over the  cliff two or three times
darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them;  and  Paul had the honour  of being
taken  in tow  by the Doctor himself:  a distinguished  state  of things, in
which he looked very little and feeble.
     Tea was  served in a style  no less polite  than the  dinner; and after
tea, the young gentlemen rising  and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch  up
the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the  already looming tasks of
to-morrow.  In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his own room; and Paul sat
in a corner wondering whether  Florence  was thinking of him,  and what they
were all about at Mrs Pipchin's.
     Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the Duke of
Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at him for a long
while, as before, inquired if he was fond of waistcoats.
     Paul said 'Yes, Sir.'
     'So am I,' said Toots.
     No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul as if
he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not inclined to
talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.
     At  eight o'clock or so,  the gong  sounded  again  for prayers  in the
dining-room,  where the  butler  afterwards  presided  over a side-table, on
which bread  and cheese  and beer were  spread for such young  gentlemen  as
desired  to partake of those  refreshments. The ceremonies concluded by  the
Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven to-morrow;'
and then, for the first time, Paul  saw Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that
it  was upon him. When the Doctor had said these words, 'Gentlemen,  we will
resume our studies  at seven tomorrow,' the  pupils bowed again, and went to
bed.
     In the confidence of  their  own  room  upstairs, Briggs  said his head
ached ready to split, and that  he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for
his  mother,  and a  blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say much,  but he
sighed  a  good  deal,  and told  Paul to look out, for his turn would  come
to-morrow.  After  uttering  those  prophetic  words, he  undressed  himself
moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed  too, and  Paul  in his bed
too,  before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take  away the candle, when
he  wished them good-night and pleasant  dreams.  But  his benevolent wishes
were in vain, as far  as Briggs and Tozer were  concerned; for Paul, who lay
awake  for a long while,  and often woke  afterwards,  found that Briggs was
ridden by his lesson as a nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected
in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or
scraps of Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of
night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
     Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking  hand
in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens,  when they came to  a large
sunflower which  suddenly expanded  itself into  a gong, and began to sound.
Opening his eyes,  he  found that  it  was  a  dark, windy  morning,  with a
drizzling  rain:  and  that  the  real gong  was  giving  dreadful  note  of
preparation, down in the hall.
     So  he got  up directly,  and found  Briggs with hardly  any  eyes, for
nightmare  and grief had  made  his  face puffy, putting his boots on: while
Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very  bad humour.  Poor
Paul couldn't  dress himself easily, not being used to it, and asked them if
they would have  the goodness  to tie  some strings for him;  but  as Briggs
merely  said  'Bother!'  and  Tozer,  'Oh yes!' he  went  down when  he  was
otherwise ready, to  the next storey, where he saw a  pretty  young woman in
leather gloves, cleaning a  stove.  The young woman seemed surprised  at his
appearance, and asked  him where his mother was.  When Paul told her she was
dead, she  took her  gloves  off, and did  what  he wanted; and  furthermore
rubbed his hands to warm them; and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he
wanted anything  of  that  sort - meaning in the dressing way  - to ask  for
'Melia; which Paul, thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then
proceeded softly on his  journey  downstairs, towards  the room in which the
young gentlemen resumed  their studies,  when, passing by a door that  stood
ajar, a voice from within  cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying,  'Yes,
Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber said, 'Come
in, Dombey.' And in he went.  Miss Blimber presented exactly  the appearance
she had presented yesterday, except that she wore a shawl.  Her little light
curls were as crisp  as ever, and  she had already her spectacles  on, which
made Paul wonder whether  she  went to  bed  in them.  She had a cool little
sitting-room of her  own up there, with some books in  it, and no  fire  But
Miss Blimber was never cold, and never sleepy.
     Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I am going out for a constitutional.'
     Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn't send the footman out to
get  it  in  such unfavourable  weather. But  he made  no observation on the
subject: his attention being devoted to a little pile of new books, on which
Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged.
     'These are yours, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber.
     'All of 'em, Ma'am?' said Paul.
     'Yes,'  returned  Miss Blimber; 'and Mr  Feeder will look you  out some
more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, Dombey.'
     'Thank you, Ma'am,' said Paul.
     'I am going out for a constitutional,' resumed Miss Blimber; 'and while
I  am  gone,  that  is to  say in  the interval between  this and breakfast,
Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in  these  books,  and to
tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. Don't lose time,
Dombey, for  you  have none  to spare, but take them  downstairs, and  begin
directly.'
