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 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 grim silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other:
cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all
possible distortions. The incessant performance of this routine on
every occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look to
his unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to
render it impossible for anybody to determine where or at what he
was looking, were two among the numerous peculiarities of Mr Noggs,
which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight.
'I am going to the London Tavern this morning,' said Mr
Nickleby.
'Public meeting?' inquired Noggs.
Mr Nickleby nodded. 'I expect a letter from the solicitor
respecting that mortgage of Ruddle's. If it comes at all, it will
be here by the two o'clock delivery. I shall leave the city about
that time and walk to Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the
way; if there are any letters, come and meet me, and bring them
with you.'
Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office
bell. The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly
remained in a stationary position.
'The bell,' said Noggs, as though in explanation. 'At home?'
'Yes.'
'To anybody?'
'Yes.'
'To the tax-gatherer?'
'No! Let him call again.'
Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say 'I thought
so!' and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he
presently returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr Bonney, a pale
gentleman in a violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in
great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravat
tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up
in the night and had not dressed himself since.
'My dear Nickleby,' said the gentleman, taking off a white hat
which was so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his
head, 'there's not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir
Matthew Pupker takes the chair, and three members of Parliament are
positively coming. I have seen two of them safely out of bed. The
third, who was at Crockford's all night, has just gone home to put
a clean shirt on, and take a bottle or two of soda water, and will
certainly be with us, in time to address the meeting. He is a
little excited by last night, but never mind that; he always speaks
the stronger for it.'
'It seems to promise pretty well,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, whose
deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other
man of business.
'Pretty well!' echoed Mr Bonney. 'It's the finest idea that was
ever started. "United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet
Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in
five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each." Why the very name
will get the shares up to a premium in ten days.'
'And when they ARE at a premium,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby,
smiling.
'When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man
alive, and how to back quietly out at the right time,' said Mr
Bonney, slapping the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. 'By-
the-bye, what a VERY remarkable man that clerk of yours is.'
'Yes, poor devil!' replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. 'Though
Newman Noggs kept his horses and hounds once.'
'Ay, ay?' said the other carelessly.
'Yes,' continued Ralph, 'and not many years ago either; but he
squandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and
in short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar.
He took to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came
here to borrow a pound, as in his better days I had—'
'Done business with him,' said Mr Bonney with a meaning
look.
'Just so,' replied Ralph; 'I couldn't lend it, you know.'
'Oh, of course not.'
'But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so
forth, I took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever
since. He is a little mad, I think,' said Mr Nickleby, calling up a
charitable look, 'but he is useful enough, poor creature—useful
enough.'
The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs,
being utterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual
wages of a boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his
hasty chronicle, that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an
especially valuable person in a place where much business was done,
of which it was desirable no mention should be made out of doors.
The other gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and
as they hurried into the hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards,
perhaps Mr Nickleby forgot to mention circumstances so
unimportant.
There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they
drew up, and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking
across the road under a press of paper, bearing gigantic
announcements that a Public Meeting would be holden at one o'clock
precisely, to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning
Parliament in favour of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin
and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company, capital five
millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each; which
sums were duly set forth in fat black figures of considerable size.
Mr Bonney elbowed his way briskly upstairs, receiving in his
progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on the landings
to show the way; and, followed by Mr Nickleby, dived into a suite
of apartments behind the great public room: in the second of which
was a business-looking table, and several business-looking
people.
'Hear!' cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr Bonney
presented himself. 'Chair, gentlemen, chair!'
The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr
Bonney bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran
his fingers through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman's
knock on the table with a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen
cried 'Hear!' and nodded slightly to each other, as much as to say
what spirited conduct that was. Just at this moment, a waiter,
feverish with agitation, tore into the room, and throwing the door
open with a crash, shouted 'Sir Matthew Pupker!'
The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and
while they were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended
by two live members of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all
smiling and bowing, and looking so pleasant that it seemed a
perfect marvel how any man could have the heart to vote against
them. Sir Matthew Pupker especially, who had a little round head
with a flaxen wig on the top of it, fell into such a paroxysm of
bows, that the wig threatened to be jerked off, every instant. When
these symptoms had in some degree subsided, the gentlemen who were
on speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker, or the two other
members, crowded round them in three little groups, near one or
other of which the gentlemen who were NOT on speaking terms with
Sir Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stood lingering, and
smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope of
something turning up which might bring them into notice. All this
time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other members were relating to
their separate circles what the intentions of government were,
about taking up the bill; with a full account of what the
government had said in a whisper the last time they dined with it,
and how the government had been observed to wink when it said so;
from which premises they were at no loss to draw the conclusion,
that if the government had one object more at heart than another,
that one object was the welfare and advantage of the United
Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company.
Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a
fair division of the speechifying, the public in the large room
were eyeing, by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the
Music Gallery. In these amusements the greater portion of them had
been occupied for a couple of hours before, and as the most
agreeable diversions pall upon the taste on a too protracted
enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now began to hammer the
floor with their boot-heels, and to express their dissatisfaction
by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions, emanating from
the people who had been there longest, naturally proceeded from
those who were nearest to the platform and furthest from the
policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight their
way through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy
desire to do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began
to drag forth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people
near the door; at the same time dealing out various smart and
tingling blows with their truncheons, after the manner of that
ingenious actor, Mr Punch: whose brilliant example, both in the
fashion of his weapons and their use, this branch of the executive
occasionally follows.
Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud
shout attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then
there poured on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long
line of gentlemen with their hats off, all looking behind them, and
uttering vociferous cheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently
explained when Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other real members of
Parliament came to the front, amidst deafening shouts, and
testified to each other in dumb motions that they had never seen
such a glorious sight as that, in the whole course of thier public
career.
At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir
Matthew Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse
which lasted five minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to
say what must be his feelings on that great occasion, and what must
be that occasion in the eyes of the world, and what must be the
intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be
the wealth and respectability of his honourable friends behind him,
and lastly, what must be the importance to the wealth, the
happiness, the comfort, the liberty, the very existence of a free
and great people, of such an Institution as the United Metropolitan
Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery
Company!
Mr Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution;
and having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his
left, in an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the
care of the gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species
of bottle- holder to the orators generally), and said he would read
to them the first resolution—'That this meeting views with alarm
and apprehension, the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this
Metropolis and its neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin
Boys, as at present constituted, wholly underserving the confidence
of the public; and that it deems the whole Muffin system alike
prejudicial to the health and morals of the people, and subversive
of the best interests of a great commercial and mercantile
community.' The honourable gentleman made a speech which drew tears
from the eyes of the ladies, and awakened the liveliest emotions in
every individual present. He had visited the houses of the poor in
the various districts of London, and had found them destitute of
the slightest vestige of a muffin, which there appeared too much
reason to believe some of these indigent persons did not taste from
year's end to year's end. He had found that among muffin-sellers
there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he
attributed to the debasing nature of their employment as at present
exercised; he had found the same vices among the poorer class of
people who ought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to
the despair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of
that nutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant
in intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a
committee of the House of Commons, that there existed a combination
to keep up the price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a
monopoly; he would prove it by bellmen at the bar of that House;
and he would also prove, that these men corresponded with each
other by secret words and signs as 'Snooks,' 'Walker,' 'Ferguson,'
'Is Murphy right?' and many others. It was this melancholy state of
things that the Company proposed to correct; firstly, by
prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffin trading of
every description; secondly, by themselves supplying the public
generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first
quality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill had
been introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir
Matthew Pupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it
was the supporters of this bill who would confer undying brightness
and splendour upon England, under the name of the United
Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company; he would add, with a capital of Five Millions, in
five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.
Mr Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman
having moved that it be amended by the insertion of the words 'and
crumpet' after the word 'muffin,' whenever it occurred, it was
carried triumphantly. Only one man in the crowd cried 'No!' and he
was promptly taken into custody, and straightway borne off.
The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of
immediately abolishing 'all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all
traders in muffins (or crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether
male or female, boys or men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,' was
moved by a grievous gentleman of semi-clerical appearance, who went
at once into such deep pathetics, that he knocked the first speaker
clean out of the course in no time. You might have heard a pin
fall—a pin! a feather—as he described the cruelties inflicted on
muffin boys by their masters, which he very wisely urged were in
themselves a sufficient reason for the establishment of that
inestimable company. It seemed that the unhappy youths were nightly
turned out into the wet streets at the most inclement periods of
the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain—or it might be hail
or snow—for hours together, without shelter, food, or warmth; and
let the public never forget upon the latter point, that while the
muffins were provided with warm clothing and blankets, the boys
were wholly unprovided for, and left to their own miserable
resources. (Shame!) The honourable gentleman related one case of a
muffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous
system for no less than five years, at length fell a victim to a
cold in the head, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell
into a perspiration and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his
own authority, but he had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the
fact) of a still more heart-rending and appalling circumstance. He
had heard of the case of an orphan muffin boy, who, having been run
over by a hackney carriage, had been removed to the hospital, had
undergone the amputation of his leg below the knee, and was now
actually pursuing his occupation on crutches. Fountain of justice,
were these things to last!
This was the department of the subject that took the meeting,
and this was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The
men shouted; the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till
they were moist, and waved them till they were dry; the excitement
was tremendous; and Mr Nickleby whispered his friend that the
shares were thenceforth at a premium of five-and-twenty per
cent.
The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations,
every man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his
enthusiasm have held up both legs also, if he could have
conveniently accomplished it. This done, the draft of the proposed
petition was read at length: and the petition said, as all
petitions DO say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the
petitioned very honourable, and the object very virtuous; therefore
(said the petition) the bill ought to be passed into a law at once,
to the everlasting honour and glory of that most honourable and
glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.
Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford's all night, and
who looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came
forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to
make in favour of that petition whenever it should be presented,
and how desperately he meant to taunt the parliament if they
rejected the bill; and to inform them also, that he regretted his
honourable friends had not inserted a clause rendering the purchase
of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon all classes of the
community, which he —opposing all half-measures, and preferring to
go the extreme animal— pledged himself to propose and divide upon,
in committee. After announcing this determination, the honourable
gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured kid
gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there was
immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant
display of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous
gentleman quite into the shade.
And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted,
there came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of
ardent temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can
make, breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured
forth with such fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in
the course whereof, he told them how he would demand the extension
of that great boon to his native country; how he would claim for
her equal rights in the muffin laws as in all other laws; and how
he yet hoped to see the day when crumpets should be toasted in her
lowly cabins, and muffin bells should ring in her rich green
valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member, with various
pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which
increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the
speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do,
and established in the hearers' minds that there was no speculation
so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United
Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company.
So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the
meeting adjourned with acclamations, and Mr Nickleby and the other
directors went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at
half-past one o'clock; and to remunerate themselves for which
trouble, (as the company was yet in its infancy,) they only charged
three guineas each man for every such attendance.