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

saw his round face brighten when he was told that: 'I see you do. I want to
know all about that old gentleman, and how he goes on from day to day--for I
am anxious to be of service to him--and especially who comes there to see
him. Do you understand?'
Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said 'Yes, Sir,' again.
'I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to him, and
that they don't desert him--for he lives very much alone now, poor fellow;
but that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who has gone abroad. There
is a very young lady who may perhaps come to see him. I want particularly to
know all about her.'
'I'll take care, Sir,' said the boy.
'And take care,' returned his patron, bending forward to advance his
grinning face closer to the boy's, and pat him on the shoulder with the
handle of his whip: 'take care you talk about affairs of mine to nobody but
me.'
'To nobody in the world, Sir,' replied Rob, shaking his head.
'Neither there,' said Mr. Carker, pointing to the place they had just left,
'nor anywhere else. I'll try how true and grateful you can be. I'll prove
you!' Making this, by his display of teeth and by the action of his head, as
much a threat as a promise, he turned from Rob's eyes, which were nailed
upon him as if he had won the boy by a charm, body and soul, and rode away.
But again becoming conscious, after trotting a short distance, that his
devoted henchman, girt as before, was yielding him the same attendance, to
the great amusement of sundry spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off.
To insure his obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he
retired. It was curious to see that even then Rob could not keep his eyes
wholly averted from his patron's face, but, constantly turning and turning
again to look after him, involved himself in a tempest of buffetings and
jostlings from the other passengers in the street: of which, in the pursuit
of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.