lter,
having  his back to the door, would have known nothing of  their  apparition
even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out  of his own chair, and nearly
tumble over another.
     'Why, Uncle!' exclaimed Walter. 'What's the matter?'
     Old Solomon replied, 'Miss Dombey!'
     'Is it possible?' cried Walter,  looking round and  starting  up in his
turn. 'Here!'
     Why, It was so  possible and so actual, that, while  the words  were on
his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol's snuff-coloured lapels,
one in each  hand;  kissed him on the cheek; and turning,  gave  her hand to
Walter with  a simple truth and  earnestness  that was her own,  and  no one
else's in the world!
     'Going away, Walter!' said Florence.
     'Yes, Miss Dombey,' he replied, but not so hopefully as he endeavoured:
'I have a voyage before me.'
     'And your Uncle,' said  Florence, looking back at Solomon. 'He is sorry
you are  going,  I am  sure. Ah! I see he is!  Dear Walter,  I am very sorry
too.'
     'Goodness knows,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, 'there's a many we could spare
instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer  would come cheap
at her  weight  in  gold, and  if  a knowledge of  black slavery  should  be
required, them Blimbers is the very people for the sitiwation.'
     With  that  Miss  Nipper untied her bonnet strings,  and alter  looking
vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set forth with
the usual  homely service on the table, shook her head  and a tin  canister,
and began unasked to make the tea.
     In the meantime Florence had  turned again to the Instrument-maker, who
was  as full  of  admiration  as  surprise. 'So  grown!' said  old Sol.  'So
improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!'
     'Indeed!' said Florence.
     'Ye - yes,' returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and considering
the matter half aloud, as something  pensive  in  the bright eyes looking at
him arrested his attention. 'Yes, that  expression was in the younger  face,
too!'
     'You  remember me,' said  Florence  with  a smile,  'and  what a little
creature I was then?'
     'My dear  young  lady,' returned  the  Instrument-maker,  'how  could I
forget you, often as I  have thought of you and heard of you  since! At  the
very moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally  was talking about you  to  me,
and leaving messages for you, and - '
     'Was he?' said Florence. 'Thank  you,  Walter! Oh thank you, Walter!  I
was afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;' and again she
gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that Walter held it for
some moments in his own, and could not bear to let it go.
     Yet Walter did not hold it  as he might  have held it once, nor did its
touch awaken those old  day-dreams of  his boyhood that had floated past him
sometimes  even lately, and confused him  with their  indistinct and  broken
shapes.  The purity and innocence  of her endearing manner, and  its perfect
trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for  him that lay so deeply  seated
in  her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair face through the smile  that
shaded - for  alas! it was a  smile too sad  to brighten - it,  were  not of
their romantic race. They  brought back to his thoughts the  early death-bed
he had  seen her tending, and the love the  child had borne her; and on  the
wings  of such  remembrances she  seemed  to  rise up,  far  above  his idle
fancies, into clearer and serener air.
     'I - I am afraid I must call you Walter's Uncle, Sir,' said Florence to
the old man, 'if you'll let me.'
     'My dear young lady,' cried old Sol. 'Let you! Good gracious!'
     'We always knew  you by that name, and  talked of you,' said  Florence,
glancing round,  and sighing gently. 'The nice old parlour! Just  the  same!
How well I recollect it!'
     Old  Sol  looked first at her, then at his  nephew, and then rubbed his
hands,  and rubbed  his spectacles, and said below  his  breath, 'Ah!  time,
time, time!'
     There  was  a  short  silence;  during  which  Susan  Nipper  skilfully
impounded  two extra  cups and saucers  from the cupboard,  and  awaited the
drawing of the tea with a thoughtful air.
     'I want to tell Walter's Uncle,' said Florence, laying her hand timidly
upon the  old man's  as it rested  on  the table,  to bespeak his attention,
'something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left alone, and if  he
will allow me - not to take Walter's place,  for that I  couldn't do, but to
be his true friend and help him if I  ever can while Walter is away, I shall
be very much obliged to him indeed. Will you? May I, Walter's Uncle?'
