The abrupt question took Mr. Dombey by surprise.
"What is money, Paul?" he answered, "Money?"
"Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning his face up towards Mr. Dombey. "What is money?"
Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation, involving the terms, currency, bullion, rates of exchange, etc., but he feared he might not be understood, so he answered:
"Gold and silver and copper. Guineas, shillings, halfpence. You know what they are?"
"Oh yes, I know what they are," said Paul. "I don't mean that, papa. I mean what is money after all?"
"What is money after all!"--said Mr. Dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze at the presumptuous atom who propounded such an inquiry.
"I mean, papa, what can it do?" returned Paul.
Mr. Dombey patted him on the head. "You'll know better by-and-by, my man," he said. "Money, Paul, can do anything."
"Yes, anything--almost," said Mr. Dombey.
"Why didn't money save me my mama?" returned the child. "It isn't cruel, is it?"
"Cruel?" said Mr. Dombey. "No. A good thing can't be cruel."
"If it's a good thing and can do anything," said the little fellow, thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, "I wonder why it didn't save me my mama."
He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it was quite an old one to him, and had troubled him very much.
"It can't make me strong and quite well, either, papa; can it?" asked Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands.
"You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?" said Mr. Dombey.
"Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as Florence, I know," returned the child; "I am so tired sometimes," said little Paul, "and my bones ache so that I don't know what to do."
The unusual tone of that conversation so alarmed Mr. Dombey that the very next day he began to inquire into the real state of Paul's health; and as the doctor suggested that sea-air might be of benefit to the child, to Brighton he was promptly sent, to remain until he should seem benefited. He refused to go without Florence to whom he clung with a passion of devotion which made Mr. Dombey both irritated and jealous to see, wishing himself to absorb the boy's entire affection.