'But, what's the matter--are you ill?' said Nicholas, suddenly breaking
off, as his companion, after throwing himself into a variety of
uncouth attitudes, thrust his hands under the stool, and cracked his
finger-joints as if he were snapping all the bones in his hands.
Newman Noggs made no reply, but went on shrugging his shoulders and
cracking his finger-joints; smiling horribly all the time, and looking
steadfastly at nothing, out of the tops of his eyes, in a most ghastly
manner.
At first, Nicholas thought the mysterious man was in a fit, but, on
further consideration, decided that he was in liquor, under which
circumstances he deemed it prudent to make off at once. He looked back
when he had got the street-door open. Newman Noggs was still indulging
in the same extraordinary gestures, and the cracking of his fingers
sounded louder that ever.
CHAPTER 5
Nicholas starts for Yorkshire. Of his Leave-taking and his
Fellow-Travellers, and what befell them on the Road
If tears dropped into a trunk were charms to preserve its owner from
sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas Nickleby would have commenced his
expedition under most happy auspices.
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