     The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put  her  hand to his lips, and
Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of presidency
into which she had voted herself, bit one end  of  her  bonnet  strings, and
heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight.
     'You will let me  come to see you,' said Florence, 'when I can; and you
will tell me  everything about yourself  and Walter; and you  will  have  no
secrets  from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will confide in us, and
trust us, and rely upon us. And  you'll  try  to let us be a comfort to you?
Will you, Walter's Uncle?'
     The sweet  face looking into  his, the gentle  pleading eyes, the  soft
voice, and the light touch on his arm  made the more winning  by  a  child's
respect and honour for his age,  that gave  to all  an air of graceful doubt
and modest hesitation -  these, and her natural earnestness, so overcame the
poor old Instrument-maker, that he only answered:
     'Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I'm very grateful.'
     'No,  Walter,' returned Florence with her quiet smile. 'Say nothing for
him, if  you  please.  I understand him very well, and we must learn to talk
together without you, dear Walter.'
     The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched Walter
more than all the rest.
     'Miss  Florence,' he replied, with  an  effort  to recover the cheerful
manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, 'I know  no more  than
my  Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of  such  kindness, I am sure.  But
what  could I  say, after all, if I had the  power of talking  for  an hour,
except that it is like you?'
     Susan  Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded at
the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed.
     'Oh!  but,  Walter,' said Florence,  'there is something that I wish to
say to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if you please,
and not speak like a stranger.'
     'Like  a stranger!' returned Walter,  'No. I couldn't  speak  so.  I am
sure, at least, I couldn't feel like one.'
     'Ay, but  that is  not enough, and  is not what  I  mean. For, Walter,'
added  Florence,  bursting into  tears,  'he liked  you  very much, and said
before he died that he was fond of you, and  said "Remember Walter!"  and if
you'll  be a  brother to me, Walter, now  that he is gone and I have none on
earth, I'll be your  sister all  my life, and think of you like one wherever
we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear Walter, but I cannot say it as
I would, because my heart is full.'
     And  in  its fulness  and its sweet simplicity,  she  held out both her
hands to him. Walter taking  them, stooped down and touched the tearful face
that  neither  shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so, but looked
up  at him with confidence and truth.  In  that  one moment, every shadow of
doubt or  agitation passed away from Walter's soul. It seemed to him that he
responded to her innocent appeal, beside the  dead  child's bed: and, in the
solemn presence he had seen there, pledged  himself to cherish  and  protect
her  very image, in his banishment, with  brotherly regard; to garner up her
simple faith, inviolate; and hold himself degraded if  he  breathed upon  it
any thought that was not in her own breast when she gave it to him.
     Susan Nipper,  who  had bitten  both  her bonnet strings  at  once, and
imparted  a great  deal  of  private  emotion  to the skylight, during  this
transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and who took
sugar; and being  enlightened on these points, poured out the tea. They  all
four gathered socially about the little table, and took tea under that young
lady's  active superintendence;  and  the presence of Florence  in  the back
parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the wall.
     Half an hour ago Walter, for his life,  would have hardly called her by
her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He  could  think of
her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would  have been better
if she had not come.  He could  calmly think how beautiful she was, how full
of promise, what a home some happy man would find in such a heart  one  day.
He could reflect upon his own  place  in that heart, with  pride; and with a
brave  determination, if not to deserve it - he still thought that far above
him - never to deserve it less
     Some fairy influence must surely  have hovered round the hands of Susan
Nipper  when she made the tea, engendering the tranquil air  that reigned in
the back parlour during its discussion. Some  counter-influence must  surely
have  hovered  round  the hands of Uncle Sol's chronometer,  and  moved them
faster than the Tartar frigate ever went before the wind. Be this as it may,
the visitors had a coach in  waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and  the
chronometer, on being incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion
that it  had been waiting  a long time, that it was impossible to  doubt the
fact, especially  when stated on such  unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol
had been going  to be hanged  by his  own time, he  never would have allowed
that the chronometer was too fast, by the least fraction of a second.
     Florence at parting recapitulated to the old man all that  she had said
before, and bound him to the compact. Uncle Sol attended her lovingly to the
legs of the  wooden Midshipman, and  there resigned her  to  Walter, who was
ready to escort her and Susan Nipper to the coach.
