had left the room, when he came cautiously into a sitting posture, and confronted Ralph with a very blank face, and the little bottle still in one hand and the tea-spoon in the other.
"You may put away those fooleries now, and live by your wits again," said Ralph, coolly putting on his hat.
"Demmit, Nickleby, you're not serious?"
"I seldom joke," said Ralph. "Good night."
"No, but Nickleby—"said Mantalini.
"I am wrong, perhaps," rejoined Ralph. "I hope so. You should know best. Good night."
Affecting not to hear his entreaties that he would stay and advise with him, Ralph left the crest-fallen Mr. Mantalini to his meditations, and left the house quietly.
"Oho!" he said, "sets the wind that way so soon? Half knave and half fool, and detected in both characters—hum—I think your day is over, sir."
As he said this, he made some memorandum in his pocket-book in which Mr. Mantalini's name figured conspicuously, and finding by his watch that it was between nine and ten o'clock, made all speed home.
"Are they here?" was the first question he asked of Newman.
Newman nodded. "Been here half-an-hour."
"Two of them? one a fat sleek man?"
"Ay," said Newman. "In your room now."
"Good," rejoined Ralph. "Get me a coach."
"A coach! "What you—going to—Eh?" stammered Newman.
Ralph angrily repeated his orders, and Noggs, who might well have been excused for wondering at such an unusual and extraordinary circumstance—for he had never seen Ralph in a coach in his life—departed on his errand, and presently returned with the conveyance.
Into it went Mr. Squeers, and Ralph, and the third man, whom Newman Noggs had never seen. Newman stood upon the door step to see them off, not troubling himself to wonder where or upon what business they were going, until he chanced by mere accident to hear Ralph name the address whither the coachman was to drive.
Quick as lightning and in a state of the most extreme wonder, Newman darted into his little office for his hat, and limped after the coach as if with the intention of getting up behind; but in this design he was balked, for it had too much the start of him and was soon hopelessly ahead, leaving him gaping in the empty street.
"I don't know though," said Noggs, stopping for breath, "any good that I could have done by going too. He would have seen me if I had. Drive there! "What can come of this! If I had only known it yesterday I could have told—drive there! There's mischief in it. There must be."
His reflections were interrupted by a grey-haired man of a very remarkable, though far from prepossessing appearance, who, coming stealthily towards him, solicited relief.
Newman, still cogitating deeply, turned away; but the man followed him, and pressed him with such a tale of misery that Newman (who
