The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby

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While the foregoing conversation was proceeding, Master Wackford,
finding himself unnoticed, and feeling his preponderating inclinations
strong upon him, had by little and little sidled up to the table and
attacked the food with such slight skirmishing as drawing his fingers
round and round the inside of the plates, and afterwards sucking them
with infinite relish; picking the bread, and dragging the pieces over
the surface of the butter; pocketing lumps of sugar, pretending all
the time to be absorbed in thought; and so forth. Finding that no
interference was attempted with these small liberties, he gradually
mounted to greater, and, after helping himself to a moderately good cold
collation, was, by this time, deep in the pie.

Nothing of this had been unobserved by Mr Squeers, who, so long as the
attention of the company was fixed upon other objects, hugged himself to
think that his son and heir should be fattening at the enemy's expense.
But there being now an appearance of a temporary calm, in which the
proceedings of little Wackford could scarcely fail to be observed,
he feigned to be aware of the circumstance for the first time, and
inflicted upon the face of that young gentleman a slap that made the
very tea-cups ring.

'Eating!' cried Mr Squeers, 'of what his father's enemies has left! It's
fit to go and poison you, you unnat'ral boy.'

'It wean't hurt him,' said John, apparently very much relieved by the
prospect of having a man in the quarrel; 'let' un eat. I wish the whole
school was here. I'd give'em soom'at to stay their unfort'nate stomachs
wi', if I spent the last penny I had!'

Squeers scowled at him with the worst and most malicious expression of
which his face was capable--it was a face of remarkable capability, too,
in that way--and shook his fist stealthily.

'Coom, coom, schoolmeasther,' said John, 'dinnot make a fool o' thyself;
for if I was to sheake mine--only once--thou'd fa' doon wi' the wind o'
it.'

'It was you, was it,' returned Squeers, 'that helped off my runaway boy?
It was you, was it?'

'Me!' returned John, in a loud tone. 'Yes, it wa' me, coom; wa'at o'
that? It wa' me. Noo then!'

'You hear him say he did it, my child!' said Squeers, appealing to his
daughter. 'You hear him say he did it!'

'Did it!' cried John. 'I'll tell 'ee more; hear this, too. If thou'd
got another roonaway boy, I'd do it agean. If thou'd got twonty roonaway
boys, I'd do it twonty times ower, and twonty more to thot; and I
tell thee more,' said John, 'noo my blood is oop, that thou'rt an old
ra'ascal; and that it's weel for thou, thou be'est an old 'un, or I'd
ha' poonded thee to flour when thou told an honest mun hoo thou'd licked
that poor chap in t' coorch.'

'An honest man!' cried Squeers, with a sneer.

'Ah! an honest man,' replied John; 'honest in ought but ever putting
legs under seame table wi' such as thou.'

'Scandal!' said Squeers, exultingly. 'Two witnesses to it; Wackford
knows the nature of an oath, he does; we shall have you there, sir.
Rascal, eh?' Mr Squeers took out his pocketbook and made a note of it.
'Very good. I should say that was worth full twenty pound at the next
assizes, without the honesty, sir.'

''Soizes,' cried John, 'thou'd betther not talk to me o' 'Soizes.
Yorkshire schools have been shown up at 'Soizes afore noo, mun, and it's
a ticklish soobjact to revive, I can tell ye.'

Mr Squeers shook his head in a threatening manner, looking very white
with passion; and taking his daughter's arm, and dragging little
Wackford by the hand, retreated towards the door.

'As for you,' said Squeers, turning round and addressing Nicholas,
who, as he had caused him to smart pretty soundly on a former occasion,
purposely abstained from taking any part in the discussion, 'see if I
ain't down upon you before long. You'll go a kidnapping of boys, will
you? Take care their fathers don't turn up--mark that--take care their
fathers don't turn up, and send 'em back to me to do as I like with, in
spite of you.'

'I am not afraid of that,' replied Nicholas, shrugging his shoulders
contemptuously, and turning away.

'Ain't you!' retorted Squeers, with a diabolical look. 'Now then, come
along.'

'I leave such society, with my pa, for Hever,' said Miss Squeers,
looking contemptuously and loftily round. 'I am defiled by breathing
the air with such creatures. Poor Mr Browdie! He! he! he! I do pity him,
that I do; he's so deluded. He! he! he!--Artful and designing 'Tilda!'

