At length he felt it was hopeless to remain, and going downstairs again, inquired of one of the lodgers if he knew anything of Mr. Squeers’s movements—mentioning that worthy by an assumed name which had been agreed upon between them. By this lodger he was referred to another, and by him to someone else, from whom he learnt, that, late on the previous night, he had gone out hastily with two men, who had shortly afterwards returned for the old woman who lived on the same floor; and that, although the circumstance had attracted the attention of the informant, he had not spoken to them at the time, nor made any inquiry afterwards.
This possessed him with the idea that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had been apprehended for the robbery, and that Mr. Squeers, being with her at the time, had been apprehended also, on suspicion of being a confederate. If this were so, the fact must be known to Gride; and to Gride’s house he directed his steps; now thoroughly alarmed, and fearful that there were indeed plots afoot, tending to his discomfiture and ruin.
Arrived at the usurer’s house, he found the windows close shut, the dingy blinds drawn down; all was silent, melancholy, and deserted. But this was its usual aspect. He knocked—gently at first—then loud and vigorously. Nobody came. He wrote a few words in pencil on a card, and having thrust it under the door was going away, when a noise above, as though a window-sash were stealthily raised, caught his ear, and looking up he could just discern the face of Gride himself, cautiously peering over the house parapet from the window of the garret. Seeing who was below, he drew it in again; not so quickly, however, but that Ralph let him know he was observed, and called to him to come down.
The call being repeated, Gride looked out again, so cautiously that no part of the old man’s body was visible. The sharp features and white hair appearing alone, above the parapet, looked like a severed head garnishing the wall.
“Hush!” he cried. “Go away, go away!”
“Come down,” said Ralph, beckoning him.
“Go a—way!” squeaked Gride, shaking his head in a sort of ecstasy of impatience. “Don’t speak to me, don’t knock, don’t call attention to the house, but go away.”
“I’ll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbours up in arms,” said Ralph, “if you don’t tell me what you mean by lurking there, you whining cur.”
“I can’t hear what you say—don’t talk to me—it isn’t safe—go away—go away!” returned Gride.
“Come down, I say. Will you come down?” said Ralph fiercely.
“No—o—o—o,” snarled Gride. He drew in his head; and Ralph, left standing in the street, could hear the sash closed, as gently and carefully as it had been opened.
“How is this,” said he, “that they all fall from me, and shun me like the plague, these men who have licked the dust from my feet? is my day past, and is this indeed the coming on of night? I’ll know what it means! I will, at any cost. I am firmer and more myself, just now, than I have been these many days.”
Turning from the door, which, in the first transport of his rage, he had meditated battering upon until Gride’s very fears should impel him to open it, he turned his face towards the city, and working his way steadily through the crowd which was pouring from it (it was by this time between five and six o’clock in the afternoon) went straight to the house of business of the brothers Cheeryble, and putting his head into the glass case, found Tim Linkinwater alone.
“My name’s Nickleby,” said Ralph.
“I know it,” replied Tim, surveying him through his spectacles.
“Which of your firm was it who called on me this morning?” demanded Ralph.
“Mr. Charles.”
“Then, tell Mr. Charles I want to see him.”
“You shall see,” said Tim, getting off his stool with great agility, “you shall see, not only Mr. Charles, but Mr. Ned likewise.”
Tim stopped, looked steadily and severely at Ralph, nodded his head once, in a curt manner which seemed to say there was a little more behind, and vanished. After a short interval, he returned, and, ushering Ralph into the presence of the two brothers, remained in the room himself.
“I want to speak to you, who spoke to me this morning,” said Ralph, pointing out with his finger the man whom he addressed.
“I have no secrets from my brother Ned, or from Tim Linkinwater,” observed brother Charles quietly.
“I have,” said Ralph.
“Mr. Nickleby, sir,” said brother Ned, “the matter upon which my brother Charles called upon you this morning is one which is already perfectly well known to us three, and to others besides, and must unhappily soon become known to a great many more. He waited upon you, sir, this morning, alone, as a matter of delicacy and consideration. We feel, now, that further delicacy and consideration would be misplaced; and, if we confer together, it must be as we are or not at all.”
“Well, gentlemen,” said Ralph with a curl of the lip, “talking in riddles would seem to be the peculiar forte of you two, and I suppose your clerk, like a prudent man, has studied the art also with a view to your good graces. Talk in company, gentlemen, in God’s name. I’ll humour you.”
“Humour!” cried Tim Linkinwater, suddenly growing very red in the face. “He’ll humour us! He’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers! Do you hear that? Do you hear him? Do you hear him say he’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers?”
“Tim,” said Charles and Ned together, “pray, Tim, pray now, don’t.”
Tim, taking the hint, stifled his indignation as well as he could, and suffered it to escape through his spectacles, with the additional safety-valve of a short hysterical laugh now
