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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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639 man’s side. ‘You were about to speak, young gentleman; what were you going to say?’ ‘Merely that I almost hoped--I mean to say, thought--you had some object in consulting those advertisements,’ said Nicholas. ‘Ay, ay? what object now--what object?’ returned the old man, looking slyly at Nicholas. ‘Did you think I wanted a situation now--eh? Did you think I did?’ Nicholas shook his head. ‘Ha! ha!’ laughed the old gentleman, rubbing his hands and wrists as if he were washing them. ‘A very natural thought, at all events, after seeing me gazing at those bills. I thought the same of you, at first; upon my word I did.’ ‘If you had thought so at last, too, sir, you would not have been far from the truth,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Eh?’ cried the old man, surveying him from head to foot. ‘What! Dear me! No, no. Well-behaved young gentleman reduced to such a necessity! No no, no no.’ Nicholas bowed, and bidding him good-morning, turned upon his heel. ‘Stay,’ said the old man, beckoning him into a bye street, where they could converse with less interruption. ‘What d’ye mean, eh?’ ‘Merely that your kind face and manner--both so unlike any I have ever seen--tempted me into an avowal, which, to any other stranger in this wilderness of London, I should not have dreamt of making,’ returned Nicholas. ‘Wilderness! Yes, it is, it is. Good! It is a wilderness,’ said the old man with much animation. ‘It was a wilderness to me once. I came here barefoot. I have never forgotten it. Thank God!’ and he raised |
