An old Acquaintance is recognised undermelancholy Circumstances, and Dotheboys Hallbreaks up for ever.

　　Nicholas was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless itis shared by the friends of adverse and less fortunatedays. Surrounded by every fascination of love and hope,his warm heart yearned towards plain John Browdie. Heremembered their first meeting with a smile, and their secondwith a tear; saw poor Smike once again with the bundle on hisshoulder trudging patiently by his side; and heard the honestYorkshireman’s rough words of encouragement as he left them ontheir road to London.

　　Madeline and he sat down, very many times, jointly to producea letter which should acquaint John at full length with his alteredfortunes, and assure him of his friendship and gratitude. It sohappened, however, that the letter could never be written.

　　Although they applied themselves to it with the best intentions inthe world, it chanced that they always fell to talking aboutsomething else, and when Nicholas tried it by himself, he found itimpossible to write one-half of what he wished to say, or to penanything, indeed, which on reperusal did not appear cold andunsatisfactory compared with what he had in his mind. At last,after going on thus from day to day, and reproaching himself moreand more, he resolved (the more readily as Madeline stronglyurged him) to make a hasty trip into Yorkshire, and present  1147himself before Mr and Mrs Browdie without a word of notice.

　　Thus it was that between seven and eight o’clock one evening,he and Kate found themselves in the Saracen’s Head booking-office, securing a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning’scoach. They had to go westward, to procure some little necessariesfor his journey, and, as it was a fine night, they agreed to walkthere, and ride home.

　　The place they had just been in called up so many recollections,and Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicholas somany anecdotes of Frank, and each was so interested in what theother said, and both were so happy and confiding, and had somuch to talk about, that it was not until they had plunged for a fullhalf-hour into that labyrinth of streets which lies between SevenDials and Soho, without emerging into any large thoroughfare,that Nicholas began to think it just possible they might have losttheir way.

　　The possibility was soon converted into a certainty; for, onlooking about, and walking first to one end of the street and thento the other, he could find no landmark he could recognise, andwas fain to turn back again in quest of some place at which hecould seek a direction.

　　It was a by-street, and there was nobody about, or in the fewwretched shops they passed. Making towards a faint gleam of lightwhich streamed across the pavement from a cellar, Nicholas wasabout to descend two or three steps so as to render himself visibleto those below and make his inquiry, when he was arrested by aloud noise of scolding in a woman’s voice.

　　‘Oh come away!’ said Kate, ‘they are quarrelling. You’ll behurt.’

　　  1148‘Wait one instant, Kate. Let us hear if there’s anything thematter,’ returned her brother. ‘Hush!’

　　‘You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for-nothing brute,’ cried thewoman, stamping on the ground, ‘why don’t you turn the mangle?’

　　‘So I am, my life and soul!’ replied the man’s voice. ‘I am alwaysturning. I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in ademnition mill. My life is one demd horrid grind!’

　　‘Then why don’t you go and list for a soldier?’ retorted thewoman; ‘you’re welcome to.’

　　‘For a soldier!’ cried the man. ‘For a soldier! Would his joy andgladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail? Would shehear of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly?

　　Would she have him fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, andhis whiskers shaved, and his eyes turned right and left, and histrousers pipeclayed?’

　　‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, ‘you don’t know who that is.

　　It’s Mr Mantalini I am confident.’

　　‘Do make sure! Peep at him while I ask the way,’ said Nicholas.

　　‘Come down a step or two. Come!’

　　Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps andlooked into a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-basketsand clothes, stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still anold patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliantwaistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lackingtheir lustrous dye—there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of abuxom female—not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but theproprietress of the concern—and grinding meanwhile as if for verylife at the mangle, whose creaking noise, mingled with her shrilltones, appeared almost to deafen him—there was the graceful,  1149elegant, fascinating, and once dashing Mantalini.

　　‘Oh you false traitor!’ cried the lady, threatening personalviolence on Mr Mantalini’s face.

　　‘False! Oh dem! Now my soul, my gentle, captivating,bewitching, and most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm,’

　　said Mr Mantalini, humbly.

　　‘I won’t!’ screamed the woman. ‘I’ll tear your eyes out!’

　　‘Oh! What a demd savage lamb!’ cried Mr Mantalini.

　　‘You’re never to be trusted,’ screamed the woman; ‘you wereout all day yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere I know. Youknow you were! Isn’t it enough that I paid two pound fourteen foryou, and took you out of prison and let you live here like agentleman, but must you go on like this: breaking, my heartbesides?’

