Chapter 27

Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

Mrs Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, 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 Mulberry Castle, North
Wales, to Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby,
Esquire, of Devonshire. 'Upon my word!' cried Mrs Nicholas Nickleby,
'it sounds very well.'

Having dispatched 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 brilliant
sphere. She would be presented at court, of course. On the
anniversary of her birthday, 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 return them three and a half per cent on the amount of their
last half-year's rent, as would be fully described and recorded in
the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight and
admiration of all the readers thereof. Kate's picture, too, would be
in at least half-a-dozen of the annuals, and on the opposite page
would appear, in delicate type, 'Lines on contemplating the Portrait
of Lady Mulberry Hawk. By Sir Dingleby Dabber.' Perhaps some one
annual, of more comprehensive design than its fellows, might even
contain a portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines by
the father of Sir Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come to
pass. Less interesting portraits had appeared. As this thought
occurred to the good lady, her countenance unconsciously assumed that
compound expression of simpering and sleepiness which, being common
to all such portraits, is perhaps one reason why they are always so
charming and agreeable.

With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs Nickleby
occupy the whole evening after her accidental introduction 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
announced that two gentlemen were waiting in the passage for
permission to walk upstairs.

'Bless my heart!' cried Mrs Nickleby, hastily arranging her cap
and front, 'if it should be--dear me, standing in the passage all
this time--why don't you go and ask them to walk up, you stupid
thing?'

While the girl was gone on this errand, Mrs Nickleby hastily
swept into a cupboard all vestiges of eating and drinking; which she
had scarcely done, and seated herself with looks as collected as she
could assume, when two gentlemen, both perfect strangers, presented
themselves.

'How do you do?' said one gentleman, laying great stress on the
last word of the inquiry.

'How do you do?' said the other gentleman, altering the
emphasis, as if to give variety to the salutation.

Mrs Nickleby 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 gentleman. 'The loss has been
ours, Mrs Nickleby. Has the loss been ours, Pyke?'

'It has, Pluck,' answered the other gentleman.

'We have regretted it very often, I believe, Pyke?' said the
first gentleman.

'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 happiness, Pyke, or have we not?'

'You know we have, Pluck,' said Pyke, reproachfully.

'You hear him, ma'am?' said Mr Pluck, looking round; 'you hear
the unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke--that reminds me,--
formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilised society.
Pyke--Mrs Nickleby.'

Mr Pyke laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed low.

'Whether I shall introduce myself with the same formality,' said
Mr Pluck--'whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or
whether I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly
introduced, is competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs
Nickleby, that my name is Pluck; whether I shall claim your
acquaintance on the plain ground of the strong interest I take in
your welfare, or whether I shall make myself known to you as the
friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk-- these, Mrs Nickleby, are considerations
which I leave to you to determine.'

'Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk's requires no better
introduction to me,' observed Mrs Nickleby, graciously.

'It is delightful to hear you say so,' said Mr Pluck, drawing a
chair close to Mrs Nickleby, and sitting himself down. 'It is
refreshing to know that you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mulberry,
in such high esteem. A word in your ear, Mrs Nickleby. When Sir
Mulberry knows it, he will be a happy man--I say, Mrs Nickleby, a
happy man. Pyke, be seated.'

'My good opinion,' said Mrs Nickleby, 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
consequence to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is the good opinion of Mrs
Nickleby?'

'Of what consequence?' echoed Pyke.

'Ay,' repeated Pluck; 'is it of the greatest consequence?'

'Of the very greatest consequence,' replied Pyke.

'Mrs Nickleby cannot be ignorant,' said Mr Pluck, 'of the
immense impression which that sweet girl has--'

'Pluck!' said his friend, 'beware!'

'Pyke is right,' muttered Mr Pluck, after a short pause; 'I was
not to mention it. Pyke is very right. Thank you, Pyke.'

'Well now, really,' thought Mrs Nickleby within herself. 'Such
delicacy as that, I never saw!'

