 invested money in his friend Dombey's House, and lost it; though
the older soldiers and deeper dogs, who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a
thing. The unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not
merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every
hour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to
bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept continually on the stretch. For six
entire weeks after the bankruptcy, this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy
season of boot-jacks and brushes.
    Mrs. Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The
first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had not
made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the day of
that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said so, at the
time.
    Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It
was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best
could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no
favour from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the
question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise
in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had
held, as a man respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some;
that he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken man,
according to all.
    The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence among
themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off admirably. Some
took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses at home; some looked up
relations in the country, for whom they suddenly remembered they had a
particular affection; and some advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr.
Perch alone remained of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket
looking at the accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head
accountant, who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got
to be dirty and neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar seller, at the
corner of the court, would have doubted the propriety of throwing up his
forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr. Dombey had appeared there
now; and the ticket porter, with his hands under his white apron, moralised good
sound morality
