and so till we come to number five, which is the last boy. Are you ready?"
"Yes, Sir," cried all the little boys with great eagerness.
"That's right," said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast; "keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur. This is the way we inculcate strength of mind, Mr. Nickleby," said the schoolmaster, turning to Nicholas, and speaking with his mouth, very full of beef and toast.
Nicholas murmured something—he knew not what—in reply, and the little boys dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which had by this time arrived), and every morsel which Mr. Squeers took into his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation.
"Thank God for a good breakfast," said Squeers when he had finished. "Number one may take a drink."
Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make him wish for more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for number two, who gave up at the same interesting moment to number three, and the process was repeated till the milk and water terminated with number five.
"And now," said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for three into as many portions as there were children, "you had better look sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two, and then every boy leaves off."
Permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat voraciously, and in desperate haste, while the schoolmaster (who was in high good humour after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork and looked smilingly on. In a very short time the horn was heard.
"I thought it wouldn't be long," said Squeers, jumping up and producing a little basket from under the seat; "put what you haven't had time to eat, in here, boys! You'll want it on the road!"
Nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical arrangements, but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and their boxes had to be brought out and put in, and Mr. Squeers's luggage was to be seen carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices were in his department. He was in the full heat and bustle of concluding these operations, when his uncle, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, accosted him.
"Oh! here you are, Sir?" said Ralph. "Here are your mother and sister, Sir."
"Where!" cried Nicholas, looking hastily round.
"Here!" replied his uncle. "Having too much money and nothing at all to do with it, they were paying a hackney coach as I came up, Sir."
"We were afraid of being too late to see him before he went away from us," said Mrs. Nickleby, embracing her son, heedless of the unconcerned lookers-on in the coach-yard.
"Very good, ma'am," returned Ralph, "you're the best judge of course. I merely said that you were paying a hackney coach. I never
