We shall be very glad to have you for a neighbour--very glad; delighted, I'm sure--but in any other character it's quite impossible, quite.

As to my being young enough to marry again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn't think of it for an instant, not on any account whatever.

I said I never would, and I never will.

It's a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I shall always give.' These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy.

Towards their conclusion, the suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of inattention, and Mrs Nickleby had scarcely finished speaking, when, to the great terror both of that lady and her daughter, he suddenly flung off his coat, and springing on the top of the wall, threw himself into an attitude which displayed his small-clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence.
While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it with a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide stealthily and swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit of a fly, and then to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old gentleman's ankles.
This done, the companion hand appeared, and clasped the other ankle.
Thus encumbered the old gentleman lifted his legs awkwardly once or twice, as if they were very clumsy and imperfect pieces of machinery, and then looking down on his own side of the wall, burst into a loud laugh.
'It's you, is it ?' said the old gentleman.
'Yes, it's me,' replied a gruff voice.
'How's the Emperor of Tartary ?' said the old gentleman.
'Oh! he's much the same as usual,' was the reply.