'How goes it?'
     'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.
     He  took  it  up,  and  having  surveyed   and   smelt  it,  said  with
extraordinary expression:
     'The?'
     'The,' returned the Instrument-maker.
     Upon that he whistled as  he filled his glass, and seemed to think they
were making holiday indeed.
     'Wal'r!' he said,  arranging his hair (which was thin)  with his  hook,
and  then  pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him!  Love! Honour!
And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found
turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!'
     He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference
to it, that he  could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and
saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.
     'But  I never wanted two or  three words  in my life that I didn't know
where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of not wasting
language as some do.'
     The reflection  perhaps reminded  him that  he  had better, like  young
Norval's  father, '"ncrease  his store." At any rate  he became  silent, and
remained so,  until old Sol  went  out into the shop to light it up, when he
turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:
     'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?'
     'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy.
     'And  it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in
the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!'
     For a moment or two  he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace  of
this ideal timepiece,  and sat looking at  the  boy as if his  face were the
dial.
     'But he's  chockful of science,' he observed, waving  his  hook towards
the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a  collection of 'em.  Earth, air,
or  water.  It's  all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up  in a  balloon?
There you are.  Down in a bell? There  you are.  D'ye want  to put the North
Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it for you.'
     It may be gathered from these  remarks that Captain Cuttle's  reverence
for  the  stock of  instruments was profound, and  that  his philosophy knew
little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.
     'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a  fine thing  to understand 'em. And
yet it's a fine thing  not to understand 'em. I hardly know which  is  best.
It's  so comfortable  to  sit  here and  feel  that  you might  be  weighed,
measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and
never know how.'
     Nothing short  of  the wonderful  Madeira, combined with  the  occasion
(which  rendered  it desirable  to improve and expand  Walter's mind), could
have ever loosened  his tongue to  the  extent of giving  utterance  to this
prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it
opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he  had  had in eating
Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and  a wiser
man, he mused and held his peace.
     'Come!' cried  the  subject of this admiration,  returning. 'Before you
have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.'
     'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.'
     'No more, thank'e, Uncle!'
     'Yes, yes,' said  Sol, 'a little  more. We'll finish the bottle, to the
House, Ned -  Walter's House. Why it may  be his House one of these days, in
part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter.'
     '"Turn again  Whittington, Lord  Mayor of London, and when you are  old
you  will never depart from it,"' interposed the  Captain.  'Wal'r! Overhaul
the book, my lad.'
     'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began.
     'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing.
     'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too.
     'Oh!  I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some  of 'em were talking about it
in  the office today. And they do say,  Uncle and Captain Cuttle,'  lowering
his  voice, 'that  he's  taken  a  dislike  to  her, and  that  she's  left,
unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all the while upon
having his son in the House, that although he's only a baby now, he is going
to  have balances struck  oftener than  formerly, and the  books kept closer
than  they  used to  be, and has even been seen (when he  thought he wasn't)
walking in the Docks, looking at his ships  and property and all that, as if
he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That's
what they say. Of course, I don't know.
     'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the instrument-maker.
     'Nonsense,  Uncle,'  cried  the  boy,  still  reddening  and  laughing,
boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?'
     'The  Son's a little in our way at present, I'm  afraid, Ned,' said the
old man, humouring the joke.
     'Very much,' said the Captain.
     'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey and
Son.'
     'Oh,  very well,  Uncle,'  said  the  boy,  merrily.  'Since  you  have
introduced the mention of her,  and have connected me with her and have said
that  I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the  toast. So here's
to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!'

        CHAPTER 5.
     Paul's Progress and Christening

     Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood  of the Toodles,
grew stouter  and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was  more and  more
ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion  was so far appreciated by Mr
Dombey that he began  to regard her as a  woman of great natural good sense,
whose feelings did her  credit and  deserved encouragement. He was so lavish
of  this condescension, that  he not  only  bowed to  her, in  a  particular
manner, on several occasions, but even entrusted such  stately  recognitions
of  her to  his  sister as 'pray tell your friend, Louisa, that  she is very
good,'  or  'mention  to   Miss   Tox,   Louisa,   that  I   am  obliged  to
her;'specialities   which   made  a  deep  impression  on   the  lady   thus
distinguished.
