out and put in, and Mr Squeers's luggage was to be seen carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices were in his department. He was in the full heat and bustle of concluding these operations, when his uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, accosted him.

`Oh! here you are, sir!' said Ralph. `Here are your mother and sister, sir.'

`Where?' cried Nicholas, looking hastily round.

`Here!' replied his uncle. `Having too much money and nothing at all to do with it, they were paying a hackney coach as I came up, sir.'

`We were afraid of being too late to see him before he went away from us,' said Mrs Nickleby, embracing her son, heedless of the unconcerned lookers-on in the coach-yard.

`Very good, ma'am,' returned Ralph, `you're the best judge of course. I merely said that you were paying a hackney coach. I never pay a hackney coach, ma'am; I never hire one. I haven't been in a hackney coach of my own hiring, for thirty years, and I hope I shan't be for thirty more, if I live as long.'

`I should never have forgiven myself if I had not seen him,' said Mrs Nickleby. `Poor dear boy -- going away without his breakfast too, because he feared to distress us!'

`Mighty fine certainly,' said Ralph, with great testiness. `When I first went to business, ma'am, I took a penny loaf and a ha'porth of milk for my breakfast as I walked to the City every morning; what do you say to that, ma'am? Breakfast! Bah!'

`Now, Nickleby,' said Squeers, coming up at the moment buttoning his greatcoat; `I think you'd better get up behind. I'm afraid of one of them boys falling off and then there's twenty pound a year gone.'

`Dear Nicholas,' whispered Kate, touching her brother's arm, `who is that vulgar man?'

`Eh!' growled Ralph, whose quick ears had caught the inquiry. `Do you wish to be introduced to Mr Squeers, my dear?'

`That the schoolmaster! No, uncle. Oh no!' replied Kate, shrinking back.

`I'm sure I heard you say as much, my dear,' retorted Ralph in his cold sarcastic manner. `Mr Squeers, here's my niece: Nicholas's sister!'

`Very glad to make your acquaintance, miss,' said Squeers, raising his hat an inch or two. `I wish Mrs Squeers took gals, and we had you for a teacher. I don't know, though, whether she mightn't grow jealous if we had. Ha! ha! ha!'

If the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall could have known what was passing in his assistant's breast at that moment, he would have discovered, with some surprise, that he was as near being soundly pummelled as he had ever been in his life. Kate Nickleby, having a quicker perception of her brother's emotions, led him gently aside, and thus prevented Mr Squeers from being impressed with the fact in a peculiarly disagreeable manner.

`My dear Nicholas,' said the young lady, `who is this man? What kind of place can it be that you are going to?'

`I hardly know, Kate,' replied Nicholas, pressing his sister's hand. `I suppose the Yorkshire folks are rather rough and uncultivated; that's all.'

`But this person,' urged Kate.