[Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link book
Dombey and Son

CHAPTER 26
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'He has never had occasion to acquire such little arts.

To men like me, they are sometimes useful.

As at present, Major Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with you.' It might be only the false mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there seemed to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short speech, a something like a snarl; and, for a moment, one might have thought that the white teeth were prone to bite the hand they fawned upon.

But the Major thought nothing about it; and Mr Dombey lay meditating with his eyes half shut, during the whole of the play, which lasted until bed-time.
By that time, Mr Carker, though the winner, had mounted high into the Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he left the Major at his own room before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent the Native--who always rested on a mattress spread upon the ground at his master's door--along the gallery, to light him to his room in state.
There was a faint blur on the surface of the mirror in Mr Carker's chamber, and its reflection was, perhaps, a false one.

But it showed, that night, the image of a man, who saw, in his fancy, a crowd of people slumbering on the ground at his feet, like the poor Native at his master's door: who picked his way among them: looking down, maliciously enough: but trod upon no upturned face--as yet..


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