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

'Just another!' said Mr. Toots.
'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push. 'Innocents like
you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!'
Susan was not in any serious strait, for she could hardly speak for
laughing; but Diogenes, on the staircase, hearing a rustling against the
wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing through the banisters that there
was some contention going on, and foreign invasion in the house, formed a
different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in the twinkling of an eye
had Mr. Toots by the leg.
Susan screamed, laughed, opened the street-door, and ran down stairs; the
bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, with Diogenes holding on
to one leg of his pantaloons, as if Burgess and Co. were his cooks, and had
provided that dainty morsel for his holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken
off, rolled over and over in the dust, got up again, whirled round the giddy
Toots and snapped at him: and all this turmoil, Mr. Carker, reining up his
horse and sitting a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue from
the stately house of Mr. Dombey.
Mr. Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots, when Diogenes was called
in, and the door shut: and while that gentleman, taking refuge in a doorway
near at hand, bound up the torn leg of his pantaloons with a costly silk
handkerchief that had formed part of his expensive outfit for the adventure.
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr. Carker, riding up, with his most
propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?'
'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr. Toots, raising his flushed face, 'it's of no
consequence.' Mr. Toots would have signified, if he could, that he liked it
very much.
'If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir--' began Carker, with a
display of his own.