Mr Ralph Nickleby has some confidentialIntercourse with another old Friend. They concertbetween them a Project, which promises well forboth.

　　‘T here go the three-quarters past!’ muttered NewmanNoggs, listening to the chimes of some neighbouringchurch ‘and my dinner time’s two. He does it onpurpose. He makes a point of it. It’s just like him.’

　　It was in his own little den of an office and on the top of hisofficial stool that Newman thus soliloquised; and the soliloquyreferred, as Newman’s grumbling soliloquies usually did, to RalphNickleby.

　　‘I don’t believe he ever had an appetite,’ said Newman, ‘exceptfor pounds, shillings, and pence, and with them he’s as greedy as awolf. I should like to have him compelled to swallow one of everyEnglish coin. The penny would be an awkward morsel—but thecrown—ha! ha!’

　　His good-humour being in some degree restored by the visionof Ralph Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five-shilling piece,Newman slowly brought forth from his desk one of those portablebottles, currently known as pocket-pistols, and shaking the sameclose to his ear so as to produce a rippling sound very cool andpleasant to listen to, suffered his features to relax, and took agurgling drink, which relaxed them still more. Replacing the cork,he smacked his lips twice or thrice with an air of great relish, and, the taste of the liquor having by this time evaporated, recurred tohis grievance again.

　　‘Five minutes to three,’ growled Newman; ‘it can’t want moreby this time; and I had my breakfast at eight o’clock, and such abreakfast! and my right dinner-time two! And I might have a nicelittle bit of hot roast meat spoiling at home all this time—how doeshe know I haven’t? “Don’t go till I come back,” “Don’t go till Icome back,” day after day. What do you always go out at mydinner-time for then—eh? Don’t you know it’s nothing butaggravation—eh?’

　　These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were addressedto nothing but empty air. The recital of his wrongs, however,seemed to have the effect of making Newman Noggs desperate; forhe flattened his old hat upon his head, and drawing on theeverlasting gloves, declared with great vehemence, that comewhat might, he would go to dinner that very minute.

　　Carrying this resolution into instant effect, he had advanced asfar as the passage, when the sound of the latch-key in the streetdoor caused him to make a precipitate retreat into his own officeagain.

　　‘Here he is,’ growled Newman, ‘and somebody with him. Nowit’ll be “Stop till this gentleman’s gone.” But I won’t. That’s flat.’

　　So saying, Newman slipped into a tall empty closet whichopened with two half doors, and shut himself up; intending to slipout directly Ralph was safe inside his own room.

　　‘Noggs!’ cried Ralph, ‘where is that fellow, Noggs?’

　　But not a word said Newman.

　　‘The dog has gone to his dinner, though I told him not,’

　　muttered Ralph, looking into the office, and pulling out his watch.

　　 ‘Humph!’ You had better come in here, Gride. My man’s out, andthe sun is hot upon my room. This is cool and in the shade, if youdon’t mind roughing it.’

　　‘Not at all, Mr Nickleby, oh not at all! All places are alike to me,sir. Ah! very nice indeed. Oh! very nice!’

　　The parson who made this reply was a little old man, of aboutseventy or seventy-five years of age, of a very lean figure, muchbent and slightly twisted. He wore a grey coat with a very narrowcollar, an old-fashioned waistcoat of ribbed black silk, and suchscanty trousers as displayed his shrunken spindle-shanks in theirfull ugliness. The only articles of display or ornament in his dresswere a steel watch-chain to which were attached some large goldseals; and a black ribbon into which, in compliance with an oldfashion scarcely ever observed in these days, his grey hair wasgathered behind. His nose and chin were sharp and prominent,his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, his face wasshrivelled and yellow, save where the cheeks were streaked withthe colour of a dry winter apple; and where his beard had been,there lingered yet a few grey tufts which seemed, like the raggedeyebrows, to denote the badness of the soil from which theysprung. The whole air and attitude of the form was one of stealthycat-like obsequiousness; the whole expression of the face wasconcentrated in a wrinkled leer, compounded of cunning,lecherousness, slyness, and avarice.

