may look 
 at a pretty woman without harm, 
 mayn't he ? Now, where does she live \ 
 You know you 're making a fortune 
 out of me, Nickleby, and upon my soul 
 nobody shall ever take me to anybody 
 else, if you only tell me this." 
 
 " As you promise that, my lord," 
 said Ralph, with feigned reluctance, 
 " and as I am most anxious to oblige 
 you, and as there 's no harm in it no 
 harm I '11 tell you. But you had 
 better keep it to yourself, my lord ; 
 strictly to yourself." Ralph pointed 
 to tin- adjoining room as he spoke, and 
 nodded expressively. 
 
 The young lord, feigning to be 
 equally impressed with the necessity 
 of tins precaution, Ralph disclosed 
 the present address and occupation of 
 his niece, observing that from what he 
 heard of the family they appeared very 
 ambitious to have distinguished ac- 
 quaintances, and that a lord could, 
 doubtless, introduce himself with great 
 ease, if he felt disposed. 
 
 " Your object being only to see her 
 again," said Ralph, " you could effect 
 it at any time you chose by that 
 means." 
 
 Lord Verisopht acknowledged the 
 hint with a great many squeezes of 
 Ralph's hard, horny hand, and whis- 
 pering that they would now do well to 
 close the conversation, called to Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk that he might come 
 back. 
 
 " I thought you had gone to sleep," 
 said Sir Mulberry, re-appearing with 
 an ill-tempered air. 
 
 " Sorry to detain you," replied the 
 gull ; " but Nickleby has been so 
 ama-azingly funny that I couldn't tear 
 myself away." 
 
 " No, no," said Ralph ; " it was all 
 
 his lordship. You know what a witty, 
 humorous, elegant, accomplished man 
 Lord Frederick is. Mind the step, 
 my lord Sir Mulberry, pray give 
 way." 
 
 With such courtesies as these, and 
 many low bows, and the same cold 
 sneer upon his face all the while, Ralph 
 busied himself in showing his visitors 
 down stairs, and otherwise than by the 
 slightest possible motion about the 
 corners of his mouth, returned no 
 show of answer to the look of admira- 
 tion with which Sir Mulberry Hawk 
 seemed to compliment him on being 
 such an accomplished and most con- 
 summate scoundrel. 
 
 There bad been a ring at the bell a 
 few moments before, which was an- 
 swered by Newman Noggs just as they 
 reached the hall. In the ordinary 
 course of business Newman would have 
 either admitted the new-comer in 
 silence, or have requested him or her 
 to stand aside while the gentlemen 
 passed out. But he no sooner saw 
 who it was, than as if for some private 
 reason of his own, he boldly departed 
 from the established custom of Ralph's 
 mansion in business hours, and looking 
 towards the respectable trio who were 
 approaching, cried in a loud and sono- 
 rous voice, " Mrs. Nickleby ! " 
 
 "Mrs. Nickleby!" cried Sir Mul- 
 berry Hawk, as his friend looked back, 
 and stared him in the face. 
 
 It was, indeed, that well-intentioned 
 lady, who, having received an offer 
 for the empty house in the city di- 
 rected 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 '11 be with you directly." 
 
 " Nobody I know ! " cried Sir Mul- 
 berry Hawk, advancing to the asto- 
 nished 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
 
 202 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 
 Icnow," said Mrs. Nickleby, acknow- 
 ledging the compliment with a grace- 
 ful 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 oblig- 
 ing marriage we owe so much happi- 
 ness. This lady is the mother of sweet 
 Miss Nickleby. Do you observe the 
 extraordinary likeness, my lord ? 
 Nickleby introduce us." 
 
 Ralph did so,in a kind of desperation. 
 
 " Upon my soul, it 's a most delight- 
 ful thing," said Lord Frederick, press- 
 ing forward : " How de do ?" 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby was too much flurried 
 by these uncommonly kind salutations, 
 and her regrets at not having on her 
 other bonnet, to make any immediate 
 reply, so she merely continued to bend 
 and smile, and betray great agitation. 
 
 "A and how is Miss Nickleby?" 
 said Lord Frederick. Well, I hope 1 " 
 
 " She is quite well, I 'm obliged to 
 you, my lord," returned Mrs. Nickleby, 
 recovering. " Quite well. She wasn't 
 well for some days after that day she 
 dined here, and I can't help thinking, 
 that she caught cold in that hackney 
 coach coming home : Hackney coaches, 
 my lord, are such nasty things, that 
 it 's almost better to walk at any time, 
 for although I believe a hackney coach- 
 man 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 cer- 
 tain, whether it wasn't a chariot ; at 
 all events I know it was a dark green, 
 with a very long number, beginning 
 with a nought and ending with a nine 
 no, beginning with a nine, and ending 
 
 with a nought, that was it, and of 
 course the stamp-office people would 
 know at once whether it was a coach or 
 a chariot if any inquiries were made 
 there however that was, there it was 
 with a broken window, and there was I 
 for six weeks with a swelled face I 
 think that was the very same hackney 
 coach, that we found out afterwards, 
 had the top open all the time, and we 
 should never even have known it, if 
 they hadn't charged us a shilling an 
 hour extra for having it open, which 
 it seems is the law, or was then, and a 
 most shameful law it appears to be I 
 don't understand the subject, but I 
 should say the Corn Laws could be 
 nothing to that act of Parliament." 
 
 Having pretty well run herself out 
 by this time, Mrs. Nickleby stopped as 
 suddenly as she had started off, and 
 repeated that Kate was quite well. 
 " Indeed," said Mrs. Nickleby, " I 
 don't think she ever was better, since 
 she had the hooping-cough, scarlet- 
 fever and measles, all at the same time, 
 and that 's the fact." 
 
 " Is that letter for me ! " growled 
 Ralph, pointing to the little packet 
 Mrs. Nickleby held in her hand. 
 
 "For you, brother-in-law," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby, " and I walked all the 
 way up here on purpose to give it you." 
 
 " All the way up here ! " cried Sir 
 Mulberry, seizing upon the chance of 
 discovering where Mrs. Nickleby had 
 come from. " What a confounded dis- 
 tance ! How far do you call it now \" 
 
 How far do I call it !" said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. "Let me see. It's just a 
 mile, from our door to the Old Bailey." 
 
 "No, no. Not so much as that," 
 urged Sir Mulberry. 
 
 " Oh ! It is indeed," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. " I appeal to his lordship." 
 
 "I should decidedly say it was a 
 mile," remarked Lord Frederick, with 
 a solemn aspect. 
 
 "It must be ; it can't be a yard less," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby. " All down New- 
 gate Street, all down Cheapside, all up 
 Lombard Street, down Gracecliurch 
 Street, and along Thames Street, as 
 far as Spigwiflfin's Wharf. Oh ! It's 
 a mile."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEDY. 
 
 203 
 
 " Yes, on second thoughts I should 
 say it was," replied Sir Mulberry. 
 " But you don't surely mean to walk 
 all the way back ! " 
 
 " Oh no," rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. 
 "I shall go back in an omnibus. I 
 didn't travel about in omnibuses, 
 when my poor dear Nicholas was alive, 
 brother-in-law. But as it is, you 
 know " 
 
 " Yes, yes," replied Ralph impa- 
 tiently, " and you had better get back 
 before dark." 
 
 " Thank you, brother-in-law, so I 
 had," returned Mrs. Nickleby. " I think' 
 I had better say good bye, at once." 
 
 " Not stop and rert ? " said Ralph, 
 who seldom offered refreshments un- 
 less some tiling was to be got by it. 
 
 " Oh dear me no," returned Mrs. 
 Nickleby, glancing at the dial. 
 
 " Lord Frederick," said Sir Mul- 
 berry, " we are going Mrs. Nickleby's 
 way. We '11 see her safe to the omni- 
 bus?" 
 
 " By all means. Ye-es." 
 
 " Oh ! I really couldnt think of it!" 
 said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 But Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord 
 Verisopht were peremptory in their 
 politeness, and leaving Ralph, who 
 seemed to think, not unwisely, that he 
 looked less ridiculous as a mere specta- 
 tor, than he would have done if he had 
 taken any part in these proceedings, 
 they quitted the house with Mrs. Nick- 
 leby between them ; that good lady 
 in a perfect ecstacy of satisfaction, no 
 less with the attentions shown her by 
 two titled gentlemen, than with the 
 conviction, that Kate might now pick 
 and choose, at least between two large 
 fortunes, and most unexceptionable 
 husbands. 
 
 As she was carried away for the 
 moment by an irresistible train of 
 thought, all connected with her daugh- 
 ter's future greatness, Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk and his friend exchanged glances 
 over the top of the bonnet which the 
 poor lady so much regretted not having 
 left at home, and proceeded to dilate 
 with great rapture, but much respect, 
 on the manifold perfections of Miss 
 Nickleby. 
 
 " What a delight, what a comfort, 
 what a happiness, this amiable creature 
 must be to you," said Sir Mulberry, 
 throwing into his voice an indication 
 of the warmest feeling. 
 
 " She is indeed, sir," replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby ; " she is the sweetest-tem- 
 pered, kindest-hearted creature and 
 so clever ! " 
 
 " She looks clayver," said Lord Ve- 
 risopht, with the air of a judge of 
 cleverness. 
 
 " I assure you she is, my lord," re- 
 turned Mrs. Nickleby. " When she 
 was at school in Devonshire, she was 
 universally allowed to be beyond all 
 exception the very cleverest girl there, 
 and there were a great many very 
 clever ones too, and that's the truth 
 twenty-five young ladies, fifty guineas 
 a-year without the et-ceteras, both the 
 Miss Dowdies, the most accomplished, 
 elegant, fascinating creatures Oh dear 
 me!" said Mrs. Nickleby, "I never 
 shall forget what pleasure she used to 
 give me and her poor dear papa, when 
 she was at that school, never such a 
 delightful letter every half-year, telling 
 us that she was the first pupil in the 
 whole establishment, and had made 
 more progress than anybody else ! I 
 can scarcely bear to think of it even 
 now. The girls wrote all the letters 
 themselves," added Mrs. Nickleby, 
 " and the writing-master touched them 
 up afterwards with a magnifying glass 
 and a silver pen ; at least I think they 
 wrote them, though Kate was never 
 quite certain about that, because she 
 didn 't know the handwriting of hers 
 again ; but 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. Nick- 
 leby beguiled the tediousness of the 
 way, until they reached the omnibus, 
 which the extreme politeness of her 
 new friends would not allow them to 
 leave until it actually started, when 
 they took their hats, as Mrs. Nickleby 
 solemnly assured her hearers on many 
 subsequent occasions, "completely off," 
 and kissed their straw-coloured kid 
 gloves till they were no longer visible.
 
 204 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby leant back in the fur- 
 thest corner of the conveyance, and, 
 closing her eyes, resigned herself to a 
 host of most pleasing meditations. 
 Kate had never said a word about 
 having met either of these gentlemen ; 
 " that," she thought, " argues that she 
 is strongly prepossessed in favour of one 
 of them." Then the question arose, 
 which one could it be. The lord was 
 the youngest, and his title was cer- 
 tainly the grandest ; still Kate was not 
 the girl to be swayed by such consider- 
 ations as these. " I will never put any 
 constraint upon her inclinations," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby to herself; "but upon 
 my word I think there 'a no comparison 
 between his lordship and Sir Mul- 
 berry Sir Mulberry is such an atten- 
 tive 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 Mul- 
 berry ! " And then her thoughts flew 
 back to her old predictions, and the 
 number of times she had said, that 
 Kate with no fortune would marry 
 better than other people's daughters 
 with thousands ; and, as she pictured 
 with the brightness of a mother's fancy 
 all the beauty and grace of the poor girl 
 who had struggled so cheerfully with her 
 new life of hardship and trial, her heart 
 grew too full, and the tears trickled 
 down her face. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ralph walked to and 
 fro in his little back office, troubled in 
 mind by what had just occurred. To 
 say that Ralph loved or cared for in 
 
 the most ordinary acceptation of those 
 terms any one of God's creatures^ 
 would be the wildest fiction. Still, 
 there had somehow stolen upon him 
 from time to tune a thought of his 
 niece which was tinged with compas- 
 sion and pity ; breaking through the 
 dull cloud of dislike or indifference 
 which darkened men and women in 
 his eyes, there was, in her case, the 
 faintest gleam of light a most feeble 
 and sickly ray at the best of times but 
 there it was, and it showed the poor 
 girl in a better and purer aspect than 
 any in which he had looked on human 
 nature yet. 
 
 "I wish," thought Ralph, "I had 
 never done this. And yet it will keep 
 this boy to me, while there is money 
 to be made. Selling a girl throwing 
 her in the way of temptation, and in- 
 sult, and coarse speech. Nearly two 
 thousand pounds profit from him al- 
 ready though. Pshaw ! match-making 
 mothers do the same thing every 
 day." 
 
 He sat down, and told the chances, 
 for and against, on his fingers. 
 
 " If I had not put them in the right 
 track 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 I 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. 
 
 MRS. NICKLEBY BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH MESSRS. PYKB AND PLDCK, WHOSE 
 AFFECTION AND INTEREST ARE BEYOND ALL BOUNDS. 
 
 MRS. NICKLEBY had not felt so proud 
 and important for many a day, as 
 when, on reaching home, she gave 
 herself wholly up to the pleasant 
 visions which had accompanied her 
 on her way thither. Lady Mulberry 
 Hawk that was the prevalent idea. 
 
 Lady Mulberry Hawk ! On Tuesday 
 last, at St. George's, Hanover-square, 
 by the Right Reverend the Bishop of 
 Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mul- 
 berry Castle, North Wales, to Cathe- 
 rine, only daughter of the late Nicholas 
 Nickleby, Esquire, of Devonshire.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 205 
 
 * "Upon my word !" cried Mrs. Nicho- 
 las Nickleby, " it sounds very well." 
 
 Having despatched the ceremony, 
 with its attendant festivities, to the 
 perfect satisfaction of her own mind, 
 the sanguine mother pictured to her 
 imagination a long train of honours 
 and distinctions which could not fail to 
 accompany Kate in her new and bril- 
 liant sphere. She would be presented 
 at court, of course. On the anniver- 
 sary of her birth-day, which was upon 
 the nineteenth of July ("at ten minutes 
 past three o'clock in the morning," 
 thought Mrs. Nickleby in a parenthesis, 
 " for I recollect asking what o'clock it 
 was,") Sir Mulberry would give a great 
 feast to all his tenants, and would re- 
 turn 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 intelli- 
 gence, 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 contern- 
 
 S'ating the Portrait of Lady Mulberry 
 awk. By Sir Dingleby Dabber." 
 Perhaps some one annual, of more 
 comprehensive design than its fellows, 
 might even contain a portrait of the 
 mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with 
 fines by the father of Sir Dingleby 
 Dabber. More unlikely things had 
 come to pass. Less interesting por- 
 traits had appeared. As this thought 
 occurred to the good lady, her counte- 
 nance unconsciously assumed that com- 
 pound expression of simpering and 
 sleepiness which, being common to all 
 such portraits, is perhaps one reason 
 why they are always so charming and 
 agreeable. 
 
 With such triumphs of aerial archi- 
 tecture did Mrs. Nickleby occupy the 
 whole evening after her accidental in- 
 troduction to Ralph's titled friends; 
 and dreams, no less prophetic and 
 equally promising, haunted her sleep 
 that night. She was preparing for her 
 frugal dinner next day, still occupied 
 with the same ideas a little softened 
 down perhaps by sleep and daylight 
 
 when the girl who attended her, partly 
 for company, and partly to assist in 
 the household affairs, rushed into the 
 room in unwonted agitation, and an- 
 nounced that two gentlemen were 
 waiting in the passage for permission 
 to walk up stairs. 
 
 " Bless my heart !" cried Mrs. Nick- 
 leby, hastily arranging her cap and 
 front, " if it should be dear me, stand- 
 ing 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 gentle- 
 man, laying great stress on the last 
 word of the inquiry. 
 
 "How do you do?" said the other 
 gentleman, altering the emphasis, as if 
 to give variety to the salutation. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby curtseyed and smiled, 
 and curtseyed again, and remarked, 
 rubbing her hands as she did so, that 
 she hadn't the really the honour 
 to 
 
 " To know us," said the first gentle- 
 man. " 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 gentle- 
 man. 
 
 " Very often, Pluck," answered the 
 second. 
 
 ' " But now," said the first gentleman, 
 " now we have the happiness we have 
 pined and languished for. Have we 
 pined and languished for this happi- 
 ness, Pyke, or have we not ? " 
 
 " You know we have, Pluck." said 
 Pyke, reproachfully. 
 
 " You hear him, ma'am ? ' said Mf . 
 Pluck, looking round ; " you hear the 
 unimpeachable testimony of my friend 
 Pyke that reminds me, formalities, 
 formalities, must not be neglected in
 
 206 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 civilized society. Pyke Mrs. Nick- 
 leby." 
 
 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 compe- 
 tent to the office) to state for me, Mrs. 
 Niekleby, that my name is Pluck ; 
 whether I shall claim your acquaint- 
 ance on the plain ground of the strong 
 interest I take in your welfare, or whe- 
 ther I shall make myself known to you 
 as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk 
 these, Mrs. Niekleby, are considerations 
 which I leave to ycu to determine." 
 
 "Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk's 
 requires no better introduction to me," 
 observed Mrs. Niekleby, graciously. 
 
 " It is delightful to hear you say so," 
 said Mr. Pluck, drawing a chair close 
 to Mrs. Niekleby, and sitting himself 
 down. " It is refreshing to know that 
 you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mul- 
 berry, in such high esteem. A word 
 in your ear, Mrs. Niekleby. When 
 Sir Mulberry knows it, he will be a 
 happy man I say, Mrs. Niekleby, a 
 happy man. Pyke, be seated." 
 
 " My good opinion," said Mrs. Nick- 
 leby, and the poor lady exulted in the 
 idea that she was marvellously sly, 
 " my good opinion can be of very little 
 consequence to a gentleman like Sir 
 Mulberry." 
 
 " Of little consequence ! " exclaimed 
 Mr. Pluck. " Pyke, of what conse- 
 quence to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is 
 the good opinion of Mrs. Niekleby \ " 
 
 " Of what consequence ? " echoed 
 Pyke. 
 
 " Aye," repeated Pluck ; ' " is it of 
 the greatest consequence I " 
 
 " Of the very greatest consequence," 
 replied Pyke. 
 
 " Mrs. Niekleby cannot be ignorant," 
 said Mr. Pluck, " of the immense im- 
 pression which that sweet girl has ' 
 
 "Pluck!" said his friend, "be- 
 ware ! " 
 
 " 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. 
 Niekleby within herself. " Such deli- 
 cacy as that, I never saw. ! " 
 
 Mr. Pluck, after feigning to be in a 
 condition of great embarrassment for 
 some minutes, resumed the conversa- 
 tion by entreating Mrs. Niekleby to 
 take no heed of what he had inadvert- 
 ently said to consider him imprudent, 
 rash, injudicious. The only stipulation 
 he would make in his own favour was, 
 that she should give him credit for tha 
 best intentions. 
 
 " But when," said Mr. Pluck, " when 
 I see so much sweetness and beauty on 
 the one hand, and so much ardour and 
 devotion on the other, I pardon me, 
 Pyke, I didn't intend to resume that 
 theme. Change the subject, Pyke." 
 
 " We promised Sir Mulberry and 
 Lord Frederick," said Pyke, "that 
 we'd call this morning and inquire 
 whether you took any cold last night." 
 
 " Not the least in the world last 
 night, sir ; " replied Mrs. Niekleby, 
 "with many thanks to his lordship 
 and Sir Mulberry for doing me the 
 honour to inquire ; not the least 
 which is the more singular, as I really 
 am very subject to colds, indeed very 
 subject. I had a cold once," said Mrs. 
 Niekleby, " I think it was in the year 
 eighteen hundred and seventeen ; let 
 me see, four and five are nine, and 
 yes, eighteen hundred and seventeen, 
 that I thought I never should get rid 
 of ; actually and seriously, that I 
 thought I never should get rid of. I 
 was only cured at last by a remedy 
 that I don't know whether you ever 
 happened to hear of, Mr. Pluck. You 
 have a gallon of water as hot as you 
 can possibly bear it, with a poiind of 
 salt and sixpen'orthof 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 extraor- 
 dinary cure a most extraordinary 
 cure. I used it for the first time, I 
 recollect, the day after Christmas Day, 
 and by the middle of April following 
 the cold was gone. It seems quite a
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 207 
 
 miracle when you come to think of it 
 for I had it ever since the beginning of 
 September." 
 
 What an afflicting calamity ! " said 
 Mr. Pyke. 
 
 " Perfectly horrid ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Pluck. 
 
 " But it's worth the pain of hearing, 
 only to know that Mrs. Nickleby re- 
 covered it, isn 't it, Pluck I " cried Mr. 
 Pyke. 
 
 " That is the circumstance which 
 gives it such a thrilling interest," re- 
 plied Mr. Pluck. 
 
 " But come," said Pyke, as if sud- 
 denly recollecting himself ; " we must 
 not forget our mission in the pleasure 
 of this interview. We come on a mis- 
 sion, Mrs. Nickleby." 
 
 " On a mission," exclaimed that good 
 lady, to whose mind a definitive pro- 
 posal of marriage for Kate at once pre- 
 sented itself in lively colours. 
 
 " From Sir Mulberry," replied Pyke. 
 ** You must be very dull here." 
 
 " Rather dull, I confess," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 " We bring the compliments of Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand en- 
 treaties that you'll take a seat in a 
 G'ivate box at the play to-night," said 
 r. 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. Nickleby." 
 
 " Oh, pray do," said Pyke. 
 
 " You positively must," urged Pluck. 
 
 " You are very kind," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby hesitating ; " but " 
 
 " There 's not a but in the case, my 
 dear Mrs. Nickleby," remonstrated 
 Mr. Pluck ; "not such a word in the 
 vocabulary. Your brother-in-law 
 joins us, Lord Frederick joins us, Sir 
 Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins us a 
 refusal is out of the question. Sir 
 Mulberry sends a carriage for you 
 twenty minutes before seven to the 
 moment you'll not be so cruel as to 
 disappoint the whole party, Mrs. 
 Nickleby!" 
 
 " You are so very pressing, that I 
 
 scarcely know what to say," replied 
 the worthy lady. 
 
 " Say nothing ; not a word, not a 
 word, my dearest madam," urged Mr. 
 Pluck. " Mrs. Nickleby," said that ex- 
 cellent gentleman, lowering his voice, 
 " there is the most trifling, the most ex- 
 cusable breach of confidence in what I 
 am about to say ; and yet if my friend 
 Pyke there overheard it such is that 
 man's delicate sense tif honour, Mrs. 
 Nickleby he 'd have me out before 
 dinner-time." 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby cast an apprehensive 
 glance at the warlike Pyke, who had 
 walked to the window ; and Mr. Pluck, 
 squeezing her hand, went on 
 
 " Your daughter has made a con- 
 quest a conquest on which I may con- 
 gratulate you. Sir Mulberry, my dear 
 ma'am, Sir Mulberry is her devoted 
 slave. Hem ! " 
 
 "Hah!" cried Mr. Pyke at this 
 juncture, snatching something from the 
 chimney-piece with a theatrical air. 
 " What is this ! what do I behold ! " 
 
 " What do you behold, my dear 
 fellow 1" 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 counte- 
 nance, the expression." 
 
 " I recognise it at this distance ! " 
 exclaimed Mr. Pluck in a fit of enthu- 
 siasm. " Is it not, ray dear madam, 
 the faint similitude of " 
 
 " It is my daughter's portrait," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, with great pride. And 
 so it was. And little Miss La Creevy 
 had brought it home for inspection only 
 two nights before. 
 
 Mr. i'yke no sooner ascertained that 
 he was quite right in his conjecture, 
 than he launched into the most extra- 
 vagant encomiums of the divine origi- 
 nal ; and in the warmth of his enthu- 
 siasm kissed the picture a thousand 
 times, while Mr. Pluck pressed Mrs. 
 Nickleby's hand to his heart, and con- 
 gratulated 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
 
 23P, 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby, who had listened in a 
 state of enviable complacency at first, 
 became at length quite overpowered by 
 these tokens of regard for, and attach- 
 ment to, the family ; and even the ser- 
 vant girl, who had peeped in at the 
 door, remained rooted to the spot in 
 astonishment at the ecstasies of the 
 two friendly visitors. 
 
 By degrees these raptures subsided, 
 and Mrs. Nicklelay went on to enter- 
 tain her guests with a lament over her 
 fallen fortunes, and a picturesque 
 account of her old house in the country : 
 comprising a full description of the 
 different apartments, not forgetting the 
 little store-room, and a lively recollec- 
 tion of how many steps you went down 
 to get into the garden, and which way 
 you turned when you came out at the 
 parlour-door, and what capital fixtures 
 there were in the kitchen. This last 
 reflection naturally conducted her into 
 the wash-house where she stumbled 
 upon the brewing utensils, among which 
 she might have wandered for an hour, 
 if the mere mention of those imple- 
 ments had not, by an association of 
 ideas, instantly reminded Mr. Pyke 
 that he was " amazing thirsty." 
 
 " And I '11 tell you what," said Mr. 
 Pyke ; "if you'll send round to the 
 public-house for a pot of mild half- 
 and-half, positively and actually I'll 
 drink it." 
 
 And positively and actually Mr. 
 Pyke did drink it, and Mr. Pluck 
 helped him, while Mrs. Nickleby looked 
 on in divided admiration of the con- 
 descension of the two, and the aptitude 
 with which they accommodated them- 
 selves to the pewter-pot ; in explana- 
 tion of which seeming marvel it may 
 be here observed, that gentlemen who, 
 like Messrs. Pyke and Pluck, live upon 
 their wits (or not so much, perhaps, 
 upon the presence of their own wits as 
 upon the absence of wits in other 
 people) are occasionally reduced to very 
 narrow shifts and straits, and are at 
 such periods accustomed to regale 
 themselves in a very simple and primi- 
 tive manner. 
 
 " At twenty minutes before seven, 
 then," said Mr. Pyke, rising, " the 
 
 coach will be here. One more look 
 one little look at that sweet face. 
 Ah ! here it is. Unmoved, unchanged !" 
 This by the way was a very remark- 
 able circumstance, miniatures being 
 liable to so many changes of expres- 
 sion" Oh, Pluck ! Pluck ! " 
 
 Mr. Pluck made no other reply than 
 kissing Mrs. Nickleby's hand with a 
 great show of feeling and attachment ; 
 Mr. Pyke having done the same, both 
 gentlemen hastily withdrew. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby was commonly in the 
 habit of giving herself credit for a 
 pretty tolerable share of penetration 
 and acuteness, but she had never felt 
 so satisfied with her own sharp-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 Mul- 
 berry's name and yet hadn 't she said 
 to herself from the very first, that she 
 saw how the case stood ? and what a 
 triumph it was, for there was now no 
 doubt about it. If these flattering 
 attentions to herself were not sufficient 
 proof . Sir Mulberry's confidential 
 friend had suffered the secret to escape 
 him in so many words. " I am quite 
 in love with that dear Mr. Pluck, I 
 declare I am," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 There was one great source of unea- 
 siness in the midst of this good fortune, 
 and that was the having nobody by, to 
 whom she could confide it. Once or 
 twice she almost resolved to walk 
 straight to Miss La Creevy's and tell 
 it all to her. But I don't know," 
 thought Mrs. Nickleby ; " she is a very 
 worthy person, but I am afraid too 
 much beneath Sir Mulberry's station 
 for us to make a companion of. Poor 
 thing ! " Acting upon this grave con- 
 sideration 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 hack- 
 ney coach, but a private chariot, having
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 209 
 
 behind it a footman, whose legs, al- 
 though 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 Mre. Nickleby was in ; 
 and as that good lady was perfectly 
 unconscious that he applied the gold- 
 headed end of his long stick to his nose, 
 and so telegraphed most disrespectfully 
 to the coachman over her very head, 
 she sat in a state of much stiffness and 
 dignity, not a little proud of her posi- 
 tion. 
 
 At the theatre entrance there was 
 more banging and more bustle, and 
 there were also Messrs. Pyke and Pluck 
 waiting to escort her to her box ; and 
 so polite were they, that Mr. Pyke 
 threatened with many oaths to " smifli- 
 gate" a very old man with a lantern 
 who accidentally stumbled in her way 
 to the great terror of Mrs. Nickleby, 
 who, conjecturing more from Mr. 
 Pyke's excitement than any previous 
 acquaintance with the etymology of the 
 word that smifligation and bloodshed 
 must be in the main one and die same 
 thing, was alarmed beyond expression, 
 lest something should occur. Fortu- 
 nately, however, Mr. Pyke confined 
 himself to mere verbal smifligation, 
 and they reached their box with no 
 more serious interruption by the way, 
 than a desire on the part of the same 
 pugnacious gentleman to " smash" the 
 assistant box-keeper for happening to 
 mistake the number. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby had scarcely been 
 put away behind the curtain of the 
 box in an arm chair, when Si Mul- 
 berry and Lord Verisopht arrived, 
 arrayed from the crowns of their heads 
 to the tips of their gloves, and from the 
 tips of their gloves to the toes of their 
 boots, in the most elegant and costly 
 manner. Sir Mulberry was a little 
 hoarser than on the previous day, and 
 Lord Verisopht looked rather sleepy 
 and queer ; from which tokens, as 
 well as from the circumstance of their 
 both being to a trifling extent un- 
 steady upon their legs, Mrs. Nickleby 
 
 No. 45. 
 
 justly concluded that they nad taken 
 dinner. 
 
 " We have oeen we have been 
 toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs. 
 Nickleby," whispered Sir Mulberry, 
 sitting down behind her. 
 
 " Oh, ho ! " thought that knowing 
 lady ; " wine in ; truth out. You are 
 very kind, Sir Mulberry." 
 
 " No, no, upon my soul ! " replied 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk. " It's you that's 
 kind, upon my soul it is. It was so 
 kind of you to come to-night." 
 
 " So very kind of you to invite me, 
 you mean, Sir Mulberry," replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking 
 prodigiously sly. 
 
 " I am so anxious to know you, so 
 anxious to cultivate your good opinion, 
 so desirous that there should be a 
 delicious kind of harmonious family 
 understanding between us," said Sir 
 Mulberry, " that you mustn't think 
 I'm disinterested in what I do. I'm 
 infernal selfish ; I am upon my soul 
 lam." 
 
 " I am sure you can't be selfish, Sir 
 Mulberry ! " replied Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " You have much too open and gene- 
 rous a countenance for that." 
 
 " What an extraordinary observer 
 you are !" said Sir Mulberry Hawk. 
 
 " Oh no, indeed, I don't see very 
 far into things, Sir Mulberry," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby, in a tone of voice whicli 
 left the baronet to infer that she saw 
 very far indeed. 
 
 " I am quite afraid of you," said the 
 baronet. " Upon my soul," repeated 
 Sir Mulberry, looking round to his 
 companions ; " I am afraid of Mrs. 
 Nickleby. She is so immensely sharp." 
 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck shook their 
 heads mysteriously, and observed to- 
 gether 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. J 
 hope ho 's coming." 
 
 " Pyke," said Sir Mulberry, taking 
 out his tooth-pick and lolling back in his 
 chair, as if he were too lazy to inveot 
 
 14 P
 
 210 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 a reply to this question. "Where's 
 Ralph Nickleby i" 
 
 " Pluck," said Pyke, imitating the 
 baronet's action, and turning the He 
 over to his friend, " where 's Ralph 
 Nicklebyl" 
 
 Mr. Pluck was about to return some 
 evasive reply, when the bustle caused 
 by a party entering the next box 
 seemed to attract the attention of all 
 four gentlemen, who exchanged glances 
 of much meaning. The new party 
 beginning to converse together, Sir 
 Mulberry suddenly assumed the cha- 
 racter of a most attentive listener, and 
 implored his friends not to breathe 
 not to breathe. 
 
 "Why not?" said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " What is the matter ! M 
 
 "Hush!" replied Sir Mulberry, 
 laying his hand on her arm. " Lord 
 Frederick, do you recognize the tones 
 of that voice 1 " 
 
 " 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 ! Is it pos- 
 sible!" 
 
 " Possible, my dear ? Yes." 
 
 " Why who who on earth is that 
 you have with you, mammal" 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 'a Mr. Pyke, 'Mr. Pluck, Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk, and Lord Frederick 
 Verisopht." 
 
 " Gracious Heaven ! " thought Kate 
 hurriedly. " How comes she in such 
 society ! " 
 
 Now, Kate thought thus to hur- 
 riedly, and the surprise was so great, 
 and moreover brought back so forci- 
 bly 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 vio- 
 lent 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 behalf ; and accordingly, 
 with a vast quantity of trepidation, 
 she quitted her own box to hasten 
 into that of Mrs. Wititterly. Mrs. 
 Wititterly, keenly alive to the glory of 
 having a lord and a baronet among 
 her visiting acquaintance, lost no time 
 in signing to Mr. Wititterly to open 
 the door, and thus it was that in less 
 than thirty seconds Mrs. Nickleby's 
 party had made an irruption into Mrs. 
 Wititterly's box, which it filled to the 
 very door, there being in fact only 
 room for Messrs. Pyke and Pluck to 
 get in their heads and waistcoats. 
 
 " My dear Kate," said Mrs. Nickle- 
 by, kissing her daughter affectionately. 
 " How ill you looked a moment ago ! 
 You quite frightened me, I declare !" 
 
 "It wag mere fancy, mamma, 
 the the reflection of the lights per- 
 haps," 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. Nickle- 
 by officiously informing Kate of this 
 circumstance, she was obliged to ex- 
 tend her own. Sir Mulberry detained 
 it while he murmured a profusion of 
 compliments, which Kate, remember- 
 ing what had passed between them, 
 rightly considered as so many aggra- 
 vations 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 mortifi- 
 cation, she was compelled at Mrs. 
 Wititterly's request to perform the 
 ceremony of introducing the odious
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 211 
 
 person?, whom she regarded with the 
 utmost indignation and abhorrence. 
 
 " Mrs. Wititterly is delighted," said 
 Mr. Wititterly, rubbing his liands ; 
 * delighted, my lord, I am sure, with 
 this opportunity of contracting an 
 acquaintance which, I trust, my lord, 
 we shall improve. Julia, my dear, 
 you must not allow yourself to be too 
 much excited, you must not. Indeed 
 you must not. Mrs. Wititterly is of 
 a most excitable nature, Sir Mulberry. 
 The snuff of a candle, the wick of a 
 lamp, the bloom on a peach, the down 
 on a butterfly. You might blow her 
 away, my lord ; you might blow her 
 away." 
 
 Sir Mulberry seemed to think that 
 it would be a great convenience if the 
 lady could be blown away. He said, 
 however, that the delight was mutual, 
 and Lord Verisopht added that it was 
 mutual, whereupon Messrs. Pyke and 
 Pluck were heard to murmur from 
 the distance that it was very mutual 
 indeed. 
 
 " I take an interest, my lord," said 
 Mrs. Wititterly, with a faint smile, 
 ** such an interest in the drama." 
 
 " Ye es. It 's very interesting," 
 replied Lord Verisopht. 
 
 I 'm always ill after Shakspeare," 
 said Mrs. Wititterly. " I scarcely 
 exist the next day ; 1 find the re-action 
 so very great after a tragedy, my lord, 
 and Shakspeare is such a delicious 
 creature." 
 
 " Ye es !" replied Lord Verisopht. 
 M He was a clayver man." 
 
 " Do you know, my lord," said Mrs. 
 Wititterly, after a long silence, " I 
 find I take so much more interest in 
 his plays, after having been to that 
 dear little dull house he was born in ! 
 Were you ever there, my lord 1 " 
 
 " No, nayver," replied Verisopht. 
 
 " Then really you ought to go, my 
 lord," returned Mrs. Wititterly, in 
 very languid and drawling accents. 
 "I don't know how it is, but after 
 you 've seen the place and written 
 your name in the little book, some- 
 how or other you seem to be inspired ; 
 It kindles up quite a lire within 
 one." 
 
 " Ye es !" replied Lord Verisopht, 
 "I shall certainly go there." 
 
 " Julia, my Hfe," interposed Mr. 
 Wititterly, " yon are deceiving his 
 lordship unintentionally, my lord, she 
 is deceiving you. It is your poetical 
 temperament, my dear your ethereal 
 soul your fervid imagination, which 
 throws you into a glow of genius and 
 excitement. There is nothing in the 
 place, my dear nothing, nothing." 
 
 " I think there must be something 
 in the place," said Mrs. Nickleby,who 
 had been listening in silence ; " for, 
 soon after I was married, I went to 
 Stratford with poor dear Mr. Nickleby, 
 in a post-chaise from Birmingham 
 was it a post-chaise though ! " said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, considering ; " yes, it 
 must have been a post-chaise, because 
 I recollect remarking at the time that 
 the driver had a green shade over his 
 left eye ; in a post-chaise from Bir- 
 mingham, and after we had seen Shak- 
 speare'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-cf- 
 I'aris, with a lay down collar tied with 
 two tassels, leaning against a post and 
 thinking ; and when I woke in the 
 morning and described him to Mr. 
 Nickleby, he said it was Shakspeare 
 just as he had been when he was alive, 
 which was very curious indeed. Strat- 
 ford Stratford," continued Mrs. 
 Nickleby, considering. " Yes, I am 
 positive about that, because I recollect 
 I was in the family way with my son 
 Nicholas at the time, and I had been 
 very much frightened by an Italian 
 image boy that very morning. In fact, 
 it was quite a mercy, ma'am," added 
 Mrs. Nickleby, hi a whisper to Mrs. 
 Wititterly, " that my son 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 fa a close, 
 Pyke and Plnck, ever zealous in their 
 patron's cause, proposed the adjourn- 
 ment of a detachment of the party into 
 the next box : and with so much skill
 
 212 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 were the preliminaries adjusted, that 
 Kate, despite ::11 she could say or do 
 to the contrary, had no alternative but 
 to suffer herself to be led away by Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk. Her mother and 
 Mr. Pluck accompanied them, but the 
 worthy lady, pluming herself upon her 
 discretion, took particular care not so 
 much as to look at her daughter during 
 the whole evening, and to seem wholly 
 absorbed in the jokes and conversa- 
 tion of Mr. Pluck, who, having been 
 appointed sentry over Mrs. Nickleby 
 for that especial purpose, neglected, on 
 his side, no possible opportunity of 
 engrossing her attention. 
 
 Lord Frederick Verisopht remained 
 in the next box to be talked to by Mrs. 
 Wititterly, and Mr. Pyke was in attend- 
 ance to throw in a word or two when 
 necessary. As to Mr. Wititterly, he 
 was sufficiently busy in the body of the 
 house, informing such of his friends 
 and acquaintance as happened to be 
 there, that those two gentlemen up 
 stairs, whom they had seen in conver- 
 sation with Mrs. W., were the distin- 
 guished 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 sixteen unmar- 
 ried 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 skilfully were the manoeuvres 
 of Messrs. Pyke and Pluck conducted, 
 that she and the baronet were the last 
 of the party, and were even without 
 an appearance of effort or design left 
 at some little distance behind. 
 
 " Don't hurry, don't hurry," said 
 Sir Mulberry, as Kate hastened on, 
 and attempted to release her arm. 
 
 She made no reply, but still pressed 
 forward. 
 
 " Nay, then " coolly observed Sir 
 Mulberry, stopping her outright. 
 
 " You had best not seek to detain 
 me, sir !" said Kate, angrily. 
 
 " And why not !" retorted Sir Mul- 
 berry. " My dear creature, now why 
 
 do you keep up this show of displea 
 sure ! " 
 
 "Show/" repeated Kate, indig- 
 nantly. "How dare you presume to 
 speak to me, sir to address me to 
 come into my presence 1 " 
 
 " You look prettier in a passion, Miss 
 Nickleby," said Sir Mulberry Hawk, 
 stooping down, the better to see her 
 face. 
 
 " I hold you in the bitterest detesta- 
 tion and contempt, sir," said Kate. " If 
 you find any attraction in looks of dis- 
 gust and aversion, you let me rejoin 
 my friends, sir, instantly. Whatever 
 considerations may have withheld me 
 thus far, I will disregard them all, and 
 take a course that even you might feel, 
 if you do not immediately suffer me to 
 proceed." 
 
 Sir Mulberry smiled, and still look- 
 ing in her face and retaining her arm, 
 walked towards the door. 
 
 " If no regard for my sex or helpless 
 situation will induce you to desist from 
 this coarse and unmanly persecution," 
 said Kate, scarcely knowing, in the 
 tumult of her passions, what she said, 
 " I have a brother who will resent it 
 dearly, one day." 
 
 " Upon my soul ! " exclaimea Sir 
 Mulberry, as though quietly communing 
 with himself ; passing his arm round 
 her waist as he spoke, " she looks more 
 beautiful, and I like her better in this 
 mood, than when her eyes are cast 
 down, and she is in perfect repose ! " 
 
 How Kate reached the lobby where 
 her friends were waiting she never 
 knew, but she hurried across it without 
 at all regarding them, and disengaged 
 herself suddenly from her companion, 
 sprang into the coach, and throwing 
 herself into its darkest corner burst 
 into tears. 
 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck, knowing 
 their cue, at once threw the party into 
 great commotion by shouting for the 
 carriages, and getting up a violent 
 quarrel with sundry inoffensive by- 
 standers ; in the midst of which tumult 
 they put the affrighted Mrs. Nickleby in 
 her chariot, and having got her saiely 
 off, turned their thoughts to Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, whose attention also they had
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 now effectually distracted from the 
 young lady, by throwing her into a 
 state of the utmost bewilderment and 
 consternation. At length, the convey- 
 ance in which she had come rolled off 
 too with its load, and the four worthies, 
 being left alone under the portico, en- 
 joyed a hearty laugh together. 
 
 " There," said Sir Mulberry, turning 
 to his noble friend. " Didn't I tell you 
 last night that if we could find where 
 they were going by bribing a servant 
 through my fellow, and then established 
 ourselves close by with the mother, 
 these people's honour would be our 
 own ? Why here it is, done in four- 
 and-twenty hours." 
 
 " Ye-es," replied the dupe. But 
 I have been tied to the old woman all 
 ni-ight." 
 
 " Hear him," said Sir Mulberry, 
 fuming to his two friends. " Hear this 
 discontented grumbler. Isn't it enough 
 to make a man swear never to help him 
 in his plots and schemes again ! Isn't 
 it an infernal shame !" 
 
 Pyke asked Pluck whether it was 
 not an infernal shame, and Pluck asked 
 Pyke ; but neither answered. 
 
 "Isn't it the truth!" demanded 
 Verisopht " Wasn't it so ? " 
 
 " Wasn't it so ! " repeated Sir Mul- 
 berry. " How would you have had it ? 
 How could we have got a general in- 
 vitation at first sight come when you 
 like, go when you like, stop as long as 
 you like, do what you like if you, the 
 
 
 213 
 
 lord, had not made yourself agreeable 
 to the foolish mistress of the house I 
 Do 7 care for this girl, except as your 
 friend ? Haven't I been sounding you! 
 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 1" 
 
 " Ye-es, ye- es like a friend," replied 
 the other. 
 
 " Well then," replied Sir Mulberry, 
 " I'm satisfied. And now let's go and 
 have our revenge on the German baron 
 and the Frenchman, who cleaned you 
 out so handsomely last night." 
 
 With these words the friendly crea- 
 ture took his companion's arm and 
 led him away, turning half round as he 
 did so, and bestowing a wink and a 
 contemptuous smile on Messrs. Pyke 
 and Pluck, who, cramming their hand- 
 kerchiefs into their mouths to denote 
 their silent enjoyment of the whole 
 proceedings, followed their patron and 
 his victim at a little distance. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MISS NICKLEBY, RENDERED DESPERATE BT THE PERSECUTION OF SIR MULBERRT 
 HAWK, AND THE COMPLICATED DIFFICULTIES AND DISTRESSES WHICH SUR- 
 ROUND HER, APPEALS, AS A LAST RESOURCE, TO HER UNCLE FOR PROTECTION. 
 
 THE ensuing morning brought reflec- 
 tion with it, as morning usually does ; 
 but widely different was the train of 
 thought it awakened in the different 
 
 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 
 
 persons who had been so unexpectedly ' joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are 
 brought together on the preceding i all of self, and who would seem to 
 evening, by the active agency of Messrs. ! retain nothing of the intellectual faculty 
 Pyke and Pluck. I but the power to debase himself, and
 
 214 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 to degrade the very nature whose out- 
 ward semblance he wears the reflec- 
 tions of Sir Mulberry Hawk turned 
 upon Kate Nickleby, and were, in 
 b rief, that she was undoubtedly hand- 
 so me ; that her coyness must be easily 
 conquerable by a man of his address 
 and experience, and that the pursuit 
 was one which could not fail to redound 
 to is credit, and greatly to enhance 
 his reputation with the world. And 
 lest this last consideration no mean 
 or secondary one with Sir Mulberry 
 should sound strangely in the ears of 
 some, let it be remembered that most 
 men live in a world of their own, and 
 that in that limited circle alone are 
 they ambitious for distinction and ap- 
 plause. Sir Mulberry's world was 
 peopled with profligates, and he acted 
 accordingly. 
 
 Thus, cases of injustice, and oppres- 
 sion, and tyranny, and the most extra- 
 vagant bigotry, are in constant occur- 
 rence among us every day. It is the 
 custom to trumpet forth much wonder 
 and astonishment at the chief actors 
 therein setting at defiance so completely 
 the opinion of the world ; but there is 
 no greater fallacy ; it is precisely be- 
 cause they do consult the opinion of 
 their own little world that such things 
 take place at all, and strike the great 
 world dumb with amazement. 
 
 The reflections of Mrs. Nickleby 
 were of the proudest and most com- 
 placent kind ; and under the influence 
 of her very agreeable delusion she 
 straightway sat down and indited a 
 long letter to Kate, in which she ex- 
 pressed her entire approval of the 
 admirable choice she had made, and 
 extolled Sir Mulberry to the skies ; as- 
 serting, for the more complete satisfac- 
 tion 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 prelimi- 
 nary observation that she might be 
 fairly supposed not to have lived in the 
 world so long without knowing its ways, 
 communicated a great many subtle 
 precepts applicable to the state of court- 
 
 ship, and confirmed in their wisdom by 
 her own personal experience. Above 
 all things she commended a strict 
 maidenly reserve, as being not only a 
 very laudable thing in itself, but as 
 tending materially to strengthen and 
 increase a lover's ardour. " And I 
 never," added Mrs. Nickleby, "was 
 more delighted in my life than to ob- 
 serve last night, my dear, thai your good 
 sense hadalready told you this." With 
 which sentiment, and various hints 
 of the pleasure she derived from the 
 knowledge that her daughter inherited 
 so large an instalment of her own excel- 
 lent sense and discretion (to nearly the 
 full measure of which she might hope, 
 with care, to succeed in time), Mrs. 
 Nickleby concluded a very long and 
 rather illegible letter. 
 
 Poor Kate was well nigh distracted 
 on the receipt of four closely-written 
 and closely-crossed sides of congratula- 
 tion on the very subject which had 
 prevented her closing her eyes all 
 night, and kept her weeping and watch- 
 ing in her chamber ; still worse and 
 more trying was the necessity of ren- 
 dering herself agreeable to Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, 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 in- 
 convenient extent with the power of 
 thinking, regaled himself with the con- 
 versation 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 re- 
 clined, 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.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 215 
 
 And it was a production admirably 
 suited to a lady labouring under Mrs. 
 Wititterly's complaint, seeing that 
 there was not a line in it, from begin- 
 ning to end, which could, by the most 
 remote contingency, awaken the small- 
 est excitement in any person breathing. 
 
 Kate read on. 
 
 " < Cherizette,' said the Lady Flabella, 
 inserting her mouse-like feet in the 
 blue satin slippers, which had unwit- 
 tingly occasioned the half-playful half- 
 angry altercation between herself and 
 the youthful Colonel Beiillaire, in the 
 Duke of Mincefenille's salon de danse 
 on the previous night. ' Cherizette, 
 ma chere, donncz-moi de V eau-de-Co- 
 logne, t'U v<nu platt, mon enfant.' 
 
 Uf Mercie thank you,' said the Lady 
 Flabella, as the lively but devoted Che- 
 rizette, plentifully besprinkled with the 
 fragrant compound the Lady Flabella's 
 m&uciurir 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 ; < Atercie that will 
 do.' 
 
 At this instant, while the Lady 
 Flabella yet inhaled that delicious 
 fragrance by holding the mouchoir to 
 her exquisite, but thoughtfully-chi- 
 selled nose, the door of the boudoir 
 (artfully concealed by rich hangings of 
 silken damask, the hue of Italy's firma- 
 ment) was thrown open, and with noise- 
 less tread two valets-de-chambre, clad 
 in sumptuous liveries of peach-blossom 
 and gold, advanced into the room fol- 
 lowed by a page in baa 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 drop- 
 ping on one knee presented, on a golden 
 salver gorgeously chased, a scented 
 billet. 
 
 < The Lady Flabella, with an agita- 
 tion she could not repress, hastily tore 
 off the envelope and broke the scented 
 seal. It <'< from Befillaire the 
 young, the slim, the low-voiced her 
 own Befillaire.' " 
 
 " Oh, charming !" interrupted Kate's 
 patroness, who was sometimes taken 
 
 literary ; " Poetic, really. Road that 
 description again, Miss Nicklt'by." 
 
 Kate complied. 
 
 Sweet, indeed ! " said Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, 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 sin- looked pale. 
 
 u 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 com- 
 panion. A steam-engine, or other in- 
 genious 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 J" asked Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, still eyeing Kate through her 
 
 " I met them at my uncle's," said 
 Kate, vexed to feel that she was co- 
 louring deeply, but unable to keep 
 down the blood which rushed to her 
 face whenever she thought of that 
 man. 
 
 " Have you known them long 1 " 
 " No," rejoined Kate. " Not long." 
 " I was very glad of the opportunity 
 which that respectable person, your 
 mother, gave us of being known to 
 them," said Mrs. Wititterly, in a lofty 
 manner. " Some friends of ours were 
 on the very point of introducing us, 
 which makes it quite remarkable." 
 
 This was said lest Miss Nickleby 
 should grow conceited on the honour 
 and dignity of having known four 
 great people (for Pyke and Pluck 
 were included among the delightful 
 creatures), whom Mrs. Witittcrly did 
 not know. But as the circumstance 
 had made no impression one way or
 
 216 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 tremendous rapping 
 at the street-door, and, before it had 
 ceased to vibrate, there drove up a 
 handsome cabriolet, out of which 
 leaped Sir Mulberry Hawk and his 
 friend Lord Verisopht. 
 
 " They are here now," said Kate, 
 ising and hurrying away. 
 
 " Miss Nickleby ! " cried Mrs. 
 \Vititterly, perfectly aghast at a com- 
 panion's attempting to quit the room, 
 without her permission first had and 
 obtained. " Pray don't think of 
 going." 
 
 " You are very good ! " replied 
 Kate. But" 
 
 " For goodness' sake, don't agitate 
 me by making me speak so much," 
 said Mrs. Wititterly, with great sharp- 
 ness. " 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 re- 
 sumed her seat, and had scarcely done 
 so, when the doubtful page darted 
 into the room and announced, Mr. 
 Pyke, and Mr. Pluck, and Lord Veri- 
 sopht, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, all at 
 one burst. 
 
 " The most extraordinary thing in 
 the world," said Mr. Pluck saluting 
 both ladies with the utmost cordiality ; 
 " the most extraordinary thing. As 
 Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove 
 up to the door, Pyke and I had that 
 instant knocked." 
 
 " That instant knocked," said Pyke. 
 
 " No matter how you came, so that 
 you are here," said Mrs. Wititterly, 
 who, by dint of lying on the same sofa 
 for three years and a half, had got up 
 quite a little pantomime of graceful 
 attitudes, and now threw herself into 
 the most striking of the whole series, 
 
 to astonish the visitors. u I am de- 
 lighted, I am sure." 
 
 " And how is Miss Nickleby ! " said 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk accosting Kate, 
 in a low voice not so low, however, 
 but that it reached the ears of Mrs. 
 Wititterly. 
 
 " Why, she complains of suffering 
 from the fright of last night," said the 
 lady. " I am sure I don't wonder at 
 it, for my nerves are quite torn to 
 pieces." 
 
 " And yet you look," observed Sir 
 Mulberry, turning round; "and yet 
 you look " 
 
 " Beyond everything, " said Mr. 
 Pyke, coming to his patron's assist- 
 ance. Of course Mr. Pluck said die 
 same. 
 
 " I am afraid Sir Mulberry is 
 flatterer, my lord," said Mrs. Witit 
 terly, turning to that young gentle- 
 man, who had been sucking the head 
 of his cane in silence, and staring at 
 Kate. 
 
 " Oh, deyvlish ! " replied Verisopht. 
 Having given utterance to which re- 
 markable sentiment, he occupied him- 
 self as before. 
 
 "Neither does Miss Nickleby look 
 the worse," said Sir Mulberry, bending 
 his bold gaze upon her. " She was 
 always handsome, but, upon my soul, 
 ma'am, you seem to have imparted 
 some of your own good looks to her 
 besides." 
 
 To judge from the glow which suf- 
 fused the poor girl's countenance after 
 this speech, Mrs. Wititterly might, 
 with some show of reason, have been 
 supposed to have imparted to it some 
 of that artificial bloom which decorated 
 her own. Mrs. Wititterly admitted* 
 though not with the best grace in the 
 world, that Kate did look pretty. She 
 began to think too, that Sir Mulberry 
 was not quite so agreeable a creature 
 as she had at first supposed him ; for, 
 although a skilful flatterer is a most 
 delightful companion if you can keep 
 him all to yourself, his taste becomes 
 very doubtful when he takes to com- 
 plimenting other people. 
 
 " Pyke," said the watchful Mr. 
 Pluck, observing the effect which the
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 217 
 
 praise of Miss Nickleby had pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Well, Pluck," said Pyke. 
 
 a Is there anybody," demanded Mr. 
 Pluck, mysteriously, " anybody you 
 know, tliat Mrs. Wititterly's profile 
 reminds you of?" 
 
 " Reminds me of !" answered Pyke. 
 " Of course there is." 
 
 " Who do you mean 1" said Pluck, 
 in the same mysterious manner. " The 
 D. ofB.I" 
 
 '< The C. of B.," replied Pyke, with 
 the faintest trace of a grin lingering in 
 his countenance. " The beautiful 
 sister is the countess ; not the 
 duchess." 
 
 " True," said Pluck, the C. of B. 
 The resemblance is wonderful I" 
 
 " Perfectly startling," said Mr. 
 Pyke. 
 
 Here was a state of tilings ! Mrs. 
 Wititterly was declared, upon the 
 testimony of two veracious and compe- 
 tent witnesses, to be the very picture 
 of a countess ! This was one of the 
 consequences of getting into good 
 society. Why, she might have moved 
 among grovelling people for twenty- 
 years, and never heard of it. How 
 could she, indeed \ what did they know 
 about countesses ! 
 
 The two gentlemen having by the 
 greediness with which this little bait 
 was swallowed, tested the extent of 
 Mrs. Wititterly's appetite for adula- 
 tion, proceeded to administer that 
 commodity in very large doses, thus 
 affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an 
 opportunity of pestering Miss Nickleby 
 with questions and remarks to which 
 she was absolutely obliged to make 
 some reply. Meanwhile, Lord Veri- 
 sopht enjoyed unmolested the full 
 flavour of tin- 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 con- 
 versation to turn to his favourite topic. 
 
 " My lord," said Mr. Wititterly, 
 " I am delighted honoured proud. 
 Be seated again, my lord, pray. I 
 am proud, indeed most proud." 
 
 It was to the secret annoyance of 
 his wife that Mr. Wititterly said all 
 
 this, for, although she was bursting 
 with pride and arrogance, she would 
 have had die illustrious guests believe 
 that their visit was quite a common 
 occurrence, and that they had lords 
 and baronets to see them every day in 
 the week. But Mr. Wititterly's feel- 
 ings were beyond the power of sup- 
 pression. 
 
 " It is an honour, indeed !" said 
 Mr. Wititterly. " Julia, my soul, you 
 will suffer for this to-morrow." 
 
 " Suffer ! " cried Lord Verisopht. 
 
 " The reaction, my lord, the re- 
 action," said Mr. Wititterly. " This 
 violent strain upon the nervous system 
 over, my lord, what ensues } A sink- 
 ing, a depression, a lowness, a lassi- 
 tude, a debility. My lord, if Sir 
 Tumley Snuffim was to see that deli- 
 cate creature at this moment, he would 
 not give a a this for her life." In 
 illustration of which remark, Mr. 
 Wititterly took a pinch of snuff from 
 his box and jerked it lightly into the 
 air as an emblem of instability. 
 
 "Not that," said Mr. Wititterly, 
 looking about him with a serious coun- 
 tenance. " Sir Tumley Snuffim would 
 not give that for Mrs. Wititterly'a 
 existence." 
 
 Mr. Wititterly told this with a kind 
 of sober exultation, as if it were no 
 trifling distinction for a man to have a 
 wife in such a desperate state, and 
 Mrs. Wititterly sighed and looked on, 
 as if she felt the honour, but had deter- 
 mined to bear it as meekly as might 
 be. 
 
 " Mrs. Wititterly," said her hus- 
 band, " is Sir Tumley Snuffim's favour- 
 ite patient I believe I may ventura 
 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. Witit- 
 terly, in a faint voice. 
 
 As there appeared to be some doubt 
 hi the mind of his patron how he could 
 best join in this conversation, the in- 
 defatigable Mr. Pyke threw himself 
 into the breach, and, by way of saying
 
 218 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 something to the point, inquired with 
 reference to the aforesaid medicine 
 whether it was nice. 
 
 * No, sir, it was not. It had not 
 even that recommendation," said Mr. 
 W. 
 
 " Mrs. Wititterly is quite a martyr," 
 observed Pyke, with a complimentary 
 
 ^)OW. 
 
 I think I am," said Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, 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 privi- 
 leges. " If anybody, my lord," added 
 Mr. Wititterly, wheeling round to the 
 nobleman, " will produce to me a 
 greater martyr than Mrs. Wititterly, 
 all I can say is, that I shall be glad to 
 see that martyr, whether male or 
 female that 's all, my lord." 
 
 Pyke and Pluck promptly remarked 
 that certainly nothing could be fairer 
 than that ; and the call having been by 
 this time protracted to a very great 
 length, they obeyed Sir Mulberry's 
 look, and rose to go. This brought Sir 
 Mulberry himself and Lord Verisopht 
 on their legs also. Many protestations 
 of friendship, and expressions anticipa- 
 tive of the pleasure which must inevi- 
 tably flow from so happy an acquaint- 
 ance, were exchanged, and the visiters 
 departed, with renewed assurances that 
 at all times and seasons the mansion 
 of the Wititterlys would be honoured 
 by receiving them beneath its roof. 
 
 That they came at all times and 
 seasons that they dined there one 
 day, supped the next, dined again on 
 the next, and were constantly to and 
 fro on all that they made parties to 
 visit public places, and met by accident 
 at lounges that upon all these occa- 
 sions Miss Nickleby was exposed to 
 the constant and unremitting persecu- 
 tion of Sir Mulberry Hawk, who now 
 began to feel his character, even in 
 the estimation of his two dependants, 
 involved in the successful reduction of 
 her pride that she had no intervals 
 of peace or rest, except at those hours 
 when she could sit in her solitary room 
 and weep over the trials of the day 
 
 all these were consequences naturally 
 flowing from the well-laid plans of Sir 
 Mulberry, and their able execution by 
 the auxiliaries, Pyke and Pluck. 
 
 And thus for a fortnight matters 
 weat on. That any but the weakest 
 and silliest of people could have seen 
 in one interview that Lord Verisopht, 
 though he was a lord, and Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk, though he was a baronet, were 
 not persons accustomed to be the best 
 possible companions, and were certainly 
 not calculated by habits, manners, 
 tastes, or conversation, to shine with 
 any very great lustre in the society of 
 ladies, need scarcely be remarked. 
 But with Mrs. Wititterly the two titles 
 were all-sufficient ; coarseness became 
 humour, vulgarity softened itself down 
 into the most charming eccentricity ; 
 insolence took the guise of an easy 
 absence of reserve, attainable only by 
 those who had had the good fortune to 
 mix with high folks. 
 
 If the mistress put such a construc- 
 tion upon the behaviour of her new 
 friends, what could the companion 
 urge against them ? If they accustomed 
 themselves to very little restraint be- 
 fore the lady of the house, with how 
 much more freedom could they address 
 her paid dependant! Nor was even 
 this the worst. As the odious Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk attached himself to 
 Kate with less and less of disguise, 
 Mrs. Wititterly began to grow jealous 
 of the superior attractions of Miss 
 Nickleby. If this feeling had led to 
 her banishment from the drawing- 
 room when such company was there, 
 Kate would have been, only too happy 
 and willing that it should have existed, 
 but unfortunately for her she possessed 
 that native grace and true gentility of 
 manner, and those thousand nameless 
 accomplishments which give to female 
 society its greatest charm ; if these be 
 valuable anywhere, they were espe- 
 cially so where the lady of the house 
 was a mere animated dolL The con- 
 sequence was, that Kate had the 
 double mortification of being an indis- 
 pensable part of the circle when Sir 
 Mulberry and his friends were there, 
 and of being exposed, on that very
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 219 
 
 account, to all Mrs. Wititterly's ill- 
 humours and caprices when they were 
 gone. She became utterly and com- 
 pletely miserable. 
 
 Mrs. Wititterly had never thrown 
 off the mask with regard to Sir Mul- 
 berry, but when she was more than 
 usually out of temper, attributed the 
 circumstance, as ladies sometimes do, 
 to nervous indisposition. However, as 
 the dreadful idea that Lord Verisopht 
 also was somewhat taken with Kate, 
 and that she, Mrs. Wititterly, was 
 quite a secondary person, dawned upon 
 that lady's mind and gradually deve- 
 loped itself, she became possessed with 
 a large quantity of highly proper and 
 most virtuous indignation, and felt it 
 her duty, as a married lady and a moral 
 member of society, to mention the cir- 
 cumstance to " the young person " 
 without tli 'lay. 
 
 Accordingly Mrs. Wititterly broke 
 ground next morning, during a pause 
 in the novel-reading. 
 
 " Miss Nickleby," said Mrs. Witit- 
 terly, " I wish to speak to you very 
 gravely. I am sorry to have to do it, 
 upon my word I am very sorry, but 
 you leave me no alternative, Miss 
 Nickleby." Here Mrs. Wititterly tossed 
 her head not passionately, only vir- 
 tuously and remarked, with some 
 appearance of excitement, that she 
 feared that palpitation of the heart 
 was coming on again. 
 
 "Your behaviour, Miss Nickleby," 
 resumed the lady, " is very far from 
 pleasing me very far. I am very 
 anxious indeed that yon should do 
 well, but you may depend upon it, 
 Miss Nickleby, you will not, if you go 
 on as you do." 
 
 " Ma'am ! " exclaimed Kate, proudly. 
 
 "Don't agitate me by speaking in 
 that way, Miss Nickleby, don't," said 
 Mrs. Wititterly, with some violence, 
 " or you '11 compel me to ping the bell." 
 
 Kate looked at her, but said nothing. 
 
 " You needn't suppose," resumed 
 Mrs. Wititterly, " that your looking at 
 me in that way, Miss Nickleby, will 
 prevent my saying what I am going 
 to say, which I feel to be a religious 
 duty. You needn't direct your glances 
 
 towards me," said Mrs. Wititterly, with 
 a sudden burst of spite ; " / am not 
 Sir Mulberry, no nor Lord Frederick 
 Verisopht, Miss Nickleby ; nor am I 
 Mr. Pyke, nor Mr. Pluck either." 
 
 Kate looked at her again, but les< 
 steadily than before ; and resting her 
 elbow on the table, covered her eyes 
 with her hand. 
 
 " If such things had been done when 
 / was a young girl," said Mrs. Witit- 
 terly (this, by the way, must have been 
 some little time before), " I don't sup- 
 pose anybody would have believed it." 
 
 "I don't think they would," mur- 
 mured Kate. " I do not think anybody 
 would believe, without actually know- 
 ing it, what I seem doomed to under- 
 go!" 
 
 " Don't talk to me of being doomed 
 to undergo, Miss Nickleby, if you 
 please," said Mrs. Wititterly, with a 
 shrillness of tone quite surprising in 
 so great an invalid. " I will not be 
 answered, Miss Nickleby. I am not 
 accustomed to be answered, nor will I 
 permit it for an instant. Do you 
 hear 1" she added, waiting with some 
 apparent inconsistency for an answer. 
 
 " I do hear you, ma'am," replied 
 Kate, " with surprise with greater 
 surprise than I can express." 
 
 "I have always considered you a 
 particularly well-behaved young person 
 for your station in life," said Mrs. 
 Wititterly ; " and as you are a person 
 of healthy appearance, and neat in 
 your dress and so forth, I have taken 
 an interest in you, as I do still, con- 
 sidering that I owe a sort of duty to 
 that respectable old female, your mo- 
 ther. For these reasons, Miss Nickle- 
 by, I must tell you once for all, and 
 begging you to mind what I say, that 
 I must insist upon your immediately 
 altering your very forward behaviour 
 to the gentlemen who visit at this 
 house. It really is not becoming," 
 said Mrs. Wititterly, closing her chaste 
 eyes as she spoke ; " it is improper 
 quite improper." 
 
 " Oh !" cried Kate, looking upwards 
 and clasping her hands, ' is not this, 
 is not this, too cruel, too hard to bear ! 
 Is it not enough that I should have
 
 220 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 suffered as I have, night and day ; that | her seniority, than she fell back upon 
 
 I should almost have sunk in my own 
 estimation from very shame of having 
 been brought into contact with such 
 people ; but must I also be exposed 
 to this unjust and most unfounded 
 charge!" 
 
 " You will have the goodness to 
 recollect, Miss Nickleby," said Mrs. 
 Wititterly, " that when you use such 
 terms as ' unjust,' and ' unfounded,' 
 you charge me, in effect, with stating 
 that which is untrue." 
 
 " I do," said Kate, with honest in- 
 dignation. " Whether you make this 
 accusation of yourself, or at the 
 prompting of others, is alike to me. I 
 say it is vilely, grossly, wilfully untrue. 
 Is it possible !" cried Kate, " that any 
 one of my own sex can have sat by, 
 and not have seen the misery these 
 men have caused me ! Is it possible 
 that you, ma'am, can have been present, 
 and failed to mark the insulting free- 
 dom that their every look bespoke ! 
 Is it possible that you can have avoided 
 seeing, that these libertines, in their 
 utter disrespect for you, and utter dis- 
 regard of all gentlemanly behaviour 
 and almost of decency, have had but 
 one object hi introducing themselves 
 here, and that the furtherance of their 
 designs upon a friendless, helpless 
 girl, who, without this humiliating con- 
 fession, might have hoped to receive 
 from one so much her senior some- 
 thing like womanly aid and sympathy 1 
 I do not I cannot believe it!" 
 
 If poor Kate had possessed the 
 slightest knowledge of the world, she 
 certainly would not have ventured, 
 even in the excitement into which she 
 had been lashed, upon such an 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 most heroic for- 
 titude to Kate's account of her own 
 sufferings. But allusion being made 
 to her being held in disregard by the 
 gentlemen, she evinced violent emo- 
 tion, and this blow was no sooner fol- 
 lowed up by the remark concerning 
 
 the sofa, uttering dismal screams. 
 
 " What is the matter ! " cried 
 Mr. Wititterly, bouncing into the 
 room. " Heavens, what do I see ! 
 Julia ! Julia ! look up, my life, look 
 up !" 
 
 But Julia looked down most pcrse- 
 veringly, and screamed still louder 1 
 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 
 Snufnm, 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 Pro- 
 vidence (thus spake Sir Tumley), Mrs. 
 Wititterly had gone to sleep. She 
 then hastily attired herself for walking, 
 and leaving word that she should re- 
 turn within a couple of hours, hurried 
 away towards her uncle's house. 
 
 It had been a good day with Ralph 
 Nickleby, quite a lucky day ; and as 
 he walked to and fro in his little back 
 room with his hands clasped behind 
 him, adding up in his own mind all the 
 sums that had been, or would be, netted 
 from the business done since morning, 
 his mouth was drawn into a hard stern 
 smile ; while the firmness of the lines 
 and curves that made it up, as well as 
 the cunning glance of his cold, bright 
 eye, seemed to tell, that if any resolu- 
 tion or cunning would increase the 
 profits, they would not fail to be ex- 
 cited for' the purpose. 
 
 " Very good !" said Ralph, in allu- 
 sion, no doubt, to some proceeding of 
 the day. " He defies the usurer, does 
 he ? Well, we shall see. * Honesty is
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 221 
 
 the best policy,' is it ! We'll try that, 
 too." 
 
 He stopped, and then walked on again. 
 
 " He is content," said Raich, relax- 
 ing into a smile, " to set fits known 
 character and conduct against the 
 power of money dross, as lie calls it. 
 Why, what a dull blockhead this fellow 
 must be ! 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 1 " he added quickly. 
 
 " No," replied Ralph. " Show her 
 in stay." He hastily put away a 
 padlocked cash-box that was on the 
 table, and substituted in its stead an 
 empty puree. " There," said Ralph. 
 " Aev she may come in." 
 
 Newman, with a grim smile at this 
 manoeuvre, beckoned the young lady 
 to advance, and having placed a chair 
 for her retired ; looking stealthily over 
 his shoulder at Ralph as he limped 
 slowly out. 
 
 " Well," said Ralph,roughly enough ; 
 but still with something more of kind- 
 ness in his manner than he would have 
 exhibited towards anybody else. "Well, 
 my dear. What now J " 
 
 Kate raised her eyes, which were 
 filled with tears ; and with an effort to 
 master her emotion strove to speak, 
 but in vain. So drooping her head 
 again, she remained silent. Her face 
 was hidden from his view, but Ralph 
 could see that she was weeping. 
 
 " I can guess the cause of this ! " 
 thought Ralph, after looking at her for 
 some time in silence. " 1 can I can 
 guess the cause. Well ! Well ! " 
 thought Ralph for the moment quite 
 disconcerted, as he watched the anguish 
 of his beautiful niece. " Where is the 
 harm ! only a few tears ; and it 's an 
 
 excellent lesson for her an excellent 
 lesson." 
 
 " What is the matter!" asked 
 Ralph, drawing a chair opposite, and 
 sitting down. 
 
 He was rather taken aback by the 
 sudden firmness with which Kate 
 looked up and answered him. 
 
 " The matter which brings me to 
 you, sir," she said, " is one which 
 should call the blood up into youi 
 cheeks, and make you burn to hear, 
 as it does me to tell. I have been 
 wronged ; my feelings have been cut- 
 rageu, insulted, wounded past all heal- 
 ing, and by your friends." 
 
 " Friends ! " 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 were, oh, the more 
 shame on you, uncle, for bringing me 
 among them. To have subjected me 
 to wliat I was exposed to here, through 
 any misplaced confidence or imperfect 
 knowledge of your guests, would have 
 required some strong excuse ; but if 
 you did it as I now believe you did 
 knowing them well, it was most das- 
 tardly and cruel." 
 
 Ralph drew back in utter amaze- 
 ment at this plain speaking, and re- 
 garded Kate with his sternest look. 
 But she met his gaze proudly and 
 firmly, and although her face was very 
 pale, it looked more noble and hand- 
 some, 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. 
 
 " 1 hope there is ! " replied Kate. 
 " I should be proud to know it. I am 
 young, uncle, and all the difficulties 
 and miseries of my situation have kept 
 it down, but I have been roused 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 1 " demanded 
 Ralph, sharply. 
 
 " Remember what took place here,
 
 222 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 and ask yourself," replied Kate, colour- 
 ing 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 vio- 
 lent I beg your pardon if I have 
 seemed so, dear uncle, but you do 
 not know what I have suffered, you do 
 not indeed. You cannot tell what 
 the heart of a young girl is I have 
 no right to expect you should ; but 
 when I tell you that I am wretched, 
 and that my heart is breaking, I am 
 sure you will help me. I am sure, I 
 am sure you will ! " 
 
 Ralph looked at her for an instant ; 
 then turned away his head, and beat 
 his foot nervously upon the ground. 
 
 " I have gone on day after day," 
 said Kate, bending over him, and 
 timidly placing her little hand in his, 
 "in the hope that this persecution 
 would cease ; I have gone on day after 
 day, compelled to assume the appear- 
 ance of cheerfulness, when I was most 
 unhappy. I have had no counsellor, 
 no adviser, no one to protect me. 
 Mamma supposes that these are honour- 
 able men, rich and distinguished, and 
 how can I how can I undeceive her 
 when she is so happy in these little 
 delusions, which are the only happi- 
 ness 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 in treat and implore you to 
 assist me." 
 
 " How can / assist you, child ? " said 
 Ralph, rising from his chair, and 
 pacing up and down the room in his 
 old attitude. 
 
 " You have influence with one of 
 these men, I know," rejoined Kate, 
 emphatically. " Would not a word 
 from you induce them to desist from 
 this unmanly course 1 " 
 
 "No," said Ralph, suddenly turn- 
 ing ; " at least that I can't say it, 
 if it would." 
 
 Can't say it ! " 
 
 " No," said Ralph, coming to a dead 
 stop, and clasping his hands more 
 tightly behind him. " I can't say it." 
 
 Kate fell back a step or two, and 
 looked at him, as if in doubt whether 
 she had heard aright. 
 
 " We are connected in business," 
 said Ralph, poising himself alternately 
 on his toes and heels, and looking 
 coolly in his niece's face, " in business, 
 and I can't afford to offend them. 
 What is it after all ? We have all our 
 trials, and this is one of yours. Some 
 girls would be proud to have such gal- 
 lants at their feet" 
 
 " Proud ! " cried Kate. 
 
 "I don't say," rejoined Ralph, 
 raising his fore-finger, " but that you 
 do right to despise them ; no, you 
 show your good sense in that, as 
 indeed I knew from the first you 
 would. WelL In all other respects 
 you are comfortably bestowed. It 's 
 not much to bear. If this young lord 
 does dog your footsteps, and whisper 
 his drivelling inanities in your ears, 
 what of it ? It 's a dishonourable pas- 
 sion. 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 indig- 
 nation, " I am to be the scorn of my 
 own sex, and the toy of the other ; 
 justly condemned by all women of 
 right feeling, and despised by all 
 honest and honourable men ; sunken 
 in my own esteem, and degraded in 
 every eye that looks upon me. No, not 
 if I work my fingera to the bone, not 
 if I am driven to the roughest and 
 hardest labour. Do not mistake me. 
 I will not disgrace your recommenda- 
 tion. I will remain in the house in 
 which it placed me, until I am entitled 
 to leavo it by the terms of my engage- 
 ment ; though, mind, I see these men 
 no more. When I quit it, I will hide 
 myself from them and you, und, 
 striving to support my mother by 
 hard service, I will live at least, in 
 peace, and trust in God to help me." 
 
 With these words, she waved her
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 223 
 
 bond, 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 stand- 
 ing bolt upright in a little niche in the 
 wall like some scarecrow or Guy Faux 
 laid up in winter quarters, almost 
 occasioned her to call aloud. But, 
 Newman laying his finger upon his 
 lips, she had the presence of mind to 
 refrain. 
 
 " Don't," said Newman, gliding out 
 of his recess, and accompanying her 
 across the hall. " Don't cry, don't 
 cry." Two very large tears, by-the- 
 by, were running down Newman's 
 face as he spoke. 
 
 " I see how it is," said poor Noggs, 
 drawing from his pocket what seemed 
 to be a very old duster, and wiping 
 Kate's eyes with it, as gently as if she 
 were an infant. " You 're giving way 
 now. Yes, yes, very good ; that 's 
 right, I like that. It was right not to 
 give way before him. Yes, yes ! Ha, 
 ha, ha ! Oh, yes. Poor thing ! " 
 
 With these disjointed exclamations, 
 Newman wiped his own eyes with the 
 afore-mentioned duster, and, limping 
 to the street-door, opened it to let her 
 out 
 
 " Don't cry any more," whispered 
 Newman. " I shall see you soon. 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! And so shall some- 
 body else too. Yes, yes. Ho ! ho ! " 
 
 "God bless you," answered Kate, 
 hurrying out, " God bless you." 
 
 " Same to you," rejoined Newman, 
 opening the door again a little way, to 
 say so. " Ha, ha, ha ! Ho ! ho ! ho ! " 
 
 And Newman Noggs opened the 
 door once again to nod cheerfully, and 
 laugh and shut it, to shake his head 
 mournfully, and cry. 
 
 Ralph remained hi the same attitude 
 till he heard the noise of the closing 
 door, when he shrugged his shoulders, 
 and after a few turns about the room 
 hasty at first, but gradually becoming 
 
 slower, as he relapsed into himscli 
 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 con- 
 duct to wards the innocent, true-hearted 
 girl ; although his libertine clients had 
 done precisely what he had expected, 
 precisely what he most wished, and 
 precisely what would tend most to hia 
 advantage, still he hated them for 
 doing it, from the very bottom of hia 
 soul. 
 
 " Ugh ! " said Ralph, scowling 
 round, and shaking his clenched hand 
 as the faces of the two profligates rose 
 up before his mind ; " you shall pay 
 for this. Oh ! you shall pay for this ! " 
 
 As the usurer turned for consolation 
 to his books and papers, a performance 
 was going on outside his office-door, 
 which would have occasioned him no 
 small surprise, if he could by any means 
 have become acquainted with it. 
 
 Newman Noggs was the sole actor. 
 He stood at a little distance from the 
 door, with his face towards it; and 
 with the sleeves of his coat turned 
 back at the wrists, was occupied in 
 bestowing the most vigorous, scientific, 
 and straightforward blows upon the 
 empty air. 
 
 At first sight, this would have ap- 
 peared merely a wise precaution in a 
 man of sedentary habits, with the view 
 of opening the chest and strengthening 
 the muscles of the arms. But the 
 intense eagerness and joy depicted in 
 the face of Newman Noggs, which was 
 suffused with perspiration ; the sur- 
 prising 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 ex- 
 plained to the attentive observer, that 
 his imagination was threshing, to within 
 an inch of his life, his body's most 
 active employer, Mr. Ralph Nickleby.
 
 224 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF NICHOLAS, AND CERTAIN INTERNAL DIVISIONS IH THE 
 COMPANY OP MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES. 
 
 THE unexpected success and favour 
 with which his experiment at Ports- 
 mouth had been received, induced Mr. 
 Crummies to prolong his stay in that 
 town for a fortnight beyond the period 
 lie had originally assigned for the dura- 
 tion 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 spe- 
 culation. Nicholas assenting to the 
 terms proposed, the benefit was had, 
 and by it he realised no less a sum 
 than twenty pounds. 
 
 Possessed of this unexpected wealth, 
 his first act was to enclose to honest 
 John Browdie the amount of his 
 friendly loan, which he accompanied 
 with many expressions of gratitude 
 and esteem, and many cordial wishes 
 for his matrimonial happiness. To 
 Newman Noggs he forwarded one half 
 of the sum he had realised, entreating 
 him to take an opportunity of handing 
 it to Kate in secret, and conveying to 
 her the warmest assurances of his love 
 and affection. He made no mention of 
 the way in which he had employed 
 himself ; merely informing Newman 
 that a letter addressed to him under 
 his assumed name at the Post Office, 
 Portsmouth, would readily find him, 
 and entreating that worthy friend to 
 write full particulars of the situation 
 of his mother and sister, and an account 
 of all the grand things that Ralph 
 Nickleby had done for them since his 
 departure from London. 
 
 " You are out of spirits," said 
 Smike, on the night after the letter 
 had been despatched. 
 
 " Not I ! " rejoined Nicholas, with 
 assumed gaiety, for the confession 
 would have made the boy miserable all 
 night ; "I was thinking about my 
 sister, Smike." 
 
 Sister ! " 
 
 " Aye." 
 
 " Is she like you ? " inquired Smike. 
 
 " Why, so they say," replied Ni- 
 cholas, laughing, "only a great deal 
 handsomer." 
 
 " She must be very beautiful," said 
 Smike, after thinking a little while 
 with his hands folded together, and his 
 eyes bent upon his friend. 
 
 " Anybody who didn't know you as 
 well as I do, my dear fellow, would say 
 you were an accomplished courtier," 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " I don't even know what that is," 
 replied Smike, shaking his head. 
 " Shall I ever see your sister 1 " 
 
 " 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 1 " 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 under- 
 stand what that is ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I understand that," said 
 Smike. 
 
 " Well, it is owing to him," returned 
 Nicholas. " He is rich, and not so 
 easily punished as your old enemy, Mr. 
 Squeers. He is my uncle, but he is a 
 villain, and has done me wrong." 
 
 " Has he though ? " asked Smike, 
 bending eagerly forward. " What is 
 his name \ Tell me his name." 
 
 Ralph Ralph Nickleby." 
 
 " Ralph Nickleby," repeated Smike. 
 " Ralph. I '11 get that name by heart." 
 
 He had muttered it over to himself 
 some twenty times, when a loud knock 
 at the door disturbed him from his 
 occupation. Before he could open it, 
 Mr. Folair, the pantomimist, thrust in 
 his head. 
 
 Mr. Folair's head was usually deco-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 225 
 
 rated with a very round hat, unusually 
 high in the crown, and curled up quite 
 tight in the brims. On the present 
 occasion he wore it very much on one 
 side, with the back part forward in 
 consequence of its being the least 
 rusty ; round his neck he wore a 
 flaming red worsted comforter, whereof 
 the straggling ends peeped out beneath 
 his threadbare Newmarket coat, which 
 was very tight and buttoned all the 
 way up. He carried in his hand one 
 very dirty glove, and a cheap dress 
 cane with a glass handle ; in short, his 
 whole appearance was unusually dash- 
 ing, and demonstrated a far more 
 scrupulous attention to his toilet, than 
 he was in the habit of bestowing upon it. 
 
 " Good evening, sir," said Mr. 
 Folair, taking off the tall hat, and 
 running his fingers through his hair. 
 " I bring a communication. Hem ! " 
 
 " From whom, and what about ? " 
 inquired Nicholas. " You KK un- 
 usually 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 whity-brown paper curiously 
 folded, whence he brought forth a note 
 which it had served to keep clean, and 
 handing it over to Nicholas, said 
 
 " Have the goodness to read that, 
 sir." 
 
 Nicholas, in a state of much amaze- 
 ment, took the note and broke the 
 seal, glancing at Mr. Folair as he did 
 so, who, knitting his brow and pursing 
 up his mouth with great dignity, was 
 sitting with his eyes steadily fixed 
 upon the ceiling. 
 
 It was directed to blank Johnson 
 Esq., by favour of Augustus Folair 
 Esq. ; and the astonishment of Ni- 
 cholas was in no degree lessened, 
 when he found it to be couched in the 
 following laconic terms : 
 
 " Mr. Lenville presents his kind re- 
 gards to Mr. Johnson, and will feel 
 No. 46. 
 
 j 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 Theatre, for the purpose of 
 having his nose pulled in the presence 
 of the company. . 
 
 " Mr. Lenville requests Mr. John- 
 son not to neglect making an appoint- 
 ment, as he has invited two or three 
 professional friends to witness the 
 ceremony, and cannot disappoint them 
 upon any account whatever. 
 
 "Portsmouth, Tuesday night." 
 
 Indignant as he was at this im- 
 pertinence, there was something so 
 exquisitely absurd in such a cartel of 
 defiance, that Nicholas was obliged to 
 bite his lip and read the note over two 
 or three times before he could muster 
 sufficient gravity and sternness to ad- 
 dress 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, look- 
 ing round for an instant, and imme- 
 diately carrying his eyes back again 
 to the ceiling. 
 
 " And how dare you bring it here, 
 sir ? " asked Nicholas, tearing it into 
 very little pieces, and jerking it in a 
 shower towards the messenger. " Had 
 you no fear of being kicked 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 very disagreeably 
 deceived, and that within a dozen 
 seconds." 
 
 "I say, Johnson," remonstrated 
 Mr. Folair, suddenly losing all his 
 dignity, " none of that, you know. No 
 tricks with a gentleman's wardrobe." 
 
 " Leave the room," returned Ni- 
 cholas. " How could you presume to 
 
 4 15.
 
 226 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 come here on such an errand, you 
 scoundrel 1 " 
 
 Pooh ! pooh ! " said Mr. Folair, 
 unwinding his comforter, and gradu- 
 ally getting himself out of it. " There 
 that 's enough." 
 
 " Enough ! " cried Nicholas, ad- 
 vancing towards him. " Take your- 
 self off, sir." 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! I tell you," re- 
 turned Mr. Folair, waving his hand in 
 deprecation of any further wrath ; 
 " I wasn't in earnest. I only brought 
 it in joke." 
 
 " You had better be careful how 
 you indulge in such jokes again," said 
 Nicholas, " or you may find an allu- 
 sion to pulling noses rather a dan- 
 gerous reminder for the subject of 
 your facetiousness. Was it written in 
 joke too, pray I " 
 
 " No no, that 's the best of it," re- 
 turned the actor ; " right down earnest 
 honour bright." 
 
 Nicholas could not repress a smile 
 at the odd figure before him, which, 
 at all times more calculated to pro- 
 voke 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 uap should have 
 been knocked off an ornament which, 
 it is almost superfluous to say, it had 
 not boasted for many months. 
 
 u Come, sir," said Nicholas, laugh- 
 ing in spite of himself. " Have the 
 goodness to explain." 
 
 " Why, I'll tell you how it is," said 
 Mr. Folair, sitting himself down in a 
 chair with great coolness. a 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 recep- 
 tion ? " 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 
 uight, never getting a hand and you 
 
 getting a couple of rounds at least, 
 and sometimes three, till at length he 
 got quite desperate, and had half a 
 mind last night to play Tybalt with a 
 real sword, and pink you not dan- 
 gerously, but just enough to lay you 
 up for a month or two." 
 
 " Very considerate," remarked Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Yes, I think it was under the cir- 
 cumstances ; his professional repu- 
 tation being at stake," said Mr. Folair, 
 quite seriously. " But his heart failed 
 him, and he cast about for some other 
 way of annoying you, and making him- 
 self popular at the same time for 
 that 's the point. Notoriety, notoriety, 
 is the thing. Bless you, if he had 
 pinked you," said Mr. Folair, stopping 
 to make a calculation in his mind, 
 " it would have been worth ah, it 
 would have been worth eight or ten 
 shillings a week to him. All the town 
 would have come to see the actor who 
 nearly killed a man by mistake ; I 
 shouldn't wonder if it had got him an 
 engagement in London. However, he 
 was obliged to try some other mode of 
 getting popular, and this one occurred 
 to him. It 's 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 hi the paper too, and he 'd have 
 been just as much talked about as you 
 don : t you see ? " 
 
 u Oh certainly," rejoined Nicholas ; 
 "but suppose I were to turn the 
 tables, and pull his nose, what then ? 
 Would that make his fortune ? " 
 
 " Why, I don't think it would," 
 replied Mr. Folair, scratching his 
 head, " because there wouldn't be any 
 romance about it, and he wouldn't be 
 favourably known. To tell you the 
 truth though, he didn't calculate much 
 upon that, for you 're always so mild- 
 spoken, and are so popular among the 
 women, that we didn't suspect you of 
 showing fight. If you did, however, 
 he has a way of getting out of it easily, 
 depend upon that." 
 
 "Has he?" rejoined Nicholas. 
 " We will try, to-morrow morning.
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 22? 
 
 In the meantime, yon can give what- 
 ever account of our interview you like 
 beat. Good night." 
 
 As Mr. Folair was pretty well 
 known among his fellow-actors for a 
 man who delighted in mischief, and 
 was by no means scrupulous, Nicholas 
 had not much doubt but that he had 
 secretly prompted the tragedian in the 
 course he had taken, and, moreover, 
 that he would have carried his mission 
 with a very high hand if he had not 
 been disconcerted by the very unex- 
 pected demonstrations with which it 
 had been received. It was not worth 
 his while to be serious with him, how- 
 ever, so he dismissed the pantomimist, 
 with a gentle hint that if he offended 
 again it would be under the penalty of 
 a broken head ; and Mr. Folair, taking 
 the caution in exceedingly good part, 
 walked away to confer with ois princi- 
 pal, and give such an account of his 
 proceedings as he might think best 
 calculated to carry on the joke. 
 
 He had no doubt reported that 
 Nicholas was in a state of extreme 
 bodily fear ; for when that young 
 gentleman walked with much deli- 
 beration down to the theatre next 
 morning at the usual hour, he found 
 all the company assembled in evident 
 expectation, and Mr. Lenville, with 
 his severest stage face, sitting majes- 
 tically on a table, whistling defiance. 
 
 Now the ladies were on the side of 
 Nicholas, and the gentlemen (being 
 jealous) were on the side of the disap- 
 pointed tragedian ; so that the latter 
 formed a little group about the re- 
 doubtable Mr. Lenville, and the former 
 looked on at a little distance in some 
 trepidatirn and anxiety. On Nicholas 
 stopping to salute them, Mr. Lenville 
 laughed a scornful laugh, and made 
 some general remark touching the 
 natural history of puppies. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Nicholas, looking quietly 
 round, " are you there !" 
 
 " Slave ! " returned Mr. Lenville, 
 flourishing his right arm, and ap- 
 proaching Nicholas with a theatrical 
 stride. But somehow he appeared 
 just at that moment a little startled, 
 as if Nicholas did not look quite so 
 
 frightened as he had expected, and 
 came all at once to an awkward halt, 
 at which the assembled ladies burst 
 into a shrill laugh. 
 
 " Object of my scorn and hatred ! " 
 said Mr. Lenville, " I hold ye in 
 contempt." 
 
 Nicholas laughed in very unexpected 
 enjoyment of this performance ; and 
 the ladies, by way of encouragement, 
 laughed louder than before ; whereat 
 Mr. Lenville assumed his bitterest 
 smile, and expressed his opinion that 
 they were " minions." 
 
 " But they shall not protect ye ! " 
 said the tragedian, taking an upward 
 look at Nicholas, beginning at his 
 boots and ending at the crown of his 
 head, and then a downward one, 
 beginning at the crown of his head, 
 and ending at his boots which two 
 looks, as everybody knows, express 
 defiance on the stage. ** They shall 
 not protect ye boy !" 
 
 Thus speaking, Mr. Lenville folded 
 his arms, and treated Nicholas to that 
 expression of face with which, in 
 melo-dramatic performances, he was 
 in the habit of regarding the tyran- 
 nical kings when they said, ' Away 
 with him to the deepest dungeon 
 beneath the castle moat ;' and which, 
 accompanied with a little jingling of 
 fetters, had been known to produce 
 great effects in its time. 
 
 Whether it was the absence of the 
 fetters or not, it made no very deep 
 impression on Mr. Lenville's adver- 
 sary, however, but rather seemed to 
 increase the good humour expressed 
 in his countenance ; in which stage of 
 the contest, one or two gentlemen, 
 who had come out expressly to witness 
 the pulling of Nicholas's nose, grew 
 impatient, murmuring that if it were 
 to be done at all it had better be done 
 at once, and that if Mr. Lenville didn't 
 mean to do it he had better say so, 
 and not keep them waiting there. 
 Thus urged, the tragedian adjusted 
 the cuff of his right coat sleeve for the 
 performance of the operation, and 
 walked in a very stately manner up to 
 Nicholas, who buffered him to approach 
 to within the requisite distance, and 
 Q2
 
 228 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 then, without the smallest discompo- 
 sure, knocked him down. 
 
 Before the discomfited tragedian 
 could raise his head from the boards, 
 Mrs. Lenville (who, as has been before 
 hinted, was in an interesting state) 
 rushed from the rear rank of ladies, 
 and uttering a piercing scream threw 
 herself upon the body. 
 
 " Do you see this, monster ? Do you 
 see this?" cried Mr. Lenville, sitting 
 up, and pointing to his prostrate lady, 
 who was holding him very tight round 
 the waist. 
 
 " Come," said Nicholas, nodding his 
 head, " 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, Len- 
 ville forego all idle forms, unless you 
 would see me a blighted corse at your 
 feet." 
 
 " This is affecting ! " said Mr. Len- 
 ville, 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," re- 
 turned the tragedian,scowlingupwards. 
 "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 
 picked up Mr. lienville's ash stick 
 which had flown out of his hand, and 
 breaking it in half, threw him the 
 pieces and withdrew, bowing slightly 
 to the spectators as he walked out. 
 
 The proibundest deference was paid 
 to Nicholas that night, and the people 
 who had been most anxious to have 
 
 his nose pulled in the morning, em- 
 braced occasions of taking him aside, 
 and telling him with great feeling, how 
 very friendly they took it that he 
 should have treated that Lenville so 
 properly, who was a most unbearable 
 fellow, and on whom they had all, by 
 a remarkable coincidence, at one time 
 or other contemplated the infliction of 
 condign punishment, which they had 
 only been restrained from administer- 
 ing by considerations of mercy ; indeed, 
 to judge from the invariable termina- 
 tion of all these stories, there never 
 was such a charitable and kind-hearted 
 set of people as the male members of 
 Mr. Crummles's company. 
 
 Nicholas bore his triumph, as he 
 had his success in the little world of 
 the theatre, with the utmost modera- 
 tion and good humour. 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 Ni- 
 cholas, casting his eye upon the 
 cramped direction ; " it 's no easy 
 matter to make his writing out. Let 
 me see let me see." 
 
 By dint of poring over the letter for 
 half an hour, he contrived to make 
 himself master of the contents, which 
 were certainly not of a nature to set 
 his mind at ease. Newman took upon 
 himself to send back the ten pounds, 
 observing that he had ascertained that 
 neither Mrs. Nickleby nor Kate was 
 in actual want of money at the moment, 
 and that a time might shortly come 
 when Nicholas might want it more. 
 He entreated him not to be alarmed at 
 what he was about to say ; there was 
 no bad news they were in good 
 health but he thought circumstances 
 might occur, or were occurring, which 
 would render it absolutely necessary
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 229 
 
 that Kate should have her brother's 
 protection, and if so, Newman said, he 
 would write to him to that effect, either 
 by the next post or the next but one. 
 
 Nicholas read this passage very 
 often, and the more he thought of it 
 the more he began to fear some 
 treachery upon the part of Ralph. 
 Once or twice he felt tempted to re- 
 pair to London at ah* hazards without 
 an hour's delay, but a little reflection 
 assured bun that if such a step were 
 necessary, Newman would have spo- 
 ken out and told him so at once. 
 
 " At all events I should prepare 
 them here for the possibility of my 
 going away suddenly," said Nicholas ; 
 ' I should lose no time in doing that." 
 As the thought occurred to him, he 
 took up his hat and hurried to the 
 green-room. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Johnson," said Mrs. 
 Crummies, who was seated there in 
 full regal costume, with the pheno- 
 menon as the Maiden in her maternal 
 arms, " next week for Ryde, then for 
 Winchester, then for ** 
 
 " I have some reason to fear," inter- 
 rupted Nicholas, " that before you 
 leave here my career with you will 
 liave closed. 1 ' 
 
 " Closed ! " cried Mrs. Crummies, 
 raising her hands La astonishment. 
 
 "Closed!" cried Miss Snevellicci, 
 trembling so much in her tights that 
 she actually laid her hand upon the 
 shoulder of the manageress for support. 
 
 " Why, he don't mean to say he 'B 
 going ! " exclaimed Mrs. Grudden, 
 making her way towards Mrs. Crum- 
 mies. " Hoity toity ! nonsense." 
 
 The phenomenon, being of an affec- 
 tionate nature and moreover excitable, 
 raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney 
 and Miss Bravassa actually shed 
 tears. Even the male performers 
 stopped in their conversation, and 
 echoed the word " Going ! " although 
 some among them (and they had been 
 the loudest in their congratulations 
 that day) winked at each other as 
 though they would not be sorry to 
 lose such a favoured rival ; an opinion, 
 indeed, which the honest Mr. Folair, 
 who was ready dressed for the savage, 
 openly stated in so many words to a 
 demon with whom he was sharing a 
 pot of porter. 
 
 Nicholas briefly said that he feared 
 it would be so, although he could not 
 yet speak with any degree of certainty ; 
 and getting away as soon as he could, 
 went home to con Newman's letter 
 once more, and speculate upon it 
 afresh. 
 
 How trifling all that had been occu- 
 pying Ins time and thoughts for many 
 weeks seemed to him during that sleep- 
 less night, and how constantly and in- 
 cessantly present to his imagination 
 was the one idea that Kate in the 
 midst of some great trouble and dis- 
 tress might even then be looking and 
 vainly too for him ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FESTIVITIES ARE HELD IN HONOUR OF NICHOLAS, WHO SUDDENLY WITHDRAWS 
 HIMSELF FROM THE SOCIETY OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES AND HIS THEA- 
 TRICAL COMPANIONS. 
 
 MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES was no 
 sooner acquainted with the public an- 
 nouncement 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 appertaining 
 to his authorship. Finding Nicholas 
 bent upon quitting the society for ho
 
 230 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 off his outlaw's wig, the better 
 to arrive at a cool-headed view of the 
 whole case. "Let me see. This is 
 Wednesday night. We '11 have posters 
 out the first thing in the morning, an- 
 nouncing positively your last appear- 
 ance for to-morrow." 
 
 " But perhaps it may not be my 
 last appearance, you know," said Ni- 
 cholas. " Unless I am summoned 
 away, I should be sorry to incon- 
 venience you by leaving before the 
 end of the week." 
 
 "So much the better," returned 
 Mr. Crummies. " We can have posi- 
 tively your last appearance, on Thurs- 
 day re-engagement for one night 
 more, on Friday and, yielding to the 
 wishes of numerous influential patrons, 
 who were disappointed hi obtaining 
 seats, on Saturday. That ought to 
 bring three very decent houses." 
 
 " Then I am to make three last ap- 
 pearances, am I ? " inquired Nicholas, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Yes," rej oined the manager, scratch- 
 ing his head with an air of some vexa- 
 tion ; " 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 dis- 
 appointment. u What do you think 
 of a brilliant display of fireworks \ " 
 
 " That it would be rather expen- 
 sive," replied Nicholas, drily. 
 
 * Eighteenpence would do it," said 
 
 Mr. Crummies. " You on the top of 
 a pair of steps with the phenomenon 
 in an attitude ; ' Farewell ' on a trans- 
 parency 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 aban- 
 doned the project in its birth, and 
 .gloomily observed that they must make 
 up the best bill they could with com- 
 bats and hornpipes, and so stick to the 
 legitimate drama. 
 
 For the purpose of carrying this 
 object into instant execution, the 
 manager at once repaired to a small 
 dressing-room adjacent, where Mrs. 
 Crummies was then occupied in ex- 
 changing the habiliments 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 
 exactly where the largest capitals 
 ought to go), he seriously applied 
 himself to the composition of the 
 poster. 
 
 " Heigho ! " sighed Nicholas, as he 
 threw himself back in the prompter's 
 chair, after telegraphing the needful 
 directions to Smike, who had been 
 playing a meagre tailor in die inter- 
 lude, with one skirt to his coat, and a 
 little pocket handkerchief with a large 
 hole in it, and a woollen nightcap, and 
 a red nose, and other distinctive marks 
 peculiar to tailors on the stage. 
 " Heigho ! I wish all this were over." 
 
 " Over, Mr. Johnson ! " repeated a 
 female voice behind him, in a kind of 
 plaintive surprise. 
 
 " It was an ungallant speech, cer- 
 tainly," said Nicholas, looking up to 
 see who the speaker was, and recog- 
 nising Miss SuevelliccL " I would
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 231 
 
 not have made it if I had known you 
 had been within hearing." 
 
 What a dear that Mr. Digby is ! " 
 said Miss Snevellicci, as the tailor 
 went off on the opposite side, at the 
 end of the piece, with great applause. 
 (Smike's theatrical name was Digby.) 
 
 " I '11 tell him presently, for his 
 gratification, that you said so," returned 
 Nicholas. 
 
 * Oh you naughty thing ! " rejoined 
 Miss Snevellicci. " I don't know, 
 though, that I should much mind his 
 knowing my opinion of him ; with 
 some other people, indeed, it might 
 be " Here Miss Snevellicci stopped, 
 as though waiting to be questioned, 
 but no questioning came, for Nicholas 
 was thinking about more serious 
 matters, 
 
 " How kind it is of you," resumed 
 Miss Snevellicci, after a short silence, 
 " to sit waiting here for him night 
 after night, night after night, no matter 
 how tired you are ; and taking so 
 much pains with him, and doing it all 
 with as much delight and readiness as 
 if you were coming gold by it ! " 
 
 " He well deserves all the kindness 
 I can show him, and a great deal 
 more," said Nicholas. " He is the 
 most grateful, single-hearted, affection- 
 ate creature, that erer breathed." 
 
 " So odd, too," remarked Miss Sne- 
 vellicci, " isn't he !" 
 
 " God help him, and those who have 
 made him so, he is indeed," rejoined 
 Nicholas, shaking his head. 
 
 " He is such a devilish close chap," 
 said Mr. Folair, who had come up a 
 little before, and now joined in the 
 conversation. " Nobody can ever get 
 anything out of him." 
 
 " What sfiould they get out of him ? " 
 asked Nicholas, turning round with 
 some abruptness. 
 
 " Zooks ! what a fire-eater you are, 
 Johnson ! " returned Mr. Folair, pull- 
 ing up the heel of his dancing shoe. 
 " I 'm only talking of the natural curio- 
 sity of the people here, to know what 
 he has been about all his life." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! it is pretty plain, I 
 should think, that he has not the intel- 
 lect to hare been about anything of 
 
 much importance to them or anybody 
 else," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Ay," rejoined the actor, contem- 
 plating the effect of his face in a lamp 
 reflector, " but that involves the whole 
 question, you know." 
 
 " What question ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Why, the who he is and what he 
 is, and how you two, who are so dif- 
 ferent, came to be such close compa- 
 nions," replied Mr. Folair, delighted 
 with the opportunity of saying some- 
 thing disagreeable. "** That 's in every- 
 body's mouth." 
 
 " The ' everybody ' of the theatre, 
 I suppose 1 " said Nicholas, contemp- 
 tuously. 
 
 "In it and out of it too," replied 
 the actor. " Why, you know, Lenville 
 says-" 
 
 " I thought I had silenced him effect- 
 ually," interruptedNicholas, 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 anything at all in it, 
 except your having got into a scrape 
 and run away from somewhere, for 
 doing something or other." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Nicholas, forcing a smile. 
 
 " That 's a part of what he says," 
 added Mr. Folair. " I mention it as 
 the friend of both parties, and in strict 
 confidence. 7 don't agree with him, 
 you know. He says he takes Digby to 
 be more knave than fool ; and old 
 Fluggers, who does the heavy business 
 you know, he says that when he deli- 
 vered messages at Covent Garden the 
 season before last, there used to be a 
 pickpocket hovering about the coach- 
 stand who had exactly the faceof Digby; 
 though, as he very properly says, 
 Digby may not be the same, but only 
 his brother, or some near relation." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Nicholas again. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Folair, with undis- 
 turbed calmness, "that's what they 
 say. I thought I 'd tell you, because
 
 232 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 really you ought to know. Oh ! here 's 
 this blessed phenomenon at last Ugh, 
 you little imposition, I should like to 
 quite ready, my darling, humbug 
 Ring up Mrs. G., and let the fa- 
 vourite 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 fiie better effect, uttered a preli- 
 minary howl, and " went on " chatter- 
 ing his teeth and brandishing his tin 
 tomahawk as the Indian Savage. 
 
 "So these are some of the stories 
 they invent about us, and bandy from 
 mouth to mouth ! " thought Nicholas. 
 " If a man would commit an inexpiable 
 offence against any society, large or 
 small, let him be successful. They 
 will forgive him any crime but that." 
 
 " You surely don't mind what that 
 malicious creature says, Mr. John- 
 son ? " observed Miss Snevellicci hi 
 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 Ni- 
 cholas, as Smike approached, "here 
 comes the subject of a portion of their 
 good-nature, so let he and I say good 
 night together." 
 
 " No, I will not let either of you say 
 anything of the kind," returned Miss 
 Snevellicci. " You must come home 
 and see mama, who only came to Ports- 
 mouth to-day, and is dying to behold 
 you. Led, my dear, persuade Mr. 
 Johnson." 
 
 " Oh, I 'm sure," returned Miss Led- 
 rook, with considerable vivacity, " if 
 you can't persuade him " Miss Led- 
 rook said no more, but intimated, by a 
 dexterous playfulness, that if Miss 
 Snevellicci couldn't persuade him, no-- 
 body could. 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Lilly vick have taken 
 lodgings in our house, and share our 
 
 sitting-room for the present," said Miss 
 Snevellicci. " Won't that induce you \" 
 
 " Surely," returned Nicholas, " I 
 can require no possible inducement 
 beyond your invitation." 
 
 " Oh no ! I dare say," rejoined Miss 
 Snevellicci. And Miss Ledrook said, 
 " Upon my word ! " Upon which Miss 
 Snevellicci said that Miss Ledrook was 
 a giddy thing ; and Miss Ledrook said 
 that Miss Snevellicci needn't colour up 
 quite so much ; and Miss Suevellicci 
 beat Miss Ledrook, and Miss Ledrook 
 beat Miss Snevellicci. 
 
 " Come," said Miss Ledrook, " it 's 
 high time we were there, or we shall 
 have poor Mrs. Snevellicci thinking 
 that you have run away with her 
 daughter, Mr. Johnson ; and then we 
 should have a pretty to do." 
 
 " My dear Led," remonstrated Miss 
 Snevellicci, " how you do talk ! " 
 
 Miss Ledrook made no answer, but 
 taking Smike's arm in hers, left her 
 friend and Nicholas to follow at their 
 pleasure ; which it pleased them, OP 
 rather pleased Nicholas, who had no 
 great fancy for a tete-a-tete under the 
 circumstances, to do at once. 
 
 There were not wanting matters of 
 conversation when they reached the 
 street, for it turned out that Miss 
 Snevellicci had a small basket to carry 
 home, and Miss Ledrook a small baud- 
 box, both containing such minor arti- 
 cles of theatrical costume as the lady 
 performers usually carried to and fre 
 every evening. Nicholas would insist 
 upon carrying the basket, and Miss 
 Suevellicci would insist upon carrying 
 it herself, which gave rise to a struggle, 
 in which Nicholas captured the basket 
 and the band-box likewise. Then Ni- 
 cholas said, that he wondered what 
 could possibly be inside the basket, 
 and attempted to peep in, whereat Mias 
 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 band-box, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 233 
 
 wouldn't offer to peep again. At last 
 Nicholas pledged himself to betray no 
 further curiosity, and they walked on : 
 both ladies giggling very much, and 
 declaring that they never had seen 
 such a wicked creature in all their born 
 days never. 
 
 Lightening the way with such plea- 
 santry 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 airs. Lillyvick, not only Miss Sne- 
 vellicci's mama, but her papa also. 
 And an uncommonly tine 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 die two 
 fore fingers of his right hand in be- 
 tween the two centre buttons, and 
 sticking his other arm gracefully a- 
 kimbo seemed to say, " Now, here I 
 am, my buck, and what have you got 
 to say to me J " 
 
 Such was, and in such an attitude 
 sat, Miss Snevellicci's papa, who had 
 been in the profession ever since he 
 had first played the ten-year-old imps 
 in the Christmas pantomimes ; who 
 could sing a little, dance a little, fence 
 a little, act a little, and do everything 
 a little, but not much ; who had been 
 sometimes in the ballet, and some- 
 times in the chorus, at every theatre 
 in London ; who was always selected 
 in virtue of his figure to play the 
 military visitors and the speechless 
 noblemen ; who always wore a smart 
 dress, and came on arm-in-arm with 
 a smart lady in short petticoats, and 
 always did it too with such an air that 
 people in the pit had been several 
 times known to cry out " Bravo ! " 
 under the impression that he was 
 somebody. Such was Miss Snevel- 
 licci's papa, upon whom some envious 
 persons cast the imputation that liu 
 
 occasionally beat Miss Snevellicci's 
 mama, who was still a dancer, with a, 
 neat little figure and some remains of 
 good looks ; and who now sat, as she 
 danced, being rather too old for the 
 full glare of the foot-lights, in the 
 back ground. 
 
 To these good people Nicholas was 
 presented with much formality. The 
 introduction being completed, Miss 
 Snevellicci's papa (who was scented 
 with rum and water) said that he was 
 delighted to make the acquaintance of 
 a gentleman so highly talented ; and 
 furthermore remarked, that there 
 hadn't been such a hit made no, not 
 since the first appearance of his friend 
 Mr. Glavormelly, at the Coburg. 
 
 " You have seen him, sir 1 " said 
 Miss Snevellicci's papa. 
 
 No, really I never did," replied 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " You never saw my friend Glavor- 
 melly, sir ! " said Miss Snevellicci's 
 papa. "Then you have never seeu 
 acting yet. If he had lived " 
 
 " Oh, he is dead, is he ? " inter- 
 rupted Nicholas. 
 
 " He is," said Mr. Snevellicci, " but 
 he isn't in Westminster Abbey, more's 
 
 the shame. He was a . Well, 
 
 no matter. He is gone to that bourne 
 from whence no traveller returns. I 
 hope he is appreciated iliere" 
 
 So saying, Miss Snevellicci's papa 
 rubbed the tip of his nose with a very 
 yellow silk handkerchief, and gave the 
 company to understand that these 
 recollections overcame him. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Lillyvick," said Nicholas, 
 " and how are you ? " 
 
 " Quite well, sir," replied the col- 
 lector. " There is nothing like the 
 married state, sir, depend upon it." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Nicholas, laughing. 
 
 " Ah ! nothing like it, sir," replied 
 Mr. Lillyvick solemnly. " How di> 
 you think," whispered the collector, 
 drawing him aside, " How do you think 
 she looks to-night 1 " 
 
 " As handsome as ever," replied 
 Nicholas, glancing at the late Miss 
 Petowker. 
 
 " Why, there 's a air about her, sir," 
 whispered the collector, " that I never
 
 234 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 saw in anybody. Look at her now she 
 moves to put the kettle on. There ! 
 Isn't it fascination, sir !" 
 
 " You 're a lucky man," said Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha !" rejoined the collector. 
 " No. Do you think I am though, eh 1 
 Perhaps I may be, perhaps I may be. 
 I say, I couldn't have done much better 
 it' I had been a young man, could I ? 
 You couldn't have done much better 
 yourself, could you eh could you I " 
 With such inquiries, and many more 
 Buch, Mr. Lillyvick jerked his elbow 
 into Nicholas's side, and chuckled till 
 his face became quite purple in the 
 attempt to keep down his satisfaction. 
 
 By this time the cloth had been laid 
 under the joint superintendence of all 
 the ladies, upon two tables put together, j 
 one being high and narrow, and the 
 other low and broad. There were j 
 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 I 
 additional chairs were brought in from ; 
 the bedroom ; Miss Snevellicci sat at } 
 the head of the table, and Mr. Lilly- 
 vick at the foot ; and Nicholas had not 
 only the honour of sitting next Miss 
 Snevellicci, but of having Miss Snevel- 
 licci's mama on his right hand, and 
 Miss Snevellicci's papa over the way. 
 In short, he was the hero of the feast ; 
 and when the table was cleared and 
 something warm introduced, Miss Sne- 
 vellicci's papa got up and proposed his 
 health in a speech containing such 
 affecting allusions to his coming de- 
 parture, that Miss Snevelh'cci wept, 
 and was compelled to retire into the 
 bedroom. 
 
 " Hush ! Don't take any notice of 
 it," said Miss Ledrook, peeping in from 
 the bedroom. " Say, when she comes 
 back, that she exerts herself too 
 much." 
 
 Miss Ledrook eked out this speech 
 with so many mysterious nods and 
 frowns before she shut the door again, 
 that a profound silence came upon all 
 the company, during which Miss Sne- 
 vellicci's papa looked very big indeed 
 several sizes larger than life at 
 
 everybody in turn, but particularly at 
 Nicholas, and kept on perpetually 
 emptying his tumbler and tilling it 
 again, until the ladies returned in a 
 cluster, with Miss Snevelh'cci among 
 them. 
 
 " You needn't alarm yourself a bit, 
 Mr. Snevellicci," said Mrs. Lillyvick. 
 "She is only a little weak and ner- 
 vous ; 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 im- 
 portance as a man and a father, so he 
 picked out the unfortunate Mrs. Sne- 
 vellicci, and asked her what the devil 
 she meant by talking to him in that 
 way. 
 
 " Dear me, my dear " said Mrs. 
 
 SnevelliccL 
 
 " Don't call me your dear, ma'am," 
 said Mr. Snevelh'cci, " if you please." 
 
 " Pray, pa, don't," interposed Miss 
 Snevellicci. 
 
 Don't what, my child ? " 
 
 Talk in that way." 
 
 " Why not I " said Mr. Snevellicci. 
 " I hope you don't suppose there 's 
 anybody here who is to prevent my 
 talking as I like ? " 
 
 "Nobody wants to, pa," rejoined 
 his daughter. 
 
 " Nobody would if they did want to," 
 said Mr. Snevellicci . " I am not ashamed 
 of myself. Snevellicci is my name ; 
 I 'm to be found in Broad Court, Bow 
 Street, when I 'm in town. If I 'm not 
 at home, let any man ask for me at the 
 stage door. Damme, they know me 
 at the stage door I suppose. Most 
 men have seen my portrait at the 
 cigar shop round the corner. I've 
 been mentioned in the newspapers 
 before now, haven't I ! Talk ! I '11 
 tell you what ; it 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 235 
 
 the palm of his left hand three smart 
 blows with his clenched fist : pulled a 
 phantom nose with his right thumb 
 and fore finger, and swallowed another 
 glassful at a draught. "That's -my 
 way," repeated Mr. Snevellicci. 
 
 Most public characters have their 
 failings; and the truth is that Mr. 
 Snevellicci was a little addicted to 
 drinking ; or, if the whole truth must 
 be told, that he was scarcely ever 
 sober. He knew in his cups three 
 distinct stages of intoxication, the 
 dignified the quarrelsome the amor- 
 ous. When professionally engaged he 
 never got beyond the dignified ; in 
 private circles he went through all 
 three, passing from one to another 
 with a rapidity of transition often 
 rather perplexing to those who had 
 not the honour of his acquaintance. 
 
 Thus Mr. Snevellicci had no sooner 
 swallowed another glassful than he 
 smiled upon all present in happy for- 
 getfulness of having exhibited symp- 
 toms of pugnacity, and proposed " The 
 ladies bless their hearts ! " in a most 
 vivacious manner. 
 
 " I love 'em," said Mr. Snevellicci, 
 looking round the table, " I love 'em, 
 every one." 
 
 "Not every one," reasoned Mr. 
 Lillyvick, mildly. 
 
 " Yes, every one," repeated Mr. 
 Snevellicci. 
 
 "That would include the married 
 ladies, you know," said Mr. Lillyvick. 
 
 " I love them too, sir," said Mr. 
 Snevellicci. 
 
 The collector looked into the sur- 
 rounding faces with an aspect of grave 
 astonishment, seeming to say, " This 
 is a nice man ! " and appeared a little 
 surprised that Mrs. Lilly vick's manner 
 yielded no evidences of horror and 
 indignation. 
 
 " One good turn deserves another," 
 said Mr. Snevellicci. " 1 love them 
 and they love me." And as if this 
 avowal were not made in sufficient 
 disregard and defiance of all moral 
 obligations, what did Mr. Snevellicci 
 do ? He winked winked, openly and 
 undisguisedly ; winked with his right 
 eye upon Henrietta Lillyvick ! 
 
 The collector fell back in his chair 
 in the intensity of his astonishment. 
 If anybody had winked at her as Hen- 
 rietta Petowker, it would have been 
 indecorous in the last degree ; but as 
 Mrs. Lillyvick ! While he thought of 
 it in a cold perspiration, and wondered 
 whether it was possible that he could 
 be dreaming, Mr. Snevellicci repeated 
 the wink, and drinking to Mrs. Lilly- 
 vick in dumb show, actually blew her 
 a kiss ! Mr. Lillyvick left his chair, 
 walked straight up to the other end of 
 the table, and fell upon him literally 
 fell upon him instantaneously. Mr. 
 Lillyvick was no light weight, and con- 
 sequently when he fell upon Mr. Sne- 
 vellicci, Mr. Snevellicci fell under the 
 table. Mr. Lillyvick followed him, 
 and the ladies screamed. 
 
 " What is the matter with the men, 
 are they mad !" cried Nicholas, 
 diving under the table, dragging up 
 the collector by main force, and thrust- 
 ing 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 col- 
 lector, Smike had performed the same 
 office for Mr. Snevellicci, who now 
 regarded his late adversary in tipsy 
 amazement. 
 
 " Look here, sir," replied Mr. Lilly- 
 vick, pointing to his astonished wife, 
 "here is purity and elegance com- 
 bined, whose feelings have been out- 
 raged violated, sir ! " 
 
 " Lor, what nonsense he talks ! " 
 exclaimed Mrs. Lillyvick in answer 
 to the inquiring look of Nicholas. 
 " Nobody has said anything to me." 
 
 " Said, Henrietta ! " cried the col- 
 lector. " Didn't I see him " Mr. 
 
 Lillyvick couldn't bring himself to 
 utter the word, but he counterfeited 
 the motion of the eye. 
 
 " Well ! " cried Mrs. Lillyvick. "Do 
 you suppose nobody is ever to look at 
 me ? A pretty thing to be married 
 indeed, if that was law ! " 
 
 " You didn't mind it ? " cried the 
 collector. 
 
 " Mind it ! " repeated Mrs. Lillyvick
 
 236 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 contemptuously. " You ought to go 
 down on your knees and beg every- 
 body's pardon, that you ought" 
 
 " Pardon, my dear ? " said the dis- 
 mayed collector. 
 
 " Yes, and mine first," replied Mrs. 
 Lillyvick. " Do you suppose / ain't 
 the best judge of what 's proper and 
 what 's improper ? " 
 
 " To be sure," cried all the ladies. 
 " Do you suppose we shouldn't be the 
 first to speak, if there was anything 
 that ought to be taken notice of ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose tJiey don't know, 
 sir ? " said Miss Snevelh'cci's papa, 
 pulling up his collar, and muttering 
 something about a punching of heads, 
 and being only withheld by considera- 
 tions of age. With which Miss Sue- 
 vellicci'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. Lilly- 
 viek. 
 
 The unhappy collector looked pite- 
 ously at his wife, as if to see whether 
 there was any one trait of Miss Pe- 
 towker 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 com- 
 passion. 
 
 Miss Snevellicci's papa being greatly 
 exalted by this triumph, and incon- 
 testable proof of his popularity with 
 the fair sex, quickly grew convivial, 
 not to say uproarious ; volunteering 
 more than one song of no inconsider- 
 able length, and regaling the social 
 circle between-whiles with recollec- 
 tions of divers splendid women who 
 had been supposed to entertain a pas- 
 sion for himself, several of whom he 
 toasted by name, taking occasion to 
 remark at the same time that if he 
 had been a little more alive to his own 
 interest, he might have been rolling at 
 that moment in his chariot-aud-four. 
 These reminiscences, appeared to 
 awaken no very torturing pangs in the 
 breast of Mrs. Snevellicci, who was 
 
 sufficiently occupied in descanting to 
 Nicholas upon the manifold accom- 
 plishments 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 Led- 
 rook, had no effect whatever in in- 
 creasing the attentions of Nicholas, 
 who, with the precedent of Miss 
 Squeers still fresh in his memory, 
 steadily resisted every fascination, and 
 placed so strict a guard upon his 
 behaviour that when he had taken his 
 leave the ladies were unanimous in 
 pronouncing him quite a monster of 
 insensibility. 
 
 Next day the posters appeared in 
 due course, and the public were in- 
 formed, in all the colours of the rain- 
 bow, and in letters afflicted with every 
 possible variation of spinal deformity, 
 how that Mr. Johnson would have the 
 honour of making his last appearance 
 that evening, and how that an early 
 application for places was requested, 
 in consequence of the extraordinary 
 overflow attendant on his perform- 
 ances, it being a remarkable fact in 
 theatrical history, but one long since 
 established beyond dispute, that it is a 
 hopeless endeavour to attract people 
 to a theatre unless they can be first 
 brought to believe that they will never 
 get into it. 
 
 Nicholas was somewhat at a loss, on 
 entering the theatre at night, to account 
 for the unusual perturbation and ex- 
 citement 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 
 agitated tone of voice, informed him 
 that there was a London manager in 
 tin- boxes. 
 
 " It 's the phenomenon, depend upon 
 it, sir," said Crummies, dragging 
 Nicholas to the little hole in the cur- 
 tain 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;
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 237 
 
 she shall not appear oil the London 
 boards for a farthing less. They 
 shan't engage her either, unless they 
 engage Mrs. Crummies too twenty 
 pound a- week for the pair ; or I '11 tell 
 you what, I '11 throw in myself and the 
 two boys, and they shall have the 
 family for thirty. I can't say fairer 
 than that. They must take us all, if 
 none of us will go without the others. 
 That's the way some of the London 
 people do, and it always answers. 
 Thirty pound a-week it 's too cheap, 
 Johnson. It 's dirt cheap." 
 
 Nicholas replied, that it certainly 
 was ; and Mr. Vincent Crummies 
 taking several huge pinches of snuff 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 everybody was dressed and 
 the curtain went up, the excitement 
 occasioned by the presence of the 
 London manager increased a thousand- 
 fold. Everybody happened to know 
 that the London manager had come 
 down specially to witness his or her 
 own performance, and all were in a 
 flutter of anxiety and expectation. 
 Some of those who were not on in the 
 first scene, hurried to the wings, and 
 there stretched their necks to have a 
 peep at him ; others stole up into the 
 two little private boxes over the stage- 
 doors, and from that position recon- 
 noitred the London manager. Once 
 the London manager was seen to smile 
 he smiled at the comic countryman's 
 pretending to catch a blue-bottle, while 
 Mrs. Crummies was making her 
 greatest effect " Very good, my fine 
 fellow," said Mr. Crummies, shaking 
 his fist at the comic countryman when 
 he came off, " you leave this company 
 next Saturday night." 
 
 In the same way, everybody who 
 was on the stage beheld no audience 
 but one individual; everybody played 
 to the London manager. When Mr. 
 Lenville in a sudden burst of passion 
 called the emperor a miscreant, and 
 then biting his glove, said, " But I 
 must dissemble," instead of looking 
 
 gloomily at the boards and so waiting 
 for his cue, as is proper in such cases, 
 he kept his eye fixed upon the London 
 manager. When Miss Bravassa sang 
 her song at her lover, who according 
 to custom stood ready to shake hands 
 with her between the verses, they 
 looked, not at each other but at the 
 London manager. Mr. 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 he woke up and 
 went away, whereupon all the company 
 fell foul of the unhappy comic country- 
 man, declaring that his 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, whose only 
 feeling upon the subject was one of 
 sincere satisfaction that the great man 
 went away before he appeared. He 
 went through his part in the two last 
 pieces as briskly as he could, and hav- 
 ing been received with unbounded 
 favour and unprecedented applause 
 so said the bills for next day, which 
 had been printed an hour or two before 
 he took Smike's arm and walked 
 home to bed. 
 
