ould, that he
liked it very much.

'If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir--' began Carker, with a
display of his own.

'No, thank you,' said Mr Toots, 'it's all quite right. It's very
comfortable, thank you.'

'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker.

'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took

'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,' said Mr
Carker, taking off his hat, 'for such a misadventure, and to wonder how
it can possibly have happened.'

Mr Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky chance
of making friends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out his
card-case which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands his
name and address to Mr Carker: who responds to that courtesy by giving
him his own, and with that they part.

As Mr Carker picks his way so softly past the house, looking up at the
windows, and trying to make out the pensive face behind the curtain
looking at the children opposite, the rough head of Diogenes came
clambering up close by it, and the dog, regardless of all soothing,
barks and growls, and makes at him from that height, as if he would
spring down and tear him limb from limb.

Well spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with your
head up, your eyes flashing, and your vexed mouth worrying itself, for
want of him! Another, as he picks his way along! You have a good scent,
Di,--cats, boy, cats!

CHAPTER 23. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious

Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded day,
and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with
a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and
beauty into stone.

No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick
wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her
father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the
street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring
windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown upon
its never-smiling face.

There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this
above, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the wronged
innocence imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its thin lips
parted wickedly, that surveyed all comers from above the archway of the
door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rus