     'Walter,'  said  Florence by the way, 'I have been afraid to ask before
your Uncle. Do you think you will be absent very long?'
     'Indeed,' said Walter, 'I don't know. I fear so. Mr Dombey signified as
much, I thought, when he appointed me.'
     'Is  it  a  favour,  Walter?'  inquired  Florence,  after   a  moment's
hesitation, and looking anxiously in his face.
     'The appointment?' returned Walter.
     'Yes.'
     Walter  would  have given anything to have answered in the affirmative,
but his face answered before his lips could, and Florence was too  attentive
to it not to understand its reply.
     'I am  afraid you have scarcely been a  favourite with Papa,' she said,
timidly.
     'There is no reason,' replied Walter, smiling, 'why I should be.'
     'No reason, Walter!'
     'There  was  no reason,'  said Walter, understanding  what  she  meant.
'There are many  people employed in the House. Between Mr Dombey and a young
man like me, there's a wide space of separation. If I do my duty, I do  what
I ought, and do no more than all the rest.'
     Had Florence  any  misgiving  of which she  was  hardly conscious:  any
misgiving  that had sprung  into an indistinct and undefined existence since
that recent night when she had gone down to her father's room: that Walter's
accidental interest in her, and early knowledge of her, might  have involved
him in that powerful displeasure and  dislike? Had Walter any such idea,  or
any sudden thought that it was in  her  mind at that moment? Neither of them
hinted at it.  Neither of them  spoke  at all, for  some short  time. Susan,
walking on the other  side  of Walter, eyed them both sharply; and certainly
Miss  Nipper's thoughts travelled in  that  direction, and  very confidently
too.
     'You may come back very soon,' said Florence, 'perhaps, Walter.'
     'I may come back,' said Walter, 'an old  man, and find you an old lady.
But I hope for better things.'
     'Papa,' said Florence,  after a  moment, 'will - will  recover from his
grief,  and - speak more freely to me one day, perhaps; and  if he should, I
will tell him how much I wish to see  you back again, and ask him to  recall
you for my sake.'
     There was a touching  modulation in these words about her  father, that
Walter understood too well.
     The coach being close at hand, he would have left her without speaking,
for now he felt what parting was; but  Florence held his hand when  she  was
seated, and then he found there was a little packet in her own.
     'Walter,' she said, looking  full upon him  with her affectionate eyes,
'like you, I hope for better things.  I will pray for them, and believe that
they will arrive. I  made this  little gift  for Paul.  Pray take it with my
love, and do not look at it until you are gone away. And now, God bless you,
Walter! never forget me. You are my brother, dear!'
     He was glad  that Susan Nipper came between them, or he might have left
her  with a sorrowful remembrance of him. He was glad  too  that she did not
look  out of the coach again, but  waved the little hand to  him instead, as
long as he could see it.
     In  spite  of her request,  he  could not help opening  the packet that
night when he went to bed. It was a little purse: and there was was money in
it.
     Bright rose the sun next morning, from his absence in strange countries
and  up rose Walter with  it to receive the Captain, who was  already at the
door:  having  turned out earlier than was necessary, in order to  get under
weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering. The Captain pretended to be
in tip-top spirits, and brought a very smoky tongue in one of the pockets of
the of the broad blue coat for breakfast.
     'And, Wal'r,' said the Captain, when they took their seats at table, if
your  Uncle's the man I think  him, he'll  bring out the last bottle of  the
Madeira on the present occasion.'
     'No, no, Ned,'  returned the old man. 'No!  That shall be  opened  when
Walter comes home again.'
     'Well said!' cried the Captain. 'Hear him!'
     'There  it lies,' said Sol Gills, 'down in  the little cellar,  covered
with  dirt  and  cobwebs.  There may be dirt  and  cobwebs  over you and  me
perhaps, Ned, before it sees the light.'
     'Hear him! 'cried the Captain. 'Good  morality! Wal'r, my lad. Train up
a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade
on it. Overhaul the - Well,'  said the  Captain on second thoughts, 'I ain't
quite certain where that's to be found, but when found, make a  note of. Sol
Gills, heave ahead again!'