     Whether Miss Tox conceived  that  having been selected by the Fates  to
welcome the  little Dombey before he was born,  in Kirby, Beard  and Kirby's
Best Mixed Pins, it therefore  naturally devolved upon her to greet him with
all other forms of welcome in all other early  stages of his existence -  or
whether her overflowing goodness induced her to volunteer into the  domestic
militia as a substitute in some sort for his  deceased Mama - or whether she
was  conscious of  any other motives -  are questions which in this stage of
the  Firm's  history  herself only  could  have  solved.  Nor have they much
bearing on the fact (of  which there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy
and zeal were  a heavy discouragement to  Richards, who  lost  flesh  hourly
under her patronage, and was in some danger of being superintended to death.
     Miss Tox  was  often in  the habit of assuring Mrs Chick,  that nothing
could exceed  her  interest in  all connected with the development  of  that
sweet child;' and an observer of  Miss Tox's proceedings might have inferred
so  much  without  declaratory  confirmation.  She  would preside  over  the
innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with
an  air of  joint proprietorship with  Richards in the entertainment. At the
little ceremonies of the  bath  and  toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm.
The  administration of  infantine  doses  of  physic awakened all the active
sympathy of her character; and  being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard
(whither she had fled in  modesty), when  Mr Dombey was introduced  into the
nursery by his sister,  to behold his son, in the course  of preparation for
bed,  taking a  short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a  short and airy
linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the  ignorant present as to
be unable to  refrain from crying out, 'Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he
not a Cupid, Sir!'  and then  almost  sinking  behind the  closet door  with
confusion and blushes.
     'Louisa,' said Mr  Dombey, one day,  to his sister, 'I  really think  I
must  present your friend with  some little token, on the occasion of Paul's
christening. She  has  exerted herself so warmly in the child's behalf  from
the first, and seems to  understand her position so  thoroughly (a very rare
merit in this  world, I am sorry to say), that it would really be  agreeable
to me to notice her.'
     Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr
Dombey's  eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only
achieved that  mighty  piece of knowledge, the  understanding  of their  own
position, who showed  a fitting reverence for his. It was not so  much their
merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before
him.
     'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice, as a
man of your penetration  was sure,  I knew, to  do.  I believe if there  are
three words in the English  language for  which she has  a respect amounting
almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son.'
     'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'
     'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued his
sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give  Miss Tox  will be  hoarded
and prized, I am sure,  like a relic. But there  is a way, my  dear Paul, of
showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still more flattering and
acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.'
     'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey.
     'Godfathers, of course,' continued  Mrs Chick, 'are important in  point
of connexion and influence.'
     'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey, coldly.
     'Very true, my  dear Paul,' retorted  Mrs Chick,  with an extraordinary
show of animation, to  cover the suddenness  of her  conversion; 'and spoken
like yourself.  I might  have expected  nothing else from you. I might  have
known  that such  would have  been your  opinion.  Perhaps;' here Mrs  Chick
faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a
reason  why  you might have the less objection  to  allowing  Miss Tox to be
godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone
else. That it would be received  as a  great honour and distinction, Paul, I
need not say.
     'Louisa,'  said  Mr Dombey,  after  a  short pause, 'it  is not  to  be
supposed - '
     'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, 'I
never thought it was.'
     Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.
     'Don't flurry me, my  dear  Paul,' said his sister; 'for that  destroys
me.  I am  far  from strong. I  have not been quite myself, since poor  dear
Fanny departed.'
     Mr  Dombey  glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister applied
to her eyes, and resumed:
     'It is not  be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick, 'that I
never thought it was.'
     'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey.
     'No,  my dear  Paul,'  she  remonstrated with tearful  dignity, 'I must
really  be allowed  to speak. I am not  so clever,  or  so  reasoning, or so
eloquent, or  so  anything, as you are. I know  that very well. So much  the
worse for me. But if they  were  the last  words I had to  utter  - and last
words should be very solemn to you and  me, Paul, after poor dear  Fanny - I
would still  say I never thought it was. And  what is more,' added Mrs Chick
with  increased dignity, as if she had withheld her crushing argument  until
now, 'I  never did think  it was.' Mr Dombey walked to the  window  and back
again.
     'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,'  he said  (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours to the mast, and  repeated 'I know it isn't,'  but he took no notice
of  it),  'but that there  are many persons who, supposing that I recognised
any claim  at  all  in such a case, have  a  claim upon me superior  to Miss
Tox's.  But  I do  not. I recognise  no  such thing. Paul and myself will be
able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the House, in other words, will
be able to  hold  its own, and  maintain  its own,  and hand down its own of
itself, and without  any  such common-place aids. The  kind of  foreign help
which people usually seek for their children, I can afford to despise; being
above it, I hope. So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I
see him becoming qualified without waste of time for the career  on which he
is destined to enter, I  am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he
pleases  in after-life, when  he is actively maintaining - and extending, if
that  is possible -  the  dignity and  credit  of the Firm. Until then, I am
enough for him, perhaps, and  all in all. I have  no wish that people should
step  in  between  us. I  would  much  rather show my  sense of the obliging
conduct of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let  it be so; and
your husband  and  myself  will do  well  enough for the other  sponsors,  I
daresay.'
     In  the  course  of  these  remarks, delivered with  great  majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his breast. An
indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between himself and his son; a
haughty dread of  having  any  rival  or  partner  in  the boy's respect and
deference; a sharp misgiving, recently  acquired, that he was not infallible
in his power of  bending and binding human wills; as sharp a jealousy of any
second check or cross; these were, at that time the master keys of his soul.
In all his life, he had never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had
neither sought one, nor  found one.  And now, when that nature  concentrated
its whole force so strongly on a  partial  scheme  of  parental interest and
ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released by this
influence, and running  clear  and free,  had  thawed for but an instant  to
admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one unyielding block.
     Elevated  thus to  the  godmothership of little Paul,  in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen  and appointed to office;
and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the ceremony, already long
delayed, should take place without further postponement. His sister, who had
been far from  anticipating  so  signal a  success, withdrew as  soon as she
could,  to communicate  it  to her best of friends;  and Mr Dombey was  left
alone in his  library.  He had  already laid his  hand upon  the bellrope to
convey his usual summons to Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk,
belonging  to his deceased wife,  which had been taken,  among other things,
from  a cabinet in her  chamber. It was  not the first time that his eye had
lighted  on  it He carried the  key in his pocket; and he brought it to  his
table  and opened it  now - having previously  locked the room door - with a
well-accustomed hand.
     From beneath a leaf of torn and  cancelled scraps of paper, he took one
letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his  breath  as he opened
this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something  of his arrogant
demeanour,  he s at down, resting his  head  upon  one  hand,  and  read  it
through.
     He read it  slowly  and  attentively, and with a nice  particularity to
every syllable. Otherwise than as his great  deliberation seemed  unnatural,
and  perhaps  the result of an  effort equally  great, he allowed no sign of
emotion to escape  him. When he had read it through, he folded  and refolded
it slowly several  times, and tore it carefully into fragments. Checking his
hand  in the act of throwing these away, he put  them  in his pocket, as  if
unwilling to  trust  them  even  to  the  chances  of  being  re-united  and
deciphered;  and  instead of  ringing,  as  usual, for  little Paul,  he sat
solitary, all the evening, in his cheerless room.
