son, pending his studies at Brighton;  and having  kissed Paul, and
shaken hands with Florence, and  beheld Master Bitherstone in  his collar of
state, and made Miss Pankey cry by  patting her on the head (in which region
she was uncommonly tender, on account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding
it with her  knuckles, like  a cask), he withdrew  to his  hotel and dinner:
resolved that Paul, now that he was getting  so old and well, should begin a
vigorous course of education  forthwith, to qualify  him for the position in
which  he was  to shine;  and that Doctor  Blimber should  take him in  hand
immediately.
     Whenever  a young  gentleman  was taken  in hand by  Doctor Blimber, he
might  consider himself  sure of  a  pretty  tight squeeze.  The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten  young gentlemen, but  he  had, always ready,  a
supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once
the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
     In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which
there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the  boys blew before
their time. Mental green-peas  were produced at  Christmas, and intellectual
asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too)
were  common at untimely seasons, and from  mere  sprouts  of bushes,  under
Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable
was got  off the driest  twigs of boys,  under  the frostiest circumstances.
Nature was of  no consequence at all. No matter  what a young  gentleman was
intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
     This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended  with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right  taste about
the  premature productions, and they didn't  keep well.  Moreover, one young
gentleman, with  a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of
the ten who had 'gone  through'  everything), suddenly left  off blowing one
day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that
the Doctor had rather  overdone it  with young Toots, and that when he began
to have whiskers he left off having brains.
     There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices
and the  shrillest of minds; sticking  ornamental pins  into  his shirt, and
keeping a ring in  his  waistcoat  pocket to put  on  his  little  finger by
stealth, when  the pupils  went out walking;  constantly falling in  love by
sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of  his existence; and  looking  at
the  gas-lighted world  over the little iron  bars  in the  left-hand corner
window  of the  front three pairs of stairs, after bed-time,  like a greatly
overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long.
     The Doctor was a portly gentleman in  a suit of black, with strings  at
his knees, and stockings below  them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a
deep  voice; and a chin  so  very double, that  it was  a wonder how he ever
managed  to shave  into the creases. He had likewise  a pair  of little eyes
that were always  half shut  up, and a mouth that  was  always half expanded
into a grin, as  if  he had, that moment,  posed a  boy, and were waiting to
convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, that when the Doctor put his  right
hand into  the breast of his coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a
fly perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous
stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
     The Doctor's  was a  mighty fine house,  fronting the sea. Not a joyful
style of house within, but quite the contrary.  Sad-coloured curtains, whose
proportions  were  spare  and lean, hid  themselves despondently  behind the
windows. The tables and chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum;
fires were so  rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt  like
wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last
place in the world where any eating or drinking was likely  to  occur; there
was no sound through all the  house but  the ticking of a great clock in the
hall, which made itself audible  in the very  garrets;  and sometimes a dull
cooing of  young gentlemen  at  their  lessons,  like  the murmurings  of an
assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
     Miss Blimber,  too,  although  a slim  and graceful maid,  did  no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss
Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry
and sandy with working in the  graves of deceased  languages.  None of  your
live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be  dead -  stone dead - and then
Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul.
     Mrs Blimber, her Mama,  was not learned  herself,  but she pretended to
be, and  that did  quite as  well. She said at  evening parties, that if she
could have known Cicero, she  thought she could have died  contented. It was
the steady  joy of her  life  to  see  the  Doctor's young  gentlemen go out
walking,  unlike  all  other  young   gentlemen,  in  the  largest  possible
shirt-collars,  and the stiffest possible cravats. It was  so classical, she
said.
     As  to Mr  Feeder, B.A.,  Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind  of
human barrel-organ, with  a little list of tunes at which he was continually
working, over and over  again,  without any variation. He  might  have  been
fitted up  with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his  destiny
had been favourable; but it had  not been;  and he had only one, with which,
in a monotonous round, it was his occupation  to bewilder the young ideas of
Doctor  Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full
of  carking anxieties.  They knew no rest  from the pursuit of stony-hearted
verbs, savage  noun-substantives, inflexible  syntactic passages, and ghosts
of  exercises that  appeared  to  them in their dreams.  Under  the  forcing
system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his  spirits in three weeks.
