Nicholas Nickleby: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

After leaving the party, Newman sees that the two people looking for him are Nicholas and Smike. Newman takes the punch he made for the Kenwigses’ party to his apartment for Nicholas and Smike to drink. He takes it just as Mr. Lillyvick is about to take some for himself. Nicholas and Smike change into warm clothes, and Newman tries to make his small and relatively bare apartment as hospitable as possible for his guests. When Nicholas tells Newman what happened at Dotheboys Hall, Newman initially tries to lecture Nicholas that it isn’t possible to survive in the world if one sticks up for every person who is ill-treated. But Newman interrupts himself and tells Nicholas he’s proud of what he did.

Nicholas asks if Kate and Mrs. Nickleby are still in London, and Newman says they are and that Kate is still working for a dressmaker. Nicholas then asks what his uncle Ralph knows about what happened at Dotheboys Hall. Newman shows Nicholas a letter that Fanny wrote to Ralph. In the letter, Fanny says that Nicholas beat her father (Squeers) to the point that he may never regain the use of his legs. He also shoved a comb in Mrs. Squeers’s ear. She has a doctor’s certificate testifying that if the comb had pressed in a bit further, the tortoiseshell would have irrevocably impacted her brain. She says that she and her brother suffered Nicholas’s fury as well and that he also stole one of her mother’s rings. She signs off the letter by writing, “P.S. I pity [Nicholas’s] ignorance and despise him.”

Nicholas wants to leave at once to find his Uncle Ralph and tell him that he would never steal anything. He knows that no one could truly suspect him of doing such a thing, but he thinks Ralph might pretend to believe Fanny’s story because he dislikes Nicholas. Newman tells Nicholas that Ralph is out of town and won’t be back for three days. He says that Ralph only glanced at the letter before leaving and that Ralph won’t respond to the letter until after he returns. He also tells Nicholas that he should wait to see Kate and Mrs. Nickleby until after he has spoken to Ralph. 

Meanwhile, the Kenwigs’ party continues downstairs. Mr. Lillyvick becomes cross because the punch was stolen right out from under him, but he is quickly mollified. Mr. Crowl returns to the party and says he’s afraid that Newman’s guests have run away from somewhere. He prays it’s not from a prison or a hospital and that they don’t have some illness they would pass on to the children. Mrs. Kenwigs becomes overwhelmed by the possibility. Just then, screams break out upstairs. Mr. Kenwigs rushes to find out what’s happened.

As Mr. Kenwigs runs up the stairs, Nicholas bursts from a door with the Kenwigs’ infant child in his arms. Nicholas explains that he rushed downstairs when he heard the screams. He says that the 13-year-old girl who had been watching the child must have fallen asleep, and the child’s hair caught fire from a candle. Nicholas hands the child to Mrs. Kenwigs and assures her that he intervened in time, and the child is unharmed. The group is overjoyed that Nicholas saved the child and invite him to come to the party, but Nicholas graciously declines. When the group returns to the Kenwigses’ apartment, all of the women remark on Nicholas’s gallantry and air of aristocracy. Nicholas goes to sleep, while Smike and Newman stay up drinking together.