"she'd
bring his pride down"), and the petty indignities this lady could
inflict upon him. He bore with the bad food, dirty lodging, and daily
round of squalid misery in the school.

But there came a day when Smike, unable to face his tormentors any
longer, ran away. He was taken within four-and-twenty hours, and brought
back, bedabbled with mud and rain, haggard and worn--to all appearance
more dead than alive.

The work this unhappy drudge performed would have cost the establishment
some ten or twelve shillings a week in the way of wages, and Squeers,
who, as a matter of policy, made severe examples of all runaways from
Dotheboys Hall, prepared to take full vengeance on Smike.

At the first blow Smike uttered a shriek of pain, and Nicholas Nickleby
started up from his desk, and cried "Stop!" in a furious voice.

"Touch that boy at your peril. I will not stand by and see it done."

He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath,
spat upon him, and struck him across the face with his cane.

All Nicholas's feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation were
concentrated into that moment, and, smarting at the blow, he sprang upon
the schoolmaster, wrested the weapon from him, and, pinning him by the
throat, beat the ruffian until he roared for mercy.

Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her
partner's coat, and tried to drag him from his infuriated adversary.
With the result that when Nicholas, having thrown all his remaining
strength into a half dozen finishing cuts, flung the schoolmaster from
him with all the force he could muster, Mrs. Squeers was precipitated
over an adjacent form; and Squeers, striking his head against it in his
descent, lay at full length on the ground, stunned and motionless.

Nicholas, assured that Squeers was only stunned, and not dead, left the
room, packed up his few clothes in a small leathern valise, marched
boldly out by the front door, and struck into the road for London.

_III.--Brighter Days for Nicholas_

After many adventures in the quest of fortune, Nicholas, who had spurned
all further connection with his uncle, stood one day outside a registry
office in London. And as he stood there looking at the various placards
in the window, an old gentleman, a sturdy old fellow in broad-skirted
blue coat, happened to stop too.

Nicholas caught the old gentleman's eye, and began to wonder whether the
stranger could by any possibility be