Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his establishments, and his
undertakings, and of a great joint-stock company of vast national importance
MR RALPH NICKLEBY was not, strictly speaking, what you would call a merchant,
neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special pleader, nor a notary.
He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less could he lay any claim to the
title of a professional gentleman; for it would have been impossible to mention
any recognised profession to which he belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a
spacious house in Golden Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the
street-door, had another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left
hand door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant's fist grasping a
fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word `Office,' it was clear that Mr
Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and the fact, if
it required any further circumstantial evidence, was abundantly demonstrated by
the diurnal attendance, between the hours of half-past nine and five, of a
sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat upon an uncommonly hard stool in a
species of butler's pantry at the end of the passage, and always had a pen
behind his ear when he answered the bell.
Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden Square, it
is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. It is one of the squares
that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken
to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to
single gentlemen; and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of
foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy
watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade,
and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon,
when they give away the orders, -- all live in Golden Square, or within a street
of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera band reside
within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos
and harps float in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue, the
guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square.
On a summer's night, windows are thrown open, and groups of swarthy moustached
men are seen by the passer-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully.
Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence; and
the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, and German
pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between
them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in
Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver involuntarily as they raise
their voices within its boundaries.
This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of business;
but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for many years, and
uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody round about, and nobody knew
him, although he enjoyed the reputation of being immensely rich. The tradesmen
held that he was a sort of lawyer, and the other neighbours opined that he was a
kind of general agent; both of which guesses were as correct and definite as
guesses about other people's affairs usually are, or need to be.
Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready dressed to
walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue coat: a white waistcoat,
grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn over them. The corner of a
small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as if insisting to show itself, from
between his chin and the top button of his spencer; and the latter garment was
not made low enough to conceal a long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of
plain rings, which had its beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr
Nickleby's pocket, and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the
watch itself, and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of
powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were
his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his countenance also,
for there was something in its very wrinkles, and in his cold restless eye,
which seemed to tell of cunning that would announce itself in spite of him.
However this might be, there he was: and as he was all alone, neither the
powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad,
upon anybody just then, and are consequently no business of ours just now.
Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing
himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the dirty
window. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them,
usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of
chimneys: in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that
makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed
theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried,
till the following season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the
weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in
its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards `gardens'; it is not
supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of
unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original brick-field. No
man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of turning it to any account. A
few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, may be thrown
there, when the tenant first moves in, but nothing more; and there they remain
until he goes away again: the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it
thinks proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and
broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about -- a prey to `blacks'
and dirt.
It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat with
his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixed his eyes upon a
distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in a tub that had once been
green, and left there, years before, to rot away piecemeal. There was nothing
very inviting in the object, but Mr Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat
contemplating it with far greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he
would have deigned to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes
wandered to a little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the
clerk was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to
attend.
In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which he
had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented
himself in Mr Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle
eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit
of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the
worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of
buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.
`Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp and grating
voice.
`Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the --' Noggs was going to add
public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted `regular time.'
`My watch has stopped,' said Mr Nickleby; `I don't know from what cause.'
`Not wound up,' said Noggs.
`Yes it is,' said Mr Nickleby.
`Over-wound then,' rejoined Noggs.
`That can't very well be,' observed Mr Nickleby.
`Must be,' said Noggs.
`Well!' said Mr Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket; `perhaps
it is.'
Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all disputes
with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as he rarely spoke to
anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grim silence, and rubbed his
hands slowly over each other: cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing
them into all possible distortions. The incessant performance of this routine on
every occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look to his
unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to render it
impossible for anybody to determine where or at what he was looking, were two
among the numerous peculiarities of Mr Noggs, which struck an inexperienced
observer at first sight.
`I am going to the London Tavern this morning,' said Mr Nickleby.
`Public meeting?' inquired Noggs.
Mr Nickleby nodded. `I expect a letter from the solicitor respecting that
mortgage of Ruddle's. If it comes at all, it will be here by the two o'clock
delivery. I shall leave the City about that time and walk to Charing Cross on
the left-hand side of the way; if there are any letters, come and meet me, and
bring them with you.'
Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office bell. The
master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly remained in a stationary
position.
`The bell,' said Noggs, as though in explanation. `At home?'
`Yes.'
`To anybody?'
`Yes.'
`To the tax-gatherer?'
`No! Let him call again.'
Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say `I thought so!' and,
the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he presently returned,
ushering in, by the name of Mr Bonney, a pale gentleman in a violent hurry, who,
with his hair standing up in great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow
white cravat tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up
in the night and had not dressed himself since.
