Mr Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you would calla merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a specialpleader, nor a notary. He was certainly not a tradesman, and still lesscould he lay any claim to the title of a professional gentleman; for itwould have been impossible to mention any recognised profession to whichhe belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in GoldenSquare, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door, hadanother brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left handdoor-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant's fist grasping afragment of a skewer, and displaying the word 'Office,' it was clearthat Mr Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind;and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, wasabundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours ofhalf-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who satupon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the endof the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he answered thebell.

Although a few members of the graver professions live about GoldenSquare, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere. It isone of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gonedown in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its firstand second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and ittakes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. Thedark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, andbushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and aboutthe box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon,when they give away the orders,--all live in Golden Square, or within astreet of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Operaband reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, andthe notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the headof the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness ofshrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer's night, windowsare thrown open, and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by thepasser-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds ofgruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence; andthe fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars,and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide thesupremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bandsare on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaverinvoluntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.

This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction ofbusiness; but Mr Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, formany years, and uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody roundabout, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the reputation of beingimmensely rich. The tradesmen held that he was a sort of lawyer, andthe other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; bothof which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about otherpeople's affairs usually are, or need to be.

Mr Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready dressedto walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue coat; a whitewaistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn overthem. The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as ifinsisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button ofhis spencer; and the latter garment was not made low enough to conceala long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which hadits beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr Nickleby's pocket,and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the watchitself, and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling ofpowder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but ifthat were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder hiscountenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, andin his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that wouldannounce itself in spite of him. However this might be, there he was;and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor theeyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then, andare consequently no business of ours just now.

Mr Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwinghimself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through thedirty window. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of groundbehind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, andfrowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, fromyear to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a fewleaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping inthe effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the followingseason, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the weatherbe particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrupin its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards 'gardens'; itis not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they arepieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the originalbrick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or ofturning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles,and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first movesin, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again:the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper:and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and brokenflower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about--a prey to 'blacks' anddirt.

It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he satwith his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixedhis eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in atub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rotaway piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but MrNickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with fargreater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have deignedto bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to alittle dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerkwas dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him toattend.

In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to whichhe had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on),and presented himself in Mr Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of middleage, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose,a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowablewhen they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much toosmall, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it wasmarvellous how he contrived to keep them on.

'Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp andgrating voice.

'Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the--' Noggs was going toadd public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted 'regulartime.'

'My watch has stopped,' said Mr Nickleby; 'I don't know from whatcause.'

'Not wound up,' said Noggs.

'Yes it is,' said Mr Nickleby.

'Over-wound then,' rejoined Noggs.

'That can't very well be,' observed Mr Nickleby.

'Must be,' said Noggs.

'Well!' said Mr Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket;'perhaps it is.'

Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of alldisputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as herarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grimsilence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other: cracking thejoints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all possible distortions.The incessant performance of this routine on every occasion, and thecommunication of a fixed and rigid look to his unaffected eye, so as tomake it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybodyto determine where or at what he was looking, were two among thenumerous peculiarities of Mr Noggs, which struck an inexperiencedobserver at first sight.

'I am going to the London Tavern this morning,' said Mr Nickleby.

'Public meeting?' inquired Noggs.

Mr Nickleby nodded. 'I expect a letter from the solicitor respectingthat mortgage of Ruddle's. If it comes at all, it will be here by thetwo o'clock delivery. I shall leave the city about that time and walkto Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the way; if there are anyletters, come and meet me, and bring them with you.'

Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office bell.The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly remained in astationary position.

'The bell,' said Noggs, as though in explanation. 'At home?'

'Yes.'

'To anybody?'

'Yes.'

'To the tax-gatherer?'

'No! Let him call again.'

Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say 'I thought so!'and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he presentlyreturned, ushering in, by the name of Mr Bonney, a pale gentleman in aviolent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all overhis head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely round his throat,looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressedhimself since.

'My dear Nickleby,' said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which wasso full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head, 'there'snot a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker takesthe chair, and three members of Parliament are positively coming. I haveseen two of them safely out of bed. The third, who was at Crockford'sall night, has just gone home to put a clean shirt on, and take a bottleor two of soda water, and will certainly be with us, in time to addressthe meeting. He is a little excited by last night, but never mind that;he always speaks the stronger for it.'

'It seems to promise pretty well,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, whosedeliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other manof business.

