Mr Ralph Nickleby receives Sad Tidings of hisBrother, but bears up nobly against the Intelligencecommunicated to him. The Reader is informed howhe liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, andhow kindly he proposed to make his Fortune atonce.

　　Having rendered his zealous assistance towardsdispatching the lunch, with all that promptitude andenergy which are among the most important qualitiesthat men of business can possess, Mr Ralph Nickleby took acordial farewell of his fellow-speculators, and bent his stepswestward in unwonted good humour. As he passed St Paul’s hestepped aside into a doorway to set his watch, and with his handon the key and his eye on the cathedral dial, was intent upon sodoing, when a man suddenly stopped before him. It was NewmanNoggs.

　　‘Ah! Newman,’ said Mr Nickleby, looking up as he pursued hisoccupation. ‘The letter about the mortgage has come, has it? Ithought it would.’

　　‘Wrong,’ replied Newman.

　　‘What! and nobody called respecting it?’ inquired Mr Nickleby,pausing. Noggs shook his head.

　　‘What has come, then?’ inquired Mr Nickleby.

　　‘I have,’ said Newman.

　　 ‘What else?’ demanded the master, sternly.

　　‘This,’ said Newman, drawing a sealed letter slowly from hispocket. ‘Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black border, woman’shand, C. N. in the corner.’

　　‘Black wax?’ said Mr Nickleby, glancing at the letter. ‘I knowsomething of that hand, too. Newman, I shouldn’t be surprised ifmy brother were dead.’

　　‘I don’t think you would,’ said Newman, quietly.

　　‘Why not, sir?’ demanded Mr Nickleby.

　　‘You never are surprised,’ replied Newman, ‘that’s all.’

　　Mr Nickleby snatched the letter from his assistant, and fixing acold look upon him, opened, read it, put it in his pocket, andhaving now hit the time to a second, began winding up his watch.

　　‘It is as I expected, Newman,’ said Mr Nickleby, while he wasthus engaged. ‘He is dead. Dear me! Well, that’s sudden thing. Ishouldn’t have thought it, really.’ With these touching expressionsof sorrow, Mr Nickleby replaced his watch in his fob, and, fittingon his gloves to a nicety, turned upon his way, and walked slowlywestward with his hands behind him.

　　‘Children alive?’ inquired Noggs, stepping up to him.

　　‘Why, that’s the very thing,’ replied Mr Nickleby, as though histhoughts were about them at that moment. ‘They are both alive.’

　　‘Both!’ repeated Newman Noggs, in a low voice.

　　‘And the widow, too,’ added Mr Nickleby, ‘and all three inLondon, confound them; all three here, Newman.’

　　Newman fell a little behind his master, and his face wascuriously twisted as by a spasm; but whether of paralysis, or grief,or inward laughter, nobody but himself could possibly explain.

　　The expression of a man’s face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs,in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch ofingenuity could solve.

　　‘Go home!’ said Mr Nickleby, after they had walked a few paces:

　　looking round at the clerk as if he were his dog. The words werescarcely uttered when Newman darted across the road, slunkamong the crowd, and disappeared in an instant.

　　‘Reasonable, certainly!’ muttered Mr Nickleby to himself, as hewalked on, ‘very reasonable! My brother never did anything forme, and I never expected it; the breath is no sooner out of his bodythan I am to be looked to, as the support of a great hearty woman,and a grown boy and girl. What are they to me! I never saw them.’

　　Full of these, and many other reflections of a similar kind, MrNickleby made the best of his way to the Strand, and, referring tohis letter as if to ascertain the number of the house he wanted,stopped at a private door about half-way down that crowdedthoroughfare.

　　A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt framescrewed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon ablack velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress coats with faceslooking out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a younggentleman in a very vermilion uniform, flourishing a sabre; andone of a literary character with a high forehead, a pen and ink, sixbooks, and a curtain. There was, moreover, a touchingrepresentation of a young lady reading a manuscript in anunfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs fore-shortened tothe size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were agreat many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card ofterms with an embossed border.

　　Mr Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt,and gave a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, wasanswered by a servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face.

　　‘Is Mrs Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply.

