without any further remark, trotted nimbly into the street. Ralph looked after him, but neither moved nor spoke for some time, when he broke what almost seemed the silence of stupefaction, by a scornful laugh.
"This," he said, "from its wildness, should be another of those dreams that have so broken my rest of late. In mercy to me!—Pho! The old simpleton has gone mad."
Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemptuous manner, it was plain that the more Ralph pondered, the more ill at ease he became, and the more he laboured under some vague anxiety and alarm, which increased as the time passed on and no tidings of Newman Noggs appeared. After waiting until late in the afternoon tortured by various apprehensions and misgivings, and the recollection of the warning which his nephew had given him when they last met, the further confirmation of which now presented itself in one shape of probability now in another, and haunted him perpetually, he left home, and scarcely knowing why, save that he was in a suspicious and agitated mood, betook himself to Snawley's house. His wife presented herself, and of her Ralph inquired whether her husband was at home.
"No," she said sharply, "he is not indeed, and I don't think he will be at home for a very long time, that's more."
"Do you know who I am?" asked Ralph.
"Oh yes, I know you very well—too well, perhaps, and perhaps he does too, and sorry am I that I should have to say it."
"Tell him that I saw him through the window-blind above, as I crossed the road just now, and that I would speak to him on business," said Ralph sarcastically. "Do you hear?"
"I hear," rejoined Mrs. Snawley, taking no further notice of the request.
"I knew this woman was a hypocrite in the way of psalms and Scripture phrases," said Ralph, passing quietly by, "but I never knew she drank before."
"Stop! You don't come in here," said Mr. Snawley's better-half, interposing her person, which was a robust one, in the doorway. "You have said more than enough to him on business before now. I always told him what dealing with you and working out your schemes would come to. It was either you or the schoolmaster—one of you, or the two between you—that got the forged letter done, remember that. That wasn't his doing, so don't lay it at his door."
"Hold your tongue, you Jezebel," said Ralph, looking fearfully round.
"Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, Mr. Nickleby," retorted the dame. "Take care that other people know when to hold theirs."
"You jade," said Ralph, grinning with rage; "if your husband has been idiot enough to trust you with his secrets, keep them—keep them, she-devil that you are."
"Not so much his secrets as other people's secrets perhaps," retorted the woman; "not so much his secrets as yours. None of your black looks at me. You'll want 'em all perhaps for another time. You had better keep 'em."
"Will you," said Ralph, suppressing his passion as well as he could,
