CHAPTER VII.
THE PRINCE OF LIFE.
In the new life which had now fairly begun for Oliver, it was partly as he had foreseen; he was apt to forget many things, and he had a fretting consciousness of this forgetfulness.

When he was in the house playing with Dolly, or reading to her, the shop altogether slipped away from his memory, and he was only recalled to it by the loud knocking or shouting of some customer in it.

On the other hand, when he was sitting behind the counter looking for news from India in the papers, news in which he was already profoundly concerned, though it was impossible that Susan could yet have reached it, he grew so absorbed, that he did not know how the time was passing by, and both he and his little grand-daughter were hungry before he had thought of getting ready any meal.

He tried all kinds of devices for strengthening his failing memory; but in vain.

He even forgot that he did forget; and when Dolly was laughing and frolicking about him he grew a child again, and felt himself the happiest man in London.
The person who took upon himself the heaviest weight of anxiety and responsibility about Dolly was Tony, who began to make it his daily custom to pass by the house at the hour when old Oliver ought to be going for his morning papers; and if he found no symptom of life about the place, he did not leave off kicking and butting at the shop-door until the owner appeared.