This hint of the Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs. Pipchin rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr. Towlinson, not having seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she’s well; observing that he didn’t know her at first, in that bonnet.
"Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you," says Miss Tox. "I beg you ’ll have the goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to mention it. My visits are merely to Mrs. Pipchin."
"Very good, Miss," says Towlinson.
"Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson," says Miss Tox.
"Very much so indeed, Miss," rejoins Towlinson.
"I hope, Towlinson," says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of improving passing occasions, "that what has happened here, will be a warning to you, Towlinson."
"Thank you, Miss, I’m sure," says Towlinson.
He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in which this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the vinegary Mrs. Pipchin, suddenly stirring him up with a "What are you doing? Why don’t you show the lady to the door?" he ushers Miss Tox forth. As she passes Mr. Dombey’s room, she shrinks into the inmost depths of the black bonnet, and walks, on tip-toe; and there is not another atom in the world which haunts him so, that feels such sorrow and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet into the street, and tries to carry home shadowed it from the newly-lighted lamps.
But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr. Dombey’s world. She comes back every evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on wet nights; and bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and rebuffs of Mrs. Pipchin, and all to ask how he does, and how he bears his misfortune: but she has nothing to do with Mr. Dombey’s world. Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her; and she, a by no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the corner of another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and cries, and goes away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of satisfaction than the world that troubles Mr. Dombey so much!
At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in all its lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr. Carker’s place. They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of its emoluments, and made uncomfortable by newly-devised checks and restrictions; and those who are beyond all hope of it are quite sure they would rather not have it, and don’t at all envy the person for whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the prevailing sensation has existed in the Counting House since Mr. Dombey’s little son died; but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a jovial turn, and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A reconciliation is established on this propitious occasion between the acknowledged wit of the Counting House and an aspiring rival, with whom he has been at deadly feud for months; and a little dinner being proposed, in commemoration of their happily restored amity, takes place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit in the chair; the rival acting as Vice-President. The orations following the removal of the cloth are opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he can’t disguise from
