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requested that Miss Florence might be sent down then and there, to make
friends with her little brother.
She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this
errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey's colour changed; that the
expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly, as if to
gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was only deterred by
very shame.
And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child, there
had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying mother, which was
at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him be absorbed as he would
in the Son on whom he built such high hopes, he could not forget that
closing scene. He could not forget that he had had no part in it. That, at
the bottom of its clear depths of tenderness and truth' lay those two
figures clasped in each other's arms, while he stood on the bank above them,
looking down a mere spectator - not a sharer with them - quite shut out.
Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his
mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they were
fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through the mist of
his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards little Florence
changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. Young as she was, and
possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in his too) even more than the
usual amount of childish simplicity and confidence, he almost felt as if she
watched and distrusted him. As if she held the clue to something secret in
his breast, of the nature of which he was hardly informed himself. As if she
had an innate knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and
her very breath could sound it.
His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He had
never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his while or in
his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable object to him. But
now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his peace. He would have
preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he had known how. Perhaps -
who shall decide on such mysteries! - he was afraid that he might come to
hate her.
When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped in
his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with greater
interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the
impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run
clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, 'Oh father, try
to love me! there's no one else!' the dread of a repulse; the fear of being
too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some
assurance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young heart was
wandering to find some natural resting-place, for its sorrow and affection.
But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door
and look towards him; and he saw no more.
'Come in,' he said, 'come in: what is the child afraid of?'
She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an
uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within
the door.
'Come here, Florence,' said her father, coldly. 'Do you know who I am?'
'Yes, Papa.'
'Have you nothing to say to me?'
The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his
face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put
out her trembling hand.
Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her
for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or do.
'There! Be a good girl,' he said, patting her on the head, and
regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. 'Go
to Richards! Go!'
His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would
have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise
her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face once more. He
thought how like her expression was then, to what it had been when she
looked round at the Doctor - that night - and instinctively dropped her hand
and turned away.
It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great
disadvantage in her father's presence. It was not only a constraint upon the
child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of her actions. As
she sported and played about her baby brother that night, her manner was
seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally was, and sometimes when in
his pacing to and fro, he came near her (she had, perhaps, for the moment,
forgotten him) it changed upon the instant and became forced and
embarrassed.
Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this; and,
judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute appeal of
poor little Florence's mourning dress.' It's hard indeed,' thought Polly,
'if he takes only to one little motherless child, when he has another, and
that a girl, before his eyes.'
So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and managed
so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was all the
livelier for his sister's company. When it was time to withdraw upstairs
again, she would have sent Florence into the inner room to say good-night to
her father, but the child was timid and drew back; and when she urged her
again, said, spreading her hands before her eyes, as if to shut out her own
unworthiness, 'Oh no, no! He don't want me. He don't want me!'
The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr
Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine, what
the matter was.
'Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to say
good-night,' said Richards.
'It doesn't matter,' returned Mr Dombey. 'You can let her come and go
without regarding me.'
The child shrunk as she listened - and was gone, before her humble
friend looked round again.
However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her
well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought it to
bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she was once more
safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that proof of her
confidence, as well as the prospect of their free association for the
future, rather coldly, and was anything but enthusiastic in her
demonstrations of joy.
'I thought you would have been pleased,' said Polly.
'Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I'm very well pleased, thank you,' returned
Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have put
an additional bone in her stays.
'You don't show it,' said Polly.
'Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn't be expected to show it like a
temporary,' said Susan Nipper. 'Temporaries carries it all before 'em here,
I find, but though there's a excellent party-wall between this house and the
next, I mayn't exactly like to go to it, Mrs Richards, notwithstanding!'
In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these
Adventures
Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of the
City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their clashing voices
were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet were there hints of
adventurous and romantic story to be observed in some of the adjacent
objects. Gog and Magog held their state within ten minutes' walk; the Royal
Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of England, with its vaults of gold and
silver 'down among the dead men' underground, was their magnificent
neighbour. Just round the corner stood the rich East India House, teeming
with suggestions of precious stuffs and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs,
hookahs, umbrellas, palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of a brown
complexion sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at
the toes. Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures of
ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting
warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half an
hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally
employed outside the shop doors of nautical Instrument-makers in taking
observations of the hackney carriages.
Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies - of that which
might be called, familiar!y, the woodenest - of that which thrust itself out
above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the least endurable,
and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the least reconcileable to
human reason, and bore at its right eye the most offensively
disproportionate piece of machinery - sole master and proprietor of that
Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly gentleman in a Welsh wig had
paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues, for more years than many a
full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood has numbered in his life; and
midshipmen who have attained a pretty green old age, have not been wanting
in the English Navy.
The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers,
barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, and
specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a ship's
course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's
discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were in his drawers and on his
shelves, which none but the initiated could have found the top of, or
guessed the use of, or having once examined, could have ever got back again
into their mahogany nests without assistance. Everything was jammed into the
tightest cases, fitted into the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most
impertinent cushions, and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its
philosophical composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such
extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room, and
keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was fitted, and
cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was a mere slab, as
some were, or something between a cocked hat and a star-fish, as others
were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as compared with others); that
the shop itself, partaking of the general infection, seemed almost to become
a snug, sea-going, ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the
event of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island
in the world.
Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships'
Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted and
bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among ship-chandlers and
so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable ships' biscuit on his table.
