‘Nineteen, eh!’ said Ralph; ‘and what do you mean to do for your bread, sir?’
‘Not to live upon my mother,’ replied Nicholas, his heart swelling as he spoke.
‘You’d have little enough to live upon, if you did,’ retorted the uncle, eyeing him contemptuously.
‘Whatever it be,’ said Nicholas, flushed with anger, ‘I shall not look to you to make it more.’
‘Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself,’ remonstrated Mrs. Nickleby.
‘Dear Nicholas, pray,’ urged the young lady.
‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘Upon my word! Fine beginnings, Mrs Nickleby—fine beginnings!’
Mrs. Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas by a gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man’s eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man’s bright with the light of intelligence and spirit. His figure was somewhat slight, but manly and well formed; and, apart from all the grace of youth and comeliness, there was an emanation from the warm young heart in his look and bearing which kept the old man down.
However striking such a contrast as this may be to lookers-on, none ever feel it with half the keenness or acuteness of perfection with which it strikes to the very soul of him whose inferiority it marks. It galled Ralph to the heart’s core, and he hated Nicholas from that hour.
The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling Nicholas ‘a boy.’ This word is much used as a term of reproach by elderly gentlemen towards their juniors: probably with the view of deluding society into the belief that if they could be young again, they wouldn’t on any account.