 With the post next morning came a 
 letter from Newman Noggs, very inky, 
 very short, very dirty, very small, and 
 very mysterious, urging Nicholas to 
 return to London instantly ; not to lose 
 an instant ; to be there that night if 
 
 "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 morn- 
 ing coach . Iwillonlytellthem that we
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 are going, and will return to you imme- 
 diately." 
 
 So saying, he took his hat, and hur- 
 rying away to the lodgings of Mr. 
 Crummies, applied hia hand to the 
 knocker with such hearty good-will, 
 that he awakened that gentleman, who 
 was still in bed, and caused Mr. Bulph 
 the pilot to take his morning's pipe 
 very nearly out of his mouth in the 
 extremity of his surprise. 
 
 The door being opened, Nicholas ran 
 up-stairs without any ceremony, and 
 bursting into the darkened sitting-room 
 on the one pair front, found that the 
 two Master Crummleses had sprung out 
 of the sofa-bedstead and were putting 
 on their clothes with great rapidity, 
 under the impression that it was the 
 middle of the night, and the next house 
 was on fire. 
 
 Before he could undeceive them, 
 Mr. Crummies came down in a flannel- 
 gown and nightcap ; and to him Ni- 
 cholas briefly explained that circum- 
 stances had occurred which rendered 
 it necessary for him to repair to London 
 immediately. 
 
 " So good bye," said Nicholas ; 
 " good bye, good bye." 
 
 He was half-way down stairs before 
 Mr. Crummies had sufficiently reco- 
 vered his surprise to gasp out some- 
 thing 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 '11 cry quits about that," re- 
 turned Crummies. " But can't we 
 liave one last night more ? " 
 
 " Not an hour not a minute," re- 
 plied Nicholas, impatiently. 
 
 " Won't you stop to say something 
 to Mrs. Crummies ? " asked the mana- 
 ger, following him down to the door. 
 
 " I couldn't stop if it were to prolong 
 my life a score of years," rejoined 
 Nicholas. " Here, take my hand, and 
 with it my hearty thanks. Oh ! that 
 I should have been fooling here ! " 
 
 Accompanying these words with an 
 impatient stamp upon the ground, he 
 tore himself from the manager's detain- 
 
 ing 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 disap- 
 peared ; " if he only acted like that, 
 what a deal of money he 'd draw ! He 
 should have kept upon this circuit ; 
 he 'd have been very useful to me. 
 But he don't know what's good for 
 him. He is an impetuous youth. Young 
 men are rash, very rash." 
 
 Mr. Crummies being in a moralising 
 mood, might possibly have moralised 
 for some minutes longer if he had not 
 mechanically put his hand towards his 
 waistcoat pocket, where he was accus- 
 tomed to keep his snuff. The absence 
 of any pocket at all in the usual direc- 
 tion, suddenly recalled to his recollec- 
 tion the fact that he had no waistcoat 
 on ; and this leading him to a contem- 
 plation of the extreme scantiness of 
 his attire, he shut the door abruptly, 
 and retired up-stairs with great preci- 
 pitation. 
 
 Smike had made good speed while 
 Nicholas was absent, and with his help 
 everything was soon ready for their 
 departure. They scarcely stopped to 
 take a morsel of breakfast, and in less 
 than half an hour arrived at the coach- 
 office : quite out of breath with the 
 haste they had made to reach it in 
 time. There were yet a few minutes 
 to spare, so, having secured the places, 
 Nicholas hurried into a slopseller's 
 hard by, and bought Smike a great- 
 coat. It would have been rather large 
 for a substantial yeoman, but the shop- 
 man averring (and with considerable 
 truth) that it was a most uncommon 
 fit, Nicholas would have purchased it 
 i. his impatience if it had been twice 
 the size. 
 
 As they hurried up to the coach, 
 which was now in the open street and 
 all ready for starting, Nicholas was not 
 a little astonished to find himself sud- 
 denly 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. 
 Crummies exclaim " It is he my 
 friend, my friend ! "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 239 
 
 ** Bless my heart," cried Nicholas, 
 struggling in the manager's arms, 
 "what are you about ! " 
 
 The manager made no reply, but 
 strained him to his breast again, ex- 
 claiming as he did so, " Farewell, my 
 noble, my lion-hearted boy ! " 
 
 In fact, Mr. Crummies, who could 
 never lose any opportunity for profes- 
 sional 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 an- 
 noyance, inflicting upon him a rapid 
 succession of stage embraces, which, 
 as everybody knows, are performed by 
 the embracer's laying his or her chin 
 on the shoulder of the object of affec- 
 tion, and looking over it This Mr. 
 Crummies did in the highest style of 
 
 melo-drama, pouring forth at the 
 same time all the most dismal forms of 
 farewell he could think of, out of the 
 stock pieces. Nor was this all, for the 
 elder Master Crummies was going 
 through a similar ceremony with 
 Smike ; while Master Percy Crummies, 
 with a very little second-hand camlet 
 cloak, worn theatrically over his left 
 shoulder, stood by, in the attitude of 
 an attendant officer, waiting to convey 
 the two victims to the scaffold. 
 
 The lookers-on laughed very heartily, 
 and as it was as well to put a good 
 face upon the matter, Nicholas laughed 
 too when he had succeeded in disen- 
 gaging himself; and rescuing the 
 astonished Smike, climbed up to the 
 coach roof after him, and kissed his 
 hand in honour of the absent Mrs. 
 Crummies as they rolled away. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 OF RALPH MCKLEBY AND NEWMAN NOGGS, AND SOMK WISE PRECAUTIONS, THK 
 SUCCESS OH FAILURE OP WHICH WILL APPEAR IN THE SEQUEL. 
 
 in his chair as though he had made up 
 his mind to allow the obtrusive current 
 of reflection to take its own course, aud, 
 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 not- 
 withstanding the baseness with which 
 he had behaved, and was then behav- 
 ing, and would behave again if hia 
 
 IN blissful unconsciousness that his 
 nephew was hastening at the utmost 
 speed of four good horses towards his 
 sphere of action, and that every pass- 
 ing minute diminished the distance 
 between them, Ralph Nickleby sat that 
 morning occupied in his customary 
 avocations, and yet unable to prevent 
 his thoughts wandering from time to ! 
 time back to the interview which had 
 taken place between himself and his 
 niece on the previous day. At such 
 intervals, after a few moments of ab- 
 straction, Ralph would mutter some 
 peevish interjection, and apply him- 
 self with renewed steadiness of pur- 
 pose to the ledger before him, but 
 again and again the same train of 
 thought came back despite all his 
 efforts to prevent it, contusing him in 
 his calculations, and utterly distracting 
 his attention from the figures over 
 which he bent. At length Ralph laid 
 down his pen, and threw himself back
 
 240 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 interest prompted him, towards Kate 
 herself still there was, strange though 
 it may seem, something humanizing 
 and even gentle in his thoughts at that 
 moment. He thought of what hie 
 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 occu- 
 pation; he came back again to the cold 
 fireside and the silent dreary splen- 
 dour; 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 pur- 
 chase. 
 
 A very slight circumstance was 
 sufficient to banish such reflections 
 from the mind of such a man. As 
 Ralph looked vacantly out across the 
 yard towards the window of the other 
 office, he became suddenly aware of 
 the earnest observation of Newman 
 Noggs, who, with his red nose almost 
 touching the glass, feigned to be mend- 
 ing 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 pos- 
 ture for his accustomed business atti- 
 tude : 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 sum- 
 mons, 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 specu- 
 lation, 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 
 hiui. 
 
 " How now ? " growled Ralph. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Newman, throwing 
 some intelligence into his eyes all at 
 once, and dropping them on his master, 
 " I thought you rang." With which 
 laconic remark Newman turned round 
 and hobbled away. 
 
 Stop ! " said Ralph. 
 
 Newman stopped ; not at all discon- 
 certed. 
 
 " I did ring." 
 
 " I knew you did." 
 
 " Then why do you offer to go if 
 you know that 1 " 
 
 " I thought you rang to say you 
 didn't ring," replied Newman. " You 
 often do." 
 
 " How dare you pry, and peer, and 
 stare at me, sirrah ? " demanded 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Stare ! " cried Newman, " at you t 
 Ha, ha ! " which was all the explana- 
 tion Newman deigned to offer. 
 
 " Be careful, sir," said Ralph, look- 
 ing steadily at him. " Let me have no 
 drunken fooling here. Do you see 
 this parcel ! " 
 
 "It's big enough," rejoined New- 
 man. 
 
 "Carry it into the City; to Cross, in 
 Broad Street, and leave it there 
 quick. Do you hear * " 
 
 Newman gave a dogged kind of nod 
 to express an affirmative reply, and, 
 leaving the room for a few seconds, 
 returned with his hat. Having made 
 various ineffective attempts to fit the 
 parcel (which was some two feet 
 square) into the crown thereof, New- 
 man took it under his arm, and 
 after putting on his fingerless gloves 
 with great precision and nicety, keep- 
 ing 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 despatch, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 241 
 
 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 con- 
 sideration, the former inclination pre- 
 vailed, and making towards the point 
 he had had in his mind, Newman 
 knocked a modest double-knock, or 
 rather a nervous single one, at Miss 
 La Creevy's door. 
 
 It was opened by a strange servant, 
 on whom tin- odd figure of the visitor 
 did not appear to make the most 
 favourable impression possible, mas- 
 much as she no sooner saw him than 
 she very nearly closed it, and placing 
 herself in the narrow gap, inquired 
 what lie 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 as- 
 tonished servant could offer any op- 
 position. 
 
 " Walk in if you please," said Miss 
 La Creevy in reply to the sound of 
 Newman's knuckles ; and hi he walked 
 accordingly. 
 
 " Bless us ! " cried Miss La Creevy, 
 starting as Newman bolted in ; " what 
 did you want, sir ? " 
 
 " You have forgotten me," said 
 Newman, with an inclination of the 
 head. ** I wonder at that. That no- 
 body should remember me who knew 
 me in other days, is natural enough ; 
 but there are few people who, seeing 
 me once, forget me now." He glanced, 
 as he spoke, at his shabby clothes and 
 paralytic limb, and slightly shook his 
 head. 
 
 " I did forget you, I declare," said 
 Miss La Creevy, rising to receive 
 Newman, who met her half-way, " and 
 I am ashamed of myself for doing so ; 
 for you are a kind, good creature, Mr. 
 Noggs. Sit down and tell me all about 
 Miss Nickleby. Poor dear tiling ! I 
 haven't seen her for this many a 
 week." 
 
 " How 's that 1 " asked Newman. 
 
 No. 47. 
 
 " 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 New- 
 man, sadly. 
 
 " So it is a very long time to look 
 back upon in years, though, somehow 
 or other, thank Heaven, the solitary 
 days roll away peacefully and happily 
 enough," replied the miniature painter. 
 " I have a brother, Mr. Noggs the 
 only relation I have and all that time 
 I never saw him once. Not that we 
 ever quarrelled, but he was appren- 
 ticed down in the country, and he got 
 married there, and new ties and affec- 
 tions springing up about him, he for- 
 got a poor little woman like me, as it 
 was very reasonable he should, you 
 know. Don't suppose that I complain 
 about that, because I always said to 
 myself, ' It is very natural ; poor dear 
 John is making his way in the world, 
 and has a wife to tell his cares and 
 troubles to, and children now to play 
 about him, so God bless him and them, 
 and send we may all meet together 
 one day where we shall part no more.' 
 But what do you think, Mr. Noggs," 
 said the miniature painter, brightening 
 up and chipping her hands, " of that 
 very same brother coming up to Lon- 
 don at last, and never resting till he 
 found me out ; what do you think of 
 his coming here and sitting down in 
 that very chair, and crying like a child 
 because he was so glad to see me 
 what do you think of his insisting on 
 taking me down all the way into the 
 country to his own house (quite a 
 sumptuous place, Mr. Noggs, with a 
 large garden and I don't know how 
 many fields, and a man in livery wait- 
 ing at table, and cows and horses and 
 pigs and I don't know what besides), 
 and making me stay a whole month, 
 and pressing me to stop there all my 
 life yes, all my life and so did his 
 wife, and so did the children and 
 there were four of them, and one, the 
 eldest girl of all, they they had 
 named her after me eight good years 
 before, they had indeed. I never was 
 so happy ; in all my Ufa I never was !" 
 a ' 16.
 
 '242 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 The worthy soul hid her face in her 
 handkerchief, and sobbed aloud ; for 
 it was the first opportunity sha 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 handker- 
 chief into her pocket with great bustle 
 and dispatch ; a what a foolish crea- 
 ture I must seem to you, Mr. Noggs ! 
 I shouldn't have said anything about 
 it, only I wanted to explain to you how 
 it was I hadn't seen Miss Nickleby." 
 
 "Have you seen the old lady!" 
 asked Newman. 
 
 " You mean Mrs. Nickleby ? " said 
 Miss La Creevy. "Then I tell you 
 what, Mr. Noggs, if you want to keep 
 in the good books hi 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 
 the was quite on the high ropes about 
 something, and was so grand and mys- 
 terious, that I couldn't make anything 
 of her ; so, to tell you the truth, I 
 took it into my head to be grand too, 
 and came away in state. I thought 
 she would have come round again be- 
 fore this, but she hasn't been here." 
 
 "About Miss Nickleby" said 
 Newman. 
 
 " Why she was here twice while I 
 was away," returned Miss La Creevy. 
 ' I was afraid she mightn't like to have 
 me calling on her among those great 
 folks hi what's-ite-name Place, so I 
 thought I'd wait a day or two, and il 
 I didn't see her, write." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Newman, crack- 
 ing his fingers. 
 
 " However, I want to hear all the 
 news about them from you," said Miss 
 La Creevy. " How is the old rough 
 and tough monster of Golden Square \ 
 Well, of course ; such people always 
 are. I don't mean how is he in health 
 but how is he going on ; how is he be- 
 having himself I " 
 
 " Damn him ! " cried Newman 
 dashing his cherished hat on the floor 
 " like a false hound." 
 
 "Gracious, Mr. Noggs, you quite 
 
 errify me ! " exclaimed Miss La 
 Creevy, turning pale. 
 
 : I should have spoilt his features 
 yesterday afternoon if I could have 
 .fforded 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 
 t was obliged to put my hands hi my 
 pockets, and keep 'em there very 
 tight. I shall do it some day in that 
 little back-parlour, I know I shall. I 
 should have done it before now, if 
 I hadn't been afraid of making bad 
 worse. I shall double-lock myself in 
 with him and have it out before I die, 
 I 'm quite certain of it!" 
 
 " I shall scream if you don't com- 
 pose yourself, Mr. Noggs," said Miss 
 La Creevy ; " I 'm sure I shan't be 
 able to help it" 
 
 "Never mind," rejoined Newman, 
 darting violently to and fro. " He 's 
 coming up to-night : I wrote to tell 
 hun. He little thinks I know ; he 
 little thinks I care. Cunning scoun- 
 drel ! he don't think that. Not he, 
 not he. Never mind, I '11 thwart him 
 /, Newman Noggs. Ho, ho, the 
 rascal !" 
 
 Lashing himself up to an extrava- 
 gant 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 '11 tell you all about 
 it." 
 
 It took some little time to reassure 
 Miss La Creevy, who had been almost 
 frightened out of her senses by this 
 remarkable demonstration ; but that 
 done, Newman faithfully related all 
 that had passed in the interview 
 between Kate and her uncle, prefacing 
 his narrative with a statement of his 
 previous suspicions on the subject, and 
 his reasons for forming them ; and 
 concluding with a communication of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 243 
 
 the step he had taken in secretly 
 writing to Nicholas. 
 
 Though little Miss La Creevy's in- 
 dignation was not so singularly dis- 
 played as Newman's, it was scarcely 
 inferior in violence and intensity. 
 Indeed if Ralph Nickleby had hap- 
 pened 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 danger- 
 ous 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 mis- 
 take, the little portrait painter ex- 
 changed it for a mother-of-pearl fruit 
 knife, wherewith, in proof of her des- 
 perate thoughts, she made a lunge as 
 she spoke, which would have scarcely 
 disturbed the crumb of a half-quartern 
 loaf. 
 
 " She won't stop where she is, after 
 to-night," said Newman. " That 's a 
 comfort." 
 
 "Stop!" cried Miss La Creevy, 
 " she should have left there, weeks 
 ago." 
 
 " If we had known of this," re- 
 oined Newman. "But we didn't. 
 Nobody could properly interfere but 
 her mother or brother. The mother 's 
 weak poor tiling weak. The dear 
 young man will be here to-night" 
 
 " Heart alive ! " cried Miss La 
 Creevy. " He will do something des- 
 perate, Mr. Noggs, if you tell him all 
 at once." 
 
 Newman left off rubbing his hands, 
 and assumed a thoughtful Took. 
 
 "Depend upon it," said Miss La 
 Creevy, earnestly, " if you are not 
 very careful in breaking out the truth 
 to him, he will do some violence upon 
 his uncle or one of these men that will 
 bring some terrible calamity upon his 
 own head, and grief and sorrow to us 
 all." 
 
 " I never thought of that," rejoined 
 Newman, his countenance falling more 
 and more. " I came to ask you to 
 receive his sister in case he brought 
 her here, but " 
 
 '" But this is a matter of much 
 greater importance," interrupted Miss 
 La Creevy ; " that you might have 
 been sure of before you came, but the 
 end of this, nobody can foresee, unless 
 you are very guarded and careful." 
 
 " What can I do 1 " cried Newman, 
 scratching his head with an air of 
 great vexation and perplexity. " If he 
 was to talk of pistolling 'em all, I should 
 be obliged to say, ' Certainly serve 
 'em right.' " 
 
 Miss La Creevy could not suppress 
 a small shriek on hearing this, and 
 instantly set about extorting a solemn 
 pledge from Newman that he would 
 use his utmost endeavours to pacify 
 the wrath of Nicholas ; which, after 
 some demur, was conceded. They 
 then consulted together on the safest 
 and surest mode of communicating to 
 him the circumstances which had ren- 
 dered 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 consequence. He must not 
 be told until late at night." 
 
 " But he '11 be in town between six 
 and seven this evening," replied New- 
 man. " / 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 busi- 
 ness, and must not return till nearly 
 midnight." 
 
 "Then he'll come straight here," 
 retorted Newman. 
 
 " So I suppose," observed Miss La 
 Creevy ; "but he won't find me at 
 home, for I '11 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 ap- 
 peared the safest and 'most feasible 
 mode of proceeding that could possibly 
 a2
 
 244 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 im- 
 possibilities which crowded upou hia 
 brain, and arose out of the conversa- 
 tion that had just terminated. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 RELATING CHIEFLY TO SOME REMARKABLE CONVERSATION, AND SOME REMARK- 
 ABLE PROCEEDINGS TO WHICH IT GIVES RISE. 
 
 " LONDON at last ! " cried Nicholas, 
 throwing back his great-coat and rous- 
 ing 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, 1 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 mitst 
 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-burning lamps, dotted here 
 and there with the chemists' glaring 
 lights, and illuminated besides with the 
 brilliant flood that streamed from the 
 windows of the shops, where sparkling 
 jewellery, silks and velvets of the 
 richest colours, the most inviting deli- 
 cacies, and most sumptuous articles of 
 luxurious ornament, succeeded each 
 other in rich and glittering profusion. 
 Streams of people apparently without 
 end poured on and on, jostling each 
 other in the crowd and hurrying for- 
 vard, scarcely seeming to notice the 
 r.cbes that surrounded them on every 
 
 side ; while vehicles of all shapes and 
 makes, mingled up together in one 
 moving mass like running water, lent 
 their ceaseless roar to swell the noise 
 and tumult. 
 
 As they dashed by the quickly-chang- 
 ing and ever-varying objects, it was 
 curious to observe in what a strange 
 procession they passed before the eye. 
 Emporiums of splendid dresses, the 
 materials brought from every quarter 
 of the world ; tempting stores of 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, pistol?, and pa- 
 tent engines of destruction ; screws 
 and irons for the crooked, clothes for 
 the newly-born, drugs for the sick, 
 coffins for the dead, and churchyards 
 for the buried all these jumbled each 
 with the other and flocking side by 
 side, seemed to flit by in motiey 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 flut- 
 tered in the rich light that showed the 
 goldsmith's treasures, pale andpinched- 
 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 shiver-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 245 
 
 ing figures stopped to gaze at Chinese 
 shawls and golden stuffs of India. 
 There was a christening party at the 
 largest coffin-maker's, and a funeral 
 hatchment had stopped some great 
 improvements in the bravest mansion. 
 Life and death went hand in hand ; 
 wealth and poverty stood side by side ; 
 repletion and starvation laid them down 
 together. 
 
 But it was London ; and the old 
 country lady inside, who had put her 
 head out of the roach-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 lodg- 
 ings 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 gar- 
 ret, and a candle had been left burn- 
 ing ; the floor was cleanly swept, the 
 room was as comfortably arranged as 
 such a room could be, and meat and 
 drink were placed in order upon the 
 table. Everything bespoke the affec- 
 tionate care and attention of Newman 
 Noggs, but Newman himself was not 
 there. 
 
 " Do you know what time he will be 
 home \ " inquired Nicholas, tapping at 
 the door of Newman's front neighbour. 
 " Ah, Mr. Johnson ! " said Crowl, 
 presenting himself. " Welcome, sir. 
 How well you 're looking ! I never 
 
 could have believed " 
 
 " Pardon me," interpoaed Nicholas. 
 " My question I am extremely anxious 
 to know." 
 
 " Why, he has a troublesome affair 
 of business," replied Crowl, " and will 
 not be home before twelve o'clock. He 
 was very unwilling to go, I can tell you, 
 but there was no help for it. However, 
 he left word that you were to make 
 yourself comfortable till he came back 
 and that I was to entertain you, which 
 I shall be very glad to do." 
 
 In proof of his extreme readiness to 
 
 xert himself for the general entertain- 
 ment, Mr. Crowl drew a chair to tho 
 
 le as he spoke, and helping himself 
 jlcntifully 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 
 ,he table, he walked out (despite a 
 jreat many dissuasions uttered by Mr. 
 rowl with his mouth full), and left 
 Smike to detain Newman in case he 
 returned first. 
 
 As Miss La Creevy had anticipated, 
 Nicholas betook himself straight to 
 icr house. Finding her from home, 
 le debated within himself for some 
 ;ime whether he should go to his 
 mother's residence and so compromise 
 icr with Ralph Nickleby. Fully 
 persuaded, however, that Newman 
 would not have solicited him to return 
 unless there was some strong reason 
 which required his presence at home, 
 lie resolved to go there, and hastened 
 eastwards with all speed. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby would not be at home, 
 the girl said, until past twelve, or 
 later. She believed Miss Nickleby 
 was well, but she didn't live at home 
 now, nor did she come home except 
 very seldom. She couldn't say where 
 she was stopping, but it was not at 
 Madame Mantalini's she was sure of 
 that. 
 
 With his heart beating violently, 
 and apprehending he knew not what 
 disaster, Nicholas returned to where 
 he had left Smike. Newman had not 
 been home. He wouldn't be, till 
 twelve o'clock ; there was no chance 
 of it. Was there no possibility of 
 sending to fetch him if it were only 
 for an instant, or forwarding to him 
 one line of writing to which he might 
 return a verbal reply 1 That was 
 quite impracticable. He was not at 
 Golden Square, and probably had been 
 sent to execute some commission at a 
 distance. 
 
 Nicholas tried to remain quietly 
 where he was, but he felt so n< rvoua 
 and excited that he could not sit still. 
 He seemed to be losing time unless he.
 
 246 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 was moving. It was an absurd fancy, 
 he knew, but he was wholly unable to 
 resist it. So, he took up his hat and 
 rambled out again. 
 
 He strolled westward this time, 
 pacing the long streets with hurried 
 footsteps, and agitated by a thousand 
 misgivings and apprehensions which 
 he could not overcome. He passed 
 into Hyde Park, now silent and 
 deserted, and increased his rate of 
 walking as if in the hope of leaving 
 his thoughts behind. They crowded 
 upon him more thickly, however, now 
 there were no passing objects to attract 
 his attention ; and the one idea was 
 always uppermost, that some stroke of 
 
 ill-fortune must have occurred 
 
 It was very nandsomely furnished 
 The walls were ornamented with the 
 choicest specimens of French paper, 
 enriched with a gilded cornice of ele- 
 gant design. The floor was covered 
 with a rich carpet ; 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 en- 
 hance the general effect. There waa 
 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 com- 
 prehensive glance with which a 
 calamitous in its nature that all were j stranger surveys a place that is new 
 fearful of disclosing it to him. The to him, Nicholas sat himself down in 
 old question arose again and again the box next to the noisy party, with his 
 What could it be ? Nicholas walked j back towards them, and postponing 
 till he was weary, but was not one bit i his order for a pint of claret until 
 the wiser ; and indeed he came out of j such time as the waiter and one of the 
 the Park at last a great deal more elderly gentlemen should have settled 
 confused and perplexed than when he a disputed question relative to the 
 
 went in. 
 
 He had taken scarcely anything to 
 eat or drink since early in the morn- 
 ing, and felt quite worn out and ex- 
 hausted. As he returned languidly 
 towards the point from which he had 
 
 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 bv the mention of his 
 
 started, along one of the thoroughfares j sister's name. " Little Kate Nickleby" 
 which he between Park Lane and were the words that caught his ear. 
 
 Bond Street, he passed a handsome 
 hotel, before which he stopped mecha- 
 nically. 
 
 " An expensive place, I dare say," 
 thought Nicholas ; " but a pint of 
 wine and a biscuit are no great de- 
 bauch wherever they are had. And 
 yet I don't know." 
 
 He walked on a few steps, but looking 
 wistfully down the long vista of gas- 
 lamps before him, and thinking how 
 long it would take to reach the end of 
 it and being besides in that kind of 
 mood in which a man is most disposed 
 to yield to his first impulse and 
 being, besides, strongly attracted to 
 the hotel, in part by curiosity, and in 
 part by some odd mixture of feelings 
 - which he would have been troubled to 
 define Nicholas turned back again, 
 and walked into the coffee-room. 
 
 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 indig- 
 nation, for the tone of speech had been 
 anything but respectful, and the 
 appearance of the individual whom he 
 presumed to have been the speaker 
 was coarse and swaggering. 
 
 This person so Nicholas observed 
 in the same glance at the mirror which 
 had enabled him to see his face was 
 standing with his back to the fire 
 conversing with a younger man, who 
 stood with his back to the company, 
 wore his hat, and was adjusting hid 
 shirt collar by the aid of the glass..
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 247 
 
 They spoke in whispers, now and 
 then bursting into a loud laugh, but 
 Nicholas could catch no repetition of 
 the words, nor anything sounding at 
 all like the words, which had attracted 
 his attention. 
 
 At length the two resumed their 
 seats, and more wine being ordered, 
 the party grew louder in their mirth. 
 Still there was no reference made to 
 anybody with whom he was acquainted, 
 and Nicholas became persuaded that 
 his excited fancy had either imagined 
 the sounds altogether, or converted 
 some other words into the name which 
 had been so much in his thoughts. 
 
 " It is remarkable too," thought 
 Nicholas : " if it had been ' Kate ' or 
 'Kate Nickleby,' I should not have 
 been so much surprised ; but ' little 
 Kate Nickleby !"' 
 
 The wine coming at the moment 
 prevented his finishing the sentence. 
 He swallowed a glassful and took up 
 the paper again. At that instant 
 
 " Little Kate Nickleby ! " cried a 
 voice behind him. 
 
 " I was right," muttered Nicholas 
 ns the paper fell from his hand. " And 
 it was the man I supposed." 
 
 " As there was a proper objection 
 to drinking her in heeltaps," said the 
 voice, " we '11 give her the first glass 
 in the new magnum. Little Kate 
 Nickleby ! " 
 
 " Little Kato Nickleby," cried the 
 other three. And the glasses were 
 set down empty. 
 
 Keenly alive to the tone and man- 
 ner of this slight and careless mention 
 of his sister's name in a public place, 
 Nicholas fired at once ; but he kept 
 himself quiet by a great effort, and 
 did not even turn his head. 
 
 " The jade ! " said the same voice 
 which had spoken before. "She's a 
 true Nickleby a worthy imitator of 
 her old uncle Ralph she hangs back 
 to be more sought after so does he ; 
 nothing to be got out of Ralph unless 
 you follow him up, and then the money 
 comes doubly welcome, and the bar- 
 gain doubly hard, for you 're impa- 
 tient and he isn't. Oh ! infernal 
 cunning." 
 
 " Infernal cunning,'' echoed two 
 voices. 
 
 Nicholas was in a perfect agony as 
 the two elderly gentlemen opposite 
 rose one after the other and went 
 away, lest they should be the means 
 of his losing one word of what was 
 said. But the conversation was sus- 
 pended as they withdrew, and re. 
 sumed with even greater freedom 
 when they had left the room. 
 
 " I am afraid," said the younger 
 gentleman, ' that the old woman has 
 grown jea-a-lous, and locked her up. 
 Upon my soul it looks like it." 
 
 " If they quarrel and little Nickleby 
 goes home to her mother, so much the 
 better," said the first. " I can do any 
 thing with the old lady. She'll be- 
 lieve anything I tell her." 
 
 " Egad that 's true," returned the 
 other voice. " Ha, ha, ha ! Poor 
 dey vie ! " 
 
 The laugh was taken up by the two 
 voices which always came in together, 
 and became general at Mrs. Nickleby's 
 expense. Nicholas turned burning hot 
 with rage, but he commanded himself 
 for the moment, and waited to hear 
 more. 
 
 What he heard need not be repeated 
 here. Suffice it that as the wine went 
 round he heard enough to acquaint 
 him with the characters and designs 
 of those whose conversation he over- 
 heard ; to possess him with the full 
 extent of Ralph's villauy, and the real 
 reason of his own presence being re- 
 quired in London. He heard all this 
 and more. He heard his sister's suf- 
 ferings derided, and her virtuous con- 
 duct jeered at and brutally miscon- 
 strued ; he heard her name bandied 
 from mouth to mouth, and herself 
 made the subject of coarse and insolent 
 wagers, free speech, and licentious 
 jesting. 
 
 The man who had spoken first, led 
 the conversation and indeed almost 
 engrossed it, being only stimulated 
 from time to time by some slight ob- 
 servation from one or other of his 
 companions. To him then Nicholas 
 addressed himself when he was suffi- 
 ciently composed to stand before the
 
 248 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 Mul- 
 berry Hawk, eyeing him in disdainful 
 surprise. 
 
 " I said with you," replied Nicholas, 
 speaking with great difficulty, for his 
 passion choked him. 
 
 "A mysterious stranger, upon my 
 soul ! " exclaimed Sir Mulberry, raising 
 his wine-glass to his lips, and looking 
 round upon his friends. 
 
 " Will you step apart with me for a 
 few minutes, or do you refuse ? " said 
 Nicholas, sternly. 
 
 Sir Mulberry merely paused in the 
 act of drinking, and bade him either 
 name his business or leave the table. 
 
 Nicholas drew a card from his 
 pocket, and threw it before him. 
 
 " There, sir," said Nicholas ; " my 
 business you will guess." 
 
 A momentary expression of aston- 
 ishment, not unmixed with some con- 
 fusion, appeared in the face of Sir 
 Mulberry as he read the name ; but 
 he subdued it in an instant, and toss- 
 ing the card to Lord Verisopht, who 
 sat opposite, drew a toothpick from a 
 glass before him, and very leisurely 
 applied it to his mouth. 
 
 " Your name and address ! " said 
 Nicholas, turning paler as his passion 
 kindled. 
 
 " I shall give you neither," replied 
 Sir Mulberry. 
 
 " If there is a gentleman in this 
 party," said Nicholas, looking round 
 and scarcely able to make his white 
 lips form the words, "he will acquaint 
 me with the name and residence of 
 this man." 
 
 There was a dead silence. 
 
 " I am the brother of the young 
 lady who has been the subject of con- 
 versation 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 con- 
 ceal his name an utterly useless one 
 for I will find it out, nor leave him 
 until I have." 
 
 Sir Mulberry looked at him con. 
 temptuously, and, addressing his com- 
 panions, 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 mid- 
 night." 
 
 " You are a base and spiritless 
 scoundrel ! " said Nicholas, " and shall 
 be proclaimed so to the world. I will 
 know you ; I will follow you home if 
 you walk the streets till morning." 
 
 Sir Mulberry's hand involuntarily 
 closed upon the decanter, and he 
 seemed for an instant about to launch 
 it at the head of his challenger. But 
 he only filled his glass, and laughed in 
 derision. 
 
 Nicholas sat himself down, directly 
 opposite to the party, and, summon- 
 ing the waiter, paid his bill. 
 
 " Do you know that person's name ?" 
 he inquired of the man in an audible 
 voice ; pointing out Sir Mulberry as 
 he put the question. 
 
 Sir Mulberry laughed again, and the 
 two voices which had always spoken 
 together, echoed the laugh ; but rather 
 feebly. 
 
 " That gentleman, sir ? " replied the 
 waiter, who, no doubt, knew his cue, 
 and answered with just as little respect, 
 and just as much impertinence as he 
 could safely show : " no, sir, 1 do not, 
 sir." 
 
 " Here, you sir," cried Sir Mulberry, 
 as the man was retiring ; " do you 
 know that person's name ? " 
 
 " Name, sir ? No, sir." 
 
 " Then you '11 find it there," said Sir 
 Mulberry, throwing Nicholas's card 
 towards him ; " and when you have 
 made yourself master of it, put tliat 
 piece of pasteboard in the fire do you 
 hear me ! " 
 
 The man grinned, and, looking 
 doubtfully at Nicholas, compromised 
 the matter by sticking the card in the 
 chimney-glass. Having done this, he 
 retired. 
 
 Nicholas folded his arms, and, biting 
 his lip, sat perfectly quiet ; sufficiently 
 expressing by his manner, however, a 
 firm determination to carry his threat
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 24? 
 
 >f following Sir Mulberry home, into I 
 steady execution. 
 
 It was evident from the tone in wnich 
 the younger member of the party ap- 
 peared to remonstrate with his friend, 
 that he objected to this course of pro- 
 ceeding, and urged him to comply with 
 the request which Nicholas had made. 
 Sir Mulberry, however, who was not 
 quite sober, and who was in a sullen 
 and dogged state of obstinacy, soon 
 silenced the representations of his 
 weak young friend, and further seemed 
 as it to save himself from a repetition 
 of them to insist on being left alone. 
 However this might have been, the 
 young gentleman and the two who had 
 always spoken together, actually rose 
 to go after a short interval, and pre- 
 sently retired, leaving their friend 
 alone with Nicholas. 
 
 It will be very readily supposed that 
 to one in the condition of Nicholas, 
 the minutes appeared to move with 
 leaden wings indeed, and that their 
 progress did not seem the more rapid 
 from the monotonous ticking of a 
 French clock, or the shrill sound of its 
 little bell which told the quarters. But 
 there he sat ; and in his old seat on the 
 opposite side of the room reclined Sir 
 Mulberry Hawk, with his legs upon the 
 cushion, and his handkerchief thrown 
 negligently over his knees : finishing 
 his magnum of claret with the utmost 
 coolness and indifference. 
 
 Thus they remained in perfect 
 silence for upwards of an hour Ni- 
 cholas 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 
 liis 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 him- 
 self, and rose ; walked coolly to the 
 glass, and having surveyed himself 
 therein, turned round and honoured 
 Nicholas with a long and contemptuous 
 stare. Nicholas stared again with right 
 good- will ; Sir Mulberry shrugged his 
 
 shoulders, smiled slightly, rang the 
 bell, and ordered the waiter to help 
 him on with his 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 care- 
 lessly 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. Ni- 
 cholas, who had been fuming and chaf- 
 ing until he was nearly wild, darted 
 from his seat, and followed him so 
 closely, that before the door had swung 
 upon its hinges after Sir Mulberry's 
 passing out, they stood side by side in 
 the street together. 
 
 There was a private cabriolet in 
 waiting ; the groom opened the apron, 
 and jumped out to the horse's head. 
 
 " Will you make yourself known to 
 me ! " asked Nicholas, in a suppressed 
 voice. 
 
 "No," replied the other fiercely, 
 and confirming the refusal with an 
 oath. No." 
 
 " If you trust to your horse's speed, 
 you will find yourself mistaken," said 
 Nicholas. " I will accompany you. By 
 Heaven I will, if I hang on to the foot- 
 board." 
 
 " You shall be horsewhipped if you 
 do," returned Sir Mulberry. 
 
 " You are a villain," said Nicholas. 
 
 " You are an errand-boy for aught 
 I know," said Sir Mulberry Hawk. 
 
 " I am the son of a country gentle- 
 man," returned Nicholas, " your equal 
 in birth and education, and your supe- 
 rior I trust in everything besides. I 
 tell you again, Miss Nickleby is my 
 sister. Will you or will you not answer 
 for your unmanly and brutal conduct I" 
 
 "To a proper champion yes. To 
 you no," returned Sir Mulberry, tak- 
 ing the reins in his hand. " Stand out 
 of the way, dog. William, let go her 
 head." 
 
 " You had better not," cried Ni- 
 cholas, springing on the step as Sir
 
 250 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 teli you ! " thundered 
 his master. 
 
 The man obeyed. The animal reared 
 and plunged as though it would dash 
 the carriage into a thousand pieces, but 
 Nicholas, blind to all sense of danger, 
 and conscious of nothing but his fury, 
 still maintained his place and his hold 
 upon the reins. 
 
 " Will yon 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 ex- 
 changed, and Sir Mulberry shortening 
 his whip, applied it furiously to the 
 head and shoulders of Nicholas. It 
 was broken in the struggle ; Nicholas 
 gained the heavy handle, and with it 
 laid open one side of his antagonist's 
 face from the eye to the lip. He saw 
 
 ' the gash ; knew that the mare had 
 darted off at a wild mad gallop ; a 
 hundred lights danced in his eyes, and 
 he felt liimself flung violently upon the 
 ground. 
 
 He was giddy and sick, but stag- 
 gered to his feet directly, roused by 
 the loud shouts of the men who were 
 tearing up the street, and screaming 
 to those ahead to clear the way. He 
 was conscious of a torrent of people 
 rushing quickly by looking up, could 
 j discern the cabriolet whirled along the 
 i foot pavement with frightful rapidity 
 then heard a loud cry, the smashing of 
 some heavy body, and the breaking of 
 glass and then the crowd closed in in 
 the distance, and he could see or hear 
 no more. 
 
 The general attention had been en- 
 tirely directed from himself to the 
 person in the carriage, and he was 
 quite alone. Rightly judging that 
 under such circumstances it would be 
 madness to follow, he turned down a 
 bye-street in search of the nearest 
 coach-stand, finding after a minute or 
 two that he was reeling like a drunken 
 j man, and aware for the first tune of a 
 I stream of blood that was trickling 
 i down, his face and breast. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WHICH MR. RALPH NICKLEBY IS RELIEVED, BY A VERT EXPEDITIOUS 
 PROCESS, FROM ALL COMMERCE WITH HIS RELATIONS. 
 
 SMIKE and Newman Noggs, who in 
 his impatience had returned home 
 long before the time agreed upon, sat 
 before the fire, listening anxiously to 
 every footstep on the stairs, and the 
 slightest sound that stirred within the 
 house, for the approach of Nicholas. 
 Time had worn on, and it was grow- 
 ing late. He had promised to be back 
 in an hour; and his prolonged absence 
 began to excite considerable alarm in 
 the minds of both, as was abundantly 
 testified by the blank looks they cast 
 
 1 upon each other at every new disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 At length a coach was heard to stop, 
 
 and Newman ran out to light Nicholas 
 
 up the stairs. Beholding him in the 
 
 i trim described at the conclusion of the 
 
 last chapter, he stood aghast in wonder 
 
 ; and consternation. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed," said Nicholas, 
 hurrying him back into the room. 
 ! " There is no liarm done, beyond what 
 a bason of water can repair." 
 
 * No harm ! " cried Newman, pass-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 251 
 
 ing his lianas hastily over the back 
 and arms of Nicholas, as if to assure 
 himself that he had broken no bones. 
 " What have you been doing 1 " 
 
 " I know all," interrupted Nicholas; 
 " I have heard a part, and guessed the 
 rest. But before I remove one jot of 
 these stains, I must hear the whole 
 from you. You see I am collected. 
 My resolution is taken. Now, my 
 good friend, speak out; for the time 
 for any palliation or concealment is 
 past, and nothing will avail Ralph 
 Nickleby jiow." 
 
 " Your dress is torn in several 
 places ; you walk lame, and I am sure 
 are suffering pain," said Newman. 
 " Let me see to your hurts first" 
 
 " I have no hurts to see to, beyond 
 a little soreness and stiffness that will 
 soon pass off," said Nicholas, seating 
 himself with some difficulty. " But if 
 I had fractured every limb, and still 
 preserved my senses, you should not 
 bandage one till you had told me what 
 I have the right to know. Come," 
 said Nicholas, giving his hand to Noggs. 
 " You had a sinter 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 Ml tell you the whole truth." 
 
 Newman did so. Nicholas nodded 
 his head from time to time, as it cor- 
 roborated the particulars he had al- 
 ready gleaned ; but he fixed his eyes 
 upon the fire, and did not look round 
 once. 
 
 His recital ended, Newman insisted 
 upon his young friend's stripping off 
 his coat, and allowing whatever in- 
 juries he had received to be properly 
 tended. Nicholas, after some opposi- 
 tion, at length consented, and while 
 some pretty severe bruises on his arms 
 and shoulders were being rubbed with 
 oil and vinegar, and various other 
 efficacious remedies which Newman 
 borrowed from the different lodgers, 
 related in what manner they had been 
 received. The recital made a strong 
 impression on the warm imagination 
 of Newman ; for when Nicholas came 
 to the violent part of the quarrel, he 
 
 nibbed so hard, as to occasion him the 
 most exquisite pain, which he would 
 not have exhibited, however, for the 
 world, it being perfectly clear that, 
 for the moment, Newman was operat- 
 ing on Sir Mulberry Hawk, and had 
 quite lost sight of his real patient. 
 
 This martyrdom over, Nicholas ar- 
 ranged with Newman that while lie 
 was otherwise occupied next morning, 
 arrangements should be made for his 
 mother's immediately quitting her 
 present residence, and also for des- 
 patching Miss La Creevy to break the 
 intelligence to her. He then wrapped 
 himself in Smike's great-coat, and re- 
 paired to the inn where they were to 
 pass the night, and where (after 
 writing a few lines to Ralph, the deli- 
 very of which was to be intrusted to 
 Newman next day,) he endeavoured 
 to obtain the repose of which he stood 
 so much in need. 
 
 Drunken men, they say, may roll 
 down precipices, and be quite uncon- 
 scious of any serious personal incon- 
 venience when their reason returns. 
 The remark may possibly apply to 
 injuries received hi other kinds of 
 violent excitement ; certain it is, that 
 although Nicholas experienced some 
 pain on first awakening next morning, 
 he sprung out of bed as the clock 
 struck seven, with very little difficulty, 
 and was soon as much on the alert as 
 if nothing had occurred. 
 
 Merely looking into Smike's room, 
 and telling him that Newman Noggs 
 would call for him very shortly, Ni- 
 cholas 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. Ni- 
 cholas began to fear that no one might 
 be stirring at that early hour, when lie 
 was relieved by the sight of a femalo 
 servant, employed in cleaning the 
 door-steps. By this functionary he 
 was referred to the doubtful page, who 
 appeared with dishevelled hair and a 
 very warm and glossy face, as of a 
 page who had just got out of bed.
 
 252 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 By this young gentleman he was 
 informed that Miss Nickleby was then 
 taking her morning's walk in the gar- 
 dens before the house. On the ques- 
 tion being propounded whether he 
 could go and find her, the page de- 
 sponded and thought not ; but being 
 stimulated with a shilling, the page 
 grew sanguine and thought he could. 
 
 " Say to Miss Nickleby that her 
 brother is here, and in great haste to 
 see her," said Nicholas. 
 
 The plated buttons disappeared with 
 an alacrity most unusual to them, and 
 Nicholas paced the room in a state of 
 feverish agitation which made the de- 
 lay even of a minute insupportable. 
 He soon heard a light footstep which 
 he well knew, and before he could ad- 
 vance to meet her, Kate had fallen on 
 his neck and burst into tears. 
 
 " My darling girl," said Nicholas as 
 he embraced her. " How pale you 
 are!" 
 
 " I have been so unhappy here, dear 
 brother," sobbed poor Kate ; " so 
 very, very, miserable. Do not leave 
 me here, dear Nicholas, or I shall die 
 of a broken heart." 
 
 " I will leave you nowhere," an- 
 swered Nicholas " never again, 
 Kate," he cried, moved in spite of 
 himself as he folded her to his heart. 
 "Tell me that I acted for the best. 
 Tell me that we parted because I 
 feared to bring misfortune on your 
 head ; that it was a trial to me no 
 less than to yourself, and that if I did 
 wrong it was in ignorance of the world 
 and unknowingly." 
 
 " Why should I tell you what we 
 know so well ? " returned Kate sooth- 
 ingly. "Nicholas dear Nicholas 
 how can you give way thus ? " 
 
 "It is such bitter reproach to me 
 to know what you have undergone," 
 returned her brother ; " to see you 
 so much altered, and yet so kind 
 and patient God ! " cried Nicholas, 
 clenching his fist and suddenly chang- 
 ing 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 Urivo 
 away ? " 
 
 This question was most opportunely 
 put, for at that instant Mr. Wititterly 
 walked in, and to him Kate introduced 
 her brother, who at once announced 
 his purpose, and the impossibility of 
 deferring it. 
 
 " The quarter's notice," said Mr. 
 Wititterly, with the gravity of a man 
 on the right side, " is not yet half ex- 
 pired. Therefore " 
 
 " Therefore," interposed Nicholas, 
 "the quarter's salary must be lost, 
 sir. You will excuse this extreme 
 haste, but circumstances require that 
 I should immediately remove my sis- 
 ter, and 1 1'ive 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 de- 
 parture ; with which, indeed, he was 
 rather gratified than otherwise, Sir 
 Tumley Snuffim having given it as his 
 opinion, that she rather disagreed with 
 Mrs. Wititterly's constitution. 
 
 " With regard to the trifle of salary 
 that is duo," 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 ob- 
 served, was accustomed to owe small 
 accounts, and to leave them owing. 
 All men have some little pleasant way 
 of their own ; and this was Mr. Wi- 
 titterly's. 
 
 " If you please," said Nicholas. 
 And once more offering a hurried 
 apology for so sudden a departure, he 
 hurried Kate into the vehicle, and 
 bade the man drive with all speed 
 into the City. 
 
 To the City they went accordingly, 
 with all the speed the hackney-coach 
 could make ; and as the horses hap- 
 pened to live at Whitechapel and to 
 be in the habit of taking their break- 
 fast there, when they breakfasted at 
 all, they performed the journey with 
 greater expedition than could reason- 
 ably have been expected. 
 
 Nicholas sent Kate up-stairs a few
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEDY. 
 
 253 
 
 minutes before him, that his unlooked- 
 for appearance might not alarm his 
 motherland 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 hurry- 
 ing out already. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Nickleby was not the 
 sort of person to be told anything in a 
 hurry, or rather to comprehend any- 
 thing of peculiar delicacy or import- 
 ance on a short notice. Wherefore, 
 although the good lady had been sub- 
 jected to a full hour's preparation by 
 little Miss La Creevy, and was now 
 addressed in most lucid terms both by 
 Nicholas and his sister, she was in a 
 state of singular bewilderment and 
 confusion, and could by no means be 
 made to comprehend the necessity of 
 such hurried proceedings. 
 
 "Why don't you aak your uncle, 
 my dear Nicholas, what he can pos- 
 sibly mean by it 1 " said Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby. 
 
 " My dear mother," returned Ni- 
 cholas, " the time for talking has gone 
 by. There is but one step to take, 
 and that is to cast him off with the 
 scorn and indignation he deserves. 
 Your own honour and good name de- 
 mand 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 mon- 
 ster ; and the walls are very bare, and 
 want painting too, and I have had 
 this ceiling white-washed at the ex- 
 pense of eighteen-pence, which is a 
 very distressing thing, considering 
 that it is so much gone into your 
 uncle's pocket. I never could have 
 believed it never." 
 
 " Nor I, nor anybody else," said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Lord bless my life ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Nickleby. " To think that that 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk should be such an 
 abandoned wretch as Miss La Creevy 
 says he is, Nicholas, my dear ; when 
 I was congratulating myself every day 
 on his being an admirer of our dear 
 
 Kate's, and thinking what a thing it 
 would be for the family if he was to 
 become connected with us, and use 
 his interest to get you some profitable 
 government place. There are very 
 good places to be got about the court, 
 I know ; for a friend of ours (Miss 
 Cropley, at Exeter, my dear Kate, you 
 recollect), he had one, and I know 
 that it was the chief part of his duty 
 to wear silk stockings, and a bag wig 
 like a black watch-pocket ; and to 
 think that it should come to this after 
 all oh, dear, dear, it 's enough to kill 
 one, that it is ! " With which ex- 
 pressions 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 furni- 
 ture, Miss La Creevy devoted herself 
 to the consolation of the matron, and 
 observed with great kindness of man- 
 ner that she must really make an 
 effort, and cheer up. 
 
 " Oh I dare say, Miss La Creevy," 
 returned Mrs. Nickleby, with a petu- 
 lance not unnatural in her unhappy 
 circumstances, " it 's very easy to say 
 cheer up, but if you had had as many 
 occasions to cheer up as I have had 
 
 and tliere," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 
 stopping short, " Think of Mr. Pyko 
 and Mr. Pluck, two of the most per- 
 fect 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 Mul- 
 berry is a base wretch,' they 'd laugh 
 at me." 
 
 " They will laugh no more at us, I 
 take it," said Nicholas, advancing. 
 " Come mother, there is a coach at the 
 door, and until Monday, at all events, 
 we will return to our old quarters." 
 
 "Where everything is ready, and 
 a hearty welcome into the bargain," 
 added Miss La Creevy. " Now, let 
 me go with you 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 everything had been
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 taken away; and when she was getting 
 into the coacli she had a vision of a 
 .forgotten coffee-pot on the back-kitchen 
 hob, and after she was shut in, a dis- 
 mal recollection of a green umbrella 
 behind some unknown door. At last 
 Nicholas, in a condition of absolute 
 despair, ordered the coachman to drive 
 away, and in the unexpected jerk of a 
 sudden starting, Mrs. Nickleby lost a 
 shilling among the straw, which fortu- 
 nately confined her attention to the 
 coach until it was too late to remember 
 anything else. 
 
 Having seen everything safely out, 
 discharged the servant, and locked the 
 door, Nicholas jumped into a cabriolet 
 and drove to a bye place near Golden 
 Square where he had appointed to 
 meet Noggs; and so quickly had 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 
 N icholas, " 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 with- 
 out loss of time," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Yon had better take some rest," 
 returned Newman. " Yon are fevered 
 and ill." 
 
 Nicholas waved his hand carelessly, 
 and concealing the indisposition he 
 really felt, now that the excitement 
 which had sustained him was over, 
 took a Siurried farewell of Newman 
 Noggs, and left him. 
 
 Newman was not three minutes' 
 walk from Golden Square, but in the 
 course of that three minutes he took 
 the letter out of his hat and put it in 
 again twenty times at least. First the 
 front, then the back, then the sides, 
 then the superscription, then the seal, 
 were objects of Newman's admiration. 
 Then he held it at arm's length as if 
 to take in the whole at one delicious 
 survey, and then he rubbed his hands 
 in a perfect ecstacy with his com- 
 mission. 
 
 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 b oots 
 was heard on the stairs, and then the 
 bell rung. 
 
 " Has the post come in ! " 
 
 No." 
 
 " Any other letters ? " 
 
 " One." Newman eyed him closely, 
 and laid it on the desk. 
 
 " What 's this I " asked Ralph, 
 taking up the key. 
 
 " Left with the letter ; a boy 
 brought them quarter of an hour 
 ago, or less." 
 
 Ralph glanced at the direction, 
 opened the letter, and read as follows : 
 
 " You are known to me now. There 
 are no reproaches I could heap upon 
 your head which would carry with 
 them one thousandth part of the 
 grovelling shame that this assurance 
 will awaken even in your breast. 
 
 "Your brother's widow and her 
 orphan child spurn the shelter of your 
 roof, and shun you with disgust and 
 loathing. Your kindred renounce 
 you, for they know no shame but the 
 ties of blood which bind them hi name 
 with you. 
 
 " Yon are an old man, and I leave 
 you to the grave. May every recol- 
 lection 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 un- 
 moved, 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 appa- 
 rently quite abstracted from every 
 other object.
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY 
 
 2.S5 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 W HEREIN 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 
 outrigeously deaf," said Mr. Maiitalini, 
 " as deaf as a demnition post." 
 
 Mr. Mantalini had got by this time 
 into the passage, and was making his 
 way to the door of Ralph's office with 
 very little ceremony, when Newman 
 interposed his body ; and hinting that 
 Mr. Nickleby was unwilling to be dis- 
 tur1>ed, inquired whether the client's 
 business was of a pressing nature. 
 
 "It is most demnebly particular," 
 said Mr. Mantalini. " It is to melt 
 some scraps of dirty paper into bright, 
 shining, chinking, tinkling, demd mint 
 sauce." 
 
 Newman uttered a significant grunt, 
 and taking Mr. Mantalini's proffered 
 card, limped with it into his master's 
 office. As he thrust liis head in at 
 the door, he saw that Ralph had 
 resumed the thoughtful posture into 
 which he liad 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 slated it, the cause 
 himself swaggered into the room, and 
 grasping Ralph's horny hand with un- 
 common affection, vowed that he had 
 never seen him looking so well in all 
 his life. 
 
 " There is quite a bloom upon your 
 demd countenance," said Mr. Manta- 
 
 ini, seating himself unbidden, and 
 arranging his hair and whiskers. " You 
 look quite juvenile and jolly, demmit !" 
 
 " We are alone," returned Ralph, 
 tartly. "What do you want with 
 me?" 
 
 " Good ! " cried Mr. Mantalini, dis- 
 playing his teeth. " What did I want ! 
 Yes. Ha ha ! Very good. What did 
 I want. Ha ha ! Oh dcm ! " 
 
 " What do you want, man ? " de- 
 manded 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 1 " 
 
 " Demd trifling five-and-seventy." 
 
 And the dates ! " 
 
 " Two months, and four." 
 
 " I '11 do them for you mind, for 
 you ; I wouldn't for many people for 
 five-and-twenty pounds," said Ralph, 
 deliberately. 
 
 " Oh demmit ! " cried Mr. Mantalini, 
 whose face lengthened considerably at 
 this handsome proposal. 
 
 "Why, that leaves you fifty," re- 
 torted Ralph. "What would you 
 have \ Let me see the names." 
 
 " You are so demd hard, Nickleby," 
 remonstrated Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 " Let me see the names," replied 
 Ralph, impatiently extending his hand 
 for the bills. " Well ! They are not 
 sure, but they are safe enough. Do 
 you consent to the terms, and will you 
 take the money \ I don't want you to 
 do so. I would rather you didn't."
 
 256 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 "Demmit, Nickleby, can't you " 
 began Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 "No," replied Ralph, interrupting 
 him. "I can't. Will you take the 
 money down, mind ; no delay, no 
 going into the city and pretending to 
 negotiate with -some other party who 
 has no existence and never had. Is it 
 a bargain or is it not ? " 
 
 Ralph pushed some papers from him 
 as he spoke, and carelessly rattled his 
 cash-box, as though by mere accident. 
 The sound was too much for Mr. Man- 
 talini. He closed the bargain directly 
 it reached his ears, and Ralph told the 
 money out upon the table. 
 
 He had scarcely done so, and Mr. 
 Mantalini had not yet gathered it all 
 up, when a ring was heard at the bell, 
 and immediately afterwards Newman 
 ushered in no less a person than 
 Madame Mantalini, at sight of whom 
 Mr. Mautalini evinced considerable 
 discomposure, and swept the cash into 
 his pocket with remarkable alacrity. 
 
 " Oh, you arc here," said Madame 
 Mantalini, tossing her head. 
 
 " Yes, my life and soul, I am," re. 
 plied 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 indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "Ashamed of me, my joy! It 
 knows it is talking demd charming 
 sweetness, but naughty fibs," returned 
 Mr. Mantalini. "It knows it is not 
 ashamed of its own popolorum tibby." 
 
 Whatever were the circumstances 
 which had led to such a result, it cer- 
 tamly appeared as though the popolo- 
 rum tibby had rather miscalculated, 
 for the nonce, the extent of his lady's 
 affection. Madame Mantalini only 
 looked scornful in reply ; and, turning 
 to Ralph, begged him to excuse her 
 intrusion. 
 
 " Which is entirely attributable," 
 said Madame, " to the gross miscon- 
 duct and most improper behaviour of 
 Mr. Mantalini." 
 
 " Of me, my essential juice of pine- 
 apple ! " 
 
 " Of you," returned his wife. " But 
 I will not allow it. I will not submit 
 to be ruined by the extravagance and 
 profligacy of any man. I call Mr. 
 Nickleby to witness the course I in- 
 tend to pursue with you." 
 
 " Pray don't call me to witness any- 
 thing, ma'am," said Ralph. " Settle 
 it between yourselves, settle it between 
 yourselves." 
 
 " No, but I must beg you as a favour," 
 said Madame Mantalini, "to hear me 
 give hurl notice of what it is my fixed 
 intention to do my fixed intention 
 sir," repeated Madame Mantalini, 
 darting an angry look at her husband. 
 
 " Will she call me, ' Sir ' ! " cried 
 Mantalini. "Me who doat upon her 
 with the demdest ardour ! She, who 
 coils her fascinations 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 consider mine." 
 
 " I do not consider yours, my soul ! " 
 exclaimed Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 " No," replied his wife. 
 
 And notwithstanding various blan- 
 dishments on the part of Mr. Mantalini, 
 Madame Mantalini still said no, and 
 said it too with such determined and 
 resolute ill temper, that Mr. Mantalini 
 was clearly taken aback. 
 
 " His extravagance, Mr. Nickleby," 
 said Madame Mantalini, addressing her- 
 self to Ralph, who leant against his 
 easy-chair with his hands behind him, 
 and regarded the amiable couple with 
 a smile of the supremest and most 
 unmitigated contempt, " His extra- 
 vagance is beyond all bounds." 
 
 "I should scarcely have supposed 
 it," answered Ralph, sarcastically. 
 
 " I assure you, Mr. Nickleby, how- 
 ever, that it is," returned Madame 
 Mautalini. " It makes me miserable ; 
 I am under constant apprehension's, 
 and in constant difficulty. And even 
 this," said Madame Mantalini, wiping 
 her eyes, " is not the worst. He took
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 2 7 
 
 some papers of value out of my desk 
 this morning without asking my per- 
 mission." 
 
 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 tho papers I 
 have spoken of, into money, and as you 
 have assisted us very often before, and 
 are very much connected with us in 
 this kind of matters, I wish you to 
 know the determination at which his 
 conduct has compelled me to arrive." 
 
 Mr. Mantalini groaned once more 
 from behind his wife's bonnet, and 
 fitting a sovereign into one of his eyes, 
 winked with the other at Ralph. Hav- 
 ing 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 im- 
 patience manifested themselves in 
 Ralph's countenance, " to allowance 
 him." 
 
 " To <Io what, my joy 1 " inquired 
 Mr. Mautalini, who did not seem to 
 have caught the words. 
 
 " To put him," said Madame Man- 
 talini, looking at Ralph, and prudently 
 abstaining from the slightest glance at 
 her husband, lest his many graces 
 should induce her to falter in her reso- 
 lution, " to put him upon a fixed allow- 
 ance ; and I say that if he has a 
 hundred and twenty pounds a-ycar for 
 his clothes and pocket-money, he may 
 consider himself a very fortunate man." 
 
 Mr. Mantalini waited, with much 
 decorum, to hear the amount of the 
 proposed stipend, but when it reached 
 his ears, he cast his hat and cane upon 
 tho floor, and drawing out his pocket- 
 handkerchief, gave vent to his feelings 
 in a dismal moan. 
 
 "Demnition!" cried Mr. Mantalini, 
 suddenly skipping out of his chair, and 
 as suddenly skipping into it again, to 
 
 No. 48. 
 
 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 assur- 
 ance, Mr. .Mantalini closed his eyes and 
 waited patiently till such time as ho 
 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. Man- 
 talini, opening his eyes at the sound of 
 Ralph's voice, "it is a horrid reality. 
 She is sitting there before me. There 
 is the graceful outline of her form ; it 
 cannot be mistaken there is nothing- 
 like it. The two countesses had no 
 outlines at all, and the dowager's was 
 a demd outline. Why is she so excru- 
 ciatingly beautiful that I cannot be 
 angry with her, even now 1 " 
 
 " You have brought it upon yourself, 
 Alfred," returned Madame Mantaliui 
 still reproachfully, but in a softened 
 tone. 
 
 " I am a demd villain ! " cried Mr. 
 Mantalini, smiting himself on the head. 
 " I will fill my pockets with change for 
 a sovereign in halfpence, and drown 
 myself in the Thames ; but I will not 
 be angry with her, even then, for I will 
 put a note in the twopenny-post as I go- 
 along, to tell her where the body is. 
 She will be a lovely widow. I shall bo 
 a body. Some handsome women will 
 cry ; she will laugh demnebly." 
 
 " Alfred, you cruel, cruel, creature," 
 said Madame Mantalini, sobbing at the- 
 dreadful picture. 
 
 " She calls me cruel me me who- 
 for her sake will become a demd, damp, 
 moist, unpleasant body ! " exclaimed 
 Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 " You know it almost breaks tray 
 heart, even to hear you talk of such a 
 thing," replied Madame Mantalini. 
 
 " Can I live to be mistrusted 1 " 
 cried her husband. " Have I cut my 
 heart into a demd extraordinary num- 
 ber ot little pieces, arid given them all 
 away, one after another, to the same 
 little engrossing demnition captivater, 
 and can I live to be suspected by her I 
 Demmit, no I can't." 
 
 s 17
 
 2.18 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Ask Mr. Nickleby wnether the 
 gum 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 interfer- 
 ence of Ralph Nickleby ; and after a 
 great quantity of tears and talking, and 
 several attempts on the part of Mr. 
 Mantalini to reach the door, prepara- 
 tory to straightway committing violence 
 upon himself, that gentleman was pre- 
 vailed upon, with difficulty, to promise 
 that he wouldn't be a body. This 
 great point attained, Madame Manta- 
 lini argued the question of the allow- 
 ance, and Mr. Mantalini did the same, 
 taking occasion to show that he could 
 live with uncommon satisfaction upon 
 bread and water, and go clad in rags, 
 but that he could not support existence 
 with the additional burden of being 
 mistrusted by the object of his most 
 devoted and disinterested affection. 
 This brought fresh tears into Madame 
 Mantalini' s eyes, which having just 
 begun to open to some few of the 
 demerits of Mr. Mantalini, were only 
 open a very little way, and could be 
 easily closed again. The result was, 
 that without quite giving up the 
 allowance question, Madame Mantalini 
 postponed its further consideration ; 
 and Ralph saw, clearly enough, that 
 Mr. Mantalini had gained a fresh 
 lease of his easy life, and that, for 
 some time longer at all events, his 
 degradation and downfall were post- 
 poned. 
 
 " But it will come soon enough," 
 thought Ralph ; " all love bah ! that 
 I should use the cant of boys and gi rls 
 is fleeting enough ; though that whirh 
 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 blindnets and 
 is fed by vanity. Meantime, tin Tools 
 bring grist to my mill, so let then live 
 out their day, and the longer it is, the 
 better." 
 
 These agreeable reflections occurred 
 to Ralph Nickleby, as sundry small 
 caresses and endearments, supposed to 
 be unseen, were exchanged between the 
 objects of his thoughts. 
 
 " If you have nothing more to say, 
 my dear, to Mr. Nickleby," said Madame 
 Mantalini, "we will take our leaves. 
 I am sure we liave detained him, much 
 too long already." 
 
 Mr. Mantaliui answered, in the first 
 instance, by tapping Madame Mantalini 
 several times on the nose, and then, by 
 remarking in words that he had nothing 
 more to say. 
 
 "Demmit ! I have, though," he added 
 almost immediately, drawing Ralph 
 into a corner. " Here 's an affair about 
 your friend Sir Mulberry. Such a demd 
 extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of 
 thing as never was eh 1" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked Ralph. 
 
 " Don't you know, demmit I " asked 
 Mr. Mantalini. 
 
 "I see by the paper that he was 
 thrown from his cabriolet last night, 
 and severely injured, and that his life 
 is in some danger," answered Ralph 
 with great composure ; " but I see no- 
 thing extraordinary in that accidents 
 are not miraculous events, when men 
 live hard, and drive after dinner." 
 
 " Whew !" cried Mr. Mantalini in a 
 long shrill whistle. " Then don't you 
 know how it was !" 
 
 " Not unless it was as I have just 
 supposed," replied Ralph, shrugging 
 his shoulders carelessly, as if to give 
 his questioner to understand that ha 
 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 Nogjrs, which 
 had several times appeared behind a 
 couple of panes of glass in the room 
 door ; it being a part of Newman's 
 duty, when unimportant people called, 
 to make various feints of supposing 
 that die bell had rung for him to show 
 them out : by way of a gentle hint to 
 such visitors that it was time to go. 
 
 " Don't you know," said Mr. Manta-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 259 
 
 Eni, taking Ralph by the button, "that 
 it wasn't an accident at all, bat a denul, 
 furious, manslaughtering attack made 
 upon him by your nephew ? n 
 
 " What t" snarled Ralph, clenching 
 his fists and turning a livid white. 
 
 u Demmit, Nickleby, you 'ro as great 
 a tiger as he is," said Mantalini, alarmed 
 at those demonstrations. 
 
 " Go OB," cried Ralph. Tell me 
 what you mean. What is this story ! 
 Who told you T Speak, growled Ralph. 
 ** Do you hear me !" 
 
 'Gad, Nickleby," said Mr. Manta- 
 lini, retreating towards his wife, " what 
 a demneble fierce old evil genius you 
 are ! 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 manner." 
 
 " It is a demd uncomfortable, private- 
 madhouse-sort of a manner," said 
 Mr. Mantalini, picking up his cane. 
 
 Ralph affected to smile, and once 
 more inquired from whom Mr. Manta- 
 lini had derived his information. 
 
 " From Pyke ; and a demd, fine, 
 pleasant, gentlemanly dog it is," replied 
 MantaliiiL " Demnition pleasant, and 
 a tip-top sawyer." 
 
 " And what said he !" asked Ralph, 
 knitting his brows. 
 
 " That it happened this way that 
 TOOT nephew met him at a coffee- 
 boHse, fell upon him with the most 
 demneble ferocity, followed him to his 
 cab, swore he would ride home with 
 him, if he rode upon the horse's back 
 or hooked himself on to the horse's tail ; 
 smashed his countenance, which is a 
 demd fine countenance in its natural 
 state; frightened the horse, pitched 
 out Sir Mulberry and himself, and " 
 
 " And was killed \" interposed Ralph 
 with gleaming eyes. " Was be ? la 
 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 nn, or put his 
 shoulder out, or fractured his collar- 
 
 bone, or ground a rib or two ! His 
 neck was saved for the halter, but he 
 got some painful and slow-healing injury 
 for his trouble did he ? You must 
 have heard that, at least." 
 
 " No," rejoined Mantalini, shaking 
 his head again. " Unless he was dashed 
 into such little pieces that they blew 
 away, he wasn't hurt, for he went off 
 as quiet and comfortable as as as 
 demuition," said Mr. Mantalini, rather 
 at a loss for a simile. 
 
 " And what," said Ralph, hesitating 
 a little, " what was the cause of 
 quarrel ?" 
 
 " You are the demdest, knowing 
 hand," replied Mr. Mantalini, in an 
 admiring tone, " the cunningest, rum- 
 mest, superlativest old fox oh dem ! 
 to pretend now not to know that it 
 was the little bright-eyed niece tho 
 softest, sweetest, prettiest " 
 
 " Alfred !" interposed Madame Man- 
 talini. 
 
 " 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 
 tho streets with her own tulip, the 
 women shall say, with envy, she has 
 got a demd fine husband ; and the men 
 shall say with rapture, he has got a 
 demd fine wife ; and they shall both be 
 right and neither wrong, upon my life 
 and soul oh demmit ! " 
 
 With which remarks, and many 
 more, no less intellectual and to the 
 purpose, Mr. Mantalini kissed tho 
 fingers of his gloves to Ralph Nickle- 
 by, and drawing his lady's arm through 
 his, led her mincingly away. 
 
 " So, so," muttered Ralph, dropping 
 into his chair ; " this devil is loose 
 again, and thwarting me, as he was 
 born to do, at every turn. He told me 
 once there should be a day of reckon- 
 ing between us, sooner or later. I 'II 
 make him a true prophet, for it shall 
 surely come." 
 
 " Are you at home ? " asked New 
 man, suddenly popping in his head. 
 
 "No," replied Ralph, with equal 
 abruptness. 
 
 Newman withdrew hia head, then 
 thrust it in again. 
 
 s2
 
 260 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 " You 're quite sure you 're not at 
 home, are you 1 " said Newman. 
 
 " What does the idiot mean " 
 cried Ralph, testily. 
 
 " He has been waiting nearly ever 
 once they first came in, and may have 
 heard your voice that's all," said 
 Newman, rubbing his hands. 
 
 "Who has?" demanded Ralph, 
 wrought by the intelligence he had 
 just heard, and his clerk's provoking 
 coolness, to an intense pitch of irrita- 
 tion. 
 
 The necessity of a reply was super- 
 seded by the unlooked-for entrance of 
 a third party the individual in ques- 
 tion who, bringing his one eye (for 
 he had but one) to bear on Ralph 
 Nickleby, made a great many shamb- 
 ling bows, and sat himself down in an 
 arm-chair, with his hands on his knees, 
 and his short black trousers drawn up 
 so high in the legs by the exertion of 
 seating himself, that they scarcely 
 reached below the tops of his Welling- 
 ton boots. 
 
 " Why, this is a surprise !" said 
 Ralph, bending his gaze upon the 
 visitor, and half smiling as he scruti- 
 nized him attentively; " I should know 
 your face, Mr. Squeers." 
 
 " Ah ! " replied that worthy, " and 
 you 'd have know'd it better, sir, if it 
 hadn't been for all that I 've been a- 
 going through. Just lift that little 
 boy off the tall stool in the back office, 
 and tell him to come in here, will you, 
 my man ? " said Squeers, addressing 
 himself to Newman. " Oh, he's lifted 
 his-self off. My son, sir, little Wack- 
 ford. 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 scams, and make 
 the very buttons fly off with his fat- 
 ness ? Here's flesh !" cried Squeers, 
 turning the boy about, and indenting 
 the plumpest parts of his figure with 
 divers pokes and punches, to the great 
 discomposure of his son and lieu*. 
 " Here 's firmness, here 'a solidness ! 
 why you can hardly get up enough of 
 him between your finger and thumb to 
 pinch him anywheres." 
 
 In however good condition Master 
 
 Squeers might have been, he certainly 
 did not present this remarkable com- 
 pactness of person, for on his father' .s 
 closing his finger and thumb in illus- 
 tration of his remark, he uttered a 
 sharp cry, and rubbed the place in th<* 
 most natural manner possible. 
 
 " Well," remarked Squeers, a little 
 disconcerted, " I had him there ; but 
 that 's because we breakfasted early 
 this morning, and he hasn't had his 
 lunch yet. Why you couldn't shut a 
 bit of him in a door, when he 's had 
 his dinner. Look at them tears, sir," 
 said Squeers, with a triumphant air, as 
 Master Wackford wiped his eyes with 
 the cuff of his jacket, " there 's oili- 
 ness ! " 
 
 " He looks well, indeed," returned 
 Ralph, who, for some purposes of his 
 own, seemed desirous to conciliate the 
 schoolmaster. " But how is Mrs. 
 Squeers, and how are you ! " 
 
 "Mrs. Squeers, sir," replied the 
 proprietor of Dotheboys, " is as she 
 always is a mother to them lads, and 
 a blessing, and a comfort, and a joy to 
 all them as knows her. One of our 
 boys gorging his-self with vittles, and 
 then turning ill ; that 's their way got 
 a abscess on him last week. To see 
 how she operated upon him with a 
 pen-knife ! Oh Lor ! " said Squeers, 
 heaving a sigh, and nodding his head 
 a great many times, " what a member 
 of society that woman is ! " 
 
 Mr. Squeers indulged in a retro- 
 spective look, for some quarter of a 
 minute, as if this allusion to his lady's 
 excellences had naturally led his mind 
 to the peaceful village of Dotheboys 
 near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire ; and 
 then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for 
 him to say something. 
 
 " Have you quite recovered that 
 scoundrel's attack ! " asked Ralph. 
 
 " I 've only just done it, if I 've done 
 it now," replied Squeers. " I was one 
 blessed bruise, sir," said Squeers, 
 touching first the roots of his hair, and 
 then the toes of his boots, " from here 
 to there. Vinegar and brown paper, 
 vinegar and brown paper, from morn- 
 ing to night. I suppose there was a 
 matter of half a ream of brown pape?
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 261 
 
 stuck upon me, from first to last. As 
 I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, 
 plastered all over, you might have 
 thought I was a large brown paper 
 parcel, chock full of nothing but groans. 
 Did I groan loud, Wackford, or did I 
 groan soft ! " asked Mr. Squeers, ap- 
 pealing to his son. 
 
 " Loud," replied Wackford. 
 
 " Was the boys sorry to see me in 
 such a dreadful condition, Wackford, 
 or was they glad 1" asked Mr. Squeers, 
 in a sentimental manner. 
 
 Gl " 
 
 " Eh ! " cried Squeers, turning 
 sharp round. 
 
 " Sorry," rejoined his son. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Squeers, catching him 
 a smart box on the ear. " Then take 
 your hands out of your pockets, and 
 don't stammer when you 're asked a 
 question. Hold your noise, sir, in a 
 gentleman's office, or I '11 run away 
 from my family and never come back 
 any more ; and then what would be- 
 come of all them precious and forlorn 
 Kuls as woidd be let loose on the world, 
 without their best friend at their 
 clbers ! " 
 
 " Were you obliged to have medical 
 attendance ? " inquired Ralph. 
 
 " Ay, was I," rejoined Squeers, 
 " and a precious bill the medical at- 
 tendant brought in too ; but I paid it 
 though." 
 
 Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a 
 manner which might be expressive of 
 cither 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 
 toward the expenses ; " I wasn't out 
 of pocket by it after all, either." 
 
 No ! " said Ralph. 
 
 " Not a halfpenny," replied Squeers. 
 " The fact is, we have only one extra 
 with our boys, and that is for doctors 
 when required and not then, unless 
 we're sure of our customers. Do you 
 ce1" 
 
 " I understand," said Ralph. 
 
 "Very good," rejoined Squeers. 
 
 u 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 
 tlicy took it, and then the doctor came 
 and attended 'em once all round, and 
 we divided my total among 'em, and 
 added it on to their little bills, and the 
 parents paid it. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " And a good plan too," said Ralph, 
 eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily. 
 
 " 1 believe you," rejoined Squeers. 
 " We always do it. Why, when Mrs. 
 Squeers was brought to bed with 
 little Wackford here, we ran the hoop- 
 ing-cough through half-a-dozen boys, 
 and charged her expencea among 'em, 
 monthly nurse included. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha!" 
 
 Ralph never laughed, but on this 
 occasion he produced the nearest ap- 
 proach to it that he could, and waiting 
 until Mr. Squeers had enjoyed the 
 professional joke to his heart's con- 
 tent, enquired what had brought him 
 to. town. 
 
 " Some bothering law business," re- 
 plied Squeers, scratching his head, 
 "connected with an action, for what 
 they call neglect of a boy. I don't 
 know what they would have. He had 
 as good grazing, that boy had, as 
 there is about us." 
 
 Ralph looked as if he did not quite 
 understand the observation. 
 
 " Grazing," said Squeers, raising his 
 voice, under the impression that as 
 Ralph failed to comprehend him, ho 
 must be deaf. " When a boy gets 
 weak and ill and don't relish his meals, 
 we give him a change of diet turn 
 him out, for an hour or so every day, 
 into a neighbour's turnip field, or 
 sometimes, if it 's a delicate case, a 
 turnip field and a piece of carrots 
 alternately, and let him eat as many 
 as he likes. There an't better land in 
 the county than this perwerse lad 
 grazed on, and yet he goes and catches 
 cold and indigestion and what not, 
 and then his friends brings a law. 
 suit against me ! Now, you 'd hardly
 
 262 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 suppose," added Squeers, moving in his 
 chair with the impatience of an ill- 
 used man, " that people's ingratitude 
 would carry them quite as far as that; 
 would you I " 
 
 u A hard case, indeed," observed 
 Ralph. 
 
 " You don't say more than the 
 truth when you say that," replied 
 Squeers. " I don't suppose there 's a 
 man going, as possesses the fondness 
 for youth that I do. There 's youth 
 to the amount of eight hundred pound 
 a-year, at Dotheboys Hall at this pre- 
 sent time. I 'd take sixteen hundred 
 pound worth if I could get 'em, and 
 be as fond of every individual twenty 
 pound among 'em as nothing should 
 equal it ! " 
 
 " Are you stopping at your old 
 quarters ? " asked Ralph. 
 
 " Yes, we are at the Saracen," re- 
 plied Squeers, " and as it don't want 
 very long to the end of the half-year, 
 we shall coutinney 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 liave a word 
 with you," said Ralph, who had both 
 spoken and listened mechanically for 
 some time, and seemed to have been 
 thiuking. 
 
 " As many words as you like, sir," 
 rejoined Squeers. " Wackford, you 
 go and play in the back office, and 
 don't move about too much or you '11 
 get thin, and that won't do. You 
 haven't got such a thing as twopence, 
 Mr. Nickleby, have you ? " said 
 Squeers, rattling a bunch of keys in 
 his coat pocket, and muttering some- 
 thing 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. 
 
 " Tliankee," said Squeers, bestowing 
 it upon his son. " Here ! You go and 
 buy a tart Mr. Nickleby's man will 
 
 show you where and mind you buy a 
 rich one. Pastry," added Squeers, 
 closing the door on Master Wackford, 
 "makes his flesh shine a good deal, 
 and parents thinks that a healthy 
 sign." 
 
 With this explanation, and a pecu- 
 liarly 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, 11 said Ralph, 
 " that you are dolt enough to forgive or 
 forget, very readily, the violence that 
 was committed upon you, or the expo- 
 sure which accompanied it I " 
 
 " Devil a bit," replied Squeers, 
 tartly. 
 
 " Or to lose an opportunity of re- 
 paying it with interest, if you could get 
 one l . " said Ralph. 
 
 " Show me one, and try," rejoined 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Some such object it was, that in- 
 duced 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, be- 
 sides the trifle of money you sent, any 
 compensation " 
 
 "Ah!" cried Ralph, interrupting 
 him. " You needn't go on." 
 
 After & long pause, during which 
 Ralph appeared absorbed in contem- 
 plation, he again broke silence, by 
 asking : 
 
 " Who is this boy that he took with 
 him ?" 
 
 Squeers stated his name. 
 
 " Was he young or old, healthy or 
 sickly, tractable or rebellious ! Speak 
 out, man," retorted Ralph. 
 
 " Why, he wasn't young," answered 
 Squeers ; " that is, not young for a 
 boy, yon know." 
 
 " That is, he was not a boy at all, I 
 suppose ? " interrupted Ralph. 
 
 " Well," returned Squeers, briskly,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 AS if he felt relieved by the suggestion, 
 "he might have been nigh twenty. 
 He wouldn't seem so old, though, to 
 them as didn't know him, for he was 
 ft little wanting here," touching his 
 forehead ; " nobody at home you know, 
 If you knocked ever so often." 
 
 " And you did knock pretty often,! 
 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 die truth!" 
 
 " It is, worse luck !" replied Squeers, 
 becoming more and more easy and 
 familiar in his manner, as Ralph pur- 
 sued his enquiries with the less re- 
 serve. "It's fourteen years ago, by 
 the entry in my book, since a strange 
 man brought him to my place, one 
 autumn night, and left him there : 
 paying five pound five, for his first 
 quarter in advance. He might have 
 been five or six year old at that time 
 not more." 
 
 " What more do you know about 
 him P demanded Ralph. 
 
 " Devilish little, I 'm sorry to say," 
 replied Squeers. " The money was 
 paid, for some six or eight year, and 
 then it stopped. He had given an 
 address in London, had this chap; but 
 when it came to the point, of course 
 nobody knowed anything about him. 
 So I kept the lad out of out of " 
 
 " Charity ! " suggested Ralph drily. 
 
 " Charity, to be sure," returned 
 Squeers, rubbing his knees, "and 
 when he begins to be. useful in a 
 certain sort of a way, this young 
 scoundrel of a Nickleby comes and 
 carries him off. But the most vexa- 
 tious and aggeravating part of the 
 whole affair is," said Squeers, drop- 
 ping his voice, and drawing his chair 
 still closer to Ralph, " that some ques- 
 tions 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, per- 
 haps, 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, sup- 
 posing him to be a natural boy, as 
 many of our boys are damme, if 
 that villain of a Nickleby don't collar 
 him in open day, and commit as good 
 as highway robbery upon my pocket." 
 
 " We will both cry quits with him 
 before long," said Ralph, laying his 
 hand on the arm of the Yorkshire 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 " Quits !" echoed Squeers. "Ah I 
 and I should like to leave a small 
 balance in his favour, to be settled 
 when he can. I only wish Mrs. 
 Squeers could catch hold of him. Bless 
 her heart ! She'd murder him, Mr. 
 Nickleby she would, as soon as cat 
 her dinner." 
 
 We will talk of this again," said 
 Ralph. " I must have time to think 
 of it. To wound him through his own 
 
 affections and fancies . If I could 
 
 strike him through this boy " 
 
 " Strike him how you like, sir," in- 
 terrupted Squeers, " only hit him hard 
 enough, that's all and with that. I'll 
 say good morning. Here ! just chuck 
 that little boy's hat off that, corner- 
 peg, and lift him off the stool, 
 will you?" 
 
 Bawling these requests to Newman 
 Noggs, Mr. Squeers betook himself 
 to the little back office, and fitted on 
 his child's hat with parental anxiety, 
 while Newman, with his pen behind 
 his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on 
 his stool, regarding the father and son 
 by turns with a broad stare. 
 
 "He's a fine boy, an't he?" said 
 Squeers, throwing his head a little 
 on one side, and falling back to the 
 desk, the better to estimate the pro- 
 portions of little Wackford. 
 
 " Very," said Newman. 
 
 Pretty well swelled out, an't he I " 
 pursued Squeers. " He has the fat- 
 ness of twenty boys, he has." 
 
 " Ah ! " replied Newman, suddenly 
 thrusting his face into that of Squeers,
 
 SG4 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 rt he has ; the fatness of twenty ! 
 more ! He 's got it all. God help the 
 others. Ha ! ha ! Oh Lord ! " 
 
 Having uttered these fragmentary 
 observations, Newman dropped upon 
 his desk and began to write with most 
 marvellous rapidity. 
 
 " Why, what does the man mean 1 " 
 cried Squeers, colouring. " Is he 
 drank ? " 
 
 Newman made no reply. 
 
 " Is he mad I " 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 part- 
 ing observation, he led his hopeful son 
 away. 
 
 In exact proportion as Ralph 
 Nickleby became conscious of a strug- 
 gling and lingering regard for Kate, 
 had his detestation of Nicholas aug- 
 mented. It might be, that to atone 
 for the weakness of inclining to any 
 one person, he held it necessary to 
 hate some other, moz-e intensely than 
 before ; but such had been the course 
 of his feelings. And now, to be defied 
 and spurned, to be held up to her in 
 the worst and most repulsive colours, 
 to know that she was taught to hate 
 and despise him : to feel that there 
 was infection in his touch, and taint in 
 liis companionship to know all this, 
 and to know that the mover of it all, 
 was that same boyish poor relation 
 who had twitted him in their very 
 first interview, and openly bearded 
 
 and braved him since, wrought his 
 quiet and stealthy malignity to such a 
 pitch, that there was scarcely anything 
 he would not have hazarded to gratify 
 it, if he could have seen his way to 
 some immediate retaliation. 
 
 But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph 
 Nickleby did not ; and although he cast 
 about, all that day, and kept a corner 
 of his brain working on the one anxious 
 subject through all the rouudof schemes 
 and business that came with it, night 
 found him at last, still harping on tho 
 same theme, and still pursuing the same 
 unprofitable reflections. 
 
 " When my brother was such as he," 
 said Ralph, "the first comparisons 
 were drawn between us always in my 
 disfavour. He was open, liberal, gal- 
 lant, gay ; / a crafty hunks of cold 
 and stagnant blood, with no passion 
 but love of saving, and no spirit beyond 
 a thirst for gain. I recollected it well 
 when I first saw this whipster ; but I 
 remember it better now." 
 
 He had been occupied in tearing 
 Nicholas's letter into atoms ; and as he 
 spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower 
 about bun. 
 
 " Recollections like these," pursued 
 Ralph, with a bitter smile, " flock upon 
 me when I resign myself to them 
 in crowds, and from countless quarters. 
 As a portion of the world affect to 
 despise the power of money, I must 
 try and show them "what it is." 
 
 And being, by this time, in a pleasant 
 frame of mind for slumber, Ralph 
 Nickleby went to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 SMIIvE BECOMES KNOWN TO MRS. NICKLEBY AND KATE. NICHOLAS ALSO MEETS 
 WITH NEW ACQUAINTANCES. BRIGHTER DAYS SEEM TO DAWN UPON TUB 
 FAMILY. 
 
 HAVING established hismotherand sis- 
 ter 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 intelli- 
 gence of his protector. 
 
 " As he will be ons of our own little
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 CCS 
 
 household, wherever we live, or what- 1 everything was alive not dead like 
 
 ever fortune is in reserve for us," 
 thought Nicholas, "I must present the 
 poor fellow in due form. They will be 
 land 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 mis- 
 givings were confined to one person. 
 He was sure of Kate, but he knew his 
 mother's peculiarities, and was not 
 quite so certain that Smike would find 
 favour in the eyes of Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " However," thought Nicholas as he 
 departed on his benevolent errand ; 
 " she cannot fail to become attached to 
 him, when she knows what a devoted 
 creature he is, and as she must quickly 
 make the discovery, his probation \vill 
 be a short one." 
 
 " I was afraid," said Smike, over- 
 joyed to see his friend again, " that 
 you had fallen into some fresh trouble ; 
 
 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 I " 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Because / should change ; not those 
 about me. And if they forgot me, / 
 should never know it," replied Smike. 
 " In the churchyard we are all alike, 
 but here there are none like me. I am 
 a poor creature, but I know that." 
 
 " You are a foolish, silly creature," 
 said Nicholas cheerfully. " If that in 
 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 
 
 the time seemed so long, at last, that I j any particular four walls and a roof, 
 almost feared you were lost." God knows I should be sufficiently 
 
 " Lost ! " replied Nicholas gaily, puzzled to say whereabouts it lay ; but 
 ' You will not be rid of me so easily, that is not what I mean. When I 
 I promise yon. I shall rise to the a-.cak of home, I speak of the placo 
 surface many thousand times yet, and 
 the harder the thrust that pushes me 
 down, the more quickly I shall rebound, 
 
 where in default of a better those I 
 love are gathered together ; and if that 
 place were a gipsy's tent, or a barn, 1 
 
 Smike. But come ; my errand here is should call it by the same good name 
 to take you home." notwithstanding. And now, for what 
 
 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 1" 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 
 
 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 com- 
 panion by the arm, and saying a great 
 deal more to the same purpose, and 
 pointing out various things to amuse 
 and interest him as they went along, 
 led the way to Miss La Creevy's house. 
 
 " And this, Kate," said Nicholas, 
 entering the room where his sister sat 
 alone, "is the faithful friend and 
 affectionate fellow-traveller whom I 
 prepared you to receive." 
 
 Poor Smike was bashful, and awk- 
 ward, 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 bx-other had told her, and
 
 266 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 how much she had to thank him for 
 having comforted Nicholas so greatly 
 in their very trying reverses, that he 
 began to be very doubtful whether he 
 should shed tears or not, and became 
 still more flurried. However, he 
 managed to say, in a broken voice, 
 that Nicholas was his only friend, and 
 that he would lay down his life to help 
 him ; and Kate, although she was so 
 kind and considerate, seemed to be so 
 wholly unconscious of his distress and 
 embarrassment, that he recovered 
 almost immediately and felt quite at 
 home. 
 
 Then, Miss La Creevy came in ; and 
 to her, Smike had to be presented also. 
 And Miss La Creevy was very kind 
 too, and wonderfully talkative : not to 
 Smike, for that would have made him 
 uneasy at first, but to Nicholas and his 
 sister. Then, after a time, she would 
 speak to Smike himself now and then, 
 asking him whether he was a judge of 
 likenesses, and whether he thought 
 that picture in the corner was like her- 
 self, and whether he didn't think it 
 would have looked better if she had 
 made herself ten years younger, and 
 whether he didn't think, as a matter of 
 general observation, that young ladies 
 looked better,not only in pictures but out 
 of them too, than old ones ; with many 
 more small jokes and facetious remarks, 
 which were delivered with such good 
 humour and merriment, that Smike 
 thought, within himself, she was the 
 nicest lady he had ever seen ; even 
 nicer than Mrs. Grudden, of Mr. Vin- 
 cent Crummles's theatre : and she was 
 a nice lady too, and talked, perhaps 
 more, but certainly louder, than Miss 
 La Creevy. 
 
 At length the door opened again, and 
 a lady in mourning came in ; and Ni- 
 cholas kissing the lady in mourning 
 affectionately, and calling her his 
 mother, led her towards the chair from 
 which Smike had risen when she 
 entered the room. 
 
 " You are always kind-hearted, and 
 anxious to help the oppressed, my dear 
 mother," said Nicholas, "so you will 
 be favourably disposed towards him, I 
 know." 
 
 " I am sure, my dear Nicholas," re- 
 plied Mrs. Nickleby, looking very hard 
 at her new friend, and bending to him 
 with something more of majesty than 
 the occasion seemed to require, " I am 
 sure any friend of yours has, as indeed 
 he naturally ought to have, and must 
 have, of course, you know a great 
 claim upon me, and of course, it is a 
 very great pleasure to me to be intro- 
 duced to anybody 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, perhaps, the year 
 before last we should have been 
 better able to entertain him." 
 
 With which remarks, Mi's. Nickleby 
 turned to her daughter, and inquired, 
 in an audible whisper, whether the 
 gentleman was going to stop all night. 
 
 " Because if he is, Kate, my dear," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, " I don't see that 
 it 's possible for him to sleep anywhere, 
 and that 's the truth." 
 
 Kate stepped gracefully forward, and 
 without any show of annoyance or 
 irritation, breathed a few words into 
 her mother's ear. 
 
 " La, Kate, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, shrinking back, " how you do 
 tickle one. Of course, I understand 
 tJiat, my love, without your telling me ; 
 and I said the same to Nicholas, and 
 I am very much pleased. You didn't 
 tell me, Nicholas, my dear," added 
 Mrs. Nickleby, turning round with an 
 air of less reserve than she had before 
 assumed, " what your friend's name is," 
 
 " His name, mother," replied Ni- 
 cholas, " is Smike." 
 
 The effect of this communication was 
 by no means anticipated ; but the name 
 was no sooner pronounced, than Mrs. 
 Nickleby dropped upon a chair, and 
 burst into a fit of crying. 
 
 " What is the matter ! " exclaimed 
 Nicholas, running to support her.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 267 
 
 "It's so like Pyke," cried Mrs. 
 Nickleby ; " so exactly like Pyke. Oli ! 
 don't speak to me I shall be better 
 presently." 
 
 And after exhibiting every symptom 
 of slow suffocation, in all its stages, and 
 drinking about a tea-spoonful of water 
 from a full tumbler, and spilling the 
 remainder, Mrs. Nickleby was better, 
 and remarked, with a feeble smile, that 
 ibe was very foolish, she knew. 
 
 "It's a weakness in our family," 
 said Mrs. Nicaleby, "so, of course, I 
 can't be blamed for it. Your grand- 
 mama, Kate, was exactly the same 
 precisely. The least excitement, the 
 slightest surprise, .she fainted away 
 directly. 1 have heard her say, often 
 and often, that when she was a young 
 lady, and before she was married, she 
 was turning a corner into Oxford- 
 street one day. when she ran against 
 her own 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. NicUeby, pausing to con- 
 sider, " Let me be sure I 'm right. 
 Was it her hair-dresser who had es- 
 caped from a bear, or was it a bear 
 who had escaped from her hair- 
 dresser's ! I declare I can't remember 
 just now, but the hair-dresser was a 
 very handsome man, I know, and quite 
 a gentleman in his manners ; so that 
 it has nothing to do with the point of I 
 the story." 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby having fallen imper- 
 ceptibly 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 re- 
 markable for their strict application to 
 the subject in baud. 
 
 " Mr. Smike is from Yorkshire, 
 Nicholas, my dear I " said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, after dinner, and when she 
 had l>een silent for some time. 
 
 " Certainly, mother," replied Ni- 
 cholas. u I see you liave not forgotten 
 his melancholy history." 
 
 " O dear no," cried Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " Ah ! melancholy, indeed. You don't 
 happen, Mr. Smike, ever to liave dined 
 
 with the Grimbles of Grimble Hall, 
 somewhere in the Ncrth Riding, do 
 you '. " said the good lady, addressing 
 herself to him. " A very proud man, 
 Sir Thomas Grimble, with six grown- 
 up and most lovely daughters, and the 
 finest park in the county." 
 
 " My dear mother," reasoned Nicho- 
 las, " Do you suppose that the unfor- 
 tunate outcast of a Yorkshire school 
 was likely to receive many cards of 
 invitation from the nobility and gentry 
 in the neighbourhood i " 
 
 " Really, my dear, I don't know 
 why it should be so very extraordi- 
 nary," said Mrs. Nickleby. " 1 know 
 that when / was at school, I always 
 went at least twice every half-year to 
 the Hawkinses at Taunton Vale, and 
 they are much richer than the Grim- 
 bles, 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 forgetful- 
 ness of Smike's real name, and an 
 irresistible tendency to call him Mr. 
 Slamnions ; which circumstance she 
 attributed to the remarkable similarity 
 of the two names in point of sound, 
 both beginning with an S, and more- 
 over 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 cir- 
 cumstance had considerable influence 
 in placing them on the very best 
 terms, 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 foot- 
 ing, until the Monday morning, when 
 Nicholas withdrew himself from it for 
 a short time, seriously to reflect upon 
 die state of his affairs, and to deter- 
 mine, if he could upon some course of 
 life, which would enable him to sup- 
 port those who were so entirely de- 
 pendent 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,
 
 263 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 his mother was not ; and he foresaw a 
 thousand fretful objections, on her 
 part, to his seeking a livelihood upon 
 the stage. There were graver reasons, 
 too, against his returning to that mode 
 of life. Independently of those arising 
 out of its spare and precarious earn- 
 ings, and his own internal conviction 
 that he could never hope to aspire to 
 any great distinction, even as a pro- 
 vincial actor, how could he carry his 
 sister from town to town, and place to 
 place, and debar her from any other 
 associates than those with whom he 
 would be compelled, almost without 
 distinction, to mingle ? " It won't 
 do," said Nicholas, shaking his head ; 
 " I must try something else." 
 
 It was much easier to make this 
 resolution than to carry it into effect. 
 With no greater experience of the 
 world than he had acquired for him- 
 self hi his short trials ; with a suffi- 
 cient 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 
 eould he do ! a Egad ! " said Nicho- 
 las, "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 
 iaugh 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 en- 
 dowed 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 
 eemed 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 vir- 
 tuous servants in want of unimpeach- 
 able masters and mistresses, and the 
 aame maenificent estates for the in- 
 
 vestment of capital, and the sanio 
 enormous quantities of capital to be 
 invested in estates, and, in short, the 
 same opportunities of all sorts for 
 people who wanted to make their 
 fortunes. And a most extraordinary 
 proof it was of the national prosperity, 
 that people had not been found to 
 avail themselves of such advantages 
 long ago. 
 
 As Nicholas stopped to look in at 
 the window, an old gentleman hap- 
 pened to stop too ; and N fcholas, carry- 
 nig his eye along the window-panes 
 from left to right in search of some 
 capital-text placard, which should be 
 applicable to his own case, caught 
 sight of this old gentleman's figure, 
 and instinctively withdrew his eyes 
 from the window, to observe the same 
 more closely. 
 
 He was a sturdy old fellow in a 
 broad-skirted blue coat, made pretty 
 large, to fit easily, and with no parti- 
 cular waist; his bulky legs clothed in 
 drab breeches and high gaiters, and 
 his head protected by a low-crowned 
 broad-brimmed white hat, such as a 
 wealthy grazier might wear. He wore 
 his coat buttoned ; and his dimpled 
 double-chin rested in the folds of a 
 white neckerchief not one of your 
 stiff-starched apoplectic cravats, but 
 a good, easy, old-fashioned white 
 neck-cloth that a man might go to bed 
 hi and be none the worse for. But 
 what principally attracted the atten- 
 tion of Nicholas, was the old gentle- 
 man's eye, never was such a clear, 
 twinkling, honest, merry, happy eye, 
 as that. And there he stood, looking 
 a little upward, with one hand thrust 
 into the breast of his coat, and the 
 other playing with his old-fashioned 
 gold watch-chain : his head thrown a 
 little on one side, and his hat a little 
 more on one side than his head, (but 
 that was evidently accident; not his 
 ordinary way of wearing it,) with such 
 a pleasant smile playing about his 
 mouth, and such a comical expression 
 of mingled slyness, simplicity, kincl- 
 heartedhess,andgood-humour,lighting 
 up his jolly old 'face, that Nicholas 
 would have been content to have stood
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 there, and looked at him until evening, 
 and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that 
 there was such a thing as a soured 
 mind or a crabbed countenance to be 
 met with in the whole wide world. 
 
 But, even a very remote approach 
 to this gratification was not to be 
 made, for although he seemed quite 
 unconscious of having been the subject 
 of observation, he looked casually at 
 Nicholas; and the latter, fearful of 
 giving offence, resumed his scrutiny of 
 the window instantly. 
 
 Still, the old gentleman stood there, 
 glancing from placard to placard, 
 and Nicholas could not forbear raising 
 his eyes to his face again. Grafted 
 upon the quaintness and oddity of his 
 appearance, was something so inde- 
 scribably engaging, and bespeaking so 
 much worth, and there were so many 
 little lights hovering about the corners 
 of his mouth and eyes, that it was not 
 a mere amusement, but a positive 
 pleasure and delight to look at him. 
 
 This being the case, it is no wonder 
 that the old man caught Nicholas in 
 the fact, more than once. At such 
 times, Nicholas coloured and looked 
 embarrassed ; for the truth is, that he 
 had begun to wonder whether the 
 stranger could, by any possibility, be 
 looking for a clerk or secretary ; and 
 thinking this, he felt as if the old gen- 
 tleman must know it. 
 
 Long as all this takes to tell, it was 
 not more than a couple of minutes in 
 passing. As the stranger was moving 
 away, Nicholas caught his eye again, 
 and, in the awkwardness of the moment, 
 stammered out an apology. 
 
 "No offence Oh no offence!" 
 said the old man. 
 
 This was said in such a hearty tone, 
 and the voice was so exactly what it 
 should have been from such a speaker, 
 and there was such a cordiality in the 
 manner, that Nicholas was emboldened 
 to speak again. 
 
 * A great many opportunities here, 
 sir," he said, half-smiling as he 
 motioned towards the window. 
 
 "A great many people willing 
 and anxious to be employed have 
 seriously thought, so very often, I dare 
 
 say," replied the old man. "Poor 
 fellows, poor fellows 1" 
 
 He moved away, as he said this ; 
 but, seeing that Nicholas was about 
 to speak, good-naturedly slackened 
 his pace, as if he were unwilling to> 
 cut him short. After a little of that 
 hesitation which may be sometimes- 
 observed between two people in tho 
 street who have exchanged a nod, and 
 are both uncertain whetlier 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 advertise- 
 ments," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Ay, ay ? what object now what 
 object ? " returned the old man, look- 
 ing slyly at Nicholas. " Did you think 
 I wanted a situation now Eli 1 Did 
 you think I did 1" 
 
 Nicholas shook his head. 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" laughed the old gentle- 
 man, rubbing his hands and wrists as 
 if he were washing them. " A very 
 natural thought, at all events, after- 
 seeing me gazing at those bills. I 
 thought the same of you, at first, upon 
 my word I did." 
 
 " If you had thought so at last, too, 
 sir, you would not have been far from 
 the truth," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " Eh \ " cried the old man, surveying 
 him from head to foot. " What ! 
 Dear me ! No, no. Well-behaved 
 young gentleman reduced to such a. 
 necessity ! No no, no no." 
 
 Nicholas bowed, and bidding him 
 good morning, turned upon his heel. 
 
 " Stay," said the old man, beckoning- 
 him into a bye street, where they could 
 converse with less interruption. "What 
 d'ye mean, eh I" 
 
 " Merely that yonr 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.
 
 270 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Good ! It it a wilderness," said the 
 old man with much animation. " It 
 was a wilderness to me once. I came 
 here barefoot I have never forgotten 
 it Thank God ! " and he raised his hat 
 from his head, and looked very grave. 
 
 What *s the matter what is it 
 how did it all come about 1 " said 
 the old man, layiug 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 gentle- 
 man, "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 
 rmd guileless in the way hi which all 
 this was said, and such a complete 
 disregard of all conventional restraints 
 and coldnesses, that Nicholas could 
 not resist it. Among men who have 
 any sound and sterling qualities, there 
 is nothing so contagious as pure open- 
 ness 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 Ins 
 own. 
 
 u 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 extra- 
 ordinary condition of restless excite- 
 ment, 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 farther inter- 
 ruption. Into the city they journeyed 
 accordingly, without interchanging 
 any conversation ; and the farther 
 they went, the more Nicholas wondered 
 what the end of the adventure could 
 possibly be. 
 
 The old gentleman got out, with great 
 alacrity, when they reached the Bank, 
 and once more taking Nicholas by the 
 arm, hurried him along Threadneedle 
 Street, and through some lanes and 
 passages on the right, until they, at 
 length, emerged in a quiet shady little 
 square. Into the oldest and cleanest- 
 looking house of business in the square, 
 he led the way. The only inscription 
 on the door-post was " Cheeryble, 
 Brothers ;" but from a hasty glance 
 at the directions of some packages 
 which were lying about, Nicholas 
 supposed that the Brothers Cheery ble 
 were German-merchants. 
 
 Passing through a warehouse which 
 presented every indication of a thriving 
 business, Mr. Cheeryble (for such 
 Nicholas supposed him to be, from 
 the respect which had been shown 
 him by the warehousemen and porters 
 whom they passed) led him into a 
 little parti tioned-off counting-house 
 like a large glass case, in which 
 counting-house there sat as free from 
 dust and blemish as if he had been 
 fixed into the glass case before the 
 top was put on, and had never come 
 out since a fat, elderly, large-faced, 
 clerk, with silver spectacles and a 
 powdered head. 
 
 " Is my brother in his room, Tim ! " 
 said Mr. Cheeryble, with no less kind-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 271 
 
 ness of manner tlian 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 
 la with him." 
 
 " Ay ! And what has he come about, 
 Tim f " said Mr. Cheeryble. 
 
 " He is getting up a subscription for 
 the widow and family of a man who 
 was killed in the East India Docks 
 this morning, sir," rejoined Tim. 
 " Smashed, sir, by a cask of sugar." 
 
 " He is a good creature," said Mr. 
 Cheeryble, with great earnestness. 
 " He is a kind soul I am very much 
 obliged to Trimmers. Trimmers is 
 one of the best friends we liave. He 
 makes a thousand cases known to us 
 that we should never discover of 
 ourselves. I am rery much obliged 
 to Trimmers." Saying which, Mr. 
 Cheeryble rubbed his hands with in- 
 finite delight, and Mr. Trimmers hap- 
 pening to pass the door that instant, ou 
 his way out, shot out after him and 
 caught him by the hand. 
 
 " 1 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 ponnds." 
 
 " My brother Ned is a good fellow, 
 and you're a good fellow too, Trim- 
 mers," said the old man, shaking him 
 by both hands with trembling eager- 
 ness. " Put me down for another 
 twenty or stop a minute, stop a 
 minute. We mustn't look ostenta- 
 tious ; pot mo down ten pound, and , 
 Tun Lin kin water ten pound. A cheque 
 for twenty pound for Mr. Trimmers, 
 Tim. God bless you, Trimmers and 
 come and dine with as some day this 
 week ; you'll always find a knife and 
 fork, and we shall be delighted. Now, 
 my dear eir cheque for Mr. Liu kin- 
 water, Tim. Smashed by a cask of 
 
 sugar, and six poor children oh dear, 
 dear, dear ! " 
 
 Talking on in this strain, as fast 
 as he could, to prevent any friendly 
 remonstrances from the collector of 
 the subscription on the large amount 
 of his donation, Mr. Cheeryble led 
 Nirhi>l:is, equally astonished and af- 
 fected by what he had seen and heard 
 in tliis short space, to the half-opened 
 door of another room. 
 
 " Brother Ned," said Mr. Cheeryble, 
 tapping with his knuckles, and stooping 
 to listen, "are you busy, my dear 
 brother, or can you spare tune 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 iu 
 directly." 
 
 They went in, without further parley. 
 What was the amazement of Nicholas 
 when his conducter advanced, and ex- 
 changed a warm greeting with another 
 old gentleman, the very type and model 
 of himself the same face, the same 
 figure, the same coat, waistcoat, and 
 neckcloth, the same breeches and 
 gaiters nay, there was the very 
 same white hat hanging against the 
 wall ! 
 
 As they shook each other by the 
 hand : the face of each lighted up by 
 beaming looks of affection, which would 
 have been most delightful to behold in 
 infants, and which, in men so old, was 
 inexpressibly touching : Nicholas could 
 observe that the last old gentleman 
 was something stouter than his 
 brother ; this, and a slight additional 
 shade of clumsiness in his gait and 
 stature, formed the only perceptible 
 difference between them. Nobody 
 could have doubted their being twin 
 brothers. 
 
 "Brother Ned," said Nicholas's 
 friend, closing the room-door, "here 
 is a young friend of mine, that we 
 must assist We must make proper 
 inquiries into his statements, in justice 
 to him as well as to ourselves, and if 
 they arc confirmed as 1 feel assured
 
 272 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 they will be we must assist him ; we 
 must assist him, brother Ned." 
 
 " It is enough, my clear brother, 
 that you say we should," returned the 
 other. " When you say that, no 
 further inquiries are needed. He shall 
 be assisted. What are his necessities, 
 and what does he require ? Where is 
 Tim Linkinwater ? Let us have him 
 here." 
 
 Both the brothers, it may be here 
 remarked, had a very emphatic and 
 earnest delivery ; both had lost nearly 
 the same teeth, which imparted the 
 same peculiarity to their speech ; and 
 both spoke as if, besides possessing the 
 utmost serenity of mind that the kind- 
 liest and most unsuspecting nature 
 couldbestow, they had, in collecting the 
 plums from Fortune's choicest pudding, 
 retained a few for present use, and 
 kept them in their mouths. 
 
 " Where is Tun Linkinwater ? " 
 said brother Ned. 
 
 " Stop, stop, stop ! " said brother 
 Charles, taking the other aside. " I've 
 a plan, my dear brother, I've a plan. 
 Tim is getting old, and Tim has been 
 a faithful servant, brother Ned ; and 
 I don't think pensioning Tim's mother 
 and sister, and buying a little tomb 
 for the family when his poor brother 
 died, was a sufficient recompense for 
 his faithful services." 
 
 u 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 'a three good years 
 our senior now. Old Tim Linkinwater 
 young again ! Eh, brother Ned, eh ! 
 Why, I recollect old Tim Linkinwater 
 quite a little boy, don't you ? Ha, ha, 
 ha ! Poor Tim, poor Tim ! " 
 
 And the fine old fellows laughed 
 pleasantly together : each with a tear 
 of regard for old Tun Linkinwater, 
 standing in his eye. 
 
 " But hear this first hear this first, 
 brother Ned," said the old man, hastily, 
 placing two chairs, one on each side of 
 Nicholas. " I '11 tell it you myself, 
 brother Ned, because the young gen- 
 tleman is modest, and is a scholar, 
 Ned, and I shouldn't feel it right that 
 he should tell us his story over and 
 over again as if he was a beggar, or 
 as if we doubted him. No, no, no." 
 
 " No, no, no," returned the other, 
 nodding his head gravely. " Very 
 right, my dear brother, very right." 
 
 " He will tell me I 'm wrong, if I 
 make a mistake," said Nicholas's 
 friend. " But whether I do or not, 
 you '11 be very much affected, brother 
 Ned, remembering the time when we 
 were two friendless lads, and earned 
 our first shilling in this great city." 
 
 The twins pressed each other's hands 
 in silence ; and, in his own homely 
 manner, brother Charles related the 
 particulars he had heard from Nicholas. 
 The conversation which ensued, was a 
 long one, and when it was over, a secret 
 conference of almost equal duration 
 took place between brother Ned and 
 Tim Linkinwater in another room. 
 It is no disparagement to Nicholas to 
 say, that before he had been closeted 
 with the two brothers ten minutes, 
 he could only wave his hand at every 
 fresh expression of kindness and sym- 
 pathy, 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, pre- 
 paratory to hearing what more the 
 brothers Cheery ble 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 nod- 
 ded, and said he did, drew himself op
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 273 
 
 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, cer- 
 tainly. Pho ! " 
 
 " Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkin- 
 water," 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 Linkin- 
 water, what do you mean, rir ! " 
 
 "It's forty-four year," said Tim, 
 making a calculation in the air with 
 his pen, and drawing an imaginary 
 line before he cast it up, " forty-four 
 year, next May, since I first kept the 
 books of Cheeryble Brothers. I've 
 opened the safe every morning all that 
 time (Sundays excepted) as the clock 
 struck nine, and gone over tin- house 
 every night at half-past ten (except 
 on Foreign Post nights, and then 
 twenty minutes before twelve) to see 
 the doors fastened, and the fires out. 
 I 've never slept out of the back attic 
 one single night. There's the same 
 mignionette box in the middle of the 
 window, and the same four flower- 
 pots, two on each side, that I brought 
 with me when I first came. There 
 an't I Ve said it again and again, and 
 I '11 maintain it there an't such a 
 square as this, in the world. I know 
 there an't," said Tim, with sudden 
 energy, and looking sternly about him. 
 " Not one. For business or pleasure, 
 in summer time or winter I don't 
 care which there 's nothing like it. 
 There 's not such a spring in England 
 as the pump under the archway. 
 There 's not such a view in England 
 as the view out of my window ; I 'ye 
 seen it every morning before I shaved, 
 and I ought to know something about 
 it. I have slept in that room," added 
 Tim, sinking his voice a little, " for 
 four-and-forty year ; and if it wasn't 
 inconvenient, and didn't interfere with 
 
 No. 49 
 
 business, I should request leave to die 
 there." 
 
 " Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how 
 dare you talk about dying ? " roared 
 the twins by one impulse, and blowing 
 their old noses violently. 
 
 " That 's what I 've got to say, Mr. 
 Edwin and Mr. Charles," said Tim, 
 squaring his shoulders again. " This 
 isn't the first time you 've talked about 
 superannuating me ; but, if you please, 
 we '11 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. Ho 
 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 & 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. Wo 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 brother, we are keeping our 
 young friend ; and the poor lady and 
 her daughter will be anxious for his 
 return. So let us say good-bye for 
 the present, and there, there take 
 care of that box, my dear sir and 
 no, no, no, not a word now ; but be 
 careful of the crossings and " 
 
 And with any disjointed and uncon- 
 nected words which would prevent 
 Nicholas from pouring forth his thanks, 
 the brothers hurried him out ; shaking 
 hands with him all the way, and affect- 
 ing very unsuccessfully they were 
 poor hands at deception ! to be 
 
 T 18
 
 274 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 wholly unconscious of the feelings thai 
 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 door- 
 way-corner in which he had been 
 compelled to halt, he caught a glimpse 
 of the twins stealthily peeping in al 
 one corner of the glass-case, evidently 
 undecided whether they should follow 
 up their late attack without delay, or 
 for the present postpone laying further 
 siege to the inflexible Tim Linkin- 
 water. 
 
 To recount all the delight and won- 
 der which the circumstances just de- 
 tailed awakened at Miss La Creevy's, 
 and all the things that were done, said, 
 thought, expected, hoped, and prophe- 
 sied in consequence, is beside the pre- 
 sent course and purpose of these ad- 
 ventures. It is sufficient to state, in 
 brief, that Mr. Timothy Linkinwater 
 arrived, punctual to his appointment ; 
 that, oddity as he was, and jealous as 
 he was bound to be, of the proper ex- 
 ercise of his employers' most compre- 
 hensive liberality, he reported strongly 
 and warmly in favour of Nicholas ; 
 and that, next day, he was appointed to 
 the vacant stool in the counting-house 
 of Cheeryble, Brothers, with a present 
 salary of one hundred and twenty 
 pounds a year. 
 
 " And I think, my dear brother," 
 said Nicholas's first friend, "that if 
 we were to let them that little cottage 
 at Bow which is empty, at something 
 under the usual rent, now Eh, 
 brother Ned ? " 
 
 " For nothing at all," said brother 
 Ned. "We are rich, and should be 
 ashamed to touch the rent under such 
 circumstances as these. Where is 
 Tim Linkinwater! for nothing at 
 all, my dear brother, for nothing at 
 all." 
 
 " Perhaps it would be better to say 
 something, brother Ned," suggested 
 the other, mildly ; " it would help to 
 preserve habits of frugality, you know, 
 and remove any painful sense of 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 se- 
 cretly 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 J " 
 
 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-hearted, 
 ness. 
 
 There surely never was sucn a week 
 of discoveries and surprises as the 
 first week of that cottage. Every 
 night when Nicholas came home, some- 
 thing 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 parlour 
 closet at the bottom of the water-butt, 
 and so on through a hundred items. 
 Then, this room was embellished with 
 a muslin curtain, and that room was 
 rendered quite elegant by a window- 
 blind, and such improvements were 
 made, as no one would have supposed 
 possible. Then, there was Miss La 
 Creevy, who had come out in the om- 
 nibus to stop a day or two and help, 
 and who was perpetually losing a very 
 small brown paper parcel of tin tacks 
 and a very large hammer, and running 
 about with her sleeves tucked up at 
 the wrists, and falling off pairs of 
 steps and hurting herself very much 
 md Mrs. Nickleby, who talked in- 
 cessantly, and did something now and 
 then, but not often and Kate, who 
 busied herself noiselessly everywhere, 
 and was pleased with everything 
 and Smike, who made the garden a 
 perfect wonder to look upon and 
 Nicholas, who helped and encouraged 
 them every one all the peace and 
 heerfulness of home restored, with 
 such new zest imparted to every frugal
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 275 
 
 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. 
 
 PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL J RELATING TO FAMILY MATTERS. SHOWING HOW 
 MR. KENWIGS UNDERWENT VIOLENT AGITATION, AND HOW MIIS. KENWIGS 
 WAS AS WELL AS COULD BE EXPECTED. 
 
 IT might have been seven o'clock in 
 the evening, and it was growing dark 
 in the narrow streets near Golden 
 Square, when Mr. Kenwigs sent out 
 for a pair of the cheapest white kid 
 gloves those at fourteenpence and 
 selecting the strongest, which happened 
 to be the right-hand one, walked down 
 stairs, with an air of pomp and much 
 excitement, and proceeded to muffle 
 the knob of the street-door knocker 
 therein. Having executed this task 
 with great nicety, Mr. Kenwigs 
 pulled the door to, after him, and 
 just stepped across the road to try the 
 effect from the opposite side of the 
 street. Satisfied that nothing could 
 possibly look better in its way, Mr. 
 Kenwigs then stepped back again, and 
 calling through the keyhole to Mor- 
 leena to open the door, vanished into 
 the house, and was seen no longer. 
 
 Now, considered as an abstract cir- 
 cumstance, there was no more obvious 
 cause or reason why Mr. Kenwigs 
 should take the trouble of muffling 
 this particular knocker, than there 
 would have been for his muffling the 
 knocker of any nobleman or gentleman 
 resident ten miles off; because, for 
 the greater convenience of the nume- 
 rous lodgers, the street-door always 
 stood wide open, and the knocker was 
 never used at all. The first floor, the 
 second floor, and the third floor, had 
 each a bell of its own. As to the 
 attics, no one ever called on them ; if 
 anybody wanted the parlours, they 
 were close at hand, and all he had to 
 do was to walk straight into them ; 
 while the kitchen had a separate en- 
 trance down the area steps. As a ques- 
 
 tion of mere necessity and usefulness, 
 therefore, this muffling of the knocker 
 was thoroughly incomprehensible. 
 
 But, knockers may be muffled for 
 other purposes than those of mere 
 utilitarianism, as, in the present in- 
 stance, was clearly shown. There are 
 certain polite forms and ceremonies 
 which must be observed in civilised 
 life, or mankind relapse into their 
 original barbarism. No genteel lady 
 was ever yet confined indeed, no 
 genteel confinement can possibly take 
 place without the accompanying 
 symbol of a muffled knocker. Mrs. 
 Kenwigs was a lady of some preten- 
 sions to gentility ; Mrs. Kenwigs was 
 confined. And, therefore, Mr. Ken- 
 wigs tied up the silent knocker on the 
 premises in a white kid glove. 
 
 " I'm not quite certain neither," 
 said Mr. Keuwigs, 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 neighbourhood, 
 Mr. Kenwigs betook himself to the 
 sitting-room, where various extremely 
 diminutive articles of clothing were 
 airing on a horse before the tire, 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 1 " returned Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 " It 's the finest boy I ever saw in 
 all my life," said the doctor. I never 
 saw such a baby." 
 
 T2
 
 276 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, 
 and furnishes a complete answer to 
 those who contend for the gradual de- 
 generation of the human species, that 
 every baby born into the world is a 
 finer one than the last. 
 
 " I ne ver saw such a baby," said 
 Mr. Lumbey, the doctor. 
 
 " Morleena was a fine baby," re- 
 marked 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 
 .ook. Whether he was considering 
 under what head he could best charge 
 the nursing hi the bill, was best known 
 to himself. 
 
 During this short conversation, 
 Miss Morleena, as the eldest of the 
 family, and natural representative of 
 her mother during her indisposition, 
 had been hustling and slapping the 
 three younger Miss Kenwigses, with- 
 out intermission ; which considerate 
 and affectionate conduct brought tears 
 into the eyes of Mr. Kenwigs, and 
 caused him to declare that, in under- 
 standing and behaviour, that child was 
 a woman. 
 
 " She will be a treasure to the man 
 she marries, sir," said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 half aside ; "I think she '11 marry 
 above her station, Mr. Lumbey." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder at all," replied 
 the doctor. 
 
 " You never see her dance, sir, did 
 you ! " asked Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 " Ay ! " said Mr. Kenwigs, as though 
 he pitied him from his heart, " then 
 you don't know what she's capable of." 
 
 All this time, there had been a great 
 whisking in and out of the other room; 
 the door had been opened and shut 
 very softly about twenty times a 
 minute, (for it was necessary to keep 
 Mrs. Kenwigs quiet) ; and the baby 
 had been exhibited to a score or two 
 of deputations from a select body of 
 female friends, who had assembled in 
 Che 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 condi- 
 tion 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 yes- 
 terday, exactly when it would come to 
 pass ; others, again, related, how that 
 they guessed what it was, directly they 
 saw Mr. Kenwigs turn pale and run 
 up the street as hard as ever he could 
 go. Some said one thing, and some 
 another ; but all talked together, and 
 all agreed upon two points : first, that 
 it was very meritorious and highly 
 praiseworthy in Mrs. Kenwigs, to do 
 as she had done : and secondly, that 
 there never was such a skilful and 
 scientific doctor as that Doctor Lum- 
 bey. 
 
 In the midst of this general hub- 
 bub, Doctor Lumbey sat in the first 
 floor front, as before related, nursing 
 the deposed baby, and talking to 
 Mr. Kenwigs. He was a stout bluff- 
 looking gentleman, with no shirt-collar, 
 to speak of, and a beard that had been 
 growing since yesterday morning ; for 
 Doctor Lumbey was popular, and the 
 neighbourhood was prolific ; and there 
 had been no less than three other 
 knockers muffled, one after the other, 
 within the last forty-eight hours. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Kenwigs," said Dr. 
 Lumbey, " this makes six. You '11 
 have a fine family in time, sir." 
 
 " I think six is almost enough, sir," 
 returned Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! " said the doctor. 
 " Nonsense ! not half enough." 
 
 With this, the doctor laughed ; but 
 he didn't laugh half as much as a 
 married friend of Mrs. Kenwigs's, 
 who had just come in from the sick- 
 chamber, to report progress, and take 
 a small sip of brandy-and-water : and 
 who seemed to consider it one of the 
 best jokes ever launched upon society. 
 
 " They 're not altogether dependent 
 upon good fortune, neither," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, taking his second daughter 
 on his knee ; " they have expecta- 
 tions."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 277 
 
 * Oh, indeed ! " said Mr. Lumbey, 
 the doctor. 
 
 " And very good ones too, I believe, 
 haven't they ! " asked the married 
 lady. 
 
 " Why, ma'am," said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 " it 's not exactly for me to say what 
 they may be, or what they may not be. 
 It 's not for me to boast of any family 
 with which I have the honour to be 
 connected ; at the same time, Mrs. 
 
 Kenwigs's is 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- 
 dred pound a-piece, perhaps. Perhaps 
 more, but certainly that" 
 
 " And a very pretty little fortune," 
 said the married lady. 
 
 " There are some relations of Mrs. 
 Kenwigs's," said Mr. Kenwigs, taking 
 a pinch of snuff from the doctor's box, 
 and then sneezing very hard, for he 
 wasn't used to it, "that might leave 
 their hundred pound a-piece to ten 
 people, and yet not go begging 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 mention of no names," 
 said Mr. Kenwigs, with a portentous 
 look. " Many of my friends have met 
 a relation of Mrs. Kenwigs's in this 
 very room, as would do honour to any 
 company ; that 's all." 
 
 " I 've met him," said the married 
 lady, with a glance towards 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 children," pursued Mr. Ken- 
 wigs. " It 's naterally very gratifying 
 to my feelings as a man, to know that 
 man. It will be naterally very grati- 
 fying 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 ar- 
 ranged his second daughter's flaxen 
 tail, and bade her be a good girl and 
 mind what her sister, Morleena, said. 
 
 " That girl grows more like her 
 mother every day," said Mr. Lumbey, 
 suddenly stricken with an enthusiastic 
 admiration of Morleena. 
 
 " There ! " rejoined the married 
 lady. "What I always say what 
 I always did say ! She 's the very picter 
 of her." Having thus directed the 
 general attention to the young lady in 
 question, the married lady embraced 
 the opportunity of taking another sip 
 of the brandy -and-water and a pretty 
 long sip too. 
 
 "Yes! there is a likeness," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, after some reflection. " But 
 such a woman as Mrs. Kenwigs was, 
 afore she was married ! Good gracious, 
 such a woman ! " 
 
 Mr. Lumbey shook his head with 
 great solemnity, as though to imply 
 that he supposed she must have been 
 rather a dazzler. 
 
