The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby

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'Mrs Squeers, sir,' replied the proprietor of Dotheboys, 'is as she
always is--a mother to them lads, and a blessing, and a comfort, and
a joy to all them as knows her. One of our boys--gorging his-self with
vittles, and then turning in; that's their way--got a abscess on him
last week. To see how she operated upon him with a pen-knife! Oh Lor!'
said Squeers, heaving a sigh, and nodding his head a great many times,
'what a member of society that woman is!'

Mr Squeers indulged in a retrospective look, for some quarter of a
minute, as if this allusion to his lady's excellences had naturally
led his mind to the peaceful village of Dotheboys near Greta Bridge
in Yorkshire; and then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for him to say
something.

'Have you quite recovered that scoundrel's attack?' asked Ralph.

'I've only just done it, if I've done it now,' replied Squeers. 'I was
one blessed bruise, sir,' said Squeers, touching first the roots of his
hair, and then the toes of his boots, 'from HERE to THERE. Vinegar and
brown paper, vinegar and brown paper, from morning to night. I suppose
there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper stuck upon me, from
first to last. As I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all
over, you might have thought I was a large brown-paper parcel, chock
full of nothing but groans. Did I groan loud, Wackford, or did I groan
soft?' asked Mr Squeers, appealing to his son.

'Loud,' replied Wackford.

'Was the boys sorry to see me in such a dreadful condition, Wackford, or
was they glad?' asked Mr Squeers, in a sentimental manner.

'Gl--'

'Eh?' cried Squeers, turning sharp round.

'Sorry,' rejoined his son.

'Oh!' said Squeers, catching him a smart box on the ear. 'Then take
your hands out of your pockets, and don't stammer when you're asked a
question. Hold your noise, sir, in a gentleman's office, or I'll run
away from my family and never come back any more; and then what would
become of all them precious and forlorn lads as would be let loose on
the world, without their best friend at their elbers?'

'Were you obliged to have medical attendance?' inquired Ralph.

'Ay, was I,' rejoined Squeers, 'and a precious bill the medical
attendant brought in too; but I paid it though.'

Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a manner which might be expressive of
either sympathy or astonishment--just as the beholder was pleased to
take it.

'Yes, I paid it, every farthing,' replied Squeers, who seemed to know
the man he had to deal with, too well to suppose that any blinking of
the question would induce him to subscribe towards the expenses; 'I
wasn't out of pocket by it after all, either.'

'No!' said Ralph.

'Not a halfpenny,' replied Squeers. 'The fact is, we have only one extra
with our boys, and that is for doctors when required--and not then,
unless we're sure of our customers. Do you see?'

'I understand,' said Ralph.

'Very good,' rejoined Squeers. 'Then, after my bill was run up, we
picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure pay)
that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a cottage where
they'd got it, and he took it, and then we put the four others to sleep
with him, and THEY took it, and then the doctor came and attended 'em
once all round, and we divided my total among 'em, and added it on to
their little bills, and the parents paid it. Ha! ha! ha!'

'And a good plan too,' said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily.

'I believe you,' rejoined Squeers. 'We always do it. Why, when Mrs
Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the
hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses among
'em, monthly nurse included. Ha! ha! ha!'

Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest
approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr Squeers had enjoyed
the professional joke to his heart's content, inquired what had brought
him to town.

'Some bothering law business,' replied Squeers, scratching his head,
'connected with an action, for what they call neglect of a boy. I don't
know what they would have. He had as good grazing, that boy had, as
there is about us.'

Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation.

'Grazing,' said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impression that as
Ralph failed to comprehend him, he must be deaf. 'When a boy gets weak
and ill and don't relish his meals, we give him a change of diet--turn
him out, for an hour or so every day, into a neighbour's turnip field,
or sometimes, if it's a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of
carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an't
better land in the country than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he
goes and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his friends
brings a lawsuit against ME! Now, you'd hardly suppose,' added Squeers,
moving in his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, 'that
people's ingratitude would carry them quite as far as that; would you?'

'A hard case, indeed,' observed Ralph.