It was familiar with dried meats and tongues, possessing an extraordinary
flavour of rope yarn. Pickles were produced upon it, in great wholesale
jars, with 'dealer in all kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits
were set forth in case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with
alphabetical references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the
walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells,
seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscotted
back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin.
Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew
Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman, to
carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon Gills himself
(more generally called old Sol) was far from having a maritime appearance.
To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as plain and stubborn a Welsh wig
as ever was worn, and in which he looked like anything but a Rover, he was a
slow, quiet-spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had
been small suns looking at you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner,
such as he might have acquired by having stared for three or four days
successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and suddenly came
back to the world again, to find it green. The only change ever known in his
outward man, was from a complete suit of coffee-colour cut very square, and
ornamented with glaring buttons, to the same suit of coffee-colour minus the
inexpressibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise
shirt-frill, and carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead,
and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious
possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part of all
the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun itself. Such as
he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour behind the little
Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly aloft to bed every night
in a howling garret remote from the lodgers, where, when gentlemen of
England who lived below at ease had little or no idea of the state of the
weather, it often blew great guns.
It is half-past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the reader
and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the act of seeing
what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The usual daily clearance
has been making in the City for an hour or more; and the human tide is still
rolling westward. 'The streets have thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.'
It threatens to be wet to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in
low spirits, and the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden
Midshipman.
'Where's Walter, I wonder!' said Solomon Gills, after he had carefully
put up the chronometer again. 'Here's dinner been ready, half an hour, and
no Walter!'
Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked out
among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be crossing
the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he certainly was
not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly working his way
along the piece of brass outside, writing his name over Mr Gills's name with
his forefinger.
'If I didn't know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go and
enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be fidgetty,'
said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with his knuckles. 'I
really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of moisture! Well! it's wanted.'
I believe,' said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a
compass-case, 'that you don't point more direct and due to the back parlour
than the boy's inclination does after all. And the parlour couldn't bear
straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of a point either way.'
'Halloa, Uncle Sol!'
'Halloa, my boy!' cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly round.
'What! you are here, are you?'
A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired.
'Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?
I'm so hungry.'
'As to getting on,' said Solomon good-naturedly, 'it would be odd if I
couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than with
you. As to dinner being ready, it's been ready this half hour and waiting
for you. As to being hungry, I am!'
'Come along then, Uncle!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral!'
'Confound the admiral!' returned Solomon Gills. 'You mean the Lord
Mayor.'
'No I don't!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for the
admiral! For-ward!'
At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne
without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding party
of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a
fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.
'The Lord Mayor, Wally,' said Solomon, 'for ever! No more admirals. The
Lord Mayor's your admiral.'
'Oh, is he though!' said the boy, shaking his head. 'Why, the Sword
Bearer's better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.
'And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,' returned the
Uncle. 'Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.'
'Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?' exclaimed the
boy.
I have,' said his Uncle. 'No more mugs now. We must begin to drink out
of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to the City. We
started in life this morning.
'Well, Uncle,' said the boy, 'I'll drink out of anything you like, so
long as I can drink to you. Here's to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah for the
'Lord Mayor,' interrupted the old man.
'For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,' said the
boy. 'Long life to 'em!'
The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. 'And now,' he said,
'let's hear something about the Firm.'
'Oh! there's not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,' said the boy,
plying his knife and fork.' It's a precious dark set of offices, and in the
room where I sit, there's a high fender, and an iron safe, and some cards
about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, and some desks and
stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some boxes, and a lot of
cobwebs, and in one of 'em, just over my head, a shrivelled-up blue-bottle
that looks as if it had hung there ever so long.'
'Nothing else?' said the Uncle.
'No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever came
there!) and a coal-scuttle.'
'No bankers' books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of wealth
rolling in from day to day?' said old Sol, looking wistfully at his nephew
out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and laying an unctuous
emphasis upon the words.
'Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,' returned his nephew carelessly;
'but all that sort of thing's in Mr Carker's room, or Mr Morfin's, or MR
Dombey's.'
'Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?' inquired the Uncle.
'Oh yes! In and out all day.'
'He didn't take any notice of you, I suppose?'.
'Yes he did. He walked up to my seat, - I wish he wasn't so solemn and
stiff, Uncle, - and said, "Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the Ships'
Instrument-maker." "Nephew, Sir," I said. "I said nephew, boy," said he. But
I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.'
'You're mistaken I daresay. It's no matter.
'No, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, I thought.
There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that you had
spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House
accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then
he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me much.'
'You mean, I suppose,' observed the Instrument-maker, 'that you didn't
seem to like him much?'
'Well, Uncle,' returned the boy, laughing. 'Perhaps so; I never thought
of that.'
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced
from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was done, and the
cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been brought from a
neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and went down below into a
little cellar, while his nephew, standing on the mouldy staircase, dutifully
held the light. After a moment's groping here and there, he presently
returned with a very ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.
'Why, Uncle Sol!' said the boy, 'what are you about? that's the
wonderful Madeira! - there's only one more bottle!'
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he was
about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses and
set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
'You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,' he said, 'when you come to
good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start
in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I pray Heaven it
may! - to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to
you!'
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his
throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his glass
against his nephew's. But having once got the wine to his lips, he tossed it
off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
'Dear Uncle,' said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while the
tears stood in his eyes, 'for the honour you have done me, et cetera, et
cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with three times three
and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you'll return thanks, Uncle, when we drink
the last bottle together; won't you?'