     'But there or somewhere,  it shall lie, Ned, until  Wally comes back to
claim it,' said the old man. 'That's all I meant to say.'
     'And well said too,' returned the Captain; 'and if we three don't crack
that bottle in company, I'll give you two leave to.'
     Notwithstanding  the  Captain's excessive joviality, he made but a poor
hand at the smoky tongue, though he tried very hard,  when anybody looked at
him, to appear  as if he were  eating  with a vast apetite. He  was terribly
afraid, likewise, of being left alone with either Uncle or nephew; appearing
to consider that his only chance of safety as to keeping up appearances, was
in  there being always  three  together.  This  terror  on the part  of  the
Captain, reduced him to such ingenious evasions as running to the door, when
Solomon  went  to  put  his  coat  on,  under  pretence  of having  seen  an
extraordinary hackney-coach pass: and darting out into the road  when Walter
went upstairs to take leave of the lodgers, on a feint of smelling fire in a
neighbouring chimney.  These artifices Captain  Cuttle deemed inscrutable by
any uninspired observer.
     Walter was  coming  down from his parting  expedition upstairs, and was
crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a faded face
he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it.
     'Mr Carker!' cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the Junior.
'Pray come in!  This is kind of you, to be here  so early to say good-bye to
me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with you, once, before
going away. I cannot say how glad I am to  have this opportunity.  Pray come
in.'
     'It is not  likely  that we may ever meet again, Walter,' returned  the
other, gently resisting his  invitation, 'and  I am glad of this opportunity
too. I may venture to  speak to you, and to take you by the hand, on the eve
of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank approaches, Walter, any
more.
     There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that  showed  he had
found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that.
     'Ah, Mr Carker!' returned Walter. 'Why did  you resist them? You  could
have done me nothing but good, I am very sure.
     He shook  his head. 'If there were any good,'  he said, 'I could do  on
this earth, I would do it,  Walter, for  you.  The sight of you  from day to
day, has been at  once  happiness  and  remorse  to me. But the pleasure has
outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I lose.'
     'Come in,  Mr Carker, and  make acquaintance with  my good  old Uncle,'
urged Walter. 'I have often talked to  him about you, and he will be glad to
tell  you  all  he  hears  from me. I have not,' said Walter,  noticing  his
hesitation, and speaking  with  embarrassment himself: 'I have not  told him
anything about our last conversation, Mr Carker; not even him, believe me.
     The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes.
     'If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,' he  returned,  'it will
be that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging  your forbearance
and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to  tell him  all the truth,
before  I sought a word of confidence from  him.  But I  have  no friend  or
acquaintance  except you: and even for your  sake, am  little likely to make
any.'
     'I wish,' said Walter, 'you had suffered me to be your friend indeed. I
always wished it, Mr Carker, as  you know; but never half  so much  as  now,
when we are going to part'
     'It is  enough replied the other, 'that you have been the  friend of my
own  breast, and that  when I have avoided  you most, my heart  inclined the
most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter, good-bye!'
     'Good-bye, Mr  Carker.  Heaven be  with you,  Sir!' cried  Walter  with
emotion.
     'If,' said the  other, retaining  his hand while he spoke; 'if when you
come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from anyone where
I am  lying, come  and  look upon my grave. Think that I  might have been as
honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when I know time is coming on,
that  some  one  like my  former  self  may stand there,  for  a moment, and
remember me with pity and forgiveness! Walter, good-bye!'
     His figure  crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street, so
cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly passed away.
     The relentless  chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn his
back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his Uncle, and
the Captain,  in  a  hackney-coach to  a  wharf,  where  they  were to  take
steam-boat for  some Reach down the river, the name of which, as the Captain
gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of landsmen. Arrived at this
Reach  (whither  the  ship  had  repaired by last  night's tide),  they were
boarded by various excited watermen,  and among others by a dirty Cyclops of
the Captain's acquaintance, who, with his one eye, had made the Captain  out
some  mile and a half off, and had been exchanging unintelligible roars with
him  ever since.  Becoming  the  lawful prize  of  this  personage, who  was
frightfully  hoarse and constitutionally  in want of shaving, they  were all
three  put aboard the Son and  Heir. And  the Son and  Heir  was in a pretty
state of confusion,  with sails lying all bedraggled on the wet decks, loose
ropes tripping people up,  men in  red shirts  running barefoot to  and fro,
casks  blockading every foot of space, and, in the thickest  of the fray,  a
black cook in a black caboose up to his  eyes in vegetables and blinded with
smoke.