With this sudden relapse into the sternest and most majestic wrath, Miss
Squeers swept from the room; and having sustained her dignity until the
last possible moment, was heard to sob and scream and struggle in the
passage.

John Browdie remained standing behind the table, looking from his wife
to Nicholas, and back again, with his mouth wide open, until his hand
accidentally fell upon the tankard of ale, when he took it up, and
having obscured his features therewith for some time, drew a long
breath, handed it over to Nicholas, and rang the bell.

'Here, waither,' said John, briskly. 'Look alive here. Tak' these things
awa', and let's have soomat broiled for sooper--vary comfortable and
plenty o' it--at ten o'clock. Bring soom brandy and soom wather, and a
pair o' slippers--the largest pair in the house--and be quick aboot it.
Dash ma wig!' said John, rubbing his hands, 'there's no ganging oot to
neeght, noo, to fetch anybody whoam, and ecod, we'll begin to spend the
evening in airnest.'



CHAPTER 43

Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various People
together


The storm had long given place to a calm the most profound, and the
evening was pretty far advanced--indeed supper was over, and the
process of digestion proceeding as favourably as, under the influence of
complete tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and a moderate allowance
of brandy-and-water, most wise men conversant with the anatomy and
functions of the human frame will consider that it ought to have
proceeded, when the three friends, or as one might say, both in a civil
and religious sense, and with proper deference and regard to the holy
state of matrimony, the two friends, (Mr and Mrs Browdie counting as
no more than one,) were startled by the noise of loud and angry
threatenings below stairs, which presently attained so high a pitch,
and were conveyed besides in language so towering, sanguinary, and
ferocious, that it could hardly have been surpassed, if there had
actually been a Saracen's head then present in the establishment,
supported on the shoulders and surmounting the trunk of a real, live,
furious, and most unappeasable Saracen.

This turmoil, instead of quickly subsiding after the first outburst,
(as turmoils not unfrequently do, whether in taverns, legislative
assemblies, or elsewhere,) into a mere grumbling and growling squabble,
increased every moment; and although the whole din appeared to be
raised by but one pair of lungs, yet that one pair was of so powerful
a quality, and repeated such words as 'scoundrel,' 'rascal,' 'insolent
puppy,' and a variety of expletives no less flattering to the party
addressed, with such great relish and strength of tone, that a dozen
voices raised in concert under any ordinary circumstances would have
made far less uproar and created much smaller consternation.

'Why, what's the matter?' said Nicholas, moving hastily towards the
door.

John Browdie was striding in the same direction when Mrs Browdie turned
pale, and, leaning back in her chair, requested him with a faint voice
to take notice, that if he ran into any danger it was her intention to
fall into hysterics immediately, and that the consequences might be more
serious than he thought for. John looked rather disconcerted by this
intelligence, though there was a lurking grin on his face at the same
time; but, being quite unable to keep out of the fray, he compromised
the matter by tucking his wife's arm under his own, and, thus
accompanied, following Nicholas downstairs with all speed.

The passage outside the coffee-room door was the scene of disturbance,
and here were congregated the coffee-room customers and waiters,
together with two or three coachmen and helpers from the yard. These had
hastily assembled round a young man who from his appearance might have
been a year or two older than Nicholas, and who, besides having given
utterance to the defiances just now described, seemed to have proceeded
to even greater lengths in his indignation, inasmuch as his feet had no
other covering than a pair of stockings, while a couple of slippers lay
at no great distance from the head of a prostrate figure in an opposite
corner, who bore the appearance of having been shot into his present
retreat by means of a kick, and complimented by having the slippers
flung about his ears afterwards.

The coffee-room customers, and the waiters, and the coachmen, and the
helpers--not to mention a barmaid who was looking on from behind an
open sash window--seemed at that moment, if a spectator might judge from
their winks, nods, and muttered exclamations, strongly disposed to take
part against the young gentleman in the stockings. Observing this, and
that the young gentleman was nearly of his own age and had in nothing
the appearance of an habitual brawler, Nicholas, impelled by such
feelings as will influence young men sometimes, felt a very strong
disposition to side with the weaker party, and so thrust himself at once
into the centre of the group, and in a more emphatic tone, perhaps, than
circumstances might seem to warrant, demanded what all that noise was
about.

'Hallo!' said one of the men from the yard, 'this is somebody in
disguise, this is.'

