appropriate to the occasion, the omnibus arrived. This put Miss La Creevy in a great bustle, in consequence whereof, as she secretly rewarded the servant-girl with eighteen-pence behind the street-door, she pulled out of her reticule ten-pennyworth of halfpence which rolled into all possible corners of the passage, and occupied some considerable time in the picking-up. This ceremony had, of course, to be succeeded by a second kissing of Kate and Mrs. Nickleby, and a gathering together of the little basket and the brown-paper parcel, during which proceedings, "the omnibus," as Miss La Creevy protested, "swore so dreadfully, that it was quite awful to hear it." At length and at last, it made a feint of going away, and then Miss La Creevy darted out and darted in, apologising with great volubility to all the passengers, and declaring that she wouldn't purposely have kept them waiting on any account whatever. While she was looking about for a convenient seat, the conductor pushed Smike in, and cried that it was all right—though it wasn't—and away went the huge vehicle, with the noise of half a dozen brewers' drays at least.
Leaving it to pursue its journey at the pleasure of the conductor afore-mentioned, who lounged gracefully on his little shelf behind, smoking an odoriferous cigar; and leaving it to stop, or go on, or gallop, or crawl, as that gentleman deemed expedient and advisable, this narrative may embrace the opportunity of ascertaining the condition of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and to what extent he had by this time recovered from the injuries consequent upon being flung violently from his cabriolet, under the circumstances already detailed.
With a shattered limb, a body severely bruised, a face disfigured by half-healed scars, and pallid from the exhaustion of recent pain and fever, Sir Mulberry Hawk lay stretched upon his back, on the couch to which he was doomed to be a prisoner for some weeks yet to come. Mr. Pyke and Mr. Pluck sat drinking hard in the next room, now and then varying the monotonous murmurs of their conversation with a half-smothered laugh, while the young lord—the only member of the party who was not thoroughly irredeemable, and who really had a kind heart—sat beside his Mentor, with a cigar in his mouth, and read to him, by the light of a lamp, such scraps of intelligence from a paper of the day as were most likely to yield him interest or amusement.
"Curse those hounds!" said the invalid, turning his head impatiently towards the adjoining room; "will nothing stop their infernal throats?"
Messrs. Pyke and Pluck heard the exclamation, and stopped immediately, winking to each other as they did so, and filling their glasses to the brim, as some recompense for the deprivation of speech.
"Damn!" muttered the sick man between his teeth, and writhing impatiently in his bed. "Isn't this mattrass hard enough, and the room dull enough, and the pain bad enough, but they must torture me? What's the time?"
"Half-past eight," replied his friend.
"Here, draw the table nearer, and let us have the cards again," said Sir Mulberry. "More piquet. Come."
