‘Well,’ said Lord Frederick, sipping his first glass of port, ‘if this is a discounting dinner, all I have to say is, deyvle take me, if it wouldn’t be a good pla-an to get discount every day.’
‘You’ll have plenty of it, in your time,’ returned Sir Mulberry Hawk; ‘Nickleby will tell you that.’
‘What do you say, Nickleby?’ inquired the young man; ‘am I to be a good customer?’
‘It depends entirely on circumstances, my lord,’ replied Ralph.
‘On your lordship’s circumstances,’ interposed Colonel Chowser of the Militia—and the race-courses.
The gallant colonel glanced at Messrs Pyke and Pluck as if he thought they ought to laugh at his joke; but those gentlemen, being only engaged to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, were, to his signal discomfiture, as grave as a pair of undertakers. To add to his defeat, Sir Mulberry, considering any such efforts an invasion of his peculiar privilege, eyed the offender steadily, through his glass, as if astonished at his presumption, and audibly stated his impression that it was an ‘infernal liberty,’ which being a hint to Lord Frederick, he put up his glass, and surveyed the object of censure as if he were some extraordinary wild animal then exhibiting for the first time. As a matter of course, Messrs Pyke and Pluck stared at the individual whom Sir Mulberry Hawk stared at; so, the poor colonel, to hide his confusion, was reduced to the necessity of holding his port before his right eye and affecting to scrutinise its colour with the most lively interest.
All this while, Kate had sat as silently as she could, scarcely daring to raise her eyes, lest they should encounter the admiring gaze of Lord Frederick Verisopht, or, what was still more embarrassing, the bold looks of his friend Sir Mulberry. The latter gentleman was obliging enough to direct general attention towards her.
‘Here is Miss Nickleby,’ observed Sir Mulberry, ‘wondering why the deuce somebody doesn’t make love to her.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Kate, looking hastily up, ‘I—’ and then she stopped, feeling it would have been better to have said nothing at all.
‘I’ll hold any man fifty pounds,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘that Miss Nickleby can’t look in my face, and tell me she wasn’t thinking so.’
‘Done!’ cried the noble gull. ‘Within ten minutes.’
‘Done!’ responded Sir Mulberry. The money was produced on both sides, and the Honourable Mr. Snobb was elected to the double office of stake-holder and time-keeper.
‘Pray,’ said Kate, in great confusion, while these preliminaries were in course of completion. ‘Pray do not make me the subject of any bets. Uncle, I cannot really—’
‘Why not, my dear?’ replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however, there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and would rather that the proposition had not been broached. ‘It is done in a moment; there is nothing in it. If the gentlemen insist on it—’
‘I don’t insist on it,’ said Sir Mulberry, with a loud laugh. ‘That is, I by no means insist upon Miss Nickleby’s making the denial, for if she does, I lose; but I shall be glad to see her bright eyes, especially as she favours the mahogany so much.’
‘So she does, and it’s too ba-a-d of you, Miss Nickleby,’ said the noble youth.
‘Quite cruel,’ said Mr. Pyke.
‘Horrid cruel,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘I don’t care if I do lose,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘for one tolerable look at Miss Nickleby’s eyes is worth double the money.’
‘More,’ said Mr. Pyke.
‘Far more,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘How goes the enemy, Snobb?’ asked Sir Mulberry Hawk.
‘Four minutes gone.’
‘Bravo!’
‘Won’t you ma-ake one effort for me, Miss Nickleby?’ asked Lord Frederick, after a short interval.
‘You needn’t trouble yourself to inquire, my buck,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘Miss Nickleby and I understand each other; she declares on my side, and shows her taste. You haven’t a chance, old fellow. Time, Snobb?’
‘Eight minutes gone.’
‘Get the money ready,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘you’ll soon hand over.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Pyke.
Mr. Pluck, who always came second, and topped his companion if he could, screamed outright.
The poor girl, who was so overwhelmed with confusion that she scarcely knew what she did, had determined to remain perfectly quiet; but fearing that by so doing she might seem to countenance Sir Mulberry’s boast, which had been uttered with great coarseness and vulgarity of manner, raised her eyes, and looked him in the face. There was something so odious, so insolent, so repulsive in the look which met her, that, without the power to stammer forth a syllable, she rose and hurried from the room. She restrained her tears by a great effort until she was alone upstairs, and then gave them vent.
‘Capital!’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, putting the stakes in his pocket.
‘That’s a girl of spirit, and we’ll drink her health.’
It is needless to say, that Pyke and Co. responded, with great warmth of manner, to this proposal, or that the toast was drunk with many little insinuations from the firm, relative to the completeness of Sir Mulberry’s conquest. Ralph, who, while the attention of the other guests was attracted to the principals in the preceding scene, had eyed them like a wolf, appeared to breathe more freely now his niece was gone; the decanters passing quickly round, he leaned back in his chair, and turned his eyes from speaker to speaker, as they warmed with wine, with looks that seemed to search their hearts, and lay bare, for his distempered sport, every idle thought within them.
Meanwhile Kate, left wholly to herself, had, in some degree, recovered her composure. She had learnt from a female attendant, that her uncle wished to see her before she left, and had also gleaned the satisfactory intelligence, that the gentlemen would take coffee at table. The prospect of seeing them no more, contributed greatly to calm her agitation, and, taking up a book, she composed herself to read.
She started sometimes, when the sudden opening of the dining-room door let loose a wild shout of noisy revelry, and more than once rose in great alarm, as a fancied footstep on the staircase impressed her with the fear that some stray member of the party was returning alone. Nothing occurring, however, to realise her apprehensions, she endeavoured to fix her attention more closely on her book, in which by degrees she became so much interested, that she had read on through several chapters without heed of time or place, when she was terrified by suddenly hearing her name pronounced by a man’s voice close at her ear.
The book fell from her hand. Lounging on an ottoman close beside her, was Sir Mulberry Hawk, evidently the worse—if a man be a ruffian at heart, he is never the better—for wine.
‘What a delightful studiousness!’ said this accomplished gentleman. ‘Was it real, now, or only to display the eyelashes?’
Kate, looking anxiously towards the door, made no reply.
‘I have looked at ‘em for five minutes,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘Upon my soul, they’re perfect. Why did I speak, and destroy such a pretty little picture?’
‘Do me the favour to be silent now, sir,’ replied Kate.
‘No,