第178章

`That is, he was not a boy at all, I suppose?' interrupted Ralph.

`Well,' returned Squeers, briskly, as if he felt relieved by the suggestion, `he might have been nigh twenty. He wouldn't seem so old, though, to them as didn't know him, for he was a little wanting here,' touching his forehead;`nobody at home, you know, if you knocked ever so often.'

`And you did knock pretty often, I dare say?' muttered Ralph.

`Pretty well,' returned Squeers with a grin.

`When you wrote to acknowledge the receipt of this trifle of money as you call it,' said Ralph, `you told me his friends had deserted him long ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to tell you who he was. Is that the truth?'

`It is, worse luck!' replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy and familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the less reserve.

`It's fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book, since a strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and left him there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in advance. He might have been five or six year old at that time--not more.'

`What more do you know about him?' demanded Ralph.

`Devilish little, I'm sorry to say,' replied Squeers. `The money was paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped. He had given an address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the point, of course nobody knowed anything about him. So I kept the lad out of--out of--'

`Charity?' suggested Ralph drily.

`Charity, to be sure,' returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, `and when he begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and aggeravating part of the whole affair is,' said Squeers, dropping his voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, `that some questions have been asked about him at last--not of me, but, in a roundabout kind of way, of people in our village. So, that just when I might have had all arrears paid up, perhaps, and perhaps--who knows? such things have happened in our business before--a present besides for putting him out to a farmer, or sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to disgrace his parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our boys are--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don't collar him in open day, and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.'

`We will both cry quits with him before long,' said Ralph, laying his hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster.

`Quits!' echoed Squeers. `Ah! and I should like to leave a small balance in his favour, to be settled when he can. I only wish Mrs Squeers could catch hold of him. Bless her heart! She'd murder him, Mr Nickleby--she would, as soon as eat her dinner.'

`We will talk of this again,' said Ralph. `I must have time to think of it. To wound him through his own affections and fancies--If I could strike him through this boy--'

`Strike him how you like, sir,' interrupted Squeers, `only hit him hard enough, that's all--and with that, I'll say good-morning. Here!--just chuck that little boy's hat off that corner peg, and lift him off the stool will you?'