.
    »I say,« said Mr. Toots, »now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!«
    »Do what, Mr. Toots?« cried Susan.
    »Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,« said
Mr. Toots. »My cook's a most respectable woman - one of the most motherly people
I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make you comfortable. Her son,« said Mr.
Toots, as an additional recommendation, »was educated in the Blue-coat School,
and blown up in a powder-mill.«
    Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr. Toots conducted her to his dwelling,
where they were received by the Matron in question who fully justified his
character of her, and by the Chicken, who at first supposed, on seeing a lady in
the vehicle, that Mr. Dombey had been doubled up, agreeably to his old
recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper
some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his
visage was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in
society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this
punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the
proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.
But it appeared from the published records of that great contest that the Larkey
Boy had had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had been
tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had
come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange
inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.
    After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr. Toots inside, as before, and the
Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little party
by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely ornamental to it,
physically speaking, on account of his plasters; which were numerous. But the
Chicken had registered a vow, in secret, that he would never leave Mr. Toots
(who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the
good-will and fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that
line, and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he felt it his cue to