　　‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’

　　Mr Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on beingthus corrected, and demanded with much asperity what shemeant; which she was about to state, when a female voiceproceeding from a perpendicular staircase at the end of thepassage, inquired who was wanted.

　　‘Mrs Nickleby,’ said Ralph.

　　‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what astupid thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’

　　‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic whichhad been a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl.

　　‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show thegentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock doubleknocks for the second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when thebell’s broke, and then it must be two single ones.’

　　‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg yourpardon; is that Mrs La what’s-her-name?’

　　‘Creevy—La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow head-dressbobbed over the banisters.

　　‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ saidRalph.

　　The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but hehad walked up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had agown to correspond, and was of much the same colour herself.

　　Miss La Creevy was a mincing young lady of fifty, and Miss LaCreevy’s apartment was the gilt frame downstairs on a larger scaleand something dirtier.

　　‘Hem!’ said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind herblack silk mitten. ‘A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-markedcountenance for the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?’

　　‘You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,’ replied Mr Nickleby, inhis usual blunt fashion. ‘I have no money to throw away onminiatures, ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had.

　　Seeing you on the stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, aboutsome lodgers here.’

　　Miss La Creevy coughed once more—this cough was to concealher disappointment—and said, ‘Oh, indeed!’

　　‘I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor abovebelongs to you, ma’am,’ said Mr Nickleby.

　　Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the housebelonged to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floorrooms just then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, therewas a lady from the country and her two children in them, at thatpresent speaking.

　　‘A widow, ma’am?’ said Ralph.

　　‘Yes, she is a widow,’ replied the lady.

　　‘A poor widow, ma’am,’ said Ralph, with a powerful emphasison that little adjective which conveys so much.

　　‘Well, I’m afraid she is poor,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy.

　　‘I happen to know that she is, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Now, whatbusiness has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma’am?’

　　 ‘Very true,’ replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased withthis implied compliment to the apartments. ‘Exceedingly true.’

　　‘I know her circumstances intimately, ma’am,’ said Ralph; ‘infact, I am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you notto keep them here, ma’am.’

　　‘I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet thepecuniary obligations,’ said Miss La Creevy with another cough,‘that the lady’s family would—’

　　‘No they wouldn’t, ma’am,’ interrupted Ralph, hastily. ‘Don’tthink it.’

　　‘If I am to understand that,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘the casewears a very different appearance.’

　　‘You may understand it then, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘and makeyour arrangements accordingly. I am the family, ma’am—at least, Ibelieve I am the only relation they have, and I think it right thatyou should know I can’t support them in their extravagances. Howlong have they taken these lodgings for?’

　　‘Only from week to week,’ replied Miss La Creevy. ‘MrsNickleby paid the first week in advance.’

　　‘Then you had better get them out at the end of it,’ said Ralph.

　　‘They can’t do better than go back to the country, ma’am; they arein everybody’s way here.’

　　‘Certainly,’ said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands, ‘if MrsNickleby took the apartments without the means of paying forthem, it was very unbecoming a lady.’

　　‘Of course it was, ma’am,’ said Ralph.

　　‘And naturally,’ continued Miss La Creevy, ‘I who am, atpresent—hem—an unprotected female, cannot afford to lose by theapartments.’

　　 ‘Of course you can’t, ma’am,’ replied Ralph.

　　‘Though at the same time,’ added Miss La Creevy, who wasplainly wavering between her good-nature and her interest, ‘Ihave nothing whatever to say against the lady, who is extremelypleasant and affable, though, poor thing, she seems terribly low inher spirits; nor against the young people either, for nicer, orbetter-behaved young people cannot be.’

　　‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, turning to the door, for theseencomiums on poverty irritated him; ‘I have done my duty, andperhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me forsaying what I have.’

　　‘I am sure I am very much obliged to you at least, sir,’ said MissLa Creevy in a gracious manner. ‘Would you do me the favour tolook at a few specimens of my portrait painting?’

　　‘You’re very good, ma’am,’ said Mr Nickleby, making off withgreat speed; ‘but as I have a visit to pay upstairs, and my time isprecious, I really can’t.’

　　‘At any other time when you are passing, I shall be most happy,’

　　said Miss La Creevy. ‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to take acard of terms with you? Thank you—good-morning!’

