Nicholas Nickleby - The Original Classic Edition. Dickens Charles

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       'To the Kenwigses?' asked Crowl.

       Newman nodded assent.

       'Think of that now!' said Crowl. 'If I didn't--thinking that you were certain not to go, because you said you wouldn't--tell Kenwigs

       I couldn't come, and make up my mind to spend the evening with you!'

       'I was obliged to go,' said Newman. 'They would have me.'

       'Well; but what's to become of me?' urged the selfish man, who never thought of anybody else. 'It's all your fault. I'll tell you what-- I'll sit by your fire till you come back again.'

       Newman cast a despairing glance at his small store of fuel, but, not having the courage to say no--a word which in all his life he never had said at the right time, either to himself or anyone else--gave way to the proposed arrangement. Mr Crowl immediately went about making himself as comfortable, with Newman Nogg's means, as circumstances would admit of his being made.

       The lodgers to whom Crowl had made allusion under the designation of 'the Kenwigses,' were the wife and olive branches of one Mr Kenwigs, a turner in ivory, who was looked upon as a person of some consideration on the premises, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of the first floor, comprising a suite of two rooms. Mrs Kenwigs, too, was quite a lady in her manners, and of a very gen-

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       teel family, having an uncle who collected a water-rate; besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little girls went twice a week

       to a dancing school in the neighbourhood, and had flaxen hair, tied with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs;

       and wore little white trousers with frills round the ankles--for all of which reasons, and many more equally valid but too numerous to mention, Mrs Kenwigs was considered a very desirable person to know, and was the constant theme of all the gossips in the street, and even three or four doors round the corner at both ends.

       It was the anniversary of that happy day on which the Church of England as by law established, had bestowed Mrs Kenwigs upon Mr Kenwigs; and in grateful commemoration of the same, Mrs Kenwigs had invited a few select friends to cards and a supper in the first floor, and had put on a new gown to receive them in: which gown, being of a flaming colour and made upon a juvenile principle, was so successful that Mr Kenwigs said the eight years of matrimony and the five children seemed all a dream, and Mrs Kenwigs younger and more blooming than on the very first Sunday he had kept company with her.

       Beautiful as Mrs Kenwigs looked when she was dressed though, and so stately that you would have supposed she had a cook and

       housemaid at least, and nothing to do but order them about, she had a world of trouble with the preparations; more, indeed, than

       she, being of a delicate and genteel constitution, could have sustained, had not the pride of housewifery upheld her. At last, however, all the things that had to be got together were got together, and all the things that had to be got out of the way were got out of the way, and everything was ready, and the collector himself having promised to come, fortune smiled upon the occasion.

       The party was admirably selected. There were, first of all, Mr Kenwigs and Mrs Kenwigs, and four olive Kenwigses who sat up

       to supper; firstly, because it was but right that they should have a treat on such a day; and secondly, because their going to bed, in presence of the company, would have been inconvenient, not to say improper. Then, there was a young lady who had made Mrs Kenwigs's dress, and who--it was the most convenient thing in the world--living in the two-pair back, gave up her bed to the baby, and got a little girl to watch it. Then, to match this young lady, was a young man, who had known Mr Kenwigs when he was a bachelor, and was much esteemed by the ladies, as bearing the reputation of a rake. To these were added a newly-married couple, who had visited Mr and Mrs Kenwigs in their courtship; and a sister of Mrs Kenwigs's, who was quite a beauty; besides whom, there was another young man, supposed to entertain honourable designs upon the lady last mentioned; and Mr Noggs, who was a genteel per-son to ask, because he had been a gentleman once. There were also an elderly lady from the back-parlour, and one more young lady, who, next to the collector, perhaps was the great lion of the party, being the daughter of a theatrical fireman, who 'went on' in the pantomime, and had the greatest turn for the stage that was ever known, being able to sing and recite in a manner that brought the tears into Mrs Kenwigs's eyes. There was only one drawback upon the pleasure of seeing such friends, and that was, that the lady in the back-parlour, who was very fat, and turned of sixty, came in a low book-muslin dress and short kid gloves, which so exasperated

       Mrs Kenwigs, that that lady assured her visitors, in private, that if it hadn't happened that the supper was cooking at the back-parlour

       grate at that moment, she certainly would have requested its representative to withdraw.

       'My dear,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'wouldn't it be better to begin a round game?'

       'Kenwigs, my dear,' returned his wife, 'I am surprised at you. Would you begin without my uncle?'

       'I forgot the collector,' said Kenwigs; 'oh no, that would never do.'

       'He's so particular,' said Mrs Kenwigs, turning to the other married lady, 'that if we began without him, I should be out of his will for

       ever.'

       'Dear!' cried the married lady.

       'You've no idea what he is,' replied Mrs Kenwigs; 'and yet as good a creature as ever breathed.'

       'The kindest-hearted man as ever was,' said Kenwigs.

       'It goes to his heart, I believe, to be forced to cut the water off, when the people don't pay,' observed the bachelor friend, intending a

       joke.

       'George,' said Mr Kenwigs, solemnly, 'none of that, if you please.'

       'It was only my joke,' said the friend, abashed.

       'George,' rejoined Mr Kenwigs, 'a joke is a wery good thing--a wery good thing--but when that joke is made at the expense of

       Mrs Kenwigs's feelings, I set my face against it. A man in public life expects to be sneered at--it is the fault of his elewated sitiwa-

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       tion, and not of himself. Mrs Kenwigs's relation is a public man, and that he knows, George, and that he can bear; but putting Mrs Kenwigs out of the question (if I COULD put Mrs Kenwigs out of the question on such an occasion as this), I have the honour to be connected with the collector by marriage; and I cannot allow these remarks in my--' Mr Kenwigs was going to say 'house,' but he rounded the sentence with 'apartments'.

       At the conclusion of these observations, which drew forth evidences of acute feeling from Mrs Kenwigs, and had the intended ef-

       fect of impressing the company with a deep sense of the collector's dignity, a ring was heard at the bell.

       'That's him,' whispered Mr Kenwigs, greatly excited. 'Morleena, my dear, run down and let your uncle in, and kiss him directly you

       get the door open. Hem! Let's be talking.'

       Adopting Mr Kenwigs's suggestion, the company spoke very loudly, to look easy and unembarrassed; and almost as soon as they had begun to do so, a short old gentleman in drabs and gaiters, with a face that might have been carved out of LIGNUM VITAE, for anything that appeared to the contrary, СКАЧАТЬ