CHAPTER XV.
ACQUAINTS THE READER WITH THE CAUSE AND ORIGIN OF THE INTERRUPTION DESCRIBED IN THE LAST CHAPTER, AND WITH SOME OTHER MATTERS NECESSARY TO BE KNOWN.
Newman Noggs scrambled in violent haste up stairs with the steaming beverage, which he had so unceremoniously snatched from the table of Mr. Kenwigs, and indeed from the very grasp of the water-rate collector, who was eyeing the contents of the tumbler at the moment of its unexpected abstraction, with lively marks of pleasure visible in his countenance, and bore his prize straight to his own back garret, where, footsore and nearly shoeless, wet, dirty, jaded, and disfigured with every mark of fatiguing travel, sat Nicholas, and Smike, at once the cause and partner of his toil: both perfectly worn out by their unwonted and protracted exertion.
Newman's first act was to compel Nicholas, with gentle force, to swallow half of the punch at a breath, nearly boiling as it was, and his next to pour the remainder down the throat of Smike, who, never having tasted anything stronger than aperient medicine in his whole life, exhibited various odd manifestations of surprise and delight, during the passage of the liquor down his throat, and turned up his eyes most emphatically when it was all gone.
"You are wet through," said Newman, passing his hand hastily over the coat which Nicholas had thrown off; "and I—I—haven't even a change," he added, with a wistful glance at the shabby clothes he wore himself.
"I have dry clothes, or at least such as will serve my turn well, in my bundle," replied Nicholas. "If you look so distressed to see me, you will add to the pain I feel already, at being compelled for one night to cast myself upon your slender means for aid and shelter."
Newman did not look the less distressed to hear Nicholas talking in this strain; but upon his young friend grasping him heartily by the hand, and assuring him that nothing but implicit confidence in the sincerity of his professions, and kindness of feeling towards himself, would have induced him, on any consideration, even to have made him acquainted with his arrival in London, Mr. Noggs brightened up again, and went about making such arrangements as were in his power for the comfort of his visitors, with extreme alacrity.
These were simple enough, poor Newman's means halting at a very considerable distance short of his inclinations; but, slight as they were, they were not made without much bustling and running about. As Nicholas had husbanded his scanty stock of money so well that it was not yet quite expended, a supper of bread and cheese, with some cold beef from the cook's shop, was soon placed upon the table; and these viands being flanked by a bottle of spirits and a pot of porter,
