ndeed,' replied Miss Price, 'I am in excellent spirits. I was
thinking YOU seemed out of sorts.'

'Me!' cried Miss Squeers, biting her lips, and trembling with very
jealousy. 'Oh no!'

'That's well,' remarked Miss Price. 'Your hair's coming out of curl,
dear.'

'Never mind me,' tittered Miss Squeers; 'you had better attend to your
partner.'

'Thank you for reminding her,' said Nicholas. 'So she had.'

The Yorkshireman flattened his nose, once or twice, with his clenched
fist, as if to keep his hand in, till he had an opportunity of
exercising it upon the features of some other gentleman; and Miss
Squeers tossed her head with such indignation, that the gust of wind
raised by the multitudinous curls in motion, nearly blew the candle out.

'I never had such luck, really,' exclaimed coquettish Miss Price, after
another hand or two. 'It's all along of you, Mr Nickleby, I think. I
should like to have you for a partner always.'

'I wish you had.'

'You'll have a bad wife, though, if you always win at cards,' said Miss
Price.

'Not if your wish is gratified,' replied Nicholas. 'I am sure I shall
have a good one in that case.'

To see how Miss Squeers tossed her head, and the corn-factor flattened
his nose, while this conversation was carrying on! It would have been
worth a small annuity to have beheld that; let alone Miss Price's
evident joy at making them jealous, and Nicholas Nickleby's happy
unconsciousness of making anybody uncomfortable.

'We have all the talking to ourselves, it seems,' said Nicholas, looking
good-humouredly round the table as he took up the cards for a fresh
deal.

'You do it so well,' tittered Miss Squeers, 'that it would be a pity to
interrupt, wouldn't it, Mr Browdie? He! he! he!'

'Nay,' said Nicholas, 'we do it in default of having anybody else to
talk to.'

'We'll talk to you, you know, if you'll say anything,' said Miss Price.

'Thank you, 'Tilda, dear,' retorted Miss Squeers, majestically.

'Or you can talk to each other, if you don't choose to talk to us,'
said Miss Price, rallying her dear friend. 'John, why don't you say
something?'

'Say summat?' repeated the Yorkshireman.

'Ay, and not sit there so silent and glum.'

'Weel, then!' said the Yorkshireman, striking the table heavily with his
fist, 'what I say's this--Dang my boans and boddy, if I stan' this ony
longer. Do ye gang whoam wi' me, and do yon loight an' toight young
whipster look sharp out for a brokken hea