Part 1 (2/2)

'Fiddle,' said Mrs Nickleby

'I aether sure of that, my dear,' said Mr Nickleby

'There's Nicholas,' pursued the lady, 'quite a youngfor hiirl, 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, a of their cards at first starting; gains MAY be great-and so ainst Mr Nickleby A mania prevailed, a bubble burst, four stock-brokers took villa residences at Florence, four hundred nobodies were ruined, and ahed the poor gentleman, 'may be taken from me tomorrow Not an article of ers!'

The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his bed; apparently resolved to keep that, at all events

'Cheer up, sir!' said the apothecary

'You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir,' said the nurse

'Such things happen every day,' reainst theyht to do,' added the neighbours

Mr Nickleby shook his head, andthem all out of the roo pressed the heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow They were concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for he babbled, for a long tioodness of his brother, and the ether This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them to One who never deserted theor her fatherless children, and, sently on theht he could fall asleep

CHAPTER 2

Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishreat Joint Stock Company of vast national I, what you would call a merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special pleader, nor a notary He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less could he lay any claientlenised profession to which he belonged Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in Golden Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door, had another brass plate two sizes and a half s a brassthe word 'Office,' it was clear that Mr Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was abundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of half-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty broho sat upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the end of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he answered the bell

Although a few raver professions live about Golden Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere It is one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlereat resort of foreigners The dark-couards, 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 fro-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening tienius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square On a suroups of swarthyat the caseruff voices practising vocal 's silence; and the fuars, and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supre and smoke Street bands are on their ers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries

This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of business; but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for many years, and uttered no complaint on that score He knew nobody round about, and nobody knew hi immensely rich The tradeshbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; both of which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about other people's affairs usually are, or need to be

Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one reen spencer over a blue coat; a white waistcoat, grey ton boots drawn over theled out, as if insisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button of his spencer; and the latter garold watch-chain, co at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr Nickleby's pocket, and its ter to the watch itself, and the other to so of powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his countenance also, for there was so in its very wrinkles, and in his cold restless eye, which see that would announce itself in spite of hiht be, there he was; and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the eyes, had the sood or bad, upon anybody just then, and are consequently no business of ours just now

Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing hiazed with an air of abstraction through the dirtySoround behind theh ashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, fro forth a few leaves late in autu in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and s season, when it repeats the saenial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches People soardens'; it is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of unreclaiinal brick-field Noit to any account A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first oes away again: the da towith the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about-a prey to 'blacks' and dirt

It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat with his hands in his pockets looking out of theHe had fixed his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by soreen, and left there, years before, to rot away piece in the object, but Mr Nickleby rapt in a brown study, and sat contereater attention than, in a ned to bestow upon the rarest exotic At length, his eyes wandered to a little dirtyon the left, through which the face of the clerk was di to look up, he beckoned hiot off the high stool (to which he had cos off and on), and presented hie, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep thes?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp and grating voice

'Notto add public-house clock, but recollecting hiular time'

'My watch has stopped,' said Mr Nickleby; 'I don't know fros

'Yes it is,' said Mr Nickleby

'Over-wound then,' rejoined Noggs

'That can't very well be,' observed Mr Nickleby

'Must be,' said Noggs

'Well!' said Mr Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket; 'perhaps it is'

Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all disputes with his s) triumphed; and (as he rarely spoke to anybody unless sorim 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 coid look to his unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody to deter the nus, which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight

'I a,' said Mr Nickleby

'Public s

Mr Nickleby nodded 'I expect a letter froe 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 ti Cross on the left-hand side of the way; if there are any letters, cos nodded; and as he nodded, there ca at the office bell The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly res, as though in explanation 'At home?'

'Yes'

'To anybody?'

'Yes'

'To the tax-gatherer?'

'No! Let hirunt, asrepeated, went to the door, whence he presently returned, ushering in, by the naentlereat disorder all over his head, and a very narrohite cravat tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed hientle 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 threeI have seen two of theht, has just gone home to put a clean shi+rt on, and take a bottle or two of soda water, and will certainly be with us, in tiht, but never er for it'

'It seems to promise pretty well,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, whose deliberate ly opposed to the vivacity of the other man of business

'Pretty well!' echoed Mr Bonney 'It's the finest idea that was ever started ”United Metropolitan I and Punctual Delivery Company Capital, five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each” Why the very naet the shares up to a premium in ten days'

'And when they ARE at a pre

'When they are, you knohat to do with them as well as any ht ti the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder 'By-the-bye, what a VERY remarkable man that clerk of yours is'