ance! They come on you,' said Mr Squeers in a
moralising way, 'before you're aware of it; mine did upon me.'

'Will 'ee pick a bit?' said John.

'I won't myself,' returned Squeers; 'but if you'll just let little
Wackford tuck into something fat, I'll be obliged to you. Give it him in
his fingers, else the waiter charges it on, and there's lot of profit on
this sort of vittles without that. If you hear the waiter coming, sir,
shove it in your pocket and look out of the window, d'ye hear?'

'I'm awake, father,' replied the dutiful Wackford.

'Well,' said Squeers, turning to his daughter, 'it's your turn to be
married next. You must make haste.'

'Oh, I'm in no hurry,' said Miss Squeers, very sharply.

'No, Fanny?' cried her old friend with some archness.

'No, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, shaking her head vehemently. 'I can
wait.'

'So can the young men, it seems, Fanny,' observed Mrs Browdie.

'They an't draw'd into it by ME, 'Tilda,' retorted Miss Squeers.

'No,' returned her friend; 'that's exceedingly true.'

The sarcastic tone of this reply might have provoked a rather
acrimonious retort from Miss Squeers, who, besides being of a
constitutionally vicious temper--aggravated, just now, by travel and
recent jolting--was somewhat irritated by old recollections and the
failure of her own designs upon Mr Browdie; and the acrimonious retort
might have led to a great many other retorts, which might have led to
Heaven knows what, if the subject of conversation had not been, at that
precise moment, accidentally changed by Mr Squeers himself

'What do you think?' said that gentleman; 'who do you suppose we have
laid hands on, Wackford and me?'

'Pa! not Mr--?' Miss Squeers was unable to finish the sentence, but Mrs
Browdie did it for her, and added, 'Nickleby?'

'No,' said Squeers. 'But next door to him though.'

'You can't mean Smike?' cried Miss Squeers, clapping her hands.

'Yes, I can though,' rejoined her father. 'I've got him, hard and fast.'

'Wa'at!' exclaimed John Browdie, pushing away his plate. 'Got that
poor--dom'd scoondrel? Where?'

'Why, in the top back room, at my lodging,' replied Squeers, 'with him
on one side, and the key on the other.'

'At thy loodgin'! Thee'st gotten him at thy loodgin'? Ho! ho! The
schoolmeasther agin all England. Give us thee hond, mun; I'm darned but
I must shak thee by the hond for thot.--Gotten him at thy loodgin'?'

'Yes,' replied Squeers, staggering in his c