     There was  anything but solitude in  the  nursery; for there, Mrs Chick
and Miss  Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the disgust of Miss
Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every  opportunity of making wry
faces  behind the door.  Her feelings were so much excited  on the occasion,
that  she found it  indispensable to afford them this relief,  even  without
having  the   comfort  of  any  audience  or  sympathy   whatever.   As  the
knight-errants of old relieved their minds by carving their mistress's names
in deserts, and wildernesses,  and  other savage places  where there was  no
probability  of  there ever  being anybody to  read them, so did Miss  Susan
Nipper curl her snub nose  into drawers and  wardrobes,  put away  winks  of
disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints  into stone  pitchers, and
contradict and call names out in the passage.
     The  two  interlopers, however,  blissfully  unconscious  of the  young
lady's  sentiments,  saw  little  Paul  safe  through   all  the  stages  of
undressing, airy  exercise, supper and bed; and  then sat down to tea before
the fire. The two children now  lay, through the  good  offices of Polly, in
one  room;  and  it  was  not  until  the ladies were  established  at their
tea-table that, happening to look towards  the  little beds, they thought of
Florence.
     'How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox.
     'Why, you know,  my dear,  she  takes  a great deal of  exercise in the
course of the day,' returned Mrs Chick, 'playing about little Paul so much.'
     'She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox.
     'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all over!'
     'In deed!' said Miss Tox. 'Ah dear me!'
     A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though she
had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.
     'Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,'said Mrs Chick, 'not if
she lives to be a thousand years old.'
     Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of
     commiseration.
     'I  quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh
of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her when she grows
older,  or what position she  is to  take. She don't gain on her Papa in the
least. How can one expect she should, when she is so very unlike a Dombey?'
     Miss Tox looked as if she saw  no way out  of such a cogent argument as
that, at all.
     'And the child, you see,' said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, 'has poor
dear Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life, I'll venture
to say. Never!  She'll never  wind and twine herself about her  Papa's heart
like - '
     'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.
     'Like the  ivy,' Mrs  Chick assented.  'Never! She'll  never glide  and
nestle into the bosom of her Papa's affections like - the - '
     'Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox.
     'Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs Chick. 'Never! Poor Fanny! Yet,  how
I loved her!'
     'You must not distress yourself, my dear,' said Miss Tox, in a soothing
voice. 'Now really! You have too much feeling.'
     'We have all our faults,' said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her head.
'I  daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I was. Far from
it. Yet how I loved her!'
     What a satisfaction it was to Mrs Chick - a common-place piece of folly
enough,  compared with  whom  her  sister-in-law  had been  a very angel  of
womanly intelligence  and gentleness - to patronise and  be  tender  to  the
memory  of  that  lady: in  exact  pursuance of her  conduct to  her in  her
lifetime: and to thoroughly believe herself,  and take herself  in, and make
herself  uncommonly  comfortable on  the strength of  her toleration! What a
mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be when we are right, to be so very
pleasant when we  are wrong, and quite unable to demonstrate how we come  to
be invested with the privilege of exercising it!
     Mrs  Chick was yet drying her eyes and  shaking her head, when Richards
made  bold  to caution her that Miss  Florence  was awake and sitting in her
bed. She  had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes  of her eyes were wet
with  tears. But no  one  saw them  glistening save Polly. No one else leant
over  her,  and  whispered soothing words to her, or was near enough to hear
the flutter of her beating heart.
     'Oh!  dear nurse!' said the child,  looking  earnestly up  in her face,
'let me lie by my brother!'
     'Why, my pet?' said Richards.
     'Oh! I  think he loves me,' cried the child wildly. 'Let me lie by him.
Pray do!'
     Mrs Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep like
a  dear, but Florence repeated her supplication, with a frightened look, and
in a voice broken by sobs and tears.
     'I'll not wake  him,' she said, covering  her face and hanging down her
head. 'I'll only touch him with  my  hand, and go to sleep. Oh, pray,  pray,
let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he's fond of me!'
     Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little bed in
which the infant was sleeping, laid her  down by his side. She crept as near
him as she could without disturbing his rest;  and stretching out one arm so
that  it  timidly embraced his neck, and hiding her face on the  other, over
which her damp and scattered hair fell loose, lay motionless.
     'Poor little thing,' said Miss Tox; 'she has been dreaming, I daresay.'
     Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent,  of loving eyes for
ever closed, of loving  arms  again wound round  her, and  relaxing  in that
dream  within  the  dam which  no tongue  can relate. Seeking, perhaps -  in
dreams - some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely wounded, though
so young  a child's: and finding it, perhaps,  in dreams, if not  in waking,
cold,  substantial  truth.  This  trivial  incident  had so interrupted  the
current of  conversation, that it was difficult of resumption; and Mrs Chick
moreover  had been so affected  by  the  contemplation of her  own  tolerant
nature, that she was not in  spirits. The two  friends accordingly soon made
an  end of  their tea,  and  a servant  was despatched  to  fetch a  hackney
cabriolet for Miss  Tox. Miss Tox had great experience in  hackney cabs, and
her  starting in one was generally a work of time,  as she was systematic in
the preparatory arrangements.
     'Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox, 'first of
all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number legibly.'
     'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.
     'Then, if you please, Towlinson,'said Miss Tox, 'have the goodness
     to  turn  the cushion.  Which,' said  Miss Tox apart to Mrs Chick,  'is
generally damp, my dear.'
     'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.
     'I'll trouble you also, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox, 'with
this card and this shilling. He's to drive to the card, and is to understand
that he will not on any account have more than the shilling.'
     'No, Miss,' said Towlinson.
     'And - I'm sorry to  give you  so  much trouble, Towlinson,' said  Miss
Tox, looking at him pensively.
     'Not at all, Miss,' said Towlinson.
     'Mention to  the man, then, if  you  please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox,
'that the lady's uncle is a magistrate, and that if he  gives her any of his
impertinence  he will be punished terribly. You  can pretend to say that, if
you please, Towlinson, in a  friendly way, and because you  know it was done
to another man, who died.'
     'Certainly, Miss,' said Towlinson.
     'And now good-night to  my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson,' said Miss Tox,
with  a soft  shower of kisses  at each  repetition  of the  adjective; 'and
Louisa, my dear friend,  promise  me to take a little something  warm before
you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!'
     It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper,  the black-eyed, who looked
on steadfastly, contained herself  at this crisis, and  until the subsequent
departure  of Mrs Chick. But the  nursery being at length free of  visitors,
she made herself some recompense for her late restraint.
     'You might keep me  in a strait-waistcoat for  six weeks,' said Nipper,
'and when  I got it off I'd only be more aggravated, who ever heard the like
of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?'
     'And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!' said Polly.
     'Oh you beauties!' cried  Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door by
which the  ladies had  departed.  'Never be  a Dombey won't she? It's  to be
hoped she won't, we don't want any more such, one's enough.'
     'Don't wake the children, Susan dear,' said Polly.
     'I'm very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards,' said Susan, who was  not
by any means discriminating in her wrath, 'and really feel it as a honour to
receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter. Mrs  Richards, if
there's any other orders, you can give me, pray mention 'em.'
     'Nonsense; orders,' said Polly.
     'Oh! bless your heart, Mrs  Richards,' cried Susan, 'temporaries always
orders permanencies here, didn't you know that, why  wherever was you  born,
Mrs Richards? But wherever  you was  born, Mrs Richards,' pursued  Spitfire,
shaking her head resolutely, 'and whenever, and however (which is best known
to  yourself),  you may bear  in mind, please, that it's  one thing  to give
orders, and  quite another thing to take 'em. A person may tell a  person to
dive off  a  bridge head  foremost into five-and-forty  feet  of water,  Mrs
Richards, but a person may be very far from diving.'
