expected
to retire into the passage, or to remain where he was. He was now
relieved from his perplexity by Mr Squeers.

'This is the new young man, my dear,' said that gentleman.

'Oh,' replied Mrs Squeers, nodding her head at Nicholas, and eyeing him
coldly from top to toe.

'He'll take a meal with us tonight,' said Squeers, 'and go among the
boys tomorrow morning. You can give him a shake-down here, tonight,
can't you?'

'We must manage it somehow,' replied the lady. 'You don't much mind how
you sleep, I suppose, sir?'

No, indeed,' replied Nicholas, 'I am not particular.'

'That's lucky,' said Mrs Squeers. And as the lady's humour was
considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr Squeers laughed heartily, and
seemed to expect that Nicholas should do the same.

After some further conversation between the master and mistress relative
to the success of Mr Squeers's trip and the people who had paid, and the
people who had made default in payment, a young servant girl brought in
a Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, which being set upon the table, the
boy Smike appeared with a jug of ale.

Mr Squeers was emptying his great-coat pockets of letters to different
boys, and other small documents, which he had brought down in them. The
boy glanced, with an anxious and timid expression, at the papers, as if
with a sickly hope that one among them might relate to him. The look was
a very painful one, and went to Nicholas's heart at once; for it told a
long and very sad history.

It induced him to consider the boy more attentively, and he was
surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments which
formed his dress. Although he could not have been less than eighteen or
nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit,
such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most
absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his
attenuated frame. In order that the lower part of his legs might be in
perfect keeping with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of
boots, originally made for tops, which might have been once worn by some
stout farmer, but were now too patched and tattered for a beggar. Heaven
knows how long he had been there, but he still wore the same linen which
he had first taken down; for, round his neck, was a tattered child's
frill, only half concealed by a coarse, man's neckerchief. He was lame;
and as he feigned to be busy in arranging the table, glan