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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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808 Prayer, which, as it is offered up in cities like this, is understood to include half the luxuries of the world for the rich, and just as much coarse food as will support life for the poor--not that, but bread, a crust of dry hard bread, is beyond my reach today--let that have some weight with you, if nothing else has.’ ‘If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,’ said Ralph, ‘you have studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one who knows something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a lower tone; a little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of being starved in good earnest.’ As he said this, Ralph clenched his left wrist tightly with his right hand, and inclining his head a little on one side and dropping his chin upon his breast, looked at him whom he addressed with a frowning, sullen face. The very picture of a man whom nothing could move or soften. ‘Yesterday was my first day in London,’ said the old man, glancing at his travel-stained dress and worn shoes. ‘It would have been better for you, I think, if it had been your last also,’ replied Ralph. ‘I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were most likely to be found,’ resumed the other more humbly, ‘and I met you here at last, when I had almost given up the hope of encountering you, Mr Nickleby.’ He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he continued: ‘I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and as destitute and helpless as a child of six.’ ‘I am sixty years old, too,’ replied Ralph, ‘and am neither destitute nor helpless. Work. Don’t make fine play-acting speeches |
