“Give it to his old Uncle,” returned Paul.
“Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?” retorted Mr. Dombey. “Well! When you are old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it together.”
“Dombey and Son,” interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in the phrase.
“Dombey and Son,” repeated his father. “Would you like to begin to be Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay’s Uncle?”
“Oh! if you please, Papa!” said Paul: “and so would Florence.”
“Girls,” said Mr. Dombey, “have nothing to do with Dombey and Son. Would you like it?”
“Yes, Papa, yes!”
“Then you shall do it,” returned his father. “And you see, Paul,” he added, dropping his voice, “how powerful money is, and how anxious people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money, and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let him have it, as a great favour and obligation.”
Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a sharp understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it was a young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped down from his father’s knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any more, for he was going to let young Gay have the money.
Mr. Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed it. During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and Captain Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably presumptuous thoughts as Mr. Dombey never could have believed in. The note being finished, Mr. Dombey turned round to his former place, and held it out to Walter.
“Give that,” he said, “the first thing tomorrow morning, to Mr. Carker. He will immediately take care that one of my people releases your Uncle from his present position, by paying the amount at issue; and that such arrangements are made for its repayment as may be consistent with your Uncle’s circumstances. You will consider that this is done for you by Master Paul.”
Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of releasing his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to express something of his gratitude and joy. But Mr. Dombey stopped him short.
“You will consider that it is done,” he repeated, “by Master Paul. I have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to be said.”
As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the same, interposed.
“My dear Sir,” she said, addressing Mr. Dombey, at whose munificence both she and Mrs. Chick were shedding tears copiously; “I think you have overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr. Dombey, I think, in the nobility of your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a matter of detail.”
“Indeed, Miss Tox!” said Mr. Dombey.
“The gentleman with the—Instrument,” pursued Miss Tox, glancing at Captain Cuttle, “has left upon the table, at your elbow—”
“Good Heaven!” said Mr. Dombey, sweeping the Captain’s property from him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. “Take these things away. I am obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the goodness to take these things away, Sir!”
Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was so much struck by the magnanimity of Mr. Dombey, in refusing treasures lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons and sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could not refrain from seizing that gentleman’s right hand in his own solitary left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers, bringing the hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At this touch of warm feeling and cold iron, Mr. Dombey shivered all over.
Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times, with great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave of Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some message to old Sol, when Mr. Dombey called her back, and bade her stay where she was.
“Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!” said Mrs. Chick, with pathetic reproachfulness.
“Dear aunt,” said Florence. “Don’t be angry with me. I am so thankful to Papa!”
She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had dared; but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards him, as he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her, but, for the most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with the new-blown dignity of having let young Gay have the money.
And young Gay—Walter—what of him?
He was overjoyed to purge the old man’s hearth from bailiffs and brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon; and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr. Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began
