You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For
more years than I need name, I had my small, and exactly defined
share, in the management of Dombey's House, and saw your brother (who
has proved himself a scoundrel! Your sister will forgive my being
obliged to mention it) extending and extending his influence, until
the business and its owner were his football; and saw you toiling at
your obscure desk every day; and was quite content to be as little
troubled as I might be, out of my own strip of duty, and to let
everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great
machine - that was its habit and mine - and to take it all for
granted, and consider it all right. My Wednesday nights came regularly
round, our quartette parties came regularly off, my violoncello was in
good tune, and there was nothing wrong in my world - or if anything
not much - or little or much, it was no affair of mine.'
'I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all
that time than anybody in the House, Sir,' said John Carker.
'Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I daresay,'returned the other,
'a habit I had. It suited the Manager; it suited the man he managed:
it suited me best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no
court to either of them, and was glad to occupy a station in which
none was required.
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