Nicholas Nickleby

Description

I went down into yorkshire before i began this book, in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein. as i wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the author of the _pickwick papers, _ i consulted with a professional friend who had a yorkshire connection, and with whom i concerted a pious fraud. he gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, i think, of my traveling companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy who had been left with a widowed mother who didn’t know what to do with him; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy compassion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a yorkshire school; i was the poor lady’s friend, traveling that way; and if the recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his neighborhood, the writer would be very much obliged. i went to several places in that part of the country where i understood the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to deliver a letter until i came to a certain town which shall be nameless. the person to whom it was addressed, was not at home; but he came down at night, through the snow, to the inn where i was staying. it was after dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table. i am afraid he is dead now. . . . — charles dickens