`Pray, uncle,' said Kate, a little flurried, as people much more conversant with society often are, when they are about to enter a room full of strangers, and have had time to think of it previously, `are there any ladies here?'

`No,' said Ralph, shortly, `I don't know any.'

`Must I go in immediately?' asked Kate, drawing back a little.

`As you please,' said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders. `They are all come, and dinner will be announced directly afterwards -- that's all.'

Kate would have entreated a few minutes' respite, but reflecting that her uncle might consider the payment of the hackney-coach fare a sort of bargain for her punctuality, she suffered him to draw her arm through his, and to lead her away.

Seven or eight gentlemen were standing round the fire when they went in, and, as they were talking very loud, were not aware of their entrance until Mr Ralph Nickleby, touching one on the coat-sleeve, said in a harsh emphatic voice, as if to attract general attention --

`Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, Miss Nickleby.'

The group dispersed, as if in great surprise, and the gentleman addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the most superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache, a head of hair, and a young face.

`Eh!' said the gentleman. `What -- the -- deyvle!'

With which broken ejaculations, he fixed his glass in his eye, and stared at Miss Nickleby in great surprise.

`My niece, my lord,' said Ralph.

`Then my ears did not deceive me, and it's not wa-a-x work,' said his lordship. `How de do? I'm very happy.' And then his lordship turned to another superlative gentleman, something older, something stouter, something redder in the face, and something longer upon town, and said in a loud whisper that the girl was `deyvlish pitty.'

`Introduce me, Nickleby,' said this second gentleman, who was lounging with his back to the fire, and both elbows on the chimneypiece.

`Sir Mulberry Hawk,' said Ralph.

`Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby,' said Lord Frederick Verisopht.

`Don't leave me out, Nickleby,' cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who was sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading the paper.

`Mr Pyke,' said Ralph.

`Nor me, Nickleby,' cried a gentleman with a flushed face and a flash air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry Hawk.

`Mr Pluck,' said Ralph. Then wheeling about again, towards a gentleman with the neck of a stork and the legs of no animal in particular, Ralph introduced him as the Honourable Mr Snobb; and a white-headed person at the table as Colonel Chowser. The colonel was in conversation with somebody, who appeared to be a make-weight, and was not introduced at all.