quite
astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The
Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation;
and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again
complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.

But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said to
himself, and of himself, 'Sly, Sir--sly, Sir--de-vil-ish sly!' And
when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit
of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always
particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark
servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his
life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form,
but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former experience;
and presented to the dark man's view, nothing but a heaving mass of
indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of coughing, and when
that was a little better burst into such ejaculations as the following:

'Would you, Ma'am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma'am? I think not, Ma'am.
Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma'am. J. B.'s even
with you now, Ma'am. He isn't altogether bowled out, yet, Sir, isn't
Bagstock. She's deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake is old
Joe--broad awake, and staring, Sir!' There was no doubt of this last
assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it continued to
be during the greater part of that night, which the Major chiefly passed
in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of coughing and choking
that startled the whole house.

It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr Dombey,
Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still eulogising the
Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with a bright colour,
and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,

'Papa! Papa! Here's Walter! and he won't come in.'

'Who?' cried Mr Dombey. 'What does she mean? What is this?'

'Walter, Papa!' said Florence timidly; sensible of having approached the
presence with too much familiarity. 'Who found me when I was lost.'

'Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?' inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his
brows. 'Really, this child's manners have become very boisterous. She
cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?'

Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the information
that it was you