 " Talk of fairies ! " cried Mr. Ken- 
 wigs. " / never see anybody so light 
 to be alive never. Such manners 
 too ; so playful, and yet so sewerely 
 proper 1 As for her figure ! It isn't 
 generally known," said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 dropping his voice ; " but her figure 
 was such, at that time, that the sign of 
 the Britannia over in the Holloway 
 road, was painted from it ! " 
 
 " But only see what it is now," 
 urged the married lady. " Does she 
 look like the mother of six?" 
 
 " Quite ridiculous," cried the doctor. 
 
 " She looks a deal more like her own 
 daughter," said the married lady. 
 
 " So she does," assented Mr. Lum- 
 bey. " A great deal more." 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs was about to make 
 some further observations, most pro- 
 bably in confirmation of this opinion, 
 when another married lady, who had 
 looked in to keep up Mrs. Kenwigs' 
 spirits, and help to clear off anything 
 in the eating and drinking way that 
 might be going about, put in her head 
 to announce that she had just been 
 down to answer the bell, and that 
 there was a gentleman at the door who 
 wanted to see Mr. Kenwigs "most 
 particular." 
 
 Shadowy visions of his distinguished 
 relation flitted through the braiu of
 
 278 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs, as this message was 
 delivered ; and under their influence, 
 he despatched Morleena to show the 
 gentleman up straightway. 
 
 " Why, I do declare," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, standing opposite the door so 
 as to get the earliest glimpse of the 
 visitor, as he came up-stairs, " it 's 
 Mr. Johnson ! How do you find your- 
 self, sir ! " 
 
 Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old 
 pupils all round, entrusted 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 apolo- 
 gies to you for calling at such a sea- 
 son," said Nicholas, "but I was not 
 aware of it until I had rung the bell, 
 and my time is so fully occupied now, 
 that I feared it might be some days 
 before I could possibly come again." 
 
 " No time like the present, sir," 
 said Mr. Kenwigs. " The sitiwation of 
 Mrs. Kenwigs, sir, is no obstacle to a 
 little conversation between you and 
 me, I hope ? " 
 
 " You are very good," said Nicholas. 
 
 At this juncture, proclamation was 
 made by another married lady, that 
 the baby had begun to eat like any- 
 thing ; whereupon the two married 
 ladies, already mentioned, rushed tu- 
 multuously 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 un- 
 dertook to deliver a message to you," 
 
 " Ay, ay \ " said Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 " And I have been," added Ni- 
 cholas, " already in town for some 
 days, without having had an opportu- 
 nity of doing so." 
 
 u It 's no matter, sir," said Mr. Ken- 
 wigs. " I dare say it 's none the worse 
 for keeping cold. Message from the 
 country ! " said Mr. Kenwigs, rumi- 
 nating; "that's curious. I don't 
 know anybody in the country." 
 
 " Miss Petowfcer," HUggested Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Oh ! from her, is it 1 " said Mr. 
 Kenwigs. " Oh dear, yes. Ah ! Mrs. 
 Kenwigs will be glad to hear from her. 
 Henrietta Petowker, eh ? How odd 
 things come about, now ! That yon 
 should have met her in the country 
 Well ! " 
 
 Hearing this mention of their old 
 friend's name, the four Miss Ken- 
 wigses gathered round Nicholas, open 
 eyed and mouthed, to hear more. Mr. 
 Kenwigs looked a little curious too, 
 but quite comfortable and unsuspecting. 
 
 " The message relates to family 
 matters," said Nicholas, hesitating. 
 
 "Oh, never mind," said Kenwigs, 
 glancing at Mr. Lumbey, who having 
 rashly taken charge of little Lillyvick, 
 found nobody disposed to relieve him 
 of his precious burden. " All friends 
 here." 
 
 Nicholas hemmed once or twice, 
 and seemed to have some difficulty in 
 proceeding. 
 
 "At Portsmouth, Henrietta Pe- 
 towker is," observed Mr. Kenwigs. 
 
 Yes," said Nicholas. " Mr. Lilly- 
 vick is there." 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs turned pale, but he 
 recovered, and said, that was an odd 
 coincidence also. 
 
 " The message is from him," said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs appeared to revive. 
 He knew that his niece was in a deli- 
 cate state, and had, no doubt, sent 
 word that they were to forward full 
 particulars: Yes. That was very 
 kind of him so like him too ! 
 
 " He desired me to give his kindest 
 love," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Very much obliged to him, I 'm 
 sure. Your great-uncle, Lillyvick, my 
 dears ! " interposed Mr. Kenwigs, con- 
 descendingly explaining it to the 
 children. 
 
 "His kindest love," resumed Ni- 
 cholas ; " and to say that he had no 
 time to write, but that he was married 
 to Miss Petowker." 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs started from his seat 
 with a petrified stare, caught his 
 second daughter by her flaxen tail,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 279 
 
 and covered his face with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. Morleena fell, all stiff 
 and rigid, iuto the baby's chair, as she 
 had seen her mother fall when she 
 fainted away, and the two remaining 
 little Kenwigses shrieked in affright. 
 
 " My children, my defrauded, swin- 
 dled infants !" cried Mr. Kenwigs, 
 pulling so hard, in his vehemence, at 
 the flaxen tail of his second daughter, 
 that he lifted her up on tiptoe, and 
 kept her, for some seconds, in that 
 attitude. Villain, ass, traitor ! " 
 
 " Drat the man ! " cried the nurse, 
 looking angrily round. " What does 
 he mean by making that noise here ! " 
 
 " Silence, woman ! " said Mr. Ken- 
 wigs fiercely. 
 
 "I won't be silent," returned the 
 nurse. "Be silent yourself, you 
 wretch . Have you no regard for your 
 baby?" 
 
 " No ! " returned Mr. Kenwiga. 
 
 " More shame for you," retorted 
 the nurse. " Ugh ! you unnatural 
 monster." 
 
 " Let him die," cried Mr. Kenwigs, in 
 the torrent of his wrath. "Let him 
 die ! He has no expectations, no pro- 
 perty to come into. ' We want no 
 babies here," said Mr. Kenwigs reck- 
 lessly. " Take 'em away, take 'em 
 away to the Fondling!" 
 
 With these awful remarks, Mr. Ken- 
 wigs sat himself down in a chair, and 
 defied the nurse, who made the best of 
 her way into the adjoining room, and 
 returned with a stream of matrons : 
 declaring that Mr. Kenwigs had 
 spoken blasphemy against his family, 
 and must be raving mad. 
 
 Appearances were certainly not in 
 Mr. Kenwigs's favour, for the exer- 
 tion of speaking with so much vehe- 
 mence, and yet in such a tone as 
 should prevent his lamentations reach- 
 ing the ears of Mrs. Kenwigs, had 
 made him very black in the face ; 
 besides which, the excitement of the 
 occasion, and an unwonted indulgence 
 in various strong cordials to celebrate 
 it, had swollen and dilated his features 
 to a most unusual extent. But, Nicholas 
 and the doctor who had been passive 
 at first, doubting very much whether 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs could be in earnest 
 interfering to explain the immediate 
 cause of his condition, the indignation 
 of the matrons was changed to pity, 
 and they implored him, with much feel- 
 ing, to go quietly to bed. 
 
 " The attention," said Mr. Kenwigs, 
 looking around with a plaintive air, 
 the attention that I 've shown to that 
 man ! The hyseters he has eat, and 
 the pints of ale he has drank, in this 
 house 1" 
 
 " It's very trying, and very hard to 
 bear, we know," said one of the mar- 
 ried ladies ; " but think of your dear 
 darling wife." 
 
 "Oh yes, and what she's been a 
 undergoing of, only this day," cried a 
 great many voices. " There 's a good 
 man, do." 
 
 " The presents that have been made 
 to him," said Mr. Kenwigs, reverting 
 to his calamity, " the pipes, the snuff- 
 boxes a pair of india-rubber goloshes, 
 that cost six and six " 
 
 " Ah ! it won't bear thinking of, 
 indeed ! " cried the matrons generally ; 
 " but it'll all como home to him, never 
 fear." 
 
 Mr. Kenwigs looked darkly upon 
 tlie ladies, as if he would prefer its all 
 coming home to him, as there was 
 nothing to be got by it ; but he said 
 nothing, and resting his head upon his 
 hand, subsided into a kind of doze. 
 
 Then, the matrons again expatiated 
 on the expediency of taking the good 
 gentleman to bed; observing that he 
 would be better 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 it showed a 
 good heart. And one lady observed, 
 as a case bearing upon the present, 
 that her husband was often quite 
 light-headed from anxiety on similar 
 occasions, and that once, when her 
 little Johnny was bom, 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
 
 280 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 boy ?" in a manner which went to the 
 hearts of all his hearers. 
 
 At length, Morleena (who quite 
 forgot she had fainted, when she 
 found she was not noticed) announced 
 that a chamber was ready for her 
 afflicted parent ; and Mr. Kenwigs, 
 having partially smothered his four 
 daughters in the closeness of his 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 bedroom, which had been 
 secured for the occasion. 
 
 Having seen him sound asleep, and 
 heard him snore most satisfactorily, 
 and having further presided over the 
 distribution of the toys, to the perfect 
 contentment of all the little Kenwigses. 
 Nicholas took his leave. The matrons 
 dropped off, one by one, with the ex- 
 ception of six or eight particular 
 friends, who had determined to stop 
 all night ; the lights in the houses 
 gradually disappeared ; the last bulletin 
 was issued that Mrs. Kenwigs was as 
 well as could be expected ; and the 
 whole family were left to their repose. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 NICHOLAS FINDS FURTHER FAVOUR IN THE EYES OF THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE 
 AND MR. TIMOTHY LINKINWATER. THE BROTHERS GIVE A BANQUET ON 
 A GREAT ANNUAL OCCASION. NICHOLAS, ON RETURNING HOME FROM IT, 
 RECEIVES A MYSTERIOUS AND IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE FROM THE LIPS OF 
 MRS. NICKLEBY. 
 
 THE Square in which the counting- 
 house of the brothers Cheeryble was 
 situated, although it might not wholly 
 realize the very sanguine expectations 
 which a stranger would be disposed to 
 form on hearing the fervent encomi- 
 ums bestowed upon it by Tim Linkin- 
 water, was, nevertheless, a sufficiently 
 desirable nook in the heart of a busy 
 town like London, and one which oc- 
 cupied a high place in the affectionate 
 remembrances of several grave per- 
 sons domiciled in the neighbourhood, 
 whose recollections, however, dated 
 from a much more recent period, and 
 whose attachment to the spot was far 
 less absorbing, than were the recol- 
 lections and attachment of the enthusi- 
 astic Tim. 
 
 And let not those whose eyes have 
 been accustomed to the aristocratic 
 gravity of Grosvenor Square and 
 Hanover Square, the dowager barren- 
 ness and frigidity of Fitzroy Square, 
 or the gravel walks and garden seats 
 of the Squares of Russell and Euston, 
 suppose that the affections of Tun 
 
 Linkinwater, or the inferior lovers 
 of this particular locality, had been 
 awakened and kept alive by any re- 
 freshing associations with leaves, how- 
 ever 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, 
 favourable to melancholy and contem- 
 plation, and appointments of long- 
 waiting ; and up and down its every 
 side the Appointed saunters idly by 
 the hour together, wakening the echoes 
 with the monotonous sound of his foot- 
 steps on the smooth worn stones, and 
 counting, first the windows, and then 
 the very bricks of the tall silent 
 houses that hem him round about. In 
 winter-time, the snow will linger there, 
 long after it has melted from the busy 
 streets and highways. The summer's 
 sun holds it in some respect, and while 
 he darts his cheerful rays sparingly 
 into the square, keeps his fiery heat 
 and glare for noisier and less-imposing
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBV. 
 
 281 
 
 precincts. It is so quiet, that you can 
 almost hear the ticking of your own 
 watch when you stop to cool in its re- 
 freshing 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 with- 
 stand the soporific influence of the 
 place, and is gradually falling asleep. 
 But now, he starts into full wakeful- 
 ness, recoils a step or two, and gazes 
 out before him with eager wildness in 
 his eye. Is it a job, or a boy at mar- 
 bles ? Does he see a ghost, or hear 
 an organ ! No ; sight more unwonted 
 still there is a butterfly in the square 
 a real, live, butterfly ! astray from 
 flowers and sweets, and fluttering 
 among the iron heads of the dusty 
 area railings ! 
 
 But if there were not many mat- 
 ters immediately without the doors of 
 Cheeryble Brothers, to engage the 
 attention or distract the thoughts of 
 the young clerk, there were not a few 
 within, to interest and amuse him. 
 There was scarcely an object in the 
 place, animate or inanimate, which 
 did not partake in some degree of the 
 scrupulous method and punctuality of 
 Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. Punctual 
 as the counting-house dial, which he 
 maintained to be the best time-keeper 
 in London next after the clock of some 
 old, hidden, unknown church hard by, 
 (for Tim held the fabled goodness of 
 that at the Horse Guards to be a 
 pleasant fiction, invented by jealous 
 West-enders,) the old clerk performed 
 the minutest actions of the day, and 
 arranged the minutest articles in the 
 little room, in a precise and regular 
 order, which could not have been ex- 
 ceeded if it had actually been a real 
 glass case, fitted witii the choicest 
 curiosities. Paper, pens, ink, ruler, 
 sealing-wax, wafers, pounce-box, string- 
 box, tire-box, Tun's hat, Tim's scru- 
 
 pulously-folded gloves, Tim's other coat 
 looking precisely like a back view 
 of himself as it hung against the wall 
 all had their accustomed inches of 
 space. Except the clock, there was 
 not such an accurate and unimpeach- 
 able instrument in existence, as the 
 little thermometer which hung behind 
 the door. There was not a bird of 
 such methodical and business-like 
 habits in all the world, as the blind 
 blackbird, who dreamed and dozed 
 away his days in a large snug cage, 
 and had lost his voice, from old age, 
 years before Tim first bought him. 
 There was not such an eventful story 
 in the whole range of anecdote, as Tim 
 could tell concerning the acquisition 
 of that very bird ; how, compassion- 
 ating his starved and suffering con- 
 dition, he had purchased him, with the 
 view of humanely terminating his 
 wretched life ; how, he determined to 
 wait three days and see whether the 
 bird revived ; how, before half the 
 time was out, the bird did revive ; and 
 how he went on reviving and picking 
 up liis appetite and good looks until 
 he gradually became what "what 
 you see him now, sir " Tim would 
 say, glancing proudly at the cage. 
 And with that, Tim would utter a 
 melodious chirrup, and cry " Dick ; " 
 and Dick, who, for any sign of life he 
 had previously given, might have been 
 a wooden or stuffed representation 
 of a blackbird indifferently executed, 
 would come to the side of the cage in 
 three small jumps, and, thrusting his 
 bill between the bars, turn his sight- 
 less 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 Tun 
 Linkinwater. 
 
 Nor was this all. Everything gave 
 back, besides, some reflection of the 
 kindly spirit of the brothers. The 
 warehousemen and porters were such 
 sturdy, jolly fellows that it was a treat 
 to see them. Among the shipping- 
 announcements and steam-packet lists 
 which decorated the counting-houso 
 wall, were designs for alms-houses, 
 statements of charities, and plans for
 
 28* 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 new hospitals. A blunderbuss and 
 two swords hung above the chimney- 
 piece, for the terror of evil-doers, but 
 the blunderbuss was rusty and shat- 
 tered, and the swords were broken 
 and edgeless. Elsewhere, their open 
 display hi such a condition would have 
 raised a smile ; but, there, it seemed 
 as though even violent and offensive 
 weapons partook of the reigning in- 
 fluence, and became emblems of 
 mercy and forbearance. 
 
 Such thoughts as these, occurred to 
 Nicholas very strongly, on the morning 
 when he first took possession of the 
 vacant stool, and looked about him, 
 more freely and at ease, than he had 
 before enjoyed an opportunity of doing. 
 Perhaps they encouraged and stimu- 
 lated him to exertion, for, during the 
 next two weeks, all his spare hours, 
 late at night and early in the morning, 
 were incessantly devoted to acquiring 
 the mysteries of book-keeping and 
 some other forms of mercantile ac- 
 count. To these, he applied himself 
 with such steadiness and perseverance 
 that, although he brought no greater 
 amount of previous knowledge to the 
 subject than certain dim recollections 
 of two or three very long sums entered 
 into a cyphering-book at school, and 
 relieved for parental inspection by 
 the effigy of a fat swan tastefully 
 flourished by the writing-master's own 
 hand, he found himself, at the end of 
 a fortnight, in a condition to report 
 his proficiency to Mr. Linkiuwater, 
 and to claim his promise that be, 
 Nicholas Nickleby, should now be 
 allowed to assist him in his graver 
 labours. 
 
 It was a sight to behold Tim Linkin- 
 water slowly bring out a massive 
 ledger and day-book, and, after turn- 
 ing them over and over, and affection- 
 ately dusting their backs and sides, 
 open the leaves here and there, and 
 cast his eyes, half-mournfully, halt- 
 proudly, upon the fair and unblotted 
 entries. 
 
 " Four-and-forty year, next May ! " 
 said Tim. " Many new ledgers since 
 then. Fcur-and-forty year ! " 
 
 Tim closed the book again. 
 
 " Come, come," said Nicholas, " I 
 am all impatience to begin " 
 
 Tun Linkinwater shook his head 
 with an air of mild reproof. Mr. 
 Nickleby was not sufficiently im- 
 pressed with the deep and awful 
 nature of his undertaking. Suppose 
 there should be any mistake any 
 scratching out ! 
 
 Young men are adventurous. It is 
 extraordinary what they will rush 
 upon, sometimes. Without even taking 
 the precaution of sitting himself down 
 upon his stool, but standing leisurely 
 at the desk, and with a smile upon his 
 face actually a smile ; (there was no 
 mistake about it ; Mr. Linkinwater 
 often mentioned it afterwards ;) Ni- 
 cholas dipped his pen into the inkstand 
 before him, and plunged into the books 
 of Cheeryble Brothers ! 
 
 Tim Linkinwater turned pale, and 
 tilting up his stool on the two legs 
 nearest Nicholas, looked over his 
 shoulder in breathless anxiety. 
 Brother Charles and brother Ned 
 entered the counting-house together ; 
 but Tun Linkinwater, without looking 
 round, impatiently waved his hand as 
 a caution that profound silence must 
 be observed, and followed the nib of 
 the inexperienced pen with strained 
 and eager eyes. 
 
 The brothers looked on, with smiling 
 faces, but Tim Linkinwater smiled not, 
 nor moved for some minutes. At- 
 length, he drew a long slow breath, and 
 still maintaining his position on the 
 tilted stool, glanced at brother Charles, 
 secretly pointed with the feather of his 
 pen towards Nicholas, and nodded his 
 head in a grave and resolute manner, 
 plainly signifying " He '11 do." 
 
 Brother Charles nodded again, and 
 exchanged a laughing look with brother 
 Ned ; but, just then, Nicholas stopped 
 to refer to some other page, and Tim 
 Linkinwater, unable to contain his 
 satisfaction any longer, descended from 
 his stool, and caught him rapturously 
 by the hand. 
 
 " He has done it!" said Tim, looking 
 round at his employers and shaking 
 his head triumphantly. " His capital 
 B's and D's are exactly like mine ; he
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 233 
 
 dots all his small i's and crosses every 
 t as he writes it. There aii'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 chal- 
 lenge the City to do it ! " 
 
 With tliis casting down of his 
 gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck the 
 desk such a blow with his clenched 
 fist, that the old blackbird tumbled off 
 his perch with the start it gave him, 
 and actually uttered a feeble croak, in 
 the extremity of his astonishment 
 
 "Well said, Tim well said, Tim 
 Linkinwater ! " cried Brother Charles, 
 scarcely less pleased than Tim himself, 
 and clapping his hands gently as he 
 spoke, " I knew our young friend 
 would take great pains, and I was 
 quite certain he would succeed, in no 
 time. Didn't I say so, brother Ned ? " 
 
 "You did, my dear brother cer- 
 tainly, my dear brother, you said so, 
 and you were quite right," replied 
 Ned. "Quite right. Tim Linkin- 
 water is excited, but he is justly ex- 
 cited, properly excited. Tim is a fine 
 fellow. Tim Linkinwater, sir you 're 
 a fine fellow." 
 
 ** Here 's a pleasant thing to think 
 of ! " said Tim, wholly regardless of 
 this address to himself, and raising his 
 spectacles from the ledger to the 
 brothers. " Here 's a pleasant thing. 
 Do you suppose I haven't often 
 thought what would become of these 
 books when I was gone 1 Do you 
 suppose I haven't often thought that 
 tilings might go on irregular and 
 untidy here, after I was taken away 1 
 But now," said Tim, extending his 
 fore-finger towards Nicholas, " now, 
 when 1 've shown him a little more, 
 1 'in satisfied. The business will go 
 on, when 1 'm dead, as well as it did 
 when I was alive just the same ; and 
 I shrill have the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that there never were such books 
 never were such books ! No, nor 
 never will be such books as the books 
 of Cheery ble Brothers." 
 
 Having thus expressed his senti- 
 ments, Mr. Linkinwater gave vent to 
 a short laugh, indicative of defiance to 
 
 the cities of London and Westminster, 
 and, turning again to his desk, quietly 
 carried seventy -six from the last 
 column he had added up, and went on 
 with his work. 
 
 " Tim Linkinwater, sir," said bro- 
 ther Charles ; " give me your hand, 
 sir. This is your birth-day. How 
 dare you talk about anything else till 
 you have been wished many happy 
 returns of the day, Tim Linkinwater ? 
 God bless you, Tim I God bless you !" 
 
 " My dear brother," said the other, 
 seizing Tim's disengaged fist, " Tim 
 Linkinwater looks ten years younger 
 than he did on his last birth-day." 
 
 " Brother Ned, my dear boy," re- 
 turned the other old fellow, " I beh'eve 
 that Tim Linkinwater was born a hun- 
 dred-and-fifty years old, and is gradu- 
 ally 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." 
 
 " Remember, Tim," said brother 
 Charles, "that we dine at half-past 
 five to-day instead of two o'clock ; we 
 always depart from our usual custom 
 on this anniversary, as you very well 
 know, Tun Linkinwater. Mr. Nickleby, 
 my dear sir, you will make one. Tim 
 Linkinwater, give me your snuff-box 
 as a remembrance to brother Charles 
 and myself of an attached and 
 faithful rascal, and take that, in ex- 
 change, as a feeble mark of our respect 
 and esteem, and don't open it until you 
 go to bed, and never sa; another word 
 upon the subject, or I 'li kill the black- 
 bird. A dog ! He should have had a 
 golden cage half-a-dozen years ago, if 
 it would have made him or his mastef 
 a bit the happier. Now, brother Ned, 
 my dear fellow, I 'm ready. At half- 
 past five, remember, Mr. Nic-kleby ! 
 Tim Linkinwater, sir, take care of 
 Mr. Nickleby at half-past five. Now, 
 brother Ned." 
 
 Chattering away thus, according to. 
 custom, to prevent the possibility of 
 any thanks or acknowledgment being 
 expressed on the other side, the twins 
 trotted off, arm in arm : having endowed
 
 284 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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, punc- 
 tual 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 Tun 
 Linkinwater's sister's cap, which had 
 been despatched, per boy, from the 
 house of the family where Tim Linkin- 
 water's sister boarded, and had not yet 
 come to hand : notwithstanding that it 
 had been packed up in a bandbox, and 
 the bandbox in a handkerchief, and the 
 handkerchief tied on to the boy's arm; 
 and notwithstanding, too, that the place 
 of its consignment had been duly set 
 forth, at full length, on the back of an 
 old letter, and the boy enjoined, under 
 pain of divers horrible penalties, the 
 full extent of which the eye of man 
 could not foresee, to deliver the same 
 with ah 1 possible speed, and not to loiter 
 by the way. Tim Linkinwater's sister 
 lamented ; the housekeeper condoled ; 
 and both kept thrusting their heads 
 out of the second-floor window to see 
 if the boy was " coming," which 
 would have been highly satisfactory, 
 and, upon the whole, tantamount to 
 his being come, as the distance to the 
 corner was not quite five yards when, 
 all of a sudden, and when he was least 
 expected, the messenger, carrying the 
 bandbox with elaborate caution, ap- 
 peared in an exactly opposite direction, 
 puffing and panting for breath, and 
 flushed with recent exercise ; as well 
 he might be ; for he had taken the 
 air, in the first instance, behind a 
 hackney-coach that went^to Camber- 
 well, 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 hoy 
 went upon his way rejoicing, and Tim 
 Linkinwater's sister presented herself 
 to the company below stairs, just five 
 minutes after the half-hour had struck 
 by Tim Linkinwater's own infallible 
 clock. 
 
 The company consisted of the bro- 
 thers Cheeryble, 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 completed, brother 
 Ned rang for dinner, and, dinner being 
 shortly afterwards announced, led Tun 
 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 Linkinwater 
 himself on his right ; and an ancient 
 butler of apoplectic appearance, and 
 with very short legs, took up his posi- 
 tion at the back of brother Ned's arm- 
 chair, and, waving his right arm pre- 
 paratory 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 conversa- 
 tion, and little fear of its ever flagging, 
 for the good-humour of the glorious 
 old twins drew everybody out, and Tim 
 Linkinwater's sister went off into a 
 long and circumstantial account of Tim 
 Linkinwater's infancy, immediately 
 after the very first glass of champagne 
 taking care to premise that she was 
 very much Tim's junior, and had only 
 become acquainted with the facts from 
 their being preserved and handed down 
 in the family. This history concluded, 
 brother Ned related how that, exactly 
 thirty-five years ago, Tim Linkinwater 
 was suspected to have received a love- 
 letter, and how that vague information 
 had been brought to the counting- 
 house of his having been seen walking 
 down Cheapside with an uncommonly 
 handsome spinster ; at which there 
 was a roar of laughter, and Tim Linkin-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 285 
 
 water being charged with blushing, and 
 called upon to explain, denied that the 
 accusation was true ; and further, that 
 there would have been any harm in it 
 if it had been ; which last position oc- 
 casioned the superannuated bank clerk 
 to laugh tremendously, and to declare 
 that it was the very best thing he had 
 ever heard in his life, and that Tim 
 Linkinwater might say a great many 
 things before he said anything which 
 would beat that. 
 
 There was one little ceremony pecu- 
 liar to the day, both the matter and 
 manner of which made a very strong 
 impression upon Nicholas. The cloth 
 having been removed and the decanters 
 sent round for the first time, a pro- 
 found silence succeeded, and in the 
 cheerful faces of the brothers there 
 appeared an expression, not of abso- 
 lute melancholy, but of quiet thought- 
 fulness very unusual at a festive table. 
 As Nicholas, struck by this sudden 
 alteration, was wondering what it 
 could portend, the brothers rose toge- 
 ther, and the one at the top of the 
 table leaning forward towards the 
 other, and speaking in a low voice as 
 if he were addressing him individually, 
 said : 
 
 " Brother Charles, my dear fellow, 
 there is another association connected 
 with this day which must never be 
 forgotten, and never can be forgotten, 
 by you and me. This day, which 
 brought into the world a most faithful 
 and excellent and exemplary fellow, 
 took from it, the kindest and very best 
 of parents the very best of parents 
 to us both. I wish that she could have 
 seen us in our prosperity, and shared 
 it, and had the happiness of knowing 
 how dearly we loved her in it, as we 
 did when we were two poor boys but 
 that was not to be. My dear brother 
 The Memory of our Mother." 
 
 " Good God ! " thought Nicholas, 
 " and there are scores of people of 
 their own station, knowing all this, 
 and twenty thousand times more, who 
 wouldn't ask these men to dinner 
 because they eat with their knives and 
 never went to school ! " 
 
 But there was no time to 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 of all the 
 company, and had been, annually, for 
 some years past, the apoplectic butler, 
 bringing his left hand from behind the 
 small of his back, produced the bottle 
 with the corkscrew already inserted ; 
 uncorked it at a jerk ; and placed the 
 magnum and the cork before his 
 master with the dignity of conscious 
 cleverness. 
 
 " Ha ! " said brother Ned, first ex- 
 amining the cork and afterwards filling 
 his glass, while the old butler looked 
 complacently and amiably on, as if it 
 were all his own property, but the 
 company were quite welcome to make 
 free with it, " this looks well, David." 
 
 "It ought to, sir," replied David. 
 ** You 'd be troubled to find such a 
 glass of wine as is our double-diamond, 
 and that Mr. Linkinwater knows very 
 well. That was laid down, when Mr. 
 Linkinwater first come : that wine was, 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " Nay, David, nay," interposed 
 brother Charles. 
 
 "I wrote the entry in the cellar- 
 book myself, sir, if you please," said 
 David, in the tone of a man, quite con- 
 fident 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 ware- 
 housemen whom Nicholas had seen
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 below. They were four in all, and 
 as they came in, bowing, and grinning, 
 and blushing, the housekeeper, and 
 cook, and housemaid, brought up the 
 rear. 
 
 " Seven," said brother Ned, filling a 
 corresponding number of glasses with 
 the double-diamond, "and David, 
 eight There ! Now, you 're all of you 
 to drink the health of your best friend 
 Mr. Timothy Linkin water, and wish him 
 health and long life and many happy 
 returns of this day, both for his own 
 sake and that of your old masters, who 
 consider him an inestimable treasure. 
 Tim Linkinwater, sir, your health. 
 Devil take you, Tun Linkinwater, sir, 
 God bless you." 
 
 With this singular contradiction of 
 terms, brother Ned gave Tim Linkin- 
 water a slap on the back, which made 
 him look, for the moment, almost as 
 apoplectic as the butler : and tossed off 
 the contents of his glass in a twinkling. 
 
 The toast was scarcely drunk with 
 all honour to Tim Linkinwater, when 
 the sturdiest and j oiliest subordinate 
 elbowed himself a little in advance of 
 his fellows, and exhibiting a very hot 
 and flushed countenance, pulled a 
 single lock of grey hair in the middle 
 of his forehead as a respectful salute to 
 the company, and delivered himself as 
 follows rubbing the palms of his 
 hands very hard on a blue cotton 
 handkerchief as he did so : 
 
 " We 're allowed to take a liberty 
 once a year, gen'lemen, and if you 
 please we '11 take it now ; there being 
 no time like the present, and no two 
 birds in the hand worth one in the 
 bush, as is well known leastways in 
 a contrairy sense, which the meaning 
 is the same. (A pause the butler 
 unconvinced.) What we mean to say 
 is, that there never was (looking at 
 the butler) such (looking at the 
 cook) noble excellent (looking 
 everywhere and seeing nobody) free, 
 generous, spirited masters as them as 
 has treated us so handsome this day. 
 And here 's thanking of 'em for all their 
 goodness as is so constancy a diffusing 
 of itself over everywhere, and wishing 
 they may live long and die happy ! " 
 
 When the foregoing speech wan 
 over and it might have been much 
 more elegant and much less to the 
 purpose the whole body of subordi- 
 nates under command of the apoplectic 
 butler gave three soft cheers ; which, 
 to that gentleman's great indignation, 
 were not very regular, inasmuch as 
 the women persisted in giving an im- 
 mense number of little shrill hurrahs 
 among themselves, in utter disregard 
 of the time. This done, they with- 
 drew ; shortly afterwards, Tim Link- 
 inwater's sister withdrew ; in reason- 
 able 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 de- 
 scribed 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 '11 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 men- 
 tion it, but it 's the most extraordi- 
 nary accidental likeness you ever saw 
 her very portrait, sir ! " 
 
 By this time it was past eleven 
 o'clock ; and Tim Linkinwater's sister 
 declaring that she ought to have been 
 at home a full hour ago, a coach was 
 procured, into which she was handed 
 with great ceremony by brother Ned, 
 while brother Charles imparted the 
 fullest directions to the coachman, 
 and, besides paying the man a shilling 
 over and above his fare, in order that 
 ne might take the utmost care of the 
 lady, all but choked him with a glass
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEDY. 
 
 287 
 
 of spirits of uncommon strength, and 
 then nearly knocked all the breath out 
 of his body in his energetic endea- 
 vours to knock it in again. 
 
 At length the coach rumbled off, 
 and Tim Linkinwater's sister being 
 now fairly on her way home, Nicholas 
 and Tim Linkinwater's friend took 
 their leaves together, and left old Tim 
 and the worthy brothers to their 
 repose. 
 
 As Nicholas had some distance to 
 walk, it was considerably past mid- 
 night by the time he reached home, 
 where he found his mother and Smike 
 ratting 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 tune 
 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 toge- 
 ther, very pleasantly. 
 
 Nicholas could not go to bed with- 
 out expatiating on the excellences and 
 munificence of the Brothers Cheeryble, 
 and relating the great success which 
 had attended his efforts that day. But 
 before he had said a dozen words, Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with many sly winks and 
 nods, observed, that she was sure Mr. 
 Smike must be quite tired out, and 
 that she positively must insist on his 
 not sitting up a minute longer. 
 
 " A most biddable creature he is, to 
 be sure," said Mrs. Nickleby, when 
 Smike had wished them good night 
 and left the room. " I know you'll 
 excuse me, Nicholas, my dear, but I 
 don't like to do this before a third 
 person ; indeed, before a young man 
 it would not be quite proper, though 
 really, after all, I don't know what 
 harm there is in it, except that to be 
 sure it's not a very becoming thing, 
 though some people say it is very 
 much so, and really I don't know why 
 it should not be, if it's well got up, 
 
 and the borders are small-plaited ; of 
 course, a good deal depends upon 
 that." 
 
 With which preface, Mrs. Nickleby 
 took her 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, Ni- 
 cholas 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 tiling ^p be par- 
 ticular about your night-cap, for I 
 have often heard your poor dear papa, 
 and the reverend Mr. what 's his name, 
 who used to read prayers in that old 
 church with the curious little steeple 
 that the weathercock was blown off 
 the night week before you were born, 
 I have often heard them say, that the 
 young men at college are uncommonly 
 particular about their nightcaps, and 
 that the Oxford nightcaps are quite 
 celebrated for their strength and good- 
 ness ; so much so, indeed, that the 
 young men never dream of going to 
 bed without 'em, and I believe it's 
 admitted on all hands that they 
 know what's good, and don't coddle 
 themselves." 
 
 Nicholas laughed, and entering no 
 further into the subject of this length- 
 ened harangue, reverted to the plea- 
 sant tone of the little birth-day party. 
 And as Mrs. Nickleby instantly be- 
 came very curious respecting it, and 
 made a great number of inquiries 
 touching what they had had for dinner, 
 and how it was put on table, and whe- 
 ther it was overdone or underdone, 
 and who was there, and what " the Mr. 
 Cherrybles" said, and what Nicholas 
 said, and what the Mr. Cherrybles 
 said when he said that ; Nicholas de- 
 scribed the festivities at full length, 
 and also the occurrences of the 
 morning.
 
 LTFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Late as it is," said Nicholas, " I 
 am almost selfish enough to wish that 
 Kate had been up ; to hear all this. 
 I was all impatience, as I came along, 
 to tell her." 
 
 " Why, Kate," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 putting her feet upon the fender, and 
 drawing her chair close to it, as if 
 settling herself for a long talk. " Kate 
 has been in bed oh ! a couple of 
 hours and I'm very glad, Nicholas 
 my dear, that I prevailed upon her 
 not to sit up, for I wished very much 
 to have an opportunity of saying a few 
 words to you. I am naturally anxious 
 about it, and of course it's a very 
 delightful and consoling tiling to have 
 a grown-up son that one can put con- 
 fidence in, and advise with indeed I 
 don't know any use there would be in 
 having sons at all, unless people could 
 put confidence in them." 
 
 Nicholas stopped in the middle of a 
 sleepy yawn, as his mother began to 
 speak: and looked at her with fixed 
 attention. 
 
 " There was a lady in our neigh- 
 bourhood," said Mrs. Nickleby, " speak- 
 ing of sons puts me in mind of it a 
 lady in our neighbourhood when we 
 lived near Dawlish, I think her name 
 was Rogers ; indeed I am sure it was 
 if it wasn't Murphy, which is the only 
 doubt I have " 
 
 " Is it about her, mother, that you 
 wished to speak to me I " said Nicholas 
 quietly. 
 
 "About her/" cried Mrs. Nickleby. 
 M Good gracious, Nicholas, my dear, 
 how can you be so ridiculous ! But 
 that was always the way with your 
 poor dear papa, just his way, always 
 wandering, never able to fix his 
 thoughts on any one subject for two 
 minutes together. I think I see him 
 now!" said Mrs. Nickleby, wiping 
 her eyes, " looking at me while I was 
 talking to him about his affairs, just as 
 if his ideas were in a state of perfect 
 conglomeration I Anybody who had 
 come in upon us suddenly, would have 
 supposed I was confusing and dis- 
 tracting him instead of making things 
 plainer ; upon my word they would." 
 
 "I am very sorry, mother, that I 
 
 should inherit this unfortunate slow- 
 ness of apprehension," said Nicholas, 
 kindly, " but I '11 do my best to under- 
 stand you, if you '11 only go straight on: 
 indeed I will." 
 
 " Your poor papa ! " said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, pondering. " He never 
 knew, 'till it was too bite, what I would 
 have had him do ! " 
 
 This was undoubtedly the case, inas- 
 much as the deceased Mr. Nickleby 
 had not arrived 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 gentle- 
 man in the next house has as little to 
 do with us," returned Nicholas. 
 
 " There can be no doubt," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " that he it 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 eccen- 
 tricity, or he may be proud of his 
 legs. I don't see why he shouldn't be. 
 The Prince Regent was proud of his 
 legs, and so was Daniel Lambert, who 
 was also a fat man ; he was proud of 
 his legs. So was Miss Biffin : she was 
 no," added Mrs. Nickleby, correct- 
 ing 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. Nick- 
 leby had expected him to be. 
 
 " You may well be surprised, Ni- 
 cholas, 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 arbour, or 
 working at his little hot-beds. I used 
 to think he stared rather, but I didn't 
 take any particular notice of that, aa 
 we were new-comers, and he might be 
 curious to see what we were like. But
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 when he began to throw his cucumbers 
 over our wall " 
 
 " To throw his cucumbers over our 
 wall ! " repeated Nicholas, in great 
 astonishment 
 
 " Yes, Nicholas, my dear," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby, in a very serious tone ; 
 " his cucumbers over our wall. And 
 vegetable^marrows likewise." 
 
 " Confound his impudence ! " said 
 Nicholas, firing immediately. " What 
 does he mean by that ! " 
 
 " I don't think he means it imper- 
 tinently at all," replied Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " What ! " said Nicholas, " cucum- 
 bers and vegetable-marrows flying at 
 the heads of the family as they walk 
 in their own garden, and not meant 
 impertinently ! Why, mother " 
 
 Nicholas stopped short ; for there 
 was an indescribable expression of 
 placid triumph, mingled with a modest 
 confusion, lingering between the bor- 
 ders of Mrs. Nickleby's nightcap, 
 which arrested his attention suddenly. 
 
 " He must be a very weak, and 
 foolish, and inconsiderate man," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby ; " blameable indeed at 
 least I suppose other people would 
 consider him so ; of course I can't be 
 expected to express any opinion on 
 that point, especially after always 
 defending your poor dear papa when 
 other people blamed him for making 
 proposals to me ; and to be sure there 
 can be no doubt that he has taken a 
 very singular way of showing it. Still 
 at the same time, his attentions are 
 that is, as far as it goes, and to a cer- 
 tain extent of course a nattering sort 
 of tiling ; and although I should never 
 dream of marrying again with a dear 
 girl like Kate still unsettled in life " 
 
 " Surely, mother, such an idea never 
 entered your brain for an instant ? " 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Bless my heart, Nicholas my dear," 
 returned his mother in a peevish tone, 
 " isn't that precisely what I am saying, 
 if you would only let me speak ! Of 
 course, I never gave it a second 
 thought, and I am surprised and asto- 
 nished that you should suppose me 
 capable of such a thing. All I say, is, 
 what step is the best to take, so as to 
 No. 50. 
 
 reject these advances civilly and deli- 
 cately, and without hurting his feelings 
 too much, and driving him to despair, 
 or anything of that kind ? My good- 
 ness me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby, 
 with a half simper, "suppose he was 
 to go doing anything rash to himself. 
 Could I ever be happy again Nicholas I " 
 Despite his vexation and concern, 
 Nicholas could scarcely help smiling, 
 as he rejoined, " Now, do you think, 
 mother, that such a result would be 
 likely to ensue from the most cruel 
 repulse J " 
 
 " 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 i'reuch newspapers, about a 
 journeyman shoemaker who was jealous 
 of a young girl in an adjoining village; 
 because she wouldn't shut herself up. 
 in an air-tight three-pair-of stairs, and 
 charcoal herself to death with him , 
 and who went and hid himself in a 
 Wood with a sharp-pointed knife, and 
 rushed out, as she was passing by with 
 a few friends, and killed himself first, 
 and then all the friends, and then her 
 no, killed all the friends first, and 
 then herself, and then himself which 
 it is quite frightful to think of. Some- 
 how or other," added Mrs. Nickleby, 
 after a momentary pause, " they 
 always are journeymen shoemakers 
 WG, do these things in France, accord- 
 ing to the papers. I don't know how 
 it is something in the leather, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " But this man, who is not a shoe- 
 maker what has he done, mother, 
 what has he said ? " inquired Nicholas, 
 fretted almost beyond endurance, but 
 looking nearly as resigned and patient 
 as Mrs. Nickleby herself. " You know, 
 there is no language of vegetables, 
 which converts a cucumber into a 
 formal declaration of attachment." 
 
 " My dear," replied Mrs. Nickleby, 
 tossing her head and looking at the 
 ashes in the grate, " he has done and 
 said all sorts of things." 
 
 " Is there no mistake on your 
 port ? " asked Nicholas: 
 
 Q 19
 
 290 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Mistake ! " cried Mrs. Nickleby. 
 * Lord, Nicholas my dear, do you sup- 
 pose I don't know when a man's in 
 earnest t" 
 
 Well, well ! " muttered Nicholas. 
 
 " Every time I go to the window," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, "he kisses one 
 hand, and lays the other upon his 
 heart of course it's very foolish of 
 him to do so, and I dare say you'll 
 say it's very wrong, but he does it 
 very respectfully very respectfully 
 indeed and very tenderly, extremely 
 tenderly. So far, he deserves the 
 greatest credit ; there can be no doubt 
 about that Then, there are the pre- 
 sents which come pouring over the 
 wall every day, and very fine they cer- 
 tainly are, very fine ; we had one of 
 the cucumbers at dinner yesterday, 
 and think of pickling the rest for next 
 winter. And last evening," added 
 Mrs. Nickleby, with increased confu- 
 sion, " he called gently over the wall, 
 as I was walking in the garden, and 
 proposed marriage, and an elopement. 
 His voice is as clear as a bell or a 
 musical glass very like a musical 
 glass indeed but of course I didn't 
 listen to it. Then, the question is, 
 Nicholas my dear, what am I to do 1 " 
 
 " 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 u would 
 make her very unhappy. And with 
 regard to what you should do, my dear 
 mother, do what your good sense and 
 feeling, and respect for my father's 
 memory, would prompt. There are a 
 thousand ways in which yon can show 
 your dislike of these preposterous and 
 doting attentions. If you act as de- 
 cidedly as you ought and they are 
 Btill continued, and to your annoyance, 
 I can speedily put a stop to them. 
 But 1 should not interfere in a matter 
 so ridiculous, and attach importance 
 to it, until you have vindicated your- 
 self. Most women can do that, but 
 especially one of your age and condi- 
 tion, in circumstance'' like these, which 
 ore unworthy of a serious thought. I 
 
 would not shame yon by seeming to 
 take them to heart, or treat them ear- 
 nestly for an instant. Absurd old idii.t ! " 
 
 So saying, Nicholas kissed his 
 mother, and bade her good night, and 
 they retired to their respective 
 chambers. 
 
 To do Mrs. Nickleby justice, her 
 attachment to her children would have 
 prevented her seriously contemplating 
 a second marriage, even if she could 
 have so far conquered her recollections 
 of her late husband as to have any 
 strong inclinations that way. But, 
 although there was no evil and little 
 real selfishness in Mrs. Nickleby'g 
 heart, she had a weak head and a vain 
 one ; and there was something so flat' 
 tering in being sought (and vainly 
 sought) in marriage at this time o 
 day, that she could not dismiss the 
 passion of the unknown gentleman, 
 quite so summarily or lightly, as Nicho- 
 las appeared to deem becoming. 
 
 " As to its being preposterous, and 
 doting, and ridiculous," thought Mrs 
 Nickleby, communing with herself in 
 her own room, " I don't see that, at all. 
 It's hopeless on his part, certainly ; but 
 why he should be an absurd old idiot, 
 I confess I don't see. He is not to be 
 supposed to know it 's hopeless. Poor 
 fellow ! He is to be pitied, / think ! " 
 
 Having made these reflections, Mrs. 
 Nickleby looked in her little dressing- 
 glass, and, walking backward a few 
 steps from it, tried to remember who 
 it was who used to say that when 
 Nicholas was one-and-twenty he would 
 have more the appearance of her 
 brother, than her son. Not being able 
 to call the authority to mind, she 
 extinguished her candle, and drew up 
 the window-blind to admit the light of 
 morning, which had, by this time, begun 
 to dawn. 
 
 It's .1 bad light to distinguish 
 objects in," murmured Mrs. Nickleby, 
 peering into the garden, u 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 mo- 
 ment, on the broken glass bottles at the 
 top of the wall I "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 291 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 COMPRISES CERTAIN PARTICULARS ARISING OUT OF A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE, 
 WDICH MAY PROVE IMPORTANT HEREAFTER. SMIKE UNEXPECTEDLY 
 ENCOUNTERS A VERY OLD FRIEND, WHO INVITES HIM TO HIS HOUSE, AND 
 WILL TAKE NO DENIAL. 
 
 QUITE unconscious of the demon- 
 strations of their amorous neighbour, 
 or their effects upon the susceptible 
 bosom of her mama, Kate Nickleby 
 had, by this time, begun to enjoy a 
 settled feeling of tranquillity and hap- 
 piness, to which, even in occasional 
 and transitory glimpses, she had long 
 been a stranger. Living under the 
 same roof with the beloved brother 
 from whom she had been so suddenly 
 and hardly separated : with a mind at 
 ease, and free from any persecutions 
 which could call a blush into her 
 cheek, or a pang into her heart : she 
 seemed to have passed into a new state 
 of being. Her former cheerfulness 
 was restored, her step regained its 
 elasticity and lightness, the colour 
 which had forsaken her cheek visited 
 it once again, and Kate Nickleby 
 looked more beautiful than ever. 
 
 Such was the result to which Miss 
 La Creevy's ruminations and observa- 
 tions led her, when the cottage had 
 been, as she emphatically said, " tho- 
 roughly got to rights, from the chim- 
 ney-pots to the street-door scraper," 
 and the busy little woman had at 
 length a moment's tune to think about 
 its inmates. 
 
 " Which I declare I haven't had 
 since I first came down here," said 
 Miss La Creevy ; "for I have thought 
 of nothing but hammers, nails, screw- 
 drivers and gimlets, morning, noon, 
 and night." 
 
 " You never bestow one thought 
 upon yourself, I believe," returned 
 Kate, smiling. 
 
 " Upon my word, my dear, when 
 there are so many pleasanter things to 
 think of, I should be a goose if I did,' 
 said Miss La Creevy. " By the bye, 
 I have thought of somebody too. Do 
 you know, that I observe a great 
 change, in one of this family a very 
 extraordinary change 1 " 
 
 " In whom ? " asked Kate, anxiously. 
 Not in " 
 
 ' Not in your brother, my dear," 
 returned Miss La Creevy, anticipating 
 the close of the sentence, " for he is 
 always the same affectionate good- 
 natured clever creature, with a spice 
 of the I won't say who in him 
 when there 's any occasion, that he 
 was when I first knew you. No. 
 Smike, as he will be called, pooii? 
 fellow ! for he won't hear of a Mr. 
 before his name, is greatly altered, 
 even in this short time." 
 
 "Howl" asked Kate. "Not in 
 health 1 " 
 
 " N-n-o ; perhaps not in health ex- 
 actly," 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 sec in yours. No ; not in health.' 1 
 
 How then ! " 
 
 " I scarcely know," said the minia- 
 ture-painter. " But I have watched 
 him, and he has brought the tears 
 into my eyes many times. It is not 
 a very difficult matter to do that; 
 certainly, for I am easily melted 
 still, I think these came with good 
 cause and reason. I am sure that 
 since he has been here, he has grown, 
 from some strong cause, more con- 
 scious of his weak intellect. He feels 
 it more. It gives him greater pain tc 
 know that he wanders sometimes, and 
 cannot understand very simple things, 
 I have watched him when yon have 
 not been by, my dear, sit brooding by 
 himself, with such a look of pain as I 
 could scarcely bear to sec, and then 
 get up and leave the room : so sorrow- 
 fully, 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 
 v 2
 
 292 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 being the same willing, harmless, 
 faithful, loving creature but the 
 same in nothing else." 
 
 " Surely this will all pass off," said 
 Kate. " Poor fellow ! " 
 
 " I hope," returned her little friend, 
 with a gravity very unusual in her, 
 "it may. I hope, for the sake of 
 that poor lad, it may. However," 
 said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into 
 the cheerful, chattering tone, which 
 was habitual to her, " I have said my 
 say, and a very long say it is, and a 
 very wrong say too, I shouldn't won- 
 der 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 roused him 
 into a laugh at something. So the 
 sooner he goes, the better for him, 
 and the sooner I go, the better for me, 
 I ara 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 / 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 reminis- 
 cences, bearing upon, and appropriate 
 to, the occasion, the omnibus arrived. 
 This put Miss La Creevy in a great 
 bustle, in consequence whereof, as she 
 secretly rewarded the servant-girl 
 with eighteen-pence behind the street- 
 door, she pulled out of her reticule 
 ten-pennyworth of halfpence which 
 rolled into all possible corners of the 
 passage, and occupied some consider- 
 able time in the picking-up. This 
 ceremony had, of course, to be suc- 
 ceeded by a second kissing of Kate 
 %nd Mrs. Nickleby, and a gathering 
 
 together of the little basket and the 
 brown-paper parcel, during which 
 proceedings, " the omnibus," as Miss 
 La Creevy protested, " swore so 
 dreadfully, that it was quite awful to 
 hear it" At length and at last, it 
 made a feint of going away, and then 
 Miss La Creevy darted out, and darted 
 in, apologising with great volubility 
 to all the passengers, and declaring 
 that she wouldn't purposely have 
 kept them waiting on any account 
 whatever. While she was looking 
 about for a convenient seat, the con- 
 ductor pushed Sinike in, and cried 
 that it was all right though it wasn't 
 and away went the huge vehicle, 
 with the noise of half a dozen brewers' 
 drays at least. 
 
 Leaving it to pursue its journey at 
 the pleasure of the conductor afore- 
 mentioned, who lounged gracefully on 
 his little shelf behind, smoking an 
 odoriferous cigar ; and leaving it to 
 stop, or go on, or gallop, or crawl, as 
 that gentleman deemed expedient and 
 advisable; this narrative may embrace 
 the opportunity of ascertaining the 
 condition of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and 
 to what extent he had, by this time, 
 recovered from the injuries conse- 
 quent on being flung violently from 
 his cabriolet, under the circumstances 
 already detailed. 
 
 With a shattered limb, a body 
 severely bruised, a face disfigured by 
 half-healed scars, and pallid from the 
 exhaustion of recent pain and fever, 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk lay stretched 
 upon his bac.\, on the couch to which 
 he was doomed to be a prisoner for 
 some weeks yet to come. Mr. Pyke 
 and Mr. Pluck sat drinking hard in 
 the next room, now and then varying 
 the monotonous murmurs of their 1 
 conversation with a half-smothered 
 laugh, while the young lord the only 
 member of the party who was not 
 thoroughly irredeemable, and who 
 really had a kind heart sat beside 
 his Mentor, with a cigar in his mouth, 
 and read to him, by the light of a 
 lamp, such scraps of intelligence from 
 a paper of the day, as were most u'kely 
 to yield him interest or amusement.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLKBY. 
 
 203 
 
 " Curse those hounds ! " said the 
 invalid, turning his head impatiently 
 towards the adjoining room ; "will 
 nothing stop their infernal throats ? " 
 
 Messrs. Pyke and Pluck heard the 
 exclamation, and stopped immediately : 
 winking to each other as they did so, 
 and filling their glasses to the brim, as 
 some recompense for the deprivation 
 of speech. 
 
 " Damn ! " muttered the sick man 
 between his teeth, and writhing im- 
 uatiently in his bed. " Isn't this mat- 
 trass hard enough, and the room dull 
 enough, and pain bad enough, but 
 they must torture me ! What 'a the 
 time?" 
 
 " Half-past eight," replied his friend. 
 
 " Here, draw the table nearer, and 
 let us have the cards again," said Sir 
 Mulberry. " More piquet. Come." 
 
 It was curious to see how eagerly 
 the sick man, debarred from any 
 change of position save the mere 
 turning of his head from side to side, 
 watched every motion of his friend in 
 the progress of the game ; and with 
 what eagerness and interest he played, 
 and yet how warily and coolly. His 
 address and skill were more than 
 twenty times a match for his adver- 
 sary, who could make little head 
 against them, even when fortune 
 favoured him with good cards, which 
 was not often the case. Sir Mulberry 
 won every game ; and when his com- 
 panion 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 consi- 
 derably 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, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " 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 incon- 
 venient. 
 
 "It ia inconvenient. I can't see 
 him. I can't see anybody," said his 
 master, more violently than before. 
 " You know that, you blockhead." 
 
 " I am very sorry, sir," returned 
 the man. " But Mr. Nickleby pressed 
 so much, sir " 
 
 The fact was, that Ralph Nickleby 
 had bribed the man, who, being 
 anxious to earn his money with a 
 view to future favours, held the door 
 in his hand, and ventured to linger 
 still. 
 
 " Did he say whether he had any 
 business to speak about ? " inquired 
 Sir Mulberry, after a little impatient 
 consideration. 
 
 " No, sir. He said he wished to 
 see you, sir. Particularly, Mr. Nick, 
 leby said, sir." 
 
 " Tell him to come up. Here," 
 cried Sir Mulberry, calling the man 
 back, as he passed his hand over his 
 disfigured face, " move that lamp, 
 and put it on the stand behind me. 
 Wheel that table away, and place 
 a chair there further off. Leave 
 it so." 
 
 The man obeyed these directions as 
 if he quite comprehended the motive 
 with which they were dictated, and left 
 the room. Lord Frederick Verisopht, 
 remarking that he would look in pre- 
 sently, strolled into the adjoining 
 apartment, and closed the folding-door 
 behind him. 
 
 Then was heard a subdued footstep 
 on the stairs ; and Ralph Nickleby, 
 hat in hand, crept softly into the 
 room, with his body bent forward 
 as if in profound respect, and his eyes 
 fixed upon the face of his worthy 
 client. 
 
 "Well, Nickleby," said Sir Mul- 
 berry, motioning. him to the chair by 
 the couch side, and waving his hand 
 in assumed carelessness, " I have had 
 a bad accident, you see." 
 
 " I see," rejoined Ralph, with tho 
 same steady gaze. " Bad, indeed 1 I
 
 294 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 should not have known you, Sir Mul- 
 berry. Dear, dear ! This is bad." 
 
 Ralph's manner was one of pro- 
 found humility and respect ; and the 
 low tone of voice was that, which the 
 gentlest consideration for a sick man 
 would have taught a visitor to assume. 
 But the expression of his face, Sir 
 Mulberry's being averted, was in 
 extraordinary contrast ; and as he 
 stood, in his usual attitude, calmly 
 looking on the prostrate form before 
 him, all that part of his features which 
 was not cast into shadow by his pro* 
 truding and contracted brows, bore the 
 impress of a sarcastic smile. 
 
 " Sit down," said Sir Mulberry, 
 turning towards him, as though by a 
 violent effort. " Am I a sight, that 
 you stand gazing there ? " 
 
 As he turned his face, Ralph re- 
 coiled a step or two, and making as 
 though he were irresistibly impelled to 
 express astonishment, but was deter- 
 mined 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 acquaint- 
 ance, and past transactions by which 
 we have mutually benefited in some 
 degree, I could not resist soliciting 
 admission to your chamber. Have 
 you- have you suffered much ? " said 
 Ralph, bending forward, and allowing 
 the same harsh smile to gather upon 
 his face, as the other closed his eyes. 
 
 " More than enough to please me, 
 and less than enough to please some 
 broken-down hacks that you and I 
 know of, and who lay their ruin 
 between us, I dare say," returned Sir 
 Mulberry, tossing bis arm restlessly 
 upon the coverlet. 
 
 Ralph shrugged his shoulders in 
 deprecation of the intense irritation 
 with which this had been said ; for 
 there was an aggravating, cold dis- 
 tinctness 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 v.'ith 
 harsher emphasis, " I came to say 
 how grieved I am that any relative 
 of mine, although disowned by me, 
 should have inflicted such punishment 
 
 on you as " 
 
 " Punishment ! " interposed Sir 
 Mulberry. 
 
 " I know it has been a severe one," 
 said Ralph, wilfully mistaking the 
 meaning of the interruption, " and 
 that has made me the more anxious 
 to tell you that I disown this vagabond 
 that I acknowledge bun 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. / shall not interfere." 
 
 " This story that they tell me here, 
 has got abroad then, has it ? " asked 
 Sir Mulberry, clenching his hands and 
 teeth. 
 
 " Noised in all directions," replied 
 Ralph. " Every club and gaming- 
 room has rung with it. There has 
 been a good song made about it, as 
 I am told," said Ralph, looking 
 eagerly at his questioner. " I have 
 not heard it myself, not being in the 
 way of such things, but I have been 
 told it's even printed for private 
 circulation but that 's all over town, 
 of course." 
 
 It 's a lie ! " said Sir Mulberry ; 
 " I tell you it 's all a lie. The mare 
 took fright." 
 
 " They say he frightened her," ob- 
 served Ralph, in the same unmoved 
 and quiet manner. "Some say he 
 frightened you, but that's a lie, I 
 know. I have said that boldly oh, a 
 score of times ! I am a peaceable 
 man, but I can't hear folks tell that of 
 you No, no." 
 
 When Sir Mulberry found coherent 
 
 words to utter, Ralph bent forward 
 
 I 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 295 
 
 his broken leg in the ecstacy of his 
 passion, " I '11 have such revenge as 
 never man had yet. By G I will ! 
 Accident favouring him, he has marked 
 me for a week or two, but I '11 put a 
 mark on him that he shall carry to his 
 crave. I '11 slit his nose and ears 
 flog him maim him for life. I '11 
 do more than that ; I '11 drag that pat- 
 tern of chastity, that pink of prudery, 
 the delicate sister, through " 
 
 It might have been, that even Ralph's 
 cold blood tingled in his cheeks at 
 that moment. It might have been, 
 that Sir Mulberry remembered, that, 
 knave and usurer as he was, he must, 
 .11 some early time of infancy, have 
 twined his arm about her father's 
 neck. He stopped, and, menacing 
 with his hand, continued the unuttered 
 threat with a tremendous oath. 
 
 " It is a galling thing," said Ralph, 
 after a short term of silence, during 
 which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, 
 ' to think that the man about town, 
 the rake, the roue, the rook of twenty 
 seasons, should be brought to this 
 pass by a mere boy 1 " 
 
 Sir Mulberry darted a wrathful 
 look at him, but Ralph's eyes were 
 bent upon the ground, and his face 
 wore no other expression than one of 
 thoughtfulness. 
 
 " A raw, slight stripling," continued 
 Ralph, u 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 1 " 
 
 The sick man made an impatient 
 gesture, which Ralph chose to con- 
 sider as one of acquiescence. 
 
 " Ha ! " he said, I thought so. 
 That was before I knew you, but I 
 was pretty sure I couldn't be mis- 
 taken. He is light and active, I sup- 
 pose. But those were slight advant- 
 ages compared with yours. Luck, 
 luck these hangdog outcasts have it." 
 
 " He '11 need the most he has, when 
 I am well azain," said Sir Mulberry 
 Hawk, " let him fly where he will." 
 
 " Oh ! " returned Ralph quickly, 
 u he doesn't dream of that He is 
 
 here, good sir, waiting your pleasure 
 here in London, walking the streets 
 at noonday ; carrying it off jauntily ; 
 looking for you, I swear," said Ralph, 
 his face darkening, and his own hatred 
 getting the upper nand of him, for the 
 first time, as this gay picture of Nicho- 
 las presented itself ; " if we were only 
 citizens of a country where it could be 
 safely done, I 'd give good money to 
 have him stabbed to the heart and 
 rolled into the kennel for the dogs to 
 tear." 
 
 As Ralph, somewhat to the surprise 
 of his old client, vented this little 
 piece of sound family feeling, and took 
 up his hat preparatory to departing, 
 Lord Frederick Verisopht looked in. 
 
 " Why what in the dey vle's name, 
 Hawk, have you and Nickleby been 
 talking about I " said the young man. 
 " I neyver heard such an insufferable 
 riot. Croak, croak, croak. Bow, 
 wow, wow. What has it all been 
 about t " 
 
 " 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 
 againet Nicholas, almost as ferociously 
 as before. 
 
 Ralph, who was no common ob- 
 server, was surprised to see that as 
 this tirade proceeded, the manner of 
 Lord Frederick Verisopht, who at the 
 commencement had been twirling his 
 whiskers with a most dandified and 
 listless air, underwent a complete 
 alteration. He was still more sur- 
 prised when, Sir Mulberry ceasing t 
 speak, the young lord angrily, and 
 almost unaffectedly, requested never 
 to have the subject renewed in his 
 presence. 
 
 " Mind that, Hawk ! " he added, with
 
 29G 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 unusual energy, "I never will be a 
 party to, or permit, if I can help it, 
 a cowardly attack upon this young 
 i'ellow." 
 
 " Cowardly ! " interrupted liis 
 friend. 
 
 " Ye-es," said the other, turning 
 full upon him. " If you had told him 
 who you were ; if you had given him 
 your card, and found out, afterwards, 
 that his station or character prevented 
 your fighting him, it would have been 
 bad enough then ; upon my soul it 
 would have been bad enough then. 
 As it is, you did wrong. I did wrong 
 too, not to interfere, and I am sorry 
 for it. What happened to you after- 
 wards, was as much the consequence 
 of accident as design, and more your 
 fault than his ; and it shall not, with 
 my knowledge, be cruelly visited upon 
 him it shall not indeed." 
 
 With this emphatic repetition of 
 his concluding words, the young lord 
 turned upon his heel ; but before he 
 had reached the adjoining room he 
 turned back again, and said, with 
 even greater vehemence than he had 
 displayed before, 
 
 " I do believe, now ; upon my honour 
 I do believe, that the sister is as 
 virtuous and modest a young lady as 
 she is a handsome one ; and of the 
 brother, I say this, that he acted as 
 her brother should, and in a manly 
 and spirited manner. And I only 
 wish, with all my heart and soul, that 
 any one of us came out of this matter 
 half as well as he does." 
 
 So saying, Lord Frederick Verisopht 
 walked out of the room, leaving Ralph 
 Nickleby and Sir Mulberry in most 
 unpleasant astonishment. 
 
 " Is this your pupil ?" asked Ralph, 
 softly, "or has he come fresh from 
 some country parson ! " 
 
 " Green fools take these fits some- 
 times," replied Sir Mulberry Hawk, 
 biting his lip, and pointing to the door. 
 " Leave him to me." 
 
 Ralph exchanged a familiar look 
 with his old acquaintance ; for they had 
 suddenly grown confidential again in 
 this alarming surprise ; and took his 
 way home, thoughtfully and slowly. 
 
 While these things were being said 
 and done, and long before they were 
 concluded, the omnibus had disgorged 
 Miss La Creevy and her escort, and 
 they had arrived at her own door. 
 Now, the good-nature of the little 
 miniature-painter would by no means 
 allow of Smike's walking back a^ain, 
 until he had been previously refreshed 
 with just a sip of something comfort- 
 able and a mixed biscuit or sc . and 
 Smike, entertaining no objection cither 
 to the sip of something comfortable, or 
 the mixed biscuit, but, considering on 
 the contrary that they would be a 
 very pleasant preparation for a walk 
 to Bow, it fell out that he delayed 
 much longer than he originally in- 
 tended, and that it was some half 
 hour after dusk when he set forth on 
 his journey home. 
 
 There was no likelihood of his 
 losing his way, for it lay quite straight 
 before him, and he had walked into 
 town with Nicholas, and back alone, 
 almost every day. So, Miss La Creevy 
 and he shook hands with mutual con- 
 fidence, and, being charged with more 
 kind remembrances to Mrs. and Miss 
 Nickleby, Smike started off. 
 
 At the foot of Ludgate Hill, he 
 turned a little out of the road to 
 satisfy his curiosity by having a look 
 at Newgate. After staring up at the 
 sombre walls, from the opposite side of 
 the way, with great care and dread for 
 some minutes, he turned back again 
 into the old track, and walked briskly 
 through the city ; stopping now and 
 then, to gaze in at the window of some 
 particularly attractive shop, then run- 
 ning for a little way, then stopping 
 again, and so on, as any other country 
 lad might do. 
 
 He had been gazing for a long time 
 through a jeweller's window, wishing 
 he could take some of the beautiful 
 trinkets home as a present, and ima- 
 gining what delight they would afford 
 if he could, when the clocks struck 
 three-quarters past eight ; roused by 
 the sound, he hurried on at a very 
 quick pace, and was crossing the cor- 
 ner of a bye street when he felt him- 
 self violently brought to, with a jerk
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 297 
 
 so sudden that he was obliged to cling 
 to a lamp-post to save himself from 
 falling. At the same moment, a small 
 boy clung tight round his leg, and a 
 shrill cry of " Here he is, father, 
 Hooray ! " vibrated in his ears. 
 
 Smikc knw that voice too well. 
 He cast his despairing eyes downward 
 towards the form from which it had 
 proceeded, and, shuddering from head 
 to foot, looked round. Mr. Squeers 
 had hooked him in the coat-collar 
 with the handle of his umbrella, and 
 was hanging on at the other end 
 with all his might and main. The 
 cry of triumph proceeded from Master 
 Wackford, who, regardless of all his 
 kicks and struggles, clung to him with 
 the tenacity of a bull-dog ! 
 
 One glance showed him this ; and 
 in that one glance the terrified crea- 
 ture became utterly powerless and un- 
 able to utter a sound. 
 
 " Here 's a go ! " cried Mr. Squeers, 
 gradually coming hand-ovcr-hand down 
 the umbrella, and only unhooking it 
 when he had got tight hold of the 
 victim's collar. "Here's a delicious 
 go ! Wackford, my boy, call up one 
 of them coaches." 
 
 " A coach, father ! " cried little 
 Wackford. 
 
 " Yes, a coach, sir," replied Squeers, 
 feasting his eyes upon the countenance 
 of Smike. "Damn the expense. 
 Let 's have him in a coach." 
 
 "What's he been a doing of!" 
 asked a labourer, with a hod of bricks, 
 against whom and a fellow-labourer 
 Mr. Squeers had backed, on the first 
 jerk of the umbrella. 
 
 "Everything!" replied Mr. Squeers, 
 looking fixedly at his old pupil in a 
 sort of rapturous trance. " Every- 
 thing running away, sir joining in 
 blood-thirsty attacks upon his master, 
 there 's nothing that 's bad that 
 he hasn't done. Oh, what a delicious 
 go is this here, good Lord ! " 
 
 The man looked from Squeers to 
 Smike ; but such mental faculties as 
 the poor fellow possessed, had utterly 
 deserted him. The coach came up ; 
 Master, Wackford entered ; Squeers 
 pushed in his prize, and following 
 
 close at his heels, pulled up the glasses. 
 The coachman mounted his box and 
 drove slowly off, leaving the two 
 bricklayers, and an old apple-woman, 
 and a town-made little boy returning 
 from an evening school, who had been 
 the only witnesses of the scene, to 
 meditate upon it at their leisure. 
 
 Mr. Squeers sat himself down on 
 the opposite seat to the unfortunate 
 Smike, and, planting his hands firmly 
 on his knees, looked at him for some 
 five minutes, when, seeming to recover 
 from his trance, lie uttered a loud 
 laugh, and slapped his old pupil's face 
 several times taking the right and 
 left sides alternately. 
 
 " It isn't a dream ! " said Squeers. 
 " That 's real flesh and blood ! I know 
 the feel of it ; " and being quite 
 assured of his good fortune by these 
 experiments, Mr. Squeers administered 
 a few boxes on the ear, lest the enter- 
 tainments should seem to partake of 
 sameness, and laughed louder and 
 longer at every one. 
 
 " Your mother will be fit to jump 
 out of her skin, my boy, when she 
 hears of this," said Squeers to his 
 son. 
 
 " Oh, won't she though, father I " 
 replied Master Wackford. 
 
 " To think," said Squeers, " that 
 you and me should be turning out of 
 a street, and come upon him at the 
 very nick ; and that I should have 
 him tight, at only one cast' of the 
 umbrella, as if I had hooked him with 
 a grappling-iron ! Ha, ha ! " 
 
 "Didn't I catch hold of his leg, 
 neither, father ? " said litttle Wack- 
 ford. 
 
 " You did ; like a good 'un, my 
 boy," said Mr. Squeers, patting his 
 son's head, " and you shall have the 
 best button-over jacket and waistcoat 
 that the next new boy brings down, as 
 a reward of merit mind that. You 
 always keep on in the same path, and 
 do them things that you see your 
 father do, and when you die you '11 go 
 right slap to Heaven and no questions 
 asked." 
 
 Improving the occasion in these 
 words, Mr. Squeers patted his son's
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 head again, and then patted Smike's 
 but harder ; and inquired in a ban- 
 tering tone how he found himself by 
 this time. 
 
 " I must go home," replied Smike, 
 looking wildly round. 
 
 u 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 rob- 
 ber 1 " said Mr. Squeers, in a severe 
 voice. 
 
 Smike glanced at the neat attire 
 which the care of Nicholas had pro- 
 vided 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 1 " said Squeers. " Do you 
 know that it 's a hanging matter and 
 I an't quite certain whether it an't an 
 anatomy one besides to walk off with 
 up'ards of the valley of five pound 
 from a dwelling-house ? Eh do you 
 know that ? What do you suppose was 
 the worth of them clothes you had ? 
 Do you know that that Wellington- 
 boot you wore, cost eight-and-twenty 
 shillings when it was a pair, and the 
 shoe seven-and-six 1 But you came to 
 the right shop for mercy when you came 
 to me, and thank your stars that it is 
 me as has got to serve you with the 
 article." 
 
 Anybody not in Mr. Squeers's con- 
 fidence, would have supposed that he 
 was quite out of the article in question, 
 instead of having a large stock on 
 hand ready for all comers ; nor would 
 the opinion of sceptical persons have 
 andergone much alteration when he 
 followed up the remark by poking 
 Smike in the chest with the ferrule of 
 his umbrella, and dealing a smart 
 shower of blows, with the ribs of the 
 same instrument, upon his head and 
 shoulders. 
 
 " I never threshed a boy in a hack- 
 ney-coach before," said Mr. Squeers, 
 
 when he stopped to rest. "There's 
 inconveniency in it, but the novelty 
 gives it a sort of relish too ! " 
 
 Poor Smike ! He warded off the 
 blows, as well as he could, and now 
 shrunk into a corner of the coach, 
 with his head resting on his hands, 
 and hia elbows on his knees ; he was 
 stunned and stupified, and had no 
 more idea that any act of his, would 
 enable him to escape from the all- 
 powerful Squeers, now that he had no 
 friend to speak to or advise with, than 
 he had had in all the weary years of 
 his Yorkshire life which preceded the 
 arrival of Nicholas. 
 
 The journey seemed endless ; street 
 after street was entered and left be- 
 hind ; and still they went jolting on. 
 At last, Mr. Squeers began to thrust 
 his head out at the window every half- 
 minute, and to bawl a variety of direc- 
 tions to the coachman ; and after 
 passing, with some difficulty, through 
 several mean streets which the appear- 
 ance of the houses and the bad state 
 of the road denoted to have been 
 recently built, Mr. Squeers suddenly 
 tugged at the check string with all his 
 might, and cried, " Stop ! " 
 
 " What are you pulling a man's 
 arm off for ? " said the coachman, look- 
 ing 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 plate on the 
 door, with the name of Snawley." 
 
 "Couldn't you say that, without 
 wrenching a man's limbs off his 
 body ? " inquired the coachman. 
 
 " No ! " bawled Mr. Squeers. "Say 
 another word, and I'll summons you 
 for having a broken winder. Stop ! " 
 
 Obedient to this direction, the coach 
 stopped at Mr. Snawley's door. Mr. 
 Snawley may be remembered as the 
 sleek and sanctified gentleman who 
 confided two sons (in laic) to the 
 parental care of Mr. Squeers, as. nar- 
 rated in the fourth chapter of this 
 history. Mr. Snawley's house was on 
 the extreme borders of some new 
 settlements adjoining Somers Town, 
 and Mr. Squeers had taken lodgings
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 299 
 
 therein, for a short time, as his stay 
 was longer than usual, and the Saracen, 
 having experience of Master Wack- 
 ford's appetite, had declined to receive 
 bun on any other terms than as a full- 
 grown customer. 
 
 " Here we are ! " said Squeers, 
 hurrying Smike into the little parlour, 
 where Mr. Snawley and his wife were 
 taking a lobster supper. " Here 's the 
 vagrant the felon the rebel the 
 monster of unthankfulness." 
 
 What ! The boy that run away !" 
 cried Snawley, resting bis knife and 
 fork upright on the table, and opening 
 his eyes to their full width. 
 
 " The very boy," said Squeers, put- 
 ting his fist close to Snake's nose, and 
 drawing it away again, and repeating 
 the process several times, with a vicious 
 aspect. " If there wasn't a lady pre- 
 sent, I 'd fetch him such a : never 
 
 mind, I '11 owe it him." 
 
 And here Mr. Squeers related how, 
 and in what manner, and when and 
 where, he had picked up the runaway. 
 
 " It 's clear that there has been a 
 Providence in it, sir," said Mr. Snawley, 
 casting down his eyes with an air of 
 humility, and elevating his fork, with a 
 bit of lobster on the top of it, towards 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " Providence is against him, no 
 doubt," replied Mr. Squeers, scratch- 
 ing his nose. " Of course ; that was 
 to be expected. Anybody might have 
 known that." 
 
 " Hard-heartedness and evil-doing 
 will never prosper, sir," said Mr. 
 Snawley. 
 
 " Never was such a thing known," 
 rejoined Squeers, taking a little roll of 
 notes from his pocket-book, to see that 
 they were all safe. 
 
 " I have been, Mrs. Snawley," said 
 Mr. Squeers, when he had satisfied 
 himself upon this point, " I have 
 been that chap's benefactor, feeder, 
 teacher, and clother. I have been 
 that chap's classical, commercial, ma- 
 thematical, philosophical, and trigono- 
 mical 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 hi one. She never 
 cottoned to anybody, except them two 
 engaging and delightful boys of yours, 
 as she cottoned to this chap. What's 
 my return ? What 's come of my 
 milk of human kindness ! It turns 
 into curds and whey when I look at 
 him." 
 
 " Well it may, sir," said Mrs. Snaw- 
 ley. Oh ! Well it may, sir." 
 
 " Wliere has he been all this time? " 
 inquired Snawley. "Has he been 
 living with ! " 
 
 " Ah, sir ! " interposed Squeers, con- 
 fronting him again. " Have you been 
 a living with that there devilish 
 Nickleby, sir ? " 
 
 But no threats or cuffs could elicit 
 from Smike one word of reply to 
 this question ; for he had internally 
 resolved that he would rather perish 
 in the wretched prison to which he 
 was again about to be consigned, 
 than utter one syllable which could 
 involve Ins first and true friend. Ho 
 had already called to mind the strict 
 injunctions of secrecy as to his past 
 life, which Nicholas had laid upon 
 him when they travelled from York- 
 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 undefined 
 as those which wandered through his 
 enfeebled brain, the term can be 
 applied which were present to the 
 mind of Smike, and rendered him 
 deaf alike to intimidation and per- 
 suasion. Finding every effort useless, 
 Mr. Squeers .conducted him to a 
 little back room up-stairs, where he 
 was to pass the night ; and, taking 
 the precaution of removing his shoes, 
 and coat and waistcoat, and also of 
 locking the door on the outside, lest 
 he should master up sufficient energy 
 to make an attempt at escape, that 
 worthy gentleman left him to his 
 meditations.
 
 300 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 What those meditations were, | tion, must have rusted and broken 
 and how the poor creature's heart | in their secret places, and bear the 
 
 sunk within him when he though 
 when did he, for a moment, cease 
 to think ! of his late home, and the 
 dear friends and familiar faces with 
 which it was associated, cannot be 
 told. To prepare the mind for such 
 a, heavy sleep, its growth must be 
 stopped by rigour and cruelty in 
 childhood ; there must be years of 
 misery and suffering lightened by no 
 ray of hope ; the chords of the 
 heart, which beat a quick response 
 to the voico of gentleness and affec- 
 
 lingering echo of no old word of love 
 or kindness. Gloomy, indeed, must 
 have been the short day, and dull the 
 long, long twilight, preceding such 
 a night of intellect as his. 
 
 There were voices which would have 
 roused him, even then ; but their wel- 
 come tones could not penetrate there ; 
 and he crept to bed the same listless, 
 hopeless, blighted creature, that Ni- 
 cholas had first found him at the 
 Yorkshire school. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 WHICH ANOTHER OLD FRIEND ENCOUNTERS 5MIKE, VERT 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 mai!- 
 eoach traversed, with cheerful noise, the 
 yet silent streets of Islington, and, 
 giving brisk note of its approach with 
 the lively winding of the guard's horn, 
 clattered onward to its halting-place 
 hard by the Post-office. 
 
 The only outside passenger was a 
 burly, honest-looking countryman on 
 the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon 
 the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, 
 as to be quite insensible to all the 
 bustle of getting out the bags and 
 parcels, until one of the coach windows 
 being let sharply down, he looked 
 round, and encountered a pretty female 
 face which was just then thrust out. 
 
 " See there, lass ! " bawled the 
 countryman, pointing towards the 
 object of his admiration. " There be 
 Paul's Church. 'Ecod, he be a soiz- 
 able 'un, he be." 
 
 " Goodness, John ! I shouldn't have 
 thought it could have been lialf the 
 size. What a monster J " 
 
 "Monsther! Ye 're aboot right 
 
 there, I reckon, Mrs. Browdie," said 
 the countryman good-humouredly, as 
 he came slowly down in his huge top- 
 coat, " and wa'at dost thee tak you 
 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-latthers. A 
 Poast-office ! Wa'at dost thee think 
 o' thot ? 'Ecod, if thot's on'y a Poast- 
 office, I'd loike to see where the Lord 
 Mayor o' Lunnuu lives." 
 
 So saying, John Browdie for he it 
 was opened the coach-door, and tap- 
 ping Mrs. Browdie, late Miss Price, 
 on the cheek as he looked in, burst 
 into a boisterous fit of laughter. 
 
 \Veel ! " said John, " Dang my 
 bootuns if she bea'n t asleep ageau 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 1 was very 
 sorry when she woke, for she has been 
 so cross ! " 
 
 The subject of these remarks was a 
 slumbering figure, so muffled in shawl 
 and cloak, that it would have been 
 matter of impossibility to guess at ita
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 301 
 
 Bex but for a brown-beaver bonnet 
 and green veil which ornamented the 
 head, and which, having been crushed 
 and flattened, for two hundred and 
 fifty miles, in that particular angle of 
 the vehicle from which the lady's 
 snores now proceeded, presented an 
 appearance sufficiently ludicrous to 
 have moved less risible muscles than 
 those of John Browdie's ruddy face. 
 
 " Hollo ! " cried John, twitching one 
 end of the dragged veil. "Coom, 
 wakken oop, will 'ee." 
 
 After several burrowings into the 
 old corner, and many exclamations 
 of impatience and fatigue, vhe figure 
 struggled into a sitting posture ; and 
 there, under a mass of crumpled 
 beaver, and surrounded by a semi- 
 circle of blue curl-papers, were the 
 delicate features of Miss Fanny 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Oh, 'Tilda ! '' cried Miss Squeers, 
 "How you have been kicking of me 
 through this blessed night ! " 
 
 " Well, I do like that," replied her 
 friend, laughing, " when you have had 
 nearly the whole coach to yourself." 
 
 " Don't deny it, 'Tilda," said Miss 
 Squeers, impressively, " because you 
 have, and it 's no use to go attempting 
 to say you haven't. You mightn't 
 have known it in your sleep, 'Tilda, 
 but I haven't closed my eyes for a 
 single wink, and so I thiitk 1 am to be 
 believed." 
 
 With which reply, Miss Squeers 
 adjusted the bonnet and veil, which 
 nothing but supernatural interference 
 and au utter suspension of nature's 
 laws could have reduced to any shape 
 or form ; and evidently flattering her- 
 self that it looked uncommonly neat, 
 brushed off the sandwich-crumbs and 
 bits of biscuit which had accumulated 
 in her lap, and availing herself of John 
 Browdie's proffered arm, descended 
 from the coach. 
 
 " Noo," said John, when a hackney- 
 coach had been called, and the ladies 
 and the luggage hurried in, " gang to 
 the Sarah's Head, mun." 
 
 " To the we 1 " cried the coach- 
 man. 
 
 " Lawk, Mr. Browdie !" interrupted 
 
 Miss Squeers. * Tho idea ! Saracen's 
 Head." 
 
 " Sure-ly," said John, " I know'd it 
 was something aboot Sarah to the 
 Sarah's Son's Head. Dost thou know 
 thot ? " 
 
 " Oh, ah I know that," replied the 
 coachman gruffly, as he banged the 
 door. 
 
 " 'Tilda, dear really," remon- 
 strated Miss Squeers, " we shall be 
 taken for 1 don't know what." 
 
 " Let them tak us as they foind 
 us ; " said John Browdie, " we dean't 
 come to Lunnun to do nought but 'joy 
 oursel, do we 1 " 
 
 " I hope not, Mr. Browdie," replied 
 Miss Squeers, looking singularly dis- 
 mal. 
 
 "Well, then," said John, "it's no 
 matther. I 've only been a married 
 man fower days, 'account of poor old 
 feyther deein' and puttin' it off. Here 
 be a weddin' party broide and 
 broide'smaid, and the groom if a 
 mun dean't 'joy himsel noo, when 
 ought he, hey ? Drat it all, thot ' 
 what I want to know." 
 
 So, in order that he might begin to 
 enjoy himself at once, and lose no 
 time, Mr. Browdie gave his wife a 
 hearty kiss, and succeeded in wresting 
 another from Miss Squeers, after a 
 maidenly resistance of scratching and 
 struggling on the part of that young 
 lady, which was not quite over when 
 they reached the Saracen's Head. 
 
 Here, the party straightway retired 
 to rest ; the refreshment of sleep being 
 necessary after so long a journey ; and 
 here they met again, about noon, to a 
 substantial breakfast, spread by direc- 
 tion 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 splendour 
 of a white frock and spencer, with a 
 white muslin bonnet,, and an imitative 
 damask rose in full bloom on the in- 
 side thereof : her luxuriant crop of 
 hair arranged in curls so tight that it 
 was impossible they coulu come out
 
 302 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 by any accident, and her bonnet-cap 
 trimmed with little damask roses, 
 which might be supposed to be so 
 many promising scions of the big 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 
 cornelian heart, typical of her own 
 disengaged affections to have con- 
 templated all these mute but expres- 
 sive appeals to the purest feelings of 
 our nature, might have thawed the 
 frost of age, and added new and inex- 
 tinguishable fuel to the fire of youth. 
 
 The waiter was touched. Waiter as 
 he was, he had human passions and 
 feelings, and he looked very hard at 
 Miss Squeers as he handed the muffins. 
 
 "Is my pa in, do you know 1" 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. Wack- 
 ford Squeers he 's stopping here. Is 
 he at home ? " 
 
 " I didn't know there was any gen'l- 
 man of that name in the house, Miss," 
 replied the waiter. " There may be, 
 in the coffee-room." 
 
 May be. Very pretty this, indeed ! 
 Here was Miss Squeers, who had been 
 depending, all the way to London, upon 
 showing her friends how much at home 
 she would be, and how much respect- 
 ful notice her name and connexions 
 would excite, told that her father 
 might be there ! " As if he was a 
 feller ! " observed Miss Squeers, with 
 emphatic indignation. 
 
 " Ye'd betther inquire, mnn," said 
 John Browdie. * An' bond up another 
 pigeon-pie, will'ee ! Dang the chap," 
 
 muttered John, looking into the empty 
 dish as the waiter retired ; " Does he 
 ca' this a pie three yoong pigeons 
 and a troifling matther o' steak, and a 
 crust so loight that you doant know 
 when it 's in your mooth and when it 's 
 gane ? I wonder hoo many pies goes 
 to a breakfast!" 
 
 After a short interval, which John 
 Browdie employed upon the ham and 
 a cold round of beef, the waiter re- 
 turned with another pie, and the ia- 
 formation that Mr. Squeers was not 
 stopping in the house, but that be 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, who'd have thought of this ! " 
 said Mr. Squeers, when he had saluted 
 the party, and received some private 
 family intelligence from his daughter. 
 
 " Who, indeed, pa ! " replied that 
 young lady, spitefully. " But you see 
 'Tilda is married at last." 
 
 " And I stond threat for a soight o' 
 Ltmnun, schoolmeasther," said John, 
 vigorously attacking the pie. 
 
 " One of them things that young 
 men do when they get married," re- 
 turned Squeers ; " and as runs through 
 with their money like nothing at all ! 
 How much better wouldn't it be now, 
 to save it up for the eddication of any 
 little boys, for instance. They come 
 on you," said Mr. Squeers in a mo- 
 ralising way, " before you 're aware of 
 it ; mine did upon me." 
 
 " Will 'ee pick a bit ? " said John. 
 
 "I won't myself," returned Sqneers; 
 "but if you '11 just let little Wackford 
 tuck into something fat, I '11 be obliged 
 to you. Give it him in his fingers, 
 else the waiter charges it on, and 
 there's lot of profit on this sort of 
 vittles without that. If you hear the 
 waiter coming, sir, shove it in your 
 pocket and look out of the window, 
 d 'ye hear ? " 
 
 "I'm awake, father," replied the 
 dutiful Wackford. 
 
 " Well," said Squeers, turning to his 
 daughter, u It 's your turn to be mar- 
 ried next You must make haste."
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 303 
 
 " Oh, I 'm in no hurry," said Miss 
 Squeers, very sharply. 
 
 " No, Fanny 1 " cried her old friend 
 with some archness. 
 
 " No, 'Tilda," replied Miss Squeers, 
 shaking her head vehemently. ** 7 
 can wait." 
 
 " So can the yonng men, it seems, 
 -Fanny," observed Mrs. Browdie. 
 
 " They an't draw'd into it by me, 
 'Tilda," retorted Miss Squeers. 
 
 * No," returned her friend ; "that 's 
 exceedingly true." 
 
 The sarcastic tone of this reply 
 might have provoked a rather acrimo- 
 nious retort from Miss Squeers, who, 
 besides beingofaconstitutionally vicious 
 temper aggravated, just now, by travel 
 and recent jolting was somewhat 
 irritated by old recollections and the 
 failure of her own designs upon Mr. 
 Browdie ; and the acrimonious retort 
 might have led to a great many other 
 retorts, which might have led to 
 Heaven knows what, if the subject of 
 conversation had not been, at that pre- 
 cise moment, accidentally changed by 
 Mr. Squeers himself. 
 
 " What do you think ? " said that 
 gentleman ; " who do you suppose we 
 have laid hands on, Wackford and 
 me!" 
 
 " Pa ! not Mr. ? " Miss Sqneers 
 
 was unable to finish the sentence, but 
 Mrs. Browdie did it for her, and 
 added, Nickleby ! " 
 
 " No," said Squeers. ** But next 
 door to him though." 
 
 " You can't mean Smike * " cried 
 Miss Squeers, clapping her hands. 
 
 " Yes, I can though," rejoined her 
 father. " I 've got him, hard and 
 fast" 
 
 " Wa'at ! " exclaimed John Browdie, 
 pushing away his plate. "Got that 
 poor dom'd seoondrel, where?" 
 
 " Why, in the top back room, at my 
 lodging," replied Squeers, " with him 
 on one side, and the key on the other." 
 
 ** At thy loodgin' ! *Thee 'st gotten 
 him at thy loodgin' ! Ho ! ho ! The 
 schoolmeasther agin all England. Give 
 us theo hond, mun ; I 'm darned but 
 I must shak thee by the hond for thou 
 Gotten him at thy loodgin' J " 
 
 " Yes," replied Sqneers, staggering 
 in his chair under the congratulatory 
 blow on the chest which the stout 
 Yorksnireman dealt him u thankee. 
 Don't do it again. You mean it 
 kindly, I know, but it hurts rather 
 yes, there he is. That 's not so bad, 
 is it ! " 
 
 " Ba'ad ! " repeated John Browdie. 
 " It 's eneaf to scare a mun to hear 
 tell on." 
 
 " I thought it would surprise you a 
 bit," said Squeers, rubbing his hands. 
 "It was pretty neatly done, and pretty 
 quick too." 
 
 " Hoo wor it ? " inquired John, sit- 
 ting down close to him. " Tell us all 
 aboot it, mun ; coom, quick ! " 
 
 Although he could not keep pace 
 with John Browdie's impatience, Mr. 
 Squeers related the lucky chance by 
 which Smike had fallen into his hands, 
 as quickly as he could, and, except 
 when he was interrupted by the admir- 
 ing 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 Wackford 
 and him and me and have arranged to 
 leave the accounts and the new boys to 
 the agent, don't you see ? So, it 's very 
 lucky you come 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 anything more of you 
 before we go away." 
 
 " Deant say anoother wurd," re- 
 turned 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
 
 301 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 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, conduct- 
 ing himself in such a very extraordi- 
 nary manner, that Miss Squeers opined 
 he was going mad, and, begging her 
 dear 'Tilda not to distress herself, 
 communicated her suspicions in so 
 many words. Mrs. Browdie, however, 
 without discovering any great alarm, 
 observed that she had seen him so, 
 once before, and that although he was 
 almost sure to be ill after it, it would 
 not be anything very serious, and 
 therefore he was better left alone. 
 
 The result proved her to be per- 
 fectly correct ; for, while they were all 
 sitting in Mr. Snawley's parlour that 
 night, and just as it was beginning to 
 get dusk, John Browdie was taken so 
 ill, and seized with such an alarming 
 dizziness in the head, that the whole 
 company were thrown into the utmost 
 consternation. His good lady, indeed, 
 was the only person present, who re- 
 tained presence of mind enough to 
 observe that if he were allowed to lie 
 down on Mr. Squeers's bed for an 
 hour or so, and left entirely to himself, 
 'he would be sure to recover again 
 almost as quickly as he had been taken 
 ill. Nobody could refuse to try the 
 effect of so reasonable a proposal, before 
 sending for a surgeon. Accordingly, 
 John was supported 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, re-appeared in 
 the parlour, with the gratifying intelli- 
 gence that he had fallen fust asleep. 
 
 Now, the fact was, that, at that par- 
 ticular moment, John Browdie was 
 sitting on the bed with the reddest face 
 
 ever seen, cramming the corner of the 
 pillow into his mouth, to prevent his 
 roaring out loud with laughter. He 
 had no sooner succeeded in suppressing 
 this emotion, than he slipped off his 
 shoes, and creeping to the adjoining 
 room where the prisoner was confined, 
 turned the key, which was on the out- 
 side, and darting in, covered Smike'e 
 mouth with his huge hand before he 
 could utter a sound. 
 
 " Ods-bobs, dost thee not know me ; 
 mun 1 " whispered the Yorkshireman 
 to the bewildered lad. " Browdie, 
 chap as met thee efther schoolmeasther 
 was banged ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried Smike. " Oh 
 help me." 
 
 " Help thee ! " replied John, stop- 
 ping 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 ! he brought 
 me," cried Smike. 
 
 " Brout thee ! " replied John. 
 " Why didn't 'ee punch his head, or lay 
 theeself doon and kick, and squeal out 
 for the pollis ? I 'd ha' licked a doozen 
 such as him when I was yoong as thee. 
 But thee be'est a poor broken-doon 
 chap," said John, sadly, "and God 
 forgi' me for bragging ower yan o' hia 
 weakest creeturs ! " 
 
 Smike opened his mouth to speak, 
 but John Browdie stopped him. 
 
 "Stan still," said the Yorkshireman, 
 " and doant'ee speak a morsel o' talk 
 till 1 tell'ee." 
 
 With this caution, John Browdie 
 shook his head significantly, and draw- 
 ing 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 imple- 
 ment, on the floor. 
 
 See thot 1 " said John. Thot b 
 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 
 livestl Thee dost? Weel. Arc yon 
 thy clothes, or school-measther's i "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 305 
 
 ** Mine," replied Smike, as the York- 
 sliireman hurried him to tlie adjoining 
 room, and pointed out a pair of shoes j 
 and a coat which were lying on a chair. 
 
 " On wi' 'em," said John, forcing 
 the wrong arm into the wrong sleeve, 
 and winding the tails of the coat round 
 the fugitive's neck. " Noo, foller me, 
 and when thee get'st ootside door, turn 
 to the right, and they wean't see thee 
 pass." 
 
 " But but he'll hear me shut the 
 door," replied Smike, trembling from 
 head to foot 
 
 " Then dean't shut it at all," retorted 
 John Browdie. " Dang it, thee bean't 
 afeard o' schoolmeasther's takkiii' cold, 
 I hope ! " 
 
 " N-no," said Smike, his teeth chat- 
 tering in his head. ' But he brought 
 me back before, and will again. He 
 will, he will indeed." 
 
 He wull, he wull !" replied John 
 impatiently. " He wean't, he wean't. 
 Looke'e ! I wont to do this neighbourly 
 loike, and let them think thee's gotten 
 awa' o' theesclf, but if he cooms oot o' 
 thot parlour awhiles theer't clearing 
 oft', he mun' have mercy on his oun 
 boans, for I wean't. If he foinds it 
 oot, soon efther, I'll put 'un on a wrong 
 scent, I warrantee. But if theekeeps't 
 ft good hart, thee'lt be at whoam afore 
 they know thees't gotten off. Coom ! " 
 
 Smike, who comprehended just 
 enough of this to know it was intended 
 as encouragement, prepared to follow 
 with tottering steps, when John whis- 
 pered in his ear. 
 
 " The'lt just tell yoong Measther, 
 that I'm sploiced to 'Tilly Price, and 
 to be hecrd on at the Saracen by lat- 
 ther, and that I bee'nt jealous of 'un 
 
 dang it, I'm loike to boost when I think 
 o' that neight ! 'Cod, I think I see 'un 
 now, a powderin' awa' at the thin bread 
 an butther ! " 
 
 It was rather a ticklish recollection 
 for John just then, for he was within 
 an ace of breaking out into a loud guf- 
 faw. Restraining himself, however 
 just in time, by a great effort, he glided 
 down stairs, hauling Smike behind 
 him ; and placing himself close to the 
 parlour-door, to confront the first per- 
 son that might come out, signed to him 
 to make off. 
 
 Having got so far, Smike needed no 
 second bidding. Opening the housc- 
 door gently, and casting a look of 
 mingled gratitude and terror at his 
 deliverer, he took the direction which 
 had been indicated to him, and sped 
 away, like the wind. 
 
 The Yorkshireman remained on his 
 post, for a few minutes, but, finding 
 that there was no pause in the con- 
 versation inside, crept back again un- 
 heard, 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 some- 
 body by, to see how the bed-clothca 
 shook, and to see the Yorkshireman'a 
 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 witn the laughter 
 which came bursting forth afresh 
 that somebody would have been 
 scarcely less amused than John Brow- 
 die himself. 
 
 No. 51.
 
 306 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 IN 'WHICH NICHOLAS FALLS IN LOTS. HE EMPLOYS A MEDIATOR, WHOSE PRO- 
 CEEDINGS ARE CROWNED WITH UNEXPECTED SUCCESS, EXCEPTING IN ONB 
 SOLITARY PARTICULAR. 
 
 " O:ICB more out of the clutches of 
 bis 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 im- 
 pelled 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 ex- 
 haustion could scarcely retard. It 
 was not until the darknesi 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 scram- 
 bled in his flight, skirted the road, 
 both by the way he hod 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 dwell- 
 ing, it must surely be at such a time 
 as that, aud under cover of the dark- 
 ness. This, by degrees, became pretty 
 
 plain, even to the mind of Smike. He 
 had, at first, entertained some vague 
 and childish idea of travelling into the 
 country for ten or a dozen miles, and 
 then returning homewards by a wide 
 circuit, which should keep him clear 
 of London so great was his appre- 
 hension of traversing the streets alone, 
 lest he should again encounter his 
 dreaded enemy but, yielding to the 
 conviction which these thoughts in- 
 spired, he turned back, and taking the 
 open road, though not without many 
 fears and misgivings, made for Lon- 
 don 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 hi the streets, 
 and they were lounging home. But 
 of these he asked his way from time 
 to time, and, by dint of repeated in- 
 quiries, he at length reached the dwell- 
 ing of Newman Noggs. 
 
 All that evening, Newman had been 
 hunting and 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 & bowl of medicine
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 307 
 
 to the lips of a refractory child, com- 
 manded him to drain it to the last 
 drop. 
 
 Newman looked uncommonly blank 
 when he found that Smike did little 
 more than put his lips to the precious 
 mixture ; he was in the act of raising 
 the mug to his own mouth with a 
 deep sigh of compassion for his poor 
 friend's weakness, when Smike, be- 
 ginning to relate the adventures which 
 had befallen him, arrested him half- 
 way, and he stood listening, with the 
 mug in hia hand. 
 
 It was odd enough to see the change 
 that came over Newman as Smike 
 proceeded. At first he stood, rubbing 
 his lips with the back of his hand, as 
 a preparatory ceremony towards com- 
 posing himself for a draught ; then, 
 at the mention of Squeers, he took the 
 mug under his arm, and opening his 
 eyes very wide, looked on, in the 
 utmost astonishment When Smike 
 came to the assault upon himself in 
 the hackney-coach, he hastily deposited 
 the mug upon the table, and limped 
 up and down the room in a state of 
 the greatest excitement, stopping him- 
 self with a jerk, every now and then, 
 as if to listen more attentively. When 
 John Browdie came to be spoken of, 
 he dropped, by slow and gradual de- 
 grees, into a chair, and rubbing his 
 hands upon his knees quicker and 
 quicker as the story reached its climax 
 burst, at last, into a laugh composed 
 of one loud sonorous " Ha ! Ha ! " 
 having given vent to which, his coun- 
 tenance immediately fell again as he 
 inquired, with the utmost anxiety, 
 whether it was probable that John 
 Browdie and Squeers had come to 
 blows. 
 
 " No ! I think not," replied Smike. 
 '* I don't think he could have missed 
 me till I had got quite away." 
 
 Newman scratched his head with a 
 show of great disappointment, and 
 once more lifting up the mug, applied 
 himself to the contents ; smiling mean- 
 while, over the rim, with a grim and 
 ghastly smile at Smike. 
 
 " You shall stay here," said New- 
 man ; * you're tired fagged. I'll 
 
 tell them you're come back. They 
 have been half mad about you. Mr. 
 Nicholas " 
 
 " God bless him ! " cried Smike. 
 
 " Amen ! " returned Newman. " He 
 hasn't had a minute's rest or peace ; 
 no more has the old lady, nor Miss 
 Nickleby." 
 
 "No, no. Has site thought about 
 me ? " said Smike. " Has she though ! 
 oh, has she has she ! Don't tell me 
 so, if she has not." 
 
 " She has," cried Newman. " She is 
 as noble-hearted as she is beautiful." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " cried Smike. " Well 
 said!" 
 
 " So mild and gentle," said Newman. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " cried Smike, with 
 increasing eagerness. 
 
 "And yet with such a true and 
 gallant spirit," pursued Newman. 
 
 He was going on, in his enthusiasm, 
 when, chancing to look at his com- 
 panion, he saw that he had covered 
 his face with his hands, and that tears 
 were stealing out between his fingers. 
 
 A moment before, the boy's eyes 
 were sparkling with unwonted fire, 
 and every feature had been lighted up 
 with an excitement which made him 
 appear, for the moment, quite a differ- 
 ent being. 
 
 " Well, well," muttered Newman, 
 as if he were a little puzzled. "It 
 has touched me, more than once, to 
 think such a nature should have been 
 exposed to such trials ; this poor 
 fellow yes, yes, he feels that too 
 it softens him makes him think of 
 his former misery. Hah ! That 's it ! 
 Yes, that 's hum ! " 
 
 It was by no means clear, from the 
 tone of these broken reflections, that 
 Newman Noggs considered them as 
 explaining, at all satisfactorily, the 
 emotion which had suggested them. 
 He sat, in a musing attitude, for some 
 time, regarding Smike occasionally 
 with an anxious and doubtful glance, 
 which sufficiently showed that he was 
 not very remotely connected with his 
 thoughts. 
 
 At length he repeated his proposi- 
 tion that Smike should remain where 
 he was for that night, and that he
 
 308 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 (Noggs) should straightway repair to 
 the cottage to relieve the suspense of 
 the family. But, as Smike would not 
 hear of this pleading his anxiety to 
 see his friends again they eventually 
 sallied forth together ; and the night 
 being, by this time, far advanced, and 
 Smike being, besides, so footsore that he 
 could hardly crawl along, it was within 
 an hour of sunrise when they reached 
 their destination. 
 
 At the first sound of their voices 
 outside the house, Nicholas, who had 
 passed a sleepless night, devising 
 schemes for the recovery of his lost 
 charge, started from his bed, and joy- 
 fully admitted them. There was so 
 much noisy conversation, and congra- 
 tulation, and indignation, that the re- 
 jnainder of the family were soon 
 awakened, and Smike received a warm 
 and cordial welcome, not only from 
 Kate, but from Mrs. Nickleby also, 
 who assured him of her future favour 
 and regard, and was so obliging as to 
 relate, for his entertainment and that 
 of the assembled circle, a most re- 
 markable account extracted from some 
 work the name of which she had 
 never known, of 3 miraculous escape 
 from some prison, but what one she 
 couldn't remember, effected by an 
 officer whose name she had forgotten, 
 confined for some crime which she 
 didn't clearly recollect 
 
 At first Nicholas was disposed to 
 give his uncle credit for some portion 
 of this bold attempt (which had so 
 nearly proved successful) to carry off 
 Smike ; but, on more mature consi- 
 deration, he was inclined to think that 
 the full merit of it rested with Mr. 
 Squeers. Determined to ascertain, if 
 he could, through John Browdie, how 
 the case really stood, he betook himself 
 to his daily occupation : meditating as 
 he went, on a great variety of schemes 
 for the punishment of the Yorkshire 
 schoolmaster, all of which had their 
 foundation in the strictest principles 
 of retributive justice, and had but 
 the one drawback of being wholly- 
 impracticable. 
 
 "A fine morning, Mr. Linkin water !" 
 aid Nicholas, entering the office. 
 
 Ah !" replied Tim, "talk of th 
 country, indeed ! What do you think 
 of this, now, for a day a London day 
 eh!" 
 
 " It 's a little clearer 1 out of town," 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Clearer I " . echoed Tim Linkin- 
 water. " You should see it from my 
 bed-room window." 
 
 " You should see it from mine," 
 replied Nicholas, with a smile. 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! " said Tim Linkin- 
 water, " don't tell me. Country ! " 
 (Bow was quite a rustic place to Tim,) 
 " Nonsense ! What can you get in the 
 country but new-laid eggs and flowers ? 
 I can buy new-laid eggs in Leadenhall 
 market, any morning before breakfast ; 
 and as to flowers, it 's worth a run up- 
 stairs to smell my mignionette, 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, hi the court, is there I " said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 "Yes, is there !" replied Tim, "and 
 planted in a cracked jug, without a 
 spout. There were hyacinths there, 
 
 this last spring, blossoming in but 
 
 you'll laugh at that, of course." 
 
 " At what ! " 
 
 "At their blossoming in old blacking- 
 bottles," said Tim. 
 
 " Not I, indeed," returned Nicholas. 
 
 Tim looked wistfully at him, for a 
 moment, as if he were encouraged by 
 the tone of this reply to be more com- 
 municative on the subject ; and stick- 
 ing 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 buy, and seem to be the 
 only pleasures, Mr. Nickleby, of his 
 j sad existence. Ho\v many years is it,' 1 
 said Tun, pondering, " since I first 
 noticed him, quite a little child, drag- 
 ging himself about, on a pair of tiny 
 crutches ! Well ! Well ! not many ; 
 but though they would appear nothing, 
 if I thought of other things, they seem 
 a long, long time, when I think of him. 
 It is a sad thing," said Tim, breaking 
 off, "to see a little deformed child 
 sitting apart from other children, who
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 309 
 
 are active and merry, watching the 
 games he is denied the power to share 
 in. Ho made my heart ache very 
 often." 
 
 " It is a good heart," said Nicholas, 
 " that disentangles itself from the close 
 avocations of every day, to heed such 
 things. You were saying " 
 
 " That the flowers belonged to this 
 poor boy," said Tim ; " that's all. When 
 it is fine weather, and he can crawl 
 out of bed, he draws a chair close to 
 the window, and sits there, looking at 
 them, and arranging them, all daylong. 
 We used to nod, at first, and then we 
 came to speak. Formerly, when I 
 called to him of a morning, and asked 
 him how he was, he would smile, and 
 say, ' better ; ' but now he shakes his 
 head, and only bends more closely over 
 his old plants. It must be dull to 
 watch the dark 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. 
 
 " His father lives Um-c, 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, ' No- 
 thing.' His voice is growing weak of 
 late, but I can see that he makes the 
 old reply. He can't leave his bed 
 now, so they have moved it close be- 
 side 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 
 ry candle, he draws back his curtain, 
 and leaves it so, till I am in bed. It 
 seems such company to him to know 
 that I am there, that I often sit at my 
 window for an hour or more, that he 
 may see I am still awake ; and some- 
 times I get up in the night to look at 
 the dull melancholy light in his little 
 room, and wonder whether he is awake 
 or sleeping. 
 
 " The night will not be long coming," 
 said Tim, " when he will sleep, and 
 never wake again on earth. We have 
 never so much as shaken hands in all 
 
 our lives ; and yet I shall miss him 
 like an old friend. Are there any 
 country flowers that could interest me 
 like these, do you think ? Or do you 
 suppose that the withering of a hundred 
 kinds of the choicest flowers that blow, 
 called by the hardest Latin names that 
 were ever invented, would give me one 
 fraction of the pain that I shall feel 
 when these old jugs and bottles are 
 swept away as lumber ! Country ! " 
 cried Tim, with a contemptuous em- 
 phasis ; " don't you know that I 
 couldn't have such a court under my 
 bed-room window, anywhere, but in 
 London?" 
 
 With which inquiry, Tim turned hia 
 back, and pretending to be absorbed 
 in his accounts, took an opportunity 
 of hastily wiping his eyes when he 
 supposed Nicholas was looking another 
 way. 
 
 Whether it was that Tim's accounts 
 were more than usually intricate that 
 morning, or whether it was that his habi- 
 tual serenity had been a little disturbed 
 by these recollections, it so happened 
 that when Nicholas returned from 
 executing some commission, and in- 
 quired whether Mr. Charles Cheeryble 
 was alone in his room, Tim promptly, 
 and without the smallest hesitation, 
 replied in the affirmative, although 
 somebody had passed into the room 
 not ten minutes before, and Tim took 
 especial and particular pride in pre- 
 venting any intrusion on either of the 
 brothers when they were engaged with 
 any visitor whatever. 
 
 " I '11 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 Ni- 
 cholas. " I '11 lay it on his table." 
 
 So, Nicholas opened the door and 
 walked in ; and very quickly he turner 
 to walk out again, when he saw, to his 
 great astonishment and discomfiture, a 
 young lady upon her knees at Mr. 
 Cheeryble's feet, and Mr. Cheeryble 
 beseeching her to rise, and entreating 
 a third person, who had the appearance
 
 S10 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 of the young lady's female attendant, 
 to add her persuasions to his to induce 
 her to do so. 
 
 Nicholas stammered out an awkward 
 apology, and was precipitately retiring, 
 when the young lady, turning her head 
 a little, presented to his view the 
 features of the lovely girl whom he had 
 seen at the register-office on his first 
 visit long before. Glancing from her 
 to the attendant, he recognised the 
 same clumsy servant who had accom- 
 panied 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 sur- 
 prise and embarrassment that, for the 
 moment, he was quite bereft of the 
 power either to speak or move. 
 
 " My dear ma'am my dear young 
 lady," cried brother Charles in violent 
 agitation, " pray don't not another 
 word, I beseech and entreat you ! I 
 implore you I beg of you to rise. 
 We we are not alone." 
 
 As he spoke, he' raised the young 
 lady, who staggered to a chair and 
 swooned away. 
 
 ' She has fainted, sir," said Nicholas, 
 darting eagerly forward. 
 
 " Poor dear, poor dear ! " cried bro- 
 ther Charles. " Where is my brother 
 Ned ? Ned, my dear brother, come 
 here pray." 
 
 " Brother Charles, my dear fellow," 
 replied his brother, hurrying into the 
 room, "what is the ah ! what " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! not a word for your 
 life, brother Ned," returned the other. 
 " Ring for the housekeeper, my dear 
 brother call Tun Linkinwater ! Here, 
 Tim Linkinwater, sir Mr. Nickleby, 
 my dear sir, leave the room, I beg and 
 beseech of you." 
 
 " I think she is better now," said 
 Nicholas, who had been watching the 
 patient so eagerly, that he had not 
 heard the request. 
 
 ** Poor bird !" cried brother Charles, 
 gently taking her hand in his, and lay- 
 ing her head upon his arm. " Brother 
 Ned, my dear fellow, you will be sur- 
 prised, I know, to witness this, in busi- 
 ness hours ; but " here he was again 
 
 reminded of the presence of Nicholas, 
 and, shaking him by the hand, earnestly 
 requested him to leave the room, and 
 to send Tim Linkinwater without an 
 instant's delay. 
 
 Nicholas immediately withdrew, and, 
 on his way to the counting-house, met 
 both the old housekeeper and Tim 
 Linkinwater, jostling each other in 
 the passage, and hurrying to the scene 
 of action with extraordinary speed. 
 Without waiting to hear his message, 
 Tim Linkinwater darted into the room, 
 and presently afterwards Nicholas 
 heard the door shut and locked on the 
 inside. 
 
 He had abundance of time to rumi- 
 nate on this discovery, for Tim Lin kin- 
 water was absent during the greater 
 part of an hour, during the whole of 
 which time Nicholas thought of nothing 
 but the young lady, and her exceeding 
 beauty, and what could possibly have 
 brought her there, and why they made 
 such a mystery of it. The more he 
 thought of all this, the more it per- 
 plexed him, and, the more anxious he 
 became to know who and what she 
 was. "I should have known her 
 among ten thousand," thought Ni- 
 cholas. And with that he walked up 
 and down the room, and recalling her 
 face and figure (of which he had a 
 peculiarly vivid remembrance), dis- 
 carded all other subjects of reflection 
 and dwelt upon that alone. 
 
 Atlength TimLinkin water came back 
 provokingly cool, and with papers 
 in his hand, and a pen in his mouth, 
 as if nothing had happened. 
 
 "Is she quite recovered !" said Ni- 
 cholas, impetuously. 
 
 "Who?" returned Tun Linkin- 
 water. 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " Nay," returned Nicholas, " what 
 do you make of my question first ! I 
 asked you "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 311 
 
 * About the young lady," said Tim 
 Linkinwatcr, putting on his spectacles. 
 To be sure. Yes. Oh ! she 'B very 
 well." 
 
 "Very well, is she?" returned 
 Nicholas. 
 
 ** Very well," replied Mr. Linkin- 
 water, gravely. 
 
 " Will she be able to go home to- 
 day I" asked Nicholas. 
 
 " She 's gone," said Tun. 
 
 Gone ! " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " I hope she has not far to go ? " 
 said Nicholas, looking earnesly at the 
 other. 
 
 " Ay," replied the immovable Tim, 
 ** I hope she hasn't." 
 
 Nicholas hazarded one or two fur- 
 ther remarks, but it was evident that 
 Tun Linkinwater had his own reasons 
 for evading the subject, and that he 
 was determined to afford no further 
 information respecting the fair un- 
 known, 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 com- 
 municative mood ; but, directly he re- 
 sumed the theme, Tim relapsed into a 
 state of most provoking taciturnity, 
 and from answering in monosyllables, 
 came to returning no answers at all, 
 save such as were to be inferred from 
 several grave nods and shrugs, which 
 only served to whet that appetite for 
 intelligence in Nicholas, which had 
 already attained a most unreasonable 
 height. 
 
 Foiled in these attempts, he was 
 fain to content himself with watching 
 for the young lady's next visit, but 
 here again he was disappointed. Day 
 after day passed, and she did not 
 return. He looked eagerly at the 
 superscription of all the notes and 
 letters, but there was not one among 
 them which he could fancy to be in 
 her hand-writing. On two or three 
 occasions he was employed on busi- 
 ness which took him to a distance, 
 and had formerly been transacted by 
 
 Tim Linkinwater. Nicholas could not 
 help suspecting that, for some reason 
 or other, he was sent out of the wav 
 on purpose, and that the young lady 
 was there in his absence. Nothing 
 transpired, however, to confirm this 
 suspicion, and Tim could not be en- 
 trapped into any confession or admis- 
 sion tending to support it in the 
 smallest degree. 
 
 Mystery and disappointment are not 
 absolutely indispensable to the growth 
 of love, but they are, very often, its 
 powerful auxiliaries. " Out of sight, 
 out of mind," is well enough as a pro- 
 verb applicable to cases of friendship, 
 though absence is not always necessary 
 to hollowness of heart, even between 
 friends, and truth and honesty, like 
 precious stones, are perhaps most 
 easily imitated at a distance, when 
 the counterfeits often pass for real. 
 Love, however, is very materially 
 assisted by a warm and active imagi- 
 nation : which has a long memory, 
 and will thrive, fora considerable time, 
 on very slight and sparing food. Thus 
 it is, that it often attains its most luxu- 
 riant growth in separation and under 
 circumstances of the utmost difficulty ; 
 and thus it was, that Nicholas, think- 
 ing 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 lan- 
 guished 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 Ni- 
 cholas himself said, in the numerous 
 conversations he held with himself, 
 like a vision of youth and beauty 
 much too bright to last his ardour 
 and devotion remained without its 
 reward. The young lady appeared no 
 more ; so there was a great deal of 
 love wasted (enough indeed to have
 
 Si 2 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 set up half-a-dozen young gentlemen, 
 as times go, with the utmost decency) 
 and nobody was a bit the wiser for it ; 
 not even Nicholas himself, who, on 
 the contrary, became more dull, sen- 
 timental, and lackadaisical, every day. 
 
 While matters were in this state, 
 the failure of a correspondent of 
 the Brothers Cheeryble, in Germany, 
 imposed upon Tim Linkinwater and 
 Nicholas the necessity of going through 
 some very long and complicated ac- 
 counts, extending over a considerable 
 space of time. To get through them 
 with the greater despatch, Tim Linkin- 
 water proposed that they should remain 
 at the counting-house, for a week or so, 
 until ten o'clock at night ; to this, as 
 nothing damped the zeal of Nicholas 
 in the service of his kind patrons 
 not even romance, which has seldom 
 business habits he cheerfully as- 
 sented. On the very first night of 
 these later hours, at nine exactly, 
 there came : not the young lady her- 
 self, but her servant, who, being 
 closeted with brother Charles for some 
 tune, went away, and returned next 
 night at the same hour, and on the 
 next, and on the next again. 
 
 These repeated visits inflamed the 
 curiosity of Nicholas to the very 
 highest pitch. Tantalized and ex- 
 cited, beyond all bearing, and unable 
 to fathom the mystery without neglect- 
 ing his duty, he confided the whole 
 secret to Newman Noggs, imploring 
 him to be on the watch next night ; to 
 follow the girl home ; to set on foot 
 such inquiries relative to the name, 
 condition, and history of her mistress, 
 as he could, without exciting suspicion ; 
 and to report the result to him with 
 the least possible delay. 
 
 Beyond all measure proud of this 
 commission, Newman Noggs took up 
 his post, in the square, on the following 
 evening, a full hour before the needful 
 time, and planting himself behind the 
 pump and pulling his hat over his 
 eyes, began his watch with an elaborate 
 appearance of mystery,- admirably cal- 
 culated to excite the suspicion of all 
 beholders. Indeed, divers servant- 
 girls who came to draw water, and 
 
 sundry little boys who stopped to 
 drink at the ladle, were almost scared 
 out of their senses, by the apparition 
 of Newman Noggs looking stealthily 
 round the pump, with nothing of him 
 visible but his face, and that wearing 
 the expression of a meditative Ogre. 
 
 Punctual to her time, the messenger 
 came again, and, after an interview of 
 rather longer duration than usual, de- 
 parted. Newman had made two ap- 
 pointments with Nicholas : ono 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 re- 
 ceived 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 invita- 
 tion, and eagerly inquired what was the 
 news. 
 
 "There's a great deal of news," 
 said Newman, in a flutter of exulta- 
 tion. " It 's all right. Don't be anxious. 
 I don't know where to begin. Never 
 mind that. Keep up your spirits. It's 
 all right." 
 
 " Well ! " said Nicholas eagerly, 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Newman. " That's 
 it" 
 
 " What 's it ! " said Nicholas. The 
 name the name, my dear fellow ! " 
 
 "The name's Bobster," replied 
 Newman. 
 
 " Bobster ! " repeated Nicholas, 
 indignantly. 
 
 " That 's the name," said Newman. 
 " I remember it by lobster." 
 
 " Bobster ! " repeated Nicholas, 
 more emphatically than before. " That 
 must be the servant's name." 
 
 " No, it an't," said Newman, shaking 
 his head with great positiveness. "Miss 
 Cecilia Bobster." 
 
 " Cecilia, eh ! " returned Nicholas, 
 muttering the two names together over 
 and over again in every variety of
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 313 
 
 tone, to try the effect. " Well, Cecilia 
 is a pretty name." 
 
 " Very. And a pretty creature too," 
 said Newman. 
 Who ? " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Miss Bobster." 
 
 " Why, where have you seen her ! " 
 demanded Nicholas. 
 
 "Never mind, my dear boy," re- 
 torted Noggs, clapping him on the 
 shoulder. " I have seen her. You 
 shall see her. I 've managed it all." 
 
 " My dear Newman," cried Nicholas, 
 grasping his hand, " are you serious ? " 
 
 ' I am," replied Newman. " I 
 mean it all. Every word. You shall 
 see her to-morrow night. She con- 
 sents to hear you speak for yourself. 
 I persuaded her. She is all affability, 
 goodness, sweetness, and beauty." 
 
 " I know she u . I know she must 
 be, Newman !" said Nicholas, wringing 
 his hand. 
 
 " You are right," returned Newman. 
 
 " Where does she live ! " cried Ni- 
 cholas. " What have you learnt of her 
 history ! Has she a father mother 
 any brothers sisters ? What did 
 she say ? How came you to see her ? 
 Was she not very much surprised '( 
 Did you say how passionately I have 
 longed to speak to her ? Did you 
 tell her where I had seen her ? Did 
 you tell her how, and when, and 
 where, and how long, and how often, I 
 have thought of that sweet face which 
 came upon me in my bitterest distress 
 like a glimpse of some better world 
 did you, Newman did you ? " 
 
 Poor Noggs literally gasped for 
 breatli as this flood of questions rushed 
 upon him, and moved spasmodically in 
 his chair at every fresh inquiry, staring 
 at Nicholas meanwhile with a most 
 ludicrous expression of perplexity. 
 
 " No," said Newman, " I didn't tell 
 her that." 
 
 Didn't tell her which ! " asked 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " About the glimpse of the better 
 world," said Newman. " I didn't tell 
 her who you were, either, or where 
 you'd seen her. I said you loved her 
 to distraction." 
 
 "That's true, Newman," replied 
 
 Nicholas, with his characteristic vehe- 
 mence. " Heaven knows I do ! " 
 
 " I said too, that you had admired 
 her for a long time in secret," said 
 Newman. 
 
 * Yes, yes. What did she say to 
 that ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Blushed," said Newman. 
 
 " To be sure. Of course she would," 
 said Nicholas approvingly. 
 
 Newman then went on to say, that 
 the young lady was an only child, that 
 her mother was dead, that she re- 
 sided with her father, and that she 
 had been induced to allow her lover a 
 secret interview, at the intercession of 
 her servant, who had great influence 
 with her. He further related how it 
 required much moving and great elo- 
 quence to bring the young lady to this 
 pass ; how it was expressly under- 
 stood that she merely afforded Ni- 
 cholas an opportunity of declaring hrs 
 passion ; and how she by no means 
 pledged herself to be favourably im- 
 pressed with his attentions. The mys- 
 tery of her visits to the Brothers 
 Cheeryble, remained wholly unex- 
 plained, for Newman had not alluded 
 to them, either in his preliminary con- 
 versations with the servant or his sub- 
 sequent interview with the mistress, 
 merely remarking that he had been 
 instructed to watch the girl home and 
 plead his young friend's cause, and not 
 saying how far he had followed her, or 
 from \\ji.-it 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 mise- 
 rable and unhappy life, under the 
 strict control of her only parent, who 
 was of a violent and brutal temper a 
 circumstance which he thought might 
 in some degree account, both for her 
 having sought the protection and 
 friendship of the brothers, and her 
 suffering herself to be prevailed upon 
 to grant the promised interview. The 
 last he held to be a very logical deduc- 
 tion 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.
 
 314 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 New- 
 man, in explanation of his shabby 
 appearance, had represented himself 
 as being, for certain wise and indis- 
 pensable purposes connected with that 
 intrigue, in disguise ; and, being ques- 
 tioned 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 consi- 
 dered himself bound, both in duty and 
 gallantry, to avail himself of such a 
 golden means of enabling Nicholas to 
 prosecute his addresses. After these 
 and all possible questions had been 
 asked and answered twenty times over, 
 they parted, undertaking to meet on 
 the following night at half-past ten, for 
 the purpose of fulfilling the appoint- 
 ment : which was for eleven o'clock. 
 
 " Things come about very strangely ! " 
 thought Nicholas, as he walked home. 
 " I never contemplated anything of this 
 kind ; never dreamt of the possibility 
 of it. To know something of the life 
 of one in whom I felt such interest ; to 
 see her hi the street, to pass the house 
 in which she lived, to meet her some- 
 times iu her walks, to hope that a day 
 might come when I might be in a con- 
 dition 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," rea- 
 soned Nicholas, " it is not as if she 
 knew it was I, but it might have been 
 anybody," which was, certainly, not 
 pleasant The next moment, he was 
 angry with himself for entertaining 
 Biicli thoughts, arguing that nothing 
 but goodness could dwell in such a 
 temple, and that the behaviour of the 
 orothers sufficiently showed the esti- 
 mation in which they held her. "The 
 fact is, she's a mystery altogether," 
 said Nicholas. This was not more 
 
 satisfactory than his previous wurse 
 of reflection, and only drove him out 
 upon a new sea of speculation and 
 conjecture, where he tossed and tum- 
 bled, in great discomfort of mind, until 
 the clock struck ten, and the hour of 
 meeting drew nigh. 
 
