Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a stone wall to him.
He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again.

Some bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush; and the very chickens turning ferocious--if they have anything to do with that infant malady to which they lend their name--worried him like tiger-cats.
The chill of Paul's christening had struck home, perhaps to some sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the cold shade of his father; but he was an unfortunate child from that day.

Mrs Wickam often said she never see a dear so put upon.
Mrs Wickam was a waiter's wife--which would seem equivalent to being any other man's widow--whose application for an engagement in Mr Dombey's service had been favourably considered, on account of the apparent impossibility of her having any followers, or anyone to follow; and who, from within a day or two of Paul's sharp weaning, had been engaged as his nurse.

Mrs Wickam was a meek woman, of a fair complexion, with her eyebrows always elevated, and her head always drooping; who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else; and who had a surprising natural gift of viewing all subjects in an utterly forlorn and pitiable light, and bringing dreadful precedents to bear upon them, and deriving the greatest consolation from the exercise of that talent.
It is hardly necessary to observe, that no touch of this quality ever reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr Dombey.

It would have been remarkable, indeed, if any had; when no one in the house--not even Mrs Chick or Miss Tox--dared ever whisper to him that there had, on any one occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference to little Paul.