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Mr Vincent Crummles gave a short dry cough, as much as to say, 'If you won't be communicative, you won't; and took so many pinches of snuff from the piece of paper, one after another, that Nicholas quite wondered where it all went to. While he was thus engaged, Mr Crummles looked, from time to time, with great interest at Smike, with whom he had appeared considerably struck from the first.
'No, no, we never come to the pony till everything else has failed, said Mr Crummles. 'I don't think we shall come to the pony at all, this season. No, no, not the pony. 'A boy phenomenon, perhaps? suggested Nicholas. 'There is only one phenomenon, sir, replied Mr Crummles impressively, 'and that's a girl. 'Very true, said Nicholas. 'I beg your pardon.
Lastly, there was Mrs Grudden in a brown cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who assisted Mrs Crummles in her domestic affairs, and took money at the doors, and dressed the ladies, and swept the house, and held the prompt book when everybody else was on for the last scene, and acted any kind of part on any emergency without ever learning it, and was put down in the bills under my name or names whatever, that occurred to Mr Crummles as looking well in print.
'What's to be got to do at Portsmouth more than anywhere else? asked Mr Vincent Crummles, melting the sealing-wax on the stem of his pipe in the candle, and rolling it out afresh with his little finger. 'There are many vessels leaving the port, I suppose, replied Nicholas. 'I shall try for a berth in some ship or other. There is meat and drink there at all events.
So saying, he took his hat, and hurrying away to the lodgings of Mr Crummles, applied his hand to the knocker with such hearty good-will, that he awakened that gentleman, who was still in bed, and caused Mr Bulph the pilot to take his morning's pipe very nearly out of his mouth in the extremity of his surprise.
I didn't. Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr Crummles shook his head twice or thrice with profound gravity, and remarking, that he could not for the life of him imagine how the newspapers found out the things they did, folded up the extracts and put them in his pocket again. 'I am astonished to hear this news, said Nicholas. 'Going to America!
And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse, with his hair dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon these people.
And as in Nickleby we have "the Comic Countryman" who so inopportunely caught a bluebottle when Mrs. Crummles was making her great point for the London Manager: so in the account of Dullborough we are told of "the Funny Countryman" who sustained the comic, bucolic parts.
Accompanying these words with an impatient stamp upon the ground, he tore himself from the manager's detaining grasp, and darting rapidly down the street was out of sight in an instant. 'Dear me, dear me, said Mr Crummles, looking wistfully towards the point at which he had just disappeared; 'if he only acted like that, what a deal of money he'd draw!
Vincent Crummles had a colossal intellect; and I always have a fancy that under all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to see. He was right. Nobody could possibly be more of a first walking gentleman than Nicholas Nickleby was. He was the first walking gentleman before he went on to the boards of Mr.
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