　　‘Good-morning, ma’am,’ said Ralph, shutting the door abruptlyafter him to prevent any further conversation. ‘Now for my sister-in-law. Bah!’

　　Climbing up another perpendicular flight, composed with greatmechanical ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, Mr RalphNickleby stopped to take breath on the landing, when he wasovertaken by the handmaid, whom the politeness of Miss LaCreevy had dispatched to announce him, and who had apparentlybeen making a variety of unsuccessful attempts, since their last interview, to wipe her dirty face clean, upon an apron muchdirtier.

　　‘What name?’ said the girl.

　　‘Nickleby,’ replied Ralph.

　　‘Oh! Mrs Nickleby,’ said the girl, throwing open the door,‘here’s Mr Nickleby.’

　　A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr Ralph Nickleby entered,but appeared incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant uponthe arm of a slight but very beautiful girl of about seventeen, whohad been sitting by her. A youth, who appeared a year or twoolder, stepped forward and saluted Ralph as his uncle.

　　‘Oh,’ growled Ralph, with an ill-favoured frown, ‘you areNicholas, I suppose?’

　　‘That is my name, sir,’ replied the youth.

　　‘Put my hat down,’ said Ralph, imperiously. ‘Well, ma’am, howdo you do? You must bear up against sorrow, ma’am; I always do.’

　　‘Mine was no common loss!’ said Mrs Nickleby, applying herhandkerchief to her eyes.

　　‘It was no uncommon loss, ma’am,’ returned Ralph, as he coollyunbuttoned his spencer. ‘Husbands die every day, ma’am, andwives too.’

　　‘And brothers also, sir,’ said Nicholas, with a glance ofindignation.

　　‘Yes, sir, and puppies, and pug-dogs likewise,’ replied his uncle,taking a chair. ‘You didn’t mention in your letter what mybrother’s complaint was, ma’am.’

　　‘The doctors could attribute it to no particular disease,’ saidMrs Nickleby; shedding tears. ‘We have too much reason to fearthat he died of a broken heart.’

　　 ‘Pooh!’ said Ralph, ‘there’s no such thing. I can understand aman’s dying of a broken neck, or suffering from a broken arm, or abroken head, or a broken leg, or a broken nose; but a brokenheart!—nonsense, it’s the cant of the day. If a man can’t pay hisdebts, he dies of a broken heart, and his widow’s a martyr.’

　　‘Some people, I believe, have no hearts to break,’ observedNicholas, quietly.

　　‘How old is this boy, for God’s sake?’ inquired Ralph, wheelingback his chair, and surveying his nephew from head to foot withintense scorn.

　　‘Nicholas is very nearly nineteen,’ replied the widow.

　　‘Nineteen, eh!’ said Ralph; ‘and what do you mean to do foryour bread, sir?’

　　‘Not to live upon my mother,’ replied Nicholas, his heartswelling as he spoke.

　　‘You’d have little enough to live upon, if you did,’ retorted theuncle, eyeing him contemptuously.

　　‘Whatever it be,’ said Nicholas, flushed with anger, ‘I shall notlook to you to make it more.’

　　‘Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself,’ remonstrated MrsNickleby.

　　‘Dear Nicholas, pray,’ urged the young lady.

　　‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘Upon my word! Finebeginnings, Mrs Nickleby—fine beginnings!’

　　Mrs Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas bya gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at eachother for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old manwas stern, hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one,open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man’s eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man’s brightwith the light of intelligence and spirit. His figure was somewhatslight, but manly and well formed; and, apart from all the grace ofyouth and comeliness, there was an emanation from the warmyoung heart in his look and bearing which kept the old man down.

　　However striking such a contrast as this may be to lookers-on,none ever feel it with half the keenness or acuteness of perfectionwith which it strikes to the very soul of him whose inferiority itmarks. It galled Ralph to the heart’s core, and he hated Nicholasfrom that hour.

　　The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close byRalph withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, andcalling Nicholas ‘a boy.’ This word is much used as a term ofreproach by elderly gentlemen towards their juniors: probablywith the view of deluding society into the belief that if they couldbe young again, they wouldn’t on any account.