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his
wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as critical an
air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their eyes
at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had occupied his
thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
'You see, Walter,' he said, 'in truth this business is merely a habit
with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly live if I
relinquished it: but there's nothing doing, nothing doing. When that uniform
was worn,' pointing out towards the little Midshipman, 'then indeed,
fortunes were to be made, and were made. But competition, competition - new
invention, new invention - alteration, alteration - the world's gone past
me. I hardly know where I am myself, much less where my customers are.
'Never mind 'em, Uncle!'
'Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for
instance - and that's ten days,' said Solomon, 'I don't remember more than
one person that has come into the shop.'
'Two, Uncle, don't you recollect? There was the man who came to ask for
change for a sovereign - '
'That's the one,' said Solomon.
'Why Uncle! don't you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the way
to Mile-End Turnpike?'
'Oh! it's true,' said Solomon, 'I forgot her. Two persons.'
'To be sure, they didn't buy anything,' cried the boy.
'No. They didn't buy anything,' said Solomon, quietly.
'Nor want anything,' cried the boy.
'No. If they had, they'd gone to another shop,' said Solomon, in the
same tone.
'But there were two of 'em, Uncle,' cried the boy, as if that were a
great triumph. 'You said only one.'
'Well, Wally,' resumed the old man, after a short pause: 'not being
like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe's Island, we can't live on a
man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires the way to
Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don't
blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they
used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business
commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I
am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not
the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to
catch it again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.'
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
'Therefore, Wally - therefore it is that I am anxious you should be
early in the busy world, and on the world's track. I am only the ghost of
this business - its substance vanished long ago; and when I die, its ghost
will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, I have thought
it best to use for your advantage, almost the only fragment of the old
connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people suppose me to
be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were right. But whatever I leave
behind me, or whatever I can give you, you in such a House as Dombey's are
in the road to use well and make the most of. Be diligent, try to like it,
my dear boy, work for a steady independence, and be happy!'
'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed I
will,' said the boy, earnestly
'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied himself to
a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. 'As to the Sea,'
he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally, but it won't do in fact:
it won't do at all. It's natural enough that you should think about it,
associating it with all these familiar things; but it won't do, it won't
do.'
Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, as he
talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects about him
with inexpressible complacency.
'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to the
East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been once round
the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring winds, and rolling
seas:'
'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the boy.
'To be sure,' said Solomon, - 'that this wine has passed through. Think
what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a whistling and
howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:'
'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall lie
out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship rolls and
pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew.
'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that held
this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the - '
'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes past
twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying dead against
the main-mast - on the fourteenth of February, seventeen forty-nine!' cried
Walter, with great animation.
'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were five
hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the first mate,
first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) going to work to
stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing "Rule Britannia", when
she settled and went down, and ending with one awful scream in chorus.'
'But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast of
Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the fourth of
March, 'seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard; and the horses
breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and tearing to and fro, and
trampling each other to death, made such noises, and set up such human
cries, that the crew believing the ship to be full of devils, some of the
best men, losing heart and head, went overboard in despair, and only two
were left alive, at last, to tell the tale.'
'And when,' said old Sol, 'when the Polyphemus - '
'Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons,
Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,' cried Walter.
'The same,' said Sol; 'when she took fire, four days' sail with a fair
wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night - '
'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking
very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the only
boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go, until the
elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And then the younger,
rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think of your promised wife at
home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home for me. Leap down into my place!"
and flung himself in the sea!'
The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen from
his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to remind old
Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling mist had hitherto
shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more anecdotes, as he had evidently
intended but a moment before, he gave a short dry cough, and said, 'Well!
suppose we change the subject.'
The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret attraction
towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was, in some sort, a
distant relation, by his trade - had greatly encouraged the same attraction
in the nephew; and that everything that had ever been put before the boy to
deter him from a life of adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect
of sharpening his taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if
there never was a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object
of keeping boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as
a matter of course.
But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a hand
attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in
his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with knobs. He wore a loose
black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very large coarse shirt
collar, that it looked like a small sail. He was evidently the person for
whom the spare wine-glass was intended, and evidently knew it; for having
taken off his rough outer coat, and hung up, on a particular peg behind the
door, such a hard glazed hat as a sympathetic person's head might ache at
the sight of, and which left a red rim round his own forehead as if he had
been wearing a tight basin, he brought a chair to where the clean glass was,
and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as Captain, this
visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateersman, or all
three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking man indeed.
His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook hands
with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and
merely said:
'How goes it?'
'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.
He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with
extraordinary expression:
'The?'
'The,' returned the Instrument-maker.
Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they
were making holiday indeed.
'Wal'r!' he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook,
and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him! Love! Honour!
And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found
turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!'
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference
to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and
saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.
'But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't know
where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of not wasting
language as some do.'
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young
Norval's father, '"ncrease his store." At any rate he became silent, and
remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he
turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:
'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?'
'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy.
'And it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in
the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!'
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of
this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the
dial.
'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook towards
the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. Earth, air,
or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up in a balloon?
There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want to put the North
Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it for you.'
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's reverence
for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew
little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.
'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em. And
yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which is best.
It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed,
measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and
never know how.'
