‘We bring the compliments of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand entreaties that you’ll take a seat in a private box at the play tonight,’ said Mr Pluck.
‘Oh dear!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I never go out at all, never.’
‘And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs. Nickleby, why you should go out tonight,’ retorted Mr. Pluck. ‘Pyke, entreat Mrs. Nickleby.’
‘Oh, pray do,’ said Pyke.
‘You positively must,’ urged Pluck.
‘You are very kind,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, hesitating; ‘but—’
‘There’s not a but in the case, my dear Mrs. Nickleby,’ remonstrated Mr Pluck; ‘not such a word in the vocabulary. Your brother-in-law joins us, Lord Frederick joins us, Sir Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins us—a refusal is out of the question. Sir Mulberry sends a carriage for you—twenty minutes before seven to the moment—you’ll not be so cruel as to disappoint the whole party, Mrs. Nickleby?’
‘You are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to say,’ replied the worthy lady.
‘Say nothing; not a word, not a word, my dearest madam,’ urged Mr. Pluck. ‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said that excellent gentleman, lowering his voice, ‘there is the most trifling, the most excusable breach of confidence in what I am about to say; and yet if my friend Pyke there overheard it—such is that man’s delicate sense of honour, Mrs. Nickleby—he’d have me out before dinner-time.’
Mrs. Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike Pyke, who had walked to the window; and Mr. Pluck, squeezing her hand, went on: