all you have to know, and never can
know but through me. I left you--long after that time, remember--and,
for some poor trickery that came within the law, but was nothing to what
you money-makers daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away
a convict for seven years. I have returned what you see me. Now, Mr
Nickleby,' said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of
power, 'what help and assistance will you give me; what bribe, to speak
out plainly? My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to
live I must eat and drink. Money is on your side, and hunger and thirst
on mine. You may drive an easy bargain.'

'Is that all?' said Ralph, still eyeing his companion with the same
steady look, and moving nothing but his lips.

'It depends on you, Mr Nickleby, whether that's all or not,' was the
rejoinder.

'Why then, harkye, Mr--, I don't know by what name I am to call you,'
said Ralph.

'By my old one, if you like.'

'Why then, harkye, Mr Brooker,' said Ralph, in his harshest accents,
'and don't expect to draw another speech from me. Harkye, sir. I know
you of old for a ready scoundrel, but you never had a stout heart; and
hard work, with (maybe) chains upon those legs of yours, and shorter
food than when I "pinched" and "ground" you, has blunted your wits, or
you would not come with such a tale as this to me. You a hold upon me!
Keep it, or publish it to the world, if you like.'

'I can't do that,' interposed Brooker. 'That wouldn't serve me.'

'Wouldn't it?' said Ralph. 'It will serve you as much as bringing it to
me, I promise you. To be plain with you, I am a careful man, and know my
affairs thoroughly. I know the world, and the world knows me. Whatever
you gleaned, or heard, or saw, when you served me, the world knows and
magnifies already. You could tell it nothing that would surprise it,
unless, indeed, it redounded to my credit or honour, and then it would
scout you for a liar. And yet I don't find business slack, or clients
scrupulous. Quite the contrary. I am reviled or threatened every day by
one man or another,' said Ralph; 'but things roll on just the same, and
I don't grow poorer either.'

'I neither revile nor threaten,' rejoined the man. 'I can tell you of
what you have lost by my act, what I only can restore, and what, if I
die without restoring, dies with me, and never can be regained.'

'I tell my money pretty accurately, and generally keep it in my own
custody,'