     'Yes, Ma'am,' answered Paul.
     There were so  many of  them, that although Paul put one hand under the
bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged them
all  closely, the  middle book slipped out  before he reached  the door, and
then  they all  tumbled down  on the floor. Miss Blimber said, 'Oh,  Dombey,
Dombey, this is really very careless!' and piled them up afresh for him; and
this  time, by dint of balancing them with great nicety, Paul got out of the
room, and  down a few stairs before  two of them escaped again.  But he held
the rest so tight, that he only left one more on the first floor, and one in
the passage; and when he had got the  main body down into the schoolroom, he
set off upstairs again to collect the stragglers. Having at last amassed the
whole  library, and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a
remark from Tozer  to the effect that he 'was in  for it now;' which was the
only interruption he received till breakfast  time. At  that meal, for which
he had  no appetite, everything was quite  as solemn  and  genteel as at the
others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss Blimber upstairs.
     'Now, Dombey,'  said Miss  Blimber. 'How  have  you  got on  with those
books?'
     They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin - names of things,
declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and preliminary
rules - a trifle of orthography, a  glance at ancient history, a wink or two
at modern ditto, a few tables, two  or three  weights  and measures,  and  a
little general  information. When poor  Paul had  spelt out  number two,  he
found he had no  idea of number one;  fragments whereof  afterwards obtruded
themselves into  number three, which  slided into number four, which grafted
itself on to  number two. So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus,  or
hic  haec  hoc was  troy weight, or a verb  always  agreed  with  an ancient
Briton, or three times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.
     'Oh, Dombey, Dombey!' said Miss Blimber, 'this is very shocking.'
     'If you please,' said Paul, 'I think if I might sometimes talk a little
to old Glubb, I should be able to do better.'
     'Nonsense, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't  hear of it. This is
not  the place for  Glubbs  of any  kind. You  must take  the books down,  I
suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day's instalment of
subject A, before  you turn at all to subject B.  I am sorry to say, Dombey,
that your education appears to have been very much neglected.'
     'So Papa says,' returned Paul; 'but  I  told  you  - I have been a weak
child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.'
     'Who is Wickam?' asked Miss Blimber.
     'She has been my nurse,' Paul answered.
     'I  must  beg  you  not  to  mention  Wickam to  me, then,'  said  Miss
Blimber.'I couldn't allow it'.
     'You asked me who she was,' said Paul.
     'Very well,'  returned Miss  Blimber; 'but this  is all  very different
indeed  from  anything  of  that  sort,  Dombey,  and  I couldn't  think  of
permitting it. As to having been weak, you must  begin to be strong. And now
take  away the top book,  if you  please,  Dombey, and return when  you  are
master of the theme.'
     Miss  Blimber  expressed  her  opinions  on  the  subject   of   Paul's
uninstructed state with  a  gloomy  delight,  as if  she  had expected  this
result, and were glad  to find that they must be  in constant communication.
Paul  withdrew with the  top task,  as he was told, and laboured away at it,
down below: sometimes remembering every word of it, and sometimes forgetting
it  all, and everything  else  besides:  until at  last he ventured upstairs
again to repeat the lesson, when it  was nearly all driven out of  his  head
before he began, by Miss Blimber's shutting up the book, and  saying, 'Good,
Dombey!' a proceeding  so  suggestive of  the knowledge inside of  her, that
Paul looked upon the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned Guy
Faux, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full of scholastic straw.
     He  acquitted  himself  very  well,  nevertheless;  and  Miss  Blimber,
commending  him as giving promise of  getting on fast, immediately  provided
him with subject B; from which he passed to C,  and even D before dinner. It
was  hard work, resuming his studies, soon after dinner;  and  he felt giddy
and  confused  and drowsy and  dull.  But  all the other young gentlemen had
similar  sensations, and were obliged to resume their studies too,  if there
were any comfort in that.  It was a wonder that the great clock in the hall,
instead of being  constant to its  first inquiry, never said, 'Gentlemen, we
will now resume  our studies,' for that phrase was often  enough repeated in
its neighbourhood. The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the young
gentlemen were always stretched upon it.
