MANTALINI

returned Madame Mantalini-still reproachfully, but in a softened tone.

"I am a demd villain!" cried Mr. Mantalini, smiting himself on the head. "I will fill my pockets with change for a sovereign in halfpence and drown myself in the Thames; but I will not be angry with her, even then, for I will put a note in the twopenny-post as I go along, to tell her where the body is. She will be a lovely widow. I shall be a body. Some handsome women will cry; she will laugh demnebly."

"Alfred, you cruel, cruel creature," said Madame Mantalini, sobbing at the dreadful picture. "She calls me cruel-me-me-who for her sake will become a demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body!" exclaimed Mr. Mantalini.

"You know it almost breaks my heart, even to hear you talk of such a thing," replied Madame Mantalini.

"Can I live to be mistrusted?" cried her husband. "Have I cut my heart into a demd extraordinary number of little pieces, and given | them all away, one after another, to the same little engrossing demnition captivator, and can I live to be suspected by her! Demmit, no, I can't." "Ask Mr. Nickleby whether the sum I have mentioned is not a proper one," reasoned Madame Mantalini.

MANTALINI

like a pure and angelic rattlesnake! It will be all up with my feelings; she will throw me into a demd state."-Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 34.

"Nickleby," said Mr. Mantalini in tears, “you have been made a witness to this demnition cruelty, on the part of the demdest enslaver and captivator that never was, oh dem! I forgive that woman."

"Forgive!" repeated Madame Mantalini, angrily.

"I do forgive her, Nickleby," said Mr. Mantalini. "You will blame me, the world will blame me, the women will blame me; everybody will laugh, and scoff, and smile, and grin most demnebly. They will say,' She had a blessing. She did not know it. He was too weak; he was too good; he was a demd fine fellow, but he loved too strong; he could not bear her to be cross, and call him wicked names. It was a demd case, there never was a demder.' But I forgive her."-Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 44.

"Oh, you are here," said Madame Mantalini, tossing her head.

'Yes, my life and soul, I am," replied her husband, dropping on his knees, and pouncing with kitten-like playfulness upon a stray sovereign. "I am here, my soul's delight, upon Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up the demnition gold and silver.'

"I am ashamed of you," said Madame Mantalini, with much indignation.

"Ashamed! Of me, my joy? It knows it is talking demd charming sweetness, but naughty fibs," returned Mr. Mantalini. "It knows it is not ashamed of its own popolorum tibby."

Whatever were the circumstances which had led to such a result, it certainly appeared as though the popolorum tibby had rather miscalculated, for the nonce, the extent of his lady's affection. Madame Mantalini only looked scornful in reply, and, turning to Ralph, begged him to excuse her intrusion.

"Which is entirely attributable," said Madame, "to the gross misconduct and most improper behavior of Mr. Mantalini."

"Of me, my essential juice of pine-apple!" "Of you," returned his wife. "But I will not allow it. I will not submit to be ruined by the extravagance and profligacy of any man. I call Mr. Nickleby to witness the course I intend to pursue with you."

Pray don't call me to witness anything, ma'am," said Ralph. "Settle it between yourselves, settle it between yourselves."

"No, but I must beg you as a favor," said Madame Mantalini, "to hear me give him notice of what it is my fixed intention to do-my fixed intention, sir," repeated Madame Mantalini, darting an angry look at her husband.

"Will she call me, Sir!"" cried Mantalini. "Me, who doat upon her with the demdest ardor She, who coils her fascinations round me

"Then why don't you go and list for a soldier?" retorted the woman, "you're welcome to." "For a soldier!" cried the man. "For a soldier! Would his joy and gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail? Would she hear of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly? Would she have him fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, and his whiskers shaved, and his eyes turned right and left, and his trousers pipeclayed?"

"Dear Nicholas," whispered Kate, "you don't know who that is. It's Mr. Mantalini, I am confident."

"Do make sure! Peep at him while I ask the way," said Nicholas. "Come down a step or two. Come!"

Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps, and looked into a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-baskets and clothes, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous dye-there, endeavoring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female-not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern-and grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle, whose creaking noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost to deafen himthere was the graceful, elegant, fascinating, and once dashing Mantalini.

Oh, you false traitor!" cried the lady, threatening personal violence on Mr. Mantalini's face. "False. Oh dem! Now, my soul, my gentle, captivating, bewitching, and most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm," said Mr. Mantalini, humbly.

"I won't!" screamed the woman. "I'll tear your eyes out!"

"Oh! what a demd savage lamb!" cried Mr. Mantalini.

"You're never to be trusted," screamed the woman, "you were out all day yesterday, and

gallivanting somewhere I know. You know you were! Isn't it enough that I paid two pound fourteen for you, and took you out of prison and let you live here like a gentleman, but must you go on like this; breaking my heart besides?" 'I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never do so any more: I will never be naughty again; I beg its little pardon," said Mr. Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and folding his palms together, "it is all up with its handsome friend! He has gone to the demnition bow-wows. It will have pity? It will not scratch and claw, but pet and comfort? Oh, demmit."-Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 64. MARK TAPLEY-Wants misfortune.