Mr Pluck, after feigning to be in a condition of great
embarrassment for some minutes, resumed the conversation by
entreating Mrs Nickleby to take no heed of what he had inadvertently
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 the 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
Nickleby, '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 Nickleby, 'I think it was in the year
eighteen hundred and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine,
and--yes, eighteen hundred and seventeen, that I 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 pound of
salt, and sixpen'orth of the finest bran, and sit with your head in
it for twenty minutes every night just before going to bed; at least,
I don't mean your head--your feet. It's a most extraordinary cure--a
most 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 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 recovered it, isn't it, Pluck?' cried Mr Pyke.

'That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling
interest,' replied Mr Pluck.

'But come,' said Pyke, as if suddenly recollecting himself; 'we
must not forget our mission in the pleasure of this interview. We
come on a mission, Mrs Nickleby.'

'On a mission,' exclaimed that good lady, to whose mind a
definite proposal of marriage for Kate at once presented itself in
lively 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
entreaties that you'll take a seat in a private box at the play
tonight,' said Mr Pluck.

'Oh dear!' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I never go out at all, never.'

'And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs Nickleby, why you
should go out tonight,' 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 excellent gentleman, lowering
his voice, 'there is the most trifling, the most excusable 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 of 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 conquest--a conquest on which I may
congratulate 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?' asked Mr Pluck.

'It is the face, the countenance, the expression,' cried Mr
Pyke, falling into his chair with a miniature in his hand; 'feebly
portrayed, imperfectly caught, but still the face, the countenance,
the expression.'

'I recognise it at this distance!' exclaimed Mr Pluck in a fit
of enthusiasm. 'Is it not, my 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 Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his
conjecture, than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of
the divine original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the
picture a thousand times, while Mr Pluck pressed Mrs Nickleby's hand
to his heart, and congratulated her on the possession of such a
daughter, with so much earnestness and affection, that the tears
stood, or seemed to stand, in his eyes. Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had
listened in a state of enviable complacency at first, became at
length quite overpowered by these tokens of regard for, and
attachment to, the family; and even the servant girl, who had peeped
in at the door, remained rooted to the spot in astonishment at the
ecstasies of the two friendly visitors.

By degrees these raptures subsided, and Mrs Nickleby went on to
entertain her guests with a lament over her fallen fortunes, and a
picturesque account of her old house in the country: comprising a
full description of the different apartments, not forgetting the
little store-room, and a lively recollection of how many steps you
went down to get into the garden, and which way you turned when you
came out at the 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
implements had not, by an association of ideas, instantly reminded Mr
Pyke that he was 'amazing thirsty.'

'And I'll tell you what,' said Mr Pyke; 'if you'll send round to
the public-house for a pot of milk 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
condescension of the two, and the aptitude with which they
accommodated themselves to the pewter-pot; in explanation of which
seeming marvel it may be here observed, that gentlemen who, like
Messrs Pyke and Pluck, live upon their wits (or not so much, perhaps,
upon the presence of their own wits as upon the absence of wits in
other people) are occasionally reduced to very narrow shifts and
straits, and are at such periods accustomed to regale themselves in a
very simple and primitive manner.

'At twenty minutes before seven, then,' said Mr Pyke, 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 remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so
many changes of expression--'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-sightedness as she did
that day. She had found it all out the night before. She had never
seen Sir Mulberry and Kate together--never even heard Sir Mulberry's
name--and yet hadn't she said to herself from the 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 proofs, 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 uneasiness 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 consideration she rejected the idea
of taking the little portrait painter into her confidence, and
contented herself with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes
of preferment to the servant girl, who received these obscure hints
of dawning greatness with much veneration and respect.

Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no
hackney coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman,
whose legs, although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere
abstract legs, have set themselves up for models at the Royal
Academy. It was quite exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with
which he banged the door and jumped up behind after Mrs Nickleby was
in; and as that good lady was perfectly unconscious that he applied
the gold-headed end of his long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed
most disrespectfully to the coachman over her very head, she sat in a
state of much stiffness and dignity, not a little proud of her
position.

