, and rattling over the stones
of Smithfield.

The little boys' legs being too short to admit of their feet
resting upon anything as they sat, and the little boys' bodies being
consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the coach, Nicholas
had enough to do over the stones to hold them on. Between the manual
exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon this task, he was not a
little relieved when the coach stopped at the Peacock at Islington. He
was still more relieved when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very
good-humoured face, and a very fresh colour, got up behind, and proposed
to take the other corner of the seat.

'If we put some of these youngsters in the middle,' said the new-comer,
'they'll be safer in case of their going to sleep; eh?'

'If you'll have the goodness, sir,' replied Squeers, 'that'll be the
very thing. Mr Nickleby, take three of them boys between you and the
gentleman. Belling and the youngest Snawley can sit between me and the
guard. Three children,' said Squeers, explaining to the stranger, 'books
as two.'

'I have not the least objection I am sure,' said the fresh-coloured
gentleman; 'I have a brother who wouldn't object to book his six
children as two at any butcher's or baker's in the kingdom, I dare say.
Far from it.'

'Six children, sir?' exclaimed Squeers.

'Yes, and all boys,' replied the stranger.

'Mr Nickleby,' said Squeers, in great haste, 'catch hold of that basket.
Let me give you a card, sir, of an establishment where those six boys
can be brought up in an enlightened, liberal, and moral manner, with no
mistake at all about it, for twenty guineas a year each--twenty guineas,
sir--or I'd take all the boys together upon a average right through, and
say a hundred pound a year for the lot.'

'Oh!' said the gentleman, glancing at the card, 'you are the Mr Squeers
mentioned here, I presume?'

'Yes, I am, sir,' replied the worthy pedagogue; 'Mr Wackford Squeers is
my name, and I'm very far from being ashamed of it. These are some of my
boys, sir; that's one of my assistants, sir--Mr Nickleby, a gentleman's
son, and a good scholar, mathematical, classical, and commercial. We
don't do things by halves at our shop. All manner of learning my boys
take down, sir; the expense is never thought of; and they get paternal
treatment and washing in.'

'Upon my word,' said the gentleman, glancing at Nicholas with a
half-smile, and a more than half expression of surprise, 'th