|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
484 was I for six weeks with a swelled face--I think that was the very same hackney coach, that we found out afterwards, had the top open all the time, and we should never even have known it, if they hadn’t charged us a shilling an hour extra for having it open, which it seems is the law, or was then, and a most shameful law it appears to be--I don’t understand the subject, but I should say the Corn Laws could be nothing to that act of Parliament.’ Having pretty well run herself out by this time, Mrs Nickleby stopped as suddenly as she had started off; and repeated that Kate was quite well. ‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Nickleby, ‘I don’t think she ever was better, since she had the hooping-cough, scarlet-fever, and measles, all at the same time, and that’s the fact.’ ‘Is that letter for me?’ growled Ralph, pointing to the little packet Mrs Nickleby held in her hand. ‘For you, brother-in-law,’ replied Mrs Nickleby, ‘and I walked all the way up here on purpose to give it you.’ ‘All the way up here!’ cried Sir Mulberry, seizing upon the chance of discovering where Mrs Nickleby had come from. ‘What a confounded distance! How far do you call it now?’ ‘How far do I call it?’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘Let me see. It’s just a mile from our door to the Old Bailey.’ ‘No, no. Not so much as that,’ urged Sir Mulberry. ‘Oh! It is indeed,’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘I appeal to his lordship.’ ‘I should decidedly say it was a mile,’ remarked Lord Frederick, with a solemn aspect. ‘It must be; it can’t be a yard less,’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘All down Newgate Street, all down Cheapside, all up Lombard Street, down Gracechurch Street, and along Thames Street, as far as Spigwiffin’s Wharf. Oh! It’s a mile.’ |