     After tea there were exercises again, and preparations  for next day by
candlelight. And in due course there was bed; where, but for that resumption
of   the  studies  which  took  place   in  dreams,   were  rest  and  sweet
forgetfulness.
     Oh Saturdays!  Oh happy Saturdays, when Florence always  came at  noon,
and never  would, in any weather, stay away, though  Mrs Pipchin snarled and
growled,  and worried her bitterly. Those Saturdays  were  Sabbaths  for  at
least two little  Christians among all  the Jews, and  did the holy  Sabbath
work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's and a sister's love.
     Not even Sunday nights - the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow darkened
the  first  waking burst of light  on  Sunday  mornings  -  could  mar those
precious Saturdays. Whether it was the  great sea-shore, where they sat, and
strolled  together; or whether it was only Mrs Pipchin's dull back  room, in
which she sang  to him so softly, with  his drowsy head  upon her  arm; Paul
never  cared. It was Florence. That was  all he thought of.  So,  on  Sunday
nights,  when  the  Doctor's dark door  stood agape to  swallow  him  up for
another week, the time was come for taking leave of Florence; no one else.
     Mrs Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, and Miss Nipper,
now a smart young  woman, had come down. To many  a single combat  with  Mrs
Pipchin,  did Miss Nipper gallantly devote herself, and if ever Mrs  Pipchin
in all her life had found her match, she had found it now. Miss Nipper threw
away the scabbard the  first morning she arose in Mrs Pipchin's  house.  She
asked and gave no quarter. She said it must be war, and war it was;  and Mrs
Pipchin  lived  from that  time in  the midst of surprises,  harassings, and
defiances, and skirmishing attacks that  came bouncing in upon her  from the
passage, even in unguarded  moments of  chops, and carried desolation to her
very toast.
     Miss Nipper had  returned  one Sunday night with Florence, from walking
back  with Paul to the Doctor's, when Florence took from her  bosom a little
piece of paper, on which she had pencilled down some words.
     'See here, Susan,' she  said.  'These are the names of the little books
that Paul brings home to  do those long exercises with, when he is so tired.
I copied them last night while he was writing.'
     'Don't show 'em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,' returned Nipper, 'I'd
as soon see Mrs Pipchin.'
     'I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, tomorrow morning. I
have money enough,' said Florence.
     'Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy,'  returned Miss Nipper, 'how can
you talk  like that,  when you have books upon books  already, and masterses
and mississes a teaching of you everything continual, though  my  belief  is
that  your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you nothing, never would
have  thought of  it, unless you'd asked him - when be couldn't well refuse;
but giving consent when asked, and offering when unasked, Miss, is quite two
things; I may not have my  objections to  a young man's keeping company with
me, and  when he  puts the question,  may say  "yes," but  that's not saying
"would you be so kind as like me."'
     'But you can buy me the books, Susan; and you will, when you know why I
want them.'
     'Well,  Miss, and  why  do you want 'em?'  replied Nipper; adding, in a
lower  voice,  'If  it was to  fling  at  Mrs  Pipchin's  head,  I'd  buy  a
cart-load.'
     'Paul has  a great deal  too  much to do, Susan,' said Florence,  'I am
sure of it.'
     'And well  you  may be, Miss,'  returned  her maid, 'and make your mind
quite easy that the willing dear  is  worked and worked away.  If  those  is
Latin  legs,' exclaimed  Miss Nipper, with  strong feeling -  in allusion to
Paul's; 'give me English ones.'
     'I am  afraid he  feels  lonely  and  lost at Doctor Blimber's, Susan,'
pursued Florence, turning away her face.
     'Ah,' said Miss Nipper, with great sharpness, 'Oh, them "Blimbers"'
     'Don't blame anyone,' said Florence. 'It's a mistake.'
     'I say nothing about blame, Miss,' cried Miss Nipper, 'for  I know that
you  object, but I may wish, Miss, that the  family was set to work to  make
new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the pickaxe.'
     After this  speech, Miss Nipper, who was  perfectly serious, wiped  her
eyes.
     'I think  I could  perhaps give Paul some help,  Susan, if I  had these
books,' said Florence, 'and make the coming week a little easier to  him. At
least I want to try. So buy them for me, dear, and  I  will never forget how
kind it was of you to do it!'
     It must  have been a harder heart than  Susan  Nipper's that could have
rejected the little purse Florence held out with  these words, or the gentle
look of entreaty with which she seconded her  petition. Susan put the  purse
in her pocket without reply, and trotted out at once upon her errand.
