"This woman [Mrs. Amelia] had a way of tyrannizing over Major Dobbin (for the weakest of all people will domineer over somebody), and she ordered him about, and patted him, and made him fetch and carry just as if he was a great Newfoundland dog. He liked, so to speak, to jump into the water if she said 'High, Dobbin!' and to trot behind her with her reticule in his mouth. This history has been written to very little purpose if the reader has not perceived that the Major was a spooney."

(A "spooney" is a sap, a soft touch, and the Major is certainly that, having quietly served the interests of Amelia from afar — he loved her intensely and devotedly — while she endured a mistaken marriage and long widowhood. A "reticule" is, in this sense, a drawstring handbag.)