`I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were most likely to be found,' resumed the other more humbly, `and I met you here at last, when I had almost given up the hope of encountering you, Mr Nickleby.'

He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he continued --

`I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and as destitute and helpless as a child of six.'

`I am sixty years old, too,' replied Ralph, `and am neither destitute nor helpless. Work. Don't make fine play-acting speeches about bread, but earn it.'

`How?' cried the other. `Where? Show me the means. Will you give them to me -- will you?'

`I did once,' replied Ralph, composedly; `you scarcely need ask me whether I will again.'

`It's twenty years ago, or more,' said the man, in a suppressed voice, `since you and I fell out. You remember that? I claimed a share in the profits of some business I brought to you, and, as I persisted, you arrested me for an old advance of ten pounds, odd shillings -- including interest at fifty per cent., or so.'

`I remember something of it,' replied Ralph, carelessly. `What then?'

`That didn't part us,' said the man. `I made submission, being on the wrong side of the bolts and bars; and as you were not the made man then that you are now, you were glad enough to take back a clerk who wasn't over-nice, and who knew something of the trade you drove.'

`You begged and prayed, and I consented,' returned Ralph. `That was kind of me. Perhaps I did want you -- I forget. I should think I did, or you would have begged in vain. You were useful -- not too honest, not too delicate, not too nice of hand or heart -- but useful.'

`Useful, indeed!' said the man. `Come. You had pinched and ground me down for some years before that, but I had served you faithfully up to that time, in spite of all your dog's usage -- had I?'

Ralph made no reply.

`Had I?' said the man again.

`You had had your wages,' rejoined Ralph, `and had done your work. We stood on equal ground so far, and could both cry quits.'

`Then, but not afterwards,' said the other.

`Not afterwards, certainly, nor even then, for (as you have just said) you owed me money, and do still,' replied Ralph.

`That's not all,' said the man, eagerly. `That's not all. Mark that. I didn't forget that old sore, trust me. Partly in remembrance of that, and partly in the hope of making money someday by the scheme, I took advantage of my position about you, and possessed myself of a hold upon you, which you would give half of all you have to know, and never can know but through me. I left you--long after that time, remember-- and, for some poor trickery that came within the law, but was nothing to what you money-makers daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away a convict for seven years. I have returned what you see me. Now, Mr Nickleby,' said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of power, `what help and assistance will you give me--what bribe, to speak out plainly? My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to live I must eat and drink. Money is on your side, and hunger and thirst on mine. You may drive an easy bargain.'