on the part of Mr. Mantalini to reach the door, preparatory to straightway committing violence upon himself, that gentleman was prevailed upon, with difficulty, to promise that he wouldn't be a body. This great point attained, Madame Mantalini argued the question of the allowance, and Mr. Mantalini did the same, taking occasion to show that he could live with uncommon satisfaction upon bread and water and go clad in rags, but that he could not support existence with the additional burden of being mistrusted by the object of his most devoted and disinterested affection. This brought fresh tears into Madame Mantalini's eyes, which having just begun to open to some few of the demerits of Mr. Mantalini, were only open a very little way, and could be easily closed again. The result was, that without quite giving up the allowance question, Madame Mantalini postponed its further consideration; and Ralph saw clearly enough that Mr. Mantalini had gained a fresh lease of his easy life, and that, for some time longer at all events, his degradation and downfall were postponed.
"But it will come soon enough," thought Ralph; "all love—bah! that I should use the cant of boys and girls—is fleeting enough; though that which has its sole root in the admiration of a whiskered face like that of yonder baboon, perhaps lasts the longest, as it originates in the greater blindness and is fed by vanity. Meantime the fools bring grist to my mill, so let them live out their day, and the longer it is, the better."
These agreeable reflections occurred to Ralph Nickleby, as sundry small caresses and endearments, supposed to be unseen, were exchanged between the objects of his thoughts.
"If you have nothing more to say, my dear, to Mr. Nickleby," said Madame Mantalini, "we will take our leaves. I am sure we have detained him much too long already."
Mr. Mantalini answered, in the first instance, by tapping Madame Mantalini several times on the nose, and then, by remarking in words that he had nothing more to say.
"Demmit! I have, though," he added almost immediately, drawing Ralph into a corner. "Here's an affair about your friend Sir Mulberry. Such a demd extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of thing as never was—eh?"
"What do you mean?" asked Ralph.
"Don't you know, demmit?" asked Mr. Mantalini.
"I see by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last night and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger," answered Ralph with great composure; "but I see nothing extraordinary in that—accidents are not miraculous events, when men live hard and drive after dinner."
"Whew!" cried Mr. Mantalini in a long shrill whistle. "Then don't you know how it was?"
"Not unless it was as I have just supposed," replied Ralph, shrugging his shoulders carelessly, as if to give his questioner to understand that he had no curiosity upon the subject.
"Demmit, you amaze me," cried Mantalini.
