Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/702

Rh enough of the consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to be warned against that fatal error."

"Hoity toity!" says Mrs. Pipchin, rubbing her nose. "There’s a great fuss, I think, about it. It ain’t so wonderful a case. People have had misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their furniture. I’m sure I have!"

"My brother," pursues Mrs. Chick profoundly, "is so peculiar—so strange a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural child—it’s a comfort to me, now, to remember that I always said there was something extraordinary about that child: but nobody minds me—would anybody believe, I say, that he should then turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my manner, that she had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody believe that when I merely say to him, 'Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have no doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into this state,' he should actually fly at me, and request that I will come to see him no more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!"

"Ah!" says Mrs. Pipchin. "It’s a pity he hadn’t a little more to do with mines. They’d have tried his temper for him."

"And what," resumes Mrs. Chick, quite regardless of Mrs. Pipchin’s observations, "is it to end in? That’s what I want to know. What does my brother mean to do? He must do something. It’s of no use remaining shut up in his own rooms. Business won’t come to him. No. He must go to it. Then why don’t he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go there?"

Mrs. Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains silent for a minute to admire it.

"Besides," says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, "who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful disagreeables? It’s not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, I suppose? Mr. Chick has perfectly bored about it, and I said with my own lips, 'Why surely, Paul, you don’t imagine that because your affairs have got into this state, you are the less at home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don’t imagine that we are like the rest of the world?' But no; here he stays all through, and here he is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be let! What would he do then? He couldn’t remain here then. If he attempted to do so, there would be an ejectment, an action for Doe, and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then why not go at first instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said just now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?"

"I know what’s to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned," replies Mrs. Pipchin, "and that’s enough for me. I’m going to take myself off in a jiffy."

"In a which, Mrs. Pipchin," says Mrs. Chick.

"In a jiffy," retorts Mrs. Pipchin sharply.

"Ah, well! really I can’t blame you, Mrs. Pipchin," says Mrs. Chick, with frankness.