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PinkMonkey.com-Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens




624

‘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


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