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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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913 mine, and it would be very hard indeed if I was to be made responsible for it. However, in this instance, of course, I must feel that I should do exceedingly wrong if I suffered anybody-- especially anybody that I am under great obligations to--to be made uncomfortable on my account. And therefore I think it my duty to tell that gentleman that he is mistaken, that I am the lady who he was told by some impertinent person was niece to the Council of Paving-stones, and that I do beg and entreat of him to go quietly away, if it’s only for,’ here Mrs Nickleby simpered and hesitated, ‘for my sake.’ It might have been expected that the old gentleman would have been penetrated to the heart by the delicacy and condescension of this appeal, and that he would at least have returned a courteous and suitable reply. What, then, was the shock which Mrs Nickleby received, when, accosting her in the most unmistakable manner, he replied in a loud and sonourous voice: ‘Avaunt! Cat!’ ‘Sir!’ cried Mrs Nickleby, in a faint tone. ‘Cat!’ repeated the old gentleman. ‘Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby, Brindle! Whoosh!’ with which last sound, uttered in a hissing manner between his teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently round and round, and at the same time alternately advanced on Mrs Nickleby, and retreated from her, in that species of savage dance with which boys on market-days may be seen to frighten pigs, sheep, and other animals, when they give out obstinate indications of turning down a wrong street. Mrs Nickleby wasted no words, but uttered an exclamation of horror and surprise, and immediately fainted away. ‘I’ll attend to mama,’ said Kate, hastily; ‘I am not at all frightened. But pray take him away: pray take him away!’ |
