The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby | Page 9

over a blue coat; a
white waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn
over them. The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as if
insisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button of his
spencer; and the latter garment was not made low enough to conceal a
long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which had
its beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr Nickleby's pocket,
and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the watch itself,
and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of powder
upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were
his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his
countenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, and in
his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would
announce itself in spite of him. However this might be, there he was;
and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the
eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then, and
are consequently no business of ours just now.
Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and,
throwing himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction
through the dirty window. Some London houses have a melancholy
little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four high
whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which
there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show
of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs,
and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till
the following season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if

the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow
to chirrup in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards
'gardens'; it is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that
they are pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the
original brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or
of turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken
bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant
first moves in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes
away again: the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks
proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and
broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about--a prey to
'blacks' and dirt.
It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat
with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixed
his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in a
tub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rot away
piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but Mr
Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with far
greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have
deigned to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered
to a little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerk
was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to
attend.
In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which
he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on),
and presented himself in Mr Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of
middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a
rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be
allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear,
very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of
buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.
'Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp and
grating voice.
'Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the--' Noggs was going to

add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted 'regular
time.'
'My watch has stopped,' said Mr Nickleby; 'I don't know from what
cause.'
'Not wound up,' said Noggs.
'Yes it is,' said Mr Nickleby.
'Over-wound then,' rejoined Noggs.
'That can't very well be,' observed Mr Nickleby.
'Must be,' said Noggs.
'Well!' said Mr Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket;
'perhaps it is.'
Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all
disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as
he rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a