     The books  were not  easy to procure;  and the answer at several  shops
was, either that they  were just out of  them, or that they never kept them,
or that they had had  a great many last month, or that they expected a great
many  next week But Susan was not easily baffled in  such an enterprise; and
having  entrapped  a white-haired  youth, in  a black  calico  apron, from a
library where she was known, to accompany her in her quest, she led him such
a life in going up and down, that  he exerted  himself to the utmost, if  it
were only to get rid  of  her; and finally  enabled  her  to  return home in
triumph.
     With  these  treasures  then,  after  her  own daily lessons were over,
Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps through the thorny ways
of  learning; and  being possessed of  a naturally quick and sound capacity,
and  taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it was  not long before
she gained upon Paul's heels, and caught and passed him.
     Not a  word of this was breathed to Mrs Pipchin: but  many a night when
they were all in  bed,  and when Miss  Nipper, with her  hair in papers  and
herself asleep  in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed unconscious  by  her
side;  and when the chinking ashes in the grate were cold and grey; and when
the candles were burnt down and guttering out;  - Florence tried  so hard to
be a  substitute for one  small Dombey, that her fortitude and  perseverance
might have almost won her a free right to bear the name herself.
     And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul  was
sitting down as usual to 'resume his studies,' she sat down by his side, and
showed him all that  was  so rough, made  smooth, and all that was  so dark,
made clear and  plain,  before him. It was  nothing but  a startled  look in
Paul's wan  face -  a flush  - a smile -  and then a close embrace - but God
knows how her heart leapt up at this rich payment for her trouble.
     'Oh, Floy!' cried her brother, 'how I love you! How I love you, Floy!'
     'And I you, dear!'
     'Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.'
     He said  no more about it, but all that  evening sat close by her, very
quiet;  and in  the  night he called out  from his little room within  hers,
three or four times, that he loved her.
     Regularly,  after that, Florence  was prepared to sit down with Paul on
Saturday  night,  and  patiently  assist him through so  much as  they could
anticipate together  of his next week's  work. The cheering thought  that he
was  labouring  on where Florence  had  just  toiled before  him, would,  of
itself, have been a stimulant  to Paul in  the perpetual  resumption of  his
studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of  his load,  consequent on
this assistance, it saved him, possibly,  from sinking underneath the burden
which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled upon his back.
     It was not that  Miss Blimber  meant to be  too  hard upon him, or that
Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily  on the young gentlemen in general.
Cornelia merely held the faith in which  she had  been bred; and the Doctor,
in some partial confusion of  his  ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if
they were all Doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the  applause of
the young gentlemen's nearest relations, and  urged on by their blind vanity
and ill-considered  haste, it would have been  strange if Doctor Blimber had
discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack.
     Thus  in  the  case  of  Paul.  When Doctor  Blimber said he made great
progress and was naturally clever, Mr  Dombey was more bent than ever on his
being forced  and  crammed. In the  case  of  Briggs,  when  Doctor  Blimber
reported  that he did not make  great progress  yet,  and  was not naturally
clever, Briggs  senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, however
high and false the temperature at  which the Doctor kept his  hothouse,  the
owners  of  the plants  were always  ready  to lend  a helping  hand  at the
bellows, and to stir the fire.
     Such spirits as he had in the outset,  Paul soon lost of course. But he
retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his character: and
under  circumstances  so favourable to the  development of those tendencies,
became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful, than before.
     The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. He grew
more thoughtful  and reserved, every  day; and had  no such curiosity in any
living member of the Doctor's household, as he  had had in  Mrs  Pipchin. He
loved to  be alone; and in those  short intervals when he was  not  occupied
with  his  books,  liked nothing  so well  as wandering  about the  house by
himself, or sitting on the stairs, listening to the great clock in the hall.
He  was intimate with all the paperhanging in  the house; saw things that no
one else saw in the patterns; found out miniature  tigers and  lions running
up  the  bedroom  walls,  and  squinting  faces leering  in the  squares and
diamonds of the floor-cloth.
     The  solitary child  lived on, surrounded by this arabesque work of his
musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs Blimber  thought him 'odd,' and
sometimes the servants said among themselves that little Dombey 'moped;' but
that was all.