'Room for the eldest son of the Emperor of Roosher, gen'l'men!' cried
another fellow.

Disregarding these sallies, which were uncommonly well received, as
sallies at the expense of the best-dressed persons in a crowd usually
are, Nicholas glanced carelessly round, and addressing the young
gentleman, who had by this time picked up his slippers and thrust his
feet into them, repeated his inquiries with a courteous air.

'A mere nothing!' he replied.

At this a murmur was raised by the lookers-on, and some of the boldest
cried, 'Oh, indeed!--Wasn't it though?--Nothing, eh?--He called that
nothing, did he? Lucky for him if he found it nothing.' These and many
other expressions of ironical disapprobation having been exhausted, two
or three of the out-of-door fellows began to hustle Nicholas and the
young gentleman who had made the noise: stumbling against them by
accident, and treading on their toes, and so forth. But this being a
round game, and one not necessarily limited to three or four players,
was open to John Browdie too, who, bursting into the little crowd--to
the great terror of his wife--and falling about in all directions,
now to the right, now to the left, now forwards, now backwards, and
accidentally driving his elbow through the hat of the tallest helper,
who had been particularly active, speedily caused the odds to wear a
very different appearance; while more than one stout fellow limped away
to a respectful distance, anathematising with tears in his eyes the
heavy tread and ponderous feet of the burly Yorkshireman.

'Let me see him do it again,' said he who had been kicked into the
corner, rising as he spoke, apparently more from the fear of John
Browdie's inadvertently treading upon him, than from any desire to place
himself on equal terms with his late adversary. 'Let me see him do it
again. That's all.'

'Let me hear you make those remarks again,' said the young man, 'and
I'll knock that head of yours in among the wine-glasses behind you
there.'

Here a waiter who had been rubbing his hands in excessive enjoyment
of the scene, so long as only the breaking of heads was in question,
adjured the spectators with great earnestness to fetch the police,
declaring that otherwise murder would be surely done, and that he was
responsible for all the glass and china on the premises.

'No one need trouble himself to stir,' said the young gentleman, 'I am
going to remain in the house all night, and shall be found here in the
morning if there is any assault to answer for.'

'What did you strike him for?' asked one of the bystanders.

'Ah! what did you strike him for?' demanded the others.

The unpopular gentleman looked coolly round, and addressing himself to
Nicholas, said:

'You inquired just now what was the matter here. The matter is simply
this. Yonder person, who was drinking with a friend in the coffee-room
when I took my seat there for half an hour before going to bed, (for I
have just come off a journey, and preferred stopping here tonight, to
going home at this hour, where I was not expected until tomorrow,) chose
to express himself in very disrespectful, and insolently familiar
terms, of a young lady, whom I recognised from his description and other
circumstances, and whom I have the honour to know. As he spoke loud
enough to be overheard by the other guests who were present, I informed
him most civilly that he was mistaken in his conjectures, which were
of an offensive nature, and requested him to forbear. He did so for a
little time, but as he chose to renew his conversation when leaving the
room, in a more offensive strain than before, I could not refrain
from making after him, and facilitating his departure by a kick, which
reduced him to the posture in which you saw him just now. I am the
best judge of my own affairs, I take it,' said the young man, who had
certainly not quite recovered from his recent heat; 'if anybody here
thinks proper to make this quarrel his own, I have not the smallest
earthly objection, I do assure him.'

Of all possible courses of proceeding under the circumstances detailed,
there was certainly not one which, in his then state of mind, could
have appeared more laudable to Nicholas than this. There were not many
subjects of dispute which at that moment could have come home to his
own breast more powerfully, for having the unknown uppermost in his
thoughts, it naturally occurred to him that he would have done just the
same if any audacious gossiper durst have presumed in his hearing to
speak lightly of her. Influenced by these considerations, he espoused
the young gentleman's quarrel with great warmth, protesting that he had
done quite right, and that he respected him for it; which John Browdie
(albeit not quite clear as to the merits) immediately protested too,
with not inferior vehemence.

'Let him take care, that's all,' said the defeated party, who was being
rubbed down by a waiter, after his recent fall on the dusty boards. 'He
don't knock me about for nothing, I can tell him that. A pretty state of
things, if a man isn't to admire a handsome girl without being beat to
pieces for it!'