`My dear Nickleby,' said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which was so
full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head, `there's not a moment
to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker takes the chair, and three
members of Parliament are positively coming. I have seen two of them safely out
of bed. The third, who was at Crockford's all night, has just gone home to put a
clean shirt on, and take a bottle or two of soda water, and will certainly be
with us, in time to address the meeting. He is a little excited by last night,
but never mind that; he always speaks the stronger for it.'
`It seems to promise pretty well,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, whose deliberate
manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other man of business.
`Pretty well!' echoed Mr Bonney. `It's the finest idea that was ever started.
"United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten
pounds each." Why the very name will get the shares up to a premium in ten
days.'
`And when they are at a premium,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, smiling.
`When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man alive, and
how to back quietly out at the right time,' said Mr Bonney, slapping the
capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. `By-the-bye, what a very remarkable man
that clerk of yours is.'
`Yes, poor devil!' replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. `Though Newman Noggs
kept his horses and hounds once.'
`Ay, ay?' said the other carelessly.
`Yes,' continued Ralph, `and not many years ago either; but he squandered his
money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and in short made first a
thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar. He took to drinking, and had a
touch of paralysis, and then came here to borrow a pound, as in his better days
I had --'
`Done business with him,' said Mr Bonney with a meaning look.
`Just so,' replied Ralph; `I couldn't lend it, you know.'
`Oh, of course not.'
`But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, I took him
out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since. He is a little mad, I
think,' said Mr Nickleby, calling up a charitable look, `but he is useful
enough, poor creature -- useful enough.'
The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, being utterly
destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages of a boy of thirteen;
and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle, that his eccentric
taciturnity rendered him an especially valuable person in a place where much
business was done, of which it was desirable no mention should be made out of
doors. The other gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as
they hurried into the hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr
Nickleby forgot to mention circumstances so unimportant.
There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew up, and
(it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking across the road under a
press of paper, bearing gigantic announcements that a Public Meeting would be
holden at one o'clock precisely, to take into consideration the propriety of
petitioning Parliament in favour of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin
and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five
hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in
fat black figures of considerable size. Mr Bonney elbowed his way briskly
upstairs, receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on
the landings to show the way; and, followed by Mr Nickleby, dived into a suite
of apartments behind the great public room: in the second of which was a
business-looking table, and several business-looking people.
`Hear!' cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr Bonney presented himself.
`Chair, gentlemen, chair!'
The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr Bonney
bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his fingers through
his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman's knock on the table with a little
hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried `Hear!' and nodded slightly to each
other, as much as to say what spirited conduct that was. Just at this moment, a
waiter, feverish with agitation, tore into the room, and throwing the door open
with a crash, shouted `Sir Matthew Pupker!'
The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and while they were
clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two live members of
Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling and bowing, and looking so
pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel how any man could have the heart to
vote against them. Sir Matthew Pupker especially, who had a little round head
with a flaxen wig on the top of it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the
wig threatened to be jerked off, every instant. When these symptoms had in some
degree subsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir Matthew
Pupker, or the two other members, crowded round them in three little groups,
near one or other of which the gentlemen who were not on speaking terms with Sir
Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stood lingering, and smiling, and
rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope of something turning up which might
bring them into notice. All this time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other
members were relating to their separate circles what the intentions of
government were, about taking up the bill; with a full account of what the
government had said in a whisper the last time they dined with it, and how the
government had been observed to wink when it said so; from which premises they
were at no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had one object
more at heart than another, that one object was the welfare and advantage of the
United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery
Company.
Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a fair
division of the speechifying, the public in the large room were eyeing, by
turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music Gallery. In these
amusements the greater portion of them had been occupied for a couple of hours
before, and as the most agreeable diversions pall upon the taste on a too
protracted enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now began to hammer the floor
with their boot-heels, and to express their dissatisfaction by various hoots and
cries. These vocal exertions, emanating from the people who had been there
longest, naturally proceeded from those who were nearest to the platform and
furthest from the policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight
their way through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desire
to do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began to drag forth, by
the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near the door; at the same time
dealing out various smart and tingling blows with their truncheons, after the
manner of that ingenious actor, Mr Punch: whose brilliant example, both in the
fashion of his weapons and their use, this branch of the executive occasionally
follows.
Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shout
attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there poured on to
the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of gentlemen with their hats
off, all looking behind them, and uttering vociferous cheers; the cause whereof
was sufficiently explained when Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other real
members of Parliament came to the front, amidst deafening shouts, and testified
to each other in dumb motions that they had never seen such a glorious sight as
that, in the whole course of thier public career.
At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir Matthew
Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse which lasted five
minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must be his feelings
on that great occasion, and what must be that occasion in the eyes of the world,
and what must be the intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, and what
must be the wealth and respectability of his honourable friends behind him, and
lastly, what must be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort,
the liberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such an
Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking
and Punctual Delivery Company!