'You don't say more than the truth when you say that,' replied Squeers.
'I don't suppose there's a man going, as possesses the fondness for
youth that I do. There's youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a
year at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I'd take sixteen hundred
pound worth if I could get 'em, and be as fond of every individual
twenty pound among 'em as nothing should equal it!'

'Are you stopping at your old quarters?' asked Ralph.

'Yes, we are at the Saracen,' replied Squeers, 'and as it don't want
very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continney to stop there
till I've collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope. I've
brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and
guardians. I shall put him in the advertisement, this time. Look at that
boy--himself a pupil. Why he's a miracle of high feeding, that boy is!'

'I should like to have a word with you,' said Ralph, who had both
spoken and listened mechanically for some time, and seemed to have been
thinking.

'As many words as you like, sir,' rejoined Squeers. 'Wackford, you go
and play in the back office, and don't move about too much or you'll get
thin, and that won't do. You haven't got such a thing as twopence, Mr
Nickleby, have you?' said Squeers, rattling a bunch of keys in his coat
pocket, and muttering something about its being all silver.

'I--think I have,' said Ralph, very slowly, and producing, after much
rummaging in an old drawer, a penny, a halfpenny, and two farthings.

'Thankee,' said Squeers, bestowing it upon his son. 'Here! You go and
buy a tart--Mr Nickleby's man will show you where--and mind you buy a
rich one. Pastry,' added Squeers, closing the door on Master Wackford,
'makes his flesh shine a good deal, and parents thinks that a healthy
sign.'

With this explanation, and a peculiarly knowing look to eke it out,
Mr Squeers moved his chair so as to bring himself opposite to Ralph
Nickleby at no great distance off; and having planted it to his entire
satisfaction, sat down.

'Attend to me,' said Ralph, bending forward a little.

Squeers nodded.

'I am not to suppose,' said Ralph, 'that you are dolt enough to forgive
or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or
the exposure which accompanied it?'

'Devil a bit,' replied Squeers, tartly.

'Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if you could
get one?' said Ralph.

'Show me one, and try,' rejoined Squeers.

'Some such object it was, that induced you to call on me?' said Ralph,
raising his eyes to the schoolmaster's face.

'N-n-no, I don't know that,' replied Squeers. 'I thought that if it
was in your power to make me, besides the trifle of money you sent, any
compensation--'

'Ah!' cried Ralph, interrupting him. 'You needn't go on.'

After a long pause, during which Ralph appeared absorbed in
contemplation, he again broke silence by asking:

'Who is this boy that he took with him?'

Squeers stated his name.

'Was he young or old, healthy or sickly, tractable or rebellious? Speak
out, man,' retorted Ralph.

'Why, he wasn't young,' answered Squeers; 'that is, not young for a boy,
you know.'

'That is, he was not a boy at all, I suppose?' interrupted Ralph.

'Well,' returned Squeers, briskly, as if he felt relieved by the
suggestion, 'he might have been nigh twenty. He wouldn't seem so old,
though, to them as didn't know him, for he was a little wanting here,'
touching his forehead; 'nobody at home, you know, if you knocked ever so
often.'

'And you DID knock pretty often, I dare say?' muttered Ralph.

'Pretty well,' returned Squeers with a grin.

'When you wrote to acknowledge the receipt of this trifle of money as
you call it,' said Ralph, 'you told me his friends had deserted him long
ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to tell you who he
was. Is that the truth?'

'It is, worse luck!' replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy and
familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the less
reserve. 'It's fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book, since a
strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and left him
there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in advance. He
might have been five or six year old at that time--not more.'

'What more do you know about him?' demanded Ralph.

'Devilish little, I'm sorry to say,' replied Squeers. 'The money was
paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped. He had given an
address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the point, of
course nobody knowed anything about him. So I kept the lad out of--out
of--'

'Charity?' suggested Ralph drily.

'Charity, to be sure,' returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, 'and when he
begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of
a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and
aggeravating part of the whole affair is,' said Squeers, dropping his
voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, 'that some questions
have been asked about him at last--not of me, but, in a roundabout kind
of way, of people in our village. So, that just when I might have had
all arrears paid up, perhaps, and perhaps--who knows? such things have
happened in our business before--a present besides for putting him out
to a farmer, or sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to
disgrace his parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our
boys are--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don't collar him in open
day, and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.'