     Unless  young Toots  had some idea on the subject, to the expression of
which  he was wholly unequal.  Ideas, like  ghosts (according  to the common
notion  of ghosts), must  be  spoken to  a little  before they will  explain
themselves; and Toots had long  left  off  asking  any questions of  his own
mind.  Some  mist there may  have been, issuing from that leaden casket, his
cranium, which, if it could  have taken shape  and form, would have become a
genie; but it could not; and it only  so  far  followed the  example  of the
smoke in the Arabian  story, as to roll out in a thick cloud, and there hang
and hover.  But  it left a  little  figure visible upon a lonely shore,  and
Toots was always staring at it.
     'How are you?'  he would say to Paul, fifty times  a day.  'Quite well,
Sir, thank you,' Paul  would answer. 'Shake  hands,' would  be Toots's  next
advance.
     Which  Paul, of course, would immediately do.  Mr Toots  generally said
again, after a long interval  of staring and hard breathing, 'How are  you?'
To which Paul again replied, 'Quite well, Sir, thank you.'
     One   evening  Mr  Toots  was  sitting  at   his  desk,   oppressed  by
correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to  flash upon him. He laid down
his pen, and went  off  to seek Paul, whom he found at last,  after  a  long
search, looking through the window of his little bedroom.
     'I say!' cried Toots, speaking the  moment he entered the room, lest he
should forget it; 'what do you think about?'
     'Oh! I think about a great many things,' replied Paul.
     'Do you, though?' said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in itself
surprising.  'If you  had to die,' said Paul, looking up into  his face - Mr
Toots started, and seemed much disturbed.
     'Don't you think you would rather die on  a  moonlight night, when  the
sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?'
     Mr Toots said, looking doubtfully  at Paul, and  shaking his head, that
he didn't know about that.
     'Not blowing,  at least,' said Paul, 'but  sounding in the air like the
sea sounds  in the shells. It was  a beautiful night. When I had listened to
the water for a  long time, I got up  and looked out. There was  a boat over
there, in the full light of the moon; a boat with a sail.'
     The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly, that Mr
Toots, feeling himself called upon to say  something about this  boat, said,
'Smugglers.'  But with  an impartial remembrance of there being two sides to
every question, he added, 'or Preventive.'
     'A  boat with a sail,'  repeated  Paul, 'in the full light of the moon.
The sail like an arm,  all silver. It  went away into the distance, and what
do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the waves?'
     'Pitch,' said Mr Toots.
     'It  seemed to beckon,' said the child,  'to beckon me to come! - There
she is! There she is!'
     Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden exclamation,
after what had gone before, and cried 'Who?'
     'My  sister  Florence!' cried  Paul, 'looking up  here, and  waving her
hand. She sees me - she sees me! Good-night, dear, good-night, good-night.'
     His  quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he stood  at
his  window, kissing and clapping his hands: and the way  in which the light
retreated  from  his features  as she passed out  of  his view,  and  left a
patient melancholy on the little face: were too remarkable  wholly to escape
even Toots's notice. Their interview being interrupted  at this moment  by a
visit from Mrs Pipchin, who  usually brought  her black skirts to bear  upon
Paul just  before dusk, once  or twice a  week, Toots  had no opportunity of
improving the occasion: but it left so marked an impression on his mind that
he twice returned,  after having exchanged the usual salutations, to ask Mrs
Pipchin how she  did. This the irascible old lady conceived  to be  a deeply
devised  and  long-meditated insult, originating in the diabolical invention
of the weak-eyed young man downstairs, against whom she accordingly lodged a
formal  complaint with Doctor Blimber  that very night; who mentioned to the
young man that if he ever did it again,  he  should be obliged  to part with
him.
     The  evenings  being longer  now, Paul  stole  up  to  his window every
evening to look  out for  Florence.  She always passed  and  repassed  at  a
certain time, until she saw him; and their mutual recognition was a gleam of
sunshine in  Paul's daily  life. Often after dark,  one other  figure walked
alone before the Doctor's house. He rarely joined them on the Saturdays now.
He could not bear it. He would rather come unrecognised,  and look up at the
windows where his son was  qualifying for a man; and wait,  and  watch,  and
plan, and hope.
     Oh! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare boy
above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest eyes, and
breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew by, as if he would
have emulated them, and soared away!

        CHAPTER 13.