 Nicholas had dressed himself with 
 great care, and even Newman Noggs 
 had trimmed himself up a little : his 
 coat presenting the phenomenon of two 
 consecutive buttons, and the supple- 
 mentary pins being inserted at tolera- 
 bly regular intervals. He wore his 
 hat, too, in the newest taste, with a 
 pocket handkerchief in the crown, and 
 a twisted end of it straggling out 
 behind, after the fashion of a pigtail, 
 though he could scarcely lay claim to 
 the ingenuity of inventing this latter 
 decoration, inasmuch as he was utterly 
 unconscious of it : being in a nervous 
 and excited condition which rendered 
 him quite insensible to everything but 
 the great object of the expedition. 
 
 They traversed the streets, in pro- 
 found 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 ! " replied Nicholas, looking 
 about him. 
 
 " Good street ? " said Newman. 
 
 " Yes," returned Nicholas. " Rather 
 dull." 
 
 Newman made no answer to this 
 remark, but, halting, abruptly, planted 
 Nicholas with his back to some area 
 railings, and gave bun to understand 
 that he was to wait there, without 
 moving hand or foot, until it was satis- 
 factorily ascertained that the coast was 
 clear. This done, Noggs limped away 
 with great alacrity f 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 re-appeared, 
 and limping back again, halted mid- 
 way, and beckoned Nicholas to follow 
 him.
 
 NICHOLAS iVICKLEBY. 
 
 315 
 
 " Well ? " said Nicholas, advancing 
 towards him on tiptoe. 
 
 " All right," replied Newman, in 
 high glee. " All ready ; nobody at 
 home. Couldn't be better. Ha ! 
 ha!" 
 
 With this fortifying assurance, he 
 stole past a street-door, on which 
 Nicholas caught a glimpse of a brass 
 plate, with " BOBSTER," in very large 
 letters ; and, stopping at the area-gate, 
 which was open, signed to his young 
 friend to descend. 
 
 " What the devil ! " cried Nicholas, 
 drawing back. " Are we to sneak into 
 the kitchen, as if we came after the 
 forks 1 " 
 
 " Hush ! " replied Newman. " Old 
 Booster ferocious Turk. He'd kill 
 'em all box the young lady's ears 
 he does often." 
 
 " What ! " cried Nicholas, in high 
 wrath, " do you mean to tell me that 
 any man would dare to box the ears of 
 such a " 
 
 He had no time to sing the praises 
 of his mistress, just then, for Newman 
 gave him a gentle push which had 
 nearly precipitated him to the bottom 
 of the area steps. Thinking it best to 
 take the hint in good part, Nicholas 
 descended, without further remon- 
 strance, but with a countenance 
 bespeaking anything rather than the 
 hope and rapture of a passionate lover. 
 Newman followed he would have fol- 
 lowed head first, but for the timely 
 assistance of Nicholas and, taking his 
 hand, led him through a stone passage, 
 profoundly dark, into a back kitchen or 
 cellar, of the blackest and most pitchy 
 obscurity, where they stopped. 
 
 " Well ! " said Nicholas, in a dis- 
 contented whisper, " this is not all, 
 I suppose, is it ! " 
 
 " No, no," rejoined Noggs ; * they '11 
 be here directly. It 's all right." 
 
 'lam glad to hear it," said Ni- 
 cholas. " I shouldn't have thought it, 
 I confess." 
 
 They exchanged no further words, 
 and there Nicholas stood, listening to 
 the loud breathing of Newman Noggs, 
 and imagining that his nose seemed to 
 glow like a red-hot coal, even in the 
 
 midst of the darkneas which enshrouded 
 them. Suddenly, the sound of cautious 
 footsteps attracted his ear, and directly 
 afterwards a female voice inquired if 
 the gentleman was there. 
 
 " Yes," replied Nicholas, turning 
 towards the corner from which the 
 voice proceeded. " Who is that ? " 
 
 " Only me, sir," replied the voice. 
 " Now if you please, ma'am."' 
 
 A gleam of light shone into the 
 place, and presently the servant-girl 
 appeared, bearing a light, and fol- 
 lowed by her young mistress, who 
 seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty- 
 and confusion. 
 
 At sight of the young lady, Nicholas 
 started and changed colour ; his heart 
 beat violently, and he stood rooted to 
 the spot. At that instant, and almos. 
 simultaneously with her arrival and 
 that of the candle, there was heard a 
 loud and furious knocking at the street- 
 door, which caused Newman Noggs to 
 jump up, with great agility, from a 
 beer-barrel on which he had been 
 seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, 
 and with a face of ashy paleness, 
 u Bobster, by the Lord ! " 
 
 The young lady shrieked, the attend- 
 ant 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 mo- 
 ment, but the confusion crowded into 
 that one moment no imagination cac 
 exaggerate. 
 
 " Leave the house, for Heaven's 
 sake ! We have done wrong we de- 
 serve it all," cried the young lady. 
 "Leave the house, or I am ruined 
 and undone for ever." 
 
 " Will you hear me say but one 
 word ! " cried Nicholas. " Only one. 
 I will not detain you. Will you hear 
 me say one word, in explanation of this 
 mischance ! " 
 
 But Nicholas might as well have 
 spoken to the wind, for the young lady, 
 with distracted looks, hurried up the 
 stairs. He would have followed her, 
 but Newman, twisting his band in his
 
 316 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 hurry- 
 ing him away. " Let them open the 
 door. We '11 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 knock- 
 ing above, which had never ceased, ' 
 Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried 
 off; and, precisely as Mr. Bobster 
 made his entrance by the street-door, j 
 he and Noggs made their exit by the 
 area-gate. 
 
 They hurried away, through several 
 streets, without stopping or speaking. ! 
 At last, they halted and confronted 
 each other with blank and rueful faces, j 
 
 " Never mind," said Newman, gasp- 
 ing for breath. " Don't be cast down. I 
 It 's all right. More fortunate next 
 time. It couldn't be helped. I did my 
 part." 
 
 Excellently," replied Nicholas, 
 taking his hand. " Excellently, and 
 
 ! like the true and zealous friend yon 
 are. Only mind, I am not disap- 
 pointed, Newman, and feel just as 
 much indebted to you only it was tlie 
 wrong lady." 
 
 " Eh ? " cried Newman Noggp; 
 " Taken in by the servant ? " 
 
 "Newman, Newman," said Nicho- 
 las, 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 hi his 
 head. 
 
 "Don't take it to heart," said Ni- 
 cholas ; "it's of no consequence ; you 
 see I don't care about it ; you fol- 
 lowed 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 XLI. 
 
 CONTAINING SOME ROMANTIC PASSAGES BETWEEN MBS. NICKLEBY AND THB 
 GENTLEMAN IN THE SMALL-CLOTHES NEXT DOOR. 
 
 EVER since her last momentous 
 conversation with her son, Mrs. 
 Nickleby had begun to display un- 
 usual care in the adornment of 
 her person, gradually superaddkig to 
 those staid and matronly habiliments, 
 which had, up to that time, formed 
 her ordinary attire, a variety of em- 
 bellishments and decorations, slight 
 perhaps in themselves, but, taken 
 together, and considered with refer- 
 ence 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 orna- 
 ments of little or no value, which had, 
 for that reason alone, escaped the ge- 
 neral wreck and been permitted to 
 , slumber peacefully in odd corners of 
 I old drawers and boxes where daylight
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 817 
 
 seldom shone, her mourning garments 
 assumed quite a new character. From 
 being the outward tokens of respect 
 and sorrow for the dead, they became 
 converted into signals of very slaugh- 
 terous and killing designs upon the 
 living. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby might have been 
 stimulated to this proceeding by a 
 lofty sense of duty, and impulses of 
 unquestionable excellence. She might, 
 by this time, have become impressed 
 with the sinfulness of long indulgence 
 in unavailing woe, or the necessity of 
 setting a proper example of neatness 
 and decorum to her blooming daugh- 
 ter. Considerations of duty and re- 
 sponsibility apart, the change might 
 have taken its rise in feelings of the 
 purest, and most disinterested charity. 
 The gentleman next door had been 
 vilified by Nicholas ; rudely stigma- 
 tised as a dotard and an idiot ; and for 
 these attacks upon his understanding, 
 Mrs. Nickleby was, in some sort, ac- 
 countable. She might have felt that 
 it was the act of a good Christian to 
 show, by all means in her power, that 
 the abused gentleman was neither the 
 one nor the other. And what better 
 means could she adopt, towards so 
 virtuous and laudable an end, than 
 proving to all men, in her own person, 
 that his passion was the most rational 
 and reasonable in the world, and just 
 the very result, of all others, which dis- 
 creet and thinking persons might have 
 foreseen, from her incautiously dis- 
 playing her matured charms, without 
 reserve, under the very eye, as it 
 were, of an ardent and too-susceptible 
 man ? 
 
 " Ah !" said Mrs. Nickleby, gravely 
 shaking her head ; " if Nicholas knew 
 what his poor dear papa suffered before 
 we were engaged, when I used to hate 
 him, he would have a little more feel- 
 ing. 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 1 It was 
 a mercy he didn't emigrate. It very 
 nearly drove him to it." 
 
 Whether the deceased might not 
 have been better off if he had emi- 
 
 grated 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 \icr 
 reflections ; and a much slighter inter- 
 ruption, or no interruption at all, would 
 have diverted Mrs. Nickleby's thoughts 
 into a new channel at any time. 
 
 " Kate, my dear," said Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby ; " I don't know how it is, but a 
 fine warm summer day like this, with 
 the birds singing in every direction, 
 always puts me in mind of roast pig, 
 with sage and onion sauce, and made 
 gravy." 
 
 " That 's a curious association of 
 ideas, is it not, 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 have been a 
 pig, either, because I recollect there 
 were a pair of them to carve, and your 
 poor papa and I could never have 
 thought of sitting down to two pigs 
 they must have been partridges. Roast 
 pig ! I hardly think we ever could have 
 had one, now I come to remember, for 
 your papa could never bear the sight 
 of them in the shops, and used to say 
 that they always put him in mind of 
 very little babies, only the pigs had 
 much fairer complexions ; and he had 
 a horror of little babies, 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 have put that, in my head ! I recol- 
 lect dining once at Mrs. Bevan's, in that 
 broad street round the corner by the 
 coachmaker's, where the tipsy man fell 
 through the cellar-flap of an empty 
 house nearly a week before the quarter- 
 day, and wasn't found till the new tenant 
 went in and we had roast pig there. 
 It must be that, I think, that reminds 
 me of it, especially as there was a little 
 bird in the room that would keep on 
 singing all the time of dinner at least, 
 not a little bird, for it was a parrot, and 
 he didn't sing exactly, for he talked and 
 swore dreadfully ; but I think it must 
 be that. Indeed I am sure it must. 
 Shouldn't you say so, my dear 1"
 
 318 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 " I should say there was not a doubt 
 about it, mamma," returned Kate, with 
 a cheerful smile. 
 
 " No ; but do you think so, Kate," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, with as much 
 gravity as if it were a question of the 
 most imminent and thrilling interest 
 "If you don't, say so at once, you 
 know ; because it 'a 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 ar- 
 bour to rights, and training the sweetest 
 flowers about it, are beyond anything 
 
 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!" 
 
 Kate looked up inquiringly. 
 
 " If he hasn't been," said Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby, " and got, from somewhere or 
 other, a couple of roots of those flowers 
 that I said I was so fond of, the other 
 night, and asked you if you were not 
 no, that you said you were so fond of, the 
 other night, and asked me if I wasn't 
 it's the same thing now, upon my 
 word, I take that as very kind and 
 attentive indeed ! I don't see," added 
 Mrs. Nickleby, looking narrowly about 
 her, " any of them, on my side, but I 
 suppose they grow best near the gravel. 
 You may depend upon it they do, Kate, 
 and that 's the reason they are all near 
 
 you, and he has put the gravel there, 
 because it's the sunny side. Upon 
 my word, that 's very clever now I I 
 shouldn't have had half as much thought 
 myself!" 
 
 " Mamma," said Kate, bending 
 over her work so that her face was 
 almost hidden, " before you were mar- 
 ried " 
 
 " Dear me, Kate," interrupted Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " what in the name of good- 
 ness graciousness makes you fly off to 
 the time before I was married, when 
 I 'm talking to you about his thought- 
 fulness and attention to me ? You 
 don't seem to take the smallest interest 
 in the garden." 
 
 " Oh ! 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 's kept," said Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby. u How very odd you are, Kate !" 
 
 " 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 if trap it were 
 and inquired 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 ! " said Kate, " I remem- 
 ber. I was going to ask, mamma, before 
 you were married, had you many 
 suitors I * 
 
 " Suitors, my dear ! " cried Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful 
 complacency. "First and last, Kate, 
 I must have had a dozen at least." 
 
 " Mamma ! " returned Kate, hi a tone 
 of remonstrance. 
 
 " I had indeed, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby ; " not including your poor 
 papa, or a young gentleman who used 
 to go, at that time, to the same dancing 
 school, and who would send gold 

 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 319 
 
 watches and bracelets to our house in 
 gilt-edged paper, (which were always 
 returned), and who afterwards unfor- 
 tunately went out to Botany Bay in a 
 cadet ship a convict ship I mean 
 and escaped into a bush and killed 
 sheep, (I don't know how they got 
 there) and was going to be hung, only 
 he accidentally choked himself, and 
 the government pardoned him. Then 
 there was young Lukin," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, beginning with her left 
 thumb and checking off the names on 
 her fingers " Mogley Tipslark 
 
 Cabbery Smifser " 
 
 Having now reached her little finger, 
 Mrs. Nickleby was carrying the account 
 over to the other hand, when a loud 
 " Hem ! " which appeared to come 
 from the very foundation of the garden 
 wall, gave both herself and her daugh- 
 ter, a violent start. 
 
 " Mamma ! what was that ! " said 
 Kate, in a low tone of voice. 
 
 " Upon my word, my dear," re- 
 turned Mrs. Nickleby, considerably 
 startled, " unless it was the gentleman 
 belonging to the next house, I don't 
 
 know what it could possibly " 
 
 " A hem ! " cried the same voice ; 
 and that, not in the tone of an ordi- 
 nary clearing of the throat, but in a 
 kind of bellow, which woke up all the 
 echoes in the neighbourhood, and was 
 prolonged to an extent which must 
 have made the unseen bellower quite 
 black in the face. 
 
 " I understand it now, my dear," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, laying her hand 
 on Kate's ; don't be alarmed, my 
 love, it 'a not directed to you, and is 
 not intended to frighten anybody. Let 
 us give everybody their due Kate ; I 
 am bound to say that" 
 
 So saying, Mrs. Nickleby nodded 
 her head", and patted the back of her 
 daughters hand, a great many times, 
 and looked as if she could tell some- 
 thing vastly important if she chose, 
 but had self-denial, thank Heaven! and 
 wouldn't do it. 
 
 "What do you mean, mamma?" 
 demanded Kate, in evident surprise. 
 
 " Don't be flurried, my dear," re- 
 plied Mrs. Nickleby, looking towards 
 
 the garden-wall, "for you see 7'm 
 not, and if it would be excusable in 
 anybody to be flurried, it certainly 
 would under all the circumstances 
 be excusable in me, but I am not, 
 Kate not at all." 
 
 " It seems designed to attract our 
 attention, mamma," said Kate. 
 
 * It ia designed to attract our atten- 
 tion, my dear at least," rejoined Mrs. 
 Nickleby, drawing herself up, and 
 patting her daughter's hand more 
 blandly than before, "to attract the 
 attention of one of us. Hem ! you 
 needn't be at all uneasy, my dear." 
 
 Kate looked very much perplexed, 
 and was apparently about to ask for 
 further explanation, when a shouting 
 and scuffling noise, as of an elderly 
 k^otleman whooping, and kicking up 
 hi.' legs on loose gravel, with great 
 violence, was heard to proceed from 
 the same direction as the former 
 sounds ; and, before they had sub- 
 sided, 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 vege- 
 table marrow, of unusually large di- 
 mensions, 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 roll- 
 ing, 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 as- 
 sisted in her intention ; and, following 
 the direction of Mrs. Nickleby's eyes, 
 was quite terrified by the apparition 
 of an old black velvet cap, which, by 
 slow degrees, as if its wearer were 
 ascending a ladder or pair of steps, 
 rose above the wall dividing their 
 garden from that of the next cottage, 
 (which, like their own, was a detached 
 building,) and was gradually followed
 
 320 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 by a very large head, and an old face, 
 in which were a pair of most extraor- 
 dinary grey eyes :.very wild, very wide 
 open, and rolling in their sockets, with 
 a dull, languishing, leering look, most 
 ugly to behold. 
 
 " Mamma ! " cried Kate, really ter- 
 rified for the moment, " why do you 
 stop, why do you lose an instant ? 
 Mamma, pray come in ! " 
 
 " Kate, my dear," returned her 
 mother, still holding back, " how can 
 you be so foolish ? I 'm ashamed of 
 you. How do you suppose you are 
 ever to get through life, if you 're such 
 a coward as this ! What do you want, 
 sir ? " said Mrs. Nickleby, addressing 
 the intruder with a sort of simpering 
 displeasure. " How dare you look 
 into this garden ? " 
 
 "Queen of my soul," replied the 
 stranger, folding his hands together, 
 " this goblet sip ! " 
 
 "Nonsense, sir," said Mrs. Nic- 
 kleby. " Kate, my love, pray be quiet." 
 
 " Won't you sip the goblet \ " urged 
 the stranger, with his head implor- 
 ingly on one side, and his right hand 
 on his breast. "Oh, do sip the 
 goblet ! " 
 
 " I shall not consent to do anything 
 of the kind, sir," said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 " Pray, begone." 
 
 " Why is it," said the old gentleman, 
 coming up a step higher, and leaning 
 his elbows on the wall, with as much 
 complacency as if he were looking out 
 of window, " why is it that beauty is 
 always obdurate, even when admira- 
 tion is as honourable and respectful as 
 mine \ " Here he smiled, kissed his 
 hand, and made several low bows. 
 " Is it owing to the bees, who, when 
 the honey season is over, and they 
 are supposed to have been killed with 
 brimstone, in reality fly to Barbary 
 and lull the captive Moors to sleep 
 with their drowsy songs ? Or is it," he 
 added, dropping his voice almost to a 
 whisper, " in consequence of the statue 
 at Charing Cross having been lately 
 seen, on the Stock Exchange at mid- 
 night, walking arm-in-arm with the 
 Pump from Aldgate, in a riding- 
 habit?" 
 
 "Mamma," murmured Kate, <-'do 
 you hear him ! " 
 
 " Hush, my dear ! " replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby, in the same tone of voice, 
 "he is very polite, and I think that 
 was a quotation from the poets. 
 Pray, don't worry me so you'll pinch 
 my arm black and blue. Go away, 
 sir ! " 
 
 " Quite away ? " said the gentleman, 
 with a languishing look, " Oh ! quite 
 away ? " 
 
 " Yes," returned Mrs. Nickleby, 
 " certainly. You have no business 
 here. This is private property, sir ; 
 you ought to know that." 
 
 " I do know," said the eld gentle- 
 man, laying his finger on his nose with 
 an air of familiarity, most reprehensible, 
 " that this is a sacred and enchanted 
 spot, where the most divine charms'' 
 here he kissed his hand and bowed 
 again " waft mellifluousness over the 
 neighbours' gardens, and force the 
 fruit and vegetables into premature 
 existence. That fact I am acquainted 
 with. But will you permit me, fairest 
 creature, to ask you one question, in 
 the absence of the planet Venus, who 
 has gone on business to the Horse 
 Guards, and would otherwise jealous 
 of your superior charms interpose 
 between us f " 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " Deal- mamma," rejoined Kate, 
 " don't say a word to him, but let us 
 run away, as fast as we can, and 
 shut ourselves up till Nicholas comes 
 home." 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby looked very grand, 
 not to say contemptuous, at this hu- 
 miliating proposal ; and, turning to the 
 old gentleman, who had watched them 
 during these whispers with absorbing 
 eagerness, said 
 
 " If you will conduct yourself, sir, 
 like the gentleman I should ima- 
 gine you to be, from your language 
 and and appearance, (quite the 
 counterpart of your grand-papa, Kate, 
 my dear, in his best days,) and will 

 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 321 
 
 put your question to me ia plain words, 
 I will answer it." 
 
 If Mrs. Nickleby's excellent papa 
 had borne, in his best days, a resem- 
 blance to the neighbour now looking 
 over the wall, he must have been, to 
 say the least, a very queer-looking old 
 gentleman in his prime. Perhaps 
 Kato thought so, for she ventured to 
 glance at his living portrait with some 
 attention, as he took off his black 
 velvet cap, and, exhibiting a perfectly 
 bald head made a long series of bows, 
 each accompanied with a fresh kiss of 
 the hand. After exhausting himself, 
 to all appearance, with this fatiguing 
 performance, he covered his head 
 once more, pulled the cap very care- 
 fully over the tips of his ears, and 
 resuming his former attitude, said, 
 
 " The question is " 
 
 Here he broke off to look round in 
 every direction, and satisfy himself 
 beyond all doubt that there were no 
 listeners near. Assured that there 
 were not, he tapped his nose several 
 times, accompanying the action with a 
 cunning look, as though congratulating 
 himself on his caution ; and stretching 
 out his neck, said in a loud whisper, 
 
 " Are you a princess \ " 
 
 " You are mocking me, sir," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby, making a feint of re- 
 treating towards the house. 
 
 " No, but are you ? " said the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 " You know I am not, sir," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " Then are you any relation to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury 1 " inquired 
 the old gentleman with great anxiety, 
 " or to tho Pope of Koine ? or the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons ? 
 Forgive me, if I am wrong, but I was 
 told you were niece to the Com- 
 missioners of Paving, and daughter-in- 
 law to the Lord Mayor and Court of 
 Common Council, which would account 
 for your relationship to all three." 
 
 " Whoever has spread such reports, 
 air," returned Mrs. Nickleby, with 
 some warmth, " has taken great liber- 
 ties with my name, and one which I 
 am sure my son Nicholas, if he was 
 aware of it, would not allow for an 
 
 No. 51 
 
 instant. The idea ! " said Mrs. Nick- 
 leby, drawing herself up, " niece to 
 the Commissioners of Paving ! " 
 
 " Pray, mammaj come away ! " 
 whispered Kate. 
 
 " ' Pray, mamma ! ' Nonsense, Kate," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, angrily, " but 
 that's just the way. If they had said 
 I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what 
 would you care ! But I have no sym- 
 pathy" whimpered Mrs. Nickleby, 
 " I don't expect it, that 's one thing." 
 
 " Tears ! " cried the old gentleman, 
 with such an energetic jump, that he 
 fell down two or three steps, and grated 
 his chin against the wall. " Catch the 
 crystal globules catch 'em bottle 
 'em up cork 'em tight put sealing- 
 wax on the top seal 'em with a cupid 
 label 'em 'Best quality' and stow 
 'em away in the fourteen binn, with a 
 bar of iron on the top to keep the 
 thunder off ! " 
 
 Issuing these commands, as if there 
 were a dozen attendants all actively 
 engaged in their execution, he turned 
 his velvet cap inside out, put it on 
 with great dignity so as to obscure his 
 right eye and three-fourths of his 
 nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, 
 looked very fiercely at a sparrow hard 
 by, till the bird flew away, when he 
 put his cap in his pocket with an air 
 of great satisfaction, and addressed 
 himself with a respectful demeanour to 
 Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " Beautiful madam," such were his 
 words " if I have made any mistake 
 with regard to your family or con- 
 nexions, I humbly beseech you to 
 pardon me. If I supposed you to be 
 related to Foreign Powers or Native 
 Boards, it is because you have a man- 
 ner, a carriage, a dignity, which you 
 will excuse my saying that none but 
 yourself (with the single exception 
 perhaps of the tragic muse, when 
 playing extemporaneously on the barrel 
 organ before the East India Company) 
 can parallel. I am not a youth, 
 ma'am, as you see ; and although 
 beings like you can never grow old, I 
 venture to presume that we are fitted 
 for each other." 
 
 " Really, Kate, my love ! " said 
 T 21
 
 322 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby faintly, and looking 
 another way. 
 
 " I have estates, ma'am," said the 
 old gentleman, flourishing his right 
 hand negligently, as if he made very 
 light of such matters, and speaking 
 very fast ; " jewels, 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 kindness to step 
 down to the Royal Exchange and to 
 take the cocked hat off the stoutest 
 beadle's head, you will find my card in 
 Mie lining of the crown, wrapped up in 
 A piece of blue paper. My walking- 
 stick is also to be seen on application 
 to the chaplain of the House of Com- 
 mons, who is strictly forbidden to take 
 any money for showing it I have 
 enemies about me, ma'am," he looked 
 Awards his house and spoke very low, 
 " who attack me on all occasions, and 
 wish to secure my property. If you 
 bless me with your hand and heart, 
 you can apply to the Lord Chancellor 
 or call out the military if necessary 
 tending my toothpick to the com- 
 mander-in-chief will be sufficient and 
 BO clear the house of them before 
 the ceremony is performed. After 
 that, love bliss and rapture ; rap- 
 ture love and bliss. Be mine, be 
 mine !" 
 
 Repeating these last words with 
 great rapture and enthusiasm, the 
 old gentleman put on his black velvet 
 cap again, and looking up into the sky 
 in a hasty manner, said something 
 that was not quite intelligible concern- 
 ing a balloon he expected, and which 
 was rather after its time. 
 
 "Be mine, be mine ! " repeated the 
 old gentleman. 
 
 "Kate, my dear," said Mrs, Nickleby, 
 " I have hardly the power to speak ; 
 but it ia necessary for the happiness of 
 all parties that this matter should be 
 set at rest for ever." 
 
 "Surely there is no necessity for 
 yon to say one word, mamma 1" rea- 
 soned Kate. 
 
 "You will allow me, my dear, if 
 you please, to judge for myself," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " Be mine, be mine ! " cried the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 " It can scarcely be expected, sir," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, fixing her eyes 
 modestly on the ground, * that I 
 should tell a stranger whether I feel 
 flattered and obliged by such pro- 
 posals, or not. They certainly are 
 made under very singular circum- 
 stances ; still at the same time, as far 
 as it goes, and to a certain extent of 
 course," (Mrs. Nickleby's customary 
 qualification,) "they must be gratifying 
 and agreeable to one's feelings." 
 
 " Be mine, be mine," cried the old 
 gentleman. "Gog and Magog, Gog 
 and Magog. Be mine, be mine !" 
 
 " It will be sufficient for me to say, 
 sir," resumed Mrs* Nickleby, with 
 perfect seriousness "and I am 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 neigh- 
 bour very glad ; delighted, I 'm sure 
 but in any other character it's 
 quite impossible, quite. As to my 
 being young enough to marry again, 
 that perhaps may be so, or it may 
 not be ; but I couldn't think of it for 
 an instant, not on any account what- 
 ever. I said I never would, and I 
 never will. It's a very painful thing 
 to have to reject proposals, and I 
 would much rather that none were 
 made ; at the same time this is the 
 answer that I determined long ago to 
 make, and this is the answer I shall 
 always give." 
 
 These observations were partly ad- 
 dressed to the old gentleman, partly 
 to Kate, and partly delivered in 
 soliloquy. Towards their conclusion, 
 the suitor evinced a very irreverent de- 
 gree of inattention, and Mrs. Nickleby 
 had scarcely finished speaking, when, 
 to the great terror both of that lady 
 and her daughter, he suddenly flung
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. ' 
 
 323 
 
 off his coat, and springing on the top 
 of the wall, threw himself into an 
 attitude which displayed his small- 
 clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest 
 advantage, and concluded by standing 
 on one leg, and repeating his favourite 
 bellow with increased vehemence. 
 
 While he was still dwelling on the 
 last note, and embellishing it with a 
 prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was 
 observed to glide stealthily and swiftly 
 along the top of the wall, as if in pur- 
 suit of a fly, and then to clasp with 
 the utmost dexterity one of the old 
 gentleman's ancles. This done, the 
 companion hand appeared, and clasped 
 the other ancle. 
 
 Thus encumbered the old gentleman 
 lifted hia legs awkwardly once or 
 twice, as if they were very clumsy 
 and imperfect pieces of machinery, 
 and then looking down on his own side 
 of the wall, burst into a loud laugh. 
 
 "It's you, is it?" said the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 "Yes, it's me," replied a gruff 
 voice. 
 
 " How's the Emperor of Tartary?" 
 said the old gentleman. 
 
 - Oh ! he 's much the same as 
 usual," was the reply. " No better 
 and no worse." 
 
 " The young Prince of China," said 
 the old gentleman, with much interest. 
 " Is he reconciled to his father-in-law, 
 the great potato salesman !" 
 
 "No," answered the gruff voice ; 
 " and he says he never will be, that's 
 more." 
 
 " If that's the case," observed the 
 old gentleman, "perhaps I'd better 
 come down." 
 
 " Well," said the man on the other 
 side, " I think you had, perhaps." 
 
 One of the hands being then 
 cautiously unclasped, the old gentle- 
 man dropped into a sitting posture, 
 and was looking ronnd to smile and 
 bow to Mrs. Nickleby, when he dis- 
 appeared with some precipitation, as 
 if his legs had been pulled from below. 
 
 Very much relieved by his disap- 
 pearance, Kate was turning to speak 
 to her mamma, when the dirty hands 
 again became visible, and were imme- 
 
 diately followed by the figure of s 
 coarse squat man, who ascended by 
 the steps which had been recently 
 occupied by their singular neighbour. 
 
 " Beg your pardon, ladies," said this 
 new comer, grinning and touching his 
 hat. "Has he been making love to 
 either of you ! " 
 
 Yes," said Kate. 
 
 " Ah ! " rejoined the man, taking 
 his handkerchief out of his hat and 
 wiping his face, " he always will, you 
 know. Nothing will prevent his 
 making' love." 
 
 " I need not ask you if he is out of 
 his mind, poor creature," said Kate. 
 
 " Why no," replied the man, look- 
 ing into his hat, throwing his hand- 
 kerchief in at one dab, and putting 
 it on again. "That's pretty plain, 
 that is." 
 
 " Has he been long so ? " asked 
 Kate. 
 
 " A long while." 
 
 " And is there no hope for him ? " 
 said Kate, compassionately. 
 
 " Not a bit, and don't deserve to 
 be," replied the keeper. " He 's a 
 deal pleasanter without his senses than 
 with 'em. He was the cruellest, wick- 
 edest, out-and-outerest old flint that 
 ever drawed breath." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Kate. 
 
 " By George ! " replied the keeper, 
 shaking his head so emphatically that 
 he was obliged to frown to keep his 
 hat on, " I never come across such a 
 vagabond, and my mate says the same. 
 Broke his poor wife's heart, turned 
 his daughters out of doors, drove his 
 sons into the streets it was a blessing 
 he went mad at last, through evU 
 tempers, and covetousness, and sel- 
 fishness, and guzzling, and drinking, 
 or he'd have drove many others so. 
 Hope for him, an old rip ! There 
 isn't too much hope going, but I '11 
 bet a crown that what there is, is 
 saved for more deserving chaps than 
 him, anyhow." 
 
 With which confession of his faith, 
 the keeper shook his head again, as 
 much as to say that nothing short of 
 this would do, if things were to go on 
 at all ; and touching his hat sulkily 
 
 T2
 
 324 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 not that he was in an ill humour, 
 but that his subject ruffled him 
 descended the ladder, and took it 
 away. 
 
 During this conversation, Mrs. Nick- 
 leby had regarded the man with a 
 severe and stedfast look. She now 
 heaved a profound sigh, and pursing 
 up her lips, shook her head in a slow 
 and doubtful manner. 
 
 ** Poor creature ! " said Kate. 
 
 " Ah ! poor indeed ! " rejoined 
 Mrs. Nickleby. " It 's shameful that 
 such things should be allowed. 
 Shameful ! " 
 
 " How can they be helped, mamma? " 
 said Kate, mournfully. " The infir- 
 mities of nature " 
 
 "Nature!" said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 ** What ! Do you suppose this poor 
 gentleman is out of his mind ! " 
 
 " Can anybody who sees him enter- 
 tain any other opinion, ma.mm% \ " 
 
 " Why then, I just tell you this, 
 Kate," returned Mrs. Nickleby, "that 
 he is nothing of the kind, and I am 
 surprised you can be so imposed upon. 
 It's some plot of these people to pos- 
 sess themselves of his property 
 didn't he say so himself ? He may be a 
 little odd and flighty, perhaps, many 
 of us are that ; but downright mad ! 
 and express himself as he does, re- 
 spectfully, and in quite poetical lan- 
 guage, and making offers with so much 
 thought, and care, and prudence not 
 as if he ran into the streets, and went 
 down upon his knees to the first chit 
 of a girl he met, as a madman would ! 
 No, no, Kate, there 's a great deal too 
 much method in his madness ; depend 
 upon that, my dear." 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CONVIVIAL SENTIMENT, THAT THE BEST OF FRIENDS 
 MUST SOMETIMES PART. 
 
 THE pavement of Snow Hill had 
 been baking and frying all day in the 
 heat, and the twain Saracens' heads 
 guarding the entrance to the hostelry 
 of whose name and sign they are the 
 duplicate presentments, looked or 
 seemed in the eyes of jaded and foot- 
 sore passers by, to look more vicious 
 than usual, after blistering and scorch- 
 ing in the sun, when, in one of the 
 inn's smallest sitting-rooms, through 
 whose open window there rose, in a 
 palpable steam, wholesome exhalations 
 from reeking coach-horses, the usual 
 furniture of a tea-table was displayed 
 in neat and inviting order, flanked by 
 large joints of roast and boiled, a 
 tongue, a pigeon-pie, a cold fowl, a 
 tankard of ale, and other little matters 
 of the like kind, which, in degenerate 
 towns and cities are generally under- 
 stood to belong more particularly to 
 solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or 
 unusually substantial breakfasts. 
 
 Mr. John Browdie, with his hands 
 in his pockets, hovered restlessly about 
 these delicacies, stopping occasionally 
 to whisk the flies out of the sugar- 
 basin with his wife's pocket-handker- 
 chief, or to dip a tea-spoon in the 
 milkpot and carry it to his mouth, or 
 to cut off a little knob of crust, and a 
 little corner of meat, and swallow 
 them at two gulps like a couple of 
 pills. After every one of these flirta- 
 tions 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 hus- 
 band, impatiently. "Dost thou fx4 
 hoongry, lass ! " 
 
 Not very," said Mrs. Browdie.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 325 
 
 " Not vary ! " repeated John, raising 
 liis eyes to the ceiling. "Hear her 
 say not vary, and us dining at three, 
 and loonchiug off pasthry thot aggra- 
 vates a mon 'stead of pacifying him ! 
 Not vary ! " 
 
 "Here's a gen'lman for you, sir," 
 said the waiter, looking in. 
 
 " A wa'at, for me f V cried John, as 
 though he thought it must be a letter, 
 or a parcel. 
 
 " A gen'lman, sir." 
 
 " Stars and garthers, chap ! " said 
 John, " wa'at dost thou coom and say 
 thot for. In wi' 'un." 
 
 " Are you at home, sir ! " 
 
 " At whoam ! " cried John, " I wish 
 I wur ; I'd ha tca'd two hour ago. 
 Why, I told t'ootlier chap to look 
 sharp ootside door, and tell 'tin 
 d'rectly he coom, thot we war faint 
 wi' hoonger. In wi' 'un. Aha ! Thee 
 liond, Misthcr Nickleby. This is nigh 
 to be the proodest day <>' my life, sir. 
 Hoo be all wi' ye ! Ding ! But, I 'm 
 glod o' this ! " 
 
 Quite forgetting even his hunger in 
 the heartiness of his salutation, John 
 Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand 
 again and again, slapping his palm with 
 great violence between each shake, to 
 add warmth to the reception. 
 
 " Ah ! there she be," said John, 
 observing the look which Nicholas 
 directed towards his wife. " There 
 she be we shan't quarrel about her 
 noo Eh ? Ecod, when I think o' thot 
 but thou want'st soom'at to eat 
 Fall to, inun, 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 
 Btich a knife and fork, that his speech 
 was, for the time, gone. 
 
 " I shall take the usual licence, Mr. 
 Browdie," said Nicholas, as he placed 
 a chair for the bride. 
 
 " Tak' whatever thou like'st," said 
 John, " and when a's gane, ca' for 
 more." 
 
 Without stopping to explain, Ni- 
 cholas kissed the blushing Mrs. Brow- 
 die, and handed her to her seat. 
 
 '- 1 say," said John, rather astounded 
 
 for the moment, "mak* theeself quite 
 at whoam, will 'ee ? " 
 
 " You may depend upon that," re- 
 plied Nicholas ; " on one condition." 
 
 " And wa'at may thot be ? '' asked 
 John. 
 
 " That you make me a godfather the 
 very first time you have occasion for 
 one." 
 
 " Eh ! d 'ye hear thot ! " cried John, 
 laying down his knife and fork. " A 
 godfeyther ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! Tilly- 
 hear till 'un a godfeyther ! Divn't 
 say a word more, ye '11 never beat 
 thot Occasion for 'uu a godfeyther ! 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 Never was man so tickled with a 
 respectable old joke, as John Browdie 
 was with this. He chuckled, roared, 
 half suffocated himself by laughing 
 large pieces of beef into his windpipe, 
 roared again, persisted in eating at the 
 same time, got red in the face and 
 black in the forehead, coughed, cried, 
 got better, went off again laughing 
 inwardly, got worse, choked, had his 
 back thumped, stamped about, fright- 
 ened his wife, and at last recovered in 
 a state of the last exhaustion and with 
 the water streaming from his eyes, but 
 still faintly ejaculating " A godfeyther 
 a godfeyther, Tilly ! " in a tone 
 bespeaking an exquisite relish of the 
 sail}*, which no suffering could diminish. 
 
 " You remember the night of our 
 first tea-drinking 1 " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Shall I e'er forget it, mun \ " re- 
 plied John Browdie. 
 
 " He was a desperate fellow that 
 night though, was he not, Mrs. Brow- 
 die 1 " said Nicholas. " Quite a 
 monster ! " 
 
 * If you had only heard him as we 
 were going home, Mr. Nickleby, you 'd 
 have said so indeed," returned the 
 bride. " I never was so frightened in 
 all my life." 
 
 "Coom, coom," said John, with a 
 broad grin ; " thou know'st betther 
 than thot, Tilly." 
 
 " So I was," replied Mrs. Browdie. 
 " I almost made up my mind never to 
 speak to you again." 
 
 " A'most ! " said John, with a 
 broader grin than the last. " A'most
 
 326 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 made up her mind ! And she wur 
 coaxin', and coaxin,' and wheedlin', 
 and wheedlin' a' the blessed wa'. 
 ' Wa'at did'st thou let yon chap mak' 
 oop tiv'ee for 1 ' says I. ' I deedii't, 
 John,' says she, a squeedgin my arm. 
 ' You deedn't,' says I. ' Noa,' says 
 she, a squeedgin of me agean." 
 
 " Lor, John ! " interposed his pretty 
 wife, colouring very much. " How 
 can you talk such nonsense ? As if I 
 should have dreamt of such a thing ! " 
 " I dinnot know whether thou'd ever 
 dreamt of it, though I think that's 
 loike eneaf, mind," retorted John ; 
 " but thou didst it. ' Ye 're a feeckle, 
 changeable weathercock, lass,' says I. 
 ' Not feeckle, John,' says she. ' Yes,' 
 says I, ' feeckle, dom'd feeckle. Dinnot 
 tell me thou bean't, efther yon chap at 
 schoolmeasther's,' says I. * Him ! ' 
 says she, quite screeching. * Ah ! 
 him ! ' says I. ' Why, John,' says she 
 and she coom a deal closer and 
 squeedged a deal harder than she'd 
 deane afore * dost thou think it 's 
 nat'ral noo, that having such a proper 
 mun as thou to keep company wi', I M 
 ever tak' oop wi' such a leetle scanty 
 whipper-snapper as yon ? ' she says. 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! She said whipper- 
 snapper ! ' Ecod ! ' I says, ' efther 
 thot, neame the day, and let's have it 
 ower ! ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 Nicholas laughed very heartily at 
 this story, both on account of its telling 
 against himself, and his being desirous 
 to spare the blushes of Mrs. Browdie, 
 whose protestations were drowned in 
 peals of laughter from her husband. 
 His good-nature soon put her at her 
 ease ; and although she still denied the 
 charge, she laughed so heartily at it, 
 that Nicholas had the satisfaction of 
 feeling assured that in all essential 
 respects it was strictly true. 
 
 " This is the second time," said 
 Nicholas, " that we have ever taken a 
 meal together, and only the third I have 
 ever seen you ; and yet it really seems 
 to me as if I were among old friends. 
 
 " Weel ! " observed the Yorkshire- 
 man, " so I say." 
 
 " And I am sure I do," added his 
 young wife. 
 
 " I have the best reason to be im- 
 pressed with the feeling, mind," said 
 Nicholas ; " for if it had not been for 
 your kindness of heart, my good friend, 
 when I had no right or reason to 
 expect it, I know not what might have 
 become of me or what plight I should 
 have been in by this tune." 
 
 " Talk aboot soom'at else," replied 
 John, gruffly, " and dinnot bother." 
 
 '' It must be a new song to the same 
 tune then," said Nicholas, smiling. 
 " I told you in my letter that I deeply 
 felt and admired your sympathy with 
 that poor lad, whom you released at 
 the risk of involving yourself in trou- 
 ble and difficulty ; but I can never tell 
 you how grateful he and I, and others 
 whom you don't know, are to you foi 
 taking pity on him." 
 
 " Ecod ! " rejoined John Browdie, 
 drawing up his chair ; " and I can 
 never tell you hoo gratful soom folks 
 that we do know would be loikewise, it 
 they know'd I had takken pity on him." 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Browdie, 
 " what a state I was in, that night ! " 
 
 " Were they at all disposed to give 
 you credit for assisting in the escape \ ** 
 inquired Nicholas of John Browdie. 
 
 " Not a bit," replied the Yorkshire- 
 man, extending his mouth from ear to 
 ear. " There I lay, snoog in school- 
 measther's bed long efther it was dark, 
 and nobody coom nigh the pleace. 
 ( Weel ! ' thinks I, ' he 's got a pretty 
 good start, and if he bean't whoam by 
 noo, he never will be ; so you may 
 coom as quick as you loike, and foind 
 us reddy ' that is, you know, school- 
 measther might coom." 
 
 " I understand," said Nicholas. 
 " Presently," resumed John, " he 
 did coom. I heerd door shut doon- 
 stairs, and him a working oop in the 
 daark. ' Slow and steddy,' I says to 
 myself, 'tak' your time, sir no 
 hurry.' He cooms to the door, turns 
 the key turns the key when there 
 warn't nothing to hoold the lock and 
 ca's oot ' Hallo there ! ' ' Yes,' thinks 
 I, ' you may do thot agean, and not 
 wakken anybody, sir.' Hallo, there,' 
 he says, and then he stops. ' Thou 'd 
 betther not aggravate me,' says school
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 327 
 
 measther, efther a little time. I '11 
 brak' every boan in your boddy, 
 Smike,' he says, efther another little 
 time. Then all of a soodden, he sings 
 oot for a loight, and when it cooms 
 ecod, such a hoorly-boorly ! ' Wa'ats 
 the matter ! ' says I. ' He 's gane,' 
 says he, stark mad wi' vengeance. 
 ' Have you heerd nought ! ' ' Ees,' 
 says I, ' I heerd street door shut, no 
 time at a' ago. I heerd a person run 
 doon there' (pointing t'other wa' eh 1) 
 ' Help ! ' he cries. ' I '11 help you,' 
 says I ; and off we set the wrong 
 wa' ! Ho ! ho ! ho ! " 
 
 " Did you go far 1 " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Far ! " replied John ; " I run 
 him clean off his legs in quarther of 
 an hoor. To see old schoolmeasther 
 wi'out his hat, skimming along oop to 
 his knees in mud and wather, tumbling 
 over fences, and rowling into ditches, 
 and bawling oot like mad, wi' his one 
 eye looking sharp out for the lad, and 
 his coat-tails flying out behind, and 
 him spattered wi' mud all ower, face 
 and all ; I thot I should ha' dropped 
 doon, and killed myself wi' laughing." 
 
 John laughed so heartily at the 
 mere recollection, that he communi- 
 cated the contagion to both his hearers, 
 and all three burst into peals of 
 laughter, which were renewed again 
 and again, until they could laugh no 
 longer. 
 
 " He 's a bad 'un," said John, wiping 
 his eyes ; " a very bad 'un, is school- 
 measther." 
 
 " I can't bear the sight of him, 
 John," said his wife. 
 
 ' Coom," retorted John, " thot 's 
 tidy in you, thot is. If it wa'nt along 
 o' you, we shouldn't know nought 
 aboot 'un. Thou know'd 'un first, 
 Tilly, didn't thou 1 " 
 
 " 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 neigh- 
 bourly, and keep up old acquaintance 
 loike ; and what I say is, dean't 
 quarrel if 'ee can help it. Dinuot 
 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 Nicholas, "though 
 it 's not exactly what we understand 
 by ' coming Yorkshire over us ' in 
 London. Miss Squeers is stopping 
 with you, you said in your note." 
 
 " Yes," replied John, "Tilly's 
 bridesmaid ; and a queer bridesmaid 
 she be, too. She wean't be a bride in 
 a hurry, I reckon." 
 
 " For shame, John," said Mrs. 
 Browdie ; with an acute perception 
 of the joke though, being a bride 
 herself. 
 
 " The groom will be a blessed mnn," 
 said John, his eyes twinkling at the 
 idea. He '11 be in luck, he will." 
 
 " You see, Mr. Nickleby," said his 
 wife, "that it was in consequence 
 of her being here, that John wrote 
 to you and fixed to-night, because 
 we thought that it wouldn't be plea- 
 sant for you to meet, after what has 
 passed " 
 
 * Unquestionably. You were quite 
 right in that," said Nicholas, inter- 
 rupting. 
 
 " Especially," observed Mrs. Brow- 
 die, looking very sly, u after what 
 we know about past and gone love 
 matters." 
 
 " We know, indeed ! " said Nicholas, 
 shaking his head. " You behaved 
 rather wickedly there, I suspect." 
 
 " 0' course she did," said John 
 Browdie, passing his huge fore-finger 
 through one of his wife's pretty ring- 
 lets, and looking very proud of her. 
 " She wur always as skittish and full 
 o' tricks as a " 
 
 " Well, as a what ? " said his wife. 
 
 " As a woman," returned John. 
 " Ding ! But I dinnot know ought 
 else that cooms near it." 
 
 " You were speaking about Miss 
 Squeers," said Nicholas, with the view 
 of stopping some slight connubialities 
 which had begun to pass between Mr 
 and Mrs. Browdie, and which rendered
 
 328 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 the position of a third party in some 
 degree embarrassing, as occasioning 
 him to feel rather in the way than 
 otherwise. 
 
 " Oh yes," rejoined Mrs. Browdie. 
 " John, ha' done John fixed to-night, 
 because she had settled that she would 
 go and drink tea with her father. And 
 to make quite sure of there being 
 nothing amiss, and of your being quite 
 alone with us, he settled to go out 
 there and fetch her home." 
 
 " That was a very good arrange- 
 ment," said Nicholas ; " though I am 
 sorry to be the occasion of so much 
 trouble." 
 
 "Not the least in the world," re- 
 turned 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 impres- 
 sion upon her virgin heart." 
 
 " How you talk ! " tittered Mrs. 
 Browdie. " No, but do you know that 
 really seriously now and without any 
 joking I was given to understand by 
 Fanny herself, that you had made an 
 offer to her, and that you two were 
 going to be engaged quite solemn and 
 regular." 
 
 " Was you, ma'am was you ! " cried 
 a shrill female voice, " was you given 
 to understand that I I was going 
 to be engaged to an assassinating thief 
 that shed the gore of my pa ? Do you 
 do you think, ma'am that I was 
 very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, 
 as I couldn't condescend to touch with 
 kitchen tongs, without blacking and 
 crocking myself by the contract ? Do 
 you, ma'am do you ! Oh ! base and 
 degrading 'Tilda ! " 
 
 With these reproaches Miss Squeers 
 flung the door wide open, and disclosed 
 to the eyes of the astonished Browdies 
 and Nicholas, not only her own sym- 
 metrical form, arrayed in the chaste 
 white garments before described, (a 
 little dirtier) but the form of her bro- 
 
 ther and father, the pair of Wack- 
 fords. 
 
 " This is the hend, is it ? " continued 
 Miss Squeers, who, being excited, aspi- 
 rated her h's strongly ; " this is dio 
 hend, is it, of all my forbearance and 
 friendship for that double-faced thing 
 that viper, that that mermaid 1 " 
 (Miss Squeers hesitated a long time 
 for this last epithet, and brought it out 
 triumphantly at last, as if it quite 
 ch'nched the business.) " This is the 
 hend, is it, of all my bearing with her 
 deceitfulness, her lowness, her false- 
 ness, 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 male- 
 volent eye literally a malevolent eye. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Squeers ; " but I 
 thank my stars thai 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 Mips 
 Squeers, tossing her head, and looking 
 contemptuously at the floor, " of my 
 taking notice of that rubbishing crea- 
 ture, and demeaning myself to patron- 
 ise her ? " 
 
 " Oh, come," rejoined Mrs. Browdie, 
 disregarding all the endeavours of her 
 spouse to restrain her, and forcing 
 herself into a front row, " don't talk 
 such nonsense as that." 
 
 " Have I not patronised you, 
 ma'am I " demanded Miss Squeers. 
 
 " No," returned Mrs. Browdie. 
 
 " I will not look for blushes in 
 such a quarter," said Miss Squeers, 
 haughtily, " for that countenance is a 
 stranger to everything but hignomi- 
 niousness and red-faced boldness." 
 
 " I say," interposed John Browdie, 
 nettled by these accumulated attacks 
 on his wife, " dra' it mild, dra' it 
 mild." 
 
 'You, Mr. Browdie," said Miss 
 Squeers, taking him up very quickly, 
 "I pity. I have no feeling for you, 
 sir, but one of unliquidated pity." 
 
 " Oh ! " said John.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 329 
 
 "No/' said Miss Squeers, looking 
 sideways at her parent, "although I 
 am a queer bridesmaid, and shan't be 
 a bride in a hurry, and although my 
 husband will be in luck, I entertain no 
 sentiments towards you, sir, but senti- 
 ments of pity." 
 
 Here Miss Squeers looked sideways 
 at her father again, who looked side- 
 ways at her, as much as to say, ' There 
 you had him.' 
 
 " / know what you '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 1 " 
 inquired Mrs. Browdie, with great 
 suavity of manner. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, how witty you are," 
 retorted Miss Squeers with a low 
 curtsey, " almost as witty, ma'am, as 
 you are clever. How very clever it 
 was in you, ma'am, to choose a time 
 when I had gone to tea with my pa', 
 and was sure not to come back without 
 being fetched ! What a pity you never 
 thought that other people might be as 
 clever as yourself and spoil your 
 plans ! " 
 
 " You won't vex me, child, with 
 such airs as these," said the late Miss 
 Price, assuming the matron. 
 
 " Don't Missis me, ma'am, if you 
 please," returned Miss Squeers, 
 sharply. M I '11 not bear it. Is this 
 the hend " 
 
 " Dang it a'," cried John Browdie, 
 impatiently. * Say thee say out, 
 Fanny, and mak sure it's the end, 
 and dinnot ask nobody whether it is or 
 not." 
 
 " Thanking you for your advice 
 which was not required, Mr. Browdie," 
 returned Miss Squeers, with laborious 
 politeness, " have the goodness not to 
 presume to meddle with my Christian 
 name. Even my pity shall never 
 make me forget what's due to myself, 
 Mr. Browdie. 'Tilda," said Miss 
 Squeers, with such a sudden accession 
 of violence that John started in his 
 boots, " I throw you off for ever, Miss. 
 
 I abandon you. I renounce you. 1 
 wouldn't," cried Miss Squeers hi a 
 solemn voice, " have a child named 
 'Tilda not to save it from its grave." 
 
 " As for the matther o' that," ob- 
 served John, " it '11 be tune eneaf to 
 think about, neaming of it when it 
 cooms." 
 
 " John ! " interposed his wife, " don't 
 tease her." 
 
 " Oh ! Tease, indeed ! " cried Miss 
 Squeers, bridling up. "Tease, in- 
 deed ! He ! he ! Tease, too ! No, 
 don't tease her. Consider her feelings, 
 pray ! " 
 
 " If it 's fated that listeners are never 
 to hear any good of themselves," said 
 Mrs. Browdie, " I can't help it, and I 
 am very sorry for it. But I will say, 
 Fanny, that times out of number I 
 have spoken so kindly of you behind 
 your back, that even you could have 
 found no fault with what I said." 
 
 "Oh, I dare say not, ma'am !" cried 
 Miss Squeers, with another curtsey. 
 " Best thanks to you for your good- 
 ness, and begging and praying you not 
 to be bard upon me another time ! " 
 
 " I don't know," resumed Mrs. 
 Browdie, " that I have said anything 
 very bad of you, even now at all 
 events, what I did say was quite true ; 
 but if I have, I am very sorry for it, 
 and I beg your pardon. You have 
 said much worse of me, scores of tunes, 
 Fanny ; but I have never borne any 
 malice to you, and I hope you '11 not 
 bear any to me." 
 
 Miss Squeers made no more direct 
 reply than surveying her former friend 
 from top to toe, and elevating her nose 
 in the air with ineffable disdain. But 
 some indistinct allusions to a 'puss,' 
 and a ' minx,' and a ' contemptible 
 creature,' escaped her ; and this, toge- 
 ther with a severe biting of the lips, 
 great difficulty in swallowing, and very 
 frequent comings and goings of breath, 
 seemed to imply that feelings were 
 swelling in Miss Squeers's bosom too 
 great for utterance. 
 
 While the foregoing conversation 
 was proceeding, Master Wackford, 
 finding himself unnoticed, and feeling 
 his preponderating inclinations strong
 
 330 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 upon him, had by little and little sidled 
 up to the table and attacked the food 
 with such slight skirmishing as draw- 
 ing his fingers round and round the 
 inside of the plates, and afterwards 
 sucking them with infinite relish 
 picking the bread, and dragging the 
 pieces over the surface of the butter 
 pocketing lumps of sugar, pretending 
 all the time to be absorbed in thought 
 and so forth. Finding that no 
 interference was attempted with these 
 small liberties, he gradually mounted 
 to greater, and, after helping himself 
 to a moderately good cold collation, 
 was, by this time, deep in the pie. 
 
 Nothing of this had been unobserved 
 by Mr. Squeers, who, so long as the 
 attention of the company was fixed 
 upon other objects, hugged himself to 
 think that his son and heir should be 
 fattening at the enemy's expense. But 
 there being now an appearance of a 
 temporary calm, in which the proceed- 
 ings of little Wackford could scarcely 
 fail to be observed, he feigned to be 
 aware of the circumstance for the first 
 time, and inflicted upon the face of 
 that young gentleman a slap that made 
 the very tea-cups ring." 
 
 " Eating ! " cried Mr. Squeers, " of 
 what his father's enemies has left ! 
 It's fit to go and poison you, you 
 unnat'ral boy." 
 
 "It wean't hurt him," said John, 
 apparently very much relieved by the 
 prospect of having a man hi the quar- 
 rel ; " let 'un eat. I wish the whole 
 school was here. I 'd give 'em soom'ut 
 to stay their unfort'nate stomachs wi', 
 if I spent the last penny I had !" 
 
 Squeers scowled at him with the 
 worst and most malicious expression of 
 which his face was capable it was a 
 face of remarkable capability, too, in 
 that way and shook his fist stealthily. 
 
 " Coom, coom, schoolmeasther," said 
 John, " dinnot make a fool o' thyself ; 
 for if I was to sheake mine only 
 once thou'd fa' doon wi' the wind 
 o' it" 
 
 " It was you, was it," returned 
 Squeers, "that helped off my runaway 
 boy ? It was you, was it ! " 
 
 " Me ! " returned John, in a loud 
 
 tone. " Yes, it wa' me, coom ; wa'al 
 o' that ! It wa' me. Noo then ! " 
 
 " You hear him say he did it, my 
 child ! " said Squeers, appealing to hia 
 daughter. You hear him say he did 
 it!" 
 
 " Did it ! " cried John. I '11 tell 
 *ee more ; hear this, too. If thou'd 
 get another runaway boy, I 'd do it 
 agean. If thou 'd got twenty roonaway 
 boys, I 'd do it twonty times ower, am' 
 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 weel for thou, thou be'st an 
 old 'un, or I 'd ha poonded thee tc 
 flour, when thou told an honest mun 
 hoo' thou'd licked that poor chap in t' 
 coorch." 
 
 " An honest man ! " cried Squeers, 
 with a sneer. 
 
 " Ah ! an honest man," replied 
 John ; " honest in ought but ever put- 
 ting legs under seame table wi' such 
 as thou." 
 
 " Scandal ! " said Squeers, exult- 
 ingly. " Two witnesses to it ; Wack- 
 ford 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." 
 
 " 'Seizes," cried John, " thou 'd 
 betther not talk to me o' 'Seizes. York- 
 shire schools have been shown up at 
 'Seizes afore noo, mun, and it 's a tick- 
 lish soobjact to revive, I can tell ye." 
 
 Mr. Squeers shook his head in a 
 threateningmanner,looking very white 
 with passion ; and taking his daugh- 
 ter'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, pur- 
 posely abstained from taking any part 
 in the discussion, " see if I ain't down 
 upon you before long. You '11 go a 
 kidnapping of boys, will you ! Take 
 care their fathers don't turn up mark 
 that take care their fathers don't
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 tarn up, and send 'em back to me to 
 do as I like with, in spite of you." 
 
 u I am not afraid of that," replied 
 Nicholas, shrugging his shoulders con- 
 temptuously, and turning away. 
 
 " Ain't you ! " retorted Squeers, 
 with a diabolical look. Now then, 
 come along." 
 
 " I leave such society, with my pa', 
 for 7iever," said Miss Squeers, looking 
 contemptuously and loftily round. " I 
 am defiled by breathing the air with 
 such creatures. Poor Mr. Browdie ! 
 He ! he ! he ! I do pity him, that I do ; 
 
 he 's so deluded ! He ! he ! he ! 
 
 Artful and designing 'Tilda ! " 
 
 With this sudden relapse into the 
 sternest and most majestic wrath, Miss 
 Squeers swept from the room ; and 
 having sustained her dignity until the 
 last possible moment, was heard to sob 
 and scream and struggle in. the pas- 
 
 John Browdie remained standing 
 behind the table, looking from his wife 
 to Nicholas, and back again, with his 
 mouth wide open, until his hand acci- 
 dentally fell upon the tankard of ale, 
 when he took it up, and having ob- 
 scured 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, 
 u there 's no ganging oot to neeght, 
 noo, to fetch anybody whoam, and ecod, 
 we '11 begin to spend the evening iu 
 airnest." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 OFFICIATES AS A KIND OF GENTLEMAN USHER, IN BRINGING VARIOUS PEOPLE 
 TOGETHER. 
 
 could hardly have been surpassed, if 
 there had actually been a Saracen's 
 head then present in the establish- 
 ment, supported on the shoulders 
 and surmounting the trunk of a real, 
 live, furious, and most unappeasable 
 Saracen. 
 
 This turmoil, instead of quickly 
 subsiding after the first outburst, (as 
 turmoils not unfrequently do, whether 
 in taverns, legislative assemblies, or 
 elsewhere,) into a mere grumbling and 
 growling squabble, increased every 
 moment ; and although the whole 
 din appeared to be raised by but one 
 pair of lungs, yet that one pair was 
 of so powerful a quality, and repeated 
 such words as " scoundrel," " rascal," 
 "insolent puppy," and a variety of 
 expletives no less flattering to the 
 party addressed, with such great relish 
 and strength of tone, that a dozen 
 voices raised in concert under any 
 
 TUB Btorm had long given place to 
 a calm the most profound, and the 
 evening was pretty far advanced 
 indeed supper was over, and the pro- 
 cess of digestion proceeding as favour- 
 ably as, under the influence of complete 
 tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and 
 a moderate allowance of brandy and 
 water, most wise men conversant with 
 the anatomy and functions of the 
 human frame will consider that it 
 ought to have proceeded, when the 
 three friends, or as one might say, 
 both in a civil and religious sense, and 
 with proper deference and regard to 
 the holy state of matrimony, the two 
 friends, (Mr. and Mrs. Browdie count- 
 ing as no more than one,) were startled 
 by the noise of loud and angry threat- 
 ening below-stairs, which presently 
 attained so high a pitch, and were 
 conveyed besides in language so tower- 
 ing sanguinary and ferocious, that it
 
 3S2 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 ordinary circumstances would have 
 made far less uproar and created 
 much smaller consternation. 
 
 " Why, what 's the matter ? " said 
 Nicholas, moving hastily towards the 
 door. 
 
 John Browdie was striding in the 
 same direction when Mrs. Browdie 
 turned pale, and, leaning back in her 
 chair, requested him with a fault voice 
 to take notice, that if he ran into any 
 danger it was her intention to fall into 
 hysterics immediately, and that the 
 consequences might be more serious 
 than he thought for. John looked 
 rather disconcerted by this intelli- 
 gence, though there was a lurking grin 
 on his face at the same time ; but, 
 being quite unable to keep out of the 
 fray, he compromised the matter by 
 tucking his wife's arm under his own, 
 and, thus accompanied, f 611 owing Ni- 
 cholas down stairs with all speed. 
 
 The passage outside the coffee-room 
 door was the scene of disturbance, and 
 here were congregated the coffee-room 
 customers and waiters, together with 
 two or three coachmen and helpers 
 from the yard. These had hastily 
 assembled round a young man who 
 from his appearance might have been 
 a year or two older than Nicholas, and 
 who, besides having given utterance 
 to the defiances just now described, 
 seemed to have proceeded to even 
 greater lengths in his indignation, 
 inasmuch as his feet had no other 
 covering than a pair of stockings, 
 while a couple of slippers lay at no 
 great distance from the head of a pros- 
 trate figure in an opposite corner, 
 who bore the appearance of having 
 been shot into his present retreat by 
 means of a kick, and complimented by 
 having the slippers flung about his 
 ears afterwards. 
 
 The coffee-reom customers, and the 
 waiters, and the coachmen, and the 
 helpers not to mention a bar-maid 
 who was looking on from behind an 
 open sash window seemed at that 
 moment, if a spectator might judge 
 from their winks, nods, and muttered 
 exclamations, strongly disposed to take 
 part against the young gentleman in 
 
 the stockings.. Observing this, and 
 that the young gentleman was nearly 
 of his own age and had in nothing the 
 appearance of an habitual brawler, 
 Nicholas, impelled by such feelings as 
 will influence young men sometimes, 
 felt a very strong disposition to sido 
 with the weaker party, and so thrust 
 himself at once into the centre of the 
 group, and in a more emphatic tone, 
 perhaps, than circumstances might 
 seem to warrant, demanded what all 
 that noise was about. 
 
 " Hallo ! " said one of the men from 
 j the yard, " this is somebody in disguise, 
 this is." 
 
 " Room for the eldest son of the 
 Emperor of Roosher, gen'lmen !" cried 
 another fellow. 
 
 Disregarding these sallies, which 
 were uncommonly well received, as 
 sallies at the expense of the best- 
 dressed persons in a crowd usually 
 are, Nicholas glanced carelessly round, 
 and addressing the young gentleman, 
 who had by this time picked up his 
 slippers and thrust his feet into them, 
 repeated his inquiries with a courteous 
 air. 
 
 " A mere nothing ! " he replied. 
 
 At this a murmur was raised by the 
 lookers-on, and some of the boldest 
 cried, " Oh, indeed ! Wasn't it 
 though? Nothing, eh! He called 
 that nothing, did he ? Lucky for him 
 if he found it nothing." These and 
 many other expressions of ironical 
 disapprobation having been exhausted, 
 two or three of the out-of-door fellows 
 began to hustle Nicholas and the 
 young gentleman who had made the 
 noise : stumbling against them by ac- 
 cident, 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 di- 
 rections, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 333 
 
 very different appearance ; while more 
 than one stout fellow limped away to 
 a respectful distance, anathematising 
 with tears in his eyes the heavy trend 
 and ponderous feet of the burly York- 
 ehireman. 
 
 " Let me see him do it again," said 
 he who had been kicked into the cor- 
 ner, rising as he spolje, apparently 
 more from the fear of John Browdie's 
 inadvertently treading upon him, than 
 from any desire to place himself on 
 equal terms with his late adversary. 
 " Let me see him do it again. That 's 
 all." 
 
 " Let me hear you make those 
 remarks again," said the young man, 
 " and I '11 knock that head of yours in 
 among the wine-glasses behind you 
 there." 
 
 Here a waiter who had been rub- 
 bing his hands in excessive enjoyment 
 of the scene, so long as only the break- 
 ing of heads was in question, adjured 
 the spectators with great earnestness 
 to fetch the police, declaring that other- 
 wise murder would be surely done, and 
 that he was responsible for all the 
 glass and china on the premises. 
 
 " No one need trouble himself to 
 stir," said the young gentleman, "I 
 am going to remain in the house all 
 night, and shall be found here in the 
 morning if there is any assault to 
 answer for." 
 
 " What did you strike him for ? " 
 asked one of the bystanders. 
 
 " Ah ! what did you strike him 
 for ! " demanded the others. 
 
 The unpopular gentleman looked 
 coolly round, and addressing himself to 
 Nicholas, said : 
 
 " You inquired just now what was 
 the matter here. The matter is simply 
 this. Yonder person, who was drink- 
 ing with a friend in the coffee-room 
 when I took my scat there for half an 
 hour before going to bed, (for I have 
 just come off a journey, and preferred 
 stopping hero to-night, to going home 
 at this hour, where I was not expected 
 until to-morrow,) chose to express 
 himself in very disrespectful, and inso- 
 lently familiar terms, of a young lady, 
 whom I recognised from his descrip- 
 
 tion and other circumstances, and 
 whom I have the honour to know. As 
 lie spoke loud enough to be overheard 
 by the other guests who were present, 
 I informed him most civilly that he 
 was mistaken in his conjectures, which 
 were of an offensive nature, and re- 
 quested him to forbear. He did so 
 for a little time, but as he chose to 
 renew his conversation when leaving 
 the room, in a more offensive strain, 
 than before, I could not refrain from 
 making after him, and facilitating his 
 departure by a kick, which reduced 
 him to the posture in which you saw 
 him just now. I am the best judge of 
 my own affairs, I take it," said the 
 young man, who had certainly not 
 quite recovered from his recent heat, 
 "if anybody here thinks proper to 
 make this quarrel his own, I have not 
 the smallest earthly objection, I do 
 assure him." 
 
 Of all possible courses of proceeding 
 under the circumstances detailed, there 
 was certainly not one which, in his 
 then state of mind, could have ap- 
 peared more laudable to Nicholas than 
 this. There were not many subjects 
 of dispute which at that moment could 
 have come home to his own breast 
 more powerfully, for having the un- 
 known uppermost in his thoughts, it 
 naturally occurred to him that he 
 would have done just the same if any 
 audacious gossiper durst have pre- 
 sumed in his hearing to speak lightly 
 of her. Influenced by these consider- 
 ations, he espoused the young gentle- 
 man's quarrel with great warmth, 
 protesting that he had done quite right, 
 and that he respected him for it ; 
 which John Browdie (albeit not quite 
 clear as to the merits) immediately 
 protested too, with not inferior 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. " Ho 
 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 ! "
 
 334 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 This reflection appeared to have 
 great weight with the young lady in 
 die bar, who (adjusting her cap as she 
 spoke, and glancing at a mirror) de- 
 clared that it would be a very pretty 
 state of things indeed ; and that if 
 people were to be punished for actions 
 so innocent and natural as that, there 
 would be more people to be knocked 
 down than there would be people to 
 knock them down, and that she won- 
 dered what the gentleman meant by it, 
 that she did. 
 
 " My dear girl," said the young 
 gentleman in a low voice, advancing 
 towards the sash window. 
 
 " Nonsense, sir ! " replied the young 
 lady sharply, smiling though as she 
 turned aside, and biting her lip, 
 (whereat Mrs. Browdie, who was still 
 standing on the stairs, glanced at her 
 with disdain, and called to her husband 
 to come away). 
 
 "No, but listen to me," said the 
 young man. " If admiration of a pretty 
 face were criminal, I should be the 
 most hopeless person alive, for I cannot 
 resist one. It has- the most extraor- 
 dinary effect upon me, checks and 
 controls me in the most furious and 
 obstinate mood. You see what an 
 effect yours has had upon me already." 
 
 " Oh, that 's very pretty," replied 
 the young lady, tossing her head, 
 but" 
 
 " Yes, I know it 's very pretty," 
 said the young man, looking with an 
 air of admiration in the bar-maid's 
 face, "I said so, you know, just this 
 moment. But beauty should be spoken 
 of respectfully respectfully, and in 
 proper terms, and with a becoming 
 sense of its worth and excellence, 
 whereas this fellow has no more 
 notion " 
 
 The young lady interrupted the con- 
 versation at this point, by tlirusting 
 her head out of the bar-window, and 
 inquiring of the waiter in a shrill voice 
 whether that young man who had been 
 knocked down was going to stand in 
 the passage all night, or whether the 
 entrance was to be left clear for other 
 people. The waiters taking the hint, 
 and communicating it to the hostlers, 
 
 were not slow to change their tone too, 
 and the result was, that the unfortu- 
 nate victim was bundled out in a 
 twinkling. 
 
 " I am sure I have seen that fellow 
 before," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Indeed ! " replied his new ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 " I am certain of it," said Nicholas, 
 pausing to reflect. "Where can I 
 have stop ! yes, to lie sure he be- 
 longs to a register-office up at the west 
 end of the town. I knew I recollected 
 the face." 
 
 It was, indeed, Tom the ugly clerk. 
 
 " That 's odd enough ! " said Ni- 
 cholas, 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 favour to let me know 
 where I can thank you." 
 
 Nicholas took the card, and glancing 
 at it involuntarily as he returned 
 the compliment, evinced very great 
 surprise. 
 
 " ' Mr. Frank Cheeryble ! " said 
 Nicholas. " Surely not the nephew of 
 Cheeryble Brothers, who is expected 
 to-morrow ! " 
 
 " I don't usually call myself the 
 nephew of the firm,'" returned Mr. 
 Frank, good-humouredly, "but of the 
 two excellent individuals who compose 
 it, I am proud to say I am the nephew. 
 And you, I see, are Mr. Nickleby, of 
 whom I have heard so much ! This is 
 a most unexpected meeting, but not 
 the less welcome I assure you." 
 
 Nicholas responded to these compli- 
 ments with others of the same kind, 
 and they shook hands warmly. Then 
 he introduced John Browdie, who had 
 remained in a state of great admira- 
 tion ever since the young lady in the 
 bar had been so skilfully won over to 
 the right side. Then Mrs. John 
 Browdie was introduced, and finally 
 they all went up-stairs together and
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 335 
 
 spent the next half hour with great ] quite a child when he went away, then, 
 satisfaction and mutual entertainment ; : 1 should say he knew nothing about 
 Mrs. John Browdie beginning the 
 
 conversation by declaring that of all 
 the made-up tilings she ever saw, that 
 young woman below-stairs was the 
 vainest and the plainest. 
 
 This Mr. Frank Cheeryble, although, 
 to judge from what had recently taken 
 place, a hot-headed young man, (which 
 is not an absolute miracle and phe- 
 nomenon hi nature) was a sprightly, 
 good-humoured, pleasant fellow, with 
 much both in his countenance and 
 disposition that reminded Nicholas 
 very strongly of the kind-hearted bro- 
 thers. His manner was as unaffected 
 as theirs, and his demeanour full of 
 that heartiness which, to most people 
 who have anything generous in their 
 composition, is peculiarly prepossess- 
 ing. Add to this, that he was good- 
 looking and intelligent, had a plentiful 
 share of vivacity, was extremely cheer- 
 ful, and accommodated himself in five 
 minutes' time to all John Browdic's 
 oddities with as much ease as if he 
 
 had known him from a boy ; and it but of no family save a very large 
 
 will be a source of no great wonder 
 that, when they parted for the night, 
 he had produced a most favourable 
 impression, not only upon the worthy 
 Yorkshireman and his wife, but upon 
 Nicholas also, who, revolving all these 
 things in his mind as he made the 
 best of his way home, arrived at the 
 conclusion that he had kid the founda- 
 tion of a most agreeable and desirable 
 
 acquaintance. 
 "But it's 
 
 a most extraordinary 
 
 thing about that register-office fellow 1" 
 thought Nicholas. " Is it likely that 
 this nephew can know anything about 
 that beautiful girl 1 When Tim Lin- 
 kinwater 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 hi Ger- 
 many for four years, and that during 
 the last six months he had been en- 
 gaged in establishing an agency in the 
 north of England.- That's four years 
 and a halt- four years and a half. 
 She can't be more than seventeen 
 say eighteen at the outside. She was 
 
 her and had never seen her, so he 
 can give me no information. At all 
 events," thought Nicholas, coming to 
 the real point in liis mind, " there can 
 be no danger of any prior occupation 
 of her affections in that quarter ; that's 
 quite clear." 
 
 Is selfishness a necessary ingredient 
 in the composition of that passion 
 called love, or does it deserve all the 
 fine things which poets, in the exercise 
 of their undoubted vocation, have said 
 of it ? There are, no doubt, authen- 
 ticated instances of gentlemen having 
 given up ladies and ladies having given 
 up gentlemen to meritorious rivals, 
 under circumstances of great high- 
 mindedness ; but is it quite established 
 that the majority of such ladies and 
 gentlemen have not made a virtue of 
 necessity, and nobly resigned what 
 was beyond their reach ; as a private 
 soldier might register a vow never to 
 accept the order of the Garter, or a 
 poor curate of great piety and learning, 
 
 family of children might renounce a 
 bishopric ? 
 
 Here was Nicholas Nickleby, who 
 would have scorned the thought of 
 counting how the cliances stood of his 
 rising in favour or fortune with the 
 Brothers Cheeryble, now that their 
 nephew had returned, already deep in 
 calculations whether that same nephew 
 was likely to rival him in the affections 
 of the fair unknown discussing the 
 matter with himself too, as gravely as 
 if, with that one exception, it were all 
 settled ; and recurring to the subject 
 again and again, and feeling quite in- 
 dignant and ill-used at the notion of- 
 anybody else making love to one with 
 whom lie had never exchanged a word 
 in all his life, 
 rated rather 
 
 To be sure, he exagge- 
 than depreciated tho 
 
 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
 
 336 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 sup- 
 pose that, being in love, he felt and 
 thought differently from other people 
 in the like sublime condition. 
 
 He did not stop to set on foot an 
 inquiry into his train of thought or 
 state of feeling, however, but went 
 thinking on all the way home, and 
 continued to dream on in the same 
 strain all night. For, having satisfied 
 liimself that Frank Cheeryble could 
 buve no knowledge of, or acquaintance 
 *ith the mysterious young lady, it 
 began to occur to him that even he 
 himself might never see her again ; 
 upon which hypothesis he built up a 
 very ingenious succession of torment- 
 ing ideas which answered his purpose 
 even better than the vision of Mr. 
 Frank Cheeryble, and tantalized and 
 worried him, waking and sleeping. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been 
 said and sung to the contrary, there is 
 no well-established case of morning 
 having either deferred or hastened its 
 approach by the term of an hour or so 
 for the mere gratification of a splenetic 
 feeling against some unoffending lover : 
 the sun having, in the discharge of his 
 public duty, as the books of precedent 
 report, invariably risen according to 
 the almanacks, and without suffering 
 himself to be swayed by any private 
 considerations. So, morning came as 
 usual and with it business-hours, and 
 with them Mr. Frank Cheeryble, and 
 with him a long train of smiles and 
 welcomes from the worthy brothers, 
 and a more grave and clerk-like, but 
 scarcely less hearty reception from 
 Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. 
 
 That Mr. Frank and Mr. Nickle- 
 by should have met last night," said 
 Tim Linkinwater, getting slowly off 
 his stool, and looking round the 
 counting-house with his back planted 
 against the desk, as was his custom 
 when he had anything very particular 
 to say "that those two young men 
 should have met last night in that 
 manner is, I say, a coincidence 
 
 a remarkable coincidence. Why, I 
 don't believe now," added Tun, 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 1 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 obliga- 
 tion to the coincidence, that 's all." 
 
 " Oh ! if you don't dispute it," said 
 Tim, quite satisfied, "that's another 
 thing. I '11 tell you what though I 
 wish you had. I wish you or anybody 
 would. I would so put that man 
 down," said Tim, tapping the forefinger 
 of his left hand emphatically with his 
 spectacles, " so put that man down by 
 argument " 
 
 It was quite impossible to find 
 language to express the degree of 
 mental prostration to which such an 
 adventurous wight would be reduced 
 in the keen encounter with Tim Link- 
 inwater, 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 satisfac- 
 tion and pleasure to us." 
 
 " Certainly, Charles, certainly," re- 
 turned the other. 
 
 " Of Tim," added brother Ned, "I 
 say nothing whatever, because Tim is 
 a mere child an infant a nobody
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 337 
 
 that we ui-viT 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 your- 
 selves, gentlemen, if you please." 
 
 Tim thought this such an exquisite, 
 jnparalleled, and most extraordinary 
 joke, that he laid his pen upon the 
 nkstand, and rather tumbling off his 
 -tool than getting down with his usual 
 deliberation, laughed till he was quite 
 faint, shaking his head all the time so 
 tiiat little particles of powder flew 
 palpably about the office. Nor were 
 tho brothers at all behind-hand, for 
 they laughed almost as heartily at the 
 ludicrous idea of any voluntary sepa- 
 ration 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 tlv first burst,) 
 '-i i perhaps there was as much keen 
 enjoyment and relish in that laugh 
 altogether, as the politest assembly 
 ever derived from the most poignant 
 witticism uttered at any one person's 
 expense. 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby," said brother 
 i 'hark-s, calling him aside, and taking 
 him kindly by the hand, " I 1 am 
 anxious, my dear sir, to see that you 
 are properly and comfortably settled 
 in the cottage. We cannot allow those 
 who serve us well to labour under any 
 privation or discomfort that it is in em- 
 power to remove. I wish, too, to see 
 your mother and sister to know 
 them, Mr. Nickleby, and have an 
 opportunity of relieving their minds 
 by assuring them that any trifling 
 service we have been able to do them 
 is a great deal more than repaid by 
 the zeal and ardour you display. Not 
 a word, my dear sir, I beg. To-mor- 
 row is Sunday. I shall make brild to 
 come out at tea-time, and take the 
 chance of finding you at home ; if you 
 we not, you know, or the ladies should 
 feel a delicacy in being intruded on, 
 mil would rather not be known to me 
 just now, why I can come again 
 
 No. 53. 
 
 another time, any other time would do 
 for me. Let it remain upon that un- 
 derstanding. Brother Ned, my dear 
 fellow, let mo have a word with you 
 this way." 
 
 Tho twins went out of the office arm 
 in arm, and Nicholas, who saw in thi* 
 act of kindness, and many others 01 
 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 admira- 
 tion and gratitude for such extraordi- 
 nary 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 reflect with bitterness of 
 spirit on the absence of a silver teapot 
 with an ivory knob on the lid, and a 
 milk-jug to match, which had been 
 the pride of her heart in days of yore, 
 and had been kept from year's end to 
 year's end wrapped up in wash-leather 
 on a certain top shelf which now pre- 
 sented itself in lively colours to her 
 sorrowing imagination. 
 
 " I wonder who 's got that spice- 
 box," said Mrs. Nickleby, shaking her 
 head. " It used to stand in the left- 
 hand corner, next but two to the 
 pickled onions. You remember that 
 spice-box, Kate ? " 
 
 " Perfectly well, mamma." 
 
 "I shouldn't think you did, Kate," 
 returned Mrs. Nickleby, in a severe 
 manner, " talking about it in that cold 
 and unfeeling way ! If there is any 
 one thing that vexes me in these losses 
 more than the losses themselves, I >io 
 protest and declare," said Mrs. Nickle- 
 by, rubbing her nose with an impas- 
 sioned air, " that it is to have peopla 
 about me who take things with .such 
 provoking calmness." 
 
 " My dear mamma," said Kate, steal 
 7 22
 
 338 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ing her arm round her mother's neck, 
 "why do you say what I know you 
 cannot seriously mean or think, or why 
 be angry with me for being happy and 
 content ? You and Nicholas are left 
 to me, we are together once again, and 
 what regard can I have for a few 
 trifling things of which we never feel 
 the want ? When I have seen all the 
 misery and desolation that death can 
 bring, and known the lonesome feeling 
 of being solitary and alone in crowds, 
 and all the agony of separation in grief 
 and poverty when we most needed 
 comfort and support from each other, 
 can you wonder that I look upon this 
 as a place of such delicious quiet and 
 rest, thai with you beside me I have 
 nothing to wish for or regret ? There 
 was a time, and not long since, when 
 all the comforts of our old home did 
 come back upon me, I own, very often 
 oftener than you would think per- 
 haps 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 hi peace to 
 heaven." 
 
 " Kate my dear, Kate," cried Mrs. 
 Nickleby, folding her in her arms. 
 
 " I have so often thought," sobbed 
 Kate, " of all his kind words of the 
 last time he looked into my little room, 
 a-s 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 little 
 child. 
 
 It is an exquisite and beautiful thing 
 in our nature, that when the heart is 
 touched and softened by some tranquil 
 happiness or affectionate feeling, the 
 memory of the dead comes over it 
 most powerfully and irresistibly. It 
 
 would almost seem as though our better 
 thoughts and sympathies were charms, 
 in virtue of which the soul is enabled 
 to hold some vague and mysterious 
 intercourse with the spirits of those 
 whom we dearly loved in life. Alas ! 
 how often and how long may those 
 patient angels hover above us, watch- 
 ing for the spell which is so seldom 
 uttered, and so soon forgotten ! 
 
 Poor Mrs. Nickleby, accustomed to 
 give ready utterance to whatever came 
 uppermost in her mind, had never con- 
 ceived 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 peace- 
 ful life, brought these recollections so 
 strongly upon Kate that she could not 
 suppress them, Mrs. Nickleby began it 
 have a glimmering that she had been 
 rather thoughtless now and then, and" 
 was conscious of something like self- 
 reproach as she embraced her daugh- 
 ter, and yielded to the emotions which 
 such a conversation naturally awak- 
 ened. 
 
 There was a mighty bustle that 
 night, and a vast quantity of prepara- 
 tion for the expected visitor, and" a 
 very large nosegay was brought from 
 a gardener's hard by and cut up into a 
 number of very small ones with which 
 Mrs. Nickleby would have garnished 
 the little sitting-room, in a style that 
 certainly could not have failed to attract 
 anybody's attention, if Kate had not 
 offered to spare her the trouble, and 
 arranged them in the prettiest and 
 neatest manner possible. If the cot- 
 tage ever looked pretty, it must have 
 been on such a bright and sunshiny 
 day as the next day was. But Smike's 
 pride in the garden, or Mrs. Nickleoy's 
 in the condition of the furniture, or 
 Kate's in everything, was nothing to 
 the pride with which Nicholas looked 
 at Kate herself ; and surely the cost- 
 liest mansion in all England might 
 have found in her beautiful face and 
 graceful form its most exquisite and 
 peerless ornament
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 339 
 
 About six o'clock in the afternoon 
 Mrs. Nickleby was thrown into a great 
 flutter of spirits by the long-expected 
 knock at the door, nor was this flutter 
 at all composed by the audible tread of 
 two pair of boots in the passage, which 
 Mrs. Nickleby augured, in a breathless 
 state, must be " the two Mr. Cheery- 
 bles ;" as it certainly was, though not 
 the two Mrs. Nickleby expected, be- 
 cause it was Mr. Charles Chceryble, 
 and his nephew, Mr. Frank, who made 
 a thousand apologies for his intrusion, 
 which Mrs. Nickleby (having tea- 
 spoons enough and to spare for all) 
 most graciously received. Nor did the 
 appearance of this unexpected visitor 
 occasion the least embarrassment, (save 
 in Kate, and that only to the extent of 
 a blush or two at 'first,) for die 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 meet- 
 ing showed no signs of appearing, and 
 Kate really more than once detected 
 herself in the very act of wondering 
 when it was going to begin. 
 
 At the tea-table there was plenty of 
 conversation on a great variety of sub- 
 jects, nor were there wanting jocose 
 matters of discussion, such as they 
 were ; for young Mr. Cheeryble's 
 recent stay in Germany happening to 
 l>e alluded to, old Mr. Cheeryble in- 
 formed the company that the aforesaid 
 young Mr. Cheeryble was suspected to 
 have fallen deeply in love with the 
 daughter of a certain German burgo- 
 master. This accusation young Mr. 
 Cheeryble most indignantly repelled, 
 upon which Mrs. Nickleby slily re- 
 marked, that she suspected, from the 
 very warmth of the denial, there must 
 be something in it Young Mr. Cheery- 
 ble then earnestly entreated old Mr. 
 Cheeryble to confess that it was all a 
 jest, which old Mr. Cheeryble at last 
 did, young Mr. Cheeryble being so 
 much in earnest about it, that as 
 Mrs. Nickleby said many thousand 
 times afterwards in recalling the scene 
 he " quite coloured," which she 
 rightly considered a memorable cir- 
 cumstance, Mid one worthy of remark, 
 
 young men not being as a class remark- 
 able for modesty or self-denial, espe- 
 cially when there is a lady in the case, 
 when, if they colour at all, it is rather 
 their practice to colour the story, and 
 not themselves. 
 
 After tea there was a walk in tlie 
 garden, and the evening being very 
 fine they strolled out at the garden 
 gate into some lanes and bye-roads, 
 and sauntered up and down until it 
 grew quite dark. The time seemed tc 
 pass very quickly with all the party 
 Kate went first, leaning upon her bro- 
 ther's arm, and talking with him ana 
 Mr. Frank Cheeryble ; and Mrs. 
 Nickleby and the elder gentleman 
 followed at a short distance, the kind- 
 ness of the good merchant, his interest 
 in the welfare of Nicholas, and his 
 admiration of Kate, so operating upon 
 the good lady's feelings, that the usual 
 current of her speech was confined 
 within very narrow and circumscribed 
 limits. Smike (who, if he liad ever 
 been an object of interest in his life, 
 had been one that day) accompanied 
 them, joining sometimes one group and 
 sometimes the other, as brother Charles, 
 laying his hand upon his shoulder, bade 
 him walk with him, or Nicholas, look- 
 ing smilingly round, beckoned him tc 
 come and talk with the old friend whc 
 understood him best, and who could 
 win a smile into his care-worn face 
 when none else could. 
 
 Pride is one of the seven deadly 
 sins ; but it cannot be the pride ol 
 a mother in her children, for that is a 
 compound of two cardinal virtues 
 faith and hope. This was the pride 
 which swelled Mrs. Nickleby's heart 
 that night, and this it was which left 
 upon her face, glistening in the light 
 when they returned home, traces of 
 the most grateful tears she had ever 
 shed. 
 
 There was a quiet mirth about the 
 little supper, which harmonized ex- 
 actly with this tone of feeling, and at 
 length the two gentlemen took their 
 leave. There was one circumstance 
 in the leave-taking which occasioned a 
 vast deal of smiling and pleasantly, 
 and that was, that Mr. Frank Cheeryble 
 
 a
 
 ;MO 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ottered his hand to Kate twice over, 
 quite forgetting that he had bade her 
 adieu already. This was held by the 
 elder Mr. Cheeryble to be a convincing 
 proof that he was thinking of his 
 German flame, and the jest occasioned 
 immense laughter. So easy is it to 
 move light hearts. 
 
 In short, it was a day of serene and 
 tranquil happiness ; and as we all 
 have some ' bright day many of us, 
 let us hope, among a crowd of others 
 to which we revert with particular 
 
 delight, so this one was often looked 
 back to afterwards, as holding a con- 
 spicuous place in the calendar of thoso 
 who shared it. 
 
 Was there one exception, and that 
 one he who needed to have been most 
 happy ? 
 
 Who was that who, in the silence of 
 his own chamber, sunk upon his knees 
 to pray as his first friend had taught 
 him, and folding his hands and stretch- 
 ing them wildly in the air, fell upon 
 his face in a passion of bitter grief ? 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 ME. RALPH N1CKLEBY CUTS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. IT WOULD ALSO APPEAR 
 FROM THE CONTENTS HEREOF, THAT A JOKE, EVEN BETWEEN HUSBAND 
 AND WIFE, MAY BE SOMETIMES CARRIED TOO FAR. 
 
 THERE are some men, who, living 
 with the one object of enriching them- 
 selves, no matter by what means, and 
 being perfectly conscious of the base- 
 ness and rascality of the means which 
 they will use every day towards this 
 end, affect nevertheless even to them- 
 selves 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 walk- 
 ing implies, at least, an erect position 
 and the bearing of a man that ever 
 crawled and crept through life by its 
 dirtiest and narrowest ways, will 
 gravely jot down in diaries the events 
 of every day, and keep a regular 
 debtor and creditor account with 
 heaven, which shall always show a 
 floating balance in their own favour. 
 Whether this is a gratuitous (the only 
 gratuitous) part of the falsehood and 
 trickery of such men's lives, or whe- 
 ther 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 enlightned the world) cannot 
 
 fail to prove serviceable, in the one 
 respect of sparing the recording Angel 
 some time and labour. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby was not a man of 
 this stamp. Stern, unyielding, dogged, 
 and impenetrable, Ralph cared for 
 nothing in life, or beyond it, save the 
 gratification of two passions, avarice, 
 the first and predominant appetite of 
 his nature, and hatred, the second. 
 Affecting to consider himself but a 
 type of all humanity, he was at little 
 pains to conceal his true character 
 from the world in general, and in his 
 own heart he exulted over and che- 
 rished every bad design as it had 
 birth. The only scriptural admonition 
 that Ralph Nickleby heeded, in the 
 letter, was " know thyself." He knew 
 himself well, and choosing to imagine 
 that all mankind were cast in the same 
 mould, hated them ; for, though no 
 man hates himself, the coldest among 
 us having too much self-love for that, 
 yet, most men unconsciously judge the 
 world from themselves, and it will li- 
 very generally found that those who 
 sneer habitually at human nature, and 
 affect to despise it, are among its worst 
 and least pleasant samples. 
 
 But the present business of these 
 adventures is with Ralph himself, who
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 341 
 
 stood regarding Newman Nogs:* with 
 a heavy frown, while that worthy took 
 off his fingerless gloves, and spreading 
 them carefully on the palm of his left 
 hand, and flattening them with his 
 right to take the creases out, pro- 
 ceeded to roll them up with an absent 
 air as if he were utterly regardless of 
 all things else, hi the deep interest of 
 the ceremonial. 
 
 " Gone out of town ! " said Ralph, 
 slowly. " A mistake of yours. Go 
 back again." 
 
 " No mistake," returned Newman. 
 " Not even going ; gone." 
 
 " Has he turned girl or baby ! " 
 muttered Ralph, with a fretful gesture. 
 
 " I don't know," said Newman, " but 
 he 's gone." 
 
 The repetition of the word, " gone," 
 seemed to afford Newman Noggs inex- 
 pressible delight, in proportion, as it 
 annoyed Ralph Nickleby. He uttered 
 the word with a full round emphasis, 
 dwelling upon it as long as he decently 
 could, and when he could hold out no 
 longer without attracting observation, 
 stood gasping it to himself, as if even 
 that were a satisfaction. 
 
 " And where has he gone I " said 
 Ralph. 
 
 - France," replied Newman. " Dan- 
 ger of another attack of erysipelas 
 a worse attack in the head. So 
 the doctors ordered him off. And 
 he 's gone." 
 
 " And Lord Frederick 1 " began 
 
 Ralph. 
 
 " He's gone too," replied Newman. 
 
 " And he carries his drubbing with 
 him, does he ! " said Ralph, turning 
 away " pockets his bruises, and 
 sneaks off without the retaliation of a 
 word, or seeking the smallest repara- 
 tion!" 
 
 He 's too ill," said Newman. 
 
 Too ill ! " repeated Ralph. " Why 
 / would have it if I were dying ; in 
 that case I should only be the more 
 determined to have it, and that with- 
 out delay I mean if I were he. But 
 he 's too ill ! Poor Sir Mulberry ! 
 Too ill ! " 
 
 Uttering these words with supreme 
 contempt and great irritation of man- 
 
 ner, Ralph signed hastily to Newman 
 to leave the room ; and throwing him- 
 self into his chair, beat his foot im- 
 patiently upon the ground. 
 
 " There is some spell about that boy," 
 said Ralph, grinding his teeth. " Cir- 
 cumstances conspire to help him. Talk 
 of fortune's favours ! What is even 
 money to such Devil's luck as this ! " 
 
 He thrust his hands impatiently 
 into his pockets, but notwithstanding 
 his previous reflection there was some 
 consolation there, for his face relaxed 
 a little ; and although there was still a 
 deep frown upon the contracted brow, 
 it was one of calculation, and not of 
 disappointment. 
 
 " This Hawk will come back, how- 
 ever," 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 nc 
 play nothing that he likes and lives 
 liy. He is not likely to forget his 
 obligations to the cause of all this. 
 Few men would ; but he of all others 
 no, no ! " 
 
 He smiled and shook his head, and 
 resting his chhi upon his hand, fell a 
 musing, and smiled again. After a 
 time he rose and rang the bell. 
 
 " That Mr. Squeers ; has he been 
 here ? " said Ralph. 
 
 " He was here last night. I left 
 him here when I went home," returned 
 Newman. 
 
 " I know that, fool, do I not ! " said 
 Ralph, irascibly. Has he been here 
 since 1 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 him, as there will be per- 
 haps," said Ralph, checking himself, 
 " let him wait too." 
 
 " Let 'em both wait ? " said Newman. 
 
 " Ay," replied Ralph, turning upon 
 him with an angry look. " Help me 
 on with this spencer, and don't repeat 
 after me, like a croaking parrot."
 
 342 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " I wish I was a parrot," said New- 
 man, 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 ad- 
 justing the collar of the spencer behind, 
 just then,) as if he were strongly dis- 
 posed to tweak him by the nose. 
 Meeting Ralph's eye, however, he sud- 
 denly 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 threaten- 
 ing 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 extra- 
 ordinary and miscellaneous connection, 
 and very odd calls he made some at 
 great rich houses, and some at small 
 poor ones but all upon one subject : 
 money. His face was a talisman to 
 the porters and servants of his more 
 dashing clients, and procured him 
 ready admission, though he trudged 
 on foot, and others, who were denied, 
 rattled to the door in carriages. Here 
 he was all softness and cringing civi- 
 lity ; his step so light, that it scarcely 
 produced a sound upon the thick car- 
 pets ; his voice so soft, that it was not 
 audible beyond the person to whom it 
 was addressed. But in the poorer 
 habitations Ralph was another man ; 
 his boots creaked upon the passage 
 floor as he walked boldly in, his voice 
 was harsh and loud as he demanded 
 the money that was overdue ; his 
 threats were coarse and angry. With 
 another class of customers, Ralph was 
 again another man. These were attoi'- 
 neys of more than doubtful reputation, 
 who helped him to new business, or 
 raised fresh profits upon old. With 
 them Ralph was familiar and jocose 
 humorous upon the topics of the day, 
 and especially pleasant upon bank 
 ruptcies and pecuniary difficulties that 
 made good for trade. In short, it 
 would have been difficult to have 
 
 recognised the same man under these 
 various aspects, but for the bulky 
 leather case full of bills and notes 
 which he drew from his pocket at 
 every house, and the constant repeti- 
 tion of the same complaint, (varied 
 only in tone and style of delivery,) 
 that the world thought him rich, and 
 that perhaps he might be if he had 
 his own ; but there was no getting 
 money in when it was once out, either 
 principal or interest, and it was a 
 hard matter to live even to live from 
 day to day. 
 
 It was evening before a long round 
 of such visits (interrupted only by a 
 scanty dinner at an eating-house) ter- 
 minated a}; Pimlico, 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 abun- 
 dantly testified, even if they had been 
 unaccompanied by a complete indiffer- 
 ence to, or unconsciousness of, the 
 objects about him. So complete was 
 his abstraction, however, that Ralph, 
 usually as quick-sighted as any man, 
 did not observe that he was followed 
 by a shambling figure, which at one 
 time stole behind him with noiseless 
 footsteps, at another crept a few paces 
 before him, and at another glided 
 along by his side ; at all times regard- 
 ing him with an eye so keen, and a 
 look so eager and attentive, that it was 
 more like the expression of an intru- 
 sive face in some powerful picture or 
 strongly-marked dream, than the scru- 
 tiny even of a most interested and 
 anxious observer. 
 
 The sky had been lowering and dark 
 for Home time, and the commencement 
 of a violent storm of rain drove Ralph 
 for shelter to a tree. He was leaning 
 against it with folded arms, still buried 
 in thought, when, happening to raise 
 his eyes, he suddenly met those of a 
 man who, creeping round the trunk, 
 peered into his face with a searching 
 look. There was something in the 
 usurer's expression at the moment, 
 which the man appeared to remember 
 well, for it decided him ; and stepping
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 34 d 
 
 close up to Ralph, he pronounced his 
 :uune. 
 
 Astonished for the moment, Ralph 
 fell back a couple of paces, and sur- 
 veyed him from head to foot. A spare, 
 dark, withered man, of about his own 
 a^'c, with a stooping body, and a very 
 face rendered more ill-favoured 
 l>y hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply 
 sunburnt, and thick black eye-brows, 
 blacker in contrast with the perfect 
 whiteness of his hair ; roughly clothed 
 in shabby garment*, of a strange and 
 uncouth make ; and having about him 
 4U hull-finable manner of depression 
 ind degradation ; this, for a moment, 
 was all he saw. But he looked again, 
 nd the face and person seemed gra- 
 dually to | grow leas 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 
 vain, of which, in his first surprise, he 
 had been quite regardless, addressed 
 him in a hoarse, faint tone. 
 
 " You would hardly have known me 
 from my voice, I suppose, Mr. Nick- 
 leby 1 " he said. 
 
 " No," returned Ralph, betiding 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, care- 
 lessly, and averting his face. " More 
 than enough." 
 
 " If I had remained in doubt about 
 you, Mr. Nickleby," said the other, 
 " this reception, and your manner, 
 would liave decided me very soon." 
 
 " Did you expect any other ! " asked 
 Ralph, sharply. 
 
 " No ! " said the man. 
 
 u You were right," retorted Ralph ; 
 
 "and as you feel no surprise, need 
 express none." 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby," said the man, 
 bluntly, after a brief pause, during 
 which he had seemed to struggle with 
 an inclination to answer him by some 
 reproach, " will you hear a few words 
 that I have to say ? " 
 
 " I am obliged to wait here till the 
 rain holds a little," said Ralph, looking 
 abroad. " If you talk, sir, I shall not 
 put my fingers in my ears, though 
 your talking may have as much effect 
 as if I did." 
 
 " I was once in your confidence ," 
 thus his companion began. Ralph 
 looked round, and smiled involuntarily. 
 
 " Well," said the other, " as much 
 in your confidence as you ever chose 
 to let anybody be." 
 
 " Ah ! " rejoined Ralph, folding his 
 arms ; " that 's another thing quite 
 another thing." 
 
 " Don't let us play upon words, Mr. 
 Nickleby, in the name of humanity." 
 
 Of what ? " said Ralph. 
 
 "Of humanity," replied the other, 
 sternly. " I am hungry and in want. 
 If the change that you must see in me 
 after so long an absence must see, 
 for I, upon whom it has come by slow 
 and hard degrees, see it and know it 
 well will not move you to pity, let the 
 knowledge that bread; not the daily 
 bread of the Lord's Prayer, which, as 
 it is offered up in cities like this, is 
 understood to include half the luxuries 
 of the world for the rich and just as 
 much coarse food as will support life 
 for the poor not that, but bread, a 
 crust of dry hard bread, is beyord my 
 reach to-day let that have dome 
 weight with you, if nothing else has." 
 
 u If this is the usual form in which 
 you beg, sir," said Ralph, " you have 
 studied your part well ; but if you 
 will take advice from one who knows 
 something of the world and its ways, 
 I should recommend a lower tone a 
 little lower tone, or you stand a fair 
 chance of being starved in good 
 earnest." 
 
 As he said this, Ralph clenched his 
 left wrist tightly with his right hand, 
 and inclining liis head a little on one
 
 344 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 side and dropping his chin upon his 
 breast, looked at him whom he ad- 
 dressed 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. Nick- 
 leby." 
 
 He seemed to wait for some reply, 
 but Ralph giving him none, he con- 
 tinued 
 
 " I am a most miserable and wretched 
 outcast, nearly sixty years old, and as 
 destitute and helpless as a child of six." 
 
 " I am sixty years old too," replied 
 Ralph, " and am neither destitute nor 
 helpless. Work. Don't make fine 
 play-acting speeches about bread, but 
 earn it." 
 
 " How ? " cried the other. Where ? 
 Show me the means. Will you give 
 them to me will you ? " 
 
 " I did once," replied Ralph, com- 
 posedly, "you scarcely need ask me 
 whether I will again." 
 
 " It 's twenty years ago, or more," 
 said the man, in a suppressed voice, 
 " since you and I fell out. You re- 
 member that ? I claimed a share in 
 the profits of some business I brought j 
 to you, and, as I persisted, you arrest- ; 
 ed me for an old advance of ten pounds, 
 odd shillings including interest at 
 fifty per cent., or so." 
 
 " I remember something of it," re- 
 plied Ralph, carelessly. " What then ?" 
 
 That didn't part us," said the 
 man. " I made submission, being on 
 the wrong side of the bolts and bars ; 
 and as you were not the made man 
 then that you are now, you were glad 
 enough to take back a clerk who 
 wasn't over nice, and who knew some- 
 thing of the trade you drove." 
 
 " You begged and prayed, and 1 
 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 oi 
 heart but useful." 
 
 " Useful, indeed ! " said the man. 
 " Come. You had pinched and grounc 1 
 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. 3 lark 
 that. I didn't forget that old sore, 
 trust me. Partly in remembrance of 
 that, and partly in the hope of making 
 money some 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 tc 
 what you money-makers daily practise 
 just outside its bounds, was sent away 
 a convict for seven years. I have 
 returned what you see me. Now, Mr. 
 Nickleby," said the man, with a stranga 
 mixture of humility and sense of 
 power, " what help and assistance will 
 you give me what bribe, to speak out 
 plainly 1 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 345 
 
 eyeing his companion with the same 
 steady look, and moving nothing but 
 his lips. 
 
 "It depends on you, Mr. Nickleby, 
 whether that '6 all or not," was the 
 rejoinder. 
 
 " Why then, harkye, Mr. , I 
 
 don't know by what name I am to call 
 you," said Ralph. 
 
 " By my old one, if you like." 
 
 ' Why, then, harkye", Mr. Brooker," 
 said Ralph, in his harshest accents, 
 "and don't expect to draw another 
 speech from me harkye, sir. I know 
 you of old for a ready scoundrel, but 
 you never had a stout heart; and 
 hard work, with (maybe) chains upon 
 those legs of yours, and shorter food 
 than when I 'pinched 'and 'ground' 
 you, has blunted your wits, or you 
 would not come with such a tale as 
 this to me. You a hold upon me ! 
 Keep it, or publish it to the world, if 
 you like." 
 
 " I can't do that,"interposed Brooker. 
 ' That wouldn't serve me." 
 
 Wouldn't it \ " said Ralph. " It 
 will serve you as much as bringing 
 it to me, I promise you. To be plain 
 with you, I am a careful man, and 
 know my affairs thoroughly. I know 
 the world, and the world knows me. 
 Whatever you gleaned, or heard, or 
 saw, when you served me, the world 
 knows and magnifies already. You 
 could tell it nothing that would sur- 
 prise it unless, indeed, it redounded 
 to my credit or honour, and then it 
 would scout you for a liar. And yet 
 I don't find business slack, or clients 
 scrupulous. Quite the contrary. I 
 am reviled or threatened every day by 
 one man or another," said Ralph ; 
 " but tilings roll on just the same, and 
 I don't grow poorer either." 
 
 " I neither revile nor threaten," re- 
 joined the man. "I can tell you of 
 what you have lost by my act, what I 
 only can restore, and what, if I die 
 without restoring, dies with me, and 
 never can be regained." 
 
 " I tell my money pretty accurately, 
 and generally keep it in my own cus- 
 tody," said Ralph. "I look sharply 
 after most men that I deal with, and 
 
 most of all I looked sharply after you. 
 You are welcome to all you have kept 
 from me." 
 
 " Are those of your own name dear 
 to you?" said the man emphatically. 
 " If they are " 
 
 " They are not," returned Ralph, 
 exasperated at this perseverance, and 
 the thought of Nicholas, which the 
 last question awakened. " They are 
 not If you had come as a commoi; 
 beggar, 1 might have thrown a six 
 pence to you in remembrance of the 
 clever knave you used to be ; bul 
 since you try to palm these stalt 
 tricks upon one you might have known 
 better, I '11 not part with a halfpenny 
 nor would I to save you from 
 rotting. And remember this, 'scape- 
 gallows," said Ralph, menacing him 
 with his hand, " that if we meet again ; 
 and you so much as notice me by one 
 begging gesture, you shall see the 
 inside of a jail once more, and tighten 
 this hold upon me in intervals of the 
 hard labour that vagabonds are put 
 to. There 's my answer to your trash. 
 Take it." 
 
 With a disdainful scowl at the 
 object of his anger, who met his eye 
 but uttered not a word, Ralph walked 
 away at his usual pace, without mani- 
 festing the slightest curiosity to see 
 what became of his late companion, 
 or indeed once looking behind him. 
 The man remained on the same spot 
 with his eyes fixed upon his retreating 
 figure until it was lost to view, and 
 then drawing his arms about his chest 
 as if the damp and lack of food struck 
 coldly to him, lingered with slouching 
 steps by the wayside, and begged ol 
 those who passed along. 
 
 Ralph, in no-wise moved by what 
 had lately passed, further than as he 
 had already expressed himself, walked 
 deliberately on, and turning out of the 
 Park and leaving Golden Square on 
 his right, took his way through some 
 streets at the west end of the town 
 until he arrived in that particular 
 one in which stood the residence of 
 Madame Mantalini. The name of 
 that lady no longer appeared on the 
 flaming door-plate, that of Miss Knag
 
 346 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 being substituted in its stead ; but the 
 bonnets and dresses were still dimly 
 visible in the first-floor windows by 
 the decaying light of a summer's 
 evening, and, excepting this ostensible 
 alteration in the proprietorship, the 
 establishment wore its old appearance. 
 
 " Humph ! " muttered Ralph, draw- 
 ing his hand across his mouth with 
 a connoisseur-like air, and surveying 
 the house from top to bottom ; " these 
 people look pretty well. They can't 
 last long; but if I know of their going, 
 in good time, I am safe, and a fair 
 profit too. I must keep them closely 
 in view that's all." 
 
 So, nodding his head very compla- 
 cently, 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 scru- 
 tiny ; and while he was hesitating 
 whether to knock at the door or listen 
 at the key-hole a little longer, a female 
 servant of Madame Mantalini's (whom 
 he had often seen) opened it abruptly 
 and bounced out, with her blue cap- 
 ribands streaming in the air. 
 
 Hallo here Stop ! " cried Ralph, 
 -'* What 's the ' matter. Here am I. 
 Didn't you hear me knock ? " 
 
 Oh ! Mr. Nickleby, sir," said the 
 girl. " Go up, for the love of Gracious. 
 Master 's been and done it again." 
 
 " Done what ! " said Ralph, tartly, 
 ' What d 'ye mean ? " 
 
 " I knew he would if he was drove 
 to it," cried the girl. " I said so all 
 Jong." 
 
 " Come here, you silly wench," said 
 Ralph, catching her by the wrist ; 
 ' and don't carry family matters to 
 ihe neighbours, destroying the credit 
 Df the establishment. Come here ; do 
 you hear me, girl ? " 
 
 Without any further expostulation, 
 ne led or rather pulled the frightened 
 hand-maid into the house, and shut the 
 door ; then bidding her walk up-stairs 
 before him, followed without more 
 ceremony. 
 
 Guided by the noise of a great many 
 voices all talking together, and passing 
 
 the girl in his impatience, before they 
 had ascended many steps, Ralph 
 quickly reached the private sitting- 
 room, when he was rather amazed by 
 the confused and inexplicable scene in 
 which he suddenly found himself. 
 
 There were all the young-lady 
 workers, some with bonnets and some 
 without, in various attitudes expressive 
 of alarm and consternation ; some 
 gathered round Madame Mantaliiii, 
 who was in tears upon one chair ; and 
 others round Miss Knag, who was in 
 opposition tears upon another ; and 
 others round Mr. Mantalini, who was 
 perhaps the most striking figure in the 
 whole group, for Mr. Mantalini's legs 
 were extended at full length upon the 
 floor, and his head and shoulders were 
 supported by a very tall footman, who 
 didn't seem to know what to do with 
 them, and Mr. Mantalini's eyes were 
 closed, and his face was pale, and his 
 hair was comparatively straight, and 
 his whiskers and moustache were limp, 
 and his teeth were clenched, and he 
 had a little bottle in his right hand, 
 and a little tea-spoon in his left ; and 
 his hands, arms, legs, and shoulders, 
 were all stiff and powerless. And yet 
 Madame Mantalini was not weeping 
 upon the body, but was scolding vio- 
 lently upon her chair ; and all this 
 amidst a clamour of tongues, perfectly 
 deafening, and which really appeared 
 to have driven the unfortunate foot- 
 man to the uttermost verge of dis- 
 traction. 
 
 " What is the matter here ? " said 
 Ralph, pressing forward. 
 
 At this inquiry, the clamour was in- 
 creased twenty-fold, and an astounding 
 string of such shrill contradictions as 
 " He 's poisoned himself " " He 
 hasn't" " Send for a' doctor " 
 "Don't " " He 's dying " He isn't, 
 he 's only pretending " with various 
 other cries, poured forth with bewilder- 
 ing 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, un- 
 broken by a single whisper, instanta- 
 neously succeeded.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 347 
 
 "Mr. NicKleby," said Madame Man- 
 talini ; " by what chance you came 
 here, I don't know." 
 
 Ili're a gurgling voice was heard to 
 ejaculate as part of the wanderings 
 of a sick man the words " Demnition 
 sweetness ! " but nobody heeded thf m 
 except the footman, who, being startled 
 to hear such awful tones proceeding, as 
 h were, from between his very fingers, 
 dropped his master's head upon the 
 floor with a pretty loud crash, and then, 
 without an effort to lift it up, gazed 
 upon the bystanders, as if he had done 
 something rather clever than otherwise. 
 
 " I will, however," continued 
 Madame Mantalini, drying her eyes, 
 and speaking with great indignation, 
 " say before you, and before everybody 
 here, for the first time, and once for 
 all, that I never will supply that man's 
 extravagances and viciousness again. 
 I have been a dupe and a fool to him 
 long enongh. In future, he shall sup- 
 port himself if he can, and then he 
 may spend what money he pleases, 
 upon whom and how he pleases ; but 
 it shall not be mine, and therefore 
 you had better pause before you trust 
 him further." 
 
 Thereupon Madame Mantalini, quite 
 unmoved by some most pathetic la- 
 mentations on the part of her husband, 
 that the apothecary had not mixed the 
 prussic acid strong enough, and that he 
 must take another bottle or two to 
 finish the work he had in hand, entered 
 into a catalogue of that amiable gentle- 
 man's gallantries, deceptions, extrava- 
 gances, and infidelities (especially the 
 last), winding up with a protest against 
 being supposed to entertain the small- 
 est 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 in- 
 terfered by word or deed to save his 
 life. 
 
 " And I insist on being separated 
 and left to myself," said Madame Man- 
 talini, sobbing. " If he dares to refuse 
 me a separation, I '11 have one in law 
 I can and I hope this will be a warn- 
 
 ing to all girls who have seen this dis- 
 graceful exhibition." 
 
 Miss Knag, who was unquestionably 
 the oldest girl hi company, said with 
 great solemnity, that it would be a 
 warning to far, and so did the young 
 ladies generally, with the exception of 
 one or two who appeared to entertain 
 some doubts whether such whiskers 
 could do wrong. 
 
 " Why do you say all this before so 
 many listeners ? " said Ralph, in a low 
 voice. " You know you are not in 
 earnest." 
 
 "I am in earnest," replied Madame 
 Mantalini, aloud, and retreating to- 
 ward Miss Knag. 
 
 " Well, but consider, " reasoned 
 Ralph, who had a great interest hi the 
 matter. "It would be well to reflect. 
 A married 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, tossing her head ; 
 " and / have none. The business, the 
 stock, this house, and everything hi it, 
 all belong to Miss Knag." 
 
 "That's quite true, Madame Man- 
 talini," said Miss Knag, with whom 
 her late employer had secretly come 
 to an amicable understanding on this 
 point. " Very true, indeed, Madame 
 Mantalini hem very true. And I 
 never was more glad in all my life, 
 that I had strength of mind to resist 
 matrimonial offers, no matter how ad- 
 vantageous, than 1 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 blan- 
 dishments had departed. " Miss Knag, 
 sir," said his wife, " is my particular 
 friend ;" and although Mr. Mantalini 
 leered till his eyes seemed in danger 
 of never coming back to their right 
 places again, Madame Man tallui showed 
 no signs of softening.
 
 348 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 To do the excellent Miss Knag 
 justice, she had been mainly instru- 
 mental in bringing about this altered 
 state of things, for, finding by daily 
 experience, that there was no chance 
 of the business thriving, or even con- 
 tinuing to exist, while Mr. Mantalini 
 had any hand in the expenditure, and 
 having now a considerable interest in 
 its well-doing, she had sedulously ap- 
 plied . herself to the investigation of 
 some little matters connected with that 
 gentleman's private character, which 
 she had so well elucidated, and artfully 
 imparted to Madame Mantalini, as to 
 open her eyes more effectually than 
 the closest and most philosophical rea- 
 soning could have done in a series of 
 years. To which end, the accidental 
 discovery by Miss Knag of some tender 
 correspondence, in which Madame 
 MantaHni was described as " old " and 
 " ordinary," had most providentially 
 contributed. 
 
 However, notwithstanding her firm- 
 ness, Madame Mantalini wept very 
 piteously ; and as she leant upon Miss 
 Knag, and signed towards the door, 
 that young lady and all the other young 
 ladies with sympathising faces, pro- 
 ceeded to bear her out. 
 
 " Nickleby," said Mr. Mantalini, in 
 tears, " you have been made a witness 
 to this demnition cruelty, on the part 
 of the demdest enslaver and captivater 
 that never was, oh dem ! I forgive 
 that woman." 
 
 " Forgive !" repeated Madame 
 Mantalini, angrily. 
 
 " I do forgive her, Nickleby," said 
 Mr. Mantalini. " You will blame me, 
 Ihe world will blame me, the women 
 will blame me ; everybody v.-ill laugh, 
 and scoff, and smile, and grin most 
 
 motion, until all the females had left 
 the room, when he came cautiously 
 into a sitting posture, and confronted 
 Ralph with a very blank face, and the 
 little bottle still in one hand and the 
 tea-spoon in the other. 
 
 " You may put away those fooleries 
 now, and live by your wits again,' 
 said Ralph, coolly putting on his hat. 
 
 " Demmit, Nickleby, you 're nol 
 serious 1 " 
 
 " I seldom joke," said Ralph. " Good 
 night." 
 
 "No, but Nickleby" said Man- 
 talini. 
 
 "I am wrong, perhaps," rejoined 
 Ralph. " I hope so. You should 
 know best. Good night." 
 
 Affecting no to hear his entreaties 
 that he would stay and advise with 
 him, Ralph left the crest-fallen Mr. 
 Mantalini to his meditations, and left 
 the house quietly. 
 
 " Oho ! " he said, " sets the wind 
 that way so soon ? Half knave and 
 half fool, and detected in both cha- 
 racters hum I think your day is 
 over, sir." 
 
 As he said this, he made some me- 
 morandum in his pocket-book in which 
 Mr. Mantalini's name figured conspi- 
 cuously, and finding by his watch that 
 it was between nine and ten o'clock, 
 made all speed home. 
 
 " Are they here ? " was the firs! 
 questioh he asked of Newman. 
 
 Newman nodded. " Been here half 
 an-hour." 
 
 " Two of them ! one a fat sleet 
 man ? " 
 
 " Ay," said Newman. " In yovu 
 room now." 
 
 " Good," rejoined Ralph. " Get me 
 a coach." 
 
 demnebly. They will say, ' She had a "A coach ! What you going to 
 blessing. She did not know it. He Eh ? " stammered Newman, 
 was too weak ; he was too good ; Tie ! Ralph angrily repeated his orders, 
 was a dem'd fine fellow, but he loved ' and Noggs, who might well have been 
 too strong ; he could not bear her to excused for wondering at such an un- 
 be cross, and call him wicked names, usual and extraordinary circumstance 
 
 It was a dem'd case, there never was a 
 demder.' But I forgive her." 
 
 for he had never seen Ralph in a 
 coach in his life departed on his 
 
 With this affecting speech Mr. Man- errand, and presently returned with 
 talini fell down again very flat, and i the conveyance, 
 lay to all appearance without sense or | Into it went Mr. Squeers, and Ralph,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 349 
 
 and the third man, whom Newman 
 Noggs had never seen. Newman stood 
 upon the door-stop 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 ; 
 hut 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 1 What can come of this! If I 
 had only known it yesterday I could 
 
 have told drive there ! There's mis- 
 chief in it There must be." 
 
 His reflections were interrupted by 
 a grey-haired man of a very remark- 
 able, 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 pel-son 
 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 atten- 
 tion ; 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 ear- 
 nestly, and Newman listening. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 CONTAINING MATTER OF A SURPRISING KIND. 
 
 " As we gang awa' fra' Lunnun to- 
 morrow neeght, and as I dinnot know 
 that I was e'er so happy in a' my days, 
 Misther Nickleby, Ding ! but I will 
 tak' anoother glass to our next merry 
 meeting ! " 
 
 So said John Browdie, rubbing his 
 hands with great joyousness, and look- 
 inground him with a ruddy shining face, 
 quite in keeping with the declaration. 
 
 The time at which John found him- 
 self in this enviable condition, was the 
 same evening to which the last chapter 
 bore reference ; the place was the 
 cottage ; and the assembled company 
 were Nicholas, Mrs. Nickleby, Mi-is. 
 Browdie, Kate Nickleby, and Smike. 
 
 A very merry party they had been. 
 Mrs. Nickleby, knowing of her son's 
 obligations to the honest Yorkshire- 
 man, had, after some demur, yielded 
 
 her consent to Mr. and Mrs. Browdie 
 being invited out to tea ; in the way of 
 whicli arrangement, there were at first 
 sundry difficulties and obstacles, arising 
 out of her not having had an opportu- 
 nity of " calling " upon Mrs. Browdie 
 first ; for although Mrs. Nickleby very 
 often observed with much complacency 
 j (as most punctilious people do), that 
 | she had not an atom of pride or fonna- 
 I lity about her, still she was a great 
 ' stickler for dignity and ceremonies ; 
 j and as it was manifest that, until a call 
 had been made, she could not bo 
 (politely speaking, and according to the 
 laws of society) even cognizant of the 
 fact of Mrs. Browdie's existence, she 
 felt her situation to bo one of peculiar 
 delicacy and difficulty. 
 
 " The call must originate with me, 
 my dear," said Mrs. Nickleby, "that 1 ;
 
 350 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Indispensable. The fact is, my dear, 
 that it 's necessary there should be a 
 sort of condescension on ray part, and 
 that I should show this young person 
 that I am willing to take notice of her. 
 There's a very respectable-looking 
 young man," added Mrs. Nickleby, 
 after a short consideration, " who is 
 conductor to one of the omnibuses that 
 go by here, and who wears a glazed 
 hat your sister and I have noticed 
 him very often he has a wart upon 
 his nose, Kate, you know, exactly like 
 a gentleman's servant." 
 
 " Have all gentlemen's servants 
 warts upon their noses, mother ? " 
 asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Nicholas, my dear, how very absurd 
 you are," returned his mother ; " of 
 course I mean that his glazed hat looks 
 like a gentleman's servant, and not the 
 wart upon his nose though even that 
 is not so ridiculous as it may seem to 
 you, for we had a footboy once, who 
 had not only a wart, but a wen also, 
 and a very large wen too, and he de- 
 manded to have his wages raised in 
 consequence, because he found it came 
 very expensive. Let me see, what was 
 I oh yes, I know. The best way that 
 I can think of, would be to send a card, 
 and my compliments, (I 've no doubt 
 he 'd take 'em for a pot of porter,) by 
 this young man, to the Saracen with 
 Two Necks if the waiter took him for 
 a gentleman's servant, so much the 
 better. Then all Mrs. Browdie would 
 have to do, would be to send her card 
 back by the carrier (he could easily 
 come with a double knock),and there's 
 an end of it" 
 
 "My dear mother," said Nicholas, 
 " I don't suppose such unsophisticated 
 people as these ever had a card of their 
 own, or ever will have." 
 
 " Oh that, indeed, Nicholas, my 
 dear," returned Mrs. Nickleby, " that 's 
 another thing. If you put it upon that 
 ground, why, of course, I have no more 
 to say, than that I have no doubt they 
 are very good sort of persons, and that 
 I have no kind of objection to their 
 coming here to tea if they like, and 
 shall make a point of being very civil 
 to them if they do." 
 
 The point being thus effectually set 
 at rest, and Mrs. Nickleby duly placed 
 in the patronising and mildly-cou- 
 descending position which became her 
 rank and matrimonial years, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Browdie were invited and came ; 
 and as" they were very deferential to 
 Mrs. Nickleby, and seemed to have a 
 becomingappreciation of her greatness, 
 and were very much pleased with 
 everything, the good lady had more 
 than once given Kate to understand, ip 
 a whisper, that she thought they were 
 the very best-meaning people she had 
 ever seen, and perfectly well behaved. 
 
 And thus it came to pass, that John 
 Browdie declared, in the parlour after 
 supper, to wit, at twenty minutes before 
 eleven o'clock, P.M., that he had never 
 been so happy in all his days. 
 
 Nor was Mrs. Browdie much behind 
 her husband in this respect, for that 
 young matron whose rustic beauty 
 contrasted very prettily with the more 
 delicate loveliness of Kate, and with- 
 out 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 win- 
 ning manners of the young lady, or the 
 engaging affability of the elder one. 
 Then Kate had the art of turning the 
 conversation to subjects upon which 
 the country girl, bashful at first in 
 strange company, could feel herself at 
 home ; and if Mrs. Nickleby was not 
 quite so felicitous at times in the selec- 
 tion of topics of discourse, or if she did 
 seem, as Mrs. Browdie expressed it, 
 "rather high in her notions," still 
 nothing could be kinder, and that she 
 took considerable interest in the young 
 couple was manifest from the very long 
 lectures on housewifery with which 
 she was so obliging as to entertain 
 Mrs. Browdie's private ear, which were 
 illustrated by various references to the 
 domestic economy of the cottage, in 
 which (those duties falling exclusively 
 upon Kate) the good lady had about as 
 much share, either in theory or practice, 
 as any one of the statues of the Twelve 
 Apostles which embellish the exterior 
 of St Paul's cathedral. 
 
