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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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296 ‘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 |
