it, which amused us all
very much, will not unfitly introduce the subject that waits me in my
next chapter.

An elderly charwoman employed about the place had shown so much sympathy
in the family trouble, that Mrs. Hogarth specially told her of the
approaching visit, and who it was that was coming to the sick-room.
"Lawk ma'am!" she said. "Is the young gentleman upstairs the son of the
man that put together _Dombey_?" Reassured upon this point, she
explained her question by declaring that she never thought there was a
man that _could_ have put together _Dombey_. Being pressed farther as to
what her notion was of this mystery of a _Dombey_ (for it was known she
could not read), it turned out that she lodged at a snuff-shop kept by a
person named Douglas, where there were several other lodgers; and that
on the first Monday of every month there was a Tea, and the landlord
read the month's number of _Dombey_, those only of the lodgers who
subscribed to the tea partaking of that luxury, but all having the
benefit of the reading; and the impression produced on the old charwoman
revealed itself in the remark with which she closed her account of it.
"Lawk ma'am! I thought that three or four men must have put together
_Dombey_!"

Dickens thought there was something of a compliment in this, and was not
ungrateful.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[130] It had also the mention of another floating fancy for the weekly
periodical which was still and always present to his mind, and which
settled down at last, as the reader knows, into _Household Words_. "As
to the Review, I strongly incline to the notion of a kind of _Spectator_
(Addison's)--very cheap, and pretty frequent. We must have it thoroughly
discussed. It would be a great thing to found something. If the mark
between a sort of _Spectator_, and a different sort of _Athenaeum_, could
be well hit, my belief is that a deal might be done. But it should be
something with a marked and distinctive and obvious difference, in its
design, from any other existing periodical."

[131] Some smaller items of family news were in the same letter. "Mamey
and Katey have come out in Parisian dresses, and look very fine. They
are not proud, and send their loves. Skittles is cutting teeth, and gets
cross towards evening. Frankey is smaller than ever, and Walter very
large. Charley in statu quo. Everything is enormously dear. Fuel,
stupendously so. In airing the house, we burnt five pounds' wor