casion between the acknowledged wit of the Counting
House and an aspiring rival, with whom he has been at deadly feud for
months; and a little dinner being proposed, in commemoration of their
happily restored amity, takes place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit
in the chair; the rival acting as Vice-President. The orations following
the removal of the cloth are opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen,
he can't disguise from himself that this is not a time for private
dissensions. Recent occurrences to which he need not more particularly
allude, but which have not been altogether without notice in some Sunday
Papers,' and in a daily paper which he need not name (here every other
member of the company names it in an audible murmur), have caused him
to reflect; and he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal
differences at such a moment, would be for ever to deny that good
feeling in the general cause, for which he has reason to think and hope
that the gentlemen in Dombey's House have always been distinguished.
Robinson replies to this like a man and a brother; and one gentleman who
has been in the office three years, under continual notice to quit on
account of lapses in his arithmetic, appears in a perfectly new light,
suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech, in which he says, May
their respected chief never again know the desolation which has fallen
on his hearth! and says a great variety of things, beginning with 'May
he never again,' which are received with thunders of applause. In short,
a most delightful evening is passed, only interrupted by a difference
between two juniors, who, quarrelling about the probable amount of Mr
Carker's late receipts per annum, defy each other with decanters, and
are taken out greatly excited. Soda water is in general request at the
office next day, and most of the party deem the bill an imposition.

As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for
life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses, being
treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody concerned
in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them, 'Sir,' or
'Madam,' as the case was, 'why do you look so pale?' at which each
shuddered from head to foot, and said, 'Oh, Perch!' and ran away. Either
the consciousness of these enormities, or the reaction consequent on
liquor, reduces Mr Perch to an extreme state of low spirits at that hour
of the evening when