Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings, and of a great Joint StockCompany of vast national Importance.
Mr Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what youwould call a merchant, neither was he a banker, nor anattorney, nor a special pleader, nor a notary. He wascertainly not a tradesman, and still less could he lay any claim tothe title of a professional gentleman; for it would have beenimpossible to mention any recognised profession to which hebelonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in GoldenSquare, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door,had another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the lefthand door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant’s fistgrasping a fragment of a skewer, and displaying the 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 furthercircumstantial evidence, was abundantly demonstrated by thediurnal attendance, between the hours of half-past nine and five,of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat upon anuncommonly hard stool in a species of butler’s pantry at the end ofthe passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when heanswered the bell.
Although a few members of the graver professions live aboutGolden Square, it is not exactly in anybody’s way to or fromanywhere. It is one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to lettinglodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, tosingle gentlemen; and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resortof foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings,and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and whocongregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the box-officein the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when theygive away the orders,—all live in Golden Square, or within a streetof it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Operaband reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical,and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time roundthe head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a littlewilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer’snight, windows are thrown open, and groups of swarthymoustached men are seen by the passer-by, lounging at thecasements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of gruff voicespractising vocal music invade the evening’s silence; and the fumesof choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, andGerman pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide thesupremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke.
Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerantglee-singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices withinits boundaries.
This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transactionof business; but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there,notwithstanding, for many years, and uttered no complaint on thatscore. He knew nobody round about, and nobody knew him,although he enjoyed the reputation of being immensely rich. Thetradesmen held that he was a sort of lawyer, and the other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; both ofwhich guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about otherpeople’s affairs usually are, or need to be.
Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, readydressed to walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over ablue coat; a white waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, andWellington boots drawn over them. The corner of a small-plaitedshirt-frill struggled out, as if insisting to show itself, from betweenhis chin and the top button of his spencer; and the latter garmentwas not made low enough to conceal a long gold watch-chain,composed of a series of plain rings, which had its beginning at thehandle of a gold repeater in Mr Nickleby’s pocket, and itstermination in two little keys: one belonging to the watch itself,and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling ofpowder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but ifthat were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better topowder his countenance also, for there was something in its verywrinkles, and in his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell ofcunning that would announce itself in spite of him. However thismight be, there he was; and as he was all alone, neither thepowder, nor the wrinkles, nor the eyes, had the smallest effect,good or bad, upon anybody just then, and are consequently nobusiness of ours just now.
Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and,throwing himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstractionthrough the dirty window. Some London houses have amelancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in byfour high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks ofchimneys: in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late inautumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort,lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following season,when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the weather beparticularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow tochirrup in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards‘gardens’; it is not supposed that they were ever planted, butrather that they are pieces of unreclaimed land, with the witheredvegetation of the original brick-field. No man thinks of walking inthis desolate place, or of turning it to any account. A few hampers,half-a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrownthere, when the tenant first moves in, but nothing more; and therethey remain until he goes away again: the damp straw taking justas long to moulder as it thinks proper: and mingling with thescanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, thatare scattered mournfully about—a prey to ‘blacks’ and dirt.
It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, ashe sat with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. Hehad fixed his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by someformer tenant in a tub that had once been green, and left there,years before, to rot away piecemeal. There was nothing veryinviting in the object, but Mr Nickleby was wrapt in a brownstudy, and sat contemplating it with far greater attention than, in amore conscious mood, he would have deigned to bestow upon therarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to a little dirty windowon the left, through which the face of the clerk was dimly visible;that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to attend.
In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (towhich he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented himself in Mr Nickleby’s room. He wasa tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was afixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (ifthe term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much theworse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a shortallowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived tokeep them on.
‘Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?’ said Mr Nickleby, in a sharpand grating voice.
‘Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the—’ Noggs wasgoing to add public-house clock, but recollecting himself,substituted ‘regular time.’
‘My watch has stopped,’ said Mr Nickleby; ‘I don’t know fromwhat cause.’
‘Not wound up,’ said Noggs.
‘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 hispocket; ‘perhaps it is.’
Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of alldisputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and(as he rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fellinto a grim silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other:
cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into allpossible distortions. The incessant performance of this routine onevery occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look tohis unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody to determine where or at what hewas looking, were two among the numerous peculiarities of MrNoggs, which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight.
‘I am going to the London Tavern this morning,’ said MrNickleby.
‘Public meeting?’ inquired Noggs.
Mr Nickleby nodded. ‘I expect a letter from the solicitorrespecting that mortgage of Ruddle’s. If it comes at all, it will behere by the two o’clock delivery. I shall leave the city about thattime and walk to Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the way; ifthere are any letters, come and meet me, and bring them withyou.’
Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at theoffice bell. The master looked up from his papers, and the clerkcalmly remained in a stationary position.
‘The bell,’ said Noggs, as though in explanation. ‘At home?’
‘Yes.’
‘To anybody?’
‘Yes.’
‘To the tax-gatherer?’
‘No! Let him call again.’
Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say ‘I thoughtso!’ and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence hepresently returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr Bonney, a palegentleman in a violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up ingreat disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravattied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked upin the night and had not dressed himself since.
‘My dear Nickleby,’ said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which was so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon hishead, ‘there’s not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. SirMatthew Pupker takes the chair, and three members ofParliament are positively coming. I have seen two of them safelyout of bed. The third, who was at Crockford’s all night, has justgone home to put a clean shirt on, and take a bottle or two of sodawater, and will certainly be with us, in time to address themeeting. He is a little excited by last night, but never mind that; healways speaks the stronger for it.’
‘It seems to promise pretty well,’ said Mr Ralph Nickleby,whose deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity ofthe other man of business.
‘Pretty well!’ echoed Mr Bonney. ‘It’s the finest idea that wasever started. “United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin andCrumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, fivemillions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.”
Why the very name will get the shares up to a premium in tendays.’
‘And when they are at a premium,’ said Mr Ralph Nickleby,smiling.
‘When they are, you know what to do with them as well as anyman alive, and how to back quietly out at the right time,’ said MrBonney, slapping the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. ‘By-thebye, what a very remarkable man that clerk of yours is.’
‘Yes, poor devil!’ replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. ‘ThoughNewman Noggs kept his horses and hounds once.’
‘Ay, ay?’ said the other carelessly.
‘Yes,’ continued Ralph, ‘and not many years ago either; but hesquandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and in short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then abeggar. He took to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and thencame here to borrow a pound, as in his better days I had—’
‘Done business with him,’ said Mr Bonney with a meaning look.
‘Just so,’ replied Ralph; ‘I couldn’t lend it, you know.’
‘Oh, of course not.’
‘But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth,I took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since.
He is a little mad, I think,’ said Mr Nickleby, calling up acharitable look, ‘but he is useful enough, poor creature—usefulenough.’
The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that NewmanNoggs, being utterly destitute, served him for rather less than theusual wages of a boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention inhis hasty chronicle, that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him anespecially valuable person in a place where much business wasdone, of which it was desirable no mention should be made out ofdoors. The other gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone,however, and as they hurried into the hackney cabrioletimmediately afterwards, perhaps Mr Nickleby forgot to mentioncircumstances so unimportant.
There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as theydrew up, and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tackingacross the road under a press of paper, bearing giganticannouncements that a Public Meeting would be holden at oneo’clock precisely, to take into consideration the propriety ofpetitioning Parliament in favour of the United MetropolitanImproved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual DeliveryCompany, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in fat blackfigures of considerable size. Mr Bonney elbowed his way brisklyupstairs, receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiterswho stood on the landings to show the way; and, followed by MrNickleby, dived into a suite of apartments behind the great publicroom: in the second of which was a business-looking table, andseveral business-looking people.
‘Hear!’ cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr Bonneypresented himself. ‘Chair, gentlemen, chair!’
The new-comers were received with universal approbation, andMr Bonney bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ranhis fingers through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman’sknock on the table with a little hammer: whereat severalgentlemen cried ‘Hear!’ and nodded slightly to each other, asmuch as to say what spirited conduct that was. Just at thismoment, a waiter, feverish with agitation, tore into the room, andthrowing the door open with a crash, shouted ‘Sir MatthewPupker!’