'We will both cry quits with him before long,' said Ralph, laying his
hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster.

'Quits!' echoed Squeers. 'Ah! and I should like to leave a small balance
in his favour, to be settled when he can. I only wish Mrs Squeers could
catch hold of him. Bless her heart! She'd murder him, Mr Nickleby--she
would, as soon as eat her dinner.'

'We will talk of this again,' said Ralph. 'I must have time to think of
it. To wound him through his own affections and fancies--. If I could
strike him through this boy--'

'Strike him how you like, sir,' interrupted Squeers, 'only hit him hard
enough, that's all--and with that, I'll say good-morning. Here!--just
chuck that little boy's hat off that corner peg, and lift him off the
stool will you?'

Bawling these requests to Newman Noggs, Mr Squeers betook himself to the
little back-office, and fitted on his child's hat with parental anxiety,
while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on
his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a broad stare.

'He's a fine boy, an't he?' said Squeers, throwing his head a little
on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate the
proportions of little Wackford.

'Very,' said Newman.

'Pretty well swelled out, an't he?' pursued Squeers. 'He has the fatness
of twenty boys, he has.'

'Ah!' replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of Squeers,
'he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more! He's got it all. God help that
others. Ha! ha! Oh Lord!'

Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon his
desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity.

'Why, what does the man mean?' cried Squeers, colouring. 'Is he drunk?'

Newman made no reply.

'Is he mad?' said Squeers.

But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his
own; so, Mr Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both drunk
AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his hopeful son
away.

In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a struggling
and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of Nicholas
augmented. It might be, that to atone for the weakness of inclining to
any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other more intensely
than before; but such had been the course of his feelings. And now,
to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her in the worst and most
repulsive colours, to know that she was taught to hate and despise
him: to feel that there was infection in his touch, and taint in his
companionship--to know all this, and to know that the mover of it all
was that same boyish poor relation who had twitted him in their very
first interview, and openly bearded and braved him since, wrought his
quiet and stealthy malignity to such a pitch, that there was scarcely
anything he would not have hazarded to gratify it, if he could have seen
his way to some immediate retaliation.

But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although he
cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working on the
one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and business that
came with it, night found him at last, still harping on the same theme,
and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections.

'When my brother was such as he,' said Ralph, 'the first comparisons
were drawn between us--always in my disfavour. HE was open, liberal,
gallant, gay; I a crafty hunks of cold and stagnant blood, with no
passion but love of saving, and no spirit beyond a thirst for gain. I
recollected it well when I first saw this whipster; but I remember it
better now.'

He had been occupied in tearing Nicholas's letter into atoms; and as he
spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower about him.

'Recollections like these,' pursued Ralph, with a bitter smile, 'flock
upon me--when I resign myself to them--in crowds, and from countless
quarters. As a portion of the world affect to despise the power of
money, I must try and show them what it is.'

And being, by this time, in a pleasant frame of mind for slumber, Ralph
Nickleby went to bed.



CHAPTER 35

Smike becomes known to Mrs Nickleby and Kate. Nicholas also meets with
new Acquaintances. Brighter Days seem to dawn upon the Family


Having established his mother and sister in the apartments of the
kind-hearted miniature painter, and ascertained that Sir Mulberry Hawk
was in no danger of losing his life, Nicholas turned his thoughts to
poor Smike, who, after breakfasting with Newman Noggs, had remained, in
a disconsolate state, at that worthy creature's lodgings, waiting, with
much anxiety, for further intelligence of his protector.

'As he will be one of our own little household, wherever we live,
or whatever fortune is in reserve for us,' thought Nicholas, 'I must
present the poor fellow in due form. They will be kind to him for his
own sake, and if not (on that account solely) to the full extent I could
wish, they will stretch a point, I am sure, for mine.'

Nicholas said 'they', but his misgivings were confined to one person.
He was sure of Kate, but he knew his mother's peculiarities, and was
not quite so certain that Smike would find favour in the eyes of Mrs
Nickleby.