　　‘Well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, impatiently, ‘the creditors haveadministered, you tell me, and there’s nothing left for you?’

　　‘Nothing,’ replied Mrs Nickleby.

　　‘And you spent what little money you had, in coming all the wayto London, to see what I could do for you?’ pursued Ralph.

　　‘I hoped,’ faltered Mrs Nickleby, ‘that you might have anopportunity of doing something for your brother’s children. It washis dying wish that I should appeal to you in their behalf.’

　　‘I don’t know how it is,’ muttered Ralph, walking up and downthe room, ‘but whenever a man dies without any property of hisown, he always seems to think he has a right to dispose of otherpeople’s. What is your daughter fit for, ma’am?’

　　‘Kate has been well educated,’ sobbed Mrs Nickleby. ‘Tell your uncle, my dear, how far you went in French and extras.’

　　The poor girl was about to murmur something, when her unclestopped her, very unceremoniously.

　　‘We must try and get you apprenticed at some boarding-school,’

　　said Ralph. ‘You have not been brought up too delicately for that, Ihope?’

　　‘No, indeed, uncle,’ replied the weeping girl. ‘I will try to doanything that will gain me a home and bread.’

　　‘Well, well,’ said Ralph, a little softened, either by his niece’sbeauty or her distress (stretch a point, and say the latter). ‘Youmust try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking ortambour-work will come lighter. Have you ever done anything,sir?’ (turning to his nephew.)‘No,’ replied Nicholas, bluntly.

　　‘No, I thought not!’ said Ralph. ‘This is the way my brotherbrought up his children, ma’am.’

　　‘Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poorfather could give him,’ rejoined Mrs Nickleby, ‘and he wasthinking of—’

　　‘Of making something of him someday,’ said Ralph. ‘The oldstory; always thinking, and never doing. If my brother had been aman of activity and prudence, he might have left you a richwoman, ma’am: and if he had turned his son into the world, as myfather turned me, when I wasn’t as old as that boy by a year and ahalf, he would have been in a situation to help you, instead ofbeing a burden upon you, and increasing your distress. Mybrother was a thoughtless, inconsiderate man, Mrs Nickleby, andnobody, I am sure, can have better reason to feel that, than you.’

　　This appeal set the widow upon thinking that perhaps she might have made a more successful venture with her onethousand pounds, and then she began to reflect what acomfortable sum it would have been just then; which dismalthoughts made her tears flow faster, and in the excess of thesegriefs she (being a well-meaning woman enough, but weak withal)fell first to deploring her hard fate, and then to remarking, withmany sobs, that to be sure she had been a slave to poor Nicholas,and had often told him she might have married better (as indeedshe had, very often), and that she never knew in his lifetime howthe money went, but that if he had confided in her they might allhave been better off that day; with other bitter recollectionscommon to most married ladies, either during their coverture, orafterwards, or at both periods. Mrs Nickleby concluded bylamenting that the dear departed had never deigned to profit byher advice, save on one occasion; which was a strictly veraciousstatement, inasmuch as he had only acted upon it once, and hadruined himself in consequence.

　　Mr Ralph Nickleby heard all this with a half-smile; and whenthe widow had finished, quietly took up the subject where it hadbeen left before the above outbreak.

　　‘Are you willing to work, sir?’ he inquired, frowning on hisnephew.

　　‘Of course I am,’ replied Nicholas haughtily.

　　‘Then see here, sir,’ said his uncle. ‘This caught my eye thismorning, and you may thank your stars for it.’

　　With this exordium, Mr Ralph Nickleby took a newspaper fromhis pocket, and after unfolding it, and looking for a short timeamong the advertisements, read as follows:

　　‘“EDUCATION.—At Mr Wackford Squeers’s Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near GretaBridge in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked,furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries,instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics,orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of theglobes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic,fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms,twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and dietunparalleled. Mr Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from onetill four, at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistantwanted. Annual salary 5 pounds. A Master of Arts would bepreferred.”

　　‘There!’ said Ralph, folding the paper again. ‘Let him get thatsituation, and his fortune is made.’

　　‘But he is not a Master of Arts,’ said Mrs Nickleby.

　　‘That,’ replied Ralph, ‘that, I think, can be got over.’