The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, andwhile they were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker,attended by two live members of Parliament, one Irish and oneScotch, all smiling and bowing, and looking so pleasant that itseemed a perfect marvel how any man could have the heart to voteagainst them. Sir Matthew Pupker especially, who had a littleround head with a flaxen wig on the top of it, fell into such aparoxysm of bows, that the wig threatened to be jerked off, everyinstant. When these symptoms had in some degree subsided, thegentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker,or the two other members, crowded round them in three little groups, near one or other of which the gentlemen who were not onspeaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or the two othermembers, stood lingering, and smiling, and rubbing their hands,in the desperate hope of something turning up which might bringthem into notice. All this time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the twoother members were relating to their separate circles what theintentions of government were, about taking up the bill; with a fullaccount of what the government had said in a whisper the lasttime they dined with it, and how the government had beenobserved to wink when it said so; from which premises they wereat no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had oneobject more at heart than another, that one object was the welfareand advantage of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffinand Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.
Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings,and a fair division of the speechifying, the public in the large roomwere eyeing, by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in theMusic Gallery. In these amusements the greater portion of themhad been occupied for a couple of hours before, and as the mostagreeable diversions pall upon the taste on a too protractedenjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now began to hammer thefloor with their boot-heels, and to express their dissatisfaction byvarious hoots and cries. These vocal exertions, emanating from thepeople who had been there longest, naturally proceeded fromthose who were nearest to the platform and furthest from thepolicemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight theirway through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless apraiseworthy desire to do something to quell the disturbance,immediately began to drag forth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near the door; at the same time dealing outvarious smart and tingling blows with their truncheons, after themanner of that ingenious actor, Mr Punch: whose brilliantexample, both in the fashion of his weapons and their use, thisbranch of the executive occasionally follows.
Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loudshout attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and thenthere poured on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long lineof gentlemen with their hats off, all looking behind them, anduttering vociferous cheers; the cause whereof was sufficientlyexplained when Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other realmembers of Parliament came to the front, amidst deafeningshouts, and testified to each other in dumb motions that they hadnever seen such a glorious sight as that, in the whole course oftheir public career.
At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but SirMatthew Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent arelapse which lasted five minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupkerwent on to say what must be his feelings on that great occasion,and what must be that occasion in the eyes of the world, and whatmust be the intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, andwhat must be the wealth and respectability of his honourablefriends behind him, and lastly, what must be the importance to thewealth, the happiness, the comfort, the liberty, the very existenceof a free and great people, of such an Institution as the UnitedMetropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking andPunctual Delivery Company!
Mr Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution;and having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the careof the gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species ofbottle-holder to the orators generally), and said he would read tothem the first resolution—’ That this meeting views with alarmand apprehension, the existing state of the Muffin Trade in thisMetropolis and its neighbourhood; that it considers the MuffinBoys, as at present constituted, wholly underserving theconfidence of the public; and that it deems the whole Muffinsystem alike prejudicial to the health and morals of the people,and subversive of the best interests of a great commercial andmercantile community.’ The honourable gentleman made aspeech which drew tears from the eyes of the ladies, andawakened the liveliest emotions in every individual present. Hehad visited the houses of the poor in the various districts ofLondon, and had found them destitute of the slightest vestige of amuffin, which there appeared too much reason to believe some ofthese indigent persons did not taste from year’s end to year’s end.
He had found that among muffin-sellers there existeddrunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he attributed tothe debasing nature of their employment as at present exercised;he had found the same vices among the poorer class of people whoought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to thedespair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of thatnutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant inintoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before acommittee of the House of Commons, that there existed acombination to keep up the price of muffins, and to give thebellmen a monopoly; he would prove it by bellmen at the bar ofthat House; and he would also prove, that these men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as ‘Snooks,’ ‘Walker,’
‘Ferguson,’ ‘Is Murphy right?’ and many others. It was thismelancholy state of things that the Company proposed to correct;firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffintrading of every description; secondly, by themselves supplyingthe public generally, and the poor at their own homes, withmuffins of first quality at reduced prices. It was with this objectthat a bill had been introduced into Parliament by their patrioticchairman Sir Matthew Pupker; it was this bill that they had met tosupport; it was the supporters of this bill who would conferundying brightness and splendour upon England, under the nameof the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and CrumpetBaking and Punctual Delivery Company; he would add, with acapital of Five Millions, in five hundred thousand shares of tenpounds each.
