DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY AND SON.—No. III. MASTER PAUL DOMBEY IN CHILDHOOD.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 203, 10 July 1847, Page 3

DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY AND SON.— No. 111. MASTER PAUL DOMBEY IN CHILDHOOD.

Yet, in spite of his early promise, a'l this vigilance and care could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate, perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of hid nurse, and, for a long time, seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through their hands, and seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his steeple-chase towards manhood passed, he still found it very rough riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course. Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a stone wall to him. He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again. Some bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush ; and the very chickens turning ferocious — if they have anything to do with that infant malady to which they lead their names — worried him like tiger cats. Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. H« was a pretty little fellow ; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face, that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs. Wickham's head, and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs. Wickham's breath. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after life ; and he had as hopeful an apj rehension of his own importance, and thi rightful subservience of all other things and persons to ir, as heart could desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition ; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature arm chair, when he looked (and talked) like one of thote terrible little Beings in the Fairy tales, who, at a hundred and^fifty or two hundred years of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have beeo substituted. He would frequently be stricken wkfr *his> precocious mood upsuirs hi tht nnr-

scry ; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired : even while playing with Florence, or driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his father's room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They were the straugest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dorabey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze ; his little image, with an old, old, face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage. Mr. Dombey entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans ; the little image entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance : the little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted. On one of these occasions, when they had been both perfect y quiet for a long time, and Mr. Dombey only knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus : " Papa ! what's money ?" The abrupt question had such an immediate reference to the subject of Mr. Dombey 's thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite disconcerted. " What is money, Paul ?" he answered. " Money ?" " Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr. Dorabey 's, " what is money ?" Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market, and so forth ; but looking down at the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered : " Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You know what they are ?" " Ob, yes, I know what they are,", said Paul. " I don't mean that papa. I mean what's money after all." Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as be turned it up again towards his father's ! " What is money after all !" said Mr. Dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that propounded such an enquiry. " I mean, Papa, what can it do ?" returned Paul r folding his arms (they were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and up at him, 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 bye-aud-bye, 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. j 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 look- j ing 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. Dombejr. " Why didn't money save me my mama?" returned-the child, "It isn't cruel, is it?" "Cruel!" said Mr. Dombey, setting 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 wotider 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 bis 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 f.om 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 him sitting by his side, in the 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 aud glorious in the eyes of all men ; and how that it could, very often,

keep off death, for a long time together. How, for example, it had secured to his mama the services of Mr. Pilkins, by which he, Paul, had often profited himself ; likewise of the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom he had never known. And how it could do all, that could be clone. This, with more to the same purpose, Mr. Dorabey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what w>as said to him. * a ** It can't make me strong and quite well, either Papa ; can it ?'' asked Paul, after a short silence ; rubbing his tiny hands. " Why, you are strong and quite well," returned Mr. Dombey, "Ate you not ?" Oh ! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an expression half of melancholy, half of slyness, on it ! " You are as strong and well as such little people usually are ? Eh ?" said Mr. Dombey. "Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and as well as Florence, I know," returned the child ; " and 1 believe that when Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a time v/ithout tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes," said little Paul, warming his hands, and looking in between the bars of the grate, as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, " and my bones ache so (Wickham says it's my bones), that I don't know what to do." " Aye ! but that's at night," said Mr. Dombey, drawing his own chair closer to his son's, and laying his hand gently on his back ; " little people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well." " Oh, it's not at night, Papa," returned the child, " it's in the day ; and I lie down in Florence's lap and she sings to me. At night I dream about such cu-ri-ous things !" And he went on warming his bands again, and thinking about them, like an old man or a young goblin. Mr. Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly' at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as he release 1 it ; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze until the nurse appeared, to summon him to bed.