　　‘But the salary is so small, and it is such a long way off, uncle!’

　　faltered Kate.

　　‘Hush, Kate my dear,’ interposed Mrs Nickleby; ‘your unclemust know best.’

　　‘I say,’ repeated Ralph, tartly, ‘let him get that situation, and hisfortune is made. If he don’t like that, let him get one for himself.

　　Without friends, money, recommendation, or knowledge ofbusiness of any kind, let him find honest employment in London,which will keep him in shoe leather, and I’ll give him a thousandpounds. At least,’ said Mr Ralph Nickleby, checking himself, ‘Iwould if I had it.’

　　‘Poor fellow!’ said the young lady. ‘Oh! uncle, must we beseparated so soon!’

　　 ‘Don’t tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking onlyfor our good, my love,’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘Nicholas, my dear, Iwish you would say something.’

　　‘Yes, mother, yes,’ said Nicholas, who had hitherto remainedsilent and absorbed in thought. ‘If I am fortunate enough to beappointed to this post, sir, for which I am so imperfectly qualified,what will become of those I leave behind?’

　　‘Your mother and sister, sir,’ replied Ralph, ‘will be providedfor, in that case (not otherwise), by me, and placed in some sphereof life in which they will be able to be independent. That will bemy immediate care; they will not remain as they are, one weekafter your departure, I will undertake.’

　　‘Then,’ said Nicholas, starting gaily up, and wringing his uncle’shand, ‘I am ready to do anything you wish me. Let us try ourfortune with Mr Squeers at once; he can but refuse.’

　　‘He won’t do that,’ said Ralph. ‘He will be glad to have you onmy recommendation. Make yourself of use to him, and you’ll riseto be a partner in the establishment in no time. Bless me, onlythink! if he were to die, why your fortune’s made at once.’

　　‘To be sure, I see it all,’ said poor Nicholas, delighted with athousand visionary ideas, that his good spirits and hisinexperience were conjuring up before him. ‘Or suppose someyoung nobleman who is being educated at the Hall, were to take afancy to me, and get his father to appoint me his travelling tutorwhen he left, and when we come back from the continent,procured me some handsome appointment. Eh! uncle?’

　　‘Ah, to be sure!’ sneered Ralph.

　　‘And who knows, but when he came to see me when I wassettled (as he would of course), he might fall in love with Kate, who would be keeping my house, and—and marry her, eh! uncle? Whoknows?’

　　‘Who, indeed!’ snarled Ralph.

　　‘How happy we should be!’ cried Nicholas with enthusiasm.

　　‘The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. Katewill be a beautiful woman, and I so proud to hear them say so, andmother so happy to be with us once again, and all these sad timesforgotten, and—’ The picture was too bright a one to bear, andNicholas, fairly overpowered by it, smiled faintly, and burst intotears.

　　This simple family, born and bred in retirement, and whollyunacquainted with what is called the world—a conventionalphrase which, being interpreted, often signifieth all the rascals init—mingled their tears together at the thought of their firstseparation; and, this first gush of feeling over, were proceeding todilate with all the buoyancy of untried hope on the brightprospects before them, when Mr Ralph Nickleby suggested, that ifthey lost time, some more fortunate candidate might depriveNicholas of the stepping-stone to fortune which the advertisementpointed out, and so undermine all their air-built castles. Thistimely reminder effectually stopped the conversation. Nicholas,having carefully copied the address of Mr Squeers, the uncle andnephew issued forth together in quest of that accomplishedgentleman; Nicholas firmly persuading himself that he had donehis relative great injustice in disliking him at first sight; and MrsNickleby being at some pains to inform her daughter that she wassure he was a much more kindly disposed person than he seemed;which, Miss Nickleby dutifully remarked, he might very easily be.

　　To tell the truth, the good lady’s opinion had been not a little influenced by her brother-in-law’s appeal to her betterunderstanding, and his implied compliment to her high deserts;and although she had dearly loved her husband, and still doted onher children, he had struck so successfully on one of those littlejarring chords in the human heart (Ralph was well acquaintedwith its worst weaknesses, though he knew nothing of its best),that she had already begun seriously to consider herself theamiable and suffering victim of her late husband’s imprudence.