astonished to find
himself suddenly clutched in a close and violent embrace, which nearly
took him off his legs; nor was his amazement at all lessened by hearing
the voice of Mr Crummles exclaim, 'It is he--my friend, my friend!'

'Bless my heart,' cried Nicholas, struggling in the manager's arms,
'what are you about?'

The manager made no reply, but strained him to his breast again,
exclaiming as he did so, 'Farewell, my noble, my lion-hearted boy!'

In fact, Mr Crummles, who could never lose any opportunity for
professional display, had turned out for the express purpose of taking a
public farewell of Nicholas; and to render it the more imposing, he was
now, to that young gentleman's most profound annoyance, inflicting upon
him a rapid succession of stage embraces, which, as everybody knows, are
performed by the embracer's laying his or her chin on the shoulder of
the object of affection, and looking over it. This Mr Crummles did in
the highest style of melodrama, pouring forth at the same time all
the most dismal forms of farewell he could think of, out of the stock
pieces. Nor was this all, for the elder Master Crummles was going
through a similar ceremony with Smike; while Master Percy Crummles, with
a very little second-hand camlet cloak, worn theatrically over his left
shoulder, stood by, in the attitude of an attendant officer, waiting to
convey the two victims to the scaffold.

The lookers-on laughed very heartily, and as it was as well to put a
good face upon the matter, Nicholas laughed too when he had succeeded
in disengaging himself; and rescuing the astonished Smike, climbed up
to the coach roof after him, and kissed his hand in honour of the absent
Mrs Crummles as they rolled away.

CHAPTER 31

Of Ralph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise Precautions, the
success or failure of which will appear in the Sequel

In blissful unconsciousness that his nephew was hastening at the utmost
speed of four good horses towards his sphere of action, and that every
passing minute diminished the distance between them, Ralph Nickleby sat
that morning occupied in his customary avocations, and yet unable to
prevent his thoughts wandering from time to time back to the interview
which had taken place between himself and his niece on the previous
day. At such intervals, after a few moments of abstraction, Ralph
would mutter some peevish interjection, and apply himself with renewed
steadiness of purpose to the