He had all the cares of the  world on his head in three months. He conceived
bitter sentiments  against his parents or guardians in four; he  was  an old
misanthrope, in  five;  envied Curtius that blessed refuge in  the earth, in
six; and  at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion,
from which he never afterwards departed, that all  the fancies of the poets,
and  lessons of  the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and
had no other meaning in the world.
     But he  went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse,  all the
time;  and the Doctor's glory  and reputation were  great, when he took  his
wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
     Upon  the Doctor's  door-steps  one day, Paul  stood with a  fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in  his father's.  His other  hand  was
locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how
loose and cold the other!
     Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage  and  her
hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for Mr Dombey,
full of great thoughts, had walked  fast -  and she croaked hoarsely as  she
waited for the opening of the door.
     'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is  the way indeed to be
Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'
     'Almost,' returned the child.
     Even  his childish agitation could not  master  the sly and quaint  yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.
     It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's face;
but the door being opened, it was quickly gone
     'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
     The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he were a
little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was  a weak-eyed young man, with
the first faint streaks or early  dawn of a grin  on his countenance. It was
mere  imbecility;  but  Mrs Pipchin  took  it  into  her  head  that  it was
impudence, and made a snap at him directly.
     'How  dare you  laugh behind  the gentleman's back?' said  Mrs Pipchin.
'And what do you take me for?'
     'I  ain't  a laughing at  nobody,  and I'm sure  I don't  take  you for
nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.
     'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs  Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits. Go
and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for you!'
     The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of this
commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's study.
     'You're  laughing again,  Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin,  when it  came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
     'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously  oppressed.  'I never see
such a thing as this!'
     'What  is the matter, Mrs  Pipchin?'  said Mr  Dombey,  looking  round.
'Softly! Pray!'
     Mrs Pipchin, in her deference,  merely muttered at the young man as she
passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the young man,
who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears by the incident.
But  Mrs  Pipchin  had a way  of falling  foul of  all meek people; and  her
friends said who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian mines!
     The Doctor was sitting in his  portentous  study, with a globe  at each
knee,  books  all round  him,  Homer  over  the  door,  and  Minerva  on the
mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and how is my
little  friend?'  Grave as  an  organ was the Doctor's speech; and  when  he
ceased, the great clock in  the  hall seemed (to  Paul at least) to take him
up, and to go on saying,  'how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?  how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?' over and over and over again.
     The  little  friend  being something too small to be seen  at all  from
where  the  Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made several
futile  attempts  to get  a  view of him round  the  legs;  which  Mr Dombey
perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by taking  Paul up in
his arms, and sitting him on  another little table, over against the Doctor,
in the middle of the room.
     'Ha!' said the Doctor,  leaning  back in his chair with his hand in his
breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?'
     The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the form
of words, but continued  to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?  how,  is,
my, lit, tle, friend?'
     'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock quite
as much as the Doctor.
     'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?'
     'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.
     'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.
     'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.
     'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?'
     The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of
suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one  hand proudly on his knee as
if he had the rising tears beneath it, and  crushed them. But his other hand
strayed a little way the  while, a  little farther  - farther from him yet -
until it lighted on  the  neck of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say,
and  then  the steady look  was  broken up and  gone; the  working  lip  was
loosened; and the tears came streaming forth.
     'Mrs  Pipchin,'  said his father, in a querulous  manner, 'I  am really
very sorry to see this.'
     'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.
     'Never mind,' said the Doctor,  blandly nodding  his  head, to keep Mrs
Pipchin  back.  'Never  mind;   we  shall  substitute  new  cares   and  new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish  my little friend
to acquire - '
     'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly.
     'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with  his  half-shut  eyes,  and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might  attach to
some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall
impart a  great variety of information to our little  friend, and bring  him
quickly forward,  I daresay.  I  daresay. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you
said, Mr Dombey?'
     'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,' replied
Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated a rigidity to
her  whole  muscular system, and snorted defiance beforehand,  in  case  the
Doctor should disparage  her;  'except so  far, Paul  has,  as yet,  applied
himself to no studies at all.'
     Doctor  Blimber  inclined   his  head,  in  gentle  tolerance  of  such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear it. It
was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to begin  at the
foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would have liked to tackle
him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.
     'That  circumstance,  indeed,  Doctor  Blimber,'  pursued  Mr   Dombey,
glancing at  his  little  son, 'and the  interview  I  have already  had the
pleasure  of  holding  with  you,  renders  any  further   explanation,  and
consequently,  any further intrusion on  your valuable time, so unnecessary,
that - '
     'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.
     'Permit me,' said  the  Doctor, 'one moment.  Allow me  to present  Mrs
Blimber  and my daughter; who  will be associated  with the domestic life of
our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,'  for the  lady, who had perhaps
been in waiting, opportunely  entered,  followed by her daughter,  that fair
Sexton  in  spectacles,  'Mr  Dombey.  My daughter Cornelia,  Mr  Dombey. Mr
Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning to his wife,  'is so confiding
as to - do you see our little friend?'
     Mrs Blimber, in an excess  of politeness, of  which  Mr  Dombey was the
object, apparently  did not, for she was  backing against the little friend,
and very much  endangering his position on the table. But, on this hint, she
turned  to  admire  his classical  and intellectual lineaments, and  turning
again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she envied his dear son.
     'Like a  bee,  Sir,' said Mrs  Blimber,  with uplifted eyes,  'about to
plunge  into a garden  of  the choicest flowers, and sip  the sweets for the
first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero.  What a world  of
honey  have  we  here. It may  appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in one who is a
wife - the wife of such a husband - '
     'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.'
     'Mr  Dombey will forgive the  partiality  of a wife,' said Mrs Blimber,
with an engaging smile.
     Mr Dombey answered 'Not  at  all:' applying those  words, it  is  to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
     'And it may seem remarkable in one  who is a mother also,' resumed  Mrs
Blimber.
     'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused idea
of being complimentary to Cornelia.
     'But  really,' pursued Mrs  Blimber,  'I  think  if I could  have known
Cicero, and  been his  friend,  and  talked  with him in  his  retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'
     A  learned  enthusiasm is  so  very  contagious,  that  Mr Dombey  half
believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not, as we
have seen, of an accommodating  disposition  generally,  gave utterance to a
little  sound between  a groan and a  sigh, as if she  would  have said that
nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that failure
of  the Peruvian MInes, but that he indeed would have  been a very Davy-lamp
of refuge.
     Cornelia looked at Mr  Dombey through her spectacles,  as if  she would
have liked  to  crack  a  few  quotations  with  him from  the authority  in
question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a  knock
at the room-door.
     'Who  is  that?'  said  the Doctor. 'Oh!  Come in,  Toots; come  in. Mr
Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Here
we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy, Mr Dombey.'
     The Doctor might  have called him their  head and shoulders boy, for he
was at least that much taller than  any of the rest. He blushed very much at
finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
     'An  addition  to our  little  Portico,  Toots,'  said the  Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'
     Young  Toots blushed  again; and finding,  from a solemn  silence which
prevailed, that he was expected  to say something,  said to  Paul, 'How  are
you?' in a voice so  deep, and  a manner  so sheepish, that if  a  lamb  had
roared it couldn't have been more surprising.
     'Ask Mr Feeder, if  you please,  Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare a
few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot  him a convenient
seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen the dormitories.'
     'If Mr Dombey will  walk upstairs,' said Mrs  Blimber, 'I shall be more
than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'
     With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a  lady of  great  suavity, and a  wiry
figure, and who wore  a cap  composed  of sky-blue  materials, pied upstairs
with  Mr Dombey  and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and looking out  sharp
for her enemy the footman.
