“I say!” cried Toots one evening, finding Paul looking out of the window.  “I say, what do you think about?”

“Oh, I think about a great many things,” replied Paul.

“Do you, though?” said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in itself surprising.

“If you had to die,” said Paul, “don’t you think you would rather die on a moonlight night, when the sky is quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?”

Mr. Toots, looking doubtfully at Paul, said he didn’t know about that.

“It was a beautiful night,” said Paul.  “There was a boat over there, in the full light of the moon, a boat with a sail.”

Mr. Toots, feeling called upon to say something, suggested “Smugglers,” and then added, “or Preventive.”

“A boat with a sail,” repeated Paul.  “It went away into the distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the waves?”

“Pitch!” said Mr. Toots.

“It seemed to beckon,” said the child; “to beckon me to come.”

Certainly people found him an “old-fashioned” child.  At the end of the term Dr. and Mrs. Blimber gave an early party to their pupils and their parents and guardians, and it was a day or two before this event when Paul was taken ill.  This illness released him from his books, and made him think the more of Florence.

They all loved “Dombey’s sister” at that party, and Paul, sitting in a cushioned corner, heard her praises constantly.  There was a half-intelligible sentiment, too, diffused around, referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched him.  He did not know why, but it seemed to have something to do with his “old-fashioned” reputation.

The time arrived for taking leave.

“Good-bye, Doctor Blimber,” said Paul, stretching out his hand.

“Good-bye, my little friend,” returned the doctor.  “Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil.”

“God bless you!” said Cornelia, taking both Paul’s hands in hers.  And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it—­though she was a Forcer—­and felt it.

There was a general move after Paul and Florence down the staircase, in which the whole Blimber family were included.  Such a circumstance, Mr. Feeder said aloud, as has never happened in the case of any former young gentleman within his experience.  The servants, with the butler—­a stern man—­at their head, had all an interest in seeing little Dombey go; while the young gentlemen pressed to shake hands with him, crying individually “Dombey, don’t forget me!”

Once for a last look, Paul turned and gazed upon the faces addressed to him, and from that time whenever he thought of Dr. Blimber’s it came back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be a real place, but always a dream, full of faces.

IV.—­Paul Goes Out with the Stream