Nicholas Nickleby
bankruptcies and pecuniary difficulties that made good for trade. In
short, it would have been difficult to have recognised the same man
under these various aspects, but for the bulky leather case full of
bills and notes which he drew from his pocket at every house, and the
constant repetition of the same complaint, (varied only in tone and
style of delivery,) that the world thought him rich, and that perhaps
he might be if he had his own; but there was no getting money in when it
was once out, either principal or interest, and it was a hard matter to
live; even to live from day to day.
It was evening before a long round of such visits (interrupted only by
a scanty dinner at an eating-house) terminated at Pimlico, and Ralph
walked along St James’s Park, on his way home.
There were some deep schemes in his head, as the puckered brow and
firmly-set mouth would have abundantly testified, even if they had been
unaccompanied by a complete indifference to, or unconsciousness of, the
objects about him. So complete was his abstraction, however, that
Ralph, usually as quick-sighted as any man, did not observe that he was
followed by a shambling figure, which at one time stole behind him with
noiseless footsteps, at another crept a few paces before him, and at
another glided along by his side; at all times regarding him with an eye
so keen, and a look so eager and attentive, that it was more like the
expression of an intrusive face in some powerful picture or strongly
marked dream, than the scrutiny even of a most interested and anxious
observer.
The sky had been lowering and dark for some time, and the commencement
of a violent storm of rain drove Ralph for shelter to a tree. He was
leaning against it with folded arms, still buried in thought, when,
happening to raise his eyes, he suddenly met those of a man who,
creeping round the trunk, peered into his face with a searching look.
There was something in the usurer’s expression at the moment, which the
man appeared to remember well, for it decided him; and stepping close up
to Ralph, he pronounced his name.
Astonished for the moment, Ralph fell back a couple of paces and
surveyed him from head to foot. A spare, dark, withered man, of about
his own age, with a stooping body, and a very sinister face rendered
more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply sunburnt, and
thick black eyebrows, blacker in contrast with the perfect whiteness of
his hair; roughly clothed in shabby garments, of a strange and uncouth
make; and having about him an indefinable manner of depression and
degradation--this, for a moment, was all he saw. But he looked again,
and the face and person seemed gradually to grow less strange; to change
as he looked, to subside and soften into lineaments that were familiar,
until at last they resolved themselves, as if by some strange optical
illusion, into those of one whom he had known for many years, and
forgotten and lost sight of for nearly as many more.
The man saw that the recognition was mutual, and beckoning to Ralph to
take his former place under the tree, and not to stand in the falling
rain, of which, in his first surprise, he had been quite regardless,
addressed him in a hoarse, faint tone.
‘You would hardly have known me from my voice, I suppose, Mr. Nickleby?’
he said.
‘No,’ returned Ralph, bending a severe look upon him. ‘Though there is
something in that, that I remember now.’
‘There is little in me that you can call to mind as having been there
eight years ago, I dare say?’ observed the other.
‘Quite enough,’ said Ralph, carelessly, and averting his face. ‘More
than enough.’
‘If I had remained in doubt about YOU, Mr. Nickleby,’ said the other,
‘this reception, and YOUR manner, would have decided me very soon.’
‘Did you expect any other?’ asked Ralph, sharply.
‘No!’ said the man.
‘You were right,’ retorted Ralph; ‘and as you feel no surprise, need
express none.’
‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said the man, bluntly, after a brief pause, during which
he had seemed to struggle with an inclination to answer him by some
reproach, ‘will you hear a few words that I have to say?’
‘I am obliged to wait here till the rain holds a little,’ said Ralph,
looking abroad. ‘If you talk, sir, I shall not put my fingers in my
ears, though your talking may have as much effect as if I did.’
‘I was once in your confidence--’ thus his companion began. Ralph looked
round, and smiled involuntarily.
‘Well,’ said the other, ‘as much in your confidence as you ever chose to
let anybody be.’
‘Ah!’ rejoined Ralph, folding his arms; ‘that’s another thing, quite
another thing.’
‘Don’t let us play upon words, Mr. Nickleby, in the name of humanity.’
‘Of what?’ said Ralph.
‘Of humanity,’ replied the other, sternly. ‘I am hungry and in want. If
the change that you must see in me after so long an absence--must see,
for I, upon whom it has come by slow and hard degrees, see it and know
it well--will not move you to pity, let the knowledge that bread; not
the daily bread of the Lord’s Prayer, which, as it is offered up in
cities like this, is understood to include half the luxuries of the
world for the rich, and just as much coarse food as will support life
for the poor--not that, but bread, a crust of dry hard bread, is beyond
my reach today--let that have some weight with you, if nothing else
has.’
‘If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,’ said Ralph, ‘you have
studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one who knows
something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a lower tone; a
little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of being starved in good
earnest.’
As he said this, Ralph clenched his left wrist tightly with his right
hand, and inclining his head a little on one side and dropping his chin
upon his breast, looked at him whom he addressed with a frowning, sullen
face. The very picture of a man whom nothing could move or soften.