     The  Captain immediately drew  Walter into  a corner, and  with a great
effort, that made his face very red, pulled up  the silver watch,  which was
so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung.
     'Wal'r,' said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him heartily by
the hand,  'a parting  gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every morning,
and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and it's a watch that'll do
you credit.'
     'Captain Cuttle! I  couldn't think of it!' cried Walter, detaining him,
for he was running away. 'Pray take it back. I have one already.'
     'Then, Wal'r,' said  the  Captain,  suddenly  diving  into one  of  his
pockets and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with which he
had  armed  himself  to  meet  such an objection, 'take  this here trifle of
plate, instead.'
     'No, no, I  couldn't indeed!'  cried Walter, 'a thousand  thanks! Don't
throw  them  away, Captain  Cuttle!' for the Captain was about to  jerk them
overboard. 'They'll be of much more use to you than me. Give  me your stick.
I have often thought I  should like  to have  it. There!  Good-bye,  Captain
Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless you!'
     They were over the side in the  confusion, before Walter caught another
glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the  stern, and looked  after them,
he  saw his  Uncle hanging  down his head  in the  boat, and Captain  Cuttle
rapping him on the back with  the great silver watch (it must have been very
painful), and  gesticulating  hopefully with the teaspoons and  sugar-tongs.
Catching sight of Walter,  Captain  Cuttle  dropped  the  property  into the
bottom  of the boat with perfect unconcern, being evidently oblivious of its
existence, and pulling off the glazed hat hailed him lustily. The glazed hat
made  quite a show in the sun with its glistening, and the Captain continued
to wave it until he could  be seen no  longer. Then the confusion on  board,
which  had been rapidly increasing, reached  its  height; two or three other
boats went away with a  cheer; the sails  shone bright  and  full  above, as
Walter watched them spread their surface to the favourable breeze; the water
flew  in sparkles from  the prow; and off  upon her voyage went  the Son and
Heir, as hopefully and trippingly  as many  another son and heir, gone down,
had started on his way before her.
     Day  after day, old Sol  and Captain Cuttle  kept her reckoning in  the
little hack parlour and worked out her course, with  the chart spread before
them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed upstairs, so lonely,
to the attic where it sometimes blew  great guns, he looked up at the  stars
and listened to the wind, and kept a longer watch  than would have fallen to
his lot on board the ship. The last bottle of the old Madeira, which had had
its cruising days, and known its dangers of the deep,  lay silently  beneath
its dust and cobwebs, in the meanwhile, undisturbed.

        CHAPTER 20.
     Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey

     'Mr Dombey,  Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B.  is  not in general a
man of sentiment,  for Joseph is tough.  But Joe has his feelings,  Sir, and
when they are awakened  -  Damme, Mr  Dombey,? cried the  Major  with sudden
ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it]'
     Major Bagstock delivered himself of these  expressions on receiving  Mr
Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's Place. Mr
Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to their setting forth
on their trip; and the  ill-starved Native had already  undergone a world of
misery  arising out of the  muffins, while,  in  connexion with the  general
question of boiled eggs, life was a burden to him.
     'It is  not  for an old  soldier  of the Bagstock  breed,' observed the
Major, relapsing  into  a mild state,  'to deliver himself up, a prey to his
own  emotions;  but  - damme, Sir,'  cried the  Major,  in another spasm  of
ferocity, 'I condole with you!'
     The  Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's lobster
eyes  stood  out  in  bolder  relief,  as he  shook  Mr  Dombey by the hand,
imparting to that peaceful  action as defiant a character as  if it had been
the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a thousand pounds a side
and the championship of England. With a rotatory  motion of his head, and  a
wheeze very like the  cough of a horse, the Major then conducted his visitor
to  the  sitting-room, and  there  welcomed  him  (having now  composed  his
feelings) with the freedom and frankness ofa travelling companion.
