"By all means," said Doctor Blimber. "My love, you will inform Cornelia, if you please."
"Assuredly," said Mrs. Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul’s eyes, and felt his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care, that Paul said, "Thank you, Sir."
"Our little friend," observed Doctor Blimber, "has never complained."
"Oh no!" replied the Apothecary. "He was not likely to complain."
"You find him greatly better?" said Doctor Blimber.
"Oh! he is greatly better, Sir," returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that might occupy the Apothecary’s mind just at that moment; so musingly had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary happening to meet his little patient’s eyes, as the latter set off on that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction with a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr. Toots; but got up on the next, and went down stairs. Lo and behold, there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he observed Paul, "How do you do, Sir?" Paul got into conversation with him, and told him he hadn’t been quite well lately. The ice being thus broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred’s idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry; when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase "old-fashioned"—for Paul heard it.
What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry! What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of. But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them,
