"My dear brother," said the other, seizing Tim's disengaged fist, "Tim Linkinwater looks ten years younger than he did on his last birth-day."
"Brother Ned, my dear boy," returned the other old fellow, " I believe that Tim Linkinwater was born a hundred-and-fifty years old, and is gradually coming down to five-and-twenty; for he's younger every birth-day than he was the year before."
"So he is, brother Charles, so he is," replied brother Ned. "There's not a doubt about it."
"Remember, Tim," said brother Charles, "that we dine at half-past five to-day instead of two o'clock; we always depart from our usual custom on this anniversary, as you very well know, Tim Linkinwater. Mr. Nickleby, my dear sir, you will make one. Tim Linkinwater, give me your snuff-box as a remembrance to brother Charles and myself of an attached and faithful rascal, and take that in exchange as a feeble mark of our respect and esteem, and don't open it until you go to bed, and never say another word upon the subject, or I'll kill the blackbird. A dog! He should have had a golden cage half-a-dozen years ago, if it would have made him or his master a bit the happier. Now, brother Ned, my dear fellow, I'm ready. At half-past five, remember, Mr. Nickleby. Tim Linkinwater, sir, take care of Mr. Nickleby at half -past five. Now, brother Ned."
Chattering away thus, according to custom, to prevent the possibility of any thanks or acknowledgment being expressed on the other side, the twins trotted off arm in arm, having endowed Tim Linkinwater with a costly gold snuff-box, inclosing a bank-note worth more than its value ten times told.
At a quarter past five o'clock, punctual to the minute, arrived, according to annual usage, Tim Linkinwater's sister; and a great to-do there was between Tim Linkinwater's sister and the old house-keeper respecting Tim Linkinwater's sister's cap, which had been despatched, per boy, from the house of the family where Tim Linkinwater's sister boarded, and had not yet come to hand: notwithstanding that it had been packed up in a bandbox, and the bandbox in a handkerchief, and the handkerchief tied on to the boy's arm; and notwithstanding, too, that the place of its consignment had been duly set forth at full length on the back of an old letter, and the boy enjoined, under pain of divers horrible penalties, the full extent of which the eye of man could not foresee, to deliver the same with all possible speed and not to loiter by the way. Tim Linkinwater's sister lamented; the housekeeper condoled, and both kept thrusting their heads out of the second-floor window to see if the boy was "coming,"—which would have been highly satisfactory, and, upon the whole, tantamount to his being come, as the distance to the corner was not quite five yards—when all of a sudden, and when he was least expected, the messenger, carrying the bandbox with elaborate caution, appeared in an exactly opposite direction, puffing and panting for breath, and flushed with recent exercise, as well he might be; for he had taken the air, in the first instance, behind a hackney-coach that went to Camberwell, and had followed two