"I used to think, sometimes," said Mr. Tapley, "as a desolate island would suit me, but I should only have had myself to provide for there, and being naterally a easy man to manage, there wouldn't have been much credit in that. Now here I've got my partner to take care on, and he's something like the sort of man for the purpose. I want a man as is always a sliding off his legs when he ought to be on 'em. I want a man as is so low down in the school of life, that he's always a making figures of one in his copy-book, and can't get no further. I want a man as is his own great-coat and cloak, and is always a wrapping himself up in himself. And I have got him too," said Mr. Tapley, after a moment's silence. "What a happiness!"

He paused to look round, uncertain to which of the log-houses he should repair.

"I don't know which to take," he observed; "that's the truth. They're equally prepossessing outside, and equally commodious, no doubt, within; being fitted up with every convenience that a Alligator, in a state of natur', could possibly require. Let me see ! The citizen as turned out last night, lives under water, in the right-hand dog-kennel at the corner. I don't want to trouble him if I can help it, poor man, for he is a melancholy object: a reg'lar Settler in every respect. There's a house with a winder, but I am afraid of their being proud. I don't know whether a door ain't too aristocratic; but here goes for the first one!"

Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 33.

MARK TAPLEY-His opinion of Pecksniff. "Well, but we know beforehand," returned the politic Mr. Tapley, " that Pecksniff is a wagabond, a scoundrel, and a willain."

"A most pernicious villain!" said Martin. "A most pernicious willain. We know that beforehand, sir: and, consequently, it's no shame to be defeated by Pecksniff. Blow Pecksniff!" cried Mr. Tapley, in the fervor of his eloquence, "Who's he? It's not in the natur of Pecksniff to shame us, unless he agreed. with us, or done us a service; and, in case he offered any outdacity of that description, we could express our sentiments in the English language, I hope. Pecksniff!" repeated Mr. Tapley, with ineffable disdain. "What's Pecksniff, who's Pecksniff, where's Pecksniff, that he's to be so much considered? We're not a calculating for ourselves;" he laid uncommon emphasis on the last syllable of that word, and looked full in Martin's face: "we're making a effort for a young lady likewise as has undergone her share; and whatever little hope we have this here Pecksniff is not to stand in its way,

MARK TAPLEY

I expect. I never heard of any act of Parliament as was made by Pecksniff. Pecksniff! Why, I wouldn't see the man myself; I wouldn't hear him; I wouldn't choose to know he was in company. I'd scrape my shoes on the scraper of the door, and call that Pecksniff, if you liked; but I wouldn't condescend no further." Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 43

MARK TAPLEY-Cannot do himself jus

tice.

"I must look for a private service, suppose, sir. I might be brought out strong, perhaps, in a serious family, Mr. Pinch."

"Perhaps you might come out rather too strong for a serious family's taste, Mark."

"That's possible, sir. If I could get into a wicked family, I might do myself justice: but the difficulty is to make sure of one's ground, because a young man can't very well advertise that he wants a place, and wages an't so much an object as a wicked sitivation; can he, sir? "Why no," said Mr. Pinch, "I don't think he can."

"An envious family," pursued Mark, with a thoughtful face; "or a quarrelsome family, or a malicious family, or even a good out-and-out mean family, would open a field of action as I might do something in. The man as would have suited me of all other men was that old gentleman as was took ill here, for he really was a trying customer. Howsever, I must wait and see what turns up, sir; and hope for the worst." Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 7.

MARK TAPLEY-No credit in being jolly. Mr. Tapley nodded assent. Well sir! But bein' at that time full of hopeful wisions, I arrives at the conclusion that no credit is to be got out of such a way of life as that, where everything agreeable would be ready to one's hand. Lookin' on the bright side of human life, in short, one of my hopeful wisions is, that there's a deal of misery a-waitin' for me; in the midst of which I may come out tolerable strong, and be jolly under circumstances as reflects some credit. I goes into the world, sir, wery boyant, and I tries this. I goes aboard ship first, and wery soon discovers (by the ease with which I'm jolly, mind you) as there's no credit to be got there. I might have took warning by this, and gave it up; but I didn't. I gets to the U-nited States; and then I do begin, I won't deny it, to feel some little credit in sustaining my spirits. What follows? Jest as I'm a beginning to come out, and am a treadin' on the werge, my master deceives me."

"Deceives you!" cried Tom.

"Swindles me," retorted Mr. Tapley, with a beaming face. "Turns his back on ev'rything as made his service a creditable one, and leaves me, high and dry, without a leg to stand upon. In which state I returns home. Wery good. Then all my hopeful wisions bein' crushed; and findin' that there ain't no credit for me nowhere; I abandons myself to despair, and says, 'Let me do that as has the least credit in it, of all; marry a dear, sweet creetur, as is wery fond of me: me being, at the same time, wery fond of her: lead a happy life, and struggle no more again' the blight which settles on my prospects."

Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 48.