‘You know she’s a deyvlish fine girl,’ said the client. ‘You must know that, Nickleby. Come, don’t deny that.’
‘Yes, I believe she is considered so,’ replied Ralph. ‘Indeed, I know she is. If I did not, you are an authority on such points, and your taste, my lord—on all points, indeed—is undeniable.’
Nobody but the young man to whom these words were addressed could have been deaf to the sneering tone in which they were spoken, or blind to the look of contempt by which they were accompanied. But Lord Frederick Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘p’raps you’re a little right, and p’raps you’re a little wrong—a little of both, Nickleby. I want to know where this beauty lives, that I may have another peep at her, Nickleby.’
‘Really—’ Ralph began in his usual tones.
‘Don’t talk so loud,’ cried the other, achieving the great point of his lesson to a miracle. ‘I don’t want Hawk to hear.’
‘You know he is your rival, do you?’ said Ralph, looking sharply at him.
‘He always is, d-a-amn him,’ replied the client; ‘and I want to steal a march upon him. Ha, ha, ha! He’ll cut up so rough, Nickleby, at our talking together without him. Where does she live, Nickleby, that’s all? Only tell me where she lives, Nickleby.’
‘He bites,’ thought Ralph. ‘He bites.’
‘Eh, Nickleby, eh?’ pursued the client. ‘Where does she live?’