     'There  now,'  said Polly, 'you're angry  because you're a good  little
thing, and  fond  of Miss Florence;  and  yet you turn round on me,  because
there's nobody else.'
     'It's very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, Mrs
Richards,' returned Susan, slightly  mollified, 'when  their child's made as
much of as a prince, and  is petted and  patted  till it wishes its  friends
further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never  ought to have a
cross word spoken  to or  of it, is  rundown,  the case  is  very  different
indeed.  My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you  naughty, sinful child,  if
you don't  shut  your  eyes this minute, I'll call in them  hobgoblins  that
lives in the cock-loft to come and eat you up alive!'
     Here  Miss  Nipper made a  horrible  lowing, supposed to  issue from  a
conscientious goblin of  the bull species, impatient to discharge the severe
duty of his position.  Having further composed  her young charge by covering
her head with  the  bedclothes, and making three or four  angry dabs at  the
pillow, she  folded her arms, and  screwed up her mouth, and sat looking  at
the fire for the rest of the evening.
     Though little Paul was said,  in nursery phrase,  'to take  a  deal  of
notice  for his  age,'  he  took as  little notice  of all this  as  of  the
preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which nevertheless
went on about  him, as to his  personal  apparel, and that of his sister and
the two nurses, with great activity. Neither  did he, on the arrival  of the
appointed morning, show any sense of its importance; being, on the contrary,
unusually  inclined to sleep,  and unusually inclined to  take it ill in his
attendants that they dressed him to go out.
     It  happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day,  with a shrewd east  wind
blowing  - a day in keeping  with the proceedings. Mr Dombey represented  in
himself the wind,  the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood in
his library to receive the  company,  as  hard and cold  as the weather; and
when he  looked  out  through the glass room,  at the  trees  in the  little
garden,  their brown  and  yellow  leaves  came fluttering  down,  as if  he
blighted them.
     Ugh! They were  black, cold rooms; and seemed to  be in mourning,  like
the inmates of the house. The  books precisely matched as to size, and drawn
up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as
if they had  but one idea among them, and that was a  freezer. The bookcase,
glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on  the
top,  with  no  trace  of  his celestial  origin'  about  him,  guarded  the
unattainable  treasure like an  enchanted Moor. A  dusty  urn at  each  high
corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached  desolation and decay, as from
two pulpits; and the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at
one blow, seemed fraught with melancholy meditations.
     The  stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer relationship
than anything else there to  Mr  Dombey, with  his buttoned coat, his  white
cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking boots.
     But  this  was  before  the  arrival of  Mr and Mrs Chick,  his  lawful
relatives, who soon presented themselves.
     'My  dear  Paul,'  Mrs  Chick  murmured,  as  she  embraced  him,  'the
beginning, I hope, of many joyful days!'
     'Thank you, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, grimly. 'How do you do, Mr John?'
     'How do you do, Sir?' said Chick.
     He  gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. Mr
Dombey  tool:  it  as if it were a  fish, or seaweed,  or  some  such clammy
substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness.
     'Perhaps, Louisa,'  said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his  head  in  his
cravat, as if it were a socket, 'you would have preferred a fire?'
     'Oh, my dear  Paul,  no,' said Mrs Chick, who  had much ado to keep her
teeth from chattering; 'not for me.'
     'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are not sensible of any chill?'
     Mr John, who had already got both  his  hands in  his pockets over  the
wrists, and was on the very threshold of that  same  canine chorus which had
given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former  occasion, protested that he was
perfectly comfortable.
     He added  in a low voice,  'With my  tiddle tol toor rul' - when he was
providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced:
     'Miss Tox!'
     And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty
face, referable to her being very thinly clad in  a  maze of fluttering odds
and ends, to do honour to the ceremony.
     'How do you do, Miss Tox?' said Mr Dombey.
     Miss  Tox, in the midst  of her  spreading gauzes, went down altogether
like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in  acknowledgment of
Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her.