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind), could
have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this
prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it
opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating
Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser
man, he mused and held his peace.
'Come!' cried the subject of this admiration, returning. 'Before you
have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.'
'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.'
'No more, thank'e, Uncle!'
'Yes, yes,' said Sol, 'a little more. We'll finish the bottle, to the
House, Ned - Walter's House. Why it may be his House one of these days, in
part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter.'
'"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old
you will never depart from it,"' interposed the Captain. 'Wal'r! Overhaul
the book, my lad.'
'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began.
'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing.
'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too.
'Oh! I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some of 'em were talking about it
in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,' lowering
his voice, 'that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left,
unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all the while upon
having his son in the House, that although he's only a baby now, he is going
to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the books kept closer
than they used to be, and has even been seen (when he thought he wasn't)
walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and property and all that, as if
he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That's
what they say. Of course, I don't know.
'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the instrument-maker.
'Nonsense, Uncle,' cried the boy, still reddening and laughing,
boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?'
'The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned,' said the
old man, humouring the joke.
'Very much,' said the Captain.
'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey and
Son.'
'Oh, very well, Uncle,' said the boy, merrily. 'Since you have
introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have said
that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. So here's
to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!'
Paul's Progress and Christening
Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles,
grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more
ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far appreciated by Mr
Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of great natural good sense,
whose feelings did her credit and deserved encouragement. He was so lavish
of this condescension, that he not only bowed to her, in a particular
manner, on several occasions, but even entrusted such stately recognitions
of her to his sister as 'pray tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very
good,' or 'mention to Miss Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to
her;'specialities which made a deep impression on the lady thus
distinguished.
Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates to
welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and Kirby's
Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to greet him with
all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of his existence - or
whether her overflowing goodness induced her to volunteer into the domestic
militia as a substitute in some sort for his deceased Mama - or whether she
was conscious of any other motives - are questions which in this stage of
the Firm's history herself only could have solved. Nor have they much
bearing on the fact (of which there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy
and zeal were a heavy discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly
under her patronage, and was in some danger of being superintended to death.
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing
could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that
sweet child;' and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might have inferred
so much without declaratory confirmation. She would preside over the
innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with
an air of joint proprietorship with Richards in the entertainment. At the
little ceremonies of the bath and toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm.
The administration of infantine doses of physic awakened all the active
sympathy of her character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard
(whither she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the
nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation for
bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a short and airy
linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to
be unable to refrain from crying out, 'Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he
not a Cupid, Sir!' and then almost sinking behind the closet door with
confusion and blushes.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, 'I really think I
must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of Paul's
christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's behalf from
the first, and seems to understand her position so thoroughly (a very rare
merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that it would really be agreeable
to me to notice her.'
Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr
Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only
achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own
position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their
merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before
him.
'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice, as a
man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if there are
three words in the English language for which she has a respect amounting
almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son.'
'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'
'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued his
sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be hoarded
and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my dear Paul, of
showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still more flattering and
acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.'
'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey.
'Godfathers, of course,' continued Mrs Chick, 'are important in point
of connexion and influence.'
'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey, coldly.
'Very true, my dear Paul,' retorted Mrs Chick, with an extraordinary
show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her conversion; 'and spoken
like yourself. I might have expected nothing else from you. I might have
known that such would have been your opinion. Perhaps;' here Mrs Chick
faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a
reason why you might have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be
godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone
else. That it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I
need not say.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, 'it is not to be
supposed - '
'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, 'I
never thought it was.'
Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.
'Don't flurry me, my dear Paul,' said his sister; 'for that destroys
me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since poor dear
Fanny departed.'
Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister applied
to her eyes, and resumed:
'It is not be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick, 'that I
never thought it was.'
'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey.
'No, my dear Paul,' she remonstrated with tearful dignity, 'I must
really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so
eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much the
worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter - and last
words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear Fanny - I
would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,' added Mrs Chick
with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her crushing argument until
now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey walked to the window and back
again.
'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took no notice
of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that I recognised
any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me superior to Miss
Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul and myself will be
able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the House, in other words, will
be able to hold its own, and maintain its own, and hand down its own of
itself, and without any such common-place aids. The kind of foreign help
which people usually seek for their children, I can afford to despise; being
above it, I hope. So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I
see him becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he
is destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he
pleases in after-life, when he is actively maintaining - and extending, if
that is possible - the dignity and credit of the Firm. Until then, I am
enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no wish that people should
step in between us. I would much rather show my sense of the obliging
conduct of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let it be so; and
your husband and myself will do well enough for the other sponsors, I
daresay.'
In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his breast. An
indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between himself and his son; a
haughty dread of having any rival or partner in the boy's respect and
deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, that he was not infallible
in his power of bending and binding human wills; as sharp a jealousy of any
second check or cross; these were, at that time the master keys of his soul.
In all his life, he had never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had
neither sought one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated
its whole force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and
ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released by this
influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to
admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one unyielding block.
Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to office;
and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the ceremony, already long
delayed, should take place without further postponement. His sister, who had
been far from anticipating so signal a success, withdrew as soon as she
could, to communicate it to her best of friends; and Mr Dombey was left
alone in his library. He had already laid his hand upon the bellrope to
convey his usual summons to Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk,
belonging to his deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things,
from a cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had
lighted on it He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to his
table and opened it now - having previously locked the room door - with a
well-accustomed hand.
