lph. 'One of them,
I know, or you wouldn't talk about them.'

'He suspects even me!' cried old Arthur, holding up his hands. 'Even
me! Oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What a man it is! Mr
Nickleby against all the world. There's nobody like him. A giant among
pigmies, a giant, a giant!'

Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this
strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as
the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.

'I must humour him though,' cried old Arthur; 'he must have his way--a
wilful man, as the Scotch say--well, well, they're a wise people, the
Scotch. He will talk about business, and won't give away his time for
nothing. He's very right. Time is money, time is money.'

'He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,' said Ralph.
'Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by
it. Time IS money! Yes, and time costs money; it's rather an expensive
article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.'

In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again
chuckled, and again ejaculated 'What a man it is!' which done, he
dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph's high stool, and looking
upwards into his immovable face, said,

'What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was--that I
was--going to be married?'

'I should tell you,' replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, 'that
for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn't the
first time and wouldn't be the last; that I wasn't surprised and wasn't
to be taken in.'

'Then I tell you seriously that I am,' said old Arthur.

'And I tell you seriously,' rejoined Ralph, 'what I told you this
minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There's a liquorish devilry in your
face. What is this?'

'I wouldn't deceive YOU, you know,' whined Arthur Gride; 'I couldn't do
it, I should be mad to try. I, I, to deceive Mr Nickleby! The pigmy to
impose upon the giant. I ask again--he, he, he!--what should you say to
me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?'

'To some old hag?' said Ralph.

'No, No,' cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an
ecstasy. 'Wrong, wrong again. Mr Nickleby for once at fault; out, quite
out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not
nineteen. Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe and ruddy lips that to look at
is to long to kiss, beaut