 Mr. Browdie," said Kate, address-
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 35) 
 
 ing his young wife, "is the best- 
 humoured, the kindest and heartiest 
 creature I ever saw. If I were op- 
 pressed with I don't know how many 
 cares, it would make me happy only to 
 look at him." 
 
 "He does seem indeed, upon my 
 word, a most excellent creature, Kate," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby ; " most excellent. 
 And I am sure that at all times it will 
 give me pleasure really pleasure now 
 to have you, Mrs. Browdie, to see 
 me in this plain and homely manner. 
 We make no display," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with an air which seemed 
 to insinuate that they could make a 
 vast deal if they were so disposed 
 " no fuss, no preparation ; I wouldn't 
 allow it. I said ' Kate, my dear, you 
 will only make Mrs. Browdie feel un- 
 comfortable, and how very foolish and 
 inconsiderate that would be ! ' " 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you, I 
 am sure, ma'am," returned Mrs. Brow- 
 die, gratefully. It 'a nearly eleven 
 o'clock, John. I am afraid we are 
 keeping you up very late, ma'am." 
 
 " Late ! " cried Mrs. Nickleby, with 
 a sharp thin lavish, and one little 
 cough at the end, like a note of admi- 
 ration expressed. "This is quite 
 early for us. We used to keep such 
 hours! Twelve, one, two, three o'clock 
 was nothing to us. Balls, dinners, 
 card-parties never were such rakes 
 as the people about where we used to 
 live. I often think now, I am sure, 
 that how we ever could go through 
 with it is quite astonishing and that 
 is just the evil of having a large con- 
 nection and being a great deal sought 
 after, which I would recommend all 
 young married people steadily to 
 resist ; though of course, and it 's per- 
 fectly clear, and a very happy thing 
 too, / think, that very few young 
 married people can be exposed to such 
 temptations. There was one family 
 in particular, that used to live about a 
 mile from us not straight down the 
 road, but turning sharp off to the left 
 by the turnpike where the Plymouth 
 mail ran over the donkey that were 
 quite extraordinary people for giving 
 the most extravagant parties, with 
 
 artificial flowers and champagne, and 
 variegated lamps, and, in short, every 
 delicacy of eating and drinking that 
 the most singular epicure could pos- 
 sibly require I don't think there 
 ever were such people as those IVlti- 
 roguses. You remember the Peltiro- 
 guses, Kate ? " 
 
 Kate saw that for the ease and com- 
 fort of the visitors it was high time 
 to stay this flood of recollection, sc 
 answered that she entertained of the 
 Peltiroguses a most vivid and distinct 
 remembrance ; and then said that Mr 
 Browdie had half promised, early in 
 the evening, that he would sing a 
 Yorkshire song, and that she was 
 most impatient that he should redeem 
 i his promise, because she was sure it 
 ! would afford her mamma more amuse- 
 ment and pleasure than it was possible 
 to express. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby confirming her 
 daughter with the best possible grace 
 for there was patronage in that too, 
 and a kind of implication that she had 
 a discerning taste in such matters, 
 and was something of a critic John 
 Browdie proceeded to consider the 
 words of some north-country ditty, 
 and to take his wife's recollection re- 
 specting the same. This done, he 
 made divers ungainly movements in 
 his chair, and singling out one parti- 
 cular fly on the ceiling from the other 
 flies there asleep, fixed his eyes upon 
 him, and began to roar a meek senti- 
 ment (supposed to be uttered by a 
 gentle swain fast pining away with 
 love and despair) in a voice of thunder. 
 
 At the end of the first verse, as 
 though some person without had 
 waited until then to make himseli 
 audib'.e, was heard a loud and violent 
 knocking at the street-door so loud 
 and so violent, indeed, that the ladies 
 started as by one accord, and John 
 Browdie stopped. 
 
 "It must be some mistake," said 
 Nicholas, carelessly. " We know no- 
 body who would come here at this 
 hour." 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby surmised, however, 
 that perhaps the counting-house was 
 burnt down, or perhaps 'the Mr.
 
 352 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Cheerybles ' had sent to take Nicholas 
 into partnership (which certainly ap- 
 peared highly probable at that time of 
 night) or perhaps Mr. Linkinwater 
 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 conjec- 
 tures, and Ralph Nickleby walked into 
 the room. 
 
 " Stay," said Ralph, as Nicholas 
 rose, and Kate, making her way to- 
 wards him, threw herself upon his 
 arm. " Before that boy says a word, 
 hear me." 
 
 Nicholas bit his lip and shook his 
 head in a threatening manner, but 
 appeared for the moment unable to 
 articulato a syllable. Kate clung closer 
 to his arm, Sraike retreated behind 
 them, and John Browdie, who had 
 heard of Ralph, and appeared to have 
 no great difficulty in recognising him, 
 stepped between the old man and 
 his young friend, as if with the inten- 
 tion of preventing either of them from 
 advancing a step further. 
 
 " Hear me, I say," said Ralph, " and 
 not him." 
 
 " Say what thou 'st gotten to say 
 then, sir," retorted John ; "and tak' 
 care thou dinnot put up angry bluid 
 which thou 'dst betther try to quiet." 
 
 " I should know you" said Ralph, 
 " by your tongue ; and Mm " (pointing 
 to Smike) " by his looks." 
 
 " Don't speak to him," said Nicholas, 
 recovering his voice. " I will not 
 nave it. I will not hear him. I do 
 not know that man. I cannot breathe 
 the air that he corrupts. His pre- 
 sence is an insult to my sister. It is 
 shame to see him. I 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, burning 
 with fury, " looking so calmly upon . 
 
 those who know his black and das- 
 tardly heart, he '11 drive me mad." 
 
 To all these exclamations John 
 Browdie answered not a word, but lie- 
 retained his hold upon Nicholas ; and 
 when he was silent again, spoke. 
 
 " There 's more to say and hear 
 than thou think 'st for," said John. 
 " I tell 'ee I ha' gotten scent o' thot 
 already. Wa'at be that shadow ootside 
 door there ? Noo schoolmeasther, 
 show thyself, mun ; dinnot be sheame- 
 feaced. Noo, auld gen'lm'u, let 's have 
 schoolmeasther, coom." 
 
 H earing this adj uration, Mr. Squeers, 
 who had been lingering in the passage 
 until such time as it should be expe- 
 dient for him to enter and he could 
 appear with effect, was fain to present 
 hhviself in a somewhat undignified 
 and sneaking way ; at which John 
 Browdie laughed vith 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 yon done enjoying yourself, 
 sir ? " said Ralph, at length. 
 
 " Pratty nigh for the prasant time, 
 sir," replied John. 
 
 I can wait," said Ralph. " Take 
 your own time, pray." 
 
 Ralph waited until there was a per- 
 fect 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 be- 
 lieve that under his control, you have 
 the slightest will of your own, or that 
 your advice, your opinion, your wants, 
 your wishes anything which in nature 
 and reason (or of what use is your 
 great experience ?) ought to weigh with 
 him has the slightest influence or 
 weight whatever, or is taken for a 
 moment into account." 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby shook her head and 
 sighed, as if there were a good deal in . 
 that, certainly. 
 
 " For this reason," resumed Ralph,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 " I address myself to yon, ma'am. For 
 this reason, partly, and partly because 
 I do not wish to be disgraced by the 
 acts of a vicious stripling whom / 
 was obliged to disown, and who, after- 
 wards, in his boyish majesty, feigns 
 to ha ! ha! to disown me,i present 
 myself here to-night. I have another 
 motive in coming a motive of huma- 
 nity. I come here," said Ralph, look- 
 ing 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 re- 
 store a parent his child. Ay, sir," he 
 continued, bending eagerly forward, 
 and addressing Nicholas, as he marked 
 the change of his countenance, " to 
 restore a parent his child his son, 
 sir trepanned, waylaid, and guarded 
 at every turn by you, with the base 
 design of robbing him some day of any 
 little wretched pittance of which he 
 might become possessed." 
 
 " In that, you know you lie," said 
 Nicholas, proudly. 
 
 " In this, I know I speak the truth 
 I have his father here," retorted Ralph. 
 
 " Here ! " sneered Squeers, stepping 
 forward. * Do you hear that ? Here ! 
 Didn't I tell you to be careful that his 
 father didn't turn up, and send him 
 back to me ? Why, his father 's my 
 friend ; he 's to come back to me 
 directly, he is. Now, what do you 
 say eh ! now come what do you 
 say to that an't you sorry you took 
 so much trouble for nothing 1 an't 
 you I an't you 1 " 
 
 " You bear upon your'body certain 
 marks I gave you," said Nicholas, 
 looking quietly away, " and may talk 
 in acknowledgment of them as much 
 as you please. You'll talk a long 
 time before you rub them out, Mr. 
 Squeers." 
 
 The estimable gentleman last-named, 
 c:u..' a hasty look at the table, as if he 
 were prompted by this retort to throw 
 a jug or bottle at the head of Nicholas, 
 but he was interrupted in this design 
 (if such design he had) by Ralph, who, 
 touching him on the elbow, bade him 
 tell the father that he might now ap- 
 pear and claiu his son. 
 
 No. 54. 
 
 This being purely a labour of love, 
 Mr. Squeers readily complied, and 
 leaving the room for the purpose, 
 almost immediately returned, sup- 
 porting a sleek personage with an oily 
 face, who, bursting from him, and 
 giving to view the form and face of 
 Mr. Snawley, made straight up to 
 Smike, and tucking that poor fellow's 
 head under his arm in a most uncouth 
 and awkward embrace, elevated his 
 broad-brimmed hat at arm's length in 
 the air as a token of devout thanks- 
 giving, exclaiming, meanwhile, " How 
 little did I think of this here joyful 
 meeting, when I saw him last ! Oh, 
 how little did I think it ! " 
 
 " Be composed, sir," said Ralph, 
 with a gruff expression of sympathy, 
 " you have got him now." 
 
 " Got him ! Oh, havn't I got him ! 
 Have I got him, though ? " cried Mr. 
 Snawley, scarcely able to believe it. 
 " Yes, here he is, flesh and blood, 
 flesh and blood." 
 
 " Vary little flesh," said John 
 Browdie. 
 
 Mr. Snawley was too much occupied 
 by his parental feelings to notice this 
 remark ; and, to assure himself more 
 completely of the restoration of his 
 child, tucked his head under his arm 
 again, and kept it there. 
 
 " What was it," said Snawley, " that 
 made me take such a strong interest 
 in him, when that worthy instructor 
 o/ youth brought him to my house f 
 What was it that made me burn all 
 over with a wish to chastisu him 
 severely fot cutting away from his best 
 friends his pastors and masters 1 " 
 
 " It was parental instinct, sir," ob- 
 served 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 ield 
 and birds of the air, with the excep- 
 tion 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," 
 A A 23
 
 854 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 said Mr. Sqneers. u She "K a rum 'un, 
 is Natur." 
 
 " She is a holy thing, sir," remarked 
 Snawley. 
 
 " I believe you," added Mr. Squeers, 
 vrith a moral sigh. " I should like to 
 know how we should ever get on with- 
 out .her. Natur," said Mr. Squeers, 
 solemnly, "is more easier conceived 
 than described. Oh what a blessed 
 thing, sir, to be in a state of natnr ! " 
 
 Pending this philosophical discourse, 
 the bystanders had been quite stupified 
 with amazement, while Nicholas had 
 looked keenly from Snawley to Squeers, 
 and from Squeers to Ralph, divided 
 between his feelings of disgust, doubt, 
 and surprise. At this juncture, Smike 
 escaping from his father fled to 
 Nicholas, and implored him, in most 
 moving terms, never to give him up, 
 but to let him live and die beside 
 him. 
 
 " If you are this boy's father," said 
 Nicholas, "look at the wreck he is, 
 and tell me that you purpose to send 
 him back to that loathsome den from 
 which I brought him." 
 
 " Scandal again ! " cried Squeers. 
 " Recollect, you an't worth powder and 
 shot, but I "11 be even with you one 
 way or another." 
 
 " Stop," interposed Ralph, as Snaw- 
 ley was about to speak. " Let us cut 
 this matter short, and not bandy words 
 here with hair-brained profligates. 
 This is your son, as you can prove 
 and yon, 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 '11 show that presently," said 
 Ralph. " You and yonr wife were 
 separated, and she had the boy to live 
 with her, when he was a year old. 
 You received a communication from 
 her, when you had lived apart a year 
 
 or two, that the boy was dead ; and 
 yon believed it 1 " 
 
 " Of course I did ! " returned Snaw- 
 ley. " Oh the joy of " 
 
 u Be rational, sir, pray," I^ 
 Ralph. " This is business, and trans- 
 ports interfere with it. This wife died 
 a year and a half ago, or thereabouts 
 not more in some obscure place, 
 where she was housekeeper in a family. 
 Is that the case 1 " 
 
 " That 's the case," replied Snawley. 
 " Having written on her death-bed 
 a letter or confession to you, about 
 this very boy, which, as it was not 
 directed otherwise than in your name, 
 only reached you, and that by a circui- 
 tous course, a few days since ? " 
 
 " Just so," said Snawley. " Correct 
 in every particular, sir." 
 
 "And this confession," resumed 
 Ralph, " is to the effect that his death 
 was an invention of hers to wound you 
 was a part of a system of annoyance, 
 in short, which you seem to have 
 adopted towards each other that the 
 boy lived, but was of weak and imper- 
 fect intellect that she sent him by a 
 trusty hand to a cheap school in York- 
 shire that she had paid for his educa- 
 tion 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. 
 
 u The school was Mr. Squeers's," 
 continued Ralph ; " the boy was left 
 there in the name of Smike ; every 
 description was fully given, dates tally 
 exactly with Mr. Squeers's books, Mr. 
 Squeers is lodging with you at this 
 time ; you have two other boys at his 
 school : you communicated the whole 
 discovery to him, he brought yon to 
 me as the person who had recom- 
 mended to him the kidnapper of his 
 child; and I brought you here. Is 
 that so ! " 
 
 "You talk like a good book, sir, 
 
 that's got nothing in its inside but 
 
 hat 's the truth," replied Snawley. 
 
 "This is your pocket-book," said 
 
 Ralph, producing one from his coat ;
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 355 
 
 <' 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 chum at once in law 
 and reason, and you may resume your 
 control over your own son without 
 more delay. Do I understand you ? " 
 
 " I couldn't have understood myself 
 better, sir." 
 
 " There, then," said Ralph, tossing 
 the pocket-book upon the table. " Let 
 them see them if they like ; and as 
 those are the original papers, I should 
 recommend you to stand near while 
 they are being examined, or you may 
 chance to lose some." 
 
 With these words Ralph sat down 
 unbidden, and compressing his lips, 
 which were for the moment slightly 
 parted by a smile, folded his arms, and 
 looked for the first time at his nephew. 
 
 Nicholas, stung- by the concluding 
 taunt, darted an indignant glance at 
 him ; but commanding himself as well 
 as he could, entered upon a close exa- 
 mination of the documents, at which 
 John Browdie assisted. There was 
 nothing about them which could be 
 called in question. The certificates 
 were regularly signed as extracts from 
 the parish books, the first letter had a 
 genuine appearance of having been 
 written and preserved for some years, 
 the handwriting of the second tallied 
 with it exactly, (making proper allow- 
 ance for its having been written by a 
 person in extremity,) and there were 
 several other corroboratory acraps of 
 entries and memoranda which it was 
 equally difficult to question. 
 
 " Dear Nicholas," whispered Kate, 
 who had been looking anxiously over 
 his shoulder, u can this be really the 
 case ? Is this statement true I " 
 
 " 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 
 powers of the law, and backed by a 
 troop of its myrmidons. I should have 
 done so, ma'am, unquestionably, but 
 for my regard for the feelings of your- 
 self and your daughter." 
 
 " You have shown your regard for 
 her feelings well," said Nicholas, draw- 
 ing his sister towards him. 
 
 "Thank you," replied Ralph. Your 
 praise, sir, is commendation, indeed." 
 
 " Well," said Squeers, " what 's to be 
 done ? Them hackney-coach horses 
 will catch cold if we don't think of 
 moving ; there 's one of 'em a sneezing 
 now, so that he blows the street door 
 right open. What 's the order of the 
 day eh ? Is Master Snawley to come 
 along with us ? " 
 
 " No, no, no," replied Smike, draw- 
 ing back, and clinging to Nicholas. 
 " No. Pray, no. 1 will not go from 
 yon with him. No, no." 
 
 " This is a cruel thing," said Snaw- 
 ley, looking to his friends for support, 
 " Do parents bring children into the 
 world for this ? " 
 
 " Do parents bring children into the 
 world for thot t " said John Browdie 
 bluntly, pointing, as he spoke, to 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Never you mind," retorted that 
 gentleman, tapping his nose, derisively. 
 
 " Never I mind ! " said John, " no, 
 nor never nobody mind, say'st thou, 
 schoolmeasther. It 's nobody's mind- 
 ing that keeps sike men as thou 
 afloat. Noo then, where be'st thou 
 coomin' to f Dang it, dinnot cooir 
 treadin* ower me, mun." 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, Joht 
 Browdie just jerked his elbow into the 
 chest of Mr. Squeers who was advanc- 
 ing upon Smike ; with so much dex- 
 terity that the schoolmaster reeled, 
 and staggered back upon Ralph Nic- 
 kleby, and being unable to recover his 
 balance, knocked that gentleman off 
 his chair, and stumbled heavily upon 
 him. 
 
 This accidental circumstance was 
 the signal for some very decisive pro- 
 
 AA2
 
 356 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ceedings. In the midst of a great 
 noise, occasioned by the prayers and 
 entreaties of Smike, the cries and 
 exclamations of the women, and the 
 vehemence of the men, demonstrations 
 were made of carrying off the lost son 
 by violence : 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. He chooses to 
 remain here, and he shall." 
 
 " You won't give him up \ " said 
 Snawley. 
 
 " I would not give him up against 
 his will, to be the victim of such 
 brutality as that to which you would 
 consign him," replied Nicholas, " if 
 he were a dog or a rat." 
 
 "Knock that Nickleby down with 
 a candlestick," cried Mr. Squeers, 
 through the keyhole, " and bring out 
 my hat, somebody, will you, unless he 
 wants to steal it." 
 
 " I am very sorry, indeed," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, who, with Mrs. Brow- 
 die, had stood crying and biting her 
 fingers in a corner, while Kate very 
 pale, but perfectly quiet had kept as 
 near her brother as she could. " I 
 am very sorry, indeed, for all this. I 
 really don't know what would be best 
 to do, and that 's the truth. Nicholas 
 ought to be the best judge, and I hope 
 he is. Of course, it 's a hard thing to 
 have to keep other people's children, 
 though young Mr. Snawley is certainly 
 as useful and willing as it 's possible 
 for anybody to be ; but, if it could be 
 settled in any friendly manner if old 
 Mr. Snawley, for instance, would 
 settle to pay something certain for his 
 board and lodging, and some fair 
 arrangement was come to, so that we 
 undertook to have fish twice a-week, 
 
 and a pudding twice, or a dumplinp, 
 or something of that sort, I do think 
 that it might be very satisfactory and 
 pleasant for all parties." 
 
 This compromise, which was pro- 
 posed with abundance of tears and 
 sighs, not exactly meeting the point at 
 issue, nobody took any notice of it ; 
 and poor Mrs. Nickleby accordingly 
 proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Browdie 
 upon the advantages of such a scheme, 
 and the unhappy results flowing on all 
 occasions, from her not being attended 
 to when she proffered her advice. 
 
 " You, sir," said Snawley, addressing 
 the terrified Smike, " are an unnatural, 
 ungrateful, unloveable boy. Yoo 
 won't let me love you when I want to, 
 Won't you come home won't you ? " 
 
 " No, no, no," cried Smike, shrink- 
 ing back. 
 
 "He never loved nobody," bawled 
 Squeers, through the keyhole. " He 
 never loved me; he never loved Wack- 
 ford, who is next door but one to a 
 cherubim. How can you expect that 
 he '11 love his father l He '11 neve* 
 love his father, he won't. He don't 
 know what it is to have a father. He 
 don't understand it. It an't in him." 
 
 Mr. Snawley looked stedfastly at his 
 son for a full minute, and then cover- 
 ing his eyes with his hand, and once 
 more raising his hat in the air, ap- 
 peared deeply occupied in deploring 
 his black ingratitude. Then drawing 
 his arm across his eyes, he picked up 
 Mr. Squeers's hat, and taking it under 
 one arm, and his own under the other, 
 walked slowly and sadly out 
 
 " Your romance, sir," said Ralph, 
 lingering for a moment, " is destroyed, 
 I take it. No unknown; no perse- 
 cuted descendant of a man of high 
 degree; but the weak, imbecile son of 
 a poor, petty tradesman. We shall 
 see how your sympathy melts before 
 plain matter of fact." 
 
 " You shall," said Nicholas, motion- 
 ing towards the door. 
 
 " And trust me, sir," added Ralph, 
 "that I never supposed you would 
 give him up to-night. Pride, obsti- 
 nacy, reputation for fine feeling, were 
 all against it These must be brought
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 357 
 
 down, sir, lowered, crushed, as they 
 shall be soon. The protracted and 
 wearing anxiety and expense of the 
 law in its most oppressive form, its 
 torture from hour to hour, its weary 
 days and sleepless nights with these 
 I'll prove you, and break your haughty 
 spirit, strong as you deem it now. 
 And when you make this house a hell, 
 and visit these trials upon yonder 
 wretched object (as you will ; I know 
 you), and those who think you now a 
 young-fledged hero, we '11 go into old 
 accounts between us two, and see who 
 stands the debtor, and comes out best 
 t last even before the world." 
 
 Ralph Nickleby withdrew. But 
 
 Mr. Squeers, who had heard a portion 
 of this closing address, and was by 
 this time wound up to a pitch of im- 
 potent malignity almost unprecedented, 
 could not refrain from returning to 
 the parlour-door, and actually cutting 
 some dozen capers with various wry 
 faces and hideous grimaces, expres- 
 sive of his triumphant confidence in 
 the downfall and defeat of Nicholas. 
 
 Having concluded this war-dance, 
 in which his short trousers and large 
 boots had borne a very conspicuous 
 figure, Mr. Squeers followed his 
 friends, and the family were left tc 
 meditate upon recent occurrences. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THROWS SOME LIGHT UPON MCHOLAS's LOVE ; BUT WHETHER FOR GOOD OR 
 EVIL THE READER MUST DETKKMI.NK. 
 
 AFTER an anxious consideration of 
 the painful and embarrassing position 
 in which he was placed, Nicholas de- 
 cided that he ought to lose no time in 
 frankly stating it to the kind brothers. 
 Availing himself of the first oppor- 
 tunity of being alone with Mr. Charles 
 Cheeryble at the close of next day, 
 lie accordingly related Smike's little 
 history, and modestly but firmly 
 axpressed his hope that the good old 
 gentleman would, under such circum- 
 stances as he described, hold him jus- 
 tified in adopting the extreme course 
 of interfering between parent and 
 child, and upholding the latter in his 
 disobedience ; even though his horror 
 and dread of his father might seem, 
 and would doubtless be represented as, 
 a thing so repulsive and unnatural, as 
 to render those who countenanced him 
 in it, fit objects of general detestation 
 and abhorrence. 
 
 " So deeply-rooted does this horror 
 of the man appear to be," said Ni- 
 cholas, " that I can hardly believe he 
 really is his on. 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 com- 
 mon mistake of charging upon Nature, 
 matters with which she has not the 
 smallest connexion, and for which she 
 is in no way responsible. Men talk of 
 nature as an abstract thing, and lose 
 sight of what is natural while they do 
 so. Here is a poor lad who has never 
 felt a parent's care, who has scarcely 
 known anything all his life but suffer- 
 ing and sorrow, presented to a man 
 who he is told is his father, and whose 
 first act is to signify his intention of 
 putting an end to his short term of 
 happiness : of consigning him to his 
 old fate, and taking him from the only 
 friend he has ever had which is 
 yourself. If Nature, in such a case, 
 put into that lad's breast but one 
 secret prompting which urged him 
 towards his father and away from you, 
 she would be a liar and an idiot." 
 
 Nicholas was delighted to find that 
 the old gentleman spoke so warmly, 
 and in the hope that he might say
 
 358 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 something more to the same purpose 
 made no reply. 
 
 u The same mistake presents itself 
 to me, in one shape or other, at every 
 turn," said brother Charles. " Parents 
 who never showed their love, complain 
 of want of natural affection in their 
 children children who never showed 
 their duty, complain of want of natural 
 feeling in their parents law-makers 
 who find both so miserable that their 
 affections have never had enough of 
 life's sun to develop them, are loud 
 in their moralisings over parents and 
 children too, and cry that the very ties 
 of nature are disregarded. Natural 
 affections and instincts, my dear sir, 
 are the most beautiful of the Almighty's 
 works, but like other beautiful works 
 of His, they must be reared and 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 nntended, should be 
 choked with weeds and briars. 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 con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " I dare say you are surprised, my 
 dear sir, that I have listened to your 
 recital with so little astonishment 
 That is easily explained your uncle 
 has been here Uiis morning." 
 
 Nicholas coloured, and drew back a 
 step or two. 
 
 " Yes," said the old gentleman, tap- 
 ping his desk emphatically, " here 
 in this room. He would listen neither 
 to reason, feeling, nor justice. But 
 brother Ned was hard upon him 
 brother Ned, sir, might have melted a 
 paving-stone." 
 
 " He came to " said Nicholas. 
 
 " To complain of you," returned 
 brother Charles, " to poison our ears 
 with calumnies and falsehoods ; but 
 he came on a fruitless errand, and 
 went away with some wholesome truths 
 in his ear besides. Brother Ned, my 
 
 dear Mr. Nickleby brother Ned, sir, 
 is a perfect lion. So is Tim Linkin- 
 water Tim is quite a lion. We had 
 Tun hi 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 sub- 
 ject, my dear sir," returned brother 
 Charles. You shall be righted. At 
 least you shall not be wronged. No- 
 body belonging to yon shall be wronged. 
 They shall not hurt a hair of your 
 head, or the boy's head, or your 
 mother's head, or your sister's head. 
 I have said it, brother Ned has said 
 it, Tim Linkinwater has said it. We 
 have all said it, and we'll all do it. I 
 have seen the father if he is the 
 father and I suppose he must be. 
 He is a barbarian and a hypocrite, 
 Mr. Nickleby. I told him, ' You are 
 a barbarian, sir.' I did. I said, 
 ' You 're a barbarian, sir.' And I 'm 
 glad of it I am very glad I told him 
 he was a barbarian very glad, in- 
 deed!" 
 
 By this time brother Charles was in 
 such a very warm state of indignation, 
 that Nicholas thought he might ven- 
 ture to put in a word, but the moment 
 he essayed to do so, Mr. Cheery We 
 laid his hand softly upon his arm, and 
 pointed to a chair. 
 
 " The subject is at an end for the 
 present," said the old gentleman, 
 wiping his face. " Don't revive it by 
 a single word. I am going to speak 
 upon another subject a confidential 
 subject, Mr. Nickleby. We must be 
 cool again, we must be cool." 
 
 After two or three turns across the 
 room he resumed his seat, and drawing 
 his chair nearer to that on which 
 Nicholas was seated, said 
 
 " I am about to employ you, ray 
 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."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 
 
 359 
 
 "Of that I am well assured," re- 
 turned brother Charles, " well assured. 
 You will give me credit for thinking 
 BO, when I tell you, that the object of 
 this mission is a young lady." 
 
 " A young lady, sir ! " cried Ni- 
 cholas, quite trembling for the moment 
 with his eagerness to hear more. 
 
 " A very beautiful young lady," said 
 Mr. Cheeryble, gravely. 
 
 " Pray go on, sir," returned Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " I am thinking how to do so," said 
 brother Charles sadly, as it seemed 
 to his young friend, and with an ex- 
 pression allied to pain. " You acci- 
 dentally saw a young lady in this room 
 one morning, my dear sir, in a fainting 
 fit. Do you remember 1 Perhaps you 
 have forgotten " 
 
 "Oh no," replied Nicholas, hur- 
 riedly. * I I remember it very 
 well indeed." 
 
 "She is the lady I speak of," said 
 brother Charles. Like the famous 
 parrot, Nicholas thought a great deal, 
 but was unable to utter a word. 
 
 " She is the daughter," said Mr. 
 Cheeryble, " of a lady who, when she 
 was a beautiful girl herself, and I was 
 very many years younger, I it seems 
 a strange word for me to utter now 
 I loved very dearly. You will smile, 
 perhaps, to hear a grey-headed man 
 talk about such things : you will not 
 offend me, for when I was as young as 
 you, I dare say I should have done the 
 same." 
 
 " I have no such inclination, indeed," 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " My dear brother Ned," continued 
 Mr. Cheeryble, " was to have married 
 her sister, but she died. She is dead 
 too now, and has been for many years. 
 She married her choice ; and I wish 
 I could add that her after-life was as 
 happy, as God knows I ever prayed it 
 might be ! " 
 
 A short silence intervened, which 
 Nicholas made no effort to break. 
 
 - If trial and calamity had fallen as 
 lightly on his head, as in the deepest 
 truth of my own heart I ever hoped 
 (for her sake) it would, his life would 
 have been one of peace and happiness," 
 
 said the old gentleman, calmly. " It 
 will be enough to say that this was not 
 the case that she was not happy 
 that they fell into complicated dis- 
 tresses and difficulties that she came, 
 twelve months before her death, to 
 appeal to my old friendship ; sadly 
 changed, sadly altered, broken-spirited 
 from suffering and ill usage, and almost 
 broken-hearted. He readily availed 
 himself of the money which, to give her 
 but one hour's peace of mind, I would 
 have poured out as freely as water 
 nay, he often sent her back for more 
 and yet even while he squandered 
 it, he made the very success of these, 
 her applications to me, the ground- 
 work of cruel taunts and jeers, protest- 
 ing 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 disap- 
 pointment which had been brought 
 about by his profligacy alone. la 
 those times this young lady was a mere 
 child. I never saw her again until 
 that morning when you saw her also, 
 
 but my nephew, Frank " 
 
 Nicholas started, and indistinctly 
 apologising for the interruption, begged 
 his patron to proceed. 
 
 ' " My nephew, Frank, I say," re- 
 sumed Mr. Cheeryble, "encountered 
 her by accident, and lost sight of her 
 almost in a minute afterwards, within 
 two days after he returned to England. 
 Her father lay in some secret place to 
 avoid his creditors, reduced, between 
 sickness and poverty, to the verge of 
 death, and she, a child, we might 
 almost think, if we did not know the 
 wisdom of all Heaven's decrees who 
 should have blessed a better man, was 
 steadily braving privation, degradation, 
 and everything most terrible to such 
 a young and delicate creature's heart, 
 for the purpose of supporting him. She 
 was attended, sir," said brother 
 Charles, "in these reverses, by one 
 faithful creature, who had been, in old
 
 360 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 times, a poor kitchen wench in the 
 family, who was then their solitary 
 servant, but who might have been, for 
 the truth and fidelity of her heart 
 who might have been ah ! the wife 
 of Tim Linkinwater himself, sir ! " 
 
 Pursuing this encomium upon the 
 poor follower with such energy and 
 relish as no words can describe, bro- 
 ther Charles leant back hi his chair, 
 and delivered the remainder of his 
 relation with greater composure. 
 
 It was in substance this : That 
 proudly resisting all offers of perma- 
 nent 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 in- 
 stinctive delicacy from appealing in 
 their behalf to that true and noble 
 heart which he hated, and had, through 
 its greatest and purest goodness, 
 deeply wronged by misconstruction and 
 ill report, this young girl had struggled 
 alone and unassisted to maintain him 
 by the labour of her hands. That 
 through the utmost depths of poverty 
 and affliction she had toiled, never 
 turning aside for an instant from her 
 task, never wearied by the petulant 
 gloom of a sick man sustained by no 
 consoling recollections of the past or 
 hopes of the future ; never repining 
 for the comforts she had rejected, or 
 bewailing the hard lot she had volun- 
 tarily incurred. That every little 
 accomplishment she had acquired in 
 happier days had been put into requi- 
 sition for this purpose, and directed to 
 this one end. That for two long years, 
 toiling by day and often too by night, 
 working at the needle, the pencil, and 
 the pen, and submitting, as a daily 
 governess, to such caprices and indig- 
 nities as women (with daughters too) 
 too often love to inflict upon their own 
 sex when they serve a 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 incal- 
 culably their betters, but outweighing 
 in comparison any that the mo?t 
 
 heartless blackleg would put upon his 
 groom that for two long years, by- 
 dint of labouring in all these capacities 
 and wearying in none, she had not 
 succeeded in the sole aim and object 
 of her life, but that, overwhelmed by 
 accumulated difficulties and disappoint- 
 ments, 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, 
 would have denied myself of course 
 anybody would under such circum- 
 stances the commonest necessaries 
 of life, to help her. As it is, the task 
 is a difficult one. If her father were 
 dead, nothing could be easier, for then 
 she should share and cheer the hap- 
 piest 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 aban- 
 doned by all without good cause, I 
 know." 
 
 " Cannot she be persuaded to " 
 
 Nicholas hesitated when he had got 
 thus far. 
 
 " To leave him 1 " said brother 
 Charles. " Who 'could entreat a child 
 to desert her parent I Such entreaties, 
 limited to her seeing him occasion- 
 ally, have been urged upon her not 
 by me but always with the same 
 result." 
 
 " Is he land to her t " said Nicholas. 
 " Does he requite her affection ! " 
 
 " True kindness, considerate self- 
 denying kindness, is not in his nature," 
 returned Mr. Cheeryble. " Such kind- 
 ness as he knows, he regards her 
 with, I believe. The mother was a 
 gentle, loving, confiding creature, and 
 although he wounded her from their 
 marriage till her death as cruelly and 
 wantonly as ever man did, she never 
 ceased to love him. She commended 
 him on her death-bed to her child's 
 care. Her child has never forgotten 
 it, and never will." 
 
 " Have yon no influence over him t "' 
 asked Nicholas. 

 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 361 
 
 " 1, my dear sir ! 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 selfishness of 
 his character although if he knew 
 that every penny she had came from 
 me, he would not relinquish one per- 
 sonal desire that the most reckless 
 expenditure of her scanty stock could 
 gratify." 
 
 " An unnatural scoundrel ! " said 
 Nicholas, indignantly. 
 
 " We will use no harsh terms," said 
 brother Charles, in a gentle voice ; 
 " but accommodate ourselves to the 
 circumstances in which this young 
 lady is placed. Such assistance as I 
 have prevailed upon her to accept, I 
 have been obliged, at her own earnest 
 request, to dole out in the smallest 
 portions, lest he, finding how easily 
 money was procured, should squander 
 it even more lightly than he is accus- 
 tomed to do. She has come to and 
 fro, to and fro, secretly and by night, 
 to take even this ; and I cannot bear 
 that things should go on in this way, 
 Mr. Nickleby I really cannot bear it." 
 Then it came out by little and little, 
 how that the twins had been revolving 
 in their good old heads manifold plans 
 and schemes for helping this young 
 lady in the most delicate and consider- 
 ate way, and so that her father should 
 not suspect the source whence the aid 
 was derived ; and how they had at 
 last come to the conclusion, that the 
 best course would be to make a feint 
 3f purchasing her little drawings and 
 ornamental work at a high price, and 
 keeping up a constant demand for the 
 same. For the furtherance of which 
 end and object it was necessary that 
 somebody should represent the dealer 
 in such commodities, and after great 
 deliberation they had pitched upon 
 Nicholas to support this character. 
 
 " He knows me," said brother 
 Charles, "and he knows my brother 
 Ned. Neither of us would do. Frank 
 is a very good fellow a very fine 
 fellow but we are afraid that he 
 
 might be a little flighty and thought- 
 less in such a delicate matter, and 
 that he might, perhaps that he might, 
 in short, be too susceptible (for she is 
 a beautiful creature, sir ; just what 
 her poor mother was), and falling in 
 love with her before he well knew his 
 own mind, carry pain and sorrow into 
 that innocent breast, which we would 
 be the humble instruments of gra- 
 dually making happy. He took an 
 extraordinary interest in her fortunes 
 when he first happened to encounter 
 her ; and we gather- from the in- 
 quiries 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 ho 
 had before suspected the possibility of 
 such a thing ; and in explanation of 
 its having occurred to him, described 
 when and where he had seen the young 
 lady himself. 
 
 " Well ; then you see," continued 
 brother Charles, "that he wouldn't 
 do. Tim Linkinwater is out of the 
 question ; for Tim, sir, is such a tre- 
 mendous fellow, that he could never 
 contain himself, but would go to log- 
 gerheads 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 feelings very strongly 
 then he is terrific, sir, is Tim Linkin- 
 water absolutely terrific. Now, in 
 you we can repose the strictest confi- 
 dence ; in you we have seen or at 
 least / have seen, and that 's the same 
 thing, for there 's no difference be- 
 tween 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 Jike him in all the 
 world in you we have seen domestic 
 virtues and affections, and delicacy 
 of feeling, which exactly qualify you 
 for such an office. And you are tho 
 man, sir." 
 
 " The young lady, sir," said Nicholas, 
 who felt so embarrassed that he had 
 no small difficulty in saying anything 
 at all " Does is is she a party to 
 this innocent deceit 1 "
 
 362 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 "Yes, yes," returned Mr. Cheery- 
 ble ; " at'least she knows you come 
 from us ; she does not know, however, 
 but that we shall dispose of these little 
 productions that you '11 purchase from 
 iime to time ; and, perhaps, if you did 
 it very well (that is, very well indeed), 
 perhaps she might be brought to be- 
 lieve that we that we made a profit 
 of them. Eh ? Eh ? " 
 
 In this guileless and most kind sim- 
 plicity, brother Charles was so happy, 
 ind in this possibility of the young 
 lady being led to think that she was 
 ander no obligation to him, he evi- 
 dently felt so sanguine and had so 
 much delight, that Nicholas would not 
 oreathe a doubt upon the subject. 
 
 All this time, however, there hover- 
 sd upon the tip of his tongue a confes- 
 sion that the very same objections 
 which Mr. Cheeryble had stated to the 
 employment of his nephew in this 
 commission applied with at least equal 
 force and validity to himself, and a 
 hundred times had he been upon the 
 point of avowing the real state of his 
 feelings, and entreating to be released 
 from it. But as often, treading upon 
 the heels of this impulse, came another 
 which urged him to refrain, and to 
 keep his secret to his own breast. 
 "' Why should I," thought Nicholas, 
 "' why should I throw difficulties in 
 the way of this benevolent and high- 
 minded design 1 What if I do love 
 and reverence this good and lovely 
 creature should I not appear a most 
 arrogant and shallow coxcomb if I 
 gravely represented that there was 
 any danger of her foiling in love with 
 me ! Besides, have I no confidence 
 in myself ? Am I not now bound in 
 honour to repress these thoughts t 
 Has not this excellent man a right to 
 my best and heartiest services, and 
 should any considerations of self deter 
 me from rendering them ? " 
 
 Asking himself such questions as 
 these, Nicholas mentally answered 
 with great emphasis " No ! " and 
 persuading himself that he was a most 
 conscientious and glorious martyr, 
 nobly resolved to do what, if he had 
 examined his own heart a little more 
 
 carefully, he would have found, he 
 could not resist. Such is the sleight 
 of hand by which we juggle with our- 
 selves, and change our very weak- 
 nesses into stanch and most magnani- 
 mous virtues 1 
 
 Mr. Cheeryble, being of course 
 wholly unsuspicious that such reflec- 
 tions were presenting themselves to 
 his young friend, proceeded to give 
 him the needful credentials and direc- 
 tions 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 *hich their credi- 
 tors do not derive any benefit, are 
 permitted to reside by the wise pro- 
 visions of the same enlightened laws 
 which leave the debtor who can raise 
 no money to starve in jail, without the 
 food, clothing, lodging, or warmth, 
 which are provided for felons convicted 
 of the most atrocious crimes that can 
 disgrace humanity. There are many 
 pleasant fictions of the law in constant 
 operation, but there is not one so 
 pleasant or practically humorous as 
 that which supposes every man to be 
 of equal value in its impartial eye, 
 and the benefits of all laws to be 
 equally attainable by all men, without 
 the smallest reference to the furniture 
 of their pockets. 
 
 To the row of houses indicated to 
 him by Mr. Charles Cheeryble, Nicho- 
 las directed his steps, without much 
 troubling his head with such matters 
 as these ; and at this row of houses 
 after traversing a very dirty and dusty 
 suburb, of which minor theatricals, 
 shell-fish, ginger-beer, spring van?, 
 green-grocery, and brokers' shops,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 363 
 
 appeared to compose the main and 
 most prominent features he at length 
 arrived with a palpitating heart There 
 were small gardens in front which, 
 being wholly neglected in all other 
 respects, served as little pens for the 
 dust to collect in, until the wind came 
 round the corner and blew it down the 
 road. Opening the rickety gate which, 
 dangling on its broken hinges before 
 one of these, half admitted and half 
 repulsed the visitor, Nicholas knocked 
 at the street door with a faltering 
 hand. 
 
 It was in truth a shabby house out- 
 side, with very dim parlour windows 
 and very small show of bunds, 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 ap- 
 pear to belie the outward promise, as 
 there was faded carpeting on the stairs 
 and faded oil-cloth in the passage ; in 
 addition to which discomforts a gentle- 
 man Ruler was smoking hard in the 
 front parlour (though it was not yet 
 noon), while the lady of the house was 
 busily engaged in turpentining the 
 disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead 
 at the door of the back parlour, as if 
 in preparation for the reception of 
 some new lodger who had been fortu- 
 nate enough to engage it. 
 
 Nicholas had ample tune to make 
 these observations while the little boy, 
 v, ho went on errands for the lodgers, 
 clattered down the kitchen stairs and 
 was heard to scream, as in some re- 
 mote cellar, for Miss Bray's servant, 
 who, presently appearing and request- 
 ing him to follow her, caused him to 
 evince greater symptoms of nervous- 
 Mas and disorder than so natural a 
 consequence of his having inquired 
 for that young lady would seem calcu- 
 lated 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 mate- 
 rials with which she was occupied, sal 
 the beautiful girl who had so engrossed 
 his thoughts, and who, surrounded by 
 all the new and strong interest which 
 
 Nicholas attached to her story, seemed 
 
 now, in his eyes, a thousand times 
 
 more beautiful than he had ever yet 
 
 supposed her. 
 
 But how the graces and elegancies 
 
 which she had dispersed about the 
 )oorly-furnished room,went to the heart 
 
 of Nicholas ! Flowers, plants, birds, 
 he harp, the old piano whose notes 
 lad sounded so much sweeter in by- 
 ;one times how many struggles had 
 t cost her to keep these two hist links 
 
 of that broken chain which bound her 
 yet to home ! With every slender 
 >rnament, the occupation of her leisure 
 lours, replete with that graceful charm. 
 
 which lingers in every little tasteful 
 
 work of woman's hands, how much 
 mtient endurance and how many 
 jentle affections were entwined ! He 
 elt as though the smile of Heaven. 
 
 were on the little chamber ; as though 
 :he beautiful devotion of so young and 
 kveak a creature, had shed a ray of its 
 
 own on the inanimate things around 
 
 and made them beautiful as itself ; 
 
 as though the halo with which old 
 painters surround the bright angels of a 
 unless world played about a being akin 
 
 in spirit to them, and its light were 
 
 visibly before him. 
 
 And yet Nicholas was in the Rules 
 
 of the King's Bench Prison ! If he 
 bad 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 
 hi everything at one glance, for he had 
 as yet been unconscious of the pre- 
 sence of a sick man propped up with 
 pillows in an easy-chair, who moving 
 restlessly and impatiently in his seat, 
 attracted his attention. 
 
 He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so 
 emaciated as to appear much older 
 His features presented the remains of 
 a handsome countenance, but one in 
 which the embers of strong and impe- 
 tuous passions were easier to be traced 
 than any expression which would have 
 rendered a far plainer face much more
 
 364 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 prepossessing. His looks were very 
 haggard, and his limbs and body lite- 
 rally worn to the bone, but there was 
 something of the old fire in the large 
 sunken eye notwithstanding, and it 
 seemed to kindle afresh as he struck a 
 thick stick, with which he seemed to 
 have supported himself in his seat, 
 impatiently on the floor twice or 
 thrice, and called his daughter by her 
 name. 
 
 " Madeline, who is this what does 
 anybody want here who told a 
 stranger we could be seen ? What is 
 it?" 
 
 " I believe " the young lady 
 
 began, as she inclined her head with 
 an air of some confusion, in reply to 
 the salutation of Nicholas. 
 
 " You always believe," returned 
 her father, petulantly. " What is it \ " 
 
 By this time Nicholas had recovered 
 sufficient presence of mind to speak 
 for himself, so he said (as it had been 
 agreed he should say) that he had 
 called about a pair of hand-screens, and 
 some painted velvet for an ottoman, 
 both of which were required to be 
 of the most elegant design possible, 
 neither time nor expense being of the 
 smallest consideration. He had also 
 to pay for the two drawings, with many 
 thanks, and, advancing to the little 
 table, he laid upon it a bank note, 
 folded in an envelope and sealed. 
 
 " See that the money is right, Made- 
 line," said the father," open the paper, 
 my dear." 
 
 " It 's quite right, papa, I 'm sure." 
 
 " Here ! " said Mr. Bray, putting 
 out his hand, and opening and shutting 
 nis bony fingers with irritable impa- 
 tience. " Let me see. What are you 
 talking about, Madeline you're sure 
 how can you be sure of any such 
 thing five pounds well, is tliat 
 right ? " 
 
 "Quite," said Madeline, bending 
 Dver him. She was so busily employed 
 m 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 liand that the 
 bank note rustled in the air. "Tell 
 her to get it changed to get me a 
 newspaper to buy me some grapes 
 another bottle of the wine that I had last 
 week and and I forget half I want 
 just now, but she can go out again. 
 Let her get those first those first. 
 Now, Madeline my love, quick, quick ! 
 Good God, how slow you are ! " 
 
 " He remembers nothing that she 
 wants ! " thought Nicholas. Perhaps 
 something of what he thought was 
 expressed in his countenance, for the 
 sick man turning towards him with 
 great asperity, demanded to know if 
 he waited for a receipt. 
 
 " It is no matter at all," said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " No matter ! what do you mean, 
 sir ? " was the tart rejoinder. " No 
 matter ! Do you think you bring 
 your paltry money here as a favour or 
 a gift ; or as a matter of business, and 
 in return for value received ? D n 
 you, sir, because you can't appreciate 
 the time and taste which are bestowed 
 upon the goods you deal in, do you 
 think you give your money away ? Do 
 you know that you are talking to a 
 gentleman, sir, who at one time could 
 have bought up fifty such men as you 
 and all you have ! What do you 
 mean ! " 
 
 " I merely mean that as I shall have 
 many dealings with this lady, if she 
 will kindly allow me, I will not trouble 
 her with such forms," said Nicholas. 
 
 " Then / mean, if you please, that 
 we '11 have as many forms as we can," 
 returned the father. " My daughter, 
 sir, requires no kindness from you or 
 anybody else. Have the goodness to 
 confine your dealings strictly to trade 
 and business, and not to travel beyond 
 it. Every petty tradesman is to begin 
 to pity her now, is he ! Upon my 
 soul ! Very pretty. Madeline, my 
 dear, give him a receipt ; and mind 
 you always do so." 
 
 While she was feigning to write it, 
 and Nicholas was ruminating upon 
 the extraordinary, but by no means 
 uncommon character thus presented 
 to his observation, the invalid, who
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 365 
 
 appeared at times to suffer great bodily 
 pain, sank back in his chair and moaned 
 out a feeble complaint that the girl had 
 been gone an hour, and that everybody 
 conspired to goad him. 
 
 " When," said Nicholas, as he took 
 the piece of paper, "when shall I 
 call again ! " 
 
 This was addressed to the daughter, 
 but the father answered immediately 
 
 " When you 're requested to call, 
 ir, 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 neces- 
 sary, 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 ! Tliree or four weeks ! " 
 
 "Then sooner sooner, if you 
 please," said the young lady, turning 
 to Nicholas. 
 
 " Three or four weeks ! " muttered 
 the father. " Madeline, what on earth 
 do nothing for three or four weeks ! " 
 
 "It is a long time, ma'am," said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " You think so, do you ? " retorted 
 the father, angrily. " If I chose to 
 beg, sir, and stoop to ask assistance 
 from people I despise, three or four 
 months would not be a long time 
 three or four years would not be a 
 long time. Understand, sir, that is 
 if I chose to be dependent ; but as I 
 don't, you may call in a week." 
 
 Nicholas bowed low to the young 
 lady and retired, pondering upon Mr. 
 Bray's ideas of independence, and 
 devoutly hoping that there might be 
 few such independent spirits as he 
 mingling with the baser "clay of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 He heard a light footstep above him 
 as he descended the stairs, and looking 
 round saw that the young lady was 
 standing there, and glancing timidly 
 towards him, seemed to hesitate whe- 
 
 ther she should call him back or no. 
 The best way of settling the question 
 was to turn back at once, which 
 Nicholas did. 
 
 " I don't know whether I do right iu 
 asking you, sir," said Madeline, hur- 
 riedly, " but pray pray do not men- 
 tion to my poor mother's dear friends 
 what has passed here to-day. He has 
 suffered much, and is worse this 
 morning. I beg you, sir, as a boon, a 
 favour to myself." 
 
 " You have but to hint a wish," 
 returned Nicholas fervently, " and 1 
 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 dis- 
 guising my feelings, and if I were, I 
 could not hide my heart from you. 
 Dear madam, as 1 know your history, 
 and feel as men and angels must who 
 hear and see such things, I do entreat 
 you to believe that I would die to serve 
 you." 
 
 The young lady turned away her 
 head, and was plainly weeping. 
 
 " Forgive me," said Nicholas, with 
 respectful earnestness, " if I seem to 
 say too much, or to presume upon the 
 confidence which has been intrusted to 
 me. But I could not leave you as if 
 my interest and sympathy expired with 
 the commission of the day. I am 
 your faithful servant, humbly devoted 
 to you from this hour devoted in 
 strict truth and honour to him who 
 sent me here, and in pure integrity of 
 heart, and distant respect for you. If 
 I meant more or less than this, I should 
 be unworthy his regard, and false to 
 the very nature that prompts the 
 honest words I utter." 
 
 She waved her hand, entreating him 
 to be gone, but answered not a word. 
 Nicholas could say no more,and silently 
 withdrew. And thus ended his first 
 interview with Madeline Bray.
 
 366 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 MR. RALPH NIChLEBY HAS SOME CONFIDENTIAL INTERCOURSE WITH ANOTHER 
 OLD FRIEND. THEY CONCERT BETWEEN THEM A PROJECT, WHICH PROMISES 
 WELL FOR BOTH. 
 
 " THERE go the three quarters past !" 
 muttered Newman Noggs, listening to 
 the chimes of some neighbouring 
 church, " and my dinner time 's two. 
 He does it on purpose. He makes a 
 point of it. It 's just like him." 
 
 It was in his own little den of an 
 office and on the top of his official 
 stool that Newman thus soliloquised ; 
 and the soliloquy referred, as New- 
 man's grumbling soliloquies usually 
 did, to Ralph Nickleby. 
 
 " I don't believe he ever had an 
 appetite," said Newman, " except for 
 pounds, shillings, and pence, and with 
 them he's as greedy as a wolf. I 
 should like to have him compelled to 
 swallow one of every English coin. 
 The penny would be an awkward 
 morsel but the crown ha ! ha ! " 
 
 His good humour being in some 
 degree restored by the vision of Ralph 
 Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five- 
 shilling-piece, Newman slowly brought 
 Jbrth from his desk one of those port- 
 able 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 
 =ui air of great relish, and, the taste of 
 the liquor having by this time evapo- 
 rated, 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 suck a breakfast ! and my 
 right dinner time two ! And I might 
 have a nice little bit of hot roast meat 
 spoiling at home all this time how 
 does he know I haven't! 'Don't go 
 till I come back,' ' Don't go till I come 
 back,' day after day. What do you 
 always go out at my dinner time for 
 
 then eh ! Don't you know it 's 
 nothing but aggravation eh ! " 
 
 These words, though uttered in a 
 very loud key, were addressed to 
 nothing but empty air. The recital of 
 his wrongs, however, seemed to have 
 the effect of making Newman Noggs 
 desperate ; for he flattened his old hat 
 upon his head, and drawing on the 
 everlasting gloves, declared with great 
 vehemence, that come what might, he 
 would go to dinner that very minute. 
 
 Carrying this resolution into instant 
 effect, he had advanced as far as the 
 passage, when the sound of the latch- 
 key in the street door caused him to 
 make a precipitate retreat into his own 
 office again. 
 
 " Here he is," growled Newman, 
 " and somebody with him. Now it '11 
 be ' Stop till this gentleman's gone.' 
 But I wont that 's flat." 
 
 So saying, Newman slipped into a 
 tall empty closet which opened with 
 two half doors, and shut himself up ; 
 intending to slip out directly Ralph 
 was safe inside his own room. 
 
 " Noggs," cried Ralph, " where is 
 that fellow Noggs." 
 
 But not a word said Newman. 
 
 "The dog has gone to his dinner, 
 though I told him not," muttered 
 Ralph, looking into the office and 
 pulling out his watch. " Humph ! You 
 had better come in here, Gride. My 
 man 's out, and the sun is hot upon my 
 room. This is cool and in the shade, 
 if you don't mind roughing it." 
 
 " Not at all, Mr. Nickleby, oh not 
 at all. All places are alike to me, sir. 
 Ah ! very nice indeed. Oh ! very 
 nice ! " 
 
 The 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 367 
 
 very narrow collar, an old-fashioned 
 waistcoat of ribbed black silk, and 
 such scanty trowsere as displayed his 
 shrunken spindle-shanks in their full 
 ugliness. The only articles of display 
 or ornament in his dress, were a steel 
 watch-chain to which were attached | 
 some large gold seals ; and a black 
 ribbon into which, in compliance with 
 an old fashion scarcely ever observed 
 in these days, his grey hair was ga- 
 thered behind. His nose and chin 
 were sliarp and prominent, his jaws 
 had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, 
 his face was shrivelled and yellow, 
 save where the cheeks were streaked 
 with the colour of a dry winter apple ; 
 and where his beard had been, there 
 lingered yet a few grey tufts which 
 seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to 
 denote the badness of the soil from 
 which they sprung. The whole air 
 and attitude of the form, was one of 
 stealthy cat-like obsequiousness ; the 
 whole expression of the face was con- 
 centrated 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 i 
 covetous and griping penury, and suffi- 
 ciently indicated his belonging to that 
 r^Tl of which Ralph Nickleby was a 
 member. Such was old Arthur Gride, j 
 as he sat in a low chair looking up 
 into the face of Ralph Nickleby, who, I 
 lounging upon the tall office stool, witli 
 his arms upon his knees, looked down | 
 into his, a match for him on what- 
 ever errand he had come. 
 
 " And how have you been 1 " said 
 Gride, feigning great interest in 
 Ralph's state of health. "I haven't 
 seen you for oh ! not for " 
 
 " Not for a long time," said Ralph, 
 with a peculiar smile, importing that 
 he very well knew it was not on a ; 
 mere visit of compliment that his 
 friend had come. " It was a narrow | 
 chance that you saw me now, for 1 1 
 had only jnst come up to the door as \ 
 you turned the corner." 
 
 " I am very lucky," observed Gride. , 
 
 " So men say," replied Ralph, drily. 
 
 The older money-lender wagged his 
 chin and smiled, but he originated no 
 new remark, and they sat for some 
 little time without speaking. Each 
 was looking out to take the other at a 
 disadvantage. 
 
 " Come, Gride," said Ralph, at 
 length ; " what's in the wind 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 slink- 
 ing way with you that makes me seem 
 so by contrast," returned Ralph. " 1 
 don't know hut that yours may answer 
 better, but I want the patience for it." 
 
 " You were born a genius, Mr. 
 Nickleby," said old Arthur. " Deep, 
 deep, deep. Ah ! " 
 
 " Deep enough," retorted Ralph, 
 "to know that I shall need all the 
 depth I have, when men like you begin 
 to compliment. You know I have 
 stood by when you fawned and flat- 
 tered other people, and I remember 
 pretty well what that always led to." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," rejoined Arthur, rub- 
 bing his hands. So you do, so you do ; 
 no doubt. Not a man knows it better. 
 Well, it's a pleasant thing now to 
 think that you remember old times. 
 Oh dear ! " 
 
 " Now then," said Ralph, com- 
 posedly ; " what 's in the wind, I ask 
 again what is it ! " 
 
 " See that now ! " cried the other. 
 "He can't eren keep from business 
 while we 're chatting over bygones 
 Oh dear, dear, what a man it is 1 " 
 
 " Which of the bygones c'o you want 
 to revive !" said Ralph. " One of them, 
 I know, or you wouHn't talk about 
 them." 
 
 " He suspects ever me ! " cried old 
 Arthur, holding up )'iS hands. M Even 
 me oh dear, even me. What a man 
 it is ! Ha, ha, ha ' What a man it 
 is ! Mr. Nickloby against all the world 
 there 's nobody like him. A giant 
 among pigmies a innt a giant ! " 
 
 Ralph looked a: the old dog with a 
 quiet smile as he chuckled on in this
 
 S68 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 strain, and Newman Noggs in the 
 closet felt his heart sink within him as 
 the prospect of dinner grew fainter 
 and fainter. 
 
 " I must humour him though," cried 
 old Arthur ; " he must have his way 
 a wilful man, as the Scotch say 
 well, well, they 're a wise people, the 
 Scotch he will talk about business, 
 and won't give away his time for 
 nothing. He 's very right. Time is 
 money time is money." 
 
 " He was one of us who made that 
 saying, I should think," said Ralph. 
 " Time is money, and very good money 
 too, to those who reckon interest by it. 
 Time is money ! Yes, and time costs 
 money it's rather an expensive ar- 
 ticle to some people we could name, or 
 I forget my trade." 
 
 In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur 
 again raised his hands, again chuckled, 
 and again ejaculated " What a man it 
 is ! " which done, he dragged the low 
 chair a little nearer to Ralph's high 
 stool, and looking upwards into his 
 immoveable face, said, 
 
 "What would you say to me, if I 
 was to tell you that I was that I was 
 going to be married ? " 
 
 " I should tell you," replied Ralph, 
 looking coldly down upon him, " that 
 for some purpose of your own you told 
 a lie, and that it wasn't the first time 
 and wouldn't be the last ; that I wasn't 
 surprised and wasn't to be taken in." 
 
 " Then I tell you seriously, that I 
 am," said old Arthur. 
 
 " And / tell you seriously," rejoined 
 Ralph, " what I told yon this minute. 
 Stay. Let me look at you. There 's a 
 liquorish devilry in your face what 
 is this ? " 
 
 " I wouldn't deceive you, you know," 
 whined Arthur Gride ; " I couldn't do 
 it, I should be mad to try. I I to 
 deceive Mr. Nickleby ! The pigmy 
 to impose upon the giant. I ask again 
 he, he, he ! what should you say to 
 me if I was to tell you that I was going 
 to be married ? " 
 
 " To some old hag 1 " said Ralph. 
 
 " No, no," cried A rthur, interrupt- 
 ing him, and rubbing his hands in an 
 ecstacy. " Wrong, wrong again. Mr. 
 
 Nickleby for once at fault out, quite 
 out ! To a young and beautiful girl ; 
 fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not nine- 
 teen. Dark eyes long eyelashes 
 ripe and ruddy lips that to look at is 
 to long to kiss beautiful clustering 
 hair that one's fingers itch to play 
 with such a waist as might make a 
 man clasp the air involuntarily, think- 
 ing of twining his arm about it little 
 feet that tread so lightly they hardly 
 seem to walk upon the ground tc 
 marry all this, sir, this hey, hey ! '' 
 
 " This is something more than com- 
 mon drivelling," said Ralph, after 
 listening with a curled lip to the old 
 sinner's raptures. " The girl's name ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh deep, deep ! See now how deep 
 that is ! " exclaimed old Arthur. " He 
 knows I want his help, he knows he 
 can give it me, he knows it must all 
 turn to his advantage, he sees the 
 thing already. Her name is there 
 nobody within hearing ? " 
 
 " Why, who the devil should there 
 be ? " retorted Ralph, testily. 
 
 " I didn't know but that perhaps 
 somebody might be passing up or 
 down the stairs," said Arthur Gride, 
 after looking out at the door and 
 carefully re-closing it ; " or but that 
 your man might have come back and 
 might have been listening outside 
 clerKs and servants have a trick of 
 listening, and I should have been very 
 uncomfortable if Mr. Noggs " 
 
 " Curse Mr. Noggs," said Ralph, 
 sharply, "and go on with what you 
 have to say." 
 
 " Curse Mr. Noggs, by all means," 
 rejoined old Arthur ; " I am sure I 
 have not the least objection to that 
 Her name is " 
 
 " Well," said Ralph, rendered very 
 irritable by old Arthur's pausing again, 
 " what is it ? " 
 
 " Madeline Bray." 
 
 Whatever reasons there might have 
 been and Arthur Gride appeared to 
 liave anticipated some for the men- 
 tion of this name producing an effect 
 upon Ralph, or whatever effect it 
 really did produce upon him, he per- 
 mitted none to manifest itself, but 
 calmly repeated the name several
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 times, as if reflet- ting when and where 
 lie had heard it bi-t'oiv. 
 
 " Bray," said Kalj)h. " Bray there 
 
 was young Bray of no, lie never 
 
 had a daughter." 
 
 'Vm remember Bray?" rejoined 
 Arthur Gride. 
 
 " No," said Ralph, looking vacantly 
 at him. 
 
 " Not Walter Bray ! The dashing 
 man, who used his handsome wife so 
 ill I " 
 
 " 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 eon- 
 i'Hind 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 I " rejoined Ralph. " Ay, 
 ay. Now you speak. Oh ! It 's his 
 daughter, is it 1 " 
 
 Naturally as this was said, it was 
 not said so naturally but that a kindred 
 spirit like old Arthur (Iride might 
 have discerned a ile-iim upon the part 
 of Ralph to lead him on to much more 
 explicit statements and explanations 
 than he would have volunteered, or 
 than Ralph could in all likelihood have 
 obtained by any other means. Old 
 Arthur, however, was so intent upon 
 his own designs, that he suffered him- 
 self to be over-reached, and had no 
 suspicion but that his good friend was 
 in eann -t. 
 
 " I knew you couldn't forget him, 
 when you came to think for a moment," 
 be said. 
 
 " You were right," answered Ralph. 
 * But old Arthur Gride and matri- 
 mony is a mast anomalous conjunction 
 of words ; old Arthur (iride and dark 
 eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to 
 look at is to long to kiss, and cluster- 
 ing 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 
 
 No. 55. 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness (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 advan- 
 tage, 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 sar- 
 casm 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 de- 
 monstration of anger, contenting him- 
 self with exclaiming as before, " What 
 a man it is ! " and rolling his head 
 from side to side, as if in unrestrained 
 enjoyment of his freedom and drollery. 
 Clearly observing, however, from the 
 expression in Ralph's features, that 
 he had best come to the point as 
 speedily as might be, he composed 
 himself for more serious business, and 
 entered upon the pith and marrow of 
 his negotiation. 
 
 First, he dwelt upon the fact that 
 Madeline Bray was devoted to the 
 support and maintenance, and was a 
 slave to every wish, of her only parent, 
 who had no other friend on earth ; to 
 which Ralph rejoined that he had 
 heard something of the kind before, 
 and that if she had known a little more 
 of the world, she wouldn't have been 
 such a fool. 
 
 Secondly, he enlarged upon the 
 character of her father, arguing, that 
 even taking it for granted that he 
 loved her in return with the utmost 
 affection of which he was capable, yet 
 he loved himself a great deal better ; 
 which Ralph said it was quite un- 
 necessary to say anything more about, 
 as that was very natural, and probable- 
 enough. 
 
 And, thirdly, old Arthur premised 
 that the girl was a delicate and beautiful 
 
 BB 24
 
 370 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 creature, and that he had really a 
 hankering to have her for his wife. 
 To this Ralph deigned no other re- 
 joinder than a harsh smile, and a 
 glance at tho shrivelled old creature 
 before him, which were, however, 
 sufficiently expressive. 
 
 " Now," said Gride, " for the little 
 plan I have in iny mind to bring this 
 about ; because, I haven't offered my- 
 self even to the father yet, I should 
 nave told you. But that you have 
 gathered already ? Ah ! oh dear, oh 
 dear, what an edged-tool you are? ! " 
 
 "Don't play with me then," said 
 Ralph, impatiently. " You know the 
 proverb." 
 
 " A reply always on the tip of his 
 vongue ! " cried old Arthur, raising 
 nis hfinds and eyes in admiration. 
 ' He is always prepared ! Oh dear, i 
 what a blessing to have such a ready j 
 wit, and so much ready money to 
 back it!" Then, suddenly changing 
 his tone, he went on : " I have been 
 backwards and forwards to Bray's 
 lodgings several tunes within the last 
 six months. It is just half a year 
 since I first saw this delicate morsel, 
 and, oh dear; what a delicate morsel it 
 is ! But that is neither here nor 
 there. I am his detaining creditor for 
 seventeen hundred pounds." 
 
 " You talk as if you were the only 
 detaining creditor," said Ralph, pull- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 pense of lodging a detainer, trusting 
 to our holding him fast enough, I war- 
 rant you. We both fell into the same 
 snare oh, deal-, what a pitfall it was ; it 
 almost ruined me ! And lent him our 
 money upon bills, with only one name 
 besides his own, which to be sure 
 everybody supposed to be a good one, 
 and was as negotiable as money, but 
 which turned out you know how. 
 Just as we should have come upon 
 hinij he died insolvent. Ah ! it went 
 very nigh to ruin me, that loss did ! " 
 
 " Go on with your scheme," said 
 
 Ralph. "It's of no use raising the 
 cry of our trade just now ; there "i 
 nobody to hear us." 
 
 " It 's always as well to talk that 
 way," returned old Arthur, with a 
 chuckle, " whether there 's anybody to 
 hear us or not. Practice makes per- 
 fect, you know. Now, if I offer my- 
 self 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 Heait 
 and it is impossible), and if all the 
 advantages of this condition are pro- 
 perly stated and dwelt upon to him, 
 do you think he could resist me ? 
 And if he could not resist me, do you 
 think his daughter could resist him? 
 Shouldn't I have her Mrs. Arthur 
 Gride pretty Mrs. Arthur Gride a 
 tit-bit a dainty chick shouldn't I 
 have her Mrs. Arthur Gride in a week, 
 a month, a day any time I chose to 
 name ? " 
 
 " Go on," said Ralph, nodding his 
 head deliberately, and speaking in a 
 tone whose studied coldness presented 
 a strange contrast to the rapturous 
 squeak to wlu'ch his friend had gradu- 
 ally mounted. " Go on. You didn't 
 come here to ask me that." 
 
 " Oh- dear, how you talk ! " cried old 
 Arthur, edging himself closer still to 
 Ralph. ." Of course, I didn't I don't 
 pretend I did ! I came to ask what 
 you would take from me, if I prospered 
 with the father, for this debt of yours 
 five shillings in the pound six and 
 eightpence ten shillings ! I would 
 go as far as ten for such a friend as 
 you, we have always been on such 
 good terms, but you won't be so hard 
 upon me as that, 1 know. Now, will 
 you ? " 
 
 " There 's something more to be 
 told," said Ralph, as stony and im- 
 movable 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 371 
 
 point, which you can do as no man 
 can. I can't do that, for I am a poor, 
 timid, nervous creature. Now, if you 
 get a good composition for this debt, 
 which you long ago gave up for lost, 
 you '11 stand my friend, and help me. 
 Won't you ! " 
 
 " There 's something more," said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " No, no, indeed," cried Arthur 
 Gride. 
 
 " Yes, yes, indeed. I tell you yes," 
 said Ralph. 
 
 " Oh ! " returned old Arthur, feign- 
 ing to be suddenly enlightened. " You 
 mean something more, as concerns 
 myself and my intention. Ay, surely, 
 surely. Shall I mention that ! " 
 
 " 1 think you had better," rejoined 
 Ralph, drily. 
 
 " I didn't like to trouble you with 
 that, because I supposed your interest 
 would cease with your own concern in 
 the affair," said Arthur Gride. "That's 
 kind of you to ask. Oh dear, how 
 very kind of you ! Why, supposing I 
 had a knowledge of some pi- 
 scine little property very little to 
 which this pretty chick was entitled ; 
 which nobody does or can know of at 
 this time, but which her husband 
 could sweep into his pouch, if he knew 
 :is much as I do, would that account 
 for " 
 
 " For the whole proceeding," re- 
 joined Ralph, abruptly. "Now, let 
 mo turn this matter over, and consider 
 what 1 ought to have if 1 should help 
 you to success." 
 
 " But don't be hard," cried old 
 Arthur, raising his hands with an 
 imploring gesture, and speaking in a 
 tremulous voice. " Don't be too hard 
 upon me. It's a very small property, 
 it is indeed. Say the ten shillings, 
 and we '11 close the bargain. It 's 
 more than I ought to give, but you 're 
 so kind shall we say the ten ? Do 
 now, do." 
 
 Ralph took no notice of these sup- 
 plications, but sat for three or four 
 minutes in a brown study, looking 
 thoughtfully at the person from whom 
 they proceeded. After sufficient cogi- 
 tation he broke silence, and it certainly 
 
 could not be objected that he used any 
 needless circumlocution, or failed to 
 speak directly to the purpose. 
 
 " If you married this girl without 
 me," said Ralph, " you must pay my 
 debt in full, because you couldn't sec 
 her father free otherwise. It's plain, 
 then, that I must have the whole- 
 amount, clear of all deduction or in- 
 cumbrance, or I should lose from 
 being honoured with your confidence, 
 instead of gaining by it That 's the 
 first article of the treaty. For the 
 second, I shall stipulate that for my 
 trouble in negotiation and persuasion, 
 and helping you to this fortune, I have 
 five hundred pounds that 's very 
 little, because you have the ripe lips, 
 and the clustering hair, and what not, 
 all to yourself. For the third and last 
 article, I require that you execute a 
 bond to me, this day, binding yourself 
 | in tliu payment of these two sums, 
 before noon of the day of your mar- 
 riage with Madeline Bray. You have 
 told me I can urge and press a point 
 I press this one, and will take nothing 
 less than these terms. Accept them 
 if you like. If not, marry her without 
 me if you can. I shall still get my 
 debt." 
 
 To all entreaties, protestations, and 
 offers of compromise between his own 
 proposals and those which Arthur 
 Gride had first suggested, Ralph was 
 deaf as an adder. He would enter 
 into no further discussion of the sub- 
 ject, and while old Arthur dilated upon 
 the enormity of his demands and pro- 
 posed modifications of them, approach- 
 ing 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. Finding that it 
 was impossible to make any impres- 
 sion upon his stanch friend, Arthur 
 Gride, who had prepared himself for 
 some such result before he came, con- 
 sented with a heavy heart to the pro- 
 posed treaty, and upon the spot filled 
 up the bond required (Ralph kept such 
 instruments handy), after exacting the 
 condition that Mr. Nickleby should 
 accompany him to Brny'g lodgings
 
 372 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 that very hour, and open the negotia- 
 tion at once, should circumstances 
 appear auspicious and favourable to 
 their designs. 
 
 In pursuance of this last under- 
 standing the worthy gentlemen went 
 out together shortly afterwards, and 
 Newman Noggs emerged, bottle in 
 hand, from the cupboard, out of the 
 upper door of which, at the imminent 
 risk of detection, he had more than 
 once thrust his red nose when such 
 parts of the subject were under discus- 
 sion as interested him most. 
 
 " I have no appetite now," said 
 Newman, putting the flask in his 
 pocket. " I've had my dinner." 
 
 Having delivered this observation 
 in a very grievous and doleful tone, 
 Newman reached the door in one 
 long limp, and came back again in 
 another. 
 
 " I don't know who she may be, or 
 what she may be," he said; "but I 
 pity her with all my heart and soul ; 
 and I can't help her, nor can I any of 
 the people against whom a hundred 
 tricks but none so vile as this are 
 plotted every day ! Well, that adds 
 to my pain, but not to theirs. The 
 thing is no worse because I know it, 
 und it tortures me as well as them. 
 Gride and Nickleby ! Good pair for 
 a curricle oh roguery ! roguery ! 
 roguery ! " 
 
 With these reflections, and a very 
 hard knock on the crown of his unfor- 
 tunate hat at each repetition of the 
 last word, Newman Noggs, whose 
 brain was a little muddled by so much 
 of the contents of the pocket-pistol as 
 had found their way there during his 
 recent concealment, went forth to seek 
 such consolation as might be derivable 
 from the beef and greens of some 
 cheap eating-house. 
 
 Meanwhile the two plotters had 
 betaken themselves to the same house 
 whither Nicholas had repaired for the 
 first time but a few mornings before, 
 and having obtained access to Mr. 
 Bray, and found his daughter from 
 home, had, by a train of the most 
 masterly approaches that Ralph's 
 utmost skill could frame, at length 
 
 laid open the real object of their 
 visit. 
 
 There he sits, Mr. Bray," said 
 Ralph, as the invalid,not yet recovered 
 from his surprise, reclined in his chair, 
 looking alternately at him and Arthur 
 Gride. " What if he has had the ill 
 fortune to be one cause of your de- 
 tention 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. Re- 
 paration ! Here is an offer of mar- 
 riage, that many a titled father would 
 leap at, for his child. Mr. Arthur 
 Gride, with the fortune of a prince. 
 Think what a haul it is ! " 
 
 " My daughter, sir," returned 
 Bray, haughtily, "as 7 have brought 
 her up, would be a rich recompense 
 for the largest fortune that a man 
 could bestow in exchange for her 
 hand." 
 
 " Precisely what I told you," said 
 the artful Ralph, turning to his friend, 
 old Arthur. " Precisely what made 
 me consider the thing so fair and easy. 
 There is no obligation on either side. 
 You have money, and Miss Madeline 
 has beauty and worth. She has youth, 
 you have money. She has not money, 
 you have not youth. Tit for tat 
 quits a match of Heaven's own 
 making ! " 
 
 " Matches are made in Heaven, 
 they say," added Arthur Gride, leer- 
 ing hideously at the father-in-law IK- 
 wanted. " If we are married, it will 
 be destinv, according to that." 
 
 " Then think, Mr. Bray," said 
 Ralph, hastily substituting for this 
 argument considerations more nearly 
 allied to earth, "Think what a 
 stake is involved in the acceptance 
 or rejection of these proposals of my 
 friend " 
 
 " How can I accept or reject," in- 
 terrupted Mr. Bray, with an irritable 
 consciousness that it really rested with 
 him to decide. " It is for my daughter 
 to accept or reject ; it is for my 
 daughter. You know that.*' 
 
 "True," said Ralph, emphatically; 
 "but you have still the power to
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 373 
 
 advise ; to state the reasons for and 
 :>. gainst ; 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 I Why should I hint, 
 and beat about the bush ? Do you 
 suppose, like her mother's friends and 
 my enemies a curse upon them all 
 that there is anything in what she has 
 done for me but duty, sir, but duty ? 
 Or do you think that my having been 
 unfortunate is a sufficient reason 
 why our relative positions should be 
 changed, and that she should com- 
 mand and I should obey t Hint a 
 wish, too ! Perhaps you think be- 
 cause you see me in this place and 
 scarcely able to leave this chair with- 
 out assistance, that I am some broken- 
 spirited dependent creature, without 
 the courage or power to do what I 
 may think best for my own child. 
 Still the power to hint a wish ! I 
 hope so ! " 
 
 " Pardon me," returned Ralph, who 
 thoroughly knew his man, and had 
 taken his ground accordingly ; " you 
 do not hear me out. I was about to 
 say, that your hinting a wish even 
 hinting a wish would surely be equi- 
 valent to commanding." 
 
 " Why, of course it would," retorted 
 Mr. Bray, in an exasperated tone. 
 "If you don't happen to have heard 
 of the time, sir, 1 tell you that there 
 was a time, when I carried every 
 point in triumph against her mother's 
 whole family although they had power 
 and wealth on their side by my will 
 alone." 
 
 " Still," rejoined Ralph, as mildly 
 as his nature would allow him, " you 
 have not heard me out. You are a 
 man yet qualified to shine in society, 
 with many years of life before you 
 that is, if you lived in freer air, and 
 under brighter skies, and chose your 
 own companions. Gaiety is your ele- 
 ment, 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 
 
 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, wher- 
 ever it is, and a date perhaps two 
 years hence, perhaps twenty. That 'a 
 all." 
 
 Mr. Bray rested his elbow on the 
 arm of his chair, and shaded his face 
 with his hand. 
 
 " I speak plainly," said Ralph, 
 sitting down beside him, " because I 
 feel strongly. It 's my interest that 
 you should marry your daughter to my 
 friend Gride, because then he sees me 
 paid in part, that is. I don't dis- 
 guise it. I acknowledge it openly. 
 But what interest have you in recom- 
 mending her to such a step ? Keep 
 that in view. She might object, re- 
 monstrate, shed tears, talk of his being 
 too old, and plead that her life would 
 be rendered miserable. But what is it 
 now ? " 
 
 Several slight gestures on the part 
 of the invalid, showed that these argu- 
 ments were no more lost upon him. 
 than the smallest iota of his demeanour 
 was upon Ralph. 
 
 . " What is it now, I say," pursued 
 the wily usurer, "or what has it a 
 chance of being ! If you died, indeed, 
 the people you hate would make lier 
 happy. But can you bear the thought 
 of that ? " 
 
 " No ! " returned Bray, urged by 
 a vindictive impulse he could not 
 repress. 
 
 " I should imagine not, indeed ! " 
 said Ralph, quietly. " If she profits 
 by anybody's death," this was said in a 
 lower tone, " let it be by her husband's 
 don't let her have to look back tc 
 yours, as the event from which to date 
 a happier life. Where is the objec- 
 
 tion I 
 is it? 
 
 Let me hear it stated. What 
 That her suitor is an old man. 
 
 Why, how often do men of family and 
 
 new lease of life transfer you to a I fortune, who haven't your excuse, but 
 new existence. The town rang with j have all the means and superfluities of
 
 374 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 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 Par- 
 liament ! Judge for her, sir, judge 
 for her. You must know best, and she 
 will live to thank you." 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " cried Mr. Bray, 
 suddenly starting up, and covering 
 Ralph's mouth with his trembling 
 hand. " I hear her, at the door ! " 
 
 There was a gleam of conscience in 
 the shame and terror of this hasty 
 action, which, in one short moment, 
 tore the thin covering of sophistry 
 from the cruel design, and laid it bare 
 in all its meanness and heartless de- 
 formity. The father fell into his chair 
 pale and trembling ; Arthur Gride 
 plucked and fumbled at his hat, and 
 durst not raise his eyes from the 
 floor ; even Ralph crouched for the 
 moment like a beaten hound, cowed 
 by the presence of one young innocent 
 girl ! 
 
 The effect was almost as brief as 
 sudden. Ralph was the first to recover 
 himself, and observing Madeline's 
 looks of alarm, entreated the poor girl 
 to be composed, assuring her that 
 there was no cause for fear. 
 
 "A sudden spasm," said Ralph, 
 glancing at Mr. Bray. " He is quite 
 v.-cll 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 amis about 
 her father's neck, and pour forth 
 words of tender sympathy aud 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 out- 
 ward beauties, and were blind to the 
 spirit which reigned within, evinced 
 a fantastic kind of warmth certainly, 
 but not exactly that kind of warmth of 
 feeling which the contemplation of 
 virtue usually inspires. 
 
 " Madeline," said her father, gently 
 disengaging himself, " it was nothing." 
 
 " But you had that spasm yesterday, 
 and it is terrible to see you in such 
 pain. Can I do nothing for you ? " 
 
 " Nothing just now. Here are two 
 gentlemen, Madeline, one of whom 
 you have seen before. She used to 
 say," added Mr. Bray, addressing 
 Arthur Gride, " that the sight of you 
 always made me worse. That was 
 natural, knowing what she did, and 
 only what she did, of our connection 
 and its results. Well, well. Perhaps 
 she may change her mind on that point ; 
 girls have leave to change their minds, 
 you know. You are very tired, my 
 dear." 
 
 " I am not, indeed." 
 
 "Indeed you are. You do. toe 
 much." 
 
 " I wish I could do more." 
 
 " I know you do, but you over-task 
 your strength. This wretched life, my 
 love, of daily labour and fatigue, is 
 more than you can bear, I am sure it 
 is. Poor Madeline ! " 
 
 With these and many more kind 
 words, Mr. Bray drew his daughter to 
 him and kissed her cheek affectionately. 
 Ralph, watching him sharply and 
 closely in the meantime, made his way 
 towards the door, and signed to Gride 
 to follow him. 
 
 "You will communicate with us 
 again ? " said Ralph. 
 
 " Yes, yes," . returned Mr. Bray, 
 hastily thrusting his daughter aside. 
 " In a week. Give jne a week." 
 
 " One week," said Ralph, turning to 
 his- companion, " frpm 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 dear ! 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 withdrew them. After an
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 ineffectual clutch, intended to detain 
 ind carry them to his lips, old 
 Arthur gave his own fingers a mum- 
 bling kiss, anil with many amorous 
 distortions of visage went in pur.-uit 
 of liis friend, who wits by this time in 
 the Bt r 
 
 ' What does he say, what does he 
 say what does the giant say to the 
 pigmy 1 " inquired Arthur Gride, hob- 
 bling Up tO Ralph. 
 
 " What does the pigmy say to the 
 giant ! " rejoined Ralph, elevating his 
 eyebrows and looking down upon lib 
 questioner. 
 
 " He doesn't know what to say," re- 
 plied Arthur Gride. " He hopes and 
 tears. But is she not a dainty morsel I" 
 
 " I have no great taste for beauty," 
 growled Ralph. 
 
 " But I have," rejoined Arthur, rub- 
 bing his hands. "Oh dear! How 
 handsome her eyes looked when she 
 was stooping cVer him such long 
 lashes such delicate fringe ! She 
 she looked at me so soft." 
 
 " Not over-lovir.gly, I think ! " said 
 Ralph. " Did she I " 
 
 " No you think not 1 " 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 con- 
 temptuous frown, and replied with a 
 sneer, and between his teeth 
 
 " Did you mark his telling her she 
 was tired and did too much, and over- 
 tasked 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 '11 change 
 it for her." 
 
 " D'ye think it 's done ? " inquired 
 old Arthur, peering into his compa- 
 nion's face with half-closed eyes. 
 
 " I am sure it 's done," said Ralph. 
 " He is trying to deceive himself, even 
 before our eyes, already making be- 
 lieve 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 '11 be a few more tears of 
 surprise there before long, though of a 
 different kind. Oh ! we may wait 
 with confidence for tliis day week." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 HF.ING FOR TUE BENEFIT OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES, AND POSITIVELY HIS 
 LAST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE. 
 
 IT was with- a very sad and heavy | 
 heart, oppressed by many painful | 
 ideas, that Nicholas retraced his steps 
 eastward and betook himself to the | 
 counting-house of Cheeryble Brothers. 
 Whatever the idle hopes he had sufi'er- 
 cil himself to entertain, whatever the 
 pleasant visions which had sprung up 
 in his mind and grouped themselves 
 round the fair image of Madeline Bray, 
 t'iry were now dispelled, and not a 
 vestige of their gaiety and brightness 
 remained. 
 
 It would be a poor compliment to 
 Nicholas's better nature, and one 
 which he was very far from deserving, 
 
 to insinuate that the solution, ano 
 such a solution, of" the mystery which 
 had seemed to surround Madeline 
 Bray, when he was ignorant even oi 
 her name, had damped his ardour 01 
 cooled the fervour of his admiration 
 If he had regarded her before, witr 
 such a passion as young men attracted 
 by mere beauty and elegance may 
 entertain, he was now conscious ol 
 much deeper and stronger feelings. 
 But, reverence for the truth and purity 
 of her heart, respect for the helpless- 
 ness and loneliness of her situation, 
 sympathy with the trials of one so 
 young and fair, and admiration of her
 
 376 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 great and noble spirit, all seemed to 
 raise her far above his reach, and, 
 while they imparted new depth and 
 dignity to his love, to whisper that it 
 was hopeless. 
 
 " I will keep my word, as I have 
 pledged it to her," said Nicholas, man- 
 fully. " This is no common trust that 
 I have to discharge, and I will perform 
 the double duty that is imposed upon 
 me most scrupulously and strictly. My 
 secret feelings deserve'no consideration 
 in such a case as this, and they shall 
 have none." 
 
 Still, there were the secret feelings 
 in existence just the same, and in 
 secret Nicholas rather encouraged them 
 than otherwise ; reasoning (if he rea- 
 soned at all) that there they could do no 
 harm to anybody but himself, and that 
 if he kept them to himself from a sense 
 of duty, he had an additional right to 
 entertain himself with them as a re- 
 ward for his heroism. 
 
 All these tlioughts, coupled with 
 what he had seen that morning and the 
 anticipation of his next visit, rendered 
 him a very dull and abstracted compa- 
 nion ; so much so, indeed, that Tim 
 Linkinwater suspected he must have 
 made the mistake of a figure some- 
 where, which was preying upon his 
 mind, and seriously conjured him, if 
 such were the case, to make a clean 
 breast and scratch it out, rather than 
 have his whole life embittered by the 
 tortures of remorse. 
 
 But in reply to these considerate 
 representations, and many others both 
 from Tim and Mr. Frank, Nicholas 
 could only be brought to state that he 
 was never merrier in his life ; and so 
 went on all day, and so went towards 
 home at night, still turning over and 
 over again the same subjects, thinking 
 over and over again the same things, 
 and arriving over and over again at the 
 same conclusions. 
 
 In this pensive, wayward, and un- 
 certain state, people are apt to lounge 
 and loiter without knowing why, to 
 read placards on the walls with givat 
 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 ot 
 the actors and actresses who had 
 promised to do honour to some ap- 
 proaching 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 dul- 
 ness, as he prepared to resume hie 
 walk, and there saw announced, in 
 large letters with a large space between 
 each of them, " Positively the last 
 appearance of Mr. Vincent Crummies 
 of Provincial Celebrity ! ! ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Nicholas, turn- 
 ing back again. " It can't be." 
 
 But there it was. In one line by 
 itself was an announcement of the first 
 night of a new melo-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-engage- 
 ment of the unrivalled African Knife- 
 swallower, who had kindly suffered 
 himself to be prevailed upon to forego 
 his country engagements for one week 
 longer; a fourth line announced that 
 Mr. Snittle Timberry, having recovered 
 from his late severe indisposition, 
 would have the honour of appearing 
 that evening ; a fifth line said that 
 there were " Cheers, Tears, and 
 Laughter ! " every night ; a sixth, that 
 that was positively the last appearance 
 of Mr. Vincent Crummies of Provincial 
 Celebrity. 
 
 " Surely it must be the same man," 
 thought Nicholas. " There can't be 
 two Vincent Crummleses." 
 
 The better to settle this question he 
 referred to the bill again, and finding 
 that there was a Baron in the first 
 piece, and that Roberto (his son) was 
 enacted by one Master Crummies, and 
 Spaletro (his nephew) by one Master 
 Percy Crummies thtir last appear- 
 ances and that,incidental to the piece, 
 was a characteristic dance by the cha-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 377 
 
 racters, and a castanet pas seul by the 
 Infant Phenomenon her last appear- 
 ance he no longer entertained any 
 doubt ; and presenting himself at the 
 pt:iL:o door, anfl sending in a scrap of 
 paper with " Mr. Johnson " written 
 thereon in pencil, was presently con- 
 diu-ti'd hy 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 up from before 
 a small dressing-glass, with one very 
 bushy eyebrow stuck on crooked over 
 his left eye, and the fellow eyebrow and 
 the calf of one of his legs in his hand, 
 embraced him cordially ; at the same 
 time observing, that it would do Mrs. 
 C'fumniles's heart good to bid him good- 
 bye before they went. 
 
 " You were always a favourite of 
 hers, Johnson," said Crummies, 
 "always were from the first. I was 
 iltiitc 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 rij;ht. Ah ! 
 J.ilniMiii, what :i woman that is! " 
 
 " I ajn sincerely obliged to her for 
 lirr kindness in this and all other re- 
 spects," said Nicholas. " But where 
 are you going, that you talk about 
 bidding good-bye 1 " 
 
 " Haven't you seen it in the papers 2" 
 said Crummies, with some dignity. 
 
 " No," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " I wonder at that," said the mana- 
 ger. "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 pre- 
 tending that he thought he must have 
 lost it, produced a square inch of news- 
 paper from the pocket of {he panta- 
 loons he wore in private life (which, 
 together with the plain clothes of 
 several other gentlemen, lay scattered 
 about on a kind of dresser in the 
 room),andgaveitto Nicholas to read: 
 
 " The talented Vincent Crummies, 
 long favourably known to fame as a 
 country manager and actor of no ordi- 
 nary 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 particular line of character, or 
 one who, whether as a public or private 
 individual, could carry with him the 
 1 et '.\ i slies of a larger circle of friends 
 Crummies is certain to succeed." 
 
 " Here 's another bit," said Mr 
 Crummies, handing over a still smallei 
 scrap. " This is from the notices tc 
 correspondents, this one." 
 
 Nicholas read it aloud. " ' Philc 
 Dramaticus. Crummies, the country 
 manager and actor, cannot be more 
 than forty-three, or forty-four years ot 
 age. Crummies is NOT a Prussian, hav- 
 ing been born at Chelsea.' Humph ! " 
 said Nicholas, " that 's an odd para- 
 graph." 
 
 " Very," returned Crummies, scratch- 
 ing the side of his nose, and looking at 
 Nicholas with an assumption of great 
 unconcern. " I can't think who puts 
 these things in. / didn't." 
 
 Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, 
 Mr. Crummies shook his head twice or 
 thrice with profound gravity, and re- 
 marking, that he could not for the life 
 of him imagine how the newspapers 
 found out the things they did, folded 
 up the extracts and put them in his 
 pocket again. 
 
 " I am astonished to hear this news,'' 
 said Nicholas. " Going to America ! 
 You had no such thing in contempla- 
 tion when I was with you." 
 
 " No," replied Crummies, "I hadn't 
 then. The fact is, that Mrs. Crummies 
 most extraordinary woman, John- 
 son " here he broke off and whispered 
 something in his ear. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Nicholas, smiling. 
 " The prospect of an addition to your 
 family ? " 
 
 " The seventh addition, Johnson," 
 returned Mr. Crummies, solemnly. " I 
 thought such a child as the Pheno- 
 menon 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 pheno- 
 menon too."
 
 378 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Why, it's pretty sure to be some- 
 thing uncommon, I suppose," 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 de- 
 veloped." 
 
 Expressing himself after these terms, 
 Mr. Crummies put on his other eye- 
 brow, and the calves of his legs, and 
 then put on his legs, which were of a 
 yellowish flesh-colour, and rather soiled 
 about the knees,. from frequent going 
 down upon those joints, in curses, 
 prayers, last struggles, and other 
 strong passages. 
 
 While the ex-manager completed 
 his toilet, he informed Nicholas that 
 as he should have a fair start in 
 America, from the proceeds of a tole- 
 rably good engagement which he had 
 been fortunate enough to obtain, and as 
 he and Mrs. Crummies could scarcely 
 hope to act for ever not being im- 
 mortal, except in the breath of Fame 
 and in a figurative sense he had maile 
 up his mind to settle there perma- 
 'neajbr, in the hope of acquiring some 
 land of his own which would support 
 them in their old age, and which they 
 could afterwards bequeath to their 
 children. Nicholas, having highly 
 commended this resolution, Mr. Crum- 
 mies went on to impart such further 
 intelligence relative to their mutual 
 friends as he thought might prove in- 
 teresting ; informing Nicholas, among 
 other things, that Miss Snevellici was 
 happily married to an affluent young 
 wax-fhandlor who had supplied the 
 theatre with candles, and that Mr. 
 Lillyvick didn't dare to say his soul 
 was his own, such was the tyrannical 
 sway of Mrs. Lillyvick, who reigned 
 paramount and supreme. 
 
 Nicholas responded to this confi- 
 
 dence on the part of Mr. Crummies, 
 by confiding to him his own name, 
 situation, and prospects, and informing 
 him in as few general words as he 
 could, of the circumstances which had 
 led to their first acquaintance. After 
 congratulating him with great hearti- 
 ness on the improved state <>'i hu 
 fortunes, Mr. Crummies gave him tc 
 understand that next morning he and 
 his were to start for Liverpool, where 
 the vessel lay which was to carry them 
 from the shores of England, and that 
 if Nicholas wished to take a last adieu 
 of Mrs. Crummies, he must repair 
 with him that night to a farewell- 
 supper, given hi honour of the family 
 at a neighbouring tavern ; at which 
 Mr. Snittle Timberry would preside, 
 while the honours of the vice-chair 
 would be sustained by the African 
 Swallower. 
 
 The room being by this time very 
 warm and somewhat crowded, in con- 
 sequence of the influx of four gentle- 
 men, who had just killed each other in 
 the piece under representation, Ni- 
 cholas accepted the invitation, and 
 promised to return at the conclusion 
 of the performances ; preferring tho 
 cool air and twilight out of /ioors 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 re- 
 membrance for Mr. Crummies, and 
 having purchased besides a pair ol 
 ear-rings for Mrs. Crummies, a neck- 
 lace for the Phenomenon, and a flaming 
 shirt-pin for each of the young gentle- 
 men, he refreshed himself with a walk ; 
 and returning a little after the ap- 
 pointed timej 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."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 379 
 
 "A very unpleasant line of character, 
 I should think ? " said Nicholas. 
 
 " No, I don't know," replied Mr. 
 Crummies ; " it comes off easily enough, 
 and there's only die face and neck. 
 We had a first-tragedy man in our 
 company once, who, when he played 
 Othello, used to black himself all over. 
 But that's feeling a part and going 
 into it as if you meant it ; it isn't 
 usual more 's the pity." 
 
 Mr. Snittle Timberry now appeared, 
 arm in arm with the African Swallower, 
 and, being introduced to Nicholas, 
 raised his hat half-a-foot, and said he 
 >ud to know him. The Swal- 
 lower 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 signifi- 
 cancy, and drawing his cloak more 
 closely about him, said, " But no matter 
 no matter. Come ! " 
 
 It is observable that when people 
 upon the stage are in any strait in- 
 volving the very last extremity of 
 weakness and exhaustion, they in- 
 variably perform feats of strength re- 
 quiring 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 ap- 
 proach 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 pos- 
 ture-making. And so natural did this 
 sort of performance come to .Mr. 
 Snittle Timberry, that on their way 
 out of the theatre and towards the 
 tavern where the supper was to be 
 holden, he testified the severity of his 
 recent indisposition and its wasting 
 effects upon the nervous system, by a 
 series of gymnastic performances, 
 
 which were the admiration of all 
 witnesses. 
 
 " Why this is indeed a joy I had 
 not looked for ! " said Mrs. Crummies, 
 when Nicholas was presented. 
 
 " Nor I, " replied Nicholas. " It is 
 by a mere chance that I have this op- 
 portunity 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, thrusting forward 
 the Phenomenon in a blue gauze frock, 
 extensively flounced, and trousers of 
 the same ; " and here another and 
 another," presenting the Masters 
 Crummleses. " And how is your friend, 
 the faithful Digby ? " 
 
 " Digby ! " said Nicholas, forgetting 
 at the instant that this had been 
 Smike's theatrical name. " Oh yes. 
 He 's quite what am I saying ? he 
 is very far from well." 
 
 " How ! " exclaimed Mrs. Crum- 
 mies, 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 excuse 
 
 me, I am sure," said Nicholas, checking 
 himself. " I should never speak of 
 this, and neves 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 Phenomenonj 
 and changed the subject ; inwardly 
 cursing his precipitation, and very 
 much wondering what Mrs. Crummies 
 must think of so sudden an explosion. 
 That lady seemed to think very 
 little about it, for the supper being by 
 this time on table, she gave her hand 
 to Nicholas and repaired with a stately 
 step to the left hand of Mr. Snittle 
 Timberry. Nicholas had the honour 
 to support her, and Mr. Crummies was
 
 580 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 placed upon the chairman's right ; the 
 Phenomenon and the Masters Crum- 
 mleses sustained the vice. 
 
 The company amounted in number 
 to some twenty-five or thirty, being 
 composed of such members of the thea- 
 trical profession, then engaged or dis- 
 engaged in London, as were numbered 
 among the most intimate friends of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Crummies. The ladies 
 and gentlemen were pretty equally 
 balanced ; the expenses of the enter- 
 tainment 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 distin- 
 guished party, for independently of the 
 lesser theatrical lights -who clustered 
 on this occasion round Mr. Snittle 
 Timberry, there was a literary gentle- 
 man present who had dramatised in 
 his time two hundred and forty-seven 
 novels as fast as they had come out 
 some of them faster than they had 
 come out and was a literary gentleman 
 in consequence. 
 
 This gentleman sat on the left hand 
 of Nicholas, to whom he was introduced 
 by his friend the African Swallower, 
 from the bottom of the table, witli a 
 high eulogium upon his fame and re- 
 putation. 
 
 " I am happy to know a gentleman 
 of such great distinction," said Nicho- 
 las, politely. 
 
 " Sir," replied the wit, "you're very 
 welcome, I 'm sure. The honour is 
 reciprocal, sir, as I usually say when I 
 dramatise a book. Did you ever hear 
 a definition of fame, sir '. " 
 
 " I have heard several," replied 
 Nicholas, with a smile. " What is 
 yours ! " 
 
 " When I dramatise a book, sir," 
 said the literary gentleman, "that's 
 fame for its author." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " That 's fame, sir," said the literary 
 gentleman. 
 
 " So Richard Turpin,Tom King, and 
 Jerry Abershaw, have handed down to 
 fame the names of those on whom they 
 committed their most impudent rob- 
 beries ?" said Nicholas. 
 
 " I don't know anything about that, 
 sir," answered the literary gentlein;u,. 
 
 " Shakspeare dramatised stories 
 which had previously appeared in 
 print, it is true," observed Nicholas. 
 
 " Meaning Bill, sir ?" said the lite- 
 rary gentleman. " So he did. Bill 
 was an adapter, certainly, so he was 
 and very well he adapted too con- 
 sidering." 
 
 "I was about to say," rejoined Ni- 
 cholas, "that Shakspeare derived some 
 of his plots from old tales and legends 
 in general circulation ; but it seems tc 
 mefthat some of the gentlemen of your 
 craft at the present day, have shot very 
 far beyond him " 
 
 " You 're quite right, sir," inter- 
 rupted the literary gentleman, leaning 
 back in his chair and exercising his 
 toothpick. " Human intellect, sir, has 
 progressed since his time is progress- 
 ingwill progress " 
 
 " Shot beyond him, I mean," re- 
 sumed Nicholas, " in quite another 
 respect, for, whereas he brought within 
 the magic circle of his genius, tradi- 
 tions peculiarly adapted for his pur- 
 pose, and turned familiar things into 
 constellations which should enlighten 
 the world for ages, you drag within 
 the magic circle of your dulness, sub. 
 jects not at all adapted to the purpose? 
 of the stage, and debase as he exalted. 
 For instance, you take the uncompleted 
 books of living authors, fresh from 
 their hands, wet from the press, cut, 
 hack, and carve them to the powers 
 and capacities of your actors, and the 
 capability of your theatres, finish un- 
 finished 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 anticipate his plot all (his 
 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 autho^
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 331 
 
 with the honourable distinction annex- 
 ed, of having perpetrated a hundred 
 other outrages of the same description. 
 Now, show ine 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 genera- 
 tions." 
 
 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 plots of the 
 six new pieces which he had written 
 by contract to introduce the African 
 Knife-swallower in his various un- 
 rivalled performances. This speedily 
 engaged him in an animated conver- 
 sation 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, gradu- 
 ally fell off into a dead silence, while 
 the majority of those present, glanced 
 from time to time at Mr. Snittle Tim- 
 berry, and the bolder spirits did not 
 even hesitate to strike the table with 
 their knuckles, and plainly intimate 
 *Jieir expectations, by uttering such 
 
 encouragements as " Now, Tim," 
 " Wake up, Mr. Chairman," " All 
 charged, sir, and waiting for a toast," 
 and so forth. 
 
 To these remonstrances, Mr. Tim- 
 berry deigned no other rejoinder than 
 striking his chest and gasping for 
 breath, and giving many other indica- 
 tions 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 \\ ith which he was accus- 
 tomed 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 long 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 Crum- 
 mies 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, 
 despite of which that hereic woman 
 insisted upon returning thanks herself, 
 which she did, in a manner and in a 
 speech which has never been surpassed 
 and seldom equalled. It then became 
 the duty of Mr. Snittle Timberry to 
 give the young Crummleses, which ho 
 did ; after which Mr. Vincent Crum- 
 mies, 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
 
 382 
 
 LIFE AND 'ADVENTURES OP 
 
 decent interval, enlivened by musical 
 and other entertainments, Mr. Crum- 
 mies proposed that ornament of the 
 profession, Mr. Snittle 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 Swallcwer graciously per- 
 mitted. The literary gentleman was 
 then about to be drunk, but it being 
 discovered that lie had been drunk 
 for some time in another acceptation 
 of the term, and was then asleep on 
 the stairs, the intention was aban- 
 doned, and the honour transferred to 
 the ladies. Finally, after a very long 
 sitting, Mr. Suittle 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-bye all round and came to Mr. 
 Crummies, he could not but mark the 
 difference between their present sepa- 
 ration and then- parting at Portsmouth. 
 Not a jot of his theatrical manner re- 
 mained ; he put out his hand with an 
 p.ir 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 tlio 
 warmth he honestly felt, appeared 
 thoroughly melted. 
 
 * We were a very happy little com- 
 pany, Johnson," said poor Crummies. 
 " Yon and I never had a word. I 
 shall be very glad to-morrow morn- 
 ing to think that I saw you again, 
 but now I almost wish you hadn't 
 come." 
 
 Nicholas was about to return a 
 cheerful reply, when he was greatly 
 disconcerted by the sudden apparition 
 of Mrs. Grudden, who it seemed had 
 declined to attend the supper in order 
 that she might rise earlier in the 
 morning, and who now burst out of 
 an adjoining bedroom, habited in very 
 extraordinary white robes : and throw- 
 ing her arms about his neck, hugged 
 him with great affection. 
 
 " What ! Are you going too ? " 
 said Nicholas, submitting with as good 
 a grace as if she had been the finest 
 young creature in the world. 
 
 "Going 1 " returned Mrs. Grudden. 
 | " Lord ha' mercy, what do you think 
 I they 'd do without me ? " 
 
 Nicholas submitted to another hug 
 I with even a better grace than before, 
 ! if that were possible, and waving his 
 j hat as cheerfully as he could, took fare- 
 ! well of the Vincent Crummlcses. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 CHRONICLES THE FURTHER PROCEEDINGS OF THE NICKLEBY FAMILY, AND THE 
 SEQUEL OF THE ADVENTURE OF THE GENTLEMAN IN THE SMALL-CLOTHES. 
 
 WHILE Nicholas, absorbed in the 
 one engrossing subject of interest which 
 had recently opened upon him, occu- ' 
 pied his leisure hours with thoughts of 
 Madeline Bray, and, in execution of 
 the commissions which the anxiety of 
 Brother Charles in her behalf imposed 
 upon him, saw her again and again, 
 and each time with greater danger to 
 hia peace of mind and a more weaken- 
 ing effect upon the lofty resolutions he 
 
 had formed, Mrs. Nickleby and Kate 
 continued to live in peace and quiet, 
 agitated by no other cares than those 
 which were connected with certain 
 harassing proceedings taken by Mr. 
 Snawley for the recovery of his sou, 
 and their anxiety for Smike himself, 
 whose health, long upon the wane, 
 began to be so much affected by appre- 
 hension and uncertainty as sometimes 
 to occasion both them and Nicholas
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 333 
 
 considerable uneasiness, and even 
 alarm. 
 
 It was no complaint or murmur on 
 the part of the poor fellow himself that 
 thus disturbed them. Ever eatior to 
 be employed in such slight services as 
 he could render, and always anxious to 
 repay his benefactors with cheerful and 
 happy looks, less friendly eyes might 
 have seen in him no cause for any 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- 
 hausted, to escape their regard and 
 notice. 
 
 There is a dread disease which so 
 prepares its victim, as it were, for 
 death ; which so refines it of its grosser 
 aspect, and throws around familiar 
 looks unearthly indications of the com- 
 ing change a dread disease, in which 
 the struggle between soul and body is 
 so gradual, quiet, and solemn, and the 
 result so sure, tliat day by day, and 
 grain by grain, the mortal part wastes 
 and withers away, so that the spirit 
 grows light and sanguine with its 
 lightening load and feeling immortality 
 at hand, deems it but a new term of 
 mortal life a disease in which death 
 and life are so strangely blended, that 
 death takes the glow and hue of life, 
 *nd life the gaunt and grisly form of 
 death a disease which medicine never 
 lured, wealth warded off, or poverty 
 jould boast exemption from which 
 sometimes moves in giant strides, and 
 sometimes at a tardy sluggish pace, 
 out, slow or quick, is ever sure and 
 certain. 
 
 It was with some faint reference in 
 ?iis own mind to this disorder, though 
 ae 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 
 eflfl it might not be and that was all. 
 
 But he seemed to grow no worse, 
 
 and as it was not difficult to find a 
 reason for these symptoms of illness in 
 the shock and agitation he had recently 
 undergone, Nicholas comforted 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 solici- 
 tude seemed to have no uneasiness or 
 despondency for himself, hut 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 sum- 
 mer evening, or beside the flickering 
 winter's fire but not so often or so 
 sadly then would his thoughts wander 
 back to these old days, and dwell with 
 a pleasant sorrow upon every slight 
 remembrance which they brought 
 crowding home. The little room in 
 which they had so often sat long after 
 it was dark, figuring such happy fu- 
 tures 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 silence 
 but to say how dull it seemed without 
 her the glee with which poor Smike 
 would start from the darkened corner 
 where he used to sit, and hurry to 
 admit her, and the tears they often 
 saw upon his face, half wondering to 
 see them too and he so pleased and 
 happy every little incident, and even 
 slight words and looks of those old 
 days, little heeded then, but well re- 
 membered 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. 
 
 But there were other persons asso- 
 ciated with these recollections, and 
 many changes came about before they 
 had being a necessary reflection for 
 the purposes of these adventures,
 
 384 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 which at once subside into their accus- 
 tomed train, and shunning all flighty 
 anticipations or wayward wanderings, 
 pursue their steady and decorous 
 course. 
 
 If the Brothers Cheeryble, as they 
 found Nicholas worthy of trust and 
 confidence, bestowed upon him every 
 day some new and substantial mark of 
 kindness, they were not less mindful 
 of those who depended on him. Vari- 
 ous little presents to Mrs. Nickleby 
 always of the very things they most 
 required tended in no slight degree 
 to the improvement and embellishment 
 of the cottage. Kate's little store of 
 trinkets became quite dazzling ; and 
 
 for company ! If Brother Charles 
 
 and Brother Ned failed to look in for 
 at least a few minutes every Sunday, 
 or one evening in the week, there was 
 Mr. Tim Linkinwater (who had never 
 made half-a-dozen other acquaintances 
 in all his life, and who took such delight 
 in his new friends as no words can 
 express) constantly coming and going 
 in his evening walks, and stopping to 
 rest ; while Mr. Frank Cheeryble hap- 
 pened, by some strange conjunction of 
 circumstances, to be passing the door 
 on some business or other at least 
 three nights in the week. 
 
 ' ; lie is the most attentive young 
 man / 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 
 culogium for some time, and Kate had 
 sat perfectly silent. 
 
 "Attentive, mama !" rejoined Kate. 
 
 " l!Iess my heart, Kate ! '' cried Mrs. 
 Nickleby, with her wonted sudden- 
 ness, " what a colour you have got ; 
 why, you're quite flushed !" 
 
 " Oh, mama ! what strange things 
 you fancy." 
 
 "It wasn't fancy, Kate, my dear, 
 I'm certain of that." returned her 
 mother. " However, it's gone now at 
 any rate, so it don't much matter 
 whether it was or not. What was it 
 we were talking about ! Oh ! Mr. 
 Frank. I never saw such attention 
 in my life, never." 
 
 " Surely you are not serious," 
 
 returned Kate, colouring again ; and 
 this time beyond all dispute. 
 
 " Not serious ! " returned Mrs. 
 Nickleby ; " why shouldn't I bo 
 serious ? I 'm sure I never was more 
 serious. I will say that his politeness 
 and attention to me is one of the 
 most becoming, gratifying, pleasant 
 things I have seen for a very long 
 time. You don't often meet with such 
 behaviour in young men, and it strikes 
 one more when one does meet with it." 
 
 " Oh ! attention to you, mama," re- 
 joined Kate quickly " oh yes." 
 
 "Dear me, Kate," retorted Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " what an extraordinary 
 girl you are. Was it likely I should 
 be talking of his attention to anybody 
 else ? I declare I'm quite sorry to 
 think he should be in love with a 
 German lady, that I am." 
 
 " He said very positively that it w:is 
 no such thing, mama," returned Kate. 
 "Don't you remember his saving so 
 that very first night he came here \ 
 Besides," she added, in a more gentle 
 tone, " why should tee be sorry if it is 
 the case ? What is it to us, mama ! " 
 
 " Nothing to us, Kate, perhaps," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby emphatically ; "but 
 something to me, I confess. I like 
 English people to be thorough ! 
 people, and not half English and half 
 I don't know what. I shall tell him 
 point-blank next time he comes, that 
 I wihh he would marry one of his 
 own countrywomen ; and see what he 
 Bays to that." 
 
 " Pray don't think of sudi n 
 thing, mama," returned Kate hastily ; 
 "not for the world. Consider how 
 very " 
 
 " Well, my dear, how very what ! " 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, opening her eyes 
 in great astonishment. 
 
 Before Kate had returned any reply, 
 a queer little double-knock announced 
 that Miss La Creevy had called to see 
 them ; and when Miss La Creevy pre- 
 I sented herself, Mrs. Nickleby, thougti 
 stronirly disposed to be argumentativ.- 
 on the previous question. 1' ; 
 about it in a gush of supposes about 
 the coach she had come by ; supposing 
 that the man who drove must have
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 385 
 
 been either tlie man in tlie 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 
 BO doubt they had stopped a long 
 while at the Halfway House, coming 
 down ; or that perhaps being full, they 
 had come straight on ; and lastly, 
 that they, surely, must have passed ! 
 Nicholas on the road. 
 
 " I saw nothing of him," answered 
 Miss La Creevy ; " but I saw that 
 dear old soul Mr. Linkinwater." 
 
 " Taking his evening walk, and 
 coming on to rest here, before he turns 
 back to the city, I '11 be bound ! " said 
 Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " I should think he was," returned 
 Miss La Creevy ; " especially as young 
 Mr. Cheeryble was with him." 
 
 " Surely that is no reason why Mr. 
 Linkinwater should be coining here," 
 said Kate. 
 
 " Why I think it is, my dear," said 
 Miss La Creevy. " For a young man, 
 Mr. Frank is not a very great walker ; 
 and I observe that he generally falls 
 tired, and requires a good long rest, 
 when he has come as far as this. But 
 where is my friend i " said the little 
 woman, looking about, after having 
 glanced slyly at Kate. "He has 
 not been run away with again, has 
 he?" 
 
 " Ah ! where is Mr. Smike ? " said 
 Mrs. Nickleby ; "he was here this 
 instant." 
 
 Upon further inquiry, it turned out, 
 to the good lady's unbounded astonish- 
 ment, that Smike had, that moment, 
 gone up-stairs to bed. 
 
 "Well now," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 " he is the strangest creature ! Last 
 Tuesday was it Tuesday ? Yes to be 
 sure it was ; you recollect, Kate, my 
 dear, the very last time young Mr. 
 Cheeryble was here last Tuesday 
 night he went off in just the same 
 strange way, at the very moment the 
 knock came to the door. It cannot 
 be that he don't like company, because 
 ne is always fond of people who are 
 fond of Nicholas, and I am sure young 
 Mr. Cheeryble is. And the strangest 
 thing is, that he does not go to bed ; 
 
 No. 56. 
 
 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 tlie dark all the time. Now, 
 upon my word," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 " when I come to think of it, that 's 
 very extraordinary ! " 
 
 As the hearers did not echo this 
 sentiment, but remained profoundly 
 silent, either as not knowing what to 
 say, or as being unwilling to interrupt, 
 Mrs. Nickleby pursued the thread of 
 her discourse after her own fashion. 
 
 " I hope," said that lady, " that this 
 unaccountable conduct may not be the 
 beginning of his taking to his bed and 
 living there all his life, like the Thirsty 
 Woman of Tutbury, or the Cock-lane 
 Ghost, or some of those extraordinary 
 creatures. One of them had some 
 connexion 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 
 Tutbury ! " 
 
 " The Cock-lane Ghost, I believe." 
 
 " Then I have no doubt," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " that it was with him my 
 great-grandfather went to school ; for 
 I know the master of his school was a 
 dissenter, and that would, in a great 
 measure, account for the Cock-lane 
 Ghost's behaving in such an improper 
 manner to the clergyman when he 
 grew up. Ah I Train up a Ghost 
 child, I mean ." 
 
 Any further reflections on this fruit- 
 ful theme, were abruptly cut short by 
 the arrival of Tim Linkinwater and 
 Mr. Frank Cheeryble ; in the hurry of 
 receiving whom, Mrs. Nickleby speedily 
 lost sight of everything else. 
 
 "I am so sorry Nicholas is not at 
 home," said Mrs. Nickleby. "Kate, 
 cc 25
 
 386 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 my dear, you must be both Nicholas 
 and yourself." 
 
 "Miss Nickleby need be but her- 
 self," said Frank. " I if I may ven- 
 ture 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 ; Ni- 
 cholas would be very much vexed, I am 
 sure. Kate, my dear ." 
 
 In obedience to a great number of 
 nods, and winks, and frowns of extra 
 significance, Kate added her entreaties 
 that the visitors would remain ; but it 
 was observable that she addressed 
 them exclusively to Tim Linkinwater ; 
 and there was, besides, a certain em- 
 barrassment in her manner, which, 
 although it was as far from impairing 
 its graceful character as the tinge it 
 communicated to her cheek was from 
 diminishing her beauty, was obvious at 
 a glance even to Mrs. Nickleby. Not 
 being of a very speculative character, 
 however, save under circumstances 
 when her speculations could be put 
 into words and uttered aloud, that 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 that in this, as in all other 
 instances, her conjecture could not fail 
 to be the right one, Mrs. Nickleby 
 dismissed it from her thoughts, and in- 
 wardly congratulated herself on being 
 so shrewd and knowing. 
 
 Nicholas did not come home, nor 
 did Smike re-appear ; but neither cir- 
 cumstance, to say the truth, had any 
 great effect upon the little party, who 
 were all in the best humour possible. 
 Indeed, there sprung up quite a flirta- 
 tion between Miss La Creevy and Tim 
 Linkinwater, who said a thousand 
 jocose and facetious things, and be- 
 came, 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 suc- 
 cess, that Tim was actually induced to 
 declare, that if he could get anybody 
 to have liim, he did'nt know but what 
 he might change his condition even 
 yet. Miss La Creevy earnestly recom- 
 mended a lady she knew, who would 
 exactly suit Mr. Linkinwater, and had 
 a very comfortable property of her 
 own ; but this latter qualification liad 
 very little effect upon Tim, who man- 
 fully protested that fortune would be 
 no object with him, but that true 
 worth and cheerfulness of disposition 
 were what a man should look for in a 
 wife, and that if he had these, he could 
 find money enough for the moderate 
 wants of both. This avowal was con- 
 sidered so honourable to Tim, that 
 neither Mrs. Nickleby nor Miss La 
 Creevy could sufficiently extol it ; and 
 stimulated by their praises, Tim 
 launched out into several other decla- 
 rations also manifesting the disinterest- 
 edness of his heart, and a great devo- 
 tion to the fair sex : which were re- 
 ceived with no less approbation. This 
 was done and said with a comical mix- 
 ture of jest and earnest, and, leading 
 to a great amount of laughter, made 
 them very merry indeed. 
 
 Kate was commonly the life and 
 soul of the conversation at home ; but 
 she was more silent than usual upon 
 this occasion perhaps because Tim 
 and Miss La Creevy engrossed so 
 much of it and, keeping aloof from 
 the talkers, sat at the window watching 
 the shadows as the evening closed in, 
 and enjoying the quiet beauty of the 
 night, which seemed to have scarcely 
 less attractions for Frank, who first 
 lingered near, and then sat down be- 
 side, her. No doubt, there are a great 
 many things to be said appropriate to 
 a summer evening, and no doubt they 
 are best said in a low voice, as being 
 most suitable to the pence and serenity 
 of the hour ; long pauses, too, at times, 
 and then an earnest word or so,and then 
 another interval of silence which, some- 
 how, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 387 
 
 those minor circumstances, with a dis- 
 inclination to have candles introduced 
 and a tendency to confuse hours with 
 minutes, are doubtless mere influences 
 of the time, as many lovely lips can 
 clearly testify. Neither is there the 
 slightest reason why Mrs. Nickleby 
 should have expressed surprise when 
 candles being at length brought in 
 Kate's bright eyes were unable to bear 
 the light which obliged her to avert her 
 face, and even to leave the room for 
 some short time ; because when one has 
 sat in the dark so long, candles are daz- 
 zling, nnd nothing can be more strictly 
 natural than that such results should 
 be produced, as all well-informed young 
 people know. For that matter, old 
 people know it too, or did know it once, 
 but they forget these things sometimes, 
 and more 's the pity. 
 
 The good lady's surprise, however, 
 did not end here. It was greatly in- 
 creaaed when it was discovered that 
 Kate had not the least appetite for 
 supper : a discovery so alarming that 
 there is no knowing in what unaccount- 
 able efforts of oratory Mrs. Nickleby's 
 apprehensions might have been vented, 
 if the general attention had not been 
 attracted, at the moment, by a very 
 strange and uncommon noise, proceed- 
 ing, as the pale and trembling servant- 
 girl affirmed, and as everybody's sense 
 of hearing seemed to affirm also, 
 " right down " the chimney of the 
 adjoining room. 
 
 It being quite plain to the compre- 
 hension of all present that, however 
 extraordinary and improbable it might 
 appear, the noise did nevertheless pro- 
 ceed from the chimney in question ; 
 and the noise (which was a strange 
 compound of various shuffling, sliding, 
 rumbling, and struggling sounds, all 
 muffled by the chimney) still continu- 
 ing, Frank Cheeryble caught up a 
 candle, and Tim Linkinwater the tongs, 
 and they would have very quickly 
 ascertained the cause of this disturb- 
 ance if Mrs. Nickleby had not been 
 taken very faint, and declined being 
 left behind, on tny account This pro- 
 duced a short remonstrance, which ter- 
 minated in their all proceeding to the 
 
 troubled chamber in a body, excepting 
 only Miss La Creevy, who as the ser- 
 vant-girl volunteered a confession of 
 having been subject to fits in her in- 
 fancy remained with her to give the 
 alarm and apply restoratives, in case 
 of extremity. 
 
 Advancing to the door of the mys- 
 terious apartment, they were not a 
 little surprised to hear a human voice, 
 chaunting with a highly elaborated 
 expression of melancholy, and in tones 
 of suffocation which a human voice 
 might have produced from under five 
 or six feather-beds of the best quality, 
 the once popular air of " Has she then 
 failed in her truth, the beautiful maid 
 I adore ! " Nor, on bursting into the 
 room without demanding a parley, 
 was their astonishment lessened by 
 the discovery that these romantic 
 sounds certainly proceeded from the 
 throat of some man up the chimney, 
 of whom nothing was visible but 
 pair of legs, which were dangling 
 above the grate ; apparently feeling, 
 with extreme anxiety, for the top bar 
 whereon to effect a landing. 
 
 A sight so unusual and unbusiness- 
 like as this, completely paralysed Tim 
 Linkinwater, who, after one or two 
 gentle pinches at the stranger's ancles, 
 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 fel- 
 low," said Frank. " No thief would 
 announce his presence thus." 
 
 As he said this, with great indigna- 
 tion, he raised the candle to obtain a 
 better view of the legs, and was dart- 
 ing forward to pull them down with 
 very little ceremony, when Mrs. 
 Nickleby, clasping her hands, uttered 
 a sharp" sound, something between a 
 scream and an exclamation, and de- 
 manded to know whether the myste- 
 rious 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 ! "
 
 o88 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Kate, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, deliberately sitting herself 
 down in a chair with that sort of des- 
 perate 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 encou- 
 ragement 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 wit- 
 ness to ; still at the same time, if I 
 am to be persecuted in this way, if 
 vegetable what Vhis-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 
 nome, I really don't know upon my 
 word I do not know what is to 
 become of me. It 's a very hard case 
 harder than anything I was ever 
 exposed to, before I married your poor 
 dear papa, though I suffered a good 
 deal of annoyance then but that, of 
 course, I expected, and made up my 
 mind for. When I was not nearly so 
 old as you, my dear, there was a 
 young gentleman who sat next us at 
 church, who used, almostevery 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 annoy- 
 ance, because the pew was in a very 
 conspicuous place, and he was several 
 times publicly taken out by the beadle 
 for doing it. But that was nothing to 
 this. This is a great deal worse, and 
 a great deal more embarrassing. I 
 would rather, Kate, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, with great solemnity, 
 and an effusion of tears " I would 
 rather, I declare, have been a pig-faced 
 lady, than be exposed to such a life as 
 this ! " 
 
 Frank Cheeryble and Tim Linkin- 
 water looked, in irrepressible astonish- 
 ment, first at each other and then at 
 Kate, who felt that some explanation 
 was necessary, but who, between her 
 terror at the apparition of the legs, 
 her fear lest their owner should be 
 
 smothered, and her anxiety to give 
 the least ridiculous solution of the 
 mystery that it was capable of bear- 
 ing, was quite unable to utter a single 
 word. 
 
 " He gives me great pain," con- 
 tinued 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 circum- 
 stances, have been quite so easy to 
 hurt a hair of the gentleman's head as 
 Mrs. Nickleby seemed to imagine, 
 inasmuch as that part of his person 
 was some feet up the chimney, which 
 was by no means a wide one. But, as 
 all this time, he had never left off sing- 
 ing about the bankruptcy of the beau- 
 tiful maid in respect of truth, and now 
 began not only to croak very feebly, 
 but to kick with great violence as if 
 respiration became a task of difficulty, 
 Frank Cheeryble, without further hesi- 
 tation, pulled at the shorts -ind 
 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 I hope not 
 oh, pray see if he is hurt" 
 
 " He is not, I assure you," replied 
 Frank, handling the object of his sur- 
 prise, 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 
 conld. 
 
 "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 opportunity 
 | of secreting himself here." 
 
 ' Kate," interposed Mrs. Nickleby
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 389 
 
 with severe dignity, u I am surprised 
 at you." 
 
 " Dear mamma " Kate gently re- 
 monstrated. 
 
