s lady's arm through his, led her mincingly
away.

'So, so,' muttered Ralph, dropping into his chair; 'this devil is loose
again, and thwarting me, as he was born to do, at every turn. He told
me once there should be a day of reckoning between us, sooner or later.
I'll make him a true prophet, for it shall surely come.'

'Are you at home?' asked Newman, suddenly popping in his head.

'No,' replied Ralph, with equal abruptness.

Newman withdrew his head, but thrust it in again.

'You're quite sure you're not at home, are you?' said Newman.

'What does the idiot mean?' cried Ralph, testily.

'He has been waiting nearly ever since they first came in, and may have
heard your voice--that's all,' said Newman, rubbing his hands.

'Who has?' demanded Ralph, wrought by the intelligence he had just
heard, and his clerk's provoking coolness, to an intense pitch of
irritation.

The necessity of a reply was superseded by the unlooked-for entrance
of a third party--the individual in question--who, bringing his one
eye (for he had but one) to bear on Ralph Nickleby, made a great many
shambling bows, and sat himself down in an armchair, with his hands on
his knees, and his short black trousers drawn up so high in the legs by
the exertion of seating himself, that they scarcely reached below the
tops of his Wellington boots.'

'Why, this IS a surprise!' said Ralph, bending his gaze upon the
visitor, and half smiling as he scrutinised him attentively; 'I should
know your face, Mr Squeers.'

'Ah!' replied that worthy, 'and you'd have know'd it better, sir, if
it hadn't been for all that I've been a-going through. Just lift that
little boy off the tall stool in the back-office, and tell him to come
in here, will you, my man?' said Squeers, addressing himself to Newman.
'Oh, he's lifted his-self off. My son, sir, little Wackford. What do you
think of him, sir, for a specimen of the Dotheboys Hall feeding? Ain't
he fit to bust out of his clothes, and start the seams, and make the
very buttons fly off with his fatness? Here's flesh!' cried Squeers,
turning the boy about, and indenting the plumpest parts of his figure
with divers pokes and punches, to the great discomposure of his son
and heir. 'Here's firmness, here's solidness! Why you can hardly get up
enough of him between your finger and thumb to pinch him anywheres.'

In however good condition Master Squeers might have been, he certainly
did not present this remarkable compa