stand
me?'

Mrs Toodle seemed doubtful about it; and as to Toodle himself, he had
evidently no doubt whatever, that he was all abroad.

'You have children of your own,' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not at all in
this bargain that you need become attached to my child, or that my child
need become attached to you. I don't expect or desire anything of the
kind. Quite the reverse. When you go away from here, you will have
concluded what is a mere matter of bargain and sale, hiring and letting:
and will stay away. The child will cease to remember you; and you will
cease, if you please, to remember the child.'

Mrs Toodle, with a little more colour in her cheeks than she had had
before, said 'she hoped she knew her place.'

'I hope you do, Richards,' said Mr Dombey. 'I have no doubt you know
it very well. Indeed it is so plain and obvious that it could hardly be
otherwise. Louisa, my dear, arrange with Richards about money, and let
her have it when and how she pleases. Mr what's-your name, a word with
you, if you please!'

Thus arrested on the threshold as he was following his wife out of the
room, Toodle returned and confronted Mr Dombey alone. He was a strong,
loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes
sat negligently: with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its
natural tint, perhaps by smoke and coal-dust: hard knotty hands: and a
square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. A
thorough contrast in all respects, to Mr Dombey, who was one of those
close-shaved close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp like
new bank-notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and tightened as
by the stimulating action of golden showerbaths.

'You have a son, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.

'Four on 'em, Sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!'

'Why, it's as much as you can afford to keep them!' said Mr Dombey.

'I couldn't hardly afford but one thing in the world less, Sir.'

'What is that?'

'To lose 'em, Sir.'

'Can you read?' asked Mr Dombey.

'Why, not partick'ler, Sir.'

'Write?'

'With chalk, Sir?'

'With anything?'

'I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to it,'
said Toodle after some reflection.

'And yet,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are two or three and thirty, I suppose?'

'Thereabouts, I suppose, Sir,' answered Toodle, after more reflection

'Then why don't you learn?' asked Mr Dombey.

'So I'm a going to, Sir. One of my little boy