The wine coming at the moment prevented his finishing the sentence. He swallowed a glassful and took up tlie paper again. At that instant——
"Little Kate Nickleby!" cried a voice behind him.
"I was right," muttered Nicholas as the paper fell from his hand. "And it was the man I supposed."
"As there was a proper objection to drinking her in heeltaps," said the voice, "we'll give her the first glass in the new magnum. Little Kate Nickleby!"
"Little Kate Nickleby," cried the other three. And the glasses were set down empty.
Keenly alive to the tone and manner of this slight and careless mention of his sister s name in a public place, Nicholas fired at once; but he kept himself quiet by a great effort, and did not even turn his head.
"The jade!" said the same voice which had spoken before. "She's a true Nickleby—a worthy imitator of her old uncle Ralph—she hangs back to be more sought after—so does he; nothing to be got out of Ralph unless you follow him up, and then the money comes doubly welcome, and the bargain doubly hard, for you're impatient and he isn't. Oh! infernal cunning."
"Infernal cunning," echoed two voices.
Nicholas was in a perfect agony as the two elderly gentlemen opposite, rose one after the other and went away, lest they should be the means of his losing one word of what was said. But the conversation was suspended as they withdrew, and resumed with even greater freedom when they had left the room.
"I am afraid," said the younger gentleman, "that the old woman has grown jea-a-lous, and locked her up. Upon my soul it looks like it."
"If they quarrel and little Nickleby goes home to her mother, so much the better," said the first. "I can do any thing with the old lady. She'll believe anything I tell her."
"Egad that's true," returned the other voice. "Ha, ha, ha! Poor deyvle!"
The laugh was taken up by the two voices which always came in together, and became general at Mrs. Nickleby's expense. Nicholas turned burning hot with rage, but he commanded himself for the moment, and waited to hear more.
What he heard need not be repeated here. Suffice it that as the wine went round he heard enough to acquaint him with the characters and designs of those whose conversation he overheard; to possess him with the full extent of Ralph's villany, and the real reason of his own presence being required in London. He heard all this and more. He heard his sister's sufferings derided, and her virtuous conduct jeered at and brutally misconstrued; he heard her name banded from mouth to mouth, and herself made the subject of coarse and insolent wagers, free speech, and licentious jesting.
The man who had spoken first, led the conversation and indeed almost engrossed it, being only stimulated from time to time by some