 " I am surprised at you," repeated 
 Mrs. Nickleby ; " upon my word, 
 Kate, I am quite astonished that you 
 should join the persecutors of this un- 
 fortunate gentleman, when you know 
 very well that they have the basest 
 designs upon his property, and that 
 that is the whole secret of it. It 
 would be much kinder of you, Kate, 
 to ask Mr. Linkinwater or Mr. 
 Cheeryble to interfere in his behalf, 
 and see him righted. You ought not 
 to allow your feelings to influence 
 you ; it's not right very far from it. 
 What should my feelings be, do you 
 suppose } If anybody ought to be in- 
 dignant, who is it I I, of course, and 
 very properly so. Still, at the' same 
 time, I wouldn't commit such an injus- 
 tice for the world. No," continued 
 Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, 
 and looking another way with a kind 
 of bashful stateliness ; " this gentle- 
 man will understand me when I tell 
 him that I repeat the answer I gave 
 him the other day, that I always will 
 repeat it, though I do believe him to 
 be sincere when I find him placing 
 himself in such dreadful situations on 
 my account and that I request him 
 to have the goodness to go away 
 directly, or it will bo impossible to 
 keep his behaviour a secret from my 
 son Nicholas. I am obliged to him, 
 very much obliged to him, but I can- 
 not listen to his addresses for a 
 moment. It 's quite impossible." 
 
 While this address was in course of 
 delivery, the old gentleman, with his 
 nose and cheeks embellished with 
 large patches of soot, sat upon the 
 ground with his arms folded, eyeing 
 the spectators in profound silence, 
 and with a very majestic demean- 
 our, lie did not appear to take the 
 smallest notice of what Mrs. Nick- 
 leby said, but when she ceased to 
 speak he honoured her with a long 
 stare, and inquired if she had quite 
 finished. 
 
 " I have nothing more to say," re- 
 
 plied that lady modestly. "I really 
 cannot say anything more." 
 
 " Very good," said the old gentle- 
 man, raising his voice, " then bring in 
 the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, 
 and a corkscrew." 
 
 Nobody executing this order, the 
 old gentleman, after a short pause, 
 raised his voice again and demanded 
 a thunder sandwich. This article not 
 being forthcoming either, he requested 
 to be served with a fricassee of boot- 
 tops and 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 saw nothing whatever 
 in all this, unless, indeed, it were a 
 slight degree of eccentricity. She 
 might have remained impressed with 
 these opinions dowu to the latest mo- 
 ment of her life, but for a slight train 
 of circumstances, which, trivial as they 
 were, altered the whole complexion of 
 tin case. 
 
 It happened that Miss La Creevy, 
 finding her patient in no very threat- 
 ening condition, and being strongly 
 impelled by curiosity to see what was 
 going forward, bustled into the room 
 while the old gentleman was in the 
 very act of bellowing. It happened, 
 too, that the instant the old gentleman 
 saw her, he stopped short, skipped 
 suddenly on his feet, and fell to kiss- 
 ing his hand violently : a change of 
 demeanour which almost terrified the 
 little portrait-painter out of her senses, 
 and caused her to retreat behind Tim 
 Linkinwater with the utmost expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 " Aha ! " cried tho old gentleman, 
 folding his hands, and squeezing them 
 with great force against each other. 
 " I see her now ; I sco her now ! My 
 love, my life, my bride, my peerless 
 beauty. She is come at last at last 
 and all is gas and gaiters ! " 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby looked rather discon- 
 certed for a moment, but immediately 
 recovering, nodded to Miss La Creevy 
 and the other spectators several times,
 
 390 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 gen- 
 tleman, laying his hand upon his 
 heart. " Cormoran and Blunderbore ! 
 She is come ! All the wealth I have 
 is hers if she will take me for her 
 slave. Where are grace, beauty, and 
 blandishments, like those ? In the 
 Empress of Madagascar ? No. In the 
 Queen of Diamonds? No. In Mrs. 
 Rowland, who every morning bathes 
 in Kalydor for nothing ? No. Melt 
 all these down into one, with the three 
 Graces, the nine Muses, and fourteen 
 biscuit-bakers' daughters from Oxford- 
 street, and make a woman half as 
 lovely. Pho ! I defy you." 
 
 After uttering this rhapsody, the 
 old gentleman snapped his fingers 
 twenty or thirty times, and then sub- 
 sided into an ecstatic contemplation 
 of Miss La Creevy's charms. This 
 affording Mrs. Nickleby a favourable 
 opportunity of explanation, she went 
 about it straight. 
 
 " I am sure," said the worthy lady, 
 with a prefatory cough, "that it's a 
 great relief, under such trying circum- 
 stances as these, to have anybody else 
 mistaken for me a very great relief ; 
 and it 'a a circumstance that never 
 occurred before, although I have se- 
 veral times been mistaken for my 
 daughter Kate. I have no doubt the 
 people were very foolish, and perhaps 
 ought to have known better, but still 
 they did take me for her, and of course 
 that was no fault of mine and it would 
 be very hard indeed if I was to be 
 made responsible for it. However, in 
 this instance, of course, I must feel 
 that I should do exceedingly wrong if 
 I suffered anybody especially 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 impertinent person 
 was niece to the Council of Paving- 
 stones, and that I do beg and intreat 
 of him to go quietly away, if it 'a only 
 
 for" here Mrs. Nickleby simpered 
 and hesitated "for my sake." 
 
 It might have been expected that 
 the old gentleman would have been 
 penetrated to the heart by the delicacy 
 and condescension of this appeal, and 
 that he would at least have returned a 
 courteous and suitable reply. What, 
 then, was the shock which Mrs. Nick- 
 leby received, when, accosting her in 
 the most unmistakeable manner, he 
 replied in a loud and sonorous voice 
 "A vaunt Cat ! " 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Mrs. Nickleby, in a 
 faint tone. 
 
 " Cat ! " repeated the old gentleman. 
 "Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby, 
 Brindle Whoosh ! " with which last 
 sound, uttered in a hissing manner 
 between his teeth, the old gentleman 
 swung his arms violently round and 
 round, and at the same time alternately 
 advanced on Mrs. Nickleby, and re- 
 treated from her, in that species of 
 savage dance with which boys on 
 market-days may be seen to frighten 
 pigs, sheep, and other animals, when 
 they give out obstinate indications of 
 turning down a wrong street. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby wasted no words, 
 but uttered an exclamation of horror 
 and surprise, and immediately fainted 
 away. 
 
 " I '11 attend to mamma," said Kate, 
 hastily ; " I am not at all frightened . 
 But pray take him away ; pray take 
 him away !" 
 
 Frank was not at all confident of his 
 power of complying with this request, 
 until he bethought himself of the stra- 
 tagem of sending Miss La Creevy on a 
 few paces in advance, and urging the 
 old gentleman to follow her. It suc- 
 ceeded to a miracle ; and he went away 
 in a rapture of admiration, strongly 
 guarded by Tim Lin kin water 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 / 
 am the unhappy cause."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 391 
 
 " Toil, the cause !" said Kate, greatly 
 astonished. 
 
 " I, my love," replied Mrs. Nickleby, 
 with a desperate calmness. " You saw 
 what he was the other day ; you see 
 what he is now. I told your brother, 
 weeks and weeks ago, Kate, that I 
 hoped a disappointment might not be 
 too much for him. You see what a 
 wreck he is. Making allowance for 
 his being a little flighty, you know how 
 rationally, and sensibly,and honourably 
 he talked, when we saw him in the 
 garden. You have heard the dreadful 
 nonsense he has been guilty of, this 
 night, and the manner in which he has 
 gone on with that poor unfortunate 
 little old maid. Can anybody doubt 
 how all this lias been brought about ! " 
 
 " I should scarcely think they could," 
 said Kate mildly. 
 
 " / should scarcely think so, either," 
 rejoined her mother. " Well ! if I am 
 the unfortunate cause of this, I have 
 the satisfaction of knowing that I am 
 not to blame. I told Nicholas I said 
 to him, ' Nicholas, my dear, we should 
 be very careful how we proceed.' He 
 would scarcely hear me. If the matter 
 had only been properly taken up at 
 
 first, as I wished it to be . But 
 
 yon are both of you so like your poor 
 papa. However, I have my consola- 
 tion, and that should be enough forme !" 
 
 Washing her hands, thus, of all re- 
 sponsibility under this head, past, pre- 
 sent, or to come, Mrs. Nickleby kindly 
 vlded that she hoped her children 
 might never have greater cause to 
 reproach themselves than she hod, 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 1iad been making merry 
 with some friends, wholly ignorant of 
 his absence. 
 
 Quiet being again restored, a deli- 
 cious 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 depart, the ladies 
 
 were left alone, though not without 
 many offers on the part of Frank to 
 remain until Nicholas arrived, no 
 matter what hour of the night it might 
 be, if, after the late neighbourly irrup- 
 tion, they entertained the least fear of 
 being left to themselves. As their 
 freedom from all further apprehension, 
 however, left no pretext for his insisting 
 on mounting guard, he was obliged to 
 abandon the citadel, and to retire with 
 the trusty Tim. 
 
 Nearly three hours of silence passed 
 away. Kate blushed to find, when 
 Nicholas returned, how long she had 
 been sitting alone, occupied with her 
 own thoughts. 
 
 " I really thought it had not been 
 half an hour," she said. 
 
 " They must have been pleasant 
 thoughts, Kate," rejoined Nicholas 
 gaily, "to make time pass away liko 
 that. What were they now 1" 
 
 Kate was confused ; she toyed with 
 some trifle on the table looked up and 
 smiled looked down aud dropped a 
 tear. 
 
 " Why, Kate," sair^ Nicholas, draw- 
 ing his sister towards him and kissing 
 her, " let me see your face. No ! Ah I 
 that was but a glimpse ; tliat 's scarcely 
 fair. A longer look than that, Kate. 
 Come and I '11 read your thoughts 
 for you." 
 
 There was something in this pro- 
 position, albeit it was said without the 
 slightest consciousness or application, 
 which so alarmed his sister, that Ni- 
 cholas 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 subject 
 also, Kate seemed to speak with some 
 reluctance. 
 
 " Poor fellow," said Nicholas, tapping 
 gently at his door, " what can be the 
 cause of all this ! " 
 
 Kate was hanging on her brother's 
 arm. The door being quickly opened, 
 she had not time to disengage herself, 
 before Smike, very pale and haggard, 
 and completely dressed, confronted 
 them.
 
 392 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 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 2" rejoined Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " 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 j 
 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 splendour. 
 Every gaudy colour that fluttered in 
 the air from carriage seat and garish 
 tent top, shone out in its gaudiest 
 hues. Old dingy flags grew new 
 again, faded gilding was re-burnished, 
 stained rotten canvas looked a snowy 
 white, the very beggars' rags were 
 freshened up, and sentiment quite 
 forgot its charity in its fervent admi- 
 ration 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 j 
 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 ex- 
 haustion and infirmity of age, without, 
 like age, the privilege to die. God 
 send that 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 lines of 
 people, on either side of the course, 
 suddenly breaking up and pouring 
 into it, imparted a new live-linos to 
 the scene, which was again all busy 
 movement. Some, hurried eagerly 
 to catch a glimpse of the winning 
 horse; others, darted to and fro, search-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 393 
 
 ing, no less eagerly, for the carriages 
 they had left in quest of better sta- 
 tions. Here, a little knot gathered 
 round a pea and thimble table to 
 watch the plucking of some unhappy 
 greenhorn ; and there, another pro- 
 prietor with his confederates in 
 various disguises one man in spec- 
 tacles, another, with an eye-glass and 
 a stylish hat ; a third, dressed as a 
 fanner well to, do in the world, with 
 liis top-coat over his arm and his 
 flash notes in a large leathern pocket- 
 book ; and all with heavy-handled 
 whips to represent most innocent 
 country fellows who had trotted there 
 on horseback sought, by loud and 
 noisy talk and pretended play, to 
 entrap some unwary customer, while 
 the gentlemen confederates (of more 
 villauous aspect still, in clean linen 
 and good clothes,) betrayed their close 
 interest in the concern by tin- anxious 
 furtive glance they cast on all new 
 comers. These, would bo hanging on 
 tin- outskirts of a wide circle of 
 people assembled round some itine- 
 rant juggler, opposed, in his turn, by 
 a noisy band of music, or the classic 
 game of " King 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 bo unpacked, tempting 
 provisions to be set forth, knives and 
 forks to rattle, cliampagne corks to 
 fly, eyes to brighten that were not 
 dull before, and pickpockets to count 
 their gains during the last heat. The 
 attention so recently strained on one 
 object of interest, was now divided 
 among a hundred ; and, look where you 
 would, there was a motley assemblage 
 of feasting, laughing, talking, begging, 
 gambling, and mummery. 
 
 Of the gambling-booths there was a 
 plentiful show, flourishing in all the 
 splendour of carpeted ground, striped 
 hangings, crimson cloth, pinnacled 
 roofs, geranium pots, and livery ser- 
 vants. There were the Stranger's 
 
 club-house, the Athenceum club-house, 
 the Hampton club-house, the Saint 
 James's club-house, and half-a-mile of 
 club-houses to play in; and there were 
 rouge-et-noir, French hazard, and La 
 Mcrveilk, to play at. It is into one of 
 these booths that our story takes ita 
 way. 
 
 Fitted up with three tables for the 
 purposes of play, and crowded with 
 players and lookers on, it was 
 although the largest place of the kind 
 upon the course intensely hot, 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 
 lor.g 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-liko 
 sedateuess which showed that they 
 were used to it, and had been playing 
 all day, and most probably all the day 
 before, there was no very distinctive 
 character about the players, who 
 were chiefly young men apparently 
 attracted by curiosity, or staking 
 small sums as part of the amusement 
 of the day, with no very great interest 
 in winning or losing. There were 
 two persons present, however, who, 
 as peculiarly good specimens of a 
 class, deserve a passing notice. 
 
 Of these, one was a man of six or 
 eight and fifty, who sat on a chair 
 near one of the entrances of the booth, 
 with his hands folded on the top of 
 his stick, and his chin appearing above 
 them. He was a tall, fat, long-bodied 
 man, buttoned up to the throat in a 
 light green coat, which made his body 
 look still longer than it was : 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 par- 
 ticle of excitement in his composition. 
 He exhibited no indication of weari- 
 ness, nor, to a casual observer, of 
 interest either. There he sat, quite
 
 394 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 still and collected. Sometimes, but 
 very rarely, he nodded to some pass- 
 ing face, or beckoned to a waiter to 
 obey a call from one of the tables. 
 The next instant he subsided into his 
 old state. He might have been some 
 profoundly deaf old gentleman, who 
 had come in to take a rest, or he 
 might have been patiently waiting for 
 a friend, without the least conscious- 
 ness of anybody's presence, or fixed 
 in a trance, or under the influence of 
 opium. People turned round and 
 looked at him ; he made no gesture, 
 caught nobody's eye, let them pass 
 away, and others come on and be 
 succeeded by others, and took no 
 notice. When he did move, it 
 seemed wonderful how he could have 
 seen anything to occasion it. And so, 
 in truth, it was. But there was not 
 a face that passed in or out, which this 
 man failed to see ; not a gesture at any 
 one of the three tables that was lost 
 upon him ; not a word, spoken by the 
 bankers, but reached his ear ; not a 
 winner or loser he could not have 
 marked ; and he was the proprietor 
 of the place. 
 
 The other, presided over the rouge- 
 et-noir table. He was probably some 
 ten years younger, and was a plump, 
 paunchy, sturdy-looking fellow, with 
 his under lip a little pursed, from a 
 habit of counting money inwardly as 
 he paid it, but with no decidedly bad 
 expression in his face, which was 
 rather an honest and jolly one than 
 otherwise. He wore no coat, the 
 weather being hot, and stood behind 
 the table with a huge mound of crowns 
 and half-crowns before him, and a 
 cash-box for notes. This game was 
 constantly playing. Perhaps twenty 
 people would be staking at the same 
 time. This man had to roll the ball, 
 to watch the stakes as they were laid 
 down, to gather them off the colour 
 which lost, to pay those who won, to 
 do it all with the utmost dispatch, to 
 roll the ball again, and to keep this 
 game perpetually alive. He did it all 
 with a rapidity absolutely marvellous ; 
 never hesitating, never making a mis- 
 take, never stopping, and never ceasing 
 
 to repeat such unconnected phrases 
 as the following, which, partly from 
 habit, and partly to have something 
 appropriate and business-like to say, 
 he constantly poured out with the same 
 monotonous emphasis, and in nearly 
 the same order, all day long : 
 
 " Rooge-a-nore from Paris ! Gentle- 
 men, make your game and back your 
 own opinions any time while the ball 
 rolls rooge-a-nore from Paris gentle- 
 men, 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 '11 pay you directly two there, half 
 a pound there, three there and one 
 there gentlemen, the ball 's a rolling 
 any time, sir, while the ball rolls ! 
 the beauty of this game is, that you 
 can double your stakes or put down 
 your money, gentlemen, any time while 
 the ball rolls black again black 
 wins I never saw such a thing I 
 never did, in all my life, upon my 
 word I never did ; if any gentleman 
 had been backing the black in the last 
 five minutes he must have won five-and- 
 forty pound in four rolls of the ball, he 
 must indeed Gentlemen, we 've port, 
 sherry, cigars, and most excellent 
 champagne. Here, wai-ter, bring a 
 bottle of champagne, and let 's have a 
 dozen or fifteen cigars here and let 'a 
 be comfortable, gentlemen and bring 
 some clean glasses any time while 
 the ball rolls ! I lost one hundred and 
 thirty-seven pound yesterday, gentle- 
 men, at one roll of the ball, I did 
 indeed ! how do you do, sir," (recog- 
 nising some knowing gentleman with- 
 out 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 ! "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 305 
 
 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 respect- 
 fully ; at the same time, directing, by a 
 look, the attention of a man beside him 
 to the tallest figure in the group, in 
 recognition of whom the proprietor 
 pulled off his hat. This was Sir Mul- 
 berry Hawk, with whom were his 
 friend and pupil, and a small train of 
 gentlemanly-dressed men, of charac- 
 ters more doubtful than obscure. 
 
 The proprietor, in a low voice, bade 
 Sir Mulberry good day. Sir Mul- 
 berry, in the same tone, bade the pro- 
 prietor go to the devil, and turned 
 to speak with his friends. 
 
 There was evidently an irritable 
 consciousness about him that he was an 
 object of curiosity, on this first occasion 
 of showing himself in public after the 
 accident that had befallen him ; and it 
 was easy to perceive that he appeared 
 on the race-course, that day. more in 
 the hope of meeting with a great many 
 people who knew him, and so getting 
 over as much as possible of the annoy- 
 ance at once, than with any purpose 
 of enjoying the sport. There yet 
 remained a slight scar upon his face, 
 and whenever he was recognised, as 
 he was almost every minute by people 
 sauntering in and out, he made a rest- 
 less effort to conceal it with his glove : 
 showing how keenly he felt the dis- 
 grace he had undergone. 
 
 "Ah ! Hawk," said one very sprucely- 
 dressed personage in a Newmarket 
 coat, a choice neckerchief, and all 
 other accessories of the most unex- 
 ceptionable kind. " How d 'ye do, old 
 fellow ? " 
 
 This was a rival trainer of young 
 noblemen and gentlemen, and the 
 person of all others whom Sir Mul- 
 berry 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'sright/'said the other. " How 
 
 d 'ye do, Verisopht ? He 's a little 
 pulled down, our friend here rather 
 out of condition still, hey ! " 
 
 It should be observed that the gen- 
 tleman had very white teeth, and that 
 when there was no excuse for laugh- 
 ing, he generally finished with the 
 same monosyllabic, which he uttered 
 so as to display them. 
 
 " He 's in very good condition ; 
 there 's nothing the matter with him," 
 said the young man carelessly. 
 
 " Upon my soul I 'm glad to hear 
 it," rejoined the other. " Have you 
 just returned from Brussels ? " 
 
 " We only reached town late last 
 night," said Lord Frederick. Sir 
 Mulberry turned away to speak to one 
 of his own party, and feigned not to 
 hear. 
 
 "Now, upon my life," said the 
 friend, affecting to speak in a whisper, 
 " it 's an uncommonly bold and game 
 thing in Hawk to show lu'raself so 
 soon. I say it advisedly ; there 's a 
 vast deal of courage in it. You see 
 he lias just rusticated long enough to 
 excite curiosity, and not long enough 
 for men to have forgotten that deuced 
 unpleasant by the bye you know 
 the rights of the affair, of course ? 
 Why did you never give those con- 
 founded papers the lie i I seldom read 
 the papers, but I looked in the papers 
 for that, and may I be " 
 
 " Look in the papers," interrupted 
 Sir Mulberry, turning suddenly round 
 " to-morrow no, next day, will 
 you ? " 
 
 "Upon my life, my dear fellow, I 
 seldom or never read the papers," said 
 the other, shrugging his shoulders, 
 " but I will, at your recommendation. 
 What shall I look for 1 " 
 
 " Good day," said Sir Mulberry, 
 turning abruptly on his heel, and 
 drawing his pupil with him. Falling, 
 again, into the loitering careless pace 
 at which they had entered, they lounged 
 out, arm in arm. 
 
 " I won't give him a case of murder 
 to read," muttered Sir Mulberry with 
 an oath; "but it shall be something 
 very near it, if whip-cord cuts and 
 bludgeons bruise."
 
 396 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 His companion said nothing, but 
 there was something in his manner 
 which galled Sir Mulberry to add, with 
 nearly as much ferocity as if his friend 
 liad been Nicholas himself, 
 
 ft l sent Jenkins to old Nickleby 
 }>efore eight o'clock this morning. 
 He 'a a staunch one; he was back 
 with me before the messenger. I 
 had it all from him in the first five 
 minutes. I know where this hound 
 is to be met with time and place 
 both. But there 's no need to talk ; 
 to-morrow will soon be here." 
 
 " And wha-at 's to be done to-mor- 
 row ? " inquired Lord Frederick. 
 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk honoured him 
 with an angry glance, but condescended 
 to return no verbal answer to this in- 
 quiry. Both walked sullenly on, as 
 though their thoughts were busily 
 occupied, until they were quite clear 
 of the crowd, and almost alone, when 
 Sir Mulberry wheeled round to return. 
 
 " Stop," said his companion, " I 
 want to speak to you in earnest. 
 Don't turn back. Let us walk here, a 
 few minutes." 
 
 " What have you to say to me, that 
 you could not say yonder as well as 
 here ? " returned his Mentor, disen- 
 gaging his arm. 
 
 " Hawk," rejoined the other, u tell 
 me ; I must know " 
 
 " Must know," interrupted the other 
 disdainfully. "Whew! Go on. If 
 you must know, of course there 's no 
 escape for me. Must know ! " 
 
 " Must ask then," returned Lord 
 Frederick, " and must press you for a 
 plain and straight-forward answer 
 is what you have just said, only a mere 
 whim of the moment, occasioned by 
 your being out of humour and irri- 
 tated, or is it your serious intention, 
 and one that you have actually con- 
 templated \ " 
 
 " Why, don't you remember what 
 passed on the subject one night, when 
 I was laid up with a broken limb ? " 
 said Sir Mulberry, with a sneer. 
 
 Perfectly well." 
 
 " Then take that for an answer, in 
 the devil's name," replied Sir Mul- 
 berry, " and ask me for no other " 
 
 Such was the ascendancy he had 
 acquired over his dupe, and such the 
 latter's general habit of submission, 
 that, for the moment, the young man 
 seemed half-afraid to pursue the sub- 
 ject. He soon* overcame this feeling, 
 however, if it had restrained him at 
 all, and retorted angrily : 
 
 " If I remember what passed at the 
 tune you speak of, I expressed a strong 
 opinion on this subject, and said that, 
 with my knowledge or consent, you 
 never should do what you threaten 
 now." 
 
 " Will you prevent me ? " asked Sir 
 Mulberry, with a laugh. 
 
 " Ye-es, if I can ; " returned the 
 other, promptly. 
 
 " A very proper saving clause, that 
 last," said Sir Mulberry ; " and one 
 you stand in need of. Oh ! look to 
 your own business, and leave me to 
 look to mine." 
 
 " This is mine," retorted Lord 
 Frederick. u I make it mine; I will 
 make it mine. It 's mine already. I 
 am more compromised than I should 
 be, as it is." 
 
 " Do as you please, and what you 
 please, for yourself," said Sir Mul- 
 berry, affecting an easy good humour. 
 " Surely that must content you ! Do 
 nothing for me ; that 's all. I advise 
 no man to interfere in proceedings 
 that I choose to take. I am sure 
 you know me better than to do so. 
 The fact is, I see, you mean to offer 
 me advice. It is well meant, 'I have 
 no doubt, but I reject it. Now, if you 
 please, we will return to the carriage. 
 I find no entertainment here, but quite 
 the reverse. If we prolonged 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 Mul- 
 berry Hawk yawned, and very leisurely 
 turned back. 
 
 There was not a little tact and know- 
 ledge 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. He knew, that the moment he
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 397 
 
 became violent, the young man would 
 become violent too. He had, many 
 times, been enabled to strengthen his 
 influence, when any circumstance had 
 occurred to weaken it, by adopting this 
 cool and laconic style ; and he trusted 
 to it now, with very little doubt of its 
 entire success. 
 
 But while he did this, and wore the 
 most careless and indifferent deport- 
 ment that his practised arts enabled 
 him to assume, he inwardly resolved, 
 not only to visit all the mortification 
 of being compelled to suppress his 
 feelings, with additional severity upon 
 Nicholas, but also to make the young 
 lord pay dearly for it, one day, in some 
 shape or other. So long as he had 
 been a passive instrument in his hands, 
 Sir Mulberry had regarded him with 
 no other feeling than contempt ; but, 
 now, that he presumed to avow opinions 
 in opposition to his, and even to turn 
 upon him with a lofty tone and an air 
 of superiority, he began to hate him. 
 Conscious that, in the vilest and most 
 worthless sense of .the term, he was 
 dependent upon the weak young lord, 
 Sir Mulberry could the less brook 
 humiliation at his hands ; and when he 
 began to dislike him he measured his 
 dislike as men often do by the ex- 
 tent of the injuries he had inflicted 
 npon its object When it is remem- 
 oered 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, ho began to hate him 
 cordially. 
 
 On the other hand, the young lord 
 having thought which he very sel- 
 dom did about anything and seri- 
 ously too, upon the affair with Ni- 
 cholas, and the circumstances which 
 led to it, had arrived at a manly 
 and honest conclusion. Sir .Mul- 
 berry's coarse and insulting be- 
 haviour on the occasion in question 
 had produced a deep impression on 
 his mind ; a strong suspicion of his 
 having led him on to pursue Miss 
 Nickleby for purposes of his own, had 
 been lurking there, for some time ; he 
 was reallv 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 circum- 
 stance to kindle his wrath against Sir 
 Mulberry. This, his disdainful and 
 insolent tone in their recent conversa- 
 tion (the only one they had held upon 
 the subject since the period to which 
 Sir Mulberry referred) effected. 
 
 Thus, they rejoined their friends : 
 each with causes of dislike against the 
 other, rankling in his breast : and the 
 young man haunted, besides, with 
 thoughts of the vindictive retaliation 
 which was threatened against Nicholas, 
 and the determination to prevent it 
 by some strong step, if possible. But 
 this was not all. Sir Mulberry, con- 
 ceiving that he had silenced him 
 effectually, could not suppress his 
 triumph, or forbear from following up 
 what lie 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 was a great point for Sir Mul- 
 berry to show them that he had not 
 lost his influence. At first, the young 
 lord contented himself witli a silent 
 determination 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 been a source 
 of amusement to him. This did not 
 serve him ; for, at such bantering or 
 retort as suited the company, he was 
 no match for Sir Mulberry. Still, no 
 violent rupture took place. They 
 returned to town ; Messrs. Pyke and 
 Pluck and other gentlemen frequently 
 protesting on the way thither, that Sir 
 Mulberry had never been in such tip- 
 top spirits in all his life. 
 
 They dined together, sumptuously. 
 The wine flowed freely, as indeed it 
 had done all day. Sir Mulberry drank
 
 398 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 to recompense himself for his recent 
 abstinence ; the young lord, to drown 
 his indignation ; and the remainder of 
 the party, because the wine was of the 
 best and they had nothing to pay. It 
 was nearly midnight when they rushed 
 out, wild, burning with wine, their 
 blood boiling, and their brains on fire, 
 to the gaming-table. 
 
 Here, they encountered another 
 party, mad like themselves. The ex- 
 citement of play, hot rooms, and glar- 
 ing lights, was not calculated to allay 
 the fever of the time. In that giddy 
 whirl of noise and confusion, the men 
 were delirious. Who thought of 
 money, ruin, or the morrow, in the 
 savage intoxication of the moment ? 
 More wine was called for, glass after 
 glass was drained, their parched and 
 scalding mouths were cracked with 
 thirst. Down poured the wine like 
 oil on blazing fire. And still the riot 
 went on. The debauchery gained its 
 height ; glasses were dashed upon the 
 floor, by hands that could not carry 
 them to lips ; oaths were shouted out 
 by lips which could scarcely form the 
 words to vent them in ; drunken 
 losers cursed and roared ; some 
 mounted on the tables, waving bottles 
 above their heads, and bidding de- 
 fiance to the rest ; some danced, some 
 sang, some tore the cards and raved. 
 Tumult and frenzy reigned supreme ; 
 when a noise arose that drowned all 
 others, and two men, seizing each 
 other by the throat, struggled into 
 the middle of the room. 
 
 A dozen voices, until now unheard, 
 called aloud to part them. Those who 
 had kept themselves cool, to win, and 
 who earned their living in such scenes, 
 threw themselves upon the combatants, 
 and, forcing them asunder, dragged 
 them some space apart. 
 
 " Let me go ! " cried Sir Mulberry, 
 in a thick hoarse voice; "he struck 
 me ! Do you hear 1 I say, he struck 
 me. Have I a friend here ! Who is 
 this ? Westwood. Do you hear me 
 say he struck me ! " 
 
 " I hear, I hear," replied one of 
 those who held him. "Come away, 
 for to-night!" 
 
 " I will not, by G " he replied. 
 " 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. " To-night at 
 once here ! " His passion was sc 
 great, that he could not articulate 
 but stood clenching his fist, tearing 
 his hair, and stamping upon the 
 ground. 
 
 " What is this, my lord ? " said one 
 of those who surrounded him. " Have 
 blows passed I " 
 
 " One blow has," was the panting 
 reply. " I struck him I proclaim it 
 to all here ! I struck him, and he 
 knows why. I say, with him, let this 
 quarrel be adjusted now. Captain 
 Adams," said the young lord, looking 
 hurriedly about him, and addressing 
 one of those who had interposed, 
 " Let me speak with you, I beg." 
 
 The person addressed, stepped for- 
 ward, and, taking the young man's 
 arm, they retired together, followed 
 shortly afterwards by Sir Mulberry 
 and his friend. 
 
 It was a profligate haunt, of the 
 worst repute, and not a place in which 
 such an affair was likely to awaken 
 any sympathy for either party, or to 
 call forth any further remonstrance or 
 interposition. Elsewhere, its further 
 progress would have been instantly 
 prevented, and time allowed for sober 
 and cool reflection ; but not there. 
 Disturbed in their orgies, the party 
 broke up ; some, reeled away with 
 looks of tipsy gravity ; others, with- 
 drew, noisily discussing what had just 
 occurred ; the gentlemen of honour 
 who lived upon their winnings re- 
 marked to each other, as they went 
 out, that Hawk was a good shot ; and 
 those who had been most noisy, fell 
 fast asleep upon the sofas, and thought 
 no more about it. 
 
 Meanwhile, the two seconds, as they 
 may be called now, after a long con- 
 ference, each with his principal, met 
 together in another room. Both utterly 
 heartless, both men upon town, both 
 thoroughly initiated in its worst vices,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 S99 
 
 both deeply in debt, both fallen from 
 some higher estate, both addicted to 
 every depravity for which society can 
 find some genteel name and plead its 
 most depraving conventionalities as an 
 excuse, they were naturally gentlemen 
 of most unblemished honour them- 
 selves, and of great nicety concerning 
 the honour of other people. 
 
 These two gentlemen were unusually 
 cheerful, just now ; for the affair was 
 pretty certain to make some noise, 
 and could scarcely fail to enhance 
 their reputations. 
 
 " This is an awkward affair, Adams," 
 said Mr. Westwood, drawing himself 
 up. 
 
 " Very," returned the captain ; " a 
 blow has been struck, and there is but 
 one course, of course." 
 
 " No apology, I suppose ! " said 
 Mr. Westwood. 
 
 " Not a syllable, sir, from my man, 
 if we talk till doomsday," returned 
 the captain. "The original cause of 
 dispute. 1 understand, was some girl or 
 other, to whom your principal applied 
 certain terms, which Lord Frederick, 
 defending the girl, repelled. But this 
 led to a long recrimination upon a 
 great many sore subjects, charges, 
 and counter-charges. Sir Mulberry 
 was sarcastic ; Lord Frederick was 
 excited, and struck him in the heat of 
 provocation, and under circumstances 
 of great aggravation. That blow, 
 unless there is a full retraction on the 
 part of Sir Mulberry, Lord Frederick 
 is ready to justify." 
 
 " There is no more to be said," 
 returned the other, " but to settle the 
 hour and the place of meeting. It 's 
 a responsibility ; but there is a strong 
 feeling to have it over. Do you object 
 to say at sunrise 1 " 
 
 " Sharp work," replied the captain, 
 referring to li is watch ; " however, as 
 this seems to have been a long time 
 breeding, and negotiation is only a 
 waste of words no." 
 
 " Something may possibly be said, 
 out of doors, after what passed in the 
 other room, which renders it desirable 
 that we should be off without delay, 
 and quite clear of town," said Mr. 
 
 Westwood. "What do you say to 
 one of the meadows opposite Twick- 
 enham, by the river-side ?" 
 
 The captain saw no objection. 
 
 " Shall we join company in the 
 avenue of trees which leads from 
 Petersham to Ham House, and settle 
 the exact spot when we arrive there \ " 
 said Mr. Westwood. 
 
 To this, the captain also assented. 
 After a few other preliminaries, 
 equally brief and having settled the 
 road each party should take to avoid 
 suspicion they separated. 
 
 " We shall just have comfortable 
 time, my lord," said the captain, 
 when he had communicated the 
 arrangements, "to call at my rooms 
 for a case of pistols, and then jog 
 coolly down. If you will allow me 
 to dismiss your servant, we'll take 
 my cab ; for yours, perhaps, might be 
 recognised." 
 
 What a contrast, when they reached 
 the street, to the scene they had just 
 left ! It was already daybreak. For 
 the flaring yellow light within, was 
 substituted the clear, bright, glorious 
 morning ; for a hot, close atmosphere, 
 tainted with the smell of expiring 
 lamps, and reeking with the steams of 
 riot and dissipation, the free, fresh, 
 wholesome air. But to the fevered 
 head on which that cool air blew, it 
 seemed to come laden with remorse for 
 time mis-spent and countless oppor- 
 tunities neglected. With throbbing 
 veins and burning skin, eyes wild and 
 heavy, thoughts hurried and disor- 
 dered, he felt as though the light 
 were a reproach, and shrunk involun- 
 tarily from the day as if he were some 
 foul and hideous thing. 
 
 " Shivering ? " said the captain. 
 " You are cold." 
 
 " Rather." 
 
 " It does strike cool, coming out of 
 those hot rooms. Wrap that cloak 
 about you. So, so ; now wo 're off." 
 
 They rattled through the quiet 
 streets, made their call at the cap- 
 tain's lodgings, cleared the town, and 
 emerged upon the open road, without 
 hindrance or molestation. 
 
 Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, every-
 
 400 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 thing looked very beautiful ; the young 
 man scarcely seemed to have noticed 
 them before, though he had passed 
 the same objects a thousand times. 
 There was a peace and serenity upon 
 them all, strangely at variance with 
 the bewilderment and confusion of his 
 own half-sobered thoughts, and yet 
 impressive and welcome. He had no 
 fear upon his mind ; but, as he looked 
 about him, he had less anger ; and 
 though all old delusions, relative to 
 his worthless late companion, were 
 now cleared away, he rather wished 
 he had never known him than thought 
 of its having come to this. 
 
 The past night, the day before, and 
 many other days and nights beside, 
 all mingled themselves up in one unin- 
 telligible and senseless whirl ; he could 
 not separate the transactions of one time 
 from those of another. Now, the noise 
 of the wheels resolved itself into some 
 wild tune in which he could recognise 
 scraps of airs he knew ; now, there 
 was nothing in his ears but a stunning 
 and bewildering sound, like rushing 
 water. But his companion rallied him 
 on being so silent, and they talked and 
 laughed boisterously. When they 
 stopped, he was a little surprised to 
 find himself in the act of smoking ; but, 
 on reflection, he remembered when 
 and where he had taken the cigar. 
 
 They stopped at the avenue gate 
 and alighted, leaving the carriage to 
 the care of the servant, who was a 
 smart fellow, and nearly as well 
 accustomed to such proceedings as 
 hia master. Sir Mulberry and his 
 friend were already there. All four 
 walked, in profound silence, up the 
 aisle of stately elm trees, which, meet- 
 ing far above their heads, formed 
 a long green perspective of gothic 
 arches, terminating, like some old 
 ruin, in the open sky. 
 
 After a pause, and a brief confer- 
 ence between the seconds, they, at 
 length, turned to the right, and taking 
 a track across a little meadow, passed 
 Ham House and came into some fields 
 beyond. In one of these, they stopped. 
 The ground was measured, some usual 
 forms gone through, the two principals 
 
 were placed front to front at the dis- 
 tance agreed upon, and Sir Mulbeiry 
 turned his face towards his young 
 adversary for the first time. He was 
 very pale his eyes were bloodshot, 
 his dress disordered, and his hair 
 dishevelled, all, most probably, the 
 consequences of the previous day 
 and night. For the face, it expressed 
 nothing but violent and evil passions. 
 He shaded his eyes with his hand ; 
 gazed at his opponent, stedfastly, 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, with- 
 out a groan or stagger, fell down dead. 
 
 " He 's gone ! " cried Westwood, 
 who, with the other second, had run 
 up to the body, and fallen on one knee 
 beside it. 
 
 " His blood on his own head," said 
 Sir Mulberry. " He brought this 
 upon himself, and forced it upon me." 
 
 " Captain Adams," cried Westwood, 
 hastily, "I call you to witness that 
 this was fairly done. Hawk, we have 
 not a moment to lose. We must leave 
 tliis place immediately, push for 
 Brighton, and cross to France with all 
 speed. This has been a bad business, 
 and may be worse, if we delay a mo- 
 ment. Adams, consult your own 
 safety, and don't remain here ; the 
 living before 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 
 off in the same direction, to concert 
 measures with his servant for re- 
 moving the body, and securing his own 
 safety likewise. 
 
 So died Lord Frederick Verisopht, 
 by the hand which he had loaded with 
 gifts, and clasped a thousand times ; 
 by the act of him, but for whom, and 
 others like him, be might have lived a
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 101 
 
 happy man, anil died with children's 
 
 L'nUIld llis bed. 
 
 T!i Min came proudly up in all his 
 . i In.- noble river ran its wind- 
 ing course, the leaves quivered and 
 rustled in thi- :iir, the birds poured 
 their cheerful songs from every tree, 
 
 tin- short-lived butterfly fluttered its 
 linle wings; all the light and life of 
 day came on ; and, amidst it all, ami 
 : down the grass whose every 
 bhtdl hurt- twenty tiny lives, lay the 
 dead man, with his stark and rigid 
 face turned upwards to the sky. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 THE PROJECT OF MR. RALPH NICKLKHY AND HIS FRIEND APPROACHING A SUC- 
 MroMiS r.NEXPECTEDLY KNOWN TO ANOTHER PARTY, Mir 
 ADMITTKII JM'> TIIKIIl CONFIDENCE. 
 
 . dismal dark and 
 
 dusty, \\hii-h si OH d to have withered, 
 like himself, and to have grown yellow 
 and shrivelled in hoarding him from 
 the light of day, as he had, in hoard- 
 ing his money, lived Arthur Gride. 
 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 : atte- 
 nuated presses, grown lank and lan- 
 tern-jawed in guarding the treasures 
 they inclosed, and tottering, as though, 
 from constant fearand dread of thieves, 
 shrunk up in dark corners, whence they 
 east no shadows on the ground, and 
 i to hide and cower from obser- 
 vation. A tall grim clock upon the 
 ith 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 
 
 No tir< .-;de couch was there, to invite 
 repose and comfort. Elbow-chairs 
 there \\ere, but they looked uneasy in 
 their minds, cocked" their arms suspi- 
 ciously and timidly, and kept upon 
 their guard. Others, were fantastically 
 i;rim and iraunt, a-, having drawn them- 
 selves up to their utmost height, and 
 put on their fiercest looks to stare all 
 comers out of countenance. Others, 
 again, knocked u;> against their neigh- 
 bours, or leant for support against the 
 
 .No. 57. 
 
 wall somewhat ostentatiously, as if to 
 call all men to witness that they \vei 
 not worth the taking. The dark squan 
 lumbering bedsteads seemed built for 
 restless dreams ; the musty hangings 
 seemed to creep in scanty folds toge- 
 ther, whispering among themselves, 
 when rustled by the wind, their trem- 
 bling knowledge of the tempting wares 
 that lurked within the dark and tight- 
 locked closets. 
 
 From out the most spare and hungry 
 room in all this spare and lnin::.-\ 
 house, there came, one morning, tli 
 tremulous tones of old Gride's voice, 
 as it feebly chirruped forth the fag 
 end of some forgotten song, of which 
 the burden ran 
 
 Ta ran tan too, 
 Throw the old shoe, 
 And may the wedding be lucky ! 
 
 which he repeated, in the same shrill 
 quavering notes, again and again, until 
 a violent fit of coughing obliged him to 
 desist, and to pursue, in silence, tin- 
 occupation upon which he was engaged. 
 
 This occupation was, to take down 
 from the shelves of a worm-eaten ward- 
 robe, a quantity of frowsy garment-, 
 one by one ; to subject each to a careful 
 and minute inspection by holding it up 
 against the light, and after fol 
 with u'rcat exactness, to lay it on one 
 or other of two little heaps beside him. 
 He never took two articles of clothing 
 
 D D 26
 
 LITE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 out together, but always brought them 
 -ugly : and never failed to shut 
 the wardrobe door, and turn the key, 
 between eafh visit to its shelves. 
 
 " The snuff-coloured suit," said 
 Arthur Gride, surveying a threadbare 
 coat, " Did I look well iu suuff-colour I 
 let me think." 
 
 The result of his cogitations ap- 
 peared to be unfavourable, for he 
 folded the garment once more, laid it 
 aside, and mounted on a chair to get 
 down another : chirping while he did 
 o 
 
 Young, loving, and fair, 
 
 Oh what hnppiness there ! 
 
 The wedding is sure to be lucky ! 
 
 " They always put in ' young,' " 
 said old Arthur, " but songs are only 
 written for the sake of rhyme, and 
 this is a silly one that the poor country 
 people sang, when I was a little boy. 
 Though stop young is quite right too 
 it means the bride yes. He, he, 
 he ! It means the bride. Oh dear, 
 that 's good. That 's very good. And 
 true besides quite true ! " 
 
 In the satisfaction of this discovery, 
 he went over the verse again, with 
 increased expression, and a shake or 
 two here and there. He then resumed 
 his employment. 
 
 " The bottle-green," said old Arthur ; 
 " the bottle-green was a famous suit 
 to wear, and I bought it very cheap at 
 a pawnbroker's, and there was he, 
 he, he ! a tarnished shilling in the 
 waistcoat pocket To think that the 
 pawnbroker shouldn't have known 
 there was a shilling in it ! / knew it ! 
 I felt it when I was examining the 
 quality. Oh, what a dull dog ! It w;-.s 
 a lucky suit too, this bottle-green. 
 The very day I put it on first, old 
 Lord M&llowford was burnt to death 
 in his bed, and all the post-obits fell 
 in. I '11 be married in the bottle-green. 
 Peg Peg Sliderskcw 1 '11 wear the 
 bottle-green !" 
 
 This call, loudly repeated twice or 
 thrice at the room door, brought into 
 tlv? apartment a short, thin, weasen, 
 blear-eyed old womr.!i, palsy-stricken 
 and hideously ugly, uho, wiping her 
 shrivelled face upon her dirty apron, 
 
 inquired, in that subdued tone in 
 which deaf people commonly speak : 
 
 " Was that you a calling, or only 
 the clock a striking? My 1, 
 gets so bad, I never know which is 
 which ; but when I hear a noise, I 
 know it must be one of you, because 
 nothing else never stirs in the house." 
 
 " Me, Peg me," said Arthur Gride, 
 tapping himself on the breast to render 
 the reply more intelligible. 
 
 " You, eh I " returned Peg. And 
 what do you want 2 " 
 
 " I '11 be ' married in the bottle- 
 green," cried Arthur Gride. 
 
 " It's a deal too good to be married 
 in, master," rejoined Peg, after a 
 short inspection of the suit. " Haven't 
 you got anything worse than this I " 
 
 " 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 au't becoming enough, Peg," 
 returned her master. 
 
 " Not what enough ? " said Peg. 
 
 " Becoming." 
 
 " Becoming what ? " said Peg 
 sharply. " Not becoming too old to 
 wear I " 
 
 Arthur Gride muttered an impre- 
 cation on his housekeeper's deafness, 
 as he roared in her far : 
 
 ' Not smart enough ! I want to 
 look as well as I can." 
 
 " Look \ " cried Peg. If she 's as 
 handsome as you say she is, she won't 
 look much at you, master, take your 
 oath of that ; :vnd as to how you 
 look yourself pepper-and-salt, bottle- 
 green, sky-blue, or tartan-plaid, will 
 make no difference in you." 
 
 With which consolatory assurance, 
 Peg Sliderskew gathered up the chosen 
 suit, and folding her skinny an 
 the bundle, stood, mouthing, a:. 
 ning, and blinking her water 
 like an uncouth figure in some mon- 
 strous piece of carving. 
 
 " You 're in a funny humrrur, an't 
 you, Peg ? " said Arthur, with not the 
 best possible grace. 
 
 " Why, isn't it enough to 
 me ? " rejoined the old woman. " I
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBV. 
 
 403 
 
 shall, soon enough, be put out, tlmuji. 
 if anybody tries to domineer it over 
 me : and so I give you notice, master. 
 Nobody shall be put over Peg Slider- 
 skew'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 rain ruin ! " 
 
 " Oh dear, dear, I shall never try 
 it," said Arthur Gride, appalled by 
 <he 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 fore-finger. 
 
 "But she can earn money herself, 
 Peg," said Arthur Gride, 
 watching what eliect his communi- 
 cation produced upon the old woman's 
 countenance: "She can draw, paint, 
 work all manner of pretty things for 
 ornamenting stools and chairs : slip- 
 pers, Peg, watch-guards, hair-chains, 
 and a thousand little dainty trifles 
 that I couldn't give you half the names 
 of. Then she can play the piano, (and, 
 what's more, she 's got one,) and sing 
 like a little bird. She Ml be very cheap 
 to dress and keep, Peg ; don't you 
 think fhe will !" 
 
 " If you don't let her make a fool 
 of you, she may," returned !' _r. 
 
 "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 solilorjny. 
 
 " You 're a saying something you 
 don't want me to hear," said 1 
 know yon are." 
 
 Oh dear ! the dcvH 's in this 
 woman," muttered Arthur ; adding 
 with an ugly leer, "I said I trusted 
 everything to you, Peg. That was all." 
 
 " You do that, master, and all your 
 cares are over," said Peg approvingly. 
 
 " II7.cn I do that, Peg Sudcn&ew," 
 thought Arthur Gride, " they will be." 
 
 Although he thought this, very dis- 
 tinctly, he durst not move his lips lest 
 the old woman should detect him. He 
 rvr.i .-remcd half afraid that she might 
 !ia\e r.-ad his thoughts ; for he leered 
 eoaxiiigly 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 '11 like, 
 1 know as I have never given her 
 anything yet, and girls like such atten- 
 tions, you shall polish up a sparkling 
 necklace that I 've got up stairs, and 
 I '11 give it her upon the wedding 
 morning clasp it round her charming 
 little neck myself and take it away 
 again next day. lie, he, he ! lock it 
 up for her, Peg, and lose it. Who '11 
 be made the fool of there, I wonder, to 
 begin with eh Peg ? " 
 
 fin, Sliderskew appeared to approve 
 highly of this ingenious scheme, and 
 expressed her satisfaction by various 
 rat-kings and twitchings of her head 
 and body, which by no means enhanced 
 her charms. These, she prolonged 
 until slic had hobbled to the door, 
 when she exchanged them for a sour 
 malignant look, and twisting her under- 
 jaw from side to side, muttered hearty 
 curses upon the future Mrs. Gride, as 
 she crept slowly down the stairs, and 
 paused for breath at nearly every one. 
 
 " She 's half a witch, I think," said 
 Arthur Gride, when he found himself 
 again alone. " But she 's very frugal, 
 and she 's very deaf. Her living costs 
 me next to nothing ; and it's no use 
 her listening at keyholes; for she can't 
 hear. She 's a charming woman for 
 the purpose ; a most discreet old 
 housekeeper, and worth her weight in 
 copper." 
 
 Having extolled the merits of his 
 domestic in these high terms, old 
 Arthur went back to the burden of his 
 song. The suit destined to grace his 
 approaching nuptials being now se- 
 lected, he replaced the others with no 
 less care than he had displayed in 
 drawing them from the musty nooks 
 where they had silently reposed for 
 many years. 
 
 D D 2
 
 4Ut 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Startled by a ring at the door, he 
 hastily concluded this operation, and 
 locked the press ; but, there was no 
 need for any particular hurry, as the 
 discreet Peg seldom knew the bell was 
 rung unless she happened to cast her 
 dim eyes upwards, and to see it shaking 
 against the kitchen ceiling. After a 
 short delay, however, Peg tottered in, 
 followed by Newman Noggs. 
 
 " Ah ! Mr. Noggs ! " cried Arthur 
 Gride, rubbing his hands. " My good 
 friend, Mr. Noggs, what news do you 
 bring for me ? " 
 
 Newman, with a stedfast and im- 
 movable aspect, and his fixed eye very 
 fixed indeed, replied, suiting the action 
 to the word, " A letter. From Mr. 
 Nickleby. Bearer waits." 
 
 " Won't you take a a " 
 
 Newman looked up, and smacked 
 his lips. 
 
 " A chair ? " said Arthur Gride. 
 
 " No," replied Newman. " Thank'ee." 
 
 Arthur opened the letter, with 
 trembling hands, and devoured its 
 contents with the utmost greediness : 
 chucklingrapturously over it, and read- 
 ing it several times, before he could 
 take it from before his eyes. So many 
 times did he peruse and re-peruse it, 
 that Newman considered it expedient 
 to remind him of his presence. 
 
 " Answer." said Newman. "Bearer 
 waits." 
 
 True," replied old Arthur. " Yes 
 yes ; I almost forgot, I do declare." 
 
 " I thought you were forgetting," 
 said Newman. 
 
 Quite right to remind me, Mr. 
 Oh, very right indeed," said 
 Arthur. " Yes. I '11 write a line. 
 I 'm I 'm rather flurried, Mr. Noggs. 
 The news is " 
 
 " Bad ? " interrupted Newman. 
 
 " No, Mr. Noggs, thank you ; good, 
 pood. The very best of news. Sit 
 down. I '11 get the pen and ink, and 
 write a line in answer. I '11 not detain 
 you long. I know you 're a treasure to 
 your master, Mr. Noggs. He speaks 
 of you in such terms, sometimes, that, 
 oh dear ! you 'd be astonished. I may 
 say that I do too, and always did. I 
 always say the same of you." 
 
 " That 's ' Curse Mr. Noggs with all 
 my heart ! ' then, if you do," thought 
 Newman, as Gride hurried out. 
 
 The letter had fallen on the ground. 
 Looking carefully about him, for an 
 instant, Newman, impelled by curiosity 
 to know the result of the design he had 
 overheard from his office closet, caught 
 it up and rapidly read as follows : 
 
 Gride, 
 
 " I saw Bray again this mom- 
 ing, 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 you to be 
 punctual. 
 
 " Make no further visits to the 
 girl, in the meantime. You have been 
 there, of late, much oftener than you 
 should. She does not languish for 
 you, and it might have been dangerous. 
 Restrain your youthful ardour for 
 eight-and-forty hours, and leave her to 
 the father. You only undo what he 
 does, and does well. 
 Yours, 
 
 "RALPH NICKLEBY." 
 
 A footstep was heard without. New- 
 man 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 s-ittinq 
 down to write, glanced at Newman 
 Noggs, who was staring at the wall 
 with an intensity so remarkable, that 
 Arthur was quite alarmed. 
 
 "Do you see anything particular, 
 Mr. Noggs 1" said Arthur, trying to 
 follow the direction of Newman's eyes 
 which was an impossibility, and a 
 thing no man had ever done. 
 
 " Only a cobweb," replied Newman. 
 
 "Oh! is that all!" 
 
 " No," said Newman. " There 'a & 
 fly in it." 
 
 " There are a good many cobwebs 
 here," observed Arthur Gride.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 403 
 
 " So there are in our place," re- 
 turn*. J Newman ; " and flies, too." 
 
 Newman appeared to derive great 
 entertainment from this repartee, and, 
 to the great discomposure of Arthur 
 Gride's nerves, produced a series of 
 sharp cracks from his finger-joints, 
 resembling the noise of a distant 
 discharge of small artillery. Ar- 
 thur succeeded in finishing his reply 
 to Ralph's note, nevertheless, and at 
 length handed it over to the eccentric 
 messenger for delivery. 
 
 " That 's it, Mr. Noggs," said Gride. 
 
 Newman gave a nod, put it in his 
 hat, and was shuffling away, when 
 Gride, whose doting delight knew no 
 bounds, beckoned him back again, and 
 said, in a slirill whisper, and with a 
 grin which puckered up his whole face, 
 and almost obscured his eyes : 
 
 " Will you will you take a little 
 drop of something just a taste !" 
 
 In good fellowship (if Arthur Gride 
 had been capable of it) Newman would 
 not have drunk with him one bubble 
 of the richest wine tliat was ever made ; 
 but to see what he would be at, and to 
 punish him as much as he could, he 
 accepted the offer immediately. 
 
 Arthur Gride, therefore, again ap- 
 plied himself to the press, and from a 
 shelf laden with tall Flemish drink- 
 ing-glasses, and quaint bottles : some 
 witli necks like so many storks, and 
 others with square Dutch-built bodies 
 and .short fat apoplectic throats : took 
 down one dusty bottle of promising ap- 
 pearance, and two glasses of curiously 
 small size. 
 
 " You never tasted This," said Ar- 
 thur. "It's eau-d"or golden water. 
 1 like it on account of its name. It 's 
 jt delicious namr. Water of gold, 
 golden water ! O dear me, it seems 
 quite a sin to drink it ! " 
 
 As his courage appeared to be fast 
 failing him, and he trifled with the 
 stopper in a manner which threatened 
 the dismissal of the bottle to its old 
 place, Newman took up one of the 
 little glasses, and clinked it, twice or 
 thrice, against the bottle, as a gentle 
 reminder that he had not been helped 
 yet. With a deep sigh, Arthur Gride 
 
 slowly filled it though not to the 
 brim and then filled his own. 
 
 "Stop, stop; don't drink it yet," 
 lie said, laying his hand on Newman's ; 
 " it was given to me, twenty years ago, 
 and when I take a little taste, which 
 is ve ry seldom, I like to think of it 
 beforehand, and teaze myself. We '11 
 drink a toast Shall we drink a toast, 
 
 r. Noggs ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Newman, eyeing his 
 little glass impatiently. " Look sharp. 
 Bearer waits." 
 
 " Why, then, I '11 tell you what," 
 tittered Arthur, "we '11 drink he, he, 
 he ! we '11 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 ; in- 
 wardly 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 die -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 tho 
 dignity of Peg Sliderskew by brushing 
 past her, in the passage, without a word 
 of apology or recognition. 
 
 Mr. Gride and his housekeeper, im- 
 mediately on being left alone, resolved 
 themselves into a committee of ways 
 and means, and discussed the arrange- 
 ments which should be made for the 
 reception of the young bride. As they 
 were, like gome other committees, ex- 
 tremely 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 
 Ralph, when Newman returned.
 
 401) 
 
 LIFE AND ADYEN'ITUKS OF 
 
 " //t was a long time," replied New- 
 man. 
 
 " Hal) !" cried Ralph impatiently. 
 "Give me his note, if he gave you 
 or.c : his message, if he didn't. And 
 don't go away. I want a word with 
 you, sir." 
 
 Newman handed in the note, and 
 looked very virtuous and innocent 
 while his employer broke the sea!, 
 and glanced his eye over it. 
 
 " He '11 be sure to come ! " muttered 
 Ralph, as he tore it to pieces ; " why 
 of course I know he '11 be sure to come. 
 What need to say that ? Nog^s ! 1'ray 
 sir, what man was that, with whom 
 I saw you in the street la.st night I" 
 
 " I don't know," replied Newman. 
 
 " You had better refresh your me- 
 mory, sir," said Ralph, with a threat- 
 ening look. 
 
 " I tell you," returned Newman 
 boldly, " that I don't know. He 
 came here, twice, and asked for you. 
 You were out. He came again. You 
 packed him off, yomvsdf. He gave 
 the name of Brooker." 
 
 " I know he did," said Ralph ; 
 "w!,at then!" 
 
 " What then ? Why, then he 
 lurked about and. dogged nie in the 
 street. He follows me, night after 
 night, and urges me to bring him face 
 to face with you ; as he says he has 
 been, once, and not long ago either. 
 He wants to see you face to face, he 
 says, and you '11 soon hear him out, 
 he warrants." 
 
 " And what say you to that ? " in- 
 quired Ralph, looking keenly at his 
 
 " That it's no l>n.-in<'ss of mine, and 
 I won't. I told him he might catch 
 you in the street, if that was all he 
 wanted, but no ! that wouldn't do. 
 You wouldn't hear a word there, he 
 said. He must hare you, alone in a 
 room with the door locked, where he 
 could speak without fear, and you'd 
 noon change your tone, ami hear him 
 patiently." 
 
 " An audacious dog !" Ralph mut- 
 tered. 
 
 " That's all I know," said Newman. 
 ** I say again, I don't know what man 
 
 I don't believe he knows, him- 
 self. You have seen him ; p>':haj 
 you do." 
 
 " I think I do," replied Ralph. 
 
 " W ell," retorted Newman, sulkih, 
 "don't expect me to know him too; 
 that 's all. You '11 ask me, next, 
 why I never told you this, before. 
 What would you say, if I was to tel! 
 you all that people say of you ? What 
 do you call me when 1 sometimes do -. 
 ' Brute, ass ! ' and snap at me like a 
 dragon." 
 
 This was true enough ; though the 
 question which Newman anticipated, 
 was, in fact, upon Ralph's lips at the 
 moment. 
 
 " He is an idle ruffian," said Ralph ; 
 " a vagabond from beyond the sea 
 where he travelled for his crimes ; a 
 felon let loose to run his neck into the 
 halter ; a swindler, -who has the 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 jail, a little time, 
 and I '11 be bound he looks for other 
 folks to fleece, when he comes out. 
 You mind what I say, do you ! " 
 
 " I hear," said Newman. 
 
 " Do it then," returned Ralph, " and 
 I '11 reward you. Now, you may go." 
 
 Newman readily availed himself of 
 the permission, and, shutting himself 
 up in his little office, remained there, 
 in very serious cogitation, all day. 
 When he was released 'at night, he 
 proceeded, witll all the expedition he 
 could use, to the City, and took up his 
 old position behind the pump, to watcli 
 for Nicholas for Newman Noggs wa- 
 proud in his way, and could net li>-:r.- 
 to appear as his friend, before the 
 brothers Cheeryble, in the shal.by 
 and .degraded state to which he was 
 reduced. 
 
 He had not occupied this ] oHtio:;. 
 many minutes, when he was rejoiced 
 to see Nicholas approaching, 
 darted out from his ambuscade to 
 meet him. Nicholas, o , liis part, \va 
 no less pleased to encou :er hi-
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 407 
 
 whom he had not seen for some time ; 
 so, their greeting was a warm one. 
 
 " I was tlriuking of you, at that 
 moment," said Nicholas. 
 
 " That 's right," rejoined Newman, 
 " and I of you, I couldn 't help coming 
 up, to-night I say, I think I 'm going 
 to find out something." 
 
 " Ami what may that be ? " returned 
 Nicholas, smiling at this odd commu- 
 nication. 
 
 "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 '11 not hint 'cm now, in case you 
 should be disappointed." 
 
 " 7 disappointed ! " cried Nicholas ; 
 u am I interested '. '' 
 
 "I think you are," replied New- 
 man. u I have a crotchet in uiy head 
 that it must be so. I have found out 
 a man, who, plainly knows more than 
 he cares to tell at once. And he has 
 already dropped such hints to me as 
 puzzle me 1 say, as puzzle me," said 
 Newman, scratching his red nose into 
 a state of violent inflammation, and 
 staring at Nicholas with all his might 
 and main meanwhile. 
 
 Admiring what could have wound his 
 friend up to such a pitch of mystery, 
 Nicholas endeavoured, by a scries of 
 questions, to elucidate the cause ; but 
 in vain. Newman could not be drawn 
 into any more explicit statement, than 
 a repetition of the perplexities he had 
 already thrown out, and a confused 
 oration, showing, How it was neces- 
 sary to use the utmost caution ; how 
 the lynx-eyed l{.il|ih had already seen 
 him in company with his unknown cor- 
 respondent ; and how he had baffled 
 the said Ralph by extreme guarded- 
 ness of manner and ingenuity of 
 speech : having prepared himself for 
 such a contingency from the first. 
 
 Remembering his companion's pro- 
 pensity, of which his nose, indeed, 
 perpetually warned all beholders like 
 a beacon, Nicholas had drawn him 
 into a sequestered tavern. Here, 
 they fell to reviewing the origin and 
 
 progress of their acquaintance, as men 
 sometimes do, and tracing out the 
 little events by which it was most 
 strongly marked, came at last to Miss 
 Cecilia Bobster. 
 
 " And that reminds me,'' said New 
 man, " that you never told me the 
 young lady's real name." 
 
 " Madeline ! " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Madeline 1" cried Newman ; "what 
 Madeline ! Her other name 1 say her 
 other name." 
 
 "Bray," said Nicholas, in great 
 astonishment. 
 
 " It 's the same ! " cried Newman. 
 " Sad story ! Can you stand idly 
 by, and let that unnatural marriage 
 take place without one attempt to 
 save her I " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " exclaimed 
 Nicholas, starting up ; " marriage ! are 
 you mad ! " 
 
 " Are you ? is she ? are you blind, 
 deaf, senseless, dead 1" said Newman. 
 "Do you know that within <>'. 
 by means of your uncle Ralph, :-he 
 will be married to a man as bad as lie, 
 and worse, if \vm-.-e there is ? Do you 
 know that, within one day, she \\iil be 
 sacrificed, as sure as you stand there 
 alive,- to a hoary wretch a devil bom 
 and bred, and grey in devils' ways i " 
 
 " Be careful what you say," replied 
 Nicholas. " For Heaven's sake be care- 
 ful ! I am left here alone, and those 
 who could stretch out a hand to rescue 
 her, are far away. What is it tliat you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " I never heard her name," said 
 Newman, choking with his energy. 
 "Why didn't you tell me ? How wa 
 I to know ? We might, at least, li&vi 
 had some time to think ! " 
 
 " What is it that you mean ! " cried 
 Nicholas. 
 
 It was not an easy task to arrive at 
 j this information ; but, after a great 
 quantity of extraordinary pantomime, 
 which hi no way assisted it, Nicholas, 
 who was almost as wild as Newman 
 Noggs himself, forced the latter down 
 upon his seat and held him down until 
 he began his tale. 
 
 Rage, astonishment, indignation, and 
 i a storm of passions, rushed through the
 
 401! 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 listener's heart, as the plot was laid " Stop him ! " cried Newman, bolt- 
 bare. He no sooner understood it all, : ing out in pursuit. " He '11 be doing 
 than with a face of ashy paleness, and ! something desperate he '11 murder 
 trembling in every limb, he darted somebody hallo ! there, stop him. 
 
 from the house. 
 
 Stop thief ! stop thief ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 NICHOLAS DESPAIRS OF RESCUING MAbELINE BRAY, BUT PLUCKS UP HIS SPIRITS 
 AGAIN, AND DETERMINES TO ATTEMPT JT. DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE OF THE 
 KENWIGSES AND LILLYVICKS. 
 
 FINDING that Newman was deter- 
 mined 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 per- 
 son, and place him in a disagreeable 
 predicament from which he might 
 have some difficulty in extricating 
 himself, Nicholas soon slackened his 
 pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to 
 come up with him : which he did, in so 
 breathless a condition, that it seemed 
 impossible he could have held out for 
 a minute longer. 
 
 " I will go straight to Bray's," said 
 Nicholas. " I will see this man. 
 If there is a feeling of humanity 
 lingering in his breast, a spark 
 of consideration for his own child, 
 motherless and friendless as she is, 
 I will awaken it." 
 
 " You will not," replied Newman. 
 " You will not, indeed." 
 
 " Then," said Nicholas, pressing 
 onward, " I will act upon my first 
 impulse, and go straight to Ralph 
 Nickleby." 
 
 " By the time you reach his house 
 lie will be in bed," said Newman. 
 
 " I '11 drag him from it," cried 
 Nicholas. 
 
 Tut, tut," said Noggs. Be 
 yourself." 
 
 " You are the best of friends to me, 
 Newman," rejoined Nicholas after a 
 pause, and taking his hand as he 
 npoke. " I have made head against 
 many trials ; but the misery of another, 
 and such misery, is involved in this 
 
 one, that I declare to you I am ren- 
 dered 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 con- 
 cealed in the closet. The mere cir- 
 cumstance of the compact between 
 Ralph Nickleby and Gride would not 
 invalidate the marriage, or render 
 Bray averse to it, who, if he did not 
 actually know of the existence of 
 some such understanding, doubtless 
 suspected it. What had been hinted 
 with reference to some fraud on 
 Madeline, had been pnt, 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," 
 saiil Nicholas. 
 
 " The greater necessity for cool- 
 ness, for reason, for, consideration, 
 for thought," said Newman, pausing at 
 every alternate word, to look anxiously 
 in his friend's face. " Where are the 
 brothers ? " 
 
 " Both absent on urgent business, as 
 they will be for a week to come." 
 
 " Is there no way of communicating 
 with them 1 no way 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."
 
 NICHOLAS NJCKLEBY. 
 
 4G9 
 
 ' Their nephew " said Newman, 
 " their old clerk." 
 
 " \\"hat could either do, that I can- 
 not ? " 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 ine, 
 when nothing but a miracle can pre- 
 vent this sacrifice ! " 
 
 " Think," urged Newman. " 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 are on their side. 
 How can I hope to save her ? " 
 
 " Hope to the last!" said Newman, 
 chipping him on the back. " Always 
 hope ; that 's a dear boy. Never leave 
 ofl' 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 offhoping, or it 's of no use doing 
 anything. Hope, hope, to the last ! " 
 
 Nicholas needed encouragement 
 The suddenness with which intelli- 
 gence of the two usurers' plans had 
 come upon him, the little time which 
 remained for exertion, the probability, 
 almost amounting to certainty itself, 
 that a few hours would place Madeline 
 Bray for ever beyond his reach, con- 
 sign her to unspeakable misery, and 
 perhaps to an untimely death : all this 
 quite stunned and overwhelmed him. 
 Every hope connected with her that 
 he had suffered himself to form, or 
 had entertained unconsciously, seemed 
 to fall at his feet, withered and dead. 
 Every cliarm 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 feel- 
 ing of sympathy for her forlorn con- 
 dition, 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 embar- 
 rassed him, Newman's came to his 
 relief. There was so much earnest- 
 ness in his remonstrance, and such 
 sincerity and fervour in his manner, 
 odd and ludicrous as it always was, 
 that it imparted to Nicholas new 
 firmness, and enabled him to say, after 
 he had walked on for some little way 
 in silence, 
 
 " You read me a good lesson, 
 Newman, and I will profit by it. 
 One step, at least, I may take am 
 bound to take indeed and to that I 
 will apply myself to-morrow." 
 . " What is that ? " asked Noggs, 
 wistfully. " Not to threaten Ralph ? 
 Not to see the father ? " 
 
 " To see the daughter, Newman," 
 
 replied Nicholas. " To do, what, after 
 
 all, is the utmost that the brothers 
 
 j could do, if they were here, as Heaven 
 
 send they were ! To reason with her 
 
 ' upon this hideous union, to point out 
 
 | to her all the horrors to which she is 
 
 | hastening : rashly, it may be, and 
 
 i without due reflection. To entreat 
 
 her, at least, to pause. She can have 
 
 had no counsellor for her good. 
 
 Perhaps even I may move her so 
 
 far yet, though it is the eleventh 
 
 hour, and she upon the very brink 
 
 of ruin." 
 
 " Bravely spoken ! " said Newman. 
 " Well done, well done ! Yes. Very 
 good." 
 
 "And I do declare," cried Nicholas, 
 with honest enthusiasm, " that in this 
 effort I am influenced by no selfish or 
 personal considerations, but by pity 
 for her, and detestation and abhor- 
 rence of this scheme ; and (hat I 
 would do the same, were there twenty 
 rivals in the field, and I the last and 
 least favoured of them all." 
 
 " You would, I believe," said New- 
 man. " But where are you hurrying 
 now ? " 
 
 ."Homewards," answered Nicholas. 
 " Do you come with me, or shall I say 
 good night ? " 
 
 " I '11 come a little way, if you will 
 but walk : not run," said Noggs, 
 
 " I cannot walk to-night, Newman," 
 returned Nicholas, hurriedly. " I
 
 410 
 
 UH-; AND ADVK.ViTKl'.S OF 
 
 must move rapidly, or I could not 
 draw my breath. I '11 tell you what 
 I've said and done, to-morrow ! " 
 
 Without waiting for a reply, ho 
 darted oft' at a rapid pace, and, plung- 
 ing 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 ! Ralph Nickleby 
 and Gride with their heads together 
 and hope for the opposite party ! 
 Ho ! ho !" 
 
 It was with a very melancholy 
 Laugh that Newman Noggs concluded 
 this soliloquy ; and it was with a very 
 melancholy shake of the head, and a 
 very rueful countenance, that he 
 turned about, and went plodding on 
 his way. 
 
 This, under ordinary circumstances, 
 would have been to some small tavern 
 or dram-shop ; that being his way, iii 
 more senses than one. But, Newman 
 was too much interested, and too 
 anxious, to betake himself even to this 
 resource, and so, with many despond- 
 ing . and dismal reflections, went 
 straight home. 
 
 It had come to pass, that afternoon, 
 that Miss Morleena Kemvigs had 
 received an Invitation to repair next 
 day, per steamer from Westminster 
 l!riilL, r i>, unto the Eel-pie Island at 
 Twickenham : there to make merry 
 upon a cold collation, bottled-beer, 
 slirub, and shrimps, and to dance in 
 the open air to the music of a loco- 
 motive band, conveyed thither for the 
 purpose : the steamer being specially 
 engaged by a dancing-master of exten- 
 sive connection fur the accommodation 
 of his numerous pupils, and the pupils 
 displaying their appreciation of the 
 dancing-master's services by pur- 
 chasing themselves, and inducing their 
 friends'to do the like, divers light-bhie 
 tickets, entitling them to join the ex- 
 pedition. Of these light-blue tickets, 
 one had been presented by an ambi- 
 tious neighbour to Miss Morleena 
 Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her 
 daughters ; and Mrs. Kenwigs, rightly 
 
 deeming that the honour of the family 
 was involved in .Miss Morleena'n 
 making the most splendid appearance 
 possible on so short a notice, and testi- 
 fying to the dancing-master that th<;re 
 were other dancing-masters besides 
 him, and to all fathers and mothers 
 present that other people's children 
 could learn to be genteel besides 
 theirs, had fainted away, twice, under 
 the magnitude of her preparations, 
 but, upheld by a determination to sus- 
 tain 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 trowsers, the 
 trimming of frocks, the faint'mgs and 
 the comings-to again, incidental to the 
 occasion, Mrs. Kenwigs had been so 
 entirely occupied, that she had not 
 observed, until within half an hour 
 before, that the flaxen tails of Miss 
 Morleena's hair were, in a manner, run 
 to seed ; and that, unless she were put 
 under the hands of a skilful hair- 
 dresser, she never could achieve that 
 signal triumph over the daughters of 
 all other people, anything less than 
 which would be tantamount to defeat. 
 This discovery drove Mrs. Kenwigs to 
 despair ; for the 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 Mrs. Kenwigs had her doubts ; 
 Mr. Kenwigs had not returned from 
 business ; and there was nobody to 
 take her. So, Mrs Kenwigs first 
 slapped Miss Kenwigs for being the 
 cause of her vexation, and then shed 
 
 " You ungrateful child ! " said Mrs. 
 Kenwigs, " after I have gone through 
 what I have, this night, for your good." 
 " I can't help it, ma," replied 
 Morleena, also in tears ; " iny hair 
 will grow." 
 
 " Don't talk to me, you naughty 
 ' thing ! " said Mrs. Kenwigs, " don't ! 
 ; Even if I was to trust you by yourself 
 : and you were to escape being run 
 ' over, I know you 'd run in to Laura 
 ! Chopkins," who was the daughter of
 
 NICHOLAS XICKLEBY. 
 
 41! 
 
 the ambitious neighbour, " and tell her 
 what you 're going to wear to-morrow, 
 I know you would. You've no proper 
 pride in yourself, and are not to be 
 i out of sight, for an instant." 
 
 Deplorin:; the evil-mindedness of 
 her eldest daughter, in these terms, 
 M:--. K^nwigs distilled fresh drops of 
 vexation from hei eyes, and declared 
 that she did believe there never was 
 anybody so tried as she was. There- 
 upon, Morleena Kemvigs wept afresh, 
 and they bemoaned themselves to- 
 gether. 
 
 Matters were at this point, as New- 
 man Noggs was heard to limp past 
 the door on his way up-stairs ; when 
 Mrs. Ken wigs, gaining uew hope from 
 the sound of his footsteps, 
 removed from her countenance as 
 many traces of her late emotion as 
 were effaceable on so short a notice : 
 and presenting herself before him, and 
 :itin their dilemma : entreated 
 that he would escort Morleena to the 
 hair-dresser's 
 
 " I wouldn't ask you, Mr. ." 
 said Mrs. Keuwig., " if I didn't know 
 what a good, kind-hearted creature 
 you are no, not for worlds. I am a 
 weak constitution, Mr. Noggs, but my 
 spirit would no more let me ask a 
 favour where I thought there was a 
 chance of its being refused, than it 
 would let me submit to see my children 
 trampled down and trod upon, by envy 
 and lowness ! " 
 
 Newman was too good-natured not 
 to have consented, even without this 
 'avowal of confidence on the part of 
 Mr>. Kenwigs. Accordingly, a very 
 few minutes had elapsed, when he and 
 lorleena were on their way to 
 the hair-dresser's. 
 
 It was not exactly a hair-dresser's ; 
 that is to say, people of a coarse and 
 vulgar turn of mind might have called 
 it a barber's ; for they not only cut asd 
 curled ladies elegantly, and children 
 carefully, but shaved gentlemen easily. 
 Still, it was a highly genteel establish- 
 ment quite first-rate in fact and 
 there were displayed in the window, 
 besides other elegancies, waxen busts 
 r.f a light lady and a dark gentleman 
 
 which were the admiration of the 
 whole neighbourhood. Indeed, some 
 ladies had gone so far as to assert, that 
 the dark gentleman was actually a 
 portrait of the spirited young pro- 
 prietor ; and the great similarity be- 
 tween their head-dresses both wore 
 very glossy hair, with a narrow walk 
 straight down the middle, and a pro- 
 fusion of flat circular curls on both 
 sides encouraged the idea. The 
 better- informed among the sex, how- 
 ever, made light of this assertion, for 
 however willing they were (and they 
 were very willing) to do full justice to 
 the handsome face and figure of the 
 proprietor, they held the countenance 
 of the dark gentleman in the window 
 to be an exquisite and abstract idea of 
 masculine beauty, realised sometimes, 
 perhaps, among angels and military 
 men, but very rarely embodied to 
 gladden the eyes of mortals. 
 
 It was to this establishment that 
 Newman Noggs led Miss Kenwigs hi 
 safety. The proprietor, knowing that 
 .Mi.-^ Kcnwigg had three sisters, each 
 with two flaxen tails, and all good 
 for sixpence a-piece, once a month at 
 least, promptly deserted an old gentle- 
 man whom he had just lathered for 
 shaving, and handing him over to the 
 journeyman, (who was not very popu- 
 lar among the ladies, by reason of hig 
 obesity and middle age) waited on the 
 young lady himself. 
 
 Just as this change had been effected, 
 there presented himself for shaving, a 
 big, burly, good-humoured coal-heaver 
 with a pipe in his mouth, who, drawing 
 his hand across his chin, requested to 
 know when a shaver would be dis- 
 :ed. 
 
 The journeyman to whom this ques- 
 tion was put, "looked doubtfully at the 
 young proprietor, and the young pro- 
 prietor looked scornfully at the coal- 
 heaver : observing at the same time- 1 - 
 
 " You won't get shaved here, my 
 man." 
 
 u Why not 1 " said the coal-heaver. 
 
 u We don't shave gentlemen hi your 
 line," remarked the young proprietor. 
 
 " Why, I see you a shaving of a 
 baker, when I was a looking through
 
 41-2 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 the winder, last week," said the coal- 
 heaver. 
 
 "It's necessary to draw the line 
 Bomewheres, my fine feller," replied 
 the principal. " We draw the line 
 there. We can't go beyond bakers. 
 If we was to get any lower than bakers, 
 our customers would desert us, and we 
 might shut up shop. You must try 
 some other establishment, sir. We 
 couldn't do it here." 
 
 The applicant stared ; grinned at 
 Newman Noggs, who appeared highly 
 entertained ; looked slightly round the 
 shop, as if in depreciation of the poma- 
 tum pots and other articles of stock ; 
 took his pipe but of his mouth and 
 gave a very loud whistle ; and then put 
 it in again, and walked out. 
 
 The old gentleman who had just 
 been lathered, and who was sitting in 
 a melancholy manner with his face 
 turned towards the wall, appeared 
 quite unconscious of this incident, and 
 to be insensible to everything around 
 him in the depth of a reverie a very 
 mournful one, to judge from the sighs 
 he occasionally vented in which he 
 was absorbed. Affected by this ex- 
 ample, 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 Ken wigs 
 uttered a shrill little scream, and New- 
 man, raising his eyes, saw that it had 
 been elicited by the circumstance of 
 the old gentleman turning his head, 
 and disclosing the features of Mr. 
 Lillyvick the collector. 
 
 The features of Mr. Lillyvick they 
 were, but strangely altered. If ever 
 an old gentleman had made a point of 
 appearing in public, shaved close and 
 clean, that old gentleman was Mr. 
 Lillyvick. If ever a collector had 
 borne himself like a collector, and 
 assumed, before all men, a solemn and 
 portentous dignity as if he had the 
 world on his books and it was all two 
 quarters in arrear, that collector was 
 Mr. Lillyvick. And now, there he 
 Bat, with the remains of a beard at 
 least a week old, encumbering his chin; 
 a soiled and crumpled shirt-frill crouch- 
 
 ing, as it were, upon his breast, instead 
 of standing boldly out ; a demeanour 
 so abashed and drooping, so despondent, 
 and expressive of such humiliation, 
 grief, and shame ; that if the souls of forty 
 unsubstantial housekeepers, all of whom 
 had had their water cut off for non- 
 payment of the rate, could have been 
 concentrated in oue body, that one body 
 could hardly have expressed such 
 mortification and defeat as were now- 
 expressed in the person of Mr. Lilly- 
 vick the collector. 
 
 Newman Noggs uttered his name, 
 and Mr. Lillyvick groaned : then 
 coughed to hide it. But the groan 
 was a full-sized groan, and the cough 
 was but a wheeze. 
 
 " Is anything the matter I " 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. Lillyviek's 
 recent association with theatrical cha- 
 racters not be : jg quite explanatory. 
 Newman looker as if he were about ta 
 ask another question, when Mr. Lilly- 
 vick prevented him, by shaking his 
 hand mournfully, and then waving his 
 own. 
 
 "Let me be shaved!" said Mr. 
 Lillyvick. " I shall be done before 
 Morleena it is Morleeua, isn't it I " 
 
 "Yes," said Newman. 
 
 " Kenwigses have got a boy, haven't 
 they I " inquired the collector. 
 
 Again Newmau said " Yes." 
 
 " Is it a nice boy I " demanded the 
 collector. 
 
 " It ain't a very nasty one," returned 
 Newmau, rather embarrassed by the 
 question. 
 
 " Susan Kenwigs used to say," ob- 
 served the collector, " that if ever she 
 had another boy, she hoped it mL'liT; 
 be like me. Is this one like me, Mr. 
 Noggs 1 " 
 
 This was a puzzling inquiry ; but 
 Newman evaded it, by replying to Mr. 
 Lillyvick, that he thought the bal.y 
 might possibly come like him in 
 time. 
 
 " I should be glad to have some-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 413 
 
 body like me, somehow," said Mr. 
 Lilly vick, " before I die." 
 
 "*You don't mean to do that, yet 
 awhile 1" said Newman. 
 
 Unto which Mr. Lillyvick replied in 
 a solemn voice, " Let me be shared ! " 
 and again consigning himself to the 
 hands of the journeyman, said no 
 more. 
 
 This was remarkable behaviour. 
 So remarkable did it seem to Miss 
 Morleena, that that young lady, at the 
 imminent hazard of having her car 
 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 ob- 
 servation, and to shrink into himself 
 whenever he attracted her regards. 
 Newman wondered very much what 
 could have occasioned this altered 
 behaviour on the part of the collector ; 
 but, philosophically reflecting that he 
 would most likely know, sooner or 
 later, and that he could perfectly afford 
 to wait, he was very little disturbed 
 by the singularity of the old gentle- 
 man's deportment. 
 
 The cutting and curling being at 
 last concluded, the old gentleman, who 
 had been some time waiting, rose to 
 go, and, walking out with Newman and 
 his charij", took Newman's arm, and 
 proceeded for some time without 
 making any observation. Newman, 
 who in power of taciturnity was ex- 
 celled by few people, made no attempt 
 to break silence ; and so they went on, 
 until they had very nearly reached 
 Miss Morleena's home, when Mr. 
 Lillyvick said 
 
 " Were the Kenwigses very much 
 overpowered, Mr. Noggs, by that 
 news 1 " 
 
 " What news ? " returned Newman. 
 
 " That about my being " 
 
 " Married ! " suggested Newman. 
 
 Ah ! " replied Mr. Lillyvick, with 
 another groan this time not even 
 disguised by a wheeze. 
 
 " It made ma cry when she knew 
 it," interposed Miss Morleena, " but 
 we kept it from her for a long time ; 
 
 and pa was very low in his spirits, 1 nit 
 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, \\ith 
 some hesitation. 
 
 " Yes, uncle Lillyvick, I would," 
 returned Miss Morleena, with tho 
 energy of both her parents combined ; 
 "but not aunt Lillyvick. She's not 
 an aunt of mine, and I '11 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' sitting-room, and put Miss 
 Morleena down in the midst. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Kenwigs were at supper. At 
 sight of their perjured relative, Mrs. 
 Kenwigs turned faint and pale, and 
 Mr. Kenwigs rose majestically. 
 
 " Kenwigs,"said the collector, "shake 
 hands." 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Kenwigs, " tlie 
 time has been, when I was proud to 
 shake hands with such a man as that 
 man as now surweys me. The time lias 
 been, sir," said Mr. Kenwigs, " when 
 a wisit from that man has excited in 
 me and my family's boozums sensa- 
 tions both nateral and awakening. 
 But, now, I look upon that man witlv. 
 emotions totally sui-possing everythink, 
 and I ask myself where is his Aonour, 
 where is his straight-for'ardnes.=, and 
 where is his human natur." 
 
 " Susan Kenwigs," said Mr. Lilly- 
 vick, turning humbly to his niece, 
 " don't you say anything to me ?" 
 
 "She is not equal to it, sir," said 
 Mr. Kenwigs, striking the table em- 
 phatically. " What with die nursing 
 of a healthy babby, and the reflections 
 upon your cruel conduct, four pints 
 of malt liquor a day is hardly able to 
 sustain her." 
 
 ".lam glad," said the poor collector 
 meekly, " that the baby is a healthy 
 one. I am very glad of that"
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 This was touching the Kenwigscs 
 on their tenderest point. Mrs. Ken- 
 wigs instantly burst into tears, and 
 Mr. Kenwigs evinced great emotion. 
 
 " My pleasantest feeling, all the time 
 that child was expected," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, mournfully, " was a thinking, 
 ' if it 's a boy, as I hope it may be ; for 
 I have heard its uncle Lillyvick say 
 again and again he would perfer our 
 having a boy next if it's a boy, what 
 will his uncle Lillyvick say what will 
 he like him to be called will he be 
 Peter, or Alexander, or Pompey, or 
 Diorgeenes, or what will he be I ' and 
 now when I look at him a precious, 
 unconscious, helpless infant, with no 
 use hi his little arms but to tear his 
 little cap, and no use in his little legs 
 but to kick his little self when I see 
 him a-lying on his mother's lap, cooing 
 and cooing, and, in his innocent state, 
 almost a choking hisself with his 
 little fist when I see him such a 
 infant as he is, and think that that 
 uncle Lillyvick, as was once a going to 
 be so fond of him, has withdrawed him- 
 self away, such a feeling of wengeance 
 comes over me as no language can 
 depicter, and I feel as if eveu that 
 holy babe was a telling me to hate 
 him." 
 
 This affecting picture moved Mrs. 
 Kenwigs deeply. After several im- 
 perfect words, which vainly attempted 
 to straggle to the surface, but were 
 drowned and washed away by the 
 strong tide of her tears, she ?pake. 
 
 " Uncle," said Mrs. Kenwigs, " to 
 think that you should have turned 
 your back upon me and my dear 
 children, and upon Kenwigs which is 
 the author of their being you who 
 was once so kind and affectionate, 
 and who, if anybody had told us such 
 a thing of, we should have withered 
 with scorn like lightning you that 
 little Lillyvick, our first and earliest 
 boy, was named after at the very altar 
 oh gracious ! " 
 
 " Was it money that we cared for V 
 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 havu 
 been thrown back in my confinement, 
 my unoffending infant has been ren- 
 dered uncomfortable and fravtious, 
 Morleena has pined herself away t<> 
 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. Ken- 
 wigs, " consider your child." 
 
 " Yes," shrieked Mrs. Kenwigs, " I 
 will consider my child ! I will consider 
 my child ! my own child, that no 
 uncles can deprive me of ; my own 
 hated, despised, deserted, cut-off little 
 child." And, here, the emotions of 
 Mrs. Kenwigs became so violent, that 
 Mr. Kenwigs was fain to administer 
 hartshorn internally, and vinegar ex- 
 ternally, 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 pre- 
 sence by a nod of invitation. When 
 Mrs. Kenwigs had been, in some degree, 
 restored, and Newman, as a person 
 possessed of some influence with her, 
 had remonstrated and begged her to 
 compose herself, Mr. Lillyvick said in 
 a faltering voice : 
 
 ' I never shall ask anybody here 
 to receive my I needn't mention 
 the v\ord ; v, a know what 1 mean. 
 Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was 
 a week she eloped with a half-pay 
 captain ! " 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs started 
 together. 
 
 " Eloped witli a half-pay captain," 
 
 repeated Mr. Lillyvick, "oasely and 
 
 falsely eloped with a half-pay captain 
 
 ' with a bottle-nosed captain that any 
 
 . man might have considered himself 
 
 ' safe from. It was in this room," said 
 
 , Mr. Lillyvick, looking sternly round,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 415 
 
 " that I first see Henrietta Petowker. 
 It is in this room that I turn her off, 
 for ever." 
 
 This declaration completely changed 
 the whole posture of affairs. Mrs. 
 Kenwigs threw herself upon the old 
 gentleman's neck, bitterly reproaching 
 herself for her late harshness, and 
 exclaiming if she had suffered, what 
 must his sufferings have been ! Mr. 
 Kenwigs grasped his hand, and vowed 
 eternal friendship and remorse. Mrs. 
 Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think 
 that she should ever have nourished in 
 her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, 
 serpent, and base crocodile, as Hen- 
 rietta Petowker. Mr. Kenwigs argued 
 that she must have been bad indeed 
 not to have improved by so long a 
 contemplation of Mrs. Kcnwigs's virtue. 
 Mrs. Kenwigs remembered that Mr. 
 Kenwigs had often said that he was 
 not quite satisfied of the propriety of 
 Miss Petowker's conduct, and won- 
 dered how it was that she could have 
 been blinded by such a wretch. Mr. 
 Kenwigs remembered that he had had 
 his suspicions, but did not wonder why 
 Mrs. Kenwigs had not had hers, as she 
 was all chastity, purity, and truth, and 
 Henrietta all baseness, falsehood, and 
 deceit. And Mr. and Mrs. Krnui-s 
 both said, with strong feeling and tears 
 of sympathy, that everything happened 
 for the best ; and conjured the good 
 collector not to give way to unavailing 
 grief, but to seek consolation in the 
 society of those affectionate relations 
 whose arms and hearts -were ever open 
 to him. 
 
 " Out of affection and regard for 
 yon, Susan and Kenwigs," said Mr. 
 Lillyvick, " and not out of revenge and 
 spite against her, for she is Iji low it. 
 I shall, to-morrow morning, settle upon 
 your children, and make payable to 
 the survivors of them when tli' 
 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 gene- 
 rous offer, Mr. Kenwigs, Mrs. Ken- 
 
 wigs, and Miss Morleena Kenwigs, all 
 began to sob together ; and the noise of 
 their sobbing, communicating itself to 
 the next room, where the children lay 
 a-bed, and causing them to cry too, 
 Mr. Kenwigs rushed wildly in, and 
 bringing them out in his arms, by two 
 and two, tumbled them down in their 
 nightcaps and gowns at the feet of Mr. 
 Lillyvick, and called upon them to 
 thank and bless him. 
 
 " And now," said Mr. Lillyvick, 
 when a heart-rending scene had ensued 
 and the children were cleared away 
 again, " Give me some supper. This 
 took place twenty mile from town. I 
 came up this morning, and have been 
 lingering about, all day, without being 
 able to make up my mind to come and 
 see you. I humoured her 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 anything more about 
 it, please the spoons were worth 
 never mind never mind !" 
 
 With such muttered outpourings as 
 these, the old gentleman shed a few 
 tears ; but, they got him into the elbow- 
 chair, and prevailed upon him, without 
 much pressing, to make a hearty sup- 
 per, and by the time he had finished 
 his first pipe and disposed of half-a- 
 dozen glasses out of a crown bowl of 
 punch, ordered by Mr. Kenwigs in 
 celebration of his return to the bosom 
 of his family, he seemed, though still 
 very humble, quite resigned to his fate, 
 .and rather relieved than otherwise by 
 the flight of his wife. 
 
 " When I see that man," said Mr. 
 Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs. 
 Kcnwigs's waist : his other hand sup- 
 porting his pipe (which made him 
 wink and cough very much, for he 
 was no smoker) : and hirf eyes on 
 Morleena, who sat upon her uncle's 
 knee, " when I see that man as 
 mingling, once again, in the spear 
 whieh he adorns, and see his affections 
 deweloping themselves in legitimate
 
 416 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 sitiwations, I feel that his natur is as I my infant children purvided for in 
 elevated and expanded, as his standing ' life, seem to whisper to me softly, 
 afore society as a public character ' This is an ewent at which Evins 
 is unimpeached, and the woices of itself looks down ! ' " 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 CONTAINING THE FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE PLOT CONTRIVED BY MR. RALPH 
 KICKLEBT AND MR. ARTHUR GRIDE. 
 
 WITH that settled resolution and 
 steadiness of purpose to which extreme 
 circumstances so often give birth, 
 acting upon far less excitable and 
 more sluggish temperaments than that , 
 which was the lot of Madeline Bray's ; 
 admirer, Nicholas started, at dawn of j 
 day, from the restless couch which j 
 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 con- 
 templation of the difficulties which 
 surround us, and a familiarity with 
 them, imperceptibly diminish our ap- 
 prehensions and beget comparative 
 indifference, if not a vague and reck- 
 less confidence in some relief, the 
 means or nature of which we care not 
 to foresee. But when we come, fresh, 
 upon such things in the morning, with 
 that dark and silent gap between us 
 and yesterday; with every link in the 
 brittle chain of hope, to rivet afresh ; 
 our hot enthusiasm subdued, and cool 
 calm reason substituted in its stead ; 
 doubt and misgiving revive. As the 
 traveller sees farthest, by day, and 
 becomes aware of rugged mountains 
 and trackless plains which the friendly 
 darkness had shrouded from his sight 
 and mind together, so, the wayfarer in 
 the toilsome path of human life, sees, 
 with each returning sun, some new 
 obstacle to surmount, some new height 
 
 to be attained. Distances stretch out 
 before him which, last night, were 
 scarcely taken into account, and the 
 light which gilds all nature with its 
 cheerful beams, seems but to shine 
 upon the weary obstacles that yet 
 lie strewn between him and the grave. 
 
 So thought Nicholas, when, with the 
 impatience natural to a situation like 
 his, he softly left the house, and, feel- 
 ing as though to remain in bed were 
 to lose most precious time, and to be 
 up and stirring were in some way to 
 promote the end he had in view, 
 wandered into London ; perfectly 
 well knowing that for hours to come 
 he could not obtain speech with 
 Madeline, and could do nothing but 
 wish the intervening time away. 
 
 And, even now, as he paced the 
 streets, and listlessly looked round on 
 the gradually increasing bustle and 
 preparation for the day, everything 
 appeared to yield him some new occa- 
 sion for despondency. Last night, the 
 sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and 
 beautiful creature, to such a wretch, 
 and in such a cause, had seemed a 
 thing too monstrous to succeed ; and 
 the warmer he grew, the more confi- 
 dent he felt that some interposition 
 must save her from his clutches. But 
 now, when he thought how regularly 
 things went on, from day to day, in the 
 same unvarying round how youth 
 and beauty died, and ugly griping -'W 
 lived tottering on how crafty av:iru-<* 
 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 each night, and lived and died,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 417 
 
 father and son, mother and child, race 
 upon race, and generation upon genera- 
 tion, 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 cri- 
 minal and dreadful trades how, igno- 
 rance was punished and never taught 
 how, jail-door gaped and gallows loomed, 
 for thousands urged towards them by 
 circumstances darkly curtaining their 
 very cradles' heads, and but for which 
 they might have earned their honest 
 bread and lived in peace how many 
 died in soul, and had no chance of life 
 how many who could scarcely go 
 astray, be they vicious as they would, 
 turned haughtily from the crushed 
 and stricken wretch who could scarce 
 do otherwise, and who would have 
 been a greater wonder had he or she 
 done well, than even they, had they 
 done ill how much injustice, misery, 
 and wrong, there was, and yet how 
 the world rolled on, from year to 
 year, alike careless and indifferent, 
 and no man seeking to remedy or 
 redress it when he thought of all 
 this, and selected from the mass the 
 one slight case on which his thoughts 
 were bent, he felt, indeed, that there 
 was little grouud for hope, and little 
 reason why it should not form an 
 atom in the huge aggregate of distress 
 and sorrow, and add one small and 
 unimportant unit to swell the great 
 amount. 
 
 But, youth is not prone to contem- 
 plate 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 inter- 
 rupted, Nicholas gradually summoned 
 up his utmost energy, and when the 
 morning was sufficiently advanced 
 for his purpose, had no thought but 
 that of using it to the best advantage. 
 A hasty breakfast taken, and such 
 
 No. 58. 
 
 affairs of business as required prompt 
 attention, disposed of, he directed hi 
 steps to the residence of Madeline 
 Bray : whither he lost no time in 
 arriving. 
 
 It had occurred to him that, very 
 possibly, the young lady might be de- 
 nied, although to him she never had 
 been ; and he was still pondering upon 
 the surest method of obtaining access 
 to her in that case, when, coming to 
 the door of the house, he found it had 
 been left ajar probably by the last 
 pei-son who had gone out. The occa- 
 sion was not one upon which to 
 observe the nicest ceremony ; there- 
 fore, availing himself of this advan- 
 tage, 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, how much mental 
 suffering had been compressed into 
 that short time. There are no words 
 which can express, nothing with which 
 can be compared, the perfect pallor, 
 the clear transparent whiteness, of 
 the beautiful face which turned towards 
 him when he entered. Her hair was 
 a rich deep brown, but shading that 
 face, and straying upon a neck that 
 rivalled it in whiteness, it seemed by 
 the strong contrast raven black. Some 
 tiling of wildness and restlessness 
 there was in the dark eye, but there 
 was the same patient look, the same 
 expression of gentle moumfulness 
 which he well remembered, and no 
 trace of a single tear. Most beau- 
 tiful, more beautiful, perhaps, than 
 ever there was something in her face 
 which quite unmanned him, and ap- 
 peared far more touching than thf 
 wildest agony of grief. It was not 
 merely calm and composed, but fixed 
 and rigid, as though the violent effort 
 which had summoned that composure 
 beneath her father's eye, while it 
 EK 27
 
 418 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURliS OF 
 
 mastered all other thoughts, had pre- 
 vented even the momentary expres- 
 sion they had communicated to the 
 features from subsiding, and had fast- 
 ened 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 mate- 
 rials were not on their accustomed 
 table, nor were any of the other tokens 
 of her usual occupations to be seen. 
 The little vases which Nicholas had 
 always seen filled with fresh flowers, 
 were empty, or supplied only with a few 
 withered stalks and leaves. The bird 
 was silent. The cloth that covered 
 his cage at night, was not removed. 
 His mistress had forgotten him. 
 
 There are times when the mind, 
 being painfully alive to receive im- 
 pressions, a great deal may be noted 
 at a glance. This was one, for Nicholas 
 had but glanced round him when he 
 was recognised by Mr. Bray, who said 
 impatiently, 
 
 " Now, sir, what do you want ? 
 Name your errand here, quickly, if 
 you please, for my daughter and I are 
 busily engaged with other and more 
 important matters than those you come 
 about. Come, sir, address yourself to 
 your business at once." 
 
 Nicholas could very well discern 
 that the irritability and impatience of 
 this speech were assumed, and that 
 Bray, in his heart, was rejoiced at any 
 interruption which promised to engage 
 the attention of his daughter. He bent 
 his eyes involuntarily upon the father 
 as he spoke, and marked his uneasi- 
 ness ; for he coloured and turned his 
 head away. 
 
 The device, however, so far as it 
 was a device for causing Madeline to 
 interfere, was successful. She rose, 
 and advancing towards Nicholas 
 paused half way, and stretched out 
 b.sr hand as expecting a letter. 
 
 " Madeline," said her father im- 
 patiently, "my love, what are you 
 doing!" 
 "Miss Bray expects an inclosure 
 
 perhaps," said Nicholas, speaking very 
 distinctly, and with an emphasis she 
 could scarcely misunderstand. " My 
 employer is absent from England, or 
 I should have brought a letter with 
 me. I hope she will give me time 
 a little time I ask a very little 
 tune." 
 
 " If that is all you come about, sir," 
 said Mr. Bray, " you may make your- 
 self 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," re- 
 turned Nicholas. 
 
 " You have not thought about it ! " 
 sneered the invalid. " You know you 
 have thought about it, and have thought 
 that, and think so every time you come 
 here. Do you suppose, young man, 
 that I don't know what little purse- 
 proud tradesmen are, when, through 
 some fortunate circumstances, they get 
 the upper hand for a brief day or 
 think they get the upper hand of a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 "My business," said Nicholas re- 
 spectfully, "is with a lady." 
 
 " With a gentleman's daughter, sir," 
 returned the sick man, " and the 
 pettifogging spirit is the same. But 
 perhaps you bring orders eh 1 Have 
 you any fresh orders for my daughter, 
 sir!" 
 
 Nicholas understood the tone of 
 triumph hi which this interrogatory 
 was put, but, remembering the neces- ' 
 sity of supporting his assumed charac- 
 ter, produced a scrap of paper pur- 
 porting to contain a list of some sub- 
 jects for drawings which his employer 
 desired to have executed ; and with 
 which he had prepared himself in case 
 of any such contingency. 
 
 "Oh!" said Mr. Bray. These 
 are the orders, are they ! "
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 419 
 
 "Since you insist upon the term, 
 nr yes," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Then you may tell your master," 
 said Dray, tossing the paper back 
 again, with an exulting smile, "that 
 my daughter Miss Madeline Bray 
 condescends to employ herself no 
 longer in such labours as these ; that 
 she is not at his beck and call, as he 
 supposes her to be ; that we don't live 
 upon his money, as he flatters himself 
 we do ; that he may give whatever he 
 owes us, to the first beggar that passes 
 his shop, or add it to his own promts 
 next time he calculates them ; and 
 that he may go to tiie devil, for me. 
 That's my acknowledgment of his 
 orders, sir 1 " 
 
 " And this is the independence of a 
 man who sells his daughter as he has 
 old that weeping girl ! " thought 
 Nicholas. 
 
 The father was too much absorbed 
 with his own exultation to mark the 
 look of scorn which, for an instant, 
 Nicholas could not have suppressed 
 had he been upon the rack. " There," 
 he continued, after a short silence, 
 "you have your message and can 
 retire unless you have any further 
 ha ! any further orders." 
 
 I have none," said Nicholas ; 
 " nor in consideration of the sta- 
 tion you once held, have I used that 
 or any other word which, however 
 harmless in itself, could be supposed 
 to imply authority on my part or 
 dependence on yours. I have no 
 orders, but I have fears fears that I 
 will express, chafe as you may 
 fears that you may be consigning 
 that young lady to something worse 
 than supporting you by the labour 
 of her hands, had she worked her- 
 self dead. These are my fears, and 
 these fears I found upon your own 
 demeanour. Your conscience will tell 
 you, sir, whether I construe it well 
 or not." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake ! " cried Made- 
 line, interposing in alarm between 
 them. " Remember, sir, he is ill." 
 
 " 111 ! " cried the invalid, gasping 
 and catching for breath. " 111 ! Ill 1 
 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 dis- 
 crder, so violent that for a few mo- 
 ments 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 communi- 
 cate, and would wait for her outside 
 the room. He could hear that the 
 sick man came, gradually, but slowly to 
 himself, and that without any refer- 
 ence to what had just occurred, as 
 though he had no distinct recollection 
 of it, as yet, he requested to be left 
 alone. 
 
 Oh!" thought Nicholas, "tliat 
 this slender chance might not be lost, 
 and that I might prevail, if it were but 
 for one week's time and re-considera- 
 tion ! " 
 
 " You are charged with some com- 
 mission 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," rejoined Nicho- 
 las, " and you will not be here. Oh, 
 madam, if you have but one thought of 
 him who sent me here, but one last 
 lingering care for your own peace of 
 mind and heart, I do for God's sake 
 urge you to give me a hearing." 
 
 She attempted to pass him, but Ni- 
 cholas gently detained her. 
 
 "A hearing," said Nicholas. "I 
 ask you but to hear me not me 
 alone, but bun for whom I speak, who 
 is far away and does not know your 
 danger. In the name of Heaven hear 
 me !" 
 
 The poor attendant, with her eyes 
 swollen and red with weeping, stood 
 by ; and to her, Nicholas appealed in 
 such passionate terms that she opened 
 a side-door, and, supporting her mis- 
 tress into an adjoining room, beckoned 
 Nicholas to follow them. 
 
 " Leave me, sir, pray," said the 
 young lady. 
 
 " I cannot, will not leave yon thus," 
 returned Nicholas. " I have a duty to 
 
 KE2
 
 420 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 con- 
 template again the fearful course to 
 which you have been impelled." 
 
 " What course is this you speak of, 
 and impelled by whom, sir ? " demanded 
 the young lady, with an effort to speak 
 proudly. 
 
 " I speak of this marriage," returned 
 Nicholas, " of this marriage, fixed for 
 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 whom 
 these schemes have come. You are 
 betrayed, and sold for money for 
 gold, whose every coin is rusted with 
 tears, if not red with the blood of 
 ruined men, who have fallen despe- 
 rately by their own mad hands." 
 
 " You say you have a duty to dis- 
 charge," said Madeline, " and so have 
 I. And with the help of Heaven I 
 will perform it." 
 
 " Say rather with the help of devils," 
 replied Nicholas, " with the help of 
 men, one of them your destined 
 husband, who are " 
 
 " I must not hear this," cried the 
 young lady, striving to repress a shud- 
 der, occasioned, as it seemed, even by 
 this slight allusion to Arthur Gride. 
 " This evil, if evil it be, has been 
 of my own seeking. I am impelled 
 to this course by no one, but follow 
 it of my own free will. You see I 
 am not constrained or forced. Report 
 this," said Madeline, "to my dear 
 friend and benefactor, and, taking 
 with you my prayers and thanks for 
 him and for yourself, leave me for 
 ever ! " 
 
 "Not until I have besought you, 
 with all the earnestness and fervour 
 by which I am animated," cried Ni- 
 cholas, " 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 villany of this man to 
 whom you are about to give your hand, 
 some of his deeds you know. You have 
 heard him speak, and have looked upon 
 his face. Reflect, reflect, before it is 
 too late, on the mockery of plighting 
 to him at the altar, faith in which 
 your heart can have no share of 
 uttering solemn words, against which 
 nature and reason must rebel of the 
 degradation of yourself in your own 
 esteem, which must ensue, and must 
 be aggravated every day, as his de- 
 tested character opens upon you more 
 and more. Shrink from the loath- 
 some companionship of this wretch 
 as you would from corruption and 
 disease. Suffer toil and labour if you 
 will, but shun him, shun him, and be 
 happy. For, believe me, I speak the 
 truth ; the most abject poverty, the 
 most wretched condition of human 
 life, with a pure and upright mind, 
 would be happiness to that which you 
 must undergo as the wife of such a 
 man as this ! " 
 
 Long before Nicholas ceased to 
 speak, the young lady buried her face 
 in her hands, and gave her tears free 
 way. In a voice at first inarticulate 
 with emotion, but gradually recover- 
 ing strength as she proceeded, she 
 answered him, 
 
 " I will not disguise from you, sir 
 though perhaps I ought that I have 
 undergone great pain of mind, and 
 have been nearly broken-hearted since 
 I saw you last. I do not love this 
 gentleman. The difference between 
 our ages, tastes, and habits, forbids it. 
 This he knows, and knowing, still 
 offers me his hand. By accepting it, 
 and by that step alone, I can release 
 my father who is dying in this place ; 
 prolong his life, perhaps, for many 
 years ; restore him to comfort I may 
 almost call it affluence and relieve a 
 generous man from the burden of 
 assisting one, by whom, I grieve to 
 say, his noble heart is little under- 
 stood. Do not think so poorly of me 
 as to believe that I feign a love I do 
 not feel. Do not report so ill of me, 
 for that I could not bear. If I cannot,
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 421 
 
 in reason or in nature, love the man 
 who pays this price for my poor hand, 
 I can discharge the duties of a wife : I 
 can be all he seeks in me, and will. 
 He is content to take mo 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 friend- 
 less and forlorn as I, the delicacy with 
 which you have discharged your trust, 
 the faith you have kept with me, have 
 my warmest thanks: and, while I make 
 this last feeble acknowledgment, move 
 me to tears, as you see. But I do not 
 repent, nor am I unhappy. I am 
 happy in the prospect of all I can 
 achieve so easily. I shall be more so 
 when I look back upon it, and all is 
 done, I know." 
 
 " Your tears fall faster as you talk 
 of happiness," said Nicholas, " and 
 you shun the contemplation of that 
 dark future which must be laden 
 with so much misery to you. Defer 
 this marriage for a week for but one 
 week ! " 
 
 " He was talking, when you came 
 upon us just now, with such smiles as 
 I remember to have seen of old, and 
 have not seen for many and many a 
 day, of the freedom that was to come 
 to-morrow," said Madeline, with mo- 
 mentary firmness, "of the welcome 
 change, the fresh air : all the new 
 scenes and objects that would bring 
 fresh life to his exhausted frame. His 
 eye grew bright, and his face lightened 
 at the thought. I will not defer it for 
 an hour." 
 
 " These are but tricks and wiles to 
 urge you on," cried Nicholas. 
 
 " 1 '11 hear no more," said Madeline, 
 hurriedly, " I have heard too much 
 more than I should already. What 
 I have said to you, sir, 1 have said as 
 to that dear friend to whom I trust in 
 you honourably to repeat it. Some 
 time hence, when I am more composed 
 and reconciled to my new mode of life, 
 if I should live so long, I will write to 
 him. Meantime, all holy angels shower 
 blessings on his head, and prosper and 
 preserve him." 
 
 She was hurrying past Nicholas, 
 when he threw himself before her, and 
 
 implored her to think, out once again, 
 upon the fate to which she was preci- 
 pitately hastening. 
 
 " There is no retreat," said Ni- 
 cholas, in an agony of supplication ; 
 " no withdrawing ! All regret will be 
 unavailing, and deep and bitter it must 
 be. What can I say, that will induce 
 you to pause at this last moment ! 
 What can I do, to save you ! " 
 
 "Nothing," she incoherently re- 
 plied. " This is the hardest trial I 
 have had. Have mercy on me, sir, 
 I beseech, and do not pierce my heart 
 with such appeals as these. I I hear 
 him calling. I I must not, will not, 
 remain here for another instant." 
 
 " If this were a plot," said Nicholas, 
 with the same violent rapidity with 
 which she spoke, " a plot, not yet laid 
 bare by me, but which, with time, I 
 might unravel ; if you were (not know- 
 ing it) entitled to fortune of your own, 
 which, being recovered, would do all 
 that this marriage can accomplish, 
 would you not retract ! " 
 
 " No, no, no ! it is impossible ; it 
 is a child's tale, time would bring his 
 death. He is calling again ! " 
 
 " It may be the last time we shall 
 ever meet on earth," said Nicholas, 
 " it may be better for me that we should 
 never meet more." 
 
 " For both for both," replied Ma- 
 deline, not heeding what she said. 
 " The time will come when to recal 
 the memory of this one interview 
 might drive me mad. Be sure to tell 
 them, that you left me calm and happy. 
 And God be with you, sir, and my 
 grateful heart and blessing ! " 
 
 She was gone. Nicholas, stagger- 
 ing 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 en- 
 abled in some measure to collect his 
 thoughts, ho 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 Sliderskew had 
 rendered the accounts of her past
 
 422 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 housekeeping ; the eighteenpence 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 vellum-book 
 with rusty clasps. 
 
 " Well-a-day ! " he chuckled, as sink- 
 ing 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 writ- 
 ten ! 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 composed for private circulation 
 for my own particular reading, and 
 nobody else's. He, he, he ! " 
 
 Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur 
 carried his precious volume to the 
 table, and, adjusting it upon a dusty 
 desk, put on his spectacles, and began 
 to pore among the leaves. 
 
 " It 's a large sum to Mr. Nickleby," 
 he said, in a dolorous voice. " Debt to 
 be paid in full, nine hundred and 
 seventy-five, four, three. Additional 
 sum as per bond five hundred pound. 
 One thousand, four hundred and 
 seventy-five pounds, four shillings, and 
 threepence, to-morrowat 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 
 whetherl mightn't havebroughtall this 
 about, myself. ' Faint heart never won ' 
 fair lady.' Why was my heart so 
 fault ? Why didn't I boldly open it to 
 Bray myself, and save one thousand 
 four hundred and seventy-five, four, 
 three!" 
 
 These reflections depressed, the old | 
 usurer so much, as to wring a feeble | 
 
 groan or two from his breast, and 
 cause him to decjare, with uplifted 
 hands, that he would die in a work- 
 house. Remembering on further cogi- 
 tation, however, that under any cir- 
 cumstances he must have paid, or 
 handsomely compounded for, Ralph's 
 debt, and being by no means confident 
 that he would have succeeded had he 
 undertaken his enterprise alone, he 
 regained his equanimity, and chattered 
 and mowed over more satisfactory 
 items, until the entrance of Peg Slider- 
 skew interrupted him. 
 
 "Aha, Peg!" said Arthur, "what 
 is it ''. What is it now, Peg ? " 
 
 It 's the fowl," replied Peg, hold- 
 ing up a plate containing a little a 
 very little one quite a phenomenon 
 of a fowl so very small and skinny. 
 
 " A beautiful bird ! " said Arthur, 
 after inquiring the price, and finding 
 it proportionate to the size. " With a 
 rasher of ham, and an egg made into 
 sauce, and potatoes, and greens, and 
 an apple-pudding, Peg, and a little 
 bit of cheese, we shall have a dinner 
 for an emperor. There'll only be 
 she and me and you, Peg, when 
 we 've done." 
 
 " Don't you complain of the expense 
 afterwards," said Mrs. Sliderskew, 
 sulkily. 
 
 " I 'm afraid we must live expen- 
 sively for the first week," returned 
 Arthur, with a groan, " and then we 
 must make up for it I wan't eat more 
 than I can help, and I know you love 
 your old master too much to eat more 
 than you can help, don't you, Peg ? " 
 
 " Don't I what ? " said Peg. 
 
 " Love your old master too much " 
 
 " No, not a bit too much," said Peg. 
 
 " Oh dear, I wish the devil had this 
 woman ! " cried Arthur " love him 
 too much to eat more than you can 
 help at his expense." 
 
 " At his what ! " said Peg. 
 
 " Oh dear ! she can never hear the 
 most important word, and hears all 
 the others ! " whined Gride. " At his 
 expense you catamaran ! " 
 
 The last-mentioned tribute to the 
 charms of Mrs. Sliderskew, being 
 uttered in a whisper, that lady as-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 425 
 
 sented to the general proposition by a 
 harsh growl, which was accompanied 
 by a ring at the street-door. 
 
 " There 's the bell," said Arthur. 
 " Ay, ay ; I know that," rejoined 
 Peg. 
 
 " Then why don't you go ? " bawled 
 Arthur. 
 
 " Go where I " retorted Peg. " I 
 ain't doing any harm here, am I ? " 
 
 Arthur Gride in reply repeated the 
 word bell " as loud as he could roar ; 
 and, his meaning being rendered fur- 
 ther intelligible to Mrs. Sliderskew's 
 dull sense of hearing by pantomime 
 expressive of ringing at a street-door, 
 Peg hobbled out, after sharply de- 
 manding why he hadn't said there was 
 a ring, before, instead of talking about 
 all manner of tilings that had nothing 
 to do with it, and keeping her hall- 
 pint of beer waiting on the steps. 
 
 " There 's a change come over you, 
 Mrs. Peg," said Arthur, following her 
 out with his eyes. " What it means I 
 don't quite know ; but, if it lasts, we 
 shan't agree together long, I see. You 
 are turning crazy, I think. If you 
 are, you must take yourself oft', Mrs. 
 Peg or be taken off. All 's one to 
 me." Turning over the leaves of his 
 book as he muttered this, he soon 
 lighted upon something which at- 
 tracted his attention, and forgot Peg 
 Sliderskew and everything else in the 
 engrossing interest of its pages. 
 
 The room had no other light than 
 that which it derived from a dim and 
 dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, 
 being still further obscured by a dark 
 shade, cast its feeble rays over a very 
 little space, and left all beyond in 
 heavy shadow. This lamp, the money- 
 lender had drawn so close to him, that 
 there was only room between it and 
 himself for the book over which he 
 bent ; and as he sat, with his elbows 
 on the desk, and his sharp cheek- 
 bones resting on his hands, it only 
 served to bring out his ugly fea- 
 tures in strong relief, together with 
 the little table at which he sat, and to 
 ahroud all the rest of the chamber in 
 a deep sullen gloom. liaising his 
 eyes, and looking vacantly into this 
 
 ;loom as he made some mental cal- 
 culation, Arthur Gride suddenly met 
 :h.- fixed gaze of a man. 
 
 " Thieves ! thieves ! " shrieked the 
 usurer, starting up and folding his 
 ook to his breast, " robbers ! mur- 
 der!" 
 
 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 1 " was the inquiry. 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried Arthur Gride, 
 shading his eyes with his hand, " it ia 
 a man, and not a spirit It is a man. 
 Robbers ! robbers P 
 
 " For what are these cries raised 
 unless indeed you know me, and have 
 some purpose in your brain 1 " said 
 the stranger, coming close up to him. 
 " I am no thief." 
 
 " What then, and how come you 
 here 3 " cried Gride, somewhat reas- 
 sured, 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 tho way by your servant. 
 1 have addressed you twice or thrice, 
 but you were too profoundly engaged 
 with your book to hear me, and I 
 have been silently waiting until you 
 should be less abstracted. What I 
 want, I will tell you, when you can 
 summon up courage enough to hear 
 and understand me." 
 
 Arthur Gride venturing to regard 
 his visitor more attentively, and per- 
 ceiving that he was a young man of 
 good mifeii 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, re- 
 quested his visitor to sit down. This 
 however he declined. 
 
 " Good God ! I don't stand up to 
 have you at an advantage," said Ni- 
 cholas (for Nicholas it was), as he ob- 
 served a gesture of alarm on the part 
 of Gride. " Listen to me. You are 
 to be married to-morrow morning." 
 "N u no," rejoined Gride.
 
 424 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Who said I was ! How do you 
 
 know that ? " 
 
 * No matter how," replied Nicholas, 
 * I know it. The young lady who is 
 to give you her hand, hates and de- 
 spises you. Her blood runs cold at 
 the mention of your name the vul- 
 ture 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 lacldng 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 bring- 
 ing about this sale of Madeline Bray. 
 You do. A lie is trembling on your 
 iips, 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 
 nr 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 dis- 
 covery of your fraud and treachery 
 before your death if wealth, revenge, 
 and just hatred, can hunt and track 
 you through your windings you will 
 yet be called to a dear account for 
 this. We are on the scent already 
 judge you, who know what we do not, 
 when we shall have you down ! " 
 
 He paused again, and still Arthur 
 Glide glared upon him in silence. 
 
 " If you were a man to whom I 
 could appeal with any hope of touch- 
 ing his compassion or humanity," said 
 Nicholas, " I would urge upon you 
 to remember the helplessness, the 
 innocence, the youth, of this lady ; her 
 worth and beauty, her filial excellence, 
 and last, and more than all as con- 
 cerning you more nearly, the appeal 
 she has made to your mercy and your 
 manly feeling. But, I take the only 
 ground that can be taken with men 
 like you, and ask what money will buy 
 you off. Remember the danger to 
 
 which you are exposed. Yon see I 
 know enough, to know much more with 
 very little help. Bate some expected 
 gain, for the risk you save, and say 
 what is your price." 
 
 Old Arthur Gride moved his lips, 
 but they only formed an ugly smile 
 and were motionless again. 
 
 " You think," said Nicholas, " that 
 the price would not be paid. Miss 
 Bray has wealthy friends who would 
 coin their very hearts to save her in 
 such a strait as this. Name your 
 price, defer these nuptials for but a 
 few days, and see whether those I 
 speak of, shrink from the payment. 
 Do you hear me ? " 
 
 When Nicholas began, Arthur 
 Gride's impression was, that Ralph 
 Nickleby had betrayed him ; but, as 
 he proceeded, he felt convinced that 
 however he had come by the know- 
 ledge he possessed, the part he acted 
 was a genuine one, and that with 
 Ralph, he had no concern. All h 
 seemed to know, for certain, was, that 
 he, Gride, paid Ralph's debt ; but that, 
 to anybody who knew the circum- 
 stances of Bray's detention even to 
 Bray himself on Ralph's own state- 
 ment 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 accusa- 
 tion. Whether or no, he had clearly 
 no key to the mystery, and could not 
 hurt him who kept it close within his 
 own breast. The allusion to friends, 
 and the offer of money, Gride held to 
 be mere empty vapouring, for pur- 
 poses of delay. " And even if money 
 were 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 en- 
 gaged, had rendered Gride quick in 
 forming conclusions, and arriving, from
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 425 
 
 puzzling, intricate, and often contra- 
 dictory premises, at very cunning 
 deductions. Hence it was, that, as Ni- 
 cholas went on, he followed him closely 
 with his own constructions, and, when 
 he ceased to speak, was as well pre- 
 pared as if he had deliberated for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 " I hear you," he cried, starting 
 from his seat, casting back the fast- 
 enings of the window-shutters, and 
 throwing up the sash. " Help here ! 
 Help ! Help !" 
 
 " What are you doing ! " said Ni- 
 cholas, seizing him by the arm. 
 
 " I '11 cry robbers, thieves, murder, 
 alarm the neighbourhood, struggle with 
 you, let loose some blood, and swear 
 you came to rob me, if you don't quit 
 my house," replied Gride, drawing in 
 his head with a frightful grin, " I will 1" 
 
 " Wretch ! " cried Nicholas. 
 
 " You'll bring your threats here, 
 will you ! " said Gride, whom jealousy 
 of Nicholas and a sense of his own 
 triumph had converted into a perfect 
 fiend. " You, the disappointed lover 
 oh dear ! He ! he ! he ! but you 
 shan't have her, nor she you. She 's 
 my wife, my doting little wife. Do 
 you think she '11 miss you ! Do you 
 think she '11 weep i I shall like to 
 see her weep I shan't mind it. She 
 looks prettier in tears." 
 
 Villain ! " said Nic 
 with his rage. 
 
 " One minute more," cried Arthur 
 Gride, " and I '11 rouse the street with 
 such screams, as, if they were raised 
 by any body else, should wake me 
 even in the arms of pretty Made-line." 
 
 " You hound ! " said Nicholas, " if 
 you were but a younger man " 
 
 " Oh yes I " sneered Arthur Gride, 
 "if I was but a younger man it 
 wouldn't be so bad ; but for me, so old 
 and ugly to be jilted by little Madeline 
 for me ! " 
 
 " Hear me," said Nicholas, "and 
 be thankful I have enough command 
 over myself not to fling you into the 
 Street, which no aid could prevent my 
 doing if I once grappled with you. I 
 have been no lover of this lady's. No 
 contract or engagement, no word of 
 
 Nicholas, clinking 
 
 love, has ever passed between us. She 
 does not even know my name." 
 
 I '11 ask it for all that I '11 beg it 
 of her with kisses," said Arthur Gride. 
 "Yes, and she'll tell me, and pay 
 them back, and we'll laugh together, 
 and hug ourselves and be very merry 
 when we think of the poor youth 
 that wanted to have her, but couldn't, 
 because she was bespoke by me 1 " 
 
 This taunt brought such an expres- 
 sion into the face of Nicholas, that 
 Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it 
 to be the forerunner of his putting 
 his threat of tlirowing him into the 
 street in immediate execution ; for he 
 thrust his head out of the window, and 
 holding tight on with both hands, 
 raised a pretty brisk alarm. Not 
 thinking it necessary to abide the 
 issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent 
 to an indignant defiance, and stalked 
 from the room and from the house. 
 Arthur Gride watched him across the 
 street, and then, drawing in his head, 
 fastened the window as before, and sat 
 down to take breath. 
 
 " If she ever turns pettish or ill- 
 humoured, I '11 taunt her with that 
 spark," he said, when he had reco- 
 vered. "She'll little think I know 
 about him ; and, if I manage it well, 
 I can break her spirit by this means 
 and have her under my thumb. I 'm 
 glad nobody came. I did'nt call too 
 loud. The audacity to enter my house, 
 and open upon me ! But I shall have 
 a very good triumph to-morrow, and 
 he '11 be gnawing his fingers oft' : per- 
 haps drown himself, or cut his throat ! 
 I shouldn't wonder ! That would make 
 it quite complete, that would quite." 
 
