have nothing more to say, my dear, to Mr Nickleby,' said Madame
Mantalini, 'we will take our leaves. I am sure we have detained him much
too long already.'

Mr Mantalini answered, in the first instance, by tapping Madame
Mantalini several times on the nose, and then, by remarking in words
that he had nothing more to say.

'Demmit! I have, though,' he added almost immediately, drawing Ralph
into a corner. 'Here's an affair about your friend Sir Mulberry. Such a
demd extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of thing as never was--eh?'

'What do you mean?' asked Ralph.

'Don't you know, demmit?' asked Mr Mantalini.

'I see by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last night,
and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger,' answered
Ralph with great composure; 'but I see nothing extraordinary in
that--accidents are not miraculous events, when men live hard, and drive
after dinner.'

'Whew!' cried Mr Mantalini in a long shrill whistle. 'Then don't you
know how it was?'

'Not unless it was as I have just supposed,' replied Ralph, shrugging
his shoulders carelessly, as if to give his questioner to understand
that he had no curiosity upon the subject.

'Demmit, you amaze me,' cried Mantalini.

Ralph shrugged his shoulders again, as if it were no great feat to amaze
Mr Mantalini, and cast a wistful glance at the face of Newman Noggs,
which had several times appeared behind a couple of panes of glass in
the room door; it being a part of Newman's duty, when unimportant people
called, to make various feints of supposing that the bell had rung for
him to show them out: by way of a gentle hint to such visitors that it
was time to go.

'Don't you know,' said Mr Mantalini, taking Ralph by the button, 'that
it wasn't an accident at all, but a demd, furious, manslaughtering
attack made upon him by your nephew?'

'What!' snarled Ralph, clenching his fists and turning a livid white.

'Demmit, Nickleby, you're as great a tiger as he is,' said Mantalini,
alarmed at these demonstrations.

'Go on,' cried Ralph. 'Tell me what you mean. What is this story? Who
told you? Speak,' growled Ralph. 'Do you hear me?'

''Gad, Nickleby,' said Mr Mantalini, retreating towards his wife, 'what
a demneble fierce old evil genius you are! You're enough to frighten the
life and soul out of her little delicious wits--flying all at once into
such a blazing, ravaging, raging passion as never was, demmit!'

'Pshaw,' rejoined Ralph,