From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one
friends with her little brother.
She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this
errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey's colour changed; that the
expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly, as if to
gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was only deterred by
very shame.
And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child, there
had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying mother, which was
at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him be absorbed as he would
in the Son on whom he built such high hopes, he could not forget that
closing scene. He could not forget that he had had no part in it. That, at
the bottom of its clear depths of tenderness and truth' lay those two
figures clasped in each other's arms, while he stood on the bank above them,
looking down a mere spectator - not a sharer with them - quite shut out.
Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his
mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they were
fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through the mist of
his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards little Florence
changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. Young as she was, and
possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in his too) even more than the
usual amount of childish simplicity and confidence, he almost felt as if she
watched and distrusted him. As if she held the clue to something secret in
his breast, of the nature of which he was hardly informed himself. As if she
had an innate knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and
her very breath could sound it.
His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He had
never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his while or in
his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable object to him. But
now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his peace. He would have
preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he had known how. Perhaps -
who shall decide on such mysteries! - he was afraid that he might come to
hate her.
When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped in
his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with greater
interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the
impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run
clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, 'Oh father, try
to love me! there's no one else!' the dread of a repulse; the fear of being
too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some
assurance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young heart was
wandering to find some natural resting-place, for its sorrow and affection.
But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door
and look towards him; and he saw no more.
'Come in,' he said, 'come in: what is the child afraid of?'
She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an
uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within
the door.
'Come here, Florence,' said her father, coldly. 'Do you know who I am?'
'Yes, Papa.'
'Have you nothing to say to me?'
The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his
face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put
out her trembling hand.
Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her
for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or do.
'There! Be a good girl,' he said, patting her on the head, and
regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. 'Go
to Richards! Go!'
His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would
have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise
her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face once more. He
thought how like her expression was then, to what it had been when she
looked round at the Doctor - that night - and instinctively dropped her hand
and turned away.
It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great
disadvantage in her father's presence. It was not only a constraint upon the
child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of her actions. As
she sported and played about her baby brother that night, her manner was
seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally was, and sometimes when in
his pacing to and fro, he came near her (she had, perhaps, for the moment,
forgotten him) it changed upon the instant and became forced and
embarrassed.
Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this; and,
judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute appeal of
poor little Florence's mourning dress.' It's hard indeed,' thought Polly,
'if he takes only to one little motherless child, when he has another, and
that a girl, before his eyes.'
So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and managed
so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was all the
livelier for his sister's company. When it was time to withdraw upstairs
again, she would have sent Florence into the inner room to say good-night to
her father, but the child was timid and drew back; and when she urged her
again, said, spreading her hands before her eyes, as if to shut out her own
unworthiness, 'Oh no, no! He don't want me. He don't want me!'
The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr
Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine, what
the matter was.
'Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to say
good-night,' said Richards.
'It doesn't matter,' returned Mr Dombey. 'You can let her come and go
without regarding me.'
The child shrunk as she listened - and was gone, before her humble
friend looked round again.
However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her
well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought it to
bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she was once more
safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that proof of her
confidence, as well as the prospect of their free association for the
future, rather coldly, and was anything but enthusiastic in her
demonstrations of joy.
'I thought you would have been pleased,' said Polly.
'Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I'm very well pleased, thank you,' returned
Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have put
an additional bone in her stays.
'You don't show it,' said Polly.
'Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn't be expected to show it like a
temporary,' said Susan Nipper. 'Temporaries carries it all before 'em here,
I find, but though there's a excellent party-wall between this house and the
next, I mayn't exactly like to go to it, Mrs Richards, notwithstanding!'
In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these
Adventures
Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of the
City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their clashing voices
were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet were there hints of
adventurous and romantic story to be observed in some of the adjacent
objects. Gog and Magog held their state within ten minutes' walk; the Royal
Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of England, with its vaults of gold and
silver 'down among the dead men' underground, was their magnificent
neighbour. Just round the corner stood the rich East India House, teeming
with suggestions of precious stuffs and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs,
hookahs, umbrellas, palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of a brown
complexion sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at
the toes. Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures of
ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting
warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half an
hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally
employed outside the shop doors of nautical Instrument-makers in taking
observations of the hackney carriages.
Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies - of that which
might be called, familiar!y, the woodenest - of that which thrust itself out
above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the least endurable,
and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the least reconcileable to
human reason, and bore at its right eye the most offensively
disproportionate piece of machinery - sole master and proprietor of that
Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly gentleman in a Welsh wig had
paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues, for more years than many a
full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood has numbered in his life; and
midshipmen who have attained a pretty green old age, have not been wanting
in the English Navy.
The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers,
barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, and
specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a ship's
course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's
discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were in his drawers and on his
shelves, which none but the initiated could have found the top of, or
guessed the use of, or having once examined, could have ever got back again
into their mahogany nests without assistance. Everything was jammed into the
tightest cases, fitted into the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most
impertinent cushions, and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its
philosophical composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such
extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room, and
keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was fitted, and
cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was a mere slab, as
some were, or something between a cocked hat and a star-fish, as others
were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as compared with others); that
the shop itself, partaking of the general infection, seemed almost to become
a snug, sea-going, ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the
event of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island
in the world.
Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships'
Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted and
bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among ship-chandlers and
so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable ships' biscuit on his table.
