Page:Nicholas Nickleby.djvu/478

404 "Are you a princess?"

"You are mocking me, sir," replied Mrs. Nickleby, making a feint of retreating towards the house. "No, but are you?" said the old gentleman.

"You know I am not, sir," replied Mrs. Nickleby.

"Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury?" inquired the old gentleman with great anxiety, "or to the Pope of Rome? or the Speaker of the House of Commons? Forgive me, if I am wrong, but I was told you were niece to the Commissioners of Paving, and daughter-in-law to the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council, which would account for your relationship to all three."

"Whoever has spread such reports, sir," returned Mrs. Nickleby, with some warmth, "has taken great liberties with my name, and one which I am sure my son Nicholas, if he was aware of it, would not allow for an instant. The idea!" said Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, "niece to the Commissioners of Paving!"

"Pray, mama, come away!" whispered Kate.

"’Pray, mama!’ Nonsense, Kate," said Mrs. Nickleby, angrily, "but that's just the way. If they had said I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what would you care! But I have no sympathy"—whimpered Mrs. Nickleby, "I don't expect it, that's one thing." "Tears!" cried the old gentleman, with such an energetic jump, that he fell down two or three steps, and grated his chin against the wall. "Catch the crystal globules—catch 'em—bottle 'em up—cork 'em tight—put sealing-wax on the top—seal 'em with a cupid—label 'em 'Best quality'—and stow 'em away in the fourteen binn, with a bar of iron on the top to keep the thunder off!"

Issuing these commands, as if there were a dozen attendants all actively engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap inside out, put it on with great dignity so as to obscure his right eye and three-fourths of his nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked very fiercely at a sparrow hard by, till the bird flew away, when he put his cap in his pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and addressed himself with a respectful demeanour to Mrs. Nickleby.

"Beautiful madam," such were his words—"if I have made any mistake with regard to your family or connexions, I humbly beseech you to pardon me. If I supposed you to be related to Foreign Powers or Native Boards, it is because you have a manner, a carriage, a dignity, which you will excuse my saying that none but yourself (with the single exception perhaps of the tragic muse, when playing extemporaneously on the barrel organ before the ) can parallel. I am not a youth, ma'am, as you see; and although beings like you can never grow old, I venture to presume that we are fitted for each other."

"Really, Kate, my love!" said Mrs. Nickleby faintly, and looking another way.

"I have estates, ma'am," said the old gentleman, flourishing his right hand negligently, as if he made very light of such matters, and speaking very fast; "jewels, light-houses, fish-ponds, a whalery of my own in the