Charlie deliberated a moment, when he chanced to think of Nicholas Nickleby, the only one of Dickens's works he had ever read, and which, as it had interested him exceedingly, had impressed itself upon his remembrance.

"Did you ever hear of Nicholas Nickleby, Bill?" he inquired.

"Yes," was Bill's unexpected response; "when I was at Liverpool three years ago, she was lying alongside our ship."

"She!" exclaimed Charlie, in amazement.

"Yes," answered Sturdy, in a matter-of-fact tone, "she was a very good craft, and was in the West India trade. I saw considerable of her, being as how I got acquainted with Tom Seagrove, one of the men on board."

"Oh, yes, I see what you mean," said Charlie; "but I don't mean a ship, I mean a story of the same name."

"No, I never heard of it. Named after the ship, like enough."

[165]

Charlie thought it more probable that the vessel was named after the story, but as this was a point of little importance to the present occasion, he passed it by, and continued, "Well, Bill, it's a very interesting story, and as I remember that about as well as anything I ever read, I believe I will tell you part of it."

"Heave ahead, my lad."

"You must know that this Nicholas Nickleby was a young man whose father died when he was about nineteen, leaving him very little money, but a mother and sister to provide for. He had an old uncle Ralph, who was very rich, but an old rascal, who didn't trouble himself about his poor relations."

"That's the way with a good many rich people," said Bill. "They leave the smaller craft to shift for themselves."

"However, on being applied to, he did manage to get the sister a place in a millinery establishment, and, as for Nicholas, he got him a place as assistant teacher in a country boarding-school."

"He was a sort of first mate in the school, wasn't he?"

[166]

"Well, something like that, only he didn't fare half so well as a mate or any kind of an officer. All the old fellow gave him for his services was about twenty-five dollars a year and board."

"What made him ship on board the craft, then?"

"It was the only chance he had, so he thought he'd take it till he could find a better."

"What was the captain's name?" asked Bill, who stuck to his marine phraseology.

"His name was Squeers, and a tough old fellow he was. He had some thirty or forty boarding scholars, whom he treated shamefully. In the first place, he didn't allow them enough to eat."

"Why didn't they mutiny, and pitch the lubber overboard?" exclaimed Bill, indignantly.

"Because he had starved the spirit out of them. Besides, they were mostly small, and he had a wife as bad as himself, as well as a daughter who was——"

"A chip of the old block."

[167]

"Exactly. Do you want to know how he took away their appetites so that they wouldn't eat so much? He used to make them swallow a spoonful of boiling hot molasses, which scalded their throats, and made it hard for them to swallow."

"I'd like to have overhauled him," said Sturdy.

"If you had, I don't believe there'd have been much left of him, for he was a spindling sort of a man, tall and thin."

"And how did the young fellow like his place?"

"Not very much. He found they were going to half-starve him, too. However, he wouldn't have minded that so much as seeing the poor children abused. While all this was going on, the school-master's daughter fell in love with him."

"Was she pretty?"

"No," said Charlie. "She was the image of her father, and he wasn't anything of a beauty. She was thin, with a hatchet face and yellow hair. However, she continued to make herself think that Nicholas was in love[168] with her, and............