It was familiar with dried meats and tongues, possessing an extraordinary
flavour of rope yarn. Pickles were produced upon it, in great wholesale
jars, with 'dealer in all kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits
were set forth in case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with
alphabetical references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the
walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells,
seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscotted
back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin.
Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew
Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman, to
carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon Gills himself
(more generally called old Sol) was far from having a maritime appearance.
To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as plain and stubborn a Welsh wig
as ever was worn, and in which he looked like anything but a Rover, he was a
slow, quiet-spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had
been small suns looking at you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner,
such as he might have acquired by having stared for three or four days
successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and suddenly came
back to the world again, to find it green. The only change ever known in his
outward man, was from a complete suit of coffee-colour cut very square, and
ornamented with glaring buttons, to the same suit of coffee-colour minus the
inexpressibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise
shirt-frill, and carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead,
and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious
possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part of all
the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun itself. Such as
he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour behind the little
Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly aloft to bed every night
in a howling garret remote from the lodgers, where, when gentlemen of
England who lived below at ease had little or no idea of the state of the
weather, it often blew great guns.
It is half-past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the reader
and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the act of seeing
what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The usual daily clearance
has been making in the City for an hour or more; and the human tide is still
rolling westward. 'The streets have thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.'
It threatens to be wet to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in
low spirits, and the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden
Midshipman.
'Where's Walter, I wonder!' said Solomon Gills, after he had carefully
put up the chronometer again. 'Here's dinner been ready, half an hour, and
no Walter!'
Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked out
among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be crossing
the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he certainly was
not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly working his way
along the piece of brass outside, writing his name over Mr Gills's name with
his forefinger.
'If I didn't know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go and
enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be fidgetty,'
said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with his knuckles. 'I
really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of moisture! Well! it's wanted.'
I believe,' said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a
compass-case, 'that you don't point more direct and due to the back parlour
than the boy's inclination does after all. And the parlour couldn't bear
straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of a point either way.'
'Halloa, Uncle Sol!'
'Halloa, my boy!' cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly round.
'What! you are here, are you?'
A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired.
'Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?
I'm so hungry.'
'As to getting on,' said Solomon good-naturedly, 'it would be odd if I
couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than with
you. As to dinner being ready, it's been ready this half hour and waiting
for you. As to being hungry, I am!'
'Come along then, Uncle!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral!'
'Confound the admiral!' returned Solomon Gills. 'You mean the Lord
Mayor.'
'No I don't!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for the
admiral! For-ward!'
At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne
without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding party
of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a
fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.
'The Lord Mayor, Wally,' said Solomon, 'for ever! No more admirals. The
Lord Mayor's your admiral.'
'Oh, is he though!' said the boy, shaking his head. 'Why, the Sword
Bearer's better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.
'And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,' returned the
Uncle. 'Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.'
'Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?' exclaimed the
boy.
I have,' said his Uncle. 'No more mugs now. We must begin to drink out
of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to the City. We
started in life this morning.
'Well, Uncle,' said the boy, 'I'll drink out of anything you like, so
long as I can drink to you. Here's to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah for the
'Lord Mayor,' interrupted the old man.
'For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,' said the
boy. 'Long life to 'em!'
The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. 'And now,' he said,
'let's hear something about the Firm.'
'Oh! there's not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,' said the boy,
plying his knife and fork.' It's a precious dark set of offices, and in the
room where I sit, there's a high fender, and an iron safe, and some cards
about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, and some desks and
stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some boxes, and a lot of
cobwebs, and in one of 'em, just over my head, a shrivelled-up blue-bottle
that looks as if it had hung there ever so long.'
'Nothing else?' said the Uncle.
'No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever came
there!) and a coal-scuttle.'
'No bankers' books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of wealth
rolling in from day to day?' said old Sol, looking wistfully at his nephew
out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and laying an unctuous
emphasis upon the words.
'Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,' returned his nephew carelessly;
'but all that sort of thing's in Mr Carker's room, or Mr Morfin's, or MR
Dombey's.'
'Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?' inquired the Uncle.
'Oh yes! In and out all day.'
'He didn't take any notice of you, I suppose?'.
'Yes he did. He walked up to my seat, - I wish he wasn't so solemn and
stiff, Uncle, - and said, "Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the Ships'
Instrument-maker." "Nephew, Sir," I said. "I said nephew, boy," said he. But
I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.'
'You're mistaken I daresay. It's no matter.
'No, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, I thought.
There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that you had
spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House
accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then
he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me much.'
'You mean, I suppose,' observed the Instrument-maker, 'that you didn't
seem to like him much?'
'Well, Uncle,' returned the boy, laughing. 'Perhaps so; I never thought
of that.'
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced
from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was done, and the
cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been brought from a
neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and went down below into a
little cellar, while his nephew, standing on the mouldy staircase, dutifully
held the light. After a moment's groping here and there, he presently
returned with a very ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.
'Why, Uncle Sol!' said the boy, 'what are you about? that's the
wonderful Madeira! - there's only one more bottle!'
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he was
about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses and
set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
'You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,' he said, 'when you come to
good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start
in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I pray Heaven it
may! - to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to
you!'
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his
throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his glass
against his nephew's. But having once got the wine to his lips, he tossed it
off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
'Dear Uncle,' said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while the
tears stood in his eyes, 'for the honour you have done me, et cetera, et
cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with three times three
and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you'll return thanks, Uncle, when we drink
the last bottle together; won't you?'
