said it was really time to go. Mr
Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect equanimity, they took
leave of that gentleman, and presently departed under the protection of
Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their backs upon the house and left
its master in his usual solitary state, put his hands in his pockets,
threw himself back in the carriage, and whistled 'With a hey ho chevy!'
all through; conveying into his face as he did so, an expression of such
gloomy and terrible defiance, that Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in
any way molest him.

Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget her
own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of the
day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly help
regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven, as,
somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in the
nursery, of his 'blessed legs,' and was again troubled by his spectre in
uniform.

'I don't know what I wouldn't give,' said Polly, 'to see the poor little
dear before he gets used to 'em.'

'Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,' retorted Nipper, who had
been admitted to her confidence, 'see him and make your mind easy.'

'Mr Dombey wouldn't like it,' said Polly.

'Oh, wouldn't he, Mrs Richards!' retorted Nipper, 'he'd like it very
much, I think when he was asked.'

'You wouldn't ask him, I suppose, at all?' said Polly.

'No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,' returned Susan, 'and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I
heard 'em say, me and Mid Floy will go along with you tomorrow morning,
and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well walk there as
up and down a street, and better too.'

Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and
little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more
distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home.
At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a
moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition.

The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most piteously,
as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it.

'What's the matter with the child?' asked Susan.

'He's cold, I think,' said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and
hushing him.

It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and hushed,
and, glancing through the dr