With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in which fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-stricken wretch gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it had softened down into a low despairing moan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over such papers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss. With very little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and, greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling them there was nothing the matter, got into the coach, and was driven to his own home.
A letter lay on his table. He let it lie there for some time, as if he had not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turned deadly pale.
`The worst has happened,' he said; `the house has failed. I see--the rumour was abroad in the City last night, and reached the ears of those merchants. Well--well!'
He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again.
`Ten thousand pounds! And only lying there for a day--for one day! How many anxious years, how many pinching days and sleepless nights, before I scraped together that ten thousand pounds!--Ten thousand pounds! How many proud painted dames would have fawned and smiled, and how many spendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed me in their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into twenty! While I ground, and pinched, and used these needy borrowers for my pleasure and profit, what smooth-tongued speeches, and courteous looks, and civil letters, they would have given me! The cant of the lying world is, that men like me compass our riches by dissimulation and treachery: by fawning, cringing, and stooping.
Why, how many lies, what mean and abject evasions, what humbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my money, would spurn me aside as they do their betters every day, would that ten thousand pounds have brought me in!--Grant that I had doubled it--made cent. per cent.--for every sovereign told another--there would not be one piece of money in all the heap which wouldn't represent ten thousand mean and paltry lies, told--not by the money-lender, oh no!
but by the money-borrowers--your liberal, thoughtless, generous, dashing folks, who wouldn't be so mean as save a sixpence for the world!'
Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of his regrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continued to pace the room. There was less and less of resolution in his manner as his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length, dropping into his elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly that they creaked again, he said:
`The time has been when nothing could have moved me like the loss of this great sum--nothing--for births, deaths, marriages, and all the events which are of interest to most men, have (unless they are connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. But now, I swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If he had brought it about,--I almost feel as if he had,--I couldn't hate him more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow--let me but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the scale--and I can bear it.'
His meditations were long and deep. They terminated in his dispatching a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr Squeers at the Saracen's Head, with instructions to inquire whether he had arrived in town, and, if so, to wait an answer. Newman brought back the information that Mr Squeers had come by mail that morning, and had received the letter in bed; but that he sent his duty, and word that he would get up and wait upon Mr Nickleby directly.
The interval between the delivery of this message, and the arrival of Mr Squeers, was very short; but, before he came, Ralph had suppressed every sign of emotion, and once more regained the hard, immovable, inflexible manner which was habitual to him, and to which, perhaps, was ascribable no small part of the influence which, over many men of no very strong prejudices on the score of morality, he could exert, almost at will.
`Well, Mr Squeers,' he said, welcoming that worthy with his accustomed smile, of which a sharp look and a thoughtful frown were part and parcel,--`how do you do?'
`Why, sir,' said Mr Squeers, `I'm pretty well. So's the family, and so's the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the school, and rather puts 'em off their feed. But it's a ill wind as blows no good to nobody; that's what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. Awisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality. Mortality itself, sir, is a wisitation.
The world is chock full of wisitations; and if a boy repines at a wisitation and makes you uncomfortable with his noise, he must have his head punched.
That's going according to the Scripter, that is.'
`Mr Squeers,' said Ralph, drily.
`Sir.'
`We'll avoid these precious morsels of morality if you please, and talk of business.'
`With all my heart, sir,' rejoined Squeers, `and first let me say--'
`First let me say, if you please--Noggs!'
Newman presented himself when the summons had been twice or thrice repeated, and asked if his master called.
`I did. Go to your dinner. And go at once. Do you hear?'
`It an't time,' said Newman, doggedly.
`My time is yours, and I say it is,' returned Ralph.
`You alter it every day,' said Newman. `It isn't fair.'
`You don't keep many cooks, and can easily apologise to them for the trouble,' retorted Ralph. `Begone, sir!'
Ralph not only issued this order in his most peremptory manner, but, under pretence of fetching some papers from the little office, saw it obeyed, and, when Newman had left the house, chained the door, to prevent the possibility of his returning secretly, by means of his latch-key.
`I have reason to suspect that fellow,' said Ralph, when he returned to his own office. `Therefore, until I have thought of the shortest and least troublesome way of ruining him, I hold it best to keep him at a distance.'
`It wouldn't take much to ruin him, I should think,' said Squeers, with a grin.