At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle,
and there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to
her box; and so polite were they, that Mr Pyke threatened with many
oaths to 'smifligate' a very old man with a lantern who accidentally
stumbled in her way--to the great terror of Mrs Nickleby, who,
conjecturing more from Mr Pyke's excitement than any previous
acquaintance with the etymology of the word that smifligation and
bloodshed must be in the main one and the same thing, was alarmed
beyond expression, lest something should occur. Fortunately,
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 armchair, when Sir Mulberry 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 unsteady upon their legs, Mrs
Nickleby justly concluded that they had taken dinner.

'We have been--we have been--toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs
Nickleby,' whispered Sir Mulberry, sitting down behind her.

'Oh, 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
tonight.'

'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 I am.'

'I am sure you can't be selfish, Sir Mulberry!' replied Mrs
Nickleby. 'You have much too open and generous 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 which 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 together that they had found that out long ago; upon which
Mrs Nickleby tittered, and Sir Mulberry laughed, and Pyke and Pluck
roared.

'But where's my brother-in-law, Sir Mulberry?' inquired Mrs
Nickleby. 'I shouldn't be here without him. I hope he's coming.'

'Pyke,' said Sir Mulberry, taking out his toothpick and lolling
back in his chair, as if he were too lazy to invent a reply to this
question. 'Where's Ralph Nickleby?'

'Pluck,' said Pyke, imitating the baronet's action, and turning
the lie over to his friend, 'where's Ralph Nickleby?'

Mr Pluck was about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle
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 character of a most attentive listener, and
implored his friends not to breathe--not to breathe.

'Why not?' said Mrs Nickleby. 'What is the matter?'

'Hush!' replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm. 'Lord
Frederick, do you recognise the tones of that voice?'

'Deyvle take me if I didn't think it was the voice of Miss
Nickleby.'

'Lor, my lord!' cried Miss Nickleby's mama, thrusting her head
round the curtain. 'Why actually--Kate, my dear, Kate.'

'You here, mama! Is it possible!'

'Possible, my dear? Yes.'

'Why who--who on earth is that you have with you, mama?' said
Kate, shrinking back as she caught sight of a man smiling and kissing
his hand.

'Who do you suppose, my dear?' replied Mrs Nickleby, bending
towards Mrs Wititterly, and speaking a little louder for that lady's
edification. 'There's Mr Pyke, Mr Pluck, Sir Mulberry Hawk, and Lord
Frederick Verisopht.'

'Gracious Heaven!' thought Kate hurriedly. 'How comes she in
such society?'

Now, Kate thought thus so hurriedly, and the surprise was so
great, and moreover brought back so forcibly the recollection of what
had passed at Ralph's delectable dinner, that she turned extremely
pale and appeared greatly agitated, which symptoms being observed by
Mrs Nickleby, were at once set down by that acute lady as being
caused and occasioned by violent love. But, although she was in no
small degree delighted by this discovery, 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 Nickleby, kissing her daughter
affectionately. 'How ill you looked a moment ago! You quite
frightened me, I declare!'

'It was mere fancy, mama,--the--the--reflection of the lights
perhaps,' replied Kate, glancing nervously round, and finding it
impossible to whisper any caution or explanation.

'Don't you see Sir Mulberry Hawk, my dear?'

Kate bowed slightly, and biting her lip turned her head towards
the stage.

But Sir Mulberry Hawk was not to be so easily repulsed, for he
advanced with extended hand; and Mrs Nickleby officiously informing
Kate of this circumstance, she was obliged to extend her own. Sir
Mulberry detained it while he murmured a profusion of compliments,
which Kate, remembering what had passed between them, rightly
considered as so many aggravations of the insult he had already put
upon her. Then followed the recognition of Lord Verisopht, and then
the greeting of Mr Pyke, and then that of Mr Pluck, and finally, to
complete the young lady's mortification, she was compelled at Mrs
Wititterly's request to perform the ceremony of introducing the
odious persons, whom she regarded with the utmost indignation and
abhorrence.

