uired if
he remembered Joey B. the Major; and finally,  with a sudden recollection of
the conventionalities of life, turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.
     'But my little friend here, Sir,'  said the  Major, 'makes a  boy of me
again:  An  old  soldier,  Sir  - Major Bagstock, at  your service  - is not
ashamed to confess  it.' Here the Major  lifted his hat. 'Damme, Sir,' cried
the Major with sudden warmth, 'I envy you.' Then he recollected himself, and
added, 'Excuse my freedom.'
     Mr Dombey begged he wouldn't mention it.
     'An old campaigner, Sir,'  said the  Major, 'a  smoke-dried, sun-burnt,
used-up,  invalided  old  dog of a  Major,  Sir,  was  not afraid  of  being
condemned  for his whim by a  man  like Mr Dombey.  I  have  the  honour  of
addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?'
     'I  am  the  present  unworthy  representative  of that  name,  Major,'
returned Mr Dombey.
     'By G-, Sir!' said the  Major,  'it's a great  name. It's a name, Sir,'
said the  Major  firmly,  as if  he defied Mr Dombey to contradict  him, and
would feel  it his painful duty to bully him if he did,  'that is known  and
honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name, Sir, that a man is
proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in Joseph  Bagstock, Sir. His
Royal  Highness the Duke of York observed  on more than one occasion, "there
is  no adulation in Joey. He is a plain old soldier is Joe. He is tough to a
fault  is Joseph:" but it's a great name,  Sir. By  the  Lord, it's  a great
name!' said the Major, solemnly.
     'You  are good  enough  to  rate it higher than it  deserves,  perhaps,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'No,  Sir,' said  the  Major, in a severe tone. No,  Mr Dombey,  let us
understand  each other. That is not  the Bagstock vein, Sir.  You don't know
Joseph B.  He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him, Sir. Nothing
like it.'
     Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in earnest,
and that his high opinion was gratifying.
     'My little friend here, Sir,' croaked the Major,  looking as amiably as
he  could,  on  Paul,  'will certify  for  Joseph  Bagstock  that  he  is  a
thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and  nothing more.
That boy, Sir,' said the Major in  a lower tone, 'will live in history. That
boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him, Mr Dombey.'
     Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so.
     'Here  is a  boy here,  Sir,' pursued  the Major,  confidentially,  and
giving him a  thrust  with  his cane.  'Son  of  Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill
Bitherstone formerly of  ours. That boy's father and myself, Sir, were sworn
friends. Wherever you  went, Sir, you heard of nothing but  Bill Bitherstone
and Joe Bagstock. Am I  blind to that  boy's  defects? By  no means.  He's a
fool, Sir.'
     Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled  Master Bitherstone,  of whom he knew
at least as  much as the Major did, and  said, in quite a complacent manner,
'Really?'
     'That is  what he is, sir,' said the Major. 'He's a  fool. Joe Bagstock
never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill Bitherstone,  of Bengal,
is a born fool, Sir.' Here  the Major laughed till  he was almost black. 'My
little friend is destined for a public school,' I' presume, Mr Dombey?' said
the Major when he had recovered.
     'I am  not  quite  decided,'  returned Mr Dombey.  'I think  not. He is
delicate.'
     'If he's  delicate, Sir,'  said the Major, 'you are right. None but the
tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put each other to
the torture there, Sir. We roasted  the new fellows at a slow fire, and hung
'em out of a three pair of stairs window, with their heads downwards. Joseph
Bagstock, Sir,  was  held out of the window by  the heels of his boots,  for
thirteen minutes by the college clock'
     The Major  might have appealed to  his countenance  in corroboration of
this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too long.
     'But it  made us what we were, Sir,' said the Major, settling his shirt
frill. 'We  were  iron,  Sir, and  it forged  us. Are you remaining here, Mr
Dombey?'
     'I generally come down once a week, Major,' returned that gentleman. 'I
stay at the Bedford.'
     'I  shall  have the honour  of calling at the  Bedford,  Sir, if you'll
permit me,'  said the Major. 'Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling man,
but  Mr Dombey's  is  not  a common name.  I  am much indebted to  my little
friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.'
     Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having patted
Paul  on  the head,  and said of Florence that her eyes would play the Devil
with the youngsters before long - 'and the oldsters too, Sir, if you come to
that,' added the Major, chuckling very much - stirred  up Master Bitherstone
with his walking-stick, and departed with that young gentleman, at a kind of
half-trot; rolling his head and coughing with great dignity, as he staggered
away, with his legs very wide asunder.
     In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr Dombey;
and Mr  Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards  called on  the
Major.  Then the Major  called at Mr Dombey's house in  town;  and came down
again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short, Mr Dombey and the Major got
on uncommonly well together, and uncommonly fast: and  Mr Dombey observed of
the  Major, to his sister, that besides being  quite a military  man he  was
really something more, as he  had a very admirable idea of the importance of
things unconnected with his own profession.
     At length Mr Dombey, bringing  down  Miss Tox and  Mrs Chick to see the
children, and finding the Major again at Brighton,  invited him to dinner at
the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand,  on her neighbour
and acquaintance.
     'My dearest Louisa,' said Miss  Tox  to Mrs Chick, when they were alone
together,  on the morning of  the  appointed  day, 'if I should  seem at all
reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him, promise me not
to notice it.'
     'My dear  Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, 'what mystery  is  involved in
this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.'
     'Since you are resolved to extort a confession from  me,  Louisa,' said
Miss Tox instantly, 'I  have  no alternative but to confide to  you that the
Major has been particular.'
     'Particular!' repeated Mrs Chick.
     'The  Major  has  long been very  particular  indeed, my  love, in  his
attentions,' said  Miss Tox, 'occasionally  they have  been  so very marked,
that my position has been one of no common difficulty.'
     'Is he in good circumstances?' inquired Mrs Chick.
     'I have  every reason to believe, my dear -  indeed  I may say I know,'
returned  Miss Tox, 'that he  is wealthy. He  is truly military, and full of
anecdote. I  have  been  informed that  his  valour,  when he was  in active
service, knew no bounds. I  am told that he  did  all sorts of things in the
Peninsula,  with  every description  of fire-arm; and in the  East and  West
Indies, my love, I really couldn't undertake to say what he did not do.'
     'Very creditable to him indeed,' said Mrs Chick, 'extremely so; and you
have given him no encouragement, my dear?'
     'If I were to say, Louisa,'  replied Miss Tox, with every demonstration
of making an effort  that rent her  soul,  'that  I  never encouraged  Major
Bagstock  slightly, I should not do justice to  the friendship which  exists
between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in the nature of woman to receive
such attentions as the Major  once  lavished  upon  myself without betraying
some sense of obligation. But  that  is past - long past. Between  the Major
and  me  there  is  now  a  yawning chasm, and  I  will not  feign  to  give
encouragement,  Louisa, where I  cannot give  my heart. My affections,' said
Miss Tox - 'but, Louisa, this is madness!' and departed from the room.
     All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and it by
no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted cordiality.
The Major,  for his part, was in a state of plethoric satisfaction that knew
no  bounds:  and  he  coughed, and  choked, and chuckled,  and  gasped,  and
swelled, until the waiters seemed positively afraid of him.
     'Your family monopolises Joe's light, Sir,' said the Major, when he had
saluted Miss Tox. 'Joe lives in darkness.  Princess's  Place is changed into
Kamschatka in  the  winter time. There is  no ray of sun, Sir,  for Joey B.,
now.'
     'Miss Tox is good  enough  to take a great  deal  of  interest in Paul,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.
     'Damme  Sir,'  said the Major,  'I'm  jealous of my little friend.  I'm
pining away  Sir. The Bagstock  breed is degenerating in the forsaken person
of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and  puffing his cheeks
further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss
Tox, until  his  eyes  seemed  as if he were at  that moment  being overdone
before the slow fire at the military college.
     Notwithstanding  the  palpitation  of  the  heart which these allusions
occasioned  her, they  were anything but disagreeable  to Miss Tox,  as they
enabled  her  to  be extremely interesting, and  to manifest  an  occasional
incoherence and distraction which she  was not at all unwilling to  display.
The Major gave her abundant opportunities of exhibiting this  emotion: being
profuse in his complaints, at dinner, of her desertion of him and Princess's
Place: and as he  appeared to derive great enjoyment from making  them, they
all got on very well.