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his
wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as critical an
air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their eyes
at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had occupied his
thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
'You see, Walter,' he said, 'in truth this business is merely a habit
with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly live if I
relinquished it: but there's nothing doing, nothing doing. When that uniform
was worn,' pointing out towards the little Midshipman, 'then indeed,
fortunes were to be made, and were made. But competition, competition - new
invention, new invention - alteration, alteration - the world's gone past
me. I hardly know where I am myself, much less where my customers are.
'Never mind 'em, Uncle!'
'Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for
instance - and that's ten days,' said Solomon, 'I don't remember more than
one person that has come into the shop.'
'Two, Uncle, don't you recollect? There was the man who came to ask for
change for a sovereign - '
'That's the one,' said Solomon.
'Why Uncle! don't you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the way
to Mile-End Turnpike?'
'Oh! it's true,' said Solomon, 'I forgot her. Two persons.'
'To be sure, they didn't buy anything,' cried the boy.
'No. They didn't buy anything,' said Solomon, quietly.
'Nor want anything,' cried the boy.
'No. If they had, they'd gone to another shop,' said Solomon, in the
same tone.
'But there were two of 'em, Uncle,' cried the boy, as if that were a
great triumph. 'You said only one.'
'Well, Wally,' resumed the old man, after a short pause: 'not being
like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe's Island, we can't live on a
man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires the way to
Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don't
blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they
used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business
commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I
am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not
the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to
catch it again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.'
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
'Therefore, Wally - therefore it is that I am anxious you should be
early in the busy world, and on the world's track. I am only the ghost of
this business - its substance vanished long ago; and when I die, its ghost
will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, I have thought
it best to use for your advantage, almost the only fragment of the old
connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people suppose me to
be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were right. But whatever I leave
behind me, or whatever I can give you, you in such a House as Dombey's are
in the road to use well and make the most of. Be diligent, try to like it,
my dear boy, work for a steady independence, and be happy!'
'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed I
will,' said the boy, earnestly
'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied himself to
a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. 'As to the Sea,'
he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally, but it won't do in fact:
it won't do at all. It's natural enough that you should think about it,
associating it with all these familiar things; but it won't do, it won't
do.'
Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, as he
talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects about him
with inexpressible complacency.
'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to the
East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been once round
the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring winds, and rolling
seas:'
'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the boy.
'To be sure,' said Solomon, - 'that this wine has passed through. Think
what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a whistling and
howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:'
'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall lie
out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship rolls and
pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew.
'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that held
this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the - '
'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes past
twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying dead against
the main-mast - on the fourteenth of February, seventeen forty-nine!' cried
Walter, with great animation.
'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were five
hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the first mate,
first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) going to work to
stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing "Rule Britannia", when
she settled and went down, and ending with one awful scream in chorus.'
'But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast of
Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the fourth of
March, 'seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard; and the horses
breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and tearing to and fro, and
trampling each other to death, made such noises, and set up such human
cries, that the crew believing the ship to be full of devils, some of the
best men, losing heart and head, went overboard in despair, and only two
were left alive, at last, to tell the tale.'
'And when,' said old Sol, 'when the Polyphemus - '
'Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons,
Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,' cried Walter.
'The same,' said Sol; 'when she took fire, four days' sail with a fair
wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night - '
'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking
very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the only
boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go, until the
elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And then the younger,
rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think of your promised wife at
home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home for me. Leap down into my place!"
and flung himself in the sea!'
The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen from
his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to remind old
Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling mist had hitherto
shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more anecdotes, as he had evidently
intended but a moment before, he gave a short dry cough, and said, 'Well!
suppose we change the subject.'
The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret attraction
towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was, in some sort, a
distant relation, by his trade - had greatly encouraged the same attraction
in the nephew; and that everything that had ever been put before the boy to
deter him from a life of adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect
of sharpening his taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if
there never was a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object
of keeping boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as
a matter of course.
But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a hand
attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in
his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with knobs. He wore a loose
black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very large coarse shirt
collar, that it looked like a small sail. He was evidently the person for
whom the spare wine-glass was intended, and evidently knew it; for having
taken off his rough outer coat, and hung up, on a particular peg behind the
door, such a hard glazed hat as a sympathetic person's head might ache at
the sight of, and which left a red rim round his own forehead as if he had
been wearing a tight basin, he brought a chair to where the clean glass was,
and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as Captain, this
visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateersman, or all
three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking man indeed.
His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook hands
with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and
merely said:
'How goes it?'
'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.
He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with
extraordinary expression:
'The?'
'The,' returned the Instrument-maker.
Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they
were making holiday indeed.
'Wal'r!' he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook,
and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him! Love! Honour!
And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found
turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!'
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference
to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and
saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.
'But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't know
where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of not wasting
language as some do.'
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young
Norval's father, '"ncrease his store." At any rate he became silent, and
remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he
turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:
'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?'
'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy.
'And it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in
the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!'
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of
this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the
dial.
'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook towards
the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. Earth, air,
or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up in a balloon?
There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want to put the North
Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it for you.'
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's reverence
for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew
little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.
'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em. And
yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which is best.
It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed,
measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and
never know how.'
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind), could
have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this
prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it
opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating
Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser
man, he mused and held his peace.
