第233章

`I am obliged to wait here till the rain holds a little,' said Ralph, looking abroad. `If you talk, sir, I shall not put my fingers in my ears, though your talking may have as much effect as if I did.'

`I was once in your confidence --' thus his companion began. Ralph looked round, and smiled involuntarily.

`Well,' said the other, `as much in your confidence as you ever chose to let anybody be.'

`Ah!' rejoined Ralph, folding his arms; `that's another thing -- quite another thing.'

`Don't let us play upon words, Mr Nickleby, in the name of humanity.'

`Of what?' said Ralph.

`Of humanity,' replied the other, sternly. `I am hungry and in want.

If the change that you must see in me after so long an absence -- must see, for I, upon whom it has come by slow and hard degrees, see it and know it well -- will not move you to pity, let the knowledge that bread;not the daily bread of the Lord's Prayer, which, as it is offered up in cities like this, is understood to include half the luxuries of the world for the rich, and just as much coarse food as will support life for the poor -- not that, but bread, a crust of dry hard bread, is beyond my reach today -- let that have some weight with you, if nothing else has.'

`If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,' said Ralph, `you have studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one who knows something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a lower tone --a little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of being starved in good earnest.'

As he said this, Ralph clenched his left wrist tightly with his right hand, and inclining his head a little on one side and dropping his chin upon his breast, looked at him whom he addressed with a frowning, sullen face: the very picture of a man whom nothing could move or soften.

`Yesterday was my first day in London,' said the old man, glancing at his travel-stained dress and worn shoes.

`It would have been better for you, I think, if it had been your last also,' replied Ralph.

`I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were most likely to be found,' resumed the other more humbly, `and I met you here at last, when I had almost given up the hope of encountering you, Mr Nickleby.'

He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he continued --`I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and as destitute and helpless as a child of six.'

`I am sixty years old, too,' replied Ralph, `and am neither destitute nor helpless. Work. Don't make fine play-acting speeches about bread, but earn it.'

`How?' cried the other. `Where? Show me the means. Will you give them to me -- will you?'

`I did once,' replied Ralph, composedly; `you scarcely need ask me whether I will again.'

`It's twenty years ago, or more,' said the man, in a suppressed voice, `since you and I fell out. You remember that? I claimed a share in the profits of some business I brought to you, and, as I persisted, you arrested me for an old advance of ten pounds, odd shillings -- including interest at fifty per cent., or so.'

`I remember something of it,' replied Ralph, carelessly. `What then?'

`That didn't part us,' said the man. `I made submission, being on the wrong side of the bolts and bars; and as you were not the made man then that you are now, you were glad enough to take back a clerk who wasn't over-nice, and who knew something of the trade you drove.'

`You begged and prayed, and I consented,' returned Ralph. `That was kind of me. Perhaps I did want you -- I forget. I should think I did, or you would have begged in vain. You were useful -- not too honest, not too delicate, not too nice of hand or heart -- but useful.'

`Useful, indeed!' said the man. `Come. You had pinched and ground me down for some years before that, but I had served you faithfully up to that time, in spite of all your dog's usage -- had I?'

Ralph made no reply.

`Had I?' said the man again.

`You had had your wages,' rejoined Ralph, `and had done your work. We stood on equal ground so far, and could both cry quits.'

`Then, but not afterwards,' said the other.

`Not afterwards, certainly, nor even then, for (as you have just said)you owed me money, and do still,' replied Ralph.

`That's not all,' said the man, eagerly. `That's not all. Mark that.

I didn't forget that old sore, trust me. Partly in remembrance of that, and partly in the hope of making money someday by the scheme, I took advantage of my position about you, and possessed myself of a hold upon you, which you would give half of all you have to know, and never can know but through me. I left you--long after that time, remember--and, for some poor trickery that came within the law, but was nothing to what you money-makers daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away a convict for seven years.

I have returned what you see me. Now, Mr Nickleby,' said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of power, `what help and assistance will you give me--what bribe, to speak out plainly? My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to live I must eat and drink. Money is on your side, and hunger and thirst on mine. You may drive an easy bargain.'

`Is that all?' said Ralph, still eyeing his companion with the same steady look, and moving nothing but his lips.

`It depends on you, Mr Nickleby, whether that's all or not,' was the rejoinder.

`Why then, harkye, Mr--, I don't know by what name I am to call you,'

said Ralph.

`By my old one, if you like.'

`Why then, harkye, Mr Brooker,' said Ralph, in his harshest accents, `and don't expect to draw another speech from me--harkye, sir. I know you of old for a ready scoundrel, but you never had a stout heart; and hard work, with (maybe) chains upon those legs of yours, and shorter food than when I "pinched" and "ground" you, has blunted your wits, or you would not come with such a tale as this to me. You a hold upon me! Keep it, or publish it to the world, if you like.'

`I can't do that,' interposed Brooker. `That wouldn't serve me.'