CHARLES DICKENS DOMBEY AND SON CHAPTER I Dombey and ...

stood, reviewing the new-comers, like an old soldier. Mrs. Pipchin's
middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but possessing a
gaunt and ironbound aspect, and much afflicted with boils on her nose, was
divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean collar he had worn on parade. Miss
Pankey, the only other little boarder at present, had that moment been
walked off to the Castle Dungeon (an empty apartment at the back, devoted to
correctional purposes), for having sniffed thrice, in the presence of
visitors.
'Well, Sir,' said Mrs. Pipchin to Paul, 'how do you think you shall like
me?'
'I don't think I shall like you at all,' replied Paul. 'I want to go away.
This isn't my house.'
'No. It's mine,' retorted Mrs. Pipchin.
'It's a very nasty one,' said Paul.
'There's a worse place in it than this though,' said Mrs. Pipchin, 'where we
shut up our bad boys.'
'Has he ever been in it?' asked Paul: pointing out Master Bitherstone.
Mrs. Pipchin nodded assent; and Paul had enough to do, for the rest of that
day, in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot, and watching all the
workings of his countenance, with the interest attaching to a boy of
mysterious and terrible experiences.
At one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and vegetable
kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a child, who was
shampoo'd every morning, and seemed in danger of being rubbed away,
altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress herself, and instructed
that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever went to Heaven. When this great
truth had been thoroughly impressed upon her, she was regaled with rice; and
subsequently repeated the form of grace established in the Castle, in which