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"Let you alone!" said Mr. Carker, "What! I have got you, have I?"
Fred Barnard
1877
13.9 cm high x 10.8 cm wide, three-quarter-page, vignetted.
composite wood-block engraving
Dombey and Son, 157
Illustration for Chapter 22, "A Trifle of Management by Mr. Carker the Manager," in Dickens's Dombey and Son, in the Household Edition, XV.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
Obedient to a nod from Mr. Carker, Perch had no sooner confronted the visitor with that gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were face to face alone, Mr. Carker, without a word of preparation, took him by the throat, and shook him until his head seemed loose upon his shoulders.
The boy, who in the midst of his astonishment could not help staring wildly at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was choking him, and at the office walls, as though determined, if he were choked, that his last look should be at the mysteries for his intrusion into which he was paying such a severe penalty, at last contrived to utter —
"Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!"
"Let you alone!" said Mr. Carker. "What! I have got you, have I?" There was no doubt of that, and tightly too. "You dog," said Mr Carker, through his set jaws, "I’ll strangle you!"
Biler whimpered, Would he though? oh no he wouldn’t — and what was he doing of — and why didn’t he strangle somebody of his own size and not him? But Biler was quelled by the extraordinary nature of his reception, and, as his head became stationary, and he looked the gentleman in the face, or rather in the teeth, and saw him snarling at him, he so far forgot his manhood as to cry.
"I haven’t done nothing to you, sir," said Biler, otherwise Rob, otherwise Grinder, and always Toodle.
"You young scoundrel!" replied Mr. Carker, slowly releasing him, and moving back a step into his favourite position. "What do you mean by daring to come here?" [Chapter 22, "A Trifle of Management by Mr. Carker the Manager," 156]
Left: Eytinge's characterization of the suave, constantly smiling Manager at Dombey and Son's, Mr. Carker. Right: Eytinge's study of the much-put-upon charity boy, tending his pigeons on the rooftop: Rob the Grinder (1867).
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
_______. Dombey and Son.16 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony (engraver). The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
"Dombey and Son — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.
Created 27 December 2020