　　Such was old Arthur Gride, in whose face there was not awrinkle, in whose dress there was not one spare fold or plait, butexpressed the most covetous and griping penury, and sufficientlyindicated his belonging to that class of which Ralph Nickleby wasa member. Such was old Arthur Gride, as he sat in a low chair looking up into the face of Ralph Nickleby, who, lounging upon thetall office stool, with his arms upon his knees, looked down intohis; a match for him on whatever errand he had come.

　　‘And how have you been?’ said Gride, feigning great interest inRalph’s state of health. ‘I haven’t seen you for—oh! not for—’

　　‘Not for a long time,’ said Ralph, with a peculiar smile,importing that he very well knew it was not on a mere visit ofcompliment that his friend had come. ‘It was a narrow chance thatyou saw me now, for I had only just come up to the door as youturned the corner.’

　　‘I am very lucky,’ observed Gride.

　　‘So men say,’ replied Ralph, drily.

　　The older money-lender wagged his chin and smiled, but heoriginated no new remark, and they sat for some little timewithout speaking. Each was looking out to take the other at adisadvantage.

　　‘Come, Gride,’ said Ralph, at length; ‘what’s in the wind today?’

　　‘Aha! you’re a bold man, Mr Nickleby,’ cried the other,apparently very much relieved by Ralph’s leading the way tobusiness. ‘Oh dear, dear, what a bold man you are!’

　　‘Why, you have a sleek and slinking way with you that makesme seem so by contrast,’ returned Ralph. ‘I don’t know but thatyours may answer better, but I want the patience for it.’

　　‘You were born a genius, Mr Nickleby,’ said old Arthur. ‘Deep,deep, deep. Ah!’

　　‘Deep enough,’ retorted Ralph, ‘to know that I shall need all thedepth I have, when men like you begin to compliment. You know Ihave stood by when you fawned and flattered other people, and Iremember pretty well what that always led to.’

　　 ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. ‘So you do, soyou do, no doubt. Not a man knows it better. Well, it’s a pleasantthing now to think that you remember old times. Oh dear!’

　　‘Now then,’ said Ralph, composedly; ‘what’s in the wind, I askagain? What is it?’

　　‘See that now!’ cried the other. ‘He can’t even keep frombusiness while we’re chatting over bygones. Oh dear, dear, what aman it is!’

　　‘Which of the bygones do you want to revive?’ said Ralph. ‘Oneof them, I know, or you wouldn’t talk about them.’

　　‘He suspects even me!’ cried old Arthur, holding up his hands.

　　‘Even me! Oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What aman it is! Mr Nickleby against all the world. There’s nobody likehim. A giant among pigmies, a giant, a giant!’

　　Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckledon in this strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heartsink within him as the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.

　　‘I must humour him though,’ cried old Arthur; ‘he must havehis way—a wilful man, as the Scotch say—well, well, they’re a wisepeople, the Scotch. He will talk about business, and won’t giveaway his time for nothing. He’s very right. Time is money, time ismoney.’

　　‘He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,’ saidRalph. ‘Time is money, and very good money too, to those whoreckon interest by it. Time is money! Yes, and time costs money;it’s rather an expensive article to some people we could name, or Iforget my trade.’

　　In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands,again chuckled, and again ejaculated ‘What a man it is!’ which done, he dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph’s high stool,and looking upwards into his immovable face, said,‘What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was—that Iwas—going to be married?’

　　‘I should tell you,’ replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him,‘that for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn’tthe first time and wouldn’t be the last; that I wasn’t surprised andwasn’t to be taken in.’

　　‘Then I tell you seriously that I am,’ said old Arthur.

　　‘And I tell you seriously,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘what I told you thisminute. Stay. Let me look at you. There’s a liquorish devilry inyour face. What is this?’

