, upon the
three strange faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come here to see me, for
I know him very well, and he knows me.

'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study will do
much.'

Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked
at him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.

'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and familiarise
him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'

Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and looking at
her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away together. For
her spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the glasses, made her
so mysterious, that he didn't know where she was looking, and was not
indeed quite sure that she had any eyes at all behind them.

Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at the
back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which
deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there were
eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very
hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk
to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he
looked, in Paul's young eyes, behind it.

Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil stop
on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the
remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were
engaged in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like a
dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a
hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his
task in stony stupefaction and despair--which it seemed had been his
condition ever since breakfast time.

The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might have
been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving his head
for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it), gave him a
bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him--which Paul would have
been very glad to have told him, if he could have done so with the least
sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook hands with the four
young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the two young gentlemen
at work on the problems, who were very feverish; then with the young
gentleman at work against time, who was