'However,' thought Nicholas as he departed on his benevolent errand;
'she cannot fail to become attached to him, when she knows what a
devoted creature he is, and as she must quickly make the discovery, his
probation will be a short one.'

'I was afraid,' said Smike, overjoyed to see his friend again, 'that you
had fallen into some fresh trouble; the time seemed so long, at last,
that I almost feared you were lost.'

'Lost!' replied Nicholas gaily. 'You will not be rid of me so easily,
I promise you. I shall rise to the surface many thousand times yet,
and the harder the thrust that pushes me down, the more quickly I shall
rebound, Smike. But come; my errand here is to take you home.'

'Home!' faltered Smike, drawing timidly back.

'Ay,' rejoined Nicholas, taking his arm. 'Why not?'

'I had such hopes once,' said Smike; 'day and night, day and night,
for many years. I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away with
grief, but now--'

'And what now?' asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face. 'What now,
old friend?'

'I could not part from you to go to any home on earth,' replied Smike,
pressing his hand; 'except one, except one. I shall never be an old man;
and if your hand placed me in the grave, and I could think, before I
died, that you would come and look upon it sometimes with one of your
kind smiles, and in the summer weather, when everything was alive--not
dead like me--I could go to that home almost without a tear.'

'Why do you talk thus, poor boy, if your life is a happy one with me?'
said Nicholas.

'Because I should change; not those about me. And if they forgot me,
I should never know it,' replied Smike. 'In the churchyard we are all
alike, but here there are none like me. I am a poor creature, but I know
that.'

'You are a foolish, silly creature,' said Nicholas cheerfully. 'If
that is what you mean, I grant you that. Why, here's a dismal face for
ladies' company!--my pretty sister too, whom you have so often asked me
about. Is this your Yorkshire gallantry? For shame! for shame!'

Smike brightened up and smiled.

'When I talk of home,' pursued Nicholas, 'I talk of mine--which is yours
of course. If it were defined by any particular four walls and a roof,
God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say whereabouts it lay;
but that is not what I mean. When I speak of home, I speak of the place
where--in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and
if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the
same good name notwithstanding. And now, for what is my present home,
which, however alarming your expectations may be, will neither terrify
you by its extent nor its magnificence!'

So saying, Nicholas took his companion by the arm, and saying a great
deal more to the same purpose, and pointing out various things to amuse
and interest him as they went along, led the way to Miss La Creevy's
house.

'And this, Kate,' said Nicholas, entering the room where his sister sat
alone, 'is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow-traveller whom I
prepared you to receive.'

Poor Smike was bashful, and awkward, and frightened enough, at first,
but Kate advanced towards him so kindly, and said, in such a sweet
voice, how anxious she had been to see him after all her brother
had told her, and how much she had to thank him for having comforted
Nicholas so greatly in their very trying reverses, that he began to be
very doubtful whether he should shed tears or not, and became still more
flurried. However, he managed to say, in a broken voice, that Nicholas
was his only friend, and that he would lay down his life to help him;
and Kate, although she was so kind and considerate, seemed to be so
wholly unconscious of his distress and embarrassment, that he recovered
almost immediately and felt quite at home.

Then, Miss La Creevy came in; and to her Smike had to be presented also.
And Miss La Creevy was very kind too, and wonderfully talkative: not to
Smike, for that would have made him uneasy at first, but to Nicholas and
his sister. Then, after a time, she would speak to Smike himself now and
then, asking him whether he was a judge of likenesses, and whether he
thought that picture in the corner was like herself, and whether he
didn't think it would have looked better if she had made herself ten
years younger, and whether he didn't think, as a matter of general
observation, that young ladies looked better not only in pictures, but
out of them too, than old ones; with many more small jokes and facetious
remarks, which were delivered with such good-humour and merriment, that
Smike thought, within himself, she was the nicest lady he had ever seen;
even nicer than Mrs Grudden, of Mr Vincent Crummles's theatre; and she
was a nice lady too, and talked, perhaps more, but certainly louder,
than Miss La Creevy.

