!«
    Putting his hands into his pockets, and leaning back in his chair, he looked
at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him to see them together;
and went on to say, with a kind of irritable thoughtfulness: »It's this same
habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of better things, in Lucifer's
own pride and stubbornness - that confirms and deepens others of us in villany -
more of us in indifference - that hardens us from day to day, according to the
temper of our clay, like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new
impressions and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For
more years than I need name, I had my small, and exactly defined share, in the
management of Dombey's House, and saw your brother (who has proved himself a
scoundrel! Your sister will forgive my being obliged to mention it) extending
and extending his influence, until the business and its owner were his football;
and saw you toiling at your obscure desk every day; and was quite content to be
as little troubled as I might be, out of my own strip of duty, and to let
everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great machine - that
was its habit and mine - and to take it all for granted, and consider it all
right. My Wednesday nights came regularly round, our quartette parties came
regularly off, my violoncello was in good tune, and there was nothing wrong in
my world - or if anything not much - or little or much, it was no affair of
mine.«
    »I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all that time
than anybody in the House, Sir,« said John Carker.
    »Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I dare say,« returned the other, »a
habit I had. It suited the Manager; it suited the man he managed: it suited me
best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no court to either of
them, and was glad to occupy a station in which none was required. So I should
have gone on till now, but that my room had a thin wall. You can tell your
sister that it was divided from the Manager's room by a wainscot partition.«
    »They were adjoining rooms; had been one, perhaps, originally; and were
separated, as Mr. Morfin says,« said her brother, looking back to him