 When he had become restored to 
 his usual condition by these and 
 other comments on his approaching 
 triumph, Arthur Gride put away his 
 book, and, having locked the chest 
 with great caution, descended into 
 the kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew 
 to bed, and scold her for having 
 afforded such ready admission to a 
 stranger. 
 
 The unconscious Peg, however, not 
 being able to comprehend the offence 
 of which she had been guilty, he
 
 426 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 summoned her to bold the light, while 
 he made a tour of the fastenings, and 
 secured the street-door with his own 
 bands. 
 
 " Top bolt," muttered Arthur, fast- 
 ening as he spoke, "bottom bolt 
 chain bar double-lock and key out 
 to put under my pillow ! So, if any 
 more rejected admirers come, they 
 may come through the key-hole. And 
 iiow I 'II 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 ap- 
 peared, for the moment, inclined to 
 celebrate the close of his bachelor days 
 by imprinting a kiss on her shrivelled 
 lips. Thinking better of it, however, 
 he gave her chin another tap, in lieu 
 of that warmer familiarity, and stole 
 away to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE CaiSIS OF THE PROJECT AND ITS RESULT. 
 
 THERE are not many men who lie 
 abed too late, or oversleep themselves, 
 on their wedding morning. A legend 
 there is, of somebody remarkable for 
 absence of mind, who opened his eyes 
 upon the day which was to give him a 
 young wife, and forgetting all about 
 the matter, rated his servants for pro- 
 viding him with such fine clothes as 
 had been prepared for the festival. 
 There is also a legend of a young 
 gentleman, who, not having before his 
 eyes the fear of the canons of the 
 church for such cases made and pro- 
 vided, conceived a passion for his 
 grandmother. Both cases are of a sin- 
 gular and special kind, and it is very 
 doubtful whether either can be con- 
 sidered as a precedent likely to be 
 extensively followed by succeeding 
 generations. 
 
 Arthur Gride had enrobed himself 
 in his marriage garments of bottle- 
 green, a full hour before Mrs. Slider- 
 skew, shaking off 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 favourite 
 cordial, ere that delicate piece of anti- 
 quity enlightened the kitchen with her 
 presence. 
 
 " Faugh ! " said Peg, grubbing, hi 
 the discharge of her domestic func- 
 tions, among a scanty heap of ashes 
 
 in the rusty grate, " Wedding indeed ! 
 A precious wedding ! He wants some- 
 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 keep me content with short 
 food, small wages, and little fire ! 
 ' My will, Peg ! my will ! ' says he, 
 'I 'm a bachelor no friends no rela- 
 tions, Peg.' Lies ! And now he 's to 
 bring home a new mistress, a baby- 
 faced chit of a girl ! If he wanted 
 a' wife, the fool, why couldn't he 
 have one suitable to his age and 
 that knew his ways ! She won't come 
 in my way, he says. No, that she 
 won't, but you little think why, 
 Arthur boy ! " 
 
 While Mrs. Sliderskew, influenced 
 possibly by some lingering feelings of 
 disappointment and personal slight, 
 occasioned by her old master's pre- 
 ference for another, was giving loose 
 to these grumblings below-stairs, 
 Arthur Gride was cogitating in the 
 parlour upon what had taken place 
 hist 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 in- 
 stance, which has been overheard. 
 Perhaps I may. I shouldn't be sur- 
 prised if that was it. Mr. Nickleby 
 was often angry at my talking to him
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 427 
 
 before we got outside the door. I 
 mustn't tell him that part of the busi- 
 ness, or he '11 put me out of sorts, and 
 make me nervous for the day." 
 
 Ralph was unJTersally looked up to, 
 nd recognised among his fellows as a 
 superior genius, but upon Arthur 
 Gride his stern unyielding character 
 and consummate art had made so 
 deep an impression, that he was 
 actually afraid of him. Cringing and 
 cowardly to the core, by nature, Ar- 
 thur Gride humbled himself in the 
 dust before Ralph Nickleby, and, even 
 when they had not this stake in com- 
 mon, would have licked his shoes and 
 crawled upon the ground before him 
 rather than venture to return him 
 word for word, or retort upon him in 
 any other spirit than one of the most 
 slavish and abject sycophancy. 
 
 To Ralph Nickleby's, Arthur Gride 
 now betook himself according to ap- 
 pointment ; and to Ralph Nickleby he 
 related, how, last night, some young 
 blustering blade, whom he had never 
 seen, forced his way into his house 
 and tried to frighten him from the 
 proposed nuptials : told in short, 
 what Nicholas had said and done, 
 with the slight reservation upon which 
 he had determined. 
 
 "Well, and what then?" said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing more," rejoined 
 Gride. 
 
 "He tried to frighten you," said 
 Ralph, " and you were frightened I 
 suppose ; is that it 1 " 
 
 " I frightened him by crying thieves 
 and murder," replied Gride. " Once 
 I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I 
 had more than half a mind to swear he 
 uttered threats and demanded my life 
 or my money." 
 
 " Oho ! " said Ralph, eyeing him 
 askew. Jealous too ! " 
 
 " Dear now, see that ! " cried Arthur, 
 rubbing his hands and affecting to 
 laugh. 
 
 " Why do you make those grimaces, 
 man ! " said Ralph, " you are jealous 
 and with good cause I think." 
 
 " No, no, no, not with good cause, 
 hey ? You don't think with good 
 
 cause, do you 1 " cried Arthur, falter- 
 ing, " 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 1 " 
 
 "No ! " snarled Arthur Gride. 
 
 a Oh ! " rejoined Ralph, " I thought 
 you did. Well ! Handsome or not 
 handsome, to this old man there comes 
 a young fellow who casts all manner of 
 fierce defiances in his teeth gums I 
 should rather say and tells him in 
 plain terms that his mistress hates 
 him. What does he do that for I 
 Philanthropy's sake ? " 
 
 " Not for love of the lady," replied 
 Gride, " for he said that no word of 
 love his very words had ever passed 
 between "em." 
 
 " He said ! " repeated Ralph, con- 
 temptuously. " But I like him for one 
 thing, and that is, his giving you this 
 fair warning to keep your what is it ? 
 Tit-tit or dainty chick which ? 
 under lock and key. Be careful, 
 Gride, be careful. It 's a triumph, too, 
 to tear her away from a gallant young 
 rival: a great triumph for an old man ! 
 It only remains to keep her safe when 
 you have her that's all." 
 
 " What a man it is ! " cried Arthur 
 Gride, affecting, in the extremity of his 
 torture, to be highly amused. And 
 then he added, anxiously, " Yes ; to 
 keep her safe, that's all. And that 
 isn't much, is it ? " 
 
 " Much ! " said Ralph, with a sneer. 
 " Why, everybody knows what easy 
 things to understand and to control, 
 women are. But come, it 's very 
 nearly time for you to be made happy. 
 You '11 pay the bond now, I suppose, to 
 save us trouble afterwards." 
 
 " Oh what a man you are !" croaked 
 Arthur. 
 
 " Why not ?" said Ralph. " Nobody 
 will pay you interest for the money, 
 I suppose, between this and twelve 
 o'clock : will they I " 
 
 " But nobody would pay you interest 
 for it either, you know," returned 
 Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the
 
 4*28 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 cunning and slynesp he could throw | 
 into his face. 
 
 " Besides which," said Ralph, suf- 
 fering his lip to curl into a smile, 
 " you haven't the money about you ; | 
 and you weren't prepared for this, or I 
 you 'd have brought it with you ; and 
 there 's nobody you 'd so much like to j 
 accommodate as me. I see. We j 
 trust each other in about an equal 
 degree. Are you ready ? " 
 
 Gride, who had done nothing but 
 grin, and nod, and chatter, during 
 this last speech of Ralph's, answered 
 in the affirmative; and, producing from 
 his hat a couple of large white favours, 
 pinned one on his breast, and with 
 considerable difficulty induced his 
 friend to do the like. Thus accoutred ; 
 they got into a hired coach which 
 Ralph had in waiting, and drove to the 
 residence of the fair and most wretched 
 bride. 
 
 Gride, whose spirits and courage had 
 gradually failed him more and more as 
 they approached nearer and nearer to 
 the house, was utterly dismayed and 
 cowed by the mournful silence which 
 pervaded it. The face of the poor 
 servant-girl, the only person they saw, 
 was disfigured with tears and want of 
 sleep. There was nobody to receive 
 or welcome them ; and they stole up 
 stairs into the usual sitting-room, more 
 like two burglars than the bridegroom 
 and his friend. 
 
 K One would think," said Ralph, 
 speaking, in spite of himself, in a low 
 and subdued voice, " that there was a 
 funeral going on here, and not a 
 wedding." 
 
 " He, he ! " tittered his friend, "you 
 are so so very funny ! " 
 
 " I need be," remarked Ralph, drily, 
 "for this is rather dull and chilling. 
 Look a little brisker, man, and not so 
 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 '11 not come 
 till she is obliged," returned Ralph, 
 looking at his watch, " and she has a 
 good half , hour to spare yet. Curb 
 your impatience." 
 
 " I I am not impatient,"' stam- 
 mered Arthur. " I wouldn't be hard 
 with her for the world. Oh dear, dear, 
 not on any account. Let her take her 
 time her own tune. Her time shall 
 be ours by all means." 
 
 While Ralph bent upon his trem- 
 bling friend a keen look, which showed 
 that he perfectly understood the reason 
 of this great consideration and regard, 
 a footstep was heard upon the stairs, 
 and Bray himself came into the room 
 on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with 
 a cautious gesture as if there were some 
 sick person near, who must not be 
 disturbed. 
 
 " Hush ! " he said in a low voice. 
 " She was very ill last night. I thought 
 she would have broken her heart. She 
 is dressed, and crying bitterly in her 
 own room ; but she 's better, and quite 
 quiet that 's everything ! " 
 
 " She is ready, is she ! " said Ralph. 
 
 " Quite ready," returned the father. 
 
 " And not likely to delay us by any 
 young-lady weaknesses fainting, or so 
 forth ? " said Ralph. 
 
 " She may be safely trusted now," 
 returned Bray. " I have been talking 
 to her, this morning. Here come a 
 little this way." 
 
 He drew Ralph Nickleby to the 
 further end of the room, and pointed 
 towards Gride, who sat huddled to- 
 gether in a corner, fumbling nervously 
 with the buttons of his coat, and ex- 
 hibiting a face, of which every skulking 
 and base expression was sharpened 
 and aggravated to the utmost by bis 
 anxiety and trepidation. 
 
 "Look at that man," whispered 
 Bray, emphatically. " This seems a 
 cruel thing, after all." 
 
 " What seems a cruel tiling ! " 
 inquired Ralph, with as much stolidity 
 of face, as if he really were in utter 
 ignorance of the other's meaning. 
 
 " This marriage," answered Bray. 
 " Don't ask me what. You know 
 as well as I do." 
 
 Ralph shrugged his shoulders in 
 silent deprecation of Bray's impa- 
 tience, aud elevated his eyebrows, and 
 pursed his lips, as men do when they 
 are prepared with a sufficient answer
 
 NICHOLAS XICKLEBY. 
 
 429 
 
 to some remark, but wait for a more 
 favourable opportunity of advancing 
 it, or think it scarcely worth while to 
 answer their adversary at all. 
 
 " Look at him. Does it not seem 
 cruel ! " said Bray. 
 
 " No ! " replied Ralph boldly. 
 
 " I say it does," retorted Bray with 
 a show of much irritation. "It is 
 a cruel thing, by all that's bad and 
 treacherous ! " 
 
 When men are about to commit, or 
 to sanction the commission, of some 
 injustice, it is not uncommon for 
 them to express pity for the object 
 cither of that or some parallel pro- 
 ceeding, and to feel themselves, at the 
 time, quite virtuous and moral, and 
 immensely superior to those who ex- 
 press no pity at all. This is a kind of 
 upholding of faith above works, and 
 is very comfortable. To do Ralph 
 Nickleby justice, he seldom practised 
 tliis sort of dissimulation ; but he 
 understood those who did, and therefore 
 suffered Bray to say, again and again, 
 with great vehemence, that they were 
 jointly doing a very cruel thing, before 
 he again offered to interpose a word. 
 
 " You see what a dry, shrivelled, 
 withered old chip it is," returned 
 Ralph, when the other was at length 
 silent. " If he were younger, it might 
 be cruel, but as it is hark'ee, Mr. 
 Bray, he '11 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 anything better for her 
 than advise her to accept these pro- 
 posals, could I i Now, I ask you, 
 Nickleby, as a man of the world 
 could I ! " 
 
 " Surely not," answered Ralph. " I 
 tell you what, sir ; there are a 
 hundred fathers, within a circuit of 
 five miles from this place ; well off ; 
 good, rich, substantial men ; who would 
 gladly give their daughters and their 
 own ears with them, to tint very man 
 yonder, ape and mummy as he looks." 
 
 " So there are ! " exclaimed Bray, 
 eagerly catching at anything which 
 
 seemed a justification of himself. 
 " And so I told her, both last night 
 and 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 v hot 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 hi earnest, and 
 having nodded twice or thrice in un- 
 qualified assent to what had fallen 
 from him, said : 
 
 " I must go up stairs for a few 
 minutes, to finish dressing. When 
 I come down, I'll bring Madeline 
 with me. Do you know I had a very 
 strange dream last night, which I have 
 not remembered till this instant ! I 
 dreamt that it was this morning, and 
 you and I had been talking, as we 
 have been this minute ; that I went 
 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 tre- 
 mendous height as the imagination 
 scarcely conceives, except in dreams, 
 I alighted in a grave." 
 
 " And you awoke, and found you 
 were lying on your back, or with your 
 head hanging over the bedside, or 
 suffering some pain from indigestion!" 
 said Ralph. " Pshaw, Mr. Bray, do 
 as I do (you will have the opportunity, 
 now that a constant round of pleasure 
 and enjoyment opens upon you) and, 
 occupying yourself a little more by 
 day, have no time to think of what 
 you dream by night." 
 
 Ralph followed him, with a steady 
 look, to the door ; and, turning to the 
 bridegroom, when they were again 
 alone, said, 
 
 " Mark my words, Gride, you won't 
 have to pay hia annuity very long. 
 You have the devil's luck in bargains, 
 always. If he is not booked to make
 
 430 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 the long voyage before many months 
 are past and gone, 1 wear an orange 
 for a head ! " 
 
 To this prophecy, so agreeable to his 
 ears, Arthur returned no answer than 
 a cackle of great delight. Ralph, 
 throwing himself into a chair, they 
 both sat waiting in profound silence. 
 Ralph was thinking, with a sneer upon 
 his lips, on the altered manner of Bray 
 that day, and how soon their fellow- 
 ship in a bad design had lowered his 
 pride and established a familiarity 
 between them, when his attentive ear 
 caught the rustling of a female dress 
 upon the stairs, and the footstep of a 
 
 man, 
 
 " Wake up," he said, stamping his 
 foot impatiently upon the ground, 
 " and be something like life, man, will 
 you ? They are here. Urge those 
 dry old bones of yours this way 
 quick, man, quick ! " 
 
 Gride shambled forward, and stood, 
 leering and bowing, close by Ralph's 
 side, when the door opened and there 
 entered in haste not Bray and his 
 daughter, but Nicholas and his sister 
 Kate. 
 
 If some tremendous apparition from 
 the world of shadows had suddenly 
 presented itself before him, Ralph 
 Nickleby could not have been more 
 thunder-stricken than he was by this 
 surprise. His hands fell powerless by 
 his side, he reeled back ; and with 
 open mouth, and a face of ashy pale- 
 ness, stood gazing at them in speech- 
 less rage : his eyes so prominent, and 
 his face so convulsed and changed by 
 the passions which raged within him, 
 that it would have been difficult to 
 recognise in him the same stern, com- 
 posed, hard-featured man he had been 
 not a minute ago. 
 
 "The man that came to me last 
 night," whispered Gride, plucking at 
 bis elbow. " The man that came to 
 me last night ! " 
 
 " I see," muttered Ralph, " I know! 
 I might have guessed as much before. 
 Across my every path, at every turn, 
 go where I will, do what I may, he 
 comes ! " 
 
 The absence of all colour from the 
 
 face ; the dilated nostril ; the quiver- 
 ing of the lips which, though set 
 firmly against each other, would not 
 be still ; showed what emotions were 
 struggling for the mastery with Nicho- 
 las. But he kept them down, and 
 gently pressing Kate's arm to re- assure 
 her, stood erect and undaunted, front 
 to front with his unworthy relative. 
 
 As the brother and sister stood side 
 by side, with a gallant bearing which 
 became them well, a close likeness 
 between them was apparent, which 
 many, had they only seen them apart, 
 might have failed to remark. The air, 
 carriage, and very look and expression 
 of the brother were all reflected in the 
 sister, but softened and refined to the 
 nicest limit of feminine delicacy and 
 attraction. More striking still, was 
 some indefinable resemblance, in the 
 face of Ralph, to both. While they 
 had never looked more handsome, nor 
 he more ugly ; while they had never 
 held themselves more proudly, nor he 
 shrunk half so low ; there never had 
 been a time when this resemblance was 
 so perceptible, or when all the worst 
 characteristics of a face rendered 
 coarse and harsh by evil thoughts 
 were half so manifest as now. 
 
 " Away ! " "was the first word he 
 could utter as he literally gnashed his 
 teeth. " Away ! What brings you 
 here liar scoundrel dastard 
 thief ! " 
 
 " I come here," said Nicholas in a 
 low deep voice, " to save your victim 
 if I can. Liar and scoundrel you are, 
 in every action of your life ; theft is 
 your trade ; and double dastard you 
 must be, or you were not here to-day. 
 Hard words will not move me, nor 
 would hard blows. Here I stand, and 
 will, till I have done my errand." 
 
 Girl ! " said Ralph, " retire ! We 
 can use force to him, but I would not 
 hurt you if I could help it. Retire, you 
 weak and silly wench, and leave this 
 dog to be dealt with as he deserves." 
 
 " I will not retire," cried Kate, with 
 flashing eyes and the red blood man-, 
 tling in her cheeks. " You will do him 
 no hurt that he will not repay. You 
 may use force with me ; I think you.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 431 
 
 will, for I am a girl, and that would 
 well become you. But if I have a girl's 
 weakness, I have a woman's heart, and 
 it is not you who in a cause like this 
 can turn that from its purpose." 
 
 " And what may your purpose be, 
 most lofty lady ! " said Ralph. 
 
 ' To offer to the unhappy subject of 
 your treachery, at this last moment," 
 replied Nicholas, "a refuge and a 
 home. If the near prospect of such a 
 husband as you have provided, will not 
 prevail upon her, I hope she may be 
 moved by the prayers and entreaties 
 of one of her own sex. At all events 
 they shall be tried. I myself, avow- 
 ing to her fattier from whom 1 come 
 and by whom I am commissioned, 
 will render it an act of greater base- 
 ness, meanness, and cruelty in him if 
 he still dares to force this marriage 
 on. Here I wait to see him and his 
 daughter. For this I came and brought 
 my sister even into your presence. 
 Our purpose is not to see or speak with 
 you ; therefore to you, we stoop to say 
 no more." 
 
 Indeed ! " said Ralph. You 
 persist in remaining here, ma'am, do 
 you ? " 
 
 His niece's bosom heaved with the 
 indignant excitement into which he 
 had lashed her, but she gave him no 
 reply. 
 
 " Now, Gride, see here," said Ralph. 
 " Tins fellow I grieve to say my 
 brother's son : a reprobate and profli- 
 gate, stained with every mean and sel- 
 fish crime this fellow, coming here to- 
 day to disturb a solemn ceremony, and 
 Knowing that the consequence of his 
 presenting himself in another man's 
 house at such a time, and persisting in 
 remaining there, must be his being 
 kicked into the streets and dragged 
 through them like the vagabond he is 
 this fellow, mark you, brings with him 
 his sister as a protection, thinking we 
 would not expose a silly girl to the 
 degradation and indignity which is no 
 novelty to him ; and, even after I liave 
 warned her of what must ensue, he 
 still keeps her by him, as you see, and 
 clings to her apron-strings like a cow- 1 
 ardl y boy to his mother's. Is this a 
 
 pretty fellow to talk as big as you 
 have heard him now ! " 
 
 " And as I heard him last night," 
 said Arthur Gride ; " as I heard him 
 last night when he sneaked into my 
 house, and he ! he ! he 1 very soon 
 sneaked out again, when I nearly 
 frightened him to death. And he want- 
 ing to marry Miss Madeline too ! Oh, 
 dear ! Is there anything else he M like 
 anything else we can do for him, 
 besides giving her up ? Would he like 
 his debts paid and his house furnished, 
 and a few bank notes for shaving paper 
 if he shaves at all ! He ! he ! he ! " 
 
 " You will remain, girl, will you ? " 
 said Ralph, turning upon Kate again, 
 "to be hauled down stairs like a 
 drunken drab as I swear you shall 
 if you stop here 1 No answer ! 
 Thank your brother for what follows. 
 Gride, call down Bray and not hi 
 daughter. Let them keep her, above." 
 
 " If you value your head," said 
 Nicholas, taking up a position before 
 the door, and speaking in the same 
 low voice in which he had spoken 
 before, and with no more outward pas- 
 sion than he had before displayed ; 
 " stay where you are !" 
 
 ' Mind me, and not him, and call 
 down Bray," said Ralph. 
 
 " Mind yourself rather than either 
 of us, and stay where you are ! " said 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Will you call down Bray ? " cried 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Remember that you come near me 
 at your peril," said Nicholas. 
 
 Gride hesitated. Ralph, being, by 
 this time, as furious as a baffled tiger 
 made for the door, and, attempting to 
 pass Kate, clasped her arm roughly 
 with his hand. Nicholas, with his eyes 
 darting fire, seized him by the collar. 
 At that moment, a heavy body fell 
 with great violence on the floor above, 
 and, man instant afterwards, was heard 
 a most appalling and terrific scream. 
 
 They all stood still, and gazed upon 
 ech other. Scream succeeded scream ; 
 a heavy pattering of feet succeeded ; 
 and many shrill voices clamouring 
 together were heard to cry, " He ia 
 dead!"
 
 432 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Stand off ! " cried Nicholas, letting 
 lobse all the passion he had restrained 
 till now, "if this is what I scarcely 
 dare to hope it is, you are caught, 
 villains, in your own toils." 
 
 He burst from the room, and, darting 
 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; 
 his daughter clinging to the body. 
 
 " How did this happen I " 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 sup- 
 posed to be asleep, until some person 
 going in and shaking him by the arm, 
 he fell heavily to the ground and was 
 discovered to be dead. 
 
 " Who is the owner of this house ? " 
 said Nicholas, hastily. 
 
 An elderly woman was pointed out 
 to him ; and to her he said, as he 
 knelt down and gently unwound Made- 
 line's arms from the lifeless mass round 
 which they were entwined : " I repre- 
 sent this lady's nearest friends, as her 
 servant here knows, and must remove 
 her from this dreadful scene. This is 
 my sister to whose charge you confide 
 her. My name and address are upon 
 that card, and you shall receive from 
 me all necessary directions for the 
 arrangements that must be made. 
 Stand aside, every one of you, and 
 give me room and air for God's sake !" 
 
 The people fell back, scarce wonder- 
 ing more at what had just occurred, 
 than at the excitement and impetuosity 
 of him who spoke. Nicholas, taking 
 the insensible girl in his arms, bore 
 her from the chamber and down stairs 
 into the room he had just quitted, 
 followed by his sister and the faithful 
 servant, whom he charged to procure 
 a coach directly, while he and Kate 
 bent over their beautiful charge and 
 endeavoured, but in vain, to restore 
 her to animation. The girl performed 
 her office with such expedition, that 
 
 in a very few minutes the coach was 
 ready. 
 
 Ralph Nickleby and Gride, stunned 
 and paralysed by the awful event which 
 had so suddenly overthrown their 
 schemes (it would not otherwise, per- 
 haps, have made much impression on 
 them), and carried away by the extra- 
 ordinary energy and precipitation of 
 Nicholas, which bore down all before 
 him, looked on at these proceedings 
 like men in a dream or trance. It 
 was not until every preparation was 
 made for Madeline's immediate re- 
 moval that Ralph broke silence by 
 declaring she should not be taken away. 
 
 " Who says so ? " cried Nicholas, 
 rising from his knee and confronting 
 them, but still retaining Madeline's 
 lifeless hand in his. 
 
 "I ! " answered Ralph, hoarsely. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " cried the terrified 
 Gride, catching him by the arm again. 
 " Hear what he says." 
 
 " Aye ! " said Nicholas, extending 
 his disengaged hand in the air, " heaif 
 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 discovered 
 yet that your schemes are known to 
 man, and overthrown by Heaven 
 wretches, that he defies you both to do 
 your worst ! " 
 
 " This man," said Ralph, in a voice 
 scarcely intelligible, " this man claims 
 his wife, and he shall have her." 
 
 " That man claims what is not his, 
 and he should not have her if he were 
 fifty men, with fifty more to back him," 
 said Nicholas. 
 
 " Who shall prevent him 1 " 
 
 I will." 
 
 " By what right I should like to 
 know," said Riilph. " 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 ! "
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 433 
 
 ' One word ! " cried Ralph, foaming 
 at the mouth. 
 
 ** Not one," replied Nicholas, " I will 
 not hear of one save this. Look to 
 yourself, and heed this warning that I 
 give you ! Your day is past, and night 
 is coming on " 
 
 " My curse, my bitter, deadly, curse, 
 upon yon, boy ! " 
 
 " Whence will curses come at your 
 command ! or what avails a curse or 
 blessing from a man like you ? I tell 
 you, that misfortune and discovery 
 are thickening about your head ; that 
 the structures you have raised, through 
 all your ill-spent life, are crumbling 
 into dust ; that your path is beset with 
 spies ; that this very day, ten thou- 
 sand pounds of your hoarded wealth 
 have gone in one great crash !" 
 
 " 'Tis false ! " cried Ralph, shrink- 
 ing 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 ! 
 You let them pass and he blocks the 
 door again ! " 
 
 Arthur Gride happened to be in tho 
 doorway, but whether intentionally or 
 from confusion was not quite apparent. 
 Nicholas swung him away, with such 
 violence as to cause him to spin round 
 the room until he was caught by a 
 sharp angle of the wall and there 
 knocked down ; and then taking his 
 beautiful burden in his arms rushed 
 out. No one cared to stop him, if 
 any were so disposed. Making hist 
 way through a mob of people, whom 
 a report of the circumstances had 
 attracted round the house, and carry- 
 ing Madeline, in his excitement, ns 
 easily as if she w,ere 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. 
 
 OP FAMILY MATTERS, CARES, HOPES, DISAPPOINTMENTS, AND SORROWS. 
 
 ALTHOUC.H 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 respon- 
 sible situation in which Nicholas stood 
 had been carefully explained to her, 
 and she had been prepared, even for 
 the possible contingency of having to 
 receive the young lady in her own 
 house improbable as such a result 
 had appeared only a few minutes 
 before it came about still, Mrs. 
 Nickleby, from the moment when this 
 confidence was first reposed in her, 
 late on the previous evening, had re- 
 mained in an unsatisfactory and pro- 
 foundly mystified state, from which 
 no explanations or arguments could 
 relieve her, and which every fresh 
 soliloquy and reflection only aggra- 
 vated more and more. 
 
 No. 59. 
 
 " Bless my heart, Kate ; " so tho 
 good lady argued ; " if the Mr. Cheery, 
 bles don't want this young lady to ho 
 married, why don't they file a bill 
 against the Lord Chancellor, make her 
 a chancery ward, and shut her up in 
 the Fleet prison for safety ? I have 
 read of such things in the newspapers 
 a hundred times or, if they are so 
 very fond of her as Nicholas says they 
 are, why don't they marry her them- 
 selves one of them I mean ? And 
 even supposing they don't want her to 
 be married, and don't want to marry 
 her themselves, why in the name of 
 wonder should Nicholas go about tho 
 world, forbidding people's banns } " 
 
 "I don't think you quite under- 
 stand," said Kate, gently. 
 
 " Well I am sure, Kate, my dear, 
 you're very polite!" replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby. "I have been married 
 
 FP 28
 
 434 
 
 LIFE AXD ADVENTURES OF 
 
 myself I hope, and I have seen other 
 people married. Not. understand, 
 indeed ! " 
 
 " I know you have had great expe- 
 rience, dear mamma," said Kate ; " I 
 mean, that perhaps you don't quite 
 understand all the circumstances in 
 this instance. We have stated them 
 awkwardly, I dare say." 
 
 " That t dare say you have," re- 
 torted her mother, briskly. "That's 
 very likely. I am not to be held 
 accountable for that ; though, at the 
 same time, as the circumstances speak 
 for themselves, I shall take the liberty, 
 my love, of saying that I do understand 
 them, and perfectly well too : whatever 
 you aud Nicholas may choose to think 
 to the contrary. Why is such a great 
 fuss made because this Miss Magdalen 
 as going to marry somebody who is 
 older than herself? Your poor papa 
 was older than I was four years and 
 a half older. Jane Dibabs the Di- 
 habses 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 honourable and 
 excellent man, and everybody spoke 
 well of him. Then why should there 
 be any fuss about this Magdalen !." 
 
 Her husband is much older ; he 
 is not her own choice ; his character is 
 the very reverse of that which you 
 have just described. Don't you see 
 & broad distinction between the two 
 cases t " said Kate. 
 
 To this, Mrs. Nickleby only replied 
 
 tliat she durst say she was very stupid, 
 indeed she had no doubt she was, for 
 her own cliildren almost as much as 
 told her so, every day of her life ; to 
 be sure she was a little older than 
 they, and perhaps some foolish people 
 might think she ought reasonably to 
 know best. However, no doubt she 
 was wrong ; of course she was she 
 always was she couldn't be right, 
 indeed couldn't be expected to be 
 so she had better not expose herself 
 any more ; and to all Kate's concilia- 
 tions and concessions for an hour 
 ensuing, the good lady gave no other 
 replies than Oh, certainly why did 
 they ask her her opinion was of no 
 consequence it didn't matter what 
 she said with many other rejoinders 
 of the same class. 
 
 In this frame of mind (expressed, 
 when she had become too resigned for 
 speech, by nods of the head, upliftings 
 of the eyes, and little beginnings of 
 groans, converted, as they attracted 
 attention, into short coughs), Mrs. 
 Nickleby remained until Nicholas and 
 Kate returned with the object of their 
 solicitude ; when, having by this time 
 asserted her own importance, and be- 
 coming 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 her- 
 self for recommending the course of 
 procedure which her son had adopted : 
 frequently declaring, with an ex] > 
 look, that it was very fortunate things 
 were as they were : and hinting, that 
 but for great encouragement ai 
 dom on her own part, they never could 
 have been brought to that pass. 
 
 Not to strain the question whether 
 Mrs. Nickleby had or had not any 
 great hand in bringing matters about, 
 it is unquestionable that she had 
 ground for exultation. The brothers, 
 on their return, bestowed such com- 
 mendations on Nicholas for the part 
 he had taken, and evinced so much 
 joy at the altered state of event* and 
 the recovery of their young friend, 
 from trials so great and dan:, 
 threatening, that, as she more than 
 once informed her daughter, sho now
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED V. 
 
 
 considered the fortunes of the family 
 **aa good as" made. Mr. Charles 
 Cheery blc, indeed, Mrs. Nickleby posi- 
 tively asserted had, in the first trans- 
 ports of his surprise and delight, " as 
 good as" said so. Without pre- 
 cisely explaining what this qualifica- 
 tion 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) sire was, at such 
 times, almost as happy as if she had 
 really been permanently provided for, 
 on a scale of great splendour. 
 
 The sudden and terrible shock she 
 had received, combined with the great 
 affliction and anxiety of mind which 
 she had, for a long time, endured, 
 proved too much for Madeline's 
 strength. Recovering from the state 
 of stupefaction into which the sudden 
 death of her father happily plunged 
 her, she only exchanged that condition 
 for one of dangerous and active illness. 
 When the delicate physical powers 
 which have been sustained by an un- 
 natural strain upon the mental energies 
 and a resolute determination not to 
 yield, at last give way, their degree of 
 prostration is usually proportionate to 
 the strength of the effort which has 
 previously upheld them. Thus it was 
 that the illness which fell on Madeline 
 was of no slight or temporary nature, 
 but one which, for -a time, threatened 
 i son, and scarcely worse her 
 life itself. 
 
 Who, slowly recovering from a dis- 
 order so severe and dangerous, could 
 be insensible to (he unremitting atten- 
 tions of such a nurse as gentle, tender, 
 cannot Kate ! On whom could the 
 sweet soft voice, the light step, the deli- 
 cate hand, the quiet, cheerful, noiseless 
 discharge of those thousand little offices 
 of kindness and relief which we feel so 
 deeply when we are ill, and forget so 
 lightly when we are well on whom 
 could they make so deep an impression 
 as on a young heart stored with every 
 pure and true affection that women 
 cherish ; almost a stranger to the en- 
 dearments and devotion of its own sex, 
 
 save as it learnt them from itself ; and 
 rendered, by calamity and suffering, 
 keenly susceptible of the sympathy so 
 long unknown and so long sought in 
 vain ? What wonder that days became 
 as years in knitting them together ! 
 What wonder, if with every hour of 
 returning health, there came some 
 stronger and sweeter recognition of 
 the praises which Kate, when they 
 recalled old scenes they seemed old 
 now, and to have been acted years ago 
 would lavish on her brother ! Where 
 would have been the wonder, even, if 
 those praises had found a quick re- 
 sponse in the breast of Madeline, and 
 if, with the image of Nicholas so con- 
 stantly recurring in the features of his 
 sister that she could scarcely separate 
 the two, she had sometimes found it 
 equally difficult to assign to each the 
 feelings they had first inspired, and 
 had imperceptibly mingled with her 
 gratitude to Nicholas, some of that 
 warmer feeling which she had assigned 
 to Kate! 
 
 "My dear," Mrs. Nickleby would 
 say, coming into the room with an ela- 
 borate caution, calculated to discom- 
 pose the nerves of an invalid rather 
 more than the entry of a horse-soldier 
 at full gallop ; " how do you find your- 
 self to-night. I hope you are better ? " 
 
 " Almost well, mamma," Kate would 
 reply, laying down her work, and tak- 
 ing 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). 
 
 Ki'te would take this reproof very 
 quietly, and Mrs. Nickleby, making 
 every board creak, and every thread 
 rustle as she moved stealthily about, 
 would add : 
 
 " My son Nicholas has just come 
 home, and I have come, according to 
 custom, my dear, to know, from your 
 own lips, exactly how you are ; for he 
 won't take my account, and never will." 
 
 "He islaterthan usual to-night," per- 
 haps Madeline would reply. "Nearly 
 half an hour."
 
 436 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Well, I never saw such people in 
 all my life as you are, for time, up 
 here !" Mrs. Nickleby would exclaim 
 in great astonishment ; " I declare I 
 never did ! I had not the least idea 
 that Nicholas \ras after his time not 
 the smallest Mr. Nickleby used to 
 pay your pour papa I am speaking of, 
 Kate my dear used to say, that appe- 
 tite 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 appe- 
 tite 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 Nicho- 
 las " 
 
 ''We happened to be just talking 
 about him, mamma ; that was it." 
 
 " You never seem to me, to be talk- 
 ing about anything else, Kate, and 
 upon my word 1 am quite surprised at 
 your being so very thoughtless. You 
 can find subjects enough, to talk about, 
 sometimes, and when you know how 
 important it is to keep up Miss Bray's 
 spirits, and interest her, and all that, it 
 really is quite extraordinary to me 
 what can induce you to keep on prose, 
 prose, prose, din, din, din, everlastingly, 
 upon the same theme. You arc a 
 very kind nurse, Kate, and a very good 
 one, and I know you mean very well ; 
 but I will say this that if it wasn't for 
 me, I really don't know what would 
 become of Miss Bray's spirits, and so 
 I tell the doctor every day. He says 
 he wonders how I sustain my own, and 
 I am sure I very often wonder myself 
 how I can contrive to keep up as I do. 
 Of course it's an exertion, but still, 
 when I know how much depends upon 
 me in this house, I am obliged to make 
 it. There's nothing praiseworthy in 
 that, but it 's necessary, and I do it." 
 
 With that, Mrs. Nickleby would 
 draw up a chair, and, for some three 
 quarters of an hour, run through a 
 
 great variety of distracting tv, 
 the most distracting manner possible : 
 tearing herself away, at length, on the 
 plea that she milst now go and amuse 
 Nicholas while he took his supper. 
 After a preliminary raising of his 
 spirits with the information that she 
 considered the patient decidedly worse, 
 she would further cheer him up, by 
 relating how dull, listless, and low- 
 spirited Miss Bray was, because Kate 
 foolishly talked about nothing else but 
 him and family matters. When she 
 had made Nicholas thoroughly com- 
 fortable with these and other inspirit- 
 ing remarks, she would discourse at 
 length, on the arduous duties she had 
 performed that day ; and, sometimes, 
 be moved ta tears in wondering how, if 
 anything were to happen to herself, the 
 family would ever get on without her. 
 
 At other times, when Nicholas came 
 home at night, he would be accom- 
 panied by Mr. Frank Cheeryble, who 
 was commissioned by the brothers to 
 inquire how Madeline was, that even- 
 ing. On such occasions (and they 
 were of very frequent occurrence), 
 Mrs. Nickleby deemed it of particu- 
 lar importance that she ehould have 
 her wits about her ; for, from ccrtaiu 
 signs and tokens which had attracted 
 her attention, she shrewdly suspected 
 that Mr. Frank, interested as his uncles 
 were in Madeline, came quite as much 
 to see Kate as to inquire after her ; the 
 more especially as the brothers were 
 in constant communication with the 
 medical man, came backwards and for- 
 wards very frequently themselves, and 
 received a full report from Nicholas 
 every morning. These were proud 
 times for Mrs. Nickleby ; never was 
 anybody half so discreet and sage 
 as she, or half so mysterious withal ; 
 and never were there such cunning 
 generalship, and such unfathomable 
 designs, as she brought to bear upon 
 Mr. Frank, with the view of ascertain- 
 ing whether her suspicions were well 
 founded : and if so. of tantalising him 
 into taking her into his confidence and 
 throwing himself upon her merciful 
 consideration. Extensive was the ar- 
 tillery, heavy and light, which Mrs-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 437 
 
 Nickleby brought into play for the 
 furtherance of these great schemes : 
 various aud opposite the means which 
 she employed to bring about the end 
 she had in view. At one time, she was 
 nil cordiality and ease ; at another, all 
 stillness and frigidity. Now, she would 
 seem to open her whole heart to her 
 unhappy victim ; tho next time they 
 met, she would receive him witli 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 bouuden duty to 
 act with Spartan firmness, and at once 
 and for ever to discourage hopes which 
 never could be realised. At other 
 times, when Nicholas was not there to 
 overhear, and Kate was up stairs busily 
 tending DOT sick friend, the worthy 
 lady would throw out dark hints of 
 an intention to send her daughter to 
 Prance 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 wlii-iv 
 that threatened a long and tedious 
 separation. Nay, she even went so 
 far as to hint, obscurely, at an attach- 
 ment entertained for her daughter by 
 the son of an old neighbour of theirs, 
 one Horatio Peltirogus (a young gen- 
 tleman who might have been, at thai 
 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 ol 
 having sprung this last mine one night, 
 with extraordinary success, that Mrs. 
 Nickleby took the opportunity of being 
 left alone with her son before retiring 
 to rest, to sound him on the subject 
 which so occupied her thoughts : nol 
 doubting that they could have but one 
 opinion respecting it. To this end, she 
 approached tho question with divers 
 laudatory and appropriate remark 
 touching the general amiability of Mr. 
 ^rank Chceryble. 
 
 ** You are quite right, mother," said 
 
 Nicholas, " quite right. He is a fine 
 fellow." 
 
 " Good-looking, too," said Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 ' Decidedly good-looking," answered 
 Nicholas. 
 
 1 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 architec- 
 ture, if one may say so. I am not very 
 learned in noses. Do you call it a 
 Roman or a Grecian ! " 
 
 " Upon my wor'd, mother," said 
 Nicholas, laughing, " as well as I re- 
 member, I should call it a kind of Com- 
 posite, or mixed nose. But I have no 
 very strong recollection on tho sub- 
 ject. If it will afford you any grati- 
 fication, I '11 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 lie was glad to hear it, 
 and observed that his mother seemed 
 deep in their new friend's confidence 
 already. 
 
 " Hem ! " said Mrs. Nickleby. " I 
 don't know about that, my dear, but I 
 think it is very necessary that some- 
 body should be in his confidence 
 highly necessary." 
 
 Elated by a look of curiosity from 
 her son, and the consciousness of pos- 
 sessing 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
 
 453 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 goes, and to a certain extent, there is 
 a great deal in this sort of thing, espe- 
 cially in this early stage, which, how- 
 ever clear it may be to females, can 
 scarcely be expected to be so evident 
 to men. I don't say, that I have any 
 particular penetration in such matters. 
 I may have ; those about me should 
 know best about that, and perhaps do 
 know. Upon that point, I shall ex- 
 press no opinion it wouldn't become 
 me to do so it's quite out of the 
 question quite." 
 
 Nicholas snuffed the candles, put his 
 hands in his pockets, and, leaning back 
 in his chair, assumed a look of patient 
 suffering and melancholy resignation. 
 
 " I think it my duty, Nicholas, my 
 dear," resumed his mother, "to tell 
 you what I know : not only because you 
 have a right to know it too, and to 
 know everything that happens in this 
 family, but because you have it in 
 your power to promote and assist the 
 thing very much ; and there is no 
 doubt that the sooner one can come to 
 a clear understanding on such 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 sometimes, or sitting up stairs 
 in your own room for a little while, or 
 making believe to fall asleep occasion- 
 ally, 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 import- 
 ance ; at the same time, my dear, I 
 can assure you (and you '11 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 anybody 
 who was not), I say, I can assure yon 
 that a great deal more depends upon 
 these little things, than you would sup- 
 pose possible. If your poor papa was 
 alive, he would tell you how much 
 depended on the parties being left 
 alone. Of course, you are not to go 
 out of the room as if you meant it and 
 
 did it on purpose, but as if it was quite 
 an accident, and to come back again 
 in the same way. * If you cough in the 
 passage before you open the door, or 
 whistle carelessly, or hum a tune, or 
 something of that sort, to let them 
 know you 're coining, it ' always 
 bett<*r ; because, of course, though it 's 
 not only natural, but perfectly correct 
 and proper under the circumstances, 
 still it is very confusing if you inter- 
 rupt young people when they are 
 when they are sitting on the sofa, and 
 and all that sort of thing : which is 
 very nonsensical perhaps, but still they 
 will do it." 
 
 The profound astonishment with 
 which her son regarded her during 
 this long address, gradually increasing 
 as it approached its climax, in no way 
 discomposed Mrs. Nickleby, but rather 
 exalted her opinion of her own clever- 
 ness ; therefore, merely stopping to 
 remark, with much complacency, that 
 she had fully expected him to be sur- 
 prised, she entered on a vast quan- 
 tity of circumstantial evidence of a 
 particularly incoherent and perplexing 
 kind ; the upshot of which, was, to 
 establish, beyond the possibility of 
 doubt, that Air. Frank Cheeryble had 
 fallen desperately in love with Kate. 
 
 " With whom ? " cried Nicholas. 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby repeated, with Kate. 
 
 * What ! our Kate my sister ! " 
 
 "Lord, Nicholas!" returned Mrs. 
 Nickleby, " whose Kate should it be, if 
 not ours ; or what should I care about 
 it, or take any interest in it for, if it 
 was anybody but your sister ! " 
 
 " Dear mother," said Nicholas, 
 " surely it can't be ! " 
 
 " Very good, my dear," replied 
 Mrs. Nickleby, with great confidence. 
 Wait, and see." 
 
 Nicholas had never, until that mo- 
 ment, bestowed a thought upon the 
 remote possibility of such an occur- 
 ! rence as that which was now commu- 
 ' nicated 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
 
 MCHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 439 
 
 himself, occasioned those visits of 
 Frank Cheeryble which had recently 
 become so frequent. Even now, 
 although he knew that the observation 
 of au anxious mother was much more 
 likely to be correct in such a case than 
 his own, and although she reminded 
 him of many little circumstances which, 
 taken together, were certainly suscep- 
 tible of thn construction she triumph- 
 antly put upon them, he was not quite 
 convinced but that they arose from 
 mere good-natured thoughtless gal- 
 lantry, which would have dictated the 
 same conduct towards any other girl 
 who Was young and pleasing at all 
 events, he hoped BO, and therefore 
 tried to believe it 
 
 ' " I am very much disturbed by what 
 you tell me," said Nicholas, after a 
 little reflection, " though I yet hope 
 you may be mistaken." 
 
 " I don't understand why you should 
 hope so," said Mrs. Nickleby, " I con- 
 fess; but you may depend upou it I 
 am not." 
 
 What of Kate ? " inquired Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 " Why that, my dear," returned 
 Mrs. Nickleby, " is just the point upon 
 which I am not yet satisfied. During 
 this sickness, she lias been constantly 
 line'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 1 think it's a 
 good plan, and urges a young man on. 
 He doesn't get too sure, you know." 
 
 She said this with such a mingling 
 of high delight and selX-congratulation, 
 that it was inexpressibly painful to 
 Nicholas to dash her hopes; but he 
 felt that there was only one honour- 
 able course before him, and that he 
 was hound to take it. 
 
 " Dear mother," he said kindly, 
 " don't you see that if there were 
 really any serious inclination on the 
 part of Mr. Frajik towards Kate, 
 and we suffered ourselves for a 
 moment to encourage it, we should be 
 acting a most dishonourable and un- 
 gr.it dill part ! I ask you if you don't 
 Bee it, but 1 need not say, that I know 
 
 you don't, or you would have been 
 more strictly on your guard. Let 
 me explain my meaning to you 
 remember how poor we are." 
 
 .Mrs. Nickleby shook her head, and 
 said, through her tears, that poverty 
 was not a crime. 
 
 No," said Nicholas, " and for that 
 reason poverty should engender au 
 honest pride, that it may not lead 
 and tempt us to unworthy actions, and 
 that we may preserve the self-respect 
 which a hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water may maintain and does better 
 in maintaining than a monarch his. 
 Think what we owe to these two bro- 
 thers ; remember what they have done, 
 and what they do every day for as with a 
 generosity and delicacy for which tho 
 devotion of our whole lives would be a 
 most imperfect and inadequate return. 
 What kind of return would that be 
 which would be comprised in our per- 
 mitting their nephew, their only rela- 
 tive, whom they regard as a son. and 
 for whom it would be mere childish- 
 ness to suppose they have not formed 
 plans suitably adapted to the educa- 
 tion he has had, and the fortune ho 
 will inherit in our permitting him to 
 marry a portionless girl : so closely 
 connected with us, that the irresistible 
 inference must be, that he was entrap- 
 ped by a plot ; that it was a deliberate 
 scheme, and a speculation amongst 
 us three. Bring the matter clearly 
 before yourself, mother. Now, how- 
 would you feel, if they were married, 
 and the brothers, coming here on one 
 of those kind errands which I/ring 
 them here so often, you had to break 
 out to them the truth ? Would you 
 be at ease, id feel that you had played 
 an open part '. " 
 
 Poor Mrs. Nickleby, crying more 
 and more, murmured that of coin-so 
 Mr. Frank would ask wic consent o 
 his uncles first. 
 
 " Why, to be sure, that would place 
 him in a better situation with ; 
 said Nicholas, " but we should still be 
 ! open to the same suspicions; the dis- 
 ! tance between us would still be as 
 great ; the advantages to be gained 
 ! would at ill be as manifest as now. AVo
 
 440 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 i'eel as I do and in you, dear 
 mother, to be assured that after a 
 little consideration you will do the 
 same." 
 
 After many more representations 
 and entreaties, Nicholas obtained a 
 promise from Mrs. Nickleby that she 
 would try all she could, to think as he 
 did ; and that if Mr. Frank persevered 
 in his attentions she would endeavour 
 to discourage them, or, at the least, 
 would render him no countenance or 
 assistance. He determined to forbear 
 mentioning the subject to Kate, until he 
 was quite convinced that there existed 
 a real necessity for his doing so ; and 
 I'esolved to assure himself, as well as 
 lie 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 un- 
 easiness. 
 
 Smike became alarmingly ill; so 
 reduced and exhausted that he could 
 scarcely move from room to room 
 without assistance ; and so worn and 
 emaciated, that it was painful to look 
 upon him. Nicholas was warned, by 
 the same medical authority to whom 
 he had at first appealed, that the last 
 chance and hope of his life depended 
 <m his being instantly removed from 
 London. That part of Devonshire in 
 which Nicholas had been himself bred, 
 was named as the most favourable 
 spot ; but this advice was cautiously 
 coupled with the information, that 
 whoever accompanied him thither, 
 must be prepared for the worst ; for 
 every token of rapid consumption had 
 appeared, and he might never return 
 alive. 
 
 The kind brothers, who were ac- 
 quainted with the poor creature's sad 
 history, despatched old Tim to be pre- 
 sent at this consultation. That same 
 morning, Nicholas was summoned by 
 brother Charles into his private room, 
 and thus addressed : 
 
 " My dear sir, no time must be lost. 
 This lad shall not die, if such human 
 means as we can use, can save his life ; 
 neither shall he die alone, and in it 
 strange place. Remove him to-mor- 
 row morning, see that he has every 
 comfort that his situation requires, 
 and don't leave him don't leave him, 
 my dear sir, until you know that there 
 is no longer any immediate danger. 
 It would be hard, indeed, to part you 
 now no, no, no ! Tim shall wait upon 
 you to-night, sir ; Tun 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 '11 find out some nice homely 
 country people to leave him with, and 
 will go backwards and forwards some- 
 times 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 1 " 
 
 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 wiio 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 ! " 
 
 " I cannot make it ! " cried his 
 trembling companion, falling back 
 in his seat and covering his eyes. 
 " Do you see her now ? Is she there 
 still!" 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " said Nicholas ear- 
 nestly. "There! She waves her hand
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 441 
 
 again ! I have answered it for you 
 and now they are out of sight. Do 
 not give way so bitterly, dear friend, 
 don't. You will meet them all 
 
 :.... M." 
 
 lie whom he thus encouraged, raised 
 
 his withered hands and clasped them 
 fervently together. 
 
 " In heaven I humbly pray to God 
 in heaven ! " 
 
 It sounded like the prayer of & 
 broken heart. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 RALPH NICKLKBY, BAFFLED BY HIS NEPHEW IN HIS LATE DESIGN, HATCHES A 
 SCHEME OP RETALIATION WHICH ACCIDENT SUGGESTS TO HIM, AND TAKES 
 INTO BIS COUNSELS A TRIED AUXILIARY. 
 
 Tin: course which these adventures 
 shape out for themselves, and impera- 
 tively call upon the historian to ob- 
 serve, now demands that they should 
 revert to the point they attained pre- 
 vious to the commencement of the 
 last chapter, when Ralph Nickleby 
 and Arthur Gride were left together 
 in tin! house where death had so sud- 
 denly reared lus dark and heavy 
 banner. 
 
 With clenched hands, and teeth 
 ground together so firm and tight that 
 no locking of the jaws could have 
 fixed and riveted them more securely, 
 Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the 
 attitude in which he had last addressed 
 his nephew : breathing heavily, but as 
 rigid and motionless in other respects 
 as if he had been a brazen statue. 
 After a time, he began, by slow de- 
 grees, aa a man rousing himself from 
 heavy slumber, to relax. For a moment 
 he shook his clasped fist towards the 
 door by which Nicholas had disap- 
 peared : and then thrusting it into his 
 breast, as if to repress by force even 
 this hliow of passion, turned round 
 and confronted the less hardy usurer, 
 who had not yet risen from the 
 ground. 
 
 The cowering wretch, who still 
 shook in every limb, and whose few 
 grey hairs trembled and quivered on 
 his head with abject dismay, tottered 
 to his feet as he met Ralph's eye, and, 
 shielding his face with both hands, 
 protested, while he crept towards the 
 door, that iV was no fault of his. 
 
 " Who said it was, man I " returned 
 Ralph, in a suppressed voice. " Who 
 said it was ! " 
 
 " You looked as if you thought I was 
 to blame," said Gride, timidly. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " Ralph muttered, forcing 
 a laugh. " I blame him for not living 
 an hour longer one hour longer 
 would have been long enough I 
 blame no one else." 
 
 " N u 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 off your mistress ; but that has 
 nothing to do with his blustering just 
 now, for we should soon have been 
 quit of him, but for this cursed acci- 
 dent." 
 
 There was something so unnatural 
 in the calmness with which Ralph 
 Nickleby spoke, when coupled with 
 the face, the expression of the fea- 
 tures, to which every nerve and muscle, 
 as it twitched and throbbed with u 
 spasm whose workings no effort could 
 conceal, gave, every instant, some new 
 and frightful aspect there was some- 
 thing 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 tin- dead body which 
 lay above, had stood, instead of him,
 
 442 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 before the cowering Gride, it could 
 scarcely have presented a spectacle 
 which would have terrified him 
 more. 
 
 "The coach," said Ralph after a 
 time, during which he had struggled 
 like some strong man against a fit. 
 " We came in a coach. Is it waiting ? " 
 
 Gride gladly availed himself of the 
 pretext for going to the window to 
 see. Ralph, keeping his face steadily 
 the other way, tore at his shirt with 
 the hand which he had thrust into 
 his breast, and muttered in a hoarse 
 whisper : 
 
 " Ten thousand pounds ! He said 
 ten thousand ! The precise sum paid 
 in but yesterday for the two mort- 
 gages, and which would have gone out 
 again, at heavy interest, to-morrow. If 
 that house has failed, and he the first 
 to bring the news ! Is the coach 
 there ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Gride, startled by 
 the fierce tone of the inquiry " It 's 
 here. Dear, dear, what a fiery man 
 you are ! " 
 
 " Come here," said Ralph, beckon- 
 ing to him. We mustn't make a 
 show of being disturbed. We'll go 
 down arm in arm." 
 
 " But yon pinch me black and blue," 
 urged Gride. 
 
 Ralph let him go, impatiently, 
 and descending the stairs with his 
 usual firm and heavy tread, got into 
 the coach. Arthur Gride followed. 
 After looking doubtfully at Ralph 
 when the man asked where he was to 
 drive, and finding that he remained 
 silent, and expressed no wish upon the 
 subject, Arthur mentioned his own 
 house, and thither they proceeded. 
 
 On their way, Ralph sat in the 
 furthest corner with folded arms, and 
 uttered not a word. With his chin 
 sunk upon his breast, and his down- 
 cast eyes quite hidden by the con- 
 traction of his knotted brows, he mi<rht 
 have been asleep for any sign of con- 
 sciousness Lc gave, until the coach 
 stopped, when he raised his head, and, 
 glancing through the window, inquired 
 what place that was. 
 
 late Gride, affected perhaps by its 
 loneliness. " Oh dear ! my house." 
 
 " True," said Ralph. I have not 
 observed the way we came. I should 
 like a glass of water. You have that 
 in the house, I suppose 1 " 
 
 " You shall have a glass of of any- 
 thing you like," answered Gride, with 
 a groan. " It 's no use knocking, coach- 
 man. Ring the bell ! " 
 
 The man rang, and rang, and rang 
 again ; then, knocked until the street 
 re-echoed with the sounds ; then, 
 listened at the keyhole of the door. 
 Nobody came. The house was silent 
 as the grave. 
 
 " How 's this ? " said Ralph im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "Peg is so very deaf," answered 
 Gride with a look of anxiety and alarm. 
 " Oh dear ! Ring again, coachman. 
 She sees the bell." 
 
 Again the man rang and knocked, 
 and knocked and rang again. Some 
 of the neighbours threw up their win- 
 dows, and called across the street to 
 each other that old Gride's house- 
 keeper 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 some- 
 thing to eat which had frightened her 
 so macli (not being used to it) that she 
 had fallen into a fit. This last sug- 
 gestion particularly delighted the by- 
 standers, who cheered it rather up- 
 roariously, and were, with some diffi- 
 culty, deterred from dropping down 
 the area and breaking open the kitchen 
 door to ascertain the fact. Nor was 
 this all. Rumours having gone abroad, 
 that Arthur was to be married that 
 morning, very particular inquiries 
 were made after the bride, who was 
 held by the majority to be disguised 
 in the person of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, 
 which gave rise to much jocose indig- 
 nation at the public appearance of a 
 bride in boots and pantaloons, and 
 called forth a great many hoots a.id 
 groans. At length, the two money- 
 
 " My house," answered the disconso- | lenders obtained shelter in a house
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 445 
 
 next door, and, being accommodated 
 with a ladder, clambered over the 
 wall of the back yard, which was not 
 a high one, and descended in safety on 
 the other side. 
 
 " I am almost afraid to go in, I 
 declare," said Arthur, turning to Ralph 
 when they were alone. " Suppose she 
 should be murdered lying with her 
 brains knocked out by a poker eh ? " 
 " Suppose she were," said Ralph 
 "I tell you, I wish such things 
 were more common than they are, 
 and more easily done. You may stare 
 and shiver I do ! " 
 
 He applied himself to a pump in the 
 yard; and, having taken a deep draught 
 of water and flung a quantity on his 
 head and face, regained his accustomed 
 manner and led the way into the 
 house: Gride following close at his 
 heels. 
 
 It was the same dark place as ever : 
 every room dismal and silent as it was 
 wont to l>e, and every ghostly article 
 of furniture in its customary place. 
 The iron heart of the grim old clock, 
 undistiirU-d by all the noise with nit, 
 still beat heavily within its dusty case; 
 the tottering presses slunk from the 
 sight, as usual, in their melancholy 
 corners ; the echoes of footsteps re- 
 turned the same dreary sound ; the 
 long-lodged spider paused in his nim- 
 ble run, and, scared by the sight of 
 men in that his dull domain, hung 
 motionless on the wall, counter- 
 feiting death until they should have 
 passed bun by. 
 
 From cellar to garret went the two 
 usurers, opening every creaking door 
 and looking into every deserted room. 
 But no Peg was there. At last, they 
 eat them down in the apartment which 
 Arthur Gride usually inhabited, to rest 
 after their search. 
 
 " The nag is out, on some prepara- 
 tion for your wedding festivities, 1 
 suppose." said Ralph preparing to de- 
 part. " See here ! I destroy the bond ; 
 we shall never need it now." 
 
 Gride, who had been peering nar- 
 rowly about the room, fell, at that mo- 
 ment, upon his knees before a large 
 chest, and uttered a terrible yell. 
 
 " How now 2 " said Ralph looking 
 sternly round. 
 
 " Robbed ! robbed ! " screamed 
 Arthur Gride. 
 
 " Robbed ! of money ? " 
 
 " No, no, no. Worse 1 Far worse!" 
 
 " Of what then t " 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 
 Letter have made me a beggar, than 
 have done this ! " 
 
 " Done what ? " said Ralph. Done 
 what, you devil's dotard !" 
 
 Still Gride made no answer, but 
 tore and scratched among the papers, 
 and yelled and screeched like a fiend 
 in torment 
 
 " There is something missing, you 
 say," said Ralph, shaking him furi- 
 ously by die collar. " What is it ? " 
 
 " Papers, deeds. I am a ruined 
 man lost lost ! 1 am robbed, I am 
 ruined ! She saw me reading it 
 reading it of late I did very oi'ten 
 She watched me saw me put it in 
 the box that fitted into this the box 
 is gone she has stolen it. Damna- 
 tion seize her, she has robbed me ! " 
 
 "Of what/" cried Ralph, on whom 
 a sudden light appeared to break, for 
 his eyes flushed and his frame trem- 
 bled with agitation as he clutched 
 Gride by his bony arm. " Of what ? " 
 " She don't know what it is ; she 
 can't read ! " shrieked Gride, not 
 heeding the inquiry. " There's only 
 one way in which money can be made 
 of it, and that is by taking it to /;< ;. 
 Somebody will read it for her and tell 
 her what to do. She and her accom- 
 plice will get money for it and bo let 
 off besides ; they'll make a merit of it 
 say they found it knew it and be 
 evidence against me. The only per- 
 son it will fall upon, is me me me !" 
 
 ' Patience ! " said Ralph, clutching 
 him still tighter and eyeing him with 
 a sidelong look, so fixed ;in>l eager as 
 sufficiently to denote that he had some 
 bidden purpose in what he was about 
 to say. " Hear reason. She can't
 
 444 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 have been gone long. I'll call the 
 police. Do you but give information of 
 what she has stolen, and they'll lay 
 hands upon her, trust me. Here 
 help ! " 
 
 No no no," screamed the old 
 man putting his hand on Ralph's 
 mouth. " I can't, I daren't." 
 
 " Help ! help ! " cried Ralph. 
 
 " No, no, no," shrieked the other, 
 stamping on the ground with the 
 energy of a madman. " I tell you no. 
 I daren't I daren't ! " 
 
 " Daren't make this robbery pub- 
 lic ? " said Ralph. 
 
 " No ! " rejoined Gride, wringing 
 his hands. " Hush ! Hush ! Not a 
 word of this ; not a word must be 
 said. I am undone. Whichever way 
 I turn, I am undone. I am betrayed. 
 I shall be given up. I shall die in 
 Newgate ! " 
 
 With frantic exclamations such as 
 these, and with many others in which 
 fear, grief, and rage, were strangely 
 blended, the panic-stricken wretch 
 gradually subdued his first loud out- 
 cry, until it had softened down into a 
 low despairing moan, chequered now 
 and then by a howl, as, going over 
 such papers as were left in the chest, 
 he discovered some new loss. With 
 very little excuse for departing so 
 abruptly, Ralph left him, and, greatly 
 disappointing the loiterers outside the 
 house by telling them there was no- 
 thing 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 
 
 ; ;:!.. 
 
 " The worst has happened," he 
 said, " the house has failed. I see 
 the rumour was abroad in the City 
 last night, and reached the ears of 
 those merchants. Well well ! " - 
 
 He strode violently up and down 
 the room and stopped again. 
 
 " Ten thousand pounds ! And only 
 lying there for a day for one day ! 
 How many anxious years, how many 
 pincliing days and sleepless nights, 
 before I scraped together that ten 
 
 thousand pounds ! Ten thousand 
 pounds ! How many proud painted 
 dames would have fawned and smiled, 
 and how many spendthrift blockheads 
 done me lip-service to my face and 
 cursed me in their hearts, while I 
 turned that ten thousand pounds into 
 twenty ! While I ground, and pinched, 
 and used these needy borrowers for 
 my pleasure and profit, what smooth- 
 tongued speeches, and courteous looks, 
 and civil letters, they would have given 
 me ! The cant of the lying world is, 
 that men like me compass our riches 
 by dissimulation and treachery : by 
 fawning, cringing, and stooping. Why, 
 how many lies, what mean and abject 
 evasions, what humbled behaviour 
 from upstarts who, but for my money, 
 would spurn me aside as they do their 
 betters every day, would that ten 
 thousand pounds have brought me in ! 
 Grant that I had doubled it made 
 cent per cent for every sovereign 
 told another there would not be 
 one piece of money in all the heap 
 which wouldn't represent ten thousand 
 mean and paltry lies, told not by 
 the money-lender, oh no ! but by 
 the money-borrowers your liberal, 
 thoughtless, generous, dashing folks, 
 who wouldn't be so mean as save a 
 sixpence for the world ! " 
 
 Striving, as it would seem, to lose 
 part of the bitterness of his regrets in 
 the bitterness of these other thoughts, 
 Ralph continued to pace the room. 
 There was less and less of resolution 
 in his manner as his mind gradually 
 reverted to his loss ; at length, drop- 
 ping into his elbow-chair and grasping 
 its sides so firmly that they creaked 
 again, he said : 
 
 " The time has been when nothing 
 could have moved me like the loss of 
 this great sum nothing for births, 
 deaths, marriages, and all the events 
 which are of interest to most men, have 
 (unless they are connected with gain 
 or loss of money) no interest for me. 
 But now, I swear, I mix up with the 
 loss, his triumph in telling it If he 
 had brought it about, 1 almost feel as 
 if he had I couldn't hate him more. 
 Let me but retaliate upon him, by
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 degrees, however slow let me but 
 begin to get the better of him, let me 
 but turn the scale and I can bear it." 
 
 1 1 i- meditations were long and deep. 
 They terminated in his despatching a 
 letter by Newman, addressed to Air. 
 Squeers at the Saracen's Head, with 
 instructions to inquire whether he had 
 arrived in town, and, if so, to wait an 
 answer. Newman brought back the 
 information that Mr. Squeers had come 
 by mail that morning, and had received 
 the letter in bed ; but that he sent his 
 duty, and word that he would get up 
 and wait upon Mr. Nickleby directly. 
 
 The interval between the delivery of 
 this message, and the arrival of Mr. 
 Squeers, was very short ; but, before he 
 <-:une, Ralph had suppressed every sign 
 of emotion, and once more regained 
 the hard, immoveable, inflexible man- 
 ner which was habitual to him, and to 
 which, perhaps, was ascribablo no 
 small part of the influence which, over 
 many men of no very strong preju- 
 dices on the score of morality, he could 
 exert, almost at will. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Squeers," he said, wel- 
 coming that worthy with his accus- 
 
 tomed smi 
 and a th 
 parcel, 
 
 "I'm pretty 
 
 f which a sharp look 
 frown were part and 
 you do t " 
 
 said Mr. Squeers, 
 So's the family, 
 
 and so 's the boys, except for a sort 
 of rash as is a running through the 
 school, and rather puts 'em off their 
 feed. But it 's a ill wind as blows no 
 
 rto nobody ; that 's what I always 
 vhen them lads has a visitation. 
 A wisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality. 
 Mortality itself, sir, is a wisitation. 
 The world is chock full of wisitations ; 
 and if a boy repines at a wisitation 
 and makes you uncomfortable with his 
 noise, he must have his head punched. 
 That's going according to the scripter, 
 that is." 
 
 " Mr. Squeers," said Ralph, drily. 
 
 Sir." 
 
 " We Ml avoid these precious morsels 
 of morality if you please, ana 1 talk of 
 business." 
 
 " With all my heart, sir," rejoined 
 Squeers, " and first let me say - " 
 
 " First let me say, it you please 
 
 Noggs ! " 
 
 Newman presented himself, when 
 the summons had been twice or thrice 
 repeated, and asked if his master 
 called. 
 
 " I did. Go to your dinner. And 
 go at once. Do you hear !" 
 
 " It au't time," said Newman, dog- 
 gedly. 
 
 " 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 ! " 
 
 Ralph not only issued this order in 
 his most peremptory manner, but, 
 under pretence of fetching some papers 
 from the little office, saw it obeyed, 
 and, when Newman had left the house, 
 chained the door, to prevent the possi- 
 bility of his returning secretly, by 
 means of his hitch key. 
 
 " I have reason to suspect that 
 fellow," said Ralph, when he returned 
 to his own office. " Therefore, until I 
 have thought of the shortest and least 
 troublesome way of ruining him, I 
 hold it best to keep him at a distance." 
 
 " It wouldn't take much to ruin him, 
 I should think," said Squeers, with a 
 grin. 
 
 " Perhaps not," answered Ralph. 
 " Nor to ruin a great many people 
 whom I know. You were going to 
 say V 
 
 Ralph's summary and matter-of- 
 course way of holding up this example 
 and throwing out the hint that followed 
 it, had evidently an effect (as doubtless 
 it was designed to have) upon Mr. 
 Squeers, who said, after a little hesi- 
 tation and in a much more subdued 
 tone 
 
 " Why, what I was a going to say, 
 sir, is, that this here business regard- 
 ing of that ungrateful and hard-hearted 
 chap Snawley senior, puts me out of 
 my way, and occasions a inconveniency 
 quite unparalleled, besides, as I may 
 say, making, for whole weeks together, 
 Mrs. Squeers a perfect widder. It 'a
 
 446 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 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," re- 
 plied Squeers, evasively. 
 
 " And I said, where was the risk ?" 
 
 " I wasn't complaining, you know, 
 Mr. Nickleby," pleaded Squeers. 
 " Upon my word I never see such 
 
 " I ask you where is the risk I " re- 
 peated Ralph, emphatically. 
 
 " Where the risk ?" returned Squeers, 
 rubbing his knees still harder. ' Why, 
 it an't necessary to mention certain 
 subjects is best awoided. Oh, you 
 know what risk I mean." 
 
 " How often have I told you," said 
 Ralph, " and how often am I to tell 
 you, that you run no risk? What 
 have you sworn, or what are you asked 
 to swear, but that at such and such a 
 time a boy was left with you in the 
 name of Smike ; that he was at your 
 school for a given number of years, 
 was lost under such and such circum- 
 stances, is now found, and has been 
 identified by you in such and such 
 keeping. This is ah 1 true is it not 1 " 
 
 " Yes," replied Squeers, " that 's all 
 true." 
 
 Well, then," said Ralph, what 
 risk do you run ? Who swears to a 
 lie but Snawley a man whom I have 
 paid much less than I have you ? " 
 
 " He certainly did it cheap, did 
 Snawley," observed Squeers. 
 
 " He did it cheap !" retorted Ralph, 
 testily, " yes, and he did it well, and 
 carries it off with a hypocritical face 
 and a sanctified air, but you risk ! 
 What do you mean by risk ! The 
 certificates are all genuine, Snawley 
 had another son, he has been married 
 twice, his first wife is dead, none but 
 her ghost could tell that she didn't 
 
 write that letter, none but Snawley 
 himself can tell that this is not his sou, 
 and that his son is food for worms! 
 The only perjury is Snawley's, and I 
 fancy he is pretty well used to it. 
 Where 's your risk ? " 
 
 " Why, you know," said Squeers, 
 fidgeting in his chair, " if you come to 
 that, 1 might say where 's yours ? " 
 
 " You might say where 's mine ! " 
 returned Ralph ; " you may say where's 
 mine. I don't appear in the business 
 neither do you. All Snawley's inte- 
 rest is to stick well to the story he has 
 told; and all his risk is, to depart from 
 it in the least. Talk of your risk in 
 the conspiracy ! " 
 
 " I say," remonstrated Squeers, 
 looking uneasily round ; " don't call it 
 that just as a favour, don't." 
 
 Call it what you like," said Ralph, 
 irritably, "but attend to me. This 
 tale was originally fabricated as 
 means of annoyance against one who 
 hurt your trade and half cudgelled 
 you to death, and to enable you to 
 obtain repossession of a half-dead 
 drudge, whom you wished to regain, 
 because, while you wreaked your ven- 
 
 in the 
 owledge 
 'wer would 
 you could 
 Is that so, 
 
 geance on him for 
 business, j - ou knew t! 
 that he was again in 
 be the best punisl 
 inflict upon your 
 Mr. Squeers ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," returned Squeers, 
 almost overpowered by the determina- 
 tion which Ralph displayed to make 
 everything tell against him, and by his 
 stern unyielding manner, " in a mea- 
 sure it was." 
 
 "What does that mean'" said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Why, in a measure, means," re- 
 turned Squeers, " as it may be, that 
 it wasn't all on ray 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."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 447 
 
 " How can it ever be otherwise ! " 
 retorted Ralph. " Except that the ac- 
 count 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 
 ill so am I. Which is 
 best off ] You, who win money and 
 ., at the same time and by tlic 
 same process, and who are, at all 
 . nrc 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 hut ! " 
 
 As Mr. Squeers could only answer 
 this proposition by shrugs and smiles, 
 Ralph bade him be silent, and thank- 
 Ail that he was so well off ; and then, 
 fixing his eyes steadily upon him, pro- 
 ceeded to say : 
 
 First, that Nicholas had thwarted 
 him in a plan he had formed for the 
 disposal in marriage of a certain young 
 lady, and had, in the confusion attend- 
 ant on her father's sudden death, 
 secured that lady himself, and borne 
 her off in triumph. 
 
 Secondly, that by some will or set- 
 tlement certainly by some instrument 
 in writing, which must contain the 
 young lady's name, and could be, there- 
 fore, easily selected from others, if 
 access to the place where it was depo- 
 sited were once secured she was en- 
 titled to property which, if the existence 
 of this deed ever became known to her, 
 would make her husband (and Ralph 
 represented that Nicholas was certain 
 to marry her) a rich and prosperous 
 man, and most formidable enemy. 
 
 Thirdly, that this deed had been, 
 with others, stolen from one who hafl 
 himself obtained or concealed it frau- 
 dulently, and who feared to take any 
 sfp]>-! lor its recovery ; and that he 
 (Ralph) knew the thief. 
 
 To all this, Mr. Squeers listened, 
 with greedy ears that devoured every 
 syllable, and with his one eye and his 
 mouth wide open : marvelling for what 
 special reason he was honoured with 
 so much of Ralph's confidence, and to 
 what it all tended. 
 
 " Now," said Ralph, leaning forward, 
 and placing his hand on Squeers'a arm, 
 
 " hoar the design which I have con- 
 ceived, and which I must I say, must, 
 if I can ripen it have carried into 
 execution. No advantage can !':> 
 reaped from this deed, whatever it is, 
 save by the girl herself, or her husband ; 
 and the possession of this deed by one 
 or other of them is indispensable to 
 any advantage being gained. That, I 
 have discovered, beyond the possibility 
 of doubt. 1 want that deed brought 
 here, that I may give the man \vlio 
 brings it, fifty pounds in gold, and burn 
 it to ashes before his face.'* 
 
 Mr. Squeers, after following with 
 his eye the action of Ralph's hand 
 towards the fire-place as if he were at 
 that moment consuming the paper, 
 drew a long breath, and said : 
 
 " Yes ; but who 's to bring it ? " 
 
 " Nobody, perhaps, for much is to be 
 done before it can be got at," said 
 Ralph. " But if anybody you ! " 
 
 Mr. Squeers's first tokens of con- 
 sternation, and his flat relinquishment 
 of the task, would have staggered most 
 men, if they had not immediately occa- 
 sioned an utter abandonment of the 
 proposition. On Ralph, they produced 
 not the slightest effect. Resuming, 
 when the schoolmaster had quite talked 
 himself out of breath, as coolly as if he 
 had never been interrupted, Ralph pro- 
 ceeded to expatiate on such features of 
 the case as he deemed it most advisable 
 to lay the greatest stress on. 
 
 Thesr- were, the age, decrepitude, 
 and weakness of Mrs. Sliderskew ; 
 the great improbability of her having 
 any accomplice or even acquaintance : 
 taking into account her secluded habits, 
 and her long residence in such a house 
 as Gride's ; the strong reason there 
 was to suppose that the robbery was not 
 the result of a concerted plan : other- 
 wise she would have watched an oppor- 
 tunity of carrying off a sum of numey ; 
 the difficulty she would be placed in 
 when she began to think on what she 
 had done, and found herself incum- 
 bered witli documents of whose nature 
 she was utterly ignorant ; and the com- 
 parative ease \ith which somebody, 
 with a full knowledge of her position, 
 obtaining access to her and working
 
 443 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 on her fears, if necessary, might 
 worm himself into her confidence, and 
 obtain, under one pretence or another, 
 free possession of the deed. To these 
 were added, such considerations, as the 
 constant residence of Mr. Squeers at a 
 long distance from London, which 
 rendered his association with Mrs. 
 Sliderskew a mere masquerading 
 frolic, in which nobody was likely to 
 recognise him, either at the time or 
 afterwards; the impossibility of Ralph's 
 undertaking the task himself, he being 
 already known to her by sight ; and 
 various comments on the uncommon 
 tact and experience of Mr. Squeers : 
 which would make his overreaching 
 one old woman, a mere matter of child's 
 play and amusement. In addition to 
 these influences and persuasions, Ralph 
 drew, with his utmost skill and power, 
 a vivid picture of the defeat which 
 Nicholas would sustain, should they 
 succeed, in linking himself to a beggar 
 where he expected to wed an heiress 
 glanced at the immeasurable import- 
 ance it must be to a man situated as 
 Squeers, to preserve such a friend as 
 himself dwelt on a long train of 
 benefits, conferred since their first 
 acquaintance, when he had reported 
 favourably of his treatment of a sickly 
 boy who had died under his hands 
 (and whose death was very convenient 
 to Ralph and his clients, but this he 
 did not say) and finally hinted that 
 the fifty pounds might be increased to 
 seventy-fi^e, or, in the event of very 
 great success, even to a hundred. 
 
 These arguments at length con- 
 cluded, Mr. Squeers crossed his legs, 
 uncrossed them, scratched his head, 
 rubbed his eye, examined the palms 
 of his hands, and bit his mils, and 
 after exhibiting many other signs 
 of restlessness and indecis : on, asked 
 
 whether one hundred pound was the 
 that Mr. Nickleby could go." 
 
 Being answered in the affirmative, he 
 became restless again, and, after some 
 thought, and an unsuccessful inquiry 
 " whether he couldn't go another 
 fifty," said he supposed he must try 
 and do the most he could for a friend : 
 which was always his maxim, and 
 thererefore he undertook the job. 
 
 " But how are you to get at the 
 woman ? " he said ; " that's what it is 
 as puzzles me." 
 
 " I may not get at her at all " replied 
 Ralph, "but 1 '11 try. I have hunted 
 people in this city, before now, who 
 have been better hid than she ; and 
 I know quarters in which a guinea or 
 two, carefully spent, will often solve 
 darker riddles than this ay, and keep 
 them close too, if need be ! I hear my 
 man ringing at the door. We may as 
 well part. You had better not come 
 to and fro, but wait till you hear from 
 me." 
 
 " Good ! " returned Squeers. " I say ! 
 If you shouldn't find her out, you'll 
 pay expences at the Saracen, and 
 something for loss of time 1 " 
 
 Well," said Ralph, testily ; " yes ! 
 You have nothing more to say ? " 
 
 Squeers shaking his head, Ralph 
 accompanied him to the street-door, 
 and, audibly wondering, for the edifica- 
 tion of Newman, why it was fastened 
 as if it were night, let him in and 
 Squeers out, and returned to his own 
 room. 
 
 " Now ! " he muttered, K Comfe 
 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 hut 
 defeat him in this one hope, dear to 
 his heart as I know it must be ; let 
 me but do this ; and it shall be the first 
 link in such a chain, which I will 
 wind about him, as never man forged 
 vt."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 449 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 now RALPH JJICKLEBY'S AUXILIARY WENT ABOUT HIS WORK, AND HOW HE 
 
 PROSPERED WITH IT. 
 
 IT was a dark, wet, gloomy night in 
 autumn, when in an upper room of a 
 mean house situated in an obscure 
 street or rather court near Lambeth, 
 there sat, all alone, a one-eyed man 
 grotesquely habited, either for lack of 
 better garments or for purposes of 
 disguise, in a loose 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 i 
 himself in it, head and all, with the 
 utmost ease, and without any risk of 
 straining the old and greasy material ; 
 of which it was composed. 
 
 So attired, and in a place so far 
 removed from his usual haunts and 
 occupations, and so very poor and 
 wretched in its character, perhaps 
 Mrs. Squeers herself would have had 
 some difficulty in recognising her lord : 
 quickened though her natural sagacity 
 doubtless would have been, by the 
 affectionate yearnings and impulses of 
 a tender wife. But Mrs. Squeera's 
 lord it was ; and in a tolerably dis- 
 consolate mood Mrs. Squeers's lord 
 appeared to be, as, helping himself 
 from a black bottle which stood on the 
 table beside him, he cast round the 
 chamber a look, in which very slight 
 regard for the objects within view was 
 plainly mingled with some regretful 
 and impatient recollection of distant 
 scenes and persons. 
 
 There were, certainly, no particular 
 attractions, either in the room over 
 which the glance of Mr. Squeers so 
 discontentedly wandered, or in the 
 narrow street into which it might have 
 penetrated, if he had thought fit to 
 approach the window. The attic- 
 chamber in which he sat, was bare and 
 mean ; the bedstead, and such few 
 other articles of necessary furniture as 
 it contained, were of the commonest 
 description, in a most crazy state, and 
 
 No 60 
 
 of a most uninviting appearance. The 
 street was muddy, dirty, and deserted. 
 Having but one outlet, it was traversed 
 by few but the inhabitants at any time ; 
 and the night being one of those on 
 which most people are glad to be 
 within doors, it now presented no other 
 signs of life than the dull glimmering 
 of poor candles from the dirty windows, 
 and few sounds but the pattering of 
 the rain, and occasionally the heavy 
 closing of some creaking door. 
 
 Mr. Squeers continued to look dis- 
 consolately about him, and to listen 
 to these noises in profound silence, 
 broken only by the rustling of his 
 large coat, as he now and then moved 
 his arm to raise his glass to his lips 
 Mr. Squeers continued to do this for 
 some time, until the increasing gloom 
 warned him to snuff the candle. Seem- 
 ing to be slightly roused by this exer- 
 tion, 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 pene- 
 trated through the roof, broke into 
 the following soliloquy : 
 
 " Well, this is a pretty go, is this 
 here ! an uncommon pretty go ! 
 Here have I been, a matter of how 
 many weeks hard upon six a-foller- 
 ing up this here blessed old dowager 
 petty larcenerer," Mr. Squeers de- 
 : livered himself of this epithet with 
 great difficulty and effort "and 
 Dotheboys Hall a-running itself regu- 
 larly to seed the while ! That 'a the 
 worst of ever being in with a ow- 
 dacious chap like that old Nickleby. 
 ' You never know when he 's done with 
 ! you, and if you 're in for a penny, 
 you 're in for a pound." 
 
 This remark, perhaps, reminded Mr. 
 Squeers that he was in for a hundred 
 ! pound ; at any rate, his countenance 
 \ relaxed, and he raised his glass to 
 
 aa 29
 
 450 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 his mouth with an air of greater en- 
 joyment of its contents than he had 
 before evinced. 
 
 " I never see," soliloquised Mr. 
 Squeers in continuation, " I never see 
 nor come across such a file as that 
 old Nickleby never ! He's out of 
 everybody's depth, he is. He's what 
 you may a-call a rasper, is Nickleby. 
 To see how sly and cunning he 
 grubbed on, day after day, a-worming 
 and plodding and tracing and turning 
 and twining of hisself about, till he 
 found out where this precious Mrs. 
 Peg was hid, and cleared the ground 
 for me to work upon creeping and 
 crawling and gliding, like a ugly 
 old, bright-eyed, stagnation-blooded 
 adder ! Ah ! He'd have made a 
 good un in our line, but it would have 
 been too limited for him ; his genius 
 would have busted all bonds, and 
 coming over every obstacle, broke 
 down all before it, 'till it erected itself 
 into a monneyment of Well, I'll 
 think of the rest, and say it when 
 conwenient." 
 
 Making a halt in his reflections at 
 this place, Mr. Squeers again put his 
 glass to his lips, and drawing a dirty 
 letter from his pocket, proceeded to 
 con over its contents with the air of a 
 :nan 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. Sqaeers, 
 "the cows is well, and the boys is 
 bobbish. Young Sprouter has been 
 a-winking, has he ? I'll wink him 
 when I get back. 'Cobbey would 
 persist in sniffing while he was a-eating 
 his dinner, and said that the beef was 
 so strong it made him.' Very good, 
 Cobbey, we'll see if we can't make 
 you sniff a little without beef. ' Pitcher 
 was took with another fever,' of 
 course he was' and being fetched by 
 his friends, died the day after he got 
 home,' of course he did, and out of 
 aggravation ; it 'a part of a deep-laid 
 system. There an't another chap in 
 the school but that boy as would have 
 died exactly at the end of the quarter: 
 taking it oat of ine to the very last, 
 
 and then carrying his spite to the 
 utmost extremity. ' The juniorest 
 Palmer said he wished he was in 
 Heaven,' I really don't know, I do 
 not know what 's to be done with that 
 young fellow ; he 's always a-wishing 
 something horrid. He said, once, he 
 wished he was a donkey, because then 
 he wouldn't have a father as didn't 
 love him ! pretty wicious that, for a 
 child of six ! " 
 
 Mr. Squeers was so much moved by 
 the contemplation of this hardened 
 nature in one so young, that he angrily 
 put up the letter, and sought, in a new 
 train of ideas, a subject of consolation. 
 
 " It 's a long time to have been a- 
 lingering in London," he said ; " and 
 this is a precious hole to come and 
 live in, even if it has been only for a 
 week or so. Still, one hundred pound 
 is five boys, and five boys takes a 
 whole year to pay one hundred pound, 
 and there's their keep to besubstracted, 
 besides. There 's nothing lost, neither, 
 by one's being here ; because the boys' 
 money comes in just the same as if I 
 was at home, and Mrs. Squeers she 
 keeps them in order. There'll be 
 some lost time to make up, of course" 
 there'll be an arrear of flogging 
 as '11 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 hia 
 enthusiasm, no doubt poured out a 
 full glass, and emptied it ; and as the 
 liquor was raw spirits, and he had 
 applied himself to the same bottle 
 more than once already, it is not sur- 
 prising that he found himself, by this 
 time, in an extremely cheerful state, 
 and quite enough excited for his 
 purpose. 
 
 What this purpose was, soon np-
 
 NICHOLAS NICK LED Y. 
 
 451 
 
 peared ; for, after a few turns about 
 the room to steady himself, he took the 
 bottle under his arm and the glass in 
 his hand, and blowing out the candle 
 as if he purposed being gone some 
 time, stole out upon the staircase, and 
 creeping softly to a door opposite his 
 own, tapped gently at it 
 
 " But what 's the use of tapping I " 
 he said, "she'll never hear. I sup- 
 pose she isn't doing anything very 
 particular ; and if she is, it don't much 
 matter, that I see." 
 
 With this brief preface, Mr. Squeers 
 applied his hand to the latch of the 
 door, and thrusting his liead into a 
 garret far more deplorable than that 
 he had just left, and seeing that there 
 was nobody there, but an old woman, 
 who was bending over a wretched fire 
 (for although the weather was still 
 warm, the evening was chilly), walked 
 in, and tapped her on the shoulder. 
 
 " Well, my Slider," said Mr. Squeers, 
 jocularly. 
 
 " Is that you ! " inquired Peg. 
 
 " Ah ! it 's me, and me 's the first 
 person singular, nominative case, 
 agreeing with the verb ' it 's,' and 
 governed by Squeers understood, as a 
 acorn, a hour; but when the h is 
 sounded, the a only is to be used, as a 
 and, a art, a ighway," replied Mr. ' 
 Squeers, quoting at random from the 
 grammar. "At least, if it isn't, you 
 don't know any better, and if it is, 
 I've done it accidentally." 
 
 Delivering this reply in his accus- 
 tomed tone of voice, in which of 
 course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr. 
 S'liicers drew a stool to the fire, 
 and placing himself over against her, 
 and the bottle and glass on the floor 
 between them, roared out again, very 
 load, 
 
 Well, my Slider ! " 
 
 " I hear you," said Peg, receiving 
 him very graciously. 
 
 " I've come according to promise," 
 roared Squeers. 
 
 u So they used to say in that part of 
 the country I come from," observed 
 Pe, complacently, " but I think oil 's 
 better. " 
 
 " Better than what ! " roared 
 
 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 amiable as he possibly could, the 
 while ; for Peg's eye was upon him, 
 and she was chuckling fearfully, as 
 though in delight at having made a 
 choice repartee. " Do you see" this I 
 this is a bottle." 
 
 " I see it," answered Peg. 
 
 " Well, and do you see this t " 
 bawled Squeers. " This is a glass 1 " 
 Peg saw that too. 
 
 "See here, then," said Squeers, 
 accompanying his remarks with ap- 
 propriate 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." 
 
 " Tour health," said Peg. 
 
 "She understands that, anyways," 
 muttered Squeers, watching Mrs, 
 Sliderskew as she despatched her por- 
 tion, 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 expres- 
 sive of her strong admiration of Mr. 
 Squeers, his person, manners, and 
 conversation, replied that the rheu- 
 matics were better. 
 
 " What 's the reason," said Mr. 
 Squeers, deriving fresh facetiousness 
 from the bottle ; " what 's the reason 
 of rheumatics ? What do they mean ? 
 What do people have 'em for eh ? " 
 
 Mrs. Sliderskew didn't know, but 
 suggested that it was possibly because 
 they couldn't help it. 
 
 " Measles, rheumatics, hooping- 
 cough, fevers, agers, and lumbagers," 
 said Mr. Squeers, "is all philosophy 
 together ; that's what it is. The 
 heavenly bodies is philosophy, and 
 the earthly bodies is philosophy. I: 
 there's a screw loose in a heavenly 
 body, that 's philosophy ; and if there 'a 

 
 452 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 a screw loose in a earthly body that 's 
 philosophy too ; or it may be that 
 sometimes there 's a little metaphysics 
 in it, but that 's not often. Philosophy's 
 the chap for me. If a parent asks a 
 question in the classical, commercial, 
 or mathematical line, says I, gravely, 
 * Why, sir, in the first place, are you a 
 philosopher ? ' ' No, Mr. Squeers,' he 
 says, ' I an't.' ' Then, sir,' says I, ' I 
 am sorry for you, for 1 shan't be able 
 to explain it.' Naturally, the parent 
 goes away and wishes he was a philo- 
 sopher, and, equally naturally, thinks 
 I 'm one." 
 
 Saying this, and a great deal more, 
 with tipsy profundity and a serio- 
 comic air, and keeping his eye all the 
 time on Mrs. Sliderskew, who was 
 unable to hear one word, Mr. Squeers 
 concluded by helping himself and 
 passing the bottle : to which Peg did 
 becoming reverence. 
 
 " That 's the time of day ! " said Mr. 
 Squeers. " You look twenty pound 
 ten, better than you did." 
 
 Again Mrs. Sliderskew chuckled, 
 but modesty forbade her assenting 
 verbally to the compliment. 
 
 " Twenty pound ten better," re- 
 peated Mr. Squeers, "than you did 
 that day when I first introduced my- 
 self don't you know ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Peg, shaking her head, 
 " but you frightened me that day." 
 
 " Did I ?" said Squeers ; well, it 
 was rather a startling thing for a 
 stranger to come and recommend him- 
 self by saying that he knew all about 
 you, and what your name was, and 
 why you were living so quiet here, 
 and what you had boned, and who you 
 boned it from, wasn't it I " 
 
 Peg nodded her head in strong 
 assent. 
 
 " But I know everything that hap- 
 pens in that way, you see," continued 
 Squeers. "Nothing takes place, of 
 that kind, that I an't up to entirely. 
 I 'm a sort of a lawyer, Slider, of 
 first-rate standing, and understanding 
 too ; I 'm the intimate friend and 
 confidental adwiser of pretty niijh 
 every man, woman, and child that 
 gets themselves into difficulties by 
 
 being too nimble with their fingers, 
 I 'm " 
 
 Mr. Squeers's catalogue of his own 
 merits and accomplishments, which 
 was partly the result of a concerted 
 plan between himself and Ralph 
 Nickleby, and flowed, in part, from 
 the black bottle, was here interrupted 
 by Mrs. Sliderskew. 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " she cried, folding 
 her arms and wagging her head ; 
 "and so he wasn't married after all, 
 wasn't he not manned after all ? " 
 
 " No," replied Squeers, " that he 
 wasn't ! " 
 
 " And a young lover come and car- 
 ried off the bride, eh ?" said Peg. 
 
 " From under his very nose," re- 
 plied 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 hideousness something quite 
 fearful ; " let 'j hear it all again, be- 
 ginning at the beginning now, as if 
 you'd never told me. Let's have it 
 every word now now beginning at 
 the very first, you know, when he 
 went to the house that morning ! " 
 
 Mr. Squeers, plying Mrs. Slider- 
 skew freely with the liquor, and sus- 
 taining himself under the exertion of 
 speaking so loud by frequent applica- 
 tions to it himself, complied with this 
 request by describing the discomfiture 
 of Arthur Gride, with such improve- 
 ments on the truth as happened to 
 occur to him, and the ingenious inven- 
 tion and application of which had been 
 very instrumental in recommending 
 him to her notice in the beginning of 
 their acquaintance. Mrs. Sliderskew 
 was in an ecstacy of delight, rolling 
 her head about, drawing up her skinny 
 shoulders, and wrinkling her cadave- 
 rous face into so many and such com- 
 plicated forms of ugliness, as awakened 
 the unbounded astonishment and dis* 
 gust even of Mr. Squeers. 
 
 " He 'a a treacherous old goat," said 
 Peg, " and cozened me with cunning
 
 NICHOLAS N1CKLEBY. 
 
 46* 
 
 tricks and lying promises, but never 
 mind 1 'in even with him I 'ra even 
 with him." 
 
 " More than even, Slider," returned 
 Squeers ; you 'd have been even with 
 him, if he 'd got married ; but with the 
 disappointment besides, you 're a long 
 way a-head out of sight, Slider, quite 
 out of sight. And that reminds me," 
 he added, handing her the glass, " if 
 you want me to give you my opinion of 
 them deeds, and tell you what you 'd 
 better keep and what you 'd better 
 burn, why, now 'a your time, Slider." 
 
 " There an't no hurry for that," 
 said Peg, with several knowing looks 
 
 and winks. 
 Oh ! 
 
 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 somewheres, safe ; that's 
 all," returned Squeers ; " but every- 
 
 any constitutional infirmity on the part 
 of Mrs. Sliderskew he protested that 
 he had only been joking : and, in proof 
 of his unimpaired good humour, that 
 he was ready to examine the deeds at 
 once, if, by so doing, he could afford 
 any satisfaction or relief of mind to his 
 fair friend. 
 
 " And now you 're up, my Slider," 
 bawled Squeers, as she rose to fetch 
 them, " bolt the door." 
 
 Peg trotted to the door, and after 
 fumbling at the bolt, crept to the other 
 end of the room, and from beneath the 
 coals which filled the bottom of the 
 cupboard, drew forth a small deal box. 
 Having placed this, on the floor at 
 Squeers's feet, she brought, from under 
 the pillow of her bed, a small key, with 
 which she signed to that gentleman to 
 open ft. Mr. Squeers, who had eagerly 
 followed her every motion, lost no timu 
 in obeying this hint : and, throwing 
 back the lid, gazed with rapture 011 the 
 documents wnich lay within. 
 
 " Now you see," said Peg, kneeling 
 down on the floor beside him, and 
 staying his impatient hand; " what '8 
 of no use we '11 burn ; what we can get 
 any money by, we '11 keep ; and if there's 
 any we could get him into trouble by, 
 and fret and waste away his heart to 
 shreds, those we '11 take particular care 
 
 body 's the best judge of their own of ; for that 's what I want to do, and 
 affairs. All I say is, Slider, 7 wouldn't i what I hoped to do when I left him." 
 do it." " I thought," said Squeers, " that 
 
 " Come," said Peg, " then you shall 
 see 'em." 
 
 " / don't want to see 'em," replied 
 Squeers, affecting to be out of humour, 
 " don't talk as if it was a treat. Show 
 'cm to somebody else, and take their 
 advice." 
 
 Mr. Squeers would, very likely, have 
 carried on the farce of being offended, 
 a little longer, if Mrs. Sliderskew, in 
 her anxiety to restore herself to her 
 former high position in his good graces, 
 had not become so extremely affec- 
 tionate that he stood at some risk of 
 being smothered by her caresses. Re- 
 pressing, with as good a grace as possi- 
 ble, these little familiarities for which, 
 there is reason to believe, the black 
 bottle was at least as much to blame as 
 
 you didn't bear him any particular 
 good-will. But, I say, why didn't you 
 tako some money besides ? " 
 
 " Some what 1 " 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. Somo money, Slider 
 money ! " 
 
 " Why, what a man you arc to ask 1 " 
 cried Peg, with some contempt. " If 
 1 had taken money from Arthur Gride, 
 he 'd have scoured the whole earth to 
 find me aye, and he 'd have smelt it 
 out, and raked it up, somehow, if I had 
 buried it at the bottom of the deepest 
 well in England. No, no ! I knew 
 better than that I took what I thought
 
 454 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 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 M 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 dis- 
 covery- always mind that. So while 
 you pull it to pieces (which yon can 
 easily do, for it 's very old and rickety) 
 and burn it in little bits, I '11 look over 
 the papers and tell you what they are." 
 
 Peg, expressing her acquiescence in 
 this arrangement, Mr. Squeers turned 
 the box bottom upwards, and tumbling 
 the contents upon the floor, handed it 
 to her ; the destruction of the box 
 being an extemporary device for en- 
 gaging her attention, in case it should 
 prove desirable to distract it from his 
 own proceedings. 
 
 " There !" said Squeers ; "you poke 
 the pieces between the bars, and make 
 up a good fire, and I '11 read the while 
 let me see let me see." And tak- 
 ing the candle down beside him, Mr. 
 Squeers, with great eagerness and a 
 cunning grin overspreading his face, 
 entered upon his task of examination. 
 
 If the old woman had not been very 
 deaf, she must have heard, when she 
 last went to the door, the breathing of 
 two persons close behind it : and if 
 those two persons had been unac- 
 quainted with her infirmity they must 
 probably have chosen that moment 
 either for presenting themselves or 
 taking to flight. But, knowing with 
 whom they had to deal, they remained 
 quite still, and now, not only appeared 
 unobserved at the door which was 
 not bolted, for the bolt had no hasp 
 but warily, and with noiseless footsteps, 
 advanced into the room. 
 
 As they stole farther and farther in 
 by slight and scarcely perceptible 
 degrees, and with such caution t !;.- 
 they scarcely seemed to breathe, the 
 old hag and Squeers little dreaming of 
 any such invasion, and utterly uncon- 
 scious of there being any soul near, but j 
 
 themselves, were busily occupied with 
 their tasks. The old woman, with her 
 wrinkled face close to the bars of the 
 stove, puffing at the dull embers which 
 had not yet caught the wood Squeers 
 stooping down to the candle, which 
 brought out the full ugliness of his face, 
 as the light of the fire did that of his 
 companion both intently engaged, 
 and wearing faces of exultation which 
 contrasted strongly with the anxious 
 looks of those behind, who took advan- 
 tage of the slightest sound to cover 
 their advance, and, almost before they 
 had moved an inch, and all was silent, 
 stopped again this, with the large 
 bare room, damp walls, and flickering 
 doubtful light, combined to form a 
 scene which the most careless and 
 indifferent spectator (could any have 
 been present) could scarcely have 
 failed to derive some interest from, 
 and would not readily have forgotten. 
 
 Of the stealthy comers, Frank Cheery- 
 ble was one, and Newman Noggs the 
 other. Newman had caught up, by the 
 rusty nozele, an old pair of bellows, 
 which were just undergoing a flourish 
 in the air preparatory to a descent upon 
 the head of Mr. Squeers, when Frank, 
 with an earnest gesture, stayed his 
 arm, and, taking another step in ad- 
 vance, came so close behind the school- 
 master that, by leaning slightly for- 
 ward, he could plainly distinguish the 
 writing which he held up to his 
 eye. 
 
 Mr. Squeers, not being remarkably 
 erudite, appeared to be considerably 
 puzzled by this first prize, which was 
 in an engrossing hand, and not very 
 legible except to a practised eye. 
 Having tried it by reading from left to 
 right, and from right to left, and finding 
 it equally clear both ways, he turned 
 it upside down with no better success. 
 Ha, ha, ha !" chuckled Peg, who, 
 on her knees before the fire, was feed- 
 ing 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 'a 
 only an old lease, as well as I can 
 make out. Throw it in the fire."
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 455 
 
 Airs. SliJerskew 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 gentlemen, 
 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 pre- 
 sentation to the rectory of Purechurch, 
 in the valley of C'ashup. Take care of 
 that, Slider literally for God's sake. 
 It'll iotch its price at the Auction 
 Mart." 
 
 " What 's the next ! " inquired 
 1'. * 
 
 " Why, this," said Squeers, seems, 
 from the two letters that 's with it, to 
 be a bond from a curate down in the 
 country, to pay half-a-year's wages of 
 forty pound for borrowing twenty. 
 Take care of that, for if he don't pay it, 
 his bishop will very soon be down upon 
 him. We know wliat the camel and 
 the needle's eye means no man as 
 can't live upon his income, whatever 
 it is, must expect to go to heaven at 
 any price it 's very odd ; I don't see 
 anything like it yet" 
 
 What 's the matter I " said Peg. 
 
 Nothing," replica Squeers, ft only 
 I 'm looking for " 
 
 Newman raised the bellows again. 
 Once more, Frank, by a rapid mo- 
 tion 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 ! ' Made- 
 line Bray come of age or marry 
 the said Madeline' Here, burn thatl" 
 
 Eagerly throwing towards the old 
 woman, a parchment that he caught up 
 for the purpose, Squeers, as she turned 
 her head, thrust into the breast of his 
 large coat, the deed in which these 
 words had caught his eye, and burst 
 into a shout of triumph. 
 
 " I 've got it ! " said Squeers. "I 've 
 got it ! Hurrah ! The plan was a 
 good one though the chance waa 
 desperate, and the day 'a our own at 
 last ! " 
 
 Peg demanded what ho laughed at, 
 but no answer was returned. New- 
 man's arm could no longer be restrain- 
 ed ; the bellows, descending heavily and 
 witli unerring aim on the very centre 
 of Mr. Squeers's head, felled him to 
 the floor, and stretched him on it fiat 
 and senseless. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 IN WHICH ONE SCENE OF THIS BISTORT IS CLOSED. 
 
 DIVIDING the distance into two days' 
 journey, in order that his charge 
 might sustain the less exhaustion and 
 fatigue from travelling so far, Nicholas, 
 at the end of the second day from 
 their leaving home, found himself 
 within a very few miles of the spot 
 where the happiest years of his life had 
 been passed, and which, while it filled 
 his mind with pleasant and peaceful 
 thoughts, brought back many painful 
 and vivid recollections of the circum- 
 stances in which he and his. had wan- 
 
 dered forth from their old home, cast 
 upon the rough world and the mercy 
 of strangers. 
 
 It needed no such reflections as 
 those which the memory of old days, 
 and wanderings among scenes where 
 our childhood lias 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
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 never varying in the discharge of Jiis 
 self-imposed duty to one so friendless 
 and helpless as he whose sands of life 
 were now fast running out and dwind- 
 ling rapidly away : he was ever at his 
 side. He never left him. To encou- 
 rage 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, surrounded by 
 meadows where Nicholas had often 
 revelled when a child with a troop of 
 merry schoolfellows ; and here they 
 took up their rest. 
 
 At first, Smike was strong enough 
 to walk about, for short distances at a 
 time, with no other support or aid 
 than that which Nicholas could afford 
 him. At this time, nothing appeared 
 to interest him so much as visiting 
 those places which had been most 
 familiar to his friend in bygone days. 
 Yielding to this fancy, and pleased to 
 find that its indulgence beguiled the 
 sick boy of many tedious hours, and 
 never failed to afford him matter for 
 thought and conversation afterwards, 
 Nicholas made such spots the scenes 
 of their daily rambles : driving him 
 from place to place in a little pony- 
 chair, and supporting him on his arm 
 while they walked slowly among these 
 old haunts, or lingered in the sunlight 
 to take long parting looks of those 
 which were most quiet and beautiful. 
 
 It was on such occasions as these, 
 that Nicholas, yielding almost uncon- 
 sciously to the interest of old associa- 
 tions, would point out some tree that 
 he had climbed, a hundred times, to 
 peep at the young birds in their nest ; 
 and the branch from which he used 
 to shout to little Kate, who stood be- 
 low terrified at the height he had 
 gained, and yet urging him higher still 
 by the intensity of her admiration. 
 There was the old house too, which 
 they would pass every day, looking up 
 at the tiny window through which the 
 sun used to stream in and wake him 
 on the summer mornings they were 
 all summer mornings then and 
 climbing up the garden-wall and look- 
 
 ing over, Nicholas could see the very 
 rose-bush which hgjpbpme, a present 
 to Kate, from some Uttle 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 cot- 
 tage near, with which some childish 
 event was not entwined, and back it 
 came upon the mind as events of 
 childhood do nothing in itself : per- 
 haps a word, a laugh, a look, some 
 slight distress, a passing thought or 
 fear : and yet more strongly and dis- 
 tinctly marked, and better remem- 
 bered, than the hardest trials or 
 severest sorrows of a year ago. 
 
 One of these expeditions led them 
 through .the churchyard where was his 
 father's grave. " Even here," said 
 Nicholas, softly, "we used to loiter 
 before we knew what death was, and 
 when we little thought whose ashes 
 would rest beneath ; and, wondering at 
 the silence, sit down to rest and speak 
 below our breath. Once, Kate was 
 lost, and after an hour of fruitless 
 search, they found her, fast asleep, un- 
 der that tree which shades my father's 
 grave. He was very fond of her, and 
 said when he took her up in his arms, 
 still sleeping, that whenever he died 
 he would wish to be buried where his 
 dear little child had laid her head. 
 You see his wish was not forgotten." 
 
 Nothing more passed, at the time, 
 but that night, as Nicholas sat beside 
 his bed, Smike started from what 
 had seemed to be a slumber, and lay- 
 ing 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 1 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 solemn and earnest. His poor friend | 
 kept his hand in his, and turned as if 
 to sleep. But there were stifled sobs ; 
 and the hand was pressed more than 
 once, or twice, or thrice, before he 
 sank to rest, and slowly loosed his 
 hold. 
 
 In a fortnight's time, he became too 
 ill to move about. Once or twice, Ni- 
 cholas drove him out, propped up 
 with jiillows ; but the motion of the 
 chaise was painful to him, and brought 
 on fits <i(J';tintiii, which, in his weak- 
 ened state, were dangerous. There 
 was an old couch in the house, which 
 was his favourite 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 be- 
 ing 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 be- 
 lieved to be the mere delusion of an 
 imagination affected by disease ; but 
 which he had, afterwards, too good 
 reason to know was of real an* actual 
 occurrence. 
 
 He had brought Smike out in his 
 arms poor fellow! a child might 
 have carried him then to see the 
 sunset, and, having arranged his 
 couch, had taken his seat beside it. 
 He had been watching the whole of 
 the night before, and being greatly 
 fatigued both in mind and body, gra- 
 dually fell asleep. 
 
 He could not have closed his eyes 
 five minutes, when he was awakened 
 by a scream, and starting up in that 
 kind of terror which affects a person 
 suddenly roused, saw, to his great as- 
 tonishment, that his charge had strug- 
 gled into a sitting posture, and with 
 eyes almost starting from their sockets, 
 cold dew standing on his forehead, 
 and in a fit of trembling which quite 
 convulsed his frame, was calling to 
 him for help. 
 
 " Good Heaven, what is this ! " 
 said Nicholas, bending over him. 
 " Be calm ; you have been dreaming." 
 
 " No, no, no ! '' cried Srnike, cling- 
 ing to him. " Hold me tight. Don't 
 let me go. There there behind the 
 tree!" 
 
 Nicholas followed his eyes, which 
 were directed to some distance behind 
 the chair from which he himself had just 
 risen. But, there was nothing there. 
 
 " This is nothing but your fancy," 
 he said, as he strove to compose him ; 
 " nothing else indeed." 
 
 " I know better. I saw as plain as 
 I see now," was the answer. " Oh ! 
 say you '11 keep me with you swear 
 you won't leave me, for an instant ! " 
 
 " Do I ever leave you ? " returned 
 Nicholas. " Lie down again there ! 
 You see I 'm here. Now, tell me what 
 was it ? " 
 
 " Do you remember," said Smike, 
 hi a low voice, and glancing fearfully 
 round, " do you remember my telling 
 you of the man who first took me to 
 the school \ " 
 
 u 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 wander- 
 ing 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," re- 
 turned Smike ; " but, just now, he 
 stood leaning upon his stick and look- 
 ing at me, exactly as I told you I 
 remembered him. lie was dusty with 
 walking, and poorly dressed 1 think 
 his clothes were ragged but directly 
 I saw him, the wet night, his face when 
 he left me, the parlour I was left in, 
 and the people that were there, all 
 seemed to come back together. When 
 he knew I saw him, he looked fright- 
 ened ; for he started, and shrunk away. 
 I have thought of him by day, and 
 dreamt of him by night. He looked 
 in my sleep, when I was quite a little 
 child, and has looked in my sleep ever 
 since, as he did just now."
 
 4.58 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Nicholas endeavoured, by every per- 
 suasion aud argument he could think 
 of, to convince the terrified creature 
 that his imagination had deceived him, 
 and that this close resemblance be- 
 tween the creation of his dreams and 
 the man he supposed he had seen was 
 but a proof of it ; but all in vain. 
 When he could persuade him to re- 
 main, for a few moments, in the care of 
 the peqple to whom the house belonged, 
 he instituted a strict inquiry whether 
 any stranger had been seen, and 
 searched himself behind the tree, and 
 through the orchard, and upon the 
 land immediately adjoining, and in 
 every place near, where it was possible 
 for a man to lie concealed ; but all in 
 vain. Satisfied that he was right 
 in his original conjecture, he ap- 
 plied himself to calming the fears of 
 Smike, which, after some time, he par- 
 tially succeeded in doing, though not 
 in removing the impression upon his 
 mind ; for he still declared, again .and 
 again in the most solemn and fervid 
 manner, that he had positively seen 
 what he had described, and that nothing 
 could ever remove his conviction of 
 its reality. 
 
 And now, Nicholas began to see that 
 hope was gone, and that, upon the 
 partner of his poverty, and the sliarer 
 of his better fortune, the world was 
 closing fast. There was little pain, 
 little uneasiness, but there was no 
 rallying, no effort, no struggle for life. 
 He was worn and wasted to the last 
 degree ; his voice had sunk so low, 
 that he could scarce be heard to speak. 
 Nature was thoroughly exhausted, and 
 he had lain him down to die. 
 
 On a fine, mild autumn day, when 
 nJl was tranquil and at peace: when 
 the soft sweet air crept in at the open 
 window of the quiet room, and not a 
 sound was heard but the gentle rustling 
 of the leaves : Nicholas sat in his old 
 place by the bedside, and knew that 
 the time was nearly come. So very 
 still it was, that, every now and then, 
 he bent down his ear to listen for the 
 breathing of him who lay asleep, as if 
 to assure himself that life was still 
 thuv, and that he had not fallen into 
 
 that deep slumber from which on earth 
 there is no waking. 
 
 While he was thus employed, the 
 closed eyes opened, and on the pale 
 face there came a placid smile. 
 
 "That 'swell! "said Nicholas. ".The 
 sleep has done you good." 
 
 " I have had such pleasant dreams," 
 was the answer. " Such pleasant, 
 happy dreams ! " 
 
 " Of what I" said Nicholas. 
 
 The dying boy turned towards him, 
 and, putting his arm about his neck, 
 made answer, " I shall soon be there !" 
 
 After a short silence, he spoke again. 
 
 "I am not afraid to die," he said, 
 " I am quite contented. I almost think 
 that if I could rise from this bed quite 
 well, I would not wish to do so, now. 
 You have so often told me we shall 
 meet again so very often lately, 
 and now I feel the truth of that, so 
 strongly that I can even bear to part 
 from you." 
 
 The trembling voice and tearful eye, 
 and the closer grasp of the arm which 
 accompanied these latter words,showed 
 how they filled the speaker's heart ; 
 nor were there wanting, indications of 
 how deeply they had touched the heart 
 of him to whom they were addressed. 
 
 " You say well," returned Nicholas 
 at length, " and comfort me very 
 much, dear fellow. Let me hear you 
 say you are happy, if you can." 
 
 " I must tell you something first 
 I should not have a secret from you. 
 You would not blame me, at a tune 
 like this, I know." 
 
 "7 blame you!" exclaimed Nicholas. 
 
 " I am sure you would not You 
 asked me why I was so changed, and 
 and sat so much alone. Shall 1 tell 
 you why ? " 
 
 " Not if it pains you," said Nicholas. 
 " I only asked that I might make yon 
 happier, if I could." 
 
 " I know I felt that, at the time." 
 He drew his friend closer to him. 
 " You will forgive me ; I could not 
 help it, but though I would have died 
 to make her happy, it broke my heart 
 to see I know he loves her dearly 
 Oh ! who could find that out, so won 
 as I!"
 
 NICHOLAS MCKLEBY. 
 
 150 
 
 The words which followed were 
 feebly and faintly uttered, and broken 
 by long pauses ; but, from them, Ni- 
 cholas learnt, for the first time, that 
 the dying boy, with all the ardour of a 
 nature concentrated on one absorbing, 
 hopeless, secret passion, loved his 
 sister Kate. 
 
 He had procured a lock of her hair, | 
 which hung at his breast, folded in 
 one or two slight ribands she had 
 worn. He prayed that, when he was 
 dead, Nicholas would take it off, so 
 that no eyes but his might see it, and 
 tiiat when he was laid in his coffin and 
 about to be placed in the earth, lie 
 would hang it round his neck again, 
 
 that it might rest with him in tho 
 grave. 
 
 Upon his knees Nicholas gave him 
 this pledge, and promised again that 
 he should rest in the spot he had 
 pointed out They embraced, and 
 kissed each other on the cheek. 
 
 " Now," he murmured, " I am 
 happy." 
 
 He fell into a light slumber, and 
 waking, smiled as before ; then, spoke 
 of beautiful gardens, which he said 
 stretched out before him, and were 
 filled with figures of men, women, 
 and many children, all with light upon 
 their faces ; then, whispered that it 
 was Eden and so died. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 THE PLOTS BEGIN TO FAIL, AND DOUBTS AND DANGERS TO DISTURB THE 
 PLOTTER. 
 
 RALPH sat alone, in the solitary room 
 where he was accustomed to take his 
 meals, and to sit of nights when 
 no profitable occupation called him 
 abroad. Before him was an untasted 
 breakfast, and near to where his 
 fingers beat restlessly upon the table, 
 lay his watch. It was long past the 
 time at which, for many years, he had ! 
 put it in his pocket and gone with j 
 measured steps down stairs to the 
 business of the day, but he took as 
 little heed of its monotonous warning, ! 
 as of the in^at and drink before him, ! 
 and remained with his head resting on 
 one hand, and his eyes fixed moodily | 
 on the ground. 
 
 This departure from his regular and 
 constant habit, in one so regular and 
 unvarying in all that appertained to 
 the daily pursuit of riches, would 
 almost of itself have told that the 
 usurer was not well. That belaboured 
 under some mental or bodily indis- 
 position, and that it was one of no 
 slight kind so to affect a man ifte him, 
 was sufficiently shown by his haggard 
 <ace, jaded ah-, and hollow languid f 
 
 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 recog- 
 nise the place in which he finds him- 
 self. 
 
 "What is this," he said, "that 
 hangs over me, and I cannot shake 
 off? I have never pampered myself, 
 and should not be ill. I have never 
 moped, and pined, and yielded to 
 fancies ; but what can a man do, with- 
 out rest ! " 
 
 He pressed his hand upon his fore* 
 head. 
 
 ** Night after night comes and goes, 
 and I have no rest. If I sleep, what 
 rest is that which is disturbed by con- 
 stant dreams of the same detested 
 faces crowding round me of the same 
 detested people, in every variety of 
 action, mingling with all I say and do, 
 and always to my defeat i Waking, 
 what rest have I, constantly haunted 
 by this heavy shadow of I know not 
 what which is its worst character ! 1 
 must have rest One night's unbroken 
 rest, and I should be a man again.' 1
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Pushing the table from him while 
 he spoke, as though he loathed the 
 eight of food, he encountered the 
 watch : the hands of which, were 
 almost upon noon. 
 
 " This is strange ! " he said, " noon, 
 and Noggs not here ! what drunken 
 brawl keeps him away ? I would give 
 something now sometliing in money 
 even after that dreadful loss if he had 
 stabbed a man in a tavern scuffle, or 
 broken into a house, or picked a 
 pocket, or done anything that would 
 send him abroad, with an iron ring 
 upon his leg, and rid me of him. 
 Better still, if I could throw tempta- 
 tion in his way, and lure him on to 
 rob me. He should be welcome to 
 what he took, so I brought the law 
 upon him ; for he is a traitor, I swear ! 
 How, or when, or where I don't know, 
 though I suspect." 
 
 After waiting for another half-hour, 
 he despatched the woman who kept 
 his houso to Newman's lodging, to 
 inquire if he were ill, and why he had 
 not come or sent. She brought back 
 aus-.ver that he had not been home all 
 night, and that no one could tell her 
 anything about him. 
 
 " But there is a gentleman, sir," 
 she said, "below, who was standing 
 at the door when I came in, and he 
 says " 
 
 '' What says he ? " demanded Ralph, 
 turning angrily upon her. " I told 
 you 1 would see nobody." 
 
 " He says," replied the woman, 
 abashed by his harshness, " that he 
 com3 on very particular business 
 which admits of no excuse ; and I 
 thought perhaps it might be about " 
 
 " About what, in the devil's name ! " 
 said Ralph. " You, spy and specu- 
 late on people's business with me, do 
 you ! " 
 
 " Dear, no, sir ! I saw you were 
 nnxious, and thought it might be about 
 Mr. Noggs ; that 's all." 
 
 "Saw I was anxious!" muttered 
 Ralph ; "they all watch me, now. 
 Where is this person ! You did not 
 *ay I was not down yet, I hope ! " 
 
 The woman replied that he was in 
 die little office, and that she had said 
 
 her master was engaged, but she 
 would take the message. 
 
 Well," said Ralph, I '11 see him. 
 Go you to your kitchen, and keep 
 there, do you mind me ! " 
 
 Glad to be released, the woman 
 quickly disappeared. Collecting him- 
 self, and assuming as much of his 
 accustomed manner as his utmost 
 resolution could summon, Ralph de- 
 scended the stairs. After pausing 
 for a few moments, with his hand 
 upon the lock, he entered Newman's 
 room, and confronted Mr. Charles 
 Cheeryble. 
 
 Of all men alive, this was one of 
 the last he would have wished to meet 
 at any time ; but, now, that he recog- 
 nised in him only the patron and pro^- 
 tector of Nicholas, he would rather 
 have seen a spectre. One beneficial 
 effect, however, the encounter had 
 upon him. It instantly roused all his 
 dormant energies ; rekindled in his 
 breast the passions that, for many 
 years, had found an improving honje 
 there ; called up all his wrath, hatred, 
 and malice ; restored the sneer to his 
 lip, and the scowl to his brow ; and 
 made him again, in all outward ap- 
 pearance, the same Ralph Nickleby 
 whom so many had bitter cause to re- 
 member. 
 
 " Humph ! " said Ralph, pausing at 
 the door. " This is an unexpected 
 favour, sir." 
 
 " And an unwelcome one," said 
 brother Charles ; " an unwelcome one, 
 I know." 
 
 " Men say you are truth itself, sir," 
 replied Ralph. " You speak truth 
 now, at all events, and I "11 not con- 
 tradict you. The favour is, at least, as 
 unwelcome as It is unexpected. I can 
 scarcely say more ! " 
 
 " Plainly, sir " began brother 
 
 Charles. 
 
 " Plainly, sir," interrupted Ralph, 
 
 ' 1 wish this conference to be a short 
 
 one, and to end where it begins. I 
 
 guess the subject upon which you are 
 
 ' about to speak, and I'll not hear you. 
 
 i You like plainness, I believe, there 
 
 it is. Here is the door as you see. 
 
 Our way lies in very different direc-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 461 
 
 tions. Take yours, I beg of you, and 
 leave me to pursue mine in quiet." 
 
 " In quiet ! " repeated brother 
 Charles mildly, and looking at him 
 with more of pity than reproach. 
 " To pursue Ai* way in quiet ! " 
 
 * You will scarcely remain in my 
 house, I presume, sir, against my will," 
 said Ralph ; " or you can scarcely 
 hope to make an impression upon a 
 man who closes his ears to all that 
 you can say, and is firmly and reso- 
 lutely determined not to hear you." 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby, sir," returned bro- 
 ther Charles : no less mildly than 
 before, but firmly too, " I come here 
 against my will sorely and grievously 
 against my will. I have never been 
 in this house before ; and, to speak 
 my mind, sir, I don't feel at home or 
 easy in it, and have no wish ever to be 
 here again. You do not guess th* 
 subject on which I come to speak to 
 you ; yon do not indeed. I am sure of 
 that, or your manner would be a very 
 different one." 
 
 Ralph glanced keenly at him, but 
 the clear eye and open countenance of 
 the honest old merchant underwent no 
 change of expression, and met his look 
 without reserve. 
 
 "Shall I go on ?" said Mr. Cheeryble. 
 
 " Oh, by all means, if you please," 
 returned Ralph drily. " Here are 
 walls to speak to, sir, a desk, and two 
 stools most attentive auditors, and 
 certain not to interrupt you. Go on, 
 I beg ; make my house yours, and 
 perhaps by the time I return from my 
 walk, you will have finished what you 
 have to say, and will yield me up pos- 
 session again." 
 
 So wying, he buttoned his coat, and 
 turning into the passage, took down 
 his hat. The old gentleman followed, 
 and was about to speak, when Ralph 
 waved him off impatiently, and said : 
 
 " Not a word. I tell you, sir, not a 
 word. Virtuous as you are, you are 
 not an angel yet, to appear in men's 
 houses whether they will or no, and 
 pour your speech into unwilling ears. 
 Preach to the walls I tell you not to 
 me ! " 
 
 " I am no angel, Heaven knows," 
 
 returned brother Charles, shaking his 
 head, " but an erring and imperfect 
 man ; nevertheless, there is one 
 quality which all men have, in common 
 with the angels, blessed opportunities 
 of exercising, if they will mercy. It 
 is an errand of mercy that brings me 
 here. Pray, let me discharge it." 
 
 " I show no mercy," retorted Ralph 
 with a triumphant smile, " and I ask 
 none. Seek no mercy from me, sir, 
 in behalf of the fellow who has im- 
 posed upon your childish credulity, 
 but let him expect the worst that I 
 can do." 
 
 " He ask mercy at your hands ! " 
 exclaimed the old merchant warmly, 
 "ask it at his, sir ; ask it at his. If 
 you will not hear me, now, when you 
 may, hear me when you must, or an- 
 ticipate what I would say, and take 
 measures to prevent our ever meeting 
 again. Your nephew is a noble lad, 
 sir, an honest, noble lad. What you 
 are, Mr. Nickleby, I will not say ; but 
 what you have done, I know. Now, 
 sir, when you go about the business in 
 which you have been recently engaged, 
 and find it difficult of pursuing, come- 
 to me and my brother Ned, and Tim 
 Linkinwater, sir, and we '11 explain it 
 for you and come soon, or it may be 
 too late, and you may have it ex- 
 plained with a little more roughness, 
 and a little less delicacy and never 
 forget, sir, that I came here this 
 morning, in mercy to you, and am still 
 ready to talk to you in the samo 
 spirit." 
 
 With these words, uttered with 
 great emphasis and emotion, brother 
 Charles put on his broad-brimmed hat, 
 and, passing Ralph Nickleby without 
 any other remark, trotted nimbly 
 into the street. Ralph looked after 
 him, but neither moved nor spoke for 
 some time : when he broke what almost 
 seemed the silence of stupefaction, by 
 a scornful laugh. 
 
 " This," he said, "from its wildness, 
 should be another of those dreams 
 that have so broken my rest of iate. 
 In mercy to me ! Plio ! The old 
 simpleton has gone mad." 
 