At length the door opened again, and a lady in mourning came in; and
Nicholas kissing the lady in mourning affectionately, and calling her
his mother, led her towards the chair from which Smike had risen when
she entered the room.

'You are always kind-hearted, and anxious to help the oppressed, my dear
mother,' said Nicholas, 'so you will be favourably disposed towards him,
I know.'

'I am sure, my dear Nicholas,' replied Mrs Nickleby, looking very hard
at her new friend, and bending to him with something more of majesty
than the occasion seemed to require: 'I am sure any friend of yours
has, as indeed he naturally ought to have, and must have, of course, you
know, a great claim upon me, and of course, it is a very great pleasure
to me to be introduced to anybody you take an interest in. There can he
no doubt about that; none at all; not the least in the world,' said Mrs
Nickleby. 'At the same time I must say, Nicholas, my dear, as I used
to say to your poor dear papa, when he WOULD bring gentlemen home to
dinner, and there was nothing in the house, that if he had come the
day before yesterday--no, I don't mean the day before yesterday now;
I should have said, perhaps, the year before last--we should have been
better able to entertain him.'

With which remarks, Mrs Nickleby turned to her daughter, and inquired,
in an audible whisper, whether the gentleman was going to stop all
night.

'Because, if he is, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I don't see that
it's possible for him to sleep anywhere, and that's the truth.'

Kate stepped gracefully forward, and without any show of annoyance or
irritation, breathed a few words into her mother's ear.

'La, Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, shrinking back, 'how you do
tickle one! Of course, I understand THAT, my love, without your telling
me; and I said the same to Nicholas, and I AM very much pleased. You
didn't tell me, Nicholas, my dear,' added Mrs Nickleby, turning round
with an air of less reserve than she had before assumed, 'what your
friend's name is.'

'His name, mother,' replied Nicholas, 'is Smike.'

The effect of this communication was by no means anticipated; but the
name was no sooner pronounced, than Mrs Nickleby dropped upon a chair,
and burst into a fit of crying.

'What is the matter?' exclaimed Nicholas, running to support her.

'It's so like Pyke,' cried Mrs Nickleby; 'so exactly like Pyke. Oh!
don't speak to me--I shall be better presently.'

And after exhibiting every symptom of slow suffocation in all its
stages, and drinking about a tea-spoonful of water from a full tumbler,
and spilling the remainder, Mrs Nickleby WAS better, and remarked, with
a feeble smile, that she was very foolish, she knew.

'It's a weakness in our family,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'so, of course,
I can't be blamed for it. Your grandmama, Kate, was exactly the
same--precisely. The least excitement, the slightest surprise--she
fainted away directly. I have heard her say, often and often, that when
she was a young lady, and before she was married, she was turning
a corner into Oxford Street one day, when she ran against her own
hairdresser, who, it seems, was escaping from a bear;--the mere
suddenness of the encounter made her faint away directly. Wait, though,'
added Mrs Nickleby, pausing to consider. 'Let me be sure I'm right. Was
it her hairdresser who had escaped from a bear, or was it a bear who had
escaped from her hairdresser's? I declare I can't remember just now, but
the hairdresser was a very handsome man, I know, and quite a gentleman
in his manners; so that it has nothing to do with the point of the
story.'

Mrs Nickleby having fallen imperceptibly into one of her retrospective
moods, improved in temper from that moment, and glided, by an easy
change of the conversation occasionally, into various other anecdotes,
no less remarkable for their strict application to the subject in hand.

'Mr Smike is from Yorkshire, Nicholas, my dear?' said Mrs Nickleby,
after dinner, and when she had been silent for some time.

'Certainly, mother,' replied Nicholas. 'I see you have not forgotten his
melancholy history.'

'O dear no,' cried Mrs Nickleby. 'Ah! melancholy, indeed. You don't
happen, Mr Smike, ever to have dined with the Grimbles of Grimble Hall,
somewhere in the North Riding, do you?' said the good lady, addressing
herself to him. 'A very proud man, Sir Thomas Grimble, with six grown-up
and most lovely daughters, and the finest park in the county.'