'Pretty well!' echoed Mr Bonney. 'It's the finest idea that was everstarted. "United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Bakingand Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in five hundredthousand shares of ten pounds each." Why the very name will get theshares up to a premium in ten days.'

'And when they ARE at a premium,' said Mr Ralph Nickleby, smiling.

'When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man alive,and how to back quietly out at the right time,' said Mr Bonney, slappingthe capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. 'By-the-bye, what a VERYremarkable man that clerk of yours is.'

'Yes, poor devil!' replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. 'Though NewmanNoggs kept his horses and hounds once.'

'Ay, ay?' said the other carelessly.

'Yes,' continued Ralph, 'and not many years ago either; but hesquandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and inshort made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar. He tookto drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came here to borrowa pound, as in his better days I had--'

'Done business with him,' said Mr Bonney with a meaning look.

'Just so,' replied Ralph; 'I couldn't lend it, you know.'

'Oh, of course not.'

'But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, Itook him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since. He isa little mad, I think,' said Mr Nickleby, calling up a charitable look,'but he is useful enough, poor creature--useful enough.'

The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, beingutterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages of aboy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle,that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially valuableperson in a place where much business was done, of which it wasdesirable no mention should be made out of doors. The other gentlemanwas plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as they hurried into thehackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr Nickleby forgot tomention circumstances so unimportant.

There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew up,and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking across the roadunder a press of paper, bearing gigantic announcements that a PublicMeeting would be holden at one o'clock precisely, to take intoconsideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of theUnited Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and PunctualDelivery Company, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand sharesof ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in fat black figuresof considerable size. Mr Bonney elbowed his way briskly upstairs,receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood onthe landings to show the way; and, followed by Mr Nickleby, dived into asuite of apartments behind the great public room: in the second of whichwas a business-looking table, and several business-looking people.

'Hear!' cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr Bonney presentedhimself. 'Chair, gentlemen, chair!'

The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr Bonneybustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his fingersthrough his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman's knock on the tablewith a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried 'Hear!' and noddedslightly to each other, as much as to say what spirited conduct thatwas. Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish with agitation, tore intothe room, and throwing the door open with a crash, shouted 'Sir MatthewPupker!'

The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and while theywere clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two livemembers of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling and bowing,and looking so pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel how anyman could have the heart to vote against them. Sir Matthew Pupkerespecially, who had a little round head with a flaxen wig on the topof it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the wig threatened tobe jerked off, every instant. When these symptoms had in some degreesubsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir MatthewPupker, or the two other members, crowded round them in three littlegroups, near one or other of which the gentlemen who were NOT onspeaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stoodlingering, and smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hopeof something turning up which might bring them into notice. All thistime, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other members were relating totheir separate circles what the intentions of government were, abouttaking up the bill; with a full account of what the government had saidin a whisper the last time they dined with it, and how the governmenthad been observed to wink when it said so; from which premises they wereat no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had oneobject more at heart than another, that one object was the welfare andadvantage of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and CrumpetBaking and Punctual Delivery Company.

Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a fairdivision of the speechifying, the public in the large room were eyeing,by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music Gallery. Inthese amusements the greater portion of them had been occupied for acouple of hours before, and as the most agreeable diversions pall uponthe taste on a too protracted enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits nowbegan to hammer the floor with their boot-heels, and to express theirdissatisfaction by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions,emanating from the people who had been there longest, naturallyproceeded from those who were nearest to the platform and furthest fromthe policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight their waythrough the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desireto do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began to dragforth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near thedoor; at the same time dealing out various smart and tingling blows withtheir truncheons, after the manner of that ingenious actor, Mr Punch:whose brilliant example, both in the fashion of his weapons and theiruse, this branch of the executive occasionally follows.

Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shoutattracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there pouredon to the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of gentlemenwith their hats off, all looking behind them, and uttering vociferouscheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently explained when Sir MatthewPupker and the two other real members of Parliament came to the front,amidst deafening shouts, and testified to each other in dumb motionsthat they had never seen such a glorious sight as that, in the wholecourse of their public career.

At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir MatthewPupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse which lastedfive minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must behis feelings on that great occasion, and what must be that occasionin the eyes of the world, and what must be the intelligence ofhis fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be the wealth andrespectability of his honourable friends behind him, and lastly, whatmust be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort, theliberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such anInstitution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and CrumpetBaking and Punctual Delivery Company!