'Come!' cried the subject of this admiration, returning. 'Before you
have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.'
'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.'
'No more, thank'e, Uncle!'
'Yes, yes,' said Sol, 'a little more. We'll finish the bottle, to the
House, Ned - Walter's House. Why it may be his House one of these days, in
part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter.'
'"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old
you will never depart from it,"' interposed the Captain. 'Wal'r! Overhaul
the book, my lad.'
'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began.
'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing.
'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too.
'Oh! I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some of 'em were talking about it
in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,' lowering
his voice, 'that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left,
unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all the while upon
having his son in the House, that although he's only a baby now, he is going
to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the books kept closer
than they used to be, and has even been seen (when he thought he wasn't)
walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and property and all that, as if
he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That's
what they say. Of course, I don't know.
'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the instrument-maker.
'Nonsense, Uncle,' cried the boy, still reddening and laughing,
boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?'
'The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned,' said the
old man, humouring the joke.
'Very much,' said the Captain.
'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey and
Son.'
'Oh, very well, Uncle,' said the boy, merrily. 'Since you have
introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have said
that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. So here's
to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!'
Paul's Progress and Christening
Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles,
grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more
ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far appreciated by Mr
Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of great natural good sense,
whose feelings did her credit and deserved encouragement. He was so lavish
of this condescension, that he not only bowed to her, in a particular
manner, on several occasions, but even entrusted such stately recognitions
of her to his sister as 'pray tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very
good,' or 'mention to Miss Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to
her;'specialities which made a deep impression on the lady thus
distinguished.
Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates to
welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and Kirby's
Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to greet him with
all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of his existence - or
whether her overflowing goodness induced her to volunteer into the domestic
militia as a substitute in some sort for his deceased Mama - or whether she
was conscious of any other motives - are questions which in this stage of
the Firm's history herself only could have solved. Nor have they much
bearing on the fact (of which there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy
and zeal were a heavy discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly
under her patronage, and was in some danger of being superintended to death.
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing
could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that
sweet child;' and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might have inferred
so much without declaratory confirmation. She would preside over the
innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with
an air of joint proprietorship with Richards in the entertainment. At the
little ceremonies of the bath and toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm.
The administration of infantine doses of physic awakened all the active
sympathy of her character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard
(whither she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the
nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation for
bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a short and airy
linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to
be unable to refrain from crying out, 'Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he
not a Cupid, Sir!' and then almost sinking behind the closet door with
confusion and blushes.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, 'I really think I
must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of Paul's
christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's behalf from
the first, and seems to understand her position so thoroughly (a very rare
merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that it would really be agreeable
to me to notice her.'
Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr
Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only
achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own
position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their
merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before
him.
'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice, as a
man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if there are
three words in the English language for which she has a respect amounting
almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son.'
'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'
'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued his
sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be hoarded
and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my dear Paul, of
showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still more flattering and
acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.'
'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey.
'Godfathers, of course,' continued Mrs Chick, 'are important in point
of connexion and influence.'
'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey, coldly.
'Very true, my dear Paul,' retorted Mrs Chick, with an extraordinary
show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her conversion; 'and spoken
like yourself. I might have expected nothing else from you. I might have
known that such would have been your opinion. Perhaps;' here Mrs Chick
faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a
reason why you might have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be
godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone
else. That it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I
need not say.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, 'it is not to be
supposed - '
'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, 'I
never thought it was.'
Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.
'Don't flurry me, my dear Paul,' said his sister; 'for that destroys
me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since poor dear
Fanny departed.'
Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister applied
to her eyes, and resumed:
'It is not be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick, 'that I
never thought it was.'
'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey.
'No, my dear Paul,' she remonstrated with tearful dignity, 'I must
really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so
eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much the
worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter - and last
words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear Fanny - I
would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,' added Mrs Chick
with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her crushing argument until
now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey walked to the window and back
again.
'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took no notice
of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that I recognised
any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me superior to Miss
Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul and myself will be
able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the House, in other words, will
be able to hold its own, and maintain its own, and hand down its own of
itself, and without any such common-place aids. The kind of foreign help
which people usually seek for their children, I can afford to despise; being
above it, I hope. So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I
see him becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he
is destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he
pleases in after-life, when he is actively maintaining - and extending, if
that is possible - the dignity and credit of the Firm. Until then, I am
enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no wish that people should
step in between us. I would much rather show my sense of the obliging
conduct of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let it be so; and
your husband and myself will do well enough for the other sponsors, I
daresay.'
In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his breast. An
indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between himself and his son; a
haughty dread of having any rival or partner in the boy's respect and
deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, that he was not infallible
in his power of bending and binding human wills; as sharp a jealousy of any
second check or cross; these were, at that time the master keys of his soul.
In all his life, he had never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had
neither sought one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated
its whole force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and
ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released by this
influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to
admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one unyielding block.
Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to office;
and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the ceremony, already long
delayed, should take place without further postponement. His sister, who had
been far from anticipating so signal a success, withdrew as soon as she
could, to communicate it to her best of friends; and Mr Dombey was left
alone in his library. He had already laid his hand upon the bellrope to
convey his usual summons to Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk,
belonging to his deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things,
from a cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had
lighted on it He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to his
table and opened it now - having previously locked the room door - with a
well-accustomed hand.
From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one