'Mrs Wititterly is delighted,' said Mr Wititterly, rubbing his
hands; 'delighted, my lord, I am sure, with this 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 Shakespeare,' said Mrs Wititterly. 'I
scarcely exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after
a tragedy, my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.'

'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht. '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?'

'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,
somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire
within one.'

'Ye--es!' replied Lord Verisopht, 'I shall certainly go
there.'

'Julia, my life,' interposed Mr Wititterly, 'you 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 my 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 Birmingham, and after we
had seen Shakespeare's tomb and birthplace, we went back to the inn
there, where we slept that night, and I recollect that all night long
I dreamt of nothing but a black gentleman, at full length, in
plaster-of-Paris, 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 Shakespeare just as
he had been when he was alive, which was very curious indeed.
Stratford--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, in a whisper to Mrs Wititterly,
'that my son didn't turn out to be a Shakespeare, and what a dreadful
thing that would have been!'

When Mrs Nickleby had brought this interesting anecdote to a
close, Pyke and Pluck, ever zealous in their patron's cause, proposed
the adjournment of a detachment of the party into the next box; and
with so much skill were the preliminaries adjusted, that Kate,
despite all she could say or do to the 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 conversation 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 attendance 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
upstairs, whom they had seen in conversation with Mrs W., were the
distinguished Lord Frederick Verisopht and his most intimate friend,
the gay Sir Mulberry Hawk--a communication which inflamed several
respectable house-keepers with the utmost jealousy and rage, and
reduced sixteen unmarried daughters to the very brink of despair.

The evening came to an end at last, but Kate had yet to be
handed downstairs 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 Mulberry. 'My dear creature, now
why do you keep up this show of displeasure?'

'Show!' repeated Kate, indignantly. 'How dare you presume to
speak to me, sir--to address me--to come into my presence?'

'You look prettier in a passion, Miss Nickleby,' said Sir
Mulberry Hawk, stooping down, the better to see her face.

'I hold you in the bitterest detestation and contempt, sir,'
said Kate. 'If you find any attraction in looks of disgust 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 looking 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!' exclaimed Sir Mulberry, as though quietly
communing with himself; passing his arm round her waist as he spoke,
'she looks more beautiful, and I like her better in this mood, than
when her eyes are cast down, and she is in perfect repose!'

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 bystanders; in the midst
of which tumult they put the affrighted Mrs Nickleby in her chariot,
and having got her safely off, turned their thoughts to Mrs
Wititterly, whose attention also they had now effectually distracted
from the young lady, by throwing her into a state of the utmost
bewilderment and consternation. At length, the conveyance in which
she had come rolled off too with its load, and the four worthies,
being left alone under the portico, enjoyed a hearty laugh
together.

'There,' said Sir Mulberry, turning to his noble friend.
'Didn't I tell you last night that if we could find where they were
going by bribing a servant through 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, turning 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 Mulberry. 'How would you have had
it? How could we have got a general invitation at first sight--come
when you like, go when you like, stop as long as you like, do what
you like--if you, the lord, had not made yourself agreeable to the
foolish mistress of the house? Do I care for this girl, except as
your friend? Haven't I been sounding your praises in her ears, and
bearing her pretty sulks and peevishness all night for you? What
sort of stuff do you think I'm made of? Would I do this for every
man? Don't I deserve even gratitude in return?'

'You're a deyvlish good fellow,' said the poor young lord,
taking his friend's arm. 'Upon my life you're a deyvlish good
fellow, Hawk.'

'And I have done right, have I?' demanded Sir Mulberry.

'Quite ri-ght.'

'And like a poor, silly, good-natured, friendly dog as I am,
eh?'

'Ye--es, ye--es; like a friend,' replied the other.

'Well then,' replied Sir Mulberry, 'I'm satisfied. And now
let's go and have our revenge on the German baron and the Frenchman,
who cleaned you out so handsomely last night.'

With these words the friendly creature 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 handkerchiefs into their mouths to denote their silent
enjoyment of the whole proceedings, followed their patron and his
victim at a little distance.