Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

Is fraught with some Danger to Miss Nickleby's Peace of Mind

The place was a handsome suite of private apartments in Regent
Street; the time was three o'clock in the afternoon to the dull and
plodding, and the first hour of morning to the gay and spirited; the
persons were Lord Frederick Verisopht, and his friend Sir Mulberry
Hawk.

These distinguished gentlemen were reclining listlessly on a couple
of sofas, with a table between them, on which were scattered in rich
confusion the materials of an untasted breakfast. Newspapers lay
strewn about the room, but these, like the meal, were neglected and
unnoticed; not, however, because any flow of conversation prevented
the attractions of the journals from being called into request, for
not a word was exchanged between the two, nor was any sound uttered,
save when one, in tossing about to find an easier resting-place for
his aching head, uttered an exclamation of impatience, and seemed
for a moment to communicate a new restlessness to his companion.

These appearances would in themselves have furnished a pretty strong
clue to the extent of the debauch of the previous night, even if
there had not been other indications of the amusements in which it
had been passed. A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two
battered hats, a champagne bottle with a soiled glove twisted round
the neck, to allow of its being grasped more surely in its capacity
of an offensive weapon; a broken cane; a card-case without the top;
an empty purse; a watch-guard snapped asunder; a handful of silver,
mingled with fragments of half-smoked cigars, and their stale and
crumbled ashes;--these, and many other tokens of riot and disorder,
hinted very intelligibly at the nature of last night's gentlemanly
frolics.

Lord Frederick Verisopht was the first to speak. Dropping his
slippered foot on the ground, and, yawning heavily, he struggled
into a sitting posture, and turned his dull languid eyes towards his
friend, to whom he called in a drowsy voice.

'Hallo!' replied Sir Mulberry, turning round.

'Are we going to lie here all da-a-y?' said the lord.

'I don't know that we're fit for anything else,' replied Sir
Mulberry; 'yet awhile, at least. I haven't a grain of life in me
this morning.'

'Life!' cried Lord Verisopht. 'I feel as if there would be nothing
so snug and comfortable as to die at once.'

'Then why don't you die?' said Sir Mulberry.

With which inquiry he turned his face away, and seemed to occupy
himself in an attempt to fall asleep.

His hopeful fiend and pupil drew a chair to the breakfast-table, and
essayed to eat; but, finding that impossible, lounged to the window,
then loitered up and