     'I can never  forget this occasion, Sir,' said Miss Tox,  softly. ''Tis
impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of my senses.'
     If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of  her  senses, it was a
very  cold  day. That  was quite  clear. She took  an  early opportunity  of
promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly chafing it with
her  pocket handkerchief,  lest, by  its very  low  temperature,  it  should
disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to kiss it.
     The  baby  soon appeared,  carried in  great glory  by  Richards; while
Florence, in custody of that  active young  constable, Susan Nipper, brought
up  the rear. Though  the whole  nursery party were dressed  by this time in
lighter  mourning than  at first, there was enough in the  appearance of the
bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The baby  too - it might have
been Miss Tox's nose - began  to cry. Thereby, as it happened, preventing Mr
Chick  from the awkward fulfilment of a  very honest purpose he  had;  which
was,  to make  much  of  Florence.  For  this  gentleman,  insensible to the
superior claims of a perfect Dombey (perhaps on account of having the honour
to be united  to  a  Dombey himself,  and being  familiar  with excellence),
really liked her, and showed  that he liked her, and was about to show it in
his own way now, when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short
     'Now Florence, child!'  said  her  aunt,  briskly, 'what are you doing,
love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!'
     The atmosphere  became or might have  become colder and colder, when Mr
Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping her hands,
and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and heir,  lured him to
bend down from his high  estate,  and  look  at  her.  Some  honest  act  of
Richards's may have aided the effect, but he  did  look  down, and held  his
peace. As  his sister  hid behind her nurse, he followed her with his  eyes;
and when  she  peeped  out with a  merry cry to him, he sprang up and crowed
lustily - laughing  outright when she ran in upon him; and seeming to fondle
her curls with his tiny hands, while she smothered him with kisses.
     Was  Mr Dombey  pleased to  see this? He  testified no pleasure by  the
relaxation  of a nerve;  but  outward  tokens  of any kind  of  feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into  the room to light the  children
at their play, it  never  reached his  face.  He  looked  on so fixedly  and
coldly,  that the warm light vanished even from the laughing  eyes of little
Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet his.
     It was a dull,  grey, autumn day indeed, and in  a minute's  pause  and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.
     'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his hat
and gloves. 'Take my  sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss Tox's. You
had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very careful.'
     In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, Richards,
and Florence.  In a little carriage following it, Susan Nipper and the owner
Mr Chick. Susan  looking out of window,  without  intermission, as a  relief
from the embarrassment of confronting the  large face of that gentleman, and
thinking  whenever  anything  rattled  that he was putting up  in  paper  an
appropriate pecuniary compliment for herself.
     Once  upon  the road to church,  Mr Dombey clapped  his  hands  for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss Tox  was
enchanted. But exclusive  of this incident, the chief difference between the
christening party and a party in a  mourning coach consisted  in the colours
of the carriage and horses.
     Arrived  at  the  church  steps,  they  were received  by  a portentous
beadle.' Mr  Dombey dismounting first to  help the  ladies out, and standing
near him  at  the church  door,  looked  like another beadle. A  beadle less
gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle  of  private life; the beadle  of our
business and our bosoms.
     Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey's arm, and
felt  herself  escorted  up  the  steps,  preceded by a  cocked  hat  and  a
Babylonian   collar.   It  seemed  for  a  moment  like  that  other  solemn
institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.'
     'Please to  bring the child in quick out  of the air there,'  whispered
the beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.
     Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?'  so chill and
earthy was  the place. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading desk; the dreary
perspective of  empty pews  stretching away under the galleries,  and  empty
benches mounting to the roof and lost in the shadow of the great grim organ;
the  dusty  matting and  cold stone  slabs;  the grisly  free  seats' in the
aisles; and the damp corner by the bell-rope,  where the black trestles used
for funerals were stowed away,  along with  some shovels and baskets,  and a
coil  or two  of  deadly-looking rope;  the strange,  unusual, uncomfortable
smell,  and  the  cadaverous light; were  all  in unison. It was a cold  and
dismal scene.
