“Do you decline to undertake them, sir?” inquired Mr. Gregsbury, with his hand on the bell-rope.
“I fear they are too great for my powers, however good my will may be, sir,” replied Nicholas.
“That is as much as to say that you had rather not accept the place, and that you consider fifteen shillings a week too little,” said Mr. Gregsbury, ringing. “Do you decline it, sir?”
“I have no alternative but to do so,” replied Nicholas.
“Door, Matthews!” said Mr. Gregsbury, as the boy appeared.
“I am sorry I have troubled you unnecessarily, sir,” said Nicholas.
“I am sorry you have,” rejoined Mr. Gregsbury, turning his back upon him. “Door, Matthews!”
“Good morning, sir,” said Nicholas.
“Door, Matthews!” cried Mr. Gregsbury.
The boy beckoned Nicholas, and tumbling lazily downstairs before him, opened the door, and ushered him into the street. With a sad and pensive air, he retraced his steps homewards.
Smike had scraped a meal together from the remnant of last night’s supper, and was anxiously awaiting his return. The occurrences of the morning had not improved Nicholas’s appetite, and, by him, the dinner remained untasted. He was sitting in a thoughtful attitude, with the plate which the poor fellow had assiduously filled with the choicest morsels, untouched, by his side, when Newman Noggs looked into the room.
“Come back?” asked Newman.
“Yes,” replied Nicholas, “tired to death: and, what is worse, might have remained at home for all the good I have done.”
“Couldn’t expect to do much in one morning,” said Newman.
“Maybe so, but I am sanguine, and did expect,” said Nicholas, “and am proportionately disappointed.” Saying which, he gave Newman an account of his proceedings.
“If I could do anything,” said Nicholas, “anything, however slight, until Ralph Nickleby returns, and I have eased my mind by confronting him, I should feel happier. I should think it no disgrace to work, Heaven knows. Lying indolently here, like a half-tamed sullen beast, distracts me.”
“I don’t know,” said Newman; “small things offer—they would pay the rent, and more—but you wouldn’t like them; no, you could hardly be expected to undergo it—no, no.”
“What could I hardly be expected to undergo?” asked Nicholas, raising his eyes. “Show me, in this wide waste of London, any honest means by which I could even defray the weekly hire of this poor room, and see if I shrink from resorting to them! Undergo! I have undergone too much, my friend, to feel pride or squeamishness now. Except—” added Nicholas hastily, after a short silence, “except such squeamishness as is common honesty, and so much pride as constitutes self-respect. I see little to choose, between assistant to a brutal pedagogue, and toad-eater to a mean and ignorant upstart, be he member or no member.”
“I hardly know whether I should tell you what I heard this morning, or not,” said Newman.
“Has it reference to what you said just now?” asked Nicholas.
“It has.”
“Then in Heaven’s name, my good friend, tell it me,” said Nicholas. “For God’s sake consider my deplorable condition; and, while I promise to take no step without taking counsel with you, give me, at least, a vote in my own behalf.”
Moved by this entreaty, Newman stammered forth a variety of most unaccountable and entangled sentences, the upshot of which was, that Mrs. Kenwigs had examined him, at great length that morning, touching the origin of his acquaintance with, and the whole life, adventures, and pedigree of, Nicholas; that Newman had parried these questions as long as he could, but being, at length, hard pressed and driven into a corner, had gone so far as to admit, that Nicholas was a tutor of great accomplishments, involved in some misfortunes which he was not at liberty to explain, and bearing the name of Johnson. That Mrs. Kenwigs, impelled by gratitude, or ambition, or maternal pride, or maternal love, or all four powerful motives conjointly, had taken secret conference with Mr. Kenwigs, and had finally returned to propose that Mr. Johnson should instruct the four Miss Kenwigses in the French language as spoken by natives, at the weekly stipend of five shillings, current coin of the realm; being at the rate of one shilling per week, per each Miss Kenwigs, and one shilling over, until such time as the baby might be able to take it out in grammar.
“Which, unless I am very much mistaken,” observed Mrs. Kenwigs in making the proposition, “will not be very long; for such clever children, Mr. Noggs, never were born into this world, I do believe.”
“There,” said Newman, “that’s all. It’s beneath you, I know; but I thought that perhaps you might—”
“Might!” cried Nicholas, with great alacrity; “of course I shall. I accept the offer at once. Tell the worthy mother so, without delay, my dear fellow; and that I am ready to begin whenever she pleases.”
Newman hastened, with joyful steps, to inform Mrs. Kenwigs of his friend’s acquiescence, and soon returning, brought back word that they would be happy to see him in the first floor as soon as convenient; that Mrs. Kenwigs had, upon the instant, sent out to secure a secondhand French grammar and dialogues, which had long been fluttering in the sixpenny box at the bookstall round the corner; and that the family, highly excited at the prospect of this addition to their gentility, wished the initiatory lesson to come off immediately.
And here it may be observed, that Nicholas was not, in the ordinary sense of the word, a young man of high spirit. He would resent an affront to himself, or interpose to redress a wrong offered to another, as boldly and freely as any knight that ever set lance in rest; but he lacked that peculiar excess of coolness and great-minded selfishness, which invariably distinguish