Mr Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; andhaving run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, inan easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of thegentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species of bottle-holderto the orators generally), and said he would read to them the firstresolution--'That this meeting views with alarm and apprehension,the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and itsneighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys, as at presentconstituted, wholly underserving the confidence of the public; and thatit deems the whole Muffin system alike prejudicial to the health andmorals of the people, and subversive of the best interests of a greatcommercial and mercantile community.' The honourable gentleman made aspeech which drew tears from the eyes of the ladies, and awakened theliveliest emotions in every individual present. He had visited thehouses of the poor in the various districts of London, and had foundthem destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which thereappeared too much reason to believe some of these indigent personsdid not taste from year's end to year's end. He had found that amongmuffin-sellers there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy,which he attributed to the debasing nature of their employment as atpresent exercised; he had found the same vices among the poorer class ofpeople who ought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed tothe despair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of thatnutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant inintoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a committee ofthe House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up theprice of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove itby bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that thesemen corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as 'Snooks,''Walker,' 'Ferguson,' 'Is Murphy right?' and many others. It wasthis melancholy state of things that the Company proposed to correct;firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffintrading of every description; secondly, by themselves supplying thepublic generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of firstquality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill hadbeen introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir MatthewPupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it was thesupporters of this bill who would confer undying brightness andsplendour upon England, under the name of the United MetropolitanImproved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company;he would add, with a capital of Five Millions, in five hundred thousandshares of ten pounds each.

Mr Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman havingmoved that it be amended by the insertion of the words 'and crumpet'after the word 'muffin,' whenever it occurred, it was carriedtriumphantly. Only one man in the crowd cried 'No!' and he was promptlytaken into custody, and straightway borne off.

The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of immediatelyabolishing 'all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders in muffins (orcrumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or female, boys ormen, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,' was moved by a grievous gentlemanof semi-clerical appearance, who went at once into such deep pathetics,that he knocked the first speaker clean out of the course in no time.You might have heard a pin fall--a pin! a feather--as he describedthe cruelties inflicted on muffin boys by their masters, which hevery wisely urged were in themselves a sufficient reason for theestablishment of that inestimable company. It seemed that the unhappyyouths were nightly turned out into the wet streets at the mostinclement periods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain--orit might be hail or snow--for hours together, without shelter, food,or warmth; and let the public never forget upon the latter point, thatwhile the muffins were provided with warm clothing and blankets,the boys were wholly unprovided for, and left to their own miserableresources. (Shame!) The honourable gentleman related one case of amuffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous systemfor no less than five years, at length fell a victim to a cold in thehead, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into a perspirationand recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but hehad heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still moreheart-rending and appalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of anorphan muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney carriage, hadbeen removed to the hospital, had undergone the amputation of hisleg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing his occupation oncrutches. Fountain of justice, were these things to last!

This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and thiswas the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The men shouted;the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they were moist,and waved them till they were dry; the excitement was tremendous; andMr Nickleby whispered his friend that the shares were thenceforth at apremium of five-and-twenty per cent.

The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, everyman holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasmhave held up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplishedit. This done, the draft of the proposed petition was read at length:and the petition said, as all petitions DO say, that the petitionerswere very humble, and the petitioned very honourable, and the objectvery virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill ought to be passedinto a law at once, to the everlasting honour and glory of that mosthonourable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.

Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford's all night, and wholooked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forwardto tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favourof that petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately hemeant to taunt the parliament if they rejected the bill; and to informthem also, that he regretted his honourable friends had not inserted aclause rendering the purchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory uponall classes of the community, which he--opposing all half-measures,and preferring to go the extreme animal--pledged himself to proposeand divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, thehonourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-colouredkid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, therewas immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliantdisplay of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentlemanquite into the shade.

And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, therecame forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardenttemperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can make,breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth with suchfervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the course whereof,he told them how he would demand the extension of that great boon to hisnative country; how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffinlaws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day whencrumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells shouldring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member,with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, whichincreased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all thespeeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, andestablished in the hearers' minds that there was no speculationso promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the UnitedMetropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and PunctualDelivery Company.

So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meetingadjourned with acclamations, and Mr Nickleby and the other directorswent to the office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past oneo'clock; and to remunerate themselves for which trouble, (as the companywas yet in its infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man forevery such attendance.