various languages, but Mr Carker the Manager read
them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and Son
that he could read, there would have been a card wanting in the pack.
He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter with
another and one business with another as he went on, adding new matter
to the heaps--much as a man would know the cards at sight, and work out
their combinations in his mind after they were turned. Something too
deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary, Mr Carker
the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down slanting on him
through the skylight, playing his game alone.

And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the cat
tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker the
Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that shone
upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate,
and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in
colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine,
and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails,
nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of
dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of
dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr Carker
the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of
eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty
steadfastness and patience at his work, as if he were waiting at a
mouse's hole.

At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he
reserved for a particular audience. Having locked the more confidential
correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang his bell.

'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother.

'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive reply.

'You are the next?' muttered the Manager. 'Yes! Creditable to me!
There!'

Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully away,
in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held in his
hand.

'I am sorry to trouble you, James,' said the brother, gathering them up,
'but--'

'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?'

Mr Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his
brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.

'Well?' he repeated sharply.

'I am uneasy about Harri