they are about to enter a room full of strangers, and have had time to think of it previously, ‘are there any ladies here?’
‘No,’ said Ralph, shortly, ‘I don’t know any.’
‘Must I go in immediately?’ asked Kate, drawing back a little.
‘As you please,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They are all come, and dinner will be announced directly afterwards—that’s all.’
Kate would have entreated a few minutes’ respite, but reflecting that her uncle might consider the payment of the hackney-coach fare a sort of bargain for her punctuality, she suffered him to draw her arm through his, and to lead her away.
Seven or eight gentlemen were standing round the fire when they went in, and, as they were talking very loud, were not aware of their entrance until Mr. Ralph Nickleby, touching one on the coat-sleeve, said in a harsh emphatic voice, as if to attract general attention—
‘Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, Miss Nickleby.’
The group dispersed, as if in great surprise, and the gentleman addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the most superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache, a head of hair, and a young face.
‘Eh!’ said the gentleman. ‘What—the—deyvle!’
With which broken ejaculations, he fixed his glass in his eye, and stared at Miss Nickleby in great surprise.
‘My niece, my lord,’ said Ralph.
‘Then my ears did not deceive me, and it’s not wa-a-x work,’ said his lordship. ‘How de do? I’m very happy.’ And then his lordship turned to another superlative gentleman, something older, something stouter, something redder in the face, and something longer upon town, and said in a loud whisper that the girl was ‘deyvlish pitty.’
‘Introduce me, Nickleby,’ said this second gentleman, who was lounging with his back to the fire, and both elbows on the chimneypiece.
‘Sir Mulberry Hawk,’ said Ralph.
‘Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick Verisopht.
‘Don’t leave me out, Nickleby,’ cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who was sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading the paper.
‘Mr. Pyke,’ said Ralph.
‘Nor me, Nickleby,’ cried a gentleman with a flushed face and a flash air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry Hawk.
‘Mr. Pluck,’ said Ralph. Then wheeling about again, towards a gentleman with the neck of a stork and the legs of no animal in particular, Ralph introduced him as the Honourable Mr. Snobb; and a white-headed person at the table as Colonel Chowser. The colonel was in conversation with somebody, who appeared to be a make-weight, and was not introduced at all.
There were two circumstances which, in this early stage of the party, struck home to Kate’s bosom, and brought the blood tingling to her face. One was the flippant contempt with which the guests evidently regarded her uncle, and the other, the easy insolence of their manner towards herself. That the first symptom was very likely to lead to the aggravation of the second, it needed no great penetration to foresee. And here Mr. Ralph Nickleby had reckoned without his host; for however fresh from the country a young lady (by nature) may be, and however unacquainted with conventional behaviour, the chances are, that she will have quite as strong an innate sense of the decencies and proprieties of life as if she had run the gauntlet of a dozen London seasons—possibly a stronger one, for such senses have been known to blunt in this improving process.
When Ralph had completed the ceremonial of introduction, he led his blushing niece to a seat. As he did so, he glanced warily round as though to assure himself of the impression which her unlooked-for appearance had created.
‘An unexpected playsure, Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick Verisopht, taking his glass out of his right eye, where it had, until now, done duty on Kate, and fixing it in his left, to bring it to bear on Ralph.
‘Designed to surprise you, Lord Frederick,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘Not a bad idea,’ said his lordship, ‘and one that would almost warrant the addition of an extra two and a half per cent.’
‘Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, in a thick coarse voice, ‘take the hint, and tack it on the other five-and-twenty, or whatever it is, and give me half for the advice.’
Sir Mulberry garnished this speech with a hoarse laugh, and terminated it with a pleasant oath regarding Mr. Nickleby’s limbs, whereat Messrs Pyke and Pluck laughed consumedly.
These gentlemen had not yet quite recovered the jest, when dinner was announced, and then they were thrown into fresh ecstasies by a similar cause; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess of humour, shot dexterously past Lord Frederick Verisopht who was about to lead Kate downstairs, and drew her arm through his up to the elbow.
‘No, damn it, Verisopht,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘fair play’s a jewel, and Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter with our eyes ten minutes ago.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the honourable Mr. Snobb, ‘very good, very good.’
Rendered additionally witty by this applause, Sir Mulberry Hawk leered upon his friends most facetiously, and led Kate downstairs with an air of familiarity, which roused in her gentle breast such burning indignation, as she felt it almost impossible to repress. Nor was the intensity of these feelings at all diminished, when she found herself placed at the top of the table, with Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht on either side.
‘Oh, you’ve found your way into our neighbourhood, have you?’ said Sir Mulberry as his lordship sat down.
‘Of course,’ replied Lord Frederick, fixing his eyes on Miss Nickleby, ‘how can you a-ask me?’
‘Well, you attend to your dinner,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘and don’t mind Miss Nickleby and me, for we shall prove very indifferent company, I dare say.’
‘I wish you’d interfere here, Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘What is the matter, my lord?’ demanded Ralph from the bottom of the table, where he was supported by Messrs Pyke and Pluck.
‘This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising your niece,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘He has a tolerable share of everything that you lay claim to, my lord,’ said Ralph with a sneer.
‘’Gad, so he has,’ replied the young man; ‘deyvle take me if I know which is master in my house, he or I.’
‘I know,’ muttered Ralph.
‘I think I shall cut him off with a shilling,’ said the young nobleman, jocosely.
‘No, no, curse it,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘When you come to the shilling—the last shilling—I’ll cut you fast enough; but till then, I’ll never leave you—you may take your oath of it.’
This sally (which was strictly founded on fact) was received with a general roar, above which, was plainly distinguishable the laughter of Mr Pyke and Mr. Pluck, who were, evidently, Sir Mulberry’s toads in ordinary. Indeed, it was not difficult to see, that the majority of the company preyed upon the unfortunate young lord, who, weak and silly as he was, appeared by far the least vicious of the party. Sir Mulberry Hawk was remarkable for his tact in ruining, by himself and his creatures, young gentlemen of fortune—a genteel and elegant profession, of which he had undoubtedly gained the head. With all the boldness of an original genius, he had struck out an entirely new course of treatment quite opposed to the usual method; his custom being, when he had gained the ascendancy over those he took in hand, rather to keep them down than to give them their own way; and to exercise his vivacity upon them openly, and without reserve. Thus, he made them butts, in a double sense,