reat sums of goodness with no effects.
There were no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The world
was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse world,
might have been supposed to be apt traders themselves in shows and
pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant.

Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport of
circumstances, Mr Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate of
Mr Perch to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had
but yesterday, as one might say, subsided into private life from the
celebrity of the elopement and the events that followed it; and now he
was made a more important man than ever, by the bankruptcy. Gliding from
his bracket in the outer office where he now sat, watching the strange
faces of accountants and others, who quickly superseded nearly all the
old clerks, Mr Perch had but to show himself in the court outside, or,
at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a multitude of
questions, almost certain to include that interesting question, what
would he take to drink? Then would Mr Perch descant upon the hours of
acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out at Balls Pond, when
they first suspected 'things was going wrong.' Then would Mr Perch
relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the
deceased House were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs Perch had
first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch)
moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the pound, twelve and
ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism he supposed to have
originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr Dombey's
face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, 'Might I make so
bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your mind?' and how Mr Dombey had
replied, 'My faithful Perch--but no, it cannot be!' and with that had
struck his hand upon his forehead, and said, 'Leave me, Perch!' Then,
in short, would Mr Perch, a victim to his position, tell all manner of
lies; affecting himself to tears by those that were of a moving
nature, and really believing that the inventions of yesterday had, on
repetition, a sort of truth about them to-day.

Mr Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That, of
course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever had
any!) it wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment
(there neve