queers, looking uneasily round: 'don't call it
that! Just as a favour, don't.'

'Call it what you like,' said Ralph, irritably, 'but attend to me. This
tale was originally fabricated as a means of annoyance against one who
hurt your trade and half cudgelled you to death, and to enable you to
obtain repossession of a half-dead drudge, whom you wished to regain,
because, while you wreaked your vengeance on him for his share in the
business, you knew that the knowledge that he was again in your power
would be the best punishment you could inflict upon your enemy. Is that
so, Mr Squeers?'

'Why, sir,' returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the determination
which Ralph displayed to make everything tell against him, and by his
stern unyielding manner, 'in a measure it was.'

'What does that mean?' said Ralph.

'Why, in a measure means,' returned Squeers, 'as it may be, that it
wasn't all on my account, because you had some old grudge to satisfy,
too.'

'If I had not had,' said Ralph, in no way abashed by the reminder, 'do
you think I should have helped you?'

'Why no, I don't suppose you would,' Squeers replied. 'I only wanted
that point to be all square and straight between us.'

'How can it ever be otherwise?' retorted Ralph. 'Except that the account
is against me, for I spend money to gratify my hatred, and you pocket
it, and gratify yours at the same time. You are, at least, as avaricious
as you are revengeful. So am I. Which is best off? You, who win money
and revenge, at the same time and by the same process, and who are, at
all events, sure of money, if not of revenge; or I, who am only sure of
spending money in any case, and can but win bare revenge at last?'

As Mr Squeers could only answer this proposition by shrugs and smiles,
Ralph bade him be silent, and thankful that he was so well off; and
then, fixing his eyes steadily upon him, proceeded to say:

First, that Nicholas had thwarted him in a plan he had formed for the
disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, and had, in the confusion
attendant on her father's sudden death, secured that lady himself, and
borne her off in triumph.

Secondly, that by some will or settlement--certainly by some instrument
in writing, which must contain the young lady's name, and could be,
therefore, easily selected from others, if access to the place where it
was deposited were once secured--she was entitled to property which,
if the existence of this deed ever bec