Mr Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and anothergentleman having moved that it be amended by the insertion ofthe words ‘and crumpet’ after the word ‘muffin,’ whenever itoccurred, it was carried triumphantly. Only one man in the crowdcried ‘No!’ and he was promptly taken into custody, andstraightway borne off.
The second resolution, which recognised the expediency ofimmediately abolishing ‘all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all tradersin muffins (or crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether maleor female, boys or men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,’ wasmoved by a grievous gentleman of semi-clerical appearance, whowent at once into such deep pathetics, that he knocked the firstspeaker clean out of the course in no time. You might have heard apin fall—a pin! a feather—as he described the cruelties inflicted on muffin boys by their masters, which he very wisely urged were inthemselves a sufficient reason for the establishment of thatinestimable company. It seemed that the unhappy youths werenightly turned out into the wet streets at the most inclementperiods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain—or itmight be hail or snow—for hours together, without shelter, food,or warmth; and let the public never forget upon the latter point,that while the muffins were provided with warm clothing andblankets, the boys were wholly unprovided for, and left to theirown miserable resources. (Shame!) The honourable gentlemanrelated one case of a muffin boy, who having been exposed to thisinhuman and barbarous system for no less than five years, atlength fell a victim to a cold in the head, beneath which hegradually sunk until he fell into a perspiration and recovered; thishe could vouch for, on his own authority, but he had heard (and hehad no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more heart-rending andappalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of an orphanmuffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney carriage, hadbeen removed to the hospital, had undergone the amputation ofhis leg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing hisoccupation on crutches. Fountain of justice, were these things tolast!
This was the department of the subject that took the meeting,and this was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. Themen shouted; the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs tillthey were moist, and waved them till they were dry; theexcitement was tremendous; and Mr Nickleby whispered hisfriend that the shares were thenceforth at a premium of five-andtwenty per cent.
The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations,every man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in hisenthusiasm have held up both legs also, if he could haveconveniently accomplished it. This done, the draft of the proposedpetition was read at length: and the petition said, as all petitionsDO say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the petitionedvery honourable, and the object very virtuous; therefore (said thepetition) the bill ought to be passed into a law at once, to theeverlasting honour and glory of that most honourable and gloriousCommons of England in Parliament assembled.
Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford’s all night, andwho looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence,came forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech hemeant to make in favour of that petition whenever it should bepresented, and how desperately he meant to taunt the parliamentif they rejected the bill; and to inform them also, that he regrettedhis honourable friends had not inserted a clause rendering thepurchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon all classes ofthe community, which he—opposing all half-measures, andpreferring to go the extreme animal—pledged himself to proposeand divide upon, in committee. After announcing thisdetermination, the honourable gentleman grew jocular; and aspatent boots, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur coat collar,assist jokes materially, there was immense laughter and muchcheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman quite into theshade.
And when the petition had been read and was about to beadopted, there came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent temperament,) with such a speech as only anIrish member can make, breathing the true soul and spirit ofpoetry, and poured forth with such fervour, that it made one warmto look at him; in the course whereof, he told them how he woulddemand the extension of that great boon to his native country;how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffin laws as in allother laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day when crumpetsshould be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells should ringin her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotchmember, with various pleasant allusions to the probable amountof profits, which increased the good humour that the poetry hadawakened; and all the speeches put together did exactly what theywere intended to do, and established in the hearers’ minds thatthere was no speculation so promising, or at the same time sopraiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffinand Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.
So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and themeeting adjourned with acclamations, and Mr Nickleby and theother directors went to the office to lunch, as they did every day athalf-past one o’clock; and to remunerate themselves for whichtrouble, (as the company was yet in its infancy,) they only chargedthree guineas each man for every such attendance.