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388 really stood, he betook himself to his daily occupation: meditating as he went on a great variety of schemes for the punishment of the Yorkshire schoolmaster, all of which had their foundation in the strictest principles of retributive justice, and had but the one drawback of being wholly impracticable.

"A fine morning, Mr. Linkinwater," said Nicholas, entering the office.

"Ah!" replied Tim, "talk of the country, indeed! What do you think of this now for a day—a London day—eh?"

"It's a little clearer out of town," said Nicholas. "Clearer!" echoed Tim Linkinwater. "You should see it from my bed-room window."

"You should see it from mine" replied Nicholas, with a smile.

"Pooh! pooh!" said Tim Linkinwater, "don't tell me. Country!" (Bow was quite a rustic place to Tim,) "Nonsense. What can you get in the country but new-laid eggs and flowers? I can buy new-laid eggs in Leadenhall market any morning before breakfast; and as to flowers, it's worth a run up-stairs to smell my mignionette, or to see the double-wallflower in the back-attic window, at No. 6, in the court."

"There is a double-wallflower at No. 6, in the court, is there?" said Nicholas.

"Yes, is there," replied Tim, "and planted in a cracked jug, without a spout. There were hyacinths there this last spring, blossoming in but you'll laugh at that, of course."

"At what?"

"At their blossoming in old blacking-bottles," said Tim.

"Not I, indeed," returned Nicholas.

Tim looked wistfully at him for a moment, as if he were encouraged by the tone of this reply to be more communicative on the subject; and sticking behind his ear a pen that he had been making, and shutting up his knife with a smart click, said, "They belong to a sickly bed-ridden hump-backed boy, and seem to be the only pleasures, Mr. Nickleby, of his sad existence. How many years is it," said Tim, pondering, "since I first noticed him quite a little child, dragging himself about on a pair of tiny crutches? Well! Well! not many; but though they would appear nothing, if I thought of other things, they seem a long, long time, when I think of him. It is a sad thing," said Tim, breaking off, "to see a little deformed child sitting apart from other children, who are active and merry, watching the games he is denied the power to share in. He made my heart ache very often."

"It is a good heart," said Nicholas, "that disentangles itself from the close avocations of every day, to heed such things. You were saying——"

"That the flowers belonged to this poor boy," said Tim, "that's all. When it is fine weather, and he can crawl out of bed, he draws a chair close to the window, and sits there looking at them, and arranging them all day long. We used to nod at first, and then we came to speak. Formerly, when I called to him of a morning, and