and at the fire, and up at him again.

Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the
head. 'You'll know better by-and-by, my man,' he said. 'Money, Paul,
can do anything.' He took hold of the little hand, and beat it softly
against one of his own, as he said so.

But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it gently to
and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the palm, and
he were sharpening it--and looking at the fire again, as though the fire
had been his adviser and prompter--repeated, after a short pause:

'Anything, Papa?'

'Yes. Anything--almost,' said Mr Dombey.

'Anything means everything, don't it, Papa?' asked his son: not
observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification.

'It includes it: yes,' said Mr Dombey.

'Why didn't money save me my Mama?' returned the child. 'It isn't cruel,
is it?'

'Cruel!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to resent
the idea. 'No. A good thing can't be cruel.'

'If it's a good thing, and can do anything,' said the little fellow,
thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, 'I wonder why it didn't
save me my Mama.'

He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had
seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father
uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite
an old one to him, and had troubled him very much; and sat with his chin
resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an explanation in
the fire.

Mr Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm (for
it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the
subject of his mother to him, though he had had him sitting by his side,
in this same manner, evening after evening), expounded to him how
that money, though a very potent spirit, never to be disparaged on any
account whatever, could not keep people alive whose time was come to
die; and how that we must all die, unfortunately, even in the City,
though we were never so rich. But how that money caused us to be
honoured, feared, respected, courted, and admired, and made us powerful
and glorious in the eyes of all men; and how that it could, very often,
even keep off death, for a long time together. How, for example, it had
secured to his Mama the services of Mr Pilkins, by which be, Paul, had
often profited himself; likewise of the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom
he had never kno