
me, always.«
    »Miss Dombey,« returned Mr. Toots, »your consideration for my feelings is a
part of your angelic character. Thank you a thousand times. It's of no
consequence at all.«
    »What we thought of asking you,« said Florence, »is, whether you remember
where Susan, whom you were so kind as to accompany to the coach-office when she
left me, is to be found.«
    »Why, I do not certainly, Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, after a little
consideration, »remember the exact name of the place that was on the coach; and
I do recollect that she said she was not going to stop there, but was going
farther on. But, Miss Dombey, if your object is to find her, and to have her
here, myself and the Chicken will produce her with every dispatch that devotion
on my part, and great intelligence on the Chicken's, can insure.«
    Mr. Toots was so manifestly delighted and revived by the prospect of being
useful, and the disinterested sincerity of his devotion was so unquestionable,
that it would have been cruel to refuse him. Florence, with an instinctive
delicacy, forbore to urge the least obstacle, though she did not forbear to
overpower him with thanks; and Mr. Toots proudly took the commission upon
himself for immediate execution.
    »Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, touching her proffered hand, with a pang of
hopeless love visibly shooting through him, and flashing out in his face,
»Good-bye! Allow me to take the liberty of saying, that your misfortunes make me
perfectly wretched, and that you may trust me, next to Captain Gills himself. I
am quite aware, Miss Dombey, of my own deficiencies - they're not of the least
consequence, thank you - but I am entirely to be relied upon, I do assure you,
Miss Dombey.«
    With that Mr. Toots came out of the room, again accompanied by the Captain,
who, standing at a little distance, holding his hat under his arm and arranging
his scattered locks with his hook, had been a not uninterested witness of what
passed. And when the door closed behind them, the light of Mr. Toots's life was
darkly clouded again.
    »Captain Gills,« said that gentleman, stopping near the bottom of the
stairs, and turning round, »to tell you the truth, I am not in a frame of mind
at the present moment, in which I could see
