il he was safely housed in the lodging at Lambeth. Mr Squeers
having shifted his lodging, the officer shifted his, and lying concealed
in the same street, and, indeed, in the opposite house, soon found that
Mr Squeers and Mrs Sliderskew were in constant communication.

In this state of things, Arthur Gride was appealed to. The robbery,
partly owing to the inquisitiveness of the neighbours, and partly to
his own grief and rage, had, long ago, become known; but he positively
refused to give his sanction or yield any assistance to the old woman's
capture, and was seized with such a panic at the idea of being called
upon to give evidence against her, that he shut himself up close in his
house, and refused to hold communication with anybody. Upon this, the
pursuers took counsel together, and, coming so near the truth as to
arrive at the conclusion that Gride and Ralph, with Squeers for their
instrument, were negotiating for the recovery of some of the stolen
papers which would not bear the light, and might possibly explain the
hints relative to Madeline which Newman had overheard, resolved that Mrs
Sliderskew should be taken into custody before she had parted with
them: and Squeers too, if anything suspicious could be attached to
him. Accordingly, a search-warrant being procured, and all prepared, Mr
Squeers's window was watched, until his light was put out, and the time
arrived when, as had been previously ascertained, he usually visited
Mrs Sliderskew. This done, Frank Cheeryble and Newman stole upstairs to
listen to their discourse, and to give the signal to the officer at the
most favourable time. At what an opportune moment they arrived, how
they listened, and what they heard, is already known to the reader. Mr
Squeers, still half stunned, was hurried off with a stolen deed in his
possession, and Mrs Sliderskew was apprehended likewise. The information
being promptly carried to Snawley that Squeers was in custody--he was
not told for what--that worthy, first extorting a promise that he should
be kept harmless, declared the whole tale concerning Smike to be a
fiction and forgery, and implicated Ralph Nickleby to the fullest
extent. As to Mr Squeers, he had, that morning, undergone a private
examination before a magistrate; and, being unable to account
satisfactorily for his possession of the deed or his companionship with
Mrs Sliderskew, had been, with her, remanded for a week.

All these discoveries were now related to