To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than herself; and her face showed it.
“But the visitor, Susan,” said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a sob, and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
“Mr. Toots!”
The smile that appeared on Florence’s face passed from it in a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a smile, and that gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
“My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,” said Susan, putting her apron to her eyes, and shaking her head. “Immediately I see that Innocent in the Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.”
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the spot. In the meantime Mr. Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his knuckles on the door, and walked in very briskly.
“How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr. Toots. “I’m very well, I thank you; how are you?”
Mr. Toots—than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though there may have been one or two brighter spirits—had laboriously invented this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that he had run through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner, by squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it advisable to begin again.
“How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr. Toots. “I’m very well, I thank you; how are you?”
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
“I’m very well indeed,” said Mr. Toots, taking a chair. “Very well indeed, I am. I don’t remember,” said Mr. Toots, after reflecting a little, “that I was ever better, thank you.”
“It’s very kind of you to come,” said Florence, taking up her work, “I am very glad to see you.”
Mr. Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively, he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melancholy, he corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with either mode of reply, he breathed hard.
“You were very kind to my dear brother,” said Florence, obeying her own natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. “He often talked to me about you.”
“Oh it’s of no consequence,” said Mr. Toots hastily. “Warm, ain’t it?”
“It is beautiful weather,” replied Florence.
“It agrees with me!” said Mr. Toots. “I don’t think I ever was so well as I find myself at present, I’m obliged to you.”
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr. Toots fell into a deep well of silence.
“You have left Dr. Blimber’s, I think?” said Florence, trying to help him out.
“I should hope so,” returned Mr. Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and said,
“Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.”
“Are you going?” asked Florence, rising.
“I don’t know, though. No, not just at present,” said Mr. Toots, sitting down again, most unexpectedly. “The fact is—I say, Miss Dombey!”
“Don’t be afraid to speak to me,” said Florence, with a quiet smile, “I should be very glad if you would talk about my brother.”
“Would you, though?” retorted Mr. Toots, with sympathy in every fibre of his otherwise expressionless face. “Poor Dombey! I’m sure I never thought that Burgess and Co.—fashionable tailors (but very dear), that we used to talk about—would make this suit of clothes for such a purpose.” Mr. Toots was dressed in mourning. “Poor Dombey! I say! Miss Dombey!” blubbered Toots.
“Yes,” said Florence.
“There’s a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you’d like to have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his remembering Diogenes?”
“Oh yes! oh yes!” cried Florence.
“Poor Dombey! So do I,” said Mr. Toots.
Mr. Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a chuckle saved him on the brink.
“I say,” he proceeded, “Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for ten shillings, if they hadn’t given him up: and I would: but they were glad to get rid of him, I think. If you’d like to have him, he’s at the door. I brought him on purpose for you. He ain’t a lady’s dog, you know,” said Mr. Toots, “but you won’t mind that, will you?”
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a hackney cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he was as unlike a lady’s dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung panting up again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to be examined for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a summer’s day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice; he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful of