     While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table,  holding Florence by the
hand,  and glancing timidly from the Doctor round  and round the room, while
the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast as usual,
held a  book  from him at  arm's length, and read. There was  something very
awful in this manner of reading. It  was such  a  determined, unimpassioned,
inflexible,  cold-blooded  way  of  going  to  work. It  left  the  Doctor's
countenance exposed to view; and  when the Doctor smiled suspiciously at his
author, or  knit his brows, or shook his  head and made wry faces at him, as
much as to say, 'Don't tell me, Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.
     Toots, too, had no  business  to be outside  the  door,  ostentatiously
examining  the wheels in  his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But  that
didn't  last  long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change  the position of
his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished,
and appeared no more.
     Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs  again,
talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's study.
     'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor,  laying down  his book, 'that the
arrangements meet your approval.'
     'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Very fair,  indeed,' said  Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never disposed
to give too much encouragement.
     'Mrs  Pipchin,'  said  Mr  Dombey,  wheeling  round,  'will, with  your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'
     'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.
     'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber.
     'I think,'  said Mr  Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I  need, and
may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he sat upon the
table. 'Good-bye.'
     'Good-bye, Papa.'
     The limp  and  careless little hand  that Mr  Dombey took  in his,  was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part  in  its
sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To Florence - all
to Florence.
     If Mr  Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever  made an enemy, hard
to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy might have
received  the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as compensation  for his
injury.
     He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were dimmed as
he did so, by something that for  a moment blurred the little face, and made
it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, for that short  time,
the clearer perhaps.
     'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, you
know.'
     'Yes,  Papa,' returned Paul: looking  at his  sister. 'On Saturdays and
Sundays.'
     'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,' said
Mr Dombey; 'won't you?'
     'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily.
     'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey.
     'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look  passed
rapidly across  his features like a strange  light. It fell on Mrs  Pipchin,
and extinguished  itself in her  black dress.  That excellent ogress stepped
forward to take leave and  to  bear  off Florence, which  she  had long been
thirsting to do. The move on her part roused  Mr  Dombey,  whose  eyes  were
fixed on Paul. After patting him on  the head, and  pressing  his small hand
again, he took leave of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber,  with
his usual polite frigidity, and walked out of the study.
     Despite his  entreaty  that they would  not think  of  stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and  Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him to
the hall; and thus Mrs  Pipchin got  into a state of entanglement  with Miss
Blimber and the Doctor, and was  crowded  out of the  study before she could
clutch Florence. To which happy accident  Paul stood afterwards indebted for
the  dear remembrance,  that Florence ran back to throw  her arms round  his
neck, and that  hers was  the last face  in the doorway: turned  towards him
with a  smile of encouragement, the brighter  for the tears through which it
beamed.
     It made his childish bosom heave and swell  when it was gone; and  sent
the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round the room. But
they stopped, all  of a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in the hall
still gravely inquiring  'how,  is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is,  my, lit,
tle, friend?' as it had done before.
     He sat, with  folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently  listening. But
he might have answered 'weary,  weary!  very lonely,  very sad!'  And there,
with  an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and  bare,
and  strange,  Paul  sat  as  if  he had  taken  life  unfurnished, and  the
upholsterer were never coming.

        CHAPTER 12.
     Paul's Education

     After  the  lapse of  some minutes,  which appeared an immense time  to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The Doctor's walk
was  stately,  and  calculated  to impress  the juvenile  mind  with  solemn
feelings.  It was a sort of march; but  when the Doctor  put out  his  right
foot, he gravely  turned upon  his axis, with a semi-circular sweep  towards
the left; and when he  put out his left foot, he turned in  the same  manner
towards the right. So that he seemed, at every stride he took, to look about
him as though he were saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any
subject, in any direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not'
     Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and the
Doctor,  lifting his new  pupil  off  the table, delivered him over to  Miss
Blimber.
     'Cornelia,' said  the Doctor, 'Dombey  will be your  charge  at  first.
Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'
     Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and Paul,
feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.
     'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.
     'Six,'  answered  Paul,  wondering, as  he stole a glance at the  young
lady, why her hair didn't grow  long like Florence's, and why she was like a
boy.
     'How  much  do  you know  of  your  Latin Grammar, Dombey?'  said  Miss
Blimber.
