Secret Intelligence
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
12.5 cm by 10.5 com
Dickens's Dombey and Son, Chapter 52; facing 360 in the second volume of the Illustrated Library Edition (1880)
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated: Carker's Travel Instructions to Edith Decoded
While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs. Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter’s ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering ‘Here he is!’ hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and glass upon the table, with such alacrity, as to be ready to fling her arms round the neck of Rob the Grinder on his appearance at the door.
"And here’s my bonny boy," cried Mrs. Brown, "at last! — oho, oho! You’re like my own son, Robby!"
"Oh! Misses Brown!’ remonstrated the Grinder. ‘Don’t! Can’t you be fond of a cove without squeedging and throttling of him? Take care of the birdcage in my hand, will you?"
"Thinks of a birdcage, afore me!’ cried the old woman, apostrophizing the ceiling. ‘Me that feels more than a mother for him!"
"Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,’ said the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated; ‘but you’re so jealous of a cove. I’m very fond of you myself, and all that, of course; but I don’t smother you, do I, Misses Brown?"
He looked and spoke as if he would have been far from objecting to do so, however, on a favourable occasion.
"And to talk about birdcages, too!" whimpered the Grinder. ‘As if that was a crime! Why, look’ee here! Do you know who this belongs to?"
"To Master, dear?" said the old woman with a grin.
"Ah!" replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a wrapper, on the table, and untying it with his teeth and hands. "It’s our parrot, this is."
"Mr. Carker’s parrot, Rob?"
"Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?" returned the goaded Grinder. "What do you go naming names for? I’m blest," said Rob, pulling his hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, "if she ain’t enough to make a cove run wild!"
Rob, having nothing more to say, began to chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table.
"D," the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter.
"Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?" he exclaimed, covering it with his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. "I won’t have it read out. Be quiet, will you!"
"Then write large, Rob," she returned, repeating her secret signal; "for my eyes are not good, even at print."
Muttering to himself, and returning to his work with an ill will, Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for whose information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder, and looked eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched it narrowly as it shaped the letters, and repeated each one on her lips as he made it, without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and Mr. Dombey’s met, as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the other; and thus they both spelt D. I. J. O. N. [Chapter LII, "Secret Intelligence," Vol. II: 359-360]
Commentary: The Overheard Interrogation
In the fourth chapter of Dickens and Phiz, Michael Steig analyzes the complex attitudes reflected in the facial expressions of Good Mrs. Brown and her spirited daughter, Alice; despite their contempt for and distrust of Dombey, the women act as his agent in grilling the street-wise Grinder for information about Carker:
We continue the progress of Edith, and particularly of Carker and Dombey, through to their conclusions in three more plates, those for Parts XVII and XVIII, and one (not including the summarizing frontispiece) in the last, double part. "Secret intelligence" (ch. 52) shows Dombey eavesdropping as Mrs. Brown wheedles from Rob the Grinder the whereabouts of the eloped pair, while Alice stares at Dombey with an expression of suppressed hatred. The hovel is effectively drawn and Mrs. Brown's cat hints at her witchlikeness, but one may feel that the shading is scratchier than usual and that served in this novel for Carker's the dark plate technique, Carker's flight, would have been more effective. One subtle set of details, surely of Phiz's invention, is the bowl of vegetables, the paring knife, and parings on the floor; their sole purpose is to serve as a metaphor for the process of peeling off Rob's resistance layer by layer, until the core of truth is revealed. [104]
Studies of The Interrogation of Grinder from Other Editions (1877 & 1910)
Left: Harry Furniss's dramatic revision of Phiz's serial illustration:
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son
- Dombey and Son (homepage)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Captain Cuttle . . . too his own [watch] down from the mantel-shelf for Volume 4 of Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation, 1862
- Fred Barnard's 61 Illustrations for Dombey and Son, 1877
- Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition of Dombey and Son (1900, rpt. 1934)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards for Dombey and Son, 1910
- Harry Furniss's twenty-nine illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (1910)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. Vol. II./p>
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
_________. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 16: Dombey and Son."The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition.Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 294-337.
Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. Re-print of the London (1899) edition.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Ch. 12, "Work, Work, Work." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004, pp. 128-160.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 4. "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 86-112.
Vann, J. Don. Chapter 4."Dombey and Son, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, October 1846-April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 67-68.
Created 8 August 2015
Last modified 10 January 2021