Blimber.

'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first. Bring
him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'

Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and Paul,
feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.

'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.

'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young lady,
why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was like a
boy.

'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.

'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to Miss
Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were looking
down at him, and said:

'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd
tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'

'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a degree!
Who is the monster, child?'

'What monster?' inquired Paul.

'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.

'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.

'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha! What's
that?'

Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the absent
Glubb, though he did it trembling.

'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my couch.
He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it, and the
great monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive into the
water again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so, that they
can be heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul, warming
with his subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I forget their
names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in distress; and when a
man goes near them, out of compassion, they open their great jaws, and
attack him. But all he has got to do,' said Paul, boldly tendering this
information to the very Doctor himself, 'is to keep on turning as he
runs away, and then, as they turn slowly, because they are so long, and
can't bend, he's sure to beat them. And though old Glubb don't know why
the sea should make me think of my Mama that's dead, or what it is that
it is always saying--always saying! he knows a great deal about it. And
I wish,' the child concluded, with a sudden falling of his countenance,
and failing in his animation, as he looked like one forlorn