This reflection appeared to have great weight with the young lady in
the bar, who (adjusting her cap as she spoke, and glancing at a mirror)
declared that it would be a very pretty state of things indeed; and that
if people were to be punished for actions so innocent and natural as
that, there would be more people to be knocked down than there would
be people to knock them down, and that she wondered what the gentleman
meant by it, that she did.

'My dear girl,' said the young gentleman in a low voice, advancing
towards the sash window.

'Nonsense, sir!' replied the young lady sharply, smiling though as she
turned aside, and biting her lip, (whereat Mrs Browdie, who was still
standing on the stairs, glanced at her with disdain, and called to her
husband to come away).

'No, but listen to me,' said the young man. 'If admiration of a pretty
face were criminal, I should be the most hopeless person alive, for I
cannot resist one. It has the most extraordinary effect upon me, checks
and controls me in the most furious and obstinate mood. You see what an
effect yours has had upon me already.'

'Oh, that's very pretty,' replied the young lady, tossing her head,
'but--'

'Yes, I know it's very pretty,' said the young man, looking with an air
of admiration in the barmaid's face; 'I said so, you know, just this
moment. But beauty should be spoken of respectfully--respectfully, and
in proper terms, and with a becoming sense of its worth and excellence,
whereas this fellow has no more notion--'

The young lady interrupted the conversation at this point, by thrusting
her head out of the bar-window, and inquiring of the waiter in a shrill
voice whether that young man who had been knocked down was going to
stand in the passage all night, or whether the entrance was to be left
clear for other people. The waiters taking the hint, and communicating
it to the hostlers, were not slow to change their tone too, and the
result was, that the unfortunate victim was bundled out in a twinkling.

'I am sure I have seen that fellow before,' said Nicholas.

'Indeed!' replied his new acquaintance.

'I am certain of it,' said Nicholas, pausing to reflect. 'Where can I
have--stop!--yes, to be sure--he belongs to a register-office up at the
west end of the town. I knew I recollected the face.'

It was, indeed, Tom, the ugly clerk.

'That's odd enough!' said Nicholas, ruminating upon the strange manner
in which the register-office seemed to start up and stare him in the
face every now and then, and when he least expected it.

'I am much obliged to you for your kind advocacy of my cause when it
most needed an advocate,' said the young man, laughing, and drawing a
card from his pocket. 'Perhaps you'll do me the favour to let me know
where I can thank you.'

Nicholas took the card, and glancing at it involuntarily as he returned
the compliment, evinced very great surprise.

'Mr Frank Cheeryble!' said Nicholas. 'Surely not the nephew of Cheeryble
Brothers, who is expected tomorrow!'

'I don't usually call myself the nephew of the firm,' returned Mr Frank,
good-humouredly; 'but of the two excellent individuals who compose it,
I am proud to say I AM the nephew. And you, I see, are Mr Nickleby, of
whom I have heard so much! This is a most unexpected meeting, but not
the less welcome, I assure you.'

Nicholas responded to these compliments with others of the same kind,
and they shook hands warmly. Then he introduced John Browdie, who had
remained in a state of great admiration ever since the young lady in
the bar had been so skilfully won over to the right side. Then Mrs John
Browdie was introduced, and finally they all went upstairs together
and spent the next half-hour with great satisfaction and mutual
entertainment; Mrs John Browdie beginning the conversation by
declaring that of all the made-up things she ever saw, that young woman
below-stairs was the vainest and the plainest.

This Mr Frank Cheeryble, although, to judge from what had recently taken
place, a hot-headed young man (which is not an absolute miracle and
phenomenon in nature), was a sprightly, good-humoured, pleasant fellow,
with much both in his countenance and disposition that reminded Nicholas
very strongly of the kind-hearted brothers. His manner was as unaffected
as theirs, and his demeanour full of that heartiness which, to most
people who have anything generous in their composition, is peculiarly
prepossessing. Add to this, that he was good-looking and intelligent,
had a plentiful share of vivacity, was extremely cheerful, and
accommodated himself in five minutes' time to all John Browdie's
oddities with as much ease as if he had known him from a boy; and it
will be a source of no great wonder that, when they parted for the
night, he had produced a most favourable impression, not only upon the
worthy Yorkshireman and his wife, but upon Nicholas also, who, revolving
all these things in his mind as he made the best of his way home,
arrived at the conclusion that he had laid the foundation of a most
agreeable and desirable acquaintance.

