t. 'You must know
that, Nickleby. Come, don't deny that.'

'Yes, I believe she is considered so,' replied Ralph. 'Indeed, I know
she is. If I did not, you are an authority on such points, and your
taste, my lord--on all points, indeed--is undeniable.'

Nobody but the young man to whom these words were addressed could have
been deaf to the sneering tone in which they were spoken, or blind to
the look of contempt by which they were accompanied. But Lord Frederick
Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary.

'Well,' he said, 'p'raps you're a little right, and p'raps you're a
little wrong--a little of both, Nickleby. I want to know where this
beauty lives, that I may have another peep at her, Nickleby.'

'Really--' Ralph began in his usual tones.

'Don't talk so loud,' cried the other, achieving the great point of his
lesson to a miracle. 'I don't want Hawk to hear.'

'You know he is your rival, do you?' said Ralph, looking sharply at him.

'He always is, d-a-amn him,' replied the client; 'and I want to steal
a march upon him. Ha, ha, ha! He'll cut up so rough, Nickleby, at our
talking together without him. Where does she live, Nickleby, that's all?
Only tell me where she lives, Nickleby.'

'He bites,' thought Ralph. 'He bites.'

'Eh, Nickleby, eh?' pursued the client. 'Where does she live?'

'Really, my lord,' said Ralph, rubbing his hands slowly over each other,
'I must think before I tell you.'

'No, not a bit of it, Nickleby; you mustn't think at all,' replied
Verisopht. 'Where is it?'

'No good can come of your knowing,' replied Ralph. 'She has been
virtuously and well brought up; to be sure she is handsome, poor,
unprotected! Poor girl, poor girl.'

Ralph ran over this brief summary of Kate's condition as if it were
merely passing through his own mind, and he had no intention to speak
aloud; but the shrewd sly look which he directed at his companion as he
delivered it, gave this poor assumption the lie.

'I tell you I only want to see her,' cried his client. 'A ma-an may look
at a pretty woman without harm, mayn't he? Now, where DOES she live?
You know you're making a fortune out of me, Nickleby, and upon my soul
nobody shall ever take me to anybody else, if you only tell me this.'

'As you promise that, my lord,' said Ralph, with feigned reluctance,
'and as I am most anxious to oblige you, and as there's no harm in
it--no harm--I'll tell you. But you had better keep it to yourself, my
lor