e so, which did quite as well, languidly exclaiming at
evening parties, that if she could have known Cicero, she thought she
could have died contented. We had Mr. Feeder, clipped to the stubble,
grinding out his classic stops like a barrel-organ of erudition. Above
all, we had Toots, the head boy, or rather "the head and shoulder
boy," he was so much taller than the rest! Of whom in that intellectual
forcing-house (where he had "gone through" everything so completely,
that one day he "suddenly left off blowing, and remained in the
establishment a mere stalk") people had come at last to say, "that the
Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began
to have whiskers he left off having brains." From the moment when Young
Toots's voice was first heard, in tones so deep, and in a manner
so sheepish, that "if a lamb had roared it couldn't have been more
surprising," saying to Little Dombey with startling suddenness, "How
are you?"--every time the Reader opened his lips, as speaking in that
character, there was a burst of merriment. His boastful account
always called forth laughter--that his tailor was Burgess and Co.,
"fash'nable, but very dear." As also did his constantly reiterated
inquiries of Paul--always as an entirely new idea--"I say--it's not
of the slightest consequence, you know, but I should wish to mention
it--how are you, you know?" Hardly less provocative of mirth was
Briggs's confiding one evening to Little Dombey, that his head ached
ready to split, and "that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for
his mother and a blackbird he had at home."

Wonderful fun used to be made by the Beader of the various incidents at
the entertainment given upon the eve of the vacations by Doctor and Mrs.
Blimber to the Young Gentlemen and their Friends, when "the hour was
half-past seven o'clock, and the object was quadrilles." The Doctor
pacing up and down in the drawing-room, full dressed, before anybody had
arrived, "with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as if he thought
it barely possible that one or two people might drop in by-and-by!" His
exclaiming, when Mr. Toots and Mr. Feeder were announced by the butler,
and as if he were extremely surprised to see them, "Aye, aye, aye!
God bless my soul!" Mr. Toots, one blaze of jewellery and buttons, so
undecided, "on a calm revision of all the circumstances," whether it
were better to have his waistcoat fastened or unfastened both at top and
bottom,