'But it's a most extraordinary thing about that register-office fellow!'
thought Nicholas. 'Is it likely that this nephew can know anything about
that beautiful girl? When Tim Linkinwater gave me to understand the
other day that he was coming to take a share in the business here, he
said he had been superintending it in Germany for four years, and that
during the last six months he had been engaged in establishing an agency
in the north of England. That's four years and a half--four years and a
half. She can't be more than seventeen--say eighteen at the outside. She
was quite a child when he went away, then. I should say he knew nothing
about her and had never seen her, so HE can give me no information. At
all events,' thought Nicholas, coming to the real point in his mind,
'there can be no danger of any prior occupation of her affections in
that quarter; that's quite clear.'

Is selfishness a necessary ingredient in the composition of that passion
called love, or does it deserve all the fine things which poets, in the
exercise of their undoubted vocation, have said of it? There are, no
doubt, authenticated instances of gentlemen having given up ladies
and ladies having given up gentlemen to meritorious rivals, under
circumstances of great high-mindedness; but is it quite established
that the majority of such ladies and gentlemen have not made a virtue of
necessity, and nobly resigned what was beyond their reach; as a private
soldier might register a vow never to accept the order of the Garter, or
a poor curate of great piety and learning, but of no family--save a very
large family of children--might renounce a bishopric?

Here was Nicholas Nickleby, who would have scorned the thought of
counting how the chances stood of his rising in favour or fortune with
the brothers Cheeryble, now that their nephew had returned, already deep
in calculations whether that same nephew was likely to rival him in the
affections of the fair unknown--discussing the matter with himself too,
as gravely as if, with that one exception, it were all settled; and
recurring to the subject again and again, and feeling quite indignant
and ill-used at the notion of anybody else making love to one with
whom he had never exchanged a word in all his life. To be sure, he
exaggerated rather than depreciated the merits of his new acquaintance;
but still he took it as a kind of personal offence that he should have
any merits at all--in the eyes of this particular young lady, that is;
for elsewhere he was quite welcome to have as many as he pleased. There
was undoubted selfishness in all this, and yet Nicholas was of a most
free and generous nature, with as few mean or sordid thoughts, perhaps,
as ever fell to the lot of any man; and there is no reason to suppose
that, being in love, he felt and thought differently from other people
in the like sublime condition.

He did not stop to set on foot an inquiry into his train of thought or
state of feeling, however; but went thinking on all the way home,
and continued to dream on in the same strain all night. For, having
satisfied himself that Frank Cheeryble could have no knowledge of, or
acquaintance with, the mysterious young lady, it began to occur to him
that even he himself might never see her again; upon which hypothesis he
built up a very ingenious succession of tormenting ideas which answered
his purpose even better than the vision of Mr Frank Cheeryble, and
tantalised and worried him, waking and sleeping.

Notwithstanding all that has been said and sung to the contrary,
there is no well-established case of morning having either deferred
or hastened its approach by the term of an hour or so for the mere
gratification of a splenetic feeling against some unoffending lover:
the sun having, in the discharge of his public duty, as the books
of precedent report, invariably risen according to the almanacs, and
without suffering himself to be swayed by any private considerations.
So, morning came as usual, and with it business-hours, and with them Mr
Frank Cheeryble, and with him a long train of smiles and welcomes from
the worthy brothers, and a more grave and clerk-like, but scarcely less
hearty reception from Mr Timothy Linkinwater.

'That Mr Frank and Mr Nickleby should have met last night,' said
Tim Linkinwater, getting slowly off his stool, and looking round the
counting-house with his back planted against the desk, as was his custom
when he had anything very particular to say: 'that those two young men
should have met last night in that manner is, I say, a coincidence, a
remarkable coincidence. Why, I don't believe now,' added Tim, taking off
his spectacles, and smiling as with gentle pride, 'that there's such a
place in all the world for coincidences as London is!'

'I don't know about that,' said Mr Frank; 'but--'

'Don't know about it, Mr Francis!' interrupted Tim, with an obstinate
air. 'Well, but let us know. If there is any better place for such
things, where is it? Is it in Europe? No, that it isn't. Is it in Asia?
Why, of course it's not. Is it in Africa? Not a bit of it. Is it in
America? YOU know better than that, at all events. Well, then,' said
Tim, folding his arms resolutely, 'where is it?'