     None the  worse  on  account  of the  Major taking  charge of the whole
conversation, and  showing as great an appetite in that respect as in regard
of the  various dainties  on the table, among which he may be almost said to
have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his inflammatory tendencies. Mr
Dombey's habitual silence and reserve yielding  readily to  this usurpation,
the Major felt that  he was  coming out and  shining:  and  in  the flow  of
spirits thus engendered, rang such an infinite number of  new changes on his
own name that  he quite astonished  himself. In  a word,  they were all very
well  pleased. The Major was considered to possess an  inexhaustible fund of
conversation; and when  he took a late farewell, after  a  long  rubber,  Mr
Dombey  again  complimented the  blushing  Miss  Tox on  her  neighbour  and
acquaintance.
     But all the  way home to his own  hotel, the  Major incessantly said to
himself, and of himself, 'Sly, Sir - sly, Sir - de-vil-ish sly!' And when he
got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit of laughter, with
which he was sometimes  seized, and which was  always particularly awful. It
held him  so long on this occasion that the dark servant, who stood watching
him at a distance, but dared not for his life approach, twice or thrice gave
him over for lost. His whole form, but especially his face and head, dilated
beyond all  former experience; and presented to the dark man's view, nothing
but a heaving mass of indigo. At length he burst  into a violent paroxysm of
coughing, and when that was a little better burst into such ejaculations  as
the following:
     'Would  you,  Ma'am, would  you?  Mrs Dombey,  eh, Ma'am? I think  not,
Ma'am. Not while Joe B.  can put a spoke in your wheel,  Ma'am. J. B.'s even
with  you  now, Ma'am.  He isn't  altogether  bowled  out, yet,  Sir,  isn't
Bagstock. She's deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake is old Joe -
broad awake, and staring,  Sir!' There was  no doubt  of this last assertion
being true, and to  a very fearful extent; as it continued to  be during the
greater part  of  that night,  which the  Major  chiefly  passed in  similar
exclamations,  diversified with  fits  of coughing and choking that startled
the whole house.
     It  was  on  the day  after this  occasion  (being Sunday)  when, as Mr
Dombey, Mrs  Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still eulogising
the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with a bright colour,
and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,
     'Papa! Papa! Here's Walter! and he won't come in.'
     'Who?' cried Mr Dombey. 'What does she mean? What is this?'
     'Walter, Papa!' said Florence  timidly;  sensible of having  approached
the presence with too much familiarity. 'Who found me when I was lost.'
     'Does  she mean  young Gay,  Louisa?' inquired Mr Dombey, knitting  his
brows. 'Really, this child's manners have become very boisterous. She cannot
mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?'
     Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned  with  the information
that it  was  young Gay,  accompanied by a very strange-looking person;  and
that young Gay said he would not take the liberty of  coming in, hearing  Mr
Dombey was at breakfast, but would wait until Mr  Dombey should signify that
he might approach.
     'Tell the  boy to come in now,' said Mr Dombey. 'Now, Gay,  what is the
matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?'
     'I beg  your  pardon,  Sir,' returned  Walter. 'I have not been sent. I
have been  so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you'll  pardon
when I mention the cause.
     But  Mr  Dombey,  without  attending  to  what  he  said,  was  looking
impatiently on either side of him (as  if  he were  a pillar in his  way) at
some object behind.
     'What's that?' said Mr Dombey. 'Who is that? I think you have made some
mistake in the door, Sir.'
     'Oh,  I'm  very  sorry  to  intrude  with anyone,  Sir,'  cried Walter,
hastily: 'but this is - this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.'
     'Wal'r, my lad,' observed the Captain in a deep voice: 'stand by!'
     At the same time the Captain, coming  a little  further in, brought out
his wide suit of blue, his  conspicuous shirt-collar, and his knobby nose in
full relief, and stood bowing to Mr  Dombey, and waving his hook politely to
the  ladies, with  the  hard glazed hat in his one  hand, and a  red equator
round his head which it had newly imprinted there.
     Mr  Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and
seemed by his looks  to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox  against it. Little
Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as the Captain
waved his book, and stood on the defensive.
     'Now, Gay,' said Mr Dombey. 'What have you got to say to me?'
     Again the Captain observed,  as a general  opening of the  conversation
that could not fail to propitiate all parties, 'Wal'r, standby!'