     Shipping Intelligence and Office Business

     Mr Dombey's offices were in a court where there  was an old-established
stall of choice fruit at the corner:  where perambulating merchants, of both
sexes, offered  for  sale  at any time  between  the hours  of ten and five,
slippers,  pocket-books, sponges,  dogs'  collars,  and  Windsor  soap;  and
sometimes a pointer or an oil-painting.
     The pointer always came  that way, with  a view to the  Stock Exchange,
where a sporting taste (originating generally in bets of new  hats) is  much
in  vogue. The other  commodities were addressed to  the general public; but
they were  never offered by the vendors to Mr Dombey. When he appeared,  the
dealers  in  those  wares  fell  off respectfully. The principal slipper and
dogs' collar  man -  who considered himself  a public  character,  and whose
portrait was screwed  on  to  an artist's door in  Cheapside  - threw up his
forefinger to the brim of his  hat as Mr Dombey went  by. The ticket-porter,
if he were not  absent on a job, always ran officiously before, to  open  Mr
Dombey's office door as wide as  possible,  and hold  it  open, with his hat
off, while he entered.
     The clerks  within were not a whit  behind-hand in their demonstrations
of respect. A solemn hush prevailed,  as Mr  Dombey passed through the outer
office. The wit of the Counting-House became in a moment as mute  as the row
of leathern fire-buckets hanging up behind him. Such vapid and flat daylight
as filtered through the  ground-glass windows and skylights, leaving a black
sediment  upon the panes,  showed  the  books  and papers, and  the  figures
bending over  them, enveloped in a studious gloom, and as much abstracted in
appearance, from the world  without, as if they were assembled at the bottom
of the sea; while  a mouldy  little strong room in the  obscure perspective,
where a shaded lamp was always burning, might have represented the cavern of
some ocean monster,  looking  on  with a red eye at these  mysteries  of the
deep.
     When Perch  the messenger, whose place was on  a little bracket, like a
timepiece,  saw Mr  Dombey  come in - or  rather when  he felt that  he  was
coming, for he had usually an instinctive sense of his approach - he hurried
into Mr Dombey's room, stirred the fire, carried fresh coals from the bowels
of the  coal-box,  hung the newspaper to  air upon the fender, put the chair
ready, and the  screen  in  its place, and was round  upon his  heel on  the
instant of  Mr Dombey's  entrance, to take his great-coat and hat, and  hang
them up. Then Perch took the  newspaper, and gave  it  a turn or two  in his
hands before the fire, and laid it, deferentially, at Mr Dombey's elbow. And
so  little objection had Perch to being deferential in the last degree, that
if he might have laid himself  at Mr Dombey's feet, or might have called him
by some such title as used to  be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun Alraschid,
he would have been all the better pleased.
     As  this  honour would have been an innovation and an experiment, Perch
was  fain  to content himself by expressing  as  well as  he  could, in  his
manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my Soul. You are
the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect happiness  to cheer
him, he would shut the door softly, walk away on tiptoe, and leave his great
chief to  be  stared at, through a dome-shaped window  in the leads, by ugly
chimney-pots  and backs of houses,  and especially by  the bold window  of a
hair-cutting saloon  on a first floor,  where  a waxen  effigy,  bald  as  a
Mussulman in the morning, and covered, after eleven o'clock in the day, with
luxuriant hair and whiskers  in the latest Christian fashion, showed him the
wrong side of its head for ever.
     Between Mr Dombey and  the common  world, as it was accessible  through
the medium of the outer office - to  which  Mr Dombey's  presence in his own
room may  be  said to have  struck like damp, or  cold air - there were  two
degrees of  descent.  Mr Carker in his  own office  was  the first  step; Mr
Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of  these gentlemen occupied
a  little chamber like  a  bath-room,  opening  from the  passage outside Mr
Dombey's  door. Mr  Carker, as Grand Vizier,  inhabited  the  room that  was
nearest to the Sultan. Mr Morfin, as an officer of inferior state, inhabited
the room that was nearest to the clerks.
