pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on
his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a broad stare.

'He's a fine boy, an't he?' said Squeers, throwing his head a little
on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate the
proportions of little Wackford.

'Very,' said Newman.

'Pretty well swelled out, an't he?' pursued Squeers. 'He has the fatness
of twenty boys, he has.'

'Ah!' replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of Squeers,
'he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more! He's got it all. God help that
others. Ha! ha! Oh Lord!'

Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon his
desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity.

'Why, what does the man mean?' cried Squeers, colouring. 'Is he drunk?'

Newman made no reply.

'Is he mad?' said Squeers.

But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his
own; so, Mr Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both drunk
AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his hopeful son
away.

In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a struggling
and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of Nicholas
augmented. It might be, that to atone for the weakness of inclining to
any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other more intensely
than before; but such had been the course of his feelings. And now,
to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her in the worst and most
repulsive colours, to know that she was taught to hate and despise
him: to feel that there was infection in his touch, and taint in his
companionship--to know all this, and to know that the mover of it all
was that same boyish poor relation who had twitted him in their very
first interview, and openly bearded and braved him since, wrought his
quiet and stealthy malignity to such a pitch, that there was scarcely
anything he would not have hazarded to gratify it, if he could have seen
his way to some immediate retaliation.

But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although he
cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working on the
one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and business that
came with it, night found him at last, still harping on the same theme,
and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections.

'When my brother was such as he,' said Ralph, 'the first comparisons
were drawn between us--always in my disfavour. HE