　　‘I wouldn’t deceive you, you know,’ whined Arthur Gride; ‘Icouldn’t do it, I should be mad to try. I, I, to deceive Mr Nickleby!

　　The pigmy to impose upon the giant. I ask again—he, he, he!—what should you say to me if I was to tell you that I was going to bemarried?’

　　‘To some old hag?’ said Ralph.

　　‘No, No,’ cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his handsin an ecstasy. ‘Wrong, wrong again. Mr Nickleby for once at fault;out, quite out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely,bewitching, and not nineteen. Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe andruddy lips that to look at is to long to kiss, beautiful clustering hairthat one’s fingers itch to play with, such a waist as might make aman clasp the air involuntarily, thinking of twining his arm aboutit, little feet that tread so lightly they hardly seem to walk upon theground—to marry all this, sir, this—hey, hey!’

　　‘This is something more than common drivelling,’ said Ralph,after listening with a curled lip to the old sinner’s raptures. ‘The girl’s name?’

　　‘Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!’ exclaimed oldArthur. ‘He knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, heknows it must all turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already.

　　Her name—is there nobody within hearing?’

　　‘Why, who the devil should there be?’ retorted Ralph, testily.

　　‘I didn’t know but that perhaps somebody might be passing upor down the stairs,’ said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the doorand carefully reclosing it; ‘or but that your man might have comeback and might have been listening outside. Clerks and servantshave a trick of listening, and I should have been veryuncomfortable if Mr Noggs—’

　　‘Curse Mr Noggs,’ said Ralph, sharply, ‘and go on with whatyou have to say.’

　　‘Curse Mr Noggs, by all means,’ rejoined old Arthur; ‘I am sureI have not the least objection to that. Her name is—’

　　‘Well,’ said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur’spausing again ‘what is it?’

　　‘Madeline Bray.’

　　Whatever reasons there might have been—and Arthur Grideappeared to have anticipated some—for the mention of this nameproducing an effect upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really didproduce upon him, he permitted none to manifest itself, butcalmly repeated the name several times, as if reflecting when andwhere he had heard it before.

　　‘Bray,’ said Ralph. ‘Bray—there was young Bray of—,no, henever had a daughter.’

　　‘You remember Bray?’ rejoined Arthur Gride.

　　‘No,’ said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

　　 ‘Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsomewife so ill?’

　　‘If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to myrecollection by such a trait as that,’ said Ralph, shrugging hisshoulders, ‘I shall confound him with nine-tenths of the dashingmen I have ever known.’

　　‘Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,’ saidold Arthur. ‘You can’t have forgotten Bray. Both of us did businesswith him. Why, he owes you money!’

　　‘Oh him!’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It’s hisdaughter, is it?’

　　Naturally as this was said, it was not said so naturally but that akindred spirit like old Arthur Gride might have discerned a designupon the part of Ralph to lead him on to much more explicitstatements and explanations than he would have volunteered, orthat Ralph could in all likelihood have obtained by any othermeans. Old Arthur, however, was so intent upon his own designs,that he suffered himself to be overreached, and had no suspicionbut that his good friend was in earnest.

　　‘I knew you couldn’t forget him, when you came to think for amoment,’ he said.

　　‘You were right,’ answered Ralph. ‘But old Arthur Gride andmatrimony is a most anomalous conjunction of words; old ArthurGride and dark eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to look at is tolong to kiss, and clustering hair that he wants to play with, andwaists that he wants to span, and little feet that don’t tread uponanything—old Arthur Gride and such things as these is moremonstrous still; but old Arthur Gride marrying the daughter of aruined “dashing man” in the Rules of the Bench, is the most monstrous and incredible of all. Plainly, friend Arthur Gride, ifyou want any help from me in this business (which of course youdo, or you would not be here), speak out, and to the purpose. And,above all, don’t talk to me of its turning to my advantage, for Iknow it must turn to yours also, and to a good round tune too, oryou would have no finger in such a pie as this.’

