'What's this?' inquired Nicholas.

'Hush!' rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr Ralph Nickleby, who was saying a
few earnest words to Squeers, a short distance off: 'Take it. Read it.
Nobody knows. That's all.'

'Stop!' cried Nicholas.

'No,' replied Noggs.

Nicholas cried stop, again, but Newman Noggs was gone.

A minute's bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the
vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard,
climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn,
a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below, and the hard features of Mr
Ralph Nickleby--and the coach was gone too, and rattling over the stones
of Smithfield.

The little boys' legs being too short to admit of their feet
resting upon anything as they sat, and the little boys' bodies being
consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the coach, Nicholas
had enough to do over the stones to hold them on. Between the manual
exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon this task, he was not a
little relieved when the coach stopped at the Peacock at Islington. He
was still more relieved when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very
good-humoured face, and a very fresh colour, got up behind, and proposed
to take the other corner of the seat.