　　‘I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never doso any more; I will never be naughty again; I beg its little pardon,’

　　said Mr Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and foldinghis palms together; ‘it is all up with its handsome friend! He hasgone to the demnition bow-wows. It will have pity? It will notscratch and claw, but pet and comfort? Oh, demmit!’

　　Very little affected, to judge from her action, by this tenderappeal, the lady was on the point of returning some angry reply,when Nicholas, raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly.

　　Mr Mantalini turned round, caught sight of Kate, and, withoutanother word, leapt at one bound into a bed which stood behindthe door, and drew the counterpane over his face: kickingmeanwhile convulsively.

　　‘Demmit,’ he cried, in a suffocating voice, ‘it’s little Nickleby!

　　Shut the door, put out the candle, turn me up in the bedstead! Oh,  1150dem, dem, dem!’

　　The woman looked, first at Nicholas, and then at Mr Mantalini,as if uncertain on whom to visit this extraordinary behaviour; butMr Mantalini happening by ill-luck to thrust his nose from underthe bedclothes, in his anxiety to ascertain whether the visitorswere gone, she suddenly, and with a dexterity which could onlyhave been acquired by long practice, flung a pretty heavy clothes-basket at him, with so good an aim that he kicked more violentlythan before, though without venturing to make any effort todisengage his head, which was quite extinguished. Thinking this afavourable opportunity for departing before any of the torrent ofher wrath discharged itself upon him, Nicholas hurried Kate off,and left the unfortunate subject of this unexpected recognition toexplain his conduct as he best could.

　　The next morning he began his journey. It was now cold, winterweather: forcibly recalling to his mind under what circumstanceshe had first travelled that road, and how many vicissitudes andchanges he had since undergone. He was alone inside the greaterpart of the way, and sometimes, when he had fallen into a doze,and, rousing himself, looked out of the window, and recognisedsome place which he well remembered as having passed, either onhis journey down, or in the long walk back with poor Smike, hecould hardly believe but that all which had since happened hadbeen a dream, and that they were still plodding wearily on towardsLondon, with the world before them.

　　To render these recollections the more vivid, it came on to snowas night set in; and, passing through Stamford and Grantham, andby the little alehouse where he had heard the story of the boldBaron of Grogzwig, everything looked as if he had seen it but  1151yesterday, and not even a flake of the white crust on the roofs hadmelted away. Encouraging the train of ideas which flocked uponhim, he could almost persuade himself that he sat again outsidethe coach, with Squeers and the boys; that he heard their voices inthe air; and that he felt again, but with a mingled sensation of painand pleasure now, that old sinking of the heart, and longing afterhome. While he was yet yielding himself up to these fancies he fellasleep, and, dreaming of Madeline, forgot them.

　　He slept at the inn at Greta Bridge on the night of his arrival,and, rising at a very early hour next morning, walked to themarket town, and inquired for John Browdie’s house. John livedin the outskirts, now he was a family man; and as everbody knewhim, Nicholas had no difficulty in finding a boy who undertook toguide him to his residence.

　　Dismissing his guide at the gate, and in his impatience not evenstopping to admire the thriving look of cottage or garden either,Nicholas made his way to the kitchen door, and knocked lustilywith his stick.

　　‘Halloa!’ cried a voice inside. ‘Wa’et be the matther noo? Be thetoon a-fire? Ding, but thou mak’st noise eneaf!’

　　With these words, John Browdie opened the door himself, andopening his eyes too to their utmost width, cried, as he clapped hishands together, and burst into a hearty roar:

　　‘Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be the godfeyther! Tilly, here beMisther Nickleby. Gi’ us thee hond, mun. Coom awa’, coom awa’.

　　In wi ’un, doon beside the fire; tak’ a soop o’ thot. Dinnot say aword till thou’st droonk it a’! Oop wi’ it, mun. Ding! but I’m reeghtglod to see thee.’

　　Adapting his action to his text, John dragged Nicholas into the  1152kitchen, forced him down upon a huge settle beside a blazing fire,poured out from an enormous bottle about a quarter of a pint ofspirits, thrust it into his hand, opened his mouth and threw backhis head as a sign to him to drink it instantly, and stood with abroad grin of welcome overspreading his great red face like a jollygiant.

　　‘I might ha’ knowa’d,’ said John,;’ that nobody but thou wouldha’ coom wi’ sike a knock as you. Thot was the wa’ thou knockedat schoolmeasther’s door, eh? Ha, ha, ha! But I say; wa’at be a’ thisaboot schoolmeasther?’

　　‘You know it then?’ said Nicholas.

　　‘They were talking aboot it, doon toon, last neeght,’ repliedJohn, ‘but neane on ’em seemed quite to un’erstan’ it, loike.’

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