     'I  am afraid,  Sir,' began Walter, trembling, and looking down  at the
ground, 'that I take a very great liberty in  coming - indeed,  I  am sure I
do.  I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you, Sir, even after
coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss Dombey, and - '
     'Well!' said  Mr  Dombey,  following his  eyes  as  he  glanced at  the
attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she  encouraged him with a
smile. 'Go on, if you please.'
     'Ay, ay,'  observed the Captain, considering it  incumbent on him, as a
point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. 'Well said! Go on, Wal'r.'
     Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which  Mr Dombey
bestowed upon him  in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite innocent of
this, he  closed  one  eye  in reply,  and gave Mr Dombey to understand,  by
certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter was a little bashful at
first, and might be expected to come out shortly.
     'It is entirely  a private  and personal  matter, that  has brought  me
here, Sir,' continued Walter, faltering, 'and Captain Cuttle
     'Here!' interposed the Captain, as an  assurance  that  he was at hand,
and might be relied upon.
     'Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle's, and a most excellent man,
Sir,' pursued Walter, raising  his eyes  with  a look  of  entreaty  in  the
Captain's  behalf, 'was so good as to  offer to come with  me, which I could
hardly refuse.'
     'No, no, no;'  observed the Captain  complacently.  'Of course not.  No
call for refusing. Go on, Wal'r.'
     'And therefore, Sir,' said Walter,  venturing to meet Mr Dombey's  eye,
and proceeding  with better courage in the very desperation of the case, now
that there was no avoiding it, 'therefore I have come, with him, Sir, to say
that  my poor  old  Uncle is  in  very great affliction and  distress. That,
through the  gradual loss of  his business,  and  not being able  to make  a
payment, the  apprehension of which  has weighed very heavily upon his mind,
months and  months, as indeed I know, Sir, he has an execution in his house,
and is in danger of losing all he has,  and  breaking his heart. And that if
you  would,  in your  kindness,  and  in  your  old knowledge of  him  as  a
respectable  man, do anything to help  him out of his  difficulty,  Sir,  we
never could thank you enough for it.'
     Walter's  eyes filled with tears  as  he  spoke;  and so  did those  of
Florence.  Her  father  saw them glistening, though  he appeared to look  at
Walter only.
     'It is a  very large sum, Sir,'  said Walter. 'More than three  hundred
pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it lies so heavy on
him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own relief. He doesn't  even
know  yet, that I have come to speak to you. You would wish me to say, Sir,'
added Walter, after  a  moment's hesitation, 'exactly what  it  is I want. I
really don't know, Sir. There is my Uncle's stock, on which I believe  I may
say, confidently, there are no  other demands, and there is  Captain Cuttle,
who  would wish  to be  security too.  I -  I  hardly like to mention,' said
Walter, 'such earnings as mine; but if you would allow  them -  accumulate -
payment -  advance - Uncle  -  frugal, honourable,  old man.' Walter trailed
off, through these broken  sentences, into  silence: and stood with downcast
head, before his employer.
     Considering this  a favourable moment for the display of the valuables,
Captain  Cuttle  advanced  to the  table; and  clearing  a  space among  the
breakfast-cups at  Mr  Dombey's elbow,  produced the silver watch, the ready
money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs;  and  piling them up into  a heap
that  they might  look  as precious  as possible, delivered himself of these
words:
     'Half a  loaf's better than  no  bread, and the same  remark holds good
with crumbs. There's a  few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also ready
to be made over. If  there is a man chock full of science in the world, it's
old  Sol  Gills. If  there is  a lad of  promise -  one flowing,' added  the
Captain,  in one of his happy quotations, 'with milk  and  honey -  it's his
nevy!'
     The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood arranging
his scattered locks with the air of a man  who had given the finishing touch
to a difficult performance.
     When Walter  ceased to speak, Mr Dombey's eyes were attracted to little
Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head  and silently  weeping in
her  commiseration for the  distress she  had heard described, went over  to
her, and  tried to comfort  her: looking at Walter and  his father as he did
so, with a  very expressive face. After the momentary distraction of Captain
Cuttle's address, which he regarded with lofty indifference, Mr Dombey again
turned his eyes upon his son, and sat steadily regarding the child, for some
moments, in silence.
     'What was  this debt contracted for?' asked Mr Dombey, at length.  'Who
is the creditor?'