     'Dombey,'  said the  Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see you.
There are  not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say  that -  for
Josh  is  blunt.  Sir: it's his  nature -  but Joey B. is  proud to see you,
Dombey.'
     'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.'
     'No, Sir,'  said  the  Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my character. If
that  had  been  Joe's  character,  Joe  might  have  been,  by  this  time,
Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph  Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have received you
in very different  quarters. You don't  know old Joe yet, I  find.  But this
occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By the Lord, Sir,' said
the Major resolutely, 'it's an honour to me!'
     Mr Dombey,  in his  estimation of himself and his money, felt that this
was very true, and therefore did not dispute  the point. But the instinctive
recognition of such a  truth by the Major, and his  plain avowal of it, were
very able.  It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if he  had required any,  of
his not  being  mistaken in the Major.  It was an assurance to him  that his
power extended beyond his own immediate  sphere; and  that  the Major, as an
officer and a gentleman, had a no less becoming sense of it, than the beadle
of the Royal Exchange.
     And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the  like of this,  it
was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the instability of his
hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had  been so direfully impressed upon  him.
What could it do,  his boy had  asked  him. Sometimes,  thinking of the baby
question,  he could  hardly  forbear  inquiring, himself,  what could it  do
indeed: what had it done?
     But  these  were lonely thoughts, bred  late  at  night in  the  sullen
despondency  and  gloom of  his  retirement,  and  pride  easily  found  its
reassurance in many  testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and precious
as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in  his friendlessness, inclined to the Major. It
cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed a little, The Major
had had some part - and not too much  - in the days by the seaside. He was a
man  of  the world, and  knew some  great people. He  talked  much, and told
stories; and Mr Dombey  was disposed  to regard him as  a choice spirit  who
shone in society, and who had not that poisonous ingredient of  poverty with
which choice  spirits  in general  are too much adulterated. His station was
undeniable. Altogether the Major was a creditable companion, well accustomed
to a life of leisure, and to  such places as  that they were about to visit,
and having an  air of gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough with
his own City character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr Dombey had
any  lingering idea that the  Major, as a man accustomed, in  the way of his
calling, to  make light  of the ruthless hand  that  had lately crushed  his
hopes, might  unconsciously impart some  useful philosophy to him, and scare
away his weak  regrets, he hid  it  from himself, and left it lying  at  the
bottom of his pride, unexamined.
     'Where  is my scoundrel?' said the  Major, looking wrathfully round the
room.
     The   Native,  who  had  no  particular  name,  but   answered  to  any
vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at  the door  and ventured
to come no nearer.
     'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the breakfast?'
     The dark  servant  disappeared in  search  of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and dishes
on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came, rattled again,
all the way up.
     'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing  at the  Native as  he  arranged the
table, and encouraging him with an  awful shake of his fist when he  upset a
spoon, 'here  is a devilled grill,  a savoury pie, a dish of kidneys, and so
forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but camp fare, you see.
     'Very excellent  fare,  Major,'  replied  his  guest; and not  in  mere
politeness either;  for the  Major always took  the  best  possible care  of
himself, and  indeed  ate rather more of rich  meats than  was good for him,
insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the  faculty to
that circumstance.
     'You have been looking over  the way, Sir,' observed  the Major.  'Have
you seen our friend?'
     'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.'
     'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a  fat laugh  rising in his
short throat, and nearly suffocating him.
     'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr Dombey.
     The  haughty coldness of  the  reply  seemed to  afford  Major Bagstock
infinite delight. He swelled  and  swelled, exceedingly:  and even laid down
his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.
     'Old  Joe,  Sir,' said  the Major, 'was a  bit ofa  favourite  in  that
quarter  once.  But  Joe has  had  his  day. J.  Bagstock is extinguished  -
outrivalled - floored, Sir.'
     'I  should have supposed,' Mr  Dombey replied, 'that the lady's day for
favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.'
     'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder.
