too;--you might get up Rover
while you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler. You can easily
knock them off; one part helps the other so much. Here they are, cues
and all.'

With these hasty general directions Mr Crummles thrust a number of
little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and bidding his
eldest son go with him and show where lodgings were to be had, shook him
by the hand, and wished him good night.

There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in Portsmouth, and
no difficulty in finding some that are proportionate to very slender
finances; but the former were too good, and the latter too bad, and they
went into so many houses, and came out unsuited, that Nicholas seriously
began to think he should be obliged to ask permission to spend the night
in the theatre, after all.

Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small rooms up three pair of
stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, at a tobacconist's shop, on the
Common Hard: a dirty street leading down to the dockyard. These Nicholas
engaged, only too happy to have escaped any request for payment of a
week's rent beforehand.

'There! Lay down our personal property, Smike,' he said, after showing
young Crummles downstairs. 'We have fallen upon strange times, and
Heaven only knows the end of them; but I am tired with the events of
these three days, and will postpone reflection till tomorrow--if I can.'

CHAPTER 24

Of the Great Bespeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first Appearance of
Nicholas upon any Stage

Nicholas was up betimes in the morning; but he had scarcely begun to
dress, notwithstanding, when he heard footsteps ascending the stairs,
and was presently saluted by the voices of Mr Folair the pantomimist,
and Mr Lenville, the tragedian.

'House, house, house!' cried Mr Folair.

'What, ho! within there,' said Mr Lenville, in a deep voice.

'Confound these fellows!' thought Nicholas; 'they have come to
breakfast, I suppose. I'll open the door directly, if you'll wait an
instant.'

The gentlemen entreated him not to hurry himself; and, to beguile the
interval, had a fencing bout with their walking-sticks on the very small
landing-place: to the unspeakable discomposure of all the other lodgers
downstairs.

'Here, come in,' said Nicholas, when he had completed his toilet. 'In
the name of all that's horrible, don't make that noise outside.'

'An uncommon snug little box this,' said Mr Lenville, stepping into