第249章

`You were born a genius, Mr Nickleby,' said old Arthur. `Deep, deep, deep. Ah!'

`Deep enough,' retorted Ralph, `to know that I shall need all the depth I have, when men like you begin to compliment. You know I have stood by when you fawned and flattered other people, and I remember pretty well what that always led to.'

`Ha, ha, ha!' rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. `So you do, so you do, no doubt. Not a man knows it better. Well, it's a pleasant thing now to think that you remember old times. Oh dear!'

`Now then,' said Ralph, composedly; `what's in the wind, I ask again -- what is it?'

`See that now!' cried the other. `He can't even keep from business while we're chatting over bygones. Oh dear, dear, what a man it is!'

` Which of the bygones do you want to revive?' said Ralph. `One of them, I know, or you wouldn't talk about them.'

`He suspects even me!' cried old Arthur, holding up his hands. `Even me -- oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What a man it is!

Mr Nickleby against all the world -- there's nobody like him. A giant among pigmies -- a giant -- a giant!'

Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.

`I must humour him though,' cried old Arthur; `he must have his way -- a wilful man, as the Scotch say -- well, well, they're a wise people, the Scotch -- he will talk about business, and won't give away his time for nothing. He's very right. Time is money -- time is money.'

`He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,' said Ralph.

I `Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by it. Time is money! Yes, and time costs money -- it's rather an expensive article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.'

In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again chuckled, and again ejaculated `What a man it is!' which done, he dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph's high stool, and looking upwards into his immovable face, said, `What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was -- that Iwas -- going to be married?'

`I should tell you,' replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, `that for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last; that I wasn't surprised and wasn't to be taken in.'

`Then I tell you seriously that I am,' said old Arthur.

`And I tell you seriously,' rejoined Ralph, `what I told you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There's a liquorish devilry in your face -- what is this?'

`I wouldn't deceive you , you know,' whined Arthur Gride; `I couldn't do it, I should be mad to try. I -- I -- to deceive Mr Nickleby! The pigmy to impose upon the giant. I ask again -- he, he, he! -- what should you say to me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?'

`To some old hag?' said Ralph.

`No, No,' cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an ecstasy. `Wrong, wrong again. Mr Nickleby for once at fault -- out, quite out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not nineteen. Dark eyes -- long eyelashes -- ripe and ruddy lips that to look at is to long to kiss -- beautiful clustering hair that one's fingers itch to play with -- such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily, thinking of twining his arm about it -- little feet that tread so lightly they hardly seem to walk upon the ground to marry all this, sir -- this -- hey, hey!'

`This is something more than common drivelling,' said Ralph, after listening with a curled lip to the old sinner's raptures. `The girl's name?'

`Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!' exclaimed old Arthur. `He knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name -- is there nobody within hearing?'

`Why, who the devil should there be?' retorted Ralph, testily.

`I didn't know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the stairs,' said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully re-closing it; `or but that your man might have come back and might have been listening outside -- clerks and servants have a trick of listening, and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr Noggs --'

`Curse Mr Noggs,' said Ralph, sharply, `and go on with what you have to say.'

`Curse Mr Noggs, by all means,' rejoined old Arthur; `I am sure I have not the least objection to that. Her name is --'

`Well,' said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur's pausing again `what is it?'

`Madeline Bray.'

Whatever reasons there might have been -- and Arthur Gride appeared to have anticipated some -- for the mention of this name producing an effect upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon him, he permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the name several times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it before.

`Bray,' said Ralph. `Bray -- there was young Bray of -- No, he never had a daughter.'

`You remember Bray?' rejoined Arthur Gride.

`No,' said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

`Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill?'

`If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection by such a trait as that,' said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, `I shall confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever known.'

`Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,' said old Arthur. `You can't have forgotten Bray. Both of us did business with him.

Why, he owes you money --'

`Oh him! ' rejoined Ralph. `Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It's his daughter, is it?'