t. Otherwise that morning's confidence would have been Mr Dombey's
last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he
bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed, and muttered
as he stooped down, 'I have given good cause of offence to Mrs Dombey
now, if she knew it!'

Mr Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, was
carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction, to
the nearest public-house, which was not far off, and where he was soon
attended by divers surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from all
parts, and who seemed to come by some mysterious instinct, as vultures
are said to gather about a camel who dies in the desert. After being
at some pains to restore him to consciousness, these gentlemen examined
into the nature of his injuries.

One surgeon who lived hard by was strong for a compound fracture of the
leg, which was the landlord's opinion also; but two surgeons who lived
at a distance, and were only in that neighbourhood by accident, combated
this opinion so disinterestedly, that it was decided at last that the
patient, though severely cut and bruised, had broken no bones but a
lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken home before night. His
injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a long operation, and he
at length left to repose, Mr Carker mounted his horse again, and rode
away to carry the intelligence home.

Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it was a
sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it was at
its worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the craft and
cruelty of thoughts within him, suggestions of remote possibility rather
than of design or plot, that made him ride as if he hunted men and
women. Drawing rein at length, and slackening in his speed, as he came
into the more public roads, he checked his white-legged horse into
picking his way along as usual, and hid himself beneath his sleek,
hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory smile, as he best could.

He rode direct to Mr Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and begged to
see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who showed him to
Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was not Mrs Dombey's
hour for receiving visitors, and that he begged pardon for not having
mentioned it before.

Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon a
card that he must take th