     'He  don't  know,'  replied the Captain,  putting his  hand on Walter's
shoulder.  'I do. It came of helping a man that's dead now, and that's  cost
my friend Gills  many a hundred pound  already. More particulars in private,
if agreeable.'
     'People who have enough to do to hold  their  own way,' said Mr Dombey,
unobservant of  the Captain's  mysterious signs  behind  Walter,  and  still
looking  at  his son,  'had better be content with their own obligations and
difficulties, and not increase  them by engaging for other men. It is an act
of  dishonesty  and  presumption,  too,'  said  Mr Dombey,  sternly;  'great
presumption; for the wealthy could do no more. Paul, come here!'
     The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee.
     'If you had money now - ' said Mr Dombey. 'Look at me!'
     Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to  Walter, looked his
father in the face.
     'If you had money now,' said Mr Dombey; 'as much money as young Gay has
talked about; what would you do?'
     'Give it to his old Uncle,' returned Paul.
     'Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?' retorted Mr Dombey. 'Well! When you are
old  enough,  you know,  you  will  share  my  money,  and we  shall  use it
together.'
     'Dombey and Son,' interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early  in  the
phrase.
     'Dombey  and Son,'  repeated his father. 'Would you like to begin to be
Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay's Uncle?'
     'Oh! if you please, Papa!' said Paul: 'and so would Florence.'
     'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son. Would
you like it?'
     'Yes, Papa, yes!'
     'Then  you shall do it,' returned  his father.  'And you see, Paul,' he
added, dropping his voice, 'how powerful money  is, and how  anxious  people
are to get  it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money, and  you, who
are so grand  and great,  having got it, are  going to let him have it, as a
great favour and obligation.'
     Paul  turned  up the old face for a  moment, in which there was a sharp
understanding of the reference conveyed  in these words: but it was a  young
and childish  face immediately afterwards,  when  he  slipped down from  his
father's  knee, and  ran to tell Florence not  to  cry any more, for  he was
going to let young Gay have the money.
     Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table,  and wrote a note and sealed it.
During the  interval, Paul and  Florence whispered  to  Walter,  and Captain
Cuttle  beamed on the three,  with such aspiring and ineffably  presumptuous
thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The note being finished,
Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and held it out to Walter.
     'Give that,' he said, 'the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr Carker.
He will immediately take care that one of my people releases your Uncle from
his  present  position,  by  paying  the amount  at  issue;  and  that  such
arrangements  are made for  its repayment as  may be  consistent  with  your
Uncle's circumstances. You will consider that this is done for you by Master
Paul.'
     Walter,  in  the emotion of holding in his hand the  means of releasing
his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to express something
of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him short.
     'You will consider that  it is  done,' he repeated, 'by Master  Paul. I
have  explained that  to  him, and he understands it. I wish  no more to  be
said.'
     As  he  motioned towards the door,  Walter  could only bow his head and
retire. Miss Tox, seeing  that the Captain  appeared  about to do  the same,
interposed.
     'My  dear Sir,' she said, addressing  Mr Dombey,  at  whose munificence
both she  and Mrs  Chick  were shedding tears copiously; 'I  think  you have
overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the nobility of your
character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a matter of detail.'
     'Indeed, Miss Tox!' said Mr Dombey.
     'The gentleman with the -  Instrument,'  pursued Miss  Tox, glancing at
Captain Cuttle, 'has left upon the table, at your elbow - '
     'Good Heaven!' said Mr  Dombey, sweeping  the  Captain's property  from
him,  as if it were  so much crumb  indeed. 'Take  these things  away.  I am
obliged  to  you,  Miss  Tox;  it  is like  your  usual discretion. Have the
goodness to take these things away, Sir!'
     Captain Cuttle felt he  had no alternative but to comply. But he was so
much  struck by the  magnanimity of  Mr Dombey, in refusing  treasures lying
heaped  up  to his  hand, that  when  he  had  deposited  the  teaspoons and
sugar-tongs in one pocket, and  the  ready money in another, and had lowered
the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could not refrain from
seizing that gentleman's right hand in his  own  solitary left, and while he
held it open with his powerful fingers, bringing the hook down upon its palm
in a  transport of  admiration. At this touch of warm feeling and cold iron,
Mr Dombey shivered all over.
     Captain Cuttle then  kissed his hook to the ladies  several times, with
great  elegance and gallantry; and having taken  a particular leave  of Paul
and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was running after
them in the  earnestness of her heart, to send some message to old Sol, when
Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay where she was.
     'Will  you never  be  a Dombey,  my dear  child!' said Mrs  Chick, with
pathetic reproachfulness.
     'Dear aunt,'  said Florence. 'Don't be angry  with me. I am so thankful
to Papa!'
     She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had dared;
but as she did not dare, she glanced with  thankful eyes  towards him, as he
sat musing; sometimes bestowing  an uneasy glance on her, but, for the  most
part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with the new-blown dignity of
having let young Gay have the money.
     And young Gay - Walter- what of him?
     He  was  overjoyed to purge  the  old  man's  hearth from bailiffs  and
brokers, and  to  hurry back to  his  Uncle with the  good  tidings.  He was
overjoyed to  have it all arranged and settled next day before noon; and  to
sit down  at  evening in  the little back  parlour  with old Sol and Captain
Cuttle;  and to  see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and hopeful  for
the future, and feeling  that the wooden Midshipman was his own  again.  But
without  the  least impeachment of  his gratitude to Mr  Dombey, it must  be
confessed that  Walter was  humbled and  cast  down. It is  when our budding
hopes  are nipped beyond  recovery by some rough wind, that we are the  most
disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they
had  flourished; and now, when Walter found  himself cut off from that great
Dombey height, by the  depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all
his old wild fancies had been scattered to the winds in  the fall, he  began
to suspect that they might have led him  on to harmless visions  of aspiring
to Florence in the remote distance of time.
     The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different  light. He appeared
to  entertain a belief  that the interview  at  which he had assisted was so
very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a step or two removed  from
a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter; and that the late transaction had
immensely  forwarded, if  not  thoroughly  established,  the  Whittingtonian
hopes.  Stimulated by this conviction, and by the improvement in the spirits
of his old friend, and by his  own consequent gaiety,  he even attempted, in
favouring them  with the ballad of  'Lovely Peg' for the third  time  in one
evening, to make an extemporaneous substitution of the name 'Florence;'  but
finding this difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming to leg
(in which personal beauty  the original was described as having excelled all
competitors),  he hit upon  the happy thought of  changing  it to  Fle-e-eg;
which he accordingly did, with an archness almost supernatural, and  a voice
quite vociferous, notwithstanding that  the time  was close at band when  he
must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger.
     That same evening the Major  was diffuse at his club, on the subject of
his friend Dombey in the City. 'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'he's a prince,
is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If you had a few more
men among you  like old Joe Bagstock and my friend Dombey in the  City, Sir,
you'd do!'

        CHAPTER 11.
     Paul's Introduction to a New Scene

     Mrs Pipchin's constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its
liability to  the  fleshly weaknesses of  standing in  need of repose  after
chops, and  of requiring to be  coaxed  to sleep by  the soporific agency of
sweet-breads,  that it utterly set at naught the  predictions of Mrs Wickam,
and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet,  as Paul's rapt interest in  the old
lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge an inch from the position
she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching herself on the strong ground of
her Uncle's  Betsey Jane,  she  advised Miss Berry, as  a friend, to prepare
herself for the worst; and forewarned her that her  aunt might, at any time,
be expected to go off suddenly, like a powder-mill.
     'I hope, Miss Berry,'  Mrs Wickam would observe, 'that you'll come into
whatever little property there may be to leave.  You deserve it, I am  sure,
for yours is a trying life. Though there don't seem much worth coming into -
you'll excuse my being so open - in this dismal den.'
     Poor  Berry took it all in  good part,  and  drudged and slaved away as
usual; perfectly  convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most meritorious
persons in the world, and making every day innumerable sacrifices of herself
upon the altar of that noble old  woman.  But all these immolations of Berry
were somehow carried  to the  credit of Mrs Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin's friends
and  admirers;  and  were  made to  harmonise  with,  and  carry  out,  that
melancholy fact of the deceased Mr Pipchin having  broken his  heart  in the
Peruvian mines.
