rough several streets, without stopping or
speaking. At last, they halted and confronted each other with blank and
rueful faces.

'Never mind,' said Newman, gasping for breath. 'Don't be cast down. It's
all right. More fortunate next time. It couldn't be helped. I did MY
part.'

'Excellently,' replied Nicholas, taking his hand. 'Excellently, and like
the true and zealous friend you are. Only--mind, I am not disappointed,
Newman, and feel just as much indebted to you--only IT WAS THE WRONG
LADY.'

'Eh?' cried Newman Noggs. 'Taken in by the servant?'

'Newman, Newman,' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder: 'it
was the wrong servant too.'

Newman's under-jaw dropped, and he gazed at Nicholas, with his sound eye
fixed fast and motionless in his head.

'Don't take it to heart,' said Nicholas; 'it's of no consequence; you
see I don't care about it; you followed the wrong person, that's all.'

That WAS all. Whether Newman Noggs had looked round the pump, in a
slanting direction, so long, that his sight became impaired; or whether,
finding that there was time to spare, he had recruited himself with a
few drops of something stronger than the pump could yield--by whatsoever
means it had come to pass, this was his mistake. And Nicholas went home
to brood upon it, and to meditate upon the charms of the unknown young
lady, now as far beyond his reach as ever.

CHAPTER 41

Containing some Romantic Passages between Mrs Nickleby and the Gentleman
in the Small-clothes next Door

Ever since her last momentous conversation with her son, Mrs Nickleby
had begun to display unusual care in the adornment of her person,
gradually superadding to those staid and matronly habiliments,
which had, up to that time, formed her ordinary attire, a variety of
embellishments and decorations, slight perhaps in themselves, but,
taken together, and considered with reference to the subject of
her disclosure, of no mean importance. Even her black dress assumed
something of a deadly-lively air from the jaunty style in which it was
worn; and, eked out as its lingering attractions were; by a prudent
disposal, here and there, of certain juvenile ornaments of little or no
value, which had, for that reason alone, escaped the general wreck and
been permitted to slumber peacefully in odd corners of old drawers and
boxes where daylight seldom shone, her mourning garments assumed quite
a new character. From being the outward tokens of resp