fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest;
and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or
watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener
found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering them some little
voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even among those rigid and
absorbed young anchorites, who mortified themselves beneath the roof of
Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of general interest; a fragile little
plaything that they all liked, and that no one would have thought of
treating roughly. But he could not change his nature, or rewrite the
analysis; and so they all agreed that Dombey was old-fashioned.

There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed
by no one else. They could have better spared a newer-fashioned child,
and that alone was much. When the others only bowed to Doctor Blimber
and family on retiring for the night, Paul would stretch out his morsel
of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor's; also Mrs Blimber's; also
Cornelia's. If anybody was to be begged off from impending punishment,
Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed young man himself had once
consulted him, in reference to a little breakage of glass and china. And
it was darkly rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such
as that stern man had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes
mingled porter with his table-beer to make him strong.

Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of entry
to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr Toots
into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an unsuccessful
attempt to smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle which that young
gentleman had covertly purchased on the shingle from a most desperate
smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that two hundred pounds
was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by the Custom House. It
was a snug room, Mr Feeder's, with his bed in another little room inside
of it; and a flute, which Mr Feeder couldn't play yet, but was going to
make a point of learning, he said, hanging up over the fireplace. There
were some books in it, too, and a fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he
should certainly make a point of learning to fish, when he could find
time. Mr Feeder had amassed, with similar intentions, a beautiful little
curly secondhand key-bugle, a chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar