old Glubb, I should be able to do better.'

'Nonsense, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't hear of it. This is
not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must take the books down,
I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day's
instalment of subject A, before you turn at all to subject B. I am
sorry to say, Dombey, that your education appears to have been very much
neglected.'

'So Papa says,' returned Paul; 'but I told you--I have been a weak
child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.'

'Who is Wickam?' asked Miss Blimber.

'She has been my nurse,' Paul answered.

'I must beg you not to mention Wickam to me, then,' said Miss Blimber.'I
couldn't allow it'.

'You asked me who she was,' said Paul.

'Very well,' returned Miss Blimber; 'but this is all very different
indeed from anything of that sort, Dombey, and I couldn't think of
permitting it. As to having been weak, you must begin to be strong. And
now take away the top book, if you please, Dombey, and return when you
are master of the theme.'

Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul's
uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected
this result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant
communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and
laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of it,
and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides: until at
last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it was nearly
all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss Blimber's shutting
up the book, and saying, 'Good, Dombey!' a proceeding so suggestive of
the knowledge inside of her, that Paul looked upon the young lady with
consternation, as a kind of learned Guy Faux, or artificial Bogle,
stuffed full of scholastic straw.

He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber,
commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately
provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D
before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after
dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all the
other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to resume
their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a wonder
that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to its first
inquiry, never said, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,' for
that