     For example,  there  was an honest  grocer  and  general  dealer in the
retail  line of  business,  between whom  and Mrs Pipchin there was  a small
memorandum book, with  a  greasy  red cover,  perpetually  in question,  and
concerning  which divers secret councils  and  conferences were  continually
being held between the parties to that  register, on the mat in the passage,
and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were there wanting dark hints from
Master Bitherstone (whose temper had been made revengeful by the solar heats
of India  acting on his blood), of balances unsettled, and  of a failure, on
one occasion within his  memory, in  the supply  of moist sugar at tea-time.
This grocer being a bachelor and  not  a man who looked upon the surface for
beauty, had  once made honourable offers  for  the hand of  Berry, which Mrs
Pipchin had, with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable
this was in Mrs Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian mines;
and what a staunch, high,  independent  spirit the old lady had. But  nobody
said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks (being soundly rated
by  her good aunt  all  the  time), and  lapsed  into  a state  of  hopeless
spinsterhood.
     'Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin when
they were sitting by the fire with the cat.
     'Yes,' said Mrs Pipchin.
     'Why?' asked Paul.
     'Why!'  returned  the disconcerted  old  lady. 'How  can  you  ask such
things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?'
     'Because she's very good,' said Paul. 'There's nobody like Florence.'
     'Well!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly,  'and there's  nobody like me, I
suppose.'
     'Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in  his chair,
and looking at her very hard.
     'No,' said the old lady.
     'I  am  glad of that,' observed Paul,  rubbing his  hands thoughtfully.
'That's a very good thing.'
     Mrs  Pipchin didn't dare to  ask him  why, lest she should receive some
perfectly  annihilating  answer.  But  as  a  compensation  to  her  wounded
feelings, she  harassed  Master Bitherstone to  that extent  until bed-time,
that he began that very night to make arrangements for an overland return to
India, by secreting  from his supper  a quarter of  a round  of  bread and a
fragment  of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning of a stock of provision to
support him on the voyage.
     Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister for
nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few days; and
had been  constant  in their weekly  visits to  Mr Dombey at the  hotel.  By
little and little  Paul had grown stronger, and had  become able to dispense
with his carriage;  though he  still looked  thin  and  delicate; and  still
remained the  same old,  quiet,  dreamy child  that  he had been  when first
consigned to Mrs  Pipchin's  care.  One Saturday afternoon,  at  dusk, great
consternation  was occasioned in the Castle by the unlooked-for announcement
of Mr Dombey as a visitor  to Mrs Pipchin. The population of the parlour was
immediately  swept upstairs as on the  wings of a whirlwind, and  after much
slamming of  bedroom doors, and trampling overhead,  and some knocking about
of Master Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her
spirits, the  black bombazeen garments  of the  worthy old lady darkened the
audience-chamber where  Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant arm-chair  of
his son and heir.
     'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, 'How do you do?'
     'Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I am pretty well, considering.'
     Mrs Pipchin always used that form of  words. It  meant, considering her
virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
     'I  can't expect, Sir, to  be very well,' said  Mrs Pipchin,  taking  a
chair  and fetching her  breath; 'but such  health as I have, I  am grateful
for.'
     Mr Dombey  inclined his  head with the satisfied  air of a patron,  who
felt that this was  the sort of thing for  which he  paid so much a quarter.
After a moment's silence he went on to say:
     'Mrs  Pipchin, I have taken the  liberty of calling, to consult you  in
reference to my  son. I have had it in my mind to do so  for some time past;
but  have deferred it from time to time,  in order that his health  might be
thoroughly  re-established.  You  have no  misgivings on that  subject,  Mrs
Pipchin?'
     'Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin. 'Very
beneficial, indeed.'
     'I purpose,' said Mr Dombey, 'his remaining at Brighton.'
     Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
     'But,' pursued Mr Dombey, stretching  out his forefinger, 'but possibly
that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind of life here. In
short, Mrs  Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. My  son is  getting on,
Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.'
     There was  something  melancholy  in the  triumphant air  with which Mr
Dombey said this. It showed how  long Paul's childish life  had been to him,
and  how  his hopes were set upon a later  stage of his  existence. Pity may
appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and so cold, and yet
he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.
     'Six years old!'  said Mr Dombey, settling  his neckcloth -  perhaps to
hide an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the surface of
his  face and glance away,  as finding no resting-place, than to  play there
for an instant. 'Dear me, six will be changed to  sixteen,  before  we  have
time to look about us.'