     There never was a more unlikely possiblity. It was so clearly expressed
in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised.
     'I  beg your pardon,' he  said. 'I see you  are in earnest. I  tell you
what,  Dombey.' The Major paused in  his  eating,  and  looked  mysteriously
indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.'
     Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps with
some  contemptuous  incredulity  as  to Miss Tox having  the presumption  to
harbour such a superior quality.
     'That woman,  Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey B.
has had  his day, Sir, but  he  keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His Royal
Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, that he saw.'
     The  Major accompanied this  with such  a  look, and,  between  eating,
drinking,  hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and  meaning, was altogether so
swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey showed some anxiety
for him.
     'That  ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major, 'aspires. She
aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.'
     'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning voice.
     'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey.
     The  Major  gave no answer but  the  horse's cough, and  went on eating
vigorously.
     'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major, stopping
short again, 'and has been a frequent  visitor  at  your house for some time
now.'
     'Yes,'  replied  Mr  Dombey  with  great  stateliness,  'Miss  Tox  was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a friend of
my sister's; and being a  well-behaved person, and showing a liking for  the
poor infant, she was permitted - may I say encouraged - to repeat her visits
with my sister,  and gradually to occupy a kind of footing of familiarity in
the family.  I have,' said Mr Dombey, in the tone of a  man who was making a
great and valuable concession, 'I have a respect for  Miss Tox. She his been
so obliging as  to  render many little services  in my  house:  trifling and
insignificant  services  perhaps,  Major,  but not  to be disparaged on that
account: and I hope I have had the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge
them  by such  attention and notice  as it has been in my power to bestow. I
hold myself indebted to Miss Tox,  Major,' added  Mr  Dombey, with  a slight
wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your acquaintance.'
     'Dombey,'  said the Major, warmly: 'no!  No, Sir!  Joseph Bagstock  can
never permit that  assertion to pass uncontradicted.  Your knowledge of  old
Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of you, Sir, had its origin
in a noble fellow, Sir - in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!' said the  Major,
with a struggle which it was not very difficult  to parade,  his  whole life
being  a struggle against  all kinds  of apoplectic  symptoms, 'we knew each
other through your boy.'
     Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major designed he
should be, by  this  allusion. He  looked  down and sighed:  and  the Major,
rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to the state of mind into
which he  felt himself in  danger of  falling,  that this was  weakness, and
nothing should induce him to submit to it.
     'Our  friend had  a remote connexion with that event,'  said the Major,
'and all the credit that belongs to her,  J. B. is willing to give her, Sir.
Notwithstanding  which,  Ma'am,' he added, raising his eyes from  his plate,
and  casting  them across Princess's  Place, to  where Miss Tox  was at that
moment visible at her window watering her flowers, 'you're a scheming  jade,
Ma'am, and your  ambition is a piece of monstrous impudence. If it only made
yourself  ridiculous,  Ma'am,'  said  the  Major,  rolling his  head  at the
unconscious Miss  Tox,  while  his starting eyes  appeared  to make  a  leap
towards her, 'you might do that to your heart's  content, Ma'am, without any
objection, I  assure you, on the part of  Bagstock.' Here  the Major laughed
frightfully up  in the tips of his ears and  in the veins of his head.  'But
when, Ma'am,' said the Major,  'you compromise other people,  and  generous,
unsuspicious  people too, as a  repayment for  their condescension, you stir
the blood of old Joe in his body.'
     'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at anything
so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as - '
     'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has lived
in  the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, and his ears
cocked:  and  Joe  tells  you, Dombey,  that there's  a devilish artful  and
ambitious woman over the way.'
     Mr Dombey involuntarily  glanced over  the  way; and an angry glance he
sent in that direction, too.
     'That's all  on  such  a subject that shall pass  the  lips  of  Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe  is not a tale-bearer, but there  are
times when he must speak, when he will speak! - confound your arts,  Ma'am,'
cried the Major, again apostrophising his  fair neighbour, with great ire, -
'when the provocation is too strong to admit of his remaining silent.'
