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Updated: June 17, 2025
The wonderful picture, given in "Nickleby," of the Portsmouth playhouse, with all its characters and accessories and inner life, shows the most intimate familiarity with all the ways and fashions of the old Provincial Theatre. Every touch Crummles, Folair, Lenville, Snivelicci proves clearly that he knew perfectly the life behind the scenes, and that he wrote of it con amore.
A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place; for besides Mr Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic countryman a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and staring eyes.
'It isn't a bit too confined for a single man, returned Mr Lenville. 'That reminds me, my wife, Mr Johnson, I hope she'll have some good part in this piece of yours? 'I glanced at the French copy last night, said Nicholas. 'It looks very good, I think.
We know Cuddie Headrigg a great deal better than Henry Morton, and Le Balafre better than Quentin Durward, and Dugald Dalgetty better than anybody. Humour it is that gives flesh and blood to the persons of romance; makes Mr. Lenville real, while Nicholas Nickleby is only a "walking gentleman." You cannot know Oliver Twist as you know the Dodger and Charlie Bates.
Whether it was the absence of the fetters or not, it made no very deep impression on Mr Lenville's adversary, however, but rather seemed to increase the good-humour expressed in his countenance; in which stage of the contest, one or two gentlemen, who had come out expressly to witness the pulling of Nicholas's nose, grew impatient, murmuring that if it were to be done at all it had better be done at once, and that if Mr Lenville didn't mean to do it he had better say so, and not keep them waiting there.
'That's very good business. 'After which, said Nicholas, 'you are troubled with remorse till the last act, and then you make up your mind to destroy yourself. But, just as you are raising the pistol to your head, a clock strikes ten. 'I see, cried Mr Lenville. 'Very good. 'You pause, said Nicholas; 'you recollect to have heard a clock strike ten in your infancy.
'What do you mean to do for me, old fellow? asked Mr Lenville, poking the struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards wiping it on the skirt of his coat. 'Anything in the gruff and grumble way? 'You turn your wife and child out of doors, said Nicholas; 'and, in a fit of rage and jealousy, stab your eldest son in the library. 'Do I though! exclaimed Mr Lenville.
Do you see THIS? cried Mr Lenville, sitting up, and pointing to his prostrate lady, who was holding him very tight round the waist. 'Come, said Nicholas, nodding his head, 'apologise for the insolent note you wrote to me last night, and waste no more time in talking. 'Never! cried Mr Lenville. 'Yes yes yes! screamed his wife.
The profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that night, and the people who had been most anxious to have his nose pulled in the morning, embraced occasions of taking him aside, and telling him with great feeling, how very friendly they took it that he should have treated that Lenville so properly, who was a most unbearable fellow, and on whom they had all, by a remarkable coincidence, at one time or other contemplated the infliction of condign punishment, which they had only been restrained from administering by considerations of mercy; indeed, to judge from the invariable termination of all these stories, there never was such a charitable and kind-hearted set of people as the male members of Mr Crummles's company.
Consoling himself with this reflection, Mr Lenville drew from his coat pocket a greasy and crumpled manuscript, and, having made another pass at his friend, proceeded to walk to and fro, conning it to himself and indulging occasionally in such appropriate action as his imagination and the text suggested.
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