 the
passage all night, or whether the entrance was to be left clear for other
people? The waiters taking the hint, and communicating it to the hostlers, were
not slow to change their tone too, and the result was, that the unfortunate
victim was bundled out in a twinkling.
    »I am sure I have seen that fellow before,« said Nicholas.
    »Indeed!« replied his new acquaintance.
    »I am certain of it,« said Nicholas, pausing to reflect. »Where can I have -
stop! - yes, to be sure - he belongs to a register-office up at the west end of
the town. I knew I recollected the face.«
    It was, indeed, Tom, the ugly clerk.
    »That's odd enough!« said Nicholas, ruminating upon the strange manner in
which that register-office seemed to start up and stare him in the face every
now and then, and when he least expected it.
    »I am much obliged to you for your kind advocacy of my cause when it most
needed an advocate,« said the young man, laughing, and drawing a card from his
pocket. »Perhaps you'll do me the favour to let me know where I can thank you.«
    Nicholas took the card, and glancing at it involuntarily as he returned the
compliment, evinced very great surprise. »Mr. Frank Cheeryble!« said Nicholas.
»Surely not the nephew of Cheeryble Brothers, who is expected to-morrow!«
    »I don't usually call myself the nephew of the firm,« returned Mr. Frank,
good-humouredly; »but of the two excellent individuals who compose it, I am
proud to say I am the nephew. And you, I see, are Mr. Nickleby, of whom I have
heard so much! This is a most unexpected meeting, but not the less welcome, I
assure you.«
    Nicholas responded to these compliments with others of the same kind, and
they shook hands warmly. Then he introduced John Browdie, who had remained in a
state of great admiration ever since the young lady in the bar had been so
skilfully won over to the right side. Then Mrs. John Browdie was introduced, and
finally they all went up stairs together and spent the next half hour with great
satisfaction and mutual entertainment; Mrs. John Browdie beginning the
conversation by declaring that of all the made-up things she ever saw, that
young woman below stairs was the vainest and the plainest.
    This Mr. Frank Cheeryble, although, to judge
