After exhausting himself, to all appearance, with this fatiguing performance, he covered his head once more, pulled the cap very carefully over the tips of his ears, and resuming his former attitude, said, 'The question is--' Here he broke off to look round in every direction, and satisfy himself beyond all doubt that there were no listeners near.

Assured that there were not, he tapped his nose several times, accompanying the action with a cunning look, as though congratulating himself on his caution; and stretching out his neck, said in a loud whisper, 'Are you a princess ?' 'You are mocking me, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby, making a feint of retreating towards the house.
'No, but are you ?' said the old gentleman.
'You know I am not, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby.
'Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury ?' inquired the old gentleman with great anxiety, 'or to the Pope of Rome?
Or the Speaker of the House of Commons?
Forgive me, if I am wrong, but I was told you were niece to the Commissioners of Paving, and daughter-in-law to the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council, which would account for your relationship to all three.' 'Whoever has spread such reports, sir,' returned Mrs Nickleby, with some warmth, 'has taken great liberties with my name, and one which I am sure my son Nicholas, if he was aware of it, would not allow for an instant.
The idea!' said Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, 'niece to the Commissioners of Paving!' 'Pray, mama, come away!' whispered Kate.
'"Pray mama!" Nonsense, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby, angrily, 'but that's just the way.

If they had said I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what would you care?
But I have no sympathy,' whimpered Mrs Nickleby.

'I don't expect it, that's one thing.' 'Tears!' cried the old gentleman, with such an energetic jump, that he fell down two or three steps and grated his chin against the wall.

'Catch the crystal globules--catch 'em--bottle 'em up--cork 'em tight--put sealing wax on the top--seal 'em with a cupid--label 'em "Best quality"-- and stow 'em away in the fourteen binn, with a bar of iron on the top to keep the thunder off!' Issuing these commands, as if there were a dozen attendants all actively engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap inside out, put it on with great dignity so as to obscure his right eye and three-fourths of his nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked very fiercely at a sparrow hard by, till the bird flew away, when he put his cap in his pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and addressed himself with respectful demeanour to Mrs Nickleby.
'Beautiful madam,' such were his words, 'if I have made any mistake with regard to your family or connections, I humbly beseech you to pardon me.
If I supposed you to be related to Foreign Powers or Native Boards, it is because you have a manner, a carriage, a dignity, which you will excuse my saying that none but yourself (with the single exception perhaps of the tragic muse, when playing extemporaneously on the barrel organ before the East India Company) can parallel.