THE SARACEN’S HEAD, SNOW HILL
From an old Print
Here, Mr. Squeers was standing “in a box by one of the coffee-room fire-places, fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms, and two of extraordinary shapes and dimensions made to suit the angles of the partition,” waiting for fond parents and guardians to bring their little boys for his treatment. At the moment he had only secured one, but presently two more were added to the list, and, during the bargaining with their stepfather, Ralph Nickleby and his nephew arrived on the scene. The incident of Nicholas’s engagement for the post will be recalled by all and need not be repeated here. As the uncle and nephew emerged from the Saracen’s Head gateway, Ralph promised Nicholas he would return in the morning to see him “fairly off” by the coach.
Nicholas kept his appointment by arriving at the Saracen’s Head in good time, and went in search of Mr. Squeers in the coffee-room, where he discovered him breakfasting with three little boys. The sound of the coach horn quickly brought the frugal repast to an end, and “the little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach and their boxes had to be brought out and put in.” All was animation in the coach-yard when Nicholas’s mother and sister and his uncle arrived to bid him good-bye.
“A minute’s bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard, climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn, a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below and the hard features of Mr. Ralph Nickleby—and the coach was gone too, and rattling over the stones of Smithfield.”
And so the Saracen’s Head is left behind, and is not referred to again until John Browdie comes to London with his newly wed wife, Tilda Price that was, and her friend, Fanny Squeers. Dismounting near the Post Office he called a hackney coach, and, placing the ladies and the luggage hurriedly in, commanded the driver to “Noo gang to the Sarah’s Head, mun.”
“To the were?” cried the coachman.
“Lawk, Mr. Browdie,” interrupted Miss Squeers. “The idea! Saracen’s Head.”
“Surely,” said John, “I know’d it was something aboot Sarah’s Son’s Head. Dost thou know thot?”
“Oh ah! I know that,” replied the coachman gruffly, as he banged the door.