Charles Dickens: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

CHAPTER 45: Containing Matter of a surprising Kind (continued)

'Of course I did!' returned Snawley. 'Oh the joy of--'

'Be rational, sir, pray,' said Ralph. 'This is business, and transports interfere with it. This wife died a year and a half ago, or thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was housekeeper in a family. Is that the case?'

'That's the case,' replied Snawley.

'Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in your name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days since?'

'Just so,' said Snawley. 'Correct in every particular, sir.'

'And this confession,' resumed Ralph, 'is to the effect that his death was an invention of hers to wound you--was a part of a system of annoyance, in short, which you seem to have adopted towards each other--that the boy lived, but was of weak and imperfect intellect-- that she sent him by a trusty hand to a cheap school in Yorkshire-- that she had paid for his education for some years, and then, being poor, and going a long way off, gradually deserted him, for which she prayed forgiveness?'

Snawley nodded his head, and wiped his eyes; the first slightly, the last violently.

'The school was Mr Squeers's,' continued Ralph; 'the boy was left there in the name of Smike; every description was fully given, dates tally exactly with Mr Squeers's books, Mr Squeers is lodging with you at this time; you have two other boys at his school: you communicated the whole discovery to him, he brought you to me as the person who had recommended to him the kidnapper of his child; and I brought you here. Is that so?'

'You talk like a good book, sir, that's got nothing in its inside but what's the truth,' replied Snawley.