Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again towards his father’s!
“What is money after all!” said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry.
“I mean, Papa, what can it do?” returned Paul, folding his arms (they were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again.
Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the head. “You’ll know better by-and-by, my man,” he said. “Money, Paul, can do anything.” He took hold of the little hand, and beat it softly against one of his own, as he said so.
But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the palm, and he were sharpening it—and looking at the fire again, as though the fire had been his adviser and prompter—repeated, after a short pause:
“Anything, Papa?”
“Yes. Anything—almost,” said Mr Dombey.
“Anything means everything, don’t it, Papa?” asked his son: not observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification.
“It includes it: yes,” said Mr Dombey.
“Why didn’t money save me my Mama?” returned the child. “It isn’t cruel, is it?”