"Cheeryble Brothers and Tim Linkinwater" — Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s ninth illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1867)

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Cheeryble Brothers and Tim Linkinwater

Sol Eytinge, Jr.

1867

Wood-engraving

10 x 7.5 cm (framed)

Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby (Diamond Edition), facing IV, 258.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: The Cheerybles consult their clerk, Tim Linkinwater

The twins pressed each other’s hands in silence; and in his own homely manner, brother Charles related the particulars he had heard from Nicholas. The conversation which ensued was a long one, and when it was over, a secret conference of almost equal duration took place between brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater in another room. It is no disparagement to Nicholas to say, that before he had been closeted with the two brothers ten minutes, he could only wave his hand at every fresh expression of kindness and sympathy, and sob like a little child.

At length brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater came back together, when Tim instantly walked up to Nicholas and whispered in his ear in a very brief sentence (for Tim was ordinarily a man of few words), that he had taken down the address in the Strand, and would call upon him that evening, at eight. Having done which, Tim wiped his spectacles and put them on, preparatory to hearing what more the brothers Cheeryble had got to say.

"Tim," said brother Charles, "you understand that we have an intention of taking this young gentleman into the counting-house?"

Brother Ned remarked that Tim was aware of that intention, and quite approved of it; and Tim having nodded, and said he did, drew himself up and looked particularly fat, and very important. After which, there was a profound silence.

"I’m not coming an hour later in the morning, you know,’ said Tim, breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute. "I’m not going to sleep in the fresh air; no, nor I’m not going into the country either. A pretty thing at this time of day, certainly. Pho!"

"Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater," said brother Charles, looking at him without the faintest spark of anger, and with a countenance radiant with attachment to the old clerk. "Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater, what do you mean, sir?"

"It’s forty-four year," said Tim, making a calculation in the air with his pen, and drawing an imaginary line before he cast it up, "forty-four year, next May, since I first kept the books of Cheeryble, Brothers. I’ve opened the safe every morning all that time (Sundays excepted) as the clock struck nine, and gone over the house every night at half-past ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then twenty minutes before twelve) to see the doors fastened, and the fires out. I’ve never slept out of the back-attic one single night. There’s the same mignonette box in the middle of the window, and the same four flower-pots, two on each side, that I brought with me when I first came. There an’t—I’ve said it again and again, and I’ll maintain it — there an’t such a square as this in the world. I know there an’t,’ said Tim, with sudden energy, and looking sternly about him. ‘Not one. For business or pleasure, in summer-time or winter — I don’t care which — there’s nothing like it. There’s not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway. There’s not such a view in England as the view out of my window; I’ve seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know something about it. I have slept in that room," added Tim, sinking his voice a little, ‘for four-and-forty year; and if it wasn’t inconvenient, and didn’t interfere with business, I should request leave to die there."

"Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?" roared the twins by one impulse, and blowing their old noses violently. [Chapter XXXV, "Smike becomes known to Mrs. Nickleby and Kate. Nicholas also meets with new Acquaintances. Brighter Days seem to dawn upon the Family," 258]

Other Editions' Versions of the Benevolent Brothers (1839-1910)

Left: Phiz brings in the fairy-godfather businessmen to resolve the Nicklebys' problems: Mr. Linkinwater Intimates His Approval of Nicholas (March 1839). Right: C. S. Reinhart's 1875 American Household Edition composite woodblock engraving of business meeting in the counting-house: His conductor advanced, and exchanged a warm greeting with another old gentleman, the very type and model of himself.

Left: Fred Barnard's 1875 woodblock engraving of the Cheerybles, their clerk, and Nicholas in the same scene, "I'm not coming an hour later in the morning, you know," said Tim, breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute. "I'm not going to sleep in the fresh air — no, nor I'm not going into the country either.", in the British Household Edition. Right: Harry Furniss's version of the benevolent twins in the Charles Dickens Library Edition: Nicholas in the Counting House (1910).

Related material, including front matter and sketches, by other illustrators

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.

_______. Nicholas Nickleby.Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. IV.

_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Ed. Andrew Lang. Illustrated by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.

_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 9.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 12: Nicholas Nickleby." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 147-170.

Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens andHis Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer,Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering,1972. Re-print of the London 1899 edition.

Lester Valerie Browne. Chapter 8., "Travels with Boz." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. 58-69.

Loomis, Rick. First American Editions of Charles Dickens: The Callinescu Collection, Part 1. Yarmouth, ME: Sumner & Stillman, 2010.

Schlicke, Paul, ed. The Oxford Reader'sCompanion to Dickens. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1999.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 14-50.

Vann, J. Don. "Nicholas Nickleby." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 63.

Winter, William. "Charles Dickens" and "Sol Eytinge." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 181-202, 317-319.

Last modified 25 April 2021