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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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807 ‘More than enough.’ ‘If I had remained in doubt about you, Mr Nickleby,’ said the other, ‘this reception, and your manner, would have decided me very soon.’ ‘Did you expect any other?’ asked Ralph, sharply. ‘No!’ said the man. ‘You were right,’ retorted Ralph; ‘and as you feel no surprise, need express none.’ ‘Mr Nickleby,’ said the man, bluntly, after a brief pause, during which he had seemed to struggle with an inclination to answer him by some reproach, ‘will you hear a few words that I have to say?’ ‘I am obliged to wait here till the rain holds a little,’ said Ralph, looking abroad. ‘If you talk, sir, I shall not put my fingers in my ears, though your talking may have as much effect as if I did.’ ‘I was once in your confidence--’ thus his companion began. Ralph looked round, and smiled involuntarily. ‘Well,’ said the other, ‘as much in your confidence as you ever chose to let anybody be.’ ‘Ah!’ rejoined Ralph, folding his arms; ‘that’s another thing, quite another thing.’ ‘Don’t let us play upon words, Mr Nickleby, in the name of humanity.’ ‘Of what?’ said Ralph. ‘Of humanity,’ replied the other, sternly. ‘I am hungry and in want. If the change that you must see in me after so long an absence--must see, for I, upon whom it has come by slow and hard degrees, see it and know it well--will not move you to pity, let the knowledge that bread; not the daily bread of the Lord’s |