     The gentleman last mentioned was a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed elderly
bachelor:  gravely attired, as  to  his upper man, in black; and  as to  his
legs,  in  pepper-and-salt colour.  His  dark hair was just touched here and
there with specks of gray, as though the  tread of Time had splashed it; and
his whiskers were already  white. He had a mighty respect for Mr Dombey, and
rendered him due homage; but as he was of a genial temper himself, and never
wholly  at  his  ease  in that stately  presence,  he was  disquieted  by no
jealousy of  the many conferences enjoyed  by  Mr Carker, and felt a  secret
satisfaction in having duties  to discharge, which rarely  exposed him to be
singled out for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his  way
- after business; and had a  paternal affection for  his violoncello,  which
was once in every week transported from Islington, his place  of abode, to a
certain club-room hard by the Bank, where  quartettes of the most tormenting
and excruciating nature  were executed every Wednesday  evening by a private
party.
     Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty  years old, of a florid
complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, whose regularity
and  whiteness were quite  distressing.  It  was impossible  to  escape  the
observation of them, for he  showed them whenever he spoke; and bore so wide
a  smile  upon  his  countenance (a  smile,  however,  very  rarely, indeed,
extending beyond his mouth), that there  was something  in it like the snarl
of  a cat.  He affected a  stiff  white  cravat,  after  the  example of his
principal,  and was always  closely buttoned  up  and  tightly dressed.  His
manner towards  Mr Dombey was  deeply conceived and perfectly expressed.  He
was  familiar  with  him, in the very extremity of his sense of the distance
between them. 'Mr Dombey, to  a  man in your  position  from a man  in mine,
there is no show of subservience compatible with the transaction of business
between us, that I should think sufficient. I frankly tell  you, Sir, I give
it up  altogether.  I feel that I could not satisfy my  own mind; and Heaven
knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to dispense  with the endeavour.' If he had
carried these words about with him  printed on a placard, and had constantly
offered  it to Mr  Dombey's perusal on the breast of his coat, he could  not
have been more explicit than he was.
     This was Carker the Manager. Mr Carker the Junior, Walter's friend, was
his  brother;  two  or  three  years older  than  he, but widely removed  in
station. The younger  brother's post was on the top of  the official ladder;
the elder  brother's at  the bottom. The elder brother never gained a stave,
or raised  his foot to mount one. Young men passed above his head, and  rose
and rose; but he was always at  the  bottom. He was quite resigned to occupy
that  low  condition:  never complained of it:  and certainly never hoped to
escape from it.
     'How do you  do this morning?' said  Mr Carker the Manager, entering Mr
Dombey's room soon after his arrival one day: with a bundle of papers in his
hand.
     'How do you do, Carker?' said Mr Dombey.
     'Coolish!' observed Carker, stirring the fire.
     'Rather,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Any news of the young gentleman who is  so important to us all?' asked
Carker, with his whole regiment of teeth on parade.
     'Yes - not direct news- I hear he's very well,' said Mr Dombey. Who had
come from Brighton over-night. But no one knew It.
     'Very  well,  and becoming a  great  scholar,  no doubt?'  observed the
Manager.
     'I hope so,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'Egad!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head, 'Time flies!'
     'I think so, sometimes,' returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his newspaper.
     'Oh! You! You have no reason  to think so,'  observed  Carker. 'One who
sits  on such an elevation  as  yours,  and can sit  there, unmoved, in  all
seasons - hasn't much reason to know anything about the flight of time. It's
men like myself, who are low down and are not superior in circumstances, and
who inherit new masters in the course of Time, that have cause to look about
us. I shall have a rising sun to worship, soon.'
     'Time  enough,  time  enough, Carker!' said Mr  Dombey, rising from his
chair, and standing  with his back to the fire. 'Have you anything there for
me?'
     'I don't know that I need trouble you,'  returned Carker, turning  over
the papers in his hand. 'You have a committee today at three, you know.'
     'And one at three, three-quarters,' added Mr Dombey.
     'Catch  you forgetting anything!' exclaimed Carker, still  turning over
his  papers.  'If  Mr  Paul inherits  your  memory,  he'll be  a troublesome
customer in the House. One of you is enough'
     'You have an accurate memory of your own,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Oh! I!'  returned  the manager. 'It's the  only capital  of a man like
me.'
     Mr  Dombey  did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he stood
leaning against  the chimney-piece, surveying  his (of  course  unconscious)
clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr Carker's dress, and
a certain arrogance  of  manner, either natural  to  him or imitated  from a
pattern not far off, gave great additional effect to his humility. He seemed
a man who would contend against the  power that vanquished him, if he could,
but  who was utterly  borne down  by  the  greatness and  superiority  of Mr
Dombey.
