ss attitude:
the face of Newman disappeared, and the train of thought took to flight,
all simultaneously, and in an instant.

After a few minutes, Ralph rang his bell. Newman answered the summons,
and Ralph raised his eyes stealthily to his face, as if he almost feared
to read there, a knowledge of his recent thoughts.

There was not the smallest speculation, however, in the countenance of
Newman Noggs. If it be possible to imagine a man, with two eyes in his
head, and both wide open, looking in no direction whatever, and seeing
nothing, Newman appeared to be that man while Ralph Nickleby regarded
him.

'How now?' growled Ralph.

'Oh!' said Newman, throwing some intelligence into his eyes all at
once, and dropping them on his master, 'I thought you rang.' With which
laconic remark Newman turned round and hobbled away.

'Stop!' said Ralph.

Newman stopped; not at all disconcerted.

'I did ring.'

'I knew you did.'

'Then why do you offer to go if you know that?'

'I thought you rang to say you didn't ring,' replied Newman. 'You often
do.'

'How dare you pry, and peer, and stare at me, sirrah?' demanded Ralph.

'Stare!' cried Newman, 'at YOU! Ha, ha!' which was all the explanation
Newman deigned to offer.

'Be careful, sir,' said Ralph, looking steadily at him. 'Let me have no
drunken fooling here. Do you see this parcel?'

'It's big enough,' rejoined Newman.

'Carry it into the city; to Cross, in Broad Street, and leave it
there--quick. Do you hear?'

Newman gave a dogged kind of nod to express an affirmative reply, and,
leaving the room for a few seconds, returned with his hat. Having made
various ineffective attempts to fit the parcel (which was some two feet
square) into the crown thereof, Newman took it under his arm, and
after putting on his fingerless gloves with great precision and nicety,
keeping his eyes fixed upon Mr Ralph Nickleby all the time, he adjusted
his hat upon his head with as much care, real or pretended, as if it
were a bran-new one of the most expensive quality, and at last departed
on his errand.

He executed his commission with great promptitude and dispatch, only
calling at one public-house for half a minute, and even that might be
said to be in his way, for he went in at one door and came out at the
other; but as he returned and had got so far homewards as the Strand,
Newman began to loiter with the uncertain air of a man who has not quite
made up his mind whether to hal