'How do you do, Mr John ?' 'How do you do, Sir ?' said Chick.
He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him.

Mr Dombey tool: it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness.
'Perhaps, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his head in his cravat, as if it were a socket, 'you would have preferred a fire ?' 'Oh, my dear Paul, no,' said Mrs Chick, who had much ado to keep her teeth from chattering; 'not for me.' 'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are not sensible of any chill ?' Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested that he was perfectly comfortable.
He added in a low voice, 'With my tiddle tol toor rul'-- when he was providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced: 'Miss Tox!' And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of fluttering odds and ends, to do honour to the ceremony.
'How do you do, Miss Tox ?' said Mr Dombey.
Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down altogether like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in acknowledgment of Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her.
'I can never forget this occasion, Sir,' said Miss Tox, softly.

''Tis impossible.

My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of my senses.' If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was a very cold day.

That was quite clear.