     The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of horse's
coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he added:
     'And now, Dombey, as you have  invited Joe - old Joe, who  has no other
merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty - to be your  guest and guide at
Leamington, command  him  in any  way you please, and  he is wholly yours. I
don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double chin with a jocose air,
'what  it  is  you  people see  in Joe  to make you hold  him in such  great
request, all  of you; but this I know,  Sir, that if he wasn't pretty tough,
and  obstinate  in  his  refusals,  you'd  kill  him  among  you  with  your
invitations and so forth, in double-quick time.'
     Mr Dombey, in  a few words,  expressed his  sense of the preference  he
received  over  those  other  distinguished  members  of  society  who  were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him short
by giving him to understand that he followed his own  inclinations, and that
they had risen up in a body and said with one accord,  'J. B., Dombey is the
man for you to choose as a friend.'
     The Major being by this  time in a  state of repletion, with essence of
savoury pie oozing  out at the corners of  his eyes, and devilled  grill and
kidneys tightening his cravat: and  the  time  moreover approaching for  the
departure  of the railway train  to  Birmingham, by which they were to leave
town: the  Native got him  into his great-coat with  immense difficulty, and
buttoned him up until  his face looked staring and  gasping, over the top of
that  garment, as  if  he  were  in  a  barrel. The  Native then  handed him
separately, and with a decent interval between each  supply, his washleather
gloves, his thick stick,  and his hat; which latter  article the  Major wore
with  a rakish air  on  one  side  of  his head, by way  of  toning down his
remarkable visage. The Native  had previously  packed, in  all  possible and
impossible parts of Mr Dombey's chariot,  which  was in waiting, an  unusual
quantity  of  carpet-bags  and small  portmanteaus, no  less  apoplectic  in
appearance than  the Major  himself: and having  filled his own pockets with
Seltzer  water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and
newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the Major might require at any
instant of the journey, he  announced that everything was ready. To complete
the equipment  of this  unfortunate  foreigner  (currently believed  to be a
prince  in his own country), when he took his seat in the rumble by the side
of  Mr Towlinson,  a  pile of the Major's cloaks and  great-coats was hurled
upon him by the landlord, who aimed  at  him  from the  pavement with  those
great missiles like a Titan, and so covered him up, that  he proceeded, in a
living tomb, to the railroad station.
     But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the act
of  sepulture,  Miss  Tox  appearing  at  her   window,  waved  a  lilywhite
handkerchief. Mr  Dombey received this parting salutation very coldly - very
coldly  even  for  him  - and  honouring  her  with  the slightest  possible
inclination   of  his  head,  leaned  back  in  the  carriage  with  a  very
discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the Major (who  was
all politeness in his recognition of  Miss Tox) unbounded satisfaction;  and
he  sat for a long time afterwards, leering,  and  choking, like an over-fed
Mephistopheles.
     During the bustle of  preparation  at the  railway,  Mr  Dombey and the
Major walked up and down the platform side by  side; the former taciturn and
gloomy, and  the latter entertaining him,  or entertaining himself,  with  a
variety  of anecdotes and reminiscences, in  most of which Joe Bagstock  was
the  principal performer. Neither  of the two observed that in the course of
these walks, they attracted the attention of a working  man who was standing
near the engine, and who touched his  hat  every  time  they passed; for  Mr
Dombey habitually looked over the vulgar  herd, not  at them;  and the Major
was looking,  at the time, into the  core of one of his stories. At  length,
however, this  man stepped before them as they turned round, and pulling his
hat off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey.
     'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin' pretty
well, Sir.'
     He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust and
oil,  and  had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked ashes all
over  him. He was not  a bad-looking fellow,  nor even what could be  fairly
called a dirty-looking fellow, in  spite of  this; and, in short,  he was Mr
Toodle, professionally clothed.
     'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down,  Sir,' said Mr Toodle.
'Beg your pardon, Sir. - I hope you find yourself a coming round?'
     Mr Dombey looked at him, in  return for his  tone of interest, as  if a
man like that would make his very eyesight dirty.
     ''Scuse the liberty, Sir,'  said  Toodle,  seeing  he was  not  clearly
remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family - '
     A change in Mr Dombey's face,  which seemed  to express recoll