 Although he expressed himself in
 
 4G2 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 tills derisive and contemptuous man- 
 ner, it was plain that, the more Ralph 
 pondered, the more ill at ease he 
 became, and the more he laboured 
 under some vague anxiety and alarm, 
 which increased as the time passed on 
 and no tidings of Newman Noggs 
 arrived. After waiting until late in 
 the afternoon, tortured by various ap- 
 prehensions and misgivings, and the 
 recollection of the warning which his 
 nephew had given him when they last 
 met : the further confirmation of which 
 now presented itself in one shape of 
 probability, now in another, and 
 haunted him perpetually: he left home, 
 and, scarcely knowing why, save that 
 he was in a suspicious and agitated 
 mood, betook himself to Snawley's 
 house. His wife presented herself ; 
 and, of her, Ralph inquired whether 
 her husband was at home. 
 
 " No," she said sharply, "he is not 
 indeed, and I don't think he will be at 
 home for a very long time ; that's 
 more." 
 
 " Do you know who I am ? " asked 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Oh yes, I know you very well 
 too well, perhaps, and perhaps he does 
 too, and sorry am I that I should have 
 to say it." 
 
 " Tell him that I saw him through 
 the window-blind above, as I crossed 
 the road just now, and that I would 
 speak to him on business," said Ralph. 
 "Do you hear ? " 
 
 " I hear," rejoined Mrs. Snawley, 
 taking no further notice of the request. 
 
 " I ' knew this woman was a hypo- 
 crite, in the way of psalms and Scrip- 
 ture phrases," said Ralph, passing 
 quietly by, "but I never knew she 
 drank before." 
 
 " Stop ! You don't come in here," 
 aaid Mr. Snawley's better-half, iutcr- 
 oosing her person, which was a robust 
 one, in the doorway. " You have said 
 nore than enough to him on business, 
 Before now. I always told him what 
 aealing 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 liis doing, so don't 
 lay it at his door." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you Jezebel," 
 said Ralph, looking fearfully round. 
 
 " Ah, I know when to hold my 
 tongue, and when to speak, Mr. 
 Nickleby," retorted the dame. " Tako 
 care that other people know when to 
 hold theirs." 
 
 "You jade," said Ralph, "if your 
 husband has been idiot enough to 
 trust you with his secrets, keep them 
 keep them, she-devil that you 
 are ! " 
 
 " Not so much his secrets as other 
 people's secrets perhaps," retorted the 
 woman ; " not so much his secrets as 
 yours. None of your black looks 
 at me ! You '11 want 'em all perhaps 
 for another time. You had better 
 keep 'em." 
 
 " Will you," said Ralph, suppressing 
 his passion as well as he could, and 
 clutching her tightly by the wrist : 
 " will you go to your husband and tell 
 him that I know he is at home, and 
 that I must see him ? And will you 
 tell me what it is, that you and he 
 mean, by this new style of behaviour ? " 
 
 " No," replied the woman, vio- 
 lently disengaging herself, " I '11 do 
 neither." 
 
 " You set me at defiance, do you ! " 
 said Ralph. 
 
 " Yes," was the answer. " I do." 
 
 For an instant Ralph had his hand 
 raised, as though he were about to 
 strike her ; but, checking himself, and 
 nodding his head and muttering ae 
 though to assure her he would not 
 forget this, walked away. 
 
 Thence, he went straight to the inn 
 which Mr. Squeers frequented, and 
 inquired when he had been there last ; 
 in the vague hope that, successful 
 or unsuccessful, he might, by this 
 time, have returned from his mis- 
 sion and be able to assure him that 
 all was safe. But Mr. Squeers had 
 not been there, for ten days, and all 
 that the people could tell about him 
 was, that he had left his luggage and 
 his bill. 
 
 Disturbed by a thousand fears and 
 surmises, and bent upon ascer; liuing
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 
 463 
 
 whether Squeers had any suspicion of 
 Snawley, or was, in aiiy way, a party 
 to this altered behaviour, Ralph de- 
 termined to hazard the extreme step 
 of inquiring for him at the Lambeth 
 lodging, and having an interview with 
 him even there. Bent upon this pur- 
 pose, 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 con- 
 vince Ralph, against his wish, that 
 there was nobody inside. He rea- 
 soned that he might be asleep ; and, 
 listening, almost persuaded himself 
 that he could hear him breathe. 
 Even when he was satisfied that he 
 could not be there, he sat patiently 
 on a broken stair and waited ; 
 arguing that he had gono out, upon 
 some slight errand, and must soon 
 return. 
 
 Many feet came up the creaking 
 Blairs ; and the step of some seemed 
 to his listening ear so like that of the 
 man for whom he waited, that Ralph 
 often stood up to be ready to address 
 him when he reached the top ; but, 
 one by one, each person turned off 
 into some room short of the place 
 where he was stationed : and at every 
 such disappointment he felt quite 
 chilled and lonely. 
 
 At length he felt it was hopeless to 
 remain, and going down stairs again, 
 inquired of one of the lodgers if he 
 knew anything of Mr. Squeers's move- 
 ments mentioning that worthy by an 
 assumed name which had been agreed 
 upon between them. By this lodger 
 he was referred to another, and by 
 him to some one else, from whom he 
 learnt, that, late on the previous night, 
 he had gone out hastily with two men, 
 who had shortly afterwards returned 
 for the old woman who lived on the 
 same floor ; and that, although the cir- 
 cumstance had attracted the attention 
 of the informant, he had not spoken to 
 them at the time, nor made any inquiry 
 afterwards. 
 
 This possessed, him with the idea 
 that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had leen 
 apprehended for the robbery, and that 
 Mr. Squeers, being with her at the 
 time, had been apprehended also on 
 suspicion of being a confederate. If 
 this were so, the fact must be known 
 to Gride ; and to Gride's house he 
 directed his steps : now thoroughly 
 alarmed, and fearful that there were 
 indeed plots afoot, tending to his dis- 
 comfiture and ruin. 
 
 Arrived at the usurer's house, ho 
 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 vigor- 
 ously 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, how- 
 ever, but that Ralph let him know he 
 was observed, and called to him to 
 come down. 
 
 The call being repeated, Grido 
 looked out again, so cautiously that no 
 part of the old man's body was visible. 
 The sharp features and white hair 
 appearing alone, above the parapet, 
 looked like a severed head garnishing 
 the wall. 
 
 " Hush ! " he cried. " Go away 
 go away ! " 
 
 " Come down," said Ralph, beckon- 
 ing him. 
 
 "Go n way!" squeaked Gride, 
 shaking his head in a sort of ecstacy 
 of impatience. " Don't speak to me, 
 don't knock, don't call attention to the 
 house, but go away." 
 
 " I '11 knock, I swear, till I have your 
 neighbours up in arms," said Ralph, 
 " if you don't tell me what you mean 
 by lurking there, you whining cur." 
 
 "I can't hear what you say don't 
 talk to me it isn't safe go away go 
 away t " returned Gride.
 
 4G4 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " Come down, I say. Will you 
 come down ! " said Ralph fiercely. 
 
 " No o 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 1 I '11 know what it means ! I 
 will, at any cost. I am firmer and 
 more myself, just now, than I have 
 been these many days." 
 
 Turning from the door, which, in 
 the first transport of his rage, he had 
 meditated battering upon, until Gride's 
 very fears should impel him to open it, 
 he turned his face towards the city, and 
 working his way steadily through the 
 crowd which was pouring from it (it 
 was by this time between five and six 
 o'clock in the afternoon) wentTstraight 
 to the house of business of the 
 Brothers Cheeryble, and putting his 
 head into the glass case, found Tim 
 Linkinwater alone. 
 
 ' My name 's Nickleby," said Ralph. 
 
 " I know it," replied Tim, surveying 
 him through his spectacles. 
 
 " Which of your firm was it who 
 called on me this morning 1" demanded 
 Ralph. 
 
 "Mr. Charles." 
 
 Then, tell Mr. Charles I want to 
 see him." 
 
 " You shall see," said Tim, getting 
 off his stool with great agility. ** You 
 shall see, not only Mr. Charles, but 
 Mr. Ned likewise." 
 
 Tim stopped, looked steadily and 
 severely at Ralph, nodded his head 
 once, in a curt manner which seemed 
 to Bay there was a little more behind, 
 and vanished. After a short interval, 
 he returned, and, ushering Ralph into 
 the presence of the two brothers, re- 
 mained in the room himself. 
 
 " I want to speak to you, who spoke 
 to me this morning,'" said Ralph, 
 pointing out with his finger the man 
 whom he addressed. 
 
 " I have no secrets from my brother 
 
 Ned, or from Tim Linkinwater,'' ob- 
 served Brother Charles quietly. 
 
 " I have," said Ralph. 
 
 "Mr. Nickleby, sir," said brother 
 Ned, "the matter upon which my 
 brother Charles called upon you this 
 morning, is one which is already per- 
 fectly well known to us three, and to 
 others besides, and must unhappily 
 soon become known to a great many 
 more. He waited upon you, sir, this 
 morning, alone, as a matter of delicacy 
 and consideration. We feel, now, that 
 further delicacy and consideration 
 would be misplaced ; and, if we confer 
 together, it must be as we are or not 
 at all." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Ralph 
 with a curl of the lip, "talking in 
 riddles would seem to be the peculiar 
 forte of you two, and I suppose your 
 clerk, like a prudent man, has studied 
 the art also with a view to your good 
 graces. Talk in company, gentlemen, 
 in God's name. I '11 humour you." 
 
 "Humour!" cried Tim Linkin- 
 water, suddenly growing very red in 
 the face, " He '11 humour us ! He'll 
 humour Cheeryble Brothers ! Do you 
 hear that ? Do you hear him ? Do you 
 hear him say he '11 humour Cheeryble 
 Brothers ? " 
 
 " Tim," said Charles and Ned toge- 
 ther, " pray Tim pray now, don't" 
 
 Tim, taking the hint, stifled his in- 
 dignation 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 '11 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 under- 
 hand interference in my affairs which, 
 I have reason to suppose, you have 
 been practising. I tell you plainly, 
 gentlemen, that little as I care for the 
 opinion of die world (as the slang 
 oos} I don't choose to submit quietly
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 iGi 
 
 to slander and malico. Whether you 
 suffer yourselves to be imposed upon, 
 too easily, or wilfully make yourselves 
 parties to it, the result to me is the 
 some. In either case, you can't ex- 
 pect from a plain man like myself 
 much consideration or forbearance." 
 
 So coolly and deliberately was this 
 said, that nine men out of ten, ignorant 
 of the circumstances, would have 
 supposed Ralph to be really an injured 
 man. There he sat, with folded arms ; 
 paler than usual, certainly, and suffi- 
 ciently ill-favoured, but quite collected 
 far more so, than the brothers or the 
 exasperated Tim and ready to face 
 out the worst. 
 
 " Very well, sir," said brother 
 Charles. " Very well. Brother Ned, 
 will you ring the bell ! " 
 
 " Charles, my dear fellow ! stop one 
 instant," returned the other. " It 
 will be better for Mr. Nickleby and 
 for our object that he should remain 
 silent if he can, till we have said what 
 we have to say. I wish him to under- 
 stand 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 begin- 
 ning. You arc candid, honest, open- 
 hearted, fair-dealing men ! I always 
 knew the rc.il worth of such characters 
 as yours ! To tamper with a fellow 
 like this, who would sell his soul (if he 
 had one) for drink, and whose every 
 word is a lie, what men are safe if this 
 is done ! Oh it's a good beginning !" 
 
 "I will speak," cried Newman, 
 standing on tiptoe to look over Tim's 
 head, who had interposed to prevent 
 Lini. " Hallo, you sir old Nickleby ! 
 what do you mean when you talk of 
 'a fellow like this }' Who made me 'a 
 fellow like this I ' If I would sell my 
 soul for drink, why wasn't I a thief, 
 swindler, housebreaker, area sneak, 
 
 No. 61. 
 
 robber of pence out of the trays of 
 blind men's dogs, rather than your 
 drudge and packhorse ? If my every 
 word was a lie, why wasn't I a pet and 
 favourite of yours ? Lie ! When did I 
 ever cringe and fawn to you eh? 
 Tell me that ! I served you faithfully. 
 I did more work, because I was poor, 
 and took more hard words from you 
 because I despised you and them, than 
 any man you could have got from the 
 parish workhouse. I did. I served 
 you because I was proud ; because I 
 was a lonely man with you, and there 
 were no other drudges to see my degra- 
 dation ; and because nobody knew, 
 better than you, that I was a ruined 
 man : that I hadn't always been what I 
 am : and that I might have been better 
 off, if I hadn't been a fool and fallen 
 into the hands of you and others who 
 were knaves. Do you deny that 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 
 atarm's-length, "don't tell me ! Here, 
 you Nickleby ! don't pretend not to 
 mind me ; it won't do ; I know better. 
 You were talking of tampering, just 
 now. Who tampered with Yorkshire 
 schoolmasters, and, while they sent 
 the drudge out, that he shouldn't over- 
 hear, forgot that such great caution 
 might render him suspicious, and that 
 he might watch his master out at 
 nights, and might set other eyes to 
 watch the schoolmaster ? Who tam- 
 pered with a selfish father, urging 
 him to sell his daughter to old Arthur 
 Gride, and tampered with Gride too, 
 and did so in die little office, wilk a 
 closet in tlic room t " 
 
 Ralph had put a great command 
 upon himself ; but he could not have 
 suppressed a slight start, if he had 
 been certain to be beheaded for it 
 next moment. 
 
 "Aha !" cried Newman, "you mint 1 
 me now, do you t What first set thin 
 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 
 
 u H HO
 
 4G6 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 master's cruel treatment of his own 
 flesh and blood, and vile designs upon 
 a young girl who interested even his 
 broken-down, drunken, miserable 
 hack, and made him linger in his 
 service, in the hope of doing her 
 some good (as, thank God, he had 
 done others once or twice before), 
 when he would, otherwise, have re- 
 lieved his feelings by pummelling his 
 master soundly, and then going to the 
 Devil. He would mark that ; and 
 mark this that I 'm here now, because 
 these gentlemen thought it best. When 
 I sought them out (as I did there 
 was no tampering with me) I told 
 them I wanted help to find you out, to 
 trace you down, to go through with 
 what I had begun, to help the right ; 
 and that when I had done it, I 'd 
 burst into your room and tell you all, 
 face to face, man to man, and like a 
 man. Now I've said my say, and 
 let anybody else say theirs, and fire 
 away !" 
 
 With this concluding sentiment, 
 Newman Noggs, who had been per- 
 petually sitting down and getting up 
 again all through his speech, which he 
 had delivered in a series of jerks : and 
 who was, from the violent exercise 
 and the excitement combined, in a 
 state of most intense and fiery heat : 
 became, without passing through any 
 intermediate stage, stiff, upright, and 
 motionless, and so remained, staring 
 at Ralph Nickleby with all his might 
 and main. 
 
 Ralph looked at him, for an instant, 
 and for an instant only ; then, waved 
 his hand, and, beating the ground with 
 his foot, said in a choking voice, 
 
 " Go on, gentlemen, go on ! I 'm 
 patient, you see. There's law to be 
 liad, there 's law. I shall call you to 
 an account for this. Take care what 
 you say ; I shall make you prove it" 
 
 u The proof is ready," returned 
 Brother Charles, " quite ready to our 
 hands. The man Snawley, hist night 
 made a confession." 
 
 " Who may ' the man Snawley ' be," 
 returned Ralph, " and what may his 
 'confession' have to do with my 
 affairs I " 
 
 To this inquiry, put with a dogged 
 inflexibility of manner, the old gentle- 
 man returned no answer, but went 
 on to say, that to show him how 
 much they were in earnest, it would 
 be necessary to tell him, not only 
 what accusations were made against 
 him, but what proof of them they 
 had, and how that proof had been 
 acquired. This laying open of the 
 whole question, brought up Brother 
 Ned, Tun Linkinwater, and Newman 
 Noggs, all three at once, who, after 
 a vast deal of talking together, and 
 a scene of great confusion, hud before 
 Ralph, in distinct terms, the following 
 statement. 
 
 That, Newman, having been solemnly 
 assured by one not then producible 
 that Smike was not the son of Snawley, 
 and this person having offered to make 
 oath to that effect, if necessary, they 
 had by this communication been first 
 led to doubt the claim set up, which 
 they would otherwise have seen no 
 reason to dispute : supported as it was 
 by evidence which they had no power 
 of disproving. That, once suspecting 
 the existence of a conspiracy, they 
 had no difficulty in tracing back its 
 origin to the malice of Ralph, and the 
 vindictiveness and avarice of Squeers. 
 That, suspicion and proof being two 
 very different things, they had been 
 advised by a lawyer, eminent for his 
 sagacity and acuteness in such practice, 
 to resist the proceedings taken on the 
 other side for the recovery of the 
 yuth, as slowly and artfully as pos- 
 sible, and meanwhile to beset Snawley 
 (with whom it was clear the maiu 
 falsehood must rest) ; to lead him, if 
 possible, into contradictory and con- 
 flicting statements ; to harass him by 
 all available means ; and so to practise 
 on his fears, and regard for his own 
 safety, as to induce him to divulge 
 the whole scheme, and to give up his 
 employer and whomsoever else he 
 could implicate. That, all this had 
 been skilfully done; but that Snaw- 
 ley, who was well practised in the 
 arts of low cunning and intrigue, had 
 successfully baffled all their attempts, 
 until an unexpected circumstance had
 
 MCIIOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 467 
 
 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 be- 
 tween him and Ralph that he had 
 been sent out of the house, plainly 
 lest he should overhear a word, a 
 watch was set upon the schoolmaster, 
 in the hope that something might be 
 discovered which would throw some 
 light upon the suspected plot. It 
 being found, however, that he held no 
 further communication with Ralph, 
 nor any with Snawley, and lived quite 
 alone, they were completely at fault ; 
 the watch was withdrawn, and they 
 would have observed his motions no 
 longer, if it had not happened that, one 
 night, Newman stumbled unobserved 
 on him and Ralph in the street 
 together. Following them, he 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 that they were 
 in pursuit so he found by inquiries 
 when they had left of an old woman, 
 whose description exactly tallied with 
 that of deaf Mrs. Sliderskew. Affairs 
 now appearing to assume a more 
 serious complexion, the watch was 
 renewed with increased vigilance ; an 
 officer was procured, who took up his 
 abode in the same tavern with Squeers ; 
 and, by him and Frank Cheeryble, the 
 footsteps of the unconscious school- 
 master were dogged, until he was 
 safely housed in the lodging at Lam- 
 beth. Mr. Squeers having shifted his 
 lodging, the officer shifted his, and, 
 lying concealed in the same street, 
 and, indeed, in the opposite house, 
 soon found that Mr. Squeers and Mrs. 
 Sliderskew were in constant commu- 
 nication. 
 
 In this state of things, Arthur Gride 
 was appealed to. The robbery, partly 
 owing to the inquisitiveness of the 
 neighbours, and partly to his own 
 grief and rage, had, long ago, become 
 known ; but he positively refused to 
 give his sanction or yield any assist- 
 
 ance to the old woman's capture, and 
 was seized with such a panic at the 
 idea of being called upon to give evi- 
 dence against her, that he shut himself 
 up close, in his house, and refused to 
 hold communication with anybody. 
 Upon this, the pursuers took counsel 
 together, and, coming so near the truth 
 as to arrive at the conclusion tliat 
 Gride and Ralph, with Squeers for 
 their instrument, were negotiating for 
 the recovery of some of the stolen 
 papers which would not bear the light, 
 and might possibly explain the hints 
 relative to Madeline which Newman 
 had overheard, resolved that Mrs. 
 Sliderskew should be taken into cus- 
 tody before she had parted with them : 
 and Squeers too, if anything suspicious 
 could be attached to him. Accord- 
 ingly, a search-warrant being pro- 
 cured, and all prepared, Mr. Squeers's 
 window was watched, until his light was 
 put out, and the time arrived when, as 
 had been previously ascertained, he 
 usually visited Mrs. Sliderskew. This 
 done, Frank Cheeryble and Newman 
 stole up stairs to listen to their dis- 
 course, and to give the signal to the 
 officer at the most favourable time. 
 At what an opportune moment they ar- 
 rived, how they lis^ncd, and what they 
 heard, is already known to the reader. 
 Mr. Squeers, still half stunned, was 
 hurried off with a stolen deed in his 
 possession, and Mrs. Sliderskew was 
 apprehended likewise. The informa- 
 tion being promptly carried to Snawley 
 that Squeers was in custody he was 
 not told for what that worthy, first 
 extorting a promise that he should 
 be kept harmless, declared the whole 
 tale concerning Smike to be a fiction 
 and forgery, and implicated Ralph 
 Nickleby to the fullest extent. As to 
 Mr. Squeers, ho had, that morning, 
 undergone a private examination be- 
 fore a magistrate : and, being unable to 
 account satisfactorily for his possession 
 of the deed or his companionship with 
 Mrs. Sliderskew, had been, with her, 
 remanded for a week. 
 
 All these discoveries were now 
 related to Ralph, circumstantially, and 
 in detail. Whatever impression they 
 V H 2
 
 468 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 secretly produced, he suffered no sign 
 of emotion to escape him, but sat 
 perfectly still, not raising his frowning 
 eyes from the ground, and covering 
 his mouth with his hand. When the 
 narrative was concluded, he raised his 
 head hastily, as if about to speak, but 
 on brother Charles resuming, fell into 
 his old attitude again. 
 
 " I told you this morning," said the 
 old gentleman, laying his hand upon 
 his brother's shoulder, " that I came 
 to you. in mercy. How far you may 
 be implicated in this last transaction, 
 or how far the person who is now in 
 custody may criminate you, you best 
 know. But, justice must take its 
 course against the parties implicated 
 in the plot against this poor, unoffend- 
 ing, injured lad. It is not in my 
 power, or in the power of my brother 
 Ned, to save you from the conse- 
 quences. 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 thia 
 entreaty, aud so, Tim Linkinwater, do 
 you, although you pretend to be an 
 obstinate dog, sir, and sit there frown- 
 ing as if you didn't we entreat you 
 to retire from London, to take shelter 
 in some place where you will be safe 
 from the consequences of these wicked 
 designs, and where you may have 
 time, sir, to atone for them, and to 
 become a better man." 
 
 " And do you think," returned 
 Ralph, rising, " and do you think 
 you will so easily crush me ? Do you 
 think that a hundred well-arranged 
 plans, or a hundred suborned wit- 
 nesses, or a hundred false curs at my 
 heels, or a hundred canting speeches 
 full of oily words, will move me ? I 
 thank you for disclosing your schemes, 
 which I am now prepared for. You 
 have not the man to deal with that 
 you think ; try me ! and remember 
 that I spit upon your fair words and 
 false dealings, and dare you provoke 
 yon taunt you to do to me, the 
 very worst you can ! " 
 
 Thus they parted, for that time ; but 
 the worst had not come yet. 
 
 CHAPTER 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 misfortunes 
 had occurred, alighted at a short 
 distance from it, and, discharging the 
 man, went the rest of his way thither 
 on foot. Inquiring for the object of 
 Liis solicitude, he learnt that he had 
 timed his visit well ; for Mr. Squeers 
 was, in fact, at that moment waiting for 
 a hackney-coach he had ordered, and 
 in which he purposed proceeding to 
 his week's retirement, like a gentleman. 
 
 Demanding speech with the prisoner, 
 he was ushered into a kind of waiting- 
 
 room in which, by reason of his 
 scholastic profession and superior 
 respectability, Mr. Squeers had been 
 permitted to pass the day. Here, by 
 the light of a guttering and blackened 
 candle, he could barely discern the 
 schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in 
 a remote corner. An empty glass 
 stood on a table before him, which, 
 with his somnolent condition and a 
 very strong smell of brandy and water, 
 forewarned the visitor that Mr. Squeers 
 had been seeking, in creature comforts, 
 a temporary forgetfulness of his un- 
 pleasant situation. 
 
 It was not a very easy matter to 
 rouse him : so lethargic and heavy were
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 469 
 
 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 
 l>y a dirty white handkerchief, spotted 
 with blood, drawn over the crown of 
 his head and tied under his chin : 
 stared ruefully at Ralph ia silence, 
 until his feelings found a vent in this 
 pithy sentence : 
 
 " I say, young fellow, you 've been 
 mid done it now; you have !" 
 
 " What 's the matter with your 
 head?" asked Ralph. 
 
 " Why, your man, your informing 
 kidnapping man, has been and broke 
 it," rejoined Squeers sulkily ; " that 's 
 what 's the natter with it. You 've 
 come at last, have you 1" 
 
 " Why have you not sent to me ? " 
 said Ralph. " How could I come till 
 1 knew what had befallen you ?" 
 
 " My family ! " hiccupped Mr. 
 Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling ; 
 " my daughter, as is at that age when all 
 the sensibilities is a coming out strong 
 in blow my son as is the young Norval 
 of private life, and the pride and orna- 
 ment of a doting willage here's a 
 shock for my family! The coat of 
 arms of the Squeerses is tore, and 
 their sun is gone down into the ocean 
 wave ! " 
 
 " You have been drinking," said 
 Ralph, " and have not yet slept your- 
 self 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 t " returned Squeers. " To be 
 known to be in with you, wouldn't do 
 me a deal of good, and they won't 
 take bail till they know something 
 more of the case, so here am I hard 
 and fast : and there are you, loose and 
 comfortable." 
 
 ' And so must you be, in a few 
 
 days," retorted Ralph, with affected 
 good-humour. " They cau'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 ot 
 that there ca-daverous old Slider," re- 
 plied Squeers viciously, " who 1 wish 
 was dead and buried, and resurrected 
 and dissected, and hung upon wires in 
 a anatomical museum, before ever 1 'd 
 had anything to do with her. This is 
 what him with the powdered head 
 says this morning, in so many words 
 ' Prisoner ! As you have been found 
 in company with this woman ; as 
 you were detected in possession of 
 this document ; as you were engaged 
 with her in fraudulently destroying 
 others, and can give no satisfactory 
 account of yourself; I shall remand 
 you for a week, in order that inquiries 
 may be made, and evidence got and 
 meanwhile I can't take any bail for 
 your appearance.' Well then, what I 
 say now, is, that I can give a satisfac- 
 tory account of myself ; I can hand in 
 the card of my establishment and say, 
 ' / am the Wackford Squeers as is 
 therein named, sir. I am die man as 
 is guaranteed, by unimpeachable refer- 
 ences, to be a out-and-outer in morals 
 and uprightness of principle. What- 
 ever is wrong in this business is no 
 fault of mine. I had no evil design in 
 it, sir. I was not aware that anything 
 was wrong. I was merely employed 
 i by a friend my friend Mr. Ralph 
 Nickleby, of Golden Square send for 
 ! him, sir, and ask him what he lias to 
 ! say he 's the man ; not me !' " 
 
 " What document was it that you 
 had i " asked Ralph, evading, for the 
 moment, the point just raised. 
 
 What document 1 Why, the do- 
 cument," replied Squeers. " The 
 Madeline what's-her-name one. li 
 was a will ; that's what it was." 
 
 " Of what nature, whose will, when 
 dated, how benefiting her, to what 
 extent \ " asked Ralph hurriedly. 
 
 " A will in her favour ; that 's all I 
 know," rejoined Squeers ; " and that 's 
 more than you 'd have known, if you 'd 
 had them bellows on your head. It '.s
 
 470 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 all owing to your precious caution 
 that they got hold of it. If you had 
 let me burn it, and taken my word 
 that it was gone, it would have been a 
 heap of ashes behind the fire, instead 
 of being whole and sound, inside of my 
 great-coat." 
 
 " Beaten at every point ! " muttered 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed Squeers, who, be- 
 tween 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, fur- 
 nished with pocket money, provided 
 with all necessaries, instructed in all 
 languages living and dead, mathe- 
 matics, orthography, geometry, astro- 
 nomy, trigonometry : this is a altered 
 state of tngonomics, this is ! A double 
 1 all, everything a cobbler's weapon. 
 U-p-up, adjective, not down. S-q-u- 
 double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, 
 a educator of youth. Total, all up 
 with Squeers ! " 
 
 His running on, in this way, had 
 afforded Ralph an opportunity of re- 
 covering his presence of mind, which 
 at once suggested to him the necessity 
 of removing, as far as possible, the 
 schoolmaster's misgivings, and leading 
 him to believe that his safety and best 
 policy lay in the preservation of a 
 rigid silence. 
 
 " I tell you, once again," he said, 
 " they can't hurt you. Yon 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 secu- 
 rity in a thousand pounds for your re- 
 appearance 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 
 yon must do, and you '11 need all your 
 senses about yon ; for a slip might be 
 awkward." 
 
 * Oh ! " said Squeers, who had 
 looked cunningly at him, with his head 
 stuck on one side, like an old raven. 
 
 That 's what 1 'm to do, is it ? Now 
 then, just you hear a word or two 
 from me. I an't a going to have any 
 stories made for me, and I an't a going 
 to stick to any. If I find matters 
 going again me, I shall expect you 
 to take your share, and I '11 take care 
 you do. You never said anything 
 about danger. I never bargained for 
 being brought into such a plight as 
 this, and I don't mean to take it as 
 quiet as you think. I let you lead me 
 on, from one thing to another, because . 
 we had been mixed up together in a 
 certain sort of a way, and if you had 
 liked to be ill-natured you might per- 
 haps have hurt the business, and if 
 you liked to be good-natured you might 
 throw a good deal in my way. Well ; 
 if all goes right now, that's quite 
 correct, and I don't mind it ; but if 
 anything goes wrong, then, times are 
 altered, and I shall just say and do 
 whatever I think may serve me most, 
 and take advice from nobody. My 
 moral influence with them lads," 
 added Mr. Squeers, with deeper gra- 
 vity, " is a tottering to its basis. The 
 images of Mrs. Squeers, my daughter, 
 and my son Wackford, all short of 
 vittles, is perpetually before me ; 
 every other consideration melts away 
 and vanishes, in front of these ; the 
 only number in all arithmetic that I 
 know of, as a husband and a father, is 
 number one, under this here most 
 fatal go!" 
 
 How long Mr. Squeers might have 
 declaimed, or how stormy a discussion 
 his declamation might have led to, 
 nobody knows. Being interrupted, at 
 this point, by the arrival of the coach 
 and an attendant who was to bear him 
 company, he perched his hat with 
 great dignity on the top of the hand- 
 kerchief that bound his head ; and, 
 thrusting one hand in his pocket, and 
 taking the attendant's arm with the 
 other, suffered himself to be led forth. 
 
 " Aa I supposed, from his not send- 
 ing !" 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 w itb
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 471 
 
 fear, but, like the beasts in the fable, 
 have their fling at me now, though 
 time was, and no longer ago than 
 yesterday too, when they were all 
 civility and compliance. But they 
 shall not move me. I '11 not give way. 
 I will not budge one inch ! " 
 
 He went home, and was glad to find 
 his housekeeper complaining of illness 
 that he might have an excuse for being 
 alone and sending her away to where 
 she lived : which was hard by. Then, 
 he sat down by the light of a single 
 candle, and began to think, for the first 
 time, on all that had taken place that day. 
 
 He had neither eaten nor drunk 
 since last night, and, in addition to the 
 anxiety of mind he had undergone, 
 had been travelling about, from place 
 to place almost incessantly, for many 
 hours. He felt sick and exhausted, 
 but could taste nothing save a glass of 
 water, and continued to sit with his 
 head upon his hand not resting 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 lie seemed to recognise. He 
 held his hand above his eyes, and, look- 
 ing out, saw Tim Linkinwater on the 
 steps. 
 
 " Come where 1 " demanded Ralph. 
 
 " To our house where you came 
 this morning. I have a coach here." 
 
 Why should I go there 1 " said 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Don't ask me why, but pray come 
 with me." 
 
 "Another edition of to-day !" re- 
 turned Ralph, making as though he 
 would shut the door. 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Tim, catching him 
 by the arm and speaking most ear- 
 nestly ; " it is only that you may hear 
 something that has occurred some- 
 thing very dreadful, Mr. Nickleby, 
 which concerns you nearly. Do you 
 think I would tell you so, or come to 
 yon like this, if it were not the case ? " 
 
 Ralph looked at him more closely. 
 Seeing that he was indeed greatly 
 excited, he faltered, and could not tell 
 what to say or think. 
 
 " You had better hear this, now, than ' 
 at any other time," said Tim, " it may 
 have some influence with you. For 
 Heaven's sake come ! " 
 
 Perhaps, at another time, Ralph's 
 obstinacy and dislike would have been 
 proof against any appeal from such a 
 quarter, however emphatically urged ; 
 but now, after a moment's hesitation, 
 he went into the hall for his hat, and, 
 returning, got into the coach without 
 speaking a word. 
 
 Tim well remembered afterwards, 
 and often said, that as Ralph Nickleby 
 went into the house for this purpose, 
 he saw him, by the light of the candle 
 which he had set down upon a chair, 
 reel and stagger like a drunken man. 
 He well remembered, too, that when ho 
 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 presen- 
 timent upon him then, but his emotion 
 might, perhaps, with greater show of 
 reason, be referred to what he had 
 undergone that day. 
 
 A profound silence was observed 
 during the ride. Arrived at their 
 place of destination, Ralph followed 
 his conductor into the house, and into 
 a room where the two brothers were. 
 He was so astounded, not to say awed, 
 by something of a mute compassion 
 for himself which was visible in their 
 manner and in that of the old clerk, 
 that he could scarcely speak. 
 
 Having taken a seat, however, he 
 contrived to say, though in broken 
 words, " What what have you to say
 
 472 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 to me more than lias been said 
 already!" 
 
 The room was old and large, very 
 imperfectly lighted, and terminated in 
 a bay window : about which, hung some 
 heavy drapery. Casting his eyes in 
 this direction, as he spoke, he thought 
 he made out the dusky figure of a man. 
 He was confirmed in this impression 
 by seeing that the object moved, as if 
 uneasy under his scrutiny. 
 
 " Who 's that yonder ? " he said. 
 
 " One who has conveyed to us, 
 within these two hours, the intelli- 
 gence which caused our sending 
 to you," replied brother Charles. 
 " Let him be, sir, let him be for the 
 present." 
 
 "More riddles !" said Ralph, faintly. 
 " Well, sir ! " 
 
 In turning his face towards the 
 brothers he was obliged to avert it 
 from the window ; but, before either of 
 them could speak, he had looked round 
 again. It was evident that he was 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, muttering 
 as an excuse that he could not bear 
 the light 
 
 The brothers conferred apart for a 
 short time : their manner showing that 
 they were agitated. Ralph glanced at 
 them, twice or thrice, and ultimately 
 said, with a great effort to recover his 
 self-possession, " Now, what is this ! 
 If I am brought from home at this 
 time of night, let it be for something. 
 What have you got to tell me ! " After 
 ;i short pause, he added, "Is my niece 
 dead!" 
 
 He had struck upon a key which 
 rendered the task of commencement 
 an easier one. Brother Charles turned, 
 :ind 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, " tliat 
 her brother's dead. No, that's too 
 good. 1 'd not believe it, if you told me 
 
 so. It would be too welcome news to 
 be true." 
 
 " Shame on you, you hardened and 
 unnatural man," cried the other 
 brother, warmly ; " prepare yourself 
 for intelligence, which, if you have any 
 human feeling in your breast, will make 
 even you shrink and tremble. What 
 if we tell you that a poor unfortunate 
 boy : a child in everything but never 
 having known one of those tender 
 endearments, or one of those lightsome 
 hours which make our childhood a 
 tune 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 yon have made an instrument 
 for wreaking your bad passions upon 
 him : what if we tell you that, sinking 
 under your persecution, sir, and the 
 misery and ill-usage of a life short in 
 years but long in suffering, this poor 
 creature has gone to tell his sad tale 
 where, for your part in it, you must 
 surely answer ! " 
 
 " If you tell me," said Ralph ; " if 
 you tell me that he is dead, I forgive 
 you all else. If you tell me that he is 
 dead, I am in your debt and bound to 
 you for life. He is ! I see it in your 
 faces. Who triumphs now ! Is this 
 your dreadful news ; this your terrible 
 intelligence ! You see how it moves 
 me. You did well to send. I would 
 have travelled a hundred miles a-foot, 
 through mud, mire, and darkness, to 
 hear this news, just at this time." 
 
 Even then, moved as he was by this 
 savage joy, Ralph could see in the 
 faces of the two brothers, mingling 
 with their look of disgust and horro?, 
 something of that indefinable compas- 
 sion for himself which he had noticed 
 before. 
 
 " And he brought you the intelligence, 
 did he ! " said Ralph, pointing with his 
 finger towards the recess already men- 
 tioned ; " and sat there, no doubt, tc 
 see me prostrated and overwhelmed 
 by it ! Ha, ha, ha ! But I tell him 
 that I '11 be a sharp thorn in bis side
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 473 
 
 for many a long oay to come ; and I 
 tell you two, again, that you don't 
 know him yet ; and that you '11 rue the 
 day you took compassion on the 
 vagabond." 
 
 " You take me for your nephew," 
 said a hollow voice ; " it would be 
 better for you and for me too, if I 
 were he indeed." 
 
 The figure that he had seen so 
 dimly, rose, and came slowly down. 
 He started back, for he found that he 
 confronted not Nicholas, as he had 
 supposed, but Brooker. 
 
 Ralph had no reason, that he knew, 
 to fear this man ; he had never feared 
 him before ; but the pallor which had 
 been observed in his face when he 
 issued forth that night, came upon 
 him again. He was seen to tremble, 
 and his voice changed as he said, 
 keeping his eyes upon him, 
 
 " What does this fellow here ? Do 
 you know he is a convict a felon a 
 common thief ! " 
 
 " Hear what he has to tell you oh, 
 Mr. Nickleby, hear what he has to 
 tell you, be he what he may ! " cried 
 the brothers, with such emphatic 
 earnestness, that Ralph turned to 
 them in wonder. They pointed to 
 Brooker. Ralph again gazed at him : 
 as it seemed mechanically. 
 
 " That boy," said the man, " that 
 these gentlemen have been talking 
 of " 
 
 " That boy," repeated Ralph, look- 
 ing vacantly at him. 
 
 " Whom I saw, stretched dead and 
 cold upon his bed, and who is now in 
 his grave " 
 
 " Who is now in his grave," echoed 
 Ralph, like one who talks in his sleep. 
 
 The man raised his eyes, and 
 clasped his hands solemnly together : 
 
 " Was your only son, so help 
 
 me God in heaven ! " 
 
 In the midst of a dead silence, 
 Ralph sat down, pressing his two 
 hands upon his temples. He removed 
 tin-in, after a minute, and never was 
 there seen, part of a living man undis- 
 figured by any wound, such a ghastly 
 j.io- as he then disclosed. He looked 
 *t Brooker, win was by this time 
 
 standing at a short distance from him ; 
 but did not say one word, or make tho 
 slightest sound or gesture. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the man, " I 
 offer no excuses for myself. I am 
 long past that. If, in telling you how 
 this lias happened, I tell you that I w;ss 
 harshly used and perhaps driven out 
 of my real nature, I do it, only as a 
 necessary part of my story, and not to 
 shield myself. I am a guilty man." 
 
 He stopped, as if to recollect, and 
 looking away from Ralph, and addre&s- 
 ing himself to the brothers, proceeded 
 in a subdued and humble tone : 
 
 " Among those who once had deal 
 ings with this man, gentlemen that 's 
 from twenty to five-and-twenty years 
 ago there was one : a rough fox- 
 hunting, hard-drinking gentleman, why 
 had run through his own fortune, and 
 wanted to squander away that of his 
 sister; they were both orphans, and 
 she lived with him and managed his 
 house. I don't know whether it was, 
 originally, to back his influence and 
 try to over-persuade the young woman 
 or not, but he," pointing to Ralph, 
 " used to go down to the house iu 
 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. Tho 
 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 tho family. Tho 
 brother would give no consent that 
 the sister didn't buy, and pay for 
 handsomely ; Mr. Nickleby would con- 
 sent to no such sacrifice ; and so, they 
 went on, keeping their marriage secret, 
 and waiting for him to break his neck
 
 474 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 break- 
 ing 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 per- 
 emptorily refused. She remained alone 
 in a dull country house : seeing little 
 or no company but riotous, drunken 
 sportsmen. He lived in London and 
 clung to his business. Angry quarrels 
 and recriminations took place, and 
 when they had been married nearly 
 seven years, and were within a few 
 weeks of the time when the brother's 
 death would have adjusted all, she 
 eloped with a younger man, and left 
 him." 
 
 Here, he paused, but Ralph did not 
 stir, and the brothers signed to him to 
 proceed. 
 
 " It was then, that I became ac- 
 quainted with these circumstances 
 from his own lips. They were no 
 secrets then ; for the brother, and 
 others, knew them ; but they were 
 communicated to me not on this 
 account, but because I was wanted. 
 He followed the fugitives some said 
 to make money of his wife's shame, 
 but, I believe, to take some violent 
 revenge, for that was as much his 
 character as the other perhaps more. 
 He didn't find them, and she died not 
 long after. I don't know whether he 
 began to think he might like the child, 
 or whether he wished to make sure 
 that it should never fall into its 
 mother's hands ; but before he went, he 
 ontrusted me with the charge of bring- 
 ing it home. And I did so." 
 
 He went on, from this point, in a 
 f till more humble tone, and spoke in 
 a very low voice : pointing to Ralph as 
 he resumed. 
 
 " He had used me ill cruelly I 
 
 reminded him in what, not long ago 
 when I met him in the street and I 
 hated him. I brought the child home 
 to his own house and lodged him in 
 the front garret. Neglect had made 
 him very sickly, and I was obliged to 
 call in a doctor, who said he must be 
 removed for change of air, or he would 
 die. I think that, first put it in my 
 head. I did it then. He was gone 
 six weeks, and when he came back, I 
 told him with every circumstance 
 well planned and proved ; nobody 
 could have suspected me that the 
 child was dead and buried. He might 
 have been disappointed in some inten- 
 tion he had formed, or he might have 
 had some natural affection, but he was 
 grieved at tliat, and I was confirmed in 
 my design of opening up the secret one 
 day, and making it a means of getting 
 money from him. I had heard, like 
 most other men, of Yorkshire schools. 
 I took the child to one kept by a man 
 named Squeers, and left it there. I 
 gave him the name of Smike. Year 
 by year, I paid twenty pounds a-year 
 for him for six years : never breathing 
 the secret all the time : for I had left 
 his father's service after more hard 
 usage, and quarrelled with him again. 
 I was sent away from this country. I 
 have been away, nearly eight years. 
 Directly I came home again, I travelled 
 down into Yorkshire, and, skulking in 
 the village of an evening time, made 
 inquiries about the boys at the school, 
 and found that this one, whom I had 
 placed there, had run away with a 
 young man bearing the name of his 
 own father. I sought his father out 
 in London, and hinting at what I could 
 tell him, tried for a little money to 
 support life ; but he repulsed me with 
 threats. I then found out his clerk, 
 and, going on from little to little, and 
 showing him that there were good rea- 
 sons for communicating with me, learnt 
 what was going on ; and it was I who 
 told him that the boy was no son of 
 the man who claimed to be his father. 
 All this time I had never seen the boy. 
 At length, I heard from this same- 
 source that he was very ill, and where 
 he was. I travelled down there, that
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 475 
 
 I might recal myself, if possible, to 
 his recollection and confirm my story. 
 I came upon him unexpectedly ; but 
 before I could speak he knew me he 
 had good cause to remember me, poor 
 lad ! and I would have sworn to him 
 if I had met him in the Indies. I 
 knew the piteous face I had seen in 
 the little child. After a few days' in- 
 decision, I applied to the young gen- 
 tleman in whose care he was, and I 
 found that he was dead. He knows 
 how quickly he recognised me again, 
 how often he had described me and 
 my leaving him at the school, and 
 how he told him of a garret he recol- 
 lected : 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 school- 
 master, 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 bro- 
 thers. " What reparation can you 
 make for this ! " 
 
 " None, gentlemen, none ! I have 
 none to make, and nothing to hope 
 now. I am old in years, and older 
 still in misery and care. This confes- 
 sion can bring nothing upon me but 
 new suffering and punishment ; but I 
 make it, and will abide by it whatever 
 comes. I have been made the instru- 
 ment of working out this dreadful re- 
 
 tribution 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 re- 
 paration comes too late ; and, neither 
 in this world nor in the next, can I 
 have hope again ! " 
 
 He had hardly spoken, when the 
 lamp, which stood upon the table close 
 to where Ralph was seated, and wlu'ch 
 was the only one in the room, was 
 thrown to the ground and left them 
 in darkness. There was some trifling 
 confusion in obtaining another light ; 
 the interval was a mere nothing ; 
 but when the light appeared, Ralph 
 Nickleby was gone. 
 
 The good brothers and Tim Linkin- 
 water occupied some time in discuss- 
 ing 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 ini- 
 moveable position during the inter- 
 view, and thinking ho might possibly 
 be ill, they determined, although it 
 was now very late, to send to his house 
 on some pretence. Finding an excuse 
 in the presence of Brooker, whom 
 they knew not how to dispose of, with- 
 out consulting his wishes, they con- 
 cluded to act upon this resolution be- 
 fore going to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 WHEREIN NICHOLAS AND HIS SISTER FORFEIT THE GOOD OPINION OF ALL 
 WORLDLY AND PRUDENT PEOPLE. 
 
 ON the next morning after Brooker's 
 disclosure had been made, Nicholas 
 returned home. The meeting between 
 him and those whom he had left there, 
 was not without strong emotion on 
 both sides ; for they had been informed 
 by his letters of what had occurred : 
 and, besides that his griefs were theirs, 
 they mourned with him the death of 
 one whose forlorn and helpless state 
 
 had first established a claim upon their 
 compassion, and whose truth of heart 
 and grateful earnest nature had, every 
 day, endeared him to them more and 
 more. 
 
 " I am sure," said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 wiping her eyes, and sobbing bitterly, 
 " I have lost the best, the most zeal- 
 ous, and most attentive creature, that 
 has ever been a companion to me in
 
 476 
 
 UFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 my life putting you, my dear Nicho- 
 las, 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 gar- 
 den, now, that he took so much pride 
 in, or to go into his room and see it 
 filled with so many of those little con- 
 trivances for our comfort that he was 
 so fond of making, and made so well, 
 and so little thought he would leave 
 unfinished I can't bear it, I cannot 
 really. Ah ! This is a great trial to 
 me, a great trial. It will be a comfort 
 to you, my dear Nichoks, 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 fel- 
 low ! It was very natural you should 
 have been attached to him, my dear 
 very and of course you were, and 
 are very much cut up by this. I am 
 sure it 's only necessary to look at you 
 and see how changed you are, to see 
 that ; but nobody knows what my 
 feelings are nobody can it 's quite 
 impossible ! " 
 
 While Mrs. Nickleby, with the ut- 
 most sincerity, gave vent to her sor- 
 rows after her own peculiar fashion of 
 considering herself foremost, she was 
 not the only one who indulged such 
 feelings. Kate, although well accus- 
 tomed 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 
 1 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 t " 
 
 " 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 recollec- 
 tion that I was his constant companion, 
 and was not prevented, as I might 
 have been by a hundred circumstances, 
 from being beside him ! " 
 
 ** To be sure," sobbed Miss La 
 Creevy ; " it 's very true, and I 'm an 
 ungrateful, impious, wicked little fool, 
 I know." 
 
 With that, the good soul fell to cry- 
 ing afresh, and, endeavouring to re* 
 cover herself, tried to laugh. The 
 laugh and the cry meeting each other 
 thus abruptly, had a struggle for the 
 mastery ; the result was, that it \v:is 
 a drawn battle, and Miss La Creevy 
 went into hysterics. 
 
 Waiting until they were all tolerably 
 quiet and composed again, Nicholas* 
 who stood in need of 'some rest after 
 his long journey, retired to his own 
 room, and throwing himself, dressed 
 as he was, upon the bed, fell into a 
 sound sleep. When he awoke, he found 
 Kate sitting by his bed-side, 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, " mamm* 
 and I, and and Madeline." 
 
 ** You said in your last letter that 
 she was quite well," said Nicholas, 
 rather hastily, and colouring as h 
 spoke. " Has nothing been said, since 
 I have been away, about any future
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 477 
 
 > arrangements that the brothers have 
 iji contemplation for her \ " 
 
 " Oh, not a word," replied Kate, 
 "I can't think of parting from her 
 without sorrow ; and surely, Nicholas, 
 you don't wish it !" 
 
 Nicholas coloured again, and, sitting 
 down beside his sister on a little couch 
 uear the window, said : 
 
 " No, Kate, no, I do not. I might 
 strive to disguise my real feelings from 
 anybody but you ; but I will tell you 
 that briefly and plainly, Kate that 
 I love her." 
 
 Kate's eyes brightened, and she was 
 going to make some reply, when Ni- 
 cholas laid his hand upon her arm, and 
 went on : 
 
 " Nobody must know this but you. 
 She, last of all" 
 
 Dear Nicholas ! " 
 
 " Last of all never, though never is 
 a long day. Sometimes, 1 try to think 
 that the time may come when I may 
 honestly tell her this ; but it is so far 
 off, in such distant perspective, so 
 many years must elapse before it 
 comes, and when it does come (if ever), 
 I shall be so unlike what I am now, and 
 shall have so outlived my days of 
 youth and romance though not, I am 
 sure, of love for her that even I feel 
 how visionary all such hopes must be, 
 and try to crush -them rudely, myself, 
 and have the pain over, rather than 
 Buffer tune 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, perpe- 
 tually before my eyes, another instance 
 of the munificent liberality of these 
 noble brothers. As far as in me lies, 
 I will deserve it, and if I have wavered 
 in my bounden duty to them before, I 
 am now determined to discharge it 
 rigidly, and to put further delays and 
 temptations beyond my reach." 
 
 " Before you say another word, dear 
 Nicholas," said Kate, turning pale, 
 " you must hear what I have to tell 
 you. I came on purpose, but I had 
 not the courage. What you say now, 
 gives me new heart" She faltered, 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 There was that, hi her manner, 
 
 which prepared Nicholas for what 
 was coming. Kate tried to speak, but 
 her tears prevented her. 
 
 " Come, you foolish girl," said Ni- 
 cholas ; " why Kate, Kate, be a woman ! 
 I think I know what you would tell 
 me. It concerns Mr. Frank, does it 
 not t " 
 
 Kate sunk her head upon his shoul- 
 der, 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 difficult, you see, to 
 tell me, after all. He offered you his 
 hand ?" 
 
 Which I refused," said Kate. 
 
 Yes ; and why 1 " 
 
 " I told him," she said, in a trem- 
 bling voice, -'aU 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 ! " 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. 1 
 am afraid," she added : her momentary 
 composure forsaking her, " I am afraid 
 I may not have said, strongly enough, 
 how deeply I felt such disinterested 
 love, and how earnestly I prayed for 
 his future happiness. If you do talk 
 together, I should I should like him 
 to know that" 
 
 " And did you suppose, Kate, when 
 you had made this sacrifice to what 
 you knew was right and honourable, 
 that I should shrink from mine ! " said 
 Nicholas tenderly. 
 
 " Oh, no ! not if your position had 
 been the same, but ' 
 
 " But it i:s the same," interrupted 
 Nicholas ; " Madeline is not the near 
 relation of our benefactors, but she is 
 closely bound to them by ties as dear ; 
 and 1 was first entrusted with her 
 history, specially because they reposed
 
 478 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OP 
 
 unbounded confidence in me, and 
 believed that I was as true as steel. 
 How base would it be of me to take 
 advantage of the circumstances which 
 placed her here, or of the slight 
 service I was happily able to render 
 her, and to seek to engage her affec- 
 tions when the result must be, if I 
 succeeded, that the brothers would be 
 disappointed in their darling wish of 
 establishing her as their own child, and 
 that I must seem to hope to build my 
 fortunes on their compassion for the 
 young creature whom I had so meanly 
 and unworthily entrapped : turning her 
 very gratitude and warmth of heart to 
 my own purpose and account, and 
 trading in her misfortunes ! I, too, 
 whose duty, and pride, and pleasure, 
 Kate, it is, to have other claims upon 
 me which I will never forget : and who 
 have the means of a comfortable and 
 happy life already, and have no right 
 to look beyond it ! I have determined 
 to remove this weight from my mind. 
 I doubt whether I have not done 
 wrong, even now ; and to-day I will, 
 without reserve or equivocation, dis- 
 close 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 postpone HI If 
 the scene through which I have just 
 passed, has taught me to reflect, and 
 has awakened me to a more anxious 
 and careful sense of duty, why should 
 I wait until the impression has cooled ? 
 You would not dissuade me, Kate ; 
 now would you 1 " 
 
 " You may grow rich, you know," 
 said Kate. 
 
 " I may grow rich ! " repeated Ni- 
 cholas, 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 impres- 
 sions as to form no others ? It is but 
 one more link to the strong chain that 
 
 binds us together. It seems but yester- 
 day that we were playfellows, Kate, 
 and it will seem but to-morrow when 
 we are staid old people, looking back 
 to these cares as we look back, now, 
 to those of our childish days : and 
 recollecting with a melancholy plea- 
 sure that the tune was, when they 
 could move us. Perhaps then, when 
 we are quaint old folks and talk of the 
 tunes when our step was lighter and 
 our hair not grey, we may be even 
 thankful for the trials that so endeared 
 us t each other, and turned our lives 
 into that current, down which we shall 
 have glided so peacefully and calmly. 
 And having caught some inkling of 
 our story, the young people about us 
 as young as you and I are now, Kate 
 may come to us for sympathy, and 
 pour distresses which hope and inexpe- 
 rience could scarcely feel enough for, 
 into the compassionate ears of the old 
 bachelor brotherand 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 1 " he said, 
 after a short silence. 
 
 " Quite, quite, dear brother ; and I 
 cannot tell you how happy I am, that I 
 have acted as you would have had me.'' 
 
 "You don't regret?" 
 
 " N n no," said Kate timidly, 
 tracing some pattern upon the ground 
 with her little foot " I don't regret 
 having done what was honourable and 
 right, of course ; but I do regret that 
 this should have ever happened at 
 least sometimes I regret it, and some- 
 times 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 Ni- 
 cholas had had ten thousand pounds at 
 the minute, he would, in his generous 
 affection for the owner of the blush- 
 ing cheek and downcast eye, have 
 bestowed its utmost farthing, in per- 
 fect 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 
 
 479 
 
 such love and kindness, and cheerful 
 encouragement, that poor Kate threw 
 her arms about his neck and declared 
 stic would weep no more. 
 
 " What man," thought Nicholas 
 proudly, while on his way, soon after- 
 wards, to the Brothers' house, " would 
 not be sufficiently rewarded for any 
 sacrifice of fortune, by the possession 
 of such a heart as Kate's, which, but 
 that hearts weigh light, and gold and 
 silvi-r heavy, is beyond all praise ! I 
 Frank has money and wants no more, j 
 Where would it buy him such a trea- 
 sure as Kate ! And yet, in unequal i 
 marriages, the rich party is always 
 supposed to make a great sacrifice, { 
 and the other to get a good bargain ! 
 But I am thinking like a lover, or like 
 an ass : which 1 suppose is pretty 
 nearly the same." 
 
 Checking thoughts so little adapted 
 to the business on which he was bound, 
 by such self-reproofs as this and many 
 others no less sturdy, he proceeded on 
 his way and presented himself before 
 Tim Linkinwater. 
 
 Ah ! Mr. Nickleby !" cried Tim, 
 " God bless you ! how d 'ye do ! 
 Well I Say you 're quite well and 
 never better do now." 
 
 " Quite," said Nicholas, shaking 
 him by both hands. 
 
 Ah ! " said Tim, you look tired 
 though, now I come to look at you. 
 Hark ! there he is, d 'ye hear him ? 
 That was Dick, the blackbird. He 
 hasn't been himself, since you 've been 
 gone. He 'd never get on without you, 
 now ; he takes as naturally to you, as 
 he does to me." 
 
 " Dick is a far less sagacious fellow 
 than I supposed him, if lie thinks I am 
 half so well worthy of his notice as 
 you," replied Nicholas. 
 
 Why, I'll tell you what, sir," said 
 Tim, standing in his favourite atti- 
 tude and pointing to the cage with the 
 feather of his pen, " it 'a a very extra- 
 ordinary 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 unexpect- 
 
 edly catching his eye repeated, " And 
 youandme,sir,andyouandme." And 
 then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, 
 squeezing his hand, said, " I am a bad 
 one at putting off anything I am inter- 
 ested in. I didn't mean to ask you, 
 but I should like to hear a few parti- 
 culars about that poor boy. Did he 
 mention Cheeryble Brothers at all ] " 
 
 " Yes," said Nicholas, " many and 
 many a time." 
 
 " That was right of him," returned 
 Tim, wiping his eyes ; " that was very 
 right of him." 
 
 " And he mentioned your name a 
 score of times," said Nicholas, " and 
 often bade me carry back his love to 
 Mr. Linkinwater." 
 
 " No, no, did he though ! " rejoined 
 Tim, sobbing outright " Poor fellow ! 
 I wish we could have had him buried 
 in town. There isn't such a burying- 
 ground in all London, as that little one 
 on the other side of the square there 
 are counting-houses all round it, and 
 if you go in there, on a fine day, you 
 can see the books and safes through 
 the open windows. And he sent his 
 love to me, did he ? I didn't expect 
 he would have thought of me. Poor 
 fellow, poor fellow ! His love too ! " 
 
 Tun was so completely overcome by 
 this little mark of recollection, that lie 
 was quite unequal to any more con- 
 versation at the moment. Nicholas 
 therefore slipped quietly out, and went 
 to Brother Charles's room. 
 
 If he had previously sustained his 
 firmness and fortitude, it had been by 
 an effort which had cost him no little 
 pain ; but the warm welcome, the 
 hearty manner, the homely unaffected 
 commiseration, of the good old man, 
 went to his heart, and no inward strug- 
 gle could prevent his showing it. 
 
 " Come, come, my dear sir," said 
 the benevolent merchant ; * we must 
 not be cast down ; no, no. We muse 
 learn to bear misfortune, and we must 
 remember that there are many sources 
 of consolation even in death. Every 
 day that this poor lad had lived, he 
 must have been less and less qualified 
 for the world, and more and more 
 unhappy in his own deficiencies. It ia
 
 430 
 
 LTFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 tetter 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. 
 " 1 feel it, I assure you." 
 
 " Yes, that 's well," replied Mr. 
 Cheeryble, who, hi the midst of all his 
 comforting, was quite as much taken 
 aback as honest old Tim ; " that 's well. 
 Where is my brother Ned 1 Tun Lin- 
 kinwater, sir, where is my brother 
 Ned ? " 
 
 " Gone out with Mr. Trimmers, 
 about getting that unfortunate man 
 into the hospital, and sending a nurse 
 to his children," said Tim. 
 
 " My brother Ned is a fine fellow 
 a great fellow ! " exclaimed brother 
 Charles as he shut the door and re- 
 turned to Nicholas. " He will be 
 overjoyed to see you, my dear sir. 
 We have been speaking of you every 
 day." 
 
 " To tell you the truth, sir, I am 
 glad to find you alone," said Nicholas, 
 with some natural hesitation ; " for I 
 am anxious to say something to you. 
 Can you spare me a very few minutes ? " 
 
 "Surely, surely," returned brother 
 Charles, looking at him with an anxious 
 countenance. " Say on, my dear sir, 
 say on." 
 
 " I scarcely know how, or where, to 
 begin," said Nicholas. " If ever one 
 mortal had reason to be penetrated 
 with love and reverence for another : 
 with such attachment as would make 
 the hardest service in his behalf a plea- 
 sure and delight : with such grateful 
 recollections as must rouse the utmost 
 zeal and fidelity of his nature : those 
 are the feelings which I should enter- 
 tain 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 5 I 
 never shall. I am sure I never 
 shall." 
 
 " Your telling me that, so kindly," 
 eaid Nicholas, " emboldens me to pro- 
 ceed. When you first took me into 
 your confidence, and despatched 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 en- 
 deavoured 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 con- 
 fidence I placed in you, or take au 
 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 compa- 
 nionship with this sweet girl is fatal to 
 my peace of mind, and may prove 
 destructive to the resolutions I made 
 in the beginning and up to this time 
 have faithfully kept. In short, sir, I 
 cannot trust myself, and I implore and 
 beseech you to remove this young lady 
 from under the charge of my mother 
 and sister, without delay. I know that 
 to any one but myself to you, who 
 consider the immeasurable distance 
 between me and this young lady, who 
 is now your ward and the object of 
 your peculiar care my loving her, 
 even in thought, must appear the 
 height of rashness and presumption. 
 I know it is so. But, who can see her 
 as I have seen, who can know what 
 her life has been and not love her ? 
 I have no excuse but that ; and as I 
 cannot fly from this temptation, and 
 cannot repress this passion , with its 
 object constantly before me, what can 
 I do but pray and beseech you to 
 remove it, and to leave me to forget 
 her ! " 
 
 " Mr. Nickleby," said the old man, 
 after a short silence, " you can do no 
 more. I was wrong to expose a young 
 man like you, to this trial. I might 
 have foreseen what would happen.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 481 
 
 Thank you, sir, thank you. Madeline 
 shall be removed." 
 
 " If you would grant me one favour, 
 dear sir, and suffer her to remember 
 me with esteem, by never revealing to 
 her this confession " 
 
 " I will take care," said Mr. Chee- 
 ryble. " And now, is this all you liave 
 to tell me ? " 
 
 " No ! " returned Nicholas, meeting 
 his eye, " it is not." 
 
 " 1 know the rest," said Mr. Chee- 
 ryble, apparently very much relieved 
 by this prompt reply. " When did it 
 come to your knowledge ? " 
 
 " When I reached home this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " You felt it your duty immediately 
 to come to me, and tell me what your 
 sister no doubt acquainted you with ? " 
 
 " 1 did," said Nicholas, " though I 
 could have wished to have spoken to 
 Mr. Frank first." 
 
 " Frank was with me last night," 
 replied the old gentleman. " You 
 have done well, Mr Nickleby very 
 well, sir and I thnnk you again." 
 
 Upon this head. Nicholas requested 
 permission to ad'/ a few words. He 
 ventured to hope that nothing he had 
 said, would lead to the estrangement of 
 Kate and Madeline, wlu> 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 uuhappy cause. 
 When thi'!-e things were all forgotten, 
 lie hoped that Frank and he might still 
 be warm friends, and that no word or 
 thought of his humble home, or of her 
 xvlio was well contented to remain 
 there and share his quiet fortunes, j 
 would ever again disturb the harmony 
 between them. He recounted, as 
 nearly as he could, what had passed be- 
 tween himself and Kate that morning : 
 speaking of her with such warmth of ] 
 pride and affection, and dwelling so j 
 cheerfully upon the confidence they 
 had, ot overcoming any selfish regrets , 
 and living contented and happy in each I 
 
 other's love, that few could have heard 
 him unmoved. More moved himself 
 than he had been yet, he expressed in 
 a few hurried words as expressive, 
 perhaps, as the most eloquent phrases 
 his devotion to the Brothers, and his 
 hope that he might live and die in their 
 service. 
 
 To all this, Brother Charles listened 
 in profound silence, and with his chair 
 so turned from Nicholas that his face 
 could not be seen. He had not spoken 
 either, in his accustomed manner, but 
 with a certain stiffness and embarrass- 
 ment 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 fel- 
 low," he said, after Nicholas had 
 paused for some time ; " a very heed- 
 less, foolish fellow. I will take care 
 that this is brought to a close without 
 delay. Let us say no more upon the 
 subject ; it's a very painful one to 
 me. Come to me in half an hour, I 
 have strange things to tell you, my 
 dear sir, and your uncle has appointed 
 this afternoon for your waiting upon 
 him with me." 
 
 " Waiting upon him ! With you 
 sir ! " cried Nicholas. 
 
 " Ay, with me," replied the old 
 gentleman. "Return to me in half ai: 
 hour, and I '11 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 tho 
 Brothers; which was for that night; and 
 for the better understanding of which 
 it will be requisite to return and follow 
 his nwii footsteps from the house of 
 the twin brothers. Therefore, we leave 
 Nicholas somewhat reassured by the 
 restored kindness of their manner 
 towards him, and yet sensible that it 
 was different from what it had been 
 (though he scarcely knew in what 
 respect): full of uneasiness, uncer- 
 tainty, and disquiet
 
 482 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 RALPH MAKES ONE LAST APPOINTMENT AND KEEPS IT. 
 
 CREEPING from the house, and slink- 
 ing 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 
 iwn home. 
 
 The night was dark, and a cold wind 
 blew, driving the clouds, furiously and 
 fast, before it. There was one black, 
 gloomy mass that seemed to follow 
 nim : not hurrying in the wild chase 
 with the others, but lingering sul- 
 lenly behind, and gliding darkly and 
 stealthily on. He often looked back 
 at this, and, more than once, stopped 
 to let it pass over; but, somehow, when 
 he went forward again it was still 
 behind him, coming mournfully and 
 slowly up, like a shadowy funeral train. 
 
 He had to pass a poor, mean burial- 
 ground a dismal place, raised a few 
 feet above the level of the street, and 
 parted from it by a low parapet-wall 
 and an iron railing ; a rank, 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 had struck 
 their roots in the graves of men, sodden, 
 while alive, in steaming courts and 
 drunken hungry dens. And here, in 
 truth, they lay, parted from the living 
 by a little earth and a board or two 
 lay thick and close corrupting in 
 body as they had in mind a dense 
 and squalid crowd. Here they lay, 
 cheek by jowl with life : no deeper 
 down than the feet of the throng that 
 passed there, every day, and piled high 
 as their throats. Here they lay, a 
 grisly family, all these dear departed 
 brothers and sisters of the ruddy 
 clergyman who did his task so speedily 
 when they were hidden in the ground ! 
 , As he passed here, Ralph called to 
 
 mind that he had been one of a jury, 
 long before, on the body of a man who 
 had cut his throat ; and that he was 
 buried hi this place. He could not tell 
 how he came to recollect it now, when 
 he had so often passed and never 
 thought about him, or how it was that 
 he felt an interest in the circumstance ; 
 but he did both; and stopping, and 
 clasping the iron railings with his 
 hands, looked eagerly in, wondering 
 which might be his grave. 
 
 While he was thus engaged, there 
 came towards him, with noise of shouts 
 I and singing, some fellows full of drink, 
 | followed by others, who were remon- 
 strating with them and urging them to 
 I go home in quiet. They were in high 
 good-humour ; and one of them, a 
 little, weazen, hump -backed man, 
 began to dance. He was a grotesque, 
 fantastic figure, and the few 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 resumed his speculation with a new 
 kind of interest ; for he recollected 
 that the last person who had seen the 
 suicide alive, had left him very merry, 
 and he remembered how strange he 
 and the other jurors had thought that, 
 at the time. 
 
 He could not fix upon the spot 
 among such a heap of graves, but'he 
 conjured up a strong and vivid idea of 
 the man himself, and how he looked, 
 and what had led him to do it : all of 
 which he recalled with ease. By dint 
 of dwelling upon this theme, he carried 
 the impression with him when he went 
 away: as he remembered, when a child, 
 ! to have had frequently before him the 
 I 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.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 433 
 
 This feeling became so strong at 
 Irx.st, that when he reached his own 
 door, he could hardly make up his 
 mind to turn the key and open it 
 When he had done that, and gone into 
 the passage, he felt as though to shut 
 it again would be to shut out the 
 world. But he let it go, and it closed 
 with a loud noise. There was no light. 
 How very dreary, cold, and still it was ! 
 
 Shivering from head to foot he 
 made his way 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 
 what had happened, until he got home. 
 He was at home now, and suffered 
 himself to consider it. 
 
 His own child his own child ! He 
 never doubted the tale ; he felt it was 
 true ; knew it as well, now, as if he had 
 been privy to it all along. His own 
 child ! And dead too. Dying beside 
 Nicholas loving him, and looking 
 upon him as something like an angel ! 
 That was the worst. 
 
 They had all turned from him and 
 deserted him in his very first need. 
 Even money could not buy them now; 
 everything must come out, and 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 ; everything crum- 
 bled and fallen upon him, and he 
 beaten down beneath the ruins and 
 grovelling in the dust. 
 
 If he had known his child to be 
 alive ; if no deceit had been ever 
 practised, and he had grown up,beneath 
 his eye ; he might have been a care- 
 Jess, 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 ho 
 was young and gallant, and perhaps 
 like the stripling who had brougnt 
 dishonour and loss of fortune on his 
 head. 
 
 But one tender thought, or one of 
 natural regret, hi his whirlwind of 
 passion and remorse, was as a drop 
 of calm water in a stormy maddened 
 sea. His hatred of Nicholas had been 
 fed upon his own defeat, nourished on 
 his interference with his schemes, fat- 
 tened upon his old defiance and su cess. 
 There were reasons for its increase ; 
 it had grown and strengthened gra- 
 dually. Now it attained a height which 
 was sheer wild lunacy. That his, of 
 all others, should have been the Hands 
 to rescue his miserable child ; that he 
 should have been his protector and 
 faithful friend ; that he should have 
 shown him that love and tenderness 
 which, from the wretched moment of 
 his birth, he had never known ; that he 
 should have taught him to hate his 
 own parent and execrate his ery 
 name; that he should now know and 
 feel all this, and triumph in the re ol- 
 lection ; was gall and madness to the 
 usurer's heart. The dead boy's lore 
 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 breathing out 
 his thanks, and expiring in his anns, 
 when he would have had them mortal 
 enemies and hating each other to the 
 last, drove him frantic. He gnashed 
 histeeth,and smote the air, and loc.king 
 wildly round, with eyes which gleamed 
 through the darkness, cried aloud : 
 
 u 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 dctil to help me 1" 
 
 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 
 
 III
 
 434 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 \vas when he first saw it. The rigid, 
 upturned, marble feet too, he remem- 
 bered well. Then came before him 
 the pale and trembling relatives who 
 had told their tale upon the inquest 
 the shrieks of women the silent dread 
 of men the consternation and dis- 
 quiet the victory achieved by that 
 heap of clay, which, with one motion 
 of its hand, had -let out the life and 
 made this stir among them 
 
 He spoke no more ; but, after a pause, 
 softly groped his way out of the room, 
 and "up the echoing stairs up to the 
 top to the front garret where he 
 closed the door behind him, and 
 remained 
 
 It was a mere lumber-room now, 
 but it yet contained an old dismantled 
 bedstead ; the one on which his son 
 had slept ; for no other had ever been 
 there. He avoided it hastily, and sat 
 down as far from it as he could. 
 
 The weakened glare of the lights in 
 the street below, shining through the 
 window which had no blind or curtain 
 to intercept it, was enough to show 
 the character of the room, though not 
 sufficient fully to reveal the various 
 articles of lumber, old corded trunks 
 and broken furniture, which were 
 scattered about. It had a shelving 
 roof ; high in one part, and at another 
 descending almost to the floor. It was 
 towards the highest part, that Ralph 
 directed his eyes; and, upon it, he kept 
 them fixed steadily for some minutes, 
 when he rose, and dragging thither an 
 old chest upon which he had been 
 seated, mounted on it, and felt along 
 the wall above his head with both 
 hands. At length, they touched a 
 large iron hook, firmly driven into one 
 of the beams. 
 
 At that moment, he was interrupted 
 by a loud knocking at the door below. 
 After a little hesitation he opened the 
 window, and demanded who it was. 
 
 "I want Mr. Nickleby," replied a 
 voice. 
 
 "What with him?" 
 
 "That's not Mr. Nickleby*s voice 
 surely? " was the rejoinder. 
 
 It was not like it ; but it was Ralph 
 who spoke, and so he said. 
 
 The voice made answer that the 
 twin Brothers wished to know whether 
 the man whom he had seen that night, 
 was to be detained ; and that although 
 it was now midnight they had sent, in 
 their anxiety to do right. 
 
 " Yes," cried Ralph, " detain him 
 till to-morrow ; then let them bring 
 him here him and my nephew and 
 come themselves, and be sure that I 
 will be ready to receive them." 
 
 " At what hour ? " asked the voice. 
 
 "At any hour," replied Ralph 
 fiercely. " In the afternoon, tell them. 
 At any hour at any minute all times 
 will be alike to me." 
 
 He listened to the man's retreating 
 footsteps, until the sound had passed, 
 and then, gazing up into the sky, saw, 
 or thought he saw, the same black 
 cloud that had seemed to follow him 
 home, and which now appeared to 
 hover directly above the house. 
 
 " I know its meaning now," he mut- 
 tered, "and the restless nights, the 
 dreams, and why I have quailed of 
 late all pointed to this. Oh ! if 
 men by selling their own souls could 
 ride rampant for a term, for how 
 short a term would I barter mine to- 
 night ! " 
 
 The sound of a deep bell came along 
 the wind. One. 
 
 " Lie on ! " cried the usurer, " with 
 your iron tongue ! Ring merrily for 
 births that make expectants writhe, and 
 marriages that are made in hell, and 
 toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes 
 are worn already ! Call men to prayers 
 who are godly because not found out, 
 and ring chimes for the coming in of 
 every year that brings this cursed 
 world nearer to its end. No bell or 
 book for me ! Throw me on a dung- 
 hill, and let me rot there, to infect the 
 air!" 
 
 With a wild look around, in which 
 frenzy, hatred, and despair, were hor- 
 ribly 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 with the wind, as though an impatient 
 hand inside were striving to burst it 
 open. But no hand was there, and it 
 opened no more. 
 
 "How's this?" cried one. "The 
 gentlemen say they can't make any- 
 body hear, and have been trying these 
 two hours \ " 
 
 " And yet lie 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 mentioned, went out 
 in tlii 1 road to look up at it. This 
 occasioned their observing that the 
 Ixmse was 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 window, while the others remained 
 out.side, in impatient expectation. 
 
 They looked into all the rooms be- 
 low : opening'the shutters as they went, 
 to admit the fading light : and still 
 finding nobody, and everything quiet 
 and in its place, doubted whether they 
 
 should go farther. One man, how- 
 ever, remarking that they had not yet 
 been into the garret, and that it was 
 there he had been last seen, they 
 agreed to look there too, and went up 
 softly ; for the mystery and silence 
 made them timid. 
 
 After they had stood, for an instant, 
 on the landing, eyeing each other, he 
 who had proposed their carrying the 
 search so far, turned the handle of the 
 door, and, pushing it open, looked 
 through the chink, and fell back 
 directly. 
 
 " It 's very odd," lie whispered, 
 " he's hiding behind the door ! Look !" 
 
 They pressed forward to see ; but 
 one among them thrusting the others 
 aside with a loud exclamation, drew a 
 clasp knife from his pocket and dashing 
 into the room cut down the body. 
 
 He had torn a rope from one of the 
 old trunks, and hung himself on an 
 iron hook immediately below the trap- 
 door in the ceiling in the very place 
 to which the eyes of his son, a lonely, 
 desolate, little creature, had so often 
 been directed in childish terror, four- 
 teen years before. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 HIE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE MAKE VARIOUS DECLARATIONS FOR THEMSELVES 
 AND OTHERS. TIM LINKINWATER MAKES A DECLARATION FOR HIMSELF. 
 
 SOME weeks had passed, ami the 
 first shock of these events had sub- 
 sided. Madeline had been removed ; 
 Frank had been absent ; and Nicholas 
 and Kate had begun to try in good 
 earnest to stifle their own regrets, and 
 to live for each other and for their 
 mother who, poor lady, could in no 
 wise be reconciled to this dull and 
 altered state of affairs when there 
 came one evening, per favour of Mr. 
 Linkinwater, an invitation from the 
 Brothers, to dinner on the next day 
 but one: comprehending, not only Mrs. 
 Nickleby, Kate, and Nicholas, but 
 
 little Miss La Creevy, who was most 
 particularly mentioned. 
 
 " Now, my dears," said Mrs. NicV- 
 leby, when they had rendered becoming 
 honour to the bidding; and Tim hail 
 taken his departure, " what does this 
 mean ? " 
 
 " What do you mean, mother ? " 
 asked Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 " I say, my dear," rejoined that 
 lady, with a face of unfathomable 
 mystery, "what does this invitation 
 to dinner mean, what is its intention 
 and object ! " 
 
 " I conclude it means, that on such
 
 486 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 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 '3 all you conclude it is, 
 my dear I " 
 
 " I have not yet arrived at anything 
 deeper, mother." 
 
 Then I'll just tell you one thing," 
 said Mrs. Nickleby, " you '11 find your- 
 self a little surprised ; that 's all. You 
 may depend upon it that this means 
 something besides dinner." 
 
 " Tea and supper, perhaps," sug- 
 gested Nicholas. 
 
 " I wouldn't be absurd, my dear, if 
 I were you," replied Mrs. Nickleby, 
 in a lofty manner, " because it 's not 
 by any means becoming, and doesn't 
 suit you at all. What I mean to say 
 is, that the Mr. Cheerybles don't ask 
 us to dinner with all this ceremony, 
 for nothing. Never mind ; wait and 
 see. You won't believe anything, I 
 say, of course. It's much better to 
 wait ; a great deal better ; it 's satisfac- 
 tory to all parties, and there can be no 
 disputing. All I say is, remember 
 what I say now, and when I say I said 
 so, don't say I didn't." 
 
 With this stipulation, Mrs. Nickleby, 
 who was troubled, night and day, with 
 a vision of a hot messenger tearing up 
 to the door to announce that Nicholas 
 had been taken into partnership, 
 quitted that branch of the subject, 
 and entered upon a new one. 
 
 "It's a very extraordinary thing," 
 she said, " a most extraordinary tiling, 
 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 in- 
 vited, very pleasant, and I have no 
 doubt that she'll conduct herself ex- 
 tremely 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 cer- 
 tainly is an exceedingly well-behaved 
 and good-natured little person. I 
 could wish that some friend would 
 mention to her how very badly she has ; 
 her cap trimmed, and what very pre- 1 
 
 posterous bows those are, but of course 
 that's impossible, and if she h'kes to 
 make a fright of herself, no doubt she 
 has a perfect right to ^do so. Wfe 
 never see ourselves never do, and 
 never did and I suppose we never 
 shall." 
 
 This moral reflection reminding her 
 of the necessity of being peculiarly 
 smart on the occasion, so as to 
 counterbalance Miss La Creevy, and 
 be herself an effectual set-off and 
 atonement, led Mrs. Nickleby into a 
 consultation with her daughter rela- 
 tive to certain ribands^ gloves, and 
 trimmings : which, being a complicated 
 question, and one of paramount im- 
 portance, soon routed the previous 
 one, and put it to flight. 
 
 The great day arriving, the good 
 lady put herself under Kate's hands 
 an hour or so after breakfast, and, 
 dressing by easy stages, completed 
 her toilet in sufficient time to allow 
 of her daughter's making hers, which 
 was very simple and not very long, 
 though so satisfactory that she had 
 never appeared more charming or 
 looked more lovely. Miss La Creevy, 
 too, arrived witli two bandboxes 
 (whereof the bottoms fell out, as they 
 were handed from the coach) and 
 something in a newspaper, which a 
 gentleman had sat upon, coming down, 
 and which was obliged to be ironed 
 again, before it was fit for service. At 
 last, everybody was dressed, including 
 Nicholas who had come home to fetch 
 them, and they went away hi 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 morn- 
 ing ; whether he had smelt anything 
 cooking, at all like turtle, and if not, 
 what he had smelt ; and diversifying 
 the conversation with reininiscencea 
 of dinners to which she had gone some 
 twenty years ago, concerning which 
 she particularised, not only the dishes 
 but the guests, in whom her hearers 
 did not feel a very absorbing interest, 
 as not one of them had ever chances 
 to hear their names before.
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 487 
 
 The old butler received them with 
 profound respect and many smiles, 
 and ushered thorn into the drawing- 
 room, where they were received by 
 the Brothers with so much cordiality 
 and kindness that Mrs. Nicklcby was 
 quite in a flutter, and had scarcely 
 presence of mind enough, even to pa- 
 tronise Miss La Creevy. Kate was 
 still more affected by the reception ; 
 for, knowing that the Brothers were 
 acquainted with all that 'had passed 
 between her and Frank, she felt her 
 position a most delicate and trying 
 one, and was trembling on the arm 
 of Nicholas when Mr. Charles took 
 her in his, and led her to another part 
 of the room. 
 
 " Have you seen Madeline, my 
 dear," he said, "since she left your 
 liouse ? " 
 
 u No, sir ? " replied Kate. Not 
 once." 
 
 " And not heard from her, eh ! Not 
 heard from her ? " 
 
 " I have only had one letter," re- 
 joined Kate, gently. a I thought she 
 would not have forgotten me, quite so 
 soon." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the old man, patting 
 ner on the head, and speaking as affec- 
 tionately as if she had been his favour- 
 ite child. " Poor dear ! what do you 
 think of this, brother Ned ! Madeline 
 has only written to her once only 
 once, Med, and she didn't think she 
 would havo forgotten her quite so 
 soon, Ned." 
 
 * Oh ! sad, sad very sad ! " said 
 Ned. 
 
 The Brothess interchanged a glance, 
 and looking at Kate for a little time 
 without speaking, shook hands, and 
 nodded as if they were congratulating 
 each other on something very de- 
 lightful. 
 
 Well, well," said brother Charles, 
 "go into that room, my dear that 
 door yonder- 1 and see if there 's not a 
 letter for you from her. I think there 's 
 one upon the table. You needn't hurry 
 back, my love, if there is, for we don't 
 dine just yet, and there's plenty of 
 time plenty of time." 
 
 Kate retired as she was directed. 
 
 Brother Charles, having followed her 
 graceful figure with his eyes, turned 
 to Mrs. Nickleby and said 
 
 " We took toe liberty of naming 
 one hour before the real dinner-time, 
 ma'am, because we had a little busi- 
 ness to speak about, which would oc- 
 cupy the interval. Ned, my dear fel- 
 low, will you mention what we agreed 
 upon t 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. Cheeryblc, 
 shake hands ! " 
 
 " I need no bidding to do that," said 
 Nicholas, extending his. 
 
 " Nor I," rejoined Frank, as he 
 clasped it heartily. 
 
 The old gentleman thought that two 
 handsomer or finer young fellows could 
 scarcely stand side by side than those 
 on whom he looked with so much plea- 
 sure. Suffering his eyes to rest upon 
 them, for a short time, in silence, he 
 said, while he seated himself at his desk, 
 
 " I wish to see you friends close 
 and firm friends and if I thought you 
 otherwise, I should hesitate in what I 
 am about to say. Frank, look here ! 
 Mr. Nickleby, will you come on the 
 other side ! " 
 
 The young men stepped up on either 
 hand of brother Charles, who produced 
 a paper from his desk and unfolded it. 
 
 " This," he said, " is a copy of the 
 will of Madeline's maternal grand, 
 father, bequeathing her the sum of 
 twelve thousand pounds, payable either 
 upon her coming of age or marrying. 
 It would appear that this gentleman, 
 angry with her (his only relation) be- 
 cause she would not put herself under 
 his protection, and detach herself from 
 the society of her father, in compli- 
 ance with liis repeated overtures, made 
 a will leaving this property (which was 
 all he possessed) to a charitable insti- 
 tution. He wculd seem to have re- 
 pented this determination, however,
 
 488 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 for three weeks afterwards, and in the 
 same month, lie executed this. By 
 some fraud, it was abstracted imme- 
 diately 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 authen- 
 ticity, and the witnesses have been 
 discovered (after some trouble), the 
 money lias been refunded. Madeline 
 has therefore obtained her right, and 
 is, or will be, when either of the con- 
 tingencies 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 gentle- 
 man, " you were the immediate means 
 of recovering this deed. The fortune 
 is but a small one ; but we love Made- 
 line ; and such as it is, we would rather 
 see you allied to her with that, than to 
 any other girl we know who has three 
 times the money. Will you become a 
 suitor to her for her hand ? " 
 
 " No, sir. I interested myself in the 
 recovery of that instrument, believing 
 that her hand was already pledged to 
 one who has a thousand times the 
 claims upon her gratitude, and, if I 
 mistake not, upon her heart, that I or 
 any other man can ever urge. In this 
 it seems I judged hastily." 
 
 " As you always do, sir," cried 
 brother Charles, utterly forgetting his 
 assumed dignity, "as you always do. 
 How dare you think, Frank, that we 
 would have you marry for money, 
 when youth, beauty, and every amiable 
 virtue and excellence, were to be had 
 for love ! How dared you, Frank, go 
 and make love to Mr. Nickleby's sister 
 without telling us first, what you meant 
 to do, and letting us speak for you ? " 
 
 " I hardly dared to hope " 
 
 " You hardly dared to hope ! Then, 
 so much the greater reason for having 
 our assistance! Mr. Nickleby, sir, 
 Frank, although he judged hastily, 
 
 judged, for once, correctly. Madeline's 
 heart is occupied give me your hand, 
 sir ; it is occupied by you, and worthily 
 and' naturally. This fortune is destined 
 to be yours, but you have a greater 
 fortune in her, sir, than you would 
 have in money were it forty times told. 
 She chooses you, Mr. Nickleby. She 
 chooses as we, her dearest friends, 
 would have her choose. Frank chooses 
 as we would have him, choose. He 
 should have your sister's little hand, 
 sir, if she had refused it a score of 
 times ay, he should, and he shall ! 
 You acted nobly, not knowing our sen- 
 timents, but now you know them, sir, 
 you must do as you are bid. What ! 
 You are the children of a worthy gen- 
 tleman ! The time was, sir, when my 
 dear brother Ned and I were two 
 poor simple-hearted boys, wandering, 
 almost barefoot, to seek our fortunes ; 
 are we changed in anything but years 
 and worldly circumstances since that 
 time? No, God forbid! Oh, Ned, 
 Ned, Ned, what a happy day this is 
 for you and me ! If our poor mother 
 had only lived to see us now, Ned, how 
 proud it would have made her dear 
 heart at last ! " 
 
 Thus apostrophised, brother Ned 
 who had entered with Mrs. Nickleby, 
 and who had been before unobserved 
 by the young men, darted forward, and 
 fairly hugged brother Charles in his 
 arms. 
 
 " Bring in my little Kate," said the 
 latter, after a short silence. " Bring 
 her in, Ned. Let me see Kate, let me 
 kiss her. I have a right to do so 
 now ; I was very near it when she 
 first came ; I have often been very 
 near it. Ah ! Did you find the letter, 
 my bird ? Did you find Madeline her- 
 self, 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
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 459 
 
 out of the way, and talk among them- 1 suit 
 selves, if they've anything to say, 
 Turn 'cm out, Ned, every one 
 
 Brother Charles began the clear- 
 ance by leading the blushing girl to 
 the door, and dismissing her with a 
 kiss. Frank was not very slow to 
 follow, and Nicholas had disappeared 
 first of all. So there only remained 
 Mrs. Nickleby and Miss La Creevy, 
 who were both sobbing heartily ; the 
 two brothers; and Tim Linkinwater, 
 who now came in to shake hands with 
 i-vi TV 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 Mr. Frank were to have 
 been in your room for I don't know 
 how long ; and I don't know what you 
 weren't to have told them before you 
 came out with the truth." 
 
 " Now, did you ever know such a 
 villain as this, Ned ? " said the old 
 gentleman, " did you ever know such a 
 villain as Tim Linkinwater ? He accus- 
 ing me of being impatient, and he the 
 very man who has been wearying us 
 morning, noon, and night, and tortur- 
 ing us for leave to go and tell 'em wbai 
 was in store, before our plans were 
 half complete, or we had arranged a 
 single thing a treacherous dog ! " 
 
 " So he is, brother Charles," returnee 
 Ned, " Tim is a treacherous dog. Tim 
 is not to be trusted. Tim is a wil< 
 young fellow he wants gravity am 
 steadiness ; he must sow his wild oats 
 and then perhaps he '11 become in t ini 
 u respectable member of society." 
 
 This being one of the standing jokes 
 between the old fellows and Tim, the; 
 all three laughed very heartily, am 
 might have laughed much longer, bu 
 that the Brothers seeing that Mrs 
 Nickleby was labouring to express her 
 feelings, and was really overwhelmec 
 by the happiness of the time, took her 
 between them, and led her from th< 
 room under pretence of having to con 
 
 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 
 lad always been great friends and 
 onsequently it was the most natural 
 hing in the world that Tim, finding 
 hat she still sobbed, should endeavour 
 
 console her. As Miss La Creevy 
 sat on a large old-fashioned window- 
 M.-at, where there was ample room for 
 ,wo, it was also natural that Tim 
 should sit down beside her ; and as to 
 I'im's being unusually spruce and par- 
 ticular in his attire, that day, why it 
 was a high festival and a great occasion, 
 and that was the most natural thing 
 of all. 
 
 Tim sat down beside Miss La Creevy, 
 and, crossing one leg over the other so 
 that his foot he had very comely 
 Feet, and happened to be wearing tho 
 neatest shoes and black silk stockings 
 |ni-.-i!ile should come easily within 
 the range of her eye, said in a soothing 
 way : 
 
 " Don't cry ! " 
 
 " I must," rejoined Miss La Creevy. 
 
 "No don't," said Tim. "Please 
 don't ; pray don't." 
 
 " I am so happy !" sobbed the little 
 woman. 
 
 " Then laugh," said Tim, " do 
 laugh." 
 
 What in the world Tim was doing 
 with his arm, it is impossible to con- 
 jecture, but he knocked his elbow 
 against that part of the window which 
 was quite on the other side of Miss La 
 Creevy ; arid it is clear that it could 
 have no business there. 
 
 cry. 
 
 ; Do laugh," said Tim, "or I'll 
 asked 
 
 Why should you cry I " 
 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.
 
 490 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 " 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 de- 
 lighted me, half so much." 
 
 Why on earth should Miss La 
 Creevy and Tim Linkimvater have 
 said all this, in a whisper ? It was no 
 secret. And why should Tim Linkin- 
 water 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 happi- 
 ness before them." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the little woman with 
 all her heart, " that it is ! " 
 
 " Although," pursued Tim " al- 
 though it makes one feel quite solitary 
 an'l cast away now don't it I" 
 
 Miss La Creevy said she didn't 
 know. And why should she say she 
 didn't know ? Because she must have 
 known whether it did or not. 
 
 " It 's almost enough to make us get 
 married after all, isn't it ? " said Tim. 
 
 " Oh nonsense ! " replied Miss La 
 Creevy, laughing, " we are too old." 
 
 " Not a bit," said Tim, " we are too 
 old to be single why shouldn't we 
 both be married, instead of sitting 
 through the long winter evenings by 
 our solitary firesides ! Why shouldn't 
 we make one fireside of it, and marry 
 each other 1 " 
 
 " Oh Mr. linkinwater, you're 
 joking!" 
 
 " No, no, I 'm not. I 'm not in- 
 deed," 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 '11 laugh too. Why, what hearty 
 laughs we have had since we 've known 
 each other " 
 
 " So we have," cried Miss La Creevy 
 
 giving way a little, as Tim thought. 
 
 "It has been the happiest time in 
 
 all my life at least, away from the 
 
 counting-house and Cheeryble Bro- 
 thers," said Tim. " Do, my dear ! 
 Now say you will." 
 
 " No, no, we mustn't think of it," 
 returned Miss La Creevy. " What 
 would the Brothers say ? " 
 
 " Why, God bless your soul ! " cried 
 Tim, innocently, ",you don't suppose I 
 should think of such a thing without 
 their knowing it ! Why they left us 
 here, on purpose." 
 
 " I can never look 'em in the face 
 again ! " exclaimed Miss La Creevy, 
 faintly. 
 
 "Come! "said Tim, "let's be a 
 comfortable couple. We shall live in 
 the old .house here, where I have been 
 for four-and-forty year ; we shall go 
 to the old church, where I 've been, 
 every Sunday morning, all through 
 that time ; we shall have all my old 
 friends about us Dick, the archway, 
 the pump, the flower-pots, and Mr. 
 Frank's children, and Mr. Nickleby's 
 children, that we shall seem like grand- 
 father and grandmother too. Let 's be 
 a comfortable couple, and take care 
 of each other! And if we should get 
 deaf, or lame, or blind, or bed-ridden, 
 how glad we shall be that we have 
 somebody we are fond of, always to 
 talk to and sit with ! Let 's be a 
 comfortable couple. Now do, my 
 dear! " 
 
 Five minutes after this honest and 
 straight-forward speech, little Miss La 
 Creevy and Tim were talking as plea- 
 santly as if they had been married for 
 a score of years, and had never once 
 quarrelled all the time ; and five 
 minutes after that, when Miss La 
 Creevy had bustled out to see if her 
 eyes were red and put her hair to 
 rights, Tim moved with a stately step 
 towards the drawing-room, exclaiming 
 as he went, " There an't such another 
 woman in all London I know there 
 an't!" 
 
 By this time, the apoplectic batler 
 was nearly in fits, in consequence of 
 the unheard-of postponement of dinner. 
 Nicholas, who had been engaged in a 
 manner in which every reader may 
 imagine for himself or herself, was 
 lurrying down stairs in obedience to
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 491 
 
 lua angry summons, when he encoun- 
 tered a new surprise. 
 
 On his way down, he overtook, in one 
 of the passages, a stranger genteelly 
 di essed in black who was also moving 
 towards the dining-room. As he was 
 rather lame, and walked slowly, Nicho- 
 las 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 1" cried Nicholas 
 joyfully. 
 
 " Ah ! Newman, your own New- 
 man, your own old faithful Newman ! 
 My dear boy, my dear Nick, I give 
 you joy heal tli, happiness, every 
 blessing. I can't bear it it's too 
 nir.ch, my dear boy it makes a child 
 of me !" 
 
 " Where have you been ? " said 
 Nicholas, " what have you been doing ! 
 How often have I inquired for you, 
 and been told that I should hear before 
 long!" 
 
 " I know, I know ! " returned New- 
 man. " They wanted all the happiness 
 to come together. I 've been helping 
 cm. 1 1 look at me, Nick, look 
 at me 1 
 
 " Yon would never let me do that," 
 said Nicholas in a tone of gentle re- 
 proach. 
 
 " I didn't mind what I was, then. 
 I shouldn't have had the heart to put 
 on gentleman's clothes. They would 
 have reminded me of old times and 
 made me miserable. I am another 
 man BOW, Nick. My dear boy, I can't 
 speak don't say anything to me 
 don't think the worse of me for these 
 tears you don't know what I feel to- 
 day ; you can't, and never will !" 
 
 They walked in to dinner, arm-in- 
 arm, and sat down, side by side. 
 
 Never waa such a dinner as that, 
 since the world began. There was 
 the superannuated bank ~lerk, Tim 
 Linkinwater's friend ; and there was 
 the chubby old lady, Tint 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 Liukimvater himself 
 
 was in such tiptop spirits, and little 
 Miss La Creevy was in such a comical 
 state, that of themselves they would 
 have composed the pleasantest party 
 conceivable. Then, there was Mrs. 
 Nickleby, so grand and complacent ; 
 Madeline and Kate, so blushing and 
 beautiful; Nicholas and Frank, so 
 devoted and proud ; and all four so 
 silently and tremblingly happy there 
 was Newman so subdued yet so over- 
 joyed, and there were the twin 
 Brothers so delighted and interchang- 
 ing such looks, that the old servant 
 stood transfixed behind his master's 
 chair, and felt his eyes grow dim as 
 they wandered round the table. 
 
 When the first novelty of the 
 meeting had worn off, and they began 
 truly to feel how happy they were, the 
 conversation became more general, 
 and the harmony and pleasure if pos- 
 sible increased. The Brothers were 
 in a perfect ecstacy ; and their insisting 
 on saluting the ladies, all round, before 
 they would permit them to retire, 
 gave occasion to the superannuated 
 bank clerk to say so many good things 
 that ho quite outshone himself, and 
 was looked upon as a prodigy of 
 humour. 
 
 " 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, 
 Linkin water 1" 
 
 " Indeed it is, mamma." 
 
 " Why, I never heard such a thing 
 in my life !" exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 " Mr. Linkinwater is a most excel- 
 lent creature," reasoned Kate, " and, 
 for his age, quite young still." 
 
 " For hia age, my dear !" returned 
 Mrs. Nickleby, "yes; nobody says 
 anything against him, except that I 
 think ho is the weakest and most 
 foolish man I ever knew. It's her 
 age I speak of. That he should have 
 gone and offered himself to a woman 
 who must be ah, half as old again as 
 I am and that she should have dared 
 to accept him ! It don't signify, Katn ; 
 I 'm disgusted with her ! " 
 
 Shaking her head, very emphati-
 
 402 
 
 cally indeed, Mrs. Nickleby swept 
 away ; and all the evening, in the 
 midst of the merriment and enjoy- 
 ment that ensued, and in which with 
 that exception she freely participated, 
 conducted herself towards Miss La 
 
 Creevy in a stately and distant manner, 
 designed to mark her sense of the 
 impropriety of her conduct, and to 
 signify her extreme and cutting disap- 
 probation of the misdemeanour she 
 had so flagrantly committed. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IS RECOGNISED UNDER MELANCHOLY CIRCUMSTANCES, 
 AND DOTHEBOYS HALL BREAKS UP FOR EVER. 
 
 NICHOLAS was one of those whose 
 joy is incomplete unless it is shared 
 by the friends of adverse and less 
 fortunate days. Surrounded by every 
 fascination of love and hope, his 
 warm heart yearned towards plain 
 John Browdie. He remembered their 
 first meeting with a smile, and their 
 second with a tear ; saw poor Sraike 
 once again with the bundle on his 
 shoulder trudging patiently by his side ; 
 and heard the honest Yorkshireman's 
 rough words of encouragement as he 
 left them on their road to London. 
 
 Madeline and he sat down, very 
 many times, jointly to produce a 
 letter which should acquaint John at 
 full length with his altered fortunes, 
 :md assure him of his friendship and 
 gratitude. It so happened, however, 
 that the letter could never be written. 
 Although they applied themselves to 
 it with the best intentions in the 
 world, it chanced that they always fell 
 to talking about something else, and 
 when Nicholas tried it by himself, he 
 found it impossible to write one half 
 of what he wished to say, or to pen 
 anything, indeed, which on re-perusal 
 <lid not appear cold and unsatisfactory 
 compared with what he had in his 
 mind. At last, after going on thus 
 from day to day, ana reproaching 
 himself more and more, he resolved 
 (the more readily as Madeline strongly 
 urged him) to make a hasty trip into 
 Yorkshire, and present himself before 
 Mr. and Mrs. Browdie without a word 
 of notice. 
 
 Thus it was that between seven and 
 eight o'clock one evening, he and Kate 
 found themselves in the Saracen's 
 Head booking-office, securing a place 
 to Greta Bridge by the next morning's 
 coach. They had to go westward, to 
 procure some little necessaries for his 
 journey, and, as it was a fine nighty 
 they agreed to walk there, and ride 
 home. 
 
 The place they had just been in, 
 called up so many recollections, and 
 Kate had so many anecdotes of Made- 
 line, and Nicholas so many anecdotes 
 of Frank, and each was so interested 
 in what the other said, and both were 
 so happy and confiding, and had so 
 much to talk about, that it was not 
 until they had plunged for a full half 
 hour into that labyrinth of streets 
 which lies between Seven Dials and 
 Soho, without emerging into any large 
 thoroughfare, that Nicholas began to 
 think it just possible they might have 
 lost their way. 
 
 The possibility was soon converted 
 into a certainty; for, on looking about, 
 and walking first to one end of the 
 street and then to the other, he could 
 find no land-mark he could recognise, 
 and was fain to turn back again in 
 quest of some place at which he could 
 seek a direction. 
 
 It was a by-street, and there was 
 nobody about, or in the few wretched 
 shops they passed. Making towards a 
 faint gleam of light, which streamed 
 across the pavement from a cellar, 
 Nicholas was about to descend two or
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 493 
 
 tnree stepn so as to render himself 
 visible to those below and make his 
 inquiry, when he was arrested by a loud 
 noise of scolding in a woman's voice. 
 
 " Oh come away ! " said Kate, " they 
 are quarrelling. You'll be hurt." 
 
 " Wait one instant, Kate. Let us 
 hear if there 's anything the matter," 
 returned her brother. " Hush ! " 
 
 " You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for- 
 nothing brute," cried the woman, 
 stamping on the ground, " why don't 
 you turn the mangle 1" 
 
 " So I am, my life and soul ! " re- 
 plied a man's voice. " I am always 
 turning. I am perpetually turning, like 
 a demd old horse in a demnitiou mill. 
 My life is one demd horrid grind!" 
 
 ** Then why don't you go and, list 
 for a soldier ?" retorted the woman, 
 " you 're welcome to." 
 
 " For a soldier ! " cried the man. 
 " For a soldier ! Would his joy and 
 gladness see him in a coarse red coat 
 with a little tail ? Would she hear of 
 his being slapped and beat by drum- 
 mers dcmnebly ? Would she have 
 him firo off real guns, and. have his 
 hair cut, and his whiskers shaved, and 
 his eyes turned right and left, and his 
 trousers pipeclayed ? " 
 
 " Dear Nicholas," whispered Kate, 
 " you don't know who that is. It 's 
 Mr. Mantalini I am confident." 
 
 " Do make sure ! Peep at him while 
 I ask the way," said Nicholas. " Come 
 down a step or two come!" 
 
 Drawing her after him, Nicholas 
 crept down the steps and looked 
 into a small boarded cellar. There, 
 amidst clothes-baskets and clothes, 
 stripped to his shirt-sleeves, but 
 wearing still an old patched pair of 
 pantaloons of superlative make, a 
 once brilliant waistcoat, and moustache 
 and whiskers as of yore, but lacking 
 their lustrous dye there, endeavour- 
 ing to mollify the wrath of a juxom 
 female not the lawful Madame Man- 
 talini but the proprietress of the con- 
 cern and grinding meanwhile as if for 
 very life at the mangle, whose creak- 
 ing noise, mingled with her shrill 
 tones, appeared almost' to deafen him 
 there was ike graceful, elegant, 
 
 fascinating, and once dashing Man- 
 taliui. 
 
 " Oh you false traitor ! " cried the 
 lady, threatening personal violence on 
 Mr. Mantalini's face. 
 
 " False. Oh dem ! Now my soul, 
 my gentle, captivating, bewitching, 
 and most demnebly enslaving chick-a- 
 biddy, be calm," said Mr. Mantalini, 
 humbly. 
 
 "I won't!" screamed the woman. 
 " I '11 tear your eyes out ! " 
 
 " Oh ! What a demd savage Iamb ! " 
 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 yon, and took 
 you out of prison and lot you live 
 here like a gentleman, but must you 
 go on like this : breaking my heart 
 besides 1 " 
 
 " I will never break its heart, I will 
 be a good boy, and never do so any 
 more ; 1 will never be naughty again ; 
 I beg its little pardon," said Mr. 
 Mantalini, dropping the handle of the 
 mangle, and folding his palms toge- 
 ther, " it is all up with its handsome 
 friend ! He has gone to the dcmnition 
 bow-wows. It will have pity ? it will 
 not scratch and claw, but pet and 
 comfort ? Oh, dcmmit." 
 
 Very little affected, to judge from 
 her action, by this tender appeal, the 
 lady was on the point of returning 
 some angry reply, when Nicholas, 
 raising his voice, asked his way to 
 Piccadilly. 
 
 Mr. Mantalini turned round, caught 
 sight of Kate, and, without another 
 word, ler.pt at one bound into a bed 
 which stood behind the door, and drew 
 the counterpane over his face: kicking 
 meanwhile convulsively. 
 
 " Demmit," he cried, in a suffo- 
 cating voice, "it's little Nicklrlw ! 
 Shut the door, put out tii- candle, 
 turn me up in the bedstead ! Oh, dem, 
 dem, dem ! " 
 
 The woman looked, first at Nicholas, 
 and then at Mr. Mautalini, as if un- 
 certain on whom to visit this extra-
 
 494 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 ordinary behaviour ; but Mr. Manta- 
 lini happening by ill luck to thrust 
 his nose from under the bedclothes, 
 in his anxiety to ascertain whether 
 the visitors were gone, she suddenly, 
 and with a dexterity which could only 
 have been acquired by long practice, 
 flung a pretty heavy clothes-basket 
 at him, with so good an aim that 
 he kicked more violently than before, 
 though without venturing to make any 
 effort to disengage his head, which was 
 quite extinguished. Thinking this 
 favourable opportunity for departin^ 
 before any of the torrent of her wrath 
 discharged itself upon him, Nicholas 
 hurried Kate off, and left the unfortu- 
 nate subject of this unexpected recog- 
 nition to explain his conduct as he best 
 could. 
 
 The next morning he began his 
 journey. It was now cold, winter 
 weather: forcibly recalling to his mind 
 under what circumstances he had first 
 travelled that road, and how many 
 vicissitudes and changes he had since 
 undergone. He was alone inside, the 
 greater part of the way, and some- 
 times, when he had fallen into a doze, 
 and, rousing himself, looked out of the 
 window, and recognised some place 
 which he well remembered as having 
 passed, either on his journey down, 
 or in the long walk back with poor 
 Smike, he could hardly believe but 
 that all which had since happened had 
 been a dream, and that they were still 
 plodding wearily on towards London, 
 with the world before them. 
 
 To render these recollections the 
 more vivid, it came on to snow as 
 night set in; and, passing through 
 Stamford and Grantham, and by the 
 little alehouse where he had heard 
 the story of the bold Baron of 
 Grogzwig, everything looked as if he 
 had seen it but yesterday, and not 
 even a flake of the white crust on 
 the roofs had melted away. Encou- 
 raging the train of ideas which flocked 
 upon him, he could almost persuade 
 himself that he sat again outside the 
 coach, with Squeers and the boys ; 
 that he heard their voices in the air ; 
 and that he felt again, but with a 
 
 mingled sensation of pain and plea- 
 sure now, that old sinking of the 
 heart, and longing after home. While 
 he was yet yielding himself up to these 
 fancies he fell asleep, and, dreaming of 
 Madeline, forgot them. 
 
 He slept at the inn at Greta Bridge, 
 on the night of his arrival, and, rising 
 at a very early hour next morning, 
 walked to the market town, and in- 
 quired for John Browdie's house.- 
 John lived in the outskirts, now he 
 was a family man ; and, as everybody 
 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 stop- 
 ping to admire the thriving look of 
 cottage or garden either, Nicholas 
 made his way to the kitchen door, and 
 knocked lustily with his stick. 
 
 " Halloa ! " cried a voice inside, 
 " waat 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 his hands together 
 and burst into a hearty roar: 
 
 "Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be 
 the godfeyther ! Tilly, here be Mis- 
 ther Nickleby. Gi' us thee bond, 
 mun. Coom awa', coom awa'. In 
 wi' un, doon beside the fire ; tak' a 
 soop o' thot. Dinnot say a word till 
 thou'st droonk it a' ! Oop wi' it, mun. 
 Ding ! but I 'm reeght glod to see 
 thee." 
 
 Adapting his action to his text, John 
 dragged Nicholas into the kitchen, 
 Forced him down upon a huge settle 
 beside a blazing fire, poured out from 
 an enormous bottle about a ^quarter 
 of a pint of spirits, thrust it into his 
 liand, opened his mouth and threw 
 back his head as a sign to him to 
 drink it instantly, and stood with a 
 broad grin of welcome overspreading 
 his great red face, like a jolly giant 
 
 " I might ha' knowa'd," said 'John, 
 
 that nobody but thou would ha' coom 
 
 wi' sike a knock as yon. Thot wai 
 
 the wa' thou knocked at school-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 491 
 
 measther'B door, eh! Ha, ha, ha ! 
 But 1 say waa't be a' this aboot 
 Bchoohneasther ! " 
 
 " You know it then !" said Nicholas. 
 
 " They were talking aboot it, dpon 
 toon, last neeght," replied John, ''but 
 neane on 'em seemed quite to un'erstan' 
 it loike." 
 
 " After various shiftings and delays," 
 said Nicholas, " he has been sentenced 
 to be transported for seven years, for 
 being in the unlawful possession of a 
 stolen will ; and, after that, he has to 
 suffer the consequence of a conspiracy." 
 
 " Whew ! " cried John, " a con- 
 spiracy! Soomat in the pooder plot 
 wa' eh ! Soomat in the Guy Faurx 
 line!" 
 
 " No, no, no, a conspiracy connected 
 *ith his school ; I '11 explain it pre- 
 sently." 
 
 Thot 's reeght ! " said John, ex- 
 plain it arter breakfast, not noo, for 
 thou bees't hoongry, and so am I ; and 
 Tilly she mun' be at the bottom o' a' 
 explanations, for she says thot's the 
 mutual confidence. Ha, ha, ha ! 
 Ecod it 's a room start, is the mutual 
 confidence ! " 
 
 The entrance of Mrs. Browdie, with 
 a smart cap on and very many apolo- 
 gies for their having been detected in 
 the act of breakfasting in the kitchen, 
 stopped John in his discussion of this 
 grave subject, and hastened the break- 
 fast : which, being composed of vast 
 mounds of toast, new-laid eggs, boiled 
 ham, Yorkshire pie, and other cold 
 substantial (of which heavy relays 
 were constantly appearing from another 
 kitchen under the direction of a very 
 plump servant), was admirably adapted 
 to the cold bleak morning, and received 
 the utmost justice from all parties. At 
 last, it oamc to a close; and the fire 
 which had been lighted in the best 
 parlour having by this time burnt up, 
 they adjourned thither, to hear what 
 Nicholas had to tell. 
 
 Nicholas told them all, and never 
 was there a story which awakened so 
 many emotions in the breasts of two 
 eager listeners. At one time, honest 
 John groaned in sympathy, and at 
 another roared with joy ; at one time 
 
 he vowed to go up to London on pur- 
 pose to get a sight of the Brothers 
 Checryble; and, at another, swore -that 
 Tim Linkinwater should receive such 
 a ham by coach, and carriage free, as 
 mortal knife had never carved. When 
 Nicholas began to describe Madeline, 
 he sat with his mouth wide open, nudg- 
 ing Mrs. Browdie from time to time, 
 and exclaiming under his breath that 
 she must be "raa'ther a tidy sart," 
 and when ho heard at last that his 
 young friend liad come down, pur- 
 posely to communicate his good for- 
 tune, and to convey to him all those 
 assurances of friendship which he could 
 not state with sufficient warmth in 
 writing that the only object of his 
 journey was to share his happiness 
 with them, and to tell them that when 
 he was married they must come up to 
 see him, and that Madeline insisted on 
 it as well as he John could hold out 
 no longer, but after looking indig- 
 nantly at his wife, and demanding to 
 know what she was whimpering for, 
 drew his coat-sleeve over his eyes and 
 blubbered outright. 
 
 " Telle'e 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 
 'ooman wean't have a whole boan in 
 her boddy, nor Fanny neither." 
 
 " Oh John ! " cried Mrs. Browdie. 
 
 " Ah ! and Oh John agean," replied 
 the Yorkshireman. " I dinnot know 
 what they lads mightn't do. When 
 it first got aboot that schoolmeasthr 
 was in trouble, Boom feythers and 
 moothers sent and took their young 
 chaps a\va'. If them as is Jeft, should 
 know waa'ts coom tiv'un, there '11 be 
 sike a revolution and rebel ! Ding I 
 But I think they 11 a' gang daft, and 
 spill bluid like wather ! " 
 
 In fact John Browdie's apprehen- 
 sions were so strong that he determined 
 to ride over to the school without 
 delay, and invited Nicholas to accom- 
 pany him, which, however, he declined, 
 pleading that his presence might per- 
 haps aggravate the bitterness of tntir 
 adversity.
 
 496 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 "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 " 
 
 Rprl ! " pried .To 
 
 Bed ! " cried John, " I wish thou 
 could'st sleep in fower beds at once. 
 Ecod thou should'st have 'em a'. Bide 
 till I coom back, on'y bide till I coom 
 back, and ecod we '11 mak' a day of it." 
 
 Giving his wife a hearty kiss, and 
 Nicholas a no less hearty shake of the 
 hand, John mounted his horse and 
 rode off : leaving Mrs. Browdie to" ap- 
 ply herself to hospitable preparations, 
 and his young friend to stroll about 
 the neighbourhood, and revisit spots 
 which were rendered familiar to him 
 by many a miserable association. 
 
 *John cantered away, and arriving 
 at Dotheboys Hall, tied his horse to a 
 gate and made his way to the school- 
 room 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, hs did not remain long in igno- 
 rance 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 cus- 
 tom with the large bowl and spoon, 
 followed by Miss Squeers and the 
 amiable Wackford : who, during his 
 lather's absence, had taken upon him 
 such minor branches of die executive 
 as kicking the pupils with his uailed 
 boots, pulling the hair of some of the 
 smaller boys, pinching the others in 
 aggravating places, and rendering hmi- 
 
 consequently the newest) boy seized 
 the cane, and confronting Mrs. Squeers 
 with a stern countenance, snatched off 
 her cap and beaver-bonnet, put it ou 
 his own head, armed himself with the 
 wooden spoon, and bade her, on pain 
 of death, go down upon her knees, 
 and take a dose directly. Before that 
 estimable lady could recover herself, 
 or offer the slightest retaliation, she 
 was forced into a kneeling posture by 
 a crowd of shouting tormentors, and 
 compelled to swallow a spoonful of the 
 odious mixture, rendered more than, 
 usually savoury by the immersion in 
 the bowl of Master Wackford's head, 
 whose ducking was entrusted to an- 
 other rebel. The success of this first 
 achievement prompted the malicious 
 crowd, whose faces were clustered 
 together in every variety of lank and 
 half-starved ugliness, to further acts 
 of outrage. The leader was insisting 
 upon Mrs. Squeers repeating her dose, 
 Master Squeers was undergoing an- 
 other dip in the treacle, and a violent 
 assault had been commenced on Miss 
 Squeers, when John Browdie, bursting 
 open the door with a vigorous kick, 
 rushed to the rescue. The shouts, 
 screams, groans, hoots, and clapping 
 of hands, suddenly ceased, and a dead 
 silence ensued. 
 
 " Ye be noice chaps," said John, 
 looking steadily round. " What 's to 
 do here, thou yoong dogs ! " 
 
 " Squeers is in prison, and we are 
 going to run away ! " cried a score of 
 shrill voices. " We won't stop, we 
 won't stop ! " 
 
 "Weel then, dinnot stop," replied 
 John, " who waants tliee to stop '. 
 Roon awa' loike men, but dinnot hurt 
 the women." 
 
 " Hurrah ! " cried the shrill voices, 
 more shrilly still. 
 
 Hurrah? "repeated John. "Weel, 
 
 self, in various similar wavs, a great j hurrah loike men too. Noo then, 
 
 .* . T 1 !_?_ 1 1. I 
 
 comfort and happiness to his mother. 
 Their entrance, whether by premedi- 
 tation or a simultaneous impulse, was 
 the signal of revolt. While one de- 
 tachment rushed to. the door and 
 locked it, and another mounted on 
 
 look out Hip hip hip hurrah ! " 
 " Hurrah ! " cried the voices. 
 " Hurrah ? agean," said John. 
 
 " Looder still" 
 The boys obeyed. 
 Anoother ! " said John. " Dinnot 
 
 the desks and forms, the stoutest (and j be afeard on it. Let 's have a good 'un ! '
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 49? 
 
 Hurrah ! " 
 
 Noo then," said John, let 's have 
 van more to end wi', and then coot 
 off as quick as you loike. Tak' a 
 good breath noo Squeers be in jail 
 the school 's brokken oop it 's a' 
 ower past and gane think o' thot, 
 and let it be a hearty 'un ! Hurrah !" 
 
 Such a cheer arose as tin walls of 
 Dotheboys Hall had never echoed 
 before, and were destined never to 
 respond to again. When the sound 
 had died away, the school was empty , 
 and of the busy noisy crowd which 
 had peopled it but five minutes before, 
 not one remained. 
 
 Very well, Mr. Browdie ! " said 
 Miss Squeers, hot and flushed from 
 the recent encounter, but vixenish to 
 the laiit ; " you 've been and excited 
 our boys to run away. Now see if we 
 don't pay you eut for that, sir ! If my 
 pa is unfortunate and trod down (by 
 henemies, we 're not going to be basely 
 crowed and conquered over by you 
 and Tilda." 
 
 " Noa ! " replied John bluntly, " thou 
 bean't. Tak' thy oath o' thot. Think 
 betther o' us, Fanny. I tell 'ee both, 
 that I 'in glod the auld man has been 
 caught out at last dom'd glod but 
 ye '11 scoffer eneaf wi'out any crowin' 
 fra' me, and I be not the mun to crow, 
 nor be Tilly the lass, so I tell 'ee flat. 
 More than thot, I tell 'ee noo, that 
 if thou need'st friends to help thee 
 awa' from this place dinnot turn up 
 thy nose, Fanny, thou may'st thou 'It 
 foind Tilly and I wi' a thout o' old 
 times aboot us, ready to lend thee 
 a hond. And when I say thot, dinnot 
 think I be asheamed of waa't I 've 
 deane, for I say agean, Hurrah ! and 
 dom the schoolmeasther there ! " 
 
 His parting words concluded, John 
 Browdie strode heavily out, remounted 
 
 his nag, put him once more into a 
 smart canter, and, carolling lustily 
 forth some fragments of an old song, 
 to which the horse's hoofs rang a 
 merry accompaniment, sped back to 
 his pretty wife and to Nicholas. 
 
 For some days afterwards, the neigh- 
 bouring country was overrun with 
 boys, who, the report went, had been 
 secretly furnished by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Browdie, not only with a hearty meal 
 of bread and meat, but with sundry 
 shillings and sixpences to help them 
 on their way. To this rumour John 
 always returned a stout denial, which 
 he accompanied, however, with a lurk- 
 ing grin, that rendered the suspicious 
 doubtful, and fully confirmed all pre- 
 vious believers. 
 
 There were a few timid young 
 children, who, miserable as they had 
 been, and many as were the tears they 
 had shed in the wretched school, still 
 knew no other home, and had formed 
 for it a sort of attachment, which 
 made them weep when the bolder 
 spirits fled, and cling to it as a refuge. 
 Of these, some were found crying under 
 hedges and in such places, frightened 
 at the solitude. One had a dead bird 
 in a little cage ; he had wandered 
 nearly twenty miles, and when his 
 poor favourite died, lost courage, and 
 lay down beside him. Another was 
 discovered in a yard hard by the 
 school, sleeping with a dog, who bit at 
 those who came to remove him, and 
 licked the sleeping child's pale face. 
 
 They were taken back, and some 
 other stragglers were recovered, but 
 by degrees they were claimed, or lost 
 again ; and, in course of time, Dothe- 
 boys Hall and its last breaking up 
 began to be forgotten by the neigh- 
 bours, or to be only spoken of, as 
 among the things that had been. 
 
 No. 3.
 
 408 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WHEN her term of mourning had 
 expired, Madeline gave her hand and 
 fortune to Nicholas ; and, on the same 
 day and at the same time, Kate became 
 Mrs. Frank Cheeryble. It was 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 after- 
 wards went out together one morning 
 before breakfast, and, coming back 
 with t merry faces, were found to have 
 been quietly married that day. 
 
 The money which Nicholas acquired 
 in right of his wife he invested hi the 
 firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which 
 Frank had become a partner. Before 
 many years elapsed, the business began 
 to be carried on in the names of 
 "Cheeryble and Nickleby," so that 
 Mrs. Nickleby's prophetic anticipations 
 were realised at last. 
 
 The twin brothers retired. Who 
 needs to be told that they were happy ? 
 They were surrounded by happiness 
 of their own creation, and lived but 
 to increase it. 
 
 Tim Linkinwater condescended, 
 after much entreaty and brow-beating, 
 to accept a share in the house ; but he 
 could never be prevailed upon to 
 suffer the publication of his name as 
 a partner, and always persisted in the 
 punctual and regular discharge of his 
 clerkly duties. 
 
 He and his wife lived in the old 
 house, and occupied the very bed- 
 chamber in which he had slept for 
 four-and-forty years. As his wife grew 
 older, she became even a more cheer- 
 ful and light-hearted little creature ; 
 :md 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 j 
 hers, on the other. 
 
 Dick, the blackbird, was removed 
 from the counting-house and pro- 
 moted to a warm corner in the com- 
 mon sitting-room. Beneath his cage 
 hung two miniatures, of Mrs. Linkin- 
 water's execution ; one representing 
 herself, and the other Tim ; and both 
 smiling -very hard at all beholders. 
 Tim's head being powdered like a 
 twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied 
 with great nicety, strangers detected 
 a close resemblance to him at the 
 first glance, and this leading them to 
 suspect that the other must be his 
 wife, and emboldening them to say 
 so without scruple, Mrs. Liukinwater 
 g4kw very proud of these achievements 
 in time, and considered them among 
 the most successful likenesses she had 
 ever painted. Tim had the pro- 
 fotmdest faith hi them, likewise ; for 
 on this, as on all other subjects, they 
 held but one opinion ; and if ever 
 there were a " comfortable couple" 
 in the world, it was Mr. and Mrs. 
 Linkinwater. 
 
 Ralph, having died intestate, and 
 having no relations but those with 
 whom he had lived in such enmity, 
 they would have become hi legal 
 course his heirs. But they could not 
 bear the thought of growing rich on 
 money so acquired, and felt as though 
 they could never hope to prosper with 
 it. They made no claim to his wealth; 
 and the riches for which he had toiled 
 all his days, and burdened his soul 
 with so many evil deeds, were swept 
 at last into the coffers of the state, and 
 no man was the better or the happier 
 for them. 
 
 Arthur Gride was tried for the un- 
 lawful possession of the will, which he 
 had either procured to be stolen, or had 
 dishonestly acquired and retained by 
 other means as bad. By dint of an 
 ingenious counsel, and a legal flaw, he 
 escaped ; but only to undergo a worse 
 punishment ; for, some years after-
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 499 
 
 wards, his house was broken open in 
 the night by robbers, tempted by the 
 rumours of his great wealth, and he 
 was found murdered in his bed. 
 
 Mrs. Sliderskew went beyond the 
 seas at nearly the same time as Mr. 
 Squeere, and in the course of nature 
 never returned. Brookerdied penitent. 
 Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for 
 some years, courted and caressed, and 
 in high repute as a fine dashing fellow. 
 Ultimately, returning to. this country, 
 he was tlirown into jail for debt, 
 and there perished miserably, as such 
 high spirits generally do. 
 
 The first act of Nicholas, when he 
 became a rich and prosperous mer- 
 chant, 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 en- 
 larged ; but none of the old rooms 
 were ever pulled down, no old 
 was rooted up, nothing with wl 
 there was any association of bygone 
 times was ever removed or changed. 
 
 Within a stone's-throw, was another 
 retreat, enlivened by children's plea- 
 sant 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. 
 
 Airs. Nickleby lived, sometimes with 
 her daughter, and sometimes with her 
 
 son, accompanying one or other of 
 them to London at those periods when 
 the cares of business obliged both 
 families to reside there, and always 
 preserving a great appearance of 
 dignity, and relating her experiences 
 
 S especially on points connected with 
 ic management and bringing-up of 
 children) with much solemnity and 
 importance. It was a very long time 
 before she could be induced to receive 
 Mrs. Linkinwater into favour, and it 
 is even doubtful whether she ever 
 thoroughly forgave her. 
 
 There was one grey-haired, quiet, 
 harmless gentleman, who, winter and 
 summer, lived in a little cottage hard 
 by Nicholas's house, and, when he was 
 not there, assumed the superintend- 
 ence 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 New- 
 man Noggs. 
 
 The grass was green above the 
 dead boy's grave, and trodden by feet 
 so small and light, that not a daisy 
 drooped its head beneath their pres- 
 sure. Through all the spring and 
 summer-time, garlands of fresh flowers, 
 wreathed by infant hands, rested on 
 the stone ; and, when the children 
 came to change them lest they should 
 wither and be pleasant to him no 
 longer, their eyes filled with tears, and 
 they spoke low and softly of their 
 poor dead cousin. 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 BBADBTOY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WH1TEKUARS.