     'Ten  years,'  croaked  the  unsympathetic  Pipchin,   with  a   frosty
glistening  of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent head, 'is
a long time.'
     'It  depends on circumstances, returned Mr  Dombey; 'at all events, Mrs
Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, that in his
studies  he  is  behind  many children of his age  - or  his youth,' said Mr
Dombey, quickly  answering what he mistrusted  was a  shrewd twinkle of  the
frosty eye, 'his youth  is a  more appropriate expression. Now, Mrs Pipchin,
instead  of  being behind  his peers,  my son ought  to be before them;  far
before  them. There is  an eminence ready for him  to mount upon.  There  is
nothing of chance or doubt  in the course before my son. His way in life was
clear and prepared, and marked out before  he existed. The education of such
a young gentleman must not  be  delayed. It must not  be left imperfect.  It
must be very steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs Pipchin.'
     'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I can say nothing to the contrary.'
     'I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,' returned Mr Dombey, approvingly, 'that
a person of your good sense could not, and would not.'
     'There is  a great deal of nonsense  - and worse  - talked  about young
people not being pressed too  hard at  first, and being tempted on,  and all
the rest of it, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked nose.
'It never was thought of in my time, and it has no business to be thought of
now. My opinion is "keep 'em at it".'
     'My good  madam,'  returned  Mr Dombey, 'you  have  not  acquired  your
reputation  undeservedly; and  I  beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that I am
more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and shall have
the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor commendation - '  Mr
Dombey's loftiness when he affected  to disparage his own importance, passed
all  bounds  -  'can  be  of any service. I  have  been  thinking  of Doctor
Blimber's, Mrs Pipchin.'
     'My neighbour,  Sir?' said Mrs Pipchin. 'I believe  the Doctor's  is an
excellent establishment.  I've heard that it's very strictly  conducted, and
there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.'
     'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey.
     'And it's very expensive,  Sir,' returned Mrs  Pipchin, catching at the
fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading merits.
     'I have had some communication  with the  Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr
Dombey, hitching his  chair anxiously a  little nearer to  the fire, 'and he
does  not  consider  Paul  at all  too young for his  purpose. He  mentioned
several  instances of boys in  Greek  at about the  same age. If  I have any
little uneasiness in my own  mind,  Mrs  Pipchin,  on  the  subject  of this
change,  it  is not  on that  head.  My  son not having known  a mother  has
gradually concentrated  much -  too much - of his childish affection on  his
sister. Whether their separation - ' Mr Dombey said no more, but sat silent.
     'Hoity-toity!'  exclaimed  Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen
skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she don't like it, Mr
Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good lady apologised immediately
afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said (and truly) that
that was the way she reasoned with 'em.
     Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin  had  done bridling and shaking  her
head,  and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then said
quietly, but correctively, 'He, my good madam, he.'
     Mrs Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of cure
to any  uneasiness on the part  of Paul, too; but  as the  hard grey eye was
sharp  enough  to see that the  recipe, however Mr Dombey  might  admit  its
efficacy in the case  of the  daughter, was  not a  sovereign remedy for the
son,  she argued the point; and contended that change, and new society,  and
the  different  form of  life he  would lead at Doctor  Blimber's,  and  the
studies  he  would  have  to  master,  would   very  soon  prove  sufficient
alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey's own hope and belief, it gave
that gentleman a still higher opinion of Mrs Pipchin's understanding; and as
Mrs Pipchin, at the same time, bewailed  the loss of  her dear little friend
(which  was  not an  overwhelming shock to her, as she had long expected it,
and had not looked, in the beginning, for his remaining with her longer than
three   months),  he  formed  an  equally  good  opinion  of  Mrs  Pipchin's
disinterestedness. It  was  plain  that  he  had  given  the subject anxious
consideration, for he  had formed a plan, which he announced to  the ogress,
of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the first half year,
during  which time Florence  would  remain at  the  Castle,  that  she might
receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This would wean him by  degrees, Mr
Dombey said;  possibly with a recollection of his not having been  weaned by
degrees on a former occasion.
     Mr  Dombey  finished  the  interview  by  expressing his hope that  Mrs
Pipchin would still remain  in office as general superintendent and overseer
of  his