turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles,
and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves
in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again:
the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper:
and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken
flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about--a prey to 'blacks' and
dirt.

It was into a place of this kind that Mr Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat
with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixed
his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in a
tub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rot
away piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but Mr
Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with far
greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have deigned
to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to a
little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerk
was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to
attend.

In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which
he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on),
and presented himself in Mr Nickleby's room. He was a tall man of middle
age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose,
a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable
when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too
small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was
marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.

'Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?' said Mr Nickleby, in a sharp and