‘Yesterday was my first day in London,’ said the old man, glancing at
his travel-stained dress and worn shoes.
‘It would have been better for you, I think, if it had been your last
also,’ replied Ralph.
‘I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were most
likely to be found,’ resumed the other more humbly, ‘and I met you here
at last, when I had almost given up the hope of encountering you, Mr
Nickleby.’
He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he
continued:
‘I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and
as destitute and helpless as a child of six.’
‘I am sixty years old, too,’ replied Ralph, ‘and am neither destitute
nor helpless. Work. Don’t make fine play-acting speeches about bread,
but earn it.’
‘How?’ cried the other. ‘Where? Show me the means. Will you give them to
me--will you?’
‘I did once,’ replied Ralph, composedly; ‘you scarcely need ask me
whether I will again.’
‘It’s twenty years ago, or more,’ said the man, in a suppressed voice,
‘since you and I fell out. You remember that? I claimed a share in the
profits of some business I brought to you, and, as I persisted, you
arrested me for an old advance of ten pounds, odd shillings, including
interest at fifty per cent, or so.’
‘I remember something of it,’ replied Ralph, carelessly. ‘What then?’
‘That didn’t part us,’ said the man. ‘I made submission, being on the
wrong side of the bolts and bars; and as you were not the made man then
that you are now, you were glad enough to take back a clerk who wasn’t
over nice, and who knew something of the trade you drove.’
‘You begged and prayed, and I consented,’ returned Ralph. ‘That was kind
of me. Perhaps I did want you. I forget. I should think I did, or you
would have begged in vain. You were useful; not too honest, not too
delicate, not too nice of hand or heart; but useful.’
‘Useful, indeed!’ said the man. ‘Come. You had pinched and ground me
down for some years before that, but I had served you faithfully up to
that time, in spite of all your dog’s usage. Had I?’
Ralph made no reply.
‘Had I?’ said the man again.
‘You had had your wages,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘and had done your work. We
stood on equal ground so far, and could both cry quits.’
‘Then, but not afterwards,’ said the other.
‘Not afterwards, certainly, nor even then, for (as you have just said)
you owed me money, and do still,’ replied Ralph.
‘That’s not all,’ said the man, eagerly. ‘That’s not all. Mark that. I
didn’t forget that old sore, trust me. Partly in remembrance of that,
and partly in the hope of making money someday by the scheme, I took
advantage of my position about you, and possessed myself of a hold upon
you, which you would give half of all you have to know, and never can
know but through me. I left you--long after that time, remember--and,
for some poor trickery that came within the law, but was nothing to what
you money-makers daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away
a convict for seven years. I have returned what you see me. Now, Mr
Nickleby,’ said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of
power, ‘what help and assistance will you give me; what bribe, to speak
out plainly? My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to
live I must eat and drink. Money is on your side, and hunger and thirst
on mine. You may drive an easy bargain.’
‘Is that all?’ said Ralph, still eyeing his companion with the same
steady look, and moving nothing but his lips.
‘It depends on you, Mr. Nickleby, whether that’s all or not,’ was the
rejoinder.
‘Why then, harkye, Mr--, I don’t know by what name I am to call you,’
said Ralph.
‘By my old one, if you like.’
‘Why then, harkye, Mr. Brooker,’ said Ralph, in his harshest accents,
‘and don’t expect to draw another speech from me. Harkye, sir. I know
you of old for a ready scoundrel, but you never had a stout heart; and
hard work, with (maybe) chains upon those legs of yours, and shorter
food than when I “pinched” and “ground” you, has blunted your wits, or
you would not come with such a tale as this to me. You a hold upon me!
Keep it, or publish it to the world, if you like.’
‘I can’t do that,’ interposed Brooker. ‘That wouldn’t serve me.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’ said Ralph. ‘It will serve you as much as bringing it to
me, I promise you. To be plain with you, I am a careful man, and know my
affairs thoroughly. I know the world, and the world knows me. Whatever
you gleaned, or heard, or saw, when you served me, the world knows and
magnifies already. You could tell it nothing that would surprise it,
unless, indeed, it redounded to my credit or honour, and then it would
scout you for a liar. And yet I don’t find business slack, or clients
scrupulous. Quite the contrary. I am reviled or threatened every day by
one man or another,’ said Ralph; ‘but things roll on just the same, and
I don’t grow poorer either.’
‘I neither revile nor threaten,’ rejoined the man. ‘I can tell you of
what you have lost by my act, what I only can restore, and what, if I
die without restoring, dies with me, and never can be regained.’
‘I tell my money pretty accurately, and generally keep it in my own
custody,’ said Ralph. ‘I look sharply after most men that I deal with,
and most of all I looked sharply after you. You are welcome to all you
have kept from me.’
‘Are those of your own name dear to you?’ said the man emphatically. ‘If
they are--’
‘They are not,’ returned Ralph, exasperated at this perseverance, and
the thought of Nicholas, which the last question awakened. ‘They are
not. If you had come as a common beggar, I might have thrown a sixpence
to you in remembrance of the clever knave you used to be; but since you
try to palm these stale tricks upon one you might have known better,