     'Is Morfin here?' asked Mr Dombey after a short pause,  during which Mr
Carker had  been fluttering his  papers, and  muttering  little abstracts of
their contents to himself.
     'Morfin's  here,'  he  answered, looking up with his  widest and almost
sudden smile; 'humming musical recollections - of his last night's quartette
party,  I suppose - through the walls between us, and driving me half mad. I
wish he'd  make a bonfire of his violoncello, and  burn  his music-books  in
it.'
     'You respect nobody, Carker, I think,' said Mr Dombey.
     'No?' inquired  Carker, with  another wide and most feline  show of his
teeth. 'Well!  Not  many  people,  I believe. I wouldn't answer perhaps,' he
murmured, as if he were only thinking it, 'for more than one.'
     A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if feigned.
But Mr Dombey hardly seemed  to think so, as he still stood with his back to
the fire,  drawn up to his full height, and looking at his head-clerk with a
dignified composure, in which  there seemed to  lurk a stronger latent sense
of power than usual.
     'Talking of Morfin,' resumed Mr Carker, taking out  one  paper from the
rest, 'he  reports a junior dead in the agency at  Barbados, and proposes to
reserve a passage in the  Son and  Heir - she'll sail in a month or so - for
the successor. You don't care  who  goes, I suppose? We  have nobody of that
sort here.'
     Mr Dombey shook his head with supreme indifference.
     'It's  no very precious appointment,' observed  Mr Carker, taking up  a
pen, with which to endorse a memorandum on the back of the paper. 'I hope he
may bestow it on some orphan nephew of a musical friend. It may perhaps stop
his fiddle-playing, if he has a gift that way. Who's that? Come in!'
     'I beg your pardon, Mr  Carker. I  didn't  know you  were  here,  Sir,'
answered  Walter;  appearing with  some letters in his  hand, unopened,  and
newly arrived. 'Mr Carker the junior, Sir - '
     At  the mention of this  name, Mr Carker the Manager was or affected to
be, touched to the quick with  shame and humiliation. He  cast his eyes full
on Mr Dombey with an altered and apologetic look, abased them on the ground,
and remained for a moment without speaking.
     'I thought, Sir,'  he said  suddenly  and  angrily, turning  on Walter,
'that you had been before  requested not to  drag Mr Carker the Junior  into
your conversation.'
     'I beg your pardon,' returned Walter. 'I  was only going to say that Mr
Carker the Junior had told me he believed you were gone out, or I should not
have knocked at  the  door when you were  engaged with Mr Dombey. These  are
letters for Mr Dombey, Sir.'
     'Very well, Sir,' returned Mr Carker the Manager, plucking them sharply
from his hand. 'Go about your business.'
     But in taking them with so  little ceremony,  Mr Carker  dropped one on
the floor, and did not see what he  had done; neither did  Mr Dombey observe
the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment, thinking that
one or other  of them would  notice it;  but  finding  that neither  did, he
stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid  it himself on  Mr Dombey's desk.
The letters were post-letters; and it happened  that the one in question was
Mrs Pipchin's regular report, directed as usual - for Mrs Pipchin was but an
indifferent penwoman - by Florence. Mr Dombey, having his attention silently
called to this letter by  Walter, started, and looked fiercely at him, as if
he believed that he had purposely selected it from all the rest.
     'You can leave the room, Sir!' said Mr Dombey, haughtily.
     He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at the
door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal.
     'These continual references to  Mr  Carker  the Junior,' Mr  Carker the
Manager began, as  soon  as they were alone, 'are, to a man  in my position,
uttered before one in yours, so unspeakably distressing - '
     'Nonsense, Carker,' Mr Dombey interrupted. 'You are too sensitive.'
     'I am sensitive,' he returned. 'If one in your  position  could by  any
possibility imagine yourself in my place: which you cannot: you would be  so
too.'
     As Mr Dombey's thoughts were evidently pursuing some other subject, his
discreet ally broke  off here, and stood with his teeth  ready to present to
him, when he should look up.
     'You  want  somebody to send  to  the  West Indies, you  were  saying,'
observed Mr Dombey, hurriedly.
     'Yes,' replied Carker.
     'Send young Gay.'
     'Good,  very good indeed. Nothing easier,' said Mr Carker, without  any
show of surprise, and taking up the pen  to