     'None of  it,' answered Paul.  Feeling that the answer was  a  shock to
Miss  Blimber's sensibility, he  looked  up  at the three  faces  that  were
looking down at him, and said:
     'I  have'n't been well. I  have been  a  weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar  when I was  out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd tell
old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'
     'What  a  dreadfully low  name' said  Mrs Blimber.  'Unclassical  to  a
degree! Who is the monster, child?'
     'What monster?' inquired Paul.
     'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.
     'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.
     'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha! What's
that?'
     Paul  was  dreadfully frightened; but  still  he made a  stand  for the
absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.
     'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used  to draw my couch.
He knows all about the deep sea,  and the fish that are in it, and the great
monsters  that come  and lie  on rocks in the sun,  and dive into the  water
again when they're  startled, blowing and  splashing  so, that they  can  be
heard for miles.  There are some  creatures, said  Paul,  warming  with  his
subject, 'I  don't know how many yards  long, and I forget their  names, but
Florence knows, that  pretend to be in  distress; and when  a man  goes near
them, out of compassion, they open their great jaws, and attack him. But all
he has got to do,'  said Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very
Doctor himself,  'is to keep on  turning as he runs away, and then, as  they
turn  slowly, because they are so  long,  and can't  bend, he's sure to beat
them. And though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my
Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always saying! he
knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child concluded, with a sudden
falling  of his countenance, and failing in his animation, as he looked like
one forlorn, upon the three strange faces, 'that  you'd let  old  Glubb come
here to see me, for I know him very well, and he knows me.
     'Ha!' said the Doctor,  shaking his head; 'this is  bad, but study will
do much.'
     Mrs Blimber opined,  with  something like  a  shiver, that  he  was  an
unaccountable  child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked  at
him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.
     'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and familiarise
him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'
     Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and looking at
her  sideways,  with  timid  curiosity, as they went  away together. For her
spectacles,  by  reason  of  the glistening  of the  glasses,  made  her  so
mysterious, that he didn't  know where she  was looking,  and was not indeed
quite sure that she had any eyes at all behind them.
     Cornelia took him first  to  the schoolroom,  which was situated at the
back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which deadened
and  muffled the  young  gentlemen's voices. Here,  there  were eight  young
gentlemen  in various  stages of mental prostration, all very hard at  work,
and very grave indeed. Toots, as an  old hand,  had a desk to himself in one
corner: and a  magnificent man,  of immense age, he looked, in  Paul's young
eyes, behind it.
     Mr Feeder,  B.A., who sat at  another little desk, had  his Virgil stop
on,  and was slowly  grinding  that  tune  to  four  young gentlemen. Of the
remaining four, two, who  grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged
in solving mathematical problems; one  with his  face like  a dirty  window,
from much  crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of
lines before dinner; and  one sat  looking at his task in stony stupefaction
and  despair  - which it  seemed had been his condition ever since breakfast
time.
     The appearance of  a new  boy  did not create the sensation that  might
have been  expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the  habit of  shaving  his
head for coolness, and  had  nothing but little bristles on it), gave  him a
bony  hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul would have been
very  glad  to  have  told him,  if  he  could have  done  so with the least
sincerity.  Then Paul, instructed  by Cornelia, shook  hands  with  the four
young gentlemen  at Mr Feeder's desk; then with  the two  young gentlemen at
work on the problems, who were very feverish; then with  the young gentleman
at work against time, who was very inky; and lastly with the young gentleman
in a state of stupefaction, who was flabby and quite cold.
     Paul  having  been  already  introduced  to  Toots,  that pupil  merely
chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the occupation in
which he was engaged. It  was not a severe one; for on account of his having
'gone through' so much (in more senses than one), and also of his having, as
before hinted, left  off  blowing in  his  prime, Toots  now had licence  to
pursue his own course of study: which  was chiefly to write  long letters to
himself  from  persons  of distinction, adds 'P.  Toots,  Esquire, Brighton,
Sussex,' and to preserve them in his desk with great care.
