and generous, unsuspicious people too, as a
repayment for their condescension, you stir the blood of old Joe in his
body.'

'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at anything
so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as--'

'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has lived
in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, and his
ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a devilish artful
and ambitious woman over the way.'

Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance he
sent in that direction, too.

'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there
are times when he must speak, when he will speak!--confound your arts,
Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair neighbour,
with great ire,--'when the provocation is too strong to admit of his
remaining silent.'

The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of horse's
coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he added:

'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe--old Joe, who has no other
merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty--to be your guest and guide
at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is wholly
yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double chin with
a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you hold him in
such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that if he wasn't
pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd kill him among you
with your invitations and so forth, in double-quick time.'

Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he
received over those other distinguished members of society who were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him
short by giving him to understand that he followed his own inclinations,
and that they had risen up in a body and said with one accord, 'J. B.,
Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.'

The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of
savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill
and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover approaching for
the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were
to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat with immense
difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked staring a