Mr Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; and having run
his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in an easy manner, in his
ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of the gentleman with the double chin
(who acted as a species of bottle-holder to the orators generally), and said he
would read to them the first resolution -- `That this meeting views with alarm
and apprehension, the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and
its neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys, as at present constituted,
wholly underserving the confidence of the public; and that it deems the whole
Muffin system alike prejudicial to the health and morals of the people, and
subversive of the best interests of a great commercial and mercantile
community.' The honourable gentleman made a speech which drew tears from the
eyes of the ladies, and awakened the liveliest emotions in every individual
present. He had visited the houses of the poor in the various districts of
London, and had found them destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which
there appeared too much reason to believe some of these indigent persons did not
taste from year's end to year's end. He had found that among muffin-sellers
there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, which he attributed to
the debasing nature of their employment as at present exercised; he had found
the same vices among the poorer class of people who ought to be muffin
consumers; and this he attributed to the despair engendered by their being
placed beyond the reach of that nutritious article, which drove them to seek a
false stimulant in intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a
committee of the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up
the price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it by
bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that these men
corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as `Snooks,' `Walker,'
`Ferguson,' `Is Murphy right?' and many others. It was this melancholy state of
things that the Company proposed to correct; firstly, by prohibiting; under
heavy penalties, all private muffin trading of every description; secondly, by
themselves supplying the public generally, and the poor at their own homes, with
muffins of first quality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill
had been introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir Matthew
Pupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it was the supporters of
this bill who would confer undying brightness and splendour upon England, under
the name of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and
Punctual Delivery Company; he would add, with a capital of Five Millions, in
five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each.
Mr Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman having moved
that it be amended by the insertion of the words `and crumpet' after the word
`muffin,' whenever it occurred, it was carried triumphantly. Only one man in the
crowd cried `No!' and he was promptly taken into custody, and straightway borne
off.
The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of immediately
abolishing `all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders in muffins (or
crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or female, boys or men,
ringing hand-bells or otherwise,' was moved by a grievous gentleman of
semi-clerical appearance, who went at once into such deep pathetics, that he
knocked the first speaker clean out of the course in no time. You might have
heard a pin fall -- a pin! a feather -- as he described the cruelties inflicted
on muffin boys by their masters, which he very wisely urged were in themselves a
sufficient reason for the establishment of that inestimable company. It seemed
that the unhappy youths were nightly turned out into the wet streets at the most
inclement periods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain -- or it
might be hail or snow -- for hours together, without shelter, food, or warmth;
and let the public never forget upon the latter point, that while the muffins
were provided with warm clothing and blankets, the boys were wholly unprovided
for, and left to their own miserable resources. (Shame!) The honourable
gentleman related one case of a muffin boy, who having been exposed to this
inhuman and barbarous system for no less than five years, at length fell a
victim to a cold in the head, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into
a perspiration and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but
he had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more
heart-rending and appalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of an orphan
muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney carriage, had been removed to
the hospital, had undergone the amputation of his leg below the knee, and was
now actually pursuing his occupation on crutches. Fountain of justice, were
these things to last!
This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and this was
the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The men shouted; the ladies
wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they were moist, and waved them till
they were dry; the excitement was tremendous; and Mr Nickleby whispered his
friend that the shares were thenceforth at a premium of five-and-twenty per
cent.
The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every man
holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasm have held
up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplished it. This done, the
draft of the proposed petition was read at length: and the petition said, as all
petitions do say, that the petitioners were very humble, and the petitioned very
honourable, and the object very virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill
ought to be passed into a law at once, to the everlasting honour and glory of
that most honourable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.
Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford's all night, and who looked
something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forward to tell his
fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour of that petition
whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he meant to taunt the
parliament if they rejected the bill; and to inform them also, that he regretted
his honourable friends had not inserted a clause rendering the purchase of
muffins and crumpets compulsory upon all classes of the community, which he --
opposing all half-measures, and preferring to go the extreme animal -- pledged
himself to propose and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this
determination, the honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots,
lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there
was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of
ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman quite into the
shade.
And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, there came
forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent temperament,) with
such a speech as only an Irish member can make, breathing the true soul and
spirit of poetry, and poured forth with such fervour, that it made one warm to
look at him; in the course whereof, he told them how he would demand the
extension of that great boon to his native country; how he would claim for her
equal rights in the muffin laws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to
see the day when crumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin
bells should ring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch
member, with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which
increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the speeches put
together did exactly what they were intended to do, and established in the
hearers' minds that there was no speculation so promising, or at the same time
so praiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet
Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.
So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meeting
adjourned with acclamations, and Mr Nickleby and the other directors went to the
office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past one o'clock; and to
remunerate themselves for which trouble, (as the company was yet in its
infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man for every such attendance.
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