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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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45 other out of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms with an embossed border. Mr Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and gave a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was answered by a servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face. ‘Is Mrs Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply. ‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’ Mr Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted. ‘Mrs Nickleby,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what a stupid thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’ ‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl. ‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show the gentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock double knocks for the second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when the bell’s broke, and then it must be two single ones.’ ‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg your pardon; is that Mrs La what’s-her-name?’ ‘Creevy--La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow head-dress bobbed over the banisters. ‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ said Ralph. The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, |