     'There's a wedding  just on,  Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be over
directly, if you'll walk into the westry here.
     Before he turned again to lead the way,  he gave Mr Dombey a bow  and a
half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered to have
had the pleasure of  attending on him when he buried his wife, and  hoped he
had enjoyed himself since.
     The  very  wedding looked  dismal as they passed in front of the altar.
The bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a superannuated beau
with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in  its blank  companion, was giving away
the  lady,  while the friends  were shivering. In the  vestry  the  fire was
smoking;  and an over-aged and  over-worked and under-paid attorney's clerk,
'making a search,' was running his forefinger down the parchment pages of an
immense register  (one  of  a  long series of similar  volumes)  gorged with
burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of  the  vaults underneath the
church; and Mr Chick, skimming the  literary portion of it aloud, by  way of
enlivening the  company, read  the reference  to Mrs Dombey's tomb  in full,
before he could stop himself.
     After another cold interval, a wheezy little  pew-opener afflicted with
an asthma,  appropriate to the churchyard,  if not to  the  church, summoned
them to the font - a rigid marble  basin which seemed to have been playing a
churchyard game  at  cup and  ball with its matter of fact  pedestal, and to
have been just that moment caught  on the top  of it. Here  they waited some
little time while the  marriage party enrolled themselves; and meanwhile the
wheezy  little pew-opener -  partly  in consequence  of  her infirmity,  and
partly  that  the  marriage  party  might not  forget her  - went about  the
building coughing like a grampus.
     Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he was
an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and  said something,  as he
poured  it  into the font, about taking  the  chill off; which  millions  of
gallons  boiling  hot  could  not  have  done  for the  occasion.  Then  the
clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young curate, but obviously afraid of
the  baby, appeared like the  principal character in a ghost-story, 'a  tall
figure all in white;' at sight of whom Paul rent the air with his cries, and
never left off again till he was taken out black in the face.
     Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of everybody, he
was heard under the portico, during the  rest of  the ceremony, now fainter,
now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth again with an irrepressible sense
of his wrongs. This so distracted the attention of the two  ladies, that Mrs
Chick was  constantly deploying into the centre aisle, to send out  messages
by the pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder
Plot, and occasionally read responses from that service.
     During the whole of these proceedings,  Mr Dombey remained as impassive
and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it so cold, that the
young curate smoked  at the mouth as he  read. The only  time that he unbent
his  visage  in  the  least,  was  when  the  clergyman, in delivering (very
unaffectedly  and  simply)  the  closing exhortation, relative to the future
examination  of  the child by  the sponsors, happened to  rest his eye on Mr
Chick; and then Mr  Dombey  might have been seen  to  express  by a majestic
look, that he would like to catch him at it.
     It might have been well for  Mr Dombey,  if  he had thought of  his own
dignity  a little less; and had thought of the great origin  and  purpose of
the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff  a part, a little more.
His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.
     When it was all over, he again gave his  arm to Miss Tox, and conducted
her  to the vestry, where  he informed  the  clergyman  how much pleasure it
would have given him to have solicited the  honour of his company at dinner,
but for the unfortunate state of his household affairs. The register signed,
and the  fees paid, and  the  pew-opener  (whose  cough was  very bad again)
remembered, and the beadle  gratified, and the sexton  (who was accidentally
on the doorsteps, looking with great interest at the weather) not forgotten,
they got  into  the  carriage  again,  and  drove  home  in  the  same bleak
fellowship.
     There they found  Mr Pitt turning up his nose at  a cold collation, set
forth in  a cold  pomp of glass and silver, and  looking  more  like a  dead
dinner lying in  state  than a social refreshment. On their arrival Miss Tox
produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and  fork and spoon in a
case. Mr Dombey also produced  a  bracelet for Miss Tox; and, on the receipt
of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected.
     'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'will yo