“Are you willing to work, sir?” he inquired, frowning on his nephew.
“Of course I am,” replied Nicholas haughtily.
“Then see here, sir,” said his uncle. “This caught my eye this morning, and you may thank your stars for it.”
With this exordium, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a newspaper from his pocket, and after unfolding it, and looking for a short time among the advertisements, read as follows:
“ ‘Education.—At Mr. Wackford Squeers’s Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge 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 the globes, 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 diet unparalleled. Mr. Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual salary ￡5. A Master of Arts would be preferred.’
“There!” said Ralph, folding the paper again. “Let him get that situation, 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 uncle must know best.”
“I say,” repeated Ralph, tartly, “let him get that situation, and his fortune is made. If he don’t like that, let him get one for himself. Without friends, money, recommendation, or knowledge of business of any kind, let him find honest employment in London, which will keep him in shoe leather, and I’ll give him a thousand pounds. At least,” said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, checking himself, “I would if I had it.”
“Poor fellow!” said the young lady. “Oh! uncle, must we be separated so soon!”
“Don’t tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking only for our good, my love,” said Mrs. Nickleby. “Nicholas, my dear, I wish you would say something.”
“Yes, mother, yes,” said Nicholas, who had hitherto remained silent and absorbed in thought. “If I am fortunate enough to be appointed 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 provided for, in that case (not otherwise), by me, and placed in some sphere of life in which they will be able to be independent. That will be my immediate care; they will not remain as they are, one week after your departure, I will undertake.”
“Then,” said Nicholas, starting gaily up, and wringing his uncle’s hand, “I am ready to do anything you wish me. Let us try our fortune with Mr. Squeers at once; he can but refuse.”
“He won’t do that,” said Ralph. “He will be glad to have you on my recommendation. Make yourself of use to him, and you’ll rise to be a partner in the establishment in no time. Bless me, only think! if he were to die, why your fortune’s made at once.”
“To be sure, I see it all,” said poor Nicholas, delighted with a thousand visionary ideas, that his good spirits and his inexperience were conjuring up before him. “Or suppose some young nobleman who is being educated at the Hall, were to take a fancy to me, and get his father to appoint me his travelling tutor when 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 was settled (as he would of course), he might fall in love with Kate, who would be keeping my house, and—and marry her, eh! uncle? Who knows?”
“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. Kate will be a beautiful woman, and I so proud to hear them say so, and mother so happy to be with us once again, and all these sad times forgotten, and—” The picture was too bright a one to bear, and Nicholas, fairly overpowered by it, smiled faintly, and burst into tears.
This simple family, born and bred in retirement, and wholly unacquainted with what is called the world—a conventional phrase which, being interpreted, often signifieth all the rascals in it—mingled their tears together at the thought of their first separation; and, this first gush of feeling over, were proceeding to dilate with all the buoyancy of untried hope on the bright prospects before them, when Mr. Ralph Nickleby suggested, that if they lost time, some more fortunate candidate might deprive Nicholas of the stepping-stone to fortune which the advertisement pointed out, and so undermine all their air-built castles. This timely reminder effectually stopped the conversation. Nicholas, having carefully copied the address of Mr. Squeers, the uncle and nephew issued forth together in quest of that accomplished gentleman; Nicholas firmly persuading himself that he had done his relative great injustice in disliking him at first sight; and Mrs. Nickleby being at some pains to inform her daughter that she was sure 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 better understanding, and his implied compliment to her high deserts; and although she had dearly loved her husband, and still doted on her children, he had struck so successfully on one of those little jarring chords in the human heart (Ralph was well acquainted with its worst weaknesses, though he knew nothing of its best), that she had already begun seriously to consider herself the amiable and suffering victim of her late husband’s imprudence.
IV
Nicholas and his uncle (to secure the fortune
