But we find out what that is toward the end of the film.

Bond leaves with one of the kids played by Aubrey Woods who has been particularly abused and who in fact as it turns out was the victim of the most monstrous evil performed by Hardwicke. Bond is a teacher there and leaves enraged at the treatment after giving the headmaster Alfred Drayton a thrashing the kind he relishes giving out to the kids. He's not above using Howes as bait for his business and he sends Bond off to some 'school' that is little more than the work house we saw in Oliver Twist. But Hardwicke's not the charitable sort, in fact he's a scoundrel who has systematically lied and cheated others to build his fortune. In this case his father dies and Bond with his mother Mary Merrall who is from the Billie Burke school of fluttery female and sister Sally Ann Howes look to his father's brother Cedric Hardwicke for charity. Like the other two Dickens works Nicholas Nickleby involves the progress of a young man who has to overcome a lot of odds to attain prosperity and happiness. Still he was good in what was probably his career role. Derek Bond in the title tole of Nicholas Nickleby never got to the heights that Mills and Guinness did. Nicholas Nickleby is less known than the other two because Alec Guinness and John Mills got great roles and reached the top of the British cinema firmament as stars. Three of his classic novels were filmed in that period, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby. In post World War II Great Britain there seemed to be a great revival in the work of Charles Dickens.

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