Mantalini pulled Mr. Mantalini playfully by the ear, which done they descended to business.
"Now, ma'am," said Ralph, who had looked on at all this, with such scorn as few men can express in looks, "this is my niece."
"Just so, Mr. Nickleby," replied Madame Mantalini, surveying Kate from head to foot and back again. "Can you speak French, child?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied Kate, not daring to look up; for she felt that the eyes of the odious man in the dressing-gown were directed towards her.
"Like a demd native?" asked the husband.
Miss Nickleby offered no reply to this inquiry, but turned her back upon the questioner, as if addressing herself to make answer to what his wife might demand.
"We keep twenty young women constantly employed in the establishment," said Madame.
"Indeed, ma'am!" replied Kate, timidly.
"Yes; and some of 'em demd handsome, too," said the master.
"Mantalini!" exclaimed his wife, in an awful voice.
"My senses' idol!" said Mantalini.
"Do you wish to break my heart?"
"Not for twenty thousand hemispheres populated with—with—with little ballet-dancers," replied Mantalini in a poetical strain.
"Then you will, if you persevere in that mode of speaking," said his wife. "What can Mr. Nickleby think when he hears you?"
"Oh! Nothing, ma'am, nothing," replied Ralph. "I know his amiable nature, and yours—mere little remarks that give a zest to your daily intercourse; lovers' quarrels that add sweetness to those domestic joys which promise to last so long—that's all; that's all."
If an iron door could be supposed to quarrel with its hinges, and to make a firm resolution to open with slow obstinacy, and grind them to powder in the process, it would emit a pleasanter sound in so doing, than did these words in the rough and bitter voice in which they were uttered by Ralph. Even Mr. Mantalini felt their influence, and turning afirighted round, exclaimed—"What a demd horrid croaking!"
"You will pay no attention, if you please, to what Mr. Mantalini says," observed his wife, addressing Miss Nickleby.
"I do not, ma'am," said Kate, with quiet contempt.
"Mr. Mantalini knows nothing whatever about any of the young women," continued Madame, looking at her husband, and speaking to Kate. "If he has seen any of them, he must have seen them in the street going to, or returning from, their work, and not here. He was never even in the room. I do not allow it. What hours of work have you been accustomed to?"
"I have never yet been accustomed to work at all, ma'am," replied Kate, in a low voice.
"For which reason she'll work all the better now," said Ralph, putting in a word, lest this confession should injure the negotiation.
"I hope so," returned Madame Mantalini; "our hours are from nine to nine, with extra work when we're very full of business, for which I allow payment as over-time."
