just that moment caught on the top of it. Here they waited
some little time while the marriage party enrolled themselves; and
meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener--partly in consequence of her
infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might not forget her--went
about the building coughing like a grampus.

Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he was
an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said something, as
he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off; which millions
of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the occasion. Then the
clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young curate, but obviously
afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal character in a
ghost-story, 'a tall figure all in white;' at sight of whom Paul rent
the air with his cries, and never left off again till he was taken out
black in the face.

Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of everybody,
he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the ceremony, now
fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth again with an
irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted the attention of
the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly deploying into the centre
aisle, to send out messages by the pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her
Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder Plot, and occasionally read responses
from that service.

During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as impassive
and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it so cold, that
the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The only time that he
unbent his visage in the least, was when the clergyman, in delivering
(very unaffectedly and simply) the closing exhortation, relative to the
future examination of the child by the sponsors, happened to rest his
eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey might have been seen to express by a
majestic look, that he would like to catch him at it.

It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own
dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose
of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a little
more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.

When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and conducted
her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much pleasure
it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his company
at dinner, but for the