The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby | Page 8

my old furniture, but will be sold

to strangers!'
The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his bed;
apparently resolved to keep that, at all events.
'Cheer up, sir!' said the apothecary.
'You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir,' said the nurse.
'Such things happen every day,' remarked the lawyer.
'And it is very sinful to rebel against them,' whispered the clergyman.
'And what no man with a family ought to do,' added the neighbours.
Mr Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room,
embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns to
his languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow. They were
concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for he babbled,
for a long time, about the generosity and goodness of his brother, and
the merry old times when they were at school together. This fit of
wandering past, he solemnly commended them to One who never
deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and, smiling gently on
them, turned upon his face, and observed, that he thought he could fall
asleep.

CHAPTER 2
Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings,
and of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance
Mr Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you would call a
merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special
pleader, nor a notary. He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less
could he lay any claim to the title of a professional gentleman; for it
would have been impossible to mention any recognised profession to

which he belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in
Golden Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door,
had another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left hand
door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant's fist grasping a
fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word 'Office,' it was clear that
Mr Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and
the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was
abundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours
of half- past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who
sat upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the
end of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he
answered the bell.
Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden
Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. It is one
of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone down
in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second
floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and it takes boarders
besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark-complexioned men
who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers,
and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the
box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when
they give away the orders,--all live in Golden Square, or within a street
of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera band
reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and the
notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head of
the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs,
in the centre of the square. On a summer's night, windows are thrown
open, and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the passer-by,
lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of gruff
voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence; and the
fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, and
German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the
supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street
bands are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee- singers
quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.

This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of
business; but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for
many years, and uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody
round about, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the reputation
of being immensely rich. The tradesmen held that he was a sort of
lawyer, and the other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general
agent; both of which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses
about other people's affairs usually are, or need to be.
Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready dressed
to walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer