would like nothing better
than to run at him, full tilt.

'Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Miss Dombey?' says Mr
Toots.

Florence assents, with a grateful smile.

'Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, 'beg your pardon, but if you would like to
walk to Blimber's, I--I'm going there.'

Florence puts her arm in that of Mr Toots without a word, and they walk
away together, with Diogenes going on before. Mr Toots's legs shake
under him; and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels misfits, and
sees wrinkles, in the masterpieces of Burgess and Co., and wishes he had
put on that brightest pair of boots.

Doctor Blimber's house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an air
as ever; and up there is the window where she used to look for the pale
face, and where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the wasted
little hand waved kisses as she passed. The door is opened by the same
weak-eyed young man, whose imbecility of grin at sight of Mr Toots is
feebleness of character personified. They are shown into the Doctor's
study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them audience as of yore, to
the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall; and where the globes
stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world were stationary
too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to the universal law,
that, while it keeps it on the roll, calls everything to earth.

And here is Doctor Blimber, with his learned legs; and here is Mrs
Blimber, with her sky-blue cap; and here Cornelia, with her sandy little
row of curls, and her bright spectacles, still working like a sexton in
the graves of languages. Here is the table upon which he sat forlorn
and strange, the 'new boy' of the school; and hither comes the distant
cooing of the old boys, at their old lives in the old room on the old
principle!

'Toots,' says Doctor Blimber, 'I am very glad to see you, Toots.'

Mr Toots chuckles in reply.

'Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,' says Doctor Blimber.

Mr Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss Dombey
by accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see the old
place, they have come together.

'You will like,' says Doctor Blimber, 'to step among our young friends,
Miss Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, Toots, once. I
think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my dear,' says
Doctor Blimber to Cornelia, 'since Mr Toots left us.'

'Except Bithersto