Chapter 47

CHAPTER 47

Mr Ralph Nickleby has some confidential Intercourse with another old
Friend. They concert between them a Project, which promises well
for both

'There go the three-quarters past!' muttered Newman Noggs, listening
to the chimes of some neighbouring church 'and my dinner time's two.
He does it on purpose. He makes a point of it. It's just like
him.'

It was in his own little den of an office and on the top of his
official stool that Newman thus soliloquised; and the soliloquy
referred, as Newman's grumbling soliloquies usually did, to Ralph
Nickleby.

'I don't believe he ever had an appetite,' said Newman, 'except for
pounds, shillings, and pence, and with them he's as greedy as a
wolf. I should like to have him compelled to swallow one of every
English coin. The penny would be an awkward morsel--but the crown--
ha! ha!'

His good-humour being in some degree restored by the vision of Ralph
Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five-shilling piece, Newman slowly
brought forth from his desk one of those portable bottles, currently
known as pocket-pistols, and shaking the same close to his ear so as
to produce a rippling sound very cool and pleasant to listen to,
suffered his features to relax, and took a gurgling drink, which
relaxed them still more. Replacing the cork, he smacked his lips
twice or thrice with an air of great relish, and, the taste of the
liquor having by this time evaporated, recurred to his grievance
again.

'Five minutes to three,' growled Newman; 'it can't want more by this
time; and I had my breakfast at eight o'clock, and SUCH a breakfast!
and my right dinner-time two! And I might have a nice little bit of
hot roast meat spoiling at home all this time--how does HE know I
haven't? "Don't go till I come back," "Don't go till I come back,"
day after day. What do you always go out at my dinner-time for
then--eh? Don't you know it's nothing but aggravation--eh?'

These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were addressed to
nothing but empty air. The recital of his wrongs, however, seemed
to have the effect of making Newman Noggs desperate; for he
flattened his old hat upon his head, and drawing on the everlasting
gloves, declared with great vehemence, that come what might, he
would go to dinner that very minute.

Carrying this resolution into instant effect, he had advanced as far
as the passage, when the sound of the latch-key in the street door
caused him to make a precipitate retreat into his own office again.

'Here he is,' growled Newman, 'and somebody with him. Now it'll be
"Stop till this gentleman's gone." But I won't. That's flat.'

So saying, Newman slipped into a tall empty closet which opened with