　　There was enough acerbity and sarcasm not only in the matterof Ralph’s speech, but in the tone of voice in which he uttered it,and the looks with which he eked it out, to have fired even theancient usurer’s cold blood and flushed even his withered cheek.

　　But he gave vent to no demonstration of anger, contenting himselfwith exclaiming as before, ‘What a man it is!’ and rolling his headfrom side to side, as if in unrestrained enjoyment of his freedomand drollery. Clearly observing, however, from the expression inRalph’s features, that he had best come to the point as speedily asmight be, he composed himself for more serious business, andentered upon the pith and marrow of his negotiation.

　　First, he dwelt upon the fact that Madeline Bray was devoted tothe support and maintenance, and was a slave to every wish, ofher only parent, who had no other friend on earth; to which Ralphrejoined that he had heard something of the kind before, and thatif she had known a little more of the world, she wouldn’t havebeen such a fool.

　　Secondly, he enlarged upon the character of her father,arguing, that even taking it for granted that he loved her in returnwith the utmost affection of which he was capable, yet he lovedhimself a great deal better; which Ralph said it was quiteunnecessary to say anything more about, as that was very natural,and probable enough.

　　 And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a delicateand beautiful creature, and that he had really a hankering to haveher for his wife. To this Ralph deigned no other rejoinder than aharsh smile, and a glance at the shrivelled old creature before him,which were, however, sufficiently expressive.

　　‘Now,’ said Gride, ‘for the little plan I have in my mind to bringthis about; because, I haven’t offered myself even to the father yet,I should have told you. But that you have gathered already? Ah!

　　oh dear, oh dear, what an edged tool you are!’

　　‘Don’t play with me then,’ said Ralph impatiently. ‘You knowthe proverb.’

　　‘A reply always on the tip of his tongue!’ cried old Arthur,raising his hands and eyes in admiration. ‘He is always prepared!

　　Oh dear, what a blessing to have such a ready wit, and so muchready money to back it!’ Then, suddenly changing his tone, hewent on: ‘I have been backwards and forwards to Bray’s lodgingsseveral times within the last six months. It is just half a year since Ifirst saw this delicate morsel, and, oh dear, what a delicate morselit is! But that is neither here nor there. I am his detaining creditorfor seventeen hundred pounds!’

　　‘You talk as if you were the only detaining creditor,’ said Ralph,pulling out his pocket-book. ‘I am another for nine hundred andseventy-five pounds four and threepence.’

　　‘The only other, Mr Nickleby,’ said old Arthur, eagerly. ‘Theonly other. Nobody else went to the expense of lodging a detainer,trusting to our holding him fast enough, I warrant you. We bothfell into the same snare; oh dear, what a pitfall it was; it almostruined me! And lent him our money upon bills, with only onename besides his own, which to be sure everybody supposed to be a good one, and was as negotiable as money, but which turned outyou know how. Just as we should have come upon him, he diedinsolvent. Ah! it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss did!’

　　‘Go on with your scheme,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s of no use raising thecry of our trade just now; there’s nobody to hear us!’

　　‘It’s always as well to talk that way,’ returned old Arthur, with achuckle, ‘whether there’s anybody to hear us or not. Practicemakes perfect, you know. Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son-in-law, upon one simple condition that the moment I am fastmarried he shall be quietly released, and have an allowance to livejust t’other side the water like a gentleman (he can’t live long, for Ihave asked his doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one ofthe Heart and it is impossible), and if all the advantages of thiscondition are properly stated and dwelt upon to him, do you thinkhe could resist me? And if he could not resist me, do you think hisdaughter could resist him? Shouldn’t I have her Mrs ArthurGride—pretty Mrs Arthur Gride—a tit-bit—a dainty chick—shouldn’t I have her Mrs Arthur Gride in a week, a month, a day—any time I chose to name?’

　　‘Go on,’ said Ralph, ............