     These ceremonies passed,  Cornelia led Paul  upstairs to the top of the
house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being obliged  to
land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another.  But  they reached
their  journey's end at last; and there, in  a front room, looking  over the
wild sea, Cornelia showed him a  nice little bed  with white hangings, close
to the window,  on which there was already  beautifully written on a card in
round  text - down strokes very  thick, and up  strokes very fine -  DOMBEY;
while two  other little bedsteads  in the same  room were announced, through
like means, as respectively appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER.
     Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the weak-eyed
young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin, suddenly seize a
very large drumstick,  and fly at a gong that was hanging up, as  if  he had
gone mad, or  wanted  vengeance.  Instead of receiving warning,  however, or
being instantly taken into custody, the  young man left off unchecked, after
having  made  a dreadful  noise. Then Cornelia Blimber  said to Dombey  that
dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, and perhaps  he had better go
into the schoolroom among his 'friends.'
     So Dombey, deferentially passing  the great clock  which was  still  as
anxious as ever to know how  he found himself, opened  the schoolroom door a
very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting  it after him with
some difficulty.  His  friends were all dispersed about the room  except the
stony  friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder was  stretching himself in
his grey gown, as  if, regardless of expense, he  were resolved to  pull the
sleeves off.
     'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse. 'Oh
dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!'
     Paul was quite  alarmed by  Mr Feeder's yawning; it was  done on such a
great  scale, and he was so terribly  in  earnest.  All the boys too  (Toots
excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for  dinner - some newly
tying their  neckcloths,  which were very  stiff  indeed; and others washing
their hands or brushing  their hair,  in an  adjoining ante-chamber -  as if
they didn't think they should enjoy it at all.
     Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore  nothing to do,
and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:
     'Sit down, Dombey.'
     'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
     His endeavouring to hoist  himself on  to a very high  window-seat, and
his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind  for the reception
of a discovery.
     'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots.
     'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.'
     For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.
     'Who's your tailor?'  inquired Toots, after  looking  at  him  for some
moments.
     'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My sister's
dressmaker.'
     'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very dear.'
     Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he  would have said it was
easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.
     'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots.
     'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.'
     'And which?' demanded Toots.
     'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul.
     Mr Toots  made one or two attempts, in  a low voice, to fix the Firm in
his mind; but  not quite succeeding, said he would  get Paul to mention  the
name again  to-morrow  morning, as  it was rather important. And  indeed  he
purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and confidential letter
from Dombey and Son immediately.
     By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy) gathered
round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they were so depressed
in their spirits, that  in comparison with the general tone of that company,
Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller, or complete Jest Book.' And yet  he
had a sense of injury upon him, too, had Bitherstone.
     'You sleep in  my room,  don't  you?' asked  a solemn  young gentleman,
whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
     'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul.
     'Tozer,' said the young gentleman.
     Paul  answered yes; and  Tozer pointing  out the stony pupil, said that
was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must  be either Briggs  or
Tozer, though he didn't know why.
     'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer.
     Paul  said he  thought  not.  Tozer replied  that he thought  not also,
judging from Paul's looks,  and that it was a pity, for it  need be. He then
asked Paul  if he were  going  to begin with  Cornelia; and  on Paul  saying
'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan.
     It was  drowned in  the  tintinnabulation  of the gong,  which sounding
again  with great fury,  there was  a general  move towards the dining-room;
still  excepting Briggs the  stony boy, who remained where he was, and as he
was;  and  on its way  to whom  Paul presently encountered a round of bread,
genteelly  served  on  a plate  and  napkin, and  with a silver  fork  lying
crosswise on the top of it.
     Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at  the top
of the table, with  Miss Blimber and Mrs  Blimber on either  side of him. Mr
Feeder in a black  coat  was  at  the bottom. Paul's chair was next to  Miss
Blimber; but it being found, when he  sat in it,  that his eyebrows were not
much above the level of the table-cloth, some books were brought in from the
Doctor's study, on which he  was elevated, and on which  he always sat  from
that  time  - carrying  them  in and out himself on  after occasions, like a
little elephant and castle.'
     Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some nice
soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. Every young
gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a  napkin; and all the arrangements
were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a butler in a  blue coat
and bright  buttons, who gave quite a winey  flavour to the table  beer;  he
poured it out so superbly.
     Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and
Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young gentleman was not
actually  engaged  with his  knife  and  fork  or spoon, his  eye,  with  an
irresistible attraction,  sought the eye of Doctor Blimber,  Mrs Blimber, or
Miss  Blimber,  and  modestly rested  there. Toots  appeared to  be the only
exception  to this rule. He sat next Mr Feeder on Paul's  side of the table,
and  frequently  looked  behind and before  the  intervening boys to catch a
glimpse of Paul.
     Only once  during dinner was  there any conversation that  included the
young  gentlemen. It happened at  the epoch  of the cheese, when the Doctor,
having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice, said:
     'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '
     At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every
young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of the
deepest  interest.  One  of the number who happened to  be drinking, and who
caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left
off so hastily that he was  convulsed for some  moments,  and in  the sequel
ruined Doctor Blimber's point.
     'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again slowly,
'that the Romans, in  those gorgeous and profuse  entertainments of which we
read in the days of the Emperors,  when luxury had attained a height unknown
before  or  since,  and  when  whole  provinces  were ravaged  to supply the
splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - '
     Here  the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting in
vain for a full stop, broke out violently.
     'Johnson,'  said Mr Feeder,  in a  low reproachful  voice,  'take  some
water.'
     The Doctor,  looking  very stern,  made a pause  until  the  water  was
brought, and then resumed:
     'And when, Mr Feeder - '
     But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson  must break out again, and who knew
that the Doctor would never  come to a period  before  the  young  gentlemen
until  he  had  finished all he  meant  to say, couldn't  keep  his eye  off
Johnson;  and thus was caught in the fact  of not looking at the Doctor, who
consequently stopped.
     'I beg your pardon,  Sir,' said  Mr  Feeder,  reddening.  'I  beg  your
pardon, Doctor Blimber.'
     'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we read,
and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the vulgar - of
our time -  the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a feast, in which were
served, of fish, two thousand dishes - '
     'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder.
     'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.'
     'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder.
     'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still  higher
as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous dimensions, the
Shield of Minerva, and made, among  other costly ingredients, of  the brains
of pheasants - '
     'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.)
     'Woodcocks - '
     'Ow, ow, ow!'
     'The sounds of the fish called scari - '
     'You'll  burst  some vessel in  your head,' said Mr  Feeder.  'You  had
better let it come.'
     'And  the  spawn of  the  lamprey, brought  from the  Carpathian  Sea,'
pursued  the  Doctor,  in his  severest  voice;  'when  we  read  of  costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus - '
     'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!' said Mr
Feeder.
     'A Domitian - '
     'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder.
     'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more, pursued
the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder  - if you are doing me the honour to attend  -
remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - '
     But Johnson,  unable to suppress it any longer, burst  at  that  moment
into such an  overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his immediate
neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder  himself  held a  glass of
water  to his lips, and the  butler walked  him up  and  down  several times
between his own chair and the sideboard,  like a sentry, it  was a full five
minutes  before  he  was  moderately composed.  Then  there was  a  profound
silence.
     'Gentlemen,'  said  Doctor  Blimber, 'rise for  Grace!  Cornelia,  lift
Dombey down' - nothing of  whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above the
tablecloth. 'Johnson  will repeat  to me  tomorrow morning before breakfast,
without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the Epistle
of  Saint  Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our  studies, Mr Feeder, in
half-an-hour.'
     The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did  likewise. During
the half-hour, the young  gentlemen,  broken into pairs, loitered arm-in-arm
up and  down a small  piece  of ground behind  the house,  or endeavoured to
kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs. But nothing happened so
vulgar as play. Punctually at the  appointed time, the gong was sounded, and
the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor Blimber  and Mr Feeder, were
resumed.
     As the Olympic  game of lounging up  and down had been cut shorter than
usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went  out for  a  walk before
tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook  of  this dissipation;
in  the enjoyment  of  which  he  looked